December 8, 2025 • 30 mins
How have you seen God move?
Everybody collects unexplainable stories. In today’s episode, Keith and Doug unpack why these stories matter, how to recognize them, and why documenting them can reshape the way you see your past, your relationships, and even your financial decisions.
You’ll learn:
→ How unexplainable stories come about
→ Why you should collect and share these stories
→ What happens when you look for new stories in your life
You’ll also hear real stories—from surprise business breakthroughs to improbable meetings to personal moments of rescue—that illustrate how divine providence shows up in the everyday.
If you’re trying to make sense of your own journey, this episode invites you to slow down, observe, and capture the stories that shape your legacy.
↳ Bring more clarity and confidence to your financial life by working with our team at Gimbal Financial: https://www.gimbalfinancial.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Doug (00:00):
The way to start a collection of really good
(00:03):
stories is to just pray and justsay, God, I need your help here.
Can you give me an idea? Can yougive me a connection? Can you
give me an insight? And that thethese collections of great
stories don't happen withoutsomething extra miraculous
involved.
Caleb (00:24):
Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast where Keith and
Doug give no nonsense advice tolevel up your life. So buckle up
and listen closely to Up YourAverage.
Keith (00:44):
Good morning, Doug.
Doug (00:45):
Hey. Good morning.
Keith (00:47):
The sun's shining bright over my old Phoenix home.
Doug (00:51):
That's right. That looks like a pretty good place to be.
Keith (00:56):
This is Press Coffee, and they're they're I don't know if
you can read this. It saysthere's no such thing as bad
press.
Doug (01:07):
I've heard that before. Yeah. I've I've heard that
before. Matter of fact, in oneof our president's books, I
think he stresses that hebelieves that, that there's no
such thing as bad press. Prettyfunny.
Keith (01:21):
Yeah. Funny. So man, I came up with this topic for
today, and I almost couldn'tsleep last night. I was thinking
about it so much, and I couldn'teven narrow down. So what I
concluded is this may have to befive sessions, like just the
magnitude of this topic in mythoughts is overwhelming.
(01:44):
So the idea is this, is that wecollect unexplainable stories,
and I want to tell our friends,the first time I said this to
anybody, there were four of usin the Gimbal office one morning
before anybody showed up. It wasyou, me, our friend Phil, and
(02:08):
our friend Ryan was in there.Okay. And you had left your
house late at night the nightbefore and had a whole story
happen. I don't know if you wantto repeat that story, if you're
comfortable telling our friendsthat story, what happened the
night before.
Doug (02:27):
Well, okay. So which story are we talking about?
Keith (02:30):
You drove up to Angola or someplace like that, at 09:00 at
night or something stupid.
Doug (02:36):
Yeah. One of my friends, a good friend, lives in Texas, and
his mom was on her last hours,and so I got to drive up to
Angola area, and I think I wasthe last person to pray with
her.
Keith (02:55):
Yeah, but you had that idea. You went in and told
Caroline that 09:00 at night orsomething that this idea hit
you. It's really Had you everdone anything like that before
where you just in the middle ofthe night just left like that?
Doug (03:09):
Yeah, I have. You build up enough of these events or
adventures and you listen to theprompts a little easier, and
then it's really helpful to havea teammate, a wingman, who says,
Yeah, honey, go for it. I lovethat. I'll see you when you get
back.
Keith (03:30):
Yeah. So anyway, you were telling us, it was early in the
Gimbal, you were telling usabout that story when our friend
Ryan came in, and Ryan thentried to kind of integrate him
into the conversation. I said,Hey, Ryan, Phil, Doug, and I
collect unexplainable stories,and you might get a kick out of
(03:51):
the story. So you told him thatstory, and then Ryan was telling
us about the Hadley piggy bankthat his daughter Maddie had,
and Maddie had that week learnedhow was an old school piggy bank
where you had to crack it opengenerally to get the money out
(04:12):
of it. It didn't have a littleplug on the bottom.
And so Maddie was sitting in hercar seat and shaking the bank
and telling her dad, Hey, daddy,I figured out how to get all the
money out of there. He's in thefinancial services industry. He
goes, Honey, we're actuallytrying to go the other
direction. We're trying to
Doug (04:27):
get the money
Keith (04:27):
in there. Then the next morning, our friend Phil sends
me this cartoon. I don't know ifyou can see this, Doug. So this
would have happened eight Theconversation would have been
eightsixteen twenty three, Ithink, and so I don't even know
what Bizarro is this comic, andI had told Ryan that day. I
(04:52):
said, Hey, Ryan, you tell Maddiethat Uncle Keith, if she wants
to know how to get the money outof there, he can do it with a
butter knife like nobody else,which Ryan didn't even know what
that meant because he was of ageneration that didn't even have
piggy banks and didn't know howto break into them.
Then this cartoon shows up,says, If I can't remove the
coins via a butter knife, we mayhave to consider more aggressive
surgery. The pig doctor istelling the piggy bank, and that
(05:18):
was in the Indianapolis Star thevery next day. Don't even know
who I reads a newspaper anymore,do you? But Phil and his wife do
that, and Phil reads thecartoons, and so he sent it to
me the next day. So I sent thatto Ryan, and I go, Hey, Ryan, I
think you have your ownunexplainable story with us.
And then I'm in Phoenix, andI've had so many crazy things
(05:42):
happen out here. In 2,009, I wasstruggling with some business
decisions, and I had a trip outhere for about, I think I was
supposed to be out here for fourdays, and I discovered in short
term that I was going to have tocut it short to like thirty six
to forty eight hours, and someamazing things happened. But the
first thing that happened was Igot picked up by a limo driver.
(06:05):
Snooty does that sound?
Doug (06:07):
Well, I mean, especially back in the day, if you were
riding in a limo, that's prettycool.
Keith (06:13):
And this guy was as kind as you could imagine, and so he
was offering feedback to us. Andso when I was chatting with him
on the way to the hotel, he juststarted volunteering, How do you
sort photographs? I was cleaningout my parents' stuff, and in
(06:34):
the olden day, you didn't keepthem on your phone. You had
boxes of these things. So heexplained to me unsolicited how
to sort through photographs,which essentially was what I was
doing.
It was information I needed thatnobody really knew I needed, but
he was telling me how to sortthrough photographs. And so I
put that in my journal as areally cool thing, but I wanted
(06:58):
to also share a photograph,which is an unexplainable story
that I just found sortingthrough some last week, and this
one cracks me up because How doyou like this photo? Can you see
this one?
Doug (07:13):
One of the- He's got a couple of these.
Keith (07:15):
Yeah. One of the things the limo driver said, he said,
Do not keep any photos thatdon't have humans in them. Just
get rid of the photos withhumans.
Doug (07:26):
That's a good Because a
Keith (07:27):
lot of times people would take pictures of a herd of
buffalo or something like that,which nobody cares. Nobody wants
see your vacation picture of theherd of buffaloes because you
can go online, but he said, Anddo not keep any pictures of
humans you don't know, becausemy mom's friends or my dad's
friends aren't really myfriends. If I don't know who
they are, there's no reason topass those on to my kids. But
(07:48):
last week on Thanksgiving Day, Ifound this photo. What do you
think about this photo?
Doug (07:53):
What's going on here? What's your mom doing?
Keith (07:59):
I can't tell. Would you say that's 20 feet away from
that bear?
Doug (08:03):
I mean, but didn't you send me another one like this
recently?
Keith (08:07):
Yeah, these are both of the same pile of photos. I found
this one, the unexplainablestory here is that I exist, like
how she didn't get mauled andeaten by a bear, and my dad too,
because this was probably takenin the late '50s where they
didn't have zoom lenses, right?So they were both culpable in
this situation. Where was this?I'm sure it was Yellowstone.
(08:30):
I would bet- Crazy. So I bringup the trip in 2009 where the
limo driver taught me somethingI needed to know unexplainably,
and that picture was just one ofthe funny ones I found along the
way. I've got a number of thesethings I wanted to throw out
(08:50):
there and just kind of talkabout and see what happens, but
part of chasing unexplainablestories and literally recording
them, I think is where lifebecomes more interesting than
you can imagine. The theorybehind this is I believe you
only have three sources ofthoughts, and I won't go into
(09:11):
great detail on thisconversation with them, but in
one Corinthians two sixteen, itsays, Believers in Christ have
the mind of Christ, and so Ibelieve the origin of my
thoughts are just from godlythoughts. Those are the natural
origin of my thoughts.
Then I believe your senses cancreate thoughts. I'm looking at
(09:35):
coffee all over the place infront of me, and I hadn't
thought about coffee until I sawthat up there. Then there's this
internal sound system that isn'tus that can give you a lot of
distracting thoughts, anxiety,greed, fear, all kinds of things
can come from those. But themind of Christ, if something's
not ungodly and if it'soutrageous, I think both of us
(09:56):
will chase after that, don'tyou?
Doug (09:58):
Oh yeah, yeah. And I've had it chase after me. I was
thinking about that as I wasprepping for today. Was thinking
of the things that I've donethat have been very adventurous
and seemingly whimsical, greatstuff. Even better are the
things that have happened to me,that someone has pursued me, and
(10:21):
I've always appreciated thosethings where someone came to my
rescue.
Keith (10:26):
I literally had to walk fifteen minutes this morning to
this coffee shop in the dark. Itwas dark when I walked in here,
and somebody who wanted timewith me just happened to call at
that moment while I was walking.I'm like, Dude, you could never
have picked a better time. I'malone, nobody's here, and I've
got time to give to you. So somepeople wouldn't see that as a
(10:50):
big deal.
I just see it as perfect timing.It was the exact time when I was
free and available to have theconversation uninterrupted with
him.
Doug (10:58):
Yeah, there's very few times in people's lives today
where you have quiet. I'm
Keith (11:05):
going
Doug (11:05):
to have some quiet today. I could choose to listen to
podcasts. I'm driving out toWashington DC, and I probably
will. I'll probably havesomething on the car radio, but
to have some quiet allows aperson to think and reflect
reflect on, Hey, when were theseunbelievable collections of
(11:28):
stories? When have I run acrossstuff like this?
Or when was I able toparticipate in great adventures?
But without quiet, you can'treally come up with this stuff.
Keith (11:39):
I think it's critical that once you have them, you
start writing them down andreflecting on how unexplainable
they are, like how cool it isthat they happened. So what
prompted it this week to havethis conversation is I've been
mentoring this young guy whoserole is that of a headhunter or
a job placement thing, and Caleband I were heading to an
(12:02):
appointment with a client andhis wife, and we were heading
south on Keystone, and theconversation was, What does that
young guy do for a living? Istarted explaining to him, He is
a headhunter, and I thought,Well, Caleb wouldn't know what
that is if I don't explain it tohim. I explained it to him, and
when that happened, all of asudden my thoughts was, Oh,
(12:24):
yeah. One of my college friendswho owns a headhunting business
wanted to do business with us,and I hadn't reached back out to
him, and that was probablyninety to one hundred days ago
when I spoke with him.
This friend lives inIndianapolis, but I probably
only see him every two or threeyears. I don't see him much. So
I said to Caleb, we were about106 in Keystone at this point. I
(12:47):
said, Hey, Caleb, do you mind ifI just leave him a quick
message, let him know I wasthinking about him, and we can
circle back around? So I leavehim a voicemail, and we go pick
up the client.
The client's not moving verywell. Some people go to lunch at
11:30 or twelve or 12:30. We'renot on that kind of schedule.
We're at a random time, and thenit's becoming apparent that the
(13:12):
client is not doing well. Like,We may not be able to even do
this lunch.
Once we got to the restaurant,we might have been in the
restaurant for fifteen minutesat the most, maybe twenty, So we
were getting him situated. Hewas pretty immobile, we were
getting him situated, and hejust wasn't doing well. So I had
(13:34):
the prompting to just tell hiswife, Let's just I'll go tell
the waitress, Let's get thispacked up to go, right? Instead
of forcing this thing. So eventhat is one of those
unexplainable stories.
How do I have the wisdom toknow? Let's bring this thing to
closure and do it. Inside thatfifteen minutes, I went to the
restroom, and as I was comingback out of the restroom,
(13:58):
instead of just kind of watchingmy feet, I looked up at the
people around me sitting in theback room back there, and one of
those people was the guy I lefta message for. Crazy. Yeah.
There's probably a million pluspeople in Indianapolis. Anybody
could be eating anywhere. Youcould just say, Oh, that's a
coincidence, but I learned longago there's no such thing as
coincidences. I see those thingsas like divine appointments and
(14:20):
just amazing things.
Doug (14:21):
Social media is pretty fast on connecting people, but
not that fast.
Keith (14:26):
No. You should have seen his face because he saw my call
come in and he hit the do notanswer thing. Then he sees me
showing.
Doug (14:37):
That's awesome. Do you
Keith (14:39):
have any stories that come to mind?
Doug (14:41):
Yeah. The one that comes top of mind was I was in a rough
situation. I had a one ton 2007GMC van that we It's probably my
favorite vehicle we've everowned. I love that van. We've
toured across The United Statesin it, and we were coming down a
(15:05):
pass just outside of JacksonHole, Wyoming with a 28 foot
Airstream trailer behind us, andour transmission started to give
out.
I have a rule, it's don't messwith my vacation. I will lose my
mind. My family loves to makefun of me. I will completely
lose my mind to keep a vacationgoing. So here we are in Jackson
(15:29):
Hole and our transmission istoast.
I go around to all these carshops in Jackson Hole, and
nobody is willing to help. It'slike fourth of July weekend or
something like that, and finallya guy says, Hey, you gotta try
these people in Rapid City. No,no, no. Oh man, not Rapid City.
(15:55):
I can't remember the name of thetown.
It's in Idaho somewhere. Okay,yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what
you're talking about. Anyway, Icalled the guy and he says,
Yeah, see if you can limp thetruck or limp the van here. So I
did.
I drove like three hours to getthere, and they just so happened
to have my exact transmission ofa 2007 GMC 3,500 transmission. I
(16:21):
mean, I was about ready to gobuy a brand new Ford f three
fifty pickup truck just to keepthe vacation going. And so, It
was one of those events where Ithink the way to start a
collection of really goodstories is to just pray and just
say, God, I need your help here.Can you
(16:44):
give me an idea? Can you give me a connection? Can you
give me an insight?
These collections of great stories don't happen without
something extra miraculousinvolved.
Keith (16:56):
Absolutely.
Doug (16:57):
It has to be that way, and normally I it's out of
Keith (17:04):
was talking to this young man this morning, and I told him
in the late '80s, I didn'treally have this belief that
this God that my parents hadtold me about was real. I said
there were two problems that Ihad to, as a young man, navigate
through on my own. One was thecontradictions I'd heard about
him, and the second is that I'dnever seen any power. I'd never
(17:25):
heard anything like what you'retalking about, and since then,
I've seen more than I can. Ididn't record as many of them as
I should have over the years,but I was thinking of one that
happened six years ago.
This month, you and I flew toSanta Monica, and we were in a
room with Are they called marketwizards? Is that what they're
(17:49):
calling it? The best of the bestinvestors? Yeah. Yeah.
There was several of the bestinvestors of our lifetime were
in that room, and one of them wedidn't know- Including you. And
you. We're back at you. One ofthem, the family brought him in
to say goodbye to all theinvestors, right? That might've
(18:11):
been the reason they did thewhole thing was for But one of
the speakers was talking aboutinvestor psychology, right?
He was the guru on investorpsychology, and one of the most
traumatic investor psychologystories, if you study history,
(18:32):
was Jesse Livermore. JesseLivermore was one of the
greatest investors of all time,and he took his own life. So
this guy that was at thisexpensive training session was
talking about investorpsychology, and then he tells
this personal story that Icouldn't even believe my ears.
Doug (18:53):
I couldn't believe my ears.
Keith (18:54):
I have never seen or heard anything in a professional
setting so ridiculous is what hesaid. So he's teaching you how
to have the proper investorpsychology, and then he tells
this. It's almost like he'sstripped naked on stage, right?
Yeah. He tells this story abouthow he lost all his money and
his family by not executing thepsychology that he was talking
(19:16):
about.
That's I remember people aroundme were laughing like they
thought it was funny. I wastraumatized. I thought I had to
go almost throw up. I felt sobad for this guy. But the
unexplainable story was WilliamO'Neil was the one that His
organization hosted this, andhis protege had not been at any
(19:39):
of those for probably twentyyears, I don't think, and he was
there on stage that day, and yougot to talk to him as we were
leaving California, and I justremember what you told him and
what he said to you.
Doug (19:51):
Man, I don't even What did I tell him?
Keith (19:53):
Do you remember that?
Doug (19:54):
I remember being there, but
Keith (19:56):
I don't remember saying anything were out there in the
atrium. You said to him, hisname was David Ryan, and you
said to him, Hey, David, I thinkthe whole point that you were
here was for that guy.
Doug (20:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
Keith (20:12):
And he said, I think the same thing.
Doug (20:15):
For that memory, Keith. I forgot that one. Yeah, that's
Keith (20:19):
I mean, that's one of those unexplainable stories that
you and I Some people, they'd beall jazzed because they could be
in the room with a probasketball player or something
like that, but we were in a roomfull of the best investors of
all time, and we got to see thatdivine event happen that's kind
of unexplainable. You can watchthat event. We could probably
link the YouTube video of thatguy telling that story because
(20:42):
it's on YouTube now.
Doug (20:44):
Well, reason why Keith mentions that is David Ryan is a
guy where if you ask him, Hey,what are the best business books
that are out there? He wouldtell you about William O'Neil's
canned slim book, How to MakeMoney in Stocks, and he'd
probably tell you about JesseLivermore, the stories of Jesse
Livermore, but he'd also tellyou the Bible, and so that's why
(21:07):
it was a big deal for David Ryanto be there with this guy.
Keith (21:10):
Yeah, that's very cool. Tell me this, Doug. I remember
one day this late spring, earlysummer, you came into Gimbal and
said, I've had this idea I'msupposed to go to New York. Do
you want to tell our friendsthat story?
Doug (21:23):
Yeah, I mean, that was kind of one of those crazy
things where I wanted to gowatch the pacers. I've always
said I wanna see the pacers wina championship before I die.
And, yeah, you Cubs fans, you'vegotten to see a a world series
and all that stuff, but I wannaI wanna see a a NBA championship
before I die. And so I thought,I'm gonna fly out and and cheer
(21:47):
on the Pacers versus the Knicks.And it turns out I made a couple
new friends while in theairport.
This guy's a social mediainfluencer, and I think the
whole reason I was on that planeor even went out to New York was
to help guide him from NewarkAirport to Madison Square
(22:07):
Garden.
Keith (22:12):
And when I think Go ahead, Doug. I interrupted you.
I'm sorry.
Doug (22:14):
Yeah, Keith, one that involved you that I did think
of, again, this was a rescueDoug situation, but I was in
your big RV. You let me borrowyour big RV and we were out in
Purgatory, Colorado. I had abike rack on the back and I got
stuck. The bike rack and thetrailer mount got stuck on a
(22:38):
rock and I could not move yourtwin axle, huge RV. We're there
for like three hours trying tofigure this out.
And this guy comes up with hisfamily, it's Father's Day
weekend, and he says, Hey, Idrove my family up here because
(22:59):
I wanted to show them the skiruns that I logged as a younger
man. He had this big Dodgediesel truck, and he was going
to pull us out. But then he saysto me, Hey, have you ever
thought about just disconnectingyour bike rack? I'd never
thought of that. So wedisconnected the bike rack and
(23:22):
then drove right off.
So I say that because whenyou're in a jam, and that jam
could be real serious, it couldbe something real serious, but
don't sleep on the voice thatcomes to you or shows up just
out of nowhere, because thatcould be a story in your
(23:44):
collection. And you might bereminded of it, just like Keith
reminded me of David Ryan. Mightforget. So having somebody
remind you, that's pretty great.
Keith (23:54):
Yeah. Well, I've got 08/01/1991. I don't know if you
know what that date was, Doug,or not.
Doug (24:03):
I do not. I do not know what that was. August 1, Well,
'19 did '90 mean in Gulf War?Nope. Okay.
Tell me about it.
Keith (24:12):
08/01/1991 would have been the predecessor birth date
of Gimbal Financial. Wow. Nostop. Okay. Yeah, that's when
ISU Security started, August1990 the second, nineteen ninety
one, I was getting married.
Had zero salary, not much. All Ihad was a little marketing from
(24:39):
the former association I had.Didn't have any income, and I'm
getting ready to become ahusband. And man, it was intense
because I didn't know if myformer employer was going to
come after me. I didn't knowwhat was going to happen, and I
was an average at bestsalesperson, right?
(25:01):
And so every day I'm just wakingup going, Oh man, I don't know
where to I don't even know ifI'm going have a paycheck here
thirty days. And I'm gettingmarried in like ninety days or
so. So that was August 1.09/26/1991, you can Google this,
(25:23):
The New York Times released astory that I think the first
time ever, this company calledAmeritech offered an early
retirement offer to theiremployees. Ameritech was the
former local phone company inIndianapolis, and I happened to
be associated with the phonecompany Credit Union.
(25:44):
What is that? About forty fivedays later from when we started
that thing, and I could not meetwith There were so much people
that came to meet with me. Manyof our legacy clients came from
that article that day,09/26/1991, and you could say,
Oh, whatever. Or you could justbe honest and say, Man, how
(26:06):
humbling is that? That's apretty amazing story.
Doug (26:09):
I love that, Keith. I love that because when you go to
events and you hear someonetelling their success story,
rarely do you hear what reallywas the catalyst, and I love
that for you. I love that for mebecause I'm part of that too.
Keith (26:27):
I would
Doug (26:28):
encourage How many clients do you think we still have today
Keith (26:32):
I from bet it's at least 50.
Doug (26:36):
Oh, easy. 6050%? Yeah.
Keith (26:39):
I mean, they gave us so many referrals, but from that
initial wave, bet there's still50 of them from that initial
wave. That's wonderful. Yeah.Yeah. And I would encourage
people, don't know what JensenYang, is that his name?
Jensen, the CEO of NVIDIA. Ijust discovered how honest that
(26:59):
cat is, but he was on the JoeRogan interview recently, and he
told the story of how they stillexist, and it's Yeah. As
Doug (27:09):
Maybe I'll listen to that one.
Keith (27:11):
You should, because they should not even exist. It's such
an honest story. Most companies,I think, have that same story,
right? Something happened. Andif you have the humility to
recognize that, big things willhappen.
Have you got time for one morebefore we close it out?
Doug (27:30):
Big things happen. Let's go.
Keith (27:33):
So I told you the two things that I didn't really
trust about this God that I'dbeen told about, the
contradictions about who He wasand the lack of power, and I've
been pursuing some stuff becauseof a tragedy that intersected my
life in 1988, but now I'm a yearlater. It's May '2, and I'm
(27:55):
sitting at my desk over at thecredit union headquarters, and a
guy that I had mentored calledand he said, Hey, Keith, I met
this guy down here in WesternKentucky whose ministry has
revolutionized my thoughts aboutwho God is. This guy was an
excitable former lawnmowersalesman, and I'm a salesman by
(28:16):
trade, and so I'm like, I letsalesman calm down before I jump
into a third. So he calls me andsays that, and I just made a
mental note and put it in my hippocket and said, Okay, dude. I
was going to check back with himin a year.
Very next day, a less excitable,more logical person calls me and
says the exact same thing.Neither guy knew each other. One
(28:38):
lived in Evansville, one livedin Cadiz, Kentucky. And so I
thought, Well, I don't believein coincidences. So I call this
guy, and his name was BobWarren, a former professional
basketball player, and I get hisvoicemail, and I say, Hey, Bob.
My name is Keith Tyner. I don'tbelieve in coincidences. Can you
call me and tell me why I'mcalling you? And Bob ended up
(29:01):
being a great influence andmentor to me for twenty plus
years, and he helped answerthose two issues for me that
really revolutionized my life.And to suggest that that just
happened and that there aren'tthese unexplainable stories
would really diminish the valueof my life, I think.
And so I think everybody hasthese stories, I think today is
(29:25):
the day to start looking forthem. Today is the day to start
enjoying them. No matter how bigor how small they are, I think
today's the day.
Doug (29:33):
Wow. And no matter what your history looks like, you
might be a young guy or an oldguy, but you have these
unbelievable stories ahead ofyou.
Keith (29:43):
I think this conversation could go on for two or three
hours myself, and I smile when Ithink about them because they're
just amazing. Why don't you gomake something happen out in
Washington, DC today?
Doug (29:55):
I'm going to. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
You make it happen in AZ, and,thanks to all the people at
Gimbal making it happen at thefort today. We appreciate them.
Keith (30:05):
Alright. Y'all have a great day, and we hope to see
y'all soon.
Doug (30:09):
See you, Keith. Bye, guys.
Keith (30:10):
Bye bye.
The way to start a collection of really good
(00:03):
stories is to just pray and justsay, God, I need your help here.
Can you give me an idea? Can yougive me a connection? Can you
give me an insight? And that thethese collections of great
stories don't happen withoutsomething extra miraculous
involved.
Caleb (00:24):
Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast where Keith and
Doug give no nonsense advice tolevel up your life. So buckle up
and listen closely to Up YourAverage.
Keith (00:44):
Good morning, Doug.
Doug (00:45):
Hey. Good morning.
Keith (00:47):
The sun's shining bright over my old Phoenix home.
Doug (00:51):
That's right. That looks like a pretty good place to be.
Keith (00:56):
This is Press Coffee, and they're they're I don't know if
you can read this. It saysthere's no such thing as bad
press.
Doug (01:07):
I've heard that before. Yeah. I've I've heard that
before. Matter of fact, in oneof our president's books, I
think he stresses that hebelieves that, that there's no
such thing as bad press. Prettyfunny.
Keith (01:21):
Yeah. Funny. So man, I came up with this topic for
today, and I almost couldn'tsleep last night. I was thinking
about it so much, and I couldn'teven narrow down. So what I
concluded is this may have to befive sessions, like just the
magnitude of this topic in mythoughts is overwhelming.
(01:44):
So the idea is this, is that wecollect unexplainable stories,
and I want to tell our friends,the first time I said this to
anybody, there were four of usin the Gimbal office one morning
before anybody showed up. It wasyou, me, our friend Phil, and
(02:08):
our friend Ryan was in there.Okay. And you had left your
house late at night the nightbefore and had a whole story
happen. I don't know if you wantto repeat that story, if you're
comfortable telling our friendsthat story, what happened the
night before.
Doug (02:27):
Well, okay. So which story are we talking about?
Keith (02:30):
You drove up to Angola or someplace like that, at 09:00 at
night or something stupid.
Doug (02:36):
Yeah. One of my friends, a good friend, lives in Texas, and
his mom was on her last hours,and so I got to drive up to
Angola area, and I think I wasthe last person to pray with
her.
Keith (02:55):
Yeah, but you had that idea. You went in and told
Caroline that 09:00 at night orsomething that this idea hit
you. It's really Had you everdone anything like that before
where you just in the middle ofthe night just left like that?
Doug (03:09):
Yeah, I have. You build up enough of these events or
adventures and you listen to theprompts a little easier, and
then it's really helpful to havea teammate, a wingman, who says,
Yeah, honey, go for it. I lovethat. I'll see you when you get
back.
Keith (03:30):
Yeah. So anyway, you were telling us, it was early in the
Gimbal, you were telling usabout that story when our friend
Ryan came in, and Ryan thentried to kind of integrate him
into the conversation. I said,Hey, Ryan, Phil, Doug, and I
collect unexplainable stories,and you might get a kick out of
(03:51):
the story. So you told him thatstory, and then Ryan was telling
us about the Hadley piggy bankthat his daughter Maddie had,
and Maddie had that week learnedhow was an old school piggy bank
where you had to crack it opengenerally to get the money out
(04:12):
of it. It didn't have a littleplug on the bottom.
And so Maddie was sitting in hercar seat and shaking the bank
and telling her dad, Hey, daddy,I figured out how to get all the
money out of there. He's in thefinancial services industry. He
goes, Honey, we're actuallytrying to go the other
direction. We're trying to
Doug (04:27):
get the money
Keith (04:27):
in there. Then the next morning, our friend Phil sends
me this cartoon. I don't know ifyou can see this, Doug. So this
would have happened eight Theconversation would have been
eightsixteen twenty three, Ithink, and so I don't even know
what Bizarro is this comic, andI had told Ryan that day. I
(04:52):
said, Hey, Ryan, you tell Maddiethat Uncle Keith, if she wants
to know how to get the money outof there, he can do it with a
butter knife like nobody else,which Ryan didn't even know what
that meant because he was of ageneration that didn't even have
piggy banks and didn't know howto break into them.
Then this cartoon shows up,says, If I can't remove the
coins via a butter knife, we mayhave to consider more aggressive
surgery. The pig doctor istelling the piggy bank, and that
(05:18):
was in the Indianapolis Star thevery next day. Don't even know
who I reads a newspaper anymore,do you? But Phil and his wife do
that, and Phil reads thecartoons, and so he sent it to
me the next day. So I sent thatto Ryan, and I go, Hey, Ryan, I
think you have your ownunexplainable story with us.
And then I'm in Phoenix, andI've had so many crazy things
(05:42):
happen out here. In 2,009, I wasstruggling with some business
decisions, and I had a trip outhere for about, I think I was
supposed to be out here for fourdays, and I discovered in short
term that I was going to have tocut it short to like thirty six
to forty eight hours, and someamazing things happened. But the
first thing that happened was Igot picked up by a limo driver.
(06:05):
Snooty does that sound?
Doug (06:07):
Well, I mean, especially back in the day, if you were
riding in a limo, that's prettycool.
Keith (06:13):
And this guy was as kind as you could imagine, and so he
was offering feedback to us. Andso when I was chatting with him
on the way to the hotel, he juststarted volunteering, How do you
sort photographs? I was cleaningout my parents' stuff, and in
(06:34):
the olden day, you didn't keepthem on your phone. You had
boxes of these things. So heexplained to me unsolicited how
to sort through photographs,which essentially was what I was
doing.
It was information I needed thatnobody really knew I needed, but
he was telling me how to sortthrough photographs. And so I
put that in my journal as areally cool thing, but I wanted
(06:58):
to also share a photograph,which is an unexplainable story
that I just found sortingthrough some last week, and this
one cracks me up because How doyou like this photo? Can you see
this one?
Doug (07:13):
One of the- He's got a couple of these.
Keith (07:15):
Yeah. One of the things the limo driver said, he said,
Do not keep any photos thatdon't have humans in them. Just
get rid of the photos withhumans.
Doug (07:26):
That's a good Because a
Keith (07:27):
lot of times people would take pictures of a herd of
buffalo or something like that,which nobody cares. Nobody wants
see your vacation picture of theherd of buffaloes because you
can go online, but he said, Anddo not keep any pictures of
humans you don't know, becausemy mom's friends or my dad's
friends aren't really myfriends. If I don't know who
they are, there's no reason topass those on to my kids. But
(07:48):
last week on Thanksgiving Day, Ifound this photo. What do you
think about this photo?
Doug (07:53):
What's going on here? What's your mom doing?
Keith (07:59):
I can't tell. Would you say that's 20 feet away from
that bear?
Doug (08:03):
I mean, but didn't you send me another one like this
recently?
Keith (08:07):
Yeah, these are both of the same pile of photos. I found
this one, the unexplainablestory here is that I exist, like
how she didn't get mauled andeaten by a bear, and my dad too,
because this was probably takenin the late '50s where they
didn't have zoom lenses, right?So they were both culpable in
this situation. Where was this?I'm sure it was Yellowstone.
(08:30):
I would bet- Crazy. So I bringup the trip in 2009 where the
limo driver taught me somethingI needed to know unexplainably,
and that picture was just one ofthe funny ones I found along the
way. I've got a number of thesethings I wanted to throw out
(08:50):
there and just kind of talkabout and see what happens, but
part of chasing unexplainablestories and literally recording
them, I think is where lifebecomes more interesting than
you can imagine. The theorybehind this is I believe you
only have three sources ofthoughts, and I won't go into
(09:11):
great detail on thisconversation with them, but in
one Corinthians two sixteen, itsays, Believers in Christ have
the mind of Christ, and so Ibelieve the origin of my
thoughts are just from godlythoughts. Those are the natural
origin of my thoughts.
Then I believe your senses cancreate thoughts. I'm looking at
(09:35):
coffee all over the place infront of me, and I hadn't
thought about coffee until I sawthat up there. Then there's this
internal sound system that isn'tus that can give you a lot of
distracting thoughts, anxiety,greed, fear, all kinds of things
can come from those. But themind of Christ, if something's
not ungodly and if it'soutrageous, I think both of us
(09:56):
will chase after that, don'tyou?
Doug (09:58):
Oh yeah, yeah. And I've had it chase after me. I was
thinking about that as I wasprepping for today. Was thinking
of the things that I've donethat have been very adventurous
and seemingly whimsical, greatstuff. Even better are the
things that have happened to me,that someone has pursued me, and
(10:21):
I've always appreciated thosethings where someone came to my
rescue.
Keith (10:26):
I literally had to walk fifteen minutes this morning to
this coffee shop in the dark. Itwas dark when I walked in here,
and somebody who wanted timewith me just happened to call at
that moment while I was walking.I'm like, Dude, you could never
have picked a better time. I'malone, nobody's here, and I've
got time to give to you. So somepeople wouldn't see that as a
(10:50):
big deal.
I just see it as perfect timing.It was the exact time when I was
free and available to have theconversation uninterrupted with
him.
Doug (10:58):
Yeah, there's very few times in people's lives today
where you have quiet. I'm
Keith (11:05):
going
Doug (11:05):
to have some quiet today. I could choose to listen to
podcasts. I'm driving out toWashington DC, and I probably
will. I'll probably havesomething on the car radio, but
to have some quiet allows aperson to think and reflect
reflect on, Hey, when were theseunbelievable collections of
(11:28):
stories? When have I run acrossstuff like this?
Or when was I able toparticipate in great adventures?
But without quiet, you can'treally come up with this stuff.
Keith (11:39):
I think it's critical that once you have them, you
start writing them down andreflecting on how unexplainable
they are, like how cool it isthat they happened. So what
prompted it this week to havethis conversation is I've been
mentoring this young guy whoserole is that of a headhunter or
a job placement thing, and Caleband I were heading to an
(12:02):
appointment with a client andhis wife, and we were heading
south on Keystone, and theconversation was, What does that
young guy do for a living? Istarted explaining to him, He is
a headhunter, and I thought,Well, Caleb wouldn't know what
that is if I don't explain it tohim. I explained it to him, and
when that happened, all of asudden my thoughts was, Oh,
(12:24):
yeah. One of my college friendswho owns a headhunting business
wanted to do business with us,and I hadn't reached back out to
him, and that was probablyninety to one hundred days ago
when I spoke with him.
This friend lives inIndianapolis, but I probably
only see him every two or threeyears. I don't see him much. So
I said to Caleb, we were about106 in Keystone at this point. I
(12:47):
said, Hey, Caleb, do you mind ifI just leave him a quick
message, let him know I wasthinking about him, and we can
circle back around? So I leavehim a voicemail, and we go pick
up the client.
The client's not moving verywell. Some people go to lunch at
11:30 or twelve or 12:30. We'renot on that kind of schedule.
We're at a random time, and thenit's becoming apparent that the
(13:12):
client is not doing well. Like,We may not be able to even do
this lunch.
Once we got to the restaurant,we might have been in the
restaurant for fifteen minutesat the most, maybe twenty, So we
were getting him situated. Hewas pretty immobile, we were
getting him situated, and hejust wasn't doing well. So I had
(13:34):
the prompting to just tell hiswife, Let's just I'll go tell
the waitress, Let's get thispacked up to go, right? Instead
of forcing this thing. So eventhat is one of those
unexplainable stories.
How do I have the wisdom toknow? Let's bring this thing to
closure and do it. Inside thatfifteen minutes, I went to the
restroom, and as I was comingback out of the restroom,
(13:58):
instead of just kind of watchingmy feet, I looked up at the
people around me sitting in theback room back there, and one of
those people was the guy I lefta message for. Crazy. Yeah.
There's probably a million pluspeople in Indianapolis. Anybody
could be eating anywhere. Youcould just say, Oh, that's a
coincidence, but I learned longago there's no such thing as
coincidences. I see those thingsas like divine appointments and
(14:20):
just amazing things.
Doug (14:21):
Social media is pretty fast on connecting people, but
not that fast.
Keith (14:26):
No. You should have seen his face because he saw my call
come in and he hit the do notanswer thing. Then he sees me
showing.
Doug (14:37):
That's awesome. Do you
Keith (14:39):
have any stories that come to mind?
Doug (14:41):
Yeah. The one that comes top of mind was I was in a rough
situation. I had a one ton 2007GMC van that we It's probably my
favorite vehicle we've everowned. I love that van. We've
toured across The United Statesin it, and we were coming down a
(15:05):
pass just outside of JacksonHole, Wyoming with a 28 foot
Airstream trailer behind us, andour transmission started to give
out.
I have a rule, it's don't messwith my vacation. I will lose my
mind. My family loves to makefun of me. I will completely
lose my mind to keep a vacationgoing. So here we are in Jackson
(15:29):
Hole and our transmission istoast.
I go around to all these carshops in Jackson Hole, and
nobody is willing to help. It'slike fourth of July weekend or
something like that, and finallya guy says, Hey, you gotta try
these people in Rapid City. No,no, no. Oh man, not Rapid City.
(15:55):
I can't remember the name of thetown.
It's in Idaho somewhere. Okay,yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what
you're talking about. Anyway, Icalled the guy and he says,
Yeah, see if you can limp thetruck or limp the van here. So I
did.
I drove like three hours to getthere, and they just so happened
to have my exact transmission ofa 2007 GMC 3,500 transmission. I
(16:21):
mean, I was about ready to gobuy a brand new Ford f three
fifty pickup truck just to keepthe vacation going. And so, It
was one of those events where Ithink the way to start a
collection of really goodstories is to just pray and just
say, God, I need your help here.Can you
(16:44):
give me an idea? Can you give me a connection? Can you
give me an insight?
These collections of great stories don't happen without
something extra miraculousinvolved.
Keith (16:56):
Absolutely.
Doug (16:57):
It has to be that way, and normally I it's out of
Keith (17:04):
was talking to this young man this morning, and I told him
in the late '80s, I didn'treally have this belief that
this God that my parents hadtold me about was real. I said
there were two problems that Ihad to, as a young man, navigate
through on my own. One was thecontradictions I'd heard about
him, and the second is that I'dnever seen any power. I'd never
(17:25):
heard anything like what you'retalking about, and since then,
I've seen more than I can. Ididn't record as many of them as
I should have over the years,but I was thinking of one that
happened six years ago.
This month, you and I flew toSanta Monica, and we were in a
room with Are they called marketwizards? Is that what they're
(17:49):
calling it? The best of the bestinvestors? Yeah. Yeah.
There was several of the bestinvestors of our lifetime were
in that room, and one of them wedidn't know- Including you. And
you. We're back at you. One ofthem, the family brought him in
to say goodbye to all theinvestors, right? That might've
(18:11):
been the reason they did thewhole thing was for But one of
the speakers was talking aboutinvestor psychology, right?
He was the guru on investorpsychology, and one of the most
traumatic investor psychologystories, if you study history,
(18:32):
was Jesse Livermore. JesseLivermore was one of the
greatest investors of all time,and he took his own life. So
this guy that was at thisexpensive training session was
talking about investorpsychology, and then he tells
this personal story that Icouldn't even believe my ears.
Doug (18:53):
I couldn't believe my ears.
Keith (18:54):
I have never seen or heard anything in a professional
setting so ridiculous is what hesaid. So he's teaching you how
to have the proper investorpsychology, and then he tells
this. It's almost like he'sstripped naked on stage, right?
Yeah. He tells this story abouthow he lost all his money and
his family by not executing thepsychology that he was talking
(19:16):
about.
That's I remember people aroundme were laughing like they
thought it was funny. I wastraumatized. I thought I had to
go almost throw up. I felt sobad for this guy. But the
unexplainable story was WilliamO'Neil was the one that His
organization hosted this, andhis protege had not been at any
(19:39):
of those for probably twentyyears, I don't think, and he was
there on stage that day, and yougot to talk to him as we were
leaving California, and I justremember what you told him and
what he said to you.
Doug (19:51):
Man, I don't even What did I tell him?
Keith (19:53):
Do you remember that?
Doug (19:54):
I remember being there, but
Keith (19:56):
I don't remember saying anything were out there in the
atrium. You said to him, hisname was David Ryan, and you
said to him, Hey, David, I thinkthe whole point that you were
here was for that guy.
Doug (20:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
Keith (20:12):
And he said, I think the same thing.
Doug (20:15):
For that memory, Keith. I forgot that one. Yeah, that's
Keith (20:19):
I mean, that's one of those unexplainable stories that
you and I Some people, they'd beall jazzed because they could be
in the room with a probasketball player or something
like that, but we were in a roomfull of the best investors of
all time, and we got to see thatdivine event happen that's kind
of unexplainable. You can watchthat event. We could probably
link the YouTube video of thatguy telling that story because
(20:42):
it's on YouTube now.
Doug (20:44):
Well, reason why Keith mentions that is David Ryan is a
guy where if you ask him, Hey,what are the best business books
that are out there? He wouldtell you about William O'Neil's
canned slim book, How to MakeMoney in Stocks, and he'd
probably tell you about JesseLivermore, the stories of Jesse
Livermore, but he'd also tellyou the Bible, and so that's why
(21:07):
it was a big deal for David Ryanto be there with this guy.
Keith (21:10):
Yeah, that's very cool. Tell me this, Doug. I remember
one day this late spring, earlysummer, you came into Gimbal and
said, I've had this idea I'msupposed to go to New York. Do
you want to tell our friendsthat story?
Doug (21:23):
Yeah, I mean, that was kind of one of those crazy
things where I wanted to gowatch the pacers. I've always
said I wanna see the pacers wina championship before I die.
And, yeah, you Cubs fans, you'vegotten to see a a world series
and all that stuff, but I wannaI wanna see a a NBA championship
before I die. And so I thought,I'm gonna fly out and and cheer
(21:47):
on the Pacers versus the Knicks.And it turns out I made a couple
new friends while in theairport.
This guy's a social mediainfluencer, and I think the
whole reason I was on that planeor even went out to New York was
to help guide him from NewarkAirport to Madison Square
(22:07):
Garden.
Keith (22:12):
And when I think Go ahead, Doug. I interrupted you.
I'm sorry.
Doug (22:14):
Yeah, Keith, one that involved you that I did think
of, again, this was a rescueDoug situation, but I was in
your big RV. You let me borrowyour big RV and we were out in
Purgatory, Colorado. I had abike rack on the back and I got
stuck. The bike rack and thetrailer mount got stuck on a
(22:38):
rock and I could not move yourtwin axle, huge RV. We're there
for like three hours trying tofigure this out.
And this guy comes up with hisfamily, it's Father's Day
weekend, and he says, Hey, Idrove my family up here because
(22:59):
I wanted to show them the skiruns that I logged as a younger
man. He had this big Dodgediesel truck, and he was going
to pull us out. But then he saysto me, Hey, have you ever
thought about just disconnectingyour bike rack? I'd never
thought of that. So wedisconnected the bike rack and
(23:22):
then drove right off.
So I say that because whenyou're in a jam, and that jam
could be real serious, it couldbe something real serious, but
don't sleep on the voice thatcomes to you or shows up just
out of nowhere, because thatcould be a story in your
(23:44):
collection. And you might bereminded of it, just like Keith
reminded me of David Ryan. Mightforget. So having somebody
remind you, that's pretty great.
Keith (23:54):
Yeah. Well, I've got 08/01/1991. I don't know if you
know what that date was, Doug,or not.
Doug (24:03):
I do not. I do not know what that was. August 1, Well,
'19 did '90 mean in Gulf War?Nope. Okay.
Tell me about it.
Keith (24:12):
08/01/1991 would have been the predecessor birth date
of Gimbal Financial. Wow. Nostop. Okay. Yeah, that's when
ISU Security started, August1990 the second, nineteen ninety
one, I was getting married.
Had zero salary, not much. All Ihad was a little marketing from
(24:39):
the former association I had.Didn't have any income, and I'm
getting ready to become ahusband. And man, it was intense
because I didn't know if myformer employer was going to
come after me. I didn't knowwhat was going to happen, and I
was an average at bestsalesperson, right?
(25:01):
And so every day I'm just wakingup going, Oh man, I don't know
where to I don't even know ifI'm going have a paycheck here
thirty days. And I'm gettingmarried in like ninety days or
so. So that was August 1.09/26/1991, you can Google this,
(25:23):
The New York Times released astory that I think the first
time ever, this company calledAmeritech offered an early
retirement offer to theiremployees. Ameritech was the
former local phone company inIndianapolis, and I happened to
be associated with the phonecompany Credit Union.
(25:44):
What is that? About forty fivedays later from when we started
that thing, and I could not meetwith There were so much people
that came to meet with me. Manyof our legacy clients came from
that article that day,09/26/1991, and you could say,
Oh, whatever. Or you could justbe honest and say, Man, how
(26:06):
humbling is that? That's apretty amazing story.
Doug (26:09):
I love that, Keith. I love that because when you go to
events and you hear someonetelling their success story,
rarely do you hear what reallywas the catalyst, and I love
that for you. I love that for mebecause I'm part of that too.
Keith (26:27):
I would
Doug (26:28):
encourage How many clients do you think we still have today
Keith (26:32):
I from bet it's at least 50.
Doug (26:36):
Oh, easy. 6050%? Yeah.
Keith (26:39):
I mean, they gave us so many referrals, but from that
initial wave, bet there's still50 of them from that initial
wave. That's wonderful. Yeah.Yeah. And I would encourage
people, don't know what JensenYang, is that his name?
Jensen, the CEO of NVIDIA. Ijust discovered how honest that
(26:59):
cat is, but he was on the JoeRogan interview recently, and he
told the story of how they stillexist, and it's Yeah. As
Doug (27:09):
Maybe I'll listen to that one.
Keith (27:11):
You should, because they should not even exist. It's such
an honest story. Most companies,I think, have that same story,
right? Something happened. Andif you have the humility to
recognize that, big things willhappen.
Have you got time for one morebefore we close it out?
Doug (27:30):
Big things happen. Let's go.
Keith (27:33):
So I told you the two things that I didn't really
trust about this God that I'dbeen told about, the
contradictions about who He wasand the lack of power, and I've
been pursuing some stuff becauseof a tragedy that intersected my
life in 1988, but now I'm a yearlater. It's May '2, and I'm
(27:55):
sitting at my desk over at thecredit union headquarters, and a
guy that I had mentored calledand he said, Hey, Keith, I met
this guy down here in WesternKentucky whose ministry has
revolutionized my thoughts aboutwho God is. This guy was an
excitable former lawnmowersalesman, and I'm a salesman by
(28:16):
trade, and so I'm like, I letsalesman calm down before I jump
into a third. So he calls me andsays that, and I just made a
mental note and put it in my hippocket and said, Okay, dude. I
was going to check back with himin a year.
Very next day, a less excitable,more logical person calls me and
says the exact same thing.Neither guy knew each other. One
(28:38):
lived in Evansville, one livedin Cadiz, Kentucky. And so I
thought, Well, I don't believein coincidences. So I call this
guy, and his name was BobWarren, a former professional
basketball player, and I get hisvoicemail, and I say, Hey, Bob.
My name is Keith Tyner. I don'tbelieve in coincidences. Can you
call me and tell me why I'mcalling you? And Bob ended up
(29:01):
being a great influence andmentor to me for twenty plus
years, and he helped answerthose two issues for me that
really revolutionized my life.And to suggest that that just
happened and that there aren'tthese unexplainable stories
would really diminish the valueof my life, I think.
And so I think everybody hasthese stories, I think today is
(29:25):
the day to start looking forthem. Today is the day to start
enjoying them. No matter how bigor how small they are, I think
today's the day.
Doug (29:33):
Wow. And no matter what your history looks like, you
might be a young guy or an oldguy, but you have these
unbelievable stories ahead ofyou.
Keith (29:43):
I think this conversation could go on for two or three
hours myself, and I smile when Ithink about them because they're
just amazing. Why don't you gomake something happen out in
Washington, DC today?
Doug (29:55):
I'm going to. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
You make it happen in AZ, and,thanks to all the people at
Gimbal making it happen at thefort today. We appreciate them.
Keith (30:05):
Alright. Y'all have a great day, and we hope to see
y'all soon.
Doug (30:09):
See you, Keith. Bye, guys.
Keith (30:10):
Bye bye.
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