Rocket IT Business Podcast | Eddie Staub | Curating Greatness | Ep 17

In this episode, we’re joined by a man whose life work has resulted in one of the Southeast’s largest residential programs for children in crisis situations.

At the ripe age of 27, with no land and little money to his name, Eddie Staub was driven by a courageous vision: to positively impact communities through the reunification of local families. 35 years and 315 acres later, that vision has since transpired into Eagle Ranch; a nonprofit facility that CNN rightfully nicknamed, “the miracle on Chestnut Mountain.”

In This Episode, You’ll Hear More About:

• The importance of having a “Why”
• How to maintain a passionate team
• How Eagle Ranch came to be
• How to effectively raise non-profit funds
• The importance of connecting with the pillars of a community
• Helping children find a healthy balance with technology
• Building trust with parents
• Family reunification
• New initiatives at Eagle Ranch
• Finding a place to fulfill your vision
• Maintaining a debt-free organization

Contact Information

Rocket IT | podcasts@rocketit.com | 770-441-2520

Eddie Staub | estaub@eagleranch.org

Resources Mentioned

Tim Keller’s Podcast

On Eagle’s Wings

Built to Last

Let Go

Like What Your Heard? Give Us Some Feedback!

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Show Notes

Eddie Staub (00:00:00):

Greetings and welcome to the 17th installment of the Rocket IT business podcast. I’m your host, Matt Hyatt. And today I’m joined by a man whose life has resulted in one of the South-East largest residential programs for children in crisis.

Intro (00:00:29):

[Music Playing]

Eddie Staub (00:00:29):

At the ripe age of 27 with no land, a little money to his name. Eddie Staub was driven by a courageous vision to positively impact communities through the reunification of local families. 35 years and 315 acres later, that vision has since transpired into Eagle Ranch, a non-profit facility that CNN rightfully nicknamed the miracle on Chestnut Chestnut mountain. So now to share a glimpse into how Eagle Ranch has continued to impact multiple generations of children and their families, I’d like to welcome Eddie to the show. Eddie, thanks for joining us.

Eddie Staub (00:01:08):

It’s great to be with you, man.

Eddie Staub (00:01:10):

I told you before the show that I have been looking forward to this interview for quite some time as you know, we had originally planned to record way back in the early spring before our pandemic kind of took over all our lives. And so I’ve been delayed for a long time and now through the miracle of technology, we’re doing it over the web, but I’m so glad to spend some time with you as well.

Eddie Staub (00:01:35):

I really have looked forward to it. So it’s great to be with you.

Eddie Staub (00:01:38):

So Eddie, I’m just gonna start by asking a little bit about the why behind Eagle Ranch. I know a little bit of your story. Our listeners may not, they may not be familiar with Eagle Ranch. And so I’d love if you could just tell us a little bit about the premise and mission of Eagle Ranch. How did how’d you get started and where did that idea come from?

Eddie Staub (00:02:01):

Right. Yeah. And that’s a great place to start Matt, because everything emanates from our why, whether it’s individually, organizationally. So our why with Eagle Ranch is basically two fold. First the Eagle Ranch would be a tangible expression of God’s goodness and power in this world that when people look at Eagle Ranch, they look past a person or a group of people and to a God who is still at work in this world and making a difference in this world. Interestingly, we had a group out to Eagle Ranch. This was a little while back and and I noticed a guy in the back of the room that I had known since arriving in Georgia back in the early eighties. And this was probably 2010 he had never been out to the ranch. He had been a good friend of mine and and I saw him in the back of the room, went out.

Eddie Staub (00:03:07):

And as I was speaking on I made a mental note. I need to see him after this because I haven’t seen him in awhile and sure enough, the meeting ended and he just bolted out of the room and I was going, Oh gosh, I missed him. And and after the meeting, someone called me in my office and they said, did you see so-and-so with the meeting? I said, yeah. And I said, I’ve tried to get to him after my talk. And he just left real quickly. And he said, well, Eddie, what he did is he drove around the ranch because he had never been down there before. And he called me when he got back to to the office. And he said, I’ve never been out Eagle Ranch. And he said, I can tell you this. There is no way that place would happen apart from God.

Eddie Staub (00:03:59):

And I don’t know where this guy is in his spiritual journey, but he could see firsthand that God was at work and as a result Eagle Ranch. So that’s my heart’s desire is that when people look here, they see, they see God doing great things. The second thing of our why is that we would be the hands and feet of Jesus to hurting people. And Jesus was always moving toward people who were struggling, people that were on the margins and even people that thought they had it all together and just said, there’s more for you. You may have a great portfolio. You may have great influence, but there is more like Nicodemus, right? And he also went to those who are really struggling in life. And we had a young boy here. I guess he’d lived here about six months and he’d been the product of a really brutal kind of divorce.

Eddie Staub (00:05:06):

And, he was walking around the ranch. I pulled up my car and I said, I said, how you doing son? He goes not good, I’m not doing good. And I said, well get my car. And we would drive around. He was telling me about his family situation. And I looked at him. I said, son, there’s greatness in you. And he literally physically jumped in his seat in the car as if could that possibly be true. And I think that’s what Jesus was about: calling out greatness. It was in people that perhaps didn’t even think there was greatness in them. And, and that is one of our great messages to the children that there is greatness in you regardless of what you’ve been told, regardless of how you feel, that is the truth. The early parts of your story don’t have to be predictive of the way the rest of your story’s going to go.

Eddie Staub (00:06:14):

And that’s our greatest challenge, Matt, is because the first 13, 14 pages of their story had been tragic. They’ve been difficult and they go, I know how this is going to end. And we intersect that. We come in on page 14 or page 15 with insight. That’s not true, that that doesn’t have to be the way your story is going to go. And that verse from Jeremiah, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. To give a future. And I hope it’s true and it’s operative in their lives. And to get them to believe; that is our greatest challenge. So that that’s our why. To be a tangible expression of God’s goodness and power, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Eddie Staub (00:07:03):

Well, I love it. And I think from what I know of you and the Ranch, you’re living out that why on a regular basis. I want to come back to that and just a minute, but before I do, I think it’s important for our listeners that don’t have any idea of what Eagle Ranch is, to kind of give them maybe a mental picture of what the Ranch is. I’ve mentioned in our intro; 315 acres. So you’ve got a property that is Northeast of Atlanta. What if people come to the Gates of Eagle Ranch, what unfolds in front of them? What do they see?

Eddie Staub (00:07:46):

Well, our physical plan is as you mentioned, we have 315 acres. We have 10 children’s homes; six for girls and six for boys. We have seven boys per home. So 42 boys and six girls per home. So 24 girls, so we can take care of almost 70 children here, and they come and live here for a season of their lives. For many, that average is about two years. And our goal is family restoration and reunification. Now, when people think of children’s homes, historically, they have looked at it, very child centric, you know sort of boys towns that you have these little orphans.

Eddie Staub (00:08:40):

I would add before you go on, I personally would have sort of an institutional view when you say a home, but that’s not what’s at the Eagle Ranch.

Eddie Staub (00:08:51):

No, it’s very much like a neighborhood. The are about 7,000 square feet, you know, you’re right. Matt people come here and they go, I think these are going to be like boys scout huts. You know, they’re like residential homes and it looks very much like a neighborhood, that kind of thing. So we have a house parent couple that lives in each of those homes, and they model a Christian family to the children. And we have five master level counselors to do individual group and family counseling to help these children in their families work through their emotional pain. And, like I said, in regards to the end result being family restoration reunification, when I started the range back in the early eighties, children tended to stay here a little longer. They stayed three, four years, and it’s just not the case anymore.

Eddie Staub (00:09:49):

And in out of home placement, like Eagle Ranch, literally the average stays 18 months to two years in our state. In about two years, we have several kids, several children, they’re going to be graduating this coming may. They will have been here over three years. But the reality is, when a child leaves here, Matt, they are going to go somewhere and 95% of the time that somewhere is back home. And if we haven’t done something to make home healthier, they’ll go right back to that dysfunctional dance that got them here in the first place. So last year, I think in addition to taking care of the children who live at Eagle Ranch, we did family counseling with, I think, close to 300 parents and siblings of our children last year. So, we really invest in the family because we feel that’s the best determinant of long-term success for our kids. If we can get that family recalibrated so that they learn a healthy dance, that’s the best indicator of them doing well,

Eddie Staub (00:11:14):

5% success rate on reunification with the family sounds amazing.

Eddie Staub (00:11:24):

Well, I probably misspoke there. 95% are going to go home. Not all those are successful in our mind. Right. I would, I would say it’s, it’s in the, Oh gosh, probably the 50 to 60%. But, I can honestly saw the families are better than when they came. It’s just not where we would want it.

Eddie Staub (00:12:08):

Yeah, I mean, they’re coming. I would imagine that a lot of these kids are coming out of tough, Multi-Generational systemic challenges.

Eddie Staub (00:12:21):

Turning that around in a year or two, even a 50 to 60% success rate is an amazing success. And it sounds like some percentage of them beyond that have at least have some chance.

Eddie Staub (00:12:42):

And you never know Matt, when those seeds you plant are going to take root. And that’s the same thing with us as parents, right? Your listeners, you go, gosh, there’s little Johnny or, or little Emily, are they ever going to get it? But, you know, I think what we’re called to do is continue to sow good seeds in our children’s lives and other lives. And you just pray for the harvest. We we recently had a young man, he’s 25 years old. He lived here from when he was nine to 11. And I haven’t seen him Matt since he was 11 years old. And he came here at 25 a good-looking young man. And he came with his older sister who’s 27 and as they were about to leave, his sister looked at him and said, I’ll call him Billy.

Eddie Staub (00:13:37):

She goes, Billy, where would we have been if Eagle Ranch had not been there? And he looked at his sister and he says, Susie, we don’t have to ask that question because Eagle Ranch was there for me in my life. But, there was sort of dead silence for those 14 years. You just didn’t hear. But those seeds took root in this child’s life, just like our own children, our grandchildren, or whatever. You just never know when that act of kindness, that act of challenge is going to resonate in a child’s heart and change the trajectory of their life.

Eddie Staub (00:14:23):

We don’t always know, do we when we made a difference in the life of another person, but I love that you’ve been very intentional about it for a long, long time. And I bet there are countless stories like that, whether you know them or not, you know, whether you ever hear about it about countless stories like that. So I want to go back to the the why the purpose for just a moment.

Eddie Staub (00:14:52):

Eagle Ranch was founded, what, 35 years ago, right?

Eddie Staub (00:15:02):

Roughly 35 years ago. Yes. I came here in 82 and the first child came in April of 85.

Eddie Staub (00:15:06):

Yeah, there you go. So just over 35 years, congratulations. That’s a long, long time for any organization. Great success there. But I am curious, I know when I started my business, I started my business a little over 25 years ago. And the original, why was; Matt Hyatt needs a job right now. I’m going to start this business. Cause I, I mean, I need to develop some income and it wasn’t until much later that we came up with something, a rallying cry that other people besides Matt Hyatt could get behind. So I’m just curious, how did that change for you over the last 35 years? Did you go into it with that why idea, or was it more of a calling?

Eddie Staub (00:16:03):

I’ll tell you two quick stories, how these two parts of the, why sort of had to came to be the first one is about that. This would be about God and not about me. When I first came here, I didn’t know anybody in Georgia and nobody knew what to do with me. I was asking for money about this dream, right? And people going, who is this guy? I went to Auburn. They even called the Dean of students at Auburn to make sure I went there. They called the athletic department to make sure I played baseball. There, there you go. They were just doing all this due diligence that I didn’t even know of. I didn’t know they were doing it, but finally one of the guys in our area knew a retiring CFO.

Eddie Staub (00:16:55):

And, he said, Eddie, I want you to meet with Sonny Ellis who is retiring. And apparently he was a gatekeeper of a lot of foundation and corporate giving in Atlanta. And so he had dealt with people like me, and they just said, Eddie, we want you to meet with him. So I talked to Mr. Ellis, got the appointment set up and he goes, Eddie, by the way, I want you to bring me your business plan. And I go, okay. And I hung up and called him. I said, what’s a business plan. I had no idea. And so I said, I think it has something to do with numbers and you know, how the things will grow. So I did a business plan on one sheet of paper and I took it to Atlanta and I met with him and he said, did you bring your business plan?

Eddie Staub (00:17:45):

This guy’s the CFO of a big time company. And I got this one sheet of paper. I said, here it is. And he’s the quintessential Southern gentleman. So he just didn’t laugh in my face. He just picked it up. And he just stared at it for five minutes, an uncomfortable five minutes. And he could’ve devoured that information in less than a minute, but I know he was trying to figure out how to let me down easily without hurting my feelings without discouraging me. Finally, he finished, he put down the sheet of paper and he moved it across the desk. And he said, Eddie.

Eddie Staub (00:18:24):

He said, first of all, thank you for this. And, and he said, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I will tell you something, what you want to do is impossible. But I’m not taking into account what God can do through you. And without a doubt, Matt, that’s the most encouraging statement anybody has mentioned to me in my 35 years of being here. Because my heart’s desire was for that without God; it was impossible. So that was the first part of my, why. The second part to be the hands and feet of Jesus is I grew up in an idyllic family, mom and dad who were committed to me. Roof over our head. But you never had to worry about any of that. When I went to Auburn, I got involved with the big brother program and I did some inner city work.

Eddie Staub (00:19:24):

I did some stuff with really poor people in the rural areas. And I just sort of had this epiphany because growing up in mountain Brook, Alabama, like everybody lives like this. And, and then I was exposed to people who were struggling in life and I’m going, Oh my God, not only is my life. Was it not the rule? But it’s the exception in the only reason I have what I have is because of the grace of God, that’s it. I haven’t deserved it. Didn’t earn it. It was just given to me out of the grace of God. And it was a gratitude for what God did for me, that I wanted to help children that didn’t have those opportunities that I wanted to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those who struggle. And so both of those happened very early on at the onset. And those things sort of came together for me. And it sort of became my fire, the fire of, of why I exist on this earth now. S.

Eddie Staub (00:20:32):

So, you mentioned you grew up in Alabama. How’d you end up in Georgia?

Eddie Staub (00:20:43):

Well, I didn’t want to come to Georgia. You know, I don’t want the chamber of commerce really to hear that comment.

Eddie Staub (00:20:54):

I’m from Birmingham. And when I felt this call I was working for a guy who was an All-American for Bear Bryant. I was working at another children’s home and I was a second string catcher at Auburn on a good day. So I was just gonna work with him, help him be successful. I’m just an average guy. But after about eight months, I knew I needed to leave and start my own deal. But, I knew I was supposed to, and I went down from Mobile to Huntsville, trying to find where Eagle Ranch needed to be. And there wasn’t a need there. And somehow I found out there wasn’t anything for hurting children, Northeast of Atlanta. And so I believed that vision and that’s where the need was. And that’s where my vision was going to end. So, July 9th of 1982, I packed up my car and came to Georgia. So that’s how it started.

Matt Hyatt (00:21:57):

You packed up your car, you had a suitcase with a million dollars in it to get started. Now that’s not what happened at all right. You came here with, with not a lot. How did, how in the world did you come here? I mean, that’s tough for anybody. And I’m thinking a lot of our listeners are folks that are in business or probably have some folks that are in nonprofit organizations and trying to launch a vision. I’ve experienced it, trying to launch a business, an organization from nothing is tough. Can you kind of walk us through arriving here in Georgia to having a place to call the ranch?

Eddie Staub (00:22:48):

Yes. There’s so many different facets to that. I’m a member. When I came here I was able to stay at a place called Ignatius House. It’s a retreat in North Atlanta. And the people that ran that knew my father and I didn’t have anywhere to go. And, someone said, well, you could stay the nation’s house. And so I stayed there for two months and then I didn’t have anywhere to go. And I ran into the only person I knew in Atlanta, in Sandy Springs. And he goes, Eddie, what are you doing here? This guy was friend of mine that went to work Chick-fil-A. I said, well, I’m trying to start a children’s home. He goes, well, where are you staying? And I said, well, I know where I’m staying for two more nights.

Eddie Staub (00:23:56):

And he goes, you know, here’s a guy at Chick-fil-A who needs somebody to house sit in his home in Powder Springs for six months. Now this was the only person I knew in Atlanta of you know, at that time, 4 million people or whatever. And so I lived in seven different places. Three of those times, I didn’t know where I was supposed to spend the night. And there there’s a verse in Isaiah. It says you took me by my hand as if I were blind in led me along unfamiliar paths, ways I did not know. And I feel like that is sort of, my story is I just wanted to be about God’s business and, and there was no plan B, it was just here I am. And you know that I did it at some level.

Eddie Staub (00:24:56):

I didn’t want to be 80 years old and look back on my life and said, you know, I just didn’t have the faith to go after God’s best for me. And if I failed, I failed, but I didn’t want it to be a lack of faith. And so I just said, God, here I am. I’m a work as hard as I can. But at the end of the day, if you’re not in, it’s not gonna work. And I there’s part of me that really wanted to say, if you are who you say you are, I want you to prove yourself strong in my life. And he did. And it’s just like one thing after another, when I was about to just give up, I remember I know I’m telling you a lot of stories here, but that’s, I remember I was sitting in Powder Springs at this home, and I’d gone up and met with a pastor of a church up in Cartersville.

Eddie Staub (00:26:04):

And then I was telling him what I wanted to do and I was about to leave. And he goes so Eddie, are you asking me for my advice on how you should proceed? And I said, yeah, in a way, I guess I am. And he goes, how much money do you have left? And I go about $25. And he said, you have $25. And how much longer you will be able to stay at this powder Springs home. So I think about another week, and then I don’t know where I’m going to go. And he goes, you know, he said, I’m just going to be honest with you. It is clear to me that it doesn’t seem like God’s in this. He said, Eddie, dreamers like you walk into my office every week. And my advice to you is just to go back home, just go back to Alabama.

Eddie Staub (00:26:52):

You know, you gave it a good try, but it’s obvious that God doesn’t seem to be in this. So I’m driving down to Powder Springs. And I walked in the home and I sat down. I said, God, you’ve made a fool out of me. I left everything for you. And people are laughing at me here. They’re laughing at me in Alabama. And I said, I quit. I’m done. I can’t go on anymore. And I said, if you want me to stay here, you’ve got to show me something. And I said, I got one week, the next morning, it was eight o’clock. And I was praying. And the phone rang, I don’t even know how this guy got my number. And he said, are you Eddie Staub? And I said, yeah, he goes, what are you doing, son? I said, well, I’m praying. Then he goes, well, get off your knees. I’ve got some money for you. And some other people do and you need to get started. And that’s the way God has been part of this. So I can’t separate my activity from his activity. It was just hand in glove. We got a job to do for hurting children.

Matt Hyatt (00:28:33):

I love it. I love the way that you told that story. And and I love the way that it has come together. Pretty great. I mentioned when we got started, this is our 17th installment of the Rocket IT podcast. Do you know that our first was one of your team members, Kelly Brewer?

Eddie Staub (00:28:59):

Oh yeah.

Matt Hyatt (00:29:02):

So that was a wonderful, pretty great start. She is an awesome person and I loved interviewing with her and it was pretty great that she was willing to sort of be the Guinea pig on our first episode. So we got to hear a little bit about Eagle Ranch, way back then, on that first podcast. One of the things that sort of struck me about her story was how she ended up at Eagle Ranch. And it was an invitation from you to consider what for Kelly at the time, I think was a pretty big change in her life, right? To leave what she was doing and to join you at Eagle Ranch. I just wonder, it’s sort of seems to me like that’s probably a common theme that many times you have extended invitations for folks on a very personal level that have turned out to be not only great for Eagle Ranch, but also really great for the individuals that have been invited. And so I just wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that because I think many of us, and I would certainly include myself in this category, might have a little bit of fear about inviting someone into what we consider something very big. Maybe other person doesn’t feel that way. And I just wonder if you could kind of walk us through that a little bit. How, how did, how do we go about finding those individuals that could potentially be life changers for our organizations, but also potentially be a great opportunity for them? How do you, how do you find those people and how do you make that ask?

Eddie Staub (00:30:57):

That is so important, especially when you live and work in community, that you have to have people that are of spirit with your mission, your values, that they, that the why resonates with them, that the fire of the rock of the why resonates with them. I personally, I’ve just never been shy about approaching anybody about this because I believe in why we exist. And we just interviewed some folks the other day. And I started my interview process with, I just want you to know, I don’t really call this an interview. I call it discernment both for you and for us. If this is not where you’re supposed to be, this is not part of your personal journey. Then I don’t care how competent you are in this field. It’s just not going to work for you and it’s not gonna work for us. So we really are very, very thorough in our whole process and it’s as much for them as for us. And, and this couple that I was interviewing, they go, we’ve never been through anything like this and they go, we appreciate so much your due diligence

Eddie Staub (00:32:40):

Not just for Eagle Ranch’s purpose, but you’re trying to, to look out for us too. So, I think at the end of the day, we look for people, you know, we weigh the criteria and all that stuff. But we just look for people that resonate with why we exist and resonate with our core values. There are people that are, like I said, competent and all that, they check all the boxes, Matt, but there’s a miss with our why; with our core values. And it’s just, it’s okay. It’s just not going to work here. There are a lot of places that it would be great because you probably align more with their lives. But, that’s why the Why is so key.

Eddie Staub (00:33:48):

And I think a lot of organizations don’t spend a lot of time on that. They go right to core values and, and some of these other things, but they forget why they even exist on this earth. So, it’s interesting. You know, a guy named Dallas Willard. People call him CS Lewis, and he did a he did an article. It’s called living the vision of God. And it was about succession. And it talks about, you know, this is what happens. The founder loves the fire. The founder loves the why. And subsequent generations of leadership increasingly loved the effects of the fire. They loved the financial benefits. I’d love the reputation. They love that at our dock, but the fire becomes a distant memory. And, what’s important to us as leaders is to keep our folks close to the fire.

Eddie Staub (00:35:03):

You know, I’m moving out of my role as executive director, you know, in the near term. And I will move to a different role at Eagle Ranch, but I was talking to our board. I said, you know, sometimes people go, what’s Eagle Ranch going to look like in 50 years? And my response is, that’s not my responsibility, my responsibility and your responsibility, Matt as a founder, is we just need to get this next generation right. This next generations leadership. And if we get that right, then hopefully they’ll get the next generation of leadership right. Because we can’t control the next deal. So as the CEO of a company, you know: very a strong culture. And I said, what are you going to do to keep this next generation close to the fire of your why?

Eddie Staub (00:36:03):

And he said something. He said, you know, every year I meet with every new employee and we go over our why and our vision values, we go through our history, we go back to where we started, basically our first shot. And then we celebrate our core values in real time. Like one of our core values is commitment to innovation. When we do innovative things, even in the midst of a COVID environment, we celebrate that real time. Otherwise it just becomes words on a page, right. If we say that we are good stewards of all things that are trusted us, when that happens real time, we celebrate that. So that it becomes part of embedded in our ethos, if that makes sense. So

Matt Hyatt (00:37:06):

I love it. We have some things in common in that area. Years ago, I was thinking about the future of Rocket IT and had this idea of developing, you know, you talked about the business plan, developing what I called a 100 year plan of. I sat down and thought about what I wanted to happen for Rocket IT over a hundred years. And you know, there’s not very many businesses that last that long. So this is very, you know some might call it pie in the sky, you know, dreamy vision kind of thing. But, just thinking about it, just going through the exercise of thinking, what if you were going to build a business that had the potential to see its 100th anniversary. What is the foundation that needs to be built today? And a big part of that was thinking about our purpose, our why, our values, and that solid foundation that will be necessary in order to have that even be a possibility, but you don’t get very far into that exercise when you realize that, you know, I started my business at 25 years.

Matt Hyatt (00:38:36):

It sounds like when you started at Eagle Ranch, we were similar in age, and I realized pretty quickly that I’m probably not going to be here to see that anniversary. And therefore it is necessary at some point for there to be a transition from me being the CEO to someone else being the CEO. And at some point from me being involved in the day-to-day organization to not being involved at all, because I’m literally not alive. Right. So I love that thought exercise around succession and the transition. And how do you make sure that the things that help the company start and the vision for the organization survive through that transition. I love that you’re thinking about that and living it out.

Eddie Staub (00:39:35):

So you non-profits, or for-profits. Well, there’s a book called built to last by Jim Collins. I like it better than good to great. It’s just my favorite business book and it talks about succession issues and, and it’s, it’s really quite sobering to think how these great companies just had missteps in succession, and with regard to who they brought in. I look at this work that I’m doing now and my board is doing now is very Holy work, that this is some of our most important work in the history of Eagle Ranch. And we started it five years ago, Matt, we started thinking about succession five years ago and started putting things in place so that when this thing happens, it’s going to be as smooth as possible and as little drama as possible.

Matt Hyatt (00:40:48):

But, it’s really something that I think to your point needs to be given real serious thought.

Eddie Staub (00:40:57):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, my experience has been that just preparing for that eventual transition has helped enormously and making the organization more efficient and resilient. You know, if something happens to the founder, cause we never know day to day how things are going to go. That’s a real risk to the organization. And so the practice of preparing for succession actually prepares the for the unknowns that that inevitably come up in our lives. So really important stuff.

Eddie Staub (00:41:41):

It’s interesting. I, there’s two organizations I mentor, they are founder led. And, I start off my talk with them when we made it at Eagle Ranch. I said, first of all, not every organization is meant to outlive its founder. So let’s start there. Should this organization continue to exist past you? And you would have thought I laid a bomb in like, you know. It may have had it seasoned with this founder and it’s time for it to go away. But once you sign that and they go, Oh, of course we want to keep, okay, okay. Now we’ve got to look at succession and you can start to work backwards, sort of what you’re saying. What needs to be in place organizationally, financially for this transition to happen successfully? Exactly what you’re saying.

Matt Hyatt (00:42:47):

Well, you mentioned Jim Collins and his his book. I’ve been reading a good book. I want to share with you. You recognize that. So on Eagle’s wings kind of the story of how Eagle Ranch got started and there’s a lot of great, there are a lot of great stories in here about you and about the ranch. But the thing about this book is very hard to find. You’ve got to know somebody to find this book just about, but it’s published in 1995. That’s I know that’s 25 years ago because that’s when I started my business. If there’s another, is there another book? Is there a sequel, let us know what happened?

Eddie Staub (00:43:29):

Well we are, we are looking at that. We do have a book that was more just stories of different kids. Who’ve grown up here, it’s called seasons. But I think that’s something that we’re going to be looking at is I’ve sort of transitioned to another role while I have some bandwidth to look at that.

Matt Hyatt (00:43:53):

Well, this one’s a great read. Nice job.

Eddie Staub (00:43:57):

Yeah, you can get those from the range. So there you go. Your listeners would like a copy. You know, we have, we have plenty of the ranch.

Matt Hyatt (00:44:06):

Great. So let’s, let’s change gears just a little bit. I’d like to talk about a little bit about just kids. You got a lot of experience in this area. My kids you know, we joke at home, my wife and I are newly empty nesters. Our kids have been launched out into the world and Maureen and I are at home, but I certainly remember this has not been very long since this has happened. And I certainly remember when my kids were at home and all the fun, and all the challenges that that go along with that. One thing that I thought was a big influence in our home, you know, remember I’m the CEO of an IT services company, is just technology. And I’d love to hear when kids come to the ranch, most kids I know are already carrying some sort of technology on their person at all times. How do you deal with technology and kids at home at the ranch?

Eddie Staub (00:45:17):

Okay, great question. Well, when a child comes here, they can’t have their cell phone.

Eddie Staub (00:45:29):

And we had a young girl that came here. Very, very attractive. And so she was getting all kinds of boy attention. She went to school and got all kinds of boy attention. And so she comes here and such, you know, part of the deal is you can’t have your phone here and you need to work on you. You don’t need to be working on you in the context of what everybody feels about you on social media. It just confuses. And you, you need this time for you. So she, she had a little bit of a hissy fit, but when she graduated in her graduation speech, she goes, I just remember when I came to the Ranch, I couldn’t have my phone and how mad I was. And she goes, but looking back, she said, I never realized how I was.

Eddie Staub (00:46:31):

I think she used the word vicariously, living in my life to what other people call and how much that framed my view of myself. And she said, it took Eagle Ranch to find out who she was, apart from that, interestingly she’s in college now. And I was eating at a restaurant in Gainesville and she came up to me and she goes, Mr. Eddie. And I said, Hey honey. I said, how are you doing? She goes, I’m doing great, helping to run the sale for the owner and I’m still going to school. And she goes, she goes, you know, I still don’t use my iPhone like I used to.

Eddie Staub (00:47:19):

That really helped me put that in, prioritize that. And so I, I think what we try to do Matt is to slow life down for kids here and to teach them how to work and teach them how to play. Cause that’s something you and I grew up with, right. That is sort of part of growing up in our generation, this generation, there’s so many wonderful things about technology, just wonderful, but there’s a shadow side to it, right? There’s a side that is harmful that, that takes kids to an easier place. It’s easier to do that, to do the, the work of self, you know, introspection or are to be outdoors and nature, explore, you know, we have 315 acres, as you mentioned, you know, exploring in the woods, playing basketball, riding a bike and then learning how to work, you know, and feeling good about a job well done. And so I sort of, in a way I sort of is the leader here. I sort of want to take this range and take it back in time in a way in a healthy way, 20 or 30 years, where life was a little simpler, a little slower instill you leverage that technology because that’s the world we live in, but to have it it’s a proper balance.

Eddie Staub (00:48:58):

I think it’s, I mean, it certainly was for us. It’s tough for parents to find that proper balance, the kids are going to gravitate a hundred percent.

Matt Hyatt (00:49:10):

You know, I remember learning that one of my kids and I won’t out them but one of my kids, you know, I learned was you know, sneaking up on, into the bedroom at night. And so, you know, you think, okay, we’ve got an hour of screen time or whatever, as our, as our budget and then come to find out, maybe there’s a more hours happening after everybody’s gone to bed it’s tough to manage that at home. I think probably any parents that are listening to this, especially the kids that are older than probably eight or 10 would probably be hard pressed to say, okay, we’re going to go a year, two years without technology.

Eddie Staub (00:49:55):

Yeah. You know, sometimes it’s those baby steps, you know? And and you remember when you and I were growing up, there are certain people my parents said won’t be hanging around with, right. So you’re not going to go over that guy’s house. And, the danger becomes when kids have 24 hour access, they’re hanging around with people, different format, but they’re still hanging around people that are having an unduly influence on your kids. That’s not good. And so you just got to figure out strategies to mitigate that because you wouldn’t let little Billy in your home and yet little Billy’s coming into your home via technology in a way that is affecting your child. So it’s, it’s tough. And you can’t go to the extremes. I mean, that’s, that’s one thing you gotta be careful. We can do that here because we gotta do it here, right? I mean, we’re a little further down the road with children, but technology has really exacerbated emotional issues with the kids we see come to us now.

Matt Hyatt (00:51:18):

I think that a lot of kids that are visiting the ranch or literally moving to the ranch, they’re probably are for lack of a better word, very suspicious coming in. You know, I would imagine they’ve got their guard up. A lot of them, maybe most of them when they come in, how do you try to establish a connection and, and trust with, with kids that probably, you know, especially reading this book and they’re there not to give anything away in the book, but there are stories in here about kids and maybe come up from that more, much more challenging place. How do you, how do you reach them? Easy question, right? You’ve got 10 minutes.

Eddie Staub (00:52:07):

It’s about building trust. And because I don’t really blame them for not trusting us, they don’t know us. And it’s a process that you’ve got to sort of earn your trust. You just can’t talk the talk. You’ve got to walk the talk and it’s cliche-ish, but it’s really true. They just, they just say, are you real? And you’re going to be there for me. Are you going to be consistent? Are you going to be fair? And over time they see we are. And that starts to open up these opportunities for them to let down their guard.

Matt Hyatt (00:52:45):

You mentioned earlier, and I, I’m probably gonna misquote you here, but I think you said something about bringing challenge. And I know I’m, I know you well enough and I know Eagle Ranch well enough that there’s a big balance there between challenge and support. A lot of these kids, I’m guessing coming in have already experienced a tremendous amount of challenge in their life and what they really need is support. And I know that you calibrate that very well. Can you kind of unpack that a little bit and how you decide when, you know, somebody makes a mistake or they do something that they shouldn’t do? How do you know when this kid needs more support or when this kid needs challenge?

Eddie Staub (00:53:36):

Well, we run the ranch off what we call choice consequence. You know, you make a bad choice there, bad consequences. You make a good choice or good consequence, and that is life. And that’s one reason we do that here. And it says, cause we’re trying you for life, that if you make good decisions, good things happen to you. If you make bad decisions, bad thing. And we want to bring that consistency in your life, that reality into your life, because that’s going to be a true framework of why the way the world works. And I think our challenge is a little boy, little girl, you have an issue with authority. You have a family, you keep this kind of attitude going with a four. You’re going to get fired. You’re not going to be able to take care of your family.

Eddie Staub (00:54:34):

So it’s like sorta having them think along with you. If you continue to have problems with authority, let’s talk about what your life will look like. When you keep doing jobs with excellence, like you’re doing, you’re going to have a great job. You’re going to be able to provide for your family. I just can’t wait to see what your future looks like. So it’s like a balance. But if you start throwing stuff from the ivory tower, they’re just going to shut you down, right? Because it’s not connected to their reality, but you try to take their current reality and sort of extrapolate it and just say, okay, this is where this is headed. And sometimes they start to think along it, gosh, I can’t live like that. That’s the way it was at home. And I don’t want that for my family maybe, or the family sees it in a family just goes, we don’t want, we want a healthy family. We want to recapture our family. We’ve got to change our family dance. Or if we don’t in our challenges, if you don’t, this is the way this was going to play out for you. So a lot of people embrace that Matt, and and get moving in that direction.

Matt Hyatt (00:56:02):

Got it. Can you talk to those a little bit about how education works? I got to thinking, you know, if a kid’s coming to a ranch for a year or two I’m guessing not all of them are close enough to continue to attend their regular school. How does that all work?

Eddie Staub (00:56:18):

Oh, that’s a great question. I made a decision early on is, and this goes to one of our core values about stewardship. We don’t have to do all the things we do for these kids here. We just don’t, we don’t have to have the number of counselors. We don’t have to have equine therapy. We don’t have to have an on campus school. We don’t have to do play therapy. We don’t have to do any of that stuff. And we can just have these kids here and basically just babysit them, get out of pretty newsletter if there’s, Oh, look at these cute little kids, but I would know that we weren’t good stewards of our lives of their lives. And so I look at a child’s life is is like this from my finger to here. And then we get them for two years of their life, of their precious life.

Eddie Staub (00:57:18):

We get them for two years and that is a sacred trust. And we go, how can we pour into those children’s lives during their time with us, where it’s going to build resilience and substance in their life. And to your point, one of those is education, great predictor of future performance and outcomes. And we have a great relationship with the public schools, but they just could not remediate our children at risk kids to be two to three grade levels behind yeah. And, and great public schools in our area, but they just couldn’t get our kids in. So we did a beta test. I took four of my kids who are struggling the hardest, brought them here. We did a homeschool curriculum, caught them up to grade levels of six months. Wow. And I said, if we’re going to be good stewards, we’ve got to do school here.

Eddie Staub (00:58:16):

And so we started a SACS accredited school for grades six through nine, which is our wheelhouse middle school plus ninth grade. And we’ve been able to catch those kids up. We have one teacher give or take his plus a pair. So one to five. So we’re individually meeting these kids where they are academically and in getting them. So hopefully when they go to public high school either here or back home that they’ll be at or above grade level when they leave. And so, yeah, so that’s, that’s what we do, but it all goes back to that. It’s an integrity issue for all of us in business. Are we going to steward this business in ways that would be pleasing to God, or are we going to be sort of like a Piper type that it looks good on the outside, but inside we just are cutting corners. We’re not all we could be for our clients are for our employees, you know, so we try to be real sensitive to those kinds of issues, particularly with our kids. So

Matt Hyatt (00:59:29):

I love the the importance and the place on the value of stewardship. That’s actually one of Rocket ITs core values to be passionate stewards. And it’s really interesting when you’re working through a challenge just a day-to-day challenge thinking through stewardship as being one of the core principles in which you make decisions. I’ve been entrusted with this, in our case physical device, you know, I’ve got somebody that’s laptop that I’m working on or someone’s data for their organization or something. That’s that’s on their computer. And I I’ve been entrusted with this this device for software or data and how am I going to behave with it, or even just in the context of our day to day just being a steward in the office, it makes a huge difference when you think of it with that filter. And I love that that’s a core in your principles as well. Tell us about what’s next. I mean, you’re making a transition, so you’ve got a succession plan in place and that’s underway. What’s next for Eagle Ranch?

Eddie Staub (01:00:49):

Well, we are under construction right now with our wing center and it is going to house outpatient counseling. So hopefully we’ll help children and families. So they won’t need an Eagle Ranch, or when they leave Eagle Ranch, they can sort of segway back home using our outpatient counseling. Because those folks are gonna know our family systems model. So it’s, it’s gonna be a screen in and a segway out. So it’ll identify some families that need Eagle Ranch and hopefully it’ll create a family situation where they don’t leave. So it’d be outpatient. Counseling would also be a area for marriage retreats, or parenting retreats. And we also have soul care for pastors ministry leaders. There’s a book fromJohn Ortberg did. He sort of took off Dallas Willard’s hoping about soul care. I had a a young man I’m a mentor for, and he goes, when you look back, what do you wish you had done? What was your mistake? And I said, I wish I would have attended to my soul more for 35 years and not just run pillar to post. And I think he’ll learn from that because I wish I had, I wish I had attended that, so soul care, we’re looking at an initiative there. And then finally there’s a thing called the wings initiative where I help other people start or retool children’s problems across the country and internationally. So that’s my heart. That’s sort of where I’m going to be moving to. So that’s what that’s going to house. It’s about 2000 square foot building should be through in April and we hope to have it open this summer. That’s next on the horizon.

Matt Hyatt (01:03:08):

And you said you were transitioning to a new role, but I don’t think you told us what that looked like.

Eddie Staub (01:03:14):

Well, I won’t be the executive director anymore. I love this work, man. I just love it. I see that we’re sending messages to a time that we’ll never see. And it just resonates so deeply in my heart that I want to stay connected, but there’s a new season for a new guy, new ideas for Eagle Ranch. But I think my time is to be putting a footprint, my my fingerprints on this wing center and get it up and going sustainably, programmatically, and financially. So that’s where I’m headed.

Matt Hyatt (01:04:03):

I love that you mentioned financially. And I would like to touch on that for just a moment. My understanding is that Eagle Ranch has managed to do all of this, and this is a huge undertaking, but to do all of the things that you built; the land acquisition, and now this new wing center. All without leveraging, do I understand that correctly?

Eddie Staub (01:04:31):

That’s right. Yeah. Well, it’s not a core value because core values are independent of the environment. And if things got crazy financially, we would go into debt to survive. So that’s real important. People think being debt-free is a core value. It’s not because it’s not independent of the environment, but the reason our thought behind being debt-free is when people give to us, we’re completely privately funded. When people give to us, they do not give to us to service a debt. Now we let’s say we went into debt and people gave us a hundred dollars. We would never tell them it’s going to service that. So we believe stewardship wise, that gifts to Eagle Ranch should never go to service a debt. Secondly people bar for capital expenditures, that’s usually when they borrow.

Eddie Staub (01:05:40):

And what’s ironic about that is raising capital funds are the easiest thing to do. And you’re having to pay back with the hardest money there is to get and that’s the day-to-day money. It makes no sense. So this isn’t that interesting. I know I’m going to borrow money to build a $2 million building, and I’m going to service a debt with operational money, which is my hardest to come by, you know? So, that’s the second reason we don’t do it is it makes no sense. The third thing, if you can’t raise money for capital expenditure, you’ve either got a vision problem or you have a need issue because people will give to a needed vision. If you have a need and you have a vision that people can get behind, they will give to it. And if you can’t raise the money for a capital expansion, you’ve got a vision problem or you’ve got a need problem. So that’s the reason we don’t, we we’ve been debt free our entire existence.

Matt Hyatt (01:06:48):

That’s amazing. That’s a huge accomplishment, too. Congratulations. I would love it said, you know, it’s funny. I want to tap into this and, and we’re we’re gonna wrap up here pretty soon, but I do want to tap into this idea for just a moment that you brought up that it’s easier to raise money for a capital expenditures. So that’s usually I’m building something or I’m buying something around, starting a new something versus operational expenditures. And that is maintaining what we already have. I’m running the day to day. Why do you suppose that is? Why is it, because I think I’d probably fall in that category too. It seems more exciting to have to start something new than it is to keep something running that’s been around for a long time. So I guess there’s two questions there. One question is, why do you think that is that it’s, that people generally want to, they’re more interested in funding capital projects. And then secondly, if you don’t mind sharing with us, how in the world do you pay for the day-to-day operations? The only thing that people want to give to is new stuff.

Eddie Staub (01:08:01):

Yeah. I think the reason people gravitate toward capital is that it’s exciting, and this other stuff is just beautiful, it’s just a grind. And so there’s, this, my wife told me, I love when bulldozers are turning dirt. I just love the smell of it. I was telling somebody this morning, you know, my wife said, I’m just going to give you a jar, freshly turned dirt for your birthday so I can just smell it, right? Like this wing center. I just love, I love being a developer at heart. I guess I just love that, but it’s a discipline that there needs to be. There’s a timing issue. Is your program ready? Is your business ready to absorb this new capitalization is your ongoing operational support position to be able to support that. So I had a dear friend of mine who started something similar to us.

Eddie Staub (01:09:25):

And, part of my, my encouragement to folks is it takes two to three years to be ready to start something like you gotta do a lot of policy manuals, you gotta figure out your program. You gotta get figured out your operational strain. You gotta figure out your referral strains. All this stuff has to be done. And this guy was given a million dollars to build homes; $500,000 each. And the people that gave them money, wanted him to build them right away. He called me and said, Eddie, these people want to give me a million dollars. And they said, I’ve got to spend it now. And he said, I remember you saying that about this foundation. You need to lay it out before we do that. And I said, I don’t have that yet, but if I don’t build, I’m gonna lose a million dollars. And I’ll say, well, my recommendation is you go back to them and explain to them why the timing is not perpetual. I mean, it’s just not, the timing is not there. You can’t do it. And he goes, what if they say the money’s gone. I said, I would let the money be gone.

Matt Hyatt (01:10:36):

And that is from the guy that wrote the one page business plan.

Eddie Staub (01:10:41):

Yeah. And so, if I was where he was, I don’t know what I would have done. I hope I wouldn’t have done it, but he did it. And it just about destroyed his ministry because he was trying to capitalize. But at that same time, he was trying to develop a program, trying to develop operational strain, trying to policy and all that stuff. So he did all of this stuff in one thing, and it took him five years to come out of that, to stabilize. And I met with him halfway through this mess and he just fell in my arms, just crying. He said, I, I just didn’t think it would be like this.

Eddie Staub (01:11:35):

But he said, and he mentors people now too. And he says, you’ve got to have a firm foundation or you grow things. But that front foundation was hard work. So, you know, but you got to do this groundwork, and it’s just hard. It’s difficult. So that, I think that’s the reason all of us gravitate toward the new, but it’s a discipline to say, you got to have your program. You got to have all these things lined up before you move there. You’re not going to be able to support it programmatically by finance. So operational funding, every bit of it’s private $4.6 million a year.

Matt Hyatt (01:12:28):

That’s a good size budget, but you’ve got a lot to manage, especially with all the different programs you have in place. So is that through private donations or are there a lot of your residents, what has happened?

Eddie Staub (01:12:48):

So the average payment of a child coming here is $275 a month. And I made a decision when I came here. There would never, ever be a child not be able to come here because of finance. And so we have some that pay $5 a month. You know, we have some that pay more than $275, but it just is not a, it’s not a determiner. Whether we take the child or not, it never, ever will be. So we have an endowment fund that throws off some income, but still we have to raise a lot of money every year. And, this sounds simplistic, but it’s just, God’s provision in a lot of times, it’s like the loaves and the fishes, and you don’t know where the money will come from, but it just ends up coming.

Eddie Staub (01:13:53):

And we’ve never sent out an appeal letter in 35 years. And I remember we had a board meeting and we got the money. We get our mail in the morning. And I told my assistant, I said, don’t open the mail and I bring it into the board meeting. And I have incredible board members, as you probably have seen who they are. And I put, there’s probably about eight pieces of mail. And I said, I want you, I’m going to open this mail and show you our donations today. Open the first one, $25. Next one, a hundred dollars. Next one is 50. And so after it was all over, I think it was $430. And I looked at my board and I said, you know, this is our daily bread. And we’re going to thank God for our daily bread.

Eddie Staub (01:14:52):

And we don’t know how it will come. We don’t know how it’s going to come. Only that it will come. And this is what we have today. And so now it’s enough. And so that’s, and I told Kelly this, when she first started working here this was back in the early, early days of Eagle Ranch. We usually get junk mail and, you know, probably all in all, we probably get probably 30 pieces of mail. This one time we got two, we got two pieces of mail. The first one I opened was a check for $2 from Dorothy M. Smith from Marietta. It was written. I knew she was elderly because it was written in arthritic Hand-Writing. $2, never had a check that small before then. The next thing I opened was a check for a hundred thousand dollars from someone in Marietta.

Eddie Staub (01:16:01):

And it was almost as if back in those very early days is a, God was saying, love the giver and not the gift. I know that that elderly lady she gave all she could in those people that gave him a hundred thousand, that was a largest gift they’d ever given. And it was sacrificial for them. And I told Kelly, I said, when people give, you know, we have a letter that goes out. I said, I want us to write personal letters to those people to get $25. Cause they never get personal letters. The people that give 100,000, they do, but it’s a part of who we are. It is, we love the giver and not the gift. And, that the way we do that and the way we thank people in the way we do sort of cast who we are transparently. We’ve had kids we’ve lost here and how painful that is because that’s reality.

Eddie Staub (01:17:05):

It’s just that transparency and honesty and thanking people the day we get their gift, it just has created some Goodwill and people feel that they own a part of this ranch. And they do. I mean, I work, I feel like I work for our donors. So anyway, I love it.

Matt Hyatt (01:17:36):

That’s a really impressive that you’re able to run that kind of budget off of purely the Goodwill of folks around the community, and beyond. That’s really great. I want to move on to the lightning round. And I know we have shared in advance with some of the lightning round questions are, but that would be too easy. So I’m going to throw in an extra one. That’s not on the list. I’d love to hear. How, how has the ranch surprised you from your original vision 35 years ago when you showed up in Georgia, when you showed up in Georgia, if you had thought about where you would be in 35 years, how are things different than that?

Eddie Staub (01:18:24):

A lot, a lot different, because I would’ve had 40 boys, one counselor, one counselor, not of handled what we do now. Yeah, that’s, that’s what I had envisioned and no girls. But I tell you what’s happened is there’s a verse says, plans fail for lack of counsel. But with many advisors, I succeed. These how Eagle Ranch has evolved is a direct result of people around me.

Eddie Staub (01:19:06):

Challenging that original vision and me listening to them. And because of those people, we went from boys to boys and girls. Because of those people, we went from boys and girls to working with families. Because those people, we have equine therapy. Because those people, we have a school. Because those people, we have a wings initiative. And it’s just listening to people who see life from a different perspective, right. We all got our, like those race horses. They have those blinders and they don’t know what’s going on here over here, but, but the richness of the people that have come here has enriched our mission.

Matt Hyatt (01:19:59):

So fantastic. I love it when it works out to be even better than I imagined. I’m at the real lightning questions. The ones you studied for for weeks. Tell us about a person that has made a profound impact in your life.

Eddie Staub (01:20:19):

Jim Webb. Jim was a retired, do you know Jim? He was retired Procter and gamble executive. We’re naming the wings center after him. But my father died when I was in college. And so Jim stood in as my best man. He passed away with pancreatic cancer last year, but he he was a man who had a unique gift to challenge and encourage me almost in the same sentence, but just quite a remarkable individual was on my board from the very beginning, never rotated off. He’s the only one that I’ve never rotated off why he had that organizational knowledge that he knew my heartbeat. I knew his.

Matt Hyatt (01:21:11):

So how did you met him?

Eddie Staub (01:21:15):

I met him when I first came to town. Just a mutual friend. They said, this guy might have an interest in what you’re doing. You know, you, you look at these P and G guys are very practical, very regimented. And, and I think the faith dimension of Eagle Ranch, he was a enamored by that. I think I didn’t have anything and there was something about me or my vision that I think touched him and he just, he didn’t let go, you know? So it’s good to have those people that walk with you regardless.

Matt Hyatt (01:22:07):

All right. Tell us the single most important lesson you’ve learned in your professional career.

Eddie Staub (01:22:31):

Don’t compromise your values for short-term gain. Always have the long view setting. No is as important as saying yes. And there have been so many things that have come across my path, that from a worldly perspective, people go, you gotta be kidding me. You’re not going to do, you’re not going to do that. That’s a gray area. You can get away with that, but we’ve said, no, no, no, no. It’s not who we are. Not judging if other people go there, but that’s not who we are. That’s not our story. And, and I think that I think that’s what I would say.

Matt Hyatt (01:23:30):

I love that because I bet you have experienced, I’ve certainly experienced times where we wrestle with an opportunity. Should I, shouldn’t I. And a lot of times we’re wrestling with it because maybe we sense that it isn’t compatible with who we are, what our vision is for our future. And then when we ultimately decide not to pursue that opportunity, it’s not a sense of disappointment. It’s a sense of instant relief. You felt that before, haven’t you?

Eddie Staub (01:24:05):

Yeah. It’s in the rear view mirror. Right. And we can get onto business.

Matt Hyatt (01:24:12):

I would just add so many of those times in my life when there are things that I’ve come up and you know, it really, you know, Maureen and I will sit down and we’ll talk about it and we’ll pray about it and we’ll sleep on it and wrestle with it. And there’s something just not quite right. And ultimately we decide, you know what, not for us, then we’ll move on. And almost inevitably, there’s this, this immediate sense of relief of, wow. Okay. I don’t have to think about that more. I love it. Okay. Last one, current books you’re reading or a favorite podcast. Anything top of mind for you?

Eddie Staub (01:24:58):

I just love built to last. I tend to read books over and over and over, rather than a lot of books. I’ll just, I’ll drill in with some. Yeah. And on the spiritual front, there’s a book it’s real small. It’s called let go, by Fenelon, F E N E L O N. Name of it is let go. And it’s, it’s pretty significant. So those, those are the two that, that that I’m sort of honing, you know, right now as far as a podcast, I like a lot of Tim Keller’s stuff. Tim Keller out of New York city. That’s sort of where I land with that.

Eddie Staub (01:25:51):

Great. If people want to reach out to you or learn more about Eagle Ranch, what’s the best way to do that.

Eddie Staub (01:25:57):

It would be estaub@eagleranch.org. That’s the best way.

Matt Hyatt (01:26:04):

Great. Yeah. Fantastic. And I assume your website’s EagleRanch.org.

Eddie Staub (01:26:12):

Our new website is launching today.

Matt Hyatt (01:26:14):

Hey, fantastic.

Eddie Staub (01:26:16):

We’re really excited. Stephanie and her team have done an incredible job. We had a good website before now, but it’s really navigation friendly and that kind of thing. So we’re excited about it/

Eddie Staub (01:26:29):

Fantastic. Okay. Congratulations. I know that’s not an easy feat. Websites these days can be major projects. So fantastic. Well, Eddie, thank you so much. Appreciate your time today. I believe it’s time to wrap things up Eddie or myself and our audience. Thank you for spending time with us today, to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to Rocket IT’s business podcast. If you have any suggestions on future topics that you’d like to learn more about email us at podcasts@rocketit.com. Finally, a quick plug for Rocket IT, we work with businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities, in the areas of IT support, information security, and strategic planning. To learn more about Rocket IT and its services, visit rocketit.com. Eddie. Thank you. Appreciate you so much.