Entrepreneur Dads: Who are the Pioneers of the Balanced Business Dad? Dustin and RJ answer.

Navigating the tightrope walk of fatherhood and entrepreneurship isn't for the faint-hearted, but that's exactly what RJ Campbell and Dustin Hoog tackle in their latest heart-to-heart. We're peeling back the layers on what it means to strike that elusive balance between friend and mentor to our kids while keeping our business ventures thriving. Through candid anecdotes and shared philosophies, we reveal how our own upbringings have influenced our parenting styles and the way we foster strong, authentic bonds with our children—bonds that withstand the tests of time and the shifting sands of life's challenges.

As they take you down memory lane, the memories of childhood—complete with the complexities of a blended family and the trials that divorce brings—unfold poignantly. You'll hear about the undeniable influence of a father's relentless dedication and work ethic, which not only kept them afloat during tough times but also lit the entrepreneurial spark within. From selling ad space as a teenager to becoming the results coach Dustin is today, his journey is a testament to the power of resilience and the importance of nurturing a go-getter spirit from a tender age.

Wrapping things up, RJ and Dustin ponder the art of juggling the many hats they wear as business owners, coaches, and mentors. We're extending an open invitation to our listeners to join our tribe on Facebook, where we continue the conversation, share insights, and support each other in scaling our own personal summits. If you're seeking a community that champions growth, balance, and the pursuit of both personal and professional success, then tune in and let's climb together.

You can join over 350 other Dads like you by joining The Balanced Business Dad's Facebook group here: dadupgroup.com

Check out our website at: thebalancedbusinessdad.com

Socials:
RJ on Facebook at facebook.com/arjay3rd
RJ on Instagram at instagram.com/rjcampbell3rd
Dustin on Facebook at facebook.com/dustin.charles.718689
Dustin on Instagram at instagram.com/dustin_hoog

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:01

Dads, do you want a thriving business that doesn't control you, a passionate marriage and kids that adore you? Do you want to grow deeper in your faith, be healthier both physically and mentally, build more meaningful relationships with your friends? Welcome to the Balance Business Dad podcast, where, in each episode, we dive into balancing and optimizing the six pillars of life Faith, health, marriage, fatherhood, brotherhood and business. And here are your hosts, pioneers of the Balance Business Dad movement Dustin Hoag and RJ Campbell.

Coach Dustin: 0:36

What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Balance Business. Dad, I'm your host. Coach Dustin, with me is always the season the distinguished Mr RJ Campbell. Rj, how are we doing? Still doing?

RJ Campbell: 0:48

good, good. That's my standard answer. It seems to be that's because life is good guys. Life is good.

Coach Dustin: 0:56

Are you nervous right now?

RJ Campbell: 0:57

I'm a little puckered up.

Coach Dustin: 0:59

Love that.

RJ Campbell: 1:00

He is putting me outside of my comfort zone.

Coach Dustin: 1:03

So I'm going to tell you literally what's happening here. So we were actually going to be interviewing someone else. There was a schedule conflict. Yet we live by our calendars and the calendar says we were going to be recording a podcast episode. So we're going to be recording a podcast episode. So I just told RJ to hit record because we are going to interview each other, because I think one of the things is it's we want our audience to know who we are, where we came from, what we do, like what do we do in our main businesses, etc. Etc. So I think this is going to be fun. Rj is nervous because he doesn't know what I'm going to ask him.

RJ Campbell: 1:37

I'm more nervous because I don't know what the heck I'm going to ask, because not a seasoned interviewer or coach. Well, we'll see how it goes. He's going to ask me 11 questions. I ask him one.

Coach Dustin: 1:49

So I want to start. You know I have been following or knowing RJ for about 10, 11 years now a little bit longer than I guess because we worked together for a couple of those years and one of the things that I'd and we've probably touched on this a little bit but and always admired, was the relationship that you had with your kids. Obviously and I was a. The first question is is was it always that way with all three of them, or did the relationship get better as time went on, like where they are now? I remember something you told me a long time ago. I was asking people what was your favorite age that your kids were, and your response is every year has gotten better than the last.

RJ Campbell: 2:37

Every age is the best age.

Coach Dustin: 2:39

Yeah, and has that relationship always been that good with the kids or where there are certain times that there weren't as strong as relationships now, because I think you guys have great relationships as father children, but you're also our friends with every single one of your children. Yes, and that's. That's awesome. How did that happen? Was it always that way? I mean, just kind of go from there.

RJ Campbell: 3:05

Yes, yes, yes, and we are so blessed with our three kids. So I'm going to say yes, I have always had that close of a relationship with my two sons and my daughter and yes, contrary to parenting advice, I always wanted to be their friend. Where do you hear that? A lot Parents say you can't be their friend. Right, you have to be a parent first. I said you can discipline, I'm a people pleaser, I wanted friends. So I always wanted to be friends with my kids. We have always had a great relationship.

RJ Campbell: 3:43

I think we were more worried just historically, my wife would say about our daughter than our boys, because you hear these hell stories of teenage girls or pre-pubescent and then pubescent girls and they just become a hormonal nightmare. We are so lucky we never had that. Our daughter it's still the sweetest person, nice, we got some of that luck. Some of it, I'm sure, is the relationship we had. But, yeah, we have always been very close. We're definitely more like friends. As you guys know, my sons are 33 and 30. As a joke, they're closer to Dustin's age than mine. So it has become more like friends. Yeah, now you get together. We go on a golf trip in the spring. Yeah, just a bunch of guys playing golf, drinking beer and playing cards at night.

Coach Dustin: 4:30

So yeah, so you mentioned something there about how I was going to be the friend first, you know, and how, contrary to people's advice, were you the disciplinary and your kids need that much discipline.

RJ Campbell: 4:41

Yeah, we never had hard, hard disciplinary things. But, yes, that was absolutely something that my wife and I shared. Neither one of us had to play good cop versus bad cop Okay, purposeful or on accident. On accident, I think we'd just do everything together. We never sat down and said I'll be the disciplinarian, you raise the kids.

Coach Dustin: 5:03

X, Y, Z. Right, I'm just saying that the friendship thing was that purposeful or did it just kind of?

RJ Campbell: 5:08

happen. That was definitely purposeful. I wanted to be their friends. That's the way my parents were. Okay, I did not think of them, as my parents were not strict disciplinarians. They did not believe in corporal punishment. I was never taking away. When you're a little bitty kid and you get spanked on the butt for doing something stupid, right of course my parents did not believe in corporal punishment. It's just the way I was raised. Nobody ever took a belt to me. I was never spanked. It's not the way they raised us. Would your older sister say the same thing? So they would definitely say that, I think, because my parents just didn't believe in it. Right, but were they all treated the same, especially as me?

Coach Dustin: 5:47

No. So let's give it a little bit of background so we get the background of who I am.

RJ Campbell: 5:51

So I have five older sisters and those five sisters only span eight years. They're really close in age, typical Catholic family. It's what they do, the rhythm method back then, which my mom had just realized yeah, you had one baby a year for five years. That's the rhythm method, perfect rhythm. Then there's a five-year gap, and then me, my sister Kathy, who is closest to my age, the youngest of the five. She would say, no, that it was different, because she had the first five years as the baby of the family. Then comes along another baby and the only boy, and she always says that she felt like a second-class citizen after that. Now, that was never obvious to any of us. She had a great relationship with my parents, but she's only one that says oh, boy, when little RJ arrived, princess Kathy got tossed as I, but your oldest sister was 13. Right, yes, joe is 12 years older than me. Yeah, so she was 12. So I had, yeah, a lot of built-in babysitters, a lot of mothers.

Coach Dustin: 6:49

Yeah.

RJ Campbell: 6:49

I bet, yeah, that's awesome. So they just thought it was cool. They got a new doll that moved on its own.

Coach Dustin: 6:55

So one question. Then you can ask me another one, but this has been on my mind for a while and obviously I was there during it. But one of the things let me back up one of the things that we're going to be doing you know this probably next quarter next year is interviewing a lot of newer entrepreneurs, people who did leave corporate America, leave there and go into business full-time, because that is a huge leap that a lot of our listeners, I believe, are going through, and there's a lot of things that can go with that. You did it pretty quick. Now you were in definitely a different stage of life when you did it, right, but still, how did what was that like? Frightening? Tell me more.

RJ Campbell: 7:35

But maybe not overly. Yes, different stage of life. So it had been what? 57 or so, 58. So kids were grown out of the house, couple of them married. So it was a little easier than somebody who decides at 30 that they're giving up a corporate job to start on their own Right. It definitely made it easy. You know, our freedom line was lower. Our expenses were much lower. We had started investing in real estate so that gave us a little bit of a jump. There was some income coming in that way. Had started the photography company. There was income coming in that way, but still it was. It was scary. It's still scary. Do we make the money that I used to make? No, probably not Right, definitely not.

RJ Campbell: 8:17

And it took a while to get buy-in from my wife too.

Coach Dustin: 8:20

Would you have done it 15 years ago I?

RJ Campbell: 8:21

doubt it. I've never had the nerve Knowing. Now, would you? Yes, yes, and my wife says that same thing that she wishes that we had known about real estate investing 15, 20 years ago, as opposed to getting into it late in life and late in the game that it would have been a very different world, do you?

Coach Dustin: 8:44

believe I am a hero to your wife.

RJ Campbell: 8:47

She does have a thing for Dustin she loves him. It's his smile. He passed up that smile on the dimples.

Coach Dustin: 8:53

Love that. Well, that's awesome and you know, because there is so many again listeners out there that have either done that or want to do that. They have a side hustle and they want to jump out of it. They are not happy where they're at. They don't know what to do. Do you have advice for them, since you did it so recently? Yes, patreon has our Englishya.

RJ Campbell: 9:17

It's easier to have a side hustle than to make it your life's work. So we, a lot of times we start that side hustle because it's something that's fun. You have to know that it can also convert into real income. So don't just say, man, that dude on hgtv bought a huge house, and he said that for a living he collects humble figures. Probably not true. So you got to make sure about that. I mean, it took us a long time of going through numbers and Talking and praying about what we were doing to make sure. Okay, yes, this is the right thing, it can be done. Yeah, so don't just Show up on a Monday and quit. Yeah, let's set your gig. Oh, what the heck.

Coach Dustin: 9:59

And you've always quit on Fridays should always quit on a Friday.

RJ Campbell: 10:03

I quit on a Monday. Even my boss is like what the hell? Nobody quits on a Monday, that's hilarious, so all right cool. What do you got for me? You got for you. So this is get to know the pioneers of the best. Tell me about little Dustin. I don't mean that you know in stature, although he's much littler now than when I met him. Where's young Dustin? What do you come from?

Coach Dustin: 10:26

Yeah, so I am a product of divorce parents. For sure, my parents got divorced. I don't know exactly when. My dad says it was like when I was three or four, so I'm gonna assume that's what it was. I Remember it, but I don't remember it, if that makes sense. I remember like things were different Very Quickly. My mom had a boyfriend who is now my stepdad, has been my stepdad for 35 years, and my dad went through kind of a rough patch. He moved back in with his parents. I remember him dating. He got married again for eight months.

Coach Dustin: 11:07

That didn't work out very well and then another divorce and then but I started living with my dad in second grade. I Vice versa, I was staying with my dad on the weekends, my mom on the weekdays. And then I switched that where I started staying with my dad during school on the weekdays, with that wife of eight months actually, and my saw my mom and my stepdad on the weekends. That's how it's been. Ever since then. I've always lived with my dad, and Then at one time it was just my dad and I and it was a really hard time.

Coach Dustin: 11:40

I was actually. We were having this conversation with our accountant yesterday. My dad struggled a lot. He was an LPN at the time, so he was going to school for his RN. Raising me full-time put me through a private school, a faith-based Christian Lutheran school, which to me is everything, because that's who I, because of that school is who I am. I believe that, and he worked full-time. And how he worked full-time is he worked four shifts On Saturday and Sundays and then would work one midnight shift a weekday.

RJ Campbell: 12:14

Wow, so he worked all weekend he worked Two shifts each day almost all the time.

Coach Dustin: 12:19

Yeah, slept at the hospital between shifts as a nurse and then would work one Midnight throughout the week where I was dropped off at my aunt and uncles. Why I slept, why he would go to work and then, during the day, why I was at school, he was going to school and he could do that on the weekends because you were with your mom. I was my mom.

RJ Campbell: 12:39

Correct Yep.

Coach Dustin: 12:40

Damn.

RJ Campbell: 12:41

That's commitment, guys. Yeah, I did not know that part. In all these years I've known Dustin, really, and his dad, yeah, and his mom yeah, I just step mom who's recently passed. I didn't know that.

Coach Dustin: 12:52

I did not know that he worked while you were with your mom and step dad the whole weekend, yeah, the whole entire wow that he met my step mom and they would go out on Friday nights Because I was with my mom and then he would work the weekends. So he never took time away from me for himself ever and he believed in work. When he retired, literally up until my stepmom pass, which has been a few months ago, he worked. This is the first time in probably his and since he's been 12 or 13, he's worked under 30 hours a week. That's the honest to God truth.

Coach Dustin: 13:32

Yeah, wow, yeah, I was talking about me. I saw that I was a overweight, fat kid, but I had the confidence of you know, hercules, I don't know why, but I did. And that I do know why is because I was loved. I never wanted, I never needed for anything, even though my parents were not well off at that time, even though they were divorced, even though we lived in any crappy apartment, I was loved the entire time. So there was never a hit of confidence in that for me to have low confidence.

RJ Campbell: 14:07

Wow. So you're the epitome of that person that says yeah, I didn't know what I was missing. I had everything I wanted. I had everything I thought I had everything I needed. Yeah Well, you did have everything you needed.

Coach Dustin: 14:16

Oh, 100%, yeah, 100%. And yeah, then you know, my dad met my stepmom. They got married when I was 10. I rebelled a little bit because, well, I was not a good student but that showed I did not want someone. Well, my stepmom brought my sister and so there was. There was a lot of trouble at that point that I remember rebellion Now it's nothing crazy rebellion by any means, but there was. There was definitely a getting to know you period in that.

RJ Campbell: 14:46

So it's funny. I don't know if this is a true tribute to tribute is the wrong word. I'll say it tribute to me not paying attention, or to the wonderful family that Dustin has with four parents that are close, close to each other. I know them as four people that are together, which is really cool. When his stepmom just passed away a couple months ago, my wife and I are there for the visitation it was the first time it occurred to me that his sister is not his biological sister. Really they're so close. I'm sure you mentioned it and it was. My wife started asking like maybe, yeah, maybe that's his step sister.

Coach Dustin: 15:25

My mother when she was three.

RJ Campbell: 15:27

Yeah, my sister adopted sister. Yeah, I mean step sister. Yeah, not a half sister or step sister. So that's testimony to how close that family is. I don't even know that. I realized it. I'm sure it was in conversation somewhere, but it's always just his sister.

Coach Dustin: 15:42

Yeah, and that's what it is. I'm not a fan of the word step.

RJ Campbell: 15:44

No, it doesn't need to be. She's not to me.

Coach Dustin: 15:47

Yeah, it's all in the hand and so, yeah, then you know, we lived in a small town and I, you know, I had. I didn't know what I was going to do, that kind of thing. But school was not a great thing for me. I was not a good student and so I went to work. I was not an athlete either. So at 16, the day after I turned 16, I got a job at a fast food restaurant.

RJ Campbell: 16:10

Good, place for the fat kid to work?

Coach Dustin: 16:11

Yes, yes, it worked out great. He's told me that before. That's honestly where I found myself. I developed a lot of close referentships. I became very, very outgoing because I was put in front with customers and honestly that's, I kind of thrived in that role. I had a lot of fun there. I met a lot of you know just a lot of great people and that's kind of where I think I found myself. Hmm, yeah, so that's kind of young Dustin. There's young Dustin, yeah.

RJ Campbell: 16:40

Love it. We could go like this for hours. We could and we might.

Coach Dustin: 16:45

Your turn Am I supposed to ask the last one, one. You asked two.

RJ Campbell: 16:49

Oh, I have to ask two. Well, I asked two. Oh, I didn't remember. I have to look at my notes.

Coach Dustin: 16:54

I don't have notes.

RJ Campbell: 16:55

Yeah, we'll just keep slowly moving along that timeline. All right First for a entrepreneurship. When I wear good bad.

Coach Dustin: 17:05

Yeah, the first one. I was in college for the first time with an associate going for my associate's degree, so I was probably 18 years old and I started a computer repair place in Stanton.

RJ Campbell: 17:17

Sounds like a country song yeah.

Coach Dustin: 17:21

And you know we would work on computers, we were fixing, I was working as a computer tech, I was going to school for computer networking. So that was really the first world of entrepreneurship. And now, was that a business? No, they paid me, I put it in my pocket and I used it for gas money. So you know, as a business, the second time is where it gets really ugly.

RJ Campbell: 17:40

Okay, Because you think you know the answers to these questions when you've known somebody 11 years. I did not know that.

Coach Dustin: 17:49

I do know the next one, I'm pretty sure. So in the backup, my mom ran and managed restaurants or bars my entire life, and when she managed the bar I was young but I always wanted that. So I always wanted to buy a bar, and it was funny because I didn't even start drinking until I was 21. And then I really made up for lost time very fast and there was a bar in town that I started working for. I started bouncing at and the guy who owned it was a true entrepreneur. He didn't even drink. He hired a pretty boring manager to manage it, but the owner was a business owner and at one day he told me he would sell it to me Just like that. I was 23 years old. So, yes, no, how am I going to do that? Talk to my dad about it. He absolutely was not going to invest in this business. Good idea, absolutely not. Which that was. That was a hard thing, because I felt like he didn't believe in me when he didn't he.

Coach Dustin: 18:50

He made the right move, but he didn't believe in the bar business and you and you know, the other thing I did was there was an, an older guy who was always in the bar but had money and and this was, you know, before pre crash. So like 2006, 2005 I guess, so you could get a loan any time. And so I talked to him being the financial backer and put money in and and we bought a bar at 23 years old and ran it for 11 months and Was horrible at it, had a lot of fun, but absolutely horrible at it, and lost everything, lost everything. I Remember my house being foreclosed on. I remember my car being repossessed. I remember having to go to a buy here, pay here lot, buying a crappy, crappy car because I needed a car, because I was trying to get a job and move on. And, yeah, I lost everything and a lot of what I thought were friends at that time. That really works.

RJ Campbell: 19:51

Wow.

Coach Dustin: 19:53

So that was my first look at entrepreneurship, and he jumped back in later.

RJ Campbell: 19:57

Yeah, did not scare you away.

Coach Dustin: 19:59

No, I went into sales very hard after that and Pretty good of sales where we met.

RJ Campbell: 20:06

Yeah Well, yeah, yeah, not the answers. I did not know about the computer repair part.

Coach Dustin: 20:13

Yeah. So we'll ask one more questions each, because, again, we can do this for hours and maybe we'll do this here and there. You know that kind of thing because this is actually a lot of fun. But you know, before you were an entrepreneur like you are now, you were in corporate America a lot 35 years sales, account management, that kind of thing. Was that a passion for you or is that just a job? And you were good at it. So I'm gonna go get a job. I Say job like it's such a bad word and obviously it's good for so many people, but I'm very big on doing what you want to do. So was that what you wanted to do?

RJ Campbell: 20:50

No, but you just did it. Just did it. Got out of college, decided you need a job.

RJ Campbell: 20:56

So in 1986- I was three, you start looking for a job. Is that even right? Yeah, I mean 1986, right had no idea. My first job out of college was selling business forms. Those don't exist anymore. You know invoices and statements, stuff. You ran through Impact and dot matrix printers. The only reason I had that got that job so easily is in college and my first Voyage and entrepreneurship as I started in add and coupon sheet on my campus.

RJ Campbell: 21:30

There was one at the University of Missouri when I went there called the ad sheet. We had one that we built that Southeast Missouri State called the zip sheet. Yeah, didn't steal that at all, so we would go. The idea was we went to businesses. We got this idea one summer and it had existed one time before and we were bringing it back to life. So we went around on the in the summer calling on all these local businesses saying, hey, you want to put an ad in this, this little sheet. We had rate pricing and our thought was and you don't have to pay for it until we print the zip sheet and then we will put it on campus to be distributed. We will have people handing it out on campus. Comes out every other Tuesday. These girls will be putting it in people's hands will do 12,000 of them people like sure. So our idea was to be you don't pay until the zip sheet comes out, we'll bring you your copies of it and then you'll pay for your ad. And so our thought was if we can Sell enough to pay for the printing of that first issue, we'll print it and then go collect our money. And we said that every issue every other week, like well, if we can sell enough ads to do the next one. And we did it for three years.

RJ Campbell: 22:41

I said zip sheet and I hired Girls from my wife's now wife her dorm. I bought them. I had delightful, bright yellow shirts printed up with Uncle Zipster, the hip old Tipster. That was our total hippie dude. That was our image. And the shirt said in very large letters I get it every other Tuesday. That's what you want. Girls on campus standing around with shirts that you can't miss, that say I get it every other Tuesday. And they're just handing out zip sheets and you say you're not creative. That was.

RJ Campbell: 23:13

And then we and then I sold it when I graduated for probably not nearly what it was worth, sold it to the guy that owned the newspaper and town. He ran it for years so I had that on my resume. So the company thought great, this guy knows printing. No, I knew I dropped off some things at a printer called boards and came back a couple of days later and loaded my pickup truck with 12,000 of these things to put around town and on campus. Love that, that's how I forayed in a printing and you never stopped, never stopped. Then I went into the agency. I went into an agency and then it was. It was a direct mail, junk mail agency, so it was printing, account management, and it just stayed and I was good at it and I hated sales. I am not a code caller, I am not a door opener and I was damn good at it, especially if somebody else could get us in. I was a good salesperson. I just hated that. I did not like the opening part of it.

Coach Dustin: 24:02

That's why I do the opening of the podcast.

RJ Campbell: 24:04

Yeah, I don't like that. No, it's really bad. I'm really bad about that. It's always been a weakness, but it's just not something I like. Awesome, yeah, so that's how? No, definitely wasn't a passion. Then you just dumb into it and you're good at it.

Coach Dustin: 24:15

Awesome, all right.

RJ Campbell: 24:16

Last question for me, the hell's a results coach.

Coach Dustin: 24:21

So that's funny because RJ obviously hears me coach a lot. But you know I do get asked a lot what is a results coach? And it's it's pretty simple, right. I help people get the results they're looking for and we do it through a framework of different coaching. I've been trained as a coach by high level people and certified as coach.

Coach Dustin: 24:41

But a results coach is I'm going to help you self discover what you're wanting to do and what you want out of life, and then we're going to go get those results. So we get clarity, we find awareness around where you are, we find the direction we want to go get, and then I hold you accountable to that result that you want to get. It's not my result and I think that's very important to say. It's not my result, it's your result, the results you want. You know it's funny. I had a coach tell me and I use the same thing If you tell me you want to pack or smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and you have a good reason to mean it, then we're going to get you to that pack of cigarettes a day because it's your results and I'm going to help you get there. So a results coach is just that. I'm going to help you get the results you're looking for through clarity, awareness, direction and accountability.

RJ Campbell: 25:31

So when I'm not sure I want to do, you're going to tell me what I want to do.

Coach Dustin: 25:34

No, I'm going to help you self discover what you want to do, and that's the. I can't tell you what you want to do. I can lead you down a path for you to self discover it through the right questions and the right training and the right frameworks.

RJ Campbell: 25:46

This is why he's so good at asking questions, because this is what he does.

Coach Dustin: 25:50

Yeah, that's what a results coach is.

RJ Campbell: 25:53

Interesting. Yeah, I hear on all the time what the heck is a results coach. That's it. Yeah, that's what you're looking for.

Coach Dustin: 26:01

So I love that this was a lot of fun it was.

RJ Campbell: 26:03

I could talk about myself for hours, and often do.

Coach Dustin: 26:06

And we might do this again. Just ask more questions. You know you guys can always join us on the Facebook group and maybe that'll be fun. Maybe send in some questions you would like to ask. You know the pioneers of the balance business, that the balance business, that framework and the coaching and the mentorship and the masterminds that we have, is what got us to where we are today. We knew that we were doing some of it and, honestly, some of it we didn't know we were doing. But when we look back and reflected, that's how we are where we are today and we're not at the top of the mountain. So don't, please, please, don't think that. But we are on a part of our journey and we want to help other people there. So would love for you to join us at the free Facebook group. Dad up a groupcom, send us some questions you would like to ask us and maybe we'll do this again. So yeah, until that, see you next week.

RJ Campbell: 26:52

Whoa, I'm all over the place. Yep, we're out guys.