EXPERIENCE 23 | Making an Insurance Business Journey Cool with Brandon Avery

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is your host Kurt Bear. I'm here with Brandon Avery today and Brandon is a longtime LOCO Think Tank member. Now LOCO Think Tank facilitator and Brandon had a business journey with Colorado Insurance Advisors that is really a pretty incredible one for the region. So, Brandon, why don't you start by just describing your role roles today? What I do now. What do you do right now? The biggest one is a dad and a husband, but yeah, I have three kids. So, have a five-year-old, just turned five and eight-year-old and a 12-year-old. So, we're kind of getting into sports is the biggest thing. So, yeah, after I leave here, little guy to flag football, basketball for my older one, my daughter's doing dance. It's basically a giant cluster. You always thought you had like seven kids by the way you described it. It feels like 30, but yeah, it's a lot. So, which is awesome having sold the business and getting out of the kind of day-to-day operations is really nice to be able to spend time with the kids. So, I don't mind chauffeuring around. It's got a limited time frame. So, that's kind of the main thing, but yeah. So, still actively heavily involved in the business. I just don't have to do the operations. So, that's a good compartment of the day. You get a standard sweet spot of relationship building. For sure. Which gives me still the opportunity to work with small business owners, which is kind of the fun part of doing insurance, which insurance is not overly fun. So, getting to work with small business owners, kind of the training, the silver lining of doing insurance, the product itself is just stupid boring. So, it does give you the opportunity. So, that's part of the day and then I try to devote as much time as I can to golf. So, I actually have some kind of outside dreams of trying to make it to the senior tour by the time I'm 50. So, you have weird, but it's like, I'm so die hard at this point and I love it. So, that gives me enough time to be able to practice. It's also very meditative to get out and hit balls. It gets me out of the thing. I need to be too excellent at anything, I think, is really only good for every other part of your life, too. Totally. I love the, that's where I finally found the sweet spot in golf is just trying daily to do something to get a little bit incrementally better. Which if you approach it that way, it's just so much more fun than like, what did I shoot? Right. So, it can definitely apply to every single component, but I love it. So, let's I miss name you. So, your, your, your acquiring company is, is, is IMA? Yeah. So, IMA Financial Group was out of, which talk cans is headquartered, but big, largest location in Denver. Regional broker, we picked them very selectively to work with, so it wasn't like, hey, top bidder come in, bias type of a deal. When we did sell, it was much more that we weren't trying to retire or be done. It was, how do we kind of move to the next level and who's the best partner to work with? And so, I mean, we went through 50 different agencies, selected it down to about three, did like in-depth interviews with them and they kind of stood out, you know, 2000% ahead of second place. And so, yeah, it's worked out great. And so, we now have the Northern Colorado location of IMA, and there's now there's about 20 locations, but so that was kind of the, the path on that. So, they acquired you basically to have a presence in Northern Colorado as part of their expand. Yeah, they, they, they really wanted to be in Northern Colorado, and they have some clients up here, but they just couldn't get any traction. It's very local community. So, kind of the only way to break into the local community is by somebody in the local community. So, yeah, they, they loved kind of where we were. They loved our demographics, I think, and just kind of our setup. We really jived with how they do things as a thousand employee company with only having, you know, 15 before we kind of spun out. So, the, yeah, it was, it was just a perfect fit. Yeah, well, they can do that, that business journey and as much as you're allowed to share about that due diligence process and things. Sure. But I want to get there kind of slow like, and let's start with where did Brandon come from. What, like, where did you go to third grade, fifth grade, whatever? Yeah. Tiny town, Bunevista, Colorado, born in Selita. So, I am a Colorado native. All, we never moved. So, we're fourth generation in Bunevista, which is like 5,000 people max. That then it was like 2500. But yeah, we're, we kind of ended it. I guess we're the last generation of Bunevista. I have no back someday. Yeah. I go, we still have an insurance agency there, which was part of the deal. So, that, that was we were able to spin that off and it's still operating there in Canaan City. That way you can drive back and forth to Bunevista and charge it to the company. 100%. Yeah. It's, no, it's doing really well. So, that's actually been kind of a fun deal. But, yeah. So, I grew up there, kind of sports junky growing up basketball golf primarily, which led me to actually, despite being 5,8 maybe, can stretch to 5,9 was, asked to come play with the basketball team for at Lewis, where I was playing golf. And so, I played and I was like, this is not going to be very fun. Like, I was a really good high school basketball player, but that doesn't translate too well when. Right, when six foot was tall. Yeah. 5,9 is okay. Yeah, it didn't work very well. But yeah, when I went and played, as like, this is a joke, like, I can't shoot, like, everybody blocks my shots. No fun. So, anyway, that was, yeah, very athletic, like, total jock background. I went to Fort Lewis for a year, kind of total misfit location for me. Like, I, that's a triangle. Yeah, the rainbow. I just, I don't know at the time and what I was doing, I was just felt like I was lost. And so, I felt really isolated. So, we ended up, so transferred to UNC, which is able to kind of bridge the scholarship for golf over there. And I played for, for two years and had a weird, that was a weird relationship with golf at that point. I was not mature enough to play golf. I had good talent, but that was about it. So, played there for a couple of years. I want to hear more about that, like, like enough talent, but not enough patience, not enough tolerance, lack of maturity. Okay. A total head case, like, golf requires patience and process, kind of a lack of focus on results would be the best way to put it. Yeah. And if you can do that, if you can just kind of like go through the flow, yeah, it's being very, very, very present, which is hard. I'm very, very, very future. And so, yeah, it was a nightmare. Like, I was terrible. I could make the team, but it was cheerly off natural ability. I refused to work with a coach. I have no idea why. Like, I'm so coachable and so like pro coach. And yeah, I don't know what the deal was. Just a weird space. Coming into your own kind of age and stuff. 19 year old male, right? We'll get more into the family dynamic, but do your brother's sisters? Only child. Okay. So, that might explain a lot. Maybe it's hard to that. I don't know. Yeah, it was a hard deal. That was, but so that was where I kind of how we made it into the Northern Colorado area being in Greeley. So, I graduated from Greeley with finance degree, which I have no idea why it's still, but kind of worked out. But yeah, so we're there. And then boom to four columns right after. Okay. But yeah, so we were you already, like, made up by the time you got out college. Yeah, way young. We, so my wife, we, you can remember if you want to. Christy, we met in first grade. Oh, whoa. Yeah, so she's actually, she's nothing to remember when did you kiss the first time? Like first grade. I don't know. We didn't. So we didn't get along that well all through. You got a little glitch. Yeah, just pulled the microphone. Okay. There you go. We didn't get, we never dated all through high school. We knew each other since first grade. We kind of didn't really like each other. I started dating her best friend when I was a senior. That didn't go very well. And then I don't know. For whatever reason, we kind of got drawn back like in college, started dating in college at UNC. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of it for Lewis at the end and then bridge that back into, she actually ended up transferring to UNC as well. She was at Azusa Pacific in California on a choir scholarship singing for Disney. And so yeah, Randum, she's a talent sometime because I love singing too. I'm sure we in Christy. Yeah, you guys sing Disney and I'll drink beer. I say Disney. So yeah, I went to a concert that they did at Disney and in California. Like it was like they don't hire no slouches. No, she's really, really good. And I probably killed the dream for her and she ended up moving to Greeley. Right. She's like, well, cows. Yeah. So she didn't end up doing really anything with it. And so yeah, but that's where we ended up back here. We had kind of intentions like you get a little scared. I guess when you're from a really small town of branching way out. And so she was thinking about doing Broadway. And we're thinking about moving to New York. And I had kind of structured a Morgan Stanley at the time internship. And we ended up just like guys so far from home. And I don't know. It's one of those things you look back on. Like I get a total crowd from North Dakota. And like from there, like when I moved to Colorado, people like, you'll be back in a couple years with the tail between your legs. That's what everybody does. You know what I kind of have that small time mentality like you just measure up to the big city. Yeah, I don't know if it was, yeah, it was measure up or just like it's so outside of your comfort zone that you just, yeah, you don't know. So it was, and we didn't, you know, we were getting married right after we got out of college. We were buying a condo right out of the gate. Like just way ahead of ourselves, probably, which is typical of my mentality. But the, yeah, so just an odd like turn of events and then ended up, ended up working out great. So I'm glad we did what we did. Probably been way behind had I done it the other way. So tell me about those like first jobs for the two of you. Did you graduate like the same time? Basically, you said, yeah, we graduated 2000 from UNC, 2000, 2000. I don't know. Okay, remember, as I 20 years, 20 plus years ago. So, yeah, she was working at Red Robin. And prestigious first. Yeah, I started. So I worked a couple of kind of different jobs, worked at a pro shop at Eden Country Club while I was playing golf. And that was kind of first job. And it worked with a financial planner for a little bit. And then started right out of the gate with country insurance. So it's like the only, it's kind of a rough time to get a job right then. It wasn't the best economy. It was kind of tough to get hired like post 9-11. Yeah, it was not ideal. And that was like the only job out there that had some kind of base pay and gave me the flexibility to kind of do what I wanted, which is pretty vital to me. Like, I've never had a job where I had to be there other than the pro shop. I literally lose my mind. And so yeah, that was part of it. I was like, well, give this a go. I don't really want to do insurance. It sounds terrible. But got in and like what a great start. Oh, yeah, it's relationship stuff. Yeah, learn how to get told know a lot. Did you have a mentor or a guide in that early years? Or how did I manage it? Not right. Yeah, that would be not really, but great manager, Brian at that country who he's still there. And you know, great recruiter to the right thing, just kind of helped set up the right scenario. I wouldn't say, you know, that it was, it was, it was. He told you what you needed to do. Yeah, absolutely. It gave you the opportunity to kind of figure it out, I guess. But I mean, biggest thing you just learned like crazy good lessons, which was what were those key lessons back then? Yeah, you say this like 2002. Yep, 2001, right in there. The biggest one is just to like the lack of fear and the ability to be told no. Like, I don't think I learned anything technical or anything that catapulted me forward from country insurance, but I learned real quick how to grind and how to get told know, right? Like, we were literally calling off cold call lists and leads, which I suck on the phone. I hate talking on the phone. And I just had to do it. Like, it was the only way to do it. There was really no, we had a, you know, minimal email at that point, which is weird to think about like no marketing, no SEO. Like, there wasn't anything. It was pretty much phone calls. Yeah, right? Like phone calls and people's numbers like it totally. I can remember some of those numbers. Like, some of them weirdly like that I called a lot. I can still remember the stupid phone numbers. Yeah, it was great though. Like what great learning experience? It wasn't great like from a technical insurgency standpoint, but it was unreal from just like a life skill. Right. Because it was pretty narrow band. You get to sell this stuff, but you don't really get to know much about how the whole underwriting things were. Yeah, a little bit. Products much. Right. Pretty limited products set and kind of, you know, also just one company. So we're doing it. It's not like independent where we were with our firm where we have hundreds, thousands of insurance carriers we can work with. It was one company. So kind of kept it simple in a little way, which was helpful. But yeah, it's tough. Like it was just it was like grind and you don't know anything. You're also 21 years old. Right. And you're like, you know, you're trying to talk through people on, on insurance plain, which half of which you have no freaking clue what you're saying. And the other half you're just kind of, you know, you're, you're hoping that you were told the right thing. Right. And so it was tough. Like what a, but what a great, I mean, there's no better. It's basically like getting chucked into the deep end like swam or don't. Yeah. And it was crazy turnover. Like I was there. And there's a, so I give country insurance had like probably still does maybe 1% of the market share in Northern Colorado, maybe less. And I saw like 65 agents, maybe more, maybe 80 agents come and go in the small, like I was there for five years, six years. Just in just in Fort Collins, just in the Fort Collins office. And so it's like, how many people stayed in the whole five years? I don't know. I don't there's none of them that I know of now. We actually hired one of the guys that I started with who just left. We hired him at IMA this last year. And so he had bounced around a little bit after that. But I don't know. It's just averse. Oh yeah. It's awful. It's just a churning. It doesn't really work that way. It's just it's really hard to make it. Like don't know that it's the best business model out there. Like I feel like, you know, maybe on the captive side, like a state farm does a better job where they really vet people before they come in with the book. And this is more of like figured out kind of deal. And they were new here too. So but anyway, I mean, great, like nothing bad at all to say, like great company. And they they definitely offered the best compensation package out there. So when you're 21 and you can come in and make a $36,000 salary with commissions. It's like, yeah, you can make, you know, 50, 60 grand that felt like actually feels like more money, liquid than it does now. Like what I make now doesn't feel as good because we had no expenses, no kids, no, we had a $700 condo payment. Our journeys are so similar in some ways because I came to Colorado with a $28,000 I think dollar salary with not much commission opportunity for the bank, but the same. Yeah, I but I had like a one year training program behind me that kind of, you know, it was like financial statement writing and security and, you know, so I couldn't wouldn't be a complete idiot. But still swimming out of my debts, you know, I don't know. Yeah, it's hard. Customers and everything. I don't know how else you learn though. Like I'm not a very good student and I can't academically learn anything. So if you tell me something, I just don't care. I love to just fail. Like just screw it up. And I screwed up so much stuff doing that. And nothing to the detriment like of a client. I always had that mindset that I'm not going to screw it up for them. But I screwed up so much stuff for myself. But that was like really the only way you learn. And just continue to kind of fumble through that for a long time. So how many years were you with country then? So I was there from like 2001. Let's call it to 2008. Okay. Six, seven years. So it's cool. I made all the trips. Like we had some unbelievable experiences from doing that. Like the perks were way better. Yeah, I did look around for a while. I did. I made it. Well, I just kind of ground it out. I don't know. I think it's one of the beauties of being like competitive. And I'm not like a winner by nature. I'd terrible at celebrating. I don't like to win. It's not my deal. But God, I have a terrible hatred of losing. So it's kind of a no win situation for me a lot of times. I'm not going to be real happy either way. But I know I'm going to be furious if I lose. And so anyway, it's kind of always been my DNA. But yeah, so that was pretty good kind of personality profile for that gig. And I just kind of ground it out. It's like, well, I'll just kind of keep banging it. Like I did it basketball practice. You know, you're a little guy. It's like we're just figuring it out. And it was just the numbers game a little bit. Just kind of get it. And then once you got a base, like if you did the right thing and you didn't, you know, screw over the client in some way, it tended to multiply on itself. Real core. The right thing. More the right thing. And it just kind of would tend to work out if you just don't get too hung up. And we were making I was making enough money to where I was at least comfortable. Which I think is like an overarching theme, right? Like you just need enough to as soon as you're desperate, things don't go bad things. Yeah, I like that. What's Christy happy at the Luckberger? No, where was it? Luckberger Red Robin. Red Robin. Same idea. No, so she's the she's like the total brains and kind of the she's got all the talent of the family. So she's she was like magnicum latte, double major, stupid smart room in the curve on every test in college. Yeah, it was great. I loved having classes with her. Yeah, just terrible. She got like almost like a photographic memory. So she can just regurgitate stuff real fast. It's really annoying. But then she'll forget it. She doesn't actually know it. She can just regurgitate it. But she's so she went from there. She kind of bounced around. She was at Washington Mutual for a while. She did loans. She was on the country wide at home loans. And then yes, she's been all over the place and now kind of worked her herself up into CFO role. Yeah. And she works with a smaller firm now about 50 employees. But does all the kind of control or CFO responsibilities? And was she a finance major too? She was a computer information systems and accounting major. Yeah. So yeah, it's really odd kind of how it all shakes out. And she's actually praying the role that I thought I would be in at some point. But I definitely just knew instantly when I started, I was like, I'll never be on the corporate side. And that was kind of how, you know, next role going into Bank of the West, it's like, this is not for me. This is not going to fly. Yeah, telling about that. So yeah, that was a transition from country. And then I kind of saw like bigger open waters out there. I really liked the commercial side of the business. I didn't love working with individuals that much. Right. And so we had just didn't have a toolbox for you to work with those exactly really limited access to what we needed to do. And so kind of found a little like I love construction. Not that I don't like to do it or have anything to do with it. I love the personality profile. They're very down to earth, very straightforward shooter. It just works great for me. Very authentic people, which is like number one value for me, like authenticity is number one. And and attended to get that type of client when I was in that construction space. So gravitated towards that, then got an opportunity at Bank of the West, which was funny enough downstairs from my country insurance office. And I was awkward for a while. But I was there. And then as, yeah, gosh, like the ultimate red tape, it was I open or like I learned, but I will say I learned so much moving over to there because they did a great job of training. I just went to like a three week intensive commercial insurance school, which sounds like as bad as it was. But I still remember tons of stuff from it was really good. That's a funny interesting parallel too. I haven't really thought of it a while. So I came out here with Community First National Bank, which was acquired by Bank of the West. Right. Right. And so that office was that was right when we first started. Yep, that's when they acquired Community First and I was Community First Insurance. They had a different name, but it was the same idea. I could see that was how we rolled in. So a couple of those people that were in that office. Yeah. So it was really kind of a strange and the only reason I knew or was introduced was just I was upstairs. Right. And so I knew them downstairs and they're like, Hey, we have it was actually a kind of a business development slash management type position came open. And I was like, you know, I just kind of want to try something different applied and got in and then it told like I got and it totally shifted as soon as those there like, yeah, actually, we kind of wanted to be more of a producer or sales person. That's totally fine. That's probably better than anyway. That's it. Yeah. The management. I'm not the great. The worst manager that's ever existed. So you work at Bank of the West for not too long. So Noah's there 2008 to like 2013. Okay. So five years, I was at Bank of the West, PW insurance. And that was yeah, literally where I learned everything about commercial insurance. Great couple. So mentors you talked about. Yeah. Maybe not necessarily in a mentor, but like, knowledge. So I had access to a couple people that just had fantastic knowledge. And I was just, I was like, you know, if I get nothing else out of this, I'm just going to utilize these people to teach me stuff. Yeah. And they just taught me how to dumb things down. I get a name of, yeah, Darren Hart, funny enough, like, I don't even talk to the guy anymore. Like, he was just, he was the owner of the agency in Gillette, Wyoming and ran about, I think they had about 75 employees there. Okay. Just one of those guys that could make everything really simple. Yeah. And so that's what I learned from it. It's like, you don't, this isn't that complex. Like, just dumb it down to what it is. And then explain it in that way as opposed to talking jargon. Yeah. It just doesn't work. So that was awesome. Like, great, great guy. And a couple others there too that were just easy to go to for information. This guy, bud, that was, we didn't have the best relationship, but super smart like technically. And it was like, I would just ask him stuff. So I would, I'm never afraid to ask questions, I guess is the point of that. But yeah, it actually, I learned so much. But the biggest thing I learned there probably was like, we tried to hire an account manager and it took us over a year to get them hired. And we had to get it cleared through first off through the insurance managers. Then it had to go through the insurance owners group. Then it had to go through the liaison between the bank and the insurance agency, which is just like the scratching the surface. Right. Then it had to get cleared by the local bank, which had to report up to the district. Meanwhile, the strong kind of is like, you know what, I took two other jobs. Remember, I already had a job which did another job. And now I'm, now I'm open again, but I might take another one. And then actually got to get cleared by the holding company, the bank, which is in France, the MP Paraba is in France. And that's the holding company had a sign. I was just like, I don't know what the logistics of it were, but it's like, this is just not for me. Like I can't do this. Like if we decide we want to shift, like let's shift, you know, and there's just nothing we could do. I was real frustrated. And, and so anyway, but it was good. Like kind of took the opportunity to look around and be like, what do I want to do? And just got approached randomly by, by a friend introduced me to my now, I guess now ex business partner, Josh got introduced by another Josh. Yeah. And so that was where that kind of transition happened. There's a common friend, somebody I know. Josh Hartman. Okay. So yeah, you might, you probably know Josh country guy. There's, there's the link. Josh is still a country insurance. He's the lingering, he made it. He's the only one that I know of that's still there. So yeah, anyway, he introduced me to Josh Fury, who is, who is my business partner at Colorado insurance advisors. And so we, so I shifted over there big, like huge risk on my part. That was, so was that 20, that was 2013. So that was a year that my son was born too. So your first, yeah, first one. And so it was like, you know, it wasn't like the best off financially at the time. And wasn't very smart about saving anything, which was typical is expensive golf's expensive. Yes. I, yeah, I tend to, what else? What else did you guys do while you were dinks? Cause my wife and I don't have any kids. I know. Dinks are whole life. We drank way too much and ate out way too many times. It's like, we had so much disposable income. And then at the end of the month, it's like, we didn't net out anything. Right. If you're the same. Like barely broke. Yeah. Then we'd even break even. I was terrible. You know, we look back on it. And so this is probably terrible advice to give. But I always kind of, I wouldn't say I lived outside of my means, but I stretched it to get into the groups that I wanted to be in because I tend to be like, I don't know. I think some people are just kind of old souls. And I tend to be about 10 years in front of myself. And that's why I feel the most comfortable with. And so yeah, I don't know what it was. I would, yeah, it's stupid advice to say, you know, stretch it, leverage yourself and do things. But it's literally, like when I look back on it, there's no chance we would have done anything had I not made the connections I did by kind of getting. And I did it. I didn't do it strategically for that purpose. I did it to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to play at a good golf club. Like I didn't want to play six hour rounds of public golf courses. Like I did it for golf. But it turned into like the best connections. Well, yeah. And then you're the guy that's that's blasting it. 340s. Yeah. And the 29 year old guy besides it totally. And I went, but I went into all those things like with no intentions of networking. Right. Like I went in like, I'm here to play golf. This is why I came to play. I, you know, I love to meet some new people and meet some new golf friends, golf buddies, that kind of thing. But in the process, like, I mean, literally 90% of my network is built off a golf at this point. So yeah, no, I did it kind of for the right reasons, which I think why it worked. But yeah, I totally stretched it. So stepping into that when we, when it was really a hard decision for us, I had to, I had to tap some 401k resources to kind of get us through the first year because it took a huge pay cut to go. Tell me about the facts on the ground. Tell me about the facts on the ground before because what I know is that there was kind of a, a former farmers now broke Ridge kind of ready to retire a couple. Right. So they were, so Josh, my now ex business partner was he basically kind of had a partnership agreement with, with the couple that owned the agency and they had a bit of a falling out with farmers and wanted to kind of go a different route. And it, they couldn't quite figure out how they wanted to make it work. But they knew that they wanted Josh to kind of be their, their continuation plan. And so they worked out a deal where they figured out how to start an independent agency. So they basically kind of capitalized it, which was, I think kind of the, that was the, that's what made it work. And then Josh kind of ran with it and got things going. So they, when I went in there and kind of wear the basic, you know, the basis of it was from an establishment standpoint is it was about 95 percent personal lines. And it was about, I don't know, maybe 180,000 in revenue type of a deal when we first started. But I looked at it. I was like a rebuilder project totally is like I get, but they had to start, right? Like they, they got the initial, like, which is the hardest part. When you start with no customers, that's hard life. It totally, but they, so they broke through the scratch piece and kind of got to where, at least they had carrier relationships. They had the basics of what you needed to do. And I was like, ah, this is a big risk. But it's something that I think I can work with. Like I, I feel confident in my skill set and kind of the network that I'd built that I can really come in and build the commercial piece of it. And they were kind of continuing to just chunk away on personal insurance. And it was doing well enough to keep it afloat. Sure. And so yeah, we just came in and kind of, you know, I, I built the entire commercial division, brought in some new carriers with relationships. I built at the Bank of the West. And then, yeah, that was a brokerage too. Bank of the West was. Yeah. So Bank of the West is the insurance I write BW insurance independent firm, you know, represent thousands of companies. Which a pretty big scope to there's like 75 offices. It was a pretty big firm. So we got some great, yeah, great connections there too. But yeah, and so I leveraged a few of those to kind of get things up and running at Colorado insurance advisors. And then, you know, Josh and I kind of ran with it from there, which yeah, the rockiest, roughest, but what it was, that was the biggest thing. Now, what a, uh, what is your pay turn from? Like, what was your average monthly income, like the year before you did this? And then the year, the first year, it was less than half. Yeah. And so yeah, that was scary. That was it, which we didn't really have the means to take a half pay cut. At that point, we just didn't, yeah, we didn't set much. You're leaning in, you know, you're stretching total lean in. That was another stretch and totally uncomfortable. Lots of arguments with my spouse about money at that point, which thank God, we're not doing that anymore. It's stressful. I mean, anybody, it's in that everybody's been in that spot, I think, but it is so stressful. And so, but yeah, you know, we, it gives, it's also a little bit motivating. So, but like I said, I hate operating out of desperation. And so we did kind of fall back on like, look, I'm going to pull some out of the 401k. It's probably not the best financial move. I know it's not the best financial move, but it gives us at least enough stability to where I'm not operating out of desperation. Like we can get by. Right. And I can do this the right way. I don't have to try and jump the gun. So we talked about, and I don't know if it's, there's a term that my former partner at Thrive and used to use. I don't know if it's like commission breath or something like that. Like when you're desperate for a sale, like it reeks off of you and nobody will buy from you. Yeah. No, that's the, it's like the worst way to go into something. So the best way, and I think to go into any situation is expecting that you'll get absolutely nothing from it. And you don't care. Yeah. If you can do that, everything goes great. Right. But as soon as you're like, put yourself there, you need this. Yeah. Right. It's, it's awful. And I was there a lot, like I did it a lot of country, even in, and yeah, it's just like it's no good. So anyway, that was a, it was a great transition. It was very stressful for a year, but like literally the second week I did it. I was like, this is the best decision I've ever made. Like this was, I, you could just feel it, right? There wasn't any like tipping point or nothing really great happened. It was just like there right with you. Yeah, totally. She could tell. No, she could tell, like just since of ease kind of comes over. It's like he's where he should be now. Yeah. And really you could change. You could kind of feel it. It's like, I know it's going to be hard, but I'm doing the right thing. Like whereas before, it's like, it's kind of hard, not really hard, but I hate this. Like I was grumpy. It's not me. I'm not grumpy. Well, that's when you're pointed to the wrong pointer. Yes. Wrong compass. You're pointing west and you should be going east. Whatever that is. Yeah. I want to, we'll get into the faith family politics section. I mentioned when we talk later, but I want to like unfold a lesson here. Like for, especially if there's one entrepreneur and one stable spouse or whatever listening to this podcast or something. And there is financial troubles because they're almost always is. And there is fighting and stuff. Like, do you have any pointers for those people? I have pointers now that I didn't follow. Sure. Well, you know, it's in the rear view of where we learn stuff. 100%. Yes. We've been actually working funny enough. We've been working through a bunch of this stuff and just kind of coaching now in terms of what and looking back like what I should have done. Yeah. One, I would say have a resource of either be it a coach or a mentor or really like not a financial money manager, but a true financial planner that you can trust and rely on and bounce questions off of. I don't even think you need a financial planner. You need like a financial counselor. Yeah. Like you need somebody to help and navigate 100% to give you some clarity. An unbiased third party and they talk to you about how you guys communicate. So the only thing that really it comes down to is open communication. So the things that caused us trouble were trying to define roles that we never actively worked upon. We never defined the roles. And it's like, hey, look, if you're going to do the day to day stuff, then we need to have some, we need to have some clarification as to where we're at each time. So the way I guess to make that a little clearer, my wife would do kind of the day to day. And then it didn't look great sometimes. So she wouldn't tell me right out of the gate. And we'd have like, and then it would erupt into a mess, right? And it's like, well, what the hell happened? Like, why is this not getting paid? Why do we have $4,000 on the credit card? I thought it was paid off, right? And she just didn't like, it gets bad. Well, why don't you work and get us some freaking commissions? It's like, well, I'm trying slow. And so anyway, you know, lots of get. So yeah, if I was giving you a device on that, for sure, having an unbiased third party or somebody that can step in and just help you communicate. And then second would be the communication. Like you have to just keep it in the open. If it's not hidden or it's you're unaware of it, it's not going to become a problem or as big of a problem might still be a problem, but you can address it. But if you kind of bury it and let it build, it turns into a shit show. And it's really hard to recover from that. It's easy to recover from like, all right, we need a course project. Trust can be recovered from pretty quickly when it's just a small thing and you just bring it out into the light. Right. But when it becomes like, oh, they didn't trust me to share this with me. I guess they like almost betrayed me. Totally. It can become like a bit. And I think that's what causes like the marital problems. Or it may be not even a marriage can be the same thing with a business partner, right? But if it's not an open line of communication and you don't have authenticity in what you're saying and you're, you know, kind of honesty and transparency in that space, like you really create so you create so much more trouble than that. Yeah. So that was, we learn, we learn the hard way with that. Just lots of like, meldowns. Like, what are we going to do? Like, how do we get here? This was more before. But it didn't even a little bit up into that. But that was, that was like the first time we ever got kind of clear about where we were. And so I always believe like, that's my biggest kind of stance on anything. It's like, life's pretty simple. Like you define where you're at, define where you want to be and kind of try and close the gap, right? Like, that's how I try to approach things. And that one, we never defined where we were. Not only do we not define where we were, we didn't define where we wanted to be. And so we had no idea. We're just flailing is basically what it comes down to. So yeah, no, I would say if anything, just get kind of clear on it. And really, you just have to work on the communication side of it. So know that, you know, how each one of them handles things, I think knowing yourself a little bit, like how what your personality is like and understanding it just opens the communication. Well, there's something about I think the confidence of becoming an quote unquote older person. Right. And just being transparent and open about that. I'm reflecting on, you mentioned that Christie is now a member of our catalyst chapter team plays chapter. And she and I had had a little time to gather in the past, but not much. Sure. But we had the best like one hour conversation. I was like, you're so think tank style, you know, super authentic, super smart, super thoughtful. Yeah. And it's funny how it works too, because and I think this is something to keep in mind as well that we try to do all the times. It's like just because she's really good at a job and as good CFO doesn't mean she's a good CFO of your personal finances. And doesn't mean that just because I'm a great planner and I have great vision and great direction and I tend to be able to connect dots very well. It doesn't mean I'll do it for our personal staff. The cops have no clothes. Totally always that way. Absolutely. Yeah. You guys that own construction companies, they're landscapers are my favorite. The landscapers there. They're yardish. Yeah. It's like nothing. It's all disheveled. The mechanic with a bunch of broken down cars. Yeah, it is. It's good. Yeah, like it. I know how, but it's so easy to overlook it. I don't know. So I decided not to ever, like I got offered a golf to go down the PGA route for like a teaching, not a not a PGA player, a teaching prop. And I was going down the PGA route and I was working at the golf club all the time. And it's like I watched everybody that works in golf. They hate golf. Like the last thing you want to do when you're done working at the golf course is be at the golf course. And so I think that's kind of in everything. Like the last thing I want to do is try and figure out insurance issues all day and then go home and try and figure out my insurance. Right. I just don't know. So do you swap? You're like the financial person at home and totally. Yeah. She does. So I do. We've got a good system finally. And if we had to, we had to automate everything so that it was just like a quick like here. We can just look at this. It had to be just like a little more dialed in. But yeah, like what honestly, like neither one of us are good at either either of them on our personal stuff. Like so we've had to build systems where it's like, all right, checks and balances. Like let's go through this and talk through it. Yeah. Try to open communication again on that piece to have some clarity around where we are. I'm pretty good at like the big picture planning stuff. But man day to day we both struggle. And so she can like compartmentalize and it worked like you won't find a better person to do control or work. But at home, I could still struggle. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of an odd setting. No, I don't think so. I mean, it's like no massage therapist wants to come home and give their husband a massage 100%. It's just hard to want to do it. Like the motivation ends when you're done with doing what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. So how long were the these? Who were the the former founders? Yeah. People. What was their names? Super, super nice people. Bill and Sue Lakehawk and they are the ones that kind of got it started. So yeah, lots of credit to them for taking that initial kind of capital hit. Yeah. And then we bought them out. Yeah. How long were they hanging around? Or they were part of it for? Yeah. So they were they were part of it for a little bit. And then they kind of knew it was time to be done. Like they were just they were past wanting to do anything. Yeah. Um, and Sue, Sue had some her mom had a lot of health issues and she was trying to help support that. So she just didn't have the time to spend on it. Um, and yeah, and Bill had some health issues too. And so they knew it was kind of time to be done. Unless you guys are too young, hard charge in 34 year old dude. Right. We're going pretty hard. And like I came in real hard because I was like, I need to get this. I got a baby. I got a baby. I got stuff going on. I yeah, I'm over leveraged. It's time to get some stuff rolling. And I know, and I was primed to do it. Like I had the contact base. I had people ready to do stuff. Like it was time to go. And so I think it was probably overwhelming a little bit for them. But we, there were awesome, super helpful made it made it pretty easy. Um, and then we branded it before that they had branded it. So everything was call round insurance. So Josh was, Josh was the initial founder and he kind of worked out a deal with them to it was basically a continuation plan of the farmers. Yeah. And see where they have. He was their exit plan of sorts. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. He was like, Hey, this can be a lot easier if I've got some commercial insurance revenue. Absolutely. And so that was kind of the initial introduction. And then so I came in and then we, you know, we blew up pretty quick. Given it's not very hard to double a really small firm, but we doubled real quick quadrupled, real quick. And so it was, we just kind of, we got to, so we had enough basis to be able to kind of run with it, which is in a kind of an overarching theme in my life, I feel like is it's, I'm great at that second position. I think that's where I found my niche. I'm not a dreamer. I'm not a, I'm not a founder by nature. I don't think that's not my deal. I don't like that initial phase. Like a lot of people love that, but I love it. It's really hard to get it from like most founders have a tough time getting something from the off the lawn. legitimate to like, or yeah, off the launch pad to legitimate. I guess would be a good way to put it. And I felt like, I don't know. And I've stepped in on a couple other things too, where I took it from somebody started it, got it going. And now we're just taking it to make it be legitimate. I also figured out that I'm not very good once you are legitimate. I don't like the punch in the clock, right? Like, which is kind of stupid because that's when it's like a cash cow, but it's not very fun. I don't love like a, just a well-oiled machine. I kind of feel like I'm very proud of you to take me from like shit of it to like cool. There's, there's a big step. And I think it's really hard for people that are true founders, dreamers. I think it's really hard to take it from there to legitimate. I think that's the biggest step. The next steps can be done by the, you know, the operations people. They truly doesn't take a lot of dreaming after something's up in legitimate, but there's a big step. Like from zero to an idea, I don't even know where those come from. Like those are the dreamers, right? Like those are the people that come up with the ideas. They're not so good at getting it into a legitimate business at the time. It's a hard next step. And so I don't know that feels like kind of my gift or where I like it in business. And I like taking, I like I'm good at connecting dots. I can make kind of things work. And so that was what I kind of learned that. And that was a great learning experience from running the business for that long or getting it to where it was. But like when we're humming along, I'm really bored. Right. So talk to me about, you know, basically just met this dude, Josh. Yeah, risk everything signed on with him and looking back. I don't know how I did that. Well, he's pretty likable. Actually, that's a mutual acquaintance of ours. Totally super likable guy. Yeah, we are polar opposite on the personality profile, which worked out well. He's, you know, glass half empty. I'm glass way more than half full. So the dynamic was great. It was tough because we were not come. We ended up at the same answer, but like by means of totally separate paths. So yeah, that was it was challenging. But he, you know, he had some of the, I think what kind of we lucked into this. Neither one of us being like legitimate business owners in the past, like we're just kind of guessing. I didn't know what to do to like vet anybody. I have no idea. It's like, it seems good. But you got like two employees or something out of the gate we did, right? Yeah, we had, we had basically two employees. So as the, it was Bill Sue were working like a cumulative maybe as one person, Josh, myself, and then we had one admin person. Okay. And so yeah, and then we kind of ramped it up from there. But yeah, funny to, you know, you just, and he's rocking all the residential, you're rocking commercial producer side. And then there's an admin person that helped make sort of things exactly. Yeah. And it's nice because kind of that first year when you start, there's not a lot of admin to do. So you can really kind of just bang it out. And then it just all creeps up on you, right? Like everything's renewing. It's like, oh my god, I'm not a very good account manager. And so then we had to suck it up and bring people on. But yeah, it's interesting to try and work out that dynamic with somebody that's so opposite. But yeah, I don't know what gave me the like confidence or trust it was just like a feeling I think it was a lot of it was just being naive and never really being a true business owner. Like looking back on it, I wouldn't have done it how I did. But I probably would end it up at the same conclusion. Yeah. But it felt like I was like, this is right. I could tell, you know, I think the biggest thing was I could tell we shared a couple of pretty common values. And I didn't, I maybe wasn't aware of it at the time, but I know we were both like very high on on it. Maybe authenticity for me, but it was more of just doing the right thing. Like I could tell Josh was very trustworthy. Like he would follow up, right? Like if I asked him something, he never, he wouldn't drop the ball. Super trustworthy, which in a partner is key. The things that we didn't have in common, we kind of offset each other and complimented each other pretty well. But yeah, lots of like struggle conversations. Talking about those like the stress friction points. Yeah. Yeah. Biggest friction was I am like overconfident, maybe to a deficit at some point. I always assume that I can accomplish whatever I want. And I always assume that it's going to work out. But the good part of me is if it doesn't work out, I didn't really care. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, whatever. It's no big deal. Let's move on. Yeah. Whereas Josh is like very slow to make a decision. Like I, well, and if we, you know, even if like, panned out on a disc profile, like we are on polar opposites, right? Like I'm a, a D. I want to make quick decisions. I don't want to overthink it. I want to just move. And he's on the S side where it's like, want to get all the information, really think it through. Triple check. Totally. Yeah. And so friction, there's friction. Like every single time there was something that came up, it would be a friction point. Not that we would get in an argument about it, we just approached it so differently. Yeah. And it's like, give me that. Give me that. Give me that. All right. I'm good. That looks great to me. Let's do it. And then if it messes up, yeah, so be it. That's the only way I could learn. Whereas he would more like, I want to understand all of it so that I'm really comfortable doing it. And then we do it right to it. Yeah. Right. So in, in who knows, like some of it works for both people, but like there's always friction. My dad used to say, you know, it doesn't matter if what you decide is right or wrong, just make a decision and do it. If you did the wrong thing, then whatever come back to it. Yeah. Yeah. And I do that. And I don't think it really works all the time. But it's like, I'm not sure that I even really believe in like right or wrong circumstances. It's like, I don't think it wrong or fail. It's like, man, just learn something, right? Right. Now I know how not to do it. Yeah. It's a Todd in our group. Tell me like the best quote that always sticks with me. I don't think he took it from anybody. I think he's just his deal. Todd, Todd Gilson, right? So he said that there's the education always cost something, right? So it will always cost you something to learn something, which I was like, that's so true. So, you know, you make the wrong decision and it might cost your company 50 grand, but you're sure as hell going to learn something in the process. That's right. So I always thought that was like a great, like, and if you, if you keep that in mind, it's really hard to get negative. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, yeah, it's suck, but now I know what not to do or now I know a better way to do it. Yeah. You know, so I always, I try to keep that mindset. Whereas Josh, it would really like, he didn't want to be wrong. Right. You know, or so that's really hard to charge forward when it's like one person is huge fear of being wrong and one person doesn't care. So it certainly would cause friction and almost everything we did, but it was good friction. Like we, we could very, we benefit from each other's perspective. We communicated well and we kind of get to where we wanted to be. Do you have a jar of the no mistakes, everything shake in your shelf? No, but I, I've got that. Well, I've heard of it. It's everything shake and I'll get you one before you leave. But yeah, I look, I tried on everything. I love it or I learned. Yeah. I do that again. That's my favorite way of doing things. So it's just a more positive way to look at stuff. But I think so. Yeah. I love Josh too. So I'm not. No, it's great. Like, but there are so many times where he would slow me down in a place. It's like, oh, I'm glad that we just didn't jump into that because that probably would have been a bad choice. Right. So yeah, I feel the same about Rory and yeah, I just like you got to slow down. So I think yeah, that's a building the right team. It's you kind of need a good mix. Yeah, it's it makes a huge difference. So talk to me about like about this time, it's probably when you join Think Tank. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So a year in or so to that for sure. And so bridging that into how did this all kind of come together. So we were there and taught was the one that initially got me into that. We're in a different group. Just kind of a men's like the court, the board of directors, the board of directors, basically, which you just get together and have breakfast and chat and Todd and I kind of took it to another level and kept chatting and chatting. He's like, you should come to Think Tank group. I was like, all right, yeah, I love to. And so I talked to Josh about and he's like, I think it's probably a good idea. And so we jumped in there and and that was probably what 2000 maybe late 14 15. Yeah, early 15 somewhere right in the 14 early 15. Yeah, yeah, I think started early 14. So and we were, I don't know. Yeah. So we were just kind of right past that initial phase where it was initially everybody come from Vistage and no, only a few was the Andrea and Mike and Todd and yeah, those ones. So then I was kind of next in line, I guess. And so yeah, that was and that was just, I mean, I got to congratulate Josh on just being a willing to kind of accept it because yeah, at that point in time, like, you know, 200 bucks a month was it actually registered, right? Like it was like, I got a, we need a hundred dollars of his money to a hundred percent. Yeah. So it's like, are we going to pile this back in? Does it make sense? It's like, yeah, it does. And you know, looking at it now, it's like, who cares, right? It's 200, like, just get something out of it. But looking at it then, it was like, this is, it's not an inconsequential number. So we looked at it and it's like, yeah, I think you probably did like 400,000 that year. Right. It was, it was, it was real money, especially when we were trying to hire people. Is it like, is it better to do this? Or is it better to get, you know, an admin person to come in and take some of this work off my plate? And it's like, you know, if we really want to go forward, it's funny because I didn't really envision myself as like this CEO type. Like I hate CEO stupid. I feel like you have to have a hundred employees to call yourself a CEO at least, but maybe 200, but the maybe more of a role as the vision owner. And it's like, I didn't even know I was that guy. Like I was just there to try and bring on new accounts, right? And then it's like, I'm the only one that thinks past, like next week. And so I could realize that I was the one out in front. It's like, this is really an opportunity for me to think outside of just day-to-day stuff. Right. Give me some platform or someone to talk to or someone to kind of come in and and and give me another opinion. Yeah, probably because Josh was kind of emptying your cup a little bit. A hundred percent. And like, Josh was probably a really good choice for the the transition because like you have taken what they had and slowly grown it. Just a really excellent service and great relationship. Absolutely. time. But he wouldn't have quickly grown it ever. Never. No. So it was. It was just it was a great choice on Josh. Like we've mashed up really well. And then he kept it, you know, he kept it without you can outgrow yourself pretty quick. Sure. It's a little hardened insurance. Like it's not like other things. Yeah, people are pretty relaxed. They don't like fire you right away. It's just not instant. You don't need instant things. So it's like things can linger a little bit. And so we kind of made the point though. Like one of the things that we did agree upon and I learned this from Bank of the West is that I don't want I want a separation of church and state when it comes to sales and service. I don't want my service people intermingled and making commissions because then they get the wrong they get the wrong motivation. Right. And so like everybody needs a home equity line of credit. It totally. Well, we and so we made that like our point. We we and I guess we agreed upon that somehow mutually that we were not going to have sales people. We were going to spend all of our extra resources on proper service. Right. So that the customer experience was good. And so because you can easily get into that sales driven place where it's like the customers get overlooked. I can do that quick. Like that's easy to do because you're kind of trying to move on to the next thing. That's what games you revenue. And so we we purposely like did not hire anybody else. It's like world take the brunt of this. But we are going to overstaff ourselves in terms of service and hire kind of a head of need. We did that the whole time. I don't know why we thought that or why it worked. But it seems like it worked out well. Well, it's leading in a little bit. Right. It's like we know we're going to get there. Maybe a little confidence that we know we can do it. Yeah. And we're doing the right thing. But it was yeah, it was it was a little it was a little like it felt very risky at the time. You know, it's like this is that's a pretty big spin like we're going to bring on somebody that makes almost what we're making because we're not paying ourselves a lot. And I hope that that works out. Right. Like it gives us time and then being able to free up the time and then actually use the time to do what we said we were going to do. That's right. So that was yeah, it was key and you know, another. But that being all said like going back to your question on that's when we had think tank like huge total course change that pretty much pole vaulted the company in the right direction was some thought from our facilitator from Andrea. Her helping me design kind of comp structures and really being able to identify what we could spend on account managers and what should be spent. And she helped on that but the whole group like I brought it up and then we actually actually brought Josh in for a couple meetings to talk through things because we're we had like kind of a we had a precipice moment where it's like this is not going to work out. Like we had a like a basically it's time to separate or try and figure this out. I've been gone by that time. Yeah. Yeah. No, that wasn't we didn't have him. Yeah, he wasn't in he wasn't in the group. That was kind of all right. So we processed it through in the group like should this be done because we could easily kind of go our own routes and and this is going to work fine. Like it's pretty easy to split up an insurance agency. Yeah, he's from the commercial guy. He's not very hard guy. And so yeah, we got to that point. I was like, no, look, I don't really have any interest in trying to like I think we're doing the right things here. We just need to re-evaluate how everything the ins and outs of the day to day. And so I'm that's not my forte. He's not on process systems guy. And so being able to work with the group on that like, hey, here, well, again, right, goes back to my gap closure. Like really did identify here's where we are. Here's where we want to be. What do we do to get from here to there? And the group was like the key to getting from here to there. So like very, you know, individuals in the group that we talked through like with Todd and and with Andrea, Andrea helped a lot on the finance side and just trying to get it dialed in. And we kind of came up with a plan outside of Josh being there. And then I brought it back to my like, here's what I'm thinking. Like this is how we continue going forward. He's done. I love that. And so I was like, good, now we're on the same page. Let's see if we move it. And that's when we went like blow up percentage growth because we just kind of were you were kind of pointed the right. We got pointed in the same direction. So yeah, it just cleaned it up and we both felt like it was very fair. And I think that's key in a partnership is trying to make it fair, but it's really hard sometimes. I've had that conversation so many times where like trying to separate the earnings from doing things right, your wages, your salary, your commissions from the earnings from being one of the equity owners of the company. Absolutely. And that was it. So that was the big tipping point. And another huge help was, which we're naming names, obviously Dan Sukup, which good friend, another golfer. If that's the one praising, you might as well name Dan. Yeah, right. Dan, he's pretty hard to beat, but we had some great conversations on kind of how they're structured with the, you know, private top accounting firm in, in order to come maybe in Colorado, one of the bigger ones. Dan, if you're listening, you can be in think tank. I've been calling you for years. I know you're busy, jumping there, whatever. But yeah, just a huge resource for us and great to have as a friend, but he kind of coached up on what they did and gave us some strategy. And I kind of write that back to the group and said, hey, here's kind of what we're thinking. And they gave me some great insight. Like, oh, let's tweak this or that. And then brought it back and kind of presented to Josh, took my time for once, which is really hard for me. But I let it kind of lean and he's like, yeah, that was a huge spot for us to kind of move forward. Yeah. So anyway, that story. No, that's, I mean, that's, it's those moments, right? Like you're tugging along, you're trying, you're grinding. Yeah, grinding. But then there's also doing it a little different. And then the grind becomes less of a grind sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and then it just doesn't feel like such a grind when you know your point in the same direction. That was a lot easier to relay along to staff where we were going or like potential hires like, hey, we're actually kind of clear on what we're doing here at this point. And so we don't celebrate that. We got a cake. Yeah, totally. We got, yeah. So we which I guess could lead into another really good point, another kind of tipping point from the business, which cut me off you need to know. Keep going. The introduction from Think Tank to Amanda Carruthers business coach. Awesome. Awesome. And funny enough, this was like a couple years before. So we hired her to come on and coach us kind of in addition. And then we'd bounce the things that we were working off there off to Think Tank too. But we got to a tipping point. I remember this like very vividly at we were at Tarmigan at the golf course where I was playing at the time. And so we were sending the boardroom. And she's like, you know what guys? I'm done. And I was like firing you as a client. And I was like, what's going on? Like, where is this going? And she's like, I don't know what to do with you guys. She's like, all my other. So this is this is funny. And I don't know that I don't know that there's any great lesson in here other than where we ended up from it. Like she's like, you guys are kind of an anomaly to me. You're doing well. You're making good money. You're making great decisions. You're doing the right things for anybody. But you don't have a whole lot of passion behind what you're doing. Like most of my business owners, they have this crazy like drive to want to do this and start this company that has a different model world. They have this innate passion. She's like, I can get it. You guys do insurance. There's not a lot of passion there. And so neither one of us like, it's like we hate it. But it's not like something that you can really get behind. But anyway, so where this went to and she's like, but you guys have all the right kind of resources and mindset to really take this thing the right direction. She's like, where do you want to go? And we're like, I don't know, we gave her all the stupid answers that everybody gives. And she's like, no, that's not where you're going. She's like, here's the deal. This is what you can do with a company. You can either take it public. You can transition it down to other owners and some sort of loopy contingency to employees or son or daughter or whatever you want to do. You can sell the business or you can close the doors. Like those are your four options. There's no other options. It's like, which one do you want to do? And she's like, are you taking this company public? It was like in like eight generations maybe? No, we're not. Are you going to close the doors? No, it's very valuable. It's worth something. So not closing the doors. She's like, do you want to transition it down to your ears or some other person to take it over? No, it's like, this all got real simple, didn't it? You need to find a partner and you need to figure out how to sell it. Like work on your ex's strategy and how you want to transition to that next space. It doesn't have to be now. It doesn't have to be in 10 years. It doesn't have to be, but you know you're going to sell. So a huge tipping point and really clear, let's get this thing right to sell. Doesn't mean we have to exit the business. We just need to find the right partner to get rid of all this stuff that we're not really that good at because getting it to the level of, you know, IPO or something like that, right? Like it's just not going to happen. Not in that industry. You don't have that kind of like exponential growth. And so anyway, that was just like a huge clarifying moment. We are building this business to sell it. Yeah, right. And it's like, well, we'll just accept that, right? That was a huge, I think a lot of people get really hung up and their identity gets super wrapped up into them as a business owner and what they do. Like that's their whole identity. And Josh and I were pretty easily able to separate that. Be like, like, this is just a tool, right? Like we're going to do the best job we can. We're going to make this business as good as we can. But it's just a tool for us to do personally what we want. And so that was just like this huge clarity. Like she wrote it down and she's drawn all these wiggly lines on here's how you can do a contingency. And like, you may be your sons when it's like, get no, no, like we want to sell. But there are a bunch of things that we really like to do inside of this business. We just suck at the things that would probably push us to the next level, which again, so that was the tipping point. Like, well, this is what we're going to do. So now we're going to work on how we do it. And so that was kind of where we're led to that next phase. But that was it was a really interesting conversation. And it was like, yeah, slapping the face almost like, what are we, why are we overthinking so much? And so yeah, which led up to the next one. It's like, all right. We really spent the next couple years defining what we were good at. And that was really where it came down to. And then it's like, well, here's what we're good at. These are our strengths. These are the areas where we really suck. So let's figure out a partner that can take all of these and we can still do the things that we're good at. And so that's how that led up to kind of that decision. I love it. Which we were both really, really, really bad at managing. So well, no more management. So yeah, the, and I guess the decision there came down to do we want to go, you know, six steps backwards and hire like a really high end operations manager. Right. It's going to take us five, eight years to get kind of even back to where we were. You know, it's just a long-winded process. And it's like, there's a faster, better way. And I really kind of wanted to elevate, you know, in Josh too. Like, we want to elevate to that next level. You were excited. Like you had this great, broad new toolkit and all of these sophisticated things that you can do for your clients that you didn't do before. We would have never got there. Like you can't build in that industry. I think in some industries, you can really, you know, call it software or something like that. You can really blow up. Like insurance is like a really get rich slow scheme. It just takes forever. And to get to like an IMA level of company, it would have taken four or five generations. And so it's like, I don't really have that kind of time horizon. Right. And that's not what I want to do. And so anyway, it's pretty easy to kind of cruise into that and then pretty easy to partner and make it go from there. Do you want to talk about that choice, that selection that process a little bit? To the extent you can. I think that was, that was pretty valid. We really, again, when I look back on it on the decisions where I really kind of thought it through, this is probably Josh a little bit. Like, I don't even like, no, I like these guys were done, right? Like, was that the first impulse for you? No, I didn't. I wasn't too impulsive in this, but a little bit like I didn't want it to linger. I hate letting things linger. And so, which is great. I get shit done, but I can also make a mess. But we looked at everybody that was available to us. Like in it, we wanted to be a Colorado. And then we kind of weeded out some like big parameters. Like, we didn't want a national publicly traded company. That wasn't in our wheelhouse. We didn't like that because we weren't, weren't done, right? Like, if I was done, I would just put it out for bid, right? Like, give me the highest number you can get. But we're, this is what we want to do still. We just don't want to do all the stuff that we're not good at. And so we, we really looked at it as a partnership, not a sale. And we put a bunch of parameters down of like, what is important to us? One of those resources, right? Like when having a local presence, that the company wanted to be a Northern Colorado, because that's where we want to be. Those were kind of some of our vital pieces. And then we eliminated a few things. It's like, this one's not going to fly. This one's not going to fly. I don't like this. And we got about 50. And then we just started checking them off like this hand. No, no, no, no, no, don't really like that one. I don't know about this one. It seems kind of weird. And then we read it down to, we had four. And we did like full on interviews with them, like talked with them. It's like, give me like three or four of your people that we could talk to, hopefully a little bit off the cuff, where they're not just going to say what we want them to, what they want them to say. Right. They don't understand. Yeah. And so we were able to meet these kind of, full on, like full access and kind of understood everything about them. One of the biggest draws to IMA that kind of tipped it over the top for us was that their employee owned, which gave us like a sense of stability, much harder to sell an employee owned company, right? Because insurance is all about acquisitions right now. So the agency side is, and so that was one of the biggest things for us was, so we really vetted it through. We talked with them. We went through like several different layers. We went through upper top tier management down to their account managers to somebody specifically in the construction space, you know, to really get kind of a feel for what it was going to look like. And you never know, right? Going into it, but we've been to you like it couldn't be more happy with what we made a great choice. And we really vetted out hard up front to make a good choice. And that's a big decision. And I won't, you know, you shouldn't divulge any terms, but it's basically kind of a here's kind of the base price. Plus if we keep growing on the trajectory that we were, we get this much for sure. I give you the parameters without any numbers, but basically what we did was we took a less of an initial payout and veered it towards growth. Because we really thought, you know, leveraging ourselves with the company that has way more resources. With their toolkit, your connections. We could get a much bigger bang for our buck and they're willing to give you more in an earn out. Then they are an initial payment, which totally makes sense because the win win, right? So then we're they're making money too. And so we skewed it a little bit more towards that. So yeah, the parameters were we got X to kind of finish it. And then we got a three year to get. And then we got a table wherever we hit from a revenue standpoint between A and Z, there's a scheduled payout again for three years down the rows. Kind of hear it down at the end of the room. And you have six or at least three years or you have to five year five year non-compete within the industry that we signed, which is pretty typical. But yeah, like we said, I mean, we knew what our plan was. We knew where we were. We knew where we wanted to be. And we kind of had a time frame around it. It's like, man, those are all fine, right? Like we plan on doing this the next five to 10 years. There's no big deal. What's I may allow you to do for your clients that you couldn't do for them before? It's basically it just allows us a whole different subset of clients is what it does. So like we had in some activities, basically in the same or maybe a little more. Clients, we get a little bit more expertise. We have some more systems. We have some more support. Like if one of our account managers out, we got tons of backup. We get a lot more resources in terms of just knowledge base. So we get flooded with stuff all the time just from internally. Here's what's going on in the industry. Here's what this is going here. I know so much more about the insurance marketplace than I did before before. It's just like, let's just figure out. See what the price is. We'll submit it. See what people ask us. So much more. And it's like, now if I need, hey, I need some expertise on directors and officers coverage. I don't know a lot about it. Like, oh, why don't you call our executive risk team down in Denver and they'll answer all the questions. We have eight people dedicated just to do it. Right. We have eight in-house attorneys. So if I have like a contract question, we literally can talk to an in-house attorney. It's just a different ballgame. So for sure, because otherwise you're talking about an attorney that maybe got a favorite because you golfed with them. I'm probably paying them for it. So it's like an outsource deal. It's just rough. And this is like all in-house. Yeah. And so that was the biggest thing. It's like, it allows us. So a different subset of clients, we can go from kind of where we were. What's the knowledge? Frankly, it's that knowledge that you started talking about when you were hitting up the dude in Gillette for his country insurance knowledge. That's exactly what it was. It was trying to seek somebody else, which I have no hesitation to ever ask questions or admit that I don't know what I'm talking about. So that was that was huge for me. It's like, I now I have resources. Whenever I come up against something, there's no way that we can run across something that I can't get an internal answer to at this point, which that was why we did it. So now, instead of being kind of tapped out, it may be a 50 to 100 employee firm where we can go upstream to whatever, right? Like we can do, we write publicly traded companies. So not that that's what I focus on or anything that we do, but it's available, right? And if you need the information, we have if you need a knowledge to be able to write that kind of a client successfully, you know where to find it. Right. And the other thing that was key as to why we partnered with IMA in particular is we asked every other agency that we talked to about them, because we kind of had in mind that that was one of the ones that we would want to talk to. Yeah. Never once did I get a bad comment, which is really rare within an industry like our best ever. Totally. Like they're like, oh, that company's a joke. Like not once. They're like, oh, that's a great company. I hate working against them because we lose to them all the time. But I go, well, that's good. That sounds ferner with a winner, right? Exactly. It's so much more fun to be part of a winning team. It is. Yeah. And they've just absolutely blown up. We unfortunately got in at the wrong time frame for the stock price internally. Like we weren't allowed to buy in until this year. Oh, right. It's already blown up so much. Oh, it's just crazy. It's just a really strong company. We tried. That was a great recommendation from another person I met through Think Tank, Ron Houston, who spoke at it. I talked to him. He's sold a couple of companies for a good chunk. And I talked to him before the deal. And he's like, hey, one thing I can tell you, see if you can get some stock options as part of the deal. It's like smart move. So I negotiated hard and they wouldn't do it because it's employees. So they have, right. They have set parameters. That's a physical responsibility to those. Exactly. fiduciary rather. Exactly. And so what, but, you know, I can't be, I can't complain about that. So I think this, most of the business journey, is there anything else along that journey that you'd really like to bring to light? No, I mean, that's, yeah. Yeah. No, just, I guess the biggest thing was just, and what's it like working for the man again instead of being with us? Interesting. I just, uh, lean out our room the other day and then found out that we had some COVID protocols that, uh, need to be instated. So I was like, oh, back to corporate a little bit. But, I mean, they are literally like, as I've, there's not many companies like it. I think there's probably some around here, maybe autobox functions kind of like this, but they're maybe new Belgium. They act like a small, like if I have an idea, they'll work on it. There's a way to wake it up to change. Yeah, right. Like it, it doesn't have to be the bank of the West model that, yeah, it really, like if I say, hey, you know, we're trying to do this. They're like, well, let's think about how we could make it happen. And it's fast, right? So that's cool. I love that. That we kind of vetted out for a big, yeah, I think over a thousand employees now. So it's a pretty big firm. So that was, yeah, no, I guess just my biggest thing or take away from it was just to, I would want to tell like I would talk to a lot of the, the, the people in our group and our think tank group was just like, don't get your identity wrapped up in your business. Like your business is your business, put everything you got into it, make it whatever you can. But don't like know who you are and what you do. And none of that has to do with your business. You can operate the business and run it. But you, it's going to be a struggle to let it go if all who you are is wrapped up in the business, whereas like for ours, it was always for personal stuff. Like this is I want to do this because of this to be able to do this for my family and be able to do it this way. And so that was, I guess the biggest takeaway that I had or things that we talked about in there was figure out how to separate that out. Give it everything you got on the business. But know that you have to do something with it, right? Like that thing where I learned from Amanda, it's like, here's your options. That's the same option for everybody. So like, define what the option is and then move towards that because you're only going to make yourself more successful from doing it. So yeah, I thought that was a key component. That's really good. I'm actually, I've been telling myself that I can think about that in like five years, but it's probably why is it to think about it sooner than later. I think you think about it rather than gate, because what's the point? Like, why do you run a race when you don't know what the end is? It's too good in the world, Brian. I like having the, and it doesn't, like, I totally believe in flexibility, right? Like, but at least get your get your compass point and change your way in but it's holding a decision. But yeah, decide where you want to go and then head that way and then you know, down the road saying, we kind of want to tweak this, right? Yeah, tweak it. So you became a local facilitator. Do you want to take a short break, by the way? No, I'm good. Okay. You became a local facilitator this fall. As kind of a, you know, you had done a business journey that looks like success to these other chapters, you know, you sold a successful company. Yeah. Tell me about that. Like, like, why? Sure. And what's that? Like, yeah, it's weird. I kind of don't feel like I have any of the credentials to be able to do it. So that's part of it, right? But I kind of looked at it as more of a, a referee or a supporter more than anything. And it's like, I don't need to know everything. Like, and I guess, you know, maybe sell it short a little bit. Like we did, we did well. And it was a good like we did what we set out to accomplish and did accomplish it and got where we wanted to get to. So, you know, you have kind of reservations on that. It's like, am I really like giving them positive people? Yeah, totally. Yeah. And, you know, half the people are older than you. Like kind of a one of those deals. But it's like one of the most rewarding things that I do. Like it's, you really do feel like you're giving back a little bit. And it's not from advice or things that I tell them. It's just like time. You know, it's like, hey, you know, I'm here to bounce ideas off of like, I'm here to, you know, help walk through things. I can give you some ideas of what we did. I don't know if it helps or hurts. But I, you know, I got a great network. I have resources like if you need to talk to me this big structure to a group of entrepreneurs takes time. And I know how much structure means to somebody like me that that's one of the key things you lack. And so, no, I absolutely love it. I was actually talking. I work with a coach now. And I said, you know, if all the things I do, there's a couple things where I get like an exponential reward for what I do for the time I spend on it. And it doesn't have anything to do with money, right? Obviously, you know, you pay the facilitator. So, no, no, the, but the reward you get from it is just to see somebody like thinking through something, even if it doesn't result in them like doing something different. But it's like, hey, I threw a question out there that made them think. And it might change the direction of where they go. And that's what I feel like my role as a facilitator is is just to ask good questions. Sit back and sit back and listen and see where they're going with it. And just maybe throw a question out there. It's like, maybe that got them to think or it changes it up or. Well, when you see someone go from like 70% confident to like 99% confident. Right. And that's the benefit of changing their mind. No, all you did was like start a question. And so no, I feel like from a, yeah, what do you get out of the things you do in a given day? Like that's one of the things I get an exponential return of just satisfaction. And just feels like, yeah, you're in the right place when you're doing it. And so yeah, no, I love, I love the kind of whole model. I think it makes so much sense. I learned so much of it was obviously incredibly valuable for our business. But being able to be on that side of it and just kind of being like a cheerleader and like, hey, bounce ideas off me, whatever I can do. Like it's great. Like I think it's and it doesn't take like an obscene amount of time or anything. So it's like I can really kind of talk to each one of them outside of the group and then, you know, prep a little bit for the meeting. And then in the meeting, it's like just sit back and ask a few good questions and kind of see where it goes. Like kind of hard to beat. I think one of the special talents that you brought to think tank was that little bit higher level of detachment maybe, you know, it's not just because insurance is super boring, right? But but that like your business is not you, you're sharing that earlier. And I think that even, even think tank in general is kind of a place to be cognizant of the fact that your business is not you. Absolutely. And I think it's that place where you get to actually get outside of the day to day. It's really hard to get detached when you're so ingrained in the weeds, right? When you're just banging through what you got to do every day, it's really hard to think about where you're going. So that gives you like one chance, you know, for a few hours a month to step back and be like, because I would take that much more often than that. Like I would do I just kind of in my nature to to think about things like that. But from what I can tell most business owners in this size don't, right? Maybe a larger size where they're a little more detached from the day to day. But in the size where we're working in the kind of thinker realm where we're, you know, sub five million revenue, like it's hard to get out of the day to day. So this is really like take the break, the get outside of yourself a little bit. The visual I just had it, I had a really crisp visual, which isn't usual, but like is like a mangrove swamp or like a bamboo thing where you're just like, you're just hacking with a machete and you're just hacking, hacking, hacking, hacking. But if you could actually get a ladder or stand on somebody's shoulders and climb up there and look, there's a road like 20 yards over to your left that leads right into the village. Absolutely. I think that's a great analogy. You know, and I look at it like the word detachment so key to me, like I, I work on, that's what I work on in golf, right? Like I try to be detached from what I did. Like when I hit his shot and it snap hooks to the left, it's like, all right, cool. I'll go find it and hit it again. It's really hard to do. But if you can be kind of detached from where it'll go, your results just explode into the positive direction. So I mean, yeah, I love that example. But it's hard if you're in there every day. Totally. You're in the bite. It's easy to just hack because you got to hack. How are you going to get anywhere if you don't hack? And you feel like you're accomplishing something a lot of times because you're checking off boxes, right? Like look at the busyness. I look how busy I'm so busy. It's like, well, you're busy, but are you effective, right? Like it's great to be, you know, busy person. I hate that word. I kind of look at it as like another form of laziness in a way, right? Like it's, it's a lack of priority. It's a lot of times. I hate when people get busy by moving pollen from one flower day, you know, hive to the next back and forth all day. Right. But did you actually accomplish? So it, like you said, right? Like I can look up and then I can actually be effective. I think that's kind of what you're shooting for. Sure, for sure. So let's roll on to the faith family politics. Do you have a preference? Any preference? Yeah. So very, um, and only as much as you want to share in a public forum family. You kind of got the family. That's for sure. We got some of them. But let's, oh, one of the things I like to do is one word description for the children. One word description for the children. Yeah. And the name obviously to go with it. You got 12 year old boy, I think. 12 year old boy. Do you want a, a, a one word for each kid? Yeah. 12 year old boy is named Jackson. I know it's okay Jackson. 12 year old boy Jackson is passionate. Ooh. Uh, eight year old daughter, Ken Lee is sweet heart. Oh, five year old Parker is five year old Parker. Uh, he just decided that he wanted to call himself Carlos. So he came home from preschool and it's like, can you just call me Carlos from now? I'm like, what do you want me to call Carlos? You want me to call you Carlos? All right. We'll go Carlos. So Parker is, Parker is, uh, energetic. I, he's got some spunk. I like that. And tell me why Christy fell in love with you. That's a hard question. Why did you fall in love with her if you want to start? That's probably easier. Um, um, you know, it's, we're very compatible. We're just, uh, I wouldn't say we're like, I, we could easily be mistaken. I don't think we'd be mistaken for best friends, but we could, brother sister, brother sister. Yeah. We could totally be brother sister. Very similar, um, in a lot of ways, we, we found out that we processed things drastically different. But, um, so what was it? Just, uh, I would say it was that, that common ground or just, uh, just a similar mindset. I, you know, when I honestly think it comes down to at this point, which looking back on it, I can see it way more than I did at the time. I didn't know what it was. It just kind of worked out, you know, it's kind of what we do in your 21. Sure. But we both have a really innate ability to connect dots. We can like, see the puzzle before it's together a little bit. And so we do the same. Things are going to work out pretty okay. And you don't know, but it's like, if you, if there's a problem out there, it's like, hey, give me, throw me out what you got going on. This is why I do well with insurance. This is the only thing I like about it, actually, is if I can, I come into something and I can see what you have scattered all over the place, I can pretty easily intuitively put together a much better programmer idea for you. She's very similar. And so that was like our common link. I didn't really realize it until the last few years, but that's what, that's why we're compatible because we both have that ability. So we kind of, if we talk, it's on the same, she's very much more emotional than I am, but the links there, it's like, oh, yeah, we can complete each other's senses, right? Like it's, we both see where it's going, I guess. So, yeah, I think that makes any sense. Yeah, it talked to me about your folks. Oh, yeah, yeah, your mom's still mom, mom works for me. Oh, yeah. Me and my mom are literally clones. And her name is what? Connie. Is she a golfer too? Yes, she's an 11 handy cap. Okay. At a 63 years old now, she's competitive, like her and I are cut from the same cloth, like literally identical. And she looks like she could be my sister, which is really annoying. We go, so we did this trip every year on Martin Luther King Day. That's my favorite holiday, by the way. I'm not a holiday guy. I'm the least festive person, as you know. So my favorite holiday is Martin Luther King Day, because my mom and I every year for like 10 years would go visit my grandma on Arizona, and we do like a four or five day golf trip, just my mom and I. And so yeah, we literally have, I didn't, I'm a little more driven than she is and a little more like D on the disc profile. But like, we're twins. You beat yourself up a little bit more when you screw up a shot. But otherwise, yeah, yeah, she can move on a little quicker. Um, that's cool. Yeah, we're very close, super close. And then my dad, so my dad's 67 and he's a six handy cap, golfer guy, which is a weird name. Guy Kenworth for a six handy cap at 67. That's pretty good. And he's like five, five and somehow can still hit it like 270 off the deed. Not sure how it's like contractor strong. So super close with my dad to, um, he and I are not cut from the same cloth. We are polar opposites, but we get along really, really well. And we have that common link at golf, which is also like my whole family, right? So guy Kenworth guy Kenworth. So were your parents were together or where did you read? Guy Kenworth's middle name. Oh, so they got married same thing. They got married like my mom was like 20. Okay. 19. We're like I can worth every. Yeah. Isn't that great? It's a beautiful name. He doesn't like it. And his nickname is Bimbo. So that's a weird nickname for a guy Kenworth. They're really good. Yeah, he's great. So you know, we just have, we have a very tight bond, very close family, very easy. I would say if I look at every other kind of family situation out there, I feel super blessed and grateful that ours is really easy. Yeah. Like just it's not hard. Mine is easy. We have so many things. I don't know. Part of how we resonate because right. Like I've got four siblings. My dad remarried. I got three more from that. They're all married. Many kids and everybody just kind of likes each other. And it's pretty easy. Yeah, we just all get along like we just don't have any drama. Right. So which is great. I don't operate on drama very well. Yeah. And so yeah, I know that's that's that's guy income. So that's family. You want to do politics or face politics, faith, politics. I am not political. And I would say I'm not I'm very agnostic, very spiritual, not religious. Okay. So there would be kind of I would say they fall hand in hand. Yeah. Honestly, politics, I don't care. That's where I land on the spectrum. I will vote. I don't want to. I don't like the whole entire system. I think it's flawed and I don't like it. Like what's flawed about it? The I just don't like that we have to reserve the system. Yes, I don't like that we have two choices and can't take like the best candidate. I also don't like this one of my personal pet peeves is I don't like when people say that they like this guy. It really drives me insane. It's like, well, I don't like Trump. Well, did you ever like go to dinner with them or like play around a golf with them? You can't tell you might not like what he stands for or what he does, but you can't tell me you don't like him. You don't know him. And then that's kind of where everybody gets this like, I don't like getting ahead of yourself and judging situations like I'm very non-judgemental, right? Like that's how I try to operate. And so it's like, I'm never going to vote based on the people involved because I think in a way they're kind of like puppets of their party, right? But you just don't know. Like I would vote for somebody if I could play a nine hole round a golf form based on if I like them or not. Like I can I can pretty much snap judge you and make a good synopsis of where you're at in three holes. Like if I play three holes, I got you pegged. But politics, no. So I just kind of vote along. Right. I think they're just serpents. Kind of. I think we're totally leading them. I don't think there's necessarily anything necessarily anything wrong. Like I think they're all probably great people. I just don't I don't know them, right? So it's hard for me to get fixed. I think so. There you go. So the yeah, as far as politics go, uh, leany Republican, but mostly viscally, socially, you're libertarian in the closet to 100% libertarian. That's what I would love to just vote libertarian on everything, but it's pointless, right? So yeah, I don't love it. I'm not political. I don't care. Never will be running for office. I say that. I'll probably end up doing something. So when you say we can shift out of that and talk to the very spiritual, not religious. Yeah, right. So I like highly met it again. I think that probably falls like I'm a non conformist. I would say by nature, I tend to be rebellious. I don't like the system. I hate it. Um, so I don't like anything like I don't like traditions. Yeah. I don't like there's nothing like I think this because you're supposed to think this and that's why people I just I just I hate that. That's like what I hate. Maybe more than anything. It told you like authenticity is number one to me. And a lot of like, it per se religion comes across as an authentic to me. Yeah. The basis of everything I totally agree with. Like I love everything. Almost well, I love the Christian. Well, we could put it anything. You could put it. You know, I think there's a common link between all of them, right? Like any religion, I feel like that there is a common link that we're kind of trying to get to the same point. Some veer off in different patterns, right? But I think there's a basis of what like, so for me from a, I guess from a faith standpoint, like I'd see it more as I guess it more of an energy, but there's definitely something way beyond me. Yeah. Right. So that's a way I look at it. I don't try to get too involved in the. Let me bounce this off here. I like to say, uh, because I consider myself a Christian and I am. I've studied Jesus in the Bible quite a bit probably compared to many, but I've also recognized that there's a lot of other stuff going on. Sure. So I like to say that all the faith are kind of like they all have blurry lenses. To me, the least blurry lens is this dude that we recorded a bunch of his stuff. Sure. And, but they're all, they're all looking the same thing. Right. Ultimately to me 100% and they fight over it, which is dumb. Absolutely. No, I just, I do feel like, well, so this is funny. We kind of uncovered this and I was able to unpack. Well, it's always kind of been of a, it's like a weird thing in the back of my mind that I couldn't quite comprehend what I was, where I was at with it was able to unpack it a little bit working with a coach, um, which I don't know if it really has a lot of relevance, but kind of where my thought lies in this, in this bigger scheme is that we're, we're here to learn something, right? Like that's, that's why we're here and it will transition into whatever happens next. We don't have to get too hung up on what that is or where it goes, but it's not worth worrying about. You will never know. I guarantee we won't solve it. So don't worry about it, right? Like it's outside of your control. You might come to know it. And from my total tradition, at least you might come to know it after this. Absolutely, right? Once we move on from here, then maybe, or maybe not, or maybe not, but it doesn't matter. And it's like, it's like if I'm playing golf right, like, I don't know if a bird's going to sail out of right field and it's going to hide from your ball. I don't know, but it's not something I can control. So it's not worth worrying about. And so same thing goes with that. Like I don't get upset or worried or nervous about it. I just know that we're here to learn something. Don't even know what that is. Don't need to know. But I know that it'll prime me for whatever is next. And so it just gives you a good sense of peace. In that standpoint, I don't think you really have to, I don't know. I don't take it much beyond that. But I do like very much try to carve out time to just be. Yeah. Like that's that's one of the hardest things for me is to just be. And so that's I think spiritual practice, right? For sure. Just try and just be regular meditation and regular just not being buried in your phone, buried in your thoughts, buried in your chasing, chasing, chasing, and your whatever, just be for a while. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. It's time for the local experience. Okay. What's the craziest experience of your whole life that you're willing to share in a public forum? So yeah, I am maybe a couple that are not as public for them. Not really. I don't have a lot. I'm not very exciting overall, but this is the craziest thing that's happened to me that I could think of off top of my head. I was driving back to Bunevista at like dusk, right? And so it's my son was one at the time. So he's in the back seat in the car seat wife in the passenger seat. We're driving back coming in over Trial Creek pass and just kind of pop up. I see like this blur out of the left side of my left eye. Pants on the road. It's like and hit it run over. I don't know what the hell happened. So I keep driving up a little bit. Stop maybe 200 yards down the road. And I was like, oh my god. I think I hit frickin' bambi, right? Because I know it's like not big enough. I had a Yukon, right? Like I know it wasn't big enough to come over the hood. Was it a full size thing? So it wasn't a full just like, you know, hit like a dog or I don't know. Anyway, turn back around. We get out. I drive back up to it. It's kind of dark. It's getting close. I can't really see it. I got the headlight shining. It's almost darker at dusk than it is at night. Yeah, right? I just couldn't we couldn't see that well. And I parked up where I could see it because it was laying on the road, whatever I hit. And I was like, please tell me it's not a human. Like anything but a human. Please tell me it's a yeah. That's what I'm figuring out. I thought I hit a person. And I honestly thought I hit it like a fawn. That was my first thought. It's like that's gonna suck, but whatever. So I drive back up park. I'm looking up the road. I'm like, oh god, it is a freaking fawn. And so I walk out and I get up closer like, oh, shit, that's not a fawn mountain lion. What? Hit a freaking human mountain lion. Like, does anybody ever hit a mountain lion? Nobody ever says about lion. So I hit a mountain lion and I was like, and then I saw it and I was like, oh crap. Like that's, is it alive? Like it's gonna kill me. And so I panicked and I was like, what do I do if it's still alive? I don't have a gun. Like am I gonna just, I'm gonna have to drive over it again. That's my only option. And so I luckily I got up to it and I was like, oh, good. And then I look on the front of my car. And it's like, it's head hit the toe hook. So I was like, all right, you're done. Like there's like, you don't have to drive over to get brain matter on my toe hook. And so anyway, I get it. And it's a big like male mountain lion, like probably a seven foot tail. So I drag it off of the road, which this is already like the craziest thing that's happened to me. But I pulled off the road. I get it off. We called the, we call the Game Warden Hoots in Bunevista. It's like my dad's friend, right? So call him. He calls me back. And he's like, you what? You hit a mountain lion. He's like, I think the game warden for 40 years. No one's ever hit a mountain lion. I was like, I'm glad I could be the first. And so he came up and as he's coming up and I was like, do I need to stay here? Like, what do I do? He's like, yeah, I want you to hang out. We'll be up there like 15 minutes and we'll get it out of there for you. That way nothing happens. And I was like, all right, we hung up. And so as I'm sitting on the side of the road, drinking Bubba, somebody comes up to me. He's like, he stops. And he's like, hey, that's a mountain lion in like a very white trash voice. I was like, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, it absolutely is. He's like, you taking that with you. I was like, I have a freaking Yukon. You think I'm going to put a bloody mountain lion in my kids at sleep. I was a one year old in the back. He's like, no, why am I going to take you? He's like, you can sell that for like $2,500. I was like, I don't know. I'm not taking the mountain lion with me. He's like, you mind if I take it? And I was like, the game wardens on his way. He's like, I might be able to hook it up before he gets here. And so he tries to get out. He literally tries to get it and go. I was like, he's going to put it on his truck and he's going to take off. And he's like, he came back. He's like, I don't want to get any trouble. And he takes off. So yeah, anyway, that was the, he took off the game warden got up there. They hauled it off. Yeah, where did it go? What's that? Where did it go? The mountain lion? No, the game warden got there. He didn't take it. But did he take it? The game warden took it? I don't know. Game warden took it somewhere. He could have got like $25,000. I could have got $2,500. I got the back of the UK. Who hits a frickin mountain lion? So that was it. That was a really random. I'm sorry, he didn't make quick $2,500. It was a tough time in your life. I could have made $2,500. It was a tough time. That was one year old. Right. When I started, that's when I, yeah, I totally should have made the $2,500. I'm sure you don't know the right person to talk to though. No, after, yeah, that's that's that that clicked in right out of the gate when you said crazy, that was pretty random. Braden, this has been a good story. A number of good stories, including a mountain lion running over that. Never imagined it would be. Yeah, that's random. And I want to thank you for being a local member for a long time, a local facilitator, a believer in the concept. And really, an employer of a lot of great people and a protector of a lot of great companies in this region. Yeah, thanks. No, it's tough. Thank you. Appreciate that. No, it's been a huge huge impact for me. Obviously, like kind of I explained in the story there. That's it was a huge pivotal moment for us. It's certainly, you know, kind of pulled all to dust to the next level. So is there anything that you would sell to somebody that's like, hmm, maybe I should give look or think tank another look. Yeah, I just say that that, you know, when you talked about the the mangrove like, you don't realize it when you're in it, you're just trying to get out. And so I think that's just a really vital piece of business. I just don't think you'll ever get anywhere doing what you're doing right now. Like you got to get outside of yourself a little bit. And this is just a great form to do it. So you can get it in there and you get people that are in the same boat as you. So then you don't feel so overwhelmed with all the stuff that's happening to you and COVID and PPP loans and all the stuff that happens, right? Like it just gives you a little bit of time to elevate and be like, all right, well, that's great. This is all the stuff I'm doing, but why, why am I doing it? Where am I going? What should I stop doing? All the 100% what should I stop doing? And so yeah, no, that would be the thing that I would say is just, you know, at least consider it. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the local experience podcast. This is Kurt Bear, founder of the local think tank and hosted the local experience. And I'm here with Rory Sharer, local business developer and hosted the local shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us for you listening to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about logo? You can learn more about us at localthinktakes.com where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources and events for business owners and seniors. If you're looking for perspective, accountability and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth local experience podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, provide size business lessons in the local shorts. Bye!