If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate the messy realities of running a family business without losing your mind or your relationships, this openhearted conversation exposes the true tension points, the rituals that saved them from burnout, and the communication habits that allowed Sandra Yancey, Kym Yancey, and Briana Dai to grow stronger as a family and a company together.

Welcome back to another heartfelt episode of She Means Millions. In this powerful conversation, we open up about the raw realities of what it means to work together as a family, run a business together, and navigate the overlap between professional and personal lives all while holding onto the relationships that matter most. If you've ever wondered how to survive and thrive in a family business, or what it looks like behind the scenes of eWomen Network, this episode is a must-listen.

In this episode, we share the highs and lows of building a business as a couple and as a family. We talk candidly about the moments when trust was our greatest asset and our toughest challenge, what it looks like to "fire" each other from a business role to save the relationship, and how our growth as individuals inevitably reshaped our roles.

We open up about the transitions, from spending decades supporting each other on stage and behind the scenes, to switching roles, and to integrating a new generation into the family business. There are stories of difficult conversations, growth, and the power of truly listening to one another. We discuss the unique strategies and rituals like driving separately for "me" time and having family meetings that have helped us maintain both our sanity and our solid family foundation.

Key Topics and Takeaways

1. The Truth About Working With Family

• Trust is both the best and the hardest part of working together
• “Firing” each other from roles to protect the relationship

2. Creating Boundaries and Space

• Why driving separately gives much-needed personal time
• How independent hobbies help maintain individual identities

3. Navigating Business Transitions

• How stepping away from eWomen Network shaped our understanding of its value
• The emotional cost and growth that comes with changing roles and business pursuits

4. Communication as a Superpower

• Family meetings as a tool to address conflicts and recalibrate
• Learning to separate “Mom and Dad” from “Sandra and Kym” in a professional environment

5. Starting Over and Forgiveness

• The “start over” ritual that resets family dynamics when things get heated
• Taking responsibility for our part in misunderstandings and growth

6. Generational Collaboration

• Supporting the next generation to find their leadership voice
• The unique benefits and challenges of a multi-generational family business

7. Honoring Personal and Professional Evolution

• The importance of listening to each other’s needs sometimes through a song
• Letting go and empowering each other to reach new heights

If you’re a woman entrepreneur, a family business owner, or anyone who cares deeply about blending career and connection, this episode is for you. We invite you to join our network of over 500,000 women supporting women where conversations like this happen every day. Visit eWomenNetwork.com and become a member of a community that will cheer you on and challenge you to grow.

Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave us a review! Tell us what resonated most with you about the delicate balance of business and family. We can’t wait to connect with you and hear your story.

#SheMeansMillions #FamilyBusiness #WomenEntrepreneurs #eWomenNetwork #WorkLifeBalance #CommunicationSkills #PersonalDevelopment #FamilyDynamics #Leadership #StartOver #WomenInBusiness

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She Means Millions is part of the eWomenPodcastNetwork

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When you're in, you get to those low moments, those deep moments where you're really questioning, you know, is this— is this the life that I want to live? Is this the partner that I want to have? You know, that whole thing.

Exactly.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you guys were rocking it, you know, touring with Peter Frampton and the O'Jays and the Commodores.

I just want to make sure you didn't leave out all the particulars there.

It makes me emotional because it is one of those things where coming into it, similarly to you, I love the calling here, you know? feel called towards eWomen Network. So I didn't want to step away from it. And also I didn't want to sacrifice my family relationship in the spirit of that either. So, so welcome back to She Means Millions.

Exactly.

Um, we get asked about this all the time, all the time. Yeah. And here's what we don't talk about enough, and that is, you know, we run a business together and we're a family, and those don't always agree. And we've had to learn how to fire each other from one role to keep each other in another. And we're going to tell you what that actually looks like. So one thing off the top, I want to just, just challenge you with the first word that comes to mind for each of you. What is The best thing about working together and the hardest thing in one word.

Trust right away. Trust and—

Convenience.

Appreciation. You know, for me. Did I give you 2 words?

Yes, you did. That's cool. So those are the positive. What's the hardest part?

Trust. Yeah.

We actually drive separately now. Sometimes we just need a break even though we're leaving at the same time, coming to the same place and leaving to go home. We drive Because more times than not, we have different agendas.

Because I know you will talk to—

I make phone calls on the way home to my teams that are out of state. Staff that don't live in Dallas. They don't work here.

Yeah.

I'm listening to like a news broadcast or a podcast. I listen to podcasts all the time.

Yeah.

So it's just different. You know what I mean? So it's our little short period of time where we have Me time.

I think it also shuts down the work conversation because then, you know, we both pull into the garage simultaneously.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly. And, and we get out of the car and the next thing you know, we're talking about dinner and all the things. And yeah.

That's honestly probably really smart, you know, that you have that, that moment because you are actively running the business together. So you live together. And you work together, you're in the office together. So having at least a moment by yourself, particularly because I don't know that y'all have a lot of like independent hobbies.

Massage.

Yeah.

What'd you say?

Massage.

Yeah.

Facials. Getting my nails done in the garden.

Yeah. Those are your independent hobbies. What are, what's—

You know, let me tell you something.

My closet is—

eWomen Network. eWomen Network is is a very jealous employer. I mean, eWomen Network wants time and attention. Yeah. You know what I mean? It just does. I mean, it's just what it is. It's its own little living, breathing thing. I'm telling you.

Yeah.

Well, I think continuity-based models, business models like eWomen Network, a membership-based model. I mean, when you've got thousands of people, you know what I mean? Yeah. That drives a very different type of, um, set of expectations, I think, than if you were just product-based.

Yeah. So interesting.

I mean, I had an experience, Brianna, when was it 2014, Sandra, where for one year I left eWomen Network to run a magazine called Live Happy. Uh, a dear friend of mine, Jeff Olson, is, is the founder. And, um, I gotta tell you, it was really something. I learned a couple of key things here with that. First of all, everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to pay for it. That getting sponsors for that was hard, man. And the other was—

And there is a price for happiness, interesting.

There's a price for happiness. And the other one was I missed eWomen Network. I mean, it was the darndest thing. I would leave the Live Happy office, was just down the street from, from us. And I would leave and I would come back and I, there was a yearning, a calling. I missed the network. I would, I mean, I missed the community, man. I missed the whole vibe.

You were at a conference one year, that conference, remember? That was when Ken Kragan helped me. I wanted to acknowledge you since you weren't going to be part of the conference that year. And Ken Kragan had had connections, of course, in the music industry. And a lot— some people may not know that you at your core are a musician. And I met you when you were in a band on Capitol Records. You did 6 albums, one that went gold, toured, you know, the world, etc., sold out coliseums, Atlanta Jam, 70,000 people, etc. And anyway—

By the way, those other albums almost went gold.

Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah. I mean, you guys were rocking it, you know, touring with Peter Frampton and the O'Jays and the Commodores.

Just want to make sure you didn't leave out all the particulars there.

Anyway, um, I can't—

We're on Soul Train 5 times.

Yeah. You could go to YouTube and go to Son on Soul Train after this episode, of course, but check him out and look and check out the drummer. Um, and why am I saying this? You got me totally distracted here.

Well, I was leaving and Ken Corrigan and I think—

Oh yeah, that year when you came to—

The gift that I got.

Yeah. And so I was telling Ken, it's Kim's first year ever not being part of the conference. You were going to be in the audience. And it felt so weird. And I wanted to do something to simply acknowledge you. And he helped me. He had connections with Buddy Holly's— but who's the drummer?

Buddy Rich.

Buddy Rich's family. And who's one of your favorite drummers. Yes.

Right.

And was able to get me out of his estate. an autographed album that I had framed and had you come up on the stage. But that year felt really different. Yeah.

Did it feel weird to you?

Yeah. Very different. And I remember just being here and being in my office and you'd be done. And the next thing I knew, you were standing in my office. You know, I always had my back to the door because I'm— I like to look out the window over the skyline, the tree lines and that kind of thing into the sky when I'm being creative. And And not being distracted by my door. And I would turn around and there you were. It was, it was hard.

It was a hard year, actually.

And it was all choice. I mean, it was, it happened to be that my friend, you know, this whole magazine concept so resonated with me. The whole notion of happy. I just thought—

And they knew you were the king of sponsorships. Here we go with that conversation. They're like, we need to get this magazine sponsored. And there's only one person I know that can do this. And that's my friend Kim Yancey.

But real talk, were you maybe Was there a part of you for a season that felt like maybe the break was needed for professional or even personal reasons? Because you missed E! and the network, but you had to leave it to realize that. Because had you been absolutely in love with what you were doing, you wouldn't have taken that opportunity, as exciting as it was. So I want to pressure test this a little bit.

No, I am telling you, the only reason I left was because the mission behind Live Happy and what it was all about was so strong. I felt pulled to it. I felt pulled to it. And I felt that what was going on with eWomen@Work, it was in good hands. I mean, Sandra, it's her baby. It was only after leaving and being away from it that it come into focus for me how much it meant to me.

How much— I think we both did. I think it was for both. We both realized, gosh, it's easy to take for granted That you've got that person that's always got your back.

Well, let me give you— okay, so let me give you the real deal. I'm gonna give you the real deal no matter what. Things that you don't even think about. For example, if she was going out of town or someplace that normally I would have been going with her, or planning a getaway or something like that, well, her schedule wouldn't allow, as opposed to how we coordinate things together at eWomen Network, right? How we can plan things and we do things, right? But now, I've got other conferences that I'm going to, I'm doing other things.

Right.

You know, and she's not involved in that.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was just something, you know, we didn't, I don't think, realize, I'll speak for me, didn't realize what we had created in terms of an infrastructure in our life.

Yeah.

You know, and the things that we did together.

The thread got broken. There was a, we would weave everything together when we were all under one roof here. And it became harder once he was, someplace else. Yeah. But, you know, Brianna, when I spend the night at your house on Thursdays, we don't talk business.

No, we don't. For the most part.

Yeah.

I mean, you were, you were working when, after I got Tatiana down and that kind of thing. I, you were, you had your laptop out, you know, and you were propped on the couch and that kind of thing. And I think you were working and I interrupted you over some of my new Korean beauty products.

Yeah, you would've definitely been gotten a little, um, a little report sent to the house for interrupts others while doing work. Exactly.

I like it.

Yeah. On a whole rabbit trail, uh, on another topic, which was good and I needed, I needed it. But yeah. Um, man, you know what's interesting listening to the two of you talk and just being an observer of you and your dynamic because it is pretty profound. I think a lot of people observe from the sidelines like, how do they work together and stay married? each other. And, you know, and I've, I've now since observed several other couples too, and how, you know, they really need a break, or, or they— or even just the way they interact, the way that they get on each other's nerves. Like, it's interesting how many people will put— play their hand in a public setting, and you, you will never know if one of you is irritated with the other in public, you know what I mean? And it's not like you don't get on each other's nerves every now and then. I think that's human nature.

Yeah.

such a unified front. Always. You will never reveal in public at a dinner or an event or any kind of a setting. And I think that that is such an, like, an important and powerful thing that the two of you do. And—

Well, you know, I got to tell you what people don't know, right? They don't know I used to be the speaker. Not for eWomen Network.

You were the man on the stage. I married a music man on a stage.

I was touring when I had my advertising agency, we were very successful. And I was called for speaking engagements all the time to do a talk called The Deadly Weapons That Destroy Small Agencies. And I mean, literally went all over the country speaking and that kind of thing. And our whole dynamic changed.

Because I've always been a behind-the-scenes operations.

Always behind the scenes. And our whole dynamic changed. I've got friends of mine who says, who say, I don't know how you did it.

Right.

And I'm like, it wasn't hard. I mean, it wasn't like, man, I'm suffering here. I'm not speaking. I'm not—

You don't have the ego that, you know, I think sometimes gets associated with a lot of men. I mean, you've been very supportive, but we have completely flipped roles. There's just no doubt about it. We spent, you know, half of our life together, me supporting you on a stage. You know what I mean? And I've been behind the scenes and, and flipping it. I do think about how that happened. It was more organic than—

We had—

Everything about the family dynamic has been organic.

We had a tough, we had a tough period where your mother asked me in the evolution of V Women Network, where she asked me to listen to a song by Beyoncé.

Oh.

What was that song called?

Listen.

Yeah, it's called listening.

I said, I need you to listen to a song because music has always been a way that we've connected.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I was feeling unheard and I heard that song and I mean, I was jogging at the time and I mean, I would put that thing in my ears and I would just run like hell, you know?

And it was a period of time too where you were like newly empty nesters because Ryland had moved out. I was married. Newly married.

I think so.

So there was a lot of changes happening.

And the dog died.

Personally, and professionally.

The dog was sick.

Yeah.

It was, it was a lot of personal—

And evolution too. And how that changes you and impacts and bleeds into everything.

And so he didn't listen to it.

For, for, yeah.

And I would ask on occasion, did you ever listen to that song?

And I gotta tell you, Brianna, this is one of those show note things where there's a video of me on stage acknowledging this tough moment we had gone through.

I don't want to share that.

But it's powerful. I really, yeah, my throat. Sorry, gang. It's all good. But, um, it was very eye-opening. And, uh, we navigated through, through that because she really expressed— well, you really expressed your feelings about, you know, me not listening. And I really took it to heart.

Because Kim became the producer of Me. This song is the song from Dreamgirls with Beyoncé.

Yeah.

And, and the video that she produced on that song was pretty telling. And I was actually— I was practicing for my first sprint triathlon, and I was looking for new music to add. And I think I was looking for the song To the Left, To the Left, Everything You Own in the Box, To the Left. There's another message, I'm sure. But I could— but I saw this list pop up and I didn't even recognize the name, This Old Listen. But I clicked on it and the video came on and I looked at that and I got up and left. I mean, I locked my door and went home that day. It was so profound to me because it was like she had said everything that I was feeling.

You know, you produced me and now it's time for me to do some of the things that I wanted to do on my own.

Mm-hmm.

Kind of thing. And I wanted to talk to him about it. And I just— it was just— we were so— this is why I hate the word busy. It's the worst 4-letter word in all of business today.

Yeah.

Because you get really distracted on things that don't matter. We were— it was a time we were using busy a lot. We were busy and I was trying to get his attention and I just couldn't.

And I found the voice you think you gave to me. Oh, listen. That's why I don't have the record deal.

Do you feel like you're drowning in your business? Like you're doing everything and something has to give, but you're afraid it might be you? What if I told you there's a network of over 500,000 women entrepreneurs all dedicated to supporting each other? A network of women helping women. I'm Sandra Yancy, founder of eWomen Network, and I'm inviting you to join us and become a member. eWomenNetwork.com We can't wait to meet you. Let me tell you this.

It was so profound that when I talked— when I did talk about it—

Yes.

On stage, I was just being open. I had guys, everybody from— Hiram Smith told me that day when he saw that, and he came backstage. And he says, Kim, I liked you before, but now I love you. And Chris Denuiser came back and gave me a big hug. The guys 3 guys in particular came. One other guy said he called his wife. Oh, you know, to say— and his message to his wife is, hey, are we okay? Oh, you know what I mean? Because it was—

it's powerful.

Yeah, it's really, really, really—

Once you did— once you did see the video, you then typed up the phrases of the song and then would respond to me and then write more phrases and then respond to me. And it was like a 5-page I think by the time it was done, it is a powerful message. You gave it to me.

And it is on YouTube. It is.

Yeah. Yeah.

But it— but I think, you know, the one thing I'll say is—

So working together is— there was a time when we got so focused on the business that we weren't talking about our individual needs. And I have to take ownership for that because I just I was just— I've so relied on him and I still do. But I, I started to feel more produced and that I wasn't using my own voice and I wanted to talk about it, but I didn't know how to talk about it. And you can verify I'm an introvert.

Yeah.

A lot of people don't understand that about me.

Yeah.

I mean, I process a lot quietly.

Right.

And it's easy for me to not talk. And, and then I got all bottled up and then I wanted to talk and then I couldn't get him to be available for me. And then I heard this song and then I thought, well, that's the way to let him know how I'm feeling.

That was the message.

It was the message I was trying to tell him.

You're not listening to me. You need to listen to this song. Have you listened to it?

And the name of the song is Listen. Yeah. There's this whole thing. Yeah.

No, it's so good.

And I did a keynote that year on Listen, actually. And I used Listen, of course, as an acronym.

And of course you did.

Of course I did.

Yeah.

About listening to your customer. I mean, that listen became a theme for me on it. So, and listening to myself.

Yeah.

And then needing to be listened to.

Yeah.

And then listening to the customers. It was like this whole 360 kind of, you know, way in which that word became a symbol for me. Yeah.

You know, there's a book called, um, The Less Road Traveled.

The Road Less Traveled.

The Road Less Traveled.

Yeah.

And, uh, by Scott M. Peck.

That's right.

And he talked about love and true love and, And I really think it applies to us from the standpoint that it's when you're in, you get to those low moments, those deep moments where you're really questioning, you know, is this the life that I want to live? Is this the partner that I want to have? You know, that whole thing. It's when you get to the bottom of that well is where real love emerges. It's when you're in your toughest, darkest moments, That real love comes to surface.

Yeah.

And I think we've done, done that. I mean, I think we've learned—

48 years.

Yeah, we've learned to—

We've grown up.

To respect each other's opinion.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Give each other space. You know what I mean? Don't you think? I mean, I think we can only go so far. The problem is we can't get real mad at each other.

Too long. Because you know what he does to me? You know, when I, when I get mad, I go to my office. And I work.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? I'm, I'm one that I need my quiet space. Let me just go and—

Yeah.

And he'll come to me and he'll say, so, um, just ask a quick question. Um, it's Saturday. It's a Saturday. Let's say it's a Saturday. So, um, I know you're mad at me and it's, it's 9:30 in the morning. Um, but there's a, there's, there's a matinee movie, you know, on at, um, At 12:30 and they got some good seats available. And I didn't know if you were still going to be mad at me at 12:30 or if I could go ahead and book these seats. And he says, but if you're still going to be mad at me at 12:30, they've also got a 3:20 movie.

And so if you think, you know, maybe you'll be over it by, by 3:20, you won't be as mad at me. Maybe I could book that one. And if you're going to be mad at me all day, maybe dinner plans and a movie might be an option.

Yeah. You just got to—

literally does that and it cracks me up and I go, of course, of course. Let's go to the early one. Let's get this over with, you know, kind of thing.

Or, or, or we'll do the, can we start over?

Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, can we just start over?

Yeah.

That's been a safe word in our family.

Yeah. You know what's interesting is that has been a core unit thing that has not carried over to other relationships. I have tried that in other dynamics. My own little family unit and it does not work. Um, maybe some more maturity and time, but yeah. Yeah.

Brianna, that's so fun.

But it is great for us.

Um, and all 4 of us. Yeah. It's always been a thing.

Yeah.

Anybody can say start over.

Yeah.

And we all have to stop.

Yeah. It has definitely stayed within the nucleus and not branched out the rest of the atom. Um, So yeah, that's kind of, that's funny.

We do talk about E-Women Network a lot, but, you know, I don't feel, you know, it'll be something going, a new idea, a new strategy, a new something. And I like the fact that we don't have divergent, you know, agendas, quite honestly. I like the fact that we can talk about other things. And I mean, there are things that we both do and engage with that don't require the other person to necessarily know. You know what I mean? Like, you're talking to someone about some managing directors or something to do with your tour or something like that. And I'm working on something else, you know, stage open or whatever it might be.

But we genuinely love the same thing, like a Dairy Queen trip.

Yeah, for sure.

Or just, we love to look at landscaping and So we love to go drive around and, you know.

Yeah.

It's interesting. I think it's—

It's very different without having the, you know, when you guys were kids.

Yeah.

That was a whole— because then all of our extra time went into your extracurricular activities.

Right.

You know, different, you know, Ryland with games, you with color guard, just musical performances. You know, it changed everything. And that was fun.

Yeah.

You know?

Glad to hear that.

Yeah, that was fun.

I'm stepping into that era and I'm nervous about it, but I know that it's just a season. Everything is just a season. You know?

It makes a big difference when Bryant is, uh, you know, let's say 5 and Tatiana's 10. I mean, you know, those moments of difference.

They've heard them now.

Yeah.

You're doing great, Brianna. I, I'm hoping that you're realizing, um, how really great you are doing. And, um, I think every season is to be savored. I have, um, very few, very few regrets on, um, our family. And I think that's the, the, the real measure that, uh, we did okay as parents is that...

Yeah.

Y'all still want to hang out with us? Yeah. You love to come over. You love to, you know, the family dinners, the let's hang out at the pool, the holidays, the, you know, and it doesn't have to be anything special either. It doesn't have to be a birthday or whatever to do that.

Totally. Yeah. I think the one thing that we have that I don't take for granted that I think that maybe this is where families kind of fall down is that we really do have excellent communication skills.

Yeah.

You know, and we call family meetings when things feel off.

That's an interesting concept.

You know, and, and, and even like, even when it's— because when I came into the family business, um, it was weird for me because especially becoming elevated in my leadership, you know, there is a level of programming and switching gears that is still hard for me because, you know, I was raised pretty traditionally by baby boomer parents, the very baby boomer way. And so, you know, the hierarchy and the respect and the getting permission, you know, was like standard growing up. And now being in an environment where, you know, I'm kind of operating at a peer level in a way. I mean, there's still some hierarchy there, but peer-wise in terms of decision-making, you know, as I was coming into that, Yeah. It was really awkward and hard for me to feel comfortable standing my ground.

Mm-hmm.

And really, um, you know, voicing my perspectives and my beliefs on things. And I don't think you two struggled with it as much as I did. I think it was more so of my own internal kind of like, you know, and I would hold things in and then kind of start to get anxiety or, you know, wonder if this is, is this where I'm supposed to be? Because they don't think like I do, but kind of to the whole point of the listening and the conversation piece, I wasn't communicating. And so we would have these family meetings. I would even have Ryland come because he's not in the family business.

And I—

people ask about Ryland all the time. I'm going to get him on the podcast one day. I'm going to interview Ryland. Yeah, I tried to get him on the last podcast day when y'all were out of town and we couldn't pull it off.

We'll do it in the new studio.

Yeah, it'll be great. But, but he has really been the best anchor in this dynamic working with you because of the fact that he's not in the business. And so he's a true unbiased Switzerland third party.

Yeah.

You know, and can call all of us on our BS when we need to be called on it. And, you know, and really just truly be an anchor even when we are all together to make sure that it doesn't turn into business conversations. But I think having that, having Ryland and his presence has been phenomenal, even just for me kind of getting into owning my own leadership. I've talked to Ryland times, like, okay, I've gotta like talk to mom and dad about this and I'm nervous about it. And Ryland's been a great sounding board for me just to remember like, well, you're not talking to mom and dad, you're talking to Sandra and Kim, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And they're, and it's totally different hats and environments.

Mm-hmm.

And I think for cross-generational family dynamics working in the same business, you know, people are fascinated cuz they're like, how do you do that? How do you work with baby boomers that are also your parents? And, You know, and I'm sure sometimes you guys are like, why do we bring her in here? You know, like we've—

It's been a long time since I've felt that way. Yeah, it really has been a long time.

Yeah. Well, I, and I think we did finally really find a stride and, and, and, you know, our buckets and our contributions and perfect our communication.

Mm-hmm.

It was rocky for me at first because of the separation of mom and dad, Sandra and Kim. And even though we had those distinctions in terms of how we referred to each other in the office, there was still some childlike behaviors in me that I had to unprogram from how I interact with you.

Well, and they were mom-like behaviors for me. I mean, I, I do know that there was a time and I thought when it was really tough, like, I don't want to, I don't want to lose my daughter over this.

Right.

I don't, I don't want to not be her mom. I mean, I got scared there for a minute.

That it was going to ruin our relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a much deeper, more personal level. And I, I was like, this isn't worth it to me.

Yeah. I don't even remember what the argument was, but I was talking about that.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. What was it?

Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember what the argument All I know is I remember you saying, I'm not sure this is right for me. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to stay. And I remember saying, I hear you and I respect that. And you were going to sleep on it and all of that. And yeah, you called me.

Yeah, it makes me emotional because it is one of those things where coming into it similarly to you, I love the calling here, you know, like I do feel called towards eWomen Network. So I didn't want to step away from it. And also I didn't want to sacrifice my family. relationship in the spirit of that either. So having worked through that, having that—

You called me back and you said, I'm not happy, but I don't want to leave.

Yeah.

And I said, then we will, we will figure this out because as long as we know what the endgame is, and I didn't want you to leave, you know, and once we were in alignment with that, we knew that we could figure it out, you know? Yeah.

I wish I could remember what it was.

I can't. It was something insignificant. That's always what it is.

Yeah.

It's the— it's the— but it had been percolating.

Right.

You know what I mean? And it finally just—

I remember, I remember having my own moment with you, Brianna, over something. And you told me, you know, I don't know, this may not be the right thing for me. And I remember my response, okay, well, let's see how you feel tomorrow. Shall we? Yeah.

Yeah.

You needed a night to sleep about it. I'm good. I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Start over.

For sure.

It was really a start over. I mean, it was, it wasn't like, okay, well, let's really, you know, we're like, okay, we're starting over. We're gonna figure it out.

We're gonna figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah. And starting over doesn't mean forgetting or acquiescing. It just means coming back to it with a clear state of mind.

Yeah.

When you're calmer and fresher and not—

And it really works.

This hasn't happened in forever, but You know, we went through periods where you say, you know, I'm out of here.

I'm done.

And I'm thinking, all right then.

Okay.

Have fun with your e-women network.

Yeah.

No, Mom had to say, I'm out of here. And I think we're all like, okay, she's gone. What do we do?

We were somewhere. We got out of In-N-Out Burger. I don't know where In-N-Out Burger is. Sandra was upset with me about something, got out of the car. I'm like, what are you doing?

She said, I'm walking home.

I'm walking home. I mean, she's walking home. She's walking like 6 miles home.

Yeah, it's just a walk to me.

And so, and so finally, I, I'm kind of keeping my eye on her from a distance because I'm letting her cool off.

Yeah.

It was something, man.

I can't, I can't even tell you.

That's my introversion.

I need space. Yeah, finally Finally, I catch up with her at, at Braum's over on Trinity Mills or something. Yeah. And I remember pulling up to her and says, would you mind getting in the car?

Yeah. And the thing, introversion and passiveness are not the same because there's one thing she is not, it is passive. Like you will know.

Yeah. Right.

You'll know if this—

Oh yeah.

I'm not passive.

Yeah.

But I do need some quiet space sometimes.

That's to avoid a complete combustion. Right. I think we, I think I have that gene so I can poke fun at it because I too have some explosive tendencies, but I have learned to reel them in. When I feel triggered, I take a deep breath, breathe in the power.

Skills.

Blow out the candles. Exactly.

But yeah, no, no, I, you know, I just realize that when I finally listened to that song, Listen, that was a pivotal change. And actually—

Forever.

I changed myself.

Like, bam.

It changed me—

To this day. A lot.

Not only in my relationship and my interactions with you, but also with other people.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? I became softer and more understanding.

Yeah.

And I changed too. I owned my part of that. I let things build up and build up and build up, and I'm much more able to share my feelings as we go.

I gotta say, you know, and I think back to my own mother and father. I mean, I've got a couple— I had a phenomenal father. And, um, but saying that, 3 times maybe I can remember in my life where he and I had some time together, like to dinner or something, like maybe 3 times like that. And I think I can't even, And I can't even comprehend what it's like for you to be around your parents all the time, the experiences. I mean—

Yeah.

I feel good knowing that when my day comes, when I pass on, okay, I'm just saying, when that day happens, that we've had incredible experiences together as a father and daughter and family. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

But, you know, you didn't work with your mother, right? You know, it's really, really special. Something that I really covet, you know, that we're able to do this. We're able to do things together. We're able to strategize on things together. You know what I'm saying?

And the two of you— I'll summarize with this— and the two of you don't realize how much sometimes I have my own out-of-body experience watching the two of you because I didn't have a dad.

Yeah.

And I didn't have a grandfather. And, um, so there, there was no, you know, I sometimes step back and go, wow. So that's what it's like in such a beautiful way. And, but I, I, and with you and Ryland, just watching you with the kids for me has been one of the highlights of the whole parenting experience because I never knew what that was like.

Yeah.

And it's been beautiful. It's been beautiful. You're, you're a great dad.

Oh yeah. You're a great mother.

And a great husband.

And a great wife.

You're great parents. You too. You changed my life. Oh man. This is a rich conversation.

And I'm, uh, can I say one more thing?

Sure.

I just want to say, you know, For all that, for all that I want to give you still, my greatest hope is that you get in rooms I was never in, that you get opportunities I never saw, that you take risks that were too big for me, that you You really elevate all that you're on this planet to do. And all I was was a great stepping stone in the process. And I will have known I did my job.

All right, y'all, I'm gonna go and sob in the corner. So that's a wrap on today.

Yeah.

I love you.

I love you too.

I love you.

I love you.

She does not just mean business.

She needs me. Yes, she does! Yes, she does!