Joe: Hey, Joe here, REI in your car. Hope you're doing awesome. Had a great day today. You know, I have a friend. His name is Shaun McCloskey, if you've never heard of him. Really good guy. I met him a long time ago back in 2007. Maybe I was getting into real estate, going to local real estate clubs here in Saint Louis, and he was one of the featured speakers or guest speakers at some of them talking about short sales. I wanted to get into real estate investing, so my wife got her real estate license. We needed some place to hang it. And so I asked people around the investing community who would be a good broker to help my wife hang her license with. And Shaun McCloskey had a little brokerage, I think it was called Property Match. Yeah, Property Match Realty. And him and his wife Jenny were running that. And so I asked him if my wife could hang her license with him so I could do the investing side of things. And they started I think they were having monthly meetings and I would go to those workshops, little things he had at his office, man, I was like a sponge, just soaking in everything I could learn. Spent a lot of time talking to Shaun about deals. Didn't know it at the time, but now I would come back like he wasn't even in the business that long. He had only been in the business a few years and but he was a great coach and is doing a lot of deals and started coaching me and helping me to do deals. And I fell off. I don't think he was charging anything for those calls or not. They weren't calls it like get togethers in their office. And so anyway, Shaun started charging for those coaching meetings and how I remember what it was. But it was a lot of money at the time and I paid it and, you know, it was really good. And then just kind of followed Shaun for quite a while. He started he started a coaching company called Lifeonaire and wrote a book with Steve Cook. It's really good. You can still get it at on Amazon. It's an excellent book and just go to Lifeonaire.com, instead of millionaire. It's lifeonaire.

Joe: And so then, you know, later on Steve and Shaun broke up and their business venture as friends and Shaun created his own thing called leadership boardroom. And I've been a part of leadership boardroom for a long, long time. And it's really, really good. In fact, Shaun, coming up in December, this this is middle of September. Now Shaun is doing what's called a business vision workshop. He's going to be teaching over two or three days, kind of creative vision for your life and for your business, specifically your business. But obviously, you have to know what you want out of your life first. And the whole concept is designing a vision for your life first and then building designing a business that supports that vision that makes sense. So it's been, you know, just amazing. Shaun and I have become friends. We actually live like 5 minutes from each other. I have no interest in Wildwood area of Saint Louis, kind of the western suburbs of Saint Louis, and just become good friends over the years. I'm in his program, his coaching program called Leadership Boardroom, and it's really, really good. He's got about five or six groups that he runs and highly recommend it. I'm just I'm going to probably be interviewing him soon here for my podcast, talking about what he's going to be doing at the Business Vision Workshop and how you can come hang out with us in Saint Louis. I'll be there for it. I'm heartily recommending it, highly recommending it that you come to Saint Louis when he does it in December, I believe. All right. So I was just I just finished our day two of our leadership ordering kind of mastermind with 12 other high level entrepreneurs, business leaders. And it has just a really good time, great group of people.

Joe: And so one of the things that there was one member who we were talking about kind of what's going on, you know, it's more than just business. It's also personal stuff, right? So this particular person was talking about some personal issues, and I won't go into the details, but I started talking about my story a little bit of my heart issue and surgery and, you know, kind of facing death. I like maybe sounds a little dramatic, but I kind of was, I guess. Right. Like, yeah, I don't know if it still hasn't sunk in yet of how serious it was, to be honest. But so are sharing how many everything changes in terms of like perspective on what's important and what's not and bought When you have bad health and you're facing death, it could be, you know, a bad aortic valve, it could be heart disease, high blood pressure, it could be cancer. There's a gazillion things. Right. And, you know, no, you might have perfect health and even get hit by a bus tomorrow and you die. Well, that's like but when you when you kind of know that you're really close and everything changes and they say, like somebody who's healthy has a million wish, somebody who is unhealthy, was sick, only has one wish. And so that was me. Three months ago. I had one wish to get healthy so I can spend another 50 years on this earth with my family. I'm almost I turned 50 in January, so in about three months. And listen, I'm not discouraged. Like, I still feel like my best days are still ahead. I'm excited about the future. I'm optimistic. I'm not discouraged. I'm not looking back on a life of regrets now that I can do about the past. I'm not excited about the future. Right. So we were talking about this and I thought I would share this. And somebody actually even recommended to me that I should share this in a podcast. And it's real simple. Like where are your priorities at and what is important to you? Is it work? Is it business? Is it making money? Well, that's okay. Maybe. But like Sam Walton, you know, Sam Walton, the guy who started Wal-Mart, probably one of the most successful, wealthiest business owners entrepreneurs in American history, died multi multibillionaire. And he his last words were, I blew it. I blew it. Now, I don't know the whole story behind that, but I read an article by a guy named Mike Michalowicz who wrote the Profit First book and Pumpkin Plan. And he wrote an article one time about those famous last words of Sam Walton.

Joe: And when you're, you know, facing death and you're dying, you're not thinking about like, oh, I wish I would have spent more time at work. I wish I would have done more at the office. So I wish I would have spent more time in the know. You're thinking like I wish I would have spent more time with my family. I hope my family knows that I still love them. I hope that I'm leaving behind a like a legacy that is important and, you know, like what? Who cares if a trillion people love you and think that you're awesome if your family hates you because you neglected them and business was more important to you than your family, like who really cares? Who gives a rat's ass? But if you're famous and your family doesn't even know you, right? If your family doesn't love you or your family doesn't feel like they were loved by you, like yeah, come on. And so talked a little bit about that. And I remember when I was coming out of heart surgery and I was kind of waking up is, you know, my wife is kind of telling me this and I kind of remember. But, you know, the first things I wanted to say was, I love you, too. My wife and I wanted her to tell my kids that I love them. And so I was just was. So I remember whispering something to her and she told me later, but like, yeah, that's all that matters, really. When you're kind of there, you're in this place between Earth and heaven and or life and death, and you're like, What? I want my friends and family to know. I want them to know that I love them and I don't want them to feel sad or like I just want them to know I'm proud of that. So does your family know that you love them? You know? Does your family know that? Does your kids know that you're proud of them? Are they are they going to spend, you know, the rest of their lives after you die sad that they never heard from you, that you loved them or that you were proud of them? That's all that matters. And I don't want God forbid, Lord, help me not to look back on my life when I do eventually die. And I will someday help me. And Lord, not to look back and say, Oh, man, I blew it. Oh, what a joy. What a waste. No, no, we don't want that. Right? So I don't want that for you guys either. As I'm telling you, this, just reflect a little bit. Think about your life. Have you told your wife you love her? Have you told your husband you love her? Him? Sorry. Have you told your kids that you love them like individually? Have you spent some time with them? I'm not saying I'm a perfect husband or dad, like, no, I'm not. I don't think my kids will ever say, I don't remember Dad ever telling me that he loves me. And I don't think they'll ever say I don't remember him ever saying and ever saying, Hey, I'm proud of you. I say that all the time to my kids. I love my family so much. I'm proud of my sons. I'm proud of my daughters. Proud. I'm not I'm proud of my wife. Yeah, but I love my wife. She's just amazing and awesome. I'm like, Yeah, there's no way I could have done anything that I've done without her.

Joe: And so anyway, something to chew on, you know? What are you living for? A living for the money, the big business, the accolades, the congratulations. Are you living for the, remember that movie? There's a really good movie. You should watch it. I think it was called. Oh, it was Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood played this grumpy old man. I think it was him. Maybe it wasn't, but. Well, never mind. I think it was Gran Torino. And he was playing this old guy who was just all he cared about was trying to win some award for, like, the biggest tomatoes or something like prizewinning vegetables in his gardens. And they neglected his wife and his kids. And he didn't realize till later on what he really had missed. Somebody is going to remember this and tell me, please message me, send me an email, would you? Joe@JoeMcCall.com. What movie was that? But it really touched me is like, man, he wasted his life trying to win the affections of strangers and he was is wasting his life trying to win the admiration of other people instead of his family. And he didn't realize it until it was almost too late. So may that not be of us, right? Man, It doesn't matter. It's better to be poor and broke, but have a loving family than it is to make have tons of money and have a huge, nice house and a successful business and all the fame and the accolades, but have a family that hates you and is spoiled and has no appreciation for you and for hard work. And they don't know that you love them. Like there's so much more to this life than just making money and having successful businesses. Right. We're in this to make a lasting impact and to leave a legacy. And let's do everything we can now. It's not too late. It's not too late. Let's stop what we're what we're focusing on and look into what's most important and make the changes now to know so that our family knows that we love them. All right. So speaking of family, I'm at home, so I got to get out of the car. Appreciate you all. We'll see you. Take care. Bye.