Lil Roberts is CEO and Founder of Xendoo, a South Florida-based fintech company offering innovative online accounting and bookkeeping solutions, along with data-driven insights to small business owners. A serial entrepreneur with a passion for small business, she is known as an innovator with an enviable ability to foresee market trends.
Date: July 20, 2020
Episode: 10
Title: Norman Farrar introduces Lil Roberts, a serial entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Xendoo.
Subtitle: Don’t write the end of the story
Final Show Link: https://iknowthisguy.com/episodes/10-lil-roberts/
In this episode of I Know this Gal…, Norman Farrar introduces Lil Roberts, a serial entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of Xendoo.
Lil has a passion for people, animals and business, and a believer in maintaining values and integrity in both her business and personal life.
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Lil 0:00
Once you live a life that is so terrible, like just just to see the expression on your face right now, it was super painful, but you live that and you learn things right? You learn that, no matter what sun’s gonna shine the next day, right?
Norman 0:19
Everyone, welcome to another episode of I Know this Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know this Guy wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, like kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?
Hayden 0:50
So Dad I hear we have an interesting gal lined up for the podcast today.
Norman
have a very interesting lady with the most incredible story in fact, I’ve never heard a story like this before. And I know she’s going to change things around me. Her name is Lil Roberts. And I can’t wait to start this interview.
Hayden 1:10
All right, well, excited to see what happens.
Norman 1:14
Well, welcome to the podcast. Lil.
Lil 1:16
Oh, thanks, Norman. It’s an honor to be here to be with you. Here you are interviewing people that you find interesting. And you have to be one of the most interesting people I know, a great story to have, and just how you live your life is so inspiring. So I’m honored to be here with you today and let’s have some fun.
Norman 1:36
That’s you know, that’s the only thing I ask is let’s have some fun. Let’s kick back and have some coffees, you got a coffee there? And you know, let’s talk about your story. So and you’ve got to be so let’s just back it up a bit. So I thought I knew you fairly well. You know, we’ve met each other like a few times always at one random party that we go to. But Anyway, you blew me away the other day with part of your backstory, and you know, maybe we could just get right into it and what makes Lil, Lil?
Lil 2:12
Ah, thank you. So let’s put a disclaimer on it for the listeners right now that you’re going to hear a little bit of sadness. But you know, with all sadness, comes the positive right? There’s always the yin and the yang. So Norman, I was born and raised in South Florida and have been here my whole life and I was one of five kids. Fourth in line and the only girl out of four boys and myself. And I’m just not a well to do family by any means. My dad was an over the road truck driver. My mom was, excuse me, wasn’t college educated, and my dad died, suddenly, when I was 10 years old, he died of heart attacks. This is back in the 70s and can show my age here. And I left my mom with five kids. That tragedy just became many more tragedies. The following year, I lost my only living grandmother; the following year after that I lost one of my brothers to a boating accident. And then over the next call in seven years, lost two more brothers, my oldest son and my one that was right above me who was my favorite brother Tommy. And so I was a firstborn in my family to live past 24 years old. When we dive into that and you say, wow, well, yeah, and as a child that can give you a lot of problems because you know, you just don’t realize that that’s not normal. And so it gives you abandonment issues and all kinds of things that layers into you as you’re growing up. You don’t realize it so it can put you at a disadvantage. But as I sit and look back at my life and really even throughout the period of that, there was so much good that came out of having adversity right out of having tragedy or challenges. And sure you can go either way. But for me, once you live a life that is so terrible, like just to see the expression on your face right now, it was super painful, but you live that and you learn things, right? You learn that no matter what sun’s gonna shine the next day. Right? And that you have a choice in life that you can make good out of things, or you can be a victim, right? You can either say, Oh my God, this happened to me, or you can go out there and you can try to make a difference, try to change it. And so for me, that’s what I did. And I don’t think I’m special or anything else like that. I think I’ve been really blessed in my life to have key people around me that are not necessarily blood, but their family. Not by blood, but by luck and so I had an opportunity to meet some remarkable people along the way that made a difference in my life and hopefully I have paid it forward by providing nice work environments and positive environments and opportunities for other people.
Norman 5:22
You know, I hear people, not so many entrepreneurs, but maybe some younger entrepreneurs getting into the business, and they fall apart over very simple stress. And one of the things I tell people is don’t let the stress worry you. It’s never as bad as you think. But yet, the The, the, I would probably say the younger entrepreneurs or people that are getting into business, just cripple themselves, because of small things that 10 years or 20 years down the line won’t even be a blink. And then you go through what you’ve gone through and no wonder you’re so successful. I mean, if you could take on or live through that type of life, stress, the stress that comes up in everyday business must just roll off your shoulders.
Lil 6:22
I’d like to think that I mean, it probably affects us. All right, stress does, but you know, you’re absolutely right. I would say one of the things that got me through my childhood is that it’s all about telling ourselves, the story, that whatever that story may be, and it can be a good story or a bad story. But if you tell yourself a story, it’s going to help you through right. And so the story I told myself was that I said you know what in general a third of people’s lives are really, really good. A third of people’s lives are really, really bad and the third is just so so. So I put a positive outlook and I said, Okay, I can’t change what’s happening to me. But what I can do is I can control my perspective, said, okay, a third of my life is really, really bad. I got it out of the way. And now let’s move on to the other two thirds. That is the story that I told myself along the way. And we all have a choice, right? Like with things that we do and every day, when we get up, we get to make no matter what happened yesterday, no matter what happened last month, and this is so timely because we’re living in the COVID times that we get up in the morning and we get to decide what kind of a day we’re going to lead with, right? And so I choose my days, with love and compassion, with productivity, and with making the best out of whatever is dealt our way, not trying to understand it. We don’t need to understand everything. Like, imagine if I tried to understand why all my family members died it would waste my life. Right? It happened. More, you’re sad. You pick yourself up and figure out what you’re going to do with your life. So you live your life.
Norman 8:15
It’s really how you process your thoughts. Yeah, if I’m hearing You’re right, I mean, what’s really making your life successful is the way your thought processes, it’s positive instead of negative and living each day when you get up. And I’ve seen this with really successful people, matter of fact the people that really I’m attracted to are people that have that positive outlook, you can be kicked in between the legs 1000 times, but it’s just another kick and you move forward. It’s just how you process it. That’s what I love about entrepreneurs, is most of the successful people I’ve ever met, just have this positive outlook that they can do something they can make a change, they can pay it forward. They’ll process things differently than other people.
Lil 9:04
Yeah, well you bring up a really good point, Norman. And that is that it’s a lot of times when you’re a super positive person, people will think you’re just really crazy, right? And positivity costs nothing, right? It’s just about finding that little thing every day that can put a smile on your face. And you know, there’s lots of people that are my friends we’re blessed, just like you’re very blessed, both of us that we have lots and lots of friends in our lives. And there’s an exercise I do every year. And this is going to sound really bad, but I’m going to go ahead and share it out here on the broadcast, and I started doing this, I guess, about 15 years ago. And the exercise I do is New Year’s is that time of year when it’s a time that you reflect and you say okay, what have I done in this period of time and what am I going to do in the next period of time? And you know, the most important thing we all have is time, right? It’s not money, it’s time. And at the end, when people have no time left, it doesn’t matter how much money they have. And so the exercise I do is I reflect on the last week of the year. And I think about all the friends that I have and how I spend my time. I think about the ones that are those that take a lot of your time, but they’re not positive. They just want to go over the same things over and over and over again. And those friends, I don’t cut them off. But I do Norman as I space. So it’s not like I take them out of my life, I’m still going to be there if they called me at three in the morning, and they needed a favor, but I’m just going to limit how much of my time and energy they take, because I’m choosing to live my life as I’m choosing to go out and have fun even during this time of COVID you know, it’s a terrible thing. So don’t turn on the TV. Don’t watch the news. You know, do more reading, do more time that you can spend helping them, friends that you haven’t caught up with that are truly positive people, things like that. Right. So that’s my little secret every year, last week of the year, I analyze all my time, I look at the friends that just say the same problems over and over and over again. And I just gently move the space a little bit.
Norman 11:16
That I got to do that. I do that for my clients. So the pain in the butt clients. Well, I do a little bit more, I try to get rid of them. So I know I’m too old. I don’t want to deal with people that don’t appreciate what I’m trying to like. I’m trying to help them out. And they’re always complaining and that takes an emotional toll on you and then you’ve got everybody or the other companies that want to work with you. And that’s the same with friendships. So yeah, I never thought about applying it. And like what you said, space spacing. No, you don’t have to say I’m not dealing with you anymore. It’s just how space out.
Lil 11:56
Yeah, well, Norman let’s talk about you just brought up a good thing and you and I, we won’t mention a situation where we had hired a customer together, right? Yeah, but i’m not gonna bring it up, right? We won’t bring out that particular company. But you know, and look, you’re turning red. Right? And oh, I love it. But I thought that that was so cool how do you do that? I think there are so many people in business, that they’re so afraid to do that they don’t understand how freeing it is. If they would just go ahead and say no, right? Let’s dive into that. You know, I’m going to switch on your right but to share that because I think it’s so valuable and it’s your podcast, and so many people are fearful of saying goodbye to some revenue, they don’t understand it will only open the door for five times 10 times. So how do you do? How do you do it gently?
Norman 12:54
Okay, well, first of all, I think it has to be built into your company culture. Right. You have to be able to, there is a way of doing it. And it’s almost a way of giving the customer or client the ability to think that they’re gently being not let go, but it’s their idea. So you kind of throw it back at them that maybe it’s not the right fit, and maybe they think, okay, maybe you raise the price. But there’s what I’ll never do is scream or yell at a client. I’ll try Oh, I don’t like I can’t even remember the last time that happened. I always treat it with dignity and I always try to show them that is probably another option on the other side. And like I did with this one. I gave them options of people to actually use to call that maybe I wasn’t the best fit. But this is absolutely somebody that would have or a company that would have tapped my time, tapped my personal time, tapped time I should be developing my customer or my business. And it was a drain I remember calling you just going oh my gosh, you won’t believe what’s happened
Lil 14:14
you’re so right and you know, in that particular found in that company and I gotta tell you it is the it should have been a company that was mailbox money but because it was not aligned with the right type of individual that shares the culture as you mentioned, which is often always the place to start right. Why added up the time you made a very wise decision saying goodbye and referring somebody else when I added up the time it cost me It cost me $50 an hour of my time, a quarter million dollars, and so I couldn’t be more thrilled to event out of that particular investment.
Norman 14:58
And you know, What I want to make sure, you know happens here too, if people understand. So you referred the person over to me. And that doesn’t mean stop referring. I mean, that was one person. So if you’ve got a referral network that’s working with you, and something doesn’t work out, you’ve got to go back to the actual person. Because sometimes, if I didn’t know you, and you had done it, you might take it personally too, and say, Well, I’m never gonna give any work over to that guy again. And I wanted to make sure that you were clear about my position. This is why I’m doing it. And we move on.
Lil 15:38
And a great point on that. And, and look, since then I’ve referred probably 10 people, right. And you and I have a wonderful relationship. Neither one of us when we refer things to each other, neither one of us looks for any money from it. We’re just helping another human being find a great human being to work with, right and because I honor and respect you so much and think that you’re amazing at what you do with the Amazon resellers. Whenever I have an opportunity that I come across a business owner that says, hey, I need to understand how I can do better on Amazon. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I got the guy for you and then typically when I’m standing in front of them, I will send the email to just go ahead and connect the guys in that the one that you say goodbye to was the crazy one. And that one I was kind of I was needing your help, right, because I was trapped in that. But then I did exactly what you did. I got myself out of there. But yeah, that’s tricky. It’s you know, businesses a lot like any other kind of relationship. I like to say, reason, season or lifetime. Are you guys familiar with that? Are you familiar with that? So you never heard that.
Lil 16:50
It’s a great thing. I live my life by it. So you meet and know people either for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And so we’re both or have any hours and, and so our forum makes our lifetime, right? I mean, we could go 2030 years, pick up the phone and call them and they’re going to be there, right? And chances are, that relationship can be as strong. But there’s people that you come across and they can be complete strangers. And the only reason why you cross their path was for a reason. Either you’re giving them a piece of information that they’re going to need, maybe not necessarily right then, but at some point in their future, or they’re giving you that information that you’re going to use unless and if you’re attuned to it, and you are aware, it’s amazing how much it feeds into our life down the line, right? So not everybody that you’re engaged with needs to be in your life, or lifetime.
Norman 17:48
Right. And I think one of the other things that you mentioned is very important, and this is either networking or building a network or your neighbor next door. You don’t have to get paid for everything. And for the most part, when somebody says, Oh, I got an affiliate commission, or I’ve got no ‘m not looking for that. You guys are a good fit. And you do exactly that. And one of the things I really respect because I have had lots of people come to me, and I have a referral. And then this really happened. So somebody referred me to a person that came on board. They referred me to a person who referred me to a person, this happened in Florida. So we got down to about four people. And the guy who referred me came back to me and said, well, you owe me for all those four people and lifetime. So if any, and I’m sitting there going, what are you talking about? And anyways, he’s another person I cut off my network. But you know, when you go and you get introduced, or if you you’re at a party or if somebody there that’s very interesting and I’m curious, I’ll ask questions, but I’m more than happy to share my time and my knowledge if somebody asks about Amazon I don’t expect to get paid. Yeah, you’re very similar.
Lil 19:17
Thank you. And you know, I probably know that guy because it’s Florida and offline, we’ll talk I think I know because they show up that way right? So you know that to me is like a squirrel looking for nuts, right? When you’re a squirrel looking for nuts, you’re just gonna stay small. And it’s where you’re either heartland or your iron fist. Right in life. I don’t think that there is. It’s like being lukewarm. You’re either hot or cold, right? And so I look at that, in business I look at people come from either a part lead type of management and and sharing their connections and relationships, or they come out iron fist.The Iron fist ones that are that’s their management style. They’re the kind of guys that will come down and expect to get a big on everything. And you know, there was, and I’ve been like this my whole life and Norman you’ve been like who you are your whole life I think that you just become that that’s who you are. You’re either a giver or a taker. And after I sold one of my past businesses, my financial guy gave me this book, and it’s called the Go Giver. I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book. It’s a no read. It’s an hour and a half read. And basically it is a story about a guy who when he was able to apply that principle of just doing things for the good of doing his life became really well. He found success. So don’t go out doing good things so you can find success while doing good things just to do good things. And what will happen is, you may not see it but six months, a year, something always comes back around. Right? It always does. It’s kind of like leaving it to the universe. And and let it find its way.
Norman 21:09
right? starting a business. I hear this all the time, or I hear people talk about it. And I’m here. It could be the right approach for some people. But I always if I’m starting a business and I’ve got a passion going into that business, I’m really not worried about the numbers. I am worried about the numbers but if it makes sense, I’m not fearful of the money. If I can build the relationships, if I know my business, I know the money will come. But when you go into a business, and you have to have the money, it shows. You show fear, you show greed, at least as if somebody is pressing me or as I call it bullying, and you can always tell these types of salespeople. You know that they’re not in it for the business or the passion or the love. They’re in it to make that buck and they don’t care what happens.
Lil 22:08
Oh yeah, 100%. It’s like going to Vegas and you got 250 bucks and that’s the only thing and you go to bet, you’re not going to win, right? You got to go and jump off the ledge. I like to say I’m a ledge walker because I love adrenaline. I’m happy to toss off the ledge and actually I need that in my life to understand what you need in your life to be happy. And I need that thrill. Um, but yeah if you have unbelievable passion, you will get there. And the business I’m in now you mentioned number so real quickly, I’ll just hit on something about that with the business. Entrepreneurs as you know, we just like to solve problems right and it’s almost like a disease. Because you see the world through the lens of, Oh, that’s a problem. Oh, that’s a problem, I can solve that problem. And that’s how we get ourselves into all the businesses that we get into. Not really like we’re like, oh, I’m going to hunt for money or everybody thinks if you’re a business owner, your time is your own, and you go do anything you want in life. And usually, it’s quite the opposite, right? The business owners, the added up their hours are really working for minimum wage, right? Because as we’re doing that, but so, a lot of times when people get in business, they get in business, just by happenstance, they see something, they see an opportunity and they end up in it. And so the business that I’m in right now, and this isn’t my last business, and I’m in I have three more that I’m really passionate about doing after this one. But this business is my first intentional business. I’ve had eight or eight other businesses and this is my and most of them accidents acted nicely and some of them just shut down the timing. The world moved in a way that it was better to just go ahead and let it die off. But this business I did intentionally through doing a personal scorecard. And that scorecard I’ve helped a lot of entrepreneurs, businesses to do, I’ve given them that as the framework. And basically, it’s a framework where you take a legal pad and you write five things on top of each page, right and have to be in this order, personal, a family on the next page, you put community on the page after a business on the page after and then you put financial. Then basically, you go find your quiet spot, you go find your safe spot that you feel really good, and you get rid of all your electronics and distractions, and you do it the old fashioned way. You do it with pen and paper for that kinetic connection and you write down all the things in each one of those topics that make you really happy and that make you unhappy. And by going through this little exercise, and then there’s a second phase after it and you go through this exercise, you’ll end up with clarity about what you want to do, and how you want to spend your time. And so through that I ended up solving the problem. Currently what we’re working on is solving the problem for small business owners that will have visibility into their numbers and their finances. Because the majority of small business owners and entrepreneurs do what they’re doing. Because of their passion. You’re doing podcasts, because you’re passionate about it. Eventually, it’ll make money for you. More than likely, but you don’t care. But you’re not doing it for that. You’re not doing it for that because you know what? You love the story about the human right, right. So and so I don’t have an accounting background. I’m not a CPA. But when I look back at what was frustrating about my businesses, was getting the visibility to the numbers. And I said there’s an analog in industry that needs to go digital, and my passion is to help fellow small business owners. I love business. I love Small business owners. I think they’re the backbone of America. I think they have fascinating stories. And I think that they employ the majority of the population, right? And they can make the difference. They can make the difference. If it’s a bad business owner, and they are bad to their team, and their team goes home at dinner, they’re not going to sit around the dinner table and talk to their son and say, how was your day to day? They’re going to talk about the boss being a bad person, and how work is terrible. And so if we can help small business owners, and I say we Norman because you’ve got podcasts, and you’re going to touch a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses, and if we can help bring to the light to them, that how you treat your team and the environment you provide for your team ripples. It’s like a stone in the lake. It ripples from far away, right?
Norman 26:52
Yeah, it’s like the butterfly effect on steroids.
Lil 26:55
Yeah. Look right? It’s a fun world, isn’t it? A lot of people would say, Oh, it’s a hard world. It’s a terrible world. I think it’s a fun world. How about you?
Norman 27:08
I’m the same way. I hear people struggling complaining that they can never find an opportunity, or they can’t afford things. I’ve been bankrupt. You know, it happened years ago, I got screwed over by a few guys. I had to go through all that. And you know what, you make do. For me, actually, that was probably one of the best things that happened in my life. I ended up being able to, like live within my means. That was one of the big things and being able to do things that I couldn’t afford anymore. I didn’t have the money to do it, build yourself back up and you know, you get going. But yeah, it’s all learning and there’s plenty of opportunity. There’s plenty of good in the world. It doesn’t take a lot of money to have fun.
Lil 28:00
Yeah, well, let’s dive into that. Norman. So you file bankruptcy, right. And, and so you know what I mean, number one, that’s huge for you to say on your own podcast, right that you did that, because a lot of people put a stigma with it when there’s not a stigma, right? And then you naturally said, but I learned a lot and it helped my life. So what led you like, when you look backwards, right through the rear view, and you say, Okay, how did that happen? And what did you then do with your life to make sure in business that you didn’t have that happen again? And then talk to us on the personal side? Like, what happened on your personal side? How’d your family go through it? And how’d your friends go through it?
Norman 28:45
Wow, you’re tough. Yeah, well, I mean, for me, this is a crazy story. You might feel that there’s some exaggeration here, there’s none. So I was, I was doing sales for this one company. And I pretty much always own my own company. But there was a brief period of time where I was doing sales for this company. They asked me to come on board. So I did, they asked me to put in $25,000, they showed me their books, and they said, Oh, if you come on board, you’ll be one third partner, you’ll be at the side of the sales team. Anyways, I thought it was a good opportunity to put in the 25,000 bucks. There was another guy that was going to do it with me as well. So anyway, months, maybe a year later, all of a sudden, oh, and there was something I had to do, which was sign on to an operating line at the Royal Bank for around $450,000. So, okay, I’m looking at the books, everything’s good if I put in my $25,000 , we’re in the black. Everything’s good. We have this $450,000, do whatever you want, we could expand. So I’m thinking life’s good. Well, I’m in the car with this guy about a year later. And I’m hearing him talk about back to the other guy. And they’re talking about how they’ve eaten up the line. And I’m thinking he doesn’t remember the books that he showed me. And anyways, what had happened was there’s two sets of books, one that was already over $450,000 I think it was $425,000. And so he’s calling a friend of mine to put in another 25 to carry over. So I’m on the phone like 24 hours or right after telling the guy don’t put your money and don’t put you had to convince them not to put in his money because they were showing him the set of books and he wouldn’t believe me that look, this was a good friend of the other one of the other owners. Anyways, he didn’t put his money in. So he saved the $25,000 these guys had all of their assets, houses, everything into other things and left me on the hook joint and several 400 and some odd thousand bucks. I tried to survive, but the bank, like even trying to work with the bank, it just, I couldn’t do anything like I didn’t have the money I didn’t have like the company went down. There was just no funds there was zero. So the only thing I could do is claim bankruptcy. So get this. So I go and I claim bankruptcy. And that was tough because it’s bankruptcy. So we sell our house, but the real estate agent, you know that we sold the house, gave me the papers and I signed off on it. My wife signs off on it. Now the bankruptcy trustee calls me and says, you’re going to jail. It’s like what? You had no right to sign off those papers, you’re bankrupt. If you don’t sign off the profit that you made on the house from your wife, we’re going to pursue you and send you to jail. Like we’re gonna press charges. And I went, I didn’t know and it was just their way of getting it another 25. I was, we had $25,000 at the time that we made profit, so I gave them $25,000, so they wouldn’t charge me. So not only did I have that I had that. So that’s how that happened. That’s how that came around. And then it was very hard because for seven years, at least in Canada, you can’t own anything. So you know, I was developing some I did have another company that I started but I couldn’t get. I had to work with somebody else. But I was the owner. You know, I was directing things. But I couldn’t have a credit card. I couldn’t have it was horrible. But guess what? The guy that I stopped from putting in the $25,000. We ended up getting together. We ended up starting another business. We ended up the clients loved us. They were all fortune 500 companies, and they all paid in advance. Not terms, they paid up front, so we could fund our company to get it going. And so the company lasted for about 10 years. It became one of the largest promotional companies in North America. And yeah, that’s what happened from the bankruptcy.
Lil 33:50
That’s amazing. Well, hats off to you. Well, thank you for getting through it and preserving your family and really it happened not by any fault of yours. It happened when some guys really taken you, right? They put everything they hit in LLCs and, and all of that and you know, that’s a really good lesson for other people who invest in businesses to know your partner’s. There was a saying that I was on a podcast with entrepreneur weekly and here’s what it is. There are no good deals with bad partners. No matter how good luck looks, or how amazing an opportunity is, if it’s a bad partnership, you’ve got a bad partner. Forget it. They’re not going to overcome that. It’s almost like you know, you can’t have a great life with a bad life partner. And so then it comes down to like so many things. People think, Oh, yeah, that guy, they’re smart, you know that I can be in business with them. No, you can’t. Not if they’re not culturally aligned to view the world, the same way that you do. You know, the other two guys that you’re talking about. They were both thieves, right? And so that’s where they culturally aligned they weren’t looking for a nice guy like you.
Norman 35:21
Well, and I don’t know how I would have got out unless I did some sort of background check or something. But I got us another quick story about this. The one partner, actually, after all this happened or just at the end when things were kind of wrapping up. We get a call, It’s the FBI. It turns out that my partner was the accountant that brought down the Philadelphia mob. You remember that story? How there was this accountant, they went in and he went in, went through all the books and brought down the Philadelphia mob.
Lil 36:09
Love it.
Norman 36:10
Yeah that was him. Crazy. So yeah, yeah. Anyways,
Lil 36:17
So you know, okay, that brings us to one of my favorite quotes is that, “Don’t write the end of the story.” Like look at on two levels one yeah you had this $450,000 that you that was a burden on you. You could have easily just pulled in the shutters and closed shop and never went in business again and just kind of let it wreck your life. You wouldn’t do that, you didn’t let it wreck the end of the story you said I’m just going to be like water. I’m going to move through it. I’m going to find my way right. Then on the second side of it is, you got the bad guys so you don’t write the end of the story because most people would think oh the bad guys they got away with it. No, get away with it. They got what was due them, right? Then that’s always poetic. That’s me when you see the bad guys get what’s coming for them, you don’t have the frontrunner to lead it to them. It’s just always nice when it comes to your ears that the bad people get what’s.
Norman 37:20
One of the things to look back at though and I look at this with any stress right now is at that time like I said at the beginning, you get an ulcer, you can’t sleep at night you think your life’s coming to an end and at the end of the day, it all worked out. I went through it and I had to go through that whole turmoil with that there were other stresses that came up many times. But now that I look at stress, if it comes up it’s like alright, you know nothing comes close to this or If it does, why am I even worrying about it? If I’ve got something that’s happening that I’m worried about, okay, let’s work through it before I really have to lose sleep, I’m not gonna lose sleep over stress anymore.
Lil 38:13
Good for you. It’s very similar to my childhood normally, right now, that life instance that you had is very similar to my childhood. Lots of times people will say to me, oh, how did you get through? Or oh my gosh that strong and I said, Oh, no, we all have our own things that helped make us stronger in life, if we let him, right, he is the let those events make you stronger by putting one foot in front of the other. And so you know, that stress that you had during that period, is everybody with stress I had as a child, right?
Norman 38:51
Oh I don’t think it is compared to that.
Lil 38:54
It really is because you know, it doesn’t have to equal, it’s not a math equation. It’s at that moment in your life where your back was against the wall and that’s what happens and when our backs against the wall you know it you can either come out swinging and find your way or you can curl up and you know crying in the corner and you’re not the curled up crying corner kind of guy. And I’m not to curl up crying the corner kind of girl, and we just go out and have fun.
Hayden 39:29
Hey, guys and girls, this is Hayden for the producer of I Know this Guy. This concludes Part 1 of our interview with Lil Roberts. Make sure to tune in again next time where she continues to grill my dad and put him in the hot seat. Please subscribe rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much and we’ll see you next time.
