How Real Friends Help You Bounce Back from Disaster (aka the Legend of the Smoking Bird) | S5 E7

Introducing David Martinez

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Family Business with the Alestis. And today it's Steve Aleste with a dear friend of mine, David Martinez. Say hello, Mr. Martinez.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

Hello, out there.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Out there. There you go. Listen, I've asked David to come and join me today because part of our podcast is about a book that I'm getting ready to release. And I can't believe I even said that because I've never been one to think about writing a book. But this one was very special because of an event that happened in 2007, which was a heart attack that I experienced. And so I put it in book format. It took me 15 years to do that, Dave, for one reason. Just so stinking emotional. Everything that went on during that time. And um, but it's taken me quite a while to go ahead and finally pin those words. And the reason I wanted to do that was because so much of what we talk about with our at our church, so much of what we wear around our church, 42. Um, people don't know where it always stems from. But it stems from the 42 minutes that while I was having the heart attack, the paramedics worked on me to keep me alive. So that being the case, with this book coming out, there's things that I just wanted to be able to share with our partyans. You like that? Podcast party. Yeah. It's not an original.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I wish it was. You probably would have come up with that before I did. But I'd like to share with them just what leads up and events that uh surrounded uh that 42 moment experience, and then how different ones played a role in my life during that time. And you and your wife Maury were definitely one of those who played a role in it. So I wanted to have you on the podcast today. And we're not even doing this in our podcast booth. We're here at a farm in Georgia, and we are right on the tail end of our Goodfellas camp.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

And we've had a great Goodfellas camp.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

It's been amazing. I think I think one of the things that uh we think in our lives with these 42 moments, as you've coined it, um, is we're not always sure how it affects the people around us. Because we go through it, you know, and in our own thing and in our own ways that we're trying to process, but it affects everybody around us and especially those closest to us. So even your own 42 moments, it's nice to look around and see how it affected the people closest to you. And and it was a huge, it was a huge blow as it came at a time when we were having our own 42 moment and losing a business, and and you know, like they say, when it rains, it pours. Oh man. And um so there was there was a lot of stuff going on with the people close to you as well, and how it affected.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

You know, talk about that for a minute, David, because you and your partner had a successful construction company, and we were just entering into the purchase of our building at our church. Right. Getting that thing worked on, and we needed a million dollars worth of work and so on. You guys, as construction, were going to handle some of that and so on. Talk about how that thing came crashing down in your own business experience.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Well, we had sold the company a year

Losing a 8-Figure Business in a Day?

SPEAKER_04 3:31

before, and we were supposed to stay on for three years and um and continue on as usual, at least that's what we thought. And um, and lo and behold, we about a month before the one-year anniversary, and where there was supposed to be some transfer of funds that would have made the deal pretty lucrative, uh, we went through what the business term would call a hostile takeover. Wow. And uh from one day to the next, it was, you know, here you have a $200 million company, and the next day, you know, you're having to give back your car.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

So it was uh it was a it was a pretty big blow after building a really successful entity, and and um it just it just was one of those things that just came out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah. People don't realize when they look at you today that you had that, your own experience with that, you and your partner. And you know, what I remember is on the heels of that, you guys didn't just, you know, keep your uh just keep crying about it, whining about it. No, but you guys got busy trying to reinvent yourself, which you did for uh a while. Yeah. And then you turn around and start your own company down the road again, the two of you together. So what what just that experience in itself? I mean, what tried to take you out didn't?

SPEAKER_04 4:54

Well, yeah, I mean, it was when when that happened, and then you had the heart attack, it was like I remember it was it was such a blow, and kind of, and that's what sort of what I was alluding to how it affects the people around you, because we thought that that there couldn't be a bigger tragedy in our lives at that moment of losing, you know, pretty much everything financially and what you had built. Um, and then you you have the heart attack. And my thought process is wow, that was temporary. This is permanent to lose a friend, to lose my pastor. And I just remember having that conversation with God, like, okay, I get it. You you can have all that stuff. Don't don't take the man of God in my life, don't take my friend and my pastor because I can't get that back. Yeah, I can make more money, I can build another business. And and so there was all these things, you know, all this effect going on in our lives. And um, you know, we we we had a a non-compete for a certain amount of time that we were able to negotiate to a shorter amount of time, but you know, we're just not the kind of guys to sit around. So it kind of helped fill in the gap with uh Maury and I and helping, you know, the church transition while you were getting better. And and then we we made the bonehead decision of opening up a restaurant on South Beach, which goes, you know, which seemed like such a great idea at the time. And looking back, it's like, you know, there's certain certain things where if you knew then what you know now, yeah, you wouldn't would make life a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah. But you got back into construction, which is what you guys knew. Yes. And uh today you've rebuilt that thing into a great uh company, and so it was tough then, and you took the hit, but you guys have continued to go on, and man, you've reinvented yourself and look where you're at today.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Yeah, I mean, it it's it's one of those things when you when you have a solid foundation of people in your life, a church in your life, a pastor in your life, and when when the storms come, yeah, some of the branches get knocked off and your leaves get flying and end up in a different state. And and um, but today we we enjoy not only one, but three companies built off of that. One in solar, one in athletic fields, which for me is a dream, being the sports guy that I am, and then our regular construction company. So God has God has taken it and multiplied it times three. And um, and He has a way of doing that when our foundations are right and our roots are dug into people and to a church that uh we we've supported and started for all these years. It's been a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yep. And you and Maury, your family were founding members of our church 25 years ago. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary. That's crazy. And David, not just that, man, we knew each other before the church.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

We were back at the other church together, and you and Maury handled the children's ministry. It just so happens you and even the business partner you work with today was also helping you in the children's ministry. We've known each other a long time, man.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Yes, it is. We, in fact, I met Tony uh when him and his wife at the time were um helping us with children's ministry. That's how I met Tony.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

And um, you know, we had an immediate connection, mostly because we had, you know, common values and a common outlook uh when it came to church and God. And they helped us. Um, and then when he started the other company, and then I I became a part of that, and we became partners

Building Lasting Friendships

SPEAKER_04 8:31

30 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

And you both still come to the church. It it's possible. It's possible to enjoy a long-term commitment, covenant that we're able to have with each other. We're buddies, we enjoy life, which was why when the heart attack happened, um that was so crazy that came out of nowhere for myself, but it also affected you guys in the way that just came out of nowhere. And so you're already dealing with the loss of your business, and now you're experiencing this, which by the way, that's you losing your business like that was one of the motivations for me when I tried to pin this whole experience. I one of the things that were in my mind, you gotta have, you know, what's in the crosshairs of this book? What are you trying to get across? It's like a message. Who who does this sermon, who does this speech, who does this motivational talk, who's it gonna appeal to? And with the book, you and Tony were writing the crosshairs because I kept saying, even to the guy that helped me write the book, he says, Who are you reaching? Who do you want to reach with this? And I said, Well, I want to talk to guys that have had a heart hit, but um, it wasn't just physical, but it was with their corporation, their company, their finances. And you and Tony were the motivation for that part of it. Because I'm like, it happened to them, and and the tagline is you know, how to finish when you thought you were finished. Yeah, and you guys have finished at this point. You finished well when that thing hit you, losing it all, you finished well. So then while you're scrambling, you get the news that I had a heart attack. What was that like?

SPEAKER_04 10:10

You know, it was it at you know, at first you're like, you know, God

Facing a Friend’s Heart Attack

SPEAKER_04 10:15

will only give you so much, you know, enough that you can handle. And my thought process is God, you have way too much confidence in me. Wow. Because this is just too much at one time. I mean, and it and it, you know, for now looking back after so many years later, uh, you think God's plan and God's timing, had it been in a different time period, we may have looked at both events differently. But because it happens within a week of us losing the business, you having the heart attack, our focus was immediately changed to really what's really important. And what's really important are the people in our lives.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

It's not the businesses, and all that stuff is great and and it and it and it helps a lot of people, including us and our families. And but what's really important is the people.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

And it was like, okay, I can take losing a business. I I can't handle at this point in my life at a critical time in my family's life and and everything else, losing my pastor, my friend. That was it was just so magnified. And it made the other one seem so small.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

And I looking back, I think, well, that's how God helped me handle it. Okay, that's that's important and it's meaningful, but there's other stuff in your life that's so much more meaningful that you you can't handle losing. Yeah. You really can't.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

No, and this is where it gets all emotional for me. Because I think that um that we were we, you know, I was this close. People don't understand the the intensity of that particular event. And um, which was one of the reasons why, as I start to get to this, it's one of the reasons it's taken me so long to try to pin all of this. And all it's not it's not really a book, it seems to be uh a memoir of that experience. Sure, but when when we get to that part of thinking we were that close to losing, Mary almost lost a husband. My kids almost lost a father. Um that in itself is where I I I find the sticking point. But here's where uh in in the book I start talking about this feeling of loss that I started to have. Where first I'm told that I can't eat certain foods anymore. And I'm like, I gotta give up burgers, I I gotta give up sausage

Dealing Feelings of Hopelessness

SPEAKER_01 12:39

and ham for my with my breakfast. I can't have grits anymore. You know, I I remember when the lady from the American Heart Association came in and started talking to me about my diet, what I needed to change, and I'm like, oh, I'm so depressed, I can't have that anymore. So I start to go through this thing of restriction. I'm I'm being restricted. Part of it was also, you know, they the demand, okay, now you got to go exercise. So I'm like, well, I didn't mind exercising when I wanted to exercise. And my my my thought about exercise was as long as my chest was bigger than my stomach, I was good. And even though my stomach took over in my 40s, it didn't motivate me. But I never wanted to be forced to exercise. But now I'm being forced, so it's like I'm losing my freedom there. Then they give me a card because they inserted a stent, and now this card has to be on me that talks tells what kind of stent it is when it was put in. So if I have any other kind of medical emergencies, the medical professional can look at the card and know, okay, this is what we're dealing with. Then they started putting me on medication. And I hadn't been on medication before that, but now it's blood pressure, cholesterol. They want to make sure the blood's thin enough to get through that stent, any other future. So I'm wrestling with restrictions, and I'm feeling like I'm no longer a man. Uh, because even that other part of me where I was sharing intimacy with Mary, I was so afraid that my sex life would be interrupted. And that in itself is like, gosh, forget it. So I'm wrestling with all of this, and then Mary's sister is getting married in Orlando. And between Miami and Orlando is where we're at in Stewart, two hours north of Miami, and we're there resting, getting back on our feet. So this must have been three weeks, four weeks after the heart attack. Now I didn't like being alone because I always felt, wow, what happens if something occurs? So I was real scared about that. So I'm losing all these freedoms, right? Feeling like a child. And then Mary says to me, Hey, listen, I I'd like to go to my sister's wedding, but if you don't want me to, then I won't. But I'd like to go. And I'm like, no, you gotta go, Mary. She goes, Well, what are you gonna do? I said, Well, I think I can be alright, I'll be alone. If you just drive up, come back, I should be alone. She goes, No. I've already talked to Maury. David and Maury are gonna come up, David's gonna stay with you, and Maury's gonna take me to Orlando for the wedding. Now, at first I said to her, Great, because I'm thinking I want to hang out with David. I've been with Mary all this time. I I need something normal in my life. So bring on a friend. And so I felt good, but then I remember going to sleep that night and feeling like, oh my God, am I this weak that I now need a babysitter? Oh because I couldn't be left alone. Mary was afraid to leave me alone. So I wrestled with you coming up because I didn't, I was feeling like I was losing all of my independence. Now I'm so dependent upon medicine, eating the right kind of food, workout regimen, and now I need a guy to come babysit me. So I'm wrestling with that. Then you come up and you're like, I'm thinking we're chilling, you know, watching TV or whatever, and you're like, let's go play golf. And I'm like, that's the worst thing. But you know what, maybe I do need to get out. So we go

A Cigar, A Crow and The Godfather

SPEAKER_01 16:28

to this golf course and we're out there, and you pull out a cigar, because we enjoy a nice cigar every so often, and you pull out a cigar, and I remember the doctor, of course, saying you can't smoke cigars, you can't, you know, smoke this, that, and the other, at least at this point.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And um you're smoking that cigar, and I'm getting pissed because I'm like, here I am again. I'm restricted. I can't have a cigar. So now we're on the golf course, you're smoking a cigar, you we could pull up to the green, tell the story when you put your cigar down.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Well, first, I I think if I'd if I would probably been a better friend, I probably wouldn't have pulled out the cigar. Because now that you're looking at it and you're feeling all these restrictions, of course, I'm not smart enough to see that. I'm like, well, I'm gonna join now while I can. I guess it's a little bit selfish.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

You were drowning in your own sorrow, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

Yeah, needed to relax. I can look and make all kinds of excuses, but uh, but a better friend probably would have just chilled out there. But in any case, yeah, so we we're um my thought process is I need to get this guy out of the house because when you know, when I see you knowing your personality and knowing that sometimes things got to just get to normal, and you got to have some fun, you gotta have a laugh. And and I think that's where it comes in, where God only gives us so much we can handle, and he gives us some kind of levity and you know, with something funny. But yeah, we pull up to the uh green, which you know, at that time I wasn't as good a golfer as I am now. So it was probably after six or seven shots to get to the green. And uh so we pull up to the green and I I leave my cigar on the cup holder, and we go up to the green, and and I'm punting, and I could see the cart out in the left uh corner of my eye, about to hit the ball, and I see this huge crow. I mean, at the time it looked like a vulture. I think it was maybe this big. And all of a sudden he flies in the cart, and I'm thinking, you know, we don't have any, I don't think we had any food.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

And um definitely not chips, couldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Yeah, no. So all of a sudden he he grabs the cigar in his beak. And I'm like, and I I think I got more mad that it was my cigar instead of food because it was an expensive cigar. Remember, it was back then when we had the Toranos that would put them in the glass tube. Yes, yes, and they were expensive for us back then, and especially that, you know, we had just lost the business of the $25 cigar there. And so the the crow comes and just grabs it in his beak. And what was really interesting, it wasn't sticking straight out, sticking sideways like it was a gangster crow. And it was like, and I'm like, I go to hit the ball and I'm looking at the crow, like, hi. So I go running up this thing. This crow just flies, just flaps his wing, and I and I promise you, he's looking down at me laughing. And I'm watching, I'm looking up this crow, and he goes and he lands in a tree. And he's just sitting there with this big cigar. It looked like a, it honestly looked like a scene of the Godfather. Oh my god. And had I not, I would not believe if you told me that story as much as I trust you, I probably would think he saw something weird if I wouldn't have been there to see it myself. But this bird is up there like this, going with his cigar.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

And I'm thinking, what? What is this?

SPEAKER_04 19:46

So anyway, it was just, and it was, we had such a good laugh. Oh my god. I think I'm thinking to myself, it was probably the first time you had laughed. Laughed, like genuinely laughed.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Oh, we'll just beat our pants. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

And then you're throwing rocks at it to try to get to drop the cigar. Yes, I think I threw a couple golf balls at him too. I'm trying to get him at least to drop it, and the thing just flies off. With the cigar. With the cigar, he wouldn't drop it. I don't know if he's trying to make a nest with cigars. He's probably got, he's probably thinking, this is much easier than getting twigs. These things fit together perfectly, just in the box.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

The point of it all, when it's all said and done, it's almost as though the crow looked over its shoulders and flew away and looked at you and said, Well, if Steve can't smoke a cigar, neither will you. Yeah. So that was one of the uh comic reliefs that we were able to enjoy, but that was a memory, man.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

That that was an incredible memory. I still, I still can visualize that crow looking at me. I mean, telling you, he was staring right at me with a message. And maybe it was that message.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

That message. That message. Yeah, I I think of our years, man. We

The Power of Friendships

SPEAKER_01 20:53

we really enjoyed some sweet uh memories. You know, you you and Maury were there when Mary and I really did need you the most. I I uh it was a crazy season. Friends are so important when you go through hard times. We've got to be careful of the voices we listen to.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

That right there, David, um, that I can remember that right now, more than I can remember some of the pain, shows me how important it is to have good friends around you. That can bring you through hard seasons. You know, we're very fortunate. Or maybe not fortunate, we've had to work like a dog to keep our marriages together. Yeah. So we're not fortunate. We're just tired. Yeah. You know? They wore us down.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

They finally wore us down.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

And we're married. But you know, if we we look at divorce with a a family and how they have to recover.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

I mean, you're the product of uh household your mom and dad were divorced. Sure. And that hit, you know, how tough that is for people. Um but yet even through that, you know, you gotta find the strength to be able to say, all right, let me finish well. I I I can't just stay mad at this spouse for so long that my kids suffer. I've got to figure out a way to pull it together and get back on the road so that my kids are gonna be able to experience a better life. Because the when a couple goes through their own 42 moment and there's a divorce there, what do they do next?

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

That's so hard.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

Well, it's you know, listen, when you lose a business that is at the heart, and you know, for a man at that age, too, you're you know, you're you're at the heart of your earning potential and you've built this business and you're expecting this thing, and and I mean it's it's a divorce, it's a death. It's you know, divorce is not much different than death. I mean, it's the death of a relationship. And like I said when we started, was the the what's the fact of the people around you? Yes, you're going through that divorce, but how's it affecting your kids? How's it affecting your friends? How about the other couples that you hung out with?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

That now what do they do? They have to pick a side. You know, so though those moments affect everybody around you. Yeah. And listen, life, life happens and you've got to pick it up, and you, you know, a lot of people feel like that's the end. You know, when we lost a business, I'm thinking that's the end. And then a week later you have the heart attack, and it's like, okay, this is much more serious than that. I can start a new business. I can't start another 25-year friendship right now. And so those kind of things, and then I look back now, I can look back and say, well, if I if I hadn't lost a business and I wasn't unemployed technically, only one time in my life since I was 13 that I was unemployed, yeah. Um, I wouldn't have had the time to really fill in. Like I wouldn't have thought about it as much as, hey, I'm I'm I don't have any job to go to, I don't have any business to run. I I have time. I can really pour in myself into a friend. And it's a really lesson to look back and go, why didn't I think about that before? That my friends are more important than my business.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:17

You know? And you don't until you get hit and you realize, hey, if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't have been able to probably go up and play golf in the middle of the week. I think it was a Thursday or Friday or whatever day it was. Um, but I had, you know, a level of freedom for those that that short period of time. But it's you've got to make the time. You've got to be intentional and to establish those other things in your life so that when one part falls down, you you have true friendships around you. You have people that care about you, people that you can count on. And and those are things that during the time that we were building the church, we had already established those roots.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

So the roots were there. And even though, like I said, both of us got hit at the same time with a hurricane, and um the roots were still connected.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

And it makes life so much, so much easier and more important.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

You know, when when we talk about our friendship, because we're blessed. We got we got a good friendship. We've done all right, bud. We've done all right, you know. Um, when we talk about that, and I make this statement even publicly that you're my friend, and people in the church settings, you know, they're like, well, how did they have that kind of friendship? What how they think it's just us going out, partying, having fun, playing golf, smoking cigars, you know, fishing, hunting. And it's not that. Those those are few and far between. I mean, I think we finally went to dinner. It's the last time we went to dinner was six months ago, and we finally, yeah, and I think that was like the first time in a year. Yeah. Because with grandkids and everything, the travels all that we hardly get to spend time together. But when people say, How do you guys have that kind of friendship? When I couldn't, when Mary and I couldn't be at the church, okay, you and Maury were so pivotal and helping keep that all in place. Yeah, Pastor Steve started the church, but without a David and Maury and others that were there alongside to help work with us, we wouldn't have the church that we have today.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

And I have no problem admitting that, quite frankly. I to me it's honorable. I love the fact that the people around Mary and I, we love, we're cool, we're we're healthy, we we we've committed, and together we built this. 25 years we built this. But when I couldn't, you guys stepped in too and helped tremendously with making sure the church was still on point while about three months Mary and I were chilling. And I remember this, buddy. This was crazy. I don't think I even mentioned this in the book, but I do remember the heart attack was June. My birthday's in November, so July, August, September, October, November. Five months later, you guys had this thing. We're gonna go fishing. And uh, we went fishing for my birthday down in the keys. Yeah. But David, I remember the night before being so nervous because I'm thinking, I was still in that fear zone.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

And I remember thinking, okay, I gotta have my medication. What happens? I better bring two. Because what happens if we get stuck out overnight on the engine breaks and we can't get back in, and I gotta wake up the next day. What happens if I gotta have my medication? And I was so afraid. What happens if something happens out there? You know, on the boat, you know, I was so afraid, but yet it took a buddy to help me navigate through all of that stuff. And matter of fact, when we got back from fishing and we went to change, you said we're going to dinner, and we walked up to this dinner place, and you guys had a surprise birthday for me.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

Yep. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. We had the special menus and everything made with your name on it and to mark. You know, there listen, there's marker moments, some good, some bad, but when you have enough marker moments that can replace and you can slowly replace that time when you feel like you're finished. And things that we wouldn't have done had we not sold that business. There's a lot of people that work for us today that we wouldn't know. You know, because we wouldn't have started another business. We would have had enough resources to kind of do something else. And so, and I think it it's a reminder about relationship and what's really meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:42

What really makes life meaningful are the people around that helped build the church together. There's always a leader, there's always a visionary like yourself, but people that come around, it's and it really, it really goes back to what that one word is relationship. Yeah. And when you have a unified purpose and a goal, you know, when God is up here for everybody and we're all going like this, means we're all going in the same direction.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

And when you can do that, um, it really brings meaning to life. Yeah. And those, those, those memories that we can make together and and building, and now just other people coming up along, the next generation that is coming up along to watch that. I mean, it's a real gift. It's a real gift, just like with your children. You know, children always remember moments of their childhood, but the parent sees the totality of them.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

So we don't remember when they were a teenager, you know, we don't think of them as that teenager that gave us a little bit of hard time when their testosterone kicked in. We we see the adult now, and with our adult kids, and we see them from being born. We still remember that moment they're being born to where they are now. And it's such a great, you know, it's a vision of how God sees us. Yeah. He doesn't look at the moments that we failed or the moments that that we we didn't fall. He he looks at the whole of us. Yeah. Look at look at where they've come from, look at what they've come through. And God is always there to make those memories come up so we can we can reprogram where the fear is pushed out by faith.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

And the moments are pushed out by the life. And so you can you can replace those, and and you have over the years, and you know, us that are affected by it, we we see that.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

What a blessing. Here we are, 15 years plus years later, and we're sitting at a farmhouse that um wasn't there, wasn't even on the radar back then when all that was going on. And not just in a farmhouse where we get to hang out, at least try to go hunt once a year, but we're bringing men camps, women camps up here, was not on the radar back then, wasn't even interested in hunting, wouldn't have this place without the interest of hunting. But now we're seeing men and women's lives changed as we bring them up to our camp. And I would just say, as we end this particular episode, you know, if you're going through any 42 moment in your life where you feel like you're finished, you need to surround yourself with the right kind of people, the right kind of voices, you gotta have a friend. The good old Bible says a friend will always stick closer than a brother. Bible does tell us that brothers are made for adversity. This guy knew what it was to come up alongside of this guy, and we were able to make it. So, if thinking you're finished, listen, you can still finish well if you do it right. And I can't wait for you to read our book that's going to be coming out soon, and I pray it'll be a blessing to you. So thanks for joining us on today's episode of The Family Business.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

You've just enjoyed another episode of the Family Business Podcast with the Lestees, and we can't thank you enough for being a part of our podience today. Now that you've learned more about us, here's how you can join in in the family business. First, make sure you're following our podcast right now and download this episode so you can hear it at any time. Second, think of someone you know that might need or enjoy this episode and share it with them. You'll be helping them and helping us to spread the word about the family business. Third, go to AlesteFamily Business.com and tap the Ask the Alestes button. This is really cool. You can use it to record a voicemail comment or question, and we can add your voice to our conversations. Finally, while you're on our page, tap the reviews tab and you'll see a link to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We love reading your reviews and we might even share them on the show. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time at the Family Business with the Alestes because Family is everybody's business.