Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Three Failed Partnerships and a Surrender Moment: How Rick Thomas Built First Generation Advisors

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Three Failed Partnerships and a Surrender Moment: How Rick Thomas Built First Generation Advisors · 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. As you listen today, let one
• 0:17
  idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspoti and
• 0:21
  today's guest grew up crossing borders before he could ride a
• 0:25
  bike as part of one of the only family units ever deployed
• 0:29
  through a short lived Peace Corps program, he spent
• 0:32
  formative years in Venezuela and West Africa, including a day on
• 0:36
  the beach in Liberia where he stumbled upon a drowned
• 0:40
  fisherman in the surf was only 6 years old.
• 0:44
  That early experience of sitting with hard realities, of seeing
• 0:47
  life and business stripped down to their essentials never really
• 0:51
  left him. He carried it through a 13 year
• 0:54
  run inside a manufacturing company, through years of
• 0:58
  leadership consulting through investment advising, and
• 1:01
  eventually into a solo venture built on a conviction that most
• 1:05
  exit planners are performing theater for their clients.
• 1:09
  His name is Rick Thomas, he is the founder and managing member
• 1:12
  of First Generation Advisors, a lower middle market consulting
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  and M&A advisory firm based in washable Washington.
• 1:21
  He holds a CMNAA certification and a Series 65 license, and his
• 1:26
  guided clients including Stoller Wine Group, Cascade Engineering
• 1:31
  Technologies, and Lenity Architecture through growth
• 1:34
  strategy, succession planning, and exit readiness.
• 1:38
  Rick is someone who learned early that the clearest view of
• 1:41
  any situation comes from outside the box you were handed.
• 1:46
  But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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  All right, back to our guest today, Business Advisor and
• 2:48
  Founder of First Generation Advisors, Rick Thomas.
• 2:52
  Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:54
  Hey, absolutely, Anthony. Happy to be here.
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  So, Rick, you spent your earliest years moving between
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  California, Venezuela, and West Africa as part of a Family Peace
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  Corps program. Not the typical way to grow up.
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  What do you think that kind of early mobility did to the way
• 3:13
  you read people in situations of life?
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  It was highly influential. I, you know, we, we live in a
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  bubble here in the US and I, I would say most of the population
• 3:34
  in this world resides outside this country and most, the
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  diversity that resides in this world lives outside this
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  country. Now, certainly I was exposed to
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  a fair amount of cultural diversity just within my family.
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  My mom is Puerto Rican. My dad was a white guy from New
• 3:56
  Jersey. But we would spend time in, in
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  the Caribbean, you know, off and on and exposed to, you know,
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  Caribbean culture and whatnot. But to live in, in, in, in the
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  Peace Corps program, you basically live at the economic
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  level of most of the people that you live around.
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  So we lived very, very meager circumstances in, in Venezuela
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  and then also in Monrovia, Liberia.
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  And those experiences I saw a lot of human suffering.
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  But probably more surprising than that for me was I
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  experienced a lot of joy and gratitude even amongst the
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  suffering that I witnessed. And that has always stuck with
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  me. And it actually it's something
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  that I saw again about 10 years ago.
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  I did some relief work in Haiti, A friend who has a mission
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  there. And after one of the Hurricanes
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  that blew through went down there and was doing relief work
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  where, you know, people live literally living on the beach
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  hour to hour. And yet they they still had the
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  ability to express joy and gratitude and laugh, even though
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  they didn't have any idea where their next meal was coming from
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  or whether they would have shelter that.
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  Where do you think that comes from?
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  Because I mean, a lot of us that we've got roofs over our heads.
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  We've got plenty of food in the refrigerator, in the pantry.
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  We're just angry about this and that I didn't get the raise at
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  work. And where's this come from?
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  I, I, I, I think it's the, what I would, what I would call the
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  real human condition. And I think in a life of plenty
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  that most of us live in in this country, we don't it we, we have
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  a lot of noise and interference getting in the way of really
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  understanding what the human condition is.
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  And yes, there are tough times, there's hard times, there's,
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  there's pain, there's loss, there's grief, there is
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  suffering. And yet we don't see that.
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  That is part of it, but not the entirety of it.
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  And to experience the other aspect of it, to me was just an
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  illustration that we are way more than what we experienced in
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  a life of plenty. So let me see if I'm getting
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  this. If we're stripping away sort of
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  the extra noise, then it's easier to understand that
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  there's just joy in being alive. I I think joy in being alive and
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  joy in, in being around others that you know, where there's a
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  shared value in community and you know, certainly family and,
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  and loved ones, that is a powerful thing and it can
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  overcome even some of the most difficult circumstances.
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  Want to see how long I want to spend on this because it's
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  really fascinating to me. Can you maybe paint a picture
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  for folks and give us an idea of some of the stark differences in
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  your living conditions there than what we're accustomed to
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  here in the States? So, so the, the one that comes
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  to mind is so I, I coached my sons, both my boys were in
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  soccer and one of them I, I coached his team for a couple of
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  years and, and it was always about, and it was a lot of fun.
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  It was in the, I had a great group of parents.
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  We made it about the kids experience and, and learning how
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  to play a team sport. But a lot of it was about
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  certainly about the competition, but about do we have to write
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  uniforms? Do we have the latest shoes,
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  latest gear and everything? Well, on one of these relief
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  trips to Haiti, I got a hold of the league and I said, hey, any
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  of the gear that you're throwing away and get rid of, can I just
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  box that stuff up? I don't want to take it to Haiti
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  with me. So I did.
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  We took a huge 4 by 4 by 4 box full of this old uniforms and,
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  and balls and shoes and cones and stuff.
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  And, and I took it down to this, this parish that we're visiting
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  out in a place called Les Angle, which is way out on the end of
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  the boot in Haiti. And we're spending time in the,
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  in this, in this, in this church community.
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  We're literally the, again, the, the, the children don't know
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  whether they're going to eat that day.
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  And, and we go out there and they're, they're playing soccer
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  football, as they call it, with cinder blocks for goal posts and
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  a milk jug, a gallon plastic milk jug with a rock in it to
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  give it some weight for the soccer ball.
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  OK, so, and I, and I, I have this on video somewhere.
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  It's it, it, it's overwhelming every time I see it.
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  So we gave all the gear to the pastor and, and at one point
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  during the day, I took a ball out there and I had it over my
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  head and I'm I'm running out to the field and literally probably
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  500 to 1000 kids mobbed me and I finally just threw the ball out
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  there because I thought I was just going to get run over.
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  And for probably the rest of the afternoon, not one kid in that
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  place thought about being hungry because they were just
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  overwhelmed with the fact that they had a soccer ball that, you
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  know, they could kick around that was full of air.
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  And then we brought out the cones for the goal posts, and
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  then we brought out some jerseys.
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  And it was, yeah, it was off the charts.
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  So when you don't have much, simple things can make a big
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  difference. Absolutely simple things, the
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  things that we throw away on a daily play basis, are treasures
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  to somebody else. I love that story.
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  Let's talk about your time in Liberia, which you've written
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  about. Is there a moment from that time
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  period that comes back to you when you think of the kind of
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  work you do now with business owners who are facing their own
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  difficult crossroads? The I, it, it, it.
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  So we, we lived next. We lived on the beach in
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  Monrovia. And, and you alluded to 1
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  experience that I had because I used to go up and down to the,
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  the beach to visit a buddy of mine and his parents were with
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  USAID. And USAID lived a lot better, in
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  much better circumstances than the Peace Corps family.
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  So I spent a lot of time at his house because he had a pool of
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  everything and and we didn't, but we live next to a village
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  and the kids running around in the village, a lot of them had
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  herniated navels. And a herniated navel happens
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  when you know, somewhere in, you know, in the birth process where
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  they put the umbilical cord. It doesn't quite either gets
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  infected, doesn't quite it's not done correctly and it's
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  herniated navel looks like a a bump.
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  The navel will be protruding and it it it can be a dangerous
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  situation because if it gets wounded in some way and there's
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  a lot of blood flow, a child could bleed to death and it had
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  happened. I didn't actually see it, but
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  I'd heard about it happening. And I, I think about that
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  because when, when you live in circumstances where literally
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  life and death is at every moment.
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  And, and certainly we have that in, in, in our life and every
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  time we drive a car, you know, it's, it's, there's the odds are
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  that somebody is going to be in a fatal car accident.
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  And, and yet with all the safety devices and whatnot, a lot of
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  it's been mitigated away, but it's still a risk.
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  Whereas the risk in the, in their situation is every day
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  that in that circumstance, a child could be playing and fall
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  and, and, and, and rupture this herniated navel.
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  And they're, they're not medical facilities that could respond in
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  time like we have them. And I and I guess that comes to
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  mind because I think as business owners we can get very
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  complacent about the circumstances that we are in and
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  not believe that at any moment things can change.
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  And how do we think about how the business is prepared for
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  that now? In more recent times, we've been
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  exposed to this on a, on a broad scale, COVID, you know, what
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  they like to call a Black Swan event that affected everybody
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  and, and businesses, you know, were either, you know, some were
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  positively impacted a lot more negatively.
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  I, I had clients that were in the real the restaurant space
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  and we're devastated by this. I had a niece that lost her
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  restaurant actually. So I, I think those experiences
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  stay with me. And as I am doing my advisory
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  work, you know, one of the things that we do, we spend a
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  lot of time on is contingency plan.
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  Because it's very easy to get into a binary mindset to think
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  that either I'm always going to be successful or I'm out of
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  business. And it's rarely that simple.
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  There's a whole kind of, it's almost like a pachinko pinball
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  machine, you know, where the ball is kind of pinging back and
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  forth between different circumstances.
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  And we don't think about the implications of those and the
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  contingencies that we have to be thinking about it.
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  I guess the in in a more sophisticated analysis, they
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  would call the scenario planning.
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  And just what are the scenarios that we can plan around and
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  they're all going to be wrong. But it's not about whether it's
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  right or wrong. Is it more right than wrong?
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  Interesting. And you think you're sort of
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  wired to look for these potential pitfalls and set up
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  the contingency planning because of the environment that you
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  spent time growing up in where there were a lot more
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  opportunities for ultimate failure, if you will?
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  Certainly I, I think it was, it was informed by that and at a
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  very impressionable age, but as as well maybe or likely talk
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  about later. And you know, and it was
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  informed by my family dynamics. And then, you know, trying to
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  run and grow a manufacturing business in the early 90s and
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  then NAFTA, then, you know, the.com bust and then the Great
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  Recession. You know, it's just one hit
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  after another. And it's not a matter of if
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  these things are going to happen, they will happen.
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  How have we thought through how we will deal with circumstances
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  and do we does our behavior align with the mindset of of
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  being prepared? No, let's talk about the time
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  with the manufacturing company. He spent 13 years as the vice
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  president and a partner at Polycast for a high quality
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  supplier of injection molded plastic parts.
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  Right. Long time at one company.
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  What? What did that stretch teach you
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  about running a business that may have been hard for you to
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  learn or understand any other way?
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  It it taught me the value of patients historically has not
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  come easy for me. I'm I have been most of my life
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  a horribly impatient person, which tells you how amazing my
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  wife is because she has been patient with me as she's waited
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  for me to grow up. Patients with working with a
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  family that wonderful people. And yet we were are very
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  different thinkers, very different thinkers.
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  And learning the value of influence as opposed to being
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  right or wrong and, and, and and finding alignment, which can be
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  really, really challenging, especially when the stakes are
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  high and the emotions are high. Yeah.
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  Say more about what did you how did you put it more about
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  influence and being right or wrong.
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  Yeah, there's a tendency, at least I find that there's a
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  tendency when there is a lack of agreement on how we are
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  approaching a particular topic to just say, look, either you
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  make the decision or I make the decision.
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  And and there while that can be done that I find that rarely
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  works well in the long run because we haven't learned
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  anything. For me, I, I haven't learned
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  that how a different decision may be the better way to go and
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  how that may inform the decision making process, which I think is
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  often more important to understand in the actual
• 19:32
  decision itself. And, and this has actually LED
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  into a deep dive I did a while back around decision science in
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  how we make decisions and what are the, the biases that get in
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  the way of, of making a fully informed decision.
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  And this, this was during my time as a financial advisor, one
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  of my business partners was big and it's behavioral finance and
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  that it's a fascinating, fascinating world.
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  Say more about those biases that you've come to understand.
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  Yeah. So the the first and foremost is
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  confirmation bias. And there's really interesting.
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  Yeah. So it's confirmation bias is
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  just, you know, it's, it's a belief that we have and, and a
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  lot of this is around a decision that we're making that is
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  informed by our kind of mental framework.
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  And we will look for confirmation of that belief
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  subconsciously. And maybe ignore and.
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  Ignore everything else. And so here's a very, very
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  simple example of this is that I buy a red car.
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  All of a sudden I begin to notice how many other people are
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  driving red cars. And the decision I make is, is
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  we, there are a lot of people that like red cars and red cars
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  are the choice that's the right color to have.
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  And this is all happening in the background in our kind of our,
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  our operating system and, and we look for validation.
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  We get validation by seeing a reflection of the choices that
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  we make, when in fact that is just one particular choice of a
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  multitude of choices and outcomes, and yet we tend to
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  eliminate all the others. We don't see all the other
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  colors of cars and we see the red cars.
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  And so in business, yeah, well, it's great to start with a
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  simple example because then we can build upon it, right?
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  And then in business, this comes into play because you get honed
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  in on one option, one choice, right?
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  Well, so let's, let's talk about exit planning and selling a
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  business, OK? The the outcome that virtually
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  everybody is focused on is I need to get the most, the
• 22:16
  highest transaction value for this business.
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  Right, because that's why we did this.
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  That's why we did this and getting the largest, you know,
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  payoff for this is the right choice.
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  But that is just one of many outcomes.
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  And if we're only looking at the binary outcome of we got the
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  highest transaction value or we didn't, then we're we're
• 22:47
  ignoring the other choices that can have as big or bigger impact
• 22:52
  on whether this was a good decision or not.
• 22:55
  And, and again, confirmation bias will lead us to only look
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  for usually in conversations at the Country Club who got the
• 23:05
  highest transaction value for their business and, and what was
• 23:08
  their multiple. And it's, we call that cocktail
• 23:11
  napkin valuation, right? Well, Joe got 10X for his
• 23:16
  business. That means I have to get 10X or
• 23:19
  better. And So what are some of the
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  other things that people are ignoring that they should be
• 23:25
  paying attention to and closing a deal?
• 23:27
  Yeah, absolutely. So, and, and this really speaks
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  to the segment of clients that I work with, which are typically
• 23:35
  first generation founders. And, and there could be, you
• 23:40
  know, a second or third generation, but these are family
• 23:43
  founded businesses and there is a deep connection that those
• 23:49
  families have to those businesses, you know, found the
• 23:53
  founder experience in a business is life transforming.
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  It will imprint the that experience on that person's life
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  forever. They'll never forget it.
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  And the, you know, we were talking about earlier about what
• 24:08
  shows up when you, when you look at the tip of the iceberg, what
• 24:11
  most people don't see is everything below the waterline.
• 24:14
  That experience is imprinted on that founder's life and the
• 24:20
  transaction value rarely, in my opinion, recognizes the true
• 24:28
  value of what that experience was below the waterline.
• 24:33
  And I, I, I can't, I can't count how many founders that have gone
• 24:40
  through a sale process and not experienced deep and lasting
• 24:45
  regret. So I could speak personally to
• 24:50
  that myself, but let's hear it from somebody who's witnessed
• 24:54
  multiple clients go through it. Where is that regret coming
• 24:57
  from? Yeah.
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  So first and foremost, it's, it's the separation, the
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  emotional separation from something that they have founded
• 25:12
  and fostered and nurtured and, and, and spilled blood for.
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  And it almost is like it's a, it's a family member and and the
• 25:24
  exchange of that deeply personal thing for a certain amount of
• 25:32
  zeros before the decimal point doesn't feel equitable.
• 25:39
  Maybe equitable in the bank account, but not equitable at a
• 25:44
  deeply kind of soul level. There's the transaction feels
• 25:52
  imbalanced and now you and then added on to it is what happens
• 26:00
  to the business after the sale and how is it managed and how
• 26:05
  are the employees still engaged or not in the mission of the
• 26:09
  business and the client relationships at that founder
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  had had developed and fostered and fought hard for where those
• 26:21
  go and and often times especially in a third party sale
• 26:27
  to a financial buyer. Those are just numbers in a
• 26:32
  spreadsheet, nothing more, nothing more.
• 26:37
  Yeah, Having been through multiple exits myself, I can say
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  it's painful to watch something that you've built then not be
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  treated with the same level of care and respect in which you
• 26:51
  had built it. And in multiple instances,
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  companies that I've exited have then been, excuse me, driven
• 26:58
  straight into the ground and no longer exist.
• 27:01
  And perhaps for me, though, even the bigger pain point was losing
• 27:07
  that sense of purpose. This was the thing that I was
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  meant to do. This is why I got out of bed
• 27:12
  every day to create this and to coach my team.
• 27:17
  And now that's gone. Where do I fit into the world
• 27:20
  without that connection? I see you nodding your head.
• 27:22
  You notice this from your clients as well.
• 27:25
  Absolutely, absolutely. The, the biggest rationale I
• 27:30
  hear from a founder that is beginning to think, man, I, I, I
• 27:38
  should probably begin to think about selling this business is
• 27:41
  usually because somebody has told them, one of their advisors
• 27:44
  have told them, look, you're, you need to think about taking
• 27:49
  some chips off the table. You're, you are, your risk
• 27:55
  scenario is all in the business. And from a mathematical point of
• 28:04
  view, they're perhaps they're right.
• 28:08
  But that's just one aspect of looking at it in balance to what
• 28:15
  you were just talking about from a sense of purpose and why the
• 28:19
  business even existed in the 1st place.
• 28:24
  It's something that often doesn't show up on the balance
• 28:27
  sheet. So kind of jumped ahead a little
• 28:32
  bit and I think that's all right because I like what we're we're
• 28:34
  talking about now. I do want to at least give voice
• 28:38
  to, you know, you launched a company called Activate
• 28:41
  Leadership, a consultancy where you were focused on leadership
• 28:45
  and operational development. You did that for eight years and
• 28:49
  made another pivot into wealth management at Pilot Wealth
• 28:52
  Management. Maybe tell us sort of about the
• 28:55
  collection of these experiences that you're picking up along the
• 28:58
  way and how that contributes to what you're doing now at First
• 29:01
  Generation Advisors. Sure.
• 29:04
  Well, the the first thing I have to confess is that this was
• 29:08
  never there was never a master plan that it was going to go
• 29:12
  this way. Not in the least.
• 29:16
  The the only, the only, the only thing that I can draw from this
• 29:23
  to conclusion is that I proved one thing right.
• 29:26
  And I heard a long time ago from a speaker, I think a
• 29:30
  motivational speaker and they said, you know, for a healthy
• 29:34
  career, one should learn how to re pot themselves every single
• 29:38
  seven years. You know, kind of like a plant
• 29:41
  replant yourself in a new garden every seven years.
• 29:45
  And, and I remember writing that down.
• 29:47
  Now, I'd never intentionally said, OK, over seven years, I'm
• 29:50
  going to make a pivot. But as I look back on it, it's
• 29:54
  kind of held true, give or take a year.
• 29:59
  I am, I'm a highly curious person.
• 30:02
  And for me, I love the challenge of learning something new and
• 30:11
  how to grow it. Once it gets into operational
• 30:16
  scale, I get bored and and so you're.
• 30:23
  A start up guy. I, I guess I don't like to think
• 30:27
  of myself away, but I, I kind of, I, I, I think there's some
• 30:32
  that's fair. I I, I receive you.
• 30:35
  Enjoy that excitement and that uncertainty and like, I've got
• 30:39
  to figure this out. And then once it's figured out,
• 30:42
  you need the next puzzle to figure out.
• 30:44
  Yeah, I it's, I guess I, I always like to say it's the
• 30:47
  engineer and me. I can't help not but try to
• 30:50
  solve the problem. And the bigger and the hairier
• 30:54
  problems to solve, the more I relish the challenge, which is
• 30:59
  why I'm, I'm finding myself being drawn into enterprise work
• 31:05
  because large entrenched companies are facing massive
• 31:10
  disruption. And, and the cost for change and
• 31:14
  pivot for large entrenched organization is, I mean, there
• 31:19
  are a lot of zeros before that decimal point.
• 31:23
  So how do we pick through that carefully and bring along large
• 31:28
  organizations of culture of expectation of people in, in
• 31:33
  that process? I I find that kind of problem
• 31:36
  solving fascinating. So tell us how this path came to
• 31:40
  be where you're starting up First generation advisors, What
• 31:45
  was the objective? What do you do?
• 31:48
  Who do you do it for? Yeah, So it, it actually, it, it
• 31:52
  came out of kind of the destruction of my last
• 31:55
  partnership. And, and, and I like to say if,
• 31:58
  if I've learned that I'm good at anything is failed partnerships
• 32:02
  because I've had three failed partnerships.
• 32:05
  And, and after exiting the last one, I, I had this existential
• 32:09
  moment looking in the mirror and saying, well, Rick, yeah, well
• 32:13
  done. You've just failed in your third
• 32:15
  partnership. And then almost immediately I
• 32:19
  heard myself saying back to myself, so this means it's time
• 32:23
  to partner with yourself. And there's a whole lot more to
• 32:30
  unpacking that, but I'll just leave it that for now.
• 32:33
  So it was like, OK, I'm ready to do this myself.
• 32:37
  I don't need to do this with anybody else now.
• 32:41
  The, the, the, the name came about, you know, when I was
• 32:44
  trying to think, well, how am I going to rename my firm now that
• 32:47
  I'm not part of pilot anymore? And this is actually part of
• 32:51
  some ideation. We had gone through a pilot in,
• 32:54
  in, in thinking about do we rebrand and who are we most
• 32:59
  successful with? And it really didn't go
• 33:02
  anywhere. But one, one thing I pulled out
• 33:07
  of that exercise was who is who is the client that I just
• 33:14
  absolutely crush it with? And what if I named my firm
• 33:21
  after that client? And so how I answered both
• 33:25
  questions was first generation, first generation founders.
• 33:31
  There's something about that founder experience that I can so
• 33:35
  empathize with. And I've experienced that
• 33:37
  myself. But I, I, I appreciate the
• 33:41
  experience and I see the 90% of what they've done below the
• 33:46
  waterline in, in all its glory and in all its ugliness.
• 33:51
  And I can, I can empathize with a lot of that experience.
• 33:57
  And so that's what what became the name of the firm.
• 34:00
  And So what is it that you do today, and who do you do it for?
• 34:04
  Yeah. So the, the, the my primary
• 34:07
  client, it is still in the lower middle market and depending on
• 34:12
  who you ask for, who you ask that the numbers.
• 34:16
  But it, you know, my sweet spot is an enterprise value between
• 34:20
  25 to 100 million, still founder LED.
• 34:25
  And that could be a, a second or third generation founder.
• 34:30
  It it, it's not so much were they the first generation that
• 34:34
  founded this, but do they have that first generation mindset
• 34:39
  and, and kind of approach to the business and humility of the
• 34:44
  business? That's who I absolutely.
• 34:47
  It is the sweet spot for me now. I, I, I again, I, I got this
• 34:53
  growing enterprise segment because and, and, but really
• 34:58
  that's, that's, that's kind of the heart of the business is, is
• 35:01
  the first generation founder 25 to 100 million multi unit
• 35:07
  operation. And and this is both in the
• 35:11
  manufacturing world, which is, you know, where I grew up and
• 35:14
  cut my teeth in, but I do, I work with professional service
• 35:18
  and IT and it's much less about how the PNL and the balance
• 35:23
  sheet is structured and more about the nature of who they are
• 35:27
  and who they see themselves as in the business.
• 35:31
  And is your primary focus then on getting them ready for an
• 35:34
  exit or could it be just anything in terms of strategy
• 35:39
  and operational improvements? Yeah, it's, it's more about how
• 35:43
  do we grow this enterprise? How do we continue to grow and
• 35:47
  how do we continue to grow in the face of massive change in
• 35:51
  the marketplace, massive change in competition in economics?
• 35:59
  And now there's so many other drivers that are part of that
• 36:03
  list of things, but it's really around growth strategy now.
• 36:08
  Exit planning began to become a thing because of just sure
• 36:13
  demographics. Most of my clients began to age
• 36:16
  out and them approaching an exit was just another strategy
• 36:24
  problem to solve and I I began to.
• 36:30
  My first exit planning exercise was back in 2012 and that's how
• 36:35
  I actually met my 2 business partners at Pilot and we did a
• 36:39
  joint project. It was a phenomenal project and
• 36:42
  we decided, you know, to merge and and create a business model
• 36:47
  out of it. It was very, very successful.
• 36:51
  Let's go back for a second. You said there's more to unpack
• 36:54
  and the story of deciding to partner with yourself.
• 36:58
  You comfortable saying more about that?
• 37:03
  Yeah, I happy to share. Let's in in what I'm pausing on
• 37:08
  is is kind of make some sense of this that somebody could follow.
• 37:15
  So here's the part of the family story that's below the
• 37:20
  waterline. My father was bipolar and the
• 37:28
  chaos that we experienced in our family as a result of his mental
• 37:36
  health was anybody that is listening to this, that has
• 37:42
  somebody that has a bipolar diagnosis, they know what they
• 37:47
  know what I'm talking about. It's chaos, tremendous
• 37:51
  creativity, tremendous charm and, and, and also tremendous
• 37:56
  chaos. And he was self medicated.
• 37:59
  So you know, whether it was prescription drugs or with an
• 38:02
  alcohol or whatever. And, and growing up in that
• 38:06
  dynamic, there was a, a term that I learned, I think when I
• 38:12
  got out of high school and, and went out on my own, called a COA
• 38:16
  adult child of an alcoholic. And I'm like, I began to learn
• 38:20
  about family systems theory and and how these dynamics show up
• 38:26
  and what how did and Ioffer this to help answer your question
• 38:33
  about this existential moments sitting in front of the mirror,
• 38:37
  because at that point I had seen these dynamics play out over and
• 38:41
  over and over. And it's really frustrating to
• 38:47
  continually make the wrong choice.
• 38:55
  In fact, there is, there's, there's a, a, a great poem that
• 39:01
  was written by Porsche Nelson called My Life in five chapters.
• 39:04
  It was about her experience of recovery from alcoholism.
• 39:10
  And it, it's worth looking up and reading it because it tells
• 39:14
  about the experience of continually going down, going
• 39:17
  down dead end streets, and actually knowing that you're
• 39:22
  making this conscious choice, even though it's something you
• 39:25
  don't want yet you are predisposed to do it anyway.
• 39:32
  And, and so when I'm having this existential moment in front of
• 39:37
  the mirror, I am also asking myself, can I make a different
• 39:43
  choice here that is not predisposed to end up in a dead
• 39:49
  end? And, and it's one of those
• 39:52
  moments of doubt where you're like, am I ever going to figure
• 39:55
  this out? So at the same time that I'm
• 40:00
  saying it's time to partner with myself, it's both a lament and
• 40:09
  and a desire and a yearn for something different.
• 40:15
  Because of all the choices that I find, these patterns that show
• 40:19
  up that had got had had gotten in the way of me making
• 40:25
  different choices that could have been so much easier.
• 40:29
  Were some of these choices in terms of the business
• 40:32
  partnerships, just choosing the wrong partners, the way that
• 40:37
  maybe you carried yourself through that partnership, some
• 40:40
  combination or something else all together?
• 40:45
  It was something else though. Choosing the wrong partners was
• 40:48
  kind of an outcome of something else that was showing up, which
• 40:53
  is not trusting myself enough that I knew how to do this, that
• 41:00
  I had to believe the story I told my, the story I was telling
• 41:05
  myself is that if I have somebody else in the business
• 41:08
  that I believe is faster, better, stronger, younger, that
• 41:14
  when I screw this up, I'll be OK as opposed to saying I will
• 41:18
  figure this out and I can actually do this better, which
• 41:23
  was the outcome after every failed partnership.
• 41:26
  Just like what did I learn in this?
• 41:28
  What I learned is I could have done this better and yet I would
• 41:32
  never trust that enough not to, to go out on my own, but to get
• 41:37
  into another partnership. So again, the cycle repeats.
• 41:41
  You felt inadequate in order to be able to go and run the
• 41:45
  business on your own. So OK, I've got to bring
• 41:48
  somebody else in. I've got to have a partner in
• 41:50
  this. And after you repeated that
• 41:52
  pattern long enough, you were finally able to break the cycle
• 41:55
  with first generation advisors. So, so back to our discussion
• 42:00
  about confirmation bias. This is where a confirmation
• 42:02
  bias plays in, in in a very insidious way, because the
• 42:07
  confirmation I was looking for is that, see, this didn't work
• 42:11
  out. You don't know how to do this,
• 42:15
  even though that was actually an indication that I did.
• 42:19
  The partnership wasn't working. It was time for me to go out on
• 42:21
  my own. And how long have you been on
• 42:24
  your own now? Since 2019, OK 6 1/2 years, it's
• 42:31
  been phenomenal. My I, I have experienced more
• 42:38
  joy, more what I would call success both personally,
• 42:44
  professionally, clients, family then I had experienced in the
• 42:52
  prior 14 years. So it's going pretty well.
• 42:57
  It's going pretty well. So you have a phrase for what
• 43:02
  most exit planners actually do. You call it exit planning
• 43:06
  Theater. Right.
• 43:09
  Walk me through that. What do you mean by that?
• 43:11
  So it, it's a great catch phrase.
• 43:15
  And for a founder and, and most founders, they're heads down in
• 43:21
  the business and at some point they look up and, and often
• 43:25
  times it can be something that forces them to look up a health
• 43:30
  issue, you know, divorce, disability, you name it.
• 43:36
  Or at some point they just, they just realize, you know, I don't,
• 43:40
  I don't have the energy for this anymore.
• 43:42
  And they look up and they're like, I got to get out of this
• 43:44
  business and you know, it's June.
• 43:47
  I got to make sure I get it done by the end of the year.
• 43:50
  And, and they'll, they'll be attracted to exit planning.
• 43:55
  It's like the flashing neon light.
• 43:58
  Let's just implement this framework and and we'll get this
• 44:02
  done. And many I want to be careful.
• 44:11
  Many of the exit planners that I came across really didn't
• 44:17
  understand what exit planning was about.
• 44:21
  What are they missing? What they're missing, Well,
• 44:26
  let's talk about first what they're focused on.
• 44:29
  They're focused on the transactional outcome because
• 44:34
  most of the exit planners that I met are financial advisors.
• 44:38
  So what this exit planning is for them is nothing more than a
• 44:45
  channel for capturing assets after the liquidity event.
• 44:53
  So this is a transaction. And by the way, the higher the
• 44:58
  transaction, the better because that means more assets for them
• 45:02
  to manage after the fact. Now I want to be careful that
• 45:08
  not all financial advisors work that way, but I would say by far
• 45:14
  the majority of financial advisors that I met that are
• 45:17
  exit planners, they are very much in that mode.
• 45:20
  And so explain the problem Rick of financial advisor slash exit
• 45:26
  planner wanting to maximize the value of the exit for the
• 45:29
  client. Yeah.
• 45:31
  So again, who can argue with the balance sheet, You know, if
• 45:37
  somebody gets a high transaction point and that financial advisor
• 45:43
  was part of the advisory circle and they end up managing a good
• 45:50
  significant, if not all of the portion of that wealth and
• 45:54
  they're generating that for the benefit of themselves and the
• 45:57
  client, who could argue with balance sheet on it.
• 46:00
  And yet all the things that we were talking about earlier about
• 46:05
  what's most impactful for the life of the client both if they
• 46:11
  do sell and after the sale is there, there is that is not part
• 46:18
  of the equation that financial analysis, that balance sheet
• 46:24
  viewpoint. So give us a specific example,
• 46:27
  Rick, of a trade off that can be made.
• 46:29
  I could have made an extra $1,000,000 but I chose not to
• 46:32
  because I got this instead out of the whole deal.
• 46:36
  Right. Well, a lot of it has to do with
• 46:38
  who's the buyer and is. Even though a financial buyer,
• 46:44
  let's say it's a third party sale and the financial buyer is
• 46:50
  offering the greatest transaction value, usually with
• 46:58
  a second bite of the apple. So they can even grow that
• 47:01
  further with a a, A roll up transaction down the road.
• 47:10
  What that leaves off the table is the potential buyer that is
• 47:15
  much more aligned with the culture of the business, is much
• 47:19
  more aligned with the employees having the a similar role and
• 47:27
  voice and experience in the business that they've had under
• 47:31
  the founder. And there are buyers out there
• 47:35
  that will absolutely acquire a business in that mode that are
• 47:43
  not looking to just stage this for the next trade up, which a
• 47:48
  lot of financial buyers that's the game is acquired a business
• 47:53
  improve the economics and trade it up because it's the larger
• 47:57
  the multiple, the greater the outcome.
• 48:01
  So Rick, when you talk about owners getting distracted by
• 48:06
  shiny objects that get in the way of the exit process, is that
• 48:10
  what you're talking about, the focus on the total cash value
• 48:14
  and that sales multiple? Yeah, certainly that that's
• 48:18
  probably the biggest shiny object.
• 48:21
  But then it's all the things that they begin to envision what
• 48:26
  that now will afford for them. And it could be, you know, it's
• 48:33
  it's this imagined life that they have of material success
• 48:39
  and fill in the blank. It could be anything.
• 48:45
  What are you seeing going on in the M and A market today?
• 48:50
  Well, at what? What?
• 48:53
  So there's several things. There were several things that
• 48:55
  were dynamics that were happening before we got to today
• 48:59
  that are important to understand.
• 49:03
  The middle market, let's say it's 200 million and up to about
• 49:08
  a billion. The middle market in my opinion
• 49:12
  has been bought out and that's where most of the acquisitions
• 49:19
  have happened coming out of the Great Recession and P ES have
• 49:26
  created acquisition platforms. And once those middle market
• 49:30
  companies were largely you know it became very saturated in
• 49:38
  terms of the people playing and that they began to push down
• 49:42
  into the lower middle market and looking for small add-ons for
• 49:46
  these platforms. So there is a lot of activity
• 49:52
  chasing it down kind of the size spectrum of these businesses and
• 50:03
  a lot of people and especially in a low interest rate
• 50:05
  environment, which we had up until just a little after COVID,
• 50:11
  a lot of money around or still a lot of dry powder around.
• 50:15
  But certainly back then it it made for some really
• 50:21
  unsustainable valuations. Unsustainable valuations now
• 50:27
  lead it into the current marketplace where, you know, the
• 50:30
  first big shock, and this is what killed the deal that that
• 50:34
  that I was helping our client on were tariffs.
• 50:39
  And, and it wasn't just the tariffs in of themselves, it was
• 50:44
  the uncertainty of what was tariff policy.
• 50:49
  How can we understand what this looks like going forward?
• 50:54
  And the uncertainty about that trade policy created a massive
• 51:01
  contraction, massive contraction both for people that, you know,
• 51:07
  a financial buyer does not like uncertainty because they're
• 51:12
  always planning for the downside risk.
• 51:15
  And with that uncertainty and trade policy, the downside risk
• 51:20
  premium became really expensive. So all of a sudden deals that
• 51:25
  looked reasonable before then became very re unreasonable
• 51:29
  afterwards. As I mentioned, there was a lot
• 51:34
  of money sitting on the sideline before.
• 51:37
  There's still a lot of money sitting on the sideline now.
• 51:41
  And PES are getting pressured to either place the money or the
• 51:50
  limited partners are pulling it back and so funds are getting a
• 51:54
  lot of pressure. So they are making acquisitions
• 51:58
  just for the sake of placing the money and not necessarily did
• 52:03
  the deal really justify the economics.
• 52:08
  And I've had a P/E representative tell me this is
• 52:11
  happening. He admitted that they are making
• 52:15
  crappy acquisitions just to close out a fund so they can
• 52:19
  keep the limited partnerships happy and open up the new fund.
• 52:23
  And get their fees. And get their fees.
• 52:26
  Get their management fees. Wow.
• 52:29
  So I want to better understand what kind of levers you're able
• 52:34
  to help your clients pull. What are some of the things?
• 52:39
  Maybe pick pick a specific client, don't give us the name
• 52:42
  or any identifying information and tell us here was the
• 52:45
  situation. Here's what I was able to do.
• 52:47
  Here was the after effect. Yeah.
• 52:52
  The, the one that that comes to mind the most is when I worked
• 52:57
  on probably about 10 years ago and it was a partnership.
• 53:00
  I actually was brought into the partnership not to help with
• 53:06
  growth strategy, not to help with exit planning.
• 53:09
  It was conflict resolution. And I was referred in there by
• 53:14
  by one of my strategic partners, you know, marketing partners in
• 53:18
  in the marketplace that said, hey, these guys are about to
• 53:22
  lawyer up and sue each other and we think that's going to be a
• 53:26
  really bad thing. Can can you go in and help them
• 53:29
  before they they do that? So I just said, look, don't know
• 53:33
  if I can be any impact at all. So, but let's give it a shot.
• 53:37
  And, and I went in and did it, you know, kind of my, my
• 53:41
  assessment sat down with the with the owners and what it was
• 53:48
  probably more than anything about was helping them re
• 53:51
  contract what their expectations were with each other and what
• 53:55
  they were trying to build. And it was just a matter of one
• 53:58
  thing leading to another that led to OK, if this is truly what
• 54:03
  we want to build and, and we've re kind of re contracted with
• 54:07
  the with each other, where we see each other in the business,
• 54:13
  then what does that strategy look like?
• 54:15
  And, and it just rolled into a strategy engagement.
• 54:19
  And then it, it was a matter of they saw that their plan early
• 54:26
  on was to exit. They're very clear about this is
• 54:30
  they it, and it was, it was a healthcare business and they saw
• 54:34
  where the market was going. It's like we don't get out,
• 54:37
  we're going to get crushed. So they just happened to be
• 54:44
  approached by a, a large private equity firm that was rolling up
• 54:51
  their types of businesses and they said, how do we approach
• 54:56
  this? Now I, I was not a lead on that.
• 54:59
  This was early on when I was doing this work.
• 55:02
  And, but I, I, I played a role in helping them really kind of
• 55:06
  strategize how they approach this.
• 55:08
  And we brought some resources to the table to really help them
• 55:12
  think this through. And the, the outcome, while it
• 55:16
  wasn't perfect in terms of some of the other things we were
• 55:19
  talking about in terms of, you know, purpose and, and what
• 55:24
  does, did they really achieve what they thought they would
• 55:27
  achieve For one of the partners? Absolutely.
• 55:31
  For one of the other partners, he still acknowledges.
• 55:34
  I, I miss that sense of uncertainty that made sure that
• 55:40
  I was bringing everything I needed to bring to the table
• 55:43
  that day. And so while he certainly got
• 55:48
  the payoff in, in, in the balance sheet, in the bank
• 55:51
  account, he, he misses that. Like that sense of uncertainty
• 55:57
  was how how we missed that dynamic.
• 56:00
  The other partner was like, man, I get everything I needed.
• 56:03
  I'm living life right now. What?
• 56:04
  Do you mean that sense of what do you mean by that sense of
• 56:07
  uncertainty? You just talk about the thrill
• 56:09
  of the chase and having to figure something out.
• 56:11
  Is that what you mean? OK, Yeah.
• 56:12
  When, when it's, it's high stakes is we don't know how this
• 56:15
  is going to go. And, and I, I think it's, it's,
• 56:21
  it's, it's a bit paradoxical that the, the thing that we
• 56:28
  chase ultimately, I say we collectively, you know, in our
• 56:34
  business culture is we want that certainty in that payoff that
• 56:38
  undermines the very thing that was kept us motivated and
• 56:44
  ambitious to drive and build this business.
• 56:48
  And that doesn't go away, that need for that.
• 56:53
  Yeah, it's how some of us are wired.
• 56:56
  It's how some it's it's the people that are successful.
• 56:59
  It's the blessing and the curse of being a high performer that
• 57:04
  doesn't go away once that transaction is finalized.
• 57:10
  Rick, I'm going to ask my favorite question in the
• 57:12
  interview, but I wonder if we've already hit upon it the hardest
• 57:15
  thing you've ever had to overcome personally and what it
• 57:18
  taught you. So I, I have a few ways of
• 57:28
  looking at this. Probably the, the first thing
• 57:31
  that comes to mind is, is starting my advisory business
• 57:36
  back in 2005. I mean, here we're here was the
• 57:41
  reality is I'm I'm the sole, always have been the sole income
• 57:46
  earner. And at the time, so my early
• 57:49
  40s, I had a wife and three kids at home.
• 57:55
  I had a mortgage to pay, all that stuff.
• 57:59
  And yet I had this deep conviction about what I wanted
• 58:05
  to create, what I wanted to build, so much so that I pulled
• 58:09
  $100,000 out of my HELOC and said, let's go.
• 58:15
  And it started out smoking and, and then I, I learned the
• 58:22
  invaluable lesson of, you know, getting business is actually not
• 58:29
  the hardest thing to do. Getting repeat business now that
• 58:33
  becomes really interesting repeat business that you can
• 58:37
  anticipate, that you can create value for and and and and, and
• 58:44
  begin to plan on. It took a few years to get there
• 58:48
  and this was between 2005 to 2008.
• 58:52
  I had what I call my surrender moments in late 2007 when I had
• 58:58
  lost my second client. I was down to just probably
• 59:03
  income at about just over 1000 bucks a month and expenses a
• 59:09
  whole lot more than that. So, you know, it doesn't take a
• 59:12
  genius to do that math. And it was really stressful on
• 59:20
  my marriage. You know, my wife and I were in
• 59:23
  counseling and I had this kind of moment where it was like, OK,
• 59:28
  I think I'm losing the business. I may be losing my marriage and
• 59:34
  I sure as hell going to lose the house and all this.
• 59:37
  I'm not sure what else I can lose.
• 59:40
  And I'm down on my knees just weeping like, OK, God, I don't
• 59:51
  know what else to do. I don't know what else to do.
• 59:56
  So I call it that surrender moment.
• 59:59
  Because what do you do? What's the next thing you do
• 1:00:02
  when you're kneeling down on the ground?
• 1:00:07
  You get out. That's the only next thing to
• 1:00:11
  do. And that became kind of the kind
• 1:00:19
  of the the analogy for where I was in the business, I had no
• 1:00:26
  choice but to get up and I began doing some planning that I'd
• 1:00:35
  never done before. And the phone started the ring.
• 1:00:42
  So what were the levers that you were pulling when you So I love
• 1:00:46
  this story, right? You got on your knees you're
• 1:00:49
  praying for. I don't, I'm broken.
• 1:00:50
  I'm lost. I don't know what to do.
• 1:00:52
  No idea. I I surrender.
• 1:00:55
  And then the only thing that you can do once you've been down on
• 1:00:57
  your knees other than just fall down on your face and not you
• 1:01:01
  got back up. Yeah.
• 1:01:03
  But then what started to change? What were what were you doing to
• 1:01:07
  affect that change? So there's, if you kind of, I
• 1:01:18
  don't know what you called colloquialisms that come to
• 1:01:23
  mind. I worked with a guy we had
• 1:01:26
  acquired a business in, in, in, in the manufacturing business.
• 1:01:29
  We'd acquired a small competitor and he was a guy that grew up in
• 1:01:32
  Debenge, North Dakota, Country boy.
• 1:01:36
  Never heard of it. It's got to be if it's in North
• 1:01:39
  Dakota, it's small and even small.
• 1:01:42
  In the middle of nowhere and he said and it's really cold in the
• 1:01:46
  winter time. He said, Rick, he goes, you
• 1:01:49
  learn pretty quickly. There's a few simple things that
• 1:01:52
  you do to keep yourself alive. And one of them is you make sure
• 1:01:57
  the wood pile is higher than when you started today.
• 1:02:04
  And I, I, I thought of that and I still think about that because
• 1:02:10
  at the time when I got myself up the ground is like, what do I
• 1:02:14
  need to do? Whether I think this is going to
• 1:02:17
  make a difference or not? What do I need to do to make
• 1:02:21
  sure I did everything to lead the woodpile higher at the end
• 1:02:26
  of the day than when I started. And you know, at that point, the
• 1:02:31
  business when you're still trying to get, you know, it's a
• 1:02:34
  real estate world calls the sphere building the sphere is
• 1:02:39
  you got it. It's all outbound.
• 1:02:42
  And I, I just started calling people and having really
• 1:02:47
  inexpensive coffee dates. I couldn't afford much.
• 1:02:53
  And it was just conversation after conversation.
• 1:02:56
  And you know that that led to one of the channel partners I
• 1:03:04
  developed. They were an HR company and they
• 1:03:08
  were interested in having somebody come in and do some
• 1:03:10
  training on leadership and what not.
• 1:03:13
  So I started doing training seminars for free or next to
• 1:03:17
  free and, and I started getting phone calls from that that, you
• 1:03:24
  know, somebody sat in on a seminar.
• 1:03:26
  It's like, you know, I really liked how you did this.
• 1:03:28
  Would you come in and do this for my team or Hey, I'm, I'm
• 1:03:31
  having this issue or whatever. It was a variety of and that
• 1:03:35
  that just created began a snowball.
• 1:03:39
  Love that. What do you most be want to be
• 1:03:42
  remembered for in the work that you're doing now I.
• 1:03:48
  I think what's, what's most important to me is that I had a
• 1:03:55
  meaningful relationship with the client that I could literally
• 1:04:01
  walk away from that engagement and whether it was continuing or
• 1:04:04
  not and say I made a friend and we made a friend with each
• 1:04:09
  other. And, and I'm grateful for that
• 1:04:15
  friendship because to me, it's, it's I, I, I, I, I had the
• 1:04:21
  blessed opportunity now to pick and choose a business that I
• 1:04:24
  engage with. And while there's certain
• 1:04:28
  requirements that I have in terms of is it something I
• 1:04:33
  haven't done before or close enough that it's still a
• 1:04:36
  challenge, but a lot of it has to do with who's, who are the
• 1:04:41
  people on the other side of the table?
• 1:04:43
  Are these people I want to know? And if there's not that
• 1:04:49
  opportunity, I said no to the largest project I've ever said
• 1:04:53
  no to last year. And it was, I still wonder about
• 1:04:58
  it and it and the person across the table, great person, but the
• 1:05:02
  company was not the type of company that I felt like.
• 1:05:06
  Yeah, it's it, it, it may look good on the website, but really,
• 1:05:12
  is it something that I really feel good about?
• 1:05:15
  I, I couldn't, I couldn't really answer that for myself, so I
• 1:05:19
  said no. Was it just the wrong industry
• 1:05:21
  or something else there? Yeah, there is it it.
• 1:05:25
  It would be difficult to describe it and and and not and
• 1:05:29
  not say too much, but just just not enough, not enough of the
• 1:05:34
  right things to say. Hey, this is real.
• 1:05:36
  A really good fit for both of us.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  Rick, I've just got one more question for you today.
• 1:05:42
  But before I ask it, I want to do 3 quick things for the First
• 1:05:47
  of all, if you want to get in touch with Rick Thomas, his
• 1:05:50
  website very easy to remember, First genadvisors.net, First
• 1:05:55
  genadvisors.net. You can also find him on
• 1:05:59
  LinkedIn, Rick Thomas First Generation Advisors.
• 1:06:03
  And we'll have links to both of those things in the show notes.
• 1:06:05
  Thank. You, if you're enjoying the show
• 1:06:07
  today, hey, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you're
• 1:06:11
  listening. It also sends a signal that
• 1:06:13
  helps others discover our podcast.
• 1:06:15
  So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
• 1:06:19
  And as a reminder, you can be the advisor that delivers a huge
• 1:06:23
  value add by showing your clients how to give their
• 1:06:26
  employees access to therapist, doctors and prescription meds
• 1:06:29
  that counter intuitively increases their net profits,
• 1:06:33
  real gains that can change how a business is valued.
• 1:06:37
  So contact us today at adbackbenefits.com.
• 1:06:40
  So Rick, last question for you. A year from now, what is 1 very
• 1:06:43
  specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
• 1:06:49
  Well, I'll keep it simple from one perspective.
• 1:06:53
  I I heard it said once that every day this side of the
• 1:06:57
  pavement is a good day. So a year from now, if I'm still
• 1:07:01
  this side of the pavement. As long as you're not pushing up
• 1:07:05
  daisies, you're a happy guy, huh?
• 1:07:07
  Yeah, yeah. So aside from that, so I, I, one
• 1:07:15
  of my business challenges that I challenged myself with is how to
• 1:07:21
  continue to grow this business and yet allocate less time to it
• 1:07:28
  every week. And so when, when I had my 60th
• 1:07:35
  birthday, I went to, I gave myself the gift of a four day
• 1:07:39
  work week. And when I get to my 65th
• 1:07:45
  birthday, I'm going to give myself the gift of a three day
• 1:07:48
  work week. And yet that doesn't mean that
• 1:07:53
  I'm shrinking the business. I still expect to grow the
• 1:07:56
  business. But how I do the business and
• 1:08:01
  the tools and the systems and processes and the thinking about
• 1:08:05
  how I go about that, I want that to be exponential, even though
• 1:08:11
  it doesn't consume me more time. So a year from now I would like
• 1:08:15
  to be much further down the road in succeeding in that effort.
• 1:08:19
  What does that look like? Bringing in more consultants?
• 1:08:23
  Is this like turning it into digital courses?
• 1:08:25
  What you offer? Yeah, no, it's it's.
• 1:08:30
  So I'll just say I have been spending the better part of this
• 1:08:34
  last year on learning how to build AI agents.
• 1:08:37
  And so I have built a number of AI agents that are in my domain
• 1:08:46
  and allow me to be so much more efficient with the business.
• 1:08:51
  That's exciting. We should have led with that.
• 1:08:54
  That's fun stuff. We're going to have to have you
• 1:08:56
  back on and do a follow up episode on that.
• 1:09:00
  Hey, Rick Thomas from First Generation Advisors.
• 1:09:02
  I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
• 1:09:05
  and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being
• 1:09:08
  here. Yeah, too.
• 1:09:09
  It was a lot of fun. I appreciate the questions and
• 1:09:12
  and and the discussion. Folks, that's a wrap on another
• 1:09:15
  episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 1:09:17
  Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
• 1:09:20
  that into action today.