EXPERIENCE 212 | Jack & Ginger Graham - Owners of Ginger and Baker, Veteran CEO’s Building Northern Colorado Community - Together

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Ginger Graham returns to the Loco Experience Studio this week, and this time brings her hunky husband, Jack.

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Jack Graham came to Fort Collins to play quarterback for CSU and was drafted into the NFL for the Miami Dolphins.

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In his post football career, Jack quickly became an innovative disruptor in the reinsurance industry, and he founded International Catastrophic Insurance Managers, distributing risk from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

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And he was recognized as the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003.

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He returned to Fort Collins and led the charge to build a new football stadium, and he went on to the role of Athletic Director at CSU.

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Ginger Graham is a country gal from Arkansas, who earned a Harvard MBA and went on to become CEO of several companies, including a Fortune 500 and a NASDAQ 100 firm.

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And she makes the best pies west of the Mississippi.

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And she's on my short list of favorite people.

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Since Ginger has shared previously, we've focused in on Jack's journey in this one, including his journey in football and reinsurance, and the challenges around the stadium project and tour of duty with CSU Athletics.

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The Grams share the short story of their romance and their why in building Ginger and Baker, and Ginger settles my fears about Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs, which I didn't recall she had been involved in developing.

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And we talk about all the great things going on in Northern Colorado now, and the even better times ahead.

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Let's have some fun.

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Welcome to the Low Cove Experience podcast.

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On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond.

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Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained.

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These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits.

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So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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I'm here today with Jack and Ginger Graham, and Jack is a former athletic director for CSU.

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He is a business executive with a great history, as well as a former star quarterback at CSU.

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And Ginger is one of my favorite people, as well as the owner operator of Loco Experience.

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The Ginger and Baker multiplex here in Fort Collins.

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So, uh, I guess first, uh, Ginger, thanks for coming back around and thanks for, for bringing Jack.

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Absolutely.

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I like hanging out with him.

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Did you get voluntold for this?

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You know, I'm an easy target.

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I was happy to come and I'm glad to be here.

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That's awesome.

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Thanks.

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Good to be with you.

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Um, Mr.

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Ginger Graham was the alternative suggestion I heard there, so.

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No, just Mr.

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Jack, you know.

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Sorry, Mr.

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Ginger, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Can we start with, uh, let's talk about the romance.

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Like, when did you guys first meet and how long before the first date?

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We met on our first date.

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Oh, you did?

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Yeah, blind date.

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You were set up?

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Oh, blind date.

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Yeah, blind date.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I had a business partner that Ginger went to business school with.

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Okay.

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And, um.

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He was sick and tired of me being miserable, and he said, I've met a woman who's just as miserable as you are, and I think you ought to meet her.

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And, um, he described her to me, and I said, you know, sure, you know, but I figured it would never go any further than that, but he gave me her phone number, and so I called him, and I mean, you should tell the story, you always tell it better than I do.

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Well, he called, I was Perturbed because these two friends from business school, uh, Wendy and Tom gave Jack my phone number without my permission, which was not okay with me.

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But back then there was an answering machine and the one message was from Wendy.

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Hi, I've met him.

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His name is Jack Graham because I had been with a group of girlfriends and they were harassing me about not dating and I said, Well, every man I know either works for me or is one of my customers.

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And so I can't date and they decided they were going to fix it for me.

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And so then she called and said, I have found him.

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His name is Jack Graham.

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And the next message on my answer machine was his voice.

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And I thought, Oh, sounds pretty interesting.

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So that's yeah.

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We started trading voicemails, trying to connect, eventually did, we had a blind date, and we've never really been apart since then.

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Is that right?

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No other dates?

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No.

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You, you just, you discontinued your Match.

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com accounts from there?

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You're, you're giving us credit for dating at a younger time, Kurt.

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Well how, Ginger, you had been never married before?

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Never married.

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Is that true?

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How old were you?

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I was 40.

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Wow.

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Um.

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I was too busy.

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Right.

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And it's really hard.

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Well you were doing a lot of stuff.

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We talked about a lot of that stuff.

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It's really hard to find a great guy.

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Yeah.

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And so I waited until I did.

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That's uh, I've shared that.

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Notion before is like for Middling guys like myself.

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It's kind of awesome that there's so few awesome guys out there Because we could still get pretty awesome women, but it kind of sucks for humanity that we don't have more awesome guys Yes, well, I really Was working a lot, traveling all over the world, you know, really didn't date, have interaction with other people and was really focused on my career.

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And it is really more challenging, I think, to find a man who is okay with you being gone all the time.

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Uh, moments notice, working 20 hours a day.

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Yes.

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And I, I don't know that humans have changed very much.

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And you know, to me, the only way to be really successful in your career is to have a partner who both understands it, but actively supports it.

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Not just doesn't guilt you or punish you for working hard, but actually actively supports.

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And so Jack and I have always had that, which is really helpful.

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Can you circle me a little bit?

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Jack, what was your, like, situation in your career at that time and, like, where were you living and stuff?

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Well, we were both living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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I was in, uh, Palo Alto and Ginger was in Los Altos Hills.

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Um, we were both working 20 hour days and traveling 225 days a year and, um, internationally and so we were, we were consumed by the work that we were doing.

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Um, and I had just Kind of finished raising my children, I'd gone through a really hard divorce and I'd thrown, I'd sort of sworn the other species off and said, I really don't need this headache.

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And so I wasn't terribly excited about dating and reestablishing a relationship with someone.

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Um, but you know, just, you know, I was really attracted to the description that my friend Tom gave to me about ginger and what she did.

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And I said, I can try something, I can try anything once.

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And so, and so we, um.

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We hooked up and I'll never forget, um, I went to her house to pick her up, which I think she was a little nervous.

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I was very nervous.

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Right.

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Now he's going to know where I live.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I just say, you got to be a gentleman and that's what gentlemen do.

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So I went and picked her up and she ran across the kitchen window and I saw her and I thought, Oh, She's really short and then, and oh, she's got red hair.

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You know, this is going to be fun.

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And it was, we, we just, you know, you know, we connected with each other, um, really, really quickly.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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We were both going through a hard time then too, not just related to divorce, but both of our mothers, my mother had just passed and, uh, no, my mother hadn't just passed.

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She was really sick.

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Wow.

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And her mother had just been diagnosed with, um, a recurrence of cancer, and we both knew it was really serious.

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Yeah.

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So we, we had a lot of fun.

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We also had, you know, a real honest conversation with each other.

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Yeah.

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So it was a, it was a meaningful first date.

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Well, that season of, uh, you know, caring for your elderly parents is such a interesting testing, and so many of my friends are going through it right now.

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You guys have probably experienced most of that, and, you know, Yeah, we've both lost both our parents, so we've been through that.

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And it is a, it's a big transition and I, uh, you know, even have a good friend this week whose father is in hospice and has taken a turn for the worse.

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And so it is a big transition in life when your parents begin to decline.

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Well, and marching through something hard together is a really bonding experience as well.

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It is, for sure.

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And you were both marching through hard things that most people don't understand.

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Anyway, um, Jack, what were you, what industry, what kind of business were you in?

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I'd been in the reinsurance marketplace for, I 30 years at that point.

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So that's some of the, like, uh, Warren Buffett kind of stuff, right?

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Like he's got a lot of investments in that space.

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I actually negotiated a handful of transactions with Buffett through my career.

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Okay.

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Um, but it was, you know, reinsurance is just an arbitrage.

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It's a way of spreading risk around the world.

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Insurance companies can only afford to take so much risk, and they lay the rest of it off into the reinsurance market.

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Yeah.

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And I facilitated those transactions, and it was a great industry.

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It was unre, it was unregulated.

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It's regulated more now than it was then.

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Okay.

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And the room for creativity was just unlimited.

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Oh, fascinating.

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And it was, it was a small industry.

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There were probably 200 reinsurance companies in the world.

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But in reality, the industry was controlled by about 15 or 20 human beings.

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Wow.

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And, uh, and, and we regulated ourselves in terms of integrity.

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And boy, you didn't get one strike.

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Huh, interesting.

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You just, you had to play by the rules and I'm going to want to dig more into that for sure.

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That's a great business idea.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I'd never heard of it.

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He was a treaty reinsurance intermediary and it's like, what?

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But it's, it's so logical if you think about an insurance company in California, insuring homes.

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There's a likelihood of, uh, earthquake.

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And so if you're an insurance company and you insure every home, and an earthquake happens, you're not going to be able to pay your claims.

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You're going down.

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Sure.

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You don't even want more market share.

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No, that's right.

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And so this way, insurance companies can keep part of that, but sell off the rest of that risk.

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So in the end, Jack created markets so that when something really bad happens, the whole world pitches in.

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Otherwise no one could recover.

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Right.

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Well, and like thinking about the California fires of late, like that signal that insurance companies started pulling out basically probably meant that they weren't able to sell the reinsurance part of it.

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Right.

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The market dried up for the reinsurance element of that.

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It really hadn't dried up.

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It was just getting ridiculously expensive.

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Right.

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And so the cost of homeowner's policies, um, you know, on the one hand, insurance policies like homeowner's policies are heavily regulated by insurance commissioners.

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The reinsurance market's not regulated and so they charge the price of freight that they think it needs to be.

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And so there was a mismatch.

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If that goes upside down.

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Yeah.

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That's like the yield curve inverting.

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Exactly.

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It was a, it It's a, it's a massive mismatch, I guess is the most way, best way, way to put it.

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And, you know, we're having that same experience in the state of Colorado right now over, over Hale.

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Um, Hale's become a, a meaningful catastrophic event.

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Roofing companies stay in business is hoping for hailstorms in some cases.

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Well, there's lots of roofing companies out there There's way too many maybe they take massive advantage of people, right?

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You know that needs to be cleaned up.

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Yeah interesting.

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So you're I guess probably a innovator as well as a integrity focused kind of a guy in the insurance and reinsurance space?

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Is that a fair?

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Well, there was so much.

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There was so much room for creativity and I thrived in it because of that.

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I'm getting outside the box and thinking of ways to solve problems that maybe other people hadn't thought of was a lot of fun for me.

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Um, coupled to the idea that you just had to, you had to trust the people on the other side of the transaction.

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Because we didn't document things the way we document things today.

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Um, it was a handshake kind of a thing, and you just never let your word, uh, be anything less than that.

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What a fascinating thing.

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That was fun.

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I'm gonna wanna, I'm gonna wanna zoom back in the time capsule of that.

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You're, you're fully retired now, what, what, did, was the athletic director, or maybe you're not.

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I don't know, you probably have a bunch of little fingers and things or what are you up to?

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I, I don't feel like I'm working.

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Um, I run, we've got a, we've got a horse farm, a 200 acre horse farm and we grow grass, hay and we put it up ourselves.

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And, um, we tend to cattle in the wintertime and, um, and the horses year round.

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And so there's that work to be done.

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I sit on a couple of boards that takes some time as well.

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Um, and you know, we've always got.

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Yeah.

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Plus, he helps at Ginger and Baker in a hundred ways.

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Necessary help there.

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Yeah, there's so much to be done.

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But he's involved with the Common Sense Institute, which I think is a really fascinating, uh, group based out of Denver.

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But it's Really, a group of people who invest in independent research, trying to understand the implications of proposed legislation and what it means to the economy and the people of Colorado.

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And so legislators often come up with ideas, things, but they don't know what it's going to mean.

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And I had that experience in California, mine was called the California Council on Science and Technology.

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And I was on that board and it did the same thing, but for the science and technology world, advising legislators.

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If you pass this legislation, here's the potential consequences to the innovative environment, uh, the research environment, which is big in California, all the, uh, startup companies in California.

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And so he's doing that for Colorado, which I think takes more of his time than he gives it credit for.

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Well, I think importantly, it's nonpartisan, so we don't have an agenda.

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We don't advocate.

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Rather, we, we are just committed to providing objective reports to legislators, to the media, and to the public.

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Wow.

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So that people can make informed if you raise the minimum wage to this, this is, yeah, there's the consequences or whatever those things are.

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So many unintended.

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No, that was frankly, we're going to, by the way, while I'm thinking about it, the first time I heard your name, Jack was from your daughter, uh, who worked for the sign, not the sign, but the.

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The Stan's Company thing?

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Yes.

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What's her name?

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Kaylee.

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Kaylee.

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And she came to a training kind of thing that Loco Think Tank had years ago and when she heard about what our business model was, she was like, my dad would love this.

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He would think this is so cool.

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And so I have to say that before I ever.

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I heard about Ginger and Baker, I heard about Jack Graham and how much he would think local think tank was cool.

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So it is cool.

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You guys are doing a great job.

00:14:32.563 --> 00:14:35.994
I come with a, uh, with a preformed disposition already.

00:14:36.634 --> 00:14:50.833
Um, so what I wanted to, um, ask also about before we departed, but so first common sense Institute, like let's talk about unintended consequences, like, and where it is for Colorado specific.

00:14:51.663 --> 00:14:53.764
So what's on the, what's on the board?

00:14:54.499 --> 00:14:57.259
And I'm going to maybe focus on Jack a little bit, Ginger, if you don't mind.

00:14:57.469 --> 00:14:57.698
Sure.

00:14:57.899 --> 00:14:58.658
I'll come back to you.

00:14:58.658 --> 00:15:02.158
But what's on the board in Colorado in the months ahead?

00:15:02.178 --> 00:15:11.568
And like, what's the circumstance in terms of, like to me, Trump and Doge or whatever cutting a lot of stuff.

00:15:11.568 --> 00:15:15.528
And as a largely libertarian kind of guy, I'm like, yay, go.

00:15:15.548 --> 00:15:23.139
But there's a ton of like research dollars and nonprofit funding grants and different things like that that are.

00:15:24.009 --> 00:15:29.889
On the chopping block at best or maybe gone and like what's gonna happen to Colorado's?

00:15:30.869 --> 00:15:34.639
Like what are the unintended consequences of all these big things that have been happening?

00:15:34.649 --> 00:16:04.474
Maybe the last Six weeks or so or yeah, and all of three weeks and all of that's happening at the federal level not the state level And we tend to focus on state legislation, but doesn't oh, okay, just legislative not the right funding another I think it's equally relevant that the at the federal level and met and much of it is is common sense and Logical in terms of the implications of the decisions that are being made I think we all love the idea of reducing the size of government.

00:16:04.803 --> 00:16:05.043
Sure.

00:16:05.043 --> 00:16:11.734
I mean, we're all kind of horrified at over 30 trillion dollars of debt, and the debt service that we've got, and all of the other costs.

00:16:12.394 --> 00:16:16.624
So, reducing the government is great, in my opinion.

00:16:17.828 --> 00:16:33.259
Reducing regulations so that we can bring back more creativity and more growth, you know, in the state, in the state of Colorado, I can be specific about the housing shortage that exists in the state of Colorado and all of the restrictions that legal restrictions as well as regulatory restrictions.

00:16:33.734 --> 00:16:46.533
Um, you think about the, the issues associated with construction defects in the construction industry, and that's why condominiums and starter homes aren't being built at this point because of the liability that contractors have.

00:16:46.543 --> 00:16:52.793
I mean, there, there's an old saying that in a construction project, particularly around condominiums, there's kind of three or four or five phases.

00:16:52.793 --> 00:16:59.173
There's the concept phase, the design phase, the finance phase, the construction phase, and then the litigation lawsuit phase.

00:17:00.283 --> 00:17:08.473
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's so predictable that it's going to well in Metro's districts are a big problem around Colorado for the same reason right now, right?

00:17:08.614 --> 00:17:10.443
Like they're, some of them got themselves in a hole.

00:17:11.878 --> 00:17:12.229
Yeah.

00:17:12.298 --> 00:17:13.009
So, keep going.

00:17:13.009 --> 00:17:26.568
But, but understanding those, understanding the regulations and the laws that are adopted by the state and how they impact an industry like the construction industry and that the, you know, the, the thought by the legislatures is, is well intended.

00:17:26.568 --> 00:17:26.969
Sure.

00:17:26.999 --> 00:17:28.898
Let's protect consumers, et cetera.

00:17:28.898 --> 00:17:29.419
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:29.614 --> 00:17:32.334
But the real implications are, are far different.

00:17:32.604 --> 00:17:32.864
Yeah.

00:17:32.884 --> 00:17:34.423
People can't afford to buy homes now.

00:17:34.604 --> 00:17:34.894
Yeah.

00:17:34.894 --> 00:17:38.334
And it takes years and years and years for projects to come to life.

00:17:38.753 --> 00:17:42.433
Um, so, those sorts of things, again, we don't advocate.

00:17:42.463 --> 00:17:45.903
We put the information out there and say, here's what's going to happen if we do this.

00:17:45.933 --> 00:17:46.364
Yeah.

00:17:46.443 --> 00:17:50.413
And some legislators listen, and some just choose to just keep marching on.

00:17:50.413 --> 00:17:53.144
So it's a little bit like the, the state function of, what's that?

00:17:53.824 --> 00:17:56.153
Like the, they do the budget kind of, this is what's happening.

00:17:56.223 --> 00:17:57.144
The Office of Management and Budget.

00:17:57.153 --> 00:17:57.473
Yes.

00:17:57.493 --> 00:17:57.834
Yes.

00:17:57.834 --> 00:18:06.534
It's very similar, but they pick topics, and actually Jack has brought them up to speak in Fort Collins because they've done specific geography studies as well.

00:18:06.534 --> 00:18:17.473
They looked at Fort Collins in particular, I think on crime, the Fort Collins study to show, and Fort Collins is doing a great job at addressing crime and, you know, at Ginger and Baker.

00:18:17.713 --> 00:18:34.013
I experience almost every day the support from the local police, from the social services, from Outreach Fort Collins, and Fort Collins is a safe community because of smart people doing the right thing and making good choices, but not every city in Colorado has that benefit.

00:18:34.364 --> 00:18:43.233
And so they did a study on crime, they've done a study on homelessness, they've done a study on housing, they've done a study on transportation, and they're available to the public.

00:18:43.233 --> 00:18:45.114
So if people are interested in.

00:18:45.644 --> 00:18:50.084
Actually being informed about some of these topics and seeing data.

00:18:50.114 --> 00:18:51.814
I like to get my information from Facebook.

00:18:51.963 --> 00:18:52.513
Thank you very much.

00:18:53.023 --> 00:18:54.430
Well, good for you.

00:18:54.430 --> 00:18:55.126
I'm teasing.

00:18:55.126 --> 00:19:05.723
We just, uh, we just released a report in the last week on the correlation between the legalization of marijuana in the state of Colorado, but across the country as well in other states.

00:19:05.733 --> 00:19:05.763
Okay.

00:19:05.763 --> 00:19:12.191
The correlation with, with Oregon and other states that have adopted similar statutes around marijuana as Colorado has.

00:19:12.191 --> 00:19:14.034
And what's it like, what's it boiled down to?

00:19:14.413 --> 00:19:19.084
It boils down to that the addiction rate, the suicide rate, is, is through the roof in states.

00:19:19.094 --> 00:19:19.614
Oh, really?

00:19:19.933 --> 00:19:20.084
Interesting.

00:19:20.084 --> 00:19:22.763
In states that have adopted the legalization of Oh, wow.

00:19:22.794 --> 00:19:25.834
Addiction rates, suicide rates, mental health issues, etc.

00:19:25.864 --> 00:19:29.183
Addiction rate to marijuana or addiction rate to other things?

00:19:29.203 --> 00:19:34.273
Like a pathway, like that Well That theory that was going back to the day is more true than we thought?

00:19:34.304 --> 00:19:37.673
You I brought that up as we were working on this project.

00:19:38.124 --> 00:19:41.814
So this concept that marijuana is a pathway drug to other harder drugs.

00:19:41.814 --> 00:19:42.144
Yeah.

00:19:42.463 --> 00:19:43.733
Um, we knew that.

00:19:43.939 --> 00:19:50.088
When I was 15 years old, I mean, they said it long time and the marijuana people at least said, nah, not really.

00:19:50.088 --> 00:19:51.828
I'm not interested in coke or whatever.

00:19:51.828 --> 00:19:52.148
Right.

00:19:52.159 --> 00:19:53.088
From my perspective.

00:19:53.088 --> 00:19:54.259
And it's not true for everybody.

00:19:54.618 --> 00:19:59.068
Not everybody's addictive in their personality, but for those who are inclined.

00:19:59.509 --> 00:20:04.628
There's no way to avoid it in America today because the enticements are so powerful.

00:20:05.278 --> 00:20:05.929
So anyway.

00:20:05.929 --> 00:20:11.278
So you think that was a bad move generally as a common sense board member kind of guy?

00:20:11.318 --> 00:20:19.108
Well, you know, as a private citizen, not as a board member because we don't advocate, but as a private citizen, I think, and I was an athletic director at Colorado State.

00:20:19.118 --> 00:20:19.638
Sure.

00:20:19.709 --> 00:20:19.949
Yeah.

00:20:19.949 --> 00:20:22.189
And so I saw the consequences of marijuana.

00:20:22.683 --> 00:20:27.884
Um, and, and particularly in young people, people who are sort of below 22 years of age.

00:20:27.963 --> 00:20:28.753
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:28.753 --> 00:20:30.794
I think it's a, I think it's a devastating drug.

00:20:30.884 --> 00:20:31.213
Okay.

00:20:31.284 --> 00:20:32.003
Um, yeah.

00:20:32.003 --> 00:20:34.054
Their, their emotional development.

00:20:34.403 --> 00:20:34.713
Yeah.

00:20:34.733 --> 00:20:36.213
It's just, there's so many consequences.

00:20:36.213 --> 00:20:37.534
So, I'm not a big fan of marijuana.

00:20:37.554 --> 00:20:37.874
Okay.

00:20:38.003 --> 00:20:40.969
And that's, by the way, I'm a guy who smoked a lot of pot when I was in college.

00:20:40.969 --> 00:20:41.163
Right.

00:20:41.163 --> 00:20:43.134
I'm not a, I'm not a choir boy by any stretch of the imagination.

00:20:43.134 --> 00:20:43.584
Right, right.

00:20:43.584 --> 00:20:52.338
I Um, you know, there's a takeover I'd like to have, but, um, I would like to see different thought process around that going forward.

00:20:52.788 --> 00:20:57.358
But another correlation to that is we also did a study on automobile theft in the state of Colorado.

00:20:57.368 --> 00:20:57.848
Yeah.

00:20:58.078 --> 00:20:58.429
I've heard that.

00:20:58.814 --> 00:20:59.933
been going up a ton, right?

00:21:00.124 --> 00:21:06.594
Well, it's getting better now because the decriminalization of automobile theft happened about four or five years ago.

00:21:06.733 --> 00:21:07.074
Okay.

00:21:07.104 --> 00:21:10.413
That we're putting too many people in jail and we, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:21:10.413 --> 00:21:13.993
So we decriminalized auto theft and auto theft rapes.

00:21:14.288 --> 00:21:20.499
Absolutely skyrocketed to the point that we became, we were the leading state in the nation around automobile theft.

00:21:20.798 --> 00:21:22.739
It was because of the decriminalization.

00:21:22.808 --> 00:21:30.528
Well, the, in the, in the, the legislature last year adopted new statutes around automobile theft.

00:21:30.929 --> 00:21:32.919
Now there are consequences again, and guess what?

00:21:33.469 --> 00:21:34.398
The crime rate's going down.

00:21:34.608 --> 00:21:34.868
Huh.

00:21:34.909 --> 00:21:35.868
And it's going down rapidly.

00:21:35.868 --> 00:21:38.679
Probably like shoplifting in California, right?

00:21:38.729 --> 00:21:39.628
No consequences.

00:21:39.669 --> 00:21:46.499
Yeah, it was, but now it's kind of back to it's actually a crime if you get normal amounts of stuff, you know.

00:21:46.848 --> 00:21:57.229
You know, I just, you know, from my perspective, society In today's world in America is becoming less inclined to apply consequences to bad behavior.

00:21:57.969 --> 00:21:59.878
And I think that's a terrible decision.

00:21:59.878 --> 00:22:03.078
I look at the way, I look at the way people are parenting their children today.

00:22:03.419 --> 00:22:05.898
I look at the way people are raising their dogs today.

00:22:06.388 --> 00:22:10.489
And their dogs, their dogs are out of control and their children are out of control.

00:22:10.989 --> 00:22:13.019
And I think it's because you're not enforcing consequences.

00:22:14.078 --> 00:22:15.298
You're going to behave badly.

00:22:15.588 --> 00:22:17.459
There's, you got to change the behavior.

00:22:17.509 --> 00:22:19.929
I have that conversation with my wife about our cat.

00:22:21.259 --> 00:22:26.769
It's like, she's like, well, cats are harder than dogs or children.

00:22:27.269 --> 00:22:31.298
Um, but yes, it's like, if there's no real consequences to bad behavior.

00:22:32.663 --> 00:22:33.334
It's easy to continue.

00:22:33.933 --> 00:22:39.253
Well, it's also, I think, the idea that boundaries are reinforcing.

00:22:39.263 --> 00:22:39.413
Yeah.

00:22:39.763 --> 00:22:44.233
And boundaries create opportunity for growth and change.

00:22:44.233 --> 00:22:47.354
And boundaries provide security and safety.

00:22:47.364 --> 00:22:47.384
Yeah.

00:22:47.394 --> 00:22:49.703
Boundaries play a positive role.

00:22:49.703 --> 00:22:51.804
Not just a punishment role.

00:22:52.084 --> 00:22:55.503
And like I think about my dad, my dad was a tough guy.

00:22:55.844 --> 00:22:59.523
And you know, back then he, he threatened to use a belt.

00:22:59.534 --> 00:23:02.013
He never hit me, but I lived in fear of that thing.

00:23:02.243 --> 00:23:04.423
He was a stern individual.

00:23:04.624 --> 00:23:06.314
It was very clear.

00:23:06.334 --> 00:23:09.913
The world was black and white and you did not cross the line.

00:23:10.173 --> 00:23:11.094
I never.

00:23:11.269 --> 00:23:12.989
ever wanted to disappoint my dad.

00:23:13.338 --> 00:23:15.949
And kids loved him.

00:23:16.128 --> 00:23:17.538
Kids flocked to him.

00:23:17.538 --> 00:23:19.548
He ran a Bible camp.

00:23:19.548 --> 00:23:21.278
He was the coach on the softball team.

00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:23.108
You know, kids loved him.

00:23:23.108 --> 00:23:24.818
They always knew where they stood.

00:23:25.098 --> 00:23:26.909
He always had a big laugh.

00:23:26.909 --> 00:23:30.969
He loved kids, but there was no hanky panky.

00:23:31.199 --> 00:23:36.683
And I believe that Clarity is safety for children.

00:23:37.023 --> 00:23:46.584
And we should provide that, I think, boundaries for ourselves, for our peers, for our community, for our children, for our animals.

00:23:46.594 --> 00:23:48.773
Like, we don't let our horses run over us.

00:23:49.223 --> 00:23:49.423
Right.

00:23:49.614 --> 00:23:51.673
They're not bad people, right?

00:23:51.673 --> 00:23:53.503
They just have to have boundaries.

00:23:53.503 --> 00:23:54.304
And I think Yeah.

00:23:54.729 --> 00:24:17.118
All of us would do better socially and respectfully as community members if we observe boundaries with each other that include manners and civility and grace and some things like that that seem to be less Yeah, that's a fair observation.

00:24:17.169 --> 00:24:22.358
I think so many people today think that you can't love a child and enforce consequences.

00:24:22.368 --> 00:24:23.009
Right.

00:24:23.239 --> 00:24:25.808
And it's the opposite is true, as Ginger was saying.

00:24:25.808 --> 00:24:27.409
There's so much security for children.

00:24:27.834 --> 00:24:32.923
In knowing, if I cross this line, oh boy, this is not going to go well for me.

00:24:32.923 --> 00:24:35.814
And so there I feel much, much more secure in that environment.

00:24:36.344 --> 00:24:43.534
It's just a, it's that tough love concept and it's, uh, I don't know, I think it should come back.

00:24:43.544 --> 00:24:43.733
Yeah.

00:24:43.733 --> 00:24:45.153
Just call us old fashioned now.

00:24:45.153 --> 00:24:45.644
Yeah.

00:24:45.733 --> 00:24:46.574
No, that's okay.

00:24:46.683 --> 00:24:47.993
I think that's old fashioned.

00:24:47.993 --> 00:24:48.834
It's usually pretty good.

00:24:48.874 --> 00:24:55.614
Believe me, I got my fair share of it as a kid, you know, Ginger, I want to jump over to you and talk about Ginger and Baker.

00:24:56.094 --> 00:24:59.044
Uh, because it's been basically two years since you and I were here.

00:24:59.054 --> 00:25:00.094
Yeah, at least.

00:25:00.144 --> 00:25:00.864
Maybe a little longer.

00:25:00.864 --> 00:25:02.104
Yeah, a little longer than that, maybe.

00:25:02.554 --> 00:25:04.193
Um, yeah, two and a half years.

00:25:04.604 --> 00:25:06.814
How, what's, what's going on with Ginger and Baker?

00:25:06.824 --> 00:25:14.324
Like, uh, It's always been on my regular stop, and the Rotary Club is flourishing.

00:25:14.364 --> 00:25:18.045
I don't know if you've been by visiting too much, but you should.

00:25:18.045 --> 00:25:18.894
Yeah, it's a great breakfast.

00:25:18.894 --> 00:25:20.034
It is a great breakfast.

00:25:20.384 --> 00:25:21.453
Well, it's so easy.

00:25:21.923 --> 00:25:26.634
Um, so I'm part of this, this is an interesting transition, but Jack, you should come too.

00:25:26.634 --> 00:25:32.384
But on the second Wednesday of the second month of every quarter is a thing called Guys Who Give.

00:25:33.314 --> 00:25:36.614
And everybody comes, and you can nominate a non profit.

00:25:37.013 --> 00:25:46.604
When you enter that could win 6, 000 or something, and three of the nominations have to stand up and speak for that nonprofit.

00:25:47.318 --> 00:25:53.028
And give a pitch, and then everybody votes, and everybody writes a check of at least a hundred dollars to the non profit.

00:25:53.538 --> 00:25:57.429
And we, we moved to Mas Fuegos, uh, on Harmony recently.

00:25:58.038 --> 00:26:04.159
From Ptarmigan, because Ptarmigan had a change in ownership, and they wanted to charge us for the room, and we're like, we don't do expenses kind of thing.

00:26:04.709 --> 00:26:09.388
And so Steve over at Mas Fuegos hosted it, and it's So much better.

00:26:09.469 --> 00:26:22.019
Like, it's just nicer than the room we were in in Ptarmigan, and it's been, like, I know that next quarter, there's gonna be way more people than there was this last quarter, because it's just a nicer place, and that's what our Rotary Club has experienced.

00:26:22.058 --> 00:26:22.719
Well, that's really nice.

00:26:22.848 --> 00:26:23.679
So that's a double thing.

00:26:23.739 --> 00:26:24.118
Yeah.

00:26:24.128 --> 00:26:25.058
You're invited, Jack.

00:26:25.538 --> 00:26:28.159
To the next guys who give that sounds like a great event.

00:26:28.219 --> 00:26:28.689
I'll text you.

00:26:28.689 --> 00:26:29.199
You'll love it.

00:26:29.648 --> 00:26:36.969
And ginger, um, thank you for making it so easy for a rotary club to thrive and grow because of your great venue.

00:26:37.199 --> 00:26:37.979
Well, that's nice.

00:26:37.979 --> 00:26:52.429
And it really is the point, uh, you know, from the beginning, you and I talked about this a long time ago, that the idea of ginger and Baker was a community gathering place that is why it exists, otherwise it's not something we would do naturally.

00:26:52.729 --> 00:26:54.368
But saving that old mill.

00:26:54.608 --> 00:27:17.449
And creating a place for people to meet new people, to learn new things, to meet community members, to support each other, to celebrate life's transitions, weddings, and baby showers, and birthday parties, and memorial services, and for business people to gather and, you know, for them to, Meet new people, recruit people to come to Fort Collins, start new businesses.

00:27:17.449 --> 00:27:24.019
We get to be witnesses to the community as it builds itself, uh, new to town.

00:27:24.249 --> 00:27:31.048
You know, most of our business in the big months are people from outside of Fort Collins because.

00:27:31.663 --> 00:27:40.544
When school comes back in session, all the freshmen come to town and their parents and when you move a freshman in, you bring their siblings and maybe a grandparent.

00:27:40.544 --> 00:27:43.344
It's a gathering or graduation weekend.

00:27:43.354 --> 00:27:45.544
It's a gathering or the holidays.

00:27:45.544 --> 00:27:46.314
It's a gathering.

00:27:46.314 --> 00:27:50.493
And so it's a place where we meet everyone who comes to town.

00:27:50.959 --> 00:27:57.388
And they get to meet part of Fort Collins and get to see what Fort Collins is about because it's a building of history.

00:27:57.739 --> 00:28:02.989
Uh, all of our food we try to buy and partner in Fort Collins are local.

00:28:02.989 --> 00:28:06.159
So our Wagyu beef is a young couple north of town.

00:28:06.159 --> 00:28:08.939
Our dairy is morning fresh dairy.

00:28:08.939 --> 00:28:12.709
Our eggs are the guy on Wisdom Eggs across I 25.

00:28:12.719 --> 00:28:15.618
Our mushrooms are from the guys down in Loveland.

00:28:15.618 --> 00:28:18.148
Like everything we try to do is local.

00:28:18.663 --> 00:28:26.604
And so if you look at all of our branded items, our house made goods, our menu, we are trying to say, we're part of Fort Collins.

00:28:26.834 --> 00:28:31.824
This came from us, it's part of us, and we're sharing it with people who come to us.

00:28:32.263 --> 00:28:37.003
And that's the part of Ginger and Baker that I love, is the community aspect of it.

00:28:37.413 --> 00:28:38.703
Rotary is a big part of that.

00:28:38.723 --> 00:28:40.334
You know, we're trying to get more.

00:28:40.334 --> 00:28:41.013
We're a small part of it, probably.

00:28:41.034 --> 00:28:43.824
Yes, well, you know, it's a lot of people.

00:28:43.824 --> 00:28:50.864
And everyone who's a Rotarian And so they can share that experience with someone else.

00:28:50.864 --> 00:28:52.544
They can bring a friend for dinner.

00:28:52.544 --> 00:28:54.693
They can book a teaching kitchen class.

00:28:54.693 --> 00:28:56.094
They can give a gift card.

00:28:56.394 --> 00:29:01.784
If they found joy and connection and community at Ginger and Baker, they can give it away.

00:29:01.814 --> 00:29:05.064
You know, Annie Griffiths, have you met Annie yet?

00:29:05.443 --> 00:29:10.398
You should have Annie do a cooking class at Ginger and Baker as a, as a, As a social.

00:29:10.469 --> 00:29:10.999
Yeah.

00:29:11.019 --> 00:29:14.788
Because, like, I think sometimes we overlook the opportunity there.

00:29:15.239 --> 00:29:18.939
But she does, like, almost regularly, like, little things.

00:29:18.939 --> 00:29:20.919
And how many people can you host for a cooking class?

00:29:21.259 --> 00:29:23.888
Uh, well, we have generally 16.

00:29:23.929 --> 00:29:25.858
That way everyone gets to participate.

00:29:25.858 --> 00:29:26.219
Okay.

00:29:26.259 --> 00:29:26.689
Yeah.

00:29:26.828 --> 00:29:27.269
Alright.

00:29:27.838 --> 00:29:29.138
I think that would be Yeah, it'd be a lot of fun.

00:29:29.138 --> 00:29:29.679
She would love that.

00:29:29.679 --> 00:29:30.019
Yeah.

00:29:30.489 --> 00:29:32.578
So, well, I've loved it.

00:29:32.689 --> 00:29:37.398
I think it's, and, it's the best spot in town for so many things.

00:29:37.439 --> 00:29:38.038
Well, that's nice.

00:29:38.108 --> 00:29:38.618
Um.

00:29:39.878 --> 00:29:41.288
And especially a Rotary Club.

00:29:41.338 --> 00:29:45.429
So, how, how, like, hmm, how do I say this?

00:29:47.259 --> 00:29:50.489
Does that big building, like, make any money yet?

00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:52.378
Like, is the business model sorted out?

00:29:52.388 --> 00:29:54.239
Is that too Not yet?

00:29:54.479 --> 00:29:56.608
It kind of feels bad to say so.

00:29:56.898 --> 00:29:58.808
Uh, we've never been closer.

00:29:58.818 --> 00:29:59.719
That's what I keep saying to Jack.

00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:00.189
You're closer.

00:30:00.269 --> 00:30:01.669
I've never been closer.

00:30:01.679 --> 00:30:02.219
Closer and closer.

00:30:02.239 --> 00:30:04.128
You know the You're like the Chicago Cubs.

00:30:05.578 --> 00:30:07.199
Well, but they did win the World Series.

00:30:07.219 --> 00:30:08.489
They did one day.

00:30:08.490 --> 00:30:08.709
Yes.

00:30:08.709 --> 00:30:08.979
Yes.

00:30:09.284 --> 00:30:13.634
It is such a challenging business, such a challenging business.

00:30:13.993 --> 00:30:23.023
I was just looking today, you know, January, we just went through all the results of January and our labor costs were up 14 percent from a year ago, January.

00:30:23.344 --> 00:30:26.574
Our food costs were up 11 percent from a year ago, January.

00:30:26.864 --> 00:30:32.423
And uh, our liquor license went up, uh, 17 and a half percent from a year ago.

00:30:32.423 --> 00:30:34.243
And I just paid that yesterday.

00:30:34.243 --> 00:30:37.973
And so I'm trying to figure out how to outrun.

00:30:38.653 --> 00:30:38.673
Yeah.

00:30:38.973 --> 00:30:39.864
What is happening.

00:30:40.364 --> 00:30:41.134
And then, you know.

00:30:41.134 --> 00:30:43.574
Well, insurance costs, local property tax costs.

00:30:43.574 --> 00:30:44.213
Everything is up.

00:30:44.223 --> 00:30:45.564
Workers comp is up.

00:30:46.028 --> 00:30:47.179
Family leave is up.

00:30:47.179 --> 00:30:48.396
Labor is up so much from a few years ago.

00:30:48.396 --> 00:30:57.249
Our property taxes went up 67 percent and that's after I appealed because the original assessment was a 127 percent increase.

00:30:57.608 --> 00:31:03.729
So I, uh, I know it's a great business.

00:31:04.199 --> 00:31:08.848
I believe the community cares and supports Ginger and Baker.

00:31:09.449 --> 00:31:13.219
Uh, but it is very challenging to run.

00:31:13.669 --> 00:31:24.249
A business that, uh, it's 136 employees, we're open six days a week, 7am to 9pm.

00:31:24.249 --> 00:31:28.128
It's a lot of people, uh, it's, you know, it's, what is it?

00:31:28.159 --> 00:31:31.538
I've forgotten even now, 26, 000 square feet.

00:31:31.558 --> 00:31:42.838
It's a bunch of different rooms, a lot of different experiences, and, you know, we are We are not in charge of anything that comes in our door.

00:31:43.118 --> 00:31:50.578
So, being a one site local small business, we have no negotiating power with food suppliers.

00:31:51.088 --> 00:31:55.958
Uh, you know, the city charges us for water and gas, and we don't, we don't control any of that.

00:31:55.958 --> 00:31:57.713
Property taxes as much as they want to.

00:31:57.874 --> 00:32:04.773
Uh, liquor licenses, food permits, you know, we are the receiver of all of these decisions.

00:32:04.804 --> 00:32:10.993
And so far, it has not generated an income statement that has a positive bottom line.

00:32:10.994 --> 00:32:14.953
I'm sorry to ask that question, by the way, I'm sure it's probably a little humbling.

00:32:15.213 --> 00:32:17.284
It's so frustrating, honestly, Kurt.

00:32:17.673 --> 00:32:23.784
What, like, where's the opportunity, like, is it event space maximization?

00:32:23.794 --> 00:32:26.173
Is the cash being busy more often?

00:32:26.183 --> 00:32:29.683
Is it the, like, where's the biggest opportunity?

00:32:29.713 --> 00:32:29.963
Yes.

00:32:29.963 --> 00:32:31.074
Well, all of the above.

00:32:31.074 --> 00:32:32.344
I mean, I think it is true.

00:32:32.344 --> 00:32:35.903
We have launched catering, so we are now offering catering.

00:32:36.169 --> 00:32:38.219
We're not doing full service catering yet.

00:32:38.219 --> 00:32:41.689
We're doing drop off catering, but that part of the business is growing.

00:32:41.699 --> 00:32:52.419
We have a, a gift basket line that is growing substantially as well with house branded products and yes, a lot of fun items, uh, we have.

00:32:52.578 --> 00:32:54.888
Grown the teaching kitchen substantially.

00:32:54.888 --> 00:32:56.778
We're doing five to eight classes a week.

00:32:56.778 --> 00:33:02.858
Now the cafe, uh, we opened more hours again after COVID, you know, we had limited hours.

00:33:02.858 --> 00:33:07.848
So we increased our hours that helps a little bit, uh, for us.

00:33:07.848 --> 00:33:11.499
I believe there's opportunity to increase awareness about the cash.

00:33:11.509 --> 00:33:15.608
You can't believe how many people still walk in the building and go, Oh, what's upstairs.

00:33:15.648 --> 00:33:16.078
Right?

00:33:16.088 --> 00:33:18.439
So we haven't gotten the word out yet.

00:33:19.048 --> 00:33:20.058
Honestly, unfortunately.

00:33:20.058 --> 00:33:20.098
Yeah.

00:33:20.273 --> 00:33:23.854
Not that I come very often, because I can afford it, but I'm not your demographic, really.

00:33:24.203 --> 00:33:27.183
Well, the Cache is, you know, I think I can afford it.

00:33:27.703 --> 00:33:28.834
I can afford it once a quarter.

00:33:29.203 --> 00:33:34.513
Yes, you know, and for a special occasion, who needs to eat out, you know, every night at a place like that.

00:33:34.513 --> 00:33:36.443
But I think it's amazing though.

00:33:36.463 --> 00:33:38.364
The Cache is there like three times.

00:33:38.413 --> 00:33:43.943
I'm so glad three out of my seven favorite dinner meals in Fort Collins.

00:33:43.983 --> 00:33:44.923
Well, that's nice.

00:33:45.564 --> 00:34:06.919
It's it is a place where you can get The best wine in town if you want or a local bottle of wine, you know, you can get a hundred percent Grown Wagyu here in Fort Collins, butchered locally, and we cut it up in the business so you can get exact special cuts.

00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:08.489
You know, you can have that experience.

00:34:08.489 --> 00:34:12.409
You can have one of the most expensive bourbons you've ever heard, had.

00:34:12.418 --> 00:34:15.248
You can have any, you know, an incredible.

00:34:15.509 --> 00:34:21.518
evening or you can come to the bar, have fun, order an appetizer, get a cocktail, you know, be there with friends.

00:34:21.518 --> 00:34:22.818
You can come for dessert.

00:34:23.059 --> 00:34:27.059
We have fabulous desserts, the seven layer chocolate cake up there.

00:34:27.068 --> 00:34:29.858
I would put up against anything on the planet.

00:34:30.119 --> 00:34:31.759
So you can come for fun.

00:34:31.768 --> 00:34:32.838
You can come casual.

00:34:32.838 --> 00:34:33.829
You can come early.

00:34:33.829 --> 00:34:35.978
You can be the last stop of your evening.

00:34:36.268 --> 00:34:41.009
But we just want it to be something the community has at its disposal and enjoys.

00:34:41.208 --> 00:34:52.778
And I think our biggest challenge with the cash is building the brand of Ginger and Baker, then try to translate that brand and say to people, and oh, by the way, the cash is also there.

00:34:53.259 --> 00:34:57.878
And so we're, we just hired a marketing firm the first time since we've been open.

00:34:58.349 --> 00:35:05.369
Uh, we're working with, uh, Connie at Mantu care locally, and she's helping us try to get the word out about the cash.

00:35:05.719 --> 00:35:07.918
And I think it's an important part of the business.

00:35:07.949 --> 00:35:08.148
Yeah.

00:35:08.215 --> 00:35:08.884
I agree.

00:35:09.184 --> 00:35:15.623
And really, you know, Jack has very strong views about the cache and it's, you know, it's a steakhouse.

00:35:15.653 --> 00:35:17.934
It's a really nice experience.

00:35:17.934 --> 00:35:27.483
It's nice furnishings, uh, professional servers, you know, the, our staff up there has been with us for a long time and so it's a different experience.

00:35:27.764 --> 00:35:35.719
Are the SunnyLubix people a little bit like, cause you're CSU all through with the athletic director thing and stuff.

00:35:35.719 --> 00:35:38.509
Is it a little bit bumping heads about who's like cooler?

00:35:38.869 --> 00:35:39.858
I would say not at all.

00:35:39.889 --> 00:35:39.978
Yeah.

00:35:39.978 --> 00:35:44.659
You're obviously cooler at the cash Well, you know, I'm just saying I love Lu.

00:35:44.958 --> 00:35:45.318
Yeah.

00:35:45.349 --> 00:35:46.789
You know, I love Sonny.

00:35:46.793 --> 00:35:48.708
It's, it's a, he's got a great spot.

00:35:48.798 --> 00:35:49.128
Yeah.

00:35:49.219 --> 00:35:51.469
Um, they're on a, they're in a part of town.

00:35:51.469 --> 00:35:51.648
We'd love to be.

00:35:52.668 --> 00:35:53.449
It's a lot easier.

00:35:53.539 --> 00:35:54.423
we'd love to be at the corner.

00:35:54.423 --> 00:35:54.425
Yeah.

00:35:54.768 --> 00:35:56.778
We'd love to be at the corner of Mountain in college.

00:35:56.809 --> 00:35:57.079
Yeah.

00:35:57.449 --> 00:35:59.869
Yeah, it would make the business easier for sure.

00:35:59.909 --> 00:36:02.398
Yeah, the logistics of getting across Jefferson Street.

00:36:02.429 --> 00:36:02.829
Yeah.

00:36:02.938 --> 00:36:03.608
It's a big deal.

00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:04.128
It really is.

00:36:04.179 --> 00:36:05.239
We talk about it a lot.

00:36:05.719 --> 00:36:12.914
But honestly, Kurt, I don't think dining spaces in downtown Fort Collins really compete.

00:36:12.954 --> 00:36:15.074
You know, I think they're all unique experiences.

00:36:15.083 --> 00:36:19.134
So Jack's is different than rare is different than Japan.

00:36:19.134 --> 00:36:22.003
Go is different than Sonny's is different than the cash.

00:36:22.273 --> 00:36:24.333
And I'm glad we have those choices.

00:36:24.333 --> 00:36:27.353
Jack and I, you know, frequent all of those places.

00:36:27.353 --> 00:36:29.528
We don't Only eat at the cache.

00:36:29.969 --> 00:36:31.599
So you don't have a tab at the cache.

00:36:31.708 --> 00:36:33.489
Well, you do, but we do hang out.

00:36:34.989 --> 00:36:36.759
It's because I don't cook anymore.

00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:38.289
I'm there all the time.

00:36:38.289 --> 00:36:40.289
And so he has to come over there if he wants to eat.

00:36:42.688 --> 00:36:47.449
Um, well, I feel like what would be fun is to kind of explore your journey a little more.

00:36:47.449 --> 00:36:52.599
You know, we went back to Arkansas with Ginger Jack, uh, in my first conversation with her.

00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:54.539
So we don't need to revisit that too much.

00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:55.478
It's episode.

00:36:55.699 --> 00:36:56.869
73?

00:36:57.028 --> 00:36:57.818
76?

00:36:57.838 --> 00:36:58.298
Do you remember?

00:36:58.579 --> 00:36:58.818
I don't.

00:36:58.878 --> 00:37:00.498
Anyway, listeners can find it.

00:37:00.858 --> 00:37:09.949
Um, but I'd love to just hear a little bit about your journey and stuff, but before we do that, I'm gonna call a break, and I'm gonna use a potty break, and uh, we'll start back up.

00:37:10.018 --> 00:37:10.349
Okay.

00:37:10.909 --> 00:37:15.179
Hi, this is Clint Jasperson, Managing Partner at Purpose Driven Wealth.

00:37:15.938 --> 00:37:20.188
We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose.

00:37:20.778 --> 00:37:34.059
Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning, and legacy using a values driven, stewardship based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment.

00:37:34.748 --> 00:37:42.938
With more than a century of expertise through Thrivent, we offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families Achieve their goals and embrace generosity.

00:37:43.588 --> 00:37:52.878
Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we're here to partner with you every step of the way to learn more about purpose driven wealth.

00:37:53.199 --> 00:37:58.909
Call 9 7 0 3 3 0 7 4 1 1.

00:37:59.849 --> 00:38:03.750
We're back and, uh, how was that bathroom break for you, Jack?

00:38:04.190 --> 00:38:04.760
Important.

00:38:06.219 --> 00:38:07.179
Necessary.

00:38:08.869 --> 00:38:13.670
Um, we're, we're going to go ahead and just like jump back in the time machine for now.

00:38:14.110 --> 00:38:20.039
And when we come back to present day, we're going to talk a little bit more about like kind of business principles and practices and stuff.

00:38:20.039 --> 00:38:21.809
Cause I think having a couple of.

00:38:23.070 --> 00:38:24.670
Experts, uh, here.

00:38:24.730 --> 00:38:28.380
I shouldn't miss that, but first we're going to learn about little Jack.

00:38:28.730 --> 00:38:38.519
So, uh, seventh grade or seven years old, little Jack or Four or five years old.

00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:39.630
Were you born in Colorado?

00:38:39.639 --> 00:38:40.440
Are you from here?

00:38:40.489 --> 00:38:42.619
No, I was actually born in Ohio, Ohio.

00:38:42.659 --> 00:38:45.949
Yeah, my dad My dad was a great man.

00:38:45.949 --> 00:38:47.150
He lived 101.

00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:48.230
We just oh, wow.

00:38:48.269 --> 00:38:49.230
Yeah, he's a great man.

00:38:49.260 --> 00:38:56.260
Oh, well, he was Captain of the 781st Tank Battalion fought in World War II for a very, very long time.

00:38:56.269 --> 00:38:56.699
Oh, wow.

00:38:56.710 --> 00:38:58.219
Fought a very, very hard war.

00:38:58.250 --> 00:38:59.920
So, quantifiably, great man.

00:39:00.099 --> 00:39:01.690
Not just a cool guy, my dad.

00:39:01.690 --> 00:39:03.480
God star, silver star, purple hearts.

00:39:03.539 --> 00:39:03.650
Wow.

00:39:03.710 --> 00:39:04.449
I mean, he fought.

00:39:04.449 --> 00:39:05.150
Yeah.

00:39:05.150 --> 00:39:06.550
And, um.

00:39:06.550 --> 00:39:09.409
And the French Legion Medal of Honor.

00:39:09.409 --> 00:39:09.809
Yeah.

00:39:10.110 --> 00:39:11.519
Which is also amazing.

00:39:11.550 --> 00:39:11.730
Yeah.

00:39:11.730 --> 00:39:13.530
He did some hard stuff.

00:39:14.250 --> 00:39:22.400
Um, but he, uh, when he got out of the war, um, went to work and, uh, went to work for the, in, in the, in the insurance industry.

00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:22.429
Okay.

00:39:22.429 --> 00:39:26.030
For what was then called the insurance company of North America, which is now Cigna.

00:39:26.599 --> 00:39:31.099
Um, and they bounced him all over the place until he landed in San Francisco.

00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:31.699
Oh.

00:39:31.699 --> 00:39:32.869
And I was a very young child.

00:39:32.869 --> 00:39:39.349
I was about one and a half or two years old, and so I rai I was born in, not born, I was raised in.

00:39:39.710 --> 00:39:42.460
Palo Alto, California, right next to Stanford University.

00:39:42.900 --> 00:39:45.929
Um, it was an idyllic childhood in so many ways.

00:39:45.969 --> 00:39:46.349
Yeah.

00:39:46.360 --> 00:39:48.349
San Francisco was in its heyday at the time.

00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:51.800
Oh, Palo Alto was a rural community.

00:39:51.800 --> 00:39:56.500
I watched Hewlett Packard and Philco Ford and all the other great businesses show up.

00:39:56.519 --> 00:40:00.739
Page Mill Road was a dirt road when I was a kid, where all the Silicon Valley companies are.

00:40:01.449 --> 00:40:04.679
Um, so it was, it was a great childhood.

00:40:05.139 --> 00:40:12.599
I had two brothers and two sisters and, um, You know, we were older, younger, uh, one younger and the rest were older.

00:40:12.829 --> 00:40:13.239
Okay.

00:40:13.429 --> 00:40:29.119
So I was the second to youngest We had we we we didn't have anything that we wanted We all wanted a new baseball glove and a new baseball bat and new blue jeans Everything was a hand me down because we were classic middle class kids.

00:40:29.170 --> 00:40:36.114
Okay, you know, we didn't need anything We were well fed Security was great, all that stuff.

00:40:36.114 --> 00:40:37.025
I mean, that was normal.

00:40:37.195 --> 00:40:39.585
Yeah, 85 percent of America was like that.

00:40:39.594 --> 00:40:44.054
Hand me downs was, like, the way of the world if you had multiple siblings.

00:40:44.255 --> 00:40:46.815
And we didn't know differently, and so it was great.

00:40:46.925 --> 00:40:47.224
Yeah.

00:40:47.355 --> 00:40:48.025
It was great.

00:40:49.014 --> 00:40:54.190
But, uh I had, you know, I was, I was really well raised by my parents.

00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:56.230
And what, uh, I'm sorry, keep going.

00:40:56.280 --> 00:40:56.860
No, no, it's okay.

00:40:56.989 --> 00:40:58.039
What kind of a kid were you?

00:40:58.050 --> 00:41:00.349
Like, uh, were you athletic?

00:41:00.440 --> 00:41:01.900
Were you intellectual?

00:41:01.900 --> 00:41:03.050
Were you curious?

00:41:03.059 --> 00:41:11.880
Like, what were some of the things that your siblings or your parents would have described you as in those They would have described me as, you know, addicted to sports.

00:41:11.880 --> 00:41:13.820
I did, I played every sport you could play.

00:41:13.820 --> 00:41:16.119
Football, baseball, basketball, tennis, golf.

00:41:16.119 --> 00:41:18.699
I just, you know, I just, everything that moved I wanted to get to work.

00:41:18.699 --> 00:41:21.429
Were you like, big and strong early?

00:41:21.489 --> 00:41:22.639
No, very, very different.

00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:23.400
Oh, really?

00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:25.619
I was a very late developer when I was Okay.

00:41:26.474 --> 00:41:28.835
Let's see, I guess I was a sophomore in high school.

00:41:29.135 --> 00:41:32.974
Um, I was 5'6 and weighed about 120 pounds.

00:41:32.974 --> 00:41:33.275
Yeah.

00:41:33.284 --> 00:41:34.224
I was, I was tiny.

00:41:34.614 --> 00:41:38.364
And, um, I didn't play football my junior year in high school because I was too small.

00:41:38.574 --> 00:41:41.755
Um, but I stayed I didn't, I didn't even go out.

00:41:42.195 --> 00:41:42.632
I was Right.

00:41:42.632 --> 00:41:45.364
I was the manager on the football team my junior year in high school.

00:41:45.405 --> 00:41:45.755
Okay.

00:41:46.164 --> 00:41:49.960
And then I grew six or eight inches and I still weighed about 120 pounds.

00:41:49.960 --> 00:41:52.184
So it was a walking razor blade.

00:41:52.684 --> 00:41:57.215
Um, but I could, I could throw stuff and you know, I was, I was competitive.

00:41:57.224 --> 00:42:01.724
And so, um, football became a huge part of my life.

00:42:02.074 --> 00:42:03.405
And you were the quarterback, I guess?

00:42:03.414 --> 00:42:04.764
I was the quarterback in high school.

00:42:04.764 --> 00:42:07.355
Um, I was also, I was a good golfer.

00:42:07.505 --> 00:42:09.934
Um, people who play golf with me now don't believe that.

00:42:11.594 --> 00:42:12.235
Not true.

00:42:12.315 --> 00:42:13.094
Not true.

00:42:14.244 --> 00:42:16.025
So athletics was a big part of my life.

00:42:16.045 --> 00:42:17.295
I was always a good student.

00:42:17.815 --> 00:42:22.659
Um, I took, um, I can't say that I took my education seriously.

00:42:22.659 --> 00:42:24.150
I took it for granted to be honest with you.

00:42:24.800 --> 00:42:32.849
I just assumed I'd matriculate through high school and go to college and move on and have a life and never thought of education as being a core part of that.

00:42:34.869 --> 00:42:39.030
That path just kind of took it for granted, which is an odd thing to say.

00:42:39.579 --> 00:42:52.300
Um, but I got out of high school and didn't have any football scholarship offers, but I still wanted to play football and ended up at the university of California at Santa Barbara and, um, was having a lot of success there athletically and I was getting a great education.

00:42:52.300 --> 00:42:55.494
I really appreciated the education at Cal.

00:42:55.494 --> 00:42:58.295
It was such a great school.

00:42:58.295 --> 00:43:00.630
And, um, this is 1970.

00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:10.150
And the student body rioted, this is the middle of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the turmoil was, was, um, Was it more intense in California than other parts of the country?

00:43:10.150 --> 00:43:18.094
Kinda, we hear about Ohio and a couple of other places, but Cali has been on the edge of protests for a while.

00:43:18.215 --> 00:43:21.355
I think it, you know, I think places like Kent State and Yeah.

00:43:21.454 --> 00:43:23.864
Um, places in Chicago and Yeah.

00:43:23.864 --> 00:43:29.235
other parts of the country were equally intense, but you know, being in the San Francisco Bay Area Yeah.

00:43:29.244 --> 00:43:35.994
with the Haight Ashbury District there Berkeley right nearby and we're not you know, we live literally right next door to Stanford University.

00:43:36.695 --> 00:43:37.114
Um.

00:43:37.619 --> 00:43:42.159
It was, uh, it was, it was top of mind and it was discussed.

00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:48.570
Um, when I was, uh, at, at, uh, University of California student body rioted and.

00:43:49.105 --> 00:44:03.655
Um, when we came, we blew up the Bank of America and we, yeah, some people, yeah, some people, well, we are, we are collective or something, but, you know, like get that out of your mouth.

00:44:03.684 --> 00:44:03.965
Yeah.

00:44:04.875 --> 00:44:16.925
Have you ever been a lawsuit, but I was, um, You know, I, I, I've always been interested about things that are, are not necessarily just political, but social as well.

00:44:17.434 --> 00:44:18.905
You know, how is society moving?

00:44:18.905 --> 00:44:19.894
What are people thinking?

00:44:19.894 --> 00:44:21.184
What's, what's gonna happen next?

00:44:21.184 --> 00:44:22.175
What were you gonna school for?

00:44:22.534 --> 00:44:23.795
I was studying history.

00:44:23.974 --> 00:44:24.335
Okay.

00:44:24.335 --> 00:44:25.474
I studied American history.

00:44:25.474 --> 00:44:26.554
Jeffersonian history.

00:44:26.614 --> 00:44:26.795
Okay.

00:44:26.795 --> 00:44:27.724
Specifically interesting.

00:44:28.025 --> 00:44:34.175
Um, so I, and I, I thought I was gonna go on and be an attorney, you know, when I, when I graduated college.

00:44:34.755 --> 00:44:46.094
Um, uh, but when the university was closed, we came back, uh, when it reopened and the athletic department, um, shut down the football program, everybody's scholarship.

00:44:46.094 --> 00:44:48.045
And so I said, I want to keep on playing ball.

00:44:48.625 --> 00:44:50.565
And so I ended up going on a journey.

00:44:50.565 --> 00:44:53.945
At that point, I went down to San Diego state and played there for Don Coryell.

00:44:54.175 --> 00:44:54.554
Okay.

00:44:54.764 --> 00:44:56.914
He made me a tight end instead of a quarterback.

00:44:56.914 --> 00:44:58.554
And I got You know, beat up.

00:44:58.574 --> 00:44:59.914
You were way too skinny for that.

00:45:00.684 --> 00:45:01.985
And I said, this is real football.

00:45:01.985 --> 00:45:02.614
This is real football.

00:45:02.614 --> 00:45:03.934
I want to go play quarterback again.

00:45:03.934 --> 00:45:04.945
I like to throw the thingy.

00:45:04.945 --> 00:45:05.264
Yeah.

00:45:06.344 --> 00:45:07.485
Don't hit me after that.

00:45:07.485 --> 00:45:11.304
Um, so I ended up having to go back to junior college to reestablish.

00:45:11.304 --> 00:45:13.204
And so I ended up going to four universities.

00:45:13.364 --> 00:45:13.755
Oh, wow.

00:45:13.815 --> 00:45:16.405
Colorado State was my last stop and it was a great stop.

00:45:16.894 --> 00:45:17.324
Yeah.

00:45:17.625 --> 00:45:19.715
So you were already junior or senior by that time?

00:45:19.715 --> 00:45:20.744
I was a junior when I came to CSU.

00:45:20.804 --> 00:45:21.224
Okay.

00:45:21.335 --> 00:45:23.045
So I played my junior and senior year here.

00:45:23.215 --> 00:45:24.335
And did you start right away?

00:45:24.750 --> 00:45:30.119
Um, I think I started the third or fourth game, second or third game in, I can't remember to be honest.

00:45:30.119 --> 00:45:40.530
Um, I had a great offensive coordinator coach, a guy by the name of Doug Gearhart, who in my opinion, which I think is kind of informed, I think Doug Gearhart is actually the inventor of the West Coast offense.

00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:56.014
He coached with Bill Walsh, um, and uh, was in, you know, lots of different places, and I think Doug, Kind of that short pass kind of notion was Well, CSU that year was the number one in NCAA for passing yards.

00:45:56.264 --> 00:45:57.844
So Oh, wow.

00:45:57.905 --> 00:45:59.405
Passing and passing and total offense as well.

00:45:59.445 --> 00:46:00.355
And total offense.

00:46:00.364 --> 00:46:02.855
So, they had the stats nationally.

00:46:02.855 --> 00:46:07.485
They led the nation in what, eight of your senior team were drafted by the NFL.

00:46:07.744 --> 00:46:10.195
So they had a pretty successful football program.

00:46:10.215 --> 00:46:13.414
Nine of us were drafted, two guys and one guy of us.

00:46:13.414 --> 00:46:14.275
You were drafted as well.

00:46:14.315 --> 00:46:14.454
Yeah.

00:46:14.454 --> 00:46:15.554
I was drafted by the dolphins.

00:46:15.605 --> 00:46:16.014
Okay.

00:46:16.105 --> 00:46:20.195
And, uh, Mark Mulaney was drafted in the first round and Al Simpson was drafted in the first round.

00:46:20.195 --> 00:46:23.385
I mean, we had some ballplayers, some good talent.

00:46:23.394 --> 00:46:26.985
So it was a great experience and it was formative in many ways.

00:46:27.094 --> 00:46:27.485
Yeah.

00:46:27.844 --> 00:46:29.405
What did you think when you landed in?

00:46:29.659 --> 00:46:33.889
Because where was your previous stop on your college transfer tour?

00:46:34.969 --> 00:46:36.070
Besides Colorado State?

00:46:36.079 --> 00:46:36.880
Yeah, before that.

00:46:36.920 --> 00:46:40.510
Well, I was at a junior college, Foothill Junior College, in the Bay Area in San Francisco.

00:46:40.550 --> 00:46:41.469
Okay, okay.

00:46:41.619 --> 00:46:54.550
Before that, San Diego State, and before that And then you like, land this CSU thing, and it was, I presume, both based on kind of interviews and performance, and then you, did you come to Colorado for the first time, or had you been already?

00:46:54.844 --> 00:46:58.554
I don't think I had ever been to Colorado until I came here on a recruiting trip.

00:46:58.605 --> 00:46:59.054
Yeah.

00:46:59.144 --> 00:47:04.635
And, um, I'd been offered a scholarship to go to Weber State, um, in Utah.

00:47:04.894 --> 00:47:09.494
And so, you know, who knows what life would have been if I'd gone to Weber State.

00:47:09.525 --> 00:47:11.125
Right, never would have met Ginger, probably.

00:47:11.425 --> 00:47:12.105
Well, you never know.

00:47:12.105 --> 00:47:13.190
Who knows.

00:47:13.190 --> 00:47:14.275
Who knows.

00:47:14.655 --> 00:47:16.925
Um, but what did you think about Fort Collins at the time?

00:47:16.945 --> 00:47:21.494
Because this is like, what, like the It's 1972, 73, right around there.

00:47:22.210 --> 00:47:25.289
It's just kind of starting to turn into cool town in some ways.

00:47:25.699 --> 00:47:27.199
I think it was still a cow town.

00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:28.030
Cow town.

00:47:28.039 --> 00:47:28.500
73.

00:47:28.579 --> 00:47:30.280
Cow town to cool town by the 90s.

00:47:30.329 --> 00:47:30.650
Kind of.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:40.099
But, you know, again, it was one of those things that didn't really matter that much to me because the people I was with, uh, my friends, the ball players I was playing ball with.

00:47:41.534 --> 00:47:47.315
I loved them and we had a great life with each other and I didn't care what city I lived in.

00:47:47.315 --> 00:47:48.574
It would have been great any place.

00:47:48.585 --> 00:47:54.264
So the place I was didn't really matter that much before Collins was a very nice place.

00:47:54.534 --> 00:47:55.204
I did enjoy it.

00:47:55.465 --> 00:48:04.175
So, um, to get to the next stop in the career, kind of like how did you were growing up in an insurance family?

00:48:04.175 --> 00:48:08.485
Is that just kind of what you jumped into right out of the gate or?

00:48:08.880 --> 00:48:16.929
Not that Well, I, because I was playing football, I bounced, oh yeah, I bounced around the You got drafted Yeah, I bounced around the, I bounced around the NFL.

00:48:16.989 --> 00:48:17.230
Okay.

00:48:17.230 --> 00:48:18.550
A couple years unsuccessfully.

00:48:18.550 --> 00:48:21.989
Never really caught on with anybody, but I was completely obsessed by it.

00:48:21.989 --> 00:48:22.889
That's what I wanted to do.

00:48:22.889 --> 00:48:23.610
You were focused.

00:48:23.610 --> 00:48:24.809
I was absolutely focused.

00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:25.800
That's what I wanted.

00:48:26.480 --> 00:48:29.315
Um, and by the time, so you probably ate your first humble pie at.

00:48:29.695 --> 00:48:34.074
Like 24 or 25 or something when that started to dry up that dream, right?

00:48:34.094 --> 00:48:38.364
I bounced around with really six different teams over that time frame.

00:48:38.364 --> 00:48:42.625
And so I was, you know, hired and fired on the practice team and this and that, whatever.

00:48:42.675 --> 00:48:42.974
Yeah.

00:48:42.974 --> 00:48:45.545
And let me tell you, when you get cut, it's a blow.

00:48:45.655 --> 00:48:49.675
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a statement of being, I mean, I, I tell the story all the time.

00:48:50.485 --> 00:49:01.135
When, when people ask you what you do, you don't say, well, Um, I do lawyering, or I do doctoring, you say, I am a lawyer, I am, it's a statement of being of who you are, and I am a football player.

00:49:01.514 --> 00:49:10.614
So, you lose your identity, particularly something you're that wrapped up in, and it takes a while to I'm almost on the team for the Dolphins, or whatever, right?

00:49:10.614 --> 00:49:13.224
Like, you're not quite anything.

00:49:13.469 --> 00:49:13.760
Right.

00:49:13.789 --> 00:49:19.239
You just, and you know, it hurts to lose all those relationships not being in the huddle or the locker room anymore.

00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:25.780
Um, it's um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really life life altering and it takes a ginger.

00:49:25.780 --> 00:49:31.639
And I talk about this all the time about change, whether change is good or change is bad changes change.

00:49:31.639 --> 00:49:35.519
And you have to mourn the loss of what you've just changed from where you're moving to.

00:49:35.639 --> 00:49:36.019
Yeah.

00:49:36.119 --> 00:49:42.704
And it does take a while to learn how to live a different identity than the one that you've just lost.

00:49:42.704 --> 00:49:50.735
And that's whether you're fired from a job, a banking job someplace or fired from something that you really enjoy and you don't get to do it anymore.

00:49:50.815 --> 00:49:52.255
It takes a while to recover from it.

00:49:52.775 --> 00:49:54.264
So what was that like for you?

00:49:54.284 --> 00:49:59.005
Like at the end of your NFL career, did you like, okay, I guess I got it.

00:49:59.855 --> 00:50:01.405
A real job.

00:50:01.445 --> 00:50:03.224
He said I had to get a real job.

00:50:03.224 --> 00:50:03.614
Yeah.

00:50:03.885 --> 00:50:07.385
You know, I was going to go to, I was going to go up to Canada and play ball.

00:50:07.385 --> 00:50:08.585
I thought about going to Japan.

00:50:08.585 --> 00:50:10.144
Japan was playing ball as well.

00:50:10.775 --> 00:50:13.525
Um, my dad kind of grabbed me by the throat and said, you're not that good.

00:50:13.525 --> 00:50:14.335
It's time to move on.

00:50:14.875 --> 00:50:15.264
Right.

00:50:15.934 --> 00:50:19.605
You might be able to make 20 grand a year in Japan, but that's not really that great.

00:50:19.775 --> 00:50:20.744
So, um.

00:50:20.965 --> 00:50:21.994
You know, I was too busy.

00:50:21.994 --> 00:50:23.155
I had two children at that.

00:50:23.655 --> 00:50:30.355
And so the need for me, there wasn't a whole lot of time to sit on my hands and worry about what I just had lost.

00:50:30.355 --> 00:50:31.925
It was time to go on and get something done.

00:50:32.005 --> 00:50:32.364
Yeah.

00:50:32.585 --> 00:50:36.994
And so, um, I went to work in the retail banking business.

00:50:37.184 --> 00:50:37.525
Okay.

00:50:37.574 --> 00:50:39.925
Um, my first wife was from Cheyenne Wyoming.

00:50:39.925 --> 00:50:40.835
We moved up there.

00:50:41.364 --> 00:50:41.755
Oh, wow.

00:50:41.764 --> 00:50:45.005
I went to work for the first national bank and trust company of Cheyenne Wyoming.

00:50:45.045 --> 00:50:45.565
Interesting.

00:50:45.585 --> 00:50:47.585
And, um, I learned a lot about money.

00:50:47.809 --> 00:50:49.139
Yeah, awful lot about money.

00:50:49.139 --> 00:50:53.449
A lot of good tools came out of that experience, but I didn't need to learn a whole lot more.

00:50:53.449 --> 00:50:55.690
I thought there was something more interesting in life than that.

00:50:55.730 --> 00:51:02.389
And so, um, ended up going to a privately owned reinsurance intermediary.

00:51:02.489 --> 00:51:05.090
Yeah, that's, that's, it's like investment banking.

00:51:05.130 --> 00:51:07.099
Yeah, it's all about raising capital.

00:51:07.639 --> 00:51:10.789
And so I did, that's how I ended up in the reinsurance marketplace.

00:51:11.010 --> 00:51:14.449
It's almost like an arbitrage play with occasional setbacks.

00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:18.889
Is that reinsurance in a nutshell?

00:51:18.900 --> 00:51:19.340
I don't know.

00:51:19.840 --> 00:51:29.199
Yeah, well I was, I went from being an intermediary and doing transactions and bringing parties together to actually underwriting risk and taking the risk myself, um, as part of my career.

00:51:29.219 --> 00:51:29.809
Oh, interesting.

00:51:30.250 --> 00:51:38.144
And so, um, you go years and years and years without paying a claim if you're just ensuring earthquakes and hurricanes and tsunamis and floods and things of that sort.

00:51:38.175 --> 00:51:40.355
And then all of a sudden the world explodes.

00:51:40.704 --> 00:51:50.715
So in 2004 and 2005, um, we had 15 hurricanes make landfall in the space of a little over a year.

00:51:50.815 --> 00:51:54.085
Uh, Charlie, Francis, Ivan, Gene, Katrina, Rita, William.

00:51:54.135 --> 00:51:55.445
I could tell you all of them.

00:51:55.445 --> 00:51:56.304
I remember that season.

00:51:56.735 --> 00:52:00.875
We paid, uh, we paid out billions of dollars of claims in a very short period of time.

00:52:00.954 --> 00:52:03.744
And you didn't have it covered necessarily, hedged or whatever?

00:52:03.744 --> 00:52:04.985
Oh, we absolutely didn't.

00:52:05.264 --> 00:52:08.264
Yeah, so this is after we moved to Boulder because Jack had started.

00:52:08.264 --> 00:52:09.255
You guys had met by now.

00:52:09.264 --> 00:52:09.295
Yes.

00:52:09.295 --> 00:52:11.085
What year did you guys meet?

00:52:11.750 --> 00:52:13.940
It would reveal your age, but 96.

00:52:13.969 --> 00:52:14.170
Yeah.

00:52:14.170 --> 00:52:14.519
Okay.

00:52:15.909 --> 00:52:17.369
Yeah, I just turned 52.

00:52:17.500 --> 00:52:17.920
Okay.

00:52:18.130 --> 00:52:48.485
No, that's not Yeah, but he had started a company in Boulder that the it was the first internet based Insurance company and it underwrote catastrophic risk and they devised the first program that literally Uh, looked at the collection of risk, like a map, with every zip code and every address, and they knew the geology below the house, the proximity to a coast, and they knew how many they had.

00:52:48.485 --> 00:52:50.967
So you were using big data before big data was cool.

00:52:50.967 --> 00:52:59.869
Yeah, he was the first one, started his own company, and then became the first Lloyds of London syndicate outside of London, and all of that around catastrophe.

00:52:59.869 --> 00:53:04.820
So I always used to tell people, he's a disaster waiting to happen, that's who Jack is, because he's his whole.

00:53:05.210 --> 00:53:08.730
Business was built around preparing for catastrophic events.

00:53:08.909 --> 00:53:09.409
Yeah.

00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:16.710
What, here's a question for you out of the blue, just like, have you ever made any money on gingerbread baker yet?

00:53:17.239 --> 00:53:23.630
Um, what is, what are the biggest potential catastrophes facing the U.

00:53:23.630 --> 00:53:23.849
S.

00:53:23.849 --> 00:53:24.280
right now?

00:53:24.789 --> 00:53:28.320
I think the unbottled explosion is earthquake in California right now.

00:53:28.369 --> 00:53:28.820
Yeah.

00:53:28.849 --> 00:53:32.550
We haven't had a major event in California.

00:53:33.414 --> 00:53:57.574
Really since I'd say 1994, the Northridge earthquake in 1994 and, and earthquake seismic events are like stress for the right, like Bank of America started because of the San Francisco earthquake back in the day, but you know, seismic faults, particularly in Northern California, the strike slip faults that go laterally horizontally with each other, they're always moving and the more they move before they release, the more tension builds up.

00:53:57.574 --> 00:54:00.264
And when they do move finally, they can be cataclysmic.

00:54:00.954 --> 00:54:02.425
So I think that's a big deal.

00:54:02.775 --> 00:54:10.105
I think the idea of a class five hurricane making landfall in a real populated part of the world, and that has not happened.

00:54:10.525 --> 00:54:23.715
I mean, people think the disasters that have happened recently Like a real populated place being like a Miami Miami, or if it really comes into New Orleans New Orleans, properly Katrina, Katrina was a big deal, a relatively big deal.

00:54:24.195 --> 00:54:27.255
But that was storm surge that came into the 9th Ward.

00:54:27.414 --> 00:54:27.764
Right.

00:54:28.114 --> 00:54:33.844
Um, in and around New Orleans, but it was a, 2 hurricane event, so the wind damage was nominal.

00:54:34.465 --> 00:54:43.025
Um, if, if we have a Cat 5 going to Houston, or going to New Orleans, or Yeah, even South Carolina, some of those areas over there are pretty heavily populated too.

00:54:43.085 --> 00:54:44.755
Yeah, I think those are all Okay.

00:54:44.945 --> 00:54:51.505
major, major exposures, and, you know, we're, we're not talking about You know, a 50 or 60 billion event.

00:54:51.514 --> 00:54:58.715
We're talking 120, 150 billion event that will alter the economy of America in a very meaningful way.

00:54:59.525 --> 00:55:03.065
So on top of the disaster that it represents, right?

00:55:03.074 --> 00:55:04.155
Just all the lives.

00:55:04.164 --> 00:55:04.894
Yeah, exactly.

00:55:04.894 --> 00:55:06.905
I don't mean to sound insensitive.

00:55:07.434 --> 00:55:10.954
No, but it's, it's like the fires that have been going in Southern California.

00:55:11.429 --> 00:55:16.969
And, you know, part of it is because we all want to live in places that are high risk.

00:55:17.039 --> 00:55:17.889
The values are so high.

00:55:18.019 --> 00:55:26.550
You know, close to the ocean, in Tornado Alley, in Hurricane Proximity, in beautiful foothills of Colorado.

00:55:26.550 --> 00:55:28.480
And so we build and we build.

00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:28.880
In the trees.

00:55:29.420 --> 00:55:31.480
And then the disaster happens.

00:55:31.480 --> 00:55:36.440
So the significance of the disaster keeps escalating.

00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:41.119
And these things, yes, they're costly, but they're also giant.

00:55:41.610 --> 00:55:43.130
Disruptions socially.

00:55:43.570 --> 00:55:45.840
Communities, entire communities.

00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:47.579
More like the Asheville area and stuff.

00:55:47.619 --> 00:55:50.429
Like it's just like still coming back together.

00:55:50.730 --> 00:55:54.389
You know, and most people aren't in permanent housing by any means yet.

00:55:55.989 --> 00:55:58.750
Kentucky's taking it right in the nose in the last five days.

00:55:58.829 --> 00:55:59.469
Yeah.

00:55:59.469 --> 00:56:00.980
The flooding.

00:56:00.980 --> 00:56:14.144
So you're like super tuned in to like those major societal kind of Events and just not because of your current vocation necessarily, just because your expertise.

00:56:14.775 --> 00:56:16.025
I pay attention to that stuff.

00:56:16.034 --> 00:56:16.414
Yeah.

00:56:16.614 --> 00:56:26.545
You know, I think about my orientation to society and I've always, I've always had this sort of ability to read the tea leaves a little bit earlier before people do.

00:56:26.565 --> 00:56:33.355
And I can remember, um, back in the late 70s, early 80s.

00:56:33.974 --> 00:56:40.875
And watching what was going on in terms of the way in which America was arming itself with guns and weapons.

00:56:41.565 --> 00:56:44.985
Um, and the debates weren't really even started at that point.

00:56:45.155 --> 00:56:45.545
Yeah.

00:56:45.695 --> 00:56:47.954
There was no real conversation about the Second Amendment.

00:56:48.565 --> 00:56:55.114
But I just watched the proliferation of guns in America.

00:56:55.114 --> 00:56:55.445
Yeah.

00:56:55.585 --> 00:56:58.170
I just sort of said to myself, Holy shit.

00:56:58.179 --> 00:56:59.449
This is going to be a big deal.

00:56:59.659 --> 00:57:01.250
It's going to be more murderers because of this.

00:57:01.250 --> 00:57:02.789
This is going to be a bad thing.

00:57:03.309 --> 00:57:06.340
And, um, I just had a sense that that was going to happen.

00:57:06.860 --> 00:57:07.070
Yeah.

00:57:07.139 --> 00:57:10.460
There's other things going on around the world today that concern me a lot.

00:57:10.550 --> 00:57:12.980
And so Do you care to share?

00:57:13.059 --> 00:57:36.539
Like Well, I think that I look at what's happened over the space of the roughly last ten years, maybe fifteen years, but particularly the last ten years, around how much we have completely Discredited the American government, the institutions of the Supreme Court or the FBI or the CIA, you know, and, and, you know, Donald Trump has made a living at doing that.

00:57:36.980 --> 00:57:41.460
And, you know, it's gotten him elected, so he's gotten his own gain out of that, but at what cost?

00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:48.170
You know, the cost of, you know, causing the American people to lose trust in those institutions is massive.

00:57:48.230 --> 00:57:54.780
Well, and question, did he make it happen or did he bring it to light?

00:57:55.304 --> 00:57:57.465
Um, that's a really good question.

00:57:57.525 --> 00:58:03.304
That's a really good question, and I think there are certainly flaws in those institutions.

00:58:03.824 --> 00:58:07.945
Um, and at the same time, I think that he has brought it to life.

00:58:08.085 --> 00:58:09.684
I think he has, he has just amplified it.

00:58:09.684 --> 00:58:12.074
He's definitely traded on it.

00:58:12.074 --> 00:58:16.925
So, you know, maybe he's, maybe he saw it and amplified it.

00:58:17.469 --> 00:58:29.409
Uh, maybe he's highlighting it, but he cast it like, you know, even this week, what's going on this week, Jack and I were talking federal employees are not.

00:58:31.400 --> 00:58:31.699
Right.

00:58:31.699 --> 00:58:32.840
They're not stupid.

00:58:32.849 --> 00:58:33.010
Right.

00:58:33.010 --> 00:58:34.010
They're not mean.

00:58:34.019 --> 00:58:34.050
Right.

00:58:34.340 --> 00:58:35.619
They're not lazy.

00:58:35.619 --> 00:58:36.900
They're not usurous.

00:58:37.179 --> 00:58:39.625
Federal employees were employed for a purpose.

00:58:39.625 --> 00:58:41.550
Yeah, like he's, he's talking this line.

00:58:41.550 --> 00:58:42.099
Mm hmm.

00:58:42.099 --> 00:58:46.409
And it may be that we all say, we don't need so much of that.

00:58:46.679 --> 00:58:49.230
And in fact, let's do less of that.

00:58:49.489 --> 00:58:52.849
But it doesn't mean the person is the problem.

00:58:52.849 --> 00:58:52.989
Yeah.

00:58:52.989 --> 00:58:54.405
That has some kind of a personal attack.

00:58:54.534 --> 00:58:56.425
If you're a federal employee, you're a bad person.

00:58:56.434 --> 00:58:59.364
Yes, the demonizing of individuals.

00:58:59.744 --> 00:59:01.715
I have a lot of trouble with.

00:59:02.175 --> 00:59:02.925
I would agree with that.

00:59:02.925 --> 00:59:07.034
But I think too, I mean, the Supreme Court is imperfect.

00:59:07.594 --> 00:59:10.105
Um, I think it has been politicized to a degree.

00:59:10.675 --> 00:59:27.235
But I still trust those justices personally, you know, whether they're Donald Trump appointees or whomever appointed Yeah, I do trust them and although there's too many party line votes for me to trust them super well Both in Congress and the courts that is their orientation to the Constitution.

00:59:27.235 --> 00:59:32.550
So I kind of give them a pass on that I don't give Clarence Thomas a pass, however, and his behavior.

00:59:32.550 --> 00:59:39.550
I think that's way outside the boundaries of a well behaved Supreme Court justice, and I would like to see him go away.

00:59:40.019 --> 00:59:51.269
Um, so I, that, that's the one blister that bothers me, but I think most recently, just in the last two weeks since the um, air disaster at Reagan in Washington, D.

00:59:51.269 --> 00:59:51.510
C.

00:59:51.510 --> 00:59:54.769
with the helicopter, the commercial jet, the American Airlines jet.

00:59:55.349 --> 01:00:01.000
Um, you know, Donald Trump comes on the news the next day and just blisters the FAA, right?

01:00:01.210 --> 01:00:08.280
And he criticizes DEA, he criticizes the DEA initiatives and by the, uh, uh, the USA.

01:00:08.920 --> 01:00:12.300
No, diversity, equity and inclusion, right?

01:00:12.960 --> 01:00:18.130
Um, uh, and, and, and, uh, by the way, I think he's directionally correct about that.

01:00:18.150 --> 01:00:18.559
Right.

01:00:18.630 --> 01:00:23.820
DEI policy in the FAA has caused him to be unable to staff the organization.

01:00:23.829 --> 01:00:24.150
Yeah.

01:00:24.469 --> 01:00:30.179
But you would think that every, um, air traffic controller that's up in those towers today.

01:00:32.039 --> 01:00:32.510
Right.

01:00:33.090 --> 01:00:37.130
If you just listen to him, he's like, well, they've hired nobody but fools, right?

01:00:37.130 --> 01:00:37.380
Yes.

01:00:37.389 --> 01:00:38.360
That's a bad quote.

01:00:38.420 --> 01:00:38.659
Right.

01:00:38.889 --> 01:00:40.010
We don't believe that.

01:00:40.230 --> 01:00:49.460
And so with social media, with social media and the propensity for Americans to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, all of a sudden we don't trust the FAA anymore.

01:00:49.659 --> 01:00:50.099
Right.

01:00:50.130 --> 01:00:59.940
So I, You know, so I, I will stick by my words that I think that he has amplified and accelerated the discrediting of American, really important American institutions.

01:00:59.989 --> 01:01:16.427
Well, and I will agree with you in that regard, and I will also agree with him when he says that the media was kind of a bunch of crap, uh, prior to his arrival, that there was some stuff going that, you know, wasn't good.

01:01:16.427 --> 01:01:17.239
It's so interesting, yes.

01:01:17.239 --> 01:01:19.769
Well, I think, you know, in general media.

01:01:20.119 --> 01:01:26.360
Has taken a turn in, you know, the most recent past media has become more entertainment.

01:01:26.750 --> 01:01:31.010
And so the role of journalism, I have a journalism minor, I worked for a newspaper.

01:01:31.010 --> 01:01:32.559
I worked for a radio station.

01:01:32.980 --> 01:01:42.840
Uh, you know, I, I really believe in the institution and the power of journalism as it stands for investigative reporting.

01:01:43.929 --> 01:01:46.289
Both sides of the story, the clarity of facts.

01:01:46.579 --> 01:01:54.500
And we all are, unfortunately, I think, subject to an entertainment industry that cast itself with a news headline.

01:01:54.849 --> 01:01:57.030
And that's very difficult to sort.

01:01:57.300 --> 01:01:59.880
And, you know, Jack and I, kind of drives me crazy.

01:01:59.889 --> 01:02:07.300
We watch CNN, then we watch Fox, and then we watch CNBC, and then we watch NPR, or we listen to it, and then we watch public television.

01:02:07.550 --> 01:02:13.889
And at the end of it, you go, Can those people be living in the same America talking about the same topic?

01:02:14.170 --> 01:02:16.230
Because the Venn diagram doesn't overlap.

01:02:16.239 --> 01:02:18.469
There are completely alternate views of the world.

01:02:18.760 --> 01:02:20.960
And I don't believe that's good for any of us.

01:02:21.989 --> 01:02:27.099
We, uh, in a way are being hoodwinked by the entertainment industry.

01:02:27.489 --> 01:02:31.010
And I want us to separate us.

01:02:31.010 --> 01:02:33.880
It's great at the camps and the tribes and that sort of thing.

01:02:34.269 --> 01:02:36.210
Well, and humans are kind of tribal anyway.

01:02:37.019 --> 01:02:41.730
You know, and so I think the tribes that we should be in is the people that live close to me.

01:02:42.309 --> 01:02:42.579
Community.

01:02:42.579 --> 01:02:43.360
In my community.

01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:44.210
That's my tribe.

01:02:44.210 --> 01:02:44.789
Community is important.

01:02:45.039 --> 01:02:52.789
But even locally, you know, the school board divisions, the city council divisions, that we need our leaders here in Fort Collins.

01:02:52.789 --> 01:02:54.070
It used to be your church.

01:02:54.170 --> 01:02:54.489
Yes.

01:02:54.519 --> 01:02:54.829
Yeah.

01:02:54.940 --> 01:02:55.760
It used to be.

01:02:55.909 --> 01:02:57.219
But to rise up.

01:02:57.610 --> 01:03:12.250
To better leadership to more honest and open conversation to willingness to listen to wildly different viewpoints that your own that are expressed civilly and with substance and, you know, we, we can't let Fort Collins.

01:03:12.599 --> 01:03:44.019
Be that it's we're better than yeah, we have to be better than that And yeah, I do think it's an individual responsibility to both seek multiple viewpoints to behave civilly and respectfully to be willing to be challenged because There are many ways to view the world and not all of them are pleasant And so I do think you know, we have to own that as citizens of Fort Collins and as Americans I think the whole subject of Donald Trump is really important to talk about.

01:03:44.110 --> 01:03:44.389
Yeah.

01:03:44.389 --> 01:03:46.610
And find a way to talk about it with people openly.

01:03:47.179 --> 01:03:49.360
Um, I love what's going on right now.

01:03:49.690 --> 01:03:50.730
I mean, I love what's going on.

01:03:50.739 --> 01:03:52.510
The Doge stuff and whatever else.

01:03:52.539 --> 01:03:54.750
I do, I do, and it's a bit of a blunt instrument.

01:03:54.789 --> 01:03:55.079
Yeah.

01:03:55.139 --> 01:03:57.429
And I could be very critical of lots of Okay.

01:03:57.460 --> 01:04:00.449
aspects of it, but something radical had to happen Yeah.

01:04:00.530 --> 01:04:03.760
to stop the growth of, I mean, 36 trillion dollars of debt.

01:04:03.760 --> 01:04:06.480
Yeah, and, and It's the biggest two or three trillion a year.

01:04:07.130 --> 01:04:07.409
More.

01:04:07.409 --> 01:04:10.199
It's a threat to our society.

01:04:10.280 --> 01:04:10.739
More civilization.

01:04:10.739 --> 01:04:11.739
Long term.

01:04:11.750 --> 01:04:12.190
Yeah.

01:04:12.199 --> 01:04:12.769
For sure it is.

01:04:12.829 --> 01:04:14.480
Our children, our grandchildren.

01:04:14.489 --> 01:04:16.440
It's burying the future.

01:04:16.760 --> 01:04:17.389
So it's real.

01:04:17.630 --> 01:04:23.039
And it's If interest rates go up two points, two hundred basis points, on thirty six trillion dollars of debt.

01:04:23.110 --> 01:04:23.440
Right.

01:04:23.460 --> 01:04:27.320
It consumes, at that point the debt service consumes the entire budget.

01:04:27.400 --> 01:04:27.800
Yep.

01:04:27.949 --> 01:04:29.139
No, no more defense.

01:04:29.210 --> 01:04:29.539
Yeah.

01:04:29.590 --> 01:04:30.039
No more anything.

01:04:30.050 --> 01:04:30.820
No more education.

01:04:30.949 --> 01:04:32.199
That's how big a deal it is.

01:04:32.210 --> 01:04:32.780
Yeah.

01:04:32.809 --> 01:04:41.255
So it's We are on a really fragile rope, um, in that regard, but going back to Donald Trump, because I, I think it's important to talk about it.

01:04:41.284 --> 01:04:45.204
And as I said, there's lots of things that he does that I like.

01:04:45.235 --> 01:04:48.844
I mean, I think he's a smart guy and he understands how to change things.

01:04:48.855 --> 01:04:51.494
He's a, he is a change agent and all that stuff.

01:04:51.940 --> 01:05:09.920
When I was the athletic director at Colorado State, the only thing I really did to intervene in the activities of my coaches, you know, whether it was a head football coach, basketball coach, volleyball coaches, whatever it was, um, they had to fill out a form for every student athlete that they were intending to offer a scholarship to.

01:05:10.030 --> 01:05:10.369
Okay.

01:05:10.400 --> 01:05:14.000
And they couldn't offer the scholarship until they finished, finished the form and gave it to me.

01:05:14.465 --> 01:05:16.175
And all I read about was their behavior.

01:05:16.735 --> 01:05:22.284
You know, how many layers of social media deep did you go to find out, has this kid's mother or father been arrested?

01:05:22.284 --> 01:05:23.585
Has this kid been arrested?

01:05:23.605 --> 01:05:25.534
Just, I want to know what this kid's character is.

01:05:26.375 --> 01:05:28.775
Because the rule was real simple, no bad characters.

01:05:29.405 --> 01:05:31.614
I don't care how good a student you are.

01:05:31.614 --> 01:05:34.034
I don't care, I'm sorry, I don't care how good an athlete you are.

01:05:34.824 --> 01:05:43.030
Um, I watched, you know, in personal experience in my own athletic career, I watched some Phenomenal athletes who were terrible teammates, destroy teams.

01:05:43.590 --> 01:05:45.349
And I could talk about Johnny Manziel.

01:05:45.869 --> 01:05:47.650
You could talk about Terrell Owens.

01:05:47.690 --> 01:05:55.789
You know, these are phenomenal, phenomenal athletes and how many teams did they destroy, you know, legitimately, legitimately blow them up.

01:05:56.199 --> 01:05:58.369
And so for me, that's Donald Trump.

01:05:59.125 --> 01:06:03.244
I look at Donald Trump's character, and he does not tick the box for me.

01:06:03.264 --> 01:06:07.007
I've looked at his business career and how many billions of dollars did he lose for investors.

01:06:07.007 --> 01:06:09.434
He screwed people over here and there and this and that.

01:06:09.684 --> 01:06:12.465
He wears, he puts lawyers in his pocket like a gun.

01:06:12.885 --> 01:06:15.724
Um, he talks about women like they're chattel.

01:06:16.085 --> 01:06:19.755
And, and just he can't, he doesn't tick the character box for me.

01:06:19.755 --> 01:06:22.940
So he's not even a candidate, you know, he doesn't even get, he doesn't even get on the list.

01:06:22.940 --> 01:06:23.505
But he's the president.

01:06:23.954 --> 01:06:26.755
Well, he is the president, so yeah, he is my, he is my president.

01:06:26.784 --> 01:06:27.255
Right.

01:06:27.284 --> 01:06:27.965
He is my president.

01:06:27.974 --> 01:06:39.914
And he's doing a bunch of stuff that you think is But prudent but you know, and you know, so that's an interesting thing for me to have that Attention, I guess if you but I'll but I'll stick my neck out and say how sustainable is it?

01:06:40.184 --> 01:06:43.045
How long is it gonna take for him to blow himself up or blow somebody?

01:06:43.045 --> 01:06:48.869
I don't know some institution And I and I will tell you from my perspective It's absolutely guaranteed.

01:06:48.869 --> 01:06:53.789
It'll happen because it's, he's just, because you're a risk analyst and he can't help himself.

01:06:53.789 --> 01:06:54.750
Is that what you're saying?

01:06:54.969 --> 01:06:55.940
That's exactly what I'm saying.

01:06:56.090 --> 01:06:56.670
Interesting.

01:06:56.760 --> 01:07:07.369
Um, and, and at the same time, all of the stuff, and I understand why he's the president of the United States, the reasons are valid and the democratic party and the left wasn't listening.

01:07:07.369 --> 01:07:12.400
By the way, I'm, I'm an independent, I've gone down both paths and so I can think both ways.

01:07:12.400 --> 01:07:14.190
I voted for Kanye in 2020.

01:07:14.210 --> 01:07:15.070
So, yeah.

01:07:15.070 --> 01:07:19.269
Oh no, but I voted for Trump for the first time in 2024.

01:07:19.360 --> 01:07:20.260
Yeah, I did.

01:07:20.500 --> 01:07:20.860
Yeah.

01:07:21.159 --> 01:07:23.519
I mean, you know, not because I think he's awesome.

01:07:23.519 --> 01:07:37.369
Mostly because he drew RFK and Tulsi and a number of other real voices in the political commentary to his camp, and he humbled himself a fair bit.

01:07:37.849 --> 01:07:45.400
Like I hadn't really seen Trump do that, but in his acceptance of those other voices to the cause.

01:07:45.719 --> 01:07:48.550
We'll call it, he humbled himself a fair bit.

01:07:48.550 --> 01:07:50.489
It's quite a diverse cast of characters.

01:07:50.539 --> 01:07:51.260
It really is.

01:07:51.260 --> 01:07:51.590
There's no doubt about that.

01:07:51.590 --> 01:07:52.190
It really is.

01:07:52.449 --> 01:07:58.585
How it's Uh, accelerates change to the benefit of the American public is what we will all be watching.

01:07:58.594 --> 01:07:59.034
Yeah.

01:07:59.505 --> 01:08:00.074
A hundred percent.

01:08:00.235 --> 01:08:00.545
Yeah.

01:08:00.715 --> 01:08:01.855
And I, and I do worry.

01:08:02.965 --> 01:08:03.195
Yeah.

01:08:03.195 --> 01:08:04.204
And I'm holding my breath.

01:08:04.644 --> 01:08:12.125
If you read my blog from last month, it's like, I don't know if orange man bad or not, but you people freaking out just cause orange man bad should probably just.

01:08:12.400 --> 01:08:14.469
step on the brakes a little bit and wait and see how it goes.

01:08:14.510 --> 01:08:22.479
And again, I'll, I'll make a statement that a lot of people could call, you know, kind of off the rails kind of a thing, but this isn't that perfect sort of social local experience podcast.

01:08:22.479 --> 01:08:27.979
It's that sort of social instinct capability that I think I have a bit inside me of watching things happening.

01:08:28.579 --> 01:08:29.539
Do you think it's Hitler?

01:08:29.909 --> 01:08:32.170
Well, this is exactly the path I was headed down.

01:08:32.170 --> 01:08:35.140
Who would have ever thought, who would have ever thought that brown shirts?

01:08:35.625 --> 01:08:41.305
Could exist in American society, that people would be watching each other, that the institutions would be taken down.

01:08:41.685 --> 01:08:44.404
That the safeguards around those institutions would be dismantled.

01:08:44.404 --> 01:08:47.284
And all that stuff is taking place right in front of our eyes right now.

01:08:47.734 --> 01:08:48.814
And what's the endgame?

01:08:48.814 --> 01:08:49.795
What's the purpose here?

01:08:49.795 --> 01:08:51.774
Is it to pass the baton to J.

01:08:51.774 --> 01:08:51.914
D.

01:08:51.914 --> 01:08:54.095
Vance or maybe it's to Marco Rubio?

01:08:54.390 --> 01:08:58.229
Who, what's an, or is it for him to find a way to stay in office perpetually?

01:08:58.550 --> 01:09:03.340
And I know that's a ridiculous thing to say out loud, but it's not, I don't think it is.

01:09:03.340 --> 01:09:12.680
I think it's something we all need to, we should be watching and we shouldn't be afraid to say those things out loud because the more we say them out loud, the less likely it is that it will happen.

01:09:12.680 --> 01:09:13.439
Yeah, that's fair.

01:09:13.510 --> 01:09:16.289
And so, um, Can I send it back to you, Ginger?

01:09:16.289 --> 01:09:20.000
Are you as nervous about this as your risk analysis husband?

01:09:21.119 --> 01:09:21.819
I think he is.

01:09:22.180 --> 01:09:28.590
Always more forward thinking from a social structure perspective than I am.

01:09:28.920 --> 01:09:32.170
I'm very much about Jack is or he is.

01:09:32.170 --> 01:09:34.000
Jack is just checking.

01:09:34.069 --> 01:09:35.649
Yeah, I don't know about Donald.

01:09:35.689 --> 01:09:36.340
Honestly.

01:09:36.569 --> 01:09:39.550
Um, I think Jack is Very attuned.

01:09:39.550 --> 01:09:49.369
He does have a vibration, like a pitchfork that is about social unrest, about social norms, about behaviors socially, really macro.

01:09:49.689 --> 01:09:54.039
And I consider myself to be much more about who showed up today.

01:09:54.840 --> 01:09:55.720
Do people speak civilly?

01:09:55.720 --> 01:09:57.239
You like me because I'm me.

01:09:58.039 --> 01:10:06.340
Yes, and it's, it's really about how we treat each other one to one right now in this moment because in the end, I believe that's all that matters.

01:10:06.350 --> 01:10:06.640
Yeah.

01:10:06.649 --> 01:10:09.988
Even, like, we, Jack The rest of it is an aggregation of those smaller things.

01:10:09.988 --> 01:10:14.250
Yes, and, and yes, you, you have, you are in that pond.

01:10:14.260 --> 01:10:15.829
You are swimming in that pond.

01:10:16.199 --> 01:10:20.430
But, uh, like, uh, Frankel's book about man's search for meaning Sure.

01:10:20.439 --> 01:10:28.465
He was in The concentration camp and some people help the Nazis, some people, you know, hurt their own brother.

01:10:28.475 --> 01:10:29.524
Some people gave up.

01:10:29.524 --> 01:10:30.885
Some people committed suicide.

01:10:31.034 --> 01:10:36.795
He, he pushed himself to find meaning and hold himself accountable to a different level.

01:10:37.154 --> 01:10:41.604
And I would like to think that our challenge individually.

01:10:42.215 --> 01:10:56.225
Is to not be what is cast upon us, but to be what's right and who we are and hopefully by that help affect change, you know, in the ripple effect.

01:10:56.225 --> 01:10:57.784
I do believe in community.

01:10:57.784 --> 01:10:59.664
I believe in the influence in community.

01:10:59.664 --> 01:11:04.194
I believe that knowing our neighbors is part of our social responsibility.

01:11:04.194 --> 01:11:10.314
We know our neighbors house by house who they are and we know their dog's name and you know, we.

01:11:10.465 --> 01:11:14.515
Trade soup cans or you know, we, we are friends with our neighbors.

01:11:14.515 --> 01:11:16.824
I feel like that's part of our social responsibility.

01:11:16.854 --> 01:11:22.795
I know the river district business owners, because that's the community we're in.

01:11:23.064 --> 01:11:39.074
You know, we participate in a number of activities in the community, like the funding of a new center for the homeless population that actually is designed to provide services to reenter people into a productive society.

01:11:39.255 --> 01:11:40.005
Yeah, it's not.

01:11:41.600 --> 01:11:42.859
It's social services.

01:11:42.859 --> 01:11:44.319
It's nutrition.

01:11:44.329 --> 01:11:45.970
It's a accelerator.

01:11:46.060 --> 01:11:48.710
I believe, and I've been so impressed by the leadership.

01:11:48.720 --> 01:11:55.170
Again, the, the people who are making this happen in town are people who have standards.

01:11:55.390 --> 01:11:57.420
They hold people accountable.

01:11:57.649 --> 01:12:04.590
They offer, uh, Doors into futures, but people have to walk through those doors with responsibility.

01:12:04.869 --> 01:12:06.439
And it is true.

01:12:06.500 --> 01:12:21.289
And I have become, you know, even more acutely aware because of our location in the community with the business that if you're trying to get on your feet again, and you want to go do a job interview and you are homeless.

01:12:22.354 --> 01:12:23.824
Where are you going to take a shower?

01:12:24.314 --> 01:12:25.765
Do you have any clean clothes?

01:12:26.104 --> 01:12:31.265
If everything you own is with you, where do you put it when you go to a job interview?

01:12:31.404 --> 01:12:37.784
If you put it under a bridge and everything you own is stolen, then tomorrow what do you do?

01:12:38.064 --> 01:12:45.404
The barriers to re entering society are enormous if you fall off the train.

01:12:45.744 --> 01:13:15.515
And so the idea that as a community, That we create a way for people who want to be contributing members of society to enter a door that has a bed, food, mental health support, physical health support, Maybe training on how to interview a shower and a locker for your things so you can go to your transportation So what path do we want people to be on and that for me?

01:13:15.524 --> 01:13:40.270
That's the world I live in more than Jack and we've always we are very different and yet have giant overlapping Venn diagrams personally about our values about our But he is way more out there in bigger picture, whether it's designing Ginger and Baker, or whether it's seeing social trends.

01:13:40.590 --> 01:13:41.710
I am more.

01:13:42.119 --> 01:13:43.420
What are we doing?

01:13:43.569 --> 01:13:45.380
And who are we influencing?

01:13:45.390 --> 01:13:46.670
And what is our part?

01:13:46.670 --> 01:13:47.960
Who's in my immediate contact circle?

01:13:47.960 --> 01:13:51.439
And what can our voice help do in this moment?

01:13:51.729 --> 01:13:54.739
And so we have different perspectives.

01:13:54.739 --> 01:14:07.220
And I, I personally have trouble with people whose values, I believe, lead them to demean or belittle or dehumanize others.

01:14:07.500 --> 01:14:16.449
And so I struggle with some of the dialogue today by our leaders because that dialogue is demeaning and dehumanizing.

01:14:16.899 --> 01:14:30.935
It doesn't mean that I disagree with where they might be going, but I don't appreciate or support the way they're going to take us there because we will be a meaner, more judgmental, more fractured community on their train.

01:14:30.944 --> 01:14:39.534
We all need more grace and more love and knowledge, more real time walking in other shoes and all that kind of stuff.

01:14:39.545 --> 01:14:49.074
So if we get somewhere better and on the way, we hate each other and we separate from each Our budget is balanced, but we hate each other.

01:14:49.524 --> 01:14:51.104
Are we good there?

01:14:51.125 --> 01:14:51.335
Yeah.

01:14:51.335 --> 01:14:53.230
That's not any better than going bankrupt together.

01:14:53.230 --> 01:14:54.411
I'm not too crazy about that.

01:14:54.411 --> 01:14:54.606
Yeah.

01:14:54.606 --> 01:14:55.000
That's fair.

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:55.590
I dig that.

01:14:56.859 --> 01:15:01.609
Ginger's capacity to care for people is unlimited.

01:15:03.020 --> 01:15:03.960
She's a remarkable woman.

01:15:04.250 --> 01:15:10.960
I mean, she's obviously a remarkable executive and leader, and gets more things done than any human being I've ever known in my life.

01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:12.029
And I mean that literally.

01:15:12.529 --> 01:15:21.039
But, you know, our neighbor across the pasture, and three houses down, in his mid eighties, Let's go check in on him.

01:15:21.270 --> 01:15:21.609
Yeah.

01:15:21.659 --> 01:15:23.460
Let's go take him a piece of pie.

01:15:23.500 --> 01:15:25.159
And, and, cause he's alone.

01:15:25.260 --> 01:15:28.039
And, and, he's singular.

01:15:28.260 --> 01:15:31.579
But there's so many of those people that she thinks about that way.

01:15:31.579 --> 01:15:32.430
Yeah.

01:15:32.430 --> 01:15:36.340
You remind me a lot about, uh, the Matthews House founder, Jerry.

01:15:37.020 --> 01:16:12.664
And, uh, just that heart to really try to want to help everybody, but just the Knowledge that you can't actually do that, you know, it's more about trying to set cultural trends and changes and stuff and I hope that, I hope for both, I guess, of your sakes, kind of that notion of community and the notion of multi inputs to this current mega plus maha plus whatever else is going on, um, won't be a problem.

01:16:13.064 --> 01:16:16.555
terrifying, but instead can be beneficial, and we'll see.

01:16:16.755 --> 01:16:23.494
I hope, you know, we'll see if you're right or wrong in that regard, Jack, in terms of the risk component.

01:16:23.795 --> 01:16:29.005
Yeah, so I told Jack when he went to CSU, the first revolutionary always gets beheaded.

01:16:29.314 --> 01:16:29.845
Right.

01:16:29.904 --> 01:16:34.074
It's a view that I have always held, in business, in social structures.

01:16:34.534 --> 01:16:45.515
When people see a dramatic change that needs to occur and they are willing to demonstrate the courage and the perseverance to cause the change, they will be unpopular.

01:16:45.515 --> 01:16:48.585
The first revolutionary always gets beheaded.

01:16:48.944 --> 01:16:50.574
Jack has that kind of courage.

01:16:50.574 --> 01:16:52.885
There are people who have that kind of courage.

01:16:53.935 --> 01:16:58.225
Maybe that's what we're experiencing, that the first revolutionaries are moving.

01:16:58.630 --> 01:17:12.756
And it may be that the opportunity for us to remake America again, uh, with more individual accountability and autonomy, with more personal responsibility, with a future for our kids.

01:17:12.756 --> 01:17:14.591
And just a smaller drag on the system.

01:17:14.591 --> 01:17:16.210
A future for our kids that's brighter.

01:17:16.220 --> 01:17:18.100
Maybe that's what we're facing.

01:17:18.319 --> 01:17:20.010
And change is uncomfortable.

01:17:20.010 --> 01:17:23.569
As Jack said, I worked for a guy once who said, all change is loss.

01:17:24.199 --> 01:17:26.720
And all loss must be grieved.

01:17:26.829 --> 01:17:31.609
So even if you're changing for something great for the future, you're giving something up.

01:17:31.960 --> 01:17:32.989
And you gotta grieve it.

01:17:33.239 --> 01:17:35.960
And so there's grief in this process.

01:17:36.420 --> 01:17:37.289
And there's hope.

01:17:37.329 --> 01:17:38.600
But there's also fear.

01:17:39.060 --> 01:17:41.369
And all of us have a role to play, I think.

01:17:41.520 --> 01:17:42.010
I like that.

01:17:42.010 --> 01:17:43.020
I like that notion.

01:17:43.279 --> 01:17:44.369
We have to bring heart.

01:17:44.385 --> 01:17:46.545
And, um, humor.

01:17:46.694 --> 01:17:48.284
I looked up communitarian.

01:17:48.435 --> 01:17:53.654
Uh, apparently communitarian isn't a good thing'cause it was like too much close to communism.

01:17:53.654 --> 01:17:56.295
But like I was thinking maybe I'm kind of a communitarian.

01:17:56.295 --> 01:17:57.824
I'm not a libertarian per se.

01:17:57.824 --> 01:17:58.664
I'm not a Republican.

01:17:58.664 --> 01:17:59.505
I'm not a Democrat.

01:17:59.505 --> 01:18:05.045
I'm kind of, I'm a local first guy ultimately, and I'm a principals kind of guy.

01:18:05.045 --> 01:18:06.154
Notionally, um.

01:18:06.930 --> 01:18:14.279
Before we get into our mandatory, shouldn't talk about segments, we're gonna, um, do our, uh, grab bag.

01:18:14.289 --> 01:18:14.300
Oh.

01:18:14.699 --> 01:18:22.429
Cause we've got two ginger and baker slices of pie, and Two each, or just No, there's two total pies.

01:18:22.429 --> 01:18:23.105
We're giving them away.

01:18:23.105 --> 01:18:25.579
So these are for the listeners, you guys are giving these away.

01:18:25.590 --> 01:18:29.050
You're not giving two to, two to two different people, you're just giving one?

01:18:29.069 --> 01:18:29.399
One.

01:18:29.819 --> 01:18:30.369
One.

01:18:30.609 --> 01:18:30.840
We could've done two.

01:18:30.850 --> 01:18:32.079
Yeah, bring somebody.

01:18:32.425 --> 01:18:34.114
No, but bring somebody.

01:18:34.345 --> 01:18:36.444
You get a free slice of pie, so bring somebody else.

01:18:36.444 --> 01:18:37.145
I'll double down.

01:18:37.145 --> 01:18:38.435
We'll give two to each winner.

01:18:38.774 --> 01:18:42.625
Okay, so I'll write on back, plus two, basically.

01:18:42.625 --> 01:18:43.295
We'll just put that right on back.

01:18:43.295 --> 01:18:43.875
Per Jack.

01:18:44.364 --> 01:18:49.635
Okay, so these are the, uh, awkward or businessy or who knows what kind of questions.

01:18:49.725 --> 01:18:52.061
Oh, I can't draw your balls though.

01:18:52.061 --> 01:18:55.795
So Jack, why don't you draw two of those.

01:18:56.715 --> 01:18:58.305
And Ginger, I'm gonna have you draw two.

01:18:58.324 --> 01:18:58.805
Okay.

01:18:59.074 --> 01:19:06.034
And then we're going to ask you guys these questions, and one of the four questions is going to be the prize winner.

01:19:06.734 --> 01:19:08.685
Yeah, we're not going to go all over the place here.

01:19:08.685 --> 01:19:10.274
So what numbers do you have, Jack?

01:19:10.614 --> 01:19:12.635
Uh, 23 and 17.

01:19:13.154 --> 01:19:14.045
23.

01:19:14.814 --> 01:19:16.164
Oh, this is a fun one.

01:19:16.204 --> 01:19:17.564
And 17 was your second?

01:19:19.404 --> 01:19:23.335
Any stupid human tricks that you're willing to share or show?

01:19:23.395 --> 01:19:23.725
No.

01:19:25.045 --> 01:19:26.204
You must have something.

01:19:27.274 --> 01:19:28.255
Do you have something?

01:19:29.305 --> 01:19:30.925
I can blow bubbles off my tongue.

01:19:32.274 --> 01:19:35.314
Like, do you have to have any special equipment or preparation or anything?

01:19:35.314 --> 01:19:37.085
Usually a six pack of beer will get me there.

01:19:37.175 --> 01:19:39.074
Okay, I got an IPA in the fridge.

01:19:39.484 --> 01:19:39.994
You need that?

01:19:40.204 --> 01:19:43.185
Like, you just, like what, like off the tip of your tongue or?

01:19:43.225 --> 01:19:47.824
You know, I was an altar boy in church and my brother Bill and I served together a lot.

01:19:48.404 --> 01:19:51.135
And we'd sit in the altar and the sermon would be going on.

01:19:51.135 --> 01:19:54.345
We'd sit back there and we'd start blowing spit bubbles off of our tongue.

01:19:54.755 --> 01:19:55.625
To entertain ourselves.

01:19:55.625 --> 01:19:56.125
Okay.

01:19:56.135 --> 01:19:56.444
So.

01:19:56.515 --> 01:19:58.404
So you can like create little bubbles off your tongue.

01:19:59.175 --> 01:20:00.975
I don't know if my saliva is the right condition.

01:20:00.975 --> 01:20:02.515
It's an important conversation.

01:20:03.875 --> 01:20:04.295
Alright.

01:20:04.795 --> 01:20:09.734
That's uh, I'm not sure that will get you on Saturday Night Live, but, um.

01:20:09.914 --> 01:20:13.204
By the way, did you see that 50 year anniversary show the other night?

01:20:13.265 --> 01:20:13.774
Parts of it?

01:20:13.774 --> 01:20:13.885
Yeah.

01:20:13.885 --> 01:20:14.784
That was awesome.

01:20:14.814 --> 01:20:15.414
It was pretty good.

01:20:15.444 --> 01:20:16.045
That was awesome.

01:20:16.064 --> 01:20:16.284
Yeah.

01:20:16.305 --> 01:20:18.215
There was a lot of neat behind the scenes to that.

01:20:19.395 --> 01:20:20.385
Oh, did you get 17?

01:20:20.635 --> 01:20:21.925
17 right away too?

01:20:22.024 --> 01:20:22.814
Well, whatever you want me to do.

01:20:22.925 --> 01:20:23.765
Sure, we'll do that.

01:20:23.765 --> 01:20:23.921
Okay.

01:20:23.921 --> 01:20:24.079
Bye.

01:20:24.689 --> 01:20:28.729
How did you define success in your business or career?

01:20:29.399 --> 01:20:30.569
Like, what were you chasing?

01:20:30.619 --> 01:20:35.310
You know, I was, um, I was pretty, I don't think there's a single answer to that.

01:20:35.859 --> 01:20:37.770
I don't think, I think it's multifaceted.

01:20:38.319 --> 01:20:40.069
And I was pretty clear headed with myself.

01:20:40.600 --> 01:20:43.260
Um, first and foremost is, you gotta make money.

01:20:43.960 --> 01:20:46.619
Because if you don't make money in a business, the business doesn't survive.

01:20:46.720 --> 01:20:47.029
Yeah.

01:20:47.119 --> 01:20:48.960
You know, so you have to make money.

01:20:48.960 --> 01:20:50.670
You can never run out of cash.

01:20:51.119 --> 01:20:55.590
So I was pretty adamant about financial responsibility and financial success.

01:20:56.170 --> 01:21:00.850
And through that financial success, you create opportunities for so many people.

01:21:01.739 --> 01:21:08.069
And I, you know, I owned my business that I found, and I shared the equity in the business with a handful of people.

01:21:08.119 --> 01:21:10.300
More than a handful, a number of people that worked with me.

01:21:11.560 --> 01:21:13.739
How many people did you employ over the years, do you think?

01:21:14.510 --> 01:21:20.539
Oh my gosh, I don't, I'd say a thousand.

01:21:20.590 --> 01:21:23.289
Yeah, 500 at ICAT, more than that at E.

01:21:23.289 --> 01:21:23.510
W.

01:21:23.510 --> 01:21:24.109
Blanche.

01:21:24.159 --> 01:21:26.220
But with turnover and all that, oh yeah, I don't know.

01:21:26.250 --> 01:21:30.409
Thousands of people over the years bought groceries with your paychecks.

01:21:30.680 --> 01:21:30.970
Yeah.

01:21:31.199 --> 01:21:33.750
And put their kids through college and paid their mortgages.

01:21:33.750 --> 01:21:36.520
You know, you take that thing seriously.

01:21:36.529 --> 01:21:39.539
We had about 15 people, you know, who got rich.

01:21:39.859 --> 01:21:44.430
You know, because of, you know, having equity in the business and boy, did they deserve it?

01:21:44.529 --> 01:21:45.329
Yeah, they were tired.

01:21:45.600 --> 01:21:49.960
They worked hard and they were really talented and for quite a while without getting paid.

01:21:49.960 --> 01:21:52.949
Like they should have probably, you know, that's why you pay equity.

01:21:52.949 --> 01:21:53.210
Right?

01:21:53.210 --> 01:21:56.359
Usually they got paid well, too.

01:21:57.850 --> 01:21:59.210
You know, I think that's another thing.

01:21:59.210 --> 01:22:04.430
Ginger and I talk about this quite a bit that both of the businesses are the businesses that she and I have run.

01:22:05.420 --> 01:22:08.779
are almost always named, you know, one of the best places in the state to work.

01:22:08.850 --> 01:22:09.100
Yeah.

01:22:09.140 --> 01:22:13.680
You know, whether it's the business I ran in, in Boulder, a company called ICAT.

01:22:13.800 --> 01:22:17.039
It's, it's still considered one of the best places to work, so that was important.

01:22:17.729 --> 01:22:30.609
But I think that, um, You know, standards, you know, just getting things right, doing great stuff, really, really good stuff was really important to me, more important to me than the money, you know, it's like, can we take pride in what we're doing?

01:22:30.609 --> 01:22:37.659
And are we, are we creating a piece of art here, which is kind of a funny thing to say about a business, but yeah, but I did think about it that way.

01:22:38.199 --> 01:22:43.630
Um, and delivering great value to our customers, you know, that was, that was important.

01:22:44.479 --> 01:22:45.539
And transparency.

01:22:45.609 --> 01:22:54.289
I mean, that was, that was a cornerstone to our business that I was constantly having to raise capital for our business because it was very capital intensive.

01:22:55.090 --> 01:23:01.039
And one of my cornerstones was I would go to prospective partners and I'd say, here's where all the problems are.

01:23:01.779 --> 01:23:09.520
You know, the story, you know what we can do, you know what we've done, but here's where the, if there's risk there, here's the warts, here's what we screw up.

01:23:10.180 --> 01:23:17.210
And, um, it's amazing how, um, how, how meaningful that was in establishing partnerships.

01:23:17.210 --> 01:23:21.470
Number one and number two, it was a really effective way to raise capital.

01:23:21.539 --> 01:23:22.539
That's why he was so successful.

01:23:22.619 --> 01:23:53.979
I haven't met very many People that are way more big picture guy than I have that I am like I'm kind of a Biggest picture, but I'd like to be involved locally, but you definitely have that kind of 30, 000 foot view dialed in And I hope you're not right about Trump Yeah, you and me both right I'm just it's just a warning yeah, it's like the lights on pay attention Yeah, yeah, that's fair 25 and 10 Um, is your numbers, Ginger.

01:23:54.029 --> 01:23:58.489
And 10 is what's a hobby or skill you've always wanted to pick up but haven't?

01:23:58.609 --> 01:24:00.750
Oh, I know what that is.

01:24:00.750 --> 01:24:01.279
The harp?

01:24:01.699 --> 01:24:03.239
Yes, it's the harp.

01:24:03.829 --> 01:24:06.189
The first time I retired, I'm really bad at it.

01:24:06.300 --> 01:24:11.010
The first time I retired was 20 years ago, and I've always wanted to play the harp.

01:24:11.239 --> 01:24:17.739
I took classical piano lessons all my growing up years and can play the piano, although now I'm really rusty.

01:24:18.119 --> 01:24:20.710
But The woman who taught me was ancient.

01:24:20.720 --> 01:24:28.770
She, as a child, had taken from Paderewski, and it was severe classical music, and her daughter was a harpist.

01:24:28.810 --> 01:24:44.689
Her son was an organist, and I wanted to learn to play the harp, so Jack bought me a harp for my retirement, and I've had it 20 years now, and I just took my first lesson with Meredith who you had on your podcast.

01:24:44.689 --> 01:24:45.443
Yes, just a couple weeks ago.

01:24:45.443 --> 01:24:45.569
Yeah.

01:24:45.569 --> 01:24:47.869
And so my goal is to learn to play the harp.

01:24:48.109 --> 01:24:52.760
So is she going to do like Zoom harp lessons mostly with you, I guess?

01:24:52.800 --> 01:24:54.750
Because she's mostly a Scotlander.

01:24:54.829 --> 01:24:55.340
Yes.

01:24:55.340 --> 01:24:57.710
When she's in town, I want to see her.

01:24:57.710 --> 01:25:02.529
And she also, the first time taught me how to string and tune the harp, which is also very important.

01:25:02.529 --> 01:25:03.010
I imagine.

01:25:03.079 --> 01:25:03.369
Yeah.

01:25:04.520 --> 01:25:06.380
Well, I'm excited about that.

01:25:06.500 --> 01:25:06.539
We do.

01:25:06.550 --> 01:25:08.619
Like, I want to have you back in two years.

01:25:09.119 --> 01:25:09.689
Ah, I'll play a little piece for you.

01:25:09.689 --> 01:25:11.180
And we'll bring your harp in here, yeah.

01:25:11.520 --> 01:25:13.310
Maybe you and Meredith can come together when she's back.

01:25:13.319 --> 01:25:14.890
Oh yeah, I would not make her do that.

01:25:17.210 --> 01:25:18.100
Um, what was the other one?

01:25:18.100 --> 01:25:18.869
25.

01:25:18.869 --> 01:25:19.239
25, yeah.

01:25:21.020 --> 01:25:24.989
What's one thing on your bucket list that you're determined to accomplish?

01:25:28.810 --> 01:25:30.050
That's a good question.

01:25:30.489 --> 01:25:32.460
Um, one thing.

01:25:32.810 --> 01:25:35.619
Does it have to be an accomplishment or can it just be an experience?

01:25:35.659 --> 01:25:36.859
Well, it's an experience.

01:25:37.250 --> 01:25:38.850
Bucket list is kind of an experience.

01:25:38.989 --> 01:25:40.729
Well, going back to the first question.

01:25:40.920 --> 01:25:42.619
You don't have to start a new company or anything like that.

01:25:42.619 --> 01:25:43.770
I am determined to make Ginger and Vega work.

01:25:45.449 --> 01:25:49.500
Oh my gosh, I'm determined to make ginger and baker work.

01:25:49.649 --> 01:25:50.609
Oh my word.

01:25:50.840 --> 01:25:59.760
You know, and part of it is because what Jack said, we have always shared business success with the team that got us there and I can't share.

01:26:00.210 --> 01:26:13.640
The rewards of Ginger and Baker with my key management team because it's not there and once we get there, then they get that and that will be good for their lives and their careers and raising their kids and fulfilling their dreams.

01:26:15.100 --> 01:26:18.380
So that's really at the top of my list.

01:26:18.770 --> 01:26:24.710
Uh, but there, you know, there are other things that I want to do in life, but mostly I want to do things that matter.

01:26:25.090 --> 01:26:25.319
Yeah.

01:26:26.310 --> 01:26:28.920
I hope that keeps continuing for the rest of your journey.

01:26:29.569 --> 01:26:31.247
The, yeah, the winning question.

01:26:31.247 --> 01:26:31.918
Thanks, Ava.

01:26:31.918 --> 01:26:38.198
The winning question, I'm going to choose, Ginger's first answer, which was Meredith and the harp.

01:26:38.967 --> 01:26:46.177
Um, so, lucky winners, uh, contact us through Spotify, through LinkedIn, or through Instagram.

01:26:46.177 --> 01:26:48.978
And the first one we notice So Ginger won and I lost?

01:26:49.207 --> 01:26:53.768
No, just one of our lucky listeners wins for coming this far in the conversation.

01:26:53.769 --> 01:26:54.137
That's because I lost?

01:26:54.217 --> 01:26:56.818
Well, just because her conversation was so much more interesting.

01:26:56.877 --> 01:26:59.318
Like, cause Meredith was just on a few weeks ago.

01:26:59.837 --> 01:27:01.868
Like, yours were cool, it's fine, Jack.

01:27:02.007 --> 01:27:02.778
I want a replay.

01:27:02.927 --> 01:27:03.528
It's not a contest.

01:27:04.427 --> 01:27:07.318
Like, you had to have known when you met Ginger it's not a contest.

01:27:07.318 --> 01:27:08.398
Otherwise you would lose.

01:27:09.002 --> 01:27:09.443
Just kidding.

01:27:10.533 --> 01:27:11.002
Love you both.

01:27:12.972 --> 01:27:14.252
It's just the way we do it.

01:27:14.262 --> 01:27:15.103
It's fine.

01:27:15.203 --> 01:27:15.922
It's just fine.

01:27:15.972 --> 01:27:19.153
It's just because Meredith was just on the podcast.

01:27:19.203 --> 01:27:20.063
That's really why.

01:27:21.302 --> 01:27:21.872
Okay, fine.

01:27:22.082 --> 01:27:22.533
Okay, fine.

01:27:22.703 --> 01:27:23.243
I'm over it.

01:28:08.094 --> 01:28:10.014
Um, oh yeah.

01:28:10.154 --> 01:28:13.944
So it's, yeah, I, I started jumping into the faith family politics.

01:28:14.104 --> 01:28:17.533
Um, Talk to me about your faith perspective.

01:28:18.274 --> 01:28:23.123
Well, I, we've, we've, we've, we've said it a number of times to each other today.

01:28:23.184 --> 01:28:29.304
Um, we're just, you know, our foundation is just being 100 percent committed to doing the right thing no matter what.

01:28:29.413 --> 01:28:29.663
Hmm.

01:28:29.974 --> 01:28:32.703
Um, and that's a profound Because of?

01:28:33.333 --> 01:28:33.743
Faith.

01:28:33.774 --> 01:28:35.564
Like a big guy up there kind of thing?

01:28:36.384 --> 01:28:43.444
I, I, that's a really interesting way to think about it.

01:28:44.059 --> 01:28:47.088
I don't feel, I don't feel accountable to God.

01:28:47.179 --> 01:28:47.479
Okay.

01:28:47.838 --> 01:28:49.338
Um, I'm a child of God.

01:28:49.548 --> 01:28:49.878
Yeah.

01:28:49.969 --> 01:28:53.328
Um, um, I feel accountable to all the people around me.

01:28:53.328 --> 01:28:56.238
I feel accountable to my wife, to my children, to my community.

01:28:56.238 --> 01:28:57.378
It's a healthy perspective.

01:28:57.469 --> 01:29:07.849
Um, I, I, I do know that, you know, through studying the teachings of Jesus over the course of my life, he was profoundly committed to always doing the right thing.

01:29:07.878 --> 01:29:07.939
Yeah.

01:29:07.939 --> 01:29:10.998
And teaching people do the right thing no matter the cost.

01:29:11.238 --> 01:29:11.538
Yeah.

01:29:11.779 --> 01:29:12.229
Um, and.

01:29:13.439 --> 01:29:20.198
You know, I try, I try, I try, I try to practice that to the best of my ability, no matter the cost.

01:29:20.198 --> 01:29:26.099
And it's so seductive and so tempting to just round corners a little bit when it gets a little bit difficult.

01:29:26.099 --> 01:29:27.538
And that's when it's most important.

01:29:28.238 --> 01:29:30.229
So I think that's the foundation of my faith.

01:29:30.229 --> 01:29:38.743
Um, I've, I've been a Uh, a student of Jesus, you know, most of my life, I, I, I don't know the Bible.

01:29:38.743 --> 01:29:40.094
In a particular perspective?

01:29:40.354 --> 01:29:41.554
The New Testament mostly.

01:29:41.583 --> 01:29:44.844
No, but I mean, were you raised like Presbyterian or this or that?

01:29:44.844 --> 01:29:45.634
I was, I was raised.

01:29:46.134 --> 01:29:47.533
I was raised an Episcopalian.

01:29:47.583 --> 01:29:48.003
Oh, okay.

01:29:48.503 --> 01:29:49.904
My dad called it Catholic light.

01:29:49.913 --> 01:29:51.663
Yeah, that's what I've called it actually.

01:29:51.663 --> 01:29:52.493
I hate to say that.

01:29:53.173 --> 01:29:56.533
Which, um, which really didn't teach the teachings of Jesus that much.

01:29:56.533 --> 01:29:57.944
It was just more of a ceremony.

01:29:58.024 --> 01:29:58.283
Yeah.

01:29:58.344 --> 01:30:00.873
Um, and, and I think the teachings of Jesus are where.

01:30:01.094 --> 01:30:03.083
Where the rubber really hits the rose.

01:30:03.083 --> 01:30:08.578
And there are so many profound teachings, um, worth listening to and integrating into your life.

01:30:08.578 --> 01:30:14.054
So for you, like, the church is of less value than the teachings of Jesus?

01:30:14.054 --> 01:30:15.213
Dramatically less value.

01:30:15.283 --> 01:30:15.554
Okay.

01:30:15.613 --> 01:30:20.444
I find organized religion to be dangerous, and I really respect a lot of them.

01:30:20.719 --> 01:30:20.979
Yeah.

01:30:21.059 --> 01:30:26.988
Um, the Catholic Church disappoints me so much with its history over the last 35, 40 years and Yeah.

01:30:27.048 --> 01:30:32.198
The pedophiles, I mean, if they were American business, they would be out of business, they would not be permitted to exist today.

01:30:32.769 --> 01:30:36.088
And there's gotta be some consequences associated, they gotta clean their act up.

01:30:36.538 --> 01:30:38.338
Um, it frustrates me beyond belief.

01:30:38.509 --> 01:30:38.708
Hmm.

01:30:38.899 --> 01:30:41.208
Um, and I know that's not gonna be Yeah.

01:30:41.208 --> 01:30:43.828
Very pleasing for a lot of Catholics to hear, but I really don't care.

01:30:43.859 --> 01:30:48.319
I think most of them confess it and acknowledge it and they would probably say the same.

01:30:48.488 --> 01:30:48.759
Yeah.

01:30:49.469 --> 01:30:54.389
So, um, but that's, that's, Well, yeah, it certainly takes the teeth out of the, the Pope's.

01:30:54.649 --> 01:30:57.639
When the Pope says something, it's like, Okay, whatever, dude.

01:30:58.779 --> 01:31:03.962
Sorry, that's kind of rude, but it's a little bit like that to me when I see him come up with that.

01:31:03.962 --> 01:31:07.627
Well, it's another institution Yeah, they're corrupted.

01:31:07.627 --> 01:31:11.293
that unfortunately erodes Yeah.

01:31:11.293 --> 01:31:18.628
And so it's another part of this eroding of the things that you count on.

01:31:18.988 --> 01:31:38.038
And you know, I, I hope that they have That's where you both resonate a little bit, is that we need these institutions of community, of even media, of government, of Whatever the government is, it has to stand for something that people appreciate and respect.

01:31:38.189 --> 01:31:41.559
We are individually responsible and should be accountable to ourselves.

01:31:42.328 --> 01:31:52.854
To be part of what's right and contribute, but we do have to organize Yeah, into groups and methods, you know, to be able to do commerce, to support kind of standards and norms.

01:31:52.953 --> 01:32:01.069
And we do have norming, storming, we talk about that as a team, but as a town, as a state, as a nation, we need.

01:32:01.979 --> 01:32:09.708
organization to our ability to effectively give back to each other and to grow opportunity for others.

01:32:09.708 --> 01:32:12.179
And so institutions have a role.

01:32:12.378 --> 01:32:22.269
It doesn't mean they're omnipotent, but the erosion of institutions disables us from being productive and we need to, we need to count on them.

01:32:22.878 --> 01:32:24.168
Yeah, that's well put.

01:32:24.338 --> 01:32:25.658
Yeah, I like that as well.

01:32:26.229 --> 01:32:28.908
Um, anything else you want to tag on to that?

01:32:28.958 --> 01:32:31.628
Well, no, I just, you know, just the whole question of faith.

01:32:31.628 --> 01:32:37.548
I've got a very good friend, Johnny Square, who's the, um, chaplain for the CSU athletic department.

01:32:37.708 --> 01:32:39.219
Johnny and I played football.

01:32:39.219 --> 01:32:40.658
He's got a cool name too, Johnny Square.

01:32:40.658 --> 01:32:41.279
Isn't it great?

01:32:41.368 --> 01:32:41.809
Yeah.

01:32:42.128 --> 01:32:43.189
Reverend Johnny Square.

01:32:43.859 --> 01:32:44.238
Right.

01:32:44.288 --> 01:32:45.798
And that boy can preach, let me tell you.

01:32:45.849 --> 01:32:46.309
I believe it.

01:32:46.359 --> 01:32:47.139
He's really good.

01:32:47.189 --> 01:32:50.399
Um, but he's also, he studies, he's very thoughtful.

01:32:50.944 --> 01:32:52.564
And he believes in the power of prayer.

01:32:53.104 --> 01:32:56.554
Um, something that frankly I need to learn more about, the power of prayer.

01:32:57.104 --> 01:32:58.854
Um, I think a lot of people pray.

01:32:58.854 --> 01:32:59.774
I don't pray much.

01:32:59.793 --> 01:33:03.253
You know, I think good thoughts about people and care about people.

01:33:03.253 --> 01:33:05.253
But prayer is something I need to explore more.

01:33:05.274 --> 01:33:09.514
Sometimes high performing people are like, God bless all this hard work I'm doing.

01:33:09.884 --> 01:33:10.224
Yeah.

01:33:10.344 --> 01:33:12.493
Uh, you know, it happens.

01:33:13.594 --> 01:33:13.934
Yeah.

01:33:15.333 --> 01:33:19.804
Anyway, I think that, uh, you know, the Reverend Square and I are talking to each other a lot.

01:33:19.913 --> 01:33:20.213
I dig it.

01:33:20.213 --> 01:33:22.213
So there's a lot to live from and a lot to learn from.

01:33:22.243 --> 01:33:22.583
All right.

01:33:22.783 --> 01:33:23.623
Cheers, Reverend Square.

01:33:24.224 --> 01:33:25.304
Reverend Square.

01:33:25.753 --> 01:33:28.623
Um, family or politic, Jack?

01:33:28.623 --> 01:33:32.094
Would you care to enter into either of those short circles?

01:33:32.173 --> 01:33:34.823
Um, politic.

01:33:34.823 --> 01:33:36.583
You've got two, well, sorry.

01:33:36.585 --> 01:33:37.783
You want to go politic first?

01:33:37.884 --> 01:33:38.213
Sure.

01:33:38.304 --> 01:33:41.154
Politics is, um, politics is a profession.

01:33:41.444 --> 01:33:41.774
Yeah.

01:33:41.844 --> 01:33:42.493
There's no question.

01:33:42.493 --> 01:33:43.203
It's a career.

01:33:43.684 --> 01:33:44.923
Unfortunately, it's a career.

01:33:45.413 --> 01:33:52.917
Um, when the constitution was written 250 years ago, um, politics was, uh, it wasn't such a thing.

01:33:52.917 --> 01:33:54.974
It was, it was public service.

01:33:54.974 --> 01:33:55.484
Yeah.

01:33:55.484 --> 01:33:56.774
Um, people had a career.

01:33:56.823 --> 01:33:58.264
They were successful at their career.

01:33:58.993 --> 01:34:09.014
They went to the legislature, whether it was the local legislature or the federal legislature and they served and then they left and they went home, you know, and McConnell.

01:34:09.024 --> 01:34:10.564
He's one of the most amazing men.

01:34:10.819 --> 01:34:19.238
In my lifetime, I, and he pisses me off at times beyond belief, but he's one of the most amazing men I've, I've ever listened to.

01:34:19.238 --> 01:34:20.469
He is so thoughtful.

01:34:22.698 --> 01:34:31.958
And, and yet, how is it that we have an 80 something year old senator who's been in office for over 40 years and takes a little breaks once in a while?

01:34:31.998 --> 01:34:33.719
It's, it's absolutely wrong.

01:34:33.899 --> 01:34:34.118
Yeah.

01:34:34.118 --> 01:34:35.899
That's a career and it's corrupt.

01:34:36.368 --> 01:34:38.479
I mean, those guys attract so much money.

01:34:38.668 --> 01:34:38.939
Sure.

01:34:38.948 --> 01:34:42.689
Um, to their own political campaigns, to the campaigns of other people.

01:34:42.698 --> 01:34:43.679
They can help it almost.

01:34:43.899 --> 01:34:50.578
I mean, if you, if you, if you don't catch, if you don't kiss Mitch McConnell's ring in the Republican party, you ain't getting money.

01:34:51.529 --> 01:34:54.838
You know, the Republican committee and so that's corrupt.

01:34:54.849 --> 01:34:57.269
That's America's form of abject corruption.

01:34:57.878 --> 01:35:01.618
And so we, we, we, I just, I know it's true.

01:35:01.698 --> 01:35:03.349
I ran for Senate in 2016.

01:35:06.529 --> 01:35:07.069
Against who?

01:35:07.368 --> 01:35:11.418
Uh, well, I was in the primary, I was a Republican candidate in 2016.

01:35:11.418 --> 01:35:13.189
There were 17 people in Okay.

01:35:13.189 --> 01:35:13.819
In the field.

01:35:13.849 --> 01:35:16.009
I finished second out of a field of 17.

01:35:16.009 --> 01:35:28.069
It was my first walk into politics, but there was a guy by the name of Darrell Glenn, who ended up winning the primary, and he was just a little bit right of the till of the hun and he was a traditional MAGA candidate back then.

01:35:28.488 --> 01:35:31.279
And there were two or three of'em that were supposed to be running and.

01:35:31.514 --> 01:35:33.953
Two of them got knocked out and only Daryl was left standing.

01:35:33.953 --> 01:35:37.113
And so that's the politics in the state of Colorado.

01:35:37.113 --> 01:35:46.323
It's true across the country, but yeah, Colorado shows up for primaries, whether it's Democratic primaries or Republican primaries, primaries are really interesting things.

01:35:46.323 --> 01:35:49.894
It's the most radical people in those parties and God bless them.

01:35:49.923 --> 01:35:52.474
You know, they, they work, they vote, they give money.

01:35:52.833 --> 01:35:56.234
Yeah, their voice gets heard because they show up and everyone else sits home.

01:35:56.304 --> 01:36:20.404
Yeah, so you just I mean, it's all like all of life It's a participant sport But I would like to see you know, and all of these things require Constitutional changes, which is a huge huge lift as far as the like turn limits and different things like that term limits and campaign reform Yeah, is that is that the big things finance reform term limits?

01:36:20.404 --> 01:36:20.953
Is there?

01:36:22.099 --> 01:36:33.756
Other things that would help our democracy or republic from slipping back into this kind of huge deficit laden bureaucracy that we've been in?

01:36:33.756 --> 01:36:40.698
Well, your recent efforts have been around, uh, ranked voting and, you know, the two party system.

01:36:40.788 --> 01:36:47.118
Is it actually destroying the values that we all hold dear about everyone has a vote?

01:36:47.604 --> 01:37:01.743
But the two party system sets up this play that the only people you have to vote on, you know, are in this primary dynamic and would, would we be better served by having more choice?

01:37:02.363 --> 01:37:09.814
In terms of our candidates and a more free selection process that more people would choose to participate in.

01:37:09.823 --> 01:37:11.554
You know, that's a curious question.

01:37:11.573 --> 01:37:12.184
Yeah, it is important.

01:37:12.185 --> 01:37:14.463
I think that'll be back on the ballot.

01:37:14.463 --> 01:37:16.583
It lost in 2024.

01:37:16.644 --> 01:37:17.253
In Colorado.

01:37:17.463 --> 01:37:21.354
It did, but it lost by a small margin, mostly because it's complicated.

01:37:21.444 --> 01:37:22.963
Yeah, it's hard to understand.

01:37:23.833 --> 01:37:34.854
But I think that, um I mean, we'll go back to work at putting it back in the ballot again and see if we can't carry that across the line, because I think it would, it would level things out between the two party system that we've got.

01:37:35.514 --> 01:37:46.304
Well right now, like the Democratic Party obviously dominates the Colorado politic most places except for east of whatever the Mississippi is.

01:37:46.844 --> 01:37:47.274
Yeah.

01:37:47.684 --> 01:37:52.594
I mean, eastern Colorado in general, a little bit western slope, but mostly not the front range.

01:37:52.604 --> 01:37:53.134
Clearly.

01:37:53.274 --> 01:37:53.963
Yeah.

01:37:54.043 --> 01:37:54.819
Um, Yeah.

01:37:55.588 --> 01:37:56.748
I want to jump to family.

01:37:57.309 --> 01:37:59.019
You have two daughters?

01:37:59.578 --> 01:38:00.578
Uh, two daughters and a son.

01:38:00.649 --> 01:38:01.149
And a son?

01:38:01.198 --> 01:38:01.429
Right.

01:38:01.708 --> 01:38:07.679
Um, they're all probably 30s and up from now or 20s and up from now?

01:38:07.698 --> 01:38:08.488
I don't remember.

01:38:08.509 --> 01:38:09.798
Well, my son is 48.

01:38:09.958 --> 01:38:10.359
Okay.

01:38:10.399 --> 01:38:14.929
Um, so I was 20 2, 23 years old.

01:38:14.939 --> 01:38:15.338
Okay.

01:38:15.559 --> 01:38:17.269
I was 24 years old when my son was born.

01:38:17.319 --> 01:38:17.788
Alright.

01:38:17.998 --> 01:38:22.809
So I have a 48 year old son, 47 year old daughter, and 45 year old daughter.

01:38:22.878 --> 01:38:24.208
And how many grandkids do you have?

01:38:24.208 --> 01:38:25.349
Four grandkids.

01:38:25.349 --> 01:38:25.679
Okay.

01:38:25.689 --> 01:38:29.198
21, 13, 6, and 5.

01:38:29.198 --> 01:38:33.759
Let's jump, let's jump to the grandkids, because we do a, uh, one word description.

01:38:34.399 --> 01:38:42.288
Usually of children, because most of my guests are like in their 40s, but it's fun on the teenager style.

01:38:42.288 --> 01:38:43.628
So, are you prepared for that?

01:38:44.998 --> 01:38:45.479
Yeah.

01:38:45.488 --> 01:38:45.939
Not really.

01:38:45.939 --> 01:38:46.359
Are you scared?

01:38:50.009 --> 01:38:57.309
So, like, name him, rank him, not rank him but put him to a kid and then give him one word description for me.

01:38:58.458 --> 01:38:59.548
The four grandkids.

01:39:00.998 --> 01:39:01.458
Let's see.

01:39:01.509 --> 01:39:10.304
Our oldest is twenty one years old, Kendall and Kendall is You don't have to rank them like an order, but yeah, yeah.

01:39:11.703 --> 01:39:12.283
Kendall's an artist.

01:39:12.524 --> 01:39:13.274
Kendall's an artist.

01:39:13.363 --> 01:39:13.703
Okay.

01:39:13.713 --> 01:39:13.783
Yeah.

01:39:13.783 --> 01:39:14.623
That's, that's well put.

01:39:14.644 --> 01:39:15.203
That's cool.

01:39:16.484 --> 01:39:18.904
Theater, voice, acting.

01:39:19.463 --> 01:39:19.753
Yeah.

01:39:19.753 --> 01:39:19.974
Yeah.

01:39:20.043 --> 01:39:21.363
You know, Kendall is an artist.

01:39:21.663 --> 01:39:24.354
There's some people that are just like naturally there.

01:39:25.054 --> 01:39:27.753
It's been her passion since she was two years old.

01:39:28.194 --> 01:39:30.024
She's been in plays her entire life.

01:39:30.064 --> 01:39:32.764
She loves it, has done really well.

01:39:33.073 --> 01:39:34.213
Yeah, really cool.

01:39:34.264 --> 01:39:38.613
Our grandson Mac is 13, and Mac is just magnificent.

01:39:39.463 --> 01:39:45.154
He's a magnificent, he's a great, great human being, and good athlete, and great student.

01:39:45.354 --> 01:39:46.734
Wise beyond his years.

01:39:47.243 --> 01:39:48.319
So much to be around.

01:39:48.359 --> 01:39:52.738
He knows more about football than his grandfather, Jack, which is the amazing thing.

01:39:52.759 --> 01:39:54.738
That's all I listened to with those two.

01:39:54.798 --> 01:39:55.469
Oh my word.

01:39:56.529 --> 01:39:57.118
He's a lot of fun.

01:39:57.488 --> 01:39:57.889
I like it.

01:39:57.890 --> 01:39:58.588
I like it.

01:39:59.109 --> 01:40:05.338
And then we have a six year old granddaughter, uh, Grayson and Grayson is just.

01:40:07.908 --> 01:40:10.019
She's just the love of my life.

01:40:10.019 --> 01:40:11.229
I mean, she's just wonderful.

01:40:11.458 --> 01:40:12.219
Your new favorite.

01:40:12.219 --> 01:40:13.288
Yeah, she's just wonderful.

01:40:13.288 --> 01:40:14.259
She's so much fun to be around.

01:40:14.279 --> 01:40:17.309
Her poppy and she have a special thing.

01:40:17.828 --> 01:40:18.798
Yeah, she's great.

01:40:19.298 --> 01:40:23.259
And then her brother, Luke, is a cannonball.

01:40:24.099 --> 01:40:24.679
Just an absolute cannonball.

01:40:26.219 --> 01:40:26.479
He's a kid.

01:40:26.488 --> 01:40:33.689
He's a kid that looks like he weighs 35 pounds and you pick him up and he's, he's as dense as magnesium.

01:40:33.849 --> 01:40:36.149
He's just, he's just thick beyond belief.

01:40:36.519 --> 01:40:37.618
You know, he's going to be a linebacker.

01:40:38.429 --> 01:40:39.788
He's got that mentality.

01:40:39.878 --> 01:40:40.298
I like it.

01:40:40.809 --> 01:40:42.248
Future linebacker at CSU.

01:40:42.250 --> 01:40:43.918
I dig it.

01:40:44.509 --> 01:40:48.229
Um, Local experience.

01:40:48.425 --> 01:40:51.213
That is our, uh, final segment.

01:40:51.274 --> 01:40:55.724
Do you remember what yours, did you, I don't think you could share one with me, Ginger.

01:40:55.724 --> 01:41:02.163
You were like, kind of like, I don't really have anything that crazy, but the, our podcast name is the Loco Experience Jack.

01:41:02.163 --> 01:41:07.634
And so normally the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share.

01:41:08.359 --> 01:41:10.189
is our closing segment.

01:41:11.088 --> 01:41:14.139
Do you have any like near death experiences or?

01:41:14.298 --> 01:41:15.448
Oh, I have a bunch of those.

01:41:15.469 --> 01:41:15.979
Oh, you do?

01:41:16.679 --> 01:41:17.149
Really?

01:41:17.179 --> 01:41:17.708
I have a bunch of those.

01:41:17.710 --> 01:41:24.519
Yes, I actually think I want to write a book about it because it's really, it's mind boggling.

01:41:24.529 --> 01:41:25.599
I've got quite a few too.

01:41:25.609 --> 01:41:26.588
Yeah, I know.

01:41:26.588 --> 01:41:31.248
I totaled way too many vehicles for one thing, but I was driving.

01:41:31.259 --> 01:41:37.488
So I was a freshman in college in Abilene, Texas, driving home for the holidays to Arkansas.

01:41:37.498 --> 01:41:37.889
And it was, uh.

01:41:38.298 --> 01:42:16.394
I don't know, 12 hour drive and I was driving by myself and I left school at the end of school on a Friday, I drove all night long and the sun was coming up the next morning and I was so sleepy and I went to sleep at the wheel of my car on an interstate and when I woke up, I was a foot from having a head on with an 18 wheeler and I don't know how I didn't roll the car, but I hit The median, I turned my steering wheel and I was going way too fast and I was about to have a head on with an 18 wheeler and you had crossed the median already.

01:42:16.394 --> 01:42:16.804
No.

01:42:17.283 --> 01:42:28.423
Well, this is the, the joy of the story is that I had come up behind a tow truck pulling the cab of an 18 wheeler.

01:42:29.094 --> 01:42:33.144
And I didn't know that in the moment, of course, I thought it was going to the headlines.

01:42:34.359 --> 01:42:34.748
Yes.

01:42:34.899 --> 01:42:41.368
So I was having a head on with an 18 wheeler and could have killed myself trying to get off the road, but thankfully I didn't.

01:42:41.368 --> 01:42:46.748
But I sat in the median and sobbed for a while to get myself together again.

01:42:47.069 --> 01:42:54.609
And that really sobered me about driving my driving experience, because I've always been way too fast.

01:42:54.609 --> 01:43:00.779
Jack would say I still am, but that was, uh, she's got, so you like woke up and you're almost ready to.

01:43:01.208 --> 01:43:03.488
Rear end a tow truck with Yes.

01:43:04.064 --> 01:43:05.679
But I don't know that in the moment.

01:43:05.679 --> 01:43:07.868
So that, to me was a heart stopper.

01:43:08.288 --> 01:43:08.769
All right.

01:43:09.779 --> 01:43:12.329
Jack, do you have a crazy experience to contend with that one?

01:43:12.329 --> 01:43:20.338
Well, other than the day I married my wife which was a great day, I, I, I remember the, the day we got married though, and it was time to join her at the altar.

01:43:20.338 --> 01:43:26.069
And, um, how choked up I became and I was, I was so surprised, like, what the hell is going on here?

01:43:26.069 --> 01:43:26.279
Yeah.

01:43:26.279 --> 01:43:28.498
I, you know, I just gotta, I've been like a cool guy forever.

01:43:28.498 --> 01:43:28.769
Yeah.

01:43:28.769 --> 01:43:29.524
You know, what is this all about?

01:43:30.878 --> 01:43:36.368
I think, you know, when my kids, uh, I told my kids at a very young age, I said, I'll take you anywhere you want to go in the world.

01:43:36.519 --> 01:43:40.559
When you turn 14, it's gotta be a third world country and no hotels.

01:43:40.588 --> 01:43:41.319
That was the deal.

01:43:41.319 --> 01:43:43.399
So it was an outward bound kind of an experience.

01:43:44.038 --> 01:43:46.038
And I took my son to Africa.

01:43:46.319 --> 01:43:49.759
Um, we spent five weeks in Africa and hiked over 600 miles.

01:43:50.418 --> 01:43:51.378
Um, I got him on top.

01:43:51.408 --> 01:44:05.088
We were almost stampeded by water Buffalo and almost killed and Took him to the top of the Neithi Gorge, and he climbed about 200 feet down the face with a guy that had climbed Mount McKinley, and I was like, man, you know, I'm gonna be in trouble when I get there.

01:44:05.088 --> 01:44:05.588
This is a little sketch.

01:44:06.798 --> 01:44:14.929
Took my, uh, oldest daughter to, um, eastern Europe right after Perestroika and Glasnost had taken place, and she really wanted to see what that was all about.

01:44:15.548 --> 01:44:18.868
And we experienced Russia, the Soviet Union then, firsthand.

01:44:18.939 --> 01:44:19.378
Oh, wow.

01:44:19.569 --> 01:44:22.003
Yep, that was a Yeah, it was an eye opening experience.

01:44:22.014 --> 01:44:23.953
Like in the Yeltsin years, virtually.

01:44:24.123 --> 01:44:25.654
Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

01:44:25.654 --> 01:44:28.783
That was a great, great experience.

01:44:28.863 --> 01:44:30.024
For her and for me.

01:44:30.529 --> 01:44:32.078
And my youngest I took to Ecuador.

01:44:32.189 --> 01:44:38.298
And we, um, hiked through the Andes for about two and a half weeks and hiked through the Amazon for about two and a half weeks.

01:44:38.309 --> 01:44:38.679
Yeah.

01:44:39.139 --> 01:44:53.679
One of my favorite stories there, she, we had, we had, we were in the, uh, we were on the Cocoa River in, um, in, In Ecuador, but it's right by Columbia and, uh, we could see the gunboats running up and down that were running drugs and that was an eye opener.

01:44:53.899 --> 01:44:58.149
And the skies opened up and it probably rained eight or ten inches in an hour.

01:44:58.769 --> 01:45:06.038
The skies just opened up and so the river rose and we were isolated on this little peninsula and we couldn't, you know, we were isolated.

01:45:06.038 --> 01:45:07.069
We couldn't get off.

01:45:07.559 --> 01:45:08.649
Well, we had to get off.

01:45:08.719 --> 01:45:14.988
And so, we waded across this peninsula and there were caiman and other really dangerous critters in this water.

01:45:15.564 --> 01:45:20.604
And, and just talking her into it, like you put the pack on top of your head, we got to go.

01:45:20.804 --> 01:45:21.113
Yeah.

01:45:21.123 --> 01:45:21.594
There's just no choice.

01:45:21.613 --> 01:45:22.613
There is another option.

01:45:23.073 --> 01:45:31.203
And seeing her muster that up and, and, and conquer that, you know, conquer the fear and get to the other side was, it was a terrific life experience.

01:45:31.203 --> 01:45:31.444
Yeah.

01:45:31.554 --> 01:45:31.814
Yeah.

01:45:33.503 --> 01:45:42.974
Ginger, um, any I wish we had two more hours, honestly, like, I feel like we really could spend plenty of time philosophizing.

01:45:42.975 --> 01:45:43.702
We have lots of philosophies, yeah.

01:45:43.702 --> 01:45:48.993
Yeah, we haven't even barely had, we've just been storytelling, not philosophizing, but it's already 5.

01:45:48.994 --> 01:46:11.134
10, so I want to respect your time, but, um, maybe, like, is there anything that you'd like to share with, actually one of the segments I haven't touched on yet that we sometimes do is like advice for the next generation, and I think especially as a, a woman would, That became a leader before women leaders were popular.

01:46:11.873 --> 01:46:16.144
Um, do you have some, some thoughts into this space where we're at?

01:46:16.564 --> 01:46:21.304
Especially for ladies, uh, young Ava, even if you want to personalize it.

01:46:21.304 --> 01:46:23.274
Like, what do I do with my life?

01:46:23.363 --> 01:46:28.934
Like, uh, I'm here, I'm 20, I'm producing a podcast, I'm taking classes.

01:46:28.934 --> 01:46:31.503
But, like, how do I figure it out?

01:46:32.134 --> 01:46:42.083
Well, I'll tell you, you know, what I, what I tell And I do have the opportunity to speak at a lot of business schools or with women executives, and I still do some of that.

01:46:42.083 --> 01:46:44.344
And I have, I always say the same thing.

01:46:44.344 --> 01:46:47.144
Number one, uh, pick your boss, not your job.

01:46:48.024 --> 01:46:53.583
And especially, I think, for someone who may be more unusual in that role.

01:46:53.583 --> 01:47:01.073
So whether you're too young, or you're a minority, or you, you know, speak a different language, or you're not, you're not part of the standard cast.

01:47:01.213 --> 01:47:01.514
Mm.

01:47:01.654 --> 01:47:03.264
That very first.

01:47:04.054 --> 01:47:08.154
Job that those early job choices are very formative.

01:47:08.404 --> 01:47:39.479
So you can imagine that if You don't fit in and your boss doesn't really want you and you're treated badly when you're brand new You don't know if it's about you or if it's a situation and so your self esteem your confidence your courageousness your ability to Take risk can get severely altered very young in your career because you work for the wrong person, a jerk, an uninformed person, you know, maybe someone who was nice, but didn't, didn't know how to be a good coach.

01:47:39.828 --> 01:47:43.859
And so I had the benefit of working for an amazing.

01:47:44.779 --> 01:47:49.248
Man, early in my career, and actually, I think I could give you a list of nine incredible.

01:47:49.248 --> 01:48:11.269
I never worked for a woman, only men, but the great experiences, the tough feedback, the coaching I got and the courage they demonstrated helping me grow when I was unusual and didn't fit and there weren't any, and I was the only, and I was the first and all the things that get in the way of performance, uh, you know, having a good boss.

01:48:11.923 --> 01:48:13.194
made all the difference.

01:48:13.503 --> 01:48:28.724
And I have 20 stories someday when we have nothing else to talk about, I'll tell you about some things that courageous men did that demonstrated to me what true leadership looks like, and also called me to be all that I could be because they had taken a risk on me.

01:48:29.163 --> 01:48:35.333
And so that's one piece of advice, which is pick your boss, not your job, especially when you're young, but I'd say your whole life, your boss.

01:48:35.819 --> 01:48:46.279
Has disproportionate influence on you and all the HR research in the world says that you can work for a great company But if your boss is a jerk, you still have a terrible experience Right, right.

01:48:46.279 --> 01:49:03.229
So that's important the second thing is we just had this conversation with a young man who was sitting at the bar at the cash with his mom and He doesn't know what he wanted to do and he wanted to talk to Jack about insurance and then he's doing something else and I Said of course, you don't know what you want to do.

01:49:03.259 --> 01:49:04.349
How could you?

01:49:04.538 --> 01:49:05.469
You've never done it.

01:49:05.479 --> 01:49:06.259
You haven't done anything.

01:49:06.548 --> 01:49:09.838
Yeah, you haven't done anything except go to school and do what you were told to do.

01:49:09.838 --> 01:49:13.359
So now you're of your own free will, but you don't know what to do.

01:49:13.399 --> 01:49:20.618
Of course you don't go do something, whether it's a good experience or a bad, a good boss or a bad take notes, learn from it.

01:49:21.323 --> 01:49:22.144
What did I love?

01:49:22.144 --> 01:49:22.944
What motivated me?

01:49:22.944 --> 01:49:23.663
What did I hate?

01:49:23.663 --> 01:49:24.453
What was I good at?

01:49:24.453 --> 01:49:40.743
What did I did not know, but I'm interested in and then do another thing and then do another thing and then do another thing and somewhere along the way, you will learn what you are and what you're made of and what you're capable of and that will be you and then you will apply it to maybe 100 more things.

01:49:40.753 --> 01:49:47.564
So my dad worked for the post office after the military accumulated service of what 43 years.

01:49:47.613 --> 01:49:48.703
That's what my dad did.

01:49:49.073 --> 01:49:51.498
I've had 14 jobs.

01:49:51.498 --> 01:50:04.578
I think the last time I counted the next generation will have 40 and so learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, say yes, do it, learn from it and move on.

01:50:04.868 --> 01:50:10.979
And I think if you Try to work for a good person and you are in a learning mode.

01:50:11.048 --> 01:50:11.948
The sky's the limit.

01:50:12.048 --> 01:50:12.458
Period.

01:50:12.529 --> 01:50:13.029
Go do it.

01:50:13.538 --> 01:50:14.069
I dig that.

01:50:14.639 --> 01:50:15.099
Thank you.

01:50:15.948 --> 01:50:18.889
Jack, anything to append the closing here?

01:50:18.929 --> 01:50:21.738
No, I think what Ginger said, you know, we're pretty much aligned there.

01:50:21.738 --> 01:50:27.748
I preach to people who ask me for advice when they're young, you know, pick your boss, pick your job.

01:50:27.759 --> 01:50:36.059
Um, but I think more than anything, this generation in particular, you know, we always said figure out what you love to do and then go find a way to make a living at it.

01:50:36.559 --> 01:50:37.519
It's not that simple.

01:50:37.998 --> 01:50:41.559
It's just, as Ginger was saying, go try things and then figure out what you like.

01:50:42.038 --> 01:50:44.118
Oh, I really like reinsurance.

01:50:44.708 --> 01:50:45.729
It's like, what?

01:50:46.719 --> 01:50:47.078
Right.

01:50:47.078 --> 01:50:47.779
Go get a life.

01:50:47.838 --> 01:50:48.019
Yeah.

01:50:48.019 --> 01:50:49.019
Never would have heard about that.

01:50:49.158 --> 01:50:49.458
Right.

01:50:49.488 --> 01:50:53.698
It was spectacular, the relationships, but I thoroughly, I was intellectually stimulated.

01:50:53.698 --> 01:50:55.038
I love the competitiveness of it.

01:50:55.668 --> 01:50:56.798
It was just a great career.

01:50:57.048 --> 01:51:00.618
So go try things and find something you really like and then commit to it.

01:51:01.208 --> 01:51:04.929
Don't be so damn caught up in this idea of having a balanced life.

01:51:05.288 --> 01:51:07.488
A balanced life is pretty bloody boring.

01:51:07.979 --> 01:51:16.679
Um, you know, balanced life doesn't mean you can't work 48 hours straight and never go to bed and not see your family for two days.

01:51:17.389 --> 01:51:23.939
But then you take time away from your job and you balance your life by immersing yourself in your family to make up for it.

01:51:24.359 --> 01:51:29.099
But don't be afraid to immerse yourself in something, commit to it, and get exhausted.

01:51:29.488 --> 01:51:31.939
You know, be exhausted because of what you're doing.

01:51:32.389 --> 01:51:33.599
And, and learn from it.

01:51:33.828 --> 01:51:38.059
It is so much fun to immerse yourself in something.

01:51:38.069 --> 01:51:38.618
Yeah.

01:51:38.658 --> 01:51:39.798
You learn so much.

01:51:39.838 --> 01:51:44.088
We are a world of, uh, shallow people in some ways.

01:51:44.088 --> 01:51:47.844
And so that Perseverance and work hard.

01:51:48.064 --> 01:51:52.363
Peyton Manning said something, um, that caught my attention a number of years ago.

01:51:52.363 --> 01:51:55.783
He said it takes you about 10, 000 hours to learn how to be a quarterback in the NFL.

01:51:56.344 --> 01:51:58.623
And he said after about 15, 000 hours.

01:51:59.248 --> 01:52:00.689
You start to change the game.

01:52:01.798 --> 01:52:03.439
I thought, oh, how much fun is that?

01:52:03.948 --> 01:52:05.649
You know, that's, that's really something.

01:52:05.719 --> 01:52:13.488
I used to tell people for years that after five years in banking, because I was a small business banker, was my background, that I thought I was pretty good at it.

01:52:13.488 --> 01:52:18.088
And then after ten years in banking, I was like, oh, damn, I was so not good at it after five years.

01:52:19.349 --> 01:52:21.429
And, uh, you know, that's part of the journey.

01:52:21.679 --> 01:52:22.368
More to learn.

01:52:22.368 --> 01:52:23.184
Recognize where you've been.

01:52:23.974 --> 01:52:26.434
And I'm not as smart as you guys, so it was harder for me.

01:52:26.444 --> 01:52:27.363
Yeah, right.

01:52:27.373 --> 01:52:29.043
I appreciate you guys being here.

01:52:29.113 --> 01:52:30.134
We appreciate you too.

01:52:30.134 --> 01:52:31.144
This is a great program.

01:52:31.154 --> 01:52:31.673
Well, thank you.

01:52:31.673 --> 01:52:32.064
Thanks for the work.

01:52:32.064 --> 01:52:32.804
Appreciate you much.

01:52:33.064 --> 01:52:33.644
Godspeed.

01:52:33.644 --> 01:52:33.934
Thanks, Kurt.

01:52:33.934 --> 01:52:34.144
Yeah.