Greg Bailey (00:00):
I had my first and hopefully only encounter in my lifetime with a fully grown black bear. Be intentional about your time with your spouse. Be intentional with your time with your kids. Our window of time. Now for us to love our children is it's not getting any longer, right? They're growing up.
Young Han (00:27):
Hey guys, I'm young, a full-time dad and a full-time professional with the goal to become the best parent possible. The girl dad show is my journey interviewing fellow working parents aspiring to be both good at work and parenting. I'm gonna do this by gathering and sharing unfiltered perspectives from my guest to join me. As I research parenthood one interview at a time. Today's episode of the Girl Dad show is sponsored by something I'm very passionate about coffee. Bluejean coffee brings sophisticated coffee brewing straight into your home. Delivering an elevated coffee experience all without having to make a trip to a cafe. They source their specialty beans directly from farmers all around the world and roast them in small batches. Just for your order. Are you ready to upgrade your home brewing experience? Bluejean coffee is offering a special deal just for my listeners. Really good. Visit BlueJean coffee.com for slash T G D S to, to get 10% off your first order of blue Jean coffee. Oh yeah, that's a good coffee. Awesome. Love it, Greg. Thank you so much for joining me on my show. I'm so glad to have you here
Greg Bailey (01:41):
Young. It's what wonderful to see you again and be with you. Thanks.
Young Han (01:45):
Yeah. Thanks for making the time. I know how busy you are. You're always cooking up new projects for yourself. So I appreciate you taking the time to spend with me and talk about my favorite thing to talk about, which is parenting and work.
Greg Bailey (01:56):
I love it. I'd much rather talk about parenting than work, but yeah, I get the gist. I get the gist of the show.
Young Han (02:02):
Yeah, let's do it. So let's jump right into it. So why don't you tell the listeners, what do you do for a living?
Greg Bailey (02:07):
Oh gosh, I do a lot of things, including a husband to all and dad to Anderson and Hudson. They're two middle school age boys, and that's wonderful. And then professionally over the last, gosh, it's already been six years ago that I was the founder of a company called denim. And then last year in 2020, we went through a merger and a rebrand and now it's called denim social. And so we served more than 250 financial services institutions from banks and credit unions to mortgage companies, insurance companies, and wealth management firms call it regulated financial companies. And we serve their social media management needs with a fantastic software platform that we've created and have a proud team of gosh, somewhere in the 25 to 30 team member range across I think, seven or eight states or something like that. Now obviously the, the majority of which are still working remotely right due to COVID and all of that. And then, so that keeps me busy, you know, growing a venture back a startup like that and tech company like that.
Young Han (03:17):
But you also have like side pro. I mean, like, I feel like I'm always watching, you do like random things in addition to it. It's like, you can't stop your brain from working. You just like love, love building,
Greg Bailey (03:27):
You know, that's so true. And back in 2015, when I left the corporate world, so I spent a 20, 20 something year career as a marketing executive CMO at big insurance, been serve companies and left that world have done a little angel investing since then. So that's been quite fun and had a couple of small exits, nothing that cha is life changing, but it's been fun to, to ride that ship. And then more recently, just in fact, a couple of weeks ago, opened the doors and started and founded a new specialty coffee roastery business called blue Jean coffee. So keeping the brand kind of within the family. So we've got denim and now denim social and blue Jean coffee. And so that's an eCommerce play at the moment and we're excited about that. So yeah, I have a few. So you might see me today. Cheers.
Young Han (04:24):
Nice. Cheers. Yeah.
Greg Bailey (04:25):
Denim number five in my cup, in my mug this morning.
Young Han (04:29):
Yeah. So I, I, you did something really interesting with that project because you started like, like a true marketing executive that like knows marketing inside out. You, you started it as a small private group on like a social platform and then you started to slowly grow that. And then over time it's like almost like a, like a teaser and then a teaser and like kind of a rolling cadence almost of like more and more information. Do you mind sharing, like what, what your intentions were behind that and what you're hoping to get out of your coffee business? Yeah.
Greg Bailey (05:00):
Yeah. So first and foremost, just the purpose of blue Jean coffee is to get amazing coffee to as many people that want amazing coffee. Right? So it's just a, a big purpose at the moment. And I have intentions it hasn't developed quite there yet because of time and resource, but over time, you'll see us do things in, in the, in the vein I would say of sustainability and just what I would call a mission driven type business. So that'll be coming in the future with BlueJean coffee, but really, yeah. To your question about marketing and how I kind of developed this, I had the idea for it during the height of COVID last year. And I was like, I think you, and many, many other people brewing a heck of a lot of great coffee here in my kitchen. And we weren't going out to our favorite cafe as much. Right. And so right. We, we couldn't last year. And so, so I really went off the deep end, like I do with a lot of things, sorry, it's just, I guess the personality type, but, and, and my wife probably wonders why I took over the kitchen when, and turned it into a, you know, like a professional home barista coffee bar or something like that
Young Han (06:14):
In some ways. I'm sure she loved it, because it's gotta look really cool.
Greg Bailey (06:18):
It does look cool. It does look cool. All in Matt black, just like most guys would do. Right.
Young Han (06:23):
Nice. Very
Greg Bailey (06:24):
Nice. Anyway, so, so yeah, I really got into it big and, you know, I'd been a coffee drinker on and on off often on, I should say, but nothing in the, what I would categorize is like the third wave of coffee or specialty coffee. And that's when I really got into, it was last year during COVID started visiting over zooms and Google meets and whatnot with others in that industry, not in, you know, including yourself. Yep. You know, we had some conversations about it. And by the end of the year, January 1st, in fact of this year, I decided, you know, what I wanna do is I want to create a private Facebook group. It's called the home brew coffee community is what it's called home brew coffee community. So you can find it on Facebook and, you know, fill out the questions, answer the questions and asked to be in, you know, invited in and I'll get the request or whatever and let people in. And nowadays it's got, I don't know, we're approaching somewhere in the 500 members range from just about everywhere around the world. And it's people there that are talking about what they're brewing, how they're brewing from their home.
Young Han (07:36):
It was like, I didn't even realize how, yeah. I didn't realize how fast it grew. Cause when you first invited me, I was like, oh, this is fun. And I was just kind of like poking around. And then like, I checked it out like once a week or every other week. And then like now all of a sudden there's like hundreds of us in there and I'm like, good for you. <Laugh>, that's a really great way to like build up a brand and build up a community first. Right. It's, it's very, very clever. And I love that.
Greg Bailey (07:56):
It's been exciting for me to even continue to learn. Right. Just a, about all these different people from around the world in the different ways of brewing coffee that maybe here in the us, that we're not as familiar or accustomed to. And, and yeah. So it's been fun to build that community support that community. But then just as I mentioned on June 1st, just a couple of weeks ago here from recording day, we open the doors on the website, BlueJean coffee.com, get the seamless plug in there. And yeah, absolutely. And people can go now and, and, you know, and, and buy a 12 ounce bag of our, kind of our, what I call our starting lineup of coffees.
Young Han (08:35):
So awesome. And this is all in tandem with your full-time job as well, too, right? Like this is like, it's not like you're doing this all of your time. You're just like, right. Adding new projects to yourself, your, your wife must love you. just like, let's talk about your family real quick. So tell me about your kids. How old are they? Who are they? What are their names? Do you have a favorite? Let's get into it.
Greg Bailey (08:56):
No, we don't play FAS too much. I think Anderson is 13. And so we've officially entered the teenage kid years, which is great. Hudson is 11, but interesting to note, they're about 22 months apart in age, and they're only one year art in school. And so this fall I'll have an eighth grader and a seventh grader, both in middle school. And so that's exciting and fun for us. Ally is my wife. We just passed our 15th anniversary of last month. So it's happy anniversary, actually. We just got back. Thank you very much. We just got back off of, off a little anniversary vacation. And so
It's a big one.
Young Han (09:41):
What did you end up doing?
Greg Bailey (09:43):
We ended up, you know, like a lot of people, it seems like right now we've been cooped up and quarantined and whatnot for so long. It's like, let's just get into the great outdoors. And so we went to the great smokey mountain national, a park. Nice. And so we love Tennessee and have a lot of friends in Tennessee. And so we visit quite quite often there. And so we actually took a stop in middle Tennessee first in height, fall Creek falls, state park, which is more in the central part of Tennessee. I'll get this wrong young, but it's something like the the highest natural waterfall or in like east of the Rocky mountains or something, something like that. It's like a really tall, natural waterfall that you can hike out to. And that's beautiful. And so we did that and then we went on the smokey mountains and have got a second here because we're just sharing stories, right? Like, yeah, I had my first and hopefully only encounter in my lifetime with a fully grown black bear. That's so scary. it was, it was, it was both scary, you know,
Young Han (10:55):
as it was, were the kids with you or was this just, was this you and just,
Greg Bailey (10:57):
Or yeah, just us. We, the, the kids were at their grandparents and our dog was as well. Nice. And Allie and I were out there and this was a week ago yesterday. And so it was June 1st. I think that was a week ago yesterday. And, you know, we had high, we had already, so the, the trail for any listeners that have been out the smokey, it was called the alum cave trail. And it takes you up Mount LA con in the, in these smokey mountains. And we aren't professional hikers. We, I, we enjoy it. Right. And we think wer'e getting better at it, but we're by no means like great at it. And so we had already determined that we wanted to take a 2.2 mile hike up to about a midway point on the mountain. And there's kind of like a resting point there, and it is a natural kind of turnaround place, you know, and come back. And, and so that was our path. We got up to that place. The hike was somewhat difficult for me, especially, Allie's probably in better shape than I am. And we got up there and we were taking a little break. I had peeled orange, I'd, you know, get a little fuel, I'd eat some trail mix. And I was faced with where the trail kind of extended up the mountain behind me. And then Allie was facing me, you know, three or four feet in front of me. And so I could see behind her kind of down the trail where we had just come from and all of a sudden I see her eyes just, and she goes, bear, how big's the trail? And is it like wide the trail? No, no. I mean, the trail's like four feet wide going, oh my gosh.
Greg Bailey (12:46):
At this point and off the side is off the mountain, right. I mean, it's like not, there's no railings, no nothing. It's just, you're out, you're out there. And so sure enough, you know, I, I grab my, my hydration pack thing off the ground, kind of a one fell swoop. And just like, we start back, I turn around and we start back pedaling back down the trail where we had just come from, and this bear had come out of the woods onto rail, literally 10 feet behind me. And it was a fully grown black bear where we assume it's pro it was probably a, a male bear because my guess, you know, height wise on all fours that came up to my waist, I run 5 11, 6 feet tall. And it came up to my waist. I would guess it was probably somewhere in the range of 300 pounds.
Greg Bailey (13:39):
Yeah. And that's scary. And so within 10 feet, you know, and so we start back peddling quickly making noise, you know, doing all the things that you're supposed to do. Right. And this bears just kind of casually, not fast or not charging or anything, but just kind of walking toward us. Right. Luckily our back didn't no, it didn't stop. It, it, it progressed and walked toward us for about 20 yards. Wow. And, and anyway, needless to say, and then we got back to kind of this resting place after 20 or 30 yards of back pedaling, there were, by that time, there were probably 20, 25 people down there, you know, at that resting place. And the bear kind of took stock of, Hey, there's a lot more people that could see what was going on. A lot of people making noise. Yeah. And the bear decided just to on his own, just to turn and go back into the woods off the mountain. That's wild.
Young Han (14:36):
Can you imagine if you had your kids with you?
Greg Bailey (14:38):
Oh, no. no, no. I like, no, I can't. I, I don't even wanna go there. Like that would be too scary, so scary. I know we, it was scary, but yeah,
Young Han (14:51):
Yeah, yeah. I I've had a brief encounter with the bear when we were camping in Montana and it wasn't as close as yours or on a, a constricted pathway that's four feet wide. So it was much safer than yours. And it was still very, very exhilarating and, and scary and, and all those things. Right. But anyways, I'm glad that you're safe. That's a good thing that you had that memorable experience.
Greg Bailey (15:12):
Right. I gotta tell you though, adrenaline, like right. Adrenaline kicks in and takes over right. In that moment, you know, for that call it minute and a half or two minutes of whatever that encounter was. And we were, and look, I had bear spray. Right. So we had our bear spraying out. I had it ready. I didn't never use it. Luckily but we were ready for that. And yeah. Adrenaline kicked in and I gotta tell you later that day I was wiped out. Oh yeah. Right. It's just the natural kind of like adrenaline high. And then you just crash
Young Han (15:45):
Off of that. Right. Totally. Your body is like exerting so much. It's like firing on all cylinders when you're in those modes. Yeah. Hey, let's talk about that for a second. I mean, if I could switch gears and to ask you about your childhood, what was your upbringing like? Did you go like camping and hiking a lot in nature and stuff when you were growing up and what, where did that yeah, tell me where the interest came. And tell me about your childhood in general.
Greg Bailey (16:07):
Yeah. The interest is all from my wife. And so Allie is, and her family, I did do a fair amount of this kind of traveling around the us and her childhood by car. A lot of it and, you know, going to the state parks and the national parks and experiencing all of that outdoor type of life. And my upbringing though in my childhood was in small town, Missouri. We're all kind of upbringing, mom and dad actually still marries, still live in, in my hometown. And, and then I'm the middle of three kids. And so I've got an older brother who is four and a half years older than I am. Then I've got a younger sister who is seven years younger than I am. And so great. You know what, I would just call Midwestern I'll use upbringing, Christian upbringing. And yeah, so it was loving family, you know, mom and dad, by the way, were both back when they were working, were both educators in the local school, in my hometown. And so my dad was a superintendent of the school system and my mom was a teacher in that school district. I went off then eventually and did my undergrad work at the university of Missouri. So the Misso tigers and yeah, so that was kind of my, my early days. Right. Played competitive golf and high school. So it took up the game of golf. But back to this question about where did the outdoors part of this come from? I just took it up here in the last couple of years, your wife will have impact on you.
Young Han (17:40):
I mean, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, it has to, right. You have to like share those commonalities and learn from each other and grow with each other. I mean, that's what makes that's what makes it work. Right. That's great though. So thank you for sharing about your childhood. Do you think that that upbringing has impacted the way that you raise your
Greg Bailey (17:58):
Kids? Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. It has. In fact, I'll point to a specific example, you know, young, because we've, we know each other that, what was it about seven years ago right now? I think it was seven or eight years ago right now is when we moved to Des Moines, which is where I'm located now. But before that we were based in orange county, California. Yeah. And I was a marketing executive for Pacific life insurance company based out of Newport beach, California. And, you know, know my wife and I were both born and raised in small towns in Missouri and raising kids in California is quite different than raising kids in small town, Missouri and oh yeah. So just the, everything from climate and environment to, you know, what's important to people. Right.
Young Han (18:47):
So, yeah, the priorities and values are wildly D
Greg Bailey (18:50):
They are, they are. And so after a few years in Southern California, we were kind of at an inflection point where our oldest son was, he had just was in the process of finishing up kindergarten. And we, we took a kind of a stock and Allie, and I asked each other like, Hey, do we wanna raise the kids here? If we do, let's commit to staying here until they're through school, like for the next, you know, 12 plus years. Yeah. Otherwise let's consider an opportunity to move somewhere else, ideally back kind of in the Midwest. So we could be closer to her family and my family and so forth. And the opportunity in 2014 up just kind of out of the blue, where there was an insurance company here in Des Moines that was seeking a CMO. And one thing led to another, I was recruited to come out here to be the CMO of that company. And we reload back to the Midwest. Let's call it within a few hour drive of Missouri to see our, you know, our families. But the value use out here are a little bit more aligned, I would say, as to what we're accustomed to and our, our upbringing in our childhood.
Young Han (19:56):
Yeah, no, I loved it there. I, when I stayed there, I, I was there for at least, I'd say collectively nine months, that one year I was helping limelight out. And that's where we got connected. And the people there just very, you can immediately tell there's a, there's like an intrinsic value that kind of is apparent through the community. It was one of the main reasons why I was actually trying to talk my wife into moving there. We ended up in Austin, but yeah, I actually put Des Moines on, on the list of places that I'd love to live in outside of California because of my experience
Greg Bailey (20:26):
Your viewers, if they don't know that they're probably shocked right now to hear that right. Like, are you kidding me? Like Des Moines on a list with Austin and other places, other great places.
Young Han (20:35):
Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it was Atlanta, Georgia, Des Moines, Iowa and Austin, Texas. Yeah. For me. Yeah. And it has a, and for, to me, Des Moines had a lot to do with, you know, the cost of living is great and all those things are great, but it's like, it felt very family focused. Mm-Hmm, everything was very like organized. And there was like a lot more like it was very clean and structured and all those other things too. But yeah, everyone that I talked to, I mean, all walks of life from executives to individual contributors, to younger kids and everybody, they, they, you could just tell there was like this focus on family and, and, and happiness and, and people. Yeah. And kind of like the quality of life and quality of time and, and relationships. And it's hard to like pinpoint that. And I've never actually articulated that out loud, but it's a really good point. Now I'm like a commercial for Des Moines, but now I was making me wanna
Greg Bailey (21:24):
I was just thinking that I'm gonna have to send this, this episode over to like the chamber of commerce people.
Young Han (21:29):
That's right. That's right. It's it was great. It was a great nine months. It was. So it was so impactful on me that it actually made my list of places that I wanna live in outside of California.
Greg Bailey (21:37):
I love that. I love that.
Young Han (21:39):
You have lived a very, very successful professional career. And one of the things that I love about you is that whenever we do talk, you do also talk a lot out your family and your family values and, and how you you're very, very intentional about being a good dad and being a good parent. And so I'd love to like ask you a couple questions about how you qualify both business and how you are maintaining that ability to continue to grow professionally. Cuz you don't stop. You keep growing and you keep doing projects, like for example, this coffee thing, right? No one asked you to do that. You're just starting to do it again. And you're wildly successful in your professional career already. How do you qualify success in business and, and then inversely, how do you qualify success as a parent?
Greg Bailey (22:19):
It's such an interesting question and it gives me pause. Like I, the easy answer for me right now is I don't have any idea. I don't have a clue. Like yeah. I feel, I don't feel my point is I don't maybe some parents and some business people do feel qualified to answer that question. I'll be the first to tell you, I don't honestly feel qualified to answer that question. I don't know. I'm just doing the best I can like yeah. Every day, wake up and just get after it and break by break
Young Han (22:49):
One foot too
Greg Bailey (22:51):
Right. Yeah. It, it is. It's not like I've been like ordained with some like a, in the crown or something, you know, like you, you know how to do like I'm look, I'm not a, yeah, it's just maybe it's Midwestern work ethic or it's, I don't know, young it's it's I I'll say this in business. It has changed for me over the years because as I alluded to earlier, the first 20 something years, 20 ish, years of my career, I was more or less on a corporate path and climbing the climbing the corporate ladder. Right's right. If, you know, if somebody were to go to my LinkedIn, for example, they would see in the past for about every three years, for a period of, I don't know, 9, 10, 12 years, I changed companies and had bigger roles and bigger jobs with each change that I made.
Greg Bailey (23:48):
And that was the climbing that corporate ladder. Right. And as a result of that, we reload our family a few times. You know, we, we started our family in Omaha, Nebraska. That's where we got married. We started our, we had our first son there. We have lived in, so we've lived in Omaha. We've lived back in Missouri for a short time. Then we reload to Madison, Wisconsin. We lived in Madison for three years. Then we reload from the, what I call the cold winter Tundra of Madison to, you know, the sunshine tax state of Southern California. Yeah. And after California, then we made our way back here to Iowa. So we've, we've jumped around a bit. Right. And that's been fun for our, our family, but we're also happy now to be more settled Iowa now I think has become, or quickly will become later this year, the place that we've ever or lived the longest in our entire marriage. And so that's been great. I would say, just in terms of success has been that's that definition has changed. It's now different, you know, that I'm on the side of being an entrepreneur and you know, and starting businesses and growing businesses and what not, that's changed from where it was say, you know, 12, 15 years ago when I was younger and you know, I was in a different stage of my life. So I guess one thing that I would communicate or try to communicate to the listeners and the viewers is that don't be afraid to change what that look, what that paradigm success looks like based on how, you know, you're trying to shape and guide your life. And the other thing I would just share is make sure that whatever the work status professional or success status in the workplace looks like supports what you're trying to do with family in your life. Not the other way around, like I think too often we get that inverted. Yeah. And especially very easy for guys, I think, to do right. Type a type hard driving guys. I think it's very easy for us to get those two things inverted where we end up trying to mold and, our family and our life into working for whatever we're trying to accomplish with our careers.
Young Han (26:14):
Yeah. Would you even say that you fell fallacy to that in the beginning? Like when you did the corporate corporate ladder climbing, you were quite literally traveling the world, not the world, but the country all over to like basically get these better jobs at bigger companies and you were relocating the family to do so. And now in this kind of entrepreneurial journey, as you're getting older and wiser, would you say that that's one of those things that's changed for you in success criteria? Like you've learned that lesson over the last like 10 years or so. Yes.
Greg Bailey (26:40):
I mean, simple answer is yes. And quite literally, yes, we did reload several times to take on these new roles so that I, that I could take on these new jobs and bigger roles and whatnot. But then once I got the new and bigger job, that just meant more travel. Right. So even though we relocated someplace, you know, I would get to that new location. And then quite literally I was gone usually two, maybe more, more weeks out of every month. And, and I was off somewhere, mostly around the United States sometimes around the world. But the answer is yes, to your question that over time, like I, I think we just get a little bit wiser right. With life experiences. And, and I think too, in my situation, you know, in 2015, when I left the corporate world, that's the last time, you know, and I took the plunge in entrepreneurship, certainly a risk calculated risk that in fact I could make it work. Fortunately now we're what, six, six years beyond that point. And it has worked. Yeah.
Young Han (27:44):
I'd say it's worked really well for you.
Greg Bailey (27:45):
Yeah. So, you know, not, everybody's cut out to make that leap. Like, you know, I'll give you a one glimpse of this, that about a year after I took that leap, it became really, really crystal clear that a startup founder makes like nothing in terms of income that's right. As compared to what I had been doing as, as a CMO of a large financial services company that's right, right. And so push come to shove, Allie and I had to have some hard like financial, like personal financial conversations about, Hey, look, we live in this amazing big, practically brand new home that we had bought because we could afford that as an example of, you know, me. Yeah. The job that I come into town. And look, we decided that it was more important that I could continue on this path of figuring out this entrepreneurship thing. And we ended up selling that house for gain and downsizing our mortgage right now. Look, and we now live, we bought this house that we're in now and it's great and we love it, but it's, you know, those are just some of the examples and decisions, right? Those are hard decisions. Not everybody can make or would make those same decisions. But those are examples. Another quick story around this is all of the health insurance and benefits that I used to have as a corporate employee. And then all of a sudden, like in the life of an entrepreneur, like understanding, gosh, how are we going to fund our health insurance and pay for healthcare for our kids? I mean, these are like major buckets of life conversations that you have to tackle and figure out. And it's hard.
Young Han (29:25):
It's very hard. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. You're sharing these kind of personal stories. Cause I think that that's, what's really important for me to like listen to and hear. And one of the main reasons why I want to talk to more people like you is just it, I love the fact that you started by saying I'm not qualified to answer that question because that's kind of like the thing that I'm starting to understand is that there's no like perfect way. There's no roadmap to balance. Mm-Hmm I mean, for sure being a good parent, there's no way there's no book for being a good parent for sure. And that's all dependent on what you think a good parent is, but what I've been trying to figure out is like, how do I balance between like growing my career and like growing as a good parent and balancing those two, keep like coming into a head of over time, right? Like how do I allocate my time? How do I allocate my focus? And the reality for me is I don't wanna suck it either. I want both and I wanna do good at both. I don't wanna stop growing in my career. I don't wanna stop leveling up. I don't wanna stop making more money. And I also don't wanna stop spending time with my kids and being there for them and being a better the best parent that I can be. And so it's kind of this like awesome like moment, even you just saying that like, no, one's qualified to say that is, is exactly right. Right. It's like, who's to say what that is, you know, and there's people like you that are making it work and you just kind of doing it one step at a time and, and just keep moving forward and do the best that you can in the moment that you have. It's great to hear you say that because for me, like, I feel like you're very, very successful professionally and you've done a lot of great moves and you've made a lot of right steps, but you've also done some critical things in your professional career that really pushed the envelope. You took a high paying secure job and you quite literally like dumped it to go start something from scratch. It's a very, very interesting thing to do that most people probably would not have done. And then two, when every time I talk to you, you talk about your kids and your family values and, and how you want to like, make sure that you're being a good role model for them and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And it's like, oh man, this guy's gotta figured out, but it's also great to hear that you don't
Greg Bailey (31:18):
I would the word that comes to mind young and is the word intentional or intentionality. And Allie's probably in the other room and probably can hear me talking right now. I'm guessing, I don't know the, the kids are outta school. And so they're here, you know, while I'm working these days. And I'll say that I'm not as good at this as I should be and can be, but you, your point that you make about, I wanna be great at both of these things at parenting and at work and how do I split my time and my focus, et cetera. I don't know the answers to all of those questions. They're great questions. But I guess the word that comes to my mind is, and it's a reminder for me more than anything. And that's why I'm saying it, which is be intentional with whatever the time is that you're doing whatever you're doing. So be intentional about your work time and, you know, make progress, be intentional about your time with your spouse, be intentional with your time with your kids and try, try, try our hardest, I guess, be included in this. I'm not like I'm saying these things because I need to hear it. Yeah. Is one of the hardest things is when we're with our family, our phones and our tech become such a diversion and such a distraction they can be. And so it's one of the things that I'm trying to do to be better at is just leave the phone and leave the tech in the other room. Or like right now we spend a fair amount of time outside. Right. It's warmer and we can be outside. And so leave the phone in the tech, in the house, you know, instead of taken it out into the yard with us or whatever. And so little things like last night, if you would've come over to our place, you know, our backyard, we ha we love this game called can jam. And our, our boys are into that. And it's a Frisbee like game where you try to hit the Frisbee into the can thing. And we just kind of get out in the yard and do stuff, or, you know, hang out at the fire pit, if it's a nice evening and, you know, roast some marshmallows or do something like that. So for Allie, it's little bit of an escape of, she's got a great, you know, raised garden beds in the backyard with organic gardening. <Affirmative> so just trying to be intentional is the point, you know, if you're with your family and you're with your kids, then be with your family and be with your kids, right. If you're working work and commit everything, you got to that, but there's time for all of it.
Young Han (33:57):
I love that. Be intentional. That's really great. I, I love that little nugget. Hey, Greg, I just wanna make sure that I'm cognizant of your time here. So I I'd like to move forward with four questions that I want to ask every guest, and then I'll get you back to your day here. Speaking of intentionality. Okay. So what advice do you have for other parents?
Greg Bailey (34:16):
I think I just gave the best nugget I have. Maybe I should have saved
Young Han (34:19):
It. No, I agree. I think that you're absolutely right. It's really good negative advice. And so, yeah, let's, let's say be intentional.
Greg Bailey (34:26):
I would say the other thing, and I'd be remiss if I didn't use this word. Like, you know, I believe that our creator created families, you know, because us, as humans were meant to be loved and the word love comes to mind. And so just on, you know, I alluded the fact that we just celebrated 15 years of marriage and God willing will have another 15, 20, 30, 40 years of marriage. And the, the word we keep talking about is our kids. We only have now a short window of time based on our kids age before they're going to be out of the nest per se, right? Like our window of time now for us to love our children is it's not getting any longer. Right. They're growing up. And so one of the things that I'm thinking a lot about right now is how can we love into our kids more than we have over the last number of years so that as they grow through their teenage years, that they know their love, they that we help them build their confidence, their self image, and that they just have this like sound footing in life. And this security in their family really, really important to me. Wow.
Young Han (35:58):
That's great. I feel like you're like basically answering the questions that I want to ask and ahead of it's okay. But I'm gonna ask it anyways. Cause I, I feel like I'm like suing out some really great nuggets of wisdom here. Mm-Hmm if you can go back and tell yourself one thing before having kids, what would it be?
Greg Bailey (36:16):
I think it would be young that spend more time just being a married couple before you start a family. Allie. And I started our family within a, I think it was like within a year and a half of when we got married. And so it was somewhat quick, I guess. Yeah. After we got married. And so, but then again, I was 32 when I got married. And so I wasn't like a spring chicken either. You know, I was a little bit older than some, I guess. I don't know. But yeah, I, I look back on that time period and think, gosh it, but nowadays, you know, it actually makes me look a little bit more forward to like, wow. Maybe life after our kids are out of the house. Yeah. We'll get that experience as older adults.
Young Han (37:04):
That's right. And you'll have hopefully kids to help you and come with you or, and, or have more money in time. Right. So could be, yeah. There's there's pros and cons to all of it. What is the most surprising thing that you learned about yourself becoming a parent, right?
Greg Bailey (37:20):
That I don't have it figured out, it's like if there's ever something that like humbles you to the core that your behaviors and your tendencies and kind of your, just how you tend to operate as a human has to change when you start a family, when you have kids and it took me a, it took me way too long and a lot of help from Allie to figure that out. It's just, yeah. It's humbling. Like having kids changes everything. And so nowadays when I have friends that are having their first child and they're, they're expecting you, you know, usually I'll write, 'em a nice little note or something like that. And it'll say, congratulations, your life is about to change forever, but for the better and the faster, I think new parents can figure that out. That it's no longer about themselves. It's about who they're, who they're raising. Yeah. You know, it'll be better.
Young Han (38:22):
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And then finally, what's your all time favorite business book?
Greg Bailey (38:29):
Well, you can't see my messy library over here, but I've got a wall of business books. There were actually a couple I'll pay owed to some of your past here, young. So I'm looking at two books by Howard Schultz, pour your heart into it. And onward. Those were great. Those were long ago. Gosh, I read those when they came years ago. So those were great books. I would say the other one though, that more, maybe more current that's had an impact on our business and just kind of life planning and such like that is I'm a big Michael Hyatt fan. I don't know if you, you know, Michael Hyatt, read a lot of his books over the years. He's former CEO of Thomas Nelson books out of Nashville. Now he's I'll I call him, full-time kind of like a business coach, influencer blogger writer. And so he's got a book that I'm looking at over on my show off here called your best year ever. And it's a framework. It's a, it's a nice framework for how to go about annual goal planning, how to follow through and structure your frameworks of how you operate in your business and in your life to not only accomplish everything you're trying to do in your workplace with your work, but also so in your life. And so when you, he helps you through goal planning, it's not just professional goals, it's your entirety of your life goals.
Young Han (40:05):
Great. Thank you so much for staying on a little bit with me to talk through some of, some of these last questions in more detail. And I appreciate you taking the time outta your busy data. Talk to me about parenting and, and work.
Greg Bailey (40:15):
Love it. Yeah. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for the invite. Appreciate it.
Young Han (40:19):
Yeah. Great to have you talk to you soon. Okay. Okay. Bye.
Greg Bailey (40:22):
Bye.
Young Han (40:27):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the girl that show, we hope you enjoyed that interview. If you wanna.
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