ISI Brotherhood Podcast

100. Do We Celebrate Our Wins Enough?

• Aaron Walker & Kevin Wallenbeck

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Do you know how to celebrate? On our 100th episode, we share transformative stories about significant financial windfalls that taught us the power of celebration. Discover why celebrating your wins, big or small, can skyrocket your motivation and satisfaction in both business and personal life. 

Raised to remain humble and private, we initially found it challenging to share our successes openly. However, joining communities like Iron Sharpens Iron (ISI) helped us embrace a culture of celebration and transparency that spurred on us to true success. 

Key Takeaways:

  • The best spaces to share your wins in business–and how it's hard to find
  • Why it's important to celebrate your wins in business
  • Ideas and tips on how to celebrate well
  • The profound influence of giving back through personal gestures

We delve into how supportive environments can uplift each other, making it easier to share even smaller, meaningful victories. Reflecting on cultural norms and personal upbringing, we discuss how shifting our mindset about celebration can positively impact our overall happiness.

From repairing strained relationships to achieving business milestones, celebrating wins isn't just about the big moments. We explore practical ways to commemorate your successes and promote a generous attitude of giving back through personal gestures and charitable contributions.

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If you want to hear more speakers like this every month and be with the guys on the call, join the Iron Sharpens Iron Community today: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community

Connect with Big A:
View From The Top Website: https://isibrotherhood.com
The ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to this episode of View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finances get through the valleys and up the mountains into their very own view from the top. Thanks for being back with us today. This episode is a very special episode, so we're not gonna waste any time. Let's get Big A in the studio and get rolling.

Speaker 2:

Big A, it's a big day for us, wally, it's a big day. Episode 100, it's here, it's on us, and so, you know, I almost did something. You did a few episodes back. You gave us some kind of woohoo or wah-ha or something. I don't know what you did, but it was like I think I'm going to do that, but it didn't sound the same coming from me. But, man, congratulations 100 episodes viewed from the top. This is pretty cool. You know, I've heard that only a vast majority of podcasts only make it to like episode 11 or something.

Speaker 1:

It's like 7 through 11. Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 2:

We've 10x that right so we've made it to 100.

Speaker 2:

So I'm pretty excited, you know. I came in the other day. This reminded me of this particular situation. I had a little financial windfall and I went in to Rob and I normally don't even tell her about this kind of stuff but I thought, well, this is kind of cool because we've talked about it in the past. And I walked in and I said hey in the past.

Speaker 2:

And I walked in and I said hey, and I told her what was going on. And she goes man, how are we going to celebrate? And I said I'm going to pay this bill or I'm going to do this investment or whatever it was. And she goes can we never do something fun? You wasn't even going to get this money and you got the money. It's like can we not go do something fun? So I said no, I'm going to stick it over here. That's what I'm going to do with it. So I got convicted. Overnight I started thinking about it. Next day I said Robin, come here. I said, listen, we're going to take this much of this and we're going to set it aside and we're going to do X with it. And she said now you're talking.

Speaker 2:

This is my kind of investment and I said all right, which takes us us into celebrating Wally. We don't celebrate enough. I mean we just don't. We talk about this in the Mastermind a lot. You and I have talked about this at length, but, to be honest with you, I haven't celebrated the majority of my business career, and some of the reasons behind that is I didn't really feel like I had a safe place to do it. I felt like no, people don't want to hear that and they're going to be jealous or envious, and you can't talk to family do it. I felt like no, people don't want to hear that and they're going to be jealous or envious, and you can't talk to family about it and you can't talk to some of your friends about it, and I'm a real private individual anyway. So I didn't want to appear to be boastful and so I've always used that as an excuse not to celebrate. Well, for me personally, there is no way that I would go to my extended family and tell them, hey, we did this or we accomplished that, or we bought this or made this deal. But the thing that is so cool now we've changed that.

Speaker 2:

For the past 11 years, we built a safe environment in Iron, sharpens Iron to celebrate wins. Not only do we celebrate, it's encouraged At the live event. We get up and I say, okay, we're going to do full cups. It's things that we share. We call full cups and I said who's got a big win? And guys start standing up from the floor saying I've doubled my business this year. I've got a new product now that is in Home Depot, or we've bought a dozen houses or we've financed this thing or went and part. It's like the whole room is cheering, like everybody's excited, and I thought how cool is it that we can have an environment like that to celebrate? So I thought it'd be really cool today to kind of break this down a little bit, talk through it and see how we can celebrate better. Yeah, man, I'm with you. I'd love to break this down a little bit, talk through it and see how we can celebrate better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, I'm with you. I'd love to break this down. I'm right there. I'm right there with you. I don't I historically have not celebrated well, we're fuddy duds.

Speaker 2:

That's what we are. We're all fuddy duds, you know, there's something else to accomplish.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that was good, let's go to the next one. I know, I know, but, man, congratulations again on doing this podcast with you for 100 episodes. It was fun and I don't know if it was you or somebody else asked me the other day like what keeps you going? Like why do you keep doing this? Like it's a lot of work? I don't know. People haven't done one. If they've done before, they know what it takes. If you haven't done one before, you don't know what it takes.

Speaker 2:

It is a lot of work. It's a lot of work and expense. There's an expense with it and all that, and I say that not to like.

Speaker 1:

It's not a bragging thing or anything that's a reality.

Speaker 1:

And so if somebody asks me like why do you keep doing it? And you know what? I don't know what it is for you and it's not every week, but enough. I'll just say enough that usually in a sidebar conversation, someone will bring up something that they heard on the podcast that somehow helped them inform themselves to make a different decision. That doesn't mean that it was something I said or you said, or maybe it was one of our guests said, or maybe it was just a topic themselves that got them thinking about something differently for the first time, something they hadn't done. And I think that's what we're doing today. We're going to talk about how do we celebrate well, which isn't something we often talk about. So what is it for you? What keeps you going?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, in the podcast. Yeah, I mean, what keeps me going here I think it's much the same as you is like you'll be at dinner or you'll be, you know, with some of the guys in ISI, or I know you even got some neighbors that have come up to you.

Speaker 2:

Hey Wally, I learned this about you or I heard this, and it's really encouraging when guys will tell you, hey, I've listened to every episode. I'm like what? Like I haven't listened to every episode. They're like no, no, yeah, yeah, but it's like it is so cool to see these guys learn who we are as individuals. Like I feel like we, you know, put it out there who we are, and it gives people a little better frame of reference what we like to talk about, what we like to do, and so that makes it fun for people that know us. You know it's like, hey, I didn't know you and Robin did this, or I didn't know y'all had been here. That's been fun.

Speaker 2:

But I'm like you, to see the transformational experience, to see a young entrepreneur go, I didn't even know that was a thing, or I didn't even know that that was a possibility. Or you said something that I didn't even think was that big a deal. But what's ordinary to us is extraordinary to some, and it's the same for me with listening to other podcasts of people that I enjoy. It's just their normal reoccurrence, the way they do life and do business, and I learned something as a result of that. So, yeah, I think it's the teaching, the encouraging. By nature, I try to be an encourager and I think this is a way that we can do that. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1:

So let's start off, man, what's kind of been your history? I mean, you explained a little bit of an example recently with Robin, but you know what's kind of been your history for you, If you go back over time, related to just celebrating wins in general. What's been?

Speaker 2:

your thought on. Yeah, I've got a younger brother. He's just a few years younger. He's about four years younger, and he and I were talking about this the other day.

Speaker 2:

A lot of my unwillingness or inability to share wins is the way I was raised. My dad was a very, very private person and you don't share anything with anybody. That was his MO. Like we don't talk about finances outside this house, we didn't barely talk about it in the house, much less outside the house, and if you got something new, you certainly didn't share it because you don't want to appear to be boastful, you don't want to brag around your family or friends, and so it was just really pushed down celebrating anything like that.

Speaker 2:

We would celebrate things as a family, primarily like grades. You know when I was a kid in school if we did good on grades and things like that, but as far as anything super big financially, there wasn't a lot to celebrate. We were pretty poor when I was a child, but we were just taught that, and so for the first 20 years of my career, I kept everything close to the vest. I didn't share anything with anybody, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but even with Robin, very, very seldom did I ever share anything related to the business? I didn't share anything. We didn't talk about finances. One reason I was just tired at night and I didn't want to rehash it. But another thing is like, hey, that's my responsibility and I'm like you and we did have some wins early in our career and Robin and I did do some things to celebrate some exits of some companies that we owned, but we didn't celebrate near enough, quite honestly, and I feel like I cheated my girls a little bit, because you know we would celebrate birthdays and Christmas and outside of that we didn't do a lot of celebrating. So it wasn't really until I got involved in the mastermind group.

Speaker 2:

The Eagles got around other guys and they were talking about sharing with certain groups, certain people that you should be sharing, because one is it's an encouragement to them people that really align with your core values, people that really have similar worldviews, people that were similar from a financial standpoint. You could celebrate around a smaller group of people and it even allowed me to learn how to do that as an adult Like I was in my 40s at that time, adult like I was in my 40s at that time and so, through Iron, sharpens, iron, even being around you, and Derek and Kurt and Matt and Brett and some of those guys we've slowly all presented ourselves in a way that we're able to celebrate. Now. It's the culture of who we are as an organization, and so I don't do a lot of sharing outside of our organization. I've got a few handful of friends that I'm really close with that I share and they share with me, but publicly I don't do, even today, a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We've got the in ISI. We've got the community, which is kind of like the army of men right, there's a whole bunch of guys in there. And then there's the ISI mastermind piece, which is more like I love how Derek says it, derek Champagne says it's more like a special forces the mastermind piece where you've got, you know, the army of guys on the community side Right, where you know large gatherings and roundtables every month and connect calls every month and of course everybody's there and roundtables every month and connect calls every month and of course everybody's there. But then in the mastermind you got those weekly blocks of just you know we're going to deep dive for an hour together and then we go our separate ways and we come back next week and so very special forces, which is awesome.

Speaker 1:

One of the things, that kind of the format that ever since I've been working on almost a decade in ISI Mastermind, is that often we'll open our weekly calls like for five minutes of like hey, who's got a win? Right, and not every week does everybody have a win. But it's interesting, we talk about wins and even already we've kind of talked about maybe some things that are like big financial things, you know, a big purchase or a windfall or selling a business or and yeah, like you kind of be expected to to maybe at some level figure out how to celebrate those things, cause you can't like how do you miss them Right, and we still struggle with that. But then we bring those in the weekly calls, we bring that right down to like what was a win for the week.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and relational spiritual personal for the week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and uh, spiritual personal all around the five pillars and often it's not like hey, I made a bunch of I mean 99.9% of the time, it's not I made a bunch of money this week, you know it's like. It's like hey, my, uh, my son and I got baptized this week.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like you don't get any bigger than that, though Right know it's like boom. You don't get any bigger than that, though right no it's like boom.

Speaker 1:

You know we've got. I could just go on and on.

Speaker 2:

You know the guys talking about, like because they don't do good sometimes with date nights, or they spend a night with their child out eating pizza and ice cream or in a tent in the backyard. Yeah, yeah, these are big wins, right? Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Maybe it was something that billed it paid off. You know what I'm saying. Maybe it was something like that. It's just so many things, and it's fun just to be like. Yeah, you know one thing I have learned, though when you're around the right group of people, when you're around the wrong group of people and you say something that's a win for you, and often than not, they look even though you're win. They feel bad. Right, If they're not the right people, they feel bad, so they actually project back on you that, oh, you're better than me, or whatever the case.

Speaker 2:

They don't understand.

Speaker 1:

No, they don't. My mastermind group sometimes is that, like, even for other guys that bring their wins, I have to be in the right, I have to prepare myself and be in the right mindset, because those are a lot of those exciting things happen all the time. So so I can get like like, oh, I need to, like celebrate that guy, like cause, that is an important thing. So it almost becomes the wins, almost become a little more commonplace. Um, so you actually have to be prepared on the opposite end of the spectrum, um, sometimes, and it's, but it's still exciting to be able to do that and and to have somebody else just say hey, I remember when we first started making this a culture it's been probably eight years ago now when we really started leaning in to celebrate the wins.

Speaker 2:

I remember how uncomfortable it was for everybody that was in all the groups.

Speaker 2:

I led seven or eight groups at the time and I was a big catalyst of getting us started celebrating wins, because I had never done that and I'd learned how and I wanted other businessmen to do the same. And I'll never forget one of the meetings that we were in and we were celebrating wins and somebody shared a win like I had a date night and another guy said, yeah, I took my daughter out or whatever. And the next guy came around and I'm not going to call his name for privacy sake, but he sold his business and it was in the high teens, in the millions, and nobody said anything. And then the next guy goes well, yeah, I did this.

Speaker 2:

I said whoa, whoa whoa wait a minute, wait a minute and I said did you hear what this guy just said? And they all looked and I said we should be jumping out of our chairs. Do you realize how many guys in their 30s is going to sell a business for that many million dollars? Yeah, what it took to get there, yeah, and they said yeah. So we talked through it for the next 20 minutes. We talked through it and I said y'all need to be cheering and clapping and high-fiving and calling this guy. And I said y'all need to be cheering and clapping and high-fiving and calling this guy Like we're good. And it took months, if not years, to build that culture in ISI and today it's expected, it's encouraged, people know it's coming, they feel totally comfortable with it and I tell you it's one of the most, best traits our organization has today that we encourage a safe place for you to share these wins.

Speaker 2:

It's motivating, I mean, when you think about how encouraging it is and exciting when you're not like man. I wish that was me. It's no, it's not like that it's like man, I can do that also and we're going to celebrate this guy. Wally, what's one of the biggest wins you remember actually celebrating?

Speaker 1:

I'm going to do one relational and one financial, one professional. I've got a couple, okay. So I think the biggest relational win for me and I can think of a few, you know, I mean reality is being a year and four months married and I left my wife and four months later she took me back. Um, that was a big win. That was a big win, um, a long time ago, but I still remember and I'm grateful that she was forgiving and, uh, in that way. Another relational one was just a couple of years ago, you know, my dad left, my mom and I when I was five and they both got remarried and had lives and I've lived, you know, with, had good relationships with both of them for a long time and and there's always this little uneasiness with my dad, my biological dad, just because of what he had done and never addressed it and just about five years ago now, I went out to lunch with them they live back in New York state and went out to lunch with them and just out of the blue, out of his own accord, you know, he apologized and for what had happened, you know, 46 years ago, and took responsibility for it. That was a big moment, that was a big win and so I celebrate that.

Speaker 1:

I think professionally, one of the biggest wins professionally was in building the business that I sold in 19. Being able to develop a team that ran the business where I wasn't needed Not saying that wasn't hard at times, but that was a big win professionally to be able to structure a business where you know you didn't need to be there every day. And reality is, when I sold and left, for multiple reasons, most of them are doing great. Now, it's a struggle, is it different? Sure, but, but they're doing great and getting good opportunities, and so that's a big professional win. Financial win, obviously, selling the business right, like Sonia did such a good job, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1:

So I think I think the day we sold was on a Thursday. I can't remember, I think it was a Thursday, maybe it was a Monday or Monday or Thursday, I can't remember. But, um, as soon as the papers were signed, uh, I had a little bit of meeting to do to finish up with. Uh, I wasn't gonna take the rest of the day off, cause that was six months of due diligence, living hell. Um. So we got there, we got to the paper signing and, and, and actually did it in my RV, in an RV park how ironic since it was an RV related business. But so signed the paperwork digitally, all done. Looked at my bank account boom transfers. There there's the money. All right, I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off and all afternoon Sonia had planned stuff.

Speaker 1:

First thing she did I'm going to cry. First thing she did was she called all the kids. She had them ready and everybody got on a Zoom all the daughters and their son-in-laws and my son-in-laws, their husbands got on a Zoom call and just praise God and prayed. Sonia prayed and just thanked the Lord for opportunity and what this would mean for generations to come, and that was a big win. And then rest of the day she had stuff planned out dinners and all kinds of stuff she did all that Shopping, she did it.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no Okay.

Speaker 1:

I'll say this. I'll say it's about my bride. I really appreciate the fact that she she did. On a previous podcast I mentioned some selfish things that I had thought during that time period. I didn't land there, but the enemy was planting those seeds of thought in my mind. It didn't land there by any means. I'm very grateful for Sonia. She did such an amazing job in the sale process that she really encouraged me to go do some things to celebrate well, and some of them were together. But there was a couple of things that were just for me. You know, I bought a really nice, really nice side-by-side Ranger and souped it all up and that was really fun. I lived out in the country at that time and we bought a convertible for the two of us to enjoy and we did a donor advice fund and put a bunch of money into it to be able to minister with that over time. And those are some big wins.

Speaker 2:

It's a lot to celebrate.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was good, it was fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was good and then, at Christmas time with the kids, I had gotten counsel from guys like hey, how should we celebrate as a family? You know this was in November that we sold. So Christmas time's coming up and we always get together, uh, for a week at Christmas time, everybody, everybody comes home and, uh, I know these great ideas from everybody. Hey, go to your family, like you guys can maybe, like you know, go to Jamaica and celebrate or something for Christmas. So we got with the kids and said what do you guys want to do? Like, here's some ideas. They're like you know. I said what do you guys want to do? Like, here's some ideas. They're like, you know, we still just want to come home.

Speaker 1:

No-transcript. That's how they wanted to celebrate and we had a great time. We did all week long. So they're there for five nights. We did a different national theme night every week and we bought like top of the line food and we all made it, worked together to make it and celebrated that way. It was fun, it was a good time. How?

Speaker 2:

about you? Yeah, I was just thinking about that a little bit. I wasn't really even prepared to ask the question, much less answer the question but. I thought about two things that really immediately came to my mind. There's two that I'll mention. Quite honestly, neither one of them are financial for us individually.

Speaker 2:

But when I was 19, I went out on my own and went in business and for those that have read my book and follow me for any length of time, you know that I was in the pawn shop business and that business historically in Nashville. The folks that owned that were all Jewish. There were 17 families in Nashville. I was the only Christian in that business at the time Went out on my own.

Speaker 1:

How do you justify that? That's a different topic Christian owning a pawn shop but anyway, topic for another day. Keep going. I don't know. I'll be interested in breaking that one down.

Speaker 2:

So when I was 13, I started working for a pawn shop and when I was 19, I left there and went out on my own, opened my own. Well, that group of people ostracized me. They didn't have anything to do with me, and they said you're going to ruin this business for the rest of us and et cetera, et cetera. And I said no, I'm not going to do that. And I befriended every one of them. I'd go around and talk to them, I would call them and they were like we don't want anything to do with you. I mean literally that way. They literally ostracized me because all these families grew up together. They'd been in that business for 30, 40 years here in Nashville and here this young whippersnapper, this Christian's, going to get in the palm business. So for six years I befriended them, talked to them and when I was 25 years old, they made me president of their association.

Speaker 2:

Wow, and it was a really, really cool win for us. It was really something that proved to me that determination. If you really lean in, you're friendly, you can change the mindsets of people that are against you. The second huge win that we celebrated is private and I'm not going to go into the details, but we did a large financial contribution to a member of our family that changed the trajectory of their life, unbeknownst to them at the time, and it made such an impact. They were able to do some things that they thought they probably never would have been able to do. And, yeah, we celebrated that. That was fun. That was fun. Those are two things I do remember celebrating my 40th birthday. That was a big deal. My 60th birthday, that was you were at my 60th birthday.

Speaker 1:

I was there. I was there for that one.

Speaker 2:

That was fun. So, yeah, those two things, yeah, those were fun. I want to encourage the listeners today to think about how you can be a blessing to others in your celebration, not always turn it to where it's on yourself and you're only going to celebrate things that are to your benefit or to your gain. Think about ways that you can pour into others. You can help others. You can help them accomplish their goals, their dreams, the things that you can do.

Speaker 2:

I promise you this is coming from experience. It will make a longer, lasting impression on your life. You'll celebrate that longer because you see the difference it made in the other family members or colleagues or employees, whoever. Some of the funnest times we've ever had is being able to do things for other people, and I know some of the listeners today. You can't necessarily do it in a big financial way, but you can spend time. There's things that you can do. It's not always just financial that you can invest so that you can celebrate, and I just promise you you, as a family, will celebrate those times longer and more and remember them more than doing something for yourself.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to add to that real quick. I'll give him credit, paul Edwards. I know he didn't come up with it, but he's the one that told me about it, so I'll give him credit, but he has. He has like a few questions that he asks kind of like really anybody. It could be somebody you know and and uh well, or it could be somebody you just met. But one of those questions is, uh, what's working well for you? And it's not asking anybody like, hey, what's a big win? You know, which feels really awkward what's working well? You could easily celebrate with that person. That question could be some version of that question could be a family member. It can be somebody, a colleague, an employee, a team member. It can be a neighbor right, some version of that in the right place. Like what a great opportunity, something so simple to be like hey, what's working well for you? They tell you and you're like great job, that's exciting, that's awesome, something so simple.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's always those simple things that are the most meaningful, though you know, when you really pour yourself into other people's lives and you really ask the questions.

Speaker 1:

What is that they say about? You've said this before. It's not what you say. It's how.

Speaker 2:

Well, people only remember you for how you make them feel.

Speaker 1:

No, it's not what you say, it's how they feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so it's. Yeah, you know, I started thinking along the way, you know, because I had a lot of career opportunities and lived a few years in life and you have as well. What are some of the things that we could do? Like people listen to this today like I don't even know what to do to celebrate. Like we've had guys in ISI that are very successful businessmen, they're like I don't even know what to do. Well, I started thinking through that and I thought well, man, why don't you just have a big party? First and foremost, robin and I love to do that. We love to have people over to our house and you know we do various things. We love to play cornhole or ping pong or shoot guns or grill out or get around the fire. We've got a big patio and we, you know, build a fire out there and just hang out and have good fellowship and good food and be prepared for them to stay. People won't leave when you're doing that stuff, right? So start early, but I like to go to bed early.

Speaker 2:

When was the last time you've done one of those.

Speaker 1:

I haven't been invited Last.

Speaker 2:

Friday night.

Speaker 1:

You haven't celebrated lately with a big party.

Speaker 2:

You need to do one. You know what's funny. You know what's funny is that there is about six or eight couples in our small group and they're always doing things at each other's houses and things like that. You get in that rut and do things with the same people. You know what?

Speaker 1:

I'm saying I'm giving you a hard time, man, I know you are.

Speaker 2:

You actually were at my house just a few weeks ago for a party, by the way, I was. We were celebrating a birthday. That was nice. Yeah, we were. It was fun. It was fun. What about you, wally? What are a couple of ways that when you host these parties, it just fosters that camaraderie, it's just a sense of accomplishment that you're sharing with other people. To invite them into your space, yeah, it's good.

Speaker 1:

I love the idea of you know you think about those people around you, whether they're children, your team members, your employees. I think there's. If you're, if we're paying attention to what their wins are, then we have great opportunity to be able to celebrate them. And that doesn't have to be extravagant, it can be something simple. You know a handwritten note, privately even. You can celebrate people privately. It doesn't have to be a big public, outward thing. You can celebrate someone privately with a handwritten note.

Speaker 1:

You can celebrate them by calling them out in a meeting, right that you're having a standup. Maybe you have a weekly standup meeting or a weekly team meeting or a rally, whatever you have, and be like, hey, you know whether it's. I mean, maybe you celebrate how long that they've worked there, something simple, right? Or, uh, I love to do, um, I love to do the core value celebrations. Uh, it's easier to do with a bigger team than a smaller team because there's more people paying attention. Is that, basically, people can on your team, they can submit people when they see them executing on a core value and then you can honor those, like in a monthly team rally or something like that. You know annual team meeting or something. So those are fun, super inexpensive, easy ways to celebrate wins with others, especially those in your circle of influence.

Speaker 2:

You know, what's pretty cool, too, is the people that have helped you accomplish the success in your business. Don't ever forget them, because without them you couldn't have accomplished that. If you want to get a little more extravagant, you know there's cash that you can give. It's like hey, everybody loves cash, You're never going to go wrong.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to turn that down.

Speaker 2:

And the other things that I've enjoyed doing is trips, people that have really stood by me and walked through me hand in hand, accomplishing some success in business. You know we handsomely treat them financially but at the same time find out places that they go. I've bought a number of cruises for people to go on that they normally wouldn't do for themselves. But before I forget it, you just mentioned something that I thought of while you said it was the handwritten cards. Don't underestimate the value of that.

Speaker 2:

Now I can't remember year after year, but this past year I can tell you the handwritten cards that I've received. Now I can't necessarily every text or every Facebook message or every email, but I can tell you each and every card that I've received because they took the time right, it was personable, they sat down and did that. But yeah, back to our list a little bit. I just think it shows appreciation for hard work and dedication and I think it enhances the loyalty and the satisfaction of your employees that you're willing to share. You know we never should be greedy, we never should be in it just for ourselves and so sharing with others. I've kind of made that a regular practice through the course of my business career, and so I just think it's important to remember those that are helping you.

Speaker 1:

Two or three more before we wrap up today, two or three more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier the idea of a donor advised fund. That's more of a. It doesn't have to be large, you don't have to start with a large amount of money in that, for those of you who don't know what donor advised funds are, you can typically do them through most of the large financial investment companies. But the one I like is National Christian Foundation. Just search National Christian Foundation. Just search National Christian Foundation. What they allow you to do is basically it's under their foundation but they're Christian focused, so they only allow funds to be distributed through that foundation out to nonprofit Christian type organizations. And what you do is you create like a sub fund under their foundation and because there's donor advised, so meaning that I'm the donor, so I get to advise where it goes.

Speaker 1:

So you know whether you put a hundred bucks in or you put 500,000 in, that sits there and you're able to gift that out right, to gift that out, uh, right through their app, uh to over time or right away. Like you have time, like you can, you can put a whole bunch. You can put, put some in over time and then do something big or put something in. I know people that just they use it to just give to their churches, honestly, just that's how they do that as a vehicle to do that. Um and so when we sold our business, we did something. We did a donor advised fund that we still have today and we've been able to do some cool projects with that over time and that's just a, that's a fun you know, fun way to be able to celebrate right Giving back.

Speaker 2:

Celebrating. Yeah, it's constantly reminding you as well. Right, it's like God really blessed you with the ability to be able to do this and it's a continual celebration. And I know that years ago I sold a business and as a result of wanting to celebrate that, quite honestly, there wasn't anything I needed personally at the time, but I wanted to celebrate.

Speaker 2:

Kind of today with sharing this story is that I created the Aaron Walker Scholarship Award and a lot of people hearing that initially like, yeah, big A, you did well and you're able Listen. It was a thousand dollars. It was just for an eighth grade student at Neely's Bend Junior High School that was trying the hardest. That's it. It wasn't academic, it wasn't sports related, it was the kid that was trying the hardest and the teachers voted on it. And then they surprised that person at an awards banquet. Every year I went and gave a speech, told my story. I love Neely's Bend Junior High School. That's where I went to junior high. I love that school. Those teachers changed my life and as a result of that, I just gave this thousand dollar scholarship to go towards their education. Well, it gave those kids a sense of hope, that they had an opportunity because we lived in kind of an impoverished area and they didn't really have any sense of hope. We tracked those for eight years, wow, and some of them went on to be nurses, some went into the military and made careers out of the military, and it was cool to watch those people now have a sense of hope because they had a little something, a seed money to give them kind of a head start. Otherwise they weren't going to have that opportunity.

Speaker 2:

It was a way that we celebrated. So just think about you today. How is it you can celebrate, first and foremost? Celebrate for you and your family, celebrate for those that help you align on the journey, celebrate in a way that will be a continual reminder for you going forward. We need to encourage this level of celebration around trusted advisors, people that you can trust, not to be flamboyant, not to be boastful, not to be arrogant, but in a way that's encouraging to other people. So, wally, thank you for these hundred episodes, thank you for all the time that you've invested to help make this successful. Hopefully, today those have enjoyed this, and I just want to encourage you as you leave today figure out a way that you, too, can celebrate, so that you, too, can have a view from the top.

Speaker 1:

Hey, thanks again for listening into this hundredth episode of View From the Top. We do not take for granted that you listen to this podcast. Very grateful, you can reach out to us if you have questions or comments or concerns. Reach out to us at pod, that's P-O-D, at viewfromthetopcom. We'd also love to have you come participate. We talked about having that small group of people around you that you trust that you can celebrate with, and we do that inside of ISI, both in the community and in the mastermind. So I'd encourage you to start with the community. You can do that just by going to viewfromthetopcom slash community. You can check that just by going to viewfromthetopcom slash community. You can check that out there. And, man, if you use the code V, is it what? Is it? Vpod? I think it's Vpod, v-p-o-d. Yeah, that's it V-P-O-D. They'll give you like 30% off, just as being our listener here on this podcast. So, man, thank you so much for listening again and we want to hear from you so we can help you celebrate and we will see you next week.