Breaking Stereotypes at High Speeds: Top Entrepreneur & Speed Record Holder Rebecca Berneck

Living a Life in Full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode of Living a Life in Full is brought to you by ATI Physical Therapy. If you need physical therapy, choose ati. ATI offers exceptional care, trusted expertise and remarkable outcomes customized to your needs. ATI has over 800 clinics coast to coast in 25 states. We want to start feeling better fast. ATI can help address chronic pain or recovery from an injury or surgery expertly, quickly and conveniently. ATI's first program uses a performance based methodology to safely return injured workers to their workplace. FIRST is designed to increase strength, endurance and cardiovascular functioning. ATI's sports medicine provides athletic training services to help athletes get back in the game. ATI has hundreds of professional collegiate, high school, middle school and club relationships nationwide. ATI also offers a variety of specialty services including home health, hand therapy and women's health. To Learn more about ATI's advances in evidence based practice, clinical outcomes and their innovative new smartphone app, please visit atipt. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. Today's guest is a dear friend, Rebecca Bernick. Rebecca is the founder and big Head of Office Heads Incorporated, a company that helps small businesses grow using financial management and analysis. You may have heard that Office Heads is one of Entrepreneur magazine's 2018 Top Small Companies that have mastered the art and science of growing a business and were chosen for their impact, innovation, growth, leadership and business valuation. But wait, there's more. Hub Doc named Office Heads one of North America's top 50 cloud accountants of 2018 by their leveraging cloud technology to empower clients to reach their financial goals. She also serves as a mentor at 1871, a Chicago based organization that falls fosters technological growth and entrepreneurship, and she's past President of the Board of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce. Early in her career, she was a Principal at Apogee Strategies, business Manager at RNW Consulting, and an assistant at Sibson Consulting. While Rebecca is highly skilled in entrepreneurship, business coaching, finance and process design, she's also raced vintage motorcycles, holds several land speed records and had just raced at Bonneville on the famous Salt Flats. Welcome to the show, Rebecca.

It's great to be here, Chris. Thanks.

You bet. I'm very excited to have you here. You can't see this in the podcast, but we've got leathers and we've got helmets. So check those things out in LinkedIn and in some of the other spots where we'll have some images. There's really a lot to cover. You've got you very much live your life in full. But I kind of want to start to have the audience learn a little bit more about you from what I know of the research and stalking that I've done. You grew up in Minnesota. Your father was a police officer. You loved to sing and dance and do I have my facts straight? You were in two of Prince's movies, Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge, as well as a Jets music video.

That is correct, yes. I grew up in the right time in Minnesota when the music scene was good. So yeah, that's true.

How do those things come about? How did that happen?

I wish I actually knew. It was for almost everything that's happened to me. It's kind of accidental and I fall into things. So with the Prince movies, I think I just, I answered an ad for an extra. And so then I was in Purple Rain. And so in Purple Rain, which was just a wonderful experience. You can blink and miss me. I'm just kind of in the crowd and I don't know if I could find myself anymore. But because I was in that movie, I became. I had a part in Graffiti Bridge. I was supposed to be the dancing girl in a cage in the bar scene. And I was very excited about this. And it was one of those things where we had to be on set at 5 in the morning. And it was an all day long thing, of course, no pay, because, you know, hey, you get to be in a Prince movie. And something happened. I believe it was Morris Day was having some sort of a hissy fit. So we're hanging out and we're hanging out and hours go by and it's probably 5 o' clock in the afternoon at this point in time now, other than it being just very long and just a big long wait. The exciting part was George Clinton was there.

Oh, wow.

And so I happened to just sit down and chit chat with him for, you know, an hour or so, just saying, hey, let's pass the time. He was very interesting guy to chit chat with. So when we finally get on set, I was standing at like a four top waiting to be put where we need to go. And. And I kind of went, ugh. And I said, could this be any more painful? And I kind of turned my head and there was Prince.

Oh, wow.

Looking at me, not happy about my comment. And before you know it, I was demoted from the girl in the cage to just somebody walking through the crowd. So, you know, it wasn't my big break into Hollywood.

So your credit was Rebecca Bernick, former girl in cage.

That's right. That's right.

Wow. So did that somehow get parlayed into the jets video or how did that

happen, you know, the jets video? Well, in between. I used to. I loved this time of my life. It was so much fun. I used to go to First Avenue. So First Avenue was the bar that was, you know, the kids bar in Purple Rain. But it was a big place to go to listen to live music, to listen to house music and to dance. And there was. When we go there during the week for the house music, there were screens on the left, to the right of the. Of the stage. And so, you know, you kind of elbow your way up there and you get behind the screen and you get to be that silhouette dance person. But for a summer, I was the girl behind the screen. See, I was, you know, I needed my part back. I was the dancer behind the screen on the right side. So I'd show up, I'd grab a big huge glass of water, I'd show up and they would part and I would be there and I would dance. So somewhere along the line, someone got my phone number, called and said, there's an audition tomorrow at 10 o'. Clock, you should be there. And I said, what is it for? There's an audition, 10 o', clock, you should be there. Who is this? Just go. That's it. I don't know who it was and what happened. So I ended up going to the audition and I made it in the music video.

That is crazy.

Well, funny enough, too. I was the oldest person, I think at the time. I was 20. And all the other dancers were underage, so everybody had to have their mothers sign the slip except for me. I'm thinking, oh, man, you know, what is this? But the best part about it is after the first practice and the second practice, they're all rubbing Ben Gale over their muscles and I'm looking at them going, kids,

let me show you how pro Dozens. That's really amazing. So doing those kinds of things, were those formative into shaping to who you are today, or those just sort of little sideline kinds of Things?

Well, I was a dancer. I started taking dance lessons when I was three. So I started dancing really young. And also when I was three, I remember I was at my grandma's house and my uncle was there and he had a Fifth Dimension album. And I listened to the song Aquarius, and I learned all the words when I was. Must have been five. I don't think I learned it when I was three. So I went to my dance teacher and I said, I know all the words to Aquarius. And she said, great. I sang them. She says, okay, you get a solo. So I was in the front singing Aquarius with some women dancing behind me. And they didn't tell me there'd be women dancing behind me. So I was a little shocked.

Like adult women?

Yes. Well, they were adult to me. I was five.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I was always sort of, you know, singing, dancing from the beginning. And so I took lessons and I performed. And so the Prince episodes and the music videos was just the next step. And the teachers for the jets video, they were from LA and they said, you should come to la. You can be a dancer there. We can help you get started. And that was sort of going to be the trend. And then I got in a car accident and I hurt my back, and I had discs in my low back that have yet to, you know, treat me well. And everything changed. I had to say goodbye to the dancing.

I'll be darned. Wow. Wow. So you're certainly not a wallflower. You're certainly not someone who's kind of shy of being in front of people or doing those kinds of things. So the injury kind of took you off track of the dance career or maybe even singing with that. How did you then get more into entrepreneurship and business? What was that track like?

Well, it was an odd. It was an odd path. And it was just trying to figure out who I was because there was the mourning that came from. This is who I've been since I was.

I was three. Five. Three.

Yeah. And knowing that I couldn't do it anymore, there was a lot of mourning through that. And I went to university. I went to Mankato State University. I was there for a year and just went. I don't learn with books. I. I learned with doing. I needed to get out. So I ended up just kind of going from job to job in Minnesota and just trying to figure out what I liked. And I was just wandering and trying to figure stuff out. Then I moved to Chicago because I met a boy and I ended up in Simpson and Company Consulting. And I started at the beginning. I was a staff associate, and there were many staff associates, and we supported our consultants. And there was a day when. And I suppose this might have been the start of. I haven't thought about this exactly. This probably was the start of my entrepreneurialism because I approached the head manager of the consulting firm and I said, have you ever thought of having a special department to be able to produce the reports that you produce? Because everybody's in PowerPoint and everybody's different and, you know, but there's some people that do it better. Let's try to have a department. I had been there for two months, and he said, great, go ahead and do it. So I didn't think anything about it. I went, this is fantastic. And so I went and made major changes to a company where I was the new person and nobody liked me.

Oh, gosh.

And I was there for three months, created the department, and there were days when people would shoot rubber bands at the back of my head. And I still went, nope, because this is the efficient way to go. And these are the processes that should be so. So that was kind of probably the first step of being an entrepreneur.

Wow, that's fantastic. So was it just kind of on your own? Was there a role model or inspirational figure that gave you ideas or guidance or just kind of did it as you went along?

I did it as I went along. And I often say that I think in boxes and arrows. I mean, whenever someone's talking, all of a sudden I just. There's processes going on in my head.

If this.

Then that, you know, and who's doing it and what. I'm always thinking in boxes and arrows. And I remember at some of the odd jobs back in Minnesota once I was. I had a job of creating forms. I thought that was the best thing. You know, what do you need? What information do you need? I would interview people and create forms. And so I was sort of practicing along the way, but that piece was big enough. Where then, okay, I have to manage a department and it's. Has people and all these things kind of pull together and interesting. Then the next jump was a couple of consultants in that firm jumped off to create their own firm. And that was RNW Consulting. I was the fourth employee. They said, do you want to run the office? And I'm like, do you think I can? We wouldn't be asking if we didn't think you could. And that was really. That's the first step of being an entrepreneur with someone else's money. These Three consultants didn't want to do anything but consult. They let me do my due diligence and all my ops, and they learned, and I grew the place. And that was my laboratory of learning how to run and grow and operate efficient small businesses.

Well, it seems so natural to your skill set as well, too. I mean, if you're the kind of person who likes to interview people about how to fill out or what a form design should be like, and if you're thinking in flowcharts of if, then, then, if this, then that kind of a thing. I mean, it just leads itself very naturally to being a founder, to being coo, CEO kind of thing. So take us then on the voyage from that time to Office Heads.

Well, I was there for 15 years, so it was the four of us. And then we brought it all the way up to, I think, 16, nine, 11, brought it down to, like, 12. And so I went through the growth and then going back. And there was a point where what would happen was I'd say something was inefficient. I'd do my research. I'd go to the partners and say, we need new computers or we need to hire a person or we need to do this. And I would give my explanation, and they'd say, great, go do it. And I mean, it was just a wonderful opportunity. But after 15 years and we had gotten small and very efficient, there was nothing more to tweak, nothing more to grow. And so I, in a sense, worked my way out of a job. And so. But, you know, change is hard. So I did not move on. It actually took my partner and my mentor to pull me in his office. He had tears in his eyes. He was crying, and he let me go. And I remember, you know, it was a shock. So I thought I would be there forever. But I thought, that is the best business decision you can make because there's nothing more for me to do here.

Wow.

So it was, you know, the fog had to clear. I had ridden my motorcycle to work that day. I was riding a 19. What was I riding? My BMW R96. It was a 1964. And I remember thinking, I got the news and thinking, I can't ride home. Because, I mean, it was kind of a blow. I was a little emotionally unstable. So I waited a couple of hours, and then I got to my. I got to Evanston. This was down in the Loop. And I got up to Evanston. I got right in front of my garage and just kind of went, oh, I made it. And just went and just Fell over. I didn't even put my feet down, didn't put up a kickstand. So, you know, I obviously was a little shaken, sure. But after a couple of weeks my head cleared a little bit and I was trying to figure out, well, no one else could be as great of a boss. I couldn't have any better of an opportunity or a place to work. And I was taking the train downtown, probably on one of my last days there, and somebody said, I'm going to start my own business. I'm going to be an IT person, I'm going to do this. And I thought that's what I should do. I should do for other people what I did for them. And I was the jack of all trades. I had a lot of breadth, reasonable depth. But I'm thinking, I've sat in strategy sessions with Walt Disney and Zurich Insurance and really large organizations and I can take what I've learned from the big boys and whittle it down to small businesses because they need it just as much as the big guys do. And so that's how I started Office Heads.

Office Heads. And we were chatting on before we started recording. Tell us the genesis of the office head's name and brand.

Well, at first I just thought, I'll just be. I'm going to be a consultant. I came from consulting, I'm going to be a consultant. And I called my buddy Don Reed. He is a stand up comedian and all over, wonderful performer, great guy. He was living in LA and at the time he was writing taglines for Hollywood movies or video games and he just broke taglines. So he was really, he's really my go to creator person. Anyway, so I called him up and said, hey, listen, I'm starting a company and I need a name. And I sketched things out in my very non creative hand of Rebecca Burnick Consulting. You know, I mean, I don't want to just have it be my name. So he's like, I'm busy, I've got deadlines. And then I went, oh, okay, whatever. And then he'd call me back three hours later and throw out four or five names. I'd go, yes, yes, no, yes. And then we'd Google it and go, oh darn it, it's taken. And then he'd go back and do his deadlines and three hours later he'd throw out this. And so we did this over a long weekend. It was Memorial Day weekend and I think it was somewhere Memorial Day. He calls and says, he gives me a couple of them and he threw out office heads and he did it really quickly. And I went, wait a minute, I like that one. He goes, no, no, no, I was kidding on that one. I said, no, no, no, I like that one. We googled was there. I grabbed.net.com everything I could find. And then I hung up the phone, getting really excited. And I thought to myself, I can't just be a freelancer because that name should be on buses and bus benches. And it. So I kind of kn it was bigger than just me being a consultant.

That's very cool. So deconstruct office heads for the audience. What kinds of services, what kinds of things do you do?

Well, I will start with our vision, and it's a lofty one, as they should be. We want to enable every entrepreneur, every entrepreneur to get out from behind the desk to do more of what they love to do. We do that through financial management. So we provide remote bookkeeping and accounting, which is really our commodity. Anybody can do bookkeeping and accounting, but we focus on the financial management piece. And the definition of financial management is the efficient and effective management of money to obtain the goal of an organization. So we focus on the goals of an organization. So we work with a lot of startups or a couple years in. And what I love about it is we work with these entrepreneurs who are changing their mindset from entrepreneur to CEO. They have to say, okay, I've proven my model. I need to understand the story that my numbers tell. How can I take that and now steer the ship instead of being drug along behind the chaos of entrepreneurship and start to build foundational operations and processes and how do I hire and what, you know, all the questions that come with growth. So we do it by providing the numbers. We teach our entrepreneurial clients on how to read their financial reports and to understand that, pick KPIs and then to make strategic financial plans to grow their business.

Wow, that's fantastic. Because I would imagine there's a high proportion of founders and startups and entrepreneurs that really focus on their product or focus on whatever the thing is rather than, and totally don't enjoy the whole numbers part of it. But those are so critical. I mean, if they're going to ipo, if they're going to get private equity, if they're going to get any kind of Series A funding or anything like that, to be able to have you guys sort of shepherd them through and not just be a cpa, but, you know, also give them training and teaching and guidance along the way.

Well, what we found too Is that if you go down, especially since I started on the bootstrap route, we do a lot of bootstrap people or a lot of lifestyle businesses that, listen, I'm not going to grow too huge, but I need to figure out if I can save some money for retirement. And what we find is, first of all, everybody starts with, I'm broke. I have no money, I can't pay myself, but I love what I do. It's a crazy road that we jump on. And then they say, okay, well, the first professional I have to hire is my CPA because I have to file taxes. But the mistake that happens is they think that the CPA is also going to give them business advice and be proactive. And since it's the only professional that they have, they ask questions and then they get a little, you know, disappointed because, well, they didn't understand me. They didn't ask any questions, but they're asking the wrong person the right questions. So we come along and say, well, we don't really do the tax piece. We liaison with people who the taxes, but we help you to understand business. So we kind of fill that gap. And so, so many times I can't tell you, like, where have you been when I started my business 10 years ago that, you know, is gone now, but that's what I needed. So that's brilliant. Yeah, it's exciting.

Do you have certain kinds of companies that you work with? Like, are they tech, are they products, are they whatever, or just all comers?

Well, because I grew off a sense through my experience, we specialize in service businesses. A lot of times they're creative because left brain, right brain creatives don't want to. They don't want to do with their numbers. But I'm proud to be, because we don't use accounting terms. We talk about it in real words. And so oftentimes I hear, well, when we do budgeting, because everybody's like, budget, I'm scared numbers. And after a budgeting strategic session, they'll say, that wasn't bad. That was actually fun. I'm like, yay, I've done my job. And so if I can get creative people to lose their fear of finance and actually want to look at their financial reports, it's great.

That's brilliant. So, I mean, yeah, because there's a whole nother EBITDA and gaap, there's a whole other language that can be very intimidating to anyone. So I think that's brilliant. So in the whole business side of things, then you're based I know home is Evanston and office heads is Evanston. So you were president of the board of the Evanston.

Evanston Chamber of Commerce.

Yeah. How did that come about and what was that like?

Well. Well, I'll go back and I'll get to answering that. In my experience in my laboratory at RW Consulting, I got experience in almost every aspect of business except for marketing, because it was word of mouth and everything was contracts on a handshake. So when I started Office eds, I remember someone saying, well, what's your sales process? There's a process. I don't know. And I went to bed, put the blanket over my head, said, I can't do this. But I had to learn the marketing and the sales piece. So one of the first things I did is I went to a local Chamber networking event and I started handshaking and practicing my elevator speech, realizing there is one, and learned that you can start a business on coffee meetings. And if you don't ask at the end, you're just getting highly caffeinated, which I did for a good year. So there was all that learning. But then through my just experience with the Chamber and going to the events, it was several years before I said, okay, I want to step it up. I want to actually, because I'm a strategy person, I'm a process person, and I wanted to be a part of making things happen rather than just be a recipient of being a member of the Chamber.

Wow. So you could really empathize with the audience, so to speak, of what the Chamber responds to and what they do. So was it like, what were the other response like? Did you have to do events and things or was it just pretty much managing things?

Well, so I was the. I was a pre president president and then post president. So it's kind of a three thing. And when I was president, it's of the board. We still had an executive director.

Oh, good.

So the executive director was doing the events and membership and all of that. And lo and behold, when I became the president, we had just had a strategy session with an external consultant to say, you know, we need to look at our events and our programs a little bit differently to be able to give our members what they to benefit our members. And so my year was all about implementing strategy. So it was like, could this get any better? So I'd go to my meetings and I'd everybody on a little committee and then we'd talk about milestones and progress and it was great.

That is really awesome. So, so calendar wise, time wise, when Were you with Leadership in the Chamber?

I think. I think 2015.

Okay. And office heads, founded in 2008.

2008.

What a year to start a. You know, what was that like?

Well, you know, I tend to kind of. This is another conversation I've had with my friend Don Reed, right around the time we're coming up with the name. I tend to jump. I'm very quick to say, pros, cons. Yep. Boom. And I jump. I don't say I can't do it. I have very little fears or doubts. I just. I'm kind of quick with that. So it was. I was let go in May. I was out on the track for the very first time a week later, racing. Just practice session. It was just a practice session.

Practice to race.

I didn't know it at the time, but I just was going. My friend said, you should get on the truck. I said, okay. And I said, I don't have a job anymore. I took my two little girls out of school and said, I popped a tent in the pits and went racing. It was great. It was great. So that was May. I incorporated, and then the name came up in May. I incorporated in June. And then I started talking to people and I quote, unquote, opened my doors in August, first fully booked, and it was just me. I had a full roster.

How?

Because you say, this is what I do, and people say, I need you. I mean, I talked to friends and I didn't have to fill a lot. It was just me at the time. Right. So August 1st, 20 days later, crash. Right. Then everything went crazy. But I already had my clients. But also a lot of people lost their jobs during that time. And a lot of people said, I'm going to. You know what? I've always had that idea. I've wanted to start the business. So I did really well in 2008, 2009. My crash came in 2010, because those people then maybe got a job, realized that entrepreneurialism wasn't for them, and then they backed off. So I had a dip in 2010, 2011 that I had to deal with.

Wow, that's fast. I would have never thought that. That. That's really fascinating. Wow. So you've got this skill set that's unnatural to consulting that then creates great deal of foundational support to being an entrepreneur, startup person yourself. Then there's this wonderful incubator that maybe some people are familiar with, but maybe not the whole audience of 1871. So Howard Tullman started that, I think.

I believe so. Yeah.

He's no longer. I don't think he's heading it. I think he, he's still on the board.

He stepped down a few months ago, which is too. Because I have not, I have not met him. I would have loved. I mean I read his cv, I'm like, holy.

Yeah, he's amazing guy. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. But I mean it's sort of like he's into art and he's into education, he's into startups, he's into business and he's just really an amazing fellow. And do you know Pat Ryan Jr. Because he's also on the board. He's an old friend of mine. So. So point being, you, Pat Howard are powerhouses and are part in a variety of different levels involved with 1871. So for people in the audience that aren't Familiar, what is 1871 all about? What do they do? What's Your role there?

1871 is an IT incubator in downtown Chicago. It's actually in the Merchandise Mart. And when I say incubator startups of do I want to say of all sizes? I don't know. Startups go there to, they rent space, they have access to Internet, to meeting rooms, they have access to people who have specialties and events and just everything about what you need to know about launching and starting a business you have access to A big part of their, of the learning for the members is mentorship programs. So I am a mentor and at 1871, so I have office hours every third Tuesday. They're 45 minute sessions. I throw it out to the members and say, hey, if you want to learn how to read your reports, set up QuickBooks, pick your digital tools, read your reports, how to budget. I mean any kind of questions they get on my calendar. I show up for three, four hours and the questions are all over but they're rate my sweets but. And I get to educate. This is, it's really great because the first part of my career was really about building the business and growing the business. And I love where I am right now because it's a big huge part of just education. And when the light bulb goes off over somebody's head, it is and the fear goes away and they actually enjoy it. I don't know if anybody would actually enjoy it as much as I do, but it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful place to be.

So it's almost like people that are part of that get like a virtual MBA in a sense because they've Got people like you and your skill set and other people that have other skill sets that founders and startups would have. How does someone get to be one of those entities that gets to do they. Is it like later stage incubation or is it also just, you know, totally startup from zero or.

I think, you know, I'm not exactly sure but I think if I think anybody can walk in and say I'm going to pay 150amonth or 400 for the open airspace or 300amonth for a specific desk and I'm going to be here to grow my business. You can come as. It's like co work space.

So it's like a. We work with benefits.

It is an amazing amount of benefit. Now I could be wrong with that. There might be some sort of vetting process and I think there's a vetting process to be a mentor. So luckily enough I was recommended to them and I was able to jump in and be a mentor and win win for both.

So. And the history 1871 was when the Chicago Fire was right. I think that's. I believe so there is some. We'll have to suss that out in the show notes as well too. But I think that's some kind of cool thing about that too as well. So. And I know that because I'm on a listserv with them that they have a. Frequently have a number of events and things like that too. I mean it's just really a wonderful kind of hub for people in that space to serve.

It is. And it's been. I could be wrong, but I believe it's one of the first incubators at least with that the city got behind and a lot of information. But what's wonderful about that is there's been incubators that pop up all around the city that have different focuses. There's a healthcare incubator, there's a restaurant incubator, there's a music incubator that's more on the north side. So it's. It's wonderful that entrepreneurialism is becoming so mainstream that people can. Instead of just guessing because a lot of people, as you said, I know how to do a. I love doing a. You jump in and don't know you have all of this business operations thing you also have to do.

Yeah, I've had a similar experience. I started a non profit back in 2007 and a similar kind of thing. I'd have people that said hey, I want to do X, Y and Z. And then I start to Explain, explain to them kind of, well, here's how you get your nonprofit status with the irs and here's the forms you have to fill out and oh, by the way, the taxes are a 990, not a 1040. And all of a sudden all the blood drains out of their face and they get a little start to twitch a little bit and it's sort of like, well, I just really wanted to do this project. I didn't want to create a board and create a website and create a brand and create a this and create a that. So I think it's those kinds of things. I think it's different with maybe a one off project, a certain kind of area that someone has an interest in for a non profit. But you know, a sustainable, ongoing business entity does need all those kinds of things. And you know, I have some friends that have gone, you know, that spend a lot of money, go get their MBA and then, you know, go do their startup. But it's nice to know that there's also other kinds of things where you don't necessarily have to delay that and you know, can bootstrap or do whatever to be able to get going. So do they have people like Hyde Park Angels and other funding sources coming?

They do, yeah. They've got a program called techstars and you can, yeah. So you get introduced to various different, you know, it's just, it's kind of one of those things that you show up and you ask the right people and you get introduced and you learn. It's great.

Yeah. What an accelerant for folks. So.

Well, I was going to say that a lot of startups too, it's again, they start with passion. I have a passion and passion. But then there's this underlying fear of I don't know what, I don't know those who didn't go through the MBA program. Right. I don't know what I don't know. And so there's this fear. And so that's why again, I get chills. I just love what Office EDS does because we look at all of the aspects of operations and the vehicle that we use for education with our clients. We call them business therapy calls. And it is. And I just talked to one of my clients yesterday who said, I love the fact that, that you. I don't feel, I feel I can ask any question and I don't feel stupid. Like if I'm like I hired someone and it's not working out and if I have to let this particular employee go, that means I'm a failure because now, because success is based on employee count, I'm like, no, success is based on really running a financially healthy company. And if it's not working, then you need to make changes. This is called being smart and strategic. So we talk about anything from, you know, what their reports say, what their KPIs are, what their budgeting is to. Did your brother. Sister have her baby and did you close on that deal from last week? So it's fun.

Wow. So I just, again, tip of the hat and congratulations.

Thank you.

To be able to go through the sturm and drang of the kinds of things that you've done and all is just really impressive. So one of the other aspects that I just, you know, love you dearly for and I want to shift gears, pun intended, is to talk about motorcycle racing. And I didn't know the little story of taking your girls and going to the track that time. So I had read in the trip that your dad had owned bikes and so you'd been exposed to them, I guess, from maybe early on, and that you bought a Vespa that happened to be named Bella, which I think is so cute back in 2002. And then you got into vintage motorcycles after a brief conversation with. With a woman on a bike at a Metro viaduct on Church Street.

Yes, I did. I remember it very vividly.

That's some darn good reporting on the tribs part. So what was that like? And then tell us about the evolution of getting involved in bikes.

Well, when I bought the Vespa, I was going through a life change, and I thought, you know, I need to have more fun and I just need to. So I think I saw a Vespa on the side of the street, and I said, I'm going to get one of those. So I got myself a Vespa and I spent a good summer riding around town in a sundress with sunglasses on and flip flops with the. You're going to the Jewel and getting some flowers and having people go, oh, you look great.

Oh, thank you.

So, you know, and I was enjoying the summer and enjoying life. And so in my very florally girly Vespa days, I pull up underneath the viaduct and this girl pulls up, she's next to me, and I look and she's got gear on, and I look and I go, that looks like fun. Jesus, you need to upgrade.

And I did. So then, was it Honda's Beamers? What happened after Bella?

You know, I just. I tripped through this. I'm like, I don't know. I like old bikes because I don't know why, but I think a bike is more beautiful the more you can see through it. So if I had a very fat wallet, I would have a 1906 Indian flat tracker in my garage because I just think they're gorgeous, but, you know, not very realistic. So I just started looking through want ads and things and didn't know really anything. I didn't know any motorcyclists, didn't know anything about bikes. And I found a Honda. I can't remember the year, but it was a Honda CB360. And it was partly in boxes, part, you know, running, and it was in Michigan. So a buddy of mine and I found someone who knows motorcycles. And that's a good bike. So we go out there, we pick it up, and then it's in the garage. And I'm thinking, how hard can it be? You know, I'm a process person. I can read manuals. How hard can this be? Well, I started with upholstering the seat, because that's easy. And I would pull it out in the garage in the alley, and I'd be tinkering with it it. And then all of a sudden, some guy walks up and says, what's with the boy? So then I meet him, and then I meet someone else. And then I was introduced to Shyvin Moto. And then I meet this entire group of vintage enthusiasts who ride, wrench and race and the rest. They became my community. And. Yeah, and the rest is kind of history.

That's. Well, and you and I most recently saw each other at the motorcycle show and you were kind of repping. There's a Bin Moto. Yeah, and they have a. They have a. Like a Yahoo group or something as well, too.

I believe it's a Yahoo group. We are a non club. We kind of say that we're not a club, we're a non club. But it's really. It's really evolved. You know, work has gotten in the way, so I spend less time with my motorcycle buddies. But I love it. They. They have Wednesday night garage. And so somebody always hosts something. Usually they've got a project on the lift. You get together, someone brings. Someone brings beer. Maybe you're grilling and you get together for a couple of hours on a Wednesday. You talk motorcycles, you wrench a little bit, and then you go and then you run away.

And was that then? That was when my daughter and I went to your friend in Winnetka, I think it was, that had this. Well met thank you. That had this amazing house. That was more amazing when she stepped in the front door, because. So correct me, correct my foggy memory, but if, as memory serves, there was a BMW in the living room. And was that the one you raced?

Probably I raced two of them, but there were so many in this house that.

Well, then you walk through the living room and, like, right off the bat, I'm like, going, oh, that's really cool. My daughter's like, going, what the heck? And then we walked into, like, what was an addition, a sunroom or some something. And, man, there were like six or eight bikes and every bike in gorgeous condition.

Yeah.

You would walk by one, you go, oh, my gosh. I'm, like, trying to explain what I knew about whatever one to my daughter. And then we'd walk to the next one. I'd say, oh, my gosh, look, he had, like a 1930 something.

Oh, yeah, Beamer that was.

Must be worth more than the house. And the house was worth a fortune. And he had like a. Like a vintage Harley. And. Oh, my gosh, it was just. And they were just, you know, spectacular. And the whole fact that they were like, in.

In a row in the sunroof.

Yeah, it was like, I can't wait to see what's in the garage. So that was really, you know, kind of a tipping point. My daughter and I have always been kind of, you know, the. She would. I think she's ridden with me more than my wife has ever ridden with me. And I have this wonderful picture of her. I think she was just barely older than the Ducati. She was born in 98, and I had a 1999, 996, and she's sitting on it, you know, so. But she and I kind of have shared that. And I think that was just a wonderful experience for her to kind of understand that, you know, girls don't always ride on the back, so to speak. And you had this. I couldn't find research on you did something like, I'm an everyday writer or something. Refresh my memory what that was about. Well,

for whatever reason, I didn't have a car for a period of time. And being the mom of two, two kids, you know, it was, you know. But we live in Evanston. It's a very walkable city. There's trains and things, but I didn't have a car. And I rode my motorcycle everywhere. And, well, I rode my scooter everywhere, too. I used to go to the Sushi Wabi down on, you know, Randolph all the way from Evanston, because I could. And so I was riding every day anyway, and somebody. Ah, I know what it was. I was interviewed for an article in American Motorcyclist magazine. And it was. And the question was, do you ride every day? And I'm like, I ride every day. And so I filled in the form and I was in a spread, and they ended up being on the COVID So I was on the COVID and I got a lot of hits on Facebook, and I kind of became a female representative of motorcycling. And so I thought to myself, you know what? I'm gonna ride every day. And so I started a Facebook page and I had. Oh, gosh, I had a blog. And I, you know, even though I'm not very good with the wrenching piece, I go to my garage and get my hands dirty, and it's just fun. And then winter came, and I said to myself, what am I trying to prove? Because, I mean, I could have done it, but it was rather painful. So I kind of let that slide quietly. I think the. I think the Facebook page still exists, but I don't write every day.

Okay, well, no worries. Life changes. We'll find links for your Facebook page. But, you know, it's funny you say that, but. Because I had not really thought about this. I had my. I think it was the last semester of undergrad. Whatever car I had had just finally kind of given up. And I was kind of in a similar position, and I, you know, needed to. I was living at home and commuting to school, and I couldn't afford another car. And, you know, back that. Back then, the only kind of car you could get a loan for was a new car. And I sure couldn't afford. Afford that, but I could afford a bike. So I got. I think it was a Yamaha Seika 550. And that was really kind of like my first bike. And it was sort of the weirdest thing. I kid you not for whenever my classes were, I never rode it in the rain. It was sort of like this. I had like this nice karma. And then when I moved to Chicago to go to graduate school, same kind of scenario, I still had no money. I had even less now in graduate school, but I got, like, a summer job. And it was. I was living in Des Plaines, commuting to Elk Grove Village, working in a warehouse. So five days a week, never got rained on. I mean, it might rain during the day, but it would, like, rain, you know, like, you know, between 12 and 2. And it's like, okay, that's fine. So it was just really kind of this funny thing, but I just, I really, you know, I really enjoyed that and I really felt like it gave me a lot more comfort and confidence, you know, on the bike than just now. It's basically, you know, weekends and the kind of bikes that I ride now, I'm just. I'm so nervous that something's, you know, going to happen to it or I'm going to get a bug on it or something. So take us back. You went to a track, brought your Girls, pitched a 10. How did that part start? And where is that? In the juxtaposition of the, of Bella and all that. Where did the racing book get?

Okay, so that was 2008, I think. I bought the, the Honda 360 in 2007. I couldn't get it fixed, couldn't get it fixed. But then I finally found someone who knew how to fix it, so they fixed it. And really the first time I really rode that bike, I mean, I had probably been riding it on the street and I had never ridden a motorcycle before. I mean, there's gears and stuff. It's different than an automatic vest bump.

That's true.

And so I took it on the track like a month after it finally started running. And I will tell you, the adrenaline rush and the confidence of just being on a track and I was really slow, but still just. It made me. It was something I've never experienced before. I mean, even though I sang on stages and danced in whatever, this was like the. It just. And I can hold onto it for like months.

I rule.

So that was 2008, it was 2010, when again, I think I kind of am susceptible to peer pressure. My buddies who were racing and you should get. You should race. You're back. No, you should race. You should race. Oh, ok. So I didn't know anything about it, didn't know what it entailed, but I said OK. I went to the track again and I rode two different motorcycles. I rode a CC, a CB 160, because the little 160 little bikes are a whole different element of. Then I rode a CB400F, which is great. So I was trying to figure out which bike I felt better on and I liked the CB400 better. So another motorcycle buddy of mine who really was my mentor, Big Bob Burns, helped me to source two and a half motorcycles worth of parts of 400 CB400 parts from up in Union, Illinois. And we went and picked them up. And that winter he built my race Bike.

Wow.

And so the next. So my first race was at road America in 2011.

Wow.

Complete with a bright yellow, bright orange beginner vest. And that was my first road race wow.

At Road America.

Road America.

I took a Keith Code racing class there years ago. They've now upgraded to the BMW RR1000 or something, which I was like, oh, that would really be, I should go do it again. But these were quasi race prepared Kawasaki 600s. So they had, they're running water rather than coolant. So if you dumped it, you didn't have anything other slicker than evaporating water either. Had no glass on it, so no mirrors. Which was kind of a good discipline too to kind of like you really became, you know, aware of your peripheral vision and the whether or not your helmet restricted you and stuff like that. And so here we are, this gang of us of, you know, goofy guys and we're trailing a guy who's like, you know, just a world champion on a 250, probably Kawasaki. And he's like, you know, sitting backwards on the thing, you know, and gesturing and doing all this stuff and kicking our butts. I mean he is just zipping around on that thing, knee dragging left and right. And the thing about it was once you saw somebody do that line and as long as you did that line, you were like, you know, you were cutting two seconds off your lap times. It was like a miracle. And it was funny before that started to happen, whoever was like in front of you, this gang of us, like if they went off into the grass, you followed them, right?

Oh yeah. Don't look at, don't look, don't look.

It was quite the experience. But yeah, but Road America is, you know, I mean, that's a turn five, baby. Yeah. So, so then, so you were road racing how many years and was it always on the Honda? Did you ever do a Beamer on the.

No, my road racing was always. Well, okay, so my, my road racing and my land speed racing overlapped. So I, so I decided. So I was kind of practicing and figuring out of the 400, the 160 and then the bike was being built and that's when my buddy says, hey, have you ever thought of land speed racing? I'm like, I don't know, what's that?

Sign me up.

And so he says, oh yeah, it's not that hard. You just have to go fast in the line like, okay. And he had taken his, his BMW R25,6 out to Maxton, North Carolina and did it once, maybe twice and realized you know, I really would like a record on here. But he wanted. He was a little. He's a little bit of a bigger guy and he's like, you know what? I need someone a little bit smaller on the bike. And so he asked me if I wanted to. I'm like, okay. So we went to Maxton's. Well, it was funny because we practiced a couple of times on the expressway.

I was wondering, like, how do you practice around here? You know, you can't get to Pawaukee Airport or something?

Well, you know, the question is, do you do it when there's traffic so maybe cops aren't looking? Or you do it when there's no traffic because maybe then you're like the only one out there. But, you know, it was road surface, but you really have to practice on the track. And so my very first time, I got a record the very first time at Maxton. And the thing is, and this is where you were saying, like this Keith code teacher, was on a 250 on a smaller cc bike. I'm not going 200. I'm not going crazy fast. I'm taking small bikes and getting them to go as fast as possible. And that's the difference between road racing and land speed racing. Because road racing is about the rider. I mean, yes, you have to have a good bike, but you have to know the apex and the line and your body English and all of that. Land speed racing is about the bike. And you have to tuck and make sure you are under the paint and as small as possible. But it really is about, is the bike tuned to where you are? And so Dan was doing all the tuning and making sure the bike was set. And all I needed to do was get on and, you know, tuck and tuck my toes and tuck my elbows and go. So not really knowing what was going on. And this is. It was at Maxton, North Carolina. It was an old airport strip which had like little grass growing up and bumps. And it wasn't, you know, so it was awesome. And so the way that it works is you have to go a mile and then you have, I think 120ft where they actually time you. So it's a 250cc bike, stock production. Not, I mean, it was, it was tuned, but there was no special. Nothing special. And I think, I think I got it in that class. It was 70 miles an hour.

Wow.

But it was, it was a record.

It was a record class.

Wow. Oh. So there's, there's, there's a video out there. I can still feel the energy. I pull off and there was this. You pull off at the end of the track and there was a trailer and some old guy sitting in a chair with a, with a chalkboard holding up 70. And so I come around and I go, oh my God. And I pull, I pull up and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. There's cars there and motorcycles. I pull up and I'm. I don't know what I'm doing. And I pull up to the right. Wrong side. And they go, no, no, no, put your bike over there. And I pull it over there. And then I start jumping. I mean, I am boing, boing, boing, boing.

True to your history.

Exactly. And I'm jumping up and down and laughing in my helmet and. And there was a beam. There was a beamer guy there who had taken a picture of it. And that was my first record. And just the joy and the jumping was just. That's just great. It was fun.

Does it like even at 70, I mean, like, I've heard of the, the term tank slapper.

Oh.

Like, like because you don't have a damper or anything. No damper handlebars. So you're just. It does hold it pretty struggly. By the time you get to velocity, it was it.

No, I never experienced a tank slapper ever. So. Good, good, because that's kind of scary.

Yeah. You're not, you don't stay up. Yeah.

But I will say the salt flat has the salt flats. Even though it's flat, it's crispy and it's, you know, so it has its own element of interesting.

So this was on the Honda. Then you. But you did vintage Beamers too, right? Did you do that?

No, that was the Beamer.

That was the Beamer.

That was the Beamer. My land speed racing is beamer, mostly beamer. And then my road racing is Honda.

Okay. So I remember, I think back when you were doing this, you had like, because this goes so back to your flowcharts and stuff, you had done some kind of on the fly research of like if you tucked down this far or this far, and then you also ran different classes. If you had a fairing or no fairing and stuff. Tell us, how did all that stuff work?

Well, I will say again that I was lucky enough to just sort of be the jockey. And my Dan, who owned the bikes, did all the research on what to do. So he's like, this is the class, this is what we're going to do. But so there's different classes. So we primarily were in production vintage, which was 1954 or older. Production meaning stock. No changes. 250cc, which. It was single cylinder.

I mean the 250 is probably a single.

It is, but I'm trying to think of what the class with the actual classes. And then it's then push rod, push rod. PP push rod, push rod. And then gas. So you fill it, the tank with gas, but then you can, then you get your record there and then you get rid of the gas and you fill it with fuel. Because there's a difference between fuel and gas. So there's two records.

You gotta tweak the carbs or something. Right.

You're. Well, you're tweaking the carbs all the time, especially at Bonneville, because you start off in the morning at 8 in the morning and it's cold. Yeah. And then it's 90 and at noon.

Wow. So you did the Maxton mile. Did you do the Ohio mile too or just because Maxton. It was the east coast Timing association with Maxton and that was North Carolina. And then it moved to Wilmington, Ohio. Wilmington, Ohio.

I did that too. Yes.

Okay. I went there in 15 just as a spectator, just to kind of. Because I knew your history of it and knew that it was there. That was cool. I mean it was really sort of amazing. I, I remember seeing, you know, seeing the bikes and the bikes were everything from vintage stuff to, you know, these like they do 300 miles an hour.

You can take it off the, you can go buy it and then go 300.

I mean they were built for that.

Like, who needs to go that fast?

Yeah, this is just stuff. There were some guys back then just starting to like do like create their own electric bikes. I mean know there's like zero and there's, there's companies now, but I mean like a guy had taken a Japanese bike and put this like crazy looking, you know, battery pack stuff. Yeah.

Oh, that great.

The craziest thing I saw a guy had taken a whatever 55ish Mercedes gull wing, you know, which is probably worth 2 million bucks to start with, and like had like humongous Goodyear white letter race white letter, like slicks on the rear end of it that had been jammed in there, you know, because they totally, you know, taken everything out of it. Full roll cage. And I think he was running like a 427 Chevy in it or something. I thought you took a two million dollar car, you probably put another million into it. And now, you know, you're like, holy cow, this is. You know, and. But then I saw this other fellow who was an elderly gentleman who had a early, like probably 2004 ish Mercedes SL, no roll bar, stock as a rock and you know, was running it, you know, and then. And you saw everything else in between. I mean, it was just in such a sense of camaraderie, people helping people out. People needed a wrench and didn't have a wrench. People needed a part. And that was one of the things

the community is phenomenal.

It really was touching. I mean, to kind of, to see that, that, you know, it's almost like, yeah, maybe you're racing against somebody else in your class, but honestly you're always just racing against yourself. So. So I know now that East Coast Timing association is no longer in Wilmington. There, I think they're now somewhere in

Alabama, I believe, where they tend to. They lose their contracts or something happens.

Yeah. So that's all good. And to me, the thought of like a flying mile on pavement, in civilization is a nice way to do land speed racing. But the ultimate is Bonneville. The ultimate ultimate is salt. So take us on your journey to getting to Bonneville and then what your experience at Bonneville was like.

Well, Bonneville is so magic. Have you been there? It is so magical. It is just incredibly. It's so beautiful and it's so different than anything that you've seen. So the first thing you're just looking at the amazing nature of it. And then, and then again you've got this whole community that comes together and loves what they do and loves the salt. So it's, it's, it's. I try. It's just, it's just wonderful. It's just wonderful. But I'm trying to think the difference

is you get a boatload of salt all over whatever vehicle and, and if you record, don't you then have to go to a tear down, like an impound and tear down.

Well, okay, so, yes. So this is, this is. So where in the East Coast Timing association you do one run, they time you and that's your time at Bonneville. And there's two. There's Speed week, which is cars and motorcycles. And this was bub. It's now called Bonneville Speed Trials, I guess. But that's just motorcycles. So what happens is you go down once and if you rate then you have to go down a second time within a certain period of time. So that way it's back opposite direction. Opposite direction. So wind and any of that all Different.

Gosh, yeah.

So you have to qualify in the first run and then come back on the second run. There are two different tracks at Bonneville. There is the five mile and then. And the ten mile. So if you're on the ten mile track, those are the people going 200, 300, 500 miles an hour. And, you know.

Golly.

Yeah. Crazy. Just crazy. But, you know, we were always on the five miles course. And so you go about three miles and then they time you for a mile. So you have to be in that tuck a lot longer. And then you have a mile to slow down.

And the salt is like, you said, it's not like glass. I mean, it's crunchy. Yeah. And not necessarily super smooth either. Right.

They go down the week before and they grate it a little bit. They do. But there's the elements. It might have rained and it might have. And one of the things I thought was most amazing because I'm like, oh, it's like salt ground, but it's not. It really is a dry lake bed. And you get. You go to certain places and there's a hole and you look down and there's, I don't know, six inches of salt and then there's a little bit of gap and then there's like wet, mucky mud stuff. So he's like, we are really on a. Wow. It's like being on. Is it like being in Minnesota, being on ice? Yeah. Doing ice racing, which I've done ice biking, not ice racing, but so it, so it makes it again all real. Just, it's like, wow, this is, this is nature that we're doing this on. So. And there are times when they cancel the races because the salt just wasn't in a good enough condition.

I've seen there's quite a few documentaries available on streaming services where, like, they've gotten totally rained out, like the last couple of days or something. And it's like, you know, then you see that it's no longer a dry lake bed, it's a lake bed.

And it is beautiful. As much as you go, dang, I couldn't race, it's beautiful that we've got rained out. Have I been there twice? I've only been there twice. We got rained out twice. So I said, I mostly do my land speed racing on a beamer. My last time I was there, I was racing on a 1980 Moto Morini Dart. 350. And so, you know, I inch up my speeds a little bit more. And so I had qualified with 99.97 miles per hour. Like, I gotta get 100. I gotta get 100. I can do this thing. And then I get a record.

This is great.

And waiting for my return run, the rain came in and it was the last day, and they called to me.

Gosh, just round up. Wow. So what is that experience, like, in the sense of, like, how do you know you're, like, going straight? Or how are. How do you. Are there visual cues even though you're, like, speeding right along? Or how do you know you're not like.

Well, sometimes it's hard, but there are flags. So there's flags to the left and the right, I would say. What is the width of the track? The track is probably. I don't know. I can't. I can't figure it out. But it's a wide enough track. But you can see in your peripheral vision, you can see the flags on the right side. If you're going down for first run, it's pit row. So you see everybody's pits and everybody's bikes. So you can kind of see over to one side that there's. There's stuff there. Also, there's the mountain straight ahead.

So that's kind of your.

That's kind of your focus on.

Yeah, I was thinking, like, the maxed in miles and. And the ones that are airstrips, it's like, well, hello, here's the airstrip. Yeah. But on salt of like, you know, is there a stripe? Is there. You know, do they spray it? But. So you just align up and then what coming back. What? You just pit row and kind of a thing.

It's the same thing. It's the same thing. But I'll tell you, it could be windy, and the wind is not helping you. Being on a back wind. It's like pushing to the side. And if you're on these small bikes and you're in a tuck and you know that being more aerodynamic, you won't have to have your head down, but. No, you have to kind of, like, put your head up. And the beamer I have has a dampener on the handlebars. And the way that I had my tuck, my. It's not comfortable, by the way. And this bike has no shock absorbers at all. And it was bucking me the whole time, so I'm, like, going down. And the visor on my helmet has scratches because I'm down there and I'm pushing my chin on the tank, and I'm. I'm leaning up against that dampener and I'm bumping all over the place that whole time. Yeah, I got my scratches on my visor.

I know I had a. What year was it? 62R69S. And it had what they called an Earl's fork kind of thing, which was this. It was cool to look at, you know, the design was cool, but it kind of went out almost like a triangle kind of thing. And I just thought, who knows how much that thing weighs? There's no Aluminum in 1962. I think about that. You think about, obviously you're running modern tires, so to speak, but things can get replaced. But still, you've got a lot of the technology that made a comfortable ride, let alone on salt at 99.97 miles an hour is a little different kind of thing. And so like you. So they tweak things. So then with impound, they actually like take people's, whatever machines.

You take it apart and they measure. Because if you're not cheating, someone's got the right. Yeah. Ecta was all on the honor system, but Bonneville. Nope.

Then do you break it? Does the team break it down or did the judges break it down?

The team breaks it down and the judges come over and do the measuring. And I'll tell you, you don't want to, you want, you don't want to break down mid race because you could get salt in there, right? So you kind of, you, you, you have to break down before you leave. And there's some certain parameters, but if you're going to try it for other classes, you want to try to do all your classes first and then do the breakdown at the very, very end. Because when you don't want to break down, put it back together.

I know, I was going to say, you know, just, it's hard enough to kind of keep it dialed in, let alone break it down after every potential record wins.

So.

Oh, gosh.

So

do your girls ride? Do they race? Or what's your family think about, you

know, funny enough, you know, my kids both, oh, mom, can't you just be normal like all the other normal moms? Like, what?

This is normal?

And then, and then they were like, well, you know, you can go do your bike thing. You can go. Because I tried to take them to races and stuff and they kind of got tired of that. They just want to hang with their friends.

Sure.

But my oldest, my oldest daughter last year, I have a 70cc Honda Passport automatic three speed scooter and she rode that for a summer. Oh, fun. So she had fun in that on A rain day. She kind of dropped it a little bit and I've yet to tweak it and kind of fix it, but she's not pushing me to. I think she kind of went, yeah, I think I'll take the train.

That's nice. Kind of the her version of Bella, I guess.

Exactly, yeah.

So what advice would you have for someone that is interested in getting started in road racing or in motorcycle or land speed racing or what have you?

Well, I would say if you're interested in the historic road racing, there's an organization called arma, American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association. They sanction all of the the races. As a matter of fact, I'm only doing the road races, but they've got motocross, vintage motocross and a ton of different vintage motocross. Yeah, it's all vintage. So they offer race schools. I think we have like 10 or 12 races throughout the year. So the races are typically Saturdays and Sundays, but usually on that Friday there's race school. So whether you're a seasoned racer and doesn't want some extra time on the track or you're brand new and you're wearing your, your orange safety vest, they teach you the rules of the road. And then they've got the production novice class all the way up to almost near modern.

How nice. So you could go out there with your peers, so to speak, whatever level and move up levels. Yeah, when I did the Keith code, I think you got some kind of like novice. I forget what the classes were. This is 30 years ago probably, and it's probably changed now, but was some kind of, you know, sort of certification that you knew something more than John or Jane off the street kind of thing. So. And I guess part of the trick too is to have somebody else race someone else's bike is nice as well too. So if we could find someone for that, we'll put that in the show notes. But that's pretty cool. From your experiences, are your druthers to do vintage. Do you like. Is that that kind of your thing?

It is kind of my thing because a. Well again, I think they're more beautiful if you can see through them. I love the sound of a vintage bike. I mean my 400, it's just that guttural engine. It's just beautiful. And the thump, thump, thump of my R90, I just love the sound of it. And I love the smell. Waking up in the pits and the smell of two stroke. I don't, you know, there's something about it. I don't Know where it comes from. I just love it. I just love it. And also, which is weird because I was racing the smaller ccs. Keep me from going too super fast. You can't go that fast even on the 400. I mean, as fast as I would go on the maybe 50, 60, whatever. You're not screaming going super fast. So you still have a blast on the track. Keep you somewhat safe. And it's so much fun.

That's smart. And it's probably maybe a little less expensive too than if you start getting into work. Larger, exotic or newer kinds of things.

I don't know. But it isn't cheap.

Yeah. Parts break. Huh?

Parts break. And you know, for those of us who don't wrench on their own bikes, find someone to fix your bike.

Good point. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to trailer it to, you know, Birmingham, Alabama or the Formula one side.

You just show up and hop on your ride and get on the track. So.

Yeah, I don't have a sponsor.

Yeah.

Although my business, I have my logo all over on my bike. So my business sponsors me. But I still got to pay for it.

Well, that maybe takes us to a nice segue then. So we've talked about your business, we've talked about your CV with your writing. Do you have advice for startup founders?

I do have advice for startup founders. There's no good time. There's no good time to start. And if you have a vision and if you've got passion in your belly, go for it and just be smart while you do it and, and find the right people to support you and whether that's friends and family. Because there are times emotionally that just starting a business is super hard. And all the way up to. There are networking groups and there are other people who have done this. There's an organization called score, which are like retired executives that do free coaching and counseling on how to start a business. Local libraries, you can usually find stuff. Go to your city and try to find something. So it's so exciting that entrepreneurialism is just, it's out there for the taking. So if you've got something and you're ready to do it, just go for it.

Good. Good. Awesome. Well, thank you. Last two questions. What's next? What's on your bucket list or to do list?

What's next? Well, I'm excited. My business is shifting slightly. I mean, we're a service based business so we are working one on one with all of our partners. And so if you look at the last 11 years when I've been With offices heads. You know, I was sitting at my kitchen table helping people at their kitchen table. I'm making 50 or 60 thousand dollars and now we're lucky enough to be working with half million million plus dollar companies. But my passion is for the startup entrepreneur. So I'm going to take all of our processes and everything that we know about financial management and we're going to create a do it yourself online course with some group coaching. Wonderful to help. So, you know, I want to. I don't think that startups, because there's a statistic and I don't exactly know what it is, but most startups die in the first three to five years mostly because they don't know how to handle cash flow. It doesn't have to be that way. So that's my exciting element of my next step is going to be an online course.

Awesome. Well, that's a natural evolution, so that's fantastic. Well, I guess then my last question, if people want to learn more about office heads, if they want to, once the course is live, where would they find it? If they want to reach out and be in touch with you, what are good ways to go about doing that?

I'm online on almost every platform. You can find our website@www.officeheads.com. if you go onto LinkedIn and Facebook, just type in office heads. You'll find us. We have a YouTube channel now. I'm on Facebook. This is so funny. I'm on Facebook live every Monday at 10:30 for Monday morning metrics where I talk about something small business or finance or something and just give a little tidbit about questions that startups and entrepreneurs ask.

People can sign up for that. Right? So when you drop a new one, then they'll get pinged with the notice. You are so poised on those too, by the way. So I've not seen all of them, but every one of them that I've seen, it's like, wow. Rebecca's really rocking that. Thank you. You're a natural professor, natural teacher.

Thank you. I love it. I'm enjoying it.

Well, thank you for today, Rebecca. It's just a treat. I appreciate you coming out. It's good to kind of go hardcore and deep dive into these different kinds of things about your past and what you're doing. And I think you're an inspiration in particular. I think oftentimes people don't appreciate the whole aspect of you think about the glass ceiling, you think about leaning in kind of kinds of things. And I think you're a great role model in the business world as well as, you know, living a life in full with your whole, you know, motorcycle resume as well too. So good to spend this time with you today.

Thank you for the invitation. I've really enjoyed spending the time with you.

Living a Life in Full is a production of Staff Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant producer Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien executive producer and host Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website at lifeinfull for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information, uses only, and is not constantly the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.