Joe Slavens: Values, Decisions, and the Price of Courage

In this episode of Courageous Crossroads, Jeff Johnson sits down with longtime friend, business leader, attorney, and entrepreneur Joe Slavens for a thoughtful conversation about courage, values, leadership, and the difficult decisions that shape a meaningful life. Joe challenges conventional definitions of courage, arguing that some of its most important expressions occur when deeply held values come into conflict and a person must discern what matters most, accept the cost, and make a decision rather than simply drift or avoid the issue. He shares candid examples from his own life, including the painful decision to terminate the employment of his best friend and his willingness to walk away from a highly anticipated sale of his family’s bank when the transaction no longer aligned with his values. Along the way, Joe reflects on the importance of wise counsel, purposeful living, family legacy, values-based leadership, and the potential challenges artificial intelligence presents to a society increasingly reluctant to think deeply about what it believes. A lifelong Iowan and University of Iowa graduate, Joe trained as an attorney before joining his family business, Northwest Bank and Trust Company, where he worked alongside his father and eventually led the organization for more than two decades. Following the sale of the bank, he continued his involvement in a number of related businesses and investments, including trust, software, tax and accounting, and real estate ventures. Married to his high school sweetheart, Anne, for more than four decades, Joe is the father of three and grandfather of a growing family, and he views the transmission of enduring values across generations as one of the truest measures of a meaningful legacy.

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Full Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

JEFF JOHNSON: Hey everybody, Jeff again. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads podcast where I get to ask that question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? I’m interested in that topic. Because of that, I start seeing it everywhere. Every single podcast that I listen to, the radio programs, the TV programs, news programs, series that are on TV that my wife and I might be watching at that certain time, I see this topic, a courage come up and how it’s elevated and lifted up because it’s looked at as such a good quality and such a necessary, such a needed quality. And I think that that’s absolutely true. And I keep seeing it everywhere and I know you’ve got it. I know you’ve got it as well and you’ve got an answer to that question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And I’d love to hear it. So make sure you reach out to us. You can find us at crossroadsapologetics.org where we’ve got not only a storage vault of all kinds of episodes where I’ve asked all sorts of different people in many, many, many different walks of life, this question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But there’s also a curated bookshelf there. I’m an avid reader, a bunch of books and stuff like that that you might be interested in. There’s blog posts and other resources that you might find. But there’s a way to connect with me there. And if you’d love to be on the program, I would absolutely love to have you as a guest and ask you that question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But I’ve got an amazing guest up for you next. Joe Slaven’s is a dear friend of mine, a very close friend. He and I go back, we figured about 25 years. And I could have guessed maybe what his most courageous thing is because I know him very well. But you know, it’s in the details. It’s really in the details where you find the good stuff. And so that’s why I loved putting the question to him. And I was surprised with the depth and the nuance with which he answered this question and addressed it. You’re going to absolutely love this interview. So without further ado, here’s my friend Joe Slaven’s. Ladies and gentlemen, I have got a dear friend of mine, Joe Slaven’s on the program today. And I’m not Joe, I don’t want to sit turn into a slober fest. But I’m not going to start off without saying you’re probably the smartest guy I know. And I’ve got a lot of friends. You don’t go around very much. You’re I mean, you’re dialed in and you’ve been such a blessing to me for a long, long time now, 20 plus years. But ladies and gentlemen, one of the smartest guys I know, thus smartest guy I know, Joe Slaven’s. Joe, thanks for joining us.

JOE SLAVENS: You’re very kind, Jeff. And I would say that I thank you for the kind words. And I’m blessed by your friendship of 20 years. And we’re just I’m just glad we both feel like we’re lucky to have each other.

JEFF JOHNSON: Oh, we sure are. We sure are. Is that how far we go back?

JOE SLAVENS: It was it was so we met in still in Iowa in August of 2001. So it would be 25 years now that we reflect upon it. And we’re only about are you walking up a golf course to the 18th hole in Pella, Iowa and the rest is history.

JEFF JOHNSON: That was that I remember it was a little retreat. We were supposed to go on to Las Vegas of all places. And we had to reroute to Pella, Iowa. You want to tell people why we did that, Joe?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, it was a little thing called 911. And we were fortunate enough to have a security expert and Mr. Bill Jackson as a part of our group as well. And while maybe I think some people might have acted out of emotional fear sort of thing. We had sort of the intellectual approach to say, is this a smart idea, both from a safety standpoint and from just that we’ll we get stranded. Stand point for a lot of business guys who really can’t afford to get stranded to make the decision, you know, to make the decision not to go. I think we went the next year though.

JEFF JOHNSON: We did. Yeah, we got to have that experience. We went and relived it the next year. But I remember that that was a powerful not only the circumstances of us being in Pella, but bonding early on with a forum with a group of guys, you know, where we really experience. Well, our forum is the Iron Man forum based on the proverb 2717 as Iron, Sharpen’s Iron, so one man, Sharpen’s another. So we were diving into that kind of stuff. And that was a powerful experience. But what a story.

JOE SLAVENS: And then to correct myself then it would have been September then because I came in at that retreat. So you build Jackson, it kind of made the advice in August, I think to move that off. So as I do, I air and then I, of course, correct.

JEFF JOHNSON: There it is. There it is.

JOE SLAVENS: Been married 41 years. I’m very comfortable being wrong.

JEFF JOHNSON: 41 years. Okay. So tell people, give people a little bit of an elevator speech on who is Joe Slavins to put you in context before we start delving into the topic of courage. So what do we need to know about Joe?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, I’m born blessed. My parents, Bob and Muriel Slavins, my dad was an attorney by training, went into banking. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. Plus with great parents, had a sister Jane, grew up in the idyllic Bettendorf, Iowa, went to school in high school. And of course, went on to the University of Iowa, the greatest public university, or maybe perhaps any university in the entire intellectual upper education.

JEFF JOHNSON: Go Hawks without a doubt.

JOE SLAVENS: Go Hawks, Bleed Black and Gold, studied to be an attorney. Although I remember my entrance, you know, the application essay said, I wanted to be trained as an attorney so I could apply it to things outside the law. And my dad said, you have to rewrite it because law school is one of trained lawyers. They don’t want to train other people. So I had to rewrite it to say I wanted to actually be a lawyer as well. But I graduated in a couple years from law school. I had a great experience there, went to join the family business, which was North West Bank of Trace Company. And prior to that, I’d, between undergrad and law school, I married my high school sweetheart. Went at the young age of 21. Started my, I had to start our family the month after I got my first paycheck so I wasn’t on the family dole anymore. And work with my father for 13 years. Getting that process of structure transactional by my uncle out, ran the bank for, after my father died for about 20, little less than 25 years sold the bank. But fortunately kept many of the, the sort of other businesses that we developed. We had a trust company, software company, tax accounting firm, real estate investments, kept those as a part of the sale. And now, I’m the grandfather, we have three kids, great kids. And the grandfather to eight and about a half, we got one due early December and love, love my entire family that they are the center of the universe for, for Anna and I, and I should say for Anna, I call her the goat. Unfortunately, she knows what that means. I, you, you were kind enough to refer to me intellectually. I will tell you that I cannot fathom a better grandmother or grandmother to our grandchildren. And I think that all of them would have tested that.

JEFF JOHNSON: Joe, you married so well and is absolutely fantastic.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah, for sure. We have that in common as well, sir. Without a doubt.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We both married well. Okay, where did you meet Anne?

JOE SLAVENS: In high school. And, and, and you know, while we kind of knew of each other, we were in Bettendorf. We were, we were at the first away game in 1981. It was actually September 11th, 1981. And she sat in front of me in the Burlington football stadium and she sat on my feet, you know, accidentally and it was love at that moment. And I chased her and got her to date me and then she dumped me and I got her to date me and then she dumped me and I got her to date me and then she dumped me. We had about six or seven times that she dumped me. But I was persistent. And I got what I got what I wanted done. Maybe what I deserved. I didn’t deserve what I got. I got better than that. But she married me and she’s been hanging every day I wake up and ask her if she’s going to throw me out or if I can come home and she says no. And that’s a, that’s a blessed, that’s the biggest blessing I get that day.

JEFF JOHNSON: That took a certain amount of courage to be tenacious like that in pursuit of your beloved.

JOE SLAVENS: Well, thank you. Yeah, I’m, I guess I don’t, it’s interesting. I would get a heavy curve. I don’t think of myself as courageous. So that’s kind of you to have a broader definition of that.

JEFF JOHNSON: Okay. Okay. Well, that’s interesting. See, I would have thought, I would have thought you would have identified yourself as courageous because I certainly identify you as courageous. But that talks about your home mark, other home mark of humility. So anyway, let me ask you this because I, I introduced you as the smartest guy. No, which is a fact, which is a failure. I’m sorry. Yeah, deal with it, Joe. But okay. So we talk about IQ and then we also talk about EQ. There’s a little story. I’m going to betray about you. We were at a business meeting with some other forum brother guys and Joe stood up on the table and said to us, he said, I want to do this because I want to make sure that you remember it. And he said to each one of us in a voice, a couple of octaves higher than it needed to be, you are all going to die. And I’ll never forget it. And then he climbed down off of the table and he presented his treat us and his treat us was you need to have a will and you need to make sure that your affairs are put together because this thing is going to come to an end and you’ve got responsibilities, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, what a powerful thing to do, willing to, you know, some people would say that that’s a little bit humiliating, standing up in a restaurant on top of a table and do it, you know, exasperated like that. But it made the point. The only reason that you did it was because number one, it was true and two because you cared enough about us to do that, make a fool out of yourself to do that. And I’ve never forgotten it. And my affairs are in order because of Joe Slaven, so thank you very much. But that denotes two things. One, IQ, smart, to know that you need to have that done and EQ, the emotions to read the room and know that you care about these people and this is an important thing to do. So I want to ask you kind of in the deep end of the beginning, as we start this off, Joe, what’s more important, IQ or EQ? How do those two relate to each other?

JOE SLAVENS: Oh, wow. What’s more important? I hate binary questions because my philosophy is both and. And I think that I would start with the fact that both have a certain level of both is necessary for a happy and productive life. And then the second part of that sort of equation would be is both would have points of diminishing returns on them. So you want to be in the slot on both of them. And if one becomes too dominant, you don’t get the benefit, but you get the burden of that extra EQ or extra IQ. The burden of that extra EQ or IQ actually has a net sort of a negative associated with it. So I think there’s a great deal of strength in being normal.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, normal. Normally, you would define it as having both.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah, I can’t. I think you have to have both. I mean, I’m putting on scale. If you had zero IQ, boy, you’d be in real trouble. Even if you had an extraordinary EQ, you know, even build a feature. So I mean, just, you know, you go on and on and on about the things you wouldn’t have. And if you have no EQ, you know, the IQ becomes meaningless because you can’t convey that knowledge in any way to someone or use it for anyone’s benefit.

JEFF JOHNSON: Does one motivate the other more than the other? You know, it starts with EQ is IQ is the engine, but EQ is the spark that gets it going. So to speak. Or does it depend on the circumstances?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, I again, they’re, they’re, you know, you’re trying to have me judge between my right hand and my left hand. And yes, I am right handed. You know, I will say that I think that, you know, if I have a bias, you know, my bias is probably intellectual, you know, because I think when you are intellectual and think about things, you can, there’s a, what’s the word? I was a proxy for EQ. If you don’t naturally have EQ, but you’re smart and you realize that have an EQ is important, you can work on it and you can develop tools to help you either have or look like you have a higher EQ. You can’t, it doesn’t work the other way around. And a high EQ, you’re not going to, you know, you can, you can work on and develop that EQ, I think, and get tools to substitute for it. But there’s no replacement for a certain level of intellectual capacity. Doesn’t mean it’s better. That’s just, you force me into a little bit of a, of a, of a prioritization there.

JEFF JOHNSON: Well, it’s a, yeah, these are my own selfish little, little curiosities, Joe. So I give myself freedom to ask all these questions. But I hear what you’re saying, asking, choose between my right hand and my left hand.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah, which, which blade of the scissors the most important? Well, you got to have both of them to do it.

JEFF JOHNSON: In business, you know, where, where we learn to, in order to be successful, we got to surround ourselves with really good, competent people, good consultants. Is it easier to hire IQ or is it easier to hire EQ? Sorry for another binary.

JOE SLAVENS: Well, I mean, I, I think it’s easier to hire EQ, you know, and it’s easier to test that on the Q before you make the hire. I think that, you know, EQ is a little tougher because EQ is something that is demonstrated generally speaking, you know, over time, and it’s not, it’s not quite as testable, if you will, and circumstances, you can, you can try. But, you know, people could play out a position emotionally, I think, longer than they can play out a position intellectually.

JEFF JOHNSON: I’m wanting to ask some kind of a smart question now about where does courage relate as far as IQ and EQ? Is it have a relation to those?

JOE SLAVENS: You know, it’s essentially, you know, you invited me, which is very nice to, you know, I accept it because I, not because I feel like I’m courageous, because I like you, respect you, enjoy you, can’t really say no to you. But you know, I, I think that there’s a, you know, one of the distinctions would be, you know, the whole idea of, you know, physical courage versus what I’ll call, you know, either moral or intellectual courage. It’s pretty standard sort of a dividing line, you know, what, what, what lingual you want to use. And, you know, I think that physical courage, you know, has, can have both elements of those things. But I think ultimately physical courage, you know, generally speaking to me comes from the idea that the, the benefits to the community, to society, to the broader group are bigger than the risks that I took individually. I mean, I think we all think of the first responder rushing into the World Trade Centers. And they were doing something that, you know, they were, they were putting their lives at risk because they thought that they could save more people than the risk of them losing their own life. And that’s an active physical courage that I think is trained into them intellectually, you know, and it’s why we have fire departments and police departments and why we have the armed services and, and the first, you know, all that whole group of people that put, that puts society ahead of themselves. Now, there has to be some sort of an intellectual engagement of that. Otherwise, you know, you can, you can intellectualize that all the beat, but heck, I might die. I’m not going to go. And so you have to embrace that emotionally as well. But I think behind all of that is an intellectual, you know, decision has been either in bread or trained or whatever. You know, intellectual courage, I, I sat and thought a lot about, a lot about this. And how, you know, I get how it fits into things. And I, I really struggle with the concept, Jeff, because I think life is really built upon values. And if you have no values, I don’t think you can argue, you have any courage. Because to me, your, your courage is, you know, that the implicit concept is that you’re weighing, you know, a decision A versus decision B and, and that I’m going to, I’m putting something at risk under A and B and I make, I make a decision that I’m going to, you know, put my, whatever is going to have the negative impact in me is outweighed by the positive impact to whatever other constituencies I’m serving. And, and so I, I come around to say, is, is that really courage or is that just the implementation of your values? And, and so I, so when I go back to saying, if you don’t have values, you can’t have courage. And so now if you do have values, my take on it is that the only time that you exhibit courage is when your values are in conflict. And so it takes courage, if you will, to reflect upon the values in place, you know, one in front of the other. And, you know, the example that’s a horrible example to use is, you know, you have two children, they’re both in the street, they’re both yours. And you only have the, you’re giving the choice to say, you only get to rescue one of your kids.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah.

JOE SLAVENS: I mean, I’m not giving, you know, that’s, that’s an impossible decision to make. And they’re equally valued. And so I, I don’t, that’s one, you know, that’s sort of a, you know, a choice that you, you know, not acting costs you both children. Acting, you can only save one and you’ll be, you’ll be forever, you know, as much as you’ll be happy to save one, you’ll be tragically, you know, saddened and just, and have despair for not having the other. Now, most of the time we don’t have that sort of equality of values, if you will. That it’s not, it’s not identical. And so, you know, we, we have to be reflective and discern, you know, ultimately, which value. And that’s, and that’s, that’s a human, that’s a, that’s a human being thing when we’re, when we’re, when we’re living our life. It’s a leadership requirement. I mean, I, in my business world, I view one of my roles as the leader of my business to identify the values of the company, communicate them, educate on them, remind them them. And then ultimately, be the person who has to make decisions whenever the conflicts are in, are in conflict. I don’t expect someone who works for me to make that decision because I’ve told them A and B and when I can’t achieve A and B and they’re in conflict, then you got to come to me and I have to make the hard decision. I don’t expect you to do that.

JEFF JOHNSON: Right. Right. Yeah. Let me use this as an example just to get a better, a better framework or, or maybe another way to look at your definition of courage because I love that. Okay. I love my wife so much. And that’s a sacrificial love. So I’ll go without some things so that she can have some things. My birthday was last weekend. And she wanted to go to NASCAR. She loves that. So we went to the NASCAR race. It’s not my favorite thing. And she said, I feel selfish. I feel like maybe we shouldn’t be going to the, and I said, honey, wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. So if you want to go to NASCAR, I go to NASCAR. So it’s kind of a kitschy kind of a fun little picture of it. But my values are that I love my wife and because of that, I’m willing to do some things for her that I wouldn’t necessarily do. Where’s my courage in that? Is that where you’re defining courage then? You’re saying no?

JOE SLAVENS: No, I’m not. I mean, yes, because you know, I’m not actually, I mean, I’m saying I don’t, I don’t necessarily believe in intellectual courage because I think all we’re doing is making choices in ranking our values. And if I have something, if I have something in value and something that’s not a value, that’s easy. If I have something that’s, you know, two values are in conflict, it’s not courage, it’s discernment. And, you know, and again, I don’t want to take, go too far off on the tangent. But see, I think that selfishness gets a really, really bad rap. I think God wired us to have, you know, certain values, we develop certain values. And when we defend those values, we’re being selfish. And so we rank those values. And let me tell you something, I get huge value out of making my wife, please, even if it’s like you said, something I don’t want to do. Yeah. I don’t have anything that we’ve ever experienced in 41 years where she said she wanted to do this and it made her happy. And no matter how much I disliked it, I didn’t do what she wanted to do because that was the number one. Again, she’s never asked me to do something against, you know, the law. She’s never asked me to do something against God’s word, whatever. But, but she, you know, in the, in the human sphere, her happiness ranks one. And that gives me, and selfishly, that gives me so much energy and so much happiness that it overwhelms any negative associated with whatever activity she’s asked me to do. So I think you’re the same way. So I don’t think you were courageous. I think you were, I think you were penultimately applying your value structure selfishly.

JEFF JOHNSON: Just living, just living according to my values selfishly, which is not a negative thing, but it’s a good thing.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah. There are probably some people that get wired any, you know, or find themselves in position where their values are all screwed up, Jeff. We all know those, seen those kind of people, known those kind of people. And, you know, we sit, you know, I’ll probably don’t sit in judgment, but we’d like to kind of course, director, say, we don’t want to live there. And then they get some like really atrocious outcomes because their values are mixed up.

JEFF JOHNSON: So maybe I should ask you for a definition of courage then, or did you already give it to me that it’s the physical?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, it’s easy on the physical side, you know, and, and, and, and it is the running into the building and at the cost of your life to sacrifice, to save somebody else or whatever. Yeah. And I, and I guess I will say to get, because I don’t want to fight you here on this, or leave you, leave you, you know, leave it empty. I, I think there is one part of courage into lecture that I will say, and that is the courage to decide between your values. And the courage to, to, to, to, and so it’s not, because you’re giving something up then. And I, and I think that’s really what the, you know, the definition of courage is, you know, I think giving something that, that has a cost to it in order to get something else. But again, I think we all, as long as we are being, whether it’s momentarily reflective or, you know, deeply contemplative, we should be making decisions with respect to our values. And so, again, the courage is not necessarily the decision itself. The courage is in knowing you need to make a decision, because I think that lots of people live their lives, unconsciously, because they are unwilling to confront and make the decision of the ranking of their values. So there’s more, there’s a more of a lack of courage. You know, it’s like, you know, I think, you know, you’re an engineer, so I shouldn’t maybe go down this path because I’ll get wiped out. But cold does not exist. It’s the absence of heat.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s right.

JOE SLAVENS: So in, in the intellectual side, I sort of look at, and say, yeah, courage is, you know, you make that decision, but it’s really about in the world, in my opinion, there’s a whole lot more lack of courage, because people don’t consciously and reflectively make decisions about which of their values is more important than another value, because you do have to at times make those. You try and avoid them. You try and live your life in a way where you’re always in line. But, you know, you can have a, you can value family and you can value honesty, you know, and you can sit back and say, oh my gosh, when do I, how do I tell my son this or my daughter that or my wife that, because I value honesty, but I also don’t want to hurt him. I love him.

JEFF JOHNSON: You feel like we live in a society that, by and large, lacks courage, doesn’t demonstrate it.

JOE SLAVENS: Yes. That would be, that would be correct. I think people float along and people just, you know, my wife says I overthink everything. So, you know, maybe I’m, this is, this is maybe we’re being, I’m an abnormal, and if you take my earlier comment, I’m not being inconsistent, but I think that if people with, with thoughtful, were more thoughtful about what they did, I think we’d get much, you know, we’d be much more welcome. And it would, it takes some energy and courage to be decisive on that as opposed to just being, you know, boats that float without rudders and sails and ors.

JEFF JOHNSON: I agree with you, Joe. It’s what I see around me all the time. Why do we do that as a society? I mean, I don’t know if I wanted to associate myself with that group, but I don’t want to be elite as either, but, yeah. No, I don’t hear you. That’s my concern. I don’t want to come up with a, you know, the, although, or superior anyway.

JOE SLAVENS: I think we have a society where there are quite frankly less consequences to being rudderless orless and sails. We are accepting, you know, and forgiving and, I use the word safety net. We’ve created safety nets and excuses for a lot of people to do, to make that decisions. And so the level of the level of consequence for being indecisive is, you know, increasingly diminished. And the reward for being decisive is being increasingly, I think it’s, maybe it’s not the benefits are, but the costs of being decisive. I mean, who do we criticize publicly as people who are decisive?

JEFF JOHNSON: Right.

JOE SLAVENS: You know, I, you know, no matter, you know, on either side of the political aisle and, on either side of any issue, the more, the more firm they are on their opinion, the more critical we become of them.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s absolutely right. So we’re, we’re, we’re just about taking our comfort and wanting to walk around uncriticized, unnoticed, the play, the blue and then live our life, you know, get our, you know, you know, I’ll call it, you know, there’s a little bit of an element of short-sightedness in there.

JOE SLAVENS: You know, I think the instantaneous gratification, you know, it’s easier to just go with the flow and let the immediacy provide the reward because again, the, negative consequences generally aren’t there. I mean, I, and there’s so many, there’s so many examples of that. And you know, you try to remain apolitical because I don’t think it’s, I don’t think any political position has the answer on this. But yeah, that’s, that’s my take.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah, I, well, I’ve, I’ve used this quote, probably the last three interviews that I’ve done so people are getting sick of it. But I really want to know your mind around this because of what you just said. CS Lewis says most people have no idea what they’re capable of and most people won’t get to it unless they absolutely have to. So it’s a similar theme as people say, you know, the graveyard is the most valuable real estate in the world because all those dreams and potential and everything is buried there. Things that didn’t happen that could have happened. And I, and I do think that that is a human tragedy that people walk around with the music still inside them, as the poet says, without doing it. Do you agree with that, that quote?

JOE SLAVENS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, I, and I’m, well, I don’t have it in front of me. But when I eulogized my dad, I, I was raised by him and it was, it was sort of a, you know, what’s more useless, undiscovered potential or unused potential. I mean, it doesn’t matter. It was, it went away. And, and so, you know, I mean, I, I think of another conversation I had with someone, you know, again, it was someone from what I would call the other side of the aisle with me. And I said, let’s take a step back and recognize it. My, I think we share one opinion. That is that the purpose of the educational system in our, in our country is to, um, each, help each child maximize the likelihood that they will fulfill their potential. And so, amen. You know, the, the, the gap that we have, um, in, in, I think we’re having, I think, I guess the point is, I think we have a growing gap between potential and what, what is actually fulfilled in our country.

JEFF JOHNSON: I think that’s a different way of saying what, what, what, what, that’s a great, that’s a great way to put it. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that’s, it’s a growing gap between, between that, you know, um, as a consequence of not fulfilling your potential have gone, have gone down. And the reward for fulfilling your potential, um, relative to the consequence of fulfilling your potential, um, and not on that basis have gone down. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I’ve, as a Christian, I recognize the, the life that Christ modeled for all of us. And when he’s on the cross, he, he prays and he says, Father, I’ve done everything that you sent me here to do everything. He didn’t do everything in the world that there was to be done, but he did what his assignment was, what he was sent to do. And as a result, he lived the perfect life. And that’s something that, that haunts me, Joe, is that I want to make sure that I do everything that God sent me here to do. And that’s what you’re talking about right there. And I think it takes courage to come into that fulfillment when you’re buffeting up against a society that says, Hey, shut up and sit down and I believe different and screaming and yelling and all that sort of thing, right?

JOE SLAVENS: Yes, like the purpose driven life. I mean, I, you know, the first thing is to recognize that you have a purpose. The second thing is to discover what that purpose is. And the third step is to fulfill that purpose to the best of your ability. And I don’t, I think we, I think we have unfortunately, um, a lot of people who haven’t even decided there was a purpose to their life. They’re, you know, I think it was a, the band Kansas. They’re, they’re dust in the wind, you know, um, and they haven’t even, they haven’t even recognized their dust in the wind. But there’s two parts that you know, I recognize I’m dust in the wind. So I got a short window in which to fulfill that purpose. That’s my, that’s how I look at dust in the wind. There’s a whole lot of people say, yeah, dust in the wind. And so what does it matter? I don’t even need to find my purpose.

JEFF JOHNSON: Right. That’s, yeah. And that’s a tragedy. That’s a sad thing because we’re saying, and I think that’s what, and the God put us on it here, you know, for a purpose. And the moment we don’t even recognize that he did or even begin to explore the possibilities of what that purpose is, it’s, it’s, it’s tragic. And we’re all sent as a blessing, Joe. There’s some, I don’t know how it relates, you know, I mean, that’s outside of my pay grade, but God knows there’s somebody in Istanbul that needs to come into the fullness of who God made him to be so that the world all gets better and somehow I’ll benefit from it, you know, and it goes for every, every one of us. Deep in, Joe, this is why I love you so much. Wow. Who represents courage to you? Knowing how you approach the concept of courage, do you have a couple of people that when somebody says that’s a courageous person, somebody that comes to mind?

JOE SLAVENS: I don’t have an individual necessarily, but again, I, I, I, my first, my first two spots that I go to are, you know, the, the folks, the first responders rushing into, you know, a burning building, you know, in 9-11. And again, that’s, that’s, that’s burned into my memory. And then I think everyone who serves in the armed services has put themselves, they’ve put, they’ve put the values of our country above the value of their life. And I can think of, you know, no two groups that are more courageous than, than, than those.

JEFF JOHNSON: Amen. Well put. Okay. Well, I, I’m excited to ask you this question. Joe Slavens, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah. I’m sure with this, because you, you created this question, when you still move the ball, then you’re, you spend your life, I’ve engaged in new physical courage that I can think of. You know, I haven’t put myself in, in harm’s way for the benefit of someone else. So there’s no, there’s no, you know, list of physical courage that I can say. I’m not a firefighter. I’m not, I haven’t served in the armed services. So I, I don’t go there. And now I get to that whole, you know, times, you know, if you want to say making a decision, I make a lot of them. But I would say, and I’ve really struggled. I came up with two. I’ll go with the one that you know best. And that is the decision that I had to make to terminate the employment of my best friend. And the reason you know that is because I called you before I did it. And again, I will put that in an, in, in, in, in, in, in both an emotional and an intellectual sense. And that was weighing the benefits and the burdens of two different values, being the value of loyalty and friendship to the value of making the right business decision. And I, again, the, the non-curages act as we talked about earlier would have been to do nothing, to ignore the fact that I needed to make a decision and to, you know, sort of let it float on by. But that, we all know that’s a decision in itself because I, I knew the situation that was unfolding. I made that decision, walked in, had the conversation, had the difficult conversation. And the blessing that came out of that, you know, was really threefold. The first one, and most important one was that the continuation and increase in depth of the friendship rather than the loss of the friendship. The sort of, you respect me enough to tell me the truth. And I respect, and he respected that. The second is that he went on to a career that he loves. And is, I would argue, you know, in every element of business, more successful. It is both intellectually and emotionally has been more fulfilling for him over the last 10 or 15 years than what he was doing or would have done working with me. And then the business one, because it was the right business decision. And so, you know, I look back and I say, was that courageous? No, it was just discernment. But again, I had the courage to at least confront and make the decision.

JEFF JOHNSON: That’s a great example. And I absolutely recognize that as courage. And I’m so glad we unpacked the nuances of courage, the way that we did before you gave that answer because it puts it into perfect, perfect light. You’ve made other decisions like that.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah, the other one I was the other example I’ll give you is that we made the decision to sell the primary family business in North West Bank and trust company. And people have asked me if that was tough. And I, you know, I tell the very, I hope, like I’m going to give you a short version that I say, I looked at our budget and, you know, we had a strategic plan in 2025, your plan, good deal. Everything’s going, you know, the way that I, you know, wanted to do. I’m implemented. It’s not an easy plan, but we’re doing it. And 18 months later, I sit down and look at the numbers and I say, you know what, I’m a business person, not a banker and being in banking and investing our capital in banking doesn’t make any sense. And fortunately, I was raised by a father who said, you never forget that you’re a business person in banking, not a banker. And so I looked at it and said, this is not the right place for our capital moving forward. Now, roll forward. You know, it took me three and a half years, you know, three, now three years to get it done almost three years. And, but I had a transaction that fell apart. We went to another transaction and it was, and it was an incredible transaction. I mean, people die flying in from Europe to buy the bank, you know, I mean, you’re going to make it the world headquarters for this. The fastest growing, you know, new, you know, sort of new on avant-garde, new type of banking in the world, you know, and, and, you know, hire me and hire another member of my family and pay a great price. And, I mean, I looked at my constituent, shareholder wins, I win, my employees win, my customers win, my community wins. This is going to be awesome. Well, over the time period of negotiating things, it all, all those benefits started falling off the table. And, but, you know, the pressure, once you’ve signed certain documents, that wasn’t, you know, the letters of intent and you’ve spent six figures and he’s spent seven figures I’m sure on, and on lawyers and he’s, you know, I mean, he’s calling me from his private airplane, putting his, you know, put his thumb on me and I had a board meeting called to approve the agreements in the sale. And the night before I made the decision to say I’m going to go in and call this off. And I slept like a baby, went into the meeting, investment bankers, the board and everything is all they’re ready to, you know, to do what I ask them to do. And I said, we have a holding company and the bank board had that. And I said, folks, I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t waste your time today, but I’ve made the decision that the holding company is not going to approve this. There’s no reason for you to have a vote. In my opinion, what started out is a situation where, you know, we had everybody winning. I think has everybody either neutral or losing. And I, I, you know, even though, you know, there’s a whole bunch of people that have this momentum behind it, you know, lawyers and board members and senior management and, you know, some members of the community that are aware of what you’re doing. I said, this transaction is contrary to my values. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t other than them, other than the, I’ll call it the potential embarrassment of calling off something that, you know, looked like a really, you know, that you kind of bred to everybody else and sold as a really great deal. But it was a pig in the poke when it was all said and done. And I made that decision. That’s another one, I guess I’m rambling out for it on you. But, you know, I had to pay on the phone call that guys and it was what was great about the calls I called the representative of the United States with his primary leading the United States. And I said, I just want to let you know I called the deal off today at the board meeting. And the, you know, but really made my day that day because there was a lot of pressure on that. He said, I don’t like it, but I get it. So I was like, okay, you know, if, if the guy who’s the primary representative of the international firm gets it, I guess it’s not that big a deal that I called off.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. Gosh, Joe, it’s, it’s great framing, framing the concept of courage more around values. And that equal balance of IQ and EQ. See, that’s what I hear. That’s what I discern when I hear those two scenarios, the most courageous thing you’ve ever done is the equal balance of IQ and EQ. It’s the respect for other people. It’s that kind of empathy, but also it’s the intellectual wherewithal to understand a decision needs to be made and not shying away from it. I mean, it’s that, that’s a picture of courage. Now you mentioned several times already in this short interview. And I’m known you a long time as we already established. So I’ve heard this before. The tremendous respect you have for your father. You and your dad had an amazing relationship. Is that where now I’m going to start to blend values and courage? Is that where your values, is that where your courage came from, was framed from, or was that something that you had? And it was just refined by the relationship. Talk about that.

JOE SLAVENS: Oh, no, I, you know, the int, I shouldn’t do this to an interview. The more interesting question is, is, and maybe the way you’re framing it is to say, is do you think it’s environment or do you think it’s genetics? Yes. And the answer is it’s both. You know, again, I, you, you, you, you, you, maybe it’s hard to get a straight answer out of the lawyer. But, but, but the point of story is, I think much of this is woven into our DNA. You know, and, and I have, you know, half my DNA comes from him. And that’s not to say my mother is not an important role in this. I mean, she, by no means, they’ve been consistently with this, but, but, but, but, but, and I spent more time with my father, maybe, you know, as an adult, than I did with my mother as an adult. And that’s where it was refined. But no, I mean, our, our value structure was, again, not only in grain, but it was demonstrated when we were children. And it was even more clearly demonstrated when, when I was an adult working alongside or at the knee of my father. And so I, and, and I think this is how he would, you know, I, I don’t want to say, as you can say that, what I was going to say is that, you know, I, I think he would answer these questions exactly the same way, but nobody really knows that, you know, I did. I, one of the mistakes that I didn’t make, but I almost made was, you remember when they had the bands to say, you know, WWJD, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? And when my dad died, I thought about giving out bands at the bank saying WWBD, what would Bob do? And, and, and the reality is, is while we have all, you know, I think, you know, I’m not trying to criticize the, what would Jesus do, folks? Because I think we have guidance that is the Bible, you know, that, that, that allows us to understand the lesson of what, you know, Jesus would, would have us do. We’re, Bob didn’t write a Bible. You know, he lived his life. There wasn’t a book to go with. And I thought, you know, boy, don’t ask what Bob would do, but decide what Bob’s and your values are, continue to communicate those consistent values and have people make decisions consistent with the values, because otherwise they’re just going to try and guess what Bob would do. And so I get a better answer by saying what would your values be than by saying what would Bob do? And ultimately that’s true because I don’t think there’s any, but there’s only one remaining employee in our organization. God bless her. She’s been here 43 years. There’s only one employee left that even knew my dad. So asking her to continue, you know, to do that. And then the last thing is the world changes, you know, and so you, you, values don’t, the world does. And so, you know, all the examples you end up having from Bob’s life, you have to distill the value and then apply them to the new circumstances because if you can say what would Bob do, you don’t know because the circumstances are different. Yeah. Sorry if I wandered off on you.

JEFF JOHNSON: No, no, no, you didn’t. You’re the patriarch now. So how do you perpetuate? How do you perpetuate those values? How do you perpetuate that courage? I know your children. So I know what kind of qualities they have. And I can see that reflected from what I see in their mom and dad. But how do you, can you transfer that?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, again, I, you know, hopefully some of it’s in the DNA. Hopefully some of it’s done because, you know, they’re, that we’re lucky enough to have them all here and they see it. They saw demonstrated when, you know, they were children. They saw it, you know, demonstrated, they see it demonstrated today. I hope because we, you know, we all live within 10 miles of each other and spend a lot of time together. You know, I have a, I have a TED talk that talks about legacy. I haven’t done the TED talk yet. But there’s five elements to a person’s legacy. And one of the elements is that you’ve been able to, you know, that your children live your, you know, excuse me, that your grandchildren live your values. It’s because, you know, they’re not, if, you know, does it, you know, if your kids do and your grandchildren doesn’t, don’t, doesn’t, did it matter? And so, and if you’re, and if your grandchildren do, they probably got a lot of that from their parents and from you. Now, you know, because it’s pretty hard to transfer outside of that. And the reason I use that example is, it’s a point to say that it’s really only a legacy if you transfer through multiple generations. If it only goes, you know, my legacy is my kids are not my legacy. It’s my grandchildren that are. And I’m not diminishing the importance of my children in that equation, because they will play a huge role in that. But it’s the idea of bringing about the idea that values should be timeless. That’s the, that’s the message I’m trying to communicate with that. And if I can’t, if I can’t do the kinds of things with my kids and then, ultimately directly with my grandkids that have them living those values, then then my, then those values are not my legacy.

JEFF JOHNSON: So you need to live your values to such an extent that they are anchored and they’re sticky and they’re so clear.

JOE SLAVENS: And yeah, and they’re, and they’ve become perpetual. Now, people can get, you know, I mean, people wander off the, you know, the reservation, you know, kind of, kind of stuff. And then that’s, but that’s, and that’s what what we talked about earlier, you know, society. I mean, I, and I’m not here to glorify the, you know, the societies of the past, because I think the, you know, there’s some great things that happened and there’s some, you know, lousy stuff that happened and, and that sort of stuff. And we, you know, it’s sort of the, the human condition to learn and then have to make a mistake again and relearn. And we get better and we get worse and, and that sort of thing. And we, we either tend to over criticize or under criticize prior cultures and societies. I’m a big, I’m a big advocate of the Greek citizen. I, you know, to me, the Greek citizen concept is one that says, not only do I, do I have rights as a citizen, I have obligations as a citizen. I think we’ve lost that. And whenever I see somebody who’s exhibiting, you know, that value of Greek citizenship, I like to applaud them, hold them up, lift them up, you know, as a person of, of that, that we should, you know, model our behaviors after. Yeah. I’m, I’m rambling on you again.

JEFF JOHNSON: No, this is fantastic. Joe, I’m thinking, I’m thinking that’s another, another reason. Again, it’s just going to turn into slaubring on you again. But the people that I respect the most, the people that I see the most that have, that have a complete life, their success, their for sure, they’re necessarily has to be because they’re effective, they’re expressing their God-given gifts and the, and the universe around them responds. And so there’s a certain amount of success. But part of that, in the people that I really respect and look up to are people that have that generational kind of value system to use your language. Those two things have to be there because I know people that are extremely successful. And I wouldn’t necessarily want what they have. Do you know what I mean?

JOE SLAVENS: It’s absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, I think of two people that are, by the time they were in their 60s or 70s, had no one to sit at the table with a Thanksgiving because they had, they didn’t have relationships with their children. I tried to, I mean, they had, they had, they had, they had the financial means to do anything. Yeah. These two individuals. But as far as I was concerned, they were, they were impoverished because they didn’t have the ability that, you know, they hadn’t built a relationship with their, with their children. And therefore they’re grandchildren.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. Oh, it’s great. Now you’re making me think because I had my little grandson, my second grandson, Lion James was just born. What a name? L-I-O-N. That young man, I’m telling you, God’s got a mandate for him. Holding him in my arms just a couple of days ago and, and that feeling that you have is you want the whole world for those kids and you want it in a value-based scenario. Believe the right things, hold true to the right things, do the right things, all that sort of thing. And I love how you’ve characterized those values with courage for us today. What’s the next question? Oh, it’s just on the tip of my tongue, Joe. And I lost it just for a second. So would you recommend to people if they’re struggling with a decision that they’re confronted with today to wrestle more with their values, to discern what their values are, or to get counsel and just press on courageously through something. I mean, what kind of guidance would you give people that are struggling with big decisions right now?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, I think, yeah, I think the first step is to, and this is a little circuitous, is to say try and identify the simple way it says, as the reason they’re struggling is because they don’t have values or they down and identified their values or they think their values are at odds. And that becomes a preliminary question, because if you don’t have values, you can’t have, you know, you’ve identified that you live by, then I think the task at hand is to try and identify, okay, it’s at least situationally, what are the values that are in play here? And then once you’ve identified those values that are in play, you can then say, well gosh, my value’s sad. This is easy. This isn’t courageous. This is easy because my value’s sad. I need to do this. Or they say, boy, I do have a, I do have a quandary here where my values are at odds with each other or apparent odds. You know, they may not actually be at odds, but they’re at apparent odds. And I need to, now, not, I’ve identified now I have to make a choice based upon the relative evaluation of those values going forward. And so I, you know, again, so I think it is to probably intellectualize for a moment the problem in the context of values.

JEFF JOHNSON: Really discern what your values are. What is it?

JOE SLAVENS: Yes, discern what your values are. And again, it, because sometimes again, I think most of the time when people are wondering what to do, if they do that, the answer becomes just instantly crystal clear. Yeah. You know, and so it’s like, I’m not that person. I’m not going to do this. It’s a fairly rare situation where you, you know, when you have values truly at odds with each other, but that it happens. So that’s, that’s it. That does you have to make a decision then.

JEFF JOHNSON: So they have values to say, I can no longer stand for the principles that this organization is demonstrating behind closed doors. I know that there’s some, some feverish going on here. I know that there’s some mendacity. I know that there’s some, you know, not truth telling going on back here. And I can’t deal with this anymore. But then they go, but I need a paycheck and I need to keep going. How do you wrestle with that?

JOE SLAVENS: Well, think again, to me, the question you have to ask yourself again, the values, I have an obligation to put food on the table and feed my family. But am I, am I spending my time at work, trying to have an impact on the organization to try and change it? I may or may not be in a position of change, you know, an instigator or a leader of change. On the other side of that saying, am I spending adequate time finding an organization that you will utilize my skill that shares my values? I mean, if you sit and just complain after recognizing it, you know, you haven’t done anything. But I mean, and if you are, but if you are truly doing everything you can to either change the organization and find an organization that suits you right, I mean, I, I have yet to find a person who a person of value who can’t find that. It may take them a while. Yeah. But usually it’s a question of effort. It’s not a question of, you know, does that, does that, does that or their organization or their opportunity exists? You know, I, this may not be the right time, but this is the example I would give you is I said, one of the reasons I was always comfortable in my own skin from a work standpoint, despite the fact that I went into a family business is I made the decision very early on in my life that if everything went to hell on a hand baskets, I would join the military because I respect what they do and I respect their value structure. And I, I could go there and they, you know, what’s the old, I get three hats in a cot and they would take, you know, they would take care of me and my family if I took care of them. And so I didn’t have, I never had to worry about having a job or being in a place that shared my values because I knew I always had a plan B that was going to be acceptable to me. Yeah. And I, and I’d argue that with the example you just gave, you know, the you just gave, you know, and maybe, you know, the values that I see the military, you know, exhibiting over, you know, time are, you know, a community above self, you know, it’s about discipline, it’s about hard work, it’s about self improvement, you know, it, there’s a value structure there that, when you really get down to the nuts and bolts of it is, you know, how do you argue with those values that exist in the, in the military and they’ll pay it. So I don’t think anybody can ever come to me and say, gosh, I can’t leave my employer because I need a job. Well, if it, you know, get, get out there and look forward and if you can’t find it during the, during the military. Some you could do.

JEFF JOHNSON: Okay. You and I, I’m, I’m, I’m coming close to wrapping up on you, Joe, but a couple more questions if you don’t mind. I, um, you and I both agree that there is great power in fellowship, great power in forum. That’s how you and I met surrounding yourself with really high quality people. So in, in a lot of those, uh, relationships, interpersonal relationships, and collectively as a, as a forum group, there was a lot of help there at making difficult decisions. Was that about defining values or was that just about encouraging people to recognize the obvious and get going? What do you think the value is in forum for people?

JOE SLAVENS: I think there’s a lot of guys. I think one is, is that, um, you’re not alone. I think, you know, long in its crates fog. Um, and so you, if you know, if you’re surrounded by people who you respect and share values, you can learn from similar decisions that they have made, the stories that they have told. They can help you refine your values and then apply them to the situation. But I’ll go back to you. Yeah. And, you know, again, if you’re, even go so far as to say, you know, you’re at the right group of people, um, God put them there for a reason, uh, you know, if you’re being purposeful of it. And so that they, in, in, in many ways, with the right folks, um, represent another pathway to, to listen to God in terms of, you know, and, you know, I, the worst things that have happened in my life is when I have not listened to him. Um, you know, there were lots of people telling me and lots of things in the world telling me not to do something and, and, um, I did, it wasn’t that I was intentionally disobeyed or went in the different direction. I just wasn’t listening. And so forum is a, is a place where, again, I, add onto my prior counsel, repeating them where you are in a, by its nature, listening. And, and that, you know, that allows you to come to a much clearer conclusion in my opinion.

JEFF JOHNSON: Would the Bible says wise men seek counsel? Yeah. So that’s also Jeff talking to his friend, the lawyer.

JOE SLAVENS: So, well, you know, as you know, the biggest problem that I, that, that, that I have is I’m not the world, I’m, I’m not the world’s greatest listener, Jeff. And I, I recognize that weakness and I have to, um, work on it. Um, and that was one of the things that forum helped me do is it helped me work on my listening skills. Um, and I’m still, it’s still my greatest weakness. Um, the, again, my uncle had a saying it was, your strength is your weakness. And so my ability to frame a problem, answer the problem and go forward. Um, leaves me telling you what the answer is before I’ve listened. Um, and I may be, you know, even if I’m right, it doesn’t, it doesn’t hurt to listen. And, and if I listen, I might adjust and, and or been wrong and, and can course correct along the way. So I’m, I’m working on that still at age 62.

JEFF JOHNSON: You and me both, brother. You and me both. Um, maybe this is a little, the final question I promise. Maybe this is a little bit out of left field. But, uh, I want to ask something like you reframed the question for me, Joe, it’ll be, it’ll be better. Is artificial intelligence causing us to lose our values? Does artificial intelligence help us become less courageous, more courageous? How is this world that we live in affecting the fullness of which God created us to be? Wow. Because it’s a big, it’s a big topic and it’s absolutely everywhere. And I don’t know something that’s had this kind of impact in my lifetime that I can point to.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah. No, I, well, I think we, yeah, my already would be is I think the internet had the similar impact, but it’s become so ubiquitous that, um, that we sort of like take it for granted now. And now this is the next fair thing. And again, and we had them in the past, you know, you had the, and maybe, you know, we had the steam engine and, you know, the invention of the car and the telephone and electricity and, you know, there’s a lot of things that have been, um, monumentally changing. But, but the, uh, but yeah, artificial intelligence, and I guess that tells you the artificial intelligence piece, um, you know, uh, I go back to my earlier statement about, is it easy not to define your values? And, um, and think about them. And I think that that’s the danger of all advancements to take place is that they make it easier not to, um, identify, establish and discern your values. Because we have a place to go for an answer. And we go there and we ask the question. And we don’t know what the values of that artificial intelligence. Sorry. I mean, at best, at best, they’re benign. Well, maybe that’s, you know, I mean, I, we, but at worst they were programmed, you know, to, by someone, um, and maybe even worse, I don’t know. I mean, I, I used to love mob, and I used to love, um, you know, reading the reviews, if you will, and thinking that mob intelligence on like product ratings and stuff was pretty cool. Now everybody’s game that system in my opinion, so you can’t really use that. But, you know, if I’m right and you and I are, scarily, you know, concerned about where society is at, if artificial intelligence is just playing back to us, what it’s being fed by the masses. And again, that sounds elitist and I don’t want it to sound, but, but if it’s people who aren’t thinking about values, it’s not going to reflect values coming back at us. Yeah. And so it, you know, it’s, it’s going to reinforce, you know, so it’s going to reinforce the good. It’s going to reinforce the bad. Um, I do, you know, I, you didn’t ask this question, but I mean, I’ll, I’ll finish this. I have a very dystopian view of the future. When you combine a lack of identification of values with artificial intelligence, which replicates intellectual capacity. And you have robotics coming down the line where, you know, a lot of people are doing things that require the use of, you know, their arms or hands, that sort of stuff. I have a dystopian view that, that we have a, you know, some of these futuristic movies, if you will, have a real high risk of occurring because people with capital are going to have to protect that capital and other ones are going to, you know, have the money and the people who are valueless intellectually, you know, less capable and don’t have any capital are going to be the masses that simply need to be fed. And I don’t mean that fed just in the sense of food. I mean it in the sense of purpose. And we’ve all seen what the sound bites and social media and how we can be manipulated. And so it’s, it’s a tool that can be used for great good, but it is a tool that can be used for, for great evil, either intentionally or unintentionally.

JEFF JOHNSON: The Delta and a couple of different areas could get even greater and greater and greater. That’s a bonus.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah. Exactly. And so, yeah. No, it’s a, and so it takes, you know, I mean, I think the biggest issue that I would comment on is I think that we are, we need more leadership in this country. We need more leadership in this world that are values based leaders. And, and that’s, you know, that’s the solution to the problem that’s out there, but, but candidly, we’re not particularly well suited to identifying and, and lifting up those people at this moment.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. That’s a good, it’s a good point. And then when you do find people that are value-based leaders, they’ll stick out like a sore thumb so people will throw rocks and sticks at them. So expect that.

JOE SLAVENS: Yeah, because value, because what’s the term values become translated to phobic. You know, because when you have a value and you take a stand, you’re phobic of the opposite. Yeah. And it takes, you know, I guess, I guess the point is you want to talk about courage. It will take great courage for people of value to, to assume leadership roles in the country. And you’ve done it. It will, you know, it will be, it will come with a, they may not be successful and be able to come with a great personal prize.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. And you’ve certainly done that with the leadership that I’ve seen you exhibit, Joe, in your fiefdom, and you’ve been a blessing to me. And I love you so much and you are a man of great courage. Joe Slavens, thank you so much for taking time with us today.

JOE SLAVENS: Thank you, Jeff, for your friendship. And what do you mean to me? Putting forth this, this, this discussion.

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