Learning From Others

Today's guest has been river rafting for over two decades. After running into the owner of a river rafting company while skiing, the opportunity presented itself to buy his way into owning a river guide company of his own. With his wife by his side, he's here to talk about riding the waves of being a first time business owner and sharing stories of enjoying the beauty of nature in some of America's national parks. Please welcome Tyler Callantine. 0:31 - All about Tyler Callantine 2:48 - Tyler Callantine's Journey 7:41 - Early Stage of Business Advice 10:47 - The Difference in the Product and Service 13:14 - River Rafting Safety 101 Contact Info https://dinosaurriverexpeditions.com/ https://www.facebook.com/dinoriverexp/ https://www.instagram.com/dinoriverexp/   Tyler Callentine. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing? Doing good. How are you doing today, demon? Yeah. Well, I appreciate you jumping on you and I, uh, we met face to face, um, before the whole world exploded. We grabbed some coffee together, so nice to jump on virtually with you again. Yeah, it's been a long time. She certainly feels like it. Yeah. Well, why don't you tell our listeners what, what your abbreviated background is? We'll dig into it more deeper. Um, so tell us what, what we're gonna learn from you today. All right. So I, uh, been a river rafting guide, whitewater rafting trips for, uh, 27 years now. And 11 years ago, uh, my wife and I purchased a dinosaur river expeditions and have been running our own. Own company that offering whitewater trips for last 10 years now, but purchased 11, 10 summer, who'd been running her own trips and. So cool. You're going to be our first, um, outdoors, you kind of person on the show. So I got a couple of questions for you, but not until I ask you question number two, which is what do you suck at? Tyler? What do I suck? Yeah, that's a great question. Hey, yoga. Yeah. Very flexible. Do you try or is it just not even your thing? How do you even make thing? All right. Well, you mentioned your wife, um, is with you at the company. Is she into yoga? Is that where your exposure to it comes from? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Out or river rafting guide. Why don't you, I mean, it sounds pretty self-explanatory but why don't you elaborate on it a little bit? All right. So we're based in Vernal, Utah. And we do, we have trips from, uh, just a one day trip on up to five days. So it kind of depends on what people are looking for. If they want just something quick, an introductory type trip. They'll usually choose a one day. Um, if they've. Got a little experience or even no experience. And they want to go for a longer one. They'll choose a four or five day trip with us. Um, and those trips are on the green river and the Yampa river, a dinosaur monument. And then our day trip is out of flaming Gorge. So they've got some cool different options there. Yeah. So, so for people that aren't familiar with those, the, you know, I'm, I'm kind of local, local ish to our Tyler's at, um, the, so these are state parks, right? Uh, both that federal kind of national parks national parks. Yeah. So 27 years ago is you've been in this for that long. How did you get into this to begin with what's the origin story? So my grandpa, my mom's dad, he had started going on river trips here out of the Vernal area, clear back in the 1930s, 1940s. So ever since I was little, I'd been around it, him talking about it, going on short little trips here and there. And so I'm kind of always knew about it. And then as I got older and, you know, found out that guiding. Outdoor recreation was, uh, a job opportunity. Then I started to, to dive into it more and got hired on, uh, with my first guiding job when I was 20 and fell in love with taking people on adventures. And I've done it ever since. What type of style of boats or devices or whatever, you know, back in the thirties, what type of things are we? What type of equipment are we talking? Back in the thirties would have been pretty rustic wooden, wooden boats, homemade. Um, everything would have been definitely either homemade or salvage type materials that they thought would work good for Cohen down whitewater rivers. That's what I was thinking. Something kind of old school. Yeah. Um, so at what point on this journey, did you meet your wife? Cause you're you and your wife are, are kind of. Partners and the whole deal we originally met God 20 plus years ago at obese. And, um, when Utah was getting ready for the Olympics, I worked for, uh, salt Lake Olympic committee, us ski team, helping prepare for, uh, the Olympics at Snowbasin and she was on ski patrol and we shared a common locker area. And then, um, Kind of went separate ways and then reconnected all 13 years ago because of skiing and stay in touch at all. Or you just, you kind of bumped into each other again, later bumped into each other later. Yeah. Totally disconnected for all that time and then ran into each other on the internet and Hey, let's grab a beer and. Were that's cool. I wonder if you and I crossed paths because, uh, when the Olympics were in salt Lake, I was working at a radio station. And so we were doing a bunch of promotional events for, for the Olympics. So 11 years ago, you get the opportunity to buy dinosaur river expeditions was how did that opportunity present itself? The former owner, Tim Burton's, he, uh, was getting to a point where he was starting to look at retiring. He owned several small businesses in park city and, uh, a restaurant in this river company out in Vernal. And, um, we reacted to my paths, crossed at a so based in skiing one day we had coffee with them and, um, he just casually mentioned he was trying to sell and so on our way home from skiing. And I just dashed. Jen, what do you think? Should we look into it? See what he. How much he wants what he's offering. And she said, yeah, let's do it. And so we reached out to him and did you know who he was before then? Like, were you skiing with him or you just kind of ran into him in the lodge? I knew him before forehead. We actually added to the lodge, but I knew him from, um, working, uh, closely over the, over the summers, previous summers. Just cause guiding community kind of tight knit in smaller, smaller towns, everybody knows each other and works together quite often. Did you have, have any business experience before that or was this kind of like trial by fire trial by fire? For sure. What managed a river company company I'd worked for before as the operations manager? And so I, there was some of the logistical type stuff I was very comfortable with, but the business end was brand. What was one of the biggest, um, areas that you kind of had to learn the most? You know, it's probably where I would say we're still learning in the marketing and technology realm, that area it's just constantly trying to figure out how to market appropriately and. Get our most bang for our buck. Yeah. So the majority of our listeners are kind of early stage entrepreneurs or small business owners. Um, is there anything that stands out through the process of when you acquire the business and kind of in those first few years that looking back, maybe there was something that you wish you could've known or some advice you could offer to somebody that's maybe in that early stage position now. Um, you know, probably the best advice we got early on was hire the experts to do what they do best. So if you're not an expert accountant, hire an accountant, if you're not an expert website designer, you know, hire the experts and just get out there, do things correctly the first time around. So you don't have to. Circle back and fix your mistakes. And that was probably the best advice. It probably cost us a little more upfront on a few things. Um, but paid off huge dividends in the long run. Yeah. What type of, as you've gone through exploring different types of marketing, what, where have you found your best bang for your buck or where's been, where have you got? Cause I know you recently hosted like a state of Utah things. And so were you able, why don't you explain what that was and then were you able to leverage that for your own benefit for some marketing angle? Um, yeah. So the state of Utah, the Utah travel and tourism office, um, they've been. Adjusting the marketing for a tourist destinations in Utah, from the national parks to smaller state parks and national monuments. And with that, they've been focusing in on, when you go visit these lesser known places, hire a local guide, local outfitter. And, um, so they started with some stuff in Southern Utah, like the bears ears, national monument, and, um, some areas down in that part of the Southeastern corner of the state. And then when they, uh, moved up to dinosaur national monument river running was, um, something they wanted to highlight for dinosaur national monument reached out to us to, to be the local outfitter as they marketed, advertised the monument. So what came out of it was, um, a full layer, I shouldn't say full length video. Um, four minute video on river rafting on the green river. And that was with us. And then they created a whole bunch of mini clips for like Instagram, Facebook, you know, a little 15 to 30 seconds snippets and, um, the, the full length video, um, Initially had tons of traction when it first came out. I think it's now over a million views on the board minute video seen that. Yeah. That was pretty quick that it hit that it was a couple hundred thousand, not too long. Yeah. Um, and then I'm not sure how the little mini snippets are doing, but it's been really helpful as people watch those videos. Um, It draws them into the idea of going with somebody locally owned and operated rather than the big mega corporations that are out there offered rafting trips. Why don't you kind of touch on that? What's the difference in the product and service that. Those two different providers bring to the table. Thank your, um, you know, your bigger operations are, I would say more disconnected to the, to the area, the employees and the customers, um, you know, CEOs and general managers are typically, um, At the home office, which is, could be, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of miles way, depending on where they're located. So yeah, we'll satellite offices that, um, you know, are operating just, you know, over a few month period may through September and, um, everybody kind of transient in to the location to work. We're we're here, you know, full time. We hire a lot of local, um, people to, to run our trips, drive our shuttles. Um, and then, um, be in smaller. You're definitely more connected to, to the guests and the employees were you. We took meet every guests that goes on a trip Jenner. I interacts with them on the phone and in person and. What type, what type of guests are we talking with? Like give us a breakdown. Uh, obviously your customers are going to vary quite a bit, but like who's river rafting most ideal for what type of people do you tend to serve the most? You know, we. We get everybody from, uh, you know, fairly young, to pretty old, really athletic to, you know, not that athletic. Um, if I was gonna just say an average clientele would be, you know, kind of middle-aged with teenage children, um, that are somewhat athletic, wanting to be outside, recreate. You guys just say kind of an average group, but that's definitely not the case. Um, we'll get and own that summer. We already have like three trips of a more senior aged people that are interested in being outside. And yeah. What are some of the basics that, cause there's, there's obviously the exciting part of. River rafting, but then there's some safety precautions you gotta take. Like, what are the safety one? Oh one kind of things. Or even if it's not necessarily directly related to safety, but just setting expectations. What do, what are some of the basics people need to know before they jump on a river rafting tour? You know, at the start of each tour, um, the guide staff will give a pretty detailed safety orientation for the trip. Um, kind of detailing out how to wear the life jackets appropriately. Um, Go over a lot of the, what ifs, if something happened, here's what you need to be aware of what you need to do. Um, and it's, it usually it's a day trip. It probably takes about 10 or 12 minutes. It's a, multi-day takes probably half hour to cover these kind of basic safety things. And then throughout the, throughout the trip, especially a long trip before a five day trip, you're kind of reminding people. Of these different safety precautions throughout the trip, especially at like bigger Rapids and more hazardous sections. What's the biggest difference, obviously, length of ground and length of river that you cover between the one and five day trips. But what's, uh, what's some other differences between like the quick in and out one day or is in the long ones on like the one nature trip. It's a. Um, our, the section we do for one day trips for flaming Gorge dam to a place called little hole on the green river. And it's the little mellower trip. Uh, it's mostly scenic mild Rapids. So it's perfect for like little kids. Um, first timers that are really scared, nervous, and then the extended trips. Um, you're going to get into some bigger whitewater, um, gonna be camped out. The camping along the river. So you're sleeping in tents, sleeping bag on the ground. Um, Everything comes with you on the trip. So all the clothes, food gears on the, on the rafts and goes with you on those longer trips. How little of little kids are we talking that you're cool with joining on these, even the mellow trips, any age, you know, on our four and five, eight trips to, depending on water level, uh, we'll go as young as six or older five-year-olds, um, kind of, depending on. Time of year and what their previous experience level is. Um, the day trips we'll typically we'll go as young as four. Um, if the parents are comfortable with that and if the water level isn't too, too high and too Swift. So when you're doing these trades, you've obviously done a bazillion of these. What never gets old. Is there always like one part of the trip that you just always love and look forward to even having done this a million times, you know, that are overall always pretty amazing. Um, the scenery is probably the one thing that never gets old. Um, these river canyons are just incredibly gorgeous. And even though I've seen a lot of the stuff, hundreds and hundreds of times, it never. Never gets old the scenery itself. Yeah. Do you have a S a story that stands out something unique you saw, whether it was wildlife or just, uh, uh, an extreme circumstance that unfolds, Ooh, extreme circumstance, something totally memorable, calm, nothing that jumps out at me right away. So many different experiences over the years, have you had somebody come back to you years later and then just talk about like how amazing their experience was. May maybe a customers stand out moment that kind of their moment stands out for you because of how big of a deal it was for them. Um, that's happened quite a few times. Um, when my, my first summer as a guide, it might've been my second summer. Um, some grandparents brought their grandchildren and they for one day trip and the experience was so great or, um, that golfer 15, 16 years, they continued to just come back every summer, bring different relatives and friends and, you know, they just totally fell in love with it. And it was all from a. One day trip with their grandkids. Do you, do you recall, um, the farthest distance that you remember somebody traveling from to come in and do it a guide with you? I've had people from all over the world, Europe, Asia, so yeah, Germany, Japan, little of everywhere. Little of everywhere. Yeah. People definitely. Come a long ways to see Utah. Why don't you kind of explain to our listeners that aren't familiar with Utah? What is dinosaur national Monu? So does your national monuments, um, managed by the national park service? It's uh, go over 200, almost 250,000 acres. Um, covers part of it's in Colorado. Part of it's in Utah, up in the Northeastern corner of Utah and its main attraction is the dinosaur fossil quarry, the wallet bones. That's what most people come there to see these dinosaur fossils. Um, but it has two big rivers that come down through the center of the monument, the green river and the Yampa river. So that's probably the secondary draws people coming there for river rafting trips, and then kind of like, like most, uh, national parks in the West. It's got tons of great CME, kikes and campgrounds, and it's a pretty, pretty diverse national park that. Utah. Yeah, that's cool. I've, I've taken my family down there a handful of times and the rock, the, the fossil wall is pretty cool. So, uh, I'll probably slaughter the story, but from what I remember, it's the gentleman found a long time ago, found some Cory or, uh, was coring it out and started find a bunch of fossils. And so they excavated a bunch, but then they wanted to preserve this big chunk. So they actually. Built this glass casing building right into the edge of this wall. So the wall you're looking at is legitimately a wall of fossils. That's still the raw land that they built a glass casing around. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The wall of bones is what everybody calls it. Yeah. Is that, is that like the local phrase for it? Or is that what other, what, but it's kind of the generic. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. And it calls it the wall of bones. Yeah. Well, cool. Um, well, Tyler, I appreciate you jumping on learning from others. I want to give you the last few moments to talk listeners, how they can find out more about you. So we have a website, dinosaurriverexpeditions.com. And that's got all the information about our rafting trips and great States, uh, all that. What if, what about, um, we also have a really active Facebook page and Instagram profile for dinosaur river expeditions and both of those kind of get updated every couple of days with, uh, cool photos and special deals and all of that great stuff. And when Tyler says cool photos, he. Means legitimately cool photos. How do, how do, what maybe the last thing we touch on is that video. You're talking about the state of Utah travel office. Um, what could they search? I know it's on YouTube or do you guys have that on your home patient? All right. It's on our home page. Yeah. Okay. So dinosaur expeditions, check that out. It's a super cool video. Like Tyler said, it's, it's got some link to it, but it's, it's not too long. It's short and sweet then. Um, awesome action footage in it. That's pretty cool. Tyler Callentine. Thanks so much for jumping on with me. Thank you, David. Appreciate it.  

Today's guest shares the value in trademarks and how they can help you protect your assets... even help you avoid a hostile takeover. Listen as she shares the unique differences between US, UK, and European Union trademarks and the weight that they carry. Please welcome Céleste Reumert Refn from Grand IPR. 0:24 - Céleste's Good and Bad at 2:37 - Céleste's Background 7:11 - Trademarks 8:23 - U.S Granting Trademarks 11:06 - Benefits of Avoiding Hostile Takeovers Contact Info   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyn0SxR-CxKqJ_3W5CbqS9A https://www.grandipr.dk https://twitter.com/CelesteReumert   Celeste. How are you doing? Thanks for jumping on learning from others. Hey Dan, thank you for having me. How are you today? I'm doing good. Um, you know, you have an interesting background. We haven't talked to anybody in your space, so this will be a good new conversation. I like to start the discussion though, with two questions and question number one is what are you good at? What are we gonna learn from you today? That is so fantastic. Let me tell you right away. So what I do is I help ambitious. Scale-ups wanting to expand their market, reach, stop ignoring that business assets, inherit potential inherent potential, and start taking their business to the next level, by empowering them to actively protect their Mark with a trademark registration that I performed for them. So in short, I do to read my three new Wells. There you go. All right. And then opposite of that. What do you not so good at? I'm not so good at numbers. It seems like our guests are either one way or the other. They're either amazing at numbers or horrible at numbers. Yeah, not really. Not most of them. I'm actually in my little Slack and you know what? I didn't, I didn't. It wasn't discovered until after I had studied them. And I, I, you know, I discovered it myself cause, um, I was, I was coming through a pipe and I was still on Facebook. I'm no longer on Facebook anymore. And back then I was just commenting on some something I noticed because I can, I can actually stop when something is, is not spelled correctly. Or if there's something that seems a bit weird. So I, you know, very sort of, um, from a, uh, uh, kind of, kind of. Uh, perspective was trying to point this out to the past. And all of a sudden, all, uh, this person's friends were just jumping down my throat and sort of slagging me and, you know, uh, it ended up with me thinking, okay, maybe I'm. Dyslexic. So let me figure that out. And so I ended up doing a test and because of my age. So how does, so how does that visualize for you then? So you will spell something incorrectly, but the difference between you and other people with dyslexia is that you can realize there's something that's off and then you go back and look at it again. It's really, really weird because, uh, at that, um, place, uh, in Denmark, I was living in Denmark back then. Um, I don't know if you knew that about me, but I'm actually Danish. Uh huh. I'm a, I have a completely messed up because I'm Danish. I was born in Denmark, but I'm wonderful Swedish on my father's side. And then this, as you can hear, um, so I, I was, I w I went to that place, um, And he was sat in front of a huge old fashioned computer, you know, the stationary type that sat on your, on your desk and it has a huge tower next to it. Um, and, and then, uh, I was given a headset and in my ears, I couldn't hear a word. And on the screen, the word was misspelled and I couldn't pile the two. So that's really interesting. Yeah. Have you found sometimes I hear that people with dyslexia or other, you know, other conditions like that, that they, that overtime, they find that there's actually a power in it. So obviously there's, um, handicaps, you have to get familiar with and overcome, but once you. Overcome that I've heard other people say, well, yeah, helped me be more of a creative thinker. And now I accomplish more because they have to look at things differently. Have you, for you, have you found that there's any sort of power in this situation for you? I totally agree with that because obviously, you know, I, it wasn't discovered at school that I was dyslexic. I was, I was quite mature when it was discovered. Um, I started studying the law at the age of 35. So you can imagine it was much later that my, my dyslexia was discovered. So yes, I've, I've learned to do things in a completely different way. Plus the fact that I actually come from a line of people who are. Both creative and elements. So, you know, it's just been enhanced even further in me, I think. Yeah. That's interesting. Alright. Okay. Well that was a good discussion. So let's, but let's go, let's come back to your area of expertise. So as you said, you are really good at trademarks. Uh, why don't we start with the basics and explain what a trademark is. So a trademark is something that is used to distinguish your business from somebody else's business. That is, you know, I don't know if you've got a business or not, but, you know, anyway, um, it's it's to distinguish businesses or undertakings from each other, as we say, here in the UK. Um, and it's one thing to get something registered at what we refer to as how some companies is, they will just look at the way. Um, you know, you can be business, uh, AYA, Z, um, or ABC, and then you can have it business, uh, CDF, and they will not be, uh, that will not be a problem with companies house. Whereas within the trademark industry, um, we look very much at what is the industry that you're operating inside and. Are there any prior registrations. And if there are, then that is going to put a two, uh, show up as an issue for you because, um, they, they will want to protect, you know, we, we, the reason people protect their trademark is because they want to build up the Goodwill, the value of whatever is that they bring to the market. And, uh, at the end of, um, A person's life. They may either want to sell their business or they want, you know, um, for whatever reason, you know, or they may be ill and be forced to sell it. So there's a, there's a good reason to do so. And I know for a fact that businesses in the U S if they are, uh, to, to buy, uh, another business, if there is not a registered trademark, they will put the Goodwill at zero. So it's quite serious. Yeah, that that's significantly different than in the U S so I have three trademarks in the U S um, but none or, you know, required for, for business. Um, I think my first one, I didn't even get until I was already 10 years into business. So it's interesting how substantial the value of those, um, are over in, in year. So is that kind of apply all across Europe or more specific or more, more for specific countries? Well, um, I think that the U S is very little use about their trademarks compared to over here. Um, because I, I have noticed that they let people register things where I'm like, what, how could they do that? Um, whereas over here, we are very much focused on, uh, not infringing upon somebodies rights and it has to be a unique Mark and stuff like that. Um, and there are 11 different types that you know, that have trademarks. No. So you've got the, the word Mark. You've got the logo. You've got a sound Mark. You've got, um, Hologram. So there are, you know, there are some, let me just, cause I have a, I was familiar with some of those. Yeah. But I wasn't familiar with a, you know, like a hologram, for example. Now, when you say when, when you look at some sample cases in the U S and you say that you're surprised that they would Mark something like that, do you have any examples that you could give us that are surprising that, that, uh, the U S would grant a trademark for that? Well, um, I don't have anything off the top of my head, but I, I actually did a search for a client today, um, in a session. And I see that over there, you can, as long as you are the first one to register something, then, then you can do it, you know, and over here it's really, um, it really has to be something that is unique and. And it's not good enough that you're the first one sort of who's who who's registering it. If you catch my drift. Yeah. Yeah, the way that it works in the U S is, um, the, the trademark is kind of a timestamp, but it doesn't entirely mean that you have exclusive use, um, because in the U S it is first to use in commerce. So you may register a trademark, but if you never use it, or somebody can come in and prove that they used it in commerce before you, then that can override the trademark. Yup. Yup. I know that. Yeah. So, yeah, but it's, it's really interesting. And as I say, you know, uh, intellectual property rights is more or less the same all over the world. And then there's the U S damn us. Okay, good. So give us some examples of the types you don't necessarily have to give, uh, you know, exact client names or anything, but give us examples of the types of products or services or industries that you service for your clients. So, um, I normally just say scale-ups because, um, to, to, to point to one particular, um, industry can, can be limiting. Um, however, um, the client I worked with today was in, uh, financial services. So that's one of them and there's. Uh, another one, um, was doing a amusement park or something like that. If that makes sense. Yeah. So, uh, in, in the amusement park example, since that would be less intellectual property, or maybe I'm wrong, is that more trademarking their brand entity or did they also have intellectual property? So it was the, the, the name of the business that, Oh yeah. They had found this name that they wanted to register and then they had had somebody create a logo for it. So now one example that you mentioned before we talked to the benefits of this is avoiding hostile takeovers, uh, which, which was something that was surprising to me. Can you kind of talk about that? Yes. Because, um, Sometimes when a scaleup wanting to expand, they may want to invite in an investor and the investor is going to look at how well their assets are going to be protected in this new business that they are putting them money into, which is totally understandable by the way. So if they see that there isn't a registered trademark, they will consider that their investment will be at risk. And so they will perform ourselves. I have heard of this. I've not experienced it myself, but I've heard of it. So they, they will. Now in that example, is that the investor being. Are they really protecting themselves. So in that case where they already invested in, and so then they're protecting themselves or are there some times where investors see an opportunity and maybe they're not invested in it yet. Maybe they're in a discussion to invest. And then they see that as a weakness and, and then they come in without investing and then just try and take over. Is that possible? I haven't part of that. I I've actually spoken to somebody, um, in Denmark who, uh, had spoken to an investor and they had asked, so what are you doing about intellectual property? And that's when my name popped into their mind. And that's when they booked the time to talk to me. So I didn't think that they can do it without having performance. Having some sort of, um, maybe put, already perform the, they have some sort of access to the business. It's like they can't do it without access to the business. So they may have actually, I think, I think that they had put money somehow into the business and then they did the hostile takeover, but I'm not entirely sure of that process. Cause I, you know, I haven't experienced it myself, so I don't, I don't really know what, what they technically speaking do. Um, I just, I just know that it's, it is something that they, you know, they will look at, are you protecting your business assets? And if not, you know, they, they can perform the hostile takeover and certainly did in, in at least one situation that I've heard of. Yeah. So are there any heads up for people really? Yeah. Are there any interesting scenarios that you ran into during, I assume there's some sort of discovery process when you're looking to trademark something where you look into, you know, are there other conflicts, are there any other close trademarks or businesses that could claim this instead of you know, who you're working with during that discovery process? Has there been any interesting findings that have stories that come to mind? Well, uh, yeah, the, the, the impact thing, there was a really interesting thing because, um, while I was in the process of registering it, um, the trademark, the guy came saying, approach me saying, listen, there's actually somebody who's infringing upon my rights. So can you please handle that? Um, And then I asked him to furnish me with, um, with information because in Denmark she's a bit special to the rest of the world. As soon as you start using. The name as the business name, then you actually create, uh, right in Denmark. It's only, it's not like you can do that. I don't know why that is. Um, so because he had been using this name for quite a while before contacting me, or before me starting the process, I could then approach that person on, on his behalf saying yo fringing on my client's rights. So can you please stop that? Um, And then, um, you know, obviously I didn't hear for a while because they needed to find their own, um, IP specialists to consult with. And they were basically told that I and my client were in the rites and they were in the wrong, and that was the end of that business because that business name completely right in upon that name, um, So, so the idea was completely scuffled and a dream shattered in Germany and pieces. Is, is there a average length of time that, that the process takes to successfully acquire a trademark six to 12 months? And it's more likely to be 12 and six. What contributes to one trademark taking longer than another. The amount of work that the trademark, uh, authority, uh, has on their desks to go through. So not so much your individual application, but just start workload with other people. Yes, that's correct. And in the U S I know that there's a follow up period. I believe it's five years after the FERC first trademark claim. And then every 10 years after that, is there something like that in Europe? Nope. I mean the U S you have, yeah. And in the U S you have to, uh, provide proof of use is if I remember correctly, that's what you have to do after the five year period. And so in Europe, it sounds like once you own the Mark, you own it. Now, does it have an expiration period of a hundred years or when the business sells or when a person dies or how long does it last. So it's more or less the same, um, in, I think in Canada you have 15 years, but in Denmark and the rest of Europe, it's 10 years. And then you bring you it, and it's the same here in the UK. We're going to have to see if they're going to change anything related to this. Now that we're leaving the EU because we have until the 31st of December is yeah. Um, so that's a really interesting, so, so far it's still 10 years. So the trademark used to apply to the entire EU, but now if your Mark's in the UK, then it's only good for the yeah. Well, it, it depends very much on, on what you want because you can still apply for European one. Uh, even though the UK has stepped out, you can still apply for European one and get two in six countries on one go. The important thing to know though, is that if the trademark falls in one of the countries, it falls in the whole Europe. So you lose it in all 26 countries in one fell swoop. So that's not very nice. So it's really, really, really, really important to consider. Do I want a European one or do I want national ones? Um, you can register in the UK. You can. Yeah. And Mark, you can raise them in Sweden, Norway, and so on. Um, but yeah, it's really important to sit down and decide for yourself. Where is it? I want to, um, what market is it that I want to designate? Where do I want to trade? And then you. Take it from there. What what's the governing body or the agency that grants the, so if you're in the UK and you apply for an EU trademark, isn't still the EU. And this is just like one of the unique things that they're still allowing to apply to all of EU, even though the UK is left the union, or is this something that will be phased out? Well, um, you can, you can still apply to, to the EU. Um, you know, it's got nothing to do with whether you are, you know, cause uh, no way is not member in the EU and Switzerland, isn't the member. They can still apply and get coverage in EU if that's what they want. Got it. Um, so, so it's very much a question of where you want to expand. Into what market you want to take on. Um, and it's the same with the rest. And you know, there isn't a global trademark, so you have to very specifically know where you're going to go, because there is no way that you're going to cover the whole world because nobody does that. And that would be way too expensive for you anyway. So that's why we always say to people that, that are wanting to register a trademark. Take a look at what market you re realistically I want to go into, and then we will perform the registration. But it, you know, if, if you're not, if you're not interested in say taking the whole of you, then don't go for that. Just go for the local market. Say you want to move to Holland. For instance, then by all means, go for an application in Holland. They don't go for the whole U EU. Cause it is expensive. You know, what type of difference in cost is there between a single country, trademark and the whole EU? Well, if I remember correctly, um, the EU one is one classification. It very much depends also on the calcifications, you know? So it, it, so if we say that it's just one classification, I think there was something like 900 euros not long ago. Um, so, so you really want to think about why and where you want to go. Because here in the UK, it could be as little as 200 pounds. So it really varies from business to business and how many misclassifications you need. And so the classifications would be the example of earlier you saying there's 11 types, you know, logo versus sound versus hologram. Is that what you're referring to? No, a nice classifications is like, uh, legal services, financial services, uh, clothing, shoes, toys, that kind of thing. Oh, so you could actually have two layers of filing expense, you know, trademark expenses. One would be the classification and then the other would be the type. So like if you have multiple classifications and multiple types, Uh, you probably wouldn't have multiple types because that would be confusing to your ideal clients. So I would say, say for instance, um, say that you were in some sort of business and you wanted to use like a hologram instead of just a word Mark or, or a logo. So you would have the whole ground created and then you would, you would underneath, underneath that you would then appoint. The niece classification. So say you were, um, doing legal advice, then you would tick off all the boxes beneath the legal advice, um, for, for that classification. And you might not want anything other than legal advice. Right? So it, it very much depends on the business and what they're wanting to do with their trademark. What do big brands I'm gonna use like a, an extreme example here, like a, an international brand, like Coca Cola wouldn't they want multiple types. So they, they would want the logo trademark, and then, you know, the word Mark, and, you know, maybe they have several different ones because they have the shape of the bottle as far as I remember. And then they also have the, the writing, which was originally hundreds. And if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, I think that they, you know, obviously they, they have become so big. They probably started out with just the one and then they have evolved over time and that's, that's how the people do it. They let their thing evolve. Is, do you have any stories or I assume there's the potential conflict? Well, let's use Coca-Cola as another example. Let's say they had just a word Mark 50 years ago and then they, they didn't do one of the other ones. Um, Whether it's the logo. Um, and so their logo and their word marker, obviously very comparable because they're both the name Coca-Cola. Now, if there's a gap in between, when they file a second different type of Mark, is there any possibility what happens if somebody comes in and sneaks in and tries to file? Um, is there the potential that they could be granted that, and then if they were, I assume that'd be. Pretty straight forward that if it went to a legal proceeding, that that would be overthrown. Um, I , that's a really good question. Um, I think, um, because Coca-Cola, is that big? I don't think that they would ever let that, let that happen to be completely honest, but I think that if somebody tried to shoulder their way in that they would get fought off quite. Easily, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't even go into a courtroom. I don't think, I think that they would just say, listen, we were here first and, you know, Bobo bugger off or something. I got, you know, I, I, I think that it wouldn't come to any, any legal battle in that case. Um, I don't know if you ever heard of the case of supermax versus McDonald's. Yes. Um, McDonald's um, I'm trying to block shoot max, which is an Irish, um, uh, burger chain. Um, and they will wanting to block a McDonald's was wanting to block supermax from, from expanding into the rest of Europe. They're an Island. Um, and they actually didn't. Provide the correct form of, um, proof of use to the European, um, tribunal. So, um, their Mark fell in 26 countries and was still standing in Sweden because they had a national registration in Sweden, which is why I spoke about the national registration before. Um, so it's really, really important and supermax, well, was it, you know, a tiny compared to two McDonalds. So for them it was a case of David versus Goliath, actually. Um, so, you know, in some cases it can happen that that the tiny one can win against the big one. So, um, Yeah, it can happen. In some cases in your name, they weren't, they weren't using a McDonald's or anything. They would just say calling themselves supermax or supermax. Um, I haven't read up on it lately, so I can't remember, uh, what has happened since there was also a really interesting case in Denmark. Where there was a guy who had this tiny little stand where he did like a hot dogs and he called himself Mac Allen. And that also caused issues with McDonald's. Um, right now I don't recall the outcome of it, but it was a really interesting case as well. Yeah. Yeah. It seems pretty dynamic, especially with the different types and the different marks and the different locations and the different countries and the option of the union. Um, yeah, so I think, yeah, and so it makes sense why somebody like you can come in and kind of clear that up and save them time. If our listeners are interested in finding out more about what you do, can you throw out some contact information or how can we find out more about you. So, first of all, I'm on LinkedIn, which is the easiest place to find me. And then of course, there's my website, which is grand IPR, D K. And even though it's a DK domain, everything on there is written in English. Um, and I can be on Twitter. I can be found on YouTube. I can be found on Vail. Very cool. No, that's great. I appreciate your time and bringing this new topic to our audience. So Celeste, thanks so much for jumping on learning from others. Appreciate your time. Thank you for having me.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to dive with sharks in Papua New Guinea, share a house with a monkey, or wrangle a wallaby on the Las Vegas Strip? And what does that have to do with marketing? Biologist and wildlife filmmaker turned Silicon Valley growth hacker, today's guest shares how taking the road-less-traveled in life will help you become a better business leader. Please welcome Sara Bayer. 0:21 - Sara Bayer's Background 2:28 - Marketing Experience 5:30 - Sweet Spots in Marketing 9:35 - Checklist Practice 10:55 - Favorite Ads Contact Info https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-bayer/   Sara Bayer. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing? Hi, I'm good. I'm pretty good. Good. Well, um, I got a couple of questions for ya, but not before the usual. Um, two questions I like to ask guests. So question number one is what are you good at? And what are we going to learn from you today? So I would say that I'm good at being a growth hack. That is something that people just don't wake up as a job title. Uh, you, it takes a lot of different variety of experiences and I've had a interesting career track. We'll just say. Um, but I am here to help kind of share my knowledge on how to get businesses growing. I have a lot of questions for you specifically with, um, growth hacker as the title, but not before question number two, which is what do you suck at? Softball. Have you done that? Have you tried it enough to legitimately suck at it or you tried it once and you just said, I suck. No, I'm just legitimately very bad. It's awful. I'm a huge sports nut. I come from a family of professional athletes and AF athletics has always been a huge part of my life. Um, As well as, you know, just kind of my family culture and, you know, I like to be good at everything and I'm just not, and I'm just really bad. It's awful in particular. So you get at other sports and it's really just softball or you just bad in general. Yeah, no, I would say I'm proficient in all other sports except softball. Does so, so I'm, I'm really digging into compare softball versus baseball. Is it, is it the same suckiness? You know, I find baseballs easier to throw. I don't, if they're just soft balls or an awkward size, I don't know who came up with these dimensions, but they're not a good size. I'm with you on that one. Alright, so you do have an interesting career and that's even for me only knowing so much, um, I think a good example of the diversity is your LinkedIn post from a month ago, which the title is. Weed wine and weapons, my digital marketing for regulated industries. So yeah, I'd say you have a diverse portfolio of internet marketing experiences. So where do you want to start? Yeah, well, I can start there, so that's a great place to start. So, um, I've been fortunate enough to be a part of, of many industries. So I'm actually a biologist by training. Um, I was an underwater filmmaker, an underwater photographer, a Marine biologist for, for a while there. Um, and, uh, you know, twists and turns took me to kind of forging a path, um, in digital media marketing and digital media in particular, when I started with web MD. So I started as a. Content creator. I'm using my biology background and my knowledge of how the human body works and sell, being able to diagram cells, um, and to create slideshows for weapon D uh, and then I got into SEO and digital marketing and kind of learns like, Hey, you know, I may not be passionate about I'm making slideshows of psoriasis, but there are some cool things in here that I really do like, uh, and I, I really kind of got hooked on the digital world and found my talents in it. When I realized that my newsletter was going out to 3 million people every day. And I was like, wow, you can, this is a platform that you really can leverage. Um, storytelling. To, to reach a lot of people and there's a way to make money doing that. Wow. Okay, great. So I, that's kind of how I got into to the quote unquote growth hacking, uh, was really just all about leveraging storytelling along with audience building and data kind of merging all of those together, uh, to, to grow audiences. And then to turn that into revenue. When you had the list of 3 million, was that something that you curated yourself or part of, um, you know, an employer's list or what was that set up? Yeah, so, um, you know, we had a big list coming from a lot of different places. Um, that's something that took, you know, over 10 years to build, uh, 3 million people for a newsletter is a lot of people. Uh, you have to generate a lot of traffic and it takes a lot of time, um, to get. You know, users that are actually going to read your content and take an action. Um, that's the really important part. And that's one thing that I would stress to anybody who's, who's starting out in kind of wanting to use their brand to start to grow that online audience or that fan base. And it's not about. Buying lists or buying Instagram followers. Cause that looks great from a surface level numbers perspective, but it really doesn't convert. Right. And to grow your business, what you need is convertible traffic. You need people who are really interested in have become fans and are actually when you tell them to read a recipe or to, um, sign up for an event that they're actually going to take that action. And they're not just, um, You know, a bot. So what's your, what's your sweet spot in marketing, essentially dabbled in a variety. Is there one vertical that you prefer more than others? That's a great question. Um, you know, I think successful marketing leverages an omnichannel approach, and I know this is like not a popular sentiment at the moment, but I, I don't, I also think experiential marketing. Is something that you know, is going to really change after this pandemic that we're in, but it's an important component. So marrying the digital world with the real world is super important. Um, and as a filmmaker, I think video's a great way to do that. And I. Could actually see virtual reality, um, interactive games, interactive apps, kind of being that way, that we safely merge these two ideas together in the future. Um, specifically augmented reality. Uh, I think we haven't really seen that take off, um, you know, besides Pokemon go, which is awesome. Uh, I ha we haven't seen that take off in the business space, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of. You know, sentiment there that could really work. Um, so those are some of the things I'm excited about in the future. Um, but you know, there's really touching, feeling, experiencing, and having emotions, um, is easier to do in real life and not see experiential marketing. But if you can do that digitally as well, I think that's a slam dunk. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is, um, as of the time we're talking now two episodes ago, the air does a gentlemen named Michelle as from France and he. Built an app called caviar like caviar. Um, and it's augmented reality. And it was interesting conversation because he talked about a little bit about what you, what you just touched on about using it for business purposes. But what was cool is that product that he's brought to market is like traveling through augmented reality because his app, you turn it on and then it makes a virtual door and, you know, augmented right front of wherever you are in real world. And then. You walk through it like a step forward as the motion detection, and then it opens the door into a beach or the grand Canyon, but then he started talking about what you touched on using it for business purposes. So you could advertise virtually. So this would be a platform for, you know, travel agencies to say, Oh, well, if you want to go to the grand Canyon, well, Check this out. And then like you can send them a clip where, or an app segment where they can go in and like virtually tore it instead of just sending them a brochure. Yeah. And I think there's applications there for the future of retail. So we've seen a huge hit to brick and mortar businesses. Right. Um, and, and restoration hardware is a brand that I was fortunate enough to work with, um, for a while. And they had this great vision of, you know, reinventing retail. You know, about six years ago. And I think they could even take it a step further with something like augmented reality, because when you step, if anybody's been to a mall, right, you've seen a restoration hardware, you've seen they're beautifully designed showrooms and, and they try to create these emotional landscapes so that when you're sitting there, you can envision yourself in your own home. Right. But how cool would it be to be able to like actually tour that in your own space and see it in your own living area, but see that furniture actually populated there in front of you be so cool. How have you seen Amazon? Amazon does that. Yeah, it's very cool, but we haven't done it in like the true retail shopping experience. I just think there's so much more that can be done. Um, but I don't know how startups leverage it. That's actually, you know, one of the questions I have is, you know, what's really feasible for a startup. Um, having been at multiple, you know, you've got limited resources, so you really want to try things that are tried and true. So that's one of the other things, you know, that I was always tell people. Is, you know, there's all these great ideas out there, but you've got to take those calculated risks. So if you can't measure the reward, probably not one to jump into right out of the gate. Yeah. What, so when you work with people, where do you start like with, for exactly the reason you just mentioned, there's so many options. So, you know, do you have a checklist you go down or, or I'm assuming it's pretty dynamic? Well, it's pretty simple where to start, and that is to define your goals. And then to define those success metrics of how are you going to measure along the way, uh, that you are actually getting closer and closer to your goal? So it's really like business one Oh one back to basics, but there's specific growth metrics that we look at called the pirate metrics. Um, and so that's kind of ways that you can, especially SAS. Businesses or anybody that's kind of in a service space. Um, if you don't know about the pirate metrics, um, but it's definitely something where you, you set out kind of different segments and then you have measurable attainable kind of units of measure for each of those. So you're. Making progress. You're having all your great ideas and then you're, you're using your data to not only prove your concept, but then to be able to create a model that actually shows your investors, your fans, whatever that you're on target to achieve those goals that you've set up. I'm going to make you pick a favorite child. And I know that this is not a, there's no hard and fast rule, but if you had to pick a favorite marketing child, whether it's paid ads, Google ads, SEO, Facebook ads, email what's fair child. Ooh, that's really good. Um, and I might be biased on this, but I'm going to say SEO. So yes, you and I are on the same page and I'm actually going to use steal your quote from the other day. So SEO is an investment. Not an expense. Um, and this is something that, you know, I think is a really good notion for especially folks who are trying to really take their business from, you know, maybe the 10 million to the 30 million in revenue. When you're investing in content, that's getting placed all over the internet. It's getting placed in magazines wherever you do with your content. But when you're investing in content, it's a tangible asset. Right. So you can think of it just like investing in a region, hail space. Um, and that's what SCO brings to the table that other digital channels don't, um, you know, ads you're really just borrowing that traffic. It's not yours. You don't own it. But with SEO, you're building a permanent profile online and. Basically buying that permanent real estate I'm on the internet, which is very valuable. And as we see, you know, increases across the board and every vertical, um, you know, e-commerce is, is through the charts and I suspect it will remain this way, you know, boomers and folks who weren't shopping online are now shopping online and they love it. Um, so I think that, you know, if you haven't explored investing in SEO, it's definitely the one thing that you really can't go wrong with. Yeah, and I, I, you bring up a good point about owning it because you don't own Facebook. You don't own it. The gram I'm sure Facebook seems more stable and having a longer shelf life than my space did, but something will probably come along eventually to maybe not necessarily wipe it out, but dilute it. And then you have to start over again on the new thing, but with your own website or even your own email list. Um, you know, you own those assets and can continue to scale them. And, you know, we had, um, the post that you reply that the, you just kind of commented on that. I had mentioned the other day on LinkedIn about it being an investment versus an expense. Like I think that post I shared a client who in two months has increased 130 grand in revenue. In two months. So certainly that didn't happen in two months, but it was the culmination of the, the slow grind of SEO over the year prior. But once it kicks in, not only do you own it long term longterm, but short term, you can have massive wins too. Exactly. And it's really the only truly, you know, Is what is permanence, that's a different podcast, but permanent marketing channel, um, that, that you, you know, in the digital space, right. It's really one of the only lasting legacies that you can put out there, um, and domains that are, you know, years in the making, those are the guys that are, you know, really reaping those benefits. Yeah. I think it's interesting about how one, some people ask if, well, okay, Damon, you just said Facebook can go away. I'm just like my space did. Um, is SEO going to go away? From my perspective, the answer is no. And it's very easy to say why? Because the only way it would go away is if Google went to an entirely paid model, which ain't going to happen because as soon as they do that, it, it instantly dilutes their credibility of the search results. Exactly. And you are, you brought up my article about weeds and weapons and so. I actually am an owner of a regulated industry business. Um, my family has a winery. Um, also been a consultant for various cannabis and hemp businesses. And I work with a lot of these clients who are in their kind of hypergrowth phase, trying to build these global brands, but for regulated businesses. Uh, you know, SEO is really the place to be because it's the only kind of wild, wild West, where you have the freedom to be able to publish and say what you want to say and, and have your audience, your fans be able to find you, um, you know, I do. I think that CBD is. Regulations here are going to be lifted. I think we are going to be able to run more advertisements on CBD, you know, as a first step towards, you know, being able to run advertising on, on cannabis. But you know, it's a surefire bet, guns and ammunition. Um, anybody that's, you know, even in that gray zone of adult entertainment, I mean adult entertainment, billions of dollars a year in online subscription revenue. And they grew that billions of dollars. Through SEO alone. So, um, you know, there's a lot of examples that other businesses could look at in the SEO space to prove, Hey, this does work. Um, and it's ones that you might not think about. You know, what's so bizarre about the adult industry is that for as obscure as they are. You know, understandably, they're not like the forefront of internet marketing discussions, but what's bizarre about them is they are usually the ones that drive the technology innovations. So they're the ones that drove the ability for e-commerce by creating the platforms, you know, gateways and being able to conduct transactions online. They're the ones that figure out like all these crazy things to serve different media. And then it's just embraced by the more, you know, adopted by the more. Friendly areas of commerce on the world, but it's really interesting to understand how much when you start to learn about how that industry has contributed so much to day to day stuff. Oh yeah. Mobile, mobile. I mean, they were kind of the pioneers of, of, of, you know, mobile apps and traffic. So it is really interesting and I see cannabis in particular being another one that you're going to see, you know, down the road, a lot of innovation coming out of that space. Yeah, I could see that. Um, let's talk about the term growth hacker. So I, I have a love, hate relationship with that term because okay. Because like half the people, alright, Sara, I'm gonna let you get away with it because you, you pointed it out at the very beginning. It's, it's a necessity to have, um, a diverse background in marketing to really be able to genuinely say you're a growth hacker, but the problem that I have it on the flip side of that is. The people that come along and just say that. Cause it sounds cool. I remember I had a client, this huge company, um, about three years ago. So this big international company, I'm just gonna leave it at that. Cause I didn't wanna give it away who it is, but it was this big company and they hired a new, um, you know, VP of marketing or whatever. And so beneath him, they brought in. I'm a younger guy. I don't know his whole credentials, but he looked, you know, shiny and amazing. And his self proclaimed, proclaimed title that he had to have for him to accept the position was VP of growth. And I'm just like, Oh dude, this is like, what is this? Your second job? It's so painful. The other people that misuse your title. Well, and it's funny, cause I actually didn't choose it. I was labeled as this by others and I was like, well, I guess that is what I do. Cause when you ask. To me, like, what are your strengths? I'd be like, well, let me, do you have time? Let me tell you. Well, I love finance. Um, I love, you know, dollars and cents revenue conversations. I love Excel spreadsheets. I love storytelling. I'm a digital photographer. I do digital and it kind of like spirals all into this big bucket of. Well, I guess, yeah. I mean, you need all of those things to really look at a business and say, how do I take this to the next level? Because it's so multifaceted. Um, and so growth hacker was, was thrusting upon me. Uh, but now, you know what, I kind of like, I'm taking it back. I kinda like it now. Um, and it's, it is something that, you know, You don't go to school, right. To be this thing, like it's so core of at its core. It's it's so ambiguous. Would you change, would you change your title now? You said it sounds like you're, you're embracing it now, but at one point, what would you have chosen otherwise? You know, it probably would have been too long. Uh, but I think, you know, I've, I've also been called, you know, just the secret weapon. Um, so I think that's more of, of how I see it. Right. Um, so having somebody in your corner. Uh, that understands all the different areas of your business that need to work together in order to achieve that growth and growth as measured in dollars. And if you don't have a strong financial background, if you don't understand, um, the way that all of these investments that you're making right on the marketing and actually generate revenue, um, you'll, I don't think you can call yourself a growth hacker. Yeah. Do you, you had made a brief comment about, you know, you don't go to school to be a girl. Okay. Do you have a take on, um, you know, internet market? Like what they, and, and you may not have an answer. You may have not necessarily been exposed to this, but what the curriculum is in college about internet marketing versus reality. And you know, if you have somebody come underneath your wing and they just graduated and they're like, well, I went to school for marketing, and then you actually bring them to the. Marketing streets. They're like, Holy crap, this is totally different than what I thought it was taught. Yes. I deal with this quite often. So I do, um, at our agency, we hire a lot of young talent that, you know, are great books and they're this maybe their first or second job. And they always ask me, you know, Sara, you know, do you have any tips or like, do you have any career advice? And I'm like, yes, yes. Forget everything one. Okay. So that is my advice to anybody starting their career, who wants to get into the digital space, um, is, is you are a sponge. So every project you work on, everything that's new, you know, you have to take away something from that and you have to tie it back to kind of like the business model, right. The need. Um, so having a core understanding of. Of how all the businesses you work with, or if you're in house or if you're an agency, how they all function then is step one. And you can only really learn that. Having worked day to day and, and seeing really how the business world works. Um, you can read a balance sheet. That's great. I think you should know how to do that, but to know, um, you know, how does a lead become a sale? How does a sale become a customer? How does a customer become a fan and an evangelist? And how does that fan of Angeles drive referral traffic? And what does that mean? And how do all of those things fit into, into the model to really achieve that growth? So that's my biggest advice. And the other thing is, you know, yeah. Open to new experiences you're in your career and learn really what your true talents are that are applicable in. The professional world. So micro has a great podcast. Um, and actually my family are all garbage people. Truly. We owned a garbage company. My dad was a garbage man on a garbage truck. My grandpa, my great grandpa had a garbage wagon in San Francisco that was pulled by donkeys. We add there as the will, you know, going from the bottom all the way to the top. And they eventually wound up selling, you know, silvers state disposal as, as a huge corporation. Um, and, but they started as literally on the truck garbageman. And one of the things that micro talks about on his podcast is, you know, nobody thinks being a garbageman is super awesome. Like nobody's like, Oh, I can't wait to grow up to be that garbage guy, but you know, what, if you're a hard worker, if you genuinely enjoy, you know, machinery, if you. You know, like working and, you know, in a plant setting, and those are your talents. You could be a great garbageman and you can make a great living. And then maybe you figure out that you're a great manager. And then after you become a great manager, sure. You're like, you know what, I'm going to go get my MBA because sit on the board of directors and all of a sudden here you are, you know, 20 years later, being able to, you know, being an executive at a company that sells for, you know, Oh, you know, a hundred million plus. So I think it's one thing that a lot of people set out as, you know, They have this dream job. And I was guilty of this. I wanted to be a nurse national geographic filmmaker that was like, wanted to do that so bad. Um, and I wound up becoming an underwater filmmaker. I wound up traveling the world and living on pirate ships, then filming mantis shrimps in Papa. New Guinea. But, you know what? I was miserable and it wasn't my real talent. Um, and once I kind of had that light bulb moment with, uh, you know, digital marketing, it was like, wow, you know what? These mesh, all of those things that I love about, you know, Work with my talents, which are spreadsheets and, you know, bringing that science data mindset, um, and marrying it with the creative and being able to actually, you know, make money and have a career that allows me to, to buy a house and, you know, own a car. So that's my advice to all the young ENS out there is, you know? Yeah. The young ins, you know, you learn what your talents are and what they're as applicable in the actual professional world. And don't come in with preconceived notions that you've learned at all in your four years of college. I think that we are internet marketing, spirit animals, Sara. I agree. I feel the vibe because I often say the same thing that you need to, uh, trip over yourself a little bit and the way that I kind of. Phrase it is you, you know, find what you like by identifying what you don't like. So it goes through the journey of the paradox about figure out, go date your careers and identify what you, what you want in a long lasting relationship. So when you find the right opportunity that you're dating, you can marry it. There we go. People. That's how we're going to close it with that story. Sara, you've been a pleasure. Um, I want to say, thanks Jo, about learning from others. I want to give you the last few moments to put out your contact information or tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. Yeah, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, I'm currently at a digital marketing agency based here in beautiful Boise, Idaho. It's flocks media. I'll give you my email, even it's Sara Sara@voxmedia.com. I would love to connect with any of you and if you're looking for any help with your business, uh you're you just have questions about growth or, uh, you know, startup life. I'd be happy to connect with each of you and answer whatever I can. Thanks so much, Sara. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.

Copywriting genius Mike Samuels shares insights on the importance of persuasive copywriting and strategies for disqualifying audiences. He discusses the value of research, testing, and gathering feedback for email marketing. Mike also debunks copywriting myths about exaggerated value stacking and unrealistic scarcity. Learn how scarcity and crossroads positions can be used effectively in copywriting, and discover a bizarre sales engagement involving trips to experience Peruvian jazz.

Anyone can do Facebook Ads, right? But can you do them well? Launching profitable Facebook Ads can be challenging and cost you precious time and money. Today's guest gives coaches, consultants and service providers the power to acquire premium clients at top dollar, while growing and scaling their business with ease. Please welcome Carlos Aviles 0:36 - Background of Carlos Aviles 3:44 - Facebook as a Platform 5:06 - Example of Sell 6:44 - Success 9:53 - Process Contact Info https://www.trafficwithcarlos.com https://www.instagram.com/the3dcam/ Carlos what's up. How you doing? Welcome to learning from others. I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing today? Good. Uh, you know, it's been awhile since we talked. Um, we'll get into, you know, I'll share with our listeners, how you and I met up. Um, what, it's been two years, maybe three years now, since we originally, yeah, I think going in three years now, Yeah. All right. So you and I met at an event, which we'll talk about, but it'll be kind of related to question number one that I like to ask my guests is what are you an expert at and what are we gonna learn from you today? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm an expert with Facebook ads and I specifically focused on helping coaches and consultants with high ticket sales. Okay. And then before we dig deeper into that question, number two is what do you suck at Carlos? Uh, I suck at cooking. Yeah. You know, you know what you're actually, I think you're the first to say that, but what's funny is when I'm kind of chatting with guests before we start, that's the example I give them, I say, you know, I'm going to ask you what you suck at. And you can say, I suck at cooking or whatever you want. But, and so you're the actual, actually the first person that said, that said cooking though. Yeah, well, you and I met a couple of years ago down in Arizona, and I was looking into exploring kind of exactly what you talked about. So obviously my background is search engine optimization, and so I was looking for. Um, you know, to get into doing some Facebook ads to offer a course on SEO that I wanted to kind of test out in, in concept. And so you, what was interesting about you and I meeting is so, so we're at this little private Facebook mastermind kind of thing, what we'll call it. And then, uh, it was a full day event and I go back to my hotel. And you and, and your friend Markwell are in the lobby. And so you guys were at the same event. And so we just kinda chatted and small talked, and then a couple months later, I hit you guys up and said, Hey, you know, um, I want to see what you guys can do, but what I thought was cool about meeting you at that is you already know, know how to do all this stuff and do Facebook ads, but you were there just to see how it. Other people do it to see if there is anything different or, uh, an angle that you could take to integrate into your kind of already proven processes. So I thought that was cool that you, you continue to do your, your learning and your ongoing education, just to see, you know, what's kinda going on in the market. So, um, that's, that's how we met, you know, it well, what did you take away from kind of that. That mastermind we went to. Yeah. So when we went to our, as Sona, um, I wanted to go to this mastermind because you're, you're absolutely right. I'm a student. Um, at heart I never stopped learning. Um, my, my whole goal is to reach mastery with what I do, but mastery is not attainable. Um, what I wanted. To do at that event was just get at least one idea, one thing, one concept. And I was able to do that and, um, implemented back into the business, um, um, some merged into this whole coaching, uh, environment, and I wanted to learn anything related to that. And, uh, yeah. So, um, you know, always being a student all the time, bring our listeners up to speed and get a little more specific on what you do. I think I kind of take for granted the concept of what you do. So let's kind of break it down to somebody that's new. How would you explain what you do to somebody that hasn't been exposed to it already? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, we gotta think as Facebook as a platform, right? So what I do is people come to me, they want like, Hey, I want traffic. Everybody just wants traffic because they, you know, they have a service expertise, their coach they're like, Hey Carlos, you do Facebook ads. I want you to get me traffic. But the first thing that I really do is I don't even go into traffic. I, um, I spend time with my clients really understanding, um, who their, who their prospect is. And, and that's probably one of the biggest things I spend most of my time on understanding who their prospect is. And, um, from there, we were able to create a message for this prospect. And so that's what I, what I spent a lot of time. Time on then I helped them design a funnel and ultimately a launch Facebook ads for them, um, within an intention of getting, uh, applications, the whole purpose of everything that I do is to get them quality applications. Um, so yeah, that's like a snapshot of what I do, but I can go into detail on every step. Give us some examples of what the final product is that some of your clients sell. So you say an application, so how, how do people. Okay. How do your customers convert everything you've set up into an actual sale? Like what is an example of a sale? Absolutely. So, um, I do a very simple funnel that ultimately leads to application. So for example, we have an ad in the, in the, on the ad. It says, Hey, um, I'm a real estate coach. You want to learn how to do real estate investing, click the link below. They click on a link. They go to a landing page there, they enter that their email. After they enter their email, they go into our database after the database, they're going to watch a video and I call that an inception video. The inception video, the whole purpose is to just grow a tiny little idea into their head, where they become the hero of that journey. And they see me as an authority figure that can, can help them reach that journey. And so by the end of the video, they have a call to action and they, the, they can book a call. They click on a button. Opens up a new page to book a call and then they book it in and out, have a congrats page. So really all you really need is four pages to be as successful. Getting a client's phone with coaches or service provider. A test is so many models and this is how it has always been the simple as model to run. What's an example of what success is. I assume that's, that's a dollar figure. Is there kind of a, an average that you can, you can explain, uh, either, you know, the potential per ticket sale per cell price, or, you know, some success stories of how, how much somebody has made in a year using this model? Or what can we use as a reference of what success is? Yeah, absolutely. So success to us, it comes in different forms. And I, you know, for example, clients that are new, um, success to them it's means getting some data closest themselves and their cells go anywhere from that thousand, all the way to 10,000, uh, on, on, on their coaching services that they sell. Um, so for example, for a real estate investor that I've been working with. Um, we've incessantly been able to hit over a hundred thousand dollars a month, um, getting quality applications for his business and we're expanding now. He has a seminar. Um, we have, uh, a new launch that we just, uh, are finishing up. So that that's one example of a real estate investor. Now I have another gentleman that is a coach for a fitness instructor. So he personal trainers, he teaches it, teaches them how to, um, grow their personal training business. So for this gentleman, literally last week, I just got an update from him. He sold $52,000 with. Then map it to a Facebook group. And within there there's everything that comes in and it gets nurtured. And so that was super powerful. Um, that was like one of my first times running a to, directly to a Facebook group. And so. Yeah, 52,000 with an ad spend of about, uh, $644. So the ROI is just amazing. The ability to pull people into, um, your coaching business to Facebook. It's it's there. You just gotta be able to be creative with everything that you do. So it sounds like your clients are not necessarily on a retail product side, but they instead offer as a service or some sort of set of knowledge. Exactly. So they get paid. Um, my I'm a huge believer on, um, you know, contributing to the market. I even call it your unique market contribution. A lot of them have their unique system that they bring into the market and they just need a platform to, to be able to get in contact with people. Right. And all this is cold traffic. Um, And the way that you do this, um, it has to be a personal, you know, a lot of the stuff that I do is, is not like high tech video is just like selfie videos, inviting them to, you know, watch, uh, whatever, uh, you know, video or service that they're providing. And, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's not difficult, but you have to know how to approach the Facebook platform. With the example of the real estate investor and a hundred grand, um, how, how much time? I, you know, I assume that there's a learning curve or maybe that's not the right word, but you know, you have to rollout with w. With one ad and then tweak it and improve it. And then repeat that process. How long is on average? How long is that process until you start to get to the home run phase? Yeah, so we can start gathering applications. Uh, usually within the first week, sometimes it takes longer to a month and I usually like to start testing videos. Um, I find my go to audience that. I know my people are going to be there. Um, and I think about it like little ponds, right? So I go to this pond, I know my audience is going to be there now. I got it lower in, uh, you know, some, a hook start fishing for that, for that, uh, within that pond. And so, um, The first thing I'm testing is going to be videos because the videos have different, different angles, different hooks. And so I want to see which of those messages is getting the most leads, more applications. Um, from there, I just started focusing on that and then I stopped expanding with testing different audience. Um, and then, you know, once you find something that's working, you started looking at different scaling strategies. But ultimately to answer your question, it can take up to like three months, every client that I work with, I tell them, Hey, look, I need at least three months to gather data, to go through the whole process. Um, there's times where their funnel is, is they don't do their homework. They know them, her audience really well. And there's a lot of times where there's new funnels that they don't know their audience. And so. Now where we have to like, okay, let's launch this thing. This does. And we have to be able to pivot depending on the different data points and how everything is converting throughout the funnel. So. Then that sounds like, um, you know, very similar to MySpace of SEL. So the, the timeframe and not getting an immediate return on investment makes this something that's not for everybody. So what's the ideal client or what's, how do you educate them on? Okay. You know, if, if this takes three months, You know, they're still paying you for it during that time. So because of that, then, you know, who's your ideal customer, because we don't want to bring this to, um, you know, maybe a, a solo preneur startup that doesn't have the cashflow. I imagine you don't necessarily start with that guy. And instead this is for somebody that like, they have to be, they have to have a runway to, to build this up properly. Yeah. So my ideal, uh, client that I work with are those that are already making at least 25,000 per month with their coaching business. And, um, the, the main thing with what I look for is the mentality, right? So we know that as a service provider, as a coach, we have a skill, right. We have a skill and we know that we can service them. So for example, like the real, real. Rural turn right. We're real estate coach. He knows that he can coach people, but I he's got to also be open for coaching. Cause I'm taking them through a process where, uh, their ability to be open, to understand that we have to collect data. Right? So that's one thing they have to understand. Facebook is a, is a data machine and then we can start pivoting according to that data. Um, If they can grasp that small concept, then they can start. Okay, look, I'm not going to attack, add any, uh, any, um, uh, you know, anything like any videos, the attachment to any video and the attachment to any of the budget, because I know this is just, it's just going to be me collecting data. And so if we can go through the whole process of, of being okay with that, then those people that can withstand that and they tend to be the winners because now we have, uh, you know, we have. Um, three months worth of data. Let's say we've already generated, uh, at least a hundred applications, right? A hundred locations. You're going to close some, but the most important thing that's going to happen is that you're going to get to talk to your ideal prospect and understand what they really need. Right. And so now that that in itself also becomes data, then we can be like, Hey, the moment let's go ahead and change the funnel around a little bit, because this is what my prospect is telling me that they need, and this were their concerns. So now we go ahead and revamp the funnel and we have the 2.0 version. And after we run a 2.0 version, then everything just becomes a lot better because now we understand what their needs are. And, um, I mean, we can, we can use that throughout the marketing. And before we started talking, you had mentioned something that you call 3d cam. What is that? Yeah, so it's the 3d cam for short is called the 3d client acquisition matrix. It's my own method that I put together over working with Molson for clients and it's systematic approach to launching Facebook ads that are going to succeed. Uh, the three D stands for, uh, the three steps that I have, uh, discover the sign and deploy, um, and everything is all to create client acquisitions, right? And I call it a matrix because you want to create this, this, this, this funnel, right. This funnel, it is powerful enough to create a logical and also on an emotional marketing message that people are going to gravitate towards. Um, so yeah. Walk me through, um, I want to get to an interesting topic of comment, trolls. So, um, all right. So part of the, I'm going to kind of set the stage here. So part of this process, we've talked about Facebook ads, and then you've talked about videos. And then for people that may be new to this, you know, you, as you said, maybe your customer does a selfie video. So here's the business owner. Um, they do the video that says, Hey, I'm so and so, and this is my area of expertise. They send it to you. You marry that video with an ad. Yeah. Has compelling, you know, content gets people to stop and watch the video. Now, part of that, Part of what comes with that territory is that everybody on, uh, that has a keyboard has a voice. And, and this isn't anything specific to Carlos or any Facebook ad person, but I know that you've seen this. What do you do about the people that don't even watch the videos or don't even listen to the message and they just start running their mouth just because it's an app like. Did that take some getting used to where the people, the trolls come in and just say something negative that has absolutely nothing to do with the video. Yeah. So, so trolls can actually, uh, be really annoying, but they can also help probably because Facebook sees that. Okay. They're commentating. But the key here is to have, um, Systems that are going allow you to either hide or just to completely delete the message. Um, so then there's two things that I, one, I have a usually had talked to, you know, the course that I'm working with. They have like a virtual assistant and, uh, once a day, they go in there and check manually. To see if any, any comments I'll come in remove those that don't work. But also one thing that we take advantage of is the second thing. Facebook has this thing called of Facebook, common moderation, where you can start pounding keywords. Do you add your keyword? Let's say a scam. Let's say that's one of the keywords. A lot of people put in there, you put it in there. And anyone that automatically says, Hey, this. It was a scam. They press enter. Facebook is automatically going to hide that comment from me. So they're not, no, one's going to see it. It said the person that wrote it. So it's not going to have any impact on your marketing because you using, uh, you know, the automated way to do it. And so, you know, you keep, you, you have your VA along knowing how to moderate with the auto auto removal of this comments, they can continuously update any new keyword that comes up, they update it. So the last moderating they have to do, and, you know, after awhile, you're just going to be like, okay, you're just going to see positive, positive comments on your posts. And so that's why one way that I deal with, um, dealing with trolls do, is that something that you kind of. Take off the responsibility for your clients, or is that something that clients should expect to, to deal with obviously that they might spot check their ads and see it through that spot checking. But is that something that they should plan on moderating? Yes. So, um, I recommend best practices and I tell them that they should be moderating into themselves, but as a good media buyer, I'm, I'm always looking at the trends. If I see, okay, there's that is not working. Then I go directly into the. Into the ad. And so, okay. Has gotten any comments, did they haven't checked it? I deleted myself, so it goes both ways. And I like to tell my clients, it's a team effort, you know, I'm helping you as much as I can. I look at your comments, but this is what I recommend for best practices. And so I'm like, um, Those clients that set up systems for themselves are the ones that are going to end up being most successful. So they hire like a VA and then the VA is on top of the comments, right? One task, one thing at a time, keep it simple, nothing crazy. And then, uh, you know, you, you just systematize everything that comes your way. How long do you usually work with clients? Is this something that they can repeat over and over and continue to monetize? Or is this something that you kind of turn on for awhile and then turn off for awhile? Um, so I have clients that I work with, um, Almost two years now, some clients, uh, six months, it just, it just really depends on, on the, on the client. And in some of them just kind of want me to get things started and they're like, alright, thank you so much. I'll take over from here. And then they go on their own. Right. Um, and, and sometimes those, some clients come back. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think you were doing managing the ads. Can we have you back again? That's how the thing, um, So it just, it just really depends on the clients. Uh, what I found out is, um, the most successful clients that our work with are those that. They'll want to have someone specifically running their Facebook ads, someone specifically taking their phone calls, someone specifically doing it, coaching. Those are creative. Like I said, systems are going to be the most successful one because now they can really just focus on, on, on growing their business. They become like orchestra orchestra leaders. Right. They start just making sure everything stays on B. Something's not going to work. And they go in there and they managing. And so, um, then they're not in the business. They're like doing the day to day stuff. They're more like out in the business and they're still running it and still benefiting, uh, even even more. Right. Um, I call it like either you have a $5 task or a $50 test, like w what are you going to do? Like, are you going to like, Mo go mow your lawn right now? Or are you going to pay somebody the most of all for you? Because. In the time that you've more, the lawn lawn, you could have closed, you know, two or three clients. And, and now you're looking at 15,000 versus paying somebody to mow your lawn, like a hundred bucks. Right. So, so it just has to be that mentality, you know, the, the, um, entrepreneurial mentality, um, Comps in different ways. And so a lot of times when I'm working with my clients, I'm not just working with them throughout the funnel, but also working with them, uh, as far as seeing the big picture. Um, and, and a lot of them just get it like, okay, you're right. Like I need to set up system for those things, um, that I need to get done. And, um, you know, it's all like, uh, uh, it's, uh, I'd tell them is like, um, I'm just like a, a person that it's not directly like your agency, like, uh, um, like I working for you directly, I'm more like in your business. So see me as a partner because I'm trying to give you the best advice possible with everything that I learned so far from working with, uh, you know, hundreds of different clients, what are some of the common mistakes that. You have some, cause I hear a lot of people say, Oh, you know, anybody can do Facebook ads. Well, that may kind of be true, but not anybody can do them. Well. What are some of the common issues that you see that somebody's tried on their own and then came to you and said I give up? Yeah. So, um, I think one of the biggest things that I see is when people are launched her ads. Um, they don't have proper tracking in place. Um, they don't have their website optimized for mobile traffic and they also, um, have no congruency within their funnel. Um, so those are probably the top three things I would say. Uh, the congruency means. They, they have a net and they take them to a landing page that has nothing to do with what their message is. And so people draw, they're like, Oh yeah, I have this offer. And I'm in love with my offer and people are going to love this thing. They just drive traffic to it. Uh, their tracking is not on. Okay. So. That's another issue, right? So you have this thing that has no going to grow and see you have no tracking, you think, Oh yeah, I'm just, I'm just gonna, I'm going to turn on this thing. And, um, and along with that goes, goes with, uh, bidding, right? People want to have traffic to their Facebook page. Um, and so Facebook has this thing called traffic and conversion. Those are different ways that you can bid. And the Facebook platform. So a lot of people do is like, I just want cheap clicks. Let me just get a bunch of clicks. And so that traffic strategy will get you cheap clicks, but it doesn't really mean that it translates into actually getting quality clients. So when you set up. The tracking properly, you can take advantage of the other commercial, which is it's called conversion optimization. And when you, when you're bidding for conversion, Facebook has a really intelligent platform and now you kind of tell them to phase out, look, I had one person come in here and it looks like they became a lead. Go ahead and find more people like that. So now Facebook is more, uh, Prone to find people that have the statistical data that looks like that person. And so that's just one lead and then it is a compound effect. And now you have a thousand leads. Now you have 2000 leads and so on and so on, so that AI could just, it keeps getting smarter and smarter and smarter. Um, um, so, so the tracking the congruency and, um, so yeah, those are part of the biggest, his mistakes that I see with, with people in that. Not not being ready to drive traffic to the platform. Yeah, it seems just like a, you know, there's a common thing with, with online marketing that there's so much information out there that, um, like I said earlier, anybody can try it, but doesn't, I mean, they do it well. And so bringing in an expert like yourself and then giving it the proper attention, um, Is all the difference between, you know, doing it and actually doing it and bringing success with it. So I wanted to say, thanks for jumping on learning from others. Carlos, I want to give you the last few minutes to put out your contact information or tell the listeners how they can find out more about you. Yeah, absolutely. So you can, um, find out more about me and my services. If you're going to trafficwithcarlos.com, uh, is going to take you to one of my, um, Testimonial pages. And also eventually I'm editing my website. So you're going to be able to go to my new website once that's finished. So trafficwithcarlos.com, you can book a call and, uh, it's totally free. Um, it really doesn't matter where you are. Uh, you're going to take a lot from just having a call with me and understanding where you need to be if we decide to work together. That's great. If we don't, you're still going to have a lot of, uh, initiation for you to take. Until your business. Very cool. Carlos, thanks so much for jumping on learning from others. My pleasure.

Today's guest has two doctorates, and... doesn't want to use either of them traditionally. He's here today to tell you it's okay to reinvent yourself after a big commitment, whether college or otherwise. Please welcome Dr F Scott Feil. Other Podcast Guests Mentioned in This Episode: Internet Marketer/Influencer, Josh Forti 0:21 - F Scott's Story 1:34 - F Scott's Background 9:16 - Paying Debt 11:36 - The Purpose 17:24 - Empathetic Contact Info https://pteducator.com https://www.youtube.com/PTEducator https://twitter.comPTEducator https://www.isntagram.com/PTEducator Mr. F Scott feil. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Tim. And thanks for having me, man. I'm so pumped for this. Yeah, I appreciate it. You know what I like, I like the behind the scenes talks. Um, and so, uh, we're going to talk about your name, Scott. Yeah. F is your middle, is your legit first name? Yeah, so, uh, my dad was an English teacher on long Island and so, uh, you know, He named me after F Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote the great Gatsby, but, uh, his first name was actually Francis and my dad didn't want to name me Francis. So he just left it as the letter F uh, which is pretty cool until you turned 16, then everything's first name, middle initial, and all your legal documents get screwed up. All your mail comes as Fs feel or Scott feel or, you know, F feel and you have to bring several forms of identification to get anything done these days. So thanks for that one pops. I appreciate it. Yeah. Did you ever have a reckoning with him over that? No, you know, I really didn't. Uh, he, he was so good at what he did, you know? No, he was just such a great English teacher and he got me and my brother started reading and writing really early, got us into the classics early. So by the time it came around in school, I was just really good at English. So I had to appreciate him for that, you know, uh, it's worth the struggles that I go through now over a couple of name changes here and there, but, uh, yeah, no, it was, it was all good. Cool. All right. So I asked two questions at the beginning of these, um, question number one for Scott on learning from others is what is your area of expertise and what are we gonna learn from you today? Yeah, so I think the main drum that I've been beating for the last couple years is that, uh, you know, Whatever your job is, whatever your profession is for me, it happens to be physical therapy. It should really just be the tip of your iceberg. Um, and the reason for that I think is we have such unique skill sets, all of us, no matter what they are, you know, we can work a nine to five, but we can also do so many other things that create so many other streams of revenue. That, I mean, why not? You know, whatever your job is, it's just a label. It's just the title. I don't think you need to be shackled down by that. You know, I think we need to start thinking outside the box and using our skill sets for a bunch of other avenues. And I think that's really what I've been working on for the last couple of years is trying to get healthcare practitioners and healthcare, clinicians, and academicians and professors to see that we're more than just our title, you know, and we can create multiple streams of revenue outside of our daily practice. So. So a big part, a nutshell, and a part of that yeah. Is helping these guys get out of debt. Right. Because you've, you've kind of went through that same process. And so you can come first person into that discussion. Absolutely. I'm still going through it. I mean, I graduated with a doctorate in physical therapy and a doctorate in education and our $140,000 worth of debt go for it. And truth be told, I don't even know that I want to use either doctorate in a traditional sense, so that could pose a big problem normally. Right. But, uh, if you leverage those degrees properly and you leverage your education properly, um, and your skill sets. And the end of the day, you're going to be okay.   You know? And, uh, and that's basically what I've been trying to do over the last couple of years to show people how to use those skillsets, to get out of their student loans as quick as possible. Cool. I'm excited to go into deeper discussion on that, but not before question number two, which is what do you suck at man saying? No, you know, I think a lot of, I think a lot of entrepreneurs have that same issue, you know, and it's taken me several years now to realize that you can't do everything. Uh, despite having multiple streams of revenue, that's come with a lot of commitment. And a lot of dedication and a lot of strategic planning to get something up and running and then move on to the next one and layer it and then move on to the next one, because essentially, I mean, You know, if you say yes to everything you're saying no to something else. Right. I mean, so if you take on too many yeses and you just keep trying to please everybody and say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. To everything. Eventually you're going to run out of time. Uh, you know, there's just so many things hours in the day. Um, you know, when you want to try to utilize those hours, as much as you can, to be more of the CEO and the visionary, as opposed to the technician, just working on, you know, Little odd jobs here and there that add up. So I think I've got, you know, I've started over the last two, three years. We starting to evaluate each project and proposal that comes my way and literally picking and choosing and saying no to the ones. I don't think are a good fit are going to benefit both parties. It seems like you, you kind of have to go through that yourself because most people know, you know, don't take on too much. And even a lot of my, my fellow entrepreneur, friends that have found success, um, every time it comes up and I say, wow, you know, you've got your hands in a lot of cookie jars and doing a lot of things all nine times out of 10, they're like deep breath. Yeah, man, but I wish I did what you did and just did like one thing. Yeah. Yep. And that's, you know, my big picture, you know, my vision, the things that I do is multiple streams of revenue, multiple different things. So I teach that you can do those different things. It just has to be done in a methodical way. And that, you know, you're not going to burn yourself out. For sure. Um, so how far into your journey of the two degrees and 140 K did you realize, you know, I might want to take this a different direction. Uh, so I had finished a masters in physical therapy. Then I went on to do a transitional doctorate in physical therapy. Then I went on to continue and do the educational doctorate. I was two and a half. Years in, out of the four years of the educational doctorate, where I was like, the classes were great. The curriculum was great. Um, all the didactic work was phenomenal. I loved the learning about learning and how we teach and educate and then came the dissertation phase. And I was like, Oh no, I've made a huge mistake because that dissertation. Kick my bullet every way you can imagine. I mean, it, they dragged me across that finish line kicking and screaming. It was not awesome. I would never recommend it. So for, for, you know, I'm not familiar with like what what's didactic and, you know, I know what the dissertation is, but what are the problems that you ran into going through that? So like the, the didactic work in the, you know, the curriculum, it's just all the classes that you took. You know, most of my educational doctorate was online. Uh, so I, I took a lot of classes online. Then I went to st. Augustine university down to the campus for a couple of, uh, uh, online learning. Well, they were in, in person learning and, uh, Residencies, essentially we'll call them teaching residencies, but the D the dissertation is a whole nother beast. I mean, it's when you pose a question and you do the research to try to answer it, you know, and, uh, I saw being an English major that it would be no problem. I'd be a good writer. I'd be able to hash this out, but scientific writing and like, Educational writing is a whole nother beast. It's just like copywriting. I thought I'd be a great copywriter right off the bat. Right. Took me many, many months of reading and reading and reading just to learn how different copy was, you know, it was a completely different beast. Um, and the dissertation is much the same way. You've got to write this proposal to a board to kind of, you know, go in there and, and explain your, your. Thought process and what you think, you know, the problem is and how you're going to solve it through your research. Uh, they approve it, that it took me two times to get mine approved, which was a huge issue. That was my first roadblock. Then once it's approved, you actually do the study. Uh, you know, when you, mine was kind of a survey type study. So I sent out a bunch of surveys. Then I looked at the, uh, the data on the answers and I came out with a, you know, Uh, uh, answer that just led me to more questions. So, uh, you know, it's a long process. It generally takes anywhere from, I don't know, eight to 18 months, uh, just depending sometimes longer. But, uh, my study took about a year and a half about 18 months and, uh, It's just grueling, you know, and you write it up and you, you, you there's five sections to it. You write each section, you submit it to your, your advisor, then they trash it and they send it back to you. Then you write it again, then send it to your advisor. They trash it right back. It's like, I mean, it took a long time, but over time, little by little less and less red was coming back on the, on the paper, you know? And you just address each almost line by line. It's just. Infuriating at times, but, uh, you know, uh, at the end of the day, I think it's important to note that I'm probably the smartest, dumb kid you'll ever meet. You know, the fact that I have two doctorates is absurd, sir, but it's just too, it really is just a test of persistency. That's all it is. If you can be persistent, you can keep up with it. You can get a PhD, you can get an EDD, you can get a doctorate. It's, it's very doable. You just have to, you know, stay at it. You know? So what is it. I imagine you take some of that topic of persistence to the people that you work with on how to pay off their debt and, you know, feel, get a sense of stability. So where do you come in? What do you say? How do you say start when you work with fellow peers on their finances? Yeah. I mean, it, it definitely starts, like I said, like, look, if I can do this guys, anybody can do it. I mean, you know, I'm still on my journey. I was, you know, 140,000 in debt. I think I'm now down to about yeah. 98 or so. Um, and that's after about a year worth of really pushing hard and trying to, you know, Knock it down with side projects and side hustles and side gigs. So, you know, I, I let them know like, if, if I can do this, if I can follow this method to my madness and I can, you know, make it work, you can make it work as well. You know, it's, it's, everybody's going to have their own way to kind of go about it. Totally fine. You know, you just need a framework, you need some sort of strategy to follow a roadmap, and then just the systems to implement, to get it going and really be successful with it. Um, and if you're not successful, got to get up and try it again. You got it. You know, I think entrepreneurs are the perfect example of that, right. They just keep going until they find answers, you know? Um, and I think that's the main thing, you know, I. Use my dissertation as a perfect example. I wanted no part of it by the time I was halfway through it, I was just so over it. And I just kept getting them up and going and trying it again, getting up, go and trying it again. And I think, you know, considering I may not even use it that much. I think it shows how persistent you need to be. Sometimes when it comes to things because had I not finished it, it would have been way worse than, than actually going through with it. It would have had all that debt and nothing to show. Yeah. You know, it's an interesting topic that I don't think I'll ever get tired about talking tired of talking about is you just do the thing, you know, whenever I talk to other people, um, it's, you know, you follow your friends with Josh 40, right? So Josh and I are working on some projects and, and we, we have these offline discussions and we talk about doing the thing and, and one thing that is hard to hard for. The other people on the other side that don't do the thing that say they wish they could do the thing. As they don't accept that they're not doing the thing. And so Josh and I were talking about how hard it is to have that discussion when you're like, no, really you are the problem. Like, you may say, you want to do accomplish this and that. And we're not saying it's easy, but we're saying it's clear. Like you just do that. You know, if you want to accomplish that, Go do what you need to accomplish the thing and quit complaining. Exactly. I think, you know, that's a very good point and I think that's my whole purpose behind my, you know, my masterclass, which is based off of the book that I wrote. I wanted to do a thing. I wanted to write a book, so I did it right. Then it was taking it and putting it into a masterclass form to be like, all right, here's how I did it. My goal is to get you from point a to point B. I see how I can do that. You need to do the things I say to do and implement. In order to get there, you know, and there's a million excuses and that's okay. Like there's going to be excuses, even when you're doing the thing and you're on the right path, you know, but you've got to find an answer to that excuse then to keep doing the thing until it's done. Right. I mean, you know, so much of what I teach and what I go over with my students is just mindset, you know? It's just putting them in the right frame of mind to show them that they can do it. Have you always had like forward momentum as a mindset or is that something you had to learn on your own too? No, absolutely. I've been super driven my whole life and I have no reason for it. I don't know why it just it's how I was. I mean, you know, I was in every. Group. I wasn't like in one little click in high school, I was in every click, you know, I was in, uh, on the football team. I played golf. Um, you know, I played lacrosse. I was in the school musicals. I was in choir. I was the student union president. And then that carried on to PT school. I was the class president for our PT class and it just, you know, it kept going and going and going. And like, I think that just came from my mom and dad having a really. Good work ethic and really pushing me to try things and do things. Um, so I was always really involved, uh, just like they were. And I think from there, it just kind of. Push me. I didn't even realize I was an entrepreneur really until till recently, but when I was back in the day, my dad was an English teacher, but in the summers he owned a landscaping business. And so me and my brother had worked with him, you know, for that on occasion. And then when we were off on summer vacations for like a week or two, we go down to the outer banks in North Carolina and. They had a house on the 10th hole of the golf course. And every night my brother and I would walk the golf course and search for golf balls. We go clean them up and we take the best ones and keep those. And then we'd sell the rest of them to the golfers on the 10th hole the next day. And so we just started real young and, uh, and we just kept pushing and pushing and trying things and growing, you know, and learning and that lifelong learner thing. I mean that. That's probably why I ended up with two doctorates, cause I just always wanted to learn and push myself. And now I'm finding, there's so much cooler stuff to learn out there other than just academic go to college and, you know, doing the normal thing. So it's nice to have those as, as my foundational base, this line layer of things, but there's just a lot more out there and following you and guys like Josh and, and you know, Dan Henry and just a bunch of like really. Cool things that are happening out there. Now, it just it's it. I know that I'm going to be learning for a lifetime because there's so much to learn it's so much to do. So, um, just take it one step at a time, you know, you briefly touched on how, you know, you, you've kind of always had this forward momentum and it's something that you didn't really realize till later, which is interesting because that's pretty much how I often explain. My mindset too. I've been really fortunate and I don't know where it comes from. And so it's interesting that you bring it up because now I have the opportunity to kind of ask you a question that sometimes I feel guilty about. Do you sometimes feel guilty or not? Maybe not necessarily guilty, but do you sometimes have a hard problem relating to the people that won't do the thing? Yeah. Yeah. Big time. And it's like, okay. So here's the thing with w w. Being a teacher or a professor. Right. And trying to teach and mold young minds and get them to learn something. Right. I've learned I've only been an adjunct professor now for about three years. So I'm still new. I'm very green and I don't know how much I'll teach and how much I won't. It's still yet to be determined, but you have to be a good storyteller. Right? That's the first step. That's the best way to relate. Any, any sort of topic that you're trying to teach once you've told that story and you've tried to get your point across. There's a strong chance. There's going to be a couple of people that still don't get it. Okay. No problem. Let's take another story, right? Let's let's try to look at a metaphor or something that, you know, maybe closely relates to what you would understand. Right? And you, you can do that two or three, four times maybe, but after that, it's like you start banging your head against the wall. Like how, if you don't get it at this point, I don't think I can help you, you know? And at that point, The only thing that I can think to do is to refer them to somebody who may be able to teach it better or, you know, may get them on a different level. Um, you know, yeah. We just may not be a good fit, you know, like I can't help you, but I know this person closely relates to what you're doing, what you're trying to do. So maybe have a chat with them, see if they can help explain it a little better. Yeah. When Josh, Josh had interviewed another gentleman, Alex Kim rocks, his last name, but it was just in the last couple of weeks. Charfen yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you watch that episode? Yeah. Yeah. Phenomenal stuff. Alex is brilliant. Yeah. One thing that he said that stood out for me and, and kind of on the same topic of what I just asked you on it, I want to get your opinion is. Alex said something along the lines, him and Josh were talking about being an paths and empathetic to people. And Alex said something along the lines that the more empathetic you become, the less patients you have, because you're like the answers right in front of you. So just do it. And the way he described it was. Perfect for me. I was like, yeah. That's that's the, that's the way I say that nicely. Exactly. I mean, it, again, it's the cliche phrase, right? I can only lead the horse to water. Right. I can't make them drink. Cliche phrases are cliche for a reason. It's because they're true, right? Like I can only get you so far. I can bring you to where you need to be and how you need to get there. From there. It's up to you. I hand you the reins and you gotta go with it, man. You've got to kick in. You've got to implement. You've got to try. You've got to do. And you know, some people just can't. I can't find that gear and that's that's okay. Learning. And I learned this a lot through physical therapy. You can't help everybody. Hmm, you just can't, you won't be able to do some people don't want to be out, you know, there there's, let's just say, I'm just going to take this, you know, as an example, but let's say there's a car accident, right? A motor vehicle accident. And the patient stands to make a lot of money from an insurance company. If they don't get better. They have to go to physical therapy, to show they're trying and do their exercises and manual therapies and whatever else we choose to use whatever modalities to get them better. But if they don't get better and they're still a disability or a certain percentage that they didn't get back after the car accident, maybe there's a settlement, right. So that person's not motivated to get better. Okay. Even though you're doing everything you can as well, the physical therapist to get them better and to try to help them get back to a hundred percent of what they were before the motor vehicle accident. Yeah. You just can't help everybody. You're not going to be able to, you know, it's, everybody's different, everybody's got a different agenda, a different motivation, you know, and all you can do is give your best. And if you know, you did that, that's, that's where you're at. And you've got to detach the outcome from, you know, your own personal being and how good you are at what you do. Do you, do you smell those people out or do they just flat out tell you, look, I'm not really going to try. It's a little bit of both. I think it's a little bit of both, you know, I worked in a workman's comp company for a couple of years where people got injured on the job and our, our goal was to get them better and back to work as quick as we could. Um, you could, you could send, sometimes people were malingering and trying not to get back to work in no rush to get back. Cause they were enjoying a little vacation off, you know, and get paid for it. Uh, but then most of the people. You know, we're, we're good apples. And they really did work hard and try to get back as quick as they could, because they had to feed their family. You know, they had to put a roof over their head and stuff. So, you know, for the most part you can, you have people have the best intentions, you know, but, uh, every once in a while you can sniff out a Millinger for sure. Um, You know, but again, when it just comes to helping people and having them help themselves, it's like you said, like a lot of times the answers right in front of you, you know, you just gotta do it. Yeah. I think that the simpler, the answer, it, it is like, just do is, is harder for people to swallow. Yeah. What are, because it will, but the reason for that is because it becomes. Basically it's on you, you know, it becomes a self realization. It becomes a self actualization, you know, the, the onus becomes on you then. So it, that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow sometimes when you realize that you're the one in the way, and you're the one holding up the works. Yeah. And I think kind of back to what we were touching on earlier, when I was saying as a hard for you to relate, um, that's something that I too have only recently acknowledged and in more recent years, is that not. Being proactive. It, you know, is the norm being proactive makes you the odd ball. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the core concepts of your vision? Okay. So let's kind of come back to what you do and how you help fellow, um, you know, PT kind of people and reducing debt and becoming more financially stable. What are some of the core concepts of what you bring to them to follow. You know, I think the, the biggest thing is, is, like I said, you need some sort of framework, you know? Um, and what I, what I have done in my book essentially is created what I call the feel good method. It's play on my last name. Um, but it's also pretty awesome. It was good Motley crew, right? Yeah. It all ties in. My boys hates it, but I love, but, but essentially, you know, I tell them to look, take, take a big umbrella and that's your LLC, your company, whatever it may be. Right. The first thing you've got to do, you've got to have some sort of vision, right. I show them my vision board that I did three, four years ago. It was basically took a huge piece of paper from my daughter's art easel. You know, I just stole it, posted it up on the wall and like drew a bunch of stuff with marker on there. And the vision hasn't changed much, you know, it's there some pivots and adaptations, but for the most part, the core vision is still there. Right. So I say, you've got to have something that's. That's got core values to it, right. Because that's your base, that's your foundation. So you've got your umbrella. You've got your core values there from there. It has to be about something you like, you enjoy something, whether it be a hobby or, or something you're just really good at. Right. And that's your kind of point a, and then tying it to point B, which is like solving a problem for the world, or, you know, helping answer a question for somebody, right. If you can do that, you can create a profitable business. Right? I mean, it's not that hard. It's like you said, it's simple, it's connect point a your skill set and what you already know love and do. The point be somebody's problem or an issue that needs to be solved in the world. And there's your business. You're good to go. Well, underneath the umbrella, there's a couple of pillars there and each pillar is a stream of revenue. Well, the pillars have to be prioritize, prioritize from left to right. And you have to figure out the most important priority first and next to the pillars is a bunch of numbers, which is just like a honeydew list. And it's like, you've got to knock all those off in order to get the pillar flowing and making money. Once that's done, you can move on to the next pillar. Once that's done, you can move on to the next pillar. And then off to the left, there's a little bucket dipping into your trough of, of assets. And that bucket essentially is your baseline income, right? For me, it's not a nine to five job as a physical therapist. The, the goal is to kick that bucket literally eventually, right. And get rid of that income. So you don't need that anymore. And then you can just do your own thing. Right. Um, but for me, my situation's a little weird because my wife's a type one diabetic. So we need benefits and not just any medical benefits, we need good medical benefits. So there's a strong chance. I may always have a nine to five and I'm okay with that because I love what I do. Right. I love being a physical therapist. I love helping people get better. So that's fine. That's not a problem, but in my free hours, I'm going to bust my tail to work on my side. I projects my side hustles because they're all passion projects, right. They're things I love to do for them. Yeah. My hope is that they can build a big enough business that they don't need that side income. You know, but for me it works, you know, I work my nine to five that covers our bills and everything. And then, you know, from all the extra hours that I have throughout the day, I put it into my side hustles and those help pay off the student loans quicker, you know? And once those are paid off, well now shoot. Now I can start investing that money and making money. From my money instead of making, you know, working for money, it's working for me. So, yeah. So it sounds like the approach is, is largely to get organized and then follow that agenda. Exactly. Exactly. It's it's clarity, man. That's that's when people can focus down and get clarity and just see like, Oh, I have all these ideas. I don't know where to start. Great. Pick one. Yeah, just do it like Nike said. Right. There's there's a, you know what, that's funny. That's um, the, the two recordings I've done today, one before, and then yours, we both, we both brought up that Nike. So again, who knew it was that simple. Yeah. Um, so what's, what's kind of your. Your longterm vision, let's say, okay, your debt's gone. Um, you have on the one side, let's say the medical benefits was solved some other way. Um, and, and it was just Scott, what do you want to do? What are you going to do? Yeah. So I've got, I think. Two phases that I'm looking at. The first one is my goal is to try to help 220 to a health care academicians, clinicians or professors, uh, pay off their student loans. And the reason for 222 is that's the amount of PT schools that were in the new, when I started writing my book. So I'm just sticking. Yeah. That if I can help one professor from every university in the nation, that's got a PT program pay off their student loans quicker. I'm good to go. That's that's the first phase along the way. If I happen to help a few more clinicians on top of that, and maybe even some healthcare providers that aren't in the physical therapy world, cause this stuff all relates, it could work for OT or nursing or speech therapy or doctors even, you know, um, It's all about just leveraging your skill set and your knowledge base, you know, and if, if you can start by doing that, I think we can really start to make an impact on how quickly we can pay down these student loans. So people can stop stressing about them and really start living their life at an earlier age, as opposed to paying it out for 25 years retiring. And then all of a sudden your student loans are gone. You know, so I think that's kind of the bigger vision is to expand out into, uh, you know, helping, not just healthcare professionals, but, uh, you know, anybody who wants to go the quote unquote traditional route through college. Um, that's fine. You know, it's, it's, it's. Totally admirable to do that. I don't think it's necessary these days. Um, but you know, if you want to go to knowledge and you want to truly learn some subject of area of specialty or whatever it may be, that's great do that, but you shouldn't have to carry the burden of debt for 25 years after that. You know, and I think that the big issue is like, look, it's my debt. I took it on. I knew what I was getting into. I take full responsibility. For it, but let's gamify it, then let's try to pay it off as quick as we can, you know, by doing things we love to do anyway, you know, and making money while we're doing it. Yeah. You know, I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your book, but, but I want to ask you one other question that you just kind of touched on and if you don't want to answer, that's fine. Cause I don't usually get into politics anyway, but it's immediately relevant to what you just said about you. You know, it was your decision to take on school debt. What's your take on, um, the, the groups that are pushing for debt relief and just saying, you know, well just wipe it out. Uh, I'm a realist look, I took on a $140,000 worth of debt. I don't expect somebody to come along, pay that off for me. And I feel like the next bubble to burst is going to be the student. But I mean, that's just like the mortgages were a couple of years ago right now. This year obviously is a whirlwind. There's just a lot of crap going on. So it's hard to tell, but when things settle down and we get to look at reality again, I think the student loan. Bubble's going to be the next to burst that being said, I just don't think it's feasible to just forgive everybody student loans. I think that we're already going to be in a bit of a depression. You know, the, the economy is going to be in the, in the crapper for, for awhile. So. Just forgiving billions and trillions of dollars worth of student loan debt is absurd. It's just going to put us even further in the hole. I don't, I don't think. And that was even before this recession slash depression while. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just not, it's not a reality. I think there there's programs that can be worked that can help and assist, but I don't think just full on student loan forgiveness is going to be the way to go. Aside from the economics of, uh, and you know, not having to solve the problem, who's gonna pay for it. Do you think that in principle, it's just something that, you know, they made the decision, they should be responsible. Yeah, for the most part. I mean, that's how I feel personally, you know, I, I, I knew what I was getting into. What I didn't know. And this, this isn't just a applicant, both the physical therapy, the field physical therapy, but the day to income ratio is bad and getting worse. So it's a bigger problem than just student loans. Here's the problem. Okay. Insurance companies are quote unquote, reimbursing medical clinicians for their work. They're not paying us for what we do. They're reimbursing us. No, you can't go to a grocery store, get a bunch of groceries and say, Oh, I'll reimburse you for this in a week. You know that no business works like that except for the healthcare field. Right. So at first years ago, let's say the eighties or so. Physical therapy was being reimbursed at a rate that was equal to what we were worth and what we're doing. Right. You could make anywhere from a hundred to $300 per visit based on what you build and what you did with the patient. Right. And that's about right on for, for a treat. Well, as things went on, insurance companies reimburse less and less and less nowadays they're reimbursed in 30 to $50 a visit, no matter what we do. And it's like, well, if I was doing home health, which I was back in the day, that wouldn't even be enough gas money to get out there to the patient, to see them and treat them. So like, What do you know, why are we even going out there? What do we do for this? Right? And the patients are the ones that suffer the most. When you know, we don't get reimbursed, what we're worth, you know, whether it be a doctor, that's why doctors are seeing people for five, six minutes and then heading out and documenting for 35 minutes because they got to go, go, go and see a bunch of patients get reimbursed, the level that they're worth. So if a reimbursement they're going down, down, down, and our student debts are going up, up, up. Salaries are gonna probably take a dive. I mean, you know, a new grad physics, well therapists can make anywhere from 50 to 75,000 a year, but even a skilled physical therapist. There's a ceiling there where no matter how many patients you see in a day, you can only make. X amount of dollars for the clinic that you work for or whatever it may be. So at some point that debt to income ratio becomes so absurd. We're, you know, if you're taking out $150,000 worth of student debt, but you're only making 50, when you graduate, you're not going to be able to catch up to those loans. So, so we have to look at, if you're going to go to college, there has to be a solid plan for what you do after you graduate in order to make enough money to take. On the student loans that you, that you took out essentially, you know, and, and I don't even want to get started in the fact that student loans are not able to be like drop, like you, they follow you forever, right? Like you can't default on your student loans. So, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where you have to do a little research and I'm hoping college students nowadays are a little more educated and they're doing the work to, to figure out. What am I taking on? What's it going to look like in the long term? What's the job market look like for what I'm going into, you know, and like I said, physical therapy is a great field. It's given me a lot of opportunities. I love it. I love what I do. Um, but nowadays it's getting worse and worse with the tuition, skyrocketing and salary staying the same or getting less. So you gotta, you gotta weigh that out and see if it's really going to be worth it in the long run. Yeah, and I think that's applicable to, to any career or education is, you know, what's your potential return out after you've made the investment? Well, as we get kind of closer to wrapping up, I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your book. So dude, you wrote a book writing a book sucks. Yes. Yes. And I've been anxiously waiting yours. So I'm excited for . Yeah, love it, man. I'm so excited. There's like I said, there's not a lot of people that I follow, um, you know, from a digital marketing and, and, you know, SEO and lead generation standpoint. But, uh, you've been doing a lot of great things. So I'm, I'm excited to read that one because I haven't, I, my website has not. Even touched SEO yet. I'm not even there yet. So I'm excited to implement a lot of that stuff over the next six to eight months. But, um, yeah, writing a book does suck and, uh, I was an English major. So again, I thought it'd be easy. I thought I'd be like, ah, no problem. I'll get this done in three months. Like life got in the way. And you know, kids are jumping on you and asking to play and like, you know, weekends fly by and all of a sudden your free time's gone and. How long did it take you to write? How, how, how many pages is it and how long did it take? I got a copy here. I think it's about 140 pages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 165, five pages. Um, took me about eight months. Probably realistically would have taken six, but like I said, we had a bunch of family issues and life got in the way, but shale misses and stuff. So it took longer than expected. Um, but I don't know. I've never written one. So. Had to give it a try. I had to see, but I'm really I'm. You know, now that I'm done, I'm ready for the next one. I think I, I was bitten by the bug. I'm ready to write, write, write. I've got a couple more lined up. So I'm excited for the next four or five. Good for you. Yeah. This one, the first one I wrote was called PT educators, student debt, eliminator, multiple streams of revenue for healthcare, academics, academicians, and clinicians. And, uh, you know, it's just, again, using multiple streams of revenue to pay off those student loans. Faster, um, you know, and I'll be, so the way it started was I had a list of a hundred side gigs and side hustles that made sense for a healthcare clinicians or professors and out of those 100, um, I did about 25 of them. I've actually tried about 25 of the 25. I narrowed it down to about eight. Then I'm still doing eight to 10 that are still worth my time. And that I offer as services through my companies. And you know, that, that. Are all kind of under the umbrella, so to speak and related to a healthcare and digital marketing and, you know, writing and things like that. So, uh, that's basically, yeah, I took the book and then I, I created a masterclass based off the book where I kind of work a little closer one-on-one with people kind of help them add these streams of revenue to their businesses and, you know, kind of show them how they can. Use them to pay off student loans as well. So it's been a blast, man. It's been a roller coaster ride, but it was so glad to be done with it. And, uh, yeah, like I said, I'm ready for the next one. Now, how long ago did it get published? January of this year? Yeah. Yeah. You know, for, for me, you kicked my butt. I think mine was practical a year and a half, because what I did was it was, you know, six to nine months of riding because it's on top of running a business and, you know, or working or family and all that stuff. And so you kind of work on it as you can. And then when I was done. Now I got 150 pages I gotta read. And so then you had to go back at it, move up, move a chapter, edit, move a page, edit, move a paragraph, edit. It was brutal. But, um, I think, uh, I think, like you said, if you would ask me a while ago, w am I ready to do another one? It would have been hell no, but, but after you recover a little bit, yeah, it's kind of exciting. Yeah, exactly. And it really is a sense of accomplishment. Like, I, I haven't felt that since my dissertation probably right. The dissertation was done two years ago, two and a half years ago. So like I, after that, it was almost like, well, shoot, if I could do that now, what what's next? You know? And, uh, the book, actually, the book was easier than the dissertation. So, you know, like I said, if I can do it, anybody can do it like, uh, you know, Um, I'm one of those, like I said, the smartest dumb kid you'll meet. So everybody's got a story to tell they need to get out there and write it because it, it, it, not only is it great to accomplish it and write the book, it's going to help a ton of other people, right? Your story is gonna, you know, motivate people. It's going to show you people how real you are and how real life it is, and that anything can be accomplished. Right? It's going to help people with the tips and tricks and everything that you've learned along the way. And. It also acts as several streams of revenue in itself. Right. If people buy the book, you make a little bit of money off it it's, I'm not getting rich off the book, but there's royalties. Right. Then it's a lead magnet because it leads people into my masterclass. Right. And then on top of that, I've had speaking gigs already offered to me too, based off of the book. So now I have a, you know, a little speaking side game that's starting up, which I can't wait for. So you know, it, the book can turn into so many streams of revenue on its own. It's just amazing to have a book and be published and be able to put that, you know, best-selling Amazon author on your, your resume, you know? Uh, it looks good. So. Yeah, well, I'm excited for it, you know, it's you and I connect a little bit here and there on, on Facebook, but you've been a pleasure to talk to in person and I'm excited to see what you've done and what more you're going to do. So I'll leave you with the last few moments to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. Yeah, the easiest way is probably just to go to PTeducator.com. That's my home site. Um, all the. Social media handles are on there. They're all pretty much just at PT educator. I've got some personal ones, but they're just basically the same thing with a couple of dogs and kids, pictures mixed in there. So, you know, if you're really looking to learn and keep it business savvy, then the PT educators is the one to look up. Um, but yeah, it's been a pleasure talking with you, Damon. And like I said, I can't wait to see your book and follow your journey because it's been an awesome one so far. So thanks so much for having me. It's been fun. Chatting. Yeah, thanks for that. All right. F Scott feil everybody. Thanks for jumping on learning from others.

Today's guest is an internationally recognized and award winning entrepreneur, Certified Money Coach, and advocate for women’s economic independence. She's here today to help level-up women business owners and tell you why you're worth more so you can bring home more. Please welcome Debbie Page. 0:33 - Debbie Page's Background 4:08 - Debbie's Work 6:39 - Quantities 10:29 - Just Keep going 14:01 - Raising Money Contact Info https://www.debbiepage.com https://www.instagram.com/debbiekpage/ https://twitter.com/debbiekpage https://www.facebook.com/DebbiePageBusiness https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbiekpage/ Debbie page. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you? I am doing great. Damon. Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun. Yeah, you bet. So, uh, this'll be fun to talk, uh, because you know, largely w w your area of expertise is obviously finances. Like if the opportunity to explain more about that in a minute, but I'm excited for you to kind of bring, uh, uh, a real emphasis on the women's side of things. And so that'll be fun to dive into that. So Debbie, welcome learning from others. And question number one is. What is your area of expertise and what are we going to learn from you today? Ah, yes. So I am the leading authority on cashflow and profitability for women business owners. And I guide them to understand how to keep more of the money they make. And, uh, you know, when women make money and have money, we changed the world. And I don't think that's a bad thing. No, but why would anybody want to keep money? Yeah, I know what, like, are aren't we supposed to just like work really hard and toil and trouble and then like start all over again? Yeah. Yes, exactly. Well, okay. Question number two is opposite. What do you suck at? Oh, yeah. So I suck at asking for help. Um, it is my Achilles heel because I somehow landed on the planet thinking I could do it all myself and I don't know anyone else who's ever struggled with that ever. Yes. Well, you're pretty unique then, because I think a lot of people do struggle with that. It's it's, I've said this before, when I talked to the guests and ask them that second question. It's always interesting to see, um, you know, Just how we're all human. So we have these guests that come on and they have these big areas of expertise, but it's always like the little things that you would think are pretty obvious that they say, no, I'm not so good at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the, that's the kind of big life one and you know, that's not just attached to business. And then, um, I would say like, just as the human one, um, I am not a crafter. Like I feel during this time in particular, like I look out on the interwebs and across all my social channels and. You know, people are figuring out, you know, how to. We've wool from acquired in their backyard and they're making hats and sweaters. And, you know, I, um, you know, have a bunch of craft stuff that I've acquired over the years and haven't completed a darn thing. So is it, why are you acquiring it then? Is there a, is there a to do list that someday you'll revisit it? Yeah, I think that's it. And I also love the idea of, um, you know, of crafting, you know, whether it's sewing or, you know, I don't know, widdling or woodworking. I don't know. I love the concept of it because especially, I think. For those of us who were type a hard chargers, you know, there's this, you know, outside interests. Um, and I have tried to plug into those outside interests for a long time to find my Zen. Um, and the two places that I find mine and are in the kitchen and in my garden. So I think perhaps, you know, at the ripe old age of 50 it's time to say. Perhaps you don't need to search anymore for your craft. Like maybe have it know, I can actually relate to that. I think the word that comes to mind for me is romanticized. So I have like these romanticized ideas of, uh, you know, taking an old camper. And rebuilding it to its glory or, you know, something like that. And then just over time, I think I'm one step ahead of you though. Debbie, I have checked out. I still have, I still have the romantic ideas of it, but I'm like Damon, you're an idiot. Don't even, don't buy that thing. We don't do it. Yeah. It's going to end up becoming a yard car and your neighbors. Aren't going to appreciate that and yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. So Debbie, you are master. Of finances, a certified money coach. Um, you've done all sorts of cool things. You start at businesses. So let's start with, um, let's kinda, let's, let's elaborate on what you do just briefly and then reverse engineer from there, like how you got there. So what's your elevator pitch when you tell people what you do. Yeah. So I work specifically with growing businesses that are at a stage where they feel like there's more month than money. Um, they love what they do. They would do it for free and quite frankly, they feel like they are, and they see the top line sales numbers. Um, But the bottom line profit number just doesn't seem to be in alignment with how hard they're working. And so I get in to there yeah. Business with them and teach them the things that they should be looking at. Cause let's be really Frank Damon. I have yet to meet a business owner who started their business because they knew how to run a business. Everyone I know who starts a business it's because they have a passion, they found their purpose or they've. Feel they have a really unique skill set to solve a problem. And so that can take you just so far, and then you either wake up and go, Hmm, something's got to change here or whoops. You know, that was a bad idea. And you know, you're out of business. So I want to meet them before they have to make that decision to go out of business. Is there a recurring, you know, like a common denominator in why people kind of how you illustrated it, they may have. Good gross numbers, but the net is just not there. Is there, is there a reoccurring reason? Yeah, the number one thing is, uh, obviously the expenses get out of control pretty quickly. They don't, they're not clear on why they're spending the money, the way that they're spending it. And then. If they've spent a little time digging into that, they fall into this trap of, you know, most of what you're you hear in the business world as well. If you want greater profit profit, you need to sell more and you need to spend less. And what happens oftentimes is they cut their expenses to the point that they can. And they get stuck in this. I don't know how to sell more. Like I can't scale. I don't know what the next best step is to take in order to get there. Uh, and so I helped them understand like where you can look inside your business. That's different than just, you know, top line sale number that they're actually pieces inside that you can take, look at an influence, which will drive that number. So it's more than just one thing at one time. And does the answer to that usually equate to increase quantities of sales or, you know, maybe comparable quantities, but increased dollar amounts of those same quantities. Yeah. Especially for women. Uh, it's a, it's a two part thing. The first is typically a female business owners are not priced appropriately. So products and services are incredibly underpriced for what's being offered. And so the, uh, pricing. That they've chosen in relation to the cost of that product or service is making them broke. And so if we can get in there and help them see that, that's the first thing. And then the second thing yeah. Is it's about volume. It's either. We need to find more people to sell to so expand the markets and create a different, different revenue, streams or channels, uh, or figure out how we can sell to the people who already love them. A new line of product or service instead of going out and finding more people, just getting the people who already love them to invest again, is, is the light is the lower pricing for women due to market opinion or self valued opinion, self value, do opinion and yeah. Self value. Absolutely. You know, the, the women are helpers and nurturers by nature. Again, big, broad brush stroke, everyone. You know that we are, we are helpers and nurtures. And so. We, um, have been sort of imprinted, I guess, if you will, that you know, you do, you do enough know, do good work and you would do it for free and you know, don't, don't raise your price too high. Cause then you might not, uh, you know, attractive clients. And when one of the first questions I'll ask a female business owner is tell me about your pricing model and how you came up with. What it is that you charge for your products and services. And the answer usually starts with, well, I took a look at the market. Okay, good market analysis. I like where we're going here. And I evaluated other people in my space and what they were charging. And then I figured because I didn't have as much experience as they did. And this is where the self worth comes in or haven't been added as long or, or, or whatever the rest of the story is. Um, I decreased my rate by 25%, 30%, whatever that number is so that I could attract business now. And build up my base and then raise it at seven point in the future. Well, the problem is, you know, they've priced themselves their products and services to the point that it's not sustainable and they can't support themselves in their family. So what's the answer to that problem because on one side you can kind of appreciate where, where they say, well, I need to get my feet wet, but then at the other side, then they, they set their benchmark and their values. So how do you. Meet in the middle. Yeah. So I want them kind of like what we're talking about here. I want them to reverse engineer it. I want them I've yet to talk to a female business owner who said, well, I started by figuring out how much money I wanted to make. And then I calculated out how many units or how many people, well, I would need to sell or serve in order to get there. And then, you know, began like calculations from there. So I want to start with the, what do you need? You know, what do you need? What do you want? And then let's, let's figure out how we're going to get you there. So I have a question, you know, you said a lot of people that you work with started a business out of passion, and then they realized, well, I'm a business owner and you know, things are different. So, um, I often tend to think that some people get too scared or over-prepare. Um, do you agree that. Not always, but more often than not just start, like get the thing, get the thing going. And because if you plan, it's all gonna change anyway. Oh my gosh, absolutely. I, when you asked that question, I immediately think of. A female business owner, who I connected with a number of years ago and her, I, you know, connected with her and the networking circles that, you know, business events in the area. And, you know, she was so passionate about what she was doing. And she was talking about these investments that she was making of these. And this course she was taking in the website. She was having built in the app that would supplement it and all these. And I was like, wow, this is really impressive. And I would always ask, you know, so when are we launching? Like, when are you launching? When is this coming out? Like, I'm really fascinated by what you're doing. It's like, well, we're still in development. We're still in development. Well, 18 months later, she was still in development. And, you know, she had called me and she said, you know, Debbie, I've gotten myself into a jam and I was like, you want me to think? And, um, she said, I've invested over $150,000 and I haven't even started. Yeah. And I was like, Ooh, you know, and this is an example I saw of, you know, too much of the, getting ready to get ready. And I do think that, you know, as entrepreneurs, one of the things that makes us really solid is our willingness to do it ugly and figure it out as we go. Um, and oftentimes like in her case, you know, as we talked, it became clear that what she started to create. Wasn't going to solve the problem that really existed. And now she's, you know, 150 grand into this thing that she's likely gonna have to scrap. Um, and I just, I want, I want entrepreneurs. I want business owners to just be willing to go out and do it ugly and figure it out as you go and to constantly be evaluating. What's your next best step. Um, people will, you know, your customers and clients will be. Very forgiving and understanding in your willingness to show that you're working to meet them, um, and to solve the problem that they really have, not the one that you think that you need to solve for them. Yeah. Did, did, did this person ever come to that realization too? And if so, how far into their hundred 50 ground? Uh, she never launched. Yeah, she never launched it just, it became, at some point it fizzled out, you know, maybe a few months after we talked and she just put it off to the side and that was it. Um, and unfortunately I think that in there. Was, you know, quite a bit that could be salvageable if she had been willing to do that. Um, but for some reason it didn't, and maybe it was just the overwhelm of, Oh my God, like I've gotten this far and it's not what I thought it would be in this. The other thing too, I think for, for women business owners is kind of this, you know, what you were talking about with your, you know, restoring your camper, ban the romanticizing of what this is going to look like, and then you get into it and recognize, Oh, this is nothing. Like, I thought it was going to look like, and then being willing to adjust for that. Do you find that, uh, so this person that went in 150 grand, did they also raise money or kind of like a two part question? Did they also raise money at, or did they self-fund it? And the reason why I ask is kind of. To come full circle to the, just start comment. Because a lot of times I talk to these, you know, early entrepreneurs and they say, well, how did you do this? And what do I do next? And I want to do this thing, but I, I need to raise money. And it's so bizarre to me that now we live in a entrepreneurial culture mindset where it's like, raise money, raise money, raise money, instead of just. Do it game go. Yeah. Those, uh, those people at Nike had it figured out a few years ago, like just do it that way. Yeah. It, you know, that is the answer. Um, she's self-funded, as I recall, the vast majority of it, and then family had put in some money, um, on the development side for the app, but, you know, she was self-funding, she was pulling money out of her own retirement, you know, from a previous corporate gig and it just never happened. That's crazy. All right. So why women, Debbie, why the focus on helping that segment of a business owners? Yeah, so early in my coaching career. So I've been coaching full time since 2011. Um, I. Ha I fell into a bit of the trap where I knew I wanted to be on the business coaching money side of things with small business, um, and was open to working with men and women. And what I found within the first like year of doing that, um, was that my male clients wanted to arm wrestle me. Um, every time we were in session. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried that, that, you know, it doesn't work, you know, kind of arms crossed sort of like, you know, come on, come at me with some new idea. And I was like, I just don't have time for this. Like, I really see where the opportunity is. And, and either we're going to be in this, you know, kind of shoulder to shoulder walking this path together. Or we're not like you're making a significant investment in your business to want to arm wrestle me so you can go do that somewhere else. And I noticed that my female business owners were really thirsty for, um, conversations that involved education. Um, and practical application and creating stuff. Some of them processes that they could lean on, you know, kind of in a wash, rinse and repeat pattern, and they were thirsty to have a conversation and to learn in an environment where there was no shame. For what they didn't know. There was no guilt about choices that they had made up until the time we started working together. And when I got clear on that, I was like, this is the population I want to serve. You know, I can only work with so many people. So I want to work with the ones who really want to do the work. Yeah. What do you have any. Success stories or interesting moments of growth that stand out more than others. Oh my gosh. You know, I think back over the years, um, I think about a woman I worked with a couple years ago who owns a, uh, agency, a marketing agency, and, you know, she had really good, multiple six figure revenue. Profit was. Okay. Like nothing to seize that she was paying herself, which was a huge win compared to where a lot of people are when I first meet them. They're not even paying themselves, quote, unquote technical. Um, and so, you know, yeah, we talked about it and she said, you know, my profit, isn't where it's supposed to be. I've known you for a long time and I need to figure this out. And she was willing to do the work. So. We figured out where there were some bleed points. Um, she navigated those really well. Well, and went in, you know, the precision, I think of a surgeon and took the advice and the guidance and really stayed true to those numbers, uh, eliminated those expenses and then trusted me when, and when I. Carefully approached what I had identified pretty early on as a sacred cow, which was a whole bunch of people that she had working for her. And she was doing a great job of supporting them in their lifestyle. But in my opinion, they weren't. Uh, producing or performing at the level that they should be for the money she was paying them. And, um, so it was kind of a classic case of, you know, let's get the right people on the right seat on the right bus. Um, and once we moved that around, you know, at the end of the year, her profit went up by, you know, 60 some percent and her revenue actually stayed flat. So we focused on all the things internally and just by cleaning that up, um, she was a lot happier at the end of the year. How do women hire? Is, is there also a common denominator in there where women business owners maybe tend to hire family and friends more than outside talent? And does that cause conflicts? Yeah. I don't know if it's so much that they hire family, but, uh, women, business owners are inclined to hire people who they like, um, who are like them. And they, you know, yeah. She, you know, she, or he is, it's kind of like me and, and I take it, I have a contrarian position and say, you know, having made this mistake very early on in my career, um, I don't need to like them. I need to respect them. I need to be able to have a congenial work environment, but I need to hire the best people. For the best role, you know, at this time, you know, in the growth of the company. And when, you know, and I'm not saying like, don't like the people who work for you, but, but becoming clear that these don't necessarily these people aren't going to become your friends. Right. And that I think for women is really hard because again, we're pleasers again, broad brush strokes, um, you know, we're pleasers and we want people to like us and we want to like all the other people. And I think that. To a certain degree, you know, some healthy contrarion, um, staff members actually make a really healthy organization. Yeah. Bring a different, uh, you know, set of skills and opinions that can, you know, everyone can learn from. All right. So I'm a woman business owner. Debbie, when should I come to you? Yeah. Oh yes. The grand grand question. So I don't specialize myself in early stage startup. Um, that's not my skillset with the caveat, um, unless if you have already been a business owner, so if this is a new venture for you, then I'm a great. Then I'm not the best partner for you. Um, I would want you to work with somebody else who specializes in that early stage startup where my sweet spot is, is somewhere between 18 to 24 months into the growth of a company or beyond. Um, but the typical triggers are 18 to 24 months. They've gotten about as far as they can go with their passion and purpose, and they're recognizing that in order for it to sustain, they're going to need some outside support and really. Someone to guide them, you know, as I was guided, uh, to understand how to be a CEO of a company, because being the practitioner and the worker, which in particular for women is how most women start their businesses. Right. They were working somewhere doing the thing, and then they started their own company doing a similar thing. And so you have to learn how to be a business owner and, and to understand, you know, the story that the numbers are telling you. So that's the first point is 18 to 24 months is a great time for me to meet a business woman. Who's growing her own company because she's recognizing that there's more ahead of her and she's not quite sure how to get there. And then the second step is somebody who has been in business for quite a while. You know, this could be five years, 10 years, 15 years, or even longer, but is wanting to scale in a new direction and need some guidance, uh, in order to consider how to do that and potentially is positioning their business to sell. And so there's a runway that we all need to consider when it comes to selling our business. You know, you could wake up today and say, I'm gonna sell my, you know, my organization. Um, but if there weren't some strategic actions taken over the previous two years in particular, to make sure that the books are clean and tight, that the systems and processes are documented, um, it, it potentially will devalue the business. So that's the second place that, that I really enjoy working with people. Okay. So miss 18 month plus business owner comes to you and where do you start working with them? Yeah. So the first thing that I want to understand is, you know, the, the business model itself, uh, you know, what is, what are the sources of revenue, uh, for that business? And. What are the marketing and sales processes that they have in place. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing we do an analysis of, you know, their financials, you know, since inception. So if it's 18 to 24 months, I want to go back two years and kind of see what, where the money's going, what they're spending it on. Um, what the, what the cash flow process is like, what are the rhythm of. What's the rhythm of business as I consider it. And so once we understand what the marketing and sales process is, what the rhythm of cashflow is, then we can put together the plan on, okay, what is the next best step we need to take? And usually it's a, it's a couple, three month process of cleaning things up. So things have been a little loosey goosey, as I like to say. Uh, and so it's the first step in, you know, training them up to be CEO of the company. So we're going to start having regular financial meetings. We're going to really announce the sales process and the marketing mechanisms that they have in place and start to do some. You know, evaluation on, who else do we need to bring in? Because I certainly, you know, don't do all of that. And so we need to figure out, you know, who's, who's the next conversation that we need to have. Is it a marketing agency that we need to bring in and then, you know, put together the plan and. You know, I've always been a, you know, let's put together a 12 month plan and then back into this and work at it in rolling 90 day increments. Because I think business owners make a lot of mistakes. They, if they do an annual plan, uh, they do it somewhere towards the end of the year, January 1st, they wake up and they start commenting on the plan and then they never look at the plan again. And I want business owners to be looking at it at our rolling 30, 60, 90 days, so that you're constantly able to adjust for whatever is changing in the environment. Um, you know, it's the yeah. Somewhere I read or heard, you know, the analogy about, you know, when you're, um, you know, when an actor, it goes into space, you know, it's not a straight line, you know, to get to the moon. There's a, there's a, a series of. Constant tiny micro adjust Smiths that are made in order to keep them on the path to get to the destination. And that's the piece that I want entrepreneurs to understand is that it is a series of tiny micro adjustments that you're making. All the time in your business and right now where we are historically more than ever, um, microplaning is something that I want businesses to understand, uh, that to try and follow your 12 month plan right now is probably not a good idea. Um, we need to be able to make adjustments more quickly, you know, as the environment continues to change around us. And is that kind of the average length of time that this process is, is usually scoped out as like a 12 month kind of thing. So I start with my clients and say, we need, we need a 12 month commitment. It's gonna take us a full, you know, travel of 12 months to get, you know, some of the bigger objectives in place. Not that they're not going to start seeing results. Early, um, and feel, especially for women, it's, there's a feeling that they need to have that. Okay. Yeah. This is the right investment that I'm making in my business, but it takes a year to get all the way through the process that I use. And for me to make sure that this isn't just a one and done thing. I want these to be skills that these women have for the rest of their business career. Now many of my clients stay with me much longer than a year because we go to the next level, we pursue the next thing. Um, some who rotate off after a year, want to stay with me on a quarterly maintenance basis and say, look, you know, I want to do, you know, a quarterly CEO, CFO summit down, and I want to go through my numbers and I want to go through the data. And I want to make sure that I'm still, and the protocols that we, that we set so that I can keep this business, you know, running to the, to the success that we've created. All right, Debbie, as we get closer to wrapping up, I got a, uh, a less business oriented question. I hear you sipping on a drink and it sounds like there's ice in there. And I read that you like wine. So I'm thinking it's not wine cause there's ice in there. It's not, it is not. Um, yeah, so it is, uh, I have been introduced to cold brew coffee. Have you done cold brew coffee yet? I have, yes. Okay. So I was a little bit late to this party. Um, I, uh, I was down in Portland visiting a good friend of mine who is a real coffee, officiant auto. And I was like, what is this thing on your counter with this, this whole contraption? And we went to the, you know, local coffee roaster in her community and. Fast. And it was like, what is this? And then last summer I was, you know, what is this nitro cold brew? This is amazing. Uh, and so, yeah, so now I, um, am, am a morning cold brew kind of gal. And I have a Burr grinder, which is this whole thing I didn't know, existed. And this. Patient 24 hour process to let the beans just mellow and water. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. So, so you go all in, you don't just do like a French press and put it in the fridge kind of thing. Well, so here's the thing. I could have done that, but I didn't have a French press. And so somewhere in my moves, my French press had gotten lost or broken, or I don't even recall now. And so I thought, well, you know, Why not. So I actually, a friend of mine, uh, sells Tupperware and last, uh, last fall, Tupperware came out with this little cold brew contraption, and I thought, okay, fine. You know, I'll support her. And I hadn't taken it out until, uh, until probably three months ago. And that's when I, I got hooked. I just went and Googled Tupperware called brew. And it looks like that it's like some Kara kind of thing. Is that what you got going on? That, that is it. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. It sits in the fridge and does its thing. And then I have my, do you have, do you have like, um, Glasses and cups that are for certain things. Like I have a very specific cup that I like to have hot tea in. I don't know what it is. It's the shape of the mug and it just works. Well. I have one glass that I like to have my cold brew in because it's just the right height and it works. Do you have things like that? Um, probably not as detailed as that, but I get it. You know, I had, um, I had, uh, a coffee mug that one of my employees gave me a while ago and it says world's okay, boss. Thanks guys. Well, Debbie, I appreciate your time. You've been a pleasure. I want to give you the last few moments to put out your contact information or let listeners know how they can find out more about you. Well, thanks for having me Damon. I really appreciate it. Best way to, you know, stay connected is, you know, go to my website, Debbiepage.com, Debb I E P a G e.com. Uh, I'm on social media, Debbie K page consistently everywhere. Instagram, if you want to see what I'm eating or cooking, crafting. Uh, and then I think, you know, for women business owners who are listening, I have a private Facebook group. Called the women's business profit lab. And it is a community that I've curated over the last five years of nearly a thousand women business owners from around the world where we talk about, you know, ideas and best practices for business. And every Wednesday at 9:00 AM Pacific, I do 30 minutes of free coaching, uh, based upon, uh, what the community has requested. And we do that in, you know, 12 week rolling increments. So. It's a lot of fun, great people, great resources to get to know. So I'd love to connect with listeners. Very cool. Thanks for throwing that out there. Debbie page. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. Thanks for having me.

17 years ago, today's guest received a call that his dad had cancer. Two years later, his mom got cancer, too. Yet, inspired by his parents' survival, he had a new determination to focus on what he could control in life. That's when he connected the dots that everything is a puzzle, available to solve; health, business, life. He's now on a mission to help others live their best life by giving each person permission to find what works best for them as an individual. Please welcome Scott Stanfield. 0:30 - Scott's Stanfield Background 4:29 -  Operating System 6:54 - Figuring Things Out 9:36 - Career Span 14:06 - Go Cart Racer to Businessman Contact Info https://modernlongevitarian.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrstanfield/ https://www.instagram.com/straightcabbage/   Scott Stanfield, thanks for jumping and learning from others. How are you doing? Oh, I'm doing great. How are you? Good. Uh, you and I know each other out, so we, you know, a lot of these times I have these podcasts guests and when we chat, it's the first time, but you and I will get into how, um, you and I started chatting together, but not until I ask two questions. Question number one is what's your background and why should our listeners be caring about what you have to say today? Well, my background is almost 33 years restaurant management and, uh, the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. And yeah. Went from dishwasher with no experience to manager in a summer. So 90 days, yeah, it was pretty, pretty wild ride, you know, to go from dishwasher to prep, cook to, um, mind cooked expediter to, Hey, we've got a position for you as a manager and, uh, so bye. And, you know, I've worked as a restaurant manager more than I've done any other part of the restaurant. I know how to do all of those things that I have worked as a server and a bartender, but you know what my background really is, is working in one of the most stressful environments that you can imagine, and really trying to, um, deliver excellence five star reviews with, um, You know, not everybody speaks the same language and you know, not everybody has experience and not everybody's trained. So a lot of entry level people that are just passing through and, and so, um, and then how to manage myself and really live the healthiest life is really what I, what I talk about now. And, um, you know, because I did a lot of things wrong. I had to, I had high blood pressure at 1331. Um, I, I was overweight twice, had to lose 40 pounds twice. So that's really what, what my background is. And I'm sitting here taking notes. I've got a lot of stuff. Uh, I want to touch on, but not until question number two, which is okay. So you told us all these cool things about, ya know, let's learn more about what you suck at. What do you suck at Scott? Well, I think the reason that I figured out how to, you know, live a really healthy life in a stressful environment, because I really sucked at it in the beginning. I didn't know how to do that really. And you know, all things being equal when I was a PE major and athletic training major at university of South Carolina, it was 157 pounds, you know, five foot 10. I was, you know, you know, ripped and, and everything was great. You put me in a restaurant, am I. I gate, I go to 185 pounds, right. And not sleeping and drinking too much. And those types of things and what I sucked at was, was balance. And I think this is what I'm really delivering, is what I've learned through the process of getting balanced in my life. I was going to ask you how you went from, you know, the PE to you saying you've been overweight twice, but that makes sense that you already hit that. So why don't we just kind of start there? So you and I met because we had a, we have a mutual friend, Sean Boucher is actually been on the show and I messaged Shawn and said, Hey, I'm looking for somebody that knows this and this about, uh, certain types of diets. Sean is a chef as well. And he said, uh, I'd be happy to help you, but I think. My friend Scott would be better suited. So that's how you and I got, uh, got connected and we've talked a lot. And what I admire about you is a lot of what you touched on is, um, you know, some of the listeners will know that I, I acquired an auto immune condition a while back, and as I've tried to explore that and figure out how to make the most of, of life with that condition. Now I've talked a lot of doctors and it's just kinda like, well, Here. Here's what you got and here's the options, the end. And there aren't really options. And so when I talk to you about it, I was, I was really appreciative of what you touched on, where you set up. I've had problems with health, and I just figured it out. I just delve into it, trial and error, AB testing. And that really resonated with me because that's what I've been doing. Cause I felt like talking to doctors was just like, Very black and white and you know, all, all, all conditions are the same. All solutions are the same. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work the end. And so I was really drawn to you and I connecting for that reason. So why don't we kind of start there and is that, that, is that the way that you've kind of always been, or because you started realize you're gaining weight and being unhealthy, he said, shit, I need to do something. And you're just kind of forced to figure it out. Well, it's, it's an operating system that really came from my childhood and that being okay. Race go-karts, uh, really wanted to be a NASCAR driver. I wanted to be Dale Earnhardt and, um, And so what happens is, um, you know, when you're a racer and I would, I did, you know, really well. And my parents really, you know, backed me in, in the best I possibly could. And I was fully sponsored by kart shop that made their own chassies and had engines. And so I had a full ride. I didn't cost me anything to race for like the last six years of my career, one, you know, national championships and state championships, and other awards in there as well. And. Eraser does AB testing all the time Right. And you're also are willing to scrap what was working last week because you got beat this week or adjust it and tweak it and do those types of things. I think that's one reason why I was successful in the restaurant business. So early is because I came in with this operating system that allowed me to see. The whole system as a systemically and you make this one adjustment that affects this thing because you change a left rear tire, even when you're racing ovals, and it could change your track time by two tenths of a second, if it's two solved or you had to run too much air in it or too little air in it, those types of things. And so everything's a puzzle for me. And so I lay these systems over everything that I do, and it happened to be, I did the same thing with my health and. You know, when you, okay. So you're working at a time when you're like, okay, I don't have time to sleep now. I mean, you know, or I don't have, I'm really busy. What do I give up? And a lot of people give up sleep, and that's the worst thing you can give up. And we can talk more about that later, but, um, You know, so I had to like figure out how to make all these pieces work and, and what were the elements in this? Just like, what's the element and being a great entrepreneur and a business, you got to have a good product and a service and solve a problem. And you got to have a marketing plan, got to have good SEO. If you have a website, you know, those types of things. So people can find you, it's the same thing with your health as well. Why? So I already stated, I admire that in you and I find myself to kind of fall under that umbrella of putting everything in life as an algorithm and the puzzle and figuring it out. Why are other people not like that? I don't expect you to have an answer, but I'm going to see if you do well. I started talking about Bruce Lipton and epigenetics and, you know, basically what we are as copies of the first six years of our lives. Right. Because our brains are in theta. Excuse me, our brains and data. When we first are born to the first six or seven years of our life, and we're seeing what other people are doing. It's why there's multiple generations of Irish people in New York that are in the fire department or the police department. And there's, you know, multiple generations that are doctors or attorneys or truck drivers or those types of things. And it's because we see what we see other people and how they solve a problem. And so these, these way we handle problems are handed down to us. Um, generation after generation of generation, just in this first six years. And, you know, I think the only thing that's going to change the way we think is repetition or desire to be really good at something or an impact, right. Uh, you know, there's things like death and divorce. It really changed our personality. You know, that can happen that way, but repetition is a big piece of that. And when you're driven, you know, to succeed at something, and for me, that was racing, I raced for eight years and I never won a race. I raced for 15 years total and won multiple national championships, eight state championships, and with sportsman of the year for the national series. So, um, I was put into an element to where. You know, there were no radios in the, in the helmets racing go-carts it was against the rules and way dads couldn't coach you to block or do this type of thing. So I had to figure those things out at age seven and age 15, I was going a hundred miles an hour, 80 miles an hour, depending on the track size and, you know, age 17, I'm going 110 miles an hour with a, you know, A 20 horsepower, you know, on, you know, sitting beside me, I'm racing on a fifth mile, uh, and going around it. And I'm like 11.7 seconds, right? Turn in 10,000 RPMs. And I'm 17, 18 years old. So you think differently when you're put in that situation, on the high level, not racing as people ended up making in the NASCAR. So it wasn't like, it was just like this. Go-kart that you think of, you know, just at a fun park, right? Or, you know, K speed on an electric car, there's a similar, but it was open tracks and, and, and rules and, and I mean, it was just an intense culture to be part of. So I think it is, has to do with striving to be excellent and trying to, I was trying to solve these complex problems at a very young age and it just carried over into my being an adult. Hmm. So, so you had about a 15 year career span, but the first eight of it, no success. And then it was the latter, the latter half where you started to get some wins. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I. You know, it was all about learning how to do it. Right. And you could only do it. And there was no internet. There was no video games other than pole position in the arcade. No, it was like, it wasn't like I was gaming it, you know, on the weekend or during the week. And they go into the weekend and doing it. It was all like old school visualization. Right. You know, and I mean, I was sitting in my go-kart in the backyard, you know, I get my mom to help me pull it out when my dad was at worst, I could sit in it and do that. And so you're. You know, and so it was like you had to learn it and you can only do it when you went to a race. And so the scene of that is, uh, a couple of them, as I've learned that, you know, life is really more about slow and steady wins the race, right. You know, where you have to really put the time in to learn a skill. And I had to learn the skill cause I wasn't as talented as other people and to learn other aspects of it. I had to make the go-kart. You know, be faster than other people because I wasn't a better driver than everybody else. Another thing is, is my dad understood that how, what he called seat time was so important that we would go to an asphalt race on Saturday morning. And then at night we would drive over and go to the dirt track. And with the same cart, we would race at two different races in the same day to get as much seat time as possible. And also every condition, if it rained, I was out there drying the track off the, what, the track on the dirt track. I was out there doing that. So I learned how to drive in all these different conditions. And, you know, I live in the mountains of park city, Utah, and she'll drive in the snow is fun for me. It reminds me of driving on those slick dirt tracks. And when I was a kid. You know, but, but yeah, it takes time to learn a skill and it took me time to learn how to win. So it was a gradual progression where you would, okay. I finished last right then I would finish next to last and then I would move up and I'd okay. I finished 15 out of 20 and then I, then I go to a national race and I wouldn't even make the main event. And then next thing I'm going to, you know, a couple years later I'm going to a national event and I finished in the top 10 and you'll get trophies back. Then you'd give trophies to everybody. Right. You know, you would, you would go and I would finish six and a national race and I would finish six, six. So I kinda got to that spot now. And then, and the next thing, you know, I'm qualifying first at a national event. And then we go to like a world championship in Daytona and I qualify, you know, third and finished second in the race and, you know, and then next thing you know, it's like, um, you know, winning points, championships, and, and those types of things. And so it just put, progressed up and. And the life lesson in that for me was you have to love something long enough, uh, to, to go through the tough parts to get good at it. So you gotta love it enough to go through the tough parts. Yeah. Do you remember that first win? I remember the first state race win or one of the very first ones. Um, I'm being chilled thinking about it. Yeah. Um, Oh gosh. Um, You know, I was a junior, I was an older, so it was probably 14. 15 years old. Um, when I won this race, it wasn't my home track. And the track conditions of dirt, dirt tracks changed, especially when you had the, it depends on how many people came and the weather and how much they wet it. And if you put calcium in the water and all these types of things. And so yeah, knew the track really well, but it never really got this hard and fast. And so when tracks dirt tracks got hard and fast, a lot of my asphalt road core skills would kick in. And most people specialize. They either race, dirt, or they race asphalt, they re did, did both. Right. And, um, luckily for me, you know, the team that I drove for, uh, Charlie Sox is the owner Sox racing. They made shadow carts for years. He, um, He was one of the very, he was the very first person to ever win a national championship in both surfaces and, and configurations. That example was set in our shop. That is like, this is just what we do. And we can, we can move back and forth between those things. And so versatility was a big part of what we did and what we do. And, uh, the guy that I raced with Dan, he still races some and he's building engines and. You know, he's got his sons involved in doing a lot of stuff there now. And so it's really, and I worked there 30 years ago when I was in high school when Jen just out of high school before college. All right. So I want to jump ahead a little bit. You had mentioned that after racing days, you started in a restaurant, um, or was, was day one in a restaurant still when you were younger and doing a little bit of racing. I kind of blended them together a little bit, but I, I had retired from racing. Really. I had decided that I w you know, cause you back then you couldn't make any money, a go cart racing. It was like, it was just a, a hobby that you did. You know, I got a full ride, but I didn't make money at it. I worked at the go-cart shop making $6 at 50 cents an hour. That's when I started there, I was making a minimum wage at $3 and 5 cents an hour. So it wasn't like breaking the bank in any way, putting in 40 hours working on go-carts and then race working on my personal carts after work and on the racing on the weekends and those things, it wasn't like I was waiting tables or any of those type of stuff. So I broke clean of that. And probably about six months just kind of worked at a land surveying company. They really convinced me that I needed to go to school. I had already gone to technical school to be a machinist. I think that's another piece of me understanding how these pieces fit together, put together. And, uh, just with a couple of classes left and I decided I didn't want to be yeah. A machinist. And so I started going to university of South Carolina and I'm like, what are my interests? My interests are business and athletics. Uh, so that's how I ended up. I flipped a coin when admissions called me, you can't do both. I flipped the coin and decided to be a PE teacher. And they talked me into double major. And when I went to orientation, so I was athletic training major and PE, which serves me, serves me well. And so. There was a break. There was a small break in there. And so then what happened is my love has always been racing. That was my first love. My first passion. And that brought in, you know, working out and exercise and go into the gym because the stronger you were cause there no seatbelts it to hold yourself in the, in the cart. Right. You just pitchers. One side of my neck was bigger than the other holding the helmet. Right. I was like all set, you know, it was like really kind of, I had a mullet too, which I'll never show you this. Right. Uh, but, um, it was, it was. Really nice mullet. And I'm telling you this, is there such a thing back in the eighties? Uh, there was, yeah, I was early blonde hair and, you know, hang it. You had to get your mullet long enough to where it hung out the helmet long enough where the girls liked it. Right. So it was kind of, I'm laughing because I have a brother in law and his girlfriend is just absolutely in love with mullets. She's posting all the time. Anytime she sees like a mullet meme. That's her jam, but, uh, so there was a break for me and then I started going to school and then I had, you know, it was a really cool thing. Um, one of the, the kids that I help, one of the juniors I helped with racing go carts. His dad owned an apartment building was an old mill. That was, um, Down across the street from the engineering building right off the campus of university of South Carolina. And, um, uh, it was mr. Huffman and I helped them at one race and gave them my setup that I had done. And that was one of the biggest races I ever won. It was really quick that that day. And, um, and I gave them my set up because. The people who were helping them were really good friends of mine. We used to be on the same team together and those things. And so mr. Huffman, let me live in this apartment building for free for my first year of school. And then he sold a building and I had to start paying rent and all those things. And I'm like, I need to get a job. And I'd always told me, I told myself that if I didn't make it into a NASCAR, that I wanted to own a restaurant and I don't know why it was just a draw to it. I don't have the energy or any of those things. And. Uh, of it, but we ate in a lot of restaurants that we traveled. So that was something that drew me to it. And I applied it probably 15 different restaurants didn't get hired. And finally, I got a referral from a guy that I was a bartender at this restaurant opening out on Lake Murray and he was friends with the people opening it, and we were in the same training classes together. And he made a referral and I got a job as a dishwasher there. And, uh, haven't looked back, you know, that's crazy. I was going to ask you, um, you know, if you had an interest in, in the restaurant world beforehand, so that's interesting. Now you had made a comment when we first started talking that the restaurant industry is the most stressful environment you can imagine. Why is that, you know what goes on behind the scenes? You touched on a couple about, um, differences in language entry level position, people come in and go on, but us as everyday customers, what do we not see? You? Don't see. People's lack of commitment to the job. You don't see. And so therefore there's probably in bigger restaurants, multiple call outs every day. So you write a schedule that with all things being equal, there's very little padding in it for taking into consideration of somebody calls out because your trial. Uh, most of my calls out sick, right. Or, you know, here in park city call out because was a powder day or, or at the beach, because the surf's really good. Uh, you know, cause I worked in Santa Monica, I've worked in here in park city, Utah, you know, Hilton head Island, uh, you know, all these different places. And so you're, you're hiring people who are, you know, they're in town for different reason. And so. You know, people may just like try to take advantage of it or another term that we use, they call up because they're hung over or have whiskey flu as we would say. Right. Right. And so what you don't see is that, you know, when you see a manager, that's actually standing at the host stand. It may not be because that's where they need to beat us because they have to be because somebody called out of work. Right. And so that's what you really don't see there. And you obviously don't see it for, if it's a closed kitchen, you'll see what's going on behind the kitchen. You know, someone like me as a general manager may be hosting, you know, and helping we call it, follow the bubble. People come in and you have all these people coming in and you're helping seed everybody. Then you're going in your back and you're helping make waters to get every, all the waters out. And then, um, and then about that time, what's happening is your pantry station is they're making cold appetizers. They're making salads and they're also making desserts. They're getting, they're making three courses and they're overwhelmed because it could've been somebody called out. It's just like your staffing is for one person and you're busier than you expected. So the general managers back there in a suit, a lot of times bailing out the kitchen and making desserts Brulay in your dessert and running the food out, doing all those things and, and that type of stuff. So there's a lot of things that go on and it's a very, this business is condensed in a very short period of time. And. Here's another really crucial aspect of this. There are micro deadlines for every single table or guest in the, in the building. You know, you can make a reservation for seven 30 and if I seat you at seven 35 you're okay. But if I push it to seven 47, you're upset because you have, why did I make a reservation? There's a deadline and you get sat down. And then it's like how long we were judging this. On a micro level, this experience, how long does it take to get you my water or greeted? Get my water, get my drink from the bar, get my appetizer, get my entree was my entree cooked the right way. How long? All the way down to, like how long does it take to get the check? Right. All those things where the customer is judging this there's probably. You know, sometimes, you know, 10, depending off as a fast casual walk in, or tend to 40 different micro deadlines that are, that are being happening at all with the same time at different places, even in one server section who has a four or five table section and having to hit all those deadlines. Yeah. You know, and that person could not get sleep that day could have been working. This is their second job. Um, I got a call from their boyfriend, girlfriend, or husband, or wife or kid texts, and they're been in dry storage and they got that and they're emotionally hijacked. It could be hung over. Right. It could be that too. Right? So there's all these things that are going on and people don't really take the job seriously a lot of times, cause it's not a profession for them. And you're trying to deliver five star experiences with all of those things going on with hundreds of people at one time, it's a pretty intense environment. And um, I guess that's why the saying is if you can't handle the, he get out of the kitchen, right. It's a pretty, pretty intense place. I imagine it sounds like the demographic that makes up a kitchen is, you know, part. Of the people like you that are super passionate about it. And then the other side is just people there temporarily. And there's, I imagine there's not a lot of in between the people that are semi committed, um, may want to pursue this as a career, but aren't, they got one foot in the door and one foot out is, is that. A fair assumption. It is you have, you have people who are, you know, you, you may have someone, a chef, the super passionate about food, and they may have gone to CIA, the culinary Institute of America. And, you know, you know, but their job is really more about placing orders and hitting food calls and hitting their numbers and doing those types of things and coaching and training and those things, they may spend some time on the line cooking, but you know, when you get to that level, You know, their, their commitment is not actually making great food. They may make, they may be in a position to make up specials and those things, it depends on how they structure their job. There are some chefs that they really are in the kitchen a lot more, and they have, uh, their sous chef, which is their under chef assistant to them, do a lot of the paperwork and do those things. So just, they structure different ways based off their desires and their, um, and their skill sets and those types of things. Um, but yeah, there, there are, when you think about it, you know, it's like it, you know, it's interesting level, a lot of positions are, and you work your way up and we're training people and, you know, they may be commuting from, you know, uh, have a longer commute and they'll change jobs, jobs for 50 cents more an hour. Right. That may be closer to them or maybe yeah, not. And so it's, you know, build team building is a very tough piece of the puzzle and hiring people that have the right characteristics is really a tough thing. And that's one of the things I really dialed in on. Okay. As I was, um, you know, as I was leading restaurants is how to hire people that. Um, really have the right characteristics, uh, and asking the right questions and understanding of what the answer to the question we're in the, to get the best possible outcomes for that. And so, yeah, having the right people in the cultivating the right ecosystem are the really two top things. Yeah. What is one of the most unique slash amazing slash bizarre slash standout memories that you have from the restaurant career? Uh, I think it's probably, um, uh, one of them comes to mind is, uh, Um, you know, getting, well, gosh, there's so many of them, what comes to mind is like getting chewed out by guests and really turning those things around. Right. One of them came to mind actually was this lady was her birthday. She's 95 years old and really going over and talking to her and her nieces, you know, telling me it's like, yeah, she's. The difference about her. She has a goal. She wants to live to be 105, and really, and really connecting with this lady. Who's 95 years old and saying that she wants to live to be 105, you know, you know, things go wrong. Right. You know, you think I just explained this whole system, these micro deadlines, you know, that are going on. I spent a lot of time working in a prime grade steakhouses like classic American Alcart steakhouses, uh, that are expensive and people really, if they're going to lay down that a level of money for their steak, they want to be cooked the way they want it to be cooked in. And as our job to cook this steak, And it's 1800 degree broiler to the temperature that they desire. And I remember this one particular one, this lady steak was overcooked and. Uh, it is really, really a funny situation. I had just finished reading the book by Chris boss, uh, his FBI hostage negotiation techniques, which is called never split the difference, negotiate like your life depends on it. And on top of that, I was the trainer for our hotel and restaurant on how to turn upset guests around. And there's really a psychological sequencing in this process. And the first thing is to hear. What they have to say, just listen intently. And it was really interesting. This lady, this takes over cooked is a bonus filet is a $65 steak and is overcooked. And the reason it was overcoats is cause the server mistakenly, um, you know, had, had, had done mistake. And so it was overcooked. And so I went out to her. I said, you know what? You know, ma'am, uh, I, I came out to talk to her. She was really upset. And, uh, I did everything I could to do it, but she wouldn't let, let me take the stake and she didn't want me the cook or another steak. Right. So she chewed me out. Tableside I've ruined. We ruined her, her husband's best friends, you know? Um, birthday because her stake was messed up. Right. It was really what she believed. Right. It was really odd thing. So we ended up, we did the best we could with it. And she was so emotional hijack. She went to the restroom and in hotels, restaurants, uh, the restroom is in the lobby of the hotel was not actually in the restaurant. Like it would be in a stand alone. So I'm standing at the host stand checking in with the hostess. She walks back in and she's. Tune me out again. He goes, I got you out twice for the same mistake that she wouldn't let me fix, or she wouldn't let me cook another steak, which when I say she wouldn't let me, it would have made things worse. If I would have delivered her another right. She was bad upset. And uh, so. You know, she threatened to she's in social media marketing, she's threatened to, you know, like, you know, slander us on social media and all these other things, but it was just the frustrating, most memorable thing with that is that I, you know, no matter what I did, she was unhappy. And so then I started using some FBI hostage negotiation techniques quarter to really, and it frustrated her and I was able to turn it around at that point. And so a mirroring technique, and then also a labeling technique, which I don't know if you've heard of that stuff and heard of Chris Voss, but it's super impactful and super, super useful, especially for a leader because you now have these tools when people are really upset and you can help connect them back to reality when they're they're hijacked. I like that. So does she end up chilling out a little bit? She calmed down a little bit. Uh, but I, you know, we obviously comp the entire steak, right? Because she didn't need it. She didn't like it, you know, and those types of things, but the unfortunate piece is, is that someone like me who really cares about their job and the service and the product that we're delivering is I want to get them what they want. I want to give it and the way they want it. And when somebody get that emotional, they won't let you do it as hard to, um, feel good about because you feel like you didn't do something right. Because, and not everything's gonna be perfect, but, um, you didn't, you weren't able to deliver what they wanted. And it did, you know, because of her, the reaction to it or emotional reaction to it. It did mess up the dining experience for that entire, our family and their friends. Yeah. Yeah. So you've taken a lot of what you've learned and kind of doing your own thing. Now, doing a little bit of health consulting and growing that. Um, how, how did you evolve into wanting to pursue that more of a one-on-one environment? Well, Well, I got furloughed from the job I had in Santa Monica back in March. And you know, this is something that has been on the back burner, uh, for me for a long time. I I'm, I'm really spending all this time doing all this research on how to. Nope, optimize my performance day in and day out in a very stressful environment. I was also inspired by the fact that my, both of my parents are cancer survivors with my parents got cancer in their mid fifties. My dad got prostate cancer, my mom, uterine cancer, and had to have chemo and surgery and go through the whole nine yards. And dad's 72. Now mom turned 70 in April. And so, um, they're, they're still kicking up a ruckus and back in South Carolina and, um, And so I was furloughed. I was like, okay, what am I, what am I going to do? I'd been doing a brand around being the restaurant GM coach and. Um, my, my life coach, a really good friend of mine said, Scott, modern longevity. Tara is such a strong brand and it's so needed right now. You know, you should consider it. And it took me like 47 seconds to really say, you know, you're what you're right. And. Because we took me out of the restaurant unless I'm asked specific questions. Like you asked me, I really don't think about it that much. I don't think about leadership that much. You don't think about those things. I'm not trying to solve those problems, but I'll wake up in the morning. I'm like, okay, what's my morning routine. Like I was waiting for you to come on. I did one round of Wim, Hof breathing exercises before that. I, um, you know, I've meditated this morning. Right. And I do transcendental meditation. Right. And so I think about. These elements of, of how I can, um, a optimize my performance today. I'll extend my health span tomorrow. Like my is obviously my genetic, uh, capability or expression of my genetics in a certain way to get cancer in my mid fifties. Cause both my parents got it. My, my dad's dad passed away cancer 62. So he probably had cancer in his mid fifties as well, or at least his late fifties. And then. Um, how can I move that out to 85, 95, 105. Right. So what I think about, so that has expended extending lifespan. So my, my, my dad's dad, um, pass away 62, my dad's 72, I'm shooting for 102. Right. So really moving it that way. So how did I get there? A really good conversation with someone who really knew me from the inside out and what I believed in and who I really am. And I listened to her. Do you think if that person didn't do that, you might not be pursuing this? I think so. I think I would have taken the easier route and continued with the restaurant GM coach and not taking the time to do this. COVID pivot. Like most everybody, a lot of people are doing. I probably would have still would have been like, I would have gone deeper on that. And it would, it goes, it would have been easier for me instead of saying and looking inwardly and going okay. Yeah, you bring up a good point that a lot of people are probably going through, as you said, a COBIT pivot to some people because they have an opportunity to like yourself to pursue something that's that they've had an interest in before other people not really having a choice and. You still hear me? Yeah, I guess you repeat that last one. I didn't hear it. Uh, now you're going to hair hall. Let me make a note to have Kevin cut this out. Okay. You bring up an interesting point about COVID pivot and some people are kind of forced into that circumstance. Other people have been fortunate enough, like yourself to have a little bit of a passion. Already in mind, on the back burner to jump in, as you started this journey, a lot of other people are a step or two behind you. Um, do you think that you've found enough momentum to carry or your way through to success? You know, what have you learned so far? Anything that helps people that are that one or two steps behind you catch up to maintaining that momentum? Well, I, I think that I've built some momentum for sure. And, you know, there's, I think that there's a chance that. I may have to step back into doing something on a smaller scale insight as a job to support my family, because unemployment is going to run out. At some point, I don't expect, you know, governments from the check checks from the government to keep showing up. And those types of things, which we only got one right back, you know, four or five months ago. Um, so I it's, you know, when you're starting something, you know, uh, it does take time sometimes to really. They're really gained attraction and the, and get the momentum. You think that, you know, the name of my brand is a word that hasn't really been use for 150 years. Longevity, Marion people don't really know what that means. They know what vegetarian means, you know, they know, um, you know, that someone's Quito or those types of things, but they don't really. Uh, and so I'm putting a word back into the English language that's very rarely used. So that makes it, that's one of the good things about the brand, but it's also one of the bad things about the brand. So I, you know, I know in the back of my mind that because I have a mortgage and two kids, a wife and eight chickens and, you know, two dogs, uh, two lovebirds and a cat. Um, that I got a lot of, a lot of miles to, depending on me to feed them. Right. And so, um, I may have to, you know, someone is single, right? And I've been, you know, working in a restaurant, you know, for, for five or six years. And they have a passion about, you know, about this and they have a low expenses. They could, you know, during this time they could have gotten, you know, personal training type of thing, and then go work in a gym as a personal trainer and transfer some skills that way. And that may be something that I do, but. I know that there's, there's going to probably need to be a bridge for me to make it to where I go full time and continue to do for this full time. But I'm putting up a hundred percent into whatever. Yeah. Why don't you define longevity Marion for us? Well, as long as you have a tear longevity plus Tarion right. And you know, for me, it really means it means extending your health span or the prime years of your lives out as far as possible. And. You know what it really means actually, when I searched it eight and a half years ago, when I thought of this word, I found it in a book on Google books and it was in this living green volume, one 24, and it was referring to people over a hundred years old. And we use that a word now centered in an area and where it's, you know, these blue zones where people live to be over a hundred years old and in the highest per capita percentages. And so this, it really is just about taking your health and giving it a long view versus like, what am I hacking today to feel good today, but making decisions that are good for the long run, like. Yeah, I've been keto for four and a half years. And you know, this, we've talked about this a lot. You've been on the keto diet too. When we start looking at blue zones, start looking at longevity diet by Victor Longo, dr. Victor Longo, um, they're 90% plant based and being Quito and being plant-based is difficult. I know that, um, you have to we'll call wrote a book called keto Tarion that has a lot of plant based recipes in there. And we even talked about that as well in it, you know? And so I'm migrating, you know, more, you know, more about being plant-based and now, because I'm really focused on the longevity piece of it versus just, you know, optimizing myself to, to live the best life and being able to skip multiple meals by managing restaurants and those things. I mean, I don't know. You obviously got food in the refrigerator, and I know you work from home, but imagine working in a restaurant where you have everything from bacon to cheesecakes and everything in between prepped, and you can eat it for free all day long and you're working 10, 12 hour days, right? It's you there's no garden is amazing. Yeah, it is. That's why I gained 30 pounds in a summer. And that's why I had to lose 40 pounds twice. Right. I was definitely spoiled. Right. When I wanted to have a salad, I was walked over to the salad bar, wash my hands, put on a pair of gloves. Here's the salad makes them want. And here's all these toppings right. Already prepped and cut. And I could just do this and I had six salad dressings freshly made. I could just put on there what I wanted. Oh, and can you cook me a piece of salmon to go on here? It was just like, it was. Like easy. And then I come home, it's like, I gotta make a style. This is going to take some time. Right. It's a different things. And there's just the other day at Costco, I bought these pre made beats. Organic beets are pre, pre cooked. It's been like, it's been like, it's like awesome. Cause I just gotta pull them out of the fridge and cut it up, put it on top of whatever. Yeah. It's convenient. So I'm never been really like, um, A meal prepper or those things, because I could just eat where I go to work.   And so I'm having to transition that way there. Well, as we get closer to wrapping up, I want, so you talk about extending life span, going past a hundred, correct me if I'm wrong, but was your inspiration. To be a 95 year old crappy man that complains about stakes. Is that when this all came to peak? Oh no, no, no.   Um, initially my first goal was just, you know, don't be fat. Right. And then it was like, don't get cancer. Right. That was the first really two things. And I knew I could control I'm going to put in and all my body. So, you know, I'm married. Super smart. Beautiful. I know you talk about your wife being hot, but my wife saw it too.   Right. So we're fine. Yeah.   And you didn't say your wife's hot or you just said she's hot, so we're good. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen the pictures yet. I don't know. I can't. I think, I think for me, my wife's hotter for me. Right. And so, yeah, but my wife had been a pescatarian, vegetarian and pescatarian for a number of years when my parents started got cancer and those things were happening.   So I switched my diet and. And then, you know, I was doing a lot of things wrong. You know, I was a fat vegetarian. I mean, when I turned 40, when I turned 40, I'm like, Oh, I'm doing everything right. And what I did is my diet, really, it made some markers better. My blood pressure went down because I had high blood pressure 10 years before that.   And so my blood pressure went from one 20 over 80 to like 100 over 70 by changing my diet as I got older, but I was 40 pounds overweight. And then, you know, then I started like, okay, what, what, what do I need to do? And then as like, I'm working at a hospital, um, salt Lake, regional medical center, you probably heard of it, the old Holy cross hospital and the director of food and beverage there.   And they do bariatric surgeries there. And one of the doctors said, you know, that. Weight loss is, you know, 70% diet. And I'm like, well, gosh, I'm just, all I did was started doing P90X. I didn't really change my diet really. Cause I thought my diet was on point cause I'm a vegetarian. Well, then I read this book called the warrior diet on intermittent fasting.   Okay. And nobody was intermittent fasting eight years ago, other than the guy who wrote the book. Right. It was like me and him that were doing right. You know, but now it's like some people who are like, you know, 20 years old are intermittent fasting and it's like, it's something new. And, and so as I progressed and I started putting all these blocks together of all these different things and doing, using Bruce Lee's.   Philosophy of absorb everything, keep what is useful discard, what is not, and make it uniquely your own. Because what I need for me is different than what you need. There's some similarities because to lose weight, your insulin's gotta be low, right? You gotta be at a calorie deficit at some point, and you can do that with keto.   Or you can do that by, you know, just doing calorie restriction. There's different ways to skin the cat, so to speak. And then as, as I, it became health span. And, uh, you know, in extending to prime years. And then when you a brand on longevity, your whole goal set, your mindset changes around that, you know?   And so this is something I plan on doing for another 45, 46 years until my mid nineties and being still being as close to a hundred percent as I possibly can be at that particular age, that's really the game. How can I be the best, a hundred year old? Yeah. Yeah. I like it. All right, Scott, you and I could go on forever cause you and I have a relationship outside of this podcast and we geek out on health stuff.   I'm going to, I'm going to call it a wrap right there and thank you for jumping on learning from others and give you the last few moments to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. Well, you can try to figure out how to spell modern longevity, marion.com. Right. And do that search my name, Scott Stanfield.   And you'll, you'll see some, some things there. Um, and I hope that you put some links in the show notes. Um, on Instagram, my handle is @straightcabbage. Yeah. Yeah.   Uh, so as a good way to find me, um, there on LinkedIn at Scott R Stanfield and, uh, I, I put out a mix of things on LinkedIn, some leadership stuff, and, and also things about. You know, longevity and sleep and those types of things, um, you know, and health span and diet and, and, uh, you know, and Instagram's more about sometimes like what workout I'm doing, what food I'm eating, you know, those things I'm making.   And we have a private face group, group PI. We have a private Facebook. Book group as well, guys. Why can't I talk right now? Um, it's just called, um, it's modern longevity, Marion as well. So, um, if you want to join that, I asked him questions like Monday, I put, you know, it's Monday and you have 20% more likely to have a heart attack today.   So what are you doing to mitigate stress today? Right. And, and then Tuesday I put, you know, uh, Californians are less likely to barbecue on Tuesday and you know, day a week. And I went, duh, it's taco Tuesday. Right.   Uh, yeah. And really trying to put some cool articles about people who are really living the long Jared Jebbit turn lifestyle. I've also a podcast, modern longevity, Marion. Yeah. And, um, I'm, I'm really excited about that because I'm really starting to do some longevity, Marion spotlights, where I'm interviewing people that are really living it.   And so really dear friend of mine, that was a mentor of mine for about five years. He's 78, he's Quito. He fast for 36 hours once or twice a week. And, uh, we did, we did six mile hikes together and, uh, just really a cool, cool thing to really spotlight people are doing it right at that age. So I'm really excited about school.   Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Stop. Scott Stanfield, everybody modern longevity. Marion. We'll put the links in the show notes. Thanks so much, Scott. Thank you. It's my pleasure.  

As a business owner, stress comes with the territory. Today's guest is a best selling author, speaker, and is here to get you out of your own head so you can break free from that stress. Please welcome Byron Morrison. 2:32 - Setting the Expectation 4:11 - Working with CEOs 6:42 - The difference 13:13 - Strategies 17:29 - Slow and Steady Contact Info https://www.linkedin.com/authorbyronmorrison https://www.facebook.com/byronmorrisonauthor https://byronmorrison.co.uk   Byron Morrison. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you? I'm really good. Thanks. Thanks for having me on today. Yeah, so you and I, we've kind of connected on Facebook and engaged a little back and forth, so it's nice to actually have an opportunity to chat and dig into digging deeper into what you, what you work with and you know, how you help people. Yeah, it's amazing how this kind of social world, especially with the lockdown at the moment as connected to me, just so many new amazing people I've gotten to speak to that probably wouldn't have had the opportunity without it. So while there's a lot of kind of obvious negative stuff coming on, I think it's important to look at the positives and how this is kind of bringing a lot of us together as well. For sure. Yeah. I've talked to others kind of on that topic. And I think that, uh, you know, looking back in time, hopefully at some point there's, uh, an equal amount of positives and things of evolution that come from this that we can kind of look at, you know, there's obvious downsides, but hopefully we can kind of look back on this time with, uh, some big positives. Yeah. I was actually having a really interesting conversation about this earlier. Sorry to kind of go off topic, but if you can try to be relevant to what we'll probably talk about today, and that is, I think one of the big wins and positives coming out of this is it's going to completely change kind of working lifestyle for a lot of people. If you look at like the companies before that were saying, they couldn't do remote working. They very quickly had to find a way to give people that flexibility. I think, long term, it's going to improve a law's quality. Of life for people in very different ways that they can be more around for their kids and focus on their health and enjoy themselves more. So hopefully that will be one of the positives know, I've, I've kind of joked with other guests about how, um, you know, I've talked on other podcasts about, you know, setting expectations with your clients. Cause the majority of microbes I've largely worked from home. And so a lot of people said, well, you know, how do you run an agency and manage being at home and maintain that professional image? And I say, okay, I don't. I said X, I said X . And you know, I tell as long as you're proactive with your clients and you say, Hey, I'm at home today. So if you hear my kids, that's why then it's not so weird when they actually do hear your kids. But if you don't say anything and all of a sudden there's a zoo that comes running behind you, then it's weird because they were expecting the office environment. So I actually kind of joked a couple of times how now it's much more easier to present that because people get it now. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's kind of setting the expectation and now that's one of the kind of, I hate to use the term that the new normal I'm so used to just having that background noise in the destructions and humanizing people in a lot of ways. So they, cause there's less of that kind of front of looking like you have it all together. Cause everyone's kind of in the same boat. Yeah. All right, well, let's do the usual two questions. So question number one is what are you an expert at and what are we going to potentially learn from you today? So what I do is help CEOs and business owners really Uplevel their way of thinking so that they can make better decisions that you can execute without are you thinking, and they can handle the new levels of stress and pressure that come along with running that business. Okay. And we'll get dig into that here in a second, but not until you answer question number two, which is what do you suck at? I'm honestly terrible at anything to do with manual labor. Alright, DIY, are you repairs? Luckily, my girlfriend seems to be very good at that sort of thing. So she kind of takes control of anything to do with the house, but I'm not allowed to be used power tools or habits in case of emergency injuring myself. That's funny. I'm surprised we haven't. That's a good one. We act, we haven't had anybody say that before, but that's a totally legit one. Okay. So let's talk about, you said the term you used as you help Uplevel, you know, CEOs. So give, give us some examples of how you work with the CEOs. Yeah. Sure. So the CEOs that I work with with are generally at a point in that business over the last few years, they've built it through passion, hard work and perseverance. They've taken it from idea to development, and now they're facing this big kind of area of growth. But with every new level of success comes a new level of problems. Because now it's not just about the idea and growing it. They also have to manage a team. They have to keep stakeholders happy. They have to pitch to investors. They have all of these new responsibilities, which is a lot for them to take on, especially because in many cases they're completely unprepared. So they find themselves in this situation where they're pulled in multiple different directions. They don't know what to focus on. They find themselves. Really struggling to make the big decisions. They overthink what they need to execute on. And many days, yes. And pressure will push them to the point where they're not showing up as the leader. They need to be in that business. So that's really where I come in getting that focus away from what they need to be doing business wise and instead putting it on themselves and helping them grow and evolve. So you don't necessarily focus on actually saw solving their logistics problems, but what you do is you help them with the mindset to stay sane. So then they can properly solve them on their own. Yeah, exactly because I'm not a business coach. And at the end of the day that the CEO, for a reason, they know their business better than anyone. So it's not my job to come in and give them new strategies. Instead. It's about getting them out of that mentality, where they stuck in the tunnel vision of what's going on and getting them to really understand. What actions are taken on a day to day basis, how they're managing that team, how they're already processing all of these ideas and also giving them an external kind of sounding board. Cause a lot of the times they need someone who can create a safe and judgment free zone, where they can openly talk out the challenges they're facing. They can bounce around ideas that they may not want to talk about with their team and allows them to really disconnect. In a way that they may not be able to do with people directly involved around them. Is it, is there the ability for you to give an example, because it's interesting, you say, you know, I'm not a business coach. And so for, I imagine some of the listeners are going to say, well, what are you then? And so can you help them understand the difference between a business coach and what you do? Yeah. The easiest way to summarize what I do is mindset and high performance consultant. So I'll give you an example. I've got a guy at the moment came in, he's grown his startup. They have just hit that biggest ever month revenue. Things are going fantastic in that sense, but he feels completely overwhelmed with the fact that he's spending his days putting out fires, solving other people's problems. He's stressed to the point that he's barely sleeping and he feels like if he carries on down the path that he's on, he's going to become burnt out. So it'd be my job to come in to really do the mindset, work with him, to get him to understand what he needs to focus on. What's his zone of genius and what needs to be delegated or outsourced during the kind of up-level brainwork to get him to be able to manage and let go of his stress levels and also set the right boundaries. So he stopped sacrificing other areas of his life. So you can actually exercise, you can spend time with, because partner and actually catch up on sleep, which is something that has been giving up a lot. Yeah. What, okay, so somebody comes to you and says, Byron, I'm a mess. Uh, like you said, uh, I anticipate I'm gonna burn out soon. So where do you start with the people that come to you like that? How do you start to identify how to solve this problem? The Fest thing we really need to do is get them clear on where they are now and where it is they want to get to, because if we can understand, okay, this is who you're showing up as on a day to day basis, and this is why it might be counterproductive. And if we get them clear on who it is, they really need to be, to show up as the better leader, better communicator, better manager. We can then reverse engineer that journey. We could really focus on, okay, what actions do you need to take in order to close? And from there, it's all about evolving, who they see themselves. Because if we think about it, every single one of us, we have our own identity. We have this vision in our head about who we are, what we can and can't do. And so often that identity can hold us back. And that's for the first step in working with any client is getting them clear on the identity of who they need to become. Because then we can really evolve it, getting them to step into that non-negotiable actions, behaviors that beliefs on that future version of themselves to that they then stopped acting upon showing up on every day. What, what is the bigger problem? Is, is it usually the CEOs have too much going on in business and so they have business problems or do they have personal problems that are becoming business problems? It's generally a mix of both, because that may be at a point where that's so focused on their business, that. They are in a tunnel vision of what's going on and also on the side of that, because they're so in that business, that relationships in that health and everything else is suffering and they're so interrelated, especially when you're running the business. So when I come in, it's very much taking a holistic approach and looking at everything from how productive are you? Because often I'll speak to people and they'll back. Like I'm working 60 hour weeks, but when we really break it down, they might only be doing about 10, 15 hours of actual productive work. The rest might be time spent procrastinating, focusing on tasks that don't matter overthinking or essentially as being stuck in their own head. We also need to look at, are they actually giving that home life, the attention it needs? Because if their wife is constantly on their case about the fact that they're never present, then never home. They've got issues in their marriage all the time. That's going to take that folks off their business. If that energy levels are low, they're never going to be able to execute properly. If they're not sleeping properly, it's really getting them to take that stuff back on, looking at where they currently are and understanding what areas of their life need their attention. Cause it's often the areas that we don't think about, which are being hugely detrimental to where we're actually putting our focus. Yeah. And then one, I imagine just impacts the other and then it creates a cyclical problem. Yeah. How did you get into this? What's your background? So if I take you back a few years, just to kind of show you growing up, I was always one of those people who wanted to make an impact. I wanted to help others and have my own business, but never really knew what that was. So like a lot of other people, I went to university, got a degree and got a job and I kind of found myself in a situation where. I was in a good career. How is any good money? I was on track to a life that others would deem as success, but I was also very unhappy. I was overweight. I was struggling with confidence. I was unfulfilled and didn't really know what I was doing with my life. And then my dad got cancer and. During his treatment, he had most of his bowel surgically removed and he spent 25 days in ICU. Most on life support, breathing through a tracheotomy. And Dow for me was very much the wake up call that I had to do something about my own life. So I set out on this journey to. Turn my own life around to lose the weight, to recover from the burnout, to start feeling better about myself. And on that, I learned everything I could about mindset, nutrition, health, high performance, and the more I dived into it, the more I saw how much my dad's success contributed to him getting sick. Because at the time he was working 14 hour days, he was burned out. He was barely sleeping. He wasn't looking after himself. And inevitably all of that eventually took its toll. So I took what I learned. I, I became the foundation of my best selling book become a better you. And it was why I started this mission of helping other CEOs and business owners take back control of this area of their life so they can avoid going through what happened to him. So I think a lot of business owners can relate to the concept of stress, even if they don't necessarily have, uh, you know, the lack of sleep or the lack of exercise. I could just stress just comes with the territory. So how do you, like, what are some practices or maybe some suggestions you can give listeners that that may not be too deep into the large mix of problems, but maybe it's just like, Stress, which is natural. Like what are some things they can do to kind of tackle some of that? Yeah. One of my favorite kind of strategies, and this is something that. I do myself out with all clients. I really recommend anyone else listening to this really starts incorporating into their routine is a practice to actually let guard release stress throughout the day. Because what a lot of people don't realize is stress in itself is something that doesn't just happen. It's actually accumulated it's that morning meeting that difficult conversation, that campaign that didn't go according to plan all of these things. Build up throughout the day to eventually something that isolation probably wouldn't have mattered can push you over the edge. And this is why we need to be actively looking at ways of reducing that stress throughout the day. And one of my favorite practices to do that is at the end of every single task, what I by self and get clients to do is to take a couple of minutes where you stop. Close your eyes take deep breaths into the count of four out to the count of four, allowing you to really calm yourself down and become grounded on the reason why that breathing is so impactful. Is this actually a technique that they use in the NHS with doctors and nurses, where when they're in a heightened state and forces them to stop, to calm down lower that blood pressure so that they can then think clearly. So by going through that breathing exercise, it's cut out you to reduce your cortisol and recenter yourself. And from there. Sexual intention. So mentally go through and be like, okay, what do I need to do next? What challenges could I see coming up in this task? What would the best version of myself show up as in order to get this done, play through it in your head so that you know exactly what you need to do. And you'll be able to proactively as well deal with a lot of the challenges before they come up. And that's going to have such a big impact on your stress levels and your energy by the end of the day. Cause it's going to allow you to unload all of this negative built-up tension and actually be far more intentional with what you're doing with your time. What about do, do you have any, um, Extreme examples. Okay. So that, that was like the general, the general example, which, which is what I asked for. But what about kind of changing pace? Uh, are you one to, in certain circumstances, recommend cold showers every morning, or just something like that? Many people might find more extreme. Honestly, there's nothing too crazy that we do is while the culture. Yeah. And stuff like that can be good for like waking up or even kind of helping with some inflammation where if you look at kind of like ice pass and all of this stuff like that, I find for the clients that I work with, we very much need to take it to a foundational level. Cause a lot of people look forward to the latest hacks and the seeds and all these crazy things that they overlook. The fact that generally. It's focusing on the basics and getting them right, right. And doing them consistently, which leads to the better longterm results. And it's the people who keep dancing one thing to the next and looking forward to these crazy things, but never sticking to anything who land up struggling. So that is one of the things I have to battle with clients. It's just like, do you know what? We're not going to go crazy. We're not going to overhaul or push you to do something completely out of your confidence. Instead, we need to focus on what does your current lifestyle and routine currently look like? What is it? That could be improved and making small shifts that isn't adding more to that to do list or adding more stress and pressure on them. So yeah, no crazy answer for you though. Unfortunately, I know it makes sense because I think that that applies to so many things. I mean, even, uh, just business in general, right? Have your core foundations. Or health, you know, the new shiny diets only lasts so long because you're not addressing the core issues or even, you know, with my industry of SEO, like people bounce around the shiny new algorithm, you know, the, the hacky strategies and then the new algorithm takes them out. I think we could probably apply that concept of sticking to the basic slow and steady is more sustainable in just about anything. Yeah. As a prime example, one of the most common sense thing things to do when you're approaching your gay is to sit down in the morning and put together a plan of what you actually need to get done. Like, it seems so obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many CEOs and business owners I speak to who don't do it. Like they've got a rough to do list and they've got an idea of what needs to get done, but. They don't have the foundation in place of, do you know what I'm going to take five minutes in the morning and plan out what I actually need to achieve today? What are my biggest folks is what has to get done, but they're looking for these crazy productivity hacks and how to get more done in less time. Whereas the answer is actually really uncovered what you're actually doing and be intentional with it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, Byron, as we get kind of closer to wrapping up, I wanted to ask you one more question. Do you have any examples of like some really big wins or some more extreme before and after success stories of people that you've worked with? Yeah, one of my favorite ones and a guy sent me testimonial video recently. So it's kind of top of mind is there was a guy who came in, running a business. He was completely stressed and overwhelmed. And I had reached this point where he described as being in a cloudy, mental chaos, where he knew all of the things he should be doing. But he wasn't doing it. He was spending hours every day, procrastinating. He was overthinking. He was finding, organizing, making the smallest decisions. And we came in and in a very short period of time managed to hone his focus. Got him clear on everything that needed to be done, broke through the procrastination and actually put him back in control of what he was doing. I in one of our sessions, he came in and he had got more done the day before than it used to an entire week or from just making these small shifts and really breaking through all of the noise and clutter that was going on in his head and getting him really cleared, who he needed to show up as not just as a leader for his business, but also as someone who was going to inspire his team, someone who was going to be there for his family and. Who was actually happy in himself as well. It was the core problem with him. Was it burnout or something else? It was trying to do too much. Like he essentially had so much going on in his head that he wasn't able to process it. So it's just constantly bouncing around from one task to the next, moving all over the place and being completely scattered. So it was very much a case of coming in and being like, okay, what is it you actually need to get done? What's the top priority. How are we structuring it? What guidelines and routine can we put in place and getting him out of that overwhelmed state? Because one of the best piece of advice I can give to anyone listening to this is if you're feeling overwhelmed, There's a good chance. The reality is you're actually under planned. And so often when we get into that heightened state, it's because we have too many racing thoughts in our head. One of the best things you can do is to sit down and actually has to write it down, create a, just a mental brain dump of everything going on in your head. You're going to get out in front of you. You can have them be able to process it in a clear and cohesive way, and then put together a plan for each of those of how you're going to tackle them. Whereas instead, but try to go through it all in your head constantly. That's what keeps people trapped and essentially getting in their own way. Yeah. It's always the simple things, the smaller things that causes the big problems. So Byron Morrison, I appreciate you jumping on learning from others. Tell our guests that they can find out more about you. I, yeah, I appreciate you having me on easiest place to connect with me is on LinkedIn. I put out daily videos, thought leadership, posts, guides, and tutorials, and a buyer and Morrison. I'm also on Facebook or check out bar and morrison.co.uk. Thanks so much by your nurse and everybody.

Today's guest has launched or managed podcasts that have been listened to tens of millions of times for entrepreneurs and companies that make seven to nine figures annually. He's here today to help you learn the possibilities of podcasting to build your business or create a lasting legacy. Please welcome Daxy Perez. PS. And Daxy isn't his real name. Listen to the end to hear the story. 2:19 - Daxy's Background 5:53 - Clients Evolve 10:08 - All about the podcast 13:18 - Joe Rogan 23:44 - Packages Contact Info LegacyPodcasting.com https://www.facebook.com/iamdaxy https://www.instagram.com/iamdaxy/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daxy-perez-004a38173/   Daxy Perez, man. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How you doing? Doing great, man. Just, uh, just enjoying life. So, so you were drinking coffee and I don't know if you know, but I am the world's number one, dad. Really? Okay. I'm the world's number one. Gonna be dad. Are you really, are you expecting congratulations? That's awesome. I'm predicting. I'm not expecting, there you go. If I did have a, I feel like I would want to just have it on a farm. Uh, no, I feel different. Raise a family on a farm. Yeah. Cause I, like, I looked at like my, my ancestors, like my grandfather was a printmaker Republic and like, my dad is like one of 12. And like, when you have a farm, kids become like assets. So you just want it. You just want to leverage your kids. So you're no, no, but like, it's also like. I feel like it just makes it, like, I know I'm just going to be in nature when you're young. So yeah, there's a book that I read awhile ago. I'm not gonna remember the name. Exactly. I think it was the last child in the woods or last spring that was, or something like that. And it's, and it's largely about that, about how, um, you know, children are changing because they're not exposed to nature as much, you know? And, and how do you, you can't have a kid, uh, you can't expect a kid to learn by dissecting a frog in a class if they've never seen a frog in real life. Yeah. Or playing Farmville or something on their app on their phone? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes my kids, like with the whole, like with the coronavirus thing, um, I'm like go outside. And so, you know, we're fortunate we have a yard and a trampoline and a pole, but sometimes I think, I think like what, what would you have done 80 years ago? And, you know, I can't just like tell my kids to go. Plow the field. It's not because I need the field plowed, but because I want them to like, learn something like, what do you do? Yeah. That is it. Oh, the lawn. That's the closest thing. Well, they actually I'm. I appreciate you jumping on speaking of farming, that's actually how it got introduced Josh 40. And he was, he was talking about, um, like six years ago, seven years ago, he was a farmer. He posted a picture about like doing corn or something. Yeah, he was born on a farm, so, yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's get to the usual intro. Um, I like to ask two questions. Question number one is what are you good at and what are we gonna learn from you today? Uh, what am I good at? So what am I think what I'm good at is a soft skill. Um, but I guess that transcends into hard skills too. Um, so I think I'm good at Pete, my people skills. Um, and, uh, that's how I think grow my business a little bit. And then a w what we help people with is as well, casting and production and marketing, et cetera, in that space. Uh, and I guess what I'm also getting at is like, audio. You shouldn't have been doing that since I was like in middle school. And then I just leveraged that because music is hard to make money in, um, to, to a different kind of industry that's similar. So. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I want to dig into more about your podcasting background here in a minute, but before that question number two is what do you suck at? What do I suck at? Um, there's a lot I suck at. Um, but I usually don't do it, uh, actually, yeah, probably a good move. Yeah. Do less of what you suck at. What do I suck at? Um, I would say, I suck at coding. Like I just don't understand that language, uh, or anything that's like CSS or just like super tech backend stuff, which I think most people suck at. So that's a bit, I feel better saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Fair enough. Well, let's, let's, let's get it back into what you don't suck at. So you tell people what you do with legacy podcasts. Yeah, so we work with a lot of, uh, podcasters who use it to support like their personal brand, their online business, their online visibility, uh, just to have content out there. Um, and we helped them redistribute it, you know, through our own process, you know? Cause I worked in the industry for a while. That's actually how I started worked on a lot of big shows. I worked out with their agencies, um, two, two at the same time actually. And I'm one of them. I was like the audio you a manager. And they never like it to do more than just audio or blogs. And I'm like, we live in a new world. Like, you know, your message needs to be. Spread, um, on multiple mediums. Um, so we just took that, that challenge and that's kind of been our, our market that we've cornered. So, and so, so give us an example of how you distribute the content. So it sounds like you take, you know, some sort of initial recording and then do you chop it up and put it on different platforms? Yeah. Repurposing it and giving it new context, whether it's quote cards, whether it's like emails, whether it's. SEO blog posts like long forms, uh, whether it's, you know, article writing, um, you know, doing things for Facebook, a little audit clips, et cetera, stuff that just, uh, the people who follow you want to hear or will have an effect on them. Um, and just help your brand. Uh, obviously we do, we prefer when clients do video. Because video is like live in a video world. Now, like the reason tech talks blowing up because there's no images or no texts, it's just video. Cause that just gets people's engagement quickly. Um, So with video, you can do a lot for different platforms, you know, Pinterest out a video like four or five months ago. Um, and, but he was doing really good on Pinterest now and obviously YouTube is going nowhere. Um,  works good too. So, yeah. Do you have, how do you identify, which, um, do, do you, with your clients, do you take them to all those platforms or do you be selective depending on the client? Yeah, it's usually, uh, what's. I mean, some clients evolve, uh, but it's usually where they currently have the best following and the most engagement that we try to figure out a strategy that works best. Some people that's LinkedIn, some people that's Instagram, some people that's their Facebook group. Um, Facebook's tricky. Like Facebook groups, you can't do like, um, Straight promo stuff. It has to be like very valuable for people to engage in comment. There's like a call to action on Facebook. I realized that never works. There has to be something that gets people to, there has to be a question or engagement. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any, uh, like hard before and after examples of statistics or growth or like what's the, what's the goal? I mean, obviously more engagement, but do you, do you. How do you measure progress for your clients? Yeah. So it's a dynamic question. Uh, cause all of them have different businesses, right. Um, for, uh, and a lot of it's seasonal. So like this quarter, uh, one of our clients is focused on a challenge. So making sure they include that call to action in that copy and their blog posts and other et cetera, et cetera. Um, another one and it was growing their YouTube channel, which worked very well. Um, so yeah, and if we're. When we do a video podcast, uh, for YouTube, it has to be very like SEO driven and we help clients with that. So we've had some clients grow like 400% in a month for the YouTube channel. Another one's grown to like huge numbers. So we're over 300,000 now. Um, so, and a lot of it, sometimes those metrics are vanity because, uh, The content a lot of times content is just to remind people you exist on platforms and then that could lead to them, going to your profile, checking you out or saying, Oh, I want to buy this. Or just to like a lot of content, just supposed to be a hook. I'm like, it's like, what does Coca Cola get for doing an add on Superbowl? Like, I don't know, sales for that, but like, you're still like in their mind. Right. Um, so it's a lot of, it's just keeping it attention because the average, like. Uh, like our clients, like 80% average, like listen through rate on all the podcasts. So you're, you're essentially, you have an asset of like communication, you know, is there, is there an average length of time on a podcast is more effective? Yeah, the average is like 22 minutes. Cause that's the average commute, but it's actually changed since Corona, since COVID-19 is people aren't commuting as more. I'm actually gone down a little bit. We've seen, uh, how much people listen. Um, and then there's other things shorter length of time. Yeah, we should. We, right now we're seeing like 10 to 15 minutes be good for like a solo episode and interview can go longer. Cause it's obviously deeper. Um, and there's two, it's a two sided conversation. Uh, but yeah. Well, why do you think that is? Is it the first thing that comes to my mind is. People are just like stuck and they're just running short on attention, like their home. And so they can flip more versus yeah, they have their kid there. They have to go walk their dog. They got their laundry. Well, I mean, you still get to listen to podcasts, but, uh, there's just, um, they're not in their normal routine right now, most people, which is getting a little bit back to normal, um, and obviously varies per industry or your, your listener, like what they do for a living. Um, But yeah, something that we've seen to, like since COVID is a live streaming has been a lot more, has worked a lot better platforms. People are watching the streams more, so. Hmm. So, so where do you start with clients? I'm actually gonna, I'm going actually, I'm gonna kind of rag on myself a little bit because I imagine, I imagine you have some clients that just are like me. I, when we were introduced, that was our first conversations. Like I had no direction. I'm like, I don't know who my audience is. I don't know what any of this is. Like, I just like podcasting, where do I go? So when you have people like me, where do you start? How do you figure this out? You started is the biggest thing. And that you're going, uh, because a lot of it is discovery. Um, figuring out what content works. Like you have to kind of be a detective like, Hey, let's, let's try doing this content or these call to actions or, um, this style and seeing what works. And then leaning more into that and finding your voice, uh, and seeing what hits with people. So as far as starting, um, I guess like, what do you want? Right. Like that's not what we always ask people. Cause there's a lot of hidden benefits to podcasting. Some people just want to talk to people, right. They just want to use it to have an excuse, to talk to people. Um, Some people want to develop relationships with, like, I know we have one client who has, show's mainly just to talk to leads like high level leads because he does a, B to B consulting and services. Um, and you know, she, I think it was earlier this year or December, he got a 65 day contract from guest. First time I interviewed him. They liked each other. And then in the post chat, they're like, Oh, did you know I do this? Or you do that? Oh, send me some information. And then boom. Um, cause you become friends, usually hung interview someone. Uh, if it goes good, cause sometimes it can go South. Um, so yeah, that's it, it's dependent on who they are, who they are and our process, like with the con, because we're essentially, uh, we're a content agency. We just, as a podcast agency, cause we just leverage a podcast to get a lot of content because it's easier to create something that's in someone's voice. And to like, make something from scratch, you know, um, just make it random Instagram content if the client has no input, you know? So yeah. Why don't we talk about that leads for a second, because I think a lot of people that are new podcasting, there's a lot of, um, you know, misunderstanding on why people do podcasts. So I think a lot of people say, well, How do I make money on ads advertisers? Well, the problem with that is you actually have to be good at podcasting podcasting and build an audience. And then the next option people might say, well, I'm going to monetize listeners and I'm gonna gate my episodes and charge somehow. And so I think a lot of people are surprised that you can position it. As you said, to attract an ideal customer, bring them on as a guest, help them out, do them a service. Then in return, that ends up becoming a lead. So. Do you strategically do that with some people? And if you do, like how do you structure that to figure out how to bring up? So we, we know it's a valuable strategy and I have some friends actually with agencies, that's all they do. Like all their clients is like their pitches. Like, Hey, like we're going to get you 50 guests, et cetera. But they're, they mainly like market to like doctors and lawyers. Boring people. Um, our clients typically, uh, they're not, they're mainly B to C. Um, so a lot of our clients are mainly authority, solo episodes. They're using it mainly for retention and just to, you know, build another platform and get more intimate with customers because like, Most people, unless you have a YouTube channel, your contents, not really intimate. It's not like deep, but it's not like long. Maybe if you write a book or something, uh, what a podcast allows people to go behind the scenes and like people to really know them and their side, et cetera. So, um, some people use it to like speed up the sales cycle. So if they are generating not a lot of leads, they use the podcast content to like nurture that further, um, et cetera. So just to get them to know like, and trust them right. Uh, that's usually one of the biggest things people need before they buy it's to know like, and trust you. Yeah. And just be top of mind. Yeah. What, um, what do you think about the whole Joe Rogan moving to Spotify? Yeah, that's a great topic. Um, I think Spotify is genius. Like they stole him. I don't know if you've done any research on it. Um, like their stock Rose, like I think it was three or 5 billion. Since that, so that one's worth a rumor. It was free. It was a freestyle. It's kinda, it kinda reminds me of when Amazon bought whole foods and their stock Rose more than they paid. I'm like, it's a good move. The market likes it. Um, yeah, Joe Rogan, not a lot. So I think he's going to set a price for content creators in the future. Getting a lot of money from networks, because if, if there's a trend where the biggest consumption is unexclusive. You know, cause in September, you're only gonna be able to listen to him on Spotify. Um, you're not gonna wanna listen to everywhere else. A lot of these other, uh, like Apple, et cetera, are gonna pick up. There's not really much players in the, in the podcast space, to be honest, Apple's dropped the ball a lot. Um, I think Spotify is in a way better job. So to be honest, I don't. I think Joe could have done better. Like I think if he would have had, I actually, like, I don't know who his manager is, but if he would've no seriously, like if he would have went to Apple and he would have went to Google and said like, Hey, Spotify is and pay me a hundred, a million dollars, and I'm not gonna be able to put Bruce any more content on your platforms. Can you do better? Like he would've got more. I feel like, has he said that, um, Because I think YouTube is where he gets the most views. Actually. It's the fact that he's not going to have that on YouTube is he might do the clips. I think he just might not do the full episodes. Is he, has he said he's leaving the historical episodes or is he bringing those down? I'm assuming everything goes, I'm assuming. Yeah. Well, let's, you know, Joe, Joe, Rogan's like the unicorn in podcasting. Yeah. Early movers advantage. But I think he, he really tapped into like men and like, men's wear a lot of people. Didn't I think Howard stern was a little bit too old for like a younger generation. Um, cause he was, our friend was the thing. Um, And, um, he talks about a lot of topics. Right. And he, but he has like open conversations with the biggest people, right? Yeah. So, yeah, Howard, I had actually kind of thought about that comparison too, because Howard stern, the way Joe, Rogan's moved to Spotify, remind reminders reminds me of how Howard stern moved to XM. You know, however, I think he did the same with Pandora too. Not too long ago. Yeah. Was a thing. Well, what's kind of the secret winning formula for, I mean, these guys bring such unique conversation. I think that's why they attract an audience. So like what are the small guys do to try and get their friends? Yeah. I mean, so Joe Rogan didn't start podcasting. I think he pulled a lot of attention from. Because he's a celebrity, right. He was a celebrity before that. Um, he pulled a lot of attention from the U S I see. So if UFC grows, he grows and the UFC has grown. Um, and then that like fear factor in some other stuff, comedian. Um, so he has a different angle. He doesn't really, we use it to, he doesn't need it to be attached to his business. Um, he just leveraged this other business to get attention to the podcast. So most people don't have that angle. You know, when a lot of people want to name his podcast after the name, I'm like, you're not Joe Rogan when you can't do that. Yeah. You mean anything to people? Um, so for most people like the content you produce. Should be more intentional. Uh huh. Until you do hit that critical mass where you can just talk about what that, whatever the hell you want. So in the beginning, it's like, why, why should people listen? Um, and what they're going to get out of listening and why they should tune in every week. Um, and then what you can help them implement in their life. Like when they listen so that like they get results, they come back for more, et cetera. So. Yeah. So start with, start with a knit, which become the master of that niche and then, and then snowball out from there. Yeah. What, um, you know, a lot of people that are listing are, you know, business owners or they've done marketing. And so like click funnels is, is well known and you've worked with some of. The T tell me about your involvement with like, you have some sort of connection with people within that whole inner circle. Yeah, man, we've, we've infiltrated. Um, we actually work with ClickFunnels on one of their podcasts. Um, we're in negotiations with them to work on another one. Um, I don't know, man. I've one thing I learned from one of my friends, Blake Newbar I don't know if you know him, he's like, just get results for people. And then that will like, that'll be all your marketing. Like that's the most important thing to do if you're someone isn't to just like, try to be, it's just try to get the best results. Usually it takes some thought. Um, and that's what we've done. Like we've, we've grown through word, word of mouth. Cause I think what we did, most people, like what I realized is a lot of marketers would hire like a lot of different people. Uh, for teams and we were able to kind of like supplement all of that, you know, as far as like social, like production and marketing with content. Um, so it was like an all in one, like a one stop shop type deal. Um, and a lot of the marketers, like if you're running a business, like you just want your time to run your business, like you should be focusing on your business and like, Our clients, we treat our goal with our clients is like, if you never have to talk to us, and that means we're doing a good job, I'm going to stay in as content. And like, that's it like, and we're doing good. I think that's so underrated because that's where I'm at. You know, I still have the same half dozen clients from 13 years ago. The longest I ever went without talking to a client that paid every month was three years. Whoa. They paid every month. Never mess it. Like we, you know, we send our touchpoints, we send our reports, but likewise, and it's exactly like you said, you drive results like for being this big marketing company that we have, we never spend a dollar on advertising. Yeah. And it's all just, you know, you get you drive results and then, and then those guys welcome you into their inner circle of their other successful business acquaintances. And then you just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Yeah. Cause especially like, you know, you operate on a high level with working with like big people. Like I think the higher you go, people really pay for certainty. Yeah. Like, Hey, if I'm gonna pay for this, like, am I going to get it? And then the more like proof you have in track record, the easier it is and it, and it also brings down the sales walls too. I mean, half the time I'm willing to bet it's the same for you by the time half a year, your leads come to you. They're just like, here's my money. Yeah, well now it's like we have to qualify. Right. Cause there's, um, even, um, I'll be transparent before this call. Like I fired someone, um, because I realized that he was taking more time and effort. Um, The normal. And then there was just like, it was repetitive, like very, and I was we're in that position now where we can be picky with who we work with because we know like, um, there's energy vampires out there. Right. And, you know, like, um, like it's better to just let them go. And, um, it's happened multiple times and it's always turns out for the, for the better. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important. Um, The listeners can apply that, not just in podcasting and Dax he's unique scenario, but yeah, it's the same thing, partners like a business relationship partnership where, um, people don't see as a partnership. Like you're an employee. Um, even though we operate as a company and we have a team like, um, It gets kind of like there's boundaries, right. Or the scope creep, all that stuff. You know, it's in our contracts, we have a clause that the big subheader is scope creep and it's, you know, I'm adding that right now. Yeah. I'll have to send it to you because we get very, because we're in the same position, we get very specific. So it says, you know, to avoid quote unquote, too many chefs in the kitchen. Like if you, we even go so far as to say. If you bring in somebody that wants to guide us on SEO, we're out, like you're hiring us for a reason. And so let us do that thing that you're hiring us for. And so it's the same thing. I don't, you know, we don't, we don't want to micromanage clients and likewise, we don't want them micromanaging us. Yeah, I love that, man. I'm gonna have to ask her that later. Well, the, actually I appreciate your time, you know, it's been fun chatting about as podcasting thing. I think, I think you guys got to an awesome little market because the value is in, you know, what's funny is I got a little scribble here somewhere, um, that is like largely what you do, but. With my internal team is, you know, do a video and then push it to chop it up this way and to LinkedIn, and then chop up this other way and Instagram and chop it up this other way. So like, I think the, the huge value that you guys bring is that you have a process cause everybody, and I was like, yeah, get on social media. Yeah. Repurpose things. But I think they underestimate how time consuming it a how time consuming it is and B how to actually. Do it good. Yeah. Yeah. Cause even if you have people doing the process or, um, I know, you know this, but like a, you know, hiring, you start to tell them what to do. They're not going to like, know what to do. Um, so you have to, you know, and in our situation too, like the fact that we do this with, for so many people, we're also always following best practices and it's always evolving. Cause we have so many different like experiments we're running with different clients. We could say like, Hey, this type of thing works. We apply to everywhere. Um, and that allows us to kind of like. Leverage everyone's results and data to help the whole everyone we're working with. Well, maybe one last thing you can answer is how do you, how do you price a client? Do you have packages or do you do it like specific based on specific things? Yeah. Yeah, we have packages and, but it does vary a lot. Just the nature of social media marketing and content production, and also like what's going to benefit them right now. And because, you know, with some clients, they want to do everything at once and we recommend them like, Hey, like, You know, I'm a bad salesman. I try to tell them like, Hey, go smaller first and then evolve into all of this. See what's working. And then if you get good data, then scale up. So yeah, it's in our. It almost gets there's a lot of right. Well, what we do is, so we have to scope it out and customize it. So what's, um, I'm going to help you pre disqualify some people, but by telling us kind of what you started at for if you have a podcast or if you want to start a podcast, let's say are already have one, but you just want to streamline the process video or audio audio only. Audio packages are from 1200 to five K for a weekly show. So that's like from production and blog, post and editing and everything, all the show notes, the copywriting too, like daily content. And so or so clients we post every day. And so you just take everything and do it for them. They do the recording and then you do the rest. Yeah, that's our goal. Unless obviously like some packages, uh, you know, people want to live with people in house. Some clients, we give them the assets and they have someone scheduling it. Um, some clients, we, they do the graphics and like it's different. Yeah. We just build into our process. So. Yeah. Cool. Well, Dax, I appreciate jumping on learning from others. How can people find out more about you? Yeah, I'm going to my website legacypodcasting.com. Um, and if you do want to qualify yourself, uh, I actually just built this website. I'm curious to know what you guys think. Uh, Podcastscontentmachine.com and check it out. Um, schedule a free strategy session with me and, uh, yeah, you can always DM me on any social. I, so Daxy. Isn't my real name. The reason I chose daxy because for SEO, I had no, yeah. Be did you have like a, you have a super common name and so you had to stand out? Yeah, my real name is Daniel and that shook us a lot. So like, I'm, I'm happy to tell you that you're an SEO guy. So there's jacksy a lot of people, I think in Greek it means. Okay. And I didn't know that. So like, I guess, okay, well now we'll come. We'll end coming full circle because we started talking about coffee and I had an employee while ago, give me a coffee mug that said world's okayest boss. Okay. Oh my God. The world's doxy his boss. So it was actually prize. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, man.