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Multiple Businesses, One Entrepreneurial Mindset | The GrowthPro Edge · The GrowthPro Edge

• 0:00
  Speaker: Welcome to the Growth Pro Edge.
• 0:02
  Speaker: We're here to help scale your
• 0:04
  Speaker: business, build stronger teams
• 0:06
  Speaker: and sharpen your leadership
• 0:08
  Speaker: skills.
• 0:10
  Speaker: I'm your host Denise Killian with the Growth Pro Group and
• 0:14
  Speaker: Entertainment Today on the Growth Pro Edge.
• 0:17
  Speaker: We are going to be talking about
• 0:19
  Speaker: that entrepreneurial spirit and
• 0:22
  Speaker: the lessons learned in starting
• 0:24
  Speaker: a business or in our guests
• 0:27
  Speaker: case, multiple businesses in
• 0:30
  Speaker: different industries.
• 0:32
  Speaker: What ingenuity that takes and
• 0:35
  Speaker: how you keep on top of all of
• 0:37
  Speaker: those businesses.
• 0:39
  Speaker: Our guest is none other than Jim Lewis, who is an entrepreneur in
• 0:44
  Speaker: his own right.
• 0:45
  Speaker: He owns a nutrition health store.
• 0:47
  Speaker: He owns real estate holdings as well as a family entertainment
• 0:52
  Speaker: center in Killeen, Texas area.
• 0:55
  Speaker: Two five four Jim Lewis.
• 0:59
  Speaker: Welcome to the Growth Pro Edge.
• 1:01
  Speaker: I'm thrilled to have you here today.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 1:04
  Speaker: I'm excited to be here.
• 1:06
  Speaker: So we're going to talk about all things entrepreneurial.
• 1:09
  Speaker: And you are someone that is always fascinated me because not
• 1:13
  Speaker: only do you have that entrepreneurial spirit, but you
• 1:16
  Speaker: have it in multiple businesses.
• 1:19
  Speaker: So I want to get started.
• 1:22
  Speaker: Tell us a little bit about the different businesses that you
• 1:26
  Speaker: own and have started.
• 1:28
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:28
  Speaker: Whether they're kind of in multiple categories, right?
• 1:31
  Speaker: So I have a real estate business.
• 1:33
  Speaker: And in that business, we own an
• 1:35
  Speaker: office building and a, and a
• 1:37
  Speaker: commercial building.
• 1:38
  Speaker: That was a grocery store at one time.
• 1:40
  Speaker: Now it actually has an Aldi and an urban air in it and, and also
• 1:45
  Speaker: another retail center.
• 1:46
  Speaker: So I have this commercial real estate business.
• 1:49
  Speaker: And then in addition to that, I
• 1:51
  Speaker: have a natural food store and
• 1:52
  Speaker: pharmacy business.
• 1:53
  Speaker: And so that's retail.
• 1:54
  Speaker: So it's a different kind of
• 1:56
  Speaker: mindset and a different set of
• 1:58
  Speaker: circumstances.
• 1:59
  Speaker: And then beyond that, I have area two fifty four, which of
• 2:01
  Speaker: course is in the family entertainment center space,
• 2:03
  Speaker: which is how we met.
• 2:04
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 2:05
  Speaker: And full disclosure, uh, Jim, you and I work together.
• 2:09
  Speaker: Uh, when you guys started up area two fifty four, uh,
• 2:14
  Speaker: entertainment came down and helped you guys do auditions to
• 2:16
  Speaker: get everybody hired.
• 2:18
  Speaker: And then we also did some sales training for your sales staff as
• 2:21
  Speaker: you guys were just getting started opening up.
• 2:24
  Speaker: So we do have a history of working together.
• 2:26
  Speaker: Um, and that's where I learned so much about you and your
• 2:30
  Speaker: incredible ability to be laser focused on multiple things at
• 2:36
  Speaker: the same time, which I think is a unique talent.
• 2:39
  Speaker: So I want to start with your
• 2:43
  Speaker: witch business of these three
• 2:45
  Speaker: different industries.
• 2:46
  Speaker: Which one was first?
• 2:49
  Speaker: First was real estate.
• 2:50
  Speaker: I, I bought my first house when I was nineteen years old, but it
• 2:54
  Speaker: was a rental property.
• 2:55
  Speaker: And and so I've been a real
• 2:58
  Speaker: estate investor from then until
• 3:01
  Speaker: now.
• 3:01
  Speaker: It's just a matter of scale, right.
• 3:03
  Speaker: But, um, but when I was in high school, I came across the idea
• 3:07
  Speaker: of, of making real estate loans to people who are buying houses
• 3:11
  Speaker: and flipping them.
• 3:12
  Speaker: And so I read I had a free period and I read a book on it.
• 3:16
  Speaker: I listened to a seminar on cassette back back then and, and
• 3:21
  Speaker: really kind of studied up on it and learned, learned all I could
• 3:24
  Speaker: about it and then ultimately got into that business, uh, with the
• 3:28
  Speaker: man who became my father in law and, and remained my father in
• 3:32
  Speaker: law for twenty years, actually.
• 3:33
  Speaker: And, and, uh, but that was the
• 3:35
  Speaker: first business was, was real
• 3:37
  Speaker: estate.
• 3:38
  Speaker: And so I kind of thought of myself as a real estate investor
• 3:40
  Speaker: to begin with.
• 3:42
  Speaker: So I, we have to pause for a second.
• 3:45
  Speaker: Nineteen you bought your first house.
• 3:49
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 3:50
  Speaker: How?
• 3:52
  Speaker: Well, a couple of couple of thoughts on that.
• 3:55
  Speaker: One is, when I was in that free period in class, I was looking
• 3:58
  Speaker: at those those tables that tell you if you invest a certain
• 4:02
  Speaker: amount of money at a certain age and it gets a certain percentage
• 4:04
  Speaker: return, then over time you'll, you'll be fabulously wealthy in
• 4:09
  Speaker: all of those things.
• 4:10
  Speaker: Well, those, those charts
• 4:12
  Speaker: normally started with somebody
• 4:13
  Speaker: who was around, say, twenty
• 4:14
  Speaker: five.
• 4:15
  Speaker: And I was looking at it.
• 4:16
  Speaker: I was thinking, well, geez, I'm like seventeen at the time.
• 4:18
  Speaker: And I was thinking, wow, if I
• 4:19
  Speaker: can start this much sooner, the
• 4:21
  Speaker: math says I can, I can stop that
• 4:23
  Speaker: much sooner or, or be that much
• 4:26
  Speaker: better off or whatever the case
• 4:27
  Speaker: may be.
• 4:28
  Speaker: So I started investing.
• 4:30
  Speaker: I started just saving every bit
• 4:32
  Speaker: of money that I could, I. And,
• 4:34
  Speaker: um, started, started investing
• 4:36
  Speaker: in mortgages for, for people who
• 4:38
  Speaker: were buying houses and flipping
• 4:39
  Speaker: them and things and things like
• 4:40
  Speaker: that.
• 4:41
  Speaker: And then kind of parlayed that
• 4:42
  Speaker: into, into a house and
• 4:45
  Speaker: eventually sold that house and
• 4:47
  Speaker: did what's called a ten thirty
• 4:48
  Speaker: one tax deferred exchange and
• 4:50
  Speaker: bought two houses with that
• 4:52
  Speaker: money.
• 4:52
  Speaker: And, and then and then.
• 4:54
  Speaker: So it goes from there.
• 4:57
  Speaker: I love learning new things about
• 4:59
  Speaker: someone that I've known for a
• 5:01
  Speaker: minute, and I love learning this
• 5:03
  Speaker: about you.
• 5:04
  Speaker: And I can just see you in high school when everybody else is
• 5:08
  Speaker: talking about the cars or the prom or the whatever, the
• 5:11
  Speaker: football game, and you are just dialed in on how you can make
• 5:18
  Speaker: your future better.
• 5:20
  Speaker: Well, I raced BMX bicycles when I was, when I was a kid, and you
• 5:23
  Speaker: and I have talked about that.
• 5:24
  Speaker: I got to travel all over the country doing that.
• 5:26
  Speaker: And it was tremendous fun.
• 5:28
  Speaker: I'm super fortunate that I that I got to do that.
• 5:32
  Speaker: Um, it did, it did get me to a
• 5:34
  Speaker: point though, where I thought,
• 5:34
  Speaker: you know, I don't want to look
• 5:36
  Speaker: back at my life and think that I
• 5:38
  Speaker: peaked at eighteen years old,
• 5:40
  Speaker: you know, so what am I going to
• 5:42
  Speaker: do next?
• 5:43
  Speaker: How do I, how do I take you
• 5:45
  Speaker: learn a lot doing something like
• 5:46
  Speaker: that.
• 5:46
  Speaker: You learn from winning, you learn from losing.
• 5:48
  Speaker: Um, but just being in the game,
• 5:51
  Speaker: competing and, and knowing that
• 5:52
  Speaker: if you if you win this week,
• 5:54
  Speaker: great.
• 5:55
  Speaker: But next week there's another race.
• 5:57
  Speaker: If you if you lose today, next week, there's another race.
• 6:00
  Speaker: Whatever you.
• 6:01
  Speaker: You keep on going either way.
• 6:03
  Speaker: There's so many lessons that I
• 6:05
  Speaker: learned as a young person from
• 6:07
  Speaker: all of that that I got to use
• 6:08
  Speaker: throughout the whole rest of my
• 6:10
  Speaker: life.
• 6:10
  Speaker: Um, but, but the investing side of it really kind of came from
• 6:15
  Speaker: that idea that, that I don't want to look back and say, this
• 6:18
  Speaker: was the best I ever was.
• 6:20
  Speaker: And then I also had this feeling inside me that it was like, I
• 6:22
  Speaker: don't want an average life.
• 6:24
  Speaker: You know, I, I know I can do better than that.
• 6:26
  Speaker: And, and so I, I've always been
• 6:29
  Speaker: willing to sacrifice on the
• 6:30
  Speaker: front end, knowing that on the
• 6:31
  Speaker: back end, things would be so
• 6:32
  Speaker: much better.
• 6:33
  Speaker: And so that discipline has served me very well.
• 6:36
  Speaker: That's fantastic.
• 6:38
  Speaker: Uh, because yeah, most people
• 6:39
  Speaker: don't think that way in high
• 6:41
  Speaker: school.
• 6:42
  Speaker: Heck, most fifty year olds still
• 6:44
  Speaker: aren't kind of thinking that
• 6:45
  Speaker: way.
• 6:45
  Speaker: So that just says so much about you and people who have, you
• 6:50
  Speaker: know, tons of people raced BMX bikes as kids but didn't learn
• 6:57
  Speaker: the lessons that you did and really internalize them and turn
• 7:02
  Speaker: them into something.
• 7:04
  Speaker: Right?
• 7:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:05
  Speaker: That's true.
• 7:06
  Speaker: You know, for, for several years, I, I ran some Sam's clubs
• 7:09
  Speaker: and at one point in my life as well, and I remember coming
• 7:14
  Speaker: across somebody who, when I first got hired, I worked with
• 7:17
  Speaker: this person and he kind of trained me on, on what was going
• 7:20
  Speaker: on with Sam's Club.
• 7:21
  Speaker: And then I went to another building and ultimately came
• 7:23
  Speaker: back a year later.
• 7:24
  Speaker: Only when I came back, they
• 7:25
  Speaker: asked me to run that that
• 7:27
  Speaker: building.
• 7:28
  Speaker: And this guy was kind of scratching his head going, well,
• 7:30
  Speaker: I've been here eight years.
• 7:31
  Speaker: How how come in a year you're you're running it.
• 7:35
  Speaker: And I said, well, did you do one
• 7:38
  Speaker: year, eight times or did you do
• 7:40
  Speaker: eight years?
• 7:42
  Speaker: You know, and, and it took him a minute to understand what I was
• 7:45
  Speaker: saying, that he didn't grow.
• 7:46
  Speaker: Whereas what I was doing was I
• 7:48
  Speaker: went to the regional director as
• 7:50
  Speaker: soon as I met him and said, hey,
• 7:52
  Speaker: what has you the most frustrated
• 7:53
  Speaker: right now?
• 7:54
  Speaker: And he told me and I thought about it.
• 7:56
  Speaker: I said, I can, I think I can solve that for you.
• 7:58
  Speaker: Can I have three guys to work with me?
• 8:01
  Speaker: And, and so we went and solved the problem.
• 8:03
  Speaker: Right.
• 8:03
  Speaker: And then and then I came back.
• 8:04
  Speaker: I'm like, all right, now what's on your mind?
• 8:07
  Speaker: What's got you frustrated now?
• 8:08
  Speaker: And, and kind of went from there.
• 8:09
  Speaker: And it gave me a lot of exposure to a lot of different things
• 8:12
  Speaker: that I wouldn't have had if I had just said, oh, hey, nice to
• 8:15
  Speaker: meet you and, and let him go about his way.
• 8:18
  Speaker: And so, um, you know, I, I've always been bent, bent that way.
• 8:22
  Speaker: And I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate, you know, it is, it is served.
• 8:26
  Speaker: It has served me well.
• 8:27
  Speaker: Um, I don't, I don't think it makes me any better a person
• 8:30
  Speaker: than anybody else.
• 8:30
  Speaker: It's just I'm very fortunate that that those things have
• 8:33
  Speaker: worked out so well for me.
• 8:35
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 8:36
  Speaker: Now, I think with any business, there's a bit of luck.
• 8:40
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 8:41
  Speaker: There's a bit of good fortune things lining up the the way
• 8:44
  Speaker: that they're supposed to.
• 8:45
  Speaker: And there's a whole lot of
• 8:48
  Speaker: brainpower and smart decisions,
• 8:51
  Speaker: right?
• 8:52
  Speaker: But sometimes it is a leap of faith too, right?
• 8:56
  Speaker: So what would you say has been
• 8:58
  Speaker: the biggest leap of faith moment
• 9:00
  Speaker: you've had in your career, your
• 9:03
  Speaker: professional life?
• 9:04
  Speaker: The biggest one that's that's interesting.
• 9:07
  Speaker: Um, I know that there have been
• 9:08
  Speaker: plenty of times in my career
• 9:09
  Speaker: where I've, I've been working on
• 9:12
  Speaker: something and I realized
• 9:13
  Speaker: somebody's going to have to make
• 9:15
  Speaker: this decision and, and that's
• 9:17
  Speaker: me.
• 9:18
  Speaker: Ultimately, I'm going to have to decide.
• 9:20
  Speaker: And however this goes is how it goes.
• 9:21
  Speaker: And, and that's me and, and after you've done that enough
• 9:25
  Speaker: times, of course, you you feel very comfortable, you know, you
• 9:27
  Speaker: can live with the consequences of it one way or the other.
• 9:30
  Speaker: And so, so I've, I've kind of
• 9:32
  Speaker: always looked at it and thought,
• 9:34
  Speaker: if I get it wrong, I can always
• 9:35
  Speaker: course correct.
• 9:37
  Speaker: And unless I've killed myself, I mean, literally like falling off
• 9:41
  Speaker: a cliff and died, I'll be able to recover from this and, come
• 9:46
  Speaker: up with with something else.
• 9:47
  Speaker: But the the biggest decision
• 9:50
  Speaker: probably was we had a grocery
• 9:52
  Speaker: store, it was fifty two thousand
• 9:55
  Speaker: square feet, and the tenant
• 9:56
  Speaker: wanted me to cut their rent in
• 9:58
  Speaker: half when their lease came up
• 9:59
  Speaker: for renewal.
• 10:00
  Speaker: And I said, that doesn't work for me.
• 10:04
  Speaker: What what are you going to do differently in your business?
• 10:06
  Speaker: Any, any wasn't going to do anything different.
• 10:08
  Speaker: He just wanted me to kind of
• 10:09
  Speaker: subsidize his business until he
• 10:12
  Speaker: decided to, to walk away from
• 10:14
  Speaker: it.
• 10:14
  Speaker: And, and so the biggest leap of
• 10:16
  Speaker: faith, I would say was I said,
• 10:17
  Speaker: look, I, I'm not going to do
• 10:18
  Speaker: that, but I'll buy your business
• 10:20
  Speaker: from you.
• 10:21
  Speaker: And so we agreed to a price for the business and all of the fee
• 10:24
  Speaker: and, and everything.
• 10:26
  Speaker: And I bought the business and I
• 10:29
  Speaker: hired somebody who had a lot of
• 10:31
  Speaker: experience in the natural food
• 10:32
  Speaker: space because I thought, you
• 10:33
  Speaker: know what?
• 10:34
  Speaker: This this market doesn't really
• 10:36
  Speaker: have a proper natural food
• 10:38
  Speaker: store.
• 10:38
  Speaker: It had a very small store and that was it.
• 10:40
  Speaker: And so we brought in more than
• 10:42
  Speaker: seven thousand natural and
• 10:43
  Speaker: organic items and, and really
• 10:45
  Speaker: kind of stabilized that grocery
• 10:47
  Speaker: store.
• 10:48
  Speaker: And, but I would say that that was, that was definitely a
• 10:51
  Speaker: turning point because it took me from real estate boy to retail,
• 10:56
  Speaker: even though I had some retail in the interim, that kind of gave
• 10:58
  Speaker: me the confidence to do this.
• 11:00
  Speaker: I bought real estate.
• 11:01
  Speaker: I went and worked at Sam's Club for a while.
• 11:03
  Speaker: Costco asked me to, to join them
• 11:05
  Speaker: and, and help them do a
• 11:06
  Speaker: relocation of a building in
• 11:07
  Speaker: Florida.
• 11:08
  Speaker: So I did that before coming back to the real estate that we have
• 11:12
  Speaker: here in Bryan College Station.
• 11:13
  Speaker: And so, um, but taking that,
• 11:17
  Speaker: that leap was a big one because
• 11:19
  Speaker: it, it meant taking on eighty
• 11:21
  Speaker: five employees.
• 11:22
  Speaker: It meant taking on a business
• 11:23
  Speaker: that had been there for a long
• 11:25
  Speaker: time, but that had been
• 11:26
  Speaker: suffering.
• 11:27
  Speaker: But it did have good bones, though.
• 11:28
  Speaker: It had good people.
• 11:29
  Speaker: It had a good reputation.
• 11:31
  Speaker: Um, the store was old.
• 11:33
  Speaker: I asked a, I asked a guy who I knew who had designed like forty
• 11:36
  Speaker: different whole food stores.
• 11:38
  Speaker: I said, what would it take to make this store look like what
• 11:41
  Speaker: Whole Foods would do?
• 11:43
  Speaker: And, he said, he said between ten and twelve million dollars.
• 11:46
  Speaker: And I said, oh, well, that isn't going to happen.
• 11:51
  Speaker: So we're going to have to run
• 11:51
  Speaker: with mom and pop chic here, you
• 11:53
  Speaker: know, country chic or old, old
• 11:56
  Speaker: store.
• 11:56
  Speaker: And I don't have that kind of dough at the time.
• 11:58
  Speaker: So there was no way that was going to happen.
• 12:00
  Speaker: But, uh, but anyway, you work
• 12:01
  Speaker: with what you have and, and you
• 12:03
  Speaker: grow it.
• 12:03
  Speaker: And thankfully that one worked out real well.
• 12:06
  Speaker: Um, eventually, although even that business has evolved
• 12:09
  Speaker: radically because it was in fifty two thousand square feet,
• 12:13
  Speaker: at some point I was evaluating it and I realized that the
• 12:16
  Speaker: pharmacy made money, that the that the natural foods was
• 12:18
  Speaker: serving the community well, but that most of the store was, was
• 12:22
  Speaker: kind of giving its life to the greater good of the thing.
• 12:26
  Speaker: And, and so I eventually moved that to another building where I
• 12:30
  Speaker: had an end cap available.
• 12:32
  Speaker: And I put the whole thing into just two thousand square feet.
• 12:35
  Speaker: So from fifty two thousand to two thousand square feet.
• 12:38
  Speaker: But and built a drive through for, for the pharmacy And in
• 12:43
  Speaker: doing that I cut the volume of the business in half, but also
• 12:47
  Speaker: the staff count from eighty five to fifteen and of course reduced
• 12:51
  Speaker: the the overhead radically from fifty two to two.
• 12:54
  Speaker: And so it took something that was very marginal to some and
• 12:57
  Speaker: turned it into something that was very profitable.
• 13:00
  Speaker: And so, uh, you know, sometimes you're faced with one problem
• 13:04
  Speaker: and come up with multiple solutions along the way.
• 13:07
  Speaker: So it's interesting to me that
• 13:09
  Speaker: you didn't set out to own a
• 13:14
  Speaker: natural grocery chain or grocery
• 13:17
  Speaker: store.
• 13:18
  Speaker: You didn't set out to own a pharmacy.
• 13:21
  Speaker: You were doing real estate and you were scaling that.
• 13:26
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 13:26
  Speaker: And an opportunity came.
• 13:29
  Speaker: And instead of saying, no,
• 13:31
  Speaker: sorry, I'm not going to reduce
• 13:32
  Speaker: your rent.
• 13:34
  Speaker: Uh, this is what it is.
• 13:35
  Speaker: You got to get out.
• 13:35
  Speaker: If you're not going to pay it and find another tenant.
• 13:39
  Speaker: You looked at it in a different
• 13:41
  Speaker: way and said, huh, maybe I could
• 13:45
  Speaker: do that.
• 13:46
  Speaker: Maybe I could, I could take this on.
• 13:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker: Um, you know, first of all, there's, there's a saying I
• 13:53
  Speaker: heard and I don't know who said it, but it was that life is what
• 13:56
  Speaker: happens while you're making other plans, you know?
• 13:59
  Speaker: So, so things happen along the way, right?
• 14:02
  Speaker: Another example in the real
• 14:03
  Speaker: estate building or business was
• 14:05
  Speaker: we had a floor go empty on the
• 14:08
  Speaker: third floor of, of an office
• 14:10
  Speaker: building.
• 14:10
  Speaker: And I kind of walked around it and it seemed like it was built
• 14:13
  Speaker: out very well for executive suites, which are popular in big
• 14:17
  Speaker: cities all around the world, but they weren't popular here, here
• 14:19
  Speaker: in our town.
• 14:21
  Speaker: And so there wasn't there wasn't an operator to hire to, to go
• 14:25
  Speaker: and lease the space to and have them run it.
• 14:27
  Speaker: So I had to create that business, right?
• 14:29
  Speaker: So I created this executive suites business on that floor,
• 14:32
  Speaker: and then eventually sold it to Regis, which is the largest
• 14:35
  Speaker: operator of that kind of business in the world.
• 14:37
  Speaker: And so, you know, it, it was
• 14:39
  Speaker: kind of like solving, solving a
• 14:41
  Speaker: problem, right?
• 14:42
  Speaker: Problem was I had a vacant floor.
• 14:43
  Speaker: What am I going to do?
• 14:45
  Speaker: And it seemed like the quickest way to fill it was to create a
• 14:49
  Speaker: business and put it in it and then, and then run it.
• 14:51
  Speaker: And so I did that.
• 14:52
  Speaker: And then with the grocery store is kind of the same thing.
• 14:55
  Speaker: The problem was I was going to have a big dark building
• 14:58
  Speaker: solution is keep, keep the business that is that is limping
• 15:02
  Speaker: along and see if I can turn it into something better.
• 15:05
  Speaker: And, you know, the other thing
• 15:06
  Speaker: is real estate is, is kind of
• 15:08
  Speaker: passive, right?
• 15:08
  Speaker: You, you buy it and you, you
• 15:11
  Speaker: find tenants and you sign
• 15:12
  Speaker: multi-year leases and that kind
• 15:13
  Speaker: of thing.
• 15:13
  Speaker: And there's not a whole lot of
• 15:14
  Speaker: work to do in the, in the
• 15:16
  Speaker: interim.
• 15:17
  Speaker: And so there was a part of me
• 15:18
  Speaker: that was kind of going, you
• 15:19
  Speaker: know, I'm, I'm a creative
• 15:21
  Speaker: person.
• 15:21
  Speaker: I have a lot of energy.
• 15:23
  Speaker: I needed something, something
• 15:25
  Speaker: else to kind of feed all of
• 15:27
  Speaker: that.
• 15:27
  Speaker: And, um, and so creating the executive suites fed that right.
• 15:32
  Speaker: And buying, buying the grocery
• 15:33
  Speaker: store and turning it into
• 15:34
  Speaker: something else.
• 15:35
  Speaker: Uh, so solve that as well.
• 15:38
  Speaker: Um, area two fifty four is really the first thing that I've
• 15:41
  Speaker: created that wasn't in response to solving some other problem.
• 15:45
  Speaker: It was purely something where I
• 15:47
  Speaker: wanted to do something fun and
• 15:51
  Speaker: learned about this whole
• 15:53
  Speaker: industry and, and got into it
• 15:55
  Speaker: and said, yeah, that looks like
• 15:56
  Speaker: it will solve my need to be
• 15:58
  Speaker: creative.
• 15:59
  Speaker: It will be fun.
• 16:00
  Speaker: It should be profitable if we do it well and so on.
• 16:03
  Speaker: So it's the first one, though, that I didn't create to solve a
• 16:07
  Speaker: real estate problem.
• 16:08
  Speaker: I went out and decided that this is a thing.
• 16:11
  Speaker: So how was that different for you?
• 16:12
  Speaker: Was there some nerves there?
• 16:14
  Speaker: Was there some some unknown anxiety or just let's go.
• 16:21
  Speaker: Yeah, it was, it was more or less let go.
• 16:23
  Speaker: But even that's that started actually the city of Brian.
• 16:26
  Speaker: Somebody gave them a golf course.
• 16:28
  Speaker: Right.
• 16:28
  Speaker: And but they had to turn it into a park.
• 16:30
  Speaker: And, and I happen to know the manager and the mayor and, and,
• 16:33
  Speaker: and they were showing me the plan for, for this park.
• 16:36
  Speaker: And they were going to build
• 16:37
  Speaker: baseball fields and things like
• 16:38
  Speaker: that.
• 16:38
  Speaker: And I know you love baseball, but I was like, baseball.
• 16:41
  Speaker: We have plenty of baseball fields, right?
• 16:43
  Speaker: This is something fun that we don't have.
• 16:45
  Speaker: And they said, well, what do you think?
• 16:46
  Speaker: And I said, well, go kart track.
• 16:47
  Speaker: And they said, well, why don't you do it?
• 16:49
  Speaker: I said, alright, fine, I will.
• 16:50
  Speaker: So I hired Jerry Merola from found, who does foundations
• 16:54
  Speaker: University and so on.
• 16:55
  Speaker: And, and he convinced me.
• 16:58
  Speaker: I, by the way, was very
• 17:00
  Speaker: satisfied with the idea that
• 17:01
  Speaker: there would be two go kart
• 17:03
  Speaker: tracks, a kart barn, maybe a
• 17:06
  Speaker: little snack bar, and let's just
• 17:07
  Speaker: race, right?
• 17:08
  Speaker: Just love to race, want to drive fast and that and that was it.
• 17:11
  Speaker: Jerry's the one who's like, well, but you gotta think about
• 17:14
  Speaker: dwell time and, and you should really add an arcade because
• 17:17
  Speaker: they're very profitable and your food should be really good.
• 17:20
  Speaker: Not just not just a couple of
• 17:21
  Speaker: hot dogs on a roller or
• 17:22
  Speaker: whatever.
• 17:23
  Speaker: And you should add bowling.
• 17:24
  Speaker: And I was like, what?
• 17:25
  Speaker: I don't want to do any of that.
• 17:26
  Speaker: I just want to race.
• 17:27
  Speaker: Right?
• 17:28
  Speaker: But he, he educated me and, and I went, oh, dang, he's right.
• 17:32
  Speaker: Alright.
• 17:33
  Speaker: So the so the project expanded.
• 17:35
  Speaker: Um, and ultimately the city
• 17:37
  Speaker: decided though that they didn't
• 17:38
  Speaker: want to have a go kart track in
• 17:40
  Speaker: the park.
• 17:41
  Speaker: The council decided that.
• 17:42
  Speaker: And so, but by then I was, I was kind of hooked on the idea.
• 17:45
  Speaker: I was like, this looks like a fun business.
• 17:47
  Speaker: It's it's always evolving.
• 17:49
  Speaker: This whole family entertainment thing is always evolving.
• 17:52
  Speaker: There's new arcade games, there's new attractions, there's
• 17:54
  Speaker: just different things going on.
• 17:56
  Speaker: Even bowling.
• 17:57
  Speaker: I mean, bowling.
• 17:58
  Speaker: I thought you just threw a ball down the lane and that was the
• 18:00
  Speaker: end of it.
• 18:01
  Speaker: And and, uh, but I learned
• 18:02
  Speaker: about, of course, string
• 18:03
  Speaker: pinsetters.
• 18:04
  Speaker: And and then you learn about the things that Brunswick has, like
• 18:07
  Speaker: spark will where it will project onto the lanes.
• 18:10
  Speaker: And you can play games like horse on a bowling, on a bowling
• 18:13
  Speaker: lane and, and stuff like that.
• 18:15
  Speaker: And I thought, man, this is way cooler than, than I thought.
• 18:18
  Speaker: And of course, Angry Birds is on the bowling lanes as well.
• 18:21
  Speaker: And then DFCs, you know, doing
• 18:22
  Speaker: the, the big, uh, LED screens on
• 18:24
  Speaker: the walls.
• 18:25
  Speaker: And I thought, man, there is so
• 18:26
  Speaker: much more to this than I
• 18:28
  Speaker: understood.
• 18:28
  Speaker: And, and so anyway, by that I was hooked and I was like,
• 18:31
  Speaker: alright, I'm, I'm doing that because I can.
• 18:33
  Speaker: This will be this will be
• 18:35
  Speaker: something I'll do because I
• 18:36
  Speaker: really just want to do something
• 18:38
  Speaker: cool.
• 18:39
  Speaker: So in terms of the the way in
• 18:43
  Speaker: which you started each of these
• 18:44
  Speaker: three businesses, I mean,
• 18:45
  Speaker: obviously you've been doing the
• 18:46
  Speaker: real estate game since you were
• 18:48
  Speaker: nineteen, really started
• 18:49
  Speaker: learning about it and making
• 18:51
  Speaker: that a priority for yourself at
• 18:54
  Speaker: seventeen.
• 18:55
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 18:56
  Speaker: Um, and then you evolved into,
• 18:59
  Speaker: through the real estate industry
• 19:01
  Speaker: kind of, okay, this is a
• 19:02
  Speaker: problem.
• 19:03
  Speaker: I'm going to fix it.
• 19:04
  Speaker: And now you own a health food store, right?
• 19:07
  Speaker: This is the first this is just you.
• 19:10
  Speaker: You really wanted to do this?
• 19:14
  Speaker: Does that change how you divide your time amongst the businesses
• 19:19
  Speaker: or the one that I want to spend more time on?
• 19:23
  Speaker: Area two fifty four because
• 19:25
  Speaker: that's my baby and that's the
• 19:26
  Speaker: fun one.
• 19:28
  Speaker: Yeah, it, it does for a couple of reasons, though.
• 19:31
  Speaker: One, that that actually seems like an obvious approach to it
• 19:35
  Speaker: and conclusion to gain from it.
• 19:36
  Speaker: But there's also the reality that I've been in the real
• 19:40
  Speaker: estate business so much longer.
• 19:41
  Speaker: And it has, it does have the
• 19:43
  Speaker: ability to be a little bit on,
• 19:45
  Speaker: on autopilot.
• 19:47
  Speaker: But then things come up today, I
• 19:48
  Speaker: had a tenant who, who wanted a,
• 19:50
  Speaker: a, a fire escape plan from their
• 19:52
  Speaker: space on the fourth floor of, of
• 19:54
  Speaker: a building through through the
• 19:56
  Speaker: other floors into the first
• 19:58
  Speaker: floor.
• 19:58
  Speaker: Right.
• 19:59
  Speaker: And so I got them some maps and,
• 20:00
  Speaker: and sent them over to them and
• 20:02
  Speaker: so on.
• 20:02
  Speaker: So things come up.
• 20:03
  Speaker: I had a tenant who sent me
• 20:04
  Speaker: something the other day where
• 20:05
  Speaker: they thought they had a roof
• 20:06
  Speaker: leak, but really they just
• 20:07
  Speaker: needed to change out their air
• 20:09
  Speaker: conditioning filters and retail
• 20:11
  Speaker: space.
• 20:11
  Speaker: And so, but you know, those
• 20:13
  Speaker: things come up, people text you
• 20:14
  Speaker: and you deal and you deal with
• 20:16
  Speaker: with that.
• 20:16
  Speaker: And so those will take up a certain amount of your time.
• 20:19
  Speaker: Now, area two hundred fifty four does take up the majority of my,
• 20:23
  Speaker: my business working time.
• 20:25
  Speaker: Um, but in part because of doing
• 20:28
  Speaker: a business like launching a
• 20:29
  Speaker: rocket, right?
• 20:30
  Speaker: It's like all that energy, all
• 20:32
  Speaker: that thrust it takes to get it
• 20:34
  Speaker: up in the air and get it
• 20:35
  Speaker: launched.
• 20:35
  Speaker: And then once you get out into
• 20:37
  Speaker: the atmosphere or whatever, it
• 20:39
  Speaker: starts to be able to roll
• 20:41
  Speaker: forward of its own, of its own
• 20:43
  Speaker: momentum and its own inertia and
• 20:45
  Speaker: so on.
• 20:46
  Speaker: Without additional fuel, the natural foods and pharmacy
• 20:50
  Speaker: business are like that.
• 20:51
  Speaker: I've got a terrific pharmacist.
• 20:53
  Speaker: We've we've worked together since he was a very young
• 20:56
  Speaker: person, saw, created a plan for him to go all the way through
• 20:59
  Speaker: pharmacy school, come out the other side and become the, the
• 21:02
  Speaker: pharmacist in charge, which is what that's the term for the
• 21:05
  Speaker: boss in that industry, that that person who I hired for the
• 21:08
  Speaker: natural foods side of the business still works for me all
• 21:11
  Speaker: these years later.
• 21:12
  Speaker: It's been seventeen, eighteen
• 21:14
  Speaker: years since since we started
• 21:16
  Speaker: that.
• 21:16
  Speaker: And so I've delegated almost to the point of abdication to them.
• 21:22
  Speaker: And two fifty four is something that it'll take a little longer
• 21:26
  Speaker: to, to get there with that.
• 21:28
  Speaker: I do have a partner in area two fifty four though, which is
• 21:31
  Speaker: which is also a different experience for me.
• 21:33
  Speaker: And, and so, uh, and it's nice
• 21:36
  Speaker: because, you know, he and I have
• 21:37
  Speaker: talked and, and it's like, I, I
• 21:39
  Speaker: would have created one thing if
• 21:41
  Speaker: I were doing area two fifty four
• 21:43
  Speaker: all on my own, he would have
• 21:44
  Speaker: created something.
• 21:46
  Speaker: Uh, but between us, we, we feel
• 21:48
  Speaker: like that what we have created
• 21:49
  Speaker: is way better than what either
• 21:51
  Speaker: one of us would have done on our
• 21:52
  Speaker: own.
• 21:53
  Speaker: And so, and so that's very
• 21:54
  Speaker: gratifying to, to, to have been
• 21:56
  Speaker: able to play off of one another
• 21:58
  Speaker: all along the way and, and, and
• 22:00
  Speaker: debate what, what attractions
• 22:02
  Speaker: and decide on the colors and,
• 22:04
  Speaker: and, and all of those kinds of
• 22:05
  Speaker: things.
• 22:06
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 22:07
  Speaker: And something that you have mentioned a few times with each
• 22:11
  Speaker: of your businesses and different situations you've been in, is
• 22:16
  Speaker: something that I think sometimes entrepreneurs don't do, or maybe
• 22:20
  Speaker: the don't do as well, which is you sought out people that know
• 22:25
  Speaker: more than you.
• 22:27
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 22:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker: You have to.
• 22:30
  Speaker: You have to.
• 22:31
  Speaker: I'm, you know, my family would
• 22:33
  Speaker: tell you that I'm very cocky and
• 22:37
  Speaker: and I, and I am, and I kind of
• 22:38
  Speaker: enjoy being that for for them
• 22:40
  Speaker: and around my friends and things
• 22:42
  Speaker: like that.
• 22:42
  Speaker: But when it, when it's just me
• 22:43
  Speaker: at my desk, it's, it's a
• 22:45
  Speaker: different animal.
• 22:45
  Speaker: And, and, and I really do realize that I am not the one
• 22:50
  Speaker: with the answers.
• 22:51
  Speaker: And I need to find the people who, who do have the answers.
• 22:53
  Speaker: And so, uh, I, I hope that the people who work for me would
• 22:56
  Speaker: tell you I do a good job of, of listening to them and, and, and,
• 23:01
  Speaker: and letting them come up with answers as, as well.
• 23:04
  Speaker: Um, that was something I learned
• 23:05
  Speaker: when I was running Sam's clubs
• 23:06
  Speaker: because the culture there was
• 23:08
  Speaker: kind of like that, that people
• 23:10
  Speaker: would line up to talk to me all
• 23:11
  Speaker: day long.
• 23:12
  Speaker: And it was almost like, hey, I've got this bomb for you.
• 23:16
  Speaker: Here you go.
• 23:17
  Speaker: And then they and walk away, right.
• 23:19
  Speaker: And, and I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
• 23:22
  Speaker: You've you've identified the problem.
• 23:24
  Speaker: What, what, what's the solution?
• 23:26
  Speaker: And they're like, I don't know.
• 23:27
  Speaker: I'm like, well, three hundred people can't be counting on me
• 23:30
  Speaker: to do all the thinking.
• 23:32
  Speaker: So you've identified the problem.
• 23:33
  Speaker: What do you think the solution will be?
• 23:35
  Speaker: Let's just let's try what you think first and see how it goes.
• 23:38
  Speaker: If I need if I need to really
• 23:40
  Speaker: dig into it, I I'm okay with
• 23:41
  Speaker: that.
• 23:41
  Speaker: But but you should have some
• 23:43
  Speaker: idea of what the solution is,
• 23:45
  Speaker: right.
• 23:45
  Speaker: And so, so I have gotten pretty good about that over, over the
• 23:48
  Speaker: years of, of, of realizing that I cannot think for, for
• 23:52
  Speaker: everybody if I try and do all the thinking that that's going
• 23:55
  Speaker: to happen in the building and come up with all the ideas, the
• 23:58
  Speaker: business will fail for sure, because I just can't come up
• 24:00
  Speaker: with, with that many executable ideas all day long.
• 24:05
  Speaker: Well, and there is something empowering and I've watched you
• 24:07
  Speaker: do it firsthand how you empower people that, that you work with
• 24:14
  Speaker: and people on your team and that allowing them, that they
• 24:20
  Speaker: understand that they have the ability to do it.
• 24:23
  Speaker: You always ask first.
• 24:26
  Speaker: What do you think?
• 24:28
  Speaker: Or, I don't know, how would you solve it?
• 24:30
  Speaker: Or what do you think we should do about that?
• 24:32
  Speaker: Right.
• 24:33
  Speaker: And that that is your go to in
• 24:37
  Speaker: any situation where there's
• 24:38
  Speaker: either a conflict or a obstacle
• 24:41
  Speaker: or roadblock.
• 24:43
  Speaker: And that absolutely is an empowerment for those employees
• 24:48
  Speaker: and for those team members that it doesn't take long before then
• 24:53
  Speaker: they come to you and say, this is a problem.
• 24:55
  Speaker: Here's how I think we should solve it.
• 24:57
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:58
  Speaker: And I appreciate you observing that.
• 25:01
  Speaker: Um, I have some, some who will just tell me, hey, there was
• 25:04
  Speaker: this problem and I solved it.
• 25:05
  Speaker: And and I'm even better with that, right?
• 25:09
  Speaker: I'm like, great.
• 25:10
  Speaker: I don't have to think about it at all.
• 25:11
  Speaker: You found you found the problem.
• 25:13
  Speaker: You found the solution.
• 25:13
  Speaker: You executed.
• 25:15
  Speaker: Thank you for the update.
• 25:16
  Speaker: You know, that's, that's the best case scenario.
• 25:18
  Speaker: Um, and I find that that the
• 25:21
  Speaker: business works better, of
• 25:22
  Speaker: course, when it works that way
• 25:23
  Speaker: too.
• 25:23
  Speaker: I'm kind of loving that.
• 25:25
  Speaker: At area two fifty four, we have a discord that the that the
• 25:29
  Speaker: teams use for various things.
• 25:31
  Speaker: And what I'm, what I'm noticing is that between the, the
• 25:34
  Speaker: managers and the, and the leads, that throughout the day somebody
• 25:39
  Speaker: will identify a problem and somebody else will either give
• 25:41
  Speaker: them the solution or go, oh, that's my bad.
• 25:44
  Speaker: I'll, I'll fix that later
• 25:45
  Speaker: tonight or, or whatever the case
• 25:47
  Speaker: may be.
• 25:47
  Speaker: But I love it when people will will take responsibility for
• 25:51
  Speaker: whatever went wrong.
• 25:52
  Speaker: And I'm seeing that in our group, which I love.
• 25:55
  Speaker: It's not it's people aren't
• 25:56
  Speaker: going, oh, well, that was that
• 25:57
  Speaker: was him.
• 25:57
  Speaker: He screwed that up or whatever.
• 25:59
  Speaker: You know, they're, they really
• 26:01
  Speaker: are working together very, very
• 26:02
  Speaker: well.
• 26:02
  Speaker: And, um, and that makes the
• 26:05
  Speaker: whole thing so much easier to
• 26:06
  Speaker: run.
• 26:06
  Speaker: And it just makes it a much
• 26:07
  Speaker: better business because they're
• 26:09
  Speaker: solving problems without
• 26:10
  Speaker: everything having to go up to
• 26:11
  Speaker: the boss or bosses and then come
• 26:14
  Speaker: back down.
• 26:14
  Speaker: They're going peer to peer solving problems.
• 26:16
  Speaker: And, and, and we're only asked to be engaged in things that we
• 26:22
  Speaker: can actually help them with.
• 26:23
  Speaker: There's a lot of things that they know way better than I do
• 26:25
  Speaker: anyway, so there's no point in me trying to come up with with
• 26:28
  Speaker: the solution when they when they know how things work.
• 26:32
  Speaker: And, and Jim, that's a culture
• 26:35
  Speaker: that doesn't happen by accident,
• 26:37
  Speaker: right?
• 26:38
  Speaker: That is a culture that doesn't just I got lucky and these
• 26:41
  Speaker: people are all this way.
• 26:43
  Speaker: Right?
• 26:43
  Speaker: So what do you do to foster that
• 26:47
  Speaker: and grow that in addition to
• 26:48
  Speaker: what we just talked about, about
• 26:50
  Speaker: knowing that you're empowering
• 26:51
  Speaker: them?
• 26:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker: For one thing, I've told a lot
• 26:54
  Speaker: of people about the, the job
• 26:56
  Speaker: fair process that, that we did
• 26:57
  Speaker: together because that was, that
• 27:00
  Speaker: was incredible.
• 27:01
  Speaker: You know, when we were getting ready to open area.
• 27:03
  Speaker: Two fifty four I had talked to
• 27:05
  Speaker: people in the industry and they
• 27:06
  Speaker: were telling me, oh, you're
• 27:07
  Speaker: going to need a one hundred and
• 27:08
  Speaker: fifty people.
• 27:09
  Speaker: And so you better hire three hundred people.
• 27:11
  Speaker: And, and all of this.
• 27:13
  Speaker: And my partner and I were, were working on schedules.
• 27:15
  Speaker: And we're like, we do not see how we can possibly need One
• 27:19
  Speaker: hundred and fifty people.
• 27:21
  Speaker: And you know, it's he has some
• 27:23
  Speaker: experience in, in, in the
• 27:24
  Speaker: business.
• 27:24
  Speaker: I don't have experience in this
• 27:26
  Speaker: business, but I, but I have run
• 27:27
  Speaker: Costcos and I run Sam's clubs
• 27:29
  Speaker: and I have run my own
• 27:29
  Speaker: businesses.
• 27:30
  Speaker: And so I have a sense of what a person can do within, within a
• 27:33
  Speaker: certain environment and how many people it takes to do that.
• 27:36
  Speaker: And I just was not coming up with those kinds of numbers.
• 27:39
  Speaker: And so, um, so as you may recall, we only ended up hiring
• 27:43
  Speaker: sixty five people and we did it through that job fair process.
• 27:46
  Speaker: And it was amazing because when we, when we had people sign up
• 27:50
  Speaker: for, for the job fair, I think we had four hundred and twenty
• 27:54
  Speaker: people, if I remember.
• 27:54
  Speaker: Right.
• 27:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:55
  Speaker: And then we, we brought them in
• 27:57
  Speaker: and we did the interviews and we
• 27:58
  Speaker: invited back, um, maybe like two
• 28:01
  Speaker: hundred or something like that
• 28:02
  Speaker: to.
• 28:02
  Speaker: Yeah, I think it was about about
• 28:04
  Speaker: two twenty or something like
• 28:05
  Speaker: that.
• 28:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker: For the auditions, eighty two hundred, something like that.
• 28:08
  Speaker: And, and, and you led.
• 28:10
  Speaker: LED us through that process and it was fantastic.
• 28:13
  Speaker: Uh, most of those we, in the end, we hired, we wanted to hire
• 28:16
  Speaker: sixty five people.
• 28:18
  Speaker: I think we went through our list and we got the first sixty five
• 28:21
  Speaker: or sixty five out of sixty seven people on our list in terms of
• 28:25
  Speaker: the the order that we gave them.
• 28:27
  Speaker: And one of them we didn't get because they gave us bad
• 28:30
  Speaker: information and we couldn't even get Ahold of them on, on the
• 28:34
  Speaker: second go around.
• 28:35
  Speaker: And, and I don't remember what what happened with the other.
• 28:37
  Speaker: But anyway, we, we ended up, we
• 28:39
  Speaker: basically got everybody we
• 28:40
  Speaker: wanted.
• 28:41
  Speaker: Right.
• 28:41
  Speaker: And, and so we hired those
• 28:43
  Speaker: people and, and, and some of
• 28:45
  Speaker: them, we, we brought in for
• 28:47
  Speaker: additional interviewing to just
• 28:49
  Speaker: be sure that we wanted to put
• 28:51
  Speaker: them into key roles like HR and,
• 28:54
  Speaker: and a manager and our lead
• 28:55
  Speaker: positions, some of those kinds
• 28:57
  Speaker: of things.
• 28:58
  Speaker: Um, and, and everybody else, we, we, we hired.
• 29:01
  Speaker: And like I said, the majority of those people, certainly the key
• 29:05
  Speaker: positions are still people from, from that process, from that
• 29:09
  Speaker: very first round of hiring.
• 29:11
  Speaker: And the great thing about that, that process that that you at
• 29:14
  Speaker: Tray Entertainment have set up is it gave us a chance to see
• 29:17
  Speaker: how people work with one another, to find out who are the
• 29:21
  Speaker: people who will just sit back and do nothing, who are the
• 29:24
  Speaker: people who will engage?
• 29:25
  Speaker: Who are the the people who demonstrate some natural
• 29:28
  Speaker: leadership, and who are the people who think their leaders,
• 29:31
  Speaker: but they're really just, you know, loud bullies.
• 29:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:35
  Speaker: Or bullies or, or whatever.
• 29:36
  Speaker: But we got to see all, all of
• 29:38
  Speaker: those things and make good
• 29:39
  Speaker: hiring decisions.
• 29:40
  Speaker: And thankfully we did.
• 29:41
  Speaker: And that has worked out really, really well.
• 29:43
  Speaker: So for anybody, especially
• 29:45
  Speaker: somebody who's starting a new
• 29:47
  Speaker: FEC, I tell them, you've got to
• 29:49
  Speaker: do this.
• 29:49
  Speaker: But even if even if you have one that's been open for a while and
• 29:53
  Speaker: you and you need to hire several people, I would say that's the
• 29:56
  Speaker: way to go.
• 29:57
  Speaker: Oh, well, thank you for that.
• 29:58
  Speaker: I appreciate that and it is such a fun process.
• 30:00
  Speaker: But you're exactly right.
• 30:01
  Speaker: It's that you start the culture
• 30:04
  Speaker: from the first interaction you
• 30:06
  Speaker: have.
• 30:07
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 30:08
  Speaker: And that is often an interview.
• 30:10
  Speaker: Um, and then as you mentioned,
• 30:12
  Speaker: we did the auditions as well
• 30:13
  Speaker: that really create something
• 30:15
  Speaker: special.
• 30:16
  Speaker: But then if you you, you don't foster it and it stops after
• 30:22
  Speaker: that process and okay, you've got the job and that's it.
• 30:25
  Speaker: It ain't going to last.
• 30:27
  Speaker: So that's true.
• 30:29
  Speaker: And that's part of also that
• 30:30
  Speaker: whole, that whole analogy I had
• 30:32
  Speaker: about when you launch a rocket,
• 30:33
  Speaker: right?
• 30:33
  Speaker: All of that energy it takes, I mean, it took a lot of energy
• 30:37
  Speaker: to, to get that off the ground because there were so many
• 30:40
  Speaker: decisions that you have to make.
• 30:41
  Speaker: I mean, just everything from little things like your, your
• 30:44
  Speaker: color scheme to your logo and, and, and whatever, but then
• 30:47
  Speaker: hiring decisions and training decisions and follow up
• 30:50
  Speaker: decisions and signage.
• 30:51
  Speaker: And I mean, you could go on and on and on and it, and it's just
• 30:54
  Speaker: somebody has to make those decisions and, and if it's your
• 30:57
  Speaker: business, that's you, you've got to do it.
• 31:02
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker: And, and it is, um, something that, that truly with, with
• 31:08
  Speaker: working with area.
• 31:09
  Speaker: Uh, two fifty four I saw that
• 31:11
  Speaker: and I saw the culture that you
• 31:12
  Speaker: were building, you and Chris put
• 31:14
  Speaker: together and and that people
• 31:17
  Speaker: embraced it and embraced each
• 31:18
  Speaker: other.
• 31:18
  Speaker: So I think, you know, another part about certainly if you've
• 31:22
  Speaker: got multiple businesses, you can't do it.
• 31:24
  Speaker: All right.
• 31:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:27
  Speaker: And even if you don't, you can't.
• 31:28
  Speaker: And even if you think you could,
• 31:30
  Speaker: you shouldn't, you know, you're,
• 31:32
  Speaker: you've got to be able to relay
• 31:34
  Speaker: things out.
• 31:35
  Speaker: You've got gotta get other people to a point where they can
• 31:38
  Speaker: not only solve problems that you've brought to them, but also
• 31:42
  Speaker: identify problems and solve them themselves, even without
• 31:44
  Speaker: bringing them to you.
• 31:46
  Speaker: Or else you'll get so bogged down that you'll just never,
• 31:48
  Speaker: never be able to make good decisions and never be able to
• 31:51
  Speaker: enjoy it either.
• 31:52
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:53
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:54
  Speaker: Um, something else that you brought up that, that I wanted
• 31:56
  Speaker: to circle back to is the you are not afraid to fail.
• 32:02
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 32:03
  Speaker: You will make a decision.
• 32:04
  Speaker: And you, you, you said it beautifully.
• 32:07
  Speaker: A decision needs to be made more, you know.
• 32:09
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:09
  Speaker: We know more is lost by In
• 32:12
  Speaker: decision than the wrong
• 32:14
  Speaker: decision.
• 32:14
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:15
  Speaker: And you will make a decision.
• 32:18
  Speaker: If it needs tweaking, you tweak it.
• 32:21
  Speaker: If it's yep, that was the wrong thing.
• 32:23
  Speaker: Let's start over and and reverse
• 32:25
  Speaker: that and go in this direction
• 32:26
  Speaker: instead.
• 32:28
  Speaker: You're not afraid to do that.
• 32:29
  Speaker: Is that something that you
• 32:31
  Speaker: learned on those BMX trails as a
• 32:33
  Speaker: kid, or where's that coming
• 32:35
  Speaker: from?
• 32:35
  Speaker: Actually, yeah, it actually is.
• 32:37
  Speaker: I can tell you where I believe
• 32:38
  Speaker: that came from is, um, every
• 32:41
  Speaker: once in a while it would occur
• 32:42
  Speaker: to me that I hadn't crashed in a
• 32:44
  Speaker: long time.
• 32:45
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:45
  Speaker: And, and of course, your goal was to go around the track as
• 32:48
  Speaker: fast as you possibly can and beat all the other guys.
• 32:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:50
  Speaker: And, and, but after a while, if you if you go, huh, I haven't
• 32:56
  Speaker: crashed in a while, then then it, it forces you to kind of go,
• 32:59
  Speaker: well, am I, am I learning?
• 33:00
  Speaker: AM I getting any better?
• 33:02
  Speaker: Or am I just going around the track over and over again?
• 33:04
  Speaker: It's kind of like the guy who I asked about, did you do one
• 33:07
  Speaker: year, eight times?
• 33:08
  Speaker: You can do that in, in any, any
• 33:10
  Speaker: area of life that you want,
• 33:11
  Speaker: right?
• 33:11
  Speaker: And so in the BMX track, it caused me to think, okay, well,
• 33:15
  Speaker: let me let me choose a section of my practice track and, and
• 33:19
  Speaker: maybe I can pedal into a turn a half a pedal further, or maybe I
• 33:23
  Speaker: can pedal out a little sooner than I intended to.
• 33:27
  Speaker: And so that that would be a
• 33:29
  Speaker: thing I would work on until I
• 33:30
  Speaker: either would figure out a way to
• 33:32
  Speaker: do it faster or get thrown off
• 33:34
  Speaker: my bike and, and rethink and
• 33:37
  Speaker: say, okay, have I just reached
• 33:39
  Speaker: the limit of my skill or was
• 33:40
  Speaker: this a bad idea in the first
• 33:41
  Speaker: place?
• 33:41
  Speaker: You know, do I just need to get
• 33:42
  Speaker: a little better in order to do
• 33:44
  Speaker: this, or do I need to take a
• 33:45
  Speaker: different line?
• 33:46
  Speaker: But you keep on working on it until you until you figure out
• 33:48
  Speaker: what that is.
• 33:49
  Speaker: And, or it might be that there's a series of jumps and it might
• 33:53
  Speaker: be faster to wheelie.
• 33:54
  Speaker: You know, if you think about
• 33:55
  Speaker: jumps, I don't know what you
• 33:56
  Speaker: would know about BMX jumps or
• 33:58
  Speaker: motocross jumps or anything like
• 33:59
  Speaker: that.
• 34:00
  Speaker: But but if you wheelie before you hit one and your front end
• 34:04
  Speaker: goes down, your back end goes up and you kind of sail across the,
• 34:08
  Speaker: the sky as opposed to up.
• 34:10
  Speaker: Right.
• 34:11
  Speaker: And so since you're trying to
• 34:12
  Speaker: get from here to there, that is
• 34:15
  Speaker: faster, right?
• 34:15
  Speaker: To wheelie before it.
• 34:16
  Speaker: And don't let your bike jump way up in the air.
• 34:18
  Speaker: You want to jump forward.
• 34:19
  Speaker: So, so you would think about
• 34:20
  Speaker: those kinds of things and say,
• 34:22
  Speaker: okay, can I do that on the
• 34:23
  Speaker: bigger jumps, not just the
• 34:24
  Speaker: smaller jumps and, and things
• 34:25
  Speaker: like that.
• 34:26
  Speaker: So there's a million things that
• 34:27
  Speaker: you can work on to improve and
• 34:30
  Speaker: business in life are the are the
• 34:31
  Speaker: same way.
• 34:32
  Speaker: And so if you kind of approach it that way and say, okay, well,
• 34:36
  Speaker: I'm going to have to, I need to try something to see if see if I
• 34:39
  Speaker: can make this, this business grow or make this business
• 34:42
  Speaker: better or make this process smoother or whatever it is.
• 34:45
  Speaker: So you try something and if it works, fantastic.
• 34:47
  Speaker: You learned a new way to, to improve your process.
• 34:50
  Speaker: If it doesn't work, that's okay.
• 34:51
  Speaker: Then you just tweak it and say, okay, well, what?
• 34:54
  Speaker: What went wrong?
• 34:54
  Speaker: Where did did we get close?
• 34:56
  Speaker: I mean, is there an idea we can get from this or do we scrap it
• 35:00
  Speaker: and, and start again?
• 35:01
  Speaker: And either way, it's okay.
• 35:03
  Speaker: To me, that's part of the fun of it all.
• 35:05
  Speaker: And also part of the fun of, of being the entrepreneur to a
• 35:07
  Speaker: point you made earlier.
• 35:09
  Speaker: I don't remember if we were on camera yet or not, but but, um,
• 35:13
  Speaker: one of the values of, of being the boss is you can kind of do
• 35:17
  Speaker: whatever you want, right?
• 35:18
  Speaker: And so you choose, you choose how you spend your day.
• 35:21
  Speaker: There's some disadvantages before everybody goes, oh, well,
• 35:23
  Speaker: yeah, you know, one of the disadvantages is that the work
• 35:26
  Speaker: still has to be done.
• 35:27
  Speaker: And so you may decide, I'm not doing it today at ten o'clock
• 35:31
  Speaker: because I want to go see my kids do do whatever.
• 35:33
  Speaker: And that's cool.
• 35:34
  Speaker: But at ten p m that works.
• 35:36
  Speaker: Still going to be there and you might still be the one who has
• 35:38
  Speaker: to do it.
• 35:38
  Speaker: And so, uh, so it's a, it's a give and take, but I've always
• 35:42
  Speaker: thought if I'm in charge, at least I have some say in, in how
• 35:45
  Speaker: I get to spend my day and what I work on and, and so on.
• 35:48
  Speaker: So it suits me pretty well.
• 35:51
  Speaker: Uh, so Jim, we're coming to the, the close of our time.
• 35:56
  Speaker: I have taken so much from this conversation, and I know our
• 36:01
  Speaker: listeners are as well.
• 36:03
  Speaker: If you could give a piece of advice to someone thinking about
• 36:08
  Speaker: starting a business.
• 36:11
  Speaker: What is it?
• 36:14
  Speaker: I would say it probably will
• 36:15
  Speaker: take you twice as long as you
• 36:17
  Speaker: expect before.
• 36:18
  Speaker: Before it will kind of have its its own flow.
• 36:22
  Speaker: It'll probably cost you twice as much to start as as you thought.
• 36:26
  Speaker: And so I don't say those things
• 36:28
  Speaker: to discourage you because in the
• 36:29
  Speaker: end, it still is very much worth
• 36:31
  Speaker: it.
• 36:31
  Speaker: It's just I think a lot of people kind of overestimate how
• 36:35
  Speaker: how quickly all of these things or maybe underestimate, I guess,
• 36:38
  Speaker: how quickly they can get all of these things done.
• 36:40
  Speaker: It takes longer usually, and it takes more money usually.
• 36:44
  Speaker: But, but if you if you do it and
• 36:45
  Speaker: if you get there, um, it should
• 36:47
  Speaker: turn out great, but, but the
• 36:49
  Speaker: real advice is, is do something
• 36:51
  Speaker: right.
• 36:52
  Speaker: Don't, don't look back.
• 36:53
  Speaker: And um, I've heard people talk
• 36:55
  Speaker: about when, when you're eighty
• 36:56
  Speaker: years old, are you going to have
• 36:57
  Speaker: a lot of memories or a lot of
• 36:59
  Speaker: regrets?
• 36:59
  Speaker: And, and, and I would rather have the memories, right?
• 37:02
  Speaker: I would rather I'd rather say, okay.
• 37:04
  Speaker: Even though even though I did some things that didn't work.
• 37:07
  Speaker: At least I don't have a whole
• 37:08
  Speaker: bunch of regrets because I
• 37:09
  Speaker: wanted to try this, but I never
• 37:11
  Speaker: did.
• 37:11
  Speaker: I wanted to do that, but I never did.
• 37:13
  Speaker: I wanted to go there, but I never did.
• 37:15
  Speaker: I would rather I would rather have have all of those
• 37:17
  Speaker: experiences and, and life affords you that opportunity.
• 37:21
  Speaker: Especially living here in America.
• 37:23
  Speaker: I mean, we won the lottery just by being born here.
• 37:26
  Speaker: And so take advantage of that
• 37:27
  Speaker: opportunity and, you know, live
• 37:29
  Speaker: your life.
• 37:31
  Speaker: Oh, that's a perfect way to end it.
• 37:32
  Speaker: Jim.
• 37:33
  Speaker: Thank you so much for for
• 37:35
  Speaker: imparting your wisdom to us
• 37:36
  Speaker: today.
• 37:37
  Speaker: And it's always great to pick your brain.
• 37:40
  Speaker: I love to hear your take on things and, uh, and, and see
• 37:45
  Speaker: your success and continue to cheer on your success.
• 37:48
  Speaker: So thank you for your time today, Jim.
• 37:51
  Speaker: My pleasure.
• 37:52
  Speaker: It's always fun.
• 37:52
  Speaker: Always fun to talk to you, Denise.
• 37:55
  Speaker: Well, we hope today's
• 37:56
  Speaker: conversation has given you some
• 37:58
  Speaker: practical tools to help you
• 38:00
  Speaker: sharpen your edge and accelerate
• 38:02
  Speaker: your growth.
• 38:03
  Speaker: If you're ready to grow your
• 38:05
  Speaker: team, your business or yourself,
• 38:07
  Speaker: contact us at the Growth Pro
• 38:09
  Speaker: group dot com and set up a free
• 38:11
  Speaker: growth call with one of our
• 38:13
  Speaker: coaches.
• 38:14
  Speaker: Once again, a special thanks to
• 38:16
  Speaker: our sponsors In-bed Party Center
• 38:18
  Speaker: software.
• 38:19
  Speaker: In a global sense, Knox, Schaefer and roller for all that
• 38:24
  Speaker: they do to help us bring you the Growth pro edge.
• 38:28
  Speaker: And until next time, I'm Denise
• 38:30
  Speaker: Killian with the Growth Pro
• 38:32
  Speaker: Group.
• 38:32
  Speaker: Keep learning, keep growing and
• 38:35
  Speaker: keep striving for the
• 38:37
  Speaker: extraordinary.