Aim For the Upright with CEO Stu Crum
In this engaging conversation, Stu Crum shares his journey from being a promising football player to a successful CEO, emphasizing the importance of intentional living, faith, and family. He discusses the lessons learned from his football career, the inspiration behind his book 'Aim for the Uprights', and the challenges of leadership in a corporate environment. Throughout the discussion, he highlights the significance of character, integrity, and the role of family support in achieving success. Stu also offers valuable advice for young professionals on how to navigate their careers while staying true to their core values.
Transcript
Well, Stu, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?
Stu Crum (:Dr. Haney, I am doing absolutely wonderful. How are you doing today?
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I'm ghetto fabulous, as I used to say. There you go. So I'd to ask my guest this question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Stu Crum (:Yeah, two guys doing good.
Stu Crum (:Make your bed in the morning.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I like that. Somebody said if you make your bed in the morning, means your rest day starts off just perfect.
Stu Crum (:Yeah. Yeah. Now there's a famous book or a famous Admiral that talked about that, but it's my famous mother who's still alive. Who's 90 years old. Who taught me that actually. And, and the reason she taught me it was because if you make your bed in the morning, you're starting the day off right. Right. And this is way before I was a Christian and, and, and, and, I think she'd give me different advice to start with a, start with a quiet time in the morning, but, at the time that was, that was the right thing to say.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I think in general said do that because that means you've accomplished something to start the day with. So I like that. So tell us a little bit about your background, your journey, kind of how you got from being a baby in your mom's arms to where you are now.
Stu Crum (:Exactly, exactly.
Stu Crum (:Yeah. So I'm a corporate, you know, a lot of people say they're Army brats. So I'm a corporate brat. So my father was in the pharmaceutical business and moved around first five years, San Francisco, next five years, Dallas, Texas, next eight years, St. Louis, which is like, I really call that home because those were my formidable years. And then I went to University of Tulsa on a football scholarship. I was a place kicker. And, you know, drafted by the New York Jets, played in the United States football league, married to my beautiful wife for
40 years, two wonderful children, four incredibly wonderful, I like my grandkids more than my children, four incredibly wonderful grandchildren. And I just been very blessed through my life, through my career, lot of opportunities came from a wonderful family. My parents were both alive, 90, 92 married for 68 years. So they've been a great model for my wife and I, and four and three brothers. So
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:in a nutshell, that's kind of who I am and there's a lot more about me, but that kind of encapsulizes a little bit about my journey.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
I love that. Seeing that you played football, I'm sure there are lot of memorable moments in your football career, but what was one moment that maybe forever maybe transformed or impacted your life even to this day?
Stu Crum (:Yeah. And it's, actually, I'm going to tell, I'm going to share that with you in a two part story because it was the one part that got me to the second part. So it was my senior year. And at the time I was a, this is 1983. So I know it's a hundred years ago for a lot of your listeners, but, even, you know, 41 years ago, it was, it was in 1983 and I was projected to be one of the top two place kickers in the country. I just come off a red shirt season cause I detached my retina the year before. So I hadn't kicked any year.
Very first game was against the air force academy, went out and attempted three field goals and I missed all three field goals. And here I am supposedly the best kicker in the country. And I missed my first field goal attempts. and, and, and as a kicker, you know, you coach says, know, dude, what's what's up, you know, you're supposed to be our man. and, have you, you know, gone from, you know, good to bad all of a sudden within a year of not playing. Well, I actually, you know,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:had to make a couple of changes, but it just happened the next game I was playing our in-state rivals, which was Oklahoma State University. And I went to the University of Tulsa. that it's a small little private university that plays division one verse big state university that also plays division one. And, I actually had the opportunity to kick a lot of field goals that game. I was voted the Chevrolet player of the game. kicked four field goals, one from 57 yards.
And all the things that I did wrong in the first game, I did right in the second game. But what that taught me, and it was a valuable lesson was, listen, none of us are perfect and we make mistakes, but you learn from those mistakes and you correct those mistakes. And I had to correct my foot placement, my leg swing, and all of a sudden I found it and I went on to kick, I think 17 straight field goals from that first game. But it was all correction, right? And so that taught me a lot in my life is,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:You know, when I get knocked down and not knocked down physically, because kickers don't like to be touched as you know, but when I got knocked down mentally and emotionally, I had to pick myself back up because there was a team that was counting on me. Fortunately, the Air Force game, we still won because they didn't need those three field goals. But, but just a great valuable lesson in my life.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I'm assuming as a kicker life is like with some sports a life of adjustment because you have to account for the wind, you have to account for field position. What lessons did being a kicker teach you in terms of how you
Navigate your way through life in general with adjustments.
Stu Crum (:yet, you know, it really was for me about a consistency. So a kicker and you see that it's, it's a lot different today. When you watch NFL in college, you see these kids, they, they mark off, they do this arm motion. Heck, we didn't do arm motions back when I was playing. We didn't have coaches that knew how to kick a ball that soccer. And that's true. There was not one, kicking academy that existed for soccer players back about 40 years ago. But, but the one thing I did learn was process process process, which has kicked me.
The steps have to be right. From the right hash mark to the left hash mark, you actually take different steps because the angle to the goal poses differently, right? So I learned to process from the age of 13 years old. And that has really helped me in particular in my business career, because as I've become a CEO for the last 14 years and I've taken businesses over, I've had to put process and systems in place to make sure that we're doing things the right way every time, as opposed to, this is like,
This person likes to do it this way and this person likes to it this way. So, know, kicking in sports in particular taught me discipline process.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that. So what inspired you to write the book, Aim for the Uprights?
Stu Crum (:Well, let me tell you the story about Aim for the Uprights and that will explain the title of the book. And then I'll explain why I wrote the book. this is back to 1983. It's before the NFL draft. And fortunately I kicked 16 field goals in a row. So I was back to being one of the best kickers in the country. And I had a pretty good idea. I was going to be drafted in the NFL. there were four of us, that were the top ranked kickers. there were about five teams that needed kickers after the, the NFL season was over. So.
The four of us who went all the combines together pretty well knew we were going to be drafted. The New York Giants were one team that was looking for a kicker. By the way, I was drafted by the Jets, but the Giants special teams coach actually came to our field two weeks for the NFL draft and he put 10 footballs across the 30 yard line, which had been a 40 yard field goal with the 10 yards in the right from hash mark to hash mark. And I had my holder and my snapper out there, snapper, snap the ball, holder, put the ball down. He said, stop. I said, what? He said, stop. I said, why? says, well,
You're getting kicked about for the goalpost. I said, well, that's right, coach. He says, no, no, I don't want you to do that. I want you to the right upright. I said, what? I've never been asked to hit it right upright in my life. If I hit the right upright, I've missed my field goal. He says, just trust me, hit the right upright or aim for the upright. Right. And so I took my steps. I kicked the ball, the very first ball from 40 yards out, believe it not, hit the right upright. And I'm not sure who was more surprised, the coach or me or my special teams coach or all the people were out there watching me that day.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:And I went on to kick nine more and I missed it, but he said, Stu, why do you think I asked you to do that? I said, coach, I actually, have absolutely no idea why he says, well, here's what I've learned is we've seen kids transfer or transition from college to professional is you aim for a goalpost when you kick. And if you miss a little bit to the right of that, or a little bit to the left of that, you've actually missed your field goal. What we teach our NFL kickers is in a stadium to find somebody in the middle of that goalpost. That's that you can, you can, that you're actually aiming for. And so you're aiming.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:right for that person. If you made missed a little bit to the right of it, a two or three yards to the right or two yards left, guess what? You still made your three points. He said, Stu, you've been aiming for good, but we want you to aim for great. He says, and I will tell you from that day on, not only did it change my kicking and my thoughts of kicking, actually became a metaphor for my life. And the metaphor for my life was Stu, you can be good at something or you can be great and aim for great. And so the whole
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:Name of the book is aim for the upright, which is aim for greatness, right? It's it's aim for greatness. Don't aim for good aim for great. Now have to read the book to understand that. Now why'd I write the book? If you asked me two years ago, if you can write a book, I would have told you absolutely not. I'll never write a book because I had no intention of writing a book, but I actually sold a company that I was running two years ago and I sold it to a company called Circle K. You've probably heard of Circle K. They got like convenience stores everywhere.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:And I was running a car wash business. have 71 car washes. They decided they want to get into the big tunnel car wash business in the negotiations for six months with, with the, the negotiators for circle K at the end of it, the guy said, you know, Stu, I've got to know you really well over six months. You've had a really interesting life. You should write a book. And I thought, well, I never really thought about that, but what I had done for the last 14 years, I've been a CEO. have actually.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:every week written an inspirational note. call them Stu's notes and I write those to my team. When I was at Bridgestone, I had 23,000 teammates that worked on my team. And so they would receive that note. Right now I'm in private equity. I'm building a company again. I've got 600 employees that are on our team. And I send that note. So I had 150 pages already of a book written of inspirational notes. And then what I ended up doing is I wrote my chapters. had, there's a, there's a message about my wife who went through cancer and how we dealt with cancer.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:There's a message of my son in there who was a professional baseball player who after his fourth surgery got addicted to opioids from the painkillers that he was taking. And the journey we went on from there and how hard that was. And so there's 18 chapters. And the book is the instructional playbook in faith, family, and business. Because what I realized is I started writing a leadership book, but it ended up becoming a book about my faith and how my faith is a hundred percent part of my life.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:and about my family and how important my family is. And business happens to be mixed in there, right? Cause I, my priorities are faith, family and business. And I was writing a leadership book about business, ended up being a leadership book for everybody just thinking, are we intentional in our faith? Are we intentional in our families? Are we intentional in our business? Intentionality can be in anything you do. that's make a very short question, a long answer.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:No, I love that because you gave a lot of perspective there. So your book is broken into three chapters, three sections.
Stu Crum (:It is.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Game on, game changer, late game score. So kind of tell us a little bit about why those three sections, because said books are long and all that, but I like that there's three distinct sections. So tell us about those three sections of your book.
Stu Crum (:Yeah. So, and it's, it's an easy read. mean, you know, for people who are like read easy book, this is one it's 167 pages, big print. you know, I'm an athlete, right? So we've got to keep things simple, you know, we can't complicate things too much, but gay. Yeah, right. Got to have the big print, especially at my age, cause you can't see small print anymore. but the game on the game on element of this is just really simple. It is kind of the beginning stages of my life. You know, it, it starts with, it starts with a story about aim for the uprights, but then it talks about how I.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Love the big print too. That's right.
Stu Crum (:at 13 years old, used to kick footballs in the basement when I lived in St. Louis and kind of talked through that journey, right? And then the second game changer, that's when I started developing a faith in the Lord and started growing in my faith journey. And part of that is also in my marriage to my wife and kind of growing through life. And the last part, of course, is late game score. And the reason we came to that, and it's really interesting, I was told from somebody,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You
Stu Crum (:When people talk about their life, a lot of people work their whole life. I'm gonna retire at 55, I'm gonna retire at 60. And I'm thinking, I'm 64 and not even thinking about retiring. And so I share a perspective in the last few chapters that, and part of it is, I never wanna talk about money because money is not how I view success in my life, it just simply isn't. But it just so happens that,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:The last five years of my life from 60 to 65, I've actually made more money than I made my first 35 to 40 years working. Where most of my friends have retired by that age, I've actually doubled my income from the first 35 years. So I do talk about how all those lessons that I had my first 35 years of working, I'm actually being on implement with private equity backed companies and running companies. And I didn't have that expertise in my 30s and 40s that I've gained in my 50s. And so it was time to keep on going.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that. So you talk about
a leadership book, you wanted to do a leadership book. Discuss maybe one of the most challenging leadership moments in one of your companies and how did you navigate through that? Because I love leadership and I love to know how people deal with leadership. So share one of your stories.
Stu Crum (:Mm-hmm.
Stu Crum (:Mm-hmm.
nd Tires Plus stores, there's:of this business and that's going to mean you're going to have to probably terminate a lot of people that are in senior leadership positions. Do you have the ability to do that? And I said, absolutely. I'll go in there and I'll assess situation and I'll make hard decisions. And I went in and sure enough, we had six regional vice presidents and all six of those regional vice presidents ran the company as if they were own. They'd been around for 30 to five, 40 years and they're quite frankly, just a bunch of white males that were always doing things the same way.
And I had no diversity within this organization. mean, no diversity, know, and diversity isn't a very, people don't like to talk about today, but in business, diverse thoughts, diverse people make you so much better. Just because my customers are diverse. So I need my leadership team to look like my customers, which is the United States of America, by the way, not a bunch of guys that have been around for 35, 40 years doing the same thing.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:So after 33 months, I actually terminated 80 % of my leadership team. And I will tell you it was hard. And the reason it was hard is it wasn't that they weren't good guys. These were nice. These are really nice people. It wasn't they didn't care about the company. They loved the company, but they weren't going to be able to take the company to the next level that I needed to go to. And I knew that. They didn't know that. The board that hired me knew that, which is the reason they hired me.
And so I had to, over that time period, let people go who loved and cared about the people that they worked with and cared for, and I had to let them go. And I had to do it for the sake of my customers and also for our business success long-term. But I will tell you, the leadership lesson in this is you have to make hard decisions, even when it's really, really personally difficult. The second lesson it was is,
And I'll say this until my dying breath, diversity is really great in companies. Getting diversity of thought is one of the best things we can ever do because it challenges us. If a bunch of people look and act and behave just like me, that's what we're going to give. But if I got a bunch of people that look and act and behave a lot differently than me, I'm going to give the customer a better product on the street.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that. And what I got from your story is it reminded me of your opening story. I could be good or I could shoot for being great. And you didn't want to just come into a company and just keep it being good. You wanted to aim for the upright and make it great. So I love that.
Stu Crum (:Right.
Stu Crum (:Absolutely. But it's hard. Sometimes those decisions are hard, especially when there's nice people. And these were these were really nice people.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So I'm curious, I noticed in your story you had ended up negotiating with somebody, a high profile person like Carl Icahn. What was it like negotiating with people who were like legends in their field?
Stu Crum (:Yeah.
Stu Crum (:Yeah. And Mr. Icon is, I think he's worth $17, $20 billion, right? We're talking about multi-billionaire. I got two great stories around Mr. Icon. And the reason I had to negotiate with him is twice I had negotiated a deal with Icon Enterprises to get this deal done. We were trying to buy Pep Boys and he was negotiating on it and we were negotiating on it we decided to bring our resources together. At least we tried to bring our resources together. And with his leadership team, we had negotiated a deal.
And then also I get a call at six o'clock. I'll never forget. It's like December the 21st. I'm with my wife's in the car and we're driving to our to our annual Christmas party with all the leadership team at Bridgestone. And I get a call from Mr. Icon's assistant, Mr. Mr. Crum. This is Carl Icahn's assistant. Could you speak to Mr. Icon? Sure. Absolutely. And I talked to Mr. Icon and at that point he started retraining at six o'clock on a Friday night, the entire deal that had been negotiated.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You
Stu Crum (:And we got off the phone and where I thought that morning a deal had been done by that evening, the deal had been completely undone because Mr. Icon didn't like the deal that his team negotiated. The next week we got back to the, to the table and started negotiating with his team again. I mean, this is the week after Christmas now, right? I want to be working. I want to be with my family and I'm negotiating these deals. And the same thing happened. We thought we came to an agreement in place. I get a call at six o'clock. Mr. Icon starts working like at noon.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:and then works to like midnight. at least back, you know, this is eight, eight, nine years ago. and, and sure enough, he started retraining the deal again and the deal never did get done. we ended up buying pet boys on our own without, without icons, commitment with us. And then sure enough, three weeks later, he out after the deal had been announced, he came in and did a hostile bid on top of us, ended up getting the deal himself and he still owns the business today. But,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:You know, he was very professional. was, but, but, he knew what he wanted and didn't, didn't really matter what the leadership team negotiated. He was doing his deal and his deal his way. And if we couldn't come to agreement, then the deal was over.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's fascinating. So you have a concept in your book I want to get to. It's called intentional living. How has that influenced your personal and professional life?
Stu Crum (:Yeah.
Stu Crum (:Mm-hmm.
Stu Crum (:I'd say it's a hundred percent who I am as a human being. I didn't realize it until I started writing the book, but intentional living really started. would call it intentional living slash your purpose slash your goals. Right? I think those three words can kind of be intertwined in the, the conversation around intentional at 13 years old, is when I said, I want to play professional football. Well, it wasn't going to be as a defensive back. Wasn't going to be as a running back because I'm five, seven, 175 pounds. And,
And I don't run a four, three, 40. I didn't run a four or five 40, but I was not going to be the athlete to compete with these guys. Right. So I, I concentrate on being a place kicker. was, I was a soccer player. And for that time from 13 until 25, when I was cut by the New York jets, my third year as a professional athlete, was intentionally trying to be the very best, greatest athlete I could. But what I learned at that early age was everything I do has got to be with intention. So when I got married to my wife, Mia, who once again, we're, we're celebrating our 39th year this year, it'll be 40 next year.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:we were very intentional about our marriage on date nights, on, being active in ministry where we were very active in, in, in the young life ministry as a young married couple. actually she was a woman's youth director at the time we got married, but we were intentional about how we did that. And then we were intentional by the way about how we raised our kids. We were very purposeful intentional about how we raised our kids. And that's another aspect. So I was intentional in my faith. I was intentional in my, in my, marriage and my family. And then I became very intentional in my running my business.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:about the way I led my teams, about the way I behaved. And let me just give you one example of this, is my third week, fourth week on the job, I was working for a major oil company, and back in the old days, they're a little bit different. On this Friday night, they all said, Stu, let's go, we're going to the strip joints. I said, guys, I don't go to strip joints. I've never been to one in my life and I'm not going. Stu, listen, it's just kind of our bonding, this is what we do after work. I said, well guys, you can do that.
but I'm not going. Number one, my mother would not want me to go to that strip joint. Number two, my wife certainly doesn't want me to go to that. And I wouldn't be honoring anybody by doing that. And I stood firm. I will tell you that I was the only person on that team and I was a very junior level person, right? So I bucked my boss, I bucked my boss's boss and said, guys, I just can't do that. I knew I was...
kind of putting myself out there saying, gosh, I'm not really kind of one of the guys anymore because I'm not going to be doing what they think to do if it's, if it's against what my personal moral values are, right? It was just simply not going to do it. What I found from that experience was I stood to my guns and people respected me for that. And I've stood to those same guns over the last 40 years of being a business person, of being a father, of being a, a husband and, and character and integrity mean everything to me. And for that reason,
I just don't compromise my core values.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's hard to do in today's culture. How do you still integrate faith into your business when
You know, sometimes faith is under attack in some places.
Stu Crum (:Well, faith is under attack and we could talk forever about Christian nationalism and all that kind of stuff because I am a faith-based person and I serve a Lord. I don't serve a nation. don't serve... Many of the things that you hear about faith is actually the opposite of what my belief in my Savior is. So I want to be really clear about that. There's a lot of things that are going on within...
the party system that I abhor because I think our Jesus, my Jesus would be embarrassed in those things. So let's be clear about that. The way I do incorporate into my business is everybody that I work with that knows me just a little bit knows that I'm a Christian. Now I respect, I really, really respect the other people's views. Not everybody on my team's a Christian. of fact, we've got some Hindus on my team, right?
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:And I, and I've got different religions and I respect everything, but I think they understand that I come from a, set of beliefs that are going to servant leadership. I'm going to treat people with respect. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to expect them to work equally hard for me. And, and if you've studied it all servant leadership is about putting others before you. And that's the way that, that I have always tried to lead from, you know, not always leading out front.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:But sometimes I'm leaning from behind and bringing people with me and not being outworked doing the same things they're willing to do and not putting myself certainly above people. My faith and my leadership style really has remained the same for the 40, exactly 40 years that I've been working. once again, I've had success, but I don't call that material success. I've had success because I've had a 40 year marriage. I've got great kids. I've got great grandkids.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that. Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You talked about your foundation being your faith and your family. So what role did your family play in your journey to success?
Stu Crum (:and we've been able touch a lot of people's lives.
Stu Crum (:now you talking about my immediate family or my parents or both. Yeah. Yeah. Well, certainly, you know, my, my parents, I, you I never forget as a little boy, mom and dad, as I said, they've married for 68 years and they're both alive. So we're very blessed to have them alive still. was just with them three weeks ago in, Oklahoma. they, you know, they had four boys, all four of us are athletes. were a very athletic family. Mother was an all state softball player. Father was an all state football player.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Well, both, because I think both have a role in that.
Stu Crum (:So we were an athletic family all of us played sports and I always remember my parents being at every event and that's impossible because we were Six years apart and we had four different games at four different places So you couldn't always be that your events, right? But but that that's the first memories I have is they were always consistent in being there and supporting me I never forget in college the first thing I do and I'd be in a stands of 80,000 people and I'd be looking for a mom and dad make sure they're in the stand supporting me, right? mean so so so that's
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You
Stu Crum (:How that has really, that carried through into my raising children and being in marriages, I knew I had to be present. So the first lesson I got from my parents and with my children is, they talk about quality time and quantity time. I don't think you can have quality time without having quantity time. In other words, quality time just doesn't happen. You've got to be and make a significant effort to be there. Good example of this, I love to golf.
I see my tan is, I'm in the golf course a lot now because my children are grown. But I will tell you from the age of 25 when I had my, or no, actually from the age of 30, when I had my daughter to the age of 55, when my son quit playing professional baseball, I didn't play golf because golf took six hours on a Saturday. By the time I left, got there, played golf, came back, hung around with the guys and I couldn't commit that kind of time.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:because I was taking that time away from my family because during the week I'm working, right? I'm seeing them in the evenings, but I'm working, I'm traveling. And so I had to make sacrifices early. Now I can tell you from 55 to 64, I'm playing a lot of golf now because I have a little more time that I can do that. But those are just priorities, right? And I learned those priorities from my parents. I've got to be present. If I'm to be a great dad, if I'm going to be a great husband, I can't do that from afar. I've got to be present. And so I've learned that. With my current family, listen, my wife,
She's been a stay home mom for 35 years, 36 years. I'm very fortunate that we could do that. I can tell you our first two years when we had children, we had one car because we couldn't afford to have two cars. you know, life's a little differently, different back years ago because we didn't make the kind of money that people are making today. But we struggled, but it was, it was our commitment to have her stay home. I don't say everybody should do that. That was our commitment, but she supported me a hundred percent in my career. We've we're in our 18th home right now, Keith in our 18th home.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:We've moved around the world. We lived overseas in New Zealand. I ran Latin America, 38 countries. We lived in Miami. can tell the amount of moves we've had. And she supported me in that. And she supported me because she knew that was the best thing for my career and for our family. you know, support, support, support is what I've had ever since I've been a little boy. And I think that is one of the reasons why children can grow up. If a child has support from the mother and or from their father, it goes a long way to success.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:What a beautiful story and what a beautiful testament to the importance of family and kind of living out that balance because I'm sure in your position family and faith and business was all kind of a hard thing to balance and so you found a way. Is there advice you would have somebody who's young right now trying to balance their faith, their family and their business?
Stu Crum (:Yeah, well, I'd say being intentional, right? So I have, I have, and then I'll answer that exactly, but you know, if you're intentional about it, so the eight points of being intentional, have purpose, priorities, know what your priorities are, right? Distraction, take distractions out. Distractions are the biggest problem in being intentional because all kinds of things get in the way. Distraction from golf, I took it out. Harmony, go back and make sure that you have your peace within everything you're trying to do.
Self-reflection, sometimes it's really important to self-reflect on what we're doing in our lives, right? And going back. Taking responsibility for your actions because all of us screw up and we do mess up and so you gotta be responsible. The last two are real basic. Grit, you just gotta have grit. You gotta keep on going and keep on going because you get knocked down and you come back. You get knocked down you come back. Because I get knocked down a lot. I'm not very smart guys. I get knocked down but I keep on coming back. I'm not smart enough to know that I shouldn't be coming back. And the last thing is, and anybody who knows me knows, I say smile. Those are the eight things. Just smile.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You
Stu Crum (:So my point to any listener that's saying, how do I deal with these things is be very intentional in your life. Decide who you want to be. I always decide I'm gonna be a person of character and integrity and I'm not compromising those things, right? I'm not sure if you saw the debate last night. I watched the debate between the two vice-presidential candidates and I was kind of impressed. They actually, for the most part, it wasn't too much lying, a little bit lying. if you lie once, that's one too many times, by the way. It really is. And I think we've got used to it, so it's okay to lie.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right, exactly.
Stu Crum (:We have created a culture where not telling the truth is okay. No, it's not okay. It is not okay doing it not once. So don't do it a bunch of times. But decide what your core values are and then stick to those because people are gonna respect that and they're gonna really care for you. And they will respect you at the very end of the day whether they believe or don't believe what you're standing for.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:They wouldn't call it lighting, they'd it creative storytelling.
Stu Crum (:Yeah, it's downright lying. I think, you know, I wish I would I tell you what I wish the 10 commands for the 10 commands, not 10 suggestions. I think I think I think a lot of our politicians can probably learn from from that, you know, just making the 10 commandments and not 10 suggestions. I think we'd be a lot better place to live.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Exactly. I agree with you. So if you had, if you want to give advice to young professionals of how to achieve success and and I would say success is more not so much about financial gain but like we just talked about about having a person that you can look back in your life and say I was a person of character and
Stu Crum (:You
Stu Crum (:Right. Right.
Stu Crum (:Mm-hmm.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:And in process, yeah, maybe there were some other achievements along the way, but really it's about character. But what advice would you have for someone who's looking young, professional, starting out?
Stu Crum (:Yeah. And Dr. Keith, you just said it. I mean, you really just said it was, define who you want to be. Right. For me, it's character integrity and stick to your guns. mean, literally.
sit down one night and say, this is what I want to achieve in my life. These are the things, these are my personal things, these are my family values, this is my business. I've never looked at my life and said I'm successful because I've made blank, period. My success, I don't view success as big house, big cars, big rings, big everything, right? That's not, success to me is cool family, loving family.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:great friends touching lives. and, and, and so I would, I would tell young people that are listening to identify what's important to you, write those things down, write them down, keep a, keep a book of those things, and then go back and review and review and review and see if you're staking to those things that are important. What I have found so much is, is people have as most people want to have strong moral character. They really do. But when
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Stu Crum (:they come up against, you know, something that I think this will help me get ahead, they compromise those things. And everything that they stood for has stood for nothing because they compromised their value. stay very true to your core values. That's the advice I have. And I can't tell you what your core values are. I'm just telling you to stay true to what those core values that you identify for yourself are.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that.
You've written this book, What's Next on Horizon for You.
Stu Crum (:you know, I, when I wrote the book, I thought I was going to, I thought I was going to retire, and not retire, like not stop working, but you know, do board work and do, public speaking, those types of things. And I was sitting on a board of a company, and, the CEO and the board of the company resigned literally the week before, I stepped away from my old job that I'd sold to Circle K. They asked me to stay on for 18 months after I sold the business to them. Two weeks later, I'm stepping into the CEO role.
running another business another startup business trying to build it again so you know what i'm going to do right now is is is keep on building this company and hopefully touching lives and making the people that i come in contact with their lives a little bit better every day through the actions that i have
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's cool. So here's my favorite question to ask my guests. What do you want your legacy to be?
Stu Crum (:I'm sorry, just broke up. Say that again?
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:What do you want your legacy to be?
Stu Crum (:Yeah, if I had an epitaph, I thought about this. Stu loved his God, Stu loved his family, God loves Stu, his family loved Stu, and Stu stood for right and wrong and he was a man of integrity and character. If that's my legacy, then, and that's my epitaph.
I've led a good, I've a good life. And when I get to the pearly gates, good, you're good and faithful servant. That's what I God says to me. Right. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Yeah, isn't that great? Yeah, that's neat. I love that. So as we wrap this up and it's been a phenomenal conversation, what key takeaways do you want to leave with the audience?
Stu Crum (:well, first of all, if you want to buy my book, it's on amazon.com aim for the uprights and I, it's, it, you know, the audio vision version is, is inexpensive. The e version is fairly inexpensive. The book isn't really expensive, but you got to actually print the book. So it's more expensive. You know, if you want to look for a little playbook, to help you get through life, a lot of anecdotal notes, you know, please pick it up. Cause I think it can help some people.
least in a small way. And if I can help people in a small way, it's great. I can tell you one thing, I won't make money from writing this book. It's a labor of love, not a labor of financial success for me. And that's really the truth.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:where can people find you on social media and connect with you?
Stu Crum (:Yeah, stu.com, stucrum.com. It's really easy. I've got a website stucrum.com. I'm not in other social media places. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Instagram. I am in LinkedIn because it's business, but I do have a website stucrum.com and they can find me there as well.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So no TikTok, Visa, you dancing on the golf course.
Stu Crum (:Yeah, yeah. And you can find me in the golf course anytime. No, I'm kidding. still, actually I'm working for a living again. So darn it, I'm not golfing as much as I wanted to. I thought I'd be speaking and traveling and doing all kinds of things. And here I am in my office, you know, going another go at again.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:you
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Well, Stu, thanks so much for taking time. Thanks so much for writing the book, Aim for the Uprights. I really hope people pick it up. Leave a review for Stu on Amazon, because that's how people find the book, and the book gains notoriety. Use it as a playbook for your life. And I always remember to audience, stay true to your core values, because that, in the end, is who you really should be judging yourself by, not by other people's success.
Stu Crum (:Amen.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:by the core values that are embedded in you and who God made you to be. So if you stay true to that, you'll find your life to have a lot of meaning. So thanks for that reminder, Stu, and blessings on what you do.
Stu Crum (:Absolutely.
Yeah, thank you. Blessings to you too and thank you for having me again.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That was great.
