Life of Ken – Vol. 27

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Happenings from the Homefront

July kicked off with one of our favorite family traditions: Fourth of July weekend at the ranch. It’s always a highlight, packed with everything we love. Ranch work and getting our hands dirty. A full boat day out on Lake Whitney, tubing, hanging out in the coves, swimming, and laughing with family and friends. And of course, the small town parade through Valley Mills, which felt extra special this year with America’s 250th anniversary. And our crew was adorned in our traditional sleeveless shirts to represent the day. 

No Fourth of July is complete without fireworks, and this year delivered. We had a dueling fireworks show back at the ranch, and for once, zero fires or out of control rockets to report. A clean win all around. And we also had our annual cornhole tournament – congratulations to Amber and Smokey for pulling off the win!

The following week brought back-to-back evenings of family fun. Amber and I took Kai to his first Texas Rangers game since he was just a few years old. A beautiful evening at Globe Life Field, capped off with a win over the Angels.

The next night was one-on-one time with Kai, a father-son board meeting of sorts. We headed to Dickies Arena in Fort Worth for the Dude Perfect show, and it did not disappoint. Plenty of fun activities and challenges, all good, clean, wholesome entertainment.

These are exactly the moments that make me pause and appreciate how lucky I am.

Amber and I also had the privilege of hosting several of our local GoBundance families for an afternoon pool party and cookout. Five families showed up, close to 20 kids in the backyard, playing in the pool, running through games, and getting along great together. We grilled burgers and bratwurst for the adults and brought in the always reliable crowd pleaser, Chick-fil-A nuggets, for the kids.

It gave us a chance to grow closer with old friends and get to know new ones even better. We’re grateful to have a backyard built for hosting and family fun.

The month wrapped up with a family end-of-summer trip to Port Aransas, just six hours from Fort Worth. Kai’s cousin Cash joined us for the trip, continuing a tradition we’ve kept alive for over five years now, bringing Cash along for one of our summer adventures. We spent the first couple of days on the beach with the Garrett family, including a beach bonfire one evening. I also fished for sharks in the surf with Smokey…a first (and somewhat unsettling) experience for me! 

A fishing excursion brought my first ever trip on an airboat, which was a blast. We limited out on black drum and landed a couple of sizable redfish, with Kai reeling in both of our keeper reds. Thanks to Captain Dalton (Bills + Gills Outfitters) for finding just the right spot for us where the big fish were biting.

We also went parasailing, with Amber, Kai, and Cash all going up together on the chute. Plenty of sun, hours of the kids playing in the waves, and a daily game of catch between Kai and me. Great food, great company, and a perfect way to close out the summer.

Work, work, work!

July marked a big step forward for Laundry Luv with the hiring of Brian Hill as our new Director of Franchise Development. Excited to welcome Brian aboard and even more excited to see the results he’ll drive as we push toward our franchising goals.

Shortly after joining, Brian got a firsthand look at a Laundry Luv Discovery Day. One candidate attended, giving Brian a chance to see how our leadership team runs the process and get a behind the scenes look at some of our stores.

We also held our Q3 EOS planning meeting this month. Interesting moment going in: most of the team showed up feeling a little down, sensing we hadn’t hit our goals. But when we dug into the numbers, our EOS consultant Daniel pointed out we’d actually reached 80% of our company goals and 86% of our individual goals for the previous quarter. According to him, that puts us in rare air among companies running on EOS, something worth celebrating. Not ones to sit on our laurels, we set some ambitious targets for the upcoming quarter.

Our fourth corporate store also had its grand opening in July. The marketing team did an incredible job building buzz, and we had hundreds of people show up, with a line out the door eager to see the new location.

On the growth side, we put two deals into escrow for future Laundry Luv locations.

Fort Worth: a conversion of an existing building into a Laundry Luv

Bryan-College Station: a ground-up development

Plenty of work left on both to determine if they’ll fully pencil out, but real progress is being made.

Brain Food (what I am reading, watching, and listening to)

With a fair amount of windshield time this month, I got through three books on Audible.

The first was a reread, Dying to Be Me by Anita Morjani. It’s one of around ten books I’ve committed to rereading each year as part of my spiritual growth, a potent account of her near-death experience, what she witnessed while out of her body, and the changes she manifested in her life afterward.

The second I’d heard recommended for years, and when I noticed it had over 41,000 reviews on Audible with a 4.7 star rating, that felt like a clear sign it was time. That book was The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It landed perfectly with where I am on my spiritual journey, and it’s now earned a permanent spot on my annual reread list.

The third is also on that list and one of my all time favorites, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Side note, it’s one of Grace’s favorites too. If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. It’s a wonderful story about the power of following your own personal legend and living with intention. I believe this was my fifth or sixth time through. What made this read special was having Amber, Kai, and Cash listen along with me on the drive to Port Aransas.

On screen, we kept up with a few more episodes of Love on the Spectrum this month. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a series that often shows what true happiness really looks like. I also watched a few episodes of America’s Sweethearts with Amber, who has been following the series for a while. My first time tuning in, and I came away impressed by the sheer work those girls put in for a shot at the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad.

Kaizen

In about six weeks I have my next DEXA scan coming up. In anticipation of that, I worked with Claude to build a daily macro tracker and log every meal and snack, so I can stay more aware of what I’m putting in my body and more intentional as I work toward my goals. Now every meal gets logged, even on days like in Port A that weren’t quite as clean as I would have liked.

Random Musings

Meet Woody. He loves the beach. He will run into the waves and body surf back onto the shore. That is a pretty cool dog!

Until next time.

Take action and be grateful!

-Ken

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