Faith Driven Athlete and Entrepreneur
Golden Glove Winner, Adam LaRoche, on His Journey as an Athlete, Dad, and Entrepreneur
When Adam LaRoche, Golden Glove Winner and Standout for the Chicago WhiteSox decided to retire from professional baseball, his decision seemed like one of the most unexpected moves in sports. But for those who know him, this move aligned perfectly with the integrity of his character.
In today’s episode, you’re going to get a peek behind the curtain of the life of Adam LaRoche—his MLB career, the factors surrounding his decision to retire, and his journey as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Hear all about how he’s making an impact through his E3 Team along with other friends like Willie Robertson, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan.
We love talking to faith-driven athletes and faith-driven entrepreneurs, and Adam gave us a little bit of both! As always, thanks for listening.
Useful Links:
Adam Laroche Speaks White Sox Exit
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Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDA movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kaestner: [00:02:32] Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. This is special edition we are co-releasing this with Faith Driven Athlete. A new podcast from the folks at Faith Driven Media, yours truly and Present Company included. We've got Rusty Rueff, who many of you know is our co-host on Faith Driven Entrepreneur and on occasion, o faith driven investors as well. Justin is our executive producer. And today we've got a really special guest for this crossover edition between FDE and FDA is Adam Laroche. Many of you will recall this great story of a guy super serious about loving on his family, having his kids as there growing up, being a part of his larger professional sports experience. And then he decided to walk away from Major League Baseball and a big check to come on board and be focused on some other entrepreneurial endeavors that he had. And so we had to learn about those today. But Adam, first, let me just tell you, I'm just really pleased and grateful that you joined us on the program. [00:03:24][51.8]
Adam Laroche: [00:03:26] Thanks, man. I appreciate being invited and looking forward to it. [00:03:30][4.8]
Henry Kaestner: [00:03:31] So we love starting every episode by hearing the story, of course, of the guests that we've got on and hoping that you can tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up and then the path that your career has followed. [00:03:40][9.1]
Adam Laroche: [00:03:41] Yeah. I'll start with the baseball side, just because I think that that may kind of give a base for moving on into where I'm at now. But we grew up and baseball was all we knew. I mean, that was our life. My dad played for 13 years in the major league. Both of my brothers played and just growing up that was totally normal to us to travel all over the country and different towns. And I don't know how many different houses we lived in in schools. And, you know, Fort Scott, we would always call Fort Scott, Kansas, where I'm at now, where our ranch is and where we live today. We'd always call that home. And that would be, you know, soon as the season was over, we would come back to that. And really growing up, I think just out of being young and not knowing any better, I just knew that baseball was what I was going to do. And it just because that's what my dad did. And I joke saying my two brothers. You know, none of us were smart enough to do anything else. But really, that was just kind of our life. And I would say we didn't have any backup plan for what if baseball doesn't work? Because I don't I don't think it was cocky or arrogant. I think it was just not knowing any different and saying this is what we're gonna do. But I also attribute a lot of that to the reason that we did make it. And we're able to play both my brothers again played some pro ball. I got to play with my younger brother Andy in the major leagues in Pittsburgh. He was playing third. I was playing first one of the best years in my career, you know, getting to play with him. And now, gosh, that was just our life. So then going into then I got married really young. We've got two kids now, a senior and junior in high school, boy and a girl. And so we had those really young in my career. And, you know, they kind of took the exact same tests that we did growing up. It was just grab your schoolwork, run to the next town, especially when I was in the minor leagues. And, you know, you never know where you're going to be the next year. I mean, the next week, really. You guys know how sports is. You can kind of bounce all over the place. So they grew up doing that. And it was just coming back to Fort Scott in the offseason and reconnecting with their friends for a few months and then, you know, right back out the door for spring training. So I loved it. I know that's really hard for probably moms especially to understand. I haven't I think. Military families are the only others that can maybe relate and understand with just never knowing kind of what post you're gonna be out or what team you're gonna be at. [00:06:06][145.1]
[00:06:08] But growing up, it was so cool, especially now as we got older, to really have friends kind of scattered out all over the place and, you know, going on all different types of businesses and families and things that are involved with. So it's pretty healthy for us now to travel and know somebody everywhere. And my kids kind of grew up somewhere. [00:06:26][18.5]
Henry Kaestner: [00:06:27] So bring us through now. So you're a couple of years into the major league Baseball career that you have and you have this faith is a big part of who you are, but sounds like you grew into your faith and maybe even growing your faith along with your career. I'd love to hear about that and bring that in this story about how you ended up doing National Faith Day in baseball. [00:06:46][18.8]
[00:06:47] Well, I did not. Just to correct. And I don't know what you guys heard or thought. I didn't start that. I helped start that in D.C. So fortunately, there was a lot of teams doing that. And I don't know if that was back in my dad's there when that started, but it was kind of select teams. It depending on where you were out in the country and kind of the politics of that team and where it was located, but backing up a little bit. And growing up, we grew up and my parents are just awesome. I would not have said that back then. They probably would not have said that we were great kids back then because we were terrible. And I still try to repay my parents every day for the hell we put them through growing up because my mom's got some good stories on that. But looking back and their priority for our life was never career. Wasn't school and grades and college. And, you know, what are you going to do to set yourself up financially and to get through this world. It was more of that reminder that we're not of this world. And this is what our mission needs to be. It needs to be to love God and love others. And back then, I think it was a lot different in the way parents raised their kids up in the church. And it was. Every Sunday was mandatory. That Wednesday night Bible studies a lot of times we would host at the house. You know, Sunday school after church on Sunday. Whatever church events were going on, you know, we were involved with those. Yeah. And I wouldn't trade that for anything. [00:08:21][93.9]
[00:08:22] One of the problems was, as I grew up with a view that I need to do whatever I can do to not go to hell, which looking back, is just a really selfish way to look at what God's really calling us to do that when he's saying it's not about us, but then we make it all about us by saying, how do I get over that cutline? So I kind of grew up with this a little bit of a fear of sin, of fear of hell and wanting to get into heaven. And then if I could along the way, I want to make disciples and share my testimony and, you know, bring people to Christ. But I just had a skewed view of what Jesus did and what he's calling us to do. So it took me really on into the major leagues to realize that it's not about what I can do. It's about recognizing what he's already done. I use the saying once in a while that we don't need to continue to defeat sin. You know, Jesus already defeated that. And that doesn't need to be our motive all day long as to not screw up. It was more and again, learning and still learning that today at 40 years old, but probably on into my twenties to just get a better grasp on that. And I give a lot of credit to one my parents for leading us down this path as we grew up beginning to understand that. But also some chaplains and some players, some older guys that I played with along the way that were just awesome examples and not just with what they said, but how they lived their life. And you could see it. I mean, you could see that light in them. So I don't have a crazy kind of come to Jesus moment. It was just kind of gradual over time of, I guess, getting to know him a little more and kind of get to know his life and what he actually did and what that meant. And that kind of started to realize it was almost a slap in his face to think that there's something I could do about this as if there's more that I could do here to guarantee me getting into heaven or my family getting into heaven. And so just kind of start to understand that it's not just about walking into that church building every Sunday morning and checking off your box and hosting a Bible study at your house where your friends come over or whatever. That absolutely that is an awesome part of it that we're allowed to do. But I've started really recently and I'm jumping around here, but I've started recently to realize that church is more like it's almost like a mission brief with our military guys when they go in to get their op order of what they're going to do. And then it would be like them breaking out of that and just going back to the barracks and doing absolutely nothing about it. So I say that church for me is almost a I'm going there to get some little nuggets or to get some knowledge or to get something that I can use throughout that week in my mission. And I never viewed that growing up. And again, this is it's nothing against my parents at all. I know what they were trying to do. We just I think sometimes it takes a while for that to register. [00:11:26][184.3]
Henry Kaestner: [00:11:26] I was gonna say, as you talk about your faith, I've heard you in the past talk about your faith in light of what you want to see on your tombstone and you've got a great illustration around that I think is particularly helpful for business owners and entrepreneurs that are listening to this in addition to the larger faith driven athlete audience. Tell us a little bit about how you processed what was important to you, what you'd like to see on your tombstone in terms of your identity, and then how that led you to think about that big decision you made now 6, 7 years ago. [00:11:58][31.8]
Adam Laroche: [00:11:59] Well, you know, that came from a chaplain, Tim Pearsons, who's one of my really good friends. He was our chaplain in DC, and he's actually the one that helped me kind of get the faith night started there through the Lerner family and the ownership in Washington who are awesome. But I remember him asking one day, like, what's important in your life? And he was asking and I don't know, probably eight or ten of us there in chapel one morning before a game. And so let's write it now. So I kind of write down like what's important and of course, you're in chapel. Naturally, the first thing you're gonna put down is God and faith and my family and. Okay, perfect. I think some guys got up and read him or whatever and said, OK. So you die right now. That's your funeral tomorrow. What is read for your eulogy? What is written on your tombstone? What are other people going to say was important to you? And so it was almost this. Let's look in the mirror for a minute and what we want it to be versus what it actually is. And I just thought it was an awesome illustration of I think all of us on our tombstone would write for our eulogy or whatever at our funeral would want said about us that he was an awesome follower of Jesus. He was a loyal friend and devout husband and father. And he's kind of ethical, moral things that define who we are. I don't think any of us would want our career batting average or all the accolades we got for our bank account and retirement funds and everything we got stashed away in the bank. And so his point was if that's going to be the most important thing to you at the end your life. Shouldn't we be living that now? Shouldn't we be showing that again? Not through our words. Should we be showing people through our actions that these are the most important things in my life? And for whatever reason, that just really stuck. And yeah, I think that's when I started to kind of prioritize some of that. And not long after that, I end up in Chicago and played there for a year. And one thing that I think a lot of people don't know is that off season I got introduced to the counter sex trafficking world. So I took a trip over to Thailand. Really, long story short, one piece of that I do want to talk about is going over there. I knew that we were gonna be going into brothels every night, basically into strip clubs every night in Thailand and trying to find these underage girls that were there against their will. And my fear of being a man. My fear was I'm going to go over there and I'm going to go off mission and be checking these girls out. I mean, there's a chance he's gonna be naked girls over there, like I didn't know for sure we were getting into other than we were going into kind of these dance slash strip clubs where men can come in and purchase women. And so I know in my heart where my mind can go if I let it take me there. So I prayed for a couple months before I went over there, just the simple prayer, give me the eyes of Jesus. That's all I wanted. Going into that trip to Thailand. And it was the coolest thing, because when we would leave and we'd leave at 2:00 in the morning or whatever and go into. I don't know how many different brothels every night and get back to our hotel room and kind of meet up and debrief. And I could not tell you what I saw all kind of from the neck down. I mean, it was obviously an answer to prayer, but it was also confirmation that this is a fight that God wanted me. Yeah. And we did some great work over there. And we're able to work with their law enforcement. And got some of those girls out and got some of the traffickers arrested. It was awesome. But I got back from that. And my partner in this, Blaine Boyer, who recently retired, he was a pitcher with the royals. We just kind of traveled around and met with as many people that would meet with us on the subject of counter trafficking. So to jump back into Chicago coming into that spring, I just come off of that trip where I was really torn thinking, man, am I really going to go out and play a game right now with all this going on? And when we got back to the states after that trip, we started to realize how big the issue was in our country also. We originally thought trafficking was a third world issue and then started understand that it's in every county in the United States, which that was years ago. So since learned a lot more on that. But at the time, going into spring training, I was a little confused on and almost felt selfish that I was going to do this when I just got confirmation a month before that. God also wants me in the suit was a confusing time. And then the thing with Derek, with my son, where they had changed policy there and decided that kids were no longer allowed to do some of the things they were before, which, by the way, I guess that is totally unrealistic for kids to go to work with you. So that's why afterwards that obviously made it a really hard thing to defend because it's not realistic. Like everybody understands that nobody gets to take their kids to work every day. I was just fortunate enough to play in a profession where I could do that over the two or three years before that he came. He was like another employee on the team. So they changed that rule. I just got back and so kind of those things combined was, I think, God telling me that this might be a good time to step away and focus on the bigger mission. [00:17:15][315.8]
Henry Kaestner: [00:17:16] So that's fascinating. And just to bring our audience back in. You were able to bring your son into the clubhouse for several years. And that was repealed. As you just said, you didn't fight it or anything like that. But and that's not the bigger story. The bigger story is your calling as a dad and wanting to be there for your family and you're able to prioritize that over. And was it 10, 13 million dollars, something pretty serious. I mean, you're a big time baseball player, you Gold Glove winner, the Silver Slugger award, all these different types of things that allowed for you to be at the top of your game. And yet you walked away from it, whether the policy was right or not, as you walked away from it, prioritizing your family in your mission, calling. And that's a big deal. Tell me just a little bit more. You know, dad, dad, tell me a little bit more about what that time was like. [00:18:05][48.7]
Adam Laroche: [00:18:06] Well, on the financial side, and it's something that I was chased even as a believer, as a grown up, as a believer. I mean, deep down, like that was a huge part of baseball and decisions. And the mission was. And I'll use the quick analogy of your high school. It's great. Can't wait to go to college. Now I got to. College was awesome for a minute, but man, I just want to start pro-bowl and start my career so I get into pro ball and finally, like mission accomplished. Well, that wears off after about a year of pro ball. And then I want to get to the major leagues and then you get to the major leagues and I want to make a million dollars. [00:18:42][35.8]
[00:18:44] OK. You make that. I want to sign a long term contract. Don't want it, you know. And it's more and more and more. And then one day you looked up and I just you know, I just want to make enough where I can retire and go golf or sit on the beach or whatever is the rest of my life. So I had played long enough where it hit me well before that. That the fact is, is it's never going to be enough. [00:19:05][21.0]
[00:19:06] If I'm puttin all my hopes and dreams in this money or this bank account or this nest egg for my family, I will never be satisfied to it. So the timing was great because honestly, I don't know. A few years before that, if I make that same decision, but before the decision was even in front of me, I did recognize that if that's where my priority is, it will absolutely never satisfy me. So you know all that to say. I'm so thankful that I was able to recognize that beforehand. And it really made that that was one of the easiest decisions I've made. To be honest, I mean, I literally came home that night. So Jenn and Drake and my daughter Montana, what had happened? I said, hey, I think this might be time to shut it down. And they were all thumbs up. Whatever you want to do with you. And, you know, slept great that night. And the next day went in and told him. So it was simple. But because I think of just the timing of it and the place I was and understanding that nothing on this earth is going to satisfy us, all these things we chase, whether it's alcohol, drugs, women, money, status, every one of them is a dead end. And it may bring that kind of instant satisfaction, but you're going to continue to need more. [00:20:24][78.6]
[00:20:25] So made it simple, man. That was I noticed my kids were getting older. They were both in high school. I start looking at the days I had left with them and you know that my window was closing to really impact their life before they go out on mission. Like what do I want them to take from their days with us? Is it that it's money and it's high school and it's good grades and it's college and it's move on up the world ladder? Or do I want them leaving with the single mission of love God love others. [00:20:57][32.4]
Justin Forman: [00:20:58] So that's powerful stuff. Adam, Justin jumping in here. Thank you for sharing that. You know, this is a unique episode for us combining Faith Driven Entrepreneur and faith driven athlete bringing those two together. So I kind of want to pivot here and talk a little bit more about the entrepreneurial journey since that decision years ago. It's been fun to follow and hear a little bit about what's come about. So talk to us about the name of the company E-3. Where did that come from and kind of what does it look like today? [00:21:25][27.7]
Adam Laroche: [00:21:27] Yeah. So I was playing in Pittsburgh with another first baseman, Doug Mientkiewics. It and it was right around the time I was looking for a name for our ranch that we live on here in southeast Kansas. And Doug is a great dude and just hilarious. [00:21:41][14.2]
[00:21:42] And I looked down one day and we're taking ground balls together and on his first basement's glove. He's got it embroidered E-3 just e dash 3s. And that is not what you want to see. Flash up on the scoreboard as a first baseman. [00:21:55][13.0]
[00:21:55] By the way, when you see that, that means you've just made an error. That's an error on the first baseman. And most people don't know this about the ranch or why it got its name. But I just thought it was hilarious that Doug had put that on his glove. So I kind of stole it from him. And we ended up putting the E-3 brand on the front gate and had no idea that this would ever leave kind of our town. There was no meat company. There was no E-3 foundation, there was no restaurant. There was Nelson E-3 and a friend of mine, Luke Bryan, who's now turned famous for music in Nashville. And he was still in Georgia at the time. He came out to the ranch years ago and had some E-3 hats made. And he steals one of my hats from the ranch. And next thing I know, it's on like the CMA is or ACMD or something, one of these award shows. And he's wearing it. And then everybody wants to have it. Not long after that, we were raisin beef for ourselves, just raisin all natural Black Angus beef here. And we'd butcher a couple of steers here and start having teammates asking more and more about the meats. We'd start shipping out to teammates, kind of coast-to-coast. And fast forward three or four years. And then we started the meat company and then restaurants followed and all kinds of E-3 stuff. So yeah, it started as kind of a joke and then Luke taken it out to the world, but just wearing it everywhere. [00:23:15][79.6]
Rusty Rueff: [00:23:15] Well, now you've got three more people who want to have to now say to have our E-3 hats, you know, for sure. Yeah. [00:23:23][7.5]
Justin Forman: [00:23:24] Adam, man, you're sharing so much with our listeners, but if you could, could you summarize kind of all the pieces of E-3 from us? You know, when it started out with this plan in mind, it kind of sounds like you guys have built a whole farm to table process. [00:23:38][13.0]
Adam Laroche: [00:23:40] Yeah. And it's funny, they've all come together now, but started separately, ironically. And and I talked a little bit about how we came up with the brand and the actual E-3 brand and how the ranch got named three and, you know, a little bit on the meat company. But as that started, it developed that we were shipping out beef again. [00:23:57][17.6]
[00:23:58] We decided this is we were literally driving to Pittsburgh, Kansas, and go to Wal-Mart by a Coleman cooler and go get ice packs and throw a quarter of beef in there and ship it out. I think it had to be said, Fed-Ex in an order, get it, you know, in two or three days before everything stalled out as it was just totally inefficient. I think guys were paying as much on shipping back then as they were the actual beef that we were sending them. So eventually we developed the E-3 meat company web site and kind of pushed everything online just to make that process a lot easier. Got involved with UPS and got a relationship with just everything started to become more efficient. Throughout that, we decided to do a total utilization of our animals. So all of our steers grew up to Omaha to a friend of mine that has a processing plant up there and they'll handle all the processing. But then there's all this leftover. It traditionally would just kind of get this started, whether it was the height or the bones or lungs, trachea, like you name it, all these useable pieces on a stair. So couple years ago, we started the total utilization and now we're able to take all those and put them indoor pet treats, kind of canine wing of E-3 and all those are smoked again, naturally up there in big smokers. Now we're able to sell a lot of that as Petrie's and then we're starting to implement do some more things with the leather in the hide. So that's kind of the total utilization there on the meat company's side. As far as the restaurants was funny. I was up in Steamboat quite a few years ago and Willie Robertson, my partner and Buck commander now, were up there, asked my brother, who lived there what the best steakhouse was in town. So he told us this place and we ended up going to it and it was just not very good. And I literally came back that night to Jeff. He said, hey, we need to open up a steakhouse here. And Steamboat Springs, Colorado, ominous supply the beef from the ranch, because we had already started to kind of launch the meat company and had access to that. [00:25:55][117.2]
[00:25:55] So that launches my other two partners, Luke Brian, Jason Aldean spent some time over the years up in Steamboat Springs and eat at that restaurant and then decide they want to partner up and do another three chophouse in Nashville. So, yeah, they all kind of came together through a lot of the same people. Just timing was different and just kind of it all just kind of happened to flow into the E-3 brand. And then I go back before all that, our real mission out here at the ranch was just to serve guys. And that wasn't always the case. Like there was quite a few years when I lived out here and selfishly and not even thinking about this kind of use of the ranch for me and my family and my friends. And we'd hunt and fish and raise cattle and do all things on a ranch. And thank God, just kind of hit me with it one day that he had blessed me with all of us. [00:26:46][50.4]
[00:26:46] And how was I using it for the kingdom? So I just remember going to my life and saying, well, we've got to do more with this ranch and all this that we've been kind of gifted with to serve others and playing in D.C. and get to spend time at Walter Reed Hospital over the years and get to know a lot of our military guys. We decided to be a perfect opportunity to just host those guys out to the ranch. And then came the E-3 Foundation. And now we get to serve those guys. And then, you know, like I said, the second and the other part of that is the counter sex trafficking work we get to do. So, yeah, it's been fun to watch. [00:27:21][34.6]
[00:27:22] Luke Brian first coming in I don't know how many years ago but when we had just gotten the brand and had you three go on to where it is now. I never would never would have guessed it. [00:27:35][12.4]
Justin Forman: [00:27:35] Yeah. Fascinating story. You know it's fun hearing again wherever God has you that he is giving you a vision for your vocation, your work, being an act of worship with us, an athlete, an entrepreneur here. Bridge those two together for us. When you think about kind of your athletic career, how did that prepare you? What are some of things you carried over from that into being a business owner? [00:27:58][22.8]
Adam Laroche: [00:27:59] Man, I just I think I'm going to say the fact that baseball was not everything to me. And I take a lot of pride. I actually took pride in saying that puts into my careers out of that sounds that I do not want this to consume me and be my life. And I used to say and I still, you know, younger teammates coming up to be careful that baseball is just what we do, not who we are. I've seen it really in all sports now and seven kind of friends throughout that community, I've seen how it can consume guys. And then unfortunately when you get out and you become a retired player. If that was all you had, it just crushes guys, whether it's lack of mission and just kind of feeling worthless, not having a uniform on. As we all know, in sports, the divorce rate is through the roof. Just a lot of side effects that come along with going through a game that really ash you and almost it tries to force you to be consumed with it because to play at the top level, you've obviously kind of put a ton of time and heart and blood, sweat and tears into that. So it's a challenge to make sure that that's not all you and I did. I took a lot of pride in that throughout my playing career that. Again, the foundation and each region commander had been going on for years. There was always other things that I was involved with. I really think helped prepare me for retirement from one in baseball to dove into some other missions. [00:29:29][89.7]
Justin Forman: [00:29:30] So I've got to ask one more question here at home before Rusty jumps in. But, you know, as a dad hearing you talk about that just not being consumed by the things but seeing work as worship but not worshiping work. Talk to me about what that journey has been like as. adad? I mean, your son has had a front row seat to some huge life decisions. Something's there. How has that affected him and your relationship? [00:29:55][24.7]
Adam Laroche: [00:29:56] Well, we've always and I do not deserve the two kids I have. I promise you, I think I told you guys earlier that I was not the greatest kid growing up. I was constantly in trouble. It just. Yeah, there's again, my mom won't have a thousand stories. There are things that she wishes I would have done differently. So I've been incredibly blessed to have two kids. They're just really good kids. I think a lot of it comes from the parents that I had. The way I sold them raised us and kind of what was important to them and then to be able to just kind of tweak that and pass that along. I never want my kids to think that this game being baseball, the ranch meat copy or any of the stuff that we've gotten into is more important than opportunities to serve and just to be cautious, not to get consumed. And that's almost schoolwork to not to be consumed in the things of this world. And again, I wish my wife was on here because I owe a ton of the credit to her. She's been able to fill a ton of those gaps. You know, Ungraceful worked on so much. She spent a lot of time doing it solo. It just made a really good team and tried to remind ourselves and our kids that they really don't belong to us, that their true father is not me. That's our heavenly father. And then they just and we've kind of been assigned and given the responsibility to to lead them through the first part of their lives here. So it's been a blast. I hope they continue to grow. And then one thing I will say is that I don't know. That is awesome. As my dad was I don't remember a whole lot of anything he told me. Like anything, he said there's nothing when I look back on these years with my dad, that crazy impacted me with his words. But I remember how he treated people. I remember how he made me feel, how he handled situations where it may have been really easy to tweak the truth a little bit. You know, just all those things that you from the outside watch in people. And yeah, I just urge all especially parents out there that it's we can say all we want. They're going to get way more out of our actions and how we're living and how we're backing up those words than anything we could ever say to him. [00:32:18][141.6]
Rusty Rueff: [00:32:18] You mentioned Luke and you got another thing that's going on right with Buck, commander. Tell us about that. [00:32:24][5.5]
Adam Laroche: [00:32:24] Yeah, we do. That's been going on for I think we've been on the Outdoor Channel for 10 years now. Our TV show. Buck commander and two other ballplayers, Tom Martin, who was a pitcher, and Ryan Langerhans who. Iplayed with with the Braves, Willie Robertson, who really kind of started all over it. It's a sister company to duck commander. And then Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan and their latest partners, Tyler Farr, another country music guy to Nashville. So we just man, when hunting season hits, we try to get together as a group as much as we can. And I will say we don't hunt quite as much as we used to. The older we've gotten, I think there's probably more pranks and kind of screwing around type stuff going on. And it's just a blast. It's an awesome group. It's led to a really cool platform for us to share with that industry and show them this kind of a unique way of doing it. So yeah, we got a camera crew and production crew and they make it really easy on all of us with all the other stuff we have going on. We kind of just can show up. Different places and hunt, cool as a group for about a week at a time. So, yeah, that's been a blast. But leading into if you want to hear more on kind of the E-3 kind of the business side, is that the direction we're going with it? [00:33:37][73.5]
Rusty Rueff: [00:33:38] Well, I say I wanted to pivot and maybe there's a part of this in here, but I wanted to mark a time here, because when we're recording this, we're in the middle of this COVID 19 pandemic. And I wanted to ask you, you know, what's God putting on your hearts and how E-3 might be responding or even in your breast of your beef business? You know, is there something that's going on and stirred inside of you? With Colgin 19? [00:34:02][24.1]
Adam Laroche: [00:34:03] Well, yeah, I think it's changing the world daily. And totally outside of business, we had a Bible study yesterday. And we're talking about this this fear versus faith and the. I think with COVID 19, you've got one or the other. I think you're either. Just totally afraid and looking forward of what might happen, what could happen, how it's going to affect me or having complete faith, that guy's got an under control and literally what's the worst that can happen? Because as a believer, I mean, the reality is the worst that can happen is you kick the bucket and you're in paradise the rest of your life. Like, I don't see that as being the end of the world. And I mean that when I say it. So I don't know. I don't want to say that this was God's plan. And he designed this, although he does some crazy things that we can never understand. So it wouldn't shock me at all. But I think it is really cool that the amount of people who are forced now to spend more time with their family and I think it's one of those that so much of the world does not like the race that they're in and they do not like that there's the volleyball and soccer tournaments every Sunday morning or baseball tournaments that eat up every single weekend or the school events and then work. And then just this keeping up. And maybe this is kind of God's way of making the decision easy for all of us, of shutting it down for a little while and reconnecting. But I do think and that was, again, another small reason why I left the game was I just kind of saw how sports was consuming so much of parents and kids in their life. There was just that there was never any time for anything else with, you know, the things that pile up in life. And this is kind of put everything on shut down. And I don't mean to say that this Goga 19 is going to be all positive because obviously people are seriously affected and businesses are seriously affected. But maybe can we look at the positive and look at it as almost a reset for a lot of us on our priorities. So as far as the make company, ironically in it, one of the things that's been difficult is it's making our sales shoot up. Right. We see it beef. We ship beef to people's doorstep. And so everybody now is kind of in a frenzy to stock up on me and we're shipping out like crazy. So how can we serve through that? One thing we can do is lower our prices and let everybody know, hey, we're in it with you. We've got a huge need here locally with our first responders, kids that are out of school that are relying on those two meals a day at school every day that now are going to get it. So it's also given us a lot of opportunities with our product to help serve as much as we can. And that's still kind of a daily conversation for us to figure out the best way to do that. [00:36:54][170.9]
Rusty Rueff: [00:36:55] So as we come to a close one of our co-hosts isn't here today, which is William and William always likes to ask the question, is there something that God is speaking to you even this morning or today or right now that you would want to share with us? It could be a verse. It could be a prayer or it could be anything that maybe God is impressed on your heart that you'd like to share with our listeners. [00:37:15][19.6]
Adam Laroche: [00:37:16] Man. You know, I heard a sermon there to go from Craig Groschel and he was talking about they were all carriers of something. And again, it goes back to this Corona virus and that was kind of what the whole sermon was based on a little bit. Was this our fear versus our faith? But you said we're all carrying something. Are we carrying fear, which is going to be contagious to everybody who were around? Everything we do or are we carrying the hope that Jesus promises us? And the reason why he came and died for us. And so he just kind of went into this. You may not physically have Corona. You are carrying something that is highly contagious. And what is that? And I think it was just a neat reminder for a small group of us and my family included to kind of look back and realize no matter what we're going through, something is overflowing out of this. Is it good? Is it bad? You know, what are we passing on to those that we come in contact with? Some are what this virus can do and how contagious it is. So, man, I want to continue to serve through this and fight to not be selfish that my family and myself and that were taking care of. I think if we look back on this another month or six months or whatever it is, and we just went into hibernation out at the ranch and protected ourselves, I think we would all feel really guilty of missing some awesome opportunities there to serve and do it wisely. You know, I'm saying I'm not mean and let's all just go be reckless and have no concern of getting this. But I don't believe you're kind of making me kind of thinking out loud now on what that looks like. All I know is I do not want to look up and have missed some huge opportunities to love on people and to serve people. [00:39:12][116.1]
[00:39:13] And just real quick before we end, you know, the whole reason for the meat company, E-3 Meat Company, the whole reason for the E-3 Chophouse is everything, and all our employees know this, is for the E-3 Foundation. [00:39:25][12.2]
[00:39:26] And I know you guys talked to Steve and Amy, and that is why they exist, is to fund the foundation which allows us to bring soldiers into the ranch and serve those guys and love on them. And then also in the fight against sex trafficking. You know, to be able to go out and impact that. So that is our motivation and all the motivation we need for these companies to go kill it and do awesome is because, you know, that allows us to do more and serve more to the Three Ranch Foundation. [00:39:55][29.0]
Justin Forman: [00:39:56] That's great, Adam. Awesome. What's the Web site for people to learn more about the foundation to check things out. [00:40:01][4.6]
Adam Laroche: [00:40:02] That's ergives.org. You can also just go to the E-3 ranch, ethreeranch.com and you can get to all the meat company. We've do the total utilization of the steer. We've got a canine which is a pet treat side. And then the restaurants, it's all kind of on the E-3 ranch home page. [00:40:21][18.9]
Justin Forman: [00:40:23] Adam, thank you so much for being with us. The encouragement, the example that you've been as a leader, as a dad, such timely advice and wisdom on whether it's an athlete, a business leader listening to this special episode is just great having you with us. And thanks for blessing us and our audience with those words, man. [00:40:41][18.5]
Adam Laroche: [00:40:42] Thank you guys again for allowing me to do I feel like we could spend another hour diving into some of this. I love discussing it. [00:40:48][5.5]
Henry Kaestner: [00:40:48] And thank you very much. Was a great blessing being with you man. [00:40:51][2.9]
Adam Laroche: [00:40:52] Good talking to you guys. [00:40:52][0.0]
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