From Startup to Success | How to Build a Business Investors Trust

Welcome everybody to another YouTube Hangout. Super excited to be here. We've got an important topic to cover today, and I've got a new friend and special guest, Mr. Phil Towne, with me. He is an investor. He is a motivational speaker. He's a polo player. You'll see him in his outfit. Uh, he is a hedge fund manager. He's been on MSNBC and CNBC and is a multiple-time New York Times bestselling author. Today we're gonna talk about how to get funding for your business. Mr. Phil Towne, welcome aboard, man.

Thanks, Evan. Glad to be here. I'm shamelessly promoting the Rule One Polo team here. We always need more fans. We have 4 fans. We're looking for number 5. So, you know.

Well, send me a jersey and maybe I'll wear it in a future livestream. We'll get it going.

You got it, man. We're sending you a jersey. There we go. I love it. Cool.

Well, so we're gonna have tons of people joining in. We've already got hundreds of people joining online. Asking questions, giving some feedback, and getting personal about how to get funded for their business. But before getting into it, I want to get some nuggets from you. I mean, you've been on MSNBC, CNBC, all the major outlets. You have your own funds. What are some of the key nuggets you can drop on us? If I'm an entrepreneur looking to get funding, what should I be paying attention to?

I think the main thing to pay attention to is building a really good business. Um, that's what's going to get you funded, and Ultimately, funding is gonna come in depending on the stage you're at based on really a couple of major things. Number one, most of the people who are in my shoes are gonna bet the jockey, not the horse if you're an early-stage company. But when you get to be a later stage, they're gonna be betting the horse as well as you. So you kinda gotta know what kind of money you're going after. Are you after angel capital? Are you after kind of mezzanine financing? Are you already profitable and really cranking it out there? And you need money to continue that level of growth. Those are 3 really different questions, but ultimately it comes down to 2 things. Number 1, what is the intrinsic characteristic you've built into your company that'll protect you from competitors coming in later? And in other words, what's your niche and how do you protect it? And second, can you demonstrate your own personal integrity and talent in running this business? Those are essentially the two things we're looking for. Do we have a management team we can trust that's talented? And does the business plan have a structure to it that protects it from competition?

So for you guys watching live, if you have a question, leave it down there on the side and we will do our best to get to as many as we can. First one coming in is from Cam saying, how much money on average do you need to start a business? So if I'm starting the business, how much— how do I figure out how much money I need?

So you take how much money you think you need and multiply it by a million or two. You're going to come out with some kind of a number that's very large. Okay, truth be known, I don't like to invest in companies that need a lot of capital. I like to see entrepreneurs who bootstrap. I want to see, you know, shabby offices and, you know, stolen furniture, you know, things that fell off the back of the truck. I want to see a group of people who are just absolutely dedicated to the development of this idea And I like to see that for people who are not that interested in the money. So I don't think it takes a lot of capital to get started. Now, the reason you're going to need a lot of money as you go is because you hit it, you got the right idea out there, and it starts to explode in some sort of exponential way. And then you're going to need capital to really jack it up and take it out of the market. But hopefully, unless you're doing some kind of thing where you're trying to, you know, build chips, which would be something I wouldn't be interested in. You're gonna need very little capital to get started. A proof of concept shouldn't cost a lot.

Varun is writing in to ask about what are your thoughts on Kickstarter crowdfunding as a source of raising capital for a company?

Yeah, all good, just don't give away the farm. And on that point, you know, it's wherever you can get capital, but frankly, we focus a lot on the 3 Fs, which would be friends, family, and fools. Until you can get this thing rolling. But the Kickstarter group, these funding sites are a really good third F, right? This is piled full of friendly fools in the sense that these, they're willing to take a shot with somebody they don't know, maybe in a business they don't understand. And in one sense, it's the easiest money in the world to raise because people are not all that well informed. On the other hand, you can end up with a lot of people in there that you really don't want. So I guess my preferred way to go would be to start to build a business plan and start looking for angel investors in your area. I'd much prefer you see with one or two investors to get started rather than a big old pile of anonymous people.

So to that question around Fools, so if I've raised my first round and I've got a bunch of, you know, friends, family, you know, random people, if I then go to approach an angel investor, I'm going for my next round, if I'm coming to you and saying, Phil, I'm looking to raise my next round of capital here. How much do you look at who the other investors are that you're now in business with, these Fools that have come on board, and does that impact your decision to make a yes investment?

Well, I don't think it's going to be at all super impactful because if the entrepreneur and the plan of where they're going are good, then we're going to be able to overcome those kinds of issues. Clearly, we don't want people in there who are crazy, stupid, painfully emotional. We would like to have people that are reasonably intelligent about the investing process so that they're not sitting there thinking that because they put up $2,000, they should own 40% of your company forever. That can be a real problem. But if you just got really friends and family and people who are congenial fools that are willing to help you ride up that first level, Typically those people aren't a problem.

Got it. Next question coming in. What books or resources can you recommend to learn how to think like an investor?

Okay. The number one thing you can do to think like an investor is read every single letter that Warren Buffett wrote to his shareholders from 1973 until now. It'll take you a couple hours. They're actually on the website, Berkshire Hathaway, and you just click on them. And it is a master's course in setting up a business that's fundable and ultimately very saleable. Buffett is, I think, the world's best investor. He owns, last check, 70 or 80 private companies. So it would really, I think it'd be the best education in the world for you guys to go out and study what did Buffett buy? Why does he like these companies? What is it about these companies that makes them something that he could bring into his company and own without having been worried about whether or not it's going to work out, right? That's the key. If you study those letters, you'll be a much, much better entrepreneur. It's one of the best ways I've learned how to do this.

Now, I know you do a lot of financial education and training. You've got your Rule One Investing, you do workshops and seminars. You cover this, how to think like an investor, some of the important parts.

Yeah, we do. We're all about thinking like an investor. In fact, we do a 3-day workshop that we'd be happy to have all of your, you know, all of your fans come and do. We do it typically in Atlanta, Georgia, which is near where we live. And we'll do it once a month, sort of donating the time for 3 days. You know, we don't sell anything, nothing like that. We just teach. And we're teaching essentially Warren Buffett style investing strategy, which means by the end of the first day, you'll have learned what I as a hedge fund manager and what many of the hedge fund managers are looking for when it comes time to fund something. That could be pretty valuable, I think, to an entrepreneur. And down the road also, it's pretty valuable to understand the investing process and how to invest as an entrepreneur. Because if you're gonna go out there and do this, you wanna make money. And when you make the money, you wanna start to diversify that out away from the company as you're starting to get in cash flow and start, you know, just like Hollywood producers, let other people take more of the risk down the road. As it really starts to grow, that's where you bring in additional capital. And you at that point won't be required to have everything you own in the world in this company, like you are when you start up. And you can start to diversify across into other companies, but you're gonna have to have an education and know what to look for. So the two things I think work kind of well together.

Got it. And for you guys watching, you can find that course at, it's ruleoneinvesting.com off your main site?

Right, ruleoneinvesting.com. Just go there and, There's a lot of information about how to invest and the things we look for as an investor in a good company. Essentially, what we're looking for is a wonderful business. That's what we want to buy. We want to buy businesses that are awesome, that we don't have to struggle to keep alive, right? And those are exactly the kind of businesses we want to build. We want to build businesses that are wonderful. So when you come, you'll learn what wonderful looks like to the best investors in the world.

Got it, cool. I love it. Keep the questions coming, guys. Next up, Jennifer is asking about how do you evaluate a company? How do you figure out what a company is worth?

All right, really good. We go through 2 or 3 different ways of evaluating a company. And of course, the hardest one is the way venture capital does it, which is to make an educated guess about where this company is gonna be in 5 years. When it doesn't already have profits, it doesn't already have cash flow. That's really difficult to do. And that's why in our industry we say we're betting the jockey, not the horse, because many of the companies we fund end up not being the product that we thought they were gonna be. They end up something else. But it's just that we've got such good people running the business, we can find a way to be successful. Those are really difficult to figure out. But just to give you a metric to work with, estimate where you're going to be in about 5 years to 10 years and figure that the entrepreneurs or the capitalists that are putting the money in are going to want roughly to double their money every 2 years over that period of time. So if you say, all right, I need a million dollars, let's say $100,000, I need 100 grand, and the angel capital is going to come out in 5 years, they're going to need to double roughly 3 times over that 5-year period. So they put in $100,000, they need $200,000, $400,000, $800,000. $100,000 in, $800,000 out. If it 10 years, $1,600,000, $3,200,000. You see where I'm going? It just exponentially grows. So I know it's kind of a shock and a little bit rude about how big those numbers get, but we invest in a lot of things that don't happen and don't grow, and a lot of that capital goes away. So the ones that win, you've got to know you're going to get a good return on those companies in order to make up for the ones that lose. Okay. So that's venture capital. Now, if you're a later stage, much, much different the way this can be viewed. At a later stage where you're really making profits, you've got the company rolling and now you want to sell it to somebody and you're gonna sell it to a public company. Typically as a private company, you're gonna be valued at about one half of the same company as a public company. So, if there's somebody out there that looks like you, let's say you're a restaurant chain, look out there and find out what, you know, Cheesecake Factory is selling for, cut it in half based on your earnings and you'll be in the ballpark. Another way to look at that is depending on how fast you're growing, you're gonna sell it for something around 7 to 9 times earnings would be in the ballpark of a good sale. That would be a good one. So, my brother, for example, sold his company a few years ago for 9.1 times earnings. And he was making $10 million a year. So that'll give you a sense of the range from startup out to really, you know, late-stage company.

Got it. Getting a bunch of questions about schooling. People wanna know, do investors look for degrees? How important does school play a part when investors— So how much do you look at where somebody went to school?

Not much, frankly. Okay. That's so far down the list of things we think about. Really, I guess the only time that your schooling is going to be valuable probably is if you went to a very prestigious, you know, university that was really hard to get into. It would be an indication that you're probably really smart or you have really rich parents. Okay? One or the other. And so we like it if it comes out that you're really smart, but we're probably not talking to you unless we thought you were really smart anyway. All right. So degrees, man, more and more we're aware that some of the best entrepreneurs in the world have been people who quit college like Steve Jobs and famously Bill Gates, right? Doesn't mean everybody should go quit college, but it means that often your capital isn't looking for your degree. What they're looking for is what do you know how to do? What are you thinking about? Where are you going to go with this? And again, how dedicated are you to succeeding? I mean, we really want somebody that's going to live or die by this company, who's not going to, this is kind of rough, but who's not necessarily going to put their family first, who's not going to put their kids first, who's not going to put anything first except this company. Those are the people that tend to make it through this gauntlet of entrepreneurship, where ultimately you end up with everything you own and everything you can borrow in this company, trying to make it successful. And we want somebody that's just going to go to war to make that happen, or we don't want to put our money in there. And I know that's not balanced. I know it's not maybe even fair, but it can sure make up for a college degree, that level of focus.

Right. So I used to be in the venture capital industry, and the principals at the company I was at, if they saw that the CEO or the founder had a PhD, they actually counted as a strike against that person because they thought they were too book smart and not enough street smart. Do you have the same criteria?

Not necessarily that forward on it. But it is always a worry when we get somebody that's a little too academic. Right? The ivory tower world is so different than the real world of, you know, blood and bruises of entrepreneurship where you're really in the street. So having street experience is huge. In fact, I talked to a guy once that went through Harvard Business School and then went into the training programs at places like P&G, you know, Procter Gamble and so on. His opinion, and this guy turned venture capitalist, his opinion was, you know, 5 years down the road, real world experience has taken over for all the business school training you could get in the world. So they just discount it. You got 4 or 5 years of experience in the real world, you're good to go.

Got it. Getting a ton of questions around business plans. So people wanna know how effective is a plan? How long should it be? What's the most important thing that investors look at in a plan? What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are plans are shit, really. Honestly, you know, everybody can have a plan, and your plan is really good right up until the time you get our money, and then your plan sucks immediately. It starts going entirely different directions. I think you should be able to sketch out what you're intending to do in about 30 seconds, okay? You should be able to stick it on a napkin. If you can't explain what you're trying to accomplish in my terms extremely quickly, I'm probably not going to be that interested in what you're doing because I'm figuring out you probably don't know what you're doing, right? So I like to see, you know, the movie version of business plans, right? The famous MTV back in the day was, uh, let's see what— Gunsmoke meets— no, it wasn't. It was Gunsmoke meets MTV. And that was coming out with Miami Vice. So it's like, if you can describe it in terms that we can understand, you're way ahead of some elaborate business plan that ultimately depends on some completely pulled out of the air numbers that you put out there. And by the way, most of the people that you're ultimately gonna get funded by will know your business better than you do. They're not gonna need to see a business plan, elaborate 36-page thing. They might ask you for it just to see if you know how to create one, and can actually build an Excel spreadsheet and actually run the numbers. But they're going to know the business already. They're probably not going to put money in it.

So if I'm coming to meet you, I'm looking for an angel investment. I'm hoping Phil's going to say yes. We're sitting down for coffee. What am I bringing? Am I, am I, am I not even opening up the laptop, not even open up a folder? We're just chatting, or what do you want to see?

We're totally just chatting. We did that. We do this on MSNBC all the time on, on this little show, Your Business, that American Express has been funding for gosh, 8 years now or something, where we have somebody come in and just do an elevator pitch. The famous, you've got from here till I get off to tell me what you're up to. And if you can't do it in that amount of time, I'm probably not gonna be interested. So you're not gonna obviously get it all out there in 60 seconds. Shark Tank is another good example of having to nail the basics about your business in a very, very short period of time, or I'm just not gonna be interested. So yeah, you don't need to bring a bunch of elaborate stuff and a bunch of charts and graphs. You need to come in and tell me the basics of the business. How are you going to protect this business against competition? What do you have that nobody else has? Right? So, you know, obviously one example is I'm coming in with a patent, but that's not the best example. I mean, the best example is something like Chipotle Mexican Grill coming in and saying, you know, Steve Ells saying, look, what I'm doing is I'm making a burrito better than anybody. And I'm using fresh ingredients. I'm using classic cooking methods. And I can crank this out faster than McDonald's can do a burger by 3 times. And he just, that's it. I mean, as soon as he does that, then the question is, do I like your burrito?

Right.

I like you. I like your idea. Can you make a good burrito? Because ultimately that's where we're going, right? Yeah. So it should be dead simple if you want to attract angel capital.

Got it. So you mentioned Shark Tank. People are asking questions too. They're wondering, is it helpful for entrepreneurs to watch Shark Tank? From an education perspective, not just entertainment.

Oh my God, yes, that is just like nirvana for entrepreneurs. I love that show. I watch it all the time, learn something every day. Um, watch that one and watch The Prophet and watch, uh, a great show, underrated, underrated, fantastic show. If you want to be looking through the eyes of a guy like me, Marcus Lemonis is that guy on Spades, right? He is phenomenal and you can see what he's looking at and he's got a heart of gold anyway. And so, yeah, those two shows are fantastic. I'll tell you, the stuff that's going on as reality TV shows for business, you know, the Undercover Boss is really good to see what you might be missing in your business when you're thinking about how to build it out. Did you forget to actually pay attention to the business? A lot of these guys have, you know. So, there's so many good shows, but those two, Shark Tank and Profit, are my favorite.

Are you gonna go on Undercover Boss, Phil? No, no, we want to see that episode. So you're talking about angel investing and the kind of elevator pitch, 30-second pitch. People are asking, so what's the smartest way to grab the attention of angel investors in that, in that 30-second pitch?

Really simple. You need an introduction through somebody else that I trust. So you got to network into it, right? And we're all connected with 6 degrees of separation, so there's always a way to find somebody who knows somebody who can tell you to meet somebody. So get an introduction. Don't try to cold call your way into it. It's not going to happen. Don't bother to send business plans. It's not going to happen. They're going to get 86'd. So what do you want to do is just find a way to get to talk to somebody that knows something. And they have entrepreneur conferences. They got, you know, they've got angel conferences. You can get names. The main thing is to just get an introduction. And then the second thing is, you know, you want to be sure that you're coming in with questions to ask about the planning process that you're going through for your company. You don't have to ask me for money. I'm smart enough to figure out that you're looking for money. All right? So you don't bother asking for it. What you bother doing is ask intelligent questions, ask me to critique something about the company. If you're coming to me, it's probably because I've already built a company in this space. Right? So when you go into Shark Tank, those guys have all built companies in your space already. The best thing you could do if you were to sit down with one of them is to sit down and ask an intelligent question about your business to improve your planning. And then you sort of hook us in. We like getting hooked in like that. We're not in it for the money per se. We're in it to enjoy the experience of building something, the growth of an entrepreneur, helping people get better. And it starts with you, the entrepreneur, being open to that, not coming to tell me you know everything and be an arrogant dickhead. Just be open and come in with questions on your idea. And I'll tell you, it'll improve your business plan and/or your business planning process. And here's the thing, it will result in me asking you, are you interested in capital? Because I might be interested in doing something with you. Beats the heck out of beating the doors down for money, doesn't it?

Got it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Somebody's writing in to say, Evan, you mentioned Phil had multiple New York Times bestselling books. What are they and what is Phil most proud of from his books?

Ah, okay. Well, the two books both hit number one on the New York Times, which blew my mind. One of them is called Rule Number One, which is an investment Bible that says the number one rule of investing is to not lose money. And the number two rule of investing is to not forget the number one rule of investing. And that comes directly from That's directly from Warren Buffett. And the second book is called Payback Time, which is an analysis of basically investing through successive rounds as you're coming into the investment, making multiple investments we call stockpiling in. And I'll tell you what I'm most proud of these books is that they continue to be read. They continue to be sold. They're one of the strongest backlist books that Random House has. Which means they're out there being bought all the time after 11 years. So it's managed to stay current. And I really like that about them.

What made you wanna do this? I mean, you had your successful career, hedge fund manager, lots of financial success building your companies, and now it's giving back, it's creating courses, writing books. Like what made the drive to educate come out of you?

Well, I think that it's a, It's part of who I am. I mean, basically it goes all the way back. I've always wanted to kind of help people get free. I've been very fortunate in my life that I've managed to have a lot of freedom in what I want to do throughout my life. And I didn't come from a lot of money. I just sort of insisted on doing what I wanted to do. Right? So I started off as a river guide for 10 years in the Grand Canyon. I mean, I relate to people who are working blue-collar jobs or trying to figure out their way out of that thing. And so that's always been something I've been interested in. And a friend of mine said, man, you ought to write a book about this experience you've had of becoming successful. And I did. And people wanted to hear more about it. So I started speaking about it and I got addicted to it, Evan. It's like I love the teaching process as long as I don't do it too much. Right? I mean, one 3-day period a month is just about right. And then I get to get up on stage and elaborate about what I've learned in 30 years of doing this. It's a lot of fun. I mean, people who come to this stuff, they'll know in the first hour that they're not looking, listening to somebody who's trying to grind their way through it. I'm up there having a blast, and watching the lights go on is just the best thing in the world for me.

I love it. Well, you're getting a ton of love in the comments. When we first started, people are saying, who is this guy? And now we're getting a lot of Phil Townes, the real deal, and people want to learn more. So, so it's great. And in, in, you know, already like 20 minutes, you've already impacted a lot of people. More questions are just piling in. We have more questions than time for, but people are asking. Here's Richard's question. Wants to know your thoughts about business incubators and accelerators. Worth it, not worth it, what do you think?

Yeah, I think it's a really good idea. It's gotten to be kind of a way to get into an environment where there's a lot of people like you. My daughter Danielle is an attorney out of Boulder, Colorado, where they have a couple of major incubators. And they're phenomenal. You get a chance to leverage on some very good venture capital people and angel investors who are usually connected with the incubators. So capital is there, number one. Number two, which is maybe even more important, is you've got an environment where you've got other like-minded people and you get a community. So one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is to think you're the only one out there who's scared to death and running out of money. You get to find out that, hey, everybody's sitting around me is scared to death and running out of money. And so, you end up with a community that can really help each other. And third, because that community is usually a lot of really, you know, hardworking, driven, smart people, there's a lot of overlap in these companies and you might be able to leverage on somebody else's idea. So, there's a lot of reasons to really like what's going on. I think it's a terrific trend and it should continue for sure. So, if you can get in one, I would say that's great. No downside.

[Speaker:ROD] Got it. You're getting a lot more love. Great job, Phil. Phil is really a remarkable human being. So there you go, making some impact already. Uh, we're getting a couple investing questions, so kind of the flip side. We've been talking about how to raise money, but now how to invest. Uh, first one is, while investing, what are some of the important things to look for in an annual report?

Ah, okay, well, there's just a few numbers that really matter, okay? So an annual report, the number one thing we're looking for as an investor is cash flow. And amazingly, it's not in the annual report. You have to, you have to do the math. So for me, I go directly to, and we're talking about the numbers here, I go directly to the cash flow page. There's a bold line called operating cash flow. I look at that number and then I look right below it, about 3 lines down, there's one that says purchase of property and equipment, which is your capital expenditures. Subtract that from your operating cash flow and you got free cash. I want to see that free cash number is what I'm looking for in investments. So, that's the first thing. Second thing, as soon as I see there's free cash coming through this company, the next thing I'm looking for is what's the moat? I want to see that in the 10-K, typically in the competition section that says, you know, here's how we're competing against other companies. And there should be a statement in there from the CEO that says, we have an advantage in this industry because we do ABC. So if you're looking at Apple Computer, it's going to say our, our expertise and what gives us an advantage in this industry is that we build an ecosystem that's comprised of software, hardware, network, and so on. And they're basically saying this is how we protect ourselves from people coming in and taking away our business. And why? Because of that, you can estimate what the future looks like. Because if you can't do that, who knows what this thing's worth, right? So if you want to invest in companies, you want to invest in companies that have a lot of cash flow and that you can look at, have a big moat so that you can project they'll be worth more in 10 years than they are today. Those are the two things we're digging for right off the bat.

Got it. Here's the question, Phil. It officially came in. I'm an entrepreneur. Should I go to college? What do you think, Phil?

I'm an entrepreneur. Should I go to college? I don't think that that is a binary decision. I think you just got to decide, what am I trying to do and what can I learn when I go to college? So I'll tell you what I did. I went back to college after I was about 23 or 24 years old and I studied philosophy. And that was one of the best things I ever did. And it was completely useless in terms of, you know, being an entrepreneur or being an investor. I had to go learn all that stuff later, or at the same time actually. And, you know, it just depends on what you're going to study and what you want to do with college. You know, I, I can't give you that answer. Is it necessary? No, it's not necessary.

Got it. Uh, the next one's an investing question but can relate to entrepreneurship too. How do I cope after making a wrong investment? Which can also be in entrepreneurship, you have a failure. So So how can people cope with making those mistakes?

Okay. So the first thing is to just recognize the mistake as quickly as possible and rectify it. What we do when we invest in a company is we look at us, we create what's called a story. And if that story changes, then like, for example, we think the story basically is this is a great company and we're buying it at a really great price. Great. Okay. Then the story changes and it's clearly not what we thought it was. We're gonna exit that investment without looking backwards. We're just gonna say, we're outta here. So the first thing you gotta understand about making a mistake is we all make them. It's sort of inevitable. You're gonna have them. What you wanna do is you don't wanna compound that mistake with false hope and just continue to invest or continue to work hard building something that isn't gonna work out. You wanna make the exit. So getting out, that's one of the first things you wanna do. Second thing is to get this mistake in the context. You know, we've all made them. I've had $20 million mistakes that have happened. And so, I mean, Steve Jobs built NeXT Computer. It was a mistake. But I don't think there's a single instance where that mistake didn't turn out to be valuable to me down the road, that I got all of that value and then some out of it. So for example, Steve made a mistake building the NeXT Computer, you could say, or it was just the necessary evolution for the operating system that now is the Macintosh operating system. So in one sense, we don't want to make mistakes. We want to get out of them as quickly as possible. In another sense, there's almost no mistakes. There's always something to be learned that's valuable for you down the road. The key thing is be rational about it, be crystal clear, get out of the emotions, quit feeling the fear, and just move forward as quickly as you can away from it.

I love it. Well, it's crazy how quickly half an hour flies by when you're having fun.

Oh, we gotta go.

We've got tons of questions coming in, but let's end on it. It's a good final one. Phil, if you could do it all over again, what would you have done differently?

Man, I'll tell you that my career has been a kind of amazing, amazing thing, and I'm in a constant state of gratitude about it. So I can't say that where I'm at, I would have done anything differently to get here. There's a couple of mistakes I would like to not make. But I know because I made them, I became better and I wouldn't have if I didn't make them. So back to the previous question. And I'll tell you what I would recommend that you think about in terms of your own work and your own career came to me from Wahei Takeda when I visited him over in Japan. He's the Warren Buffett of Japan, a multi-billionaire. And I asked him, what is the single thing that he did that made him the most money? What was it about his investing strategy? And he said, I have been grateful 1,000 times a day, every single day for 60 years. And I said, okay, man, I got it. I'm going to go be grateful. So that's, I would recommend that. I would say, don't look back to say, okay, what am I going to change? What was the thing? Look back with gratefulness on every single thing you've had going on and use that as a technique or a mantra or a meditation for the future. Be grateful and you will have amazing success.

I love that. That's a great— that's a great point to end on. I appreciate that, Phil. Uh, for people who want to find you, obviously you've got Rule One Investing. We've linked that up below. Are you on social? Are you taking questions? How can people reach you?

Yeah, um, we got a blog going. We do a podcast. It's— there's— just go to the website. You'll see all the different avenues we can get at each other.

Perfect. Well, thank you guys for watching. Phil, thank you so much for spending your time. I am grateful for that.

I am grateful as well. Namaste, man.

I love it. Continue to believe, guys, and we'll see you soon.

See ya.