Why Culture Wins: Entrepreneurial Wisdom with Bryan & Shannon Miles

Hey everybody. I'm really excited to bring you this episode with Brian and Shannon Miles. If you've ever wondered what a nine figure exit looks like, we're going to break it down in this episode. We're also going to talk about the importance of culture, the pitfalls that entrepreneurs usually have, and the importance of servant leadership. Get ready to buckle up and listen to this dynamic episode with Brian and Shannon Miles. Please join me in welcoming the visionary, the relentless, the kingdom minded, Brian and Shannon Miles. Both of you, how are you doing today?

Doing great. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.

I am honored to have both of you, I was telling you both offline, become a huge fan of you both recently. I think that we share so much in common to not just the world, but in particular to leaders. You all know I'm writing a book, how to be a good leader when you've never had one, right? And I feel like the world puts a lot of importance on. I'm not going to say things that don't matter, so I'm not saying that. But when we were growing up, Brian and Shannon, we had leadership books in the library at school from like early on. Right. Like, there was always leadership moments. And I just feel like today social media is kind of driven into silly or, or how can we go viral. But there's this big thing of leadership that we're not talking about. So I'd love to start with both of you and what's your because that thing that's deeper than your why. Like that thing that really resonates with you, that drives you. So if I were to say I'll start with Shannon, Cause I know she's the boss. Right, Ryan? Of course, of course. Shannon, what's your because?

My because is I truly believe everything belongs to God. And because of that deep belief and how I've seen leaning into that and living that out show up in my life over and over again. It has enabled me to have a unique perspective on business and business ownership and mentoring and all the things that we'll get into today. But I genuinely believe that, you know, everything belongs to God.

That's amazing. I love that. And we're definitely going to talk because, you know, that's, that's very similar to my journey and my following as well too. So, Brian, what about you? What's your because, brother?

My because is fairly simple. It's just that your life is just not for you. You know, we have so much that we're meant for and that we're born into. This world to do. And Most of it, 99.9% of it's for other people. And that is my deep. Because that's inside me. That plays itself out in a lot of things that we do, even today.

No, I love that, dude. The fact that you're spot on. 99% of what we're supposed to do should be for others. We talk a lot about servant leadership and I don't think a lot of people truly understand that the real definition of that. So, Brian, I'd love to unpack a little bit of what you just talked about.

Sure.

Why are most people not servant focused as they should be? What are some things that you think we're missing in society that we can't get to the 99% like we should?

Oh, man, that's a big question. Here's what I would say. I think that I had the opportunity to just turn 50 and so, you know, I'm a little bit more reflective as I'm getting a bit older. But I would just tell you that, you know, when you're young, you. You're told to go get it, to get after it, to, to. To serve your interest, to. To grow the thing, to, to grow the business, to, you know, to. To. To grind. And so what happens, I think at least I've witnessed in the guys that I've mentored that are a couple three seasons younger than me is that they sacrifice a lot of things for the sake of a business or for whatever their intent or their purpose is. And I think social media feeds into that a lot, is that, you know, it's a consumer driven society where even, heck, in church it's easy for people to go, this is my seat, my pew. Right? And it's not. It's for. That seat's there for everybody else. Right. And so I think that what happens in life is that hopefully as you mature, you start to realize that you're to be a blessing to others. You're to be there for other people, that you weren't just for you. You weren't born just for you. That's the best answer I can give you at the moment.

No, I love that. I completely love that. And now, Shannon, I want to come back to you. You know, my mother is a minister and I am totally of the belief that my leadership principles, my personal principles all line up through faith and knowing you and following you like I do. Faith is very prominent in what you talk about. Right. Like, and I'm one of the reasons I'm a fan of you both is that you don't hide behind your faith. And I think a lot of times there are people that they won't give the full glory when they should. And Shannon, you're not that person. So talk to us a little bit about how important faith is in your journey and what you're doing on a day to day.

I mean, personally, it's of utmost importance. It's tricky what you put out there though, because I never want my faith and my beliefs to be off putting to anybody else so that I'm creating an environment that seems overly Christian or whatever, so that other opinions and faiths and denominations can't be welcomed into the work. So it's a, it's delicate balance of being honest and, and genuine and communicative about what I believe, but also recognizing that faith is a very personal thing for people. And there's a lot of religious trauma out there that can turn people off from some really helpful principles just because of the trauma. And so I want to be cognizant of that as well. But I mean, I, my parents, I didn't grow up in church. A little bit of Lutheran background, a little bit of Presbyterian background, but it wasn't until I was 13 that my parents were saved and I saw the difference that Christ made in their lives. And then I shortly, I became a Christian shortly thereafter. We were all baptized at the same time. So I was, you know, an adolescent when my faith journey started. But, you know, as the years went on, I always held that faith. But it wasn't until like the early 2000s where Brian and I had met, married, moved to Atlanta, amassed a tremendous amount of debt from college and credit cards and car leases and stupid decisions that, that belief that everything belongs to God was really enacted. It was through our church that we, we heard the, you know, the message of give, save, live. And the fact that if you really believe that everything belongs to God, then 100% of what you earn is his and you have the ability to decide how to allocate those funds. And so we first started to give and then save second and then live. And in 18 months we got out.

Of $80,000 in debt with no change of job.

Like, it's. It was a miracle. So that's, that was the first, like really leaning out into that faith and that belief in a really practical way and seeing the transformation that could happen in our finances and subsequently our marriage too.

Wow. So you just said 80,000 in debt, right? In a somewhat short period of time, like, let's talk to the viewers and listeners about that. What were some of the things that you did to. To delete that debt?

Yeah, well, I mean, let's just be honest. We were knuckleheads. You know, we were newly married, had double incomes, just spending money, had college debt of that call of that 80 grand. 50 grand was college debt. 30, probably half of that was in revolving debt or credit card debt and then in car, car payments. And just out of nowhere, we were just like, my goodness, we had zero debt in college to having 80,000. We've got to do something different. And it took a. It took actually me being laid off. I had a job in Atlanta. I worked for a dot bomb. They raised a bunch of money and they did really well. And then they exploded in the dot com era and then they bombed and I got laid off. And it was around that time we started learning these messages at our church about give, save, live. And we're like, you know what? We can't. You know that everybody here's like tithe 10%. And tithe is just all tithe means. Just give where your heart wants it to go, like a humane society or a church or something. That's what tithing means. So giving for us was just. We couldn't do 10%, but we could do 3%. And so we did that. And actually we tithe 3% off my unemployment check too, in addition to her salary that she had. And so we just, we realized that it wasn't the amount. It was about the consistency. It was about communicating with our heart what was important and being consistent about that. And so doing that consistently and then increasing that percentage over time and then to, even to this day, that is something that, you know, we were able to just to pay off the debt because we, I mean, look at it simply like this. Let's say you have 10 bucks, right? And you give $1 away and you save $1, you get 8 bucks to live on. I mean, that's a ton of money, right? And so we just, it just seemed logical that like we said earlier, like I said earlier, that your life isn't just for you, that even your money needs to go somewhere and be about other people.

And I mentioned it was affecting our relationship. I mean, I'm sure you're aware, like, financial stress is one of the leading causes of divorce. We were not in a good place and we knew that things weren't working on our own. And we needed to implement a new. A new system to not only get us out of the hole that we were in, but we had big Dreams, you know, we didn't want to live paycheck to paycheck like our parents did. And we had. The moment we met, we were like, we want to travel the world together. Well, how do you do that? You have to. You have to have resources. So we knew that we needed to dig out of the hole, but then also set ourselves up for the future life that we had. Had dreamed about.

So let's talk about that future life that you dreamed about. Right. I think a lot of folks that are our age, we all start by working for someone else or another entity. And then it's like, well, wait a second. There are some good things here that I could probably do or that I'm learning from a business aspect, but there's a lot of things that I don't like, and I want to go do something on my own. And so talk to me about that. Mind shift. But then also, let's go into. Let's go into the company that you created together.

Sure.

Yeah. I grew up in corporate America thinking I would retire from McKesson. I loved my job. I worked in the software division, and I had three distinct roles over the decade that I was there, and every step that I took in that company was the right next step. I just. I knew it, I felt it, and. And it worked until one day it just stopped working, working. And I'm like, oh, okay. Maybe this change that I'm feeling like I need to make in my career is bigger than just the next move within the same organization. I looked externally, I was like, nope, that's not it either. And we'd always talked about wanting to have something of our own, wanting to be business owners. And I was going through that transition for myself, that mindset of, like, maybe this isn't my forever job. Maybe this is, like, a risk that I'm being prompted to and. And to step out into. And Brian, at the same time, was. Was experiencing something similar in his company.

Yeah, she loved corporate America. I hated corporate America. Cubicle hell had no interest in that whatsoever. And so. But I. I worked for a church consulting company that built Construct. They constructed churches around the United States. And I did that for seven years and then was basically traveling too much. And so back in 2010, our kids were 2 and 5 at the time. And there was the height of the Great recession. Unemployment was 9.8%. But we were at this place both in our careers, where we were just like, we need to make a change. I mean, we're desperate for a change that we're working for other people. We're making other people plenty of money, you know, and what needs to change with this? So we fortunately were able to do a lot of due diligence and realize that there was not a domestic solution for a virtual assistant company at the time. And that's essentially what we set out to do. And we got our ducks together. After all of our due diligence, we talked to some advisors, and we left our jobs. Well, not left. We gave notice on the same day, October 1st of 2010, within 45 minutes of each other that, you know, Shannon went into her employer and she gave notice. And then I called her when I got up to Pittsburgh, and I said, hey, this is it. We're doing it. And so we.

We.

We turned in our notice, and about 60 days later, we started on our own payroll for the company that is now known as Belay.

Yeah. So the inspiration behind virtual assistants was what? Right. Like, what did you see that was really missing? And more importantly, what did you see that you could impact?

Yeah, right. Yeah. So in 2010, rather exhausted from traveling a ton for work, I picked up a book, the Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. And in that book, all of the solutions at the time pointed to overseas solutions. Not. Not nothing, anything domestic. And then I was thinking about that, and I'm like, you know, I have a virtual assistant. She lives in Charlotte. I'm in Atlanta. She's virtual. I see her because I go into the office in Charlotte, but she's a virtual assistant. And I just. We got to thinking and talking. We're like, you know what? There's plenty of leaders that actually would probably hire a virtual assistant if they were not overseas, if there was a viable domestic solution that was available. Now, mind you, now more than ever in 2025, we're more global as a world, right? But back in 2010, we were still trying to convince people that virtual could work, right? And, like, we had this thing called facetime, and people were still figuring that out.

Zoom didn't even exist then, if you could imagine such a world.

I just started FaceTime, like, three weeks ago, so. Don't. Don't.

Exactly. So for us, it was. It was this era of, like, well, yeah, virtual work can occur, and let's provide, as best we can, the best domestic solution for that. So. And then about a month into business, we quickly realized there was a bookkeeping need as well. So we created a virtual bookkeeping solution as well. And it's two separate types of people that perform that type of work, but we Basically went the market in 2011 really hard with virtual assistants and with virtual bookkeepers.

And in building the company, we wanted to create the type of business we always wanted to work for. You know, when you're working for somebody else, you don't get to choose the clients that you say yes to or the team that you surround yourself with. But we really had the opportunity to do that. And so we wanted to create an organization that we were excited to participate in every day, and that worked for the clients and that worked for the contractors, you know, that were the ones providing the services of bookkeeping and virtual assistance. So it was important to us that we created an organization that worked for all of those so that it could be fulfilling on all sides and sustainable.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of virtual work, and I. I applaud you for doing things stateside, too. One, because it matters. But two, it becomes the. I don't know, the. The. I'm trying to say the most political, correct, correct way of saying this. Right. The stigma of your company can appear to not be based us when you have certain dialects or languages or whatever accents that are. That are present. And so the fact that you were doing things stateside, I also think it just helped businesses with credibility across the things that they were doing. Yeah, I'd love to have a leadership moment right here if we can, because most of my companies, most of my employees are remote. Right. But I'm such a big proponent of culture. I tell leaders all the time, entrepreneurs and CEOs, you don't actually run the business. You run the culture, and the culture is what actually runs the business.

That's right.

So for both of you, looking at the solutions you provide, where remote work is a thing, how do leaders, the viewers and listeners now, how do they build a culture? What are a couple of strategies to build culture in a remote environment?

I'll. I'll take the first part of that, if that's all right. Back in 2017, Entrepreneur magazine awarded us as the top company culture out of 50 companies. And we were ranked number one on the list. And we were the only one on that list that was all remote. And we got to a place where people are like, how did you do this? All remote? Like, literally, we don't today even Belay does not have an office. And it ultimately comes down to this, especially around culture, is that we believe with all of our hearts as owners back then, all, you know, as owners of the business. That's a company culture has nothing to do with an office. It has Everything to do with shared vision. And so from a leadership perspective, it's incumbent on the leader to communicate and cast vision in such a way that it's compelling, but it's also transferable and it's magnetic. And so that's what culture is, is the shared vision that we're all going together in this direction has nothing to do with an office or fancy ping pong tables or chalkboards or whatever the cool things are you want to have. Chalkboards aren't cool, but you know what I mean?

Maybe they'll come back like record.

So you mean the afternoon pizza party or the beverage dispenser that I put in the break room doesn't help culture, Brian?

No, I mean, I think it's nice.

It depends on what you put in it. I don't know.

Yeah, I think it's nice. But what I do believe more than that is that people want a meaningful place to work. And culture is something that is shared vision. And it's the job of the leaders, the job of the business owner or whomever to basically connect their heart to what you're doing. And when we're all doing that together, that shared vision is what equals your company's culture.

I thousand percent agree with that. I think the thing that came to mind for me first was trust. You know, there, there is some, with some people, an inherent distrust of virtual. If I can't see you, how do I know that you're working? And so we worked very hard to establish trust amongst our own team members first and create a culture of trust and create connections where that trust could be built and proven. And we're extremely results driven because nothing will erode trust worse than having an expectation for someone, they miss it and you don't address it. Where how can you trust a leader is, you know, has everybody's best interest in mind in that type of environment. So we were very caring and vulnerable and culture driven with our team. But we were also extremely results oriented. And we would never allow somebody to stay in a position so long that it, the issue became about the person, not about the performance. So that was another, you know, sort of the other side of the trust coin, I think, is the, the radical accountability for results.

No, that's amazing. You know, we talked a little earlier about, you know, my book how to Be a Good Leader when youn've Never Had One. But my, my passion is modern leadership. Right. Again, society's changed. We as humans have changed. And so the way we lead has to change as well too. And I love the fact that what you're doing with Owner is helping be that sounding board for entrepreneurs. Because again, times have changed. When the generation before me, the idea was you go to the job and you stay and retire from that one job. Right. So you always sought the perfect job. Well, we're in a time now where, yeah, I've got a 9 to 5, but I also have a 6 to 12. Right. And at some point, that 6 to 12 is going to become my 9 to 5 or my 9 to 12 or whatever that may be. Talk to me a little bit about what Owner is, but more importantly, the mission behind why you decided to start that. Because I'm so passionate about what you're doing with Owner.

Owner is a nonprofit that Brian and I have established to be part of our legacy for the second half of life. Just to close out the belay story, I don't think we mentioned we actually used our 401ks to fund the business. So way back to starting to tithe, we were able to actually build up relationships retirement, and we use that as our seed funding for the business. So when we sold it for nine figures in 2021, it was the biggest financial blessing that we could have ever imagined. And we want to be really good stewards with that and, and use the resources and the tools and the knowledge. My gosh, everything we've learned from business over the years and how it doesn't matter if you're successful at business if your personal relationships and your marriage are falling apart.

Right.

And so we feel like we've been able to garner a lot of knowledge through experience ourselves. But also we've collected a lot of people along the way that are other business owners that have their unique journeys, that have a different outcome than ours have, but are equally as life giving. And so we're creating Owner as a nonprofit community where there are these resources that can be available for business owners, that there's a place of safety and community where business owners can be honest about their challenges and their opportunities. Sometimes it could be hard to celebrate as a business owner if everyone you're surrounded with is employed. It's just a different mindset. So we, you know, sometimes you hear the phrase, you know, what breaks your heart, and sometimes that's, you know, very traditional nonprofit type work. What breaks our hearts is that business owners would go through this world in this life thinking that they're alone and that they don't have somebody in their corner. So that's what Owner is intended to address.

That's amazing. And you talked about Some of the resources, or you brought up the term resources. What are some of the resources that you're providing entrepreneurs?

Well, well, you know, Shannon touched on our outcome that happened with our staffing company Belay. And what happens is people wanna know about that story, right? They wanna know about the book and oh, tell me about the success. Or sometimes people are really interested in what happens in the early startup days, right? So what most people never ask us is what happened in the messy middle, right? And through that 10 year period, that decade of growing our business, we grew ourselves personally as well. And so we have some things that correlate with the scale of our business connected to what we were going through personally. And we have like for example, owner's intent. We have an exercise on owner's intent that, you know, you, I ask a lot of business owners, what do you intend to do with this business? And they look at you like a deer in headlights. They actually don't know. They've, they've actually created a business and then they've then converted that into their job. They don't know that it could be a meaningful asset, right? It could be something that they could sell or they could give to their kids one day or there's a lot of different outcomes that can come, but they don't have owner's intent. And so that's one of the exercises and a bunch of other exercises that we do inside of owner. But it's, there's plenty of, there's plenty of great organizations out there, you know, that are for profit, that will teach you how to scale your company or get better in social media and all that, that's all great. What we're trying to do is help others realize that no one, you're safe here as a business owner. We're proud of you and we celebrate you as a business owner. You can come to us with your junk, your hard stuff and we can celebrate your wins as well because you're in a safe harbor with us. And here's some things that we've learned personally along the way as a vegan business owners that we think are beneficial for you as a business owner. So that's, that's really our heart and like Shannon said, legacy wise, I mean, we're eventually we'll sell off all of the assets that we're connected to if we're being a good steward of what we've created. But I can hopefully be in my 80s and sitting down with somebody and talk about business principles or servant leadership or other things like that. And that's why we're doing this.

I love it. You know, Brian, I love what you talked about. You know, everybody wants to hear the startup phase and then holy crap, you sold it. For what? And so I've had three exits myself and I very similar to you. It's almost like we're, we're blood brothers or something there.

But I, I totally think we are.

Absolutely. I tell people, you know, I look at three phases of everything. It's the beginning and I call that survival. It's like you have this dream and then it's hold on because I, I'm either gonna make it or I'm not. And that usually lasts about 12 months. Right?

Yeah.

Then you have the end. And I like to call it reflection, where it's like, okay, these things are working and then you have the exit. But that big gap in the middle I call growth. And I don't mean business growth. It's more personal or leadership growth. Right. Because to me that was when I found out in all my businesses who I really was and where I needed to actually take the business or the culture that I needed to develop to let the business do what it's naturally going to do. And nobody wants to talk about that. Yeah, because you survived and you're there. But then it's like, oh crap, what are we going to do to now scale or get to where we're going? And you as the individual has, have to grow. Right. Like there are a lot of mindset shifts that you have to have and beliefs that maybe something you were doing last year is no longer relevant. Right. And not only do you have to forget it, but you've got to do a complete 180 of what you're doing. And people don't understand, especially from an entrepreneur standpoint, it really is a day to day business of being an entrepreneur. Because you know, there are external influences that happen that you have to then say, okay, this is what we're going to do. Or there's. I know in some of the things you're doing, there's rules and regulations around what you have to do and sometimes those change every four years. Right. And it's like, oh crap, what do we do? So how do you help the entrepreneur, young, old, seasoned veteran understand, I don't want to call it change management, but just always being relevant and being present to today.

Yeah. You know what you mentioned the sort of framework that you just talked about, you know, survival all the way to the end. Like we have a similar framework of, you know, the business owner's journey where you're starting out as a hustler and you're doing everything you can to get your product in the market. Sometimes you are the product that you're trying to get out into the market, and you're. You're burning the candle at both ends, and then you find some amount of scale, and then you move into being an entrepreneur. And then in that stage, you're realizing, okay, I can't do this by myself. I have to have some team members. And so then you become a leader. Well, nothing will challenge you more than having to lead people. And you have to grow as an individual in order to serve the team that you're. You're rallying to your vision, you know, and then let's say you. You continue to grow and you realize, okay, I can't just, you know, have all these generalists in the business. I need some specialists, and you would become a CEO, and that's the next step in the journey. And that requires a whole other evolution. You know, you go into your cocoon and you come out and you're. You're a different butterfly because that puts you at a whole other level of responsibility. And then eventually, if you're. Especially if you're positioning your business for sale, you want to jump that final chasm to being an owner. And a lot of entrepreneurs can't even see that far in the future, and they don't even know that that's a possibility. And so that's the kind of thing the owner wants to kind of help guide business owners through. And, you know, we. We went through that journey ourselves when we sold Belay, we were in the chair roles, and we had a CEO appointed to run the organization and that increased valuation. Those are the kinds of conversations that we're. We're having with business owners of, like, I. Sorry, I could go on and on about it, but we did tell our full story in a documentary that's available through owner, as well as three seasons of eight episodes each of content. So we really go deep on our journey, and there's a personal, professional principle tied to each episode, as well as a guidebook per season. So when you asked about resources earlier, I wanted to make sure that the listeners knew about those, too, because those are just for donation. Like, we're once again a nonprofit, so you can decide if you want to pay $3 for a season or. Or 30 or whatever. Like, the money doesn't matter. We want the resources available to those people who need it the most.

Amazing. And usually I wait till the Very end. And we'll make sure we have the description and links to everywhere. But where can we go to get that in particular?

Yeah, you go to owner.orgdocumentary or.com. i knew I was going to screw it up. I should have let Brian do that part.

We'll make sure it's right in the. We'll make sure it's right.

Yeah, listen to him scrap what I just said.

The best place to go for the documentary is ownerdocumentary.com and then our official nonprofit website is o-nr.org perfect.

So we'll make sure everything is there. So one of my favorite segments of the show, I call it the quick five or the hot five. So five rapid five fire questions. And this is going to be unique because I have two people, so somebody's going to be in trouble.

Brian, bring it.

Let's do it.

All right, here we go. First question. Who is the better cook in the house?

Oh, her. My goodness.

I am a pretty good cook. You're getting better.

I mean, I can grill pretty good. But here's the reality. Back when we got married in 97, I agreed that I would never complain about her food and she got to cook it. And she's an amazing cook. Seriously, I way better you would not. I can flame up some wicked steaks for you, but that's about it.

Well, I'm waiting for my invite and I'll be over.

Come on, you're not that far.

We don't live that far away from each other, I don't think.

No, we don't. Yeah, we don't.

We'll connect offline. If you're ever in the area, we'd love to host you.

There you go. What's one thing you tell leaders to never delegate?

The things that they love doing.

You.

Know, because there's passion around that, right? I mean, you can have the standard, you know, textbook of only do the things that only you can do, right? But I like to tell leaders that you should never delegate away the things that you love to do. And here's a good example. I have a friend of mine, he loves to mow his yard and he's a pretty high powered leader. And I'm like, look, man, you could save so much time and money just by, like, look at your time and your mowing. He goes, yes, but I love it because I love the lawn lines and it's a way for me to disconnect and think about things and so forth. I'm like, cool. Don't delegate that because you Love it.

There you go. I like that. Mine is washing dishes for whatever reason. Like, that's my escape, so.

Well, hey, that's out. We'll cook and you can do the dishes.

That'll I should, I like washing my dishes, but yes.

That doesn't sound like the hospitality I had in mind, but cool.

So then that, that's the third question for each of you. What's your mental escape like? For me it's dishes, right? Like, what's, what's the one thing you do that's like your mental escape?

It, I've been practicing yoga for 19 years now and it's evolved into a practice with meditation as well. So that's, that's a big escape for me. I text the family and say, hey, I'm in the gym. Like, basically don't, don't bother me for anything because it allows me to have a mind, body, spirit connection that is healing for me.

Okay, Brian, I respect yoga. I, third question for each of you. What's your mental escape like? For me it's dishes, right? Like, what's the one thing you do that's like your mental escape?

I've been practicing yoga for 19 years now and it's evolved into a practice with meditation as well. So that's, that's a big escape for me. I text the family and say, hey, I'm in the gym. Like, basically don't, don't bother me for anything because it allows me to have a mind, body, spirit connection that is healing for me.

Okay, Brian.

I respect yoga. I, I, I'm not great at it.

But you're being better at that too.

I try.

There you go.

But my, my guilty thing I love to do, it's going to sound like a total old man is I camper and I love researching all about it, the industry, the whole thing. And I can just get in there, turn on music and just work on it and I love doing that.

Good stuff. Good stuff. What's been your favorite vacation destination?

Oh God, we just took an epic summer vacation this year and spent 10 days in Switzerland and did a combination of train travel and car transfers and stayed in some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen. So that's up there. But then Iceland, I think is my all time favorite. That was like, it's just, it's alive. The earth is, you know, still separating there and there's geysers and volcanoes and that the ocean's wild and it's just, and it's just a beautiful culture. So I probably took your answer too.

Yeah.

And we love to travel, but that's. That is up there. Okay.

I have never been to Iceland, so I'm not.

I will share our itinerary with you. We covered, like, the city and then went into the countryside and stayed near a lake. So we got some, like, two distinct environments. It was really, really cool.

That's nothing that. I mean, there's ice there, but it's just so stinking gorgeous. I mean, it's unreal. The beauty there.

That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, last one. What's the most underrated leadership trait in your opinion?

I mean, when we first decided to become business owners, I read good to great, and I read about what it looked like to be a level five leader, and that humility is the key to that, and that has informed a lot of my leadership over the years. And ability to hire people to replace me for what I'm doing, that do it better than me, you know, and that's how you scale. And, you know, I had to, you know, go deep within myself, even after the transaction, and tap into that humility, too, and find ways, like owner, to give back to people. So I guess that would be my answer. Humility.

Okay.

I think that this is true of a lot of newer business owners or ones that started businesses. It's the ability to cast vision. You know, you started this business for a reason, but now you have to bring people along for the journey. And so it requires that you cast vision, you know, creating the North Star for your organization. Why are we doing this, boss? You know, like, where are we headed? And the ability to articulate that, I think is something that a lot of business owners just do not take the time and they focus on the execution, but they don't talk about where we're headed. And I think it's something that is really underserved that a lot of business owners need to work on.

I love that. I love that. We could literally talk for, like, three to four hours.

Yeah. Yeah, we could.

We could do so much we didn't get to cover. Absolutely. So I think we need to do another. Another episode where we pull back the curtain on more things and all things leadership and entrepreneurship and just give a whole bunch of tips and tricks and wisdom.

We would love that. We would love to serve your audience in that way, and we can connect on some specific topics that would. Would add the most value to the listener.

So. So I. I love that. So, again, I appreciate you both more than you'll ever know. Huge fan. I'll make sure that in the links, in the descriptions that we have, your socials, your websites, everything, everyone do me a favor. Not only follow them, but go to owner and. And make a donation. I mean, what you're going to see that they're doing is so impactful if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a leader, there's so many resources that they have for you. I'm going to say just pick one or two. You all, all my listeners and viewers know me. I'm very simple, right? Give me two things and no more than two things so that I can get them done. Go find your two things. Message me what your two things are, and if you did a donation, maybe I'll match it. How about that?

Man?

So kind of you.

Oh, my gosh, absolutely.

You try to make me cry on this podcast.

What are you doing? What I do. That's not what I do, but I'm a huge fan of what you do and want to support any way that I can.

That means a lot. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember your. Because is your superpower. Go unleash it.