Hello there. Read that, listeners. And welcome back to the show today. My guest is no lab. Heart no is an entrepreneur a debt of three and the podcaster has got a podcast called code story. He is here with us today to talk about what it's like to be raising his kids while doing all this other work at the same time, without further due. No. Welcome to the show. Tell me one thing since your dad and dad of three and that's amazing. I have to and I don't know how people pass that. Very I mean, that's insane, actually. Maybe tell us. You know, what is it like when you get to three?

That's a great question. So what? What what was like for us was like going from man to man defense to zone defense. Ah, we essentially have to. Ah, one of us has to be watching taking care of two kids, or or all three at once. Um instead of just ah, you know, man on man or man, woman on kid defense, where we have to go. Just take one kid split up with work. So it's a a bit of a shift there. Um,

and in two to three was I say I say it's was

Don't say it was harder than, um 01 or 1 to 2, but it definitely it was different. It was different, for sure they were outnumbered.

How do you split your time on a kid's

versus work? Sure, it's a It's a great question. Might. My wife actually is. She stays home with the kiddos, so and I'm entrepreneurs to have a little more flexibility. I can come home if I need to. Um and so we try to We try to keep it, Um, as even as we can. I will admit she takes the most of the run of the workload. She's amazing. Um, you know, she can't handle so one of the the day to day homework and meals and things like that. I handle a little more of the extracurricular stuff.

To some extent, I'm my son's baseball coach. Would you? Baseball. Um, yeah, we tried. I mean, we try to just acting where we can, um, we both you proactively want to be in their lives and and be a presence in their lives. Been influence in the wife, too. and, um so you would just tryto we try to just do the best we can. I don't know that we have some secret formula.

Did you guys always knew ahead of time that, you know, your wife would be mostly kids and you'll go and do entrepreneurial stuff? Or did you figure it out because you got the first kid in words? We kind of figured

it out as we got the first kid a little bit before we got the first kid, but, um, you know, both just wanted Thio. We wanted to be the one raising our kids. And, um, you know, we were fortunate toe have enough resources to to shift from, You know, that two incomes, the one in common and everything be okay, Um and you know, it was a big, big driver for us, for for us to raise the kids and be around them,

especially in the early years when they're, you know, they're forming their their thoughts about the world, about the world around them, and people think so. We wanted to make sure is a family that we were heavily involved in that, so that kind of led to the decision of, ah, of my wife staying home with the kiddos.

Yeah, I'm kissing your community. Is this normal? Where are you guys? More of an outlier? I think it's

It's about half and half, um, in the community where we live. So we live in a town called Great Buying Texas, and it's ah, between Dallas and Fort Worth and call it up a nice suburb type area. Um, you know, it's about half and half, though it's a there's, there's probably half have families that have stay at home moms and, um, and working dads or vice versa. State home dads and working moms. There's there's a few of those as well, um, in the other half is both working parents and and,

um, and about both, you know, kind of splitting up time, taking care of the day to day stuff.

Uh, I'm just thinking, probably easier to follow certain routine when people around you doing the same, right? So for sure, and you said you were able to come home when you need to maybe take a little break, going with the kids, coach, baseball, right? And very often, I guess when it's working Dad than a state home, Mom, Dad's end up being at work most of the time and then barely even see your kids. Uh, do you feel like you get a good amount of time with your kids?

I do. And I think it's something that I have to be intentional about. So I take my kids to school every morning, you know? So we get that time too tow. You talk to each other for a few minutes, we live really close to school. But for a few minutes ago, we get the get up and have time together in the morning, get ready for school. Start the day. You know, we have this little credo that we say about your kindness and generosity and excellence, and and you're living out our faith in our life. And when we say that every morning, together, and so it's really special,

so special to get that time and then, you know, in the in the evenings get to do, um, bedtime, bath time things. And then, um, I also do know baseball on Thursdays and Saturdays. For now. Yeah, I do. I do feel like I get get some good time, but it does have toe. You have to make sure it's an intentionally done something. I want to always be a priority,

right? That's very often people say, You know, if you don't start, a startup is basically your child and then you spend all the time on it. That is right. How much do you think you work every week? And I'm asking this because I find it. I just saw a tweet yesterday by Jason Coke. Honest Angel Investor. He was like the first angel, an uber sir, and he was asking people on Twitter how much they work. And the, you know, you could work

40 hours. We have a normal

life where you could work 80 hours a week and be totally insane. But maybe become a billionaire or crash and burn and just never visible life. And you can do everything in between. So, for you personally, what feels right, that's a

good That's a great question. I think you're one of our one of our investors. Are startup mean my partner startup. It's called Variable, one of our lead investors, doctors early, learning about your work life balance and how that's it's It's not really the right thing to look at its work. Life, harmony. So when he said that, that really I really attached to that. And I tried to achieve that work, like harmony, that trying to keep everything in balance. When you gotta work hard, you gotta work hard. You gotta put in the time when you don't.

Then you put it that you can put in more time elsewhere. Like, you know, take a vacation with your family. You know, be with your family. Um, I think that I think that it's not a, you know, I work 40 hours a week, and then I, you know, have three hours of parent time and then an hour of our two of marriage time and then sleep six hours or eight hours or whatever, but it's more of Okay. Where are we this week? Okay.

We got a lot of work to do or where we don't. And a lot of baseball this week where we don't have baseball or we got family stuff going on this week. You know, I really need to have a conversation with my wife this week. You know, our every day. You know that that stuff gotta make sure happens, but it's not like a, you know, this week is every week is 40 hours, some weeks or 80 some weeks or 40 some extra 50 some weeks or 30 you know, just kind of depends on on on all of it and having kind of multiple things going on to it. It changes and shifts, you know, with my podcast with coach story. You know,

a lot of that lot of my conversations happen in the evening because it's where my studio is that what I'm home. You know where variable happens during the day and touch tap. It's an agency that have going as well, and that's another variable. So, um, you know, just just depends. I definitely believe in finding a work life, harmony over balance. Just cause there's lots of moving parts,

it makes sense. It's a great way to look at it. So tell me about your startup. What's that? Is that now what he was doing? But what are the hopes and dreams

for it? That's right. So it's called Variable, and we're the on demand marketplace for manufacturing and distribution, logistics supply, chain labor. So what? What we've built is a technology marketplace to connect businesses and blue collar workers and the manufacturing warehousing space to be able to, you know, work work in discreet capacity. So, you know, I'm a manufacturing business, and, you know, if I had 10 more people, I could have taken that big order,

you know, an otherwise I had toe do not have to pass on it or, you know, I've got we'll just rework to do are all these things to do. And I gotta put my my full time team in overtime capacity so that we could get it all done. Um, we provide businesses with the opportunities to capitalize on those recognized revenue opportunities and lower their administration burden from hiring full time people all the time. Just tow, meet a spike in demand. Whereas you on the flip side of the marketplace with workers, we provide flexible work opportunities outside of a full time job. Um, you know it. I know this term is over used. That's kind of the uber for the shop floor, you know?

And so these workers can, you know, work in a flexible capacity, um, based on their schedule in their needs. So that's kind of our hopes and dreams that is toe for businesses to sign up and use our platform is an operational tool toe. Allow them to achieve flexible capacity and then on the flip side, too, to have workers to give workers access to diverse work opportunities with different businesses and things. Um, and we've been around for WeII formed in 2016. We launched in February 2017. Eso we've been around for a few years now. Um, started out just Ah, just Mike and I might kindle my partner.

And, um, and a few other individuals who started out believed in its early on. We few years down the road where we're in six states now, we're nine different markets. I'm sorry, Uh, six dates, 10 different markets. Excuse me, 10 markets and, um, you know, on an upward trajectory, we have nearly 100,000 workers that have signed up on a platform and, you know,

over 12 under businesses that were that were servicing through our to our marketplace. So we plan to continue expands the United States at this point, Um, you know, have a kind of strategic plan, how we're gonna do that.

So I guess the key here for the business that they get reliable workers, that they know that they've done this before somewhere else. And they can on board them and rely on the fact that they will be able to deliver an order right without screwing it up.

That's right. That's right. And there's a big There's a key part of our platform that allows them to do that. You know, we're not Tim staffing. We're not in the temp staffing space were attacked. Marketplace. So we put all of the power into the businesses hands to be able to bring people on, evaluate them and evaluate that even before they bring him on the view, their ratings, their 10 year on platform, their resume, their skills, make a good decision and then evaluate them as they as they work for their company. If they're good, they can put them in what we call their labor pool. It's essentially they're they're close favorites,

and once they build up their labor pool to A to the capacity that is, you know ah, respectable good level for their operation, they can dip in and out of that already pre trained, pretty familiar workforce that can come in on demand working their operation. That's the idea is to be ableto flex up in flex down that shared labor pool.

How did you come up with this idea? Was it something you were working on? Or

so my partner, Mike, actually came up with the idea. So he's a He was a director of strategic operations. He worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and has a long background manufacturing. And he would go out to manufacturing plants and sort of, you know, due diligence in their operations provide suggestions and things like that, Um, on how they could do better on you. Just continually saw this problem continuing. Saw that new technology coming out, new manufacturing equipment coming out and new ways to do manufacturing. But there was never a solution around labor. There was never a way to solve the labor problem. And he believed that if you don't solve that little problem you can't take, you can't take advantage of any of the new technology.

Any other new, Um, no other components. The labor had to come first. So, uh, that time I had been working in my agency for couple years and I was getting the itch to do to do a startup. It's like, OK, I won't try this thing. Starting out and give it a go. Um, had a good friend of mine, Ryland Barnes, who was a successful tech entrepreneur. He founded a shop savvy and sold that,

um, not in a few years ago. Now, a couple years ago. Anyway, he and I are good friends, were college roommates and cheered him on through his successes and reach out to him. Just Hey, you know, I've got an itch to be the start of thing. I'm not the idea guy. I'm the excuse. I'm not. I'm the tech guy. So you know what? I was looking for Tech founder that you trust Sit in my way.

Hey, Merely said, actually, you need to talk to Mike and Mike in Hammond. I'm growing up together. Mike and his brother were really good friends, and so we got connected. And, um, I have some some manufacturing experience from my past past experiences that alcohol laboratories. And so we got together and talked and pitched the idea to me and, um usually I can poke holes and start up ideas and say this is how this is gonna work, so I'm not gonna I'm gonna be a part of it. And I couldn't do it with this one. So I said,

Let's go, Let's go do it. Well, it sounds like you're growing pretty nicely and then, I mean, I've never heard of this start up right, But it's also sort of a new space. It's not one of those things you hear of immediately. It's not like, Oh, hey, did you hear of uber? It's not a consumer started a business to business startups, which I find fascinating because there's a chance that, you know, most people would never hear about it. And it still grow to be a gigantic business,

right? Exactly. That's been a bit of ah, a bit of our strategy. To be honest, this toe is to just, you know, to our job building amazing product and stay under the radar. Um, so that's been sort of design. And, um, you know, I think there's a lot of technology and a lot of things coming for the for the for these older hat industries, like manufacturing distribution, things really start to see it with some of the solutions that are coming out? Um,

yeah, definitely part of that. We've got an amazing team. Got amazing people working on our market deems in our supply teens and our tech teens. And so we've been really Fortunato to work with some amazing people.

How you finding your customs? Um

so great question there. There's a couple of different ways. You know, there's the few ways, actually, there's kind of traditional sales way where you try to, you know, scrape, lead, scrape email addresses. I don't mean scrape like technology is great, but, you know, fine leads mining, lengthen or or geographical areas or things like that. Um, so the traditional ways they're a star is geographically looking when we look for,

you know, the density of manufacturing businesses and basically the areas that we support. Um, so that's gonna how we look to expand eyes looking at that density. And then, you know, as far as getting the customers to sign up, we do. It's interesting, you know, you think of sass companies and software based companies. You can throw a ton of money, it adds, or digital marketing and get a bunch of customers, and that works in a lot of space is. What we're doing is his brand new manufacturing.

We're doing a lot of educating on the fact that we're not temp staffing, putting a lot of educating on the fact that there's a new way for manufacturing and warehousing distribution. There's a new way for these businesses to achieve flexible capacity and that education requires a lot of face to face your boots on the ground relationship type time. So ah, a lot of customers to R R R obtained from, uh, you know, just cold, cold call walking in, um, and then, you know, sort of strategic targeting emails and things like that. But getting that first face to face conversation, then it's pretty prettier, friable,

uh, sense, by the way, for your customer position idea. Now that we're talking, it just occurred to me maybe somebody kick started when people go in, decide to manufacture a product that they don't have a team yet, or at least you know, the blue collar labor that don't need to assemble things. If you can track that and go, Hey, guys, you know, I saw you just raised $500,000. There's some labor force to help you know that's a great

idea. Yeah, I like that. I'll take it back to the team.

You said, lengthen, scraping. I was like, Who would make stuff all the time? And those guys? Certainly. D'oh. Absolutely well, let's switch gears back to sort of your family life, you know? Tell me what what may have been like the most challenging aspect of having a family and having a business

with a good question, I think there's there's a handful of other other. There's a handful of things that you are challenging and I think continue to be challenging them, definitely balancing, you know, time that work, life, harmony and things like that, you know, making sure that despite working hard, being a lot of time on on ventures being available for the kids and things of that nature, I think one thing that comes to mind, though, is when when I first left corporate America, I was working in that alcohol laboratories for 78 years. Great company, great people.

They really took good care of me and, you know, no complaints about working there other than the fact that I haven't intramural blood and I want to jump out do my own thing and kind of see, See the fruits of my labor. Um, so I did. And when we did that, uh, we took a pretty, pretty hefty pay cut. It's a pride. 50%. And that was challenging for us as a family young family. Um, we had we had one kid and I think a kid on the way. No,

no, I think we're two kids, actually. Um, we had two kids. That one was two or three, and the other one was pretty newborn. Um, so to make a jump like that with a young family was pretty stressful. And when I the first project I took on when I got got out was ah was a total failure. They did not go good. Do not go well. And I learned a lot from that. Now I can look back and say how that really shaped, You know, the way that I move forward and I don't know,

you know, tie my shoes again and get to running. But but it was a very stressful ah, anxiety provoking time financially. And, um, you know, I have to give massive kudos to my wife. She she was Iraq during that time, you know, I'd be in the corner, going on crying, going with. And what did I do? What? I leave the corporate world,

and she she would just be there, right there beside me, saying, You know, this is just part of the journey, and it's gonna be fine. You know, it's not easy and start, but it's gonna be just fine. And, uh, you know her. Her belief in me was was astronomically effective. And just appreciate that so much from her.

Did you have a fallback option?

No. No, I didn't. I mean, I could I could have always gone back to corporate America. I could have gone back to alcohol. I guess that I guess you could call that a fall back. But I didn't Really, Um I didn't really consider that an option, because that would've been it would've been pretty depressing to to go back there. And so I just started. We wanted to move on. We saw moving forward. Is that really the only option? So we jumped out. The money I was making from the agency was the money we were We were eating on it. Was it was just

whether any times where you're basically on the verge of quitting and going back or you're gonna nearly avoided that I'd

say nearly avoided is a good way to put it. Um, you know, we weren't We weren't ever in a in a place where we didn't have what we needed. And, um, you know, I think God, for that, um, he definitely took care of us during that time. And, um, you know, there was never a point where it was like, Wow, I don't know how we're gonna pay rent next month,

you know, Are their mortgage next month? And so that was That was good, you know? I mean, it may have been I don't know. I'm gonna pay our mortgage the next month, but, you know, he had we had resources at least enough to give us a month, a month outlook, which was which was encouraging. So that's where I would call it narrowly avoiding, um, you know, and I think that was part of learning what it meant being entrepeneur too. Just you don't You don't always know what the future is gonna hold, and you have to be comfortable with that and we definitely learned Learned how to be how to be comfortable. That and just believe that God had a snap on a path And we're supposed to be there.

We're always based in Texas.

Yes. Yeah. I've always been always been here, So I grew up south of Fort Worth, about an hour in a little town called Joshua. My wife grew up in a little town called Burlison. Pretty close to Joshua, right? Actually, right next to it. And I went to college at Texas A and M, so again, stayed in Texas. Have been here better my whole life. Essentially have traveled around and seeing a few different places, But not much. I'm pretty. I'm pretty much Texas. The Texas native bleeding, bleeding

Texan? No, I'm also thinking there is just some charm about being on a fairly small town. Compared, it was speaking, but also where you're based as, ah, big impact on your runway. Ah, I'm not exactly sure what you're is like that. I know. So if I compare where I live in Seattle versus Bay Area, we're still maybe 50% of the cost people their rising. And when I moved here almost 10 years ago, it was something like 1/4 and one of the reasons I didn't go to the area was because, I mean, I knew how much money I had saved in that would last me for basically like,

a year in Seattle versus, you know, three months and Berry and I thought, you know, to work on something and really put my time and effort into it. I probably need more time than, like the fanfare of Bay Area and so but transcends that. Now, if you like. Entrepreneurship is moving away from these large hubs. If you can raise money that maybe you can sustain yourself in the bay or whatever, but But if you don't raise money, if you want to strap it, if you raise a small around, you're way better off living in smaller cities and just hanging on there and working your product until you really get to Prague. Market thin and so forth.

It's hearing you talk about the early days of your company and your consulting right. That's it really resonates of like, Hey, you know, you were able to do all of this because it also didn't cost you like $10,000

a month? Absolutely. Yeah, it's a cost of living in Texas. Is is a big difference. Yeah, firm from like Silicon Valley. Separate Cisco. Um, like like he said, Seattle's much better, too. But you know, it's rising, and I think things air are still good here. Cost of living wise. But I think they are rising the rising to have had a lot of people and shifting their headquarters down here.

And, uh, I thought my head was a handful of places that have shifted some other locations or some headquarters down here. Um, that's been great from a tech awareness standpoints. We from great talent in Dallas and forwards them. But not a lot of not a lot of tech names or what not, but but to your point, I mean, the cost living is is ah is much better.

Actually, the fact that there's not a lot of tech do you feel it helpful or challenging? I mean, do you feel like sometimes you just want to go and have a coffee with someone who, you know is leaving, like who's living for the same aspirations as you are also wants to do a tech company, and then you're not able to find them. Yeah, I think that's

that's a great point. That's where it gets challenging when you want to. Just, you know, go network with some people that have you walk this walk this path, it's a little bit harder to find people around here that are more seasoned in the tech world. Um, so, yeah, that that part that part's challenging. Um, I think the D F W scene is definitely growing. There's some really great people here, but it's it's it's younger than Silicon Valley since and such what's cool is, you know, we you can still connect with those individuals you know, virtually now.

It nowadays, like I have virtual coffees with tons of people, um, in San Francisco are, you know, just in different geographical areas where we can still chat, you know, bounce ideas off each other, and I made some virtual friends that way. There's nothing to it. It's hard about. This is you know, raising money is difficult in in areas like like the F W, and I think it's changing a bit. But raising raising capitals is a little bit tricky around around this Jackie. So

do you ever get on a plane, go to the area for a couple days? Or is that not being something you're considering?

Um, I do. Sometimes I've been out there a few times more for conferences, less for for networking or or VC, like try and get money. Um, you have to be completely transparent. My partner is really handling all the fundraising, and I'm handling all the tech. So hats off to him. He's done an amazing job with fundraising and meeting great people. Um, he's been he's been just done a fantastic job are our investors and our board members or just are awesome. Supportive and really believe what we're doing. Um, so I haven't had to do a ton of that. What I've done is Brian.

We're go to conferences like I'm speaking at the Checker Forward conference in November. Um, so things like that, like more, we're kind of tech networking. Um, from a tech perspective, trying to make sure our name is out there when doing good things in our associate with people s. So that's that's been my drive out to the Bay Area.

Yeah. You also reminded me of there of the benefits of having a cofounder. You can actually focus on areas of expertise in Yeah, I have to do everything.

Absolutely. It's still a huge, huge benefit having having Mike around Mike's. Mike's awesome. He's he's super smart against the space, and we trust each other with What we're doing is that's It's a great partnership

we can talk a bit about, You know, the challenges off transitions, entrepreneurship with a family. What about the benefits, right? Have there been moments which absolutely Stan you in a positive way? That wouldn't happen if you weren't and, you know, entrepreneur or didn't have this flexibility

that you do. That's a That's a good question. It's been a lot of good. Definitely the flexibility aspect, you know? Okay, I gotta run home right now because we've got baseball an hour and I'm the coach, you know, that's that's something that would not have been possible, you know, working in another fiver. Ah, job. I think some levels of her I could still be possible. The right company, but a little less heard of from when? If I need to take a day off in Aiken,

um, I could do that and, you know, um, I think I think financially, too it's been, Although there's been a lot of ups and downs I think through through the years and through grilling honestly, if you like financially, it's put us in a really good spot to take control of of our destiny, so to speak. And you work really hard and from that see the fruits of that labor and I'll be able to sock sock cash away for many days and things like that. So that's been a definite benefit, I think. Also, Toots, it's been interesting watching my daughter and and to be specific,

my daughter has really ah jumped into this entrepreneurial world, and I don't think she knows what that means yet. But she's she's been doing with her, her friends in the neighborhood she's been doing eliminate stands and they're they're gonna take the money they made from a lemonade stand by a sno cone maker and gonna you know, then sell snow cones on the street. And they've been selling arts and crafts and stuff. And, um, you know, in start up world, they haven't made a lot of money. But for a kid, I mean you know, making making 10 bucks a day. It's huge and she's gonna hold us right now. She's eight,

so she's going to see in the the fruits of that and feeling that early, and I wish I would have that on his kid. So I'm trying to cultivate that. I think understanding how you know how, how business works and howto create something. And you know, Manager, you're costing your expenses and you're looking at your margins and all that stuff. You know, just being aware of what people want, where they are and how to tell people what you're doing. I think that's been really cool toe talk to her about that. Early on, I think I think she's it seems like she's getting a bug early on,

right. And I love it that you're encouraging it at this early age because I'm just reading a book about the early days of Microsoft and the, you know, the, uh, Bill Gates before Microsoft, and he was already doing entrepreneurial stuff like that. I think 11 years old, right? And his parents let him. I guess it was part of bringing 50 years ago, too. But things were a little bit more free. Actually, we're gonna talk about this, right? Because I'm curious how free things there in Texas versus you know,

where I'm at. Um, but But there was 11 year old kid who could play with computers, signed contracts. They even talked about how when, Ah, some of his friends did something he didn't like. You threaten likely election because they were basically part of the same quote unquote company together. And, uh, very much, you know, make yourself style. But that that's like an 11 year old kid that that creates a massive company later, somebody we can experiment basically 10 or 20 years before everyone else in their age group can. So I mean things lately that you know what?

I can do all of this. Yeah, for sure. Huh? So let's talk about Texas. And I have to admit that, you know, I've only been to Austin, and they say, Austin, isn't even Texas a little a little dinner? Almost ready? Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome, but it's all but how?

Freeze it in Texas. I mean, like, you know, some places your kid walks to school in their own and they get arrested and then you get arrested like Texas feels like a lot more free than the rest of America. Is that true? Like, you know, Do you feel liberated there? Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. If I'm understanding your question, I think it's pretty free eso just in that same example. You know, we we walk to school. Um, we can. We haven't lately has been getting having getting overly often. Um, yeah, well, walk to school, are we? There's kids all over our neighborhood that you write a biker, read a scooter to school, and,

um, you know, there's no no issue there. I mean, you know, there's there's protective things that are around CPS and making sure that people are not abusing their kids are doing stuff they shouldn't. But for the most part, it's it's pretty pretty conservative, free

free, right? Well, this is great, honestly, between the low cost of living and I kind of like a lot of freedoms, and it sounds like supportive families. Um, you know, I'm just thinking for anyone who's listening to this, if they wantto find a different place to live, which enables them to work on something they wanna work on in a peaceful environment. That's actually great place to be.

Absolutely. Yeah, I would. I would agree that.

And speaking of which, you know, if you were to give advice to new parents who are thinking of going entrepreneurship journey, what would you tell them? You know what mistakes to avoid or what to focus on in order to make the whole journey more productive for work. And we're enjoyable for the family.

Sure, that's it. That's good. Um, I think there's two things I would say one. Um, don't Don't jump too quickly without doing some taking some calculated risk. So meaning, you know, if you can try to stock some cash away and try to try to build up sort of some bedrock. Um, I think that that is important. I think that was really helpful. Especially since that you mentioned the first project. I jumped out and it was a total failure, and it costs money and then end up, then end up making money.

So, um, you know, having that bedrock was extremely helpful during those tumultuous times. I would say, you know, just be smart. If you're gonna jump out, try toe, try to, um it isn't your family, you know, if it's just, you know, go for it, You know,

over and and don't worry about it too much. But you have a family of people counting on your income. Um, you'll be smart with that. And And the two, I would say, um, on a lesson coming back, the 2nd 1 I would, I would say, is, um it's important to actually two more. It's important to surround yourself with people that believe in you. So you know, you're your spouse has to be on board And, um,

you know, is a great or your spouse to partner as a great, um, example of someone that needs to be sort of for you. In doing this, I think surround yourself with other entrepreneurs who are further down the road. You can mentor. You're kind of talk to you, though things you should think about even get you introduced early on, um, invalidated. Let's see the third thing. Make sure you take breaks and do fun things with your family. Um, you know, when your kids are young,

they're only young for a little while. So you know, do. Although it's crazy and it's chaotic, and it's exhausting, like do fun stuff with them. You know, like we I'd say the past month we've taken to impromptu trips to the beach, which is probably five hour drive one way for us, and we just decide to do It just goes our kids aren't gonna be young forever. And my wife's amazing. She's She's great at this minute, Ian. And, um, let's go do this.

You know, this week's be awesome And, um so I've learned to listen to her and, um, do those things, and I think it's just really important to not only just be obsessed with your startup or your thing, Um, but, you know, invest in your family, too.

That's that's really key. That's a great reminder. Well, there you have it. And not a great story from another ride that if you want to check out more of nose podcast, go to code story dot CEO. And if you want to hear more, ride that episodes. You can go to Rod Dad show dot com and, as always, if you know somebody who could benefit from this episode one over the other ride that episodes, please let them know. Thanks for listening,