How to get results with Steve Gray

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So today we're going to talk about the why of Right way, doing things the right way in order to get results. Now, if you haven't discovered your why, make sure you go to why institute.com www.whyinstitute.com, discover your why and then come back. Because this will have more meaning for you when you know your why. So the why of Right Way, these are people that love structure and process and systems and doing things that get predictable results. So the results oriented people, they don't think their way is always the right way or it's my way or the highway. But they're always looking for things that work and then they stick to those processes because they know they'll get predictable results. So they're great to have on your team if you want to create structure and processes around getting things done. So my guest today. I've got a great guest for us today. His name is Steve Gray. Now, Steve, he started online back in 2002. He worked as an affiliate for several years and then started owning his own companies and making his own offers in 2008 in the Warcraft market. Then he moved into do it yourself solar panel market in 2009. And he did well there for several years until he started Primal Health in 2012, which is a health publishing and supplement company. And then he started the ultimate survival strategies in 2012, 2013. Now, Primal hit $30 million in sales last year and it's been on the Inc. 5000 list for the last two years in a row. And Ultimate Survival Strategies has been doing around six to seven million dollars this year. And he's also just recently started a brewery in Austin. So, Steve, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Hey, Gary, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Great introduction. I don't think I could have done it better myself. So well done on that one.

Well, you know, you and I are in a mastermind group together and it's been great getting to know you and seeing how structure and process has definitely influenced your life. But let's start by telling everybody. Why don't you tell people a little bit more about your story?

Sure, you bet. I actually started. So when I said I started in 2002, I was.

I was in herbalife at the time and.

I had been working on trying to figure out how to sell the products. And long story short, I was at one of their events, I think, actually in vegas at the time. And found out this other guy was selling, he said, like, $60,000 a month in herbalife products. And I thought, oh, my God, that's amazing. If I could do that, that would just be the bastard. So I went back, and that was kind of the impetus. To figure out. How to market and sell things online. I don't know how, you know, how familiar you got. Your customer base is here, but for the online world, There was a. Back in the day, There was a guy called brad fallon. And andy jenkins, Two guys. And they had a product called stomping the search engine. So this is dating myself quite a bit here in the online space. But I bought that product and figured out how to do SEO and rank my site. And long story short, I. I got it on the first page of google and made some money. Didn't make a whole lot of money, because the business model itself. Is a little bit handicapped. For people in that business. And figured out that I wasn't going to really make enough money there. To support my family and live the life I wanted. And I started looking around, and that's kind of where I found out about affiliate marketing. And. And kind of segued into that. And started working there. And again, was buying advertising. And sending it to sales pages and conversion funnels. And ended up one year. I remember, I don't know, I was probably 20. Well, this would be 2000, 2004. Probably 2004. So I was about 27. And I thought I was doing really good. I'd made, like, five or six grand as an affiliate that month. And thought I was doing really, really well. And then I talked to the owner of the product that I was promoting. It was a warcraft, World of warcraft product. And he said he made $40,000. And I thought, well, wait a second, there's something wrong here with this picture. And that was what kind of propelled me. Into the side of owning offers. And I did that. And since then, it's always been, we still buy our own advertising. We still do a lot of what I would call traditional Internet marketing, but we do it all for ourselves. So we don't do a whole lot of affiliate stuff anymore. It's all for our own companies. And.

Working to build that customer list. And the recurring and ongoing revenue that comes from it.

Wow. So I would have never picked you to be an herbalife. I don't know why. What got you into herbalife?

Well, herbalife, that was kind of. It's an interesting. Years ago, Back when I was just out of high school, I actually tried amway, of all things, for a little while. And I've always been attracted to, like you said, results, you know, making money and.

Wanting to do better and improve and have a nice lifestyle. And so I had played with amway for a while. And found out that I really didn't like it. Probably for the reasons you could not imagine that I wouldn't. Which is I'm not really a people person.

Not really good at making new friends. And, you know, there's the kind of people, you know, like yourself. That are very, very friendly, very outgoing, Easy to talk to people. And that's never been me. And so that was kind of why amway didn't work. But when I got into. I had worked at a dot com in austin. And we got bought out in.

2000. I started in 99 as the fifth employee. And then we. We grew so quickly. We were up to 300 employees. Three years later, I think Schwab. I can't remember what it was. 450, 540. I can't remember some several hundred million number. And I ended up walking away with several million dollars. And so I went back to school and finished my degree. And then when I got out, I got an auto dialer call back. When those were allowed. That was re herbalife. And that's really what piqued my interest. And I knew it was a direct marketing Or a direct direct sales company. But I was kind of hooked because it was. They had a. What I now know as direct response marketing approach to recruiting people. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. If I don't have to go sell people one on one, Then I could probably do that. And.

That was kind of the initial foray into that. And that's how I got started. And they did. They had a really good recruiting system. I mean, they had all sorts of lead gen going on. And then it would go into what I know, or what we would call a funnel now. And I didn't know it at the time, but it was a pretty slick process for 2002. And it worked really, really, really well. And that was really what started my interest. In the whole online marketing side. So that's how herbalife came to be. But you're right, not a fit for me.

Normally, no, you know, I wouldn't have seen. And it's not that you're unfriendly. It's just that you are. Tend to be more serious, more structured. You've got, you know, a Lot more thing. You look like you have a lot going on in your mind all the time. And I think that's how people might describe you, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. You know, it's funny that you say that. It's even funnier having conversations with you. Because you and I talked with Jen at our last meeting there in Vegas. And.

It was. It was interesting hearing her kind of takeaways and.

Aha'S, I guess I'd say, after you kind of explained it. But you're right. I have always been, if anything, don't be so serious. Was a criticism from so many people. As I was growing up, I was. I was too serious. I was too intense. I was too, I guess you could say, results oriented. And I just didn't. Didn't put up with. And still don't put up with a lot of the. What I call bs, of not getting stuff done. So I think that's a very fair. That's a very fair assessment.

So when you look back and you think about what it was that you were looking for, right? You got into herbalife or started with amway, you got into herbalife, you got into all these things. What do you think it was that you were looking for?

Ultimately, looking back, and what it has still been the case for me. Is I wanted to, for lack of a better word, control my destiny. I mean, I really did not like. And I guess again, it's funny talking with you. Because it puts a lot of my thought processes in perspective of your framework. And I'm laughing as I'm saying this. Because I'm thinking in my head that it just didn't seem right to me. To work for 40 years for somebody else. And be told you're only going to be making x amount per year, Live with it. I mean, that just didn't seem like the way to go to me. And so from the beginning, it was like, I'm tired of, you know, I don't want to work for somebody forever. I want to set my own hours. I want to have control of my destiny. I want to control how much income I make. And if I want to make twice as much income, I don't mind working for it. I just don't want a limit put on it. And that really probably has always been the impetus. I've always been self driven, self motivated. And if.

The result. There you go, your words again. If the result is there, or I know I can get the result, I'll move, you know, heaven and earth, so to say, to get it. But if it's not there, or I see that it's not as dependable, reliable as I think it could or should be, I'm usually not as interested in it. So does that answer the question?

Yeah, it does. And for those of you that are listening, it's really, it's fun to talk with Steve because he's very right way. I mean, this is exactly what you get with somebody who's all about doing things the right way, creating structure, process systems. So you were looking for things that were going to get results for you. You were looking for things that already existed and hey, if that works, I'm going to go do it. And then you found that it worked if you had certain characteristics. Right. If you were outgoing, then maybe Amway would have worked.

Yes. And in fact, I think that's probably what drew me to direct response marketing so much because I realized one that when you get it right, it's dependable, it's reliable, it's predictable, it has complete control. You have complete control over how it works and what you do. You're not at the mercy or the whims of somebody else determining that. And if you want to make more money, you go spend more advertising. So I think it's, that's probably why I'm where I'm at. It's just a very unique situation that kind of hits all those hot buttons that you talk about.

Yeah. And it's interesting with people who have your why, how.

Driven they become. Because it's got to be done the right way. And until it is, you can't sleep. Right. You can't function, you can't even think straight. If something's not as, something's out of whack. Would you say that's accurate?

Yes, I think the going back to.

Going back to what I would call predictability. Yes. If it's not predictable, it bugs the hell out of me. And you know, and I think about it, and I've thought about it in context because you and I have talked about some of the other tools that I use, like Culture Index and some of the things that I use for hiring and they, they map people's behavior in a similar way. But your framework is really unique because.

It takes. Well, I mean, it's the why, right? I mean, ultimately it's the motivation behind why they do what they do. And so my point is though, is that.

I've often wondered. Well, maybe because technically, as an entrepreneur and most entrepreneurs and how I'm supposed to be wired, I'm not technically risk averse and when I ran into situations like you're discussing, I have often questioned myself, is it maybe I am risk averse? Maybe. And then, you know, I get to the bottom of it. And it's not that I'm risk averse, it's the fact that it's not working the way that I think it should work, and it's not predictable and dependable. And when it is that. And maybe that's how I mitigate my risk, I don't know. But it is a hot button for me. And I. In fact, I've had several discussions with my cfo. He knows kind of the hot buttons we had. It was kind of a funny argument. We were in one of Randy's events a couple months ago when we were in Chicago, and I got an email, and the.

Bank, one of the banks we use, it said, you're out of funds in your account, like your payment bounced or whatever.

That kind of ticked the box of, okay, something's not right here. Something's not working the way it's supposed to work. And then I basically came unglued about all of the stuff that was going on. And reality is, once I backed up from it and actually talked with my cfo, nothing was a big deal. But it was that trigger that said, something is not right here that really just set me off.

And you laugh, and I laugh now, too. And he laughs. But at the time, I was pretty hot. I was mad because I thought, you know, somebody's not paying attention and they're not doing their job. And this wasn't working because if you had you'd done X, Y and Z, this never would have happened. And that's kind of just the way I think.

Anyway.

So, Steve, as you already know and for the listeners, there is Right Way people are great to have on your team for creating structure and process around thoughts and ideas and so better way people and challenge people. We're great at coming up with ideas and thoughts, but then actually getting them done is a whole other story. You know, an idea is only great if you have someone that can help you implement it or actually get it done, which is where you come in. Awesome to have on a team. So those are the positives that come with the why of Right Way, but there are also some challenges that come with that why as well. You guys can kind of be a little tough on the people around you. Would you. Would you say that's accurate?

I would say that's extremely accurate. And starting with myself, I have always been incredibly, incredibly.

Hard on Myself.

To the point of what I would call mental and emotional abuse on yourself. And not of the sense of feeling like I'm incapable or not worthy or, or any of those negative. Just the you could do better, you should do better and why aren't you doing better? And yes, I have very high expectations and it's hard.

To balance that expectation of what's okay and where is the line of no longer acceptable, if that makes sense. Humans are human, they make mistakes, right? But where is those mistakes? Where's that line of they're making mistakes because they're performing poorly and where's the mistakes of, you know, that's just part of the human condition. And sometimes people screw up. So yes it is. I think it would be fair to say that my expectations are very high. My leadership team always jokes that nothing is ever done fast enough.

You know, if I ask them when can it be done? I'm like, why does it take that long? Why can't we do it quicker? So yes, I would say your comments correct expectations. And it's not just you and I have talked about it. It's not just business life expectations, it's personal life too, right? And sometimes those actually create more challenges than the business side. And I know you and I were talking recently, my son and I have had challenges and it's petty and silly as it seems. I have over the last couple years gotten really frustrated with his eating habits at the dinner table. And I'm thinking, you know, when you step back and maybe that's what it takes for somebody, right way they got to kind of disengage and step back and look at it from a non results perspective. When you look at it that way, it's not a big deal. But when you're in the middle of it, you're thinking why, you know.

Why is he doing that? And I just had to get to the point where I don't say anything now. Even though when he takes his bread and wipes his plate with it as opposed to using his fork and knife or whatever it is, I mean, it's really petty stuff. Just like the email and the financial stuff. I mean when you look at it, it is petty. It's petty that I'm upset about it, but I don't know, sometimes I just can't help myself.

Yeah, so what advice? Or would you have some advice for other people who have your why that are struggling with that? Same thing that are struggling with. Man, I'm just so caught up in the details, it might be hard to see the overall big picture, Are there things that you've developed in ways that you figured out how to help yourself in those situations?

Yeah, that's a good question, I think. And I would probably make a distinction. And for me, at least, I'm not really detail oriented in terms of. For me, good enough is good enough, and I want to get. I want to test the concept and proof of concept, and away we go. And I do have people on my team that are like, well, what about this, this, this and this? And I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. Let's, you know, we just keep moving. I think the part for me, though, that we are talking about is that process and that structure that creates the challenge and, you know, suggestions for people like me, I guess, you know, that's a question of, well, how do I help myself? Right.

I think.

I think one of the best ways is, like I said a minute ago, is just to take a break.

You and I were talking before the call about vacation time and time off, and I found that when I disengage from the business and disengage from the day to day, that the sensitivity to the issues diminishes greatly.

When I am in the middle, because I tend to find all the things and tend to focus on all the things that are not working the way that I want them to work, as opposed to stepping back and saying, hey, look how far we've come. Right? Look how far we made it from where we started to where we are now. When you take that perspective, it certainly, certainly makes a difference. And that's nothing new. You know, Randy has talked about this many times, and.

I can't think of the guy. Do you remember the business guy we were talking about that came up with this.

Name Escape? You know who I'm talking about? He's the.

O'.

Keefe.

No, not o'.

Keefe.

He's. It'll come to me in a second. But basically it's not a new idea. You know, Randy's had learned it from somebody and he shared it with us, and you and I both heard it. But I think taking a step back is important.

And I would say not to.

Lower expectations, but perhaps. And I don't know if this is me or. All right, weight people, but there is a time.

My time estimation is very much out of whack in terms of what I think should happen and when it should happen. And so I think sometimes taking a step back and saying, hey, is this really a realistic time frame to get this done in or.

Is this, the time frame that's in my mind, because that's what it is for me, is that when it's in my mind, it's so quick and easy and fast, and I can see it from the beginning to the end, and so why isn't it done? And I think that creates challenges as well. Did that answer the question?

Yeah. So what I think I heard you say is if you find yourself getting really frustrated with someone or something, stop for a second, take a deep breath, step back, and say, okay, is this realistic? Is this argument worth the.

Downside that might come from it?

Yeah, that's certainly part of it. And then the secondary level to that step back is step back away. Like, take a day off. Take some time off. Disengage from all of the business stuff that runs through your head all the time.

Mm. So would you say you're pretty intense at work?

Would I say that, or would my team say that? I would say yes. I generally. I think it's a fair statement that I am pretty intense. Yeah. And that I am pretty serious about everything, and that it's not. It's not a.

It's not a game for me, you know, in the sense that there's, you know, what we do and how we do it have. Have results tied to it, and that matters. And it's not just a, oh, well, if it doesn't work out, that's acceptable. No, that's not acceptable. So, yeah, I would say I'm pretty intense.

So, you know, I don't want to focus only on the challenges that come with it. But what have you. Because there. Because every why has great things about it, and every why has challenges that come with it, and your why has a lot of great things that come with it. And talk about that for a minute. What have you seen as some of the really positive aspects of being structure and results oriented?

Yeah, I think I would say the.

And you've mentioned it, and I think others have mentioned my leadership team has told me as well that being kind of the right way in this sense is that there's just a certain cohesiveness and leadership and structure that the business has when I'm around. And that doesn't mean that it can't run without me, but when I'm here, I've been told numerous times that there's just some, for lack of a better word, magic that I add to the equation. And as you've mentioned, you often don't realize what your gifts are because they come so naturally to you. So for me, I think one of the big things about Right Way that has made my life easy is it's easy for me to see where things are broken. Like this issue. This is broken. What do we need to do to fix it? Who do we hire? How do we adjust it? And let's build it. I like to use the term build it once. Let's not do this five times over and over again, hoping we get it right. Let's build it once, let's get it correct, and let's move on. So I think that is a big strength is the, for lack of a better word, longer term perspective, the structure as you talk about the ability to build and.

Manage a team. Because oftentimes from a leadership perspective, the challenge is.

People or leaders don't necessarily want to do.

The things that they don't want to do. And what I mean by that is, for example, like if somebody said, hey, the trash needs to get taken out, I don't care, I'll take out the trash, I'll sweep the floors. Is that the best use of my time? No. But if that's what has to be done, I'll do that. Because I realize that there's a result attached to the end of it. And I think in some ways that.

Helps the team and the people around you see that, hey, the boss is willing to do whatever it takes.

So I think that would probably be a positive side.

I also see you as someone who brings confidence and instills confidence.

Yeah, I guess that's another one of those. Now that you mentioned it, I would agree with you. I think that.

Okay, so here we go. So I've had several business partners. My brewery business partner also helped start the survival business. And I had a business partner in the health business. And I have been referred to on more than one occasion as Steady Eddie. Which, you know, in some ways I'm like, well, that doesn't sound very, you know, I want to be exciting, I want to be different. But the value there is that regardless of the shit going on, they can come back. And I can usually bring a very logical, structured viewpoint to the situation. And kind of, I would say another right way strength, which I've been told many times, is my ability to kind of cut straight to the issue.

My wife says it's my superpower. She'll be talking and talking. She likes talking to me. She's very social. She's not analytical, but she'll talk and talk and talk. I was like, okay, well, it sounds like, like this is the problem. She's like, you know, that's right. That's what the issue is. And again, I think it's one of those things that you take for granted when you're good at it. So.

Mm, yeah, I see that in you for sure. And that's, you know, that's one of the great things about knowing all the nine whys is that you see that you can't just survive with one why. Like, you know, as a better way person, like I said, I can see all kinds of better ways to do things and I can innovate things and create things, but without somebody whose why is right way, I struggle. You know, I need that person to cut through all my stuff, help me create the structure around getting it done. My brother happens to be his why is right way that I practice with, so I know I can turn it over to him and then he can go make sure that it gets done. And he loves that part of it, the getting it done, the results part of it.

There's certainly a certain mental payoff when you. When you bring that project and idea to fruition, no doubt.

Yeah. So would you say that your businesses Primal health and ultimate survival strategies are those things that you're just amazingly passionate about, or are they things that you brought into your system and process that have turned out really well?

You know, that's another very insightful and good question if you had to. So on the health side, I am interested in health, no doubt. I am interested in natural healing and natural health and longevity and just being an overall healthy person. So I do have interest there. So that did play into it.

But the other side of that coin was being able to going back to what we're calling kind of the structure and the right way of doing things and finding a predictable result. It's been very easy for me to see what all the other companies are doing that are working well. So I knew going into the supplement business was a high profit, high.

Sales business that could be very profitable and make a lot of money.

And running it in a way that is very systematic. I think that's probably another thing that I've done inherently, maybe, maybe in terms of picking it up from looking around, but the health business and the survival business, which, to my passion question, I'm not overly passionate about survival or prepper stuff. It is a business, it works. We acquire customers the same way, we treat them the same way. In fact, I've built both companies so that in essence, the only difference between the companies is the person or the people running the marketing. Everything else runs the Same like my CFO handles both companies, my COO handles both companies hrs across both companies. And so I did that in a way to leverage that expertise and those systems across everything. And I think.

Pretty easily I could bring another company into that fold and it would in essence, work more or less like it's supposed to because I kind of have the infrastructure put together.

So how I would say that in my world is you are passionate about creating the structure and processes for getting results. And you've plugged in two different businesses that. And you could plug in a third or a fourth that you would also get great results with.

Yes, that I think is a very fair statement. And looking at it, I think I'd probably be more excited about the fact of taking another business and plugging it in and proving that it indeed does work like I expect it to than the actual business that I got into, if that makes sense.

So what got you into breweries, having a brewery?

Well, so.

Greg, who is my business partner in the Survival and Health and. Sorry, Survival and Brewery used to brew at Stone and Stone. He used to, he was at Stone and BJ's and this was 20 something years ago. And he, he had expressed a desire, you know, he left on his career path. Let's see, 2013 worth, that's five years ago. So probably 10 years ago he had gone through upheaval when the real estate market and the financial markets went upside down back in 2008. He was a, he was a brewer before that and he left that to get into real estate because he wanted to make enough money so that he could own his own Brewery. Well, 2008 happened and long story short, he ended up working together with me and he had always expressed a desire to be in the brewery, to own his own brewery. And so two, three years ago we started talking about it seriously and said, hey, what would we have to do to do this and how would we do that? And started putting the plan together. And that's kind of how it started. And we started small and very much like I've done the other businesses as you know, like we're talking about a kind of a process to starting small, testing proof of concept, building it out, and once it starts working, you know, invest more time and money and energy into it and certainly had our road bumps, but we are, we are on, I would say we've got some momentum. We're not quite break even yet, but we've got about 30 accounts now, wholesale accounts, and add more every month and we're growing so It's a fun business. It's a fun business mainly because you can consume the product.

Well.

You know, it's interesting to see how your why kind of plays out and everybody. This is for everybody. Your why in your life just plays out over and over and over again, and it becomes that thing that people can count on from you. You know, we know that if we give something to Steve that he is going to create the. He's going to start slow and test things and look around for things that are working. He's going to implement the things that are working, and he's going to create structure around getting results. So an awesome person and an awesome why to have on your team. And it's funny, Steve, because I can just see it playing out over and over and over again for you.

I agree with you and I enjoy talking with you because it's nice to see the perspective and have the.

Have the context, I would say.

And, you know, going back to. I don't know how much more time we had. Do we have a little bit more time or you need to wrap up? Yeah.

No.

Okay. So. So going back to the. The positive and negatives, you know, the positive side, I don't look at as the positive side. But you. You use the word dependable. I mean, to me, dependable sounds boring, right? But. But my wife, to her, it's a big benefit. She's like, you're dependable. I know it's going to. I'm going to go to you and I'm going to get the same response all the time, right? It's going to be if I do X, you're going to do Y. And to her, that's a benefit. And obviously in business, I think that's a benefit as well, because you have going back to that predictability and.

Results that, you know, what kind of results you're going to get. The challenge. You know, I was thinking about this earlier when I was talking.

In some ways, it's a little cathartic talking with you because it allows me to put some, like I said, context in my previous, previous.

Experiences. And I grew up playing baseball, and I was. I was pretty good at baseball. I had enough talent. I could have played college ball if I wanted to.

But I got in my way, and I got in my own way in high school because started looking at the game as what you now refer to as creating or trying to create a result. And when I didn't think about or worry about how I was performing and I just played baseball, I did very, very well, but as soon as I started thinking about, oh, wait a second, I've been up to bat X amount of times and if I don't get a hit the next time, that's going to mean my batting average is yada yada yada. And that's not going to work because then the scouts aren't going to end. The whole thing just fell apart. And it was horrible. And it got to the point to where all my buddies called me psycho and it was a joke because I was constantly analyzing and looking. But I think knowing what I know now, that was probably the right way coming out, trying to structure it and make something that's supposed to be a game and fun, very results oriented.

And you know, it's a good lesson because going back to when you were saying, what can you do? Obviously, I think knowing.

Part of the challenge and the benefit and the challenge of knowing any why, knowing when to use it and when to turn it on and when to turn it off, I think is the right, right way to say that.

Because you can't, I can't be right way all the time. If I'm right way with everything, then that's just going to cause all sorts of havoc.

Which we well know.

So here's the thing, here's another way to say that, which is I don't think you can ever turn your brain off from utilizing your why, but you can turn your mouth off from saying anything about it.

That's probably true.

Yeah. So, you know, I can find a better way all day long. And if every conversation and every interaction all I can think about is finding a better way and I say it, all I'm going to do is upset the person I'm talking with. Can I stop my brain from finding a better way? No. But can I stop my mouth from saying what I'm thinking? Yes, of course. Because you, you know, we all have thoughts that we probably shouldn't say.

Of course.

But if we stay at them all, we'd have a lot of enemies. So there's a time and a place to utilize your strength and there's a time and a place to not utilize your strength even though it's there.

Yes. Well, I have been.

I probably need to work on that myself a little bit better because I have been been known to be overly blunt from time to time.

So how does that work for you? You know, that's the.

Well, again, it's one of those things that's a positive and a negative. Right, right. Like there are people on my team most. I Mean, I would say all my team that appreciate. They know where they stand with me. There is no. There is no. Oh, Steve said, how was your weekend? Did he really mean, I'm really pissed. You know what I mean? Like, some people, they say something and you're left feeling like, what did they really say? And so part of that is they appreciate the bluntness and there's no doubt of what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling or what my issues or concerns are. So that's good. From a communication standpoint, obviously, the bad side is the feelings. Right. And relationships. And that's probably.

Is not my strength. I can tell you. That's why my HR director, Michelle.

Has job security, because if it was left to me, we wouldn't have any employees left.

Well, I think you've done an amazing job in utilizing your why to create structure and processes for building companies that work. Because you've obviously been very successful in your businesses. You have an amazing wife and two kids that you live a life that most people don't typically get to live. I mean, you. You've created your own structure for your. For being a family, wouldn't you say? I mean, you just got back, you just took your kids on a trip. Seems like you're always taking your kids on a trip.

Yeah, I think the better way to say that is our kids are always tagging along on the trips Jen and I are going on. But, yes, we do do a fair amount of travel, and part of that is, again, going back to the structure. We decided early on that we wanted to homeschool so we'd have the flexibility to travel when we wanted. I know you and I have talked about it, but we've been to many countries. We spent three weeks in Greece a couple years ago studying ancient history because that was the year they did Ancients. And last year was Renaissance. So we spent three weeks in France and Germany and England and all of studying all of that history. And this year it's American history, so we're taking several trips to see all the pieces of history and how we came to be. So it is. I would agree with you. I think there's been a lot of thought and structure into how do we get the. For lack of a better result that we want from the life we want to live. Absolutely.

Yeah. So, you know, kind of to sum it up, Steve, it's. It's. It's when your why gets every. Why has positives and negatives, and your why has the awesome benefit of being able to get results And. And create things on purpose. Right. Live life on purpose. And, you know, you compare that to the other side of having no structure, no processes, and never getting anything done, that's another one of the whys has that challenge. So every why has pluses and minuses. You've done a great job of taking your why and creating the life that you want. And so that's an awesome thing to see in people. So, Steve, I thank you for being on with me today, and it's been great to get to know you and our. Our masterminds, and I look forward to continuing to learn more about your why through you, because it's an awesome why.

Well, I appreciate that, Gary. Thanks for having me. And also thank you. I told you. Thank you. And I don't know if my wife told you, but you're doing something that I think adds a lot of value and has a lot of meaning for a lot of people. So I'm glad that I know you're still working on trying to figure out all the ins and outs of how to make it work just the way you want it to, but. And I know that you wouldn't do something unless you thought it was a better way to do it, but what you're doing is valuable and adds value to a lot of people's lives. So thank you.

Awesome. I appreciate it. Thanks, Steve.