EXPERIENCE 96 | Kent Obermann, Creating Bright Smiles Through Dentistry and Music
Kent Obermann is the Founder of Tooth Zone Network, a pediatric dentistry enterprise that grew to include locations in Fort Collins, Loveland, and Longmont and as many as 60 employees. Kent founded the practice in 1982, fresh out of dental school and intro practice, with a high-rate loan “from Vinny the Loan Shark” after banks turned him down. Kent sold the business in 2017 after 35 years of creating - and maintaining - children’s smiles across the Northern Front Range - and their mission continues today!
Tooth Zone was founded to confront an assumption of the day, that one can have a high-touch, relationship-driven dental practice or one can have a highly profitable dental practice, but you couldn’t have both! An entrepreneur from an early age, Kent details some of his early blunders in business, how a consultant helped him turn his fortunes around, and what they did with training and team engagement to ensure the dual mandate of providing amazing service in a high-volume practice. In his later years, Kent became a highly sought-after consultant and speaker, and has been a keynote for the largest dental conventions in the nation!
Kent is also a founding member and band leader for The Blues Dogs, a NoCo-favorite 10-member brass party band!, and a founding member of Mr. Smyth, which is a lockdown-driven collaboration band of the best NoCo musicians who couldn’t stand to stay locked in their basements for long! All kinds of good stuff in this one, a wonderful conversation with an inspiring entrepreneur and a kindred spirit - whom I’d only barely just met before this conversation!
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
kent Oberman is the founder of Tooth Zone Network, a pediatric dentistry enterprise that grew to include locations in Fort Collins, Loveland, and Longmont, and had as many as 60. Kent founded the practice in 1982, fresh out of dental school and into practice with a high rate loan from Vinny, the loan shark after banks turned him down. Kent sold the business in 2017 after 35 years of creating and maintaining children's smiles across the northern front range, and their mission continues today. Two Zone was founded to confront an assumption of the day that one can have a high touch relationship driven dental practice, or one can have a highly profitable dental practice, but you couldn't have both. An entrepreneur from an early age. Kent details some of his early blunders in business, how a consultant helped him to turn his fortunes around and what they did with training and team engagement to ensure the dual mandate of providing amazing service in a high volume. In his later years, Kent became a highly sought after consultant and speaker, and has been a keynote for the largest dental conventions in the nation. Kent is also a founding member and band leader for the Blues Dogs. A Northern Colorado favorite 10 member brass party band, and a founding member of Mr. Smith, which is a lockdown driven collaboration band of the best Northern Colorado musicians who couldn't stand to stay locked in their basements for too long. All kinds of good stuff. In this one, a wonderful conversation with an inspiring entrepreneur and a kindred spirit whom I'm elderly barely just met before this conversation. So please enjoy my conversation with Kent Overman.
Curt:
Welcome back to the Local Experience Podcast. This is your host, Kurt. Be and I'm here today with Kent Oberman, and Kent is the founder of Tooth Zone Network, which was a pediatric, is a pediatric dental operation, uh, and also a musician, uh, band member of the Blues dogs, as well as Mr. Smith, his quote unquote Covid Band. Yeah. So, um, let's just start with, uh, if you could just describe Two Zone Network to me maybe as it is today when you left, kind of that scene a little bit. The
kent:
two zone network. Uh, I started it when I got into pediatric dentistry. Um, one of the things was, we gotta make this fun for kids. Hmm. This isn't about getting dentistry
Curt:
done. This is not like, don't try to be the scariest place you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
kent:
Let's, so, um, in 1982, Hmm. Um, we moved here and, um, uh, at a practice and I bought, uh, I, I was out wandering around and I thought, you know, what is it that kids really enjoyed? Then they had Chuck E. Cheese. You remember that with the video games and stuff? Sure. So I said, you know, I bet they'd dig that. So I went out and bought a couple, three full size video games and put'em in a waiting room. Hm. And we had big parties, uh, for years we had. Halloween parties. I mean, 1500 kids would show up. Yeah. We'd like take the home all over. I'd rent them all. Um, and big gymnasiums and stuff. And our thing was, you know, uh, two saunas where dentistry and fun collide. Yeah.
Curt:
Uh, did people age out? Like after kids get to beat 10 or 12, if they don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, then you're like, outta
kent:
here kid. Or actually most of the kids because of the relationships that we developed. Yeah. Most of the kids stuck. Yeah. I mean, I had kids coming from college, I have married people, finally, I say, look, if you bring your own kid, you gotta quit You can't, I can't see you if you keep, you know, you can't, you and your daughter can't be saying at the same time, Um, but we were blessed in the sense that, uh, my philosophy's always been about relationships. That that's what sells everything. Yeah. Uh, it's not the product. It you gotta have a good product. Yeah. But, but it's, the
Curt:
relationships well in your industry has a whole bunch of tooth fixers and not necessarily an abundance of business-oriented, kind of relationship-oriented people, although they certainly wanna serve. That isn't necessarily what wires most of them. That's
kent:
the, the skill sets that it takes to be a really great dentist. Yeah. Typically are not the skill sets that it takes to be very personable and all that. You're a scientist, you're you, you know, you love working with your hands, all of that sort of stuff. Sort of like being a head pastor. most head pastors aren't great people Persons. Mm. Because they like to sit in a place and prepare a sermon for three days. you know, I would go crazy. You would go crazy. Yeah. I like to say
Curt:
there's no way you could do that. People take my, uh, when I'm an mc and stuff, I'm like, you know, they take my lack of preparation as slapstick and like, oh, how's he get so clever and come up with those things on the fly? Well, cuz I haven't prepared at all and nor do I want to really. Right. Right, right. And that's
kent:
kind of been my style too. I think we're very similar in, in that. Yeah. Um, but, but yeah, there's, there are lots and lots of great dentists in this town. Um, but my attitude was always, I'm gonna do what I do. Yeah. I'm gonna do what I think is best and I really don't care what anybody else does. Yeah. I literally have never even been in anybody else's office in the whole town. Really? I don't go visit dentists. Are you
Curt:
friends with dentists? No. Really? No. They're too boring for
kent:
you. You can count'em on one hand. and in again, great people. Sure. Just, I'm a musician. I'm, I'm eclectic. I I'm the guy that spent more time in the dean's office in dental school than they did on the clinic for sometimes, cuz I was always asking too many questions. They were always, what is he doing here Who let him. uh, that kind of a thing. And I think that's one of the reasons my, my style was different. Fair.
Curt:
What, uh, like when you left too Tucson, um, what was the scale of the operation? Did you grow into a big practice with lots of young dentists and things like that?
kent:
Yeah, we had three locations. Okay. Four, uh, four doctors. Okay. 60 staff. Wow. Um, yeah, we were a big operation. We were in Creeley had had, uh, two operations here. Um, yeah, we were we were very
Curt:
large. You had a large market share in the kids'
kent:
teeth. Right. It was very complex. Um, and like I was telling Alma, you know, she's your, your right hand Barb Ashley, uh, yeah. Was the, the, the key to our success. Yeah. Cuz she, she filled every hole that I had and I have tons of holes. I'm like a, a siv Swiss cheese
Curt:
baby. That's right. Well, I would love to kind of talk about that journey cuz obviously you didn't start with three locations and 60 people and all these things, but, um, we like to, uh, jump in the time machine and go back to where you even come from. Uh, but before that, before we do though, talk to me about the Blues Dogs and Mr. Smith just a little bit so we can flash forward, uh, to what we're gonna talk about in the music genre later. Blues
kent:
Dogs, uh, 10 piece band, full horn section. Uh, we've opened for Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Buddy Guy and George Thoroughgood and Winona Judge. Cool. We do national festivals. Big stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we're all, we're mostly doctors, dentists, lawyers, that kind of people. We don't want to play more in about eight or 10 times a year. Mm-hmm. uh, which uh, cuz we all have lives. We have kids and grandkids.
Curt:
So if there's a craft brew festival or something like that Yeah. Oh, maybe you, yeah. Something big. But we're 10 people, so remember, and we're not really, we don't do, we're not in it for the money. We don't
kent:
do bars, we don't need the money. Um, uh, we, we, we want to be paid cuz it honors us. Yeah. Um, but that's not the most important thing. What's the most important Is that we entertain. Hmm. Um,
Curt:
um, no, I might have something for you. Uh, I want to do a, uh, a third annual fundraiser for the Matthews House this year. Oh, I
kent:
love math. Yeah. Jerry and those guys. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Love those
Curt:
guys. I've been, I I did a backyard thing in April 21, then last year we're in Okay. We're in. Do you like the brothers fountain? You ever play with those guys? I have played with those guys downtown, so they're my headline. So yeah, they were raising money. Oh yeah. The
kent:
24 4 hour 24-hour thing. Yeah. Awesome. I was part
Curt:
of the, I was there. Yeah. I was part of that. They're like the sing cause I don't play, but I gotta sing a couple tunes and give JJ a break. Cause he, and he and I have basically the same voice, which is awesome. EC
kent:
collect thing along What an eclectic duo they are. They're awesome.
Curt:
They're awesome. They're really cool. They're coming on for the second time at the end of January actually. So they'll be back on the pod again soon. Really cool dudes. Uh,
kent:
so the blues dogs been around for a long time. Yeah. Uh, 20 some years. And uh, same core guys, but people come. right now it seems like every time we lose somebody I go, oh, I'll never replace him or her. And then you get an upgrade and every time it gets better,
Curt:
and I, I'm just, without offense to any of those people that No, no.
kent:
I'm just I'm stunned about We have a, my daughter is our lead female singer and she had some throat surgery and was gone for a few months and the other lady that came in, aj, um, is way better than Megan is a pro kidding. Yeah. Yeah. No she's not. But uh, but she's a pro and she's really good at what she does. But the first month she was there, every practice she would go, where did you get these guys?
Curt:
Right. And then how many times a year do you guys practice? This is a machine,
kent:
you know, cuz everybody reads Right. Just about And they are, they're a machine. Mr. Smith, when Covid hit, um, I lasted 20 days without music. Right. And I called the best drummer I knew and said, are you playing? And he said, no, I got two guys hiding in the basement. Okay. I called it the best guitar players I knew and the best bass player. And everybody that I called was like, no, my bands aren't playing. you found the
Curt:
libertarians. But I am that, I am, that also happened to be the best. That's right.
kent:
Musician. So I said, you wanna come over on Monday and just drink beer and play? Yeah. And it was like heroin junkies getting together, getting a fix, you know. And uh, so we came over and played At the end of that, Ricky said, the drummer, can we do this again next week? And I said, So at the end of the second week, they see Ricky, who's the crazy guy. He's a drummer. He is just nuts. He's so much fun. It's scary. You shouldn't have that much fun playing drums. Um, he said, you know, why don't we play off your balcony? Hmm. I have a second story studio down to your big, your courtyard. Kind of your big driveway. Yeah. And, uh, see who shows up He said, well, it's Covid. Nobody's gonna show up. He said, we'll, see, we had 35 people show up. I love it. Then we just start playing
Curt:
out on the balcony. And where is this? What part
kent:
of the geography? It's south, uh, west Over by Kathy Fromm. By the, by the junior college. Yeah. Yeah. Applewood Estates. We all have a couple acres. Yeah. So we're not packed in And
Curt:
uh, quite a 35 isn't too
kent:
dangerous. Really? So Ricky, so so Ricky dubbed us the Covid Romeos. Cuz we played off the balcony. And I said, that's kind of not the way it is cuz it was Juliet. It was under the, you know, and so I was hiring all the bands down in Loveland. I hired 165 bands down there. We hired 12 bands every week, even during Covid. Oh. Every Saturday I hired 12 for outdoor outdoor bands. For outdoor, outdoor venues. Okay. We, we kept all of Loveland open. Loveland, uh, became the, the music center of Northern Colorado. Yeah, by
Curt:
far. Yeah. Well there wasn't anything happen around Fort Five and they said, no man. Washington's finally lifted to their covid. Did they finally mandate. Yeah. It's like, I can't play this guys, you're only eight bucks late. That's right.
kent:
So they said, why don't we hire us? And I said, we're not a band. We're a bunch of guys that drink beer on Monday nights. and they said, well, we could it be a band? Yeah. So you guys wanna be a band? And they said, yeah, let's be a band. And they said, you know, we're pretty good. They said, well, we ought to be pretty good. We're the best guys out of five best bands in Northern Colorado. If we're not good, nobody's gotta be good. So we call her. And I was listening to a song on the way over called Mr. Smith and his band, renowned by Delbert McLin. Yeah. And I said, how about Mr. Smith? And they went, okay. That was it. Boom.
Curt:
Boom. Invented Jill. I wanted to go to Double Mc Clinton when he was nearby, uh, some years ago. We never did. Is he He still playing? Yeah. I,
kent:
I was, uh, was it four years ago? I was the concierge Oh. At, uh, for all the main acts for 18 years over at the Green Blues Festival. Oh, really? Okay. And Delvert was one of my guys.
Curt:
So your, your Ben is, your fingers are as sticky with music as they are with teeth in some ways. Yeah.
kent:
Yeah. I, uh, blues, blues rock kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. When you get into other genres, not so much. Okay. You know, because you only got so much time in your life and when you got grandkids and 60 staff members and Yeah. You know, you gotta kind of say, this is my, this is my
Curt:
lane. Yeah. You can't do everything, you know? Yeah. Well, let's, uh, let's jump in that time machine now. Yeah. And, uh, you can't got here in 1982 or something, but, uh, where'd you grow up? Uh, how'd, how'd you come to Path Burlington, Iowa. Okay. Where, where is where? In
kent:
Iowa? Southeast corner, right on the river. Okay. Yeah. From my house. If you had a really good arm, you could hit the river in two
Curt:
baseball throws. My wife lived in Port Byron. Is that like north farther up river or something? Port the Quad Cities. Oh, yeah.
kent:
Yes. 60 miles. Okay. They're in our conference, the big, the little 10. Okay. Yep. Uh, yeah. Bettendorf, Molene, east Molene Rock Island. Yep. Davenport, Davenport West.
Curt:
I haven't spent much time around there. I mostly, I've been up around decor and stuff where the motorcycle riding was really good. Okay.
kent:
Yeah. So raised there. My mom had, uh, was one of 13. Whoa. Everybody farmed
Curt:
So, even though, and where, where did you St. Oh, your mom was one of 13 then. My mom was one of
kent:
13. So, wow. All summers and everything I spent, everybody needed help. Been handed around and baying hay and, you know, and it was a great way to grow up. Yeah. You worked really hard, but you gotta go swimming and into ponds and do all that crazy Iowa farm kid crap, even though I was a city
Curt:
slicker. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's a good opportunity to, uh, get a little bit of a farm in ya. It's a big advantage. I'd like to think, you know. Oh, it,
kent:
it is, uh, at the time it didn't feel that way Right. All the time, but we, you know, if you got a job to do, you don't quit till it's done. Right. Right. It doesn't matter if you're tired. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you're hurt, doesn't matter. You know, rub dirt on it. Let's go. We got,
Curt:
what was your family dynamic then? Uh, was your mom a homemaker? Did she work? Was your
kent:
dad? No, mom worked professional. Uh, mom worked at a factory. Dad. Okay. Uh, was an alcoholic. Uh, uh, not mean weird. Just,
Curt:
just not really worth too much.
kent:
Just not, just not around all the time. Yeah. And he was a salesman and he was successful, um, at that, uh, I mean he wasn't like he was one of those functionals Yeah. You know?
Curt:
Yeah. Um, at least somewhat. Yeah. But it doesn't sound like he was much of a husband or
kent:
dad. Well, he was. Yeah. He did the best he could. Yeah. I mean, if you look at his background, um, you know, his dad was not an alcoholic, but he was that 1930s and forties. Yeah. He farmer, cold stone. Yep. Yep. Got stuff to do, you know. Don't hug me kind of a thing. You know, Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but no, I was raised that way. Uh, the upside is it made me tough. Yeah. Um, it made me independent. I, I've been running my own show since I was,
Curt:
probably had a lot to do with forming Tostone and stuff. Well, did, I
kent:
mean, I've been running my own show since I was 10. I've literally never worked for anybody. Wow. Uh, I've, I've, I've always had my own lawn mowing service or whatever. Um, have
Curt:
siblings too. Do you have brother
kent:
sisters? I have. I have one brother who lives here in town. He's my harmonica player. He's a dentist also.
Curt:
Yeah. I saw his, his
kent:
boy's Fabulous harmonica player. Um, um, and we're, you couldn't be more opposite of Oh really? Him and me. Yeah. Philosophically, reg, religiously everything. Interesting. My sister was one of the heads of the Girl Scouts in, uh, southeastern Iowa. Oh. There's three of us. And so, uh, and she
Curt:
still lives there. Okay. Cool. So, um, tell me about like, your place in the high school, in the middle school. Were you one of the smart kids? I, I'm guessing you were a funny guy. Uh, you were mowing lawns and this and that, obviously already. So I was,
kent:
um, I, I, I, I think my high school experience was um, never, never really, I was in the crack cuz I was really good at everything I did just about, I. captain, the football team captain, the wrestling team captain, the track team, first year, Allstate base, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow. But yet I was on this side of the city. Mm-hmm. Raised with all the black kids and the poor kids. And you, you know Yeah. You've heard of living on the other side of the tracks. Yeah. Yeah. You have to go to a long way from where I lived to get to the other side of the tracks. Fair. Okay. And there's again, it, it, I, I'm not complaining. It made me who I am. Well, you
were
Curt:
blessed, right? Like you were Amen. Gifted by nature and your mother's care and all these different things to feel like you could be the captain of the football team and the star wrestler. Right. Because
kent:
we had choices to make. We could either go down that path and follow that, or we could, or we could aspire to be more. Yeah. And all three of us kids aspire to be more. Yeah. I think maybe I led the way a little bit. I don't think they'd admit that. Were
Curt:
you the oldest of the three? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, not, not uncommon
kent:
necessarily. Yeah. And I'm the, yeah, I'm, I'm the one that always pissed everybody off because it was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not me, I'm Kent's little brother.
Curt:
Right. fair
kent:
Yeah. Cuz I make a big splash. Make a big shadow. Yeah. Fair enough. And so, grew up, went to, uh, junior college. Didn't know what I wanted to do, had no idea what I wanted to do with my
life.
Curt:
Just close by
kent:
somewhere or whatever. Yeah. It was just some, you know, Vietnam and I thought, well, I better I better go to school. Fortunately due number 2 89. So I didn't have to go anyway. Um, and then, went to, uh, Northwest Missouri State. Okay. Uh, where I turned my life around, I had really great teachers there that said, you know, you're not stupid. You just don't know how to study. Nobody's
Curt:
ever told you you were smart You've never had to study. Really.
kent:
You're right. Be right. Right. And so, yeah, if you'll let us help you, we think we can make something of you. And I said, well, so do
Curt:
it. I'm not doing anything else with my life. And, uh, interesting.
kent:
Did not get into dental school the first time. Um, got into dental school the second time at the University of Iowa where I wanted to go. In fact, the only place I even applied. Yeah. Um,
Curt:
uh, were you working through college a little bit and stuff too? I worked full-time in a factory. That's what I wondering. Yeah. It seems like a family that you're Yeah. I worked, um, uh, three to 11 at nine So right after class Get out then Yeah. Come home
kent:
bed by midnight so I could get over worked at the hush puppy plant tanning hides.
Curt:
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they had quite a shoe industry up in that region. And even Red Wing up the river aways and different things. That was quite a even still is really. There's a few manufacturers, I don't think hush puppies around anymore. I doubt it. But, uh, if they are, they're made
kent:
in China. But again, it was, you know, it was one of those things that made me do time management and it taught me things because of necessity. And you talk to people and I go, oh man, that must have been really hard. No, it's what it was. Yeah. It wasn't hard. It just, if I was gonna do this, I needed to do. Yeah, it, it, there were
Curt:
no options. And doing hard things is kind of, you know, don't do hard dumb things well but do hard beneficial things because that's how you car a life out kind
kent:
of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are scooping hog crap for 12 hours a day working in a hush puppy factory and going to college. It's pretty easy.
Curt:
Yeah. Right, right. But when you're working on a farm, yeah, that's kind of what I thought when I first got here to Fort Collins and I'm a young banker and you know, had, you know, kind of an inferiority complex going into college and stuff. Cause I came from very rural areas and stuff, but people were like, wow, you, you work so hard, you get so much done. I'm like, shit, I've been coasting ever since I started college. Kind of. Yeah. You know, it took me a while to acclimate and understand that I actually could succeed. But then by the time I got to the working world it was like, oh, you know, a lot of people don't work hard and a lot of it's because they don't know where they're going. Right,
kent:
right. If you don't, that's why I think going right into college, if you don't know what you want to do, sometimes it's devastating cuz you just screw around cuz you don't really have a path. And then you see kids that come back and they go, oh, now I know what I want. Yeah. Yeah. And they just kill it. Right. Where before they were getting Ds and Fs and drunk and if you're focused on something then boom. Easier. Yep. For sure. I, I think the biggest thing for me was I never really got over and I think it's still there a little bit. you know, poor Iowa farm kid, you're you, you're really not good enough. Yeah. You've been bullshitting your way through life, your whole life and, and someday somebody's gonna catch on And so I literally, a lot of my success Yeah. Was driven by fear. Well, a little
Curt:
bit of shame even for how much you've been blessed. I don't know if you're, maybe not, I don't know. This is getting into the faith section almost. Yeah. But I had a lot of shame because I was kind of, you know, the smart kid that got good grades and wasn't okay at sports and different things. And I felt guilty about having all those blessings when I knew that I was a terrible sinner too. Yeah.
kent:
You just like everybody else, that part didn't come to me till I was like 27. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was raised in a Christian home, um, but quite frankly, the way I was raised and, and stuff, they're both believers and, but it was just, I, I didn't get the family dynamic cuz dad was always gone by the time he stopped drinking. And he did. He did. Okay. I was just gonna ask that. No, I turned it all around, but I was in high school. Okay. And by that time, the relationship was never really started very well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I went to college Right. And, and stuff. Um, but I, I, I, I always had that, you know, the dean's gonna walk in someday and go, you don't belong here. Interesting. Get the hell out. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Um, and so, and that's kind of a
Curt:
good poke to work hard. Well, no,
kent:
it made me, it made me success. because I, I was, I was, but it was fear-driven and that's sad. Yeah. Yeah. It's sad that, that you're, that you're, that, that you're, that your, your your impetus Yeah. Is fear-driven and not I want to Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, after a while, you do start to, to trust yourself and to believe in yourself, cuz you're saying, man, after 15 years of this
Curt:
Right. I must not be a total poser.
kent:
Yeah, it is. Yeah. That's right. Right, right, right. It's, some of it's real, you know? Yeah. And then you hook up and get married to someone like my wife, and it's like, dude,
Curt:
I scored Right. You know? Right. I must be one of the good ones. That's right. That's right. Because she's not stupid. She's no dummy because she's not stupid. And I did that That's fair. That's fair. I like that. Of course, I did catch her at a bad day, but well, you probably had to work on her for a little bit. So, um, is she on the picture at this point in time in college years? She came in,
kent:
she came in junior year of my, uh, of, of, of dentistry. Okay. Okay. And she was a nurse. Yep. So she put me through school, uh, those last few years financially. Yeah. Um, and then went to residency program in Memphis. I did my, uh, the University of Iowa Dental School. Mm-hmm. And then I, I, I went to University of Tennessee and that was another life changing moment for me in that, um, I got involved down there with a church and with, with, with people. I was a believer at that point. But,
Curt:
and was your wife
from
kent:
a faith background as well? Yes. Yes. And, and, but I'd never really seen it work. Yeah. There was always this Iowa religion thing, where you just don't screw up much where people can see you you know? Right. And, and I don't really talk about. Right. I was kinda the god's greatest undercover agent. Really. you know, all through college. My friends were like, he's so weird. He doesn't, he doesn't do all the stupid stuff we do, but he's just no fun, you know, he just studies all the time cuz I was always worried about it. And then I moved to Memphis and met, um, Vance Cartwright was my assistant, uh, department head. And he was this whacked out Jesus freak love Golden Gloves, national Golden Gloves champion. Oh cool. Just the coolest dude ever. And he showed me that, you don't need to hide this, you can wear this right there, I like it. You know,
Curt:
and if they don't, Tough. Yeah. You know? That's cool. That's cool. Um, and tell me about, uh, meeting, what's your wife's name again? Debbie. Debbie. Uh, tell me about like connecting with her. Was it love at first sight? No.
kent:
Well, no, I don't think so. For her, for sure. Not Uh, I, I'm a like scotch. I'm an acquired toast. Right.
Curt:
I'm sure there's more than a people that are, that have been. Who is that guy? That's right. That party or something.
kent:
That's right. Well, I go to parties now and they go, why'd that lady bring her uncle She should have brought her husband that, who's the old guy? Right. But, uh, uh, we, we met at a church camp, a college kind of church camp thing where it's a one day deal where he came in, did some worship and stuff, and she was talking to some guy kind of up on this rise. And my buddy, uh, came over and said, you need to meet this chick. And I said, okay, where He's up here. So we walked up and he interrupted him. right in the middle of a conversation. Can't Debbie, can't Debbie have, and he left. And I'm like, I am so sorry. And is the other dude still there? He's standing right there in the middle of a conversation. I'm going, I'm so sorry this, he's an idiot. I, this was not my idea. Right? And he said, no, we're done, Debbie. Good to see you. Gave her a hug and walked off. And we talked for two hours. you know, about life and stuff. And, and our first interactions were more just complaining about. The church and the way they handled things and all of that. And that's kind of what brought us together. Yeah. And then we grew into really good friends. And a couple years later, uh, I finally, you know, got her to at a weak moment,
Curt:
Right. And, uh, so, um, Memphis is where you kind of finished after Texas? That's where I did, yeah. I went to
kent:
Iowa. Oh, Tennessee, right there. Yeah. Yeah. And then I went to Memphis is University of Tennessee. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I graduated University of Tennessee and I've never been on their campus. Okay. In Knoxville. It's 11 hours away. Oh. See. Across the state. Uh, but it's right downtown on Beale Street. Yeah. It's just a beautiful campus and stuff.
Curt:
And were you a musician already in
kent:
these days? I've always sang. I was Okay. I mean, sings my thing. Yeah.
Curt:
And, um, you play your instruments so that they let you sing. Yeah. Yeah. I,
kent:
I, I learned to play a little guitar just so I could impress you with my voice. Uh, but I was in third grade, the music teacher stopped the class and said, what are you doing? And I said, singing. She goes, what are you singing? I don't know. And she said, you're singing harmony. Why are you singing harmony? And I said, I, I didn't know. Oh, wow. You were just, I had no idea I was improving. Harmony. Harmony. I thought even knowing what that was, I stood next to Uncle Lloyd in church. Uncle Lloyd was a tenor. Mm-hmm. I only heard tenor. So whatever you saying, I sing a fifth or a third. Huh. I didn't know I was singing Harmony. So I was raised in an acapella church. Yeah. And so I've always been a singer all the way through high school. Like I said, I was, had the leads into plays and all that junk and um, uh, didn't sing at all. All the way through dental school. Not in choir, not in anything. Cuz I was scared to death. I was gonna flunk out. And all I did was study, um, moved here to town and sang in church. Okay. Uh, let led worship and stuff. And then, uh, uh, put in flyer into Bulletin. Said a little thing in the bulletin and said, Hey, if you've ever been in a band, want to be in a band, thought about being be in a band. A band Come to my house on Sunday afternoon and I had like 15 guys show. Oh wow. And that's the start of the Blues Dogs. Oh wow. Was 25, 28 years old. Oh, how
Curt:
cool is that? That's, uh, so my, so you have got no, no formal singing training except for like being in choir for most of your school years. I was a
kent:
music major for a year. Oh, you were? Okay. And then I figured out you really gotta know what you're telling doing and I don't. Right. I'm just a singer and No, I'm just a singer. And in fact, I tell people that say Singer Rock Romance. Yeah. Yeah. They say you're a musician. I say, no I'm not. Right. I'm a singer. That's interesting. That's
Curt:
different. That is very
kent:
different. Yeah. And the guys, you know, what keys it in whatever they're playing. Right. I just
Curt:
match up to the thing. That's right.
kent:
They're doing whatever they play. I sing.
Curt:
I, well, so I uh, I grew up driving a tractor. Right. And so from like 1987 to 1993, Top 40 on country and top 40 on rock and roll. You knew it all. I could sing all of those. Yeah. You know, and that, that gives me a, a decent range. If you can sing most of that shit. That's right.
kent:
That's right. You're a singer. I'm a singer.
Curt:
Yeah. You can sing. I've been, I got a guitar out. But think about trying to play because it's laid to have an old white guy that just sings. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have, yeah.
kent:
You can't stand
Curt:
up at a bar. Just, I'm thinking about getting just a harmonica maybe that I could be in a band and But you can't sing
kent:
in Harmonic can't lead. Right, exactly.
Curt:
Because you've got a thing in your mouth. Right. So I could play harmonica when somebody elses sings. Right. But that's lame. I should be the lead singer cause I'm the best singer. Well, you're the star, right? Anyway, let's face It's all about you. Iress isn't it? Up about everybody the same way. Should I tell the band
kent:
dudes, you're just here to back me up.
Curt:
So what church is this with all these undercover musicians? At the time? This
kent:
was, uh, uh, uh, crossroads. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Down there. Yep, yep.
Curt:
Um, down almost like between Levelland and Fort Collins.
kent:
Almost yet. Yeah. Actually at the time we were meeting at the high school. Oh, right. Uh, still we hadn't built the new building yet. Yeah. Yeah.
Curt:
One of my least successful food trucking events was at Crossroads, uh, like Fall Festival would've been the fall of 2015, I think. Oh. I was loaded for Bear. Cause they have one big event before I packed it down for the winter and nobody, everybody already ate or something. Yeah. I don't know. Well, they, the, the previous year they had all these crowds and stuff, uh, and it was actually a pretty good event. But then this year they stuck us all. Off in the corner away from all the stuff so they wouldn't have all the crowd stuff. Yeah. And it was like everybody forgot about us and Yeah. Yeah. Church
kent:
events are, uh, it's tricky. They're, they're pretty hit
Curt:
or miss. I had, uh, I had leftover, pulled pork for a lot of months, months after that. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. No,
kent:
we got, uh, we got shut down one year. Uh, my band opened for the men's group at 7 45 in the morning at Thompson Valley High School. The cops showed up, shut
Curt:
us down, like noise because were too loud complaints. And the pastor was like, yes. Perfect. Wait, the men's group got shut down. I couldn't lie. The cops showed up. So, um, so you get this blues dogs thing going where Was was two zone already a thing by that time? Oh yeah. You move here, bought some video games. We can get back onto that story almost, or no, I, uh, was that your first professional experience? Kind of,
kent:
yeah. Yeah. Um, and again, I, I, I, I just stole from everybody else. McDonald's had tubes. So when I built a new office, I put two, a two story cur q slide in the middle of waiting room, I had tubes that went through the office that you could crawl through. Was
Curt:
this your first, like, let's talk about the first office. I mean, did you, I assume you didn't have like a whole bunch of money cuz you hadn't had a job except for papers and stuff. Your whole No, no. Life. Like, talk to me about like getting into Well, I
kent:
came here. and, uh, banks. Wouldn't I show up? You're a banker. Yeah. I was, when was the last dentist showed up with a 24 page marketing plan, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And how he's gonna grow his practice. And especially in 1982, right. Never happened. Never happened. And they went, no, I need money to buy the practice. I need money. They wouldn't do it. So I went to Vito Co. Leoni down in Denver. Okay. Um,
Curt:
and literally, literally Vito Coli, well that wasn't his
kent:
name, but I think he was his
Curt:
cousin. Average loan shark. It was his cousin. Yeah. I named
kent:
and then about a year later, cuz I doubled the practice every four months. Whoa. Uh, because we were, there's only Bill Davis was here and that was it. Oh wow. So I came in, Steve Polly came in. And how did you land here? Did you
Curt:
like
kent:
I was literally wanting to go to Ohio because it's halfway between my house, my family and her family. Okay. And it's Midwest. Although the Buckeye thing about choked me, I said, okay, I could, I'll live next to a Buckeye, but I'll never become one cuz I'm a Hawkeye. And, um Right. Uh, the, the door just, it kept slamming shut. Yeah. And the Smiths uh, group hired me as a big medical group and they're gonna pay me an enormous amount of money to do nothing. And I was like, yes. And I, they. I moved and the state to be a pediatric dentist for them or whatever. Yeah. Right. In their big hospital thing. And um, I thought, what a great way to start. I'm making six figures back with six. Nobody made six, six figures.
Curt:
And I think I made 20, yeah. 4,000 when I first moved to Fort Collins in 1999. And
kent:
this was just sweet, like three chairs. I ran more than that in dental school. And uh, the state board said, well, you gotta take boards over. I said, no, I don't. I got reciprocity. This says right here. Yeah. And they said, well no, we changed that And you're like, what? You gotta take state boards? And I said, no, no, no, no, no. So I read the, i, I did my research and I said, did you announce that you changed it in these four newspapers and on these two radio stations? Like it says you have to. And they said, well no. And I said, then gimme my license. They said, well to do that we're gonna have to call the state government back together and vote on it. And I said, that sounds like a personal issue. right. I want my
Curt:
license. You're problem not mine.
kent:
They called them back together. They voted they had to gimme my license cuz they screwed up. Right. But they also read the law and a dentist cannot work for a physician. Oh. So I have my license, but I'm fired. And the other two guys, the, the endodontists, the surgery are fired
Curt:
too. So they couldn't set up like a different corporation or something, or at least not fast enough to figure that out. So
kent:
we said the three of us, let's just, let's buy a building across the street Smith cleaned to support us. We don't care. Right. And so we did, we got found a building and then we got to looking at it, there wasn't enough room for me. And I said, okay, no big deal. I'll just go find my own thing. I found a fire
Curt:
and you're like 24, 5 years
kent:
old or something. Uh, 20. Do, do, do do. 29. 29. I
Curt:
guess it takes a long ass time to get through dental
kent:
school, huh? Yeah. Yeah. 29, 30. And I said, I want that fire station cuz I can do something at that fire station, but I only pay this much. And Lord, if, if it's not there for this much money, it's all I can afford, then this isn't for us. And it wasn't. Huh? I had nowhere to go.
Curt:
You wanted the kids to be able to go down the fireman's pole? Oh, I had all sorts. I
kent:
had, my mind was going nuts. I didn't, had nothing to do with dentistrys. All the cruise stuff I could do. And so I came back and I said, we, I don't have a place to, to work. Um, I was sitting in the break room, I had four weeks left in school. Wife is pregnant, gonna have a kid in four weeks. And uh, I'm thumbing through one of the journals. Fort Collins Col, or a Loveland, Colorado practice for sale. Oh. So I called the, the broker Jim Burke, and I said, Jim, you know, he said, tell me about yourself, So I did. And he said, yeah. And he said, well, you are not a Longmont kind of guy. And I said, I don't know what that means. He said, you're not a long mount kind of guy. You're a Fort Collins kind of guy. Yeah. I can tell by talking to you. Right.
Curt:
They're gonna think you're too weird in Longmont.
kent:
I said, but, but dude, there's no practice for sale in Fort Collins. He said, yes, there is. The guy owns two practices. One in Long Mountain, one in Fort Collins. He's killing both of them. Huh? Make him an offer on this one. Yeah. And that's how I ended up here. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, we flew out here. Megan was born
Curt:
like God's providence sometimes.
kent:
Oh no. And then, then I get a phone call from my brother. Okay. I go out, negotiate the practice by it. I haven't moved out yet. My brother calls me and, uh, he's one of my best friends in whole wide world. And, uh, he says, so what are you gonna do with the rest of your life? I said, I'm moving to Fort Collins, Colorado, I think, and we're out looking at a practice. He said, when are you gonna go look at it? I said, no, no, two weeks on the Saturday or whatever. Yeah. And he said, it's crazy, man. He said, I'm looking at a practice in Greeley on the same day, So, so my, so my best bud. Harmonica player, fellow singer moves 35 miles away far enough that he doesn't bug me. Right. But close enough, he can come over and practice. Uh,
Curt:
I like it. I love it. Was he I going to the same dental
kent:
track with you too? Yes. Well, he wasn't a pediatric dentist. He was a general dentist. Oh, sure. So, okay. He, I was four years older. I, I was four years ahead of him. Oh. But takes, we're graduat graduating in the same extra
Curt:
education, the same on the little good
kent:
teeth stuff, right? Yeah. But we're graduating at the same time. How crazy is that? Oh, God's, God's providence. As I look back on my life, it's frightening how many times that, that he stepped in was not frightening. It's delightful. I guess right? He stepped in and made things happen. Yeah. And then, you know, a lot of times I thought, I thought of it, and then you look back and go,
Curt:
no, you didn't you had nothing to do with this. You know, uh, having a few of those times happen and being able to recognize it, like changes the way that everything else in the world is.
kent:
It is because it, when you recognize that, um, he's sovereign that, that he has control of every part of my life, whether I want to admit it or not. you know, I'm the one messing this up, not him. Yeah, okay. I'm the one kicking and screaming, kicking against the pricks, you know, saying, no, no, no, no, no. You know, how come you can't do it my way? You know? Yeah. And uh, and that's why I think looking forward in life now, I'm 70. Are you really? Yeah. When you look forward in life. Now, the frightening part for me is not me. I mean, I know where I'm going when I croak. Yeah. I, I got that handle. Okay. I just look at my grandkids. I look at this younger generation Yeah. And the, the mountains,
Curt:
the level of purposelessness and just angst over who am I and what is my place in the universe. The,
kent:
the questions they're forced to deal with at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Right. That I didn't think about until I was 30. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, okay. Back in Iowa, I really didn't know black and white cuz I was raised on the black side of town with all, all my friends. Yeah. Were all, all eight black kids in whole town. Okay. So, you know, but you're friends with most, well, and we all played football together and, and they were my buddies. Right. And I didn't, in, in dental school, we had two black kids in. Did
Curt:
you feel like there was racism in Iowa? No. Not hardly. No.
kent:
No. I, I, it, I mean, I didn't
Curt:
feel like there really North Dakota either. People
kent:
talk. Sure. I mean, they'd dropped the N word and all that, but it wasn't a racial thing. It was just, it was a word. Yeah. You know, it was just a word. I'm not, I'm not putting you down. It's just a word that came outta my mouth, so get over it. And they did. It was no big deal. Where now everything is hurtful. Yeah. Everybody's, you know, looking for a reason to be offended instead of back then you kind of went, eh, you look for a reason not to be offended. Right. You tried
Curt:
not to be upset. If I think about all the gay jokes that we said back in the day and stuff, oh my God. Like, that would get you like, totally voted off the island in today's
kent:
world. And when you got a loose mouth like I have, oh my God. There's just, there's times you just went, did I just say that
Curt:
I'd like to, uh, one of my, one of my favorite quotes is, uh, just because I said something doesn't mean I mean it. That's right. I'm just, I'm just floating it out there, you know, can't just testing the waters. You know, somebody might think that my daughter will walk. I don't,
kent:
my daughter will walk over to me on stage sometimes and go, you can't say stuff like that, Really? She goes, it's not funny. I thought it was hilarious. A lot of people laugh. Yeah, but look at all the old people laugh. I mean, some people laughed. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And they were all young, all the old people laughing.
Curt:
All of those snowflakes are melting outta the room
kent:
So all of us old farce think it's funnier. And heck, you know,
Curt:
anyway, we're gonna make the snowflakes mad and they're gonna stop listening. Uh, they don't listen to my podcast anyway. Yeah. Uh, so talk to me about, um, like the growing of a practice, right? Like, you bought this practice. Was it just, was it just you and like a helper? Was there a couple of employees already? It was me.
kent:
Uh, just you and No. No. And, and there was, uh, three dental assistants, two office people.
Curt:
Okay. So you bought a pretty, something like that. Not a super established, but it wasn't big, but it was, it had clients I was
kent:
driving. Yeah. And, and I, I, I knew, I mean, being an entrepreneur, you learn some stuff. Right? Okay. And when I was a senior in high school, my dad and I owned a truck stop. Oh. So I'm probably the only senior in high school that actually owned a truck stop. Um, and so I was responsible for stuff that high school kids don't. I, when, when I ran track, I said, I'll come run at noon. I'll practice at noon, but I gotta go run a truck, stop after work, after school. He'll let me, I can get off for the meets, you know, and I held the school record and. Two events, but, but I can't practice cuz I have to work. Okay. So, so I came into dentistry and the first thing I did was I called everybody in and I said, you're all fired. Oh wow. And they went What? Said, yeah, you're all fired now. I'm gonna be taking applications starting tomorrow morning and I would really suggest that you guys, you know, be Yeah. Because I needed to establish that I was the boss. New sheriff, new things are gonna happen. Different expectations. I was a horrible boss. you, you, you could have put a revolving door in the back so people didn't get hit in the bud on their way out. Yeah. That's, that's how often I was turning people over cuz I was an idiot. I was like, you
Curt:
were a bad boss. And they like idiot. I was a terrible boss. I
kent:
was, did most of whole, was like every other dental student who just graduated I know everything
Curt:
in the whole white world because, and you people are students, you're not a dentist.
kent:
30 and scared. And I'm going to put my turbine on and wave my sword around and act really cool. And then I met a guy named Mike Schuster. Um, actually first my brother and I both hired, he had a practice in Greeley, uh, a consultant that came in and the consultant sat down with our staffs and he said, you can, you can have a, a high, a high producing. Or you can have one that is, uh, uh, uh, you know, well organized and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, what? I don't want
Curt:
any of those things.
kent:
What, what, what, what are you talking about? Well, you can't have both. I looked at my brother and my brother looked at him and said, you have no idea who you're talking to. He will do whatever he wants. You know, I'm going to have a high producing practice, and I'm also gonna have a high touch practice. There's no reason you can't have both. Mm-hmm. And then I met Mike Schuster, who turned my life around. He was a, he was a consultant out, uh, outta Phoenix. And his basic premise was, there's 104 things that you have to have screwed together, or you can't run a business. Okay. And here's what they are. And I'd say, okay, well what are the answers? He said, it's not for me to answer'em. You have to answer for you, There are no answers except your answers. And most people wouldn't take the hundreds of hours it took to go through each one of those and figure all those out. Sure. So that, you know,
Curt:
man, you were, you were, you were selling an experience before that was really, that was 20 years before its time in some ways, right? Or before it was recognized. It was, you know, when I left banking and wanted to start a restaurant and stuff, I was really focused on the experience. Cause that was kind of fresh and new kind of thinking that way. You were freaking 1982, thinking about that. Well,
kent:
I'm a dent a Walters Demis. You know, I dunno what that means. Walter's Demi is a CPA from North Dakota Oh. Who went to, to a GM and Ford and all them and said, here's how you make better cars. Hmm. And they said, bye. He went to Toyota. That's why Toyota is who they are. Really? Walter's Demi went in and said, if you don't want things to not, if, if you want things to be better, you can't get a pin with a tolerance of 0.06 that you'll take. Yeah. Every pin needs to be 0.02 or you don't take it. Yeah. And then nothing breaks And so you have to have every single step of every single procedure completely written out and honed out. Yeah. And known. And known. When I sat down to do a procedure, I did this and the right instrument was in my hand. Hmm. Cuz I did everything exactly the same. If I didn't need the instrument, I still took it and handed it back cuz I did not want them getting out of, uh, rhythm. Yeah. Okay. Oh, fascinating. So we could see a hundred kids a day Wow. And still have time to go hang out with the parents. Still have time to talk about sports and stuff with each kid because the dentistry wasn't the most, I, it, it was taken care. we didn't have to worry about doing the dentistry. Right. That was mem muscle memory of us. That was nothing. That was like, just get through this so we can spend four more minutes talking about football. And that's what made us successful. Yeah. Was because we were so, the staff was so well organized. Yeah. And so well trained and everyone got treated the same every time. So that when you brought your kid in, you had a great experience. You told your friend, oh yeah, you should go to see Ken. He's awesome. Right. And I, she shows up. Friend would come in and have the same and it's a super busy, busy day and you get, she gets treated a like crap because we're too busy to do. No. Right. It's gotta be consistency and continuity. Were were my two words. Oh, interesting. It has to be consistent and it has to go across the board.
Curt:
So I think you mentioned that this is it Schuster, Mike Schuster. Mike. Yeah. Um, did he consult with your brother as well? No. No.
kent:
Greg was not, Greg was not one, he was very expensive. He's old school and well, it was very expensive. So Greg kind of just washed over my shoulder
and
Curt:
he implemented some things. He stole half Right. You know, and he was
kent:
a fabulous, he was a fabulous general dentist. Right. And then I lost a couple of dentists and I was like, man, I'm in trouble cuz I can't run three clinics. Mm-hmm. Um, and Greg said, well, I'll step up, I'll help you. Yeah. So he came over and worked
Curt:
for me. You're play some kind of more fun anyway,
kent:
so, and he said, I'm having more fun. I'm making more money working for you. I'm gonna sell my practice. Can I work for you? So last five years of his practice, he worked for me. Oh, that's
Curt:
cool. So, yeah, you know, the truth is, is, is like that's what people pay for. Not just your clients, but your the employees too. Like part of what they're here for is for the experience of being a part of this journey. And it's a lot more fun at Tooth Zone network than it is at, you know, whatever. Well, you need to be Greeley Dental You need to
kent:
be part of, everybody wants to be part of something bigger than themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's part of the reason those of us that are believers, we're, we're part of something much bigger than us. Yeah. Yeah. We're just a little bitty cog in a whole great big machine of believers all headed towards his glory. Okay. So we only worked three and a half days a week. That's all I ever worked. All you
Curt:
did or all anybody. Anybody
kent:
really? They all got paid for five They worked three and a half. Okay. I took everybody and their spouses to Mexico for a week every year on me. They got paid while they were there. Okay. I, I had no. Right. Hardly
Curt:
after those first. Hardly like was it just a switch after Mike got in there or does it take a couple years for you to learn?
kent:
About four or five years. Okay. For me to get that tipping point. Yeah. I have a whole, I used to teach business management nationally. Oh really? I have a whole talk on the tipping point. Oh. But once you get the tipping points, I know you had these creds. Yeah, yeah. One, one year I spoke in front of 75% of every pediatric dentist in the world. Really? Yeah. Oh. Um, on business management. So I have a whole talk on the tipping point that once you get it this way towards the positive Yeah. It's really hard to, to get it to go bad because a bad person comes to work for you. They can't stand it Right.
Curt:
They, because they self elect. They're like, I don't fit in here. No
kent:
Either that or the other staff, the, the female staff members would come and say, get that, get that check outta here. Right. And I'd consult with guys who are like this. Yeah. And I'd go, you, you, you're in trouble. You can't hire enough good people to do this cuz they won't stay. Mm. So you're gonna, you're gonna have to turn 70% of your staff over. And most of'em weren't willing to do that. Right. Oh, she's the best person I
Curt:
got. She's been with me for five years. Yeah. No, she's not the best company. Well cause she can't really get a better job cuz you're such a lousy boss that if she could get a better job, she would've done did it. Well, and, and that's part, I actually, being a good boss is a big part of giving
kent:
people Right. 15 years into what I was doing, I hired Dave Holland. Um, Dave is a pastor at, uh, vineyard. Okay. Ex, ex pastors. And I said I was 60 people. I can't keep track of all these women. I can't serve'em. Right. I, I don't know what their needs are. I don't have enough hours in the day to take'em to lunch and Right. So your full-time job is to go meet with everybody and figure out what it is we need to do to serve their families better. Hmm. And it was awesome. Plus he, maybe he mentored me too. Yeah. Because I was, you know, it's like, well, yeah, you're running island. As long as we're here, we, you know, you should get your head outta your Fanny Right.
Curt:
Oh, okay. Right. As it turns out, you've got some stuff to work on too. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. We had, so I want to, um, come back to kind of the steps in the business journey after Mike joined, and then ultimately kind of the, the departure, uh, and hear about what your thoughts were as we came to that. But I wanna take a break first. Sure. So, uh, we'll be back. All right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't know how things work. They just work. That's right. since you get the light, just get the light. You don't have to know how electricity works. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's for smarter people than me. Um, so when we departed, we were kind of into the stages of really turning the corner on. on two zone and, and really becoming a machine. What I was thinking when I was using the restroom just now was, uh, kind of the notion of build it as you're building it. So like, were you financially successful early on was because of your specialty and niche in the market and stuff. You still had enough clients right away to be able to invest all these things and take your staff to Mexico and stuff. No. That connect built over
kent:
time that, that, that, that's sort of built over time. We've, again, coming from my background right. It didn't matter how much we made, we lived on this much. Right. So we always had more margin to spend on business. Good. Yeah. Than people. Cuz many of my colleagues, their wife says, oh yeah. Have sacrificed forever to get you through school and now they want the house and the car and all
Curt:
this stuff. Right. All of it. And, and they can starve a practice to death and
kent:
and it can kill you. Yeah. And put so much pressure on you. Um, so, uh, but we came through, you know, there's the good old days. Everybody talks about the good old days. Yeah. Dentistry and medicine will never be the same as it
Curt:
was by dentistry. Seems way harder nowadays. It's,
kent:
it's, I'm so glad I'm not in it
anymore.
Curt:
regulated to
kent:
misery. Yes. It, it was getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And that's one of the reasons that I said, I, I can't do this anymore. It was when you've got somebody trying to tell me how to treat your. and you're an executive from Des Moines,
Curt:
Iowa. Yeah. And me and the parents agree, right, that this is the right way to treat this child, but this, and, and
kent:
the insurance company says no. And there was, we can't pay for that. Yeah. And then it finally came to the point where I said, we're one, one case came up and I said, you know what? I don't care. I'll do it for free. Right. Well, I'm gonna do what's right cuz I don't care. And my office manager came to me and said, you can't do that. What do you mean I can't do that? You signed a contract that you can only do what they tell you Oh. You don't understand who you're
Curt:
talking to. I just retired
kent:
This is not gonna work. In fact, I had a, a staff member who was with me for years and years and years Who, who, when I sold the practice, uh, eight years ago, I worked for, for a couple years full-time or part-time till they could get everything put together. And then I retired for, for good five years ago. And one of my staff members was running their whole operation over there and during the Covid thing, and she and I got talking and she said, you would've shot somebody
Curt:
There's no way you would do any of this covid
kent:
crap. And I said, you're right. Yeah. So thank, thank you Lord that I'm on this end of my life. Yeah. Because I'm, I'm, you know, I'm that, that, that, that tiger whose stripes don't change. and Ah,
Curt:
yeah. Don't put me in a box. I, I, I like to say, if you, uh, ask me nice to do something, I'm probably your man. I'm pretty congenial. I'm pretty happy. But if you tell me to do something because you're the boss of me, I got an answer. I got two answers for you, That's right. I'm, you know,
kent:
yeah. I just, the red flag, I was raised back the church, Deb and I were bitching about when we first met. Mm-hmm. Right. It was a very legalistic church. And I, Hey, I came to know the Lord there, so I, yeah. Praise the Lord for that anomaly. But, but it, it set a tone in me that said, you know, don't tell me what to do. Yeah. And that's something I fight still to this day. Yeah. You know, I, we had an HOA thing, it's like, you have to do this and I know I have to do it, but just you know, and I'm, so, I'm gonna find a way to do it. So you don't think
Curt:
I did it, but I did. So you still did. Don't really like it. Yeah, that's right. I was, uh, I had a, uh, word of the year or something. I guess it was back in 2019. Cause it must have been pre covid cuz it didn't. But, uh, you know how the Christian walk, they're always talking about obedience. That word is less good. I like surrender, surrenders a lot more like to a higher power that will like royally kick your ass otherwise. So you don't really have a choice. It's still ob. but it just sounds a lot better and it works a lot better for my personality. It's a lot
kent:
easier to take. Right? Yeah. And, and obedience are surrendered to who, see, to God, I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. That's not true. I have a problem with, I still struggle. I, I still struggle with that, but surrender to
Curt:
you. Right. Dude or dude in Iowa that decides that this kid can't have this surgery because they're not quite bad enough yet. I, I'm just,
kent:
yeah. And so I was, dentistry got no fun. Yeah. Cuz it wasn't about the kids anymore. It wasn't about the single mom who came in and I'd look in her eyes and go, are you okay? And she'd break down crying and we'd go to my office and Yeah, she's in the middle of a divorce or she's doing this or she's doing that and I could get her to the right person
Curt:
or, yeah. Pretty soon one of your buddies has got a job for her to start her life over. Yeah. To get
kent:
things, help, whatever. And that to me, God gave me this wonderful platform of 10,000 patients and parents, um, that I could serve and not just, we get talking and say, Hey, Jenny wants to play piano. Hey, I got four guys right here. Best piano teachers in town. Yeah. You know?
Curt:
Right. Yeah. People, Jill ask me a lot all the time. She's like, I have a need. Like you've got a network. I don't, you know, so well
my
kent:
kids now. They're like, Jordan came to me, um, uh, he owns Forging Bow and these
Curt:
Oh really? Yeah. That's your kid? Yeah. Oh, he should be in local Think Tank. Totally. Oh, he should. He's doing some great work, including that one on, uh, mountain right around the corner from my house. Oh,
kent:
yeah. Oh yeah, that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Curt:
yeah. That's a killer player. I used to buy meth at that place. Oh really? No, not really, but, but I know that's a killer place
kent:
though. But he came to me and he said, you know, this is a few years ago. And he said, I just realized how easy I have it. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I walk in and I'm 29 or 32 or whatever age it was, and he says, I'm Kent's kid. And they go, okay, come on in. Right. Yeah. He said, if I have a tire problem, boom, go to Big O, go to Husk. They're both really good friends of mine. Just dropped my name. Right. You know, I need a, a, you know, I need a physician. Boom, boom, boom. I need a boom, boom, boom. You don't realize when you're in a place 35 years Oh, you
Curt:
get loaded with social capital. Correct. And it's unbelievable. It's just like you're lugging this cart around with coins around and
kent:
your kids get the benefit of that. Yeah. Yeah. Because if, if you keep your nose clean Yeah, but don't screw it up. Yeah.
Curt:
You could definit keep your nose clean,
kent:
you know, and, and you know, uh, so yeah, it's, it, it's, it's a pretty interesting thing. It's awesome to be around for a while and you. Dennis Huska and Dave Everett and these are my friends. Yeah. Yeah. I played ball with these guys forever and you know, these are like
Curt:
icons. Well, one of my best friends is Aaron Everett. I
kent:
saw, I I, I watched the podcast.
Curt:
Oh, good. Yeah. So, and, and he lives in, I've known Aaron
kent:
since he was this tall. He was that kind of same thing. He was in the youth group when my
Curt:
wife taught youth. Right. Oh yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. So he lives in kind of that same space where he wants to carve his own kind of path, not be Stan's kid. Right. And, you know, he gets, he's in real estate still. He gets six or eight deals a year because he's Stan's kid. He Stan's kid. And Stan's got a reputation for integrity and Aaron hasn't done anything to sully that to mess about, if anything, to do better. You know, and so, yeah, it's, it is interesting, like we're missing that a little bit. Like when there was just villages, like when you were Johnson Oh yeah. Or whatever. Right. When he had the, all these traditions of family and things like that. Like that was a real element. And it's cool that Fort Collins still has some of that, some of that. Yeah. We're not too big to,
kent:
to have grown out of that and back in Iowa that, that's one of the things that kept me from a absolutely out outrageously stupidness. I did so much stupid. Right.
Curt:
But I mean, the stories my mom's friends say if I did something even dumber than what I'm doing
kent:
right now. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz my dad, I could hear my dad saying, you're an oberman, don't screw the name up. Interesting. Yeah. And that. In my head and I'd be in the middle of something stupid. I'm gonna, I can't do this guys, because if we get caught, it's gonna screw my name up. I wasn't worried about going to jail. Right. I was worried about messing everybody in my lineage. Right. Looking at me going, what
Curt:
did you do? What above you end especially, what did you do? Just to follow, like, yes.
kent:
And then I checked our lineage all the way back. We were horse thieves. Right.
Curt:
Check from Germany.
kent:
Who escape prison to
Curt:
come over here? Perfect. Well you are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs That's what I would say. So, um, I guess, uh, tell me about the, the exit. Like did you sell to a big national, are dentist being rolled up like veterinarians and stuff these days
kent:
or? I went to, uh, Mark Crane. My, my good friend and I, I've referred Oh,
Curt:
crane Orthodontics, everybody to him.
kent:
Yeah. Yeah. And Margaret's a really good friend of mine and I just said, you need to buy this practice. Hmm. I'm done. And he said, ah, I'm an orthodontist. Why would I wanna buy the practice? I said, because I'm your biggest referral source, right? So buy me out, hire somebody to run the practice and you get all the referrals. It's just that easy. And he went, nah, that makes a lot of sense.
Curt:
you and I think so much, I'd like to say, uh, we, uh, at local think tank, we look for the win-win, win win. Yeah. But we'll settle for the win, win-win, win if necessary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and, and like the thoughtfulness of just being like, you know, I've got one right buyer. That can do right. By my patients and by my staff and by my, by their own self. Um,
kent:
and, and, and he kept everybody around. Um, it was different because, um, it became, uh, I think a little more corporate in the sense that he had his practice and all of his stuff, uncle Kenneth around, and I didn't have everybody, honestly, whatever obvious crypto, seriously, I, my, my attitude, which was erroneous okay. Was I have set this thing up that I'm the least important person here. Hmm. Okay. My staff is so good at what they do. My office manager is a freaking
Curt:
machine. Yeah. The
kent:
culture's dialed. All, all, anyone can step in and do what I do and that's wrong. Hmm. Tucson was not the same when I left. Yeah. Because you didn't have that guy at the top who was always worried about everybody else. Hmm. And that's probably the only difference. The, the dentists
Curt:
that are there now, the patients still get a great experience. What they do, they still get, it's still more fun to work there than a lot of other places then. Yes. But
kent:
it's not, you go talk. any of the past staff members. And I mean, even people are fired. Yeah. I'll see'em a year later and they're going, you know what, that was the greatest, that was the greatest two years of my life. you know, and I screwed up and I, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have got fired, but I, you know, Yeah. So we,
Curt:
that's cool. You know, again, when people know you care about them a lot, it makes a interesting impact on the way that they show up and even, even when they're gone. Yeah. So, yeah, it's,
kent:
uh, it's all about relationship. Where we started an hour ago, it's, it's, it's about Zig Ziegler said it, you know, it's, it's, it's how many people can you allow to get to where they want to go? Hmm. And da Dave Holland helped me with that. And he would, he would say, you know, she's not gonna be here in another year and a half. Why? I was, why Dave, you're gonna grow her to the point. This is not
Curt:
that you'll be enough for cating her if this is not
kent:
big enough for her. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Curt:
Yeah. That's cool, right? Yeah.
kent:
We'll get somebody else. But she gets the springboard to something better for her family. Yeah. Yeah. Are you kidding? That's, that's what it's all about. Yeah.
Curt:
Yeah. It's,
kent:
uh, so, cause when you die, they're not gonna say, and he did 13,719 Crumb crowns, really well 74,419. Root Root canals, no cares. Nobody cares about that crap. Yeah. They care about the fact. when you left here, especially with some of the Medicaid kids that we worked with, we had a huge Medicaid practice. Hmm. I said, you know, some of these kids, the only hug they've got all week is from you. Yeah. The only positive feedback they've got this week is from you don't miss that opportunity. Yeah. To put that into that kid's life.
Curt:
Yeah. That's a great thing to weave into a organization. So anything last on business before we transition to the uh, the later segments? It's hard. Business is hard. Yeah. We talk about perseverance. Uh, it takes a lot of work. Focus and try hard for a long
kent:
time. Yeah. And, and, and, uh, people want too much too quick. Mm-hmm.
Curt:
you know, uh, yeah. You really gotta build a foundation. That's why one of the things you said on margin earlier, that if you can live on less than you make for an extended period of time, it allows you to really invest in that business and to, you know, grow that practice higher. That next person. Well, margin
kent:
might margin, again, I have a whole talk on margin, but margin is the key. One of the keys to life. Yeah. Not just financial margin. Yeah. Emotional margin, physical margin, time. We need margin, need to create a life that I have margin. So when Kirk calls me and says, can you help me move? I can do
Curt:
it. Yeah. Or when he says, oh, do you remember we're having the podcast today? Yes.
kent:
I've got time to quick. I could come right over, throw a shirt on and jump on, you know? Yeah.
Curt:
sorry. Throw you to the bus there. So I, I think that's a great point to, to dwell on though, is, you know, it's both in the, you know, some people buy stuff and then they sell it for more on a margin and stuff. Some people buy people's time, you know, you're hygienists and stuff. You bought their time and then you sold it to your patients in a different package. But having some margin there, that's the only way you can create effectively comfort, you know, because in, in business, profit is comfort in life, you know, not having to always be anxious, you know? Sure. I think the Bible repeats more than anything. Fear not, or worry not
kent:
3, 365 times. Is that
Curt:
right? It's in the Bible. Yeah. Fear not, that's, it's one of my one go-tos. One
kent:
for one for every day. Cuz he doesn't want us to be scared. Right. Because if he's sovereign, I don't need to be scared. Yeah. Okay. I don't need to be scared. But mar if, if you don't create, live a life that creates a margin mentally, physically, spiritually in your life, you will never, ever be able to, to be gracious to be giving. Hmm. I, I one time asked the staff, how many of you would like to be generous? And everybody raised their hand. Yeah. How many of you are generous? Hardly anybody raised their hand. I said, because you don't live your life in a. That creates enough margin and you can be generous. And that means making some sacrifices. Yeah. Financially, not buying a$5 coffee every day on the way to work. Right.
Curt:
You know? Yeah. If you, if you skip that 10 times in a month, you could bless somebody with a$50. If you've got$50, have
kent:
breakfast to do something Right. Or whatever, you know, uh, time wise, don't waste your times doing video games or this, or this or this. So you have time to go be with a friend. Okay. But it takes creativity and it takes, it takes discipline. And most of this intention, intentionality. You need to want to be generous. Yeah. And if you want to be generous, what you all said you wanted to be, then you need to create margin. We spent a half day every month talking about stuff just like that with all the staff. Really Shut the place down, rented
Curt:
a room. Wow. Paint them to come in and learn stuff about just how business works in life. More life stuff. More life than business. Huh. Interesting. More life. Do you remember, I, I, I knew your name going way back into my banking career deep because you were, you know, kind of business famous in, in among banker land. Like all the bankers wanted to be friends with Kent Doberman and stuff. I don't, not sure we got acquainted really until reality is reality conversations around that. So, yeah. Um, but I, I, but I, you had a certain mystique, you know, this is back in, you know, 2007, 2010 days, a, a little bit and whatever. And uh, and I think part of it was that like he's built a business that people actually wanna be a part of his team and, you know, they've got great market share and everybody likes him. And, and it just is that way. Yeah.
kent:
We were blessed and, you know, coming from where I came from, God just brought the right people at the right time. He surrounded me. Dave Holland was a tremendous thing. Barb Ashley. Yeah, she's the queen. She, she made to some what it is. Uh, she came to me and, and, uh, she was a a, she was a bank president at, uh, at First National. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And she wanted to run your business for you. I dunno if I can tell this story. I
Curt:
know it'd be national. We can cut it out if you want to later. No, no, no. Okay, so tell it, tell it. Let's just do a ion. Okay. So she comes in and I a little more,
kent:
I was looking for a bank manager or a bank manager. I was looking for a practice major. And she, and, and, and a lady came in and I hired a lady that morning and I'm back working on a kid. And this lady come, one of my staff comes back and says, uh, there's a lady here, uh, to apply for the job. And I said, ah. I tell
Curt:
her, we already
kent:
filled it. Sorry. I hired somebody. And she laughed. She came back. She goes, she ain't leaving What do you mean? Shane ain't leaving until she talks to you. She ain't leaving I said, okay. I like a straw woman. Yeah. Her, her husband calls her the war wagon Okay. That tells you So I go into my office and I'm telling her, I said, man, I'm really sorry, but you know, I, I hired somebody this morning. She goes, lemme tell you what's what. I said, what's your background? I was a, I was a bank president, vice president of something. Ran all the ions. Yeah. Yeah. She had like, I dunno, a hundred people under first na, I think it's First National. And she said that all year long. They promised us, I said, well, how come you're not working there? She said, I can't pay you what they're paying you. And she goes all year long. It was like, you do this, this, this, this, this, and we're gonna do these kind of bonuses and this for your people. And I motivated, I got'em to do their thing. And we got right to the end of the year and the bank president, uh, came and said,
Curt:
yeah, the, we just don't have the money. Some of the other locations didn't, we don't have that money for your people. Yeah.
kent:
Yeah. And I'm, I'm like, oh, wow, that sucks. And so I went and talked to my people and said, you know, we, we, we did our job. They didn't make enough profit or whatever it was, I don't remember the story altogether. And then she goes, A week later, I walked in and there's this massive bonus check on my desk for her.
Curt:
Oh gosh.
kent:
And she's like, I went up to the president or whoever the guy was that was in charge and said, what the hell's this? Well, that's for you. What about my people? Oh, you know, that's, She said, I quit. Wow. Cash, the check divided it. Hmm. I was just like, what? I can't, I mean, telling the story breaks me up. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. That kind of integrity is unheard of. unheard of. And I said, okay, you're hired. hired the other guy. And I said, your first job, call this other lady and tell her she doesn't have the job. And I said, your second job is you're gonna be on a plane in two days. I just did a new computer system and I haven't got a clue what the hell's going on, She goes, gotcha. I'll figure it out. So she came back a week later, two weeks later. That's pretty cool. So how do you run his place? And I said, well, I work really hard and when it's all over at the end of the month, I
Curt:
pay, everybody's stuff's just gonna happens.
kent:
And then I keep us left. She goes, okay, I need these reports. She gave me all that banker crap that you, you understand?
Curt:
Right. And I'm going,
kent:
I, I recognize two of these, right.
Curt:
She goes, oh my God.
kent:
We have a long way to go. 26 years later, she's my office major. That's so cool.
Curt:
Yeah, she's, she's the queen. She just ran the thing pretty much the whole time started. She's the queen. She's the queen.
kent:
Yeah. She's the reason we were successful. I was the hands in the face. Well, and the
Curt:
vision. She was the brain,
kent:
but all that. But she was the brain. She was the one, yeah.
Curt:
She was the glue. Well, you guys were a visionary integrator before, like you really knew what those things meant. Uh, have you studied that at all by the way? Mm-hmm. uh, and there's a book called Traction by Gino Wickham, and he's basically the, the theory is, hey, you$1 million business operator, you're pretty cool. You started a business and stuff. But if you wanna be a$10 million plus business, you need an integrator that can kind of pull all the shit together that your wild brain can come up with and allow you to focus on the important things and not get bogged down with the managing of all the other stuff. Right, right. And it sounds to me like she was that integrator for you before, before Gino even wrote his first word was
kent:
Tom Collins
Curt:
and, uh, good, great
kent:
guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we used a lot of his stuff. Um, I can't think of the gentleman's name right now. Um, you know, it's, it's just like Maxwell or something wearing different hats. Yeah, right. You know, and, and, and I just,
Curt:
well, that's part of the business owner's mindset sometimes is being will able and willing to change hats. Right. And
kent:
or to take it off, leave it on the shelf
Curt:
Right. Well, that's what you're really an owner. Yeah. That's
kent:
not what I do. Well, yeah. This, I don't do this well, so let me hire someone that does that Well Yeah. Because like, you know, Tom Collins, here's what I do. This is what Kent does. Yeah. I went
Curt:
into a What does Kenton Doug does? Good.
kent:
Well, I went into a national conference one day and they said, you know, I showed up late cuz I got lost in Nashville. And I showed up and I had to sit in the front and this guy said, you know, class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 dentist and who thinks they're a class five dentist? And he described what it was and mine was the only hand that went up. And he said, really? He said, yeah, why do you think you're a class five dentist? I said, I do three things, give shots, schmoo parents, and talk to staff That's
Curt:
it. I've barely practiced I don't do anything, I
kent:
don't do anything else. I hire people to do everything else. And he said, oh my God, you might be the only classified dentist I've ever met in my life.
Curt:
Yeah. I I was one of the most successful dinner practices around, do you let people be in their lane? I
kent:
know what I do. Well I wanna do more of that and I'm gonna let you guys do everything else cuz I don't wanna do, I don't even know how to run my Panex machine.
Curt:
I dunno what that is. It's a big, it's a big X-ray thing. It's a big x-ray thing.
kent:
And people are like, Dennis are like, you told water to run your Panex machine. What the hell kind of practice are you? And I said, why would I want to run the Panex machine? I haven't got time for that. And I'm over. She's, she's, she's, she's over here doing something that cost 50 bucks. I'm over here doing something that cost 500. Right. Are. Are you nuts?
Curt:
I, so I just, the, the next episode out is gonna be me with Alicia, my new staffer and with Alma, who you just met and Alma came on the team in March of 2020, I guess. Yeah. She'll be two years or 20, 21 even. Anyway, a month later her, or two weeks later, her uh, lead quit. So Alma was an intern working for somebody. And so almost now my person and I was like, well, I don't know how to do most of your job. Um, but we have a newsletter and we have this and that and we have a website and there's really pretty good notes from Rory about how did it all So yeah. Let, lemme know. Luck, good luck. Lemme know how that goes. Lemme know if, if you get stuck somewhere and we'll figure it out together. Yeah. You know, and I think there's a lot of like, it seems like sometimes I suspect you feel the same, like you're like, uh, maybe that's a shortcoming of me. But I think to get out of the way and let people shine and do the things they do well is actually honoring, I think with
kent:
within a framework. Yeah. Um, they need to be able to do what they do best. Like, that's one of my things that I would consult at, say, okay, this is always my example was the receptionist doctor, do you know how she's recepting? Right. And they don't. Right. You have no idea what she's saying. Right. She came from another practice who, you don't even like the guy. Right. And she's recepting the same way as him. Right. Why don't you give her a framework that says, here's
Curt:
the five things, and everybody assumes we hate them after she gets done with their Well, and you know,
kent:
or not, and your, your, your, your training is yelling at her when she screws something up. Right. That's no. Lay out for her what it is you want. And the reason you don't is you don't know what you want. Yeah. Yeah. You've never taken
Curt:
the, the time to say, to ask yourself what you
kent:
want. How would I like the phone to be answered?
Curt:
Right. Huh? I like it. And then just that minimal amount of structure, kind of like enough, not too much because you don't wanna be like, no,
kent:
no, no. I don't wanna put you in a box where you're saying, good morning, this is Dr. No, here's the five things you gotta get across because the next person in my practice, yeah. Here's three of these things we're gonna reinforce. Right. And then next, and then they're gonna add two more things and the next person's gonna reinforce three of these. And by the time you get all the way through the staff, you've had everything that I want you to know three times. So that when you're at a cocktail party and they say, how's too soon, you're going to tell them exactly what I want you to say and what were your words? And you don't know well, that they care more about kids than money. That, that, that there's nothing more important than. because you can't believe how important that is to moms. Yeah. Because they're all staffed. Yeah. Yeah. Most of'em are staffed
Curt:
these days and they're going, they care about their staff. I've never seen by treat staff. You, I should work there Yeah, I bet you got all your new employees from, not maybe all, but a lot of'em from moms, from patients that, and from,
kent:
from referral. In fact, one year a Dennis called me irate and he said, you stole my, you stole one of my assistants. I said, no, I didn't. She came to a better place and he said, well, blah, blah, blah. And I said, tell you what, come over to my staff meeting on on Friday. It, it, it, it happened to be Friday when we had our half day staff meeting. Give your best pitch. Take anybody you can He said, well, nobody's gonna leave you at practice. Exactly. She didn't come to me because she didn't like you. She liked me better. Right. Because we offered more for her family. I mean, we'd bring staff in. I'd hire people to work on, on, on budgeting for their families. Yeah. Yeah. And retirement planning and stuff. That's not, you know what that's like, that's Mark. That's marketing for someone else to say, you want to talk to some people about Right. And
Curt:
they're going, yeah. Do I, yeah. Didn't even cost me a nickel Right. But you also have an obligation to get somebody that you believe has integrity in there to Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. Stuff too, right? Yeah. Like that's part of the, with, with great leverage comes great responsibility. Oh, sometimes, you know, and, and when I say leverage, I mean power ultimately in a different way. Right? Because nobody's really got power
kent:
when you refer me to who's got automotive. Yeah. Say And Huska screws up. Yeah. I should be mad at you. Not them for sure. they're incompetent. Yeah. You sent me here. That's right. So my referrals, I had half the dentist industry in this town mad at me, all the specialists cuz why don't you refer to me? You're not that good.
Curt:
I get better. Maybe I will.
kent:
they're like, what? Or you are good, but your staff sucks. Right? And they don't treat my people like they're used to being treated. And it's offensive. So you get your, you get your front office straightened up and I'll refer to you,
Curt:
you're such a plain speaking son. I'm a bitch. Uh, but I love it. Um, so do you wanna do a, uh, after you finish that, we'll do one more tiny sipper of that other tequila, the other kind. Yeah, yeah. Just so we can compare. Um, so we always talk about faith, family, and politics. Mm-hmm. um, we've talked about faith sprinkled a little bit, but we can start with any of those three and do what you like with them. I
kent:
think faith's the most important thing in life. Um, I came to my dad one time with this massive problem and my dad, even as an alcoholic, he had a couple of really great things. Once in. and he said, what's the worst thing that could happen, And I'm going, oh my God, I don't know. You know, this has happened and this, and she's mad and whatever. What's the worst that could happen? I said, I don't know, you could die. And he said, you got that handled? Yeah.
Curt:
And I went back to Fear Nut. Yeah.
kent:
He said, the rest is just for living. Just live it. It'll be okay. And, and so when you've got that hope, and hope isn't like, I wish. Yeah. Hope is a reality. Yeah. That something I know. I know what I know what I know. And you can say it's not real. You cannot believe it. I don't care. I know what I know and you can't hurt me. Hmm. So you live your life. Fearless, more fearless than not. That's not true. You live your life more fearless than if you didn't have that. Yeah, yeah. Fair. Because we're all human, right? So he puts a gun to your head, you're scared for sure. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Even because you don't want him to pull the trigger. I really wanna watch another soccer game. Right. And, you know, I really wanna watch the eighth grader grow up, you know, So, so yeah. So to me, faith is if, if, if, if you haven't crossed that bridge, you'll never be as successful as you could. At any part of your
Curt:
life. That's, that's a really interesting way to say that. I think I meet a lot of people and you do too, that haven't really ever taken the question on because they don't really wanna know where it's gonna take'em. Yeah. You know, and they're otherwise successful, otherwise capable, love their wife, love their kids, love their husband, whatever that is. And yet they're just a little bit daunted to take that question on because of what it might mean. Well, what
kent:
does eternity mean? I mean, the word eternity. We don't know what that means. Yeah. You can't get your arms around that. Yeah. It's like a trillion, you don't know what a trillion is, It's Joe's budget. Yeah. Yeah. But you don't know what a trillion is. You know, any more than I, you know, do, but, but that knowing, I mean, and, and, and there's a lot of angst that comes with that though too, in the sense that are my grandkids gonna get it? Hmm. And that puts a lot of pressure on me to make sure that I live a life that Yeah. They can look at and say, I want to be with him for the rest of eternity.
Curt:
Well, and, uh, I don't know how to, how did I say this recently? I don't know how to say this. Not rudely, but, uh, so I'll just say it rudely. Yeah. Politely. But like, here we are. We, we've drank, you know, a third of a bottle of tequila. Mm-hmm. uh, being conservative. Uh, we've partied, we've, you know, Like where, where, what, what's it mean to be a faithful Christian follower in your world? Like, there's Baptist who'll say this is like what we've been doing already is like that's Well,
kent:
I, to me, um, there are, I mean there are obviously things you don't step over and that you do, but it, it's a much wider swath, I think, than than most people. I also believe that you don't need to say some silly prayer or whatever, cuz if you said, it says repent
Curt:
and believe Jesus decider,
kent:
it says repent and believe. It doesn't say, say a prayer, go to church all this time and all that I do. I, I believe we're commanded to and encouraged to, to congregate in groups of people to think like we do. Yeah. More for us than him. Sure. Because he's saying Kurt needs to hold, can't accountable. Yeah. Yeah. Kenton needs to hold you accountable. So when you're doing something stupid you can say, Hey, don't be stupid. You're one of us and you're making us look bad, dude, you know, stop it. Stop it. You know, and I, I, I think so, I think the church today, uh, my biggest frustration with the church, big Sea Church today is that they refuse in Lion's Chair, they refuse to tackle. Cultural issues. Mm-hmm. Um, while they're happening, they'll wait till the Dobbs things all over and then they'll go, oh, by the way, we don't think abortion's. Okay. Right. No. See, your people are being hit with questions and comments and Yeah. They've got powering in
Curt:
the corner kind
kent:
of. Yeah. Why are you not educating everyone who sits under you Hmm. With the tools that it takes biblically scripturally to defend your position? Hmm. I don't, tell me what to think. Tell me what God thinks and let me, and and why do you think he thinks
Curt:
that? Let me and him figure that out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
kent:
So then I've got tools that when someone comes to me and says, I think blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can say, well, yeah, here's what, here's what I believe and here's why I believe it. As opposed to going, spending an hour and a half in church on Sunday and you come out with the same gospel message as you, there's more to the Bible than gospel. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the end point that's the most important. Yeah. But there's more to it. You can't get people to here if you don't move'em from here to there and they're there and we can't move them cuz we have no argument. Yeah. And we're not given tools. on a Sunday morning Hmm. To go do
Curt:
that. I have a suspicion, um, I found throughout my Christian time, and I, I came late as a Christian as well. I was 28 or something like that, 29. Um, and all through my Christian time, whether it was bible study fellowship, which is kind of a building block to local, think tank, or if it was my own church or things like that. Like here I am feeling like kind of a over blessed, somewhat shameful, but don't be ashamed of it. Share it and bless others. Kind of a this is, that was kind of my path. Mm-hmm. and I've had pastors and church people and stuff like along the BA way because some of my biggest advocates and encouragers, I'd be like, you know, God's shining something on you. I'm not quite clear on it, but you got some, some mojo going. Has that been a similar experience for you? I,
kent:
my my wife has constantly amazed that anyone would a, want to talk to me because I am, as you said earlier, kind of a, kind of a truth talker. Yeah. Because I don't care how you feel. I really don't that much. I mean, I, I I don't want to offend you and make you Yeah.
Curt:
It's not my goal to offend you, but,
kent:
but if I see something that, that I think needs to be said, I don't have a problem saying it. I don't care if it's. I was in line one time to go talk to Dan Quail. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're in line. And this guy says, oh my God, what are you gonna say to Dan Quail? And I said, you know what the deal is? He's looking down the thing saying, what the hell am I gonna say to Ken Oberman? That's my attitude. You got a shitty job as a vice president. You can't spell potato. Okay. Which is actually, I'm not gonna put you up a pillow. No, no, no. But say what needs to be said because if you don't love me enough, Kurt, to correct me. You don't love me, You're, you're, you're blowing smoke up my skirt and I don't need that. I got enough of that I need people with the courage to look me in the eye and say, stop. Don't do that
Curt:
anymore. Yeah. We stole a quote from Oscar Wild for Loko Think Tank a few years ago from a startup week thing. And the repackaged version was, uh, it takes a good friend to be a front stabber. And that's the, that's the interesting thing about this local think tank. Not to drift off there, but it's my ministry. Yeah. You know, there's so many Christian kind of principles and precepts woven into the way we do things and the why and three quarters of my members, because these days there's a lot of Christian men's business groups and stuff. Yeah. And that's fine. That's great. They leave the ladies behind. They should be a Christian women's business group for one thing. Yeah. Um, but also, like, I, I'm proud of what we've built that is kind of a, a sneaky Christian organization. You know, I've got, it's woven in, it isn't on the billboard, it isn't in the, on the About us, but it's part of the dna.
kent:
Well, and it's, it's everybody that works for'em knows people
Curt:
that deal with No, the same thing was true at truth zone. Yeah.
kent:
Yeah. People that are vendors, they know, they know because we treat them differently than other practices would treat them. And, and it, it, we didn't go into it going, okay, we're gonna do this, the
Curt:
Christian one, Right. No, we're gonna do it the right
kent:
way. We're just gonna do it. Right. Let's just do it. Right. Let's,
Curt:
let's be fair. Yeah. If you lead with, you can trust me. I'm a Christian I'm afraid of not. I'm pretty sure I can.
kent:
No, I've been, I've lost more money with Christians in, in, in business deals than, than
Curt:
anybody. Than, than I know. I'm not surprised. Um, because it's not, it's a terrible excuse.
kent:
Well, you drop your guard because you think they think like you do. Yeah. And they don't. And the label Christian, because you walk into a garage, doesn't make you a car because you walk into a church. It doesn't make you a Christian. Yeah. Because you go to church every week. That doesn't make you a Christian. That, that, that makes it good for your business. Maybe.
Curt:
Yeah, because I'm a member of such and such, whatever
kent:
that is. That that's not No. When you're, when you've repented and believed, cuz that's what it says. Mm-hmm. repent and believe, then you will live your life differently. Yeah. And that's the folks I want to be around. Yeah. All
Curt:
right. I gotta try this now. Here we go. Yeah. This is, uh, it's not gonna be quite as good as it done Julio, but it's not bad. No, no. It's got nice finish. Yeah. That's my favorite part of it, is it just kind of, it's got no, it's got nice feeling. Tailies tails off after you. Yeah. So this is the, uh, is this, this is the, uh, the Bill Advertiser Rete. If you want to come on board, be an advertiser for the Local Experience podcast. I think you should, or you Don Julio, but it seems less likely. No, no. We're a locals podcast. We were looking at our stats the other day and about 65% of our listens are drink tequila, either. No, they're Fort Collins down to Denver, and then all around ber of Loveland. So we're a very local podcast. Yeah. Uh, which is kind of fun. No, it is.
kent:
I was at, uh, resort in, uh, port of Verta, Casa Bonita. And, uh, it's a, I, I've been there several times. It's on a golf course, which I didn't know. Can imagine. The first time I woke up and got up in the morning, cuz got, we got there at midnight, I got next morning. It's like, where the hell's the beach We're on
Curt:
a golf course, do a golf course on my beach. What? Who set
kent:
this up? Oh, I did. Just a minute. I thought everything in Mexico was on a beach. Now they did have a, a place on the beach with a free sushi bar and all that stuff. So it was cool. But anyway, I come back the second year and this guy said, God, I I got this te kill you. You just said you really need to try it. Yeah. It's called
Curt:
Gonzalez. Okay. And I'm drinking, I'm going,
kent:
my God, this stuff is so good. I need to take something home. You can't buy it. What do you mean you can't buy it? Can't buy it. So Don, his family came to the resort the week before. Okay. And they brought several cases of Gonzalez and I said, I don't get it. And he said, Don Julio sold to like Jim Beam or one of those, okay, okay. He can't do anything for five years, but he started a company called Gonzales cuz his name is Don Julio Gonzalez. Oh, no
Curt:
shit. Yeah. So look for Gonzalez Squi if you wanna get away from the mainstream. Absolutely. All right.
kent:
Killer. But I said, you can't buy it. And he said, no, you can't buy a doc. I'm sorry. So all, all, all week long, I drank as much as I could. and, and so I'm leaving and the bartender walks up with a plastic or with a. uh, with, with a paper bag. With a bottle of repri and a ajo in it and said, here, put this
Curt:
in your bag Of the Gonzalez. Of the Gonzalez. Oh, I love it. So. Well,
kent:
I'm gonna have to have you over. You're gonna have to try some Gonzales.
Curt:
I'm on board. Well, you got 30 of'em, I guess. I got about that much left. So, Well, I'll just take a little bit. Just try. So, um, we left off on Faith. I think that's probably a fine place to leave it. Let's, let's jump to family. Um, you've praised Debbie a fair bit already. She
kent:
is the queen of my life. Um, uh, we've been married 44 years Oh wow. In two more weeks. And, um, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me, and the worst thing has ever happened to me. Um, we've been in 44 years, probably 35 of'em. Happy
Curt:
Um, we've, which doesn't, which sounds like a pretty good percentage, but that's nine years of
kent:
not happy. Yeah, no, we, we've, we've had some tough times. Yeah. And the story has made us better, stronger, more resilient. I love her more today than I did tomorrow, and I will love her more tomorrow than I do today. My kids are, um, I was talking to somebody last weekend. and they said, tell me about your kids. And, and what I got done, they said, so you're not proud of'em. said, well, yeah. Kind of,
Curt:
you know. Well, not yet. They're still young.
kent:
You know, Jordan owns Forg and Bow it, it's a design bill firm here.
Curt:
Is that his business? Yes, yes, yes. Solopreneur or whatever.
kent:
Yeah. Yeah. He, he and Annie, his, his wife. Okay.
Curt:
And they, he's an architect or No,
kent:
no, he has no building experience at all. What? He has an architect that works for him. Yeah, yeah. He has it and he's got, I don't know, 20, 30 employees or whatever. He's Wow. Does
Curt:
he really? Yeah. Yeah. Holy crap. Yeah, he's coming outta nowhere because he was Is he still in that, uh, opera Galleria, or not a across the street over there by He is Palmer Space on Old Town Square. He, he is in a, on olive. Oh, he mod, okay.
kent:
Above maybe, I'm think where, where Vinos used, where, uh, uh, Leno used to be. Uh, there's, I dunno, there's a restaurant there. Anyway.
Curt:
Well, but anyway, anyway, Kent's son, uh, look me up sometime. I, I, I, big builder. They're doing good creators and No, he's, he got a good
kent:
reputation and, uh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm so proud of him. Not, not just, he's a great dad. He's a great husband. He's a great community member. Um, he runs a good business and he's just, I mean, he has the integrity. I wish I had at that age, It took me a while to grow into it.
Curt:
Well, he had better, he had great
kent:
examples. Well, he did. He did. Uh, my daughter works for Realities, um, and her hubby works for Hu. Husk.
Curt:
Oh, cool. Like one of those. Yeah. LJ is one of my amazing longtime friends and Dennis and organizations and people I've respected for years. I mean,
kent:
Dennis and,
Curt:
and Noreen are, they're a great example of how to be community forward with your whole business practice. We
kent:
need operations. We need a thousand of them in Fort Collins
Curt:
Well, you can't because they'd all go broke because there wouldn't be enough customers. All those automobile No, you're right. But they're fabulous. But yes. You
kent:
know, and, uh, so family to me, you know, being, being bpa, the guy with always has the mints in his pocket. Um, but yet my job now is we just read a book on, um, um, John Wayne. We're writing a
Curt:
book on, um, have you been to the True Harriet Grit Cafe? Who? The True Grit Cafe in Ridgeway? No, I have not. Oh, you should go to the True Grit Cafe. Uh, if you're a John Wayne fan, you almost have to with my eight and six. Sure. We just
kent:
read it. I love it. A book on Harriet Tubman. Oh. And so I'm trying desperately to give them what they're not getting. Yeah. And I think put School district is, um, probably better than most, but it's still a fricking mess as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And, um, um, so Faith, family, politics, I'm a gun toten, Bible popping.
Curt:
Um, A Trump loving, maga conservative. No, not that I, I'm, I'm not, you're shy there too. You're a libertarian is what you are like, half my guess.
kent:
I think I love Trump's policies. I I, I, I wouldn't want him bait my daughter. I wouldn't want him
Curt:
alone in a room with my sister for two hours. Yeah. Um, which says a lot. No, it does. I've, I've actually used
kent:
the same records all the time. Any of my kids or my wife alone with any politician. Right. I they're, they're all crooks. They're all liars. They're all, uh, narcissistic or you can't, you can't have that job if you're not a narcissist. Oh, shit. You just can't. Yeah. You have to believe you're bigger than life, you know? Yeah. You have to. Yeah. There's no humble in President There just is no humble there. So, so, you know, as, as far as politics, I want to conserve what we have as a nation. So that makes me a conservative. Hmm. I, I, I'm,
Curt:
I am You're a fairly free thinking guy, though.
kent:
I am. And, and I understand sin. Yeah. And I understand all, I mean all that. I get it. But I also understand one of our responsibilities as a culture is to push against
Curt:
that. Hmm. And to conserve the stuff that has carried us forward. That's worked, been our foundation
kent:
for 250 years. here's the things that's worked. Yeah. You know? And, and, and if you wanna believe that and say that if you read Romans Right, they're gonna do that. Yeah. That's what they do. They're gonna do that. But that doesn't mean we do that. Mm-hmm. that means they do that. Mm-hmm. And I think we have, we, we have an immense amount of people who've been given over to a depraved mind. They cannot think properly. Yeah. They cannot.
Curt:
It's mysterious, isn't it? It
kent:
is And, and here, here's an epiphany I had the other day with this new stuff coming out with Ilan and all this crap about all the, the FBI and everybody Oh,
Curt:
all the depressing, everything. Lying. Yeah. Well, basically the, the complete support of one candidate over another. Well, and,
kent:
and just information in general. We're not gonna tell you the truth. Right. We're gonna tell you only what we want you to know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So I felt like putting out a post that said to my, my, my less conservative, more liberal, uh, uh, left leading friends. You know, I, I honestly thought this group of intelligent, wonderful men and women that I know and I've hung out with for life that are, that are completely left weirdos. Yeah. And my brother being one of'em. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Curt:
And a whole bunch of my
kent:
friends, I thought you were like fricking morons, What's wrong with you? And then I realized lately, You have made decisions based upon the information you've been given and the decisions you've made have been okay with the information you were given. You were just given faulty bad information. And so you're not a moron what you call ignorant. That's not stupid. That's not a moron. That's uninformed. You're uninformed. Cuz I don't believe now. Now your
Curt:
egos, I'm gonna push back against that because one thing that you should know is that you can't really test the government even if you're only a little bit informed. No, I'm not talking about government. I'm talking about science. Well, social media and all
kent:
that. Yeah, yeah. Right. But if you go back, now, here's the problem. Oh, right. Here's the problem. You go
Curt:
read the science. Now you had to be a detective. To, to Right, right. To get to learn. Right. And those of
kent:
us that did that, everybody went, oh, you're crazy. The hell's wrong with you. You're now. I'm saying. But the problem is this. Your ego, your persona is so wrapped up in this. Yeah. Even if you read the right stuff now you can't. You
Curt:
can't hardly appre accept it. Can't change
kent:
because your world collapses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you become a conservative and you'd rather shoot yourself
Curt:
You'd rather shoot yourself. So where do you think we go from here? Like honestly, like, cause it's a crazy ass. Like honestly, there is no time that I can think of that ahead of the moment of decisions and things was more unpredictable Yeah. Than right now with the Richs man in the world, bought the broadest spread platform in the world and he is dumping all their dirty laundry all over the street, basically showing that the 2020 and maybe the 2022 elections were largely influenced by government insiders and bureaucracy and suppression of information. Right. And shadow banning. I, I have a pod. My, my podcast clip from last week that just released on Monday was about, um, I did a little clickbait one with asking about our miscarriage rates up in your midwifery business. Althea. And I got like a dozen clicks on my channel and my personal channel, and then it just stopped for the last 24 hours. Turn the, don't let other people watch that. Well,
kent:
yeah. I mean, you can't have anything that goes against
Curt:
mRNA. Right. For sure. I shouldn't have said that in my clip apparently. Evidently. Right? I don't, I should do be like, if he's here call,
kent:
I'll like post something on Facebook. I think there's like four people get
Curt:
it right. I, if it's about that, if I show a picture of an old resume or my dog from that died 10 years ago, then I get 87.
kent:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think where it's going, I think in spite of all this stuff that comes out, you may sway six, eight, 9% of the population to go. This is, I don't know, what the hell is I thinking? Yeah. Um, the rest
Curt:
of them we'll just keep marching towards it's Romans, totalitarianism. It's Romans until it's time. It's Romans. Yeah. And now I believe we'll see what the real mark of the beast is when it's time. I'm
kent:
a no, I'm a Premillennial.
Curt:
Okay. Yeah. Tell me about that. Well, I,
kent:
I, I believe we'll
Curt:
be raptured the ball has already happened.
kent:
No, no, no. I believe we will be raptured Oh. Before the millennial kingdom. Okay. Uh, comes in. So all that stuff that happens after the three and a half years and all the, all, all, all the
Curt:
stuff you read about, if you believe hard enough now, you'll be gone before then. You don't have to worry. Well, it's not,
kent:
well, it's not hard enough. You either believe. You don't believe. Right, right. Uh uh. Ibel. I'm a pre-trib guy. We're gonna be meet him in the air. Yeah. Yeah. And what's left? We'll have to go through all of this other
Curt:
stuff and maybe some of you guys will come to faith during that. It's gonna be shit.
kent:
A whole bunch will, but it's gonna be tough. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be tough. I mean, if you, I'm right now doing a prophecy class. Okay. Um, uh ha Have since January.
Curt:
Yeah. We could spend two hours on the, the faith part probably. But
kent:
you, you need to have Steve Smer come in. Oh, I'd like
Curt:
to. Yeah. He, no, and talk about, I didn't know he knew about this stuff. He was a business guy. Know about it. Yeah. No no's. A master Interesting.
kent:
Yeah, we've been, I been sitting on here for a year. Oh really? Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah. You should. A couple, three of us come in, talk about
Curt:
prophecy. Yeah, let's do it. It will, we'll have a prophecy episode Your
kent:
mind, cuz it did
Curt:
mine. Yeah. Okay. Um, blow your mind. I, there was a while when I was kind of fresher into Christianity, frankly. And I I was pretty intrigued by that whole line and studied a lot. And then I'm, you know, well the
kent:
ne valley, the giants, the, the, the fallen angels coming down propagating with women. I, I just blew all of that off seriously as a Christian. Cuz it's like, I don't get it. It makes no sense to me. It sounds like, do you know Right? And then Steve's going, no, no, no, no. Let's, let's go verse by verse. Yeah. Let's talk about how it all weaves together and you're gone. Oh my God.
Curt:
You've done Bible study fellowship too, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was one of my early influences for Loco because they were like, we think you should be a discussion leader. You're really good at asking questions and getting people involved in the conversation and stuff. I'm like, I don't know anything about the Bible. Yeah. And they're like, well, we'll teach you how to be a facilitator. Yeah. And so that was the earliest piece of the puzzle really for loco think tank fully seven, eight years before Loco started, but Right. That little moment of them saying, you don't need to know the answer is to lead a conversation that finds the answers. Yeah. And
kent:
well, no, as a facilitator, I have a life group. In fact, we're meeting tonight and, and it's Are
Curt:
they gonna be surprised that you're a little bit pissed up on tequila when you No. No, they won't. Okay. Just curious
kent:
But it's like, as a facilitator, my job is to get you involved. My job is not to have the answers. And I told'em that if you want someone to show up every week with all the Bible answers, I ain't your guy. Right. If you want someone that'll ask the hard questions, that won't let you skip through stuff, cuz you don't have the balls to say what you need to say, I'm your guy. I love it. You know, I love it. Now if you can't take that, don't be in my group
Curt:
Right. And don't be on my podcast. I, I, I can't. So,
kent:
uh, here's a question. I only have one. I have one way of doing things,
Curt:
and that's straightforward. I just asked Dan Anderson this question. Uh, you know, Dan Yeah. Kingdom Way ministries. Yeah. So I think he was taken slightly aback, but, uh, what of the major sins has been your biggest struggle throughout your lust?
kent:
Yeah. There's no question about it. I think that was the same for me. If 75% of men in the church are hooked on porn Yeah. Not hooked, or at least watch it, you know, um, we all struggle with that. Yeah. Yeah. We all struggle with that. And part of it is, you know, for those of us that don't have, I mean, people that don't know me really, really well, they think, well, you know, he's this extrovert guy on stage. Right? Right. Jumping up and down. I don't like people that, well, I'm really kind of an
Curt:
introvert. You're playing a
kent:
part kind of. I'm, I'm really kind of a let's have two couples over. I don't like parties. Interesting. I'll go to your party, but I'd rather go then I'll, you'll find me behind the bar serving everybody so I don't have to talk. Huh. That's not my style. You know? Um, so yeah, I I, we, we all have our, our,
Curt:
our our ways of hiding. Yeah. Yeah.
kent:
Things, but as far as your question
Curt:
was Yeah. The question was like, what, what do you struggle with the most? I
kent:
at lust. And, and, and, and, and I think anyone that doesn't admit that as a male, It's like, what are you gay I mean, seriously. And even gay guys struggle with lust. Right. For sure. And I think we're wired that way. Yeah. Well
Curt:
now that doesn't make it Okay. Keeps moving forward. Yeah.
kent:
That doesn't make it okay. Yeah. But that doesn't mean we're not wired that way.
Curt:
Well, and and you lived in, in a, a somewhat similar place to what I lived. You were a successful high income earning business owner that had, you know, in your case, you had all these ladies working for your office that thought you were super cool. I'm, I would be shocked if there wasn't at least one or two that didn't make a pass at you over time. And, you know, to be honest, I've been flirted with out and about and things, and I'm, I'm like, you know, it is what it is, Jill. And like, I'm Fort Collins famous. Like, I could not like be a cheater and somebody not like, wrap me out. No, no. I'm like, easy. Well, I
kent:
can say this, I don't know that I've ever had a staff member make or run at me because they all know Deb Fair and they know my commitment to her. In fact, I was dancing with somebody the other night at a show that we were doing, my band was playing and, and, and she literally said, you're the most married guy I know.
Curt:
That's awesome. Yeah. And I am, they know. Yeah. Now
kent:
that doesn't mean that when I'm in New York at a conference, someone has made a run at me. Right. Or
Curt:
whatever. Right. But, um, again, just be clear, I haven't had any staff members make a run at me either, but I, I think that's where
kent:
Your're saying, I think that's where your faith comes in, um, where it's not Okay. Right. I mean, dev and I. Should have been divorced five or six times. Yeah. But we made a commitment that said no. So it was never even an option.
Curt:
What was your biggest contributor to that challenge when it was rough?
kent:
My, I am, in fact, Deb and I were just talk about this on the way home the other night. Um, perseverance and loyalty are what I'm all about. Hmm. I'm a machine. I'm the same all the time when it comes to her. Yeah. I've never not loved her to death. I would. I I, it's just, I, and it doesn't matter what she does. Yeah. Or says, because to me, love is a commitment. Yeah. It's not a feeling. I have decided to love you, Kurt, as a brother, you cannot do anything that makes me not do that. Only I can make that decision. Yeah. And I decide if that happens or not. And I I will not not love you. Yeah. I won't like you but that's different. That's totally different. Love is a lifetime commitment that I have to you as a brother in Christ to my wife, to my kids. I don't have to like anything You do. Yeah. But I, I have decided to love you. Yeah. All the way to heaven. I dig it. So
Curt:
I feel like. It's time for the Loco experience. you remember that? You said you had like three or five or something like that, that would be good candidates. Uh, I'll let you tell two if you want to, but okay. Ask me the question. So, the, the lo experience, the craziest experience of your lifetime that impacted your life and changed the world that you interacted with and that you're willing to share with a public audience that might listen to this, even if it's your wife or your daughter, um, or any of your clients out there.
kent:
I've had, um, a lot of crazy experiences that have changed my life. Uh, um, spiritually are the ones that, that, uh, make the most impact. Um, we, uh, we were going through a tough patch and we were both singing in the, in the choir or in the, in, in the worship band. This is gonna seem like not much to some people, but to me it was a big deal and it was like, you know, I don't think. I don't think we should be up here singing. Hmm. Because
Curt:
neither one of us, we're kind of in a bad place with God. And so he doesn't want us here. Pring
kent:
him. I'm not sure. Yeah. I I, I'm not sure I like him at all. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because if, if you haven't been on the back deck, looking at this guy shaking your fist, ask him what the hell's going on. I don't think you've been there yet. Yeah. Okay. And I've, uh, I've been there a few times and I, I literally went to the pastor and this again, it's not gonna sound like a big deal. Yeah. And said, dude, I don't, I don't think I should. I sh Deb and I should be, you know, doing this. It was Tom glossy. And Tom was like, what are you talking about? And I said, man, I'm broken. I just, I, I don't, I'm not sure I like God. I'm not sure. I like this church. I like the church cuz I like you and the people in it, but I don't, I, this whole God thing, I'm just pissed right now. Mm-hmm. And he just looked at me as a pastor and said, so you think every time I preach I like God you know, and, and I've, and I've got this all screwed together. I've gone. Well, yeah. He's going Are you out of your mind? and it's just like bong. Yeah. God's there all the time. Loves me all the time. Understands what I'm going through. if I get hit by a bus on the way home, the fact that I'm pissed at him right now doesn't mean anything.
Curt:
Yeah, yeah. Doesn't mean anything. Well, he made a choice. He sent a contract. It's not kind of, it's
kent:
not performance based. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't need, and that, that changed the way I looked at so much. Hmm. Because it's not performance based. Yeah. And there's times I look up and I go, well,
Curt:
and that led back to your performance based on the, the love thing. Yeah. Right. Like, I don't know if it was the same conversation or just an extra layer, but when like, like we're too late in the podcast to go into this, but like, even like living together before marriage and stuff, it's like, well, yeah, it's fine as long as you do good. And if you don't do good, then you're out or whatever. One way or the other. Yeah. But when you choose to love, when you choose to marry, when you make a covenant, you're committed. And even when you're dipshit or it changes everything or
kent:
whatever. Yeah. The commitment. The commitment to him. Yeah.
Curt:
And your pastor recognizing that for you.
kent:
Yeah. The commitment to marriage as opposed to shacking up. Yeah. The commitment. When you have repented and believed, when you believe, when, when you say, I, I believe this is how I should live That I believe because
Curt:
because even when I fall short Yeah. Because you're, I believe this is
kent:
how I should live. Right. Right. Right. It doesn't, my actions are not nearly as important as my motives. Hmm. Who are not nearly as important or, or as not nearly as important as my belief system. Yeah. Okay. Because I have, there's a long distance between sometimes what I, what I believe and, and, and what happens. Yeah. Yeah. Because I believe this, this is my motive, and I still screw it up. Right, right. And it's like, ugh, you're 70 years old. Get your head outta your butt. you should have this together. I don't. Yeah. I don't all the time. And, and he gets it. Yeah. He gets it. That's why he died on the cross. That's
Curt:
why he sampled it, you know, with, with Jesus a little bit and faced a lot of temptations, I think was to just have a better understanding. He's a curious God, even though he knows everything strangely enough. That's, that's an
kent:
interesting comment. Curious God, even though he knows everything. Yeah, yeah. No, he is not curious. He knows everything, but yes, he, he gives us such grace, such a wide swath, because he knows who we are. Yeah. I mean, you look at Peter, What a, what a
Curt:
dip. Right. That's what I mean by curious. Yeah. And he still wanted to love that guy. Right. It's like, and he still wants to love me.
kent:
Well, he goes from, I don't know him,
Curt:
Right. Who never heard of that guy. What are you talking about? So was buying a pizza a little bit, I'll die
kent:
for you. Right. I'm gonna hang me upside down or boil me an oil or whatever. However he died, he was like, it was like 10 years apart, you know? Right, right. So yeah.
Curt:
Well, in 10 years, absent from the physical Jesus apart still, and he still, still, his faith got stronger and stronger as time passed. Yeah.
kent:
Yeah. Because of what he experienced. And
Curt:
so that's your local experience really, is just having faith being living faith in you. Well, just in that particular experience. But overall,
kent:
it's like overall it, to me, it's like it's a maker. Just he is consistent and faithful and always there for Ken Overman. I can't speak for everybody else. Yeah. But I just know that, that, that I am, I'm there in the hands. Yeah. I'm there in the hands, even though I don't want to be sometimes you know? Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't, I mean, I'm a
Curt:
rebellious Yeah. Son. No, we are, I mean, I am
kent:
horrible I'm horrible. And if, if you had a TV screen on the front of my head that showed me like what was,
Curt:
I was thinking all the time,
kent:
oh my God, you would just like duck triplex,
Curt:
horrible, right? Yeah. You know, I mean, do you avoid like driving through csu? Cuz you don't really want to see all the girls with the big boobs jogging around in the summer
kent:
No. I actually drive through on per no.
Curt:
Right? Well I It's a both right? No,
kent:
it's you just, again, as a guy, if you say you don't look at that right? You're a liar or you're gay. There's only two, two answers to
Curt:
that. Yeah. And you can choose to and there's nothing wrong. He's faithful to, there's
kent:
nothing wrong with going, whoa, who? But
Curt:
Deb's my, and then you can say, Deb's my babe. Well, and plus you can say I'm 70 Yeah. Kidding.
kent:
Yeah. No, I still
Curt:
got my mojo baby right in my butt. I got that shit in my head. I'm 27
kent:
No, but you can look at that in, but yet it's like I can appreciate Yes. The female form. Um, and what little you have covering it, I can appreciate that. But that's my babe. Yeah, right here. This one. And she gets that too because she's been with me for 44 years. She's going, you're never gonna
Curt:
stop looking on, you not look away. How come you not look at
kent:
that? I mean, just hang in there, you know? If she didn't want me to look, she wouldn't dress like that, you know? Right. And then they're going, oh, that's cuz you're old and sexist. Right.
Curt:
Well you're terrible sex. It's cuz I'm male.
kent:
Yeah. I'm a male. I'm not a misogynist. I'm
Curt:
male. I had like boobs. Yes. I'm a boo. Do you? Okay. What's wrong, Everybody likes boos. Women like boobs too. Yes. Um, so you're retired, so nobody needs to look you up for Tooth Zone. But if people wanna look up, uh, the Blues Dogs or Mr. Smith,
kent:
um, uh, blues dogs van.com, uh, anybody just wants to hang out and have a beer, um, Kent over, uh, Ken Kent. O b k e n t o b e@comcast.net. Oh, there you go. Yeah. I mean, I'm, yeah, you're cool. Again, Deb's like, uh, uh, uh, um,
Curt:
no Hot Chicks. No. Unless you're willing for
kent:
Deb to be there too. Well, I actually won't go out with Hot Chicks. No, I'm kinda like Mike Pence in that I've learned. Right. I've learned that that doesn't work. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, um, um, oh my God. Head arrested Mr. Smith. Oh. Head of Respite Care? Uh, well it was Leanne Massey. Oh yeah. Lean Leanne's been a friend of mine for Oh, cool. For 40 years. Yeah. And we were out having lunch one time and she said, and, and, and, and someone said, why is he, he should just put him on your board. And she said, I don't want him on the board because he can be honest with me. He's not on the board So that's what don't come out. Don't call. don't go to lunch with me if you don't wanna be busted in the jobs. Hmm. Because front Stabber, I'm, I don't care. Yeah. I'm gonna tell you what I think and if you don't like it, don't come out with lunch with me anymore. Okay.
Curt:
I don't care. Well, I'll see you soon. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks kid.
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