A CEO’s Ups and Downs. A Roller Coaster Ride Owning a Business.

My dad used to always say, if you could be yourself in a world like this, it's the hardest thing in the world to be, really try to be yourself. Like, I want the biggest payroll here because I feel people deserve to work here. I don't want people working for other companies to get taken advantage of. They get screwed, they don't pay. Is not right. Like that bothers me. I want them working here because I think they'll be treated fairly. And I've always been a team guy. Right. I'm not my own guy. Like, I can't. I can't motivate myself. I mean, I already know I can't do anything. So, you know, I'm stuck here. But when I get around people, that's my energy. Right. When I was a kid, I just assumed everyone was like me, right? You wake up in the morning, you're smiling, you're happy. And as I'm older, I just realized no one feels the exact. No one's gonna close. Everyone has their own personality, right? I can't be by myself. I don't wanna be by myself. I look back at every bad decision you made and man, from the time I was a kid, I can't even explain. But the beauty is everything that bad happened turned out to be great. I'd rather have someone fighting for me every day than fighting against me every day. Yeah, right. Absol. Okay.

My man, Steve Wise, the founder of ncw. They are a Libra leasing company, talent acquisition. I've watched this guy do some amazing things. Steve, how long have we known each other?

That dude, I mean, I would say we probably met. 25. How long was your brother married? 25 years ago.

Talking a couple more. We're talking about a couple decades though.

More than 25.

Our listeners are in for a treat today because we're going to talk about a bunch of different things. You're going to tell a little bit about your story. We'll reminisce about some good, good old memories and we'll see kind of where the conversation takes us. So welcome and I appreciate you joining me.

Great. Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it a lot. Cool.

Why don't you start by just kind of giving us, give us a little bit of a background because you do have some funny stories. I mean, I think about, like, how you started off in business and I think about just your journey from, you know, bowling balls to construction work.

Right, right.

You have some good stories. But let's just kick back real quick and first start. Tell me who has the. Who had the biggest impact on you in your life when you were younger?

I mean, you know, probably the basics, like my father 100% did. Right. Teaching me about, you know, not paying interest on credit cards, you know, holding the job, pensions in port, buy stocks that pay a dividend. Just little things like that that made a difference. I think that was the getting me into business with him. Right. Teaching me how to get into a business.

And you went through Ohio State?

I went to Ohio State for a while. It didn't last very long. And the funny thing was about how to stay. It's a funny story. When I walk on the campus with my parents, I looked around, I saw these kids and I saw all these things, and I'm like, man, I'm never going to graduate from this place, but I will stay here as long as I possibly can. So I didn't have a lot of plans to get through it, but I made it about a year.

And you were in a fraternity there.

I wasn't a fraternity there. That's where I met your brother. You know, wild times, man. I look back at how life was back then. Future was not an important piece of my life at that point. Yeah. So, yeah, had a good time out there, for sure.

Things looked a lot different at Ohio State at that time.

Things looked a lot different in Ohio State back then. Yes, they did.

I don't know. I would think it does, but, like, my. My view on college has. Has shifted and changed since. Not only have I gone to college, but now just being out and being in the workforce. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are today about college and kids who are in high school trying to figure out what they want to do.

It's funny, we were talking about this last week, so, I mean, you know my journey pretty well. I've never been a big believer in education. I read something somewhere that said, I love to learn. I just hate being taught. Right. And I do love to learn, but I do hate being taught because I'm a tough learner. It's hard for me to learn from somebody else. So for me, education was always complicated. Right. It was hard. Didn't know what I was doing. Made me feel somewhat dumb. Right. Like, they're giving me these assignments that I don't even understand what they're talking about. People like, you need to try harder. I'd be like, try harder. Like A plus A times X doesn't equal anything. Those are letters versus numbers. I. I never understood a lot of that stuff. Now that we've hired to more talent, more education. There's definitely a huge value in education, but the. The participant has to be willing to accept it and learn. Right.

So what did you do? You went to college for a year and then what?

I went to college for a year. Essentially dropped out, knew it wasn't working. My dad kind of pulled me out and I went and sold cars for a while at a place called For Greenwich Chevrolet, selling used cars. Job I loved. I was good at it, connected with a ton of people, and I was. I was a good salesman. And then I got an opportunity to sell bowling balls, which is what my father did. He. My father actually invented the polyester bowling ball, which is kind of a whole nother story. I'm not going to get into it. But he got bought out for a dollar by a company called Columbia Industries, which was a bowling ball manufacturer. He became a sales guy for that, and then he was going to retire soon. And he was always worried about my future, you know, as it looked bleak when I was young. And he said, hey, man, maybe you come to work for Columbia and take over my route. And I went and interviewed, and that's what happened. I kind of became a bowling ball salesman through that, which was an interesting job. Much better than it sounds, actually, as a young kid. Traveled a ton, but yeah. So I became a bowling ball salesman.

And I can't remember if you told me a really funny story about it or maybe how it ended. I can't remember. I remember laughing really hard, but how long did you do that?

So I did it probably three years. And basically it wasn't even a sales job. Right. Basically, they had a. A distributor in each state or in the town. In a state like New York, maybe like 20 distributors. But like a town like Indiana, the state of Indiana, you had like one or two. And my job would be to go and sell that guy bowling balls. Well, that guy already knew what bowling balls he needed for the year, and he'd have his order already. My job was basically to find the cheapest shipping for this guy. And then I was supposed to go to every bowling alley in the state and explain the bowling ball. So when they bought the balls from this guy, they would know everything about it. I don't know that I was very good at the job anyway. And then I ended up having some problems. I lost my license, which in turn made me lose the job because I was a traveling salesman with no license. And at the time, I remember my mom saying, oh, my God, what are you going to do? Your life's over. I'm like, that was a shit job. I'll buy that whole company. And looking back now, no plans, no future, no nothing. And then I, you know, tried a million jobs and got fired from most of you know. I sold. I told Dan the other day, I sold Hallmark Gift. I worked for a manufacturer's rep, selling, like, you know, stuff to Hallmark stores, right? Like, I was so bad at selling that stuff. It was terrible. But I had a million jobs like that that just didn't pan for me.

I've always said. I've always said that I'm unemployable, but you might be the most unemployable person I am, 100%.

I say joke all the time at this company. I wouldn't last four hours here. They would fire me in four hours. I came in Monday. I'd be gone by noon. Yeah, it makes me sad. It's true.

Well, so what was the entry point into your current company?

How did you. What happened? How did you get into that? So, you know, again, it's funny, we just had our thing called Ignite this week, which is our big company get together at the end of the year, go over, you know, last year's goals. Did we hit them? Did we not? What do we need to do better? What's next year look like? And, you know, we've grown a ton, so it's a lot of fun. But I had to give the history of ncw, like, how we started, and one of the questions was, why did you take the job with Tradesman International? And I'm thinking, why did I take the job? And someone actually offered me a job. You know, anybody that offered me a job, I took it. It didn't matter. I needed a job. But I went to work for these guys called Tradesman International, which was a small company at the time in Cleveland. I think I might have been the fifth or sixth employee, maybe seventh at Tops. And I got to watch this little company. When I started, it had 100 field employees. In five years, I think they had 10,000 field employees. It was crazy. And it was the first time in my life I got to see, like, something really happen. Like, oh, my God, like this. There's a possibility here. There is something here. This is incredible.

And what did they do? What was the job?

So basically, I started as a sales guy, right? And my job was to go convince contractors to use our labor. And at the time, it was, you know, the day labor stuff, manpower, labor, ready, and I was out to sell these guys. The fact That I had skilled labor that were working for what they called a temporary labor firm that we were going to send out, and they were going to be able to do electrical work and plumbing work, and they were journeymen, and they were great. And these guys, like, not possible. So the sell at that time was, we are doing this and we're doing it right. It's a whole different world now. Everybody uses the service now. I have to convince these people that we are different than our competition, which I think is easier, right? Because if you try to convince someone to ride a bicycle, it'd be hard. If everyone already had a bicycle and you had the best one, it'd be easier to show them, hey, you got a good bike there. But here, man, here's the Mac Daddy of bikes. So I think it's easier today, but there's just a lot more competition, you know, a lot more manufacturers of bikes, right?

So you got into it.

So I got into it.

So.

So worked at trade for about four or five years. I don't know exactly. Started 92. So almost 33 years ago, 31 years ago, whatever that would be. Worked there for four years, started opening up new offices. Learned a lot, right? Like, learned a lot about how to, I guess, manage people in some ways, right? Like what? How do you get the most out of people? And everyone's different. And some people needed love, some people needed yell. Some people need, Yeah, I learned a lot, and I learned a lot about myself. Like, oh, my God, there is possibilities. I can actually do some stuff. This is incredible. Like, there is business to be done out here. And we started doing it, and as a company grows, I looked at it like, God, how valuable am I to this company? Right? And after five years, I think they were doing, geez, I don't even know, maybe $200 million in sales. Like, they became really big, and, you know, I'm still thinking, oh, they can't do this without me. And they. They fired me because of whatever, you know, old cancer to the business. And I'm like, these bad. Like, this is insane. These people can never make it, you know? And then just realizing, like, I'm just some dart on the wall over there. But what I did realize at the time, what made tradesmen or what made the company so great when I started was the culture, right? We were young, we were growing. We talked about the future. I loved going to work. And I remember my boss said, if your stun roof's not open and your radio is not on full blast, you're working at the wrong place. And I just remember every day driving from Akron to Cleveland, sunroof, open, radio on full blast, jamming out, ready to get to work. And I loved it. And I couldn't wait. And it's not even that I love the job that much. I love the people that I worked with. I loved my boss, I loved. I loved the concept of what they were trying to accomplish. And then as we grew, all that changed, right? It became, how many hours did you do? How much business are we doing? What's the revenue? What's the thing? And it's like, God, the pressure became so, so immense. And it was like, God, this isn't that fun anymore. This sucks. And then as an older employee, I'm telling the newer employees how good things used to be. This place used to be great. Now it sucks. I'm terrible for the business. Horrible, right? I mean, I'm cancer to this place. And I don't even realize. I'm just, you know, how great things used to be. So I think at that time in my life, I realized that day, like, business is great, measurables are great. You know, goals are great, volume's great. But what's greater? People, right? Having. Having a business full of incredible people is what I want. But volume will come, right? Dollars will come. And if you're doing the right things, I think they will at least. And, you know, I think that I was right. I might have been right. At the end of the day, like, treating people right, having a great culture and just making people have the radio on full blast with sunroofs open on the way to work means something. So that's. That's where I sit today. I believe in that.

Okay, good.

Yeah. You asked the question, how did this get started? Yeah, I got fired from there. I went to Florida, started selling tires, got into the tire distributor business with a friend of mine. Again, terrible business, but had a ton of fun. Like was young, single, Florida, lot going on. Miami, never wanted to come home, Wasn't making much money, but didn't really care. It's kind of the boss of the place, you know, it all looked okay from the outside and it wasn't a terrible gig. And a friend of mine who got me the job at Tradesman originally called and said, hey, man, I'm fired. I know you have a bunch of stuff to get this thing going. Because I tried to start after I left Tradesman, I didn't realize I'd signed a non compete clause. I didn't even know what that meant. And this attorney Called me and said, hey, cease and desist tomorrow. And I was like, you. You know, we keep talking about not happening. And then I. I just ignored it. And then I started getting these registered letters which hadn't even opened. I didn't even know what registered letter meant at the time. And then I got a voicemail because we have cell phones. And it said, if you don't cease in this issue, you will be sued. I think you need to contact an attorney. And this is from tradesman's attorney. And I called this guy named Jim Paschal and Akron, and we went and met and I showed him this. Not compete. And he's like, yeah, you sign this, right? Like, you can't. You can't get in the business. What are you talking about? I can do whatever I want. And that's when I realized, like, no, you can't. There are laws. And there you. You. And again, why did I take the job with tradesman? Because they gave me a job. They gave me a bunch of paperwork, so I didn't look at any. I just signed. And then I realized that I had an uncompute cost, so I couldn't get into the business. And that's why I went to Florida. And then I came home, went to work with Tim, and we started this company called Construction Labor Contractors. And we did that, you know, again, just like as any partnership sometimes don't work. We grew it. We opened five or six, seven offices. And then I just thought we were doing too much. And I wanted to have one central office location that, you know, wasn't trying to take over the world, just trying to take over a little city, you know, and that's kind of how I got here.

And is this when you came to Columbus?

This is when I came. Well, this is. So I. I came to Indianapolis first with your brother and the other guy. And we just, you know, we had some problems opening and, you know, again, administratively, I'm very weak. Wasn't prepared to open. I thought I was. I didn't have workers comp. I thought I did. Took 90 days. Like, I was just here paying people. It was terrible, you know, to start, but, you know, again, you're learning these things as you go. So then we opened here. Did really well after this, I think the second year, and then that's when we opened in Columbus, and that's when you and I started to spend a lot more time together.

So it's funny because hearing your story and just all the blunders of getting you to that point, all of a Sudden it just jumped to, yeah, we had five or six locations. So what, what is it that you feel like you had as a. As your unique ability, your strength? Because you, you obviously know what you didn't have, right? I mean, you've said it, sure, but what did you have that got you from like, hey, we went and started this, and the next thing I know, I got five or six offices. Like, how did you do that? Because people can't just do that.

You know, it's funny. Like, again, you don't know your abilities of what they are until you look back and say, okay, what was I good at? Doing it. Right. I mean, I was a really good connector of people, myself to them. Right. And I care. And I do care. I mean, I have 100 and some people here. I think every one of them tell you individually I care as much as anyone they've ever met, and I truly, truly do. Like, I need this to work. I think just building a dream together, like, this is what we can accomplish together. And, and not pretending like I knew anything, like I knew nothing. And I, you know, you and I used to joke all the time how little we knew. And I try to become like, maybe I know a little more. As I start knowing more, I realize, God, we do a lot less than I thought we did. You know what I mean? Like, you used to say it all the time. God, I just don't know. I'm a guy. I kind of know. I don't know how to do anything. I mean, and, and it's kind of amazing. It's probably better that way, because had I known all the stuff I didn't know, I might not have tried. You know what I mean? Right, right. So it's just interesting.

What was the what when as you were growing the business and now take us fast forward to when. And it's incredible. When I think about entrepreneurship, like, you are the, like, poster child for entrepreneur, for, like, what an entrepreneur has to experience. And when people talk about that.

Failure. Failure, lots of it. Yeah.

And when I think about that, it's, It's. It's crazy because, like, when I think about my journey, I didn't experience a lot of things that you experienced. Like, I didn't have those times where.

I was really successful early. Right. I mean, you, you came out from the gate.

I got blessed. I was blessed right from the get go. Right. And I, and I found success in what I was good at right off the bat. And I didn't have those blunders. I didn't have Those setbacks. And then I had a partner in Norm, and he was so optimistic. So even when things did happen, he always found the silver lining on it. So it never seemed bad, but I never had to worry about, like, how was I going to pay a bill or I've got to lay everybody off, right? Like, I had to lay off a lot of people once when we lost a big client. But, like, we still had our core, right? And I'll never forget when I think about your journey and I think about just what you've gone through, I remember that you guys were growing and you had so many people, whether a hundred people, couple hundred people out there. But I remember the day when you were the only one in the office. Like, you literally went from, like, this company that was a big company to being the only person that was before COVID right? Or was it during COVID I don't.

That was. Well, it was 2008. No, it was. So when I got down that small. Yeah, so. So just, just. I'll back up real quick. Started clc, left clc, which was construction labor contractors. We had a bit of a falling out. So in 2000, it was like, hey, it's time to go. I'm going to do my own thing. And I was going to pick a city that I wanted to live in, right? Phoenix, Tampa, Miami, wherever. Just somewhere great, right? I was dating my wife at the time, but I was single. I could go where I wanted to. And I checked out all these towns and I went to all these cities, and I just kept thinking, man, I'm a Midwestern guy. My clients are up here. I know this town. I picked Indianapolis, Indiana, which, by the way, I love this town. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful place to live. Town, town. I mean, it's just all of it. I don't think it gets nearly the credit. And centralized like you wouldn't believe, right? Every single highway to every single city starts right here. Crossroads of America. Great place. So I got lucky that I picked this town. And it was almost like Columbus, Ohio, right? Like a circle city highways and then tons of land to grow on the outside. So I thought, man, Indiana will be a good place to come. So, you know, decided to open up here and, you know, story after story about, you know, great failures, great successes, great luck, great music on the radio with sunroofs open. I mean, you know, some of the best times I remember ever with your brother and just, you know, trying to grow this business. And we had some real luck early, right? Like, landed a couple big clients, had some Good luck. And then, you know, 2008 came and everyone kept saying how bad things are and this is terrible, and the economy's crashing. My business was killing it. I'm like, man, this is great. I mean, and I never laugh at the other side of traffic. And you've heard me say that before. You know, when I was a traveling salesman, I used to drive up the highway and if I was going to Pennsylvania or whatever, I'd see the other side of traffic. It'd be like a three hour wait. I'd be like, those bass. That's got to be the worst. And two and a half hours later, bam, traffic jam, there I am. And I just remember, I'll never laugh at the other side of traffic meeting someone else's life, man. I just. It's all serious and everyone's going through their own shit, right? But yeah, man, we came up here and had some real good luck. And then 2008 came, still killed it. 2009, we had, I don't know the numbers, let's say 300 and some field employees. In 45 days, we went from that to probably 30. It was incredible. It just was like mass exodus of jobs. We don't need anybody anymore. And again, I'm a filler of labor. A lot of times, right? A guy does a steel plant, needs 100 people, he takes 50 from me. Who are the first 50 coming off the job? Mine. And it happened fast. And we went from that many people to 37 people in the field. I think my lowest was 29 in 2010. Wow. And it got scary. And then, you know, we could go on podcast after podcast because Dan and I just did the history of ncw and we spent a lot of time talking about from 2009, his arrival in 2010 to today. And, you know, you've been. You were a big help to me in my life. You. I mean, there's a day when we were short on payroll. I mean, I was short on payroll for five years every single Monday. Right. And our payroll was getting big six times.

Explain that. So. So people who are listening understand why you're short on payroll. Because you're. Your business is successful, you have a lot of people, you got a lot of billing. But why are you short every payroll?

So, as you know, my partner, I brought a partner in in 2010. He was my financial planner. Super sharp guy. I knew he was probably the guy to do it, and I tried others, as you know, over the years, and it just didn't pan the way I wanted it to. And I finally felt like I found a guy that had potential to run what I thought was a Fortune 500 company. Super talented, young enough not to know enough yet. He could go anywhere. And it felt like I caught him right at the right time. He came over as I was. And the funny thing is, when all that was happening, I think when I started talking to him at 150 people, when we were done with our negotiations, I was down to 30. So not only every day was I losing people, I'm thinking, this guy's got to be nuts. Like, if he literally comes to work here, he's the dumbest guy I've ever met. Especially with the opportunities he has. It's insane. And then I'm showing him, like, how many guys you work today? 50, 40. And I'm like, yeah, things are getting worse. But, man, the future looks bright around here. We're going to kill it. You don't worry about things. It's funny. It takes me back to the story, and I know this will get edited, so it's good. We can go into other things. But I remember when I first hired him, I mean, you said, what makes me good, right? My dreaming. I'm the greatest dreamer I know. I can dream about anything. I'm not great at the conference, but I am a dreamer. And you know what. What brings people close to me is, like, if we're starting to do business, like, all the things I think we might be able to do, right? Like, man, in 10 years. And most people say, oh, this sounds great. It sounds awesome. I can't wait. And we just go have a steak and we celebrate whatever I talked about. And I remember Dan might have been with me like, a week, right? And I was on my lanai in the back cooking steaks, and I'm. I think I was smoking a cigar or whatever, and I was just excited he was here. And I said, For 20 minutes, dude, we're gonna do 100 million. You know? Screaming, yeah, I know. The guy's gonna be like, dude, I'm so excited. And we finished the conversation. It's like, dead, silently. They're lying. I'm like, hello?

Hello?

He's like, yeah, yeah, I'm here. I said, did you hear me? Yeah, I heard everything you said, and I appreciate all of it. How do you plan to do that? And I was like, what did you say? Are you out of your mind? Like, what do you mean, how do I plan to do it? We're going to do it. He goes, no, I love every part of every idea you just said, but it sounds like a lot of work. What are your plans to get that done? And I knew it. That day I found the right guy. Guy never kissed my ass. Guy didn't give a shit about what I said. All he cared about was what is the game plan to get there. And he's proven that he was not joking around. He was right. That's who he is, you know, so it's been a godsend to me.

So what launched into this was my question to you. And I'm curious to know, where did Dan come into this when you had trouble making payroll? Every payroll for five years. Okay, so that when he came in?

No. So what happened was I had plenty of money, right? So when, when business slows down for me, my receivables are out there. I have no bills, right? I'm not paying anybody anymore. So my five, my 400, 300, whatever thousand dollar payroll goes to 30,000. I'm collecting the couple million bucks I have out. And I'm not smart enough in business or economics to look into my like, damn cash is coming in. I got tons of cash. So the good thing is I can grow as much as I want. Like, as we continue on, I've got all this money here now. So Dan comes in, we get pretty successful. I mean this, this is a different breed of human being, right? And just another quick story because I think it's a funny one. When he was here probably about two weeks, he calls me one day and again, I know him as my financial planner. We went to games, we were not the closest friends, but getting close. And it felt like I knew him fairly well. And he said, boy, I'm so excited, man. My wife's going to Chicago with the kid now. They have five children. I think at the time they had a baby, maybe two. And she's going to visit her sister and taking the kids. And I got the whole weekend to myself. And you know, we're young people. He's 20, some year old guy, I'm thinking, oh God, he's going to go to the club, you know, who knows what he's got in store? But he's excited for it and that's fine. He said, man, I just stopped at Kroger. I bought six craft beers, I just ordered a pizza from Giacomo's. I'm going home and I'm going to send 5,000 unabated emails for the next three days to the largest construction companies in the nation. And I'm like, man, I like this. And he was so never Been so excited. I mean, this is the guy. This is a different breed of human being. What did he do that weekend? Sent 5,000 emails out. And that's when business started. And then it was just a different world, right? We are now a different company. We are now, you know, I've got serious horsepower behind me in this guy and I'm like, you know, my dreams are going to come true. We're going to go do this. So we start killing it again. And then we thought, you know what, let's open a landscape company. Because the whole thing training and we had all these training guys. We opened this landscape company. Ah, great. Well, the problem is landscape company doesn't want pipe fitters that aren't pipe fitters yet. And pipefitters don't want to be landscapers. So we opened that company for no reason. And, but we thought, you know what we're learning here? Let's, let's open a plumbing company because we're in this business, we can do it. So we thought, yeah, let's do that. We did. And we thought, let's, let's. Why don't we build high rises in Florida? Because we are really smart, we're good, we know what we're doing. You remember that? That was about a million too. I think you muted out. I don't hear you.

You can't hear me right now.

Yeah, now I can't. Now I can. So you remember, met this company. Everything seemed up and up. Great, humongous company, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions. And you had, you had a lot.

You had a lot of people on that job. I remember you were building hire and you had, you didn't know anything about high rises.

Nothing, Nothing. But I got the smartest guy in America. So we're going to go do whatever you want to build cars. Let's build cars, boats. Great, let's do it. I mean, at that point I felt like there's nothing we couldn't accomplish because I literally found the smartest person I ever met. And, and I'm not saying we made mistakes. I'm saying we just did things one way too quickly. We knew nothing about any of these businesses. And again, how hard is it to go do a landscape job? It should be easy.

It's unbelievable how much of a risk taker you are.

Looking back, had I had I weighed any of this, I would have never done any of it, right? But when, it's almost like when you're broke, you can put money on a credit card, like, you can gamble, you can do anything because you don't have any. Doesn't matter.

But I remember you telling me about the high rises, and I remember you telling me about the landscaping company. And you were. So. You can sell pretty much anything. So there's no doubt that when you have that dream and you're in the visionary kind of mode that you can sell to anyone, that you can accomplish whatever it is that you're talking about, it sounds great. And I think Dan's question to you is a really good one. You know, how are we going to do that? Because you're not even. You're not thinking about that. You really don't even care about that. You just know that if it's possible, I could do it.

We can do it. I know we can. I mean, together we can do anything. Right? I mean, I believe it. And then, you know, I think the problem is again, you don't know what you don't know until you know it. And it's the best advice I ever got. And I just always wanted to know. And, and. And again, being a bad student and not thinking highly of your. I don't want to say education or your smarts. I never felt all that smart. Right. I knew I was a great connector to people and that meant something. How does that. How does that turn into anything? Right? Except having a few friends, you know? But as. As you get older and start realizing what makes Dan great is he doesn't know. He asked you in a minute because he's so confident in what he knows and what he doesn't know. Right. Even a simple thing like a pen. What is that? I don't know what that is. How's it work? He wouldn't be afraid to ask. I've been in this business for 30 years. There's things in construction that I've never asked because I don't want someone to know. I don't know. Stupid. Like, I just pretend like I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing up there. Perfect. Yeah. Let's move on with that. Had I been smarter. What does that mean? And how does that work? You don't know? No, I don't know. And I'd like to know. Moving forward that way. I'll know next time. But I never live that way. I just go in blind and I stay blind. And I just hope it works out. And I'm a dog. I'll work. And there's, you know, as you know me, as Dan knows me, as my close people, I'll always be there for you. And I think that helps. There's you know, three in the morning, I'm there. Two in the morning, I'm there. You are.

You are the. You are the poster child for how important it is to have incredible soft skills because you actually purposely don't try to learn certain things that you're not interested in because you just don't care. And you don't. You don't care because you know what's possible. And, you know, I was in that program, Strategic Coach, and I think I probably have told you this, that. That concept of who, not how. Like, you don't have to know how to do everything. You just have to know who can. And you have a black book of who's to get whatever you want done. And so, you know, finding a right hand who can come in your business and carry out your dream and do the things that you know it's capable of doing. You know, that's one. And you're talking about them and you're telling great stories about it. But there's probably a whole slew of people that you have that you know who to call when you want to get something done who can do this. And it's good because you have that skill of being able to see the best in whoever it is that you're connecting to. And it's incredible to me how your soft skills, your people skills, that. That's your unique ability, like, that's what made you successful in this business. The fact that you were able to convince a financial planner to come into a business that was not doing so good at the time shows you not only that you have the ability to talk to someone in a way that is inspiring, but you have a way to paint a picture in order to get people excited about joining up with you so that they can make it happen.

And again, I don't like when people brag about any of my skills, but if there's any skill that I'm good at, that is it. I mean, I remember I asked Dan maybe four years ago. I'm like, dude, I'm so confused. Like, after I did approach him, he hit the streets, like, what is out there for me? And all of a sudden, he got all these huge offers, right? Like, this kid was different. And I'm like, oh, shit, you know, this is crazy. And when he came in and he called me and he said, hey, I want to come in and talk to you face to face, I knew at that point kind of guy he is. It was. Love the offer. Appreciate it. Found something better, right? He came into my office and he was like, I really want to do this with you. I think it's going to be great. And I was like, damn, this guy's nuts. Like, we have 20 people probably gonna be out of business next Wednesday, but whatever, I mean, we'll make it work. And I asked him like four years ago, dude, what. Why would you have ever come here? Like, things were getting so bad, I wonder. Like, it was insane. The guy, to me, nuts. He's like, dude, I wanted to work with you. I really did. And I'm like, man, that's means a lot.

You think it's because of your generosity and because of the opportunity to, like, be your own boss. Like, you know, you look. You know, a lot of talented people can go be a hired gun at other places, but they could swoop the carpet right up from underneath you. And you're out on the street, right? When things aren't going so good, where. When. When you. Your word is good and you can do it on a handshake. And I think he knew that about you just. Just working with you. I know that about you being your friend. And do you think it was because of the opportunity he had to get a piece of the business?

Well, at the time, so it wasn't really for a piece of. And again, a lot of things I've learned. One guy told me once, he said, hey, would you rather have half a watermelon or a grape? Like half a watermelon.

That's right.

You know, and so many people are so focused on keeping that whole grape for themselves, and, you know, you'll chew on that for a week and it's gone. Or would you rather have a whole watermelon last you a long time and split it with somebody? And, you know, and I've always been a team guy, right? I'm not on my own guy. Like, I can't. I can't motivate myself. I mean, I already know I can't do anything. So, you know, I'm stuck here. But when I get around people, like, that's my energy, right? And I've learned so much. Like, when I was a kid, I just assumed everyone was like me, right? You wake up in the morning, you're smiling, you're happy. Everyone just feels the exact same way. And as I'm older, I just realized no one feels exact. No one's even close. Like, everyone has their own personality, right? And like, I'm a people. If I don't have other people's energy, I'm dead. You know, I can't Be by myself. I don't want to be by myself. I want to. I look back at every bad decision we made, and, man, from the time I was a kid, like, I can't even explain so many, like, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. I could go through over and over, just incredible to me. But the beauty is everything that bad happened turned out to be great. It turned out to be great. When I got fired from tradesman, I cried. I couldn't believe it. Like, oh, my God, I built so much here. Greatest day of my life. It's probably the greatest day of my life. When I. When I. When. When. When Tim and I split from CLC, you know, I had five, four or five years of, you know, 80 hours a week, man. Built that company, hired 100 and some employees. They only knew me as the owner. They all, you know, it was. This was my people. And then we fight, and I'm gone. I'm getting calls. Next day, dude, you. Where are you? Like, Tim said, you're not here. What do you mean you're not here? Like, oh, dude, everything's gonna work out. Like, I remember my soul was crushed. Like, oh, my God. Like, that was a lot of work. That was a lot of time. These are a lot of people, man, that we love each other. Like, we've been through so much, and now I'm just gone and it's over. And then if anyone called me, they were going to get fired. Like, no one was allowed to talk to me anymore. Funny stuff, right? And I just remember thinking that day, like, man, being a good person and karma, it works. It does. And, man, if there's one thing I've done right, it's, I don't screw anybody. And there's a hundred people here. And, you know, I'm sure that's my side of the story. I'm sure there's other sides, but, you know, I really feel like I. I want the best for the next guy, you know? Another thing that I've learned in life, and if I could teach anyone here, my kids take the less of every deal, because if the deal's fair, if you made a field deal with somebody and you take a little less, it's still fairly fair, right? So why would anyone ever fight with anyone over anything? It makes no sense. The guy says he worked 50 hours, and I know he worked for you. Pay the guy 50 hours. Customer says it was $2,000 up. Get the guy the 2,000. Who gives it? Who cares? It doesn't matter. You want to lose every battle like that, everyone. Because if you're winning, you're losing. So I think in that case, I try to lose every little battle if I can, because I want to show. I don't care what difference it makes. We just want to do the right thing, right? That's what we're here to do. We used to.

I've always said you choose to lose. And I actually recently did a video on penny pinching bosses. And in the video I talked about always overpay. I mean, Norm taught me early on he would round up even the paychecks up to the next dollar. Like, you just overdo, you know, exiting employees. You screwed me out of my pto, Pam. Make it go. It makes the problems go away. And you're right, you do win. There's no question. And it's incredible how rare that is and how many entrepreneurs fight and they. It's unbelievable. It's like self sabotage.

Like, I almost want to just go on a, on a spree. Like, hey, let me just teach you the seven soft skills of running a business. Please, every time, please don't ever fight with an employee over 400. Would, you know, lost 400. Would you know? No, you wouldn't. Would that guy know all day long, every day for the next month, here's 800. What's he gonna feel now? Like the whole thing's nuts to me. But again, that's, you know, that's our way. It's not everybody's way. And I'm not saying it's right. It just seems to be I'd rather have someone fighting for me every day than fighting against me every day. Yeah, right. Absolutely.

100%.

Wow, it's so good.

So real quick, take me back when you were. How did you endure when the business, you know, we're talking. You still haven't answered the question.

Why.

Why were you having such a problem making payroll? You had business and it's like, so explain, explain the cycle with your business. Just so people know.

So as you know, we're in cw. Back then we were still ncw, but a lot more national construction. Construction companies tend to pay slower than just kind of the business. We're in a payroll business, meaning I'm paying my guys every week. So If I have 500 people working, that's, you know, a half a million dollar payroll weekly, which, you know, if, if a client's paying me in, in 45 or 60 days, which is, is consistent. Right. I think that's 45 days is about right. It's supposed to be every two weeks. It's just the turnover time. Doesn't happen that way. So as we blew our brains out from 2008, 9 and 10, I lost a lot of money. And the other things are like, these are. These are winning and losing, right? We kept insurance for everybody, field employees. Like, everyone told me how dumb I was. And I was. It was insane. It was so stupid. It's unbelievable. But some of those. I just talked to Eric Law 10 minutes ago. He's been with us 15 years. He was started as a general labor with me. I held his insurance, you know, didn't have to, but he would. He would go to. He would do anything for me. I would do anything for him, but he would do anything for me. Anything. I'll go call him right now. What do you need done? He'll do it. I would never ask it of him, but I know he would. But those are the little things. Like, did it affect us then? Huge. Does it affect me now at all? Don't even know if. I don't even know. But we did the right thing by that guy. And those things, man, it's just, you know, I don't know.

How did you. You know, again, going back to the whole entrepreneur thing, how did. How did you endure the lowest of lows when you. When you realize, like, holy cow.

Like.

Because I remember talking to you, and you were always so positive, like, you were always so optimistic.

Like, how the happiest. Can I tell you, one of the happiest days of my life. This is no joke. This is. Yeah, I want to get emotional, but this makes me almost want to cry. I don't know if it's because, well, here. So, you know, I talk to you almost every day during those times. Right. And I did stay, like, whatever. I mean, there's people getting bombed. There's people. Like, there's people that haven't eaten in a month. Like, whatever. My problems are so small in the real world of problems. I don't mean that, right? Anything, nothing. I could bankrupt 5,000 times and get shot in the face. Like, compared to real problems, there is. So that's how I look at every day when I wake up. Like, whatever today faces. I'm not going to the Civil War with a toothache, walking 700 miles to Washington. You know what I mean? Like, that's the reality of. We live in 2020. Like, this is really easy. So that's one reason. But, you know, we talked a lot during some. And, you know, the tough times, I mean, you know, brutal. So I would have Payroll on Wednesday, bank had to have the money by 3 o' clock or whatever. And I'd wake up Monday morning, they were like $5,100 in my bank account. And payroll would be like 687. I'd be like, oh my God. And I still have papers, which is great. Every single person I know and how much I thought I could buy. 600, 600,000, right. Like payroll would be like 600 and some thousand 10 years ago, you know, in 2011. And I'd have literally like some days negative, but you know, like 50, $250 in the bank.

This is simply because your clients haven't paid you yet.

You have paid. So we had to pay. And I can't not pay an employee, right? They have to get paid no matter what. So yeah, man, you know my situation. I mean, I borrowed from. And the banks wouldn't help me at the time. So I had a bank loan for years. I cut the bank loans, I didn't want to pay the fees. I had all that money coming in, right? I don't need those banks. I got tons of cash. And then when I needed money, banks were like, see, you know, you're in the labor business. Last thing I want is construction labor. So we had no help from anybody. So I went to you, I went to everyone I knew and friends without even asking for a financial, never even asking for anything. Loaned me money and didn't just pay me back as soon as you can. And man, I'll tell you, how did I deal with it? Sleepless nights, a lot of them. But what made it great was I read a lot of quotes. It's funny because I put. I was. When I knew I was going to talk to you, I was reading through some yesterday. What makes quotes great is someone else went through the same thing you did. Probably worse, right? But like one I read that, I loved it said, you know, being an entrepreneur is like building a parachute on the way, on the way down from the cliff, you know, and it's like somebody else was standing right here just with me, you know, they didn't have any money, they didn't have anything. And it's funny, I know your question was, how did you get into the big problem? You know, landscape company, not doing well, bidding jobs wrong, losing a fortune, just trying to get it right. Plumbing company, you know, we had all these great plumbers and we had all these great things. No one knew how to run a business. We were terrible at it, this, losing our brains. The high rise business. I can't tell you how much we lost. And we didn't even know we lost. Like, we had no idea how bad we were doing until it was so late. And I just. I remember the Dan day. Dan came into my office and he's like. And what I love about Dan, right? Like, there's no. There's no hiding anything. He's like, I just want you to know we're down about $800,000. And, like, I had no idea. Like, I literally. I couldn't even believe it. And he was just so matter of fact, he's like, I'm gonna make it back. And I remember one day, came in the office, I was literally crying. Like, tears. My eyes. We didn't have payroll money. Like, this is over. The whole thing's over. And he's like, hey, man, we can sit here and cry out. They don't have time to cry. I gotta get to work, like. And I just remember thinking, like, man, this is the guy I want to be in the bunker with, right? Like, I'm sitting here crying like a baby, man. This kid's 29 years old. And maybe it was more on me because, like, my whole reputation, my whole thing's on this thing, whatever. But he took it as seriously as I did. We don't got time to cry, man. Let's get to work, you know? And it was. It was those days that I just remember, like, man, this is going to be fun to build this thing. If. And I used to say. We say it all the time, man. I go to the bank. Like, we literally built a train track from Maine to California. I smashed through mountains, I knocked out a thousand trees, I wrestled alligators, I beat down a bear, I laid the whole track. All I need now is to put a train on the son of a. But we're not gonna make it. Can I just lay the train out and see if the thing works, please? Because I think it really will, you know? No. No money here. Nothing available for you. And it used to make me so sad thinking, oh, my God, dude, we did all this work and we're never going to be able to see this train ride, right? Crazy. I remember the meetings you used to.

Have with your banks. I mean, it's incredible. And you know, to me, when you were making payroll every week, I remember sitting back going, how is this guy doing this? He's calling his friends up, who are happy to help and know that the money's good. But, like, dude.

And I don't know how good the money. I mean, the money is Good, because I'm going to pay it back. But if I don't have a business, it's going to be real hard.

Yeah, but you would have made it work. You would have figured it out. But I paid back and everyone knew that.

But.

But it's just amazing to me, like, when they talk about entrepreneurs and they've been there before, not all entrepreneurs have been there before. Not all of them have. I think in order to get into entrepreneurship, you should think that that could happen. So can you endure that?

Right.

And, you know, you don't think it's going to happen, but you should probably think that it could happen.

But when I.

When I think back about all the people I know in business, nobody has been through it more than you have. Like, nobody. And not only that, you know your situation. When you had another person leave your company and then they started competing with you, right? You had it.

So you, you were getting started off amazing, right? He's making a ton of money. I'm losing my ass. And it's a guy I've trained, taught, overpaid, right? Like, you know, and he was real unhappy. I brought this guy in to run the business because he wanted to be that guy and the guy that left. Not a bad guy.

No.

Again, if I'm the smartest guy in the room, we got a huge problem. And I'm not being humble. I'm not like, we've got a huge problem. You know, if I'm. If I'm driving this ship, who knows where it's going to go. If he's driving the ship, we're in even more trouble. I'm smarter than this guy, right? And I never had people that were this much. But finally I knew, like, I have to have a real captain of this thing to take it where it needs to go. I'm not the guy, you know, I'm. I'm a great dreamer, man. I'm not a good operator, you know?

So let me ask you this question. So what's incredible about listening to your story is that you talk about the landscaping, the high rise, you know, the plumbing company, you had all these scenarios, and you learn from every single one of them. And when you think about the losses and you think about what you've gained from those experiences.

Okay, good.

But then, you know, I'm talking to you a few months ago, and all of a sudden you're doing it, you're doing it even more. And you're doing even on a bigger scale today. You're opening up restaurants, which, again, not.

Your Forte, not your stupid. So stupid. Honestly, like I'm doing it right now. But what makes here. Here it is, man, just real simply, right? Like we get one shot of them. It's. It's one chance. It's. I mean, maybe hundreds, who knows? But from what I know and what I can gather, we might have one chance here at this point, whatever. And it's a pretty good spot to be, right? We live in a free place. We can do kind of what we want as of today. We can, we can do the things we want to do in a free country. It's pretty cool, you know, And I'm a lazy guy. I'll be the first. You know me, man, I'm. You know, but my mind's working and my whole life, all I wanted to do, and this is no joke, I mean, I wanted, my dream was to have a three story building, a hundred employees come in. Hey, Steve. Hey, buddy. Like, that was my dream. My whole life. That's all I ever wanted, you know? Ah, it's the greatest thing in the world. And honestly, dude, like we used to talk about the secret or whatever and you know, I'm not a big believer in anything, but everything, right? Like, anything's possible. When someone says, there's no ghost, well, there's humans. They're probably go like, come on. So I'll believe in anything or nothing, right? I lost my. What was I saying?

I don't know, but it just made me think of. I was watching some guy the other day and he said, everything in this world is absolutely amazing. You think you live in America. He goes, you're on a planet lying through space in a vest of nothing that goes on forever.

Forever. And we don't get bombarded by asteroids all day. We don't have biting squirrels every time we walk out of our house that just completely attack us. We can't leave our home. To me, that's amazing. It's. It really is. And you know, you think about like, that's what we were talking about. We have one shot on Earth, right? Maybe, or who knows? But we're literally on a floating rock right in the middle of nowhere. We don't get bombarded by asteroids all day long. We have gravity like we have oxygen. We have fingernails. Like, imagine not having a fingernail and everything would hurt like a son of a. If it touched you. You have eyelashes, dust doesn't get in your eyes like the shit's mind body. So, you know, I just want to get.

No, I remember, I remember when I started getting religious And I was using all these things because nothing made sense. You know, I started asking the big questions in life, and I remember you saying I would always talk to you. And one of the things I loved about you was you just let me be me. And you just, you know, we, we. And if we agreed to disagree on something, and that was it. And it was just always laughing it off. But we had such respect for each other. But I remember you saying to me, no, dude, I don't want to know. I don't want to open up Pandora's box.

I'd rather not know the rabbit hole, because it might be right. Who knows? I just know that I want to be involved in any of that right now. And maybe someday, you know? Maybe someday.

Wow. It's so funny. You know, the one thing I would say about what I've learned about you is that as much as you know, you don't know, you do know what you believe. And, and, and it's very rare because most people are so heavily influenced by everything else, especially today, which we're bombarded with our phones buzzing and beeping next door, pillows at night.

Right.

And you are definitely one that goes against the grain.

You're.

You're an outlier in that you just don't care one what other people think. Even though you do, but not that much, but you. But you know what you believe. And one thing I've realized about you is I've gotten to know you really close over the years, is that you think very differently than other people. Very differently. And it's.

I do too.

But yours is. You're. You're really, really, like, blunt about it. Extremely blunt. Is it because you believe in it so much or because you just don't really care what people think about what you think?

I think I do care what people think what I think I do. I think. I think I really do care a lot. I just think that I think. And again, you said, who was my influence. Like my dad used to always say, if you could be yourself in a world like this, it's the hardest thing in the world to be, really try to be yourself. I never knew what that meant. Right. As I get older. What is being yourself? Being yourself is having conviction in something, right? Whatever it is in. In your marriage and your family and your business, like, just having real convictions. But convention. Conviction is only real if it's real. Like, you can't have a conviction if you're trying to have something that's not real. So I just realized, like, I'm not In it. School's not my conviction. Cars are a conviction. I love cars. I love them. I read about them, I look at them. I want to buy one. I look at them every day. It's somewhat of a conviction to me, building a bit like, you know, you said, I'm getting this restaurant business, Everyone that I know, I'm insane, I'm stupid, I'm crazy. 100. I know, I know. But at the end of the day, man, I'm going to build a culture. I'm going to try to do something. Whether it works or not, who cares? I'm gonna go do it. I got one shot at the world. So it doesn't work, okay, didn't work. I was wrong. Because I've been wrong a million times. I'll be wrong a million more. But if I'm not trying, I'll never know, right? So, you know, listen, man, it's easy to talk about now because I'm not calling you on Monday saying, I'm screwed, bro. Like, it's over. It's over. And I did that every week for five years. You know, it got tiring. It got old. So it's easy to talk about today. It was really hard then. Oh, I was going to tell you what was my happiest moment. I went to a Starbucks. We had. I used to be able to call some clients. Now they're gonna be like, hey, man, I'll give you a 2% discount. You gotta send me 100 grand. You know, prepay for services, you know, and pain in the end, like, you look like a. You know, it's not a great situation, but I had a few clients that would do that for me from time to time. And I'd always wait till Tuesday morning because I didn't want to know the answer. You know, I just wanted to be able to sleep Monday and just hope it was gonna happen. And usually something would happen. Well, this particular week, I called my largest client, who and I. The guy worked for me for a while, that is the cfo. And I called him, I said, hey, I really need some help this week again. He's like, man, we have not gotten checks. I do not have it. Can't help you. I've never had a attack. I've never had. I sweat. My shirt was literally in one second. I went from this to come in completely soaked. Like, I got out of the swimming pool. I thought I was having a heart attack. I still don't know what happened. To this day, I know that I just realized that my business ended that Day, like, it's over. We're done. And I can't believe it. We bought all that tracking. That's done. And that was probably like five or six years ago. And I got off the phone, I couldn't believe it. Like, I didn't even know what to do. And I wanted to call Dan and tell him, but I just need to take a minute, like, to let him know. Like, dude, I've called everyone, you know, at that point, I think I even had money out with you. Like, there's nowhere else to go right now. And I went to a Starbucks, and my bill was like $4. And I gave the lady 10 bucks. You know, I'm going back. Who gives her. I think I gave her 20 bucks. And I go, you know what? You keep it. She goes, what? You go ahead and keep it. And I gave her a big smile. She goes, boy, I haven't seen a smile like that in a long time. And I walked back to my car. I'm like, fuck if I can smile through this shit. And I could probably smile through about anything, right? I mean, I'm still having a good day. So then that was probably my last day. I'll tell you what's even funnier. And God, I shouldn't say this on speaker, because who knows if it was even right. Dan calls me about. I called him, told him, you know, hey, man, we're going to struggle. And again, he doesn't listen to problems he figured out. And I got work to do. We'll talk tomorrow, right? And he called me like, an hour later. He goes, bro, you're not going to believe this. I'm like, what? He goes, I just opened the mail. I got something from the power company, ipl. I mean, Indianapolis Power and Light. It still gives me shivers. Like, it's crazy. Of course it's a bill, right? He goes, dude, there's a $90,000 check here. They've been overpaying for 24 years. I'd only been in the business four years or in the building. So we got a credit. And since we own the business, it was ours. Made our payroll that week. Like, you know, you're. I'm not religious. You know that, right? I'm a spiritual guy. Like, I have fingernail. We talked about there's, you know, all these crazy things out there. Go. Like, if there's not a God, I don't know if IPL has ever given anyone anything in their lifetime. They gave me a check for $89,000. It wasn't my money. And I needed, like, 113. And I went to my bank. I got like, four. Dan got, like, six, and I wanted his work. And give me, like, three. We wouldn't have. We would not have made payroll. Like, I don't say, like, you know, that's my religion right there. Incredible.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah, tell me about.

I remember.

I remember asking you questions when things were tough, and you had told me that you love, like, the self sabotage and being in the place of self sabotage. And I remember you going, I love it.

I love it.

That's where I'm the best.

I do.

And I hate it. You love to hate it.

It wakes me up, right? It wakes me up.

Like, it's my. It's a big fear of mine. Like, I never want to find myself in this. But, like, is it because of the reps? Because you've gotten so many reps that you just. You know, I always say it's like the four Cs. You know, I learned. Learned this from Dan Sullivan. You build confidence when you make a commitment to do something, and you have to have the courage to do it. And once you do it, you build the capability to be able to do it over and over again. And you had experienced so many things that you. Like, I've been there, done that. Like, I'll get through this.

I'll.

And, like, you know, for someone like me who's never been in a situation where I couldn't make a payroll, the thought of that would scare the hell out of me. Like, there's no way I'd be. I don't know what I would do. But, like, you didn't want to be there, but you were actually really good in those moments of, like, just. And I remember you saying that you loved it. You used to tell me that you loved it, and I'm like, what? Like, I didn't understand.

Well, I remember. I remember walking around my kitchen island every night, right? Like, literally for hours, just walking, trying to figure it out. Like, and it was mainly like, where am I gonna get money? Like, I. I felt good about everything we were doing, right? Like, there was nothing I was disappointed about, except it wasn't gonna work. Like, we weren't. We didn't have enough Runway. It was so sad. And I just remember thinking, man, not a lot of people get to experience this, regardless of how hard it is or how bad it is. Like, you said, not a lot of guys. You know, our payroll is a couple million bucks a week now, right? And I'm so happy for that. And I feel like I want the biggest payroll here because I feel people deserve to work here. I don't want people working for other companies. They get taken advantage of, they get screwed, they don't pay, is not right. Like that bothers me. I want them working here because I think they'll be treated fairly. But like whether it's a half a million dollar payroll, two million dollar payroll, like there's not a lot of people in the world that have to worry about making a half a million dollar payroll and not being able to do it. Like that's kind of exciting that I'm one of those people that get to feel that in some ways, as scary as it is, I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. I'm not sitting in a toll booth collecting quarters at a time, which is not a bad job either. But that wouldn't be good for me, you know, And I, it, it definitely expands your mind, it makes you think a lot. But at the end of the day, man, I always bring it back to karma and treating people right. Like things happen because they're supposed to happen. And if this not work, something else would have happened probably even better. Who knows? You don't know until it right. But at the end of the day, we live in an incredible place. It's incredible, right? I mean, karma's real. There's, there's, there's unnatural things that happen all the time that are unexplainable. You know, call it, God, call it a water bottle, call it a, who knows, Whatever it is, I'll respect it and I'll, and I'll leave my mind open the fact that yes, there is a possibility of that for sure.

Let me ask you this question because I'm just a little thing when it comes to like the self sabotage. Do you think that you're such a good salesperson? Because, you know, I've watched you and I've watched you with other people. You know, you used to tell me too, like your wife used to get mad at you because you would, you would be on your rant and people would be attracted to you and like they, and she, she knows you and.

She just like talking nonsense, talking utter nonsense. And then having like, I'll never forget the day we went to that party and there was all these, you know, college professors and the one guy ran this, I can't remember the fund, it's the biggest education fund in America and all these super sharp guys. And my wife's like, hey, you know, don't be like talking crazy tonight. You Know, and we get into the back room and I start talking about politics. You know, my belief in politics is, you know, whatever. I mean, if you're left, if you're right, you're wrong. You know, if you're voting for any of these people, you're wrong. I promise you that if anyone's willing to run for that office, I'm not voting for you. I'll make that real fucking clear. But, you know, people are so left, so right, so this, so that, so pro. So this pro, this, pros, this. Like, yeah, you don't. But I have these guys in the back room, maybe like 20 of them. And everything I'm saying, they're laughing and getting. I see my wife over the corner, like, oh. You know, but it is a connection because I don't have. I don't have a pig in any fight. Right. I just. I'm just here. And I think it's funny when someone's like, I'm so left. I'm so left. I'm so right. I'm so. Like, you don't even know what you're talking about. I. No one does. We have no clue what's going on. Right? And we just all. Everyone knows. You don't know nothing, and just keep it that way. Keep an open mind, you know, Tell me.

Let's switch gears real quick. What's the hardest thing about being a parent?

Love. Caring for somebody more than you care for yourself. Worrying about somebody more than you've ever worried about anything in your lifetime.

And not having any control.

Knowing the world is a hard place. Right? Like, for you. For me, we can handle it. Right? Like, and. And I just. I don't want anyone to go through anything. Right. I want the world to be a peaceful, happy place. And I know it's not. You know, there's a lot that goes on in this world that's bad. But the hardest part about being a parent is love and caring as much as you do, I think. And it's just a natural thing. I don't think it's something you work on. It just happens when you have kids. Yeah.

When I. When I had my kids, I remember one of my employees said, welcome to fatherhood.

It's the day that your heart gets.

Ripped out of your chest and lives outside your body for the rest of your life. And I remember thinking, wow, you're as.

Happy as your saddest kid. Right? Right. Right. Yeah. That's unbelievable.

So crazy. Would you want your kids to come in your business?

No. Right. Would I want it Not. I mean, no, I wouldn't. I. I'd be open to. To looking at something like that. A lot of reasons, right? Like, I think making your own way is important. I think walking into something that someone else did as a son or a. Any type of fan, I think make. Puts. Puts somebody in a really tough spot. Right? So I. I hope that that doesn't happen, but I'm open to anything. Right. I've always been open to whatever, but. Right. I'd prefer he find his. My kids find their own way.

Whatever.

It would be.

Real quick, back to business. You had an individual, you don't need to say his name, who came into your life at a certain time. He was like, more of a mentor kind of a guy. And I don't remember if he was trying to buy your company or if he was trying to, like, you know, merge or something like that, but through that experience, what would you say if you had to, like, take something away from that that you either learned that was very powerful for you or something that you saw that you just. You learn that, like, repelled you? Like, I don't. That's just, like. You learn that that's not what you want. Like, anything that you learn from that whole experience.

It's funny, right? And I'll give you an example today, and I shouldn't. We have a customer that's in a bit of trouble. Okay. We're not super flush, but we have some money now, right? And Dan just came to me this morning and said, hey, man, this is a good friend of mine. Good thing. And he needs a loan. And, you know, we could probably buy into this guy. You can get a percentage, but I'd really just rather loan him the money and get him out of this problem. And I said, you know, whatever. You know, whatever you want to do. I trust Dan with my life. If he wants to give the guy my house, I'll let him do it. Right? So no problem. No problem. And I hung up the phone. I was thinking about that exact situation. I thought, man, why I love Dan, because he's doing this for no reason. Reason other than doing something good for someone else to try to get them out of a problem, right? And then he. He'll go back and say, remember when we were helped? We weren't helped. I was helped financially to get through my payroll for really bad reasons. Someone was trying to take over my business. You remember the phone call I gave to you coming home from that meeting that day? You know, what does this mean? You're like, if you Sign that paper. This guy has complete control of your business. And we don't need to give names. Bad person, bad guy, bad man. We're doing the exact same thing for someone else for the right reasons, to help, not to take over, not to be a scumbag, you know, but again, I couldn't have done it without him either. He helped me tremendously financially during a super hard time. And again, I gave him discounts. I got paid for it. It wasn't like out of the goodness of his heart and it was already labor. I mean, it's not like he did anything outside of the fact that he was going to use labor. And he got two and a half percent discount, which is a big deal.

That's funny because I forgot the scenario behind him. Now I remember it very clearly. And it's a very powerful lesson to learn for sure. And, and you know, what I learned just through selling my businesses was that I love business. I love it, right? But I'm not a business guy. And, and the reason is, is because it's not that I don't love to be able to be successful in business, but there are, there's a difference and it's a nuance, but there's a difference between two great business people. One who loves to pursue being successful and loves business and in general and growing his business. But there's the other set of people who actually like to do it at the expense of other people. They like to take what's not theirs, necessarily, or they like to make a deal and negotiate in a way that they are. And I just, I. I don't have that in me. Like, I just, I'm not, I'm just not that way. And I hate. I actually can't stand. It's why I didn't want to start another business and grow another business, right?

And I can't stand the people. And no offense to them, because what makes a great businessman is that, right? That's what makes you great. Getting the best of every deal, screwing someone just a little bit, making sure they get a little bit less than you. I want you to get a little bit more than me. I've got enough. And that's not money. But listen, two things, right? We didn't hit our goals last year and we came up this ignite and everyone had to get up. I didn't hit my goal because of this. I didn't go because of this. I didn't hit my goal because of this. And you know, I've never been. I never set a goal in My life. Like, I don't even know what a goal means. Like, I don't know what's tomorrow. My. My goal is to get through tomorrow, figure it out tomorrow, and then we'll get through Wednesday then. And I'm not saying that's right. I know it's not right. But I don't give a shit about goals or what happened tomorrow or what you're doing next year. I remember my boss to say, write down goals. It took me a minute and a half. Bam. There's my goals. Like, I don't know. What do you want me to do? Who knows what's going to happen next year? I have no clue. But this year we didn't hit our goals. And everyone got up and explained why. And it was a great meeting. I had no problem. And at the end. And I just said it now, I said, listen, goal. These goals are measured by numbers. They're measured by numbers. Like, they're just numbers. Right. So we made an extra million or an extra 100,000 next to 12,000. Like, that doesn't mean anything. What I measure this in is the people that are involved in this organization. Are we growing good people? Are we getting better as a company? Because we have great people here.

Yes.

Who get in 20 years. Those numbers don't mean anything. But I promise you, in 20 years, if you build what I think we can build here. Fuck, man. How special to have the greatest people in the world come here. Give me numbers. I'll show you the numbers.

So I missed your questions.

Hold on. You went away. What the hell? Can you see me?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you used to walk through my office and you know that I'm a culture guy. Like, I. That's all I cared about was. Was what you're talking about. So I certainly understand it. And in. In your industry. Definitely a tough industry. In my industry. Definitely a tough industry. So we were doing it both in really hard industries. But you used to have this thing where you. You couldn't believe that people had their pictures on the wall. Explain that.

We were talking about last week.

Tell me about that. And tell me the floss.

Well, you know, for. This was just for me. Right. So my background was. I was normally fired. And again, for a good reason. I was never a very good employee. I was never a very good worker. But when I get a new job, I'd walk in, I'd get a cubicle or whatever I'd get, you know, and I just put my desk down. And you always go out and buy that, you know, little Desk, leather thing, you know, to make sure you look professional. I get one of those, put something on my desk. I'd look around. Like, people would have pictures. Their families, their girlfriends, you know, their house, their dreams. Like, all these notes on their thing. Like, yeah, man, that guy's really, really invested. He thinks he's going to be here for a long time, you know? And all I ever thought was, when I get fired, I want to be able to get my out of here fast. Like, I don't want to have to take off the wall. You know what I mean? People look at me like, hey, dude, sorry, man. Like, I'm just gonna have a little box. Bam. Gone. See you later. You know what I mean? And it's funny, when I came to your office, right, I commented like, that a lot of people have a lot of stuff on the walls, you know, like, they got their sound machine and they got the thing like, they plan to be here for a long time. They made this a home. So when I do see somebody walk into my office and they make the place a home and they. They do housekeeping, like, man, there's somebody that has plans. I never had any plans. I'm going to be here as long as I can. When you get rid of me, I'll go somewhere else, you know? But, yeah, I've always That. I've always thought that was interesting when somebody makes their office a home.

Yeah, it is. You know, I used to say, people say we're a family. I'm like, we're not. You know, I'm gonna make it real clear we're not a family. Like, we can be close. And I'm all about building transformational relationships. I mean, I did it with people who were with me 15, 20 years. But at the end of the day, and I think my lesson for me really kind of hit home. It was funny. It really made me think about it when you talked about one of the people you have in your office that's been there for 15 years and would do anything, you know, I had. I had than a few that would do that. But when I sold my company, it was a rude awakening. And the truth of entrepreneurship and being an employer is that you really. You really don't know as much as.

You think you do, but you really.

Don'T know what they really think if you're. If you're the one paying them. Because people's true colors come. People's true colors come out, and things shift when you're not their boss anymore. And I never experienced that because I was for 25 years in that role with everybody that I was around me. But I got a rude awakening, and it was a very difficult exit for me. It was. It's a. It was. It was very hard for me.

And I.

And I still, to this day, it's like one of the biggest regrets that I have is just like, how it ended and how. But it's amazing how, you know, at the end of the day, the one thing I learned from that, and it's so sad to even say it, but it's so true, is that. And maybe because I'm on so the opposite end of it, I think I am. Everyone's selfish. Everyone cares about themselves, and maybe they should, right? Like you. You need to look out for yourself. You got to put food on the table. You got to put your family first. And I get that. And as much as I've always tried to be overly generous and try to help anyone I can at the expense sometimes of even whatever I'm either not getting or whatever, I always made sure to take care of myself. You know, I wanted to keep it as fair as I could, but, you know, I. I certainly was mindful of it. But at the end of the day, what I learned was that at the end of the day, it may not be a bad thing. People. People are self. People care about themselves. At the end of the day, if someone's paying you, it does change the relationship. There's no question. It's a different, different situation when. When the person's got their name on your check and you really, really. If you're in a position right now, even listening to this, you really don't know what people really think if you're.

The guy at the top.

And that's why it's real lonely at the top.

It's hard, man. It's a.

It's a hard.

You know, it's funny that, that old saying, it's very lonely at the top. You know, I don't know what the top is, right? But that's the problem. There is no top, right? I always thought someday I'd be on the top of the sim with cool things like, ha, today's the day I did it. Like, there is no day like that. There is no, I won, I lost. It's its next journey, right? And for me, like, I started taking breathing and yoga super seriously, right? And you asked me the other day, just in general conversation, we were talking, you said, do you meditate? And I said, I try. I'm not very good, you know, blah, Blah, blah. And I thought about, like, the last three days, I probably meditate. You said more than anyone. I think I do. Like, I meditate. I meditate all the time. I'm breathing, I'm learning. To me, this next journey in my life is going to be like, listen, I went to school. First of all, I went to religious school, right? And they start talking about, you know, a sea party and someone turning into sand or whatever. And I was like, what? Okay, this can't be real. Like, I'm looking around like, what. What is going on around here? Like, I love these stories. But no one turned into sand. No. No one partner. See, like the sea might have been like, who? Whatever the story is, I haven't seen it today, right? Then I went to high school or middle school or elementary school, whatever school. And all I heard about how dumb I was. I don't try. And I'm like, I'm not that dumb. I'm around my friends. Like, I'm comparing what I kind of do compared to what everyone else does. I may not know how to read very well, but I don't think I'm dumb. Like, this doesn't make any sense. Why am I judged on how well I can read a story or how well I understand algebra? It made no sense. And then I got through school and I thought, I'm. I'm a pretty good connector. I know people. I have good relationships. Like, that means something, right? This guy's been in the book the whole high school. They don't know how to talk to a guy. I don't want to be that either. Like, there's got to be some middle ground somewhere. But we had this ignite. I had this coach come in, a breathing coach, and she's a yoga instructor. I didn't know it. And she was just teaching us how to breathe. And the couple years before, and we, you and I were talking Wim Hof four years ago. So I started taking the cold showers. I started breathing, and I was terrible at it. And I tried to do meditation the last, like, a minute and a half of like, God, man, my mind is screwed. I'm screwed. I don't know how to meditate. And I tried to stretch, and everything was uncomfortable. I went to this girl, I said, hey, listen, I want to learn how to breathe. You know, can you spend a couple months with me? I'd love to, you know? And super Organic Gal came over and we started breathing. She was, you know, can we incorporate yoga into this? And I'm like, God, I'd Love to. You know, I'm just so bad at yoga. She said, you're not bad at anything. It's all practice, like, you know, just like anything else. You're going to be bad if you don't do. You're going to be good if you practice at it. So it's funny. Two years ago, this week or last week now, I started with this gal, and I see her twice a week, every week. And then I do it on my own. And my new journey is one of. I never knew how to breathe for a second, right? I don't know what anxiety is. I don't know what any of that. Look, when my wife used to say, you're so anxious, I'd be like, so anxious. Me, like I'm such a strong guy. Like, that's. Say that seems weak as could be. And I look back, like I bite my nails. I'm the most anxious human being that's ever lived. Maybe, you know, all I am is anxious. But I. I couldn't even accept that because I. It just sounded like such a. Like a stronger than that. What are you talking about? Had I learned how to breathe into yoga when I was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, you could have thrown me off the side of a building. I'd be so loose. I'd bounce back up, walk away, right? But from that time, everything that ever happened to me, I held in. I held tight. Why in the world are we learning geometry in high school? Who gives a right? Right angle. I'll never use a right angle in my lifetime, ever.

Never.

I'm 55. I've never used one once. I'll never use one. Algebra? What are you talking about? My sister's a science teacher. Makes tons of sense. I know a biologist makes a lot of sense. A sales guy does not need any of that shit. But what a sales guy or another normal human needs is. When I go into kindergarten, day one, first hours, breathe. All we do is breathe. That's it for an hour. The next hour is yoga. All we do is stretch. That's all we do. That's it. We got our entire body stretched out. Now we go learn a couple things. Not algebra. How to get along with somebody, right? English, a little bit of history. Like, things that we really, truly need. But more than anything, what we need is learn how to breathe and stretch more than anything. And I don't know anything about it. When I say I'm this far on my journey, like I haven't started yet. But I do know it's the most important because I've never felt so good in my life about how I breathe now and that we talk about all those days, like, walking around the aisle, but, you know, I was so tense, dude. I wish I would have known how to breathe. Like, it would have helped so much. But, yeah, that. That's. That's my journey moving forward. I'm 55 years old, and I. And I keep looking at my life like, oh, my life's done. Like, it's over, right? I had my journey, I had my run. It's been great. It's been fun. And bam, I'm 55. It's done. Now I'm trying to look at it, like, I'm going to try to get as young as I can for the next 30 years. How young can I get? Because there's two groups of old people, people that can move around and have fun and go to Europe and eat pizza and walk around. Some guys walking in a walker that can't even eat anymore because he has diabetes and he's sick. I want to be number one, you know, I want to be that first group on my next stage of life. It's really important. Health is with.

With all the new technology, it's out. Life extension is like a real conversation that people have because they're creating things that will allow us to live a lot longer. I mean, it's already out. I mean, they're doing it, and it's.

Going to be a lot if I live longer. It's got to be healthy. I don't want to be sick. I don't want to. You know, today I'm not healthy, man. Good night. Take me to the next journey, wherever the hell that is. In the ground, up in the air. I don't care. Get me there quick, right? Because I want to enjoy what I got right here. Right? All right, we gotta wrap things up.

I got one. One more question here. So tell me something that you believe that other people think it's crazy.

So many, probably about 80 of what I think most people think is crazy, right?

So I knew that was going to be your answer. So if you were to think about, like, what's one that, like, you just really believe, but, like, everyone thinks it's crazy or that you're crazy.

How I do business, people think is absolutely insane, right? The deals I made with my partner, everything I've ever done, people think I'm. And I probably am, like, who knows? But at the end of the day, I think, for me, learn realizing I'm Confident enough in myself that there is no rule book in anything, right? All we did was grow up with rules. So you can't do this, can't do this, can't do this, can't do that, can't do this. And all I did was break them every single time I could. Can't eat a candy bar, like 10 candy bars. Can't have ice cream. I eat the whole box of ice cream. Can't stop me. You know what I mean? But I think growing up now, I realize there is no rule book. Like, you do what you feel is right, and whatever that is, whatever that feeling is, it's right. It's right because you can't make bad decisions.

Everybody follows conventional. You know, like I always say, when I first started my business, my goal was to do things the exact opposite of everyone else. Because I knew that call centers, people hated. I knew that clients didn't like, you know, not being passed off to the sales rep and then to a customer service. So I just did everything the opposite. And it worked so good. And so, like, when I hear you say that, it's interesting, you say 80% of what you do. I look at your business. I mean, the. The amount of revenue that will be generated out of your organization, just as a corporation is in the, what, ballpark?

We're over 100 million. Our goal is an extra 150 million.

When you know that, I think I saw a statistic the other day that if you make over $400,000, you're in that top 1%, right? And so when you think about the amount of businesses and you think about a business generating that much money that big, you're talking about a hairline fracture of people in the world. And so when I think about how successful what you've done, I truly believe, knowing you, it's that it's that outlier in you that just does not want to do what everyone does. And you just, You. You do. You go with your gut and you're wrong a lot, but you learn from it. You turn them in wins and, you know, you even repeat them.

But you know what? I'll tell you this. I will tell you this. This. The. The. I think the transparency of being open to losing.

Yeah.

Turns people on for sure, right? Like, I'm okay to lose, man. I'm okay if you lose. I'm okay if we all lose. But losing is giving up. We quit. We. Losing this battle made you better for the next one, right, Man, God, what a journey, right? Like, I think about, had this gone really smooth from the day Dan started, like, you know, probably as well as anyone in the world. The struggles, like tough, tough, tough days, man. Fun, though. Exciting. But had they not been there, man, this would not be nearly as enjoyable. Right? This is. The stories are funny that the struggle was real, but never felt like it shouldn't have been there. It always felt like this is supposed to happen, even when it was happening, you know.

Well, it's funny.

And I just think embracing what goes on in your life, man, enjoying, it's the biggest thing. Like just enjoying what happens to you.

When you, you have an ability. And I have this too. It's one of our, one of our strengths is the ability to be transparent and be vulnerable with other people. And it is, it's very real. And, you know, I know that what I see is what I get with you. And it's not like, you know, which Steve am I getting today? And you're not hiding things. And I think today people are so, so concerned with their double personalities and they're trying to hide who they are. And this, you know that. You know, I know that if you're walking into a bank or if you're walking into my office or if you're walking into your house, you're the same guy. And I love that about you. I think that's a very special quality that you should never lose. And I think that most leaders who fail to be transparent and kind of let people in a little bit and, and there's risk there because people can squash you. They can, they can take advantage of it, they can hurt you.

But that's okay. That's okay.

It is okay. And the wins outweigh those so much because people just want to feel that they're with someone real. They just do. And it's rare. And that's why it's so refreshing. It's why people are attracted to you. It's why I think, that's why I think you win so much in business. And I think it's a very, very special quality. So I, you know, you think about what they're teaching in college and you talk about geometry. It's so true, right? Because you can go and spend a hundred thousand dollars and literally come out with a degree that does zero, or you can spend all day watching YouTube and, and have free courses about learn everything skills and learn everything you need to crush every interview, get any job you want, get money from anyone, and, and it's all free. It's all just. I mean, I've learned more just from AI, in the past year, it's on.

I don't understand, AI. You know, here's the thing, right? There was a time, you know, I went to college for one year. It was 5,800 bucks, which was a fortune. And my dad was like, you don't screw this up. You don't take this seriously. Yeah. And I think about the 5,800 bucks I blew, because I blew it. I never spent a second in school, never bought books. I kept the book money for myself. But the 5,800 bucks was probably about 15% of what my dad made in 1990, right? He was probably making 65,000 bucks a year. Maybe not quite much, but let's say it was. Maybe it was 10%. He's probably making 45,000, 50,000. So it was probably 10% of what his salary was. Big dollar. Today the average salary is what? I have no idea. In schools. The average school is probably 20k, right? So school is probably 100% of someone's salary today. It made a little bit of sense back in the day, like 10%. Try it out, see if it works. 100% of your salary. It doesn't even make sense. And then these schools have all this endowment money. Like they said they could pay for Harvard students for like 173 years. And they never have to collect another nickel. And they pay for other schools, right? Get the increase the price every year. Biggest racket in America. Like, get me in on that.

And then you look at the debt, the amount of debt. I mean, it's, the system's going to crash. There's no real.

And a real. And they don't even give a discount on, like, you know, if you're going to give a guy a student loan, of course it's at 0% or 1% because you're bettering yourself. We're going to smash it for seven and a half percent. You'll never get out of this debt ever. But keep going to school.

I mean, look, I saw it from a collection perspective. I mean, the amount of people in collections right now and the amount of debts, it's, it's, it's so alarming. And there's so much money and the breaks that the schools get with. I mean, it's unbelievable how much taxes.

Like, it's, it's almost like being a religious organization. The greatest thing would collect all, you can, pay nothing, do what you can with the cash for yourself. You know, the whole thing to me has gone crazy, but it is what it is. We live in a Great spot. The world's crazy. There's no doubt about it. It always will be. I mean, you can look at the. It go back to 1908, world's falling apart. 1927, worst country in the world. 1929, the whole world class in 69, 70. This thing keeps doing that because I'm banging the table. But anyway, it's always been that way. It's always good, it's always bad. It's your perspective. And I try to keep a good perspective if I can, and I think that that suits me. Well.

Well, you have an interesting perspective, my friend. I appreciate our time together. You're fun to talk to.

And I.

And I will try to get you back to do another one, because we can go on all day.

I mean, I think so many. It's great. And so many about you, right? Like, we didn't even get in any of your stuff, which is, you know, so much. Like, so much incredible. I mean, I think back about all the time we spent, you know. The other thing is that this is funny, and this is like the grim reality you said, like, when you sold your business, you realize, like, people aren't exactly what you think, or people may view you differently than what you think, right? And all those things are hard to deal with, but they are real. They're. They're. They're true. And it's like, I look at the way the world works today in my life. When I was a young guy, like 30, 35, I had a million. I don't know about friends, but people I knew, right? And I'd play golf and we'd go out and we'd talk, but we had common goals. Like, we wanted to grow something. We wanted to do something. Someone would listen to my. So, you know. And now I look and I'm like, do I even want to be with these guys? No, don't even. The only thing I liked about them is they listen to me and they go to dinner and they play golf, right? But if the guy's a big. You know, he. His views are completely different than what mine are. And now that I'm older, it's like, who do I want to spend my time with? And it makes me sad that I don't want to spend time with people that I think I are really good friends of mine. They're not really good friends of mine. They're people that listen to my. I didn't need them at that time in my life, right? And my life's moved. I'm different now. They're different now. And it's okay, right? Season, reason, or lifetime. That's it. And ours is. Ours is probably gonna be a lifetime. We've known each other a long time, been through a lot of stuff, and I appreciate it.

I had someone ask me the other day, what's. What's one of the hardest things that I've experienced through my journey? And my answer, which is crazy, now that I'm talking to you, was, I've changed so much in my life on purpose. Like, I pursued change, like, I've pursued growth. I've pursued a spiritual path, a professional path. Everything that I've done. And I think what I've learned is that one of the hardest things to do is to change in front of the people that you love, because they're.

Going to have a view, they're going to have an opinion of your change.

They are. And. And. And you can have the courage to do it. And knowing that it's going to change the relationships is. It's. It's one of the. I don't know if there's anything harder to do that, because these are people that you love. These are people that, like, you're around all the time. And so much of my circle has changed over the years, and there's been a few people who have been that Constance, and a couple of them are the ones who are. Or a catalyst of that change in their coach or like, you know, a rabbi or something, like. But you're, like. You're probably one of my only friends that wasn't in the mentor position that I.

That.

And I think it's because what I learned about that being the hardest thing is that when you have the courage to do it, you'll find out who really loves you. And as I was going through all my changes, you know, your love for me had always increased. You always. You didn't always agree, but you. But you supported and you always were there, and I would. I appreciated that. So I just want to show, you know, that I'm very grateful for that. I don't know if I've ever, ever shared that with you, but I feel very blessed to have that with our relationship.

And.

And it's.

That's a.

It's very meaningful to me because I know how hard it is.

That means a lot to me that you say it. And, you know, for me, Chad, honestly, I mean, you know how I feel, right? Like, you know my views of everything. I've been very open about everything. What I respect about you the most is you don't give a. You're going to do what you're going to do because you need to do it. I respect the. Out of you. Whatever it is, whether I. Whether it's exact opposite of what I would do, you're doing it, and I love it. And I love you for it, and I do. Great, man.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Well, nothing but love and success for you, your family, your business, your partner. And we need him to do good for sure, because you're relying on him very heavily.

Very heavily. Very heavily. Okay. You know, again, man, it's, you know, it's another relationship that I'm just so proud of. Right. I'm so proud to be a partner with this guy, you know, and I really am. I always will be different. But, yeah, I've been very blessed and very lucky. And I. And I. And I. And I really appreciate it more than anything, you know? All right, until next time. Yeah, till next time. Talk soon, bro.