In The Thick of It

joining me on in the thick of it is Ben Laws.

Um, I don't even know where to begin with Ben, with, with the intro.

He is a serial entrepreneur.

He is, um, founder of a nonprofit.

He has an amazing, amazing podcast, which is actually how we initially connected called
the max life podcast.

And I don't know if I've ever done this before, but do me a favor, hit pause right now,
open your podcast app, go find the max life podcast and follow it.

you will be blessed beyond belief.

the guests that he is able to get on his podcast is just mind blowing.

The caliber of the people, it's fantastic.

And so please, please give it a listen.

You will be blown away.

So with that, welcome to In the Think of it, Ben Laws.

Scott, thank you.

And thanks for you for the kind words.

it, I get to, by the way, when he talks about the guests, get to come on is like Scott.

was one of those like incredible guests that he says it's incredible that I can get on.

Well, Scott was one of those people.

And if you haven't listened to his episode, you got to go back and look at it.

it's on YouTube, Spotify.

And I don't know if they want to sit watching on YouTube because I mean, we probably sound
better than we look Scott.

mean.

Somebody told me I've got a good, a good face for radio.

there we go.

Yeah.

Well, man, we'll start where we always do at the beginning.

So where, where did you grow up?

Yeah, it, uh, I grew up, I like to say that I'm from Wisconsin, but, my beginning really
started really between Minnesota and Wisconsin and, and, my, person you'll hear me refer

to as my dad is actually tech is my, is technically my stepdad.

But as you know, in terms of like titles, like when, when your dad doesn't matter the
jeans, right?

Like when you show up, like you got to earn like those titles.

And so,

It started for me in the Twin Cities and having a front row seat too, watching my parents
at the time, not really realizing how much work they were doing, but my mom was a nurse

working overnights doing like in the VA hospital, working in the ER.

And then during the day, her and my dad would do a wallpaper company because my dad had
taken a hiatus when he had actually had met my mom.

He was on a hiatus from his...

life as a pastor.

And then they were, I got to watch kind of front row seat and maybe that's what started to
influence me to see it.

But my parents were my, I were always around, like I never felt like I was wanting, but
eventually my dad got the itch and call to go back into the ministry.

And then we came to Wisconsin.

Actually, that's not true.

We went down to Southern Minnesota for a stop there, but we, then we came to Wisconsin,
which was, I grew up,

in beginning, in the early years in the Twin Cities, so Minneapolis, St.

Paul for your listeners who aren't regionally, when I say Twin Cities know what that
means.

But I think I had a lot of really good growth by living in the country.

We lived in the country.

My dad took a country church and turned it from like 50 parishioners to like, know, 170,
180 like uh worshiping parishioners, which again, maybe that's where some of like

you know, entrepreneurial spirit came from watching hard work toil, creating compelling
outcomes and compelling connections.

But it was also growing up around people who just did hard work.

I always liken that farmers were God's first entrepreneurs, right?

I mean, think about it.

They put a seed in the ground and then it's a guess and a bet.

And then they wait to go.

And they make all these expenditures based off to like maintain that.

And then they like harvest, right?

mean, it's entrepreneurism long before.

but growing up there, out in the country, you know, got to do a lot of like things that I
think that have served me well as my dad would say, son, you're just building character.

You'll thank me one day, you know, and those thank me one day things were, you know,
splitting lots and lots of wood.

you know, putting away a couple thousand, you know, hay bales, well, from the field onto
the hay cart and then back into the actual barn.

you know, they talk about inefficiency of touching it three times.

Interestingly enough though, my dad, when I left for college, bought a hydraulic wood
splitter and then I actually bought a, what do you call that?

Like a,

excavator, like a thing that like brings the hay up onto the top.

And I was going, this seems a little bit backwards.

And he goes, he goes, my character building days are done.

And, but anyways, but that's, that's a little bit of like where I grew up and my frame of
reference that I pull from.

And I think where my work ethic comes, I think my sort of can do never quit attitude comes
from.

So talking about that, know, him imparting this idea of Bill's character, did you
appreciate that at the time?

Or was that something that you came to appreciate later in life?

you know, that's a really great question, Scott.

I think that at the time I didn't always like love it, but I loved feeling useful.

I loved feeling like I had left it out there.

And, know, and I also loved being around like my dad and feeling like seeing the evolution
of something, you know, like we built, when we first, moved to Wisconsin, we moved into

the, into the parish.

I mean, one of the things that had gotten my dad to move our family from Minnesota to
Wisconsin was that they said, Hey, you don't have to live in the parish.

know, we'll give you a housing allowance so you can get a farm.

Cause he grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and we had horses that we had bought in Southern
Minnesota.

we, so we stored them at like a parishioner's house.

But the first, the place that we bought that I did, I called like my formative years
growing up was an old Christmas tree farm.

And so we built our first pasture in a place that they had just like cut, you know, they
clear cut a whole bunch of Christmas trees.

And so what we ended up having to do, and I'm talking about like, this is probably maybe a
five acre parcel that we were turning into a pasture.

And you have to imagine there was a Christmas tree planted every four feet.

So, mean, and then space maybe eight feet, 10 feet apart.

There's probably about, if I had to guess, hundreds of Christmas tree stumps that our
first thing that my sister and I, my older sister and I would do is we would go out there

and we would have to like dig at the roots at the stump and, you know, to find so that we
could actually get a chain wrapped around the whole stump.

And then we'd hook it up.

It's actually where I learned to drive was on this old farm, old H.

So anyone who knows that like a narrow front and, and you would start it up and then you
would have to learn to kind of move it forward until it like it got tight and then you'd

have to like jerk it.

And so you just then rip the whole stump out of the ground.

And so my sister and I spent a whole summer doing that.

and you know, it was interesting when my parents finally sold.

the, our hobby farm in June of 2020.

I stood at that exact same, that exact same spot.

And I just remember just starting to cry.

And it wasn't just because, this is my childhood home.

It was this, that it represented all of this things that I had no idea that had been built
within me of like these memories and these

these character skills of like, what does it mean to show up even when you don't want to?

And I mean, just imagine doing that.

Like I think at the time I was, geez, fifth, sixth grade.

And I just remember, like taking out fence posts, cause you know, the new people coming
in, they're like, you know, we're taking out fence posts and it's going like, I remember

putting that fence post in.

I remember stringing like that, you know, that electric fence.

wire and there's gnats and like, you know, and mosquitoes and, it was a really important,
I think journey that I had to go through.

So I appreciated it then, but I had no context of being like, well, what's that actually
gonna do for me?

It's like, I enjoy it.

I like sweating.

I like working.

I like feeling like, you know, a good day's been had, but had no idea of what it would
actually.

I think probably build for me in my life.

Yeah.

So you're, you have an older sister.

Is it just the two of you?

Okay.

What, apart from working on the farm, like what, kinds of things were you into?

Did you play sports?

Were you super academic?

Were you musical?

I'm laughing because he said super academic.

I just want to set the level straight here.

I believe I graduated.

It's sort of like when I played football in college, I was 5'11", even though it was 5'10
1.5".

So I'm going to do my roundup.

I think I was at 2.89 GPA in high school.

So I'm going to call it a 2.9, but I was a 2.9 GPA, played sports.

It was interesting.

Growing up, my sister was gifted with the capability of organization and time management.

And it was something that actually has played into today.

I mean, she and I have collaborated pretty much from the moment I was born.

I like to joke that, you know, we've been collaborating for 43 years.

She now is my chief innovation manager and has been...

helping me with time management and organization for like my whole life, which is pretty
wild.

She reminds me of stories of Dan, you know, wrote the book, Dan Sullivan wrote the book,
Who Not How?

And my sister Beth reminds me that like when I was like five, like I would give her a
nickel of like my chore money so that I didn't have to clean my room.

don't remember it, but I'm like,

seemed like it was a good exchange of, a good exchange of, of money.

so she had like a lot of the, lot of like accolades around academics and, know, like she,
she worked hard, but like getting A's, was like, sort of like breathing, for her.

Um, where like, I was not gifted with the time management organization in that, in that
way.

but like athletics or something that from a really early age that was really interested in
me, I loved competing.

I loved understanding in terms of what did it actually take to win?

And not only that, not just a lot of it came to not just me competing against others, but
me competing against myself to go like, hey, if I was to do that again, how could I do it?

Like, how could I throw the ball differently?

Like kind of getting lost in some of the sort of things that

you know, you're dreaming about like, playing in the NBA.

And here I'm like this Midwest kid, you know, who I think, I think at my peak, maybe my
vertical is like 22 inches, 24 inches, something like that.

you know, nothing, nothing to write home about.

And, but I would spend just hours throwing a ball against the wall and just like focusing
on, hey, could I hit that exact same spot?

And, but I think,

What I remember growing up, Scott, from the beginning is knowing that I wanted to do
something great.

I wanted to do something that was just more, more than what I could actually even like
understand at the time.

I just knew I had this like feeling of, you know, I imagine it like the settlers, you
know, that came to the United States, right?

And it's that manifest destiny, like go West.

You just felt called like to go.

And I felt called at a really early age.

And I knew I wanted more.

I think where I first started really seeing that was there was a across the road from my
dad's church.

There was a township cemetery, but it was built on the side of a hill.

I don't know if your people are watching this, but I'm not even joking.

was, it was at least like eight to 15, you know, you know, like grade on it.

Like to the point, like when you'd start down the hill with on your rider, you just would
lock the brakes and you would skid to the bottom.

And, I remember getting my dad when I think when I was 13, I said, Hey, I was like, I want
to bid on that.

And he's like, okay, well you can't go to bid it.

So he bid it for me.

I got it.

And I think what I realized was a learning lesson was that number one, I got it probably
because I was probably half as expensive as everyone else.

But it gave me a sense of actually showing up even when I didn't want to showing up to do
something while like my friends were maybe hanging out.

But it, was super cool because my dad, we lived at the time, I think it was like five
miles away.

Like, you know, I'd back up the truck to the trailer, load it up.

And then I would drive it down.

I mean, think about this.

I would, I mean, I mean, I would never let my

Now it's now 17 and a half year old at 13 drive a truck with a trailer with like a bunch
of lawn equipment, but I was able to do it.

And I was able to just learn that like responsibility and also the importance of like
pricing.

I distinctly remember going, I did not charge enough.

I mean, I'm 13 years old going, I did not charge enough.

Like this is hard.

Like this is just hard work.

Was that your, I assume that was your first job that you had.

Did you have other traditional type, you know, getting a W-2 kind of jobs or were you
always finding these odd kind of things to do?

No, I actually did the, once I got into high school, I, I joined the target team, and as a
cashier and I loved it.

I loved it as a cashier and, was just so it's funny how Scott, get these jobs and you
start to, you don't know how they're going to hit you.

But, like later on in life, but, I, I just, I loved it because.

Like we got these incentives for basically placing target cards.

And I just remember like when I was 16, 17, you know, I would go do like a four hour shift
and I would get 20 target cards signed up.

Yeah.

Like, and it was, it's awesome because you started to realize in terms of people are going
through, like what questions do you need to ask to actually get them to say yes?

Like, Hey, would you like to save 10 %?

like you normally be like, Oh,

potentially like, what do I have to do?

And that's like, well, you got to do this, this and this.

And it's like you having to set the scene, like understand like why are they in?

Like, what are they buying?

Look at the stuff that they're actually buying and see like, okay, well, is this person
going to be back?

Is this going be something that's going to be valuable to them that they're going to be a
consistent, you know, like customer here at Target.

And yeah, and I just remember the first time understanding what sales was that they're
like, hey,

Whoever sells the most amount can get a DVD player.

So, which now is funny because yeah, that's so 1990s.

And yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

But at the time, like this was like a $150 DVD player, which was, you know, for a 16 year
old was, that was a lot of money.

And you were naturally competitive.

So I imagine that that was like challenge accepted, let's go.

Yes.

Yeah.

And in what became fun is that I knew I could already do it.

And I was like, well, no, no one had ever done like 40 in like a session.

I was like, well, I'm going to do 40.

And I think I ended up doing like 44.

I mean, it and it was fun.

Um, because I didn't ever think of it.

I was competing with anyone else.

It was me competing to like that number is me competing to go.

If I can see it and I can envision it and I can feel like there's always this thing like
you kind of get near, I'm sure Scott, you as an entrepreneur feel this and I'm sure your

listeners, you get that feeling in your gut and you just go, I think I can do this.

And wanting to prove that feeling right was just, was awesome.

And then after that, go ahead.

back in a time where it wasn't just like tap a couple things with a stylus at the
register.

Like there was probably paper involved and like this was not a seamless friction free kind
of a process at that point in time.

Is that a fair statement?

a hundred percents.

Yeah.

It was, I learned on those, on those things, there are things that needed to be filled out
that could be easily filled out, but there was important information like name, address,

and then some of the financial information and then a signature.

But there was a ton of other information that Target wanted that was not pertinent.

Like it was more that I could easily like fill out.

And so I'd be like, Hey, you know, while I'm getting everything, can you just like fill
your name out, address and uh you know,

like, and fill out some of these financial things.

And so I could get it done if I remember like in like three to five minutes, um, and the
whole like start to finish and then it'd be done.

And then I'd apply that discount.

yeah, it was, fun, but it was allowed me to like, be able to see what's the process.

How can we make this process simpler?

People inherently want to say yes to life, but

Can I swear in here?

Yeah, but like, it is really fucking hard for people to do so because like activation
energy is a real thing.

And that was actually probably my first real exposure to that during that was like
watching people's activation energy.

Like there'd be times like even back then we're talking like the late nineties, people
could save, you know, like $90, you know, like.

the time, like that was like, that was a ginormous like bill.

Those people, yeah.

And I'm there and you helping them at first they'd be like, I don't know.

And be like, you don't want to save $90 and be like, Hey, how about I help you with this?

You know what?

I'm going to just go through.

I'm going to fill out the things that they're want you to do, but I just know the answers
for.

And they're like, that's awesome.

And then all of a sudden, boom, I just lifted the veil of activation energy for them just
enough that they're like, so what do need to do?

I just need your name, address.

I need you to fill out this financial information and then sign." And they're like, that's
it.

I'm like, yep.

you took the friction out of it and they got something for it too.

That's amazing that at that age you had that awareness to make the process easier to get
them to say yes.

Thinking back though to that lawn landscape work that you were doing, when I was a
teenager, I mowed a lot of lawns in the neighborhood, and I also lived in the Twin Cities

at the time, lived in Chanhassen, and

you go.

got a job at Byerly's grocery store bagging groceries.

And I think minimum wage at the time was $3.14 an hour.

And my dad was like, Scott, you could do way better if you would just go pick up a couple
more lawns, get some little business cards printed up, go knock on doors and offer to mow

lawns.

And you can make way more in an hour than you can at Byerly's.

And I'm like, nah, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do this.

Did you ever have that thought of I could make way more money?

doing more lawns, doing more landscape work.

Yeah, you know, I did, but you know, being in athletics, like athletics was primary to me
and working was just a means to an end.

You know, my dad was, mean, fastidious.

I would, he would be like, I'm just going to give you enough gas money.

Cause we lived about 20 minutes outside of town and he was like, I'm going to give you
enough gas money to get to school and get back to school.

Everything else is on you.

You know, like if you want to go out to eat.

That's on you.

You want to go drive around more than that?

That's on you.

And I'm not even joking.

If I didn't go anywhere else, as I was rolling down our driveway, the e-light would come
on.

Like that is like how precise that he would like miter out like the gas money every, every
week.

so, so I just did it because like Target was incredibly like flexible with like my hours.

And so, which made it kind of hard being like something consistent, like, Hey, if I was
going to mow lawns,

they need you to be there or like shovel or they want you to be there like exactly.

And I looked at my job in high school was athletics, making money and then academics.

I think that if I was to be frank about it, you know, because then I figured afterwards I
was like, well, how can I make more money doing something that people want?

So then I became a Domino's pizza driver.

And that was an interesting, cause then you started to understand in terms of like
socioeconomic status, like where someone would call, like you knew in terms of like, if I

go here, they're probably getting three or four pizzas.

Right.

And you're like, okay, Hey, you know what?

could probably get a, you know, maybe $15 tip, $20 tip.

you know, versus like other areas, like what age groups, you knew if it was like a young
person, like instantly opened the door.

You're like, yeah, I'm probably going to get a dollar or nothing.

And then I started to understand, just like, Hey, if I got it there, early and just how,
how I would actually like, you know, answer the door and be like, Hey, explain things or

answer the phone when I'm taking an order.

you started to notice that people like really appreciated service, um, in terms of like
how they experience, like you can order pizza or you can have someone show up with like a

smile on their face, be like, Hey.

You know, like what a great night to like order pizza.

Like, here you go.

You know, the bill is this.

Like, you know, it looks like you got a bunch of people here.

Oh, that, looks like a lot of fun.

You know, just like having these conversations that all of a sudden it was like turning
pizza into, you know, like a four hour shift I could turn into like a hundred dollars,

$150 in tips.

So it was just by being friendly and noticing that people were experiencing life.

like even down to like the level of like ordering pizza.

And it sounds like the way you describe that, like I felt this energy in the way that you
talked about it.

And it sounds like you were having fun while you were doing this too.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

I had so much fun.

Just knowing how people would say like, hello, you started to understand in terms of like
how to, how to like engage with them.

And it actually in retrospect, even as I'm talking about, I haven't really talked about
like this from like this standpoint, like doing like a full debrief of like my, you know,

growing up into like my high school and these jobs, but

I think that when I think about, and I actually remember in seventh grade, eighth grade
and thinking about what do you want to do?

Like, what are you really good at?

And the thing I realized really early on, I was like, I'm really good at loving people.

Like I am really good at like loving people.

I love love.

I love to love.

If you've been, if anyone you've ever been around me, like maybe it's the Midwest
upbringing, but like you're probably getting three hugs before like, like I'm leaving the

door.

But I think that I realized now in.

that this was all this training in starting to understand like how to help people be seen,
heard and understood.

Even with something as stupidly simple as a pizza and a pizza delivery and a pizza order.

I mean, you got to see people.

I remember people be like, you could tell like, man, there's some shit going on.

And then you could be like, see, hey, people are celebrating things.

And it was just like, you got this like little glimpse.

It was like Instagram before Instagram.

But it's amazing that at such an early age that you were able to put all these pieces
together.

And maybe I should frame this differently.

At the time, were you piecing it together or were you piecing this together later on in
life?

No, think that, no, I was not piecing it.

I think that there are a couple forces working on me was that number one is in addition to
these like work things is I would struggle in school.

Like I would take tests and then I would get like an A on the test and then they would
assign homework and I just would go, why are we doing this?

And then like inevitably I'd like to have athletics or have something social and that
would always, or I'd work.

And then I'd get home and then I'd be like, oh, I got to buckle down on this.

then I just, wouldn't, and then I would rush and I would, and I feel like then when you
have that in comparison with an older sister who literally like so organized that she has

like done all of her homework, is an excellent, like, you know, musical student.

So I also was in music, so.

I've, you know, in retrospect, I've had this thing of, and I think it was so good and
healthy.

I have zero like resentment.

think it was so great to have someone come ahead of me that was excellence in motion.

Like my sister, Beth is excellence in motion.

I mean, truly, I feel so blessed.

You know, going back to like, we both did 4-H and when we did 4-H, was like, we did like,
like horse information and Beth, I got like a blue ribbon, but Beth got reserve grand

champion.

we did flowers and we both did gladiola.

Beth got grand reserve champion.

you know, when it came to like school and it came to like music, Beth was just, more
organized.

Like, you know, James Clear talks about, you don't rise to your dreams.

You fall to your structure.

Like these are like these things that like I realize now, but I'm so grateful for it
because it forced me to realize that if I was going to succeed, it wasn't on the execution

standpoint.

per se, it was going to be in the fact of like asking for forgiveness and mercy and grace,
which meant that at an early age, I was like, I was really humbled to be able to go, man.

And I was never jealous of my sister.

That's the other thing I remember.

I was never jealous.

I was like, man, like she is awesome.

And then I also realized really quickly that this was not me.

And if I allowed, if I allowed the external grading,

and judgment to affect in terms of my value.

Like this, I remember so clearly when I got a C on my report card and I was like, you know
what?

And I started feeling bad about it.

I was like, this is fucking stupid.

I was like, grades make really well-organized people and who are really good at school
feel really good about what they're doing.

And that's awesome.

And more power to them.

but.

what I get on my report card does not define me.

Like I do remember that I was like, this is not defined me.

Who I am is a person that I am smart.

I am intelligent.

It's just that I haven't found what that is in yet.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, when you brought home a C, what was the conversation like with your parents?

Were they okay with it?

Were they disappointed?

that's a really good question.

I think I just was metabolized it.

I was like, well, I think that my parents are like, Ben, Hey, you're better than this.

You're absolutely better than this.

Like, Hey, you need to try.

But at the same time, the thing that I really appreciate about my parents in retrospect is
that maybe they were hands off in some ways, but they also were like, Hey, you know what?

Like the little bit, this is your life and you know, we're going to encourage you and
we're going to support you.

But I think the hardest thing as a parent is allowing the thing that is actually the
greatest learning lesson, it's not winning, it's actually failing.

I mean, you've heard Michael Jordan talked about it.

was like, was the like a hundred thousand shots that he missed was his greatest like
teacher rather than all the ones that he made.

but I think that, I think that my parents just knew who I was and the person that I was

being and was going to become.

But I think a lot of it was also the learning lesson I had, all of these things kind of
led me to was that I would have like some just really honest conversations with some of my

teachers.

And the amount of leniency I got was insane back then.

Like I had a paper that was due in high school that like,

I turned in this work and the teacher, just because of fact is I had early and often
talked with them and they saw like my engagement in class.

They were like, I was lifting the class up with, feel like my engagement.

You know, I was the one that they didn't have to go, Hey, does anyone have a question?

I'd be like, boom, got a question.

And then someone would talk to start talking about it be like, oh that's amazing.

And actually, Hey, what about this?

We can, I kept that like the kind of that, like that, that momentum in the room going and.

So they knew that I was like not an idiot.

But then I would turn a paper and that would be like C minus paper.

thankfully, by the way, we all stand on like the shoulders of some of these giants.

People recognize something in us that we don't even know for ourselves.

And I have a couple of teachers, Mr.

Jellish in fifth grade who saw my competitive like fire and he was like, hey, we got to...

we got to put this to like good use.

you know, we got to tone down like the temper and like the, how, how do you actually lose?

Like, and the fact is you actually aren't losing like, Hey, we got to look at this
different.

then, you know, Mr.

Olson in, in high school who like, this is the teacher then said, Hey, like you are better
than this.

And he goes, I'm not going to accept this paper.

And even though my semester had ended, I would go in after school for a half hour every
day.

And, again, I showed up, did the work.

ended up getting a B plus in that class because he taught me the fact is showing up is
some is sometimes more important than just being like, Nope, here's the cutoff, right?

And having belief in people and the development of people, you know, in retrospect, I
think that's one of the reasons why I'm such a huge proponent of developing like in our

companies, we spend a huge amount of time and a huge amount of money.

investing in believing in the person they are not at work, but who they are actually not
at work.

Because we believe that if they're winning, who shows up work, the product that shows up
at work is going to be exponential.

And I'm actually realizing, I think it's because my own experience of having someone pour
into me.

Yeah.

Well, so you make it through high school, two nine GPA.

What was college like for you?

Um, college was, uh, number one, it was, it was an example when you have something of
value that you can get into like a really good college.

So I went to like a really great liberal arts, private college, um, got a academic grant,
um, which was funny considering that I, was a D three college, but I got academic grant

with a 2.9 GPA and I, and it gave me, I remember going, huh, interesting.

Like.

If you add enough value, people will write you checks.

So like athletics got me into it.

And again, it was same sort of like deal, know, in terms of, except, you know, I was
around a bunch of guys that were like, hey, C's get degrees.

And I was like, all right.

That's all right.

But about uh between my sophomore and junior year, I had done an internship.

at a financial service company, calling from these church directories and booking
appointments.

You can kind of see the similarity here.

Now go back to Target, go back to like my dominoes days of like answering like the door
and just knowing.

And I would literally make dials.

I mean, so many dials to set up appointments for like these financial advisors.

And it was like, I would get 15 to 18 appointments booked in a week.

Right.

I just, loved it.

Yeah, it was.

Where did you go to school?

Is it Luther?

went to Luther college in Decor, Iowa and Northeast part of the state.

It's just absolutely beautiful.

Just absolutely gorgeous part of the country.

And I just remember going in, it became a game.

Like just by the intonation and someone would say, hello.

And it'd be like, hello or hello.

Like you started to understand like, Hey.

How are you going to have this conversation to reduce down the activation energy to just
say yes?

And when I got done with that, I was like, man, that was really fun.

And then I started talking with the advisors and I'm going, I'm starting to hear about the
money that they're making.

I'm going, wait, so from those, you can make this.

And I'm going, but I'm spending all of this time here.

And I don't even know what I want to do.

I started off as a music major about that lasted all about three weeks.

And then I realized I loved music, I did not want like a career in it.

my, one of my coaches, coach Dan Marlowe, he, he was my student advisor and, and he just
knew he was like, he, he always referred to me.

goes, you're a social genius.

I just thought he was saying like, dude,

You like to talk to people.

Like you like to get to know people.

And I didn't realize until later that there's all of these different geniuses.

I thought that when someone said you're a genius, it was like all in the academic realm.

Like there's zero other realms of like genius that you could be a part of.

But he was like, you know, maybe why you try political science?

So I was like, okay, I'll try it.

Loved it.

A lot of like conversation, a lot of engagement, a lot of like debate.

Um, all these things that like, had to be present, um, in the room.

but I realized after that summer that.

What I had gone to college for, which was really to do athletics, because I played
football, ran track, was not the thing that I wasn't there.

I wasn't going to make the NFL.

And I remember sort of this like 40 days, 40 nights in the wilderness, which was my first
semester of my junior year.

And I remember calling the company that had done my internship and I said, Hey, is there a
place in there for me?

And they're like, yeah, you know what?

Yeah.

I mean, when you do the results I had, that was again, another learning lesson.

When you show up, provide results in, especially, I didn't realize until later that,
making that many appointments.

Not normal.

Like cold calling and getting that, that many people say yes, not normal.

that they're like, yeah.

There's also not a lot of people that are willing to do that kind of work.

And I actually had considered going into financial services, coming out of college and met
with Northwestern Mutual and all these others.

And they're like, yeah, you're going to, you're to start day one.

You need to bring a list of a hundred people or 500 people, know, who are your dad's
friends and who are their friends.

And, and you're just going to call.

And I'm like, no, this is not for me, but the people that, that can do that.

It's amazing what can happen from that.

I do think that you guys are sick in a weird way.

Like the fact that you like making those cold calls, there's something not right about
that, but it can unlock tremendous, tremendous wealth and success.

Yeah.

Well, I think the thing that made it really easy is that I had been told no so many other
times, you know, like in athletics, like in like high school, even though I think I was, I

had like ridiculously physically talented, my parents were in my, none of my parents were,
had ever been in athletics.

So it was like blind leading the blind.

You're not necessarily knowing in terms of like how to train is that I faced a lot of, I,
what I feel like was really healthy adversity where I didn't get to play nearly as much as

I wanted to, which was like,

Being told no is like being like, you know what?

You're not top of your class.

know, like, don't know if you're going to get into college.

Like being told no, that I never really heard no.

Like as like, okay, well, this isn't going to happen.

It was just a combination to be like, to be thought through, to be listened to, be like
present with, to be able to go, okay, well, what is really happening here?

You saying no means that there is something that is happening here that is getting in the
way of your potential And so for me, by the way, I don't love doing cold calls.

mean, that was like a summer then um after.

So that was like, okay, that was great.

And I quickly grew out of loving it after the first couple of years in the industry, but
halfway through my second semester, my junior year, I remember sitting down with my

parents and I was like,

I am going to do this.

And so I took W's, I did withdrawals on all my classes.

And I remember parents being like, we don't necessarily agree with it, but we also believe
you're an adult.

And if you're going to make an adult decision, then you know what, we're going to support
you and we'll provide tailwind for you.

But just to be clear, you are not moving back home.

If you're to make an adult decision, like then welcome to the adult world.

And that means you need to get your own place.

You need to like...

pay all of like, need to pay your own car insurance.

You need to pay for your own cell phone bill.

You like, you you're gonna make adult decision.

You gotta do this.

And so I had enough money saved in there that I was able to make it through the rest of
the semester and the summer studying for like my series seven and barely like barely

passing it.

Like 70 % is like passing rate.

was like 70.01, something like that.

It was like,

And then getting all the necessary licenses and starting in August of 2004 by beginning of
December, I had kind of like one of my first pivotal moments of being like, like, are you

going to show up or are you going to be a person that is like meets the expectations that
everyone has the fact that you left college early in the form of in August, when I

started.

You know, I started making cold calls and, I was already in my head building the dream of
that.

was going to build this mega mansion.

Like I was already buying the future cars in my head.

You know, the future dreams, you know, of the things that usually are natural outcomes of
when you stack up enough of these things.

and I had, was just newly married, as a 21 year old.

and yet we met in.

Yeah, we met at school.

She followed me to uh like left school early as well.

just remember beginning in December, getting a call from the senior partner of our region.

Basically being like, dude, I remember his words where he's like, what the fuck are you
doing?

He's like, we gave you this, we gave you this opportunity.

And I explained to him and I went back to, was like, yeah, you know what?

Just told him truth.

was like, I'm not doing this.

I'm not doing this and I'm not doing this thing.

And if you give me another opportunity, like I promise you, this will never have this
conversation again.

And to this day, he goes, I was supposed to fire you that day.

And he goes, but I listened to you.

And then I proceeded to go on a tear.

I was like, cause I just remember at that time, we couldn't buy Christmas gifts.

We had to make Christmas gifts because we barely had enough money to like pay the rent and
actually have any food.

Like our food consisted of like potatoes, butter and cheese.

and I just remember looking around and just going, I will never be in this situation
again.

I will never see the look like on a partner's face that like I'm seeing now.

then I went on to like for three straight years to lead.

I think it was three straight years to lead our region in sales.

It was like top 50 in the country.

yeah, that was like a really pivotal could have easily like felt bad and be like, yeah,
yeah, you know what?

Everyone expected me to fuck up.

But.

Back up for a second though.

So you left college, your wife left college.

There was a conversation with your family.

What was the conversation like with her family?

Because I imagine as the dad of a daughter, like this guy is coming, he wants to marry my
daughter.

He's not going to finish college.

Like what were those conversations like?

Yeah.

And just to be clear, we are, we're divorced now.

that spoiler alert.

but at that time, I remember hearing.

If you do this, you will be poor.

and a failure.

And I just remember going.

That's unacceptable.

And again, it's one of these things.

I think that probably most entrepreneurs have had this like where it's like people betting
against you, like, or not fitting in.

And then therefore it's like, because you don't fit in, it's like, well, then you somehow
aren't something.

And I just remember like, I mean, they were against it.

I mean, they were against her leaving.

They were against us like getting married.

And, you know, in that in itself was like a good lesson in the fact of it

There's probably like reasonableness in that.

And I don't regret it at all.

I mean, I have an incredible 17 and a half year old out of it.

I mean, she's just the one of the treasures of my life.

but in retrospect, not just because someone says you can't doesn't mean that you always
should.

You know, and, but again, that's like those life lessons that like are best taught, like
when you've actually received it.

Yeah.

Going back to that conversation with your boss.

Yeah.

Those conversations, they go one of two ways.

Either people truly do turn things around or they just say, no, that's it, I'm out.

And I actually think about somebody that we had to have a coaching conversation with
three, four years ago.

And it was amazing not only how well they received that coaching conversation, but it
actually spurred them to make a lot of other.

changes in their life outside of work.

And I love how you talked about, you know, the way that you run your firm, you invest in
people because there are people outside of work.

And if they're, you know, fulfilled in their lives, I'm paraphrasing here, but if they're
fulfilled in their personal lives, they show up to work very different.

And it was incredible to see him make this massive change, not just in his work, but in
his personal life.

He started working out.

He's, you know, started going to bed at regular hours, started eating healthier, lost a
lot of weight, just...

It was amazing to see that conversation be a catalyst for a major life change, not just a
work change.

Were you expecting that conversation from that boss that day, or were you thinking, no,
I'm doing okay?

No, I think I knew and I think that there was a level of avoidance of just telling the
truth.

And when he told it and he just, mean, he like, he wasn't mean about it, but he just was,
super kind honesty, but like pretty matter of Like, I mean, when he was like, what the

fuck are you doing?

you have this opportunity.

I remember just going like, you know, I could be really defensive about this or I could
just go and hear it because I think one of the things that's super important is to be

coachable because people have gone before you have obviously hit the branches on the way
down, run into the brick walls.

And I think that's actually one of the things growing up as a son of a pastor.

in a small country church is that you like growing up like you respected your elders.

Like there was, I got exposed to like, you know, people in their seventies, eighties.

I remember at the time, and it's not that big of a deal now, but the time we would have
like these big wide church celebrations for nonagenarian people who made it to their

nineties.

You know, like I remember in college when I got pneumonia while I was playing football,
the ladies of the church sent me all this stuff like homemade crossword puzzles and.

all these different factors.

And so I grew up in it.

And I think an environment it was like chat GBT long before that it was like, could pull
from this collective knowledge of like, of wisdom.

as long it maybe didn't come from my parents, I was more equally received it maybe more.

but kind of on that note, I think growing up, I did my biggest learning sitting on my
parents' lap.

Like my sister would sit on my dad's lap, I'd sit on my mom's lap and we, my parents would
talk for like what to me felt like an hour after dinner.

And they just talked about the things of life, about like relationships, about like, you
know, politics and the world.

And, and I distinctly remember that as being like really important and really formative.

but yeah, that discussion with that boss really set the tone.

But the thing is that a pendulum can swing too far.

Because I took that and all of sudden then I started getting lauded for it.

And it was like, oh, oh, you're, winning.

And then I think I took that so much into my like identity, you know, and, you know, like
my health, I mean, when I look back, I went from like having like a 31 inch waist being

225 pounds, um, in, in college to being like 225 pounds and like not a 31 inch waist.

Like all the muscle evaporated from like my chest and shoulders and somehow creeped up
from my, like my quads, and up into my, my midsection.

Um, and that kind of like led from 2005 really probably about the time, like you got
divorced is that I was hiding in the identity of like my success, hiding in the identity

of that, like taking like this work, you know, like this athletic identity of like, you
know what?

because how you got better as an athlete is you just worked harder.

Right.

It was, didn't really fully understand like rest days.

And, you know, in that timeframe, I went from a solo and I was Hey, I was like, you know,
I best operate in a team atmosphere.

So after a couple of years of doing it myself, doing, you know, at a high level, started
going, this could be so much more fun if I could start to build the team.

So I built a team, the compensation structure at the broker dealer I was at just didn't
support that.

It just didn't support like a team effort.

And so,

Problem with it was I had hired a ton of family.

I had hired a ton of family into there.

So we had to dismantle that.

So you can imagine like that's a tough conversation just in general, but now you have
family on the line.

That's like, you know, this isn't going to work.

The numbers just don't make sense.

But that really kind of started like my, I call it like my in the wilderness.

Like the average in the industry, I think is like four and a half meetings per week,
Scott.

I was running for about three or four years, 23 to 25 meetings a week.

And, and I found that it was like, if I just do this, then I'm bringing value.

I'm bringing so much value.

I'm going to outwork anybody.

You know, I was like hooked up to like an IV of like double shots of espresso, some Red
Bulls, you know, eating like McDonald's like breakfast in the morning.

and coincidentally also just really like abdicating.

And not being present in, in, my relationship.

so you can just imagine like that just fell apart but I'd also had like the visions when
you're 21, you think, you know, everything at 21 and you realize later on you, like, you

didn't know shit, you know, then I had my oldest daughter when I was 26 and you go, well,
you feel like, know, everything.

And you realize later that you don't know shit.

just remember just thinking about that there had to be more like that marriage didn't have
to be so hard.

didn't have to be a slog.

It didn't have to feel like I didn't want to have that.

I wanted to like run to like work and lose myself and work and got divorced and then met
my

My, my life partner now, Jenna.

And, and it just also taught me an important lesson that like, as a Dr.

Joe Dispenza said like relationships don't end, they just complete.

in retrospect, it was like a necessary season of my life and chapter in my book that I had
to go through, but it gave me the context like night and day, right?

You understand, Hey, the sun comes up and like,

And it's like, wow, that's beautiful.

Why?

Because that 3 a.m.

it was pitch dark, right?

You have context.

And so for me, it was meeting Jenna was like breathing for the first time.

uh

old were you when you went through the divorce and then how old were you when you got
remarried?

Yeah, I was 29 when I went through like the divorce and it was a long drawn up process.

And then I got married.

Let's see here in 2014.

So let's see that.

So 12 years ago.

when I was 31, 31,

And at what point did you start your first firm?

Well, technically I started when I was 21.

That I like to go back is that I got a small book to like work with and then just grew it
from there.

So I grew it from...

You know, like nothing did a lot of like sales of like life insurance and annuities.

And it was mostly life insurance.

And that was amazing.

That was an amazing lesson because to have a conversation around life insurance, again, to
remove activation energy, like you got to get emotional.

Like there's no like, oh, clean passing like in NASCAR.

It was like, no, like, Hey, like we're going to be trading paint here.

Um, and you have to like get in the messy middle of what does it mean to live?

What does it mean to die?

What does it mean for people's mortality?

Like what's their life?

What, how do you quantify in terms of like, Hey, you spent 35 years doing this.

Like, what does this mean?

Right.

You know, your kids, what does it mean to be a father?

What does it mean to be a mother?

and all these different factors.

and I look back at that time period in my life as like really transformative because
it'll, it taught me to not have.

transactional conversations.

It taught me how to like be in transformational, if that makes sense.

Because you can't just go, well, here's the return and look at this and here's in
comparison to like the SMP 500, which by the way is all like transactional.

It's all transactional, but versus meaning, hey,

What is the last 30 years of you being a father taught you?

And what does that mean when we're sitting here 30 years from now and your kids have
become parents and you are looking back and you realize that your end is near and they're

really, the breadth of like their life.

What, what, what, what does that have to look like?

And help people move through what's difficult.

Cause people don't want to think about dying.

They don't want to think about like the hard things.

They don't want to think about the things that are under the spectrum that I quickly
learned that, we talk about like my son dying is that part of deep love is like deep

sorrow.

And those two are like synonymous.

And so part of like being alive and like really living

is understanding like, what does it mean to like die?

And so I think that that like, I had a period from like 2004 to about 2015, like nine, was
it nine years that like, man, I was like in that world, selling it awesome.

And then I actually joined strategic coach.

Well, first I met my partner, know, Jenna and Jenna was not that my parents didn't believe
in me and not that, but like Jenna,

believed in me in a way that no one else had ever had.

and she brought the yang to like my yang.

And the fact is like organization, time management of like life.

And what I realized what she did was that she put this cone of silence around me so that I
could actually just like, I could be, and I could actually start to go like, who the fuck

am I?

Like, who am I really?

If I'm, if I'm not a producer, I'm not this person who runs 23 to 25 appointments a week.

I'm not like these like sales records, like who am I?

And that was really for the first time, you know, I used to feel, Scott, you may
appreciate this, like I for, until I met Jenna, I used to feel a deep amount of shame and

judgment around not having my college degree.

Like a deep insecurity.

Cause people are like, where'd you go to college?

I mean, can you imagine like, I'm this baby face kid and like, I'm like, Hey, trust me.

Like, where'd you go to college?

I'm like, well, I'm answering the question.

I went to Luther.

well, what'd you graduate with?

I didn't say graduate.

I just, I would say I studied political science.

Was there a fear of the next question?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they were just, but they'd always just leave it there because it was like, if I, I was
fearful of if I said, well, I actually didn't finish college that it would be another sort

of maybe PTSD reverb from when I was in high school and going, Oh, you got a C you must
not be a good student.

Oh, 2.9 GPA.

If you just only been more dedicated.

of that rejection around and fighting like the age, like ageism, the fact I'm young.

Okay, well, you know, if he didn't finish college, well, what does that say about him?

And Jenna said, and I remember we got together, she goes, do you know how many
billionaires never finished college?

It's something so simple and obvious, but it's like, she said that and it just unlocked
for me, Scott.

It was like, it's like, you know what?

That's sort of true.

Was there a moment, was there an event that sparked that kind of deep work around identity
or was it something that built over time?

Yeah, it was, it was Jenna.

It was Jenna.

Cause we would have the thing that would happen with Jenna is it went from, Hey, not
having a long commonality to literally Jenna and I would spend time.

I mean, when I say we talk, like we would talk for like five, six hours.

And it was just the talking and talking and having the person to be able to be incredibly
vulnerable with to be able to go, Hey,

I struggle with this and not only have her, but have her call me out on some of my
bullshit and be like, what is going on here?

Like this, like this, like that, that thing you do.

Like you need to like, you need to excavate that shit because that, that is not you.

And I'd be like, well, what do you mean?

Like, well, you know, and then we talk about it and she'd be like, well, no, she's like,
if people don't appreciate what's between your ears, then they're not for you.

And I was like, oh shit.

Okay.

And so I think having the right partner, collaborator, really, and her and I wanting to
show up for each other and going down, mean, going down these different roads of like,

hey, what does it mean to be living?

I mean, that's really kind of what happened when we got together.

When she would call you out on those things, were you able to receive that or were you
defensive and pushing back and justifying it in your own mind?

That's a really good question.

And my guess is, some of it is like hazy.

My guess is I probably came off really defensive.

if I'm telling the truth about it, that'd be my guess.

I think there were some things like about the education that I totally took on because I
was needing and wanting a relief from like that shame and judgment of not having finished

college.

that I fully accepted, but there are lots of other things that I was, that I was all
about, like, I'm sure fighting.

But yeah, no, was, Jenna will tell me, that's the thing that I love.

She will tell me whether I want to hear it or not.

And, and I realized really quickly it's because she respected me.

That when someone tells you the truth, it's because they,

respect you.

Are you naturally able to have those kinds of conversations with others?

or for me personally, I am incredibly conflict averse and I put off hard conversations and
it has hurt me in more ways than I can count.

Are you wired in a way that you're able to easily go have those hard conversations?

I would say initially, no, but that's part of as my growth as a leader, know, when you
love someone, telling the truth is part of like loving them, even if it fucking sucks,

right?

So I would say in the beginning, I was pretty, I was conflict avoidant, a super conflict.

Well, you know, like, I just don't want to disrupt.

And I think part of that is like growing up in the Midwest.

I think that's, if you grew up in the Midwest, they don't say Midwest nice for nothing.

Right.

There's a reason for that.

Um, but I got a front row seat.

Like Jenna is a person like, she just will tell it like it is.

And so like, and she knows in fact, it's like sort of like liquid smoke.

Sometimes too much of one thing is too much of one thing.

and, there's still like

Today, there are times from a standpoint, like if we got to go talk with a vendor, like
it's like, hey, return this.

I mean, I remember the first time Jenna and I going out to eat and it was like, her food
wasn't like super great or maybe my food wasn't great.

And she like went to the waiter and she'd be like, she was like, this like steak is way
overcooked.

And I would have just eaten the damn thing.

Honestly, I just would eat the damn thing.

And she's like, you know, this is meant to be medium rare.

And I used to go.

go like, that guy, this feels so uncomfortable.

Until I started to realize that I'm doing a disservice to that operator.

Like if there was something happening in my company that was not in terms of like the dish
that I would want to cook, I would want to know.

And so I'm also cognizant of though is that

We're not in a world where people are designed to actually just hear the truth.

so in, so here's the aspect.

Like when it came to football, I loved football because what it was, was two things.

Number one, you just told the truth and it was like, Hey, do your job.

Like just, just know like, just do your job.

You know, like, Hey, and if someone didn't do the job, you go, Hey, Scott, you didn't do
your job.

Do your job.

Well, in the real world, you can't do that.

Like you have to nuance it.

And so I feel like now I've realized is that I don't have to be super conflict oriented
when you just make it about winning.

If you just make it about winning, there's the winning of the person who is hearing it.

There's the, and like, got to help them understand that like, Hey, that them doing this is
about them winning.

Right?

Cause I believe in my core that people want to win.

They just, they inherently want to win.

and they want a roadmap.

Instead of going, hey, you fucked this up.

So we go, hey, talk to me a little bit about what happened.

Being like, well, and then we walk through and be like, well, what do you think you did
really well?

What are the things that if you could do over, you'd do over again?

Inevitably, when you give people the opportunity to do that, they actually go, oh yeah,
you know what?

This, this and this and be like, yeah, you know, I want to add to like thing you did
really well.

I really love this, this, because most of the time people aren't as,

affirmation oriented to themselves as they need to be.

So I add a bunch onto there and then I'll go, and you know, in your list, there are a
couple other things I think are really important when we think about winning, right?

Because at the end of the day, like this is why we're in collaboration, right?

Cause I know you want to win, I want to win.

So if we're getting better, like here's some of the other things that need to happen.

And here's some of the things that just can't happen anymore.

And I find that like when you, when I, least for me frame it in that way, this doesn't
feel like conflict because

It's a shared goal.

We're winning.

Like I hired you because I feel like and believe that you are a winner.

And this is a winning company with a winning service.

And if that is the thing in mind, like I'm going to treat you like a winner because I
believe you're a winner.

And so I'm going to ask you like, what do you feel like went well?

What are the things that if you could do over again?

And then I'm going to go through what I think went really well and what didn't go really
well.

And then we're going to come up with a solution because that's what we do.

Does that make sense?

that makes a lot of sense.

Let's talk a little bit more about your work today.

You've got, I don't know, half a dozen companies and organizations that you're running.

I guess a lot of it's around wealth management, but you've got other businesses too.

Talk to me about Ben's portfolio of all these different things that you're involved in.

Yeah.

I like in the businesses is kind of when you look at my, like my work history, you know,
started off with, you know, the, the, the cemetery job, then target, then Domino's.

then the one we didn't talk about was I did a concrete job.

and I did that for two years and number one, I did it for barely above like minimum, like
from board above minimum wage.

And that was backbreaking.

And then I said, Hey, if I would charge like $11 said I want $11, who'd you paid it?

And he go, yeah.

So it taught me the lesson like, Hey,

Like don't assume people are going to give you the dollar amount that you want.

You got to ask, you got to ask for it.

So then the next year I said, I want 12 and he goes, done.

Didn't even blink, didn't even blink.

Literally more than doubled my income and didn't even blink.

But like, I have all these jobs, but I just kind of went into them and I sort of feel like
the companies I built and have bought were things that I just was being present for.

So it started off in the wealth management.

I always say, I started off in the financial services space.

And then from there built out a vision that allowed me to build out a wealth management
and wealth coaching company.

I think there's a big difference between those two.

And that wealth coaching, wealth management company has been the chassis of everything
else that I've ever done.

Cause in part, was the canvas that I basically went into strategic coach in 2015 with.

And strategic coach.

If for people don't know is uh I think, I'm biased because now I'm an associate coach
there and do coaching there, but is one of the world's greatest.

uh It's not one of it's I think the world's greatest uh entrepreneur coaching company.

And I started to be able to apply that and not in the thing about what I love about
strategic coach is they don't give you fish.

I think so many coaches give people fish and not to be biblical, but like

They taught me how to fish and not the way they fish, but the way I want to fish, right?

Like Scott, your version of fishing is going to be different than my version of fishing.

But it like allowed me to be like a chef, be able to go, man, if I combine this ingredient
with this ingredient, but because I understand the chemistry and molecular construction

behind them, I can combine these things.

And that's where I, that was like my research and development of like everything that I've
built like since then.

And because I was in there and developing it, all of a sudden I came across a company that
did some assets, like building videos and things of that nature.

And I remember them interviewing me and then they were like, well, hey, would you want to
buy this company?

And I was like, the one that was interviewing me, uh was like, yeah, I think I would.

Um, that was like my first acquisition was a digital video media production company, which
I call we, what we do is value telling.

That's elation lab.

that one is somewhat semi-pri, semi-private.

Um, we're going through like a website reconstruction, but that has allowed me to
democratize.

So this thing that I did for originally now is allowing me to democratize everything
because so often in companies, you know, Patrick Lenzioni says, we have to say something

seven times for someone to hear something once.

Well, I got to tell you as being a founder of a company saying something seven times and
then depending upon how many team members you have is exhausting.

And not only that, but then you add all of your clients.

So what do you do?

What do you do?

What do you do?

What do you do?

Right.

And we, and I was like, you know what?

I'm going to create a digital asset that allows my value to be told internally and
externally in a way that is so curated that it's like a perfectly plated dish.

that every time someone watches it, they're gonna go, I don't know if I listened to
everything that was on there, but when they actually, just the feeling that comes from

there, they're gonna go, this looks and feels like excellence.

You know what I said?

I reduced down activation energy for them to be able to actually hear and be willing to
actually have the conversation.

And so we just started doing that across every aspect of like our company, internally and
externally.

We built out all these process manuals and everything.

I just had the realization there's not one thing that happens in my wealth management,
wealth coaching company that hasn't been documented.

And not only that, not in like a spreadsheet way, I subscribed to the Steve Jobs
philosophy when he built the iPhone.

He made the inside of the iPhone beautiful.

And he said, why?

Because I will know.

Like no one else will it, but I'll know.

And the reality is I believe that beauty

And I think that just like, watched this JW Marriott commercial, like going back when the
headsets in, airlines were coming just like first there, but they started showing

commercials when they're doing safety videos, which number one was a lesson in like, wait,
they turned safety videos into money-making activity, brilliant.

But it was a JW Marriott commercial and it had all this B roll footage and this beautiful
music.

And it's all these people collaborating, all these like clearly hotel workers working
together.

And they said, at JW Marriott, we believe experience first starts with how we treat each
other.

And that created the framework was like, we have to build experience long before it ever
reaches the, like the, the customer experience is the natural outcome of what we've built

internally.

And so we built all of our processes, manuals, everything, everything is designed to look
beautiful.

Because if we're not, we don't think it's beautiful and we're not proud of it, there's a
high likelihood that we're going to have a gap and leak in terms of the natural outcome

we're looking for.

So that was like company number one.

I don't know you want to add anything to that and if anything resonates.

there was something you said a second ago and man, like I've got 40 different thoughts
from it through my head about it.

You talked about how you have to repeat the message seven times for somebody to hear it
once.

My very first job out of college, I was a one-man marketing department for an aviation
services company.

And we...

they had really just started doing marketing right before I joined.

They had worked with an outside marketing consultant, helped them develop the brand, and I
was there to kind of execute on the brand plan.

every day when I walked into the office, there was this giant foam core poster of an ad
that we were running in a trade publication.

And I saw that thing every day, every day, every day.

And we ran that ad for months and months and And...

I remember talking with this marketing consultant at one point and I was like, is it time
for us to change this ad?

And he's like, Scott, I know that you walk past that every single day and for you, it's
old hat.

You see it every day.

The reality is the people that are looking through those magazines, so many of them are
seeing it for the first time.

And even those people that have flipped through that magazine over and over and over
again, some of them are just now noticing it, you know, stay, stay consistent.

A couple of weeks ago, we had our annual planning with our leadership team and one of the
guys in the leadership team, we all, we did this exercise where we all went around and we

basically said, Hey, here's something I think you need to do different.

Here's something I think you need to do better.

And one of the guys said, Scott, I, need to beat the vision into everyone's head and you
need to say it until you're sick of saying it.

And until they're sick of hearing it before they're actually going to get it and

We live with these ideas in our head and we see the messages.

We see all this stuff, you know, on our own, but that idea that it takes that amount of
repetition for people to actually grasp it just because you know it doesn't mean everybody

else does.

And I think that that's just such a powerful idea that you've got to say these things
seven times for it to actually resonate.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And I think the thing that I also realized when you make it fascinating and for people to
go, like, for example, when people like book like their first appointment, we send them

out a video and we have like this other digital asset we send out and they click it and
the feedback we've gotten, it's sort of like, you know, I liken it to it's like,

I don't know if you have animals, but like there's certain times when you do something
that's unique and your dog goes like this, huh?

I think that when you say the thing that you want to say that needs to be said seven
times, but you added level of fascination to it.

I feel like it makes the brain go that, hold on, that, that, hold on.

I've heard this thing before, but that seems different.

And I feel like it's in those difference and those pieces.

mean.

Think about like some of like the meals you've ever had.

Like Scott, in the last year, what was your favorite meal you've eaten?

I couldn't even tell you what we ate, but my wife and I were on this trip to Antigua about
a year ago.

And everything about this place was incredible.

When we got to our table, there was a note that said, you know, happy anniversary, Scott
and Elyse And, and just all the way that you brought out champagne to start and you know,

everything about it and the food again, I couldn't tell you what I had, but everything
about it was amazing.

And I would go back there at the drop of a hat if I could.

Yeah, and think about that.

You started off with, they had a note there waiting for you.

That's fascinating.

Like, whoa, like just some presence.

And I think that's the piece that I think that most entrepreneurs don't get is that the
pathway to freedom is there are things that you need to say, but that could be said, not

by you and done in a way that is like elevated and just like where it makes someone go.

I've heard this about a thousand times, but man, this, this like feels different.

uh And I think that's where you change the mark where people are standing.

I then, so after that company built out, uh well, bought an accounting company, it just
seemed like an addendum, like really quickly to like, we were, when we see this in the, in

the accounting industry, a lot of really high quality talent is retiring.

So like all of like my, like

go to resources like we're retiring.

So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to buy one and, and transform it and bring
our Vexia culture into, into that company.

And so, Vexia wealth was, was, and is, is like, is, the, like the fertile ground of what
we pull from.

Like this is what it can be.

Then after that, there was kind of a gap between their.

that really kind of there was like the there's a line of demarcation here, Scott, and the
line of demarcation was December of 2023.

mean, if anyone who's listened to like my podcast knows, I talk about this quite a bit,
but December of 2023 on the 12th of the month, my son, Benny, was born.

And we knew he had some like health issues coming into it, a large VSD, which basically a
large hole in his heart, but the

seemed like, okay, we can operate on that.

We found out about seven days later that he had trisomy 18 and 81 % of his body.

And we were forced then with the conversation with the, I'll never forget the day we were
in the conference room.

NICU doctors there, there's the palliative care doc, there's kind of a children's
hospital, level four NICU.

And it was also teaching hospital.

So then there's like residents and fellows in there.

And I remember the NICU doctor going, so what do want to do?

You know, we, you know, we can, we can keep them alive.

And I remember just thinking.

Everything slowed down for me, Scott.

was like, it was like one those movies where they pause it and then the main character
pans to the camera and starts having this conversation, this monologue going, I was like,

what an interesting word, alive.

And then I started playing through like.

my oldest daughter's life.

And I was like, if we went and said to selfishly keep him alive, because basically they're
like all roads lead to he's going to die.

And he is going to need a lot of surgeries.

Like when I say a lot of surgeries, like a lot of surgeries.

and, every time he has one, he could die.

And even when in terms, even if he does, if he is able to go home every night, there's a,
there's a high, like, there's a potential that he could die.

And I'm thinking about.

Okay.

Now I add that environment with my oldest and then, you know, her sister who's 13 years
younger, right?

And then, you know, and then Benny just thinking about like, that, is that, and the word
that kept coming to me was that living.

And I, it was like, such a pivotal moment for Jenna and I in our life is that we realized
that there's a massive difference between being alive and like living.

and that's when, him suffering is not living.

It's just not living.

And, um, yeah, we were both on the same, well, we had the conversation.

Again, all these things of like all these other things that we built together, like these
companies.

Like going through like the struggles of like, how do you do that?

And you have competing ideas and having to work through like big, like control things and
like big things of like, what's our vision going to be?

What do we spend money on?

All of these things had prepared us.

Like all of my work at strategic coach had allowed me to build in a structure in our life
that allowed us to be so present.

Like I got to tell you most present I've ever been in my life.

And Jenna and I, it was like,

All of these like trials of like being in business together, living together and trying to
grow these things together led for us to be able to have, we had this conversation and I

explained to her and I was like, I just think that's such an interesting word.

And we had this long conversation and we both were like, You know, obviously it's like
when you're having that conversation, you feel like you're like your fucking heart is just

being ripped from your heart or from your chest.

When you go, do you know that like

in this conversation that eventually this isn't like you shut the computer off.

that this physical form is going to end.

the next nine days, know, we, they, moved to like, they have a room that's meant for like
palliative care.

mean, by the way, anyone who works in NICUs are just angels among us, the nurses, angels
among us.

So if you're listening to this and you know, NICU nurse, like give them a hug.

I just don't think you, I don't think you fully understand the love and intention that
goes into being in the NICU.

and the people that work there.

But we moved to the palliative care room, which was like twice as big at couches.

And we got our family in so that they could meet our son and say goodbye.

That's the thing.

like, you know, it's like watching the storyline, but you know the punchline, you know the
spoiler alert.

was incredibly like bonding and, and growing and, uh, Jenna and I, like, it was just, it
was such a deepening of our relationship.

that like every day, like we were there, we got into a routine and we're like, we just,
knew.

Um, and then we finally got to the 28th and, um, on the 26th, he was really struggling and
we're like, Oh man, is tomorrow going to be the day?

And then on the 27th of December, he had this incredible day and like all the family had
left.

It was just Jen and I, like our girls had gone.

It was just her and I.

it was like, we're like, man, like, are we making the right decision here?

Because he had such an incredible day.

And then on the 28th, that the evening of the 27th really started to struggle and uh they
started giving like more fentanyl.

and then more fentanyl and then even more fentanyl.

I think it was.

at like

like noon, it became really clear that like, just was, he was really suffering.

And even when we looked at photos from like four days earlier, he just looked like a
different baby.

And I think about like, about noon that day, like we were like, this is going to be the
day.

And then palliative care came and talked to us.

And I mean, those people, they come in and have a conversation about, you know, this event
that I just don't think any parent should have to go through.

at about, about like 1.30 on the 28th, you know, we removed his breathing tube and they'd
warned us.

said, Hey, this is going to be about

24 hours.

This could happen, this could go on for 24 hours.

And so like, we're able to like see his face for the first time, kissing him.

Cause we hadn't been able to really see his face with all the things in there.

And I'm recording and I still have this uh video that is, you know, he's laying on like
Jenna's like chest and

You can see his face and it's about like 1.45, 1.50 p.m.

I just go, I'm like, oh my God, Jenna, I think he just smiled.

That was the last thing he did before he,

He took his last breath.

I thought that going into this, thought that would be the moment that like my, like I just
would shatter.

And.

What was crazy, Scott, and I've talked about this on my podcast is that, you know, I had a
friend say, you know, there'll be a piece like the Bible verse, there'll be a piece that

surpasses all pieces.

it was the most peaceful that I've ever been.

You know, we got to sing to him and to, you know, and hold him and, you know, we bathed
him and just like spent time with him.

And it was incredible.

was some of the most like meaningful.

think we spent time with him from about like two until about eight 30.

And it really allowed me to go, I felt like you could feel that he was happy.

And it's hard to explain.

I realized that we are not physical beings, we are spiritual beings.

felt so close with him.

But that really started the exploration because the next day,

We flew down to Mealy Island, was actually started in the beginning of one of our other
companies called SOM stays, means state of mind stays, which is a short-term rental

company.

Then we went down there because that's where we baby mooned with Benny and, started just
the, the healing process.

And we'd already taken off like seven weeks.

And so we were like, we're going to dedicate each one of those weeks to talking about
something in our life.

Like we spent a whole week on time.

We spent a whole week on money.

We spent a whole week on purpose.

We spent a whole week on relationships.

We spent a whole week on vision.

And then we spent a whole week in terms of like, how are we going to execute this?

How are we going to make this come alive?

And on the flight down the day after he died, in between crying,

while we're in that plane, people are probably going like, what the hell is going on?

And then I just started laughing because I had been, I had resisted Scott naming my son
after me because I think a name is so powerful.

and I feel like I, like a bull in a china shop.

And I didn't want him to ever feel like he had to follow anything in my footsteps.

I wanted him to be his own person.

And I started laughing on when I was on the flight down to Florida.

because I realized that he had totally flipped the script is that his 16 days, he lived
more in 16 days than I had in 41 years.

Like how, and maybe listeners who are listeners going like, what do mean?

Like, I just got to tell you, like he lived more in 16 days than I had in 41 years.

And I realized that he had flipped the script.

is that my first portion of like, I called like before Benny and after Benny, that's kind
of like how my life has broken up into.

It's a bit before that I was attempting to be living, but I was most likely just alive.

Like my, look at my health, my relationships, like all the different, how I think about
money, how I spent money, all the different things.

And then there was life after Benny.

And it was a commitment to write a love letter to my son and show him what does it mean to
be living.

I gotta tell you, it was ultimate call to action.

it was, and people will say, I'm sorry to hear about Benny.

And I'm not sorry to hear about Benny.

And I know that that's just like the normal thing that you say.

But Benny was my Powerball ticket.

Benny was like the thing that just going, it was a gift.

I had another friend say, God must have really respected you.

and at the time I was like, man, it's a kind of fucked up way to show respect.

But going back to what said before, I said, when people respect you, they tell you the
truth, right?

And,

And I had another friend who kind of put it in clarity and he goes, God knew how much love
you and Jenna had in your hearts.

And he gave you Benny because you allowed him to graduate.

And everything since then, so we built Psalm stays, which is this idea of taking all these
experiential things we built into there to before families be able to create other

memories.

For me to be able to create a company that aligns with my wife's like God given talent.

My wife knows Jenna knows how to like create.

rooms.

Like I just, I don't fully understand it, but she does.

And it is in in shocking way and she loves it.

She could do it for like endless hours.

Um, and so aligning those factors.

and then we, created max life podcast with Ben Laws.

Um, because it was like, Hey, what is the thing that I feel like I'm called to, to like
do?

And I wanted, I was like, you know what?

I love having conversations with people like a, like the, like the host of this podcast.

Scott and I had this incredible conversation.

Both of them, he I didn't come in prepared, but I got to tell you, if you listen to that
podcast, you are going to have your game changed.

And then I created Max Life Coaching, which was about helping entrepreneurs who by all
intents and purposes have reached

ridiculous heights of success, but they know that there's more.

Because the more is not about having more, the more is about this idea of living a max
life.

Like most people, what's your max life?

Like, how do you define that?

Right?

What's the, how do you, what are the identities that you're taking with you?

Like all of these different factors that most people, most entrepreneurs don't know.

And here's the crazy thing.

When you start to understand what that is and about you just getting to be you,

is you stop chasing money and money and freedom start chasing you.

It is wild.

When you actually start living,

All of the, all of those things start chasing you.

I freed up time to, like, now I spend two weeks, a quarter coaching for a strategic coach.

You know, I'm getting my pilot's license as we speak.

And which has been an incredible journey and that's a story in itself.

But that's, that has been like my journey and yeah.

As we've been talking, you can't see it, but the screen that I'm looking at, I've got your
window is just part of it and my desktop rotates.

And as we've been talking, it's been photos of my kids and hearing you talk about Benny
and me looking at a picture of my youngest looking a popsicle on a four wheel, power

wheels, Jeep sitting next to my oldest.

I just, don't know how you get through that.

And I think what's amazing, so many people that go through what you went through, they
just crumble.

And I know you're not the same, but you've been able to turn that into something positive.

And would you maybe talk a little bit about 16 Days, the organization that you guys
started and...

think it's a powerful part of what you took this tragedy and have done with it.

Yeah.

Well, I appreciate you, you asking me about it.

You know, I think the thing that how we got through the, the sorrow was we realized that
the depth of the sorrow was just a reflection of the love and that if you can keep it from

a blame game it just was, and it was a gift.

I think that, and it's a, it's a ridgeline, man.

I gotta tell you, it is a ridgeline.

How I explained it was that.

There's like this mountain top.

you've been in Colorado and you go from one mountain peak to another peak, you walk a
mountain ridge.

And usually when you walk a mountain ridge on one side is like a steep drop off and the
other side is a steep drop off.

And I realized really quickly that on one side was I could throw myself into work and just
oblivion to like numb myself.

And the other side was this valley of like, I could just like lose my shit.

And honestly, no one would blame me.

No one would go like the.

just falling into like that deep, dark shadow and never coming back.

And probably my marriage with Jenna is probably going to fall apart.

I mean, I've talked to lot of families that have kind of experienced it and like marriage
doesn't get easier.

It sometimes gets harder.

And in one of those things, weeks we were talking about purpose, it came back to was,
think at the heart of everything, people are afraid,

of being forgotten.

and I didn't want Benny to be forgotten.

I didn't want his 16 days to just be mean something for Jenna and I, like our family and
like our then surrounding sort of circles of like extended family and friends.

And we started thinking about, well, what could we do that would really represent Benny?

And the thing that we just kept talking about was time.

The thing that we noticed when we were in the NICU level four, which by the way, I mean,
this is like in, we were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the children's hospital.

I mean, they have babies in there like from flown over from Japan.

level four NICUs for people who don't know are like babies who are born at 21 weeks.

mean, hold your hand like the babies barely like could fit in your palm.

Think about that.

And they can, that baby can survive.

all the way up to like babies born with like their stomachs outside of like their body.

And the only thing that requires is like time.

And there's a whole cadre of things that happen, but these are like the, like these are
the hard things.

And so people are gonna like spend some time in there, but we noticed that about 75 % of
the rooms did not have parents in them.

And this is why I say like NICU nurses are like angels among us.

Like where we were at, they would do something called cares.

Every three hours they go in, change diaper, do feed and like touch and be able to like,
you know, touch the actual, know, touch the baby.

Occasionally volunteers would come in and hold babies, but outside of that, just think
about a baby all alone.

I mean, think about that though, a baby all alone.

I think that the numbers are like moms are only able to be there for 32 % of the time that
a baby's in a NICU and I think a dad is even less, is that when we started asking like

NICU nurses, hey, where's everybody?

Like where are the parents?

And they're like, hey, some live far away.

Oftentimes like even some of the people that were there, like they would have to like...

who made an effort to like get there that, uh or who could actually like live close enough
who could do it.

It would be like a rotating shift.

Like mom would be there, dad would go to work and then dad would come there.

Mom would then would go to work.

And then we'll both mom and dad were actually at work.

Then grandparents would come there.

And that was probably the most active one.

But people are having to choose between paying bills, having childcare, having a job
because NICU stays are not covered.

necessarily under FML LA rules.

It's not considered part of what does it mean to have a baby in maternity leave?

And so even if you do decide to take some of your maternity leave, you may actually run
out of time until your baby actually leaves when your baby actually even then even more

needs you.

the big thing that stood between parents and presence, and by the way, we find, and we
have found in our pilot grants,

that like our babies are leaving 23 % faster than what doctors are actually telling them
that, like your baby's gonna be in here conservatively.

you know, like I wouldn't expect before.

Our babies are leaving 23 % earlier because parents are actually able to be present.

Cause nobody knows your baby more than you.

You may not know like the medical information.

And there's a lot of stuff that we didn't know, but I gotta tell you like the one we knew
because all these shifts are going, coming in, like people, different people are coming

in.

Benny had, they gave Benny some morphine like his body did not react well to it.

mean, his sat, his like he like desat his oxygen numbers were dropping like super low.

His heart rate was dropping like ridiculously low.

Like, I mean, like really scary, like really, really scary.

And so uh the next time that they needed to give him something.

they're getting morphine.

And because we were there, because we knew about that, we were like, no, like, no, we're
not doing that.

Well, no, this is what we give them.

We're like, no, this is what happened.

They're like, well, we didn't see that in the notes.

That's not in the notes.

They're like, well, yeah, he responds really well to fentanyl.

I mean, just simple things like that, but presence in your touch is medicine.

We've had parents who literally went, I've never read to my baby.

there is something that happens in the medical, and by the way, when you go to the NICU,
really great NICUs are like, no, no, hold your baby, hold your baby, like hold your baby.

but you feel like when they have all this stuff on them that like, what, what value can I
provide?

And I got to tell you, like, I have proven scientifically that love is like real.

And this bond is like real.

Then we got towards the end that

Benny was really struggling and his numbers, like, so they have like these nearest patches
on the back that like measure like oxygen levels to his like kidneys.

And like, I mean, he's hooked up to every like, imaginable sort of thing to like measure.

And they would be like, it used to be like, you could put, they do like, uh cares, you
know, containment on him.

So you put your hand on top of his head and your hand like underneath his butt or like on
his belly and that it would usually calm him down.

And then you could actually see his,

His numbers rise, oxygen numbers rise, his heart rate drop.

But when he would really get like uncomfortable, they'd be like, Oh, we got to give him
like some, you know, some like medicine.

And we finally realized that we're like, no, no, like do kangaroo care and kangaroo care
for everyone knows is like, you don't have a shirt on.

You know, if you're a woman, you know, you have like, you know, maybe you're nursing bra
on, but it's, it's just buttoned down a little bit.

like, you know, baby can just be like right there, but you're not like, yeah, skin to skin
and no joke.

Every single time we did that.

within about 10 seconds, his numbers would go from like, when I say like low oxygen, I'm
talking like 30 % oxygen levels.

I'm talking like heart rate, like really, really low, numbers to literally within 10
seconds, back up again.

like, and I'm just going, and when you watch this again and again and again, not just
once, twice, but literally.

So like tens, if not like hundreds of times, like when you're in there, cause when you're
there all the time, it's like, it's pretty astounding that you just go, love is real.

Presence, your presence and touch is medicine.

And that is the goal.

When we created 16 days was to create a vessel that money and time were not going to be
linked together for families who are in the NICU.

We were going to give the gift of time to parents and babies in the NICU.

what happens is that people donate and we have right now we have a ongoing uh campaign in
terms of where we have some incredible generous donors who are matching up to $150,000

worth of donations.

So if you make a donation, that money will instantaneously double.

By the way, uh in 11 grants that we gave in pilots this last year, pilot grants between
here, between Wisconsin.

between Minnesota, Utah, Oklahoma, and Florida, we gave these grants.

And I think it was actually maybe as close to 13, 14.

We have well within probably close between 2,500 to 3,000 hours that we've bought back for
parents.

mean, about that.

That's well over a year of actually working, almost a year and a quarter, year and a half
of actually, if you were to work 40 hour weeks.

And so people can apply for grants.

we've one of reason why we did all these pilot grants to go, Hey, how do we do this?

How do we nurture it down?

it's been, it's been amazing.

It's just been an amazing journey.

to tell people if they want to contribute to this, how do they do it?

Plug it.

So you want to go to 16 days.

one six days, D A Y S dot org.

you can go on there and you can just write at the top or anywhere along there.

There's a bunch of different avenues to go into that you can click.

I will tell you in terms of your, even if you, even if you decide in terms of to get like
wanting to get the match, one of the most impactful things you can do is if you decide

that you want to do something as like a one-time contribution.

is even doing something as simple as like a $50 donation ongoing even beyond that.

I just have to tell you, it is a, a massive difference.

What we're finding for people who are going in, I think the average, the average hourly
rate that we are replacing right now is like $15 an hour.

So $50 a month is like replacing three hours of time, like three, three hours plus of time
between like a mom and dad and their baby.

So, you know, these grants are like going to like real people.

And so you can also sign up for a newsletter there where you can actually see the real
stories and a hundred percent of your donations go direct.

So Jenna and I are covering a hundred percent of the operational costs that are going into
like running it of all the different things.

we, Jenna and I are covering all those costs.

So everything you donate.

One of the things that if people are looking to go, man, hey,

How can I actually even do more?

If you want to become part of what I call Benny circle, which is where you actually are
being one of those people saying, Hey, I'm actually going to create an essence.

What do you call that?

I'm going to make a commitment of XYZ dollar amount.

And that's going to be used towards match.

And no matter what, I'm actually going to make that commitment, but along the way I'm
going to match people.

And then true up, you can do that if you would like to like.

potentially look at hosting an event where you can help us raise money or helping with
volunteering.

We send out a lot of thank you notes to a lot of people who donate.

again, you can find out and if you want to know more, can, I think you can reach out to,
there's an email address to contact us if you want to know more.

And just quite frankly, telling other people about it.

And if you know someone who's going through a NICU journey that is struggling, they're not
alone.

So I appreciate you asking about that, Scott.

kind of winding down here, if there was one word you would use to describe yourself, what
would it be?

And I've got a word, but I want to hear what your word is first.

I think the one word, sunrise.

I say the word sunrise because what I have committed the next part of my life to is
watching and helping the sunrise on people's truth arise.

Whether it's 16 days, these babies and these parents and these lives that we have no idea
how we're gonna impact, maybe one of those people is gonna solve something for us down the

line.

because they had that connection.

And then through like my Max Life with Ben Law's podcast, it's having conversations with
guests like you, Scott.

Is it gonna provide a sunrise on someone's like synapse for them to go, oh, I never
thought about that.

And they get it for free because they just heard Scott share authentically and genuinely.

And with my Max Life coaching company, helping these people who have entrepreneurs who
have like,

had such blessed lives, realized that their sunrise is literally, it hasn't even peaked.

can't even, we were just seeing the colors on what their max life could be.

So that's my word, sunrise.

I love that.

I absolutely love that.

My word for you is intentional.

And intentionality is just woven through every bit of your story.

And I love how you have taken tragedy and been intentional about using that to change not
just yourself, but other people.

I just, man, I love everything that you're doing.

And...

I've been interviewed on a number of podcasts and without fail, so many of them at the
end, there's a pitch.

It's after you get done with the interview, it's, hey, so can I, know, can we talk about
investing in multifamily real estate?

And man, everything that you do is intentional.

There's no sales pitch.

You really are all about helping other people trying to live their max life.

Um, you know, we, met initially through a mutual friend and, know, at no point was there
a, Hey, let me talk to you about wealth management.

Let me talk to you about this.

Let me talk about, was just about this genuine, I want to share my life with you and I
want you to share your life with me and let's go help other people live, live a max life.

so anyway, man, thank you for coming on.

Thank you for being vulnerable and thank you for what you're doing.

you know, day in and day out.

Man, I appreciate all of those kinds of words and I feel like like attracts like, and I
feel the same about you, Scott.

And it's been an absolute blessing and an honor to be on your podcast and for us to have
established not just like, we're like guests on each other's podcasts, but a friendship.

And I really appreciate you let me just share.

I just, loved.

I loved your whole format of like, did an audit of the previous, uh, like my early part of
my life that quite frankly, I hadn't really actually done before.

And that was so unique.

And I really appreciate it because it actually gave me some really great insight.

And in terms of what are the things I'm doing now.

So I really appreciate you.

Well, thank you for being here.