Birth to Net Worth with Michael Guthrie

Join us as we unravel our deep rooted relationship with money. From earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Tristan Trenberth. Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of Birth to Net Worth. Wonderful guest we have here. He's just moved recently to the Phoenix area and we're lucky to have a father, entrepreneur investor Michael Guthrie, who is just, you know, taken to this area and is raising a lot of capital for a lot of projects. That's one of his key skills. But I won't, I won't spoil the fun. But Michael, thank you so much for joining us today.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Tristan. I appreciate you bringing me on.

Of course. So, Michael, we met, I think it was at the the Winkles event probably about two years ago now when you're down in town. I think that was around the time you moved, moved down or shortly before, had a great conversation, learned a little bit about what you'd been doing with ATMs and previous businesses and you were just, just kind of, I think you're at the back end of that transition. We'll wrap back that to that later on. But tell me a bit about your background, where you grew up and, and what were, you know, your interests in, in life early on.

So I was born in Tennessee a long time ago. We don't need to get into that, that part. But born in Tennessee long time ago. Moved to Denver as a younger gentleman. And as we got into like second, third grade, my folks moved us up to Northern Idaho. We were not very well off. My mom was a nurse and my dad was trying to figure out what was appropriate for him. And that's where I started learning about money because we didn't have any. And so at that point in time, I learned how to mow lawns and I created my own route every summer when we were out of school for the summer. And at one point the route got to be so big, I actually hired my brother to help out and run part of that whole mowing lawns thing. And I used to take my money and on the weekends I'd go buy the family donuts. I'd take my brothers and sisters out to ice cream at night because my parents couldn't afford to do that because they didn't have the expendable money. At least that's what they told us. So that was my first real experience of learning how to earn money and then save money. And then as I grew a little bit older, I kept the route of mowing Lawns and I also started throwing hay bales at some of the local ranches there in Pre Striver, Idaho.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I cut grass as well, just for a couple of neighbors. Not, not a big route, but. Yeah. That's incredible. So tell, tell me about your, your first memory of money. Obviously you shared with me a little bit about handling money and seeing what was around you, but what was your first memory of? Maybe discussion of or somebody buying you or not buying you something earlier in your life.

My. So I, my folks never really talked about money probably because they didn't really understand money. Wow, that's a great question. So I, I sort of learned about how to generate money. I've been really good at making money for my whole life. I was never a really big saver, but I always, I always ended up having money because I was always working for my. And it didn't matter what I was doing. I was always trying to create and bring more, more money to the table for myself as a young man. And I think when I started in high school, I still live in, in Priest River. My folks wanted me to go to a private Catholic high school in Spokane, Washington. So I was living with a host family in Spokane, going to a private high school. And that's where I actually started to understand what real money looked like because the kids would drive to school. Kids, kids at. My peers would drive to school in really nice cars that they would drive. And I never had a car. So I then figured out, okay, to get a car, I'm gonna have to get another job. So as I was in high school my sophomore year, I got a job working at a bingo parlor on the weekends. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as many hours as I could get, saving my money so I could buy a car. And there was a little. So I learned how to save money at that point a little bit. And I needed a car because I wanted. I, I needed to have a car because all my friends had cars and I couldn't get around unless I was going to ride the bus everywhere I wanted to go and not only worked through a certain period of time of the day, so I kept working at this bingo part of working at this bingo parlor. And about after four or five months, I saved up 2, $500, $2,500. And what did I do? There's a, there's a used car lot right across the main road about two blocks from where I went to high school, from where I would turn in to go to the high school every Day. And they had a car on their lot that I wanted to buy, and it was my very first car. It was a Porsche 914. Yeah.

Wow.

The poor man's Porsche. But it was a Porsche nonetheless. And that was my very first car because I learned to save money.

I love that. I love that aspirations. I. I mean, in my childhood, I used to walk to my grandmother's house on a Wednesday. She'd make Cornish pasties every day. And there was a Ford dealership on the way to her house. And it was back in the day where American cars, the American Ford collection, wasn't the same as it was in the uk. And there was this Ford Cosworth that was, you know, out. It was the fastest turbocharged thing. And I, I, you know, got to know a lot about these things, but. Bit younger than you were at that time. But I. I love that story, the relationship. And. Yeah, it's a Porsche nonetheless.

Right?

Yeah.

My. My mom's like, how. How can you afford to buy a Porsche? And I'm like, It was only $2,500.

Yeah.

At 16, I was old enough to drive it, and I had to get somebody to sign on it with me because I think they wouldn't allow me to register because I wasn't 18. So I had to get my. My mom to sign on the car for me. But I. There was no way. I. I'd already given the guy my money, and then he told me I had to. Had to have somebody over 18 to sign. And that's when I got my mom to come by and sign off on it for me.

Fantastic.

Learned about insurance and everything else that comes with owning a vehicle at that age. And I wasn't prepared for insurance, but I had a job, I had a car, so I figured out how to get insurance.

Fantastic. And no doubt, premium gasoline as well at that age.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Superb. So. So that. That's a great segue into sort of, you know, your entrepreneurial needs because you saw around you there was. There was a lack. So you needed to create to. To fill. Maybe. Maybe it wasn't seen as a void, but an opportunity to generate something could fill in something for you to generate something that you were. You're looking for where it wasn't around you. And, you know, both of us being parents, we know the responsibilities, financially and otherwise, for raising kids. So if it isn't possible, it's not coming in. In the way. There's not a lot we can do about it unless we get some of these obstacles and hurdles out the way. So I love going out there and getting jobs. I remember my first job, I ended up buying a watch at the end of the summer that was my symbol of, it was a citizen watch with a Cadbury blue dial chronograph. And I think it's still in my, my brother's attic in the UK right now. It doesn't work, but it's still the symbol of my, you know, my hard work for that summer and the thing that I accomplished after that year, you know, that's beautiful. I think it's important to, to remember those things, especially share those with our kids as well. I haven't had the opportunity to share the story with them now. They'17 and 19, they're probably ready for that when they probably weren't 10, 15.

Years ago, you know, for sure they did more. Enjoy it today and understand it.

Yeah, yeah. So from mowing lawns to, you know, working the bingo place through, through high school, what was then your next step? Did you head to college and kept working? I presume you kept working, you know, first, second jobs, maybe throughout, until you got into your career.

So interestingly enough, I was not very, a very studious student. So college was not really in the cards for me. So I joined the military and I joined the military to get a specific skill so that I could actually have a better job without having to go to a two year or four year college. So I joined the military and went into the army. I ended up going into the X ray technician field, became an X ray tech. I was in the service for about six years. So the whole thing always stuck with me that if I could get paid to study, then I was doing it because I was studying to get a, to do the job because they were paying me to do it. So my whole life ended up funneling around doing something specific, a specific task that I was learning something while I was also getting paid to learn. So I was in the military for about six and a half years. I spent some time at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, which is in San Antonio, at the Academy of Health Sciences, where I learned the skill of being an X ray tech. I, during that time I'd gotten married to my, my first wife, Michelle, and we had our daughter Alexis. That was 1990. On November 4, 1990, she just had her 34th birthday a few days back and got out of the service like 1996. I had been, by then I'd been divorced and met Samantha at that point in time. Alexis, I guess, let me back up. I got divorced around 93 because Alexis was 3 years old when I started dating Samantha. And Samantha has been in Alexis's life since she was three years old and got out of the service and didn't really have a job. I had to wait to get my X ray license in the civilian world. You didn't need one in the military because they had trained you and you could work on military, other military people that were in the, in the service without having to have a license. But once you get out and have you're dealing with civilians, you actually have to have a license that's issued by each state. And so I got out of the service and immediately picked up a job doing security because I couldn't get a job doing anything else. And I picked up a job working with William Sonoma doing phone sales during the holiday hours. And what all the while, while I was getting the extra credits, college credits, I needed to get my X ray license in the civilian world. And literally a couple years, within a year or so, I got my X ray license and then I started doing that full time for a number of different shops. John Muir Hospital, University of California, San Francisco, you name it, I was working for them. Then I went out and got my MRI license so I could do MRIs because then I wanted to continue to climb the ladder of pay because I didn't want to just be stuck in one modality doing that. And as I started the doing mri, a friend had reached out to me and said, hey, there's this new business. It was like 1997, the networks for banking had deregulated and as an individual you could actually own an ATM machine. And my friend had brought me this opportunity through doing that. And that's how I got started in the ATM business. I went to a class at a gentleman's office in Phoenix, right here In Phoenix, in 97, started my own company. Late 97 and off to the races. We were selling ATM machines.

Incredible. That's a lovely journey. I mean, I didn't do formal degree college. I did a couple of years in. I did a year of academic study and realized it wasn't for me. I went into a vocational sort of thing. But those people that left the vocational course and then went to university, I had more experience and more knowledge than they did leaving theoretical studies, hotel management. And, you know, I'd rather be in that position earning and learning rather than going to college and then coming out and then being kind of at stage one. Now you're behind on the relationships, the understanding the mechanics in, in practice, because theory is great. But unless you're in, in there and getting paid for it, then it's not advancing you. So I think there's, there's great alignment there. So. And ATMs, I think I've, I've seen a lot more over here in this country. There's been a few over in the uk. I think I worked a couple of nightclubs just as a sort of fun thing for one of my friends for a little period of time. They had some ATMs there. But I think everything in America is much more commercialized and ability to make money from these things. So and, and as we know, that's been a booming business. You know, people pay that convenience fee, disloyalty fee, whatever you want to call it, for not using a Chase or a Wells Fargo machine just to get 20 bucks, they'll pay three bucks to, to take that out, that's what 15, you know, margin on what you're doing.

No doubt, absolutely. And it just that I was, I was doing MRIs part time or full time, and then on my days off I would work 10 or 12 hour shifts. So I'd work two or three days a week doing the MRI. And then I would be out on the streets knocking doors at every convenience store, liquor store, gas station in the Bay Area of California, because that's where we lived at the time, placing, placing these ATM machines and selling them. I couldn't wait to get another one sold. And then it would show up and then we get it built it into the ground and get it up and running. All of a sudden now we're making money and we're making, you should start making more money when you're sleeping. So that was an amazing journey. I started to make more money in the ATM business than I was in the MRI business. So Samantha's like, you need to quit the MRI business and get focused on getting more of these ATMs out while we're still a brand new industry and start gaining some market share. So kept us hustling, hustling, hustling that business. And all of a sudden it was making a lot more money than Samantha and I combined were making per month. So she ended up quitting her job. And the funny thing about it is our very first ATM machine that we bought personally, we put on her credit card because I didn't have a credit card. I'd gotten out of the military, I didn't have really great credit. I bought my car on a car lot where they allowed you to make payments. But I made one payment because I Didn't want to make payments, so I never really had credit. She had a credit card. So we bought our first ATM machine on her credit card. So she became the president of the company. Plus there's some other things with me being a father of a daughter of a divorced relationship that we wanted to protect our income on that end. So I became an employee of our company, she became the president and we've operated that company now for 20 and a half years and we had an exit on that May of 2023.

That's, that's incredible. I, I love the, the evolution and the, the non, non stop, you know, through, through military to medical to money making and multiplying money. You know, the, the money while you sleep is so key. If we can't get that lined up, then there's. You may as well just sit in the rat race and get regular job.

Absolutely. And you asked a question earlier about my relationship with money and how that came to be. And I've never really had a great relationship with money and saving money. I always just out earned what I would spend and it's, it's funny, I was just literally in Breckenridge 2 weeks ago Hiking with some gentlemen that are in my Christian mastermind and not my mastermind, but we're in the mastermind together. And one of the gentlemen, he's a financial planner and advisor here that actually helps run my family office here in the Phoenix area. And he's like, I don't have a budget. And I go, hang on, can I, I go, let me grab my phone. I want to record that. Because I, my wife has always tried to pin me down and keep me in a box in regards to having a budget on what we're going to spend on a monthly basis because we're only making X X dollars now, being sort of semi retired after selling the ATM company. And I've always just been, if I need to make more money, I will go figure out how to make more money. And so I never really wanted to have a budget, never wanted to live on a budget. I never wanted to have the constraints of those sort of things and people might think I'm crazy but, but I, I think it's when you, when you get caged in and you, you put your whole life in this box, this is the box you need to play in. All of a sudden all the fun starts happening outside the box. And I like to have fun a lot. And I think that's why we do what we do because when we create more fun, we're creating more relationships and we create another opportunity to help more people. And when you're helping people, that creates cash flow.

I love that. Yeah. Relationships that create impact and are impactful on ourselves and, you know, others as a result. A key.

It's.

It's. I'm doing a talk in a couple of weeks at the Tempe center for the Arts, and the topic is your circle of influence shapes your future. And it's very true. If you need to change the shape of your future or you want to change the shape of your future, you need to change your circle of influence. And that could be influencing your income. That could be a budget, potentially. But the budget needs to change when your, you know, your fun levels or whatever it is that you're wanting to do change as well as a result.

Absolutely. And Tony Robbins says his best. Says it best. You are the five people you hang out with. So if you want, like you, if you have your circle of influence and those five people aren't helping you get to the next level, if you're the smartest guy in the room, as you, I'm sure you know, Kirsten, you're in the wrong room. We got to get in rooms where we can, we can be influenced and brought up and help bring others along with us, but we want to be in rooms that of people that are influencing us to take us to the next level also. It's just I. I didn't really realize that in selling ATM machines because all we did was keep pounding doors, pounding doors and selling more ATMs and selling more ATMs. And literally we, we get to about this time every year for the last 26, 27 years, and we'd sit down over dinner and a glass of wine and we break out a sheet of paper and we write our goals for the next 12 months. And Samantha's like, what's your, what's your big goal for the next year? And I go sell more boxes. She was that, that's it. Just more boxes. How many, how many is more? And I go, how about another 150 next year? I go, I'll commit to selling another 150 boxes next year. When I say box, I meant atm. Yeah. And every time I say every time I put another ATM in the ground based on the amount of revenue we were generating off the. I think at the time we really started getting into budgeting, or not budgeting, but planning, we probably had six or seven hundred ATMs in the ground. And when we sold, we had a little over 8,000 and we could average it out. And we go, okay, for every ATM you put in the ground, you are going to generate X number of dollars in revenue. So if I could do another 150 ATMs a year, that puts another 15 to $18,000 a month in my pocket. Yeah, every single month.

Yeah.

You only had to sell the ATM that, that new ATM machine once. But if I sold another 150, that's under 15, $18,000 a month. So say it's 105 to $110 a month in revenue per ATM. You go, okay, I'll put another 150 students out. You actually know where you're heading financially. So you have to look at that the same way. When you're in this, in these fears or these circles of influence of people. If you're in a group of five and you go, okay, this, this person can help me get to this next level, income wise or spiritually or whatever it is you're looking to do that, that, that can really take you to the next level without having to do a whole lot of work. Because they're going to help you shorten your learning curve to take you where you want to go. But you're never going to get there. If you're the smartest guy in the room. You're going to be, you're going to be dragging a lot of people. And it's a lot harder to drag people than to be pulled by the people that's influencing.

And especially if those people aren't necessarily motivated to take the action and be inspired to do it, there may be, you know, more in survival than they are inspired action. And that's where I define the difference between motivation. Motivation is, is survival action. Where inspiration inspired act or inspiration is, you know, something that you're compelled to do, something you're inspired to do through thr a thriving context. It's funny you mentioned Tony Robbins. I heard him this morning. He was on somebody's IG and it was stop managing your circumstances and start creating your life. Be or become the creator of your life. I think that's how it was put. And I think that we can look at, like you said, spiritually, financially, emotionally, otherwise, many areas of life that we can look at that in the context, are we just managing what we've got or are we actually designing and creating and taking that inspired action to get to the places that we, we choose to be? And we always also got to remember that's only a horizon. The projection is a horizon. Whether it's revenue or dreams or outcomes, it's always shifting at 30,000ft. Yeah. I can not yet see the United States from the UK flying over. But then we've got to make sure that we change course to make sure we at least hit New York, at least the United States. But then by the time we get there, it's like, well, shit, there's something going on in Dallas. I want to go there. So the horizon changes. And unless we're aware of, well, I'm not going to New York. That's the only place I wanted to go. We're missing other opportunities that are in our peripherals that we may ignore by being attached to certain outcomes as well.

Absolutely. And part of that is you have a course and you could be 10,000 miles away or 10,000 days away, and all you need is a 2 millimeter shift in your course and all of a sudden your, your outcome is going to be completely different.

Yeah.

And that's, that's another one of Tony Robbins famous things, is you only need a 2 millimeter shift to make a complete difference in your life. You don't have to buy the, eat the whole apple in one bite. Yeah, that's why they always say, take a bite of the apple, don't eat the whole apple. Because if you try to do everything in one fell swoop, you, it turns into overwhelm. And there's nothing worse than getting overwhelmed in what you're trying to do and then stop doing anything. And I see that so much in a number of entrepreneurs, and that's why they fail, is they go, I need to, I need to make that million dollars so I can buy that Ferrari or I can buy that thing. But if they just took little steps every single day to get to that outcome instead of trying to take leaps and bounds and, and, and swinging for the, the grand slam instead of the base hit, you're going to get there a lot quicker with base hits than you are going to hit grand slams. The people that hit the most grand slams or the most home runs are usually the ones that strike out the most because they're always swinging for the fence. And I, I heard this today from a gentleman that I, I know love and respect. Always swing hard because you just might hit it. And so I just thought that was really, really funny. But why would I swing halfway and barely hit it when I could always swing hard and hope, hope to hit it. And if you hit, hit it, you never know how well it's going to go or how far it's going or how far you are going to go. So always be prepared for the, for the long, long hit, but always be striving just ahead of the basic.

Yeah, yeah, I don't understand cricket. I'm kidding baseball. But, yeah, but I, I know the concepts. Yeah, for sure. And, and also the perspective on our context, on life. You know, Matthew Ferry says he tells a story about three referees. There's a head referee and then there's a new referee and an experience. When he said, well, he asked them both what's, what's a strike? And the new guy, you know, all excited. He's read his manuals, he knows it's fresh. And it says, well, if it's here and there, it's a, it's a strike. If it's not, it's not a. And said no.

Ed.

Referee says no. And the experienced guy is like, looking a bit puzzled and sort of says, well, but if it's in this area, it is. And if it isn't said, it's. It's nothing until you call it. So until we determine and we declare what experience of life we're having, it's. It's nothing. But we all very, you know, we very often just lean into the negative or, you know, the limiting beliefs, the limiting things, and that creates our context of the experience of life. It's time for me to shift into different rooms right now, and I'm just determining which rooms those are going to be based on where I want to be going from this point. I'm divesting some stuff in Florida and Missouri just to reinvest that elsewhere. And yes, it's an interesting time. I'm loving it.

Absolutely. And speaking of being in different rooms, me and Samantha have been in like six, eight, nine masterminds over the last four years, and we are literally removing the distractions from our lives to get focused on what, whatever God has in store for us. So I just want to be transparent. I want to be clear with my intentions, and I want to just sit back and relax and quiet my brain and my body and just understand where God wants me to go, where he thinks I'm going to have the biggest impact or where Samantha's going to have the biggest impact. So it's just very important to relax and look out, look, look forward and figure out which rooms you want to be in. I've been in a lot of rooms over the years and like, you trust and I. You have to sometimes eliminate things like you're talking about divesting some property, doing this I'm divesting masterminds. Literally, yesterday I went online and I canceled my hotel rooms for January for a mastermind I was considering renewing. And I didn't even tell Samantha until we had lunch. We were having lunch today. And I go, hey, I cancel the rooms for that mastermind in Florida and in January. She goes, what's the scoop? And I go, I just don't think we should renew. I go, we paid to get in the group. We paid to learn from the group. And we paid. We paid to get to be friends with the people in the group. I don't need to be in the group to keep those friendships. It's up to me to continue to reach out and grow that track of friends and continue to nurture those relationships. So I just want to make sure that I am being true to who God wants me to be in this next phase of my life.

And I like that because it's a level of confidence as well, because a lot of people see, you know, maybe. Maybe it's the same at all levels of Mastermind, but there's a. There's a scarcity in there where it seems to be a contingent thing. If you're not in the club, you're not cool anymore and they. They can't talk to you kind of thing. But it's a lower level mindset, I think. And, you know, I think that if I join a mastermind, if I can make one really good relationship from that mastermind, that that's paid for itself. Maybe not financially, but that's paid for itself emotionally, spiritual or. And generally manifest financially as well. That leads me to another mastermind or another environment, another room to be in. But it's determining where I want to be the dumb guy at the moment, because I led the Arizona group for a real estate investor group here, led a number of things. And I kind of got stuck with being that. Being that person that knew things and not the person that's learning things at that point. So, you know, it's. It's. It's all. It's all part of the experience, though. I enjoyed that, that part. But now it's time to leverage some of the relationships where people have seen me doing that and know that I know that I'm a giving person and just, Just. It's one of those things. I don't know if it's the. The Go Giver. Do you remember the Go Giver? The book?

I don't.

The last. It's. It's like five laws of, of the Go Giver and the last one is receptivity, the willing to receive. So, you know, you think Samantha wanted to give you something for Christmas and you said, no, Samantha, it's fine. I love you, and, you know, I don't need it from you. You've just denied that person the opportunity to bring them joy by giving something to you. And one of the hardest things for me is to sort of ask for help or receive things. So, you know, that's. That's where I'm. One of the areas I'm working on right now is deciding what I'm. What it is I'm looking for. And then go and find the people and make the ask, because I know I've got. You know, I'm clear that I've got contribution to make to other people at higher levels and lower levels. I've already made contribution, and the universe is. Is ready to give me what I'm asking for, wherever I choose to. To ask for that.

Absolutely. It's great that you say that, because I was just in Colombia with a handful of friends, and one of the gentlemen's there, he runs a mastermind called Capital Raising Summit, and I'm a coach for him in that program. I don't get paid to be in the program. And he literally just came up to me and said, you and Samantha have one of the best relationships and loving relationships I've ever seen. And I go, oh, wow. And I think you. And I looked at him, I go, and I think you and Francis have an amazing relationship also. And he goes, you're doing it. And I'm like, what? He goes, you're doing it? He goes, you're not receiving my compliment. Just. Just as to what you just said. Right. I got to get into receivership because I'm always so giving and wanting to add value and bring. Bring other people up that I don't even take the time to say thank you. And it was just. Here's. Here's the funny thing. It was just my birthday. What's today, the 6th? The 23rd of last month. So almost two weeks ago was my 57th birthday. And I come home and we're getting ready to go to dinner, and I'm up in the shower or whatever, and Samantha is doing whatever she's doing. And she goes, could you make me a cocktail? I'm gonna jump in the shower. And I go, sure, I'll make you a drink. And I go downstairs to make her a drink, and there's a big bag and some balloons and a box and everything on the on the dining room table. And I'm just in awe because I wasn't expecting to receive anything. And literally three weeks before, I was in Houston with a friend of mine because I was speaking at that same gentleman's capital raising summit, and I tried on this beautiful Versace robe, Neiman Marcus, and my buddy taking some pictures of it in me, and she sent them to my wife. And my wife's like, do not buy that. You don't even wear the robe you have. And come to find out, she bought me that robe and it made me cry. And I received that with joy on my birthday. But, you know, so often as hunters and gatherers, we're hard. We're hard to stop and say thank you for someone else giving something to us. And we're so busy out there gathering things to give to others. And so I, I love that you brought that full circle. And that was just. That's just beautiful. That's a reminder for all of us that when somebody brings you a compliment or pays you a compliment and wants to. Wants to just say, hey, you're an amazing person, we just need to take a deep breath and just say thank you and receive that and feel it. And feel it. Right?

Yeah. Do you ever find when you don't respond with, oh, you too, that there's an awkward moment where somebody says it because they expect it to be returned to them? They're fishing for a compliment. And I think that's a huge indicator for me as a, you know, when I'm talking to people is it's not that I'm waiting to make that test on people, but it's interesting when you come across that and you feel that feeling of, oh, they wanted me to tell them I love them because they told me they love me or whatever it is in business that they appreciate about somebody, that they, they're looking for me to, you know, tell that. And that's. Then you see it with them talking to everybody that they're fishing for something for everybody because there's an insecurity or something that they, they need that to feel good because they're not hearing it for themselves. To themselves.

Totally agree.

So here. Here's a question for you, Michael. So in my journey, kind of acknowledging my own accomplishments can be a challenge. Self receptivity, I suppose. Is that. Is that a journey? Knowing that you have begun to now receive more deeply compliments from others, that you now see accomplishments in yourself, like with the ATMs. And this is where I'm referring back to my thought pattern Is that. What's your goal for next year? Oh, just 150 more? Not just 150 more, but it was an easy thing to do, and it didn't seem like a lot, a big accomplishment if it was just adding more sales. Was that something that you feel you didn't necessarily celebrate? Wow.

We.

I said 100 last year, and we did 100. Let's celebrate that. Let's make it 150 this year. Was it just kind of a brushed over on that accomplishment onto the next thing? Because I know when I finish something, I don't stop to celebrate and give everyone that was involved a certificate for attending. I'm not just onto the next thing. And, okay, that's over now, you know?

So that. That's. That's a really, really good point that you make. And I learned. I learned this. I learned this, and then I heard about it, and it was explained to me at an event that I was at. In. Another mastermind that I was at is, as an entrepreneur, we go out and we achieve certain things. And if you're a great entrepreneur, every time there's an achievement, there's a celebration. Every time there's an achievement, there's a celebration. But in the circles I've ran in, and I don't know about you, Tristan, but in the circles I've ran in, I achieved this. And the first time, you like, the very first time I sold an atm, I felt really good all evening. I'd sold it, I got paid, I put in my order, and that was amazing. I. I'd broken the seal, and I sold another one, and that was great. And then I sold another one, and that was great. But I wasn't celebrating those. It was just great to keep clunking along, right? And then you get to a point where all of a sudden, you don't have to really worry because there's so many of them out there. There's plenty of money coming in, and you sell another one, and it's no big deal. You sell another one, and there's no celebration. We sold the company in May of 2023. Took our employee that. She was a. She was a remote employee. She actually lived here in Phoenix. We were still living in California at the time. She lived here in Phoenix. We took her to lunch, wrote her a check, gave her a bonus, and gave her a job at the new company. And me and my wife went home, and we're like, what's next? We didn't go on a vacation. We didn't go buy a new car. We didn't go spend a lot of money on ourselves. We didn't go do anything fabulous. We were just like, what's next?