The 15-Second Rule Behind Joe Chura’s $200M Success

You can't want something and not put in the effort to get it. If you want something and you're passionate about putting in the work to get it, and you really, really authentically do that over time, you will either one, get it or second, land in a place where you may realize you didn't even want it and you're in a better place than you were when you started.

Hello everyone, we're talking to Joe Chura from Chicago and he's got a phenomenal story of getting an idea and making something big happening, you know, happen with it in a niche and kind of grabbing the momentum. And so I'm sure he's learned lots of things from that. So Joe, congratulations on your Success. Founder of Go Brewing. Scale started with an idea. You went to 6,000 plus locations in over 20 states, award winning non alcoholic craft beer in under three years. So, you know, most great people want to move fast and you certainly did. And you've also built and sold two tech startups for over 200 million million. And anyway, so lots of things to get into, you know, lots of new products and things like that. So welcome, thanks for joining us.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So where did the name Go Brewing come from?

It's our Just do it. It's Go. Stop overthinking. I mean, exactly what you and I just talked a few seconds before the podcast started. And you're. The whole mentality you have about, you know, taking an idea and making something happen, that's literally where the name came from. Is that not only from a health and wellness standpoint, but from an entrepreneur standpoint to anything in life. We overcomplicate things and oftentimes the best thing you could do is just take the first step.

And so where did you, how did you get to the point? What do you think were the main things that formed you and got you to the point to where you could get the idea and launch? Because there's a lot of, you know, I think you started with a lot of experience, insights that maybe not everybody has. And you know, you worked your way through this. Couldn't have been your first success, let's say.

Well, it's what I'm doing now is hardly a success. I think it's hopefully a success in the making. Cause there's a lot in front of me and I learned that also is that success was a funny word. And like I used to tell people when I was growing the elastic companies and they're like, don't you look around and see you know you have 450 employees. Do you sit around and just think about how successful you are? I'm like, this can go away tomorrow. Like so. No, I, I don't, I don't think about it at all. I think about how do I move forward. And I said, if I, if I ever have an exit, then please say that again. And you know, that's defining moment that you can't take away. And, and at that point, like, something's probably not going to happen to, to take that away. So. But it's funny because after I did have those, those exits, I still didn't feel like a success. Like, I felt like, oh, I have a lot more to prove and is like, is that it, is that the meaning and, and of life, you know, to have this financial success and to sell businesses and, and I was extremely grateful. I felt very lucky and very, very fortunate in many ways. But I still have trouble calling myself a success. But I will say that mindset really started by a very odd set of circumstances where I was working on the Ford Chicago assembly line and coming from a place where I really wasn't a good student. I didn't really have a great work ethic. But I was thrusted into this position of working on this line when I was 20 years old. And I did that because I found out I was going to be a father at a very young age and needed a good job. I needed a job with benefits. And at that time, what I realized is the only way to make the most of my time at Ford, because I didn't want to stay there forever, was to enroll in school. And that's when I learned the law of incrementality. And doing something over and over again in short bursts of time for a very long time that you can achieve amazing things that you would never thought of possible. And in my case, it was reading 15 seconds of textbooks in between building the 1998 Ford Taurus. So I would read, put on my parts, read again. And I did that for eight to 10 hours a day for five years. And I graduated, I graduated magna cum laude. And I was just like, whoa, how did I even like graduate with honors? And it was just this, again, happenstance situation where I wasn't, I didn't want to be a human robot. So I'm like, I'm going to take this spare time that we might throw away 15 seconds and think it's nothing but 15 seconds. Over the course of five years, 72 times an hour is a lot of time. And I learned to Retain. And I think that was a big unlock for me that like, oh, I have so much more potential than I thought I had. I wasn't a loser than I thought I was.

Yeah. And why would you have thought that you were a loser?

Well, I mean, loser might be a harsh word, but I was 20 years old. I literally was living on a futon mattress prior to me finding out it was me a father. I didn't really have any sort of ambition and I was. My father lived in a trailer at the time, like, I, you know, I didn't have a lot going for me and now I had this weight of having a kid and I couldn't even take care of myself. And I was like, I felt like I was at that point in my life, like, I felt. That's the way I felt is like, man, I really up already. Like, yeah, you know.

There goes my life.

Yeah. I mean it was. Yeah, it was. And then, you know, the, the other side of that is like I was watching my father. My father and mother got a divorce in my late teens and I was watching his demise at the same time. What happened with his life and what ha. You know, the, the things that he did. He did the opposite of what I thought would. What my mother would look back and be like, oh, I made a mistake. He did the opposite. He, he, he did the things where my mom's like, yeah, see, I made the right decision. And I was watching myself kind of like in this position where I know I had like two roads to go down. And very soon after I had my child, my, her, My child's mother and myself, we broke up. So I was. Felt like I just fast forwarded to the same position my father was in. So it was like a lot of that weight was like on me. And I was like, man, what did I do?

Yeah, well, that's why I think your story can be very helpful, you know, encouraging and inspiring to a lot of people because get, there's probably a million people in the United States right now feel the same way. You know, because you grow up and you get yourself in situations, lumbering along, making decisions in the moment, not thinking of the long term consequences. And no one's ever mentioned that you should think of the long term. You know, planning is not a real big thing of what is in the educational system. You know, money management, planning for success. You know, it'd be nice if they mentioned that somewhere along the way in our educational system. So you can at least get the words or the concept in there. Like, you are going to have a life. The decisions you make are going to have consequences. And, you know, you might think about the future while you're doing these things, but that doesn't happen. So people find themselves in that situation. Where did you get, where did the idea is sneak into your head about. I have had those, you know, I've had key ideas got in my head at an early age that I've. I use even today, and I don't even know where they came from. Do you know where that idea of incremental progress, you know, over a period of time, how that, you know, 50 minutes here and there. How did you get that in your head?

I didn't think about it. I just. I just started doing it. It wasn't like I was like, oh, if I do this, I could accomplish X. It was okay. What, what really happened is I'm. I'm at the plant, and if anyone's been into assembly plant, they could relate. If not, it's hard to really imagine, but you're in this huge factory and you're with a ton of people, like in the plant. At any given time, there's like thousand to 2,000 workers. And, and Ford, you're a UAW worker, so you're part of the union and you're working for Ford. So you get really good benefits. One of the Benefits is after 30 years, you can retire with a pension. So the conversation on breaks and around the plant was, how many years do you have? How many years you have left to retirement? And that was the status quo. And when I started to hear that day after day after month over month of, I have only 20 years left. I've been here 10 years. I have 26 years left. I've been here four years. I have five years left. I was looking at folks, and they're amazing humans, has nothing to do with that. But I was looking at them and I was like, I don't want to be here for 30 years to just retire. Like, that's the only thing I thought of. And then, then the next thing was, okay, what can I do about it? Okay, I could leave. All right, I'm not very marketable, and I'm actually in a very fortunate position to have a job at 20 that I did with benefits and with all that stuff. So it was, it was very, very lucky to be able to get in the plan. So I'm there. Got to make the most of it. The only thing I could think of is I got to go to school because that's the only chance I Have to not be here in 30 years.

Growing up, did you have any pictures of success or, you know, it's more like it's not, you know, the way to think of it is have you had success rather than are you a success? You know, the thing is, because success comes and goes, but it's nice to have some achievements along the way that you can say, you know, at least I. At least that happened, or this happened, you know, and like, what's going to happen tomorrow? I don't know. I got to fight for it. You know, I'm not guaranteed anything, but you can say that, you know, I have experienced some successes along the way.

You.

You certainly can. So where did you get any pictures of that growing up in sports, athletics, friends, neighborhood, where, you know, at least the concept of winning and losing in life was something, you know, there, there was some kind of picture of a better life and that would inform some of your choices later on.

There was a lot of little moments and I would say that generally I was a. I was a good athlete. I went to a very prominent Chicago school high school for the first two years called Mount Carmel. And I went there and I played basketball there and I was in a slam dunk contest with some NBA people that turned out to go to the NBA and NFL. And. And I was just loved playing sports. So I would say I had success in that aspect. From a standpoint of being a likable person and being popular, I think I fit those buckets as well. What really changed for me is in my junior year of high school or the end of my sophomore year of high school, I got called to the office because it was a private Catholic school. My parents had just got a divorce and they weren't paying the tuition anymore. And I was embarrassed and I said, well, I don't want to go here if I'm for not paying the tuition. And obviously it would have kicked me out anyway and it was just embarrassing. So I was like, let's go to the public school. Well, that decision changed my life in a major way because, you know, Mount Carmel is an all boys school, very focused on athletics and academics. You graduate from there, it's, you know, you got a good shot at getting into a really good college. We had like tier one or D1 schools, always in our gym recruiting athletes. So I had like a lot of opportunity to do something through athletics at that school. Well, when I decided like, okay, I don't want to face that, and I didn't fight it. I didn't like, question my Parents a lot. It was just like, it was just easier just to move on and go to a public school. That was. That changed the game because I ended up getting my own. I shared an apartment with my father, but I basically had my own apartment. And then I became the most popular person. Not because I was cool, because I had a place everyone could party. And those decisions just. It became debauchery and craziness. And all of a sudden I went from this athlete to kind of like what I turned into of like a lost kind of person. It was super fun. It was, you know, I was the life of the party and, and, but it was like non stop. But I did have those wins early on and, and I do remember there was a point in time where I was handed this as a gift. My friend's parents, who I ended up living with somehow like during that time period, during high school, for a period of time. And she, she gave me this poster and it said justification for higher education. And it was a house in the mountains with Ferraris and like nice cars in front of the house. It was just like this illustration. And I didn't think much of it, but I like remember that picture in my, in my head is like this, this kind of vision board and, and it always stuck with me. And I actually went to look for it like a couple weeks ago and to find it. I don't have it anymore. As I, as I started to do things and get like, I like tastes of success, I kept thinking about that, like, let me like, is that that's something I want to strive for. And I would say that like when you're like now I look at those tangible things as like not super important in the scheme of things. But it helped me really start to strive for something. Even though, you know, again I turned out, it turned out like that's not the meaning and that's not. That will not give you happiness, these, you know, expensive things. But like I ended up with that. I ended up with a house in Tahoe with nice cars. It almost looks like that house. And it's like insane to me that like that happens. And I still don't know how it happened. You know, I feel so fortunate the fact that those things connected somehow. But it, like it like once you get that. And then I remember also a couple other things that really kind of just like stuck in my head. I was, I was in trouble as a kid and I was rounded in my room and I had a basketball game that night and I just laid in my bed and I had a basketball in my hand. I just visualized. I don't even know what visualization was. It wasn't even like a thing. Like, no one talked about that. Like, there was no Internet. And I'm sitting there and I'm just visualizing myself making these hoops. And I go to the game that night and I could not miss. I got 21 points in the first quarter, could not miss. And it stuck with me. I was like, what you think about? And then if you put action behind it and if you really strive for that and you take those steps, it's very possible to make things happen in life that you wouldn't think you could otherwise.

Yeah. And this is exactly the kinds of things that people never hear people like yourself talk about. It's like how you thought, you know, in your formative years, how you looked at things, because then you can see how it played out over, you know, it developed and played out over the years because, you know, we can't escape our beginnings. And somehow, if early on, somehow life causes you to click over into a right kind of thought pattern, you recognize patterns or something like that, Light bulbs go on early on, you can reference those the rest of your life because those are your, you know, that's your experience. No one can ever take that from you. That night you were in there visualizing that, you know, the ball going in the hoop, and then you're going out and making it happen. Nobody can ever take that from you. And so as you play that forward year now, now here's another miracle. You're in there at the. At Ford, on the production line, in the factory, and then all of a sudden down the road, you sold, built and sold two tech startups for $200 million. How do you connect those dots?

This is what you're saying is so true. It's like the dots connect backwards, not forward in life, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So what you're saying is very true.

Yeah.

So what. What happened was once I graduated, I was able to, and this is a long story in itself, but get out of the plants and still work for Ford and get to the marketing and sales division. How I did that was like another story, but it was, it was pretty remarkable in the sense of, like, being so naive and breaking down barriers that weren't. That were. Seemed impossible, but ended up making that happen. And then went to the sales and marketing division, and it was in the early 2000s, and I was like the representative for Ford Motor Company to car dealers. That was my job. So I would go in there and I would look at their inventory and I would look at their financial statements and I would try to be kind of like a consultant. But the, but the reality of like my job was I needed to sell them cars constantly. And I was response, I was the conduit between the Ford production plant and what's on the car dealer lot. And anything that I put in front of them I would have to justify it by, hey, you sold this many cars per month, we have these coming in, It'll take us 90 days to get them. You need to take 90 car, 90 focuses right now. And, and that's, that's what I was, was doing. And I was fairly good at it because I had like a lot of cred from being at the plant. Like people were like, oh, like, like you're just not from some fancy college. So it really helped me develop this respect immediately for car dealers because he knew I wasn't, I, you know, came from there. But what ended up happening is it was also the advent of kind of the Internet for car dealers and they, they like were, a lot of them were struggling with like, are these real leads that are coming in over the Internet? Are these real people? They're used to phone calls and fax machines and they're like, this is going to be a fad. I happened to be like into computers when I was a kid and when the Internet started to blossom in the early 2000s, I was like, this is the future. So I was an advocate and I would help them understand and do things for them to help maximize their Internet sales. And that led me to really understanding the car dealer side of things, which then led me to build a marketing agency to cater to them so you could see how that connects now. So after 10 years left Ford, ended up running a car dealership for a couple years. So I got that experience and then ended up creating my own digital marketing agency with, with a couple folks. And then all we focused on is try to drive traffic, website traffic to these car dealers websites. And that was like step one.

And you built software to do that type thing and process and all of that stuff.

Not a simple person. So no, I didn't just do that. There was a marketing company and then like two years later I created a software company, another company and that company then created car dealer websites and it's arguably number one in market share today. Works with every OEM, 8,000 car dealers or so and built that. And those two connected, really drove this enterprise value. And then the software company had a lot of Lessons early on of me listening to podcasts of how to structure a company. So I, that's why it was a separate entity. It was a C corporation. The other one was a S corp. And I knew the multiple on the software company would be higher, so I was striving for that. So I taught myself, okay, this is how I should create it. If I ever sell it, I could have a tax benefit. And sure enough, like five years later ended up selling both companies. I had about $40 million in annual recurring revenue at that point. Huge growth. And that's kind of the long short of it.

Well, the thing is, let's point out now for people, those millions of people that are stuck in the kind of, they may be at the point where they feel like they've screwed up their life or they're, you know, it's hopeless or whatever. What you did that got you going was you just took, you kept moving forward. You know, this idea of, you know, I've got 15 minutes, I can use that 15 minutes, eight hours a day, I get, I get these 15 minutes and second, you know, so. And then over five years it compounds and I guess you got to the degree, right and you got, you know, you worked your way up to where now you probably got some attention inside because it's probably not everybody in the factory doing this. So you probably got the attention of the executive wing. And so when you raised your hand, I don't know the process, but you raised your hand, said, I'd like to get out of this thing and move up. Somehow they were receptive and you probably got additional training there would that be. But like you said, it's over 10 years, this transformation. So the thing is, when you look back 10 years later, it seems like it's fast. While you're going through the 10 years, it seems like 100 years, doesn't it?

Yeah, things happen slow and fast. For sure. I do want to say that when I graduated, that was an eye opening disappointment because I did think people would notice because I would make, I would literally create. I'd go to the plan manager on breaks, go to secretary, and I would schedule meetings to show him what I was working on in school. I would, I would talk to every single supervisor there, gearing myself up for the day. I graduated and then I graduated and guess what? Nothing happened. No one gave a shit. And I tell, I tell this to kids all the time. I tell this to kids. This is really important. I started to feel sorry for myself and I was like, I did, I did all this stuff. I worked. I worked my ass off. I graduated Madden cum laude in college. While working on the forward line, right? This, this and this. People would look at that, acknowledge it. Yeah, that's awesome. Then they'd move on. They. They would do their thing. And then. And then I didn't have. I didn't make any traction at the plant at all. Then one day, this engineer comes up to me, and now I am telling him the story. I think it's important, though. This engineer comes to me and he goes, hey, I know you've been talking to me every day about, like, a job here. I just saw a posting for a marketing and sales job. I think you'd be awesome for it. And I was like, really? So the next break I had, I run over to a station. There's these big tube computers, you know, like, it's nothing like we have today. And I look and there's this, like, very basic, like, job description. I was like, oh, my God. Marketing and sales for Ford. Like, where is this? I'm like, it's two cities over. That's incredible. Like, I didn't know that that was even here. I thought Ford was in Michigan, you know, like, yeah. And I was just like, this is a dream. And he's like. I go, hey, do you. Do you mind if I use your computer and apply for this job? And he's like, sure, go for it. So I start to fill out the application, and then it asked me for my Ford salary ID number. I wasn't afford salary ID employee, so I could not. I could not hit submit on the application. So I walked away, and I was like, even more pissed, defeated. And I'm like, jesus Christ. And then I did something that changed my life. I turned around and I don't know why I thought of this. I go, can I apply as you to this guy? I go, can I use your ID and apply as you for this job? And he said, sure. So I applied for this job at Ford as Willis Chin. We look nothing alike. And ended up getting a call. I mean, I put all my information there. Obviously, I didn't put his resume in there, but put all my info in there. And it was almost like I submitted it. It wasn't even questioned. Why did you submit it as this guy? And it just goes to show you, like, there is ways around things in life. There is so much stuff that seems an obvious blocker. But if you're creative and you could think around it, you can get through it most of the time.

And I think that determination comes from what you had done up to that point. It's like, you know, something inside you said, no, you know, I'm not going to take that. Now what I thought you were going to do is say you made up a number and submitted it.

And I mean, it wouldn't allow me to, you know, like it's. But yeah, I would have tried for sure.

But anyway, the thing is that you go in and you get the thing you. But you know, you're saying your same approach that you'd use to get to the job when you got the marketing job and you got the training allowed you to max out in that situation. That had to be a big transition, a big transformation for you too, because now you're learning things that, that have the sky's the limit. When you're learning things on the production line, the manufacturing line, you're learning things that are not sky's the limit, you know, but when you get out of that, you get into marketing and dealerships and now the sky's the limit. Would you say? Is that a good description?

This is such a good point. So here's the reality of it. I'm at the plant and to your earlier question, you're like, did I have success or did I see success? And I would say my success that I saw in my world is very limited. Like, I didn't. The most successful people I saw was like my father's family's company. And I would say that arguably wasn't super successful at that time. So I didn't. One point in time, I think it was, but the time I lived, it wasn't. So like I didn't see that. So I didn't have that at the plants. I saw supervisors walking around with walkie talkies outside of the line, outside the production line, commanding respect. That's who I wanted to be. That was my dream, that was my life goal. Because that's all I saw. That is all I saw. So to your point, I get outside the plant. Now I'm seeing car dealers. I'm seeing these guys that are millionaires, sometimes billionaires. Some of the most wealthy people I know are car dealers. And I start to see them and I'm like, whoa, this is really exciting to see this. So then my dream shifted of I want to be a car dealer. Like my, my then thing was like, like I wanted, I want to do that. I met my wife and we actually had maybe a little bit of an opportunity. Well, in fact, I left for to be a car dealer because that's how Much I. I believed in it. But then I had an opportunity maybe to, to go relocate with my wife and like actually buy a car dealership and all that. And she's like, absolutely not. She goes, you can do way other things. I give her so much credit. And at the time when I met her, she exposed me to people that were way more successful than anyone I'd met in that space. Like people that. These mega yachts and all that stuff. Again, I'm not a big believer in tangible things today, but it helped me realize that what the potential was out there. And I was so limited by what I saw. Like a fish only knows the fish bullies in. And that's where I was like. So every kind of of these defining moments, I was in this bigger environment, opening up my world to finally, I was just like, whoa, like I could do anything. Like I could do any of this stuff. And then I started to educate myself through podcasts. And that's what I was alluding to earlier. I listened to a hundred episodes of this podcast called this Week in Startups and ended up hiring the attorney that advertised on there to help me build my C Corporation. Very similar to what I was talking about, working at the forward line. People say they don't have time. You have time. You're commuting, you're getting groceries at the grocery store, you're doing something mundane that you could take 15 minutes a day and learn. Not 15 seconds like I did every minute, that's not very feasible unless you're working at the production plant, but 15, 20 minutes a day. Stack that over time. It's incredible the amount of stuff you can learn.

And the thing is, as you get in these environments where you're meeting, you're talking, you're dealing with millionaires, billionaires, and they're asking you for your opinion, you're having conversations. It has a transforming effect on you because you realize these are just people just like me. They know more, they've done more, they've got exposure. And it helps you go through the transformation of realizing I'm not an inferior. You know, they don't see me as an inferior type person. They see me as somebody who's got some information they need and they're paying attention. And you get, you know, your posture. A lot of the way people treat you comes from where you're positioned in life. But when you get out there and you're going into their dealership and you're solving problems for, you're the answer man. You're the golden, you know, you're the Pied Piper. You know, let's. You know, they're going to brighten up when they see you come in there, and then magic can start to happen in your own mind. And that's what happened. You came up with this idea. Now we got to work on you because you got to realize you're a stinking success, okay? You're a stinking success. You built something that you sold and now is still going on number one in the world, okay? Whether you're there or not, you're responsible for that, okay? That's your success. I want you to get that out of your mind. Okay?

Fair enough. Fair enough. That was a success. I could say that was a success. I'm working on the next one right now.

Well, it's continuing to be a success because how you structured it, you didn't structure a house of cards. It wasn't a gimmicky thing. It wasn't a David Blaine magic trick that you pulled on them and sold to them. I mean, it was a legit, legitimate business solution, and that was a success. And so I don't want to hear any more about you not being a success anymore, okay?

It's. Well, I mean. I mean, you know, this, Larry, you got to prove it every day, right? Like, I don't like to live in the past. I don't like to say, like, you know, I talk about this story because I think it's important for people. But the reality is, you know, I sold these companies in 2018. I don't want to. I don't want to be, you know, 30 years from now talking about what I did in 2018. I wanted to say, okay, I did these other things, too. It's in these other things pose a lot of risk, right? There's a lot of things I'm doing right now that could go away tomorrow again. And that's the mindset I have, is I want to be so hungry to prove it that I don't want to be like, oh, I did this. This is a layup. It's not a layup. I put in the same amount of effort that I did since, you know, day one at the plan today to this business.

Well, and also, what you're doing now is a product thing, you know, It's a thing, you know, and it's a whole nother thing. You got to make it, store it, deliver it. You got. When demand goes through the roo. And I want to talk them all of that on our second part. But do you still are my Notes, Right. That you're still advising these companies in the car business. You still have an advisory role inside of there.

Yeah. Soldacars.com, publicly traded company. Amazing company. So many great things have happened. I stayed on as the CEO of the companies. I sold to him. To your point, it wasn't a house of cars. We tripled our revenue since I sold to them and then became the Chief Innovation officer at Cars. And then now I'm advisor.

And so, I mean, that's an incredible, incredible position. And also it shows you the impact that you're still having there, you know, because of your insight. You're allowing them to do. To stay on track and not do stupid things like Cracker Barrels just did. And, you know, yeah, fortunately, I don't.

Have that much I say anymore, but, like, there's. I'm still. Still connected by a threat, but it's. It's been a great experience. But, yeah, there's. There's a lot of cautionary tales out there right now.

Let's go. Let's. I'm going to give you a chance to wrap this up, this, this first part, public part of the thing, before we go behind closed doors and we get into your whole next thing, which is the founder of Growing Brewing and all of those adventures. A whole new industry. I can't wait to get into that. But to wrap up this phase of it, what would you say for the people who have listened to this part and are on their journey up the ladder, what kind of takeaway would you want them to have? From what we've covered so far, Larry.

What do you feel like the biggest struggle is for those people, if there is one?

Well, I don't know. I think it depends on the individual, but it does come down to belief. I think a lot of it has to do with their belief, but it's interesting that you would ask that. I think everybody is different, but if they're wondering now, it's like, can I do it? Basically is where most people stall out on.

It helps me frame my answer, because there's a lot of directions you could go. But I will say that if you want it, and this is the thing I see is missing from a lot of people, they might say they want something, but you can't want something and not put in the effort to get it. If you want something and you're passionate about putting in the work to get it, and you really, really authentically do that over time, you will either one, get it or second, land in a place where you may Realize you didn't even want it and you're in a better place than you were when you started. So there is no downside to working your ass off to try to achieve what you think is real. And like I said, my goal was to own a car dealership and I ended up somewhere else. Right, we're about to talk about a non hollow brewery. How do we get there? But the reality is I ended up in a better place than I thought it was going to be in because I put in the work and I continue to do so today. So anyone listening to this, if you're not in the spot, you have to honestly ask yourself, do I really want this? And I see so many people that passively want something, but they don't really either want it or put in the work to get it.

Well, and I would say to you also to bring out your example for people that maybe struggling at that point, the thing is his timing. You made, like you said, you made everybody, you were showing everybody, you know, I'm getting my degree, I'm doing this, here's the projects I'm working on and you know, to let them know, you know, I want to move up. And so you get the degree. And then crickets, nothing. But you did make an impact. I mean that letting people know did have an impact because when it just was, the timing was not right. You know, because if, if you had the timing, if something had come up along that time, it could have been a lesser opportunity, but the right, you know, that's why I believe in divine intervention in a lot of our lives. You know, people call it luck or whatever, but you know, for the right opportunity came along down the road because they were, I think they were all aware, you know, you want to move up, you have potential, but it just wasn't the right opportunity. So when the one right one came, this guy went out of his way to mention it to you and then let you use his own, his own id, his computer, his name and everything so you could get it. So just because things don't happen right now, folks don't give up, don't think that, you know, your efforts are not going to pay off. It could just be a timing thing. Stay on the attack.

You know what's crazy, Larry? Just to wrap this up today, or not today, but like in the last like year, I probably got four messages from people that have, were in those rooms or people I talk to or people that saw me at that point trying to do, and they trying to move my way up and Their response is, I remember you at the plant, how ambitious you were. It is incredible to see what you've accomplished. I just wanted to reach out and say, congratulations. And for those people to say that. Because sometimes you live in this world where you're like, did that even really happen? And then I get this reaffirmation often to say, yeah, give me a call. This engineer wanted me to give him a call. I haven't touched base on the app, but about and talk to, you know, now. This was like, a long time ago, and for them to even have that impact right now, they saw it and they see where I ended up, and they're like, holy shit, it's wild. So just keep going.

Yeah. Because a lot of times we do feel like we're talking. We're talking out into the Grand Canyon. We never hear an echo back from all of this noise we're putting out there, but that it is reverberating out there. And eventually you keep going and you will hear back. So keep on. That's. Thanks so much for. For being on and sharing, Joe.

You're welcome.