Transcript of Episode #168: He Turned Down Shark Tank and Built a $300M Business... But Was It Worth It? Featuring Nick Friedman

I call it a 20-year overnight success. We now have roughly 200 franchisees around the country, you know, $300 million annual sales. I lost a patch of my hair in the first year of the business. I think I went away for like my first vacation, but I was so stressed out coming back trying to pick up the pieces that I missed. I can hustle hard and grind and push forward, but there's a certain limit that your body will allow you. And then when I was younger, it was even worse because I was trying to burn the candle at both ends of the spectrum.

First episode of Shark Tank, I understand you probably felt pressure, but the show was brand new. Yeah, maybe not as much pressure as after you've seen it.

Plus, you're going into that thing blind. We didn't know these We didn't think the Sharks were going to become TV celebrities. We just thought Mr. Wonderful was a jerk. He was kind of poisoning the room by just beating us up and calling us pigs. I want them to bring me on as a guest Shark and put me next to Mr. Wonderful because one of the things he said to us is—

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All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. So, I have a different kind of discussion today that I am really, really excited to because I come from a business background, actually, an entrepreneurial side, and I really want to tie in what it's like to run a massive business and company and how it affects your health and your mental stability. And then, just the thoughts, the everyday work that goes into managing family, business, and something of this size. And so, the conversation today is going to be amazing. And on another level, my guest was on the very first episode of one of my all-time favorite shows, Shark Tank. And he is the co-founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. And I'm telling you, man, what he has done with this company is on an entirely different level. And I have the most profound respect for what you have done, the grind, the effort, where it started, your story. So, we're going to have a blast today, my friend. Thank you for coming to see me. And I can't wait to get into everything about you. So, without further ado, Nick Friedman.

Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me here.

Awesome, man. Thanks for getting down here and making this happen with me. I know I am always supremely humbled by people taking the time and value in talking to me and coming to see me. And I was just telling my wife today, I said, You know, some people will say, I have to today. And I say, I get to. You know, I get to interview you today. I get to have these awesome conversations and I get to show you to the world.

Yeah. So, that's the goal. It's a great framework to think from. We got to remind ourselves that all the time, especially as a business owner, because there's many times where you're like, oh, I got to do this. I got to do that. It's like, we chose to do this. We get to do this. Yes.

Yes. So, all right. College Hunks. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the premise, how that even came to fruition. And that is an extremely smart way to go about things. And it's really intriguing. So, where did that come from?

Yeah. I mean, it's a really simple story. We were in college, hence the name. We were getting ready for our senior year of college. Me and I— when I say we, my buddy and I from high school, we were best buddies. And we were home for summer vacation and his mom had a beat-up cargo van from her furniture store. And so, she said to us, hey, why don't you guys use the van? You can move people's furniture, you can haul people's junk away. And then she looked at us and she goes, you guys could be college hunks who haul junk. And we just kind of laughed about it at first and we were like, well, that's kind of catchy. That's not what you typically associate with movers or haulers.

Right.

So, we just made these computer printout flyers, stuck them in mailboxes. People had a need for the service. They thought the name was catchy. And that was the first light bulb moment for me is like, wow, you know, this could be an opportunity here. We went back to school our senior year. We graduated, we got quote-unquote regular jobs in the real world for a very brief period of time and said, you know what, this is unfulfilling. Why don't we go try and make that business a year-round venture? And of course, you know, most college kids would do that in the summer and then go do something in the real world and never think about it again. And we decided to make it a year-round venture. I call it a 20-year overnight success. We now have roughly 200 franchisees around the country, you know, $300 million annual sales.

Wow.

So, it's been quite a journey starting from that humble beginnings with the beat-up cargo van. But yeah, it was, you know, a lot of skeptics when we got into it, especially after college. They were like, oh, that was cute what you were you're doing in school in the summer, but to make it a full-time business, is that really what you're going to do with your career? And we wanted to prove those folks wrong. So, we just kind of kept getting after it.

So, people follow me because I keep it real. I don't worry about being politically correct. I just say whatever. And let's face it, you don't associate a college hunk or anybody of that stature with a mover.

Yeah. I mean, historically, right? And I think moving is elevated as an industry as a whole. I think we've been a part of that elevation, but people kind of pictured you know, maybe some, some less than sophisticated individuals that are pretty grimy or boot stomping or tobacco spitting, whatever the case, that are come, you know, mess up your furniture and, and track mud all throughout your house. And so we were trying to put, you know, a cleaner, collegiate, friendlier image to a sort of unglamorized business. And, you know, of course it was easy for us to put a funny name on it in bright orange and green colors, but where the challenge came is how we were going to actually be intentional about delivering a on that service expectation.

Yeah.

You know, we had to deal with questions of, hey, are they all going to really be in college? Are they all going to really be hunks? So, uh, we said, hey, we'll keep the name College. That's part of our heritage. They don't have to be exclusively college students working for us. And Hunks, we made it into an acronym. We said it stands for Honest, Uniform, Nice, Knowledgeable Service. So that's become our brand promise, a way to redefine the term hunks so that we can say, hey, yes, we hire all hunks that's going to deliver that service. And if we're hiring you, we're teaching you that that's what you're going to, you know, deliver. That's what our clients are expecting. And so it's more than just the physical attributes, but what What I did find is because we had kind of, let's call it a silly or provocative or gimmicky name, it was a conversation starter. Like people were like, oh, you know, even the fact they were asking questions and I started getting annoyed with those questions very quickly. I was like, wait, they're asking questions. They're curious about why we called it that or what we actually do.

Mm-hmm.

And I sometimes they would have sort of false assumptions. You guys only move college students? And I'd be like, no, we move homeowners, we move businesses, we haul junk away. You know, we clean out people's houses. You know, we started in college and then I got to tell the story. And so, you know, people connect to the story, as you know. And I think that allowed us to create a, you know, a one-to-one conversation. But we ultimately were able to do it through mainstream media, through branding. And, uh, that's, I think, been a key to some of our growth trajectory.

What I really like is the acronym and you, you know, having a way of conveying what it really means.

And that was an evolution. Like, we read this book called The Purple Cow by Seth Godin, and the concept is really simple. If you're driving down a country road and you field of brown cows, you've seen it before, you're going to keep driving.

Yeah.

But if there's a purple cow in the field, you're going to pull over, you're going to take notice. Nowadays, you'll put it on social media, you'll tell your friends and neighbors about it. And really, the premise there is how to stand out in a crowded, you know, space. And for us, we didn't invent the next Google or Facebook. We were taking a traditional business, trucks and labor, putting a, you know, creative wrapper in the name, you know, bright and shiny image and color contrast. And then we realized, well, the name and the colors is kind of the sizzle. but you're going to eat the cow, you need the steak too. For, you know, if it tastes bad, you're not going to be telling people about it. So when we realized that our service wasn't really keeping up with the sizzle of the name and the colors that got people to pay attention, that's when we kind of had to dig in and say, okay, how do we train these frontline employees that, you know, maybe haven't had customer service experience before, haven't gone into the types of homes that we're sending them into to, you know, move people's prized possessions?

How do we treat them to have compassion and empathy for whatever state that the client is in and whatever life event that they're dealing with to deliver a positive experience. So, it is sort of that Purple Cow differentiator. And so, easier said than done. It's like I said, none of it was a quick switch of a light switch. It was evolutionary and continuous intention. And those micro efforts turned into macro results over an extended period of time.

I love that. And So, there's negative connotations with anything that you look at, right? I mean, that's just life fundamental and people are wired that way. So, for you to, one, pick an industry that's already got that, two, take another term that carries something on it, and then to become successful with it, to overcome different polarizing areas that people are going to attack, and then to come up with the acronym, like I said, that you did. I think that is so phenomenal because I didn't know beforehand that's what that meant. So, do you, in your marketing strategies, do you convey the actual true meaning more now?

We do. I think we can do a better job of it, quite frankly. We actually just produced these TV commercials. And again, here we are 20 years later from having— when we started the business. And the commercial starts out with the operator saying, College Hunks, Honest Uniform, Nice Knowledgeable Service. And so, it kind of like— it has the HUNKS acronym up on the screen. And then, you know, she's almost like a Flo Insurance, Progressive Insurance type character. And then, she's, you know, you know, cue flips to the guys moving the furniture in the house or hauling the junk away. And so, yes, I think as a consumer brand, which is really what we are, we've gotta be constantly telling the story, promoting the business, uh, sharing examples of what we do.

Mm-hmm.

And then of course, we've also looked inward and said, how do we build a great culture? You know, purpose-driven, values-based, socially conscious that the team members wanna be a part of and the franchise owners wanna be involved with. And so, uh, yeah, a lot of that, you know, was kind of reading through, reading in books or going to, you know, mentorship events or masterminds or creating peer groups because we didn't have podcasts like this or other types of resources in those early days or even AI chatbots to be able to kind of give us some of the answers. But a lot of it, we sort of had to be resourceful and kind of figure out what was working, what was not working, overcome sort of the, like you said, some of the stigma that people might have about the name or the fact that it's an industry that's maybe unglamorous, but for us, it was all about kind of how do we keep elevating that? And it was kind of fun. We made a game out of it. And that's why I think we're still sort of excited and energetic even 20 years later. Yeah.

I mean, there has to be reinvention or something of sizzle, like you said, throughout time. Otherwise, it does become stale. Let me stay here but switch gears slightly. I want to talk about stress, but I want to talk about it in multitudes of ways. Moving especially is one of the most stressful events that anybody goes through in life.

Yep.

Especially if you have a lot of stuff and especially if you're moving long distance. It's very difficult to pack things, move things, things get lost, things get broke. You don't know how to do this. You want to make sure everybody goes in one direction.

Yeah.

And it's really everybody going in 1,000 directions. Then you get a moving company over who reality, let's face it, most of the time breaks shit or doesn't handle things with care. And so on your end, how stressful is it to manage all of this? Because I know that you're going to get people yelling and complaining at you. You're going to get workers saying, oh, they're saying this and we did this. And how do you, how do you deal with that amount of stress? And how hard was it in the beginning in comparison to as you've gotten older? And then obviously the business has grown, so I know there's going to be more problems.

Exactly. You know, So, first of all, you're absolutely right. I think moving has been shown as number 3 next to death and divorce as the most stressful time in somebody's life. And usually, if there's a death or divorce, there's also a move involved.

Right.

So, it's a very stressful time. And you think about, you know, somebody's home, it's their most sacred space, and you're letting a complete set of strangers come into your home, handle all of your personal belongings, pack them up, load them in a truck, hopefully not break anything, you know, take— hopefully not smell terrible, and, you know, take the items, uh, and hopefully not steal anything, God forbid, and then take those items to a Completely new location, so they're they're disoriented, they're disrupted, and and so the emotional state is high. And then you know we can't be perfect. Stuff does get broken. We do show up late, and we for all the best intentions and training and systems we can put in place, things can go sideways. And so I have taken it less personally more recently, but it's hard for me to you know sort of disconnect the emotional connection because I'm so passionate about and know how hard we're working in the background trying to create. a positive experience for our team members, our clients, our franchise owners. And when it's obvious that we dropped the ball in some case, in some form or fashion, uh, of course I take it personally and, and, and feel like, well, what did we, you know, how did we, how could we have done this differently?

And as you said, you know, we've got a 4.9-star Google rating, we've got, you know, uh, a 90% net promoter score, but we're doing thousands of moves a month. So that means that there's still that 0.1, you know, percent or, you know, that's that's something's going wrong, whether we did it on purpose or whether it was an accident. And so then the other piece of it is how do we recover from that negative experience? So it is stressful. We try to, uh, uh, train compassion and empathy in our frontline employees because we try to remind them every move has a story, every move matters. Uh, we actually created a video, we have it on YouTube called Every Move Matters, where, you know, it's talking about, you know, uh, somebody just got diagnosed with a life-changing illness or, you know, a cyst downsizing to an assisted living facility or, you know, empty nesters, they're graduating and all those sort of life events are emotional moments. So when we're pulling up to the house to get ready to go in there, you have an opportunity to make a positive impact in that person's day. It's not just moving their stuff for another job to put on the calendar and to, you know, punch the clock on.

And so I think being intentional about training, being intentional about the emotional state that our clients are in. And then, you know, as a founder, you're always gonna be, and I find myself, I'm always very passionate about what we're doing and Believe in what we're doing. So if I do read a negative review, I sometimes will either get defensive or take it personally because you know I'm like man that's not us or man we you know we should have done better or that client doesn't understand we we really tried and so it's it's tough to disconnect it. I think for me what what was honestly the most liberating I guess you could say is being able to create layers of leadership within the organization to handle most of the noise. And so I hear things that bubble up to me from time to time or if somebody finds my social media or finds my you know email and wants to tell me directly how badly we messed something up, and then I'll, you know, apologize and loop in the team to try to make it right. But most of the noise gets absorbed and stamped out by the team in terms of service recovery or, uh, you know, systems before it bubbles up to me.

Because, you know, if I were sitting there reading every negative review that came through, I'd probably, you know, drive myself a little bit batty.

Don't do that. Don't do that, please, for your own sake.

Yeah.

Um, well, I say don't do that. I look at things so I can see Well, you got to see trends. You got to see— Yes, that's it. You want to see what are the, what are the biggest problems people are having right now. Just things that people say about you or whatever. It's like you have to, as a social media person, you're brought into business, so you have to be a little bit different, and, and that works differently. But you will drive yourself crazy.

Yeah, I was gonna say, in your case, if you're seeing, you know, what people talk about or hate on, like, and just buy into that. But, you know, for me, like, we had a, a, unfortunately, a job that went kind of sideways a couple months ago, and it was a personal friend who we had done it for. And so when I looked at the email afterwards, I was like, man, there were so many opportunities in that, uh, experience where we could have injected management, recovery fixes. And so we're actually looking at AI solutions now to, uh, you know, kind of almost be a concierge throughout the move process, check in with the client. Hey, how's, how's everything going? Is there anything we can, you know, help you with? And so if something isn't going to their expectations, during the move, we can fix it right then and there instead of waiting till the move's complete.

Yeah.

They're upset with how it went. They got it. The charge was more than they expected. And so I think there's a lot of systems and, and especially with AI solutions nowadays that can be put in place to, you know, alleviate the friction that, that occurs after the move.

That's a good idea. 'Cause moving's expensive, bro. Like it is.

It is expensive. And, and you know what's, what's interesting, you know, all the trades are expensive, whether it's plumbing, HVAC, everything, you know, roofing, But moving, I, I always kind of took it personally cuz I always feel like moving is a skilled labor. If you're getting a professional moving company, not just a random crew off of Craigslist or not just your buddies with pizza and beer, like there's a certain level of expectation that they're gonna be able to do it professionally. And to me, clients should understand that that does in some cases come with a premium price to be able to—

Yeah.

Have that trust and care to depend on. And, and a lot of times we get, you know, price shopped or, you know, squeezed or, or, you know, people try to negotiate and it's, you know, it's hard cuz you don't want to undercut your value that you're delivering. But you also want to get the business and earn the business. And so I did see that I think it was like 20% of consumers will think you're expensive no matter what you charge. Of course. You know, even if you're free. And so, uh, the key is to not worry about that 20% that's upset about price, but, you know, make sure that you're delivering the value for the other 80%.

Oh yeah.

That are willing to give you a shot.

Well, I rented just the U-Haul van.

Yeah.

It was so, I, I thought, whoa, I thought I was going to save a bunch of money doing this.

Yeah.

And it was not that great.

Yeah. And then you had the time and the headache and the energy of moving it yourself. And, uh, and, and yeah, I mean, and then you think about all the other inherent costs associated when you are moving, whether it's a, you know, security deposit on an apartment or all the other ancillary closing costs on a home. Um, and so, yeah, the cost of the move, actually, we're looking into some move finance solutions as well because, you know, people might not want to have to stroke that $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 check right out of their bank account or put it on their credit card with a high interest rate. So, uh, those are some things we're trying to do to also kind of meet our clients where they are.

I like that. It's hard too because there's a lot of places, I don't want to name names, but you can Google them and look and find out and you'll see it's like they're nightmares. But they're the biggest names.

Sure.

And they're the most well-known. And it's like you're looking at it hoping to get something professional and you can see it's kind of getting subletted out and it's not what you think you're actually getting. And I know with you, you're actually getting the brand and the company and what you stand for. So, I love that. And I love that you're more heavily involved than I feel like a lot of people in your position would be.

Sure.

Let me ask you this. What— first episode of Shark Tank, I think it— I, I understand you probably felt pressure, but the show was brand new, so maybe not as much pressure as after you've seen it. Plus, you're going into that thing blind. You have no idea about their kind of habits on what they look for, what they don't. First episode.

Yes, it was, it was actually the pilot episode that ended up being the premiere episode. We had responded to an ad in Entrepreneur magazine. They said they were looking for entrepreneurs to pitch a, you know, business for a TV show. And actually, at the time, we were going to pitch— because we weren't really looking for investment in College Hunks, we were like, hey, what can we— what might they put us on TV for? And we said, hey, what's that? What if we had a sister company called College Foxes Packing Boxes? And so that was the Sharks' reaction too. And so they were like, well, that business doesn't exist, forget about that, and it probably won't even work. So, you know, we want to invest in College Hunks. And, uh, but we didn't know these Sharks were gonna become TV celebrities.

Yeah.

Um, you know, we just thought Mr. Wonderful was a jerk. Uh, he was kind of poisoning the, the room by just, you know, beating us up and calling us, you know, pigs. And I, it was, I didn't intend for it to come out this way, but when he declared himself out, I was trying to clarify the rules. I was like, that means you get to stop talking, right? And it was like a kind of a mic drop. Like you could hear the producers being like, oh, he said that. Um, and we ended up getting an offer from Robert Herjavec, which was a probably a fair offer. I think it was like 10% for $250 grand, which would've valued us at roughly $2.5 million. This is back in '08, '09. We've only had maybe 3 or 4 franchises, probably a reasonable market offer, but we're worth more than 100 times that today. And so, you know, his investment would've been 100x. And who knows if he would've helped us accelerate our growth, or maybe we would've thought he was gonna be our savior and we wouldn't have worked as hard. I, I don't really know. It's as hard to Monday morning quarterback.

But, uh, but yeah, I ha— I have this like aspiration. I need to follow up with them again. I want them to bring me on as a guest Shark and put me next to Mr. Wonderful. Because one of the words he said or things he said to us is, you're never going to get to this side of the table. So I would love for them to like show that clip and then kind of pan around and show us next to him on that side of the table. But well deserved. We'll see.

So they're pretty good about eating their words though.

Yeah.

You know, they're pretty, definitely pretty good about that.

What I love about that show, what it did do is I think it brought the spotlight into the kitchen table and families in particular about entrepreneurship. Like when I was growing up, the concept of entrepreneurship was seen as sort of taboo or risky. You know, 4 out of 5 businesses fail, you know, and there was no real sort of like resources to how to start a business. And so, I think that kind of made entrepreneurship maybe not a little bit overglamorized because you don't want it to look easy. It's still not easy. It's very difficult and stressful as we'll talk about, I'm sure. But it, I think, makes the concept of taking the journey into your own hands more tangible.

Yeah.

And more real and being able to see kind of real stories of these different businesses and and how they're trying to get off the ground and look for capital, I think was really good for, you know, really kind of the American economy in general.

It teaches a certain kind of discipline to be an entrepreneur. It's kind of like online school. It takes a really strong discipline to be there, to do it. And entrepreneurship is like, well, you know, I don't feel like it today.

That's right.

You know? No, no, no. Like, when I started to learn it, it's a 7-day-a-week thing if you really want to do it. Now, that doesn't mean don't take time to rest And whatever, but it is a— you're ready and prepared for anything 7 days a week.

Yeah. Especially at the beginning. I mean, it's a pure grind phase in the early days and it's not for everybody. Not everybody's cut out for that type of grind. Not everybody is able to sort of execute and navigate the ups and downs of the actual business itself, let alone the emotional roller coaster of the ups and downs every day. It's either a breakthrough or breakdown. And so, you got to be able to kind of like continue to navigate through that, uh, you know, with, with resilience and persistence.

How old were you when you were on Shark Tank?

Uh, would have been 26. Wow, 26 years old. Yeah.

So did you feel like it was, I don't know, daunting?

It was intimidating. I mean, we were, you know, we were in like Seinfeld Studios in Los Angeles and, and in Hollywood, and, you know, we walk out there and there's cameras swirling all around you, and it felt like we were out in front of the sharks for what seemed like an hour, and then they chop it down to like a 5-minute segment for television.

Yeah.

And so, uh, you know, I remember afterwards I kind of had to like put my hands on my knees. It felt like I just fought like a heavyweight boxing match because like I'm trying to think about, okay, what I'm saying might end up on television. So I'm like trying to think about what I say before I say it, but then I'm also trying to react, and then I'm also trying to remember my lines from my pitch that I practiced a bunch of times. So it was definitely a unique experience, uh, for us. And, uh, you know, glad, glad we got to do it. And the fact that we're still talking about it this, this many years later, I think it's kind of become part of our, uh, our legacy, really.

How much of your success would you attribute to being on that show?

Um, I— maybe not a ton of our, of our success, but I think what it did do is it opened our mind to mainstream media and the way that we could leverage that. Because, I mean, after doing that, we probably did another half dozen reality TV shows, really, you know, House Hunters to Undercover Boss, and we were still single. We did a dating show called Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo where my, my business partner picked up his date in one of our College Hunks trucks and took her to clean out a garage. Oh my God. So it was like a, a, you know, catastrophe of a date. That would've been a meme had those existed back then. But it was great for branding because it— they reran it on Bravo a bunch of times. And back then, you know, people weren't doom scrolling. They were sitting there watching, you know, binge watching, you know, Bravo TV. And so that again kind of elevated our brand into the spotlight. And so I think it showed us, A, the opportunity to leverage mainstream media to promote the brand and be willing to promote our business regularly, because I think that's an important part of entrepreneurship.

And, uh, and, and then, you know, it has rerun on CNBC and things like that. And obviously it's part of kind of my, my, uh, my bio in terms of, you know, things I've done, uh, that sort of helped mold me who I am as a business leader. So, uh, you know, I definitely think it's every part of the journey helps kind of shape what we're becoming and what we're learning along the way. And you can't always connect the dots until you look backwards and see how you ended up where you are.

When you got that offer for the 10%, did you have a flatline on how high you were going to go and that was it?

So, what happened was they asked us to throw out a number and we kind of conferred briefly and we were like, okay, $1 million for 10%. They would have valued us at $10 million. And they all laughed us almost out of the room. Um, $1 million seemed like a nice big round number, seemed like more money than I could ever imagine having sitting in the bank account. Wouldn't know what to really do with it at that time. But, uh, Robert countered with it with his offer, which, you know, was probably a, you know, a quarter of that. And it was— we didn't really have an alternative counter.

Yeah.

You know, we hadn't seen the show, so we didn't know that we could counter or where we were going to go. We just said, hey, we appreciate the offer and we're going to pass. And I think a lot of times now people that go on and do that, they get accused of just doing it for the publicity. publicity. But again, this was episode 1, so we didn't know any different, right?

So, you didn't go in there with any sort of like, we're only going to go 5% or anything? You didn't have that kind of—

No, we really didn't know they were going to kind of turn the tables on us and try to invest in College Hunks. We were going to like happily sort of say, hey, if you want this Fox's idea, great. If not, we'll, you know, just keep it moving. And then they were sort of just tossed that one to the side. It was good television.

Who was— do you remember which Sharks were on there?

Oh yeah, it was— so, it was, uh, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, and Kevin Harrington, who was only on for like 2 seasons. He was an infomercial guy. And then Mark Cuban came on, and that's what really catapulted the show, because Mark Cuban came on and started buying million-dollar investment, $2 million investment. It could just kind of— and he was already a known celebrity as an NBA owner that, you know, had gotten a lot of publicity before that. Yeah.

And then he kind of forced the hands of other people.

Exactly. They tried to keep up with him. Exactly.

Yeah, it changed everything.

I saw that they're having, I think, MrBeast on as a guest shark Stark, uh, pretty, uh, coming up. I thought that just popped up on my Instagram today, so I thought that's pretty cool. They bring in some different, you know, guest stars, which is great because it keeps the audience, you know, fresh and, and tapped in and tuned in.

I've had a real lack of ability to be able to watch any TV the last few years. It's like I get an hour while I'm on cardio of sports, and that's about it, you know. So, okay, well then I want to switch gears here then to— we've, we've established now how crazy the business is and how much it takes out of you and the evolving of it. But let's talk about the physical side, the health side, the mental side, everything that goes into that, because there's a lot of people that watch this that I'm sure are not to your level maybe of business, but are doing their own thing and wondering like, how do we stay healthy? How do we take care of ourselves? What do people that are doing so much so often, what do they do?

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting. So, like, I've always considered myself health-conscious. I played sports growing up. I always kind of ate relatively mindfully, cared about my sleep. I credit the fact that I hit 6 feet because I slept more than anybody in middle school. And my mom, I think, just told me, trying to get me to go to sleep on time, she said, you know, you grow in your sleep. If you want to be 6 feet, you got to go to sleep. And but I think I manifested it because my dad's 5'7, my mom's 5'4. Nobody else in my family has reached 6 feet. So, I do think there's truth to sleep in your adolescence that actually grows. So, those that are listening, I would encourage that. But what I didn't pay attention to was sort of the underlying unseen health of stress, for lack of a better word. I kind of dismissed stress as just something that came with the territory. It just sort of came with it. And I kind of consider myself somebody that you just can kind of grind through it. I was telling you before we got started here, I lost a patch of my hair in the first year of the business.

I think I went away for like my first vacation, but I was so stressed out coming back trying to pick up the pieces. pieces that I missed that I actually had. The best the doctor could tell me is it was stress-induced alopecia where a patch of my hair fell out. And then, even recently within the past 5 years, I had unexpected body rash. They call it lichen planus because that's kind of just a generic term for body rash that was, again, I think stress-induced. And I still, I'll wake up at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. I don't have trouble falling asleep, but I'll wake up at 2, 3 in the morning and the hamster wheel starts rolling and I can't fall back asleep for another 2 or 3 hours. And so, uh, you know, I wish I could tell you I found the antidote for that. I, I know that I should be meditating more, at least that's what I've like heard and read. And I would actually be curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah.

I, you know, I've heard that 30 days of consistent, you know, meditation can really change your physiology and how you, you know, handle and react to stressful situations. But I think that, um, while I'm not doing it with consistency, I think I've all— I've gotten a little bit more in tune with like the signals of stress. And so, uh, you know, being more mindful when I'm eating, um, trying to, you know, detach from the phone a few hours before bed, you know, not watching the news before bed, you know, it's kind of a guilty pleasure that I used to have to kind of like just numb out. But, you know, that's just— that stirs you up. And so, um, so yes, I think that that was was probably my biggest and continues to, quite frankly, be my biggest struggle. But had I not had some of those physical signals that were like blinking warning lights, like, hey, dude, you're pushing the gas pedal a little bit too hard, like ease off, like a lot of people, I probably would've just kind of kept pressing it down and ignore it. And then who knows, at least a heart attack or worse.

And so, I think I always knew that stress could be a concern, but now I'm getting a little bit more effect capable of, you know, like I said, acknowledging triggers and seeing the warning signs before they, you know, compound into something worse.

I used to always think it was so badass for me to go tell everybody I'm all gas and no brakes. And, you know, our age especially, we have that sports mentality. If you played sports, of you just got to push through it.

Push through it. Yeah. And that, you know, I come back to sports. So like growing up, I wasn't the most skilled athlete, but I loved sports. sports. And I saw that what got me on the court in basketball, which was my favorite sport, was diving for the loose balls.

Yes.

Was taking the charge, was hustling harder than everybody else during the line drills, the sprints. And so, I've brought that energy to my business because I don't consider myself the smartest person necessarily in the room or the most strategic or tactful, but I can hustle hard and grind and push forward. But there's a certain limit that your body will allow you. And then, when I was younger, it was even worse because I was trying to burn the candle at both ends of the spectrum. Like, I You know, we would go out at night and then wake up in the morning and, and work. And so it's like there's only so much that you can do that before the burnout starts to, to take place. And then you're not in a good headspace, and then you're not making sound decisions. You're not, you know, a good human with your family or your, you know, significant other. You're irritable. It's like it just, it, it just creates a negative downward slope.

There's a reason why God had to rest on the 7th day.

100%.

If God can literally do anything, and I mean anything, which we know is true. He even had to rest the 7th day and did that for a purpose, to teach us.

1,000%.

Right. So, if he had to do it and he's telling us to do it, how much sense does it make for us to try to outdo him? Because I had to look at it from that perspective to fully understand because I've learned the science and the teaching of how important rest is and just, well, I'm different.

Yeah.

But then, when you break down and you go God first and then you realize that every single answer is written in the Bible somehow, way. It's not— you have to be able to antiquate and read through things, right? So, it's not just going to say in plain English like some people would hope. You have to be able to gain wisdom and understand what's being purported to you and how it's written. And then, you start to break it down and you're like, man, what am I doing here? Am I trying to act like I can outwork God? And then, coming to your point, you know how I've finally been able to get through the day and manage? Because so long, it's been this nonstop grind to where I do what you just said. I start to get foggy. I turn into a real dick at home, don't even like myself, and can't figure out why I don't have the compassion I want to have. When you spend your morning on you— and I'm not saying selfishly you, I'm saying improving you— and how do you do that? You take the time to pray, and then you take the time to be silent and spend that time clearing your mind, like really clearing your mind.

Getting closer with God will then get you in tune with the reality of life, and then it will impact you in a way that you find more love, more compassion, and then you're able to do more. But if you don't rest and you don't reset, you're in this never-ending fight-or-flight mode.

That's it.

And you're stuck in stress.

That's it. That fight-or-flight mode is, is, is what, you know, uh, is just like I said, it's sort of the, the silent killer, really.

Yes. Stress kills is not, uh, just a, a thing that you say. That's an actual fact. And so, I'm, I'm— I hope for you that you're able to take time to appreciate everything that you've built and share it with God, your family, others. And then that will bring people closer together around you, and then that will make you happier, which in turn will allow you to be better with your workers, your job, more productive. Less is more sometimes.

Yeah, you know, 1,000%. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, and if I look back and kind of play the tape of the journey, the times where I made the worst decisions, whether it was personal decisions or business decisions or self-sabotaging decisions, it was because I was burnt out. I was pushing the rev in the engine too hard and not taking the time to unplug. Certainly, with consistency, like you just described and outlined, I think is wherever people are in their journey, whether they're leaders, of a company, whether they're managers in a business or work for somebody, I think to your point, taking that time for themselves to get their mind, body, soul kind of in a stasis before they go into battle, because that's really what every day as a leader really is, is you don't know what you're going to get hit with or surprised with. And you can handle those a lot easier when you're in a state of peace, really.

Here's what I'd like you to do. And I'm not going to pretend to be in your head or know everything that you're doing. You were given so many graces and blessings, which you rightfully deserve. You busted your ass for. But remember, the responsibility that you have to others is not just to move their stuff and get them into place.

Mm-hmm.

You're alleviating stress and giving them actual joy because of how you're doing it and that you're different. And then, You should also be enjoying that yourself, knowing in your heart that you're doing a real service because every single person has a purpose and everybody's is different.

Yeah.

Everybody's good at something. It's about finding it and doing it, but then having the gratitude and appreciation for, man, I'm good at this. How can I do this to improve other people around me, which in turn is going to make me have more gratitude, more appreciation? And then it resonates in the room and everybody does well.

Yeah.

And that's what I would love you to do for yourself because you deserve it.

Yeah. And I agree. And I think there's— I've been shifting in that direction, really. I think some of it's maturity, no doubt. Some of it's learning from folks like yourself. Like, when I was younger, I was probably— and I'll admit I was much more ego-driven, right? It was like, how do I get the money so I can get the cool stuff so I can impress my peers? And then, that was like a very empty and sort of shallow and scarcity approach where I was always sort of grasping for what could try to fill this never-ending void. To your point, approaching it from a state of purpose, we actually define our company purpose as move the world, which is not just moving people's stuff physically, it's moving people emotionally for all the reasons that you just described. And we've got some phenomenal stories that we constantly share throughout our organization to try to keep that as the North Star. And yeah, and so, I think that now when I think about what energizes me, it's potential maximization as a leader, as a father, as a husband, as a business platform to be able to do the most good and serve the most people through what we can actually offer them, but also employment, franchise opportunities, and everything else that our business creates as opposed to like, hey, how do I put more points up on the board?

Which again can be a very empty pursuit. And so, I think making that shift for me has been Much more rewarding and fulfilling. And it's definitely, as you say, putting myself in a more state of gratitude of how far we've come. Now, let's see how much we can elevate the platform for the powers of what we're capable of impacting.

Do you take time then? Because I know what it's like to be on the go all the time. Do you take time to work out for yourself and train?

Yeah. I'll admit it's been ad hoc at best. So, people ask me, do you work out? I'm like— because they're like, oh, you're in pretty good Physique. And, like, I've always just been fortunate. I've had a pretty good metabolism. And like I said, I eat pretty generally clean. But I was only working out maybe like once a week if I was lucky. My wife would joke. She was like, I don't think that's like any different than working out not at all. She's like, you don't work out if you're only working out once a week. I was like, okay. So, I finally just recently actually had a mid-year resolution where I was like, okay, I'm going to get on a program where I'm going to work out. I'm going to lift 3 days a week. I'm going to do a zone 2. And I'm going to do a VO2 max once a week and I'm going to play tennis once a week. And so, I'm doing something recreationally, athletically. I'm doing some weights to help my testosterone and my muscle structure. And so, I'm a few weeks into that and it feels great. I'm sleeping better.

Yeah.

And drinking less coffee, drinking less alcohol. And so, all of those things, I think, and I'm doing it in the morning so I feel better throughout the day. And I think it's It's just building habits, as you know. You know, for me, finding balance as an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult things. And I boil it down to what I call 6 Fs: family, faith, friends, fitness, finance, and fun. And, you know, I kind of do usually a kind of a self-audit of where I am in each of those buckets.

Right.

How much I'm pouring into each one, if any of them are somewhat neglected that need to, you know, get more attention, more energy. And probably I've neglected my fitness and my faith more than anything because those are somewhat easy to sort of cast aside. But, you know, arguably— and I'm— I know that those are probably 2 of your most, you know, important that you put at the forefront, uh, those help, you know, put you in a position to be most effective with the others. You know, be a better friend, be a better, you know, family man, uh, you know, have fun or find ways where fun actually intersects with all the other Fs. And it's not one, you know, fun is not just going out and, you know, having a bender with the boys in Vegas, which is, you know, gonna put you, you know, behind the uh, the 8-ball on everything else. And so, um, so that's the way I've kind of looked at the landscape and tried to think of it. And so, as I looked at— you ask, you know, do I have a routine? Now I do, and I'm going to try to stick to that.

And then, uh, you know, we, we started going to church when we had kids, and, you know, I'll admit we don't go every Sunday. So, it's kind of like, you know, it's one of those things where, like, I look at the 6 Fs. I got, you know, 24 hours in a day. I got, you know, so much energy I can pour into each one, and, and I try to, you know, just kind of be mindful and do an assessment of kind of where I am with each.

Yeah, I love, I love that. I love that you have like the mental acuity to know what's important.

Yeah.

Then it's— look, anytime you set a goal, getting the goal is actually the easy part. It's the consistency and the maintenance that is where everybody falls off or can't do it.

Yeah, a lot. Go ahead.

Well, life requires constant like maintenance and realizing and accountability basically is what I'm trying to say. So, it sounds like you have it.

Yeah.

It's just balance.

Yeah, yeah. And so, people are always asking me like, hey, how are you doing? Like, what's new? And I'm like, you know what? I'm stretched, but I'm not stressed.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm trying to like maintain. It's like I'm stretched in the 6 directions of my wife and kids, my businesses, trying to, you know, my health, trying to, you know, have some faith in, you know, trying to maintain my relationships with my friends, you know, old and new. And that's a lot of stretching.

Yeah.

But those are good things. Like, stretching is good, but you don't want to pull a muscle, right?

Right.

When you're stretching, you don't want to pop a tendon when you're stretching. So, there's only so much you can stretch before something pops. And so, like, that's kind of another mantra of mine is that stretched, not stressed approach. It's like, you know, it's good to be stretched, but, you know, you don't want to be stressed like we talked about earlier.

I like that. I like that a lot. How did you come up with the color combination?

So, I thought you were going to ask that earlier. Omar's mom had a furniture store and there was like a designer sitting in the store and we were up in the DC area. So, we were looking at college sports teams, professional sports teams, color combinations. And then, we asked the designer randomly, we were like, hey, what are 2 colors that really pop and stand out that you see in the design space? And he was like, actually, orange and green really contrast well. And it was like somebody smacked us in the face with a pillow because my business partner went to University of Miami and they were orange and green. If you think about that school, It's a small school. They only have like 10,000 students, but everybody knows the U and the Miami Hurricanes.

Yeah.

So, that brand is bigger than that school itself. And so, we're like, okay, he went to the school. He actually wrote a business plan in entrepreneurship class our senior year. And so, we had some affiliation with that. And so, then, and actually more recently, I did some research that the only other real big service company that's out there that's orange-green, if you've heard of Servpro, it's a multibillion-dollar disaster restoration company. You'll notice it now that I mentioned it.

Mm-hmm.

And apparently, back in the '80s, when that founder started the business, he was going door-to-door with a color page, like with a bunch of different colors on it. And he was knocking on the door. He's like, hey, I'm going to show you these colors. Tell me which 2 stand out that you see. And apparently, they said orange and green more times out of any others when he was showing it to them. So, validated what we decided to go with. Now, we tell people that our orange represents our playful brand, our fun culture. The green represents our environmentally friendly hauling and just donation practices because not everybody likes the U. We're in a lot of markets. We have a franchise in Columbus, Ohio, and Ohio State hates Miami, right? We have a franchise in Tallahassee, Florida. The Seminoles hate the Hurricanes. So we've tried to distance ourselves from the hurricane roots there. And I'm sure there probably are some diehard fans that won't use us because of the colors, but you can't please everybody.

No. that they're being honest. There's always something about certain colors that just draw you in, and it just— it does make you think of Miami right away. But it— when I see it, I'm like, okay, that's sweet.

I'm—

I at least look. Yeah, you know, and it's like green and yellow, green and orange, purple and gold, red and gold. Those combinations in my head stick out constantly.

And then— Yeah, and I think it's important, you know, that's important to think about too. Like, if you're branding yourself, you know, whether it's, uh, you know, a consumer brand is a little bit more important to stand out because you're standing out amongst a lot of other people that are competing for your attention. If you're a business brand, you might want something a little bit more, you know, buttoned up or, or, you know, sort of soft-spoken, if you will, from a color scheme. But, you know, ours, we were like, hey, we want to stand out. We need people to know who we are, you know, know that the orange and green trucks are, you know, affiliated, you know, associated with positivity and, and making a positive impact. And, and so that's really what we've been trying to build from a branding standpoint.

It's not too loud, but it still demands attention.

That's right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's like pro but cool.

Yeah.

That's how I look at it.

Yeah. I think it's a good way to put it.

Yeah. I like that, dude. I think everything that you do and stand for is really strong. What are we looking at now? Because I talked to you about staying innovative and staying ahead because, I mean, over time, things do get dry and you have to reinvent personalities, your mission, your goals, your markets based upon economical things like we were talking about earlier with interest rates being ridiculous. So, do you have a vision moving forward? Anything that's going to change?

Yes. I've gotten pretty turbocharged recently. I read a book called The Science of Scaling by Dr. Ben Hardy, and he's written some other books, 10X Is Easier Than 2X, Who Not How. So, this Science of Scaling concept is really simple. I'd recommend it. It's an easy book. You can listen to it in 4 hours on Spotify. But the concept is frame, floor, focus. So, the frame is setting what he calls impossible goals with an unrealistic timeline because what that does is it becomes a forced constraint with time as a constraint to only choose 1 or 2 or 3 paths that could actually make that reality. I like that. Yeah. Because otherwise, if you're doing incremental growth, there's 200 options and all 200 will probably get you to the outcome. And so, you end up sort of chasing all 200 directions. So, the frame forces you to focus. The frame kind of focuses you to limit your decisions. The floor is what you limit from a standards standpoint. So, as a leader, it's kind of doing a self-audit of what are you saying yes to, or more importantly, what should you be saying no to that is actually holding you back from hitting that vision in that shorter timeframe that you just said is unrealistic?

Yeah.

And so, whether it's doom scrolling or Netflix binge-watching or not going to the gym every morning, it's like, or saying yes to this business opportunity or this trip or or this, you know, whatever. And so, it's doing a self-assessment. But also, in my case, as a business, what are the standards that we're no longer going to accept from a maturity and accountability standpoint in our organization because they no longer represent us becoming a billion-dollar brand, which is our impossible vision, right? And so, it's really taking the future and then behaving today and holding everybody else accountable to that standard today as if we were already at that level in the future. And then, it sort of forces you. And then, the focus piece is the execution, the kind of maniacal focus on just the few things that are going to actually move you to that goal more quickly. So, to your point, I've suffered and been guilty of having a lot of entrepreneurial ADD, want to chase the next shiny idea. Every opportunity or idea sounds like a good one. I want to try to force all of those ideas onto my team to try to do all of them.

And so, I've been, as I'm being honest about raising the floor, I've been somebody that's sort of holding the organization back because I'm coming up with too many ideas and I'm forcing them on the organization. So, I've had to realize, okay, I've got to do less of that.

Right.

And then, if I'm doing less of that, what can I ask my team do to level up themselves from an accountability and performance standpoint? And what might be holding them back from operating at a billion-dollar business level instead of where we are today. So, that's got me juiced up because it fits with all the things we've talked about as far as making impact, as far as optimizing potential. And I think I've pursued some fun creative side quests, I'll call them. But then, I also realize any energy I put into anything outside of my core business, like any other business venture, is going to pale in comparison to the compounding effect that I have. Like, I've got a $300 million business in terms of annual sales. So, if we grow that business 10%, that's $30 million growth. You know how hard it would be to get a business to go from $0 to $30 million starting from the starting blocks? So, that's something I had to revisit. So, I've kind of come back full circle back to the mothership and I'm saying, okay, College Hunks, is the business. That's the big gorilla that we've developed. That's the sun.

Anything else needs to kind of orbit around it, but we got to focus on the main thing. Yeah.

That was what I was actually leaning into and you covered it was for me, I think there's 2 big problems that I've run into with people that I've worked with and that I've either done business with or at least thought of doing with. And it's always trying to do way too many things at once and never actually getting one thing done. It starts, okay, we're going to do this. Oh, but this idea came up. Oh, but we got this opportunity. Oh, but this. And then before you know it, you're trying to do 75 things and you never do anything. You actually go backwards.

That's right.

And then the other issue, which I was wondering on your end if you've ever dealt with between you, your partners, or your employees, is complacency. Oh, we did so good. We don't have to do anything else. For me, when I was doing sales and when I got out of prison especially, I was at a job where it was like, okay, you have to hit these quotas, right? You have to do this. And then it's like, oh, a lot of people coast. And I'm like, man, this is where you make your multiples. I'm trying to hit that quota in the first 2 weeks so that that's where we make our money. Yeah, that's where we go. But a lot of people operate under that, oh well, I don't have to do shit now, I already hit it. I'm like, let's go.

Yeah.

Do you run into that?

Absolutely. And you know what's funny? When I was younger, I used to think, oh, I just want to want to build a business to a certain size and then I just want to chill out on the beach and relax.

Yeah.

And that was like kind of what I thought was going to be my definition of success. And then as I got— things got bigger and the goalposts kind of kept moving and I started looking around and talking to mentors and people who had built things bigger than I had, I finally realized, and I would like study these like really successful people that just didn't just coast off into the sunset and, you know, let their talents kind of dissipate. And one of my favorite examples was Nick Saban, the head coach from college football. He's won 7 national championships. You think he could win 1 or 2 and just be like, okay, I'm good.

Yeah.

And he had a quote that I'll never forget. He said, complacency leads to bad decisions. Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. And when I thought about that, I was like, man, yeah, if I had money and time and complacency, I would definitely make bad decisions. I'm not that disciplined to not make bad decisions given those circumstances. And it's like, I have talent. I've got this platform that does good. I need to be doing that.

Yeah.

And I won't veer off the road if I'm doing that. And then the other thing that it brought me back to when I was talking about the science of scaling, the other concept is if the frame or the vision becomes your identity, that's who you become today instead of in the future, the floor becomes your character. Meaning, what you say yes to, what you say no to as a company, that becomes your culture. And your culture determines the behavior. Behavior determines the outcome or the results. So, you can look at that in the framework as a business. You can look at that from the perspective of an individual trying to better themselves or hit certain goals. And so, yes, I think that's kind of what's brought me back. And then you are who you surround yourself with.

Yeah.

And I believe in that too. it's not, you know, you know this from nutrition, right? You are what you eat, but you also are what you listen to, what you look at, what you pay attention to.

Yeah.

And I think about some of the stuff that I would listen to and pay attention to as a kid that probably made— gave me bad, you know, helped me make bad— caused me to make bad decisions, you know?

Yeah.

Like, like my parents used to tell me, like, you know, you listen to that gangster rap, you're gonna do stuff thinking you're, you know, a gangster rapper. And like, I know that's like an extreme example because like not everybody listens Gangster, I was going to go out and like try to be a gangster. But like, I did some bonehead stuff in high school that was not necessarily influenced by it, where I was hanging out with people— like, surrounding yourself by people that are aspirational and like-minded that, you know, also have, have, you know, high moral compass. Uh, you know, listening to podcasts or music that's not going to just kind of brain rot you. And, and, uh, you know, paying attention to stuff, whether it's TV or social media, that's not just going to like take your focus off of, you know, the important things. And A lot of that takes intention. Like, it's not easy to eat healthy all the time, right? Like, the bag of Doritos and the bowl of ice cream tastes good, you know, in the moment. And there's, you know, music and visuals and other things that look good or sound good.

But then what does it ultimately do from a, you know, consistency habit standpoint? So, I've tried to become more aware of all of those things as well as I've gotten older.

I tell people that tell me, oh, you're smart, you're brilliant. I said, said, because of who I surround myself with, because who I learn from, because who I listen to.

Yeah.

And you gain wisdom.

That's right.

To touch on one thing before we wrap up, what you said, for me, anytime I've set a goal and I've achieved something, I am starving for more. Like, I just want— that felt so good.

Yeah.

Give me some more. Give me something else.

Yeah.

You know, and that's the mentality I think that a lot of people lack, that they I'm not saying be greedy with it or let it dominate your whole life, but man, it's like you said, people that want more Doritos or ice cream, man, I want more success. I want more accomplishment and more purpose.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's sometimes a tendency to do that from a point of scarcity. And then you feel, at least I've felt empty when I want more and just feel like, well, if I could just get this, then I'll feel good. But if you You do it from a place of abundance where you say, hey, look at where I started, look at how far I've come, and kind of let yourself, as you said earlier, feel the grace and the gratitude of that journey from where you've been to where you are. That should pump you up and get you excited to see, let's go climb this next hill and get jazzed about that achievement as well.

It's having a challenge and overcoming is what it really comes down to.

I think it was Tony Robbins that said, progress is fulfillment. And I believe that. Yes, I believe that.

If you take it with virtues like temperance and then you look at it and there's endurance and there's overcoming and perseverance, these all were gifts. But you have to understand how to use them as a gift because people will misuse them for greed and selfishness. And that's not— I'm saying use them for the right reasons and it will come in abundance. Use it like a dick and guess what happens?

That's right.

Nothing good.

That's right.

So, show people your book here that you brought me in.

Yeah. So, this is The Effortless Entrepreneur. An oxymoron because there's nothing very effortless about being an entrepreneur. Yeah, we were at a conference and one of the speakers said anybody who's ever written a book— this was 15 years ago— he said anybody who's written a book says they wish they did it 10 years earlier, so start writing. And I guess, you know, we used to take things to heart and we'd go to these conferences, we went to the bar, we're like, I guess we got to write a book. It's like, oh, what should we write about? And we were in our 20s at the time, and this is right around the time The 4-Hour Workweek came out by Tim Ferriss. And so we said, well, let's write what we wish we had known in high school and college that we've learned kind of being in the fire as entrepreneurs in the, you know, first 5 years of our 20s. And, uh, you know, write it from that perspective. I reread it recently. I'll say 90% of it's still relevant. The other 10%, I would probably, you know, tone down because we wrote it with a bit of an edge.

We were, you know, thought we were going to sell more copies that way, and we were single bachelors at the time. But, uh, nevertheless, uh, it's, it's, it's kind of a, you know, a good handbook for early-stage entrepreneurs or anybody that's, you know, pursuing a goal. And it kind of actually starts with the Shark Tank story. That's— we— I think we wrote it right after that.

Well, I gotta tell you, man, when I first got the email intro to you, I was like, well, I don't know how this fits into my show. And I was like, I'd love to have him on, but I don't know, like, how. And then I talked to you and I thought about it and I was like, this could be really fun. And man, it really overexceeded expectations for me. And I'm really thrilled. I had a feeling. When I have a feeling, I just do it because I know, and I'm really glad that I did because I think your story is amazing. I think you're amazing, and I just enjoyed the hell out of this conversation, and I really think you're doing great work.

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for what you're doing as well.

You got it, man. Thanks for taking the time to come see me. I will link, you know, where to find you in the description below and get people to come on and try you out when they move and just check you out and follow you in general.

Awesome.

So, I appreciate it, brother. So, all right, everybody, that wraps up another one. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli signing off.