Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Love and Business podcast. I am Britt Arnold, president of Tagler Construction and supply.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: And I'm Mick Arnold, president of Arnold Packaging and Arnold Automation. We're spouses, best friends, and business partners. Thank you for joining us as we discuss business, love, relationships, family, industry, health, and everything in between as we continue to build our business and intimate lives together.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: In today's episode, we take a look back at our 2023 year, which proved to be a wild and unusual ride. We're going to take a deep dive into our favorite products, tools, hacks, and discoveries from 2023. After lots of experimentation, things we've changed our minds on, as well as our most important takeaways and lessons learned, we will discuss these ideas as it relates to four different areas, family and friends, business, health, fitness and wellness. And then there's also a miscellaneous category.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: We're really excited to be back, so let's get ripping. Season two, episode one.
Welcome to waves for the superstars tonight.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Tonight.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Incredible.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: All right, well, welcome to season two. We are excited to be back and we've listened to your feedback. We've made a lot of upgrades. As you can see, the studio, thanks to Tommy and the production team, new lighting, new ying and yang table. And we're really excited to bring to you a new season with a lot of new ideas and surprises.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Rested up, ready to go? Let's do it.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: All right, let's get right into it. So, as we said today, we're going to look back on our 2023 year and share a lot of the things we've learned, changed our mind on things we've taken away that we can think sharing would benefit you. And we're going to start. We're going to break these into four different categories. We're going to start with family and friends. I think that's a great one, especially during the holiday season to get started with some of the things we've learned. How about we just bat a couple of things back and forth? Does that sound good to you?
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Goodbye, me.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: All right. One of the things I did in 2023, which I didn't think much about it when I was doing it, but now I really am glad I did and I appreciate it. One of the things I did was I asked my entire immediate family, so that's my mom, dad and sister, to just write their bucket list.
And I was really thinking about more of my parents as they're getting older. It's just not something that I was aware of. I didn't really know what a lot of their bigger goals or aspirations or lifetime goals had been. So I wanted to see it on paper. So, surprisingly, I got a bucket list from all three of them. I think it was about seven to ten items. And one of the things that was really important to me was like, I'm going to try to help them check off some or all of these bucket list items as quickly as possible. And interestingly enough, there were some overlaps between the bucket lists, which I was really looking for, because that makes life a lot easier for me to try to achieve them.
Most relevant is one of the things on my dad's bucket list was take your mother to Italy. And one of the things on my mom's bucket list was go to Italy. So as part of our 2023 Christmas gift to them, Mick and I, you and I decided to present them with a trip next year to Italy. And that's something that I was super excited about. Had I never asked about that list, it just would have never come to me to do something like that, probably. So I just think that's a really cool thing. If you're close with your family or you're close with your parents, and there's a lot of things they're still young and vibrant like mine are, and able to do things, or even if they're not meeting them where they are at and understanding what they want to do. I mean, what better gift than to be able to help them? And it's not all money. It could be certain things that take time. I know some of my moms were ca. One of the things she wanted to do, all kinds of things. Some were totally free. One of them was yoga with goats, which we already checked off the list, just stuff like that. And it's been so rewarding to understand and be able to capitalize on some of that and give back in that way. So just an idea of something really sweet you could do for friends or family.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think those are great opportunities. And I think in watching it or the takeaway for me was sometimes instead of guessing, you can just ask and trying to listen for cues or tie it together or wonder. Sometimes it's just as simple as writing it down and looking for the intersections, which worked really great here, which we.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Don'T do a lot.
It's such a simple thing.
For instance, I don't even know if I've ever asked you that, and I know you say all the time, I don't have a bucket list, but certainly you could come up with a list of ten things maybe you wouldn't call them. Maybe we'd call them something else.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: But it's just not something we think to do. And you're right. Why? Guess. Let me know exactly what would be most, what's the word?
Desirable? Valuable for them.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: So I'm really excited about it.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: I think it's just a takeaway in general, regardless of family and friends. I think a lot of times we spend time guessing or making up stories instead of just saying, hey, why don't you tell me what matters to you?
And just skipping right to the chase. I don't know. Maybe it's not as mysterious as people would have it be, but, boy, it sure is effective.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: It really is.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. For it. Well, now we know what to do, how to execute. And also, turns out, as luck would have it, that a trip that we have interest in and traveling abroad, which is always. I really enjoy watching people that I care about experience things which my parents have never done. The girls, for example. Right? I mean, when they had never been to Las Vegas, for example, and my biggest joy was watching their eyes light up at the excess that is, you know, all the crazy things that go on there that you just don't see every day. I mean, it is truly one of a kind in that regard. Just like Italy will be one of a kind in its own and different.
Mean, they both have gondolas, right? Vegas and Italy, but yeah, different. That doesn't matter. All right.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Do you have anything to add on?
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Think that's. I think that's a great one. Family and friends.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: I'll add one more to this. And we talked about this briefly in one episode. I think it was on our routines episode in season one. This isn't new.
There's a little nuance that I add in 2023, but I wanted to expand on it. And one of the things I do religiously is I do call my parents every day. And for a while, from over a year I've called my dad at 630 the same time every day. For whatever reason, my mom and I never had this particular cadence. I would talk to her most days, but it was never like, mom, I'm calling you at this time. And earlier in the year I just thought to myself, I just want to make sure I talk to both of them every single day. So call my dad at 630, call my mom at 730. Don't miss. For the most part, if I am going to miss, I'll shoot him a text and call him later in the day. But that's rare. But I think just like anything else and this isn't a novel idea, but the things that matter to you, and one of the things is talking to them. It's like putting it in your schedule just like you would a meeting and sticking to it every day. And it's just something I've gotten better at and more routine at through 2023. I've done it for a long time, but now it's habit, like brushing your teeth. And I would recommend that it's not a reasonable thing to do with too many people, but I would say that if there's a couple of people in your life, I know you do with the girls, I want to talk to them every day. Just do it on a cane. Get it in your schedule. Now, it's not a schedule. It's just. I know what the schedule is, but make it routine, and that's just the easiest way not to miss. And that's something I was very religious about in 2023.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I watched it. Yeah, you're right. I think you have a very unique situation or set up there.
You're right. Do try to talk to the girls every day. But it does take two willing participants. I mean, that's something that I think is really unique about what you talk about. And the girls at 21 and 19 as younger, they just don't value it. I mean, that's something that you learn to value along the way. And now it's very much an ingrained part.
I will say that while there isn't always the same value or importance put on from the children's side, they do actually notice if, for whatever reason, I don't call now. Right. Because we have customers in town or whatever time gets away, which can happen from time to time, if I do miss on, it'll be, yeah, dad, I know she didn't call the other night. And my first thought is, well, I also noticed that the last six times that I called and you didn't answer, you never called back either. So it does take two very willing participants, which you have a great set up and relationship there to do that.
But it is interesting how when you set those expectations and you do have that cadence where people may actually recognize when it doesn't happen even a little more readily than when it does happen all those times.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And another thing I had heard on a podcast, which I'm talking about because I used to do it, and I did not do it in 2023, but one of the things I used to do, which, again, I had just heard in a podcast, was when you're thinking of a friend, even if it's somebody you haven't talked to in five years, if they just cross your mind, whether it's in a dream or you see their picture pop up, it doesn't matter. Text them immediately when you think of them. And I used to do that as a way just to stay connected with people because I'll be honest, I am not great on the phone with friends. I'm pretty horrible, actually. But that was just a good way because if you get a text from somebody out of the blue, you know they're thinking about you. That means a lot. And I want to get back to doing that because it is such a great way. Even if you haven't talked to somebody in so long, just saying, hey, you were in my dream last night, or hey, your picture popped up. Was just thinking about you. Hope all is well and it's a 32nd event. And the difference that can make in your relationships, it could yield just so much from so little.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It could be a reconnection of some kind. Definitely. Yeah. Or who knows what that response is. It could be. Well, funny you should say because. And then fill in any number of thousands of answers that the response could be, for sure.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Cool. All right, well, let's move on to.
Let's jump around a little bit here. We have health, fitness, and wellness next. But let's jump to work and the professional side of things and some of your 2023 takeaways, lessons learned from in the business sphere.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, 23 was a tough year.
Good or bad, we forecasted it right. You know, we were, we were waiting for some slowdowns and, and, and it.
Sometimes we really get it right. It's, it's just there's this, this push and pull where you get it right bad right. Where sometimes you get it good, wrong. Where you expect this year was right bad, where we were expecting some of these headwinds to catch up. We knew they were coming. We watched them. Our customers were giving us signals. The transportation industry, which is a wonderful indicator, was giving us signals way ahead of time that there was a slowdown coming. And there are the tip of the spear. We planned accordingly. But it just goes back to the last few years of having to be a dynamic leader because it just won't sit down or sit still for 1 second.
The landscape never stops changing. And I would have said that across my entire 30 year career, but I would say the violence swings back and forth in the last three were as significant as maybe the other 27 combined. So just a quick look back on 23 from that, I would say really proud of everybody around here for the job that we did on delivery and completely different conditions and challenges than just go backwards. Twelve months, where we were still fighting incredible issues with supply chains and getting things. I mean, what a difference twelve months makes. But in every single sense of the word, it's changing. And I would expect that to continue. Maybe not at the violent rate of change of the last two or three years, but 23. Interesting. And just continues to test my skills as a leader, an innovator, someone that's trying to be cognizant of being ahead and not just skate to where the puck is going, but be there waiting for it. Boy, some of the changes that are going on at this moment in our evolution are like nothing I've ever seen before. So it was quite a year and still sitting here with just three years left in it, trying to figure it out. Still that happens. We were talking the other day about how year end can have all kinds of different looks. Sometimes you come in a little bit slower and you do get more retrospective moments. This year hasn't just, for whatever reason, hasn't been that way. Travel has gone right up until the bitter end. Haven't had a lot of alone time, if you will, to be able to sort it out, think it through. So I'm still working on that retrospective look at 23, but that was something that came to mind quickly, is if that idea of the only constant is change. Pendulum continues to swing pretty violently.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Even still, the one thing I was looking for you to mention above all was the particular mantra that you had this year that you said to a lot of people that they adopted.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was three very simple things. Profitability is the new sales growth stabilize, which is really just really getting the roles filled. The pandemic was challenging. We had lots of retirements. People just, they retired, had the financial freedom and flexibility to call it quits and retire, and did so stabilize in a lot of spots, was just about building back our team and getting the right players in the right positions. We've always been very confident in understanding the rulebook and our playbook, but that's all great right up until you have to have players to execute. And then the last part of that was to start to optimize and spot. When you have a business of automation and packaging, they have their own nuances, and the teams get built differently at different rates. So we had some teams that were ready for that optimized component, while some teams were still incredibly in the stabilized mode. So, yes, we took on those three. And fortunately, again, got it right.
And I believe we're very successful in that. Stabilize where appropriate, in the optimize where appropriate, and we're able to exercise financial controls and discipline such that when the top line slowed, which we called it, didn't result in financial disaster, which it can be if you get caught off guard or are not managing to, leading to that, then you could wake up at the end of the year and do a hell of a lot of hard work and not have anything to show for it. And it didn't work that way.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yes, and I can relate to that a lot because my company is in a different position because we're young, so growing year over year, a tremendous amount.
While it's a great achievement, it was relatively easier because we are so young, so we should be growing for the most. I know the economy and all of these different things can affect that, but just by virtue of hiring better people and just know it's just getting better, it's fairly easy to grow a tremendous amount when you're young, a younger company.
But for the last six years, I didn't really have to work hard at that. It was, I knew we were going to do better than the year before simply because we were doing more volume. Our profit margin, it's a high volume, lower profit margin business, but just by virtue of we're going to double at least our revenue, we're going to do better this year. Last year we crushed it and I knew it was not going to be the same. So we really had to dig into the weeds and look at some other components because we couldn't rely on just doing, in fact, we haven't done as much revenue as we did last year. However, our profitability is much higher because we dug into the little components. Not that we're overlooked, whether it was our vendor cost, whether it was so many different things that, not that it was overlooked, but when you can only focus on so many things as a lean team, we just relied on doing more business. More business, more business. This year it was different. It was more of, okay, we're not going to do necessarily, we did well last year, we expect to do well this year, but we need to take care of some other things to make sure that we're more profitable than we were, or at least equally as profitable. So that was an interesting lesson and definitely a different year of running the business on this 7th year in business than it has been the other six. Does that make sense?
[00:18:28] Speaker B: No, it does. And I'll tell you, there's two very real conditions that happen in business, and they're related. One is called getting it out at all costs. Getting it out the last six years. That's right. And then the other one is also called the inefficiency of scale, where you are scaling up to meet the needs or to meet the demands of the business, truly economic demand, and you're not as disciplined in bringing on the support structures. I remember when the world came undone in 2008 with the first financial crisis and how GM and Ford and just thinking of one industry, they got absolutely hammered. How did they just cut half of the people that they had in a very short period of time? And the short answer was, they were so inefficient in their expansion. Prior to that, they never actually needed all of those people or all of those resources. And when pressed to compress, they did. They were able to, and they were able to get small in those moments and survive. But those are the two things that I think you experience. And I was watching and doing some of the same things coming back. And part of that is going, all right, now wait a minute. How do we right size this business if we're going to do the same top line or even a little bit of less top line? How do I right size this business?
And that optimized piece is a big part of it. But those are two very real things, right? That inefficiency of scale and getting it out the door at all costs. We should say wrapping a $20 bill around it. And you can do that. If you're so focused on fulfillment that you actually don't watch the cost associated, then you can do a hell of a lot of work and not have much to show for it if you're not careful.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Feel great about that top line sales number. Who cares?
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Well, you always say, isn't it better to do less and make more?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: That's right. I would love to get paid more for doing less. And you can do it.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: And I think another part of that as we're talking about it, is too that I felt like this year we had earned the right to ask for certain things. We earned the right to ask for an increased fee or better vending costs, more of a discount, whatever that looked like. I think the first few years, five, even six years, we were learning, and I probably didn't feel as confident and probably for good. I mean, that was probably right. And I think that we brought in the people we understand the business. We've done a really good job of structuring, coming up with processes. And we were just there where I was like, we can ask for more, we're doing more, we're more credible, we know our shit now. So that's just part of the process. So if you are a young company that just started and thinking you don't really have that power, because I felt like we were almost like it was us and the big guy and we just couldn't ask for anything. No, I don't feel like that. I feel like a lot of times we are in a position of power or leverage and not in a way that might have come off wrong, but just that we do have some right to come in and ask for more because we deserve it.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
Yes. Not in a dictatorial way. But I think what you're hitting on is that you understand and are delivering on your value proposition, right? You're delivering on your value prop. So if there's a takeaway, if you're a new business and you're listening and you're delivering on your value prop, then yeah, you have earned the right to be paid for that, provided you are actually delivering on that value. And I think that's where some of the pieces that I've watched your team start to really coalesce around and be able to deliver that and say we were worth another point. Right? Like literally worth another point, which can be a big deal if you look at it from a return on investment matters. It really matters.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: It does matter. And my VP, Georbe, he's very good at doing that. And you're sticking to his guns. And I've certainly got better. And the thing also is now we can say no or we can say we want this because we deserve it and risk losing that entire job or project because we're in a good financial spot. Again, we didn't have that privilege several years ago. We needed the job and we needed to take it on a lesser profit.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Look, as a startup, you eat a lot of shitburgers, right? Those are shitburgers.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: And as a startup, they keep you afloat.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: So I mean, again, when we talk about these things, if you are a business owner or executive or working through this stuff, look at the evolution of your business.
We're still young, so if you are a young company, this is probably relevant, but just know where you are and understand what you can and cannot risk and ask for.
It's not always black and white, but I figured that out by pushing the boundaries and putting feelers out.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Another one. I'm going to just keep on this, right? I would say, and part of that too, we developed in 2023 a great executive meeting process. And the number of times I sit here, we'll be celebrating our 91st anniversary next year. The number of times one of our execs had a question last week we had this group question. It was, tell the group something that you realized that should have been so damn easy that it should never have taken you that long to figure out. Paraphrasing. And there's some of these things that even 90 years in, we put together a great executive check in meeting, right? And our team gets together on our. And some people listen and be like, jesus, Mick, really well done, dumbass. What took you so long? But I think the takeaway for me was, you're still learning. You never stop learning. I don't care what your shirt says your age is. For us it's 90. For me, it's not right. I'm still new in spots to this, but we put together a great process, which I think was very significant in contributing to what I just said about delivery and being able to stay on financial plan despite hitting those top line headwinds.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Can we get into the nuts and bolts of that executive meeting? So.
I know, but I think people listening would like to know what is the cadence? What is the structure of the meeting? I'd love the questions in the beginning, if you can talk about that. So break that down for us. Length, cadence, topics format?
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I have five directs and quickie overview. It's everybody that runs our different business units. So two operating groups, which are packaging and automation, sales and marketing, two different. That's number three and number four, and then finance, which is the accounting side of the business. So me plus five on a weekly basis for no longer than one and a half hours. And we really try to keep it in that 1 hour range.
And I'll share the evolution because we've gotten better at it and recognized things that were of value and were not of value and kept the valuable stuff and took out the things that were of less value. So we have four different meeting formats that rotate. We don't talk about every single thing every single week.
We base it on this period meeting. We have 13 meetings a year. So a, the a format starts after that, just so we're not redundant with information. And then B has some features, and C and D has some features. And then we come back again four weeks later. And it's brisk. It starts off with a question. One of the six of us own the meeting each week. So you never get the same meeting format twice in a row. And someone's responsible for coming up with what I would consider a very provocative question. I'll give you an example. Question last week was, if you ran the organization through a swot analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, which one is furthest from neutral? So great question, and I'll give you my answer right, and my answer was a nine, a positive nine. Nine slots away from neutral being zero is opportunity. I think we've created a lot of opportunities in the talent that we've brought into the organization, the suppliers that we have, the way we've built out our automation team. But then quickly said, but negative seven. Seven slots away. On the negative side of zero is a threat, which is our technical expertise. At this moment in time, when you have eight retirees for 130 years of collective tenure, you lose, you give up some of that technical expertise. So nine, positive nine was my first answer on opportunity. But quickly behind that was, but negative seven away. Seven clicks away from zero was there's a threat that we have to continue to invest in our people, so that we are the technical experts in our industry. So it starts off with a really provocative question. We touch in on the upcoming calendar. So everybody, it has this synchronization feel that has everybody leaving the meeting on point, on task, and it acts as a great wrap up. We have some different formats throughout the week, but acts as a great wrap up for the week. I feel like our team goes home for the weekend. There's a marinade component of it. I know there are some actions that happen on Sunday afternoon or Sunday night. A lot of my teammates have a tendency to prep for the week on Sunday. I know there's a marinade and a launch feel of that meeting format, which has been really effective. And we just figured that out to that degree on year 90, which, again, I want to punch myself at times, but just equally as happy that we finally figured it out and got something.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: That'S effective and I want to move on. I don't want to belabor this executive meeting, but last point, you're going to have a lot of people argue, and I could even argue this, that we have too many meetings. Like, you're going to have an hour and a half meeting every Friday. That's great. If you execute on these action items, how are you making sure your team's accountable of, okay, we have these meetings, what's getting done?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: So there's some other.
In different formats around the company. There are metrics, there's quantitative metrics that then measure up to whatever we're talking about. So give you case in point, we might talk about the marketing, organization and lead generation, right? So it gets talked about there. Those actions get put in motion. And then we are measuring lead Gen as part of the period meeting. Just pick one. That's a really easy one. Did we generate as many leads as we discussed generating by deploying the resources that we agreed to deploy? And did we pull through with the results that we identified and agreed were what? Right. Looks like. So that's how we wrapped that. And you're right. I mean, it would be easy. And by the way, we battled ourselves early where these meetings were dragging. That's why we have four formats. Like just things that you learn along the way and understanding that a couple of ones we hit on a lot recently, is don't let perfect be the enemy of great start. And you say it all the time, start. Right. These things can be dynamic. It's not even reasonable. Not only do they not have to be perfect out of the gate, it's not even reasonable that they would be perfect. Right. So you just have to go in with a mindset that as long as everyone is hyper committed, that you'll learn together and someone will say, I'm not sure I'm feeling this. What if we. That's a good idea. And then you go into it with that level of commitment and you're willing to pivot and you understand that. Why would it be perfect? Who the hell ever nails anything on the first line? So that's how we got there. But still checking. And I'll just give you one thing. The very last thing we do in the meeting is everybody rates the meeting on a scale of one to ten, and it is based on being brisk, the preparation that was done, the topical nature, the question. So we're grading the person that was responsible for that meeting at the end. So that feedback loop is real time. And let me tell you what, it'll have you doing the prep. And when you're going to show up in front of five very smart peers, you're not going to mail it in, you're never going to half asset. And that's also a big contributor to why effective that process is.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to add a few other things here on the work into the work bucket. One of them, staying on the lines of meetings is Monday morning meetings. And this is also something I've changed my mind on. I always said I hated the idea of Monday morning meetings because I think people are tired, unprepared and all these things, and I think they're ineffective to a degree. I still agree with that point. However we started doing, and this was probably, I don't know if it was Q one, but definitely by Q two. We started doing our project meetings every single Monday morning. And this is actually via teams.
And I loved it for more than. It was just great to know that all of our team was on board and working and focused at 09:00 a.m. On Monday morning. Hopefully we start at seven, but at least we're getting together at nine. I like to have a couple of hours for people to just get in, get focused. But the thing that it's done more than anything is it forces everyone on the team. I naturally do this, but I'm not sure everyone does, is to prep prior to Monday because we have a shared, it's just a spreadsheet, a shared spreadsheet. And it's got several different tabs. Active jobs, jobs we bid po pending and then upcoming bids, four different tabs and those all have to be updated prior to the meeting. So if nothing else, it forces preparation. And for me, I know it's helped me better organized. Like I know all the jobs. Every week I'm looking at all the jobs we bid. What jobs haven't we heard of that heard from what's the status of the ones we haven't bid? What are the upcoming? And it's really helped me stay more organized. So that prep and that organizational piece, whether it's, I think it's effective just having the team, even if it's just team morale or charisma, going into the week, all being on the same page, knowing everybody's focus on Monday morning, that's all been great. But more than anything, everyone is prepped and organized and I think that's been a game changer.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, look, but I think a big point of what you hit on, though, your first comment was interesting to me.
I've always thought them not very effective. People are tired. They're this or that. That is based on leadership. What you're getting out of that meeting is based on how you lead it. We have a similar Monday meeting that's led by our vp of packaging and it is anything but boring. And it all comes down to what you said. I just made a note over here about 2024 and preparation because there are definitely some times that I experienced our team, not my direct team necessarily, but different parts of the organization, under prepared or even unprepared, which is just completely unacceptable. The idea that you would show up for anything that you cared about, I don't care what it is, under prepared or unprepared, is just not good enough. It's not good enough to get to the level that we talk about. And I think what you've done is taken the leadership role and you've actually established that cadence. Right. If you believe the old thing about the fish rots at the head, well, it also lives at the head, too. So if as the head person, you're delivering that way, you're showing up that way. There's a thing about mammals that love that routine and they love that cadence and they will lean into it with the right type of leadership. And I think that's what you're doing. I don't think it's accidental at all. I think it is absolutely preordained.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Sure. A couple of the other ones are, these are pretty easy. And some people may be like, yeah, Britt. But for me, game changers, this wasn't a 2023 thing, but I've definitely reaped more of the rewards in 2023. This is stupid, but I'm going to say, I can't wait to hear it.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: I don't even know what it is. I'm so excited. Go on.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: No, it's not that cool.
If you use credit cards in your company, look at getting a premier, I don't know if you call a premier platinum American Express card. So I didn't do had, you know, my bank, regular bank card, whatever. You were like, okay, are you putting a lot on credit card? I said, not really, which is why I didn't really look into it that much. Just get an Amex card. And a lot of people like me as a small business owner was like, well, you got to pay this annual fee and I don't know if it's worth it, the amount of points you get.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: The best hack in the world, right?
[00:35:15] Speaker A: It made me look harder at, okay, what could we start paying on credit card, which I really never dug into. So it forces you to do that a bit, which was, turns out a ton of our customers do accept credit card. A, b, the amount of points you get that I utilize all of them on Amazon, which is for buying furniture or whatever it supplies, anything. They're utilized on Amazon. So it's not free money, of course, but the savings we have taken away from freaking Amex cards, all of my employees have them, or several of them. It's unbelievable.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah, but here's the other thing, too. And with fraud, we talk about fraud. A number of times on here we had another fraud event, and I think we touched on one of these. I'm trying to remember the timing. But here's the other thing, too. Why would you ever send a check that you don't have to? A check out in today's world is just an opportunity for someone to steal from you. Right? There is your bank account number and the router floating around. So why would you ever, I mean, in addition to all of the points, just the fraud protection piece, right. If somebody does something squirrely, it's on Amex's dime. And that's why all those costs are laced in there. But gosh, if nothing else, just the idea of why would you ever write a check at the risk of fraud that you didn't have to write. That's another beauty. Absolute beauty.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Here's another one which we just recently, as in the last month, put into action. It's called the money interest sweep, I guess. And that has to do, that is related to current interest rates. So at any point in time, it may not make sense, but if you're someone that keeps, or you're a company that keeps a relatively high amount, and that's going to be different for everybody. But in your checking account and where the market is now, it's basically free money. So what it does, it does this daily sweep every single day. And you generate interest from that sweep. And I think that it might be like a weekly interest. I'm actually not sure because it just went to motion and I haven't been the one handling it directly. But I mean, just in a few weeks we've made a couple of from this thing.
Now, we do like to keep a lot in our checking account because we prepay a lot of our vendors. We'd like to have that cash and take advantage of discounts.
But I was totally not aware of it. I had never heard of it. That's something that case in point about nurturing relationships and having a great relationship with our bank, they brought it to us and you could say, well, maybe any good banking partner should, but they wouldn't. If you don't have a good relationship with your bank, they're not looking out for you individually. They have a million different clients and customers. They came to us, said, hey, we look at what you keep in your account monthly. This is going to make a lot of sense from where it is now. You can cancel it anytime because there is a fee for it. So you have to keep an eye on it because at some point the fee can outweigh what you're making, but at this particular point, we're really doing well with it. So that was a cool find.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other risk, nutsy boltsy. But the other risk you have to watch is at some point, as interest rates go down, there is a little bit of an extra reconciliation process. And having been in around the sweep game, it's a pretty simple premise. Just the idea that the bank takes all of your excess cash, invests it overnight, and gives it back to you the next day.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: So you'll see a $0 balance, which is pretty scary.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Yeah, don't look. And then they pay for the use of it for that period of time. So it's brilliant.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: It might sound really stupid. Will be totally. I knew nothing about it until a month or two ago. I've been in seven years of business and it was the first I had ever heard of it. So I can't be the only one.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Well, that's why we have a podcast, right? Because there are any number of things that people just don't tell you and not that they're hiding it from you. You just don't get deep enough into a conversation with your banker. Or maybe you don't even know how to have a conversation with a banker as a new business person where you're saying, can you tell me about some cash management tactics? Right. That's the generic term for what we're talking about, cash management tactics. Oh, we have this, we have that. And then the other one you should be asking them right after that is fraud management tactics right behind it. Whether that's perfect pay or whatever those different tools are, man, those should be the first two questions, and either one you choose. But ask both to your banker, man, if you're not aligned with your bank in those two, man, you're missing a huge opportunity.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Newbies out there, call your bank, ask them about cash management and fraud protection.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And something I'm going to do, which I don't think I did a good enough job of last season, is talking about getting into these very specific things that you can execute immediately. And I don't know why I didn't be. Maybe I don't think it was because I was scared of sounding dumb, but maybe that was part of it. I have no idea. But when I learn things from week to week, I'm just going to bring them up because it could just be life changing for somebody or for a business.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: I want to hear pencil scratching in the background while people are listening and writing these down.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: I mean, it's the little things, right?
[00:40:42] Speaker B: It's absolutely. Yeah. Right? Do you hear me? I just told you that we just started an executive meeting after 90 years.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Right? Totally.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: That's pretty dumb. Happy to share.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Not dumb.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Happy to share. Still evolving. Is that better?
[00:40:56] Speaker A: All right, so let's move on to our third bucket. So we've done family and friends. Number one, we've done work and professional. Number two, third bucket, health, fitness, and wellness. And there's a couple of topics that you and I are going to be able to riff on, for sure. But I did.
Bear with me.
I brought some props on. I came prepared.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Holy cow. Show and tell day.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Well, some of the stuff on the health, fitness, and wellness side is product based. So if I had it, I brought it in to do, like, a little show and tell, I would have brought.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Mine, but nobody told me.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: You're a big boy. You're a big boy.
One thing. Let's start with something you and I can go back on. Back and forth on one thing we did. Now, most of the stuff I bought in 2022, because I went back and looked at when I purchased everything, most of it was from September to December of 2022. However, we really experimented, tested, trialed it in 2023. So I am giving us a little bit of leeway here on both.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: There's a deployment. I think there's a deployment phase in. That's fair.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: So we bought these aura rings that I'm wearing. I don't think you're wearing your.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: No, I'm more of a sleeper with it.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So I like that they have a stress rating now, which I like during the day. But either way, we bought these in September of 2022, and we have really tested them in 2023. I'm sure by now, a lot of people are familiar with aura ring, the WHOOP. But if you're not really. The aura ring is to test your sleep. And it looks at several different categories. It looks at your heart rate. It looks at your sleep cycle, so it will break your sleep up into light sleep, rem sleep, and deep sleep. And it shows you the amount you get of each every night. It looks at your HRV, which is your heart rate variability. Now, it has a stress rating. So it has four different categories. It's stressed, engaged, relaxed. I think I'm missing one there. There are four different ones, but it shows you where your stress is throughout the day. I think that's still a work in progress, because I can tell you, sometimes it says, I'm stressed, and I'm not. Doesn't really make a lot of sense. So I think they're still working on some of those algorithms, and it also tells you your body temperature. So it takes all of these things and then gives you two scores every morning when you wake up. A readiness score and a sleep score. Sometimes they align, sometimes they don't. But it's been very interesting in the beginning. I think you and I just were interested in the statistics, looking at the consistency or inconsistencies of it. I don't think we did anything with it other than collected data in the first several months.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: No. Can I say it this way? We subjected it to our life to start.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: And then as we evolved and started to understand the data, two people that are big consumers of data, then we started to subject it to our life. But that first part is right on. We just subjected our life to it. Okay. We just kept doing what we were doing, making the exact same lifestyle changes, and it was just reporting back to us what was going on in our body as a byproduct. So you go, because these are big deals.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Well, we made several behavioral changes, I think, that we're still working on, and I think we can go through these pretty quickly. One of them, we noticed direct correlation. When we drink alcohol and we sleep, the effect it has on our bodies is unbelievable. It is our heart rates, and thus it affects our heart rate variability, our deep sleep and rem, it affected every single part of our sleep negatively. For you, I think it took two to three drinks. For me, it was literally, I could have one drink. The closer we had the drink to bed, the more it affected it. If I had a drink, say we went out for, like, a beer at three or four in the afternoon, it probably wouldn't affect my sleep, but if it wasn't within 3 hours, I mean, a single beer disrupted my sleep. We really changed the amount we drank, the way we drank when we drank. Frequency.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Number of days per week, meaning frequency.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: I'd like to get in that as a whole different topic. But that was a significant behavioral change we made from the data collection.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Huge. And listen, as an older male, I mean, males and females are different in ages. A huge component of this.
They're so different, too. Yes, sleep is a component of readiness, but it doesn't save you. Right.
My data has made it absolutely clear that I can't have too many cocktails and sleep it away. I'll just wake up with a good sleep score and have a terrible readiness score because my heart never calms down.
My heart is beating another 20 times per minute across that period of time. I mean, talk about literally wearing out your machine. That's what we're talking about.
The data piece is just undeniable. Like I knew before the aura ring, when I had cocktails, I feel like I felt like crap. But now I know exactly why, and I can see it real time.
If you value performance, right, the way we drive our bodies and the demands and what we want to do and where we want to go, man, you'd never fight with one hand behind your back. And when you have that data, you realize you're absolutely fighting with one hand behind your back.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: You are. And one important piece I forgot to add is it also tracks activity, so it gives you an activity score.
Generally speaking, the more active and fit you are, the better your HRV. And you want your HRV to be higher. So humble brag here. But mine is always above 100. It's 120, like my HRV.
But I remember when somebody showed us their HRV score, it was like five or ten, and they didn't know anything about what that meant. And I was thinking in my head, call the paramedic, dude, you're going to die. Yeah, you need to change your life. Which we already knew, but that's an important component. Now, something else I thought was really indicative can be the temperature.
The only time my temperature has been out of control, and I'm talking one and a half. So it measures your temperature above baseline. So it takes a while to establish your baseline. And then if it says one and a half, that's above your natural baseline was when I had Covid. So actually, my aura ring detected when I had Covid, which was astonishing.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: Every time, which is we don't get sick often, but when we have. Our temperatures have been above baseline about one or two days before.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I was sick, so we watched it. I'll send you screenshots. I was sick over the holidays, and my baseline temperature went up 2.8 degrees.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:47:56] Speaker B: 2.8 degrees.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: So that determinant is just unbelievable.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And it affects your readiness. And I promise you, when I have a readiness score of 58, I feel like shit. I mean, there's no two ways about it.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: The other one I'll just mention, too, eating in relation to bed. So it has these effects which I.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Haven'T changed, which I need to try.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: To eat a little bit earlier or try to go to bed at a similar time. Another one that will bang up your sleep scores. And we're probably even competitive with it at times now. Right?
[00:48:22] Speaker A: So there's a thing called circles, so you can see each other's sleep scores.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: But we got your cousins involved, right? Every once in a while, they'll send over a screenshot checking in on how they did or some of their numbers. But, yeah, God, I mean, if you value, you can't get there if you don't have a great machine. And, man, if you can isolate data and you can figure out how to get another one or two, 3% out, that's huge. That is absolutely huge.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: It is. And next episode, we're going to do more of a 2024 look ahead. Not 2023 look behind. But I want to get into more sleep because 2024, for me is really going to be about optimizing my body, which I haven't been great at doing. And a lot of that is sleep, which is going to be restructuring a schedule. And I'm very serious about that. So we'll talk about more about that. What I want to do segue into is get a little bit more into that alcohol piece, because I think it's worth mentioning, it was last Thanksgiving, 2022. It was the next day, which was, I think it was literally the next day. We talked about, man, we're tired, we're exhausted. What are the things we can do? And one of the things we talked about was reducing alcohol. So as I do, I went down this rabbit hole.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, exactly.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: And I got into. I was looking at the non alcoholic, really. I was more interested in the industry behind it and the brands and the manufacturers, and I read what they actually call quitlit. So I read every, not every, a lot of it's called the sober curious movement. And so many books on giving up alcohol or what alcohol does. She's brain, all of these stories. And I got really into it. And I would say last year, I definitely reduced my alcohol about 90% to 95%. And then in the last. I mean, it's been over 150 days, at least, where I haven't even had a sip of alcohol at all.
That was just something that was really interesting for us. And there was a time where we were just going out so much and drinking so much, and you talk about wearing out your machine to the point where I would notice my heart would race certain situations. That's when I got freaked out. It was this heart race and this just little layer of anxiety that would freak me out. I'm like, I don't want this. I need to get rid of this.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that would almost be like, if you had waiting for the other shoe to drop. We talk about that. If we'd been out for a number of days and our bodies were just.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Taxed, do two, three, four string nights together, out with suppliers, out with customers.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Whatever, and then throw in our days.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: And then also we would go at it. It wasn't like we were just having a drink or two. And mainly it's because we love the company. We were there for hours, but it became a thing and I knew it had to stop.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Not sustainable.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And quite frankly, listen, this is not something that I'm so dogmatic about or judgmental. Everybody can do what they want, but for me it's been an unbelievable experience and I actually haven't noticed as much. I love going out just the same. In fact, I love the conversations more. I just feel like obviously I'm more alert, I remember more.
It would also make me really tired because it was long days and I don't have that. So anyway, that was a big change for us. Like a huge change.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: If the semi title of this is sharing renaissance moments of 2023, that's just a renaissance moment. Nothing packed with judgment or anything of the sort. I mean, people are going to do what they're going to do, but that was definitely an eye opener. And I wasn't quite as disciplined or far down the road as you. I mean, I'll still get together with salespeople and by the way, feel like shit the next day is, or is like, hey, dummy, here's a big 50 for you, and let's see if you get back in order by tomorrow morning. The other thing I will just mention quickly and we can talk more about this. I think the thing that was interesting for me is the stigma around not drinking. The opposite, right? I mean, if I like, hey, guess what? I stopped doing crack. You're like, that's amazing. Good for you. I'm so proud of you. We'd be high fiving it out. You'd be like, yeah, I don't want to drink tonight. People look at you like you have ten heads. We say, do you have an NA option? I mean, you find a Heineken, double x or whatever the hell they call it. I was amazed at how opposite it is where pulling away from the alcohol, beast man, it is quite an experience.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: It wasn't at first. Now I don't really care. And it's so funny because a lot of our friends now, the last couple of dinners we went out to, I didn't drink. Nobody even said anything or noticed because it just becomes common. The other thing I want to touch on is that na piece. Because we went down the road again, I get so into something I think I bought.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: Oh, God almighty, jesus.
We had every single product.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: I bought every single product. A test. And we tried all this stuff.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: What do we have? We had seed lip.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: We had seed that we had lears. We had. And these are all na. Oh, God. What was the other one?
[00:53:38] Speaker B: We liked the tequila that we liked.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: And I can never remember the name of. Horrible.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: We'll think of it.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll think of it. We'll line them all up. And then I brought, like, all these mixers. I mean, anything you could think of. I bought it to try it very quickly on. I realized, like, I'm just going to have a Diet Coke.
[00:53:52] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I'm good.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: Why am I drinking? And we all buy, like, low calories here. I'm like, I don't need any of this. We would go to a restaurant and we would get a mocktail. It'd be like, $15. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm just as happy with coke or water.
[00:54:06] Speaker B: $15, 300 calories, and you can't win the worm off. Come on.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
Because for a while, we need to develop the na. It's definitely a strong industry. I was looking at athletic brewing, and I'm not going to lie. We had a call about how to create an Na drink. We were going down that road, as we do. We're going to create one. And I just fell out of. I don't see the point. I'm not sure I see the point anymore. And now I'm like, I'm definitely good with a club soda, die Coke, and a Diet Coke. I'm good with that.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:54:38] Speaker A: Okay, let's move on here. A couple of that. Well, because I brought a couple of things in, I'm just going to run through a couple of products that I've really liked this year. So I'm very much into running and exercise. So one of the things I have here for runners, I never thought I'd like a running vest. I always used, and you have it, too, for biking or whatever, the belts, the running, where you'd stick your cell phone in, and those always moved on me. So this year, I bought a. This is a Solomon vest. It has a couple of pockets. I never thought I'd like the vest, but I put it on with my cell phone, and it's so much more secure, and I like running with it so much more. So if you don't like those running bands, I would suggest trying a vest out. That's been awesome. And then if you go on longer runs, you can put these, have the little water bottles that you fill. You can put gels or whatever you like in there. So I've really liked that.
I've just recently bought this Koros watch, so a lot of runners will use Garmin. I've been really impressed with the Koros watch, and they've got a bunch of different. I think they're gaining momentum, but I've really liked that. So check them out. If you're a Garmin person or you haven't heard of coros, check that out because I really like it. What are a couple of other things this year? Actually, not long ago, a couple of months ago, I just invested in. It's not a commercial treadmill, but it's technically a home treadmill with a commercial engine.
It's expensive, but if you are a runner and you're going to run every day and you're going to wear your treadmill out, you're in colder climates like we are, it's worth investing in either a commercial or something with a commercial engine because a the warranty on, it's amazing. I think I have free service on it for three years.
And also, it's just so much better for your body. Like, I immediately felt, wow, my joints and ligaments feel so much better. So spend the time I got a matrix treadmill and absolutely love it. I wonder why I waited so long. The other thing we got was just a pull up. It's like a dead hang bar, but been hanging on it. You've done it a couple of times and I do it every single day for back decompression. So I just hang for a minute and I do that every single day before I work out. And that's been really just made my back feel a lot better. So just hanging on the decompression on your back, that's something I've added in 2023. And I could go on, but I think I'll stop there. Those are a couple of items I've really liked in 2023.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: You do have a lot of gizmos.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: There's a ton more. But I think those are like the newer ones. Instead of talking about every single thing I've bought, I think those are the new ones I've really liked.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Then you wear the hell out of them. I mean, I would say mean when you invest. Oh, definitely you invest.
I'm not going to find in a basket in the corner anytime soon. If I do, it's because you literally wore it out.
[00:57:39] Speaker A: You know what?
Excuse me here.
A couple of other things I forgot about.
I know everybody, whether into fitness or not, you're always looking for good headphones. And these are ones I wasn't sure if I were going to like. So these are power beats pro. I bought them in 2022, but just started using them heavily in 2023. I wasn't sure I was going to like the around the earpiece, but it's been very secure for running, so, I mean, again, you could use it anytime, but I wasn't sure I was going to love that, and I've ended up really loving it. As opposed to. What do you have?
[00:58:18] Speaker B: I have Bose, where they use friction.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Inside the ear, which I like those, but these feel better for me about. So if you've tried the ones where they don't wrap around your ears, try these. These have been great to do anything with, really. And then the last thing I'm going to talk here, which is not in the gym. This is not a new concept. I've had these probably for a couple of years. These are nothing special. I don't even remember the brand. But these are blue light blocker glasses. And the reason I bring these up is because there's so much back and forth between whether these work or not. And a lot of people and a lot of data will say there is no data that backs up that blue light glasses do anything. However, in 2023, for the first time ever, I experienced a couple of migraines. What were they called?
[00:59:08] Speaker B: I don't recall. I'd have to look them up.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: It's like an aura migraine, maybe?
[00:59:11] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. Aura migraine.
[00:59:13] Speaker A: I believe it was a particular type of aura migraine. And I had every arm, remember, my arm went numb. And basically what happens is everything, I get a flash in my face and then I just see a bunch of light, and I cannot look at anything in focus. I can't look at a screen. I have to lay down and I get a headache, and I know when it's coming.
The only time I would get them religiously is when I would look at my computer for too long without those glasses. I have never one time experienced that when I have those glasses on, so I can tell you 100% for me, they have made a massive difference. So if you experience that, or even red eyes, you get red eye or irritated eyes from looking at a screen. Try those, because that's been a game changer for me.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: There you go. There's some hacks.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: There's some hacks. Okay, last thing here. Moving on to the miscellaneous category here, something I wanted to touch on in the miscellaneous category. I guess we could have technically put this in. Work from professional is our investment strategies, and I'm going to use that very broadly. So you and I invest in several different things. We invest in some real estate, sub hospitality opportunities, I. E. Restaurants. Then also, I'm also talking about personal investments, which this year, we'll get into that, but just things that we may buy for ourselves.
And certainly my mentality has changed a little bit about our investment approach this year, and a lot of that has had to do with how you look at it. And one of the things, whenever you.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Say something like that, I'm like, holy shit, how do I look at it? I don't know.
I'm intrigued by things that you're taking away when I don't know that you're taking them away and then you parrot them back. I'm like, oh, okay, guy. Well, never really pay attention.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: For instance, there are some things you're going to buy, like a boat, right? And you know it's a money pit. I know it's a money pit.
Literally, the investment value of it only goes down. You're never making money off of it.
[01:01:23] Speaker B: It's called an expense.
[01:01:24] Speaker A: Right? It's called an expense versus an investment. Yeah, exactly. But there's so much value in.
Okay. And I can equate this to doing. So we're looking at doing a home renovation, which I was totally against for so long because I was only looking at the ROI. We bought our house for this. We put x amount in. What is the resale value? And you've constantly been like, you don't look at invest. Maybe you said it in a different way, but you don't look investments like I do. And that is also, what is the value that we're going to take out of? Entertainment, enjoyment, being able to host other people. There's more than just the money piece of this.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: Right?
[01:02:09] Speaker A: And another one is like, now, when we have looked at particular, call it restaurant opportunities.
A lot of people don't want to invest in hospitality. It's risky. We saw what happened to it with COVID But sometimes it's a great opportunity. It may be a risk, but it's really great people. It's something that we're super interested in. We're going to use by nature of just going to the restaurant that is valuable to us. We get to work with cool ass people. We get to enjoy this, and we might not get the return we would somewhere else, but we're going to enjoy doing it in the process and make a return of some sort.
[01:02:44] Speaker B: Right.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: So my approach has definitely changed because I've always just looked at what am I going to get? What is my money's worth? Right?
[01:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
The idea that value is not exclusive to the financial piece independently. Right. I mean, like the restaurant thing, which we'll get into if and when we get into that, we'll share it with the viewers and we'll hype it up. And we expect to see.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: That would be soon.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Right. But I also think that, yes, always very intrigued by the restaurant entertainment biz, but there's also a piece of it that says, what can we bring?
You already have who you have. You've got a first baseman and a second basement. Who else do you need? And like, well, funny you should say we could use a short stop and a third baseman. And we look at each other and go, oh, hell, yeah. I mean, there's investments where you just hand over your coin and you don't get to leave any fingerprints on it. I think the things that we're attracted to in that regard is where we can help move the brand. We can do something, whether we talk about it here, we will be users, right? We are out and using restaurants. We'll go there instead. We will contribute things that we know from our lives of productivity or whatever, where we can actually help make it better than just dumping money into Microsoft, where I can't do squat. And I would look at it that way right in that moment. I would look at return as it relates to that piece is exclusively in what I gave you and what you gave me back. Only that. And I wouldn't look at any of those related or value on the edge value items that you just mentioned.
[01:04:15] Speaker A: Definitely. And we very much so trust our advisors, and there are trusted advisors for a reason, but even our financial advisors just not necessarily advocating for investing in something like a restaurant, but at a point, we have to look at each other. And I remember we got off the investment call, and you just say, like, I want to have fun. I want to have some fun in my life. I'm thinking to myself, I've always been so focused on just working hard, and we'll have fun later. Yeah.
What's it all for?
[01:04:49] Speaker B: Right?
[01:04:49] Speaker A: What's it all for?
[01:04:50] Speaker B: We got off the call and we both were like, oh, we want to go kick ass with those guys. Right?
[01:04:55] Speaker A: Not stupid. Not stupid investments.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: No.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: I guess sometimes they could be, but not that one in particular.
[01:05:00] Speaker B: No, absolutely nothing.
[01:05:02] Speaker A: Still calculated, strategic. But I would rather make a little bit less of a return and have a hell of a good time doing it than maybe something that, like you said, it's just our dollar and we don't see it until we get a distribution of some kind.
[01:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And that's exciting. That's the type of stuff that I love that we do and that we also have this platform to be able to share, too, which is very cool.
[01:05:26] Speaker A: Just a couple of more things before we wrap.
I always like talking about best gifts that are under $100, something that's just relevant to anybody. And this sounds dumb. I bought it for you. Well, to be fair, I bought it for you last Christmas. But for anyone that's looking for a great gift, I had to think about this, but it's been my favorite. One of my favorite already.
[01:05:52] Speaker B: I can't wait to hear what I have.
[01:05:53] Speaker A: It's just a really good, not expensive, under $100 for both of them, a good pair of slippers, and a great fuzzy robe.
[01:06:01] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I'll give you that.
[01:06:02] Speaker A: I mean, if you haven't done it yet.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: I didn't know where we were going.
[01:06:06] Speaker A: I'm just telling you, I remember getting a gift.
[01:06:08] Speaker B: I was over here going, holy shit, please tell me I love this. I would have had to make it up, Tommy. I would have had to put a look on my face.
[01:06:14] Speaker A: I remember forgetting it. Be like, okay, this is like, I'm sure I'll use these gifts, whatever. I use them every single day. And when you're just so comfortable and cozy in your own house, just go buy a really nice rug.
Sorry, robe and very nice. And a cozy pair of slippers. Don't have to be expensive. Get them off Amazon. It'll change your life.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Maybe I'll come in next time and show everybody.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Don't show them. It's not cute, people. I'm not talking about cute. I'm just talking about.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: It's humbling, though, actually, I have some gear coming in for later episodes that I haven't even shared with you yet, but I will.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: Okay, now, I have this holder packet here, and this is of a lot of books I read in 2023. And I was going to share my book lineup and some of my favorite books. I think I'm going to hold that for another episode because I think it's worth spending some time on that. And I don't want to just force it into this episode. But I do want to get into some of those books that I read through 2023 because a lot of them were good. There were a few that I think were life changing and were some of the takeaways could be life changing or were. So I will get into that.
[01:07:24] Speaker B: We can give them their due.
[01:07:25] Speaker A: We'll give them their due. But there is one more to where they're due.
[01:07:28] Speaker B: They're not library books.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: No, no, I bought them.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: Okay, good.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: I bought all these because we're creating a library inside of our facility that we're just going to share, which I brought a lot of books today to do. So they will be added to our company library.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: Can't wait.
[01:07:41] Speaker A: All right, let's end on 2023.
Takeaways. Look back. What were some of your unexpected outcomes of starting the podcast, which we started it. We started it in June, but really we started prepping, at least in May of this year.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: I'll give you two, and there's lots, but I'm going to give you two. One, how much better our relationship got as a byproduct of sitting here and talking for an hour every single week. I mean, if you would stop and think at times if we didn't do this, when would we actually sit down and dig at a topic for a solid hour? And then when you do it 24 times in 24 weeks, which is exactly what we did, and have to come up with new topics and pull in some things that might be current eventish in a moment or something that pissed us off that particular week, by the way. It wasn't the first time we pissed it off. Wood didn't piss us off. For the first time ever. We had talked about it, but then we actually got to sit here and crack the shell on it and dig a lot deeper into it. And I would just say unintended outcomes, how much closer you and I got, which I thought was even impossible that we could be closer, but also just the energy and rejuvenation that I felt every time, not almost every time or most of the time. Every time. For those of you that watching when Tommy and Britt and I break this huddle, we are ready to kick ass for another seven calendar days in between. So that was something that, and even on days where I came in a little mean after a tough week, we shot a little later in the week late. And man, I did. I'd be lying if I said I didn't drag myself in some days, but came right back out. I mean, even minutes in, I was like, all right, this is great. So I don't think I could have known that that would have been the way it would work, but that's been something that's been absolutely undeniable, for sure.
[01:09:49] Speaker A: And I will just add, those were two of my points. And to extend or expand on what you just said, I think the word I think of immediately is therapeutic.
I expected certain things. I expected to learn more about topics. I did expect to build a deeper connection with the audience, to engage with people, which has been a great byproduct. The one thing I didn't expect was for this to be so therapeutic. It's almost equivalent to like a great workout or a massage or just something that feels really good.
I think that's because we have allowed ourselves to be very open and honest and vulnerable, and that's when I feel the most benefit from it, which only motivates us to continue to speak in a really raw and honest way, because that's when I feel the greatest reward out of this. So therapeutic, I think, is how I would wrap it.
[01:10:54] Speaker B: Totally agree. Yeah, look, there's no outdoing that. I think that's awesome. And looking forward to getting into a lot of great topics as we get into 2024. It's going to be another wild time.
[01:11:07] Speaker A: Thank you to all of you listening and as always, to our killer production team. We sincerely appreciate you.
[01:11:14] Speaker B: Don't forget you can listen to our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Amazon under our call sign Love N. That is the letter n business. Follow us on social media and if you ever have a question, check out the show notes. We'd love to answer.
[01:11:31] Speaker A: There you have it folks. Our 2023 year interview. I hope you enjoyed it. And we're also able to take away a valuable nugget or two in the process.
[01:11:41] Speaker B: And if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, it matters. We care. We pull energy from it. And we love to know that you're out there and watching along with us.
[01:11:49] Speaker A: Our next episode will be dropping in two weeks on January the 17th. That's a Wednesday. It also happens to be my birthday. So my only birthday wish is that you listen along with us. What you can expect is a 2024 look ahead. So we are going to be discussing our new professional and personal goals, ventures and focuses along with what we are excited about and what we're looking forward to further exploring, experimenting with and implementing. I'm excited to see you there.
[01:12:24] Speaker B: Can't wait and should be your birthday. So expect a celebration.
Welcome to waves Robney. Welcome Tod for the superstars tonight. Tonight's guest, the incredible, credible, credible.
