Business Acquisitions, Family Time & Topps Baseball Cards | Behind The Mike #MUIYB Podcast

There's other extraordinary ones. Like, I think Curb Your Enthusiasm is probably one of the best.

I love it, right?

But I— it just didn't achieve Seinfeld level because the exposure wasn't there, the platform wasn't there. So I think it's once a decade that you have this show that just hits at a mass level.

You know, I think for Curb Your Enthusiasm, it's too two things. They're on HBO, they're not on like a mainstream. And then also, um, they do things that you can't do on regular TV. That's why they're on HBO. Like, they say things that would get them in trouble. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why you went that route. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was actually watching— I was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. Um, there's some episodes on there that just—

have you seen— I know we've discussed it before, but Arrested Development?

Oh yeah, I love Arrested So the best show, I think, of all time—

not of all time, an extraordinary show perhaps, though I think is one of the funny shows— is Nathan for You. Have you seen that one yet?

That's the one where, um, he goes and helps businesses. But yeah, yeah, I have seen that. I haven't like watched a lot, but yeah, I've seen—

I got addicted to— I watched every episode, man. It— to me, it's the best. It's such a dry humor. It's so funny. Um, But the crazy thing is the ideas he comes up with, or his production team, they legitimately work. So he walks the— they're absurd, but also just on the border of legitimacy. So the business owners who don't know they're being scammed say, okay, I'll try it. So it's kind of funny.

That is funny. Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Do you want to do a little intro here and then we'll get—

Yeah. I mean, we're already in the flow, bro.

I know.

So you, my friends, uh, there was a little sneak peek even before the intro. You're listening to Mike Up in Your Business. This is me and Jay Cablone behind the scenes. We, uh, yeah, we talk about just stuff that's going on internally, our own thoughts, um, and hopefully you'll gain some insights into your own business and also just have an interesting behind-the-scenes conversation. I do ask a favor. Um, we want to get your questions, so email me. It's askmike@mikemichalowicz.com. And we would be honored if you rate and review the show. Just go to rateourpodcast— yeah, we own that domain— rateourpodcast.com.

That is pretty awesome that we got that, uh, that domain.

So dude, uh, 80 degrees today, man.

I know, it's, it's absolutely insane. Uh, like I said, I came into my office here and I opened the door and it was just like I got punched in the face by humidity, so I had to put the air conditioning on for the first time.

It's, uh, it's April 28th, 65 at least up here right as of right now, and it's 10 o'clock in the morning, but by this afternoon 80. That's why I'm wearing a t-shirt today.

Yeah, looking good, like, like in the—

oh dude, check this out. So, um, it says Hartman's, and on the back here, um, that— oh yeah, that is— that's from Long Beach Island. So ever since I was a baby, I presume my parents took me, um, ever since I was a baby, but ever since I can cognitively remember from 5 years old on, that was the annual summer trip. We'd go for 1 week to Lomi Chan, sometimes 2 weeks. My parents would rent a house, and then we continued— my wife and I continued the transition, the tradition, once my parents got too elderly to go anymore. I take it we maintained tradition and they were still going. They were our guests. And then now my parents are too old to travel. They're still alive, but too old. So, uh, we've continued to go and, uh, next year will be my 50th consecutive year of going.

Um, that's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. So this thing Hartman's used to be this little amusement park on the island. And it's funny, you know, I grew up in the '70s. I remember little parts of it, dude. There was some stuff there that like, it's absurdly dangerous. Like there was this trampoline park and it was a concrete sidewalks everywhere. So it was big concrete and in the middle, uh, of each section was a small square where there's a trampoline on springs. So it's all surrounded by concrete and you're bouncing on trampoline. There's these little pads that were like made of leather. So it really wasn't a pad that was out maybe about 6 inches from the trampoline. So you just stumble a little bit. But dude, every day someone's leaving bloody torn up.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

I know you'll never see that again.

No. Have, have you ever seen, There's a documentary called Traction Park. You know Action Park, right?

Yeah.

I have. So Action Park was an amusement park in New Jersey, and the founder of it wanted to make a park that was so extreme, and this was in the '80s, '90s, so extreme that you felt the adrenaline rushes. So they had these different rides and so forth. So there's a video or documentary about it called Traction Park.

Park. Oh wait, I think I did hear about this, where there was so many accidents, uh, people got hurt so much they had to close down.

You closed the park? Yeah, yeah. I don't know, and I don't— yeah, I don't know how they survived this. So a couple things that— 3 things. One is he, he would just make rides. He's like, I want a tube, a water slide where you go down in a loop-de-loops. He just built it without any testing, and the first thing to test was they sent a mannequin down. It flipped, it came out destroyed. Like, it came out in pieces. They modify more. Then the guy sends his own son down and he's like, I'll give you $10, go down. Kid comes out, back injury. He goes, the torque is so hard and so rough, it was like dangerous. Then, um, so that's thing one. Thing two, my wife Krista, she went there with her boyfriend, uh, when she was a teenager. He— they did a thing called a Tarzan swing. You, you swing and you jump into this big pool pool. He ripped his shoulder out when he landed. His shoulder popped out in the water. It was such a big severe drop, couldn't move his arm. They talked about in the documentary, oh yeah, there's one kid went to the Tarzan pool and his shoulder ripped out. That was him. And then there's video, like they have like historical video. Krista is in one of the videos.

Like, get out!

I swear to God, we, we were watching it and we're like Oh my God, that was Krista! And so the kids and we were all watching, we rewound it, and she's like, oh my gosh, that's me.

So can you find the timestamp on that? And I want to, I want to put it, I want to, I want to look at it.

Yeah, yeah, I actually, um, I will find it for you. I took a picture of the screen, um, and yeah, she'll hate you for it because her hair was like, you know, it was the style at the time. So picture of Krista at Action Park, Attraction Park.

Oh, that's so funny.

Where was your go-to place? Was it Great Adventure?

So sadly, my family didn't— we didn't really go on a lot of vacations. I wish, I wish we did. Yeah, I wish, I wish that I was like lucky enough to be able to do something with them like every year.

Yeah.

I'm getting choked up. I just have allergies.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

No, no, no. There was a handful of vacations that we went on that I can remember. One distinctly was we went to Niagara Falls around for my birthday.

That's cool.

Yeah. And we ate at the Skylon Tower, I think it's called, where it— the restaurant rotates 360 degrees while you're eating. That's cool. That was cool. That was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It was weird in my family because my brother is 7 years my senior. So when I was, you know, just getting into the age where we could go on vacations and do stuff, like, he was like not wanting to hang out with the family and he was just— Yeah, yeah, yeah. His own thing. Um, and then my dad just, for some reason, he just never liked to travel, which is weird because my mom like loved to travel. Like, we went out to Utah to visit my aunt. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, so there was no real like go-to place, just like a handful of, uh, of things that I remember.

Yeah, I, I believe, uh, tradition is, is actually a really powerful tool, and that's what we're trying to do with our own kids is set up an established thing. It was funny, like Krista said, you know, one day if we could afford a beach house, that would be a dream. And this is like 2, 3 years ago. We actually, we have an account we're intentionally saving for, but who knows? And then she went to our kids, she goes, if we buy a vacation house one day, where do you want it to be? They're like, it has to be Long Beach Island, which by the way is ridiculously expensive. And it's like, well, what about like Myrtle Beach or South Carolina or Georgia? Or, you know, there's always beautiful coastal lines where It's a lot more reasonable. And they're like, no, but it's tradition. That, that's when you start realizing, wow, that, that kind of anchors, at least from my perspective, kind of anchors, uh, your family into certain memories, experiences, and then they start replicating it. One additional tradition we have every time we go to Long Beach Island, there you go down what they call the Causeway and you go over this, it's like 2 or 3 bridges that, that hop little mini islands. Then you go onto the main island, Long Beach Island. Well, when you go over these bridges, what we used to do is right before we went on it, we started doing, I don't know why, but we would play a song by Jimmy Buffett called Volcano. That one. And we started it when our kids were young. We just, maybe it was on the radio at the time and just cranked it. There's no crossing the bridge without Volcano playing. Like you have to get Volcano playing. So much so that my son, I heard this from his friends.

He—

my son was with a couple of his college buddies and they were going to Long Beach Island. As they approached the bridge, like, oh, pull over, pull over. They pull over. He's like, we gotta find Volcano. He's like, we can't cross the bridge without Volcano playing.

And that—

that's legit choking up. I was like, yeah, that's a tradition that may stick, you know?

Yeah, it matters. I mean, definitely. And I think, um, I, you know, I think people are coming to realize how important having a familial unit Yeah. Interact with each other regularly makes a huge difference in people's lives. That's why I was always a big proponent when I started cooking of families sitting down together and having one meal together. Yes. There's actually a great reference to this in that show Ozark that I told you I watched.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's a family that they're laundering money together and they're involved with the Mexican cartel, right? But then there, there's this young girl, Jason Bateman, right? Yeah, it's Jason Bateman. And, uh, but the one thing that they do every morning is they have breakfast together. And, uh, there's this one girl who lives in the town who's like this, um, she literally lives in like a trailer and, you know, she comes from a bad background, all this stuff. And so she comes over and they ask her if she wants to have breakfast and she's like, how many days a week y'all do this? Like Is this normal? Like, you guys sit down like this all the time? And so I just thought it was like a great reference to not having that and then seeing a family that does that. And it's just like, whoa, this is a thing.

Yeah, it's a thing. I can't recall who I was talking to. Maybe it was a podcast interview, but the millennial experience and around tradition actually seems to have faded because We're all on our devices. We're all so quote unquote busy. There's always something to do. So there isn't this connectivity. And as a result, I was talking to this business owner. I said, yeah, when millennials come on board, it's a whole different experience. You got to give them family. They haven't experienced that. Give them tradition. And we do it this morning. We have a daily huddle except for Tuesdays, which is kind of weird. I'm going to try to overrule that while Kelsey's away. I'm gonna try to get Tuesdays going too. Like, why miss one day?

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, that tradition becomes something we anticipate. It's not like, you know, it's always like fun and amazing. I'm sure that family breakfast is like— isn't like every breakfast is amazing, but an amazing moment will happen if you have breakfast every day together. And so what this, uh, person was, was arguing is that businesses need to bring in that familiar experience tradition and also socialization skills. She goes, I can't remember her name, but she goes, uh, you wouldn't believe how many kids are afraid to pick up the phone and call for something because you order pizza, you see everything's on your device and, uh, you don't have to interface with people. There's no potential conflict. And, uh, you know, when you, when you're talking to someone, there's personalities, there's, there's, uh, emotion. Um, there's life moments that are happening. So you, Everything is always the same. And he said this is a real skill that a lot of these young folks don't have. We're not exposed to that.

So yeah, I feel like the greatest disservice that social media did for my generation is preventing awkward, uh, interactions and exchanges and, yeah, forcing you to talk to people face to face and be uncomfortable. Right. That's so important, is being, being uncomfortable in a situation and, and learning how to adapt to that and growing from that. Yes. And in your, your, your social toolbox. And no, but it's like now it's like, well, I don't want to go to that uncomfortable place because I don't have to, because I can just do this and completely avoid it. Yeah, I, I don't like that at all. I think it's, I think it's, it's causing a lot of problems in society that that we're going to have to deal with in the next—

Oh, there's going to be major consequences. Well, I believe depression is up, anxiety is up, like all these things. So yesterday I interviewed Leslie— oh my God, I can't remember her last name— M, I think it was Leslie M-E-H-M, the author of Swagger. And we were talking about the entrepreneurial journey specifically. And that entrepreneurs have— oh, I'm sorry, it wasn't, it wasn't Leslie said, it was Dr. Sabrina Starling who said this, that entrepreneurial depression compared to the general population is at a rate of 2 times higher. Anxiety is like 3 or 4 times higher. Like all these kind of disorders. And now we see a rise of entrepreneurship from the millennials because you can't get a job, you know, you can't get a traditional job. Uh, and so there's this increase in, um, in entrepreneurial startups. So now here's a field that people have a propensity to be, uh, experiencing anxiety and stuff with a community that doesn't know how to deal with that effectively. You know, that, that could be, that could be a real freaking problem.

Yeah. You know what's really interesting is, um, I mean, these last 2 years everything's become politicized. Like, everything is now ingrained with politics. It's like you can't even get away from it.

Yeah.

Um, But so when I looked at the analytics for, uh, for us and, and just trying to like see the data and, and where things are and kind of flush out, you know, game plans for things, the two biggest states that have grown our audience have been— we'll take a guess. I want to see if you can take a guess. The two biggest states—

two big states mean like actual US states?

Yeah, where people are, are listening to and engaging in content, our stuff, the most. Yeah.

So this was, yeah, this is my guess. So New Jersey, just because this is our locality, you know, and then I would say maybe California just because there's a lot of upheaval and shift there.

I don't know. It's actually almost the exact opposite. It's Florida and Texas.

Really?

Yeah. And the correlation is because they've opened up their states and their economies are growing the most. So I, at least I think that that's where—

so interesting, the exact opposite. And, um, I don't think there's been much consequence. Like, I don't think when Florida and Texas opened up the, uh, you know, no mask requirements, I don't know if the disease rate is any different than it was before.

Florida, or, uh, I, I don't know about Florida, um, but I know that Texas— Texas is down. Texas is actually down New Jersey is up and Texas is completely open.

And I wonder, I wonder, you know, when it comes to the masks and stuff, um, if people weren't wearing the masks in the first place, just because you changed the law doesn't mean people's behavior changes. So when you said you got to wear a mask in public, it was really being enforced. So has anything really changed? And maybe, maybe, and this is a generalization, I don't know, but maybe most people weren't wearing masks. Maybe the disease was more rampant, uh, in Texas in the beginning and they got through it, you know?

Yeah, well, what's amazing too is I think that the, the news likes to rag on DeSantis in Florida, but I think he's done— if you look at the data, he's done a phenomenal job with that state. I mean, they have the highest population of elderly in the entire country.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, you know, they're like, they're plugging along and they're doing great. I mean, their numbers looked really good for, for like a lot of the pandemic, uh, so it's just wild. I actually do, I do have a an article though to segue into a business question.

Yeah.

So I don't know if you heard this, uh, Topps, the baseball card company, yeah, is going public. Did you hear about it? No. Yeah. So my question to you is, and I'm going to relate this to business, did you, did you have any, uh, card collections when you were growing up? Did you? Yeah, you did?

Yeah. But you're gonna laugh at this. It wasn't sports cards. I collected Star Wars cards.

So I'll get out of here.

I swear to God, you know, the Darth Vader card, Luke Skywalker. But then there's all these kind of secondary and tertiary characters. I had a Grand Moff, the, like the evil leader, like all these different cards. And it wasn't to collect to trade. I thought it was cool. And it had their statistics on the back. It was just like a baseball card. I did some baseball cards too. I was into the Yankees. Uh, I went to like, I met Phil Rizzuto. That's like an old, old name.

Oh, Phil Rizzuto. That's awesome.

Yeah. The guy who's on that Meatloaf song, you know?

Um, yeah.

So, uh, my dad took us out to a game and, uh, it was something related to the work he was doing. So we were in a box seat and right next to us was Phil Rizzuto. Uh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So that was cool. Yeah. Did you collect cards?

Yeah, so I played baseball for a huge portion of my life and I collected tons of baseball cards. Funny thing is, out of nowhere, a few years ago, my mother just decides to go in the basement and just start throwing stuff out. And I come back one day to the house and I hadn't been to my parents' house in a while and I go, I'm like, hey, I'm going to go get some some of my collectible stuff in the basement. I go down there and half of them are gone. I'm like, Mom, uh, where are my baseball cards? She's like, oh, I, I cleaned up. I was like, does that mean that you threw them out? And I almost lost it because I know for a fact that there, that there were some in there that were worth a lot of money. Um, my comics were gone. She threw my comics out. Oh, and I hate to say this, I don't know if it's because she's, she's getting older. She threw out my magazine. Like, porn mags? Yeah, yeah.

Why'd you throw out my porn mags?

Come on, that's ridiculous.

Playboy 1984 edition.

I don't think that— no, there was, there was, there was Maxim. There was probably some Maxim mixed in there and then some Stuff magazine. Nobody remembers Stuff magazine. That was great. But, uh, but yeah, it's just like, oh, come on. I still have one, um, binder left of, uh, you have at your house now, I hope, that I have. Yeah, yeah, baseball cards. But I haven't gone through and valued them or anything, or— but I mean, these are like Topps cards from like the '80s and '90s, so, um, there might be a couple in there. I mean, I was a big fan of the Phillies growing up, obviously, so, um, I collected a lot of the, the Phillies guys, like Darren Dalton was probably—

yeah, yeah.

Favorite player, Lenny Dykstra.

That's— oh wow, classics. Yeah, I had Rigetti Spaghetti, uh, the pitcher from the, uh, Yankees. It's interesting, my mother, same thing, cleaning out the house. I mean, nothing. And she's just constantly trying to throw stuff out. And so you not even ask, like, stuff gets thrown out. So I was lucky. I have— I also collected comic books like you. I took those with me, uh, right during college, and I had them ever since. Um, yeah, but, uh, sure enough, same thing. She's clearing things out. I wonder if as you get older it's like a reverse nesting. It's just like, we got to clear this stuff out so there's no burden left behind or something. But yeah, but there was literally a— I was over there last weekend, there was a block of wood. My mom's like, oh, I'm gonna throw that out in their basement. I'm like, no, we use that to rest stuff on because sometimes their basement floods and stuff. Like, I, I just leave it. Please leave it in case I have to come here and rest on it. Yeah, that's exactly—

so this is the same. This, this was my point, was she went and threw a bunch of my stuff away. She didn't even inquire first, like, give me a heads up. Yeah, you're gonna say, hey, in a week I'm gonna throw this stuff away so I can come and like grab what I want.

Yeah. Number one.

Number two, I could understand it if it was like one room and all this stuff was like taking up the entire space, but the, the amount of physical space that my stuff that she threw out—

oh, negligible, right?

Negligible compared to all of the other crap that is there.

That's all your brothers. She loves your brother, not you.

They do love— I do actually love my brother. I hope she listens to this episode because it's true.

Pat, what are you doing?

I know, it's so annoying. Um, but yeah, so that really, that really frustrated me.

Um, what was the business, uh, angle for the Topps?

Oh yeah, so, so the business angle. So, so, um, just let me read the thing. So, uh, Topps is gonna go public via a, uh, SPAC merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition. The deal raised $571 million and tops for value the company at $1.3 billion. And the former Disney CEO and chairman Michael Eisner will serve as the chairman. Is there anything that Disney doesn't touch?

Right?

I know, I know. I mean, it's crazy. If you ever look at a, uh, at a flowchart of images and graphics of everything that Disney is about, I mean, they're, they got to be bigger than Amazon. It's insane. It's crazy. Maybe. But anyway, So the business question is, um, so this is their exit strategy, right? Go public, sort of an exit strategy. At what point in your business or starting your business should you have an exit strategy? Should you know from day one, have an idea?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Do you want to go in, or is it just one of those things, hey, I'm going to start this and then I'll muddle my way through and figure it out as we go along?

So from my experience, there needs to be intention throughout, um, because the way you position the business is different. There's two scenarios, two typical scenarios. One is a full exit, meaning that the owner of the business at a certain point completes their contribution to the business, they're gone, and they've been rewarded monetarily. The other one is, is a comfort play. It's just like, this business makes me comfortable, um, I'm just gonna keep it going until the moment I can't work anymore, and then the business just disappears. It's kind of the two things, and there's all these versions and hybrids and stuff in between. I used to think, and I hear it reported often, that you start a business, you better be planning the exit from day one, position the business so that an acquirer wants it. And you can structure a business that an acquirer wants it where you show historically increasing profitability, you have systems, You have intellectual property that's protected. Then they have these actual assets that when they acquire, they, they have those protections. You have long-term contracts with your customers. So when this buyer comes in, those customers come across, like that's how you can position it. But a, a comfort play, just, you know, I just wanna be happy. Maybe a lot of the effort you just don't even wanna make because that makes you this uncomfortable making the effort. So you just, you know, play it out. I think. Either way that you start, you should reevaluate it every year. And I do it every December, toward the end of December. I start my 4-week vacation on December 7th, goes till November 7th plus. And during that second week in December, I start going through what serves me, what do I want in regards to the ownership of the business? Um, and, and it hasn't changed, but maybe one day it will. And the day it changes, that's when I got to come to you guys too and say, listen, here's my plan, I think I'm done, or whatever. But, uh, every year I sit here and say, I just love— we're in a lifestyle business. Like, I love what we do. Um, I want you and our colleagues to be wildly successful, have no reason ever to leave here. And that motivates me. We got to grow this company. We're just not big enough to, to satisfy all those visions and dreams we have for ourselves yet. And like, that's my driving motivator. Um, the flip side is we're not really acquirable. Like, who wants the Mike Michalowicz brand Obsidian? Like, it, it, you know, there's an author guy, but who wants that? So there is no plan there. One thing that's interesting though is, um, I think you're wrong on that.

I think you're wrong.

Yeah, you're right.

What's— well, I was going to say the derivatives. So I mean, oh yeah, the derivatives.

That's true, that's true. And there's been some notable, um, authorities that have just kind of inquired about what we're doing and maybe we can partner up and stuff like that in a more formal way. Um, but it just doesn't— it just doesn't appeal to me. Um, but you know, one thing is interesting about Kelsey is she's positioning us that it's not dependent on me, just for that inevitable situation. There's gonna be a day that I'm not here, and it's inevitable. So she's planning for that. And there's a— you listen, there's a day that none of us will be here, but can the business continue on and continue to serve? So she's actively looking at that. And I don't think there's ever an intention to sell, but could present itself. But there is an intentionality about continuance beyond the lifestyle owner guy who started it, you know.

Do you think it's more common when people are having their businesses acquired nowadays to basically sit as a consultant or a board member and just keep a piece of equity? Is that a reasonable request anymore, or is it just like they want you out?

Yeah. No, I don't think they just want you out. I think in service-based businesses in particular, the business owner may wield influence with key customers and key vendors and employees themselves. Like, imagine, like, say our business got sold and they say, you know, Mike, you're gone. Kelsey, you're gone. Like, we don't need leadership. We got this. Now, you, Jeremy, you'd have a new boss and, you know, all this new stuff that could throw turmoil. Like, who's this jerk? I don't— I don't want this person. I like working with Kelsey. So they often retain, they call it key, uh, key person. They even get what's called key person insurance, key persons to stay for a certain period of time to support the transition, to make it comfortable. Um, but interestingly, a very close friend of mine just sold his company and he structured it just the way that you're talking about. He made a substantial amount of income from the sale, but he still owns 10 or 15%, and his real play is that 10 or 15%, this company is doing a roll-up that acquired his. They're acquiring very like companies, and they said within their intentions, within 5 years, this whole rolled-up package is going to be put to the market and sell for a massive premium. That's what these guys do. They're a private equity group. They know how to do roll-ups and, and sell a business. And, uh, he made a lot of money just selling his business, but he retained 10%. He's anticipating he can make 5 to 10 times that amount. So he's very motivated to help them now. He's part, he's on the train. He's like, how do we acquire more companies? He actually called me and said, do you know anyone in this space? Which I ironically did. He goes, can you make some introductions? Which I did. About a week later, this is a month or two ago. He's like, hey, can I come over to your house? I thought there was actually a problem because we're very close friends. He's like, I'll be there at 5 o'clock. I'm like, okay. Comes with a really expensive bottle of wine. It was Caymus Select. It's like, you know, hundreds of dollars. He goes, dude, thanks for the introduction, it was key. Wow. So he's on the train. He's like, we gotta, uh, you know, build this up. So, so it is kind of not maybe common, but it is a strategy that still exists.

Yeah, I feel like that, that seems like a very— if you can, if you can negotiate that, that seems like a win-win because, yeah, you're getting maybe a smaller piece of a bigger pie, but you're re— you're retaining that. So you're always having that passive income even when you move on to your next thing.

Yeah, yeah, totally. It's funny, I was like looking through investment strategies, um, and you know, there's tons of ways you can generate income out there, but in many cases you have to start with money to make the money. If you want to buy real estate, you have to find that money somehow, or invest in the stock market. Owning your own business, hands down, I cannot find a better return on any business. This being said, many people aren't suited to do it. It's not that most businesses fail because the business is not an appropriate business. I think most businesses fail because the person running the business really isn't meant for that line of work. It requires I don't know, it just requires a certain kind of makeup that I don't think is suitable for most people. I don't think most people should be entrepreneurs, but if it's how you're wired, I can't find a way to make a greater return than through just starting your own business.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that there was a— it wasn't a quote, it was like, I don't know what you would call it. There's like a little Like, what are they called?

Vignette?

Like a quip. Yeah, yeah. And it said that— and it made me think of entrepreneurs— it said, uh, when a bird, uh, lands on a branch, the faith doesn't rely in the branch holding up the bird, it relies in the wings of the bird.

Yeah, yeah.

Bird relies on its own. It trusts itself that, you know, it doesn't matter what happens to the branch because it knows that it can fly.

Yeah, dude, that's awesome. I've actually heard a variant of that. I haven't heard that one specifically. And there's such truth to that. They say, don't bet on the horse, bet on the jockey. Similar idea. There was, so I still can't believe you haven't been to my house yet. I commit to, yeah, you got all this cool shit over there. I know, I know, I know. And yeah, I went out with one of my longtime friends for breakfast yesterday and another buddy and the three of us are hanging out. And both these guys, uh, are like, they're in kind of like your mom stage. Like they're just trying to get rid of shit. And they both look at me and go, but Mike, you're just accumulating shit. You get a shed, you get all this. I'm just collecting toys right now cuz I didn't have them earlier. And I'm like, it's toy time. Um, and I hope to transition to other folks, but I'm outside and with, uh, our dog and all of a sudden he kind of perks up like, what's going on? And The biggest bird I saw comes kind of swooping by and lands on a branch, and the branch is like bowing. It was a turkey. And you know, domestic turkeys can't fly, but wild turkeys can, and they are big. That's a big animal. And so this is— and you can hear as it was taking off, those wings flapping. So it's turkey season.

People, people don't think that turkeys fly well. Turkeys fly amazingly well.

Oh yeah, and I presume they can go far distances. I mean, the thing flew in right up laying on this tree, hanging out. And they're big animals. I would say I think it was weighs 20 or 30 pounds, maybe a little excessive.

And it's, it's really hard to, um, to, to hunt turkey because their, their, their, their eyesight, like, they—

oh, very good.

Yeah, yeah, everything that's going— yeah. Uh, but yeah, they fly away. They're— I mean, their wingspan's pretty, pretty large.

Yeah, beautiful animals. I love the colors on them. So we have like a whole herd— I don't know what you call them— gaggle, whatever a herd of turkeys are. Yeah, I don't know whoever thought of that. Like, oh, every species is going to have their own term for a herd or group. Oh, it's a murder of crows. Oh, it's a gaggle of whatever you make a gaggle of.

That had to come from somewhere though, the murder of crows, because there has to be a reason why crows historically are seen as like an omen or evil. Or, you know, I think that that had to come from from somewhere. I, I want to go, you know, you—

I'll challenge you to look that one up. I'll tell you, here's another trivial fact. You ever hear of salting the jar? Like, uh, or salting the audience? You ever hear that term?

No.

Okay, so you can salt a jar, meaning like, say, say there's a tip jar where you work and it has nothing in it. You put a few dollars in it, you're— of your own money to salt it. Basically what you're doing is you're staging it so that when other people see there's tips in there, they'll start replicating that behavior. But the word salt, I— this is what was interesting. I heard this morning salt used to be a currency. Like, people used to use salt to represent dollars today, or, or gold coins of prior times. Salt was a currency, and that's where— and the term has lingered. So salt in the jar is basically putting money in the jar.

So that's cool. I like that. Yeah, yeah, I knew that salt used to be currency. I mean, Salt's currency now. Like, if I get a good salt, I'm super excited.

It's not like you can go to the supermarket and say, hey, I got 10 pounds of salt, can I get some food here? That's how it was used.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know.

I mean, now it's a pro— it's a product and it has value, but it wasn't used as the standard monetary exchange. But there was a time it was.

I, I almost— this sounds ridiculous— I kind of wish that there was a place where you could go and barter like that. Like, you're like, all right, I got 2 chickens. What can I get for 2 chickens? Yeah. The experience, like, wouldn't it be wild?

A barter center. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, all right, here, give me the 2 chickens and here, here's a set of headphones. Here's an iPod.

Yeah. It's interesting. I was, um, that's what I was listening to today. I'm listening to an audiobook about Bitcoin, the rise of Bitcoin. And, uh, they were talking about different monetary instruments. And they talk about, they start off by talking about barter. The interesting point they make is just that things are perishable and quantities don't match up. So his argument was, you want to buy a house and you make it, you have apples. Well, how many apples is it going to take to buy the house? And who would want the 10 million apples? Plus the apples will rot by the time you've accumulated enough to buy the house. So there's, there's these, there's these weaknesses. Bartering works in very small communities. Where, uh, the exchange is very similar. So perishable item for perishable item, they're both ripe at the same time. You do the exchange, it works. But once there's kind of these items that have longevity and ones that don't, it becomes harder. And then once the, the difference of value, million apples for one house, is so offset, it breaks down. So yeah, bartering is, is tough. You know, we started it here at the office. We're gonna do a little, uh, vegetable fruit exchange. You see Erin kind of up the ante today?

No, I didn't see that.

Oh, she sent a text out. She's like, look at all the seedlings I got going.

I'm like, damn, that's cool. That's cool. We're going. Yeah, hopefully this year, um, I'll be able to get, uh, some stuff planted. My parents have a ton of land. I don't, I don't think that they're gonna do, uh, any type of garden because they're— my, my father's not in the shape to do it, but I think that mom's just tired of it.

Yeah. So if I have that available, um, oh my God, how much land do they have?

Uh, I think it's like 17 acres or something.

That's massive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but it's, I mean, a lot of it's like, uh, uh, protected land, uh, and then, uh, you know, Christmas trees are part of it. So, but there's one huge part of the field that they have designated for, uh, for growing stuff.

Oh dude, plant some seeds.

I'll do some corn and—

oh, you had that much space to grow corn?

Yeah, yeah.

I tried to grow corn in our little garden, which was an 8-foot by 5-foot area. I grew 2 stalks. Nothing. With corn, you— because they cross-pollinate, you need to grow a lot of corn to grow corn, you know. I didn't—

yeah, you know, this, this reminded me of something funny. Before Kelsey went on vacation, she was telling me she has a problem with bears coming around and like getting in her trash cans. And I'm like, how come you never mentioned this before? Well, so a solution that my father came up with, and I thought this was genius, and I gotta, I gotta get the material set for. So we had this, we had, uh, this garden, and we would be eating dinner and we'd be looking out, and either the deer would be coming out and munching on stuff, or like rabbits would come out and start ripping apart the garden. And my dad didn't want to put any, you know, anything to kill them down. So he's like, all right, I gotta figure out something here. So So he rigged an electric fence out of a car battery and he upped the amperage. I don't know how he did it. I gotta ask him how he did it. And so we're sitting there and we're eating dinner one night and we're watching and this rabbit comes up and he was like so excited. He goes, look, look, look, watch. And we're watching and the rabbit comes up and it hits the wire. And as soon as it hit the wire, it jumped like 7 feet straight in the air, like a cartoon. And like it was just trying to run in the air, you know, it hit the ground. Like a bolt of lightning, gone. And I just thought that was genius. I was like, oh my God, that's great, an electric fence for rabbits.

Cool. And it never came back?

No, they would still come back, but then they would just get shocked and then they would run off again. Um, but the deer were smarter because the wire was set kind of low. So his thought was, when they go to walk, they'll hit their, their leg on it. And yeah, they would just see it and then just jump right over it and go to town on everything.

Genius animals.

Yeah, it's funny.

Yeah, we gotta start wrapping things up. Did we cover everything?

Yeah, we got— I think we did, dude.

I wrote down a list. I'm starting to do this now. So let me tell you what we, we talked about. Today's episode started off with TV shows, then we talked about Long Beach Island, uh, and having meals together, uh, we talked about Ozark, the TV show, we talked about, uh, businesses becoming the new family, particularly for millennials. We talked about the heightened anxiety and stuff that people are experiencing. That Texas and Florida are, are kick-ass fans. Thank you, Texas and Florida. That Topps, uh, has gone public, or is going public, which talked about comics and how your mom threw out comics, uh, and your trading cards. Um, and is this like an old person thing? Because our— my mother is doing the exact same thing, which then went into acquisitions. Uh, do people you know, sell their business and just leave right away, or they have a lifestyle business, how they structure it. We talked about the roll-ups. My friend who, um, is in a roll-up right now and maybe will have a bigger exit on the smaller slice of pie. Then started talking about birds. That's when the vultures, uh, the vultures, the turkeys came in. And we talked about crows, herds. Are they called murders, and why are they called murders? And Jeremy's gonna look that up.

And we check that out.

We wrapped up on gardening and rabbit electrocution.

Electrocution.

Yeah. That's a good episode, man.

Yeah. I know. I know. That's good.

So I wanna tell you, our listening friends, we hope you enjoy this. This is just, as you can tell, me and Jay Shlone just bullshitting. But, you know, from a business perspective, at least elements are, and just talking about life itself. Perhaps that's what we need to talk about more, actually, for all of us. So thanks for listening in to Mic Up in Your Business. I ask that you simply rate our podcast by going to rateourpodcast.com. Scored that domain. Go there, rate our podcast, and please subscribe if you want to see on future episodes. Thanks for joining us today.