Balancing Life & Business
Air Force veteran Lindsay Hinger comes on the podcast to discuss balancing life and business. Both can throw us curveballs and finding and exact balance is a person by person thing, but finding that balance isn't easy. We discuss how she has done that and how you can find that perfect balance for yourself.
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Transcript from Episode 32 with Lindsay Hinger:
Keith McKeever 0:03
Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast, I have Lindsey here with me. And we are going to discuss something that everybody needs to pay attention to today is finding that balance, right? You know, whether you're an entrepreneur, or you just work. But hopefully you're working right now. And you've got that balance point that you're trying to get to, I think it's something we all try to achieve. So we're gonna talk a little bit about entrepreneurship and business, but also finding that balance point. You know, it's gonna be different for all of us. So, without further ado, Lindsay, welcome to the battle buddy podcast.
Lindsay Hinger 0:39
Thank you so much, Keith, for having me. I appreciate it.
Keith McKeever 0:41
No problem. You know, the best part about having a podcast, I get to talk to a lot of interesting people, and we get to talk about a lot of interesting topics. And this is, well, like I just said, like, everybody has this different point that's going to work for them for whatever that balance is. You know, and it's, it's not an easy thing, I think, to pinpoint, you know, some people have found it better than others. You know, it's, it takes a lot of soul searching and reflection, I think. But without, before we get all into that, go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit. What's, what's your military story? Like? Where? Who was little Lindsey? And how'd you end up in the military? Would you do there?
Lindsay Hinger 1:15
Oh, goodness, that could that could be like hours long. Little Lyndsey. Um, well, let's see all I'll go with a truncated version, including the military. So I, I had to pay for college, at least half of it, according to my parents. So I went ahead and looked for scholarships, and I found an Air Force ROTC scholarship, my parents encouraged me to go into the Air Force instead of the other branches, because they were both in the Air Force briefly. And they knew that the officers in the Air Force were treated better than most
Keith McKeever 1:56
smart parents.
Lindsay Hinger 1:59
I get that reaction from everyone say that, too. So they must have been right. I know that, from my experience, I was treated well. So I definitely can subscribe to that, to that information. So I went into the Air Force after going to UNC Chapel Hill. I did the ROTC program there in 2000 to 2004, which seems like forever ago, but that's when I went into the Air Force was oh, four. That
Keith McKeever 2:35
was a few years ago. It was hard to think about that. You know how long ago that was? I know, it's a long time ago, you know, to 2006. You know,
Lindsay Hinger 2:47
that was college for me, a friend of mine and I were talking about how we've grown up. And we weren't even talking about growing up to be like 20 years old, we're talking about growing up from 20 years old to 40 years old. You know, it's crazy how if you're doing it, right, you never stop growing. But
Keith McKeever 3:07
there's a lot of growth that can happen in that timeframe. But it's weird, because you look at it, you're like, Well, that wasn't really that long ago. And if you look at you know, human life expectancy here in the United States, yeah. I'll just throw some random numbers out. But I think the life expectancy somewhere in like, upper 70s, somewhere like that, right? Like, wow, if you're, you know, mid 30s to 40, you know, somewhere in there in our age ranges. That's a lot of life left to live. That is, right. You know, it's kind of crazy to think about
Lindsay Hinger 3:35
it is it is so it was only a tiny portion of my overall life really was the Air Force. And I was in it for actually two years. Whereas most people, obviously were in for longer. The way that that happened was the years that I got into the air force that over recruited. So two years into being active duty, they went and asked a bunch of junior officers, Hey, you want to get out scot free? And I raised my hand and said, Okay, I volunteer. So, I had, I had unresolved Well, I had undiagnosed depression at the time, and my mom had been sick the whole time that I was away in the Air Force. So there was a lot going on, personally, that made me want to leave. And I will never say that I regret it because that would just give somebody the satisfaction. But it is a decision that that I still questioned to this day, and it's that was 2006
Keith McKeever 4:46
so understandable. Why why you would get out though, you know, yeah, some things there. I'm kind of curious to follow that up because your transition is something everybody has to go through. Do you think your transition was easier because you were only in for two years. Do you think is high for me that made it easier?
Lindsay Hinger 5:02
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the the biggest changes for me, were actually going into the Air Force, obviously, going from a college situation into the military into. Okay, so let me kind of back up a little bit. This is how my graduation went from college. It was Saturday, commissioned into the Air Force Sunday, graduate college, next Saturday, get married, two months from then move to Hawaii. And so all of those life changes happened so quickly. And I'm being a professional for the first time, and not doing anything theatrical, which was my background until I graduated high school, believe it or not. And I had to act like a completely different person. So for me, the transition into the military was way, way more difficult. Getting back out, was easy. For me, it was just stepping back out of the Air Force. It wasn't coming back into the civilian workforce that I've never been a part of, I had never been a part of a workforce to begin with. So I only two years of working at all.
Keith McKeever 6:39
That's a very good point. Yeah, not much of a benchmark to really go off of there.
Lindsay Hinger 6:44
Right, right. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 6:46
I feel the same way. After getting out of, you know, five and a half years, cuz I had, I'd had a job in college. And jobs in high school, you know, just minimum wage jobs, we're going to restaurant, we're going to grocery store, stuff like that. But I had worked for like three months between getting my associates degree and enlisting in the Air Force. So but I was only doing like, 2530 hours a week, it wasn't even full time, I was still living at home with my parents, because I had great parents like that. Yeah, you know, it's weird to get your transition out all the sudden, you're, you're in the civilian world where all of your peers have been working for X amount of years. And now you got to try and figure out you're, you're starting at the same point is the people that are getting out of college at the same time, it's kind of weird situations like that, that time, just disappears. In some ways. Like it never disappears, remind, but it disappears from your experiences, but you have different experiences. So I guess it balances out one way or another.
Lindsay Hinger 7:42
Definitely. In a way, I kind of professionally went backwards. And my husband, he, well, my ex husband, he gave me a lot of junk for it. Because basically, you know, coming in as an officer, you're a manager. And so you're put in charge of all these people who know how to do their job way better than you know how to do yours. And I didn't like that feeling. I didn't like not knowing what I was talking about when I was talking to people when I was telling people what to do. I obviously had the utmost respect for people who had been in their position for a long time and treated mirrors with respect, even though I was technically their leader. But I just did not like that. That dynamic. And so when I left, I had to start from the beginning in my logistics career instead. So I went from being a manager to being a specialist. And the hit financially was huge. And I mean, if you care about status, that also changed quite a bit. But since when I did leave the Air Force, though, I really had to crawl back up the the chain, you know, and logistics
Keith McKeever 9:12
do you think has been a bad thing? In some ways? I mean, I know the financial hit obviously at the beginning and, and the status and all that stuff, but to go back to do on a different side of things. Has it been an honor, but
Lindsay Hinger 9:24
I don't regret it because I still I agree with myself that I don't like being in charge of people when I don't know what I'm talking about. It's just not an ideal to me. So I lead a small group now, and it's a group who helped me run a company that I started from scratch. And so obviously I know the ins and outs, and I can lead that. I like that.
Keith McKeever 9:58
A lot easier to lead. It's a lot easier to lead when you've got, you know, you got all that knowledge and all that experience behind you. Because, you know, as we took when we first talked to you're kind of sharing stories, you know, I think I was rapping a little bit about being an officer, how young lieutenants like, for at least the first year, I have no clue what they're doing. Right. It's like, then it kind of things finally click as I get through some schooling, you know, have the master sergeants and seniors and the Chiefs take him under their wing a little bit. But yeah, it's different.
Lindsay Hinger 10:34
I don't know why it's reminded me of this story. But I had. So my squadron commander, I was only in one squadron the whole time. And I did not like my squadron commander, I thought that he was pretty poor leader.
Keith McKeever 10:49
And fortunately, it's kind of par for the course I think.
Lindsay Hinger 10:53
Yeah, it was unfortunate. He, he was in charge of the logistics Squadron, but he was a pilot with no logistics experience. And we don't need to get into that.
Keith McKeever 11:09
Right there. That's totally understandable. All listeners will know exactly what like a sexual your picture somebody in their head. And you know, when they're thinking about that one.
Lindsay Hinger 11:20
So I took a tour of the squadron with him because he was brand new when I was brand new. And I remember he quizzed me on what a Tommy lift was. And I didn't know that was 21 years old. Never seen any equipment before. It's certainly not a frickin Tommy lift. How would I know that?
Keith McKeever 11:41
Like you don't you realize I'm just as clueless as you are?
Lindsay Hinger 11:46
Yeah. And then, you know, every problem that he saw, on our little tour, he was like, well, Lindsey, how do you think we should solve this? Like? Um, I? I don't know, you know, and, and I remember he said, lieutenants need to have ideas. You just need to have ideas. Why don't you have ideas? And ever since then, I have come up with so many ideas. And I always think about him. And I'm like, Screw you. There's another idea
Keith McKeever 12:20
for you, but thanks for the motivation. Right, exactly.
Lindsay Hinger 12:21
He totally motivated me, but I won't let him know that. But
Keith McKeever 12:27
there's nothing like the bad leaders to teach you very valuable lessons. I had a few level. I would say in my experience, most of them were officers. Most of them for me were senior enlisted. Oh, yeah. And it's just really bad senior NCOs. I hate to say it, but the old crusty senior NCO of yesteryear. Now, this is not me, this is me saying this back in the mid 2000s. Right? This, these are the guys who grew up when smoking in the building was okay. And, you know, just a different way of doing things
Lindsay Hinger 12:57
driving drunk is that okay, guys, that I
Keith McKeever 13:01
sure the guys that I was in with that are now master sergeants. I mean, they probably have young guys looking at them kind of the same way to, you know, oh, you're just an old school, Master Sergeant. But most people were either average or decent leaders. Some were exceptional, but some of them were bad, just bad influences. And there's nothing like the guys who are doing, guys and gals that are doing questionable. Ethical things, you know, you hear the stories of the people in positions of power, who are helping people along through personal favors, use your imagination, whatever that could be, you know, just examples like that of just things that you hear through the grapevine that this person is getting away with that because of this or that. And I think once you start to get something like that, it's pretty, pretty good, clear indicator that there's some problems with that leader. And there's a unit,
Lindsay Hinger 13:58
I'll go ahead there, which
Keith McKeever 14:01
there's a couple of every unit and unfortunately, you just got to be able to recognize who they are and steer clear. The best you can.
Lindsay Hinger 14:08
Yeah. What kills me are the leaders who let toxic masculinity run their unit, and allow women to be marginalized as a habit. That's a great way to breed some abuse. And I think a lot of a lot of leaders need to wake up to that. That it starts out innocent, and it's usually a joke with a little bit of truth. And then there's more joking and then there's more marginalization and then it just gets worse and worse. One little
Keith McKeever 14:47
story, one seed of a story can spread it to a wildfire before you know it. It's crazy.
Lindsay Hinger 14:52
I was so lucky, because I don't I don't know how I got away with it, but Somehow I did not get a lot of grief for being a woman. I don't know if it's because I held the attitude that I'm just going to be as professional as possible and respectful as possible. But that also meant that I probably came off pretty stuck up, which is fine. I think I'd rather have been seen as a stuck up officer than someone that could be rolled over. So I guess what I was set out to do, yes,
Keith McKeever 15:30
that's good for you that you didn't have problems, because unfortunately, too many women and this is getting on a soapbox. But yeah, so many women have different problems. And it's probably worse in some branches versus others. But I had a guest on that release this year, and try to remember exactly what she said, but she had a drill instructor kind of tell her that as the female coming into the military, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to fill like, one of three different hats, and have to be the bitch, the slots, or whatever the other one was. But it was like it was really eye opening when when she kind of mentioned that to me, I was like, yeah, yeah, I mean it. Because I was there for security forces, we did have women in our units, very common. Probably along the same percentage is Airforce wide. But that was kind of the philosophy, like you got brand new air minute from tech school. And that toxic masculinity stuff happened and people would start talking, the attractive woman gets labeled as a slut immediately, you know, and that judging of somebody just off of, as saw this, you know, young lady walking into the squatter training office, like she was pretty hot, all of a sudden, the next guy years, and it goes, well, she must be the slug. You know, it's what is going on? Right? Leaders need to get a handle on this stuff. And I think some things are generational. Hopefully, gosh, I hope I'm right, that generationally, things get better. I don't know that they do and to the scale that they need to.
Lindsay Hinger 17:02
Yeah, I think it's always getting a little bit better. It's not, it's not great. But you know, there's always progress. And I think it's helpful, you know, we've got, we've got companies now that are creating these employee resource groups, and they're talking about diversity and exclusion, exclusion, equity, and inclusion. So there's a lot of progress going on. And, of course, it's not fast enough, but at least it's going in the right direction. Just kind of have to roll over those people who deny that progress has to happen.
Keith McKeever 17:44
And so, you know, that's a great point, too, since we're talking about business and entrepreneurship today in that, in that balance, if you are a business owner, or you are somebody of influence in your business, in a company work for make sure that you have those groups, you know, the diversity and inclusion groups, be a part of that conversation. Have an open ear to what's going on in the office, pay attention, use your situational awareness, you know, see what's going on and call people on it. When when somebody is doing something wrong? Yes, that's, that's the way things get better, is when you have people step up and say, Now, this isn't happening in my business. It's not gonna happen here. Not gonna happen there.
Lindsay Hinger 18:20
I have one, I have one leader in this navy. So sad because I thought he was such a great guy. But he actually told me one time that the morale of the unit or the morale of the flight, which was his flight, he was the flight. Fire Chief. Now, if not flight chief, flight commander, I gotta remember, it's like 10,000 years ago. Anyway, he said that he was his, that morale was not his responsibility that he was not concerned with the morale of his flight. And I was like, what is that? Right? I know. From my learning, I, I felt like that was wrong.
Keith McKeever 19:13
Yes, that's wrong. But I can understand why somebody would look at things like that. Like, if you're the leader, your job is to, well, that's more of a manager way of looking at things of my job is to make sure everything is done. You know, if you take that step into leadership, and management, I think that's when you make the argument of, okay, my job was made sure everything gets done, but everything gets done better when there's morale. Yeah. No. Do the work goes up. Yes.
Lindsay Hinger 19:43
And, and all we do hello, excellence and all we do.
Keith McKeever 19:49
Yeah. So the leaders that are listening, that's uh, you know, when you have good morale, and you take care of your troops and you make sure that their physical needs and our mental needs and all those are met. Those are true Probably not as likely to have alcohol related incidences, or maybe domestic violence or some of those other things that troops get themselves into that as a supervisor, or as a young officer, you got to answer for the commander for why they did that, and you aren't there. You don't know why they did it. But they still ask you those questions. You know, so you can cut it, you should be able to mitigate some of that by having morale, and having a happy, morale filled, everybody gets along to the best of their ability kind of workforce.
Lindsay Hinger 20:34
Wow. Sounds like rainbows and sunshine, rainbows and sunshine.
Keith McKeever 20:37
Yeah. That's the Air Force. Why don't we aim high? Where the rainbows,
Lindsay Hinger 20:44
rainbows and sunshine second?
Keith McKeever 20:46
Yeah, you know, I'm one of those core values. I don't know about you. But you know, still, to this day, those core values are really, you know, big to me, I, I'm not gonna sit here and say I think about him every day. But I think they are really guiding principles in my life. Because I think they reinforced the way I was raised, you know, I was always told, Well, don't tell a lie, right? To tell the truth. You know, you might get in trouble. And it's gonna be painful, but it's not gonna be as bad as if you lied. You know, so tell the truth, have integrity, do the right thing. You know, serve others I saw, there's plenty of examples in my life of people serving others, you know, with no expectation of anything in return. You know, and, obviously, excellence while you do, right, I mean, if you're not going to try and do it, right. What's the why even try?
Lindsay Hinger 21:31
Yes, I tell my son that all the time. I'm like, might as well do it right the first time. Don't waste your time. And everyone's time, you
Keith McKeever 21:40
know, has a soak in yet?
Lindsay Hinger 21:42
Oh, he's 12. Of course.
Keith McKeever 21:45
Right? Yeah. Well, if you figure it out, before I figure it out with my kids, let me know how you pounded it into their head. Because there's a lot of us need to know that's a whole. That's a whole nother episode right there. How to get your kids to flip the switch on something important in life and figure something out.
Lindsay Hinger 22:02
Take away their electronics. That could do
Keith McKeever 22:05
it. But enough kids for now. So you you are your entrepreneur business owner? Where did that journey start for you? How did that start?
Lindsay Hinger 22:19
Easy question. Okay. So this is easy, because I feel like every a lot of people have the same answer. And it's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. I read that book. And it changed the way that I think about money. And I, my ex husband read it first. And he was like, I know you don't like money. I know you don't like numbers, but read this. So I did. And there are only a handful of books that actually change your life. But that's one of them. From then on, I knew that I wanted to do some kind of entrepreneurship. I wanted to make money work for me, instead of working for money. I knew that I could stay in the airforce, that's when it happened was in 2006. That's when I read it. And that's when I got out of the Air Force too. I could have stayed in and done some entrepreneurship. But I I didn't really realize that at the time.
Keith McKeever 23:27
There could have been could have been interesting to given that time period with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan potential deployments. And yeah, you know, the operations temple I know is different in different units. But I could have made it could have made it more difficult for sure to try different things.
Lindsay Hinger 23:43
Well, living in Hawaii, being stationed there. We were considered forward deployed. So we weren't going anywhere. But I know,
Keith McKeever 23:55
for me, what a problem. I know why, nice, man.
Lindsay Hinger 24:01
Wow. For me, but Oh, what was your question?
Keith McKeever 24:11
Um, you know, how do you how your journey started? Oh, right.
Lindsay Hinger 24:13
So yeah, it started in 2006. That book and I would you like to hear about all the failed ventures?
Keith McKeever 24:23
You know, what I would, yeah, absolutely. Share with us because I think that's, that's part of the journey. It is. You learn more from the failures than some speed bumps, maybe. But, you know, it takes experiences learning experiences. Exactly. I mean, it takes a lot of those to learn everything. So I mean, I've, you know, I was writing some some courses and stuff for my business this fall. And it seemed like man, every time I turned around, I was like, Well, that didn't work. I don't like that, you know, is and that shapes shapes the final project. So go ahead, share with share with us some of the failures.
Lindsay Hinger 24:59
Sure. What is the very original pyramid scheme? Because I think that's the one we joined first. Amway?
Keith McKeever 25:09
Amway. Okay.
Lindsay Hinger 25:11
I think I think that, but we only lasted like a month in that so we didn't waste a whole lot of money, thank goodness. Um, the next.
Keith McKeever 25:21
Those are some interesting business I think they call them not pyramid schemes, obviously, multi level marketing is the key word I think these days. And I'll tell you my opinion that some people are probably gonna find me for saying this. It in some ways, it's a business because you invest some money in it to get going. But it's not. It's not like starting a business from scratch, which you've done, as well, you know? Yeah, it's the kind of handy all the tools because you paid him some money. And then now you got to go out and try and figure some things out. Yeah, and the fact that, you know, get paid off the people you recruit and stuff like that, it's I'm gonna be careful what I say. Because there's even in my own industry, there's, there's real estate companies that can operate the same way. And I'm like,
Lindsay Hinger 26:05
and when you're using when you're operating on recruiting other people to make money off of there's a lot that has to go into the way that you present yourself, and the way that your lifestyle looks from the outside. And we saw that in action a little bit in Hawaii when we for that one month. And then the next the next venture that we went in on was there was this nicotine or tobacco cessation? Hypnotism, okay. Yeah, last April thing, left field, right. This guy that we knew he wanted to invest in. I don't even remember, like, but he wanted to start a business, doing this for people. And so we invested in to become partners, and it never happened, of course. So we lost that money. We almost bought probably two or three different gas stations over the past. Like between 2006 and 2016. Two or three gas stations, we almost bought a bouncy house business. We are actually about to sign the sales contract when the seller backed out. Apparently, we made it look too much fun. Again. And
Keith McKeever 27:43
well. When you're negotiating for things until the ink is dry to contract, you got to be real careful about perceptions and what you asked for. And it's it's kind of the beauty of negotiations are the things I love about it.
Lindsay Hinger 27:54
I remember like tiptoeing around him, like when we were looking at everything and discussing everything. And Jason, my ex husband, he's like, No, don't don't ask that. You know, don't say that.
Keith McKeever 28:08
It's almost like looking at houses these days. Everybody has cameras and stuff. And you can be on a video, but you're not technically supposed to be recording people. But come on, tell me tell me that some homeowners aren't doing that, right. So it's almost like shopping for houses these days. I have to tell my clients like all right now, you walk in this house, and it's hideous. Don't say a word. If you walk in this house, and it is the one for you don't say a word. Oh, wait until we're outside away from any possible video cameras because you don't want you don't want the homeowner to be illegally recording you. Right and to to hear your clients in the kitchen. Say, You know what? I love this house. Right? There's differences in prices. So let's just say it's a $400,000 house, and you walk in, you're like, Wow, this this house is they're asking for 100 I'd pay for 20 for this. This is amazing. Let's write me off. Right, right. And then they hear that in a video. They're like, I'm not going to take this offer for 400 I'm gonna counter for 20 Because I know they'll do it. I heard him say it. You know technology and stuff like that. You gotta be careful. It's the same thing of you know, walking through somebody's business and show too much interest or too much disinterest or things like that. Got to keep your keep your attitude in check. For US military people. It's probably easier just you know, straight faced eyes forward. No show no emotion. Yeah, be a stoic as you possibly can be a statue there. But yeah, you can't I mean, you don't want to anytime you're doing negotiations, you don't want to give anybody anything they can feed off of so
Lindsay Hinger 29:39
right. Yeah, I can't remember exactly why he backed out. But that was that was pretty disappointing, because we were excited about that one. Interesting.
Keith McKeever 29:48
You see those everywhere. I mean, the bounce houses in the inflatables, not necessarily the businesses, but I mean, people seem to parties all the time, summers and stuff,
Lindsay Hinger 29:59
and it's faster stating who the clients are. Because when we were doing all this research for it, we learned that lower income families, they might not be able to afford this essential or that essential, but they're going to pay money to put a bouncy house in their front yard for their kid, no matter what, you know, like some really fascinating dynamics, socio economic dynamics of who will rent a bouncy house. It's just really interesting to me what people's priorities are. Anyway,
Keith McKeever 30:40
that's interesting. Yeah, I could I could soak up that information all day long, I think, yeah, stuff is fascinating, you know, who does what and why?
Lindsay Hinger 30:48
Yeah, we. And then I almost partnered with a guy who had a logistics company where he would move cars. So like, you know, the trucks that have multiple cars that they're hauling, he would coordinate those. And so since I have a background in logistics, I was going to bring in some money and some sweat equity and become a partner. And before we we should have known already, after we visited one time, and he gave us all of the records from all of his customers, including all of their credit card information, he gave it to us to look over. Just go ahead, no problem. So we're trusted with all this information. I don't think we signed a single thing. And then the second time we saw him, we were communicating more, and we found out that he was paying his rent with the business account. And he was about to be evicted. So yeah, there was just way too much and come to find out he actually started using his customers credit card numbers after we left. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 32:07
talk about dodged a bullet on that one. Right. Right. So what definitely a side question on this, but I think it's valuable because there's this conversation. What other than that, because that's the Splyce. That's, that's a whole field of red flags. Right there. What other red flags? Have you seen out there that somebody should look at? If you're looking at buying a business or starting one? That's Boy, that's
Lindsay Hinger 32:28
Oh, what red flags? There are so many? Oh, there are so many Jessen degree more. It's hard to pinpoint on because there's, they seem so obvious to me.
It's kind of like second nature, when you when you sniff out bullshit, you know, like, if you look at listings, like business listings, and you're left wondering a whole lot about how the business actually operates, or who the client or who the who the business actually sells to. I mean, just there, there are huge, gaping holes of where they're leaving, if they're leaving information out. And if you don't go and find out that information, then just do not proceed any further. I mean, it's, it's all about communicating what you need. And if they don't have what you need, at first, they shouldn't be able to provide it or move on,
Keith McKeever 33:34
you know, in a reasonable time period. I would say probably probably any question that starts with how that in the back of your mind, like you have very serious doubts on, you know, other than like, Well, how do you, you know, how do you do the technical things is one thing, but like, how do they get any business in that location? Right? Location sucks? How about the parking sucks? Like, how did they do this? How are they even returning a profit in this location? How
Lindsay Hinger 33:58
did you make money? That's the question. Yeah. Like, if they can't answer that. Well, what? Like, I've actually seen that, like, how do you actually make money? Yeah, that's important. That's very important to be able to explain to a buyer,
Keith McKeever 34:20
I think, yeah, there's a lot of people that just aren't good on the on numbers. And I don't, you don't need to be an accountant. But I think that there are certain things in business that you should either know, and you can just spit off the top of your top off your head but or be able to look up in a reasonable amount of time. Like, what was your sales goal for this quarter? Did you achieve it down? If you've got a store? What are your top five selling items? And what are your top five most profitable items? Like you know, just simple things like that, that you should know. Definitely the company's got three services Well, which one's your bread and butter? Right? What's your core competency?
Lindsay Hinger 35:00
Right. Yeah, ability statement. That's, um, there's a lot of things important. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 35:08
that could that could be an issue. So I'm skip ahead a little bit. I normally kind of give a chance to kind of spotlight somebody's business at the end. But your business is gifted with valor. Go and tell us a little bit about that. Because I think that kind of sets up some of the some of the other questions because it's all like work life balance and stuff like that. Yeah, patient.
Lindsay Hinger 35:27
Well, I'll I'll actually back up in history a little bit with, like, chronologically, for 2006 2016, I was bumping along trying to find out how I could be an entrepreneur. And at one point, we did flip a house successfully. So that was one success we had. I felt no connection, or passionate about it. So I didn't care to do it again, even though it was profitable. So 2016 was when I started my first business. And that was mil so box stood for military significant other box. And it was a monthly subscription box. That was basically a reverse care package for the women who supported our troops. It was supposed to be a romantic connection. So girlfriend, fiance or wife, and it was only for women. And I got a little bit of crap for that, you know, because it was only women and military spouses are awesome in which I know cuz I used to have one. So I definitely know,
Keith McKeever 36:39
percentages game,
right? A percentage is
male spouses or what maybe 15% That probably an app in a ballpark? Yeah, something like that. It's not profitable business people, if you're trying to cater to the 15%. Right, go for it go for the 80%. Right.
Lindsay Hinger 37:01
Yeah, it's hard enough to get the other ones so. So I started that in 2016, and sold that in 2019, to Kristen Miller, who owns it now. And she runs it today. And she's done a fantastic job of keeping it going and growing. Before I sold it, though, the year before that, in 2018, I started gifting with valor, which is the second business which is what you're asking about. Essentially, it was a parlay from Mills O box. And the way that it happened was I had a veteran owned events and entertainment company come to me and ask if I can create custom gift boxes for a special event that they were having, they were going to be bringing a bunch of VIPs onto a yacht for this brunch. And so we created these brunch gift boxes. And we were able to customize it with the company's logo. But also mix it with the brands of the military spouse or veteran owned businesses that put their products in there as well. I say put them in there, they get paid by the way. Everybody gets paid in my situation. So So yeah, that's gifting with valor, we do custom gift boxes in bulk for organizations that want to show their support for military spouse or veteran entrepreneurs, because those are the only suppliers we use,
Keith McKeever 38:41
which is awesome. And yet another benefit. So I'll throw the website down to the bottom. We'll keep it going. If anybody's reaching out the websites gifting with valor, calm can't can't mess that up. Yeah, website difficult. They make it easy. Yeah, that's pretty easy gifting with valor, as long as you can spell you're good to go. If not, it'll be in the show, show notes and all that stuff. So so that's what you're doing now. How have you found a way to balance what is surely a difficult business thing, you know, reach out to different vendors and set things up for different people in managing you say four or five people that you work that work for you now, so I'm like that
Lindsay Hinger 39:23
I have 210 99 employees and then a virtual assistant.
Keith McKeever 39:28
Okay, so managing all that the people the products, then negotiations, and then life, you've got a kid, you've got a house to take care of all that all that fun stuff that we all have to take care of. So how do you how do you find the balance?
Lindsay Hinger 39:43
Okay, so I just went through a lot of scheduling and kind of revamping how I look at my schedule with my VA because I just got My VA, my virtual assistant, I really hired her to be able to protect my time, the best way possible so that I can focus on what, on what makes us money. So because I'm the founder and CEO, I get emails constantly all day. And I have to be able to weed through what needs to be prioritize what needs to be handled now, and then also be able to get done. The tasks that actually make money, those are the tasks that actually have to get done for this business to succeed. So that's what Kristin does. Kristin is also the name of my virtual assistant. They could have given me any one or they gave me another Kristen, that's okay. Um, but that's what she does, she protects my time I give her so my my I know, personally, and I think it takes a lot of humility, for someone to sit down and recognize their strengths and weaknesses, but my best parts of the day are from nine, or probably eight, till about two o'clock. And at two o'clock, I know that my brain does not work as well. And it's time for me to not be at my computer. And so I'll schedule something like this, like a podcast interview, because it uses a different part of my brain that is active, when otherwise, in the morning, I would just be sitting down doing what I have to do in a rote kind of repetitive, you know, it's a different part of my brain working. But this is something that's interactive that I like to do, that takes some creativity and entertainment value, you know, so this, this engages a different part of me that I have her schedule for the afternoon. Also, in the afternoon, she has to make sure I have a bubble for self care, because I do take care of myself as a priority. I've got bipolar one disorder, and I'm very open about it. Because I want to try to end the stigma as much as I can. And I think by talking about it as openly as I do, that's how I can do that. So what I should be doing with my self care is working out, eating right, meditating, praying, calling my mom getting hugs, you know, there are so many different things that you can do spiritually, emotionally, physically, for self care for what I've got, and every person is different, you know, every person's got their own challenges. So whatever self care or whatever timeframe they need to accomplish, whatever their challenges are, you know, I think, as long as you're aware, and realistic, is possible. And the whole idea that that you can do everything is not true, you can't do everything. You can do everything, just not all at once.
Keith McKeever 43:38
And not all that effectively, in some ways. You just have
Lindsay Hinger 43:42
to feed, you have to feed this and then you have to feed that and then you have to feed that you can't do it all at the same time.
Keith McKeever 43:50
It's hard to balance some things because, you know, I've had people kind of asked me over the years, like how do you how do you do all the things you do? And I like how you said protecting your time, because I've never really looked at it like that. But that's in a lot of ways. That's what I do. But I do with my calendar. So I use Google Calendar, my wife uses it. I have everything in there color coordinated. And it sounds crazy, but when you look at it, it's just like a splash of color across my calendar. But if I have something in there for two hours, it may not be like a physical appointment. It may just be being me being in my office working on something because like you said like eight o'clock to two or something. I my sweet time is like 10am to 1pm Like, that is when I'm because I've already I've already had breakfast. I've already had a couple cups of coffee. I'm fully awake. Because you catch me before 10 o'clock in the morning. It's I am not going to be fully functioning right? It's just like it's like the gas meter go, you know, the speedometer going up like I'm slowly getting to functioning speed. We're getting there slowly, about 930 10 o'clock in the morning, something like that. I'm getting there but You know, then you get a caffeine crash in the middle of the afternoon. And sometimes, like an evening, I got more energies, it's kind of crazy. Yeah. Knowing what like works for you and unblocking the time, like works for me. And I think it's a similar philosophy. Like, I'm protecting my time, by knowing that I'm, this is what I should be working on here. This is what I should be working on there. And, you know, it gives you the time to focus 100% on what you need here. And then you can go on to the next task and, and whatever. So yeah, definitely framing it.
Lindsay Hinger 45:30
And also, I'm learning different, different organizations, organizational skills has been really valuable to, like when Kristen came aboard to be my assistant, she showed me how to use the tasks in Google. Have you ever used the tasks? Yep. Okay, now I feel like a fool. You were supposed to say no.
Keith McKeever 45:53
And I use reminders a lot in Google Calendar to, or something I don't want to do. But I don't want to I don't want to forget, I'm just gonna set myself a reminder, like, I have my kids tomorrow at school, boom, I'll put a reminder at nine o'clock in the morning. So I call the school and tell them what picking them up and set it all up.
Lindsay Hinger 46:09
Yeah, and she showed me how you can take an image from your email without even opening the email, right click on it, and then add it to your Google Drive into a specific folder without ever even opening the email. I don't know that one. So you can save something to your Google Drive. So and the reason that that she showed me this was because I keep saving things locally, and I can't share them with my people if I do that. So I've got to change my habit. So little things like that have been really useful. And just being open to different ideas and different methodologies, I think is really important. And I do have a son. And it's funny, because I didn't mention him at all in my, in my day. And it's because so I have an x and he has our child on Monday and Tuesday. And I get for some reason I get most of my work done on Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday. I do work as well. But I
Keith McKeever 47:25
not as effective with your work or not as efficient. Yeah,
Lindsay Hinger 47:29
I'm not kidding. Like, I know, in the back of my mind that at any moment, I have to go and get my kid if there's a problem at school, or if he's sick. Or you know, he's he's in the back of my mind. I need to I'm mom, you know, I have to be ready to be mom at any moment from Wednesday to Friday. And, and then of course on the weekends when I have him so
Keith McKeever 47:53
Ellie messes with you a lot to have when your kid is at home. Because last year during the pandemic, both of my kids did school from home. They were right outside my office. I swear it drove me absolutely insane. All kinds of tools to like handle things. I put a whiteboard out there. I'm like, Look, stop knocking on my door. Stop coming to my office. Yeah, just right. Just
Lindsay Hinger 48:16
have to tell you this one thing.
Keith McKeever 48:20
My little guy would come in here and he'd be like, he'd be bugging the heck out of me. You know be like What do you want me? I just wanted to tell you I love you dad. Like I think in the back of my mind, I'm like, now I have to go back to my email that I was just typing and remember what it was I was even thinking it's gonna take me four minutes or five minutes to figure out what brainwave I was on when I was so
Lindsay Hinger 48:45
well if you were me distracted by a little guy, you know? If you were me you could get away with Oh, my son just came and told me you love me That's so sweet anyway
Keith McKeever 48:58
yeah, they've done it on my podcast before to Gosh, I wish I could remember what episode it was. But he was my wife was gone and both of them were in the room behind me and he kept like just this little knocks on the door and I'm like, I'm like trying to bite my tongue and I'm like what this was doing like I know it was him because my oldest is quiet respectful my youngest is like a Tasmanian devil sometimes at home and then all of a sudden I hear like pieces of paper coming to the door and I kind of glanced back and they're just like sliding under the door like every three minutes. Turns out it was just little little like love notes from him. He was like I love you dad. What are you gonna be done? Oh snack. I love you dad. I didn't know cuz I didn't want to be like I didn't want to because I was doing a live it was one of my Live episodes. So I'm just like, glass out of the corner of my eye like what is going on over here? What is he doing? And I didn't want to just like turn around be like What are you doing man?
Lindsay Hinger 49:51
Like, not to be nerve wracking to like
Keith McKeever 49:54
it was a little bit but I'm like, You know what I you know, I'm a parent. A lot of listeners are parents. Everybody totally gets it.
Lindsay Hinger 50:01
Yeah, it would be screaming if there was really problem. Yeah, exactly.
Keith McKeever 50:05
Like, I mean, yeah, my kids are not that young. But being out there was a problem. Yeah. I was. I was on the podcast for a few minutes. But my wife was somewhere she was. Probably wasn't gone. I don't know where she was at. But yeah, I mean, they're old enough. They make their own sandwiches, you know, feed themselves lunch and stuff like that. But it was like, he's a little sweetheart like that. Yeah, he's actually he's nine. So um, it gives you an idea. His brother's older than him. So it's just like, okay, all right. Yeah,
Lindsay Hinger 50:39
he's gonna be so much of our we had a foster daughter for two and a half years. We had a foster daughter for two and a half years. And she used to do things like that all the time. She would bring, she would bring just anything. She could write color, glitter, stamp, whatever artsy thing she could do to make I love you on something. She would give it to me. And it was like, all the time. And it was so sweet. But yeah,
Keith McKeever 51:12
yeah, I love those artistic children, because that is totally my youngest. My oldest is like a very logical brain. Yes. My youngest is very creative. And he just does things like it's drawn on anything. Like, yeah, yeah, things that he's not supposed to draw on. And you're like, why did you do that? You're so curating. You know, it's like this. That's why he's not a lot of my office most the time. I'm like, you know how mad I'm going to be if I have a contract sitting out or something. All of a sudden, there's, there's sketches drawn on it or something. Yeah, wouldn't be good. Well, luckily, I work mostly digital. But yes. That's, that's the challenge, right? That's that work work life balance, like, yeah, how do you balance all that? You know,
Lindsay Hinger 51:56
all of 2020 Me and Lawson hanging out at the house. Just, you know, he was in his office. I was in my office. I call it his office, but it was a sunroom. But that was his face. And he would come into my space very often. And I just have to tell you this one thing, okay. Okay. Okay.
Keith McKeever 52:19
Something you probably didn't care about. You know, it's like, Yeah, gotta pretend like you care. But my youngest was in here the other day. He's got this thing now for volcanoes. And huh. I don't know much about volcanoes at all. And he's over here. gonna pretend like they're fast. Yeah, I was like, He's flips up in this book. He goes, you see this kind of volcano. This is such and such. And this have you know how this happens. And I was like, I have no idea how that happens with this volcano. Well, it's what happens when a volcano caves in on itself. And I was like, okay, he's like, Isn't it so cool? And I'm like, Yeah, dude, that's awesome. And I'm like, that's a piece of information. I never wanted to care to know. i It's our life. But for me, I'm happy to seem like I was interested. Yep. At least my show wasn't watched by little kids, because it would ruin everything. Maybe like my parents don't. Like
Lindsay Hinger 53:12
he doesn't read my love notes.
Keith McKeever 53:15
I've kept more than more than my fair share of them. Oh, I have to. But tell you what, my kids have gotten mad a few times when they've caught me throwing things away. Why aren't you keeping that? Kid? I can't keep everything you make in school and everything you make here at home? Like there's just no possible way. Okay, we're trying to turn this fill this house up papers right now episode order is going on here. So
Lindsay Hinger 53:35
paper after paper? Yep.
Keith McKeever 53:39
So with with this back to this ballot stuff, you know, because kids are a big part of it, kids live chores, all this stuff, right? All this? What, um, is there any tools other than your VA that that have been helpful for low tech tools or things like that?
Lindsay Hinger 53:56
When I was first starting? Well, and throughout, throughout all of it, my ex husband was a huge, huge factor as support. He was amazing, when especially when I was getting my first business off the ground. I was working full time for a logistics company. And then after five o'clock, I would stay in the office with the owners knowledge. And I would work until like 11 or 12 and then come home and redo the same thing at six in the morning the next morning. And I was doing that for a few weeks. And then, of course after the business started, I was still super busy. So he he's stood up and helped out just immensely. And I think without him it would have been a much much bigger challenge because cuz I, he, he took over the laundry and, and he took, he took on some household stuff that otherwise I would feel obligated to do. And so that was fairly useful. And let's see any other tools for balance? Oh, man for balance. Trying to keep everything off of the weekend, for sure. So that you can focus on friends and family on the weekend? I don't I don't work on weekends unless I absolutely have to.
Keith McKeever 55:38
I buy a nice, yeah, luxury. Oh, I
Lindsay Hinger 55:41
know. Oh, you know,
Keith McKeever 55:43
well, people ask me about that all the time. And I'm like, Well, you know, in some businesses, you just don't get weekends. You know, what to do? I just schedule a whole afternoon off in the middle of week if I want. You know, I scheduled the holidays off, like my calendar, like, I don't go any shopping. But you know, yeah, this is, this isn't November Thanksgiving was last week. So like, I don't do black shop Black Friday shopping, never do never have not not playing that, especially during a pandemic, right. But that's blocked off of my calendar. Same thing with the day after Christmas, I don't want to go do anything the day after Christmas. So the day after Thanksgiving, you know, I gotta, I gotta recover from all the food I ate. You know, so it's just, for me, it's just like, blocking that time. Like, I kind of have work the same amount of hours in some ways. It's just I don't have like two consecutive days off in a row. You know, so yeah, just making making it work for you. You know. And I
Lindsay Hinger 56:47
think, I think something that I tried to do to to make the balance work is that see, I'm all about people, I'm about my connections with people. And I think that's really what matters in life. And that's why we're here is to be connected. And so, whenever I'm with someone, like a family member, or a friend, I just try to dedicate 100% of my attention to them, and make sure that they know how valuable I take their time. Or consider their time. And, you know, I talked to my kid, and just say, really loving things and make sure that our time spent together is as fun as it can be, or, or if we're just gonna chill on the couch, and he plays video games, and I played and I lose a Rocket League with him, then, then that's what it is, you know, it doesn't have to be anything big, but I, that I think helps me with balance. Because I know that I've, I've done my part to put in my time with each person that I want to invest my time with. You gonna call it
Keith McKeever 58:08
a lifetime with your, with your family. But your business also requires amount of time, that's why I look at, you know, this balance idea is not, it's not a perfect balance, your balance my balance, totally different.
Lindsay Hinger 58:22
Well, connections are true in business, too, you know, I I just brought on Well, I just talked to a fulfillment center, because we're getting into orders that are too big for us to handle. And so it's in Nashville, which is an eight hour drive eight or nine hour drive. So I decided to go ahead and go out there and actually meet the owner, because I wanted to put a face with my name, and I wanted him to get a feel for me. And I wanted him to feel like he was a part of the gifting with valor success team. And so I wanted to be able to actually connect with that gentleman. And so I took that time to do it instead of doing a bunch of other things over my email because I knew how important that relationship was going to be
Keith McKeever 59:15
a lot of trust you put into somebody you know to have a be part of a small part in your business. Same thing with virtual assistant, right, just little tasks to to get off your plate, but they add up. It's a you know, it's a big part of your business, a lot of trust.
Lindsay Hinger 59:30
It's huge because presentation for us, you know, gift boxes, when you think about opening a gift box and you think about the presentation that you see inside. We're going to be giving that to somebody else to handle that's yeah, you're right. That's huge. Like that does take a lot of trust. And what's in this is pretty cool. This fulfillment center that we're using, they actually employ people with disabilities. So they're the ones who do the fulfillment. Nice. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 1:00:03
that's awesome. could definitely get behind an organization that, that goes out of the way to hire people with disabilities. Because, you know, that's, that's got to be tough to have a disability. But it makes so much
Lindsay Hinger 1:00:14
sense for this kind of work too. It does make so much sense for it because it is, is the same wrote are the same wrote actions, and then you get this beautiful result. And you know, the accomplishment that they're going to have is that's going to be really cool.
Keith McKeever 1:00:35
Absolutely. Yeah. So has there been any, you know, organise organizations or coaches or anybody you know, along your journey that's helped kind of inspire you to to get to balance?
Lindsay Hinger 1:00:46
For sure. I've been working with the lions pride out of Washington State. And if you ever heard of them the lions pride? No, I have it. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Keith McKeever 1:01:01
But note, my note thing. Check it out.
Lindsay Hinger 1:01:05
Yeah, check it out. The Lions pride. The leader is Bill Watkins. And it's okay. So what he does is he offers workshops every Thursday for anyone to come in and work on a one page business plan with him with a group on Zoom for free, every Thursday, so every Thursday, you work on a different part of the one page business plan. And so that's how I started working with them, because I had to revamp my business model at the beginning of the summer, and I knew I didn't want to revamp my whole business plan, I just wanted to do a one page business plan that I could refer to pretty quickly and, and refer to throughout the year. So I started working with him on that. And then what they have is kind of like a CEO circle as well. And you pay into that to be a part of it. But they also offer scholarships to veteran owned businesses. So I was able to get a scholarship to be in that CEO circle. So nice. Yeah, so I got a mentor that I meet with every month. And I've got other supporters in that group that I work with. And then on each Friday, we have Friday, live coaching, where we get together and talk about our accomplishments, but we're having troubles with, and a lot of it is resolved right then and there on the call with each other. It's really neat. It's just bringing some brains together to help each other out.
Keith McKeever 1:02:55
It's nice I'm in I'm in kind of a similar group, through Facebook through the intrapreneur tribe, and oh, cool. And then there's a was a 15,000 people in that. But there's a smaller group that that we kind of pays mastermind kind of group we meet every Thursday, called the warrior Council. And I've kind of gotten that to like, sometimes not even my business, sometimes I don't really have much to report, you know, we kind of meet No, so what's going on your business, you have any needs any wants, you know, anything you're looking for, sometimes adult, but it's amazing other people do in other types of industries, where they're having supply chain issues, or product quality issues or whatever, and to hear their problems and have final, you know, other people giving them advice and solutions are pointing in the right direction is so cool, so powerful to like, yeah, have all these other brains in a room and sometimes you just sit back you're like, oh, you know, I don't have to worry about physical inventory. My business. I mean, well, houses are physical inventory. But yeah, you know, I don't have to worry about we're gonna make a run of of 10,000 of these little toys. Right, you know, and there's a quality issue with it or something like just making weird examples, but I don't have to deal with that my business mind so much more different. So it's really cool to kind of, yeah, pick you get to pick other people's brains without even ask them a question sometimes. Just sit there, soak it all up. Yeah. And
Lindsay Hinger 1:04:11
I guess I'm like that. I love resources and sharing resources, because there are so many available. I, when I first started my first business, I had no idea how many resources were out there and for free. They're free. And people take advantage of them. And it's like I went Have you ever heard of Bunker labs?
Keith McKeever 1:04:34
Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a bunker labs event here. I think two years ago, something like that. That's a great one. I've got it on my website to the battle good podcast website I've got trying to always dust that off of a bunch of resource pages of free information of what I know about it. And you know, I usually like put things on there. If I know somebody who's gone through something they can, you know, give me a testimonial vouch for
Lindsay Hinger 1:04:59
what about The Institute of veteran and military families I VMF. from Syracuse University,
Keith McKeever 1:05:07
yes, yes. Okay. Yep. Yeah, I've got that on there too. There GRI
Lindsay Hinger 1:05:10
I did the vy remember that with all? Yeah. For
Keith McKeever 1:05:13
now the letters?
Lindsay Hinger 1:05:15
Yeah, I VMF I should have just said I VMF. Yeah, I did that Arnage twice, I think and the y's cohorts so or Yeah, so those were good. And
bunker labs. And first time I found out about bunker labs. I was like, Where have you been all my life? And then also, there's something called the SB TDC. Have you ever heard that? I have not heard of that one, either. Oh, my gosh, like,
Keith McKeever 1:05:51
What do you mean, we had all kinds of stuff about website this week? Which is, because it's a resource for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, stuff. I'm always looking for resources for the website. I mean, that's part of my vision for this podcast is not only for people to listen or watch the show and, and hear stuff, but also to have the website they can go to, and, and find great resources and information and nuggets of stuff on there. In all kinds of different categories, from personal finance, to business to VA medical stuff. It's all work in progress. So anybody who's listening, you know, if you have something that'd be great addition to the website, just reach out to me, I am all yours, for whatever, whatever is valuable to the community.
Lindsay Hinger 1:06:36
So this is just for North Carolina, unfortunately. But there is the Small Business and Technology Development Center, the SB TDC. And literally, I can ask a question, and there is a knowledgeable business person who just answers my question. Just Oh, what, why I can't even remember a good example. Oh, I think I said something like, I'm looking for Flicks storage space, like 500 square feet, something really small, you know, that I need storage. And so he actually did a little search and found Oh, and one of the things was that I needed the place to be able to accept packages for me. And so I've been looking all over the place look on Craigslist for like, wayward random places. And, you know, having no luck, and he came up with a storage facility that I could just get a storage unit. And then they put my stuff in the storage unit when it arrives to the storage place. I'm like, wow, you just saved me like $1,000 a month or something. You know, because, especially if they're
Keith McKeever 1:07:55
there, and you don't have to pay somebody to go over there every single time a package is delivered. Yeah, I deal with it. Yeah.
Lindsay Hinger 1:08:02
Yeah, just just great stuff like that. Um, he gave me a wonderful cost projection calculator. What else? Oh, he introduced me to my insurance broker.
Keith McKeever 1:08:22
So yeah, I was, I was just gonna say that's the power of connections, like not only the resources, but the people. Because you never know, what one person could could do to impact your business or your time, because obviously, you know, we're talking about balance here, like,
Lindsay Hinger 1:08:37
and I have to mention, I have to mention one more North Carolina resource because I'm a board member of the North Carolina Veteran Business Association, and
Keith McKeever 1:08:48
you should probably, probably that nugget there. Yeah.
Lindsay Hinger 1:08:52
Yes, it's called it's NC that this.org and see that this.org
Keith McKeever 1:08:58
And I'll have that link in the description, too. Don't worry. I'll put that there.
Lindsay Hinger 1:09:02
Okay, cool. That's your other line is happy. Yeah. Yeah.
Keith McKeever 1:09:06
There'll be no sure I know that as well.
Lindsay Hinger 1:09:07
So okay, good.
Keith McKeever 1:09:10
So last last question I got for you here is any advice you have for those business owners that are out there who are trying to kind of find where that optimal point is for them? You know, how they find their balance?
Lindsay Hinger 1:09:25
How they find their balance how do they find it? That's a tough one. I think they will feel it in their body. And and then their mindset, you know, if, if you're the kind of person who always feels like they're running, running, running, running,
then you're not balanced. You know, my sister, for example, she says yes to too much. So she's constantly worried and stressed and running around. And it seeing her do that is taught me a lot. So that I can balance my time a little bit better. So I think it knowing what kind of mind frame you have, and also what your body is telling you is really important. Because if you listen to your body, it will tell you,
Keith McKeever 1:10:39
you know, I like that, because I was kind of that guy, like your sister, That guy really yes to everything. And in some ways, I am still but I have learned over this last year of if it's, if I'm not, if it's gonna cause any kind of stress, why am I doing it? Why do I put myself through that? Like, I was my HOA president for six years. And it got to the point where I had no desire to do it anymore. I would have gave it up to anybody. And somebody did take take over the position. And I'm still kind of CO treasurer. But you know, we'll see how long that lasts. But it's like, it stressed me out so much. Yeah, anytime I was doing anything for that position, I had gotten to the point, it was probably about five, five years into the six where I was like, Okay, I'm done. I've mentally checked out somebody needs to take over at this point. I am not doing this position. And you just, you know, it's not good. Yeah, get things done. But I don't have a passion. I don't have any kind of passion for it. Somebody else has yes over. Same thing was school and other things like No, something else has to give, I have to get rid of the stress in my life. Because when I'm stressed, it affects my family, it affects my time, because I've spent too much time doing that versus hanging out with my family and my quality of life.
Lindsay Hinger 1:11:58
That's another thing is your priorities. And so what I did what I had for a long time, and when my mirror mirror was I wrote my health, my family, my business, and in that order, those are my priorities. I can't take care of my family, and I can't take care of my business if I'm not healthy. So I have to take care of my health first, that I have to take care of my family or I can't function to take care of my business, because I'm emotionally tied to them.
Keith McKeever 1:12:32
Absolutely, I could not agree more. So that kinda reminds me of when I was in the Air Force, I had a flight chief tell me because be a security forces. He's like, Don't speed to get to the call. Right? I mean, you got to go as fast as you got to do to get there. But don't do reckless things. Because if you crash the patrol car, go into the scene of another accident, you are now useless. You are another accident for people to respond to. Right. And you know, I've thought about this so many times in my life, it's like, you slow down, realize what's important. And don't become
Lindsay Hinger 1:13:05
a liability.
Keith McKeever 1:13:06
Exactly. Get to the finish line. You know, because I mean, you're not going to finish it yet. So that's a really good one. I think that's a great nugget there for people is prioritize everything, and I don't, some people might have a different way of prioritizing. It might not be the same way. If you're not taking care of yourself, you can't take care of your family can take care of business.
Lindsay Hinger 1:13:26
Yeah, and just having it somewhere. And just having it somewhere where it will constantly remind you to keep those perspective or keep that perspective in mind. And this priorities in mind. Like, like I said, it was in on my mirror in my bathroom. So every time I brush my teeth, I looked at it.
Keith McKeever 1:13:45
How about this? Well put it with your goals? Yeah, your goal should be written down, right? I mean, I'll be doing that. We all probably need to do a better job of it. But
Lindsay Hinger 1:13:55
yeah, your goals as well. But honestly, I think priorities are even better. Because they're almost like, you know, that integrity, first service before self excellence, and I do their guiding posts. And if you feel like you're aligned with it, then you're probably balanced. And another way that you can do that is if you do look at your goals, and you say, Am I doing this? And or am I doing this to accomplish a goal? Or is this taking me anywhere close to this goal? And if it's not, then why am I doing it?
Keith McKeever 1:14:32
Well, exactly. I mean, at the top of the sheet, here's my priorities, here's my goals. And when you write those goals reflect, you know, where does this fit on there? Yeah, that's that's a great nugget of information to keep people on balance. Because I think like I said earlier, it's different for everybody. Some people need more time to take care of themselves, you know, and they maybe they don't want to have a business right? They just gotta take care of themselves so they can go to work and collect their paycheck. Yeah, If you're a business owner, you're gonna have a little bit more time, right more time has to go into that bucket. So you need to make that other time count more. And like you said, you know, I think it was your ex husband, he said, you know, took on things like doing laundry. And I think that was a huge one to have, you know, rely on the people around you. I've been going to school for last three years. And, you know, luckily, I'm down to like two more things until I get my bachelor's degree this in a couple of weeks. Uh, yeah. Thank you. I, it's, it's unbelievable, actually turn a couple of things in today only down to a couple of small things left to wrap up in the final. So wow, I've been telling my kids like, I've been trying to train them to do chores around the house, they get so mad. They're like, why do we have to do so many chores? And I said, well, because when you get older, you're going to have to do them in your own house. So you better know how to do. But as like, you need to pull some pull some weight in this house. You know, I've got to do stuff. Your mom's got a business. I got a business. I got school. We need your help.
Lindsay Hinger 1:16:01
We call it contributing to the family cool chores. Contributing to the family. Exactly. You're a part of it. You can work with us.
Keith McKeever 1:16:13
Yeah, you're old enough. Now. You know, you can. Kids can do a lot of chores and may not do well. But they can do them, you know, don't like is
Lindsay Hinger 1:16:25
it means to not go behind them and fix everything. But you can't. Because it makes it worse, apparently.
Keith McKeever 1:16:32
Yeah, that is what it is. But yeah, that star good way of looking at it. I mean, you're you're part of the family, you got to contribute to it. You don't even really kind of put it in that perspective. But that's exactly what I've been telling you.
Lindsay Hinger 1:16:46
I want to start paying rent. I mean, that's cool, too. Yeah. Well,
Keith McKeever 1:16:53
my kids think they have a brilliant business plan. They don't they don't have any products or services, but they've got a name
Lindsay Hinger 1:16:58
picked out and oh, that's all you need.
Keith McKeever 1:17:02
This something in my life must be rubbing off on them. They want to be entrepreneurs, business owners. And yeah, and I was telling him like, I'm more of a business owner than an entrepreneur, I haven't started multiple businesses. But, you know, whenever it's rubbing, rubbing off on them, they're thinking, thinking in that direction, but I give him a hard time all the time. I'm like, you don't have a product or service. You don't have a business. But I will like okay, just go find that problem to solve.
Lindsay Hinger 1:17:28
Exactly. On a problem to solve.
Keith McKeever 1:17:31
Yes. Like you got the name. That's the hard part. Yeah. So find the problem. So let's write. Anyway, Lindsay, I appreciate you stopping by and spend a little over an hour with me talking about this. And, you know, I hope, you know, when people watch and listen, you know, they can pick up some good nuggets of information to kind of balance out their life, whatever, whatever that looks like for them, you know? And, you know, so they can kind of be more effective on on both fronts, business and at home.
Lindsay Hinger 1:17:58
Yeah, so I just do it. 100% whatever you're doing.
Keith McKeever 1:18:02
So let's know you do right. Excellence comes back again. That's right. Yes. You leave the show with an air power right there. Yeah, hell yeah.
Lindsay Hinger 1:18:13
Wait, no, no. Let's go with the real motto of the Air Force. Safety first.
Keith McKeever 1:18:19
Safety first. Yeah.
Lindsay Hinger 1:18:22
That was always what they would say. And I was like, man, you're ruining it. Not. Air Force is should not be safety first. That's so lame. Although important. It's important.
Keith McKeever 1:18:34
Yeah, sometimes I think that went right out the window, though. That's the funny thing. Everybody wants to make fun of the airforce for being the smart people in the military club, if you will. And it's like, boy, there was some idiots, too. I mean, oh, there were there were some morons. I hate to say it, you know, but there was some smart people in the army too. So I'm sure you know, save the Marines in the Navy. Space Force I don't know about I've met anybody in Space Force yet so I will reserve my judgment for later the the newest addition to the family if we want to claim yet I don't know. I don't we do that yet. I guess I am
leaving them yet. No.
I mean, you're kind of still in diapers on the on the branch timeline. So anyway, I appreciate it. Lindsay. Once again, everybody. You can go to gifting with valor. COMM. You can go check her out there. Reach out to her if you need something for your business or anything else. That's where you can find her and then I'll have all the other things in the show notes. So appreciate you being here.
Lindsay Hinger 1:19:33
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. No problem and fun
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
