626: Rob Kimbel - Living By Your Values, Caring For Your People, Taking The Back Seat, & Creating Opportunities That Improve Lives

26:45So I didn't even realize, I think it was like Memorial Day or something. I didn't even realize there was tornadoes. And I wake up, I get up on the Monday morning of Memorial Day, go outside, work out, do my thing, come back. And like, I don't know, it's 11 o 'clock and I have my email is blown up where there was these tornadoes. and one of our teammates in payroll had taken it upon herself to see who in our company by their address was in the line of the tornadoes. There's like 20 some individuals had alerted the care team. The care team had contacted every one of those individuals to do an assessment to see whose house was hit, how bad was the damage, and what did we need to do to help.

27:30And they're tracking all these people. We're taking out generators form. We're taking out meals form. A lot of our teammates show up with chainsaws to get trees off of houses. And this is all going on before I even, I don't even know what's happening. And so like, I can get emotional to think about that. Like when your team cares that much about their teammates and they don't have to ask the CEO, Hey, in fact, somebody asked what's the budget on this. And somebody three ranks down and said, I don't believe there'll be a budget. They made that call without me knowing, you know, they just took care of their people.

28:05And so that's the kind, that's what we want. When we think culture, that's what we want. God, I'm with you, man. It gives me chills thinking about like how cool, like how cool does that feel, man? Seriously, I feel great just being kind of working alongside you. I'm not in the company, but I feel like I am in a way because of how tight we are with you guys. But how cool does that feel? It's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. You know, Casey. And so Casey, rough tumbling Casey, this came out like we had to kind of a debrief the next day on Tuesday. And we're just talking about, hey, what are we going to do for our folks?

28:38And Casey's like, I already authorized. He said, I know this isn't policy, but I already authorized everybody that was hit to take their VTO. So their volunteer time off, which is supposed to be for like, you know, charity purposes and school stuff, not personal. you're like, I just converted all that to PTO. And I gave anybody that wanted to go help them VTO off too. And he did that on his own, didn't get with HR because there was a need and it was immediate. And he just, he just did it. And he knew that we would have his back. There was no question of, man, I hope I don't get in trouble for this.

29:11He just did it. And so it's pretty cool. Like that's, that's when you know, you're hitting the mark. Now, listen, we screw up a bunch of stuff. We don't do culture perfect, but that's the kind of stuff we're, we're shooting for. Well, I mean, some people have their stuff sitting up on the walls. But if you talk about creating opportunities to improve lives, that means showing up when it goes bad. I mean, especially showing up when it's not there. Not only helping them grow and helping them advance in their career, but something bad happens being right on top of it. Having a team that gets aggressive to make sure you're there.

29:50I think that's another prime example of living out your purpose, which I love. Let's get into your values. Again, high level. Can you talk me through what they are and why they are and how you go about trying to live them out? Yeah. So our values are team, humble, hunger, grit, and integrity. And I wanted to make them no arrogant, lazy, wimpy assholes, but HR said no. we went the other way. That seems to resonate more with blue-collar dudes, and I'm a blue-collar dude. I think it resonates with everybody. What are you talking about? Yeah. I mean, who wants to work with an arrogant, lazy, wimpy asshole?

30:32But we went the other way. So team is first because we believe team is first in our company. And everything we do is what's best for the team. We believe that if we do what's best for the team, it's going to be best for the individual long-term. It may suck for the individual short-term, but long-term it's what's best for the individual as well. Humble is just, we learned that from my dad, just taking the backseat. Don't think more of yourself, who you are, honor other people. Just don't be arrogant. I mean, it's rather simple. Hunger for us is, it's not about, working hard is like table stakes.

31:10It's not about working hard. It's about like continual improvement. It's about getting a little bit better every day. Putting in the same effort, but learning lessons from the day before and being willing to change and tweak and learn and not be ever be complacent or satisfied. It's certainly good to celebrate, but we celebrate and then kind of like Brooke cups, we're back in the gym at six o 'clock the next morning. Like, let's go grit. Yeah. This is just, if you're in the trades, you've got to be a gritty person. Like you got to be tough. We don't know wimps. We don't want wimps in our company.

31:45And that goes for men, women, I don't care who you are. You got to be tough to work with us. And we're proud of that. It's not for, we've thought about making a t-shirt. It's not for everybody, you know, like we want gritty people. And then integrity again, should be table stakes, but honestly, we went back and forth on this because it should be like, duh. But in our industry, that is not the norm. In fact, I am looking at another company to buy and the owner, the president wanted to have one of his values, one of the company values, they were working on that as honesty. And the owner's like, no, I don't think I really want that to be one of our values.

32:23I was like, what? Why would you not want that as one of your values? And so our industry is just not known for integrity and we choose to. Really? What do you mean? Oh, it's totally about the bottom dollar, having shortcuts, cheating customers, cheating vendors like it it's very getting kickbacks you got a certain parts of the country you've got a payoff inspector it's like we just don't do that stuff wow what about what do you ever have to compete against people who do those types of things yeah what how does that go do you lose sometimes and you're just like okay we're good we're good with losing i mean we don't consider it losing we're just like hey i always i'm you know pretty faithful and i just like all I got to give us the work we're supposed to have and the manpower to have it.

33:15And if we're not supposed to have the work, I'm cool with that. Like, yeah, I'm not going to do anything to, to cross that integrity line. One of the other elements of culture that I love, and I want you to tell the story, but when you're with your senior leadership team, your exec team, can you tell me about the importance of writing thank you notes? Yeah. Yeah. So I can't remember exactly where I picked all of this up. We took, not I, but we took a bunch of different ideas. One of them was Brooke Cupps with his touches, you know, but I think you might've had somebody, or I heard of a podcast with somebody that did think, you know, it's on a regular basis and stuff.

34:00And so we just started as a senior leadership team. It's an exercise that is mandatory every week. And we each have to come with a thank you note to somebody out in the company. So there's nine of us on the team. That means every week we're coming with at least one thank you note, sometimes two, most of the time, I'd say most of the time two. So that means nine to 18 people every week are getting a thank you note from the executive team. And it's what it's done, one, who doesn't love a handwritten, it has to be handwritten and has to be mailed to their house. Who doesn't love getting a handwritten note from an executive that says, I see you.

34:38I see the good you did. I see you living up to our values. I see you living up to our purpose. We've gotten so much feedback from, honestly, from parents or people in the community that just said, yeah, my son's friend works for you. And he said, he got a thank you note from you for, you know, working late one night or whatever. And that's pretty cool. Like, you know, it's spreading. And but the thing, you know, anytime you try to do something good, it also there's benefit to you that you don't realize you're going to get. And what we figured out is like knowing as a team, we're holding each other accountable every week to come with a thank you.

35:14It forces you to be looking for something good. Like it forces you to go out and because in the day to day, you can get in the grind and things can get negative. But it forces us to go find something good in our company. And that little bit of just like nudge to the positive can change our whole attitude in an executive meeting. It can change our attitude and how we handle stressful situations. And so it's something that at first when we did it, we were like, I'm not sure if this is going to work. But by far, the most return on investment of anything we do is simple, you know, handwritten thank you notes that take two to three minutes and you put a stamp on it and go.

35:56Those forcing functions are so powerful, man. You don't even maybe realize it. It sounds like you didn't realize at the beginning, but then you know, hey, my meeting's coming up. I need to come with at least one thank you note. And so it makes you always on the lookout. Where's the person doing something good? Where's somebody living up to one of our values or multiple values? Where's somebody taking care or creating opportunity for people to improve lives? Or where's somebody being really hungry or really gritty? You're probably like constantly 24-7 looking out for stuff like that. And your whole team is.

36:31You're looking for it. And if you've had a bad week and you know Tuesday 9 o 'clock is coming up, Monday afternoon you're like, hey, dude, tell me somebody that's done something good. I feel that pressure from my team. I want to make sure. The other thing we do that's kind of similar vein is we do touch points. And so there's about that. This extends out a little bit further. We have about 30 of us that are what we call senior leadership team. and each of us are assigned two people each week to reach in the company just to reach out and say, hey, how are you doing? Or maybe it's a thank you note or maybe it's a text or an email, but just some sort of just touch point to say, hey, we notice you and we appreciate you.

37:11So that means every week there's 60 people that are getting some sort of just not necessarily a thank you note, but it could be, but it's just some sort of interaction with a senior leader in the company. So when you start doing that, you know, that's 3000 touches a year that we're pushing out to our teams, trying to just make sure that our people know that we care, know that we're here and that we're thankful for what they do. Well, how does that process come together? Do you have a person in charge of identifying the people and then assigning them to you guys? Like, how does that work? Yeah, we have on our care team, they assign people.

37:44And so I get my two people. And quite But honestly, sometimes I don't know who they are. And so I've got to go dig in like, hey, I've heard of this guy, but I don't know what he does or I don't know where he works or whatever. And so you got to dig in. And sometimes like, you know, I get behind and I just like everyone else, like I get pounded about it. Like they're like, hey, dude, you got to go get this done. So, you know, it's fun. It's hard. Like it's intentional, but it's worth it. One of the first things I noticed when I met you in person and you were wearing a short-sleeved shirt was the tattoos on your forearms.

38:22Can you tell me what they are and why you chose to tattoo them on your body? How deep do you want to go, Ryan? So the tattoos, the one arm says free from all. The other one says servant to all. And that comes from a scripture in 1 Corinthians 9.19. and Paul says, for though I'm free from all, I have made myself a servant to all. Long story of how Paul got to where he was, but essentially he was trying to reach people for Christ. And in verse 20, this is where it gets interesting. He said, to the Jews, I made myself a Jew. To those under the law, I made myself under the law. To those outside the law, I made myself outside the law.

39:03To the weak, I've made myself weak. I've become all things to all people so that I might save a few. And the thing I like about his verse is he's like, hey, I don't need to live under your legalism. I don't need to, you know, I don't need your money. At that point, Paul was working as a tent maker, but I will do anything in my power to meet you where you're at to help you. And what I love about it is he doesn't say God made me a servant or I am a servant. He He said, I have made myself a servant, meaning it's an intentional act for him to meet people where they're at. And so for me, as I relate myself to that, I've obviously made a lot of money, so I'm free from work.

39:48I don't have to work. I might give a damn about what society thinks about me broke several years ago. And so I don't really care what society thinks about me. I have a great family. I have all the friends I need. I'm at this point in my faith where I know what I believe and how I believe. And I don't need to live up to these rules and regulations that a lot of denominations preach and stuff. And so it just kind of came up, came point in my life. I'm like, I'm free from all that stuff, free from some of the crap that happened to me when I was a kid. Like, I'm free from all that stuff. but I have a responsibility and I'm called to be a steward and I want to point other people to God.

40:35And so I've made myself a servant to all. And so I'm willing to do anything I can to help a young man in our industry that just needs to develop a career. Whatever people need to succeed in life, to succeed in marriage, to succeed in fatherhood, I want to be available to help them. And I want to be part of the process to point them to a better life than what they thought they could have. And if that does eventually lead to some sort of religious experience, you know, salvation, whatever, that's great, but that's not my only purpose for it, but it's part of it. So I just, yeah. I appreciate you saying that.

41:19I know I've asked you before about it, but that's the most I've ever heard about it. And that's so cool. The word that I feel like I like the best is how intentional you are about it and how it's a choice. The ability to be free from awe or I guess to – and I try to surround myself with people like this. I think you notice this. I live around Garen Stokes and Brooke Cups and the Hall of Famer, Sherry Cole and Eli and the whole team. and you become very close because that is an aspirational thing for me. And I think the people that I surround myself with are further along on that path of almost being like, I'm kind of good.

42:03I'm kind of good and not that concerned or worried and don't play the comparison game. I wrote a whole book about it with Brooke Cupps to try even more to learn and still battle this thing. What have you done intentionally to feel more of like, you know what? I'm okay with, I don't, when I make large donations, it's always anonymously. I know that's a big part of what you do. And you would never tell me that I had to learn from other people doing my research or anything like that. You're generous, but you don't have to be seen as generous. You just are, or whatever the thing you choose to do, it doesn't need to be success in society's terms.

42:38You have your own version of that. Is it just the time thing? Is it a money thing? Is it age wisdom, having an amazing wife, all of the above? I'm curious, How have you gotten to the point where you are more free from all? I think that one thing I would say is definitely not a money thing because I know people who have a lot of money and they still are very insecure. And by the way, we're all insecure in our own way. Like we all have insecurities. Even when you are striving to be free from all, you still have insecurities. I can't say that I'm perfect in that. I think probably the first thing is just my faith in God and knowing who I am and what I'm about.

43:17and I always tell people this is where I'm on this train or this is the train I have if you want to get on my train with me come on if not go find another train but like this is what I'm doing and so I think just my faith that I'm cool you know but I think there's a lot of it honestly Ryan that comes with age you know and just like you just mature and I took a little longer for my frontal cortex to form than most people I was probably in my 40s before I figured some of this stuff out. Some people figure out in their twenties. I just was a little slower at it, but I think age is a big part of it.

43:50I had the right people in my life at the right time. Sometimes that just kind of gave me that shot of like, Hey, you got this. It's okay. You're okay. Who you are. Um, and you know, in my world with the wealth that we have, most people that are, that have the same wealth, have these standards they live to, or these types of things they do, or these black tie events they go to. I'm like, dude, I'm cool. Don't need any of that. Like we just don't, we just don't do that. You know, we don't try to live up to the, to the expectations of what other wealthy families do. And so, yeah, I think that's just time, age, faith, all of the above.

44:34Yeah. I want to talk about the marriage and family, but before we get to that, I've noticed that you're a psycho when it comes to working out and pushing your body physically and to the point beyond. And I'm around like professional athletes and you're a crazy man. You win Tough Mudders for your age groups and you compete at all age group levels. Yeah. You know, you go around, do all these things, right? Like puking in trash cans. I love to hear your mindset, honestly, because I think this is helpful. why pushing yourself so hard physically? Why do you do it? How does it benefit you? So there was a time in my life, probably need to go back and, and, you know, I was a high school athlete when I got out of high school, packed on some pounds, didn't work out, was, you know, kind of in the similar to a lot of people, the kid thing and the new marriage thing, and was working a lot of hours and, and lost focus on my health for a lot of years.

45:29But when I really kind of honed back in on my on my health there were some benefits that I you know you should know this stuff but you're or humans are kind of dumb or we forget things but probably the three things that I've picked up from it is one Covey's talks about start with the end in mind you know and so like I think where do I want to be when I'm 65 where I want to be when I'm 80 and when I'm 65 I still want to be able to put Sherry on my shoulders you know you've you've been pictures with me. Like I still want to be able to do that. Well, to do that, I've got to work out. Cause if I don't use those muscles, they're going to deteriorate.

46:06If I want to be able to ski with my kids when I'm 80, I've got to stay in shape. So there's like an end goal for some of it. There's another part of it where I just like to compete and it's mostly against myself. Don't get me wrong. When I'm in a Spartan race, I want to win the whole thing. Now I've never won an entire Spartan race, but I have won my age, my age bracket, but I'm just a competitor. I just, and I like doing hard things. There's a feeling of working out in the morning that I've done the hardest thing I'm going to do already. And then the rest of the day is somewhat easier, you know, like, well, God, I got me, I did a 45 minute HIIT workout that can't be any worse than this.

46:45Or just a shout out to Garen Stokes. I kicked his ass in a mile race. So I did the hardest thing I'm going to do, you know, but then there's a third thing that happens when you work out, I think. And that's the clarity in your mind throughout the day that I don't know what the chemical reactions are. Karame, one of our teammates on the executive leadership team, I run stairs a lot. And she's like, I can always tell when you're running stairs because you're shooting emails with ideas. And she's right. There's a clarity of thought that comes when I'm just doing a hard cardio that is somewhat monotonous.

47:21And so for me, it's those three things. It's thinking about where I want to be 30 years from now. It's doing the hardest thing I'm going to do for the day early, just getting it over with. And then it does clear my mind in a big way that I can be more productive and more effective at work. Such a good way of putting it. I love it. I'm in lockstep with you. I think you got to sweating and hurting physically to start of the day, no better way. And especially when you're in influential roles that every decision you make impacts lots of people and it influences others. I think it's critical to do what you got to do to be in the right space, to be in the right place.

48:08And I know you and I share that working out is a big one. I think it is probably for a lot of people, but it's also hard. It takes some time. Not everybody wants to do it. Speaking of Garen, I love this guy. He's just the best. He's certainly embedded in Kimball now. And every time he gets done with a Kimball meeting with your leaders, I'm getting a text saying, I'm on fire. These people light me up. You could throw in all different types of colorful language for Garen. But God, I love getting those texts. I love hearing the excitement. And I think that actually shows to the culture of Kimball, like how much they love it.

48:45how much these people are so in. And now we're at a couple levels below the execs. So we're in the middle of the company as the work that we're doing. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that when you hear about just the sheer level of love that the middle level of managers, some higher end managers have for Kimball, like how that makes you feel. I mean, obviously it makes me feel good. And there's been a lot of work to get that talent to come work with us. But I feel almost like it's almost a weight on me because now it makes me want to work harder for them. Okay. If you're that committed, I'm in like, let's go.

49:27What are we going to do? In a good way though. Yeah. In a good way. Like it's in a good way. It's motivation for me. So when I hear somebody's taken what they've learned at Learning Leader, or maybe it wasn't Learning Leader, maybe it was a book they read or whatever, and they're growing, man, it just excites me. I'm like, man, that 27 year old is going to be, she's going to be the dude one day. Like she is going to be the CEO or he is going to be like, you can just see it. You know, it's coming. Like I'm going to die. Somebody has to take my spot. And so, oh man, it's just awesome when that happens.

49:56I love it. Isn't it cool? The thing that I think juices me up the most is when we talk to people who are, you know, going through our stuff, the curriculum and just the work that, that our team does is you see the actual ripple effect and how wide it goes. It's not just about that person. It's about every person that person interacts with, their husband or wife, their kids, their colleagues, their teammates, their communities. The ripple effect, if you get somebody to buy in to this type of thing, to the Kimball style of culture and understanding your purpose and your values and your critical behaviors and how you live each of those out every day and striving to have a default mode for optimism and looking for good things, right?

50:39All the stuff we've talked about, the ripple effect is so far and wide. That's what makes me the most excited about all this stuff. Yeah. I love hearing from a spouse. They're like, Hey, my wife was telling me this or my husband. I'm like, Oh yeah, this is taken. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. It's so sticky. It's the best. The other thing I've learned from you is I've taken a lot of without, we haven't really even gone deep to talk about it, but a lot of it, it's not advice. I've learned through your example of how to be a great husband, certainly a great dad too, which we'll talk about next.

51:14But I think being a great husband is more important than being a great dad. And I'd just love to hear your overall mindset of how you go about being such, I love Sherry next to my wife, like the greatest wife that exists. She's just the best in every way possible. I don't even know how it's human that she's so kind, generous, loving, caring, just as good as it gets. But you guys also seem to have an amazing marriage where you're genuine friends. I can tell we've hung out quite a bit, the Bahamas, other places where you're actual friends. Can you just talk to me about marriage and having a great marriage and how you guys have cultivated that over the years?

51:52The one thing I think that people really don't understand is how intentional you have to be in marriage. There's all the, I don't have social media, so, you know, I don't do all that garbage, but there's the Facebook marriages like, oh, look, we are here. But then, you know, what's really behind the scenes and people look at our marriage and absolutely like we're tight, we're buds. We have more fun with her mostly because I can be really funny, mean about other things with her that I can't, you know, with general society, but like we have the most fun together, but there are things we have to work at.

52:29I mean, she talks a lot. You know that like she's chatty. I'm not. And so sometimes that's a point of contention and we have signals. I'm like, Hey, look, I'm going to the man cave, which means shut the hell up and leave me alone. And she knows that now, you know, after 32 years, you figure that out. But if she's needing me, she's like grabbing my hand and saying, Hey, you know, talking. And so like, you just figure out those signals, but it's all about it being intentional. I had a mentor slash family friend that we went to their 50th wedding anniversary and somebody asked him when we were there, Hey, what's the secret?

53:06You know, a younger person asking what's the secret. And he's like, man, we just never wanted a divorce on the same day.

53:15That makes sense. But I don't think that's a good strategy. You know, I think that you've got to be committed that divorce is never an option unless obviously there's abuse and things like that. But just being committed and you can get mad at each other. I have been so mad at Sherry and she's been so mad at me, but at the end of the day, we're coming back together and we're going to work things out. And so just that intentionality is big. The other thing you guys have done so well is raised four boys. As mentioned, I'm probably closest of all of them to Matt because we've worked together and he helped me a ton to get ready for this one today.

53:50And I just found him to be, you know, sometimes you see like the son of a, of a rich guy. You're like, all right, he's going to be entitled. He's spoiled. He's going to come across maybe a little arrogant. And I would say of your boys that I know, like that just, they're the opposite of that. And so my, my natural question is how did you do that? How do you do that when you have all the means to raise entitled, spoiled humans and they're the opposite? How have you guys been intentional about raising tough, gritty, resilient, hardworking, generous, kind children? So back to Covey thinking, you know, beginning with the end in mind, I've got a couple of friends that, well, I have, I know a lot of wealthy people and I've seen their adult children turn out one of two ways.

54:41I have a friend, Todd. He is a wealthy family. They're in the chicken industry. And he is about my age now, third generation, hardworking. He grew up very wealthy, hardworking. He's the biggest cheerleader, loves it when other people succeed. And he's really who I want my boys to be like. I want them to grow up to be like Todd. Another friend I know, Will Rockefeller, who's from Rockefeller, like J.D. Rockefeller's great, great grandson. Again, great young guy in his thirties, great dad working hard and not in the family Rockefeller business. And I've just looked at those guys and I'm like, okay, that's what I want my kids to look like.

55:25I don't want them to look like some of these other people I know who entitled spoiled brats. So then I'm like, okay, well, what did Todd specifically do at 27 years old? Todd was in a chicken plant, gutting chickens and nasty business. And there is a wealthy dad that Todd could have easily went into an office job, but he started at the bottom. And I was like, okay, that's a good lesson. That's what I'm going to do with my kids. And so I just try to emulate people that I've seen before me with success. And so all of my boys, none of them started in a position of authority. They all started in literally in the ditch.

56:00And even our son that doesn't work in the business, he was an army ranger and we just expected them to work hard and and continue that in the future. Well, absolutely. You have some of them involved in the business. You have a brother involved in the business. There are Kimball's that work at Kimball, right? And so every family business probably has their stuff. I feel like you guys have done a really good job, but I'm sure you have your moments where it's like, oh God, there's some family mess involved in this. What are the keys you think to running a family business where other family members are going to get involved?

56:35I'm curious about some of the struggles or the tough things you've had to work through as well as then what you've done intentionally to make it work. Yeah, there's always something new. And what I don't in our business, what I don't want is for Thanksgiving to be about the business. I want Thanksgiving to be about family. When we have, you know, we have every other weekend, we have family game night and dinner together. And I don't want that to be about the business. So we try to like draw some, we don't say you can't talk about it, but we try to draw some lines and like, okay, let's, let's try to not talk business after hours.

57:09Every once in a while, one of the boys will call me and I don't know if they're venting because I'm dad or if they're venting because I'm CEO. And so sometimes I have to ask the question. I'm like, Hey, are you just needing some parental guidance here? Are you just venting to the CEO? Cause if you're bringing the CEO, you got to go down four levels. I'm not going to help you out here. But my kids have really figured that out too. Like they're all just super mature, super hardworking, and they just want to do what's right. And so yeah, there's times that it gets squirrely and they all have a target on their back because they're the CEO's son and doesn't matter what they do.

57:51If they get a promotion or a raise, it's because they're my kid, not because they earned it supposedly and stuff. But we work through all that. And I think it's just open communication with your kids. Make sure they know what the expectation is. Make sure that they know they're not going to get higher placement simply because they're a kid, a child of mine. Something changed over the course of, I don't remember the exact date this happened, but within the last year or so, you were wired a bunch of money from a private equity company to purchase 70 % of your business. I am curious to go deeper into what made you want to do that, as well as what that day was like, how that felt, that this three-person business making 12 bucks an hour gets wired, whatever, a boatload of money, enough money for multiple generations to never lift a finger again and have plenty of money.

58:46Can you go into that whole process and what it felt like? Yeah. To be clear, we were actually not looking to sell any part of our business. Sherry and I knew that we did not want to just pass the business to our kids because there's always the, you know, the family dynamic of who's in charge and how does it work and all that. We always knew that we were going to liquidate one day, wanted to continue to work in the business, but didn't want to pass that on to the kids for a lot of reasons. But we weren't there yet. Like we, I really thought it would be years. Last January, we got a couple of phone calls from a group asking if we were interested in selling.

59:24We said, no, call back. No. Finally, we'd took a call. And the process kind of was, they asked some high level questions. I gave them high level answers about our business, about our revenue, our profitability. And they came back and said, Hey, we're very interested. And at that point I was like, all right, God, if this is supposed to happen, that's great, but I'm not going to do anything extra to try to make it happen. So I just let them lead. And the whole time I was just trying to be faithful. Like, all right, if it's supposed to happen, great. If not, close the door. And along the way, they, in fact, it was so much so that I felt that way that I gave, I shot them an email telling them all the things that were wrong with our business.

1:00:04This is why, that's what basically it was. This is why you should not buy our business. And they came back and said, well, we, because of this, we love you more. And so like, oh crap, that backfired on me. I was trying to scare you off. So over time, we went through due diligence. And yeah, in July of last year, we sold 70 % of the business. They've been great partners. I love them. They couldn't ask for better partners. They let us do what we do. They totally believe in our culture. They believe in what we're doing. And so it's been fun. The day the money got wired to us, man, it was surreal.

1:00:38First off, we had some friends in town that are not very wealthy. In fact, they were pretty poor and we had taken them to dinner that we didn't know the timing of the closing and the timing of their trip was going to be the same. And so the money gets wired to us while we're at dinner with them. The second batch of money, I should say. And so like we got half of it at noon and then the other half like at five o 'clock or six o 'clock or whatever. And so we have this excitement, but we can't share it with them. And I'm sure they thought, what is wrong with Rob and Sherry today? Like they are giddy as I get.

1:01:13You didn't tell them? Yeah. No, we didn't tell them. We never have. They still don't know. Oh, geez. Okay. Yeah. But the day that it all went down, when that first wire hit, there was just this flood of... I have on my... You can't see it, but I have on this thing, one of my personal core values is grit and my behavior is honor dad. and the flood of thoughts going through like I hope this honored my dad like I hope that him pulling us out of extreme poverty to middle class the sacrifice that he made when I was a kid I hope that this makes him proud and then the then the flood of just like 25 years of grit and sacrifice and all of that just flooding it was pretty emotional like I'm not gonna lie I cried I mean And it was just like, holy cow.

1:02:05And it wasn't about the money because that Monday morning, I was the first one back to the office. I was making sure that, okay, it's time to roll again. It was just about the applause of what we've done. Somebody recognized that there was a value to everything that we've done. And so it was pretty cool. Man, I remember those moments and I just love it when great things happen to great people. That's the way the world should be, right? When great things happen to great people who you know is going to put that to good use. now after that, how has it changed things for you? How has it changed things for your family office, the future of your family?

1:02:39What do you want to do with all of that generational wealth? We've talked about as a family, we started having family meetings more regular and we open up, we tell the kids, hey, here's what we have, here's what we're doing. We've started over on creating our family values as everybody's an adult now. What are the things we value you, what do we want our legacy to be? Because, you know, the five families now that we have, the adult families, we talk about like, hey, what a hundred years from now, what are our grandkids going to be thankful for? What are our great, great grandkids going to be thankful for that we did today?

1:03:17And what are the core values we want to instill? This generation's easy and the next generation's easy because we can do that ourselves. But how do we make sure that they instill that four generations from now? How do we make sure that they are the Todd Simmons or the Will Rockefellers of the world, not the douchebags of the world. And so like, it's become, it's, again, it's a cool responsibility, but it's a responsibility, you know? I mean, one of the first, I was so proud. One of the first things the kids said was, we're going to be a working family. Like we're going to be gritty. And then the second one, one of the daughter-in-laws, she said, I love how we're generous and I want to continue that generosity.

1:03:52And so, you know, there's a responsibility in stewardship, like in the, The kids feel it. They know that this is bigger than any of us, and we need to treat it that way. Oh, I love it. I just love how intentional you are that you guys actually have these meetings, you have the game nights, and you have these, again, intentional conversations, which I just don't know if enough people do. Sometimes you just assume people know things or you assume that they'll pick it up along the way. And I feel like you're really good at not ever making those assumptions. You just overtly say, we're going to talk about these things.

1:04:30Did you have to learn that along the way? Did you learn that from somebody else? Did you get help? Or are you just like, hey, we got to get all of this out on the table. We got to be more intentional about having these conversations. I think I learned some of it on the way, along the way, but also saw successful families. The ones that I would say are successful in that the family is still a family unit. They all get along at Christmas, even in spite of the wealth and all that. And I've just tried to model like, hey, I like what they do or I like what they do and just tried to model that with our kids.

1:05:06to broaden this out as we get closer to wrapping rob one of my staple questions is is usually around excellence and sustainable excellence because i'm just so curious about it especially from someone who has sustained it over time and so this is certainly you but you've also done a really good job you've mentioned some of them at surrounding yourself both inside your company and outside of your company with people who have sustained excellence over time what have you found to be some of the commonalities among those people? Probably the number one commonality is just continual learning, continual improvement, like just never being satisfied.

1:05:44And I say that not in a, like not being greedy, but just wanting to get better, you know, doing a, we just had Kim Campbell here yesterday for women in construction. And one of the things she talked about was the mission debrief, you know, and like really every exercise you do, everything you do, Just thinking back, what could I have done better? What didn't work? What worked well? What can I double down on? And people that do that and do that in a way, first off with themselves and are honest with themselves and live in reality of who they are and what they're good at, what they're not good at.

1:06:22Those are the ones that I think sustain excellence over time. I've seen some people really shoot up and they get to a certain level and then they quit learning. and they plateau and the world's chasing you. And so you've got to be working on yourself at all times. Just this morning, I read a thing for Ben Horowitz and he was asked, what's the most important skill of a CEO? And I'm going to bring up his answer and then I want you to respond to it because I'm curious since you've been a CEO for a while. He said the most important skill as a CEO is getting to the truth. It's really hard because it's really scary.

1:07:00normal humans find every excuse not to deal with harsh truths. What do you think about that? This job of a CEO of getting to the truth and getting others to actually bring you the truth and how, if you're good at that, I don't know. I feel like you are, but if you are, how do you get good at that? I agree with him that it is, I don't know that I agree that it's the only job of the CEO, but it's certainly an important part of being a CEO. And what I don't think people, a lot of leaders, if you're not the CEO, what a lot of leaders don't understand is because of the way organizations are, the CEO gets treated different and messages get delivered differently to the CEO than what truth is a lot of times.

1:07:48And it's interesting, like I'll say something like, man, that guy's a great guy. And, you know, one of the team is to be like, I'm not sure. And so, yeah, you have to dig. If your gut tells you something's a little off, you've got to dig, you got to dig, you got to dig. But part of that is you got to be open to that feedback. You've got to be willing to hear it. And sometimes truth hurts. And sometimes we're not as good as we think we are. And so, yeah, there is definitely a delta. It's a huge delta from CEO to, you know, that mid-tier leader who a lot of our leaders, we have great mid-tier leaders, but their truth and what I hear sometimes are different.

1:08:28It's really hard. You've got to work to be connected in the business. You have to be open and create the environment where everyone knows that that's actually wanted, not a massaged. I've worked in a place where it was heavily massaged each level up and I'm at the kind of frontline manager job. And before it gets to the CEO, it's a vastly different message because each person has kind of made it a little bit smoother and that's not actually raw. That's also another reason why you got to stay on the frontline, which I know is a big part of your business. But this creating an environment for truth is probably the difference between, again, Again, a really, really good, excellent company versus just an average to good one.

1:09:13Rob, to close, I am curious because you do work with people fresh out of high school, fresh out of college. A lot of them you employ. And I think it's useful to hear life slash career advice that you give to those types of people because what I find is usually while it's good advice for them, it's also good advice for me and for somebody at any age, at any point in their career, when you have those conversations and you're trying to help them, right? Because that's a big part. You're trying to serve them. What are some of those general pieces of life slash career advice you give to them? Yeah.

1:09:51The one thing I struggle with most with our younger folks, and I think this is somewhat a maturity thing, but I also think it's a society thing is a career is not linear. I mean, yeah, you're going to end up here one day, but man, it's up and down and around and having the patience to live in those seasons of suck, you know, live in those seasons of like, why am I doing this? How did comparison and all of that, instead of just focusing on yourself, focusing on doing good, doing right in the responsibilities you have. That's probably the biggest thing is that that careers are not linear. Our marriage is not, my marriage is not linear.

1:10:35None of it's nothing is linear. Everything has its ups and downs and you just got to, you know, keep in mind where you want to go and adjust and tweak and, you know, go from there. I think it's important to actually acknowledge and almost verbalize when you're in one of those moments that sucks really bad. Like we're in it now. I remember when COVID started and I was working with leaders within our circles and stuff like that. And I'm like, now is why we exist. this is it this is terrible there's some bad things happening i know like my speaking business obviously went to zero like everyone can be a leader when you're up by 50 you just eat oranges at halftime and go finish the second half but like now whenever the thing is bad my dad has always told me that this is why you exist right and so same thing with the career if you're gonna quit or you're gonna walk away or complain or be negative when you're in one of those tough moments or it's not going your way or it doesn't look like the future super bright what do you do you got to show up on time you got to finish the job right the bar is not that high man but you keep doing those things and it seems like it works itself out right you get seen eventually you get seen you know sometimes i mean i'll be the first to admit sometimes when you have a company with thousand people or whatever like it takes some time but over time the cream rises that But, you know, I'm not a big fan of that saying, but it's true.

1:11:58The cream eventually rises. You eventually get seen. And I've seen teammates that work with us for two years and they have a career trajectory like this. And it's not that they weren't seen, but they weren't seen in the light that they probably should have been. And then all of a sudden, like, boom, they skip two, three levels because they ground out for two years and they showed a level of dedication and a little level of grit. and loyalty. And during that two years, they like figured out a bunch of shit. And then all of a sudden they're really good. But at year one, if when they were grinding out, they, if they would have got upset and left, they would have missed out on a big pay increase, a big promotion.

1:12:40And so just having that grit to grind out the sucky moments, that's a big part of what I tell young people today. It's so funny. It reminds me of one of the things I get asked about is starting a podcast and how to grow on all that stuff. And so I have kind of some things saved that I can share with people and I email them or whatever. But the last bullet point is probably the most important. And it just says, don't quit. Most people do. You'll think about it a lot. Don't do it. And still, most people quit. I mean, they just do. Even the ones who get that email, they just, they, it's like, this kind of sucks.

1:13:13It's not exactly like I thought it would be. It's not, you know i'm not getting praise i'm not whatever and that's that that's just one of the differences i feel like is just this willingness to just and it's this is like the least sexy thing ever by the way i realize that but it's so true it is still absolutely true the willingness to kind of to keep at it rob last one what's next for you what's next for kimball what are you looking to do are you slowing down are you speeding up were you cruising what's next for you guys and I'm not slowing down. That's for sure. Whatever I do, it's, you know, that it's all in.

1:13:50Yeah. Hopefully I don't hit a tree and die skiing in my endeavor to go faster all the time. I remember when you told me you were going for a record one, one of those tell you ride trips. And I was like, please don't do that, man. I've kind of, I kind of like you now we've become friends. I care about you. Don't hit a tree. You idiot. I don't want that to happen. man i i love my team here at kimball and as long as i can be effective and as long as i can create opportunities to improve life that's what i'm gonna do i love this team here we from the 18 year old knucklehead kid that we get out of high school to the leadership team that i get to work with every day like we just have incredible people we're blessed to have them so if i can serve however i can serve them i'm gonna keep doing that but we're gonna work on our family office stuff we're gonna grow that and figure out how this looks a hundred years from now and set that course.

1:14:41But yeah, just, we're going to keep grinding and doing what we do and hopefully can make a dent in the world as you'd like to say. I love you, man. I love Sherry, your family. And I'm grateful. I know, you know, we work together. It's supposedly like a client relationship. It doesn't feel like that at all. It feels completely like this is how it should be. This is how the world should be. If, if, everybody shows up to try to help others and do good work that you just get to work with great people and learn together grow together get better together sometimes mess up and fix it that's the cool thing so obviously we're going to continue our dialogue as we both progress man but this has been fun thanks again for doing it and we'll have to do it again maybe like in a year or so we'll have like checkpoints i think that would be cool it'd be awesome all right man thank you It is the end of the podcast club.

1:15:32Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with my friend, Rob Kimball. A few takeaways from my notes. The profits are applause for growing our people. Love that. We've had the good fortune to work with Rob and his team for a few years. And it's amazing to see how much work they put into growing and supporting their team. They are so intentional about being there for each other. Rob mentioned the care team and how they show up, especially during the toughest moments of their teammates' lives.

1:16:09To me, it's so inspiring to hear stories like that, that maybe a financial person would say, how does that hit our ROI or what is the return on investment of that? And that's not how Rob thinks about it. It's really about living according to their purpose and their values and taking care of each other and ensuring that they are there when times are toughest. And that's one of the things I love most about Rob. I also love that Rob and its exec team write thank you notes every week. This practice, it works as this forcing function to be on the lookout for people living the Kimball values and doing excellent work.

1:16:48And I like the idea of creating forcing functions for yourself to ensure you're looking out for the right things. In this case, it's being grateful and it's finding people within the company doing it the right way. How about Rob's crazy workouts? And I've personally seen how hard he pushes himself. And I think that there's more to it than just the workout. It's about starting with the end in mind. He wants to be able to put his wife Sherry on his shoulders when he gets much older. He loves to compete. He wins Spartan races in his age group and competes with people from all ages. I've seen him and heard stories about Rob catching young dudes on the final sprint during these races and passing them because he's so competitive.

1:17:31And I think that's a big part of his character, and I love it. And then it also creates clarity in his mind. He mentioned his teammate, Karami Kimball. And Karami knows when Rob has been running the stairs because she gets flooded with emails of new ideas. that workout, pushing himself, doing something hard works as a function for creativity. And I think that could work for others as well. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling your friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Rob Kimball. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader.

1:18:04And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you subscribe to the show, and you write a thought for you, and you rate the show hopefully five stars by doing all of that. You give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.