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Title: Million Dollar Monday - Mike Hoffman Summary: Mike made his first million in real estate during the COVID short-term rental boom, and his last million by flipping outdated vending machine routes into modern micro markets selling unconventional products like shampoo and Tide pods. His next million will likely come from leveraging AI to scale vending and small business operations. He emphasizes the rapid evolution of AI and its ability to replace manual tasks, predicting a near future where AI-powered robots handle everyday chores. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/1EOavier6ug Bullet Point Highlights: First million: Real estate + COVID timing (short-term rentals) Last million: Vending machines → flipped old routes into micro markets Sold high-ticket items (e.g., $35 shampoo) in vending setups Tech improvements + AI driving down costs, boosting efficiency Next million: Scaling vending/small biz ops with AI tools Believes AI is replacing human roles fast (e.g., virtual assistants) Predicts humanoid AI robots in homes within 5 years Transcript: Seth Bradley (00:00.172) Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?   Yeah, Seth, probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.   Gotcha. Yeah. Real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in, you know, in that primary business or not, you know, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?   Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit.   with it. Gotcha. Cool. And that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?   Mike Hoffman (01:14.646) Exactly, yeah, buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets, charging with different products and what would fit in a vending machine like more of the unorthodox, know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of go and add it in a different way.   Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's got to be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?   Yeah, think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? So if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.   Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?   I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their vending routes that is applicable to any small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning right now in this kind of wave of AI.   Seth Bradley (02:49.27) Yeah, totally makes sense. mean, people that are not paying attention to AI, whether it's simply using chat GBT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's going to look like five years from now, the way that things are moving.   It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software to the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is perfect.   Yeah, 100%. I predicted within five years, everybody's going to have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled, and they're going to be doing physical things for us at our homes.   I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco, get all our groceries, do our laundry, the dishes.   Yup. Yup. Awesome,   Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Mike Hoffman's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikehoffmannofficial/ https://x.com/mrpassive_?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedhoffmann/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.passive https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

If you've been enjoying The Independent Advisors podcast for a while now and want to take the next step in your financial journey, I'd encourage you to head to our website, jessupwealthmanagement.com. Matt offers a 15-minute initial call where you can discuss your financial goals and see if JWM is a good fit for your needs. Scheduling is easy—once you land at jessupwealthmanagement.com just click “Schedule Initial Call” and select a time that works best for you!  There's a quick survey to fill out that will help guide the conversation and ensure your time is used efficiently.If you're ready to learn more, visit jessupwealthmanagement.com and book your call today!312 Topics:· July jobs report came in weaker than expected with higher unemployment rate· Historical pattern suggests potential weakness in mid-to-late summer through mid-fall before Q4 rally.· Tariff & Commodity News · Data Center Energy Consumption · Buy Now, Pay Later Trends · Earnings Season Volatility Show Notes:Post on X from Jason Goepfert on 7.31.25 - https://x.com/jasongoepfert/status/1950972585480745304?Post on X from Nautilus Research on 7.7.25 with an update on the 4-year election cycle for the S&P 500 - https://x.com/NautilusCap/status/1942202402414743758 Post on X from Renaissance Macro Research on 7.30.25 - https://x.com/RenMacLLC/status/1950646263969632257 Data Center Energy UsageSource: Zero Hedge X Posthttps://x.com/matthewcjessup/status/1949884142583267793Missed Payments RisingSource: The Kobeissi Letter X Posthttps://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1949476483346350323Strong Earnings ReactionsSource: Mike Zaccardi X Post, BOFAhttps://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1952349009378431434

Looking for a low-overhead franchise with high profit margins? Wondering how to scale a business fast — even in a pandemic? In this episode of Franchise Envy, I sit down with Jon Schloesser, multi-unit owner of Gotcha Covered, one of the top-rated home services franchises in North America.Jon shares how he and his wife launched their window treatment franchise during the height of COVID — and quickly expanded to three locations across Wisconsin. We cover everything from initial investment costs, commercial vs. residential revenue, to what kind of franchisee fails in this industry.Whether you're researching the best franchises to own in 2025, or you're an aspiring first-time business owner, Jon's brutally honest insights will help you understand what it really takes to succeed.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS – Find What Matters to You Fast:00:00 – Welcome to Franchise Envy01:10 – Meet Jon Schloesser: Gotcha Covered franchisee from Wisconsin02:15 – Why launch during a pandemic? Here's what happened03:40 – How we expanded to 3 locations — fast04:50 – Low-overhead, no-inventory business explained06:20 – The hidden genius behind window covering franchises07:45 – Franchise startup costs & profitability09:30 – Who fails in this business (and why)11:00 – Why ongoing training is crucial for success13:15 – Splitting commercial vs. residential business15:10 – The power of small franchise systems vs. big brands17:30 – Real support from corporate (text the president?)19:00 – Does franchise size really matter?20:40 – One piece of advice for first-time franchise buyers23:00 – Are you a good fit for a franchise?24:15 – Final thoughts & call to action

Title: How to Make Millions with Vending Machines with Mike Hoffman Summary: In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike Hoffman delve into the world of vending machines as a business opportunity. Mike shares his journey from a Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur in the vending industry, highlighting the evolution of vending technology and the potential for passive income. They discuss the importance of location, understanding demographics, and the scalability of vending routes. Mike emphasizes the need for upfront work and learning before delegating tasks, while also addressing the misconceptions surrounding passive income in the vending business. In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike discuss various aspects of entrepreneurship, particularly in the vending machine business. They explore the importance of capital raising, the journey of self-discovery, influences that shape business decisions, and the definition of success. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of flexibility, discipline, and focus in achieving entrepreneurial goals, while also touching on financial milestones and the attributes that distinguish successful entrepreneurs. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Mike's journey from a classic Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur. The evolution of vending machines from traditional to smart technology. Understanding the importance of location in the vending business. The analogy of baseball levels to describe starting in vending. Scaling up from single A to big leagues in vending routes. The significance of demographics in product selection for vending machines. The potential for passive income with proper systems in place. The need for upfront work before achieving passivity in business. Vending is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it requires dedication. The future opportunities in the vending industry are expanding rapidly. Raising capital can dilute ownership but may be necessary for rapid growth. Self-discovery often leads to unexpected career paths. Influences in business can come from personal experiences rather than just mentors. Success is often defined by the ability to prioritize family and flexibility. Entrepreneurs work harder than in traditional jobs but gain flexibility. Discipline is crucial for saying no to distractions. Successful entrepreneurs often focus on niche markets. High foot traffic locations are ideal for vending machines. AI is transforming business operations and efficiency. Networking and connections can lead to valuable opportunities. Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.898) Mike, what's going on buddy? Doing great brother, doing great. How about you?   Mike (00:06.748) Don't worry,   Mike (00:11.664) Good, I'm a little flustered. I usually have my mic set up over here, but I guess we just moved and it's not here today. I guess, yeah, new office and it's been a whole hot mess.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:19.822) New office or what?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:27.862) Nice man, nice. I see you got the whiteboard cranking back there. Love to see that.   Mike (00:33.114) Always. I love your background. That's sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:38.03) Thanks man, yeah, I'm on camera all the time so I like I need to just build this out instead of using like a green screen so Made the investment made it happen   Mike (00:44.86) Totally.   Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:49.442) Have we met in person or not? I don't know if we've met at a Wealth Without Wall Street event or I couldn't tell. Okay. No, I did not go to Nashville last year.   Mike (00:58.478) I don't think so. don't think you're... Were you in Nashville last year?   Mike (01:04.634) No, okay. No, I don't think we've met in person. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:08.256) Okay, all good, man. All good. Well, cool. I'll just go over the format real quick. We'll do kind of a shorter recording. We're do like 30 minutes, something like in that range. And then we'll just kind of like break. And then I'll, want to record a couple of other quick segments where I call it Million Dollar Monday. I'm kind of asking you about how you made your first, last and next million. And then 1 % closer, which would just be kind of what separates you, what makes you the   top 1 % in your particular vertical. So we'll just kind of record those separately. Those will be real short, like five minutes or so.   Mike (01:44.924) Okay, yeah, I'll follow your lead. All good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.15) Cool. Cool. Let's see. I think I already have this auto recording. So we're already recording. So I'll just jump right in.   Mike (01:55.377) Okay.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:57.782) Welcome to Raise the Bar Radio, hosted by yours truly Seth Bradley. We today we've got Mr. Passive, Mike Hoffman. Mike, welcome to the show.   Mike (02:08.189) Thank you for having me fired up to be here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:10.855) Absolutely man, really happy to have you on. I know it's been a little bit of a trek here to get our schedules lined up, but really stoked to have you on today, man. I see you said you moved into a new office. You've got the whiteboard cranking, so love to see it.   Mike (02:25.372) yeah, whiteboards are the only place I can get my thoughts down.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.399) Yeah, man, it makes a difference when you actually write something rather than type it or even on a mirror board where you're doing it online. just there's something about physically writing something down.   Mike (02:41.328) You know, I'm glad you said that because yesterday I flipped to Seattle for a quick work trip and I didn't have wifi and I literally had three pages of just, I, was so like the clarity of some of these kinds of bigger visions I have now from just being able to write for an hour on a flight was, I was like, man, I gotta do this more often.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:00.363) Yeah, for sure. The key though is once you write it down, it just doesn't go into the trash or into a black hole somewhere where you never see it again. So that's kind of the disadvantage there. If you have it on your computer and you're taking notes or you have it on a mirror board, at least it's there to reference all the time. If you write it down on paper, sometimes, I've got my Raze Masters book right here for notes, but it's like, it might go into the abyss and I'll never look at it again. So you gotta be careful about that.   Mike (03:27.184) Yeah, yeah, I need to check out the Miro boards. I've heard a lot of good things about them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:31.467) Yeah, yeah. Awesome, Mike. Well, listen, for our audience who doesn't know anything about you, maybe just tell them, you know, tell them a little bit about your background. Tell them about your your main business and we can take it from there.   Mike (03:43.354) Yeah. So I think for those that don't know about me, I'm a classic Midwest farm boy started with a classic, you know, showing cattle at the county fair and all of that and had a lemonade stand growing up. And then my first job was actually at McDonald's, you know, thinking about the whole success of that business model. But when I was coaching and, out of college, I got my first rental and I was like, wow, this is crazy. making money without.   really much time involved. and then with my work in Silicon Valley, know, Seth, was classic Silicon Valley, you know, cutthroat job that, startup life and traveling three weeks out of the month. And I was on, I was in airports all the time. And was like, these vending machines I would run into at airports were just so archaic. And so I went down this path of like unattended retail and kind of the future of, of that. And that's really where I just see a huge opportunity right now.   And so it's kind of what led me into all these different income streams that I'm passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:49.431) That's awesome, man. Well, let's dive into that a little bit deeper. me about these income streams. It centers around vending machines, right? But I'm sure there's a lot more to it. I'm sure there's a lot of different entry points for people. Maybe just kind of give us a general synopsis to start out.   Mike (05:06.78) Yeah, so I think the big thing with, you know, if we're talking vending specifically as an income stream, you know, most people think of vending as the traditional machines where you enter in a code, you put your card on the machine and then a motor spirals down a Snickers bar or a soda and you go into the chute and grab it.   Nowadays, there's these smart machines that literally you just unlock the door, or even if you go into, land in the Vegas airport right at the bottom of the escalator where it says, welcome to Las Vegas, there's a 7-Eleven with gates and AI cameras, and there's no employees in the 7-Eleven. And it just tracks whatever you grab and to exit the gate, you have to pay for it. So like, there's just this huge market now where we just installed it in urgent care.   less than two months ago and we can do over the counter meds in that machine because it doesn't have to fit into a motor. It's just shelf space. You identify with the planogram with the AI cameras like, okay, Dayquil in this slot or Salad in this slot and then whatever they grab, gets charged to the person that pulls it from it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:15.469) That's interesting, man. Yeah, I mean, my initial thought too, was just like the traditional old vending machine where you're getting a candy bar or a cola out of there. But yeah, nowadays, now that you mentioned that, you see this more and more every single day where you've got these scanners, you've got kind of self-checkout, that sort of thing. So that's kind of, that expands that world and really opens it up to the future, right? Like it just really, that's what we're trying to get to, or at least we think we wanna get there, where we're kind of removing humans and...   kind of working with technologies and things like that.   Mike (06:49.488) Yeah, and I think, you know, removing the whole human thing. mean, those machines still got to get stocked and you know, there's not robots running around doing that. But I just come back to, I was a Marriott guy when I was on the road all the time and I'd go to these grab and goes at a Marriott and grab a, the end of the night, I'd grab like a little wine or an ice cream sandwich. And I literally had to go wait in line at the check-in desk behind three people checking in just to tell them, Hey, put these on.   room charge and I was like if I had a checkout kiosk in that grab-and-go I could have just removed all the friction for this customer experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:27.772) Right, 100%. Yeah, I mean, there's a place and time for it and there's more and more applications for it that just pop up every single day and you can kind of spot that in your life as you're just kind of moving through, whether you're checking into your hotel or whatever you're doing.   Mike (07:41.456) Yeah, yeah. So that's just kind of what excites me today.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:45.973) Yeah, yeah, so when a stranger asks you what you do just in the street, what do you tell them? Because I have a hard time answering that question sometimes too, but I'd love to hear what your answer is.   Mike (07:56.804) Yeah, I would just say it depends on the day. You know, what do you do or what's your, you know, it's like at the golf course when you get paired up with a stranger and they're like, tell me about what you do for your career. And I just say, I'm a classic entrepreneur. And then I'm like, well, what do you do? And it's like, well, tell me about the day. You know, what fire are you putting out? Like today we just got the go ahead for five more urgent cares for our local route. But then, you know, we have a community of operators across the country that we help really build.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:57.933) haha   Ha ha ha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:09.879) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (08:25.616) Vending empires and so we had a group call this morning. So literally, there's a lot of just, you know, it's classic entrepreneurial life. You never know what the day's script is gonna be.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:36.161) Yeah, for sure. And you focus a lot on not only on your own business, but also teaching others, right? Teaching others how to kind of break into this business.   Mike (08:45.402) Yeah, that's my passion, Seth. When I got into my first investment out of college was a $70,000 rental, you know, putting 20 % down or 14K and using an emergency fund. like my background in going to college was as a coach. like I knew I wanted to kind of take that mindset of like coaching people, you know, teach them how to fish. I don't want to catch all the fish myself. It's just not fulfilling that way. So that's really where my passion is.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:15.373) Gotcha, gotcha. tell me about like, tell me about step one. I mean, how does somebody break into this business? Obviously your own personal business is probably very advanced. There's probably a lot more sophisticated investing strategies at this point and you've got different layers to it. But somebody just kind of starting out that said, hey, this sounds pretty interesting. This vending machine business sounds like it can be passive. How do you recommend that they get started?   Mike (09:40.57) Yeah, so I'm always, I view like the whole vending scale as similar to Major League Baseball. You got your single A all the way up to the big leagues. And if you're just starting out, I always recommend like find a location where you can put a machine and just learn the process. Like to me, that's single A analogy. you know, that always starts with, people want to jump right to like, well, what type of machines do you recommend?   products, how do you price products? And the first question I'll always ask Seth is, well, what location is this machine going in? And they're like, well, I don't know yet. I was just going to buy one and put it in my garage to start. And it's like, no, you need to have the location first. So understanding that, is it a pet hospital? Is it an apartment? Is it a gym? Where is the foot traffic? And then you can cater to what's the best machine for that type of location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:36.887) Got it, got it. Now is this a kind of a rent, you rent the space to place the machine with that particular business or wherever you're gonna place it or how does that all come together?   Mike (10:47.644) not typically, some people are kind of more advanced, like apartment complexes are used to the revenue share model. So they're going to ask for a piece of the pie for sure, for you to put the machine in their lobby. but like, you know, when we're talking urgent carers or even pet hospitals are viewing it as an amenity. And so we probably have, I don't even know how many machines now 75 now, and we, you know, less than half of those actually,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:50.423) Okay.   Mike (11:15.1) us rent or ask for a revenue share to have them in there. So I never leave lead with that, but we'll do it if we need to get the location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:23.989) Interesting gotcha. So it's really a value add for wherever you're gonna place it and that's how most people or I guess most businesses would look at that and then you're able to capture that that space   Mike (11:27.366) Mm-hmm.   Mike (11:34.236) Yeah, absolutely. So, um, a great case study is we have a 25 employee roughing business here in Oregon. And you might think like, only 25 employees. It's not going to make that much money. Well, we do $1,200 a month. And the cool thing about this, Seth, is the CEO of this roughing company literally did napkin math on how much it costs for his employees to drive to the gas station during their 20 minute break. And then   How much they're paying for an energy drink at the gas station and then how much gas they're using with the roofing like the work trucks to get to and from the gas station So he's like I want to bring a smart machine into our warehouse Set the prices as half off so that four dollar monster only costs his rofers two dollars and then we invoice him the the business owner every month for the other 50 % and so he actually   Calculated as a cost savings not asking for money to rent the space   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:35.597) Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. I love the baseball analogy with the single A, double A, triple A, even into the big leagues here. know, a lot of the folks that listen to this are already kind of, you know, in the big leagues or maybe think about some capital behind them. Like how would they be able to jump right in, maybe skip single or double A or would they, or do you even suggest that? Do you suggest that they start, you know, small just to learn and then maybe invest some more capital into it to expand or can they jump right to the big leagues?   Mike (12:48.891) Yeah.   Yeah.   Mike (13:03.966) I think they can jump right to the big leagues. this is, I'm glad you brought this up because just listening to some of your episodes from the past, there's no doubt that you have people that could buy a route like a off biz buy sell today. And I think this is a prime opportunity. it's very similar to flipping a house. you, you know, there's a route in Chicago, I think it was for $1.1 million, you know, whatever negotiating terms or seller financing or, or what have you, got a lot of, your, your   audience that is experts in that. But the cool thing about these routes is they have the old school machines that have the motors and that are limited to, this type of machine, you can only fit a 12 ounce cannon. Well, guess what? The minute you buy that route, you swap out that machine with one of these micro markets or smart machines. Now you just went from selling a 12 ounce soda for $1.25 to now a 16 ounce monster for $4.50.   Well, you just bought that location based on its current revenue numbers and by swapping out that machine, you're going to two or three acts your revenue just at that location. And so it's truly just like a value play, a value upgrade, like flipping the house of, okay, there's a lot of deals right now of these routes being sold by baby boomers where it's like, they got the old school Pepsi machine. Doesn't have a credit card reader on it. They can't track inventory remotely via their cell phones. So   They're not keeping it stocked. Like all those types of things can really play in your favor as a buyer that just wants to get to the big leagues right away.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:37.651) I love that. When you say buy a route, what are you really buying? Tell me about the contractual agreement behind that. What are you really buying there?   Mike (14:47.184) You're just buying the locations and the equipment associated with it. So like this Chicago route, it's like, we have machines in 75 properties all across the Chicago suburbs. And they could be medical clinics. could be apartments. could be employee break rooms at businesses, but that's when you start diving into those locations. It's like, I have a snack machine and a soda machine here. Well, you swap that out with a micro market that now instead of.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:49.279) Okay. Okay.   Mike (15:13.626) that machine that'll only hold a small bag of Doritos that you charge two bucks, well now you get the movie size theater bags that you can really put in there in a micro market. Like naturally just that valuation of that route based on those 75 machines current revenue, I mean you're gonna be able to two or three X your revenue right by just swapping out those machines.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:35.959) Wow, yeah, I love that analogy with real estate, right? It's just like a value add. It's like, how can I bring in more income from what already exists? Well, I need to upgrade or I need to put in some capital improvements, whatever you want to call it. Here's the vending machine upgrades or a different kind of system in there. And you get more income. And obviously that business in itself is going to be worth more in a higher multiple.   Mike (15:58.396) Absolutely. mean, a great example of this is we had a machine in an apartment complex and it was your traditional machine with the motors and you have to enter in the code. Well, we could only put in four 12 ounce drinks and then chips. Well, we swapped that out with a micro market. Well, now that micro market, we literally put in bags of Tide Pods for laundry, like these big bags of Tide Pods. We'll sell those like hotcakes for 15 bucks. And our old machine,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:25.281) Yeah, let's say those aren't cheap.   Mike (16:27.246) Yeah, our old machine Seth, it would take us to get to 15 bucks, we'd have to sell eight Snickers. That's one transaction.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:33.547) Right, right. Yeah, yeah. How do you do an analysis kind of based on like what you think is gonna sell there, right? Like you're replacing, let's say a Dorito machine with Tide Pods, you know? So you have to individually go to each location and figure out what will work, what will sell.   Mike (16:47.738) Yeah.   Mike (16:51.834) It's all about demographic. Absolutely. So, you know, we have, we have, we have a micro market and a manufacturing plant that's, it's a pumpkin farm and there's a ton of Hispanic workers. So we do a lot of like spicy foods, a lot of spicy chips. do, we do a ton of, mean, the sugar or sorry, the glass bottle cokes. They do, they love their pastries.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:53.431) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:06.349) Yeah.   Mike (17:15.868) So we just doubled down on the demographics. So yesterday I was filming at one of our micro markets that's in a gym and they crushed the Fairlife protein shakes, like the more modern protein shakes, but they won't touch muscle milk. So we're literally taking out one row of muscle milk just to add an extra row of Fairlife shakes. So you're constantly just catering to the demographics and what's selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:40.632) Yeah, yeah, this is awesome. I mean, this is literally just like real estate, right? Like you go and you find a good market. You're talking about demographics, right? Find the market, see what they want, see how much you can upgrade, how you can upgrade. If it's an apartment, it's a unit. If it's here, it's the product that you're selling and the type of machine, or maybe it's a mini market. A lot of things to kind of tie your understanding to here.   Mike (17:45.926) Yeah.   Mike (18:05.904) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:07.615) Yeah, awesome, man. Awesome, Where are you at in your business? Like what, you know, what are the big leagues looking like right now? You know, what are you doing to expand your business, raising the bar in your business?   Mike (18:18.692) Yeah, I'm going after that's a really good question. I'm going after kind of these newer markets and we're kind of past that point of like, okay, let's pilot in this location. For example, that urgent care, we didn't know if it was going to be a good location two months ago when we installed. Well now it's already crushing it. Well, there's six other urgent cares in town and we just got to go ahead on five of those six. So like for me, it's doubling down on our current proof points of where.   okay, we know that manufacturing plant, the pumpkin farm does really well. So let's start getting intros to all their, manufacturers of the products they need to grow pumpkin. know, like we're just doubling down on scaling because now we have the operational blueprint to really just kind of to go after it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:03.917) Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about how passive this can really be, right? So I used to have, before we switched over to the new brand, Raise the Bar podcast, it was the Passive Income Attorney podcast, right? I was really focused on passive investments, focused on bringing in passive investors into my real estate deals, things like that. And I think that word passive gets thrown around quite a bit, right? And sometimes it's abused because people get into things that are not truly passive.   Mike (19:18.427) Yeah.   Mike (19:28.784) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:33.517) What's your take on that as it relates to the vending business?   Mike (19:38.49) Yeah, so I think as far as with the vending business, there's clearly upfront leg work that needs to be done, whether that's finding locations or any of those things. So I have a route that is here in Oregon, and then we bought a route last year in Illinois and have scaled that route. I spend 30 minutes a week on each route now. that these urgent cares and stuff, like we have an operator that's running the whole route.   Here's the problem, Seth. It's like people are so scared to build systems to ultimately systemize things or they're too cheap to hire help. And I'm the opposite. like, you know, kind of like Dan Martell's buy back your time. Like I have like a leverage calculator and like I constantly think about is this worth my time? Cause as you know, you're busier than me. Like it's so limited.   for me, my routes, I would consider them passive, like one hour a week is, is nothing in my mind. But as far as like, you know, I'm, I'm also a passive investor on, we're building a, an oil loop station in Florida and I sent my money a year ago to, to my, active investor and I haven't talked to him since. Like that's actually truly probably passive now, you know, I'm not doing anything, but there's, there's different levels to that. And I'm a huge believer like.   don't delegate something until you know what you're delegating. So people that want to start with the vending routes, sure, if you want to buy a route that already has an operator, that's one thing. but these, if you're starting a vending route for your kid or for your stay at home wife or whatever, as a side hustle, like get in the weeds and install that first machine. So when you hire help to take over the route, you know what you're delegating.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:09.773) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:27.021) Yeah, that's key. That's key. And you you described just like any other business, right? I think that's kind of where people get themselves into trouble. That sometimes they get sold the dream that is truly passive. And eventually it can be. I mean, you're talking about an hour a week. To me, that's pretty damn passive, right? But you know, upfront, you you've got to learn the business. You've got to know what you're getting yourself into. Like you said, you've got to learn before you delegate so that you know what you're delegating.   There is going to be some upfront work and then as you're able to kind of delegate and learn Then you can make it more and more passive as you go   Mike (22:00.88) Yeah, I mean, it's no different than what's the same when people tell you that they're busy. I mean, you're just not a priority. Like that's a fact. you're not. People say it's the same thing when people come to me and they're like, I'm so busy. It's like, okay, well let me, let me see your schedule. Where are you spending your time? You know, it's like when people are like, I can't lose weight. Okay, well let me see your food log. What did you eat yesterday? Did you have ice cream? Like this is like the same kind of thing. That's where passive I think has been really abused.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:16.097) Yeah. Yep.   Mike (22:29.638) To me, the bigger issue is like, vending is not get rich quick. And so like, if you're expecting to leave your nine to five tomorrow and vending is going to make up for that in one day, like that's not going to   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:41.089) Right, Makes sense. Speaking of passive, do you raise capital or do you have any kind of a fund or have you put together a fund for something like this?   Mike (22:51.48) We haven't put together a fun, we're definitely buying routes is definitely becoming more and more intriguing. And I know there's some PE players starting to get into the vending game, but it's something we've been definitely considering and on our radar of do we want to.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:58.541) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:10.231) Gotcha. Cool. I mean, you brought in money partners for some of those routes yet, or is that still something you're exploring too?   Mike (23:18.168) No, I think it's just something we're thinking about. mean, what do you recommend?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:21.089) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd recommend I mean, it depends, right? Like I'm I'm scared to turn you by trade, but I don't like to say you should always raise capital no matter what. Right. Like you've been able to scale your business as you have and grown it to where it is without bringing outside capital. It sounds which is great because you own 100 percent or with whatever business partners you might have. You know, when you start raising capital, you're giving a large chunk of that piece away, not necessarily your whole company. But if you're buying   you know, a set of routes or that sort of thing. You you're gonna give a big piece away to those past investors if you're starting a fund or even if it's up. Even a single asset syndication here for one of these, you know, these routes, you could put it together that way. You know, it's just something to consider. But a lot of times when people are looking to scale fast, right, if they wanna grow exponentially, you've gotta use other people's money to get there or hit the lottery.   Mike (24:08.294) Mm.   Mike (24:15.856) Absolutely, no, agree. That's spot-on and I actually before you know the Silicon Valley company That I was part of we had a we went through probably series a B C D C ground   Let's just say we weren't very fiscally responsible. So I come from the, you know, it's like the ex-girlfriend example. I don't want to just start taking everyone's money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:42.413) Yeah, yeah, that tends to happen with some startups, right? Like before you get funding, you're super frugal because it's your money and every single dollar counts. And you're like, I don't want to pay, you if it's software, you don't want to pay the software engineers. I'm going to out, you know, put it, you know, hire Indian engineers, that sort of thing. And then once you get a few million bucks that you raised in that seed round, then it just goes and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, let's hire 20 people. You know, it's you got to be careful about that.   Mike (25:05.606) Yeah   Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great take on it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:11.245) Yeah, it's, yeah. It's a question I love to ask and I think it's about time for that. So, in a parallel universe, tell me about a different version of you. So a different but likely version, right? Like, for example, for me, I went to med school for a year and a half and then I dropped out and I ended up becoming an attorney. So that was like a big turning point, right? So I could have easily at some point just said screw it and became a doctor and that would have been a totally different route than I'm going down right now.   What's an example of something like that for you?   Mike (25:42.524) Wait, are you being serious about that? I took the MCAT too. I got into med school and then I, yeah, I was pretty mad in school. And then the more I learned about exercise science, I was like, organic chemistry is not fun.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:44.321) Yeah, totally.   yeah? There you go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:57.39) It is not fun. I did not love that. I majored in exercise physiology and then I ended up switching to biology because it was just a little bit of an easier route to get my degree and go into med school and I went for a year and a half and then I dropped out because I absolutely hated it. I knew I didn't want to do it. I was just more attracted to business and that sort of thing.   Mike (26:16.346) Yeah, that's crazy. That's awesome. parallel universe. I, that's a really good question. I don't know. I, kinda, I have two kids under three and the other side of me wishes I would have traveled more.   you know, I mean, we'll get there hopefully when they get out of high school and someday. But right now I just think there's so many different cultural things and ways to skin the cat. And it's just fascinating to learn some of those things.   Mike (26:55.352) yourself in those cultures.   go to different cultures and really like understand how they did things for a time, a period of time to really just learn their thinking.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:07.777) Yeah, I love that man. I had a similar experience of what you're describing. I didn't travel abroad really other than like, you know, Canada and Mexico until I studied abroad in Barcelona during law school and I got to stay there for a couple of months. So you actually had some time. It wasn't like you're just visiting for a week or a weekend or anything like that. You got to kind of live there right for a couple of months and it just totally changed my, you know, my outlook on life and just the way that you see things like I feel like we're in the US and we just think   Mike (27:19.627) Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:37.76) US is number one and there's only one way to do things the way that we do things that kind of attitude. And then when you go to Western Europe and you see that culture and you drive or get on a train, it's like an hour away and you're in a totally different culture and they're doing it a certain way as well and it's working. You just see that other people are doing things differently and still being successful at it, still having a thriving culture and it's just awesome to see.   Mike (28:03.312) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:06.251) Yeah. Tell me about some major influences in your life. What turned you or got you into that, the vending business? It's not one of those typical things. mean, I know you're in the education business, so you're kind of really spreading the word about this type of business. But I would say when you started, there might not have been a mastermind or educational courses around this. mean, how did you kind of get drawn into that? Were there any particular people or influences that brought you in?   Mike (28:29.308) you   Mike (28:36.188) Yeah. So the, biggest influence for me to get into vending, uh, wasn't actually a person. It was actually, was, um, I had landed, I was coming back from the Pentagon from a trip back to the Bay for the startup we were talking about. And I was in the Denver airport and 11 PM, you know, our flight was delayed. And then they're like, Hey, you have to stay in the airport tonight. The pilot went over their hours for the day, blah, blah, blah. So I went to a vending machine and I remember buying a bottle of water.   I think it costs like at the time three bucks or something. I knew that bottle of water cost 20 cents at Costco. And I was like, there is someone that's at home with their kids right now making money off me and they're not even at this mission. Like the machine is doing the work. So I had like an aha moment of like, what are my true priorities in life? And like, why am I chasing this cutthroat startup from.   Palo Alto and trying to make it when reality was my priorities are freedom to spend more time with my family. So that's really kind of what led me into this path of starting a vending machine side hustle to keep our lifestyle as we had kids. We wanted to have a nanny and we wanted to be able to still go on dates and things like that as a couple with my wife. So that's really kind of my family and just like...   having the freedom to do things. Like that's what I'm really passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:59.084) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, building on that, and you may have already answered that, but what does success look like for you?   Mike (30:01.766) next   Mike (30:06.268) an empty calendar.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:08.621) Good luck with that. Good luck with that.   Mike (30:11.516) Oh man, I was gonna say, how do we crack that code? No, yeah. No, but I think success to me is doing things like picking up my daughter at three and even being able to say no to the things that aren't gonna get you to where you need, like the discipline piece of this too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:15.708) man.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:33.995) Yeah, yeah, mean, you know, for me, it's kind of similar, right? It's not going to be able to empty that calendar. Not yet, at least maybe here in the future. But for now, it's pretty filled. But it is it's flexible, right? Like us as entrepreneurs, you know, we probably work more than we ever worked when we were in our W-2s. But at the same time, it's you know, we're working in our own business for ourselves, for our families. And we have the   Flexibility, a lot of people will say the freedom, right? But we have the flexibility to move things around. And if you want to pick your kids up at school at three, or you do want to take a weekend off, or something comes up in your schedule, you have the flexibility to do that. Whereas if you're kind of slaving away at the nine to five, you can't really do it.   Mike (31:04.486) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (31:20.198) Yeah, that's spot on. mean, I just wrote that down, but flexibility is, cause you're right. When you started becoming an entrepreneur, this is what I tell people all the time when they want to get a venting around is like running your own business. You are going to work harder than you do for your boss currently at your W-2. Like you have to do payroll. You have to do, like you gotta like make sure there's money to actually do pay, you know, like all those things that you just don't even think about when you have a W-2. It's like, today's   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:39.543) Yeah   Mike (31:48.89) You know, this Friday I get paid. Well, when you run a business, mean, that money's got to come from somewhere.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:51.905) Yeah   Right, yeah, 100%, man, 100%. All right, Mike, we're gonna wrap it up. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell the listeners where they can find out more about you.   Mike (32:05.286) Yeah, so thanks for having me. This has been great. I have free content all over the place. can find me on the classic Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, but I also have vendingpreneurs.com is where we help people that are more interested in actually the vending stuff. But I've been really trying to double down on YouTube lately because there's just a lot of content and you can't get it off a one minute reel.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:32.417) Love it, man. All right, Mike, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.   Mike (32:35.91) Thanks for having me.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:37.227) Hi brother. Alright man, got a couple more questions for you. We do like a quick, kind of do the full podcast episode and then I'll just do kind of a quick episode that'll follow up on a Monday and then another one on a Friday. Cool.   Mike (32:55.814) See you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:59.693) We out here.   Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?   Mike (33:20.922) Yeah, Seth. It was probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short-term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:25.229) Mm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:37.079) Gotcha, cool. Yeah, real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in that primary business or not, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?   Mike (33:53.956) Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. So that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit with it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:57.57) Right. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:16.215) Gotcha. Cool. that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?   Mike (34:23.32) Exactly. Yeah. Buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets charging, with different products and what would fit in a vending machine, like more of the unorthodox, you know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of, go and add it in a different way.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:49.857) Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's gotta be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?   Mike (35:01.102) Yeah, I think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:05.387) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:27.521) Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?   Mike (35:34.3) I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their, their vending routes. that is applicable to any, small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.209) Yeah, totally makes sense. mean people that are not paying attention to AI whether it's simply using chat GPT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's gonna look like five years from now the way that things are moving.   Mike (36:23.132) It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software into the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is pretty   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:43.479) Yeah, 100%. We're gonna, I predicted within five years, everybody's gonna have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled and they're gonna be doing physical things for us at our homes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. 100%. Awesome, All right, moving on to the next one.   Mike (36:50.181) Yeah!   Mike (36:57.917) I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco get all our groceries do our do our laundry The dishes   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.501) You're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do, Mike. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Mike (37:19.056) Ooh, that's a good question, Seth. I think it's just discipline, know, discipline and focus. One of the hardest things is being able to say no with the things that don't align. And when I was growing up, I had a quote that has really stuck with me. That's like, it's better to be respected than liked. And I think that really resonates. Like naturally as a human, you want to be liked and help people, but the 1 % are really good at saying no.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:47.649) Yeah, I love that man. That's a great answer. Kind of building on that, what do you think the number one attribute is that makes a successful entrepreneur?   Mike (37:57.468) probably focus. Yeah. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:59.212) Yeah, focus. Yep. The one thing, right? The one thing.   Mike (38:04.186) Yep. That's why you come back to like the most successful entrepreneurs. They always niche down and they niche down because they just, got hyper-focused. Like this is kind of why for me, you know, I started this passive Mr. Passive on social media before I even got into Vendi. Well, now everyone's like, well, how passive is Vendi? And well, it's like, what's really interesting is I was posting all these different, what I thought passive income streams in the time, but everyone, 95 % of the questions I got about   Airbnbs are all my different investments was about bending. So I just niche down on, on bending and I just looked back on that and I was like, it really forced me to focus.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:43.263) Awesome, awesome. What's one thing someone could do today to get 1 % closer to success in the vending machine business if they are really interested in learning more?   Mike (38:53.892) tap into your connections and find a location that has high foot traffic, whether that's a friend that works at an urgent care, a sister that lives at an apartment. You know, you take your kid to that gymnastics studio that has a ton of foot traffic between 4 PM and 8 PM. Like all those locations are prime locations to put one of these modern smart machines in. so, tapping into your connections, well, you know,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:24.567) Love that man. Awesome. All right, Mike, I appreciate it, brother. We'll to meet in person sometime,   Mike (39:30.574) I would love to. Where are you based, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:31.789) I'm in San Diego, where you at?   Mike (39:34.78) I am in Eugene. Yeah, Oregon. I'll come down your way though.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:37.39) Cool We're planning on doing yeah, we're planning on doing so me and my wife we have a Sprinter van and Last May we did we did going back to the flexibility piece, right? We did 32 days in the van up through Wyoming Montana and then into like Into Canada and they're like Banff and Jasper and all the way up to Jasper and then we circled back on the west coast Through Vancouver and then down back to San Diego Yeah   Mike (40:05.52) What?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:06.829) Pretty wild, pretty awesome. And the reason I brought that up is this year we're gonna do shorter trip. We're probably gonna do two, maybe three weeks at the most, but we're gonna do kind of the Pacific Northwest. So Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver and all those parks and stuff up there.   Mike (40:17.254) Yeah.   Mike (40:21.744) Yeah, you definitely have a, have you been to Bend before? Bend is like my, that whole area, Central Oregon is, and even Idaho, like all those kind of, yeah. That's awesome. Please let me know when you're up this way. I mean, I'll come meet you wherever. That'd be amazing. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:24.641) Yeah, yeah I have.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:38.861) Sure man grab a coffee or beer. I appreciate it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah all right brother great to meet you and I will send the information on when this is gonna get released and give you you materials and all that stuff so we can collaborate on social media   Mike (40:51.964) Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is a lot of your audience, like passive investors?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:58.593) So most of that, so now I'm rebranding. I rebranded because I'm gonna be speaking more towards like active entrepreneurs, Active entrepreneurs, people raising capital, that sort of thing. Whereas before it was based on passive investors and people really focused on attorneys. So I'm an attorney and I was raising capital from attorneys for my real estate deals. Now I'm really more into selling shovels. I'm scaling my law firm. I'm chief legal officer for Tribest, which is, we've got a fund to fund.   Mike (41:20.262) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:28.085) legal product there as well. So we're really trying to bring in active, active entrepreneurs and people raising capital.   Mike (41:29.777) Yeah.   Mike (41:36.572) Okay, because I got that, I was just thinking through when we talking about that oil development project, that could be a good, the guy that runs that fund could be a good interview for you. Just thinking through your audience, because he's always looking for investors into his fund and like these oil lubs are just crushing it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:49.901) Cool. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:58.464) Yeah, cool. Who is it? Just, I don't know if I know him or not.   Mike (42:02.183) Um, Robert Durkey, he's out of Florida. has, his problem is he's sitting on a gold mine that has no, like he's old school, doesn't know social media, any of that. So that's why I think he'd be perfect for you. Cause I think you could help him and he could definitely help you with some kickback. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully we meet soon. Okay. See you Seth. Bye.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:05.645) I don't think I know. I don't think I know.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:13.889) Yeah. Gotcha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:20.705) Cool, okay, sounds good man. Yeah, I appreciate the introduction.   Yeah, all right brother. Talk soon. See ya. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Mike Hoffman's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikehoffmannofficial/ https://x.com/mrpassive_?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedhoffmann/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.passive

Title: How to Make Millions with Vending Machines with Mike Hoffman Summary: In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike Hoffman delve into the world of vending machines as a business opportunity. Mike shares his journey from a Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur in the vending industry, highlighting the evolution of vending technology and the potential for passive income. They discuss the importance of location, understanding demographics, and the scalability of vending routes. Mike emphasizes the need for upfront work and learning before delegating tasks, while also addressing the misconceptions surrounding passive income in the vending business. In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike discuss various aspects of entrepreneurship, particularly in the vending machine business. They explore the importance of capital raising, the journey of self-discovery, influences that shape business decisions, and the definition of success. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of flexibility, discipline, and focus in achieving entrepreneurial goals, while also touching on financial milestones and the attributes that distinguish successful entrepreneurs. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Mike's journey from a classic Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur. The evolution of vending machines from traditional to smart technology. Understanding the importance of location in the vending business. The analogy of baseball levels to describe starting in vending. Scaling up from single A to big leagues in vending routes. The significance of demographics in product selection for vending machines. The potential for passive income with proper systems in place. The need for upfront work before achieving passivity in business. Vending is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it requires dedication. The future opportunities in the vending industry are expanding rapidly. Raising capital can dilute ownership but may be necessary for rapid growth. Self-discovery often leads to unexpected career paths. Influences in business can come from personal experiences rather than just mentors. Success is often defined by the ability to prioritize family and flexibility. Entrepreneurs work harder than in traditional jobs but gain flexibility. Discipline is crucial for saying no to distractions. Successful entrepreneurs often focus on niche markets. High foot traffic locations are ideal for vending machines. AI is transforming business operations and efficiency. Networking and connections can lead to valuable opportunities. Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.898) Mike, what's going on buddy? Doing great brother, doing great. How about you?   Mike (00:06.748) Don't worry,   Mike (00:11.664) Good, I'm a little flustered. I usually have my mic set up over here, but I guess we just moved and it's not here today. I guess, yeah, new office and it's been a whole hot mess.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:19.822) New office or what?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:27.862) Nice man, nice. I see you got the whiteboard cranking back there. Love to see that.   Mike (00:33.114) Always. I love your background. That's sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:38.03) Thanks man, yeah, I'm on camera all the time so I like I need to just build this out instead of using like a green screen so Made the investment made it happen   Mike (00:44.86) Totally.   Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:49.442) Have we met in person or not? I don't know if we've met at a Wealth Without Wall Street event or I couldn't tell. Okay. No, I did not go to Nashville last year.   Mike (00:58.478) I don't think so. don't think you're... Were you in Nashville last year?   Mike (01:04.634) No, okay. No, I don't think we've met in person. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:08.256) Okay, all good, man. All good. Well, cool. I'll just go over the format real quick. We'll do kind of a shorter recording. We're do like 30 minutes, something like in that range. And then we'll just kind of like break. And then I'll, want to record a couple of other quick segments where I call it Million Dollar Monday. I'm kind of asking you about how you made your first, last and next million. And then 1 % closer, which would just be kind of what separates you, what makes you the   top 1 % in your particular vertical. So we'll just kind of record those separately. Those will be real short, like five minutes or so.   Mike (01:44.924) Okay, yeah, I'll follow your lead. All good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.15) Cool. Cool. Let's see. I think I already have this auto recording. So we're already recording. So I'll just jump right in.   Mike (01:55.377) Okay.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:57.782) Welcome to Raise the Bar Radio, hosted by yours truly Seth Bradley. We today we've got Mr. Passive, Mike Hoffman. Mike, welcome to the show.   Mike (02:08.189) Thank you for having me fired up to be here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:10.855) Absolutely man, really happy to have you on. I know it's been a little bit of a trek here to get our schedules lined up, but really stoked to have you on today, man. I see you said you moved into a new office. You've got the whiteboard cranking, so love to see it.   Mike (02:25.372) yeah, whiteboards are the only place I can get my thoughts down.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.399) Yeah, man, it makes a difference when you actually write something rather than type it or even on a mirror board where you're doing it online. just there's something about physically writing something down.   Mike (02:41.328) You know, I'm glad you said that because yesterday I flipped to Seattle for a quick work trip and I didn't have wifi and I literally had three pages of just, I, was so like the clarity of some of these kinds of bigger visions I have now from just being able to write for an hour on a flight was, I was like, man, I gotta do this more often.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:00.363) Yeah, for sure. The key though is once you write it down, it just doesn't go into the trash or into a black hole somewhere where you never see it again. So that's kind of the disadvantage there. If you have it on your computer and you're taking notes or you have it on a mirror board, at least it's there to reference all the time. If you write it down on paper, sometimes, I've got my Raze Masters book right here for notes, but it's like, it might go into the abyss and I'll never look at it again. So you gotta be careful about that.   Mike (03:27.184) Yeah, yeah, I need to check out the Miro boards. I've heard a lot of good things about them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:31.467) Yeah, yeah. Awesome, Mike. Well, listen, for our audience who doesn't know anything about you, maybe just tell them, you know, tell them a little bit about your background. Tell them about your your main business and we can take it from there.   Mike (03:43.354) Yeah. So I think for those that don't know about me, I'm a classic Midwest farm boy started with a classic, you know, showing cattle at the county fair and all of that and had a lemonade stand growing up. And then my first job was actually at McDonald's, you know, thinking about the whole success of that business model. But when I was coaching and, out of college, I got my first rental and I was like, wow, this is crazy. making money without.   really much time involved. and then with my work in Silicon Valley, know, Seth, was classic Silicon Valley, you know, cutthroat job that, startup life and traveling three weeks out of the month. And I was on, I was in airports all the time. And was like, these vending machines I would run into at airports were just so archaic. And so I went down this path of like unattended retail and kind of the future of, of that. And that's really where I just see a huge opportunity right now.   And so it's kind of what led me into all these different income streams that I'm passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:49.431) That's awesome, man. Well, let's dive into that a little bit deeper. me about these income streams. It centers around vending machines, right? But I'm sure there's a lot more to it. I'm sure there's a lot of different entry points for people. Maybe just kind of give us a general synopsis to start out.   Mike (05:06.78) Yeah, so I think the big thing with, you know, if we're talking vending specifically as an income stream, you know, most people think of vending as the traditional machines where you enter in a code, you put your card on the machine and then a motor spirals down a Snickers bar or a soda and you go into the chute and grab it.   Nowadays, there's these smart machines that literally you just unlock the door, or even if you go into, land in the Vegas airport right at the bottom of the escalator where it says, welcome to Las Vegas, there's a 7-Eleven with gates and AI cameras, and there's no employees in the 7-Eleven. And it just tracks whatever you grab and to exit the gate, you have to pay for it. So like, there's just this huge market now where we just installed it in urgent care.   less than two months ago and we can do over the counter meds in that machine because it doesn't have to fit into a motor. It's just shelf space. You identify with the planogram with the AI cameras like, okay, Dayquil in this slot or Salad in this slot and then whatever they grab, gets charged to the person that pulls it from it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:15.469) That's interesting, man. Yeah, I mean, my initial thought too, was just like the traditional old vending machine where you're getting a candy bar or a cola out of there. But yeah, nowadays, now that you mentioned that, you see this more and more every single day where you've got these scanners, you've got kind of self-checkout, that sort of thing. So that's kind of, that expands that world and really opens it up to the future, right? Like it just really, that's what we're trying to get to, or at least we think we wanna get there, where we're kind of removing humans and...   kind of working with technologies and things like that.   Mike (06:49.488) Yeah, and I think, you know, removing the whole human thing. mean, those machines still got to get stocked and you know, there's not robots running around doing that. But I just come back to, I was a Marriott guy when I was on the road all the time and I'd go to these grab and goes at a Marriott and grab a, the end of the night, I'd grab like a little wine or an ice cream sandwich. And I literally had to go wait in line at the check-in desk behind three people checking in just to tell them, Hey, put these on.   room charge and I was like if I had a checkout kiosk in that grab-and-go I could have just removed all the friction for this customer experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:27.772) Right, 100%. Yeah, I mean, there's a place and time for it and there's more and more applications for it that just pop up every single day and you can kind of spot that in your life as you're just kind of moving through, whether you're checking into your hotel or whatever you're doing.   Mike (07:41.456) Yeah, yeah. So that's just kind of what excites me today.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:45.973) Yeah, yeah, so when a stranger asks you what you do just in the street, what do you tell them? Because I have a hard time answering that question sometimes too, but I'd love to hear what your answer is.   Mike (07:56.804) Yeah, I would just say it depends on the day. You know, what do you do or what's your, you know, it's like at the golf course when you get paired up with a stranger and they're like, tell me about what you do for your career. And I just say, I'm a classic entrepreneur. And then I'm like, well, what do you do? And it's like, well, tell me about the day. You know, what fire are you putting out? Like today we just got the go ahead for five more urgent cares for our local route. But then, you know, we have a community of operators across the country that we help really build.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:57.933) haha   Ha ha ha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:09.879) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (08:25.616) Vending empires and so we had a group call this morning. So literally, there's a lot of just, you know, it's classic entrepreneurial life. You never know what the day's script is gonna be.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:36.161) Yeah, for sure. And you focus a lot on not only on your own business, but also teaching others, right? Teaching others how to kind of break into this business.   Mike (08:45.402) Yeah, that's my passion, Seth. When I got into my first investment out of college was a $70,000 rental, you know, putting 20 % down or 14K and using an emergency fund. like my background in going to college was as a coach. like I knew I wanted to kind of take that mindset of like coaching people, you know, teach them how to fish. I don't want to catch all the fish myself. It's just not fulfilling that way. So that's really where my passion is.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:15.373) Gotcha, gotcha. tell me about like, tell me about step one. I mean, how does somebody break into this business? Obviously your own personal business is probably very advanced. There's probably a lot more sophisticated investing strategies at this point and you've got different layers to it. But somebody just kind of starting out that said, hey, this sounds pretty interesting. This vending machine business sounds like it can be passive. How do you recommend that they get started?   Mike (09:40.57) Yeah, so I'm always, I view like the whole vending scale as similar to Major League Baseball. You got your single A all the way up to the big leagues. And if you're just starting out, I always recommend like find a location where you can put a machine and just learn the process. Like to me, that's single A analogy. you know, that always starts with, people want to jump right to like, well, what type of machines do you recommend?   products, how do you price products? And the first question I'll always ask Seth is, well, what location is this machine going in? And they're like, well, I don't know yet. I was just going to buy one and put it in my garage to start. And it's like, no, you need to have the location first. So understanding that, is it a pet hospital? Is it an apartment? Is it a gym? Where is the foot traffic? And then you can cater to what's the best machine for that type of location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:36.887) Got it, got it. Now is this a kind of a rent, you rent the space to place the machine with that particular business or wherever you're gonna place it or how does that all come together?   Mike (10:47.644) not typically, some people are kind of more advanced, like apartment complexes are used to the revenue share model. So they're going to ask for a piece of the pie for sure, for you to put the machine in their lobby. but like, you know, when we're talking urgent carers or even pet hospitals are viewing it as an amenity. And so we probably have, I don't even know how many machines now 75 now, and we, you know, less than half of those actually,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:50.423) Okay.   Mike (11:15.1) us rent or ask for a revenue share to have them in there. So I never leave lead with that, but we'll do it if we need to get the location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:23.989) Interesting gotcha. So it's really a value add for wherever you're gonna place it and that's how most people or I guess most businesses would look at that and then you're able to capture that that space   Mike (11:27.366) Mm-hmm.   Mike (11:34.236) Yeah, absolutely. So, um, a great case study is we have a 25 employee roughing business here in Oregon. And you might think like, only 25 employees. It's not going to make that much money. Well, we do $1,200 a month. And the cool thing about this, Seth, is the CEO of this roughing company literally did napkin math on how much it costs for his employees to drive to the gas station during their 20 minute break. And then   How much they're paying for an energy drink at the gas station and then how much gas they're using with the roofing like the work trucks to get to and from the gas station So he's like I want to bring a smart machine into our warehouse Set the prices as half off so that four dollar monster only costs his rofers two dollars and then we invoice him the the business owner every month for the other 50 % and so he actually   Calculated as a cost savings not asking for money to rent the space   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:35.597) Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. I love the baseball analogy with the single A, double A, triple A, even into the big leagues here. know, a lot of the folks that listen to this are already kind of, you know, in the big leagues or maybe think about some capital behind them. Like how would they be able to jump right in, maybe skip single or double A or would they, or do you even suggest that? Do you suggest that they start, you know, small just to learn and then maybe invest some more capital into it to expand or can they jump right to the big leagues?   Mike (12:48.891) Yeah.   Yeah.   Mike (13:03.966) I think they can jump right to the big leagues. this is, I'm glad you brought this up because just listening to some of your episodes from the past, there's no doubt that you have people that could buy a route like a off biz buy sell today. And I think this is a prime opportunity. it's very similar to flipping a house. you, you know, there's a route in Chicago, I think it was for $1.1 million, you know, whatever negotiating terms or seller financing or, or what have you, got a lot of, your, your   audience that is experts in that. But the cool thing about these routes is they have the old school machines that have the motors and that are limited to, this type of machine, you can only fit a 12 ounce cannon. Well, guess what? The minute you buy that route, you swap out that machine with one of these micro markets or smart machines. Now you just went from selling a 12 ounce soda for $1.25 to now a 16 ounce monster for $4.50.   Well, you just bought that location based on its current revenue numbers and by swapping out that machine, you're going to two or three acts your revenue just at that location. And so it's truly just like a value play, a value upgrade, like flipping the house of, okay, there's a lot of deals right now of these routes being sold by baby boomers where it's like, they got the old school Pepsi machine. Doesn't have a credit card reader on it. They can't track inventory remotely via their cell phones. So   They're not keeping it stocked. Like all those types of things can really play in your favor as a buyer that just wants to get to the big leagues right away.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:37.651) I love that. When you say buy a route, what are you really buying? Tell me about the contractual agreement behind that. What are you really buying there?   Mike (14:47.184) You're just buying the locations and the equipment associated with it. So like this Chicago route, it's like, we have machines in 75 properties all across the Chicago suburbs. And they could be medical clinics. could be apartments. could be employee break rooms at businesses, but that's when you start diving into those locations. It's like, I have a snack machine and a soda machine here. Well, you swap that out with a micro market that now instead of.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:49.279) Okay. Okay.   Mike (15:13.626) that machine that'll only hold a small bag of Doritos that you charge two bucks, well now you get the movie size theater bags that you can really put in there in a micro market. Like naturally just that valuation of that route based on those 75 machines current revenue, I mean you're gonna be able to two or three X your revenue right by just swapping out those machines.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:35.959) Wow, yeah, I love that analogy with real estate, right? It's just like a value add. It's like, how can I bring in more income from what already exists? Well, I need to upgrade or I need to put in some capital improvements, whatever you want to call it. Here's the vending machine upgrades or a different kind of system in there. And you get more income. And obviously that business in itself is going to be worth more in a higher multiple.   Mike (15:58.396) Absolutely. mean, a great example of this is we had a machine in an apartment complex and it was your traditional machine with the motors and you have to enter in the code. Well, we could only put in four 12 ounce drinks and then chips. Well, we swapped that out with a micro market. Well, now that micro market, we literally put in bags of Tide Pods for laundry, like these big bags of Tide Pods. We'll sell those like hotcakes for 15 bucks. And our old machine,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:25.281) Yeah, let's say those aren't cheap.   Mike (16:27.246) Yeah, our old machine Seth, it would take us to get to 15 bucks, we'd have to sell eight Snickers. That's one transaction.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:33.547) Right, right. Yeah, yeah. How do you do an analysis kind of based on like what you think is gonna sell there, right? Like you're replacing, let's say a Dorito machine with Tide Pods, you know? So you have to individually go to each location and figure out what will work, what will sell.   Mike (16:47.738) Yeah.   Mike (16:51.834) It's all about demographic. Absolutely. So, you know, we have, we have, we have a micro market and a manufacturing plant that's, it's a pumpkin farm and there's a ton of Hispanic workers. So we do a lot of like spicy foods, a lot of spicy chips. do, we do a ton of, mean, the sugar or sorry, the glass bottle cokes. They do, they love their pastries.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:53.431) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:06.349) Yeah.   Mike (17:15.868) So we just doubled down on the demographics. So yesterday I was filming at one of our micro markets that's in a gym and they crushed the Fairlife protein shakes, like the more modern protein shakes, but they won't touch muscle milk. So we're literally taking out one row of muscle milk just to add an extra row of Fairlife shakes. So you're constantly just catering to the demographics and what's selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:40.632) Yeah, yeah, this is awesome. I mean, this is literally just like real estate, right? Like you go and you find a good market. You're talking about demographics, right? Find the market, see what they want, see how much you can upgrade, how you can upgrade. If it's an apartment, it's a unit. If it's here, it's the product that you're selling and the type of machine, or maybe it's a mini market. A lot of things to kind of tie your understanding to here.   Mike (17:45.926) Yeah.   Mike (18:05.904) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:07.615) Yeah, awesome, man. Awesome, Where are you at in your business? Like what, you know, what are the big leagues looking like right now? You know, what are you doing to expand your business, raising the bar in your business?   Mike (18:18.692) Yeah, I'm going after that's a really good question. I'm going after kind of these newer markets and we're kind of past that point of like, okay, let's pilot in this location. For example, that urgent care, we didn't know if it was going to be a good location two months ago when we installed. Well now it's already crushing it. Well, there's six other urgent cares in town and we just got to go ahead on five of those six. So like for me, it's doubling down on our current proof points of where.   okay, we know that manufacturing plant, the pumpkin farm does really well. So let's start getting intros to all their, manufacturers of the products they need to grow pumpkin. know, like we're just doubling down on scaling because now we have the operational blueprint to really just kind of to go after it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:03.917) Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about how passive this can really be, right? So I used to have, before we switched over to the new brand, Raise the Bar podcast, it was the Passive Income Attorney podcast, right? I was really focused on passive investments, focused on bringing in passive investors into my real estate deals, things like that. And I think that word passive gets thrown around quite a bit, right? And sometimes it's abused because people get into things that are not truly passive.   Mike (19:18.427) Yeah.   Mike (19:28.784) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:33.517) What's your take on that as it relates to the vending business?   Mike (19:38.49) Yeah, so I think as far as with the vending business, there's clearly upfront leg work that needs to be done, whether that's finding locations or any of those things. So I have a route that is here in Oregon, and then we bought a route last year in Illinois and have scaled that route. I spend 30 minutes a week on each route now. that these urgent cares and stuff, like we have an operator that's running the whole route.   Here's the problem, Seth. It's like people are so scared to build systems to ultimately systemize things or they're too cheap to hire help. And I'm the opposite. like, you know, kind of like Dan Martell's buy back your time. Like I have like a leverage calculator and like I constantly think about is this worth my time? Cause as you know, you're busier than me. Like it's so limited.   for me, my routes, I would consider them passive, like one hour a week is, is nothing in my mind. But as far as like, you know, I'm, I'm also a passive investor on, we're building a, an oil loop station in Florida and I sent my money a year ago to, to my, active investor and I haven't talked to him since. Like that's actually truly probably passive now, you know, I'm not doing anything, but there's, there's different levels to that. And I'm a huge believer like.   don't delegate something until you know what you're delegating. So people that want to start with the vending routes, sure, if you want to buy a route that already has an operator, that's one thing. but these, if you're starting a vending route for your kid or for your stay at home wife or whatever, as a side hustle, like get in the weeds and install that first machine. So when you hire help to take over the route, you know what you're delegating.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:09.773) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:27.021) Yeah, that's key. That's key. And you you described just like any other business, right? I think that's kind of where people get themselves into trouble. That sometimes they get sold the dream that is truly passive. And eventually it can be. I mean, you're talking about an hour a week. To me, that's pretty damn passive, right? But you know, upfront, you you've got to learn the business. You've got to know what you're getting yourself into. Like you said, you've got to learn before you delegate so that you know what you're delegating.   There is going to be some upfront work and then as you're able to kind of delegate and learn Then you can make it more and more passive as you go   Mike (22:00.88) Yeah, I mean, it's no different than what's the same when people tell you that they're busy. I mean, you're just not a priority. Like that's a fact. you're not. People say it's the same thing when people come to me and they're like, I'm so busy. It's like, okay, well let me, let me see your schedule. Where are you spending your time? You know, it's like when people are like, I can't lose weight. Okay, well let me see your food log. What did you eat yesterday? Did you have ice cream? Like this is like the same kind of thing. That's where passive I think has been really abused.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:16.097) Yeah. Yep.   Mike (22:29.638) To me, the bigger issue is like, vending is not get rich quick. And so like, if you're expecting to leave your nine to five tomorrow and vending is going to make up for that in one day, like that's not going to   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:41.089) Right, Makes sense. Speaking of passive, do you raise capital or do you have any kind of a fund or have you put together a fund for something like this?   Mike (22:51.48) We haven't put together a fun, we're definitely buying routes is definitely becoming more and more intriguing. And I know there's some PE players starting to get into the vending game, but it's something we've been definitely considering and on our radar of do we want to.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:58.541) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:10.231) Gotcha. Cool. I mean, you brought in money partners for some of those routes yet, or is that still something you're exploring too?   Mike (23:18.168) No, I think it's just something we're thinking about. mean, what do you recommend?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:21.089) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd recommend I mean, it depends, right? Like I'm I'm scared to turn you by trade, but I don't like to say you should always raise capital no matter what. Right. Like you've been able to scale your business as you have and grown it to where it is without bringing outside capital. It sounds which is great because you own 100 percent or with whatever business partners you might have. You know, when you start raising capital, you're giving a large chunk of that piece away, not necessarily your whole company. But if you're buying   you know, a set of routes or that sort of thing. You you're gonna give a big piece away to those past investors if you're starting a fund or even if it's up. Even a single asset syndication here for one of these, you know, these routes, you could put it together that way. You know, it's just something to consider. But a lot of times when people are looking to scale fast, right, if they wanna grow exponentially, you've gotta use other people's money to get there or hit the lottery.   Mike (24:08.294) Mm.   Mike (24:15.856) Absolutely, no, agree. That's spot-on and I actually before you know the Silicon Valley company That I was part of we had a we went through probably series a B C D C ground   Let's just say we weren't very fiscally responsible. So I come from the, you know, it's like the ex-girlfriend example. I don't want to just start taking everyone's money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:42.413) Yeah, yeah, that tends to happen with some startups, right? Like before you get funding, you're super frugal because it's your money and every single dollar counts. And you're like, I don't want to pay, you if it's software, you don't want to pay the software engineers. I'm going to out, you know, put it, you know, hire Indian engineers, that sort of thing. And then once you get a few million bucks that you raised in that seed round, then it just goes and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, let's hire 20 people. You know, it's you got to be careful about that.   Mike (25:05.606) Yeah   Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great take on it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:11.245) Yeah, it's, yeah. It's a question I love to ask and I think it's about time for that. So, in a parallel universe, tell me about a different version of you. So a different but likely version, right? Like, for example, for me, I went to med school for a year and a half and then I dropped out and I ended up becoming an attorney. So that was like a big turning point, right? So I could have easily at some point just said screw it and became a doctor and that would have been a totally different route than I'm going down right now.   What's an example of something like that for you?   Mike (25:42.524) Wait, are you being serious about that? I took the MCAT too. I got into med school and then I, yeah, I was pretty mad in school. And then the more I learned about exercise science, I was like, organic chemistry is not fun.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:44.321) Yeah, totally.   yeah? There you go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:57.39) It is not fun. I did not love that. I majored in exercise physiology and then I ended up switching to biology because it was just a little bit of an easier route to get my degree and go into med school and I went for a year and a half and then I dropped out because I absolutely hated it. I knew I didn't want to do it. I was just more attracted to business and that sort of thing.   Mike (26:16.346) Yeah, that's crazy. That's awesome. parallel universe. I, that's a really good question. I don't know. I, kinda, I have two kids under three and the other side of me wishes I would have traveled more.   you know, I mean, we'll get there hopefully when they get out of high school and someday. But right now I just think there's so many different cultural things and ways to skin the cat. And it's just fascinating to learn some of those things.   Mike (26:55.352) yourself in those cultures.   go to different cultures and really like understand how they did things for a time, a period of time to really just learn their thinking.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:07.777) Yeah, I love that man. I had a similar experience of what you're describing. I didn't travel abroad really other than like, you know, Canada and Mexico until I studied abroad in Barcelona during law school and I got to stay there for a couple of months. So you actually had some time. It wasn't like you're just visiting for a week or a weekend or anything like that. You got to kind of live there right for a couple of months and it just totally changed my, you know, my outlook on life and just the way that you see things like I feel like we're in the US and we just think   Mike (27:19.627) Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:37.76) US is number one and there's only one way to do things the way that we do things that kind of attitude. And then when you go to Western Europe and you see that culture and you drive or get on a train, it's like an hour away and you're in a totally different culture and they're doing it a certain way as well and it's working. You just see that other people are doing things differently and still being successful at it, still having a thriving culture and it's just awesome to see.   Mike (28:03.312) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:06.251) Yeah. Tell me about some major influences in your life. What turned you or got you into that, the vending business? It's not one of those typical things. mean, I know you're in the education business, so you're kind of really spreading the word about this type of business. But I would say when you started, there might not have been a mastermind or educational courses around this. mean, how did you kind of get drawn into that? Were there any particular people or influences that brought you in?   Mike (28:29.308) you   Mike (28:36.188) Yeah. So the, biggest influence for me to get into vending, uh, wasn't actually a person. It was actually, was, um, I had landed, I was coming back from the Pentagon from a trip back to the Bay for the startup we were talking about. And I was in the Denver airport and 11 PM, you know, our flight was delayed. And then they're like, Hey, you have to stay in the airport tonight. The pilot went over their hours for the day, blah, blah, blah. So I went to a vending machine and I remember buying a bottle of water.   I think it costs like at the time three bucks or something. I knew that bottle of water cost 20 cents at Costco. And I was like, there is someone that's at home with their kids right now making money off me and they're not even at this mission. Like the machine is doing the work. So I had like an aha moment of like, what are my true priorities in life? And like, why am I chasing this cutthroat startup from.   Palo Alto and trying to make it when reality was my priorities are freedom to spend more time with my family. So that's really kind of what led me into this path of starting a vending machine side hustle to keep our lifestyle as we had kids. We wanted to have a nanny and we wanted to be able to still go on dates and things like that as a couple with my wife. So that's really kind of my family and just like...   having the freedom to do things. Like that's what I'm really passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:59.084) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, building on that, and you may have already answered that, but what does success look like for you?   Mike (30:01.766) next   Mike (30:06.268) an empty calendar.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:08.621) Good luck with that. Good luck with that.   Mike (30:11.516) Oh man, I was gonna say, how do we crack that code? No, yeah. No, but I think success to me is doing things like picking up my daughter at three and even being able to say no to the things that aren't gonna get you to where you need, like the discipline piece of this too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:15.708) man.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:33.995) Yeah, yeah, mean, you know, for me, it's kind of similar, right? It's not going to be able to empty that calendar. Not yet, at least maybe here in the future. But for now, it's pretty filled. But it is it's flexible, right? Like us as entrepreneurs, you know, we probably work more than we ever worked when we were in our W-2s. But at the same time, it's you know, we're working in our own business for ourselves, for our families. And we have the   Flexibility, a lot of people will say the freedom, right? But we have the flexibility to move things around. And if you want to pick your kids up at school at three, or you do want to take a weekend off, or something comes up in your schedule, you have the flexibility to do that. Whereas if you're kind of slaving away at the nine to five, you can't really do it.   Mike (31:04.486) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (31:20.198) Yeah, that's spot on. mean, I just wrote that down, but flexibility is, cause you're right. When you started becoming an entrepreneur, this is what I tell people all the time when they want to get a venting around is like running your own business. You are going to work harder than you do for your boss currently at your W-2. Like you have to do payroll. You have to do, like you gotta like make sure there's money to actually do pay, you know, like all those things that you just don't even think about when you have a W-2. It's like, today's   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:39.543) Yeah   Mike (31:48.89) You know, this Friday I get paid. Well, when you run a business, mean, that money's got to come from somewhere.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:51.905) Yeah   Right, yeah, 100%, man, 100%. All right, Mike, we're gonna wrap it up. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell the listeners where they can find out more about you.   Mike (32:05.286) Yeah, so thanks for having me. This has been great. I have free content all over the place. can find me on the classic Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, but I also have vendingpreneurs.com is where we help people that are more interested in actually the vending stuff. But I've been really trying to double down on YouTube lately because there's just a lot of content and you can't get it off a one minute reel.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:32.417) Love it, man. All right, Mike, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.   Mike (32:35.91) Thanks for having me.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:37.227) Hi brother. Alright man, got a couple more questions for you. We do like a quick, kind of do the full podcast episode and then I'll just do kind of a quick episode that'll follow up on a Monday and then another one on a Friday. Cool.   Mike (32:55.814) See you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:59.693) We out here.   Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?   Mike (33:20.922) Yeah, Seth. It was probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short-term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:25.229) Mm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:37.079) Gotcha, cool. Yeah, real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in that primary business or not, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?   Mike (33:53.956) Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. So that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit with it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:57.57) Right. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:16.215) Gotcha. Cool. that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?   Mike (34:23.32) Exactly. Yeah. Buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets charging, with different products and what would fit in a vending machine, like more of the unorthodox, you know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of, go and add it in a different way.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:49.857) Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's gotta be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?   Mike (35:01.102) Yeah, I think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:05.387) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:27.521) Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?   Mike (35:34.3) I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their, their vending routes. that is applicable to any, small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.209) Yeah, totally makes sense. mean people that are not paying attention to AI whether it's simply using chat GPT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's gonna look like five years from now the way that things are moving.   Mike (36:23.132) It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software into the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is pretty   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:43.479) Yeah, 100%. We're gonna, I predicted within five years, everybody's gonna have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled and they're gonna be doing physical things for us at our homes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. 100%. Awesome, All right, moving on to the next one.   Mike (36:50.181) Yeah!   Mike (36:57.917) I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco get all our groceries do our do our laundry The dishes   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.501) You're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do, Mike. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Mike (37:19.056) Ooh, that's a good question, Seth. I think it's just discipline, know, discipline and focus. One of the hardest things is being able to say no with the things that don't align. And when I was growing up, I had a quote that has really stuck with me. That's like, it's better to be respected than liked. And I think that really resonates. Like naturally as a human, you want to be liked and help people, but the 1 % are really good at saying no.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:47.649) Yeah, I love that man. That's a great answer. Kind of building on that, what do you think the number one attribute is that makes a successful entrepreneur?   Mike (37:57.468) probably focus. Yeah. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:59.212) Yeah, focus. Yep. The one thing, right? The one thing.   Mike (38:04.186) Yep. That's why you come back to like the most successful entrepreneurs. They always niche down and they niche down because they just, got hyper-focused. Like this is kind of why for me, you know, I started this passive Mr. Passive on social media before I even got into Vendi. Well, now everyone's like, well, how passive is Vendi? And well, it's like, what's really interesting is I was posting all these different, what I thought passive income streams in the time, but everyone, 95 % of the questions I got about   Airbnbs are all my different investments was about bending. So I just niche down on, on bending and I just looked back on that and I was like, it really forced me to focus.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:43.263) Awesome, awesome. What's one thing someone could do today to get 1 % closer to success in the vending machine business if they are really interested in learning more?   Mike (38:53.892) tap into your connections and find a location that has high foot traffic, whether that's a friend that works at an urgent care, a sister that lives at an apartment. You know, you take your kid to that gymnastics studio that has a ton of foot traffic between 4 PM and 8 PM. Like all those locations are prime locations to put one of these modern smart machines in. so, tapping into your connections, well, you know,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:24.567) Love that man. Awesome. All right, Mike, I appreciate it, brother. We'll to meet in person sometime,   Mike (39:30.574) I would love to. Where are you based, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:31.789) I'm in San Diego, where you at?   Mike (39:34.78) I am in Eugene. Yeah, Oregon. I'll come down your way though.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:37.39) Cool We're planning on doing yeah, we're planning on doing so me and my wife we have a Sprinter van and Last May we did we did going back to the flexibility piece, right? We did 32 days in the van up through Wyoming Montana and then into like Into Canada and they're like Banff and Jasper and all the way up to Jasper and then we circled back on the west coast Through Vancouver and then down back to San Diego Yeah   Mike (40:05.52) What?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:06.829) Pretty wild, pretty awesome. And the reason I brought that up is this year we're gonna do shorter trip. We're probably gonna do two, maybe three weeks at the most, but we're gonna do kind of the Pacific Northwest. So Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver and all those parks and stuff up there.   Mike (40:17.254) Yeah.   Mike (40:21.744) Yeah, you definitely have a, have you been to Bend before? Bend is like my, that whole area, Central Oregon is, and even Idaho, like all those kind of, yeah. That's awesome. Please let me know when you're up this way. I mean, I'll come meet you wherever. That'd be amazing. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:24.641) Yeah, yeah I have.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:38.861) Sure man grab a coffee or beer. I appreciate it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah all right brother great to meet you and I will send the information on when this is gonna get released and give you you materials and all that stuff so we can collaborate on social media   Mike (40:51.964) Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is a lot of your audience, like passive investors?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:58.593) So most of that, so now I'm rebranding. I rebranded because I'm gonna be speaking more towards like active entrepreneurs, Active entrepreneurs, people raising capital, that sort of thing. Whereas before it was based on passive investors and people really focused on attorneys. So I'm an attorney and I was raising capital from attorneys for my real estate deals. Now I'm really more into selling shovels. I'm scaling my law firm. I'm chief legal officer for Tribest, which is, we've got a fund to fund.   Mike (41:20.262) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:28.085) legal product there as well. So we're really trying to bring in active, active entrepreneurs and people raising capital.   Mike (41:29.777) Yeah.   Mike (41:36.572) Okay, because I got that, I was just thinking through when we talking about that oil development project, that could be a good, the guy that runs that fund could be a good interview for you. Just thinking through your audience, because he's always looking for investors into his fund and like these oil lubs are just crushing it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:49.901) Cool. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:58.464) Yeah, cool. Who is it? Just, I don't know if I know him or not.   Mike (42:02.183) Um, Robert Durkey, he's out of Florida. has, his problem is he's sitting on a gold mine that has no, like he's old school, doesn't know social media, any of that. So that's why I think he'd be perfect for you. Cause I think you could help him and he could definitely help you with some kickback. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully we meet soon. Okay. See you Seth. Bye.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:05.645) I don't think I know. I don't think I know.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:13.889) Yeah. Gotcha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:20.705) Cool, okay, sounds good man. Yeah, I appreciate the introduction.   Yeah, all right brother. Talk soon. See ya. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Mike Hoffman's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikehoffmannofficial/ https://x.com/mrpassive_?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedhoffmann/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.passive

Q&A episode Talking shit on a department vs a chief Why is there a feud between career and volunteer firefighters? Where do policies and SOGs fit on the fireground? Facebook comments….Thirdalarmcowboys.com

Esta semana es la última en ROCKBUSTERS y hemos decidido despedirnos con una sesión especial que queremos hacer sobre la década de los 80's. Nuestro reto es aunar temas de cada año de esa década y, si puede ser, hacerlo en clave de AOR. La temporada pasada el año elegido fue el 1989, y este año hemos viajado hasta... 1985! Y todo ello acompañado de dos álbumes clave en el AOR: El maravilloso "Play deep" de The Outfield y el "Heart" de las magníficas hermanas Wilson, es decir, la banda Heart. Aquí tenéis el listado de temas: 1 - Heart "Shell shock" 2 - Huey Lewis and The News "The power of love" (Regreso al futuro) 3 - Survivor "Burning heart" (Rocky IV) 4 - Van Stephenson "No secrets" (Admiradora secreta) 5 - Sammy Hagar "Two sides of love" (Juegos de amor en la universidad) 6 - Maria Vidal "Just one kiss" (Mordiscos peligrosos) 7 - Mark Safan "Win in the end" (Teen Wolf) 8 - Dan Hartman "Name of the game" (Fletch, el camaleón) 9 - Karla DeVito "We're not alone" (El club de los cinco) 10 - Giuffria "Say it ain't true" (Te pillé! Gotcha!) 11 - Autograph "You can't hide from the beast inside" (Noche de miedo) 12 - Skagarack "Moving in the night" (Pesadilla en Elm Street 2) 13 - Power Station "We fight for love" (Commando) 14 - Frank Stallone "Peace in our life" (Rambo) 15 - Night Ranger "This boys need to rock" (Exploradores) 16 - Philip Bailey "Love is alive" (Los Goonies) 17 - Tommy Shaw "Remo's theme (what if)" (Remo: desarmado y peligroso) 18 - Joe Lynn Turner "Heartless" (Chico celestial) 19 - Chris Farren "On the loose" (Las chicas sólo piensan en divertirse) 20 - The Outfield "Your love"

No BS Newshour Episode #376GOTCHA!(8:50) Attorney General Dana Nessel subpoenaed! Justice is coming.(20:30) Michigan terror suspect on the lam. ICE is on the hunt.(33:22) Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan tries to bury the crimes.  We've unearthed them.(53:20) Red Wings legend Darren McCarty exposes himself. “I'm not that tough.”(4:08) Bad Dad pushed kid down the killer slide.⁠NBN on YouTube⁠⁠: https://www.youtube.com/@NoBSNewshourNBN on iTunes⁠⁠: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-bs-newshour-with-charlie-leduff/id1754976617NBN on Spotify⁠⁠: https://open.spotify.com/show/0qMLWg6goiLQCRom8QNndC⁠⁠Like NBN on Facebook⁠⁠:  https://www.facebook.com/LeDuffCharlie⁠⁠Follow to NBN on Twitter : https://x.com/charlieleduff Sponsored by American Coney Island, Pinnacle Wealth Strategies, and XG Service Group

If you've ever wondered why the Church requires a Sunday obligation to attend Mass—even when you're doing other good things like feeding the poor or being kind—this conversation is for you. On The Patrick Madrid Show, Michelle from Kentucky calls in with a question: “If someone skips Mass but still does works of mercy, are they still in mortal sin? That just seems... harsh.” Patrick responds with some Holy Spirit–fueled clarity and compassion. According to Church teaching (and backed up by Scripture), deliberately missing Sunday Mass without a serious reason (illness, caring for someone sick, dangerous travel, etc.) is a grave sin. Why? Because it’s saying "no" to a relationship. You're choosing to ignore Jesus' invitation to the most important family gathering of the week: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But What If You're a Really Nice Person? Michelle asks, “What about people who are super kind and charitable but don’t go to Mass?” Patrick said: Being nice is good—but it’s not salvific. If goodness alone could save us, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die on the Cross. Works of mercy done in a state of grace (in union with Christ) are eternally meritorious. Apart from grace, they’re nice, not saving. Jesus Was Pretty Clear “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)“He who hears you hears me; he who rejects you rejects me.” (Luke 10:16)“No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Jesus established His Church with real authority. When the Church says, “Go to Mass every Sunday,” you're being obedient to Christ’s own command. The Family Dinner Analogy (So Good) Patrick compares Sunday Mass to a family dinner: Imagine your parents say, “Everyone needs to be at the table at 6pm.” If one kid says, “Eh, I’ll just eat in my room,” they're disconnecting from the family. That’s what skipping Mass does. It breaks the spiritual family bond. God's Not Looking to Smite You Patrick explains that God isn’t standing there like, “Ha! Gotcha!” In fact, He’s constantly pouring out grace, constantly inviting us back—especially through Confession and the Eucharist. Patrick reminds you that Jesus said some hard truths, but He says them out of love. He wants you home for dinner, forever. Real Talk: If you’ve been skipping Mass... come home. Go to Confession.Get back in the pew.And the Father is always watching for the prodigal child to return.

Title: Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes back Lou, an international investor, to discuss diversification, rare earth metals, and a unique agricultural investment opportunity. Lou, who splits his time between Europe and Latin America, emphasizes the importance of global diversification for peace of mind and flexibility. He highlights the geopolitical dynamics affecting rare earth metals, where China dominates the refining process, and discusses the increasing demand due to restricted exports. Transitioning from metals to agriculture, Lou introduces his truffle farm investment. Leveraging agri-science and Ireland's favorable climate, the project offers investors ownership of inoculated truffle trees with professional farm management. Returns are projected to begin in year 4-5 and continue for up to 40 years, offering IRRs between 14% to 69% based on historical truffle prices. Risks include mismanagement and natural elements, though strong biosecurity and proven success mitigate concerns. Lou finishes with a valuable mindset tip: improve by 1% daily to compound results over time. Bullet Point Highlights: Diversification across countries and industries provides flexibility and peace of mind China's control of rare earth refining and export restrictions create scarcity and opportunity Truffle farm investment offers strong IRR potential, with returns starting in years 4-5 and lasting 30-40 years Minimum $30K investment includes 400 saplings and full farm management with a 70/30 profit split Primary risks are mismanagement and nature, mitigated through biosecurity and replacement guarantees Lou's golden nugget: Focus on improving 1% daily to unlock exponential long-term growth Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Lou, what's going on, brother? Welcome back to the show.   Thank you very much Seth. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Good to see you again.   Yeah, absolutely man. Great to catch up with you. Are you tuning in from where?   Well, in Europe still, you know, I'm back and forth between Ireland, Germany, mostly, a little bit of time in Panama as well, because my wife's from there, but I'm in temporary in Ireland, horse breeding country and agricultural heartland actually of Europe. And at the moment anyway, yeah, so in Europe.   (Seth Bradley) (01:16.664) awesome, awesome. That's the beauty of being on a video conference call that you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world now. That's the one good thing that came out of COVID is it made it normal to do it.   Yeah, it's funny, unbelievable. Just yesterday I was contacted actually by CNBC in the US, I'm in Europe, about the metals. We're not talking about metals today, but I've spoken with you before about the rare earth metals. And I guess the US chamber, secretary chamber of commerce is in China this week because China is restricting the export of certain technology metals and that's their area.   And within a day, there's like an hour after I speak with you, I'm doing an interview with CNBC on, I think it's Power Launch or something they call it. So it's fascinating really how quickly you can sort of ping around the globe and find somebody and do this.   Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time to tune in with us today. And we've got a brand new thing to talk about and we'll jump into that. But before we do, just for listeners who didn't listen to your previous episode, give us a little bit about your background and your story. Just a general synopsis,   Sure, thank you. Yeah, so I'm obviously, you can tell from the accent, I'm Irish or Scottish or Australian, but it's Irish. And I suppose you could say I'm bit of a world traveler who has come back home specifically for this project we're going to talk about. Ireland is known as sort of the breadbasket of Europe. But yeah, I lived in Germany for 10 years, lived in Central America and traveled extensively in South America during that time.   (Louis O'Connor) (03:05.422) But my niche, if you will, you know one other business we're involved in. And my niche, what I'm looking for is always what I call, I don't know what you might call it in the US, but we sort of call it a path of progress play here, which is if you sort of look at an industry or a product, what's happened in the last 10 years, or even a country or even a business for that matter, if you look at what's happened in the last 10, you can sort of   have a look at likely what's going to happen in the next 10. So I'm always looking for somewhere where demand is increasing and supply is either going to be limited or subject to disruption and somehow, and that's what we will be talking to an agricultural product and we'll talk more about it. But I like to be diversified in every way. So I have business in Germany, this agricultural product is in Ireland.   I do my banking in Belize and Panama and different parts of Europe. So just trying to be as diversified as possible.   Right, right. And that's part of your kind of plan as well, right? Like to be kind of this international man of mystery, right? Like you have different ties to a couple of different countries, which gives you flexibility in case something goes wrong in one of them, right? Like, you know, I think a lot of people were worried here for a while and I think it's still in the back of people's minds in the United States about, you know, the strength of the dollar and   You know, people were talking about getting a second citizenship and things like that. Can you speak to that a little bit about kind of, you know, how you've done that and what your kind of thoughts and feelings are around that?   (Louis O'Connor) (04:46.552) Sure, sure. Well, you my feeling always has this peace of mind, you know, I just want peace of mind. I want to be at peace with myself and the world around me. that's, I mean, I'm probably talking about more philosophically and spiritually as well, but also, you know, in business or residencies or banking. I suppose it's because I left Ireland quite young and I did live.   I didn't just go on a vacation somewhere. lived in Germany for 10 years. I learned the language. Ireland is an island, even though we're part of Europe, continental Europe is completely different. And then I went to Latin America, which is a completely different kettle of fish altogether. And I suppose it was those experiences that the perspective that gave me was that, that sounds very simple, really, root of entry, but there's...   there's good and bad, know, you we do certain things in Ireland very well, and maybe other things not so well in Germany, they do, you know, they've made better cars and better roads. And we do and you know, Latin America, I think they dance better and drink better maybe than you know, but so yeah, what I learned is, you know, you know, you can pick is a bit like life can be a bit like a buffet, and you can pick what you like, and you know what you don't like leave behind, you know, so and the idea, I suppose the point I should make is that   What I've learned is it's not expensive or difficult to be diversified. Like have your banking in different jurisdictions really doesn't cost anything. Having a second or third residency if you do the right homework on I'll go into more detail if you want. have residency still in Panama and I three passports. I'm working on the fourth and it has been a little bit of effort but not expensive or costly.   And will I ever use it? I worried that the world's going to end? No. But it's just that peace of mind you have when you've got these other options that, God forbid if something did happen here in Ireland or Europe, I have a residency in Panama, I banking there. So it's just that, suppose it's like having a parachute or a safety net that's always there.   (Seth Bradley) (07:00.13) Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, that's, you know, especially the way that things are today and people kind of just worry about things generally, right? If you have that peace of mind and you have that, you know, second or third option, it's just something that can kind of let you sleep at night a little bit better. It's like having a nest egg or, you know, having a second, third, fourth, fifth stream of income.   things like that that can let you sleep at night and while other people are panicking and worrying and making, you know, maybe even bad decisions based on that, you know, based on those worries, you can sleep soundly and make decisions that are best for you.   Yeah, yeah, and you're not limited, know, if you're just, you know, like, I mean, it's funny though, as well, I think it's timely. I think the time has come. I you see people, you know, we were chatting earlier, you know, being involved in multiple different industries and, you know, with technology, we're allowed to do that. We can reside in one country, we can do our bank in another, we can do our tax responsibility somewhere else, we can do our business. So it's probably just in the last 20, 30 years that we can move so freely.   with all this stuff, know, you know, only maybe 25, 30 years ago, I wanted to, I couldn't really do business in Germany, but live in Ireland, it'd have to be one or the other. There was no internet, you know, everything. So, so yeah, I think, I think we're heading in that direction anyway. And it's just, yeah, there's great freedom in it and great peace of mind, even though, you know, I mean, I'll be in Ireland for, you know, my two kids are, there's another six or eight years.   before they finish school. So I plan to be here, but I just have other options as well, you know.   (Seth Bradley) (08:41.42) Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. And speaking of diversification, mean, your investments are very diverse, right? I mean, in the previous episode, we jumped into rare earth metals. And then in this episode, we're going to jump into something new. Before we jump into the new thing, though, give us a little update on what has changed in your business with the rare earth metals or if anything has changed or how those things are going.   Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks for asking, Seth. Since we spoke, actually, the big news is just in the last 60 days, I think I mentioned to you that China pretty much sort of dominates the rare earth industry. it's, I think really, it's possible and we understand now that China sort of saw before the EU and maybe before the US or they understood at least that rare earths would become   the backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century and they've been, you know, they've taken action on that. So we're in a situation now and it's not really an economic strategy. It's more of a geopolitical strategy that China has big plans for electric cars, big plans for solar, big plans for wind. you know, they, they've hundreds of million people, they're, taken out of the poverty, into the middle class all the time. So sort of   thinking strategically and long term, they rightfully secured their supply of rare earths. And what happened just in the last 60 days is the US sort of initiated a sort of a block. Now it was also supported by Holland and Japan and they're blocking sort of the latest sort of semiconductor technology from going to China. And in retaliation for that, China   You know, they have, you know, an ace up their sleeve, which is where it hurts. So the West has the technology and China has the raw materials. And just in the last 60 days, China has said they're going to, well, effective August 1, which is a month ago, they're restricting the export now of gallium and germanium, which is two of these technology metals, and that China, you know, is responsible for 95 % of the global production. so we're seeing the prices go up and this is sort of.   (Louis O'Connor) (10:57.826) what I talked to you about that these metals are in demand on a good day, you know, you will make a nice return. But if something like this happens where China sort of weaponizes these metals economically, then you'll see prices increasing quite dramatically, which they are. Yeah, that's that's what's happening there. It's basically a market where there's surging demand and you have sort of political landscapes affecting as well. So   It makes for interesting investment.   Yeah, yeah. Are these rare earth metals, are they not something that we can mine or is it something we're not willing to mine, like let's say in the West?   (Louis O'Connor) (11:44.142) Yeah, good question actually. that actually gets right to the heart of it, Seth, because despite the name rare earths, they're not all that rare. Some of them are as sort of common as copper and stuff, but there's about eight or ten of them that are rare and they are available in the US. But this is what's changed dramatically in the last 30 years is the rare earths don't occur naturally. So they always occur as a byproduct of another raw material.   They're sort of, they're very chemically similar. they're, sort of all stuck together. So they have to be extracted and separated and then refined and processed into, you know, high purity levels for jet engines or smartphones or whatever the case might be. what's happened where China dominates is, is China is responsible for 95 % of the refining. Now there's about 200 or sorry, $390 billion available in subsidies in the U S.   from the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite the name is all about energy transition. And that's all very well, except the human capital and the engineering expertise to refine rare earths is depleted in, it doesn't exist in Europe, and it's very much depleted in the US. Just to give you some context, there's 39 universities in China, where they graduate degrees in critical minerals.   So the Chinese are graduating about 200 metallurgists a week, every week for the last 30 years. I think the US has a handful of universities. I'd say there's probably 300,000 metallurgists in China and there might be 400 in the US and probably none in Europe at all. So it's not just a question of if they're there, it's how do we get them into 99.99 % purity? Without the engineering expertise, we can't, not anytime soon anyway.   Wow, yeah, yeah. mean, that just alone sounds like a recipe for a pretty good play for an investment. you know, there's these bottlenecks, right? Whether that's people that can refine it or the actual element itself or willingness to mine it, you know, all these different things come into play to make it a good investment. All right, let's switch over a little bit here. Let's talk about the new investment vehicle.   (Seth Bradley) (14:06.99) that you talked to me about. It's an agricultural play, correct? we're talking about truffles, talking about mushrooms, right? Tell me a little bit about it just to get started here.   Okay, well, you probably I mean, you know, truffles are in the culinary world, they're known as the black diamond of the kitchen, you know, they're, they're a delicacy going back to, you know, thousands and thousands of years. Traditionally, the black perigord, which is the Mediterranean truffle would have originated in France, but for the last sort of, you know, the last 100 years or so,   they've been growing abundantly in sort of South, Southwestern France, Northern Spain and Italy. So traditionally, you know, that's where they grow and they sort of, know, because the truffle, as you said, it's a mushroom that has a symbiotic relationship with a a native tree, an oak tree or hazel tree or sometimes beech. So it's a very delicate balance, you know.   And although I have invested in agriculture before, we started, we, I mean, a collective does not just me involved here, and I don't want to sound like I take credit for any of this really. I was just a part of a team where we had some agri-science people, and we had sort of four generational farmers involved. But we were looking at, it is no question that climate, there's a climate change, right?   It doesn't matter to me whether people, whatever the causes of that are, the reality is if you talk to an olive grower or a truffle grower in Italy or France, they'll tell you the climate has changed because their harvests have been decreasing for about the last 30 to 40 years actually, but really more so in the last 10. So we were sort of, I'll tell you basically the AgriScience partner involved in this.   (Louis O'Connor) (16:10.958) As a test back in 2005, they started to plant and the trees inoculated, the baby trees inoculated with the truffle sort of in the root system as a test all over different countries, not just Ireland, England, UK, also the US. So this has been in sort of research and development since about 2005.   And we got seriously involved in about 2015 when history was made and this Mediterranean truffle was grown here in the British Isles for the first time. we then with our agriscience partner in 2015 planted a thousand trees in five different locations in Ireland where I am.   and one of them is about 20 minutes away from me here. They're all secret locations. I won't even tell you where they are because they really are. They're highly valued or highly prized. And so it takes about four or five years to see if you're a business. So yeah, we now are growing the Mediterranean truffle, not just in Ireland, but in other parts of the UK. But the real interesting thing, Seth, it's just now ready for scale. And all of the farmers,   who were involved in the original research. None of them are going to take it to scale. The one that's local to me is a lovely gentleman. in his 60s and he planted a thousand trees really just as a retirement. His daughter works in banking in Switzerland and so there's nobody really to take over the farm. So we're the first to do it with scale. So we're inviting in...   a portion of some investors in as well.   (Seth Bradley) (18:05.87) Gotcha. Are there specific, I assume there are, are specific growing conditions where these things can prosper? Like I can't, I'm in San Diego, I can't just plant them in my backyard and wait five years and be a millionaire.   Well, if you you if I hear you're growing truffles death, you know, we should assign an NDA we should assign. You could try but no, they wouldn't grow in San Diego because I mean, there's a very delicate balance and you're what you're you're what you're using here is agri science and nature. You're working with nature. And because the reason they've grown so well in demand is   No way.   (Louis O'Connor) (18:48.738) just because of that balance up they get a sort of a dry season or sort of they got to get a lot of rain and then they get the dry season and what's happened is they're getting more drought and less rain and it's just upset the balance. So it's a very, very delicate balance. But what people wouldn't know, I think, is that truffles have always grown wild in Ireland.   There was a time five or 600 years ago when Ireland was 85 % forest and our native tree is the oak and the hazel tree, is the tree that's also where the fungus grows. And what happened was when the Brits were before, you know, when shipbuilding was the thing and the British Navy were, you know, the Spanish were, so the Brits sort of chopped down a lot of the forest for the wood for shipbuilding. you know, our forests were depleted. But to this day,   Truffles do still grow wild here, but we're doing it differently. know, we're only planting on land where you have like certain protein and pH levels and limestone. And then we're planting baby saplings that are already two years old that were inoculated with the truffle fungus like at birth, like in the root system. And we only plant them after we see that the root system and the fungi are already thriving.   So if you get into the right soil and it's already thriving, then two, three, four years later, you'll get truffles.   (Seth Bradley) (20:17.216) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   That's awesome. just, I think about like wine and like, you know, you can grow it, you know, vines in different places. Some places they grow, some places they don't, some places they grow and the result isn't good and some places they grow and the result is awesome. It's probably a very delicate balance between, you know, environment plus how they're raised, how they're taken care of and all those sorts of things.   It is 100%. I mean, first and foremost, mean, because of angry science and technology today, you know, I mean, we can plant baby saplings that are already and not, I mean, we're playing God a little bit with nature, but you know, I mean, it's just amazing, you know, like you could do it. And then, you know, the biggest threat is actually mismanagement. You know, if you don't then manage it correctly. If you have a root system inoculated with the fungus and you have the right soil conditions,   after that and it's management and it's sort of bio security meaning they have a very pungent smell. mean, squirrels and pigs and they love them. They love to eat. So you have to, mean, you're literally it's like protecting a bank, know, you have a bio security fence. You've you know, you limit visitations to the farm, you've, know, special footwear and cleaning and stuff. so yeah, it's serious stuff, you know.   Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Well, let's dive in a little bit to the kind of the investment itself. Like what does that look like for an investor? Like what are your projected returns? You know, what, how does it all kind of, how does it all shape out? Like you've grown these wildly valuable truffles and now I guess the first step would be what's the business plan? Who are we selling these truffles to? What makes them so valuable? And then get into kind of the investor   (Seth Bradley) (22:33.794) portion like how would someone get involved in whether projector returns.   Okay, so we sell, first of all, the estate that the farm is, it's called Chan Valley Estate. People can Google it, it's beautiful. It's 200 acres of north-temporary farmland. The estate itself, it's a bit like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. It's a Georgian.   a three story Georgian home, it's over 200 years old. It's also a museum and we have events there and it's also a working farm. And it's a herbal farm. So we grow plants and herbs there that we then we have our own, we work the value chain where we also sell those herbs for medicinal purpose and we convert them into medicinal oils and things like that. So the location is already up and running.   And what we're doing with the truffles is for every acre, we can plant 800 trees. And so what we're doing is we're offering investors, well, a client, the minimum investment is $30,000 and the investor for that price gets 400 baby saplings already inoculated with the truffle fungus. And then they get the farm management   included up to the first four to five years. takes about, there'll be truffles after, bearing in mind that the sapling, the baby tree is two years old. So after three years in the ground, it's already five years old and there'll be truffles then and the returns don't begin until then. But what's included in the price is all the farm management, know, all the, you know, the,   (Louis O'Connor) (24:23.508) implementation of the farm, the irrigation, the electricity, the hardware that's needed. So all the management right up until there is production and then when they're producing, the investor gets 70 % of the growth and the farm management company, we get 30%. So it's a 70-30 split. Now the great thing about the oak and the hazel is they'll produce   for 30 to 40 years. it's a long term, it's a legacy investment, you might call it, because you won't see returns until the fourth or fifth year. But once you do, you'll see returns then for another 30 to 35 years. And they're very, very good. mean, we have three numbers in the brochure. We looked at what's...   price half the truffles never dropped below. So we have the very low estimate, which is they've never gone below this price. That brings in an IRR, which would be from day one of about 14%. And then the highest that they've sold for, you're looking at about 69%, but the average is about 38%.   So the returns will be very, very good once production kicks in and then they'll maintain. We've included an inflation for 30 to 40 years. I hope, I think I answered everything there.   Yeah, definitely. sorry. I gave you about six questions there to answer in a row. But yeah, I think you covered everything. And having an IRR, which is time-based on something that has this long of a horizon and even takes four or five years to even start producing, those are really, really strong numbers.   (Louis O'Connor) (26:23.63) Yeah, well, again, even the, you know, one of the reasons obviously we like truffles because they're very, very expensive. mean, they're a luxury product. You know, we're about an hour from Shannon Airport here, which is the transatlantic hub between Europe and the U.S. So we can have truffles in U.S. or anywhere in Europe or even the Middle East or the Far East, for that matter, in less than 24 hours. that's important as well. But they're a luxury item. There's huge demand for them. mean,   You know how the world is. mean, there are, unfortunately, you know, there's always sort of, people are getting richer and some people maybe are getting poorer. But the luxury, you know, high end market and the culinary, international culinary explosion means that, you know, there's huge demand for truffles. And also you have to factor in the fact that the harvests in the Mediterranean are less and less every year. And I mean, very, very sadly,   I mean, it's an opportunity for us, but very sadly that they've done very specific scientific studies and it's going to over the next 50 years, the truffle harvests in the Med will go will decline between 73 and 100%. So literally, they will not be growing truffles there in 50 plus years from now. So that's an opportunity for us. you know, again,   We've been working on this really since 2015. And it was only, you know, it was only 2019, 2020 when we began to get to truffles we knew because there was no guarantee, you know. But yeah, now that we're growing them, we just need to scale up.   Gotcha. Gotcha. what's kind of the I see that you know, for that minimum investment, you get X number of baby saplings. How many was that again? 400. That's what I Okay, 400. What's kind of the survival rate, I guess, of those saplings? Do you have kind of a percentage on that? Is it like?   (Louis O'Connor) (28:17.102) 400   (Louis O'Connor) (28:27.086) Yeah, well, we expect you got what's happening so far is within in about year three, which is actually year five, because the sapling, you should get three of the five trees producing. But once you have production, once that fungi is thriving, it will just continue to grow. So in year four, you should have four of them. In year five, you should have all of them producing.   Now we also put a guarantee in the farm management contract that if any tree, you know, if it dies or if it's not, you know, producing truffles, we'll replace it free of charge at any time. in the event, you know, for some reason, I mean, we put a tree in that's inoculated and it doesn't take, then we just replace it. So either way, over the first four to five years, we get them all. And the great thing is if you protect that soil from   pests and diseases and other sort of unwelcome sort of mycorrhizal or fungi, then it will thrive. It will thrive. It'll keep, you know, it'll spread, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship underground between the tree and the fungi.   Got it. Yeah, that's awesome to know. like survival is not one of the things that we should consider because if for some reason it wouldn't survive or is not producing, then it just gets replaced. So you actually are getting those full 400 saplings turning into trees that will be producing.   almost they mature and produce and you know as I said barring you know any pests or diseases or you know interference then they just continue you just protect them you just allow nature then to do its work.   (Seth Bradley) (30:18.848) Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the risks then? What are the downsides that you can foresee if something were to go wrong? What would it be?   Well, the greatest threat is mismanagement, literally. I obviously we're doing this with scale, so it's a professional endeavor, you know, people from time to time, know, I mean, some of the test sites here, mean, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and they're not that hard to manage, but people just lose interest, or the younger kids don't want to farm. But the greatest threat is mismanagement. So as long as you put in these biosecurity measures,   and manage, you know, there's got to be some clearing done, there's got to be some pruning done, there's got to be tree guards. So there is a process involved in bringing them to nurturing them along and then keeping everything, you know, neutral, if you will. that's first, weather is always, you know, factor in agriculture. We don't feel it's as much of a threat here, because although we're for the first time,   growing the Mediterranean truffle. Truffles have grown, they grow here wild anyway. So the climate is right and has been right for thousands of years in Ireland. So, you know, and again, we'll have irrigation as well. You know, we get a lot of rain here. It's not likely we'll need any more rain, but yeah, we, you know, the agri-science will kick in there as well. And then, you know, as I said, like,   you know, biosecurity we call it, which is, you know, very, very serious fencing, limited visits to the farm, know, special footwear if people are going up to the area and sort of rinse. We have a pool area where they have to disinfect before they go into, you know, it's a very, very, very protected area from pests and from diseases or anything, you know, that could be brought in from the outside on whether that's machinery or humans.   (Louis O'Connor) (32:22.892) So yeah, it's almost like a laboratory. mean, you keep it very, very delicate balance and keep it very limited on who visits and, you know, people are a visit, but they have to be properly, you know, the feet have to be cleaned and footwear has to be worn and stuff like that. So, but, know, at the end of the day, Seth, it's, you know, well, any investment really, but agriculture, you know, the final say is in nature's hands, you know, not ours. mean, we...   We like to think, suppose, we're in the results business, but the reality is we're not. in the planning business and all we can do is plan everything as well as we can. It's just like, you if you planted a rose, you know, bush out in your backyard there today, you wouldn't stand outside and will it to grow, right? You know, grow quicker. You know, we have to allow nature and the cosmos to do its work. so yeah, nature has the final say, you know.   Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally understand. And any investment has its risks, whether you're investing in truffles or real estate or any of the above. Quick question on this. Don't want to paint you like in a bad way at all, but we have had and it's not you, of course, of course, but we've had an influx of bad sponsors and people that are anything from mismanaging investor capital on one end, which can happen pretty easily. And there's not a whole lot of   Not a lot of bad blood there. Things happen. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we've seen everything from fraud to Ponzi schemes and all kinds of stuff lately. One thing that I tell investors is to make sure you know who you're investing with and make sure your investing dollars are actually getting invested where they're supposed to. Could an investor invest with you and actually go to the farm?   and see their saplings or see the farm and see this business.   (Louis O'Connor) (34:24.654) 100 % in fact, we would rather people do I mean, I it's not always possible. Right. But Shan Valley Estate, I mean, I'll give you the website and stuff after Shan Valley Estate. It's a 200 acre farm. It's already a museum. have events there. It's a herb dispensary as I said, as I said, it's our our manage our farm management partner is the Duggan family, their fourth generation farmers and they're being in temporary, you know,   longer than that even. absolutely, you you know, of course, there's legal contracts. mean, people get a legal contract for the purchase of the trees and then we have a legal contract for the farm management that we're responsible for implementing the project, we're responsible for bringing the hard, the trees to truffles to harvest. But we do, we just beginning, we just had our first tour, but it was sort of Europe from Germany. Last, sorry,   the 18th, 19th of August. But we will be having tours every quarter. And if anybody wants to come at any time, we'd be delighted to have them because it's like I said, it's like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. And we've accommodated, we converted the stables into accommodation, you know, because we have weddings and events and stuff there as well. It's not just a field that we bought.   Yeah.   And so it's a big deal. I'll give you the website. The location is spectacular and clients can, you know, stay the night, you know, and there's a three story Georgian estate house and the bottom floor is a museum. So it's like walking into a pharmacy from 1840, all the bottles and the counter is 200 years old, you know, and then the middle level, we've an organic vegetarian restaurant, all the   (Louis O'Connor) (36:17.24) food is grown on the farm. There's an old walled garden that they used to wall the gardens years ago to keep out the pests. And all the food that's served is grown on the farm. And then the top floor is accommodation as well and the stables have been converted. look, it's all about trust, Seth. And, you know, I would say to anybody, you've   I mean myself, if I have any doubt about anything, don't do it. And it might not be that somebody's a scam or a fraud, it's just if you're not 100 % sure about it, don't touch it. But what I would recommend is people do their due diligence because we've done ours. We've eight years invested in it, put a lot of time and effort into it. And at the very least, we'd like people to check it out and see it all the way through.   for what it is. yeah, we'll be, we're hoping to, we have a partner in Europe and we're to connect with somebody in North America. I don't want name anybody here because it might not come off, but there's a few sort of marketers and there's plenty obviously that we might sort of do a sort of an agreement with where they'll, you know, I mean, we could even have sort of investment real estate conferences on the farm.   you know, and do farm tours as well. so definitely 100 % we'd love for people to visit and, and they get to drink some Guinness and they're really brave, they can swim in the Irish sea.   Yeah, and I'm looking at the website right now. We'll drop that in the show notes, but it is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, it's making me want to get on a plane right now and check it out. It's incredible.   (Louis O'Connor) (38:00.046) Yeah, that's the estate, shambali.ie. I mean, what I love about it's 100 % organic or members of the Irish Organic Association, track ref, fourth generation. You know, this is not me, I'm a part of this, but the farm management team are, you know, they're already like growing herbs and plants and converting them to medicinal, you know, oils and things. And this is just another, it's more of a farming enterprise, I suppose, than a farm.   And then the other partner is the Agri Science Partner, which is this team of scientists who basically made history by growing for the very first time eight years ago, the black, the Mediterranean truffle in Ireland, you know, so there's a lot of professionalism and thought and effort being put into a chap.   Love that. Love that man. Is there anything else about this type of investment that I didn't ask about that I should have?   I think you know Seth, you should be on CNN or something because I you did. I'm pretty sure you did, you definitely covered it. I mean I may have left something out but I think it's a good foundation for somebody if they're interested, I'll give them my email and you know it's not that expensive to get to Europe and it's a great way to mix a holiday and you know come to the farm and stuff you know.   Absolutely, absolutely. Well, since you're repeat guest of the guest of the show, we won't go into the freedom for but you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.   (Louis O'Connor) (39:34.446) You know, I knew you were going to ask me that, Seth, you caught me off guard. So I have one ready and I stole this from someone else. So I'm not going to take it. But I was listening to a guy last week and he, sort of a big operation in Europe. And he was talking about a phrase they have in the office and it's 1%. And they always look at each other and when you pass them, they go 1%. And I love what it's about. It's about the idea that in a way it sort of comes back to what we talked about earlier, which is forget about.   Yeah.   (Louis O'Connor) (40:04.664) the fact don't think you're in the results business. You're in the planning business. And the 1 % is every day, try and improve every little action. I'm not just talking about work. I'm talking about family, your spiritual practice, if you have one, increase it by 1 % every day. And you know, it's like compound interest, isn't it? That in a way, then you don't have to worry about the big picture. And the results will just look after themselves then, you know.   Yeah, yeah, I love that man. Always improve. mean, you you've got to take small steps to get to those big goals. And a lot of times you just need to ask yourself, did I improve 1 % today? If the answer is yes, then it was a successful day.   Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great because, you know, if I was to try and think now, or you were to try and think now, everything you have to do in the next three weeks, right, you just be overwhelmed, right. And sometimes my head is like that, you know, I mean, I've got meditation practice and stuff, but I watch my thoughts and you know, I mean, it's it's a fact. I mean, it's a human condition. I don't know, some disestimates of how many thoughts do we have a day? How many are repetitive and how many are useless?   A lot of them are repetitive, a lot of them are useless. So it's good just to narrow it right down to what's the next thing I can do right now and can I do it 1 % better than I did yesterday, you know?   Absolutely. Love that man. All right, Lou, we're gonna let us find out more about you.   (Louis O'Connor) (41:34.954) Okay, so they can email me. It's Truffle Farm Invest. Sorry, it's a new website www.trufflefarminvest.com or they can if somebody from your your audience wants to email me directly, it's louis at trufflefarminvest.com   Alright, perfect man. We'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the show. Always a pleasure, brother.   Thank you very much, Seth. A pleasure.   (Seth Bradley) (42:08.088) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Louis O'Connor's Links: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054362234822 https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-o-connor-a583341b8/ https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/08/30/strategic-metals-founder-louis-oaconnor-breaks-down-china-u-s-rare-metal-wars.html

Title: Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes back Lou, an international investor, to discuss diversification, rare earth metals, and a unique agricultural investment opportunity. Lou, who splits his time between Europe and Latin America, emphasizes the importance of global diversification for peace of mind and flexibility. He highlights the geopolitical dynamics affecting rare earth metals, where China dominates the refining process, and discusses the increasing demand due to restricted exports. Transitioning from metals to agriculture, Lou introduces his truffle farm investment. Leveraging agri-science and Ireland's favorable climate, the project offers investors ownership of inoculated truffle trees with professional farm management. Returns are projected to begin in year 4-5 and continue for up to 40 years, offering IRRs between 14% to 69% based on historical truffle prices. Risks include mismanagement and natural elements, though strong biosecurity and proven success mitigate concerns. Lou finishes with a valuable mindset tip: improve by 1% daily to compound results over time. Bullet Point Highlights: Diversification across countries and industries provides flexibility and peace of mind China's control of rare earth refining and export restrictions create scarcity and opportunity Truffle farm investment offers strong IRR potential, with returns starting in years 4-5 and lasting 30-40 years Minimum $30K investment includes 400 saplings and full farm management with a 70/30 profit split Primary risks are mismanagement and nature, mitigated through biosecurity and replacement guarantees Lou's golden nugget: Focus on improving 1% daily to unlock exponential long-term growth Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Lou, what's going on, brother? Welcome back to the show.   Thank you very much Seth. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Good to see you again.   Yeah, absolutely man. Great to catch up with you. Are you tuning in from where?   Well, in Europe still, you know, I'm back and forth between Ireland, Germany, mostly, a little bit of time in Panama as well, because my wife's from there, but I'm in temporary in Ireland, horse breeding country and agricultural heartland actually of Europe. And at the moment anyway, yeah, so in Europe.   (Seth Bradley) (01:16.664) awesome, awesome. That's the beauty of being on a video conference call that you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world now. That's the one good thing that came out of COVID is it made it normal to do it.   Yeah, it's funny, unbelievable. Just yesterday I was contacted actually by CNBC in the US, I'm in Europe, about the metals. We're not talking about metals today, but I've spoken with you before about the rare earth metals. And I guess the US chamber, secretary chamber of commerce is in China this week because China is restricting the export of certain technology metals and that's their area.   And within a day, there's like an hour after I speak with you, I'm doing an interview with CNBC on, I think it's Power Launch or something they call it. So it's fascinating really how quickly you can sort of ping around the globe and find somebody and do this.   Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time to tune in with us today. And we've got a brand new thing to talk about and we'll jump into that. But before we do, just for listeners who didn't listen to your previous episode, give us a little bit about your background and your story. Just a general synopsis,   Sure, thank you. Yeah, so I'm obviously, you can tell from the accent, I'm Irish or Scottish or Australian, but it's Irish. And I suppose you could say I'm bit of a world traveler who has come back home specifically for this project we're going to talk about. Ireland is known as sort of the breadbasket of Europe. But yeah, I lived in Germany for 10 years, lived in Central America and traveled extensively in South America during that time.   (Louis O'Connor) (03:05.422) But my niche, if you will, you know one other business we're involved in. And my niche, what I'm looking for is always what I call, I don't know what you might call it in the US, but we sort of call it a path of progress play here, which is if you sort of look at an industry or a product, what's happened in the last 10 years, or even a country or even a business for that matter, if you look at what's happened in the last 10, you can sort of   have a look at likely what's going to happen in the next 10. So I'm always looking for somewhere where demand is increasing and supply is either going to be limited or subject to disruption and somehow, and that's what we will be talking to an agricultural product and we'll talk more about it. But I like to be diversified in every way. So I have business in Germany, this agricultural product is in Ireland.   I do my banking in Belize and Panama and different parts of Europe. So just trying to be as diversified as possible.   Right, right. And that's part of your kind of plan as well, right? Like to be kind of this international man of mystery, right? Like you have different ties to a couple of different countries, which gives you flexibility in case something goes wrong in one of them, right? Like, you know, I think a lot of people were worried here for a while and I think it's still in the back of people's minds in the United States about, you know, the strength of the dollar and   You know, people were talking about getting a second citizenship and things like that. Can you speak to that a little bit about kind of, you know, how you've done that and what your kind of thoughts and feelings are around that?   (Louis O'Connor) (04:46.552) Sure, sure. Well, you my feeling always has this peace of mind, you know, I just want peace of mind. I want to be at peace with myself and the world around me. that's, I mean, I'm probably talking about more philosophically and spiritually as well, but also, you know, in business or residencies or banking. I suppose it's because I left Ireland quite young and I did live.   I didn't just go on a vacation somewhere. lived in Germany for 10 years. I learned the language. Ireland is an island, even though we're part of Europe, continental Europe is completely different. And then I went to Latin America, which is a completely different kettle of fish altogether. And I suppose it was those experiences that the perspective that gave me was that, that sounds very simple, really, root of entry, but there's...   there's good and bad, know, you we do certain things in Ireland very well, and maybe other things not so well in Germany, they do, you know, they've made better cars and better roads. And we do and you know, Latin America, I think they dance better and drink better maybe than you know, but so yeah, what I learned is, you know, you know, you can pick is a bit like life can be a bit like a buffet, and you can pick what you like, and you know what you don't like leave behind, you know, so and the idea, I suppose the point I should make is that   What I've learned is it's not expensive or difficult to be diversified. Like have your banking in different jurisdictions really doesn't cost anything. Having a second or third residency if you do the right homework on I'll go into more detail if you want. have residency still in Panama and I three passports. I'm working on the fourth and it has been a little bit of effort but not expensive or costly.   And will I ever use it? I worried that the world's going to end? No. But it's just that peace of mind you have when you've got these other options that, God forbid if something did happen here in Ireland or Europe, I have a residency in Panama, I banking there. So it's just that, suppose it's like having a parachute or a safety net that's always there.   (Seth Bradley) (07:00.13) Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, that's, you know, especially the way that things are today and people kind of just worry about things generally, right? If you have that peace of mind and you have that, you know, second or third option, it's just something that can kind of let you sleep at night a little bit better. It's like having a nest egg or, you know, having a second, third, fourth, fifth stream of income.   things like that that can let you sleep at night and while other people are panicking and worrying and making, you know, maybe even bad decisions based on that, you know, based on those worries, you can sleep soundly and make decisions that are best for you.   Yeah, yeah, and you're not limited, know, if you're just, you know, like, I mean, it's funny though, as well, I think it's timely. I think the time has come. I you see people, you know, we were chatting earlier, you know, being involved in multiple different industries and, you know, with technology, we're allowed to do that. We can reside in one country, we can do our bank in another, we can do our tax responsibility somewhere else, we can do our business. So it's probably just in the last 20, 30 years that we can move so freely.   with all this stuff, know, you know, only maybe 25, 30 years ago, I wanted to, I couldn't really do business in Germany, but live in Ireland, it'd have to be one or the other. There was no internet, you know, everything. So, so yeah, I think, I think we're heading in that direction anyway. And it's just, yeah, there's great freedom in it and great peace of mind, even though, you know, I mean, I'll be in Ireland for, you know, my two kids are, there's another six or eight years.   before they finish school. So I plan to be here, but I just have other options as well, you know.   (Seth Bradley) (08:41.42) Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. And speaking of diversification, mean, your investments are very diverse, right? I mean, in the previous episode, we jumped into rare earth metals. And then in this episode, we're going to jump into something new. Before we jump into the new thing, though, give us a little update on what has changed in your business with the rare earth metals or if anything has changed or how those things are going.   Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks for asking, Seth. Since we spoke, actually, the big news is just in the last 60 days, I think I mentioned to you that China pretty much sort of dominates the rare earth industry. it's, I think really, it's possible and we understand now that China sort of saw before the EU and maybe before the US or they understood at least that rare earths would become   the backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century and they've been, you know, they've taken action on that. So we're in a situation now and it's not really an economic strategy. It's more of a geopolitical strategy that China has big plans for electric cars, big plans for solar, big plans for wind. you know, they, they've hundreds of million people, they're, taken out of the poverty, into the middle class all the time. So sort of   thinking strategically and long term, they rightfully secured their supply of rare earths. And what happened just in the last 60 days is the US sort of initiated a sort of a block. Now it was also supported by Holland and Japan and they're blocking sort of the latest sort of semiconductor technology from going to China. And in retaliation for that, China   You know, they have, you know, an ace up their sleeve, which is where it hurts. So the West has the technology and China has the raw materials. And just in the last 60 days, China has said they're going to, well, effective August 1, which is a month ago, they're restricting the export now of gallium and germanium, which is two of these technology metals, and that China, you know, is responsible for 95 % of the global production. so we're seeing the prices go up and this is sort of.   (Louis O'Connor) (10:57.826) what I talked to you about that these metals are in demand on a good day, you know, you will make a nice return. But if something like this happens where China sort of weaponizes these metals economically, then you'll see prices increasing quite dramatically, which they are. Yeah, that's that's what's happening there. It's basically a market where there's surging demand and you have sort of political landscapes affecting as well. So   It makes for interesting investment.   Yeah, yeah. Are these rare earth metals, are they not something that we can mine or is it something we're not willing to mine, like let's say in the West?   (Louis O'Connor) (11:44.142) Yeah, good question actually. that actually gets right to the heart of it, Seth, because despite the name rare earths, they're not all that rare. Some of them are as sort of common as copper and stuff, but there's about eight or ten of them that are rare and they are available in the US. But this is what's changed dramatically in the last 30 years is the rare earths don't occur naturally. So they always occur as a byproduct of another raw material.   They're sort of, they're very chemically similar. they're, sort of all stuck together. So they have to be extracted and separated and then refined and processed into, you know, high purity levels for jet engines or smartphones or whatever the case might be. what's happened where China dominates is, is China is responsible for 95 % of the refining. Now there's about 200 or sorry, $390 billion available in subsidies in the U S.   from the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite the name is all about energy transition. And that's all very well, except the human capital and the engineering expertise to refine rare earths is depleted in, it doesn't exist in Europe, and it's very much depleted in the US. Just to give you some context, there's 39 universities in China, where they graduate degrees in critical minerals.   So the Chinese are graduating about 200 metallurgists a week, every week for the last 30 years. I think the US has a handful of universities. I'd say there's probably 300,000 metallurgists in China and there might be 400 in the US and probably none in Europe at all. So it's not just a question of if they're there, it's how do we get them into 99.99 % purity? Without the engineering expertise, we can't, not anytime soon anyway.   Wow, yeah, yeah. mean, that just alone sounds like a recipe for a pretty good play for an investment. you know, there's these bottlenecks, right? Whether that's people that can refine it or the actual element itself or willingness to mine it, you know, all these different things come into play to make it a good investment. All right, let's switch over a little bit here. Let's talk about the new investment vehicle.   (Seth Bradley) (14:06.99) that you talked to me about. It's an agricultural play, correct? we're talking about truffles, talking about mushrooms, right? Tell me a little bit about it just to get started here.   Okay, well, you probably I mean, you know, truffles are in the culinary world, they're known as the black diamond of the kitchen, you know, they're, they're a delicacy going back to, you know, thousands and thousands of years. Traditionally, the black perigord, which is the Mediterranean truffle would have originated in France, but for the last sort of, you know, the last 100 years or so,   they've been growing abundantly in sort of South, Southwestern France, Northern Spain and Italy. So traditionally, you know, that's where they grow and they sort of, know, because the truffle, as you said, it's a mushroom that has a symbiotic relationship with a a native tree, an oak tree or hazel tree or sometimes beech. So it's a very delicate balance, you know.   And although I have invested in agriculture before, we started, we, I mean, a collective does not just me involved here, and I don't want to sound like I take credit for any of this really. I was just a part of a team where we had some agri-science people, and we had sort of four generational farmers involved. But we were looking at, it is no question that climate, there's a climate change, right?   It doesn't matter to me whether people, whatever the causes of that are, the reality is if you talk to an olive grower or a truffle grower in Italy or France, they'll tell you the climate has changed because their harvests have been decreasing for about the last 30 to 40 years actually, but really more so in the last 10. So we were sort of, I'll tell you basically the AgriScience partner involved in this.   (Louis O'Connor) (16:10.958) As a test back in 2005, they started to plant and the trees inoculated, the baby trees inoculated with the truffle sort of in the root system as a test all over different countries, not just Ireland, England, UK, also the US. So this has been in sort of research and development since about 2005.   And we got seriously involved in about 2015 when history was made and this Mediterranean truffle was grown here in the British Isles for the first time. we then with our agriscience partner in 2015 planted a thousand trees in five different locations in Ireland where I am.   and one of them is about 20 minutes away from me here. They're all secret locations. I won't even tell you where they are because they really are. They're highly valued or highly prized. And so it takes about four or five years to see if you're a business. So yeah, we now are growing the Mediterranean truffle, not just in Ireland, but in other parts of the UK. But the real interesting thing, Seth, it's just now ready for scale. And all of the farmers,   who were involved in the original research. None of them are going to take it to scale. The one that's local to me is a lovely gentleman. in his 60s and he planted a thousand trees really just as a retirement. His daughter works in banking in Switzerland and so there's nobody really to take over the farm. So we're the first to do it with scale. So we're inviting in...   a portion of some investors in as well.   (Seth Bradley) (18:05.87) Gotcha. Are there specific, I assume there are, are specific growing conditions where these things can prosper? Like I can't, I'm in San Diego, I can't just plant them in my backyard and wait five years and be a millionaire.   Well, if you you if I hear you're growing truffles death, you know, we should assign an NDA we should assign. You could try but no, they wouldn't grow in San Diego because I mean, there's a very delicate balance and you're what you're you're what you're using here is agri science and nature. You're working with nature. And because the reason they've grown so well in demand is   No way.   (Louis O'Connor) (18:48.738) just because of that balance up they get a sort of a dry season or sort of they got to get a lot of rain and then they get the dry season and what's happened is they're getting more drought and less rain and it's just upset the balance. So it's a very, very delicate balance. But what people wouldn't know, I think, is that truffles have always grown wild in Ireland.   There was a time five or 600 years ago when Ireland was 85 % forest and our native tree is the oak and the hazel tree, is the tree that's also where the fungus grows. And what happened was when the Brits were before, you know, when shipbuilding was the thing and the British Navy were, you know, the Spanish were, so the Brits sort of chopped down a lot of the forest for the wood for shipbuilding. you know, our forests were depleted. But to this day,   Truffles do still grow wild here, but we're doing it differently. know, we're only planting on land where you have like certain protein and pH levels and limestone. And then we're planting baby saplings that are already two years old that were inoculated with the truffle fungus like at birth, like in the root system. And we only plant them after we see that the root system and the fungi are already thriving.   So if you get into the right soil and it's already thriving, then two, three, four years later, you'll get truffles.   (Seth Bradley) (20:17.216) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   That's awesome. just, I think about like wine and like, you know, you can grow it, you know, vines in different places. Some places they grow, some places they don't, some places they grow and the result isn't good and some places they grow and the result is awesome. It's probably a very delicate balance between, you know, environment plus how they're raised, how they're taken care of and all those sorts of things.   It is 100%. I mean, first and foremost, mean, because of angry science and technology today, you know, I mean, we can plant baby saplings that are already and not, I mean, we're playing God a little bit with nature, but you know, I mean, it's just amazing, you know, like you could do it. And then, you know, the biggest threat is actually mismanagement. You know, if you don't then manage it correctly. If you have a root system inoculated with the fungus and you have the right soil conditions,   after that and it's management and it's sort of bio security meaning they have a very pungent smell. mean, squirrels and pigs and they love them. They love to eat. So you have to, mean, you're literally it's like protecting a bank, know, you have a bio security fence. You've you know, you limit visitations to the farm, you've, know, special footwear and cleaning and stuff. so yeah, it's serious stuff, you know.   Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Well, let's dive in a little bit to the kind of the investment itself. Like what does that look like for an investor? Like what are your projected returns? You know, what, how does it all kind of, how does it all shape out? Like you've grown these wildly valuable truffles and now I guess the first step would be what's the business plan? Who are we selling these truffles to? What makes them so valuable? And then get into kind of the investor   (Seth Bradley) (22:33.794) portion like how would someone get involved in whether projector returns.   Okay, so we sell, first of all, the estate that the farm is, it's called Chan Valley Estate. People can Google it, it's beautiful. It's 200 acres of north-temporary farmland. The estate itself, it's a bit like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. It's a Georgian.   a three story Georgian home, it's over 200 years old. It's also a museum and we have events there and it's also a working farm. And it's a herbal farm. So we grow plants and herbs there that we then we have our own, we work the value chain where we also sell those herbs for medicinal purpose and we convert them into medicinal oils and things like that. So the location is already up and running.   And what we're doing with the truffles is for every acre, we can plant 800 trees. And so what we're doing is we're offering investors, well, a client, the minimum investment is $30,000 and the investor for that price gets 400 baby saplings already inoculated with the truffle fungus. And then they get the farm management   included up to the first four to five years. takes about, there'll be truffles after, bearing in mind that the sapling, the baby tree is two years old. So after three years in the ground, it's already five years old and there'll be truffles then and the returns don't begin until then. But what's included in the price is all the farm management, know, all the, you know, the,   (Louis O'Connor) (24:23.508) implementation of the farm, the irrigation, the electricity, the hardware that's needed. So all the management right up until there is production and then when they're producing, the investor gets 70 % of the growth and the farm management company, we get 30%. So it's a 70-30 split. Now the great thing about the oak and the hazel is they'll produce   for 30 to 40 years. it's a long term, it's a legacy investment, you might call it, because you won't see returns until the fourth or fifth year. But once you do, you'll see returns then for another 30 to 35 years. And they're very, very good. mean, we have three numbers in the brochure. We looked at what's...   price half the truffles never dropped below. So we have the very low estimate, which is they've never gone below this price. That brings in an IRR, which would be from day one of about 14%. And then the highest that they've sold for, you're looking at about 69%, but the average is about 38%.   So the returns will be very, very good once production kicks in and then they'll maintain. We've included an inflation for 30 to 40 years. I hope, I think I answered everything there.   Yeah, definitely. sorry. I gave you about six questions there to answer in a row. But yeah, I think you covered everything. And having an IRR, which is time-based on something that has this long of a horizon and even takes four or five years to even start producing, those are really, really strong numbers.   (Louis O'Connor) (26:23.63) Yeah, well, again, even the, you know, one of the reasons obviously we like truffles because they're very, very expensive. mean, they're a luxury product. You know, we're about an hour from Shannon Airport here, which is the transatlantic hub between Europe and the U.S. So we can have truffles in U.S. or anywhere in Europe or even the Middle East or the Far East, for that matter, in less than 24 hours. that's important as well. But they're a luxury item. There's huge demand for them. mean,   You know how the world is. mean, there are, unfortunately, you know, there's always sort of, people are getting richer and some people maybe are getting poorer. But the luxury, you know, high end market and the culinary, international culinary explosion means that, you know, there's huge demand for truffles. And also you have to factor in the fact that the harvests in the Mediterranean are less and less every year. And I mean, very, very sadly,   I mean, it's an opportunity for us, but very sadly that they've done very specific scientific studies and it's going to over the next 50 years, the truffle harvests in the Med will go will decline between 73 and 100%. So literally, they will not be growing truffles there in 50 plus years from now. So that's an opportunity for us. you know, again,   We've been working on this really since 2015. And it was only, you know, it was only 2019, 2020 when we began to get to truffles we knew because there was no guarantee, you know. But yeah, now that we're growing them, we just need to scale up.   Gotcha. Gotcha. what's kind of the I see that you know, for that minimum investment, you get X number of baby saplings. How many was that again? 400. That's what I Okay, 400. What's kind of the survival rate, I guess, of those saplings? Do you have kind of a percentage on that? Is it like?   (Louis O'Connor) (28:17.102) 400   (Louis O'Connor) (28:27.086) Yeah, well, we expect you got what's happening so far is within in about year three, which is actually year five, because the sapling, you should get three of the five trees producing. But once you have production, once that fungi is thriving, it will just continue to grow. So in year four, you should have four of them. In year five, you should have all of them producing.   Now we also put a guarantee in the farm management contract that if any tree, you know, if it dies or if it's not, you know, producing truffles, we'll replace it free of charge at any time. in the event, you know, for some reason, I mean, we put a tree in that's inoculated and it doesn't take, then we just replace it. So either way, over the first four to five years, we get them all. And the great thing is if you protect that soil from   pests and diseases and other sort of unwelcome sort of mycorrhizal or fungi, then it will thrive. It will thrive. It'll keep, you know, it'll spread, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship underground between the tree and the fungi.   Got it. Yeah, that's awesome to know. like survival is not one of the things that we should consider because if for some reason it wouldn't survive or is not producing, then it just gets replaced. So you actually are getting those full 400 saplings turning into trees that will be producing.   almost they mature and produce and you know as I said barring you know any pests or diseases or you know interference then they just continue you just protect them you just allow nature then to do its work.   (Seth Bradley) (30:18.848) Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the risks then? What are the downsides that you can foresee if something were to go wrong? What would it be?   Well, the greatest threat is mismanagement, literally. I obviously we're doing this with scale, so it's a professional endeavor, you know, people from time to time, know, I mean, some of the test sites here, mean, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and they're not that hard to manage, but people just lose interest, or the younger kids don't want to farm. But the greatest threat is mismanagement. So as long as you put in these biosecurity measures,   and manage, you know, there's got to be some clearing done, there's got to be some pruning done, there's got to be tree guards. So there is a process involved in bringing them to nurturing them along and then keeping everything, you know, neutral, if you will. that's first, weather is always, you know, factor in agriculture. We don't feel it's as much of a threat here, because although we're for the first time,   growing the Mediterranean truffle. Truffles have grown, they grow here wild anyway. So the climate is right and has been right for thousands of years in Ireland. So, you know, and again, we'll have irrigation as well. You know, we get a lot of rain here. It's not likely we'll need any more rain, but yeah, we, you know, the agri-science will kick in there as well. And then, you know, as I said, like,   you know, biosecurity we call it, which is, you know, very, very serious fencing, limited visits to the farm, know, special footwear if people are going up to the area and sort of rinse. We have a pool area where they have to disinfect before they go into, you know, it's a very, very, very protected area from pests and from diseases or anything, you know, that could be brought in from the outside on whether that's machinery or humans.   (Louis O'Connor) (32:22.892) So yeah, it's almost like a laboratory. mean, you keep it very, very delicate balance and keep it very limited on who visits and, you know, people are a visit, but they have to be properly, you know, the feet have to be cleaned and footwear has to be worn and stuff like that. So, but, know, at the end of the day, Seth, it's, you know, well, any investment really, but agriculture, you know, the final say is in nature's hands, you know, not ours. mean, we...   We like to think, suppose, we're in the results business, but the reality is we're not. in the planning business and all we can do is plan everything as well as we can. It's just like, you if you planted a rose, you know, bush out in your backyard there today, you wouldn't stand outside and will it to grow, right? You know, grow quicker. You know, we have to allow nature and the cosmos to do its work. so yeah, nature has the final say, you know.   Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally understand. And any investment has its risks, whether you're investing in truffles or real estate or any of the above. Quick question on this. Don't want to paint you like in a bad way at all, but we have had and it's not you, of course, of course, but we've had an influx of bad sponsors and people that are anything from mismanaging investor capital on one end, which can happen pretty easily. And there's not a whole lot of   Not a lot of bad blood there. Things happen. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we've seen everything from fraud to Ponzi schemes and all kinds of stuff lately. One thing that I tell investors is to make sure you know who you're investing with and make sure your investing dollars are actually getting invested where they're supposed to. Could an investor invest with you and actually go to the farm?   and see their saplings or see the farm and see this business.   (Louis O'Connor) (34:24.654) 100 % in fact, we would rather people do I mean, I it's not always possible. Right. But Shan Valley Estate, I mean, I'll give you the website and stuff after Shan Valley Estate. It's a 200 acre farm. It's already a museum. have events there. It's a herb dispensary as I said, as I said, it's our our manage our farm management partner is the Duggan family, their fourth generation farmers and they're being in temporary, you know,   longer than that even. absolutely, you you know, of course, there's legal contracts. mean, people get a legal contract for the purchase of the trees and then we have a legal contract for the farm management that we're responsible for implementing the project, we're responsible for bringing the hard, the trees to truffles to harvest. But we do, we just beginning, we just had our first tour, but it was sort of Europe from Germany. Last, sorry,   the 18th, 19th of August. But we will be having tours every quarter. And if anybody wants to come at any time, we'd be delighted to have them because it's like I said, it's like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. And we've accommodated, we converted the stables into accommodation, you know, because we have weddings and events and stuff there as well. It's not just a field that we bought.   Yeah.   And so it's a big deal. I'll give you the website. The location is spectacular and clients can, you know, stay the night, you know, and there's a three story Georgian estate house and the bottom floor is a museum. So it's like walking into a pharmacy from 1840, all the bottles and the counter is 200 years old, you know, and then the middle level, we've an organic vegetarian restaurant, all the   (Louis O'Connor) (36:17.24) food is grown on the farm. There's an old walled garden that they used to wall the gardens years ago to keep out the pests. And all the food that's served is grown on the farm. And then the top floor is accommodation as well and the stables have been converted. look, it's all about trust, Seth. And, you know, I would say to anybody, you've   I mean myself, if I have any doubt about anything, don't do it. And it might not be that somebody's a scam or a fraud, it's just if you're not 100 % sure about it, don't touch it. But what I would recommend is people do their due diligence because we've done ours. We've eight years invested in it, put a lot of time and effort into it. And at the very least, we'd like people to check it out and see it all the way through.   for what it is. yeah, we'll be, we're hoping to, we have a partner in Europe and we're to connect with somebody in North America. I don't want name anybody here because it might not come off, but there's a few sort of marketers and there's plenty obviously that we might sort of do a sort of an agreement with where they'll, you know, I mean, we could even have sort of investment real estate conferences on the farm.   you know, and do farm tours as well. so definitely 100 % we'd love for people to visit and, and they get to drink some Guinness and they're really brave, they can swim in the Irish sea.   Yeah, and I'm looking at the website right now. We'll drop that in the show notes, but it is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, it's making me want to get on a plane right now and check it out. It's incredible.   (Louis O'Connor) (38:00.046) Yeah, that's the estate, shambali.ie. I mean, what I love about it's 100 % organic or members of the Irish Organic Association, track ref, fourth generation. You know, this is not me, I'm a part of this, but the farm management team are, you know, they're already like growing herbs and plants and converting them to medicinal, you know, oils and things. And this is just another, it's more of a farming enterprise, I suppose, than a farm.   And then the other partner is the Agri Science Partner, which is this team of scientists who basically made history by growing for the very first time eight years ago, the black, the Mediterranean truffle in Ireland, you know, so there's a lot of professionalism and thought and effort being put into a chap.   Love that. Love that man. Is there anything else about this type of investment that I didn't ask about that I should have?   I think you know Seth, you should be on CNN or something because I you did. I'm pretty sure you did, you definitely covered it. I mean I may have left something out but I think it's a good foundation for somebody if they're interested, I'll give them my email and you know it's not that expensive to get to Europe and it's a great way to mix a holiday and you know come to the farm and stuff you know.   Absolutely, absolutely. Well, since you're repeat guest of the guest of the show, we won't go into the freedom for but you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.   (Louis O'Connor) (39:34.446) You know, I knew you were going to ask me that, Seth, you caught me off guard. So I have one ready and I stole this from someone else. So I'm not going to take it. But I was listening to a guy last week and he, sort of a big operation in Europe. And he was talking about a phrase they have in the office and it's 1%. And they always look at each other and when you pass them, they go 1%. And I love what it's about. It's about the idea that in a way it sort of comes back to what we talked about earlier, which is forget about.   Yeah.   (Louis O'Connor) (40:04.664) the fact don't think you're in the results business. You're in the planning business. And the 1 % is every day, try and improve every little action. I'm not just talking about work. I'm talking about family, your spiritual practice, if you have one, increase it by 1 % every day. And you know, it's like compound interest, isn't it? That in a way, then you don't have to worry about the big picture. And the results will just look after themselves then, you know.   Yeah, yeah, I love that man. Always improve. mean, you you've got to take small steps to get to those big goals. And a lot of times you just need to ask yourself, did I improve 1 % today? If the answer is yes, then it was a successful day.   Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great because, you know, if I was to try and think now, or you were to try and think now, everything you have to do in the next three weeks, right, you just be overwhelmed, right. And sometimes my head is like that, you know, I mean, I've got meditation practice and stuff, but I watch my thoughts and you know, I mean, it's it's a fact. I mean, it's a human condition. I don't know, some disestimates of how many thoughts do we have a day? How many are repetitive and how many are useless?   A lot of them are repetitive, a lot of them are useless. So it's good just to narrow it right down to what's the next thing I can do right now and can I do it 1 % better than I did yesterday, you know?   Absolutely. Love that man. All right, Lou, we're gonna let us find out more about you.   (Louis O'Connor) (41:34.954) Okay, so they can email me. It's Truffle Farm Invest. Sorry, it's a new website www.trufflefarminvest.com or they can if somebody from your your audience wants to email me directly, it's louis at trufflefarminvest.com   Alright, perfect man. We'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the show. Always a pleasure, brother.   Thank you very much, Seth. A pleasure.   (Seth Bradley) (42:08.088) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Louis O'Connor's Links: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054362234822 https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-o-connor-a583341b8/ https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/08/30/strategic-metals-founder-louis-oaconnor-breaks-down-china-u-s-rare-metal-wars.html

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It's a good thing Greg Dworkin had a lot of links today. Because there was a lot to say, even if there were only a very few topics most people were talking about. And by that, we mean Jeffrey Epstein, and the fact that Donald Trump was his very good friend, because they were both giant perverts. No one's buying the Trump administration's story. I mean, like, no one. Not the Trump-supporting Speaker of the House. Not ultra-Trump-supporting rank & file members of Congress. Not the grifters who came up on the Trump coattails. Not the grifters positioning themselves to usurp the coat itself. Not the high-information, liberal voters who might be using it to troll low-information voters. Not even the low-information voters themselves, who don't care about anything. Maybe he's just used up all the quarters he had lined up for his brainwashing machine. Whatever the reason, he's now got MAGA & the Republican party splintered over this thing he seems determined to insist everyone should ignore. But wait! Maybe Trump can save his presidency with substantive accomplishments on the policy side! Hahahahahaha! Ohhhhh, man! Hey, just kidding, folks! Ha ha! That was a good one! No, there's no hope for that! And the midterm political outlook is only set to get worse, even if the policy itself somehow doesn't. But it is getting worse! Oh well, at least there's Elon Musk's third party. Hahahaha! Gotcha again! Meanwhile, this coverup isn't even the worst thing Pam Bondi is doing with her time. Well, we have time for one more subject. By which I mean about an hour. How about the NYC mayoral race, where we're looking at voters in the 40s and 50s. No, not by age. By net approve/disapprove! (OK, but also by age.) In fact, how about the NYC mayoral race, and how some people are so consumed by it, that they think it has bearing on the outcome of totally unrelated races, thousands of miles away.

Marc & Kim welcome Fox News Radio's Eben Brown for a hard-hitting look at the deadly Texas floods and the media firestorm surrounding local officials. As search-and-rescue efforts continue, Brown slams grandstanding reporters for ambushing an emotional sheriff still comforting grieving families. The team discusses failures in local preparedness, a six-month-old flood warning report, and why now is not the time to score viral moments at the expense of truth or empathy. Marc and Kim—both former journalists—back Brown's scathing take, calling out the industry's toxic incentive structure that rewards outrage over accuracy. Brown makes it clear: the real questions must be asked—but with timing, humanity, and respect.

Mike Johnson, Beau Morgan, and Ali Mac talk about the biggest local and national headlines in The Front Page! On this edition of The Front Page, Mike, Beau, and Ali react to the reports that the NFLPA and the NFL agreed to keep collusion findings a secret. The Morning Shift crew also talks about how the NFLPA and NFL collusion findings are like a bad game of gotcha for the NFL and NFLPA.

Media figures are standing on the dead bodies of the kids in Texas to score political points by grandstanding on things that didn't actually happen plus the media keeps pushing the left to violence. 

Media figures are standing on the dead bodies of the kids in Texas to score political points by grandstanding on things that didn't actually happen; plus, the media keeps pushing the left to violence.

Happy Enslavement Day?From Aaron Day:“The Big Brother Bill furthers technocracy and surveillance. Predictably MAGA supports, not appreciating that these “investments” will be weaponed against them in the future.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's $135-150B for police militarization, AI surveillance, and financial monitoring, paired with Real ID, Palantir's citizen database, and stablecoins as veiled CBDCs, fast-tracks a technocratic agenda, centralizing control over Americans' lives.” ~ @aarondayFrom Patrick Wood:“Happy Birthday, America. Here is your present: Enslavement. (Gotcha!) AI.Gov will be exclusively run by Technocrats to achieve Technocrat ends. There will be no public input or involvement. For all you scoffers (politicians, academics, and citizens) who have been carping at me for the last 18 years, as I warned you what was coming, will you please get your head on straight? If these digital manics are not stopped, it is game over for freedom and liberty, for sanctity and humaneness.”~ @StopTechnocracyThe time is NOW to secure your finances with GOLD:Call the company I trust, Colonial Metals Group today to learn about a gold strategy that works for you and see if you qualify for up to $7,500 in FREE silver! Check out my landing page here: https://colonialmetalsgroup.com/joyWe discuss this and MORE today on the SJ Show!Join the Rumble LIVE chat and follow my Rumble Page HERE so you never miss an episode: https://rumble.com/c/TheShannonJoyShowShannon's Top Headlines July 3, 2025:NYS Advocates BLOCK Every Bad PHARMA Bill!!: https://x.com/teacher_choice/status/1940205576157622472AI.gov: The Digital Leviathan Launching This Independence Day: https://www.technocracy.news/ai-gov-the-digital-leviathan-launching-this-independence-day/“ChatGPT Psychosis”: The Collapse Of Reality Is Wrecking Lives: https://www.technocracy.news/chatgpt-psychosis-the-collapse-of-reality-is-wrecking-lives/Local police help Trump, ICE spy on Americans via license plate readers: https://www.stridentconservative.com/local-police-help-trump-ice-spy-on-americans-via-license-plate-readers/Sasha Latypova - MAHA scorecard: First 6 months of Trump Admin: https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/maha-scorecard-first-6-months-ofSJ Show Notes:ACTION LAWSUIT - Vaccine Exemption Denial: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5p67-sRuHD82zPZBUdJWjQG6nFsxqfUanGS0z6kAdQlw5Gw/viewformCLASSPlease support Shannon's independent network with your donation HERE: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=MHSMPXEBSLVTSupport Our Sponsors:The best medicine is chronic GOOD health and achieving it naturally. It's why my family uses Native Path Complete Protein every day!Go to https://nativepathcompleteprotein.com/joy today to claim your EXCLUSIVE 41% off deal before it's gone.With lockdowns looming, threats of bio-terror and cyber attacks, the chaos is everywhere. You NEED to be prepared and your one stop shop is The Satellite Phone Store. They have EVERYTHING you need when the POWER goes OUT. Use the promo code JOY for 10% off your entire order TODAY! www.SAT123.com/JoyPlease consider Dom Pullano of PCM & Associates! He has been Shannon's advisor for over a decade and would love to help you grow! Call his toll free number today: 1-800-536-1368 Or visit his website at https://www.pcmpullano.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BAH!!! Just another shoot the $#!+ episodes... Gotcha! ENJOY!!!

Loneliness and My Plan To Conquer It The Revolutionary Solution to Loneliness That Actually Works Feeling isolated? Struggling with loneliness? You're not alone. In this powerful episode, Paul Clough reveals his breakthrough plan to conquer loneliness once and for all – and it's not what you think. Why This Episode Matters: Loneliness has become an epidemic affecting millions worldwide. Whether you're personally struggling with isolation, know someone who is, or simply want to future-proof yourself against loneliness, this episode is essential listening. Paul's unique approach offers real hope and practical solutions that work – because everyone deserves meaningful connection. What You'll Discover: The Counterintuitive Approach: Why creating a plan for someone ELSE might be the key to solving your own loneliness crisis The Small Steps Strategy: How tiny actions like visiting coffee shops without your phone can transform your social life The Ikigai Framework: Paul's proven daily/weekly/monthly system that keeps you connected and engaged Real-World Action Steps: From library visits to cookery courses, yoga classes to reading groups – discover dozens of practical ways to rebuild your social connections Key Takeaways: Start Small: Begin with 60-second conversations and people-watching in public spaces Explore Interests: Use libraries and bookshops to discover what genuinely attracts you Join Communities: Wine tasting, art classes, meditation groups, and more – find your tribe Create Structure: Build a progressive plan with daily, weekly, and monthly social activities Take Action: Stop doomscrolling and start connecting with real people in real spaces Perfect For: Anyone experiencing loneliness or social isolation People who want to help lonely friends or family members Listeners seeking practical strategies for building community Those ready to break free from digital isolation and create real connections Take Action: Grab a pen and paper – you'll need them for this interactive episode. Paul guides you through creating your personalized loneliness-busting plan that actually works. Ready to transform loneliness into connection? This episode gives you the tools to make it happen. Subscribe to Personal Development Unplugged for more life-changing strategies and practical wisdom from Paul Clough. Need support? Email Paul directly – he responds personally and has your back on this journey. Lastly, please share this important message https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/450-loniness-and-my-plan-to-conquer-it Shine Brightly

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I sit down with Pete Mora, founder of Fajita Pete's, to talk about his journey from running a full-service restaurant to building a scalable, off-premise food concept focused on delivery and catering. Pete shares how starting small and keeping the menu focused allowed him to maintain quality and simplify operations. He explains that by limiting the menu and designing the kitchen accordingly, they were able to keep costs low while serving large groups efficiently. His approach helped transition from dine-in service to a streamlined catering and delivery model. We also discuss the importance of hiring well and establishing effective systems. Pete admits he learned the hard way about managing people and the value of setting expectations early. As the company grew, building a culture based on respect, structure, and direct communication became essential to maintaining consistency across locations. Finally, Pete reflects on what it takes to be an entrepreneur. He emphasizes being prepared for challenges, not romanticizing the journey, and staying committed to the long haul. His advice is to set small, achievable goals and surround yourself with people who complement your weaknesses. It's not about doing everything yourself, but about building a structure that supports the growth of your business and your team. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I delve into the entrepreneurial journey of Pete Mora, founder of Fajita Pete's, exploring his evolution from waiting tables in college to establishing a successful restaurant chain. We discuss Pete's strategic business model, which emphasizes a small footprint and limited menu to enhance operational efficiency and specialize in off-premise services like delivery and catering. Pete shares insights on effective team management, highlighting the importance of hiring the right people, setting clear expectations, and fostering a supportive work environment. The episode explores how Pete's innovative approach and adaptation of technology, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to the growth and success of Fajita Pete's. I examine the significance of maintaining quality and consistency across locations, with a focus on centralizing production processes and collaborating with partners who possess operational expertise. We discuss the advantages of being based in Houston, a competitive environment that offers access to resources and professionals, and how this has influenced the scalability of the business. Pete provides practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the value of setting achievable goals and understanding that success can also come from significant contributions within a company. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Fajita Pete's GUESTS Pete MoraAbout Pete TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) INTRO Welcome to the Building Texas Business Podcast. Interviews with thought leaders and organizational visionaries from across industry. Join us as we talk about the latest trends, challenges and growth opportunities to take your business to the next level. The Building Texas Business Podcast is brought to you by Boyer Miller, providing counsel beyond expectations. Find out how we can make a meaningful difference to your business at BoyerMillercom and by your podcast team, where having your own podcast is as easy as being a guest on ours. Discover more at yourpodcastteam Now. Here's your host, chris Hanslick. Chris: All right, pete, welcome to Building Texas Business. Thanks for taking time to come on the show. I've been a big fan of your food for years, so really excited about this opportunity. Pete: Well, thank you. I know you told me that the babies grew up eating some of it, so those are always my favorite stories when we get to see multi-generational type of business. We've done some kids from kinder through college now. That's how old we are, that's how long you've been around, I love that I hope my daughters listen. Chris: They don't listen to all these. I think I know that to be true, but they're going to listen to this one. Hayden and Holland grew up on Fajita Pete's. For sure, Fajita Pete's, tell us what that is what you're known for, fajita Pete's. Pete: We're a very small footprint restaurant. 98% of what we do is off-premise. That's our thing. It's either pickup delivery. Catering is a huge part of what we do. By catering, we specialize in corporate catering. Okay, so office lunches, like here at your firm, people call us up 30 people, 11, 30, 14th floor, 29, 25, richmond, you know and then we just show up. They, they like the ease of it. We do three types of deliveries. We do with the warmers, with the servers if you need them, or just drop off and get out of your way which is the most? popular one, but we specialize in a very limited menu so that way we can feed the hundreds of people we do every morning on catering, and then at night we turn into a delivery company, kind of like a pizza company. You call us up, feed us for four. Boom, we show up at your door with the food. Chris: And I can attest that you show up fast. Pete: Yep, yeah, that's from those small menus, so we specialize. There's very few things I'm good at, so I try to do as little as possible so I can be good at those things. Chris: Yeah, keep it simple, stupid, exactly, I love it. So I would think keeping the menu narrow like that helps you with controlling food costs and inventory and managing kind of the cost side of your business. Pete: Yeah, business-wise it's good on a lot of levels. The fixed costs, like you said, the rent. So the menu decides your kitchen layout. So, it decides your equipment package. It decides how many feet I mean you can get very granular with these things. It decides how many feet you need between the equipment, how you lay everything. Our menu specifically allows you to get high ticket items in the small area you know fajitas and group type of events. So we got a high ticket average for the restaurant industry and that's because our items are sold for families or for big groups like this. So it allows you to crank out a lot of food in a short amount of time and allows you to keep it fresh, and it's also a menu that transports well you can compartmentalize everything and it arrives the way you want it to it makes sense. Chris: So let's go back to the beginning. What was the inspiration for you to start this in the first place? At the beginning. Pete: Well, I waited tables to school. I went to. I'm from, naturally from columbia, south america, when we moved here. I grew up inief. I went through high school here, I went to U of H, got into the entrepreneurship program at U of H and that was a program that taught me how to really think about what I can do and scale. Having waited tables, I said well, restaurants really allow you to find out very quickly if you're going to make it or not. And my mom always told me we didn't bring you here to fill out applications, we brought you here to do something. Chris: Wow, I love that yeah. Pete: So with that mentality I was blessed enough to get out of the entrepreneurship program and run into the Meyer family. You know Meyer Land, meyer Park, sure, and we were able to get a very good deal on a restaurant that had been closed for a few years. Mr Meyer was very gracious, allowed me to go into his office. I learned a lot through that negotiation and we started a full service restaurant right out of college, 60 tables in Meyer Park, and that really taught us a lot. I mean typical immigrant story. Right, we made the tables in our garage. You know, walk through the snow in the Houston summers, all that stuff Uphill both ways. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Pete: So that experience was very good, and I always mentioned the full service restaurant because it led to what ended up being Fajita. Chris: Pizza yeah, it's part of your journey, right yeah? Pete: Taught me. The first year was just survival. Second year was figuring out. Okay, now that we kind of know what we're doing because you never know you kind of know what you're doing. Now how do we add revenue? And that's how catering became a topic. Chris: Okay. Pete: It got to over the six years we were there, where we grew the catering business to where it was doing more than our lunch business, and so when it was time to renew a lease, it just didn't really make sense to have the 6,300 square feet we had. Right, we took a leap of faith and went to a 1,200 square foot kitchen in West University and, thank God, it worked out. Yeah, you know, and that's kind of, we were able to keep what we liked from the restaurant business and do it in a way that allowed me to keep doing it, because maybe if I was still in full service I wouldn't be in the business anymore. It was just a very you know, starting at 23, and it was just very hard to get it going yeah uh, but it taught all the lessons I wouldn't learn. I mean, you learn, you know how they say. You learn more the first six months out of college than you do. Chris: The four years in right, yeah. So what was the name of that first restaurant? Pete: Poblano's Mexican Grill. Chris: Okay. Pete: It was in Westmire Park. Now they tore down that area. There's a Coles there. It's a nice development. Chris: Yeah. Pete: I'm very grateful to the people in that area. They were very nice to us. We still deliver to them a lot. You know, we have people that come by the kids. Like I mentioned earlier, we've been able to feed kids from since they're little to college, and when they're in town they come and say hi. So so it's been a very good community based business from the beginning, and I think that's what allowed us to really get the roots down. That allowed us to, you know, withstand all the problems that come with a new business. Chris: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about those early days. You just said, and kind of alluded to it, those first six months out of college. You feel like you learned a lot more than you did in the four years in college. Anyone in any business starting out on their own there's a lot of headwinds. There's lessons learned. What were some of the things that the challenges you faced that you might share with the listeners to say now you know I went through this, you're likely to go through it too. Here's what I did to help and maybe something you experienced that someone might learn from your experience, to avoid Anything that you share from that perspective. Pete: I think at the beginning, with the restaurant business, you're in the people business right, and the biggest issue that you don't get practice at is managing your employees, your team, your coworkers. I think that was a big eye-opener because maybe people you run into people that don't have the work ethic you have, so you have to learn and I was, you know, young and my mom always told me start when you're young and dumb, because if you're smart enough, you won't do it. If you were smart enough, you wouldn't do this. Chris: Well, there's plenty of people that have come on the podcast that have said you know, yeah, you're never really ready, you just got to take the leap. It's like having a child. Pete: Yeah, you're never ready, it just comes, comes and now you have to figure it out. So, dealing with a crew setting up, the importance of setting up systems from the beginning and not willy-nilly as you go, which I did at the beginning, that's a problem. I said well, we'll figure it out. Chris: Follow your heart. Pete: I think during those trying times at the beginning, it was that developing systems, figuring out how to be a better leader to the people, and also all that while controlling cost, and what really helped me through it because businesses fail from being undercapitalized or mismanaged and what helped me through it is that we were always able to live very below our means to really withstand those pressures that came at the beginning. Chris: Okay, yeah. So yeah, it's good insight. You talked about the challenges of you know work. You're managing a team. There's challenges in building the team right Because you got to get it right and you're going to run across times where you make bad hires. What are some of the things that you've learned over the years? To try to? You know perfect that either the interview process or whatever to make sure you're hiring the right team members that can kind of buy in and get aligned behind your mission and your beliefs. Pete: I think it's hiring. When you hire out of necessity, you're already at a disadvantage. You just need bodies, right. I think, hiring at the right, getting the right person even if you don't have a spot for them, and making a spot for them Somebody that you think can be good for your team. 85 percent of the employee issues are solved at the hiring table. Yeah, you know, you need to get better at picking people who represent, and now people when they're applying, they talk very well, right, so you've got to get used to looking through the through the BS. That's the hard part yeah, and, and we're in the industry where we're talkers right, the end is the restaurant industry and also understanding and being compassionate that most people that are in the restaurant industry didn't that wasn't their goal originally. We get a lot of people that end up in this industry okay, so you have to be understanding of the path they've been through yeah, I didn't think about that yeah, and so so you have to allow them a growth path within your company, allow them a system that shows them respect and treats them like people, because I hear horror stories about how people get treated other places or and it's just the industry word, sure. So I think having that empathy and looking at the same time, looking through the BS and making sure the person you're hiring has somewhat the same values and goals, or at least providing a structure to where it's very clear what you expect from them, I think that's the only fair way to hire somebody Right, because at the beginning I was hiring people and I didn't have a structure, so that's unfair to them because I figured out, like I'm doing current. Chris: Right, right, right, you're living and breathing it. Yeah, someone you hire may not. Pete: No, they need a job yeah, and so learning that that immaturity I had at the beginning, that was key as well and it was unfair to the employee. So really creating systems becomes a way to be more fair to your employees. Set clear expectations, trackable expectations and achievable expectations. I think that's key to them. Chris: So you have this restaurant right, full service for six years or so, and you make a decision that's pretty significant to kind of really change up your entire business model. What was it that kind of you know led you to get the I don't know confidence or the ability to take that risk Like? Pete: everything else. Necessity Necessity Right, because you're signing an extension of a lease and it feels like a plea deal. That's not a good that's a good sign that you shouldn't sign that extension. You know Right, good sign that you shouldn't sign that extension, you know so. Then, luckily, some of my um. Greg lewis is a gentleman who found the spot for me at west you and I'm always very grateful to him. He was just a customer of mine. He said, hey, there's a spot. If you really think about doing it, there's a spot that's available, you should check it out and so I'm very grateful to him. Always he does a lot of real estate here in houston and um, it was a leap of faith in that. I knew that in 10 years I didn't want to be doing what I was currently doing. So I always think if you don't want to do it in 10 years, then don't do it today, because what are you doing? So I said I like this part of the industry and it was also more scalable. The model I was creating was more scalable and coming out of the entrepreneurship program, I mean, you go there to scale businesses. They teach you a lot of things. So I said this is more scalable. With my small brain, it was easier to fill in the spreadsheet and really explain to myself and prove to myself that it was going to be more profitable in the long run. Chris: It's interesting. I wrote a note to come back to this because when you were talking about full service to what you're doing now, it struck me that what you're doing now is way more scalable than a full service restaurant. It's tough and there's plenty of great examples in town that are still very successful restaurants, but those full service restaurants seem to have a. They gain up, the ones that sustain, develop a personality, typically around that founder and entrepreneur right who's there, and we have lots of great examples. I frequent them a lot but they're tough to scale. Maybe they go to two locations, but it's like it's hard to get beyond that personality of that person and what you've done is is may created something that still has great quality food, has your stamp on it, but doesn't require you to be at all the locations for it to be successful and I think that comes from the, the low operating cost, the simplified menu we spoke about earlier, all those things you know. Pete: I do think that the full service there's always. There's great restaurants here. Like I said, I was born in colombia. I learned how to eat mexican food at ninfas yeah you know, and, and there's a lot of amazing restaurants here in houston. People always ask me well, what do you think about this place? They're great. There's a dude, we're blessed in houston there's so much good food and it's just to me. I tell them it's just an honor to be even mentioned. Like they say oh well, I like your food. I compare it to this restaurant. I compare that. You know that's crazy yeah now it's to think of how it's scaled and how how people know we're actually starting to go from the. What the heck is a fajita pizza? Chris: oh, there's a fajita pizza right, which is a weird turn yeah, you know, I don't know how to tell a different mind. Yeah, yeah, so so you, yeah, so you start this new concept, you start to it. Let's talk through what were some of the challenges you faced in scaling the business. Pete: I think it was educating the market. Right, it was really letting people know because at that time in 2008,. You either got pizza delivered or Chinese and that's it. Yeah, so really educating the market that we do delivery. They're like, oh, okay, so for like 150 people or no, no, no, we do. And you would tell the customers would come in, it's a little room like this. They would come in multiple times and then until while they were there, they saw drivers going. They go oh, you deliver to houses. And it was just an education time because Uber wasn't really big. No, third-party platforms, so that was a very difficult thing. I also put the tortilla lady right behind the counter so I could see her hand-rolling tortillas, because also, when you go to smaller locations, people assume it's a lesser product. Right, it's an inferior product. So I said, well, let's put the lady right here so they know, because they're used to going to the restaurant and seeing the ladies make tortillas the good ones, you know and so they were like, oh, I get it, y'all make your food. It was just a big education process, educating the markets always was the hardest thing at the beginning. Chris: Talking about the tortillas, your quality of food is outstanding, my opinion. Thank you. I think other people agree. One of the challenges for a restaurant, I would think, in the scale, is maintaining the quality and the consistency. Is maintaining the quality and the consistency what? And you? You talked earlier about putting systems in place, but what? What are you doing to make sure that quality and consistency is there, because you're now all across the state of texas? Pete: yep. So it was very difficult to begin. Like I said, we we used to trim in house marinating house. It's a. I mean, we can get into the weeds on processes and procedures, but you would always maybe go to another store where they added sugar instead of salt to the marinade. So you're like, oh, we can't do that. Very early on I realized that I needed more system, more structure, and one of my goals was to grow. But I knew I couldn't do it the way I was doing it. Then we got to the point where we could marinate our stuff centrally and distribute it to our food distributor who takes it to the stores. So that was one thing that saved some concern, because that's the biggest heartache is the worst thing you can hear is I don't like that one as much as that one. Chris: Right, it's just different, right? Yeah, that hurts yeah. Pete: So it's developing relationships with manufacturers that can actually do your recipe the right way and deliver it to the customers. Chris: Sorry, yeah, go ahead. You've been talking a lot. Advert: Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show. So let's talk a little bit about innovation. What are some of the things that you feel like you have done, or maybe doing that are somewhat innovative, to help your business grow? Pete: Well, you go back to getting a good team around you, right? So when I started to grow, I ran into one of my partners, joey Aguia, who had a lot of operational experience in the industry. He was a franchisee for multiple concepts and, because I don't want people to think this all came out of my brain, I had a lot of help along the way and I would stop you because that is such a great point. Chris: Rarely has anyone just done it on their own right. You surround yourself and maybe we'll talk a little bit about that in a second, but I think it's a great point we should pause on, it's knowing what you're not good at. Yeah. Pete: And luckily. Chris: I'm so bad at so many things that it was just finding people all over the place that could help me. Well, I doubt that part but I bet you know. Pete: So innovation so you were talking a little bit about All right. So innovation was going to these manufacturers and our recipe is citrus-based. So technology really caught up to what we do in that not that we do anything special, but the way we do it was very hard for technology to be able to put it in a stable way that could perform the way we expected. So along the way we got with further processors who marinated our product and that was a three-year process to really get it right. So that's innovation on their side right. For us it was our technology, our apps, our ability that helped us survive through COVID. Actually Our ability to do curbside, to be quick and responsive, the way we package our things, the way we set up our kitchen, which took a couple iterations, and to really limit steps and increase customers service through speed and convenience and, like I tell people, the three C's you know convenience, a consistency and quality dad joke, like my daughter says that joke and and so. So those three things really helped us to speed up our service and match. So the problem there becomes matching your service through technology and through your processes on the front end. So really investing into that at an early point helped us keep a little bit ahead of the curve along the way. Okay, so those type of innovations. Chris: That's great. Head a little bit ahead of the curve along the way, okay. So those type of that's great. So, as I mentioned, started in houston and one spot in west university. Uh, you've now expanded throughout the state. What are some of the advantages that you've experienced or see in being a texas-based business and maybe it'll kind of spread across the state? I? Pete: think that that well, I came to Houston. I don't you know, being here, you don't realize how big it is and how competitive it is, and, as I think being in that competitive environment really helped us, you know you gotta. I mean, you can't sell fajitas 23 years in Houston and not be good. Chris: Right. Pete: There's 10,000 restaurants that do a great job in Houston, so I think that was one of the things Having access to big providers, distribution, the ports, being close for our produce. You know being close to the border, so I think that being a hub allows you to control costs, develop business and really grow strategically. Having so many people here law firms, business professionals to help you along the way, you have everything you need in Houston, In Texas, you know, by professionals to help you along the way. You have everything you need in Houston In Texas by default, so I think that was really an advantage. Although it's hard to make it, I think you have the tools you need if you're lucky enough to run into them early. Chris: Okay, that's good. So, when you think about the restaurant industry, what are some of the headwinds that you feel like your company or the industry may be facing today, or that you see around the corner that you're trying? Pete: to. Right now. I think there's a crunch. People are spending a little bit less, right? I think we all see it at the grocery stores, we see it everywhere. So a headwind is how do you translate your value proposition to the guests? We're a community-based business, so we tell people teachers, preachers and coaches so that is part of the value proposition you have as a brand. But people still want to. I mean, it's all about the meat and potatoes, right? They want to get a good value for their food. So the headwinds are figuring out how to provide value, control cost and still deliver the quality that the customer deserves. Gotcha. Chris: What was one of the? When you think about struggles or lessons learned, what was one of the maybe failures or mistakes you feel like you made along the way in those early days that you overcame, but it taught you a lesson that you'll never forget. Pete: I think it was really like we mentioned in the beginning hiring problems. At the beginning it was a lack of maturity. It was a lack of having systems, like we mentioned. I think, maybe underestimating what I did in that well, if I did, anybody can do it and maybe making bad decisions on people I could put in key situations, and those probably came because my systems weren't good enough also. So I think really underestimating what you do as an entrepreneur is a problem that we all have. Underpricing your services is a problem we all have. And trying to compete with my full service restaurant, trying to be everything to everybody, having 70 items on the menu that was the biggest lesson. I said no, there's too much waste. It's too hard to be good at everything else. Let's just be good at one thing and replicate that. So I think those lessons really got us to where we are in learning how to trust other people in areas that you're weak at. Chris: I said well, going back to being the best at one thing, it's almost like the GE mindset, right? Yeah, let's be. If you can't be the best, let's not do it. Pete: Yeah, I got any color you want, as long as it's black. Yeah, you know so that's the way you, that's the only way I could figure out how to do it. Chris: Yeah, the kind of going back to the people and I agree with your emphasis on so much of it is in the interview process, hiring process. You usually learn that the hard way, right. And then you get to what do you do when you realize you made a mistake? And what have you kind of learned over the years about when you realize you've made a mistake, how to handle that and how to move? Pete: on. I think you have to be fair to the person. You have to let them go. You have to get rid of the people, right, inform them of why it's probably not a good fit. Most of the times, people just fire themselves. But in this situation where you make the mistake, you just have to be fair. Let them know what their strengths and weaknesses are, because I would want somebody to do it to my son. Sure, let him know where he messed up so he can be better next time. Say, hey, it ain't going to be here, but if you get better, you'll do better there. So having those clear conversations those are tough conversations to have, sure, they are, but they're important because they're part of leadership is not when you're with the person you know. Good leadership extends to when they're gone from you and in the lessons, like a lot of the leaders I've come across, I say the things they say still 30 years later because they're good leaders. So they don't have to be next to you to be a leader. So we, as people who are in charge of businesses, we have to understand that the leadership style we need needs to be forward thinking, right. Chris: But it's a great mindset to share. So let's talk a little bit about leadership then. I always like to ask people how would you describe your leadership style? How do you think that's evolved over the last? Pete: almost 20 years. I think it's like people, I'm very relaxed leadership style. I'm really not very confrontational. I need to get better at those things. But I take everybody's opinion. It's very disseminated the way we make decisions. It's never hey, make the call, pete, right, no, no, we talk about it. I involve everybody. People that maybe even ask why are you asking my opinion? Why do I? Whatever, I think it's very important to always take the opinion of people actually in the front lines, and that's the reason I like having my store, my original store, always because I'm making decisions for a store in Chicago, well, I need to feel the pain of that decision, I need to feel the weight of it, and if I wouldn't do it at my store, why would I do it at theirs? So it keeps you honest. You have to be with the team. I guess is the question for leadership. Chris: Sounds like kind of that servant mindset. Pete: Yes. Chris: I'm not going to ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself Exactly. Pete: And then, once decisions are made, expect everyone to know, get behind it, move forward. Yep, exactly, I think that's important part of especially the industry we're in, because people you, you deal with hourlies, salaries. Now with the franchising corporate staff is a different employee than at the store level, but everybody has a, a trigger. You can. You can touch people in different ways, but you have to take the time to know what motivates them. So you have to to be in it. Chris: Got to be in it. So we've kind of been talking around this, but let's go right into culture, right? So all you're talking about hiring the right people, telling them and being clear about expectations, giving them motivation and incentive to do that job. You know, how would you describe the culture that you believe you have at Fajita Pete's? And then what are you doing to make sure that, as you scale the business beyond that one location, that it is resonating in those other? Pete: locations. We need to do a better job of culture building. You always need to be doing a better job of culture building. I think it's by example, like I told about the leadership side. So we try to communicate directly with the teams. If there's issues, you communicate directly with the frontline people that don't expect a call from you, but it lets them know hey, somebody's watching, and not only when there's issues. When there's good things happening, you need to communicate that to them, because it's like putting deposits in a bank account right, every interaction you have with somebody is that you're putting a deposit or you're taking a withdrawal and if you go and only withdraw, they're not going to listen to you. There's nothing there. So you have to build that up. So those interactions are part of what we do as a culture. We need to incorporate probably more team meetings, as we do. We did at the beginning and now, as the company grew, we have multi-unit franchisees who kind of have a good vibe going on good culture within them. But I do think getting back to more scheduled team events is going to be good. We just had one a few months ago. So those things that allow people to see that you're in it with them. You're going through the same issues it's not just you and you have that support system. I think those things are critical. Chris: I like that and I think the team building right Creating opportunity for them to connect and build relationships so that the team within the team has a connection, feels like they've got each other's back will end up being a better product for the customer Because they're taking pride in what they're doing and want to help each other be successful. Pete: You have to believe your own BS. You know what I mean. Chris: If not, because part of the service that. Pete: You have to believe your own BS. You know what I mean. If not, because part of the service that we try to teach is genuine service. So you have to have a genuine. Like I tell people, don't learn my spiel, but learn in your words. Say the same things in your words, because I don't want it to sound rehearsed True. But, it's a tough thing, as we grow so fast, to really you go through six months at a time in the blink of an eye. So it's something that we have to be more intentional on and keep building that Right. Chris: There's so many things going on right. That's a good point as an entrepreneur, just how you juggle and manage because you're trying to keep the business going, trying to grow the business, you're trying to maintain relationships up, down and all around. But you got to. I think it comes back to systems and processes. Right To say we're going to have quarterly team meetings or whatever they're going to be, so that there's a scheduled cadence to doing the things that help create the connectivity. Pete: Yep, that's part of growth. I think it's just taking stuff off your plate, putting in the right, because on top of all the business stuff there's also life. Yeah, you have a family, yeah, exactly I know so you think about. Chris: you were a great education at U of H and the entrepreneurial program. So what? What type of advice, being where you are now looking back, for someone out there that maybe is thinking about starting on their own, like you did years ago? What are some of the one, two, three things you might say as advice to say, if you're thinking about starting your own business, regardless of the industry? Pete: What's some something you might say as advice to say if you're thinking about starting your own business, regardless of the industry, what's something you could pass on to them? I think you have to have. You have to go in it with open eyes and understand that it's going to be. You can have the best intentions and you can do everything fault, but it's always your problem. So I think that's having you have to know that going in and thank God, now there's industry. You hear, hey, I started a business, sold it in five months for X amount. That's awesome, but that's not everybody. So be ready to. If you're not planning on keeping it, don't start it. Be ready for that. So I buy a couple of little commercial real estate properties. Are you going to flip it? If I'm not willing to keep it for 30 years, I'm not going to buy it today. Now will I flip it? Probably. But you have to go in with the mentality If you're not going to keep it, don't start it. And, like the good things, set yourself small goals, because you always have the big picture as the entrepreneur, as the founder, sure, but set small goals and celebrate the wins, right, you know. So I, I think it, once you achieve those smaller goals, those milestones. You really need to celebrate them for you, because we have, I tell people, entrepreneurship is almost a disease, right, right, and you don't recommend it to everybody. It's not for everybody. 100 so, and there's nothing wrong with not being an entrepreneur now. Now there's a culture that everybody needs to be their own boss and side hustles, and not for everybody. There's nothing. There's entrepreneurship that they teach us in the entrepreneurship program also how to grow within the company Interesting, how to add value to your boss. Chris: I hadn't heard of that. That's great yeah. Pete: So that's a very important part, because not everybody, it's not for everybody. Chris: It's not, and that's a great point, right. Everyone thinks, and because of those, the the things that get the headlines right someone starts a company, a year later, they sold it to whatever it sounds easy, we're making it. Pete: You know the media romanticism about it yeah, but it's not for everyone. Chris: I mean, we're all different, we all have different strengths and and we said this earlier, you know in the podcast, in this episode it's not easy, it's not for everybody. So just because you can't do it, that make you a bad person. You have, you could have a very significant role within a company, even if you haven't found it uh, I would think that's a great thing on your resume is failure right, right that that that I mean. Pete: that's how we all learn, absolutely, you know. And another another thing is people who have done things. If you can move one rock out of the path of somebody coming behind, then that's also our responsibility. Right Now, will they listen or not? Because I remember 23,. You knew everything, you know, yeah, so, but you have to be available to those people as well available to those people as well. Chris: Okay, so you said you moved from Columbia. Yes, sir, what's your favorite thing about Houston or Texas? Is there an event you like to go to every year, or sporting event or cultural event? Pete: About Houston is that there's a lot of live events. So I like live stuff, I like sports, I love the Astros. Go to the Texas games, rocket games, I like that. If you wake up at, if you you're one in the morning and you want to eat food from any country in the world, you pick it. There's a restaurant here in houston for it. Yeah, I like that. There's a good international community. I mean, there's bad things, always the traffic and everything, but that comes with it, right. So I like the opportunity that it's there, because then you can learn from different things, you can apply what you learn in other areas. So that's what I like about it Just the broadness of it, the availability of whatever you can think of and the access to different people that come from maybe not a similar background, but we all have mothers, grandmas, fathers, brothers, sisters. So you end up realizing that the world is not as big as you think and we're not as different as we think. Chris: Very true, very true. So I'm 90-something episodes into this podcast. I've asked every guest this question at the end. When I ask you even though it just seems a little bit odd, but I ask my guests, what do you prefer? Tex-mex or barbecue? You with the fajita restaurant? It seems like it's not a fair question. Pete: It's not a fair question, because my favorite type of food is chinese. Okay, so no. But houston has a great uh text mix scene and and I think it's just awesome when people come here you've seen the interviews they come in for barbecue text mix, but there's so much more in between, sure, you know? I think it's. It's such a beautiful, it's a good city. Chris: It's a great city to be a foodie. Yeah, because it's also where it's such a beautiful part of town. Pete: It's a great city to be a foodie. Yeah, because it's also where it's at on the map right. You can access different produce products that match other cuisines, so then you end up getting more authentic food, like you would if you went there Now. It's not equal apples to apples, but it's a very good representation of whatever that culture is trying to portray. Chris: So last question you've mentioned is it's it's not being an easy being an entrepreneur, run your business. So what do you do to kind of for yourself, to kind of recharge, relax? Pete: Spend a lot of time in the afternoons with the family. The funny thing is cooking, which we do all day. But you know, go home, clip a branch of the rosemary plant, make some steaks for the family, spend time, go to live events. I think recharging that social battery. Being in crowds, I like that environment. That's part kind of the restaurant kind of gives you that. But you know, going to different live events, concerts and sporting events is really kind of the way to charge up and it allows you to be in the moment and, even though you never clock out as an entrepreneur, it allows you to kind of disengage for just enough. Chris: Yeah, you know until you're driving out. Nearly right, yeah, so well, pete, this has been great really your stories amazing and inspiring. Like I said, I've been a big fan of the food for four years before you, so getting to meet you has been a real pleasure. Pete: Thank you, thanks for coming on. Thank you, brother. Chris: Appreciate it.T Special Guest: Pete Mora.

Cruz vs. Carlson on Foreign Policy: Cruz defends a strong U.S. alliance with Israel and supports aggressive action against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Carlson is portrayed as advocating for isolationism, opposing U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts, and questioning support for Israel. Tensions and “Gotcha” Moments: Carlson challenges Cruz with questions like the population of Iran, which Cruz admits he didn’t know offhand. Cruz criticizes Carlson for using such moments to create viral clips rather than engage in substantive debate. Iranian Threats Against Trump: Cruz cites intelligence and DOJ reports alleging that Iran has plotted to assassinate Donald Trump and former Trump officials. Carlson is skeptical or unaware of these claims, leading to a heated exchange. Accusations of Anti-Israel Bias: Cruz accuses Carlson of obsessively targeting Israel and groups like AIPAC, suggesting a double standard not applied to other U.S. allies. Moral Clarity and American Exceptionalism: Cruz argues against moral relativism, asserting that the U.S. and its leaders are fundamentally different from authoritarian regimes like Russia or Iran. He emphasizes “peace through strength” and a foreign policy based on protecting American interests. Trump’s Position: Trump is quoted supporting Cruz’s stance and reaffirming his own “America First” doctrine, particularly in opposing a nuclear-armed Iran. Please Hit Subscribe to this podcast Right Now. Also Please Subscribe to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson and the Ben Ferguson Show Podcast Wherever You get You're Podcasts. Thanks for Listening #seanhannity #hannity #marklevin #levin #charliekirk #megynkelly #tucker #tuckercarlson #glennbeck #benshapiro #shapiro #trump #sexton #bucksexton#rushlimbaugh #limbaugh #whitehouse #senate #congress #thehouse #democrats#republicans #conservative #senator #congressman #congressmen #congresswoman #capitol #president #vicepresident #POTUS #presidentoftheunitedstatesofamerica#SCOTUS #Supremecourt #DonaldTrump #PresidentDonaldTrump #DT #TedCruz #Benferguson #Verdict #justicecorrupted #UnwokeHowtoDefeatCulturalMarxisminAmericaYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VerdictwithTedCruzSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We catch improvisor extraordinaire Josh Ellman in a hack piece of Gotcha journalism. Now bring out Gam Gam.

Service excellence emerges when businesses solve problems others avoid tackling. This week I spoke with Zohra Shroff from Sealink Logistics, a freight forwarding company that started in 2005 from a one-bedroom apartment in LA. Zohra joined the family business in 2006 and has helped grow it into a comprehensive logistics provider. Our conversation walked through the complete journey of shipping a container from Houston to India. Zohra detailed every step of the freight forwarding process, from initial customer vetting through final container return at destination. Their technology platform allows customers to book shipments, track cargo, and manage payments through their mobile app, maintaining this edge for over six years with live tracking and monthly rate updates. Their approach evolved from simply moving freight to becoming a complete logistics partner handling sea freight, air freight, and domestic transportation under one portal. When customers face problems like container mix-ups or space constraints, Zohra's team works directly with steamship lines to resolve issues rather than leaving customers stranded. This service model applies to any business where customer problems become your competitive advantage. When others walk away from complex situations, stepping in to solve them builds lasting relationships and premium pricing power. The freight forwarding industry reminded me that behind every simple transaction sits a web of coordination most people never see. Zohra's passion for helping customers navigate these complexities shows why service businesses thrive when they embrace the hard parts.     SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I explore Sealink's journey as a logistics company founded in 2005, emphasizing its deep family roots and innovative approach to the shipping industry. I discuss the complexities of the international shipping process, including filing shipping instructions with US Customs and securing an AES number. We highlight the challenges and financial implications for shippers when consignees refuse to pick up shipments, emphasizing the importance of financial due diligence. In our conversation, we examine the role of freight forwarders and the critical importance of service levels and customer support in the logistics industry. We delve into Zohra's entrepreneurial journey, from the jewelry industry in India to co-founding Sea Link in the U.S., illustrating the courage and determination required for such ventures. She provides insights into maritime routes and their impacts on transit times, including the choice between the Panama Canal and the Cape of Good Hope.   Contact Details LinkedIn - Zohra Shroff (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zohra-shroff-383276172/) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Sealink International Inc GUEST Zohra ShroffAbout Zohra TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Good morning Zohra. How are you today? Zohra: Good morning, I'm well. How are you I? Dave: am good Now. Are you calling in from San Francisco, or is that just a background you have? Zohra: No, it's just a background I have. Dave: Where are you calling in from? I am San. Zohra: Antonio Texas. San Antonio Texas. Dave: Yeah, soft spot for me. I went to high school in a suburb of San. Zohra: Antonio, oh, that's really nice. It's a great city, you know, small growing, not too big yet, but I guess eventually getting there. Dave: Yeah, Now are you a native of San Antonio. Zohra: I've been here almost 22 years now, so I think I am. Dave: Okay, and what about originally when? Zohra: are you from? Originally from India, Migrated to the US in the early 2000 and came into Jersey. Stayed there for a couple of years and then moved to San Antonio, Got married and moved to San Antonio. Dave: That's awesome. Zohra: So been here since then. Yes, so it's home now. Dave: That is great. So my wife is a native Texan. I'm what I choose to call a naturalized Texan. We have a saying. I got here as quick as I could. Zohra: I think I can say that now too. You know it's been wonderful, and it's home now. So yeah, it's great. Dave: That is great. So tell me about SeaLink. When did the company start? What prompted it to start? Who started it? Kind of a whole story. Zohra: Sure, sure, definitely. So. Sealink was started by Shaizad. He is my cousin and the forwarding business has been in our family for three generations now. Okay, india. And then my father took it over in the early 80s and 90s and then Shaizad joined him as well after he graduated from college. So he worked in the Indian market on at that point we used to do a lot of brick bulk vessels and we used to do containerized vessels as well. So that's how it all began. And then when Shaizad moved to the US I want to say in 2001, he was working for one of the forwarders and stuff for a few years and then he decided that we should, that he should start on his own. So he started Sealink in 2005 from LA, from his one bedroom apartment, just handling freehand cargo that our sister company back in India was anyways consigning to different agents in the US. And so then we took over that business and that's how we started. And then from there we are here today, grown to a fully export plus import oriented forwarder. So I think that's awesome. Dave: And when did you join the company? Zohra: I joined very early on 2006. So it was yeah, not very late on, so started in 2005. I joined in. I think we were September 2005,. If I'm not mistaken, I think I joined March 2006. Dave: Okay, so Shaizad gets credit for the first six months. Zohra: Yes, Shaizad gets credit for it. Dave: But you get credit for all the growth starting in 2006, right? Zohra: I wish I could take all the credit, but he is a visionary. He is a visionary and without his vision or without his farsightedness on you know what like, we don't want to just be called a forwarder. I don't like saying Sealink is just a forwarder. Because of that, because of his vision, I think we are so ahead of the market in terms of our competitors also and in terms of our vendors also, like overall, I think, for the shipping industry. I think we have it one notch up at, I think, at any given point. You know, just because we have because of his vision. I should again say that, because of Shaizad's vision of not only moving freight but making sure that we are giving service with the service industry and also making sure that we are making sure that we are giving the standard of service with the competitive rates at all time, and I think that is one thing that puts Seelink above. Of course, our technology is our greatest selling point. We've had our app I think so for over six years now six to seven years and you can do everything on our Seelink app you can book, you can give your documents, you can download an invoice, you can download an invoice, you can pay an invoice. You can track and trace your cargo. You can do everything on that app so you are not stuck to see that. Okay, what is going on on my shipment? You know where is my shipment. Why do I need to like hassle bustle and call somebody and someone's not answering the phone? So we have live tracking and tracing that shows on your website that your that your shipment has been delayed or there is a vessel delay or there is a longer transshipment hold. All of that information is available on our app, ready to go. Every month we update our rates so the customers know that in February, if my rate from place A to place B was $500, then we know that March 1st that rate is either going to be $400, depending on the market, or $600. So they have visibility of all of this, which is giving them ease of business. They can make their deals. They can look and then get a figure that, okay, you know what, my freight is going to be so much and my material is going to cost so much. This is what I need to do and this is how I can sell. So we give them all that information. Also, not only we are providing a sea, water services or sea services, we are even providing air freight, we are providing domestic, we are providing trade services. So, for example, if I have a customer who wants to move from Atlanta, atlanta into into Moondra, so I have a rate through the vendor from Atlanta to Moondra to Mundra, so I have a rate through the vendor from Atlanta to Mundra. But if he has a facility in Duluth, atlanta, and then wants to get into on the rail, so we provide that drage service as well. So he can put in his zip code that I need to pick up from so and so zip code, take it to the rail and then it'll go out, you know. So we provide that part of draGE as well, which is really helpful for our customers if they want to go ahead and offer that to their suppliers or to their clients as well. So everything is under one portal and easy access. That's what I can say. Dave: That sounds great. So even though I've been in this business for 20 years, working with exporters, I never really understood how the freight moved. So what I would love for you to do is let's imagine that I'm a brand new scrap broker, scrap metal broker, and I have my first load ready. It's in a container and it's at the Port of Houston. And so let's just imagine like, help me just understand all the steps. So I call you up and I say, zohra, how I've got this uh load of uh of scrap metal at the port in houston and I need to get it to uh, um, what would be a good, a good port in india. Zohra: That that, mundra, let's say. Dave: Let's say, so, walk me through like all the things that that like, just walk me through all the steps that have to happen okay. Zohra: So initially, if I'm onboarding a new scrap customer, we we have an onboarding process that goes into place. You know we we run their credit scores. We, you know, ask for references, we make sure the company is in good standing. Because we do all these thorough checks? Because in the end we don't want a long standing container in some other country where then Seelink is responsible. So we have a thorough vetting process. So it's not like you know, somebody didn't just come to me and say, hey, you know what, I want to move one box of scrap and please help me. It doesn't work like that anymore Because you know there has been so many people who have not done the right thing while moving metal scrap. You know they say that it is metal scrap, but they load something else and it happens. It's just the way the industry is right. So, first and foremost, when we onboard a customer, there is a whole onboarding process. We go ahead, we make sure that the customer is vetted completely. For some reasons, if there is no scores, we ask them for their financials, three years financials and sometimes we even ask for a deposit, depending on the situation of the customer. That's how our onboarding process works. Once the onboarding process is done, then they can go on the website or the app and they can see what port pairs they are moving this freight on. Now, for example, if they are buying from Houston and they want to move from Houston to Moondra, they will plug in on my website Houston to Moondra 120 footer metal scrap and they will see all the steamship lines that I have rates on. It could be MSC, maersk, capagloid, you know all of these top three, four lines where I can say that, ok, this is what your price will. If you want to ship with Maersk, your price is A. If you want to ship with MSC, your price is B. It will give them the transit time. Some of the shippers are very, very, very, very concerned about the transit time. Shippers are very, very, very, very concerned about the transit time. It depends on what they're shipping. If they're shipping ferris and it is, like you know, maybe five boxes they might not be very concerned. But if they're shipping non-ferris, they might be like okay, zohra, I need a 45 day transit. So then I'm telling them okay, choose Maersk or MSC, because their transit is somewhere between 45 to 46 days, you so so let's say so. Dave: Let's say I pick mursk mursk. Zohra: Yes, so then you go on my app and then you hit book. Once you hit book, I get a notification saying abcd has made a booking request from houston to mundra for next week's cutoff for 120 footer. I come inside, I come into play, my team goes ahead, makes the booking on Maersk and turns it around and about. I want to say we want to try to keep it under two hours, so we go ahead and we send a booking confirmation that has all the information of this load. So, the customer exactly knows that, okay, this load needs to get picked up, the empty container needs to get picked up at Bayport Terminal. Okay, once the trucker picks it up at Bayport Terminal, they go to their facility, they get it loaded If the customer is doing their own trucking. If the customer says, or I don't have a trucker in Houston, do my trucking, then I'll offer him, I'll say give me your zip code in Houston, I'll give you a dredge rate and then I can go pick up, schedule your trucking. So I will schedule the trucking, get the container loaded, bring it back to the port, return it loaded at the port and then from there it will sit on the port on the day of the cutoff and then from there we will go ahead and make sure that it gets loaded on the ship. There. We will go ahead and make sure that it gets loaded on the ship. Now, that is where the whole process is working in terms of getting this container into the port. Now, once it's into the port, then it is the customer's responsibility to go ahead and send me shipping instructions. Who is he shipping to? Who is his shipper? Who is his consignee? What is the container number? What is the weight. What is the weight? What is the seal? Dave: is there a name for that set of documents? Zohra: yes, it's called shipping instructions the shipping instructions. So those shipping instructions are given to, given by the, the customer, to us. We go ahead and we put it. Dave: I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I just really want to make sure understand yeah so those instructions? Is that done electronically through your website? Zohra: We can do it electronically. There are lots of customers who send us emails also, so, however, they are comfortable. Dave: Okay. Zohra: If they feel comfortable, there is a way on our website to go ahead and save their shipper and consignees as well, so they can just click, click and say that, okay, this is my shipper, this is my consignee, and then they just change the container name or the container number and weight and seal number. Dave: Okay, so I've given you the shipping instructions. Zohra: Yes, Now you've given me the shipping instructions, I'm going to go back and send you. I'm going to put everything on the BL and I'm going to send you a draft bl. I'm going to say, hey, this is what your draft, a draft bl will look. So you will go ahead and get a draft bl from ceiling and you will check everything your shipper, your consign what is bl? a bill of lading okay yes, the bill of lading, but this is a draft copy, okay, so we, so we can still make changes. If you say, oh, you know what, I don't want to write metal scrap, I want to write heavy metal scrap. So can you edit that for me? Or if your consignee says you know what, I want to add a notify party, so we're going to be like, ok, we'll add a notify party. So we send you a draft copy and stuff like that and we tell you that, okay, please look at it thoroughly, this is what your draft, this is what your bl is going to look like. Okay, so once they check everybody is in order, we go ahead, we take and we file those shipping instructions with the us customs. We tell them that, hey, this person is shipping this cargo from here to here. These are the details. And then we file the entry into the US Customs. They come back with an AES number for us where it is that OK, you know what. The customs has approved your shipment. This is your AES filing number and now you're good to go. Dave: And what does AES stand for? Zohra: It's an automated uh-oh export system export uh automated export documentation okay, yeah yeah. So it's like uh, it's like an ams that you file from the import side, and where does the and then the uh container number? Is that going to be? Dave: in shipping instructions yeah, so it'll still end up on the bill of lading. Zohra: Yes, yes, everything. All this information, shipper consignee, container number, weight, seal, what commodity you have shipped. Everything will appear on the bill of lading, All of this instructions, so everybody has clarity on what has shipped, who has shipped and where is it going. Dave: Okay. Zohra: Also, and if Seelaling has done the trucking for this customer, then I'm not even asking him for the container number because the trucker will give me. He's my trucker, so he's going to be like hey, I pulled this container number. Once I load it, I'll give you the weight and seals. So once we send out the draft BL, it is approved, we go ahead and we send all the information to the Steam ship line, whichever vendor you chose, and we file everything. Dave: We ask the Now where does it, I'm sorry. When does it ship? From being a draft to being a final After the customs process? Zohra: After sailing, after sailing. So once the customs is processed, we have all our information. Once the shipment is sailed, then the steamship line will be like okay, your shipment has sailed, Everything looks good. This is your original bill of lading. Dave: And sailed is a reference to 200 years ago, right With ship that sails Does it? Just mean it's departed the port. It has departed the port, yes. Zohra: So once it is sailed and then after, I think most of the time, they give us a draft in two days of sailing. The original bill will come out in two days of sailing and then from there, once we have the original bill, the customer does have a choice that if he wants a complete set of original bill of ladings, so that means that's a paper copy, or else he wants a telex, which would be an electronic copy. And then he can say that oh, you know what, I don't mind, my consignee doesn't mind a telex release. So if you can go ahead and update this to a telex release, and is the telex? Dave: is it truly going through the old telex system or is it just being electronic? Zohra: It's through the old telex system or does it just mean electronic? It's just meaning electronic. There's no funny how the language just stays around. Right, yeah, okay, all right, so go ahead. Yeah, so once. So then they have a choice to either have some of the guys if they have an lc, they would like the obl so that way they have control on the cargo, they have control on the money, and then they release the bills once they get paid and if they are confident, if they are a regular shipper and a regular consignee, they might go in for a telex release which is just electronic Gotcha. Dave: So then it leaves Houston, and I'm guessing does it go through the Panama Canal. Zohra: Depends on the routing. Some go through the Panama Canal, some do not, so it just depends on what route the steamship line is taking. Dave: I'm just curious. So if it's going from Houston to Moondra, I mean it's got to get around South America. Zohra: Yeah, yeah. So it would go through the canal and if not, because of all the issues that we're going through now, a lot of steamship lines have been routing it to the Cape of Good Hope. Dave: So they've been going that direction, that direction Around Africa. Zohra: Okay, yes, yes, so that makes it a little bit transit longer, but just the safety was more important at that point. Dave: So a lot of routes. Zohra: At least it's a predictable amount of time even though it's longer, and so if it goes, around Houston to Mondra by the Cape under Cape of Good Hope. Dave: How many days does that typically I? Zohra: think it added. I think it added 15 days to the transit. Dave: So what would that? Be total transit so about 60 days about 60 days. Zohra: Yeah, so I think first it was 45 days and then it became 60 days when they were doing, uh, the cape of good hope. Um, I and you know what, sometimes it even is a little bit shorter. I did see a couple of vessels that were doing 55 days also. So I think it just depends on you know how, how how delayed the vessel is, or if there is any any issues on any transshipment ports and stuff like that. So sometimes it's hard to say if it's going to be like anywhere between 40 to 60 days okay, so now it's on the water, is there just no activity at this point? Dave: is there any? Zohra: hopefully you don't want any activity, you just want everything to be good. But there are things that happen, like you heard about the Baltimore issue that happened early last April. I want to say it's going to be a year that everything was good to go. The vessel was ready to sail and it hit the bridge right and that was disastrous and that lasted for six months. Containers, fellers, fell in the water and you know some got damaged and then you know those things. Yeah, we don't want those things to happen, but of course it is. It is an inevitable. Like you know, hazards happen sometimes, so you would want that. Dave: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I know you know this really well and so I'm sorry I have to keep stopping you for such basic questions. Zohra: No, no, not at all Do the containers these days. Dave: Do they have any electronic tracking on the containers? Zohra: Some do and some don't. Okay, so the ones that do like. Dave: Is it RF tracking or a different type of electronic tracking? Zohra: I don't believe they have an RF tracking. Most of our containers do not have a tracker because the lines will only give us 10 plus old, 10 plus year containers to load scrap, I see. So we don't get the nice fancy containers. So, most of us are not trackable. Okay, so my scrap load, load. Dave: It's not being tracked but it's on the boat it's on the boat, and so it's sailing, and then now it shows up in mundra. And what happens now? Zohra: so once it shows up in mundra, the steamship line that you have picked is going to send an arrival notice, five to seven days, to your consignee in India or your forwarder in India, whoever you have put on the BL instructions, so you will get an arrival notice. Dave: Now will you be? Will you be the forwarder in India? Zohra: No, no, we do have our own office in India, but most of metal scrap moves on a master bill, so there is really no requirement of a forwarder per se needed when your shipment reaches destination. Dave: They just need a broker and they can clear their shipment and pick it up at the port. Okay, so the ship arrives, and then that starts the arrival notice. Time clock. Zohra: Yeah. Dave: From the time it's actually lands. No, so the arrival notice you will get from the time it's actually lands? Zohra: no, so the arrival notice you will get five to seven days before arrival. So it gives you it gives you ample of time to say that okay, you know what my shipment is coming in. Let me get my docks ready and file it with the Indian customs. Because you can file, I want to say, four days before your shipment is arriving. Dave: So you're not scrambling, and how do we know that the ship is five to seven days away? Zohra: Is there tracking of the ship? Yes, yes, you can track it. Dave: Does the captain get on the radio? Call Zohra. Yeah, hey, I'm about five days away. Zohra: Yeah, no, so the shipment can be tracked on the steam ship lines website also, and plus on ceilings, on ceilings website as well. so you, will see, definitely that your shipment is arriving in three days or five days. If there is a delay, it will blink red and say that hey, there is a delay. And then when you get your arrival notice from the steam ship line, also it will have a date of arrival. It will be like, okay, you know this shipment is arriving on so and so date, so you are prepared that. Okay, you know what. My shipment's coming in five days. Let me get all my documents ready. Dave: Let me have it send it to my broker, you can start and you can start the process with the india customs four days before. I want to go four to five days before so that way, when the ship lands, the you can you already have your entry done and you already know that. Zohra: You know there are no holds of customs and you've paid your freight and you can go along and say that, okay, you know what, I just need the ship to berth. Once they unload my containers, then you know I can just send my trucker to go pick it up. Everything will show green released. You know, unless they have not paid ceiling, then I'll hold the cargo. Dave: Yeah, okay, and help me understand, because I'm an accountant by training. Help me understand the payment of the shipping. At what point do I pay for the shipping? Zohra: Okay, so we have. I want to say 90% of our customers are cash customers. So, when they need their original bill of lading after sailing. We generate an invoice after two days of sailing most of the time, because the line will give us a BL and an invoice in a couple of days. We go ahead, we generate that, we give it to the customer and when he wants to release his shipment he makes a payment to us. So whether it is an OBL or a DELEX, it doesn't matter. When he will tell me okay, zohra, he can go on my website and say release bill. He can go ahead and it will show him that you owe so-and-so amount for this shipment in order to get your release. He can go make a payment and then within 24 hours he will get a release from us. Dave: Okay, Because without that release will the Indian customs not unload. Zohra: No, the Indian customs doesn't really have any control on that. The Indian customs is only getting involved, saying, okay, I have a vessel that has 200 containers coming into India. I need documents to just make sure that it is what they are claiming it is. So they don't have anything to do with our BL release. They only work with customs release. So if I said that I have moved metal scrap and if there is battery in that box, that's a flag for the US customs and I mean for the Indian customs and they will be like I'm going to hold this box. So at that point that box is on a customs hold. Customs will not worry about a BL hold. There are two types of hold. One is a BL hold where either I or the steamship line is holding it for payment, holding it for payment, and then the customs hold is because there is an exam or there is some kind of uh inspection they want to do on the container or if they find some misdeclarations and stuff like that okay yeah, okay, yeah and then, so it shows up, it goes through customs. Dave: Uh, the freight forwarder there puts it on a truck, yeah, and then the truck goes to the warehouse or wherever they need to originally drop. Zohra: They go ahead, they unload the goods off the container. They make sure everything is weight and the weight is matching to what they had claimed it was. Sometimes the weight has shifted or sometimes they feel like, okay, the weight is less, then internally they will file a claim. It doesn't happen a lot, but some things sometimes do happen. And then, once the shipment has been unloaded, they have to make sure it is their responsibility to return the empty container back to the depot. So, once this empty container is returned back in India, that's when my shipment is closed here. Dave: That okay, you know what. Zohra: My empty container has been returned. This has been picked up. Everything is good, payment is good. We are good to close this file. Okay so one file can be open anywhere from 45 days to 60 days, okay, and then if you have issues with that shipment, then it can go longer. If the consignee refuses to pick up the shipment, the consignee abandons, you know, the shipment and says, oh, I don't, I don't have money to pay for it, I can't pick it up. That's when we get into different problems. You know that. Okay, then we need to figure out what we want to do and we all have to keep in mind that every country, every destination country, gives you a few days of free days. So when my shipment arrives in India with my contracts I have 14 free days. So for 14 days I'm not going to get billed for that container sitting at the port. But on that 15th day the clock will start and then, you know, all those charges for demurrage will start occurring for port charges, and then that becomes an expensive, you know, charge that will be billed back to the shipper here because he will have to take accountability of why his consignee didn't pick up the shipment or whatever happened. Dave: You know, and this is part of why you do your financial due diligence on the customers, because you need to make sure that they're a solid business. Solid business, the customer is going to pick it up. Yeah. Zohra: And sometimes we do the due diligence on the shipper part and you know we don't really know what the consignees are in different countries. So now we've started even collaborating with the US customs and you know we run the consignees also through our AES system and if there is like a faulty consignee, then that gets flagged in our system. This is something very new that we have started and we are proud to say that now we are going to run them also to make sure that you know what. There is utmost ease in this process, you know, not to say that when I run the check he's a good consignee and then in the 30 days or the 60 days of the transit something went wrong. Right, I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but at least at the time of the shipment we know everything is a green check, you know. So that's one extra step that we have started taking now, because of so much long standing in different countries are happening due to consignee abandonments. You know, people not paying the banks, lc issues, frauds, people have said that, oh, they are going to do it and then they don't do it. So because of that we are trying to do this extra check where at least the shipper is also at ease. We are also at ease at the time of shipment, and we have this great tool that the US customer is offering us, and so we've started using that as well. Dave: Okay, yeah. So let's instead imagine that this first container is by a friend of mine. Let's say he tells me oh Dave, these freight forwarders are just so expensive, I'm just going to do this all myself. Sure, I would say to them good luck, yes. I would say good luck, because this sounds like an impossible thing to try to do on your own Virtually impossible. Zohra: So a lot, a lot of customers or BCOs that I can say is like the direct shippers, like, of course, the Walmarts and the targets they have, they have a shipping department that does this, of course. But if you have, like, a small trader who's sitting out of Houston or probably New York, it is not worth his headache to do this, because there are lots of small nitty gritty things that are happening along the way, like, for example, I gave you this booking, okay, from Houston to Moondra. Now you have arranged for a trucker, the trucker is trying to pull an empty and my booking is not on file. Okay you are sitting and making a phone call to that line saying, oh, my booking is not on file. I have a trucker. Your trucker is charging you $65 because he's in line for an hour, gets to the terminal and the booking is not on file. I have a trucker. Your trucker is charging you $65 because he's in line for an hour, gets to the terminal and the booking is not on file. They're not going to let him wait there. He will have to go back in the line. So doing business with a forwarder is bringing you ease of these kind of kinks that are going to cost you financially. It is going to cost you a $65 dry run fee or a $65 detention fee for that guy to turn around and stand back in the line With us. We go ahead and we make sure that their booking is on file. Most of the time the depots are filled with containers. And again, I'm not saying that things don't happen. Of course things happen. But if you are a guy who's moving five to seven boxes a week, you don't have the time to sit and call for every booking and say, hey, is my booking on file? Is my trucker standing there? Do we have chassis, you know? Do the container depots have containers mounted on chassis? Do I have to take my own chassis? What's going on, at least with with us? We are telling them okay, your pickup is here, your booking is on file, go ahead, send the trucker again. Sometimes, when the trucker is there, some things happen. Then we can go ahead and fix it. I just feel like, because we are, our relationships are so much more deeper with the lines, you know what we can try to solve problem faster than someone trying to do this first time on their own or even if they've been in the business. Because these are painstaking things you know, like getting appointments to return. Like APM terminal in New York, it is a nightmare right now. It is a nightmare to get an appointment to return your box. So think about it. It. You pulled a box, you loaded it. Now you need to return it and your trucker is trying to get an appointment right and everything is showing full. Your cutoff is tomorrow. So you know those kind of hassles come in, which all come with the financial costs, and I'm not saying that you know what. Every time we will be coming to the rescue, but I feel like we have. So we have a good leverage to come to solve your problems, to make it easy to ship for you guys. You know our job is to make it easy to ship and you can have, you can have, you can be stress-free and you can concentrate on the growth of your business instead of worrying about how one container is going to move. You know yeah now, that's where we come in well, you've sold me. Dave: When I, if I ever get into the scrap metal business and ship to mundra, you'll be the first call thank you now I understand this now. This may be shocking, but I understand that there are other freight forwarders besides Sealink. Oh yes, oh yes, but help me understand, though I imagine that on the surface it's funny. Every business like when you're an outsider, it looks like a commodity, right, you know, it just looks like they're all the same. So if you don't know anything about, I don't know whatever like, let's say, farming equipment. To me, all farming equipment looks the same. I'm sure there's differences between them. Some do better at some things than others. Some are more expensive, some are cheaper, and so I'm sure that it's like that in the freight forwarding world. So give me an example that it's like that in the freight forwarding world. So give me an example. I'm sure that from time to time you get a call from somebody and says Zohra, my current freight forwarder dropped the ball once again and I'm fed up with them. I want to start using you all. Let's think back to maybe an example of that. And of course you don't mention the customer name or the prior freight forwarder. But what's a typical fact pattern that makes them shift from somebody else to you all? Zohra: so in in all these years of of me being at ceiling, the the majority people turn back to us is because of service levels. If there is a problem, I'm not going to run away. I'm going to sit with my customer, explain to them that this is an issue and we need to work together. It is going to cost. Let's come to that understanding that it is going to cost. Am I going to do my very best to make the cost minimal? Yes, yes, of course, though I know that the customer is at fault or the trucker is at fault, it doesn't matter. But we at Sealing believe that we are not going to haggle our customers when they are in problems to make a quick buck. We're not going to do that. We are never going to do that. So we make sure that if a customer is stranded like I'll give you an example right now, I have a situation I have a booking from A-Line Okay, and we got a container loaded. Okay, we got a container loaded. When the container got returned at the port, we got an email from the A-Line saying hello, this container doesn't belong to us. So then we started digging. We started digging, we found out that my customer had used another forwarder's booking for a line that ceiling doesn't work with. Okay. So there are seven, eight vendors we work with and two, three vendors we don't work with. Okay. So now I have a situation where I have a container loaded sitting in the port which my line is saying Zohra, I can't move it, it's not my box, I can't on hire this box because they won't let me. Though it is a partner box, they won't let me. You need to go to this line and figure out what you want to do. Now, zohra or ceiling doesn't work with this line. And my customer is frustrated because his forwarder, who gave him this booking, is saying oh, I can't do anything. You pulled a box now and my booking I gave it to somebody else so that booking is full. Now okay so now he has no space to accommodate this box here, okay, okay. So I'm not going to tell my customer. Oh, you know what? You got a booking from another forwarder on a line that ceiling doesn't work with. You figure out your stuff, because this container here is already accumulating demurrage, sitting sitting on the boat, which is $250 a day. So now yesterday what I did is I called the line that I don't work with and I gave them the whole rundown. I gave them the container number. I told them see, this is what is going on. I understand we don't work with you guys, but can you go ahead and help us? So yesterday they said okay, you know what, we can help you all. We are going to try to see we can reach out to the other forwarder and increase his booking and make sure that this can get returned at that point. Would that that other forwarder should have taken that step to help his customer, who is also my customer, but because of the service failure, or because maybe he doesn't, he was not able to understand how to problem solve this or troubleshoot this, or probably he just didn't have the resources to do it? I don't know. But if my customer came to me and is stranded. I am going to offer that help. I'm not going to be looking here to make a quick buck and say, hey, I don't work with this guy. Pay these 200 demurrage or go ahead and dray out the container. Pay $900 to dray out the container and then go back reloaded in my Steam Ship Lines box. Dave: I see so what happened in that scenario? Zohra: So now today I mean this is very live. This just happened like two days ago. So now today, hopefully you know, the line that I'm not working with has talked to that forwarder and hopefully we have increased his original booking and now we can attach this container to his booking. Go ahead and tell that line. Okay, please move this. Tell my customer. Go ahead, I have increased your booking. Please go to your forwarder, submit your shipping instructions and make sure your container gets on water on the next vessel. You will have some demerit charges which you will have to settle directly with the port, so they had to find space on the line that owned the container. Yes. Dave: Okay. Zohra: Yeah, the line that owned the container. So right now, because of so much of vessel shiftings, right, every vendor in the market whether it is Maersk, hapag, lloyd, zim, msc, all these lines are relocating services, they're readjusting services. Someone is coming into a new alliance, someone has come out of an alliance. There are lots of new vessels come into the market, larger ships come into the market, so everyone is adjusting a lot of vessels. So that is why it is very space, a space constraint. Right now. There are blank sailings, you know, to make sure that these new services are well adjusted for april. So, uh, so that is why there is this space issue. If there was no space issue, right, there wouldn't be a problem I see the other forwarder could pick up the phone and get it right right and the containers are owned by the shipping lines yes, the container. Dave: That's why, when I see a railroad when I'm sitting at a rail stop yeah comes by. Zohra: I see the maersk yeah, the big blue, because that's one of their containers yes, a musk or any, or a costco hat bag, they they all they all own their containers. Yes, correct, wow. Dave: So how, uh, it sounds like you have to work 168 hours a week, I mean, if you're in the service business yeah, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think moondraw is on a different time zone. Zohra: Yes, yes, yeah it's almost end of working day for them right now. Actually, before this, I was on my india office call. We have our own office in india as well, so we have a call with them once a week to just see what's going on, how's business, what can we do to support from here. So they were already, like you know, getting ready to go home, because it's almost eight o'clock in the night over there so is it safe to assume that you, that eight to five is not the sole hours that you work? there is no eight to five in this industry. No, there isn't. Dave: No, I mean my business you know, is to somewhat the same way. I mean, what I tell my clients is all you need to know about the ic disc is my mobile number. Yeah, that's it. That's all you need to know. Just call me, I'll take care of it. Zohra: Yeah, that's how we are, that's how we are. Customers call us, whatsapp us, email us and we try to service. We try to service. We are in the service industry. We believe our service is, is on top and if, and and I'm not saying c-link is the cheapest, I'm not saying that even at but we thrive on it because we know that. You know our customers, and hats off to our customers. Their support has got us here and they are willing to pay us an extra $25 for what we offer. We offer the app, we offer the service. All my sales reps are very in touch with the customers. They just don't sell and then you never see them. It's not. That doesn't work here. You know we do trade shows. We see our customers there make it a point at least two times a year. We are seeing our customers. We have FaceTime with them. So it's not like you're going to like have a salesperson. Dave: They sell you a rate and then they are gone. It's not going to be like that. Zohra: Your point of contact is your salesperson. Of course we don't want our salespeople to get in operations which they don't. Their work is to sell. But customer is not going to feel like isolated saying that, oh you know what. So, and so was my salesperson at ceiling. They sold me a rate and now have all these problems and I don't know who to go to. You know that problem will never arise. Like you say that problem will never arise like you say that, uh, your cell phone number is what they need for us. It's just just email email me or email one of my reps, and you will get a response, like I can promise that well, you all have a booth at the rima san diego show. Dave: I'll be sure to stop by, will you be wow? Yes, I'm gonna be there I'll be sure to stop by. Oh, that'll be awesome, yeah, we do rima every year? Yeah, we've been doing it for the past several years now okay, yes, so uh, uh, wow, I can't believe how the time has flown. Zohra: Yeah, it's um, it wasn't that bad, like I thought it would, I know. Dave: So, so a couple, so last couple questions what? What do you enjoy the most about your job, like what's the most satisfying part of your role within C-Link. Zohra: Helping my customers. Dave: Okay, I had a feeling that was it? Zohra: I really, really find it satisfying when I see an email saying you know, thanks, Zohra, you saved my life, you know, or you know like. Dave: Chad, he's our sales director. Zohra: You know, thanks, zohra, you saved my life, you know, or you know, like Chad, he's our sales director. You know he'll send out an email saying, okay, you're a miracle worker, not to me, but to my teams as well, right, because sometimes it's, it's very frustrating to get small things done right, and when that small thing gets done, then everything flows. So I feel like once you get them that ease, that, okay, now their cargo is going to flow. I feel, I feel satisfied, my teams feel satisfied, right. So I think, just helping out and making sure we are there, that's, you know, that's, I think, is very important, because if you're missing in this chain, your customer is just going to be stranded, you know. Dave: Yeah, no, that makes makes sense. So last two questions. So one's kind of serious and the last one's fun. So the serious one is um, if you could go back 20 years, and what year did you say you came to the uS? Zohra: I came in 2000. Dave: Okay, so if you could go, if you had a time machine and you could go back and you could give advice to yourself back in the year 2000, what advice or pep talk or insight, would you tell yourself? Zohra: you tell yourself that I should have started this earlier. I did. Dave: I don't know why I waited till 2006, okay, so yeah that you know that's the answer that every client gives yeah, that they, they didn't start the business, or they didn't do this because they were afraid or there was risk or whatever. And the advice they always, almost always, give is don't be afraid, take the risk, do it. Zohra: Yes, yes, I agree. So I'll give you a little background. So before I joined Shaizad, I was working at a wholesale jewelry place. We had, you know, huge wholesale and we had a lot of mexican um imported jewelry. You know, we used to sell a lot like. It was a very different, different field altogether. We used to supply to all the big stores and stuff like that. And then when shazad started this, you know, he told me he's like I don't know if I can, like we'll be able to afford a salary, or you know how it's going to be, because I'm just starting and and and we don't know. You know how it's going to work because right now I don't have overhead expenses. So think about it, right. So, like I said, he's a visionary, right. And he just told me one thing he's like I promise you that you will not regret, right. And at that point I feel he, he was all. He already taken the risk, he had already taken the risk, he had left his job at at another forwarder and taken the risk to start this. And when he told me that you know you won't regret, I just I just took the leap of faith and said you know what? This is it. If I think I would have like thought a little bit more and said, oh, I won't. I don't know how I'm going to replace my income or what's going to happen. I don't know if this is going to work. I feel like maybe we wouldn't be here. So I think sometimes you just take that leap and then leave it up to the big man up and I think it all works out with your hard work. But you have to put in the work, I feel. Dave: Sure, that is great. Well, my last question, a fun one. So in Houston we have a thriving Indian community and I have a lot of great Indian restaurants to choose from. So two questions. One if you want really good Indian food in San Antonio, do you have to go to your kitchen? Zohra: Or are there some good Indian restaurants in San Antonio? Actually, now there are a couple of good Indian restaurants in San. Antonio, I can say that you know. Dave: Because I'm guessing the Indian population in San Antonio is a lot smaller than Indian. Zohra: Yes, it is a lot smaller, but I can now say if you would ask me this five years ago, I would be like nothing my kitchen but, now I can say actually we just went to one day before yesterday and it was pretty nice. Dave: So yes, yeah, I think I am heading to Houston, uh, next week. Zohra: so I'm going to make it a point to go to one of the nice restaurants Indian restaurants to know, get some food, that's great, which I think. Dave: I think the yellow curry is my favorite. What's your favorite curry? Zohra: I think I'm not very fond of curries, but I think I'm not a big. I'm not a big curry person, so, but I think my favorite Indian food would be biryani. Dave: Okay. Zohra: Yeah, the rice with the meat. Yeah, yeah, I think that that is awesome. Dave: Well, Zohra, thank you again for coming on the show sharing your story, the SeaLink story and uh and sharing your passion. It really comes through that you and uh and Shaizad both have a passion for serving your customers, and that's really. It's always fun to hear that somebody's just really enjoying what they do. Zohra: Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me talk about sealing, and I hope that whoever listens to this, you know, comes to us and uses us. Thank you. Dave: That sounds great. You have a great day. Zohra: You too, you too. Special Guest: Zohra Shroff.

This week on the Exciting & New podcast, Jason, Andy and Dana welcome Danny back on the show as they discuss the 1985 comedy/spy movie Gotcha!.   Do you need to put a period after the exclamation point, if the exclamation point is part of the title?  Anyway, Gilbert from Nerds is a college kid on the make in Europe and he hooks up with an American spy with the worst Czech accent on the planet.  There is some spy nonsense after that and I don't remember much after that.  It was kinda boring.  We rip on the cast a little, rip on the movie a little, rip on each other a little.  Even the most boring movie gives us some ammo to have fun.  Enjoy the podcast!.

In this episode of "Discovering Grayslake," host Dave sits down with Alan, a local lawyer, to discuss life, law, and community in Grayslake. Alan shares heartfelt stories from his legal career, insights into family and criminal law, and his passion for giving back through local organizations. The conversation is filled with humor, personal anecdotes, and reflections on Grayslake's vibrant spirit—from favorite pizza spots to community events. With a warm, hometown feel, this episode highlights the importance of connection, kindness, and supporting one another in the Grayslake community. Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze Speaker 1 00:00:03  Looking for a car dealer that actually feels like your hometown. Welcome to City Chevrolet of Grayslake, where the vibe is friendly, the pressure is off and you'll always be treated like family. Meet Anthony Scala. He's just not the owner. He's a guy that grew up in the car business, worked his way from porter to owner. Anthony believes in people first. That's why City Chevy sponsors your kids teams, your town events. And matter of fact, this show, they give back every chance they get. Anthony thinks that the experience of buying a car should be fun. No pressure, just honest people who care whether you need a new Chevy, a quality used car, or just service you can trust. City Chevy is here for you. Come visit City Chevrolet of Grayslake right off of 120. And thank you for sponsoring Our town. Our stories, our voice. Let's get after it. Grayslake. Grayslake Rehabilitation Center is a community based private practice physical therapy provider. Do you know they have 13 clinical providers with various levels of specialties including orthopedics, sports, neurology, vestibular geriatrics, pelvic floor and aquatic. Speaker 1 00:01:05  What did I just say? They have a pool. Well they do. And it's the largest indoor warm water pool in Lake County. Featuring two underwater treadmills and swim currents and recently added clinical treatment specialties. In layman's terms. Shockwave. They have both radial and focus units that are the newest tool in regenerative medicine available to everyone. They pride themselves on the most current and up to date specialized care to keep you moving. If you're looking for physical therapy, make sure to see our friends at Grayslake Rehabilitation. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Discovering Grayslake. I'm so happy to be here recording again at Agora Co-working. Agora. As you know, if you've listened to any of these shows, Agora is on the corner of Centre Street and Atkinson. It's a co-working place, so if you guys are looking for a place to get your, your business out of the house for a day, for an hour, for a week or a lifetime home, Luke over here is a great dude, and I'll be happy to help you out. Speaker 1 00:01:58  So shout out to Agora for having us here. so I'm not going to mess up your name because you help me. So I'm here with Alan and Ziggy today. That's right buddy. Speaker 2 00:02:07  Hi, Dave. Nice to see you. And, Hello, internet. Speaker 1 00:02:09  Yes. So, actually, it's funny that we, Just as we sat down, we went over just a short thing of all the people from Grayslake that we just from just the Grayslake people that we know we have in common. Speaker 2 00:02:20  Right? I was living in Grayslake for the last 15, 20 years, and, my family lives in Grayslake. My mom does still, even though my dad passed away and I've been active in the Grayslake Exchange Club for a long time. So that's how I kind of got to know the people in that business community, stuff like that. Speaker 1 00:02:35  Right. Okay, so when I got arrested for the third time when I called you and then I called you, and I've not been arrested. Speaker 2 00:02:42  I would not be able to disclose the details unless you told me it was okay. Speaker 2 00:02:45  So just let me know, and I'm happy to. But we have attorney client confidentiality, which prohibits me from talking about it. Speaker 1 00:02:51  Which means all the fun stories that I want to ask you about to tell me today. You can't. Speaker 2 00:02:54  I can tell you stories, but I can't say like, hey, you know my client, Sergio. Guess what happened, right? I can't say that, but I can say I had this one guy and this one thing. I could do that, right? Speaker 1 00:03:03  He looked a lot like Mike Steiner, but. Speaker 2 00:03:06  Nobody looks like Mike Steiner. No, Mike Steiner is like Mike Steiner. Speaker 1 00:03:10  Doesn't even look like Mike Steiner. Speaker 2 00:03:12  He's like a ten. I mean, he's like, maybe mistaken for George Clooney from time to time. Speaker 1 00:03:17  He gets that a lot. I am. Speaker 2 00:03:18  Sure. Speaker 1 00:03:19  Shout out. Shout out to right at home. By the way, one of the sponsors of. Speaker 2 00:03:21  The show is an okay. Speaker 1 00:03:22  Dude. He's great. okay, so, Grayslake has changed, but what is your job? Speaker 2 00:03:27  Okay. Speaker 2 00:03:28  I am a lawyer. Speaker 1 00:03:29  Okay. What kind of a lawyer? Speaker 2 00:03:30  Okay, so my background is as a prosecutor. And when I was a prosecutor with the state's attorney's office. I guess I'll answer this in a long winded way. The easy question is, I tell people at Christmas parties. Like, what kind of lawyer are you? Divorces and DUIs. Okay. Okay. Because that's an easy way to break down family and criminal law. Those are my two specialties. I'm in a law firm called Johnston, Tommy Lansky and Goldberg. I'm one of the founding partners of that law firm, and we do everything collectively. I have a partner that does real estate. I have a partner that does business formation. I have a partner that does wills and trusts. We do probate litigation, foreclosures. We do all kinds of stuff. But my particular role at that law firm is family. So your divorces, child custody, child support type cases sometimes, and then also criminal cases. And, like, I have a murder right now. Speaker 2 00:04:20  So everything from murders down to traffic tickets and suspended licenses. Speaker 1 00:04:24  Is that normal for me? Because this shows how much I know. Is it normal for an attorney to have such a broad range of things like that? Speaker 2 00:04:30  So for me, I want two things, you know, so two things is pretty normal. If you're a guy that only, let's say only does criminal, it's I don't know you people do that, but I like to have a second sort of, type of case because sometimes it ebbs and flows in what you're getting. You know, the family law cases are hourly. The, criminal cases are a flat fee. Usually both are great. The family law cases are more, I guess intellectually and emotionally challenging sometimes. Which which maybe surprises some people. My criminal cases are usually a joy. Like family law cases can be tough. Speaker 1 00:05:08  Yeah, and that's one thing, because, it's no secret that I've been divorced twice. And, you know, for the for the people. And many people listen to the show, I mean, just from the, from the age demographics that I know that if people gone through these, like, heart wrenching, terrible parts of their life where they need someone like you to help guide them through and and hopefully make it as easy as possible. Speaker 2 00:05:29  Divorces are hard. I mean, a lot of you that are listening, have experienced it or your parents did or whatever. So, divorces are very difficult for people, and the plan with me would be just to get them done on time and under budget with a handshake at the end. Speaker 1 00:05:44  Okay. And I've never heard that before because I, I unfortunately, you know, I was spending a lot of time in courtrooms and seeing stuff like that, that it seems like, you know, the guys maybe that aren't doing well, or maybe they need to pay off their boat or something, string things along as long as they can. Speaker 2 00:05:58  They okay. I would never cast aspersions. I tell you, you might be surprised. The family law bar in Lake County is mostly fantastic people. Yeah. most of those lawyers I really like, I get along with the strength of our bench, you know, which means the judges in Lake County is good. Our bench is good. Our bar is good. there are a couple of lawyers that I'm like, oh, I got a case with her again. Speaker 2 00:06:21  Oh, I got a case with that guy. Right? because sometimes the law, just like any maybe more than some other, professions, can attract people with, like, a type of personality. That's annoying. I don't know, I don't want to. I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so I can't say, like, all my clients come in and they say, oh, my husband, he's a narcissist. Or like, he's gaslighting me. People like those psychological sort of terms from today. Like the now times. Like we didn't know what narcissism and gaslighting was in 1997, right? Or I didn't, but now I do for sure, because all my clients are like, he's gaslighting me, he's a narcissist, he's a blah, blah. Speaker 1 00:07:01  One minute your world is normal, the next it's gone. A flood, a fire, a crime scene. Your home shattered, your business shut down, your life on pause. But in the darkest hour, when chaos knocks at your door, that's when Servpro of Northwest Lake County shows up. Speaker 1 00:07:20  Not just a company, not just a cleanup crew, but neighbors, parents, coaches, locals who care. Drake and his team aren't just restoring properties. They're restoring peace, restoring dignity, restoring lives. So when your worst day arrives, call the oh no guy who becomes your, thank God guy. Servpro of Northwest Lake County, locally owned, nationally known, unshakable and trusted from devastation to restoration. Duration. Servpro, northwest Lake County. Speaker 3 00:07:50  Hey, neighbors, this is Bill Mack with the Grayslake Chamber of Commerce. And if you're looking for a network of hardworking, customer focused and generally friendly local businesses who are dedicated to helping each other succeed, then I'd like to invite you to check out and consider joining our Grayslake chamber. We offer our members so many ways to advance their businesses through social networking events, special events, sponsorships, informative lunch and learns, and the ever popular after hours mixers. Come see why we say we're the new wave of business here in Lake County. Speaker 1 00:08:22  Well, at this time of day, everything needs a label, right? Speaker 2 00:08:24  They throw those labels around. Speaker 2 00:08:26  Which, I mean, there's there's nothing wrong with it. it helps me to identify, at least. Now, I don't know if the person saying he's a narcissist means that. Really, she's right and he is a narcissist. Or if it just is helping me to flag this case is going to be a little bit tougher than maybe some other ones. Truth, right? I could see that. It's like one. Okay. Like in internet. Now, I'm sure people are, like, watching TikTok. Like red flag. Red flag. Like I see, yes, red flags when those kind of cases walk in. Speaker 1 00:08:56  Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm sure things changed like that too. Okay. So I want to go back a little bit because you have a it's a very interesting that for me, if I was doing your job I would love it that you could do one day like you have a murderer thing. Totally. But but then you can have a family law case or maybe help a dad get, you know, custody of his child. Speaker 1 00:09:13  Like, yeah, at least there's a little variety for fun, right? Speaker 2 00:09:15  It's interesting. I mean, today I had a couple of DUIs up, you know? And DUIs are like a bread and butter type case for a criminal defense attorney. Because most people, especially in Grayslake, especially in Lake County, they're not murderers. They're not gang members, but otherwise good dude or an otherwise good lady who is not necessarily manifesting a criminal intent. Like I'm going to go shoplift. It's a guy saying, I've had too much to drink, I'm gonna drive. He's making a dumb choice to drive home, but he's not having the criminal intent. Like I want to endanger somebody tonight. Right. Right. And so a DUI is usually the first time that somebody that's a good person is in hot trouble. Speaker 1 00:09:55  Okay. Gotcha. And, you know, it's got to be nice to, some of these, I'm sure, having satisfaction to be able to to help people out and help them navigate through things they have no idea what they're getting into. Speaker 1 00:10:05  Right. Speaker 2 00:10:05  So. Okay, I used to work for a really fantastic attorney in Round Lake Beach, and I want to make sure to give a shout out to Round Lake Beach. That is an awesome town full of super awesome people. And this lawyer I used to work with, named Bruce Scotland. He taught me a lot. And he's still out in Round Lake. He's a competitor of mine, but I really respect him. And when I started working for him, he. He said, Alan, we love helping people for money. And I'm like, yeah, I love helping people for money. Right. Speaker 1 00:10:34  Well put. Right. It wouldn't be as fun as if you didn't get. Speaker 2 00:10:37  Paid for it. No, but I mean, and that, you know, it's a business. You want to help people? Yes. For money. Right. Right. So. And I'm not trying to sound cold, I do some pro bono. I know it's me, but I don't do pro bono divorces. Speaker 2 00:10:47  No way. They're too hot. They take too long. I'll do a pro bono traffic ticket. I'll give people. I used to volunteer at a safe place, and they have a, a battered women's shelter in Zion. And I used to go there, and I used to talk to the ladies about free legal advice. How can I help you? What do you. They have questions about everything, and I would just volunteer and talk to them. I love that, but, a really hot case to do pro bono is is a big mistake for attorney, in my opinion. Yeah. Attorney in my position, I'd say right. Speaker 1 00:11:16  Okay, so the one thing that really, that I found appealing when I was looking through, when we got connected and I went through your website and I was looking at things like places, like a safe place, like, those are people that really need help, right? Yeah. It's tough. I tip my hat to you for going in there and helping out, because I know there's a list of different things that that you do to give back, which is which is extremely generous of you. Speaker 2 00:11:39  Thanks. I just I just signed up to do the mock interviews at Libertyville High School. That's a cool program. Yeah. Cool. That high school has a really good program where they have these kids that are in the business class, and you give them mock interviews to, you know, improve their skills, to hone their hone their interviewing abilities. And I was blown away by how great the kids were. Really? I was like, you're really smart. You're really smart. Wow. You're what an active, wonderful person. And I was like a bump on the log. When I was in high school, I wasn't active like. Speaker 1 00:12:10  I would have loved to seen what my interview would have been like in high school. Speaker 2 00:12:14  I don't know, they were fantastic, but. So some of the stuff I do, yeah. In Libertyville, I was been active in Grayslake because I lived in Grayslake for many years. over there on West Trail. my mom lives in Harrison Farms and, yeah, that's we were living in Grayslake ever since about the turn of the millennium. Speaker 2 00:12:32  So that that wave of people that like third wave of of immigrants to Grayslake that began in the 90s when the, you know, when they started building the subdivision. Speaker 1 00:12:42  Farms, right? Yes. I think that I was one of the first off the Mayflower to when I landed at Avon on the Prairie, one of the first ones off of Atkinson. That was like one of the first things that wasn't in, you know, Grayslake proper. Right. So to say. Right. Right. That's what we showed up. But but so then how long ago is that? Speaker 2 00:13:01  So we moved here in like 2001. Okay. So my mom and dad bought a place in Grayslake on West Trail North in Harrison Farms. And I remember the first day we came to graze. Like, I'm from Florence, Illinois. Speaker 1 00:13:12  Okay. I was just gonna say. Where did you originally come from? Speaker 2 00:13:14  I'm from philosopher. I went to Homewood Philosopher High School. I was born in Harvey, at Ingalls. and, But that's why sometimes I get, like, a Chicago accent. Speaker 2 00:13:22  I don't know, whatever. It's like, it's a but but floss more is is a nice town in the 90s. I mean, it's like the lake bluff of the south side. Yeah. So we we had a good time growing up. Speaker 1 00:13:31  They should put that on their sign. Speaker 2 00:13:32  By the way. Yeah. Right. The lake bluff off. Speaker 1 00:13:35  The. Speaker 2 00:13:35  South side. I need the. Speaker 1 00:13:36  T. Speaker 2 00:13:36  Shirt. I mean, it is. I mean, it's kind of like being the tallest midget, you know? I mean, but no offense to people that are little people. I love them, too. but, you know, I don't know where I was going at that. Speaker 1 00:13:51  Time of growing up in Hollywood or more. Speaker 2 00:13:54  Grew up there. So then I came to, I lived in Champaign because I went to school down at U of I and Champaign, and it was fantastic. And my parents moved up to to Grayslake. So I come up to Grayslake, and on our first day, the restaurant they took me to was Bill's Pub North. Speaker 2 00:14:08  Yeah, right. Engages like and I just thought in my mind I'm like, I'm in the woods. My parents moved to Wisconsin, you know, where am I? I'm like, this is the woods. I mean, here in Wisconsin, there's a polar bear hanging there and there's fish every on, on the wall. And I thought, this is this is great. And it turned out Lake County's not quite Wisconsin, but it's close. It's an interesting. Speaker 1 00:14:29  Perception, I guess if you've never been here. And that's the place they took, I had to. Speaker 2 00:14:33  The only thing I had done with Grayslake before that when my parents moved here, Let's go to Prairie Crossing. Okay. Because my aunt and uncle lived in Prairie Crossing, which is a interesting. I wouldn't say the word weird, but it's an anomalous little part of the world. Prairie crossing is. Speaker 1 00:14:51  Absolutely. Speaker 2 00:14:51  I had never seen anything like that before, because I think that community at the time was novel and maybe still is. so I thought that all Lake County was like that. Speaker 2 00:15:00  And then I saw Bill's Pub and I went, oh my gosh, I'm in Wisconsin. Speaker 1 00:15:03  What's going on? You have no idea. Speaker 2 00:15:04  Where you're at. Am I at the U.P.? I mean, how is ten feet of snow? You know, this is I came from 708. You know, the land of good pizza and terrible baseball. Now, here I am. Speaker 1 00:15:15  The lake bluff on the south side. Speaker 2 00:15:17  Right, right. Yes. Speaker 1 00:15:18  That's awesome. okay, so, when you're studying law. So when you went to, you went to U of, I, law school? Speaker 2 00:15:25  No. So I went to I was an undergrad at u of I. Okay. and then I went to law school at DePaul. Speaker 1 00:15:30  We're taking a quick break just to say hello, because everybody knows Nano and Nano knows real estate. And actually I believe that's the name of her Instagram page. So if you're looking to buy a home, sell a home, or know somebody in the market for a home, contact nano from Baird and Warner. Speaker 1 00:15:44  She's a Grayslake girl helping out Grayslake people. And when you when you went to law school, did you know what you wanted to practice? Speaker 2 00:15:52  Yeah. So I don't mean to be, like, whatever, a little bit, emotional or emo in the, in the interview, but it was September 11th of 2001. Right. And you probably remember that day, but I could remember that day. I wanted a date with the girl. I looked in the sky and I saw there was no jet contrails. What a what a crazy day. And after that day, I thought to myself, I would like to be in law enforcement because I'd like to help our country for, I don't know, because America, I like America. Amen. And I was mad. Oh, I'm nine over 11, right? I mean, come on. Speaker 1 00:16:27  Everybody was. Yes. Speaker 2 00:16:28  So. But after that, I thought I'd go into criminal law. I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor, So then I got a job with Mike Waller, at the State's Attorney's office. Speaker 2 00:16:39  And I tell you, you know Mike Waller, I owe him everything. I love the guy. I know some people don't, but he's a politician. There's people that hate his guts, people that love and support him. He always was a gentleman to me, and I never. I just thought that, the decision making he made was good, and he gave me a job saving my bacon. You know, and so I got to begin my career as a prosecutor. And I was a line assistant state's attorney in Waukegan. They start you off as a DUI assistant. So, you know, brand new 25 year old kid. I was prosecuting DUIs. Misdemeanor DUIs. Right? Misdemeanor traffic cases out in the branch courts. And that was very good. Fulfilling. Fun work, I liked it. Okay. You know, you did. and then, they switched me to just misdemeanor stuff. And I was prosecuting your retail thefts. And back when weed was illegal, I was prosecuting your weed cases and your trespassing. Speaker 2 00:17:31  And here's your fights. And then they stuck me in the domestic violence division for a long time. Speaker 1 00:17:35  Okay, so how was that? Speaker 2 00:17:38  Okay. You know Lew Frank. Of course. Okay. Lew Frank is a fantastic Grayslake. And he would say felt like five minutes underwater, you know, to to be a line assistant in the domestic violence courtroom is hard. Speaker 1 00:17:55  I. Speaker 2 00:17:55  Bet. Because you have to look at the cases. And so, like, are you familiar with the cycle of violence? This is this theory. Speaker 1 00:18:02  I am not. Speaker 2 00:18:03  Okay. So it's a theory that's a big part of criminal prosecutions of domestic violence. And the cycle of violence goes like this. Right now we're having a fight, and I'm going to use the gender of he and she, you know, whatever. But sometimes women can be the victim of domestic violence. Sometimes guys can. But in a classic situation, let's say he slaps her. Okay. Then she calls the police. He's arrested. But then in a few days she's like, maybe he's not that bad or I need him out of jail so he can, like, work and pick up our kid from school. Speaker 2 00:18:35  Like you've been a parent, you know? And so maybe she takes them back and then they have a honeymoon period where it's, like, passionate, like we love each other, and then it can happen again, you know? And that cycle of violence. The State's Attorney's office was really keen to interrupt it. Right. But then that meant that lots of times you'd have the victims, I guess recanting, they'd say, hey, that didn't happen like that, or I'm not coming to court, you know? And so that was frustrating. And then sometimes you had cases, not all, sometimes you had cases where it was a situation where the family's going through a domestic violence thing. Maybe. But maybe what it really is, is a child custody thing. And somebody ringing the bell of domestic violence to get a leg up on somebody in a child custody type proceeding. Right. Like, like I'm going to get an order of protection against him. So I get our kid, which, I mean, I get that, but you need to really be careful about abuses of the system. Speaker 2 00:19:32  So as a line assistant with the State Attorney's office, as back then, I mean, things have changed a little bit now. They have had two different, changeovers between the state's attorney. but anyway, long story short, you still have to use your discretion to decide what really happened. And at least at the time I was a state's attorney, we were empowered with a good amount of discretion. It was awesome. Speaker 1 00:19:53  Really. Speaker 2 00:19:54  So. Speaker 1 00:19:54  Yeah. And and I'm sure with that, too, like, you probably get to be a really good read of people. but then sometimes you probably think you are and then people bamboozle whatever. And you probably don't even know. Speaker 2 00:20:06  I mean, you ever been lied to about your own kid, right? Speaker 1 00:20:09  I mean, you believe. Speaker 2 00:20:09  Him, and then you believe him, and you're like, I have egg on my face. I was lied to in kind. You know, so sometimes, you know, you just you don't have a, a lie detector that buzzes when she lies or he lies, you don't know. Speaker 2 00:20:25  So you have to do your best with what the facts are. But there was a good team at the time. But yeah, I did. Two and a half years as a as a domestic violence prosecutor. And then so when I left the State's Attorney's office, I thought to myself, well, I've been doing family law cases basically already. I may as well do them as a business. Sure. You know, so that's what I did. So now my practice is a hybrid. That's why I say divorces and DUIs. It's family law cases. And then it's criminal law cases too, because I've done all that. Speaker 1 00:20:52  Wow. So your resume is quite deep for all kinds of different things, right? Speaker 2 00:20:58  I guess. Speaker 1 00:20:59  Right. Speaker 2 00:20:59  You know, it's just like, I don't know how other people get through life. This is just what I did. Right. Speaker 1 00:21:05  Well, and everybody, you know, people look at different people, whether you're a doctor, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're a podcaster, where whatever you do that, everybody does something for a line of work that, you know, people are. Speaker 1 00:21:16  You deal with very delicate situations, people going through stuff. And especially the one thing about the family law stuff, it it must be hard for you to stay. You have to almost train yourself to not get emotionally involved in some of those things, right? Speaker 2 00:21:28  I sometimes. Speaker 1 00:21:28  Do. Speaker 2 00:21:29  I remember my first adoption. You know, we had a case that was a very ugly family law case, and it went on a long time. And then at the end of it, the dad, he agreed to put the child up for adoption. To the mom and her new husband. Okay. So the dad was making a very hard choice. Because, I mean, to give up your child, you know, and to look in the mirror and say, all right, I wasn't doing that good of a job. This new dude who's married my ex girl, he'll do better in the best interest of my child. It takes kind of like a man to do that. Speaker 1 00:22:06  Oh, that's a big decision, right? It's a big leap of faith. Speaker 2 00:22:08  But on the other hand, too, you know, maybe people are judging him about. You walked away from your kid, you didn't fight harder. So it's very tough, you know. And that's the type of case I remember I had, like, one manly tear going down my. Speaker 1 00:22:18  Face. Speaker 2 00:22:19  Looking into my steely eyed gaze. No it wasn't. I was bawling like a baby. I was so happy for them, you know? But also that's that's. Those are big moments. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:22:30  So you cool stuff too? Yeah, right. And to see people come through stuff that they deserve that the, the law can either work in your favor or against you. And it's nice when it actually works, right. Speaker 2 00:22:40  It's hard. I will say, okay. I was worried as a kid that I would come into the law and see a lot of weird stuff, like judges tossing cases in exchange for Cubs tickets. I have never seen any of that in Lake County. Really? I have never seen anything crooked or weird. Speaker 2 00:22:58  Everybody's been really professional. I mean, and I'm like, me that right? It's not just because I want to keep on working with these people. Most of them are fantastic. Speaker 1 00:23:06  Well, well, the Cubs have been doing that. Speaker 2 00:23:08  Well, no better than the White Sox, sadly. Speaker 1 00:23:11  Now, if somebody did something bad. Speaker 2 00:23:12  For White Sox. Speaker 1 00:23:13  Tickets, we really question what. Speaker 2 00:23:15  I heard. You could buy some chili at Wendy's and you get free season tickets to the White Sox, right? A cup of chili at Wendy's. Speaker 1 00:23:22  So well. In all seriousness, it is really good to hear you say that because, you know, everybody watches all these TV show, every law TV show and court TV show that people have this fantasy of things, how how they how they go along. Speaker 2 00:23:34  I don't ever watch any legal TV at all. Ever. I just don't. That's probably a good idea. The last legal movie was probably Liar Liar with Jim Carrey, which is a fantastic movie. Speaker 1 00:23:46  Very serious movie about the law. Speaker 2 00:23:48  I don't because I like do it for a living. And then honestly, at 502 when I'm at home, I'm like, I'll see you tomorrow. That sounds like a a modern day problem, al. Speaker 1 00:23:58  Right. Right. Speaker 2 00:24:00  So no, because otherwise you go insane. Speaker 1 00:24:02  No. Yeah, well, everybody needs a break from their job. Nobody wants to go home and do it. And that's why, you know, I've been self-employed for a very long time. That's why most self-employed people end up getting in office in hopes that when you go to the office, you can leave and leave your work there and go home. And if they can make that work. Speaker 2 00:24:20  That's why I don't work from home. Ever. Speaker 1 00:24:22  Yeah, well, good for you. Speaker 2 00:24:23  I mean, I guess ever is a word, I mean. I, I don't. Never say never. I don't like to work from home. And I very, very, very seldom. Speaker 1 00:24:30  Do. Speaker 2 00:24:30  It. Speaker 1 00:24:30  Right. Okay. That's good. Speaker 1 00:24:32  let's do something, because I have a couple other questions to ask you, but, you've said you've listened to a couple of podcasts. Sure. so we do something about halfway through. I call the Grayslake hot seat, where we have some rapid fire questions to get to know you just a little bit better. Speaker 2 00:24:45  I ain't scared enough. Speaker 1 00:24:46  Remember when you said, are these open ended questions, or is this an interrogation or whatever? I ain't scared, right? The Grayslake hot seat is brought to you by Joe Velez, JP financial. It's often said that those who fail to plan are planning to fail. Joe Velez and his team at GPB financial create unique financial plans that are some of the most difficult challenges that people might face as they get older, no matter what stage of life you're in. Having a proactive financial plan can help navigate some of the difficult decisions you'll face, helping you live your life by design, not default securities and investment advisory service offered through Mosaic Wealth, Inc. member Finra, SIPC. Speaker 1 00:25:26  Now for the Grayslake hotseat. Hey. Thanks, Joe. This is where we need the, This. We should have done with a surveillance camera to do this, I think would have been really good. Speaker 2 00:25:36  I've seen lots of those police interviews. I'm looking around for the mirror with the guy behind it. Speaker 1 00:25:42  It's just. It is behind there. We just have the, newer ones, so to say. okay. So, Grayslake. Casey, did you play a, a sport in high school in the lake bluff of the the swimming. Speaker 2 00:25:58  I was on my country club swim team. The floss. More flyers. Yeah. Wow. Speaker 1 00:26:03  Yeah, that sounds bougie as all good. Speaker 2 00:26:05  It was kind of bougie, but, I mean, at the time, I didn't think it was. And at the time, I thought I looked fat in that Speedo. But now I look at those pictures, I'm like, you looked awesome, right? Speaker 1 00:26:13  Well, you got to look back. Speaker 2 00:26:14  Were you wearing a Speedo and everything? It was the 90s. Speaker 1 00:26:17  Were you good? Speaker 2 00:26:18  I mean, okay. Okay. I didn't come in last place because I'm kind of tall, right? And they made me swim a lot. I mean, in the morning, they would say it's 7:00 in the morning, do a bunch of laps. And when you're 14, 15, 16, you do that a lot. You get to be fit. Speaker 1 00:26:32  Oh, absolutely. It's the best. Speaker 2 00:26:34  That was nice. I like that I played T-ball as a little kid. but no, swimming was my jam. And then I became a lifeguard. I was a lifeguard for the H.F. Park district. That was fantastic. Speaker 1 00:26:43  Yeah, that's not a bad gig to have. Awesome gig. Yeah. Nice. First car. Speaker 2 00:26:48  Well, Volvo 740, a blue baby blue Volvo 740. Speaker 1 00:26:52  Nice. I'm a Volvo. Speaker 2 00:26:54  It helped me get one of my first girlfriends who was, honest to God, a Swedish foreign exchange student at my high school. No way. Anne-Marie. Honest to God. Speaker 2 00:27:04  And she. Speaker 1 00:27:04  Got her with a Volvo. Speaker 2 00:27:06  Because they make them in Sweden. And she. She sees it and she goes, oh, she goes, what an awesome car. But I wish it was a Saab. Speaker 1 00:27:14  You did? Speaker 2 00:27:15  She did. Totally. Speaker 1 00:27:16  That's so great. And, folks, I want you to listen closely. Maybe. Hit the rewind button there, because that is the first and last time you'll ever hear on the show about how a guy got a girl because of a Volvo. Speaker 2 00:27:25  That was unlikely. Speaker 1 00:27:27  The only reason that it will happen, totally. Speaker 2 00:27:29  But it was it was. That was my Volvo. It was my in with the Swedish girl. I was fine by me. Speaker 1 00:27:34  That was hilarious. Yeah, and they don't make many blue ones like that either. So it. Speaker 2 00:27:38  Was cool. It was a baby blue Volvo. I mean, whatever, I don't think it was. No, it wasn't cool, but it got me from A to B and. Right. Speaker 1 00:27:45  Whatever, man. Speaker 1 00:27:46  Hey, I got 200,000 on mine sitting in the parking lot. Speaker 2 00:27:48  I had a Dodge Neon for a while. I love that Dodge Neon. Right. I can talk about cars. Speaker 1 00:27:51  Yeah. You were, Yes. The the, two of the hottest cars. I could think of. Hot stuff in my head. speaking of that. So this is what? Oh, maybe this would be a fun one for you. What's the fastest you've ever gone in a in a vehicle? Speaker 2 00:28:06  Well, I got, like, an airplane, like. Speaker 1 00:28:07  No, no, no, we'll leave that out. Speaker 2 00:28:09  Like in. Speaker 1 00:28:10  A car. In a car. Speaker 2 00:28:10  I don't know, a hundred. Speaker 1 00:28:12  Just a. Speaker 2 00:28:12  Hundred, you know. Yeah. Because, I mean, I was a kid and stepping on it. Right. And nowadays, if you do that, like, I never do that anymore. I don't speed anymore. I don't, because the consequences. And I don't mean like death and dismemberment. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:28:24  That happens. Speaker 1 00:28:25  That's all legal consequences. Speaker 2 00:28:26  Yeah. The cops light you up, you know, and the the cases are class A misdemeanors. and they're punishable by up to a year in jail and or a fine of $2,500. Speaker 1 00:28:36  Wow. Speaker 2 00:28:37  Back when I was a prosecutor, I became friends with some police. And maybe they don't say this anymore, but I used to hear nine year fine, 11 year mine. Okay. All right. Which is consistent with my lived experience. Speaker 1 00:28:49  Of going nine miles over. Speaker 2 00:28:50  Nine year fine 11 year. Mine is what the police would say. And and that bears with what I've seen during the time that I've, I've done lots and lots of traffic tickets as a, as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. And you never see somebody getting pulled over for five over. Right? You know, they are looking at you for 11 to 15 starting at 11, maybe 15 now 20. They want you right? You know, but like I said, nine. You're fine. Speaker 2 00:29:15  11. Your mind. I think that's pretty good. That's the advice I give a lot of the kids that I represent. This is. Speaker 4 00:29:20  Bob Churchill. I know you are always there for your family, caring for your children, your spouse, and even your parents. But in critical times, will you be able to make decisions that assure the best result for your family? Power of attorney may be necessary if, on behalf of a loved one, you need to talk to a doctor, a bank, or the college infirmary. A power of attorney may sound daunting, but the lawyers at Churchill, Quinn, Hamilton and Van Dantzler can easily create this document for you. We are right here in Grayslake supporting the community for over 122 years. Reach out to us at Grayslake law.com or call us at (847) 223-1500. Whether you need a power of attorney, a will or legal help with your business, we'll take care of you so you can care for others. Go to Grayslake Law.com today for more information. Have a wonderful day. Speaker 4 00:30:09  And now back to the program. Speaker 1 00:30:11  Interesting. That's good advice, too. which is funny. I won't tell you how fast I've gone then, because I would not have been fine. Tell me something. Do you like to travel? You have not been. Speaker 2 00:30:25  So I've been like Johnny Cash. I've been everywhere, you know. I have been to lots of different places in this country because my wife is a maniac for travel. She loves it. And we have little kids and we take road trips. But we had little kids. Now they're getting old. my oldest is a sophomore in high school. Speaker 1 00:30:40  Oh, my gosh, it goes fast. It does it really. It just moves. It moves moves, moves so fast. And then I think I heard you have a ten year old too, right? Speaker 2 00:30:46  He's he's a wonderful guy. Awesome guy. but yeah, I have a of a 16 to 12 and a ten, and we've always done road trips around the country. you know, I don't know, early ones where? Tennessee and Kentucky, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, all through Wisconsin. Speaker 2 00:31:00  Indiana. Out to Maine. East coast, Florida. A lot of times we've flown out to California, Utah and Nevada. so around the country And then, like I used to, I lived in Europe briefly. I lived in London for a few years. Speaker 1 00:31:14  Did she really? How cool is that? Speaker 2 00:31:16  My mom, she was a lawyer at, Amoco. Right. The the gasoline company, you know, Amoco. They used to have that big white tower in downtown Chicago. The Amoco building, right? Absolutely. Formerly Standard Oil of Indiana. John Rockefeller's thing. And then they trust. Busted it. Whatever. Monopoly busted it. Right. So. But Amoco, if you remember, in the 90s, merged with BP, British Petroleum. So they moved my mom's job from Chicago to London. So we lived there for a while, and I was kind of in school in champagne and going to London in the summertime. That was awesome. Speaker 1 00:31:47  Oh yeah, especially at that age. But it was really cool. Speaker 2 00:31:50  I worked at a bar. I worked at a pub called the Prince Albert Stafford. That is the guy. It was awesome. Speaker 1 00:31:58  Folks, this isn't a real interview. Just so you know, I just brought one of my buddies in. Speaker 2 00:32:02  I worked at a at a pub called the Prince Albert, and it was in, Notting Hill. Right. You remember Notting Hill with the Hugh Grant movie? You've probably never seen that movie. Speaker 1 00:32:11  I've seen the movie poster. Speaker 2 00:32:12  I saw the poster. Yeah. So Hugh Grant, I thought he was good in the dad movie. But I never saw Notting Hill. But I worked in Notting Hill. so. Yeah, I don't know. Travel places. Speaker 1 00:32:23  There's nothing that you have, like a bucket list. Like I gotta. Speaker 2 00:32:26  Go. Like I don't need to go to Thailand. I don't know. I guess if I had infinite money, I'd travel Europe again, I like it. Sure. Speaker 1 00:32:32  You know, when the. The age of your kid. It sounds like you did your traveling and you did what you wanted to. Speaker 1 00:32:36  And your kids have got, like, some of the best education that kids can get is traveling all over the United States because the United States is cool. Speaker 2 00:32:43  It's fantastic. And like when you travel the United States, like the other day I was coming back from Florida on I-65. We stopped at the Bucky's in Athens, Alabama, which is, you know, a Bucky's is like a like a, you know, if you, you know, a Bucky's, of course. Yeah. It's a giant gas station in front of a giant Walmart, basically. You know, or maybe more like a Kmart. Speaker 1 00:33:03  But one of my favorite places, one of my favorite things, if anybody goes on TikTok right now, there's a woman that explains what Buc-ees is and is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen in my whole life. I love it. Like, if you want to feel like your true, true white trash, she explains exactly what it is. And because we all get excited to go to a Bucky's right. Speaker 2 00:33:22  My kids were stupid excited. They were. And I'm like, guys, it's a gas station that's in front of a K-Mart. What are you talking about? You know. Speaker 1 00:33:29  Exactly what. Speaker 2 00:33:30  It is. I mean, whatever. Back in the old days, Kmart used to have barbecue sandwiches, too. True. Speaker 1 00:33:35  You just couldn't get a puzzle. A sweatshirt and a, you know, corned beef sandwich? No. All at the same time. Speaker 2 00:33:40  It's a fancy dress I've traveled around. It's great. I like. Speaker 1 00:33:43  The train. I like the Bucky's. Was one of the highlights on your trip. Kept coming back. It kind of was. It's kind of. It's kind of fun. And we're getting one close to here now. I keep seeing the signs. God love. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:33:53  God love them. I hope that they take over. I'm ready for Bucky's to be the only employer in the United States. Speaker 1 00:34:00  Did we talk? What was your first job when you were. So you lifeguard was a lifeguard? Speaker 2 00:34:05  Yeah, I was a lifeguard. Speaker 1 00:34:05  Did we call that a job? Is that a job? Speaker 2 00:34:07  Oh, really? Man. Lifeguard. It could be my career. That is a fantastic job. Speaker 1 00:34:12  Maybe when you want to retire, you can go back and be a lifeguard. Speaker 2 00:34:14  My uncle, actually, he was like a car salesman and stuff. And then when he retired, he used to be a lifeguard at his, you know, apartment complex. Like, that's a great job, dude. Come on. Speaker 1 00:34:24  Wow. Maybe when I grow up, I'll look into that. Speaker 2 00:34:26  Be a lifeguard. Speaker 1 00:34:27  It's cool. I'm gonna. Speaker 2 00:34:28  It's cool. Speaker 1 00:34:29  I think it could be a. Speaker 2 00:34:30  Tad creepy. Speaker 1 00:34:31  If I applied at the Grayslake pool right now. Speaker 2 00:34:33  No, I mean, they need people that with with with maturity and experience. Yes. You know. Speaker 1 00:34:39  I have a shirt that says that that's for my requirements. Speaker 2 00:34:42  And it was nice. And I worked at Jewel. I worked at the library in summer. I mean, it was great. Speaker 1 00:34:47  So you had a lot of different jobs? Yeah. Speaker 1 00:34:48  So you actually were taught some work ethic as a as a child from your parents as well? Speaker 2 00:34:53  Well, they worked hard. My parents, they loved each other. They stayed together the whole time. They were both lawyers. They worked. And I just wanted to work. Right. Speaker 1 00:35:01  I don't know. They said very good examples, right? That's awesome. first concert you ever attended? Speaker 2 00:35:07  Man, I don't know. okay. It was, the World Music Center, right? Yeah. Q101 had one of those concerts that's like, not it wasn't, not not, Twisted Christmas. It's the one they did in the summertime. And I remember that garbage. Jamiroquai. Mighty, mighty. Speaker 1 00:35:27  Boston's nice. Speaker 2 00:35:29  Were there. I mean, that's, like, awesome. And I went with a Swedish girl. Really? So. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:35:34  Did you drive the Volvo. Speaker 2 00:35:35  There, though? Maybe I might have got dropped off by my parents, so. Speaker 1 00:35:39  Good, good. Good concert. Speaker 2 00:35:41  I saw the Smashing Pumpkins down there, but that was a different day. Speaker 2 00:35:44  Oh, nice. Billy Corgan, love that guy. Speaker 1 00:35:46  Yeah. He, Billy was at that because I had forever. I forget that where they're from, around North Shore. Yeah, right. And I was hanging out, and I was doing a daddy daughter dance, and a guy came up that looked a lot like Billy Corgan and asked for a song. And I had told him no. Yeah, because it wasn't really. It wasn't really appropriate. Yeah, right. And then somebody came back and one of the people said, well, Mr. Corgan asked for a song, and I guess you told him that you weren't going to play it. And I'm like, okay, well, it just didn't fit with what we were going to do, because I like to think that I do the right thing, right? You do the wood, you work music, you do the right thing for the party. You got to know your audience, unless it's Billy Corgan. And then you just say. Speaker 2 00:36:23  Do what he says. Speaker 1 00:36:24  Right? Speaker 5 00:36:24  Despite all my rage, he's awesome. Speaker 2 00:36:27  It was the best. Speaker 1 00:36:28  And it wasn't a pumpkin song, though. Speaker 2 00:36:29  Oh, that's too bad. Speaker 1 00:36:30  I wish I knew what the song was, though, to look back. Speaker 2 00:36:32  I would think that Billy loves putting on pumpkin songs. I would think that he lists the pumpkins all the time. Speaker 1 00:36:38  He's driving around right now listening. Speaker 2 00:36:40  To all these new stuff because his old stuff is for posers. He's like that old stuff. I'm over it. Only my new stuff. Only Billy and Machines have got to listen to right now. Speaker 1 00:36:48  Yeah. That's hilarious. if you had to have a superpower, what would it be? Speaker 2 00:36:54  Being the greatest golfer ever. Speaker 1 00:36:57  Really? Speaker 2 00:36:57  Yeah. Speaker 1 00:36:58  Come on. That would be good. But then you wouldn't have. Would it be any fun? Because then you beat everybody all the time. But yeah, you could play with people though. Speaker 2 00:37:05  Then you'd be good at golf. And that's what my dream would be. I would love to. Speaker 2 00:37:08  I'm not that good at golf. I wish I were okay. I practice and practice and the people that are naturally gifted, I look at them with such envy, you know? Speaker 1 00:37:17  Now, being a being an attorney makes you a better golfer, though. Doesn't like doctors and attorneys and like. Speaker 2 00:37:22  Yeah, yeah. And some of the attorneys really suck, which is great because I can just stuff them. You know, these old guys especially that that don't play that much. Oh, I'm way better than them. That makes me feel so good about myself just to stuff them. Yeah. Hey. Nice chat counsel. Oh. Speaker 1 00:37:38  That's fantastic. what do you wish you learned sooner in life? Speaker 2 00:37:43  Spanish. Really? Totally, dude. Speaker 1 00:37:45  It's a great answer. Speaker 2 00:37:46  Spanish. Speaker 1 00:37:47  Wow. Okay. So, you know, young people, people in high school, people go in and they're like. I have to tell them. It's probably one of the best things you can do. Right. As an education level, Just. Speaker 2 00:38:00  Your friends, your coworkers, your clients. You know, I mean, learning Spanish is awesome. I personally have a super awesome, legal assistant, and, she is bilingual and she helps me do so much. So I shout out to Crystal. Crystal, you're fantastic. But, like I said, if only I had paid more attention in school and I was better at Spanish, I wish. Right? Speaker 1 00:38:21  Yeah. No. And it's really. That's a great answer. I'm going to. Maybe I'll start learning a different language. have you ever eaten a roller dog from a gas station? No, really? With all the all the road trips you've taken. Speaker 2 00:38:34  I don't do that. Speaker 1 00:38:35  Maybe I'm smarter than me. Speaker 2 00:38:36  Because I'm worried about, like, dying from bacteria. Like it's. Guys, it's only ten more hours to Chicago. Stop 11. Speaker 5 00:38:43  Times. Speaker 2 00:38:43  Or having. Speaker 1 00:38:44  Explosive diarrhea on a. Speaker 2 00:38:45  On a road trip. You know, I don't either. I never eaten, I mean, I've bought stuff at gas stations, beer, I've bought smokes, I've bought lots of things. Speaker 2 00:38:53  if I'm gonna shop for food at gas stations, it's probably beef jerky. Speaker 1 00:38:57  They do have some coffee. Speaker 2 00:38:58  Beef jerky. Maybe some candy. Speaker 1 00:39:00  Okay, nice. what's the chance that, Bigfoot exists? Speaker 2 00:39:04  0%. Speaker 1 00:39:05  Really? Speaker 2 00:39:05  It's a hoax. Speaker 1 00:39:06  Really? Speaker 2 00:39:07  Yeah, I don't believe. I don't think so. Cryptids. Speaker 1 00:39:09  Really? Speaker 2 00:39:10  I'm not aliens. I'm not sure. Ghosts I don't believe in. Okay, okay. Speaker 1 00:39:15  All right. Okay. We were friends right up until. Let's see, what's the mark on there? 3605. Speaker 2 00:39:21  It's okay. You think that Bigfoot exists? Speaker 1 00:39:23  I. I think that the best, the best answer I ever got from it was from Doctor Terry Silky. our wonderful big. One of the biggest philanthropists in town. who's a orthodontic specialist for Lake County. Big shout out, Terry. he said that we think about all the things that we've gone through, like from history, from dinosaurs, to, like, all this thing. He's like, if you don't think it's a distinct possibility that we have a Bigfoot, maybe. Speaker 1 00:39:48  Maybe not today. Right. But maybe in the past. Like with all the things that we've had, he said. But, you know, this guy's been on 20 safaris and you've seen the whole thing. Speaker 2 00:39:58  You would think that there would be, like, Bigfoot heads mounted in the Smithsonian, you know. Speaker 1 00:40:03  Or at Bill's Pub. Speaker 2 00:40:04  Or Bill's Pub. Definitely. You know. I mean, there would be that. And I mean, the fact is, like, I know people lie and they sometimes lie for attention. So ergo, could it have been a hoax, too? Oh. Speaker 1 00:40:15  Maybe. Speaker 2 00:40:16  Right. Speaker 1 00:40:16  And actually, if anybody's watching, I just got this shirt as a gift. It's come from. It's from Logan, Ohio. And they have a, in the summertime. They have a Bigfoot festival there. Yeah. So my only thing is, if he doesn't exist, because this is this podcast is really about Bigfoot. It's not about you. Just so you know. Speaker 2 00:40:35  But I. Speaker 1 00:40:35  Hear you. But why or why is it such a big hoax everywhere? Then why do they have festivals for these? Speaker 2 00:40:40  Cute. I mean, like, people, you know? I mean, people, like, they think he's adorable. He's funny. He's like a meme. I think before memes. Speaker 1 00:40:47  Kill people, I think that might be. Speaker 2 00:40:49  What about Harry and the Hendersons? He was nice. Speaker 1 00:40:51  Yeah, that was just a. That's fiction. Like, he was nice, like Notting Hill. Speaker 2 00:40:54  He would always be like. He would always, like, hide bashfully in the closet. He's cool. Speaker 1 00:40:59  And John Lithgow, isn't that too? Speaker 2 00:41:00  He's nice. Right? He's always frustrated here. He does something. Speaker 1 00:41:04  Well, when I have evidence, I'm calling you. Speaker 2 00:41:06  Call me. I would love to be proven wrong about this, and I will. I would be happy to to to shake Bigfoot's hand. Speaker 1 00:41:12  Okay, good. Because now that we have these new phones that have better, you know, they focus better. Speaker 1 00:41:16  Now we'll get a clear picture of them, not just the fuzzy ones. Speaker 2 00:41:19  I only wish that Nessie was existing. The Loch Ness monster, that's my favorite cryptid. And I have never seen any good proof of that. That's a darn shame. Speaker 1 00:41:28  Yeah, well, hey, you never know. We're finding out all kinds of fun things these days. You never know. All right, so I think it's time we switch off of our hotseat. Questions that we've covered the really important stuff. Thank you. one thing I want to thank you for, because I know that you are a part of an organization, here, which is the Exchange Club. Yeah. so I know that, let's talk for people that aren't familiar with the Exchange Club. What is it? What is it based upon? Speaker 2 00:41:53  Okay, so the Exchange Club is cool. It's really an old organization. It's from, I don't know, 1913. And it is a group that I like in Grayslake because I just get together with my friends and have lunch. Speaker 2 00:42:05  Right. You know, so it's a bunch of business and community leaders. or not even, I mean, not at all. Some of them are just regular people. We have a, you know, like, I don't know, I want to say a retired teacher, not a community leader, but, you know, retired teachers come. And we had a retired accountant lady for a long time. And, you know, people that are just townies. Right. and, they come on, they have lunch where at first draft it's noon. if anybody wants to come to the Exchange Club, it's free lunch. Call me. (847) 549-0600. You can be my guest, but I like the Exchange club, because the main thing is that they plan big parties for the town. You know, they have the craft beer festival, you know, they do, stuff with, I got a taste of Grayslake downtown summer thing. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:42:46  And what did you change the name of all the time? Summer days. Speaker 1 00:42:48  Summer days, Summerfest. Speaker 2 00:42:50  They. but they they do cool stuff. They raise money and then they give that money away to kids in grades, like to go to school, right? Speaker 1 00:42:56  SIPs for scholarships. That's what the, the the craft beer festival is. Speaker 2 00:42:59  Yes. And then and it's good money. They're like, here's a thousand bucks, kid. And it's a Grayslake student that's a top student to go to college. You know, they do good stuff like that. They promote Americanism. you know, what is that? It is what? It's that Americanism is like liking 911 and being interested in our country and like. Right. You know, so it's a cool organization. Check it out. Speaker 1 00:43:21  Yeah. And I like all the nice things they do and the, the men and women that are involved in that. I happen to be fond of a lot of them. Yeah. I think the one day that I knew I knew nothing about the Exchange Club, and I think it was the day that you guys were doing your, you you had picked a couple of kids for scholarships. Speaker 1 00:43:36  You were giving them. And I saw these kids first. I was walking down to have an afternoon beer at the first draft or something like that. So I saw these two kids, like walking back to school and these big smiles on their faces. right? So I get to the bottom and a bunch of the Exchange Club members are hanging out, and to see these men that were standing there, and they were so blown away and so happy and so just straightforward, just happy about what they did. It was it made me really have a fondness for the organization. Speaker 2 00:44:05  And I just want to shout out to the Grayslake kids from North and Central. They're like really fantastic kids, you know? the some of the kids that are winning these awards, I mean, back when I was a kid, I tried to get good grades. I tried to do well in my tests, but otherwise I just went home. Speaker 1 00:44:22  How did I get so smart? Speaker 2 00:44:23  I don't, and they. And they have the energy, this boundless energy that is really. Speaker 2 00:44:27  It's admirable and kind of scary. So God level, I mean, whatever. Speaker 1 00:44:33  Which is. Speaker 2 00:44:34  Good. Don't you ever nap, you know, don't you ever eat too much pizza and then go to sleep, right, like me. So. Speaker 1 00:44:39  Right. Right. And especially as a high school kid. Right. And these guys are doing really, really well with things. Yeah. Speaker 6 00:44:44  Hey, Lake County, I know you know, a teacher out there that needs to be recognized. I'm Jodi, former educator, now realtor, and I'm here representing Educators Advantage. We want you to nominate a teacher of the month. Click the link in the show notes and nominate your favorite teacher. Make your favorite teacher feel appreciated and give them a shout out. Speaker 1 00:45:09  Cool! So I love to see people that get involved with organizations, especially like when going back, like the Safe Place kind of things. So explain this to me too. Are there more than one location for Safe Place? Because there's one in Zion. Speaker 1 00:45:21  Is there also one in Mundelein? Speaker 2 00:45:23  So okay, that is the family visitation center. Okay. Okay. That I believe has moved. Okay. So you'd want to check with Safe Place about the details for when I was involved in the organization. They had two places. They had a women's shelter. That was like a big apartment building in Zion, and it's tucked away. So you don't know about it, right? God love them. But then they also have a really important role that they play, having to do with, facilitating visitation or exchanges of parties that have, like ops against each other. Orders of protection. Yep. Okay. So you've got to go there. You, like drop off your kid in the front, and then dad comes in the back, and then they have like a meeting and they hang out for an hour and have pizza. And then there's people watching, like little child. Jimmy smiled when you saw dad. Right. And they take notes and they give that to the court and the safe place. Speaker 2 00:46:16  Like, honestly, so many exchanges, so much visitation just couldn't happen because of the acrimony between the parties. But for what a safe place does. So they're cool. They're they're fantastic. Speaker 1 00:46:27  I love them and it's nice. And I like places that are put together that look for the best for the children and to keep them safe to and keep, because sometimes just two people just don't get along. So that's a nice way to then get in there. Speaker 2 00:46:38  It's one of the toughest things about family cases is when you have a tremendous amount of acrimony, even like a good divorce, where it's just. I don't love him anymore. You know, you've got to co-parent the kid. But when it's a situation where it's like he raped me or he beat me up, or he right got 60 Y's or he. Whatever those cases, you know, the judges are very reluctant to totally shut out a parent. So they'll give him or her sometimes. Sometimes it's a her, you know, supervised visitation, wrangled by a safe place or supervised by perhaps somebody else, like a mom or grandma or whatever. Speaker 2 00:47:13  Okay. but those, those organizations that facilitate the, the best interest of the kid and the, the parenting time, the the courts. I don't know how they could function before that. That, safe place started doing that. Speaker 1 00:47:26  Yeah. No, it must be a really, really hard thing to do. well, one of the things that I really enjoy, I have to tell you, because I was having a conversation before we got together today, and a man was, who's potential, guest on another show was asking me my my, my motivations on why he wanted to come on. And the guy clearly, wanted to come out and just advertise his business. Right. And I was trying to explain to him that this these are the conversations you are having. You and I are having right now that I really like that. very soon, hopefully, we're gonna have Chief Myra chief of police on, because I really like humanizing. some people have jobs or positions that people don't really get to know, right? So if I had to hire somebody for a family attorney or a DUI attorney or a criminal attorney, I hope that I get to listen to the show so that they get to know your personality, to know that you're a human being, right? Speaker 2 00:48:16  My personality is is unique, but there are a lot of really good attorneys in Lake County. Speaker 2 00:48:21  I'm happy to help people. Whatever. Speaker 1 00:48:23  Yeah. Well, no. And I think it's nice. Speaker 2 00:48:24  I like to be humble. I'm not trying to. Well, you're very humble out there, right? I'm not. I'm not trying to be like. Oh, yeah. I'm like the only one around because I'm not, you know, and like I said, in Lake County, we're blessed with a strong bench and bar, right. You know, and honestly, I get along with just about all of them. Speaker 1 00:48:40  That's cool. Okay, so let's do this. because of people. So let's, to help our listeners out there listening. So let's talk. first of all, when starting to divorce proceedings like they're they know they're going to get divorced, maybe some advice on how they go about finding an attorney that would be right for them. Is that a hard question? Speaker 2 00:49:00  Yeah. So finding an attorney. I mean, a lot of people want to do word of mouth. They talk to their their cousin. Speaker 2 00:49:06  How you got divorced in Lake County. Tell me who you use and then call that guy. That's probably a good decision. Speaker 1 00:49:12  Not to tell you who not to use. Speaker 2 00:49:13  Right? Speaker 1 00:49:14  In their opinion, though, totally right. maybe the decision didn't go their way so it could be false information, right? Speaker 2 00:49:21  Totally. A lot of people just go to Google and they'll Google like Libertyville divorce attorney or Lake County divorce attorney or whatever. And you can get hits there. And you look at their Google reviews we have I mean, my law firm has fantastic reviews, but that's just because we try to just, I don't know, do a good job and then clear the case. You know, try to Because, like, if you take one guy's divorce case and you're like a vampire on his neck and you drain him till he's totally out of blood. Well, you know, that's one case, okay? I'd rather just, like, help a guy and then get a good review and help another guy and get a good review and help a guy and get a good review, and then just, like, kind of build it up that way. Speaker 2 00:49:56  That's way better, right? Speaker 1 00:49:58  And with integrity, when you're walking away, then you can sleep at night and make sure that you know that you can help people out. Speaker 2 00:50:04  I sleep. Speaker 1 00:50:04  At night. Right. That's good. Yeah. All right, so how about, DUI? Speaker 2 00:50:09  So. Okay. How to find a DUI attorney or. So same. Speaker 1 00:50:13  Thing. I know how to get one. Speaker 2 00:50:14  I know. Speaker 1 00:50:15  It's just not the. Speaker 2 00:50:16  Attorney. So, I mean, man, I use Lyfts now. Yes. You know, I, I really do I. Speaker 1 00:50:21  I cheapest thing to do. Right. Speaker 2 00:50:23  It's 20 bucks here and back and you don't have to worry about. Am I going to get in trouble. Right. You know, and you don't have to worry about. Am I going to hurt somebody or whatever? Speaker 1 00:50:32  So yeah, I heard somebody. Maybe it was another stupid social media thing I saw. But there again, like it was a $20 ride home, right? For, let's say I have to go from Grayslake up to Atkinson, like at the bar. Speaker 1 00:50:42  How many Lyft rides would it take to equal to a two? Would it cost to hire an attorney to go through the DUI process? Speaker 2 00:50:51  So I think it was NHTSA, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, one of those organizations, used to run a billboard campaign here in Lake County. And one of the billboards I remember was a picture of a kid blowing into a portable breath test. And there's the police cars, lights behind him, and it says, you just blew $10,000. Speaker 1 00:51:12  Most people have no idea what to do with their aging loved one who needs help. Well, there is a solution. A company that provides care and assistance to make your loved one feel right at home, at right, at home. Their mission statement is to improve the quality of life for those they serve. They offer extensive services personal and companion care, safety, supervision and transportation, fall prevention, dressing and bathing assistance. Medical reminders, meal prep, hospice support, ambulation support, stroke recovery, Parkinson's support, the list goes on and on and on. Speaker 1 00:51:43  If you have an aging loved one that needs help, call. Right at home. Most people prefer to age in their home rather than moving to an assisted living or nursing home. Right at home can make this happen. Contact right at home at right at home NHL.com or give them a call (847) 984-0103. Now back to the show. Speaker 2 00:52:02  You know, which I think is like not inaccurate. Speaker 1 00:52:06  Ten. Speaker 2 00:52:06  Grand right. Because like so the legal fees like, I don't know, cheap one 2500, you know, a hot felony DUI 568, whatever, $1,000. So that's good money there. But even for your first time misdemeanor DUI, you're spending 2500, $3,500 on a lawyer. And then you get the fines, the court costs. There are 3 or $4000. There's treatment that you must do, you know, so you do alcohol or risk evaluations and pay for the classes and then woo woo. It gets to be expensive. So yeah, you know,

- Skunk Hour by Robert Lowell- Bill Murray NYT Interview- Scion xB 2004- Any Person Is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert- Normal Distance by Elisa Gabbert

Jason, Andy and Dana welcome Danny back on the podcast to discuss what they were up to this last week.  Gotcha! coming this Wednesday.

 This is The Spoon, where Peter Anthony Holder is our guest, and we're Venice Beach for parkas.  Music By Doug And The Slugs  Bedouin Soundclash Nathaniel Rateliff Kim Mitchell Spoon Feeding Trailer Park Boys Malus Zine  Portrait Artist Of The Year Employee Of The Month The Men Of The Spoon Robbie Rist Chris Jackson Thom Bowers The Spoon Facebook Group The Spoon Facebook Page Email: the_spoon_radio@yahoo.com

Fresh from a techno festival, Andrew's planning an escape to Lion's Head National Park in Canada while working through therapy insights about procrastination.

37:00 Context from the Whatever podcast that the tweet deliberately omits. Big thanks to Andrew Wilson for helping us find the timecode in that 6 hour stream! Join us on the show as we give our perspective on a clip that "exposes" Andrew Wilson for the FRAUD that he is! Or does it?

Just going through the email and everything, you know? Just going through the email. Let's do this. Let's go to the phones again. Let's go to, Joe in Rock Hill. Yes, sir. Hey, Bill. How are you doing today? I'm okay. Thanks for holding, by the way. Thank you. No. It's good because a great topic of why you have to escape blue states. I escaped Long Island, New York 3 Years ago because the corruption and this is on Long Island. This isn't even the city. It's just astounding. My taxes on on a home that was 1,900 square foot and a quarter acre of property was over $13,000 a year. Now that was property taxes, school taxes and town taxes combined. But you start seeing all the grips. You got teachers making $200,000 a year, superintendents of school districts making a half a million dollars a year. You got the county executive making $250,000 a year. His wife is in charge of the park parks department making $250,000 a year. He's brought up on corruption charges. The DA is brought up on corruption charges. The chief of police was brought up thinking he was the Old Beach, serial killer at one time. They haven't solved that case either. You you start seeing where all your money goes, and then I'm I'm driving on streets that have potholes that are taking out my rims. You call the town up. Well, that's not our problem. You know, it just and you look at the town employees. They all have the same last name. It it's just like you can't you can't defeat these people. And trust me, I tried for years involved in my local school boards. You start finding out the people elected to school boards are teachers in other districts, so they gotta keep the grip going. Right. Because if their contract doesn't get passed, then the one the district they're in won't get passed. It's it's such a uphill battle to try and fix these places, and and the last call is right. Until people really start going and serving real jail time, it it nothing will ever change. And the other problem is is these officials, the taxpayer always ends up paying the lawyer's fees because they were official employees of the town or or or or or the the the county, and and there's an obligation to pay these lawyer's fees, which turn out to be connected law firms that make millions of dollars fighting this stuff over periods of time. It's crazy. Yeah. I I've always I know some people are out of New York like yourself and some of the things they tell me about how deep and how winding it is and you're thinking, well, sooner or later just because of the law of averages, I should run into something that isn't full of grift. But you never do, do you? No. It it it just never you know? And to give you an example, okay, Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. I was about eight years old when they started building it. I was still paying on my electric bill a surcharge for a power plant that was built and dismantled. And one of the reasons we had some of the highest electric rates in the country because they decided that it it we couldn't have an evacuation plan. They would never let it run. But every taxpayer or every investor on that project got paid out, and and and they're still paying for that power plant. The one school district that benefited for years, they at one point, it came out in in a newspaper article that they were paying for violin lessons for four students that was costing the school district $500,000 a year because of all the extra money they were getting from the power plant that never ran. Right. It's like the bridge to nowhere in California. Gotcha. Anyway I can't take it anymore. You the the best thing to do is to get out while the getting is good and go enjoy life somewhere where it's actually America. Yeah. Because I I I now I had a very rare full carry permit for the state of New York, because of my connections in law enforcement and stuff. But, I I sold my house there for max money. And if you would have told me in twenty something years what I would have sold my ...

Kiera is joined by Mark Rasmussen, CEO of Moolah, to talk about the landscape of credit card fees and how to reduce them, membership discount plans, and other bonus features offered by the dental payment tech company. (Pssst, Mark was last on episode 866, It's Time to Modernize Payment Processing!) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am super jazzed because I have a guest here who's going to help us with cashflow leaks, modernizing your practice, figuring out those membership plans, all the things that you need and want. We're going to talk about some case studies. This is one of my absolute favorite guests, Mark Rasmussen, CEO, owner, founder, Moolah. How are you today, Mark? Welcome to the show.   Mark Rasmussen (00:22) Hey, Kara, I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing awesome. So, so, so it's connected with you and your listeners and excited to get into all this juicy good stuff about revenue and payments and modernizing things. Let's do it. I love it.   Kiera Dent (00:31) Yeah.   Let's   do it. So I have a slight crush on Moolah. Like truly you guys like just make credit card processing easy. And so what I want to start off, if you guys don't listen, Mark and I have done other podcasts in the past together. ⁓ But I don't know, Mark, what you guys say on your email subject lines, like on your little, what is it your signature, but I feel like it should be like your new favorite credit card processing company. Like that's what I feel like Moolah's tagline should be because I wanted to do a couple case studies with you since we last chatted.   Mark Rasmussen (00:40) Hahaha   Kiera Dent (01:05) ⁓ Mark knows, like, I do have a crush on Moolah. I try to get them to come and be our processor too.   Mark Rasmussen (01:10) I need to like soundbite clip that,   like I have a crush on Moolah just like everywhere in social. I love that.   Kiera Dent (01:15) I   do. do because I like companies that make things easy, but also are like the cheapest on the market and credit card fees are one of my biggest beefs. Like really truly I get annoyed when I look to see how much credit card fees are charging. And when you guys, ⁓ deadly team listeners, just so you know, I'm going to throw it out there. Like anybody who goes through our link literally saves 10 basis points. ⁓   on it, which is huge to get anywhere in the credit card industry. So you're getting below that 2.99. So you're getting 2.89 on cards not present and 2.39. And I hope that Mark, I'm allowed to say that because I'm just going to be bold and brazen. And if not, we'll cut that out. So don't stress about that.   Mark Rasmussen (01:52) No, no, no, for sure. And   not only that, it's like, that's not just a like teaser rate, like they look, your practices will get that preferred rate forever, right, which is awesome. And, and it's like you and I were talking a little bit earlier, too, of like, a bit of shock and awe of like, I and myself as well, I've been seeing like some statements from potential practices. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, I'm like, I'm seeing like,   Kiera Dent (02:03) which is so big and you don't add extra heat.   Mark Rasmussen (02:19) six, seven, eight percent, like net effective rates. I know you were saying you have been seeing even higher. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost criminal.   Kiera Dent (02:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it   does feel criminal because like here's the thing like you might get a cheaper rate somewhere else but when you look and dig into the details and this is where it feels annoying and obnoxious to me and doesn't happen right away it happens like when you've stopped looking at it you're like I've checked my credit card company for years they don't do anything and then all of a sudden it starts creeping up and being eerie and that's where I just get annoyed and that's why like I have a crush on Moolah because you guys don't do it and you guys stay consistent for it so   I felt Mark and I, you didn't listen to our last podcast, we'll definitely link it in the show notes for you. But Mark, I felt we should kick today off with some case studies because I have some clients that I've recommended over to Moolah. And I think my favorite one is we were looking and I had a practice and our overhead was high. So like this practice, they don't love to like look at numbers. They have an amazing CPA. Like I will say we do look at numbers, but they're kind of like, yeah, carry it. We'll just like out produce our problems a little bit. And that's fine. Like anybody can have that. But I said, Hey,   Mark Rasmussen (03:17) Alright.   Kiera Dent (03:21) Your credit card fees are really high. think that they were honestly like 10%. And I'm like, is that really true? Like that just seems outlandish. And they said, well, Kiera, we're in a contract. Mark, do you want to throw up with contracts? Tell me about credit card contracts.   Mark Rasmussen (03:33) Oh, I hate contracts. I hate contracts   like really in anything in my life. I don't know. So yeah, but that's, it's just crazy. The industry for the longest time has like felt the need to like lock these business owners and not just Dennis, but business owners in like these typically it's like three year contracts. And then, you know, they'll have like termination fees. And so they take advantage of that. And like you were saying, I talked to so many practices are like, Oh, I'm paying X and you know, they were paying X the first month that they signed up.   And then they didn't look at it, like you said, and then six months later, eight months later, the processor started like nudging it up, nudging it up, nudging it up. And to the point where when you look at what their rates are, you know, two years from when they signed up, it's like almost 180 degrees difference. So yeah, please you guys out there, please make sure you stay on your credit card processing. Look at those month end statements. Look at, you know, what is being nudged up because   Kiera Dent (04:19) Yeah.   Mark Rasmussen (04:28) You know, they'll just slip it in a little statement message. They're not forthcoming about it. I promise you they're not like, shooting you multiple emails or calling you and be like, hey, we're going to increase your rate. No, no, no, no, no. They're going to slip it under the table and hope that you never pay attention to it, which is really what happens because you guys are all busy. You guys are all doing amazing care on patients and you're not paying attention to that. That's the reality.   Kiera Dent (04:49) And it's creepy to me because it's also done on things that don't make sense. Like I feel like reading a credit card statement with what they're charging is like reading very highly processed foods. And I'm like, I have no clue what 90 % of these words are. And I feel like it's the same thing when you come to a credit card statement. And so back to this practice, what we did, there's two case studies I wanted to bring to the table today that are my own personal clients that I've referred over to Moolah that I signed up with Moolah. So this practice, again, overhead, let's out produce our problems.   Mark Rasmussen (05:00) That's a good comparison, I like that.   Kiera Dent (05:18) And it was wild because the first month they switched to Moolah, their CPA sent a letter to all of us and said like, hey, what'd you do? Did you switch credit card companies? Your fees are so much lower. Like that fast first month drop down. So we went from about a 10 % fee on what they're producing and collecting to then dropping it down to this 2.89 to 2.39, depending upon if card was present or not, which is super awesome also because then you can get cards.   Mark Rasmussen (05:28) guys.   Kiera Dent (05:44) on auto renew, like on just processing internally and you don't have to, like you can have cards present or not present within the practice, which is so awesome. ⁓ But I was shocked like that fast. And then another practice that we brought to Moolah, they were locked in with another credit card company. And so I didn't know you couldn't do this, Mark. So this was like rookie mistake on me. Like I was, I'm scrappy and I thought, well, okay, fine. You guys are in a contract. So.   just stop processing through that processor, switch everything over to Moolah. Well, you know this Mark and I was rookie so you know what happens. Do you know what happens with those companies?   Mark Rasmussen (06:21) No,   listen, I said that a lot too because technically, really, if the practice is in a contract, and I've said that before, you probably have these miscellaneous junk fees, these monthly minimums that are gonna hit maybe 20, $30 a month. But even if you're paying that minimum and you saved thousands over here, who cares? Pay that minimum, just write that contract out. What happened here in this scenario? Okay.   Kiera Dent (06:44) That was exactly what I said too. So   that's what, cause I was like, why not? I thought the exact same thing. I'm like, okay, if we're looking at, you're able to save 3%, 4 % like higher amounts and we're processing, even if you're processing a hundred thousand or 200,000, like that extra two, 3 % do the math. Like that's surely going to offset the cost. Well, what happened is we actually did that. So a client signed up with you guys. They did that. And we got a letter from the other processor saying,   Mark Rasmussen (06:54) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (07:11) that, we have a minimum and if we don't hit it, it was going to be substantial and to get out of contract, it was going to cost us a thousand dollars. So we literally said, fine, take the thousand dollars because we'd already saved that much through Moolah's savings to be able to like, we're just like, like it's a done deal. Like they were trying to threaten them with this thousand dollar fee, but we were like, that's so minimal to get us out of this contract based on how much we were saving. Now this practice was processing a decent chunk.   Mark Rasmussen (07:32) Right. Right.   Kiera Dent (07:38) But I think even if you're processing like 70,000, 80,000, that one, 2 % stacks up. Like it's insane how much we pay in credit card fees. So those are like the two that I wanted to bring to the, like I said, this is why I have a crush because I hate credit card fees so much. And that's going to lead into our next topic. But Mark, anything you want to add? Cause these were two cases that I've watched since we last met.   Mark Rasmussen (07:45) yeah.   I love that.   Kiera Dent (08:00) ⁓ I'm constantly on the prowl for cheaper people. I love that you guys don't charge for the terminals. You have it set up the next day. There's no contracts. Like that's where I said, like it's your new favorite, like credit card processing. You don't increase the fees. You give our clients reduced rates. If you have multi locations, you guys also take care of those practices. Like it's amazing what you guys do. So that's my like pitch for Moolah, but if you want to add anything else.   Mark Rasmussen (08:22) I love that. wanted to, because you just   like rang a memory. So what you were referring to in that practice, right, where like, okay, you can't just skate by and just pay the minimum, right? Or they were gonna hit him with his fee. Well, another thing I'm gonna tell your listeners out there is, listen, if you don't go with Moolah, great, do your homework. But one thing to look out that I've seen in contracts, which is crazy, is that sometimes you'll see a contract, all right, if you cancel early, it's like a 350 termination fee. Okay, fine.   but I've seen others out there where the processor says they try to enforce liquidated damages. So the processor will say, oh, we've been making, you're in a three year contract, on average we're making like, whatever, $500 a month on your processing. If you leave us now, it's not early termination fee, we're gonna calculate that $500 for the remaining 16, 17 months and they hit you with this liquidated damages thing, crazy. So just be on the lookout for that. If you're doing anywhere that's a contract,   Kiera Dent (08:57) No.   Mark Rasmussen (09:20) Look out for liquidated damages, that's no bueno, but better yet, find somebody that's just not gonna put you in a contract. Much easier.   Kiera Dent (09:26) Yeah. And   also like, okay, Mark, help me understand. And maybe you don't know because you guys don't do this and that's okay. But to me, it feels really funny that I signed a contract with them and there's got to be something in the fine print because I'm like, how did they go from what they told me to being able to add all these extra surcharges later on and increase it when we're in a contract?   Mark Rasmussen (09:43) for sure it's in the fine print.   yeah. It says that any, it basically says that any time at our discretion with 30 days notice, we can make an adjustment to any of your pre-schedule. And so they'll just do that. And then they'll just put a little message, you know, really small font in whatever kind of notification. And you know, in their minds, right? All right, well, we checked off the box. It's super shady. It sucks, but it's, you know, it's out there. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (10:05) Yeah, it is what it is. And I would say   they'll like look at it because two clients that were in contract, we were able to send over every person that I've sent to you guys have just loved who you are, that it's easy, that it's fast, that it's the cheapest processing. And there's a few other features that I think we should talk about. I feel like I'm on like a Moolah sales pitch right now. Like I'm truly not. I just get giddy. Like if you guys hear me talk about Swell,   Mark Rasmussen (10:27) Ha   Kiera Dent (10:30) was Zeke and Google reviews. I have a crush on Swell. They just do Google reviews better than anyone else. And right now, Moolah for sure, you guys are taking the cake on being able to do credit card processing better than any other company that I've come across, which I think is amazing. And so something else that I think is ratcheting fees on practices when we're looking for some of these cashflow leaks is on membership plans. Now, I'm a huge proponent of membership plans. I also think with the economy, with where insurance is reimbursing, ⁓ people are starting to look at like   should we be going out of network? And my big proposal is, hey, yeah, of course, if you want to do that rock on, membership plans really can help with that. But ⁓ there are some membership companies that actually charge pretty outlandish fees. I never wanted to pay for that. I was scrappy in a practice. So what I did is I just charged the patient an annual fee. Well, that was like eight years ago that I was charging an annual fee. And I think you look at today's world, no one wants an annual fee anymore. They just want like a monthly fee and they want it to be low.   Mark Rasmussen (11:02) for   Right. Right.   Kiera Dent (11:28) But managing that is nonsense on my own paying for it. And Moolah, like I've heard through the grapevine, you guys are doing something with membership fees. Can we talk about the membership plans? Talk about how you guys do this. Is it easier? Is it something we can do? Because I think membership plans have to come into play with the insurance situation that offices are in. And also possibly a cash leak if you're paying for heavy management fees on your membership plans.   Mark Rasmussen (11:37) Yeah, yeah, absolutely.   Yeah. So listen, membership discount plans. I've since I've been, I've only been in the industry, you know, dental industry for about four years now. And every year I feel like it's getting traction. More practices are asking about us. I have practices that are doing demos with us and they're like, Hey, I'm doing this demo is driving it because I heard you guys do, you know, membership, discount plan management. And so yes, the answer is we do. ⁓   And as you were looking to, there's a lot of great vendors in this space that just do that, right? And I'm not going to name any names, but there's a lot of great vendors, but they're not inexpensive. Like, you know, there's some decent SAS fees and then you pay per patient enrollment. ⁓ And so when it's, you know, when you look at the net net and you're like, okay, is this really making sense? So what's nice is that we have complete membership discount plan management built into the platform. You can create all your plans. ⁓ You can easily onboard the patient into the system.   Kiera Dent (12:21) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   Mark Rasmussen (12:48) whether the patient wants to go monthly or annual, like you said, you were doing annual and a lot of the practices that I run into have historically been doing it annually, right? Because to think about billing it on a monthly basis has you like pulling your hair out. But the reality is that the patients and the consumers in the world that we live in, ⁓ everybody looks at whatever they're gonna bring into their life, whether it's a Netflix subscription or it's a car payment or it's anything else, everybody kind of looks at at a monthly basis.   Kiera Dent (13:02) Too hard.   Mark Rasmussen (13:17) And so that is what you want to be delivering. And so with the Moolah platform, you can absolutely manage an in-house membership discount plan and offer both annual and monthly options and truly set it and forget it. Not have to think about it. The system's going to run. The system's going to automatically post that payment into the ledger. In open dental, we even go a step further where when you enroll the patient into the membership, not only are we handling the billing element of it,   But we're also going into the PMS and we're associating that patient to that membership discount plan and keeping track. You know, that's what's really doing all the heavy lifting of keeping track of whatever the one free cleaning of the 10 % off services. And we keep that in lockstep. So if there was like a billing issue, we automatically disassociate the patient from the plan to really just kind of make it pain free. you know, membership discount plans are phenomenal. It's a win win for patients and practice. First of all, it brings some really great reoccurring   Kiera Dent (13:51) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mark Rasmussen (14:14) like trackable revenue into the practice, right? Number two, it's bringing patients like butts in seats ⁓ as well. ⁓ Because the patient looks like, I'm paying $40 a month. I should use it. I should be in there. ⁓ And it's bringing value to the patient. So it's literally just a win-win all around. I really love that for, you know, when you're looking at out of network patients ⁓ and the absolutely, you know, the platform has it built in. So you guys, please, if you're looking at discount plans, memberships,   I encourage you to look at some of the other great vendors out there and then come take a look at us last and see like the value that you get that's included.   Kiera Dent (14:49) That's awesome. Yeah. And again, like there are so many great people out there that are doing it. I just feel, ⁓ when I heard that you guys were doing membership plans, I was like, well, it kind of makes sense because you're already processing credit cards. Like you're already doing the processing. So now something else that is doing a processing is in my processor, into my software, which I just, that was so incredibly clever. And, ⁓ like again, I had another client who, who scoped you against other companies and they were like, gosh, like there's no fees.   Mark Rasmussen (15:03) Great.   Kiera Dent (15:17) compared to other companies with moolah. So that was something I was really excited about. I'm big on just, it's like my insurance. I've been with State Farm forever. And Jason and I giggled, we're like, we need to go and actually like assess and make sure that we're truly getting the best plans. And so I just think like it's good to periodically go and assess and make sure our credit card fees, what they were when we set up.   our membership plans making sense? Is it time to look to possibly renegotiate some certain things? And again, I'm not here to propose one company over another. Like Mark said, do your homework, figure out what's best because there's so many great companies out there. I just really love when it's simple and easy. And that's something I love about you guys, Mark, you guys have the fact that we can send patient statements and like have payments online and they can pay it all times of the day. Like just that alone boosts offices, collections with Moulin. So Mark, I want to go into a dicey topic with you though.   because this one's hot. We had it in our in-person ⁓ doctor and leadership mastermind when we were in Arizona and I loved it. It was like a hot, hot topic and heads up like this might be awkward for you. I don't think it will because of who you are, but there's the question of, and it was hot, like the room was split of people who were pro and con. So the question is with credit card fees being as much as they were, we talked about at the beginning, like ways that we can reduce it.   Mark Rasmussen (16:10) Let's do it.   I know, I wanna hear what the feedback was, because I know where you're going.   Kiera Dent (16:40) Then we talked about reducing membership plans. Now there's a question of, should we actually charge patients the credit card fees? Like this is becoming really popular and I don't blame businesses because inflation's high, labor is higher. So now we're trying to figure out like where could we cut? And so people are like, well, sweet, we're just gonna pass on the credit card fees to our patients. And the room was spicy. There was like people that were so pro and people that like literally people were bristly and it was a...   Mark Rasmussen (17:05) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (17:06) It was quite interesting. So your credit card company, which is where I feel like it's a little awkward to ask you this question, but I want to know, we pro, are we con? Should we charge the patients from your perspective? We're in 2025. So many companies do this. Should people be charging patients the credit card fee? Should they just raise their fees and bake it in? Like, what are your thoughts on this? Because my room was 50 50 split. And I will tell you some of the feedback if you want to hear it, cause it was quite interesting.   Mark Rasmussen (17:13) Yeah.   Okay, okay.   I do. Okay, so the first   thing I want to point out is I expect you to say that the room is split, right? Like half of them are like, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm not paying for my patients' reward points. And I think the other half of the room was like, yeah, but I'm worried about the optics. Does it look like we're trying to be cheesy or nickel and diming our patients, right? Those are the two ends that are battling each other. The interesting thing is that this hot topic, ⁓ if you would have asked that just three years ago,   Kiera Dent (17:38) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm. No.   Mark Rasmussen (18:01) it wouldn't have been 50 50. It   would have been like 80 90 % saying no way and 10 % made me do it. So the trend is is like it is going right and two or three years from now I have a feeling it's going to be like 80 % are doing it and 20 % are not doing it. So the cat is out of the bag. Let's just get that you know right out there in the open. What do I think about it? I'm to be super Switzerland about this and I'm going to say that I think   Kiera Dent (18:06) Agreed. 100 % agree.   I would agree with you.   Remember he's   a credit card processing company.   Mark Rasmussen (18:31) Well,   no, I'm going to say that I think that as a vendor who delivers credit card processing service, I think that I should enable our practices to make that choice for themselves. I think whatever you think you should do for your practice, I want to support it. So if you don't want to do surcharging, great, we love that. If you do want to do surcharging, great, I love that. I just want to give the tools to the practice so they can make that decision. Now, aside what I think about it,   It's a very interesting topic to talk about. Well, what is the net result? I like, all right, how does it work? What does it save? Let's get into it if I may. Okay, so there's a couple ways. There is absolutely there. There is, and there's a couple flavors to this. There's a couple flavors to this. ⁓ there, the, the, what that we do, let me talk about that first. So what we do is what's referred to as compliance surcharging and with compliance surcharging, what is, what you're doing is that   Kiera Dent (19:06) I agree. Cause like, are there rules around it? Like, you actually have to do anything? Okay. I have no idea. Okay.   Mark Rasmussen (19:28) When a customer's paying you with a credit card, the system, system, I'll just speak to our system, most others are similar, but when a patient is paying you, whether it's in practice on the device or whether you sent a text to pay or it's an online payment, our system automatically, real time, looks at the number that the patient put in or used on the terminal. And within a half a second, we're looking back at the credit card network before we even charge it, and we say, is this a credit or is this a debit? If the patient is paying with a credit card,   We then pop on the screen, either on their mobile device or on the terminal, we say, hey, we see you're using a credit card. We're going to add 2.99 % as a fee to you for using a credit card. If you want to use a debit card, you will avoid that fee. So in Compliance Surcharging, what I really like about that is that you're not charging us fee across debit and credit, right? You're still giving your patient the convenience of being able to pay with plastic.   Kiera Dent (20:19) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Mark Rasmussen (20:25) and still use a debit card because the reality is if you have a credit card in your wallet, there's probably 99 % chance you've got a Visa debit card in your wallet as well. And so you're not pulling away that convenience of them being able to pay plastic and just saying, hey, if you want to avoid that fee, pay cash or check. That's kind of archaic. So with compliance surcharging, you are going to offload your credit card fees to the patient, only the credit card fees. When they pay with a debit card, you will still pay for that, okay?   Kiera Dent (20:43) I agree.   Mark Rasmussen (20:55) With doing that with Moolah, if you're going to pay the debit fee and not pay the credit card fee, we see that the overall net effective rate for the practice ends up being below 1%. It ends up being like, I'm going to throw out a weird term that people are going, what the heck is that? It's usually going to be around 75 or 80 basis points. About three quarters of 1 % is going to be your net overall cost, which is huge savings, right? Huge savings.   Kiera Dent (21:07) No.   Crazy, like insane. Just do   some math. If you did a million dollars and you were able to basically save, gosh, so much.   Mark Rasmussen (21:28) No, let's just say,   the reality is you're probably saving one and a half percent. So on a million dollar practice, that practice is gonna put about $15,000 back to their bottom line. Like, and that's it, and it was painless. And you're still not really, yeah, exactly.   Kiera Dent (21:37) Exactly.   And that's also for payments you're already collecting. Like this is already   money we're collecting, we just get to keep more of it rather than having the credit card processing fee.   Mark Rasmussen (21:47) Yes.   And it doesn't need to like, you know, break brain cells for you to try and figure it out. Like the system is going to automatically calculate it. We're going to organize it. ⁓ It's just, it's painless. We're handling it in the PMS correctly. listen, the savings cannot be ignored. Like we talked about the cats out of the bag. You're going to see more businesses across more different verticals. ⁓ And the reality is   We've all been around it for a long, long time, right? Who's been doing it forever? Gas stations, right? We've seen it on there. Cash credit, right? That's been there forever. And we're all used to it. And you also typically see a lot when you're dealing with like state or federal agencies, you ever gone on and make an online tax payment, they usually charge a fee there. So it's just now getting more, you know, ⁓ rolling out. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (22:40) Nail salons for the girls out there. We all know the   nail salons. They'll say like, it's a 3 % charge if you use credit card. I'm like, here's your cash. Like it's clever. They push us to what they want.   Mark Rasmussen (22:49) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.   So it is listen. So I, I believe in delivering the technology to our clients, I don't have an opinion one way or the other, whatever you feel is good. I will tell you though that I think a lot of practices, especially on the on the one half of the room that are like against it. I think what we're finding is that people are not pushing back as much as   you think they are because consumers are just getting used to it. And again, the fact that at least with our practices, you're still giving your patient the ability to have that convenience and pay with a debit card and not have the fee. If they were doing like the model where they call it, know, cash discount, where you're going to hit the debit card and you're going to hit the credit card, I think you get more pushback on that, but you're still giving that convenience. So yeah, I'm a fan of it. We get, like I said, more and more requests of it. ⁓   It's not going anywhere. yeah, we're here to support your practice. If you guys want to try it out, try it out and listen, here's the thing.   Kiera Dent (23:50) Yeah.   How does it work in practice   though? Like, so someone's standing in front of me at a terminal, I'm collecting money in person. How does this work? Because it's not gonna pop up on my like treatment plan that I just gave them or on my ledger. So how do I do that?   Mark Rasmussen (24:00) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   It'll pop up on the terminal.   so first thing we do, we give the practices, ⁓ you know, some template messaging and they'll just want to put up something by the front desk. And it says something to the effect of that, you know, this office adds a surcharge when using a credit card, ⁓ not beyond, you know, what our costs are, right? This is not a money, additional money revenue is trying to like, you know, make arbitrage between costs and no, I'm only going to pass off. And so.   Kiera Dent (24:32) Great.   Mark Rasmussen (24:35) the patient is aware of it, they've seen it, and then when they go to use it on the terminal, if they're in practice, when they go to run the credit card, it will pop up on the screen and your team can just show it to the patient, they'll see it, that it's adding it because they're using the credit card. And it'll give them an option if they want to accept it or if they want to back out of it and try again with a debit card and avoid the fee, really easy.   Kiera Dent (24:58) Okay, that's actually really helpful. And now I have a question because I don't know this. How does this work? Because technically the practice is collecting more money, right? Like we are taking the fee plus the credit card fee. ⁓   Mark Rasmussen (25:10) Let's say it's $100 and let's just say we're   adding that surcharge so now it's $103. Okay? Yeah. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (25:14) Right, so that's $3 more per $100 transaction. But   does that impact them in tax? I would think no, because credit card companies still charging us the 3%. Like, how does this work? Are you following what I'm saying? how does this impact you?   Mark Rasmussen (25:26) Yeah, I do. So you   don't have anything else to like, you know, break your brain on that. Our system, first of all, will break out the surcharge in the reporting. Okay. So it's really clean. Furthermore, the addition, the $103, right, like the customer got charged, the patient got charged $103. But our system automatically calculates it, that you have a fee of 3 % and that you surcharge the patient 3%. So the practice is still just going to get the full $100.   Kiera Dent (25:36) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Mark Rasmussen (25:56) It's as if they took a cash payment. So it's easy for them. They're not getting 10.99 at the $103, so to speak. It's just still truly only taking $100, which is great.   Kiera Dent (25:57) Gotcha. Okay.   Mm-hmm. ⁓   Yeah, because that's what   I was curious like, and like some things have sales tax. So didn't know like surcharges, do they get taxed differently or is it just like accepting cash, same thing for a practice? Okay. Now, so that's really helpful. And that helps me see on the ledger. So are you guys synced into the PMS for it to say, because like if my ledger says a hundred dollars, but I'm now doing 3 % surcharge on it.   Mark Rasmussen (26:18) Exactly, total amount, total amount, yeah.   Yes.   Kiera Dent (26:35) I'm going to be posting $103. How do I make sure that all of my ledgers match up?   Mark Rasmussen (26:40) So   we'll post $100 in the ledger, okay? And then we'll have a procedure code for the surcharge. And then we'll also have an offsetting so that it doesn't mess up your balance. So you can easily run reports based on the procedure code. I can see what my surcharge is, but it's not messing up and showing that, I took in $103 on this $100 transaction. So your ledger is gonna stay nice and clean.   and not be a nightmare, 100%.   Kiera Dent (27:10) Okay,   because that's I was like, Oh, great. Because there was another office that I heard about. And Mark, I'm just curious about your opinion on this. And then we're gonna get back to this like spicy and thanks for walking through this. There was another practice, I've literally never heard of this before. So I'm curious if you have or if you recommend or don't this practice. So let's say a patient, the total is $100, they pay the $100, the practice literally posted on the ledger.   Mark Rasmussen (27:28) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (27:38) instead of being $100 because now they lost $3, they posted $97 on the ledger and they were taking out the surcharge. Have you ever heard of that? Because I had never heard it. I was, do you recommend that? Because I've never recommended that, right? And I think as a patient, I'd feel really angry though. no, I gave you 100 bucks, but you gave me 97. Like I would just.   Mark Rasmussen (27:48) I haven't.   That seems wonky. Yeah.   Right. Or   continue that on. How about now all of a sudden a week later you go to refund it and we're we're refunding you 97. You're like, no, no, no, I paid you 100. It's gonna be messed up in so many levels.   Kiera Dent (28:09) Right. I was just curious.   I was like, I mean, maybe I'm archaic on how I do this. I used to just do it that way and then accept that that would just be a cost on my PNL. But now there's a way for you to actually offset it with the process. So my question is going back to that, that's actually helpful. Thank you. So if you're doing that, definitely recommend not doing that anymore. ⁓ But I was like, Hey, I've never heard of this. Maybe that is the right way to do the accounting on it. But it felt very messy to me. Now,   Do we as the practice need to put in the surcharge as that procedure code when we're charging that out or does Moolah automatically sync it in and put the surcharge of the procedure code?   Mark Rasmussen (28:48) We have, yeah,   automatically done. There's nothing for you to do. Yeah. So during onboarding, we will set up, we will work with the practice, obviously. We'll make sure that we have a procedure code set up for them. And so during the onboarding, we'll have that so that when you do run a surcharge transaction like that, there's nothing you need to do. It'll all be handled in the ledger correctly.   Kiera Dent (28:51) Amazing. I love it. This is why I said I have a preference on you.   and you're in all softwares. What softwares does Moolah sink into?   Mark Rasmussen (29:10) Yes, so ⁓ Open Dental, ⁓ Dentrix, G7, and ⁓ newer server-based, not Ascend. And we're actually going to be ⁓ releasing, finally, this has been a long time coming, we're finally going live with Eagle Soft ⁓ Beta at end of next week. So Open Dental, Dentrix, and Eagle Soft. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (29:28) Awesome.   That's awesome. Okay, very cool. And   then if you're not in one of those and you can just obviously add this in, it wouldn't be automatically synced. And I think like of those ones though, huge win this way. Okay, now we'll go back to the spicy. I will tell you guys how the room was divided. The room was divided, I'll be right. The do it, don't do it. And then the like, there's a middle ground, which I thought the middle ground was kind of convenient. ⁓ There wasn't, but I did see people like it. I did feel like it was like,   Mark Rasmussen (29:45) Yes.   Was there any physical fighting going on? Okay.   Kiera Dent (30:00) like politics and religion status. Like it was like very cut through the room. I do agree with you. And that's what I said. I was like, you guys, this 2025, this is going to take place in the future and it will be very common. just, think our early adopters going to stay or not. It's your choice. Um, I've always been of the opinion like, no, just bake it into your fee. And now I'm like, well, everybody's starting to charge for it. Like, why not? Um, so it was don't charge for it now. Another was like, no, put it in. People are doing it anyway. And the middle ground, which I thought was   Mark Rasmussen (30:02) Right. Right, right, right.   Kiera Dent (30:30) of a good way to do it is in person. They didn't charge a fee, but any of their online statements, they did charge a fee because they said most people who pay online know there's usually a service fee associated with it. So I thought that was kind of a, an easy way. If you guys are looking for a navigation through it. ⁓ but I think like, honestly, it's just like anything else, train your patients if you want to, but don't feel like you have to, I think it'd just be something to consider. So, but again,   Like get the reduction, like if nothing else, like switch to a processor that's going to be reduced fees anyway. So even if you want to continue offering it, you're still saving on that. Mark, I have one last thing that I wanted to dive into. I'm hearing from a lot of like integrated softwares. So like dental Intel and Flex and some of these other ones that literally make practice lives easier. They're having processors in there that are just integrated right into that. They're using it all the time.   Mark Rasmussen (31:20) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (31:25) How does Moolah play in those worlds? Like, do you get the same pricing? Do we not get the same pricing? Are some of those better because they're already bundled in? Again, I'm putting you on like really awkward topics, but I just want to know. I want to know how does this work.   Mark Rasmussen (31:35) No, no, not at all. So listen, you mentioned Flex. We   love Flex, okay? I love Flex, not just because, yes, they're a partner of ours, right? And yes, your Mool account works beautifully and integrated with Flex. But I love Flex just because I think they're like cut from the same cloth that we are. Like we just, at the end of the day, we want to over-deliver, right? We want to over-deliver, whether it's technology, whether it's value, and they have that mindset. And so I love the Flex team. Full disclosure.   ⁓ And so we've been an integrated partner with Flex for, gosh now, I think three years. So yeah, I think they deliver a ton of value to any open dental practice. So anybody out there for sure should check out Flex. They are amazing. Dental Intel. So we used to be, ⁓ not to bore the audience, but like we used to have an integration with Modento and then Dental Intel acquired Modento.   Kiera Dent (32:33) Yep.   Mark Rasmussen (32:33) and   then Dental Intel wanted to roll up their own integrated credit card processing. And so they have now. so, listen, ⁓ we wish Dental Intel the best, wish them well, but yeah, we're no longer integrated with Dental Intel, but yeah, Flex, we love Flex.   Kiera Dent (32:49) Okay, because I was just curious. Now, I feel if it's bundled, is this a time where offices should just be strategic? I'm not saying anyone's doing it. I haven't looked at it. So I'm not here to like cast judge or I just want to make sure offices are being smart. I would think when they're bundled or they're integrated, offices should still check even using MULA. They should still be watching their credit card statements every single month, right? Like no matter what, just to always make sure things are staying clean and also before we sign up with anybody.   Mark Rasmussen (33:08) Mm-hmm.   100%.   Kiera Dent (33:19) Like literally read the fine print and look for it. Yes. No. I from like, let's just go all the way back.   Mark Rasmussen (33:23) Yeah.   And I would always say that, you know, let's just take the Flex example. Flex has, you and I won't name anything, I'll let you guys out there, you go check it out to yourself, but there are three options. I encourage you, especially when we're talking about a vendor that you're looking at, and especially when this vendor that you're looking at revolves around your cashflow, right? Like it's a pretty integral part of a vendor that you're bringing into your ecosystem. call them, talk to them.   Kiera Dent (33:46) Mm-hmm.   Mark Rasmussen (33:54) Call in the middle of the day. Do they pick up the phone? Do they answer? Can you talk to somebody very easily? Like really pop the hood and take a look at who you're going to get in and do business with, especially when it's, you know, that vendor is like controlling your cash flow on a daily basis. So yes, please you guys out there, do your homework, look at the agreements, ask questions, and see what's right for you. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (34:10) Yeah.   That's awesome. just, again,   I wanted to like go into it because these are things I'm hearing. I'm hearing people say like, this seamlessly integrates. I know you seamlessly integrate. I know you guys are constantly working to refine, to get into more and more practice management softwares to make it easier. Just Mark, as we wrap up, like this has been fun. I love the like, thanks for going into some of the spices with me. ⁓ But just as a quick rundown, like what are some of the features that Moola does? We talked about the membership plans. We did talk about that Dental A Team clients get 10 % basis points less for card present or card not present.   Mark Rasmussen (34:33) Always is.   Yep.   Kiera Dent (34:47) Which to me that alone, I would just look into it and see, like I said, two clients literally saved money by like dumping their contracts and moving over, which I think to me, like before I can have a crush on a company, I test them pretty heavily. So to see the proof in the pudding, I was so just elated and it made me even like you guys more. But what else does Moola do? Because I know you guys do a lot of other things that just make life easy.   Mark Rasmussen (35:05) I love that. yeah, yeah. So   at the end of the day, we do a lot, but it's all payment related and will always be payment related, right? So we're focused on being like, we try to be like the end all be all payment solution for dentists. And so when you look at like, what does a dental office need from a payment perspective, ⁓ it's in practice payments, right? So we provide you guys the physical devices. So   No more having to buy rent or lease those terminals. We're going to include them. you know, not only, yeah, they're wireless. Yeah, they're really cool. Aesthetically, they look really good. Yeah. And, and here's the other great part too, that I think it's kind of underrated ⁓ is of course, not only did we include them. the practice didn't need to buy them, but like normally, you know, with our peers, you have to buy these devices and then you buy them and then it's like one year warranty, right? And then like Murphy's law always kicks in.   Kiera Dent (35:37) They're awesome too. They're portable. They can go back to the hygiene operatories. It's amazing. So your hygienist can take it. Like they're awesome. It's so great.   Mark Rasmussen (36:01) like it loves to do. like, okay, month 14, the device just, you know, went out on you. And then you're gonna sorry, you got to buy another five $600 device with mula you guys will literally never have hardware expense ever because we give them to you on the front end. And we will warranty them forever. As long as you're with us. I don't care four or five, six years. If there's new devices that come out and your guys age out, we're going to replace them. Even if you drop it off the counter and crack the screen.   We don't care, we're gonna replace it for you. There's no fear or premium. So, in practice payments, we have you covered there from a technology standpoint as well as a hardware standpoint. Moving on, there's also, have the ability to, like you were talking about earlier, store patient cards securely tokenized. Nothing's ever touching the practices servers. It's all on our servers, but it's giving you the convenience of having those stored cards for the patient. You can have as many stored cards as you want. You can even send a request to the patient.   before their appointment and the patient from easily from home from their mobile device could add their credit card. And so when they come in, it's already stored and it's available to use. So stored cards, yeah, yeah, yeah.   Kiera Dent (37:07) With that, can I ask, do you guys have   the compliance paperwork? Is there anything you have to do to get a patient to have a stored credit card that we can run for future payments? once insurance pays, because I know that's a big thing of storing cards on file, do you have anything with that? Because I know that this is a zone.   Mark Rasmussen (37:23) Yep. What I...   Yeah, no. So it's very obvious as far as the process of the patient adding the card. Like when you send the message, it says, hey, would you like to securely store your card on file? Right? Beyond that, what I've seen some practices do is just they'll just include it in their overall like new patient intake forms and kind of include it in their terms of service of that. Hey, listen, if you want to store a card on file with us, you can. And you allow, once you store a card, you're giving us the authorization to utilize that card.   Kiera Dent (37:35) Mm-hmm.   Mark Rasmussen (37:51) for other future balances. As simple as that, that's all you need to do.   Kiera Dent (37:54) which is so smart you   guys think about it. This is where so many other industries do this. They have a card on file. I mean, I go to the spa, my cards on file, they run that card when I'm gone, like I authorize it to happen. So they never out of money. They're never chasing money down. Like it just to me makes so much more sense of a way to process.   Mark Rasmussen (38:12) Can you imagine if   Netflix or all the other subscriptions, if they had to wait for a payment every month and wait, come on, no. Subscription is the way, 100%. So, okay, so store card on file they get. The other thing they get is the ability to create and manage in-house payment plans. And of course, automatically post those payments to the ledger. We have some great things where if the payment fails, right? They're into the plan for three months and all of sudden the July payment fails.   Kiera Dent (38:18) No. No.   Yeah.   Mark Rasmussen (38:41) our system will automatically notify the practice, notify the patient, and what's cool is that the software will allow the patient to self-administer and fix it. So the software is not telling the patient, your card failed, call the front desk. No, we're gonna save a phone call there. The software will allow the patient to tell the software, okay, either A, try to charge that card again, or B, they can actually upload a new card on file.   So the cool stat on that is that in failed transactions in our payment plans, we see patients solving it between themselves and software within the first 24 hours at a rate of over 80%, which is huge. So payment plans, and then we talked about earlier, you also get the ability to manage any of your in-house membership or discount plans. ⁓ We have the collecting on a balance when the patient is out of practice, ⁓ sending a payment request either   Kiera Dent (39:20) Holy cow, it's amazing.   Mark Rasmussen (39:37) allocated or unallocated payment request can attach a statement. ⁓ We also have the ability to host a payment page on their website. So if you want to put a little navigation, click here to make an online after hours payment, we'll host that page for the practice. ⁓ So yeah, we really kind of just looked at it a full circle of like, where are all the payment touch points that our practice is dealing with, and just trying to deliver these really amazing tools. And again, as you know, our model.   ⁓ There's never any monthly fees. There's never any set up fees. There's never any annual fees ⁓ All there are these two simple flat rates and again, you can cancel it anytime you want never locked in anything   Kiera Dent (40:18) That's awesome. Mark, I appreciate this so much. How do people, like know they just connect with you, schedule a demo. You guys will look at their credit card processing, see how you guys can fix it. How do they connect with you specifically if they're interested? And specifically The Dental A Team, The Dental A Team, perks.   Mark Rasmussen (40:33) I would recommend and maybe we can list this in the podcast, but there will be a specific Moolah URL. It's like forward slash The Dental A Team They should go there and then they can schedule a demo. And then if they go there, then we're going to know it came from you guys. That way we can get them that 10 basis point savings forever. So just schedule a demo with us and no pressure. We're like the most like   the least salesy organization I think that you guys will ever run into. All we wanna do is inform you. We wanna show you what we have. We're not for everybody. ⁓ But assuming that you guys love what you see, we encourage you to try us out and check us out and see if we're gonna be a great fit for your practice.   Kiera Dent (41:13) Yeah, for sure. You guys, honestly, I love Moolah They're incredible. So on our website, we will link it. So the way you get to Moolah, it's on our website, TheDentalATeam.com. And then you can click on the About Partnerships Mulas right there. ⁓ And the actual, like if you guys want our direct link here, it would be TheDentalATeam.com slash partnerships slash Moolah. And that should take you right to Moolah's page. It's also mula.cc slash partners.   So that helps you guys will also link that in the show notes mark. I appreciate you guys so much Things are being on the podcast things are going through the spicy with me. I appreciate you so much   Mark Rasmussen (41:52) Any time, love you guys, you guys are the best and ⁓ have a great rest of day.   Kiera Dent (41:58) Hey, you too, for all of you listening. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.  

Our weekly podcast - even more rambly than usual as we chat with ASB about attracting new players, having a positive scene + Beastmen are on the way.And, of course, patreon questions!!Oh and we ramble so much we really don't cover beastmen but I'm sure we will this week as it arrives :)[0:00:23] ASB Intro[0:03:38] Gommo sizzles some Warhammer book hobby for later[0:04:20] New player v competitive player conversation starts[0:54:15] Gotcha chat[1:29:15] Patreon Shoutouts, a Question[1:39:48] Really brief Beastmen shoutout... (why does OWF hate beastmen?) [1:45:55] More Patreon Questions![1:54:30] Apparently Newcastle Legions Club has closed?![1:57:10] Josh throws some absolute podcast shade[2:00:30] ASB Hobby[2:11:10] Gommo Hobby (never mentions his book thing tho - mysterious!)[2:14:42] WrapupJoin our live stream chat on Discord if you want to share hobby - https://discord.gg/9ZfQtvGUA4Shop Old World @ Element Gameshttps://elementgames.co.uk/wargames-and-miniatures-by-manufacturer/games-workshop/warhammer-the-old-world?d=11247Let's get into it!!Links and Shoutouts✨ Old World Rankings - https://oldworldrankings.comSquare Based Renegade Pack - https://www.squarebased.com/Support the Show

A CNN journalist interviewed comedian Tim Dillon and tried to smear him as a right-wing stooge. It backfired spectacularly. I break it down in this episode of the Brad vs Everyone podcast. Plus, streamer Asmongold's viral take on free speech and what he gets wrong. Send me a voicenote: https://www.speakpipe.com/bradvseveryone Check out the merch: https://bp-shop.fourthwall.com/ Subscribe to my 2nd channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MoreBradPolumbo See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sky recently bought a house in Coastal Oregon and had some issues with the matinence that was going on. Instead of getting a second opinion or a different company to fix it all, she decided to play games...

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I speak with Brian Birdy, the CEO of PMI Birdy Properties and a regional developer for Dill Dinkers. Brian shares insights about managing his family business, which his father started in 1979. He discusses the complexities of succession planning and how involving family members can strengthen the business for future generations. Brian's latest venture, an indoor pickleball facility, highlights his ability to identify emerging trends and foster a unique business culture. We explore effective strategies for business growth as Brian emphasizes the importance of a solid foundation. He talks about the need for a strong team, comprehensive training, and well-documented processes to navigate unexpected challenges. Additionally, we discuss the hiring landscape post-COVID, where Brian advocates for a proactive approach to recruitment and the importance of adapting to new employment trends. As we move into the topic of franchising, Brian shares his experiences with Dill Dinkers and the potential of using repurposed industrial spaces for pickleball courts. He reflects on the benefits and challenges of setting up a franchise in this fast-growing market. His connection to San Antonio adds a personal touch, as he expresses his passion for the local community and its cultural vibrancy. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I discussed with Brian Birdy, CEO of PMI Birdy Properties, about managing a family business founded by his father in 1979 and his strategies for succession planning and family involvement. Brian shared insights on the importance of building a resilient business foundation through strategic planning, comprehensive training, and process documentation, emphasizing adaptability to technological advancements. We explored the post-COVID hiring landscape, where Brian highlighted the significance of a proactive hiring approach, prioritizing candidates with a positive attitude and aligning with changing employment trends. The conversation delved into the burgeoning pickleball market, with Brian expressing enthusiasm for his new venture in opening an indoor pickleball facility and the potential of franchising with Dill Dinkers. Brian revealed the challenges and opportunities in the residential property management industry, particularly in differentiating oneself in a competitive market and adapting to shifts in housing demand. We examined the process of opening a pickleball franchise, discussing the benefits of franchising for newcomers, the importance of choosing the right franchise, and the potential for repurposing industrial spaces for pickleball courts. Brian emphasized the value of surrounding oneself with capable people, investing in staff, and being open to new ideas and changes to drive business success, while reflecting on his connection to San Antonio and the local community. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About PMI Birdy Properties GUESTS Brian BirdyAbout Brian TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: Brian, welcome to Building Texas Business. Thanks for taking the time to come on the podcast hey thanks for having me. So you know, let's dive right in and talk about some of the things that you're doing as an entrepreneur and business owner and just introduce your companies to the audience. Brian: Sure. So I'm the broker and owner of Birdie Properties, which is a real estate company that specializes in residential property management. It has been in business for over 46 years. My dad actually started that business back in 1979. I've been running it and working at it and eventually running it since about 97 and have grown it to one of the largest residential property managers in South Texas, learned a lot of lessons in growing that business and the newest adventure is Dilldinker's Indoor Pickleball, which I'm sitting in, and I'm very excited that we will be opening our first location here in about a week and a half. Chris: Well, that's great. So two full-time jobs, it sounds like. Brian: Yeah, Well, the other one's a family-owned legacy business. It's three generations deep. Like I said, my dad started it. My brother and I both worked in it. I've owned it and run it for 20, 28 years and currently all of my three adult children and my daughter-in-law all work there and do the heavy lifting. With a little bit of guidance from me, that gave me the ability that could run effectively without my daily requirement, gave me the ability to actually continue that entrepreneurial spirit and try something completely different, which is indoor pickleball. I saw a true need in my city for this. There wasn't anybody delivering it. I saw it as an up and growing and when I actually started on it, less people knew what pickleball was. In the last 18 months it has really come to the forefront and so I got on. I started riding the wave at the right time and I hope it just keeps rolling, yeah well, it's certainly taken the last couple of years. Chris: It's taken on like a life of its own, it seems like. So let's go back to, I guess, Birdy Properties and maybe the unique part of what it's like in a family business to do the succession from your dad, who was the founder, to you and your brother then taking over that business. What were some of the maybe the pain points and lessons learned about doing that and what maybe advice you might give to someone that's in the process or thinking about it, of what to do or not do? Brian: Yeah, running a family business it's wonderful and it's tough, both hand in hand. The wonderful part about it is their name is on that business. Their future is tied into that business. Their commitment generally if they really care about it is they're a lot more committed than just an individual employee. But at the same time it's problematic in that you can't separate yourself from business. Family meals are filled with business. Taking an entire family vacation becomes almost an impossibility. And then succession is an issue. I bought the business from my father and it was clearly me. I own it. So my brother continued to work there but was not in ownership of it. That has its own problems. We found a way for him to actually build a business out of this and he's actually gone out on his own, is specializing in short-term management and is running his own business now, and so that was a way to kind of figure out how that could work. So he is the owner, sole owner, of Birdy Vacation Rentals. But I've got three kids that work for me. Each of them have unique qualities. They own all own a very important part of the business and they really can't survive without them working together, which works great now, but it's going to be. I'm going to wonder, I keep wondering and trying to figure out how, what is the best way to pass this on? And I don't have the right answer for it, but continuing to work at it, you know, giving them all individual pieces that they could own and be the masters of, and then by doing that, everyone needs each other kind of helps with that whole process. You can't no one of them can survive without the others. Chris: Well, it seems, if that's the case, right then you've set it up well for success because that fosters that team environment and team mentality. And you know we love talking about culture. So obviously you have the unique relationship with your children. How have you tried to take that beyond the family relationship with the other employees so that they feel the same engagement with the organization and tied to the organization's success? Brian: So we've gone through lots of that and growing and basically anybody who works for us can see that. I mean their last name isn't Birdy, they're not in the succession plan but we treat everyone within our business as if it was a big family. We believe in family. We believe in quality time. Individuals who work for us recognize we want them to do a great job for us but when they need time, when they need something they know they can ask for it, they can get it and just building that kind of culture has allowed us to have. Number of people who have worked for us for 15, 13, 12, I think is my current people that are out there have been here for a very long time. They're part of the family even though they're not. You know, their last name doesn't say birdie on it, but we work really hard in building a core that can. You know, property management is a tough business. I've said all along one of our core values is that we're going to have fun, and so one of the things we've always built is if we can have fun doing the worst part of that business, then we got it made. So we have a lot of fun when we're doing the fun parts of the business and when we go out of our way to make sure people are going to have fun. But we also find ways just to have fun and to really own that. There are tough parts of that business also. Chris: Sure, well, true for any business, right. There's always, yeah, the piece that you don't enjoy doing. But you know you have to right, it's a necessary piece but it may not be the most fun. I think you're right. If you can bring joy and fun into that, then the rest should be easy. Brian: right, because it's the stuff you like to do and want to do and, as I think about, I've been doing that for 28 years and I love going to work there. I love people that I work with and even though it's in a very tough and stressful because I mean, at times I have to evict people from their homes, I mean that isn't something that's fun, you know. But it has encouraged me that I'm waiting to see how much fun is running a pickleball facility going to be, where we have a core value of bringing joy to everyone through the sport of pickleball. And I'm like, if I can have fun doing property management, I think I should find it a little easier to have fun running a pickleball facility. But I don't know yet. We haven't opened our doors yet, we're going to find out, but it's. I mean, I'm just it feels like it's going to be fun, but you know, I don't know what, I don't know yet. Chris: So going back to Birdy and property management is anything innovative? Or you know how? Has technology or innovation kind of helped you be more efficient in what you do and maybe more profitable? Brian: Yeah, so we've. We have challenged ourselves to chase technology. You know, if you go all the way back to probably, I mean, and we've done this for a long time and we've had a website since 1998 when it didn't do anything and most people didn't have it, I mean we have a five letter URL. I mean we are www.birdy.com, you know, and people have wanted to pay a lot of money to buy that name, but it's just something. Fortunately, my dad said I think this might be something someday, let me just get our name now. He was lucky, he did that. But from that we've continued to chase the changes. Every business has had major changes. I will tell you that, coming out of the 07, 08 mortgage industry collapse and all the problems that happened, property management got brought way up into the forefront and technology, of course, coming on strong at that time saw this as an open lane that nobody was in and they have been chasing after us like crazy. And we have said all along if we want to continue to be relevant, if we want to be a hundred-year-old business, the only way we're ever going to get there is we have to embrace technology, embrace change, figure out the ways to do that, race to it, understand it and apply it. You know however that is, and so we've dramatically changed our business from where we first I mean when we first started, you know everything was on paper. It was all in a folder. The folder was in a cabinet. You know, you met people face to face. I mean, everything has changed and you know, at our last national event, the big thing that was there was all AI driven. Not only have we used technology and we use computers and we've automated some things, but now we're having the computer starting to figure out what can they really do for us in the industry, and I see that being big changes coming forward as to what can it really do for us. Coming out of COVID, we learned we can do a lot and we don't really need an office to do it anymore. We can have remote team members. We can do a lot on Zoom. We can do everything with computers. I think AI is just going to push that, and that even runs into this business. Bill Dinkers has changed a lot and it's only a couple of years old, but it's incorporated on court cameras that film the sessions for the players, and now that company is building AI, so it's going to be able to tell them automatically. You know some statistics from their match, you know counting things for them and I'm like, and so again, very early stages open landscape that technology and AI development is just stepping into, and I'm just curious and excited to see what can that take us to. I mean, because that's the future of our business, all of our businesses. Chris: Oh for sure, I mean, technology is not going anywhere. I think I had someone tell me one time never bet against technology. Technology always wins right Eventually it continues to evolve and you may not be an early adopter, but you better pay attention and learn how to integrate it sooner rather than later, or you're going to get left behind. Brian: Well, right, and it'll show you ways that you can like. We can manage more properties with less people. Because of technology, we can have individuals working for us now all over the world and we have been embraced that for a long time and we're about a 50-50 business. Half of our employees are here in town. The other half are all remote team members and primarily in Mexico, because I'm in South Texas, so I need people that can speak Spanish, and what greater way to have somebody work for me whose primary language is Spanish? So that part has been a significant change in the property management side of it. And that comes with technology. Right, because they have a computer. They can do everything. They have a phone line, so you call my office and you hit the phone. It's calling them Because phone is now what? A computer? Everything is a computer. If you can learn how to adapt the changes in your business to automation, you find ways to grow and to make money when you're doing it right. Chris: So you mentioned the 08 kind of market crash. What were some of the lessons you learned? I think that's a pretty important or severe impact on your business business and we always learn, kind of through some of those crises. So what were some of the things that you learned, maybe about your company or, more importantly, about yourself that kind of helped pull the company through to continue on a path of success? Brian: Well, if you think about it, most people saw that as a crash, as a problem. In my world it was actually a good thing. Besides the fact that people were losing their houses to foreclosure, that was certainly a negative. That didn't help me at all. But what came behind that was investors, and investors were buying those properties and turning them in to single family rentals and they needed management behind it. People who wanted to hold onto their house but had to leave them could not sell them Again. Another thing we were ready for growth. We were prepared for growth and we were not scared to grow as fast as we possibly could In those years. We doubled in size in both 07 and 08. And I think a lot of that was we were preparing for growth and then something happened that we didn't expect. But we were ready and I don't think anybody else was, so we benefited from that. We exploded over about a two or three year visit and really skyrocketed us up that. We've never lost that position since. Chris: That's amazing. So you talked about you were preparing for growth before those events happened. What was it you were doing to be preparing yourself for that growth? Brian: Making sure I have the right staff, all my training, all my processes, systems, policies and procedures. You know, you, when you first start and you're an entrepreneur, you have this great idea. You know how to do it all in your head, you make sure it can work right. What a lot of entrepreneurs aren't great at is writing it all down, systematizing it all and teaching people how to do it. And so, as you're growing, you're just throwing things trying to fill in these holes and you have to learn there's got to be a better process to your business and growing your business, and an individual who is forward thinking and really crazy ideas and just really interested to go do all these wonderful things can come up with some great stuff, but they're not the person that's going to carry it the long-term, step-by-step and so, understanding what you're good at, learning who you need around you to fill in those pieces where you're not and luckily for me, you know I have children who are from me but not really like me and so and they're not really like each other and so, collectively, the four of us and others that we've built into that start to create more of a complete package, and we learned and we're continuing to learn. We are forever changing and we are forever growing. It never stops, and that's, I think, it. I think at that time, what we wanted was I wanted to grow. We were talking about growing and I was trying everything to be visible because, remember, technology hadn't taken over. You know, people weren't finding you online. You had to. You know, I was still paying for ads and newspapers and the yellow pages because I wanted people to find me. But I found technology earlier than anybody else. I found a program called allpropertymanagementcom when it first opened and it was the first marketplace for property managers on the internet and I raced to it. I was the only one there in 2007. And that's when everyone started freaking out what am I going to do with my property? They looked and they found me, and that was a big part of so just the little steps like that was like not, I mean, that was an investment, I was paying money to do that, but I thought there would be a payoff. I didn't expect the tremendous payoff I got, but it really was a lot about just making sure you know what you have around you and a lot of times, what happens is we don't hire for growth, right, we want growth, then growth happens and then we get squished by the work. Everyone gets overworked, everyone gets stressed, nobody's happy, culture starts to get hurt and you can't sometimes, can never hire fast enough to catch up to train them all. So, knowing your business, watching closely, investing in growth by investing in your people, those are some of the lessons I learned because I did all that wrong at first and I suffered because of it and I've learned to do it differently because of that. Chris: Yeah, that's a beautiful point. I mean to your point about if you start to grow you haven't, excuse me, hired for it then you start making hiring decisions out of desperation and that's a recipe for disaster, as opposed to being able to follow that process. As you mentioned, that process is in place, that you stick to that. You follow that. You're always looking to evolve and change and tweak as times change. But if you're behind the curve, if you will, then it's hard to catch up. Brian: You also have to change with times. I mean when you can be hiring, when you don't need to hire someone, you're not in a hurry. During your interview process you don't settle for okay, this person's good enough, right? You're like, if none of them are good enough, well then they're none. Keep looking right. But if you're in a hurry, if you're in a need, then anyone close you're going to take and it may not be a good fit for you. And I would tell you, before COVID you had people in large numbers applying for jobs, but after COVID that changed dramatically and it became a point. I mean I used to say if I could get 10 people to interview, five of them would show up, or maybe six, and one or two or three potentially could be good opportunities there and you'd be able to windle it down to possibly one good quality candidate. After COVID you were lucky if one person showed up, and I don't think that's really changed dramatically even yet today. Chris: That was my question. It feels, like in the last, say, 12 months or so, there's starting to be a little bit of a maybe it's slow, but a swing back towards people realizing. You know you hear the bigger companies saying five days back in the office and you know that you know where we had the quiet quitting going on in 21, 22. It seems to me there's a little less of that and it's coming back. There are maybe more people out there and you hear that you know new college graduates are having, you know, really difficult times finding jobs because it seems like it's tightening a little bit Well. Brian: Luckily I'm in a season in which I've not needed to hire and I've got everything placed out right, and so I hope when I start hiring again in that space I do see that change, because I've noticed a big difference there and even had to change my whole process of what's really important when I interview people I mean I have put you know the number there are two things that are at the top of the list, and that is an overwhelmingly positive attitude and an undeniable desire to work. And if people come in with those two things, I can take them from there with anything else, because I can't give them either one of those. I can't culture that to anyone, I can't teach that to anybody. They have to have those two things If they have those, if they have those two things clearly, and you can find figure that out pretty quick. Chris: So I have a chance to identify with that, because the words I use are we look for effort and attitude Right. And I like your desire to work. You would think that would come natural, but you and I both know it doesn't. You're interviewing people. They just want a job sometimes or a paycheck, and they don't really have a desire to work or work hard. So I agree, you have to have an interview process that can kind of figure that out. Brian: That's true and we've, and that's something you have to learn and experience and get through and continue to tweak because, as you think you have the best experience, your market of applicants change and then you have to change and adapt with them. BTXBAdvert Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show. Chris:So we kind of look at the landscape out there. What are some of the headwinds that you either are dealing with now or that you think may be coming around the corner, that you're trying to prepare for to kind of not let them slow you down? Brian: I think that in the residential property management space, when times are good we do well, when times are bad, we do even better. So generally making sure that we're running the best business that we can, that we're providing what people need, figuring out a way to be being better Everyone wants to say they're better, but being better doesn't really necessarily draw anyone's attention anymore because it's like are you really better? You're just saying you're better. But when you're different and you can show someone why you are different, that's what really changes it, and I and so we focus on how are we different, why are we different, how can we be different and what differences are going to be important in the next five years that may not have been important in the last five years. Chris: That's really good. Yeah, I could see where and I would think even the lots have been written about it how difficult it is for people to purchase a home. Now, right, the interest rates, one thing, maybe the lack of accumulated wealth or down payments because of the lending markets. I can see where that would boost your business. Brian: I would tell you that in 2024, nationwide the market said that rental markets should have been skyrocketing and doing well, but for a variety of reasons it was not the best year. 2025 has started out as a much better year. Last year was a rough year on most residential property managers and when we look at that it came back to a tremendous amount of apartment complexes that were built coming out of COVID that opened and it drew a lot of the market space away People not buying, not moving, families coming together in one location, which reduces right. But we've seen a big change this year at probably one of our busiest first quarters in a while, so we're hoping that just continues. Chris: Very good. So, shifting gears a little bit Sounds like a company that you love. You said you love to have fun doing it. I guess we're in it for most of your life, bought it from your dad. All things going well, Kids are in it, Kids are thriving and against that backdrop you decide to step out and take on the pickleball business, which there's certainly some competition there. Maybe San Antonio's market was a little lacking. There's certainly some competition there. Maybe San Antonio's market was a little lacking, but there's all kinds of people doing pickleball courts now. So what was it that inspired you or drove you to make that decision and take on that risk? Brian: Well, so I started playing pickleball for the first time coming out of COVID in 2020, when our mayor said, okay, you can go and gather, but it has to be outside. And so there was a tennis place that had converted on a tennis court. Still, they converted and made these makeshift pickleball and I went out and said, hey, this is a lot of fun. Eventually, chicken and Pickle opened in San Antonio. I went inside to that and I thought, hey, I really like this, and started playing there. Quite regularly. My wife and a non pickleball related injury broke her ankle and we were out for about a year. When I came back one year later, everything had changed. It was almost impossible to book a court. The age of the players had dropped 20 years in a year. It used to be forties and fifties and I walk in and now it's twenties and thirties and I was like, okay, something has really happened here. So I did a lot of research, looked at all the numbers and then I started saying, okay, we don't have enough courts and we don't have any indoor courts, and I was like I think we could do a good job at this. I was first trying to find a place to go play, and what it led me to is there's a need. Maybe I can solve that need. And then, in researching it in the state of Texas, san Antonio was lacking in indoor courts In the country. We're doing awful. Houston was the only city in Texas even on the radar for the number of pickleball courts, and the number of indoor pickleball courts they have more than anyone in Texas. They have more than almost any other city in the country. So that city had figured it out and I'm like we hadn't yet. And I'm like we hadn't yet and I'm like, hey, if you're going to do something and you're going to be different, one of the greatest ways of being different is be first, because if you're first, you're different. There's nobody else, right? And so so I dove in, found a great Dill. Dinkins is a national franchise and I believed in what they put together and and so I'm one of their first franchisees. I'm going to be opening up my first club here in about 10 days here in San Antonio, and I'm a regional developer, so I have the right to develop up to 20 clubs. Whether I open them or help somebody else who wants to run their own pickleball location here, I will be supporting them and getting them open, and I can open all of my clubs. Other entities can open all theirs. There will not be enough pickleball, because if I fill all my clubs up all 20 clubs open and they're all completely full that would only represent a fraction of 1% of the Bexar County population, and so there's room for everybody and there's room for growth. And that's kind of one of the reasons why I got into this is that I'm like hey plus, I love it. I have so much fun, and I'm going to tell you what running a property management business has been a lot of fun, but I really hope that running a pickleball business is going to be even a lot easier to have fun. We'll see. I don't know yet. Chris: Yeah Well, in 10 days you'll start to figure it out. Brian: Well, that's free, that's free week, everyone's coming for free, so they're going to love me for at least a week, for sure. We'll see what happens after that. Chris: Good strategy there. Yeah, I know. Look, we've worked with some entrepreneurs and developers here in the Houston area doing this right, developing pickleball venues with the bars and the food service, and that's where they did the market research. And even in Houston it's interesting to hear your numbers on the covered courts in Houston, kind of leading all cities but there is a lack of courts in light of the demand especially, you're certainly private clubs have taken converted tennis courts or extra space where they put in pickleball courts, but if you're not a member of that club you don't have access. And so for the general public to have access, things like what you're doing and chicken, chicken pickle, et cetera, and some of the maybe non-national brands just worn off local things there's still a ton of demand for that. Brian: Yeah, if you look at it, lifetime Gyms and LA Fitness have both decided they're going away from basketball and they're going all in on pickleball. And I talked to their national developer and I said why are you making this change? And they said well, basketball has led to altercations and fights and problems and pickleball equals new membership and so they're all in and you can see, most of them are converting them. I have a couple of Gold's Gyms in San Antonio that have converted into pickleball in their courts. It's just there's such a need, there's such a desire. A lot of people say they find a way to play, they'll play anywhere. A lot of people haven't played because they say it's too hard to find a place to play. So we're hoping we can be part of the solution to that and start giving lots and lots of options for people to come out and play and see how easy it is, how fun it is. The community that's built around this is unlike other sports is the community that's built around this is unlike other sports? It is. It is a unique game in which it is the most gender equal and age equal. I can go out on any given day and lose to an eight-year-old or an 80-year-old, and both of them could be a male or a female. It doesn't matter, because this is. It is the equal sport amongst all sports. Chris: Yeah, well, I'll say you know, given the timing when you're opening and the fact that you know we're in Texas, being covered courts is going to be a nice added bonus, because I don't think you want to be in the middle of summer outside on a pickleball court for too long. Brian: Well, they've been doing it for years. What I have to do is get them in here so they can see, and that's the thing about being different. So some things that are different with us is we have pro cushion courts. They're all individually fenced. We have special LAD court lighting that's designed specifically for pickleball. Of course, it's not windy in here. There's no rain, there's no heat, there's no humidity and, as you can see behind me, all the walls are black in the playing surface, and that's so. When you're standing on your court and your opponent hits the ball pops, you know it's coming outside. You don't see that. You got wind, you got heat, you got sweat, you got movement, you got craziness, and so that's where we've dove into being different and we're hoping it'll pay off. Chris: No, all true. I mean having played myself. You're right, if you're outside and depending on where the sun is, you may, it's sometimes hard to see the ball. Brian: Yeah, true, not in here. Perfect lighting, perfect temperature, perfect courts. And the one thing I get annoyed I'm a spoiled. I'm a pickleball snob. Now. I cannot stand playing on a court where the court right next door is not separated and their ball keeps coming into mine. I'm like I can't even play that way anymore. I'm, I've become a. I've become a pickleball snob. I expect to be able to get on my court and play my game and not be disrupted by anybody else. Chris: There you go, as every man and woman should have a right to right. That's right. So so you kind of bit this off as a franchisee. Let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the things that you learned about that process that maybe you weren't expecting that you could share with some listeners, and maybe a lot of people look at franchise opportunities. Brian: So I tell people all the time. So I've been involved in franchising in a couple of other ways. I went for about a four-year period and worked for a nationwide property management franchising company called Property Management Incorporated and I was up at the corporate level seeing. So I learned about franchising itself and people go why are you doing this, why should I do this? And I would give them reasons why. If you're already running your business, you already know what you're doing. You don't need a franchise when you're starting out from brand new and you have no idea what you're doing and you're not really sure how you're going to do it. You have to consider that Anyone can do the business on their own right. Even me, I could have opened this on my own. But do you know how much stuff I didn't know about pickleball that I learned from my franchise organization and the attention that it has drawn me? You have to figure out when that might be right for you. I think that there's been a lot of benefit of doing that. But you got to examine them all. I went and looked at every existing franchise when I started to do this Now. Since then, there are five new Pickleball franchises available and I'm sure there'll be five more in the next six months. So there are a lot of choices. I looked at them all, I checked into their history, I interviewed, expect what they need to do, and then I went and did a discovery day in Columbia, maryland, to find out what was Dill Dinkers all about, and a big part of it is who is the leadership? Who's going to be guiding you? Who are you going to be working with? And I absolutely loved the people that were involved, and that's a big part of this. You're going to be in business with them at the same time, and so this made a lot of sense for me. They were structuring in a very smart way of doing it, and they're the fastest growing Pickleball franchise that's out there, and they've sold 27 regions across the country. They've made great strides at improving everything that we do the play site cameras that we talked about earlier, with the AI involved that's something that's new. The pro cushion courts that's new from when we first started, and now all of our pro shops are powered by Pickleball Central, which, again, is also something new. So when you look at a franchise, it's like, yeah, they exist, but what are they doing to evolve? What are they doing to be different, because you're going to rely on that and work with them to show them how else they can be different. I decided this was the way for me to go and by being a regional developer here in town, I have my first one opening, I have my second one already under construction and I've got 18 more to go, but I'm probably not going to open all 18 of those. So there are opportunities right now and the way Jill Dinkers is, they have your corporate staff, but I'm the local representative. I'm here to help develop anyone locally. So anyone who wants to open one here has me helping them, and I've already gone through all the pain and suffering of what does it take to open a place. I know all. I know what you need to do to have it happen. They taught me what they knew. Now I've experienced here locally in San Antonio. I know what's going to happen here. Those are some of the advantages when you start looking at franchising and say, hey, I want to do a business, I don't want to do it alone, I don't want to start and it's tough. There's things you've got to know to be successful right out of the gun and you may not know everything on your own, it makes sense. Chris: And I said there's the franchisors got to show that value right. The why you're going to be making payments and getting the benefit of some of their things. It occurs to me too, one of the advantages, at least to what you're doing with these indoor courts and just kind of looking behind you is that you could take advantage of some of the big box locations that have been abandoned right that there's every city has those where there was some store that has either now gone to a bigger complex but left that space behind it looks like that's what you can kind of take advantage of from a real estate perspective. Brian: Right and I figured, with my real estate background, that this was going to be a piece of cake. But let me just tell you, san Antonio is a healthy city. We don't have big boxes just sitting around empty. Finding the location was the biggest challenge for me, and that isn't true everywhere else. That's why I'm franchise number one, but I'm not the first franchisee to open, because there are people who found it much quicker. The gentleman up in Pennsylvania went on his very first visit and found two locations and has opened both of them. One of them has 17 courts inside with 75 foot ceilings and no columns. Wow, I think it was like an aircraft hangar at some point. It was an indoor soccer facility for a while and it is like the perfect layout for indoor pickleball. But he found it in one visit, found one landlord, signed two leases and opened them both up. I have been to hundreds of places because I have to have the right hype, I have to have space between columns. I got to have air conditioning, I got to have bathrooms and I got to figure out, you know what's it going to cost to convert the place? And in San Antonio we don't have a lot of space just sitting around empty. Well, that's a good problem, it's good, it's good for the city. I mean, I found this one and I found my second one and I'm continually looking and there will be more opportunities and there will be more opportunities and there will be. Yeah, I think the strange thing in my city is we have probably the most vacant space in our city is industrial space. There's industrial warehousing all over and it's all empty and they don't want to talk to me yet. But they're going to one day they're going to say you know what I'm tired of being empty. Maybe we should talk to these pickleball guys, because it's the perfect layout giant empty buildings just sitting around empty. One day, when I can start turning them into pickleball, then the life's going to be real good. Chris: For sure. So just real quick, though, I want to ask about you kind of just as a leader right, your leadership style and how you think that's evolved over time, and kind of what you've learned maybe about yourself and about leadership in the process, in that journey. Brian: You know I learned leadership pretty young. I mean I go back and think about it and say you know, my dad was in the military. I was a military brat. We were all part of scouting. That was you start learning leadership and scouts right. I joined the Air Force myself, I served time in that and that the leadership is pretty well defined there. I mean, you know you can grow into being a good leader through that process. But in the military leaders comes with rank. Sometimes you don't really you haven't earned it, but you get it because you wear the rank and there's a difference in just knowing and understanding. And in that I learned I'm like if I want to be a leader, I've got to earn the right to be the leader of other people. As I started growing my own business, the challenge was I know how I want everything done. I like it done. A certain way. Most entrepreneurs are type A personalities we got an idea, we're going to run with it, we want to do it and no one could do it as good as we can. Well, you're going to be awful lonely and awful small if you think you can grow business all by yourself. So lesson you have to learn is how do I surround myself with people who make me better, who fill in the gaps of the things I'm not, and how do I let go and let them lead? So I've learned to invest in my staff and invest in them being leaders and letting it go. And remember, if you get from point A to point B and it doesn't cost any more money and it isn't illegal, does it really? And it doesn't use up any more time, does it really matter if they got there different than I would have? And honestly, it doesn't. But that's a lesson I had to learn. I was not very good at it, so my wife and my kids pulled things out of my gripped hands because they were like you got to let this go or we're never going to grow. And then you look back later and go wow, I'm so glad I did that. I mean, they're doing a better job at it than I ever did. And then you just have to make sure you're continually watching over what you're doing right, building good systems, checking on what you're doing, investing in your people, which means spending money on them, spending money to educate them, spending money for them to go out and try things, and also, don't be scared to try something. It's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned Don't be scared to try something new that no one else has tried, because they're not all going to work, and I can tell you some of mine that were absolute failures. You figure it out, you go eh, switch back, we're done. But the ones that didn't work grew the business, made me money right, made us more efficient, and not being fearful to just change, adapt and be different is a big part, and when your staff sees that you're willing to do that and you're encouraging them and you're investing in them and you're giving them the ability to lead, you'll be surprised what they can do for you. Chris: Right. Well, so first, thank you for your service and second, yes, I think part of that for me is you can't be scared to fail, nervous. And second, yes, I think you know part of that for me is you can't be scared to fail. Uh. So if you don't take any chances, you won't learn, you won't grow. So you've got to be willing to do that and be observant of is it going well, is it not? Do I need to pivot, do I not? For your business and for yourself? Right? Brian: and you have to listen to your staff around you, because at certain point when you grow a business effectively, you start to get out of the day to day, and so you've got to check on it, you've got to hear from them, you've got to build on it and you've got to give them the ability to tell you maybe it is time to pivot, maybe we need to do something different, maybe there is a need out there, even though you didn't recognize it. They need to know. They can bring it to you and you'll listen Doesn't mean everything is going to change, but you give them a chance to speak it up and then it's out there and then you talk about it, and we do that regularly and it really changes the business when people have the freedom to bring up ideas and not be afraid of it. Chris: So let's move from the business side of things to just personal. Tell me what's your favorite part about San Antonio and why you decided to call it home. Brian: I moved here with my dad. He got stationed here when I was 13 years old and this has been my hometown almost ever since I joined the Air Force and I did leave here and I missed it all while I was gone. There's something about the community here in San Antonio the people, the events, the city that I missed. I've lived in other places. I don't think I ever missed not being there as much as I missed being here, and so this is truly my hometown. I love the city, all that we have going on, the fact we continue to grow and get big but we still feel like a small town Never and there's something for everyone. There's everything you possibly can want to do. You can do it here. I mean, we're in the middle of Fiesta. It's been going on forever, but there's still something in Fiesta that I still probably haven't even done. As many times I've gone out and done things and it's exciting just to be involved in that. I've been a Spurs fan since I moved here. I actually saw the Spurs as soon as I came back. We were coming back from Italy, moving to San Antonio, and the Spurs. I was 13 years old. The Spurs were in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Washington Bullets and they were up three games to one and I watched them lose the next three games and then not, and then I followed them and we didn't make it back to a conference championship for 20 years in 99. And then the next 20 years was a good payoff. We had a lot of fun and won a lot of games. Chris: So this is my town. Brian: I love my city. I love all that we do here. Chris: Yeah well, it's definitely spent enough time there to get a feel a very unique and welcoming culture and vibe. You mentioned Fiesta, but I don't see any badges on you. Brian: They're on sale at the front counter. Gotcha yeah, I actually was we made one, we've made one, we've traded some. A few people have bought them and it's a fun part to be part of that when you run a business in San Antonio. Chris: For sure. I've had the benefit of being there for a week on business during Fiesta and learned the whole thing about the badges and the trading and still have them with me. That's a lot of fun. Brian: Yeah, last weekend one of my managers took them all, went down and was down there handing out badges and also handing out flyers about our business Just getting the word out and getting connections to both people and other businesses. It's a unique time when everyone's just willing to talk to you and get face-to-face and everyone wants everyone else's medals. The Fiesta medals are kind of a cool thing, yeah for sure. Chris: Okay, last question Do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Brian: Tex-Mex for sure. I'll tell you this in traveling the country. There are other places where you can get barbecue. Maybe not quite the same, but there's some good barbecue out there. There is no good Tex-Mex anywhere except here. Chris: Yeah, yeah, I think it's a pretty accurate statement. Well, brian, I really appreciate you taking the time to kind of share your story, both on the property management side and Pickleball. Good luck with the grand opening coming up and look forward to seeing you guys succeed in that industry as well. Brian: All right, well, hey, great Thanks for having me on Great conversation. All right, take care. All right, bye, and there we have it. Special Guest: Brian Birdy.

Sky recently bought a house in Coastal Oregon and had some issues with the matinence that was going on. Instead of getting a second opinion or a different company to fix it all, she decided to play games...

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Dan and Billy's persistence finally gets Ryan Blaney to admit that everyone in NASCAR is a dirty, rotten cheater. AND LESS TALKING, CARL! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grandia II Part 6: The Birthplace of the Gods Was A Research Facility Square Roots - Episode 462 Quest Log: 28:40 Level Up: 01:48:15 GOTCHA! The Birthplace of the Gods was a research facility, which definitely means that Granas and Valmar were scientists who got turned into gods, and weren't aliens. With the Birthplace of the Gods being a research facility my logic is flawless and Matthew, who still needs to mail me ten dollars, is left speechless as we finish GameArts's classic JRPG! Also: We All Have An Oblivion We'd Rather Be Playing Chris Plante Sent To A Nice Click Farm Upstate A Lot Of Tiddy Talk It. Popped. Out. Tomax and Xamot Fan Fiction Vanessa's Private Network In The Krang Bin This Week: Finish Grandia II! Next Week: Finish Year I and Year II in Grim Fandango! Our Patreon: http://patreon.com/squarerootspodcast Thanks to Steven Morris for his awesome theme! You can find him at: https://bsky.app/profile/stevenmorrismusic.bsky.social and https://www.youtube.com/user/morrissteven Contact Square Roots! Twitter: @squarerootspod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/486022898258197/ Email: squarerootspodcast (at) gmail (dort) com

Since the UK Supreme Court ruling clarifying the definition of woman in the Equality Act, trans activists have decided 'transmen' now matter and are using this tiny cohort of women to claim sex-based public toilet arrangements cannot work due to them as a 'gotcha' against the ruling. We discuss the features of the 'gotcha' and how each one fails. We also discuss the superficiality of transgenderism, how photos or TikTok's don't mean someone 'passes' in real life, Gendered Intelligence's lies to 'transmen', the trans to detrans to trans attention-grift arc, and transgenderism's fundamental relation to the Freudian / Lacanian concept of castration. Plus, we call for prosecutions for GBH and conspiracy to commit child abuse, how ‘bottom surgery' for ‘transmen' is the Western version of FGM, and how the gay third sector sold out gay people yet we're somehow meant to pretend we're a community.

Bangkok's a big city that's got her own rules. You can try to fight them, but in the end, in certain situations, no matter how much you beg and plead, Bangkok wins, and you lose. Greg and Ed discuss ten ways Bangkok can own you: frustrating ‘gotchas' that are devilishly difficult to avoid. Even veterans of the city with tons of experience still sometimes forget the nuance or fail to think about the what-ifs and end up standing there like a fool, muttering under their breath. This still definitely happens with Greg and Ed, so if you don't want to get burned on your next visit to Thailand, keep these in mind - learned from cold, hard experience. From sidewalk squirts and freezing aircon to improper documentation and lack of change in a taxi, Greg and Ed recount multiple ways you can get ‘got' in the Land of Smiles. Sometimes you beat Bangkok, but sometimes the city owns YOU.  Don't forget that Patrons get the ad-free version of the show as well as swag and other perks. And we'll keep our Facebook, Twitter, and LINE accounts active so you can send us comments, questions, or whatever you want to share.  

We are stoked for Andor Season 2. We are looking back with a bonus epsiode at Andor Season 1, Ep3, Reckoning.  Deputy Inspector Syril Karn and Sergeant Linus Mosk are hot on the trail of Cassian.  But Rael and Andor get the upper hand with Ferrix locals with support.  This episode is so fire! Drop as a voice memo or email at bigtliltpodcast@gmail.com. big T & LIL T

Bible Reading: Galatians 6:4-10Ava yawned as she came into the kitchen. Her brother Jayden glanced at her mischievously, then looked out the window. "Hey, Ava, how'd your bike end up on the roof of the garage?" he asked."What?" Ava ran to the window to see for herself. "Where?""April fool!" Jayden laughed in delight. "Gotcha!"Ava grinned and gave her brother a soft punch on the arm as they sat down to eat.At dinner, Ava and Jayden told their dad about the April Fools' jokes kids played on each other at school. "It's fun to have a day where everyone plays jokes like that," said Jayden. "As long as no one takes the jokes too far," Dad said."Nobody did," Ava assured him, "and everyone was expecting it since it was April Fools' Day." She paused to take a bite of broccoli. "But then there's Louise. Today she was all smiles and sweetness to Mrs. Potter during math class but then said mean things about her at recess. Sometimes I don't know what to make of her. She says she's a Christian, but there are times when she doesn't act like one. Like she's just fooling people."Dad frowned. "I can think of three people right here who don't always act like Christians. Let's keep that in mind. It's possible for any one of us to fool others.""But I've seen Louise do that stuff too," said Jayden. "She acts one way around the teachers and another when they're not looking. It's hard to trust her."Ava nodded. "It seems like there's another side to her that only some of us see.""Well, if what you say is true, that doesn't mean she's not a Christian," said Dad. "We all struggle to do what's right in some areas of our lives. But if any one of us is trying to fool people into thinking we're Christians when we're not, there's someone who can never be fooled. God knows exactly what's in our hearts. We can't hide anything from Him, and we don't have to, because Jesus died for us so all our wrongs could be forgiven. Now, let's pray for Louise and think of ways we can show her love and support instead of talking about her."–Hazel W. Marett How About You?Are you trying to fool someone into thinking you're a Christian? You may fool your parents, pastor, teachers, or classmates, but you can never fool God. He knows exactly what's in your heart, and He offers you grace and forgiveness. Admit your need for a Savior and trust in Jesus today. (To learn more, click the "Good News!" button in the right column of this page or go to www.keysforkids.org/goodnews.)Today's Key Verse:Do not be fooled. You cannot fool God. (NLV) (Galatians 6:7)Today's Key Thought:It's impossible to fool God

Every work day we take our lunch hour to escape from the work day briefly and relax with our crew. Today is top 5 Tuesday where Scott will count down his top 5 favorite "Gatcha" Movies. and can't wait to see what the chat has to offer.  In Addition the age group workouts have been released and we will take a quick look at those.  Cat's new show starts tomorrow night at 8:00PM EST.

Send us a textHappy April Fools Day, Loca!  https://youtu.be/2CLzjKXzwB0?si=sLl_8Muj59M_p3N2Support the showCheck out our books (and support local bookstores!) on our Bookshop.org affiliate account!Starting your own podcast with your very cool best friend? Try hosting on Buzzsprout (and get a $20 Amazon gift card!)Want more??Visit our website!Join our Patreon!Shop the merch at TeePublic!If you liked these stories, let us know on our various socials!InstagramTiktokGoodreadsAnd email us at sortofthestory@gmail.com