Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / How Wing Lam Built Wahoo’s Fish Taco Into a Cultural Icon

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How Wing Lam Built Wahoo’s Fish Taco Into a Cultural Icon · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:16
  today's guest is Wing Lamb Co, founder and CEO of Wahoo's
• 0:20
  Fishtaco. Founded in 1988 and based in
• 0:25
  Costa Mesa, CA, Wahoo's fish Taco blends global flavors from
• 0:29
  China, Brazil and Baja, Mexico, offering a casual dining
• 0:34
  experience known for its bold and worldly menu.
• 0:37
  Now under Wing's leadership, the company has earned multiple
• 0:40
  honors including the Golden Foodie Award and recognition as
• 0:44
  Best OC Brand by OC Weekly. Wing graduated from San Diego
• 0:49
  State University with a degree in Finance and has nearly 40
• 0:52
  years of experience in the restaurant industry.
• 0:55
  Beyond running Wahoos, he has served on boards for nonprofit
• 0:59
  organizations like Share Our Strength and the Juvenile
• 1:02
  Diabetic Research Foundation. In 2018, Wing received Corporate
• 1:07
  Creativity and Innovation Leadership awards from Child
• 1:10
  Creativity Lab and secured the Impact Award from the
• 1:14
  International Executive Council. He was also named among the 500
• 1:18
  Most Influential by the Orange County Business Journal.
• 1:22
  Now before we get into all that good, today's episode is brought
• 1:27
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• 2:06
  All right, back to our guest today, Co founder of Wahoo's
• 2:08
  fish Taco Wing Lamb. Thanks for making the time to
• 2:11
  Share your story today. Anytime I'm out here on the West
• 2:14
  Coast where the surf is up and the sunshine is going.
• 2:19
  I love it. I could tell your energy
• 2:21
  already. This is going to be a fun one.
• 2:23
  So you've got decades of experience in the restaurant
• 2:26
  industry, but you studied finance in college.
• 2:29
  How does that financial background kind of guide your
• 2:32
  decision making when it comes to expanding the business?
• 2:35
  Well, one of the main reasons most you know, restaurants you
• 2:40
  know don't do as well or businesses right is
• 2:42
  understanding finance. A county is a great skill to
• 2:46
  have after you've made money, but finance is all about risk
• 2:50
  reward, right? So every time you want to
• 2:52
  initiative an idea, anything you want to come up with to you
• 2:55
  think that it'll help your business make more money, get
• 2:57
  more clients, right? You have to understand the risk
• 3:01
  reward options, right? The risk here it is, the higher
• 3:05
  the returns, the higher the rewards, the lower the risk, the
• 3:08
  lower the returns and everything else.
• 3:09
  So you just kind of find your comfort zone, what you're
• 3:12
  comfortable with, and also, you know, have multiple strategies
• 3:16
  that one are riskiers, one are more conservative.
• 3:18
  Like just think of your portfolio, right?
• 3:21
  C DS, mutual funds, very low risk stocks, bonds, very risky,
• 3:27
  maybe, maybe not, right? So it all depends on your
• 3:29
  comfort level, but you have to have a mix, right?
• 3:32
  So it's all about balancing your comfort zone and finding the
• 3:35
  things that work for you. What first brought you into the
• 3:38
  restaurant industry? I got tired of corporate
• 3:41
  America. That's really the easiest thing.
• 3:42
  So I tell everybody, if you are young or old, wherever you are
• 3:47
  in your in your life spectrum, right, and you find yourself in
• 3:51
  a dead end. I hate waking up every morning
• 3:54
  to do this. It's time to go do something
• 3:57
  else. Find something that inspires
• 4:00
  you, whatever that may be. But make sure that there's a
• 4:03
  possibility that you can make some money at it because a lot
• 4:06
  of people, I love to play music. I go well, until somebody pays
• 4:10
  you, it's a great hobby. OK, So remember that, you know,
• 4:13
  you can be in a cover band which kind of fulfills that gap a
• 4:17
  little bit. You make a little bit of money.
• 4:19
  But most of the guys that I know that are in cover bands have day
• 4:23
  jobs, you know, so that's a good balance too.
• 4:26
  So you find something that fulfills your passion and may
• 4:29
  not be where you make your money, but it allows you an
• 4:34
  outlet for creativity, fulfills your soul, but you still got to
• 4:38
  have a real day job to keep it going.
• 4:41
  So was your first foray into restaurants when you started the
• 4:44
  business? No, I've been literally, when I
• 4:47
  say restaurants, I've been in it from the time I was like two or
• 4:51
  three years old. My parents have had restaurants
• 4:53
  all over the world, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil and United States.
• 4:59
  So I've always been in it. So I knew that business and I
• 5:03
  realized how hard my parents worked.
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  So my parents said, no, we want you to go to college and use
• 5:08
  your mind, not your hands. So we did that for a little bit
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  and I found out, you know, maybe I want to use my hands, you
• 5:17
  know, and, and when I say my hands, it's also I'm, I'm a very
• 5:20
  good, like I said, social person.
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  So having parties and, you know, hosting people, you know, I was
• 5:27
  always good at it because it naturally came to me, right?
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  So opening a restaurant was the easiest transition because there
• 5:34
  was a possibility that I could actually make some money at it.
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  So where did you actually grow up if your parents had
• 5:40
  restaurants all over the world? So I'm full blooded Chinese, but
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  my parents happened to fled communist China after World War
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  2 and they ended up opening one of the first Chinese restaurants
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  in Brazil. So I'm a full Brazilian citizen.
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  I still travel to all you people out there.
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  I, I never, you know, in, you know, became AUS citizen because
• 6:04
  no reason other than no time to go get the paperwork done.
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  So now with the new administration, maybe I should
• 6:11
  go get my paperwork done so I don't accidentally get deported
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  out of the country. But I, I still travel in their
• 6:17
  Brazilian passport and most people look at me and goes, what
• 6:21
  island are you from? That's usually what they ask me.
• 6:24
  And I always joke about I'm from the Big Island of Brazil, not
• 6:27
  Hawaii. And they all crack up because we
• 6:30
  thought for sure you're from one of the Hawaiian islands.
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  It goes well. I look like I could be from
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  Hawaii. I'm actually full blooded
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  Chinese. I grew up in Brazil.
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  So that's why, you know, I have the very easy going attitude
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  about life, you know. Because of the travelers or
• 6:48
  specifically because of growing up in Brazil?
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  Because growing up in Brazil, you know, and also traveling the
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  world with my parents and by myself over the years,
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  culturally speaking, don't ever use the word.
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  It's weird. It may be weird to you because
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  you've never seen it, but when you understand other cultures,
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  you're going to go, it might be weird when you first see it, but
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  it's perfectly acceptable in their culture to do that, right?
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  So you'll be amazed at some of the things I've seen that my
• 7:18
  wife would go, oh, that is so gross.
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  I'm like, well, culturally speaking, that's not acceptable
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  in America, but that doesn't mean it's wrong in Malaysia,
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  Italy, Mexico, whatever it is, 'cause we have different
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  cultures. So the more you see, the more
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  you understand that the world is different and we have our own
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  customs, traditions, whatever they may be.
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  And it may be weird to you, but to them it's perfectly normal.
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  Can you give us an example of something your wife found
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  particularly weird, unusual when it comes to food?
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  This is like what? All right.
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  In America, you would never ever say you have a bad hair day.
• 7:59
  That's like big taboo, or you're overweight.
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  That's taboo, right? But in China, it's perfectly OK
• 8:07
  for me to see you right now. Anthony goes, Oh my God, who
• 8:10
  just cut your hair? It looks like crap.
• 8:12
  You can go to my Barber and literally, I can tell you first
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  hand experience. The first time I went to Hong
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  Kong, my mom went to a salon every morning because whoever we
• 8:24
  were having breakfast with would tell my mom, Oh my God, look at
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  your hair, looks like shit, we need to go to my Barber or my
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  salon. The next day whoever we're
• 8:33
  having breakfast with would say the same thing.
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  For like 5 days in a row we went to five different salons because
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  whoever we were having breakfast with didn't like the way my
• 8:42
  mom's hair looked. Was it?
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  Really. That they didn't like the way
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  her hair looked Or did. They each own their own salon
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  and so they were trying to drum up some business.
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  Yes, and I can tell you the style wasn't that much different
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  from one to the next. But it's culturally speaking.
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  It's almost like, hey, let's go grab a cup of coffee.
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  But you would never tell a girlfriend because hey, your
• 9:02
  hair looks like but you need to go to my salon.
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  I'm not a smart man, but I'm not that dumb.
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  You see what I'm saying? But in China it's perfectly OK,
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  you know? And I'm like, that is crazy.
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  But I saw it first hand and I'm like, OK, you know.
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  And literally every morning we went to a different salon.
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  OK, so that's an interesting cultural difference.
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  Let's get back to Wahoo's fish Taco.
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  How did the idea to start this come about?
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  So when my, when I got tired of doing what I was doing in
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  corporate America, right, I went to my mom and dad and he goes,
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  hey, they basically said the same thing as well.
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  We told you not to go to college and come back into our business.
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  But if you like, we're getting ready to retire, you want to
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  take over one of our restaurants.
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  And I say, you know what, love Chinese food and still eat it
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  all the time. I just didn't want to be the SOB
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  son of the boss, right? So I said, you know what, mom
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  and dad, you know, we're in Southern California.
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  A lot of our friends culturally surf skate and do all this.
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  Can we open a restaurant that's more like a surf themed
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  restaurant? And they looked at it and goes,
• 10:07
  you're crazy. You're not Mexican, right?
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  Because I know we're not. But if we're ever going to pull
• 10:13
  this thing off, this is it. So we came up with the recipes
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  to blend a little bit of the Brazilian culture, the Asian
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  culture and the Mexican. And if every surfer in Southern
• 10:23
  California when they're go on their first road trip surfing
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  South of outside of the country, right, it's they drive to
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  Mexico, which is what we did and everybody always talked about
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  forever long. I remember it's like, Oh my God,
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  did you ever eat those fish tacos in such and such place?
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  And nobody in Southern California made them.
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  So we said hey here's something that all the surfers talk about
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  were the only kids in the group. Me and my 2 little brothers that
• 10:50
  know how to cook. So the idea was let's come up
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  with a surf themed Mexican restaurant.
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  That was the beginning of it. And then we found out that all
• 10:59
  the surfers hang out with skateboarders and hang out with
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  snowboarders and all the other sports.
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  So indirectly what was originally a surf hangout became
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  a surf and sport hangout. So everything to do with
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  actions, this is where everybody comes because all the brands
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  happen to be in Southern California.
• 11:18
  OK, So if you in again prior to the COVID, if you were going to
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  the beach, I could name you everything that you were wearing
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  and all those brands were manufactured in Orange County.
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  And that was really interesting because snow skate BMX, all of
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  the X. Not just that the brands were
• 11:36
  based there, but that they were actually doing their
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  manufacturing there as well. Yeah.
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  I mean, again, the brands that created was done here.
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  But again, all the manufacturing was done overseas, right, the
• 11:46
  production, but all the samples. So pretty much if you were in a
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  skate park or snowboard park, anything like that, any brand
• 11:54
  that you would have on your back was made by somebody that I was
• 11:58
  friends with. Gotcha.
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  OK. So the idea was like, hey,
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  there's these great fish tacos that are served down in Mexico.
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  Let's bring that to Southern California and let's kind of
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  make it our own. And what did it look like to
• 12:11
  sort of take the fish Taco concept and infuse some of the
• 12:15
  Brazilian tradition and the Chinese culinary styles into
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  that? Well, the first thing we did is
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  the rice that traditionally Mexican restaurants serve are
• 12:26
  it's red Spanish rice and refried beans.
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  Well, we do white rice and black beans because that's
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  traditionally more Cuban, but also more Brazilian.
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  So all we did is take out all the extra meat parts, the pork
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  made a vegetarian so it'd be more approachable by everybody.
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  So that was the first thing we did.
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  And people literally the first couple of years that coming into
• 12:49
  my restaurant, they would joke about what were those little
• 12:52
  rabbit pellets on their plate. It was the black beans because
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  they'd never seen black beans in 1988.
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  So that was 1-2 in. We brought teriyaki into our
• 13:02
  menu so you could literally get a teriyaki steak burrito.
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  Nobody at the time was doing anything like that unless you
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  went to a Japanese, Korean or anything Asian, right?
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  So we started infusing the flavors and found out that some
• 13:16
  of the things did really well together, some didn't, right?
• 13:19
  But again, was just finding that balance and people used to laugh
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  at us. First thing they always ask is
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  don't you know you're not Mexican Goes well, this is not a
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  Mexican restaurant. This is a little bit of
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  everything that I grew up eating.
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  And once I mentioned I was my parents have Chinese restaurant
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  that checked off the Asian box. Once I would mention I grew up
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  in Brazil that I would check off the rice and beans and then the
• 13:40
  Mexican parts, the tacos and burritos from our surf trips.
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  So everything made sense once you asked me.
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  But a lot of people go, you know, I'm not going there, you
• 13:49
  know, because 1 is not authentic Mexican.
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  And I would argue, say I never said I was authentic Mexican.
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  I never said I was anything. I just said here's what I like
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  to eat and I'm going to share with you guys and hopefully you
• 14:02
  guys will like it too. And turned out most people first
• 14:06
  surf trip to Hawaii, they would eat teriyaki chicken, right?
• 14:10
  So it wasn't that far from what I wanted to be.
• 14:13
  I wanted to remind you of places that you travel to surf and this
• 14:17
  is what you ate. So look at today, like 2 years
• 14:20
  ago, the most incredible image from the Olympics with that
• 14:24
  surfer, right? That comes off a wave.
• 14:27
  It was the biggest image. He's Brazilian, right?
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  So when you look at culturally now, all the best surfer skaters
• 14:34
  in the world are from Brazil, right?
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  So when they come into my restaurant, they don't know why
• 14:40
  they are at home. And once they find out that I'm
• 14:42
  from Brazil, they're like that moment, right?
• 14:46
  Or it reminds them of when they went to Hawaii, right?
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  And they're like, right? So what is it in your
• 14:51
  restaurants that feels like Brazil that gives sort of that
• 14:54
  familiarity? It feels like a surf shack that
• 14:58
  you literally just walked off the beach in Mexico.
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  That's the initial. And once you start tasting the
• 15:04
  menu, it reminds you of these cuisines you've had from around
• 15:08
  the world when you travel. And yeah, you mentioned
• 15:14
  obviously surf, skate, snowboard, this is kind of a big
• 15:17
  part of the culture there. And so how so I get like it, it
• 15:21
  feels like you've just walked in like, you know, right off the
• 15:24
  beach into kind of a surf shot. How, how did the sort of the
• 15:27
  other sports kind of like get encompassed into the vibe here?
• 15:31
  Well, what happens is in California anyway, when it
• 15:34
  rains, it snows, and when it snows, people go snowboarding.
• 15:39
  But what happens is during the beach, there's these thing
• 15:42
  called runoffs, right? All the stuff ends up in the
• 15:45
  ocean. So for a few days nobody goes
• 15:48
  surfing because it's polluted, right?
• 15:50
  So guess what, Everybody's doing the same surfers that can't
• 15:53
  surf, they're snowboarding. And then they tell their friends
• 15:56
  up there in the mountains because they there's this little
• 15:58
  place near the beach that when you come down to go surfing, you
• 16:02
  should check it out, right? And when there's no surf and
• 16:06
  there's no snow, you go skateboarding.
• 16:09
  So the skateboarders are all the other guys saying, hey, when
• 16:12
  there's nothing going on, you don't need a wave or ice, you
• 16:15
  know, snow to go snowboarding, go skateboarding.
• 16:18
  So they talk to each other and there's this place and not only
• 16:22
  do they come to me, I've done all the events for 38 years on
• 16:27
  the beach, on the mountains, at the skate parks.
• 16:30
  So when you see the X Games, U.S.
• 16:32
  Open a surfing, all of these events, you usually see me there
• 16:37
  setting up, taking care of all the athletes.
• 16:39
  I do all the hospitality for these kids, and I joked about it
• 16:43
  38 years ago. These kids became the Kelly
• 16:47
  Slaters of surfing, the Tony Hawks of skateboarding, the
• 16:51
  Shawn Whites of snowboarding. I was there when they first did
• 16:54
  their first event because there were amateurs.
• 16:56
  There were kids. And I'd be the guy, you know,
• 16:58
  literally with the grill serving some tacos.
• 17:01
  And they all looked and go, what is this guy?
• 17:03
  Crazy? There's no money to be made
• 17:05
  here, you know? But I supported them and now
• 17:09
  they support me, you know, so I get to do all the events right
• 17:11
  now. So where did you open the first
• 17:14
  location? The first location was in Costa
• 17:16
  Mesa and if you know the the history of Costa Mesa in the
• 17:21
  80s, it was two of the biggest surf brands in the world.
• 17:25
  Quicksilver and Billabong had their headquarters within a
• 17:29
  block and four blocks away from my original store, plus a bunch
• 17:32
  of other surf related brands. So when you have the number one
• 17:36
  and #2 brand in the world supporting me, it made it easy
• 17:41
  for all the other brand goes well, if it's good enough for
• 17:43
  them, it's good enough for me, right?
• 17:46
  So everybody that surfed and not only did I have the brands and
• 17:50
  within the first year, in one night, I had four former world
• 17:55
  surfing champions having dinner in my restaurant at the same
• 17:59
  time with their sponsors. When kids saw that, it was like,
• 18:03
  think about, you know, seeing Michael Jordan or any of these
• 18:06
  celebrities, somebody you really looked up to hanging out with
• 18:10
  your brand. They made it authentic because
• 18:13
  it wasn't just me claiming to be a surf themed restaurant.
• 18:17
  This is where world champions ate and Fast forward, of the
• 18:22
  four guys that were in that restaurant at the time, the
• 18:25
  biggest was a kid named Tom Curran.
• 18:27
  I'm still friends with him this day.
• 18:29
  He's a three time world champion, right?
• 18:31
  So that's the thing, you know, and I'm friends with the current
• 18:34
  three time world champion, John John Florence, right?
• 18:37
  And that's the thing where people see me and they're like,
• 18:40
  Wing is not asking for an autograph.
• 18:42
  I'm actually hanging out with them.
• 18:43
  There's a whole different, you know, 'cause I'm there
• 18:45
  supporting their events. So you mentioned within that
• 18:51
  first year you had, you know, four of these sort of celebrity
• 18:54
  athletes that were in the shop having dinner with, you know,
• 18:58
  their sponsors. Was that sort of like the moment
• 19:01
  that catapulted you or had you had some sort of incremental
• 19:05
  success leading up to that in the 1st?
• 19:07
  Year. So what happened was Billabong
• 19:10
  being the closest factory proximity to me, it was
• 19:14
  literally a block and a half away, right when I would have, I
• 19:19
  call it a cockamamie, crazy idea, I would go over there and
• 19:23
  say, hey, I wanted to go do this.
• 19:25
  And because nobody in the food industry was asking, their
• 19:30
  answer was like, what's the harm?
• 19:32
  What's the worst that can happen?
• 19:34
  Nothing. People go, that was a dumb idea.
• 19:37
  But every I call it a stupid idea.
• 19:39
  I've always had Billabong always said yes, right.
• 19:43
  So we did a trade show with them, then we did a video
• 19:46
  premiere with them, right? And what happened was the kids
• 19:49
  that came, not all of them surfed or were sponsored by
• 19:53
  Billabong. Some of them were sponsored by
• 19:56
  the other brands. So guess what happens?
• 19:58
  Those kids would tell their marketing, their team manager
• 20:02
  that they came to this and I was there and this is can we do
• 20:06
  this? Because before me there was 0
• 20:09
  hospitality in this space. So if you didn't bring your.
• 20:14
  Food or drink. There was nothing to eat or
• 20:16
  drink. I was the first one to do it.
• 20:19
  So Quicksilver Daisy came to me and goes, hey, we're going to do
• 20:23
  this video premiere party ended up to be a total mess.
• 20:26
  I mean, cops came to shut it down, whatever.
• 20:29
  But it was Kelly Slater when when he just turned pro.
• 20:34
  We did the first video premiere party with him and the rest is
• 20:38
  history because once I did that, all the other brand goes, Oh my
• 20:42
  God, you just did with Kelly Sater.
• 20:43
  He's the hottest new surfer, but he hadn't won anything yet.
• 20:47
  Then somebody said, hey, we got this thing.
• 20:50
  We got this thing. And I would say sure.
• 20:52
  So all these little parties, events, trade show, contest,
• 20:57
  there was always a band playing at the after party.
• 21:01
  We're doing the soundtrack for the video.
• 21:04
  These garage bands were as Green Day, Offspring, Blink 182, and
• 21:11
  the list goes on. So again, they were all
• 21:14
  start-ups. Fast forward, they're traveling
• 21:17
  the world just like all these people are in the Olympics,
• 21:20
  right? So when I see them on TV,
• 21:22
  somebody goes, Oh my God, I'm like, I've been friends with
• 21:24
  that guy for 20-30 years, right? And literally today we're
• 21:29
  planning another launch for a new band and it's going to be
• 21:34
  ridiculous. And all my friends are like, how
• 21:36
  do you get to be that person? Well, because I've done it
• 21:39
  multiple times before. And you're not starstruck in
• 21:44
  their presence, right? I think that's probably a big
• 21:45
  part of it. If if you're there, like, you
• 21:48
  know, Oh my gosh. Because they've never the person
• 21:51
  they want to hang out with. Right.
• 21:53
  Yeah, because they've never been that close.
• 21:55
  And I'm literally the other day. I mean, my level has gotten
• 21:59
  outside of action sports because we call it a mutual admiration
• 22:04
  society. Everybody that does something
• 22:06
  really good wishes that they could play the guitar, wishes
• 22:10
  they could hit a baseball, wishes they could catch a
• 22:12
  football, whatever that may be. So two weeks ago at an Angels
• 22:17
  Dodgers baseball game, I took my friends on the field to meet
• 22:22
  Dave Roberts, the manager of the Dodgers, and they're all looking
• 22:25
  to go. How are you going to do that?
• 22:26
  Goes I pick up the phone, call one friend that says, what do
• 22:29
  you need? I need field batting practice.
• 22:30
  Boom, boom, boom. And they're sitting there going,
• 22:32
  this is for them. It's unbelievable.
• 22:35
  But to me, I'm friends with Dave Roberts, right?
• 22:38
  And I should never know a guy that's got what, 3 World Series
• 22:42
  reigns, right? But I do because that's the
• 22:45
  other side of the world. Is that what common is what all
• 22:47
  the good athletes and celebrities do on their spare
• 22:51
  time, They give back. So when you start giving back,
• 22:55
  you can't help it but to meet amazing people.
• 22:59
  So I want to dive into this a little bit more.
• 23:01
  This isn't part of the conversation that I, I had sort
• 23:03
  of expected to unfold, but this is interesting in how you've
• 23:07
  grown the business and, and tell me if I'm seeing and hearing
• 23:11
  this correctly, it's sort of this give first attitude that
• 23:14
  you have. It's oh, there's a thing going
• 23:17
  on over here and you know, nobody's serving food.
• 23:20
  Why don't I go there and serve food?
• 23:21
  This is interesting. This is like a fun group.
• 23:24
  Like these are my kind of people.
• 23:27
  I'm just going to go and I don't know what will come from it, but
• 23:29
  I'll get to meet some. Am I kind of seeing this
• 23:32
  correctly or, or did you go in from the beginning and you're
• 23:35
  like, hey, if you guys want me to show up, it's going to be
• 23:38
  $10,000 for me to come and serve food.
• 23:40
  You're laughing, so no. No.
• 23:43
  So what really happened 38 years ago was the first event surf
• 23:48
  contest was, hey, you know, let me come in and, and take care of
• 23:52
  all the athletes, the judges, the, you know, all the staffing.
• 23:55
  And literally the first thing is, hey, we have zero budget for
• 23:58
  that. There's no line item for
• 23:59
  hospitality, right? But then I said, hey, how can I
• 24:03
  still come, right? And they said, you know what,
• 24:07
  you can come to our warehouse and get schwag T-shirts and
• 24:11
  shorts. I looked at them like, that's a
• 24:13
  great idea because that's what I go to work in everyday, T-shirts
• 24:16
  and shorts, right? So the whole bartering thing
• 24:19
  wasn't my idea, was theirs to say, hey, we love to have your
• 24:23
  food. We can't pay you.
• 24:25
  And but we got stuff. So the running joke that you
• 24:29
  see, my team is none of us have bought T-shirts and shorts or
• 24:33
  shoes, watches, sunglasses in the last 38 years because we
• 24:36
  barter, because everything is made here in Southern
• 24:38
  California, right? So we came in to make the event
• 24:42
  better. So I've used the same attitude
• 24:44
  of the, hey, I'm going to come in and help your little charity,
• 24:47
  whatever that may be, right? And come to find out all the
• 24:51
  biggest charities, the way they make more money is by having
• 24:55
  celebrity endorsement, because I call it shiny objects, right?
• 24:59
  Everybody loves to take their picture next to whoever that may
• 25:03
  be. So I'm like, so it wasn't that I
• 25:05
  set out to go meet these guys. I set out that goes, hey, let me
• 25:09
  help you with food, whatever it may be that I can help you or
• 25:12
  going to be better, right? And they call it cost marketing,
• 25:15
  today's corporate social responsibility, all the stuff.
• 25:18
  I just did it. There's no fancy term back then.
• 25:21
  Yeah, I knew that it would be better with me than without me,
• 25:25
  because without me they'd be eating crackers, right?
• 25:28
  With me, they'd be eating food. That was the difference.
• 25:30
  Or drinking wine or drinking beer before they'd be drinking
• 25:33
  water, right? So I brought my team along,
• 25:37
  whatever that meant, right? Coke, Pepsi, Monster, all the
• 25:40
  big breads that would help me do the events.
• 25:43
  And they all thought, you're crazy.
• 25:46
  But guess what? Along the way, like I'm trying
• 25:49
  to think, 'cause you're in Columbus, that's you're in
• 25:53
  between, right? Because the Bengals play in
• 25:55
  Cincinnati and the Browns play over in Cleveland, right?
• 25:59
  You know you're. Crying, IE if you, if I can tell
• 26:02
  the funny story is the number one draft pick about 20 some
• 26:05
  years ago and had just won the Heisman Trophy was Carson
• 26:09
  Bomber. He was a starting quarterback
• 26:11
  for the Bengals. We went on a road trip to go
• 26:14
  have fun with him in Cincinnati because I'm friends with his
• 26:17
  agent, right? So the long story is totally
• 26:21
  unrelated to me. A friend of mine's family member
• 26:25
  ended up getting transferred to Cincinnati.
• 26:28
  And I said, I'll tell you what, being into a new neighborhood,
• 26:32
  everybody's going to give you, you know, you got to earn your
• 26:35
  stripes. I said, come to the event that
• 26:37
  I'm going to do with Carson Palmer.
• 26:40
  And guess what happened? The entire blog was, how did you
• 26:45
  get invited to this cornhole tournament on the field of the
• 26:49
  Bengals when you just moved into Cincinnati?
• 26:52
  Because, well, one of his friends is a friend of mine and
• 26:56
  he handles all of his charity. So instantly this kid family
• 27:03
  became, they headed the neighborhood.
• 27:06
  Everybody wanted to know how he had the Carson Palmer
• 27:08
  bobblehead, how he had the jersey, all the things that I
• 27:11
  don't care about 'cause I'm in California, I don't need
• 27:13
  anything from Cincinnati, especially if it's got Carson
• 27:16
  Palmer's name on it, right. So I gave it all to this kid and
• 27:20
  his family immediately got accepted into the neighborhood.
• 27:24
  And I'd been able to do that with all kinds of players all
• 27:27
  over the country. Did you kind of stumble into
• 27:30
  this kind of give first approach or was it like some sort of a
• 27:33
  master plan from the beginning or or is it something that your
• 27:36
  parents taught you growing up? My parents have always said,
• 27:40
  hey, always help. Don't ask, you know, just if you
• 27:44
  can help, help. It's as we say, it's the right
• 27:46
  thing to do. Don't do it because you're
• 27:49
  getting something for it. That's a transaction, right?
• 27:52
  Give help when you can't without expecting anything in return.
• 27:58
  So they always said, and in my head, I'm like, why would I want
• 28:00
  to do that, right? Because we're all looking at a
• 28:03
  transaction. I'm going to give you this
• 28:05
  because I'm getting that. But it turned out that their
• 28:08
  formula has worked amazingly well.
• 28:12
  When again, every now and then you're going to get taken
• 28:15
  advantage of. It is the world, right?
• 28:17
  So make sure you take those guys out of the group, right?
• 28:21
  And I always tell my friend, because you know what, that guy
• 28:23
  missed the point because he's never going to be invited to our
• 28:27
  team functions again. And we do some really fun things
• 28:31
  together. So that guy, I'm never going to
• 28:34
  tell him you're a dodo head taker.
• 28:38
  But guess what? You're not welcome, right?
• 28:40
  What's a red flag that you look for, Wayne?
• 28:43
  Because the The thing is, we call it they can't remember.
• 28:46
  CRSI won't tell you what the S stands for, but they can't
• 28:49
  remember, right? So what happens is they're like,
• 28:51
  hey, Wayne, we're going to do this and I'm going to give you
• 28:53
  this whatever, right? I'm like, great, when it comes
• 28:55
  time to get my part of the get, they forget what they promised
• 29:00
  you. And in my hand I'm like, come
• 29:01
  on, we're all adults. Nobody forget If I said 246,
• 29:05
  whatever the number is, right, just fulfill your part of it.
• 29:10
  If you come back to me and says, Oh my God, can I do this
• 29:13
  instead? I'm like, yes, but we're not
• 29:16
  doing this again. And I tell all my friends, by
• 29:18
  the way, if you ever do business with that guy, get whatever you
• 29:21
  want first before you do your part 'cause once your part is
• 29:25
  done, he won't remember what he promised you.
• 29:28
  And that's my issue. I mean, hey, we're all big boys.
• 29:30
  I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do because that's what
• 29:32
  you asked me to do, and this is what you're going to refer.
• 29:35
  And if that's whatever that may be, right?
• 29:37
  And IE tickets would be the perfect example.
• 29:41
  Promoters in general are the middleman.
• 29:44
  They're not the band and they're not the venue.
• 29:47
  So they don't control really. They control air, I call it,
• 29:50
  right? They're there to promote an
• 29:51
  event. So as part of the transaction be
• 29:55
  hey, we need food da da, da, da, da, and we're going to give you
• 29:57
  4 tickets to come to the show. I don't really care, but I'm
• 30:01
  going to tell my crew, hey, by the way, this next concert,
• 30:04
  you're going to get 4 tickets right now, the day before that,
• 30:07
  I hey, sorry, Wayne, we can't give you 4 of you 2.
• 30:10
  What do I tell the two people that I promise?
• 30:12
  See that to me is an issue, right?
• 30:15
  And I'm, and I'm not going to argue with you.
• 30:17
  I'm going to say, OK, remember, I'm going to remember that the
• 30:19
  next time you need something, right?
• 30:22
  Because I'm never going to cut you off.
• 30:24
  I'm just going to make sure I get my 4 tickets before I
• 30:26
  deliver anything in the future. And people forget that we're big
• 30:31
  boys, yes, No, our very good terms maybe doesn't exist in my
• 30:36
  world, right? So either going to do or not
• 30:38
  going to do what you said you were going to do.
• 30:40
  And I don't need a contract. I don't need anything.
• 30:43
  I just need your word that you're going to do it right.
• 30:45
  So I live in a very like yes or no world, you know?
• 30:49
  And it sounds like one of the ways that you've been able to
• 30:52
  build such a great network is through some of the charity work
• 30:56
  that you do. Can you tell us about what
• 30:59
  California Love Drop is? Well, so the California love
• 31:02
  drop was started by call by accident when COVID hit between
• 31:07
  Wednesday and Friday when they announced in California, the non
• 31:10
  all non essential business had to shut down.
• 31:13
  We lost 85% of our business in two days.
• 31:16
  So literally we went from about 700 employees down to about 100
• 31:20
  employees. I mean, literally three people
• 31:22
  in a restaurant that where they used to be 15, right?
• 31:26
  I had food that was going to be thrown away.
• 31:29
  I found a way to repurpose it by going out and delivering hot
• 31:33
  meals to the local hospitals, right?
• 31:36
  So after about four deliveries, my kid brother basically said,
• 31:39
  hey, very noble, but we're out of money.
• 31:43
  So if you're going to keep doing this, you got to find money to
• 31:46
  keep doing what you're doing. So my girlfriend Wendy, you
• 31:50
  know, friend, not my wife, said, hey, I heard that you're going
• 31:54
  out to do this. You're crazy.
• 31:55
  You're supposed to be at home. He goes, this is what I'm doing.
• 31:58
  And she said, well, can we name it and I'll help the radio
• 32:03
  station KLS create a GoFundMe page for you.
• 32:07
  We can get money. And I'm like, we don't have any
• 32:09
  money to pay for it. I goes, I'll do it myself 'cause
• 32:12
  I'm the former head of marketing for the radio station.
• 32:15
  So we ended up getting Heidi and Frank, the number one DJs in
• 32:18
  Southern California to every week talk about this movement
• 32:24
  and ask the listeners. 1.2 million listeners every day
• 32:27
  goes, hey, if you got some extra change, throw it this way 'cause
• 32:30
  we'll take the money to make some meals to the front liners.
• 32:33
  So she goes, we can't be wobbles, it's got to be enough.
• 32:35
  Her name. She goes, what about the
• 32:37
  California Love drop? I'm like, why?
• 32:39
  He goes, well, because we're spreading the love and that's
• 32:42
  how we started. So then I called my other
• 32:44
  friends, Monster Energy drink, hint water, Yogurt, Land Cliff
• 32:49
  Bar, all these companies that were going out to do events that
• 32:53
  got cut off. So I had pallets of bars,
• 32:59
  drinks, yogurt that we go together.
• 33:02
  So not only was I delivering a little burrito, I bring you some
• 33:06
  desserts, I bring you some snacks, I bring you some drinks.
• 33:10
  And then the other crazy partner was Vans had just gotten their
• 33:14
  shipment in for the US Open and Surfing.
• 33:18
  That got cancelled. So they had trucker hats,
• 33:21
  bandanas, wallet, everything branded with U.S.
• 33:24
  Open and Surfing 2020 that they were going to throw away.
• 33:27
  And it says give it to me and I'll give them to the nurses.
• 33:30
  Nobody noticed. I said 2020.
• 33:32
  They'd even got cancelled. They just saw the checker, they
• 33:36
  saw vans. They're like, Oh my God, I've
• 33:37
  never gotten a train that right. That normally cost me $20.00.
• 33:42
  So we deliver schwag, food, treats, and we thought we're
• 33:47
  going to do the same for a month. 5 1/2 years later, we're
• 33:51
  still doing it right. So what does it look like now
• 33:53
  post COVID? So what we've done the last two
• 33:56
  years, we go to whether nonprofits will go to a golf
• 33:58
  tournament, right? And instead of saying, hey, if
• 34:02
  you don't have the budget to pay, we'll find one of our
• 34:05
  sponsors to donate money so we can come in and provide meals
• 34:09
  for the golfers. We provide meals to the toy
• 34:11
  drive, We provide meals to the backpack drive.
• 34:14
  We come to the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, all these places
• 34:18
  that a little short on their budget because everything is
• 34:21
  still tight. So we just come in and find ways
• 34:23
  to bridge the gap, say thank you to the volunteers, to the staff
• 34:28
  right, that are still there. And we say, hey, we appreciate
• 34:32
  what you do, right? And we're here for you.
• 34:34
  So let us know how we can get creative.
• 34:37
  And besides the meals and all that, we find the items that
• 34:41
  they need for the kids. So if you need a computer
• 34:44
  monitor, we go to our partners that view Sonic.
• 34:47
  If you need school supplies, we go to our partners at Pentel.
• 34:50
  So we find things that most people are like, where'd you get
• 34:54
  that goes Well, we have friends. So I because of the surf
• 34:58
  industry said no to me, but we'll give you product.
• 35:03
  I became a really good barter. So I go to the companies because
• 35:07
  it's so much easier to get 3 computer monitors than to get
• 35:11
  $100 approved. You'd be amazed to get a check
• 35:14
  from a corporate entity, you got to write 10 page requests and
• 35:19
  tell them what you're going to do with it and how much they're
• 35:21
  going to get back. When I just need 3 samples of
• 35:23
  something come and get it. I see.
• 35:27
  So you're not going and asking for cash as much as you're going
• 35:30
  and asking for product or the the thing, the service that that
• 35:34
  company provides and hey, can we have a few of those?
• 35:37
  Yeah, and turns out that the people that don't have tangible
• 35:41
  things that we can use, IE security companies, right, All
• 35:46
  of these other companies, landscaping, we asked them was
• 35:49
  hey, can you donate some money? But we tell them this, but you
• 35:52
  get to pick a charity that you want to support.
• 35:56
  So now instead of you writing a check for 500, we come in with
• 36:00
  everything and it's like giving them 10,000 so they get for the
• 36:05
  same amount of money. They would have gotten this much
• 36:07
  notice. Now we all show up and we look
• 36:10
  like we're bringing the world 'cause we're bringing.
• 36:13
  'Cause you're not just this, the landscaping company bringing a
• 36:16
  $500 check, it's the landscaping company, the security company,
• 36:19
  the computer monitor, the school supply, and you show up with
• 36:23
  everything and you're all this one big giant team and they're
• 36:25
  like, wow, what have you done, Wayne?
• 36:28
  Yes, so their content that they're able to create is much
• 36:32
  bigger than here's a little check.
• 36:34
  That to me is like nothing, right?
• 36:36
  But when you show up with all the schwag, all the stuff,
• 36:39
  people are like, Oh my God, we only wanted this and we got all
• 36:43
  this, right. And the impact, the content,
• 36:46
  everything is 10 times bigger. And so who organizes all this
• 36:50
  today? Me and my friend Wendy, we got a
• 36:53
  bunch of volunteers, Susie, Brian, we all call each other
• 36:56
  because hey, what do we want to do next?
• 36:58
  One of the craziest partner in this whole thing because it was,
• 37:02
  I call it an accidental again, right?
• 37:05
  He calls me because the store is not open at 11:00 during COVID.
• 37:09
  We open at 11:30 because I'm under staff.
• 37:12
  So he's waiting outside of my store and he goes, why aren't
• 37:15
  you open? He goes, well, you know, you
• 37:16
  know, this thing called COVID, we have to shorten the hours,
• 37:19
  right? So we started talking and I
• 37:21
  said, my first thing is what are you doing?
• 37:24
  He goes, we're all at home. And I said, hey, can you come
• 37:27
  out and help me, 'cause I know that you do a lot of charity
• 37:30
  work and all the stuff you were scheduled to do got cancelled.
• 37:35
  And he looked at me and goes, you're out of your mind.
• 37:36
  I'm not going anywhere with you. I told all the employees, we're
• 37:39
  staying at home, right? But I said, but we are doing a
• 37:42
  blood drive in our building because we emptied out half of
• 37:45
  the building and you need a distancing, right?
• 37:48
  You have to stand 6 feet apart and all the stuff.
• 37:51
  And I said, you realize that I'm a partner of the American Red
• 37:54
  Cross and it goes and KLOS is the official radio station to
• 37:58
  the American Red Cross. So if you can give me a little
• 38:01
  bit of money, I'll bring lunches to the nurses that are doing the
• 38:05
  blood drive and I can talk about it on the radio.
• 38:09
  And he looked at me and goes, so how much money?
• 38:11
  He goes, hey, whatever you can do.
• 38:12
  And he said 300 bucks, he goes, that'll do, right?
• 38:16
  So all of a sudden we started doing this and I said, you know
• 38:19
  what? I'm not happy with just you
• 38:22
  giving me the check. I want you to participate.
• 38:25
  So very reluctantly, he came to one hospital, stood on the
• 38:29
  corner. Then he comes to another
• 38:31
  hospital, stands on the other corner.
• 38:33
  The 3rd hospital we go to, this is like in a two week period
• 38:36
  because we were going out almost every day to a different
• 38:38
  hospital, right? We go to Children's Hospital,
• 38:41
  Chalk and he again, he's standing on the corner and out
• 38:45
  of nowhere a nurse just bear hugs him.
• 38:49
  When remember, this is where everything is distancing.
• 38:52
  Oh. Yeah, and you don't get close to
• 38:54
  people. Speechless.
• 38:56
  This is like May of 2020, right? He's like in shock.
• 39:01
  And the nurse proceeds to tell them how thankful she is that
• 39:05
  he's there. And this is the nurse that
• 39:08
  delivered his premature babies. And all of a sudden light bulb
• 39:13
  goes on. He goes, I get to thank the
• 39:17
  people that took care of my babies history.
• 39:21
  So we then goes, what do you need?
• 39:22
  We're going to go out. We started doing this right now
• 39:25
  he's with me. He can't I can't keep him away
• 39:28
  right. And his entire team is like, I
• 39:32
  love what you're doing, but why right there?
• 39:36
  His entire team was. It doesn't make zero sense.
• 39:39
  Yes, you're supporting Wing. You're going out and doing
• 39:42
  things that nobody else it. Does make 0.
• 39:43
  It makes 0 business sense is what they're saying.
• 39:45
  This isn't contributing to the bottom line.
• 39:48
  But remember, why do people on the freeways have the personal
• 39:53
  injury attorneys? Because when you get into an
• 39:56
  accident, you're gonna remember the first name that you, Oh
• 39:59
  yeah, call this guy because you've seen that billboard 1000
• 40:01
  times. It's subliminal, right?
• 40:04
  But it's top of mind. So three years into this thing.
• 40:09
  It starts raining like 2 years ago.
• 40:12
  It has the worst rain in California history.
• 40:16
  The morning DJ Frank on the radio is talking about how
• 40:20
  there's a leak at his house, right?
• 40:23
  I immediately call, you know, Frank goes, Frank, Charles and I
• 40:28
  will be there tomorrow to fix this thing.
• 40:31
  We're talking. He lives two hours away from us.
• 40:34
  Oh, wow. We drive up there, we have a
• 40:36
  team. We fix the leaks the next 4
• 40:39
  weeks every time it rains. Frank is like, dude, just call
• 40:44
  Charles, just call Charles, just call.
• 40:46
  You can't pay for this kind of advertising because it's not
• 40:50
  advertising, it's in the news, right?
• 40:54
  37 years in business, the last two years Charles had record
• 41:00
  numbers, the best two year of his company's history in sales.
• 41:06
  And the only difference is here's my sidekick, antis
• 41:10
  roofing in Irvine, their numbers.
• 41:12
  And I can't tell you how many other companies that are in the
• 41:15
  business calling me. He goes, how do I get into
• 41:18
  action? He goes, I only have one roofer.
• 41:20
  I don't have one security company.
• 41:21
  I only have one landscaping. Whoever got in, you're it.
• 41:25
  I'm not going to go, Hey, let me get another one, right?
• 41:28
  So unless you get out on your own and I don't like you for
• 41:31
  whatever reason, you're not getting invited.
• 41:34
  So all of the people that are on Charles side of the world, the
• 41:38
  landscaper, all the he brought them all in.
• 41:41
  They're having amazing numbers as well.
• 41:44
  Because in the conversation it goes, Oh my God, I heard you're
• 41:47
  doing this. So when it comes down to the
• 41:50
  bidding, we're commodities, right?
• 41:52
  You can choose any landscaper you want.
• 41:54
  Why is this company getting chosen?
• 41:56
  Because somewhere in their head, they remember hearing that name
• 41:59
  on the radio that they were there with me.
• 42:02
  Right. So you get that goodwill that
• 42:04
  you don't know you got. But so I can say, hey, Charles
• 42:08
  didn't spend a single dollar more than he was already
• 42:12
  spending. He's actually spending less.
• 42:15
  The amount of exposure he's gotten is tenfold just by the
• 42:20
  sheer numbers. He's having the best two years,
• 42:23
  right? Yeah.
• 42:24
  Wing, I had another. Amazing guest on my show
• 42:27
  recently, Brad Feld. He's big in that found tech
• 42:32
  founders. He's he's big in the tech scene
• 42:35
  and he just released a book that is you guys are like 2 peas in a
• 42:39
  pod. His book is called give 1st and
• 42:41
  it's this whole idea of, you know, they're sort of pay it
• 42:44
  forward, which is 1. It's closely related.
• 42:46
  But give give first is I'm going to give.
• 42:49
  I know that I'm going to get something back at some point.
• 42:52
  It may not be from that person that I gave to, but I'm going to
• 42:56
  put it out there. And whether you call it karma
• 42:59
  or, you know, whatever sort of you want to put on it, you know
• 43:02
  it, it sort of comes back to you.
• 43:04
  And as I hear you talking and sharing all these great stories,
• 43:09
  I know that there are listeners thinking, this is amazing.
• 43:12
  Like how do I recreate this world that Wing has created
• 43:18
  there in Southern California for himself?
• 43:20
  Like what advice would you give to listeners who are like, this
• 43:22
  is awesome? Like, how do I do that?
• 43:24
  The first thing you do is. Obviously for me, don't, I don't
• 43:29
  need 20 other restaurants because we're competing for the
• 43:32
  same service, right? So first get all your suppliers
• 43:36
  and then get your friends that are in other industry because
• 43:38
  again, when we talk about a shingle guy and a Taco guy, we
• 43:41
  shouldn't be hanging out. But guess what?
• 43:43
  We both keep people safe. I feed their stomach, they keep
• 43:47
  them from getting wet, right? So indirectly these partnerships
• 43:51
  tend to work better because one, it's unexpected, right?
• 43:54
  And the first thing that the question will be is when
• 43:57
  somebody comes in and asks you for $100 donation or $1000,
• 44:01
  whatever the number is, ask why. What are you going to do with
• 44:05
  that $100? Right?
• 44:07
  And if you can look at them, it requires a little bit more work.
• 44:11
  But instead of just immediately she goes, here's 100 bucks, you
• 44:14
  know, get out, right? Ask and how can I help you
• 44:18
  better? So my approach has always been,
• 44:20
  oh, you wanted me to put up a tee sign at the golf tournament
• 44:23
  for $500. So 25 years ago, the very first
• 44:27
  golf tournament they did, I said, let me look at what you're
• 44:29
  doing. So I looked at their balance
• 44:32
  sheet. I looked at all the money that
• 44:33
  they spent to put on this golf tournament.
• 44:35
  And I said, here goes OK, here's two line items right here, food
• 44:39
  and beverage that you're doing for lunch.
• 44:42
  If I can supply you with that, I'm going to save you $5000.
• 44:48
  Do you still want the 500? And the other thing goes, of
• 44:51
  course I want the five grand. Then the next question is how
• 44:54
  you going to make that happen? Because I happen to know the
• 44:57
  manager of that golf course. So I'm going to ask him to say,
• 45:01
  hey, on this tournament, the food and beverage, I'm going to
• 45:04
  donate, but I'm going to help you with another tournament that
• 45:08
  you're trying to get for your golf course because I can
• 45:11
  provide the same service to them.
• 45:13
  So now when you're competing for that other charity to come to
• 45:18
  your golf course, you can knock out $5000 off of their bill,
• 45:23
  which makes you a more attractive golf course because
• 45:26
  you got the green fees, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• 45:29
  If I can knock one of the four items out, because I know every
• 45:32
  event, here's the balance sheet, right?
• 45:34
  You're going to be able to get them.
• 45:35
  And they're like, oh, the bartering thing, right?
• 45:39
  So I always ask, how do I make it better?
• 45:44
  And if I can't make it better, I usually don't get involved.
• 45:47
  That doesn't ever happen because I can, because remember, I'm a
• 45:51
  finance guy. So I can look at what they spend
• 45:54
  to raise money and I can usually find 3 or 4 items, if not more
• 45:59
  that I can knock out. And I said, OK, I can help you
• 46:02
  with these items. Now you can make more money, you
• 46:05
  can be more effective, right? And that's what they end up
• 46:08
  doing. So I tell people, don't write
• 46:10
  checks, don't do any of that. Get engaged, get involved and
• 46:14
  see how you can truly make a difference and get to meet the
• 46:18
  people. And all of a sudden they're
• 46:19
  like, Oh my God, that was amazing.
• 46:21
  When when are you going to write your?
• 46:23
  Book, you know. There's something brewing here
• 46:28
  that. We've been talking about.
• 46:29
  It for years. One of these days you know I'll
• 46:31
  get to it, but right now I'm just having fun sharing the
• 46:34
  stories via shows like this and telling people that hey, instead
• 46:39
  of asking what's in it for me, ask him how can I help you guys
• 46:44
  right? And then the answer is like,
• 46:46
  hey, you could write a bigger check.
• 46:48
  That's always the easy one, but that's one in I want to feel
• 46:52
  like, I feel like your story is sort of this.
• 46:54
  Marriage of Brad Feld's book give 1st and unreasonable
• 46:59
  hospitality, which I'm sure you're familiar with, right?
• 47:02
  It's sort of you're the love child of that yes, you do things
• 47:06
  that make. Almost zero sense, but it'll
• 47:09
  make somebody else's life a very memorable occasion.
• 47:13
  If you can do that for people, people always going to remember
• 47:16
  you because you're the one responsible for that moment in
• 47:20
  their lives, right? Unreasonable.
• 47:22
  Ask me that isn't amazing. He and I spoke at the same
• 47:25
  conference two years ago and I was like, this guy is amazing,
• 47:29
  but he reminds me of me because my life is every one of my
• 47:34
  friends that calls me and goes, Oh my God, I wish I could do
• 47:36
  this. I'm like, let me make a couple
• 47:38
  of calls and they look at me and goes, you're crazy.
• 47:41
  You're not getting anything out of it.
• 47:42
  He goes, yes, but if I can help you, your kid, your wife,
• 47:47
  whatever that may be, you might Remember Me some point in the
• 47:51
  future. And I don't know what's going to
• 47:53
  come of it, right? But I will help you get what you
• 47:56
  need today with 0 expectation of what I'm going to get in the
• 48:01
  future. Right?
• 48:02
  OK, let's wait. Let's come back to.
• 48:04
  Restaurant, you had the first location.
• 48:06
  At what point were you like, I'm on to something here and we're
• 48:09
  going to open location #2 It wasn't so much that I had
• 48:13
  something. There, I literally had a friend
• 48:15
  of mine's fraternity, one of my fraternity brother's dad that
• 48:18
  lived in Laguna Beach was about 30 minutes away.
• 48:21
  That said, hey, I'm tired of driving to Costa Mesa once every
• 48:25
  few weeks there's a spot open in Laguna Beach.
• 48:28
  I think I need you to come and look at it.
• 48:31
  And if without him, I would have never found this place.
• 48:34
  And just to give you an idea, in California and probably in a
• 48:37
  liquor store near you, there's a Margarita mix called La Paz.
• 48:41
  It's been around for 50 some years, right?
• 48:44
  It was started by this restaurant, was a bartender
• 48:46
  there and they named it after the restaurant.
• 48:49
  But I'm pretty sure the bartender never got paid for it,
• 48:51
  right? It was a customer that at least
• 48:53
  got the recipe. This restaurant had been empty
• 48:57
  for three years because they wanted to demolish it because
• 48:59
  it's on Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the ocean.
• 49:02
  I literally came in knowing what I know about restaurant
• 49:05
  permitting and I said hey, here's what I'm willing to pay
• 49:09
  and only if I can keep the building as is historical.
• 49:14
  By naming it a historical building, I didn't have to touch
• 49:17
  it. I just basically brought in
• 49:19
  equipment, put lipstick on it, and I was able to open the store
• 49:23
  and the landlord owner of the building would come in and get
• 49:27
  her nails done next door once a month.
• 49:29
  I gave her a check. It was 1/5 of what the people
• 49:33
  across the street were paying. And I told her you've owned the
• 49:36
  building for 50 years. This is more than you know your
• 49:39
  mortgage in it, whatever. Plus you already own it free and
• 49:41
  clear. And I said but one thing a year
• 49:44
  from today I'm either going to give you the keys back because
• 49:48
  I'm gone out of business or I'm going to buy the building from
• 49:51
  you. And she looked at me and goes
• 49:53
  game on. A year later I bought the
• 49:55
  building from her and I said I need another favor.
• 49:58
  I'm going to basically double the payment because now I'm
• 50:02
  paying mortgage and I need you to carry the paper for a few
• 50:05
  years until I can get a refinance.
• 50:08
  So she did that a few years later, paid her entire amount
• 50:12
  off, and the rest is history. So basically the first
• 50:14
  restaurant was because people got tired.
• 50:17
  The third restaurant was the same people from the east side
• 50:19
  of Costa Mesa got tired of coming over.
• 50:21
  So we opened that and that's how we started opening because
• 50:25
  people said, hey, it's too far, can you open here?
• 50:28
  I mean, so think about that for a second.
• 50:29
  So the demand was already there. So then we opened Lake Forest,
• 50:33
  we opened Tustin, we opened Huntington Beach and just kept
• 50:36
  growing. And how many locations do you
• 50:38
  have now? We lost about.
• 50:41
  Almost 15 stores during COVID, like colleges, special venues
• 50:47
  and whatnot. So I think we have 42 locations
• 50:49
  now. OK.
• 50:51
  What do growth plans look like? Going forward, we just reopened.
• 50:55
  I call reopen the first one in Austin, TX, where at one point
• 50:59
  before COVID we had three locations.
• 51:01
  We're opening in the Orange County airport shortly and we're
• 51:05
  actively looking at sites to see if we can expand.
• 51:10
  But again, California is not necessarily the most business
• 51:14
  friendly state on the on the United States.
• 51:16
  So other states that are more business friendly is probably
• 51:19
  what we're looking at are these states that still.
• 51:23
  Have sort of a like a surf culture or do you think that's
• 51:26
  not necessary not necessarily because they're.
• 51:28
  Skateboarding in all the states, pretty much it's what I call it
• 51:32
  aspiration because no matter where you live in the United
• 51:35
  States, on your To Do List is go to Disneyland.
• 51:39
  OK, so California has a lot of aspirational destinations like
• 51:43
  Hollywood, whatever. And one of them is the beach,
• 51:46
  the whole surf culture. So going to one of my
• 51:48
  restaurants in Vegas, New Jersey, Colorado fulfills that
• 51:53
  bucket because for that 30 minutes, hour, you feel like
• 51:56
  you're on a beach shack somewhere in California or
• 51:59
  Mexico. I want to take a little detour.
• 52:02
  For a moment, Wang and I would like to talk about a serious
• 52:05
  challenge that you've overcome, whether it's something personal
• 52:08
  or professional, and hear how you got through it, what you
• 52:11
  learned. You know The thing is.
• 52:14
  Like when we talk about finance, you never think, you know, they
• 52:18
  say you should have money for the rainy day.
• 52:21
  So back in the 90s we had a fire in Laguna Beach in the hills and
• 52:27
  rains that fall, of which all the mud slides, right?
• 52:30
  So for about 3 days you couldn't get to our store.
• 52:34
  So we shut down. And then on Friday, we're like,
• 52:38
  how are we going to make payroll?
• 52:39
  Because this is when, you know, two or three years into the
• 52:42
  business, we only have three stores, right?
• 52:43
  So cash flow is king. So a lot of people, so we learn
• 52:49
  early on, you know, that say, hey, you should have a few
• 52:52
  dollars in the savings account for literally they call it the
• 52:55
  rainy day because literally it fires.
• 52:58
  And then the rains came and it flooded the Canyon because all
• 53:01
  the muds came down. You couldn't get to our store.
• 53:04
  So not only could our staff not get there, customers couldn't
• 53:07
  get in, right? So we learned, you know, so
• 53:10
  these are all the things start planning, right?
• 53:12
  It's not a thing that they say save it for a rainy day.
• 53:15
  It's a natural fact of life for us, right?
• 53:18
  So we always plan now ahead for these kind of things that are
• 53:22
  outside of your domain. Knock on wood.
• 53:25
  We haven't had any earthquakes. Well, we've had quite a few
• 53:27
  fires and rain issues in Southern California.
• 53:30
  And so when that first instance happened and you guys were.
• 53:33
  Struggling to make payroll. What did you do?
• 53:35
  How'd you get through that? Luckily we have mom and dad.
• 53:40
  You know, so I said, hey, mom and dad, we need to borrow a few
• 53:42
  dollars until next week until we can, you know, get back on our
• 53:45
  feed. And they've always been
• 53:47
  supportive. But that's literally the only
• 53:49
  time in the history of our company that we learn the hard
• 53:53
  way. You got to have a little bit of
• 53:55
  money in the bank, right? So all the guys that are
• 53:57
  starting have a little rainy day money just in case something
• 54:03
  happening, like when you're in the town, it could be a tornado,
• 54:05
  right? It could be something, but it's
• 54:07
  going to happen no matter where you are in the country.
• 54:10
  Wayne, what is your superpower? Me is.
• 54:15
  Paying attention, I think, right.
• 54:17
  I, I think I listened to. So the first thing you mentioned
• 54:20
  where you're in Columbus, OH, I'm thinking about all the
• 54:23
  things that I could do with you in Columbus, OH.
• 54:26
  And at the top of my mind, nothing comes to mind yet
• 54:30
  because there's nothing that I know of there, right?
• 54:33
  But if there was, then I'm like, hey, the next time in Columbus
• 54:36
  we're going to go see this or we're going to go hang out
• 54:39
  there. But pretty much all my friends
• 54:41
  from around the country, they're amazed about what I retain by
• 54:46
  listening to people like their kids, their wives.
• 54:49
  I go, hey, your kid wants to go see this.
• 54:52
  And they're like, you know, what are you talking about?
• 54:54
  Because I remember he liked baseball, right?
• 54:57
  So I tend to remember things because I want to truly make
• 55:01
  something happen by, you know, and I can only do that if I pay
• 55:05
  attention to what you do, you know, 'cause I do see a picture
• 55:08
  behind you. There's a little, there's an
• 55:10
  adult and a little kid, you know, and there's some hearts
• 55:13
  there. So these are the things that
• 55:14
  people, you know, you look at that, those are clues, You know,
• 55:18
  they're very easy. You know, when you walk into
• 55:20
  anybody's office, look at, they always have school memorabilia,
• 55:24
  right? So the easiest one for me in
• 55:26
  Southern California is if you went to USC, 'cause USC has
• 55:30
  produced at least five former NFL quarterbacks.
• 55:33
  I think 1 is still playing. Sam Darnold is still playing.
• 55:38
  But in of the five, two of them won Heisman Trophy, right?
• 55:42
  I'm friends with all 5. And people that went to USC will
• 55:46
  sit there, go, how are you friends with guys that you
• 55:48
  didn't even go to school with? And the answer is I do all their
• 55:51
  charity work and that's, you know, and people go, wow, you
• 55:56
  know, so that's what I'm really good at.
• 55:58
  So if you think of a big school, I go through my mental role that
• 56:02
  goes, oh, such and such went there, you know, and then I'll
• 56:06
  connect the dots and the next thing you know, when I come to
• 56:09
  see you in Columbus, we're going to go see the Buckeyes.
• 56:11
  That whatever, right? And it'll be something.
• 56:13
  And you go, what? I go, well, I remember.
• 56:18
  So here's what I'm piercing together.
• 56:19
  You've. Got a good memory?
• 56:21
  You've got a gigantic heart and then you seem to have this
• 56:25
  ability to play 3D chess with. How do I connect people to make
• 56:29
  a difference and to make an impact on people's lives?
• 56:32
  Yeah, that's it. That's all it is.
• 56:34
  Because if I. Can do that for you, right?
• 56:37
  Because the first thing you mentioned was your HR service,
• 56:40
  right? So in my head, I'm like, we can
• 56:42
  talk about that, figured out what you do and see how, you
• 56:47
  know, like, IE my wife has found corporate Wellness dollars from
• 56:53
  insurance companies. So now instead of going to an HR
• 56:56
  department and selling her services, she goes here, here's
• 57:00
  what we're going to do with the $10,000 from your insurance
• 57:03
  company. They look at her was what?
• 57:04
  How do you know that? Because, well, that's her job,
• 57:07
  right? All of a sudden it's a much
• 57:08
  easier sell to the HR lady because she's not asking for
• 57:12
  money. She's going to find a bucket
• 57:15
  that they didn't even know existed, right?
• 57:18
  And all of a sudden she's doing yoga classes, a happy hour, a
• 57:23
  stretch class, a massage class, whatever Pilates class in their
• 57:28
  offices. And they're not paying for it
• 57:30
  because there's a bucket of Wellness dollars in almost every
• 57:33
  insurance, you know, health services, whatever provider.
• 57:36
  And so that's what she does. And she's really good at it.
• 57:39
  And from time to time she goes, wait, can you come in and do a
• 57:42
  show and tell, show them how to make a salsa, a healthy version
• 57:46
  of something. And I come in there, I'm getting
• 57:48
  paid to, you know, put a blender together and show them how to
• 57:51
  make salsa, you know, instead of buying something that's got all
• 57:54
  the preservatives in the store, right?
• 57:56
  And that to me is exciting, right?
• 57:58
  So eating healthy is a big part of our lives.
• 58:01
  My wife has found a way to make a living doing that, right?
• 58:04
  So we're always tag teaming each other and all kinds of stuff.
• 58:08
  You know where the world's like it's a very small because if you
• 58:11
  can figure it out how to add value, make people lives better,
• 58:15
  right, you're going to get that business right.
• 58:18
  So we don't think that's such a a beautiful and a.
• 58:22
  A positive way to kind of move through the world.
• 58:25
  Like I, I have to imagine living inside of your skin weighing
• 58:29
  it's, it's there's, there's just a, a sparkle to it because the,
• 58:35
  the way that you approach things and oh, like, oh, I'm looking at
• 58:39
  Anthony's back. He's got a kid and a heart.
• 58:41
  He's in Columbus. And how can I like it?
• 58:44
  It's give first rather than what can I get from this meeting?
• 58:48
  What can I get from this transaction?
• 58:50
  Yeah, Because if I can add value to your life.
• 58:52
  You're going to call me and you're going to always remember
• 58:55
  there's this kid in Southern California because one day
• 58:59
  you're going to come to Disneyland, right?
• 59:01
  If you haven't already been, well, maybe that day you're
• 59:03
  going to call me because hey, I'm thinking about bringing my
• 59:05
  son, daughter to Disneyland. And I'm say, well, this would be
• 59:08
  the best way to do it, right? Because one, it would be more
• 59:11
  fun, cost effective, and you're going to have a great
• 59:14
  experience, right? Because otherwise you can just
• 59:17
  do it on your own and I guarantee you it'll be more
• 59:19
  expensive, won't be as much fun and you know, it won't just I'm
• 59:24
  just going to make it better, right?
• 59:26
  So I tell all my friends, who goes, what do you want to do and
• 59:28
  how do I make it better, right? How does how does your ethos
• 59:32
  show? Up for your employees the same
• 59:36
  way. Literally.
• 59:37
  Yesterday, my office manager goes, hey, can I go see this?
• 59:42
  I'm like, yeah. And he goes, John is working
• 59:44
  there, so I'll make sure you can go.
• 59:46
  And she goes, oh, OK. And he goes, well, what about
• 59:49
  this concert at the House of Blues goes, well, such and such
• 59:53
  is over there. I'll just call it in and you can
• 59:54
  go there too. And she's just look at me.
• 59:56
  You just you, you told me you wanted to go see it.
• 1:00:00
  And I'm just picking up the phone and make sure you can go.
• 1:00:03
  So my employees, they know. That Uncle Wing will pretty
• 1:00:07
  much, you know, within reason, I can do almost anything they
• 1:00:10
  need, right, Uncle Wing, is that what they call you?
• 1:00:13
  And it's. All it's Uncle Wing, you know,
• 1:00:15
  it's like, hey, you know I'm. Having this, you know, and I
• 1:00:17
  already know if you have kids, you know, you don't have to ask,
• 1:00:21
  right? Just say, you know, because
• 1:00:23
  water parks, theme parks, when we do the giveaways, you know,
• 1:00:28
  I'll make sure that they get to be a part of the giveaway,
• 1:00:30
  right? So they can go because why not?
• 1:00:33
  You know, we're going to have the general population win X
• 1:00:36
  number of tickets as a sponsor. I'm going to get a number of
• 1:00:41
  tickets, right? So I make sure that they're part
• 1:00:43
  of that, right? So I want them to have
• 1:00:45
  experiences as well. If people are listening, and
• 1:00:48
  they would. Love to do what you're doing or
• 1:00:51
  do it with you. Be part of some of the
• 1:00:53
  philanthropic efforts. What can they do?
• 1:00:57
  How? How do they get?
• 1:00:58
  Involved. How do they learn more about
• 1:00:59
  this? Basically, go to the website The
• 1:01:01
  California Love Drop. See what we've done there,
• 1:01:03
  right? And literally we can replicate
• 1:01:06
  that in any aspect. I just had recently a couple
• 1:01:11
  that really wanted to get into what I'm doing, but I said they
• 1:01:14
  go, but what fulfills your bucket?
• 1:01:16
  Like what are you guys excited about?
• 1:01:18
  And they mention pets. I'm like, let's do it for pets,
• 1:01:22
  not for humans. And they looked at me completely
• 1:01:24
  bewildered and I'm like, it's the same thing.
• 1:01:27
  Instead of food, we're going to do treats like pet food all.
• 1:01:31
  So two months in, they're like, we are having the most fun we've
• 1:01:38
  ever had in our lives. They created a thing called the
• 1:01:41
  Project PAW. Instead of Project, it's
• 1:01:45
  project, right? The good project.
• 1:01:48
  It's a husband and wife and they go out to local shelters and
• 1:01:52
  bring treats. I said the model is you're going
• 1:01:55
  to have to fund it initially, just like I funded mine.
• 1:01:58
  And the next step I'm going to give you stuff that you can
• 1:02:01
  augment what you're doing. And then you go out and find
• 1:02:04
  sponsors just like I did. And it's a 2 step.
• 1:02:07
  You just can't go out because you at a certain point you're
• 1:02:11
  going to run out of money if all you do is get.
• 1:02:13
  So if you can start getting some products and cash, whatever it
• 1:02:16
  is to offset it, right? And they're slowly doing it.
• 1:02:21
  And literally I see him now twice a week, complete strangers
• 1:02:26
  to me because I didn't know him two months ago.
• 1:02:28
  I just gave him the game plan of what I did.
• 1:02:31
  And I said you guys can do the exact same thing with pets going
• 1:02:34
  to shelters. And they're literally in just a
• 1:02:38
  week ago, I introduced them to one of the coolest, I call it
• 1:02:42
  Dutch hounds around. It's called Rowdy.
• 1:02:45
  She she is a professional skateboarder Wiener dog.
• 1:02:51
  OK, she's been at the X Games. She's she's literally won all
• 1:02:55
  these races. And I said the difference is
• 1:02:59
  when you do a pet adoption day now and that Wiener dog shows up
• 1:03:04
  Rowdy, it's like a celebrity showing up.
• 1:03:08
  The number of dogs that will get picked up that they adopted will
• 1:03:13
  be like 5 full if he she's not there.
• 1:03:17
  So you mentioned budget and like.
• 1:03:20
  You have to fund it a little bit on the front end, but you can't
• 1:03:23
  be given away too much. You're going to start running
• 1:03:25
  out of money. Like what do you think from your
• 1:03:26
  experience, people who have done this, like how much money do you
• 1:03:30
  think somebody needs to get an idea like this kind of rolling?
• 1:03:33
  It depends on what you're trying to do.
• 1:03:36
  Right, because if you don't have the money, but you have access
• 1:03:39
  to the stuff that the kids or whatever needs, you can start
• 1:03:43
  with that right. So if you know somebody that
• 1:03:45
  owns a Michael's friends or any of these places that have items,
• 1:03:49
  right, then you turn around and goes, hey, when it goes out of
• 1:03:52
  season, can I have it when it when you're changing this, can I
• 1:03:55
  have it when it's slightly damaged, can I have it right and
• 1:03:58
  find a way to repurpose it right.
• 1:04:00
  So I'm amazingly resourceful because I've been neutered for
• 1:04:03
  so long. I know what everybody makes,
• 1:04:06
  right? So like the T-shirts that we do
• 1:04:08
  for charity, for instance. That's a huge expense.
• 1:04:12
  A blank cost you let's say 5 to $10 plus silk screening, another
• 1:04:16
  2 to $3.00. So you're easily 10 to $15.00
• 1:04:19
  into AT shirt to promote your new charity, right?
• 1:04:24
  Well, I got one of the surf brands that will donate the
• 1:04:26
  blanks. So that eliminates 80% right
• 1:04:29
  there, right? Or the hats.
• 1:04:31
  That's another 80%, right? So all of a sudden you can show
• 1:04:34
  up branded, right, to promote your new charity and you didn't
• 1:04:39
  have to spend any money. So I've helped quite a few
• 1:04:41
  startups with just that because they're like, we really like our
• 1:04:45
  volunteers to be able to wear something when they're at the
• 1:04:47
  beach cleaning to this or serving the dogs or whatever
• 1:04:50
  they're doing, right? So I said, OK, that's easy for
• 1:04:52
  me to do. So then we, we go through the
• 1:04:54
  whole process again, I think my financial strategy goes, what
• 1:04:57
  are you trying to do and what are the items that we need to
• 1:05:00
  knock out, right? So if I can help you look bigger
• 1:05:04
  than you are, right, then people want to be a part of your
• 1:05:08
  initiative, right? So you got to take baby steps.
• 1:05:11
  It might cost you $100, it might cost you $1000.
• 1:05:14
  I, I don't know what you're doing right, and where you are
• 1:05:16
  in the country, but if you look at your network and see if who
• 1:05:20
  can provide that service, right, Then you can go, oh, I can call
• 1:05:24
  John, I can call Tom, I can call Bob, right?
• 1:05:26
  And all of a sudden they're pitching in, right?
• 1:05:29
  And all of a sudden you have a movement, right?
• 1:05:32
  So just think of, I call it a Tom Sawyer, right?
• 1:05:35
  You're there painting the fence. If you can make it look fun,
• 1:05:38
  Everybody want to be painting the fence with you.
• 1:05:40
  So that's what I'm able to do. I make it fun because I'm going
• 1:05:44
  to be backstage, but you can only come backstage when you've
• 1:05:47
  gone to the shelter with me the week before, right?
• 1:05:50
  So I'm very like, here's the deal.
• 1:05:52
  If you say no to the shelter, you're not coming backstage with
• 1:05:55
  me, right? Because I already know you're a
• 1:05:58
  taker, right? So everybody that's willing to
• 1:06:00
  do, you know, the shelter, then you can come to the backstage
• 1:06:04
  and all the things will kind of, you know, and it's a cycle and
• 1:06:08
  everything works beautifully. It's a flywheel.
• 1:06:11
  Yeah. So when you you have a lot of
• 1:06:12
  volunteers. That are willing to.
• 1:06:13
  Donate and participate and volunteer.
• 1:06:16
  You don't have any overhead, right, because labor and
• 1:06:20
  whatever the donation product is, service is the the money,
• 1:06:23
  right. But if all of a sudden the
• 1:06:25
  California left drop has zero overhead, right?
• 1:06:28
  That's why we can function like a very lean machine because
• 1:06:31
  everybody donates. Wing, I've just got one more
• 1:06:33
  question for you. But before I ask.
• 1:06:35
  It I'm going to do 2 things. First, I'm going to invite
• 1:06:37
  everybody listening to pause for just a moment and hit the follow
• 1:06:40
  or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app.
• 1:06:43
  We've had a fantastic interview today with Wing Lamb from
• 1:06:46
  Wahoos. I want you to continue to get
• 1:06:47
  more great interviews like this. Wing, I also want to let people
• 1:06:50
  know the best way to get in touch with you.
• 1:06:51
  So I'm going to mention two of your websites here, wahoos.com,
• 1:06:55
  WAHOOS for the restaurant and then it's California
• 1:06:59
  lovedrop.org for the philanthropic.
• 1:07:04
  Work that we've been. Talking about any other ways
• 1:07:06
  that you would recommend folks to, you know, either follow your
• 1:07:08
  story or connect with you. You can always go on LinkedIn,
• 1:07:11
  you know. Find me on LinkedIn.
• 1:07:12
  Wing lamb I mean, because there I I again, it's easy for me to
• 1:07:15
  filter out because I got a lot of spam coming through these
• 1:07:19
  days, right. And then we can talk about it
• 1:07:21
  and I'd be happy to, you know, kind of give you a few tips on
• 1:07:24
  how to so in it you'd say, hey, this is what I'm looking to do.
• 1:07:28
  This is what I'm excited about because it might be
• 1:07:32
  environmental. You want to clean the lake.
• 1:07:34
  You might want to save a tree. I don't know what you want to
• 1:07:36
  do, but in my group, either I've done it myself or I know
• 1:07:40
  somebody who's done it right. And I'd say here's a few options
• 1:07:44
  that you could do right. You can be a Boy Scout.
• 1:07:46
  Why? It doesn't matter what it is
• 1:07:48
  that you want to do. There's a road map to doing it
• 1:07:52
  right. And if I feel that you're doing
• 1:07:54
  it for the right reason, right, not to be like, look at me, look
• 1:07:58
  at what I'm doing. We don't do that right?
• 1:08:00
  So then I, by talking to people, I can usually filter that out
• 1:08:04
  because I'll be asking a lot of fun questions like where have
• 1:08:08
  you been? What have you done, da, da, da.
• 1:08:10
  And I hate to say it, but I'm going to check you out, right?
• 1:08:13
  That's what the Internet is for, to see if you're genuinely
• 1:08:16
  interested in helping people, right?
• 1:08:18
  Because otherwise, if you're just trying to make a buck doing
• 1:08:21
  this, call somebody else. I'm not interested in that,
• 1:08:24
  right? But if you end up making money,
• 1:08:27
  then yes, but not, I want to make money by doing this, right?
• 1:08:31
  So I'm very purposeful in who I help.
• 1:08:34
  I like that. So last question for you.
• 1:08:36
  Wang, you and I reconnect a year from now and you're really
• 1:08:40
  excited because you're celebrating a big thing.
• 1:08:42
  What is that big thing you're celebrating one year from today?
• 1:08:45
  You know, right now I think milestones.
• 1:08:48
  For me, it's mostly about seeing my kid grow.
• 1:08:52
  I I do have an older son, Greg, who's 38 and I have a little one
• 1:08:56
  that's 10, right? It's seeing him go from like the
• 1:09:01
  pure jump for him this year for the junior lifeguards, a major
• 1:09:05
  milestone. The fact that he swam the
• 1:09:08
  monster mile, which means you run a mile and swim a mile.
• 1:09:11
  He was in the upper half of the kids that didn't quit, right?
• 1:09:14
  Things like that are exciting, right?
• 1:09:17
  But more important is like, to me, like maybe five years from
• 1:09:21
  now is knock on wood, is to celebrate my parents like 98th
• 1:09:25
  or 99th birthday, right? They're still alive.
• 1:09:28
  They're kicking it. They're getting ready to go to
• 1:09:30
  China this weekend to visit their homeland for maybe the
• 1:09:33
  last time, right? And to me, that's to me is all
• 1:09:36
  that it's seen to people around me, you know, get to where they
• 1:09:39
  want to get. I think for the most part, I am
• 1:09:43
  here. I mean, there's really not a
• 1:09:45
  whole lot, you know, more that I think, oh, my God, I would be so
• 1:09:48
  much happier if I did this. Yeah, there's a lot of things,
• 1:09:51
  but I'm happy, right? I love the life that I live.
• 1:09:55
  But more important, I love helping others, right?
• 1:09:58
  That to me is much more exciting.
• 1:10:00
  The pain for it is way more exciting.
• 1:10:03
  Wing lamb from Wahoo's fish Taco.
• 1:10:05
  I want to. Be the first to thank you for
• 1:10:06
  sharing both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:10:08
  I really appreciate it. Thank you folks.
• 1:10:12
  That's another episode of the inspired.
• 1:10:14
  Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:10:16
  today.