Episode 40 – After the Finish Line: The Passion to Keep Building

There's, there's no infrastructure there of any kind, you know, like we have to take everything with us, right? Like, um, uh, when, when we want to bring provisions in, we fly it in on a seaplane because there's no other way to get it. Um, and so it's— but the remoteness is great. I mean, I— we would go for days upon days upon days and not see another human being that wasn't on our boat.

That's great.

Uh, we, we, uh, we, we, we have a little space where it's going to be actually on the Odyssey YouTube channel here in a couple of months as these episodes come out. Um, but we have this little spot Megan and I call our kind of secret honey hole, and it's, it's a, it's a, it's a sandbar that's about 4 miles long. And at low tide, that sandbar comes out of the water and there's all these tidal pools and coral formations that become exposed during that 5 or 6 hour window. And it is absolutely spectacular. It doesn't look real. It looks like someone made it, like it's from Disneyland.

A little perfect, a little too perfect. That doesn't interest you at the best.

And I could— I can go there and not see anyone for days, and it's because it's kind of hard to get to because the water is really, really shallow. So the great part about Odyssey is also she's a big boat, right? She, she has a draft of 5'8, so that I can still get her pretty close, and then I get the rest of the way in the little tenders. Um, and you know, the crew like goes aboard, or they go to shore, set up tents, coolers, you know, the radios, um, rake the beach. You know, it's ridiculous, really.

Well, if you're in a 77-footer, I mean, uh, 80-plus footer, I mean, you're gonna pamper everything, right? How was the reaction from your crew when they showed up and they see this thing? It's like, because not many people, A, have the opportunity to be sailing, but would be true, that nice of a boat in this destination.

So that's, uh, I tell you, you know, when you can just get on the radio when you're floating around and be like, hey, we're ready for another round of margaritas, and they just show up, it's pretty great.

Yeah, right?

Like, it's, it's a lot of fun. So, so it is, it is our passion, um, and it's what— look, when we're not doing turnstiles and technology and all the other things we like to do, we're sailing. Um, and so it's, it's, uh, I mean, we live and breathe it. So, um, for, for anyone that, that's interested in chartering, you can check it out on sail-odyssey.com or follow our YouTube channel, uh, which is also Sail Odyssey. Um, which is— it's just a ton of fun if you're interested in sailing or just in off-grid living, I would say, in any kind of context.

Yeah, I think that's a lifestyle that is sort For, for, um, a moment I thought you were going to just take 6 months and go sailing, but now this is a business, right? This is not just— It's both, obviously, but yeah, it is a business.

Yeah, it's a business. I mean, look, one of the, one of the, the, the, the tricks to that, you know, is by making it a business, it allows me to depreciate the asset, right?

Yeah.

So there's some tax motivation to making it a business. Um, I don't really care if it makes money, frankly, but it is a business. Um, it actually does make money, but that was not the objective, nor do I care one way or another. But—

Hold on, sounds like a lot of things you do, you know.

That's probably true.

I've been told this is not gonna work, but you know what, here you are.

Yeah, yeah. I think, um, you know, one of the things I love about sailing is You know, when, when you reach any kind of success in your life, Tino, you, you can, you can be a victim of starting to buy your own bullshit, frankly.

Interesting point.

And, and you get— you can easily get a big head. And, and so one of the things that I like about sailing is when I am out there, I'm reminded of how small and powerless I really am, because, because Mother Nature You know, I don't decide where we're going; she does.

Right?

Right. Because we might have a plan, but if she doesn't agree with said plan, we're not doing it. Right? If there's lightning, if there's wind, if there's rough waters, if there's—we're not moving. Right?

Right.

And so I find value in that, and a certain solace in it. It just reminds me that I'm just a passenger on this big rock, and I find—I find that that's very helpful sometimes.

And you know what, on that note, let's get the show started. We've been talking and this is, this is going to be the pre-conversation. But all right, so let's hold on here. All right, here we go. So now you get to see how the sausage is made. Here we go.

Welcome to Executive Checkpoint, the live podcast for security professionals. Each week we explore industry trends, challenges, and insights with leading experts. This is your insider access to the minds driving change in our industry.

Welcome to Executive Checkpoint. I'm Tino Urbina. Today I am joined by Eric Mager, an entrepreneur who reached a milestone many business owners spend their entire career chasing. But instead of stepping away, he kept building. His journey includes growing Avangar, developing Ryzen manufacturing, navigating a major acquisition, and entering an entirely new chapter, as you will hear. Today, we're exploring what happens after the finish line, the pressure behind the scenes, the sacrifice people rarely see, and the drive that refuses to disappear. Eric, it's always a great pleasure to see you and welcome to the show.

So glad to be here. I always enjoy catching up.

Awesome. So one of the things that— and we've been talking about it, right? When people look at your life today, see the success, the business, new ventures, the freedom, right? We were talking just about that before the start.

What part of the journey do they not Uh, you know, people have a tendency to see what they want to see, as you know. Um, oftentimes I feel like a projector, like a projection screen, like it— that people project upon me what they, they think it is. Um, the truth is, you know, they might see the, the, the, the good stuff, the shiny stuff, but they don't see the, the nights laying in bed trying to figure out how you were going to make payroll or how you're going to come up with money to fund a project. or whatever the case may be. There's a lot of pain that goes along with entrepreneurship that generally is not visible to the outside looking in. And if you're good at managing it, it definitely isn't visible. And, you know, I think that's the part that they don't see. And that's the part that really requires, you know, most of entrepreneurial success is really defined by your ability to take pain and be relentless about it. You know, it's so many people, I think, think it's about hard work and creativity, and it is about those things, but that's not really what makes you successful. What makes you successful is the ability to grind the axe every day in spite of whatever, you know, opposition or resistance you're facing. And that takes a tremendous toll on someone, and, and they have to be built to take the pain. It's just a fact.

So what I heard you said is that so far you have achieved that success that everybody's chasing, and you have reached the top of the mountain, but then you did it all over again.

That's true.

So you, you know, Avant-Garde is your baby. You started there, but Then you decided to do Ryzen, which is another successful company. And again, you started a new chapter in a completely different direction. We'll touch base on that. We talked about earlier in the show. Sure. But so is it, is it, is it the pain? Or is it the journey? Or is it the combination of the two, the growth? What is it? What motivates you? What's the drive?

You know, that's a great question. I think part of it's just my personality, you know, Tino, like, There's a quote by Andrew Jackson that says, I was built for a storm and calm does not suit me. And that very much describes my personality, frankly.

Brilliant.

I just like the battle. I do. And I like to win. I'm very much, I'm not really a money-motivated guy. I never have been. Megan will tell people, that all the time, you know, she will laugh, particularly, you know, post-acquisition where our public profile has really been elevated even more than it was before. She will say, you know, my husband's never cared about money, either because we didn't have any or because we had plenty. And that's really true. Like, that doesn't motivate me really. What motivates me is winning. I like to win. And I'm a super competitive guy, you know, like my joke with my team is I don't want to, I don't want to just win. I like want to run the score up and make the other guy question the meaning of his existence, right? Like, I just really enjoy that. And so that, that's really what motivates me. And I find motivation in creating, you know, creating products and satisfying customers and solving problems. And I like building things, you know, Megan and I have quite a bit of real estate that we do. We don't really talk about that a lot, but we have quite a large real estate portfolio. And almost all of that real estate portfolio came from old buildings, commercial and residential, that we brought back to life. And we really enjoy building things. We enjoy building businesses. We enjoy building construction and real estate. We just like that. And it's fun. And, you know, there is times that it's not, but I mean, they call it a job for a reason. But, you know, we really enjoy it. And then, you know, we kind of have a live or, you know, kind of a work hard, play hard sort of mantra. And it works for us.

Right. So, and the question always for the outside viewer, right, in this type of situation, what are you trying to prove, right? Or who you're trying to prove it to? Is there a thing? It may be— that sounds maybe a little negative, but sometimes it's probably the biggest motivation you have, right? What is your case?

I think it's really, you know, I'm trying to prove things to myself. You know, I'm my own— it's like playing golf, right? You're playing against your own best score. And so I think for me, you know, I just want to know what am I really capable of? What can I, what, what can I do that I haven't done? What's fun? Now, as I've gotten older and more experienced and hopefully a little wiser, I think I ask myself now more nuanced questions. Like when I was younger, it was, I could make this work. Now it's, do I want to make it work?

Right.

And it's, it's a more nuanced decision-making process as I'm older and smarter. But At the end of the day, I really enjoy problem solving, and I really enjoy coming at everyday problems from a first principle perspective. You know, that's kind of what really gave birth to Avant-Garde. You know, Avant-Garde didn't invent turnstiles or make any products. It really delivered those products in a new and novel way into the marketplace that the market really responded to. And that wasn't really that complicated. I just came at it from a first principle perspective. Perspective and said, what do people really want, right, in the entrance system space? And what they wanted was a single company that could do all those things and do them really well. And with Risen, you know, Risen is a construction technology firm. So we have, you know, we build hardware and software that kind of think about it as safety being the center of the wheel, worker safety, and then we attach to that Access control, worker data, tool and equipment management, you know, time and attendance, all these pieces.

Essential part of the wheel, yeah.

Right, on a job site. And we interface through IoT all these other supporting technologies into our platform. And again, we came at that from a first principle perspective. Before Risen, you really had like hardware manufacturers, In the kind of our space, and then you had software companies and you had to go buy each one separately. And the products really weren't that great. I mean, they were okay at best. And I wanted to do it differently. And I just came at it from that almost like I knew nothing, even though I did. I tried purposely trying to—

You're just trying to reinvent it, right?

Yeah. Like, what does the customer really want? You know, so I spent a lot of time talking to customers. Interesting story, RIZIN came to be out of an existing customer Avant-Garde had. I can talk about it now. That customer was NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal came to us and they said, hey, we really want some portable turnstiles for this new top secret theme park we're gonna build, which is now like, you know, Mario, it's Epic Universe or whatever, it's Mario World and all that stuff that's now open. Back then it was all NDA'd out the wazoo and there was lawyers and everything was top secret. And the idea was they would be able to have a portable turnstile to put the workers in and out of that attraction and the attraction would have like a screen around it so nobody could see what was inside and then they would unveil it to the public. And I said, you know, we're not really in the business of building stuff. You know, we sell products made by other people and we service and support them. And so I recommended that they go to another company that's a competitor on the hardware side of the business to Ryzen today. And they said, no, no, no, we've already talked to those folks and we don't really care for them or their products. We want you to do it. And I said, well, you know, again, it's not what we do. And they were like, look, we give you a lot of business, so we think you need to rethink the answer and the answer needs to be yes. So they were strong-arming me basically. And I said, okay, look, we'll do it. But look, it's not going to be pretty. Like this thing's going to look like Doc Brown built it in his garage in 1955. And the key decision maker there was like, yeah, but will it work? And I was like, well, yeah, it'll work. It's just not going to be— it's going to be ugly. And he was like, I don't care what it looks like.

Did you have the manufacturing at that point? Or this is like literally back in the shop just I had never built a widget in my entire life.

Never. And so I went to work taking some existing products and basically converting them into this portable product. So what emerged out of that was what we now call our Pegasus 200 Pro, which is a tandem, fully self-contained turnstile with, you know, with 5G connectivity and all of that kind of stuff.

Interesting.

Now, the product Has evolved significantly, but that's that's that's what gave birth to Rising. So at the end of that project, we delivered like fifty of these things to them. They used it for the theme park. They loved it, and and then I said, "You know what? Why don't we make a real business out of this?" Right? Like because I felt like there was a lot of other people that wanted it, and we had already done the work on the engineering to get it to that point. So. That gave birth to RIZN. And my joke now, you know, a joke with my team that RIZN started as a 3rd grade science fair project. And it's kind of true because it kind of came out of this weird wonky ask. And, you know, now we have a whole product portfolio. You know, we have our Pro Series, which is an open-frame portable turnstile. We have our HD Series, which is containerized products. We have vehicle products. We have our own Full-height turnstile and pedestrian gate that goes inside of those products. We have a very strong intellectual property and patent portfolio around the hardware. But, but the truth is, it's really our software that is the magic, right? It's the data that we give our customers, their ability to understand how many workers are on a job site, right? How many, how many electricians do I have there right now? How many plumbers? How many pipefitters? How many, how many steel guys? How many roofers? And then obviously with the advent of AI, we started then working towards, you know, putting all this AI capability into the platform that is really sophisticated, particularly around the safety bits and the facial recognition part too. So, Tino, I can walk up to you, particularly down in your part of the world, there's a lot of workers that don't speak English. I can walk up, open the Verizon app, scan your face. Ooh, I saw Tino standing on a 5-gallon bucket upside down instead of on a ladder as he's supposed to be doing. And it doesn't matter if you speak English because I can detect your face. Oh, that's Tino. He works for XYZ firm. I create a safety incident report, tag your supervisor, and say, I want to know when this has been resolved. All in our app.

So that's a peripheral benefit of what you guys built, right, with the technology? Correct. Very, very interesting. Yeah.

That's really been— we're— I mean, I like to talk about us as like the Apple of the con— of the contech or construction technology kind of world because we are— we work with our counterparts in Israel where our software came from to develop the hardware and software along a parallel R&D track. So the software is designed to run on the hardware. The hardware is designed to run on the— with the software. And we're the only company in the world doing it that way. And it delivers a customer experience and a seamlessness of integration and a smoothness that frankly is unparalleled. And the market is really responding to it. And the company is growing beyond my wildest imagination. And so I, you know, it's one of those things where I seem to Have a knack for finding my way into, into things. Construction technology is really surging. Data centers, chip fabrication, solar panel fabrication, battery fabrication. All of this explosion is powering the need for these products on these job sites in unprecedented ways.

So the market is really driven. Merging those two. Well, um, but you're still building or managing or leading 2 organizations, right? So obviously, yeah, your attention is shifting. How do you manage that from a leadership perspective? Because I feel that sometimes an idea is great, but if you don't have the right team around you and you don't have the right leadership to build it, that's That usually is the biggest challenge you see in success or failure of projects, forget about companies.

It's a great question because, you know, when Dormakaba approached me about acquiring Avant-Garde, you know, first of all, my first answer was, no, I'm not interested in that. I was like 45 at the time or something like that. And I was like, you know, what am I gonna do? But anyways, once we did that, one of the parts of that was that they asked me to hang around for 18 months. And so my role officially, my title is, I think, like Global ESC Advisor or something like that. And which I joke with the Dormakaba guys, it sounds like just a title they thought up because they couldn't think of a different title. But I basically just help with the transition of integrating Avant-Garde into the Dormakaba you know, platform. But the Dormakaba folks have been very gracious in working with me because they obviously knew going into this acquisition that I was the founder and CEO of another business. And so, you know, it really hasn't been too much of a problem. And I also have, to your point about the people around you, not only do I have great leadership on the Avant-Garde side, In fact, right when Dorma Kava kind of came knocking on the door, Tino, I had just gotten the company to the point where the thing was firing on all cylinders. I mean, it was just humming like a, like a, like a perfectly tuned engine. It took me 11 years to get it to that point, and right when I did get it to that point, they came and started knocking on the door. But on the Ryzen side of the business, you know, I have Mark Borto, who, as you know, was the Was it led Boone Edam for many, many years and drastically grew the revenue there, and would later go to to Dormacaba before joining joining the combined Avaloncar Horizon business. When when we realized that the Dormacaba deal was going to close, I moved Mark purely onto the Horizon side of the of the business, and Mark is the president of Horizon, and I would argue that Mark Borto is. Probably the most qualified insurance systems executive in the country, uh, from a, from a resume perspective. He understands the sales apparatus, understands the manufacturing, um, into the business, the supply chain, um, all of that. So it's really, um, you know, then I have, uh, John Major who came from— came to us, uh, he's my dad's youngest brother, he's my uncle, but he also came to us from Honda Motors. He worked for Honda for 25 years and he came— he left Honda to come to work to build the manufacturing part of the business at Risen from scratch. I mean, we started from zero, um, and he does a great job. Um, and then we have a whole host of people that orbit around those folks, um, and the most important of which is my wife Meg, who has been with me, uh, every step of the way. You know, we, we met when we were 13 and we got married when we were 19, and we've been married for 27 years, and she is my partner in every sense of the word.

Absolutely.

She is my life partner, my, you know, the mother of my children, my best friend, and my business partner all at the same time. And so she, between her and Mark and John Major in particular, those guys help me fill in the gaps where I need to. And then Mark also in particular brings a business sophistication that is really valuable. He's very data-oriented. You know, he's got more KPIs and spreadsheets than you can shake a stick at, and that's incredibly valuable. My talent really lies in communicating with people and getting in front of customers and the product ideas, right?

Right.

So every product that Ryzen has is just something I hatched out of my head, sketched it on a piece of paper, and said, let's go build this. And they, you know, you'll get a kick out of this because I know, you know, I have known Mark for many, many years. When he very first came over, he was like, man, you got to slow down on the products, man. He goes, you have enough ideas to— you have enough product ideas to kill this company. And I was like, yeah, that's true. Like, I do need to slow my roll because I always— I'm like, let's make more stuff, right?

Yeah.

And the reality is we got to put our time and resources where the time and resources are going to do the most good. So we kind of have to triage that, and Mark brings a huge amount of experience and gravitas to that decision-making process.

Yeah, good news with recording, you can, you can do this.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

To recandle, we're talking about Mark being sophisticated, and look, you're right, um, um, there's a few people in the industry, despite the fact, you know, the, the vertical he is an expert in, that can see far enough into the future to jump the holes. I mean, I've seen Mark make decisions based on things that everybody else kind of misses, or not being emotional about things is also important, right?

Absolutely.

And I think that if you— if it's your baby, you wanna— you— it's your baby, right? You have— you need someone that can look at it from a you know, calm perspective and be like, is this a good idea, really?

Well, yeah, that's true. And, you know, Mark, Mark is a very rational guy, but he also has emotion in that he has fire and enthusiasm. And sometimes that bubbles over in both positive and good, you know, and negative ways. Like, sometimes he gets really pissed. Um, and I honestly, man, I gotta tell you, I actually get a Like, I actually enjoy the hell out of it when he gets all like, you know, frustrated and like hollering at somebody because, A, as a leader and a founder, I really appreciate seeing that passion and enthusiasm, even if it doesn't always come out in the nicest way. But it also allows it, allows selfishly, it allows, you know, for him to be the bad cop sometimes. And I can just always be like the go team, rah-rah, and I can play good cop, which I really enjoy, frankly. So there's that. But I also think, you know, when Mark came to the organization, you know, it was a big learning curve for both of us because I'd never had somebody at that level, you know, on the business side. But also for him, he was used to working for big, slow-moving businesses, right? And, you know, my whole thing is about speed. Right? So I'm very much a let's move fast and break things kind of a guy. And, you know, I tell my team all the time, we don't, we don't have to be better funded. We don't have to be smarter. We don't even have to be more talented. What we have to be is faster, right? While the other guy's booking a conference room, we're gonna already have tried it 3 ways, failed, and found out the better way to do it and already moved on. If we can do in a day what it takes our competitor to do in a week, We're gonna win.

Yeah.

And that speed of movement, the speed, reducing the amount of time from thinking about a thing to executing a thing is my whole leadership style. Okay. And that can be a big change for somebody coming from a big, slow-moving organization. And so I like to think of it a little bit like when we look at SpaceX versus Boeing. Right? SpaceX moves really fast. You know, Boeing spent 5 years developing, you know, their orbital program, and it still doesn't work. It costs 10 times more. SpaceX, they just shoot up a rocket, let it blow up, figure out what went wrong, and they build another one. Right? And that's very much— analysis paralysis makes me crazy. You know that I talk about all the time, don't have fear of failure. In fact, embrace it. Fail fast, learn fast, and move on.

Success cannot exist without failure, right?

100%. Yeah. So anyway, when Mark came on, it was a culture shock at how fast I moved. So he was like, dude, you're— he goes, you're doing more in a month than most companies do in a year. And he was like, that's just It was, but, but he's gotten up to— he's, he's down with it now. But at first there was, there was some entry turbulence at my speed of movement for sure.

Oh, I can totally attest because we, we kind of follow each other's career with MarketBoon and— right, sure. Well, here you are, finally sold the company, you know, and, and most people will be check the box and, uh, You know, so, but now tell me what you're doing now. And because this is left field for people that are not in the business, they're like, wait, what?

Yeah, yeah, it's true. You know, what's funny is, um, you know, I come from the security world just like you, right? And, uh, you know, most of the audience is going to be from the security world. And frankly, what we do has a strong security component, right? Um, you know, our product is, is, is at its core turnstiles and access control. Right? But what we have done is recognize that, you know, it's got to be so much more than that. And so as we went into construction technology, we're solving problems that are way beyond security and access control, right? Security and access control have actually just become a relatively small part of our technology stack. You know, it's really core around the worker data, worker safety, You know, contractors understanding what is their utilization of their labor? What is their utilization of the equipment that's on the job site? Is that stuff being used safely? Is it being inspected every day? Lowering, you know, making sure they're compliant with local regulations and digitizing that process and making it reportable. Providing that data, Tino, back to the insurance company who's underwriting the project to lower their insurance costs so they can prove that they're being safe. That's good. Right? These are huge issues facing construction today, Tino. You're seeing something new. You know, you maybe you've heard guys like Mike Rowe talk for years about how we're undereducating the technical and overeducating on the collegiate level. And that warning has come true, right? For the first time in the history of the country, right? Tradesmen are vastly outearning college graduates. Right? If you're an electrician, a plumber, a pipefitter, an HVAC technician, you're making— you're out-earning a college graduate 2 or 3 to 1. Okay? And that is partly because there's not enough technicians. Right? And so on job sites, what you're seeing is general contractors and subcontractors are having to really earn those workers. So they need a safe project. They need a project with safe restrooms, you know, clean restrooms. It's got to, you know, like workers are like, look, if I'm a union worker and I'm working at scale, why would I work on a job site that's unsafe or dirty when there's a job site right next door where they have their act together? And so this is creating dynamics that are completely new, and we're working really hard to help our customers solve those problems.

And, you know, to your point on the skilled labor, I was recently in a data center these 2 young guys, I think they were in their 20s, they might have been a little older, but making a 6-figure income, really enjoying what they do. And it's thanks to, you know, the growth of AI, which, yeah, counterintuitive. Most people say they're going to take over jobs. Well, the right opportunities are available if—

Yeah, I mean, that's true. I mean, I think, you know, AI is scary to a lot of people because it's unknown. But the truth is, you know, it's like everything, it's capitalism, right? It's creative destruction, right? You know, and so some jobs will be lost and lots more will be created. And so I think it's always best to—

That's a business owner having to pivot.

That's right. You got to embrace the change because change, you know, the one constant in life is that everything changes. We all know that. And so You know, what we try to do is be very responsive to that and move fast and help understand what are the challenges our customers are facing, you know. And there's so many things that we help our customers do. I was at a trade show, Tino, and I learned so much from trade shows. I was at a trade show with a bunch of guys who were, you know, drinking at the bar from the largest general contractor in the world. And you know, they were joking with me about how they lost a seven million dollar excavator. They just lost it. They don't know where it is, right? I mean, this thing's like the size of a house, right? Like, how you guys lose a seven million dollar excavator, right? And they found it like seven months later. Somebody remembered like, oh yeah, like where I think we left it over, you know, so XYZ nowhere to land Texas, right?

Yeah, that's no one coming. I heard that story before. It's crazy. It's not.

And you don't even think about it. So, you know, all of these things that we do, like tracking tools and equipment, right, really matters, right? Because, you know, it affects productivity, it affects cost, it affects worker safety. You know, Tino, our access control platform, you know, in the— for the security audience, we're used to just thinking about, okay, you know, does this, you know, particular, like, you know, user in the database have access, yes or no? It's pretty Binary permission. That's permission. It's permission-based. We're doing so much more. So when when when when Eric Major walks onto the job site, we're saying, "Is Eric Major supposed to be using this gate? Is is he parked in the correct parking lot?" Right? If he hasn't watched the safety video or passed his drug test or whatever the case may be, we're not allowing him through the turnstile at all. Then once I'm inside of the job site. When I step onto a 19-foot scissor lift, I'm then checking, am I safety certified to operate that 19-foot scissor? And if it— and if not, we're not going to start it, right?

It's like permission is rules and is, uh, identity, right? That's what I hear you said.

It's regulation management, uh, and, and if I'm— if there's a safety incident, I can tag Eric Major the worker profile and the asset, the piece of equipment that was involved in that. So we put NFC tags on that piece of equipment. I can scan it with my phone right into the Risen app and say Eric Major was involved in a safety incident on this piece of equipment. So now anytime I run a report with that piece of equipment in it, I can see any worker associated with it. Or if I'm looking at it on the worker side, I can see any incidents Eric was involved in, which, which pieces of equipment He was, you know, using at that time. And this makes the job of managing a job site from a safety perspective, an equipment perspective, and a worker perspective transformative. And that data is literally changing how job sites are operating today. And we're iterating the platform at speed based on, you know, the massive job sites that we're deployed on. We're on some of the largest infrastructure projects In the world.

Right.

And it's, it's pretty wild. I mean, I, I'm literally being exposed to projects that are, that no one even knows about because we get involved so early because of the nature of what we do. That was actually my original thought process too, Tino. I wanted to know about the project before anybody else. And I was like, if I'm doing construction products, I'll be able to sell the architectural product because I'll know about it first. Right? And of course, I wound up selling that company to Dorma Kama. And we still, you know, try to help them with that.

That's brilliant. All right. But so we have 2 levels of audience, right? So we have the executive group, which is very interesting that I've always been fascinated by the folks that watch the show. We have a high-level executive management from CEO to VPs watching this, a Because I think there's genuine value to see your peers and, you know, people at the same level, IQ, whatever we want to call it, and understand their challenges. Because I'm sure you can attest, it's also a lonely path. You're at that position, there's not that many people that understand the sacrifices, the problems, the issues, right? And on the flip side of that, we also have a lot of folks that are have the drive or have the interest eventually arrive to those, it's like, how did they do it? Right, very true. So for someone starting in their career, what does it take to continue to be performing at the level that you have for the last several years? Is it motivation with family? Is it like you're talking about, you were not motivated by money? But so what's the motivation? What's the engine that keeps you going?

You know, um, I, I think I remember being a young guy, Tino, when I'm trying to— I was trying to find my way in the world. Hell, I'm 47, I'm still trying to find it. Yeah, it's still young. Yeah, but, but, but, um, I, I think what I see, if I'm really honest, is there's— you come out of the womb with it. or you don't. Unfortunately, that's my honest belief. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta want it more than the other guy, right?

Right.

You just do. And some people are willing to pay any price to, to be successful. Um, and, and then, you know, at some point then it starts to be coming down to what is your skill? What can you learn to do that? And so I think, you know, when, when, for those young people that are coming up and they aspire to be in leadership positions, You know, they got to, you got to stand out, right? You got to be able to, you got to be willing to do what the guy standing next to you isn't. Plain and simple, right? Like, you got to be a, you got to be a good soldier. And sometimes that means jumping out of the trench and running straight into enemy fire. And if you're willing to do that, people will follow. You know, Tino, I joke all the time. You know, one of the, one of my, one of my favorite sayings is, You know what they call a leader with no followers? Just a guy taking a walk, right? You, like, you gotta inspire people to want to follow you, right? That is what leadership is. You gotta change hearts and minds, right? I oftentimes will tell my team, you know, we'll tell, you know, Mark and I and other business leaders and political leaders that I know, I will oftentimes say I believe that leadership is 50% Fear, 50% love. In other words, they got to love you, but they also have to fear you, right? They got to know you're serious and you're not messing around, but they also have to really believe that you're on the right track, that you're not going to ask them to do something that you're not willing to do. And all of that goes into that leadership equation. And, you know, if you're learning every day, you know, for example, my team, I mean, I build products. I know every detail of every product. Like, I am a technician and a salesperson at heart. And I think that that's another thing I think a lot of people in, like, as maybe in their, in a position where they want to move into executive roles, but they don't know the mechanics of what their people actually do. Right? And that's a failure. And they think it's beneath them. And I'm like, no, it's not. It's core. It is foundational and fundamental to be able to get them to identify with you, to really see you as not the man, but as somebody who can collaborate, right? And I think that's oftentimes, you know, you hear about the blue shirt versus white shirt mentality, right? I don't allow that to exist in my businesses, right?

You have arrived, you no longer have to do XYZ, right? That doesn't exist. You know what, you mentioned something very interesting about 50% love, 50%, uh, fear. I, I think I will translate that on doing fearful things for most people is following a leader that you love. And particularly to me, the connection there is trust. Uh, uh, M.R. Covey.

Indeed.

Yeah, M.R. Covey, the son of, uh, Dr. Covey, uh, unique pleasure to work with him. He has a book talking about the the speed of trust. And I think if you have that combination of emotions, what makes people follow you is trust. That, that I think that's, uh, I love that. I've never heard it that way because, yeah.

I think it's, it's, it's so much about, um, you know, you got to be relatable, um, and, and they gotta, you know, they have to, you know, they have to believe in you. All of those things require an immense amount of trust. And a lot of these people are entrusting their careers to a leader, right? And so they got to believe. And I think that also defines entrepreneurship, Tino. I mean, you know, I think to be a successful entrepreneur or leader of any kind, whether it's business, political, military, it doesn't matter, sports, like you got to have the ability to believe and doubt in equal measure. And I think that makes you authentic, that makes you real. And when you're authentic and real, people trust you and they will— if you're talented and you're authentic, they will come along.

Yeah. Well, Eric, as always, this has been a genuine pleasure to have you. And there's a lot of great soundbites. I can say that.

Well, well, hopefully, you know, I enjoy watching Uh, your show. I love podcasts in general, frankly, uh, because I love people. And so, you know, understanding everybody's unique perspective and their individual stories is just beautiful. I love it.

Yeah, you know what, we need that in the industry. We, we tend to be very close-knit when it comes to failure and success. We can learn from both of them, but, you know, um, yeah. So Eric, now if people want to reach out to you either for business, for Ryzen, uh, maybe, uh, depart in a nice little adventure and your new venture. How can we find you? How can we reach you?

So if people are interested in Ryzen, the best thing to do is go to the Ryzen website, which is ryzenmfg.inc. You can check out more about our whole product portfolio and our technology stack there. If you're interested in Sail Odyssey, you can check us out there at sail-odyssey.com. And the boat is available for charter. It's going to be— she's going to spend a lot of her time over the next 12-18 months in the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands, but she will be in the Mediterranean summer '28. So if the Met is on your bucket list, Odyssey will be there with all the great bells and whistles that go with her in summer '28. Greece, Italy, Sicily, uh, are all on the itinerary. Uh, she's gonna start in Monaco at the Monaco race, and she's going to work all the way around to the Greek islands at the end of the season. So, um, if you're, if you're interested in that, uh, summer '28 is the time to book there.

Listen, as an industry, we spend a lot of money in our client relationships and also in our teams developing. Hey, that sounds to me— I just put it out there— Uh, you know, we'll give you a great team, a little discount if you book it through us. I'm kidding.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, like, like, I, I absolutely do that. You know, I have— Tino, I, I would— you would be astonished how many, like, CEOs, presidents of organizations have reached out to me about chartering Odyssey for their families. It is unbelievable. Um, and, uh, you know, we, we also have, uh, like, like a, like a, a platform that we work through We've actually partnered with a company called And Beyond, which is a yacht management company out of the, out of the British Virgin Islands. It's owned by a wonderful South African couple. And so, for whatever reason, if Odyssey is not available, Odyssey is not where you want to be geographically, or maybe it's in a different— you need to be in a different price point or looking for whatever. We have, we have the resources to put you on a boat wherever you need to be, whatever week you need to be, any week of the year. So even if Odyssey is not the right fit, we'll help you find the right bug.

Awesome. Well, Eric, thank you for giving us an honest look at the person behind the success. For our audience, until next time, stay informed, stay secure, and we'll see you in the next Check Point.