How Paw Patrol saved Spin Master - Ronnen Harary - Spin Master - EP#114

I worked for 3 years trying to get a live-action film made for Bakugan, which is one of our biggest toys. And when we finally got the offer from Universal, $100 million live-action film, I said no, which was the wrong decision. It was one of the worst decisions I made in my career.

Today's guest is Ronen Harari, an entrepreneur who's over the last 30 years turned his company Spin Master into one of the largest children's entertainment companies in the world. They've built brands like Bakugan and Arrowheads, and their most successful franchise is PAW Patrol. It has generated more than $15 billion in retail sales In 2021, Ronen stepped back from the CEO role and is now chairman of the board.

He just published his first book, No Experience Necessary. I really like this quote. You said risk is not binary, it's multifaceted. Like the weather, it's ever-present. It's inherent in everything we do, and it cannot be avoided.

You have less to lose in your 20s, right? I really try to key in on the notion of the inverse risk. It's riskier not to bet on yourself, and passion delevers risk.

Today's guest is Ronen Harari, an entrepreneur who's over the last 30 years turned his company Spin Master into one of the largest children's entertainment companies in the world. They've built brands like Bakugan and Air Hogs, acquired notable and historic brands like Rubik's Cube and Etch A Sketch. And their most successful franchise is Paw Patrol. It has generated more than $15 billion in retail sales on its own. And I'm pretty sure that my family's toy purchases account for a large chunk of that.

Thank you.

Today, Spin Master is a public company of roughly 3,000 people doing over $2.2 billion in annual revenue. In 2021, Ronen stepped back from the CEO role and is now chairman of the board. He just published his first book, No Experience Required: Why Betting on Yourself in Your 20s Is the Best Decision You'll Ever Make. In his own words, he's motivated to help young people take agency in their lives and reach their full potential. Ronen Harari, welcome to Not Another CEO Podcast.

Thanks, buddy. Pleasure to be here.

Excited to be here.

All right. First question. I want to get to the book, but first question I ask everyone, what is the one thing that you've done, big or small, at Spin Master that's had the biggest impact you'd do again if you're CEO of another company?

in the future?

You know, I think it's my relationship with my 2 business partners. So I met my one business partner, Anton, when I was 12 at camp. We were best friends, and we said we'd never go into business together. And my other business partner, Ben, went to business school with Anton, and Anton used to make him soup to get his notes. And so the 3 of us went on this incredible journey together. And I think the most important thing is the fact that we're still together 32 years later. We didn't read any business books, but there was certain things that we did that kept our relationship together. And we had weekly meetings every week, every year. And in those meetings, it would be like a clearinghouse for issues. And we'd bring up any issues that we were facing emotionally or in the business. We always had low ego, and we had the ability to say sorry.

Hmm.

And whenever someone overstepped the line, and you got the sorry, and you were able to move forward. And then one other amazing thing in our partnership was there was no blame. And whenever we debated, we were always able to get into this incredible mind meld together. And whenever the best idea surfaced, we ran with that idea. And we didn't attribute any ownership to the idea. It was just like, that's the idea. Let's just go forward with it.

Do you think—

there's a lot of co-founder relationships, and even people I've interviewed on this podcast— This is a tri-founder.

Yeah, tri-founder. Tri-founder.

that don't go well.

Yeah.

And the founders are not together even 4 years later.

Yeah.

Let alone 32 years later.

Yeah.

Do you think that it's because you knew each other, like you and Anton starting there, that you knew each other for such a long period of time and all of that trust was there? Do you think, and then, you know, of course adding Ben to the mix, you know, that you were trusting Anton. I'm just curious because actually a lot of co-founder, tri-founder, quad-founder relationships don't last. the journey of the company, let alone, I mean, 3 decades, almost never.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's quite remarkable when you even say 3 decades. You know, Anton and I actually started a business in university. We had a business called Campus Faces. And so we would take pictures of students during frosh week, and then we'd sell advertising around the perimeter. We'd print up 9,000 posters for free. And sorry, we'd give up 9,000 posters for free. We did that at Western, and then we did it at 4 other universities by the time we graduated. Graduated with no debt, $10,000 in the bank. And I think that gave us the opportunity to test our relationship and see how we worked together. And then once we graduated, we were able to go fully in. So I think it was a combination between trying something out step by step and also having the relationship at the beginning.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's one of the greatest things is when you, when you start young, you're able to see the real version of the person, right? There's no mask, there's no veneer, right? And you're seeing them in a very raw sense. You're seeing them in high school, you're seeing them in university, you're partying together, you know, you're socializing, you meet their family, you spend time with their family. And I think a lot of, a lot of traits come from the family at the end of the day. And I was able to see that with Anton and, and Ben was a different story. Anton knew him and I went on his recommendation. But I like Ben so much. He's such a likable guy.

I wanna— this book, I read it and I wish I read it when I was like 18 or something, you know, not now. But it's amazing that you've put the effort. I can only imagine how much effort went into writing it. So the chapters are kind of written where you tell a story about the business and pretty in-depth, actually, and seems like in full transparency. And then you kind of transition that into the lesson. And so one of the chapters is The Power of Not Knowing. And I love that. I feel like the whole book, basically, that's like the— that to me, at least when I think about my 20s, it's like, that's the foundation of everything. And you talk a little bit about that. And just like, you know, I like the story also about—

what was it called?

The Air Hog.

The Sky Shark. The Sky Shark. You don't realize it till you get older, but all these amazing things accrue to you in your 20s. And sometimes not knowing is helpful. And so for us, our big product that came out, which was the Air Hog— this was an airplane. You pumped it up, flicked the propeller, flew around for 45 seconds. At the time, there was only gas-powered planes and rubber-bound planes. And we started to tap into this network of inventors, and they came to Toronto. They had a prototype. Me and Ben went to fly it. It was so much fun. All we wanted to do was fly it over and over and over again. And we thought to ourselves, like, this is an incredible product. You know, like, if we're having fun at 25, like, how much more is a 10-year-old gonna have fun with this product? And we spent a year and a half developing it, put all our money into it. Went up the learning curve, engineering. I went to China, found a factory, figured out how to manufacture it. And almost at the end, we found out that we were the last people to see the product, and that everybody had turned it down. Hasbro had turned it down. Mattel had turned it down. And they turned it down, actually, for really good reasons, because airplane, it's gonna fall to the ground. It could break. You're gonna have high returns. And if you have high returns, it's gonna take your profitability away. There's safety issues, spinning prop. But for us, when we thought about it, it's not like we didn't think about it, but it was like, we'll figure out a way to get through this, right?

Mm-hmm.

And that not knowing and not being burdened with all that industry knowledge helped us actually bring this to market. And then we actually made flying toys for 15 years, generated hundreds of millions of dollars, and that really solidified us as a toy company, But more than that, with all the inventors— because in the toy industry, there's all these people that invent toys for a living, but they never commercialize them. And we were able to— all those inventors were like, OK, now we'll show you more things. Because before, they were just dusting off their old stuff.

It's— so early in my career, I took over this company, voice over IP business, phone system business. And I was 22 years old and didn't know anything to the point of power of not knowing. We ended up deciding to build it in a technology, a way that at that time in 2005 no one was doing, and I literally knew nothing, like actually nothing. And so we built this, and years later, like a decade later, people are like, you built that? Like over the public internet? And it's the same thing. I literally did, I actually was so naive that I thought, why not?

But the irony is that you did know. You knew internally that something was there. And that's the thing, it's actually the, It's actually, it's the inverse. It's the power of knowing, but not letting the intellect override what you feel internally, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I can tell you a story of myself. When I was 40, I worked for 3 years trying to get a live-action film made for Bakugan, which was one of our biggest toys. And when we finally got the offer from Universal, they called, they said, we're ready to make the film, we're ready to greenlight it, $100 million live-action film. I said no. And I said no based on conventional wisdom, which was the wrong decision. It was one of the worst decisions I've made in my career.

Yeah, that's interesting. Even though you knew— I mean, I'm sure at 40 you knew that you not knowing in your 20s allowed you to build the business to some degree, but then you still couldn't get over that intellect that you're talking about later on.

I think I was so in it from like 20, 30 to 40 that I didn't even have time to reflect back on my 20 years of power not knowing. It wasn't until I hit like 45 and I had this idea to write this book that that knowledge accrued back to me.

Yeah, but that's an interesting— that point is such an interesting point of even if you have that in your early years, as you get more under your belt and as you see more things, you almost can't unsee or unlearn those industries.

Correct. Yeah, they start to go inside you. And so it's like, Fighting the intuition versus the conventional norms becomes more difficult.

Right. And basically, when you talk about that, it's— so the whole book, the premise is really that there is a unique window of time in your life where you can go in your 20s.

Correct. I would say, I think you can bet on yourself at any point in time. I just try to make the case that starting earlier is very advantageous to you.

Well, this is an example.

Right.

This is a very good example where you almost— if you went and you had a job and you worked in this industry and you worked in this and you learn from— I mean, I have nothing wrong. I didn't go to business school. I don't have a problem with people who go to business school. But I feel like it's one of the things that actually removes— it starts adding these layers when you come out of business school and they're like, well, in business school, what they told us is this is how it's done. You can't unlearn. I mean, you basically cannot unhear what you learned in class that they made you take tests on. And I tell people, I'm not sure it's actually, especially in today's world where I feel like it's changing so quickly, what you learned a year ago is literally probably different today. So I think that 20s thing is an interest. It is that point. You can bet on yourself, but there are these unique things.

Correct. There's certain things that are there in that decade.

Yeah.

That you will not have in other decades.

Yeah. The other one that I obviously, which is in the same realm, is risk, because there's a different level of risk. I wrote down because I really, I really like this quote. You said, risk is not binary, it's multifaceted. Like the weather, it's ever-present. It's inherent in everything we do, and it cannot be avoided. And it was— and there's a bunch more to that, but it was like, the risk is going to be there. But maybe could you talk a little bit about that? As well, like in your 20s, what's the difference there?

You have less to lose in your 20s, right? Which is the more obvious one. But I really try to key in on the notion of the inverse risk, that it's riskier not to bet on yourself, okay? And passion delevers risk. So it's better to lean into what you're passionate about, what drives your curiosity. And I think that those are the things that are gonna give you the fortitude and the effort and the energy to push forward with. And so if you go with the more conservative route that doesn't necessarily align with you, then that could actually be a riskier place to be, right? So it's more about following what is true to you, less about what's true to your parents, your grandparents, society. And that's the way to delever the risk. And I think it's really unique to everybody else. And I think that's the one thing I'd I try to make the point of is that success is personal. What you define as success is personal to you. And what you find risky, we're very different, right? And so you're going to grow up in a— kids are growing up in a totally different generation. The way they see the world is so wonderful, but it's very different to the way the parents see the world. And so potentially it's not as risky to do something to be in the creator economy or to be an influencer, etc., etc., right? But for their parents, it's very foreign.

Right, right.

Sounds crazy, actually. Yeah, it's very foreign for them. And then the other thing is, I think that we as people, if you write the pros and cons, you can always game out the downside. Things are not going to go well. God forbid you go bankrupt, you lose money. Those things are so obvious. But once you start and you decide to start a business for yourself or be independent, you don't know what you're going to unlock. You don't know what's going to happen the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day, right? We can't write it. It's like writing a screenplay that's—

Hmm.

It's very hard to write. But once you do it, you're going to unlock the screenplay of your life. And so it's riskier not to unlock the screenplay of your life than to look to the downside, because that one's so obvious. So it's very much, again, goes back to believing in yourself and having the faith that's—

I do think that even though it's obvious as you say it and you write it about the relative risk, I think that that is the part, though, that I have conversations all the time with people who are in companies, tech companies, whatever, not founders. And they're like, oh, Dave, I just, I wanna do this for another couple years, then I'll get this, then I'll learn, then I'll have this thing under my belt. Then at that point, I'm gonna go start my own company. And what I tell people is, by the time you get to that point, you're not gonna— you're gonna be making so much money, you're gonna have kids, you're gonna have a wife, you're gonna— you're not gonna wanna take the risk. The risk at that point is— you write about this in the book— like, it's so much higher. It is so much higher that the bar to jump over.

Correct. The, the, the con side, that list actually gets deeper.

Right.

'Cause you're gonna have more things that potentially, you know, if it goes bad, this is what I'm gonna give up at that stage.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think it's what holds a lot of people. I have a lot of friends who are brilliant, amazing, whatever, but they're in their mid-40s.

Right.

And they want so badly to go do something, but they don't, you know, you have the, especially New York City, you're paying for school and this and that. Yeah, it's so challenging. And like, you just, you basically cannot, take that risk, even if it's a short-term risk. That short-term risk is, to your point, the con side is so— I think that part is the thing that— the power of not knowing is just innate, I think, in kind of that naivety of being young and everything. But the risk part is that it's the barrier that holds people back, that if you do it in your 20s, what am I gonna lose?

Yeah.

tiny salary I was about to make. Or, you know, like, I can spend all my time, all my days just working. I don't need to worry about being home with the kids or feeling bad about this, right? I mean, you wrote about all— I thought that was— that's a thing that, like, young people have to read because that's— it's hard to understand that when you're 20. You don't know what that's gonna be like.

Yeah, you just made me think about it. Like, you have the freedom to try. You really have the freedom to try at that point. point in your life, right? And then, you know, if you try it and if you like it, you continue. If you're not, you take the other path. Right.

How did your parents— like, when you were doing this, how did they respond to this?

You know, like, I'm a classic latchkey kid. I call myself a free-range chicken. I was just a free-range. My parents— I had great parents. But very much like, you know, more about the house and the food and like that type of stuff, not more, not really about the emotional stuff. And my parents, my parents, you know, my parents actually split when I was 20, and it was, it wasn't a good divorce. And then after university, I moved back and with my mom, and I was estranged from my father at the time. And so I didn't have any encouragement either way from my dad, because I just wasn't speaking to him. And my mother was super encouraging. So when we decided to do the Earth Buddy, which was our first product, you know, little potato head, you put him in water, grows grass for hair, she was like, build all the prototypes in the house. So we took over the house for like a month. Here's my contacts. Here's my relationships. Take my car. She was super supportive. And she never had any words of, don't do this. It was all encouragement. The only thing we debated on was whether or not to buy the Earth Buddies from distributors and manufacturers in Israel or to manufacture the product ourselves. So I had this intellectual conversation with her, and I said, you know what, we need to have controls, so we're gonna manufacture ourselves. But it was full encouragement, and then that was one of the reasons why I wanted to write this book. I wanted this book to be like a supportive parent. because I had that from my mother, where there was just, there was no negativity in what I was doing.

One of the things you talked about in the book, another thing that I really liked, you said around work ethic, essentially, you said, I have deep faith that things will work out one way or another if you apply enough effort.

Right.

Do you think that that That is what helped you at the young age, not knowing what you didn't know, all of that, get through, you know, some of the, of course, challenging times and some of the— do you think that that— because that's something you said it before about your co-founders, like that comes from what I read from your family history, from your background.

Yes.

Like, do you think that that is what got you through? Like, is that an important element, let's say, of all of this?

I think for sure. I call myself a grinder. So I got identified at 10 years old with a learning disability called dysgraphia, which makes it very hard for me to get my thoughts out through my hands. And my handwriting is just atrocious. You'd think that I'm like a doctor, but I'm not.

Sure.

And I have some other spatial learning disabilities and stuff like that. But I was very lucky to get identified. So I got extra time on my exams. And that got me through school. But it took me, you know, 2 hours to do an exam that regular students would take an hour, right? Like the essays were so hard for me to write. Everything like school was very, very difficult because it didn't— it wasn't matched up with the way I took information and the way I put the information back out was very difficult for me. But I grinded it out and I just thank God I made it through school and I made it into university. I made it. I had a 69. It was crazy. I had a 69, and my mother was like, I was on the waiting list at Western. She's like, get in the car and drive to Western. She didn't drive me. It was 2 hours away. She's like, get in the car, drive to Western, and go sit in the office and wait till they accept you. And that's what I did. I went to the admissions, and I just sat there, and I made my case, and I got in. And so I'm so fortunate. I'm a huge advocate of post-secondary education and learning, and such a gift. But I had to grind my way through school. And I think that That repetition of having to sit on my bum, right, for long periods of time and, you know, write essays, and I have to rewrite 'cause my handwriting's so bad, I have to like go back and rewrite words, and then I lose my train of thought. So everything's like, it just takes so long for the information to come outta my body. But that was the only way that I can actually, that's the way they tested us back in the day.

Right.

And so that repetition, taught me to stay in the game. And when I got into business, it was so wonderful because now I could do things my way, which is so wonderful. And I think that's one of the greatest things about having your own business. I write about it in the book. It's like business is— I think business is like an art. It's an art form. It's you working with other human beings, inspiring other human beings to be their best, coming together collectively, coming up with new ideas, and implementing and executing. It's kind of like writing. It's kind of like being in a symphony and you're the conductor. So I was able to shine at that point in time because I could do things my way. But the process of staying in school for like 12 years taught me that anything's possible.

Yeah, I think that that mindset— I grew up with my father always telling me, immigrant, came here with nothing from Greece, all that. And he always said, You can do literally anything that you put your mind to as long as you stay focused on it, you know? And I think that there is an element of that where back to kind of this generation now coming into their 20s, I think that that is not as— there's been a pushback a little bit on hard work and grinding and all those things. And I feel like regardless of AI, no AI, it doesn't really matter.

Doesn't matter.

If you're gonna start something from literally zero, Like zero, and you have to go from zero to something. That is such a core part of that. That's why I loved when you wrote that, 'cause I think that's another important element where you can't just have one of these things. You kind of have to have multiple of these pieces come together to actually get it off the ground.

Off the ground, yeah.

Yeah.

It's a big lift. It's a big lift.

Yeah. How long do you still grind like that?

I don't grind as much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't grind as much, but, But how long do you think—

like, if you think about your career, was that mentality, that drive—

It was there. Like, the way I work is very unique. Like, I have my weekly meetings. I never miss a meeting, right? I always have my weekly meetings. I have some people on my team, they're like, oh, Renen, there's nothing much to discuss this week. Can we cancel? And I never cancel. And in the meetings that they want to cancel are the best meetings. The best ideas come, right? So it's to what you were talking about before. It's the discipline. It's the focus. Right. So I still have that. The grinding taught me the discipline, taught me how to be disciplined and how to be focused. Right. And to stay on the path. So you're totally right. It's all about the focus and the discipline and the repetition.

And the repetition. Repetition.

Yeah. A lot of it's in the repetition. Like, there is— there's so much to it, but I think a lot of it is in the repetition, constantly showing up. All the time. I think the magic happens when you show up. I believe the magic happens outside of the office, right? Always being out there, always being in motion. And when people say to me, Rand, let's cancel the meeting, to me, that's like, let's put things in reverse. I'm like, why should we put things in reverse? We've got so many things to do, right?

I'm curious— this is very tactical— but on those weekly meetings, what is the format of that meeting? Because that seems like that is your— that's like this pillar of your operating rhythm.

I like a little chit-chatting for the first 5 or 10 minutes of the meeting. And then I like to just go around the room and just hear the different ideas that people have. It depends on which group I'm actually working with. But what I love to do is whenever we are going deep in the conversation, if there's other people that can add to it, We'll call them into the meeting.

From outside that team?

Correct. So I'm famous for starting with 2 or 3 people and ending a meeting with like 8 or 10.

Really?

Yeah, and I'll just call them. In the early days, I used to go on the pager, and I would page them and come up to my office. I'd ask them to come to my office.

In the middle of the meet— like the meeting's going on, just like, hey, can you come join?

Can you come? Now I just ask my assistant, and people come join. And basically what happens is the energy starts to get high, OK, because there's diversity of thought. Like, I don't want to wait to book another meeting to get that person's opinion on what we're talking about. So the person comes in, bring them up to speed, 2 seconds. What do you think about this? Then they sit in, they join, and another person, another person. And then we start to generate the ideas.

I love that.

And I will also do another thing. I will not end a meeting on time, OK? Because usually by the end, you're at the peak, right? And if you're peaking, the best stuff is coming. And so I'd rather go another 5 or 10 minutes. To get the juice. So we're Spin Master, we're notoriously late, but you got the best part, right? And so it's very idiosyncratic.

Does it take time for the team to get used to this format?

It's idiosyncratic. And I also don't— because I'm not— because I have my learning disability, I don't take notes. Okay? So I rely on my team around me.

Whoa.

Yeah. Yeah, it's very strange.

I like the— actually, I don't think I've ever taken— And I've never done a PowerPoint in my life.

Never.

Ever?

Never. I don't believe in— the PowerPoints are good for like— no, because I think people want to hear what you have to say. It's less about what you're putting up on the screen, and they want to hear it. You have to make the case yourself.

Wow. I don't think I've ever been in meetings where people just get called in randomly.

No?

Not in my career, but I kind of love it, because I think about all the meetings, and always, to your point, you're like, oh, well, we got to go ask Jim about that. We got to go ask Sarah about that. It's too much follow-up.

You may have 5 things you gotta follow up that you could have— that you're doing right there in the meeting. And also, everybody's hearing the conversation.

I love this.

And you get the diversity of thought. And the richness is through the diversity of thought in the conversation.

I love it. I think it's— I'm gonna try that.

Try that.

I'm gonna try that. In terms of the other chapter, which, this is a big thing. I recently wrote a lot about this. I have a lot of opinions on this. But talking about luck, and you talked about the flick tricks, I'll let you explain what it was. But, you know, you say the term luck versus dumb luck or chance, and I thought that was really good to differentiate that, you know. And you talk about kind of making your, making your own luck versus like pure chance, right? Can you talk about, maybe tell the story a little bit about that?

Yeah, I can tell the story. So when we were making the Sky Shark, we were working with this company in Chicago, and I would go every like 3 weeks, I'd go to Chicago and see how the development was going. And it was so complex. Um, and those guys were amazing, the Ray Campers, and they were super busy. But I would like— I would just go to make sure that, that I would, A, I can see what they've done, and 2, that I know that they're doing something. If I'm coming, they got it.

Yeah, yeah.

They, they got to have some stuff to show. Uh, and so I would go back and forth over the last, you know, I probably went like 20 times over the course of a year, year and a half to Chicago from Toronto. And on one of my trips, Jeff called me in, and he's like, Renan, I got this product to show you. And it was this little— we called it Flicktrix. It was a BMX bike, a real replica of a real BMX bike with working brakes in the back and brakes in the front and wheels and chains. And you put your fingers through the front, and you can do everything you can do with a BMX bike, but with your fingers.

Yeah.

And I was like, wow, this is really cool. And I'm like, Jeff, I think we should do this. And he's like, sure, this is great. I'm like, how much for the option? He said $5,000. I'm like, okay, amazing. I'm like, can I take it back home with me? Because it was so small. He said, sure, no problem. And Flicktricks went on to break us into the diecast category because we were all diecast bikes, and we licensed Mongoose and Redline and Hoffman bikes, all the famous BMX companies back in the day. Sold to Walmart. We got into diecast category, and I took our business— I think we were doing $50 million in sales at the time. The next year we did over $100 million. So we did over $50 million just in the Flicktricks in the first year alone and got us into this brand new category, built up our business with Walmart. And I think the lucky part was the fact that I was in Jeff's office at that moment in time. And Jeff being an inventor, inventors are kind of like kids. Whenever they come up with an idea, They just want to show people. It's kind of like when you're getting engaged, you know, you get the diamond ring and you say, I'm going to propose to my wife in 3 months, but you do it like 3 days later because it's like burning a hole in your pocket.

Yeah.

So when they have the toy, it's kind of like burning a hole. They wanted to show it to people. So I got lucky that I was in his office at that moment in time. If I came a week later, maybe he would have showed it to Hasbro or Mattel or another toy company and they would have taken it. But what I write about is I made the luck because I kept on coming to Jeff's place to work on this project. I wasn't— we were in momentum. We were busy, we were working on this other project, and the fact that we committed to Skyshark and we were bringing that to market led us to this opportunity of getting to see the Flicktricks. And I would say like this, and I never really thought about it, but even if Skyshark didn't do well, that failure would have led to the success of the Flicktricks because we were in the office.

Right.

Right? So sometimes failure— not sometimes, a lot of times the failures will lead to your future success also. So we got lucky by being in motion, by doing, and the universe met us halfway and gave us the luck of seeing the Flicktricks at that moment in time, and no other company signed it. And then the other thing is we were uber lucky because we had the opportunity and we took it, because sometimes you get a lot of opportunities in life, but you're not uber lucky enough to take them. take it and spot it. And I think that's the thing about life that I've realized. And there's been so many things I just haven't taken those opportunities, especially in my personal life, where it's like you get these— we're constantly getting— I think we're all getting lucky, but you need to be uber-lucky to like take it when it appears. Because I may not have taken the bike. I could have said, nah, that's not that cool. We're not going to do it.

What percentage Of your success would you attribute to luck?

I'd say 50%.

I think it's over— every— everyone I talk to, one person told me 80%. I mean, I've never—

I've never put— I love—

yeah, I'm— it just— it's a— everyone puts it at a very high— whatever.

What do you put it?

I would easily over— easy over 50%. I wouldn't— I probably wouldn't say 80, but I'd probably say— but when I read this thing of luck versus chance, I, I really like that because I think if I just— if I define it That way, maybe 80%.

Right.

Chance, you know, but luck that I made for myself, definitely. It's like the sliding doors, you know, just did you make that decision? Did you take that meeting? Did I get on the airplane to fly there where then next to me on the airplane I met the person who, like, it's just, that's luck.

But I would make the case that the more times you get on that airplane, The more time you you get on that airplane to go, you increase your chances of the luck.

Right? Yeah.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I agree with that. Right. And being in person and building the relationship when you talk about that part, that real that resonated with me because I feel like a lot of my luck right came from just well you're such a relationship.

You're such a people person.

Yeah.

You're an incredible people person.

So nice.

But that's that's nicest guy ever. But that's a big part of it is just. is just building relationships.

Totally.

And you don't even know where someone calls you who's like, hey, Dave, I thought this would be interesting to you. Like, I would literally never have even heard of that, found out about that deal, had any opportunity unless I met that person, that person liked me, I invested the time. So I think that actually that chapter should be read by anyone of any stage at any company, because I think a lot of times we feel like, you know, we're like, oh, that person, they were just— they were smart and they did all the right things one after the other after the other. In reality, they did a lot of the right things, but then they got lucky, or in your case, what you said, uber lucky, you know, which is a big part of it.

Yeah.

Okay, the other chapter that I really liked was the control chapter, because I thought that that was the way that you're being honest where it's like, look, you're a founder, you're an entrepreneur, you have your own company, you have control of the company, you, your co-founders, But it didn't mean that you don't have a lot of employees. It doesn't mean that you're not— I don't want to use the word, but I sometimes feel like slave to your customers, employees, products, all of that stuff. But you still are in control. You're doing it, and you've made the decision to do it versus someone's telling you to do it. Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, I think it's control is— maybe control wasn't the right adjective, but it's more about doing things your way. Right. Having control gives you the ability to do things your way. It gives you the ability to work with the people you want to work with, build the culture that you want to have, page people, you know?

Yeah.

Even though my partner, you know, he cut it after the first couple of years. But, you know, hold the type of meetings that you want to hold.

Right.

Do things the way things match your gifts at the end of the day. I think that's really the connection is matching the way you do things that bring out the best in you and that potentially could bring out the best in other people. And if you don't have your own company, then you are in another culture, and there's lots of cultures that work for you, which is wonderful too. But this is— you get the ability to shape yours. You get to also, like, when you come into work, right?

Right.

No, right? Like today, do you want to work remote, not remote? Some companies are fully remote these days. That works for them. the people that you want to do business with, the reputation you want to build. I think that's a huge thing, like how you want to be, what you want to put out into the world, that's within your control. So I think it's— I write about, I call it a tethered freedom, right? So it's a freedom to do things your way, but at the same token, you have the responsibilities to all the people that you're bringing along with you.

As the company was growing, did you have a mentor or kind of advisors or coaches or anything like that? Or was it literally you and your co-founders figuring it out?

It was more the latter.

Wow.

Yeah.

Even at the scale that you were— I mean, this massive scale. But we were—

I would say this. I didn't have like a mentor relationship where someone like I call every couple of weeks and let's sit down and have a chat. But we were like sponges. We were constantly asking people for advice and for information. And that's one of the greatest things when you start young. You know, no one sees you as competition. You know, when you're 25, everybody's rooting for you. Everybody wants to help you. Everybody wants you to win. And so we would call people up. We had early conversations with Alan Hasfeld, the founder of Hasbro. He picked up the phone. He was so excited for us to be in the toy industry. And so we were asking him questions. We were soaking up information. All over the place. So we— I would say we had micro mentors. That was our model.

We didn't even know they were mentors, probably.

Yeah, they didn't probably know that they were mentoring us at the time, but we were— whenever we had issues, we would reach out to multiple different people to get the advice we needed. But I wish, looking back, that I did have like a, you know, like more of like a long-term mentor. I was in YPO for like 5 or 6 years. I had a forum group and stuff like that, so that helped. And then I read a lot of books.

Actually, where did the idea for the book— like, where did that come from? Did you— you said in '45 or something you started thinking about it. Like, was it— because it's kind of biography, but also mixed with this gift to 20-year-olds or people even younger than that. Like, where did this come from?

It just came. I can't attribute it to anything. It was just an idea that came to me about the gifts of your 20s. And I had it like 10 years ago. And it was only when I stepped down from being co-CEO of the company that I had enough space. I took a sabbatical for a year and a half.

Yeah.

And I gave myself some space to write it. And then I read a book called Bird by Bird by a woman by the name of Anne Lamott. And she sparked me to actually do it. And she basically says, you'll never get inspiration to write a book ever. And so you need to sit— she said, it doesn't work like that. And it's the same with life. You're never going to get the inspiration. You'll get the inspiration, but if you're not disciplined about it, it's not going to come out.

Right.

So she's like, you need to write every day, sit down, write unfiltered, and just write. And so that's what I did for months and months and months. And she's like, if you're going to write, a book, be vulnerable and authentic, because if not, no one's gonna read it. So I just followed her advice, and I would write from 12 to 2 every day for like months. And then afterwards, I got all my thoughts out, and then I organized it. But it was—

How long did it take, like from the day you sat down to write the first page to actually publishing?

How long?

4 years. It was a long journey.

Wow.

It's too long for the podcast. It's for another podcast. But I could do it now, probably, if I ever write a book. And again, I could probably do it in 2 years.

Yeah.

It was a whole learning— it was a steep learning curve for me on how to do it. But it was just an idea that really— it's like something that just wanted to come out. And I really tried to write the book that was approachable for people that were younger and not talk about all the fancy things like IPOs and all that type of stuff.

Right. Well, speaking of IPO, you are a public company. Was that a goal for you? I mean, I doubt when you were 20 that was a goal, but like, when did that become something you knew you were going to do or wanted to do?

You know, we, we tried to go public in our 16th year of business in 2008. Yeah, that, that did not happen. I will never forget the time we were sitting It was September 2008, and we had the investment bankers from Morgan Stanley in our boardroom, and their stock price went from $13 to $6 in the meeting with us.

Oh my God.

And they were such professionals. They were super professional. They didn't even bat an eye. It went from 9 o'clock in the morning to 12. By 12 o'clock that day, their stock price went down by 50%. So anyways, the markets closed, and And then we went on a terrible downturn. We went from $1 billion in sales to $500 million in sales. So thank God we were not public at the time. And then in our 20th year, we said, we'll try it again. And it was really at that point in time, we were like, we're all about partnerships in our business. And being public is the ultimate form of partnership, basically for people on the outside and also for people in the company. Everybody now has a vested stake. in the business. When you're public, you have complete transparency. So all the companies on the outside that we were trying to get licenses from, you know, in the past we couldn't get the licenses because they're like, you're a private company, you're opaque, we can't see your balance sheet. So now they could see the balance sheet, they felt more comfortable. We started getting incredible licenses. Like we have the Monster Jam license, which is one of our biggest licenses in our portfolio. We have Gabby's Dollhouse, we have multiple other ones. And then, it's also a way for us to diversify, but still own a good chunk of the business, take some money off the table. And then, also, like, you know, it's 3 partners, so if one partner wanted to do something else, they have an ability to sell down their stake.

Right, right, right.

It gave us flexibility without having the binary decision of, like, are we gonna sell the whole thing or not sell the whole thing? And so, we actually did it for future planning in the— in the later years.

And now you've been public for over a decade, right?

A decade, yeah.

Yeah. Can we just— I just want to talk about the Paw Patrol story only because my kids literally— I mean, they're 10 and 12 now. They don't watch it anymore. But they— I mean, I'm not even sure how many hours and how many toys. I meant it seriously. Like, we've probably spent thousands of dollars on Paw Patrol things. What is the origin of that?

The origin of Paw Patrol is that It was born when our company went back to $450 million in sales. So it was born actually in a dark moment in Spin Master's history. And we had to back up a little bit. When we did Bakugan, which was these marbles that you roll into cars and they pop up and they transform, they're kind of like Transformers meets Beyblade, that took our company up to $1 billion in sales. And that taught us the whole entertainment industry, how to produce shows. That was on Cartoon Network for 4 years, played all around the world. And after that, we tried to replicate the success of Bakugan, and we couldn't. Okay, so we, we brought a new show out called Radicai, which is all about trading cards for kids that was in the show. It completely bombed. I literally— okay, I remember going to retail and seeing the product on the shelf, and it was beautiful displays. And then I go back the next week, same beautiful display. Go back the next week, same beautiful display. I'm like, what's going on? Like, did someone put glue on the product? Like, you can't take it off the shelf. Like, literally no one bought this product. And then we did another TV show with a company in Japan called Tenkai Knights. Same thing. Couldn't give the product away. Show didn't do great. Then we did a show called Little Charmers. Did not do well. And then we were like, you know, there's, there's a white space in preschool, and the play pattern for Bakugan was all about transformation.

Yeah.

It's such a fun, you know, play pattern. You know, they get this surprise and you put it back in the original shape again. And he said, no one's ever done that for preschoolers. So we said, let's see if someone can come up with a great concept around transformation. And so we sent out this brief to 5 different creators around the world, and this gentleman by the name of Keith Chapman, who's the creator of Bob the Builder, sent us back in this brief for Robbie and the Rescue Pups. So that was the original name for Paw Patrol.

Yeah.

And it was Robbie and his 5 pups that went on these great adventures, but had nothing to do with transformation. So we basically took what is in Japan as a very classic art form, which is mixing the creativity of storytelling with toy design, together when you're producing a television show. And so we had 2 different art forms working together, and so our toy team put in the whole idea of the transformation. We put in the backpacks and the doghouses that transformed into vehicles.

Yeah.

You know, and the tower that was super fun. And, you know, it was one of those things where you can't attribute the success of PAW Patrol to 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Or six or seven or eight or nine or ten people. It was literally like fifteen, twenty, thirty people that came together that put so much love into that show that created the magic. And I think that's why your kids resonate with it because it you know no one no one was dialing it in. Everybody was like so into it. The director Jamie Whitney was the most amazing, amazing, amazing director. Loves kids. He was fifty years old at the time when he did it. He loves He loves, loves, loves children. And the writers were amazing. And Keith Chapman is so, so talented. And Frank, who owned the animation studio, Guru, like all the people there, they were so passionate about it.

And was it immediate? Like, was it success?

It was pretty quick. I'll tell you a funny story. You know how I knew that it had a chance to go was I was watching on Instagram the amount of people that were making birthday cakes for their kids. That was my test. And so I was like, I was so shocked. I was like, oh my God, there's a lot of birthday cakes out there. And yeah, so the first year it started to take off. It was rating well. The sales were great. And but no one expected it to continue to climb and then to have the longevity. And that was the biggest thing was We said to ourselves in the second year, we said, let's go PAW for 5. Let's get 5 seasons of PAW Patrol. And then after 6th season, we were like, PAW for 10. And I think in our 8th season, we were like, PAW forever. And so every year, we bring out a new season. We bring in specials. We have themes in every season, as you know.

Yeah.

Right? And then we started making movies, which no one thought we could ever make movies. I was trying to make up for my Bakugan days.

Right, right.

And we're just staying with it, committing to it, and not— just very committed to it.

And how does that work— again, now tactical question— how does it work inside of Spin Master? Is it there's like a division that just does that?

Yeah, so we actually have 3 creative centers. We don't call them divisions. We call them creative centers. And so one is all about digital games, which is mostly Toca Boca, which we acquired in 2016. And then we have an entertainment creative center. And so they produce Paw Patrol, Abby Hatcher. We've produced 14 shows in our career. So they produce all the shows. They produce the movies, which I'm super proud about, because we had never made movies before. And then we have the toy creative center.

Got it.

Yeah.

But then something like Paw Patrol kind of is in both the toy—

Yeah, so the toy creative center makes the toys for the show.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I'm curious what you— I don't know anything about the toy business other than buying toys. What is the future? Like, what has changed? Has anything changed in the toy business now? Like, does AI change anything? Is there something changing in this world? Has it changed a lot since you got into the business?

I would say it changed around 2012, '13, '14. there was a lot of age compression. So kids started— at about 8, they stopped playing with toys, right? Before, they would play at like 10, 11.

Right.

So it compressed down to 8, and it's kind of held steady there. And I also thought back in, in, in 2012 to '15 that the iPad, there'd be so much, you know, time and attention spent over there. But the truth is kids still love physical toys. And it's not like a crazy growth industry, but the physicality of, you know, using your imagination or wish fulfillment or wanting to hold something in your hand or activities or role play, those are still classic play patterns that kids still want to experience in the physical form. And I think you actually have an expanded audience Because you have that, which is staying steady, and then you have things like Minecraft or Roblox, or in our case, like Toca Boca, where kids spend some time digitally, but they still wanna do some stuff in the physical realm. And then we bought a company called Melissa and Doug, which is famous for wooden toys, which is all about open-ended play, and parents really want their kids doing open-ended play. They don't want them on the screens.

Yeah.

I was actually thinking about just talking about it with you. I think the industry for kids has actually expanded, but in digital and toys.

Right. The age compression was because of the iPad, and is that—

I think it was just— it could have been video games or just other competing things.

Yeah.

Kids just getting older faster.

That's definitely— I mean—

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's definitely it.

Or kids wanting phones or that type of stuff.

Right. I wonder if it's all going to go backwards in the other direction. Like, I feel like there's some push, obviously, that you don't want your kids on screen. Like, we're getting to a point now where definitely the trend is going in the other direction. Correct. You know? And I—

Yeah, you may see the toy industry—

I think— I wouldn't be surprised.

Get on a growth trajectory again. Yeah.

Because it feels like we're starting to see people block You know, the YouTube Kids and that kind of stuff and pushing that age back up. I don't know. I mean, I have no idea. But yeah, that's interesting. It makes sense that that would happen. What's the future for Spin Master? Like, if you fast forward 3 years, 5 years, what's the future?

I think there'll be a lot about how we redefine how we tell stories to kids. I'll come back. Maybe if you invite me back in a couple of years, I'll be able to share a little bit more, elaborate a little bit more information on that. You'll see us do more stuff around education for kids. Very passionate about that. Reading for children, helping kids read. So a little bit more around AI and tech for children, education, a lot of innovation, and a lot of storytelling.

Very quickly, I want to go to your background. Can you share kind of the history of your family kind of going back? Because again, back to the work ethic and kind of probably some of that, it seems like in the book you talk about that. Like, where does your family come from?

All my grandparents were from Bulgaria, and my parents and my family was there for hundreds of years. very well-established and integrated into the, into the community. And unfortunately, after the Second World War, were displaced and they moved to Israel. And my parents grew up in Israel. And then in their early 20s, they moved to South Africa. That's where I was born with me and my sisters. And then we moved to Canada when I was 5, and I grew up there and built the business there. So I'm like, I'm like a third Israeli, a third South African, a third Canadian. I'm just like a mutt. I'm just a mutt. And, you know, our family was classic immigrant entrepreneurs. My dad had a small Persian carpet gallery that sold high-end Persian carpets to people in Toronto. My mother worked in the business. And classic families, at 6:30, we had dinner every night together as a family. My mom would come home at like 4:30, make dinner. We'd have dinner as a family. Like, you never got out of dinner in our family.

Okay.

And you got— you never got out of cleaning. Okay. Like, no one could leave the kitchen. That was the rule till everything's cleaned. And in the kitchen and in the dinners, my parents always spoke about business. Yeah, they did not talk about— it wasn't really about, like, how's school going or all that type of stuff. It was, like, all business conversations.

Wow.

So the bad part was I didn't get to share many things. The interesting part was I was just listening and absorbing and hearing the stories. And my parents had, like, very colorful friends and clients. and all that type of stuff. So the business kind of got imbued in me. But then the flip side is, because they were classic entrepreneurs, my dad closed his Persian carpet business after 10 years, and then he got a job as a VP of sales at a juice company. And I was super proud because he had a VP title type of thing.

Yeah.

And then he got let go 6 months later. which kind of— which wasn't great.

Right.

And then he opened up another business, and that only lasted for 2 years. And then my mother had to— she was working retail. So there was a lot of instability in— there was stability, but instability in terms of money and jobs and finances and stuff like that. And so I guess that also impacted me in terms of wanting to have my own business and controlling my own destiny and having equity in something. Because my dad was always— I define it as the junior partner. So he had profit sharing, but he wasn't the one calling the shots in the businesses. And so he didn't take the full risk, and he didn't have the full equity. And so seeing that instability, I wanted to make sure that my life was more stable at the end of the day.

And you started working pretty early.

Oh yeah, listen, I was doing telemarketing, I was shoveling snow, I was delivering newspapers. You know, in university we were selling fertilizer door-to-door. Okay, like a lot of— between the telemarketing and—

That one sounds like the worst one of all of them.

It wasn't the best. It wasn't the best. But I'll tell you what it teaches you is like, it's actually great. It's actually— the telemarketing and that is actually great because you actually— Have to interact with another human being from scratch, right? And you have to take rejection, right? A lot, right? And then you have a win. And then suddenly you've, like, sold someone some fertilizer for their lawn. You gave them a service that they needed, but you were able to develop a relationship and they trusted you, right? So I think that repetition, I would— I wouldn't trade it for anything. I did other things. I scalped tickets. You know, I had the police come to my house one night. Really?

For scalping tickets?

Yeah, no, I had— okay, in the '90s, and it was the '80s, not even the '90s. In the '80s, I lined up. Okay, Pink Floyd came in 1986, and I lined up for 3 nights, 3 days and 3 nights. I was 15th in line. There was 3,000 people by the end of it, at the end, and I got 16 tickets. Okay, 3rd row centers.

Whoa.

Okay, and I scalped them, and I made $3,000. And then there was a guy in my class, okay, who was telling me about the stock to buy. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna buy the stock. And my dad's like, don't put all your money in. And I'm like, I'm putting all the money in. Dad, it's gonna work. And he's like, don't put all the money. He's like, if you're gonna do it, put half, go for half. And of course, I went for the whole thing.

To zero?

To zero. I lost my— I lost all my money that I made from the Pink Floyd tickets. And sorry, this is where I was getting at. Sorry, I'm being long-winded here. But so then I scalped the Who tickets, okay, to make some money. And then back in the '80s, you know when you put your numbers on the bottom of the paper?

Yeah, yeah.

Someone had to pick them up. So I had them all over the city of Toronto. I put them on like all the poles.

Yeah.

And so I got this call from this guy who said, you know, I want to come in and buy some tickets from you. So I'm like, sure. And he's like, came at like 6:30. Doorbell rings. We're all eating dinner. I go answer the door. He shows up with this woman and she's— and they're like, you know, can we see your tickets? And I had like about 20. And I was like, okay, gimme a second. I go down to my room in the basement and I'm like, should I bring all 20? Should I bring all 20 up? I'm like, I got a bad feeling about this. So I brought 6. I bring up the 6, I show 'em the 6. Okay. They look at the 6 and then they take out their ID and they show me their badge and they're like, you know, it's not legal to sell tickets. And I'm like, I'm like, Ma! And then, and, and then, and then my mother comes out. She's like, yeah, come sit down. So we sit in the, in the dining room and they, they write me up like a summons.

Yeah.

They take my tickets. They leave. I go back and sit and have dinner. My parents don't even say anything. Nothing. They don't even like—

they don't acknowledge that it basically—

they didn't even skip a beat. Did not even skip a beat. It was like, you know, my son's being entrepreneurial. This is great. And then the next day my mom was like, you know, you should go back and get your tickets. So I went to the— I went to the police station.

What?

Yeah, I went to the police station and I got my tickets because it was actually— yeah, I don't know exactly what happened, but the guy gave me my tickets. It was a different guy. He gave my tickets back. So, you know, when I was younger, I was doing all these—

Oh my God, that's a great story.

Yeah, I got my tickets back. It was great. I was like, let's just try my luck. You don't ask, you don't go, you don't get. But I was trying to do all sorts of things in high school. But those were beautiful lessons of, as my dad says, shortcuts or long cuts. Shortcuts or long cuts. And both those— that was it for my scalping days.

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's a good story. I wonder how I'd react if my kids did that. Probably similar way. My wife would definitely react. She'd be like, yeah, good, good. What, in all of this stuff, like what, again, long time, a lot of work, a lot of grinding, all of it, what drives you? I mean, like at your real core. I tell people, for me, it's like when someone says I can't do something, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to prove people wrong. Like, what is it that drives you?

I think it's my curiosity. I'm curious about— Trying different things and bringing things into the world. I don't know, it's just a deep, deep desire to, like, you know, create. I like— maybe I'm a creator, you know, deep down inside. Like, I just like to bring things. I'm a very visual person. I think that's probably why I ended up in consumer products and toys and TV shows and stuff like that. I can't write a line of code. But yeah, it's just a desire to learn. Like, I think it's cool. Like, and learning for me wasn't in the textbook. It's in the real life. And so, like, the ability to do things is, for me, is the driver. And I also like, I do like when people say that things are not possible.

Yeah.

Like when we made the Paw Patrol movie, everybody said, you can't make that movie, right? No one's gonna come out. And I'm like, but I can feel it. Like, and I don't understand why. And so I wanted to actualize on that.

When you think about this journey, these are obviously all these very positive things. What are the sacrifices you've had to make? Like, is this, has it been a, You wrote something in the book about— talking about the early years where your friends are partying and going on this— but is it— yeah.

Sorry to interrupt.

No, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

No, I'd say those are the easy sacrifices, because if you're going to start a business young, you will have to sacrifice something, right? You can't be partying as much. You can't take as many holidays. You have to be focused. You can still balance. I mean, I had great 20s, but you have to be balanced. But I think the biggest sacrifice came to me in my later years to my health.

Hmm.

Because— and even before that, I would constantly get burnt out every 3 or 4 months. And instead of taking some time for me and putting myself first, I was constantly putting the business first, and I would just push through the burnout, and it would just get longer and longer and longer. And then finally, I would, you know, like, eventually take a holiday, but I would be in a burnout stage for like 3 months, not knowing that I was—

Right.

Kind of knowing, but not knowing. It was only years later that you can see the patterns evolving. And then not till I took my sabbatical and I stepped down from being CEO, co-CEO of the company, did I realize, like, how after 27 years of this repetition and being on the treadmill, product after product after product after product, and building the company and growing the company, that my health was not where it needed to be.

Could you have done it differently knowing what you— do you think that it's possible to do it with some balance?

Yes. Yes. I personally, that's probably one of my blind spots is balance in my life. I think my two business partners are much more balanced than I am. Yes, I think you can 100%. I think you can. I think the the notion of you need to be driven by like some deep, deep, deep stuff and that will drive your success. I don't agree with that. I think for myself, I was basically. a workaholic, and I used work as a means to distract myself from deeper issues that I needed to deal with myself and to numb myself. And, you know, the thing about being a workaholic is that it's the most acceptable form of addiction.

That's true.

Right? It's like, oh, you got all the accolades, everything's going great, you know, the results are fantastic, but what you're doing to yourself— so I think it was a combination of not realizing that I was a workaholic, and I think That was a sacrifice that I, that was the price that I paid is my health and some of my mental health.

Last question.

I don't know if it gets too deep for your podcast. No, no, no, that's not too deep.

Actually, this is the thing that pretty much—

But that's the honest answer.

So many people have said, the reason I asked that question is because I, again, it's back to the point of I want to, Make it clear to people like it's not. You can't have. In my opinion, you can't be great at this, great at family, great at health, great at. It's it's there's not enough hours in the in the day. Now I think you can probably balance two things at one time maybe. You know, but but when people like yeah no no I'm gonna hang out with my friends. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna also not get burnt out. Also the business is gonna crush it. But also it's like real life. There's literally not enough hours. And this is what Out of 100 CEOs, I think 99 basically said exactly the same thing. And every person though says, well, maybe now knowing what I know, it could be more balanced. But in it, pretty much everyone I've interviewed has said they had no balance.

You don't realize it.

Yeah.

You don't realize it when you're in it.

Yeah. And I'm still not even sure. That's why I haven't started another company because I'm so scared of of not having the balance. I'm not even sure that even knowing what I know, I'm not sure that I can balance.

Right.

You know, because, because once you're in it, it becomes your, you know, it's like it becomes your baby and you're like, well, I'm going to make this thing, you know, if you have that brain, then you're just like, that's it. That's what I'm doing.

Yeah.

So, all right. Last question for you. Knowing everything you know today, all the experiences you've had, everything, what is the one piece of advice you'd go back and give yourself before— I was going to say before you started your first job, but basically before you started Spin Master?

It's similar to what we were talking about before. I would say self-care and put yourself first. Put yourself first before everything else because you will actually perform better in the business if you are putting yourself first. Yeah, and it's your life, right?

Yeah.

And listen, you'll get all the things that accrue to you as a result of putting in the hard work and time and effort, but I think you can get both. I do believe, like, you know, I wish that I would've started my own personal journey around self-help and meditation and yoga and exercise and all those sorts of things. And like, you know, my mornings are very sacrosanct to me. Right, so I wake up even like I had a bad sleep last night, but I still got up at 5:30 this morning. I went for a run 'cause I wanted to be my best today, as best as I possibly could. You know, it's like there's so many things that I wish I would've read and learned that would've taken the edge off for me, that could've made me perform better if I put myself first.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good advice. But it took me a while to get there.

Awesome. Ronan, thank you very much.

Thanks, buddy.

Thank you for doing this. I really enjoyed this. And for those listening—

Best host ever. Okay? Best host, most prepared podcast host ever. Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

For those listening, if you enjoyed, I hope you did, please share this out with your networks, and we'll see you for the next episode of Not Another CEO Podcast.