Rashad Thirlkill
Hello out there to the Millionaire by Morning listeners! We have a topic of discussion today that you’re really going to enjoy. And that topic is building a business with your loved one.
Casper Stockham
Yes.
Rashad Thirlkill
We have Casper with us today. Casper served in the US Air Force for 14 years as a Weapons and Communication Specialist. For over 30 years, he worked in the marketing and direct sales Industries, conducting personal and professional development seminars and training. For over 20 years, he worked as a corporate trainer, conducting hardware and software workshops in over five countries around the world. Casper also happens to speak conversational French.
Cheryl, his wife, who is in business with him and is his business partner, has 30 years of administration, customer service, sales training, human resources, and management experience. She has 15+ years of direct sales and marketing experience.
Cheryl has developed sales and marketing presentations and training curriculum and has conducted many hours of classroom and boardroom training. She is not with us today, but Casper will be speaking on her behalf.
I Am Love Builders is a Company formed by Casper and Cheryl Stockham, located in beautiful Colorado. For over 14 years, Casper and Cheryl have been working as workshop facilitators and coaches using their own developed relationship materials.
“We have a passion to help and encourage married couples, and we continue to facilitate both in-person and virtual married couple groups. We will expand our teaching courses and establish workshops and Retreats for married couples throughout the world.”
Casper?
Casper Stockham
Yes sir.
Rashad Thirlkill
Founder of I Am Love Builders, welcome to the show today. Man, it’s good to be with you.
Casper Stockham
Rashad. I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you and your listeners.
Rashad Thirlkill
Thanks a lot man, we’re glad to have you.
This is one topic that we have not touched on and have not discussed. I must say, me being a person that is married, being a person that operates businesses with my wife, I know this is something that’s needed. We have never even run across anything of this caliber that kind of teaches or shows people and coaches married couples how to utilize love, how to be in love, engage in love, and build a business. But you have done that. What made you even want to do that?
Casper Stockham
Well, we’re doing it and one of the things about being in business and having partners is that there’s a lot of similarities in marriage and business partner relationships. In both cases, there’s give and take. You know there’s listening, there’s good communication skills needed, there’s the aspect of one partner being strong in one area and the other partner being strong in the other area.
Like maybe one partner is really good as the front person. The person that’s out front doing the sales if you will, doing all the media stuff. And the other partner in the background kind of handles the technical aspects or runs the office. So, all those dynamics come into play with business partnerships. But they also definitely come into play with the marriage.
In a marriage situation, not only do you have the communication part of it, but you also have the physical part of it to where you’re actually partner with someone you’re going to be with for the rest of your life. Right?
In a business partnership, maybe after 10 years or 15 years or whatever, maybe you sell the business or whatever, but you don’t sell your marriage. Marriage is permanent; it should be permanent. So, you have to figure this thing out and make sure you figure it out in a way to where you’re growing, it’s healthy, you’re thriving. And at the end of the day, you need to make enough money to survive and do well, right?
So, all those dynamics come into play and that’s what my wife and I are excited to be able to share. We even put a lot of this in our book and it’s called “Divorce Proofing Your Marriage”. I have a quick copy of it, I can show you right here.
Divorce Proofing Your Marriage just launched in August and we hit the hot new release list on Amazon for a quick second. But we’re going to be back on that list high on the list here shortly. We have a PR firm helping us so we’re just excited about all these things, all these dynamics coming together.
Rashad Thirlkill
How long have you and your wife been at this?
Casper Stockham
So, we have been doing coaching and training for over 14 years. We just celebrated our 21st anniversary last month, so we’ve been married for 21 years. Well, 14 of that 20, we’ve been doing this kind of work.
We started out with a grant from the government and we were part of another organization where we were traveling around Colorado, doing workshops for couples. Over the course of eight years or so, we probably trained thousands of different couples over that time. Then we had a radio show for two years, and then we had a podcast show for about two years. Then I kind of got distracted into politics for a second. But now I’m back and we’re focused on helping couples and diminishing the divorce rate that is just skyrocketing like crazy.
Even in the communities of faith, even in the church, there’s really no difference between the divorce rate in the church and the divorce rate in the world. And that’s unacceptable to us. So, that’s kind of like our focus.
Rashad Thirlkill
Right right! I definitely get it. I see it. So, there is I know as far as the younger crowd the younger generation, they have a problem with marriage because they kind of feel like each person can build their own business or build their own self. Marriage used to be an agreement where it was two people after one goal. But now, it seems that the younger generation or the new mindset is more so I can get it by myself.
What would you have to say to that as far as dealing with a person’s significant other or being in a marriage? what are the benefits of being in a marriage as opposed to being by yourself in business?
Casper Stockham
Yeah. Well, being in a good marriage, there’s nothing that compares; absolutely nothing. You can absolutely get it on your own and do it on your own. There’s no doubt about it, you can be successful on your own. But at the end of the day, you have all this success, you’re in this big house and fancy car, and if you don’t have anybody to share that with, that is a recipe for just being depressed beyond measure.
We have seen all kinds of successful people and couples just struggling, even single people struggling because they have all this success but they don’t really have anybody to share it with.
As human beings, we are put on this planet for relationships. We are put on this planet to be an encouragement, help, and connection to someone. It starts out with you growing up in a healthy family with a father, mother, and siblings. And then it branches off into where you strike it on your own. But then you come back together with hopefully someone equally yolked. Someone that has the same excitement about life as you have and then you can share that together.
I mean there’s absolutely nothing better than being in a marriage or relationship with someone who understands and you guys are working together. in fact, that’s the strongest union on the planet. Talking about teamwork, you have a husband and wife team that’s on the same page nothing can stop them.
Rashad Thirlkill
that’s right that’s right. I want to take this time out to give you a minute to shout out your wife and if you kind of want to plug her or anything you like to say about her at this time.
Casper Stockham
Yeah yeah. So, my wife Cheryl and I have been on this path for a while and we’ve had our moments, where it’s never been a situation where we wanted to separate anything like that. But I’m just saying she had her path, I had my path. She’s an ordained minister, so she was doing a bunch of stuff in the church, and I was doing a bunch of stuff in politics. So, we were kind of going our separate paths as far as work and our interests. But we still had a solid marriage.
Now, we get a chance to come back with all that experience and all that knowledge in a way that’s really going to bless a lot of people because we have had a very solid marriage even though we were kind of on different career paths. But now we’re on the same path, we’re focused on putting our podcast together. I do a podcast every Wednesday called Mastering Adam. She’s working on a podcast called Mastering Eve. So, we’re kind of doing that for the men and then for the women.
We’re also working on a podcast we come back together for I Am Love Builder podcast to where it’s just about relationships and marriage and it’s going over some of the stuff in our book. Then we’re also launching MVP calls once a month. We’re going to do this live call where we’re going to have special guests on and stuff you know.
In fact, Rashad, I’d love to have you in as a special guest on our call because people’s lives are busy. We got a lot of stuff going on and now with the latest news people’s anxieties are high and all this other stuff. Well, they need a place to come to at least once a month to kind of get recentered, get refocused on your relationship, get refocused on your family and your marriage and that’s what we’ll do live once a month. Those calls will be recorded and then it’ll be accessible to anyone that wants to become a member of that situation.
Rashad Thirlkill
that’s awesome, that’s a good idea man. It’s something I would definitely be a part of, no doubt because even with my marriage, my marriage is fairly new going on four years now.
Casper Stockham
Okay Okay.
Rashad Thirlkill
The whole entire time like I know myself I was an entrepreneur; she was kind of dabbling with it. However she’s corporate, I’m an entrepreneur and I see how that’s two different roads and they kind of don’t understand one another. That can get difficult, that can be really difficult. And even getting on one accord with that, you still have to structure it like you said like a business partnership.
So, it has to be some structure there. I have to admit that we’re still struggling with that because if you’re coming from corporate and then you’re trying to marry an entrepreneur, there’s so many different ways to look at different scenarios within the household and within the business. So, I think coaching and someone who’s been through that and can kind of relate to that, that’s an excellent idea to offer people for a membership once a month call.
Casper Stockham
In fact, your situation is exactly like my situation. In other words, I’m the entrepreneur. I don’t have a corporate job, I don’t like working for people. My wife currently has a corporate job.
Now when we first got married, I had the corporate job, she was the entrepreneur – she was a realtor. After we got married, she pretty much just handed me all her bills and said hey, here you go. You know you’re making the money, so pay the bills. But over time what happens is those roles kind of morphed and switched to where now she’s in the corporate arena and we’re trying to bring her home. But in the meantime, we’re building this business. And had I been in a corporate environment, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to build these podcasts and do all these things that we’re doing.
So, I’m kind of like the cinderella right now. I’m at home doing the laundry, cooking the meals, things like that, and making sure the home is solid. So that she can still be that corporate make money but still have a very home environment to come back to where we’re not at each other’s throats all the time.
Rashad Thirlkill
I get it man and what you need there is communication and understanding. As long as it works and as long as there’s a grand scheme or goal or end goal, it’s totally fine. And that just goes along with having faith you know that it’s going to come about. What you see at the end of the road is what’s going to become.
Casper Stockham
Yeah. And the trick is what you just said is having a plan and having it plain and both parties have to be on board with it. In other words, I can have all these great entrepreneurial ideas, but if she’s not on board with it, it’s going to be hard to really get that launched. So, we have our goal board put together where we both have input on it. She really does wanna come home from the corporate job so we’re working on that.
I believe, within the next six months, we’ll be there because we’ve already things are really rock and rolling right now with you know we just bought a new home so we have boxes everywhere but my podcast studio is set.
Rashad Thirlkill
I get it. I understand that’s the first thing that went up.
Casper Stockham
Yeah, first thing went got put together because you know that’s how we kind of generate that interest and generate that excitement and that’s how we generate the money, right? We got to have things keep flowing. But that plan is critical and this is where a lot of couples fail because they don’t have a plan. Then they get one person is trying to do all the ground stuff and the other one’s working and then there’s animosity that starts to build. There’s they say well I’m making the money, what are you doing?
Well okay, the plan is this and this. Now, if you have the plan, you can go back to the plan. But if you don’t have the plan, that’s where you run into trouble.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s right, that’s right. There has to be an understanding that you know especially at the beginning that with corporate that check is coming every week or every two weeks. With entrepreneurial aspirations, it’s a roller coaster. It can be really good one day, really good one week, and not so good the next. So, that definitely has to be understood.
Casper Stockham
Yeah yeah. And then you have to invest, you have to invest in your business. You can’t just it doesn’t just happen overnight and it doesn’t just materialize out of thin air. Not only do you have to invest time but you also have to invest money. We’ve invested thousands of dollars in getting a podcast studio put together. We’ve also invested thousands of dollars into getting the book published and now the PR campaign.
All those things take money. So, both parties have to be on board with spending that money and be patient enough for the return because the return doesn’t come right away either. It could take months, it could take years. So, if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur or someone building a business, you have to be willing to put in a sweat equity for a while to make sure that at the end of the day, things just keep moving.
Rashad Thirlkill
That word you just said, I’mma build on that word. Keep moving. One of the most important things and I know this by experience is momentum. Once the momentum starts like you say if you have that plan and you’re working on that plan, you’re working on momentum. The ball have gotten started, you’re rolling.
Now, if something just so happens to come in and I’m saying this I say from experience. If that relationship ends, someone doesn’t understand the plan or don’t want to be a part of it any longer, the momentum ends. You have to start all over.
Let’s say you have to move out or you have to begin somewhere else, the momentum starts over. So, to have that understanding at the beginning and to be able to communicate throughout that process, it’s just you’ll get there a whole lot faster.
Casper Stockham
Sure sure, yeah. And it happened with us and we teach this, but it happened with us because we launched the book in August. It was going great you know. As I said, we hit the hot new release list in August, at the beginning of August. But then we also knew that we were closing on this house and it’s a fixer-upper. So, once we close, I’m daily painting and building and put all this stuff together, working on the yard all these things. So, it’s not that we dropped the ball, but we kind of had to focus on the house. And so, now the house is good enough to where we can actually sleep at night.
Now, we’re gonna get geared back up and we got a PR campaign that’s going to be happening probably in the next week or so. We’re going to really be hitting it hard and doing a lot of interviews. So, I’m just happy we’re able to connect with you, do this interview. We’re going to be doing a lot more podcast interviews, radio interviews and so forth, magazine, you name it. We’re gonna be doing all that because you got to keep it moving and that’s how you do it.
Rashad Thirlkill
Yes yes, that’s it. That’s crazy because I was gonna ask you what was your strategy, your growth strategy moving forward. And you just touched on that and that’s excellent. To get that book out rolling, with the book do you offer any courses or any workshops included with the book?
Casper Stockham
Not with the book, but in the past when we did those workshops, we used other people’s material. We used other books, we used other courses, and so forth. This time, we get a chance to use our materials, our book, and our courses.
We have a workbook that’s going to be a companion to that book that’s going to be for the workshops. But in the meantime, those MVP calls that I was telling you, that’s going to be giving us material to actually start to formulate and put together workshops. So, it’s a stepping-stone process like you’re talking about.
We had the book launch, we’re going to be promoting the book and promoting the MVP calls, that’s going to lead into workshops, that’s going to lead into marriage retreats, and going to lead into cruises, going to lead into all those things to really just have the opportunity to bring couples in either into Colorado or maybe we go to Florida or maybe we go to Mexico or somewhere safe. And we just love on couples and stuff and get them understanding this whole relationship program because our motto is if you’re not having fun you’re not doing it right. And couples are not having fun. So, we want to make sure we change that.
Rashad Thirlkill
Yeah, you don’t want to be stressed in the relationship and stressed in the business. With what you just mentioned the future, you’ve planted the seeds. On your website, let’s talk about the phases that you have listed on your website I thought this was awesome. So, is this based on the nonprofit?
Casper Stockham
Not really. We do have some nonprofit things going on. But most of our I mean you know we’re both Christian coaches and deacons at the church and all that stuff. So, we obviously will be doing counseling with folks and it’s not really a charge to it, we just kind of do it because that’s part of our church ministry. But I Am Love Builders is a, we like to call it I Am Love Builders LTD, because you know we’re going to be literally an umbrella force that’s going to be doing a lot of things.
We want to set up a podcast studio. Right now, the podcast studio is in my home. But we want to have a podcast location to where we can have young entrepreneurs that don’t have the resources to put the cameras and the lighting and all that stuff together. We’ll have them coming to our podcast studio. Sometimes, we just give them the time and the space for free if they’re just getting started or we may rent out that space.
We’ll also have space to do our workshops so we can have 100 couples at a time or maybe 200 couple facilities where we can have couples come in. Then we also have Event Center facilities so that when we’re not doing our workshops, somebody else can do their workshop. So, we want to have a building that houses that.
Then we want to phase into having a retreat probably here in Colorado to where we have 50+ acres to where we can develop that and have tiny homes or cottages and stuff to where when couples come in. They have their own little space and stuff. We can just have them immersed in that environment because we’re part of this other Ministry called Shepherd’s Heart. Shepherd’s Heart really focuses on ministers, pastors, preachers, and so forth, who are struggling with their relationship. And believe it or not, there’s a lot of folks that are so focused on the ministry that they neglect their own personal marriage.
So, Shepherd’s Heart, and it’s free to these pastors and preachers and stuff and they bring them in for free. They put them up for a 4-day intensive time frame. They just love on them and stuff and work them through it and by the time they come out, they’re a stronger couple at the end. We want to do something like that.
Thus, we’re going to partner with Shepherd’s Heart, but we’re also going to have our own to where we bring in couples and they don’t have to be a minister. We are going to bring in couples into that environment and do the same type of thing, love on them, and get them really solidified in their relationship.
Rashad Thirlkill
I want to read this really quick; it’s on your website.
At I Am Love Builders International, our vision is to build a community of Kingdom building ambassadors all over the world. Together with our sponsors and partners, we will build out PHASE I, II, and III of our vision that will include a Kingdom Campus with a Media, Ministry, Training Center, and much more.
That’s listed out, that’s the goal. You have the goal of what you want to do and what you’re going to offer. I don’t see that too often on websites and it’s, clearly, you know has laid out what it is that you’re all about, I Am Love Builders is all about.
Casper Stockham
Well, our training in background is direct sales motivational speaking. I’ve met and spoken to Les Brown over the years, Brian Tracy, I mean all the Giants in the industry. So a lot of that is rubbed off on me. You know, we’re all about setting goals and having those benchmarks and stuff. If you don’t set it now, whether we reach it or not this year or next year or whatever is one thing, but you need to have it set. Then you can start to make those steps towards it.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s right. Much respect for that.
Colorado! Now let me know will you be in the mountains? Will the retreat be in the mountains? Will it be, what they call, glamping involved? Because if so, I’m there. Can’t do camping, but I’ll do glamping.
Casper Stockham
In fact, I just came back from a Men’s Retreat this past weekend in Copper Mountain. It’s a ski resort, but during the off-season it’s wide open. They don’t have a lot of activities going on and they love to have people come in. So, the pricing is better because obviously, ski season is just crazy. But when it’s not ski season you still get the enjoyment of being in the mountains.
You can go hiking, fishing, but we’re staying in the condo. So, it’s a very comfortable situation where you’re not in the elements unless you really want to be in the elements. You can, but that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to have an environment where everybody’s comfortable. So yeah, most of our retreats, at least here in Colorado, will be in the mountains.
Rashad Thirlkill
Awesome. I’m interested.
So, Casper, I want to thank you for coming on today. This was a really interesting topic and we can see that you are passionate about what you’re doing. You’re not just talking about it, you’re going through it, you’re living it.
That’s what we do here on the Millionaire by Morning. It’s not just something that was catchy that I came up with. I truly believe that if you set a goal and you continue being momentous, continue being motivated, you’ll pick up the momentum that you need to become if it is a millionaire or if it is just waking up in the morning feeling like a millionaire, that’s what we need, that’s what we want. If you look good you feel good, feel good there’s no telling what you can do in life.
Casper Stockham
Amen amen.
Well, that’s what I like about the title. Because sometimes, somebody might look at Millionaire by Morning and think it’s like an overnight success kind of thing. But it’s a mindset. A millionaire mindset overnight that can happen instantly and then you can start to build on that. You start to plug into people who have that same mindset.
I always joke with people because I’m trying to hang out with multi-millionaires because I want to get to where they’re at, but they’re trying to hang out with billionaires. So, everybody’s trying to hang out with the next level to get to that next level. But in the beginning, we’ve got to change or shift our minds into a more, I lost my word for it but you know you just have to be pointed in the right direction. I always say you can change your direction overnight and your direction determines your destination.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s right, that’s right. With what you just said, as far as the mindset goes, the coach won’t come until you’re ready. They won’t show up until you’re ready. So, once you get that mindset like you said overnight, you can start thinking a whole different set of thoughts and go in a totally different direction.
Casper Stockham
The last thing I want to leave your folks with is that if you want to become something, you need to chase after it. In other words, if you want to become a millionaire, find out where the millionaires are hanging out and hang out there. They’re not going to come to you and say, hey Casper, can we make you a millionaire today? No, that’s not how it works. You’ve got to engage, you got to take the action to go where they’re at, to listen to what they’re listening to, to follow their activity because I’m not gonna slow down and turn around so that I can pull somebody up. Now, if they come to me, then I’ll lock arms with them and we’ll go together. But I’m not going to slow down because that just pulls me back. I’m gonna keep going.
Rashad Thirlkill
I like how you just phrased that. I’ve never heard it put that way. I like how you just phrased that. We’re gonna end on that man because that was profound.
All right Casper, you have a good night. Tell Cheryl I said hi. Much success to you both moving into the future and any information that you have for retreats or calls or memberships, send them over to me man. I’ll definitely put them on the comments for anyone else that’s listening to this as well.
Casper Stockham
Thank you Rashad. I appreciate you.
Rashad Thirlkill
All right man, you have a good night.
Casper Stockham
You too.