When There’s an Illness in the Family

hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Jackie Russo tells William Vander bluman that she's a little surprised given all of the uncertainty in the air how well her marketing business is holding up marketing as we all know is often the first thing businesses pull back on Jackie says her strong results may have something to do with the changes she's made in the way her agency closes sales we also get Jackie and Williams take on the conversation we've been having about whether owners should consider their employees personal circumstances when making HR decisions but our main topic today is weightier than usual William's wife and co-founder Adrien recently received a cancer diagnosis and has begun treatment longtime listeners may recall that William has spoken in past episodes about his efforts to make sure the business can run without him and oh my goodness he tells us how thankful I am that we started that process so long ago even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges in fact that's the whole idea behind the 21 hats Community engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another owner can offer if you're interested in learning more step one is to sign up for a free trial of the Morning Report which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners so you don't have have to go looking for it step two is to get on our slack Channel where you can ask questions get vendor recommendations and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd just search the 21 hats Morning Report to subscribe joining me this week on the podcast are regulars Jackie Russo CEO of brand Russo a marketing agency based in Lafayette Louisiana and William Vander blumen CEO of Vander blumen Search Group a houston-based recruiting firm that works with churches and other faith-based organizations the episode is titled when there's an illness in the family welcome Jackie and William it's great to have you here Jackie I want to start with you we've had a number of conversations uh here with owners who feel that the uncertainty coming out of Washington DC has some people pulling back a bit waiting to see what happens reluctant to commit on big projects when companies pull back like that it's often marketing that they hold back on first as I'm sure you're well aware uh I'm wondering if you've seen any evidence of that wait Lauren people cut marketing first that's crazy um yes I and I have been preparing myself for that I fully expected that this year we would see that and really I thought it was starting last year with people unsure about how the election would go and then roll into now the elections happened and there's a lot of uncertainty because of uh not knowing tariffs you know we've heard Liz talk about that Etc and so I've watched with trepidation and and wonder and and curiosity and here we are unlike after 911 or the financial crisis of 08 or the oil and gas energy crisis we've had two or three times in in my area which used to be predominantly Oil and Gas Energy sector and now here we are and I'm not seeing that yet from my clients so I'm not sure if it's because we're a little bit insulated in the B2B space my clients make um products and services that people need in their everyday lives for the businesses that they run so that could be part of it they're not a luxury item I don't know if it's because people have finally appreciated what we've seen scientifically and historically every time there's a downturn the companies that either stay the course or even up their marketing are able to gobble up market share and so people realized that that's true and they're they're doing their best to stay the course but we are seeing high levels of positivity now I don't have any government contracts and I only have one client that has government contracts so that could be a big part of it that would help yeah um and I I know a lot of people individually who've been absolutely affected and laid off and I think we're going to see more and more of that so this is not to say that I am not sensitive to the plight of those who have been directly impacted I am just shocked at this point pleasantly surprised that so far so good knockwood please don't turn this into reality let it just be a hypothetical conversation you know I'm a little surprised to hear that Jackie as well in part because you've told us over the last couple of years even in relatively good Economic Times that you've had issues with some clients who keep saying they're about to sign on the dotted line with you and then don't quite pull the trigger is that still happening now or are those people signing up absolutely we are starting to call that what we um lovingly refer to as the midyear doldrums and because we saw it happen in 23 and 24 but through the end of 24 and now the beginning of 25 you know almost to the end of the first quarter of 25 we are not seeing that our closing rate is at 80% right now wow now to say that though we're doing some things differently we aren't going to a proposal phase in the Second Step we've moved that phase way down the line uh we are still having our typical Discovery and out of that we are now saying no to about 80 or 90% of the people that asked to meet with us and so that is I mean you can just say I'm I'm you know I'm massaging the numbers but at the end of the day I only count as a yes or a no if they get a proposal so they have something to say yes or no to and by moving those proposals further down the line yeah we're increasing our our close rate significantly but what we are doing is better identifying who's a good client for us and moving them out of the process giving them referrals giving them other resources providing other suggestions but really saying this is the list of who's right for the agency and if you're not right for the agency we're not moving to proposal stage William the last time you were here you told us that your business was performing quite well in the new year are you spending money on marketing everything we do is marketing exactly every email we send is marketing how you address people how you sign an email it's all marketing is that right Jackie that's correct 100% yeah you know marketing for us Lauren I think we started our friendship over a conversation about how blog posts are marketing and uh most of our marketing is content based I guess if I where are my dollars going right now it's it's not free I mean somebody has to write those blog posts although I bet you're using AI a little bit these days not as much as you think yeah our salary dollars go toward you know content that gets produced because everybody here produces content I've got another book coming out in October and we decided we're going to hire the same PR firm we used last time because they had such a good job and frankly didn't think twice about it baked it into the budget and I you know I'm trying to find some wood to knock on other than my head but uh you know there's an old old joke that uh liquor and religion are both Recession Proof so you're probably on opening some liquor stores to go with right maybe that's what I should do it's like years ago when unever bought Ben and& Jerry's and slim fast in the same week uh self-perpetuating business I didn't know that yes pretty funny story uh anyway we are spending normally our business is Lumpy we aren we don't sell a 100,000 units of anything in a year so one month of sales is nothing to to get excited or depressed about but now that we're Midway through the quarter we're still probably 30% year-over-year ahead and uh I don't have any idea whether that's tied to politics I mean I know some people are uneasy I know a lot of small business owners are very bullish because of what's going on in Washington so I think it's a mix bag for those uh Jackie who are seeing people get tentative and are struggling um a little bit and wondering you know is this a time to pull back or not do you have any advice for somebody who's having that debate I mean obviously if there's no money there you can't spend on marketing I wouldn't spend oh that would not be the first thing I would do at all um to me when you are tempted to pull back when you see a plateau or a decline even worse I think the first thing you have to do is assess assess the situation you know give a real good look at what's working and not working why were you selling last year but not selling this year what is your pivot you know is it your competition is it your audience has changed is it that you have changed or that you haven't changed something has triggering it and so you know I think about um the client that we have with government contracts they are understandably hesitant to say the least to do anything moving forward I fully appreciate although they haven't said this to me but I fully appreciate their inclinations probably just to sit under the desk and hope nobody notices them for a little while you know it's a scary time out there and poking your head up out of the hole could maybe be disastrous so the advice that we've given them is start to look at private opportunities you know what what's available to you in the public sector what companies need your goods and services right now more than ever and so replace that one big customer who accounted for 80% of your business which let me assure you their agency told them years ago that was not a good idea um and so now listen to the advice I gave you and so it's not about spending money it's about spending some time and some mental energy to say where are my opportunities and how do I go get them ja you have anything else to share on uh you said you made some changes that maybe has accounted for uh the higher close rate on your clients anything that would translate for others who are hoping to do the same well I mean we started to realize that there was a definite bucket of people who weren't saying yes they were kicking tires they were using us to fill a quota we need so many proposals to say we've got three or five or whatever their magic number is and so we're just not playing that game anymore so that's part of it it's less time wasted on us we used to have incredibly customized proposals and then we got into a high volume of proposals and so because of the quantity we couldn't be as customized we think that had a direct impact so we've gone back to what we now feel is a really nice blend of some real targeted customization you said these are your challenges and this is how we want to solve that and some really nice uh information around who we are what we're about and how we do it so you kind of get Best of Both Sides we're able to move through the generating of the proposals still in a timely manner they're not sucking a lot of time from the team but they are more customized like they need to be and that's working since that has happened we've only heard one no in that's in four months maybe five months wow and then like I said if they don't meet every one of our criteria and to be clear I'm the one who always says yeah but they're close enough the team is now 100% empowered to say no follow your own darn rules what are you doing and I because they're calling me on my stuff I'm paying more attention to it and so it doesn't matter that they're my friend it doesn't matter that they heard me speak at a conference and they keep telling me how great I am because that's usually how people get to me is flattery um it wins every time it doesn't matter that I think they will be big enough to be one of our clients one day you know all of those excuses that I used to make for people because I want to help my team is holding me accountable and we're doing a much better job of providing other resources that they can still leverage so you know that's our example but you know Lauren we hadn't talked about this but we have the space in our building that used to be occupied by our creative team we built them a whole other really really nice space like it's the space they dreamed of they got to be directly involved in it it was very collaborative Endeavor we spent a ton of money and they are just as happy as could be in their new little nests the old space which is a big open room whereas now they have um walls no doors but they have a doorway and so it accomplishes my desire to still have an open workplace and their desire to have quiet away from well me I think I mean I'll say my team but mostly me because I am I I do talk all day long I mean to be fair and I project and you can be all the way across the building and still clearly hear the interview that I'm doing or whatever so they got away from me which that's fine my feelings were only a little bit hurt for a minute it's great for podcasts it is great for podcasts um so I sat for about a year really contemplating how are we going to use this space what's going to be the best use and the whole time and I'm telling a little bit on myself about how I'm not the smartest sometimes I get these calls because part of our remodel was building out that really nice meeting space that I use to teach classes and people rent we call it the workshop downtown workshop and so it's used for events all the time and I get calls a couple times a week from people saying oh I want to rent the workshop in the conversation I can quickly identify that they need a desk they're not having an event they need a small inexpensive place to work they don't want to go to coffee shop anymore they're TR to be in work from home and isolated whatever it might be and so I would reach out to I would give them a list of names hey go go call Kevin with Downtown Development or Destin opportunity machine or this organization that organization somebody can help you well those places all got builded up so I reached out to people in the downtown area and said y'all need to build this co-working space that everybody's asking for so I'm gonna admit it took me a year for the people asking for it for me telling somebody else to do it me realizing I have the space I might as well be the one to do it we are starting construction on Monday we should be done in about three weeks because there just a little bit that needs to happen making some doorways building out some things to better uh insulate them and so now we're launching this I I made one comment on social media of hey we're gonna have this thing soon if you know anybody who's looking I got a waiting list now wow that's all from people who are starting businesses who are leaving the safe job they've had and jumping into this Market because they see opportunities so that whole long story was just to say there are people who still see optimism on the horizon and an opportunity to go take advantage of something if I can go fill 20 desks that tells me that people still see opportunity all right I want to run a uh a debate by both of you that has kind of broken out here on the podcast and also on the uh 21 hats slack Channel it started with a conversation we had with Paul DS who unfortunately has had to lay some people off uh when Paul was on the podcast he told us about that and he told us that in deciding whom to lay off he took into consideration some personal factors like who had just put a down payment on a house who just had a kid and he did it in the context of you know this is part of the reason why he's loved being a business owner he really likes his employees he really likes getting to know them and know them well it's hard not to take that into account at a at a time like this we've also heard from people who've reacted strongly against that and said you know this really should be a decision that comes down to uh what's best for the organization in part because no owner can really have perfect vision of all the lives of their employees and really know what's going on and if you get it wrong you can forfeit some credibility in doing that I'd love to hear uh what both of you think especially William this is kind of your business you've been through layoffs yourself what do you think of this debate well I think they're probably smart people on both sides of it right sure and I think they're probably compassionate people on both sides of it you know somewhat of a North star for me came from a friend of mine who's also a client name's Dave Ramsey he's a radio personality he's the get rid of your credit cards save your money most people would know the name sure anyway sometime back I was talking to him about you know taking investor money or not or what have you and you we could probably scale up if I went and raised 10 or20 million real fast and uh he said well we the whole point of making money for me is to have peace of mind and if the way I'm making money robs me of my peace of mind what's the point that's stuck with me and it has I don't know that it would lands me on one side or the other of this debate but I think it's a great question for me to ask myself and maybe it helps some listeners too is this decision going to give me peace of mind about how I'm making my money and if it is not then what's the point of making the money to begin with so you know the for instance for us the only significant layoffs we had to do was when the lockdown happened in 2020 and it wasn't a convenient excuse to let go people who were just barely getting by it it we we cut way past the bone and uh I made a list who of who I thought should go my coo made a list of who he thought should go let's compare notes and and we'll see and somehow providentially I'd say uh the lists were identical and I don't think we took into account they just had a baby or they just bought a house um but that doesn't that doesn't mean we wouldn't I mean unfortunately we've had two employees who've lost one lost a spouse one lost a child both to the same kind of brain cancer and I would have had a hard time letting one of those go during those Seasons but I don't know that people who would do it for the sake of the business itself are necessarily wrong I guess I would just ask you know what's the motivation is it save every penny you can because we're a business and that's the way it is I guess it's a free country you can do that to me it's what's going to give me the most peace of mind and has some compassion and then the last thing I'd say is I grew up surrounded by attorneys you know my brother's an attorney my father's an attorney everywhere you look and I guess that's embedded in me uh a constant question about what precedent am i setting and I think that to me that's the most dangerous part of the don't fire somebody who just bought a house what's what's the precedent there and what kind of risk are you setting yourself up for with a future employee Mak Texas is an atwi employer state so it's not as big an issue but those are the things that roll through my mind just off the cuff how about you Jackie I agree with William and I I he's always so eloquent um that there are smart people on both sides of the issue and I need to remind myself that I have to start every conversation with that because that's a nice way to level set the rest of what's to follow I would not want to take on if if I was in that position the evaluation of who can mentally or financially afford a layoff and make a decision that way because then that means I'm always looking at it in my opinion too far from the employees perspective and not enough from my job which is the company's perspective um we don't have I think the same kind of redundancies that other companies might have so if I'm having to make a layoff in the graphic design Department well there's only so much of that you know all of our departments are I mean we've got great capacity but everybody does something different and so I I can't necessarily at this stage of our growth play that kind of evaluation of I'm somebody's got to go it can be any one of these 10 people it's really job and performance specific uh we have have I think uh a really great team I mean almost everybody's been here for at least half a decade if not more than a decade and so I would be hardpressed because somebody's got something they've all got a sick family member a new spouse a new kid student debt whatever it might be I could only look at it from the perspective of what does the company need one of the issues that people brought up is comparing this situation to another one which is paying people people differently based on their personal lives do you pay somebody more because they're supporting a family uh even though they're doing the same job as somebody who doesn't have a family and I think that goes off in a different direction I'm curious do you guys see this as a comparable issue or or very different I might be a bit of a crogen on that I I don't pay people based on need and and we have a particularly difficult uh well nuanced situation in that many of our employees spent part were all of their career before coming to us working in nonprofits or churches where that is standard protocol oh my gosh they have more needs so we need to help them that nonprofits pay like they're employing individual nonprofits if that makes sense so so interesting it's really stupid um so we've almost had to be pardon me but kind of a hardass about that around here and just say hey guys we're helping schools nonprofits churches that sort of thing but we aren't one and and I say all the time I really believe you can do good and practice good business at the same time but that doesn't mean we're nonprofit so I I might be a little more Hardline on that one than the first part of the debate I'll just jump in real quick on that because I think I approach it from a little bit of a different perspective so for some context I have heard often and I imagine most people have the statistic that women make 80% less than men there's a lot of ways to interpret that statistic uh you know 80% less sorry sorry 80% of men 20% less sorry thank you for the correction Lauren yeah I mean we're not working for 20 cents on the dollar we're working for 80 cents on the dollar and obviously there's some variables there with regards to persons of color and geography and I've heard it's as low as 72 cents on the dollar but I was going with 80 as a nice even round number I'm assuming some of my girls have managed to get us up a little bit in the averages so that that statistic has stuck with me for a while and I have heard lots of explanations and discussions around it if we're looking at it over the course of an entire career is it because some women leave the workforce to go have kids is it because of the uh kinds of jobs that some women have that are lower pay some of the kinds of jobs men have lots of discussion and explanation around it as it's on my mind two things have come forward one is inevitably when I am interviewing men and when I am interviewing women the men almost every one of them I can't think of one that hasn't will very early in the process clearly State exactly what it is they need to make without question women almost never bring it up and in the interview process and when I do it's I mean I'd like to make around this but I could go lower if you need me to and so as a as an employer you know am I gonna fight the good fight to help women get their average up or as an employer am I to get the best person for the job at the best rate you know I have to balance both of my interests so I read this article um just the other day that said 1.2% I'm going to round up to one and a half perc just for ease one and a half% of women-owned companies get to a million dollar a year in Revenue that is startling to me yeah startling and the article gave a lot of really good information around how women pric their business when they are the decision maker you know like I'm thinking about when I started this company and how I priced myself and just like I see women sitting in that interview seat this article was talking about women entrepreneurs and the way they price things versus the way male entrepreneurs price them how they value themselves all of those kinds of things right and so you know to to all of our points here it is a challenge when you're thinking about uh you know who you're hiring who you're laying off how you're growing all of this ties in because there are inclinations to not fire a guy because he's got a family to support so does she you know so it all factors in so I think it's if I was to pick a side in this discussion final wrapup I would have to pick the side of you got to do what's best for the company and not take someone's personal into consideration because you don't know who they are or what's happening for them really when they leave that door at five o'clock I'm gonna at the risk of contradicting myself I'm going to add one one other thing Lauren oh please do and it and it kind of does tie back to my friend Dave Ramsey we've got a wonderful team member who's been with me a long time who doesn't do a very good job of managing her or his money I'm going to lead it androgynous so we don't single anybody out and I I thought like maybe maybe I'll give them a raise and that'll help them and Dave pointed out to me he said William you could double their salary they're still going to be in debt you can't solve people's spending habits and just increasing their salary is going to do nothing but create more leaders to pull for more debt and I I I think that I don't know if it hardened me or clarified things for me that you know short of something catastrophic happening I need to be let people live their lives and uh manage we we did at uh that point uh insists that all new employees take the course Dave offers called Financial Peace University that's what what they do with it is up to them but at least we've given them a vehicle for here's how you manage your money we have a lot of young employees and frankly their parents a lot of times just didn't tell them how to save how to you know have an emergency account all the basics that most everybody listening already knows all right last thing I want to talk about today concerns you William I was so sorry to see that you recently posted on LinkedIn that your wife Adrien has been diagnosed with cancer um it's it's been very recent first of all of course how how's she doing I I I don't know Lauren um we we haven't done this before yeah I'm not trying to sound you know like a smart ass I just I I genuinely don't know uh I mean we've been truly humbled by the number of people that have reached out and uh offered positive thoughts and prayers and the like and um you know right now while we're recording this I'm supposed to be keynoting at a conference out of town and a uh acquaintance of mine we know each other a little bit through work but we're not buddy buddy uh who is about my age and lost his wife to cancer a couple years ago just called me out of the blue he's SAR host and he runs a big Research Institute and uh he said can I give you unsolicited advice I said sure he said if I could do anything over over again the time I had before we started the really hard treatment I would have canceled everything I would not have left town once and you didn't ask for this advice but he he was actually the other keyter at the conference today he said send me your notes I'll give your talk if you want and uh things like that have just I not that i' lost faith in humanity or anything but boy it sure Shores up your outlook on uh humans when things get real you apparently made a deliberate decision to to talk about this fairly openly um you know posting on LinkedIn and and uh offering to go ahead and do this podcast as well tell me about your thinking with that well I've had a little time to think on this so I hope this doesn't sound polished but my first concern is Adrien of course and I don't really care about much else so um you know when we got the news which was totally out of the blue I mean she was actually doing some preventive maintenance to try and figure out how to deal with recurring chess colds without using antibiotics and she went and got a CAT scan of her lungs which was completely clear but they said H but you do have something funny going on in your abdomen and no family history no nothing so stunning news and uh none of the you know behavioral things that she didn't smoke she didn't barely rarely drinks I mean all the things that you know so out of the blue the first thing we were like well we're going to have to talk to the kids and then we've got to decide whether we're going to be private about this or not and Adrian said well my desire would be to have as many people as possible praying so I don't want to you know make everything that I write or produce sound like we're talking about her cancer but she said just tell everybody I I'll use every prayer I can get and it and it I I think that it it we're in MD Anderson which is you have slone cing up near you but MD Anderson's usually ranked one or two in the world in cancer and it's about two and a half miles from our house we're with the best doctor for this particular kind of thing in the whole world that's encouraging but I think he I think even with all of that it will take um more than just medicine so said just tell everybody and we don't want to make a you know Debbie Downer to end the podcast at all we we're positive and hopeful but uh sure do appreciate you asking I decided you know we do a lot of succession planning as as a business for other clients and it made me years ago say I need to be a little less relevant every year around here so that thing can live after me and oh my goodness how thankful am that we started that process so long ago and you know I can't just take off forever but I've been able to pretty well shut down for the last two and a half weeks and just focus on being at home and it hadn't hadn't hurt the business you have talked about that here uh a good bit uh I think the example you've given most often is how you've expanded your summer vacation time away from the business very deliberately to give it a chance to to run with without you this is a little bit different uh obviously but that's what you're referring to I assume it is it is and and I mean my ego would like to think we would grow faster if I were more involved but uh thankfully it's been quite manageable right now and and we're still the whole company is still on the uh Adrenaline Rush of just hearing the news and everybody rushing to help I mean I think I'm going to have to go buy another freezer for our house for all the food people brought by it's amazing and when that dies down and we get into a rhythm of treatment and such we probably ought to revisit on the podcast how I'm trying to manage work life balance and that sort of thing but uh for now everybody's kind of amped up and rallying and and uh going the extra mile to try and help Adrien which is really humbling I've had the pleasure of meeting Adrien who is lovely and delightful uh she's also been an important part of the business your co-founder I believe CF at some point yeah has she been active in the business recently no well yes and no uh not in the day-to-day she watches the finances like a CFO but we have a Director of Finance um the more important thing is you know if if we joke all the time and she says if I were the only one running the business we would never make a sale if William were the only one running the business we wouldn't have a penny in the bank so she I don't make any big decisions without consulting with her and it's her involvement in the business is long walks with the dogs in the morning and talking through what's happening and offering counsel that I don't see I tell people she's just almost perfect in every way except for a blind spot when it comes to her taste in men William um just to jump in real quick I too was so sorry to hear the news and I obviously I'm praying for both of you uh every day thank you that means a lot well you're welcome I respect your approach you know also working with my spouse um I have always described me as all gas and him as all break and together we make the car go so I think it's a very similar uh relationship and I know how vital we both are not just to each other and to our kids but to our company and so I can't imagine running this place without him jack have you taken any steps uh done any of the thinking that William obviously did to kind of prepare the company uh for a period when you might not be available I've done all the thinking um I am almost completely replaced here I have really kind of two small things that I still do that could be handed over at any time but I got to have something I have to have a reason to be in the building because I I believe that I have to be replaceable because I know I'm not going to be inside this building building forever and ever and so absolutely we can't grow if I'm still holding tasks now somebody needs to go have that conversation with Mr Russo because we had our annual board meeting last year it's just the two of us so it's also a vacation um but we went to Michigan uh we did the entrepreneur and residence retreat at the Edward low foundation and we spent three days quietly and then sometimes loudly discussing both of our future plans you know 5 10 15 years and we came to some some understandings that at some point I will no longer be the daily Runner of this company and he has to be okay with letting me Ascend to a different role think of it as like a chairman May and at the same time I highly encourage him to find ways to replace himself he needs to be the creative director not the creative doer and so he's working on it he's honestly truly now for a time actually working on it a while like about 10 years he just told me he was going to work on it but it's going to be really hard for him to let go to the degree that I have William is there anything I know it's this is all very recent is there anything you've already realized that you didn't think of that you would have liked to have prepared for oh wow um that's such a good question Lauren let me let me think on that sure I me it's early for that question I we've been we've been so fortunate I mean so fortunate that that financially we can pay the bills I I I sit and look at when we're down at MD Anderson which is they call it here in Houston the best place you'd never want to visit and I look at older couples older people who are alone who don't even know how to really work an iPhone and don't know how to you know everything is through apps now at hospitals and we've just been so fortunate and have so much health about about us that uh what do we do to prepare more I I probably would have spent more time with Adrien you know in earlier years I probably wouldn't have traveled as much I'm also curious you have your background as a pastor I assume you've had countless conversations with other people going through similar situations oh yeah has that been helpful to you I actually I think it's revealed to me what an idiot I was when I was trying to be a pastor why do you say people say the stupidest stuff I mean for instance you know you'll indulge me for a minute dear friend send us a screenshot of the verse of the day that they're reading you know in their devotional or whatever and it's a line where Paul is writing and Paul says God spoke and said my grace is sufficient for you and it's a fairly quoted verse in among churches and things it's like my grace is going to be sufficient for you oh what a nice verse well the problem with sending me a verse is I've actually read the whole Bible quite a few times the context I mean this is how dumb I was as a pastor I probably did the same thing the context is if you read just before that line Paul says three times I asked God to remove a thorn from My Flesh in or you could say tumor from my liver and he said no my grace is sufficient for you oh oh ouch like I think I just said the stupidest things I think what I'm learning U through this is I should have talked less you know it's interesting if you go to the Jewish or Christian scriptures to the Book of Job he goes through hell and his friends show up and they get a lot of things wrong but the one thing they got right it says his friends showed up for him and they sat with him for seven days and they didn't say a word and and I I think uh I've had to sit with a lot of families that have gotten bad news and I probably tried to offer platitudes too quickly you know life's messy and fragile the other thing I'll say on a very positive note is I mean it's been gosh 16 years since I did any form of active pastoral Ministry really 18 since it was full-time and when I sat with people that had been through chemo and radiation and all these things it it was like let's cut off as much as we can and microwave the person and zap them treatment has come light years since that just you know 20 years ago and uh new things are coming out like daily so um on the positive side I'm so Rusty as a pastor that I I didn't realize it's a lot brighter Outlook than it was 20 years ago that is great to hear and uh I think a a really good note to end this conversation on uh again William obviously not the easiest of topics but you managed to actually make us laugh a little bit and uh I think that's probably the pastor training uh to some extent yeah how is it that I'm the one that got teary and choked up and William is calm cool and collected oh I'm Dutch you're in your right position too all right my thanks to Jackie Russo and especially William Vander blo you guys are always generous about sharing your experiences but especially this week and I know we all appreciate it thanks Lauren one thing before you go everything we do at 21 hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together if you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes consider joining the conversation you can do that by joining the 21 hats sounding board a slack Channel where you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom Forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast you can sign up for both by subscribing to the morning report if you have any questions you can email me at Lauren 21h hats.com and if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report please tell a friend tell an enemy tell every business owner you know your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us thank you it me means a lot this episode was produced by another entrepreneur Jess ston founder of blank word Productions thanks for listening everyone