The Primitive Podcast: Russ Horn
Posted by Buffy the Bison | February 22, 2021
Life comes at us fast.
But everyone has the authority to choose to serve people over themselves.
In this episode, Kade sits down with Russ Horn, the President of CoNetrix, a full-service computer networking, software development, and security and compliance firm.
Russ pulls from his bank of experiences to talk through pivotal memories, unforgettable mentors, and how he learned to invest in his greatest asset, himself.
Connect with the folks behind the episode: Russ Horn and Kade Wilcox
Kade Wilcox: Hey guys, welcome to The Primitive Podcast. I'm Kade Wilcox, your host. On today's episode we have Russ Horn. Russ is the president of a local company here in Lubbock called CoNetrix. It's a really great episode. I loved his insights into how he defines leadership and how he sees his role in leadership. I loved his insight into running and growing a fast-paced business while also having kids and protecting that time. This episode is filled with a lot of rich stuff. So enjoy this, and thanks for listening along to The Primitive Podcast.
Russ Horn: I found that when I create discipline in my life, I become a better person. I'm calmer, less stressed. I remember when I started running marathons, one of the things I decided to do, just as a discipline, was quit Cokes. And I did it mainly for the discipline part; just to do something and be disciplined about it. And I haven't had a Coke since 2009.
Russ Horn and CoNetrix
Kade Wilcox: Well, everyone, welcome to The Primitive Podcast. Russ, thanks for joining today. I really appreciate you being with us. So for those who don't know Russ Horn, tell us about your background and kind of a little bit about the work you do right now.
Russ Horn: Sure. I grew up in the small town of Robert Lee, Texas. Most people haven't heard of it. You don't drive through it unless you intend to. It has one light in it, but it blinks right in the middle of town. We have more deer than we do people in the town. I grew up in a small town, came to Lubbock for college, and I've lived here ever since. Today I serve as the president for CoNetrix and we're a technology company. We actually have four subsidiary technology companies, servicing companies throughout the U.S. and across the world.
Kade Wilcox: Cool. And is it primarily financial institutions? Or did I make that up?
Russ Horn: Sure. So two of our companies focus primarily on financial institutions and we service about 1400 banks and credit unions throughout the U.S. So that's about 20, a little over 20% of the banks in the U.S.
Kade Wilcox: Wow. That's crazy. And like what kind of technology? I mean, what does that work look like specifically?
Russ Horn: Sure. So, of our four companies, one of them focuses on writing accounting software (AccountingWare) and that's what started our business in 1977. So we still have that software today. Our second business is a traditional technology-managed service provider. Our third business does security work. This one's primarily for banks; we'll do audits and pen tests, or ethical hacking, for financial institutions. And our last one is a SaaS offering (Software as a Service) for financial institutions to help them with cyber security information and security income clients.
Kade Wilcox: I like that. "Ethical hacking." That's good. I immediately start thinking of Russia and all kinds of things when you say that. That would take us down some rabbit holes, wouldn't it?
Russ Horn: Yes, sir.
What is Leadership?
Kade Wilcox: So you said you've been with CoNetrix a long time and you serve the role as president. And so, in your particular context, what does leadership look like, you know, for you? What's your role in leadership? But then just broadly speaking, when you think of leadership, what kind of definition, or what are the types of things that you see as to be the responsibility of leaders?
Russ Horn: Sure. So, you know, I think it really boils down to people. If you say, "What is leadership?" I'm going to say, "Well, it's, it's all about people." But more practically, I think there's maybe three areas that are more practically on how you serve people as a leader. And I think the first one is really about the mission, vision, and core values of a company. I think employees of a company expect their leader to really instill the mission and the core values and to have a really strong vision for them. For us, you know, of our four core values that we've held onto for years, one is integrity. And so our average employee has been with us 10 years, which is incredible. But they stay with us because we have these strong core values, and leadership really invests time into holding onto those core values, like integrity.
Russ Horn: We want to be a place that we're proud to work and that we're honest, and we know we're working with other honest people and we don't have to question that. And so we have to hold onto those core values. I think the second is removing obstacles. So, you know, if you're working on a team or in a project, periodically you run up into obstacles, whether it be working with another team, whether it be a resource that you need, whether it be a contract issue or whatever. And they're not really in your lane. They're not what you're passionate about and they don't work well within your time to be super efficient. And so I think that's where you can hand that off to someone in a leadership role, and they can solve those problems for you. They can remove the obstacles.
Russ Horn: I think good leaders help remove obstacles for various team members. And then finally, I think good leaders really invest back into the people and try to make the people successful. And so what do I mean by that? Well, I think of strong leaders in my past that I've been blessed to be around, and they care about me and they want me to be successful and they want me to grow and they want to provide me opportunities. And they give me good feedback so that I can be better. So I think that's what a leader does. Protecting the culture, removing obstacles, and growing and investing in the people.
Kade Wilcox: You've been in this leadership role for a long time. First of all, those are really great, very, very clear. And even as I was listening to you and trying to take notes, I was reflecting on some of these things in my own leadership. What kind of challenges have you found in 15 years of leadership, related to some of these things? For example, when you talk about mission and vision and core values, what are some of the challenges you faced, you know, communicating those things or defining those things or whatever the case might be?
Russ Horn: Sure. You know, I think early on, we always hired with those core values and talked about them, but we didn't always implement them into everyday life within our work. And it was a couple of different people within our company that kind of challenged our thought on that. "Hey, we need to start instilling these core values in everything that we do." And so now they're in our annual reviews. When we do reviews, we're talking about those core values. Every time we have a company meeting, we're talking about those core values. When we send emails to the entire company, we try to reflect back on whatever the thought is, "How does it fit with our core values?", so that we're continuing to mention those core values and make decisions off of those core values continuously as opposed to just talking about them every so often, or just letting them sit on the shelf.
Kade Wilcox: Yeah. So everything's moving so fast. I mean, not just in leadership; in the organization in general. And so I appreciate what you're saying about the necessity of the consistency around the mission and the vision and the values. And, really, you can't talk about those things too much, you know, because we're focused on all these different things. I wrote down "consistency." I mean, that's, that's a really, really, really big one.
Kade Wilcox: I loved what you said about removing obstacles. Like I certainly, you know, experience our fair share of problem-solving, but in terms of removing obstacles so your team can be successful. Like, do you do that organically? What does that look like in your organization? I think that's a really powerful idea.
Russ Horn: So I remember, I guess when I first kind of realized that was a key piece. One of the people that I work really well with (he is an incredible professional and an asset) would come up on things that he didn't want to spend his time on. It really wasn't efficient for him. And so he would just ask me, "Russ, can you do this? Russ, can you do that? Can you do this for me?" And so I started picking those up, but I realized through thinking through that process, what he was really doing is saying, "This is how I can be efficient in the company. This is what I'm passionate about. This is what I want to be doing. And these are other things that need to get done, but it's distracting me from being as good as I can be." And it really was clear to me then that these are roadblocks or obstacles for him to be effective. And so it's leaders' jobs to find ways to remove those so that he can focus on what he's doing.
Praying for a Re-do is Inevitable
Kade Wilcox: That's really powerful. I love that. How do you view failure? Again, you've been at this for a while, and so you can probably think through your career and your leadership and identify all kinds of things that you wish you could hit the unwind button. So when you think of failure, what do you think of? And what's your approach to learning from it and all that good stuff?
Russ Horn: Oh yeah. The rewind. Wouldn't that be awesome? Or redo. A video game or something you want to go back and start over.
Kade Wilcox: That's how I start almost every apology to my wife. "Can I start over? Like, could we pretend for a second that I wasn't an idiot?"
Russ Horn: You know, I think any person that has had success at all in their life, you're going to look and there are going to be multiple failures. And so I think it's how they handle and react to those failures that's important. I think of my mom. She's been a great example for me on this. She's the forever optimist. She's so positive and encouraging. She was a teacher when I grew up. And so all of my friends, you know, would have her and they thought that she just put on this image in the classroom to be so positive. But when they'd come stay the night at my house, they're like, "She's like this always." And I was like, "I know." But, I think there's some positive qualities that I've tried to pick up from that. When you run into an issue, a problem, a failure, it can either knock you down, you know? It can take your wind out. It can discourage you. Or you can look at it and say, "Hey, what can I learn from it? How can I be better?" And that's how my mom would treat things. So I try to do the same thing. When we hit a problem, you know, let's be positive about it. We're going to have failures. It's inevitable. How we deal with the failures is what matters. Are we using those failures to grow and improve? Or are we using those failures to create discouragement and depression?
Kade Wilcox: Speaking of failure and just learning from experience, what do you feel are some of the things you've learned about yourself in these last six, seven, eight, nine, 10 months? You know, right after 2020, like when you think about the last year, what are some of the things you've learned about your own leadership and things you learned along that journey?
Russ Horn: Wow. Yeah. You have to be flexible. You know, nothing is for sure in life. Well, I'm a faith person, so I believe some things are for sure. But most of the areas that we work with in life, within our business, you know, it's not for sure. You don't know what tomorrow holds, and it could be a drastic change from what you're expecting. So you have to be flexible. You have to give grace and you have to keep moving forward.
Intentional Effort = Big Results
Kade Wilcox: That's good. How do you approach your own personal growth? You know, as a leader you're responsible for caring for, and leading forth, you know, for your team. But how do you lead yourself?
Russ Horn: I love that question because I made an intentional effort to try to improve myself several years ago. I found that many of my early successes were due to other people in my life giving me opportunities and taking care of me and growing me, and investing in me. But I wasn't spending as much time investing in trying to improve myself. And I realized several years ago, as I was put in a leadership position at our company and our company started to really grow, I reflected and thought, "I'm not the right person for this role," and that I don't have the right skills as our company grows. And so either I'm going to have to step out of the way, so that someone else can come in that can really run this growing company, or I'm going to have to change and improve.
I'm going to have to better myself. And so I made an intentional effort to spend more time trying to develop myself as a leader and a person. I started reading a whole lot more. I've always loved to read, but I was mostly before that spending time reading a lot of just non-fiction, fun books. But I transitioned to reading a whole lot of leadership business self-help books. Listening to whatever I could listen to and reflecting and really studying how to become better. One of the more encouraging conversations I had was with a friend of mine, a coworker and a mentor, Carl Cope. (He's our COO at the company.) I remember one day, several years ago, he walked into my office and said, "Russ, I don't want to offend you. And I don't really even know how to say this, but I just wanted to say, I don't know what you're doing, but I can tell a difference in you from last year or the year before." And this was maybe 18 months after I had really intentionally started trying to develop myself better. And that encouraged me so much because it let me know that what I was doing was successful; that I was able to help others because I was improving myself.
Kade Wilcox: When you reflected on your own growth and the needs your company had for you to grow as a leader, do you remember what areas of leadership it was? Was it communication? Was it vision casting? Was it a particular element of your leadership that you decided to really grow in? And what did that look like?
Russ Horn: Oh, it was probably every area, Kade. You know, before that, I had spent time, you know, developing technical skills. You know, I always think that because of my upbringing in faith that I did have a servant heart, but I don't think I had good, intentional, practical skills. So yes, I think my communication helped. I think my wisdom in trying to look at a problem and evaluate it, and try to figure out how I could serve and help. It was probably during that time that it really became clear that one of my roles was to remove obstacles. But I was looking at everything I did through a different lens than I had before. And so, yeah, I think every area.
Russ’ Top 3 Recommended Books
Kade Wilcox: That's really good. Do you remember some of the books or maybe even some of the leaders that had the most impact on you? You mentioned business, you mentioned leadership, you mentioned self-help. Do you remember some of the people and or books that really made an impact on you?
Russ Horn: How much time do we have?
Kade Wilcox: Plenty. You're a good mathematician. You're very succinct. And so we got plenty of time here.
Russ Horn: Yeah. So I read 39 different books this last year in 2020. And I did end up with three of my favorites then, and I'll try to reflect back on maybe some of the ones early on. But my three favorites from 2020 - the first one was Atomic Habits. That was a great book. And, you know, I reflected back whenever I read that book on some earlier times I used to run marathons. I shouldn't say used to. I'm actually gonna run one again this year. It's been a couple of years since I ran one, but I remember the first time I trained for a marathon. And, you know, you wake up in the morning and you decide if you're gonna run or not, you create a plan and then you decide if you're gonna run.
And if you don't run, then you're not improving. You're not getting closer to your goal. And so every day that you miss is really a knock against you hitting your goal. One of the quotes from Atomic Habits (and let me see if I can remember it) is something to the effect of every choice you make is a vote for the person that you want to be or will become, or something like that. And so Atomic Habits is really talking about those little things that you do in life that you create good habits, or you remove bad habits to help you become a better person. So I loved that book. There were many other habit forming books I read early on.
The second of my favorite books from 2020 was Pound the Stone. And I actually read that one with my son. He was in seventh grade at the time, and it's a very simple read. It's kind of in story format. It's really good for leadership in the junior high, high school age group. And it's about a kid in high school and him going through various different trials and obstacles and failures in life through his high school career. But he had these mentors which were helping improve him. And I remember my son, even after reading this book, when summer came, he purchased this training thing to help him jump higher. And I thought, "Oh, you know, he'll probably go a few days and then not finish the workout." But he paid his own money for it. And he went through that thing for, I think it was a 60 day program. He did every day, missed one. Only one that he missed. And I was really proud of him, but I think some of it was some of the lessons that came out of that.
Kade Wilcox: Did it happen to be a program called Strength Shoes?
Russ Horn: You know, I don't remember the name of it.
Kade Wilcox: You're taking me back. When I was in, like, I think it was junior high or something, I was super serious about sports and I bought these. And I was always short. And so I bought these things called Strength Shoes, and it was remarkable how much it helped me with speed and all that. And so when you said he got a program that helped him, you know, jump higher or something, it took me a long ways back.
What's the third book that made a huge impact?
Russ Horn: The Power of Moments. And that one may have been my favorite. It goes and reflects on, you know, what are the most powerful moments in your life. And if you think about it, many of them are, you know, your first house, when you got married, graduation. And what are all of those centered around? Well, they're centered around one small moment in your whole life, but we create these huge ceremonies for those moments. Well, what about everything else? Um, are we letting great moments pass unmemorable because we aren't intentional about making them moments? And, I really loved that book because, you know, it makes you think that we do have the ability to create powerful moments in people that change who they are, that they can reflect on and build off of. But if you don't understand that and you're not intentional about it, you miss so many of those moments,
Kade Wilcox: This is really good. You seem really disciplined. So do you have daily rhythms that are really critical to your leadership or to your success just generally in life? What are your daily rhythms or kind of daily disciplines look like?
Russ Horn: You know? Um, yes, I think I am disciplined, but not the way probably most people think of discipline. Like, “When I wake up, this is the first thing that I do and it happens at this time and it's a workout for this long and….” It's not so regimented. But yes, I have discipline in my life and I found that when I create discipline in my life, I become a better person. I'm calmer; less stressed. I remember when I started running marathons, one of the things I decided to do just as a discipline was quit Cokes,, and I did it mainly for the discipline part, just to do something and be disciplined about it. And I haven't had a Coke since 2009.
Kade Wilcox : That's incredible.
Russ Horn : So yes, I do apply discipline, but not so regimented.
Kade Wilcox : What would you say is like a daily rhythm that is essential to your own success? Whether it's sleep or whether it's nutrition or whether it's, you know, reading or whatever the case may be? Do you have a rhythm that's really kind of essential to your leadership and success?
Russ Horn: Yes. So there are a variety. I'm trying to think through which ones. One that I am very disciplined about (I mentioned before I'm a person of faith) is I read the Bible every day. I remember walking through in the mornings when I grew up and my mom always had her Bible out. I think she did it on purpose, actually. She would sit in the living room and I can still see her occasional chair that she would sit in with the little lamp over it and her Bible that was falling apart. She held it together with a rubber band. We tried to buy her a new one one year for Christmas.
Kade Wilcox: She said "No way!"
Russ Horn: Nope, she kept her own cause it had all her notes, but literally kept it together with a rubber band. And she'd be sitting there reading when I walked through to go eat breakfast. Every single morning.
And I found that staying with the Word has grounded me. It's helped me to keep my priorities in place. And you know, I've been through situations that were stressful and people have asked, you know, "Hey, are you feeling, you know, huge stress?" And I didn't like the word stress. I think I prefer the word compression, and that a lot of stuff is compressed in a short period of time. But, when you have good, strong, grounded faith, those are times I would lean more into quiet time ([compared] to being around strong mentors) and to reading the Bible and prayer. Because then there isn't that stress because you have the right outlook.
The Powerful Lesson from a Man You’ve Never Heard Of
Kade Wilcox (22:06):
Yeah, that's really good. You've mentioned people a lot, in terms of just influence on your life and people who have impacted you. When you think of, you know, the handful of people who have the greatest amount of influence on your life, who are they? And, you know, what do you feel like some of the major takeaways from their influence on your life is?
Russ Horn: Sure. I think the first person that...well, when I reflect back (and I was asked about that not too long ago when I was going to be talking about mentors to a group. And I was thinking back, you know, who was one of my early mentors?) my father, obviously, is a strong, probably the most influential mentor in my life. But besides my father, I remembered a guy named Bill Green. And he was, when I was in high school, he was actually an elder at our church, but he was just a male figure in the community in Robert Lee. A very wise man and well-respected, but he managed the government housing in Robert Lee, which was also kind of the independent living. A lot of elderly people lived there. And he would do the maintenance and the yard and all of that. So he invited me one summer to work with him.
And I think he sought me out on purpose, not to do the work, but, and I'm not even sure he needed a person, but in order to invest time in me. And I appreciate that. But one of the lessons I remember the most —and he didn't just preach to me, he visited with me and helped me learn things by asking me questions and by observing — burned in my memory is this one time when we were trimming hedges and I was on the backside of a house trimming hedges, and this elderly woman, a widowed woman, came to the door. And she had a big old glass of lemonade and a plate full of cookies. And she said, you know, "Hey Ross." It was like in June, middle of the summer, probably over a hundred degrees. "You know, you've been working out here all day. Why don't you come in and take a seat in air conditioning, and have some cookies and lemonade?"
And I said, "Oh no, ma'am, we're working. I've got to get this all finished." And I just kept going. Well, I think Bill saw that (well, I know he saw it) because a few minutes later he came and got me and said, "Hey, let's go for a trash run." And these were your, you know, think of Small Town, USA, old pickup truck that doesn't have air conditioning, windows down, an old man with one arm, you know, sticking out the window and a young high school kid with another, and a trailer full of, you know, trimmings and cuttings from the trees, driving out to a dump. Going 10 miles an hour. (He would always make those drives really slow.) And that's when he would reflect. And he said, "Hey, Russ, I saw..." And I can't remember her name. Mary? "And she had, you know, lemonade and cookies or something. Tell me about that." And I said, "Oh yeah, she asked if I wanted some, but I told her, 'No, I've got to get this finished.'"
And he goes, "Hmm." He said, "You know, Russ, she doesn't have any..." (I still remember this.) "...She doesn't have any family that lives in town. And she doesn't really have many visitors very often. And you know what? I don't even think she eats cookies or drinks lemonade. Why do you think she made that?" And I was like, "Oh, I guess for me." And he said, "Well, Russ, what do you think really is our purpose out here?" And I said, "Well, we're, you know, trimming, painting; we're doing all these things." And he goes, "But why? For who?" "Well, for the resident."
You know, he talked me through this missed opportunity I had and helped me to realize she had done that for me.
And what she needed more than trimmed hedges is she needed someone to sit down, and she wanted to love on someone that was serving her, but she wanted communication. She wanted someone to talk to. She wanted relationship. And through that, he asked me questions until I discovered that, he didn't just tell me, “This is what you did wrong.”) And afterwards he said, "Russ, you have the authority to always serve the person. And that means if you're trimming hedges and they have a need, you go in there. If they want to just give you a glass of water, you sit down and you talk to them and you don't care how long it takes, because we're here to love and take care of and serve them.” And I've remembered that throughout life. It is so easy to get stuck on tasks and forget about the people, which is the reason you're doing it.
Kade Wilcox: That's really powerful. Thanks for sharing that. What a profound impact people like that have on people's lives. And it's cool all these years later, you remember that.
Advice to Russ’ Younger Self
Kade Wilcox: One of my favorite questions is if you could speak to your younger self, you know, if you could go back 15, 20 years ago, right at really the beginning phases of your own leadership journey, knowing what you know now, what would you encourage yourself, you know, to consider and to learn 15, 20 years ago?
Russ Horn: I love this question and I thought back about it. And I did think of some things I was happy I did know. But then I also thought, “You know, what would I have told myself at 20?” And I think it's something already mentioned to you. I would have told myself, “Invest in yourself and learn how to be a better person, so you can serve others better.” Because I did neglect that early on. I wasn't reading books on how to be a better leader. I wasn't learning about, you know, what skills I had that were good and which ones I needed working on, and how to serve those around me better.
Kade Wilcox: What are those things that you did learn? You mentioned there a couple of things that you did learn that you're glad you learned. What were those things?
Russ Horn: You know, one of them, and I think it was in one of your other podcasts, with maybe Dr. Jones. He said, one of the (I think it was him) one of the big foundations is make sure that you put your wife first. I think he was the one that said that. You know, spouse first, because you could be super successful in business, but then if you don't have that strong relationship, and you're not retiring with someone after 50 years of marriage and have this great relationship, then you've lost it all.
My dad early on would always tell me, "Russ, you're going to have to pick your priorities in life." And he said, "Mine are God first, family second, and work third." And he would instill that in me. And so I think early on, I did create those priorities. I did put God first. I did put family second and work third. And knowing my personality now, if I hadn't been told that, and I hadn't listened and I hadn't applied that, I could easily let work consume every aspect of my life because I love work.
“Quality vs Quantity” With Family
Kade Wilcox: You mentioned a junior high son earlier. Do you have multiple kids?
Russ Horn: Yes, I have three children that I'm super proud of. My oldest is a marketing major at LCU. My second is a senior and so she's about to start college. I'm about to have two in college. Actually, my oldest is even engaged. She's getting married this summer. I cannot believe I'm old enough. And then my youngest, he's now in eighth grade.
Kade Wilcox: What did you do to intentionally, kind of, safeguard and protect your mind and heart as it related to work and success and driving the organization? You know, because if you've been kind of the president for 10, 15 years working in this fast-growing company, you know, that is the exact same track as your children. You know, going from elementary to junior high, to high school, to college. And so what did you do to safeguard and to protect that time?
Russ Horn: You know, my wife helps me a lot there. She'll remind me if I'm spending too much time at work or I'm missing opportunities. I do work a lot. I'll go in early. I'll work sometimes in the evenings after my kids are even in bed. I'll work sometimes on the weekends. But if my kids have an activity I take off and I go to that activity. And I expect my employees to do the same. So when my daughter had a volleyball game, you know, I was there in the stands. When my oldest daughter went to, you know, state in cheer, I was there. When my son has a basketball game, I'm there. But then we also try to create moments. I think back to that book and my wife and I have been even more intentional this last year to create moments with our kids.
But as an example with my son, we build things every summer, together. And so I'll take off work and we'll build various different structures or things together. And what better time than spending, you know, four days building, you know, like a gazebo swing set in your backyard. Or we spent a couple of months this summer building this ridiculous chicken coop, which looks more like a mini house in our backyard together. But we learned together and we build together and it's timed. My wife has always said, you know, it's not about what people say, "Time with kids." It's about the quality, not quantity. But my wife has reflected and said, "You know what? You can't always create quantity. But you can create quality and design that quality so that there's quantity moments in it." And so we've tried to make sure that we have time as a family,
Kade Wilcox: Really powerful. I love that. We've chosen to travel. I find it difficult not to work if I'm here, meaning at home or in Lubbock or whatever. And so we bought a motorhome. We've never so much as owned a tent. And so we just picked up a motor home about three years ago, and traveling has been like the most remarkable thing ever. I mean, just as you're talking about those quality moments, you know, I think of when we did the polar plunge in Yellowstone in early June last summer, oh, it was like the coldest thing I've ever done in my life. My son and my daughter, first of all, they were a lot tougher than me. Our daughter, she beat us big time. She's not even so much as gasping for air and the rest of us were hightailing it out of there. But it's really powerful what you said. The quality. And I love how you keep coming back to creating moments and you don't have to be fancy. You know, it could be anything, but you're creating these moments in these intersections in your life and your child's life.
Russ Horn: You mentioned travel. So that reminded me that years ago, my wife and I also didn't want our kids going off to college and being on their own without understanding a more global world and how blessed we really are. And so we decided to, intentionally, let my wife take one of our kids (their junior and senior year) overseas to, you know, an area that is not like the U.S. And so my oldest daughter, my wife took her one summer and I took her the next summer. And then my middle daughter, I took her her junior year, but COVID hit. So we didn't get to take her out of the country this year. But yeah, we created these times where we could spend one-on-one time, but let them grow. And wow, you could see a difference in my oldest daughter after she came back from Africa. She went there to serve girls that were her age that had been in horrible – you know, no families and where they were being abused and used - into this environment. And they worked all day, but yet they were so happy . And she's like, they have nothing and they feel blessed and happy. And we have everything. And usually, you know, we're not. So creating those opportunities for them to see the world in a much bigger way.
Kade Wilcox: I love it. So good, Russ. Thanks. You've been generous with your time. Thanks for sharing all that. And a lot of it's so personal. So thanks for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
Russ Horn: I've loved your podcast. I've loved listening to it now.
Kade Wilcox: I appreciate it.
