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Built In Real Life - Ep 2 - Married To The Business · Built In Real Life

• Built In Real Life: What's up everybody? Welcome back to Built in Real Life. I'm Mark here with Melody. Today we're gonna talk about being married to the business. We're gonna start with some rapid fire questions. You ready? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Who's the boss? me. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Who spends more? Me. Mm-hmm. yeah, but that's only because of the business. That's not fair. You don't spend more at home? No. No? No? I don't think I remember the last time an Amazon package showed up at our house with my name on it. But it goes through the business. Okay. Who takes bigger risks? Me, for sure. Yeah. who worries more about money? Me, for sure. For sure. I spend it, so I worry about it. who has more crazy ideas? Me. Who works later? Me. Well, okay, is this just about me? Who is more stubborn? You. Okay, I'll be more stubborn. Here, you wanna take it from there, the next couple? Yeah, but wait a second. You're pretty stubborn too. I think we're equally as stubborn. No. right, we're gonna elaborate on that later. No. Who's better at managing employees? Me. Me. I'm just gonna definitely you. who's more likely to hire someone because they like them? You. What? You again, we're gonna talk about that. Who's more likely to fire somebody? You who brings work home? Me. I think we both do. I you definitely do. I think I do more so. You I think you bring work home out of necessity. If there is something that absolutely needs to get done, I will bring it home and do it. But to me having some semblance of a boundary at home is important. Okay. Because that's where the kids are as well. Okay, so here's the next one. Okay. Who apologizes first? Me. No, not all the time. Melody, you're just now learning how to apologize. I've been saying sorry my whole life. I'm offended. I'm sorry. What? who's more likely to say just do it? Me. Really? think so? Why? Okay, wait, we have one more. Who's more likely to ask how much does it cost? Me. Are you sure? anytime we make big decisions, you mention the price tag and we weigh a lot on the financial decision to do it and then we plan it and make good choices about it. But you're the one that's like, I want to spend twenty four thousand dollars today. Or I already did spend twenty four thousand dollars. That happened last week. Hey, by the way. This is you knew I was gonna spend it. Eventually. Yes. So like it was like a business thing, but like Okay. That's fine. It was just a matter of timing. One day I'm gonna buy myself a boat, so just don't be surprised if it winds up in the parking lot. Just a matter of timing. Like I said, who was more stubborn? Anyway. Alright, so I don't want to boat. Let's you don't want a boat. I don't want a jet ski. I'll fish off the jet ski. my gosh. Okay. I guess now it says let's talk about it. So what did you what was one of the ones that you took issue with that you want to circle back to? I'm open to discuss. Who's more stubborn? really sticking on that one, huh? Yeah, I'm really sticking on that one. yeah. don't know. I think we're both equally as stubborn. Like we both are very strong willed people. So without getting like too far down the rabbit trail so I don't get yelled at again. I think that I think that you and I are very compatible as people because we complement each other extremely well. Okay. Things you hate to do, I love to do, things I hate to do, you love to do. You love emptying the dishwasher. I hate it. You do it all the time. What? think that's backwards. Let's reverse psychology. So I think because of the compatibility, I think that we have like compatible stubbornness too. It's very rare that we're both stubborn on the same issue. It's usually Yeah, it's pretty true. Yeah. One of us is feeling stubborn about the thing and then we kind of like adapt or we find like a common ground or we work through it together. I think stubbornness is also kind of good. think it can help protect you from something sometimes, or sometimes in the past it has stubbornness has like stalled a decision that we needed to make. Yeah. And it wound unbeknownst to us like working out to our benefit in that way. But sometimes that stuff happens too. So basically what you're saying is me being stubborn is beneficial. for you. okay. Just making sure. Which I think which kind of like along those lines is, you know, we're this is about being married to the business, right? And we joked before, like I definitely am married to the business. But let's talk a little bit about how we are I guess the hardest part about working with your spouse. And I think that's where we definitely had to navigate things, especially the second time of you coming into the business, because one, you came into a different business. True did. But like we really we learned, I think, from the first time and we decided, like, hey, we really need to set some boundaries because it's really easy and it still is. Like, we're at work. You have your responsibilities, I have my responsibilities. And we don't get a lot of time to just sit down and talk. Sure. So unfortunately, a lot of times our work does go home with us. does. And not in the sense of like, hey, I just need to get this quick thing done. It's like, hey, we need to have a conversation about this big decision or this employee or this whatever it is. Like it goes home. And I think for me, that's well, maybe not for me. But I think for you it's one of the hardest parts. It's not being able to separate. Yeah. So back to the like the original question that you asked. Do you mind rereading the exact like the original question that you asked? Yeah, what's the hardest part of working with your spouse? So the hardest part changes, I think is important to know, right? Like the hardest part for me right now was not what the hardest part was for me a year ago or even before that in different times. So One thing I kind of want to touch on along the journey is what you had mentioned about me coming back into the business for a second time, right? So the first time we started, and the first time I was with you, it was in the very, very early stages of restorative. and it was a new industry for me. Not only was it a new industry for you, but you were pretty well ahead of me in terms of like your clinical understanding, terminology even. And then also with like the clientele. I think that Clientele in this industry is vast and it's a pretty large range, but I didn't know I never really worked with these types of people before. talk more about kind of what that meant, but it was a lot for me to learn. It was a very new thing for me to kind of step into in the first time. And I tried to absorb as much as I could, but still, we kind of had an undefined goal. We had something now. We had something in the palm of our hands that was restorative health and beauty. How do we get it to be what we want it to be? I don't think we really knew what. It to be yet or quite how to get there. So very early on, there's a lot of idea sharing. What do you think? What do I think? What how is your idea going to make, you know, move the needle? How am I going to move the needle? And I think we we kept going back and forth with things and working very collaboratively. The necessity of life made it such that I had to step out of the business, but at that point the business had started to kind of, you know, stand on own two feet a lot more, and you had employees now and there's stuff going on. When I I remember maybe like a month or two before I came back to the business a second time, I remember distinctly telling you, like, I feel like the business has moved on without me. Yeah. I felt like I didn't have an identity in the business anymore. It wasn't Mark showed up, it like, hey, what are you doing in our place? Like I didn't feel like I was part of it. And I had like major FOMO because of that. Like I really I loved this and I genuinely, since you and I have been building it for years from the ground up. Feel like it is something that we're married to. Like we gave up 60, 70 hours a week in corporate jobs to each put 80, 90 hours a week into this now. You know what I mean? Maybe not as much, but it's not like the trade-off of our time really went anywhere. So for me, tying it back to the original question, really is about boundaries. Like it really is important to like the struggle for me the second time coming back. was a boundary of I'm not stepping into an environment where everybody knows me because I've been integral from the beginning. You did. I still held that identity for you, but for other people I I didn't. So it's really hard to step into a business where people are going to now need to maybe take direction from you and they don't really know you. They hear about you, the they hear you say, I'll go home and talk to Mark about it, but they don't really know me as the entity that is like a decision maker or or a a navigator in certain things. And so having the boundary for me being in the space, having those employees don't see me as that, but then seeing you as my wife and us trying to build this together, was a boundary that I needed to create that while I'm here, I'm the new guy right now. The second time around, like I'm new. I need to assimilate into your new team that you have and try to like, I don't know, figure out where I fit in. And it took some time for me to drive with where I fit in and how I can help people. Not only that, but people are also starting to get to know me a little bit more and you know, understanding what sort of role I play. And can be hard when a new player steps into the the picture because it can change the culture a little bit. So for me, I think the hardest part about it was maintaining a boundary with you to make sure everybody continuously saw you as the boss and like propped you up in that regard, since the first question was who's the boss? And you said me too. but also s not Like seeing you as my wife and like being like, Hey babe, like just respecting the boundaries of mm this is where we work now and this is what our livelihoods Yeah, and I think that's something that like we definitely had to have when you came back, we had to have conversations about. Like I remember you like pulling you in the back or like saying something and being like, Hey, like that was a husband response, you know, not like a coworker or whatever. But then in turn at home, it was It was hey, like we're going over the boundary. Like we shouldn't be talking about work this mu this much. Can we just like stop for the night? I felt like it was more comfortable for me to talk to you about the business as home at home as your husband. Yeah. Than as the business director. I could be more honest and more vulnerable. Like I could say more things to you in the privacy of our home than I could here in the setting. And then translating those late night conversations sometimes into an early morning start in the presence. It was hard to kind of shut that boundary sometimes. Yeah. And just finding that boundary. I wouldn't say that we have perfect boundaries now still. But like and I think too, it's harder for you because you wanna have that boundary, like work at work, home at home. And for me, I don't view this as work sometimes. So like if I wanna check in on my computer, we just had we literally just had this conversation last night, right? Yeah. So like if I want to check on my computer or something at home or do something real quick because I need to make sure something's set for this week, like it's not a big deal for me to check on it. Right. But you know, that I think too leads into things that we agree on or disagree on, like with the business and how to run it and how to do things and because it affects our livelihood. Not only ours, but now, you know, years in it supports other people's livelihoods and the compounding factor beneath that, you know, their children and all that stuff. So Yes Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So like what happens too when we let's talk about what happens like when we disagree on a decision with the business. I think it's healthy to disagree. I really do think that having like competing vantage points, helps maybe poke holes in things. And I think that there are times where we do disagree about something and I think that's okay. I think if we always agreed about things all of the time, we might be a little delusional and thinking that we're perfect and yeah, that's a great idea. I don't mind telling you some that must that's probably not gonna work. And I think that sometimes that might be a little bit harder for you to do to me, but you definitely do. Yeah, I would say I'm more of like an emotional being, I think, when it comes, but Ironically, things have kind of shaped over the last several years that like or maybe or honestly where I'm kind of coming out of like that emotional part of being a business owner. because I'm realizing that There's a place for emotions in business, but there's you can't make decisions out of emotion. And I think that's where initially we would agr disagree on things, right? Because I was the emotional part about it, you were the objective part about it. But then at the same time, there's other times where it was flipped and you were the emotional person. And I think that's where we find that balance a lot of times. Where do we necessarily disagree and this is where like our will and stubbornness comes in. Like I don't necessarily think that we've ever not to say that everything is like perfect, but I don't think that we've ever come to a point where we're like, I disagree, you disagree, and yeah. Like we've never really like we try to be extremely objective and understand the other's p person's point of view. But that's also comes with a marriage too. Like it's compromise. Yeah. So that's what I was gonna say. Like that is a skill that we learned in being together for seventeen years. Like that's not something that just happened by accident and there's a lot of stumbling on that journey, to be honest with you. But I think that being together for so long and then making the conscious decision together to venture into a business together, you know, there's plenty of couples that decide to do this and it ruins their relationship. Yeah. And they might thrive in business still. Right. But the relationship suffers at the same time. And you know, I'm grateful for the fact that we're able to understand both through both of the relationships, the working relationship and our personal relationship, that you know, compromise has to happen. Like it's a realistic thing that you're going to need to work towards. So even if we are yards apart on what we're thinking, little by little, we'll walk towards through sacrifice and you know, through understanding, something that makes sense for both of us, and we kind of reach a deal that way. That's something we do with decisions for our children, for our finances at home, for the business, for employ like for everything. And that's something too that I think has made us stronger across the board, kind of unexpectedly, because I wasn't a great communicator when we first met. You weren't a great communicator when we first met. And that it's it's improved our communication. It's forced us to communicate in a way that we never have before. Like we've had to be objective in our communication. And that business communication has unexpectedly spilled over into our personal relationship as well. That like we're able to be to more effectively communicate because of that. So it's it's kind of been an unexpected thing, but it I think it's definitely something that has helped us overall. It's like usually we you see the business part of things going great and the personal part of things you don't really see it going the other way. Yeah. You know? So that's I think something That's been great. Takes time. And that's what I was trying to say before. Like it's a decision every single day to show up. because, you know, entrepreneurship can be training, it can be taxing, and sometimes you just want to rest. Like you it's hard to continuously like put your all into it. And once you start, you c you kinda can't stop. Like we said, there's people relying on you and depending on you. We don't want to. It's not like you it's not like you're saying, it's not like it's just a chore to drag ourselves here. We'd love coming here. I love being here. It's so much fun. You know, but entrepreneurship is definitely hard work. It takes a lot of sacrifice, it takes a lot of like impact at home. But when you have a partner that you can bounce ideas off of or even objections or, you know, the hard things to talk about, I I think it's it's good. And I also think it didn't happen by accident. Like we needed to consciously decide like, is it okay for us to work together? Because the first go around it was a little rough sometimes. It was tough, yeah. You know, like it was a little bit hard and that's what I was saying earlier, because you had ideas, I had ideas, we're shaping the company together, and then you know, really it's a sixty forty because this is your, you know, brainchild from the beginning. Then I go away. Yeah. And you keep going, you're hiring people and things are changing. So when I came back, it was a lot to learn. Like it was the boundary was different for me then because My idea it wasn't just you and me collaborating on ideas. It was I need to consider how it might impact other people and also how I address those ideas with you in front of other people. Yeah. you know, one thing that we've never been shy about saying is like, I don't think that's gonna work. You know, we can definitely be honest with each other, but there was a period of time where I don't know if you had that balance in your life and you were just doing what you were doing with the business. Yeah. Now, luckily everything went great and it's not like, you know, I'm the mastermind behind it or anything, but You know, being disconnected from it really does take your eye off the ball. Like you really do it's something that happens every day. The every day is different and you have to continuously show up every day. So it's a lot. So what's it like being married to an entrepreneur? I mean, not that you're not. Let's let's put it that way. But like I was kind of like the original person. So like what's it what's it like to be married to somebody like Be delicate in your response, please. Yeah, so like being married to an entrepreneur, and I appreciate you saying it's not like we're not both entrepreneurs. And I think maybe the question might might be geared more towards somebody that has to adapt to your lifestyle of being one. Well you kind of do sometimes. I I do, but I also think that the last five years has all been about adaptability and malleability. And I still think we are just now in the very early stages of starting to be settled with everything. So, you know. Being married to an entrepreneur is exciting. Being an entrepreneur is exciting. The risk is exciting. The payoff is extremely rewarding. the payoff is also not just, you know, the financial aspect. It's the payoff of helping people, the payoff of benefiting employees' lives, the benefit of making great trade partners and industry partners. Like it's great. We're developing like a community of people and everything. So, no, I think with anything, there's good and there's bad, but And I would think the bad part of it is is well, what I would I guess assume to be the bad part is probably about once a week, you're like, Melody, I can't keep up with you. So like I said, things change every day. you know, an example about spending that that money that we had talked about, you know, a few weeks back. I remember us talking about it on I think it was a Sunday night, and we just said like, all right, maybe not now. And then Monday something popped up where it was like, let's have a conversation and we talked about it. And then by Wednesday was very objective. I'm like, no, it's not the right time. Like, from a business standpoint, I just don't think that we should take the risk. And then I let the person know and he's like, Well, let's have a conversation and everyone knows I'm always open to a conversation. So and then So it was We had the conversation and the next week I spent the money. It was Yeah. No. Mm-hmm. Well then let's have a conversation. Well we just said no. Well let's talk. Okay, we've talked. Okay, we're gonna do it. Okay, a week later, hey, I spent the money. So like Yeah, but at the same time we had the conversation and you were like, It doesn't make sense not to do it. It listen, you don't have to justify the choice. Like it's great decision and I think it's gonna be great for the business. But that is just so to demonstrate that like things change on a daily basis. Decision making, when you think you've made a choice and you're like, This is what we're doing The next day it could be like, this is not what we're doing anymore. Right. Like things change just that fast with stuff. So I think having that being malleable and being adaptable to certain situations is necessary in this. You can't if you say it has to be this way, chances are, number one, it's not going to go that way. But number two, if it doesn't go that way, that you must make it go that way. And you're not resilient or adaptable to how it you I unfortunately just don't think you're gonna. Good to be super successful entrepreneur. Yeah. Like Well, I mean, inside of being an entrepreneur, there's like risk. A lot of them are financial, especially if you don't have like private equity backing or something like that. So like we're not just risking our business, we're risking our livelihood too. And that's where it can sometimes get muddy. I've I have always said though, I will never risk my home for my business. Like I'll never put like leverage my home to support the business. I'll leverage the business to support the business. And I think that's a healthy boundary that I've established early on and the fact that I c I'm a nurse. I can always go find another job. You can always find another job if everything goes, you know, south. But Okay. So it's not only is it like a financial risk personally, it's a it's it's our livelihood. So we're like putting our livelihood at risk to support the business, but I always very intentionally didn't want to combine those two. Like, yes, the the business is our livelihood, but I'm not going to jeopardize My livelihood for the business. Yeah, risk is a huge part of being an entrepreneur. And sometimes when you want to do something, you gotta figure out where the funding comes from and you gotta cobble it together or you gotta make decisions or you need to speak with people. Like that's the other thing we've learned is you need a team for just about every single thing you do. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and I think another risk of all of this is kids. Right? Because being married to the business, it's it impacts our kids. For sure. You know, you know, as our kids continue to get older, they're very young now. well, I say they're young, it seems like, you know, they're they're really developing into who they're becoming, which is exciting to see. But I've sacrificed a lot of time with them. To build this business. And that's where I think I am married to the business in an aspect of, yeah, sometimes I'm losing out on things. Like I remember a couple years ago, you were sending me pictures from like the pumpkin patch with the kids. And I was like so sad that I was missing those moments and like kind of jealous in a way. I think that like you're getting that time with them, but at the same time, I'm building this for them. Yeah, and my you know, my perspective on that is I'm of course as a father enjoying that time with my kids. Like it is nice and we would want you to ha be there and everything, but I'm more so in the absence of, you know, with you working or me working even too, with doing things, I still want to provide those experiences to them. Yeah. Even if we both can't be there. I don't want them to be shorted on whatever it might be. Right, but that doesn't mean the other parent doesn't like feel guilty. Sure. I mean it happens the other way around too. You guys go to Chick-fil-A, you don't get me anything. I'm like, man, what's over there? Did you wanna play on the playground? Go down the slide. It it does make it hard because you're you're building a business, you're trying to you have so many competing priorities. It's like, especially in this day and age, how are you able to meet all of them? And the bottom when it comes down to it, I think that I realize that I can't. You know, and as a parent, as a mom, as a business owner, as a wife, as all of these roles that I I'm supposed to me, according to society, right? How do I not feel guilt about that? You know, how do you not feel guilt about not taking your kid to the pumpkin patch because you have somebody in your chair and this was the only time that they could do it. So you're missing out on that. But on the other side of that, it's it's frustrating and that I think is it could be a whole whole discussion is that's why it's important that we're respecting the provider's time as well because they're choosing that time to miss out on those opportunities. You know, so But ultimately, like when when people ask me about Owning a business and having young kids, like, they're like, But you're missing out on so much time. I'm like, I am, but I also hope in that same aspect I'm teaching my kids something. I'm teaching them that drive and motivation and showing up and having a passion is important. And if you follow that passion, I want them to see the success that does come from it. And I think that that is such an invaluable lesson in life. That You can't learn unless you're shown it. I would agree. I mean, I think you're demonstrating great things for our girls, but I also want to be realistic in that you have lost some time. yeah. But you're not absent. No, definitely not absent. Yeah. I think definitely as the business has grown, I definitely do more now that I have like there's more flexibility. Yeah. Early on early on in the business, like There's definitely sacrifices that you need to make and it's a lot to juggle. You're juggling a business, you're juggling a marriage, you're juggling parenting, plus caring for yourself in the meantime. Like how do you where's self care come from? Like how do you do you in the meantime and maintain all that? It is a lot to honor all of those commitments. And I just go back to the same thing I was saying, it's just like boundaries. Like Create the time and dedicate that time to what you've dedicated it to. And sometimes for me it's definitely a conscious choice. Like I pick up my phone and I see like a text that comes through and I'm like, No, like this is not an emergency, it can wait. Like this is the weekend, it's with my kids. Like I take summer weekends off. And so we can hang out by the pool and do whatever. I can just have a day off. Well, the one thing about entrepreneurship is that it'll always be there. The biz the work to do will always be there. It could be two o'clock in the morning, it could be two o'clock in the afternoon. Like there's going to be something you can do to contribute to it. And when it's yours, you have a full vision of everything that needs to get done. And when you have that free time or that free moment, you're like To use this time better to do something else, you know, and I think that there are times where that might be okay because I can't tell you how many times you've been like, I just had an hour to myself at home to do this stuff and I got so much done off my to do list and I feel so it's amazing. And it creates like that, you know that relief for you. and I think there's times where it's okay, but for me it really is important to spend time intentionally. Yeah. And we do that really well. Like we've been doing a lot of family dinners at home and especially in the summertime, spending a lot of time with the kids, like doing stuff with them. Yeah, I definitely think we're finding that balance as we go on, but in the beginning that there there was no boundary. There was no capacity to have it. There was really no ability. It it just required something different than it requires. And that's something that I would say too is it's hard at first, but as you go it gets easier. It's like having a kid. And that's that's probably the best advice that somebody's ever given us. Is you know, and as a new parent, you get all of this advice, and you're like, if you want them to sleep, put oatmeal in their bottle. If you want to do this, or whatever it is. But like the best advice that they gave us is every day gets a little bit easier. And that's one thing that I would say with entrepreneurship is every day does get a little bit easier because you find that balance. That in the beginning, I was everything. Now, you know, four, four and a half years later, however far we are into this, it's I have more balance and boundaries because I now have people in those roles to do them. And I think that's what makes the difference is am I making more money? No. But am I happier? Yes. Right. So that's that's the important part of having that boundary not only with yourself, like because you are married to the business, you are married to so many things, but it's where's that boundary gonna be for you that's important. Yeah. You know, and that's one thing too that I want our kids to understand is you can do whatever you want to do in life. If they wanna be an entrepreneur, I'm 100% gonna support them in that. And I hope that they will listen to us in our journey and and trust us in that, right? But if that's what they want to do, 100% I want to support them in that. If not, that's totally fine. But I hope that they take our lessons learned and find that boundary earlier than we did. I hope so, but I also don't want to shirk the journey that they may need to go on to learn that lesson themselves. Sure. You know, there's only so much we can do to prepare children, but the world will teach them a lot more. Yeah. You know? You know, and if one day they want to be a part of this business, I would love that. Like our oldest says, like, I'm gonna grow up and become a doctor so I can work in your business. And I'm like, No, I don't want you to be a doctor because I don't want those student loans, but yeah, do whatever you wanna do. You know, but I think the interesting thing about the boundaries that we're discussing is The one thing that people don't talk about with boundaries often is the need to reassess them. I think that people create a boundary, they stick to the boundary, they get comfortable with it, it stays the way it is for so long. But once in a while you need to just do a quick reassessment of your boundaries and reprioritize. And, you know, there are times where Fortunately, you know, the tasks that we have to do at home do need to be sidelined to do something that we need to get done for the business by tomorrow or whatever. Yeah. but more often than not, it's the inverse. We're sidelining the business to do stuff that we have to do for life stuff, you know, whether that be a trip to Knobles or a dinner at, you know, with each other at home or whatever it might be. but it's definitely hard to maintain the boundaries. But as long as you continuously like make an assessment to make sure that they're still right for you, you know. They'll change as you go along too, 'cause as th as things change and grow, needs change, requirements, responsibilities, accountability, all of that changes too. Yeah. So your boundaries change with it. Just And it's a lot to constantly be like cognizant of all this stuff too. Saying the right things at the right times with the right people present, like it's a lot. And I think that you and I do a really good job of The reason why business specifically, parenting too, but business specifically gets a little bit better every day is just experience. Yeah. You see new things. It's not the first time you experience something after a little while. And then you kind of know how to approach it, especially through the mistakes that you make. Yeah. Because there's a lot of situations we see for the first time, and we think we're reacting to it the way that we should, or we respond to it a certain way. Only in hindsight to realize, hmm, if that happened again, I might do that a little bit differently. Yeah. And I think that that's important too, is just like along the journey, see the mistakes, own them. Like understand that that's where most of our learning came from was through stuff we did wrong. Yeah. Also observing other people, because I think there's a lot of really great mo role models in this industry. people that do it really well. There's a really strong sense of community. There's enough business in this business for everyone to do well. and consumers definitely have a choice. Like there's a lot of MetSpaws around us still. and and for the other businesses that we've got going on, people have choices for those too. So, you know. Anyway. Yeah. Sorry. That's okay. So what do you appreciate most about the about the other person as your business partner that you probably do not say enough? Think the I think what I appreciate most about you that I probably don't share with you often enough is your tell. Your humility. Really though, is probably like your adaptability. I've seen you adapt and change to every not even every I shouldn't say that 'cause we're only f almost five years in, who knows what the future will hold, but like to almost every conceivable obstacle that this business could throw at you up to this point, from patient issues to landlord issues to product issues to banking issues, just the things that you face as an entrepreneur. You adapt to it, you figure it out, you move forward. Like it took you a little while to not let things weigh you down as much. And I think you kind of touched on that a little bit where you're stepping out of the emotional side of the business and starting to kind of step into more of like the business mindset more. And you really do have to make decisions differently. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, we use Just as human beings and as the people that run this business, we use our hearts and minds as our guiding light with everything that we do. And it's hard too when it's your passion not to have emotions tied up in it, you know. And you know, we have our own stack of values and morals that we follow. So in business we bring a lot of those same things into it. Yeah. but, you know, sometimes you do have to make hard choices that Tugget your emotions a little bit. Yeah. But the adaptability that you have to step into any situation. And you've been in some situations, dude. Like you've been knee deep in it where it's like, how the hell am I gonna get out of this one? Yeah. And there's just an adaptability to you. Yeah. But there's an adaptability to you that gets that mud over the hill and then the next thing you know, it goes flying down the hill and you're coasting again until it happens again. Yeah. But you adapt to each of those circumstances each and every time because it's not something that's gonna hold you back. It doesn't stop your flow and your progress. You accept it for what it is and you just move on. And yeah, but I have to give one hundred percent credit to My parents for that. Like my dad still says it to this day is life is a roller coaster. Like there's gonna be ups and there's gonna be downs, but it's how you adapt to that that makes you who you are. And ultimately that's something that I wanna make sure that my kids see too, because life is gonna throw so many things at you. Like, you know, it's like when you pray for patience, you don't get patience, you get the trials to go with it. And like you you don't learn to be resilient and adaptable by coasting through life, you know? So in turn to answer that question for you is I think your patience and your love. Right? You well, you're not always patient. but you're patient with me. And no matter what I come to you with, no matter what it is, you are most of the time patient with me. You give grace when it's needed. And throughout this journey, and it's it's been a hard journey, you have have loved me through all of it. You know, through my crazy ideas, through my I mean, I could say I'm also patient with you. You did hit me in the middle of the night last night in your dream. Mark talks in his sleep, and he definitely slam-dunked my face last night. So there's that. So but he loves me anyway. but you I mean, there's so many attributes that I think like, and so many people think that I did it by myself. Because you weren't always in the business, but really it's your patience, your love, the back like I feel like in many ways you're the backbone because when I crumble, when I'm having those hard times, like you're patient with me and you love me and you help me through it. You know, like you're the person picking the kids up from school. You're the person doing all of these things that make this possible. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that. And I don't know that I have heard you say those things. So it never I'll never say it again either. You recorded that, right? Got on record. No. no, I I do appreciate that. And I you know what I I think is interesting, just to tie back into what you said to what we were just talking about. I've been a business for a long time. Like I've At an executive level, been in business, I've made cutthroat decisions, I've fired people, hired people, made million dollar deals, like I've done enough of the business side of the work to to just cut emotions out of it. Yeah. And for you, that's something you're needing to learn because rather than leading with the business stuff, it seems like you for in the beginning at least were leading with more of the emotional side of things, emotional decision making, reactive decision making. Well I kinda disagree with that. Why? Because as a director, I did have to hire people. I did have to fire people. But I get stand back and say, it's this company's policy. Meanwhile it's my company and people know that. Sure. So when you had something you had a protocol to stand behind. Yeah, like an HR is there and they're like, do this. So you were you were given what your next steps were and everything. With us, there's no there's nothing. Nobody's come to save you. There's nobody that tells you what's right and wrong. We look up a lot of stuff to make sure that we get it right. Right. You know? so with that, I feel like you For a while led with the emotions and now you're starting to have more of the business mindset. I have always had a strict business mindset and now I'm dipping everything you just described about the patience and the love and the empathy, like that's me dipping into the emotional side of business because that's a side of it that I now need to learn too, because that's absolutely a part of it. Yeah. It took a while and some maturity on my part to realize like business can't just be corporate hard nose cutthroat. Like it has to be a little bit of a give and take with anything. Yeah. Whether it be with the consumers, other vendors, each other, like but also it's not the brand either. Like, you know, gen genuineness and friendships and things like that is how I built this. And I've heard even my patients say, like, I stopped going this place because they got too big and this person just changed or whatever it is. And that's one thing that to my core I want to never change is the part of that. So it's important that my my staff have that too. Yeah. Because it's it's people first. For sure. Yeah. It's the reason why we're here. I mean I I mention it to people a lot. Obviously we started a business to support our livelihoods, right? and if one day we're millionaires, we're gonna be so happy and I get my jet ski. but that's not that's never been our guiding light. It's never been about the financial aspect of things. It's never been people will pay this much for this, so we should get into doing that. never been that. It's always been purely about trying to help people however we can. Yeah. And this whole company started with that founding intrinsic value that you have of wanting to help people and make them feel better and contribute to their lives. So, you know, I think that a large part of our success is that we're just true to who we are. Just to keep the guiding light we have. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. That's it.