[Applause]
navigating the path of life as you’re
navigating the path of life are you on a
large ship in rough waters or are you in
a tugboat that’s just barely getting
along just going over those short little
bumps or did you flat fall off the boat
I feel like my life was just a tugboat
there may have been obstacles that other
people would have seen his major
obstacles but I felt like I was on a
tugboat and I’ll tell you one particular
thing that has helped me all my life is
something that my dad told me at an
early age I was raised in West Texas
town of Odessa and a lower middle-income
family had a younger brother and I say
lower middle income because my dad
worked three jobs and that raise raised
us to lower middle income and my mom
worked also but I feel like I had a
pretty happy childhood I didn’t know we
didn’t have a lot of money in just
enjoyed life I’ve always been a happy
child and happy adult but one day at
school in elementary school I went to
play with my friends as usual and it
recess and one of my friends said I need
to talk to you my parents said that I
can’t be your friend anymore and I said
why and she said well my parents found
out that you’re Spanish and so I can’t
play with you anymore and that was just
a shocker to me because I didn’t realize
I just thought we were all happy friends
and there was I didn’t felt like there
was a difference but I don’t remember
there being that big of a difference so
like normal families I went home that
day and my parents said how did school
go today and I said well let me tell you
what happened and so my dad said no
Sondra you’re no different than anyone
else you know we are different but but
you’re not need less than anyone else
and I want you to think about this
throughout your life what I’m about to
tell you I want this to really resonate
with you and he said
her dad puts his pants on just like I do
and I thought well that’s right I you
know I didn’t think about that we aren’t
different and so that was a real
equalizer in my life I any situation
that I was ever in and I felt inferior
in any way or if as you know with gender
as a female or as a minority it was a
super equalizer for me I could just sit
and think you know no I’m ready for this
there’s an equal playing field I can do
this so that resonated with me in race
or genders never been an issue to me at
all now I’m married to my high school
sweetheart this year we’ll be married
for 35 years and we both thank goodness
share a love for reading and
motivational speakers so throughout our
lives we have listened to Tony Robbins
I’m sure several of you have and way
back when we had a cassette system a
cassette program called personal power
and with personal power Tony Robbins
will encourage you to look at your goals
for life and and he also had success
conditioning and so we were wanting to
be successful we decided that we would
look at this program and do exactly what
he said and one of the particular things
that we would do is we would look at our
goals and say okay what’s our one month
goal or six month goal or one year goal
and our five year goal and two of the
particular goals that we had was to own
our own business and another one was
that we would be financially successful
enough to share with others Toby and I
have a servant heart and want to serve
people and when we didn’t have the money
we served our with our time and talent
but eventually we wanted to serve with
our treasure also so we continued that
goal searching and and did that once a
month we would drive and or just spend
some time at home and just look at those
goals prior to getting married we both
worked in the oil field and if you know
anything about West Texas and Odessa you
know that the oil field is up and down
has boost but bust or boom and at the
time that we were getting married there
was a bust that was coming on and Toby
worked for his family
and lo and behold a week before we get
married he gets laid off and I remember
him going to his father and saying dad
you know why are you laying me off well
by me and he said my brother works here
too what about him
and his brothers said his dad said no
you and Sondra are young you’re you’ll
be able to land on your feet your
brother has a wife and two young
children you guys will be fine and
another lesson that he taught us was in
Toby as an owner I have other families
that I’m having to really impact their
lives in a negative way so how can I do
that without impacting my own family and
so that was a real lesson for us later
on in life so anyway we go on our
honeymoon jobless and playing while
we’re on our honeymoon and decide okay
when we get back we’re gonna find a job
we came back both found a job right away
and his dad was right we landed on her
feet so we continued with each of those
goals learning about each one of those
and then one day we were driving and
typically Toby loved to drive everywhere
and so I would have everything ready at
all these books at my feet and we would
look over all each of our goals so one
day he said okay so what are we gonna do
ticking off the goals and when it came
to owning our own business he said well
I’ve been thinking about something so
let’s what do you think about this he
said I want to buy and my family’s
business and I said you’re kidding me I
always thought that we would start with
something small like a little
mom-and-pop shop or a franchise I didn’t
think that we’d buy your family’s
business of about six or seven branches
and other cities let’s start slow and he
said no and his dad at the time it had
cancer and an another lesson that we
learned at that time also was you know
we could have when we both got laid off
and especially Toby we could have become
estranged from the family or really
gotten mad and become victims but we
decided to keep those close family ties
and just move on from there not not be
victims and because of that his dad had
eventually asked him to come back to
work for adesso pumps and at that time
when his dad had cancer he asked Toby to
be the president of the
the company and so at that time he had
he had been the president for a while
and he said I want to buy this business
and they may not let us oh there were
three families involved his family and
another local family and then another
family that had worked but within the
business and he said the only way
that’ll happen is if 100% of the
shareholders agree to do that and I said
okay and so being people of faith we
prayed about it and said if it’s meant
to be it will happen and he went out to
meet with each one of their shareholders
and came back and said Sondra we have
100% agreement and all the shareholders
they want to sell so for about five
minutes I was really excited and then I
thought about oh my goodness we’ve got a
lot of debt that we’re gonna have to pay
so anyway a lot you know being raised
with no money and then all of a sudden
owning a business and having the
pressures from that business I was very
very afraid but we put the right team
together we went and found people within
the company that were the right team
members and like-minded and wanted to
have the best our dream was to have the
best service company in the industry and
and so we put the team together went out
and found other people in the industry
that that we’re willing to come on our
team and just hit the ground running and
one thing that we had asked the
shareholders was can we pay you back in
ten years because we really don’t have a
lot of money and most of it’s going to
be borrowed and if you would please
allow us to pay you back in ten years
and they said sure so everything was
just unfolding the way we wanted it to
well fast forward five years and we had
made enough money with our team to pay
them back in half the time it had been
such a successful company and with that
we started in in a bust it was not a
time of flourishing we put our team
together and that’s one thing that we
always did is when there is a slump in
the economy that’s when we worked on
getting ready for the next rise but
anyway that worked it’s not in five
years we were able to pay them back
because we felt so blessed by our team
and and we’re happy with the team we had
together
we decided that we would let our team
members invest in our business and the
managers then invested in the business
and then it was amazing what was
happening in in the company it just kept
growing and growing and by the time we
we ended up selling the business later
was we had grown into 15 different
communities but as things were rocking
along and life was good we decided to go
on a trip to Costa Rica and I love
fishing so of course the first thing
I’ll plan is we’re going to go deep-sea
fishing well that day I know it was a
god thing because that day I didn’t go
fishing and we there were several people
on the boat our youngest son Reece was
on it also in his college roommate in
two other families and I get a call
about half way about the time they were
supposed to get home and our friend says
saundra there’s been a terrible accident
and I said what’s wrong and they said
well Toby was thrown off the boat and
got caught in the motor and you need to
meet us at the marina so I’ll just
Drina land set in and I took off for the
marina and when I got there I didn’t
know what would happen when they said he
was cut by the motor he’d fallen into
the motor I didn’t know if he was
amputated or or what had happened I
didn’t know where how my world is going
to change so I get there and once I made
sure that all his limbs were intact then
I noticed all the bandages and I asked
what had happened and what had happened
was the Sailfish were they caught to
selfish at once and and often if you’ve
ever gone deep-sea fishing that captain
will try to help you by backing down the
boat well when he was backing down the
boat water was coming in and our
youngest son started noticing came out
for the commotion but he said he saw
that water coming in and thought
something bad is about to happen
so he started scooting back and Toby was
there one minute and he was gone so
everyone goes to the back of the boat
Toby be my husband goes to the back of
the boat and they don’t seem they see
his cap and no one can find him so there
everyone’s in a panic and they wait for
a while and they saw some blood and
thought he
not going to come back so our youngest
son starts running around the boat in a
panic and he said I just started running
and running and running around and he
went to the front of the boat where no
one was looking and Toby said he
remembers his legs were cut the length
of his legs just filleted basically and
then he had deep cuts in his hip and he
couldn’t use his legs and when he hit
the motor he said he remembers hitting
the hitting it pushing you away and he’s
a really strong person in a strong
swimmer so he swam under the boat went
to the front and so no one was looking
there though that was the bad thing is
that he didn’t stay where he had fallen
but our son he said he remembers Holt
trying to hold himself up and the waves
would go up and he wouldn’t see the boat
and it would come down but at one time
when it came down and he was about to
give up our youngest son saw him he said
that was the best thing that he could
ever say because by then he was praying
was lord please don’t let me die in
front of my son so he just threw all of
that it was just a miracle that he saw
him
and so by then they brought the boat
over and Toby remembered later what
happened with all that was that he kept
thinking why isn’t anyone jumping in to
get me because they were saying swim
over here swim over here and when he got
in the boat he realized that there was
blood all around him and you’re in the
middle of the ocean there were sharks
out there so they finally bring him in
one of the deckhands jumps into the boat
I mean jumps into the water brings him
in and and they brought him in and long
story short he spends four hours in
surgery in Costa Rica and that was
really difficult for me because I worked
in a hospital for 15 years so I know how
hard it can be with people taking care
of you and and I don’t know in a net
foreign country what its going to be
like but the doctor eventually talked me
into taking care of Toby and I let him
and he said he can’t he has to be taken
care of you’ve got to let me take care
of him so he’s fine today thank goodness
he’s basically 100% cured from all his
injuries but I tell you that long story
to let you know that what community
means to us that night when he had
surgery when after his surgery we had
calls from our community
and Tech’s from our community that we
had no we didn’t know half the people
and we weren’t that well-known
it’s just that word spread and the power
of a community that she put around you s
in our company and the place where we
had lived grown up and been and our kids
had grown up and we’d gone to church was
overwhelming I can’t even tell you what
it felt like that night and we’ve always
felt a sense of giving back with that so
in 2015 when we sold our company it was
very important to us to give back to the
community and that’s why as some of you
that live in this community have heard
that we finally realized our dream we
have enough money money to give back to
what’s been given to us we want to bless
others as we’ve been blessed and so
right now we’re in the middle of an
opportunity to revitalize our downtown
here in Odessa we’re working on that
with the city and it’s one of the we
will never even dreamed of doing that
and we’re so excited to be in the middle
of that but my story today I tell you
that whether you are in a tug boat or
whether you’re in a ship or wherever you
are rough seas calm seas stay steady and
strong and be secure and don’t fall off
that boat thank you
[Applause]
navigating the path of life as you’re
navigating the path of life are you on a
large ship in rough waters or are you in
a tugboat that’s just barely getting
along just going over those short little
bumps or did you flat fall off the boat
I feel like my life was just a tugboat
there may have been obstacles that other
people would have seen his major
obstacles but I felt like I was on a
tugboat and I’ll tell you one particular
thing that has helped me all my life is
something that my dad told me at an
early age I was raised in West Texas
town of Odessa and a lower middle-income
family had a younger brother and I say
lower middle income because my dad
worked three jobs and that raise raised
us to lower middle income and my mom
worked also but I feel like I had a
pretty happy childhood I didn’t know we
didn’t have a lot of money in just
enjoyed life I’ve always been a happy
child and happy adult but one day at
school in elementary school I went to
play with my friends as usual and it
recess and one of my friends said I need
to talk to you my parents said that I
can’t be your friend anymore and I said
why and she said well my parents found
out that you’re Spanish and so I can’t
play with you anymore and that was just
a shocker to me because I didn’t realize
I just thought we were all happy friends
and there was I didn’t felt like there
was a difference but I don’t remember
there being that big of a difference so
like normal families I went home that
day and my parents said how did school
go today and I said well let me tell you
what happened and so my dad said no
Sondra you’re no different than anyone
else you know we are different but but
you’re not need less than anyone else
and I want you to think about this
throughout your life what I’m about to
tell you I want this to really resonate
with you and he said
her dad puts his pants on just like I do
and I thought well that’s right I you
know I didn’t think about that we aren’t
different and so that was a real
equalizer in my life I any situation
that I was ever in and I felt inferior
in any way or if as you know with gender
as a female or as a minority it was a
super equalizer for me I could just sit
and think you know no I’m ready for this
there’s an equal playing field I can do
this so that resonated with me in race
or genders never been an issue to me at
all now I’m married to my high school
sweetheart this year we’ll be married
for 35 years and we both thank goodness
share a love for reading and
motivational speakers so throughout our
lives we have listened to Tony Robbins
I’m sure several of you have and way
back when we had a cassette system a
cassette program called personal power
and with personal power Tony Robbins
will encourage you to look at your goals
for life and and he also had success
conditioning and so we were wanting to
be successful we decided that we would
look at this program and do exactly what
he said and one of the particular things
that we would do is we would look at our
goals and say okay what’s our one month
goal or six month goal or one year goal
and our five year goal and two of the
particular goals that we had was to own
our own business and another one was
that we would be financially successful
enough to share with others Toby and I
have a servant heart and want to serve
people and when we didn’t have the money
we served our with our time and talent
but eventually we wanted to serve with
our treasure also so we continued that
goal searching and and did that once a
month we would drive and or just spend
some time at home and just look at those
goals prior to getting married we both
worked in the oil field and if you know
anything about West Texas and Odessa you
know that the oil field is up and down
has boost but bust or boom and at the
time that we were getting married there
was a bust that was coming on and Toby
worked for his family
and lo and behold a week before we get
married he gets laid off and I remember
him going to his father and saying dad
you know why are you laying me off well
by me and he said my brother works here
too what about him
and his brothers said his dad said no
you and Sondra are young you’re you’ll
be able to land on your feet your
brother has a wife and two young
children you guys will be fine and
another lesson that he taught us was in
Toby as an owner I have other families
that I’m having to really impact their
lives in a negative way so how can I do
that without impacting my own family and
so that was a real lesson for us later
on in life so anyway we go on our
honeymoon jobless and playing while
we’re on our honeymoon and decide okay
when we get back we’re gonna find a job
we came back both found a job right away
and his dad was right we landed on her
feet so we continued with each of those
goals learning about each one of those
and then one day we were driving and
typically Toby loved to drive everywhere
and so I would have everything ready at
all these books at my feet and we would
look over all each of our goals so one
day he said okay so what are we gonna do
ticking off the goals and when it came
to owning our own business he said well
I’ve been thinking about something so
let’s what do you think about this he
said I want to buy and my family’s
business and I said you’re kidding me I
always thought that we would start with
something small like a little
mom-and-pop shop or a franchise I didn’t
think that we’d buy your family’s
business of about six or seven branches
and other cities let’s start slow and he
said no and his dad at the time it had
cancer and an another lesson that we
learned at that time also was you know
we could have when we both got laid off
and especially Toby we could have become
estranged from the family or really
gotten mad and become victims but we
decided to keep those close family ties
and just move on from there not not be
victims and because of that his dad had
eventually asked him to come back to
work for adesso pumps and at that time
when his dad had cancer he asked Toby to
be the president of the
the company and so at that time he had
he had been the president for a while
and he said I want to buy this business
and they may not let us oh there were
three families involved his family and
another local family and then another
family that had worked but within the
business and he said the only way
that’ll happen is if 100% of the
shareholders agree to do that and I said
okay and so being people of faith we
prayed about it and said if it’s meant
to be it will happen and he went out to
meet with each one of their shareholders
and came back and said Sondra we have
100% agreement and all the shareholders
they want to sell so for about five
minutes I was really excited and then I
thought about oh my goodness we’ve got a
lot of debt that we’re gonna have to pay
so anyway a lot you know being raised
with no money and then all of a sudden
owning a business and having the
pressures from that business I was very
very afraid but we put the right team
together we went and found people within
the company that were the right team
members and like-minded and wanted to
have the best our dream was to have the
best service company in the industry and
and so we put the team together went out
and found other people in the industry
that that we’re willing to come on our
team and just hit the ground running and
one thing that we had asked the
shareholders was can we pay you back in
ten years because we really don’t have a
lot of money and most of it’s going to
be borrowed and if you would please
allow us to pay you back in ten years
and they said sure so everything was
just unfolding the way we wanted it to
well fast forward five years and we had
made enough money with our team to pay
them back in half the time it had been
such a successful company and with that
we started in in a bust it was not a
time of flourishing we put our team
together and that’s one thing that we
always did is when there is a slump in
the economy that’s when we worked on
getting ready for the next rise but
anyway that worked it’s not in five
years we were able to pay them back
because we felt so blessed by our team
and and we’re happy with the team we had
together
we decided that we would let our team
members invest in our business and the
managers then invested in the business
and then it was amazing what was
happening in in the company it just kept
growing and growing and by the time we
we ended up selling the business later
was we had grown into 15 different
communities but as things were rocking
along and life was good we decided to go
on a trip to Costa Rica and I love
fishing so of course the first thing
I’ll plan is we’re going to go deep-sea
fishing well that day I know it was a
god thing because that day I didn’t go
fishing and we there were several people
on the boat our youngest son Reece was
on it also in his college roommate in
two other families and I get a call
about half way about the time they were
supposed to get home and our friend says
saundra there’s been a terrible accident
and I said what’s wrong and they said
well Toby was thrown off the boat and
got caught in the motor and you need to
meet us at the marina so I’ll just
Drina land set in and I took off for the
marina and when I got there I didn’t
know what would happen when they said he
was cut by the motor he’d fallen into
the motor I didn’t know if he was
amputated or or what had happened I
didn’t know where how my world is going
to change so I get there and once I made
sure that all his limbs were intact then
I noticed all the bandages and I asked
what had happened and what had happened
was the Sailfish were they caught to
selfish at once and and often if you’ve
ever gone deep-sea fishing that captain
will try to help you by backing down the
boat well when he was backing down the
boat water was coming in and our
youngest son started noticing came out
for the commotion but he said he saw
that water coming in and thought
something bad is about to happen
so he started scooting back and Toby was
there one minute and he was gone so
everyone goes to the back of the boat
Toby be my husband goes to the back of
the boat and they don’t seem they see
his cap and no one can find him so there
everyone’s in a panic and they wait for
a while and they saw some blood and
thought he
not going to come back so our youngest
son starts running around the boat in a
panic and he said I just started running
and running and running around and he
went to the front of the boat where no
one was looking and Toby said he
remembers his legs were cut the length
of his legs just filleted basically and
then he had deep cuts in his hip and he
couldn’t use his legs and when he hit
the motor he said he remembers hitting
the hitting it pushing you away and he’s
a really strong person in a strong
swimmer so he swam under the boat went
to the front and so no one was looking
there though that was the bad thing is
that he didn’t stay where he had fallen
but our son he said he remembers Holt
trying to hold himself up and the waves
would go up and he wouldn’t see the boat
and it would come down but at one time
when it came down and he was about to
give up our youngest son saw him he said
that was the best thing that he could
ever say because by then he was praying
was lord please don’t let me die in
front of my son so he just threw all of
that it was just a miracle that he saw
him
and so by then they brought the boat
over and Toby remembered later what
happened with all that was that he kept
thinking why isn’t anyone jumping in to
get me because they were saying swim
over here swim over here and when he got
in the boat he realized that there was
blood all around him and you’re in the
middle of the ocean there were sharks
out there so they finally bring him in
one of the deckhands jumps into the boat
I mean jumps into the water brings him
in and and they brought him in and long
story short he spends four hours in
surgery in Costa Rica and that was
really difficult for me because I worked
in a hospital for 15 years so I know how
hard it can be with people taking care
of you and and I don’t know in a net
foreign country what its going to be
like but the doctor eventually talked me
into taking care of Toby and I let him
and he said he can’t he has to be taken
care of you’ve got to let me take care
of him so he’s fine today thank goodness
he’s basically 100% cured from all his
injuries but I tell you that long story
to let you know that what community
means to us that night when he had
surgery when after his surgery we had
calls from our community
and Tech’s from our community that we
had no we didn’t know half the people
and we weren’t that well-known
it’s just that word spread and the power
of a community that she put around you s
in our company and the place where we
had lived grown up and been and our kids
had grown up and we’d gone to church was
overwhelming I can’t even tell you what
it felt like that night and we’ve always
felt a sense of giving back with that so
in 2015 when we sold our company it was
very important to us to give back to the
community and that’s why as some of you
that live in this community have heard
that we finally realized our dream we
have enough money money to give back to
what’s been given to us we want to bless
others as we’ve been blessed and so
right now we’re in the middle of an
opportunity to revitalize our downtown
here in Odessa we’re working on that
with the city and it’s one of the we
will never even dreamed of doing that
and we’re so excited to be in the middle
of that but my story today I tell you
that whether you are in a tug boat or
whether you’re in a ship or wherever you
are rough seas calm seas stay steady and
strong and be secure and don’t fall off
that boat thank you
[Applause]
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