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Building Real Community and Leading with Service: Andrew Tull on Connection, Rescue, and Paying It Forward

Episode 31 · 7 July 2025 · 1 hr 1 min

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Andrew Tull on Connection, Service and Texas Search and Rescue

Andrew Tull connects people without asking what's in it for him. He joins Randy Lorensen and Dr. John Oberg to talk about the Gathering of Friends, failure and family, and volunteering with Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR).

For 14 or 15 years, Andrew has hosted the Gathering of Friends, a casual evening where he's often the only person who knows everyone in the room. His list has grown to about 330 people. He explains how it works, why he walks people across the room to meet each other, and how anyone can host one with nothing more than time, energy and love.

He's open about failure: what he calls his biggest personal failure, being a single dad, and a startup that didn't make it. He talks about what each one taught him and the family he has today.

The last part is about service. Andrew volunteers with Texas Search and Rescue, and he describes the training, the high-water vehicles, and deploying for a week at a time. He explains why he does it and how listeners can help with their time, talent or treasure.

Texas Search and Rescue Volunteering, and How to Be a Connector

What you'll discover:

  • How the Gathering of Friends works, and how to host your own
  • Connecting people without keeping score
  • Good and bad connections, and paying it forward
  • Learning from failure in marriage and in business
  • What Texas Search and Rescue volunteers train for and do
  • How to help: time, talent and treasure

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome Andrew Tull
  • [02:02] The Gathering of Friends
  • [03:00] The only other person who knows everyone in the room
  • [04:56] Being a connector without "what's in it for me"
  • [07:53] The list of about 330 people
  • [09:51] Encouraging versus pushing
  • [11:51] Making introductions in the room
  • [12:50] How to host your own: time, energy and love
  • [14:47] How he learned to connect
  • [15:45] Good and bad connections, and paying it forward
  • [19:40] Being present for a friend of 41 years
  • [23:43] Friends who call him their ticket to heaven
  • [25:42] Help enough people get what they want
  • [27:40] His biggest failure, and being a single dad
  • [31:37] From failure to family
  • [33:32] A startup that didn't make it, and what he learned
  • [38:31] What you can do with your morning
  • [39:29] Volunteer work and Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR)
  • [44:21] Being ready to save someone else
  • [45:19] High-water vehicles
  • [48:13] Water-rescue training
  • [50:12] Deployments, and being self-sufficient for a week
  • [52:06] Why he does it
  • [53:03] How to help: time, talent and treasure
  • [55:57] John on Andrew's service
  • [59:00] Full circle, and wrap-up

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About Andrew Tull

Andrew Tull is a tech founder and a friend of Randy and John. He hosts the Gathering of Friends and volunteers with Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR).

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:01] welcome to episode 31 with Andrew Tull. Uh Andrew is a founder of a tech company, [his company]. Very successful business career, but frankly, we're not going to talk about business in this entire episode. Uh he's a special person in spreading abundance in his own way. He runs something here in Austin, Texas called Gathering of Friends. And you may hear it and think, boy, this is a private group. What does this have to do with me? I can't get in there. I don't live in Austin. But I hope it gives you some ideas and there's some things about just reaching out in your community, building community, networking, and hopefully it inspires you to go find a similar group or create a similar group in your own area. And I think there's just tons of wisdom and insight in here about really how to be a great friend, how to spread abundance in the world. We go into giving and a charity that he's very passionate about. So sit back and enjoy the episode. Listeners, of having Andrew Tall with us, uh, a friend of both John and I. And I think you guys are going to find this really interesting. He brings abundance to the world in a very interesting way that I know John and I are both a big big fan of. And I just want to start out, Andrew, that you have something called Gathering of Friends. and I consider myself fortunate enough to have been invited to this uh and John is as well.

[01:28] Can you just let's jump right into it. I want tell people what is this gathering of friends because I I think it's fantastic. Happy to do that. Uh the gathering of friends came about from a conversation I had with a few folks that similar values, similar similar beliefs that we were all in tune to. There's not an opportunity for people to have an open mechanism of uniquely and authentically connecting with other folks and doing so in an environment that is designed to not be a networking event. Networking as a word is death to me, but authentically connecting is. So, uh, over the last I'll call it 14 or 15 years, and it has been a hiatus for about a year, and that's 100% on me. uh way too busy with other things currently. Um but the intent is if you get a number of smart, talented, unique, typically seale folks who have been through some hopefully ideally really good successes, but even more ideally some epic fails. But you put that type of an individual who most importantly comes from a pay it forward foundation.

[02:40] You put those folks in a room together and it's pretty cool to watch the sparks fly. It's never going to be the same conversation. It's never going to be the same outcome. But for me, the only other commonality relative to the gathering of friends, which ranges from 40 to 60 to 80 people coming together over a Wednesday night from 4:00 till question mark, is I'm the only other person that knows everybody in the room. And I take it as my personal mantra that Randy, if you show up and you don't know 42 other people in the room, by the end of the evening, I want you to have at least connected briefly with them because at the end of the evening, I'll send out a note to make sure that everybody knows who was there. first name, last name, LinkedIn profile, emails of course, and then they have the opportunity to take whatever followup, coffee, lunch, hey, I just remember meeting you. You were, it was fascinating. I want to hear more about your cabinet business. I want to hear more with what you're doing with the church, John. All of those things. Who knows what the trigger point or the spark might be, but just light the match and watch and see what happens from there. Yeah, it's it's really a fantastic experience. Yeah. I mean, John, what's your I mean, what I mean, part of part of the problem is you can't get to 42 people. Like, I can't count the number of times I've been and and like talk to someone for 30 or 40 minutes and you look down, you're like, I got to go meet some more people. Like, I don't want to stop talking to that person. But then, and you've actually pulled me away in a couple times to That is my job. If you talk to somebody for more than five or 10 minutes, I'm going to break that up so that you do have a chance. And then I'm sorry, John, I must have failed you because if you talk for 30 minutes and I didn't catch that, man, that's just like an internal rule break for me. Yeah, I almost had a heart attack when you said that, by the way, because Andrew is unbelievable at this, right? Like I was like, wait, you were allowed to talk to somebody for 30 40 minutes. I love I love asking questions.

[04:33] I'm super curious. And so when I meet someone who's interesting, which is everybody there? I want to know more and more and more. I can just, you know, get sucked into the story. And everyone's got such an amazing story at these events. And so, yep, you did. You failed. I I I it's not going to be the first time I hear that even today, but it's like the most positive failure ever. And you know, I think you're you're one of the few people that I know that's like what I would call a super connector, right? Like you're you're constantly thinking about how can I help another person and and it's it's amazing to watch, right? Not everyone's wired that way. And it's it's neat. um the I figured out and it was um so I'll turn the tender age of 55 here next month and uh it did take me about 30 years to really figure it out and get it uh to the point where I recognized that my purpose from the man upstairs was to literally take the opportunity to uniquely understand ask people their story and then try and do something about it. Because my favorite question, and I know both of you guys know this, is how can I help. It doesn't mean that I have an answer that day, that week, or even that month.

[05:48] But I might a year from now, and I'm going to try and do my darnest with as many people as possible to generate those long-term trusted relationships that matter. that it's not the what's in it for me. And the fastest way to get removed from the group of friends is to show up and say, "Hey, I'm Andrew. Let me tell you how cool I am." Yeah. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. But what's really cool is if I show up and I say, "Hey, Andrew, I've never met you before, John. Tell me your story. What's something you're working on? And how can I help as it pertains to that?" That's where the sparks really fly. Yeah. Yeah. And you go ahead, John. I was say most people there seem to be wired the same way which is great. Like I think that's the cool part, right? Is like highly curated list. Well, and you and I have been at the same, you know, the same meeting of friends and we don't even bump into each other and we know each other so we don't need to actually connect but we'll both be working, you know, other other conversations and it's just I don't it seems like one night isn't enough. You know, I try and do them twice a year. It has been since February of last year since I've had one and that again is 100% on me. And this is going to be the spark for me to say, you should do it at my place, man. I've got a I've got like a community room downtown. We'll just like We should do it downtown. We When we're done with this episode, go straight down. Just send out a text. No, we'll pick up we'll pick a date at the end of the summertime. We'll put we'll put it together. Done. We'll make it happen. Yeah, I love it. It' be awesome.

[07:13] So, okay, go. You said this idea, but did you just come out of this? Is it like did you was there an example, a model, or somebody you admired? You just figured this out on your own? I don't know if I'm going to give credit for figuring out my own. A couple of us got together um and were saying, "Why doesn't this exist?" And there are there are some fantastic groups that are secular, non-secular, businessoriented, vertical oriented, role oriented all around town. Austin does not have its lack of meetup potential. This is not those. It's meant to be. And I it came it went from two to four to eight to now there's 330 people that are on the list so to speak. Um and that list changes and fluctuates all the time that it's folks that I come across in a day-to-day life that meet ideally all five of those criteria that it's like I think that this individual and I don't care the background the location. I've had folks come in from Canada, ironically enough, for this, which was very unique.

[08:21] But it's very, very special to see when you've got that right level of folks and there is no agenda. There's no I've had people who have said, "Hey, can I sponsor this? Can I do this or do that?" No, there's I'm going to take care of the appetizers. Everybody else has taken care of their drinks. You do you. But at the end of the evening and I will say that when I get home and whenever I get home the um level of exhaustion as well as level of fulfillment are both equal because it's like I got to get this email out. I've got to get this email out because that's then where the follow-on magic happens. So started with two folks then to four then to eight and then giddy up. There you go. No name no name. Has anybody ever come off the list? I'm just I mean you said 33 like went from 48. O is no longer on the list. Um I would not share anybody that's coming off of the list. But have you have you pulled somebody off? 100%. Absolutely. Yes. What causes some like this because we talk about abundance, right? And you always want more people there, but there are times that people get removed from groups and tongue and cheek you said like if it's about them, but be like again no names, but can you give specific examples of what gets people to kind of be banished is too strong a word, but it's really true.

[09:38] It's not. It is removed from the list. Um, and the easiest way is if you make the event be more about you. If you're pushing, literally not sharing, but pushing. And there's a fine line between here's what I do versus you need to do. So, and I don't know how else to better define it, but it's very evident to me when somebody is pushing a personal agenda rather than trying to contribute. And it's not just been one or two. It's probably been five, 10, or 15. That's one way. The other way is because this is not a plus one event. You are there because you are you. I've had a couple of folks send people in theirstead who I've never met before and they showed up and said, "Hey, I'm here because John Doe told me to show up." Whoa, time out. I'm sorry. This is not the group for you. Yeah. And and and what's ironic as it turned out is that uh that probably has happened three times over the 20 or so events that has happened and it hasn't happened recently. And oh by the way, the reason they sent them is these were folks that were looking for a job and that's perfectly fine.

[10:55] This is not necessarily that type of a group if that makes sense. Yeah. They came in there with an agenda of I'm going to meet as many people as I can because I got to ask them because I got to find a job. Awesome. Understand the need. Fully respect that. But again, you're coming in with an agenda and you're happy to help that too, by the way, in a separate a totally separate way. That's a let's get together with coffee. Tell me who you want to get in front of. Let's do very specifically targeted introductions that meet up with whatever it is that you're wanting to do. Totally different environment. Yeah. One of the things I really admire and I think listeners have already figured this out from listening to you, but I need to assure listeners it is sincere at the highest level that it's that you it's you're not doing it for you. You're there really really truly giving and it is when somebody comes in I I I watch you. You're like, "Okay, what does this person need? How do I help?" And it's like, "Hey, John, you need to go have you you know, have you met Anthony? You need to go over here and talk to Anthony." and you'll walk them over, take them, introduce, say, "You two need to talk. Here's why or whatever." Just and so it's it really is giving, right?

[12:03] And and it it so I really admire that you're doing this as a service. And it it it's funny because I've had a couple of people say, "Hey, why aren't you putting together a gathering?" And I I literally had a lunch with a very close friend of mine who has been on the list for a number of years. He goes, "Man, have I missed any gatherings? I haven't heard anything." And I said, "Mike, um, no, I haven't." And that's 100% on me and I feel really really bad about it. Um, it is an exceptionally busy and blessed time of my life and has been. I'm traveling a ton. I've got a ton going on. Each one of these events has turned out that it's probably somewhere 35 to 40 hours worth of work. And I'm not kidding to plan, prep, organize, get taken care of. Because there's not just send out a link, reserve a place, have people show up, send out an email. Well, gosh. Well, that's all that's involved, right? No, it's not. Because part of for me, and again, I don't not ever plan to monetize. I don't want to. This is literally something is the it's a unique it's designed to be a unique experience to create this uh authentic connectivity between people.

[13:15] And two to three nights before the event, I will study and look at the most recent LinkedIn profiles andor posts andor whatever of the folks that have responded. Yes. And just keeping track of the RSVPs and then the two to three days before. If you have 90, it's going to be 75 or 78 because stuff happens and just keeping track of and then following through. And that's not a oh wo is me, this is a burden. It's just this is a highly curated event. Yeah. And there's no money involved except for me spending money on the appetizers. Everybody can do their own stuff with the drinks and otherwise otherwise it's time, energy, and love. Most importantly, love for that because at the end of that, it's really cool to see even years later the impact of how people become friends, businesses get founded, couple of people have gotten engaged. just all the different stories that have happened from that and there is zero interest in credit. Zero. Like I don't need that. I don't want that for me. And I'll say if there's selfishness in it, it's because this is what the man upstairs has been telling me to do for 20 years. Probably longer than that. It took me that long to actually figure it out and listen.

[14:31] So if somebody's listening and they want to do this, right? What would you tell them? Where do they start? What what would be the first what where should they start to start their own gathering? Yeah. Let's say somebody's listening in Boston. Okay. Or Chicago or you know I don't care. Omaha, Nebraska. So my first answer was I don't know because it's unique. But that's not a true statement. Uh as I think that through join up with one other person and get together over drinks, over coffee, over dinner, whatever. get together and if you guys have I don't care male, female, whatever. If you have similar values, beliefs and again it comes from a sense of hey let's do this so we can build this into a business stop. If it's a you know what John let's sit together over a cup of coffee in Boston to share those with the world. I've never thought about that. Well, if you did, what would happen? I don't know.

[15:36] Maybe good things. You know what? I know a lot of good folks. Why don't we get together here next week or next month? Each of us invite a friend. Two becomes four. And you don't mean good things for you. That's the thing that I want to make sure we don't lose here is like some people could listen and say, you know, that could mean good things for me, but you genu genuinely don't mean good things for me. You just mean good things broadly. 100%. Yeah. There is my satisfaction from this comes from the sense of people that months or years later will come back saying, "Oh yeah, we met through Andrew. Awesome. I hope that that you didn't cause significant issues because of that." And hopefully that again is the spark for creativity to enable people to again go do something good. go help somebody with something else. And if you get these people, smart, talented, unique, creative, seale folks that have this attitude of pay it forward, that's probably the magical component of this is it's folks that want to pay it forward. And if you'd get off the list, don't pay it forward. That's the easiest way to think about it. But if you're in Boston and you want to start this, find two people who want to pay it forward.

[16:53] Then they'll find two more and then two more and then two more and then you've got your own gathering in Boston. Giddy up. Go. Yeah, I think that's great. And by the way, you know, my thought is you were very clear earlier, here's what I was looking to create. They may want to create something a little different, and that's great. Each person can do their own thing. So, as you're talking, it occurred to me, I don't actually know that many people that I would consider connectors. And certainly lots of people I've known have connected me here, connected me there. But the two best connectors I know are the two of you. like literally the and and I didn't really put that together till as as you were talking but it's a pretty unique skill set especially at this le like it it's really an elite level. So where did that come from? Like do you have do you have an idea? Do you know have you ever thought about it? Unequivocally yes. For me um I'm blessed with the two best parents anybody could ever have want to have. My dad was in the Air Force. My mom was a teacher. Um and they were both working their tails off for my brother and me. uh we traveled every 3 to four years. So by relocating to different parts of the country, we never did the overseas thing living wise, but we literally uprooted and started our lives over every 3 to four years. That taught me a couple of things. Number one, the value of a friendship and number two, the value of that friendship over time.

[18:18] And that mattered to me just because I moved away. And I'd mentioned the tender age of 54 going to 55. 40 years ago there wasn't any internet. There wasn't the smartphones. There wasn't FaceTime. There wasn't I mean faxing was becoming a thing. And you're not going to fax friends. Um so you didn't have the technology. If you wanted to say something to somebody, you're going to pick up the phone and you're going to dial them long distance, which costs money. And yeah, I know I'm now really aging myself. Yeah. Yeah. The phone companies used to charge you by the minute. By the minute just for Yeah. And if it was overseas, forget about it. Hang up now. Tell me just tell them what a fax machine is, too. I'm just I mean, I'm a technology guy and I'm going into the wayback machine. But my point on that to answer your question, Randy, is I learned that through my parents, through my life experiences, and for me not wanting to lose friends that I knew or I felt that I would know that were value to that were of value to me for life. And when I say of value to me, I care about them. I want to know what's going on in their for good or for bad. Um, and I will have a conversation that will not be named.

[19:33] Uh, the individual landed yesterday from LA driving home. Got a text from a high school buddy of mine who has been dealt, we'll just say, one of the most difficult hands that you could ever have been dealt. The fact that he's still here is pretty amazing. And he was going through an exceptionally rough time. He had literally just gotten home from the hospital and he does not have a lot of folks in his life at all. At all. I am one of those folks and I actually consider myself blessed to be one of those folks. And this individual reached out to me literally as I was getting into the car, driving to an appointment before I got home, before I had stuff going on last Was it the right time to talk? No. But actually, it was. missed a call purposefully. I let them so that I could actually be present somebody that I've known for 41 years.

[20:52] 41 years because I told him on the call that moment. I can guarantee you if you talk about things that fill up your cup versus things that take away from your cup, conversation as being a draining glass empty. I did exactly what I needed to do when I needed to do it and I made the right for those 23 minutes. And that to me, there's no reason why that relationship should exist except for the fact that it does. And it is actually a blessing. As hard as it may be, it's a blessing. It's probably worth sharing with the listeners, too, like you've been incredibly successful in worldly terms, financially successful, relationships, family, like there's you can check a lot of the boxes. And so if anyone were to kind of be like, "Well, Andrew does that, but there's a price to that." You know, I I mean, we all we all have um a price to pay. Like there's a price you'll pay for that 23 minutes and and the price to pay is positive. In this case, you're going to get filled up by it, right? There's a so it's a return for you. But I would just hate for a listener to think like, gosh, that's you know, you're doing really well by every kind of measure, at least in this country, right? and and and but the thing that you do with the gathering of friends isn't unique to that one evening. It that that is your approach in my experience with you to every interaction we've ever had. Every interaction you've ever had with people that have then come to me and said, "Can you believe this guy named Andrew told Grady?" Like it's it's been like you're very consistent personally, professionally. And it it it no there's no there's been no detriment to that in that way. At least not that I've been able to see. So, not that it's not hard, by the way. No. Um, I have been blessed beyond belief in so many different ways. Um, my triangle, God, family, friends.

[23:04] Always has been. Figured that one out early on. I have failed at more things than I can ever count I'm a broken dude. As successful as I am, there are still things that I know I can do so much better. I have a beautiful wife. I've got three amazing kids. I've got some amazing business partners that are brothers that are and I've got a crazy set of friends that I'm fairly convinced that the inner circle of friends that I have pretty much view me as their ticket to heaven because they know that if they can help this dude out, they can help anybody. And I'm incredibly blessed for that because the stuff that I've been successful with in business or life or family or whatever has been because of again the guy upstairs, my parents, and those people around me. The stuff that I have made bad decisions or wrong decisions have been because every single time it's been because I'm putting me me first because I'm being selfish or I'm being stupid or I'm being And I need to be a lot less selfish, a lot less needy, a lot less all of those things. And I wish that I could find that 25th or that 26th hour in a day because then I could have those 23 minute conversations even more.

[24:43] Wow. There's a lot there to unpack. Um John, I want to I want to follow up. I said you guys are the and I I want to get back to Andrew, but I do quickly. You what made you a connector, right? Cuz we we got Andrew's answer. Yeah. But you're also a fantastic connector. Super different from my story. Like my mom was amazing for sure. And I had a you know, great mother growing up and we've talked about kind of my dad passing when I was young, but I I got to this place in my 20s where I was super quid proquo, super transactional with people. Um, and it may not have been obvious on the surface to people, but the truth is that it was it was very transactional. And I went through a couple events in my early 30s that led me to understand the importance of relationships. And so I had to go learn the skill of how do you have relationships? And I tried to really make it about other people like how do I truly without any interest in what I get out of it, how do I really invest time, energy, and uh into other people and help them get what they want. Somebody famous once said, "If you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want." And so I tried just to forget about what I wanted and see if I could help them get what they want. And um and I've been I for whatever reason I've found it not much work to to remember what's good for the people that I meet and then when I come across it to connect that. And I don't know if that's been a hard thing for you to do or not, but I I wish that other people um were able to remember what you know, three other people wanted and just when they came across it a year later could make that connection back. I don't know if that's just a god-given talent or if it's something I developed as a skill, but I don't find that to be as common as I would hope in the world. I don't know if it's a lack of empathy or but I had to develop it very deliberately. For me, it was a very thoughtful how do you do it? But you guys are you guys are I really mean it. You're unique. I mean, everybody's a connector to some extent, but not like you guys. And I I I guess from the outside, what makes the two of you different is you are the two people I know that most consistently if somebody's doing things, you're instantly thinking, how can I help that or who and and I think in both cases, it's a very commonly you should talk to this person. Let me make this introduction. And in both cases, sometimes it's been like, "Hey, Randy, this person can help you." And in other cases, it's been like, "Hey, Randy, you can help this person." And putting that together. So, um, I I think that's fantastic. And, uh, listeners, we're going to go to break, but when we come back, something I I wanted to dig deeper and Andrew talked about failures. I want to come back and dig into some of those when we get back from the break.

[27:21] Listeners, welcome back. Uh, we are still here with Andrew Tull. We didn't scare him off during the break. Uh Andrew, I I I mentioned before the break I wanted to follow up on failures and you had talked about the failures. So I it's my opinion that people are too scared of failure and we don't talk about failure enough and all the value. So let's dig into that. What can you give us a give listeners an example of something a failure and maybe some that you learned from maybe some you didn't and like the most beneficial ones I would love to hear about. So do we have six or seven or 10 hours associated with our time together? Um business personal is there a preference? Let's start with one that was embarrassing at the time but you've kind of come to grips with it. Oh, I don't know about embarrassing, but I'll tell you. Actually, let's just start with the single biggest failure of my life. How about that one? Very good. Um, single biggest failure of my life is that I'm Catholic and I'm a divorced Catholic. I failed in my first marriage. That was something that uh started very simplistically when my wife's at the time mother was killed by a drunk driver on August 1st of 2000 which if you look down the domino set of events that happened many many many years later led to us not being able to be together anymore.

[28:52] more it did create talking about failures going to successes my ex-wife and I who I literally talked to ironically enough on the way here and that's a really good success story created the two most beautiful girls on the planet right now my daughters Lauren and Ashley and yet I failed in my marriage period and I own that there's shared ownership and responsibility for everything but I was a guy. I had a hammer. Hammer, nail. I can fix anything. My God, we're Catholic. We're not getting divorced. We can fix anything. No. No, you can't. Huge lesson. Massive lesson for me. And I do say, so that was plain and simple my biggest failure. Oh, by the way, I was a single dad with my two girls for three and a half years doing all of the things attempting to be super dad. If I didn't miss an event, I didn't miss I didn't I didn't I didn't because I was hellbent for leather that those two girls were not going to be negatively impacted in their lives because of their mom and dad not being married. Still, God looked down and said, "This is colossally hilarious to watch. However, those two girls probably need some help because I don't know if Andrew's up to the task."

[30:24] So, he brought me, my wife, second, and I'm hopeful last wife, and her son Cameron. So my family went from four, I failed it down to three, and then I succeeded it back up to five. And that's very important because we don't do step in my family. It's not my stepson. Megan's not stepdaughters with Lauren and Ashley. It's daughters, it's son. Period. Unequivocally. And if you look at it, while we're having this conversation right now, I made a commitment to my ex at the time 20 years ago. Now, stay together, I promise that I will support you to the absolute best extent that I can, no matter the fact that we're getting divorced. What do you mean by support? I mean, that's whatever she needed financially, emotionally, And if we called and asked her right did Andrew fulfill his word? I can unequivocally tell you that she would say yes. So, failure to success. And if you want to talk about a whole ridiculous amount of work associated with bridging that gap, that's a story for 86 different Yet, I made a commitment. I was a man of my word. I failed at my marriage.

[32:04] I do not plan to fail with my second marriage. And if you look at where my son biologically Megan's son and my daughters, biologically my daughters are, they are three wonderful, giving, kind, caring humans, souls that are doing their own thing and doing it very positively. As a matter of fact, tonight I'm going over because my two daughters are making me a belated Father's Day dinner and we're going to hang out together. And the best part of that is that my eldest daughter, Lauren, who got married last year, is expecting her first grandbaby in September, which is the single most joyous thing I could ever imagine. And Nathan, her husband, I could not have poured out a requirements list that had everything that he's bringing and has brought to Lauren and to our family. So, me being able to spend time with Lauren and Ashley and Lauren's husband Nathan as she's baking baby Beckett right now uh for September is truly right there. That relationship, those relationships unequivocal, massive home run successes.

[33:25] Yeah, you're not clear about this one. It's obvious. as crystal as I possibly can be. And and and the reason being if you're feeling perhaps a little bit of extra verve or passion, that's right where it's at right there. I want to know more failures, but I don't I don't know how we're going to top that one. Yeah. I was like I wanted I wanted to ask about like well has there been like a business stuff or other but but with you I'm like but that seems like deathrain at this point. Here's a great business failure. Raising money, working to try and bring a really, really cool underwater operated vehicle that is significantly underfunding, playing in the oil and gas industry, trying to break into the oil and gas industry. Who did I know in the oil and gas industry? Nobody. One and a half years into it, who did I know? We had master services agreements in place with 18 different oil and gas companies. That's not an easy thing to do. Yeah. at all. Just I'm not sure I hear a failure yet. Oh, just wait. Just wait.

[34:30] Everything was lining up perfectly. Just starting to do proofs of concept, getting revenues going, getting some MR, getting some AR, month of recurring revenue, annual recurring revenue. Just starting to get where people like, can this thing really do what it's supposed to do? All the eggs in one basket was the Gulf of Mexico basket. BP Mondo well blew up. What happens? All stop on everything in the Gulf. Everything went away. Everything went away. Dissolved into all different types of follow-on activities associated with that. The business that had a ton of potential, one smark, it was gone. And there were some relationships that were damaged and hurt as a result of that. Easily one of the most significant failures of my life. I you can talk about external influences. I'm a jocking extreme ownership kind of guy.

[35:36] else in other parts of the world. We could have. We should have. We needed to. We needed to flex. We needed to not not flex but be flexible. We needed to adapt. We needed to have other different sources of funding. We needed there's so many different lessons learned. We were all in and um we bet on black and it came up red and there you go. Know who you're going into business Because if you don't know them and you think it might be a trusted when people say that they're going to do things, it doesn't mean that they always are going to do things and follow through. Yeah. It's funny. Right before you said that, I was thinking like, is it going to be contingency planning or black swan event planning? No, but it's about it's people, isn't it? Business is People make it hard. Yeah, it really is. If you think about it, business is not difficult. How how long ago was that kind of fail? Like when did that happen? What year? We were talking 17 years ago. And so, how long did it take? Because you know my experience with failures myself and watching other people is that you don't like you don't always get to apply the lesson immediately but in your case it seems like you're able to learn pretty quickly.

[36:53] I don't know if it was quickly as much John. I think the because you're always you you think that there oh there's some other way there's something that can oh let's what about you know there there's always a different way to save or or flex or make something happen and and my fundamental one of my many fundamental philosophies is to me it's not ever a no it's a not yet. So if somebody doesn't yet agree with something that I think or I'm part of a group that needs to happen, cool. And you say, "No, that's not ever going to happen." I hear that as I'm not yet ready to say yes. I I just I have a translator in this tiny little brain that just is like John said no, but it seems no, he's just not ready yet. Cool. So John, how about we talk in about three months? I bet you that you're going to see that there's some value to whatever it is we might be talking about. And then it's like relentless water on a rock. lesson right away. It took a minute. I I think it's fundamentally good to share with your listeners that I'm not a very smart man. I don't agree with that, but All right. So, what what would you tell listeners about why failure is important? That's when your best learning happens unequivocally. You get out of your comfort zone. If your routine is every day, I'm going to get up at 6:30 and I'm going to do this at 7. I'm going to do this at 8 and this at 5. You're going to do that 30 years from now. You're going to go wonder where the hell your life has been. Or you can get up at 6:20.

[38:34] You can go for a run. You can go pray. You can call a friend. You can text somebody that you're thinking about. You can go do something that might bring joy or pleasure or good or something to somebody else's life and that's going to set up the day much much better than just following your humrum routine. Mixing in the difference, mixing in the variability, trying new things. If it doesn't work, awesome. Then you now know it doesn't work or it doesn't work for now. Pivot, shift, try something else because you know that that's not the right path. And when you're doing that, ask as many questions as you possibly can of other folks that have possibly been there before because they'll help you miss the next time where that obstacle might have tripped you up and you can jump over it next time and then you're further down the path. Great. You actually answered my follow-up question as well. So, let's take that and uh let's let's pivot to volunteer work. And uh I I know that's something you're passionate about. Tell us a little bit about that. Uh it goes back to the give back component. Um and that uh 100% comes from my parents uh who have been involved in church and other activities for their entire life.

[39:49] And they have uh early early on in life took me slashdrugged me to not drugged drugged me carried along made happen whatever you want to call it to those various events. And here's the interesting thing. it actually took despite the fact that I might not have wanted to go to X or Y being a part of those organizations, attending those events, whether it was CY Catholic Eagle organization, Boy Scouts, Get My Eagle Scout, being a part of different clubs, being in speech, being in whatever, playing sports, which is a huge passion of mine. Being able to do something where you're getting to participate as a team and then do something where you're able to achieve. Oh, that's that's it for me. For me, I'm blessed to be on a couple of different boards. The one that I know both of you guys know is very very near and dear to my heart is Texas Search and Rescue. Was introduced through uh several mutual friends about nine years ago. And it was right when Hurricane Harvey was happening. and I was on the couch. Um, and I was as absolutely unequivocally frustrated with my life as I ever have been. As I'm sitting there on my couch as this hurricane is absolutely ravaging a massive part of our state, you're seeing the images, you're hearing, you're seeing all the the things that were happening where it just was a unbelievable hundred,000year event. And all I was doing in my safe, warm, dry living room was clicking donate, which by the way is a great thing.

[41:32] However, for me, it wasn't the greatest I didn't need to donate my treasure. I needed to donate my time and my hopefully talents. I knew two folks that were part of Texar, Texas Search and Rescue. I met with one of them the day after he got back and he goes, "I know why we're meeting." We met at the Starbucks Arboritum here in downtown in North Central Texas. He goes, "I know why we're meeting." And I said, "I know you know why we're meeting. Um, I want in. What do I need to do?" And by the way, you didn't I'm trying to recall the story. I don't think you jumped into like management tech. you were like frontline like how do I go buy the boots and grab the you know grab the gear and I'm going to I'm going to jump into the fray like you didn't you didn't jump in where your skill set was. You jumped in where the call was toughest 100%. I had no intention whatsoever and I still do and that hasn't worked out very well for me of just literally being boots on the ground. Teach me, train me. I've learned a number of skills throughout life, but I still don't have those skills necessary. Fast forward eight years, I now have certifications in 21 different areas that we get to get reertified on every three years or so, ranging from wilderness first aid, which comes in handy more often than you could ever imagine. Um to CPR, AED, wilderness search, uh um uh tell me swift water is one of them. I see that 100% swift water. That's the that's the bomb. Is it fun? Yeah. Uh, fun, terrifying, dangerous, and psychotic if you got into it like if you're out there, but like it seems like the training would be really fun. It is. It is exhilarating. It is amazing. Have you seen this, Randy? Have you seen Swiftwater training? I have not. I I'm picturing something, but I have no idea. Picture drowning and then not drowning. Any questions? Take take us through. It's pretty intense. Yeah.

[43:22] So, uh, and and rescue boat operations. Um, uh, which has now changed. There's another, uh, iteration of that, but um, so I've I've been blessed. Uh I just reertified last year and this year with both uh um swiftwater rescue technician SRT is what it's now called and then rescue boat operations which now has a new name. So it's being able to get in the boats. It's being able to get in the water. It's being able to go out and deploy and get people from a bad situation whether they're in a trait on a roof in a bad they're trapped in their house whatever it is and get them from that spot to where they need to be where they're not in that bad situation. Um and we constantly train. What do you have to do for training? I remember seeing guys like tie ropes on and jump into fast water and they have to like catch you downstream. You're wearing like helmets and harnesses and Well, the PFD your your uh your all of your gear is critically important. You don't if you're ever search and rescue is not all about, hey, let me show you how cool I am. It's all about let me make sure that I'm ready mentally, physically, and otherwise to be the best person that I can be to go save somebody else. If you become the victim, if you become somebody in distress, you have now screwed up the entire operation. So, make sure you know what you're doing and that you're surrounded by other people that you know what they're doing and that you go out as a team and you know what each other are going to do and then accomplish the mission. If it's uh Grandpa Joe on the roof, if it's Johnny in the tree or if it's uh getting across, we went to Louisiana and there was a mobile home group of 60 to 70 folks that um were trapped and the waters were rising and didn't nobody knew how fast it was going to go. Um we were in Homa, Louisiana, and a group of 16 of us. We got in our 5-tonon uh LMTV and what's that? Uh it uh the big military grade vehicles where the tires are about the size of your head um that they're literally five six feet up. They can cross where other places cannot cross and they have high capacity in the think of it as a um your grandfather's big daddy truck uh uh pickup truck.

[45:24] Okay. um light vehicle truck ve light medium truck vehicle is the military term and it's technically a military vehicle that is um designed to operate in those type of conditions to cross streams, rivers, whatever else where other cars if you go and I mean you're you're gone. Turn around, don't drown. It's a thing. Don't do it. Um and oh by the way, we were we had to cross a creek um slowly and my job this is one of my favorite things. I'm in front of the LMTV. There's downed electrical lines, which we were told were down. There's water, which you don't know how deep it is. Um, and you're you're trying to figure out where the creek is because it's 11 o'clock at night and everything's dark. And we you have we have a pole. There's guy on the left of the truck, um, the guy on the left of the truck, and there's another guy on the right of the truck. And the truck's following us at two or three miles an hour, and we're walking, and we're just poking to find out that we're staying on the road. And my best joke of that was uh the buddy of mine um just thinking about this right now. This is going to come back and haunt me. I know. Um he said, "Hey, you think there's any gators in here?" And I said, "Probably."

[46:35] And uh he says, "Well, what what what's what's the plan if we see a gator?" And I said, "I'm not sure what your plan is, but my plan is to run faster this way than you would you do." Yeah. And then he called me something and then we just laughed and moved on. Um, but I mean and it wasn't it was not the oh my god, you know, catch the rope, catch the rope, catch the rope or you're throwing something and doing we just it was slow, methodical, it was organized and we had to make two trips and um it was not anything extra special. But for those 55 or 60 folks from kids to grandpoms and grandmoms that got from were really stressed out to where they weren't stressed out, pretty sure it was a big deal for them. Um, so to answer your question about the training, it's 30 hours over a weekend where you do some classroom and then you're in the water from Saturday at 7 a.m. until Saturday night at midnight, brief breaks, and then Sunday from 8:00 till whenever you finish on Sunday. And you're essentially in the water almost the entire time. And you're learning depending upon if it's just basic techniques or advanced techniques, everything from single versus double versus what you do with ropes, with training with um anything that you can imagine that you need to know about proper equipment, proper technique, proper um once you've got rescue swimmer. I mean, we get um you get into the deep part um you pair up and then one person's like, "Hey, Randy, you're drowning. I'm coming to rescue you." pretend like you're drowning. What are you going to do to your rescuer? The simple answer is you're probably going to try and drown them, right? You don't want to, but if they're drowning and you're somebody that's up, they're going to be, "Hey, guess what? Time out. We're going to push you down. So, I I just need air. I don't care about anything else other than air." So, how do you handle a Randy who is in total survival mode and get Randy from his bad spot to the shore?

[48:33] So, those are all different and a smattering of techniques, great organization. Um, I love the organization like nobody's business because it combines all of those things for me. It is people with a purpose that want to help. The missions, the mission of the organization is Texans helping Texans. That doesn't get any better for me. And you've got the type of people that are part of that organization and it's growing rapidly, which is amazing, that buy into the mission and just want to be there on somebody's potential absolute worst day. And I've been there in several cases of finding or recovering folks and that's a really really bad day, but at least you're able to provide an answer. Yeah. So, so when you say 30 hours of training, you're talking for that one certification. Uh for that one weekend, which then you're going to continue to utilize and have uh and we will reiterate in classroom and other training throughout the year, right? Correct. Amongst 20 other certifications he said he has. Yeah. But the team has this not this isn't an Andrew thing. This is if you you can choose what you want to do. Um, and a lot of those, by the way, five ten of those are ICS, incident command system training. That's online training to understand the acronyms and all of the stuff associated with working with governmental agencies and whatever else.

[49:59] So, what do you got to do? You got to read, you got to listen, you got to pass exams. There's there's a decent portion of that. And then there's the really fun, exciting stuff, which is um, how often do you get called out? Like for you personally, how often do you go out on a on a Oh, man. Do they call them missions? What do they call them? Are we going back to the failure part? Because uh um I have not been out on a mission in the last 90 days. Um and I wanted to be there for the mission. I couldn't be because I made the decision of prior commitments that I had to not me. This is the longest stretch that I've been where I haven't been on a mission. So, I've done I think it's between 85 and 95 missions um over the last it'll be eight years in September. And I really wish it was 250 or 300. So, 10 or 10 or 12 a year. So, one a month or more. And and when we deploy uh for hurricanes or for disasters, it's come prepared to be away for three, four, five, six, seven, eight days. Just bring self-sufficient stuff.

[51:06] Um you're bringing all your stuff. you're loading up into a truck and you're going and you're prepared to be self-sufficient for a week or more. And I my lovely wife is fully supportive of this. And she goes, "When do you think you'll be home?" And I said, "Call it a week." But I don't know. And sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's four days. And I'm blessed to have wonderful business partners that they know um that when I say, "Hey guys, I've got a textr call out." They're like, "We've got your calendar. We've got you covered." I haven't been able to do that as much in the last three months. talk about That is my most significant acutely aware failure that I'm not out there with the team because I'm too busy with other things in life. And that's wrong. This is clearly filling your cup. You you referenced earlier and I think listeners like there's people listening that that may not be as obvious as it is to you. What what is that fulfilling? What is that doing? What's in it for you a little bit? But why why do you explain to people why you do this? It's helping. It is literally being there.

[52:13] When a 100,000 people are driving the highway this way because they're going away from something for safety, we're part of the small group of people that are driving this way because we have the capacity, the capability, and most importantly, the willingness to go put ourselves in those positions to go make a difference. Because if Grandpa Joe is on that roof, he might not make it to the next day. And that's going to suck for his whole family. Once we get Grandpa Joe off that roof and he's reunited with his family, that's the best part of it. Yeah. Love it. So, thank you for that. And everybody doing it. What if people are listening and they maybe they do want to donate? Is there is there a was the treasure helpful? Or if they want to donate their time, they go, "God, I want to do this." What do they do? Where do they go? Everything is helpful. Time, talent, and treasure are the three T's. Giving time to something, giving your treasure to something, giving your talents to something. If you want to be part of an organization that is much bigger than yourself, that is Texans helping Texans, go to texrar.org. And what if you're outside of Texas? What do you do? come to Texas and do the same Spoken like a Texan. Let's imagine for a moment someone's not coming to Texas.

[53:30] How would they find an organization like that in their area? If you're in North Carolina, there are some amazing state or and look up search and rescue for Will County or whatever. Um you will find the organizations. They're we're scattered all throughout Texas. We believe that Texar is the largest in the country um just because we we're the only one that also covers the entire state. So we'll deploy to all 254 counties. Um and to further answer the question Randy from your as well if you want to be a part of the organization we will find a place for you whether it's time or treasure go to the website that's it and that will take you an answer. You will hear from us moments after you apply or ask a question or whatever and we will invite you out to a meeting. You'll get to meet and greet some of the folks. We've got uh different divisions across the state of Texas. Uh and we're growing absolutely exponentially and it is a wonderful blessed thing to see. TX searchandrescue.org teexar.org texrar.org that's exactly it. And again, it's not just about the treasure. And if you've got a skill set, um, or you are part of something that you have talents, and it doesn't have to be that you want to be part of the guy that's in the boat that's going out to find Grandpa Joe.

[54:54] It can be the people behind the scenes that are taking the calls, that are handling logistics, that are very organized, that are good programmer, uh, planning managers, or folks that are really logistically excellent. because it takes an army to get that army of folks out in the field and keep them supplied, fueled in contact. We deployed to Florida for Milton, eight of us did. Um, and we had four layers of redundant communication that we utilized. And, uh, we tested out some stuff that we hadn't done before. Um, the mission didn't turn out to be all of that great because thank god Milton wasn't that big of a deal comparatively for South Florida. It was anticipated to be. However, we got to learn and train and do some cool stuff. Um, and we used all the different levels of redundancy that we had uh to keep in comms and make sure that we were accomp accomplishing the mission. So cool. Yeah. Very cool. How you're busy, right? I mean I mean I'm I'm just thinking I mean you got your family, you have your business, you have you're what 10 times a year roughly you're going out doing this. I mean how as he's chairing the board of the organization by the way, right? and church and all the other things you do and you're on another board. Like, how do you do all this? Like, what what how do you pick where to spend your time?

[56:08] And I'm assuming some of this is saying no to stuff, but how how do you manage and balance all that? I I don't um I'll give and give and give till it hurts. Hey, thanks for being here, by the way. I listen to all Thanks again for being here. Um I first of all, I wish that I had that 25th or that 26th hour. Yeah. Um, and I'll go back to the fact that God puts me in a unique position to be available for those folks that might need me to be available for them as my friend. The 23-minute conversation as I mentioned. And the reason I say that, the reason that hit home for me is because I was driving um, and it was time that he needed to process what we were talking about. I need to let him know that he needed to be able to do that and that he didn't need to say the same thing over and over again the 150th or 160th time. It was time for him to process and go. And my my message to him was very very simple. Dig deep and take one step at a time. That's what you need to do. And he needed to take time to do that. And I hung up and I'm like, "God, that was 23 minutes." And it wasn't a, "Oh my god, it was 23 minutes." You know, whatever. It was just, wow, I did not realize that 23 minutes.

[57:37] And that was 23 minutes. If you think about it, it's a little bit. It's 150th of the day. I had a pretty productive day yesterday. If I look back at what I did yesterday, those 23 minutes were a gift. That was probably the most important 23 minutes of that day yesterday. So to answer the question, I don't do everything well. I try and do as much as I can well and everything else is just going to fall into place as best as it can. And that dude is going to have my back consistently to figure out where I need to be at the right time. Well, with a huge amount of gratitude. You know what's easy for me to see is how grateful you are for your circumstance despite the circumstance. I think you know I know you don't take compliments super well but but I think your level of gratitude people could learn a lot from just your perspective and that's a chosen perspective for you. It is um because the second that I want to try and again fail on a regular basis about being selfish or it's about me or show me let me tell you how cool I am or whatever else there is not a single human okay mom mom probably wants to listen about that. There's not really any human that cares about that and God doesn't want me to do that. It really I have then shifted from a outward other people focus to a me focus. And that's not where I want to be. It's where the gathering of friends circling all the way back to the beginning of our conversation. It's where the gathering of friends started. It's where Texar exists. It's where my soul wants to be with God, family, and friends. And I'll put Texar in there as well, just because I'm so passionate about the And it's those things that are most near and dear to me that I need to move other things out of the way to make more room for those. That's where I need to find out the kind of secret of time. Well, we didn't even get into this today in front out of time, but like Andrew and I bumped into each other and I think we were crisscrossed in Europe with for women's soccer events a couple years ago and it's just amazing how he's able to do all these cool things. I think that there's a there's probably a whole another episode of information we got to bring him back for to hear dive deeper and deeper into the uh family and and you know more into the I just it's uh so grateful for the friendship and so grateful for all the storytelling and and uh yeah it's amazing. You guys are two amazing awesome dudes. There's a reason why you will and always will be on the list, so to speak, for gathering of friends because of what you do for other folks and the sense of self that you bring, but not as a, hey, let me tell Randy, let me tell John is, but how you're genuinely curious, asking questions, and always trying to figure out how you both can help other folks. And that's exactly what it's all about.

[1:00:27] Andrew, I again I I could ask a thousand follow-up questions, but I I do think this is a good place to wrap it up. And uh I am really grateful for the time, especially when I really consider how busy you are. Uh but you know, I just the big takeaway for me is the just the commitment to service in so many not just one area, but so many different ways. and the just the genuiness authenticity with that is just I think I behalf of everybody just thank you. So you're you're welcome and there's so much more that I need to do but thank you guys for having me today. It's been a blessing to share the story. Um there's there's a lot of it that's left unwritten and I'm excited to see what what pin's going to chapter or what the next chapter is going to be pinned to make that happen. Thanks for being here. Great. Thank you guys. listeners. Uh, as always, download, give us a like, tell your friends, tell your family, tell your neighbors, whatever. Follow us on social media. And, uh, just everybody have a great day. Thank you, Andrew, for for blessing us with us. Thank you.

[1:01:30] Thank you.