It is an embarrassment. - Episode 042

Welcome back. Another episode C Suite Unfiltered Mike Andes, Lee Park Bringing you all the, all the goodies from lawn care and small business. So yeah, so you did a bunch of, bunch of turnarounds. We just got one dropped earlier this week and it was with simply lawn care. So the. Their co owners. Partners.

Yep.

Scott and Brandon. So tell us a little bit about that, that trip. Just give us the overall. How was it?

Yeah, it was interesting because a couple years ago when they were just getting started and kind of learning how to be partners, they did a consulting call with me. And so the reason they'll do well is they execute really well. And so basically everything I told them they did and they're doing really well and they implemented pay for performance, like everything. They just do like by the book. And that's partly like everyone in the, in the, in the YouTube verse was, was bashing on Brandon because he's the office side. But this is the thing. Most people watching on YouTube are more of a GM quality operator type of person. So they look through everything through that lens. So everything to an operator and a manager is nuts and bolts. Production, getting flat tires fixed.

Yep.

To someone that is more of an entrepreneurial type, everything looks like a marketing funnel, a checklist and a system. Yeah. And so the marriage of those two, like the two of them together, I think they'll do fine and they'll be good and they respect each other enough. But yeah, the YouTube world won't appreciate Brandon's skills. But like when you look at like their website, for example, their marketing, like that's all because of him, the checklist and like running pay for performance, like that is his world. And so they, they'll do well in the future too because financially it's just tough to have a partnership under 800 to a million. There's just not enough meat on the bone. And like I didn't really go into it in that. Right. Their cash is relatively tight, but they've been growing really quickly. But when you have two partners, profits get cut in half now. Right. So it gets a little squeaky there. But they'll do fine. Especially they continue to grow. There'll be more meat on the bone for both of them and they'll just execute really well. I think they will actually figure out admin, they'll figure out the sales and they'll figure out the operations just like we talked about. So I think they'll do good. And it's very rare that I say that about partnerships.

Yeah. I think the overall takeaway That I had is. Yeah. I think if they implement what you talked about and they create a little bit more structure around the roles and responsibilities they have, I think they will do good. My initial thought was, there's got to be too much overhead in this business. That was my initial thought. Just like, first five, five minutes. Five, five, ten minutes of the video, I was like, there's got to be way too much overhead in this business.

Well, remember, like, in the video, I said. I said, if you wanted to make this really profitable at 800,000 revenue, you would be administered. Brandon and Scott would be sales and ops.

Yeah.

That would work really well, and they'd be super profitable. And then kick out the third person. The thing is, they want to keep growing.

Right.

And so we're to keep growing. You have to keep handing things off. And that's actually the reason, the part that we didn't show a lot of in the episode and some people might have picked up on it, the fact that we never showed the office person.

Right. I did catch that.

Asked not to be on the video. And, like, whether or not that person is right for that role is to be determined, to be put nicely.

Yeah.

So.

And just because you don't want to be on a YouTube video doesn't mean you're. You're not a good employer, good worker. I just want to put that out there.

That's a great point. Yeah. And I don't make that conclusion either.

Yeah.

Because we've had really good team members that are like, hey, I don't want to be on this show. And it's like, that's totally fine.

Yeah. We've had great field guys at your original location. They're like, hey, I just prefer not to be on social media. And we respect it.

Totally fine. It's just a matter of that needs to be figured out. Because right now, what people are failing to see in the video is. And even when I watched the edit afterwards, it was like, it's not super clear the fact. And this is partly cause, like, we didn't want to say negative things about employees. Like, I'm all about saying negative things about owners because they asked me to come.

Right.

The employees I'm very careful about because they didn't sign up for me to show up. And so that's where I kind of try to draw the line. And so what's not clear is that Scott or Brandon is still doing really all the administration because he doesn't have faith that that person is yet ready for that role. Now, could they become Ready for that role. Absolutely. You know.

Right.

That. That is to be determined.

Yeah. What would get you to fire someone's employee in front of them?

I would.

Not that you have the power to.

Yeah.

But like, if you were like, this is a non negotiable. You have to fire this person. And the owner's like, well, no, we have like history and they're like a good person.

I would never personally actually fire them.

Right.

But like, what would get you to that point, telling the owner that you hire them? You have to be very, very clear. Like, I would have to see, to me, if an employee is undermining the business, then I draw the line, like, immediate fire. There's no questions asked. And I would tell the owner that.

Yeah.

But like, the thing is, when we're going in there, we are literally there for a few hours. And so I don't think it's right for me to make judgment calls, like, on that. And I don't. If we are going for multiple days, I would start making those short judgment calls because I'd be able to see, like, do they show up on time? How do they show up in the morning? Okay, now I get to see them in three, four, five days. I'd start probably thinking that direction more. But when we're there for literally three to four hours to shoot a show, I'm not going to make that judgment call unless I see like, no, like unequivocally. I know beyond the shout out, that person's going to undermine the business. And it's rare that in a few hours you can really pull that up.

Yeah, yeah. It is such a short timeframe. I'm just once again kind of drawing the parallel between the turnaround series to bar Rescue. Right. John Taffer will be like, to the employee, like, you need to be fired. And then he'll turn to the owner and be like, fire her. Right. And it's like, it's very awkward, but like, he gets to that point of conviction. They're stealing from the business. They're intentionally over serving customers. They're drunk on the job, whatever. It's a bar. It's a different, different industry. But he's like, there are certain lines that you draw in this industry and like, I don't go back on them.

Yeah. Part of it is too, like, originally we were thinking I'd take more control of the business and then that would be the case. I would step in, I would like, implement things. I need more time. That's like with bar rescue, they have the time element and so for me, I'm literally. We are literally in and out within four hours of these, these businesses. And that's not. Not really captured these like 45 minute long episodes is like, we are there for three to four hours and most of that is just getting B roll. Like, I'm literally talking to the owners. Like, I have to figure out what the problem is, talk doing things through, like see all these employees I've never met before and like figure out what's going on, the dynamics within like an hour and a half to two hours max. And then we go shoot B roll. So there's not enough credibility in my mind for me to start stepping those things. I think what would be cool down the road, if we have the resources, is where I do have more time. And then the approach that we take with the applications is like, I'm stepping in, I'm gonna take control of the business. We change it to more like, it's not that way. It's a, I'm coming in for half a day and I'm gonna give you my advice and we're gonna try to make this entertaining. But I would love to be able to take more control of the business. Cause I do think you'd see better results. The thing is this, if you look at the bar rescue, if you look at the profit, where they come in and take control, what I don't see very often is the actual change being applied in the long term. Cause once I leave, all the things I did can be undone very quickly. And you see that very commonly when they go back and do return episodes in those shows is people just undo everything they did in that week or that month or whatever. They just undo it very quickly. And so my goal in the show is like for my return episodes to all be really, really good. Like, they're all doing it because the way that I presented was convincing enough. I didn't like burn bridges with the employees that now they revolted against the owners. I'm mostly concerned about what happens in a year or two when I go back to that. And I want to see that. Like, I want to see the change and then I want to see the change be done. Not just me come in and look really good on camera. Cause like I implemented this and I changed this and I fired so and so, like, I need the owner to take responsibility so they actually make the changes happen in the future.

Yeah, and I think that's the like dichotomy you have as a content creator, but also someone who cares about business Owners in this industry, you're like, I need to make entertaining content. Like, we gotta grow the channel. I have a media team. Like, I want them to get paid, I want them to have their creative ideas implemented. But you also care about those owners as people in this industry trying to better themselves, their family, their community. And so that's that like balance you have to play. And that's probably stressful.

I'm telling you, like, there are, there's so much. We could dig into some of these episodes, like if we wanted to make it a drama fest. And I never talked to them again. Oh, every single episode we have shot yet ever on turnaround stuff, we, we could have really dug into it and made them look horrible. And so I know that would triple, quadruple, if not 10x our views. But I wanna be able to go back and these business have done better and I wanna keep the relationship. And so one of the things that we are doing now, I think I might've mentioned this last week, is making a video of myself for the owner prior to the video going public. So I make a quick video on my phone, just be like, hey, this is how we're building the episode to kinda like, just so that they're not so taken back by like what we do build the drama at the beginning. We, we selectively take clips to build up hype towards what people are thinking is usually a false ending. And then we bring it around to the business side. We gotta hook them in with something and then get them like the bait. We gotta get them the hook. Right. And so the bait is usually something our drama, low cash flow, et cetera. But otherwise, if I just make a video about sales, operations and administration, I'll get 4,5000 views, maybe 10,000 views. If I do a really well crafted story and I get a really good hook and a good thumbnail and a title and something engaging, I can get 100,000 views. And the delta between 95, that extra 95,000 people, those are the new audience that needs to hear the message. Because the 5,000 other people, they're gonna watch my video no matter what and they're gonna get the content no matter what. So that's really the direction we're taking the media. And we have for the past couple months.

Yeah, it's like you're balancing between sheer drama and entertainment and like education, analytics and productivity. And like you have an audience over here that's gonna get you almost no views and you have the generic audience over here that's gonna get you a Lot of clicks, but not a lot of retention.

Yeah.

Right. So you have to find that sweet spot.

And the value of this, this, this viewer over here that is going for the business content is significantly higher too. Right. Whether it be CPM for like, actual ad revenue, which very low. But in terms like franchisees, like, no one over here that's looking for drama is like, I love drama. I'm gonna join Augusta. It's also like the wrong message we want to send. Right. Because like, those are franchises we do not want around. Like, they're always looking for drama. Like, we don't want you in here. We want the person looking for the business principles. Because there's this really weird balance. It's actually really tough to be on the media team because, like, they have this two pronged approach, which is like, we must get views that is create better stories and make better videos. But we gotta, like, water this down a little bit so that the people coming in are high enough quality that would join Augusta. And so it gets a very hard thing for them because I know we could 5 to 10x our view count if we simply didn't have something else that we were focused on getting a certain quality viewer. If we were just going for views, we would crush.

Oh, yeah.

Because every single one of these has a backend story we're not telling. Every single one of these has. When the owner closes the door and the camera's off, they start talking to me and every single one. And if I just was to hop in studio and be like, when the cameras were off, this is what happened. Like, if I said that, like, it just opened up everything. But ultimately we just got to play that weird balance. And, you know, the question is, if I 10x the views, would that extra nine, you know, with that, all those new people be able to get something valuable from the business content and there's like that weird balance.

Yeah, well, getting back to the actual content itself, I like that little trail we went down. Someone left an interesting comment.

A lot of it.

There were a lot, a lot of interesting comments, but this one, I think.

I almost deleted one or two.

Yeah, well, if you want to bring those ones up, I mean, I'm happy to scroll and find them, but this one, you. The first time I read it, I was like, it sounds very negative, but I think what they're trying to say, which one you're talking. Okay, this is from at vending services. Yeah, it's the one where he's like 8, 9, 00.

That's really bad. Brandon's really bad at this. Therefore they are good together. I think what he should have done if he was trying to make it a positive comment is flip it. Just do the inverse. Brandon is good at this. Scott is good. This is a good marriage. But like, I know what you're gonna say.

Yeah. He said, Scott seems to really struggle when it comes to the structure of the business. Kind of. Kind of harsh. Brandon seems to really struggle when it comes to working in the business also. Kind of harsh. Like just that you can almost take that to like work ethic. And he's like, great compliment to one another.

Yeah. You don't know if that's like a slam or if it's like an actual constructive comment, which is like, they are a good pair because they have weaknesses that compliment each other and they have strengths. I would probably say if you're trying to be constructive, do the strength side, but yeah, yeah.

But I think good teams. And now he's obviously an outsider. I'm assuming this person on YouTube is an outsider to this business. I think good teams do talk about what their weaknesses are, so that way they can't compliment each other.

Right.

And I think a good example is, is when you stepped out of operations of your original location. And I was like, okay, Liz is great at like HR and people and management and Lee is good at like sales and the field work and project management. So and. And I was like, Lee is bad at hr. Like, I'm not. I've gotten better. But like, about having like heart to hearts with employees or one on ones or dealing with, you know, customers that maybe have certain issues outside of just lawn care and landscaping. Liz is great at that. And then, you know, Liz, not so great at necessarily project management or the hardscaping or the skills to do the job. Whereas, like, I complimented that. And I think that addressing the weaknesses upfront is a good thing. Personally, instead of just talking about positives all the time, like, he's great at this. Okay, but what's he not good at? And that's why at Augusta too, we do like at the corporate locations at least we do peer reviews. And it's like, hey, you're going to sit down and privately say this person's amazing at. And you're going to say what this person needs to improve at. And you know, you, myself, Liz, when we used to do those would be, we would sit down and read out like the negatives to each other and be like, okay, people said I need to improve this. People said, I need to improve this. I'm Going to work on it. Hold me to it.

Right.

So.

Yeah, yeah. I remember the first time we did that. Just right over there.

Yeah.

After an off site.

Yeah. I. You put one down that I didn't know was you. You said I could be. Have better eye contact.

Oh, that was for team meetings.

Yeah. And I always thought, I thought I was good at it. Just as I kept my head up and I scanned. But scanning is an eye contact. So I appreciate you telling me.

You do better at that now. Yeah.

Thank you. I took it. I took it to heart. If someone tells me you could improve it X, like, I'm going to take it to heart.

Yeah.

I think that that's how we should be. And it's awkward because I'm in a coaching role now. Like, my job is to tell people when, hey, I see an area you can improve in. Like, I can't be silent about that.

Yeah. What did you say about me? Like, I was like, what, four, three. Four years?

Oh, I don't know. I don't remember. Off top of my head, I didn't.

Remember that I said that about you. But yeah, like almost all general managers when they're new, that they struggle with that. And that's just very common. And I know exactly, like when all the guys are in the morning, they're tired, they're standing there just like, whatever. Like you as the general manager can't look at the floor. Like, it's like, do not look down there. You must look at everyone in the eyes.

Yeah.

So otherwise just everyone all of a sudden. I've been to team meetings where like literally all the employees and the managers looking at the floor, it's like, hey, what's down there, guys? So.

Oh, yeah. So there, there were some weird comments on here. I couldn't remember any of the other ones that, that stand out. There was one that just seemed like kind of a call out, but also not negative. It's like weird. I feel like YouTube, this one got weird comments. But someone said, gotta be willing to work off your butt off mowing the lawns or fixing equipment when you're needed. Being an owner, especially something smaller, it's like basically like, you know, he's like calling him out. Like, you gotta be willing to work your butt off. Like work harder. But it's also like that just is the role. But I think they haven't defined their roles. And that's what you were going through with them that episode?

Yeah. They also made a really. Or Brandon made a really cool episode or video on his channel. Of, like, the things he learned. And it was really cool. They did a great job of, like, digesting. Cause, like, in person, it's just a fire hose of me talking to them for a couple hours. And so he digested it really well. Like, before my video public one went out, he had already, like, drawn up the 4L framework and determined, like, this is what we got to work on first and next. And so I was really happy. Like, even without them seeing the public video, they got the message. And that's, like, really always what I'm trying to walk away. Like, when I leave here, take the video off the table, like, am I helping them? And so I think we talked about last week too, but, like, there's this exchange of value happening, which is I need views, you need help with your business. And then the audience needs either a entertainment or education. And so there's this exchange of value that's, like, very awkward and weird, but I want them to walk away knowing, like, me feeling that if they implement what I talked about, they'll be successful. And so. Yeah.

And they're coming to Landscape Summit.

Yeah, they'll be there.

That's awesome. Brandon Scott. Looking forward to meeting those guys.

And I use Copilot, which I'm thankful for.

That's great. Get into Copilot before the end of the year. Get price lock. Yeah, Price lock guarantee. So cool. Well, let's switch it up. I know we had teased this on the last episode, the all in Summit happened. And I don't know if you've gone through all the videos. They've posted a ton of.

I only went to the View that we went. We talked about last.

Yeah, yeah. Mr.

Beast and a couple other. I did end up watching the one from Bill Gurley.

Okay. Yeah. Yep. So the one I wanted to talk about was with Larry Summers.

I haven't watched that.

Okay. So Larry Summers, if you don't know, former U.S. secretary of the treasury, also former president of Harvard. So a very learned individual, if you will. One thing that was interesting, this is an aside from this specific section of the summit, is people are saying that the all in Summit has early Ted vibes.

Oh, yeah, 100%. Like, they actually addressed it in their. Their last episode podcast.

Oh, cool.

Cause they talk about Ted being, like, super woke and then they. Yeah, yeah. So I 100% agree. And they're going. They're leaning into it. Like, if you look at their decor, they have all in, like, in the letters sitting right next to the stage there, like Ted did. And I think it would be a great replacement and not so much like a conservative angle, but just like a balance. You can say what you want, ideas actually worth debating and talking about versus TED being more of a social justice and.

I don't know, woke. Yeah. Type of lean on it. So we'll see though if like they have a big enough audience that with this recent podcast they put out there, like blast ted. Yeah, we'll see if it creates any sort of change.

Yeah. And all their other summit videos have a lot of, a lot of clicks. Would you ever go to their summit?

It's expensive. Yeah, I'm much. I'm not really into the political side. Yeah, Like, I think it's, it's interesting. I think that it's worth knowing about if you want to be like a civic leader and like, you know, your obligation to society and our culture. But like, I don't spend a lot of time in it. Cuz I don't think it's the best use of my time. Like individually, I think collectively we need to like have certain reforms and changes. But like me personally, by myself, probably gonna make a better impact on people's lives and make more money and be able to enjoy my life more if I just focus on what I can control. Not like politics.

Yeah. So yeah, yeah, it's very Silicon Valley heavy.

Right.

It's that type of crowd, which I like that. Yes. But that's how I'm like a lot.

Of their, a lot of their, their keynotes aren't necessarily about business. I'd say it's like 50, 50 split between economics and politics. Like I skipped their episodes. Like Chris Christie.

Yeah.

I was going to skip the one with Vivek. Vivek. But you told me to listen to it, so I did and it was good. But like I know what politicians are going to say. They're going to say life is, here's what's wrong, here's how I can make it better. Here's what's wrong, here's what they should be doing. Like, and like you can break it down in that general thing. I just want to look like, hey, what did you do? Yeah, yeah, that's really what I'd be asking if I was like, interviewing a politician is like the same way that I would interview a business leader. It's like, tell me about your story. Tell me, tell me about how you got started. Tell me about the challenges you overcame. Like that's what I would talk to a politician about. Cause like, I would want to know about their businesses. I would want to know about what they've done in politics. Tell me about the things that you've passed in the House that have done well and, like, the challenges of negotiation between people. That would be interesting. No, like, here's what's wrong. Here's how I can solve it. Here's what's wrong. Here's how I can solve it in so many words. And picking apart the current leadership, like, picking apart leadership to me is like, the most, like, small boy stuff in the world. It's so easy because there's always gonna be errors and mistakes in leadership. 100% of the time. They're humans. And so the person that does that is an immediate, like, small boy stuff to me. And that's like Politician101 is like, pick apart current leadership. Because there's always gonna be stuff that people don't like, regardless of what side of the aisle you are on.

Oh, yeah.

And so I think picking apart leadership is like a fatal flaw instead of just like, here's what I can control. Cause, like, I'm not the leader, but this is what I can control, and I'm going to take action towards that. And then obviously, when you get enough people doing that, you have reform, because everyone's like, this is how I believe. And this is. I'm going to control my universe. And I'm not just going to complain about the leadership. And enough people doing that. Now people start to think of different ways people put money in a different direction. So that's just my two cents.

Yeah, that's fair. Well, let's. Let's put a pin in this Larry Summers quote, because. No, I love where we went, because I thought I wanted to ask you about this. So they had Larry Summers up. They had Ray Dalio, who I love Ray Dalio Principles. Great book. He's got great YouTube content as well, on world economics, world forum politics, macro politics. But they. They would make jokes often if you watch the videos, but they're. They make jokes about, like, why don't you run for president? Like, why doesn't Ray Dalio run for president? Why doesn't Larry Summers? And, you know, they obviously they. They get, you know, kind of blush and they're like, oh, no, I would never. Why do you think that people in power that are recognized as a powerful person, that people rally behind, why do you think they always say no?

Two reasons. I've thought about this for myself, too.

Yes.

So one is everyone has skeletons in the closet. Every single human being. And as you get older, as I've gotten older, I should say I have realized that regardless of how good someone looks, they have that. And that keeps you humble. Because I think anyone that's just like, I'm an open book, like anyone you can see anything in. They're. They're lying. There's something in their life, whether it be personal, physical, that they're struggling with, that is embarrassing. And when you go into politics, that will all be exposed.

Yeah.

100% of it will be exposed. And it will likely be magnified and taken to the furthest extent of reality and beyond. Yeah. And that's harmful for the people around you, that you. That love you. Not even if it's not embarrassing to you, because now they're not going to tear into just your life. They're going to tear into all of your family's life and their medical history and their personal lives and all their personal relationships. And that can be damaging, I think, for a. Just a human being. Like, if I was to ever run for office, which I won't, I don't have any plans to, but, like, if that was ever happen, I would be mostly concerned for the fact that I'm going to have a negative impact on the people around me. And they did not make the decision of doing.

You're right.

And they're now going to have people showing up at their house or they're going to have people picking in their personal life or picking apart their finances, and they didn't sign up for that. And I'm. I'm becoming more aware of, like, the decision that I make, how it impacts the people around me, whether it be employees in the business, the franchisees. Like, like, if we, if I ran for office now, all of a sudden all the franchisees become targets. Right. And now the headline is like, mike, Andy's let this franchisee that is an ex felon dude. Like, that's not the kind of drama I want to stir up in my life or in the lives of the people around me that I love.

Yeah, yeah.

That's like the main reason. Yeah.

I was gonna say. What's the second reason?

I would say the second reason is to look good. No, just like, life is better. Life is better in the private sector. If you have the goods to become elected at a high level of politics, you have the goods to live a very wealthy life, therefore, very good life in the personal sector. Like, have as many houses as you want, have a private jet. Like, there's a lot of really cool stuff. You can do that. As soon as you add a high, high level, like where you have like private security and all the rest of it that gets like, annoying. Like, everyone's like, oh, it's so cool. Like the paparazzi is not cool that you can't go out to dinner and like with the public if you get to that level and you have to like have things scanned in terms of security before you get there. So you can't just like on a whim, go travel somewhere. You can't do that. Yeah, it's all planned and your whole life is structured and it's a lot of this. Like, like. So I think that the quality of life is low and it is a ego boost at the expense of quality of life.

Unless you want to play the game the way we're seeing it played now. Where it is a quality of life increase for newcomers into politics that are growing massively on social media, that have big followings and then get massive donors that all of a sudden now their net worth is skyrocketed. Weird. And I'll pick one, one from each side of the aisle. Not picking sides. Aoc right on the, on the left, Matt Gaetz on the right. Like, both just like came into politics and are now household names. Very wealthy, like, have a lot of options. Probably going to be career politicians that we're going to see, you know, until they're 80 and that's going to be annoying. And it's like they're using. And I think that's why people get frustrated by politics is like they're using the system the wrong way. And whether either of them not making a political statement, either of them really genuinely is trying to help their consumers issuance, that's great and I hope they are. But people get frustrated. Like myself, I'm not represented by either of them. Like, why are they both so wealthy now? Like, that's not fair. Their salary is like what, 200,000 a year? But now they're both like net worth. You look them up, they're millions of dollars. Like, that's not fair. They're playing the system.

I don't have a big problem with wealthy people being in power as much as people becoming in power to become wealthy.

Right.

Because this is the thing. If you're like, well, we don't want people that have a lot of money to be in places of leadership and government. Well, a lot of times the person that has a lot of money is because they have certain skills in leadership. They have maybe they created some sort of technology or breakthrough that they're able to sell and they're able to Sell the idea, they're able to sell the product, they're able to sell their team on accomplishing something. And so if you borrow those people out simply because they have a lot of money, you have now borrowed a lot of brain power from places of power. And so I think that's dangerous. However, when someone comes into place of power in order to come wealthy because they can write a book, they can get, you know, whatever that. That's like.

Is very, very alarming because that person does not have the goods to lead. And I. A good leader typically in the private sector, in business is going to do really well financially. That's just how it is. And if they can overcome, like, drama and they can think clearly in the. In times of, you know, chaos and things like that, those are rewarded skills and traits. Those are the people we need in places of power. So it's. You gotta be careful. Like, that's where I'm like, someone having a lot of money, does it mean they should be in power? No. But does it mean they should be disqualified from power? Absolutely not. No. Yeah. And so I think there should definitely be something you'd be cool to have some sort of regulation around, like them somehow profiting from being in a place of power. And it should be more of a servant type of thing, but it's impossible in this age of like notoriety and titles meaning stuff and social media, because as soon as you. I am a congressman, like, there's a certain level of leadership that is implied there. And so if you can just become a congressman without any sort of, like, somehow do it, you somehow get this implied benefit of becoming a good leader.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's just funny when you select the backlash in these situations, because I just googled it to, you know, reconfirm. But U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein, she passed away and she was 90 years old. And like, you instantly saw the hit pieces. She died with a net worth of 70 million. Like, no, her husband was an entrepreneur. He owned multiple businesses and he was very successful. And like, people go at her because, like, she abused the system and like, whether she pulled strings or not for her husband's businesses, I don't know and I don't care. But like, he had, he was an entrepreneur, he had multiple businesses, he was very successful. So that's why she died with a massive net worth. And. But like, what you're saying is like using power to then gain influence and money. That's not fair.

Which would be more debated is, should someone be in a place of power at the age of 90 and they're literally in power to the day they die. Like were they really that effective or sharp the past few weeks or months or years? I don't know like that. That's something that should be debated too. Like we have a minimum age. Why don't we have a max age?

Yeah.

Like I'm sorry, but Mitch McConnell is not thinking on all cylinders. No, Joe Biden's not thinking on all cylinders. It's pretty clear. Like why do we not have. Anyway, we're going to politics.

Yeah. Which I know you don't like. See, I love politics. You love business out of politics. That's why I try to get you.

I just think it's mostly worth not worthwhile talking about because it doesn't, I.

Don'T ever see change happening, I guess. Last comment on it, Shane Gillis comedian he had a new like special come out and he said I love when Joe Biden finishes a speech, he turns into a Roomba and he just got, just kind of bounces around the room until someone grabs him. I thought that was good. That's, it's sad. But back to the Larry Summers. We'll bring it back. Larry Summers all in summit. And he had this quote in the middle of his talk. The context of the talk is more just, hey, let's talk about US economics policies, where we're headed, what you see from your past as Secretary of the treasury, as a president of Harvard. You're a very learned man. Tell us what you see happening in American economics and politics right now. Very open ended discussion. But in the context, he said this quote talking about kind of the workforce and the new generations and where America is headed in terms of our work ethic and mentality. He said we have gone from thinking that self esteem comes from achievement to thinking that achievement comes from self esteem. That is an embarrassment. So I thought, very interesting quote. I listened to it a couple times, I've processed it, I've talked again. I've talked to a couple people about it. But yeah, let's, let's hit it again. We have gone from thinking that self esteem comes from achievement to thinking that achievement comes from self esteem. And that is an embarrassment.

That's pretty good.

So it's in the context of the American economy and how we've changed over the years and where we're headed. What are your initial takeaways on that?

That's good. I don't know if there's much to add to that. That's just like a good, a good thought and that is like achieve self esteem should be derived from what you have achieved instead of the fact that you have self esteem. You have therefore won the game.

I think the definition of self esteem is important there and I think it should not be conflated with contentment. And so I don't, I think those are very pretty far terms from each other. But like that would be. My only thing is like you, you can be content and you don't need a lot of self esteem. Like that's fine, you can be content and happy and you have achieved, in my opinion, success. And so I don't think it's necessary. You need to achieve a lot in order to have self esteem. I, I don't believe that I think you could be content and then have self esteem and that's fine. Like not everyone needs to be super successful. Like, right. That is not, that's a, like when you get a bunch of really successful people in a room, they start conflating these ideas of like what success is because they all have these certain measures of. And usually it's around money and power and education and things like that. Some people, they just want to make 30, $40,000 a year and take every single weekend and play with their kids and take one vacation a year and they're thrilled out of their mind and they're content. And therefore I believe they're successful and they should have self esteem and that they have achieved that level of success for them and what success means for them. These gentlemen that we're talking, we are conflating success with high levels of quote, achievement and achievement being money, power building businesses and that's not success for everyone. So if you're gonna actually rank achievement and say that achieving success is worthy of self esteem, now we have a debate on what success really means and what does achievement really mean. Because for some people being a great dad or mom is achievement in and of itself and they should have all the self esteem in the world because most people aren't. So I think you have to define achievement and success if you're going to actually use that as a barometer as to whether or not someone should have self esteem.

Yeah, I think I kind of, when I took it I was like, well let's reduce it down to the smallest like possible way we can look at the American economy. And this is going to be very reductive. But I'm thinking let's what's the economy at the end of the day? Buyers and sellers. Right. Would you disagree? No, I feel like that's a core economic principle. It's like there are buyers and there are sellers. And then I thought, well, Marxism, there's workers and owners. Right. If you look at like Karl Marx.

And things of that buyers and sellers, there's one selling labor.

Exactly. Yep. So it's still buyers and sellers. Different context. Right. And obviously Karl Marx, very different philosophy in general. But I thought if we look all the way down to one buyer, one seller, I think what Larry Summers is saying is ultimately that in a buyer and seller environment, you have achieved nothing or you, you do not deserve, or you do not have self esteem until you have achieved something, until you have created, until you have sold, until you have bought. And I think what he's saying is more about the general mindset of the American workforce. And where we're headed politically is that we're very obsessed with ourselves and it's a very me generation or the me economy. And like me on social media, my likes and my views and my clicks and my vacation and it's like, what, what, what are you achieving for the greater good to then give you self esteem to say, yes, it's about me.

I do believe that's what he's meaning. Yeah, I'm just digging into the words of it and saying that like achievement and success is a, a term that should be defined by.

It's relative. Yeah, yeah. I just like the deep dive from a like a psychological perspective. I'm like, this is, it's good because I even think about, you know, a tough conversation I had with an employee recently that was frustrated about how P4P worked. And he was thinking like, I am trading you buyers and sellers, workers and owners. I am trading you eight hours. So I deserve eight hours of P4P. It's like, well, that's not how it works. We have to take into context that like you need to show up on time, you need to do what the customer asks. You can't just fly through a job and expect it to get P4P if you didn't do what the customer wanted. Right. And so it's like bringing that person out to be like, you need to achieve something first to get P4P. Just because you're confident and you think you deserve P4P does not mean you deserve it. And I think that P4P is almost like a microcosm example of this quote in a way. In a way.

So I agree.

It's just an interesting quote. I like the like philosophical side.

Yeah, that's good.

It tickles the brain, if you will. So. But yeah, very good conversation with him, I think. Yeah. Like the all in Summit did focus on general politics, U.S. economics. But I think it's a good listen if you're a business owner just to get the high level view of where thought leaders in business are, seeing where the country is going and what they're doing in their businesses or how they're consulting others to put prevent negative things from happening. So cool. Yeah. One other thought I had, I took a screenshot of this.

All right.

Should have brought it up earlier when we were more in the YouTube section here.

Someone came after you.

Oh, really?

Well, you know, you took a picture on your boat, your yacht, the Mike Andy.

I haven't looked at the comments.

Okay.

Actually I think I did like the day after.

But so, you know, I had to do this. Someone said, you know, narcissist, taking a picture of yourself working. Did you see the responses to this?

No, I don't think so.

These are great responses. So you know Brad, Brad from. No, you didn't. Brad from Copper Creek, Cucks cuts, had your back. Great guy. You know, if he's coming after you, you know you did something wrong.

Logical. He's so good.

Yep. Mike or no.

Excuse me.

Caleb's Lawn Care. I don't know who you are. Caleb, hold that.

Brad is in. Is a philosopher caught in a lot in a landscape body. Go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, you know, you're good. Caleb's Lawn Care came to defend you. So shout out Caleb's Lawn Care. Right. You didn't respond.

Caleb Congan.

No, just Caleb's Lawn Care. I don't know, maybe I've met him before, but that's his YouTube handle. But this is my favorite person coming to defend you. All right. And this is Sharon Andy's 9444. And she said I'm his mom. And I took the picture. Try not to be so skeptical of people. It's not healthy. Prayer hands emoji, heart emoji.

That's so funny.

So you come at Mike on YouTube. You're gonna get mama bear claws.

Yeah, it was cool. That day on the boat, I was going out to work and she was like, hey, would you mind if I just came along and worked on my own stuff?

Yeah, yeah.

And so that's cool. It was a few hours ago and she jumped in the water. It's freezing cold. It was frigid. She jumped in the water. But it was nice time. And so I saw a couple people like taking pictures of yourself or whatever. But yeah, it was my mom.

Yeah, I Loved it. I love that she came to defend you. And. Yeah, you know, she listens to these. That's great. Well, that's good. Well, thank you for defending him. She'll. She'll come after anyone, so. I loved it, though, because I just. I don't know. I think you and I have had this conversation off recording before. I just think I never comment on videos, and you don't either. It's just. It feels like. Like a waste of time. And if you want to say something negative like, either say, like, hey, this could have been better. Like, you know, if someone commented on the C suite, like, hey, the volume was a little low. You know, I'm listening to it while operating machinery. Can you bump up the volume? Sure. Happy to do that. But, like, when people just comment negative stuff, I'm like, it's just a waste time.

I think it's healthy, though, because you need a. You need a. An open forum and a place to conversate. Because behind ev. Behind every negative comment there, there can be a group, something you can learn from it. Right?

Yeah.

So, for example, like, there's a reason why I posted that is because I want to show how much work I'm putting in these keynotes so that either A, people take it more seriously when they listen, or B, they. They book a ticket because they're like, okay, Mike's really working hard on this. It's a Saturday, he's on his boat, and he's on his laptop. He's probably coming up with something cool. Like, there's. That is definitely my intent there. Totally. I want people to show up and be like, okay, Mike has spent weeks, if not months now on each of these keynotes, and he hasn't posted anything, like, super in depth on his channel of business related. It's been more entertainment. Like, this is, like, a lot of consolidated information. Like, I'm, like, really going through and like, I've never practiced my keynotes. I've never gone through them five times and stripped them apart. Like, that's what I'm doing now. And so that is the motive for the picture. And there's definitely a piece that is right. And that is like, I am posting pictures of myself working on a boat. Like, that is absurd. But my hope is that it convinces someone that is like, okay, I get value out of his entertainment. What's this gonna be? If I get value from the education side, I need. The person that shows up is like, I respect Mike enough that if he has spent months working on this, I will listen to A slightly higher degree.

Yeah.

Because he's thought this through, and he's not doing this off the cuff. And so there's one thing that there's speakers that can just literally step on stage and talk. And I can do that. I am capable and actually enjoy it. I do not enjoy going to keynotes over and over and over and stripping out words and debating, like, whether or not this word should be this word and, like, all that sort of. I do not enjoy it, but I do believe it is making my work better. Yeah. And so I am willing to do that for the audience that has spent money and time to be there. And I hope that posting a picture like that shows that I'm taking this seriously, and I hope that you come. You're taking it seriously.

Yeah.

So there's. There's grains of truth there. It's like, if I was responding to that comment, I'm like, yes, this is narcissist. Because I want other people to see how hard I'm working on these, and they take me seriously when I start talking.

Yeah, but there's a balance between narcissism and self promotion.

Yeah. But it's a very fine line on social media. It is.

It is. But your mom defended you, so it's fine. The air is cleared. The air is cleared, baby. Yeah. It's an interesting take because when I was invited to speak at a franchise E organized event, Shout Out Kevin Fairburn, he asked me. He was like, hey, I'd love for you to come speak. And I was like, you know, I'd be honored. And I did the same thing. I actually, like, wrote out my whole presentation versus normally I'm just bullet points. I'm very comfortable in front of a crowd and very comfortable with a mic in front of my face. But I was like, no, I've been asked to come and speak here. I'm gonna write out the whole thing and, like, actually prepare. Run through it a few times. Like, make sure I say the words I actually want to say and not just off the cuff. It was hard, but it was a better product. I felt like. Like I ran through it, like, three times with my wife. I ran through it on the plane. Oh, yeah. I was like, I want this to be good for the franchisees.

My challenge, I'm running to. I have eight of them.

Right.

That's tough. I felt like I could really spend time on it. I'm in a crunch zone, man, right now. I am, like, in the down to the wire every night working on them, and I still feel like, if I had another month, I'd make them better, which is a good place because I know that means, like, in the past, I wouldn't have got even close to where I'm at now. But, like, yeah, like, they're going to be good. Like, I really do believe that. My best work ever.

Yeah.

And I'm confident and I'm excited to almost, like, deliver them because it's like, I've worked so hard on this.

Yeah.

And I've never really had that experience. And I think, you know, my coach is a big part of that. Like, Yep. He wants to deliberate over every slide and every word and, like, what do I really mean by that? And it makes me think a lot harder about.

Cool. Well, any not financial advice for the people.

I had something that slipped my mind. Go ahead.

Mine is. I've already talked about it. But be careful what you say on Mike's YouTube channel, because you never know when his mom might be watching. You just never know. She's always there.

Did I already talk about my standing treadmill standing at my desk?

No, I don't think you've talked about that.

I didn't talk about that. I think I did. Dude, I must have talked about this. So I got. Okay. Well, just in case this is worth saying twice.

Yeah.

A walking desk.

Yeah.

High, like, highly recommend. So, like, this week I've been, like, doing a lot of late night stuff with my keynote. So, like, I've been walking between three and six miles.

That's awesome.

And you don't sweat because you're going slow. Usually between 1.5 and 2. If I'm really trying to focus on, I'll go down to 1.2. They're less than 200 bucks because they don't have to go fast. Like, I think they top out like three and a half miles an hour. It's under my. My standing desk. And then if I. Instead of having to move the treadmill because I knew that would be like.

Yeah, I want the extra.

Yeah. I just put the chair on top of the treadmill, dude.

Oh, dude. There you go. Yeah. So that's clutch.

Super helpful. I feel like I can go later in the night because I feel clear. I'm not. I don't get foggy when I'm walking because, like, your heart rate's up. And what's cool is when you go to. You can go to sleep right after because your heart rate hasn't been super high and you still feel like. Oh. Because your legs, like, they do.

You've done it yeah, like you feel.

Like you've walked a lot.

Yeah.

For four hours. You're walking at 1.5. So. Yeah. Get a walking treadmill. If you do long periods of work at a desk, you need to have a standing desk though, so you can adjust it.

Okay. Can I give, can I give you a piece of non financial advice since you have a walking treadmill? Don't do any of your content or ads while you're walking.

Why?

Because I saw.

No, no, no. I saw a guy do an ad. It was on lead generation and he's at a walking desk. And all the comments. He was just getting roasted. Just getting roasted.

I agree.

Don't make bro, why are your shoulders moving so much? And it's like, no, he's, he's walking but you can't. It's, it's, it's here up shot. So he's like.

It is kind of a dumb, like a very self centered thing to do when you're walking. Walking the treadmill. It is like the quintessential. Like I am an office rat and therefore I put a treadmill underneath my desk. Like it's the worst. But if you have a lot of computer time, I am certainly thinking when we get the headquarters of doing it for the office team, that's cool. If you guys listen to this, keep this internal. But I would like to do it. There's a lot of other factors though. It's like.

There'S a certain risk in terms of liability. Like my insurance. I have to actually bring them up to speed on that. I also like there's noise. It is loud. Ish. Like you can get quieter ones probably, but you're. Can I say absorbent amounts of money and so but then it's like it's slow too. So maybe just having a bit of a drone in the office. So it isn't a bad thing. But I believe it would pay for itself because people that get tired, they have a bad night of sleep, like they're going to be less productive the next day. If you're walking, it's hard not to be productive because your heart rate's elevated, you're standing. We already have standing desks and things like that. But it's something that I think potentially I can make sense of financially.

Yeah, I like it.

It takes more space too. So we'll figure it out.

Walking desks, nap pods.

No, we're not doing the nap pod.

Oh come on.

We're gonna do the opposite. Like you're walking tired. Hop on the treadmill. You can Go in that room and go at eight miles an hour.

You could have, like, a zoom session where you put, like, the zoom up on the ceiling and then they can do bench press while they're zooming in on the call. Yeah.

Down the road. I think it's partly funny. Would be cool to have a punching bag probably outside the room. Like, because, like, there are times they have to deal with, like, pretty, you know, arrogant people on the phone. And, like, it would be kind of funny. Slash. Like, they do want to punch something, and I'd rather them do that than, like, cry or have to take it home. Is like, just go hit the punching bag. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't want to be a distraction in the office. That's why we don't have, like, gongs and bells and. And, like, big loud things. Like, we try to keep everything's very quiet and focused. So there's that balance. Like, if everyone saw. Everyone should watch the video Liz made recently. Most of them was out of the office, but it was a good representation. Like, it's quiet. We work really quietly, and I think that's where your best work gets done. And there's not distractions. And I think that's like a annoyance of, like, high performance in a call center is like, you got bells and people yelling, or people are walking over your desk and talking to you. So we try to keep everything. Like, if you want someone's attention, you QQ them, like, quick question and then they respond via chat. And so I think there's just a balance. Like, do I want treadmills and, like, punching bags and, like, all this other stuff? And there's that balance of, like, productivity, team culture, etc. So we'll play that game. But standing desks, with a treadmill for under 400, you can do both.

And any extra standing desks.

Do we have any extra in the office? I think we use them all because that's the one that everyone wants. Why do you want one?

I just. I got my. Like, you got the big fan. I have the big 1980s, like, CEO desk.

Your corner office.

It's nice. It's my. It is my corner office.

You better enjoy it before we go to headquarters. And everyone has the same desk.

Dude. Yeah, I. I've thought about that. I. I really do want to work with the team. I think it'd be fun to be in the same building, but I think everyone's going to hate me on sales calls. No, I'm just. I'm already a loud person, but we.

Have the small little rooms adjacent that you can close the door, right? Yeah.

So I'm going to do all my calls from a conference room.

Why? Is that bad?

No, put a little Lee's office sticker on the outside. I mean on air. Yeah.

Still hear you.

But it doesn't bother me. Yeah, it doesn't bother me. I just don't want to be a disruption for others.

Yeah. Same thing with Brad. He's a loud talker to. So he's always very self conscious in the office when these phone calls.

Same. So whatever. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We'll walk that treadmill. All righty. Like and subscribe.