28: Building a Life You Never Want to Retire From with Kyle Gabhard

Transcript 

0:01

hello and welcome to the learn itall podcast we are Damonlby and Darren

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Bridget Damon lmy CEO of learn it Darren Bridget I'm incharge of the professional development content we

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create here at learn it and we are joined today by Kylegabart howdy howdy

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job good that's good that's how you say it Kyle practicingthe names I have Kyle is a native Texan

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hence the howdy father of six grandfather of a Serialentrepreneur started many different businesses uh

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actively engaged in uh we're talking about one book inparticular that you've written but other books uh he's designed

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and licensed a board game out there doing the publicspeaking circuit and it's also a managing partner of

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Bluegrass Legacy Group which is financial planning and uhthe book is

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Legends don't retire and neither should you it's right therebehind him uh great

1:00

take on how to think about uh planning for your future inthis with a with a

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new approach and I'll I'll let Kyle get into that and Idon't know if you've noticed but Damon I mean I'll speak for

1:11

me for sure but I'm just not a spring chicken anymore and uhthinking about uh things like retirement I'm pretty happy

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to have this conversation Kyle welcome to the show I amthank you kindly I am too and before Kyle gets to introduced

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himself I would also like to say that uh Cara and I Kyle'sfirm Bluegrass is our

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fin financial planners and so I'm super excited to have Kylehere today um we're

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trusting him and and he's been great so thank you Kyle forfor coming on today

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guys it's an absolute pleasure I'm excited to see where theconversation goes me too because we don't know we

1:45

don't plan it out too much we like to just be in the momentwe're actually gonna talk about that plans versus

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planning but first up we have h a question we like to askfolks number our contestants number one question and that

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is since we're all about learning and you're talking aboutreally having the mindset of being a lifelong learner you

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don't just retire and you go into still life and stop uh youwant to keep learning and growing so what are you

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still um what's something that you're hoping to learn in thefuture yeah I I

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really appreciate that question uh in fact this past weekendI took my boys uh

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as well as my son-in-law out to uh some property that we'vegot it's raw land 12

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acres uh but an hour and a half outside of town and we'relearning uh all kind

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well I'm mostly learning the my son-in-law actually alreadyhas real skills I have no skills um so if if you

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need uh like some really cool Tax Strategies I'm your guyyeah uh if you want to figure out some clever ways of

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organizing your life so that you can maximize your cash flowand figure out

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how to achieve your goals like I'm totally your guy but ifwe mess up the

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world and it ends up being like The Walking Dead typescenario I have no

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real skills yeah and correspondingly my children have noreal skills and so

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we're using the land as a way to create some memories butalso like actually learn real things so this past weekend

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we built a shed and it didn't fall over when we were doneand so I now own a

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chainsaw um the only limbs we cut were the ones attached totrees so lots of

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learning and growing happening this past weekend gettingback to the land back the idea with a chainsaw but back land

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yes good like it good um Kyle what's uh can you give us alittle bit of your

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Your Story I mean I just barely skimmed to surface you betyeah what's the what's the the Kyle gabhart story man

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I'm a Pisces I like long walks on the beach and candlelightdinners

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I was born at a young age and so I I grew up in the FortWorth

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Dallas Metroplex uh youngest of three uh my dad was aminister in a marriage and

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family counselor uh so I was uh I was really really blessedto grow up with an

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environment where communication and emotion were very

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natural things we talked about so we would sit around thedinner table and talk about personality profiles and

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communication Styles yeah I knew what the Myers and Briggswas before I was 10

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I wasn't allowed to take it until I was 13 I don't know ifthis is true or not but my dad told me I didn't have a

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personality yet and so I wasn't allowed to take it until 13but I Knew by then

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like what the different letters meant and how do you analyzethe way someone communicates and so it really gave me an

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unfair advantage in terms of being able to understand andconnect with and engage with other people and so I I'm so

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grateful to my folks for that upbringing also publicspeaking was a big deal I was in debate in high school and college

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my senior year of high school out of 36 weeks in the schoolyear I went to 33

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debate tournaments wow and so I got an immense opportunityto practice how do

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you craft an argument how do you articulate an idea how doyou connect

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with an audience and I don't care what you go into in yourlife that will serve

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you well everywhere you go so one message I would have forany parents or grandparents out there please encourage

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your kiddos to prioritize public speaking to prioritizeanything around

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communicating ideas because it'll get used in everydiscipline and every Walk of Life yeah oh so following up on that

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and it's a little bit of I we we're gonna get into uhbudgeting and and and

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planning right but Darren before let let me stop

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right here because this is what Kyle did to me on our on ourfirst call which I appreciated so Kyle the very first

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question he asked me out of out of the bat was what are yougrateful for so I'm gonna I'm gonna flip this on you Kyle

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what are you grateful for today I I love that question for alittle bit of

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context for uh everyone else uh this is something that Istarted at the dinner table two years ago in June it'll be two

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years in June uh every single night and I've it's then Proproceeded into every

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team meeting and every client meeting and every futureclient meeting I start with uh go big begin in gratitude and

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the question is what are you grateful for uh early on whenpeople answer that they'll tend to give really you know

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broad sweeping I'm thankful for my family I'm thankful forthe country I live in I'm thankful for you know the

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the the house I have whatever it might be but once you getpast that surface layer it's fascinating to see how the

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layers of that get peeled back and uncovered so uh right nowwhat I'm really grateful for is uh I'm grateful

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for technology yeah because if it weren't for technologyDamon you and I

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would have never met in the way that we were able to Shanecould have connected to us we could have hopped on a a

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telephone call but we couldn't have really made theconnection that we did and you and I wouldn't be able to engage

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on an ongoing basis the way that we have been and serve youthe way that we do if it weren't for technology if it weren't

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for technology we wouldn't be able to have this platformright now with both you and Darren all of us communicating

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much less what I'm sure is probably a meaningful percentageof the world all connected in right now listening to this

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observing this and there's a lot of things that technologyhas messed up uh

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but one thing that it has done is equipped us with thecapability to connect with folks and I'm immensely

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grateful for that I love that you say that gratitude isunderappreciated in

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terms of how much how important it is and I I really liketoo that you're saying you you move it's not to devalue

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the things that are a big deal like I'm I have a newgrandson that I'm I'm super grateful for but those things once you

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move past those you yes I mean literally even being gratefulfor the fact that you have a pen it it gets you it gets

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you into a mindset of just deep appreciation all the time sotrue not just deserve for the big things and that

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that's that's can be a game changer for people so Kyle let'stalk about what you

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do a little bit so for people that are out there you'vestarted a bunch of business there's the entrepreneur thing but even if you'restarting a business

8:42

having this idea where am I headed to can you talk a littlebit about this idea of of Legacy why it matters and why

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you should have that mindset moving forwards in your lifeand especially with the the goal of retirement at the

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end and start with what is Legacy yeah there you

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go yeah I I I appreciate both of those questions so I I amfrequently in the

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position of speaking to a room it it might be 30 people itmight be 300 people and I ask the question when you

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hear the word legacy what comes to mind and if it was FamilyFeud by far the

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number one answer on the board is it's something you leavebehind that that's

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the natural Association people have with Legacy and I don'tdisagree with that that is an aspect of

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it but the problem is that when we frame Legacy in terms ofsomething we leave behind then we hinder our ability to

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influence it right so imagine you're walking out theproverbial door you toss your legacy

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over your shoulder whatever that might be maybe it's moneymaybe it's something

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sentimental maybe it's uh something You' built or created uhwhatever constitutes

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your legacy your priorities your values what have you youtoss it over your shoulder and the next generation is

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there to catch it the organizations you care about maybefamily members that uh

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are still around uh maybe people that you touched in thecommunity whomever they're there to catch it and then they

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try to figure out what the heck am I supposed to do with ityeah and if you haven't had the opportunity to mentor

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and coach and pour into them they don't know what they'resupposed to do with it and they likely Bobble it if not

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completely drop it and if you shift from leaving a legacy toliving one now you

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have that opportunity to mentor and Coach throughout yourlife so you're building a legacy and you're living one

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so then you can look to that next generation and say oh nowhat I meant was grip it like this or no say it like

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that or I I think you may have misunderstood what I wasintending with this gift of money or time or skill and

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so then you get to actually influence it you can see theimpact of it and you can help to Steward it that's amazing that's

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a that's a really um important way it seems like to actuallyapproach that idea well let's

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talk a little bit about money how do I get more of it how doI

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have more of it when I'm I'm actually at that retirementplace and and uh yeah let's just start with with some of the

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brass taxs of yeah no you bet so the it's really really easyto double your

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money all you have to do is just take it and fold it overand now it's doubled

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real simple all right good yeah um yeah so the the thingthat I

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always aim to remind folks is that money is a

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magnifier it will magnify whatever is at your your

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core if you are a selfish person if you are someone who hasa scarcity

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mindset piles of money won't change that they'll onlymagnify

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it correspondingly if you're a generous person if you havean an abundance mindset money can magnify it but if at

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any point you imagine oh I'll make substantially differentdecisions if I just had more money you'll always be

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chasing that and pushing that further out because there'snever going to be enough quite frankly um and it doesn't

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matter anyway because we're going to keep printing it asfast as we can in Washington so uh it uh you won't be able

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to keep up with that engine anyway yeah ultimately it isonly going to magnify

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whatever is at your core and so you need to look

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introspectively and make sure that you like what you're inthe position to magnify and not see it as a

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cural yeah it's an interesting approach it's it it honestlysounds a little bit like approaching man helping people

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manage their money with the background of of somebody whowas raised in a house by a minister and a man married

13:15

therapist like you're you're yeah I see I'm doing that toyou but you're looking at the whole

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picture why would you even go down this path with somethingthat feels you know like tax laws and things like that this

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seems so practical um you seem to have a unique approachwhat how did you get

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there oh goodness a lot of mistakes uh I got there throughtrial and error uh you

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know like like anyone else um I distinctly remember being

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26 and uh getting uh greeted at my front door by two uniformpolice officers and

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carded off to jail um and not having enough cash to bailmyself out and so my

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father had to and for context I wasn't a drug Runner Iactually made a really healthy sixf figure income uh but I

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didn't manage it well yeah and the particular issue uh inthis case was I

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had an expired registration it had event on my vehicle rightit had eventually gone to Warrant

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status and you know being a a a man in my 20s who was prettysure that he had

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the the bull by the horns and you know knew how life workedlike ah they've got better things to do with their time than

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go uh serve that warrant and it turns out that in copellTexas there is nothing interesting going on and they

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don't have anything better to do with their time than godrag someone to jail for an expired registration on their

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vehicle yeah um and so that was something of a wakeup callfor me to go gosh I'm actually at this point on an

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annual basis earning more money than my parents yeah but Ican't bail myself out

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of jail I can't seem to function enough to pay a ticket thatI have like

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something's got to change yeah hey it's uh this reminds meof

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something I haven't thought about for years in the 70s mydad got we got pulled over for

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running a stoplight or something and they actually uh cuffedand stuffed my

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dad for unpaid parking tickets that he just forgot he hadwhich was very traumatic for for a

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kid at uh you know I don't know eight years old so that wasthat's a fun memory um my name I'm glad I could bring

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that back for you thank you I'm sure as my sisters watchthis my brother be like

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oh good good going Damon but you know a lot of times money

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and it it's just seems overwhelming you know when it comesto personal budgeting and I know you have like I I think it's

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five strategies maybe that's in your book C can you wherewould talk about

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those five a little bit and also where can somebody justwhat is loow hanging fruit to just start with because for

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people like me it's like overwhelming you know you you havemoney coming in money coming out you're spending and how do you even track allthis yeah that

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that's so important I I really appreciate you asking it sothe part of the reason that it's important is just

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to know that there are multiple strategies and the reason Isay that is

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that most of us can remember a time when we tried to budgetand it failed

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absolutely and if not several times we tried to budget andwe fell in our face

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multiple times and we decide I guess I'm just terrible withmoney I guess I'm just irresponsible I guess I'm just a

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bad person and come to find out maybe it's the fact that youhave a variable

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income because you're commission based or because you'rebonused or because it's hourly and you don't have control

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over your hours there's actually in the book a specificstrategy for how do I budget when my income isn't

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exactly the same every single time and so that's freeing toknow oh so maybe

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it's not me maybe there's just a different approach I needto take than one I've taken in the past some people

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have tried the envelope system that's one of the things Imention in here and maybe it worked for you but whether it

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did or not that worked for you something else is going towork well for a different person probably the most

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common one there's a ratio of 50 30 20 and it breaks it downinto uh 50% going

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towards what you actually need um and then you've gotanother 30% going

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towards things that you want and 20% going towards payingdown debt Andor

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savings and building up the assets and even there it's soeasy to get a ratio

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like that and then really force yourself down into that togo oh I have to be

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exactly at these figures instead of recognizing these aregood rules of thumb if you know that that's the high

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level ratio and you do the assessment and you're spending85% on uh a combination of needs and

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wants and you've only got 15% that's left over for uh beingable to address

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paying down debt building up assets that gives you someinsight into oh so maybe

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my priority are ex skewed somewhere because I'm not able toreally get a any traction or get

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ahead that's good um given that I'm my wife and I in our 60snow should we just

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give up when it comes to compound interest yeah no you it'sit's a valid concern

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because the power of compound interest is obvious and thereis no doubt right the

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Chinese proverb tells us the best time to plant a tree was20 years ago MH but

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then again the second best time is today yeah yeah andthat's where a lot of the

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the talk and and Concepts that are woven throughout talkabout the value and importance of

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planning and planning is something that you can do at anystage might it be have

19:23

been beneficial to have made different decisions 10 yearsago okay but you learned from those and you are the

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person you are because of those experiences the key is tonow go given where I'm at how do I navigate most

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effectively with the resources I have and the opportunitiesin front of me and if you remove the focus on traditional

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retirement and instead as I like to say build a life younever want to retire

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from then that can free you up to go okay I'm going tobalance my my cash

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flow with my expenses I'm going to do it all with a lenstowards how can I be

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living a legacy and investing in the people and the causesthat are most

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important to me and chart out a path for my life where I canmake the most

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effective use of those opportunities in front of me itdoesn't matter if it ends up looking like a traditional retirement

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or not you're making better decisions and you're gettingmore desire able

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outcomes and ultimately making a greater impact by taking onthat planning

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mentality regardless of what age you choose to do that yeahand Kyle I was when I was doing some of my

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research on working with blueg grass and on you you talk alot about too you shouldn't look at it like your first

20:49

year but how it compounds over 10 years correct yeah umthat's that's a that's a

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good call out so when we typically do anything thatresembles planning it's

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usually in January and it's usually in some form of theseare my goals for the year or these are my

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resolutions and so we end up doing all these little bittyplans one year at a

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time and as we know you know within weeks we're wonderinggosh why did I

21:18

sign up for that gym I'm probably not going back to it andand we're on this in a ridiculous Groundhog Day type

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experience a year at a time well to your point Damon notonly does money compound

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over time but so do we as individuals so the decisions thatyou

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make have the ability and they in fact will stand on top ofthe decisions you

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previously made and that could either go in a healthydirection or an unhealthy Direction so if you decide I'm gonna

21:50

start drinking more water and you get really consistent andreally good at drinking more water then the next time

21:56

you decide hey I'm going to start running it's be easier torun because you're hydrated and so the second

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decision is building on the first one and you begin to gainmomentum but the opposite is true if you decide to slack

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off in certain areas of your life that will compound and soas we look at planning

22:15

over a five 10 20 year time frame where you have the abilityto get to is orders

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of magnitude greater than just stacking up a bunch of oneyears next to one another

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because 20 years from now none of the constraints you'reliving with right now have to be true you could live in any part of the

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world you want to you can language right different skillsets the whole nine

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yards so you can start with a blank slate and then thatinforms the decisions you make on a year-by-year

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basis in alignment with that long-term goal I I really likethe way you talk

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about this in the book this idea of H planning versus a planyeah that that

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everybody has plans to get punched in the face kind of thingbut you but you also you really challenge the the

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standard thinking with uh financial planners when it comesto retirement that you you you pick these targets and

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these numbers and then you just map everything to those butright that's not the real world those those things are

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GNA change they're they're just made up so true yeah that'show I read it but

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maybe you could elaborate on that point a little bit yeahany plan you build NE

23:27

never mind the the punch and the mouth just even just thenatural progression of life it's going to be out of date the

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moment you print it yeah and yet far too often what we do iswe create a plan as

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a noun and whether we physically do or conceptually do wekind of print it stick it in a binder put it on the shelf

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and we're like well I now have the plan I'm in good shapeand of course uh you

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know that is only going to be valid for a very limitedamount of time yeah uh

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and and you learn every day hopefully I don't know if youlearn at all yeah

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there you go but you do learn every day and so you're gonnamake different

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ultimately better decisions a month from now six months fromnow a year and a

24:15

half from now and so if you stick with a plan that is staticversus planning

24:22

which is dynamic you're cutting yourself off at the kneesbecause your future

24:27

self is going to make way better decisions than your presentself will let me ask you this because

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sometimes individuals you know they make these plans and andthey kind of put their

24:41

their stick in the ground like you know I'm right and andthey have a hard time admitting when they're wrong and they need to Pivot whatadvice or or what

24:48

have you been able to do to be able to keep your planningDynamic instead of

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static oh yeah that that's that's tricky so part of it isleveraging technology

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so if what you do is have the manifestation of the plan comein the

25:07

form of something like a PDF or a Word document then that'schallenging because

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uh that in and of itself is inherently static and you haveto physically update it um now PDFs Word documents narrative

25:22

is an important component of it because you do need todescribe things sometimes but there's some quantitative ele

25:28

elements where you can through utilizing software link youraccounts link the

25:34

various financial pieces of your life into it so that it isongoing updating

25:40

for you and you can get a realtime snapshot of here's whereI'm at today

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and given these mortgages given these pieces of real estategiven this insurance policy given these bank

25:52

accounts given these investment accounts given all thesepieces here's how it compounds over time in pursuit of my

25:58

goals and then you can start to carve out those goals inalignment with what

26:05

those underlying elements achieve so that's part of it umand part of it is

26:11

you just have to be okay with failure and and I routinelypreach to my kids uh

26:16

and and I preach within my team fail early fail often failforward and that just has to be

26:24

something that you Embrace and normalize is that ultimatelyif you're not failing

26:31

then you're probably not taking enough risks in your lifeyou gotta be pushing the envelope constantly when I when I

26:37

over over the years for for decades when when I'minterviewing people or when

26:43

they first come on board to learn it one of the things thatI always I always like to say Kyle is look I didn't hire

26:49

you to get on the train tracks and go in One Direction if ifyou're if you're not making mistakes because whatever

26:55

mistakes you're making as long as they're ethical cool andyou're giving your best it's not you're not going to you know put us out ofbusiness or or

27:02

blow us up right but if if you're not making any mistakes Idon't want you here because I I want people who are

27:09

learning growing and and are comfortable with failure good Idon't really think you can scale and have a successful

27:15

business or successful team if if you're not willing to takechances and and make

27:21

mistakes and not have to come to me every time I love itwhen individuals on our team come to me and say hey Damon I

27:27

didn't think about asking you this so I just went for it butI want to let you know what we did I love that right if it

27:34

doesn't work we could talk through it and and and learn fromthat and move forward but you know I love what you said is getting comfortablewith failure

27:41

and make it part of the way you go about things love it Ikind I almost feel like

27:46

we should do that Damon like a check in where you say whatdid you do this week and part of it is like what mistakes did you make with theidea that like

27:53

hopefully you made some I like it and not just the same onesyou did last

27:58

better ones you know make better mistakes love it and notmake the same mistake all the time learn that LE from

28:06

that mistake I I always say keep making mistakes just don'tmake the same mistake all the time because then you're

28:12

not really learning so Kyle I think I've been trackingeverything I've been taking some notes but the one thing that I

28:18

don't have here is um so how much money do I need to retireuh one more dollar just one more

28:28

so uh yeah I'm I'm fond of saying that uh retirement isreally easy so here's

28:35

how it works you put in your two weeks notice and that's ityou're retired like

28:41

it is not hard to do yeah staying in retirement now that isthe tricky part

28:47

but as it turns out if you're willing to lower yourlifestyle enough you can make

28:53

it last so the other way I phrase that is what flavor of catfood do you

29:00

prefer because if you're if you're willing to go with FancyFeast like you could probably stay retired for a really

29:06

long time yeah by the wayle Kyle your name of the

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book your book is Legends don't retire and neither shouldyou it's kind of like an anti- retirement there you go there's

29:17

the book I could one Legend I know who would never retire ismy grandfather

29:22

Frank elmi yeah he went to the office at five days short of101 the day before he

29:30

passed away wow yeah he was an anti retirement it kept himalive that's epic

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so good and he was one guy but one you know one example ofthat but I didn't

29:44

want to let you off the show without giving you theopportunity to talk about your dad because uh I think that's one

29:50

area that you and I bonded is such a strong uh relationshipand learning from

29:57

our father so can you tell us the story about your dad I'dbe thrilled to so

30:03

let's see uh my father grew up in Kentucky that's actuallythe Bluegrass in

30:08

bluegrass and uh he was married to my mother for 50 yearswhich in and of itself he should have a statue in his

30:14

honor yeah she's a lovely woman she just she'll kill youwith kindness um and

30:20

grew up on a tobacco and dairy farm uh you know went uphillboth ways in the snow all that jazz uh met my mother the

30:28

University of Kentucky go Wildcats uh and really his lifewas all

30:33

about service he served in Vietnam uh he was a gospelMinister for 30 years he

30:39

served for five years uh in child protective services uh heled a summer

30:45

camp for uh youth for 20 years uh he was a soccer refereefor high school he he

30:52

gave and gave constantly whether it was an organization thatwould need a a

30:58

Treasurer or a secretary or something or you knowvolunteering everywhere you could imagine uh marriage and family

31:05

counseling constantly just constantly in service and he uh

31:11

retired and uh of course he was still super active uh but heuh he left the pull pit and within a few years uh was

31:19

diagnosed with Progressive super nuclear py or PSP uh it's aflavor of Parkinson's

31:28

and what it does is it robs you of your faculties over timeand so he started

31:34

shuffling he eventually needed a walker uh and then aweighted Walker and then

31:41

good days were Walker bad days were wheelchair uh and thenit was full-blown wheelchair and then it was catheter and

31:48

it was feeding tube and this was about a you know six toeight year progression depending on when you exactly Mark the

31:54

onset of symptoms uh and it it was brutal and so uh you knowthe time came

32:03

uh it was uh July 2018 uh he passed uh August 2018 uh wewere gonna have the

32:10

memorial service and my sisters and I I've got two oldersisters we were texting back and forth and uh we have

32:17

kind of a Gallows humor in my family uh we'll crack jokes atanything uh there's there's nothing that's safe and um it

32:24

was raining cats and dogs that day uh and one of my sisterssent a text uh and

32:31

it was a quote uh attributed originally to Arie Truman thatsays no matter how

32:36

rich or powerful you become the size of your funeral willpretty much depend on the weather and you know the idea being that

32:45

as much as you care about this person that you want to uhpay your respects to

32:50

you look outside and it's ugly and you go honey do we reallyneed to go I mean

32:57

we could send some flowers we could send him a card we'llcall the Family next week it'll be fine like everybody comes

33:04

up with an excuse for why they would need to go so it'sraining cats and dogs

33:10

and then you couple that with the fact that dad hasn't beenin the pull pit in 11 years he hasn't really been in a

33:17

position to go out and build any kind of connection orrelationship in

33:23

five and he hasn't been able to talk for over a year

33:28

I can scarcely remember anything that happened in my lifesix months ago in

33:34

terms of conversations I had or you know things I said ordid in people's lives

33:39

who's gonna actually remember yeah it was standing room

33:46

only yeah there were 300 people in the auditorium theycanceled vacations they

33:54

came from six different states and it was more in excess ofthree hours was the

34:01

ceremony and various people standing up to talk and personafter person shared

34:07

stories let me tell you what Robert gabart said to me 25years ago let me

34:13

tell you what he did in our life 14 years ago let me tellyou about how I was headed down this path but for your

34:21

dad I then went this direction and it's impacted my familyand it's impacted uh

34:27

the trajectory of of my community and everything around mewe were just

34:32

absolutely blessed and drowned with stories of the impactthat he'd made and

34:40

it was that day that I realized what Legacy actually meantand I didn't know what it looked

34:47

like or how I was going to do it but I was committed at thatpoint that I was going to begin living a legacy and

34:55

making an impact in people's lives in the same way that myfather that's a that's a beautiful story

35:02

and when I asked you earlier what does the what what doeslegacy mean that that's similar to what it means to me

35:09

you know just last week o over the weekend we were we haveso much stuff

35:14

we're trying to get rid of it so we my wife uh put on nextdoor whatever it's called Uh a bunch of chairs we wanted to

35:20

sell and uh the gentleman who uh responded said hey are youRel lby Walt

35:28

lby and um she said that's my uh husband's that's myfather-in-law passed away he's like oh I I worked with them

35:35

in the 70s or 80s I'd love to meet your son when uh when Ishow up to pick him

35:40

up and anyway so on Sunday this last Sunday he showed up topick up the

35:45

chairs and just like with your dad he shook my hand and thenhe told me a story about how my dad impacted his life

35:53

for the couple of years when he first got it started in realestate and that's the kind of legacy that I want to be

35:58

able to leave right and is that after you're gone or evenwhen you're still around whatever you know people can

36:04

share stories with in my case Wally and Lucy and and my mytwo children that uh

36:11

but what a great impact your father had and my dad as wellso it's so special

36:17

thank you for sharing that story my pleasure let's umbecause I I don't want

36:23

to a little bit of a pivot here because we don't want toleave without the opportunity to talk about the board game and for those of youwho are looking

36:31

online here you you might notice there's a little bit of anapocalyptic uh thing

36:36

going on behind super Kyle here he's got the apocalypticboard game and the cybertruck which is what you you need to

36:43

Tool around in probably a little a functional but smallcybertruck what's

36:48

the what's the board game how did this come into existenceand oh man um so

36:54

there's there's two versions of that story um one version isI get bored easily and

37:02

I like to take on new challenges and so you know the I and Ilove games uh

37:08

that's kind of my metaphor for life is that life is a gameand so that's why I

37:13

designed a board game uh the the second story that's alittle bit more raw uh is

37:20

that uh when I was 29 I was diagnosed with anoingspondilitis which is a

37:27

progressive degenerative spinal disease Jesus um I wentthrough multiple MDS

37:32

multiple MRIs chiropractors every shape form and fashion Icould to try to get

37:37

relief nothing worked uh eventually anmd gave me the the asdiagnosis was

37:43

actually in a wheelchair at the time when that happened umand then at the

37:49

same time a close friend from high school passed away fromleukemia and so I was just getting hit left right and

37:56

center and my outlet that I poured myself into was

38:01

designing this board game and Arctic scavengers has theexact same

38:09

acronym as an closing spondilitis wow so you did that inyour in your 20s

38:17

which were kind of apocalyptic really you had going on inyour 20s true good call yeah yeah uh and your winning

38:25

percentage with that game is pretty high right you know itis mostly because I don't tell everyone all the rules when

38:32

I'm introducing it I tell most of the rules and then as wego along I'm like oh another thing

38:39

is good yes H good well I look forward to to trying thatgame out that that sounds exciting the one other thing that

38:46

I wanted to to come back to that you mentioned the verybeginning because um this idea of debate I was you know we we

38:53

talk about debates and and a positive way to do it boast SEwas a recent

38:59

debate champion who wrote a book called good arguments andin in it he had an

39:05

interesting premise which is this idea that you can takewhat you learn to do

39:10

in classic debate which is really about winning but applysome of these lessons in a in a workplace setting but you need

39:18

to do it in a good way that's the idea of good argumentsbecause you can't just go into work with a goal of like winning

39:23

the argument you have to to to like Advance IDE ideastowards better Solutions and better problem solving so

39:31

can you give some advice to like how do you how do you howdo you create good arguments at work yep uh it I don't

39:40

think it no it doesn't show in my view but up on uh like twomore shelves higher than you can see there is a

39:48

cartoon cut out from the newspaper uh that my mother gave meuh when I was

39:54

probably 19 or 20 um and it uh it's about this kid who's ina debate and had

40:02

just gotten back from it and the you know person asked howdid you win the debate and he goes well I made the other

40:08

person cry and uh she thought it was really funny to givethat to me because

40:14

my very first debate tournament I had zero class I was justa brawler verbally

40:23

speaking and I actually did make one of the opponent's cryum in that particular

40:30

tournament I went undefeated and didn't make it to theelimination rounds because my speaker score was so low

40:39

because I was just knocked down drag out any way that Icould cut you to pieces I

40:45

would yeah and I think we Embrace that

40:50

type of mentality too often in the workplace environment ingeneral

40:56

irrespective of the debate so I think we've got to back itup to stop viewing

41:01

our professional lives as competitive and see them as

41:07

collaborative and then argumentation debate is a means bywhich we can

41:13

progress an idea hopefully get counter ideas and thenultimately arrive at a

41:19

better answer but we've got to be on the same side of thetable looking at the

41:24

problem rather than an oppos opp opposite sides of the tabletreating

41:29

each other as the problem it's great so much what you talkabout is having is

41:35

orienting around the right mindset and the right attitudewhether you're talking about your legacy or your finances or having a gooddebate um or

41:43

inventing board games probably too indeed uh a question aswe're wrapping

41:49

up here a question we like to ask people at the end this isa surprise question uh uh okay here we go I like good

41:55

surprise face there it is that's it um so we've got to

42:01

learn a bunch about you during the session what's somethingthat a lot of people don't know about you that they

42:06

might find surprising and yeah you could consider ouraudience just met you so maybe there are some there are some

42:12

folks out there that do know this about you but somethingthat a lot of people don't know and that they might find

42:18

surprising you can't use you can't use a story about gettingthrown in The Slammer because we we already already

42:23

got that one up I have I have and and my uh

42:31

uh my autoimmune disorder I can't mention that one either umso at the age of

42:36

19 I received a phenomenal gift that

42:42

required me to not exaggerating in danger life and

42:47

limb uh I went on a mission trip for a month in South Africaand Zimbabwe wow

42:56

and I spent 10 days in the bush in Zimbabwe traveling with anative

43:02

translator backpacking into remote Villages Just the Two ofUs carrying

43:08

gear on our backs pitching a tent sleeping on the

43:13

ground eating uh sza which is a staple

43:18

food it's kind of like a think of like a cornmeal they it'sreally Millie meal is

43:23

what they call it um but it's a staple food it's the thingthey have every day

43:29

um and it kind of has the consistency of uncooked breaddough when they're done

43:34

preparing it okay by day three in the bush the smell of sudamade me sick to

43:40

my stomach yeah so but I did have some beef jerky and I didhave some instant Cream of

43:46

Wheat packets in my gear so I would have them boil somewater for me and I would stir up some cream of wheat and I would

43:52

eat that sometimes but uh yeah it was absolutely phenomenaluh it totally

43:59

opened my eyes to what is a third world nation really likeconcept of poverty

44:05

the concept of community and relationship and the illusionof

44:12

self-sufficiency that we have in the west uh all was put ondisplay for me at the ripe old age of 19 that's

44:20

amazing well if you enjoyed that story you should read somemore in Legends

44:26

don't retire and neither should you because that book bookis chock full of stories and jokes by the way a lot of

44:32

jokes in there which I was appreciated Kyle I got a couplemore

44:37

questions yeah too before we finish up with the you know howto get a hold of you fire away so the the first question

44:44

is gonna be what's what's one thing you want to leave ouraudience with you know

44:50

um and then the second one is because I think you are such agreat Storyteller

44:55

and I know you're really um really like to do publicspeaking so the second

45:00

question is you you know what's like your target audienceand where do you think you'd be really successful

45:06

audience-- wise in like as far as a topic you're speakingabout you know so that anybody out there who's listening

45:13

you know can consider you as a speaker so what do you wantto leave our audience with yep and then what is like

45:19

your you know core idea or home run zone for a lack of abetter baseball term uh

45:25

as far as public speaking yeah no I I I appreciate both ofthose questions Damon so in terms of what I would want to

45:32

leave the audience with uh I it would really center aroundthis idea of

45:38

thinking about your legacy and the fact that you are writingit every day so the days are long but the years

45:48

are short and in my experience we have a tendency to takesomething as critical

45:55

as our Legacy and push it off to like

46:00

someday you know I'll get around to when I've got time andwe just kick it down

46:07

the road and down the road and we perceive that like sometheoretical future version of ourselves is going to

46:14

have this luxurious amount of time to now be able to depositinto the people

46:20

and the causes that we care about and because maybe we don'thave a giant pile of money or copious amount of spare time

46:27

we're like oh it's not worth doing anything right now I'lldo it later and so my encouragement would be to get

46:35

serious about living your legacy now even if

46:40

it's a small amount of money even it's a small amount oftime even if your opportunity to impact it isn't as great

46:46

as you'd like to be don't discount the benefits to yourselfand to others by

46:53

getting intentional with your legacy now so that would bethe message I would leave in terms of the public speaking

47:00

piece gosh I I have spoken to audiences of five and I'vespoken to over a

47:07

thousand um I did I was an MC last week for the LeukemiaLymphoma Society award

47:13

ceremony uh I've done a lot of after dinner talks I've donea lot of MC work

47:19

um but the thing I enjoy the most is when I've got anopportunity to uh

47:25

really speak to to a group uh that is motivated to challengetheir thinking uh

47:34

and interested in making a difference in their lives and andthe folks around

47:39

them and so that could be a Leadership Summit uh that mightbe an executive group uh in a company that's really

47:46

looking to invest in their people uh and actually at onepoint uh year and a half

47:52

ago uh it was a group of high schoolers so uh it's prettyBroad in terms of who

47:57

I'm willing to speak to but it's got to be improvers it'sgot to be World Changers uh it's got to be people that

48:03

aren't just looking to check a box uh but truly want to bethoughtful about

48:08

the impact they're making and how they can increase itthat's great and how do those people get in touch with you oh

48:15

wonderful so the easiest way would be Kyle gabh har.com andthat's set up kind of a simple

48:23

landing page that goes to all the things uh I do hang out alot on LinkedIn um

48:29

and there is a cigar bar near my house here in Keller that Igo to quite a bit so that's another viable option good so

48:36

online or just in person head to the cigar bar and uh youknow maybe maybe you'll get lucky uh Kyle thank you so

48:44

much for joining us today so many great things to to learnand talk about thank you for bringing the stories and the

48:49

humor thank you for bringing your game to this conversationyou're great Kyle

48:55

super Kyle yeah thank you guys it's been an absolutepleasure you guys have make

49:00

it easy I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your questions Iappreciate your emphasis on learning and having a growth

49:07

mindset uh and we need more of that in the world absolutelyall right well thanks everyone terrific episode talk to

49:14

you soon

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