S4E39 - When you know how to sell everything falls into place

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Surf and Sales podcast. I am Scott Leese, one of the co founders of the Surf and sales summit. November 27 to December 1 of this year is our next event. We've got a couple tickets left. We've also got an alumni event for all you alumni that is the first week of December. Joined here today by my good friend and co founder and co host of this podcast, Richard Harris. Well, what's going on, dude?

Dude, just good to catch up with you. Like that's the beautiful thing of this podcast. Otherwise we'd only talk like once every three months.

So that's what people don't know about the podcast, is that really. It's just so you and I can hang out and have a chat and we just invite other people mostly to listen to us ramble, Right?

Exactly.

It's really not fair to our guests, probably.

Speaking of guests, we have a killer guest today whose claim to fame is that he has a higher lifetime batting average than our good friend Larry Long Jr. We will introduce him in just a minute. His name is Casey Cavell. He is a founder, investor, washed up baseball player, ministry lead, all sorts of things going on in his world. We'll get to him in just a second. Richard's going to tell us a little bit about what's going on with our wonderful sponsors, HubSpot.

Yeah. So as we wind down the summer, as we get to the end of August of 2023 people are back from vacations, maybe, maybe a couple people still have the, the late school start for their kids and they've got one more thing in them or they've got a.

Labor Day weekend trip. But HubSpot's here to help. You know, one of the cool things they have is a bunch of AI powered tools to help you work even when you're supposed to be playing, which is allowed, and help you become more efficient while you work and use the dreaded word of multitasking. HubSpot's AI tools can help write content for you. It can help run reports and, or analyze the reports for you and saves you a ton of time. When you really use good, good HubSpot and good AI, you know, you can save yourself a couple hours a week, I imagine, you know, 52 weeks a year. You're saving yourself, you know, 100 hours a year. What can you do with that time? That's very, very cool. So be sure to check out HubSpot's AI tools. It's also built into the platform that's the cool part. They've got chat spot. They've got a content assistant. They got a ton of stuff going on to help everybody, whether you're in sales or marketing or other departments. So thank you. Please check out HubSpot.com and we appreciate it. Back to you in the studio.

Scott, do you know that our guest Casey Cavell has built a $40 million portfolio from a $9,000 investment?

No. Tell me.

Just like your stock market portfolio that you're always bragging about.

Yes, yes. Which is about true. About the same return, but it's taken me 20 years to do it.

Yeah. The thing is, though, like many of us, the thing is, he experienced some burnout.

So.

So we're going to get into both these things. Two super relevant topics for both of us, only one of which we've achieved, which is burning out. Neither of US have achieved $40 million portfolio part yet, but we're working on it. Casey, welcome to the show, man.

What's going on, guys? Good to be here.

Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. Tell everybody just a little bit about who you are and what you've been up to.

Gosh.

Well, so. So the $9,000, I probably got that from actually a $50 investment, which is kind of crazy. I was just thinking about that. I don't know why. I guess it's summertime, and the summer is like when the World Series of Poker happens. I don't know if either of you guys are poker players or know anything about it, but that's how I got my. My initial seed investment. I figured out a way to turn 50 bucks into a few thousand and started playing online poker and all that kind of stuff and realized that, you know what, some of these guys that play poker, they own businesses, and I didn't want to just be stuck around a poker table inside a smoky casino for the rest of my life. So I figured out a way to parlay a couple good poker tournaments into a business and got my start and surrounded myself with a lot of really cool, fun people and just. Just started making it happen.

This is amazing. There's some sort of. I'm going to screw up the company name. I want to say it's. It has to do with, like, parcel delivery, like UPS or something.

FedEx. Is that.

Is that the company? This guy, like, can't make payroll, and he goes to Vegas and puts it all on black a few times and hit hits and the company survives.

Yep. Yep.

That's what Casey's story is reminding me of a little bit.

Yeah. There's a book called First Break. All the rules there that, that is highlighted as, as the intro attention grabber.

Did you have that level of guts, Casey, when you were building?

I. I did my best. The game that I played was Texas hold'.

Em.

Right. So like in most casino games, you're playing against a casino and you can't win long term. Like it's impossible because you have a small statistics statistical disadvantage. Like you can't win. You're a 1%, right? Like you have a, what, 51, 49% chance. 51% the house is going to win. But in poker, you're not playing against a casino. You're playing against nine other people sitting around a table. And how the casino makes money is they take a small percent of each pot. So in that you're playing against other people, not the casino. And I just realized if I'm playing a game, whether you're in business or whatever, like if you have nine competitors and you're the one that studies the game, that learns how to manage your emotions, that knows how to manage your money, that picks the right opportunities to go after, knows when to quit. Right. Knows when to double, double like you were kind of it. So that was what I did. I just became a student. Whatever I did in life, whether it was poker or business or baseball, I just hired the best coaches and surrounded myself with people that were winning in whatever I did. And I eventually I figured out ways to make it happen.

So you, so you launch all this stuff, you've found it and bought and invested in tons of businesses over the last few years. But I want to hear a little bit about this brick wall that you ran into, because I think, I think everybody's experienced this at some point in time in their career. I think so many people have experienced it or at least been more willing to talk about it in the last three or four years. I'm always fascinated by, you know, what were the warning signs? Did you know it was coming and what did you do to heal and kind of start over?

Yeah, so I'm a, I'm a baseball guy. And, you know, there's some days, if you were a pitcher, I played shortstop. But there's some days where, you know, you can just pitch and it's just free and it's easy and it just, it's simple, right. And there's some days where you have to really go out there and you have to hustle, like you really labor and it's tough. And I equate that to business a little bit because when you're in your sweet spot in business, like it doesn't feel like work, you're just, you're just making it happen and it just flows. Now what I typically find is most people like they're doing things when they're in that mentality where things are just working and it doesn't feel like work that they love to do and they're great at. The challenge is, is if you're ever out of alignment, where you're spending a lot of your time doing things that you like, you don't really like to do, but you're good at it and you spend a lot of your time doing those kind of things, you're going to burn out. And I like to look at 70, 30, 70% of your time should be spent on things that you love to do and you're good at, right? Or you at least like to do. And what I ended up doing was I built businesses that I didn't figure out a way to get myself out of running the day to day because I didn't love running the day to day operations of a business. I love building and growing and networking and connecting, but I didn't love the day in, day out. And I was spending 70% of my time, guys like running the day to day, managing the people and putting in the processes and doing all that. And until I figured out a way to get out of that, I burn out. Because every day I'm like, oh, what's on my calendar today? I got 10 hours of meetings. I don't love meetings. At least 10 hours worth. I don't love some of the things that I had to do that day. I love new partnerships and innovation and new ideas, not like managing people and make sure everything gets done. So after years of running the day in, day out operations of the business, I burn out. And I had a very successful business at the time. And I literally was like, I'm just going to lock it up. I don't even care anymore. I can't do it.

And that's when you just literally shut it down.

No, I was, I was, I thought about it, I thought about it because I'm like, I physically couldn't do it anymore. And I had another gentleman that kind of showed up at the right time because instead of just shutting it down, I listed it for sale.

Gotcha.

And when I listed it for sale, a guy came in, he's like, hey, I really like you, I like your business. But like, if you disappear, I gotta run it. And I don't want to run it. I'm like, yeah, I know. Well, I don't either. I didn't tell him that because I'm like, can this guy buy me out of a very successful business on paper? But I didn't want to run it. And he goes, look, I'll make you a deal. Let me invest, and, you know, 66%, right. Of what you want, you keep a third of the business, and let's be a team. And when we became a team, it kind of worked because he did all the things that I didn't want to do, and I did all the things that he couldn't do. And those things that I was doing were the things that I love to do. So I literally found a business partner that was like the perfect puzzle piece because he likes some of those things that were burning me out. And he took those things off of my plate, which then freed me up to start doing more of what I loved. And. And we just figured out a way to grow the business. And we went from a $2 million business to a $10 million business in a couple of years. And it was literally because I had a team and built people around me that were able to get stuff done without me. And that's when I first learned how to build a business. I mean, I had a few successes before that, but I was just flipping businesses. I was going in and buying them for a million and selling them for three just by putting in processes and systems. But I didn't really feel figure out how to build a real business that didn't rely on me until, you know, I met my business partner at the time.

This is Scott's dream. You just. The last sentence is Scott's dream.

It is badly.

Buy a business for a million, put in process, and sell it for three and be done.

Yes. I'm feeling very inadequate right now. That is literally. I literally should be doing that.

I, I. The funny thing is that I. We say this all the time is that I'll come up with some idea. And because I don't like to do certain things, Scott has a bigger vision and can take that idea and exit by 10. And it sounds like your Scott's version of my Scott, where you take that idea and you 10x Scott's vision of what he's trying to do. So I assure you, you should charge Scott a lot of money on the next phone call because it's going to ask you how to do it. So you just got a client, Casey.

Yeah, so.

So I want to go back to the 70, 30 thing though, right?

When you do this and do you in the beginning, do you don't mind doing the 30% of the stuff you hate? Right? Like, do you, because you know that you're grinding and you maybe you're passionate because it's got new car smell. And then after two or three years, that's when you wreck. Like, is that what it's like for you? I don't know that it is. I'm just asking the question.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, when you jump in, first you gotta realize what needs to be done, right? So until you know what needs to be done, it's like you gotta do whatever it takes to get the job done. But when you go into a business or you're in a business, it's really defining, all right, where do we want to go as a company and then what are the things that need to be done to make that happen? And what I find is the majority of people and the majority of businesses, they do Pareto's principle, right? 20% of the stuff they do produces 80% of the result. If you guys are familiar with that, right? So it's like if you have a 10 hour workday, only two of those hours are the stuff that really produces 80% of the fruit or 80% of the results. So what I had to do is figure out, all right, what are all the things that actually need to be done in this business and then start realizing, all right, I'm good at this, I'm not good at this. Because if you spend your time doing things you're not good at, like, you're not going to make it because you're spending time doing things that you're not good at, like whatever it is that's being done, it's not going to be good enough to become a successful business. So the first thing you got to do is delegate the things and find other team members that can do the things that you're not good at. The second thing, right, Is figuring out the things that you're good at, but you don't want to do. And early on in a business, you just got to do those things. If you're good at it, but you don't want to do it early on, you just got to do it and then get it to a point where, you know, you can bring in somebody else. And the way that I look at it is if I can hire somebody else to do that job, how much time is that going to save me? And then can I go use that time to go and do other things that are going to pay for that person's time. So if I'm running finances for my business or whatever it looks like, and I can hire a CFO, and that CFO is going to save me 10 hours a week, and that's going to cost me $10,000 a month. Okay, so what is that? 40 hours a week? A month? I get back for $10,000.

What is that?

$40 an hour, I think, I hope. Right. That's why I would hire a CFO to figure out if I. If I know my numbers, but I know I can generate a whole lot more than 40 bucks an hour with my time. And I think that's what people get stuck on. It's like, hey, I don't want to hire people or I don't want to delegate. And it's like you're costing yourself. So I think that's it. First, figure out what you're not good at. Hire other people. Do the things that you have to do just to survive. But then slowly but surely hire those things out. If it frees you up more time to go do what you do best. Great.

So I'm going to two things. As Scott, he just defined my economic impact definition from selling. So clearly he's a fan of me.

Yeah, he's a student of your student.

Right. The other thing is I'm pulling out the calculator and an abacus because if the math is right And Scott works two hours a day, which is, you know, 120 minutes, only 24 minutes. That 20% produces the 80% of his revenue. Right. Is that right? There you go, doing the math. Right. Your two hour workday.

I feel attacked.

You are. For some reason, I'm on fire this morning.

I feel attacked.

How did you figure out which million dollar business to buy that you could flip to a three million dollar business?

Gosh. So what did I do? The first thing I did was I bought a self storage facility. Oh my God.

I drive by those all the time and I think to myself, this has got to be a money maker.

Yeah.

If you do it right, right. If you buy it right. If you manage it right. All of that. Because you got to make sure you get in at the right price. But then you got to figure out how, how are you going to make it worth more? So for me, it's all about the numbers. And then I started, you know, the baseball and softball academies I had. Right. It's like, all right, well if they're doing this and I can do this, this this and this to increase the top line or decrease the bottom line. And it's valued at a certain multiple of net profit, right? Total revenue minus total expenses. And that's typically how a business is worth. And I know I can grow the revenue by 2x or 3x, then that's how I know I can double it. And for me it's not trying to recreate the wheel, it's just, all right, is the market gonna support this type of business?

Right?

Like if I'm gonna buy a self storage facility and it's 50% occupied, I gotta know that the market can be 90%. And I realized the first one I bought, Everybody else was 90 and this guy was 50. Well, why they don't answer their phone, they don't know how to sell, they don't know how to build the relationships, they don't have some of the amenities. And with the baseball academy that I built or bought, the gentleman that I bought it from, they didn't know how to answer the phone, they didn't know how to sell, they didn't know how to follow up, they didn't know how to give great customer service, they didn't know how to get reviews, they didn't know how to get their great customers sending more people. So for me it's how do you grow revenue? And then if you grow revenue, everything else will figure itself out. If you know how to do that, know how to sell, right? You guys are in that world. If you know how to sell, everything else will figure itself out. You just got to make sure you deliver.

You think people like us have an easier time operating and making revenue, making money in those kind of worlds versus this software B2B world that we've been in for so long.

What do you mean by that?

How do I phrase this? The right way. Some people grind away for decades in software and B2B and we're hoping for.

Six figure salaries initially. And then where can I make a million bucks either as an individual contributor or as a C level executive and maybe one day I get this unicorn pop from an exit, right? That's one path. A different path would be maybe I cut my teeth on software sales and doing all this stuff. And you know what? I could go buy and flip storage facilities, I can go buy and flip baseball academies and things like that. Like maybe is that a faster way to reach some pinnacle of success if I've got the foundational stuff of like difficult software selling in a difficult market, or is it totally different and the skill sets don't Necessarily transfer and you're not as likely to be successful. That's what I'm trying to dig in.

I mean, I think growing revenue is growing revenue no matter what you're doing. So there's a lot of businesses out there that are managed by mom and pops and pest control companies. A lot of those people don't have.

Like, the sales acumen or chops that maybe were learned in a software selling environment is what I'm kind of trying to drive at.

Absolutely. So if you can take a sales mentality to a business that isn't sales and make sales better, like it's going to be better. Right. And there's all kinds of entrepreneurs and businesses out there that they don't know how to sell. And if you can buy a business or get into one and teach them how to sell, it's. It's absolutely. I mean, just by doing that, you should be able to double whatever you're doing in revenue.

So I think part of it is, and tell me if I'm wrong, either of you, is that.

Excuse me, someone can know how to sell and be good at it. They may have the risk aversion to do it on their own. Right. And they may create, you know, Scott, as we say, the excuse factory of, oh, I don't have the capital to do this. Well, there's lots of ways to find capital. Right. There's lots of ways to. And they won't even go research that part. Right. The imposter syndrome, whatever it is. So I think part of this is, as I hearing the conversation is, you know, how do we get out of our own way to go do this? Because there are a lot of successful salespeople who need that comfort. They need that stability. They. I think it's somewhat generational, too. It's harder for older generations to kind of think about this side hustle thing. Right. As opposed to the younger generation where it's normal and. Or they've been forced into it.

Yeah. I don't necessarily know the answer. The whole side hustle.

Are you here if you don't know the answer, like, I'm on fire. Sorry.

Well, I know I'm a consultant. I just ask all the questions. I don't tell anybody what to do because then if I do and they follow my advice and it was wrong, I can't get fired. Right. I just ask all the questions and let them come up with a solution. So that's. I am. That's half of what I do. Right. Because it's all mindset mentality. If you want to be great at something, it's all mindset, mentality.

That's it.

We can worry about how to sell and all this, but you got to believe it first. So I think getting to, like, this whole side hustle thing, like.

It'S just hard. It's a hobby, and hobbies cost you money, and they take time. So it's like if you're in something or you see a potential side hustle that could turn into something, and you have the means to just focus on that, like, do it, but you need a plan. I think a lot of people get into a side hustle, but they don't have a plan and they don't have a team, and they don't have the support to get there. But I also think it's like, people that are listening. It's like, what kind of life do you want to build? Can you build that life by just being a sales professional and just nailing it and doing that better? Can you figure out a way to not sell for eight hours a day, but sell for four hours a day but have a better pitch or know who your target market is and have a better sales process? Because, you know, Everybody has an 80, 20 principle. You know, 20% of the people that you're going after are the ones that you should be going after. Right? 20% of the contacts and the calls that you have are the ones that produce results. So I don't know the answer. Is there a better way to build what you ultimately want to do? I just like to put a goal on paper. Three years from today. I always ask everybody I meet with, like, three years from today, let's say we're hanging out, we're surfing, we're on the beach. We're. We're about to go out and paddle out and hit the waves. Like, what does success look like? What do you have to accomplish personally and professionally for you to be satisfied and happy with your progress? And when you answer that, then you can try to figure out, all right, what's the easiest way to get there? And is it to be in a business? Is it to own your own business? Is it to partner with somebody? So it's tough to think about, but I think it's drawing a line in the sand, figuring out where you want to go and then figuring out other people that have already done it, and then partnering up with them or asking them for help.

I think that's great. So we're going to see you on the sand in Costa Rica in November. You come into surf and sale how I interpreted that, hey, I'll, I'll run.

It by my wife. And if you guys have any sales tips on how to figure out a way to make that happen. We have, we have two kids under two and we have two more twins on the way in January. So I might need to hire like your best sales expert and consultant to help me with like the best sales pitch. But to answer your question, no, I will not be there.

Scott, your pitch man on that, that is, that is.

You got to explain to it be able to explain why it's a benefit to her, right? Because in a year she gets to go away or six months or you know, all that stuff.

So hey, I should not have said no. I, I'm hearing some things that I might be able to. I hate that word. No, I'm hearing some things I might be able to work in there. So I'll, I will get back of hope.

There's always.

I want to, I want to come back to you in a second. The question I'm going to ask is, okay, so you took the 50 bucks, you turn it into a few thousand and then you decided to go, I don't know, create a VC fund or build your next business. Right. When did you.

What was the first one you chose and what was the first mistake as you went big? So that's my question. What's the first mistake? You know, how did you go from 50 to few thousand to more and what was the first mistake? But first I got to jump in for a second and tell you about our good friend Mr. Mark Robert, who has actually been on the Surf and sales podcast. He has his own podcast on the HubSpot podcast network called the Science of Scaling where he. If you didn't know about Mr. Robert, if you're in SaaS sales, how could you not? He was the founding CRO at HubSpot, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and co founder of Stage 2 Capital. He brings in very successful sales leaders particularly intact to learn their secrets and strategies and tactics for company growth and hopefully help you avoid some mistakes those folks have made. If you don't know Mr. Robert, he's very fun and engaging and brings a very thoughtful mindset as he shares his knowledge and wisdom. So please check out Science of Scaling hosted by Marco Berge on the HubSpot podcast network. So Casey gave you 30 or 45 seconds to think about the answer. What's the answer?

So very first thing I did was I invested $9,000 into a six unit apartment complex. Six units, 9,000 doll, down payment, seller, finance the rest of it. And it was really easy. They were charging half the amount of market rent. And I realized if I could just charge market rent, fill the one vacancy which everybody else was full on the market, I would double or triple the value of the business. So that was the very first thing I did. And it wasn't that risky because I invested a little bit of money, but I just knew it would be very simple to solve that problem. And when I did, it would double or double or triple the value of the business. That was the very first thing I did.

How long did you flip it? How long till you flipped it?

I think it was a year and a half, two years. Ish. I just kept it for cash flow and, you know, it made, you know, a few thousand dollars a month. Right. But that's great when you only put $9,000 in. But then when I flipped it, I, I think we.

Doubled the value. I think we sold it for almost 200,000 and then took that and then started doing the exact same thing.

Yeah, that's, that's what our family does. So I'm interested to hear that. What's been your biggest swing and miss? Have you had any?

Yeah, Gosh. So one of the storage facilities I had, we had a 500 unit complex. And it was hard for me to give up control to a management company to run the day to day, believe it or not, although I didn't love it. Like, I'm like, I can do it.

A 10 out of 10.

Like there's nobody that can do it better than me. So that prevented me from going and finding more storage facilities to buy because I was stuck running the day to day. So although I could have hired somebody and they would have done it 8 out of 10 and I'm going to do it a 10 out of 10. It was hard for me. Like I can't hire them because they're going to do it 20% less good. Right. Than I would. That's not acceptable because you got to be perfect. And that prevented me from going and finding other underperforming businesses to turn around and flip. Where if I were to do it again, I would have hired better people in all of my businesses. I would have paid them more, I would incentivize them and tied them into the overall success of the business. And I would have done anything I could have to buy my time back because that's it. Hire people to buy your time back. And I failed to do that early on. And you know, it cost me Some opportunity.

That's great. I appreciate it. So how long did it take you to realize that was the challenge?

I mean, I'm still realizing that, right. Because like every day I'm like, why am I doing this? Why can't I hire somebody else? So it's hard because I'm a perfectionist. It's hard to give up control. Man, how long did that. I mean, it took years. Years.

I would. Five, seven years of like, man, what if I just would have brought somebody else in that was better suited for this job? That would have freed my time up. So it took. It took years.

So. And what did. So just even doing the math, right. So if you realize that after year one. Right. Because year one, you might have to do it. Right. Like, you got to figure it out. You need to know what you're for. How many more. How much do you think that cost you in investing in other properties or other storage facilities?

Oh, millions of dollars. That one facility that I bought, I think I paid just under $1 million for it. I sold it a couple of years later for two and a half. Well, I was running that business for a year and a half, two years. All I would have had to do is go and find another million dollar storage facility that was poorly managed, hire a management company. And even if they only grew it 50%. Right. I bought it for a million. It's 1.5 versus a million versus 2.1. But I'm not running it. I probably could have found 3, 4, 5 more of those kind of things.

Yeah. And that, that's the part. So, last question. Then we'll turn it over to you to ask us the question.

What are you doing to yourself? Because you say you still struggle with it. I think we all do.

What are you doing to yourself to slap yourself in the face? To go, casey, you're doing it again. It's time. Go find somebody else. Or is that what your wife does? She gets to slap you in the face?

Yeah, she helps.

She's.

She's a tough critic, which is good. I have a coach that I meet with every two weeks, and she knows me really well, and I'm just really honest with her. And I literally created a checklist and a spreadsheet of, like, success principles that I need to have. And, and we just go over it every couple of weeks. It's like, am I doing these things? Am I not doing these things?

You know, Got one more question because you just nailed like this is promised as the last question. You have a list of success principles. What are they? What are. Because I think people would love to be like, oh, maybe I need those.

One is stay in my ideal week. So I have a week built out Monday through Friday where I have blocks of time that I should be doing certain things throughout the week, and I got to make sure I do it. So, for instance, how the heck did.

We get into that block?

Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't even know what day it is right now.

We invaded his ideal week, Richard.

So I. I have three hour blocks. If I'm gonna be on a podcast or I have a. I have a podcast myself. Right? Like, these are the times I think I do Wednesdays and Fridays or when I'm on podcasts, and if it can't be done there, I could make an exception.

I.

Right. But it's ideally what I'm going for, which is I need certain amount of time working with clients. I need a certain amount of time working with potentially getting new clients. I need a certain amount of time networking with people, adding value to people. I got my workouts on there. I got when I'm eating on there. So one of my success principles is my ideal week, because I know if I can create that, everything else will work itself out. So that's like the leading indicator that if I do that, everything else will work itself out.

Man, that's good. Okay, so what. What are two or three more on your success checklist?

Gosh, How I communicate. I have a communications checklist. Am I being really good at asking questions and listening versus telling? I think the majority of people in my past, I'm just talking, talking, talking. I'm listening to respond rather than listening to just listen.

And the last one is have fun. My wife and I, we have, like, a family motto. Have a fun and simple life. Put family first and work as a team. So I always talk about that. Like, I'm always thinking about that. Am I simplifying my life? Are we having fun? Do we have anything fun planned? How are we working as a team? Right? If I'm gonna have a boys weekend, does that mean my wife's gonna have a girls weekend? Right? Like, that motto is something that I kind of keep. And if I can keep that at the top of my mind, life's too short. Have fun, right? Like, work together as a team, business, families, whatever. That's what I try to stick to.

Dude. Then you just sold her on going to surfing sales. This is part of our family motto of have fun, right?

I try. And then when's your trip? Right? Like, that's just the way I think.

Maybe, maybe it's. When are you going to do your. You're about to have another set of, you know, set of twins. When do you want to have that? Let's get that on the calendar. Oh, by the way, so you know.

That'S called a baby moon, Richard. That's what the kids call a baby moon these days.

Okay.

All right, well, she's got to come with me for the baby moons. I gotta go with her. So that's like.

You didn't do a baby moon. I did a baby moon.

There you go.

All right. So, Casey, that this has been fascinating, like, really cool. Like I've got so many like, tweets that I could pop out from this, all this knowledge. So thank you so much. Particularly, like the, the success, you know, the success checklist. What do you want to ask us? How can we be helpful to you?

What's your, I guess, what's your 2am Thoughts for business, right? Like, what are those things that keep you up at night? Is there anything that's like, you know, what if I could just solve this one problem for my business or the people I work with, like what, what would that be, you think?

Well, my, my 2:00am Thought is how do I get back to sleep?

But I'm not getting back to sleep because of those thoughts. So it's a fair question, Casey.

For me it is a little bit more of a long term strategy, right? I'm 53 years old. How do I keep doing things, helping people be relevant, continue to make money.

But maybe not have to work as many hours, right? I think that's my big strategy, which kind of goes back to that line in the sand. What's your three year plan to get out of this stuff, right? Which for our family, we have these investments very similar to you, plus the stock stuff that Scott was talking about. But, but I don't want to quit, right? I want to be a part of it still.

So I think that's one thing. And then I think the deep down psychological thing is like, oh, in seven years I'm going to be 60. Am I going to be too old for this startup game that I'm in, which I'm not. But I still think that's my imposter syndrome. I mean, I think as all of us turn a decade, right, we always sort of wonder what's that going to be like? So that's what keep. That's. That's the stuff if I'm thinking about it, aside from like day to day shit, like the stuff I got to get done. Those are the. Got it.

Well, I was just going to ask the question. I have no solutions.

So.

I think for me it's.

It's.

Where's. Where's my home run? I think I've, for me at least figured out.

Exactly the things that I'm good at, exactly the things that I like to do versus not like to do.

But I'm missing like a Grand Slam grand finale. And how do I get that? What does that look like? Because after that, I want to be done. I'm not somebody that wants to work forever. And if you. If I won the lottery today, I just quit everything.

And you wouldn't hear, but you'd still need. I know you, buddy.

Like, I'd find something to do. But that's. That's different to me.

That's what I mean. You'd want to stay engaged. I don't know that you.

I would.

I would probably try to go coach like high school soccer and win a couple championships and just be like, like completely obsessed with sport again, right? Or I buy a small team in some country like Wrexham style, right?

That's.

That's different. That doesn't even count.

That's just.

You just working even harder though, Scott. I know you.

You know what, Richard?

Yeah.

You're fucking up. My 2:00am dream is becoming a 2:00am nightmare, dude.

I know it.

Out of my dream, Richard. This is my dream. Right.

That'S what it is though, Casey. It's.

It's.

Where's the home run, right? It's.

It's.

Where's the, like, big seven figures, like pop? Like, I've sorted out how to make seven figures plus a year, but where is the like eight figure pop? And I don't know where that comes from without, like.

Doing, you know, building something new and building something like, big, which I don't know how much stomach I have for yet. So I'm stuck in that, like, sphere, that loop, if you will. Richard tells me I'm full of again and fucking.

No, I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you exactly what I think Casey may tell you and our friend Larry Long is you win as many championships with singles and doubles as you do Grand Slams. In fact, you probably win more championships that way. So you've got a lot of singles and doubles, and I know you. And I know you're. I know you'll hit this number. I know you'll get to that place. So I don't know. That's. That's my Suggestion.

Casey, what do you think?

I have nothing to add. I'm just asking the question. I think that's, I think that's great. I, I think knowing what is, is the start and then it's how. So once the what's written down, then it's all right, how do we get there? And I always like to find other people that have done it right and then figure out how do they do it and ask them, if you were me, what would you do? And you know, be careful who you ask that question to and be careful what they say. But it's, hey, I want to exit or I want this. What would you do? Any advice and kind of go from there?

Good question.

I don't think anybody's asked us that question before.

I was gonna say he flipped it on us. He flipped it. And you know, this is, we do stuff like this at surf and sales called the Crow's Nest where people come and, you know, we give advice and ask questions and you just sort of flipped it on us. So much appreciated for that.

Where can everybody find you? Casey, what's the best way to reach you?

Yeah, caseycovell.com so I'm there. Caseycovell.com I got a podcast called the Dugout CEO as well. So it's that are, you know, sports minded baseball people. But we're talking about life leadership, right? Being a CEO, being a leader, being a husband, being a father. I mean it's, it's how to become an MVP at life. So we talk very little about baseball, but it's former players, coaches, entrepreneurs that play baseball that are baseball fans. And gosh, we've had everybody on there from major league all stars to pastors, to high school coaches, right. To current players.

Didn't Larry get on there? Did Larry get on?

Larry Long got on there. So we're gonna.

The bar is real low for baseball players.

Yeah, he just, well, he just paid a lot of money, so typically $10,000, you know, paid in advance, all that kind of stuff.

But no, Larry is full pay to play.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's it. Caseycoville.com I got a newsletter is all about focus, helping people focus on taking that vision and making it a reality. So that's kind of it. Cool.

We appreciate you spending time with us today, Casey. Wish you the best of luck and we will see everybody next time on the Surf n Sails podcast.

Thank you.

Bet. Thanks, guys.