Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You. 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 are best friends, business partners and married. Join us on our journey as we talk about business, love, relationships, family, the industry and everything in between.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: In today's episode, we are going to be doing a 2020 for look ahead. We will be discussing New Year's resolutions, or lack thereof, new professional and personal goals, ventures, focuses, what we're excited about and what we're looking forward to exploring, experimenting with and implementing in our businesses and in our lives in general.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Welcome to Ace Robney Tod for the Silver Stars tonight.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Tonight.
Well, before we do our 2024 look ahead, why don't you give the proper shout out and hopefully our purple lights are doing it justice.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we went with purple today because the Ravens clinched the number one seed in the AFC after an epic beat down of the Miami Dolphins. So if you're Dolphins fans, I'm sorry, but even you'd have to agree that was pretty special performance. So as we always say around here, go Ravens.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Proud Baltimore on big time. All right, let's get right into it.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Ready?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: So this morning I said to you, and this is the first time we've talked about it, I said, hey, babe, at 430 in the morning, as you would springing past after my workout, do you have any New Year's resolutions? And your comment back to me, which I didn't even have to ask you, I could have regurgitated back before you even told me what you were going to say. You said, no, I don't think you said believe, but implement them maybe is a better word because I'm always trying to evaluate and change real time as I go, and I get that and I'm trying to do that, too. And then I think we took the conversation just a couple, maybe 30 seconds further and I said to you, while I agree, I also think the new year can be a great reset and I think if you utilize it properly it can be really valuable. And you said, I agree. And I think that was the end of that conversation.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Well, I think I did. Listen, I do tend to say things with a finality at times that I'm not sure is right or correct even. And if there is a part of the resolution piece that I do like, I do agree with the reset part and if nothing else, because it does set a start on the milestone. For if you're a person that's trying to achieve something, then it could be x number of days. Right. But my comment was really around.
As soon as I identify something that I believe would make me better at whatever it is, and there's a wide range of things that I'm trying to get better at, I have lots and lots of room for improvement. I usually don't wait. So that's part of it. And then there's another thing too that we talk about. Reviews and employee reviews and things along those lines.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Annual reviews.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Annual reviews. Yeah, that could be any number of things.
The other thought process of mine. Here we go. Already fumbled tongue episode two.
The other thing I think about is that I generally am not good at things that I only do once a year. So a lot of times those reviews or setting these milestones where we meet or regroup if it has a regroup type feel to it, I just know that historically I have not been very good at those. So I do like the resolution part as it relates to having a hard stop or Android, hard reset or hard start. Maybe hard start is the right term there, but as it relates to waiting for this day of the year called 1124, I generally don't do that. I mean, the second I identify something, whether it's as small as a course correction for McArnold to do something, be something different, better, then I want to get on top of it as quickly as I can.
But if something did happen to time up, then I would grab it. But I don't know. I just have never really been want around that resolution idea.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: I agree, and I very much so agree with your process, and I think I do that too. But I'm also not perfect at doing that. And I do think that sometimes at the beginning of the year is a good time. I mean, last year, this is so stupid, and I'm sorry to any of the guys listening, but females will know where I'm going with this. The skincare is very important. And last year, at the beginning of the year, I said I'm going to make sure I do my skincare routine every single night. And I did this year. So just a little habit change that I did. And I think what I wanted to, I do want to get granular and specific here because I think the audience appreciates that.
But I also want to focus even more on the bigger conceptual piece here. And I've really thought about this a lot. And it's not about the goals, our resolutions or our goals because I love running. Let me put an analogy as a race, it doesn't matter of what level lineup say, it's two elite athletes, they line up on a line, they're toeing the line. They both have the same goal. It's to win the race. Goals are pretty much useless. They may set some direction or target, but the goal itself, they're pretty useless. What is valuable is the systems, the habits of the system that is going to determine who wins that race, not the goal that they set. They have the same goal.
You know what? I'm maybe a little different, but they both want to win.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Sure. Absolutely.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: So I think the bigger thing as we go into the new year is just setting ourselves up to change systems and habits and how to do that. So as I was formulating, I do want to have goals as my targets, but what are the very small things I can execute that are small but are going to make the biggest difference in achieving those goals and doing it better than I previously did it and. Yeah, than other people as well.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: What are your thoughts on that?
[00:06:28] Speaker B: I'm going to back up for one. One thing, I'm a big fan of doing whatever works for you. So just because Mick Arnold doesn't believe in or does not rally around or align around resolutions, it doesn't mean that everybody else shouldn't, right? I mean, I think so much of getting where you want to go is about finding what works for you, right?
This is just something after 30 years in this job or role or learning myself or trying to be more self aware as to what works and what doesn't, this is what I have found.
And as it relates to somebody else, I could be absolutely dead wrong where that's exactly what works for them and what resonates and is sticky, right. Because it's got to be sticky too, right? It's got to be something that you can repeat. Because what we're talking about is making small changes. But the quote is small changes over extended periods of time yield big benefits. So you have to be able, it has to be sustainable and being able, as you just pointed out, and being able to move and tweak things, right. I mean, imagine if you're driving your stick shift car and you never took it out of second gear, right? It would have that thing where you have to be able to hit the clutch and shift gears and that's what this process can look like too. So I just want to iterate that I'm a fan of whatever works for you. And just because Mick chooses to do it this way doesn't mean there's not even a better way. Hell, I might be here two years from now going, you know what? I blew that resolution thing, as you and I figure out a lot on the fly as we talk.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: But if we're not doing that, then we're not doing a good job.
And one thing I will interject that's interesting. I don't know this to be factual, but I'm seeing it a lot, and I would bet all of my money that it is true. You will see a lot of people celebrate their sober dates on one. One. So that has worked for a lot of people. After the new year setting it, I would guess that that's probably the most celebrated date of an annual. I'm one year sober, two year, ten years. So that's interesting because I think it does work for whatever reason.
That's really interesting if you dig, like, why it's another day. Why is that?
[00:08:47] Speaker B: I think as humans, there are certain things that are ingrained to us as goalposts, certainly as you're young, I think schooling does a lot of that. Just the way school schedules play out. I watch the girls, and as I think about how there doesn't really seem to be goalposts or milestones.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: You're saying the Mayans set us up for this?
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Or the sun, right. Or just the way the sun goes around the earth, the other way. The earth grows around the sun.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: I know what you meant.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: I should have corrected, but you know.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: My level of science. I can't believe I just said that out loud.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: You corrected yourself quickly.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I think there's part of that that gets ingrained into us and just that whole part of it, and I think because of that, that has a familiarity that might make people more comfortable. And if the idea, like you talked about, the sobriety piece, if the idea is to win each day and you need to break it down into that increment, this winning is so interesting because.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: I'm going to dig into that topic heavily. Win each day as we get further along.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So if win each day, and just by virtue of I'm going to start on one one, and then I'm going to win that, I'm going to win one two and one three and one four. And if that's something that works for you, especially if you're fighting something as challenging as the sickness of alcoholism. Right. If you're trying to work towards sobriety and that's what it takes, then I love it. Right. I mean, whatever it takes.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm going to butcher this. I just heard this quote on a podcast, and it was something along the lines of talking about somebody that had, I'm going to say, beat in air quotes, sobriety. They were 30 years sober and they said, the great thing about sobriety is that there's a cure. The bad thing is you restart every day. You have to restart every day and go back into what you just said one day, one every day. So what I wanted to do is I do want to talk about some specific goals, but then do what I just spoke about and break that down into just smaller habit changes of how we are planning to achieve those goals. And I don't want to get into a lot, but I think it's important that we're talking about this process and how I backed into it and looked at it this year and I didn't do, I'm not a vision board person. I'm not sitting there journaling about it.
This is me putting on paper for this podcast thoughts that I'm going to do in my head. I already know what I want to do for this year. And it didn't just start on one one, but I want to break down that process a little bit. So one of the things we talked about last episode and have been talking about is sleep. And it's really something I want to work on for 2024. And I have said this for a long time and I've not done a damn thing about it, hasn't got any better. So I want to actually do what I say as it relates to sleep. And that's definitely a big focus.
And so I'm like, okay, what are the smaller things that we can do? And I've been listening to Matt Walker and there are the gent who created the tape for your mouth so you nose breathe. It's the dream tape. I just listened to him. But these are sleep experts. There's definitely a lot of more clinical sleep studies and research that's being done, which is interesting to me that there wasn't so much prior, but I've been listening to that. And one of the things they all agree on is the most important thing to quality sleep is routine. Like you can put on the eye mask, the cooler temperatures, the clothes, make sure it's perfectly dark, all of that. But by far, it's having the routine which is going to the bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. And for me, I know that I am simply not going to get what most would say is a sufficient amount of sleep by time in bed to do everything I want to do. I simply am not going to physically be in my bed as long as one would suggest I should be, that's not going to change. But what I can change is the quality of those hours. So that's what I'm really focusing on. So one of those is that routine, getting in bed the same time, waking up the similar time. It's not going to be perfect. Really want to focus on that. The other thing we talked about this morning is just eating at least 3 hours before we go to bed. We know from our aura ring data, there is no doubt about it, that affects our heart rate, our hrv, and our sleep. We haven't done a single thing about it. We've collected the data and that's crazy to me. We collect this data, we know it for certain after a year, and we've really not done much about that.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but I'll tell you.
So let's tell the listeners that the aura ring also says that our optimal bedtime is between 730 and 815 every night.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: So if I'm being honest, I want 08:00 to be the time every night I'm getting in bed. It takes me an hour to fall asleep. I get up between three and four.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: My only point, though, was if you're going to eat 3 hours ahead and that 08:00 target time. Right. That is eating at 05:00 which sometimes is challenging. Right. I mean, I get it. In a perfect world, we would have our faces filled and we'd be done eating by five. And yes, and we know these aura rings as we spoke about in the last, are amazing in that we can't claim ignorance. Right. You just were beating on us unmercifully about. We know this yet. We haven't done anything about it.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: So there's definitely a little bit more of a hurdle in that we do have our bedtime range set on the earlier side. That whole idea of range, our range is early, very early, three ish, four ish, a m. Until. And if you go at it hard throughout the day long of that eight, you're pretty well pooped. You put in a 15 hours day with an earlier range, which has an earlier range. So that part we're going to have to work out and work into as it relates to being able to eat in that time frame, that would have us really leveraging our heart rate, which is such a critical component of readiness.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: It is. And I don't want to say that, well, we'll have to take it day by day and good enough will be good enough. Because if it's important enough, which I think as we're learning sleep is to every single thing you do. We will figure out a way to make it work. So that's the sleep portion.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: And we'll share with our fans, too, because they won't have to figure it out. We can figure it out for them.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So that's a big one for me. The other one, I don't know if we talked about alcohol a little bit. And this goes into the sleep thing, too. That's another thing. I'm not drinking alcohol. That's pretty easy. System in place, abstain. But the other one I just added was, and this one is going to be tricky for me. Even trickier is I'm going to do 90 days, I just told you this morning, without caffeine.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Zero. This is my first podcast without a jocko fuel. I look at Tommy because we both enjoy our energy.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Tommy is over there laughing at you, slugging his.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: First podcast.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: He looks a lot fresher than we do, by the way.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: But the thing is, I have this thing where I don't feel the effects of caffeine, probably because I've drank too much caffeine over the years. My body is so acclimated.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Let's see if you feel the effects of caffeine on the unwind.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: I'm psyched. I'm going to go. And I heard on another Tim Ferriss's podcast, he does the random show with Kevin Rose, which I really enjoy. And Kevin Rose was talking about giving up alcohol, and he was talking with his therapist, and he was like, okay, I'm going to do 30 days dry January. And she's like, well, that's great, but everyone does that. Do something hard, do 90 days. Because I was like, I'm going to do 30 days caffeine. Then I'm like, shit, I need to do 90 days.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: So you have to let the listeners know. Like you said, you don't feel the upside effects anymore because how about the downside effects? I've heard of things like headaches. Absence of caffeine can cause headaches in different spots.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: So I will say I decrease my caffeine intake tremendously. So I've only been drinking for a while now. Less than 200 milligrams. 200 milligrams.
So I've already started that process, but I still don't feel any of it. I literally like the taste, and I love having that drink that I enjoy during a podcast. And I don't want that comfort. The thing that's very common between alcohol and caffeine, they're addictions. I don't want to rely on anything. I want to have way more willpower than any addiction. So giving that up, and I don't want to lean on a comfort or something that's enjoyable. I don't need that. I don't. So I'm going to do 90 days. And the thing I'm really excited about. So I was listening to a study by Roland Griffiths, who recently passed away from Hopkins, who we actually had a brief exchange on email. He got right back to me. And he studies a lot, or he studied a lot in the psychedelic world, but he did a really long standing research on caffeine. And he said caffeine is one of the most powerful drugs there is. And he was saying, after you do a stint where you give it up, if you just have a cup of coffee or something, what you will feel will be incredible. So I'll do after the 90 days because I'm going to do 90 days because I said I am. I'll have my.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: And we know that's March 31 because you set it on the milestone. That's helpful.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Well, I know because I only started today.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: I did not do it yesterday because I didn't even think of it yesterday.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Actually, though, if you figure it out, it's probably still the same 90 days.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Okay, whatever. But whatever that turns out to be, after that 90 day, I will have my first caffeinated drink on that.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Oh, God, I hope it's on the episode. Oh, Jesus, help us.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So if I'm dancing on the table.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: You have to reset the cameras one point up.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: That's another one that I'm looking forward to. Not really looking forward to, but I'm going to do.
Let's see here.
Okay, can I take a little tangent?
We still have to get into business, what we want to do with the podcast, et cetera. But there is one thing, and I have not talked to you about this because I just listened to it. But Andrew Huberman had his most recent podcast, and he said he thinks it's one of the biggest breakthroughs and most exciting things in science that he has found in many, many years. And it has to do, it's called the mid cingulate cortex. And what he was saying about that, they studied this. They found it. And it tends to be larger in really elite athletes, people who have gone through hardships and succeeded, and it's related, correlated 100%. They're finding, I guess you don't say 100% in science. 99.9% to willpower. And he was saying it can shrink and it can get bigger. Now, the thing about it is you have to do it. Things like hard things. If you actually study somebody doing challenging things, you will see it expand, but it will get smaller very quickly. Like it's something you have to put the work in each and every day. Here's the thing. A lot of people think it's about effort. It's not. He said, if you run 100 miles, but you enjoy running those 100 miles, it will not get bigger. It's only if you're doing things that you do not like. That is the key.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Oh, I hate that thing.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: It could be somebody doing, who wants.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: To do things they don't like.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Right. But it's made me think because this is science backed so bigger. As I'm going into 2024, I'm really, really going to consciously think about. Because that's amazing. You can change the size of this thing and your willpower. And the thing is, there's two of them. There's two anterior mid cingulate cortexes in your head. Cortices or cortex.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Cortices would probably be right.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Cortices in your head, indices.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Cortices.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Boo. I haven't used the word cortices.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: I know.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: I've not used a plural of cortex. Maybe ever.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Are you still learning show?
[00:21:01] Speaker A: But that's beautiful because we all have the power then. We all have willpower. Some people say, I just don't have the willpower as that other person. No, you haven't trained your willpower like that person. So I'm really thinking about that as there are difficult things and it can be anything. I typically think physical when I'm thinking about this, but it could be anything.
You're increasing your willpower, which I believe overrides passion and commitment, all that. What does that really mean? Those seem to be buzwords. We all are passionate, we all are committed. But this thing about willpower, you're going to show up no matter how you feel, no matter what your emotions say.
I think that is the biggest differentiator between people. And now we know that it can be trained. So that is just an observation I've made and something I'm going to really think about in everything I start to do. And it's like, wow. So you're going to have to live a life of challenge and misery and it's like, well, you're going to have to do a lot of the hard things. Yeah. Every single day. Yes.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: I think the thing. Just listening like I always am. Right. I'm always here processing. I think the thing about that is we're so different. I mean, what I might find, the piece of that I think is so unique to individuals, the things that I find excruciating. For example, you might breeze through, there is not a prescription. There's a different prescription for each person. Right. Because if you love it, like, you might love something I hate, and therefore your cortices are not expanding. But I'm over here doing the same exact thing, and it is awful and grueling, and mine are. And the difference between the physical aspect, because some people, well, might find the physical parts easy, where certain thought processes or certain parts of thinking and. Or solving and or figuring out could be excruciating and that would be pressing that part of their brain in a different way.
And I'm playing back through. I mean, what are those things?
I'd have to just be more self aware real time, and go like, oh, this sucks. I wonder if I'm working on my cortices over here.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And because I'm bringing to the table, of course, I've had time to think about it and so I will segue into what I've thought about. It expands way beyond this. But interesting that working out and running and stuff, to a lot of people, that's hard, that's effort. Like, do you want to run at 330 in the morning? I just don't. I really, truly enjoy that. So while in my head I'm all like, I'm accomplished. And my cortices would tell you otherwise. What's harder for me is taking the measures of recovery and rest and stretching. I mean, I hate it. I hate it. So that is part of my 2024 and not just 24, it's been, and I've gotten a lot better at it. But really focusing on the piece of my training in between running is that mobility and flexibility and recovery piece, that's definitely going to be more of a focus. And that is hard for me. That's a mental warfare for me to think I'm trading time and energy on that as opposed to putting the miles on my body. Yeah, but we know the benefits of it.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Apparently there's two. There's two benefits, right?
Between your cortices and the actual preservation of your muscles and joints. Because I watch how you beat your joints unmercifully. Less of that and more of those two actually. Sounds like it has more benefit than you even thought, right?
[00:24:59] Speaker A: It is. And I think part of my plan is this will be later in the year, is probably hiring if things we're really interested in, and running is one of them. We hire coaches for everything we do. Hire a coach and outsource somebody to create the systems and habits. For me, a I don't know how to do that correctly. I'm not a run coach, but just have someone do that. And this is the plan. You have to do this because if you give me that plan, I will do it to a t. So I think that will be part of my strategy, of how I think I can stick to it, because it's so easy for me to say, well, I'm just telling myself that I should stretch, like, maybe another mile. It's like, no, your coach said that who's an expert? Who's the best at what they do? So that might be the best strategy.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that how to part is so important. I mean, for any number of people, again, this is going to seem stupid. This would be a dumb.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: I don't think so. I don't know what you're going to say, but I don't think so.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I broke a meeting before I came in here.
I don't think this is off topic, but I was frustrated with my teammates that were in the room because we had agreed on the meeting that we were going to have, and the preparation wasn't any good. Simply stated, it just wasn't any good. So we continued to talk through it, and I stopped being a frustrated ass long enough to actually learn. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. And what I realized was that all relatively new to the organization, what I realized was that they actually didn't know how to prepare. What I recognized was there was no lack of effort. There was papers all over the place, and there was lots of mental activity going on towards this information that they put together. It was just all the wrong information. So that's actually on me. But part of that is you can work your ass off, and if you don't know how to prepare or in this case, how to execute, what you should be executing, how the hell do you even know what right looks like?
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Well, that's right. Exactly.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: That just goes into every single thing. And my takeaway was, gosh, guys, I'm over here being a bit of a dick right now because I was frustrated with the thing that got us in the room in the first place. So much so that I didn't take enough time in the last meeting leading up to this one to coach them on how to prepare for the next meeting, not do it for them. Show them where the nuggets were buried and then hand them a shovel and then come back in today expecting to see nuggets. And therefore we wasted time because I didn't do the right thing and didn't know in the moment. Again, I think I was a little clouded because we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a problem that we're working our way through. But I should have taken more time to show them how to prepare, which is this thing that you're talking about, too. Not preparation so much here because you're like a. I don't like it. So I really don't want to commit any time to it. So maybe I just have to have somebody that's better at it than I do give me the recipe and I'm happy to start cooking, but somebody's got to give me a recipe in this situation.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: So that's a good one. I like it.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: So let's talk about. And I'm going to pass the ball. I've done a little bit too much talking, but I am going to pass the ball immediately to you.
Let's get into business. We're talking about some of our, while I'm talking about some of my personal goals.
How about Arnold packaging? How about Arnold automation for 2024?
Because we spoke about. And maybe for other people who didn't catch our first episode, which if you didn't watch it right now.
Right.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. As fast as humanly possible.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
Last year, you guys really focused on stabilizing and optimizing. What is your catchphrase?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: That's it. Stabilize and optimize.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Stabilize and optimize. What does 2024 look like?
[00:28:44] Speaker B: It's so different. We touched on this a bit, but we saw the headwinds coming. I mean, we were watching the Fed absolutely committed to crushing inflation or as much as they could, which meant they were going to stop people from buying things. Because one of the ways to stop inflation is to decrease demand. So that flows through to a packaging company. Right. When you're the person making the box that the goods go in, then it can only affect the packaging industry, too. So we saw that coming and started to prepare at the same time. We were doing it in the midst of a lot of new team members. Right. A ton of new team members. We've spoken at length about the type of turnover that we had in the pandemic, and a lot of our people were retiring. It wasn't that. This place sucks. I'm out of here. It was, look, I've had a hell of a career and I've squirreled my nuts away, and I have the financial flexibility to make this choice. And right now, in the pandemic, this sucks. And I'm making that choice. And we slowly but surely had to refill at no less than eight positions, and those positions had 130 years of experience. So that was part of it, right? That stabilized piece was to get great players in positions. At no point was I ever worried about our understanding of the rulebook or the playbook that we had built. But that's great. If you don't have players to run those plays, it doesn't matter how good your playbook is. So that stabilization piece was about getting a lot of great players on the team and then starting to train them on what we do and how we do it. And we got into a conversation on one of the episodes about. I use the word proprietary a lot in that particular episode, but it was.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: About understanding more than any human being on the.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: More than. Yes, yes. I set four records. Tommy fact checked that, and I set four. Shut up. I don't think I ever said that, too in the podcast.
But it was really just me having an epiphany about how to go about training, right. It was understanding that certain parts of the information that our team will need to be successful is everywhere, right.
It's on Google and it's everywhere else. And there are certain parts that are very unique to us and that I had to be very specific about breaking that out. And that was part of that stabilize. But then turning into that other word we just talked about, which was optimize. Right. And finally starting to get a little bit attraction where there are times when you have that much turnover and you know, right. That many new people where you feel like you're doing your job, but you still have fingers in every other part, right. It's like, oh, that's right, you're not quite ready yet, and you're running over and keeping that ball in the air. And then you've got your own balls and then somebody else that's new, you recognize them dropping a ball that they don't even know because they don't even know what dropping a ball looks like yet, they're so new. And then you run over and help that ball up a little bit. And so those were two of the biggies for this year. But first of all, first is to get great quality players into all of those positions. And that unto itself is a tremendous challenge, even if you get it right. That's if you in hiring eight people, hell, if you were 90%, you'd have to replace one of them or something like that. Even if you're excellent 90%, then you still have one you have to double back on.
Fortunately, very successful. We add a lot of great players. And now I am watching some. The optimization continue to get some traction and we're not there. Right. I mean, there's still a ton of work to do, and that's what 2024 looks like. And getting back to, we've got to make up some of the sales that flattened off or even dropped off. And I think it's going to have a different look than it did for the last few years. It's going to have a market share. It's going to have a lot more competition involved with it. We're going to have to grow at the expense of competitors and spots. Right. We're going to have to go kick their ass and take their eggs out of their basket while they're trying to take hours. So I think that's what 24 is going to look like. And the goal around here is to improve. That's the other part. When you have that many years of experience, you lose some of that technical expertise. Right. And if you look at Arnold packaging and Arnold automation, there's good, fast and cheap. We are good and we are fast. Right. And good. Is that technical expertise part, because we have so many pros and technical experts in all those bots, we're busting our ass to get that type of technical expertise back. So on day one of working new year, those are some of the things that we've highlighted and are absolutely head down on.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Okay, my question to you, and somebody might have this if they're listening, probably as well. What are your strategies? Do you have any very specific, concise strategies?
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah, they're a little different. We have some very unique operating groups inside the organization. Obviously sales. A lot of new salespeople here that we're working on the training and having to teach them what makes us us. Right. And really the word for that to me is value proposition. What is the value proposition of the 800 purchasing customers that we have? Why do they shop here? And each one would have a little bit of a different answer. I mean, we have some customers that we're hyper engaged with. One we deliver to every single morning, every day, 252 days a year, others less.
We might just be a name on a piece of paper because we have something that they need that we get there fast. I don't even know really in that piece. It's about getting that technical expertise into the sales organization, because they have to be very consultative in how they approach and how they show up. If your tagline is protecting your product and your profit, protecting the product piece, right, is about having great packaging solutions. The profit piece is about understanding the business case around it and being able to quantify and articulate that to a customer or to a prospect. And that happens through the vehicle that is our sales force. So as it relates to training around that, that's what that looks like or that's where we are head down. We hired a lot of people that are great salespeople. If you look at sales, there's a few different components. There's subject matter expertise, time and territory management, and sales process. So we've got players on our team now that are very strong at sales process time and territory management. They're not subject matter experts yet. So first we've got to teach them the subject matter expertise, and then we have to show them how you convert that into value proposition and then articulate a story to somebody that actually matters or at least is compelling enough or inspirational enough to have them want to come and join as a customer.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: So that's what that part looks like. And ops a little bit different, right? Maybe productivity or waste management. Some things working on our sustainability constantly. How do we get to zero to landfill? So there's just a couple of things that each group has been tasked with. Different things, but everyone has some type of a number one responsibility that they're driving towards. Delivery for 2024.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'm going to back up a little bit because I don't talk that much about the personal stuff. I will tell you one great thing that came out of the podcast. There was a question about what were some of the outcomes of the podcast. We got into a couple of them towards the end of our last episode, one being how close you and I got together. Who gets to sit with their spouse and talk for an hour about any number of different topics that change up every week? And sometimes you have a chance to prepare. Sometimes you are literally figuring it out on the fly. I mean, if I watch some of our past episodes, I will fast forward from beginning of topic to end of episode. And you've watched us figure out real time what we actually thought about it, which might have been completely different from where we had an episode. We were talking about what we do outside of work, and I realized that I didn't do anything. And my contribution and my commitment to you and to the viewer base is that I would get back into singing. So that's one that without the podcast, I don't know if I would have been pressed. Like, that's hard. You talk about these cortices that for me is excruciatingly hard. And I'd forgotten what it felt like to suck at something far from perfect. But having played golf for years and honed certain skills and having to go all the way back to just naked, unadulterated zero, that has been singing for me. It has been fun and I've enjoyed the process. But that's a podcast moment that I think is also going to have a lot of benefits just in every single thing else that I'm doing inside the business. That's an add on to your 2024 plans. But I just wanted to look back at that moment and just tell you and everybody else that I think that will be huge for 24 and going forward and what I'm learning and exercising different muscles than I've generally exercised in the last 50 years.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think that's. And I'm going to jump back to the business piece so we stay on track and not are all over the place. But I agree, and I love that you got backed into that. You've got your singing thing now, and I've got my running and ultramarathon. And it's cool to see both of them side by side and us supporting each other in that. I want to be racing in all street desire to be up on that stage singing I do when appropriate.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Right. You're working towards it. I'm working towards it. And there can be smaller stuff. They also realize that there could be smaller stages between here and there that I'll get my ass kicked on and then come back and work a little harder and then go try it again and then come back and work a little bit harder. Yeah. So it's cool. It's something I could do for my entire life, which I'm looking forward to. Yeah, girls get a kick out of it, too. They're fascinating.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: They get a kick out of it.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: When I hop in the car and I've just finished up my Jeff Roka singing warm.
Always. I think they laugh in this very weird, uncomfortable way, which I always get. I always get a kick out of.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Definitely.
I'm going to go into business for Tagler construction and supply, and then I want to get back to because this was next on the list is the podcast and our plans for toolkit, because that's definitely part of our vision for 2024.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: So let me start with Tagler construction and supply. And I got into this a little bit on last episode, but it's a really different mindset, because my mindset, as you know, for better or worse, is always more, bigger, harder. And I don't think that, well, that's not the plan for this year, because it's not the smart plan. It's not what we need.
I want to do more with a lot less, I think I'm saying that we need to get more efficient. So what I'm really looking for this year, and this is something I need to have. I haven't even had a team meeting where we're talking about this. We had a team meeting today, but this is something I really want to get with my team on. And I think we finally have the team that we need for now in place. And it's a really solid team. And I think everybody on the team, everyone on the team has been here long enough.
Marie's really new, but coming from the construction world, she just jumped in really quickly. So everyone on the team is familiar enough and experienced enough to be able to now, collectively as a team, refine our processes to make them way more efficient. It's taken us a long time to build them. We're continually changing them. But now I think we've got to make them so efficient to remove all the gaps and the inefficiencies and the time wasting and the costs. That's a big part of it. Two, I think now we are not looking for more business, more volume, more revenue. It's about being very particular on the customers we work with, on the vendors we work with, on the projects we choose, on what we're making profit margins, on those saying no just as much as we're saying yes. Figuring out and becoming very clear on who we are and being very assertive and diligent in sticking to that. Because, again, when you're a young company, anybody that's just starting a company, we talked to a gent that's starting a new business at the wedding.
I'm not saying his name. I don't know if he would care.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: But anyway, I don't think Chris would care.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Chris is out there.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I know.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: But I think the lead in was we met him for the first time, someone we've been back and forth for years. When we talk about the mask business on prior episodes, this was our partner.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: He was a partner in the uniform business that we ended up partnering with to make masks. Yeah. And now he's starting his own venture. And we had another great side conversation which I'm going to bring up in another episode. It's not really relevant here, but where was I go, oh, so someone like that, in talking to him, it brought back those memories of just want to do everything, want to take everything on, want business, and you have to do that to some extent, but we're beyond that now, and I need to refine my own mind, and I'm having a hard time pulling that word. It's about being a professional and understanding what you need and not always leaning towards my propensities. Does that make sense? And just being smarter. So, yeah, just getting really clear on who we are, on our vision and making more out of maybe less, just being so much more efficient and finding those gaps, inefficiencies. That's really what I'm looking for this year. And the other piece, which is becoming very top of mind for me, is I want to empower my team more.
They already have a ton of autonomy and they are very empowered. I hope we would have to ask them to know because I want to be in a place where I could remove myself and the business could run very well.
I was doing a LinkedIn, which I failed miserably, but experimentation, where I did questions every day that people ask, and several people asked me in different ways, who are you grooming? What happens if britt is invisible? I think somebody put it, but it just made me start invisible.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: That's a nice one.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah, somebody.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: There's the pie truck, there's the win the lottery. Invisible.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: I think their question was a little different, but anyway, it just got me thinking more and more about it, and I'm like, yeah, I really want. My goal by the end of this year is to have this place where if I'm not here, I'm not worried about. That's not my plan. I plan to be here, but to have everybody so empowered and familiar with different parts of the business, and that is going to be me showing and exposing. There are things I just do that are some executive decisions, some not, some super tiny little tasks that I just do and don't think about. And I've never taught anybody or told anybody. They have no idea. So it's just taking note of those and making sure I'm exposing my team and teaching more. So that's the goal for Tagler and construction supply. And then another business I will be part of is for West Supply, which haven't shared the name yet, but it's going to be a DC location, not affiliated with Tagler, different entity in the building materials world again, I'm part of it, I'm a cog in the wheel there. But getting that up and running as a new entity, which is going to bring back a lot of the startup, which is great, because as we are as a team building that company, I can talk and share real time about what we're going through, because that's what entrepreneurs and startups need to hear. They need to hear other people that are experienced but also are on the same level. Not that I've done it 50 years ago. Times change, people forget things. Oh, how time and memory changes, right.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Or have different resources, because I think that's one of the. So time being one thing, but resources being another, when you are strapped for or scrapping resources, right. And then that's a different thing we talk about. You listen to people that wrote the book or whatever.
I don't know. I'm always interested in how far away they are. Do they really remember what the really scrappy moments look like versus when you get further on and you do have a little bit more room for error because you just have that many more resources. Right. One could sneak by and you wouldn't be nearly in the danger of failure that you would in some of these startup types.
Let me ask it as a question, in starting up in your involvement, and really I think you'll have a consultant as much as anything feel inside of that business.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: More of a consultant, yeah.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Which I'm excited to watch.
The things that you wouldn't.
What you were just talking about is, the answer is yes. Now what's the question? Right. And as a startup, you do that and you might get outside of your lane. Or we've talked about you having the GC part of your business for a while, right? Like, sure, you need a hammer swung. I have a hammer, yeah. We'll build that restaurant. Anything that comes to mind where you might even say no, as painful as it can be when you're starting another organization, or when you're counseling or consulting the startup of that organization, anything that hits you right off the top, where you'd be like, yeah, that's something I would absolutely stay away from if asked to do it. I would hold out for a different, or a better, let's call it better, but different opportunity.
Where I took that on in the.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: Past, anything you just named the one GC work and any labor like not touching that, it will just be pure furnish, only supply. And funny enough, I mean, a lot of these gcs, they do want turnkey, which is furnish and install and you're very incentivized and motivated to do that. So that will be something that's just 100% no, right.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: Usually that incentive and motive comes from all the risk you have to take on. It's also code for nobody else wants to do it because it's laced with risk and challenge and all the things that come along with labor and workers comp and all of that. So no wonder they're trying to get people into it.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And a couple of things I do want to add for anyone listening, and hopefully I'm giving you a little bit more incentive to continue to listen. I am real time going to be putting together. So one is like a spreadsheet of very granular nuts and bolts, these things of when you're starting a business, you have to start an article.
Now, I don't even. Can't even article of articles. Incorporation of incorporation.
You have to go get your ein.
All the very nutsy, Bulsey. You got to set up your tax account. Everything you do from the start. And now, I didn't do this when I first started tiger construction supply. I'm working with the legal team to. I say I. We are working with the legal team to do all this very sequential, in the order that makes sense with the people that know what they're.
So from start to finish, I'm going to be cataloging all of those steps. Because if you've never done this before, it's confusing. Like, what entity do I pick? Am I LLC? Am I a corporation? Do I want to get taxed as an s corp or don't die? What does that mean? What's a pass through? It's so much information.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: And they're huge. Because some of those are the tax implications. Well, they're huge, right? I mean, those are things where at the end of year one, let's just say you check a wrong box and you're now sitting there, and let's say you're fortunate enough that you have a person, a tax advisor, and they go, hey, says here you're a C Corp. Yeah. Well, why? I don't know. Right? I mean, those are big, monumental events where Uncle Sam doesn't just let you uncheck that and start over again. So, yeah, those are huge to share with the group.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: It is.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: And I can help on that, too.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: And I'm going to make them very easy and digestible, and then just obviously, I don't know what someone's business is going to be, but just the steps and then what you have to think about within each step, and I think that will be really helpful.
I think I can be way more valuable now because, and I am playing and being a consultant, a consultant role here because I've done it before and now I just have the relationships, I have the legal, I have the tax guy, I have all the advisors that are helping me. So I'm just able to do this better than I did it the first time. Of course. I know so much more. I have so much more help. I have so many more trusted advisors. So I think I'm able to give way better advice of how to do this. Now. There's going to be many steps that I'm like, oh, shit, screwed that one up. Or, this is different than. It's not the same. It's DC versus Maryland for one venue time.
And all of those I'm going to talk about, too. But I think I can be very helpful. We can be very helpful in the process about talking about it and even showing some visuals or whatever somebody can actually take away and say, hey, this is how you do it is exactly how I did it.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Yeah. The thing is, new businesses need, right. Because there is a recipe aspect to this. And, man, if you put the yeast in after you pull it out of the oven, it's too late. Right.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: It's just hard to find too. Everything is just too much. It's too much.
Really simple.
Here it is. Here's what it looks like. And yes, there's going to be nuances for everything, but here's your start, and this is a damn good one.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Getting an ein is the same for everybody, and you're not a business until you have one. So that's important.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: That's right. And anybody.
One of my pet peeves is just people that don't want to share really valuable information. If you have it, I believe this, and I think I will to the day I die. I think I have the right to change my mind and maybe before the.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: End of the episode.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: No, I will not.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Not on this one.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: I think if you are really good and the best, or believe you're the best or want to be the best at what you do, you should be so willing and open to share. You would have no fear about sharing the secret sauce or whatever that is, because a, this information is pretty available to everybody. Finding. You got to find and you got to put the work in. But I just really believe if you're so good at what you do, that's not a worry to you. You're not worried about someone coming in and stealing what you have.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And you still have to execute. We said it all the time. Right? Yeah, sure. I'm happy to share this with you. We sit here and share openly all the time. Probably have competitors that listen, or I don't even know if we do or we don't. But you still have to do it. You still have to execute. Right. So don't sit here with any fear of what we share because you still got to.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: No, most won't.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: Still got to stand up and go do it. And that's a lot harder than one would think.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: I have told Drew this before. The amount of women I have sat in front of and literally show them exactly how to start a women owned business, some of them, many of them in building supply and construction, exactly what I do. There's a lot, and I don't know a single one who has taken that information and executed.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's not easy.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: And I'm not saying, obviously it can be done, and I'm not trying to. And that doesn't come as. I don't want that to come off as critical because obviously people are very capable, but the reality is there are a small number of people who will dig in and execute, and that's just the reality.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. No, that's a recognition. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, it's going to be exciting to watch that.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm excited to get in that.
I say preliminary. It's not preliminary. Really? It's moving very fast.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: Oh, it's here.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's here. So we'll be talking about it real time.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Sweet.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Now let's get into love and business.
We've talked about some personal. We've talked about some hobbies. We've talked about our business. I have had a hard time because I broke all this out at all, my little outline that I have here, and I was like, where do I put love in business?
Where in that? Is it a hobby? Is it professional?
We don't have to put everything in a box.
[00:54:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: But I don't know where that fits nicely.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it touches a lot. I think we've talked about the therapeutic aspect of it. Right. It has huge benefit for us just being able to sit here and talk and so certainly derive benefit out of it. I can say without question, whatever nugget somebody took away or maybe made a choice to change something or implement, I'm taking far more away from being able to just share and talk. So I would say it's all of that. I don't think it's going to be possible to put it into just one thing or another. I mean, I imagine somebody watches and decides to buy a two x four or a packaging thing. Maybe that would be a business part of it.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Or please buy our two x four from people.
[00:54:48] Speaker B: Somebody buy a bag of air.
Buy bags of air for joe. God, that's so embarrassing.
That part. I think it's all of it. I will tell you, you, the people that we meet, or the conversations that we had, we were at a wedding this weekend and Chris came up and said, I watched one of your episodes. It happened to be this one. And you and I were quickly brought back to that time, or what we talked about. It was the one about things that you thought you needed that turned out to be bullshit.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: And we was like, oh my God. And then I told the team we had to change everything we were doing because I was like, no, that wasn't not the intention.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: But I think I can only speak personally.
I thoroughly enjoy getting some things off my chest.
Now, when I have an epiphany of sorts, my first thought is I need to go share that. And by the way, not all of them are pretty. I mean, they're ugly. The one I was telling the meeting I just came out of, not pretty, but one of my first thoughts is, boy, I'd love that somebody I care about not have to through that pain and agony. If they just listened to me say it once, then that would be worth all of it. So that is one thing that crosses my mind, where I need to share that on the next episode, and it's not pretty, or this is beautiful, I need to share it. It's all over the place. I mean, we're just bumping through this wild thing called life and stop and talk about it for an hour every so often. So I don't know, I think part of it, too. I'd answer that question the way I answer business. It's going to be what the customers, listeners fill that word in here. It's going to be what they want it to be, too. The things that resonate and they are attracted to us talking about, and we feel like we can give back more because that's a value. Then I think we'll probably go in that direction in any number of spots.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: Yes. For me, I want to grow the podcast and the viewership, and I say that, and there's a lot of meaning behind that because I know that the only way we are going to grow the viewership and this podcast like we want is if we are consistent and committed and putting out better information and making everything, whether it's the aesthetics, how people are viewing it, how the audio is, every part of that matters. And between you and I and Tommy and the production team, continuing to look at all of that with a very close eye and making changes. And I think this year, what we've talked about is having meetings way more regularly on a cadence where we are going through those analytics and we are listening to feedback and we are making the changes real time, not at the end of a season.
And the biggest part I think we know is what we're bringing to the table from a content. But that takes a lot of prep and it takes a lot of listening and it takes a lot of engaging our viewers, like you listening now of what you want, what do you want to hear? And us actually taking that information, synthesizing and answering. And so when I say I want to grow the viewership, it really just means I want to bring better and more valuable information to everybody listening. Because that's the only way.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Yeah, no, people are showing up for the content, not the pretty lights and the signs.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: I think it's all important if we are focused on all the small details that matters. I do think that while we were looking at the last episode, you seeing a line in the middle of that sign and being disappointed with that, it's because it's the small things that we care about.
[00:58:40] Speaker B: Sure. Well, to not do that would be completely counter to everything we talk about for an hour each week.
[00:58:45] Speaker A: Right?
[00:58:45] Speaker B: I mean, that would be counter.
We were getting dressed the other night and I was in the process of threading in my red shoelaces and you walked by chuckling and I said, it only takes another second to do it right. And you stopped for a minute and said, yeah, you know what? You're right. I think about that along the way. I do, and it's right. It only does take another second to do it right.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: I've changed a lot, actually. I think about that a lot now, but yeah. So I'm excited about what we're going to do with the podcast. I'm so excited about the feedback, and I think this year we're going to really get after it. We learned so much last year, and I really have high hopes and expectations of what is going to become of 2024, and that is going to take a lot of work on our end. And I know we're committed to that.
[00:59:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah, 100%. We're equal to it. We don't do anything halfway.
If you know us, you know we don't do anything halfway.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Good or bad.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: Right?
Exactly.
So to wrap this up, one of the things I've been thinking about, and you hear this all the time, it's like the people that are best at what they do, they say no to everything else. They have their handful of things that they're focused on, and that's it. But there's so much truth to that. So I'm lining up the things that for 2024 are on the top of my list. And the one thing I have to mention, I'd be so remiss if I didn't. We don't really talk about. I'm never talking about family on this as it relates to goals and stuff. That is number one for us at all times. Family. I would give everything else up in the world. Everything for family.
I don't talk about it because it's just, for me, it's a duh, but I have to mention it. So that's always going to be number one, no matter what. Always.
But the other things that we talked about, which were the lifestyle changes, but for me, it's like our businesses, obviously, family, our marriage, one, our businesses, love and business and running for me. And if it's not, those are the things I want to put all of that energy into. And when other opportunities arise, as they will, as they already have, that I have said no that have pulled on my heartstrings. We've talked about some of them in depth, but speaking engagements come up and all of these things I really want to be adamant about. These are the focuses. If it's not making one of these better or related to it, I've really got to think about it and it's got to be a no. And that's hard.
What do you think?
[01:01:29] Speaker B: I think I have, because I can.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Tell you're not totally agree.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: No, it's not. It's not that we start any number of sentence with everybody says or everybody or whoever. I don't even ever really know who everybody is. But I will tell you that, yes, I understand you only have so much bandwidth. Right. And you don't have unlimited capacity to do everything. But if there is a part of that I worry about, it's missing some opportunities. And you're right, I'm in the same. We talk about this a lot, and I think both of us have let our responsibilities grow a little bit too much in some areas, and we're working on politely paring them back and saying no. Right. And have to. But also, those are things where we absolutely got into it and thought, wow, you know what? This is a little further outside or with the bandwidth that I have, this doesn't make the priority list now or anymore, or maybe it never should have, but happy for having had the experience. So I do agree with the vast majority. I think if there's ever any moment there is that piece of me that loves the journey so much. The opposite of having on blinders. The danger for me in that is not being able to look side to side and see what those other opportunities or things that I might love as much. Right? I mean, like you hit on running something you've been doing forever. But I don't know. I don't want to lose sight of that. But I am like you, very aware of the bandwidth and the ability, because also too, you don't want to show up for something not having enough bandwidth, I. E. Energy or whatever that be, and suck at it. Let someone down because you over committed, not because you didn't care. You actually took on the commitment because you did care either about the commitment or about the person that asked you.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: And that's what we fight and that's.
[01:03:16] Speaker B: The hardest part, is that people that you love and adore ask you for something. And there are times, certainly in the past, where we have accepted because of the person and the cause was worthy, know, whatever that part was. But any number of spas it was. I just love, you know, I just can't let John down. And then I actually let John down anyway because I never had the bandwidth to be able to commit the way that John wanted me to. John invited me on there because he knows how I show up and I wasn't able to show up. So those are things, I mean, I think that's one of the hardest parts about being in demand in spots. And I mean, things as simple as my teammates around the corner need me to help solve something in demand to nonprofit organizations. Right. I mean, that's a very wide range between there, but yeah, no, that's something that I agree with you completely. Certainly the family thing goes without question. And obviously our businesses have got, that is our platform. We talked about this any number of times early on where we have the love and business platform because of the platforms that are arnold packaging and tele construction supply, because so much of our content and the things that we talk about, we know about are fortunate enough to have exposure to because of running those businesses and the awesome people that we get to associate with as part of running those businesses. And then we get to talk on camera to people that like to listen, and we get to share those experiences. So, yeah, I'm win with you on all that. I think if there's anything, I'm always like, all right. I never want to get so tunnel visioned that I couldn't miss something that I would absolutely love because I was only willing to focus on this and not consider that. So maybe consideration is the word that I would use for me in there.
Give it some consideration.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: I agree, and I think there's a time and place for all of it. And what I really feel strongly about, and I've thought about this going into 2024. I think I found in, obviously, running the businesses, but in podcasting and in running the two things that I am really, they're hard for me, both of them, but I really love.
[01:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah, this is definitely working our cortices. Right. We work hard at it. You work very hard at it. I mean, I give you all the credit in the world for how hard you and Tommy work at this stuff. I watch the emails go by and take them in, but you two are at it.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I've really identified. It's taken me a while, but the podcast and trying to be really a good, eventually ultramarathon athlete, a serious one, are two things. I really want to give everything to those two things and the businesses.
And so now that I've identified that I don't even care about, I just want to put all the time, because I know if I don't focus everything, I want to get as much out of these two things as possible. I want to see how far I can take those. And I've figured that out. And so this year is exploring that, like how deep and far I can go with those, how we. I'm going to say it's everything's we.
[01:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Absolutely. But there's nuances to what you do and nuances to what I do. And as I said in the intro, we get to bring everybody on the journey with us.
[01:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: All right. Well, it's going to be a fun ride.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: Yes. Cheers. 24.
[01:06:35] Speaker B: Cheers.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: Happy New Year, everybody.
[01:06:36] Speaker B: Same to you. Happy New Year.
[01:06:38] Speaker A: That's a wrap on our 2024 year. Look ahead. We will continue to share our goals, discoveries, challenges with you as the year progresses. And please do the same with us. That collaboration piece is so important. And as always, thank you for listening. And thank you to our production team for making it all happen behind the scenes. We really appreciate it.
[01:07:00] Speaker B: And don't forget, you can listen to our podcast on all the platforms. That is YouTube, Spotify, Amazon and Apple. That's under love n. That's the letter n business. Don't forget to follow us on social media. You can check the show notes and get all the information there. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe. It takes just a couple of seconds and it really lets us know that you like what we're doing. We get a lot of energy from it and would love to see you hit that subscribe button.
[01:07:24] Speaker A: Our next episode will be dropping in two weeks on Wednesday, January 31. While it's not 100% yet, it's a very good chance we will have our first guest on the show. Very recognizable and inspirational. So stay tuned for more details to come.
[01:07:40] Speaker B: I will definitely stay tuned and I'm excited.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Welcome to Wade Rodney Robbly Todd for the Silver Stars tonight. Tonight's guest, the incredible, credible.
