Episode 99: "Today is Sunny AF" with Special Guest Sunny Dwyer

Speaker 1: 0:00

I don't get hung up on that either, because I'm still so forward-focused and the thing that I've, last couple of years, I've really tried to take it and recognize is and I bring it back to you the people part. Like I do recognize that, I am very proud of the small group of people who we've been able to raise up as leaders into certain positions where they've been able to start building their own businesses within our organization. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Big Dog Podcast. We're excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:49

I'm really excited about this show because I have one of the greatest personalities on the planet and someone who's become a great friend over the last year and totally unexpected friend, but I'm so appreciative of her and her husband. It's just like a lot of my friends. It's funny. You get in the rooms you need of my friends. You know it's funny. You know you get in the rooms you need to be in and somehow you get connect people that you're supposed to be connected to. And that is where I found Sunny Dwyer. Welcome, sunny, how are you? I?

Speaker 2: 1:14

am awesome and very honored to be on today and, like you said, very unexpected, but I think we were put in that place for a reason.

Speaker 1: 1:21

So who connected us. Initially it was a Doug, doug Mitchell, it was Doug.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Mitchell.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Yeah. And so Doug, who is a Apex member with us sorry, my eyes were in like full on pollen right now in Virginia and so all of a sudden my eyes start itching and now they want to roll with it. But you know, so Doug sends a text saying, hey, you two should connect, and we're like all right, sure? So we, we, we did, we did a call, it was a ton of fun. And then the next time I was in town, we got together for coffee and had a ton of fun. And you had just gotten off a phone call with someone who and you're like, oh my gosh, like another photographer friend of mine, she's actually from virginia too and I said, what's her name? Like I know every photographer in the state of virginia, and no shit, I knew it was Aaron.

Speaker 2: 2:05

She's like right by you.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Yeah, yeah, I know her. Yeah, I know her, and it's, it's really funny. I'm like what are the odds of that?

Speaker 2: 2:12

I don't know. It's crazy. I believe everything happens for a reason, so clearly there was a connections that had to do that.

Speaker 1: 2:28

And I'm totally not that person who says, oh, what's their name, like I'm gonna know the photographer. It's a random ass photographer you know across the country. But hey, here we are you know we do.

Speaker 2: 2:32

So sunny, talk a little bit about about you. So first family, oh, first family. All right, so I've been married to my crime, my partner crime shane, for it'll be 20 years in october, so excited about that. And we've done photography before we were married, so we kind of met on the photography scene. I was shooting in another town and he was working with his dad as a partner, and so that's how we met and we have three amazing children between us.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Carter is 18. He graduated early in December and he's actually working for us. So to see Logan, it's so cool to me how, not in a million years he would ever have said I'm going to go back to work with you, mom and dad. He's not that cool, but he sees the entrepreneur side of it now and so he is working for us full time, which is awesome, and he's crushing it in sales world. I don't know too many 18 year olds that could do that. He's great.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Ava is our 17 year old princess and she can do no harm. She is a junior. She's an amazing girl, very big heart, lover to death, wants to be a teacher, which is going to be a tough road, so I can't stop her from that. Her heart is set on teaching people and so she's excited about that. Charlie, he's my 12 year old. He is my baseball boy and everything sports, wants to be a sports fanatic, but he's got the biggest heart. He's kind of got the best combination of Shane and I, smarts and heart. And so that is us.

Speaker 2: 3:52

And we have two dogs big booty, judy Abby I know you love that name and she is 13 and locked out of this room right now so that she doesn't interrupt me and then Drake, our newest. He'll be one year next month. He is a mutt. He's golden retriever backwards he's like what everybody doesn't want. So his mom's golden retriever and his dad's golden doodle. So he's 75% golden retriever and everyone's like why'd you do that? I'm like I don't know he was cute, like I don't. I don't think that on anything else.

Speaker 1: 4:20

So that's my fam that's fun, you know, I I forgot your daughter, same same age as mine, kiki. You know, both juniors both want to be teachers and we're kind of like the same thing, like oh, okay, and I'm like all right, and if I say anything against it, I mean she will double down on it because that's how she is. But I did tell my wife, I had an idea. I said, babe, there's several reasons I would like to point her away from education, right. But now I love teachers, I respect teachers, I have all the respect in the world for teachers. I just think the environment is not an environment I would want my daughter to have to navigate. But anyway, I told her second to that.

Speaker 1: 5:00

I also don't know that compensation-wise, my daughter and the comfortability she's accustomed to will allow for that. So I told Devin, I said you know what we do. We take a teacher's salary and we remove a rent for an apartment, moderate car payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, just your typical bill. We take that out of the salary and we just give her the net pay after those things. Right now I don't think she could live off of it and she has no responsibilities. And so her joke is you know, well, I'll just I'll. I'll get a, I'll get a rich boyfriend, and you know, or I'll come work for you part-time. I'm like what are you going to do for me part-time? She's like no, we, as your current rich boyfriend, you know it's not a plan that's going to play out kid.

Speaker 2: 5:48

So no, it's funny. Ava says the same thing we always like you're going to have to marry very wealthy if your heart is set on teaching. And I'm trying to get her to go down the road of stop, stop, pencil, like putting yourself into this. I got to be in middle school. Math is what she wants. And I'm like think bigger, Think of the entrepreneur side. You could own a private tutoring company and you get the cream of the crop. We'll do what you want to do and have others underneath you. I'm trying to get her in that, but man, it's tough. And so she's looking at A&M is her top school right now. And yeah, and I like A&M. I think A&M is great. It's more on the conservative side. She's like well, at least it's not University of Texas and that's a whole nother podcast. But yeah, so we're talking about this and keeping an open mind. I know she'll be shown the right path. I know things will work out. I just don't want her to get out of college because I'm not paying for that.

Speaker 2: 6:40

We have been very upfront. We will not. We are not spending our money on that for our children. We will help you in other ways, but you're going to need to stay out of loan. Simple as that. You want the education. You take on the debt. So you decide do you want 50,000?, Do you want 100,000, 150,000? What are you willing to spend for this education? That's just how we think, though.

Speaker 1: 6:59

It's funny with the kids when they have entrepreneurial parents and you might have a kid who's kind of wired the same way and then you have the one who isn't and you're trying to explain well, hey, you know one thing you could do, or you know you could go this angle with it, and it's it's. I have found it to be very frustrating for her and I, where I'm trying to like, cause she can't see it that way, her mind doesn't work that way whereas logan can see the alternatives and again, just a different way that he's wired and he, he has things that he wants to do and you know, for as long as he wants, as long as he can deliver, he's got a place here. But if he comes to me and says, dad, I'm gonna go do this and I've got this idea, and blah, blah, blah, oh, yep, I support that, let's. Well, let's go figure it out, or go figure it out. If I can help, let me know. But you try to have that convo with a person or a child for that matter who doesn't have that type of wiring. Yeah, you're like, well, that's not what it is. Teachers teach at the middle school math Like there's, no, there's. Who cares that people are trying to run away from public education and go private, and homeschooling numbers are higher than they've ever been. There couldn't be some software opportunities out there? There couldn't be some online programs out there? Oh no, I'm going to be in this building with these seventh graders teaching math, and it's just how they're wired. You mentioned Texas A&M.

Speaker 1: 8:15

So, kiki, she, her top choice right now is Devin and I's alma mater here in Virginia, james Madison university. That's great, except for the fact devon and i's asses are moving to texas after she graduates. So I'm trying to get her to look at some schools in texas. I'll show you all of them. We can go do whatever you want. So we had this plan and we had dates picked out. We're gonna fly out, we're gonna go see the different schools and we're gonna be all over the state and I didn't care, care, like wherever you want to look at, look at, I'm getting ready to buy the plane tickets.

Speaker 1: 8:47

I said, kirsten, babe, like, is this an absolute waste of my time? Is there any chance in hell that you go to college in Texas? And she said, dad, there is no chance in hell. I'm going to college in Texas. She goes. You asked me to have an open mind, and so I will have an open mind and that's why I said I would do it. But there's no chance in hell. I'm going to college in Texas and I was like, well, we don't need to waste our time doing all this stuff. So then her ass tries to hustle me about a week ago and we I love her she comes out and she says she sits down with Devin and I because we're taking her out to a concert in June out in Dallas.

Speaker 2: 9:26

And we're taking her and one of her little friends.

Speaker 1: 9:27

To who uh Noah Khan is? Oh good, yep, yep okay.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Logan, I do because Ava's been asking me to go so, okay, well, apparently we're going in June I think it's the 9th or 10th or something and so she comes home the other day and says hey, so guys, how about Allie takes Kylie and I to toallas for the concert and we can stay at the condo and you guys don't even have to go? And then another time, me and and you guys go, and we'll go. Look at texas a&m and university of texas. Daddy, if you want me to see smu or tcu, we can go. Do that. You one, you need to apologize for being so disrespectful, because you're gonna come in here like you're gonna hustle me, like I invented this game, like you don't.

Speaker 2: 10:07

You don't come at me with she's gonna take us to the condo. You don't even have to come, dad, this is a win for you.

Speaker 1: 10:14

Yeah, all of a sudden it goes from dad you want to go to a concert to, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, and I knew I was getting played from the jump, but I was gonna take it because I was gonna get time with my daughter. No, then it's ali's fine, she's an adult, she can go with. I'm like I don't even know who this person is. And now I do know who the person is, but it just was so funny because she was legit trying to hustle the hell out of me about this thing.

Speaker 1: 10:36

I'm like child no if your friend wants to go to the concert, she can come on too, and well, you guys go to the concert I I don't have to go. But I'm not sending you all to Dallas for the weekend without me.

Speaker 2: 10:48

You could find Aunt Sunny. I could hook you up, we could do that. But then she'd be like wait who's Sunny?

Speaker 1: 10:54

Yeah, she'd love you. She'd love you. As long as it's not me, everything else is fine. Maybe we play this college thing with that, because you it's like maybe we play this college team thing with that because you'd be like look, there's a lot of concerts in dallas, just saying there's a lot of concerts, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of things that I thought she would like, but I think I like it too much that she just has to be anti oh, so she's got you gotta.

Speaker 2: 11:17

You gotta make it her idea. We gotta work on this yeah, it's been a project.

Speaker 1: 11:21

so talk to me about how, speaking of of Dallas, you guys were Nebraska, right, yeah, and that's born and raised.

Speaker 2: 11:28

Go Big Red, born and raised.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Go Big Red and COVID timeframe. You guys are like hey, let's move to Texas.

Speaker 2: 11:36

It was the best and worst decision of our life. Yeah, we knew one person in the whole state, shane's brother. He had moved here. He's been here now over 10 years and we kept coming down because in Nebraska we were one of the bigger studios, but we were still you could only be so big in Nebraska and we had three kids to support and we didn't have a ton of money at all. And so when we went on vacations with three kids it was like, all right, what's the cheapest spot we can go to? And Dallas kept coming up and so we would just come down for the long weekend, stay at his brother's house. We had a great time and we fell in love with Dallas. That's how we came to love Dallas. And we kept joking every time man, we're just going to move here. And it was a joke and a joke and a joke. And finally we came down in December 19 and we said we were driving home.

Speaker 2: 12:21

And again, I think everything happens for a reason. I was on my phone and I seen commercial property and I was like, wow, this building looks like a studio. We wouldn't have to put a lot of money into it. I mean, we couldn't afford a hundred thousand dollar build out. And so we drove home, got back shot the next day of a full day of sessions, we turned right back around, came down, looked at the building and put an offer in, not even knowing. This is like a good spot of Texas. I had no idea what Frisco was Like what and bought it, moved our entire family. It was about 90 days later, cause it was, it was just this last week that was our anniversary for moving four years ago. So yeah, and then Texas shut down the day we moved here for COVID.

Speaker 1: 13:02

So wild Winning that is so wild. You're like, yes, this is awesome, let's leave our entire book of business. Yeah Bye, move south, buy a building and shut it down, it'll work out.

Speaker 2: 13:16

We had no plan B. I'll tell you that much, because we sold the snowblower, we weren't moving back north.

Speaker 1: 13:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:21

And we just we had got. The thing was we had a marketing plan in place that was that was working, and we had the studio ready to go, but then covid didn't even allow us to open. We couldn't even be open yeah, we weren't an essential business, all that jazz.

Speaker 2: 13:36

And so we had three months of no, no work. And I don't know about you, but being an entrepreneur not being able to do anything for three months, you just just want to chew your nails out. Yeah, that is. And we were freaking out a little bit on the whole money side but, as it turned out, after that we opened up, we had our best year ever. We continued to grow. Last year was kind of a steady year for us and we're up this year already. I'm so excited for it.

Speaker 2: 14:03

So turns out just going all in. You have no other option. You know, shane's dad always says nothing will ensure survival, like the hunger of your children. You're going to find a way to make it work. And we not only moved here and did that. We actually were partners with Shane's dad before we had moved and we bought out each other because we wanted to grow and do different things, and we had one month of savings to do that as well. And we just hit the ground running like all right, what do we got to do to make this work? You know, I'm not afraid to go get a second job if I have to to to support the kids and and I'm still not ever that big Like I will never be the person that's like I'm never going to do anything else in life. This will be the way you know if something presents itself or something goes downhill, I'm the first to be, like all right paper route. What do I got to do? What do I got to do to support my family?

Speaker 1: 14:52

Well, yeah, and because the kids I mean they're along for the ride, right, like they don't really get a say in the matter. There might be, hey of the day, mom and dad make a decision, mom and dad make a decision, and whether that plays out good or bad, the kids still don't have any say in that. And so we got to make sure the lights are on, there's food on the table and all those things. And the things that you have to do, the numbers you have to crunch the nights you don't sleep the stuff that you have to go through. Hopefully they never really know, and it's until it's appropriate. And then, because there's a lot of life lessons and stuff to learn there.

Speaker 1: 15:25

But no, that's awesome. I love that. You guys kind of went all in and just toss it all and like, hey, you know, we got this successful business here, but we'd rather be, and so let's go do it again, right, and I thought that was pretty cool from the first time that I spoke to you. Now, another thing I really like about you guys is talk about what y'all specialty is your studio.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Ah yeah. So that was something that I really wanted to fine tune and hone in on, because when you start in any business, I think really you do as much as you can, you're like you're in, you dive into all these areas, and so we did. We did weddings, sports, seniors, families, children, the whole nine yards, bunny rabbits at Easter time you know whatever it was. And when we were moving here, shane and I were really trying to fine tune what we loved, what our passion really was, what we knew we could do better than anyone else. And so those two things are.

Speaker 2: 16:14

And the main one really and I just had a conversation with my manager this morning, they're still booking like three to one is pets, and we're finding that a lot of studios don't even allow dogs or cats or anything like that to come in their studio, which I get. Pets are not always like your own pet. They don't take care of everything and they pee and poop and do all that stuff. So we specialize in pet fine art.

Speaker 2: 16:37

Very simplified, we don't do you know all the crazy backgrounds and all this jazz. It is a very simple focus on the eyes, especially with darker dogs, just focusing on the, the, the emotion from that pet that you can just see to their soul. That's what we wanted and so that's what we focus on. And then we also photograph families in black and white in studio. So we do two things and two things only, and and I love that because I can really just hone in on it and people love that we allow pets in our studio, that they may have their style, but they will do whatever, and we have some good friends who are really talented photographers and their post editing style is extremely unique.

Speaker 1: 17:35

And I don't hire them to do a lot of our stuff, but certain things I know it can only be them, because I don't know 100% what it's going to come out like, but I know it's going to be incredible. So I need something a little over the top, something a little more artsy, something a little more fun. I'm bringing them in If I need something more straight laced while they can do that stuff. I don't hire them to do that stuff because it's just not. It's not like who they are Right. So what made you go to? Like we're going black and white and we're going pets and that's it.

Speaker 2: 18:06

Ooh, okay. So families, it was easy. Every and I say this with the most grace, but every photographer that starts does outdoor photography, so they're always outside natural light. It's easy, it's free. And we went a step further in Nebraska and we were doing studio, which not a lot of people could do. So we went a step further in Nebraska and we were doing studio, which not a lot of people could do, so that set us apart. But then to take it one step further and go to black and white for family, we did that because I'm feeling more and more as I go through life that it's not about this, it's about this, it's about the relationship and the handholding and the connection between families, and it doesn't matter what the hell's going on. Can I swear, by the way, I should-.

Speaker 1: 18:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Say whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 18:49

It really doesn't matter what is going on in the world, but what's important to me is to see my baby girl's eyes, to see my son holding my hand, to see the connection and how close they look between my husband and my son. All those connections get lost when you're dealing with nature and everything else behind you. But when you simplify that down and just say I just want to see the eyes and I want to light those, then you could really start to see the connections between families. So we said we're going to do that. And again, that's not for everybody. Like you said, there are people that are like wait, can I have it in color? And I'm like no, if you want color, there's 9 billion photographers out there that'll do it in color. I want you to look on your wall and not see anything but the eyes and the expression. That's what your focus should be on when you're looking at a family portrait.

Speaker 2: 19:35

In my opinion, that's just what we do. Sure, yeah, so that's Now with pets. It's very similar. Again, a lot of. There's always a when people call this is big in weddings. I just want candid portraits. I don't want anything posed, I just want to be like frolicking through the fields and I'm like that's great, do you know how to do that? And they're like, well, that's what you're for. I'm like I can't make you be candid.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Right, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 20:01

That's a very hard thing to do and not very many people can just make it look good. While you're photographing it you might be laughing, but every mom's going to be like I don't like that. You know what?

Speaker 2: 20:11

I'm talking about? I know exactly what you're talking about Big giggles and you're like, well, that looks like crap on videos or on film, and so that was always very hard. And so with pets, you see, I love I actually love the pet portraits where they catch them or like eating food. I think that's freaking cool as hell, but that's just a funny factor when I'm looking on the wall with my dog. I don't want it to be about everything else. I want a simple background that doesn't compete, and I want it to be just showcasing my dog's fur, the different hues. You know Abby's got the, the, the she's very white now and I want that to come across. Yeah, I don't want to. You know what I mean, so I. So for us, we went to a very simplified portrait to showcase the details of the pet the eyes, the tongue like she has a black spot on her tongue, I wanted that to come out. Her little whisker, you know all that stuff so have you found since you went from?

Speaker 1: 21:03

I don't have a better word for it. So I'll say generalist from a photography standpoint, to hey, we're going to do these pet portraits and we're going to do this black and white in studio portraits fine art. You started to grow, or started to grow with the right type of clients, the people you want to deal with, versus the everybody else's.

Speaker 2: 21:32

That is a tough question. So I think we are seeing a shift and there are people that ask questions because some people don't. They will for some reason. They'll get on, they'll fill out a form. Maybe they found us on Facebook and then they still ask the questions and they're like wait what? It's only in black and white. If I do a family session, then we have to explain it to them and we're like look on our website. I want you to be comfortable with our style before you see it, but I would say there's been very rarely does somebody come in and go whoa, I didn't know it was only going to be like this. I prefer this. They just don't book. They like the difference. I think more so I.

Speaker 2: 22:03

People love that we are allowing a pet to come into a studio to give something that they aren't seeing already. They aren't. They aren't wanting from us the run through the field dog portrait, which is really cool If you've got the dogs that love to do that and you catch it and it's you know. But that's. They come into us because our team explains to them. We want this to be about the details and the relationship between you and your pet and we don't want any distractions. We don't want squirrels, squirrels, so literally.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah, Now you get the picture of the ass into that dog, tear it off after the squirrel.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Exactly You're like well, that sounds like them. So I don't. I feel like we are growing in. So I don't, I feel like we are growing in. If we were in Nebraska doing this, I don't know if we would have the crowd to support us, because there's just not as much population, which stinks. I wish we could still be there in some ways, but I think that a lot of people are starting to notice this now. We've only been in town four years. I bet it takes another 10 to 15 years before us to be a household name because it's just so big. So I would like to think that growing and continuing to go on people are like if you want black and white for your family, this is where you go. If you want simple, fine art of your pet, this is where you go. Yeah, that's what I want.

Speaker 1: 23:17

That's cool. I love that. And that clarity is good too, because when you don't have that clarity as an entrepreneur, you can waste a lot of time chasing different things and you know, and to try well, that didn't work. Well, it didn't work, what? It didn't work for three days, it didn't work for a week, it didn't work for six months, what, what didn't work.

Speaker 1: 23:35

And a lot of times I at least I know with me. If I try something or I take myself down a path and I know it's something I really don't want to do and I have no interest in, I will self-sabotage the hell out of that thing. Well, that didn't work. And now the thing is, I could have made it work Right, but I didn't want to. And maybe it was a team collaboration, maybe it was whatever, but at the end of the day, if I'm not excited about it and passionate about it and able to convey the value behind it, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. And so, you know, entrepreneurs spend so much time chasing the next big thing or the next shiny object product to pull into their business.

Speaker 2: 24:21

Photographers are bad at that.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Right Now we're doing drones, now we're doing video, now we're doing all these things and I'm like, okay, you can offer all those things. Are you exceptional at all those things? Because at my wedding, if I'm going to have a photographer for a wedding, I want the best one that I can afford who has a style that I enjoy. If I'm gonna have a videographer, devon and I got married a long time ago. We were dirt poor, we, I think someone held like a little like hand, hand cam or whatever they used to call them. You don't talk about in my closet yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1: 24:55

you know exactly what I'm talking about and you know. Know, that's how we recorded. The wedding Photographer was dirt cheap and we got our pictures from our wedding and we do have a lovely tacky album that has all of our pictures in there, but the best pictures that we have. We put disposable cameras on everybody's tables.

Speaker 2: 25:17

Yep and they took pictures.

Speaker 1: 25:18

And then we went and took like a hundred of these things to the, the photo store, and got them developed and developed. People don't even know what I'm talking about right now oh yeah, and you got like five.

Speaker 2: 25:28

You're like, okay, well, out of that group of 25, didn't they have like 25 shots, or yeah, they were like 25 shots.

Speaker 1: 25:33

You might get five or six that were good, but these people were wasted at our wedding man, they got screwed up and there was an open. We got married two weeks after I graduated from college, so a lot of our invite lists were like all of our college friends and it was supposed to be a cash bar. Cash bar man. I thought people brought a lot of money to my wedding to celebrate us because people, there was just plates on top of bottles, all the tables are covered in bottles. Well, someone's like Josh, let me buy you a beer. I'm like, all right. Well, I go over there and I noticed there was no money transacted. I said, hey, man, you got to pay the bartender. He's like no, that's the funny part, I'm buying you a beer, but it's a cash or a open bar. And I'm like what we? We're like. Two hours in and I find out and it became a whole thing and it ended up working out fine. But oh yeah, they were going hard at our wedding.

Speaker 1: 26:21

So these pictures were total dog shit. I mean, they were horrible, but some of them were just hysterical and so fun when we look back on it. But the point I was trying to make before I started thinking about that silliness was, you know, now they're doing drones. They're doing video. They're doing now they're doing drones. They're doing video. They're doing weddings. They're doing commercials for, for businesses. They're doing all this stuff.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Is any of it exceptional? Is any of it where, like, your passion is really behind and like what happened, if you were doing the part you were passionate about, yeah, I feel like you'd sell a lot more of it. It would reflect in your work and cause. We've had God, we we've had ideas of spinning off so many things over the years and everything always took a backseat to the training of the dogs, because that was our main thing and it was also what we were most passionate about, and so if we tried to do something too soon, it would never really take off enough, and for me, we could have forced it, but we didn't have the right support, we didn't have the right leadership in place on the training side for me to take energy and go towards boarding and daycare.

Speaker 1: 27:27

Or you know, we we started a media company last year, you know, and some other stuff that we're doing, or like the coaching program and stuff like we couldn't have done any of that if we hadn't got the right people in place. Yeah, to create margin for me to step aside a little bit from the training thing and not sacrifice the quality, our reputation and what we're known for because everyone's like. I want sunny to take these pictures. You know pictures. I want Josh to train my dog.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Yeah, that was the biggest hurdle. That was one of the big reasons why you moved. And I think that's the biggest thing. People bite off so much and they never do anything really good. And then every area suffers and you're like, why is everything going down? This one, I thought, was great when in reality, you didn't have SOPs in place, you didn't have the right people there to run that so that you could grow. You're exactly right. I mean, we've talked about other things before. We've talked about expanding. I still want to expand, but I will not expand until I have this so concrete, solid here that we're good. And if that means we only we'd never opened number two, that means we never opened number two. But I don't want to jeopardize my life and and and we tell people like this is our bread and butter, like this is a girl that brought you to the dance.

Speaker 2: 28:43

You can't forget about her because, otherwise you're screwed and I don't have other forms of retirement, just chilling waiting for me Like oh, we're good. This is just a hobby.

Speaker 1: 28:59

Well, I would tell anybody who's and you and I talked about this that when we sat down for coffee that day, because you talked about wanting to expand and maybe go to another city and and stuff like that and I think I told you this when we talked before because I I scaled very quickly and I don't mean that like, oh, I'm just the man and I scaled quickly.

Speaker 1: 29:13

No, I was too damn stupid to realize I shouldn't and and so I did. It was such a nightmare and because I didn't have the right people and I expected people to care as much as me and all of those things and I wasn't equipping them to care as much as me, I wasn't compensating them to care as much as me. I was so weak as a leader back then to think that I could do that was really asinine. The fact that we still have those places today is really a miracle and dude probably just sure will of me not quitting and refusing to ever quit. But now I look at it and I look at over the last couple of years. We have incredible people leading these things, several which you've met, got to spend some time with through apex and stuff we have a great team gosh, I am very.

Speaker 2: 30:05

I wish I had that. We're still working on that and we're getting closer, but, like you said, you have a great team in place.

Speaker 1: 30:10

Man, I can't even imagine well, you know, I'm like finally, like I got some people I deserve man, because I wasted a lot of time on a bunch of duds for a long, long time and but again, that's a reflection of what I was willing to accept as a leader Right, and I was probably only willing to accept lesser leaders because I myself was a lesser leader.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Oh, I think that is a nail on the head there, and I still think that I struggle with that all the time. I tell Shane I don't feel like I'm a good enough leader, shane, I don't think I'm doing good enough for him. I don't think I'm being that person. He's like you do more than you think you do, but you're comparing yourself to people in Apex, and that's what I do. So I'm like I look at you. I'm like, wow, look at what he is accomplishing and look what he's doing. And then I look at other people that are in different industries, but they're still growing, and I'm like I'm not doing enough, I'm not giving enough to my people. But then I step back and realize, okay, I'm not as big as some of these, I can't offer the salaries quite yet, I can't offer all of that yet, but I still feel like I'm not as good and maybe that'll never go away. Hopefully it doesn't, because then I won't ever strive to be better. Well, yeah, you want to strive and grow.

Speaker 1: 31:19

That's who you are right like. It's you. The big, huge lesson for me that that I I was just talking to my mother about this last night. Well, we, every sunday we do sunday supper. My mom, my grandmother comes over. Sometimes friends will join us or whatever, and last night we happened to go over to some really good friends of ours house and we all went and so we're all pretty tight and we're having dinner and some people are outside, my mom and I are inside, we're talking and I said I got to get better about oh, I said Kiki's curse and I hope she learns to manage it better than I have in my life.

Speaker 1: 31:54

I never see the moment right Like. We will hit milestones, we will achieve objectives, we will crush goals, and I am so far ahead already onto what's coming next, where I think the direction we're going. I do not get distracted at all or entertained at all or really any pleasure from accomplishments. Now, the flip side of that is when I fuck up and we have a failure or we get our ass handed to us, I can extract a lesson really quickly and move on. I don't get hung up on that either because I'm I'm still so forward focused. And the thing that I've the last couple of years I've really tried to take it and recognize is and I bring it back to the people part Like I do recognize and I am very proud of the small group of people who we've been able to raise up as leaders into certain positions where they've been able to start building their own businesses within our organization Right and grow and develop. I am so proud of that, I'm so proud of that and I recognize that achievement because I see it, I recognize how difficult it is to do what they've done and that's the part where I can celebrate and pay attention. But I think I'm only able to celebrate that because they're the handful of people I still deal with directly. So my leadership lesson for me that I learned was I can't deal with everybody. If I do, I'm terrible, I get frustrated, I don't lead or coach well.

Speaker 1: 33:26

And Katie Yergin, who you know she worked real hard. She's like okay, look, let me take this off of you. These are now my people, I talk to these, but you just talk to me, right, and I will handle them. And so now I've got my head trainers who I deal with, who run my locations, I've got my executive team who I deal with, and I've got my executive assistant. Everybody else I don't talk to, I don't interview, I don't hire, I don't know if they know me, you know I. I mean they know me, but like I can't, I don't have the bandwidth to pour into them. But if I can take everything I got and pour into my top people, they can trickle that down.

Speaker 1: 34:07

And that was the part I was not good at when I first started scaling. I was just plugging whoever in place that wanted a job and I'm like I can motivate them to care as much as me and get them going. And so, as you do have this thought process of scaling right, it's like who's coming up with you right now? That is that growth mindset. Is that, hey, whatever day it is, whatever time of day, you know, sonny, you know I got your back, I can step in.

Speaker 1: 34:35

Who's that person that your team organically goes to, whether title or not? Who's that person that your team organically goes to, whether title or not? Who's that person that your team organically goes to for advice care? Hey, I screwed this up. What would you have done different? Cause we all have those people on our teams and now you're starting to identify who those leaders are. It's not the loudest, it's not the most outspoken, it's the most visible person. A lot of times like who, organically, does the team trust, who do they go to? And if you have that person from within now you can start to build with them right, and we've we've sent a lot of people out from virginia to lead our texas, to lead wisconsin, to lead detroit. You know different places across the country, but they've all come up from within and so we know them, they know culture and they just get poured into from us. But I'm able to pour real heavy on them because I'm not pouring into everybody.

Speaker 2: 35:28

Everybody, yeah. And that's where we're just getting to that point where Jamie's been with us for 10 years and she really does a lot and I. It sounds silly, but I see it in Carter. He is, he is the. He's very good at not letting the emotion part get to him because he's a numbers guy like Shane, but he sees the bigger picture and he's like I need, we need this and this and we need to move towards this area. And he's like it's okay, mom, we had a down week, but we're still up on the month, so we can have a bad week as long as we catch back. Like he sees that. And so a part of me is kind of being selfish, like I don't I want him to stay with us for life, but I know that that will probably not happen unless we can continue to pour into him enough, Cause he's.

Speaker 2: 36:12

He's the type of person. I don't know about Logan, but you got to continually give him something that he can chew on. He's got to be going, because otherwise he'll be bored, He'll get content and then he's going to lose the bigger picture. But if he sees he's money-driven, which isn't it Well, you got to be a little money-driven, Otherwise what else are you doing it for?

Speaker 1: 36:31

Well, for sure, because money, you can say what you want about it, but like, well, it's about my family. I'm like, well, do you like to feed your family? Does your family like to read with lights on? Ooh, that warm water sure felt nice, didn't it this morning? Like, that takes money Until they come up with a different way to pay for this shit.

Speaker 1: 36:49

Money solves a lot of the headaches, and so there's a lot of people who used to work for us over the years and you know their big insult towards me. Shit on Josh is, all he cares about is the numbers, the money. It's just the money side of it. Like, well, I mean, it's pretty damn important. I mean, this is how I take care of my family, this is how I take care of your family.

Speaker 1: 37:10

Actually, you know these people who want to say these things I can stop caring about the money. Sure, stop caring about the money. Sure, I'll stop caring about the money and you won't have a job, right? So, yes, do I care about the money? Yeah, do I care about the money more than the dogs? No, because I know, if we don't care about the dogs and do right by the dogs and do right by the clients. The money doesn't come like what the hell you know, and so it's just people's mindsets and the shifts and like you're talking about with carter. The thing that's really cool and like what I've noticed with logan in one of the main things I'm so excited about logan being a part of what we're doing is carter sees stuff from such a different vantage point than you guys yes, we just went over this two weeks ago yeah, and that's not a bad thing at all no, I'm super excited for it, because he comes back and we're like I didn't even realize that and he's like, yeah, this, it has changed us already.

Speaker 2: 38:01

in the last he's only been with us three months.

Speaker 1: 38:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:04

And it has changed our world of thinking already. Just because of those little things, like you said, like you, just you gaze over it every day and you don't even realize that there's an issue or maybe a new perspective, or from his world or making it all these things are coming into play. Now we're like wow, my biggest thing is I've had to stop.

Speaker 1: 38:24

Like he has a lot of why questions. He's like okay, and I operate from the standpoint of like dude, just you know, like you don't know this. Well, no, dad, I'm freaking 19 years old, I just started working for you. I don't know jack shit about this or really any other real life type stuff you're supposed to teach me, right, and he doesn't raise his voice and you're yelling at me, but I'm the one who asked me why and I'm like bro cuz huh, you know I'll be like, just do.

Speaker 2: 38:55

He's like why, why does it work like that? I'm like well, how do you not know? It works, like like it, just it just works right it's like I want to know why and I'm like, okay, take a step back, sunny. Like clearly he wants it's crazy the, the similarities, and again, he would have never jumped into this yeah I don't think at all pop on here. It's crazy to me. I love it it is.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Is your father getting better at explaining um things in the last couple months since you joined? The laugh says it all, never mind yes, I'm out yes, and god.

Speaker 2: 39:31

Well, I appreciate that recording ourselves when we talk to carter, because when he comes home, you know, like I don't have the big cheerleader right now because he's in sales in the studio, and so I'm always like you know, go crush it today, bud You're.

Speaker 2: 39:41

You know all the right people are coming in today and and they're there for a reason, and you know that this could be the last portrait they ever have of their pet and you need to make that special for them. And he sometimes I don't, I know he hears, hears it, but I don't know if it sinks in, and so I'm continuing to tell him that he's probably like mom, I get it, like this is, but he kind of takes that emotion out of it sometimes and I'm like you got to know this is emotional, this is an emotional purchase. Yeah, 100% of our clients are emotional this. You don't need a portrait. No one needs a portrait. It's very emotionally based and he has to remember that when he's dealing with people that even if they're fat, shit, crazy which there's good stories on that you have to give them. You have to be emotional.

Speaker 1: 40:24

Yeah, you know, what's so fun is, like one of the things that was very unexpected to me with having a child come work for me is that I love the part the podcast wasn't necessarily the plan of him, like helping with it and stuff, and when it's just me in the studio we'll go back and forth and talk about things and different stuff on the show. But the education he's getting from just some of the stuff you said today, right, and other people that we've had on, like it's just real life education and in spades he's learning so much more about real life, just real life, and how to be a human and a good human being and learning from people. I love this side of it. But one thing I've done with Logan and I would highly recommend considering with Carter is that I try to include, I'll try to invite Logan to a handful of meetings every week that have nothing to do with what he's doing, just to expose them to different parts of it.

Speaker 1: 41:21

And so if, if we're you know, maybe it's banking, maybe it's accounting, maybe it's, you know, sales, maybe it's market, who cares? Like my coaching calls sometimes, unless they have stuff that they need to talk about, know, I'll ask and if it's fine, I'll bring them in. But I try to involve him in a lot of stuff because the hope is my hope is that he wants to work with me right, not for me, but with me for a long time. Like there'd be no greater honor for me than if my son, if we build something, my son decides he wants to be a part of no pressure.

Speaker 1: 41:58

Logan no pressure logan no pressure, but at the same time I want him to be exposed to so much stuff because he already knows well. I'd have no greater honor and really I guess I would have a greater honor the greatest honor would know that my son is choosing to do exactly what he wants to do and that he knows mom and I would support that Right and that to me.

Speaker 2: 42:18

Him knowing that and I think he does know that Cause you don't want them to come in and be like I'm doing this for my dad, but it's not my passion.

Speaker 1: 42:25

Like you, you still want them to genuinely be happy about it.

Speaker 2: 42:28

And that's where we are with Carter too. And when you say, bring them into different things, it's so funny. You should say that we are so much alike. I say that we are so much alike. I love finding couples that that share the same things, and I think I've never I did not have that till I moved to Dallas, until I joined Apex and really got out of just the photography world. I didn't realize that there were other people that had families that did this. I know it's crazy, but you just threw in their bubble, so weird.

Speaker 2: 42:53

Other families do this, but Shane and I. Shane will do that. He will have, we have investments with some people and he will be like Carter, I want you to sit in on this call or tax prep.

Speaker 2: 43:04

I want you to sit in on taxing. I want you to listen to my accountant and how they're talking about things. And it's, in my opinion, because he told us he's not going to college. It's just not his life. He doesn't want it, he's he's. That's not the person he is and we said that's fine. What are you going to do? What do you want to go do? Do you want to? You know, and he's, he is learning his life lessons. He is learning life and how to do business with us and I would rather invest in you know he's going to. I'm going to send him to a student and minor and let him sit in for that. Two day sales.

Speaker 2: 43:36

So that he can bring value to our team Because I can only do one day. I was like, well, I can get him there both days, so I'm going to send him there, but I'm sending him in with expectations. I need five things I can bring back to my communication team for bookings. I need five things you can do in studio for sales. That is your mission and we're doing these things for him and I'm spending a thousand bucks on it, but that is nothing compared to what he would have spent in college and the lessons in the rooms that he's going to be in priceless, priceless.

Speaker 1: 44:03

So that's such a great point. Yeah, such a great. That's what we're doing talk to talk to the listeners about sunny af this is my passion don't tell them about this, because this is one of my favorite things about you and I love a lot of things about you.

Speaker 2: 44:21

I just think you're great and but, but talk to people the mission behind this sunny as fuck it's sunny as fuck, okay, so sunny af came about about a year ago and I was sitting with, do you know, bijal yes okay.

Speaker 2: 44:37

So we were at an event and I was explaining to her what I wanted to do and I was like here's the deal. You know delilah, which you probably remember, delilah, like she's the talk show radio at night. You know she's like love someone tonight, kind of deal with all this calm voice, delilah, she's still on, by the way.

Speaker 1: 44:55

Is she no idea?

Speaker 2: 44:56

Yes, wow, I was like holy shit Delilah's on the radio. So in my mind, I always wanted to be the person who gave you good news during the day. I'm tired of the politics I mean we're talking. This has been like 10 years ago. I was like I'm tired of the BS. I'm tired of news just preying on bad things to make people talk about drama and get them all scared and all this bullshit. Right, and I said I just want to make people happy, it's all I want to do.

Speaker 2: 45:23

So I have a video and it's going to come up in sunny AF at some point, where I'm in my winter coat and I told Ava I'm going to make these signs and we're going to go stand on the road and they're just going to say you are beautiful, make it a wonderful day or have an amazing day. And I stood on the side of the road and I would just hold this sign up and it was freezing. It was cold as fuck in Nebraska at that time and as many honks as I would get, it would just give me this. I think it's endorphins, I don't know. It just made me feel good and I was like God, if I can do this all day. I would just make people feel good all day long. I just want to talk about how amazing they are and do this.

Speaker 2: 45:59

And so when I said that to Bijal, I said but the problem is I swear, so I can never be on the radio. Plus, radio doesn't pay worth shit, and I'm not going to do that. So I still got to make money. Right, it comes down to like I still got to pay for my family, but I've always wanted to have that avenue that I did on my own. You know, my husband and I do the studio together and that's us. But I want to be, I want to bring something to the table for us and how it's better.

Speaker 2: 46:22

Can I do this for not only myself, but to show my kids that when you're helping other people, that's so fucking awesome you. It just makes you feel better. And so Sunny AF, can she's like well, so you're sunny as fuck and I'm like yes, I am, I am I'm not going to hide it anymore that I swear. I think you can be a person who swears and not be a bad person. And my kids know this because they don't swear, but they know I swear and they know when it's appropriate and when it's not. And so that came about. And so then I started speaking with some people on YouTube. You know I'm working with Owen and I was like I want to be the person who can do everyday things. I have a lot of mom experience. I have a lot of entrepreneur experience. I have a lot of married experience. Let's be honest, you and I are, like in the top 1% of people still married and those that crush it, just crush it.

Speaker 2: 47:16

We win in all facets. I'm like dude I know a lot. I know I know I don't know shit about fuck, but I do know some things about some things. So I wanted to be that person and so I am now creating videos for people to make them laugh while learning experiences or just talking them through life experiences. Whether it's mom, entrepreneur, marriage, I want to appeal to everyone. I don't want to be like so niche in that. I just want to make people fucking smile and have a good time and forget about all the stupid bullshit that's happening in the world, because I'm telling you there are so many people that get fixated on that. My dad and my brother are that. Sorry, dad and bro, but they do. They get so fixated on the world's coming to an end and if this doesn't happen, we're all fucked and that's all their mind thinks about.

Speaker 2: 48:04

And I think laughter is the best medicine. I will be the dumb ass for you. I will be the dumb ass for you. I will look like a total idiot. I don't care. I think that's why our marriage works better. Sometimes, like yesterday, I jumped on top of Shane in the wine room and Charlie was sitting next to us. I go, you think I'm weird. Right, he's like yep, and I'm like, so I don't give a shit Like I want them to do us a healthy marriage, a healthy relationship with you know our, our views on Christianity, all that is very important to me, but I still think you just need to have fun and swear a little bit. Fuck the world.

Speaker 1: 48:35

Hey, I agree, I can't you know I yeah, I mean I agree with you and I think it's great.

Speaker 1: 48:40

And I think that I mean when you walk in a room, I mean just the whole vibe and dynamic changes because literally when you walk in a room, it's just bringing like joyfulness, right, and it doesn't mean like every day is just like you know, perfect and all those things. It doesn't mean you're not having stressors and challenges at work and with the business and stuff like that. I just appreciate how, when I'm around you, when I've seen you and able to spend time with you, you very much are able to be in the moments and elevate and bring that happiness to situations, To bring happiness to someone who really may not be having a great time right now. And even if you're not having a great time right now, you're going to bring a smile, a lightness, a lightheartedness to a situation that's going to help people, help someone deal with something. And I just I just think that's amazing. When I had coffee with with sunny last year um, we're coming up on a year now, I guess. Since that, it probably was march last year.

Speaker 2: 49:48

Yeah, and you were just like 10 minutes from my house. I was like I've never even been here. I didn't even know there was a coffee shop here. That's what happens in Dallas. You could be in some new spot every day, and never Every day. You never even know it.

Speaker 1: 49:58

She told me about an app for couples called Ask Bay. Right, and I downloaded it while we were at coffee and what it does is it sends a prompt to you and your partner daily with questions and you can do more than one question. We did two questions for a while. I was like man, we need to go back to one. But you know you can also do like an explicit version, which is pretty fun. Ignore that.

Speaker 2: 50:23

I haven't done that yet. Did you do it?

Speaker 1: 50:25

That's pretty fun. Yeah, you got to turn that one on. That's a fun. Yeah, you got to turn that one on, that's a good time. But I'm on like 345 days of answering questions on this thing and so, yeah, we really love it. Ask Bay A-S-K-B-A-E is the app. Guys, you should check it out. And it forces you to take a moment, regardless of what's going on in your crazy busy day. It pushes you to take a moment and just think about your partner and it'll. It'll prompt memories, it'll prompt conversation. Um, it's, I'm a go-go areas that you're know.

Speaker 2: 51:09

I mean you've been married 20 years right.

Speaker 1: 51:10

It's 20 years, right, yeah, 20. This will be 22.

Speaker 2: 51:14

Damn it. Okay, you got me, that's okay. You're a little older than me, but that's okay. Okay, so I find still after 20 years, that there are some things you want to tell your spouse but you don't know how to tell them without being a total bitch. Or like you know, like I want more of this. Like why do you always do this? It fucking pisses me off. And some of the questions allow you to just be open and honest and say that. And then you're like and it happened just last week he's like I had no idea that you really wanted more of that. That makes you happy and I'm like, yeah, it's like really simple, but I really love it and I don't want to question was.

Speaker 2: 51:56

It was like what is one way that I can make you feel special every day that I might not even know I do, and I'm like perfect, this is the opportunity for me to tell him X, y and Z, and that's what I love about it. And I think maybe you don't have that, but I do and and I'm like how is it that I've been with you 20 years and there's still some things I and I don't want to say, I'm scared to say, but you just don't know how to say them right?

Speaker 1: 52:13

and well, yeah, I think for me a lot of times like it with devin, you know, and more so me than devin, I could say whatever to her.

Speaker 1: 52:21

But, man, if she misworded something because I'm just a very sensitive person, right, like I'd be like 20 years and you didn't, I didn't know, like I would immediately go into like this guilt thing and I don't have that feeling with a lot of people, but with Devin, because I truly do want to be my best for her and, you know, make sure she is happy and fulfilled and that she's loved and supported and all those things in every way possible. And to find out I was lacking in something would, would really upset me. But at the same time, too, I would then look to try to fix it and you know, and then we wouldn't have to anymore. But but that app has led to some of the funniest conversations for us and I just really really appreciate it. I mean, it's probably one of it's, it's top five in the last five years. It was a top five, most impactful thing that I have implemented into my life and it's so great it's just a stupid, silly little app, but it's an awesome thing.

Speaker 1: 53:18

It is such a cool thing and I just I don't know. I mean I personally a couple things. One, I can't wait to hang out with you guys again. You guys are a ton of fun um. Two, I look, really look forward to you and devin getting to know each other more when we make the move out there, because you guys will get along freaking great. Um. Three, couples retreat has moved to later in the year. It's not happening in april, so I'll send you info. Um, too many people had conflicts and too many people that really wanted to go had conflicts, and so I just decided to reschedule it to later in the year.

Speaker 2: 53:54

So don't do September please.

Speaker 1: 53:56

No, it's not September. It's not September.

Speaker 2: 53:57

Cause we're going to Europe for our 20. Gotcha, that's a great making that happen. I don't know how, but I'm making it happen.

Speaker 1: 54:05

It'll be fun. No, I'm thinking it'll probably be like November, early December timeframe, so, but I'll send details to you. But, sonny, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come on here and talk to everybody um share you and your personality, and you know what I have no idea if your listeners are gonna like me or not, so there might not be any views. They'll be like wow, you put a chick on like I can assure you my grandmother will think you're a trip and she always watches.

Speaker 2: 54:31

I always get my grandma for spraying so much. I am so jealous of your sunday night dinners. I'm telling you that is that is that's like a life goal for me, to make sure my kids stay close and we try to have dinners as much as we can. There's so many statistics about having dinners with your children yeah that I absolutely love, but the family dinner later on, that's the one thing I do miss, because I don't have any family here really, and we do get together with the one brother.

Speaker 2: 54:54

But anyways that when you said that, that that kind of hit me and and it falls in line with our relationship retreats that we do once a month, shane and I um, yeah, which I think is awesome.

Speaker 1: 55:03

Actually, before I let you go, please drop that bit of wisdom to talk about that, what you and shane do.

Speaker 2: 55:09

Okay. So about it was about a year ago. I told Shane I wanted to take a vacation every month and he was like Whoa, can't afford that sweet pea. So we decided to make it a little simpler and I said what if we make it a retreat to work on our relationship? Because again, just like the app, I think you take your partner for granted and that's the easiest way for things to go downhill Like fast is if you don't put your spouse first, right below God for us, but your spouse right up at the top. And so we decided to do what we call relation retreats and it is once a month, no exceptions.

Speaker 2: 55:42

Two days away. Now I know people have some small children so that's really tough unless you have a grandma, grandpa in town. Maybe just do a one-nighter. But for us it took two days because we work together. So the first day we're not allowed to talk about anything, work at all, nothing, because that's like one of the hardest things for us to do. So we don't do that. We. We talk to each other, we read, we spend time together just really doing us stuff. And then, number two day, we can talk about work if we want, but the the biggest thing is it's two days. We try new spots. We don't eat any fast food. I guess you could say Like we went to Granbury, Texas, so we had to eat local food. We have to meet local people and spend money with locals so that we're supporting their businesses. We're learning more about ourselves. We're trying new things. We're not just going to Denny's and having breakfast because we know they'll have an egg omelet and so we do that every month.

Speaker 2: 56:36

Some days it's expensive, most times it's not. Most times it might just be in Dallas, but if I find a cheap flight on Google I'm like, hey, we can do round trip for 150 bucks. We're going to fly to Bismarck, north Dakota Random ass places, and we find cool Airbnb's and we work on us. That's the key. You have to work on each other. I love it, because otherwise nothing works.

Speaker 1: 56:56

I couldn't agree more. I think that's kind of fun Way to lead the way with that, because people do not prioritize that stuff enough.

Speaker 2: 57:04

No, that I can't even tell you how many couples I see, that I'm like, I'm not a counselor and I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you that the way you talk about your spouse or the things you don't do with your spouse right now are going to lead you down a road that you're not going to like and you're not going to know it till it's too late. Yeah, so really important. It is deep stuff, it is.

Speaker 1: 57:30

We could do a whole other one on that stuff. We should do a marriage one next time we should have Shane and Devin on and we'll do, or next time we're in Dallas, that's what we'll do. We'll go in studio and do the four of us and we'll talk about 20 years plus marriage advice. The imperfect perfection of the Dwyer and Wilson marriage. Dwyer and Wilson.

Speaker 2: 57:50

Dwyer Wilson.

Speaker 1: 57:52

Throw down. That would be good. All right, girl. Well, look, I appreciate you. I'm going to holler at you next time in town so we can catch up. Thank you, it'll be so good to see you. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. You're always so much fun. You made my day exponentially higher today Just thinking to spend some time with you. Day exponentially higher today, you know, just by getting to spend some time with you. So how can we, how can people find you? How can they learn more about you?

Speaker 2: 58:14

Um, so I'm big, big big on Facebook. I'm on Instagram, but Facebook is my jam. So if you really want to keep up with some cool stuff, you can check out Facebook. My YouTube is up and running and I'm getting more and more and more going on there. It's the real Sunny AF on YouTube, super excited about that, to keep going. So if you just want to laugh, go to YouTube.

Speaker 2: 58:36

But you want to see my everyday life and just how I roll as a mom and an entrepreneur, facebook's the best way to connect with me and I love helping people. If you've got a business or a marriage or anything that you're just like hey, I just want to know what to do when my daughter turns 16. Do you lock her up? Not cool talking about that. You not cool talking about that. You're like, yeah, you lock her the fuck up, get her inside. We just say we have one princess, she gets whatever she wants, but if anybody steps on her, we're gonna kill her. And she's like I have no qualms using my guns, like I'm just like I said through the other day.

Speaker 1: 59:02

I said, sweetheart, I said look, you don't got to settle to find the right boy. You know that you don't settle. You have standards and I really appreciate the fact and if you just settled for some dusty ass boy like I would probably be in jail. Do you want your daddy to go to jail? No, daddy, if I kept talking to so-and-so, I would. You would have definitely been in jail. I'm like wait a minute, when was this? She was last summer, but that obviously didn't go nowhere.

Speaker 2: 59:27

I'm like okay, all right thank god I didn't meet that loser, yeah for real.

Speaker 1: 59:32

For real, it gosh. It's such a funny thing. But you were right and logan knows the deal. Oh, the princess, the princess you know can do no wrong. Princess gets a few months. Logan just looks and shakes his head, he goes. If I said that to you I would have been potentially murdered, like, if I wasn't murdered, I would have at least been very, uh, punished and he's like.

Speaker 2: 59:53

He's like you ate yesterday. What do you want food for today? Go find something on your own dumbass. Yeah, can I go to olive garden? Yes, sweetie, you can go. Take a friend, you're good.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

No worries, here's the credit card. Sorry, logan, can't help it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

Yeah so sorry it is and we're glad we only have one princess, but you know what it teaches them how to treat women. They understand when they have a daughter someday. And the storms came through yesterday and this is totally off subject a little bit, but Carter was like mom, you're so paranoid, don't worry, Dad's fine, he cause. He was driving and Carter was home with me. Ava was in Florida, charlie was at baseball practice and I'm worried about the studio. The studio is open, there's girls there, there's a tornado that did touch down right between us.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

We had major hail and I'm freaking out and I'm texting people and he's like mom, stop, you're just making people even more worried. And I go until you have a wife and children and a business that you have to support and you know that their lives are on the line. You no idea what I'm going through and I may be a little over the top, but I'd rather that than just be like they're fine, whatever I, it's the mama thing. It's like I can't. And shane's like yeah, he just doesn't understand. He has no skin in the game, doesn't matter if the cars get blown up and the kids and everything, so right, they don't know until they know, and then someday they're gonna look back and go. You're right.

Speaker 1: 1:01:10

Yes, you're right. You guys always are. So that's how it goes. I appreciate you, sonny. I'm going to catch you next time. Guys, please feel free to leave some feedback. Share the show If you felt like it added any value, if it made you laugh and dammit you know that it did you definitely need to send it to somebody who needs a smile. Leave her reviews. We'll put on here how to get a hold of Sunny if you're interested in learning more and following her content. We'll catch you next time on the Big Dog Podcast.