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ISI Brotherhood Podcast
A podcast for growth-minded Christian businessmen who desire momentum and accountability in their business, family, finances, faith, and personal wellness. Each week, Aaron Walker, also known as Big A, shares authentically from decades of business ownership, marriage, and raising a family. He takes on listener questions and deep-dive into FORGE episodes with tried and tested co-hosts. Subscribe and visit our website https://www.isibrotherhood.com/podcast
ISI Brotherhood Podcast
134. The Mentor’s Seat: Why Pouring Into Others Changes Everything: Part 1.
What happens when a successful business owner realizes that achieving his financial goals left him feeling completely empty? Bret Barnhart had built Barnhart Excavating from $1,500 to a thriving company, but found himself miserable, angry, and struggling with high blood pressure in his twenties. His wake-up call came when reaching a long-desired financial milestone brought no satisfaction—only regret for all he had sacrificed along the way.
This raw, honest conversation reveals the remarkable 12-year mentorship journey between Bret and Aaron Walker. Their weekly Tuesday meetings have transformed not just Bret's business approach, but his entire life. Bret candidly shares how he evolved from boasting about "ripping people's heads off" to leading with grace, from trying to control every aspect of his business to effectively delegating key functions.
The most powerful revelations come when Bret discusses the ripple effects of mentorship on his family relationships. His wife, Crystal, has commented that she doesn't know what their life would look like without this consistent guidance. Bret now evaluates business opportunities not just by their profit potential, but by their "cost" to his family time and relationships—a perspective that's transformed his priorities.
Through stories like the "$1,157 per night camper" that Bret immediately sold after a reality check, we see how accountability creates clarity. Bret explains mentorship as "walking down a dark hallway with someone who's been down it before"—a perfect metaphor for navigating business and life challenges with guidance rather than alone.
Ready to find the brotherhood that will sharpen you? This episode presents a compelling case for why consistent mentorship is more important than quick fixes.
Join the ISI community free for 30 days at isibrotherhood.com/community and discover what having the right people walking beside you can do for your business, family, and spiritual life.
Connect:
- Connect with ISI Brothers: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/
- Join the ISI Community: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community
- Big A's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/
- Bret's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-barnhart
Discover the brotherhood that sharpens you. The ISI community is free for 30 days. Join now at isibrotherhoodcom. Forward slash community. Well, welcome back to the ISI Brotherhood Podcast, where we challenge men to sharpen one another and grow stronger in every area of our life, whether it be personal, professional or relational, spiritual and, yes, financial. That's what we do here in this brotherhood.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm sitting down with somebody that I know really well, brett Barnhart, and for the past 12 years, brett and I have met every Tuesday almost without fail. He's not only the owner of Barnhart, excavating a successful business in Tulsa, oklahoma, but he's also a great husband, father and a man of faith. In this two-part series, we're pulling back the curtain on what it really looks like to have a long-term mentor. Why did he make this commitment, what problem was he trying to solve, and how has coaching shaped his family, his business and his future? This isn't theory. This is a lived out experience. So if you've ever wondered whether mentorship is worth the time, the money and the energy, you're about to hear the inside story from a man who's been at it for a very long time. Hey, brett, welcome to the ISI Brotherhood Podcast.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here. I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, brett, I tell people this that are close to me and my family. I don't really share this a whole lot. I guess I'm going to share it kind of out loud here. I do look at you differently and a lot of people say how come? And I say because we've been talking every week for 12 years. Like Brett is probably like the son that I never had and I don't want to compete with your mom and dad on this and get into it with your dad, but you have been almost like a son to me over that period of time Because I started with you when you were 29 years old. You're like 42 years old now. Your kids weren't even born. I've been around so long. They think I'm their third grandparent. But I've really enjoyed getting to know you over these years and I want you to kind of introduce yourself more formally than I've given you good enough credit for and tell a little bit more about yourself and what you're about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Um, so uh, obviously uh, Aaron, and said a lot to me too, for me, and I appreciate that. Um, Tulsa, Oklahoma, uh lived here my whole life, a little bit South of Tulsa. Uh been married, uh going on 20 years. Uh this October, two kids uh 13 and 13 and 11, and been in business 20, 22 years. Started in 2002. Was around business my whole life, my family, four generations of business and it's just an extension of my life. It's what I know, it's what I grew up around and of my life it's what I know, it's what I grew up around. And yeah, yeah, Great wife, my wife gets to stay at home now and obviously, I'm here running the business, so you married way way up to all that end.
Speaker 1:No question, you married way up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely fooled her.
Speaker 1:You did 20 years. You guys have been married now, so congratulations on that. And you know when you said that Cole is 13. So he was a year old when I started coaching you. So, just barely walking, if he was even walking at the time.
Speaker 2:He was a baby when I met you in Nashville. In fact, when I met you for the first time. Her mom and dad come with us to help her.
Speaker 1:Let's tell that story for a second. Tell the audience how we met.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we may get into this, but of course, I had been in business roughly about 10 years and really looking for something more. What I thought business was and what the life I was experiencing and living was not what I would say probably most people expect and living was not what I would say probably most people expect. And so, just out of a desire for more and leadership, and the next thing I went to a conference there in Nashville and Aaron was there. I do think that there's so many things that we think that, like in my mind, I'm going for this conference, for leadership, for these things, and I think God has different plans and he meets us in those decisions. And and I mean I truly think that, uh, that moment in time was God ordained, because I don't know where my life would be today Not that it was bad, but what was the motive, though?
Speaker 1:It was like like you were 29 years old. That's pretty young to be really thinking about personal and professional development to the level that you were. What was the catalyst behind that? What was your motive for even going to the Dave Ramsey leadership? It's kind of funny. Why were you miserable?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, honestly, I thought you know, you're sitting there 18 years old and you see these business people and you get to see the success that they've experienced and you don't get to see the hard times. And I didn't know what I didn't know. I mean, I grew up around my dad but he worked very, very hard. Didn't really get to see a lot of those things as a young man. So there's this expectation of, well, I just got to start this business, I make all this money, I get to live this lifestyle and things will be easy and you get people to run it and it's so far from the truth. So it really put me in a place of a lot of anger, a high blood pressure.
Speaker 2:In my twenties I did not like anybody on the team really questioning why I was just miserable At the end of the day. To put it into one word, I was just absolutely miserable in what I was doing. I was doing well, I was successful in all things, but what I thought was on the other side of it was not what was on the other side of it. So I had to become a better leader. I had to get around people that had been through it and I mean I went to that event, paid the big money because I wanted to be right next to the people that knew these things, not for the sake of saying that I know these people, because I need whatever they've done. I need to borrow that courage right now, for this moment, because I can't keep going like this.
Speaker 2:I had hit some goals. I had some financial goals. I had $1,500 when I started my business Really really hard for the first eight years on the verge of bankruptcy. It became a chasing the money thing. I the verge of bankruptcy and it become a chasing the money thing and I kept telling crystal.
Speaker 2:I was like man, when I get a million dollars in the bank, like like I'm gonna, I'm gonna be left like I'm there, like things will be easy yeah, uh, and and like, all in all honesty, I still remember the text message when we hit that and to say this because I don't want it to sound like I'm this guy with all this money, but the next day it was all gone, right, because you have to pay bills Well, that's not even my real money, right and it ended up.
Speaker 2:I never texted her back and I just had regrets. One of my core values in my business is no regrets, and what I experienced in that moment was I hit what I thought would make me feel better and different, and the truth of the matter is, all I could think about was the regrets of late nights, saturdays, sundays, all the time that I had missed for what I thought was going to make me feel different. And it didn't make me feel a bit different, didn't change my work ethic, didn't change what I wanted to do, didn't change my desires and, quite honestly, it just made it worse. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not here to say it yeah. But you told me you felt empty. You said when you got that text message and you saw that money in the bank, it didn't give you the exhilaration like you thought it was going to give you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, Not at all. It's like you sat back and you think well, if once I get there, then there's this feeling that you've imagined that you're going to get and it doesn't come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And all you said was is you thought well, what's next? What do I do?
Speaker 2:now, yeah, so I was just miserable, and going to that event was the hope that I would get something out of that that would change my perspective. I had been reading some books about mentorship and a lot of top, top leaders were seeking mentors. And that's when I met you and I come up to you and I ask you if you'd be my mentor. Funny thing is like Zoom and all these things weren't around and you were like I don't know if it'll work long distance, but the funny thing is you coach this and you preach this and you teach this. In ISI is the relationships matter most. It's one of the core values. Okay, and I still remember on my way home from Nashville to Tulsa, driving on I-40, getting a text from you telling me how much you enjoyed getting to know me and that was the first big thing. It's like even beyond that event, you still reached out to me and then obviously built a relationship and next thing you know I don't know five, six months later we were working together.
Speaker 1:You know, what was funny is I was at the event. Dave invited me to come to the event as a guest and so I was there as a guest and during intermissions we would go back to. He had a big bus, that for the VIP people to sit in, and we were sitting in that bus and hanging out and getting to know each other and you had said you know, I want to talk to you about being my mentor. And I went to Dave during the next break and I said there's this guy out there from Tulsa that wants to hire me to be his coach and this is your event. And he started laughing. He goes, go do it, just go do it. You'll enjoy doing that.
Speaker 1:Because I had retired at that time. And look at me now. Robin said I've retired more than the law allows, but anyway, I was retired at the time. I was just there as a guest, kind of, you know, being a fly on the wall that shows you God's hand in everything. God's always in the details, behind the scenes, right? God knew I was going to be there, he knew you were going to be there and he's going to put us together for that event, and so that was a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1:You didn't hire me right out of the gate, though. It was four or five months later we talked and I said, hey, I've got a few other people. Matt Miller was there and he was another guy that had hired me to coach him as well. Same thing, because Matt was hanging out with us as well and that was really a fun time at that. But going back again, just a little bit more about your motives and kind of the catalyst in getting you to go there. The problems that you were trying to solve in Barnhart Excavating was what, like what fear or what obstacle were you up against? Or was it just you really wanted more personal professional development?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean in all honesty, I was a horrible leader. And if we went back and looked at all the progress reports I mean in all honesty, I was a horrible leader and if we went back and looked at all the progress reports, I think we would see how bad of a leader I was and understanding people, leading people, giving people the right tools they need to be successful, which I think was the anger, the frustration, the disappointment was a byproduct of bad leadership. And my dad led me very well, but I never had led other people. I mean, I played sports and things like that. But to truly lead people in a business is a whole different dynamic and as a business owner, there's so many expectations and at that point I only look at myself.
Speaker 2:And why can't everybody be like me? Why can't everybody do everything like me? I'm building a business. Obviously I'm somewhat successful, but that's not the way it goes, right. Everybody's a little bit different and you have to, I think, as a leader, mold yourself into working with people and what they bring to the table, and they're not going to bring everything to the table. You know, I've talked about that many times, right?
Speaker 1:So um, you just knew something was missing. You didn't know what was missing exactly, you just knew something was.
Speaker 2:I was just miserable, like like in all areas of my life right it wasn't fun.
Speaker 2:What you were doing wasn't fun money wasn't making me happy, people weren't making me happy. I had high blood pressure, fighting with customers trying to build. A business broke for eight years in a row, which I started broke. So living broke was just normal. Okay, no big deal. I mean, what am I going to lose 1500 bucks? Let's go for it, right, right. So and and there was nobody behind me, I don't know. One time a pastor told me that mentorship is like walking down a dark hallway with somebody that's been down that hallway and it really put into context what that looks like for me. And and I had nobody in my life. So if I went to my dad, my dad's going to take my side for the most part.
Speaker 1:He loves me. Any father's going to do that right. He's biased right, Sure.
Speaker 2:So you know there's turns, there's these hallways and there's turns and holes in the floor and passageways that maybe we could go through. But if it's a dark hallway, we don't know that. So mentorship is like allowing somebody to come back down that hallway and walk with you, okay, and then willing to walk with them and trust them as you go down, Because it's still dark. But the difference is you've been through that, You've hit the walls, Experienced it right, or somebody's walked you through that right, Right. So like having somebody help me walk through these things in life and be a better leader, be a better husband, spiritual leader, community leader, all these different things. And I think too, we elevate some things, Like we do really good in spiritual and then we're horrible at work or in our household or things. So you know, all those things in work, business, community, spiritual all those things need to be elevated right. So you gotta have accountability.
Speaker 1:The mentor kind of helps you navigate, missing the landmines. They kind of help you dodge those. You've experienced that and I don't want you to experience some of those same devastating travesties that You've experienced that and I don't want you to experience some of those same devastating travesties that I've experienced, and even in your marriage with you and Crystal. So you know it's saying, hey, robin and I've been down this road and it may not work for you, but won't you try this? And so, which takes us really kind of to the tangible impacts that maybe mentoring has had in your life. If you look back and you think about some of the most tangible changes in your business, in your personal life, as a direct result of having a mentor for over a decade, can you point to some decisions or seasons of your life where you know that the outcome would have been very different without having a mentor or coaching?
Speaker 2:well, I know this is stilling words and not just pushing ISI, but I was living a very successful life with no significance. I mean, I'll take us back to our first call. I was sitting in my truck I don't even know if I had an office then sitting in my truck and and you said I can help you be a better business leader, a better uh father, a better husband, all these things, but without God right in your life, none of it matters, and we broke that down what the true value of our relationship with God looks like. So, um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I sometimes I think with frustration, even with church, like I don't know if I'd be in church serving at nonprofits I get to serve at Happy Hands. There's many times that I probably would have given that up out of frustration and you held me accountable to continue that because I wasn't involved with church. I was attending but not doing those things. Many, many times, probably the most important and I kind of skipped past this. But Crystal, my wife has made comments of, uh, I don't know what our life would have looked like if you wouldn't have hired big A to be your mentor for so many years, and I think that's because she saw the anger side of me. I wasn't abusive, verbally abusive. My dad raised me like you don't do that, but like I was always mad. I come home mad and she kind of got the worst of me in that and I had to deal with those things.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, honestly, looking back sometimes we kind of talk through that what would a day in the life today look like without mentorship? It could be both ways. I could be bankrupt, I could be living on the street, but I like to work hard and I work hard and I push hard. I really think that I probably would have been in a way larger, you know, bigger business, not really successful, but really big, because I would have pushed so hard and probably left a lot of things behind in life that I probably would have later had regrets because I didn't pour into being family, probably for the most part, you know know one of the things that I remember early on in our engagement that you used to be boastful of ripping guys heads off that was a good point and I look back and think through now differently how you handle situations and you handle it with grace and you're stern and you're very forward, and I think you should be.
Speaker 1:But you don't boast in ripping somebody's head off, right, that was kind of commonplace. You used to say those words. You would boast about ripping people's heads off, and I just think that you didn't have somebody walking with you. You know, and you saw that environment in other areas of construction and it was commonplace. And then you would come home and I don't think you ever would do that with Crystal intentionally, but she would get the residual of that. She would get the you know, the bad moods or you being down or depressed as related to the way you had to handle confrontation at your office, and so the relationship capital that you were spending was eating away at your marriage, though unintentionally, it wasn't on purpose, but now you recognize those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you ripped me up on that one and one time I said something about ripping somebody's head off and you said are you proud of that? Well, I mean, I was raised to do that Like fight when somebody bows up, just fight it right. And then even you put fuel on that fire with, well, I'm this personality. So then that gave me the ticket to be that type of guy, because then that wasn't my excuse. Well, that's just my personality, right? I think that's where a lot of that type of guy Because then that wasn't my excuse Well, that's just my personality, right? I think that's where a lot of that anger come to in my 20s as well.
Speaker 2:And high blood pressure, is that like I don't know. I always said this to you. You didn't make me and you won't break me Meaning, I don't care who you are, like, I'm gonna run over you. We can go together or we can go to separate, but I guarantee I'm going to run over you all the way. Just watch out, right, and that become a prideful thing, you know.
Speaker 2:And still today, I had a guy call me recently and he said uh, I remember you had a hard talk with me and I was like, oh boy, there is no telling what he's about to tell me. And I said did I say something really bad to you? And he said funny thing is I was cussing like a sailor to you and you told me when I become a real man and could talk to me like a real man, call me back and you get off the phone. So that, honestly, would have had to have been on the backside, because in the moment in my 20s, before working with you, I probably would have just went to town with this guy, which then would have pushed me into this anger or mad. Let's just run them over, let's go. It's business, let's build it. Don't get in my way. They used to say I was a bowling ball. Everybody in front of me is just a bunch of pins. So here we go.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm Aaron Walker, founder of Iron Sharpens Iron. Every successful man needs a band of brothers to push him to grow spiritually, personally and professionally. Each week I meet with like-minded Christian business owners in our mastermind groups. We share wisdom, tackle challenges and we hold each other accountable to grow not just in business but in life. Don't do life or business alone. Join the brotherhood. That will challenge, encourage and sharpen you. Visit isibrotherhoodcom and take the first step today.
Speaker 1:You know a fun story. I look back on and you know the story immediately when I tell this is I invited myself out to Tulsa, oklahoma, to spend a couple of days with you. Early on in our engagement I said I want to get to know you, I want to meet your wife and then your young son, and he was so young I mean he certainly don't remember me coming, but I remember coming there and that little small house you lived in and we were walking around outside and there was this big camper there and I asked you about that camper and I said tell me about that camper. And you told me and I asked you what you paid for it, because we talked intimately about everything related to your family and your finances and everything was very open and you began to share with me the cost of the camper and ask you how many times you used it. And you told me it was a handful of times a year, if that many. And then you said this past year you hadn't used it at all. And then you showed me the new truck that you had bought to go with the camper, to pull the camper that you gave $70,000 for, and so I started adding it up in my head and I didn't say anything else about it.
Speaker 1:So I got on the airplane to fly home and I wrote a blog post. It's one of the most read blog posts I've written. I wrote it on the plane and I added up everything related to that camper the cost of the camper, the insurance maintaining it, the fuel, the $70,000 truck, the insurance, what you had to pay when you go to places, and I added it up and divided it by the number of times you had used it since you bought it and I said $1,157 a night at the KOA I hope you enjoyed your stay and I posted that blog post and you never told me that you read it, but you read it. And the next day you sold the camper, you sold the truck and you got rid of it, and later I found out that you'd read the blog posts. But that's a small example of how, making you aware of the things that you were doing, are we counting the cost? And that's what I named the blog post. Did you count the cost? And so, just one tiny thing.
Speaker 1:But what I love about our engagement every week is that you complete a progress report every week, and we've threatened to write a book with those 12 years of every single week doing a progress report. It's things that you were supposed to do and did, things that you were supposed to do and didn't and why you didn't, and the things that you want to talk about next on the next call, and you send those to me 48 hours in advance. And I want to be honest with you. I don't think I've ever had a coaching client that has been as diligent and consistent as you in completing those progress reports, and it's a testament to your success because you're very focused and you execute on the things that you say you're going to do. What is maybe one other tangible impact either in your business, your finances, that you can attest to, possibly having a mentor walk alongside you?
Speaker 2:Something I think about a lot going back started my business. I was doing everything in the business so I was running equipment, I was project managing, I was bidding. I would take a laptop with me on vacation consistently and talking weekend and week out. You're going to start, you know, it's going to naturally get brought up with capacity and I still remember us walking through what it would like, what it would be like to hire an estimator. And the funny thing is every other business owner I would talk to most of them had bad experiences with estimators and I think a lot of it's on the business owner because they didn't build it right and they didn't teach these guys right.
Speaker 2:And you pushed me really hard to bring in an estimator in the business to help bid jobs. I was bidding 300 jobs a year, running the jobs, managing the jobs, trying to travel, be with family and things would always get me consumed. And it was a scary time then because what it was going to cost me to bring in an estimator was really going to kill my overhead if we didn't grow. I still remember telling the first guy if we don't bring in an extra million dollars a year, I'm going to let you go in a year. We didn't hit it in a year. We hit it in about 16, 18 months.
Speaker 2:But I saw the progression of where it was going to go, based off hiring him, truly delegating to somebody and really excelling and perfecting a department within the business and letting the business be bigger than me. Right, Like I had to step out of my comfort zone. I had to spend big money, I had to teach a guy how to do this. Um, unexpected, like I have no idea where this is going to go. Yet there was so much freedom on the other side of that to be able to do that and even to be pushed through that uncomfortable situation and let give it up, that's that's. That's the big part of the construction business is who's doing those estimates. So that was a really big thing for me, even today.
Speaker 2:And delegating things and and letting other people and like estimating was good, but on a scale from one to 10, 10 being great, it was probably four or five. Project management was good four to five, All these different things, because I was touching all of them and I realized if I let some of these things go, I can get them up to like an eight. They're never going to be a hundred. You got to expect eight, right, Right. But letting somebody else take these departments and run them that are better than me is going to make this business better and it's going to allow this business to not require me to run this business. So it was a huge step.
Speaker 1:What's been pretty cool over the years is seeing that they're not going to be a 10 possibly, but there are areas of your business that you've delegated out that they can do as good or better in areas that you've done, because it allows you then to work on your business and not in your business and be able to use your vision and implement strategy on how to grow the business and how to do that even better. Listen, before we end this first section of the interview. It's a two-part series. I wanted to talk about kind of the ripple effect of mentoring and first of all, I want to say this is not about me as the mentor.
Speaker 1:This is about the situation of a mentee mentor, and this is the picture that I'm trying to paint for the audience that's listening out there today. It's not about Aaron Walker mentoring Brett Barnhart. This is about looking for someone that can walk the journey with you, that can help you. But there's always a ripple effect and I wanted to specifically talk about the ripple effect that's happened on Crystal and your kids. You're not just a business owner. You're a great husband, you're a great father, you're a leader in your community. People really look up to you today as a result of all this growth that you've done. How has the consistency of mentoring over a 12-year period impacted your family, not just financially, because y'all have done great financially, but relationally and spiritually?
Speaker 2:So, relationally, this is another big thing. Even to your last question, when we think about growth and we think about other opportunities, once you kind of start building, other things are going to consistently hit you other opportunities to invest in other businesses. And you've always asked me what is the cost of doing this? The funny thing is most of the cost can be buried. The company would be successful. It would cover that cost of the money side of it. But the cost that you and I always discuss is what capacity is it going to take from me on my family? And you can sit here and tell yourself a lie of well, you know, I'll get somebody to run it. Well, mentally it's taken capacity. You may be home but you're not really home.
Speaker 1:You're not present.
Speaker 2:Right, and you and I talk about that a lot and you call those things out and it's like, okay, well, if we do this, what is the? How much cost is that going to be to your family? Like when you go on a trip, are you focused on your family and you can tell yourself you've said this, you said this to me you can tell yourself a rational lie to get what you want, but here's the true cost and I think you've experienced a lot of those things and I know this is going to be counter business, like everything about what I'm about to say is not going to be what the business world says. But nine times out of 10, the decision has come that this is a good deal, but I only have so much time left with my family and maybe we should not do these things for the sake of my family, because when my family's out of the house and my kids are grown up and gone, I can do all these things Right. So there's been a lot of things that I think I would have jumped and went after because I mean I like building business, shiny object syndrome, create, go, build opportunity and that would have been a huge cost to my family because it's all good until it's not good.
Speaker 2:And then, when it's not good, everything goes south and the funny thing is it's easy to sacrifice the time with our family and make the excuse. I made the excuse early on. Well, you want this lifestyle, I got to work this much, right? You want all this stuff, I got to work. That's just how it is. If you don't like it, then you shouldn't go get all that stuff, right? So from a family standpoint to answer your question relationally there's a lot of time that I've been able to pour back into my family. We get to travel, I can have breakfast with them, I can take them to school, I can pick them up, and I probably would have been pushing so hard in business. I think I would have missed a lot of that. You only get one chance with those kids.
Speaker 1:You don't get a do-over and you can start more companies, you can buy more companies, we can grow, but you only got one chance with those two kids and I don't want to see you, you know, sacrifice them there. What about spiritually? How has it impacted the spiritualness, or the lack of whichever way with your family?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you and I talked through that a lot and and randomly you asked me these just random questions, even when I don't put progress support but where am I at spiritually? How am I leading them? And then even I think it's important that you come and you visit and you get to see am I putting my money where my mouth is? Is what I'm saying week in and week out the truth right, I was just there.
Speaker 1:just a couple of months ago. I was just there. I got to visit again, so we had fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know I mean I hate to say this, but I'm going to say it. Sometimes I struggle with church. I'm a business owner. A church, I'm a business owner. I see the like I, I see the way they run some things and, quite honestly, without accountability, I don't know if I'd be stepping my foot. I'm a Christian, I'm going to study the word, I'm going to pray and all that.
Speaker 2:But you and I have walked through that a lot in the frustration. I think there's a lot of people feel that way and you and you keep hammering it like I need to be there. I need to be there for the community and it's really forced me into a place of looking at it and even some of us my own fault, expectations create frustrations like you want them to do these things and it's like, well, if I owned it, this is how I would run it. Well, that's yeah, that's all good, but it has planted us there, even going through a difficult situation. You remember us five years ago in the church and continuing to go, even in a difficult situation, because my family needed it.
Speaker 2:I always say at our men's breakfast, where we lead our families, follow our men's breakfast, where we lead, our families follow and I may be without accountability. I could have easily got laxed within that and praying as a family and many times, even in the business, you and I are talking through a decision and you're like, well, I think you and Crystal haven't baked this in enough prayer. You guys need to get down on your hands and knees and really pray about the situation and not even said well, I feel like you should do this, like you need to take this to the Lord rather than just ask me and it's easy to not do that and it's easy to just go for it or it's easy to make the decision. But having that as a reminder consistently helps me to focus on those things in my life.
Speaker 1:Brett, you know, hearing how you started this journey and what led you to commit to mentorship has really been powerful.
Speaker 1:Today, you've shown us that the decision to bring someone alongside you wasn't just about solving a business problem.
Speaker 1:It was about building a foundation for growth that has touched every area of your life. But that's only half the story. Next week, I want us to dig deeper into the ripple effects of long-term coaching and how it has impacted your life and Crystal's life and the kids' lives, and how you've navigated the toughest seasons of leadership. And while you're still committed to showing up every single Tuesday for the past 12 years and ongoing and I don't want you guys to miss that episode I don't think that there's any way that you could understand the depth and the magnitude that Brett has gone through for these 12 years to get where he's at today, and how you, too, can also apply these same principles to your business and your family. So I want you to join us next week for part two of this conversation, where we'll uncover how mentorship shapes, and not just the man that you are today, but how it's gonna affect the legacy that you're gonna live tomorrow. So thank you for being with us at the ISI Brotherhood Podcast. I'll see you next week.