EXPERIENCE 194 | Building Predictable Systems for Growth and Pushing Through Revenue Plateaus - A Conversation with Brian Kerlin, Founder and CEO of Optitude and Creator of the Optitude Growth Academy

Brian Kerlin had a successful sales career of over 2 decades when the first cornerstones of Optitude were laid, and he became enamored with the entrepreneurial lifestyle while dating his now-wife, who had a successful professional services company - but was struggling to build the systems for predictable growth.  Brian helped her discover and overcome those challenges to growth, and soon started sharing his insights with her entrepreneurial friends.  He continued in his corporate sales role for many seasons while also volunteering for Denver Startup Week and incubators in Boulder and Fort Collins, including Innosphere. 

Brian launched Optitude in 2018, and is focused on helping professional services companies grow from the place of the founder being the primary rainmaker - usually up to $1MM annual revenues - and grow toward middle market scale and systems and push through the revenue plateau that often hinders growth and hampers morale.  

Brian chose the name Optitude as a hybrid of optimization and attitude, and if you can get those ingredients right, you’ll be ready to grow.  He shares abundantly from his experience and principles during this conversation, and perhaps the best part is the unfolding realization that “Hey, I’ve got something here that I can turn into a business!” and then hitting the ground running to bring value to the market.  There are abundant insights in this conversation for anyone who cares about predictable revenue growth, and so I hope you join me and enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Brian Kerlin. 

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Transcript

2:03

Let's have some fun. Welcome to the Low Cove Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome to the Low Cove Experience Podcast. Welcome to the Welcome back to the loco experience podcast. My guest today is Brian Kurland and Brian is the founder and CEO of Optitude. Hey Kurt. Thanks. Appreciate you having me, man. Thanks for making time. Yeah. It's great to be here. You're uh, you're in the foothills outside of Boulder or something. Is that what I remember you saying? No, no, we're in Denver. Yeah. We're in Denver proper. Okay. Yeah. In Denver proper, not too far from, um, Wash Park. Okay. Platte Park area. So you get a long drive back home after this. Yeah. I'll be, uh, I like, uh, we come to Fort Collins a bunch for, uh, client work. So I'm, uh, I'm up here today for that. And then I have a dinner tonight, so I'm a big fan of Fort Collins. Yeah. So, so you can have more than one margarita if you want to. Going to dinner after this anyway. Anything's, yeah, anything's possible. We're only a couple, I think a couple blocks from Main Street, right? Yeah. Yeah. You could easy walk there. Yeah. You leave your car parked here, get home later. Perfect. Yeah. So, um, for listeners that haven't heard about aptitude, do you wanna just give us a quick, uh, description of. What y'all do? Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Um, Optitude was, was founded, uh, almost seven years ago, a little over six and a half, uh, 2018. And, uh, the purpose of fat of the founding of the company, uh, was really to focus on helping second stage companies between 1 million and 10 million. Build a more predictable system for growth. So build their capacity for growth. And what that really means is, um, how do they take. Uh, business as the founder of an existing business, take themselves and replicate the process of acquiring new customers or essentially growing from a revenue standpoint, um, and doing it in a predictable way. And we founded the company with helping solve problems, mostly for professional service firms or serve or firms that have expertise that they're selling a service or plumbers or, but also consultants, things like that, engineers. Yeah. Engineers, it consultants, marketing agencies, more white collar professional services. When I gotcha. Yeah, exactly. And the reason is because those individuals that started their company or started their firm, uh, have an expertise in their particular field, but didn't. And not often have a particular expertise in growing their business. How do I acquire new customers except the relationship that I have with people that referrals. And that's only goes so far. And then that kind of plateaus, it's like the, the charisma. And the capabilities of that, of that founder, creator, uh, takes it so far. And then now you're plateaued because nobody else can really make it rain. Yeah, you got it. That's a great way to describe it. Like we just, we talk about that challenge is you start as a rainmaker and the rainmaker or the founder, the CEO is, or the principal, whatever the term is used in that particular firm. They get to a certain point and then they want to go, um, you know, bring out other people to help expand the business, but they've never really systematized it, never built a process. And so unfortunately they've, we've heard some horror stories. They go out and hire some people in the, in a particular role and they don't have that figured out behind the scenes in this particular role. These individuals come in and they usually fall flat. Usually they're not prepared to sell it because it isn't prepared for somebody else to sell it. Bingo. Definitely a challenge I've found with, with Loco Think Tank. Um, you know, we've talked about it a little bit before, but just like one of the challenges for me is if I had a sales rep out there selling Loco Think Tank, well, they're going to think everybody's a good fit for Loco Think Tank, but not everybody is, you know? And so there's this potential. Instant tension between me and my sales rep. Cause if I don't let somebody into my club or they don't make it into a chapter, well, then I was taking food off the table of this salesperson. Yeah, totally. And so, yeah, anyway, have you had that experience? I mean, cause it's, it's common. There's a, there's somebody hired at some point in the growth of that organization. And then there is this conflict that happens to that individual and the, uh, Lightly, I mean, I think when we first really got connected, it was about this time last year. And at that time I was hiring a, a business development person. And, and yeah, a couple of the first people that he thought were a great fit for membership at local think tank. Once I connected, I was like, they're like a minority owner. Like, they're not even the decider for the business. Like, Oh, but the decider is he's not even active. Well, the There's still the decider, you know, and so we just had some, you know, immediate friction and then it was like, well, why am I even going to go try to sell this if you're going to say no? Yeah. And so it's an interesting thing, but I guess that's everybody, right? Like whether it's a architecture firm or, you know, not every customer is for every. Oh, yeah. Nail in the head. I mean, we talk about it, um, in the programs we offer in the, in the consulting we do is that it's a term probably people have heard a lot, a lot in business building is that at this stage of company, uh, that we work with is second, second stage is do they really have a defined ideal customer, ideal customer profile? A lot of times the answer we get is no, that there's this figment of whom it is that they want to serve. But then we like to believe like there's a whole set of other layers underneath it. That ideal is something that you can replicate from a previous customer that you've have, and then understand the nuances about what are the real problems? What are the, keeps them up at night? Can you define that individual? For example, we, um, uh, had a recent client we worked with that they built not only their ideal customer, they, they, they legitimized it by having a first name, that the, it was a design firm, the individual, they refer to it, uh, that individual as Mary and Mary is a, um, lead, Kind of, I guess, I guess you'd say a lead of a, um, independent, uh, kind of housing community and that individual manages the entire community. This was their customer. And so Mary had a particular set of problems and Mary's problems were about. Uniqueness of the environment that we're going to design for Mary and for the people that lived in that community. This is like a older living community or something along that line. Yeah, you got it. So she's got like 60 rooms or something to buy design stuff from if she likes it. And she's very motivated to have current edgy designs because that's how Mary can sell that property over the period. Other ones. You got it. How do you differentiate? How do you kind of understand that? And Mary was stuck with the fact that first of all, who was her competition? What kept her up at night is, well, you, you hinted to one of the things, well, how do I get residents to join and be a part of this community? Um, but this, this design firm worked very diligently to figure out. What are all those particular nuances? And then that ideal customer is more defined. So when they quote unquote show up at the front door as a potential client, they can be very black and white to be objective as, is it a potential customer for us? And that's just not the work that most, firms that level have done, they tend to get to a certain level and then they, they think they have an adult customer, but that work really is the next stage. How did you get interested in this particular niche? If you will, um, did you work in firms that got stuck at that million dollar range or something and finally conquered it or like really curious? My background. Yeah. I guess in a lot of ways I've been in business development and sales for almost two and a half decades. Okay. So I mean, it's my expertise. You're older than you look, right? Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. It's always good to be in that stage where you hit the ground where like. How old? How old? You know, so, so, uh, I feel good about that. It's probably jeans. My Irish jeans. There you go. Uh, but yeah. So because I had so much background in it, I've, I'm passionate about, I think revenue is the lifeblood of any organization. And the only way you generate revenue is to acquire new customers or new clients or new, you know, new, uh, new members, depending on what your business is. So number one, I understand from that perspective. The second is you've got to be able to build that process. And then what I did in my second or third phase of my career, and that's, and that was build teams that were selling and how do you align those individuals to accomplish those goals for organizations. And then lucky enough through my friend group, and now my wife, Um, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that I've, uh, become friends with, including, I said, I man, uh, married now, a now wife at the time was my girlfriend, uh, had been an entrepreneur and still is for almost two decades. And I watched her go through that exact same challenge. Is she in the professional services space too? She is. Okay. And so it was very clear to me, uh, watching her with her, her level of expertise. Uh, figure out how to navigate to a certain level. And then for moments in time, realized the frustration, she could not see her dream become reality, which is building something very, um, unique in a marketplace and grow significantly to have the kind of impact she and her team does, uh, wants to do. And, you know, it became so easy for me to get excited about it because, you know, one is my wife and two is like, Hey, listen, if I can help her solve that problem. Then it'll help unlock her opportunity for her future dreams. So you were working at some other job kind of thing while she's kind of struggling to scale, turn that corner from one to whatever million and kind of thing. And, and did you start building the toolkit then? Did you work together on the problem or just? You just watched her struggle. No, we worked together. Yeah, man. I mean, I don't know how it is in other people's married lives. Yeah, I absolutely would collaborated with her. Um, cause she, you know, again, she was an entrepreneur business owner before. I think it was, well, you had been a sales representative type, which is what she needed, but. What do those people need from her first? Exactly. And so I, we, we sat down and really worked through and talked about the challenge and how that challenge showed up for her and then, yeah, we started to script out, like, what are the tools? What are the processes? How do you create the checklists? And then through that, it started to expand to other people that were in my network that needed that same work and therefore founded Optitude to kind of do that more as a, as a business. Oh, so you were kind of doing some of this work as a, Uh, side hustle for a while, you know, built some tools that she could use. Exactly. Yeah, you can use this. That's right. Uh, were you, like, is this, uh, from scratch omelet, uh, or did you go through any kind of a coaching federation training or anything like that? Probably a little bit of this, a little bit of that, or? Yeah, no, I think it's, it's pretty much my own kind of education, I guess, self taught. A little batter game room up here kind of thing? Yeah, I guess. I meant. I probably had enough of two areas of expertise. One, the area of expertise relative to sales and business development, understanding sales process, understanding how to acquire customers, had so much of that knowledge and training through my previous, uh, business life. Sure. And then in, um, working with her and other founders and business owners, It was like, I think you just learn from helping people solve problems. Um, now clearly I've read a ton of books, you know, been a part of, um, mentor groups and, and those types of environments. Um, I, I was in the early days. Well, I don't know how early it was. I think it might've been 15 years into Denver startup week, uh, where I was down there. Someone Uh, turn me on to like, Hey, you should spend time in this community because this is how businesses get built. So, I guess I should say, in reference to that, I learned frameworks by going to mentor, um, groups. For example, there was an early, uh, group called 101010, um, a gentleman in Denver that started this group that brought in founders and CEOs to help them solve problems. Uh, big problems. Essentially the concept is try to figure out how to solve 10 problems in 10 days and create 10 companies, i. e. the 10, 10, 10 kind of thing. That was the moniker there. And then I was lucky enough to be able to go volunteer at, um, incubators and startup communities like Boomtown and right here in a sphere in Fort Collins. Just to get an understanding to your point, like what is the framework needed to start and build a business that is more systematic and programmatic versus ideas on a wall, put that out in the market and hope, you know, the hope strategy, which it doesn't really work. Um, and that's kind of where I started to foundationally build, uh, the tools for off the team. Um, Where did you pick the name? Yeah, good question. It's really a kind of amalgamation between Optumize, which is, you know, you think about a business getting to a certain level, you need to generate more consistent revenue and that's optimizing your ability to do that. And then we believe at Optitude, you also have to have the correct mindset. So an attitude, so optimize an attitude is Optitude. Um, because if, if a founder doesn't have the right attitude on understanding, they have to be a constant learner and ability to develop, uh, we can, we've noticed in our own business, it run into a lot of, a lot of roadblocks. So that's how we, that's how we developed the name. Um, And did I ask you this before, but have you, uh, connected with the true space people at all? Yeah, I definitely know, uh, the groups that work in kind of that same segment and with the same logic really is kind of, if you can predict your revenues and then execute, then you can grow your company. Yeah. I mean, there's, uh, there's a lot of companies in the space. Um, yeah, they kind of, they focus on that. I mean, I think the original framework, um, came from the Kauffman foundation. And just general, like, how do you build businesses or how to build, so started. Uh, but I am familiar with the true space group. They were a client of mine, uh, in my earliest days of building aptitude. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I'm fond of, well, yeah, cause they got to sell that and nobody knows what the hell they're selling. Yeah, I mean, Because it was kind of built on theory for a while, it seems, and now it's quite a framework and program that they've built, too. Yeah, they have a really, um, impressive framework. I don't know much about it. I just know a few folks that have been kind of through it or around it kind of thing. Yeah, I'm a big fan of what they've done, what I think they're continuing to do, um, They have, you know, build it around the concept of a ton of research, which I think is, uh, is fascinating. If you, if you get a chance, I think, uh, people that are in business building should definitely check out what they're doing and, and how they're, how they're doing it. Yeah. Um, would you like to like give away some free knowledge to listeners that maybe are finding themselves? space of growth has slowed because the founder is spread too thin, other than obviously call you and go through a, uh, a fitness program with aptitude kind of thing, but, um, is there some core principles that people should be thinking about at the heart of it? Yeah, I think so. I mean, our, I meant the foundation of how aptitude, uh, What started around the point of view of the inside up principle, the inside of principle has two major factors that you cannot, uh, the belief is you cannot grow a business consistently and predictably over time, unless you have consistent performance and consistent capacity growth. For example, if you only have performance as in you're generating revenue, you're increasing customer acquisition, you're starting to move people through the pipeline, et cetera. But the capacity of the business and the leader, the founder is not growing at the same pace. One will outpace the other. And when that usually happens, what it feels like inside of an organization is what people describe as chaotic. Is that the founder is trying to do the rainmaking, run the business, deliver the service, or a small group, small team of people are trying to do that. The performance starts to kind of outpace the capacity. And then it feels like maybe the wheels on the bus are starting to shake or, you know, you feel like you're going way too fast. You almost need a governor. If you know what I mean? Like control the speed. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of relative to performance, right? If those strategy systems and practices are not consistent. then you'll get to a challenge where the capacity, or excuse me, when the strategy system practices are consistent, but the capacity is not there, it'll feel uncomfortable. And so founders will feel like it's out of control. Yeah. Right? So that's one side. On the capacity side is that the founders, like I got it really organized. I have a little bit of the strategy system practices built, but I haven't figured out how to remove myself. From the situation, which is they're the bottleneck. What I mean by that is like, Oh, you know, like for example, maybe in your business, like, Oh gosh, everyone knows Kurt. So the referrals all go to Kurt. They all go through Kurt. Everyone wants to talk to Kurt. And I mean, let's be honest. I mean, I know you're superhuman. You're a lot of expertise, charismatic, lovely to look at and who doesn't want people to reach out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very flattery. Yeah, it is. Cause that's, I mean, it's obviously a big part of starting a business. You want to make a personal impact, but. When that happens, we see that, uh, capacity's there. It's starting to be there, but. The performance, et cetera, isn't, isn't consistent. And so one just has to happen at the same time as the other. We call it the inside out principle. They have to happen simultaneously. Okay. Performance and capacity have to grow together. Oh, and so all of our foundational work is built around that. So that's a few insights into our point of view. Fair enough. Um, but we, I, I can obviously share other things. Sure. Yeah. Well, I did, I, have we talked about my t shirt that I, that I gave to my members last year? No, tell me about it. Uh, it just says, I am the bottleneck on the front in the shape of a wine bottle. Is that right? Uh, yeah, upside down wine bottle looking thing. And then on the back it says, but I'm working on it. Loco Think Tank. That's so funny. You know, and we're not obviously nearly as programmatic. It's more about, you know, Solving the challenge in front of you. And some are, you know, there, some have figured it out and some have not. And so, uh, that's the hope, but we should definitely get you, uh, into some of our chapters. Cause sometimes we have a lot of the same philosophies. I've got lots of brains in a group and a good leader. Yeah. You've got lots of. Experience and concentration of kind of best practice on revenue team building and foundation building. Yeah, I'd be great. That's the main heart of your focus. Like operations and HR a little bit, but only as it goes to hiring the right people to go to. So you got it. Yeah. Yeah. We have our expertise in the business development sales process, um, strategies relative to growth from acquiring customers. That's our expertise. Um, but yeah, I think, I mean, I've, I'm a big fan, obviously what you and your, uh, your group have been doing, uh, from a distance, like I said, we got introduced to each other a little over a year ago, but learning more about. the community that you've built. I, and I'm always a fan, obviously that people that build communities around business owners, um, we have a, you know, a little bit of a smaller community relative to Optitude, but we, we have the same belief, right? Which is bringing like minded people together to work together that are, Um, trusted kind of entrepreneur colleagues or not in the same business, but just in the same, uh, mental framework, we're trying to get a special place in the world. It is right. You know, there's only what, what probably one 10th of 1 percent of people are actively growing a business. Enterprise that they're responsible for growing right now. It's crazy than that. The numbers are, yeah, I think you're right. One in a hundred thousand or something or one, maybe not that few, but, but one in 10, 000 or something, it's, it's low. I mean, I think the percentages, I don't know if, um, this is a hundred percent accurate, but I think it's. Uh, directionally accurate. I think the success rate of any business gets started after 10 years is almost 96, 97 percent of those businesses fail after 10 years. So to your point, like you want to get around people that can help you learn faster, you can solve problems together. More than likely might've even seen the problem that you're trying to solve. And listen, man, not, not, we don't believe all the problems are related to business development and growth. There's, There's operations, there's delivery, there's mark, you know, just headspace of the founder, owner and the team. Do you get into the marketing space much with your clients then to kind of making sure the marketing and the sales work together? We do. Yeah. We don't, we don't do marketing. We have firms that, um, that are part of our partnership group that we can, uh, introduce to those individuals. We don't. Execute marketing, but we do talk about, uh, messaging and, you know, how does that messaging line up to your ideal customer? And is that messaging, what channels are you using to try to communicate with those particular prospects? Uh, we also And even is your marketing department generating sufficient leads for your sales department to, to, uh, be successful. Yeah, that's just a foundational element that we use even in the earliest days of talking to prospective clients for Optitude. We have two different ways we get into that discussion that are related to, is your system work? Is your lead generation system working? We don't use that term. We tend to talk about, are you growth ready? So, uh, you know, if people go to our website, they're up in the right hand corner, it says, uh, ask that question. It says, are you growth ready? You're ready for growth. And what we're trying to call out is if the answer is I'm not sure, then it's a quick way it's it takes five minutes. There's 16 questions. And the questions are very much geared towards the things we're talking about. And, um, I took the test. Oh yeah. My score wasn't very high. Uh, right. Probably mostly because so much is still relies on me and remains to be built out for any other business development person to really be successful. You got it. Yeah. And that effort, I forgot you took it. Yeah. I mean, the part, the point of it is try to illuminate in your, in your mind as a founder is like. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the answer. And then if I don't know the answer, then I probably don't have a process behind it, which isn't to isn't to, um, call out the founder. It's more to elevate the awareness. So create awareness about how am I thinking about growth? And then obviously, there's a report and that report demonstrates some of the things you'd be thinking about. And then when you're ready, as your particular growth journey as a business owner, then you can figure out, do I want to build that now? And if so, do I work with someone like Aptitude or I'd build it on my own? All those options are available to me. Yeah. Interesting. Um, excuse me. Yeah. Um, where was I going next? I had a question in mind. What would you like to tell me about, uh, it. Your clients like, Oh, I meant, I mean, I think like you can probably, we can probably align on this for sure. Um, I just got the bug for working with business owners and entrepreneurs. I think you were already starting to elude this. It's just the energy about people that start something because they care deeply about what they're trying to solve, fill in the blank business, right? They solve problems for X and then, um, how much they're willing to roll their sleeves up and, uh, and I don't want to, I don't want to say it's a sacrifice, but there's a lot of. Things that are going on behind the scenes to build a business. A lot of employees think that the owner has things really easy, you know, especially in the, not the small, but the second stage kind of environment. Oh, you know, such and such, he drives a BMW and a lot, a lot of owners don't even do that, but, but I mean, they, they're like, Oh, he's got all these employees. You must be just an easy thing to do. And it's, it's. Usually they've taken some lumps, uh, to get there. Was your wife, uh, an entrepreneur already when you met her or did she start that? She was, I mean, she's actually, you know, I've said this publicly a lot. She's the inspiration for me starting Optitude. I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, just because she, talk about mindset, right? So she had in the earliest days, um, pretty much, That one other job and then she's pretty much knew she wanted to work for herself. Yeah, and you know two decades of being an entrepreneur in today's world I would I would argue it would have been that much harder because things that we know that are making it easier like all the technology that we could sit for hours and talk about the ability for to use the internet as a way to distribute your knowledge Product. Yeah, your products or service. Um, it was just, you know, talk about brick and mortar, knocking on doors, picking up the phone. I mean, it was that type of work. Uh, so when I see people that have built businesses in those stages, not taking anything away from anyone that does it now, I'm just very inspired by those individuals. She happened to be that person. And through all the stuff that she had learned, and, and knew that she's still had challenges. You know, why wouldn't I want to help her? Number one is because she's my wife and, uh, I just feel that committed to her in, in, in not only my personal life, but in professional life. Do you guys still do stuff together in that way? Yeah. I have to say, I mean, you know, it's going to sound like card carrying, but she is a client of optitudes, her business and, uh, you know, I'm very proud of that because of all the reasons I just spoke about it is watching her business grow and, um. Talk to me about some of the different ways that clients engage with you. Is it like a boot camp, an intensive, extended stay? Yeah, exactly. Well, in the earliest days, uh, I think a lot, like a lot of consultants, we started as more of a fractional, um, you know, consultancy. And so that was me working in the earliest days with, with clients. Uh, 10 hours a week for four different companies kind of thing. Yeah. You put a shingle out there and you have framework as we talked about have framework and templates and ideas. And then once you kind of realize that that that's successful, uh, just like how we instruct companies, we had to grow it, right? So we went from one to one to one to many, and one to many for us, um, was a live, um, an academy, a live CEO. Academy, we call it the opt two Growth Academy or, okay. Um, refer to as the OGA. Okay. Yeah. To keep it short. And, uh, we, we did that, uh, a little over two, little over two years ago and did it with a number of founders, as we all know, live and virtual. So it was live as it was, uh, scheduled time, but it was over. Zoom. Okay. Yeah. And we had clients from all around the country. We actually had our first international client, so the time zones were very odd, but that individual was up, uh, early, early the morning. So yeah, and, and, and, and went through the program and, uh, we were excited about their ability to grow their business as a consultancy. Uh, they're in the risk management. Is that your primary offering now then? Is the one to many or you do both still? We do both. And then we can refer to the kind of the. The, uh, time and materials are the fractional role, very much VIP. And what I mean by that is that there, there's a high bar for someone to get into that group if they are interested in that type of very hands-on, um, bespoke type of work. Yep. For all the obvious reasons, it takes more resources for us to deliver. Sure. On the other hand, um, that is not our, that is not our major. Uh, focus, as far as delivery, our major focuses really are either live and virtual, which is one time a year or our on demand program. So we've taken the entire academy and you can, uh, sign up for it a couple of times a year when we promote it and then join the academy, get all the same materials, all the same training. It's just, um, you go through a self serve style instead of. Be there together. Bingo. Yeah. We still have a community. It's just online. So people communicate, um, through a platform. It's called the up to a growth community and people can kind of, um, use their technology. Man, that sounds like a push. Uh, how was it to, I mean, maybe not, maybe it's mostly just kind of digitizing and systematizing the things that you'd already been doing, even starting back in your fractional days with your wife and stuff, it still sounds like a push. It was. Create. And, you know, there was kind of the big rage, you're kind of behind the rage, uh, a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, COVID, creating coaches, courses and stuff was kind of going before COVID and then it hit high. Yeah. We're catching it a little bit on the down, down curve, which might be good because. Like there was so many for a while, I was like, every person you knew was creating a course a hundred percent. Yeah, it, it definitely, I think you hit, hit it right at the top of, uh, when COVID was super popular, you know, everyone knows what happened and everyone was in their own environment, trying to figure out how to, Be creative and learn. And it just exploded. Um, we were in the beginning phases of building that, that program. Uh, it just is, as you said, it just takes time, time and resources. I'm lucky enough to have a small team around me. So we have someone that, uh, on the team that's an expert, uh, in that particular area. So as we got going with building it, um, we had a creative, you know, what story, story lining and all the video capture and editing and yeah, it's a lot. I think. I mean, I think you, and I talked about this off camera a bit is it looks real easy when you're on the other end, watching somebody's course and going through it, and then you create one and build it. And you're, I mean, it's like back in the day, um, there's little mechanical cars, you get the hobby shop and you see someone around the street playing with it. This is dating me a bit as like a, uh, uh, radio frequency car, and then you'd go to the hobby shop and get all this stuff to build it. And you're like, Where do I start? Bunch of parts and pieces. Um, but we did it, you know, we, we stayed focused and we're, you know, we were able to get, uh, get it launched last year. So, uh, we're excited about that offering. So we do again, VIP, we have a, uh, a live virtual academy that's once a year. And then we have the on demand program that's, uh, twice a year. And that virtual academy, is that like a. 10 week kind of thing or something. It's not just a one day. But no, good, good, good question. Um, we've tried to shorten it to 12 weeks. So a quarter, right? We, we, we want, um, the founders and CEOs that join it to understand that they have to be very committed to that amount of time. It's not more than 90 to 120 minutes a week, depending on what module they're in going through the training. So you say, all right, I'm going to schedule that time out. Most founders are working probably 60 hours a week. It's not a ton of time and we're talking low percentages, but you've got to be really like, this is a problem you want to solve as a founder. So then we think you can get great momentum and starting to solve it within 12 weeks. Uh, so that, that's how we like to, uh, to think about the program. Is that your growth model potentially is like to offer that more frequently or something, or do you like the cadence that you have or? We like the cadence. Um, we obviously trying to build a community around it. And so what I mean by that is that we really think we can get. more and more of the people that to stick around through that sort of building. And why I say that, and I'd be curious, but you, you experienced it with them. I'm curious. Yeah. Um, we don't think this is a problem you solve fully in 12 weeks. Right. As you heard me kind of allude, we think you can begin to solve. Well, and markets change, customer expectations change, you know, and it can be a way of thinking more than, uh, what to do. You got it. Uh, it's probably not a mark. Yeah. Market change is huge, but, um, Just because you build it once doesn't make you a mastering. Yeah, yeah. So we kind of think of it as you start as a beginner, you may come in as like, Hey, I have enough background on this, but we haven't fully built it out. So you go from like, you know, beginner to intermediate. And then, you know, you, you hit that expert level, but we're looking for people to become masters of it. So we think, uh, an average amount of time. People would stay in our community about three years. Okay. Yeah. So we want that to be the hub. Uh, we obviously, as we Or even longer with, you know, regular feeders of fresh meat, that kind of thing. Yeah. We were just talking about the, the explosion of EOS. Oh, sure. You know, and, and. I don't know, maybe it's been more popular in the Denver region for longer, but at least up here, you know, Ken Schrader was the only EOS guy in town for a while and now there's five or six or something like that. And, um, and a lot more companies, I think 40 percent of my next level members are at some level of implementation or have implemented. Is that complimentary to your, what your team does in the revenue side? That's one of the problems that EOS uncovers is, Hey, your revenues aren't scalable. Uh, and are you friends with that community or how's it? Oh, totally. We're big fans of the U. S. So straight out of the gates, number one, I'm at Gina Wickman and what he and his group have built. Um, uh, I think Kelly Knight might still be the president there. Um, but anyways, long, long story. story short on that is, yeah, we think the framework makes sense. Uh, we understand the framework, we're very knowledgeable at it with an aptitude, uh, but I think it is complimentary. And why I say that as we've talked and worked with a number of implementers, um, throughout the six plus years, we've been in business. And what we, we hear is that, uh, that problem that you and I are referring to is growth building and billing predictability relative to sales and revenue is not a, just, it's not a cornerstone of the framework. Okay. It's in it, but it's not the, if you strip it back a bit, it's not there as part of what they do. So we, we really come alongside as one. They'll say you got to fix that. Yeah. But not as much about how to fix it. Bingo. And we think we can be extremely, continue to be extremely complimentary. We love businesses that are running on EOS because, um, We think that that framework is not too difficult to understand. The tools and templates are amazing. Um, I think in the last 18 months, you might know better. They now have, um, a lot of those tools and templates online on a platform. And, uh, so I just think that, uh, having business owners. Have an ability to see that framework. It really conceptualizes where they're at and what they need to do to get to the next level. Well, I think what you were intimating is that we can build a community around Optitude's brand and framework, you know, God bless you. If you, maybe you won't get quite as big as EOS, but if you can build kind of a, uh, aptitude alumnus association and, you know, have a lot of companies doing things the aptitude way or whatever that is, right. Um, You know, I think that's an opportunity there for sure. Yeah, I appreciate the idea. It is on our roadmap. I don't think we have a vision to be as big as EOS. No, I wouldn't imagine. They have some outside funding. I think they got private equity back maybe a handful of years ago. Yeah, yeah. I think, I don't know the numbers, so I don't want to speak, but I think it's like thousands, hundreds of thousands of implementers across the I wouldn't doubt it. Yeah, United States. Hundreds of thousands? I want to say, I mean, I heard there's like 30 to 40 just in, just in Colorado. Uh, but listen, we're, we're big fans. 10, 000 anyway, around the country. Yeah, we, we probably see it a bit more about, um, our goal is, you know, to try to get to, uh, between a thousand and maybe 2, 500 raving fans. Okay. And what I mean by raving fans is, you heard me allude to the fact that Uh, we want people to, to be here and to stick around. And one of the precursors is they have to just be a learner by the, the, the customers we work with. Uh, they need to be a learner just by their DNA disposition, growth minded, um, growth oriented. Uh, open to learning, know that they don't know everything, want to love to learn from others, like be a part of a community. Yeah. Uh, we find people that we work with, uh, not only are, have EOS implementation, but they've likely been a part of EO. Um, they've been a part of Vistage. Yeah, Vistage. Or local think tank or something. Yeah, I mean, I think in the same way you're, I mean, I think that's really a cool model you've built. I mean, you've, I think that same competition is uniquely positioned how you built local think tank is like, Hey, we want to be local. And I think the community aspect is huge because there's relatability that we're trying to all grow in a literally a zip code or two away from each other. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you can build connections like that today. I think it's, it's a starving need. I've definitely had, um, a few members join that, that said, you know, I've been called on by this organization and that organization and just none of them really felt right. But after I got your voice message, you know, I went and looked up your website for like an hour and I think I want to learn more, you know? And so I think there is, and I think it's an increasing phenomenon, uh, in the world today. I, uh, sensations around, we're trying to think about what are. Significant differentiator is a little bit and kind of our local ness. You know, and even though we want to build a national brand, we want to be local to wherever we're at and have that kind of a, a culture and how do we express that? How do we communicate that? Does it actually matter to enough people? Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, I haven't had a chance to meet a number of your business owners, but from what you and I've talked about on and off for the last year, I do think. It's even in your branded name that if you could flush that out, uh, I do think locale relationships, the local wait watchers could be, I don't know what your programming is inside of a local think tank to add some stuff, but yeah, yeah, but in a lot of ways, um, I feel like people, their connection is going to be greater than just, um, the business, right? Because they like locally share, you know, jokingly, the gym, they go, Hey, we go to the same gym or we go to the same, our kids are in soccer together. Yeah. We're at school or we go to the same church and. I, I do think that plays out maybe in other national, um, groups that bring business owners together. But I still think there's a depth to, um, the, the headquarters is here. And so, you know, I mean, so you, you've started in Northern Colorado, if I'm not mistaken, and as you continue to expand, I don't want to say there, um, you can kind of think of the model. There's also a lot of businesses that aren't in big cities. So what I mean by that is that what I love about that's well and I think nobody really cares about local community that much if they're in a town of more than 400, 000. Yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about the franchising world, but I don't know if you remember much about the business of Subway sandwiches. Yeah, yeah. Their, their original strategy, if I'm not mistaken, is, uh, way back. Yeah. Which they went to rural towns. Totally. And they popped up. Um, franchises and then built from there and it, I'm from North Dakota and like when subway came, everyone was talking about, cause they faced, like there was a Hardee's that had been there for 20 years and that was pretty much the taco Johns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I feel like that kind of vibe, you know, you and your team and your, and your other leaders could, could dig into it. I feel like that's a strategy because think about what's happening right now with technology. The world's getting so small. Yeah. There are people in places all over, is this usually the United States? This is as a starting point. Yeah, yeah. Most of the people in the United States do not live in a big city. Right. So therefore, if you then are thinking, I want to start a business, and I need to build and be a part of a community, why go with those big groups when I could go with, Yeah. Local think tank of Minnesota. Local think tank of small rural town Minnesota. Right, right. Because there's going to be a proliferation. Well, every region will have its own kind of flag of sorts, own page probably on a website or something. Yeah. I mean, we could, we could map it out right now. Well, we'll probably run out of time. Yeah. But I, but I think it's, I think it's the right thing for us. That's what feels right. Yeah. You know, we still got to develop a lot of strategy around that, but. Sure. That, because there's middle market companies, you know, Northern Colorado is what, what Half million people, maybe 800, 000, probably between Weld and Larimer. Yeah. But, but only, you know, Port Collins, 170, Greeley is 120 years or something, you know, there's only all those cities are much smaller than that full region. I think about, um, just know, how long, how long have you been doing this then? Uh, 10 years? Yeah. So you think about 10 years, um, and now you have, you know, not only the framework, we started really, really small. Yeah. I think it's just, it's exciting. I feel like there's something there and, um, I, I am hopeful that we, we also may support some of that same sort of thinking where, you know, if you're fully funded from an outside company and you're trying to grow your business, you're likely not a good fit for Optitude. We're looking for people that literally rolled up their sleeves, found a way to bring some capital together, wanted to start a business because they wanted to solve a problem for. A client, a customer, a prospect. And we, uh, with that too, we're excited about, we just relate to what I would call like in, uh, why I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, we call it the blue collar hustle, which is just roll your sleeves up, get up, go figure out how to make, make it work and learn as you go. How do you think, uh, Pennsylvania is going to go in the, uh, It's getting a lot of attention. Geez, I don't know. I mean, I haven't been there since my earliest days. It's hard to say. Yeah, hard to say, because literally the western and the eastern part of the, uh, of the state. I imagine. Are very kind of concentrated, and the middle is the sandwich. Right. And it's, um, So I'm not sure. And it's evolved over the years. And I don't know how much your listeners know about Western PA. Um, in Pittsburgh, it was a steel, steel town, steel city. It is nothing like that anymore. It's high tech. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's some kind of a sexy place to live. Yeah. Insurance. Uh, as far as health, health care, it's like top healthcare in the, in the, in the world. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, um, it's, I think the number one, uh, that's where you're from is Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. I grew up in Pittsburgh, South Hills. And so, so I don't know, I can't say I'm not a political proxy or what, I guess, uh, Prognosticator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have no idea. Honestly, I try to stay out of the political environment. I say that lighthearted. I mean, I care. I'm an American. I care about what politically our system is, how it's run. However, uh, on a, on a different scale, I, I joke a lot with some of our business owners that you, I'll hear that, Oh, you know, the times are rough. Or so my business is going to fluctuate because of who's in office. And the data doesn't support that. The data is. Yeah. It doesn't matter who's in office, at least in this country, uh, for the most part, it's really about staying focused, going after what you're going after as a business owner. So agreed. We'll see what happens. Um, yes, it's true. Just, uh, that's like three weeks away from today. I'm kind of tired of the political ads, honestly. Well be glad you're not in Pennsylvania. Those poor bastards are getting dominated by Elon's given a million dollars a day away to. registered voter thing. Did you read about that? I did not. Oh, it sounds terrible. Well, it's a So, if you sign the petition, the first, supporting the first and second amendments, Um, right to free speech, right to bear arms, Yeah. and you're a registered voter, uh, then you're qualified for, uh, one million dollars a day being given away for the last ten days. Oh my gosh, dude. And there's a bunch of people that are like, this is illegal, you can't have a sweepstakes, da da da da, and then there's a bunch of other people that are like, duh, there's no, uh, he's not, uh, You don't have to pay to enter, you just have to register to vote, uh, and sign this petition. So it's not a gambling thing. There's this huge, I've become a Twitter fan. Okay. Uh, and so like Mark Cuban has a huge boner for Elon Musk right now. Interesting. He's like all critical. And anyway, I digress. It's funny. Not that you need to know this, but Mark Cuban went. It's, uh, the same ice car I went to. Oh, is that right? So he's from Western Pennsylvania. Was he kind of a dweeb back then too? I don't know. I didn't know him personally. I knew some people that knew him. Um, I actually have a lot of respect for him. His insurance ideas are really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Ever looked into that. Yeah. And some of the stuff he's doing with, um, uh, pharmaceuticals and bringing, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I met. I will say this. I mean, you know, he's, he's a, he's a, he's an entrepreneur again. Before it was, it was cool. He started one of the first, um, I think it was cable companies, uh, Western PA. And, um, yeah, so I mean, that's probably why you're going to say it was your weed dealer. No, no, no, I don't think Mark, I don't know what Mark was into those days. Uh, he's a couple of years older than a handful of years older than me, but, um. I'm sure that's why, uh, Elon's hanging out with him because he's pretty connected back there. Probably. Um, so what else do you want people to know about Optitude? Or should we, uh, jump in the time machine? Oh, I don't know. I mean, um, listen, I mean, we're, we're just a, uh, a company that A boutique firm helping your sales work good. That's it, man. We're a boutique firm focusing on, um, You know, professional service firms, uh, across the country. Uh, we obviously are big fans of all the businesses and most of our early days. And, and still now is, is Colorado based companies. So we're a big fan of, of Colorado based companies and we'd love to, you know, connect and reach out. Like I said before, the best thing is to get people knowledge about what we do. And, uh, we do have a number of free. Do take the, uh, growth readiness test. It's insightful. Like, uh, just going through it, it's like, I don't, I don't like the answer of this question, but I have to be truthful. Uh, I appreciate the shout out a minute. We, that's why we build it, right? Just like any other, first of all, you don't have a lot of time, so it's probably five minutes, right? Yeah, for sure. You get a report that starts to give you an idea. Like, come on. I don't know if I'm thinking about this right way. And as you and I've talked off, off camera and off Mike, you have plans to continue to grow, but you'll do it when you're ready. But now you have some general ideas to be thinking about, could I solve maybe one or two of these problems now that makes minor improvements. So yeah, check us out at optitude. co. And then, uh, if you don't, if we're connected on LinkedIn, if you people want to connect LinkedIn, that's the best way. Just like it sounds Brian Kurlan. Yeah, exactly. Um, I did. Oh, I was going to reflect the first, uh, the first piece of semi intellectual property that local think tank created or me, um, was our floats test. Interesting. Tell me more about it. Basically a self assessment. Okay. Uh, how do you rate yourself on a scale of one to five stars in financial leadership, uh, opportunities versus obsolescence? Administrative technology and risk management and sales and marketing. Fascinating. And uh, so then your kind of composite score. My initial composite score was 13. Okay. Out of a potential, whatever, five times six 30. Okay. which I think 13 might have been my score on your growth readiness test. Could be, could be a lucky 13 though, for you. He could say. Maybe. Maybe, yeah. But I think the, the thing that's interesting is that that's one of the first things that both of us kind of worked on for our business is creating kind of an assessment. Yeah. I'm a believer. Where are you at? Why did you, why did you do it? I know why we, we thought about it. Well, I just wanted to float. You know, and at that time, um, you know, that was my place in life. And then we've changed it to thrives. Okay. Since then I forced a different, less useful acronym on it. And now nobody knows how to answer the questions, but I wanted to move from floating to thriving. Yeah. So I got to put my thinking hat on and come up with a better acronym that, but, but, you know, maybe it's maybe floats is what we use with the little guys. Cause they just want to get there. So they float, you know, and don't have to kick so hard all the time. Yeah, it's exhausting. And our second stage can, you know, do some Thrive stuff or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I do think, you know, that's obviously branding and marketing messaging and stuff, but I just like the thinking around, um, don't go, don't spend your time, money and resources. either in the work we do or maybe if you feel this way about loco, until you have a sense of what is my baseline, right? So that's what the growth readiness. Circumstance. Yeah. Circumstance. Cause context and foundation are the, what we believe is even the first part of the work we do. Once somebody gets their diagnosis, as in collaboratively, we say, What is the context and foundation of what you're doing? Because if you don't have a starting point that has reference, everything is not a priority. Everything is not uniquely important to you. You know what I mean? And so I think that's a major flaw in some of the consulting that's out there in the world is like, Hey, I sell, um, blue paint. And because I sell blue paint, then I see everything. And it's, it's, we're all inherently have bias. And so what we're trying to do is remove that bias and give, um, Us a chance to learn about the situation that we could entail work with that potential customer. And, and, and like you, if you did that for early, early days with, um, loco, then people can get a sense like, huh, I never, I never thought of it that way. Right. Yeah. I dig that. Uh, and even in moving forward from there, like, okay, now I've got that baseline. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, geez. I think it's just impressive for what you guys are doing at loco and number of businesses. I know you have a number of categories. So I love the fact that you've broken down the size and kind of the stage of growth at the end. Um, and that's my banking background, really just recognizing that different challenges are faced by different stages, you know? Yeah. So when you had that in the earliest days, you realized that, and they needed some different resources. Yeah. Well, we started really in the five to. 20 employee second stage because so many people get up to that kind of six or eight employees and then they run out of their Capacity, you know that now they're managing everybody and they can't sell anymore. So the business goes into a funk Yeah, and they got all these salaries and stuff going on and and And so managing through that to get out of the, the whitewater of that kind of, you know, five or seven employee kind of realm. Um, and then over time, some of those early members grew a bunch. So now they got 30, 40, 50 employees, four or five years in. And so that's when we launched the next level, which was, you know, more of a direct competitor to the EO or Vistage type groups. Yeah. So, I mean, that's fascinating because you, they were, They would have had to leave to get the right experience. But they stayed because you built something for them as they needed something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And same thing along the way of building those first several groups of the second stage, or the mid stage. Uh, I had to pass over a whole bunch of people because they were successful show openers, but you don't even manage any people, you know, so we don't have nothing for you. Yeah. Uh, and then it was like, well, could I? Cause I, I kind of assumed at that time that I couldn't charge them more than like, A hundred bucks a month or something like that that they were just all to and can I even do the administrative for that? And then actually I have to credit Moses Horner. Okay, longtime member with Horner painting as a member Oh sure, and then he's been running for over five years now The builders chapter so for that One to five employee demographic. And he's like, dude, if they can't pay 250 a month, you don't want them. That's a good way. And there's plenty of small businesses that can figure that out. And we're going to, and like half of his members have, should be moved up into the, into the. Next size now, but they don't want to leave their group. So I don't know how to fix that problem. Interesting. Um, I should probably just start charging them more. I don't know. I'll leave that between you two. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and all my other chapters too, it happens at times that, uh, you know, even some of the thinkers, like they have a big company that could move up, but then they're priced. Triples. Yeah. And maybe they won't like that new group as much, you know? True. So you have to balance the relationships that are there. Are they really getting fed? Yeah, it depends. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Like I said, I'm a fan of what you're doing. I think, uh, price is always just a hidden reason to have people have a better understanding what value is really there. And, um, I'm a big believer that you also, most companies can probably increase their prices. There's, we're all, we all have our own. That's the advice I've given more than any other. Yeah, self limiting beliefs, right? You're like, Oh, I don't know if I could do it because it, you know, exchanging value and I don't know if that price. And so you start mathing it out, which is really my, even our own experience in altitude. It's like, that doesn't, like, just because you math it out doesn't mean that's the price. That, because you just, there's a whole conversation about value. We're we're gonna jump in the time machine. Uh, take me and go back to Pittsburgh. Oh, tell me man. Let's, let's do it. Uh, but, uh, let's take a real short break. Okay. Let's do it because my drink is empty. Oh, okay. Okay. Let's do it. Four inventory right now. But it's cool, man. I dig it. Yeah. I take, and it's a cool setup. You gotta, you know, you got the right seems to be the right tool. I had a, a blue couch and an orange chair that were cool. Yeah. Uh, but one of my members. Does like commercial furnishings stuff. And she had, she had 14 of the chairs like this. So she gave me this and gave me the super good guy on the couch. Do you give her a shout out every once in a while to talk about her? Hey, Becky, love you. Rebecca Windsor and associates. There you go. Best in commercial design. Sound like free advertising, right? Yeah. No, she's a, she's awesome lady. I. Um, sold our, uh, I catered a bunco party for Becky, um, on referral from my mother in law when I was food trucking. Oh my God. Like Is that how the relationship got started? Originally, yeah. Yeah, small world. And then years and years later, after I had these next level chapters, I remembered, well, Becky had a really cool business and she was like, you know, I don't ever connect with anybody in our region. I'm just always doing business all around the country and I want some. Yeah. And she's been great. That's cool, man. Awesome. Yeah, it looks good. Yeah, no. Um, oh shoot. Pause. Um, talks about recording. It's like, oh it's recording. Moses, uh, my landlord had some Google glasses or some kind of fancy Oh, those, yep. Yeah, Bausch and Lomb, I think they are, or Ray Bans, they're Ray Bans. And they got little, I was like, are those like camera glasses or something? Was that the new AI? Yeah, yeah, something, yeah. Wow, okay. And, uh, So he was like, well, but it's blocked, so you can't like, it lights up, it won't record if you, if you'd have the light blocked. Interesting. Yeah, so you can't, uh. Phew, man, that's a crazy topic. Pretty intense. It won't be long before we just have, like, implantable cameras in one eye, so you can, you know. Yeah, kind of Tom Cruise, Matrix, Mission Impossible. Do the real, uh, uh, voyeur style, uh, porn creation. Oh my god. Sorry, that's wrong. You get to, you get to a point and, uh. With words, everything's going with AI, it's, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, one of our members just invited me, one of her members is going to talk about how to use AI to really make sure you have all your SOPs and all that kind of stuff down, my team has been using it for some content stuff and just making things look pretty, but like just getting, Hey, chat GPT, write me a freaking HR manual. I've been meaning to for five years, you know, that's it. I mean, those are the examples that. You know, in the communities you and I operate in where you put the right formula in place and you punch it into, you name your AI tool. Yeah. It is crazy what it spits out. I mean, it might need a few edges polished and maybe someone to check and balance it, but I mean that, like, you're joking, I know. I know, but not really. We all have a list of things that we're all trying to get accomplished, and so just think about how it's going to be managed, but Hey, Chad, take my Optitude Growth Academy homework and take care of that for me. Might not be that quite that easy, that there might be. There might be people just acting as if that there's somebody else, you know, just read my website and see what my answers would be. That's right, that's right. Oh man. Um, so yeah, we're, uh, now is the, the part of the conversation where we jump in the time machine. Love it. And was it, were you born in Pittsburgh? I was. Okay. That's, uh, Pittsburgh, uh, back to the future. Here we are. Yeah. What were the circumstances? I grew up in Western PA, um. Your parents, your older kid, younger kid, older kid? I'm younger. Younger of two. My brother is three years older than me. Alright. Uh, shout out to him. He's a, he's a Colorado guy now. He's been out here for, uh, gosh, 25 plus years, almost 30. Um, I actually came out, I was visiting him. throughout my other, uh, business career. I was coming out to visit him. Oh, right. And so that's why you're here too. Yeah. I got turned on. If he hadn't been here first, you might not have been here as much. I think that's, that's pretty fair. Yeah. It's pretty fair. And what was the circumstances of your, your parents? Yeah, I grew up a wonderful family, uh, family life. Uh, if you can think about kind of seventies, eighties, I grew up, uh, blue collar parents, but I would say highly educated. I was lucky enough. Um, mom was, um, a nurse, clinical nurse by training. Uh, so ER kind of started in that realm and then wanted to get back into teaching as an academics, uh, teaching nursing. She went back out her, um, uh, next level, I think would have a master's. And then she completed her PhD. She became a doctor. Yeah. She didn't at the time. And, um, Unfortunately, both my parents passed in the last two years. I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. Um, they, uh, she, you know, she didn't even want to get it. She was one of those people like, Oh gosh, I gotta get it. Cause when you're in the academic, uh, upper, you know, in college. Professor. It's kind of required to get tenure. So she went through the process and did it and ended up, um, Becoming a doctor. So she had her PhD, which was really impressive. And then my father was a social worker and his, uh, degree required a master's degree. So we, you know, my brother and I joked, we grew up in that era where the, the, the three things that were most important, uh, were, uh, you know, getting an education, getting a job, or finding a way to, to pay for your own means. And then, um. Having a value and cultural system that was related to prioritizing family and friends and community. Yeah, so it's very basic, but yeah, well at least I say that now because I've been out traveling around the world lucky enough. And yeah, we grew up with, uh, I think, you know, not only great parents, but a good secondary family. A lot of aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides. Cool. What was, uh, what were you like say at 10 years old? Early age? I mean, I, you know, I was, uh, I would say a self starter in some, some ways because of what I described to you, we weren't in a position where we just had everything. It was very much, if I, if I saw something I wanted at that early stage of my life. Well, especially while your mom was still pursuing education before she was. Making the big money. Yeah. And I don't know, they would probably tell you they never really made big money. Because there was always this conversation about. So here's, here's really what's available to do other things. And I was always, as I got older, I was like, wow, you know, they brought that you guys into that conversation. Like, do you want to go to the restaurant twice a month or do you want to save up and go to Disneyland? Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, it, it, it's interesting you're asking me that because it very much formed my, uh, relationship with money that if I wanted something that was not available to me based on the means that they had, they were very clear with. We don't have that money to pay for it. You have options. You have options, And I was like, well, what are those options? They're like, you have to, you have to work for yourself. Yeah. And those are the days, uh, where paper routes were popular before you were able to work legally. Yeah. Yeah. And so my brother had one, I had one. And the, the foundation of going to do a job. In this case, that work and then going, collecting the money to have someone pay for that. And then if you did a job at a different level, they tipped you and that became what you made on the, the margin of the work you did. And man, I got like, I look back and I'm thinking that had to be like the foundational of like, I do X and I get Y. The more X I get, I do better, better job, the more Y I get. So I just figured out this kind of give and take. Kind of a formula, uh, for that. Yeah. And I used it in other things in my life. So it was, it was fascinating. I, uh, I started my blog for, for October. I read a monthly blog too. Yeah. Nice. It's another four hours or something like that, that I should cut out of my life. Try it, try it. Have AI read it. Yeah, try that out. Uh, but the title is, uh, Fear and Profit at the Margins. Interesting. Tell me more. Well, like that raise your price, you know, you're not going to have a successful business if you don't get a little more margin out of it or you need to run your same operations. Um, and you need to figure out as an owner, how to get that into your margin or whatever. There's always fear associated with margin, but there's also profit associated with margin. Totally. You know, you're not going to get the profit if you don't overcome some of those fears along the way. Yeah. I mean, now we get really deep though, Kerr, because I'm at fear. Fear is the most limiting. emotion that I believe all of us as human beings have is that, and let's be honest, the fear is mostly in our head. Totally. Not, not something that's real. Um, I don't know if I was, that's funny. I don't know if I was learned anything about fear relative to money. I just knew it was about money. Hard work. I joked earlier, it's like the, you know, the blue collar hustle, it's just. Well, you got to go get the papers at four 30 in the morning and have them delivered by seven and go to school at eight or something. You got it. Yeah. And I still, I still get up that early. My wife's like, what are you doing? I was like, I started when I was young and, but yeah, so I learned, I learned that. And, um, and then, you know, from there, you, I don't want to say you graduate, but you're like, oh, how do I do more of that? And I started a lawn mowing business with a couple of friends of mine and then I was an athlete. So I played. I don't know, I played every possible sport in the earliest days, went in Western Pennsylvania, the popular sports. What were you best at? Uh, I was really popular. I was really good at football because that was the Western PAs got like this history of. A lot of plus Steeler nation, but also it's like a mini Texas kind of, in terms of high school football and stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, our, yeah, so that, that was why, why there's so much influence there, but I got into playing ice hockey, um, uh, at the, I would say a little later than most of the people, um, especially if you're from North Dakota, you probably know this, um, you know, you, you come out of a womb and North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota with, with ice skates on. And, and it's, you know, sticking a puck and ready to go. I did not get to that point till I was early, like, uh, 12. So I had to really up, you know, we, uh, my, my, I went to a school with only 50 kids in the high school. So we had a basketball team and a track team. Okay. Uh, no football team, no hockey team, no. Soccer team, no baseball team. I bet you athletes were playing all the sports. Didn't matter what they just played. Well, track and, and basketball. Yeah, so you just played, that was the thing you did. Those were the sports. And, and, I guess I grew up in a big, a bigger area. But I can relate because. So yeah, so I've never actually put ice skates on. Never have. Never have. It's cold enough up there. I can only go, um, Counterclockwise at the roller skating rink because I can pretty much only push with my right sure the pushing with my left doesn't really work So I'm swimming upstream all the time and it is the one thing Well, but I know a lot of hockey players for sure. I bet no one from that just neck of the woods I so here's the thing in Western, Pennsylvania at the time. They didn't have Uh, a lot of ice sheets or rinks. Uh, it wasn't a go all over the place or, and I think you might appreciate this or you learn what was, uh, learn a different way. And this is when the original Canadian company created the roller blade. Oh, so I, speaking about business, I had to buy my own. And I had to figure out how to get the money. So I threw different odd jobs I did, and then I had to send away the money for a connec I think Rollerblade was founded in Canada. It was brand new. Yeah, and these boots came that were so heavy, and like, everyone knows what rollerblades are today, but so different. Right. That's how I learned to skate. What year were you born? I was in 72. 72. Oh, so you're actually older than me. I am. Dang. Yeah. I think you, cause you just turned, I just turned 50. So 74 was me. But yeah, we were peak roller blade nation. Like you were, you had early roller blade. Yeah. Those were like huge boots, cement boots with wheels on them. Um, but love to play. Cause I, I got into the love of it through street hockey, which then became super popular in roller hockey. And then I converted myself with a couple of friends of mine, just like, let's go play ice hockey and made my way through, um, uh, the gauntlet of doing that. And then was super excited that, uh, I got good enough in a quick period of time. I was a captain of the team and learned how to play at a high level and. You know, and, uh, I fell in love with it. Did you get a scholarship? No, unfortunately I didn't. I got to, uh, play on the club team at Bowling Green, uh, which was pretty cool because it was pretty competitive. These were guys that were all tier below being able to get, uh, any sort of scholarship and we went and played, uh, say Michigan state, Ohio state, IU. These were all kind of in that middle part. Yeah. Yeah. Fun. But it was, it was fun. It was just, it was, I love going to hockey games and, uh, yeah. So I definitely appreciate the, the sport. Yeah. That's one of, I'm probably not gonna play ever now though. Why did you play still? You know, I don't, I know some old guys that play. I know. What do you call me an old guy? Well, kind of, oh, shoot. Mean, I mean, ish. Yeah. I guess I am, but no, I, um, I don't, I said a, a guy, uh, that I'm friends with that just asked me the same question. He still plays, he's been playing for decades and a lot of my, uh. I played basketball until I was about 45, pretty consistently. Just gave it up because it was You know, I got injured pretty regularly. I broke my ribs in one game, and I started running more. For a while, running was my fitness thing. Uh, I've been, now I've just been drinking rye whiskey. Yeah. I'll ride my bike a little bit more too, but. I mean, Colorado is a fitness area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fitness, hiking, biking, and yeah. You do good stuff. I've been, yeah, I've been an athlete my whole life. So you went to Bowling Green. Where is that? Is that Indiana or something? No, there's a couple Bowling Greens. The one, the school I went to, uh, is south of Toledo, Ohio. So it's in the town of Bowling Green. Okay. So basically, I wouldn't say it's exactly like CSU, but it's got a similar vibe in Ohio. Yeah. Okay. It's Bowling Green State University. It is, okay. Yeah, so it's, it's in the realm of the same vibe of college town. Yep. So when, when the college is in session. Uh, the town like is vibrant, vibrant. And when the college students are not there. So, um, it was great. All the, all the, you know, a lot of guys I'm so friends with today are from that, from that time. And, um, yes. Did you go for like business administration or something? No, I thought I was going to go do, um, kind of running, um, I guess exercise physiology was kind of an area, or I could do like, uh, business sports management. Like those were two things I was trying to, and I needed some science, somebody's hockey team for him or something like that. Something like that. I mean, I don't know what can be, I mean, I was very much into athlete athletics at the time. And, um, so I kind of headed down that road and I didn't really use much of it at all. I actually pursued, what was your first real job? Gosh, my first real, well, let me, let me give you one other segment. So I actually went and went and got what I thought was going to be in another degree. Oh, okay. So I went back to Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, went to the university of Pittsburgh and took science classes. I took those science classes for Oh gosh, I don't know, a couple semesters because I needed to get an increased amount of, uh, science credits because I thought I was going to go into physical therapy, uh, or exercise science, or, um, maybe even potentially go to, like, med school or PA school, right? I had all these things, so I was like, I'm going to do this healthcare track. You're going to get this inspiring, over educated parents and stuff. Yeah, that's right. So I was like, I should go do that. And then I was like, yeah. This is terrible. I hate this. Cause I was at that point, like, I still didn't have any money. I was living in the basement. You knew how to fix that. Yeah. And so then I was like, how about this? Why don't I leave there and go to North Carolina and continue to do that? So I went to Raleigh, North Carolina and pursued very similar types of tracks. Went to NC state at night. And worked part time as a fitness trainer at a, at a gym, uh, in, in, uh, in Raleigh. And then I had a, an awakening, which is I have, that was two and a half, almost three years out of college. And I don't think I had enough pennies rubbed together to get any further than paying my bills the month over month. Right. Um, so I sit down with my uncle, I was very, uh, very much, he was a mentor of mine, uh, that he had a successful. Uh, medical device and health technology sales. Well, of course you're broke. You make 18, 000 a year. Yeah, exactly. I was like, but how do you make apartment's 800 a month. That's right. He did the math really quickly. He's like, this isn't going to work for you. So he just gave me a, uh, kind of a one on one. He's like, you got to make some choices. And that's what, uh, got me on the track of getting into healthcare sales. Um, okay. And so I, then, you know, that's when you see. Did he have connections too besides? He did. He did. Uh, did not get. started with his company, but it taught me how to pursue a job of that significance. Um, because, you know, in those days and a, uh, day and age, they also wanted people with experience. I mean, even today, I guess some of the young kids probably still say, I don't want to experience what you got to get it somewhere. So, um, I just pursued, uh, being in healthcare sales for, I guess it took me about 18 months before I got my first gig. Oh, wow. And, uh, end up getting But at least you were working in the healthcare space while you were doing that kind of, right? So that lends some credibility, even if you haven't sold it much. I mean, that's what I use as my, as my position. I was like, how do you differentiate yourself? I got one thing, I'll use that at least. This is my nugget. I have a lot of background. I can speak the lingo. I understand healthcare. You know, vernacular vocabulary. And my uncle's in the space. That's right. And I could, I mean, you literally had to learn how to navigate a hospital. Like how to get, so anyway, so I did get started there. I started with a company called forest labs. They were a small company based out of New York. I think. Uh, I was only there for a couple of years and they're like trying to get hospitals to use their lab instead of another lab, it was mostly, um, internal medicine, family practitioner guys using just, um, stuff you would see in the clinic. Right. So you're like, yeah, tongue depressors, uh, there was some pharmaceuticals that were available that we, so we kind of sell like a truck, a trunk full of goods. Um, but it was great. Cause I, you know, I got a teeth cut and learned and it was very much traveled all around the country. I presume, or all around the region or whatever. Yeah, region. I was, you get in a car and go every day. But still, you see a whole bunch of new stuff. It was great. You know, uh, adventure for somebody like me or you, I think. It was awesome. And I didn't, you know, that's when you realize like, ah, this is how the other part of the world operates. And I luckily at that point had enough success. I got recruited. Yeah. Some do some, but I think they, well, I mean, yeah, yeah, in general, they're a big, big household brand. Totally. Yeah. Well, and they've got really strong programs for training people and like a whole bunch of really smart people have been through a Johnson and Johnson season. Totally man. I, then you hit the nail on the head, the training. was bar none the best. It wasn't fun when I was going through it, but on the back end, it was useful. It was super useful. I got, um, I got trained all the way up to be from individual contributor to learning how to manage and develop teams. So I got lucky enough. I got, I don't know if you got selected. You just got, you were foolish enough to take on the next responsibility. Um, I did that, uh, in Ohio and then, uh, and then I took on an opportunity to move to Minnesota, um, cause I had to take over. I don't know why I got, Pictured as this guy that could fix broken teams, broken businesses. That's from, and this is where it may be kind of as you're optimistic. I've had a good attitude. I pretty much always dab I've knocked on wood, you know, that I've, I've had that sort of positive attitude, but I had to go fix a really tough situation. It was a bottom, bottom dweller team. And, uh, it took me three years to turn it around, but we went from like, I don't know, like 40, 37 out of 40 in the country to number five. Um, so we turned, we turned that whole around and then that obviously gives you more opportunities. Sure. Um, I'm going fast forward through it, but then, uh, through that work, I was there for a number of years and then I wanted to pursue another path with another company. In that case, I, which took me to Denver, which was a company called Striker. Oh, yeah, hospital beds. Yeah, well, they have, yeah. Well, and more. They have more, yeah. We've got a gal named Pat Stryker that lives in town here. You've heard of her probably. I have heard of her and, uh, I'm certainly fond of her and her, uh, the company that, uh, I think it was her grandfather. I believe so. Yeah. Uh, Homer Stryker, uh, built and, uh, and created. So I was lucky enough to be there for a handful of years. Nice to sell pot. I don't know, probably the commission rate isn't quite the same. No, no. But it was, um, I mean, she striker is one of those, one of those companies that it can outfit. I think when I was there, I mean, you could outfit like 90 percent of a hospital. So they have, you know, implants, beds, stretchers, um, you know, spine, orthopedics. it became a healthcare behemoth. And to this day, still, still a great company and great culture. Um, cool. Very much a, uh, uh, go getters culture. So that eventually took me there and then, uh, pulled me in. Where'd you meet your wife? Uh, here in Colorado, it was kind of the sprout of optitude. It was actually not too long after I moved to Colorado. Um, I was here for, I want to say almost 18 months to a little less than two years. And in that timeframe. Um, you know, I was on the road. I had a huge region. I had, um, I had, uh, essentially almost west of the Mississippi, all the way to Hawaii and Alaska for a striker. It was a smaller division. Yeah. I was going to say, you must've been selling a specialty thing then. Cause it was, it was a specialty, uh, interventional spine. And it was, um, it was crazy. Cause I was on a plane all the time. I was gone. So the reason I say that is because it was really hard to have a relationship. I was gone all the time. So long, uh, long, that track. It is a funny story. I was introduced to, like, one of my colleagues, right? Stryker, we had a shared office, and he was like, Hey, you know, my wife and I are going out to dinner. You know, when you're new in town, people do that. They invite you out. Yeah, yeah. It's awfully kind. Um. And so I'm out to dinner with them. It was just myself and, uh, he and his wife. And then she started telling me about her sister and I was like, Oh, okay. Um, where's this going to go? And I was just, just, you know, newly kind of landed. And, um, she eventually said, well, you should meet her at some point. I'm like, ah, I'm not, I'm not interested. And at that stage, it wasn't that I wasn't appreciative. Yeah. Um, and so we didn't meet. Well, the reason I tell you that front of the story is the back part of this story is. I think it was about a year later, less than a year. I am, um, in, uh, Aspen, Colorado, which I'd never been to, uh, with some friends that were like, Oh, you got to come up here. It's a really cool thing. You're doing the Labor Day weekend for the weekend. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been to labor. It's a music festival. Oh, I haven't been to Telluride bluegrass and blues and brews. So same deal. I think it's called, I think it's jazz or something, a steamboat for some kind of a fest too. It's like, but in your, you know, buttermilk, obviously it's the mountain area where the outside. So I go up there for that Labor Day weekend, um, and come to find that one of the couple guys I'm with, they have a group of other friends and this gal is in this group. And man, I, I, you know, strike up a conversation. She's local from Colorado. I start to talk to her. We, excuse me, get to know each other. And then. Long story short, Kurt, this woman is the sister of the guy I worked with. I love small world stuff. This small world, man, it was crazy. We were, um, it come to, she also was like, not interested in meeting at the time. But there we go. You found it out during that conversation that that's That was, yeah, we were like, you're, you're You're the sister? Like, get out of here. So, uh, so it is a fun story. We, uh, we feel very lucky that we met each other. And then, uh, four, four years later, we got married. So we, we celebrated our 10th anniversary last year. Oh, congratulations. And does this person have a name? Yeah, her name is Anika. Anika. Yeah. And what, what's her Yeah, her business, she's an interior designer. Okay. She went to CSU, uh, which is, yeah, anyone knows it's a very popular school for interior design, uh, I think one of the top in the country, at least that's what I've been told. Um, she, uh, started for a commercial for residential. Good question. So she started out in residential. Uh, through residential and kind of, um, uh, high end custom homes, right? And then through there started, uh, kind of branching into commercial. And then in the last decade, her business has been focused in senior living communities. Oh yeah. So, you know, kind of full circle, right? And um, Takes us back to that senior living community, uh, target customer thing. You got it, right? So full circle. And so it's amazing to see the kind of work that, that, uh, her and her firm are able to do. Um, So you're a pretty old guy. Uh, already by the time you guys met. Yeah. I was, yeah, yeah, right. I would definitely, it was, uh, late and far as lifelong bachelor, pretty much. I mean, I was no engagements, no engagements. Um, I was lucky enough, uh, that I had, uh, such a great career. Yeah, I was very much gone a ton. And so you're focused exploring. Yeah, it was really hard to do that, but I was thankful when we met, because I was, I mean, being on the road as a sales guy, man's game, it's, it's really hard to get out. Was that part of the motivation for starting up to two it is being like, I could be on the road a lot for the next 10 years, or I could not. You got it. Do that. It was, it was totally part of the motivator. Um, and as you heard me, you know, in the earlier part of our conversation, it's, you also get around people that, Oh, like that's possible. Like there's not even a, a self limiting beliefs that you can't do it. I'm like, I guess you're right. Yeah, let's go do it. So, um, yeah, so it was, I don't want to say match made in heaven, but we, we, we see the world very similar. We grew up similarly with similar values and the business side just makes it more fun there. Yeah. Um, should we, like, I feel like we kind of basically caught back up on the timeline. Do you want to jump into the timeline? The faith family politics. Uh, give it to me. And it feels like we should start with family. Okay. Um, why, why did you guys click so easy? You, you mentioned shared values. Yeah. Um, how do we see the world? I mean, yeah, I'm not, I didn't probably know it at that time. Like I didn't see relationships. Like, Hey, what are your values? Right. Right. You know, we just hit it. You obviously hit it off. We did socially. Uh, we had similar. friend, like we had friend groups and common friends already. Yeah. Common friends, families. I mean, well now family, but at the time it was common friends. Right. Um, we both were, we grew up in family, uh, environments. What I mean by that is that our parents and our, um, Our relationship and what we did in our social life was surrounding family. Like, she has a sister, one sister, I have one brother. Right. Um, she, uh, has two sets of parents, which is kind of cool. Uh, and I have one, but we were, a lot of what we did when we spoke about our earlier years was around family. Yeah. And so it, you know, the experiences that you value kind of thing. Bingo. And, uh, that, that was a big part of it. Um, she was a bunch more of a traveler as in, and Anika loves to travel. Like for fun, not for work. But I was a traveler because I, you know. Had to and enjoyed it, but felt, fell more in love with the travel. And then that bond created the curiosity where she's like, well, she's like, do you like to travel? I'm like, yeah, she's, you ever been to, she started rattling off like countries. I'm like, no, I didn't, I didn't travel that much. I've been to Europe once, maybe Australia, New York, a bunch of times in Dallas, Mexico, Canada, and, uh, Cancun and all that, you know, the hotspots. And so that was a fueled kind of passion with each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we both are athletes. She, um, was a skier her whole life, uh, as I talked about my background athlete. So we started from here. Yeah. She's from here. She grew up in Colorado. Um, so yeah, that's the main skiers in Indiana. No, totally. Pennsylvania. So we, uh, we, we obviously had that sort of excitement and, uh, that started to blossom. So family. Travel, curiosity about life, um, outdoors and athletics, and then business. You know, those that were a common kind of, uh, scenarios. Do you guys have littles? We do not have kids. Okay. We do not have kids. So you're dinks as well. Yeah, that's exactly right. Have you hosted any exchange students or anything yet? We haven't. You know, you said something. Have we talked about that? Well, you had said something to me in a phone call we had not too long ago, and I was fascinated by that. I think that's such a story. Amazing. I think it's like a neat thing for dinks to do if you don't have the guts or the fortitude or the compassion to be a foster parent. Yeah. Um, to be an exchange host parent is like a much lighter lift, but also for somebody with a travel vocab, you know, do a semester, do a, do a quarter or something even. I don't know. With a family. You guys would dig it probably. Yeah, we should talk a lot about it. Now that her business is pretty stable and whatever. Yeah, it would be. We did have a stint where we were pursuing, uh, you know, potential foster, uh, foster family. We, uh, went on a mission trip. Um, and our fifth wedding anniversary, we went to Guatemala. Oh, wow. And it was, yeah, we were like, I mean, it was, I'll tell you what. Um, I don't know if you've had that experience from a faith standpoint, if we're going to go family faith. Sure. Um, we, uh, I grew up Catholic. Um, I think she grew up, I think it was Methodist. Um, And, you know, I'm one of those many Catholics that you had been very active after that. No, exactly. Uh, but, but I'm, you know, a very much, uh, faith driven individual. Yeah. Um Well, I mean, your family values and stuff that you were talking about were certainly Bingo. impacted by that. Yeah. I'm big, I'm a big believer, uh, you know, in a higher power. And, uh, we got connected to our church in our local community in Denver and they had gone, they go to, they'd gone to Juarez, Mexico and Guatemala. Uh, uh, a town called Keisha Yah, uh, twonce a year. So they went to each of those once a year. And we kept getting interested in it, but we were like, you know, when is the right time? And let's be honest, there's never a right time. Yeah, yeah. So we got figured out we were going to go, um Oh, what a cool thing. And we went to, in the middle ofI would say it was the middle of the I mean, because anniversary is usually when you Celebrate yourselves and you live a decadent kind of a weekend or a long week, week and a half. Yeah, this is not that. Yeah, you were digging a well or We built a kitchen at a small, I'm talking how I would think about the outskirts of small town Guatemala and Central America, right? And then This community had next to nothing. Like they barely, I don't know if they even had running, what we would consider running water. Wow. So the church that we were associated with had been already in relationship with them for a number of years. So each year we kept trying to build the community, a resource in the community. And this. scenario. We had, we had put some money into the school in the community. Now we're, we were building a, um, a community kitchen. Oh, well, to help them make food for the, for the, uh, for the community, but also potentially to sell or something like that. Whatever it was. Yeah. And we went down there, um, It was mind blowing. It was, talk about ripping your, uh, you know, your heart strings, man. It was watching these kids, how excited they were. Yeah. Like there's, I just heard that China, part of the reason China's building a vehicle factory in Mexico is because the average labor rate is actually lower in Mexico than it is in China now. Is that right? Yeah. I can see that maybe. For, for pure labor. From a world economy. Now China doesn't have any regulations. So, uh, you know, there's other exterior costs that are different, but yeah, but there's real, there's a lot more real poverty in Guatemala, especially, or like Bangladesh or some of these other countries you don't hear that much about than there are. Most of the rest of the world. Yeah. Like just real resource less ness. Yeah, I mean, is it, I get Or resourcefulness, I don't know. Yeah, I'm following you. At the end of the day, there's, if you want to use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, like the food, shelter, water stage. Right. That, that's what, that's what this, this is. uh, challenges. They're trying to get there. Yeah. I mean, and to me that's, that's mind blowing. Food, shelter, water is like the givens for us here in Northern Colorado. Plus some, I bet. Food, shelter, water means you have potentially easy access to craft beer. Yeah. Right? And someone knows somebody. Bicycle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh, it was. Oh, cool. It was cool. We, our church goes to Czech a lot, members, Czechoslovakia, which is also a fascinating place to send missionaries. Less for the financial poverty and more for the spiritual poverty. Is that right? There's not a lot of spiritual belief there? No, the Russians really stamped out, like, it's almost, like, 98 percent atheist. Oh, wow. I had no idea. Um, so it's an interesting place. And it never really got very churchy. Sure. Compared to a lot of other places in Europe like, you know, Northern Europe and you know, wherever Luther had a big impact They're still wearing crosses even if they never go to church. No doubt I mean you can't you got it kind of ingrained out of the earliest days. Yeah. Yeah So so anyway, so you guys go down there and have this really transformative experience Did not quite pull the trigger on no, we were having a kid couple years. We did Research. We, we talked to some friends that had done it and, uh, realized that the process was pretty intense, which, which is a whole nother conversation. I think it should be way easier. I think so too. It should be almost a grab one off the shelf kind of thing. If you can. If you can prove that you're obviously safe and you have means to support then yeah, I mean, I that's the easy way so hard Yeah, good things so hard totally. I mean there I can tell you right now I can still see some of the kids very vividly in my head of when we were leaving on our bus it was like They're never going to leave there. Like, they're never going to get out of this community. I don't care how much resources we give them. You know, just the basics aren't there. Education, understanding. So, um, sad enough, but um, Yeah, it was game changing for us. But then we, uh, So, talk to me about faith while we're here in this segment. Like, Uh, you were a Catholic background as well, and so was your No, Anika, uh, I think it was Methodist. Okay, yeah, you mentioned that. And she wasn't, um So when we got together, we had a non denominational wedding. Yeah. We got married in Telluride, actually. Oh, cool. Yeah, we were It's a great place. Every time I go to Telluride, there's a double rainbow over Main Street. Ha! So we've been down there plenty of times. I mean, you've seen double rainbows. We're like, is this, is this normal? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe not every time, but just about. It's kind of stupid at this point. It's a special, like it's really remarkable. Totally hard to get to in the winter. Hard to do it in the summer. Even if you want to drive it, you got to be committed. My most extreme concert experience was the Telluride bluegrass festival back in 2011. Okay. And we were there. Everybody left because it rained all day on Sunday and so we got like right up front row for Mumford and Sons in the rain. And then the rain cleared, nobody was left, and Page and Plant came on with, along with the sun. Yeah. The sun came out and the whole city of Telluride was rained with white. Like everything below is white. 7, 500 feet was brown and green and beautiful. And everything above that was bright white, two feet of fresh snow. It was just gorgeous. Like the most amazing inward, like front row at page and plant. Yeah. And the sun, the sun's out. You're like, this is just really, right. We're warm now for the first time in hours and hours, you know? And it's like, how did, how does this happen? Right place at the right time. Anyway. So yeah, it's a special place for us. Um, Another mountain, another cool thing about Colorado and being a lot of mountain towns. Yeah, living here. And, um, yeah, so we met. So yeah. So we had a wedding there. Non denominational wedding. Were your parents cool with that? They were. Were they rusty Catholics anyway? No, no, they were pretty full on, man. They were pretty full on. But they loved you and they loved her. So let's just call it good. And you alluded to the fact they're also happy like I was getting married at that stage. Yeah, you're like 37 was late in my life, they're like, Is this girl for real? Because this guy hasn't Is she a girl? And then they met her and they're like, How, how, how did you, how did this work out? Because, how did you get her to say yes? And I said, uh, You know, I got lucky. I, uh, she's younger too. She's younger. Yeah. People used to joke as if you're a football analogy or metaphor is the outkicks, your coverage. Yeah. Yeah. So she's, she's, uh, she's everything more than I am. Well, and you're a, you're a driven, successful. I'm the king of the backhanded compliment is what some people tell me. So faith and family and politics, you kind of dodged the prediction index. I was looking at the, uh, what have you learned? What's well, the betting, uh, yeah, what's it saying? Well, not the Vegas one, but the metadata thing or something. The political. Yeah, the, yeah. Uh, it's up to 65, 35 Trump now. 65 Trump, 35 Kamala. Yeah, and it was like, Kamala was ahead, ahead, ahead. Yeah. And then they had, uh, the debate and it kind of changed a little bit and then she started going on her media blitz and it's been widening. So widening as she's going to win or he's going to win? He's going to win. He's going to win. Interesting. I think the more people see her, the more they're like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I don't keep up. That's what the, that's what the data suggests to me. Yeah. It's funny that I'll throw a data point back here cause I'm a, I'm a skimmer of like, Political info. Probably, I don't know. I don't know what the majority of the Well, some people are saying Elon Musk is influencing the, that gambling site. Oh, is that right? To try to swing the odds. Oh my gosh, so he's got money down on it? I, uh, saw some, um, uh, some article recently. I want to say, um, The gist of the article was about the incumbency of, the party incumbency in this case, the Democratic Party. Um, the likelihood of, uh, I think it was the last 19 presidencies have been, uh, Gone in the incumbent's way when the economy, so I was, I remember what it was, was perceived to be good. Correct. And, and it literally within, and I, I, I remember reading and almost the same number have gone the other way if the economy appears to be bad. Bingo. And because the time, which is why Kamala has been trying quite hard to not be the incumbent. Obviously I'm not Joe Biden, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally. I bet I'm somebody else. Right. Um, so this, this, uh, predictive, uh, data point was relative to the s and p. Index and in the economy, that was the indication of the data was was looking at that back to the indicator. Yeah. And so fascinating. Based on what you see, I think the, I think the S and P's up, uh, 12 percent this year. Okay. So you're saying Kamala's going to win. I'm not saying that. That's what the indicator said. And so I was guessing about it. Well, that was the indicator you mentioned though. So it was, it was a stock market. Yeah. Well, and that's the interesting thing is like with inflation, every dollar is smaller. And so is it the same? I don't know. Um, if you wanted to give a brand to your personal politics, what would it be? Oh, personal politics. I am a fiscally conservative. Okay. Uh, I am, uh, socially independent, uh, cause I'm more and much of an open thinker, like what is the right thing to do? So you're libertarian ish. I guess. But not really. Yeah, I mean I think, uh, I probably fall within what I believe in the most of the country is 65 percent of the country is independent. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of Is it 65%? I think it is, you do the math on like 27, 29 ish in the both ends and then there's this large Wow. Registered. Isn't it crazy that there's not A third party? Middle normal party. You use the word normal, is there air quotes around that? Well, I would consider myself a normie, for the most part. You know, um, I don't know. I, listen, I, the reason why I say that is, um, I Well and the interesting thing is you can't really tell that, like, Kamala's been taking some of Donald Trump's ideas. Sure. So the, the policy things aren't that far apart. I mean I don't think any, if you really think about the presidency over many, many decades. Yeah. You, you, you position yourself. Uh, as a can't seems like you position yourself as a candidate for a party to get the base, but you only win if you get the middle. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I think proof. So we'll see. Well, and, and Kamala has got all the ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies. Um, so that could be a big factor. I mean, she's getting like 80 percent of the single ladies that, and I think the younger, the next generation is is clearly in favor and the black men are probably going to. Bring Tump into office, in my opinion, is that they're turning hard. Oh yeah. Okay. I mean, yeah, it might be, it might be 40%, 35, like the polls say 21%. Bullshit. I'm going to say 30 percent plus of black men will vote for Trump. 35 maybe. Wow. Which would be like up from 8%. Yeah. A couple of elections ago. I mean, I think that's what's so unique about politics. I mean, it's, um, it's a lesson in like, uh, marketing. Totally. A hundred percent. That message platform strategy. Well, and forgivable loans. You know, that depends on how many people heard about the forgivable loans. Oh, man. Anyway. Um. I think we're through with the politics enough. Are you comfortable? You want anything else? No, I mean, I think I will say this, um, and I think this will come out after the election, by the way. So, Oh yeah. Yeah. So as far as who wins, I have no idea. Your predictive forces. Yeah. But what I will say, and this is hopefully a decent jumping off point to get you to think about politics. I've been lucky enough to travel outside of this country. It sounds like you have to, uh, enough times to appreciate. What I think is one of the more challenging things within our country is the perspective of, while it's not perfect here, there are a lot of places that I've been able to travel to. Totally. Asia and Japan and Europe, you know. Yeah, yeah. And you realize, you're like, It's not that bad. Oh yeah, no, it's real nice. We have our issues, but it's still a first world, top echelon, thank gosh we were born here, individuals. Well, when you were talking about the job description stuff, I was thinking to myself, uh, Jenny Arndt is our mayor here in town. And she was kind of describing her job a little bit to me a couple of years ago now. And she's like, it's, You know, you're really just part of the city council, but you're really kind of the figurehead and the face of Fort Collins when anybody wants to come visit, when you've got dignitaries of some sort or people to host or things like that and kind of, and that's maybe more like the role of the president than we give it credit for. I think so. I mean, I don't know. I don't have it. I'm not really. Steve, well, and you can launch nuclear weapons that, yeah, that, that button you have to push. That's what the movie saying Hollywood. Well, I assume so. I don't know. I mean, there is a lock that our earliest, um, uh, or at least forefathers created, uh, three branches of the economy or of the political system government. So that itself gives you a little confidence that That's why I joke about who's in office. If they try too much, they'll get cock blocked. Yeah. Effectively. Yeah. And then you, you, you realize like, I mean, that's a theory anyway. They figured it out. There's a reason why it's a, it's a, it's a tripod. Um, last question. Yes, sir. Your loco experience, the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners? Yeah. You asked me to think about that. I'm like, gosh, I wish I had like that. Awesome. I mean that meeting the girl you were supposed to be introduced to a year before is a little crazy. It was. It was, it was, it was life changing. You know, it should have been. Changed her trajectory for sure. Totally did. And, and, uh, she'd be, uh, hopefully blushing that, that is today probably the thing that's uh, the most amazing part of my life. I'm blessed and lucky enough to have a special relationship with my wife. Yeah. Um, we see the world. No, it sounds like your face was probably changed. Through that in some ways, too. Had you been active in any kind of church environment after college? Maybe not as much as, yeah, to your point, maybe not as much as I had been after and just what brought us together and believing in a higher power. I'm like, hey, that was a pretty chance to show up at the same time. So yeah, let's, let's end on that. There's uh, That's probably the thing that's the most beautiful in my life as it is now and hopefully forever. Anika, you're his crazy experience, still going after 10 years. That's right. How lucky is that? Is it, did I say that right? Anika? Anika. Anika, I'm sorry. But there is one of those golfers that keeps, it's a similar type of name. How people pronounce that name. Can you believe that? The rudeness. Brian, thanks. It's been a lot of fun. Kurt, thanks man. It was awesome. Godspeed. Yeah, appreciate it.