DAN HANDFORD INTERVIEW – Selling Skeletons to the Nigerian Government, Building 7-Figure Businesses, and Slashing Taxes Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm Chris Larson.

And I'm Caleb Lovoin.

You can get our book@nextlevelincome.com today on our show we have Dan Hanford. Dan is one of the managing partners with passiveinvesting.com which acquires large apartment complexes throughout the Southeast with a growing portfolio of over $2 million in 200 million. I'm sorry, $200 million in assets. Dan has an extensive background starting multiple seven figure businesses from scratch, including a group of non surgical orthopedic medical clinics located throughout South Carolina. Dan is also the founder of Multifamily Investor Nation, where he educates a nationwide group of over 23,000 members of multifamily investors on how to properly invest in multifamily assets. I'll be speaking at their upcoming Multifamily Investor Nation summit and you can find the details about that summit in the show notes as well as conveniently attend online if you're interested in expanding your knowledge of multifamily investing. Finally today, Dan's going to talk a little bit about his show, Tough Decisions for Entrepreneurs podcast that he co hosts along with his wife Danae. Dan, welcome to the show.

Glad to be here. Looking forward to it. Chris and Caleb, looking forward to sharing with your audience.

Absolutely. So, Dan, we met, I don't know, it's been over a year now. Through the multifamily community. Would you please share with the audience a little bit about your story and how you went from chiropractic school to now owning over 200 million in multifamily properties.

Yeah, it's kind of been a long journey to get to this point, but I've started a company when I was in chiropractic college as a chiropractic student. I still have that company today. It's a company called Shop Anatomical and we sell all types of plastic anatomical models like skeletons and skulls and brains and hearts. And I started it in chiropractic school because a lot of the students were needing a spine to study with. And I found one online that was a lot cheaper than the one that was in the bookstore and ended up selling it to the students. And it opened me up to be able to sell more of those products, you know, opened up to like over 2000 products I could sell and took my skills in web design and web hosting and networking and things like that to be able to put together a website and Started to produce some sales and started doing 20, 30, 40,000amonth to over six figures a month. I've been doing that consistently for the last 12, 13 years now. And so I have a. But that's been passive at this point. But at that company I started which helped me open up my very first clinic in chiropractic debt free. And even today I have these other clinics that I have, there's four of them and I own them debt free as well. And it was all because that first company that I started when I was in chiropractic college. But I started out as a chiropractor, did my own clinic and I found out, I found out really early on that I was really still working in a job. I was trading time for dollars. There's only so many patients that I can see in an hour. So I was capped with my income. And so I started to hire on some other associate chiropractors to work for me. So I didn't have to do as much of the day to day work. And then started to integrate medicine into the clinic. So started hiring on a medical team, medical doctor, nurse practitioners. And then when I started to expand and grow the clinics, I decided that I wanted to completely remove the chiropractic from the clinics. And so we don't do any chiropractic at all in the clinics. We do straight full medical services around non surgical orthopedics and sports medicines. We do a lot of injection based therapies for arthritis care, but also any types of sports injuries, do a lot of prolotherapy, PRP, stem cell. We have right at about 50 employees that are in that group. And that group was obviously the one that produced a lot of income for me, which caused another problem which a lot of us are familiar with, which is having to pay a lot of money to the government in taxes. And so I was writing these large six figure checks to the government. And whenever you get to the point of having your own business like that, you don't only have to have that painful check writing process once a year at the end of the year, they reward you with being able to do that four times a year, that same reminder, four times a year, this hard work that you're doing and you get to pay it every quarter into their, into their little piggy bank. And there is never a refund because they just take whatever would be a refund and put it towards your first quarter payments so that you don't really see any of that kind of stuff. And I was Getting really frustrated with that. And I was at a point where I had felt like the clinics were grown to a point where I didn't want to grow them any further. And because there were some other hurdles and challenges that I would have to get over, and I really didn't feel like I wanted to go over those. And so I decided to pivot and really focus on multifamily real estate and acquiring a lot of these large assets around the Southeast. We're based here in Columbia, South Carolina, and so we have some assets here in the Carolinas, also have some in Tennessee and Texas. But my whole main reason for getting into multifamily was to reduce my taxable liability. And so at this point, you know, my income has gone up and I pay very little if no taxes at the end of the year because of a lot of the tax benefits of investing in these types of assets.

No, I love it. I remember the first time I wrote a check to the IRS that was more than my annual expenses. My CPA turns to me and he said, can I pour you a drink? And I knew it was going to be bad. And I said, there's got to be a better way. So, yeah, we talk about it in our book, talking about the scalability of multifamily. But also one of the benefits, which it's kind of like icing on the cake is the tax benefits, especially for, you know, people like yourself and other high income professionals that are already paying a lot of tax and they want to let their assets continue to grow not only for themselves, but for their families.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the benefits of multifamily that a lot of people don't realize even when they're starting to learn about it. So, Dan, when we were at that recent investor meetup in Greenville, you had mentioned in passing that with your anatomical business, you had sold some parts to the Nigerian government. And you just went on and just kept talking and about some other stuff. And then I was just like, I need to know what that story is, because that sounds really interesting. Would you be able to share that for our audience?

Sure, yeah. It's a very memorable experience when you start to do large orders with the Nigerian government. So it was interesting because I had. We get requests for, you know, purchase orders and quotes and things like that all the time from colleges and universities, large hospital systems, and even, you know, drug sales reps and things like that will get quotes from us. And this one came in from the Nigerian government and it's kind of looked kind of like one of those, like, spam emails. I'm thinking all of you guys have probably received those before where it's like, you know, the chancellor or whatever of the Nigerian, you know, head of state or something like that. And of course, I first look at it and go, yeah, this sounds like a scam. But I'll still respond to the guy because he at least looked at some of the products and he listed them in the email. So I was like, they only really wanted one product. It was a miniature skeleton model. So it wasn't one of the huge, large ones, but it was probably about 12, 2412 to 24 inches, something like that. It was pretty small. And so when they reached out to me, I gave him back their quote, and I figured I'd probably never hear from them again, right? Because it was a pretty large order, and they wanted. Because they wanted a thousand of them. I think it was actually 10. 12. I don't know why that was, like, exactly 12, but probably had something to do with, like, the number of students or something like that that they needed to order it for. But I asked him about, you know, what they were buying it for, and they had, like, a secondary school there that they were actually buying them for for those kids to be able to learn about the anatomy of the skeleton. And so I got on the phone with them, and I talked to him, and I said, well, what I've decided is, is that if you want to move forward with this order, that you're gonna have to overnight me funds from one of the top five banks in the United States. And I listed out the top five banks. I said, it has to be a cashier's check from one of those top five banks in order for me to be able to process your order. So I wasn't gonna accept a credit card, obviously, from Nigeria, right. I wasn't gonna accept anything else other than that. No PayPal, nothing that they could, like, go back and, like, try to ask for the money back after I shipped them all this product, right? And come to find out, the very next day, FedEx knocks at my door, and there's this FedEx envelope with a cashier's check from one of the top five banks. And of course, I bring it over to my wife. I'm like, look at this. He. They actually did this thing, you know, and it was great, you know, so it was. It's a neat story because not very many people have done business with the Nigerian government and actually done it successfully.

Like, legitimate. Yeah. Now legitimate Business, right?

Yeah. So it was pretty exciting to kind of see that go through.

Thanks for sharing that because I've been wondering about it since that conversation.

Yeah, I love that story. So, Dan, it sounds like you've been an entrepreneur since you were young, and I've shared stories on this podcast before, similar things, I think that resonated with me. Can you share with the audience some of the things that you've learned through running, not only running, but scaling these businesses and how that's led to the success that you and your team have had in the multifamily space?

Sure. So I would say one of the first things that I learned earlier on in my entrepreneurial journey and starting these various businesses is that I had to come to grips with the fact that even though, and I'll tell you that this is the flaw that I have, and I know many business owners have this, but I feel like I can do everything better than everybody else and I can do everything right. So you give me a task, I can figure it out. I don't care what it is. I'll figure it out and I'll do it better than you. Right. That's kind of my mentality, but that was also. That same mentality was holding me back. I've talked to many business owners that they, I tell them that story and they're like, that's so true. Like, I feel like that's where I am right now. And one of the things that I see where I started to really have that kind of hockey stick moment in my, you know, business life was that I had to learn to be able to delegate certain things that were not my highest and best use of my time. And even though I still feel, even today, I'll still say it's a flaw of mine, I still feel like I can do it better than anybody else. I've learned that if I can delegate certain things to other people and they can do at least 80 to 85% as good as I can, then I'm happy to be able to turn that over to somebody else because it allows me to be able to focus on where my highest and best use is, what I, which is growing and expanding and having that vision for the company. And so that's one of the things that I learned earlier on that allowed me to succeed. And it's also one of those things that I still implement today in the passiveinvesting.com business.

I think that's an awesome lesson. And it's funny because in our recent podcast with Brandon, your partner we talked about going from single family properties, sold all my single family properties, moved into multifamily. And one of the reasons wasn't just the investment returns. It was the scalability. It's funny, people like you, people like myself, you're a professional. You say, hey, this is. I became successful by doing it and relying on myself. But then you look and you say, well, wait a minute. My investments, I'm scaling, I'm outsourcing, these sorts of things. But we don't look at our own lives, and it's very powerful. There's a podcast by Dan Sullivan and Peter Diamandis and talks about find the who to solve the problems, not the what or the how. And if you find the who, that's how you can ultimately scale your business and create the most value. I think it's a great lesson.

We have also had Danny Randazzo, one of your other partners from passiveinvesting.com on the podcast, and he shared some really great information. Would you be willing to share how you teamed up with both Danny and Brandon? And it falls right into what you're talking about, delegation and building teams and all that?

Sure, absolutely. So one of the things I did in the very beginning is I wanted to make sure that any type of partner that I brought on was skilled in a different area, but still could have the balance of knowing what everybody else does. And I think when you look at successful partnerships, there has to be that separation of duties. When you have a partnership with both partners are good at the same thing, there's usually going to be conflict. And so for me, obviously, I interview a lot of people on my entrepreneur podcast called Tough Decisions for Entrepreneurs. And all on that podcast, we talk a lot about those tough decisions. And one of the biggest tough decisions that we talk about that a lot of the guests talk about is failed partnerships. And every single one of these failed partnerships is usually due to some alignment of being able to do the same thing. Right. They don't have this clear delineation of, here's your lane of what you're supposed to be doing. And so when I went to seek for other partners, really wasn't going out there saying, hey, I need a partner, I need a partner. I was just kind of listening and hearing and kind of knowing what was out there. And oddly enough, Brandon goes to my church, so our kids go to school together. His wife actually teaches my daughter in school right now. Brandon's youngest daughter is my eldest daughter's good best friend. And so we have a lot of things in Common. And you know, when we first start partnered up, he came out, he reached out to me and said, hey, I really like what you're doing with the multifamily stuff. I'd like to partner with you and here's my skill set. And his skill set was all about construction management and being able to create a lot of good estimates and capex budgeting and working with the brokers and the acquisition side of things. And for me, I don't like that stuff. I mean, I can still do it, but it's not my core competency. My core competency is what I do right now, which is investor relations and marketing and overall strategic objectives of the company. And so that was a great fit. I'm like, yes, that'd be a great fit. And then ahead of time we made sure we delineated what those tasks were. And then with Danny, he came along about a month and a half later after Brandon joined and he saw some of the things that we were doing and he actually reached out to me and said, hey, Dan, I see a lot of these things that you're doing. I really like them. He's based out of Charleston, South Carolina and we had met him once before. We went down there and we looked at a property together. But he said, hey, what if I was able to join your company as well and I'll be one of your partners and I bring the finance piece. And so he brought that missing piece that really kind of makes a great cohesive group with the triad approach that we use and has all of that, you know, underwriting and financial due diligence and financial analyzing background. Because he is a, he used to be a financial analyst with one of the top, you know, financial consulting firms in the country. And the biggest thing is that each one of us have a different lane, but we know how to do the other person's job. And so we know the decisions that we make and how it impacts the other partners. But we also know that at certain points in time, throughout the acquisition and hold period and disposition process of our, of our properties, each partner is going to be doing things when the other one maybe might not be doing much at all. And so one of the other things with partnerships is that a lot of times you feel the other partner feels like they're not the other partners not doing anything or not doing as much as the other one, but they're getting the equal share. Right? And so that's one of the things that we all three came to. The consensus was, is that in the beginning when we're, you know, finding a property. I'm not doing much, honestly, because obviously I'm taking a lot of investor calls. I'm building the database, I'm doing the marketing. But when we start to raise money for a project, that's when we're really like, you know, full force and tons of work that's being happening in the back end to make that happen. And then when we close on a property, a lot of that falls onto Danny. Like even when the pre closing stuff, he's doing a lot of the financial due diligence and working with the attorneys and the lenders. And so we have this nice kind of balance of powers, if you will, or balance of duties. But we all know how to do each other's job. And I think that really comes down to why you can, how you can find a successful partnership.

No, I think it's great. And it's one of the, one of the things that we talked about early on when we met. It just impressed me. And we had Brandon on the show. We talked a lot about what he does, and he echoed the same thing that you said. Like, this is my lane, this is what I'm good at. It's almost like speaking a different language. Right. I grew up with a stepfather that was a contractor, and I go work on jobs with them. I shovel shingles, swing a hammer, big ditches. And I'm looking at these guys and I'm like, these people, they're doing their job and you know, you go and you go into the bank. You know, if you're building the house and you get financing and like, these guys are in suits, they look different than the people, they're digging the ditches. And even a 10 year old can figure it out and say, hey, you know, these people are playing in their own lane, so to speak. And you know, I know, I know a lot of builders that make more than bankers and they're dressed up, they got dirty pants on, but they do what they're good at and they make a lot of money doing it. So I think it's a great lesson. You just mentioned your podcast, Dan. Tough decisions for entrepreneurs. Did I say that right?

That's correct.

Yes. And I listened to your first episode with you and your wife on there. Would you mind sharing maybe one of the more recent tough decisions that you've made in the business and how, you know, something that you might share if you were interviewing yourself on that show?

Sure. The one that I like to talk about the most. It's not really a really Recent one, but it was one that had to do with the. For us going from one clinic to two clinics to eventually getting to that fourth clinic. And our goal was set out to do that in 24 months, and we actually were able to do that in 18 months. But when we. After we opened up the second clinic, it actually took us a year to open up the third one. And because when you go from one clinic to two, there's a lot of different things that you have to put into place, a lot of different checks and balances and then staff training and things like that. But once you put those systems in place and those processes, it's easier to grow. We were able to open up those next two clinics in, like, six months after we open up that third one. But the biggest lesson that we learned there is that we took our eyes off of the numbers when we moved from the one clinic to the second clinic. And it's not that we necessarily took our eyes off the numbers. It was that at that time, with one clinic, we were looking at the numbers on a retrospective basis quarterly. So at the end of the quarter, the numbers would be done, the counts would be balanced, and we look at those numbers from what happened in the prior quarter. So now you're already a month in, obviously, to your second quarter. Right. Or the next quarter. And so when we started to open up that second clinic, we didn't wait until the retrospective analysis of that quarterly analysis to find out that the numbers were just tanking in the first clinic. Not that the second clinic. The second clinic was actually doing really well. We were profitable within the first month in that first clinic and in that second clinic. But the first clinic just started taking nosedive, and we had to really reset and go, okay, what do we need to do moving forward so this never happens again? And so what we found out is that as we started to scale and grow, we needed to start looking at those numbers on a more regular basis. So instead of quarterly, when we opened up that second clinic, we looked at the numbers monthly. And then once we started to grow into that third and fourth clinic, we now look at them on a weekly basis. So we can make sure that if there's any numbers that are shifting or pivoting, that we can make those changes and. And make those pivots earlier instead of retrospectively, when it's usually too late. That was the biggest lesson that I learned, the biggest challenge that I had that I would say, was a tough decision, because we really, at that time, didn't really know what was going on, because we weren't looking at those numbers. And so we had the tough decision of, like, should we not scale anymore? Should we hold back? Should we, like, contract? Or, like, what should we do? And it was really one of those things where, like, no, we just need to change what we're doing to be able to make sure we're monitoring these things on a regular basis. And that has also translated into the multifamily space for us, because I know that a lot of people in the multifamily space will do quarterly distributions. Well, our group does monthly distributions, and I personally only invest in other operators that do monthly distributions because I like to see that they're looking at the numbers on a monthly basis. Because if you find an operator that's doing quarterly, it's possible that they're only looking at those numbers same way, quarterly, retrospectively. And so if they do that, then they might look at it on a quarterly basis and go, oh, great, now I don't have enough money in cash in the account to make the distributions. But if you're doing that on a monthly basis every month, they have to ask that question, do we have enough in the accounts to make those distributions? And I myself am right now in 19 different syndications with eight different operators. And I want to make sure that my investments that I've worked really hard for actually being monitored on that regular interval. And so we like to see those monthly distributions because of that. But in our group, our passiveinvesting.com group, we actually look at these numbers on a weekly basis. We're on top of the property managers making sure that they have goals every single week, not every month or every single quarter.

I think it's a great point. It's kind of like owning your own business and making payroll every week or every two weeks. You know, if you got it, you have to look, and your back's against the wall, you're going to make sure that those numbers are where they need to be on Monday, not on Friday, or on the first of every month, not the first of every quarter. So I think it's a great practice.

Yeah, that's great advice. And what I was wondering on that is I thought it was interesting. You started out as a chiropractor and you were expanding your clinics, and then you ended up removing that from the clinics. Was that from looking at the numbers or what led you to make that decision?

Sure, it's a great question, because a lot of people have looked at that and said, oh, you gave up on chiropractic. Or something, you know, and we didn't. We actually have now made a bigger impact with chiropractic than we would have just having our own single clinic. Because now we have four different clinics with provide medical providers are actually creating referrals to these outside chiropractors. The main reason why I made the decision was because, yes, the medical services do have a higher profit margin. So that was definitely a motivating factor. But we also looked at it and thought that because these chiropractors in the community will not refer to another chiropractor because they are afraid that we're going to steal their patient, we had to completely remove it so we can help and have a bigger and greater impact to the community with the patients that were seeing chiropractors that were not getting results. Because chiropractic is great. There's that 5, 10, 15% of the population that goes to a chiropractor that doesn't get the results they're looking for. And instead of those providers sending them out to pain management or having surgery, they can send them to us and we can help them avoid that route.

It's great. I think I tell my boys, if you want to make money, you need to one, be good at something and two, find something where you can help the most people and the more people you help, the more money you're going to make. And it sounds like you followed the same path. You're able to have a bigger impact than help more patients impact their, you know, their patient's quality of life and that sort of thing.

Absolutely.

So shifting back a little more on the, on the real estate side, talk about the criteria, like what do you look for in a property? We talked to both Danny and Brandon about the focus of the company on B grade multifamily. But can you also talk about what criteria you're focused on in 2020 for the properties you're looking at and where they're going to be?

Sure, sure. So it's one of those things that when you're in this multifamily space, you have to constantly be looking at the markets and kind of constantly seeing where the prices are coming in and the cap rates, where the incoming jobs are and all that kind of stuff is our factors that we look at. And sometimes it's a moving target as to what we're looking at and types of assets and stuff. In 2019, our primary asset class that we've been looking for is those really nice B plus assets and really solid areas. And we're looking for that 1995-2005 vintage, as we move forward into 2020, we're going to be pivoting a little bit more and probably looking at more of the A class assets. And one of the reasons why we made that decision was because we feel right now with the way the market is, because of how hot it is, that we can pretty much buy an A class asset for what it would cost us to buy a B class asset. And the reason why we made the decision to go into B class was also for the same reason with the B and the C class. Because right now the cap rates are not that much different in these larger markets. 20, 30, 40, 50 basis points spread between the B class and the C class and then the A class and the B class. And as we move forward into a potential recession or correction or something like that, if you look back into the last recession in 2008, there was not much of a difference in the occupancies of the A's and the B classes. But more than by not more than about 50 basis points spread as far as the occupancy levels. But with the A class and the B class properties, you actually maintain that occupancy, but you also maintain the rental rate to be able to do that. But when you go down to the C class assets, what were you actually you'll see is that the occupancy level states static and stayed stable. But what happened was, is that when you look at the economic occupancy, because there's two types of occupancies, we look at, we look at the physical occupancy, which is number of people that are actually in the units. But then the economic occupancy of is how many of those people are actually paying to be in those units. Right. And so when you look at Those lower end Bs or those C class assets, you start to have a drop in the economic occupancy because that's the asset class that gets hit the worst when you have earned recession. Because those are the jobs that get let go and get turned over and things like that. And so you do start to see a lot of people that can't pay those rents. They start to get evicted. And depending on which market you're in, it might take a little bit of time to get them out. But then, so now you have eviction process and legal fees and then you also have the higher turnover cost. Because normally we're trying to turn over a unit every 12 months or closer to like 24 months if you have a high retention rate. But if you have these tenants that are turning over constantly in that lowering asset, it starts to cost more money for the property. And a lot of times that business plan can be, we can be hampered because of that. And so Moving forward into 2020, we're looking for those kind of B+A minus A assets and these large growing markets. And our kind of core is the Carolinas. We're in the Raleigh, North Carolina market, Charlotte, North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, and we're also looking in Charleston, South Carolina. We just haven't gotten anything in there yet. But then we've also kind of expanded our search a little bit into the Atlanta, Georgia, Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida markets as well.

I love it. And I think it's really important to realize that there are cycles to the real estate market. My wife and I used to build spec homes and we stopped doing that a couple years ago when as the market kind of matured and land prices went up, building prices went up. And I think just like you guys are doing, you look where we are in the economic cycle, you look at where the returns are, you look at where the risk is and you can adjust your strategy. It's terrific that you can stay in the multifamily space and just pivot a little bit a couple degrees here, a couple degrees there. So thanks for sharing that.

So, Dan, one question we always ask on the show is if you could go back in time and give your 25 year old self one piece of advice out of everything you've learned along the way, what would that piece of advice be?

Man, there's so many different things that I would do back then. I think going back to what I said earlier about delegation, that would have to be the number one thing because, well, I'll do this. I'll kind of give you the delegation piece. Yes. But when you start to delegate, or at least when I started to delegate, I started to try to find the cheapest person.

Right.

And at the time, at the end of the day, it actually cost me more money to do it that way. But a lot of times we think we just can't afford the people that are really good at what they do to be able to join us. So we try to find somebody who's like, okay, I can accept a lower, you know, salary or hourly rate to be able to hire them to work for you. But one of the things that I've learned over the years is that if I can find somebody that's really good at what they do and pay them what they're worth, then I can actually get more productivity out of them and I have less training that I have to do with them because they can pretty much train themselves in a lot of things. And so for me, I've learned I need to actually start to pay more for people that are really good, so I don't have to do as much work for them. So delegation is number one. But when you start to delegate, you got to make sure that you hire people and pay them what they're worth.

It was it Steve Jobs that said, you know, we hire smart people not to tell them what to do, but so they can figure out what to do, tell us what to do. Is that Jobs quote, trying to remember? I get them all.

I'm not sure, but I've heard it's.

A great quote, whoever said it.

Yeah, yeah, I get them. I get them all mixed up. It's a Chris Larson quote. No, but. No, it'll. No, it's. I think it's good advice, right? Like hire smart people and let them do their thing. It's terrific. So, Dan, one of the things I really enjoy every time we talk is hearing where you're traveling to next. And I told you, I think it's awesome that you're giving your family and your kids all these different experiences. So we're coming to the holidays. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Where is your next trip going to be?

Well, I actually just yesterday came back from New York City, so my wife and I took a trip to New York City just for the. Actually flew out Wednesday afternoon and met up with some investors for dinner and then went to a concert by the Etsy's. Or no, it's not the Etsy's. The Gettys. Excuse me. I kept on saying it was the Etsy's and my wife was giving me a hard time about it. But they're actually called the Gettys. They're based out of Nashville, but by way of Ireland, and then just came back the very next day. That was one trip that I had. But I would say I've been to a lot of different places in 2019. It's kind of hard to plan for all talk about all of them because there's so many. But a lot of places here in the United States. But two of them that I'll say that will be kind of more memorable would be the trip that we took to London. We took our two older kids with us to London and got to explore the whole city of London and had a Blast there. Spent about 10 days out there. The nice thing was we did it during the school year and the kids only had to take two days off of school because of how we planned it. And it was actually not even planned that way. It just happened to be at the time that they were having a teachers convention. So they already had three days off during the week. And so we only took them out for school for two days. We went from like Saturday to Sunday. And so we got a nice, got a nice time out there in London. The other trip was actually with the entire family. So we actually took a private jet. We just chartered one here locally. We took a private jet to the Ark Encounter, which I don't know if you've heard of that before, but it's a large life size replica of the Ark.

Yeah, yeah.

And we've really been wanting to go there since they opened it. And so a lot of our people from our church had gone there and visited, but we hadn't, we didn't, we just didn't really want to take all six of the kids and pack them up and drive all the way over there. And so I told my wife, I said, let's just rent a jet. And it seats seven people. So all six kids. Six kids, about four kids. And you know, mom and dad can be in there. And then we'll bring a babysitter with us too. So you can at least help out with some of the smaller kids. Because I have four children. I have a nine year old, a seven year old, and I have a three year old and a one year old. Of course that earlier this year they're a little bit younger than that and so lots of different things to happen. And so we rented the jet, flew out there. We actually flew out there in the morning, left around like 8 o' clock in the morning. They're an hour difference. And so we landed like 8 o' clock in the morning over there and. And then like drove to the, the Ark Encounter, which is about, it was about a 30 minute drive from the airport because it's kind of in a little bit of a rural area. And so we went out there and spent the entire day there, got back to the airport around like 5 o', clock, flew back home and we kids were already bathed in bed by like 8, 8:30. And we had, the kids had a blast. We didn't have to pack anything. The only thing we brought was like strollers and the baby bag.

Right.

And nothing else. So there was no like having to worry about hotels or anything. And it was just a great experience overall. And, you know, those are the types of things that I want to be able to do, is be able to create those kind of experiences for the kids and be able to do a lot of those different things where, you know, you're not taking a lot of time away from the week, but you can at least still go create a lot of those experiences.

You're doing it right, my man. And we've really enjoyed having you on the show. Thanks for sharing all you have with our audience, and we look forward to next time you're on here. Happy holidays.

Thank you, Caleb. Thank you, Chris. Looking forward to it.

Appreciate it. Dan.