209 - TZL - John Wheaton

us. So really there was nowhere else to go unless I wanted to move and my wife and I wanted to stay where we were around family and friends so I started the business.

Randy Wilburn [16:24] So it was almost born out of necessity, where you looked at options that were available to you or may not be and said, maybe I can just go out, strike out on my own and do it. And certainly your faith, I'm sure carried you a distance beyond where you currently were in your current profession.

John Wheaton [16:46] Or ignorance, one of the two, or a combination. It talks in the Bible about how to give, to store your riches in the house of the Lord. And there's a proverb that talks about if you invest your money and your time in the right place your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. And I think that relates a lot to mindset. But I remember opening up our cupboards one day in our 1200-square foot ranch house and the spices fell down on the cupboard. We were in business for ourselves, and I just thought of that truth. And I said to my wife, I said, you know what, we've never missed a paycheck, we've never missed a house payment, and we've never missed a meal. I just said to my leadership team today in a quarterly meeting, I said, we could tell you stories. If you were interested we could tell you stories and you would go, you have got to be kidding me. Like there's no way that this gap is going to be filled, financially or whatever and it's always been filled, so anyway, that's been good. So some of it was fade. Some of it was ignorance. Some of it was this burning desire to be in business for myself. Some of it was attrition, realizing I had to move on from my company, so a lot of different signals there.

Randy Wilburn [18:11] It obviously all worked out. It certainly did and now you guys have Wheaton Sprague. How long have you been in business now?

John Wheaton [18:21] Since 1994? So 28 years?

Randy Wilburn [18:25] You guys will be getting to the Big Three O soon so that's a big deal. How many employees are you guys?

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