← The Stacking Benjamins Show
The Stacking Benjamins Show
How One Entrepreneur Constructed a Better Tomorrow (with Cheryl McKissick Daniel) SB1721
01:05:02
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- [00:01]
Joe
Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? Driving high will get you a dui. And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell you're driving high, well, everyone else can. Friends, I can tell you drove high. Parents, I can tell when you drive high. Relatives, I can tell you drove here high, didn't you? So what makes you think law enforcement can't I can tell if you feel different, you drive different.
- [00:26]
Doug
Drive high.
- [00:27]
Joe
Get a dui. Paid for by NHTSA this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could.
- [01:01]
Doug
Save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary.
- [01:07]
Joe
Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:14]
Doug
At some point far in the future, historians will probably ask, what was daily life like in the early 21st century? Well, one thing we know for sure, nobody will ever point to these two clowns and say, this was how you should have been stacking Benjamins. Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and on today's show, let's share a story you probably haven't heard. The story of a black family who built America. From the McKissick family of McKissick and McKissick fame, we welcome Cheryl McKissick. Daniel, I'm not sure if you caught that, but that's the McKissick family Joe of the McKissick and McKissick fame. In our headline segment, Medicare benefits are a changin'. What does that mean for your wallet? We'll share, of course. We'll also share a TikTok minute. Yet another headline and way better than everything I've mentioned so far. I'll also include at no extra cost, my incredible trivia. And now two guys who treat summer like their investment strategy, just winging it with sunglasses and fruity drinks. It's Joe and oh, Juju J. Oh, I ran out of breath. Gee, you're just getting on with it. I said too many McKissick I like I had no breath left.
- [02:57]
Joe
Believe it or not, Doug, we only have one McKissick here with us today, but Cheryl McKissick. Daniel is well, that's some McKissick coming down to the basement. They are the. They are the family. I had not heard the story. I did not realize how much of America the McKissick family has built for us. Cheryl McKissick Daniels, the award winning President and CEO of McKissick & McKissick, she is the principal in charge and project executive on. Well, we're going to hear how many of the of the amazing projects around America this single family has built. So if you're interested in hard work, overcoming adversity, entrepreneurship, dealing with people, negotiation, it's all here today. Along with my co host, partner in crime, Mr. OG is also here today. How are you, man?
- [03:48]
OG
I'm just happy to be here. Thank you for having me. First time caller, long time listener.
- [03:52]
Joe
It is incredible. I love these history lessons we get maybe three or four times on the show.
- [03:58]
Doug
I'm just laughing at OG saying, first time caller, longtime listener.
- [04:03]
OG
So as a complete side note, I was on YouTube the other day just scrolling and I go, oh, that's me. And we were talking about something like go. When in the hell did we talk about this? Because I have no recollection of any of those words or that comment or you two idiots talking about whatever you're talking about. It was completely new to me, this whole cover. I was like, wow, that was really good. That AI has really done a good job of.
- [04:33]
Doug
Let's just say our new social person knows AI well.
- [04:36]
OG
Good night.
- [04:37]
Joe
Well, we have not resorted to that yet. But OG even minus the memory, always showing up, bringing the gold. So Max Headroom gotta go way back for Max Headroom. We've got a fantastic show today. Cheryl McKissick, Daniel is our mentor, teaching so many lessons. We're going to hear from her. But first we have a couple of sponsors who make sure that we can keep on keeping on. And we get the phenomenal men mentors like Cheryl coming down to the basement. So let's hear from them. And then our sit down with Cheryl McKissick Daniel learning about the black family who built America before the Internet ruled all our lives. AOL brought America online with email and instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful, it set sights on media giant Time Warner. The deal was supposed to bring us into the future, but instead it became one of the messiest corporate disasters on record. But what went wrong? Was it culture clashes, the dot com crash, or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments in business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankrupt, or new tech reshapes everything overnight, there's always a deeper story behind the headlines. Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of Business wars that the AOL Time Warner disaster early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy and here she comes down the basement stairs. I've been so looking forward to meeting this woman, Cheryl McKissick Daniels here. How are you?
- [07:05]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
I'm great. So nice to be here, Joe.
- [07:08]
Joe
So nice to meet you. And you know, as I told our Stacker family ahead of time, I'm married to a Cheryl, so I'm already predisposed to like you. And obviously being a fan of the work that your company has done over the years, there's so much stuff, Cheryl, for us to talk about. I'd love to talk about the early years in America of your family and then really your career so we can dive into a couple things. Your family story begins in the age of slavery. Tell me about the earliest McKissicks and how they came to North Carolina.
- [07:40]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Absolutely. So it dates back 230 years to 1790, when the first McKissick came to America. His name was Moses McKissick, the first, obviously given the name of his slave master. He was taught the trade of making bricks, and that was his craft. He lived in North Carolina, which was a very interesting place at the time because each state treated their slaves differently. In North Carolina, they did not have as many large plantations. They were much smaller plantations. So slave masters had, you know, 10, 15 slaves, not two or 300, which created a very different dynamic as opposed to oppressing and making sure the slaves stay in their place and don't uprise. That's one way of treating a slave. But then you only have 10 to 15 slaves, and I believe the McKissicks had like 12. The slaves became more like family members. You know, people who were eating with you and with you all day long. So it was a very different dynamic. So slaves were more protected. The reason I bring that up is because in the book, we make the case of how on earth did the McKissicks stay in business five generations.
- [09:05]
Joe
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [09:06]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
That's an incredible thing with one out of five businesses fail in the first year, you know, and passing a business down to a second generation is like 45%, and then to a third generation it's 18%, and then to a fourth is 3%. And here we are at five generations as a black family in white America. I bring up the fact that we got through that first segment of slavery because of the location. And so Moses McKissick the first, his son was Moses McKissick II, and he was a master carpenter, and he was given as a wedding gift to the Cheers family in Spring Hill, Tennessee. So then the McKissicks moved to Tennessee, and that's. That's why my roots are out of Nashville.
- [09:57]
Joe
I want to ask you about Tennessee, but you brought up something, Cheryl, that I find incredibly interesting, which is that so often kids don't want to follow their parents. I mean, I own my own little company back when I was a financial planner. It's been a long time since then, but even then, like my daughter, my son. My son interested in engineering like you, my.
- [10:18]
Doug
My.
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Joe
My daughter interested in research and AI. But neither one wanted a piece of the family business. But your family, over these generations, all seem to be not just good at, but excited about the family business and the idea of construction and design and engineering. Your dad and mom were that passionate about it that you, from the beginning, thought you wanted to do it, or did you find yourself growing into it? How do you think that happened?
- [10:47]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Well, we didn't have as many choices, and we didn't have as many influences. You know, we didn't have our handheld phones. We weren't on social media. Our only models were the people we saw. Those were our parents, our parents, friends, and our friends. We only had three TV stations.
- [11:06]
Doug
Right.
- [11:08]
Joe
I know those days. Right.
- [11:09]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
I remember a lot of my friends at the time because we went to a private school called Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville. A lot of my friends were going to Ivy League schools. They were applying to Harvard and Yale and Rice and all these places. And I remember my father saying, howard, you mean? He's like, you can go to any school you want to, but the only school I'm paying for is Howard University. And when you get there, you're going to be in architecture and Engineering.
- [11:41]
Joe
Oh, so.
- [11:45]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
What do you do? And so, you know, I was a double major for, you know, the first two years. And, I mean, 24 credits every semester. And late at night in the design studio and early in the morning doing statics and dynamics. It was just difficult. And I remember saying to my mom, you've got to talk him out of this. And she did. And I said, I want to be. If I have to make a choice between these two, I want to be an engineer. I don't want to be an architect. And so, you know, my life got easier from that point on, but we didn't have a choice. And now, you know, I think about the sixth generation that I'm looking at walking around the house. They both work in the business, but I don't know how passionate they are about being in the business. And there's a period of time, especially for me, I remember I didn't want to be associated with the McKissick business. I wanted to go and work for any company that didn't bear the McKissick name. And I went and I worked for Turner Construction and Weilinger Associate. But I quickly saw that there was no future there for me. You know, you go to the executive floor, nobody looked like me. And they were all men.
- [13:05]
Joe
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:06]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
And I'm in a male's industry. Okay. And most of them were Irish. Okay. Like, I quickly began to understand that if I wanted to have my own company, this was the best route to go. Then I shifted back to the family business. But there is this instinct to kind of rebel.
- [13:30]
Joe
You know, a lot of the advice over the years that I've gotten. Some of it sticks, some of it doesn't. I'm sure it's been the same for you. I heard a quote from a woman named Dr. Langer at Harvard who said we should stop trying to make the perfect decision and instead make the decision we made the best decision. Meaning, yeah, instead of regretting all the time. And I feel like that maybe is what you did. You're like, you know what? I'm going to enter the family business. I'm going to make this the best it can be. And then the joy stems from making that a great decision.
- [14:03]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
I totally agree, because it hasn't been easy. Initially, my mom, I went to work for her because my father was already incapacitated. My mom, I'll never forget when my father first got sick and my mom had to take over the business. You know, she said, I'm going to hold on to this business even though I Only know the telephone number to the office. Going to hold on to this business because one of my three daughters might want to come and be a part of it. And she had a master's degree in psychology. And I'm telling you, she would say that that helped her deal with the manias and phobias of men who didn't understand that a woman could run a construction company in the 1980s. You know, that was long before women could borrow money from banks. Their sons could, their uncles, their husbands. But women couldn't borrow money from the bank until the Women's Business act that took place in 1990.
- [15:05]
Joe
It's so wild to believe that it.
- [15:07]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Was that recent 1990. I think that was what Colin Powell. You know, that was when Spike Lee's movie came out. She's got was, you know, the song Doing the Butt. This was like yester.
- [15:24]
Doug
We could.
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Joe
We could listen to do it the Butt. But we can't borrow money if we're a woman.
- [15:31]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
You can't. You couldn't borrow money. Right.
- [15:34]
Joe
Well, can we focus on your mom for a minute? And I want to get back to Tennessee.
- [15:38]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
But.
- [15:38]
Joe
But your mom, just reading about her, what were the traits that you gleaned from your mom that you think somebody who's going to be successful in business needs to know?
- [15:50]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Okay. She was fearless. She would go tell people about her firm whether they wanted to hear it or not. She would go in rooms that made me extremely uncomfortable, that eventually I got used to being in myself. Also. She was an educator. She had been a teacher in a past life, so she could stand up in a crowd and just start talking. I had a fear of public speaking. When I graduated from college, I didn't really want to go and speak to colleges and universities and much less clients in business. But my mother didn't have a problem with that. She also had a lot of integrity and was a good businesswoman. I'll never forget, we went to Tuskegee, and the president of Tuskegee University said, you know, Ms. McKissick, and she had just taken over the company when they designed this building. We told them, it's really hot down here and we need operable windows. But none of these windows open. My mom's like, what, are you kidding me? She said, you know what? I'm gonna switch out every one of these windows and I'm gonna pay for it, because that's our mistake. She stayed away from confrontation and, you know, bringing lawyers into issues. She tried to work it out person to person and tried to do what was right. She was also very innovative and creative. On the same trip, she looks over at this old dilapidated building where they were literally keeping the lawn equipment. But it had a beautiful structure. And she said to the president, now, didn't you say you need a new residence? He's like, yes. He said, I see you living in this building. She's like, in this beautiful color at the top. You know, it's a stately structure. And he's looking at her like, are you crazy? This is literally a dilapidated place. We're going to tear it down. And Mom's like, no, you're not. You're going to commission us to design it. So she fixed the windows.
- [17:59]
Joe
That's fabulous.
- [18:00]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
She got another project at the same time.
- [18:03]
Joe
But I love that. Doing the right thing leads to more work versus I feel like Cheryl, so many people are short term and obvious when there's a longer play.
- [18:11]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes. And he hired her on the spot. And he loved that for his home, he and his wife for many years. And now it's called Gray Columns, and it's on the historical register.
- [18:24]
Joe
That's. Well. Well, your. Your family has designed how many buildings that are on the historical register? I mean, even in chapter two or three of your book, there are four, Right? At Fisk University, I believe.
- [18:36]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes. Fisk University. It's the Van Vechten. It's Carnegie hall, which is where the Aaron Douglas murals are on the walls. And that's the administration building is Jubilee Hall. Matter of fact, I was just there, like, two weeks ago. It's amazing. Right next door is Meharry Medical College, and there are 10 buildings on that campus. The McKissick designed and built nine of them. Wow. Tennessee State University. You know, all through the south, at least 29 historically black colleges. And I like to say we documented the black experience through our buildings.
- [19:21]
Joe
You have, I mean, 200 years of building.
- [19:24]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yeah.
- [19:25]
Joe
There is so much that happened early on to your family when you got to Tennessee. But I want to talk about some of the interesting things that I found about you growing up. So you mentioned earlier you attended the Peabody Demonstration School. You were one of the first black students admitted. What was that experience like?
- [19:42]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Cheryl, that was very interesting. You know, you're in an environment with people that don't look like you. But I wasn't alone because I had a twin sister. And so the two of us were best buds. We were able to have our own little conclave and world within another world. And so that was interesting to everyone around us. So we began to attract A lot of attention, and then we got a lot of friends, and it just opened up our world.
- [20:16]
Joe
Yeah, but I feel like somehow as I was reading, I felt like I felt bad because sometimes, the way you described it, you also sometimes felt like an animal at the zoo. You know, people were like, who is this. Who is this person who's different than us?
- [20:31]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Right? Who's different than us? And then, you know, we lived in the black community. Most of our white friends lived in Belme and in the established and beautiful communities of Nashville. They would invite us over for pajama parties and, you know, sleepovers and things like that, and we would go to their house, and we had never seen anything like that in our life.
- [20:54]
Joe
Yeah, your. Your houses, by the way, the firm was already huge. You guys were doing amazing business already. But Uncle Calvin and the McKissick houses, which were gorgeous, were nothing like these people's houses yet.
- [21:05]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Oh, no, nothing. Their houses were new and 10,000 square feet. It was just incredible with sprawling land. But you know what? Everybody treated us nice. They treated us like we were them. It was not terrible because we got used to it. For me, it just gave me the beginning. I needed to enter into a white male world in New York City, because I'm telling you, it was. It was the exact same.
- [21:38]
Joe
And I just thought about. Cheryl. The powerful part there for me was just reminding yourself that being around people who aren't like you and learning different perspectives and seeing different points of view and understanding people that are different. How much that served you throughout your career. Like, some of the stories you talk about, these, you know, multimillion dollar 100 million deals that you're doing and dealing with people who are nothing like you. Like, I feel like those early lessons really served you well.
- [22:07]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
I truly believe they did. Because I learned deep down inside, we're all the same, you know, at the core, there's no difference.
- [22:15]
Joe
That said, though, Cheryl, there was a piece I want to shine a light on because it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows and people being nice.
- [22:23]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
No.
- [22:23]
Joe
You were nine years old when you had this moment that made the civil rights era of the 60s feel very personable. You were at a birthday party that went wrong. Can you tell us about that?
- [22:34]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes, sure. That was my mother's godson, Avon Williams. And I want to say he was two or three years older than me. His father was a civil rights attorney, and he lived right down the street from J. Alexander Luby. And he lived in a house that was right next to Honor Bontamps who was a writer out of the Black Renaissance, where Langston Hughes would go visit. I mean, these are the icons of the Black Renaissance. And we're at a birthday party and all of a sudden we see it's. It's probably like five, six o', clock, the sun's going down, it's dawn, all this light is shining out of a window. So we run out and there is a huge cross burning in the yard, which was astonishing to me. I had never witnessed anything like that. I wasn't even aware of the hatred in the world at that point until I saw this cross. And I understood how vulnerable we really were. Because now these people had come into our neighborhood and were able to erect this cross and burn it while we're sitting right inside. And this is a block from the Fisk campus. It was scary and it was traumatizing. Our parents tried to comfort us, but you can never get that out of your mind. Even at the age. I don't even know how old I am, 64.
- [24:13]
Joe
That's a good problem to have, by the way. You got to hold on to that problem.
- [24:19]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Even at this age. If I go into some environments, all of that fear can come right back. Yeah, because you don't know what people are thinking. And especially today when we have open carry and, you know, you just don't know what people are thinking.
- [24:35]
Joe
Well, and there's so many stories of business deals you tell where people present themselves as one thing and then you find out later on. And I'm thinking about an instance in Philadelphia that you had that I'll let people read about later. But I want to go specifically into one of the many big deals that your family and that your company and with you at the helm that you went through, which was the new basketball arena coming to Brooklyn and the basketball team coming to Brooklyn. Initially, you weren't involved in this deal at all. In fact, I think. Did you hear about it on the radio? How did you squeeze McKissick and McKissick into. Into this deal that had nothing to do with you at first?
- [25:17]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes, I heard about it on TV that Bruce Ratner was going to buy the Nets and build this arena in Brooklyn. And I knew Brooklyn, you know, had a very large African American population, but that population was really Caribbean population, which is very different than where we come from in the South. So I began to go and meet a lot of the black leaders in Brooklyn and I said, well, if I can get all these people to know who McKissick is and just to Mention our name when the construction comes up. Maybe, just maybe, we can weasel in there.
- [26:00]
Joe
Can I. Can I stop you there, Cheryl, for a second? Because I just want our stacker audience to get every piece of this. Like before you barreled into the room or into the situation, you got to know who the players were, who the people were. I mean, this one woman that you met, especially, you found out this woman, Bertha Lewis, was a woman that you needed to know. Like, you had to know Bertha Lewis. And then Bertha kind of was able to help you meet a lot of the other players.
- [26:26]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
That's right. And that's happened throughout my career where there has been this person that I have been able to meet and become their mentee. And that happened with Bertha Lewis. That happened with Gussie Clark and Mary Tasko in Philadelphia. Bertha was a force of nature. Bertha would do sit ins. She would, you know, shut down people's establishments. And she had a real true following and, you know, not a social media following. Real live people walking around with her.
- [27:02]
Joe
I remember General Norman Schwarzkopf saying this at a thing I went to early in my career. He said, in any military unit, and I think it's the same here, Cheryl, in any military unit, there is the de facto leader that has the name on their chest. And, you know, they've got the nameplate on their door. And then there's the person that if they're not doing it, nobody's doing it.
- [27:24]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
And you need.
- [27:24]
Joe
You need to find out who those people were. And I think that this is who Bertha is. Right? I mean, Bertha was the person. If Bertha ain't doing isn't happening in Brooklyn.
- [27:34]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Right. But you also have to make sure that those people identify with the same values you have. They have to also see that promoting black business is important. If they didn't see that or if they didn't understand the economics of that and the impact of that, then they weren't going to help. Yeah, yeah, but Bertha did understand the impact of that. And she also knew that if she got me in place, then I, in turn, would have to help other subcontractors come in from her community, which would then turn into jobs for her community. And she would be in control of that because she would have helped me to get a piece of the action. And so she understood that whole chain, that whole ecosystem. She understood that. And so she made sure that she told me what to do, and she made sure she told others what to do. Because you want someone to speak good about you when you're not in the room.
- [28:41]
Joe
That is so huge. You end up getting a meeting then with Bruce Ratner.
- [28:45]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yeah.
- [28:46]
Joe
I'm just envisioning you walking into this meeting, Cheryl. Like, my stomach. You talked earlier about public speaking. There are big moments, and then there are big, big, big moments. I can't imagine. How did that meeting go?
- [28:57]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
He. Well, he was a very wealthy man. He had his own plane. He was that wealthy. Okay. And Bertha would fly with him places. So he just was so nice. He was like, if you're a friend of Bertha, you're a friend of mine. So nice to meet you. He said, I'm going to introduce you to the head person over all of our construction. And it turned out to be this wonderful Italian man named Bob Santa. And he said, he's going to help you. So I go to see Bob, and Bob says, well, we already have a contractor for the arena.
- [29:35]
Joe
Sure. It's kind of late in the game.
- [29:36]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yeah, you're late in the game. He's like, but we have to move these train tracks, which is where the MTA was storing their trains during the day. And once we move those, then we're able to place the arena here. So we're going to move them to a temporary location and then to a permanent location. He's like, do you want to look at that? I'm like, sure, whatever you have, I'll take it. Well, I couldn't believe it. Five days later, I got these huge drawings on my desk, conference. They covered my conference room table.
- [30:09]
Joe
You said it's like, what, 500 pages?
- [30:11]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Five. I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this? But it's one of those. I call it the glass clip. Right? Not the glass ceiling. It's a glass clip. Like, you know, either you gonna jump and fly or you're gonna jump and fall. You know, I just figured it out. I figured it out. I brought on the right staff who could handle the actual work. I hired people that were actually working at the MTA at the time, which is the subway and the train authority for the city of New York. And we got it done. And we start out with a small $230,000 contract to do estimating and constructability, and ended up with a $300 million project, which.
- [30:55]
Joe
Which is what I read. And, by the way, stackers, Cheryl and her company had a week to put that together to get $230,000 worth of business, which, you know, may sound a lot like a lot to just an average working person, but to run it, you're not running a company on $230,000. Like this is a nothing project, right? To turn that into $300 million, I felt like, Cheryl, that's where you had to be your mom over and over and go, well, how about this? We could help here. We can do this.
- [31:27]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
So I used to go to every meeting on Tuesday. We'd have construction meetings and I just sit there, hear whatever Bob was saying. And Bob was saying, well, I gotta. And before he could get it out, I'm like, okay, we can do that, we can do that. And our contract just kept growing and growing and growing. And Bob, Santa and I are the best of friends today. It's unbelievable how that happens.
- [31:51]
Joe
I think there's a huge lesson there. I mean, ask for the business and then do kick ass work. I mean, it's not one or the other. It's got to be a combo. He learns to trust you, and as he trusts you, you end up with a ton of work.
- [32:03]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
That's right. We're working together now. That's what's so funny.
- [32:10]
Joe
But I think that's how you know, friendships are formed too. Is that you know who, who has your back?
- [32:16]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes, yes.
- [32:17]
Joe
Your story overall and stackers, we just went through 2% of Cheryl's story, but it's all about family fortitude and finding this way forward. What's the message, you know, people walk away with when they hear your journey?
- [32:32]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
I guess the message is defining yourself and being true to yourself and living that out. You know, I so love what you said about making a decision and making it your best once you make it, because you don't know. But you have to make a decision, right? You can't just keep floundering around trying to get more information. You need to make a decision and move forward with it and then make it the best you can. And I found that has worked for me, just being who I am, showing up every day knowing that I'm giving my best to whatever situation I'm in and knowing that I can add value because my perspective is different than everyone else's, even my twin sister. So someone can gain something from a different perspective. And we talked about that as well early on.
- [33:26]
Joe
It is so funny, Cheryl, how at a very surface level, you and I have not much in common, but I have twins. My wife is named Cheryl. The lessons from your book are so universal. It's the black family who built America. The McKissick Two centuries of daring pioneers. And it is available everywhere, correct?
- [33:48]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yes, everywhere.
- [33:50]
Joe
Cheryl, thank you so much for mentoring our stacker family today. I super Appreciate you and your time and just all the amazing work that you've done. Thank you so much.
- [34:00]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Thank you.
- [34:05]
Doug
Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And to celebrate, Cheryl joining us today, let's detail some demo work that made headlines worldwide. Capitalists around the world were horrified on today's date. Back in 1961, because that's when East Germany began building the Berlin Wall. A wall that when the demolition began many years later, spurred on parties in the streets and worldwide celebrations. I have it on good authority that immediately Cheryl's firm was hired to build a Starbucks with a nice outdoor patio area over in East Berlin. No, they didn't. Didn't do that. All right, my bad.
- [34:43]
Joe
Maybe, maybe not.
- [34:44]
Doug
Here's the question. What year was this breakthrough? See? See what I did there?
- [34:49]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Yeah.
- [34:50]
Doug
Here's a hint. Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli were topping the music charts at the topping. They weren't just up there.
- [34:58]
Joe
Milli Vanilli, girl, you know it's true. They were topping the music charts.
- [35:02]
Doug
They were at the top. I'm gonna be back right after I go see if mom will help us tear down the wall.
- [35:10]
Joe
A little Pink Floyd reference. Hey, folks, let me ask you a serious question. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state. That means even in states where marijuana is legal, that means driving high could get you a dui. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, well, my friend, you're wrong. If you're high, they can tell. Your friends can tell, your coworkers can tell, even your parents can tell. Everyone can tell. So what makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high? You'd be wrong. They can tell too. Driving under the influence of marijuana can slow your response time and change how you perceive time and speed. So even if you think you're fine to drive when you're high, you're not. Because the bottom line is if you feel different, you drive different. And driving high is driving under the influence. So remember, drive high, get a dui. Paid for by nhtsa. When my brother in law needed a new cell phone provider a few months ago, well, that was easy. Because you know what doesn't belong in your epic summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. While you're planning beach trips, barbecues, and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. And that's why I highly recommended that he switched to Mint Mobile. He took that recommendation. He said bye bye to overplace wireless plans. Those jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you too. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Own your own phone? He just brought his right over. I helped him set it up myself. And with any Mitt Mobile plan, you bring your phone number along with your existing contacts. So this year, stop breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3 month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsb that's mintmobile.comsb upfront payment of 45 required equivalent to 15amonth limited time new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. In this summer you're in the driver's seat with savings. You could get a 250 bonus when you buy your next car through Navy Federal's car buying service, powered by TrueCar and Finance with Navy Federal. With this tool you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models. And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy Federal. Navy Federal strives to support all active duty veterans and their families to achieve their personal and financial goals and this partnership with TrueCar is one of the many tools Navy Federal uses to help its members make your plan with Navy Federal and TrueCar today Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission to qualify for the 250 bonus. Car purchase and financing must be completed by September 2, 2025. Terms and conditions apply and are available at Navy Federal.org TrueCar Credit & Collateral subject to approval. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA.
- [38:43]
Doug
Hey there stackers. I'm wall hater and a guy who's always up for some demolition. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Today we're celebrating tearing down walls literally because not only did we hear about that from Cheryl McKissick Daniel but a wall literally came down when the literal wall between literally between west and East Berlin came a tumbling down and the wall come tumble into. I just can't not sing it. But what year did that happen? It was the same year when Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli dominated The pop music charts. Did you guess 1990? If so, you would have been only a year late because the answer was 1989. But we're far enough away that we'll give it to you anyways. You're welcome. And now back to two guys who believe the only thing hotter than August in Texarkana should be your net worth. Let's get back to Joe and OG.
- [39:45]
Joe
Hopefully that is the only thing hotter than Texarkana, but we're coming out of it. OG Literally supposed to be literal, literal, literal wall, literal border, let's say McKissick and literal about five, five more times. By the way, big thanks to Cheryl and so many, so many great lessons. It is OG Getting in the room and knowing the right people and then that can't be all. Then you got to do some kick ass work. But it's not one or the other. I have a family member who really struggled with entrepreneurship because he just believed if he built better stuff that people would automatically call him. And that's not true. And I've also seen people on the other side of this argument that thought, if I just know everybody in the room, I'll get the deal. No, because if you suck, your reputation really, really goes downhill fast. It has to be both.
- [40:40]
OG
Got to deliver.
- [40:40]
Joe
It has to be both.
- [40:41]
OG
Yeah, I mean, you can get. What's the phrase about luck? You know, something about better than to.
- [40:47]
Doug
Be lucky than good.
- [40:49]
Joe
No, no, no, Vince Lombardi. The harder I work, the luckier I get.
- [40:53]
OG
It's the same, you hear all the time, Joe.
- [40:57]
Doug
So basically you just literally have to be better at your job than anybody else. You just literally have to be in the room to know every. To get to know everybody and network. And you just literally have to work hard.
- [41:11]
Joe
Literally.
- [41:11]
OG
It's just not one or the other. It has to be both. And if you're not good at both of those things, then you better surround yourself with people on your team that are good at the other one. You know, if you're like, I don't like being in the room. I don't like Glad Haddon. I don't like being the, you know, the one that's out there doing all the deal. Well, you better get somebody who can. If you're a tactician and you're really good at producing the thing, then do that.
- [41:34]
Doug
And three, two, one. Here comes Joe's E Myth reference.
- [41:40]
Joe
Maybe not this episode. We'll skip it. Cuz you made it for me. Let's do a headline instead. Hello, darlings.
- [41:46]
OG
And now it's time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin's head headlines.
- [41:51]
Joe
Our headline today comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. David Wert wrote this piece. This is a conundrum og that I think brings up a much bigger issue. Insurance companies. Medicare pullback is here. If you're somebody who is receiving Medicare, you're thinking about Medicare in the future. Of course, we're all thinking about Medicare in the future for the United States. You're going to need to maybe do a little more planning. Many seniors, David writes, enjoy the perks that come with Medicare Advantage, but those extras like dental coverage and free gym memberships are being scal back. Insurers are cutting benefits and exiting from unprofitable markets, and Wall Street's cheering them on. Once rewarded by investors for rapid expansion in a lucrative privatized Medicare program, companies are now being applauded for showing restraint amid rising medical cost and lower government payments. I don't want to talk too much specifically about Medicare because this is going to depend, thank God. Well, it's going to depend specifically on which company you're working with. Medicare Advantage is you're going to go and you're going to look in the marketplace and you're going to choose the one that fits you the most. But, oh, gee, what I do want to focus on is this early on in this Medicare Advantage game, what Wall street loved was the fact that these companies would add more benefits and they would take over more territory and so they would reward companies for expansion. Now, in a different environment, they're rewarding companies for cutting back. And I think what we think is that once I do this Medicare thing or once I do this tax thing or once I do this budget thing, like it's going to be set in stone. Yeah, I think this is another reason to focus on. It isn't about making a plan, it's about this ongoing planning that I do so I can roll with the punches. Whether it's Medicare, the Trump tax changes, whatever the latest new thing is, I gotta redo my plan. My question to you is, what's the right timing around that? Am I going to look at things like this once every other year to redo my plan completely to, like, take it down? You know, we had Cheryl here the first half of the show, right? Take it down to the studs and remodel it the plan. Am I tweaking for five years and then I remodel? Like, what's the right cadence to redo my financial plan to make sure I'm catching things like this big Medicare change.
- [44:19]
OG
Well, I think it's about the system for having the conversation. The way that we look at it, not that our way is necessarily right, but it's a system that's worked for us over the years is the CFP board says there's six different areas of financial planning. When we work with clients, we've look at one of those six areas every six months. So the cycle is about every three years. Right. And so you think about it and you say, well, what if there's the tax law thing that happens, you know, in the middle of, you know, it's not tax season. Right. It's not the. We, we just did taxes last year. Are we going to do it again? Yeah, absolutely. Because the reality is, is that that's a big radical change or you know, insurance or something like that. We had in our personal lives a huge change happened on the insurance front because I had another child turn 16. Everybody knows that my first kid wrecked my car and then wrecked his own car. And so, you know, we're being penalized for two wrecked cars and an 18 year old driver. 18 year old male driver. And so our premium doubled to add him. By just adding our second kid at 16 to our insurance. It doubled again. Didn't add a car, it just doubled. It's like, oh, you have a 16 year old male, give us twice the price.
- [45:35]
Joe
Congratulations.
- [45:36]
OG
So our car insurance bill for three cars all paid off, all reasonable vehicles is $24,000 a year. And I can take it. But at some point it's like, okay, this is a little crazy. So it was time we had a big radical change. It was time to go, all right, we got to dig into this a little bit.
- [45:58]
Doug
You're just getting into crazy. Like that's just the entry point to crazy. That is flat out crazy.
- [46:04]
OG
But it was a thousand a month. It was already nuts when it went to 2,000amonth. Yeah, yeah, I went crazy. The crazy train.
- [46:10]
Joe
But that is, I think you partly answered my question OG is that you've got a three year, you've naturally this three year rolling cycle, but you also have the flexibility of I might need to take this plan and retool it before three years if one of these major life events happen.
- [46:27]
OG
Yeah, that's a much more succinct way of saying it. Versus the story that I was getting into the TLDR by the way, is we were able to switch it to a lower cost provider and still get most of the same coverage. It wasn't all the Same coverage, but it's close. I think having the system for, okay, this is the rhythm and then knowing, okay, if something comes up, then I got to look into it. You have a child, you need to redo your estate plan. You shouldn't wait three years.
- [46:55]
Joe
Go.
- [46:55]
OG
Well, the estate planning review session I have scheduled isn't until 2020, 29, so.
- [46:59]
Joe
And the important piece of this is, and I think we look at Medicare, we think things, we think permanence. And how often have we heard influencers.
- [47:08]
OG
No, no, no, no, no. This is my favorite thing. Joe, I'm so glad you brought this up and I hate to interrupt you, but this is my favorite thing. Lately people have said this to me. Well, now that the tax laws are permanent, oh, it's so funny.
- [47:23]
Doug
You laugh in their face when they.
- [47:24]
Joe
Say rolls on the floor.
- [47:26]
OG
I laugh just like I just laughed right there.
- [47:30]
Doug
Silly child.
- [47:31]
Joe
There's been so much permanence over my 30 years of doing this.
- [47:35]
OG
Yes, but they did lean into that. They're like, you know, this bill makes the tax laws permanent. That you heard that a bunch. So I think people kind of latched onto it. Listen, it's not permanent, right.
- [47:43]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
It's.
- [47:44]
OG
We're eight months away from the next kickoff of election cycle. You know, as the, the next half of the House of Representatives are, well, I guess all of them for the House Representatives and half the senators are up for re election or a third of them. And it's like this is as permanent as the next 18 months probably. So, yeah, there's always going to be changes that are going on and having a rhythm for looking at it. We, you know, we have a rhythm or an automation for looking at our investments. Right. On the first of every quarter, I review my investments. Once a year on my birthday, I hit the rebalance button. So you have that rhythm. Why would you not do that for all the other areas?
- [48:19]
Joe
Yeah, this should be written in investment policy statement. And I was about to ask that same thing. Oh, gee, I think this goes on your calendar. I think this is a calendar event that every six months put the new thing on the calendar. So once every three years on your calendar, you've got review my estate plan, review my tax plan, review my investment plan, my IPS statement. Take the six areas of financial planning and just one every six months and you end up with this revolving thing that at the very least of an.
- [48:48]
OG
Opportunity to not let anything go too far.
- [48:51]
Joe
This is the same reason why I have set up make a minimum payment on my credit card because I pay my credit card off in full. But there have been times when I've been on vacation and I have forgotten just because I'm on vacation. And then the automatic payment goes anyway.
- [49:08]
OG
So by this automatic minimum payment. So you're not gonna, you're never gonna blow up your bank account.
- [49:14]
Joe
Yeah.
- [49:14]
OG
And you're never going to blow up your credit.
- [49:17]
Joe
Making sure that at the very least. So at the very least every three years you're looking at this. I think that's a great automation. You know, it's a little bit of a potpourri headline segment because I knew that we would be able to get through that one fairly quickly. I have a second one. This is news just from last week, guys. Maryland couple wins lottery prize just before both of their birthdays. This is from UPI and Ben Hooper wrote this piece. A Maryland couple scored a fifty thousand dollar prize from a scratch off lottery ticket just in time to celebrate both of their August birthdays. The Prince George's county duo told Maryland lottery officials the husband of the pair bought the fifty thousand dollar cash scratch off game from Tony's Liquors and Laurel, which in quote is his favorite place to buy tickets. Which means he won $50,000 today. But how many times OG do you think he bought tickets before this? If it's his favorite place to buy.
- [50:20]
OG
Tickets, his favorite now.
- [50:23]
Joe
It'S that that lie cracks. It's his favorite place to buy tickets. But he was incredibly lucky this time. Not like the other 9,757 times that he's done it. I mean, I wonder how much money it cost him to win the $50,000 scratch off. Tony's is the spot. He said they have big winners there a lot. And how would he know? Because he's in Tony's all the time buying a scratch off of which he got incredibly lucky with. This time he scratched the ticket off while watching TV later and used his phone to scan the barcode and confirm he'd scored the big prize. It was $50,000. The winner said, I told my wife we have to go to Baltimore. And I showed her the message on my phone. I thought it was 5,000 but had to look again because there were so many zeros. The man's wife said, I tried to stay calm but I just couldn't believe it. That is a kick ass day by the way. When there's so many zeros you're like wait, what?
- [51:20]
OG
Fantastic.
- [51:21]
Doug
Yeah.
- [51:21]
Joe
And then I love the way this ends. What do you do when you win 50,000 bucks of which it might have cost you 49,000 trips to Tony's to win. The couple said their winnings will allow them to spend more extravagantly for their birthdays, which are coming up in the next couple weeks.
- [51:39]
OG
Absolutely. Look, the largest winning I've ever had is $5,000. And that went into the bank account. But you can guarantee that if I went 50. Oh, I'm spending some of that. We're gonna have some fun. And then I'll be mad about the tax bill. I'll forget about the tax bill.
- [51:57]
Joe
Dang it.
- [51:57]
OG
I still owe 20 grand in taxes.
- [51:59]
Joe
You can learn from the, like, people teaching you stuff. And then you could also look at people and go, yeah, I don't want to do that.
- [52:05]
OG
It's like the video. It says, guy walks in, he goes, hey, honey, real quick, what would you do if I won the lottery? And she goes, easy, I take half and divorce your ass. He goes, well, congratulations. And he hands her 20 bucks.
- [52:26]
Joe
And on that, it's time for our last piece of our potpourri headline, which is our TikTok minute. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a Tick Tock creator who's either doing something brilliant or air quotes brilliant.
- [52:37]
OG
You know, planning, that's gonna be fantastic. We're on a roll. Today we're talking about Medicaid, scratchers, 50k divorce.
- [52:45]
Joe
It only gets better. This is a Tick Tock from Dirt Spigot, which is where I get all. All of my I love it headline news.
- [52:54]
Doug
Is that a porn name?
- [52:56]
Joe
I would take advice from this guy about, well, you know, how to make good budget decisions. Not saying you should spend money you don't have. That's irresponsible. I'm saying if you're going to do that, a vacation isn't the worst thing you can buy with fake money. It's not like they can repossess a vacation you already took. What are they going to make you take them on a cruise to pay it back? Don't only listen to me. I'm not trying to give you bad advice. I'm saying weigh the pros and cons and then just do it. You got your pros, you got your cons, and then it. What are they gonna do, take a vacation with you to repossess it?
- [53:36]
Doug
What could go wrong?
- [53:37]
OG
It's great advice.
- [53:38]
Joe
I gotta tell you, early in our life, you were talking earlier in the week, oh, gee, about taking a trip to Disney on Monday. I took a trip to Disney early in my marriage and we had no money and I put all of it on credit. Like the whole thing. And I just remember coming home and the huge number of regrets I had. I just had so many regrets.
- [53:57]
OG
But Disney was awesome.
- [53:59]
Joe
Yeah, it was going to be this I deserve it vacation. And I will tell you, none of that was true.
- [54:04]
Doug
And if I'm happier, then I'll work harder when I get back.
- [54:07]
OG
Yeah, exactly.
- [54:08]
Joe
Oh, I was like, why did I dig the hole even deeper? Whistle while I work. Yeah, I felt like I was going to work in the mine again with the Seven Dwarfs. Not great. Thanks for sending that in, Teresa. That was. That was a great addition. If you've got a TikTok for me, send those to joe@Stacky benjamin.com all right, Doug, let's mosey out onto the back porch. What's happening in the community today?
- [54:37]
Doug
Joe I want to talk about a really good review we got. Although when I first saw the title of it, I thought, oh, the word this is going to be a doozy because the title is Aftermath, which sounds like a disaster movie. I'm like, oh God, we just crash and burn. And he wants to talk about the aftermath. This is from Eyes Up Mindset, so this is clearly somebody who's maybe got a bigger chest and they're trying to tell people like Eyes up here. Saylor. I don't know. Here's the review. Rural Minnesota science teacher and longtime SB fan. Hashtag Go Doug. I enjoy listening to your episodes every week while I'm working my before school slash summer job at 4am really enjoyed the Aftermath interview with Ted Denter Smith. As soon as Doug wrapped up the episode, I downloaded all of Ted's audio book from my library app. I can't agree more on how the US Education system desperately needs more real world learning. I'm nervous I will limit these critical thinking skills. Duh. My I added the duh. My My wife and I plan to homeschool our children after sixth grade despite me being a public educator so I can teach them wood shop, welding, horticulture, personal finance, and other life skills. Keep up the good work, SB team. I'd love a copy of Ted's newest book. Or a T shirt. Wink.
- [56:00]
Joe
Ted did mention that he helps out community, so if you put together a book club, I think you can write to Ted and he'd be happy to send you some. I know that he is doing that for for our Minneapolis meetup group. So he's sending them a bunch of copies of Aftermath and they're going to do a book club piece on that. So thanks to Ted for That, by the way, that's episode 1715. I mean, this guy, the work he's done in education, the number of schools that he's visited, it's definitely must listen for any educator, anybody interested in education. That's great. Thank you. Thanks for those kind words. I'm looking at the clock. I think we've got to move out today, guys. Unfortunately. But fortunately, at the end of every episode, we've got Doug telling us, what are those big three things we should be focused on on our to do list after today's show.
- [56:50]
Doug
Lucky you, Joe. First, take some advice from Cheryl McKissick. Daniel, there will always be adversity in your way. Find your Champions network and do great work and things will go your way. Second, Medicare. Changing things. Always change.
- [57:06]
Cheryl McKissick Daniels
Change.
- [57:07]
Doug
We call it planning, not just a plan for a reason. So make yours flexible and keep on tweaking.
- [57:18]
Joe
Twerking. Keep on twerking.
- [57:21]
Doug
I'm tweaking. Like you're a meth head or something. Why can't you say that?
- [57:26]
Joe
Is that what meth heads do? Is there tweaking?
- [57:27]
Doug
They call them tweakers. Yeah.
- [57:29]
Joe
Really?
- [57:29]
Doug
Like if you're a tweaker, you're a meth head. Yeah.
- [57:31]
Joe
Oh, I did not know that. Well, how'd you know that? I just want to know how you know that.
- [57:37]
Doug
Because the Internet exists. Same way I know what furries are, Joe.
- [57:43]
Joe
Whatever. No quote, experience in those areas. Keep all this in, Steve.
- [57:49]
Doug
No.
- [57:49]
Joe
For God's sakes. Absolutely.
- [57:55]
Doug
But the big lesson.
- [57:56]
Joe
Yeah, what's a big lesson?
- [57:59]
Doug
The big lesson is I gotta learn to keep my mouth shut. That's what the big lesson is. The Berlin wall fell in 1989. The wall in Mom's basement fell last week when Joe leaned back too far in his chair. Different kinds of revolutions, same level of shock. Hey, can we get Cheryl back in here to do a quote for us on this drywall? Thanks to Cheryl McKissick, Daniel, for joining us today. You'll find Cheryl's new work, the Black Family who Built America, wherever you buy books. We'll also include links in our show notes at the stackingbenjamins.com website and a copy just for you in our Stacking Benjamins bookstore@stackingbenjamins.com books. I think we said Stacking Benjamins as many times as we said McKissick right there. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, copyright2025 and is created by Josal Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood Friends, you'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show.
- [59:43]
Joe
Sam, welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. I had some people write in going, hey, Doug promised us a mountain lion story and instead we just got confused.
- [60:32]
OG
He was thinking cougar story and then.
- [60:36]
Doug
He realized he could tell that they're both good stories. I'll tell the one about the animal, furry animal. I'll tell the one about the four legged mountain lion deal. That'll be show appropriate. Years ago, my oldest and I were out doing some nighttime astrophotography in Arches national park where you go out, set up your camera on timed exposure. You take hundreds if not thousands of photos and you use some software to put it all together. And that's how you see those photos that have star trails and you know, what an amazing place. Yeah, gorgeous. And we did get some unbelievable photos. But we're out there in the, in the middle of the night. I think it was like 2am there's almost no cell coverage where we were, but there was a little bit of cell coverage about halfway between the park entrance and where we were setting up our shot in front of one of the ar. So we set up the camera, we go back because it's cold. I think it was February when we were out there. We go back to the truck and we wait and we had nothing to do. And my son says, why don't we go back to that spot where we last had cell signal. We can just sit there for like an hour and a half, two hours. So we go there, we got nothing. I'm looking at my phone trying to find stuff to read and I decide to look up what kind of wildlife is roaming around Arches National Park. And you get all the usual stuff you'd think of. And mountain lions, not many, but they've been spotted there. And I decided to look up. Well, what would mountain lion eyes look like at night in a flashlight? And they look gold, they reflect black gold. Deer would reflect back greenish mountain Lions, cats, big cats. Gold, huh? So now this is burrowed into my brain because we still have to go back out, hike a mile to get to our camera. Set up in the middle of the night and all.
- [62:39]
Joe
You can stream our camera gear.
- [62:41]
Doug
I don't tell my son this, but I am scared walking out there at 3am, 3:30 in the morning to record this camera gear. So I've got a headlamp on and we walk out there. No path, you know, we're just blazing our way to get back to our stuff. He's tearing the stuff down and he's getting all detail like, oh, maybe we should set up for one now. I think we're good. I think we probably got the shots we need. We're good. Now maybe if we just pivot the camera like this and we do it for another. No, man, we're good. Let's go. And he's just taking his sweet ass time taking the camera gear down. The whole time I'm just scanning.
- [63:19]
Joe
With your flashlight.
- [63:20]
Doug
With my headlamp on and I'm just scanning it. All of a sudden there's a pair of eyes. Did you know it's somewhere between green and gold? Can't quite tell, but in my mind those were gold. But I just. And I had to act cool. I'm the dad. I'm the one that's like, got a.
- [63:41]
Joe
Steer now you're being hunted.
- [63:44]
Doug
Yeah. And I just keep looking and then they go away and then they come back and I'm really scared.
- [63:51]
Joe
How far away?
- [63:54]
Doug
A little ways. Probably 75 yards. Five yards. Yeah, that's about what I was going to say. Yeah. And so I'm just kind of urging him. And then we're walking out. And as I were walking out, was that a scream you just played?
- [64:10]
Joe
Oh, geez. Got the sound effects.
- [64:13]
Doug
Unbelievable. I was having that in my head. And we're walking out and I'm just whistling and I'm making sure I'm talking to. Making lots of noise. We get all the way back to the car and once we shut the door, I'm like, all right, I gotta tell you. He goes, you were scared about something, weren't you? I said, yeah. How'd you tell? He said, because you never. You never talk that much in the middle of the night in. When you were out in nature, all.
- [64:36]
Joe
Of a sudden, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- [64:37]
Doug
Yeah. And I.
- [64:39]
Joe
You're a loudmouth dad, but not that big a loud mouth.
- [64:42]
Doug
Not. Yeah, not when we're out doing that stuff. Anyways, I told him the Whole story. And he said, I'm glad you didn't. Glad you didn't tell me. So then we keep doing some research and found out I did the worst possible thing I could have done as a father trying to protect my son. I led out. And if a cat, a big cat is going to attack you, they're doing it from behind.
- [65:02]
Joe
Sure.
- [65:02]
Doug
So they were going to take my son. They. You know them. Those damn cougars. He was toast. Like, if that really was a cougar, my son was gone.
- [65:14]
Joe
We were a great basin where they have mountain lions. They. They gave us a whole. During their night sky talk while the sun's going down, they talked about the mountain lions in the area and about how few there are and about how your goal with the mountain lion, because they're incredibly smart, is to make the mountain lion believe it's not. You're not worth their time. You are not worth their time. Like, it's going to be too big a fight. Like when a bear locks in, you can't unlock the bear. The way the bear's brain works, once he decides he's coming, you just have to pretend you're, you know, a toy and he gets bored with you. But when it's a mountain lion, you got to make it where the fight's going to be way too much because they're doing calculus in their head. So I totally agree. Putting your son behind you, the mountain lions thinking, oh, this is easy fight.
- [66:06]
Doug
Well, I'm also a little. I got a little bit more meat on my bones. So he probably didn't want my son. I mean, I was the prize. I think that's right.
- [66:14]
Joe
Yeah.
- [66:15]
Doug
All that good fat on me.
- [66:16]
Joe
He's thinking about you with some sweet.
- [66:19]
OG
Baby rays, chiante and some fava beans.
- [66:26]
Joe
I had the opposite story, Doug. We were hiking. My kids were maybe 11, and we were hiking in the beautiful hills surrounding Mammoth Cave. And so we went down into the cave a couple times, but then we did a bunch of hiking and canoeing. And one time, it is dusk and we are making our way back through the forest, and I keep hearing these leaves behind me, and. And it just feels like something is behind us. I tell my family. I'm like, okay, you guys stay here. I'm going to go see what it is. Again, complete stupidity. What the hell am I going to do? But I walk back a little ways, and I see behind this tree. I see these two huge ass legs, and I'm like, oh, my God, it is a mountain lion. We have a mountain lion up here.
- [67:22]
Doug
We got a new sound engineer on the show. Holy cow.
- [67:25]
Joe
Oh, geez. On fire. So I go back and Cheryl goes, are you sure it's mountain lion? I go. I go, oh, yeah, you got to see these legs. So for some effing reason, I take Cheryl, come on with me. Let's all get eaten.
- [67:41]
Doug
Kids get right up next to it. This will make a great photo for the Christmas card.
- [67:45]
Joe
Yes. Well, I go back there and Cheryl's like, yeah, that's a deer. Yeah, that. That is a deer. And sure enough, the thing pops its head out and it is a deer. And so now every time my kids were 11, my kids are 30 now every time we see a deer, my kids are always like, dad, look at the mountain lion. Let's get closer to the mountain.
- [68:08]
Doug
That's hard to live down.
- [68:09]
Joe
It is so bad. It's so bad.