"How to Win With Your Time, Money, Family, and Team" Eric Sztanyo

Eric Sztanyo, an FCA advisory board member and local business leader joins us on this episode of the Coach to Coach podcast.

He lives in Ft. Thomas with his home team which includes his lovely wife Witni and their 5 children.

At Boone County High School, Eric played both golf and baseball during his time and has some really encouraging points and insights as he shares about his time there. He also dives into some helpful tips after years of trial and error as he navigates marriage, family, work, and rest.

- The role of the fear of failure

- The value of the coach's role during the teenage years

- Getting creative on finding rest so that you can be more productive

- How self-discipline with your time and money and translate into big wins for your team and family down the road

- Keeping perspective and priorities in a healthy place.

Tik Tok: @manyo_the_realtor

Website: https://www.teamsztanyo.com/

This is the coach to coach podcast, episode number 35 game John

[inaudible].

Hey, what's going on guys. Welcome to the coach to coach podcast. Where we believe every kid deserves a coach that cares, and every coach deserves someone in their corner. I'm your host, Nate Sallee. This podcast is sponsored by the Northern Kentucky fellowship of Christian athletes. We continue to be grateful for this incredible team that we have of donors, volunteers, prayer partners, and advisory board members. One of which we'll hear from later today. Hey, if you haven't already, we would so appreciate if you would just take a moment to leave us a review and hit that subscribe button. So you don't miss out on any new episodes coming down the pipe. As a reminder of the vision of this podcast, is to capture, the collective wisdom of coaches and leaders and Northern Kentucky, greater Cincinnati and beyond. So they'll all get better together because we believe a coach can win a ton of ball games, but also transform lives in the process, both in their home and their team, and even in their community. This episode, I'm so excited. We're going to have Eric Sztanyo. Eric is a Boone County native. He played multiple sports and now is just a awesome business leader. And one of our advisory board members, and he just spent a lot of time coaching his team of five at the home we, he has five kids, but as also learned a lot of really good things on how to handle a really tough schedule, like many coaches has, being in the real estate world. He just has some key insights on how to thrive personally, but also be really successful at what other, whatever team that you're leading. So I can't wait for you to hear from Eric and to hear a little bit of his story and his wisdom. I'm not going to leave you hanging any longer. Let's hop right in with our conversation with Eric Sztanyo. All right, guys, we are here with my man, Eric, Sztanyo, Eric, how are you doing this morning?

I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.

We're breaking into a little bit of a new category. You're a first FCA board member to be on the podcast and yeah, just, I would love to give a little bit of backstory on Eric and kind of your background. I know you're a Boone County grad, so just kind of give us the quick bio on Eric.

Yeah. Quick bio. I'm married 14 years to my wife, Whitney. We live in Fort Thomas. Now we have five children ages nine, seven, four, two, and newborn. But yeah, grew up in actually grew up in Florence, Kentucky. My family moved down here in the late eighties. I was seven years old. Yeah. I went to Yealey went to Ockerman, went to Boone. I went to college in Nashville, but moved back here, actually did volunteer for a ministry called young life for five years after college and lived out in Anderson township for about eight years during doing that. And then as we started having kids, we wanted to move back to Kentucky and a little bit closer to grandparents, which is always nice. So that's, that's us. That's where we're at.

Yeah. It's a smart move. Getting close to grandkids. I remember we talked when we first met, we connected just on the, on the baseball front a little bit. So I just would love to hear a little bit more. Maybe. I don't know, the, I don't know the full timeline, but maybe Ockerman Boone times. I know you probably had some coaches along the way. Did you play any other sports than baseball or what else did you play?

Yeah. Yeah. A sports was huge for me. I was the youngest of three boys. My dad played sports. My grandpa played sports, so I played baseball and basketball through middle school. Um, I actually didn't, uh, carry basketball forward in to high school. And honestly that was like a, you know, we can talk about the coach there, but I was a year younger than the kids in my grade. And so honestly I was afraid to fail at that point. I mean, that's what it comes down to it. So I never tried out, but most all of my friends were the basketball players. And then I picked up, uh, I picked up golf, uh, and played golf in high school as well. And a big reason for that. My, my brother played golf, but also the golf coach was the JV baseball coach. So I was kind of planting the seed to try to get on the baseball team.

Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. The deal. Yeah. You mentioned a couple of coaches there along your whole path, kind of through high school at any point, you know, who were, who would be one of the two, one or two coaches that really just stuck out to you that made an impact on you. Good or bad if it's negative, don't name names, but if it's awesome we want to hear that too.

Yeah, yeah, no, to, uh, I was thinking about that, you know, the first one that really stood out was all the way back and Knothole, you know, being seven, eight years old, I had this coach, his name was Kevin and he was just fantastic, energetic. He didn't even have a son on the team. He just loved to coach. One of those guys, who's incredibly enthusiastic, had a nickname for everybody. Everyone wanted to play. And the big thing with him, which was amazing looking back on it is like he took a handful of us every summer after the season, we would go and travel to a major league baseball city and go watch a game. So we would take our parents, our parents would go, or one of our parents and there'd be a crew of maybe like 10 of us, you know? And we went to Chicago and Cleveland and St. Louis, I think Atlanta and Milwaukee, like we wouldn't all to all these different ballparks. It was incredibly, that was incredible. Like my love for the sport and baseball is just, so that was like, just when I look back on that, how, I don't know the memories of that are just incredible. Um, and then getting into the other coach, I feel like had big impact on me was, uh, Jay Maulchy at Boone County. So he's known for being the basketball coach there for, you know, I don't know how many years, probably 20 plus years. And his son was, uh, his youngest son, Kyle, I graduated with in 99. And again, that was one of the reasons I didn't try out for basketball was like his son was on the team and there was a slew of other guards. I'm like, Oh man, I'm hitting the coaches, sons competition. I don't know if I'm gonna make it. But honestly, like he, he always encouraged me to try it. I never did. It's actually one of the regrets I have like looking back on high school, but then he was my baseball coach, my senior year, just his values of hard work, discipline, character, integrity, all of the things that like when you're a high school idiot kid, like you don't really appreciate. And you're like, man, I don't want to run these stairs or whatever. You know, you're just like frustrated about looking back. I just, all those things were not only helpful for that the season and the coaching, but I'm sure you hear this all the time from people on the podcast, but yeah, those, those are the characteristics that when I'm looking at my sons, I have four sons now I'm like, these are the things I want them to learn. And, uh, sports are such obviously a fantastic way to teach those traits. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, you know, all the coaches listening, but, um, yeah, those things have stood. So with me and I often they often come to mind different lessons from that time period. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. Well, a couple of things I took away where you're Knothole coach, I think there's something really important and foundational about bringing that energy, the enthusiasm, you know, having the joy injected into the game, making sure the kids are having fun, just so that there's like this an intrinsic love for the game as a foundation. And then later on in high school, that's when you start really, it's more of the, we're going to work our tail off, grind it out, you know, grow even if it looks like discipline and some unpleasant things. But by that time, hopefully you love the game so much that you're willing to go through those hard things to just to get better, even if you don't love it at the moment. So I just, it's really cool. Just that progression of having that good foundation and then being able to push and challenge more once that's already laid. And that's great.

Yeah. You know, just one other thing to cap that off that I'm thinking about is, you know, looking back at me as a teenager and even into college, I was afraid to fail. Like that was something I was afraid to fail. You know, I was kind of a perfectionist kid and a lot of, a lot of kids might have that tendency having those different coaches, you know, thinking about, uh, coach Maulchay in particular encouraged, you know, those were foundational moments that I go back to now of like, Oh no, you push it's okay to fail. It's okay to lose. It's worse to in those are the regrets I have going back and like not trying, that's like the real failure. And now that I'm later in life and I'm carrying that into being a father and a husband and a business owner, I've been able to have enough failure in my life where I'm actually grateful for it now. Um, because I know when I fail, it's like, okay, now I can diagnose what I did wrong and, and get better and push and push forward and learn from it. So yeah. All of those were integrated with those coaches. I'm really grateful for that.

Yeah. That is a big, I had similar points to that, the fear of failure or just so it's so deep and a lot of kids probably wouldn't even articulate it when it's going on of why they're choosing to do certain things, but probably in their heart of hearts. It's because I don't want to look bad. I'm insecure. I don't want to be embarrassed at any point. And I was thinking as, as a coach, if the more we could do to try to remove some of that fear of failure could really empower some kids. And I think a lot of it has to do with kind of one of the things that this podcast has been only to capture the heart and have the relational connection with the kid. And then they trust you when you say, Hey, it's okay to fail right here. Hey, we're trying to, we're trying to teach you how to hit the ball the opposite way you might Duff three balls right now. And it's okay because we're going to figure this out kind of deal. And it's given it providing a safe place, man. That's so good. I would say the same thing, you know, you know, part of why, um, Eric's on the show today is, Hey, he has a great, great heart for sports and a great heart for the ministry of FCA. Uh, but also just some, some really key things that he's been able to, uh, test and Lifehack and figure out through trial and error. And there's, there's two things that I've talked about with a lot of coaches that dude, I have zero time, like time was a big stressor for me and my family. You know, how do we manage that? And then we'll also get into, uh, some tips a little bit later on the real estate side. Cause Eric is our real estate agent. And, um, is also just in kind of the finance world a little bit, might have some tips on how do we maximize our finances as well. Cause there's kind of an ongoing joke that you certainly don't coach for the money. So that's for sure don't ever divvy out the hourly rate for your stipend that you get. Um, cool. Well, yeah, so dad five, you pretty much have your own basketball team, even though they're not playing basketball, you're not leading an athletic program, but you've had to figure out some ways to have a full time job. Now you're kind of owning your own business a lot of ways. How do you, how do you pursue health? Hey, you want to be very successful in the business side, but also healthy on the home front thriving marriage and not be completely fried. So what are a couple of ways that you've been able to sort of hack those on paper, which looked like you couldn't have it all, but w what are some learnings along the way?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. I know coaches their time is, you know, crazy, especially when you're in season. It feels like when you have five kids under 10, that I'm in season all the time. It's a, yeah, it's, it's a lot. It is a lot, you know, to do that and run the business. And in my mind, shift, you know, my mindset shifted, uh, you know, a lot when we were running after one of my wife and I, we met through that young life ministry. We were very, very ministry oriented and we were living a very kind of single narrative, single life narrative. And that we were, we were volunteering, volunteering like upwards of 30 hours a week, or more trying to run after these high school students and get them the good news of the gospel. So we learned some time things there, but then when you shift that over to the family narrative, everything kind of changed. You know, it's a much different culture for us early on. We were able to get around some families that were a little bit past us, which has always been extremely helpful for us being around families who are maybe three, five, seven years down the road and kind of like hack their best tips. Um, one of the first ones we got was a family who was implementing and practicing a Sabbath. Uh, every week I, I grew up in the church and knew about the Sabbath, and we went to church every week, but like the concept of, you know, so we did the church morning thing, but then it was just kind of like a normal day. But th th the idea of having an entire day of rest was a new concept to my wife and I, but we've been practicing it now for probably 13 years. And when we first started, it was incredibly bizarre and difficult, and we had no idea. We actually had no idea how to rest. Like it was incredibly difficult because we couldn't turn off our brains. Like all of the things we knew we needed to do were just stacking up and putting pressure on us and causing us stress. And it's like, this is terrible. I hate this. Like, I don't want to do this. And then we just, we kind of just pushed through that and we're like, look, this is, this is not only in the Bible. Like, this is a, this is a 10, this is like on the top 10 list, right. This is a 10 commandment. Like we need to keep pushing through and trying to figure this thing out. And eventually what happened over time was, um, we started to learn how to rest a little bit better. And, uh, we noticed that if we didn't have that day in the week, the rest of the week went really bad. And that was like a big aha for us. Like, Oh, wait a minute. We're actually getting recharged that something's happening on this day. There's something special about this time. And whether it's a full day or, you know, if you can't pull off a full day, I don't, I don't think that really matters necessarily. Even if you like, can carve out just a little bit of chunk of time to reset, we realized like it was having a big impact on our week. And so then it shifted from like this thing, like we were trying to do to, to the thing that like, no, we have to do this. It began, you know, that analogy where, um, you stick the rocks in the jar and then you like stick the smaller rocks in the jar. And then like the pebbles and the sand and the water, like, it may be, it probably started out for us as the water, you know, like the last thing you put in, and then it completely flipped for us as we started to appreciate the value of it and the, the, the blessing of it. Um, and it became the big rock. And so like, when we looked at our week and planned out our week, the Sabbath became the rock we put in first. And there's all kinds of ramifications to that, right? Like if you're going to take some time or take an entire day where you're shutting it down, and for us, that means turning off our phone, shut it off the email. Like as much as we possibly can. We're, we're, we're turning off the distractions of the world and we're also making it like super enjoyable. We have like good food and we, you know, that's, that's the day we do a lot of fun things with the kids now and go for hikes. And like all the things we actually like enjoy to do, we spend time reading the Bible with the kids, you know, cause we have time on that day, but then you have to figure that out the rest of the week, obviously, right? Like, because your week doesn't stop, you just have to plan for it. You just have to plan back. You just kind of reverse engineer and plan back. And so we've been able to, to kind of figure that out. And I think I was reading Mark were reading Mark in a Bible study I'm in this week actually. And you know, Jesus is saying, Hey guys, you don't get it. Like the man wasn't made for the Sabbath, right. The Sabbath was made for man. Like God put this in the first week of creation. And he said, you're my image bearer. I want you to do this too. You know, on the seventh day he rested and Jesus is like, this is for you. And that was such a, you know, a light bulb moment for us. I mean, you can read some of those things in the Bible and you can kind of like cognitively agree with them, but until you actually put your faith in it and like, you have to figure out how can I actually get seven days of work into six days? And you're, if you try it, like, you're literally saying to God, God, I need you somehow to miraculously do the math with my time that you're going to get more done in these six days than I could do in seven. Yeah. I mean, for us, we've just, it's proven to be like so many things we've tested, put God to the test on, uh, it's proven itself to be true. It's proven to be life giving and refreshing the pinnacle of our week every week. Yeah. That's, that's something that's fantastic for my family. And then I'm training my kids in it. Like they're going to be, you know, they're going to have that, you know, rhythm as they grow up and get married and have kids as well. So it's yeah, that's, that's maybe why it's

Weird to think of that as a time hack, you know

it's a little bit counterintuitive, but it's, we've totally seen results from it as well. Like there was times in volleyball season, Katelyn's coaching at Highlands. And a lot of times with our kind of our off day, our Sabbath day is Saturday and we'll go get Krispy Kreme donuts. We'll drive all the way to Anderson. We don't care. We want some fresh, hot Krispy Kremes and the kids love it. We, you know, we make it, uh, make it a thing where we turn it off and we've seen some good things from it. So in season, and she's got a tournament on Saturday and that's not happening, we got to adjust and make it work and get creative that way. But what's been interesting is how much we're able to do when we have to, I don't know what the name of it. There's some principle out there. It's like, if you have two hours to do something, you'll take two hours to do it. If you have 30 minutes to do something, you'll take 30 minutes to do it on a lot. Certainly that breaks down at some point. But in general, when we have, when we have a time constraint, a lot of times we'll figure out how to get it done. So just on a practical level, I just, I was just seeing the ability to, to compress it and also cut out some of the, some of the fat, some of the stuff that doesn't really matter, that kind of expands and find your way into your day. Like you're probably not going to be doing some time-waster stuff when, you know, Hey, I'm about to take a whole day off or even a half day. Sometimes. Yes. Another thing, one of our other guests Brian's Tome from crossroads has a great picture. I guess if you're in a fight and you're boxing and your arm was completely extended out, like you had thrown a punch, but your arms still totally out like the end of the punch and you just keep trying to like punch forward without ever like recoiling and bringing your arm back then, you're never gonna, you're actually gonna do better. If you take some time to kind of recoil and recharge, you actually be more productive. And I just kind of flies in the face of, of our typical athletic culture. More is always better. Just keep going, keep grinding business world athletic world. It's been proven, like taking breaks actually is good. Like there's a reason you can't just do all four sets of your bench press back to back to back. Like your muscles would just, they just can't do it. They're not designed to do it. So I think it's a really interesting, yeah, counterintuitive, but I, we seen totally a higher level of, of health personally, relationally, it's been better as a family. And then, you know, there is, there's something to be said for, Hey, there's that deadline, if you'd go ahead and put that open block on your schedule and you hold to it, it kind of has that, that deadline field where like, okay, now I have to get, what's the most important things to get done so that I can have can have this.

And so again yep. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's such a good way to put it. It's counterintuitive, but that's the nature of the kingdom of God, right? It's always like this upside down thing and then you do it and you're like, Oh, that shouldn't have made sense, but it does. And you're right. And you know, towards the end of the, we do it from Friday night to Saturday night, which I know for a lot of coaches is probably unrealistic. It's, you know, it's weird for real, I'm a real estate agent. And so, you know, it's probably a kind of a crazy time as well, because house has go on the market and people want to go see them. And Saturday mornings a big data show houses. But I just tell my clients, I'm like, look, this is, this is just, I set the expectation with my clients as much as I can now, sometimes things bleed into it and you know, there are timeliness and contracts that have to be done, but we do our best to protect that time. And, and to your point, yeah, I'm Friday afternoon when I know it's, it's like when you're running that last lap or you know, that final sprint of a race when you're heading towards, cause you look forward to it so much and you're like, so you work real hard at the end of your week. And then you're like, ah, yes. Now I can enjoy this time and rest and recharge exactly like you're saying

And something just for me, a couple of practical things that I've picked up is making sure that nothing urgent, like I could in my own mind, know that nothing urgent needs to happen for the next, whatever it is, you know, in the off season, especially I can, I have that. We have that full 24 hours and I can go to sleep at night knowing that there isn't an email that's left hanging. There isn't anything else that's left unprocessed. Like I'll even take that last half hour of the day. He's like, is there anything that needs to be done in the next 24 hours? Knock that out. And I can, I can go into that rest time. That's a great way for me to shut my mind off is knowing I've kind of covered myself. Like there's nothing that's, can't be done after this is over. And then for me, another way to just try to mentally switch from work mode to family mode or just personal mode, if you're single is I'll come home and I'll be having my whole like kind of FCA gear outfit on I'll come home. And before I go in, I'll have to mentally kind of coach myself up on. Okay. All right. Now for me, it's being a husband, being a dad, you know, loving my family and I'll be FCA area director here in another day or so, and then I'll go and actually change clothes too. So the FCA polo comes off and I just get into something comfortable. And it's almost like that wardrobe change represents something to where I can actually mentally get into a different spot too, because I think that it's probably, it sounds like what it was for you too early on. If you're trying to have a Sabbath or, you know, this big block of time for rest, you can be there at home with family or be home, you know, chill, but mentally your mind can still be going 90 miles an hour on work stuff. And so just trying to find those ways to flip the switch.

Yeah. It would be important. Sure. Another, another big tool in our tool belt in terms of how we manage our week and five kids and business and all that, um, just real quickly on this is, uh, I have, uh, my wife and I have a family meeting every single week where it's like laptops out, Google calendar open. Um, you know, we're, we're trying to, to kind of really plot out the next week or two, because if we're going to have a Sabbath, we got to figure out where we're going to do all the other things. And recently in the past few years, another piece of that has been, we use a Trello board. I don't know, you know, some people might be familiar with Trello, but it's really just a task management kind of. Yes, exactly. And, and inside of our home, even. So I'm taking a lot of the tools and skills I use in my business life, or, you know, in your teaching or coaching life, take those home with you, you know, and now we're prioritizing tasks. And like with my wife, we're like, okay, what are we going? And, and you know, some of the w usually our Sunday is our like home work day. And when you've got a two year old and a toddler, like the honeydew list, you can only do like two things. You know, if that before the two year old has like re wrecked and undone everything, you've, you've just, just tried to do so. But we, we talked through and that's part of the priority is like, okay, I'm going to do this one thing, a Witni. And then I'm going to watch Miriam our two year old for the next two hours or whatever, you know, that we have that meeting. Um, we, you know, pretty much every week that, and that's a really big help to our family. It's, it's hard. It can get tense. Cause there's like so much you're trying to get in, get done during that time. And the kids are all, you know, screaming or whatever, but, um, that's been a really big tool for us as well in terms of how do we actually plot through and manage the week and stay sane and, and get the top things done. We need to get done.

That's awesome. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Good stuff. Yeah. I want to touch on the kind of financial side as well. Just want to, yeah. Tap in, pick your brain a little bit on the, on the real estate side. We, you know, we'll have anywhere from a college kid. Who's just starting out coaching. Yeah. It's got a separate job. Then we have a lot of coaches that are teaching and coaching or maybe retired coach. So I know any tip you give what an apply across the board to all his different life stages, but what would be one or two kind of just real estate tips that could really have a big ROI, um, and just help kind of financially in the longterm.

That's a good question. I mean, I think, again, this goes back, uh, in my story, we were living kind of a very mother Teresa-esque like narrative, when we were doing young life, it was like simple, have no money and just pour yourself out for people. And I, and I think there's so much value in that lifestyle. However, once we, once I got married and started having kids, the narrative shifted, right. And it's like, Oh, it might be really helpful to have money for, to feed my children, you know, um, volunteer youth ministry doesn't pay the bills, all that. Well, um, for us, yeah, there was, there was some education that happened early on, you know, a lot of people out there may have read the book, rich dad, poor dad, if you haven't, you know, I recommend that. But you know, the big takeaway from that book is kind of, um, buy assets and not liabilities. Right. That's a big one. So, um, how do you save money to buy things that could make you more money and potentially free up more of your time, as opposed to always trying to buy the newer fancier thing? For, for me personally, I actually learned this from my parents at a young age, but I became a really good saver of money. You know, I'm probably like the cheapest real estate agent in my office. Like my car looks like it has leprosy. Like I have a, I drive a 2004 Hyundai Elantra that has, is about to pass its 200,000 mile birthday. And like, and, and, and think about this for a minute. Like, I, you know, I live in real estate agent world at my office where everyone's about like image and prestige. And so there's rolling up in a BMW man. Everyone's got BMWs and Lexus and Teslas, and here I roll up in my like jalopy, you know, but I, that thing has been paid off since 2010. Like I haven't had a car payment on that thing, you know, minus maybe little maintenance things here and there for 10 years, I did the math on that recently. I'm like, I'm just say $30,000. Oh, I could buy a duplex with $30,000, like, which, and I did like, like, I didn't realize that, but there was other things, you know, things like that I've done in my life. Like, you know, I've, I've gone to like 20 Chick-fil-A grand openings. You know, I started this, uh, where they give you free coupons. You know, if you camp out on their concrete, it's like, it's like a, for a year, right? Yeah. You get like 50, you get a couple hundred bucks worth of food, certain point in my life that was totally worth it. And, and it still is like, anytime there's one around here, I'm going to it and not taking my kids. But I did. I like for Ray, I'm a huge reds fan, right. Four years, uh, I started this little bobble head racket where, you know, they're giving up the free bobbleheads at different games. And, and when they first started doing that, I would see these dudes carrying these garbage bags, like across the river, like leaving the stadium. I was like, what are those guys doing? And I came home one night and I, eBay'd like, Whoa, like I wonder if they're like on eBay and it's being sold for like $30. I was like, I immediately clicked on my little, like a entrepreneur brain. And for the next like five years, the day tickets would go on sale. The reds game. I would like buy every $5 seat I could for all the bobblehead games. And I'd call up all my friends and say, Hey, I got a free ticket with you for you. We can hang out, mark, your calendar, I just get the bobblehead. So like, yeah. And then that worked great until we all started getting married and having kids. And it's like, Eric, this nosebleed seats really not worth the two and a half hours before the game I have to be here. That's like that, you know, all of that was like, I was, um, I'm constantly looking for things like that. Where can I save money so that I can transfer it over? Like, I'm, I'm trying to, um, I want to buy assets for me, you know, uh, that has turned into more real estate, like, you know, in recent years, but I want to buy things that have the ability to grow. Because one day my milestones, I don't get a retirement as a real estate agent. Right. They don't, that's not a thing you're self employed. So I've got to figure out some other way to, um, create income for my family and my kids. So if I were to give one piece of advice on the real estate side, I know I've been talking a long time here. I tell every young man, I meet that you should buy a duplex. Like if you're getting married or even if you have roommates and you can do it figure. And for me, that was honest, that was borrowing money. Like I didn't have the money. My parents would help me buy like our first home and I'm still paying them back. Like, that's a thing, a buy a duplex is such, it's, it's such a way to get your foot in the door. The other, the person that's living on the other side is essentially paying your mortgage. And now you can either live there for as long as it makes sense. And then when you move out, you rent it out and you've got something that's giving you a couple hundred bucks every single month like that. I think that's a no brainer and, and a great thing to do when you're young, even when you're not young, like that whole idea of house hacking buying some rental real estate is such a, such a good idea that will start to build momentum for you.

Yeah. And another thing too, obviously I'm not in your, in your position, but something that we just did personally on the other side of it is to always kind of shop around the mortgage interest rate. Yeah. Cause we just refinanced to, from a, it was a 30 year loan that we were just tell you, it was 26 years left and we refinanced for a 15 year and we were more than a 1% drop in the interest rate. So we, we increased our month, our monthly mortgage payment by a little bit, but we dropped 11 years off of, the previous loan. And I did the math on that. And that was like, that was going to be a hundred thousand dollars swing over the course of 30 years. But I didn't even really know to even look for that until I got to talking with people like you to even just think through some of those things. So it's awesome. Yeah, it is. No, it's, it's just, you know, this stuff's important. This is as coaches. Cause we all, you know, with those of us, with kids, we love our kids. We want the best for them now and down the road too. So it just, there's some things now it might feel like, well, I have a fixed income as a teacher. There's the pension. Like, there's really nothing. There's no wiggle room, but there actually is some pretty cool things that, that can be done to really set you up for success.

Yeah. And you know, if you hear the pattern of what I'm saying, it's, it's kind of self-discipline with how you're spending, um, not having shame or like trying to keep up with other people, you know? Um, and, and some don't want to do that and I get it. Like a lot of people don't want to do that. I got a lot of Americans don't want to, um, you know, a lot of Americans are in debt, you know, like it's like pretty clear and they were influenced by marketing and advertising and culture. And so you kind of have to go against the grain to do this. Um, you know, the, there's another book called the millionaire next door. Uh, and it's the big idea of the book is like millionaires. When you poll them, they look nothing like what you think a millionaire looks like, the guy who's driving a fancier car and is like wearing a Rolex is usually broke. And the guy who's driving a Ford ranger, that's beat up and like living in a modest, like three bedroom, one bath ranch is like, multi-millionaire, that's like literally the stats on it too. And, and so we kind of have to, you know, part of that is just shifting your mindset and not being caught up in the, you know, in the race of culture and all that.

Yeah. It's a big one and we've even, we've even had, you know, we're still growing in it, but we, yeah. Budgeting and different things. That's probably a whole separate episode, but just planning for splurge stuff too. Like you put it in the budget for like blow money, like Katelyn and I both have a certain amount. It's not a lot, but it's like, Hey, I have, there is zero judgment. Here's your money. You can spend it on whatever the heck you want. And you're not going to hear anything back from me and vice versa. And so kind of injecting some freedom in that, to where you don't feel it, where it's only restricted. Like, Hey, we're going to go ahead and plan and not feel bad about going out on a date night to this restaurant or whatever, because we've already planned for it. And we know that it's within our, our means, so that's, that's really good.

That's so good. I mean, you know, to the, the budget we have on childcare and date night right now is so much higher than I would ever have wanted it to be like, but you've got to weigh these. You've got to weigh these things, right. This is going back to the same idea of the Sabbaths of like how much value are you getting when you are recharged like that? Well, the same thing goes, if my wife is mothering five kids and homeschooling them at home, like if I don't spend money on some, like some nanny help, uh, and, or like a date night where she can actually go get out of the house and be a human being and being an adult for, you know, like the even though for me, like as a non spender, the budget, I've had to change my mindset on that because like that, the value of that for my marriage and the value of that for her being a mother, you know, you, you've got to work that stuff into, so that blow money, you know, whatever you want to call that category. I would, yeah. While I'm saying like, yeah, save it. I'm not saying save every nickel. Like you need to make strategic investments, choices. Yeah. W with, with how you're spending so that you're building more into your marriage, you're building more into your kids. Um, you know, it all comes down kind of back to your family vision.

Yeah. It's great stuff. Well, Hey, Eric, thanks so much for bringing it. I hope it's been helpful. Uh, just on the, on the time side and on the money, sending notes, two big things that we're always kind of working with just as humans, but certainly coaches as well, just kind of the stress is, can be pretty high on those two fronts. How can people kind of check you out, you know, website, social media, different things, and just kind of learn more about you?

Yeah. Well, first I just want to say thanks for having me, Nate. I don't know if I bring any credibility to this podcast or not, but I appreciate you having me on, and I want to say thank you to all the coaches out there who are, who are busting it, and doing really good work and, and investing into the kids. I mean, um, I'm a beneficiary of that in my life and I'm really grateful and thankful for those coaches who were there for me. And so I just want to encourage you guys who are out there and girls, uh, coaching. I just want to say thank you and keep going because, um, certainly you've had an impact on, on, on my life. And I appreciate that. Yeah. You know, you can find me on different social things. My last name, I guess you'll probably have it spelled weird, but it's teamSztanyoyo.com is kind of my agent site. And then I'm also like a cash buying site, which is we buy N K Y houses.com. And then, and then, and you can find me on ticktock where Nate and I are hanging out and making funny dance videos.

that's right. Nickname from my Boone County high school days. So I brought it back. I love it. Well I've even if I wasn't, I'm not, obviously not in the market at the moment, I'm just, I've just loved reading some of your stuff. Cause you just have the heart of a teacher. So I'm just always, I'm learning one minute at a time on tick-tock and then different articles and stuff on, on your website. So I just love that. You're always trying to push helpful stuff out, uh, informational and, and, and just serving in that way. So yeah, I mean, just appreciate you as a friend, a supporter of FCA and just all the wisdom that we've, we've swapped back and forth. And gosh, I think, I think we'd go back working on seven or eight years now, but, uh, yeah, I just so appreciate you guys and looking forward to what God has for our families FCA and the coaches that'll be listening to this. Thank you.

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Well, there it is guys, our conversation with Eric, a couple of things that really stuck out to me was the fear of failure that he experienced as a student athlete that he shared. And as coaches, I think that's one of the most important things that we could try to lower is the fear of failure and creating that safe environment. And it was really cool just to hear some of the coaches that are really impacted his life along the, a couple of the tips that really stuck out to me as well was just this ongoing theme of self-discipline being intentional with your time and with your money. And that translates into so many parts of life. And I believe is really key to having just a thriving, personal family life, but also getting it done on the court or on the field as well. I'll hope you were taking some notes and have some plans to, Hey, maybe take a Sabbath, maybe take a, either a chunk of time or that whole day and try that out and see what that feels like. See if you don't come back more refreshed and more ready to go, and then maybe revisit some financial stuff too, that might relieve some of the stress that you have on a day to day basis. I know that can be a stressor for me at times, if I'm not intentional and wise about it and then share with at least one person who you think might benefit from podcasts, that would do so much to help us get the word out, to help more coaches and to support the show so we can get more content out. But until next time, keep growing, keep learning, keep changing lives on your team and in your home.