This Week, The Pandemic Hit Home

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldon this week for J goz William vanderlan and Laura Xander concerns about the pandemic loomed large as one of them had to self-isolate in his basement after being exposed to the virus that fact helped surface a number of challenging questions in our conversation including are the three owners being careful enough what should they tell employees who choose to travel over the holidays should employees who travel get paid if local rules require them to quarantine after they return and if traveling employees do have to quarantine will these businesses have enough staffers available in December and January to function and then there was the question Laura demanded of Jay after Jay explained how exactly he was exposed to the virus wait no she said you didn't answer my question were you wearing a mask even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations plus the 21 hats Morning Report which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing these challenges this week's lineup features Jay gz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home William Vander bluman who is CEO of Vander bluman Search Group a recruiting firm based in Houston that works with churches and other faith-based organizations and Laura Xander who is CEO of Jimmy beans wol a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that is is based in Reno Nevada and also has a wholesale supplier mateline Tosh in Fort Worth Texas this episode is titled this week the pandemic hit home Laura last time you were here you were feeling a little discouraged because you'd found a great new building for your Fort Worth uh yarn maker uh you got an SBA approval for a loan but you'd been through a bunch of Banks and hadn't been able to actually get that loan bring us up to to date uh how are things going much better I'm much more at ease and a lot less discouraged even though I know I should never be discouraged because entrepreneurs according to Jay don't get discouraged true say that there sometimes it's worth getting discouraged if you launch a new product and it's not working there's times to go it's not working but not when it comes to dealing with banks when you should be able to get a loan anyway I'm learning which emotions I should have and not have um thanks to this podcast anyway uh so so what happened so we signed a lease about two days ago on a different place um and just to catch you up so I still had irons in the fire with a couple of different banks and maybe they would have gone through maybe they wouldn't have um I wasn't discouraged I was you know thinking hopefully that it would work out but the phase 2 environmental report came back and there was some serious contamination and the environmental company said they couldn't tell us it could cost $50,000 to fix it it could cost $500,000 to fix it so we went back to the sellers they didn't have the money to fix it so we tried to negotiate a deal with them where we would pay to fix it but then that you know whatever we paid would come off of the purchase price once we were able to buy it so we would move in we would lease it you know part of our lease money would go towards the purchase price blah blah blah and we just couldn't come up with a deal that made sense to us from a risk standpoint um it still put us in a a pretty bad spot if the contamination ended up being pretty bad you know and we looked at adjacent places to see if they had had contamination and there was a big company across the highway and blah blah blah wait wait just fill in the blanks here the problem really is how long did these people own the property for 40 years that's the problem 40 years ago they weren't paying attention to this they bought it years ago they would have already had to have gotten through this mess so this is you know when you buy a property that hasn't changed hands in years and there hasn't been a bank involved this this can happen and uh yeah you know I bought a building there was a there's a there was a gas tank underground but that's a pretty limited they took the tank out all done but in this case I think you're right this thing could have gone on who knows how extensive this is yeah yeah so I mean it was heartbreaking and I felt really bad for them like you said I mean they bought it 40 years ago and they just the awareness wasn't there maybe the contamination wasn't there 40 years ago either you know that's absolutely yeah 100% so anyway so at the same time that we were trying to you know renegotiate with the sellers I started to go look for other places and we found a spot that we really liked um and we took the you know again took the whole crew um took all the employees over there to see if they liked it and it actually turned out that a couple of them had worked in this building before um you know for the previous tenant but long story short found this building it was actually it's a little bit bigger um it's in a it's in a better location actually it's in a safer location it's more Central it's right down the street from TCU so we've got some potential um labor pool uh you know possibilities there it's also close enough to a lot of our employees homes that they could even ride their bikes it's right across from a school it's got good sign Edge for you know the the Factory Outlet that we open or the factory store that we open the building itself is much bigger it's 75,000 sare ft but we would lease 30,000 square feet um the owner was unbelievably generous like super nice guy uh and gave us a really good deal because he's really a nice guy that's why he did it not because the market sucks and he's having a hard time renting it he did it because he's a nice guy absolutely that's what I think right yeah sure well so we got a good deal and we got the added benefit of he seems like a really nice guy um and really bent over backwards he owns um a bunch of different properties so many different properties that he has his own construction crew so they're able to come in and do a lot of the upgrades or the ti that we need or that we wanted so that's a huge stress off of our back so they're going to go in and they're literally like you know they drew up plans to create a kitchen for us that's an air conditioned kitchen which is something that this team has never had before you know like I've mentioned before when it's 100° out in the kitchen when they're dying yarn it could be 120 130° and so you know we've had a lot of turnover from Dyers as a result of that so now all of a sudden we're going to be in a better location we're going to have 50% more square footage for um for Less per month and it's custom built so we're going to have Plumbing you know to each of the sinks and each of the stations you know it's going to be very wait you didn't used to have Plumbing no um oh W an out house well we have Plumbing but not custom not super efficiently created Plumbing so now the way that this will be built it's I mean it's very custombuilt for what we do as how long was this place for rent um maybe you know that's a great question six months nine months yeah not a I know they just rented the two the other two spaces and you know we told him that we really wanted to buy it so you know we have a have something in the lease that you know write a first refusal and you know he's aware so that's something that if um if that ends up being in the cards for us then potentially we could buy the building I I know you were excited about the possibility of buying previously are are you disappointed that you're not buying right now um contrary to what Jay thinks I do believe that you know everything happens for a reason [Applause] and I was gonna say you don't know what I think but you're right I think I hate that really it's just like I know you do the world just things just fall in your lap and it's not about any decisions you make or any DEC or or any it just things just happen great I don't think that's true I just think that if I work as hard as I can possibly work and I push as hard as I can possibly push that you know when one door closes another door opens so you've been working really hard wa I want to hear from William on this this is his area the way a lot of my clients the way a lot of my clients say this Laura is you work all day as if everything depends on you and you go to bed knowing it's all in his hands okay so the answer has nothing to do with the fact that while your other deal was going sideways instead of sitting around hoping you went out because you're smart and you kept looking for other options it couldn't be because of that that you just were you were out there making things happen it couldn't be that it was just that just no I'm not saying that I mean we I made we made this happen we absolutely we made it happen but Lauren asked if I was disappointed that we didn't buy something and am I disappointed yes but am I attached to the fact that we wanted to buy something no I have to let that go because I did everything that I could to make that happen and it didn't happen but it's not just that you found a situation that might in fact be better that exactly putting money into right so this was just a good business decision this guy's going to put a lot of money in the place custom to what you need and in fact this might be a better alternative than buying a building so it's not about for a right you went out and you found this guy good for you and it worked for all parties now my question is he did the right of first refusal that's not the same as being able to buy the building because if he never puts it up for sale you can't is there a there that says at a certain date you have an opportunity to buy the building at a set price yes okay well that's different that's a good thing it is but we may not be able to buy it at that by that date um we just may not you know loanwise and everything else so if we can't buy it by that date then at least we still have you know we've still we're still in the mix just a little bit right it sounds like you found a good situation for yourself so to my point this is nothing to do with what was meant to be but you worked hard you went out and while that other people would have sat around waiting for that other deal to happen you covered your bases and you went and checked some other options and you found a better option we did and we negotiated um we didn't even really have to negotiate but we asked for you know the per square foot rate to stay steady for the next five years and then for it to only increase by 10% and stay steady for the next you know so we have two fiveyear options after the first five years and he went along with it all wow not because he's he is nice but um and then I asked I said a condition of the lease was that he go to lunch with me twice a year because he's um a really accomplished businessman in the area um and he just seems like a nice guy so I would like to go to lunch with him well Laura we're on the flip side of this we as as we've discussed in previous episodes we have more space than we need because we uh have decided before the pandemic to decentralize our offices and to have Regional Offices open across the country so our Central Central office doesn't need all the space we have so we'd sublet that half of it out and the other half we'd said over time the subletter is just going to take it over because their company's going to grow well the pandemic hits and that's all kind of Uncertain now and I've had unsolicited offers from quote really nice people who want to take the lease off my hands who who aren't even their offers aren't even covering the utility bill and it's like guys it's not that bad yet so it it's it's definitely a a pandemic driven uh bargaining that's going on right now the vultures are out flying around looking for opportunities oh my gosh yes yes and and some of them are some of them are really nice people they really are nice people but they're making an offer like guys no we how you doing otherwise how's business well it's all knock on wood right from France and Germany just shut back down a couple days before we started this recording so it feels like we're watching Groundhog Day right all I can talk about is what I know at this moment and at this moment uh August of this year outperformed last August September didn't quite but it was close and October looks to be rounding out about the same as last year so so for three months we've had some degree of return to the numbers from last year now every year we've been in existence we've grown so even that is is is a different scenario than I would have planned out but boy it's a whole lot better than March April May and uh so so if we can hold serve for the rest of this calendar year I I'll be very pleased and uh yeah I but who knows right so are most of your customers or clients I guess um are they holding inperson Services I would say most of them are somewhere in the 70 percentile wow so you know now and are they taking any responsibility at all for like it not going away by having all these iners or they all wearing masks yeah I don't know I don't know that we have a single client that doesn't have extreme precautionary measures in Place uh and it may be that we're not representative of churches in general churches who tend to hire us and this is going to sound arrogant but they tend to do things fairly professionally I mean they're hiring an exec search firm and not we're a new idea so got it there's something to that for sure yeah I I think they just tend to do things right and uh you know our largest Gatherings that are happening are in places like Southern where it's 72 and sunny and you can do it all outside or you can have drive up or you can do you know drive up and tune into the so they finding ways to do it nobody's having uh huge crowds I think the highest numbers I'm hearing is like 50% of this time last year's attendance and the more normal thing is 30 to 40% but but but the other the other reality Laura is most churches Protestant churches in the US have been stagnant or in Decline for 30 years so you know like a mother's church is a great church they usually have 200 they're not meeting yet they're in a hot spot um but there's their Sanctuary could hold 400 easy so whenever they go back they could have a normal Sunday and only be at 50% capacity so oh got it it's a little silver lining to the long slow decline in a a whole lot of churches that's been going on the the spaces are big enough and they're socially ing just naturally yeah yeah and as you would guess the the big question mark is what do we do with kids so and that's that's the puzzle everybody's trying to figure out they're going back and finances are good uh our client base has shifted quite a bit our you know where very large churches hire us to do a whole lot of Staffing for them and then the other half of our work is normalized church is looking for a pastor it now normalized churches looking for a pastor is Far and Away the most prevalent thing we're doing and the larger churches are just kind of having to press pause till they're meeting again so it's it's I I think we pivoted although I'm exceedingly tired of that word uh toward that new reality fairly quickly and then when hopefully when we're on the other side of this whether that's this time next year or whenever uh the people that have hit paw will come back they're not closing and and will have uh increased our ability to reach different kinds of organizations yeah the question becomes how many times can you pivot before you end up right back in the same place you started in that's funny yeah oh Jay you're so wise so Jay how about you you know you uh you usually call into this uh podcast from your office you're in a different location today where where are you I'm in my underground bunker um um I had yeah I'm at home in my basement because some that I work with uh tested positive and I'm just being Ultra Ultra we're following all the guidelines so I'm at home and the fact is I don't do that much of their anyway I can do it at home and I just can't emphasize enough that you can't be too careful with this stuff what was the situation tell us what happened wait you tested positive I had I had uh an floe brought her son to work who's 20 and um I I'm kind of torturing myself that I should have told her don't bring him into work he wanted to talk to me about something and we were in a room together and we were across the room I definitely spaced away and you know um and she tells me two days later we tested positive and I I can't emphasize enough this is like well I wear my seat belt usually you know or well I only went out drinking one time like all of our lives especially if you own a business or even if you don't own a business all it takes is that one extra drink at a restaurant that you shouldn't have drove or that one time you didn't wear a seat belt or maybe you put an extension cord on your heater at work and you shouldn't have and you forgot to turn off and it burns your building down it's just it's just extremely frustrating that were you not wearing a mask I was across the room from him I mean so wait no you didn't answer my question were you wearing a mask no Jay you do this to me I'm guilty as charge I I don't know what to tell you I'm guilty as charge I wear the mask no I'm guilty as charge I wear the mask all the time except this time he was totally across the room like 20 feet away what I did you get tested I'm I'm getting tested I I just I feel fine and I but it the reality is I've done some research 40% of the people that have it are have are asymptomatic and I have to tell you when you're sitting at home um God help you if you're watching 24-hour cable news all day long I don't know how you don't just I would recommend against that Jay well I was watching South Park episodes from 15 years ago that sounds better how about other employees did anybody else have contact with your employees son not really because he came in with her and I said this to my managers I said we're going to have to suspend the the Jay goz rule of 42 years that the customer do whatever you need to they're always right because at this this point um you know customer wants to come without a mask we're not letting it happen and if the customer mad at us because we couldn't deliver something it's like I have to expect there might be some service failures here because I'm regularly someone's taking off regularly these days because they found out their cousin who came over here so like at any given moment there's usually somebody who's sitting at home because we're being careful yeah and I've had to just accept the fact that are you paying them when they sit at home yeah first of all there's the government thing where they they reimburse but in one case he already took that yes yes there's a oh I need to do that yes is that a federal thing or a a state thing I think it's Federal you take it out of the payroll tax or something no oh that's right I forgot about that yeah because we're always down two three people because somebody's husband somebody's kid and it it tries your soul Jay didn't you have somebody an employee who went to a a motorcycle yeah well here's the story he going on a motorcycle thing my oldest guy and I go you really need to oh we're going to be wearing mask and blah I said okay but you're going to quarantine so he goes on it he quarantined he comes back he tells me this week that his 32y old friend that went on it with it died left two kids and got it and died from it so wow talk about oops and like and I understand that lots of people get it and they they but for anybody to to suggest that it's it's certainly not most people die from it it is a small percentage but like any percentage much it happens so he's sick with stomach now and you know it's we're it's just difficult and we're being we're following all the and you know so here's the new thing in Chicago oh anyone that goes to Wisconsin Indiana all these states you got to quarantine well this isn't perfect because if somebody went to visit their father who's living by himself in an apartment and only went to see him in Wisconsin There's post to quarantine but then somebody who went to their friend's house with eight College friends they don't have to so this is clearly not a perfect thing or even close to perfect it's clearly a shotgun Approach at trying to stop this stuff and but all I've decided and believe me I've had long conversations with my key managers we're Clinging On to we're going to follow the city of Chicago rules as imperfect as they are we're going to follow the rules and that's all we can do and and yes somebody could argue well I just went up to Wisconsin but I was I I got it but the second you start making adjustments for it Jay are you concerned about that with the holidays coming up absolutely are you going to keep track of of employees who who go home or wherever yeah this was the whole conversation with my manager so they're going to want to go home for holidays like I can't tell people you can't go home for the holidays and like we're we're just going to have to say okay now they're going to have to take two weeks off during my busiest month of the year which is why I say I've accepted that fact if someone goes home for the holidays and they self-report which is what we asked them to do I'm gonna have one screwed up December with not having enough employees there and like this is where if there's ever a moment in time maybe this is the first moment in time in 42 years of being in business that it truly highlights the difference between being the owner and the employee is the owner you'd like to go really could you not look out for the business sum and and you know it's our busiest month and we really need the business and can you not I I I you know what I it I I don't feel comfortable doing that and at the end of the day those that want to go home and are going to get quarantined for two weeks what am I gon to do I I just they're not slaves you're gonna pay them for the quarantine time well they've got the that rule they're going to get it yeah this is the real and I'm not going to be cynical and go oh well gee what what do they have to lose go for the holiday I got it but they can go home for the holiday and then they get two weeks off that they get paid not a bad deal now I'm not suggesting they're going to do it for that reason because I really do have good honorable employees trustworthy whatever you want to call it but do I think that they're going to put the business first over going to see their family um do they have work that they could do from home no I'm no the ones that are working from home I I haven't seen my my controller for four months literally I mean the people that can work from home are already working for home but I'm a retailer someone comes into my business and they actually expect someone to walk up and say with a mask and everyone's wearing mask can I help you it's the first time in all these years I'm just kind of helpless like I'm I'm gonna do everything I can but I I'm going to have some service failures in December and then to add insult to injury now someone can go on Yelp and go oh that place no one came greeted me at the door and it's like William you're not a retailer obviously uh maybe the stakes aren't as high but are you at all concerned about employees traveling over the holidays you know we haven't given it a whole lot of thought uh and we probably should January in a normal year January where get slammed because Church staffs are under this crazy impression that when the new budget year arrives they have quote new money uh whatever that means and uh it's fine because they they start hiring people uh so January is usually a very busy month for us and if we had to send everybody home it would it wouldn't us but it wouldn't be great I think the the the the agility our team showed during March April May has reassured me that if we had to go virtual for a period of time it wouldn't our business Laura are you concerned um I'm with William and that I actually haven't given it a ton of thought because I've had so much other stuff going on um so but now that you mention it wow thanks a lot that's what Lauren does he finds the stuff that we weren't thinking about and make sure that P can I can I think about can I worry about it next week um I'm giving you permission to take a vacation from worrying about that till next Thursday let's say next Thursday permission granted Laura but you you said you you have you mentioned that you've had two or three people out at a time um already so this has already been on your radar in Texas oh just in Texas just in Texas yeah so in Nevada actually in Reno we're going to open our retail store for the first time now um I think on Saturday wow uh next week so we've had our retail store closed the whole time um we haven't had anybody out in terms of people going home everybody is from here so there's nowhere to go um so that's not a big deal every single person that works for you is from there um pretty much probably 95% well wait wait wait wait that doesn't change anything think about it it's not about traveling it's just they're going to the relative's house with 12 other people it's not about being from Areno it's a matter of they're going to Thanksgiving dinner with 12 people 15 people with our Reno so we have two very different cultural um groups so in Reno the staff there is so 98% of the staff is so freaked out by this that they don't they don't even pick up food like they don't go out to eat they don't yeah so they're very mostly Millennials and they're very very hyperconscious so there's no partying there's no group things um most of them are friends uh most of them came to work as friends already so they've kind of created this little pod and in Texas in Texas is very different uh granted now a lot of the employees are related so they do all intermingle all the time both personally and professionally as far as going home I think probably a number of them are going to go back to Mexico um where they have extended family so that's something we're going to have to address I to be honest I hadn't even thought about I've been so focused on us moving into a new building um and us being so far behind uh we our sales in Texas have just gone through the roof the demand has gone through the roof I mean we're booked up through the end of January already and so we're overc capacity um and we've like I said had two or three people that's greater why is that what changed well knitting is you know knitting is popular well not just that people are home with nothing to do but that's been true for a long time it sounds like this is more recent did you do more marketing or I'm hoping we're just doing a better job you know it's been and actually today is today oh today is our oneye anniversary so we bought this business exactly one year ago wow congratulations how about this Theory how about this Theory um how many times do you come to work in your office and find someone knitting at their desk I'd say never right now they're working from home and some people I know this is a crazy thought but there are actually some people that are working from home that are taking some knitting breaks and they're knitting some stuff yeah and some people are watching South Park Jay and some people are watching South Park yes yeah and you knit during meetings I mean we happen to knit during meetings in person because that's our business but um now people are probably doing it when they're on Zoom um yeah no the increase uh we also you know we have a full-time sales rep now and he's probably brought in 50% of our business I mean it's been unbelievable uh and now we have a couple other new employees one that lives in Denver another blah blah blah so our team is just really coming together um has that guy actually come into your office Yeah we actually all came into we all went to Texas last week so um so this guy's been around all around the country yep and then he brings with whatever and you actually sat in a room with him with masks on and the room wow yeah yeah and then um we had one girl come in from New York City we had somebody come in from Denver um yeah and then we do the like you say you know we're all we always are you know nobody's hugging nobody's high-fiving nobody's sitting next to each other everybody's got masks on we've got the hand sanitizer all over the place you know we're just trying to do our best you know we did hit an all-time high for cases yesterday yeah that's that's without there's plenty of testing that's not going on so as much as it's hit a high Mark like I said there's tons of people out there that are walking around with it don't even know it so say our experience though from the testing standpoint I mean our employees are getting tested all the time like all the time and it's now it's gotten down to like a two-hour turnaround are you paying for that is that something that you're you initiated um we are not explicitly paying for it but we've always offered to people you know that we will pay for it if if they can't but they if like if somebody in their family gets it then they have to get tested before they can come back to work you know even after so we had one woman who got tested had it got tested 7 Days Later had it still got tested another seven days still had it you know another 3-day L three days later got tested and had it but in Fort Worth it's really nice because they give you your results within two or three days I mean two or three hours see and I've been told those tests aren't that accurate the two-hour ones oh well that's that seems to be a well accepted fact that those tests are not as accurate so um but anytime anybody like sneezes is they're going out and they're getting tested so they've been uh I've actually been impressed at you know how much people are going out and getting tested all we can do is do the best we can and it's an extremely it's taken the word frustration to a whole new level Jay I don't mean to uh to depress you too much but I called you over the weekend and you were already in your basement at that point and I interrupted you you were working on your list of things people should do should you not be available to uh to run the business yeah I yeah I don't mind talking about that I have to tell you I have a sheet that um I recognized that if I drop dead it would be a very very messy situation I got a lot of things in the air and I typed out I already had it typed out but I I went and updated it as to what some thoughts are as to how to do things what to do with money what to do with the business what to do with real estate and I so proud I'm so proud of you Jay we talked about this in a previous episode yeah yes everyone needs an emergency succession plan even if it's even if it's just for 14 days of me being in bed it isn't even it's not just succession it's a lot of other stuff like telling them I'll spe be specific do not use the phrase Dad wouldn't have wanted us to do that I don't want anybody to be walk walking around with this guilt thing of oh my god dad dad's turning his grave I don't want anybody to have that responsibility because here's my perspective my wife and kids have paid a price for having a father who is an entrepreneur they've had the benefits of it but they've also paid a price and I've paid a price there's times like now that being a business owner is very difficult and we have responsibilities that most people do not have and I do not want to carry it on to the Next Generation I don't want my kids to have to have this this thing hung around their neck well they never really wanted the business but you know dad died and I had to take it over and they end up not doing what they want to do so Laura have you thought about what would happen at your business if uh you were incapacitated for a time no cuz I don't think I contribute that much I'm like I don't know it'll be fine you don't contribute that much I don't what do I do that's why you're in Texas every two weeks well yeah I'm just eating barbecue and watching TV yeah no but it's a that's a great Point that's a really really great point and I would I would add since everybody's sitting around reading one of the very best books I've read about succession is called Dirty Little Secrets of family business it is invaluable if you own your business if you own your business and if you have family those two things then you you need to get a copy of that I get no Kickback for saying that it's just a phenomenal little book that'll get you asking the right questions I mean that's the question is that the legacy of family businesses that they that when the owner finally dies the guy that started it or the woman that started it is that what the Legacy has to be that things have to get messed up because I got to tell you it frequently does and I very few go past second gen works okay we studied 30% 30% they say third gen's a uh third gen is usually the train wreck and then if you if you can make it past that you're in very rare air I mean I think Smuckers is on their fifth gen I think Nordstrom is on their fifth gen and I don't know any large companies that still have families running the business maybe not owning the whole thing that are that are to fifth gen it's just getting to the second generation only 30% do I mean that's the next generation's another 30% which means that only 9% get to a third generation and Y I'm saying okay then the business doesn't get past you maybe that's okay maybe that's okay like yeah maybe so yeah don't mess your family up to to to for some quote unquote Legacy that you've got in your head and I so anyway I already had it written out but I updated it and there's in my case there's no perfect uh thing here I'm working on it I'm always working on it but it's not easy we're we're running short short on time I want to acknowledge something uh which is that this this episode is going to be published on Election Day uh we avoid talking about politics on this show and I want to keep it that way but I'm curious have any of you been planning anything different have you been holding off on anything to to await and see what the outcome is uh or is it just another day for your business I for us it's just going to be another day I mean you you know we may privately as a group celebrate one way or the other or mourn um but but that's it I'm just putting that in the category of whatever I just you know nothing I can do to control it and that's that's where we're at and and no plans that you feel you need to make or decisions you need to make no I mean it'll be nice if the tariffs go away but that's you know but whatever I can't control you know for us the the election I've got red churches blue churches purple churches rainbow churches every kind of church you so like the who gets elected to me is not nearly as important to our business as that somebody get elected uh the the The Angst that if You' seen the movie The Perfect Storm it's when three different storms came together and and you know it was the end of George Clooney that's kind of been Marky Mark that's right that's kind of the the recipe that a lot of people that are leading Christian schools and churches are facing right now they've got u a pandemic that we really don't know what we're doing with we've got a uh and you can criticize response but unless you were alive 102 years ago you don't really have anything to base your response on so whatever uh you've got civil unrest that's rooted in a whole lot of racial tension and then you've got this election that frankly polarizes the two dogs in my house so they have different opinions so I you know I it the the pressure that all three of those at the same time is creating is leading it probably seven out of 10 of the pastors I I interact with are about six inches away from from quitting and I think getting the one of those three pressure points off will be an enormous help I am 100% with you on everything you just said including you used the word that is a new word in our vocabulary that my doctor used with me angst that's the new word angst we suffering and I agree 100% what you're saying we just need to get this election done yep that'll be one little thing off of us at least or one big thing yep some certainty for a lot of people I think the biggest concern is that the election could drag on or at least determining the the winner could drag on for weeks or even more there you go Lauren as usual you've outdone yourself you brought that one last piece in that we should be worried about thank you my thanks to Jay goz William Vander bluman and Laura Xander as always guys thanks for sharing thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcast to help business owners feel a little less isolated to let them know they aren't the only ones fighting these battles if you got something out of this conversation please help us reach more people tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcast follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and let me know if you have a question or a comment or a topic you'd like us to cover my email address is L Feldman 21h hats.com see you next time [Music]