Finding Fulfillment: Community and Perseverance with Kelly Schols

What if facing tough tasks head-on could be the key to long-term success and fulfilment? In this episode of the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast, we welcome Kelly Schols, a seasoned entrepreneur and motivational speaker who reveals how starting in the plumbing business at just 16 years old taught him invaluable lessons about work ethic and perseverance. Kelly's memorable quote, "A little shit now would mean less shit later," encapsulates the essence of tackling challenging jobs early on to pave the way for future success.

Moving beyond his beginnings, Kelly recounts his journey from a small town in Skagit County to the bustling environment of Southern California. He discusses how the unwavering support of a mentor and the constant encouragement from his best friend Pete helped him navigate numerous career trials and ultimately find his true calling in the plumbing industry. Kelly shares heartwarming stories of pivotal relationships, illustrating the importance of a reliable support system in overcoming life's obstacles.

We also explore the deep impact of mentorship and community support on personal and professional growth. Kelly opens up about raising funds for a cardiac rehab center in honor of his late wife and shares valuable lessons learned through fatherhood and entrepreneurship. From balancing business and family life to fostering a culture of continuous learning and self-improvement, this episode is packed with insights and heartfelt stories that underscore the transformative power of hard work, support, and perseverance. Join us for an inspiring conversation that will leave you motivated to pursue your own path to everlasting fulfilment.

#Podcast #Perseverance #CommunitySupport

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:03 From Humble Beginnings to Success
• 9:46 Finding Support and Belief in Friends
• 15:10 From Mentor to Marathon
• 21:50 Fatherhood Lessons Learned Through Entrepreneurship
• 35:16 Empowering Others Through Personal Development

Transcript

Kelly: 0:03

The further you get away from what you truly know, the least amount of money you're going to make. So find what you're good at, focus on that and build that and stay with it and you're going to end up making a lot of money and be as long as you're the best at what you do. It's so simple, it is. It is.

Nico: 0:27

It is, and that's the crazy thing about it. Sometimes these things are so really simple, but we complicate them ourselves, yeah, so let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment.

Nico: 1:14

Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, kelly Scholz. Hailing from humble roots in small town, washington, washington author, kelly Schultz started with no more than a high school diploma and a loyal mentor. He worked his way up the ladder, building a dependable team, a multi-million dollar business, a strong family and investment portfolio and the reputation of a giving community leader portfolio and the reputation of a giving community leader. Kelly sold his business, cpi in 2019 to focus on inspirational speaking and coaching, with the goal to give hope and help to as many people as possible. Kelly, welcome to the show. I have been looking forward to our conversations for quite a while.

Kelly: 2:05

Thank you, Nico. I appreciate it. I been looking forward to our conversations for quite a while.

Nico: 2:08

Thank you, Nico. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to it as well, yeah.

Kelly: 2:10

I read your book we talked in the green room.

Nico: 2:12

I read your book and first of all I love the title.

Kelly: 2:15

Never Buy the Book and my wife was looking at it Doesn't mean I don't want people to buy it.

Nico: 2:23

Yeah, never pass by this book. Maybe that's a good idea. No, I would actually tenfold recommend this book to all the listeners because it has such a beautiful. Your storytelling is amazing and when you finish it off with these 10 renegade laws, I was like, yeah, it quite literally builds up to that and then you get, you know, really clear. You have this and this. But I mentioned before I'm going to ask the question I love one quote in this book, in your book, not just this book, your book and that quote is a little shit now would mean less shit later. Tell us about that, tell us the story.

Kelly: 3:09

You have to tell us the story. Some people still think I'm a little shit, but when I was first in the plumbing business, when I first got into it at 16 years old, I went to work for my girlfriend's dad who owned a plumbing business and he had a partner and the partner's name was Steve Olson, and Steve didn't like me very well. At 16 years old I thought I had life figured out. I was cocky, young punk kid that thought I had everything figured out. I go to work for him at 16. In the first month I'm there I total total a vehicle. Not only am I the partner's daughter's boyfriend, but I total a vehicle.

Kelly: 3:50

In the first month Steve didn't take very kind liking to me and tried to do everything he could to get me to quit. Of course he couldn't fire me because the other partner was the majority owner and he liked me and I was dating his daughter. We had a job at a local hospital and the sewer line had been broken underneath it for a year, dumping raw sewer underneath it. They needed somebody to go in there and spread lime to kill the all the bacteria and the smell and then to help the plumber fix it. So I got got the opportunity to do that and a lot of people say the opportunity is like yeah, who wants to crawl underneath the hospital?

Kelly: 4:32

And it was during the summer, the middle of August it was probably 90 degrees outside, so it was probably 120 in the crawl space. But back then they didn't have Tyvek suits or anything. So I put on hip waders and then rain pants and I duct tape that together. And I put on hip waders and then rain pants and I duct tape that together and I had a raincoat with glove, rubber gloves and duct tape that a respirator. I probably lost 15, 20 pounds that week that I was under there doing that.

Kelly: 4:58

And it's ironic because a couple of months before my ex-partner and mentor passed away, I was visiting with him. And he goes why did you ever do that job? And I go, steve, I go number one, I go, you paid me for it and I go number two. It was a workout. I said you paid me to work out and really that little bit of shit that I dealt with brought me to where I am today, because if I wouldn't have done that job it's a good kid, he has a work ethic that I don't see in a lot of people and I literally I would not be where I'm at today. But little shit then means less shit later.

Nico: 5:44

It is an amazing story. I cannot imagine what you did. It's one thing, I've got a mild case of claustrophobia and I worked in crawl spaces. Yeah, I was a telecom technician and we had these amazing guys who connected the wiring from the street into the house. But when they did it before the house was actually completely built, they sometimes put it in the crawl space, and I had one customer where the crawl space was like about half a meter high, which is you just move your body a little bit, but not that much.

Nico: 6:18

But you had to connect wires as well. So I was crawling in there sideways and I was claustrophobic. And when I came out, the guy who was in, the owner looked at me and he said you actually went in there. I'm like, yeah, you don't know what's in there. I didn't know. I just put mine on zero and just go right ahead and stayed in there for 15 minutes and after that I was like I'm not, no, never again.

Kelly: 6:47

No possible way was like I'm not, no, never again, never again. Well, and I'll say over the years because by the time I was 24 I never worked with the tools again and that that's a. That was a good thing, steve, having me do that job I there was one summer I was on a 90 pound rotor hammer the whole summer. At the time I weighed 135 pounds. Then, when I was was in Southern California, I'd go into crawl spaces because I was doing plumbing down there as well, along with tried multiple other things.

Kelly: 7:11

But I hate snakes and rodents. I freak out about that. When I was down there I ran into snakes and rodents more than once and it's. You know, I need to get my shit together. I need to figure life out, because I don't want to keep doing this for the rest of my life. I think when I was younger I bucked hay. I bucked hay bales, I worked in the cucumber fields. I've done all sorts of manual labor and different things and it's not easy work and I think all kids should have to do that so they can figure out what they want to do in life.

Kelly: 7:51

I still love working with my hands, I love doing projects, but if I would have done that for a living, because I do have a hereditary bad lower back. I've had degenerative disc disease since I was 16 years old. The doctors told me by the time I was 30, I'd have back surgery. I'm 59. I've still never had it. One of the things the doctor told me at 16 is choose your career wisely. If I would have kept going as a plumber, I'd probably be handicapped or had surgeries or whatever. But because I got the opportunity to learn the trade and I had somebody that took me under their wing, I was a sponge. I wanted to learn everything I could because I didn't want to keep crawling underneath houses. Because I didn't want to keep crawling underneath houses because I didn't want to keep dealing with shit.

Nico: 8:47

That's one of the things that I found very interesting about your life, and so you really had a pretty hard time when you were younger challenging times and so on but then you went off to a totally different place doing something totally different. You were going for a car salesman. What came to mind to even do that? From plumbing to calls car sales salesman?

Kelly: 9:09

there's not many tubes in there so I'm the youngest of three boys and, believe it or not, you read that. You read my book. Believe it or not, I'm the calm, mellow one of the three of us, oh my goodness. Yeah, but yeah, my middle brother. He was in the car business and still is, to this day, very successful. He's probably one of the most successful at running Toyota dealerships anywhere in the country. He runs two Toyota dealerships down in Tampa Bay now that are massive dealerships and he was living down there and he was selling cars. And he was living down there and he was selling cars.

Kelly: 9:46

So I'd never been out of Skagit County. Skagit County is a little tiny farming and logging community 60 miles north of Seattle. Never been out of here and I decided, 21 years old, southern California, here I come. So moved down there and started selling cars with him for a while. That didn't work out, so I ended up. I lived with him for a while and then I met a buddy that was working at the dealership. We moved in together and then we moved from. We were in the thousand oaks area, which is north of la. We ended up moving down to Orange County, which, when you're 20, by now I'm 22, 23 years old. You get down there and it's partying and women, yeah. So yeah, and I didn't want to get back into the plumbing industry. I wanted to try different things, so I did. I tried all sorts of things. I mean, I even sold perfume door to door, onedoor one time okay, you smell nice probably yeah so, but the plumbing industry kept drawing me back.

Kelly: 10:53

It just kept drawing me back and drawing me back.

Nico: 10:57

So after yeah, that's one of the things that I found so funny, that you're very stubborn. Yeah, how many times did he actually ask?

Kelly: 11:06

you to come back. He got ahold of me after I was down there. After about six months he got ahold of me and he called me every month for two and a half years.

Nico: 11:16

That's tenacity, that's really yeah. So he must've indeed saw a lot in you to keep on going. Final decision.

Kelly: 11:25

That was part of our conversation too, before he passed away is why? Why did you keep calling me and he? He's just like his wife, actually, and I still I'm close to his wife, I've known her forever. She always when he was doing that. Why do you want him back? Why do you want him, he? Why do you want him? He's just a punk kid. The first year I came back, they made more money that year than they'd ever made in their lives.

Nico: 11:50

Okay.

Kelly: 11:52

And he's now. You see why I wanted him back. Got you there, yeah. And our conversation that day was very emotional. Didn't know he was going to die a few months later but he didn't end up passing away a few months later from a surgery he had. It was very emotional. We talked about all the good times. We had all the hard times. We had talked about saving each other's lives because he was so driven and worked so hard that he knew he couldn't keep that pace up by himself. And I was on a path to prisoner death at that point in my life.

Nico: 12:36

It's something. I understand what you mean. It's when you're somebody that is so important in your life and you have that conversation and really go into the depth of what the effect has been of that person in your life. It's so important. I had a best friend and he actually died the year that my youngest son was born.

Nico: 13:01

A couple, of months earlier and this guy just is, is. He was always there and I didn't have to do anything special or anything like that. I didn't have to make appointments to meet him or go out with him or whatever it was like. His name was peter and I was like, oh, pete, what are we doing? Oh, we're gaming tonight. Okay, fine, yeah, I was at home. He was at home, we were just online gaming. And then the day later, oh, let's have a drink, okay, let's go out. And there was no, and there was no plan or whatever. And he was on the spot on. And then a couple of months we didn't hear from each other. And then we just came back and I had an issue. I just called him and said, pete, I got this, what are we going to do? And he's, okay, come over. And we talked for the whole night, a couple of beers. We never got really drunk because that was not our style but the guy had.

Nico: 13:46

He's the first entrepreneur I ever met. He was really young. I think he was 22, he was a little bit older than I was at the time. I only started my job and so on, and he was a guy who was pushing me towards. You have to become an entrepreneur, you have to do your own thing and that, and he really simply started his company as an IT guy supporting other companies. But every time I called him he was there and I have missed him for the past 12 years because I haven't had anybody who I can really say that gave me the same vibe. You've got a couple of friends that you call them and they'll probably help you, but this guy was just there. Whatever I don't care, whatever time, whatever day, he's there and he believed in me and that was something that I lost. Now I have that in my partner very much, but it's a different kind of belief. It is yeah.

Kelly: 14:40

And I lost that when Steve passed away. But I have people that cover certain areas, so instead of having one person you can turn to for everything, I have three or four people. If I want to talk about finances, I can turn to this person If I want to talk about relationships. I can turn to this person.

Nico: 15:07

That's a big thing is having those people that you can turn to to to talk about that. Get it off your chest and just let it go, absolutely yeah. So you always had your mentor within the company for quite a long time and you were always able to talk to him about all these things company only, or was this also even private stuff and stuff like that?

Kelly: 15:29

Well, up until he retired and sold out, we would talk about and discuss everything. Him and his wife they were married till the day he passed away, and just you want to see a couple that were totally in love. So it was really neat to see that. But yeah, we talked about he'd talk about his personal finances with me me, as a matter of fact. Not only did I end up buying the business from him, but I ended up buying the building from him and four other rental properties from him. I bought almost everything he had yeah, I read that.

Nico: 15:58

I was like okay, so you first built his business up to a very high standard let's put it that way and then you bought him out because he wanted to retire. And then you actually bought everything that was surrounded by that as well, so it always astonishes me. I'm not at that point at all. I have my own house. My office is in the backyard. We just reconstructed our garage into a complete office. My wife is in the same room so I can throw rulers at her.

Nico: 16:29

Usually they come back, but anyway she's not here, otherwise you know stuff. But the steps you took gave me I'm going to put it this way you took your time and you really thought about these things and I've seen people take action out of the blue and that really hitting the wall, running, let's say. And how did you even find the patience sometimes to take these decisions, really calculated and slowly?

Kelly: 17:03

I got a little phrase that I use all the time, and it's pay attention to your needs now and you can have what you want later.

Nico: 17:13

Oh, that's a nice one.

Kelly: 17:15

If you're patient, if you're resilient, if you stick with it, you're going to get where you want to go. And I learned at a young age. I mean, I tried stuff, I lost money. I tried multi-level marketing and different things and lost money. But a wise man once told me and that wise man was Steve, my mentor. He told me he says the further you get away from what you know, the least money you're going to make, even if the returns and I've done that, I've passed up returns that are enormous, but it's no, I'm not comfortable with it, I don't understand it, I don't know about it, so I'm not going to do it. And then they want to add this on, they want to add this on, they want to add all these different things on. The further you get away from what you truly know, the so find what you're good at, focus on that and build that and stay with it, and you're gonna end up making a lot of money and be, as long as you're, the best at what you do.

Nico: 18:21

It's so simple, it is yeah, it is, and that's that's the. That's the crazy thing about it. Sometimes these things are so really simple, but we complicate them ourselves. Yeah, so at this point, you're taking your time on more of the speaker, the inspirational speaking, and you're still doing the hike, aren't you? You're still planning those.

Kelly: 18:44

No, that's done, yeah. Okay, I just hike for pleasure now.

Nico: 18:49

Okay, not seven-hour drill downs. So tell the listeners about that one, because I find it very inspiring what you did with that one, especially with your own situation going on in the meantime, because that also had a big influence on it.

Kelly: 19:02

Yeah, so my wife passed away in 2012 from an unexpected heart condition heart condition and the local hospital was getting ready to redo a cardiac rehab center. And a buddy of mine he's really extreme. I'm extreme, but when it comes to doing athletic stuff and sports stuff and adrenaline, he's one of those typical adrenaline junkies, although he takes his risk very calculated. So he was talking about doing this hike in a local mountain range where we're at. It's called the Chuckin' it Mountain Range. It ties all the way, basically from Skagit County to Whatcom County, which is about a 40-mile distance, and there's mountains and there's seven different lakes up there. And he goes, hey, let's go hike those seven lakes and we'll connect them all. We'll do it all in one day. And I'm like, yeah, you're crazy, whatever. And he kept talking about it and talking about it. He was on the board of the hospital, the foundation, and they kept hearing him talking about it and talking about it. He was on the board of the hospital, the foundation. They kept hearing him talk about it. They go, hey, will you use that as a kickoff for the cardiac rehab center, because you're going to be doing exercise and all that. He came to me and another buddy and hey, what do you guys think about this? We're like sure the director of the hospital board knew me and she called me up and she said I know you and Kevin have been talking about doing this hike and you've agreed to use it as a kickoff for the cardiac rehab center.

Kelly: 20:42

But what would you think about raising money to name the cardiac rehab center after your wife or after your wife? And I went huh, I said okay, how much is it? She told me, and I said, well, let me talk to my daughters and then I'll get back to you. So I went and talked to the daughters, talked to a bunch of friends, and so it was a hundred thousand dollars and she gave us five years to pay for it. So I talked to them and everybody said, yeah, we're on board. So I said, all right, let's do it. So that's when we started going around and raising money for it. So it was a hundred thousand dollars, we had five years to pay it off and in three years we raised $144,000. That's amazing.

Nico: 21:27

Yeah, that's amazing, not only the money that you raised, but the hike you did. Yeah.

Kelly: 21:36

It was called Slish, which is seven lakes in seven hours. So it was a little over about 26 and a half miles, so almost a marathon. That we did in seven hours. That we did in seven hours. So the first year we did it. It was just Kevin, who's the one that came up with the idea myself, and another one of my best friends and then a friend of Kevin's, who's part of Search and Rescue, where they go out and rescue people they get lost in hikes and then Kevin's youngest daughter, who's more extreme than he is when it comes to that stuff. Just the five of us did it the first time.

Kelly: 22:16

About halfway through we turn a corner and they're logging it and this is the one area that they'd only been to once. So Kevin and Todd had gone up and set stuff up. So then we're hiking it and we come into this logging area and we get lost. We're lost for an hour and a half. We finally get back on the trail after going through stinging nettles and ferns and everything. We get back on the trail and we look at our watch and Kevin goes. We're not going to make it.

Kelly: 22:50

And that year, that first year, we raised $43,000. And we had all sorts of people wanting to come and do it with us. We're like no, we're doing it ourselves this first year and then we'll see how it goes. We get off that, get back on the trail and, kevin, we're not going to make it. I said bullshit. I said we took people's money and we said we were gonna make it in seven hours. We're gonna make it. We ended up running half of it. We got done. We were scratched, stinging nettles from head to toe, just beat up, but we made it in under seven hours it's just so amazing.

Kelly: 23:31

Congratulations even after so many years.

Nico: 23:34

It's one of the passages that I also love in the book about how that started, especially for your late wife and the whole story for raising the money and now what you're telling me you're actually overshot the target even. It's so nice. So how are your daughters these days, because they've grown after all these years and have you going to gone through all those things? How's their story going, with who you are and what you've done and your wife passing? And, if I remember correctly, last time we talked you were really close to jumping into the second boat, if I understood yeah, congratulations, by the way, thank you.

Kelly: 24:10

Yeah, I just got married on july. 3rdughters absolutely love her to death. All my friends love her to death and of course, I love her to death. But amazing lady. But the daughters are doing absolutely amazing. My oldest is married. She lives in West Seattle with her husband. They're doing incredible work. I'm hoping she'll give me grandkids pretty soon, no pressure, they're doing incredible work. I'm hoping she'll give me, grandkids pretty soon.

Kelly: 24:40

No pressure, no pressure. I can't ask her about it. The last time I asked her about it, she told me to worry about my own womb and not hers.

Nico: 24:44

I said okay, you know, I'll put it in the show notes. Uh, look at the second to 27 27, yeah so.

Kelly: 24:53

But yeah, amazing, they have a beautiful home down there. Uh, he works for a company out of seattle and does really well. He just actually finished his master's sunday, yeah, and she's in marketing branding and she started her own company. She's just plugging along at it. She's not quite the entrepreneur my youngest daughter is, but she'll do fine. My youngest daughter lives in Nashville, tennessee, and she's quite the entrepreneur. She's a real estate agent. She already started a business with a partner, sold it to her partner. Now she's in the process of getting ready to launch her second business. Wow.

Nico: 25:35

Okay.

Kelly: 25:36

What age are they now? 27 and 29.

Nico: 25:40

Wow, yeah, that's, I was still driving around for other people, that's cool. But yeah, of course you're an example and they'd probably pull your leg sometimes and say, dad, what do we do with this?

Kelly: 25:53

My youngest daughter and I talk almost every day. We're best friends and she'll call and talk to me about everything business, relationships, finance, life. The oldest daughter and I our personalities are too much alike Love her to death. We talk once a week or so but we don't have the deep connection like I do with my youngest daughter just because of our personalities. She's my oldest daughter. She's about as stubborn, if not more stubborn, than I am. That's saying something.

Nico: 26:30

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's saying something. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, because the reason why I ask is because, of course, you've gone, three of you gone through this whole story and so on. For them, you, as being the entrepreneur, building a business, growing everything, all those decisions, all those steps that you took, they must have gone in in, they were not on the sidelines, they lived with you on all those things. How does that, as a father, do you do? I don't know how to ask a question, but I'm a father myself. I got two, two young boys, 14 and 12, and I'm always wondering how does, after so many years, how do you look back at your children and what you did while you were entrepreneur and taking a lot of time with your business?

Kelly: 27:14

A couple different things. Number one is you have to teach your children tough love. People are afraid to do that anymore, so you asked and.

Kelly: 27:27

I'm going to skip around here a little bit, but you asked earlier about the wife and not knowing what she passed away from. All I can tell my daughters is she passed away from having too big a heart. My wife was the type of person that would not tell anybody no, and she lived with a lot of stress and anxiety. And I can tell you stress and anxiety will kill you because it killed my wife. When I was talking to the cardiologist, when he was telling me he didn't have any diagnosis, I said don't worry about it. He said what do you mean? I go. I know what she passed away from. He goes what I go. She passed away from stress and anxiety. He goes. Her heart didn't show that I go, it doesn't matter, you didn't live with her. He goes. Her heart didn't show that I go, it doesn't matter, you didn't live with her, I did, literally.

Kelly: 28:27

My wife was the type of person that would do anything for everybody at any time. Kids like that, they're going to get entitled. After she passed away I was like I can't do this, girls, and I put down the hammer Now not as much as I had it when I was young, but I still put down the hammer. They had to earn things, they had to keep a budget, they had to track things when it came to finances, but then they also opportunities, like when my oldest was a junior in college. That's one thing the wife and I did is we saved up money to make sure that they could go to college and be paid for and when they got out of college they'd be debt free. That was something that my wife and I did, and when they got out of college they'd be debt-free. That was something that my wife and I did and we were able to fulfill that. Unfortunately, the wife was never around to see that, but it happened.

Kelly: 29:20

But during college my oldest came to me and said hey, dad, can I go volunteer this summer? And I'm like sure, what is it? She goes. I want to go to Africa. There's a program that's called the GIVE program out of seattle. There's a program where you can go to africa, volunteer for 10 days, then do a safari and then, if I want, there's an add-on, I can go hike mount kilimanjaro, like sure, how much is it? And it was 5500 for everything and thinking, okay, this will be a good experience for her. She did that. Same year my youngest went to Honduras with a group of people she knew and volunteered in Honduras and she was with people from our community. Two years later my youngest came to me and she says, hey, dad, I want to go do what Alyssa did in Africa. And I said, okay, she goes, but I'm not going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro because my oldest did it. I'd never hiked before. I went and climbed Kilimanjaro. Ask her if she wants to go hiking nowadays Not too much.

Kelly: 30:33

But my youngest, even when she was really young, had separation anxiety Before the wife passed away. We actually went to counseling for separation anxiety for my youngest and for my wife when she was getting ready to go on the trip to Africa. I actually was flying out the same day to go to Colorado, so I was able to walk her to the gate and watch her get on the airplane. And as we're walking there she starts crying and she goes Dad, I can't do this, I go. What do you mean? I don't know anybody. I don't know what I'm going to do. I said I don't care, I paid for it. You said you want to get your ass on that plane.

Kelly: 31:20

The minute she got out of sight, I lost it. That's called tough love and parents are too afraid to do that to their kids. But I'll tell you what. There's two things that she'll talk about. And I made her do it a couple of years earlier when she wanted to go to Young Life Camp. It was the same thing Last minute. She didn't want to go and I said I don't care where you're going. She tells me, those two things change her life forever, and it's living in Nashville, travels the world, entrepreneur, starting her second business. Pushing your kids to do things and not enabling them will make them be successful adults. And it's the same thing when it comes to business Are you helping your employees or are you enabling them?

Nico: 32:08

and there's a fine line there yeah, that's true, that's absolutely yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good to hear what you're saying. For me personally, I'm also the dad with the tough love story. To give you an example, and it's really something I would if somebody else would have heard it. It would be mundane. When your kids have drawings and stuff like that that they make in kindergarten, you can collect these in your attic for years but never actually look at them anymore. And at some point we were cleaning up the attic and, yeah, my wife kept a couple of them. But then she said, let's pick, let's take pictures and we'll probably make a book out of it later on. But I was crying when I was going back to the backyard and throwing these drawings into bucket because it's yeah, you can't keep everything of your children. You can't. Just, it's not possible. And the same thing with we love Legos. I've got a lot of Legos. I'm in another office now but normally last time we spoke you saw the AT&T and so on in the back. Still need to find a way to get it in here. But I really have my corner and I think that's going to work. But they're 14 and 12 now. Playing with Legos is not their main priority.

Nico: 33:27

I love playing on computers and stuff like that and a couple of months ago my wife was really, they see, she searched out all the little parts and collected them together, put them the manual in there and then got that ready to ship out to sell somebody. And it's the same thing. I was like, okay, so these are things that they give up. But there's a little bit of memory in each of those items because I saw them build those and play with those and so on. And my kids were like, yeah, I don't want to play with those anymore. And I said at some point I said there are some sets that we are not going to sell. What are we going to do? Blah, blah, blah. They were protesting. So it's the reverse where the kids would ask for something. I was saying, no, you're keeping those. And now, months later, the oldest one was saying, oh, I'm so happy we kept a couple of those. Yeah, there you go.

Nico: 34:18

These are the things that we need to do as a parent be tough sometimes. I think of other things that they don't like at the point and so on. And and yeah, I completely understand what you mean and it's a balance. Of course, sometimes when they're in trouble, you hold them in your arms and take them into comfort, but other times you have to smack them on the bottom and just think, yeah, they need this, right, but, like you said, with your team once you're in business. It's the same story. I've had people and my listeners have heard me tell this story a couple of times, so I'm going to make it short but I've had situations where I saw people running into walls. Basically, you were seeing them making mistakes, but you had to leave them, do it, or let them do it, because you knew on the other side, that spark in the eyes and the realization is very important. Yeah, now you've been in business many years and you've done amazingly successful things. What's your secret ingredient when it comes down to teams and your team that you built?

Kelly: 35:23

a couple things I like to say. Steve was a great mentor and friend and business partner of mine for years. My brother that is in the car business has been a great mentor of mine and actually my oldest brother too, just different ways. My oldest brother his work ethic is unbelievable and so is my middle brother, but the business mindset of my middle brother is off the wall. Steve same way, and I had a lot of people help me along the way.

Kelly: 35:55

I learned early on I won't say early on in my mid-30s about personal development and anytime I ran into something I always turned and looked at myself whether it was in the business family, when the wife passed away, did some business issues, when I bought Steve out as a partner, turned, looked at myself and said what can I do to improve as a person to help my business? And every time I did personal development and looked in the mirror, my business would grow and be more successful. So with that, I wanted to do the same thing with my employees. I wanted to make sure that I was giving back and helping them be better people not just better employees, but better people so they're better for their family, for their wives, kids, husbands, whatever it is. So we did a lot of training at my company. We did minimum three days a week up to five days a week. That's awesome. And when you think of a plumbing service-based company doing that much training, people are like what A plumbing company? Yeah, one day was specific to personal development, one day was specific to just operations and one day would be specific to customer service and sales training and then, depending on what we had going on, we'd have two days of technical training. We did that for years and years.

Kelly: 37:36

And to see the stories of ex-employees, I just saw one this week I went to a wholesale house because I'm getting ready to remodel and I was wanting to buy some plumbing fixtures. One of my ex-employees was there and we were talking about it and he ended up leaving after about 10 years and went to work for another one of my employees that started a company and he was talking about it and he was just talking about everybody in the Valley who owns companies and how we set the gold standard for everybody that's out there because of the training that we did for everybody. And he even told me because he was one of our warehouse guys and he was pretty involved in a lot of stuff. But he told me he goes, kelly, he goes.

Kelly: 38:23

Sometimes you guys would hire somebody and I just shake my head and go what are they doing with this guy? I can't believe they hired this guy here. He goes a year, two years later he'd go. Holy crap. They turned him around and you know what? That's the opportunity I got. You know what that's the opportunity I got. So, and you know, when you're in the home service industries or you're in any sort of technical or blue collar, you're a fixer. You think you can fix everybody and everything. A lot of times and I did that too I'd hold on to people too long because I thought I could fix them. But I learned that I'm going to continually set the toolbox down. I'm going to continually train people. I'm going to continually coach them. I'm going to continually help them as long as they're willing to pick the toolbox up. When they're willing to stop is when you have to stop, because you can't want it more than they do.

Nico: 39:33

That's very what you're saying, that you're actually not forcing anyone. You're guiding them and you're actually giving them the platform, the possibilities, the opportunities. But you're not the one who expects a result in a way that they are pushed or anything like that. And I think if I look at companies these days and I am, I'm in the educationally training environments of a couple of corporate environments. Yeah, they give training and they expect something from someone. And even today I had a conversation with somebody the team lead actually that I am managing. But of course, when you're external, you're not allowed to manage people's trade and stuff like that law or whatever. But the people look up at me and they ask me questions about how do I approach this and that.

Nico: 40:24

And she was talking about soft skills. The organization plans a lot of soft skills and when they come down to, for instance, assertiveness, learning to say no, she says they think they got one day of training, learning how to be more assertive and everybody's like that. And it took me four years, she said, and I learned a big part. But when I came in your team, I really learned to say no and I said no a lot to you and I said and I accepted every no that you gave me, because I know why you said no. Yeah, and she says the difference there is that in a training you get the theory, you get the basics, this and that, but unless you find somebody who actually challenges you and you're allowed to challenge back, that's the moment where you actually start learning.

Nico: 41:11

That's when you start learning, yeah, Sometimes the insights of my team are just amazing. I love them very much because they put me in my spot at some point and I love that, and I especially do it for that as well. I'm the annoying manager, but they're as annoying as I am.

Nico: 41:26

So do it for that as well, I'm the annoying manager, but they're as annoying as I am, so that works in balance. But yeah, indeed, and one of the teammates wanted to do a time management training as well and I said, okay, you go do the training and they'll really start talking time management, because you cannot manage time, you can only manage your choices. I just said take that with you to training. That's the first sentence. You're still the trainer. I'm still expecting what comes out of that. We'll see.

Kelly: 41:56

That's the thing. You've got to put the tools down. You've got to give them the information, show them the way, and then they have to pick it up. It's the same type of thing I type of approach I took with my kids is here's the information, here's what I, what you should do or how you should do it. Now it's up to you to do it. And I learned something. I learned this from another friend after the wife passed away.

Kelly: 42:24

I'd ask the girls to do something and they'd get all shitty with me and I don't want to do that. After a while I was talking to this guy and he had two sons about the same age as my daughters and I'm like God, my girls. Every time I ask them to do something, we butt heads, we get in a fight, it's this and that he goes. I never ask my kids to do anything. I go. What he goes? No, he goes. I just write it on a post-it note and put it on the fridge and it gets done. I'm like huh, he goes. Yeah, just write it on a post-it note.

Kelly: 43:04

When it comes to kids, it doesn't matter how you say it. It comes across as you're directing them or telling them what to do. I'd even hey, alyssa, will you take the garbage out please, before the end of the day? Why'd you ask me like that? It's like oh, I'm sorry. Right From that moment forward I never asked my girls to do anything. I would write on a post-it note, I'd put it on the fridge and I'd write please take the garbage out. Love Dad, please put the dishes away. Love Dad, please do this. Love Dad, everything would get done.

Nico: 43:37

I'm going to try that. I'm really going to try. That's a great tip. I'm really going to try. That's a great tip.

Kelly: 43:43

Wow. So I took it another step at my business. Every single paycheck I signed I would take and I use the smaller ones, this size, and I would write thank you for all you do, great job this week. Just one little tiny sentence and Kelly and I put it on their paycheck. Every single employee I had employees. I've had employees come back to me 10 years and show me the little note I put in there.

Nico: 44:22

It's the details, it's really in the details, yeah, and it's the amount of love that you actually show in that way yeah, because I want everybody to succeed.

Kelly: 44:33

I want all my employees to succeed. I want their families to succeed. There's enough for everybody to go around and if we share and we help each other, everybody can be prosperous kelly, I really love talking to you.

Nico: 44:54

I think we could go on for hours noticed last time as well but I want to ask you yeah, one more thing what's the message that you really want to put out there while you're on the show right now to inspire listeners?

Kelly: 45:09

I would say one of the best things you can do for yourself and anybody out there is look in the mirror. There's too much blame. There's too much blaming other people, pointing the fingers at people. If you look in the mirror, take full responsibility for every action, everything you do, you will become a better person and you will make everybody else around you better as well.

Nico: 45:55

Thank you, you're welcome. Thank you, oh, you're welcome as well, absolutely so. Thank you very much, kelly, for taking your time out of your life. It's one of the most precious things it is time. And thank you for writing your book. I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to read it, and you're a very inspirational person and I would tell the listeners to contact you for your inspirational speaking, because I think you have so much to offer in simplicity of certain things by your experience in all these years. It's just to me it's a little bit of a pity that that we're so far apart, because I think I would be one of the people that actually would drive over to your house on a saturday and say, kelly, let's have a drink, let's talk business or let's talk private stuff or whatever it's it's so much fun to talk to you and I think, if you're open to it, I would re-invite you to the show a little bit later.

Nico: 46:50

Yeah, absolutely Great Would love it For the listeners. How do they reach out to you and what can they reach out?

Kelly: 46:58

for Really simple. Kellyscholes K-E-L-L-Y-S-C-H-O-L-Scom is my website. They can email me at kelly at kellyscholescom. I like to keep things simple, yes you do Yep. Great, the KISS method right. Keep it simple, stupid. Yes.

Nico: 47:25

Yeah, you don't have to put on any makeup for that one, nope. So thank you very much, kelly.

Kelly: 47:32

You bet. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Nico: 47:35

Likewise Thank you listeners for listening again to your amazing show today with Kelly Schultz. Have a great one, everybody, and remember to jump from your head to your heart. Feel the beat within. Have a great one, everybody, and remember to jump from your head to your heart. Feel the beat within. Have a great one. Bye-bye.