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Welcome back to another episode of the y ‘all are crazy ranch podcast. Thanks for joining us this week We are going to be talking about How our sports have?
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Shaped us in our life how they’re shaping our kids and why we think sports are great for kids as they’re growing up we are we’re also gonna talk about how sports are a tool to help shape a person or your kids or yourself and But should also be like respected and not become your life and consume your life
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Absolutely.
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So we’re also going to be talking about how our past jobs have shaped us and why we think work is good.
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Yeah work is great.
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So first we’ll start off on the sports segment. Do you want to tell a little bit of like your history in sports?
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I started playing soccer I believe at four years old I think it was and that was kind of I think my first sport that I tried and then just happened to just stick with it and so played it from four to I don’t even remember maybe 16 or 17 something like that and eventually you know I don’t remember if I was eight or ten but I started playing club ball competitive ball you know the teams that you got to try out for and then you travel and do the tournaments and you kind of practice two or three days a week and then tournaments and games on the weekends kind of
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Too much in my opinion now that I’m an adult, but that’s what I grew up doing and then in high school played football And then did powerlifting. That was a lot of fun. And I think ended with bowling So bowling was actually a lot of fun, you know as Me and some of the guys on the football team They we decided to do bowling and we were like, you know what? there’s a bunch of nerds that bowl and it was like let’s go out there as the Athletes and it’s the football players and you know the nerds were like you guys can’t beat us in football or in bowling and it was like yeah watch this and We got better at first. We weren’t very good. But then we ended up I think winning regionals
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And I’m doing pretty darn good, but eventually when we got to like stage bowling a sport, are we going to talk about that? We had to state the kind of the nerdy bowling bowling guys beat us.
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They’re really good. They beat us. They looked just really good.
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We it was fun. While I lasted, but that was that was the sports.
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So I started playing basketball around third grade, which is kind of crazy because nowadays it seems like a lot of kids don’t really get into sports until like seventh grade when school ball starts. But where I’m from being from a small town like we started school ball in third grade.
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which enabled us, by the time we were in seventh, we were already very good at playing. I also, I probably started playing softball first as my first sport, because I started in like T -ball, so I was like four or five. And so I did softball, basketball, and then some cheerleading in high school. Played a lot of softball, but my main sport was basketball.
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And I played that from third grade all the way up to my senior year and decided not to play college basketball and ended up just playing intramural sports in college, which we’ll talk a little more about that later. But that’s kind of my sports history.
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Yeah, so what lessons do you wanna start off?
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Talking about with sports. I mean, I think it’s so important with sports for you for yours For as you think back on your life and you think about how you want to incorporate sports into your kid’s life I think it’s so important to not allow sports to become your identity and for me it was yeah sports was 100 % who I was I Want I valued that I was the best athlete and that I you know The problem with that is when you when you don’t succeed at the level you want to you see yourself as a failure So like you know when you’re used to doing well at something for me If I did not score a certain number of points in a basketball game, it would wreck my whole night weekend week
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mindset like totally just knock me off course because I didn’t do what I was expected to do yeah it’s definitely dangerous when that becomes your identity and consumes your whole world and I think that’s where for us our belief is the parents come in and teach our kids that that’s not the whole that’s not the point of sports so I think it’s right now especially in America now it’s like everything’s you got online brackets online ranking systems your kids teams are all ranked the ranked across the state across the nation and you know the point of all that is it becomes a never -ending and addicting thing it does and
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If you think you can never really get it’s just like there’s always another level. There’s always another something right and it can consume you and consume your family and you can look up and several years have gone by and your family’s grown apart and you’re not where you want to be you’re off track on your goals for your family and that kind of stuff and So you we’ve got to be very careful of that as parents But I think that’s our job to let our kids know that Absolutely sports has so many good things that it does it teaches so many good lessons a few of those are just the value of working hard Reaching a goal putting in the work the discipline to see a great outcome
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teaching teamwork Teaching just you know when you work for something you can achieve it so many good things you can learn from sports Yeah, cuz it ties into life when you you know graduate high school or College or whatever and you start a career.
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I Mean being in a career is a lot like sports. It’s competitive. It’s the best players win You know the harder you work the better you become at the skill and the job that you do the more money You’ll make and the more promotions you’ll receive whatever Yeah, I think when you’re hiring people like if they maybe say on their resume or tell you during the interview that they play The sport it does make you more willing to hire them.
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I didn’t give them a chance
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It does because you know, I’m a very competitive person and I want competitive people on my team oklahoma grassfed beef business is super competitive There’s always Somebody trying to take you out, you know, Mark Cuban says that oklahoma grassfed beef business is the ultimate What do you say the ultimate full contact sport and he said somebody out there is working 24 -7 to try to take you out, you know, and so I want competitive people on my team that are used to Stuff like that Absolutely, and for us now raising children Our kids our boys play football baseball.
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And of course, you guys know they do wrestling which is our Favorite sport of all of them and then our daughter does basketball Cheer and she’s doing track this spring. So that’s kind of like our vantage point of where we’re coming from Yes, and so discipline is a big deal that sports teach
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And to be successful in life, you have to have good disciplines, right? And so we like that. And wrestling is a, and it might be the ultimate discipline teaching sport.
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There’s a guy, I don’t remember his name, but the saying is, once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy. And when you are a wrestling parent, you totally get that. Because when you watch your kid out there, I mean, struggling, struggling, overcoming adversity and then like winning. Oh my goodness, like there is nothing better.
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Yeah, it is the ultimate.
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It is the ultimate. However, what you don’t see behind this is how hard these kids work in practice and how disciplined they have to be with their diets throughout the week. Because as a wrestler, you can’t hide behind your weight.
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Which means when you slack off and eat sloppy it’s going to show up on the scales and what you don’t before you But if you don’t know anything about wrestling like Brackets depending on what you weigh That’s the bracket weight that you’re in and if you weigh a few pounds over where you should be It’s gonna be a lot harder because you’re wrestling kids that are heavier than you And so you it is very much a discipline sport Yeah, and one of our kids is learning the discipline Mmm, or failing at discipline more than others at the moment We got to tell this funny story because it just happened last night. Yeah last night So we were in the hot tub outside out on the back porch and we can see inside our boys window and there are Lights on and we’re outside and it’s dark so we can see right in but he can’t see us
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We’re not going to name names on which child this is, but he is sitting on his top bunk and we’re like, he is eating something. What is he eating? He’s in his bed eating. And we had just told them, we try like the week before a tournament to just eat clean, but then a couple days before we tried to have them eat really clean because weigh -ins are coming and if you’re not eating clean, it’s going to show up on the scale and then you’re probably not going to have a great tournament. So he’s eating something in his bed.
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Yes. So I get out of the hot tub and I go bang on the window and it scares him to death and he turns around with like big old eyes and he’s looking at me and he knew we were in the hot tub.
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He just didn’t know we could see him and I’m like, what are you eating?
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And he’s got a bag of like caramel popcorn that he pulls out from under his sheets.
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And so I tell him to get throw that in the trash and get back in the living room and he’s doing it because His brother and sister are in charge in the living room and his brother would call him out on it Oh, yeah, and he would say quit eating that junk. We got to make weight So he hides.
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Yeah, and so but at the same time You know he wants to win and on tournament day Super competitive if he loses, I mean he’s crying. He’s just he’s at it wrecks his day and it’s like I’m trying to teach him a lesson son. If you want to win winning starts Before the match you told him last night. You can’t show up on Saturday and just win
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you’ve got to prepare and work hard because there’s other kids that are working hard and You know, you got to have discipline You can’t the night the day before you’re supposed to weigh in go eat caramel popcorn in your bed, right?
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You know, and that’s a great lesson because like you said winning begins before The match before you step on the mat like that’s where champions are made. Yeah champions are made I like to tell the kids champions are made when it’s cold dark and no one’s watching So when they’re outside doing their runs when it’s cold, it’s getting dark early or they’re waking up early to run Nobody’s watching that. Nobody’s cheering for them. There’s no fans But they’re getting stronger. They’re getting more prepared. So when it’s match day, they’re ready
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Yeah, and like I tell them too, you know, they practice twice a week and it’s like well the other days of the week You need to run you need to do push -ups and pull -ups and keep yourself in shape And you can’t just practice two days a week and think you’re gonna just dominate on Saturdays Not as you get into a higher level like when maybe you first start in sports and it’s more recreational Yeah, you can probably get away with that But as you get into a higher level like we’re year four now, so all the everybody’s good Everybody knows what they’re doing oklahoma grassfed beef everybody wants to win so it comes down to as you say who wants it more Yeah, and that’s what shows you want it more So we say this to say this goes back to life and goes back to work Because it comes back to who’s putting in the prep work
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Who’s actually working to build their oklahoma grassfed beef business and not just putting out fires every day? Who’s reading books to grow in their personal development? Who’s spiritually ready for battle? Or are you just like putting out fires every day and not really working on and in your business?
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Yeah, and that’s one of the lessons to teach them is like you don’t get ahead by doing the bare minimum. Right. And when you grow up and you go to work, if you’re just gonna put in your 40 hours a week and not work on yourself outside of that, you’re not gonna get better.
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Right. You’re not gonna compete at a high level. Well, you’re just gonna follow the crowd and stay mediocre.
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Yeah, and I mean, I don’t want our kids to be mediocre. I know they don’t either. And so these are just some of the lessons. It’s like.
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Like you said, if you’re trying to get ahead in your field, your career, you can’t just go home at five and veg out until midnight and go to sleep and then wake up at the last minute and rush out the door and get to work. You can’t do that.
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Yeah. And for us both being entrepreneurs, we have a very different mindset than most people because we don’t work eight to five Monday through Friday. We work all the time. Essentially, we just we’ve learned how to balance it and create a rhythm around it. But there’s definitely not like, oh, I’m off the clock. I can’t go do this. I can’t go do that. I’m off the clock. Like we don’t really have clocks.
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No, no.
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And, but, you know, that’s just what you gotta do if you wanna get ahead. And, you know, that’s what you gotta do if you want to win. And so, I think that discipline side, and our other sons, our oldest son, Bowen, has been super disciplined. He’s really learning these, I mean, I gotta kinda try to dial him back a little bit.
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The most disciplined child.
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Kids doing pushups, like he does 100 pushups before school starts, and, but now, his younger brother, a couple brothers down.
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Seven year old.
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Has been waking up with him and working out with him in the mornings.
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He was doing sit ups and ab workouts at 6 .30 this morning when I got up. They were in there doing them together. What’s really cool about that, and we might have shared this story before, is Bowen, last year, got beat out at regionals.
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And that was hard for him because he’s an excellent wrestler, but he got beat out and he didn’t get to go to state and he had to go watch his brother, little brother Baker go to state along with a lot of his friends who made it to state. And I know that was hard for him to watch, but he showed up, he cheered on his brother, he cheered on his friends, but he said, I’m gonna be here next year. I’m not missing this. And ever since then, oh my goodness, he has worked so hard, harder than any kid I know. He eats well, he exercises well, he is spiritually in such a great place, reads his Bible every day. And he’s like, oh, I’m gonna be at state this year. He’s not missing that because he felt what it feels like to fail. And he’s like, I’m not failing again.
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Yeah, it’s neat to see. And again, if you think about it at a high level, it’s not about
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world domination of wrestling. It’s about the character building aspect and what it takes to be successful in life because life is gonna knock you down. It’s hard, there’s gonna be adversity all throughout. And so he’s learning that, hey, not every kid’s gonna wake up early and work out before school. Not every kid’s gonna eat eggs and not eat the donuts. You know, not every kid’s gonna then come home and go run. And it’s like, he’s learning those things so when he gets older in life, when it comes to his career or his family or what have you, or going to church, it’s like he’s gonna have a work ethic that’s second to none and that’s what we’re trying to instill.
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Yeah, I wish I would have learned that earlier but I know when you’re young, your mindset’s different.
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But I wish I would have learned as a kid playing sports like hey It really doesn’t matter how many points you score. It’s really about are you putting the work in? Are you trying to get better? Are you being a good teammate? And are you glorifying God?
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Another Bowen story, which is just shows his character, which I love the other day before the tournament He was like mom I really want to get outstanding wrestler today Which means you get the most pins in your age division in the shortest period of time And he’s gotten that before which is a huge honor and I was like, hey bub That’d be awesome to get that but the goal is to get first place today, which is just a great goal always Obviously that doesn’t always happen but like that’s our goal, you know, and he said no mom Our ultimate goal is to glorify God
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Hey, you’re like to Shay, you know So he gets it’s like the drum thing.
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Yeah, he gets it and that is the ultimate goal because in truth life is short on earth and our goal as Christians is to live our life to glorify God and take as many people to heaven with us as we can Mm -hmm. And so if sports is your Indal be all like That’s not worth it. That’s not where it’s at sports are to teach the lessons Learn the lessons and give God glory and if it’s dividing your family if you’re gone at separate places all the time Then it’s not worth it. No, they worth it if it is
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You know not growing your kids and it’s actually like hurting them. It’s not worth it The goal of sports is to teach character building Discipline to help them get stronger to be in great shape and to prepare them to be adults.
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That’s what sports does Yeah, and it gives them confidence too. So we talk about discipline then we talk about confidence You know in life you got to have confidence in the workforce You got to have confidence and you can’t be scared and timid all the time and you look at Bowen now is leading a little Christian fish club thing at his at his school and you know there was like 70 kids that showed up or something like that and he prepared a sermon and stood up there and and and read it and stuff like that and it’s like that comes from him gaining confidence and sports has a big has a has a lot to do with that and
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You know because in sports you’re you got high mountains and low valleys You know you went in then you lose it and you went in and you’re losing you got it And you’re learning how to you know mentally handle oklahoma grassfed beef all that.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely and we see a lot of that in kids as they grow and as they’re learning out there and in any sports and If you’ll if you’ll let sports teach the lessons that it can teach it’s worth it It’s worth it and I see a lot of parents too Like I think sometimes they make mistakes is they try to find every single I don’t know private lesson thing they can go to right and and it’s like, you know five days a week You’re either at your normal practice or you’re at a one -on -one You know private coaching and then you’re at this and you’re chasing this team in this tournament and it’s like What are you trying to win?
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With that yeah, and how do you take it? Yeah, and I don’t know that parents even stop long enough to even ask themselves that question They just get caught up in it. But if you stop for a moment and think about what are you trying to win? Are you trying to be the best? You know basketball player in the in the in the world.
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It’s like Or even a college scholarship like is that worth it like is a college scholarship really the goal? Because if it is like is it worth the amount of time and energy and effort and money that you’re putting into it Do you even want your kid to really go to college and play sports? I know for me I had the opportunity to Go to a couple different colleges and by my senior year of high school I was incredibly burned out on basketball and it was I loved it like loved it was consumed with it But by my senior year, I was burned out
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And so when I started looking at colleges, I was like, I don’t even want to play. And that’s what happens to a lot of kids at that point when they’re pushed so hard through their life. They may not even want to play in college. So just something to keep in mind.
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Yeah, and with sports, we’re trying to push our kids on the character side of things, not as much on the skill side of things, you know? I mean, we’re working on skill, but the lessons it’s teaching them is better. It’s like Benaiah, you know, bless his heart. He’s not been the best wrestler of the group of boys. And, but he’s getting a lot better. And, you know, he kind of got thrown into open and the bottom of the age bracket. Anyway, it’s a hard road for him this season and he hadn’t won a match all year.
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It’s been hard to watch.
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And bless his heart, he’s just trying and it doesn’t come as natural to him.
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But last weekend, he got his first win of the season. And then he followed up by his second win of the season.
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And pins at that.
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Yeah, but the whole time before that, we’ve had to coach him up on trying harder and it’s okay that you’re losing. You’re giving it your best. Did you give it your best? Yes, I gave it my best. And helping him battle that adversity. And then when he gets the victory, the seeing the excitement on his face is awesome. And that’s such a good analogy or whatever of life too, because you’re gonna go through hard times. I remember interviewing for jobs and getting told no, stuff like that. And you gotta just keep pushing. And eventually you can get that victory. But they gotta learn that you don’t just go out there and just win all the time. That’s right.
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For Vinaya, he finally won two matches in a row with his pins, but he always is in a huge, his weight is very popular. And so it’s like, he always has huge brackets.
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And so if you get a medal in his age and weight bracket, like that’s top four, it’s a pretty big deal. He has not gotten one yet this season, but when he got beat out last weekend, he was crying and he was sad because he just wanted a medal so bad. And I said, you know what? You are a winner today. I don’t care that you don’t have a medal in your hand, you are a winner because you worked so hard, you overcame adversity and I am so proud of you. And I just like loved him up because I just want him to know it’s not all about a medal. It’s about, are you trying your hardest and doing your best?
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Yeah, and medals will come for him.
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Absolutely, I have no doubt.
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Yeah, so we’ve talked about like discipline and confidence and then I think sports too teaches you a lot of good character lessons. You learn honor and respect, sportsmanship.
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If you lose, you still shake the other person’s hand or in soccer or maybe even some basketball and softball, you line up and walk down a line.
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Yeah, you do that in all of the sports.
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And yeah, that stuff is good. I think later on in life, you’re gonna have things where people get ahead of you or whatever the case may be. And again, learning how to respect the fellow opponent, if you will, but yet have healthy competition. All those character lessons and building lessons are very, very valuable.
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Absolutely. Another thing that I thought about is when I played softball, I always was the pitcher. And I think, why was I always the pitcher? And I think the reason for that is I always wanted to be in control of the game.
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Man when you’re the pitcher it to you You have to obviously throw good pitches or you’re gonna just get walks and your team is counting on you So you are constantly under pressure the pressure is on you And I think it taught me to like the pressure and do not be intimidated by the pressure And I think that’s another thing sports can teach you You know when you’re playing basketball and you’re shooting free throws like everybody’s watching you it’s on you You got to make those free throws wrestling It’s it’s all you anyway unless you’re in a dual team But it is you you don’t have anybody else to blame it on you know and so I think sports teaches you to be okay with pressure to Perform under pressure and to not let pressure just scare you so much Which is great because once you get into real life, and it prepares you that hey the pressure is good for me
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Pressure is okay. I don’t have to run from it.
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I know what it feels like to be under pressure and Thrive Yeah, and learning how to handle pressure is because life gives you a whole bunch of pressure You might be competing for a job and knowing that you’re in interviews I remember I remember interviewing for my you know State Farm Agency and knowing the Amount of people and the candidates that were competing with against me Don’t remember how many I had maybe it was ten others, but I’m I actually knew who they were and it was really odd but but one of the guy that Before the interview took us all to dinner the night before as like a group and it was like that was a pretty odd Thing you remember that I do and it’s like I’m sitting at a big old table, right?
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And I wanted husband is wise.
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Yeah, we’re all interviewing the next morning.
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Was I with you?
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Yeah okay, and it was like I’m looking up and down the table going like
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I’m gonna take you out.
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I’m gonna beat you. That is odd when you think about that.
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You know, but you know, my competitive side was like, I don’t know why I’m sitting here at this dinner where this is dumb, but anyway, that was interesting. But it taught me that, hey, this is oklahoma grassfed beef pressure.
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Maybe they wanted that.
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It’s game on tomorrow, and I’m sizing up the competition, you know, and stuff like that. But those are lessons you learn in sports is dealing with pressure, and going in there and performing under pressure. And yeah, I think that’s good. And then, you know, maybe you might have some stuff at church, or your spiritual life, or the devil getting you down, and you’ve got that pressure of trying to overcome, you know, bad mental challenges and stuff like that.
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It’s a lot easier to collapse under pressure and just say I don’t want to do this I’m not equipped for this. Let somebody else do this It’s a lot easier to do that a lot that God didn’t call us to collapse under pressure and let someone else handled it Handle it he called us to actually put on the full armor of God and be a soldier for him which means you’re gonna have battles not everybody’s gonna like you and You’re gonna face adversity and that is just that’s life and it’s especially the Christian life because God called us to be different and to be a light in the darkness and We want our kids to be that so by putting them in situations that are forcing them to Look beyond themselves and say I can’t do this by myself. I am limited. It’s not all about me
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saying, God, you help me, you equip me, and when you allow God to do that through you, you’re truly unstoppable.
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Yeah, so I think, you know, I kind of end it with with this. If you’re a parent out there that maybe feels like your life has become too consumed with sports, feeling like you can’t keep up and your kids on the best teams and the travel teams and all that stuff and it’s just it’s just stressing you out to the max. It’s probably out financially and emotionally and stuff like that. I would encourage you to just think about what is the real goal here and and just use sports to teach lessons and don’t get so consumed with chasing the
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The top of everything all the all the time, you know Realize that the lessons you’re trying to instill and teach your kids and the character building the confidence of discipline and let that let that be Your your deal, you know, we don’t have our kids competing in all these Travel the only we couldn’t do we have seven kids. It’d be impossible. We do all youth Local local rec leagues and you know, we get asked all the time to leagues but youth sports like through the town through the town We get asked to do other things, you know frequently and and we just say no we turn it all down Is that flattering then when they asked you? Yeah, and a lot of times, you know I hear parents say ooh my little Johnny got asked to go play on this team and we’re gonna try to figure out how To do it and it’s like hey
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You don’t have to do that. You can say no.
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And you don’t have to compete on Sundays. A lot of times it’s like, well, it’s every Sunday, so I guess we’ll just do it. You can say no.
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Yeah, don’t be scared to say no and control your life and get what you want out of it and don’t let other people or outside forces control what you want to do. The sports is not, you’re not trying to get your kid to the NFL all the time. It’s like, you just want them to learn the lessons and go have fun and compete, enjoy the game, but you gotta keep your family together. That’s the most important.
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That’s right. So we’re out of time today, but come back next week and we’re gonna be talking about part two of what our past jobs have taught us and how we have used those past jobs to help us with where we are now. So end of part one today. We hope you guys enjoyed it. Hope you learned some things and we’ll be back next week.