I get lonely on the weekends ($20M CEO)

At this point, I don't see any way forward without getting this loan.

Today is Saturday, which means trail running is every single Saturday. Clear my head for a couple hours. It's. It's the highlight of my week.

Here's the halfway point. Checkpoint number one.

I finished my trail run this morning. Morning. But this is one of our Airbnbs, and they keep getting complaints about it smelling like smoke. And it's actually from what we think is one of our plumbers that had smoked and they just brought the smell in here. But the past few tenants, past few guests of Airbnb have, you know, mentioned that. So we actually got this ozoneator thing. Ozone air purifier. We've tried everything from a diffuser to an air purifier. We have an AC in here, but this thing works pretty. Pretty well. The thing is, you gotta make sure it's unoccupied. You can't be in here while it's happening. So today, fortunately, no one's gonna be here for the next four hours. I'm gonna let this thing run, and even, like, I just turn it on, and you get, like, this chalky metal Y thing in your mouth. It's not. It's not good. But hopefully it'll clear that out. I think, honestly, it's kind of seeped into a lot of the wood, either the cabinets or the closets. So I'm hoping you can get the smell out of here. We have two guests coming into the Airbnbs literally in an hour. So I am cleaning. And let me walk you through a couple things about how I deal with mental health. Obviously, for me, a big part of mental health is just exercise, eating right. But sleeping is the one I really struggle with. And usually, like, I have a very predictable issue, and this is the problem. I'll have, like, business problems that get me nervous or stressed. Not necessarily always my problems, but whether it be a franchisee or an employee or something going on financially or in the business, typically keeps me stressed and then doesn't allow me to sleep well at night. This happens maybe once every, like, two or three weeks. But if it happens a couple times in a row, a couple nights in a row, that's what can lead me to kind of break down even further.

And the thing that I kind of get to when I get really low or worn down is probably loneliness. And again, we're talking, like, maybe once a month. But it can definitely be lonely when most of your problems and things you deal with throughout the day is. Is employees and other people that have only a business relationship with you and not really a personal one. So I know everyone has their own opinion and they want to give their how to fix Mike. I know everyone wants to do that, but I think all of us have certain insecurities or things we deal with or depression, whether that be from genetically predisposed or even from your family. And I think it's healthy to talk about it because, like, no one's perfect and everyone behind closed doors is have their own problems, including me. See, the thing is, when you deal with people all day long and really all it is is a business relationship. Cause either employees, franchisees, vendors, suppliers, that can really start to wear on you. And you don't have as many personal connections as you probably should. Usually the weekends are the worst because I've worked all week and then usually I have a whole bunch more to do on Saturdays and Sundays and it just feels somewhat overwhelming. This week specifically is like every single night I was up late trying to figure out this whole loan thing. Getting a letter together, videos, charts, graphs, like everything I could for the headquarters loan. And then this weekend, it's like there's just still so much on my plate. And it's not about getting overwhelmed. I don't really get overwhelmed. It's more a matter of like, all I do is work. And that's the decision that I've made. It's not like I'm doing this for sympathy or asking for people's opinions or anything like that. I have made the decision to live my life this way. And there's just going to be times we have low points the same way as if you were a parent and you decided to have high kids and all the rest of it. There's gonna be times you wish you didn't, or there's gonna be times that you kind of regret having to stay up all night taking care of them. So everyone has their own issues. And I'm not asking for sympathy, but realize no one is perfect. Everyone has their dirty laundry. And regardless of what social media says, everyone has their low points. Today, I don't really want to make a video. I don't really want to make a live video. And I'm not doing it for anyone else when I make it this afternoon other than myself to kind of help me get out of this. Cause I know this is not who I am. I. I don't feel a lot. I'm not depressive personality. It's just a matter of I got to get through this point and I got to relax, do a Run like I did this morning, unplug a little bit and I'll be fine. Everyone has these moments. Don't feel like you're alone or you're weird or you're strange. Especially as a business owner. There's going to be plenty of moments. Be depressed, afraid and feeling like you're alone. And I've talked to other of our franchisees about this, especially the ones that have been in business for a long time, are much larger, have a lot of employees and sometimes it's very lonely because you literally feel like all of your connections have something to do with the business and money and like you have to start. You almost start questioning yourself like, well, would they even be in my life? Would they even be friends with me if they didn't make money from me or they weren't somehow tied to me in a business sense? And that can get wearing on someone, even if that's not true.

In fact, some of my most happy days are the ones where I feel most productive. Haven't slept very much, but the mission and what I'm doing is pulling me so hard that I just love every single one and I'm fully intent and aware of every single moment. Throughout the day. The ozone machine seemed to have worked. I got the diffuser going, I got some Toblerone. We get a little welcome card that we write out for them as well. And things inside of here for their Airbnb stay, all the restaurants I like, the trails I like to run. So some people might criticize me and say, well you just keep that stuff to yourself and not talk about it on social media. The thing is this two fold, number one is it's actually strategic because see, if I don't share those things, then that's what leads to burnout. In my opinion, the reason people make videos on social media and all the rest of it and then all of a sudden they stop is because they are putting a facade on that is only sustainable for so long. I on the other hand, want to make videos for a very long time and be able to share the entire journey of growing Augusta Nation to a thousand plus locations and a billion dollar company. If I'm going to do that without burning out, I have to share every everything. Otherwise I'm putting on a show and there's nothing inside of me that wants anyone watching these to think I'm perfect or I'm somehow God, that's not how anyone is. Everybody has problems with mistakes. Even for the people in the comments that will tear me apart for this video so for all the keyboard warriors out there and keyboard therapists, just remember you have dirty laundry too. You just don't share with it online for everyone. Alright, let's go ahead and get the live show started. This thing started back here. That is what causes the purple light. We got this bad boy. So what I'm actually doing right now, before I get started with the live stream, you can see here, is where I do my live stream off of Streamyard here, the camera set up. But I'm actually making a video for the bank. And like we've been talking about over the past few days and weeks, I've been doing a lot with the bank and trying to figure out a way to get the SBA loan. And because of what I talked about yesterday about the underwriter and the issues with all our different entity structures and unprofitability because of the gains I made in the stock market, all the rest of it, I'm going to make a video. I've already done a long document for them, charts, graphs, projections, explanations, et cetera. But I'm actually going to do a video. I'm making this video for any of the SBA and anyone really in the decision making process and the underwriting for the 504 loan that Augusta Lawn Care and myself were trying to put together. Just explain myself in terms of why this loan is really important for us and why the past few years on paper look so different than what the reality really is. The way their entity structures have been changed this past year makes my returns in 2021 look very different. We always lose money on our first location because we spend a lot of cash on all the trucks, the trades. We don't go into debt at all. So there's always a loss on paper for the first year of a location. The second year is typically stabil and just barely profitable. It's always the third year when we start new locations at a corporate level or even our franchisees that we become really profitable. I took those capital gains and put them into the businesses and invested heavily in the companies. And then, and then the last thing is the fact that all the investments that were last year do not show up on the income statement because I was doing owner's investments into the companies and then the companies were spending the money which is on the income statement showing a loss or less profit. But again, I am not expecting those capital expenditures and investments in the future and we will have much more profitable years going forward. Thank you so much for your time and for your help on this project. Just trying to create more of a personal connection with them and having a face behind just all those numbers and graphs and data. And at this point, I don't see any way forward without getting this loan. So I have to literally do whatever I can to make sure it happens. So I've done the analytical and the number side and now I'm going to take more of the approach of, hey, I'm a real person. And here's a video of me actually talking about what I already gave you in a document. So that's what I'm actually going to do right now before we get started on the live stream. It's going to be great. And we're live. I'm happy to answer any questions I possibly can. Thanks for joining. Sorry, it's been a long night. I would say if you're doing lawn care and landscaping and you're below a million dollars in revenue, I would probably start with landscapebusinesscourse.com and if you are bigger than a million dollars in revenue and you're a landscaping business or you are anything besides a lawn care landscape company, I'd probably start with MBA for entrepreneurs. You know, you want to even take that kind of work because I don't want to trim an entire lawn with a weed whacker. It's really about systematizing, you know, what your setup is going to be and then trying to stick to it. Like, if you're going to do box trucks, just do box trucks. If you're going to do trailers, just do trailers. How did you learn so much? There is so much knowledge in your brain. Since I was a kid, I liked reading a lot. I hate reading now because I got burned out in college. Like I never read anything now. I only listen to stuff. There's no silence ever. I'm either listening to a sermon, I am listening to an audiobook. I'm listening to a podcast. I'm always trying to learn and I learn at two times speed. I'm really good at auditory learning so I can learn it. I listen to everything at 2.2x to 2.5x and unfortunately that causes me to talk fast because it's not good. I need to work on that. Slowing down when I'm talking. But it's because I listen to everything at 2x to 2 1/2x. I'm gonna have to jump off of this because I got other things I got to get done. Gotta work on this bank stuff. Got a whole bunch of projections I got to work on and a couple reports I have to work on. So take care, everyone. Have a great rest of your weekend, and we'll see you tomorrow.