Jonathan Roberts Not Safe for Society
Jonathan Roberts Not Safe for Society
Michael Hambuger - The Entrepreneur's Freedom Blueprint
What does it truly mean to design your life on your own terms, and how can military discipline transform into entrepreneurial freedom? Michael Hamburger's journey from Marine Corps helicopter mechanic to successful agency owner reveals the unexpected connection between structure and independence.
In this raw, unfiltered conversation, Michael shares the pivotal moments that shaped his path—from making the split-second decision to move his family across the country to teaching his daughters about real-world consequences through uncompromising honesty. His family rule "you're either in sports or you have a job" encapsulates the no-excuses approach that permeates both his parenting and business philosophy.
The discussion dives deep into how military service instilled the discipline that fuels entrepreneurial success: "If I really want something bad enough, I can lock in on it and nothing's going to get in the way." This mindset powered Michael's transition from corporate telecom to building his digital marketing agency, where he takes a distinctly strategic approach—starting with comprehensive battle plans rather than immediate ad spending.
What sets Michael's agency apart is their philosophy of "under promise, over deliver," resulting in client relationships lasting years beyond industry standards. His recent venture into energy efficiency technology demonstrates how entrepreneurship enables continuous evolution and growth—the ultimate expression of freedom through structure.
Whether you're a veteran considering entrepreneurship, a parent navigating tough conversations, or a business owner seeking a more strategic approach to growth, this conversation offers actionable wisdom on creating autonomy through discipline and designing a life with no artificial limits.
It's all good, cool. So appreciate you coming. Headphones, no headphones, okay, cool. How do you pronounce your damn last name? Yeah, you don't need to use headphones.
Speaker 1:It's really fancy. It's Hamburger, hamburger. That's what I thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to go with that, or Hamburgeois, if you want to get all fancy and shit. So did you donate blood today too.
Speaker 1:No, okay, so we did. He came up to our office. He's working on another deal that happened to be connecting him with the owner of a company and we do all their SEO, so right now I walk on water for him Endless vitality. I went Tempe. Okay, two guys, jim Nance and Steve this is Vanka, I can't pronounce his last name Best friends, and they've got a doctor that runs with them.
Speaker 2:That's man and, yeah, he's ageless and I've been using TRT for a while, so what, uh? How long have you been using like TRT and hormone therapy?
Speaker 1:I found out, I'm one of their 10 first customers and I've been a client of theirs for like a patient of theirs for like seven, seven years.
Speaker 2:What'd you say about it, man? Cause I mean, that's the question I get asked.
Speaker 1:A lot is, I'm 53 and I've still trained jujitsu four days a week and I'm in the gym five days a week and it's not as hard to get out of bed as it used to be. You know, you're wearing a knee brace. I realized I'm wearing a knee brace. I may have a little bit of a meniscus issue, so yeah, but you know I'm a huge fan. I've turned a lot of guys on to it.
Speaker 2:It's been a game changer for me, Cool so you literally connected with me again like a week ago and we've had conversations on and off over the last, I'd say, year or so uh, through social media. Met up at the taco spot yeah, it's funny, I took my wife there for the first time today.
Speaker 1:Place is freaking good very good, I'm gonna miss that spot yeah, yeah, and that's what I was getting into.
Speaker 2:Like you're going to florida I am how'd that come about?
Speaker 1:well, I'm a redneck from the south, to start with, been out West for 21 years and every summer my wife and my family and I go to Florida for the summer, and at the end of last summer, as we were getting ready to come home, we just we. I've been wanting to go and move there for years. My oldest daughter has as well, and my wife, my youngest, were the holdouts, and last year my wife said let's do it, yeah. So the promise was we wouldn't do it until school was over. So this year we are relocating here in a week from Thursday.
Speaker 2:Damn.
Speaker 1:So next Wednesday they come pick up all the cars and movers come and pack up all our shit. You flying out or driving, we fly. Okay, everything else drives, but we fly. Good, I did the drive last year with my then 17-year-old who's going into her senior year. So we did a big college tour and hit about seven colleges in the southeast and I can tell you dude, I know you're a girl dad when your kid's old enough to drive, I recommend it. Our relationship has never been better when you're just stuck with a kid in a car from coast to coast and you just get to talk and the walls come down and you just talk and talk. She actually was kind of bummed. We weren't driving this year and I actually looked at like all right, we'll ship two of the cars and we'll drive one, um, but then it just all kind of worked out where it's like let's just fly, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I say that a lot because you know, a lot of times in today's world, we're always on social media. You know my, I got a 14 year old and a 10 year old, so we don't let them have the Instagram, Facebook. I think they have Pinterest or something which they've basically figured out how to turn into Instagram, but something we don't get a lot. And this is as parents, relationships, business, everything is like we don't get bored of anymore, Like you're always looking for that quick dopamine hit so a lot of times having like a real conversation, like you said, with your kid, if you just, you know, go out with your wife or kid for four or five hours, put the dang phones away, you'll eventually get so bored. Just start having real conversations. And I missed what you said there. I caught it and grabbed my attention. When did you mention that you and your daughter went on that drive? Or is it just?
Speaker 1:It was last summer, so we we did the drive probably 10 years ago as a family.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it sucked to drive from here to there. The kids were great, it was my wife and I. We hated it. So every year we go to Florida. We're usually there first of June to the last day of July, a couple months. So a couple months, get the heck out of here. Blazing hot summers, um. But last summer, knowing that we wanted to do the, the college tour, my wife, my youngest and our dog all flew.
Speaker 1:My oldest and I drove cross-country. She had one. She had two requests for me. One was we had to stop in new orleans at a place called cafe du monde and have coffee and beignets. If you've got daughters, it's from a dis movie, prince and the Frog, I think, or whatever it's called. So we did that. It was in the French Quarter, had a blast. And one of our other requests was to go see my family in Georgia. We did that as well and I can tell you it was a great drive and I, like I said, I recommend it.
Speaker 1:No different what you just said. You've got no distractions. You know, one of us would drive, the other one would sit in the passenger seat and we talked and bonded and no topics were off-limit. And look, we've always had a rule with our kids it's no bullshit. If you ask us it's not. You know we talk real, yeah, and it doesn't matter what it is. My kids know I honest with them, probably to a fault. They asked me questions about like what drugs I use when I was in my early, early twenties. And you know we talk about sex and my parents were just always very open. I'm raised by first generation Americans. My grandparents came here from Germany during the Holocaust and uh, yeah, so I just, I just really think it's. I would wish that drive on everyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I'm glad I lived in Germany for four years because I got to see that side of the liberal culture over there and that's kind of how I was raised, you know my single mom, but never really hit drug use or maybe some of the hard drug use she hit until we were a little bit older. But you know it kind of took the fun away from ever doing it Like a lot of times you're gonna get that like.
Speaker 2:I got drunk a few times as a kid and 90 of the fun was oh dude, I'm doing something cool. So then you know, when you're too drunk, you're sick, you're sobering up, maybe that kind of sucks like, why did I do that? And it just it took all the fun out of it. But uh, yeah, we've got. We've got something similar with my daughter, uh, and the 14 year olds. You know, getting old enough, had some of the talks with my wife and occasionally her and my wife will be talking about something. You know I'll be curious and Brittany, my wife, will hey, you don't like, don't even ask if you don't want to know. And then Orion just blurts it out Like Ryan, I don't want to know. That she's like well, you ask, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1:You raise your kids to be open with you, which means no borders, and you get to have real talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's pretty cool. So you've got how many kids? Two, just two, just two. Okay, so same as me.
Speaker 1:So one moving on to college and the other one was 14, so she's going into her high school year first year high school.
Speaker 2:So she's the same age as my daughter, yep, okay. Well, I'm not gonna ask you live on the podcast where she goes to school, because that would be silly but uh, well, I can tell you because she's she stops.
Speaker 1:Next week is her last day she's been explored middle, okay, so part of the part of the pb school district and we've had a tremendous experience over there nice, yeah, what have.
Speaker 2:How long you been in arizona now?
Speaker 1:we moved here from la in, okay, so, oh, four, um had a, had a 26 month pit stop in between. We went to texas. My career took me to texas, texas, in 2010. And then we came right back when I decided to leave that company. So, 18 years you've been in Arizona. What's kept you here? The place is awesome. I mean, we've got family here. The climate's great, you know, it's just. We love it being out west.
Speaker 1:But the reality is, you know, I always knew I'd go back to the South. I didn't realize I'd be going back this soon and I can tell you, jonathan, part of it was just COVID. Like for me, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm an extrovert. I like being around people. You know, being locked up during COVID and like my business partner was like, hey, you're going to be okay, and I was, but I didn't want to move to Florida and be trying to drop into a community so old that I wasn't able to put a real community around me. Yeah, and so for just my wife, it was like perfect timing. Her dad's had some health issues over the last couple of years coming out of COVID. They're an hour and a half away and one kid's going to college, others going to high school, so it was just perfect time.
Speaker 2:Alignment stars are right there. Yeah, how long you been here. Uh, we've been here four years. We came here because of COVID, so four or five years, um, and it's funny you say that because we came from Oregon.
Speaker 1:I remember that. Okay, I remember that. Yeah, I moved to Arizona.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh my gosh. Freedom again. Like you know, no one's wearing masks and yeah, a couple some people are, but if you're not wearing one, no one's judging you. Where I mean? Oregon was just uh, it just got to the point where I mean it was a Nazi government.
Speaker 2:They were telling you to turn in your neighbors If you were violating the six person policy and two households and all this crap, and you know, the sheriff's departments and stuff weren't on board. The city police just had to, you know, do what they can. State police were screwed, um, and it just got to the point where, you know, we always wanted to get out of oregon because there was no way in hell. I was going to look portland and I was working automotive at the uh at the time. So, you know, city size and locality definitely had a play and I wanted to do something bigger. And, yeah, portland just wasn't an option.
Speaker 2:I didn't foresee how my family could, you know, be happy, and I'm the type of person if I'm not happy, I'm going to lie to myself and tell myself I'm not happy, but I'm going to figure out how to go fix what I want. So we moved, didn't even have a job lined up, just said, hey, let's move First of the year 21. So 2020. My wife and I gave ourselves about a month to make the final decision. That was Thanksgiving of 2020. Three days later we're like screw it, we're going to move to Phoenix. It was either Phoenix or Dallas, so we just figured out, you know, figured Phoenix was halfway in let's stop there, see if we, like it, rented a house.
Speaker 2:Before we'd ever stepped foot in Phoenix, Signed the rental agreement, I moved, we listed the house. She was back in town for about a month before her and the kids came up and I mean both of us within 20 minutes of being on ground in Phoenix. We're like all right, I think we made the right decision. We freaking loved it.
Speaker 1:It's got a great vibe here yeah and coming from Oregon.
Speaker 2:Man, it's funny because we've been to Florida a good handful of times with you, know what I do for work and she's been with me. You know we like Florida. I don't know, I like what they're doing. They seem to be pretty freedom, even with crime and stuff like that. It's handle your own business, they're not going to screw with you. Arizona does seem to be a good mix. There is a little bit of far crazy right in Florida and far crazy left as well. I'm sure Arizona seems to be it kind of it stays pretty purple. So Arizona seems to be it kind of it stays pretty purple. And just you know, you get crazies on each side. But it seems like the city itself kind of aligns, it balances itself.
Speaker 1:And now you've been here longer than I have. I've been here longer than that.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's changed quite a bit I've heard in the last five, six years. What do you see for Arizona in the future, because I know a lot of people you know Phoenix is becoming a huge city. It's getting a ton of people out of Los Angeles and Oregon and even New Mexico.
Speaker 1:A lot of people are migrating over this way. Like where do you see Phoenix going in the next five, 10 years? Well, I know you're already seeing it, since you've been here. Okay, we're in, we're in, we're in 25. You've been here since 21. You're seeing it, you're feeling it. Look at, look at just the highway, if you're going to drive from here, here, down to Tempe or somewhere.
Speaker 1:And where I live, I've lived, I've lived in this neighborhood twice. Where we are right now at your house, I'm seeing massive explosion. I'm seeing a lot of people that are bringing blue to the States. That's why we say it's purple. You know and I I remember what it was like before COVID and what it's like after COVID, and this is not the same city anymore. And I and I told my wife I go look, no matter where we move, you got a lot of people that aren't supposed to be here that are here. So you're going to feel it everywhere. But where I live particularly and I live two exits up the road one side of the road is Scottsdale, the left side of the road is Phoenix, and everything along that road is exploding with growth. There's probably six new apartment complexes that have gone up and and including the ones that are being built right now.
Speaker 1:Ironically, I had um I won't say who, but I had a politician in my office today who, um is definitely a very strong, you know died in the roots Republican, who was in a leadership position until the government transitioned in January 6th of this year that's when everybody changes from the last election. So he served four years in a post and a super, super knowledgeable guy. He's been kind of my mentor in that political arena, because I got involved in politics in 2015 at a very low like algae level, if you will and it was a precinct committeeman, which is an elected official. So I guess I was an elected official here in in in Phoenix and Scottsdale. And just to hear this guy's take, he said the best day he ever had was the day he took office and the second best day was the day he left office.
Speaker 1:And you know, sharing some of the stories that he shared, it was very illuminating. It makes me realize that, yeah, politics looks, looks, great. Don't know if I ever want to do that, um, but I think we're seeing a transition in the state for sure. But look, we're both entrepreneurs. Yeah, and there's very few states like arizona. There's very few cities. Arizona is, as you've probably seen in the short time you've been here. It's a gravitational beacon that pulls entrepreneurs in.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just a mindset here. You know, coming from Oregon where you know seasonal depression is a thing, I didn't realize that until I moved here and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm pretty maintained all freaking year. But really it seems like, especially if you're in, you know, certain parts of North Scottsdale, it's just you see a lot of young people out there actually trying to build, trying to make something for themselves. I make fun of a ton of them. You know the influencer culture and all that Right $30,000 millionaires, yeah exactly $30,000 millionaires.
Speaker 2:You rent a Lamborghini for a week and take a bunch of pictures. You know the deal. Like I make fun of them a lot but at the same time, like that's how a lot of us kind of got started Like the best way I've ever given myself. A pay raise is buy a car. I can days to figure that shit out and there may be some pictures of me.
Speaker 1:There may be some pictures of me so out there in my old 911 convertible before my kids were born. You know, it was kind of the same deal.
Speaker 2:I had really great cars and I was figuring out the rest of it as I went yeah, see, I had kids young so I was buying like the m cars and shit with kids in high school this is a pointless, car I'm like, yeah, but we can get places faster. I can't get the kids in like, whatever, we'll figure it out well now we got it, it works out my 18 year old, who's now 18.
Speaker 1:I sold that porsche because her car seat wouldn't fit with the top down that's what we sold our first um.
Speaker 2:This was when I was still military, so I was stupid, but we bought a brand new 2009 bmw 328 or 335i um.
Speaker 1:I had some deployment money, so there you go yeah, it worked out and uh uh, 25% interest or 45% interest. I had good credit. My my dad was in the auto game.
Speaker 2:So he co-signed on a car with me when I was like 18, there you go. He made the payments, he hooked me up there, he took care of me right there, but uh yeah. So you know, I had too strong of credit when I was 20 years old, just came back from deployment a. We were stationed in Germany, so I had to have the damn car and I knocked my wife up while I was, you know, two weeks home for leave during my deployment. Well, that was about eight months before I returned home. So we had the car for a month. Uh well, we had a little bit longer than that, but we get it back First thing I want to do.
Speaker 2:When I get back, everyone's thinking what they want to do. I wanted to go drive that son of a bitch on the Autobahn, so I'm doing like 75, just thinking I'm hauling ass, because you know, in Afghanistan you might do 50, 55 in a truck and it doesn't happen much. Go home, do the things, have the kid, throw the car seat in there, and back then I really liked to drink. I was still army. I could not sit in the front seat with the car seat in there and even push my wife too damn far forward to drive the car. So I was like, well crap, I need a designated driver. This ain't going to work.
Speaker 2:So I had to get rid of that and got a used F-150, which it was a pretty cool car. So it took a little bit of a wash on that bad boy.
Speaker 1:But that's worth every penny, though, right yeah, worth the experience.
Speaker 2:The Autobahn is 100% worth it. 100%. You ain't getting that. What'd you buy your kid as her first car, or did you buy him a first?
Speaker 1:car. I did buy her a first car, because that's something I'm talking about right now.
Speaker 2:I just took Orion down. I was starting to let her drive in open parking lots at night and getting her used to it. Got kicked out of one this Saturday by a security guard, but it was cool.
Speaker 1:I put my kid in the car first time to drive in 20 during COVID and she was definitely not even close to having learned his permit age. But we were down in South Phoenix in an industrial park and she did it nine miles an hour, no matter how fast I asked her to go. We did a loop, she did nine. Going back to your question, you can go a little faster, Casey.
Speaker 2:No, I'm good.
Speaker 1:I'm like please drive faster. No, no, really, please drive faster. We got her a used Volvo midsize the XC60.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't let my wife listen to this.
Speaker 1:All-wheel drive because, in case I wanted her to, because I brainwashed my kids into snowboarding and skiing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I fell up north a little bit or something.
Speaker 1:So we got her a car that she could drive to Flagstaff on.
Speaker 2:See, my wife wants to grab an XC90. And I grew up on just you know my wife got a little bit nicer of a car. She wants to get her next C90 because of the safety ratings and all that crap.
Speaker 1:My wife drives a 90. My kid drives a 60. Like you, my dad was in the car business, so my dad started in the car business in 79. So we always bought them right. My first car was a Datsun B210 station wagon. It was a tan with brown windows, brown tinted windows, and my parents thought it was the greatest thing. You know, I I bought a lot of cars growing up and I've had a lot of cars now and this is still one of the things I love. But it's interesting, you know, with daughters I've just, it was never a question, I was going to buy her a car. My other kid, I'll buy her a car. Now, if I had a son I don't know why I probably would have made that little bastard work a little harder for it. You know, with our kid we just say look, you know you need to pay for your insurance and you cover your gas and your expenses with your car and we gave you a card and keep it up.
Speaker 2:Are your kids ever had to?
Speaker 1:work. We've always had a rule in our house where you're either in sports or you have a job. And so my oldest, when she was just turning, I think, 15, she was playing volleyball and she said hey dad, I really want to go get a job instead. So again, this is a. We have that unicorn kid, our youngest. Our youngest probably won't have the same drive our big sister has, At least we're not seeing it yet but my oldest graduated last night from ASU, from their their high school program.
Speaker 1:They have a prep program. So she took one high school class first semester and five college classes and then one second semester and five other college classes, so she's pretty much done with her first year. She got her first year knocked out Nice, Cost me nothing, so I'm happy to buy that car. But yeah, man, they've always had jobs. She's working actually full time here in town for the largest hot air balloon company here in the Southwest. That's a unique one. That's really cool. Her best friend's family owns it and she went over there and she got the job because she knows people and she has just thrived in that space. That's awesome. Yeah, Good kid.
Speaker 2:Have any of them done any sales or?
Speaker 1:anything. Yet the kids?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, not yet they sell every day. They're trying to blame their sister for something different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my well, she technically works for me for legal reasons, but she's done some stuff at our event. She ran the swag shop for a while and selling necklaces and stuff and has made some pretty good paychecks. I'll tell you a story off air that she left. Yeah, we had to open up for a brokerage account. I think I might have told you last time we had lunch.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the cool thing With me I own a marketing agency and so I just had to be back in 2015, 2016, before I started the agency. We were doing education and teaching people how to be digital marketers and how to do drop shipping, and my kid's like Dad, I want a Shopify store. So my wife and my daughter created a Shopify store. They were selling small paws, what they called it, so it was like trinkets and shit for little dogs and cats and whatnot, and they had a blast doing it and I'm sure she'll do something again.
Speaker 2:It was a good way to teach him man. It's something I kind of learned as a kid but not really, you know especially growing up in. I don't know about when you went to school you're a couple of years older than I am, but like we were always told basically you're very kind. Yeah, you're very kind Um. You know, we were always told in high school um you know, I come from St Lord in Capitol town.
Speaker 2:you know your. Your goal is you graduate high school. You go get some entry-level government job sweeping floors, doing some bullshit like that driving nails. Some of you all of you should, but only some of you are going to go to college. If you do that, you're going to enter middle management and then, like two of you are going to become a lawyer and two of you are going to become doctors Like that's pretty much what we were told in high school.
Speaker 1:That sounds bleak as hell, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm kind of glad I didn't really buy into the bullshit which kids, when they're, you know, having the same idea as I have, but like I just, you know I didn't. I didn't go to school my sophomore year. You know I don't know why, I had some bs reasons, but I definitely didn't go. Uh, went every nine days to pe just so they didn't drop me um and I could stay enrolled and stay on health care and stuff before obamacare um.
Speaker 2:And then junior senior year I had to pull my head out of mass a little bit, graduated with like a 2.3, had to, you know, write the essay of sob story of to get into college because I ended up, you know, playing lacrosse for a little bit. So I wanted to give that a shot but uh, I just I never bought into it. So I got a question for you because you know your kids are a little bit older. My 14 year old, for example, right, okay smart kid, used to be in all like the honors classes and now she's still an incredibly intelligent kid, very, very witty great when she tries to apply herself doesn't always apply herself.
Speaker 2:So we're talking to her. The other day and you know she had a couple poor grades and my wife and I don't actually check that much, honestly we don't freaking care because, whatever, I got poor grades I do pretty damn well. Um, but she got poor grades. So you know we're talking to her, we're trying to parent her and all that stuff and we're looking at all of her assignments like, all right, you kid, you've got 90 of this done. Why aren't you turning? Oh, I forgot, why, like I just didn't do it? I'm like okay, so you're doing the work, you're just not turning it in, all right.
Speaker 2:So it's my youngest so she looks at me and goes well, dad, you didn't get good grades, you seem to be doing okay shit. So, like, how do you parent? Like, how did you do in?
Speaker 1:school Probably not too far off from you, okay.
Speaker 2:So how do you parent through that? Because here's the thing, Through my military stuff, through some of our family stuff, they have college paid for plus a stipend to go monthly. I mean they could go live a great college and they don't have to go to college. I don't think they should, but I think at 18, they should be able to have both choices, which way they want to go. So that's that's what we're pushing to is, hey, we got to get you to 18 and we want you to have every opportunity available to you.
Speaker 1:So life is all about choices and consequences of those choices. So you know, for me, I knew I wanted to go to college and the day I moved into college my dad handed me a hundred bucks and said good luck, kid, I'm never going to give you money again. And that was true until I fell on my ass back in 12. And he gave us a couple hundred bucks here and there, but I paid my way through college and I joined the Marine Corps as well, just like you. I joined the military and put myself through school. And you know, my kids ask, like you know, dad, you didn't do good in school. Now my wife, she just cruised through school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how my life was.
Speaker 1:I didn't show up to racquetball in my first freshman year. First class was an 8 o'clock class. I got an F for lack of attendance, right, which is like it was a learning lesson. But I paid for it, not just figuratively, I paid for my college literally. So at that point it was like if my parents wanted to say something about school, it was like hey, did you write the check? No, then the office opinions are closed for you.
Speaker 1:So my kids right now it's like they've seen adversity, they've seen entrepreneurship, they've seen the consequences of good decisions, they've seen the consequences of bad decisions and I think they all prefer the good decisions. So for them it's just like setting them up. Look, I'm not pushing my kids to go to college. My greatest fear as a parent is that I've got pretty level-headed kids. I think they're fairly open and honest with us and they align very much the way we do politically, though my younger one is probably a little bit more to center than we are.
Speaker 1:But it's all about the choice. So if our youngest says, hey, I don't want to go to school and college, you'd be like, great, what are you gonna do? I would love to see and this is a personal political belief. But I'd love to see a world in the US where we're more like Israel. Not that you had to serve in the military, but at 18, when you graduate high school, I'd love every kid in America to go either in the military, in the Peace Corps in some it's and some crazy is so many people talk about Europe being a great place and this and that Europe's a great place.
Speaker 1:No, I would never. I would never want to live there permanently. No, I would. Four year vacation was awesome.
Speaker 2:Germany, for example, has a two year mandatory service requirement. And yeah, and it's either before college or after college, there's no way out of it. But you have to do two years of government servicing military poltai, that's I agree 100%.
Speaker 1:I think we have better nationalism, patriotism. People have more pride in what we do, and I think that's part of not to get too political on you, but I think that's part of the challenge. Right now, people are living in a fantasy that this is supposed to be some better way. Look, people say it's the greatest place to live in America. I believe that could be the case. I believe it once was and I believe it can be again, but too many people think that it's better somewhere else and they're aligned with that belief versus keep. The real home is the greatest place to live on earth.
Speaker 1:I'm not disagreeing with you.
Speaker 2:Germany and you know many other places. I've been to Afghanistan. I've been through Mexico, where you know more of a tourist, a long time tourist, and just simply there, like I've seen a handful of things in Germany, you don't got its benefits. I would never want to pay taxes or play their politics or any of that crap. So I really believe America is the greatest place for one of two reasons. One, we have states rights you know like one state moved to another state.
Speaker 1:It's awesome.
Speaker 2:But I agree with you on on the fact that America is founded upon us not liking the British and a bunch of their bullshit, and then we moving over here and starting our own thing. The problem is like we don't do that anymore, like if you don't like America, if you think there's a greater place to live, go transfer, go, go move to Canada. But then the problem is reality sets in and Canada is a long, fucking 90% of you that flip fricking burgers and you know they're not going to give you a work visa to flip burgers.
Speaker 1:They want real skill. Let me make sure I'm really clear. There's no place I'd rather live. I'm grateful to be an american. I'm super proud to be american. I think it is the greatest place to live.
Speaker 1:But I think that too many people are disillusioned with where we are right now and they bought into the media lies. Um, you know, I just think it would be a better place if people had, like you, served. You have a. You've put your life on the line. You signed the line which is dotted and you were willing to give up everything, including the breath that you just took in that next one and that next one I did too, and I don't think people realize like the sacrifices that guys like yourself.
Speaker 1:You know. You went and served, I'm sure, in combat. I didn't, um, I was in the clinton marine corps. Softer kinder, don't ask, don't tell, tell Marine Corps man. I would love to have been in the Marine Corps right now, under our SEC, def right now and our POTUS right now. But at 53, I don't think they want me. Yeah, and I'm not willing to go backwards as far as my entrepreneurship to military, but it's, you know, the reality is like look, we would be a different US if people had that sacrifice Again. You don't have to be in the military. I think it's just selfless service. Just go do something For something else.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think a lot of our government jobs. You know DMV. If you just made it a two or three year assignment, that was one of the things that you could do after you graduate high school or college and then they just wrote like it's not a job 90% of them aren't jobs that you need someone with 80 years of experience and if someone rotates in every two or three years, they'll be motivated. They'll learn what it's like to deal with the general public. They'll learn what you know selfless services. Because you know one thing about the army and Marines we are on the same pay scale. It's, it's not as bad as I think.
Speaker 2:A lot of people make it seem like everything in your life is covered. So everything that you buy other than a cell phone that's about the only thing they require require nowadays. Everything's pretty much covered free health care, free housing, all that it's. You know your little paycheck, whatever. You could go deal with it, but it's, it's, it's. It's crazy because you're right. Like in that part of my life, money was not a concern I mean no, you have.
Speaker 1:What expenses did you have?
Speaker 2:because my wife didn't know why, because I was trying to go delta. Okay, so you know we she learned from somebody about the casualty rates and all of that and divorce range. She, she's like, why would you want to do that? And I just had it locked in my brain. I'm like I have to. If I'm going to be in the military, if I'm going to be in the army, I'm going to be the best. There's no question about it.
Speaker 1:I'm, I went two years getting up at 4am, not getting home till 10, 11 at night. Just operate on three, four shit. You're an incredible entrepreneur now, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm saying all right, but, uh, she just never understood it. And she's like why would you like you have a kid? Now you have me. And I'm like I have this mission, like this is for the dang country. I'm willing to, you know, lose my life if I have to. And she's like, well, what have you done, bullet? I'll just, you know, keep breathing, like ready play your way.
Speaker 1:Don't get hit in the head. We're good, I'll tell you. Player one yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll go through anything. And uh, yeah, it got it. Got it got crazy Cause even she couldn't understand it, but it taught me one. I mean, I was, uh, when I when white kid privileged whatever the frick you want to call it, the problem is it's not privileged. It was actually making me lazy because I just thought I was going to have everything in the world and not have to work for it. And you know, the red carpet was going to roll out and I just walked down and earn it. The military was the best thing for me, taught me discipline. Okay, if I really want this bad enough, I can lock in on it and there's nothing that's going to get in the way. So when did you get out of the Marine Corps?
Speaker 1:1998., 1998.
Speaker 2:Okay, that was 10. Perfect, anyways.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. Thank you that reference right there.
Speaker 2:I think that was like second grade.
Speaker 1:There you go Um, okay.
Speaker 2:Did you jump like right into the entrepreneur sales world or did you run some 9-to-5s for a while Because you're supposed to go be a cop or a Walmart door greeter? One of the two.
Speaker 1:So my first job in the Marine Corps, I was a Cobra helicopter mechanic, so I worked on the AH-1 Whiskies, went and did a year as a recruiter aide and then made a lap move, became an MP Most hated Marine in the Marine Corps. Yeah, snitch, made a lap move, became an MP Most hated Marine of the Marine Corps. And then I applied for EOD. Three of us went for our psyche valve. My patrol partner was waiting in the Navy hospital, got up and said screw this, I don't want to do this. And it was me and another guy named Lucas and I passed. But then a year later, as I was waiting to go, the Olympic Park bombing had already happened in 96. And then my best friend died in a motorcycle wreck we owned. Just to tie this in, he and I owned a landscaping, a commercial landscaping business, together in Atlanta.
Speaker 2:At this point.
Speaker 1:I'm in the reserves and we own this commercial landscaping business. I'm out in 29 Palms. He drives his brand new motorcycle. We bought two brand new motorcycles, paid cash for him. After we had this big, big deal, a tornado had ripped through Atlanta and we made a bunch of money and I'm getting ready to ship for EOD. And I called my CEO because in the Marine Corps EOD is the only opt-in, opt-out job at MOS and I said I don't think I'm the guy. I just had like this wake-up call. It'd be an EOD, thumbs up like this, right, no body parts left, probably like you having that Delta realization. And so I went and got a nine to five. I worked in telecom, worked in computers first and then I was reintroduced to being a business owner, an entrepreneur. So in 03, from 98 to 03, I worked corporate, Okay, and then got introduced to being a business owner in 03 and off the races we've been since.
Speaker 2:Okay, and was your corporate? Was it involved around marketing?
Speaker 1:No, I was in telecom and data sales, so I worked for all telecom sales. I started off as a door knocker, going door to door from small, mid-sized businesses Back in the old days. There's this thing called long distance, so we would pitch. You know, with AT&T you're paying 25 cents a minute and they're billing you in minute increments and we're billing in six second increments. Wouldn't you like to save money over here? So we were feature benefit selling. And then, yeah, I got into the business world as an entrepreneur, small business owner, and locked in there and realized, wait, I could actually set my own, my own glass ceiling for myself, or lack thereof Glass ceiling hours.
Speaker 2:You know. Build your own freedom, and when you put it all on your back, it's your fault.
Speaker 1:Work from anywhere. I mean, I worked from my boat. I worked from, like, we went to LA for a weekend. My wife and I got married in June. We went to LA for, uh, for something called the landmark forum, uh, education course that I'd taken in Atlanta and we went out there and I'm like I want to move here. And I told her that on Saturday we found a place. On Monday, uh, no, we found a place on Tuesday. We went home on Wednesday. We hired movers. On Thursday, we told her family and my family on Friday the movers picked up our shit. On Sunday. Where'd you move from? From Atlanta to Santa Monica, california. We went to live on the beach. Out there.
Speaker 1:People are like, are you running from the mob? I'm like, no, we're running to our new life and as business owners, we could pack up and leave. Why did leave? We did. I was ready to reinvent myself. You know people in Atlanta knew me as and that's where I'm born and raised and knew me as who I was and that was great. But I was ready to reinvent myself as an entrepreneur and have a no limit life. And you know, la was great.
Speaker 1:We lived there for one year exactly and then we came here, it wasn't home for us. It was like being on a honeymoon. We were newlyweds. It was like being on a honeymoon for a year, but we we decided we want to. You know, tie roots in here and it's been a last 20, you know 20 years plus that we've been here, 21 years here or Texas. It's been a great place, man. But yeah, entrepreneurship was definitely for me and it's been. You know, in that last 20 years I ran other people's companies in different parts, different points, which was good. Learning experiences, like getting a master's degree, working with some other entrepreneurs, probably no different than what you're doing Work with Andy and the team over there. You're an entrepreneur I'm assuming you're an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Entrepreneur entrepreneur no-transcript right now. That'll be more attached to my name. I'm, you know, branded in my shirt, just like you are. If, like, I'm gonna be somewhere, I'm gonna throw the brand on there because hell, who knows who's watching. But uh, no, that's. That's awesome, man. So I mean, that's the same thing.
Speaker 2:I took advantage of moving to arizona was being able to reinvent myself, you know, because I grew up in salem, military for eight years, four years in germany, four years in alaska, deployments and stuff. But those were where we were stationed and we said we were never going to come back to oregon. It was a winter day in alaska, I think it was like october, so early winters, you know, negative 10 degrees, no bullshit 80 mile per hour winds. My wife had to get gas that day. I wasn't around and she called me later and she's like we're fucking these, I'm not doing this shit. I just separated from the military. I was planning on staying there as running a real estate company or getting myself involved in real estate, I should say, and I was actually doing pretty well and I, you know, like Alaska, ice fishing, hunting, that's all the fun, and you know there's nobody there, so it's sweet.
Speaker 1:And she just called me and was like we're not doing this, so luckily the team I was on wanted to expand to Portland.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'll take the opportunity there. I'm from Oregon, I know Portland and, yeah, it didn't work out as from where I grew up as a kid A little bit of a nicer neighborhood. I had to upgrade, but even though I didn't really hang out with a lot of the same people, it was the exact same town that I left eight years ago. A couple businesses closed down, nothing new was going on, but nothing was really moving. Everyone was doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:So when we moved to Phoenix, it was like, okay, we, we have now designed what we want our family life to look like, and now we have the canvas to do the art, the canvas to paint how we want. You know, no interference from friends and family, and family's great and all. But you know, I don't need to see him every fucking two weeks or a week or all that Like. Every fucking two weeks or a week or all that Like. It's like, hey, we're building our life, now we're building our dreams. I don't, you know, we're on a different path right now. It's totally cool. So, no, I get being able to re, recreate, reinvent. So what was it about moving back to the South? That, you know, you knew was always on your heart and you were going to eventually be there.
Speaker 1:We love being on the beach I do. They're just kind of missing that ocean, though I've always said Phoenix has got all the beach but none of the ocean, it's true, right, so less of sand. And look, I take nothing away from Phoenix and Scottsdale. I love where I'm from, where I grew up. I think Atlanta, the suburbs of Atlanta where I grew up, was very much like here, just different topography and different climate. I don't know that I'd want to go home. I've always joked that I'll move back to Atlanta when I'm 101. So goals and shit, right, but we always knew we'd go to Florida and it was always to retire. I'm not going to retire, but we do want to get our kids out of Snottsdale.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know that's, that's a big part of it. We're going to live in a really, really a small beach town 12,000 people on our, on our, in our little Island beach town, and you know we're an hour from Orlando. So if we need um I I wouldn't have moved where we spend our summers Cause there's literally nothing there. Like I drive 45 minutes each direction to make the sacrifices of commuting back to Phoenix, as I need to for our companies so that my family can live on the beach.
Speaker 2:And that's your company still going to be headquartered.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent my business partner lives just up the road from here. Our office is right by the taco shop where you and I met, so 10 minutes down the road from here.
Speaker 2:So what makes you comfortable being able to? Hey, I'm going to move all the way across the country, but this shit back home is still going to grow.
Speaker 1:I've been doing this since 2003.
Speaker 2:Do you have a, like a good number two in place right now that you trust, or like?
Speaker 1:No, I mean, we've got, I've got. You know, my, my partner and I have an incredible team of contractors, like, like, you guys are over at the he's here. He lives up in Scottsdale mountain and you know, we've got our agencies. It doesn't matter where I am, I've I've worked from the beach for the last 25 summers. The difference is my day starts earlier and I log out with the team sooner. Right, so I'm done at six and that's three o'clock here and I'm pretty disciplined. When I'm like at six o'clock, I'm logged out, I'm going in my jujitsu class, disciplined. When I'm like at six o'clock, I'm logged out, I'm going in my jujitsu class. You know the way I've set up my life.
Speaker 1:When I'm in Florida, where I typically go, it's a 45 minute drive to have phone connectivity. So my last zoom of the day I'm driving the long way on the way home. I could care less if my phone works. So I drive up the Island and I lose, lose cell coverage quite a bit, but we're going now. I mean it's like, look, with this thing called the internet, and thank you al gore for inventing it. Um man, my life is so much better because of him, because of the internet, yeah, no, I could work from, but I can work from anywhere.
Speaker 1:I've worked from right now, yeah, I've worked from italy, worked from hawaii, worked from fiji. Uh, you know every, every, you know time I need to go somewhere.
Speaker 2:All I need is a phone connection at this point into the entrepreneur world like when you first got in. I mean, the internet wasn't as big as it was. Zoom calls skype back in the day on the thing like you probably didn't even imagine that like really having the freedom of what I guess new entrepreneurship has become it is a totally different world.
Speaker 1:And when we left atlanta, we left with literally a laptop. We had dial up back then and we had a credit card merchant processing machine in our car and I had satellite put on the car so we could drive cross-country. And back then, like I remember the first time I had a CRM built for me, I said I need to be clicked to call. I'm like what's that? I go, I need a Skype button. This is how long ago it was. This is back in 04. Right, and I could literally work my business for the first time from a laptop. Can you see me on the beach in Santa Monica with a laptop? I did that shit, but it was worth it, right? So yeah, it's a totally different world. Entrepreneurs, we have it really good and for the younger people coming up right now, enjoy it. And with all the other stuff coming, what we're seeing now will be you know, we're in the Henry Ford part of the automobile industry if you look at that as a timeline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we're in a new part because I mean, you kind of got into business during the dot-com. Oh yeah, the blow-up of the dot-com, it's, you know, changed business a lot. Everybody was worried about the dot-com. Same thing when we went from radio to TV, TV to. You're making me feel old, dude. Well, let me ask you this From your perspective, what do you think about?
Speaker 1:AI Great question, you know. I just shared this with my kids the other day. I go remember your mom and I are the last generation. Remember what life was like before the internet and before cell phones and girls. You're the last generation of what life was like before AI. I think AI will be and it's in my life.
Speaker 1:We're leaning in. You know, I'm a couple years younger than my partner, business partner, and we're totally leaning in as a marketing agency to lean in now or die later, and it's not going to be a slow death, it'll be a quick death. Yes, I think that we'll be as good as our tools, but I don't know that it can replace everything. Like my youngest daughter is a very creative, she's artist, and my wife was like maybe she can do art. I go only if they want imperfection, because AI, as it gets better and evolves and starts doing hands with five fingers instead of six, it'll be like you know why would you hire a human to paint something If you can have perfect? You know symmetry and everything else? Um, I just think that we're we haven't even seen the impact of it and I'm very hopeful, but I think that we also find ourselves getting very lazy, like I, I will take a text that I would normally email. That I would normally email, you know, very haphazardly to a client.
Speaker 1:I bumped into a guy yesterday that owns a he's one of the owners in a very, very large restaurant chain. Lead to a client. I bumped into a guy yesterday that owns he's one of the owners in a very, very large restaurant chain and we bumped into each other at the graduation last night at ASU. His kid was graduating, my kid was graduating and I sent him a note today. But before I sent the note I wrote the draft and then I put it into my AI. That's literally prompted to clean it up, make it strong, and those are kind of the basic prompts to it Put it in boom, pull it back out, copy paste my words just kind of restructured it. But it's little things like that that we'll, I think, become too reliant on.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's going to make humans? So I guess I'll frame it first, because, well, let me ask you this so when we, when com went around, a lot of people think that humans maybe got a little dumber. 100%.
Speaker 1:You think that the smarter the tools, the dumber the human.
Speaker 2:Because I look at it a different way.
Speaker 1:I'm open to hear it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about precom. Right, how did you get information? You had to go to a library.
Speaker 1:No, I had a two-way pager, it was a clamshell pager.
Speaker 2:I live on Wikipedia as a salesperson, I believe you should know a little bit about everything when it comes to just random crap, because that's a great way to always build rapport. So if someone ever talks to me about something that I'm clueless about, for example, the gal that Rogan had on his podcast today. I wish I could tell you her name. The gal that got arrested in Italy, spent four years in prison, falsely accused, finally got the murder accusation um what's her name.
Speaker 1:He's had her on before, I think, so maybe yes but I was listening.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, I know this. I don't know who she is, though, and she's saying words that's not connecting the case, but they're, you know, pretty strong words sexual assault, rape. But I'm like, what the heck is going on. So I wikipedia it and I had that information that quick, and now it's in my head, um, and I know it like to me. Thecom gave us the ability to have more information. I really think we know a lot more. I think what we have, the problem that we're going to have even worse, but the problem that we're having is we don't have the ability to critically think anymore. I think everything.
Speaker 1:I agree with everything you just said Okay, so like we go travel somewhere. I with everything you just said Okay, so like we go travel somewhere. I'll never forget. We went to Lake Tahoe um 20, 2003, 2004,. Big, big snowboard trip. And I come out of the bathroom cause I've been reading the the, you know, the coffee table book and I'm selling to my family. You know, after I got in and taken a shit like hey guys, I mean back then it happened to be the book. Now, as you're right, we have literally all the world's information at our fingertips and I was like get off your phone.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm an avid reader. I didn't realize I love to read so much and it's not necessarily always like this, though. These are some killer books here, a lot of wisdom, but it's just like going through and it's a super scroll. But at the same token we do get lazier. The smarter the device, the lazier, the dumber the human. But to your point, we do have a world of info readily available. I've been selling so much of the crap in our house as we move. My wife's like what's that app you're doing? I literally would open up my chat GPT, hit the little button so the camera comes on, point it at something and say write me a Facebook marketplace ad.
Speaker 2:Oh, I haven't tried that.
Speaker 1:And then it would write the ad and I would copy and paste it and take some photos and and I had told chat, bt, chat, gbt and like under price, everything, cause I'm not going to screw with it, I want to. Just gone, just come.
Speaker 2:It's a fee to pick it up and get it off, right?
Speaker 1:I to pick it up and get it off the porch I mean thousands of dollars. Later we sold most of our shit that we're starting over again, but it's perfect timing. You'll get it as your kids get older. Your kids will ruin your shit. So it's like we could either take all the stuff that's been abused by children and their friends for years it was nice stuff when we started or we can just sell it now and start over again when we get there. So why move it to sell it again later?
Speaker 2:You can buy it again and then you're going to get a new place.
Speaker 1:But to your point, though, I mean, you're right. Ai's changed the game for everything and we're using different ones. It depends on the application. We've probably got five or six that we really rely on heavily in the agency, so what is your future belief on that?
Speaker 2:as far as the critical thinking aspect, Because today I look at the world and I think the number one problem the world has not just America, but the number one problem the world has is we've lost the ability to do any sort of critical thinking.
Speaker 2:You either believe CNN or you believe Fox News. Those are your people, you go with them, you join the team and you stick with it. I think that's why we have so much of a divide from center, where there's like a lot of the shit's not even common sense anymore. It's just people bitching from each side. And I always try to do this and I do it with, like a lot of my clients.
Speaker 2:Well, they'll have, you know, a view or something I'm like OK, I want you to argue the opposite, complete 100 percent opposite, because if you can't argue the opposite one, you need to go learn about the opposite so you could try point of view and then formulate a true opinion. Now we're almost through the world. I could literally and I bet I could do this today if I spent enough time I could turn my cell phone on, have AI scan every one of my emails, every one of my text messages, set me up a schedule. I just wake up, look at my phone, know what I'm going to do at the gym know what time I need to go to work, know where my calls are going to be.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's coming by the way. I have it.
Speaker 1:Well, I have AI that watches all my Zoom calls. Yeah, I do too. There's AI that reports.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, you should say this jackass. They just said that, focus on that point. That's kind of the pain, is it live?
Speaker 1:Does it do that? Not the live one? Okay, so what I do is I take and I use Fathom. Fathom pitched the other day for the company that we just acquired and took my, my transcript loaded up into AI, and said you know, you are. And I actually said you are Chase Hughes, who was the neuroscientist that Rogan had on his podcast a few months ago, and I just caught up with it. So you're Chase Hughes. So you're you're, you're a master of influence and sales, and he's also a hypnotist and said take my presentation.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, he does a lot with the government. Maybe not FBI, but he does a lot with government.
Speaker 1:He's the guy that has all the seizures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saved his website.
Speaker 1:It's pretty illuminating, right. So I said you're, chase Hughes, take my presentation and tell me where I have areas to improve. And it came out and it said you took 13 minutes to get to the point. Now, granted, it was a friendly conversation with somebody that already knew, but I'm like I just want to get better, and so you know, I think that I think AI will continue to get better and better and better, but, at the end of the day, the person on the other end that's buying is still a human.
Speaker 2:Yes, you still have to treat them like a human, but it definitely, I mean it's helped me in sales. I use one that video records every one of my calls. I can you know it grades me on engagement of the person. How well their eye contact is where I lose them. And if I say something goofy I mean it'll show the engagement drop. It'll say exactly what I said. I can go click it in the video and be like, oh yeah, that was kind of dumb.
Speaker 1:Why did I say that? What's the dumbest thing?
Speaker 2:you've said some. I've said some wild shit, like a lot of the guys, and because we do a lot of self-development and life development, so I'll get a lot of guys that reach out. I guess I'll just say it on the air, because we all make mistakes. There was one time I was just going on someone and like when I get in this mode, like I know, when I'm on to something and I'm really trying to help and I'm like I feel it emotionally because I just black out and say words, and this guy was just giving the objection, objection, but like his logical dude, I agree, agree, agree, agree, but the objection, like dude, you don't agree. Like none of that makes any sense. If you agree, we'd be doing this, but quit telling me who the hell you are, start being the person you want to be and start taking freaking action. And then he I don't know he told me his girlfriend or his wife or his mom or some dumb objection. Like I'm like, dude, you're just a fucking cuck, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Oh shit, as those words came out of my mouth, like my brain went you, dumb ass. And backed it up and I actually we ended up, you know, putting it back together and I really it was kind of one of those things that was extreme, that I mean I closed the deal, so I guess it just needed to be said at the right time. But even my brain went you dumb ass, why did that come out of your mouth? But it's, you know, a lot of times on my sales calls, if I'm thinking too much it's not a good call, it means I'm trying to be too logical, I'm not connecting with the human, it's just hey, we're having a conversation, I'm blacking out and you know it's funny a lot of people like dude, you're, you rip people, you're hard on people. I'm like, yeah, but I mean it.
Speaker 1:Like that's what they're paying you for. They're watching Andy's content like it's not always.
Speaker 2:I mean he's nice and loving, but it's pretty intense. It's like, dude, be the man that you said you're going to freaking be and, if not, like that's what they want, they don't. They don't want always that nice, perfect down the line. And you know I sell salespeople, so if I started going down a simple sales path, you're going to immediately get it. So I've said dumb shit like that. Um, I'm trying to think of something where I've just where it's gone haywire. I'm pretty good on my call, so I don't say too much crazy stuff. I usually, if I'm kind of ripping into someone and trying to get that emotion to pop, that's where I'll get a little. And I don't say nasty because I really say it with love. But you know I'll say whatever the hell's on my mind. For the most part I don't filter what comes out of my mouth gotcha.
Speaker 1:It's pretty rough. I think it's bad.
Speaker 2:I tried I actually cut about that cursing. I do it a lot, I do it a lot yeah.
Speaker 1:And my business partner doesn't, and so we've kindly disagreed with each other on that A lot of times. You've got to read the room a little bit better than I do at times, like the guy that was in my office today. We all had lunch and we opened for prayer and and I made sure that I never cussed until he did. When he did, I was like all right, cause I'm look, you know six years in Marine Corps. I talk like I was in the Marine Corps. Your, your army, going Delta, you're going to talk like that, look. I always say, look, if Tony Robbins can do it in front of the stage, I'll do it too.
Speaker 2:See, Tony. So I had a client reach out to me about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, and it was on my podcast the one that we're going to transition now and kind of do this new format but not say for society. It's literally me saying whatever's on my mind. No-transcript. I love your podcast. He goes. I could never let my kids listen to it.
Speaker 2:I'm like all right, I am kind of dirty, and then it was, I don't know, a week later or something. I'm listening to something Tony Robbins and he does curse but not that it's kind of his.
Speaker 1:They're pattern interrupters.
Speaker 2:Michael Bernhoff's the same way, yes, but when he dropped it like, I've never heard Tony Robbins say oh shit, I need to pay attention. Now something real is happening and it changed my entire mindset. But when I say fuck, it's just normal part of it, it's an adverb verb noun, like.
Speaker 1:Wherever I need to use it to you know, it's better than I'm, I guess I had a wake-up call, god, in 2012, and I was running a, the sales organization for a large company, and and I'm I'm the guy right, I'm, I'm the, the guy in charge of the entire company on that side, and I'm having a conversation with one of the guys. We're we're kind of like bro talking, and I'm talking, he's like, hey, I got my kids in the car, you're on speakerphone. And at first I was like, well, I'm not the guy you put on speakerphone, but what it really helped me with was understanding like there's a time and place for all of it. So, you know, as as I I'm this, I'm contradicting what you just asked me a minute ago, which is almost like I'm having a moment myself where I'm going. You know what? I deserve to clean it up a little bit better. Um, and that's been my commitment and I failed that commitment more than once.
Speaker 2:See, and I go back, I go back and forth on it so many times because part of me is like dude, it's a fricking word. The only pain to a word is what you give it. And no one's ever said fuck shit, bitch twat, like you know George Carlin's deadly words, or whatever they call him Like.
Speaker 1:I can't remember, but that's the time and place for it. He's also George.
Speaker 2:Carlin. He's George Carlin, but like they've never heard me, I've never heard any word ever.
Speaker 1:And I think to me a lot of it's a mindset because I'm the same way.
Speaker 2:If you're on the street and someone's Like if he says something horrible, maybe my wife kids threatens them. I'm going to do something.
Speaker 1:Well, threats, threats different than just talking shit. Say what you want, talk some shit, I'm going to smile.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk some shit back, but if you're such a bitch that you've got to go to throwing hands because of another man's words, I don't even care who wins the fight. You're a little bitch because you let him get under your skin Right words. But it's also like I believe in this. I believe I've got a pretty good message. I work in the coaching space. I think you know there's a lot of people that maybe want to hear my voice or that I can potentially help in life, and by cursing a lot, some people are just going to miss it and not even listen to the value I have, because you know I say poor words and you know part of me wants to call him a bitch and part of me wants to be like, all right, like, does it make me better of a man to curse?
Speaker 1:would it? Would you better serve your customer if you didn't?
Speaker 2:see, I go back because and I think it's a disciplined thing for me, I think I have to be disciplined enough to root it from my language and, you know, find replacement words, because there is a time, like when I quit cursing. You know I'll drop some ums occasionally because I'll try to like oh crap, don't, don't say fuck, don't say fuck, don't say fuck. And like it'll be on my mind Because when I go to that, like I was saying that blackout thing, it's just, it's whatever's coming out of my mouth, it's just right there. We're locked on, we're focused, we're feeling what they're feeling like.
Speaker 1:And I'm not filtering, so I filled out a form, or however it is, to get on your calendar. And we're talking, and you're dropping the F-bomb. Then you start going hey, what do you do for a living? And I say I'm, I'm in the ministry. You lost me at that point didn't you?
Speaker 2:No, you're going to lose them at that point.
Speaker 1:I'm asking because I'm also learning at the exact same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I agree with you time and place but it's like you know, how do you know exactly? Because there's so many dang times where or it's just hard to turn off, especially if it's part of your language, and it becomes that because then you have to act. I'm assuming that you talk this way in front of your kids too. I, I curse in front of my kids, I, I, like I said, say whatever's on my mind. So I'm very I make a lot of.
Speaker 1:You're preaching to the choir right now. Yeah, I make a lot of, like you know sexual jokes and stuff around work.
Speaker 2:I'll say some you know quote, unquote, gay stuff or whatever you know with just fucking around like guys do. So some of that I'll filter from them because I don't want to have to explain something. I'm like, oh, we'll be open with you, but you're going to like, you're going to find out about that by yourself. Um, but like, yeah, I curse around my kids, and it's the same theory I have.
Speaker 2:Like I'll even mess with my kids occasionally. The 14 year old is not as fun cause she doesn't back to me. But I'm like if anyone's going to bully my kids, it's going to be me.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like I want to. You know, have a little of that resistance, have a little bit. I don't always like it. I think there's the extreme of anything where you know you're picking on the unfortunate but shit dude. We growing up like with friends and I don't know if you would call it bullying, and maybe that's where the it's everything's got so confusing we would quote, unquote, bully each other left and right, all my buddies would be bullying each other, picking on each other.
Speaker 1:You know they're called bullying. Now, it wasn't bullying when we were kids. What they call bullying today is such a such an extreme yeah, the one I'm not okay with is the less fortunate.
Speaker 2:You know for sure you got a kid, he's poor, you know something like that and you're picking on him because of that, like dude, that's the less fortunate. But if it's your buddy, if it's not even your buddy, but just some jackass at school who wants to be a jackass, and you want to be a jackass, and you know, I think there has to be part of it, and then even the less fortunate, I go back and forth on, because you got Steve Jobs you got freaking Wozniak, you got Bill Gates, you got all these freaking nerds that now own all the bullies.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Would they have tried so damn hard in life?
Speaker 1:I think it was this guy right here who said A and B students work for C and D students. Yeah, students, yeah, it's 100, true, for the most part. But growing up like I'm growing up, you know, for me it was if you were friends, we we did things right, we we picked on each other, but we were just horsing around. Yeah, you know, we played a game called smear the query you can't even call it that anymore. Right, like you just did things. And now, like I hear my kids say, if somebody bullied this person, I go. What they do and go. That's not bullying, that's just fucking with somebody a little bit.
Speaker 2:So you know, I'm, I'm getting back to it. My kids are uh. They're starting to bring back some of those uh words. We can't say anymore the F word used to call your buddy oh, we still have a happy birthday. Yeah, we still do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. But so my kid had my youngest, you know, she's a middle schooler and I know the assistant principal because I reached out to him with the concerns when my oldest was going through school over there, and he is a rock star, by the way, out of all the administrators I've ever met in my life I won't say his name on air, but he's my absolute favorite. So my kids, my kids, so my kids, during lunch they're in the dugout and this is a kid that I put in jujitsu when she was 12, right, but she's the softest, kindest, sweetest soul, probably wouldn't smash a fly kind of girl. And as she goes walking by her friend, she taps her and her friend gets up and throws her backpack filled with books, hits her in the face head, ricochets against the back. She's got a little concussion. I'm like, did you stand up and level her? She's like no. I'm like, did you not defend yourself? No, and I'm over there going.
Speaker 1:Where did I fail you? Because you know it's. I believe that you have to always draw that line and you stand your ground. So that's bullying to me, but it was also just horseplay, you know. But I don't think the reaction If I got her side of the story, which I believe to be true, is what happened. I think it was a total overreaction. You know, I got my ass beat on a bus and I deserved it. You know, a buddy of mine I'm probably in middle school, high school A buddy of mine sits down in front of me on the bus and I box both of his ears and he turns around and he freaking just popped me right in the nose, beat my ass One punch, boom. I didn't fight back because I was like completely guilty, like yeah, yeah, you got me, you win. I deserve that. Totally different story.
Speaker 2:But growing up as a man and what we don't see in society today is people think they can say whatever the hell they want. When I'm about to run my mouth and say something stupid, I'm always judging how big are you? How much are you gonna fuck me up? How bad is this gonna hurt? Is that stupid thought worth vocalizing right now?
Speaker 1:yeah, but you just, you just said it. If, if words make somebody go to to throwing hands, you know I'm, you can say anything you want to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if you're screwing with your buddy like even screwing with my buddy I would always know like I might cross the line here. He's probably going to punch me in the face, right, I'm not going to fight him. No, I'm not going to hit him in the face here, I'm going to move on. I know my daughter. This was four years ago there was fifth grade and she didn't. She, she's a pretty big kid. Some boy was disrupting class and she's very focused, she likes to be in class, she doesn't like disruptions and the teacher was struggling so she grabbed the kid and threw him back onto the floor some boy and we ended up, uh, getting a little bit of note about it and teacher was kind of like, honestly, it helped out quite a bit.
Speaker 2:I was like oh yeah, good job, good job, kid. I got so proud. That was probably my most proud moments. But I think I don't know I see a little bit of school districts changing up a little bit as far as getting rid of the extreme. Like I grew up in the everybody gets a trophy era. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't, it was weird. No trophies, no participation trophies. You're either a winner or you're not.
Speaker 2:It was the same thing when I was getting out of the military. It was kind of, you know it was starting to. You know, I got out in 2016, early 16. And it was starting to even push that way is you know, where everybody was equal and they were starting to allow females into the combat arms. And I'm not against females being in the military, but in full kit, I'm 300 freaking pounds. You know I'm 220 right now, 210 right now-ish. You know I throw a 15-pound vest on, I throw my mags, I throw a weapon and let's just say I'm carrying an M4, another freaking 18 pounds, fully loaded like rucksack. All of that.
Speaker 2:I have not met many females that are dragging my ass out, and I also think the American female we live back to being the greatest country in the world. We're not in a country where we're constantly at war. Now, some of the females in Israel they're bad ass shit. They can fight. They may not be big enough to pull out a man, but you know they can pull their weight when it comes to fighting. But we've lived in a first world country. That's been relevant. I mean, even with the wars that we've had. We've had, we've been at peace since, really, vietnam.
Speaker 1:Well, the wars have never been on our turf either.
Speaker 2:No, the wars have never been on our turf, so we've never had a fight.
Speaker 1:But you've heard that analogy Hard times make hard men, hard times make good, hard men make good times. Good times make soft men, and so the cycle continues. And we're in that cycle. Hopefully we don't. I think we are probably in soft times and hopefully what we're going through right now will keep us from having to go softer and feeling a big implosion.
Speaker 2:So what do you think about all the bullshit you hear on the news? Like nothing in particular, but we're always focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict, I guess that's supposedly maybe over Ukraine, russia.
Speaker 1:Show me your opinion and I'll tell you which news channel you watch. I'm a total believer that they call it programming, tv programming for a reason because it's hypnotic. And you know, I've got family that adamantly disagrees with my beliefs and I've got family that agrees. My my younger brother told me at one point a few years ago this, right as covid was starting, don't ever talk to me again. And he meant it at the time and he was on speakerphone. And my youngest is in the backseat and she's like dad, he believes that stuff because they hear it in our house.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, I think that I think that the days of Walter Cronkite and that was a guy that came out as a news broadcaster and he would read the sheet in front of him this is what happened, and I think that Ted Turner, in my hometown of Atlanta, killed journalism, and what I mean by that is he put satellites up that had 24-hour news with CNN, and so they did the news then in the morning, in the afternoon, lunchtime, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, then you had the national news, then they had to fill in all that rest of that time with with cnn, yeah, and it became opinion and they went from being news broadcasters or news journalists to opinion talking heads. And I watch different channels, you know, like, I have my channel choice, um, but I'll watch the other side to see you being a csnbc guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah no, um, that's.
Speaker 1:That's a hard one actually to watch, but I do my best to watch. I watch a little CNN, I watch a little MSNBC. I watch a little CNBC. I don't even watch the CBS, abc, nbc, and as a kid it was always like NBC was my favorite. But I'm more of a right-leaning guy, yeah, more of a right-leaning guy, more of a constitutional conservative, but I'll still see. It's all talking heads these days, and I think the Native Americans say it best left wing, right wing, still the same bird, and so it's just. I think that part of it is the art of war divide and conquer. We're so busy fighting with ourselves. It's like it's the shell game. One of my fraternity brothers every time something happens, he goes. You've got to look and see what really just happened when World Trade Center got hit and imploded. What happened to Tower 7? By the way, remember Donald Rumsfeld came out the day before and said we've lost trillions of dollars, and then nobody talked about it ever again.
Speaker 2:Nope, that disappeared quick.
Speaker 1:Right, where'd all that gold go?
Speaker 2:World 7,. Yeah, right, but again.
Speaker 1:it's the shell game. Like you're distracted with the big picture over here but meanwhile something else has happened over here and nobody's paying attention to that. Did that answer?
Speaker 2:your question Was inside a little bit. You seen that new Netflix documentary.
Speaker 1:I have not.
Speaker 2:There's a ton of people that have told me to watch it.
Speaker 1:I'm not, but I love conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2:I don't believe half of them. I don't know. I'm starting to believe more of them.
Speaker 1:You see my, my shine, hiding my, my tinfoil hat, you know, and it was an interesting day, that's for sure. But to answer your question, I don't know, neither do I. I don't know. I mean, there's the story, I'd love to believe there's no way, I'd love to believe there's no way and that it wasn't. But the stories just don't really match up, like where has another building ever dropped?
Speaker 2:Did you see that building that was hit in Russia two, three weeks ago?
Speaker 1:No, the exact same type of thing Exact same type of building.
Speaker 2:plane went. Building's still up.
Speaker 1:Was it a giant plane like we had filled with fuel and whatnot?
Speaker 2:All that good stuff. No C4 or anything in the building.
Speaker 1:There was a zeitgeist movie or something, and it literally showed what looked like implosions and detonation as it went floor to floor to floor, did you?
Speaker 2:hear the recording of the fire chief as he was going upstairs. I don't know if I did or not. Oh gosh, I forget. I think it might have been Robin's podcast. They played it the other day, but he's going up. You know. 10th floor, everything good. Continuing up, 15th floor he gets all the way up to 60, everything good you know, continuing to go, know. I try to think what about the moon landing?
Speaker 1:You know I used to believe all in that it was real and I'm a little bit of a space nerd. I don't. I haven't seen proof yet to tell me that we were there.
Speaker 2:There's no way that shit's real.
Speaker 1:You know I think like people say with Stanley Kubrick Okay, cool, Look, we land on the moon in the 60s. We're now in the 20s and we can't go back.
Speaker 2:And China can't figure it out. None of us.
Speaker 1:Russia can't do it. And yet there's more technology in both of our Apple watches and people used to say the Timex Like back with the Iron man. We probably wore in the military Yep, that Timex Iron man had more technology than the Lunars and the Apollos and whatnot. So did we go, man I?
Speaker 2:I like to hope so, but I'm not very confident that that's real. Yeah, I don't know, I used to, I, and I think it's part of just my beliefs and maybe waking up and maybe I just, you know, try to find something to entertain myself. But oh and when I can't believe anymore, like I'm just like, ah, there's no freaking way, like russia would have done it, china would have done, like there's something there that somebody wants, like what's going on? And you know, even Elon, like he's trying to go to Mars and stuff, like well, why is he not talking about the moon? Why is he just I think he's talking about the moon too as well. Do you mean trying to get there?
Speaker 1:Maybe we're moving in. Florida is not far from from all the launches. You ever seen them when?
Speaker 2:they're flying over the Phoenix sky from California the Starlings oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So when the world first shut down during COVID, remember, there was no air traffic. And here, you know, in Scottsdale and Phoenix, there's a lot of air traffic and a lot of it looks like it's super high up and it's cross country. And I'll never forget I'm hanging outside in my hot tub and my wife's brother calls. He's like dude, are you outside? I go, yeah, and he goes, look up and look up to whatever direction it was. And all of a sudden it was like they were in these rows, One would come across and then another would come across in a different lane and they were going like either in threes or in twos and they were so reflective to me it was like the coolest thing.
Speaker 1:And then we were up between, uh, up in Oak Canyon, between Flagstaff and Sedona. I took my kids camping up there and I'm, I'm hanging out, the kids are doing a thing and I'm sitting in a hammock and you could see, look like it was probably the international space station because it was a high orbit. And as it goes by and like, I see Starlink's coming low orbit and I'm just watching as they're supposed to hit, but they kind of miss each other. I'm like this is the coolest shit, dude. So yeah, I'm stoked about that.
Speaker 2:First time I ever saw it. I was driving, I was working Central Phoenix, north Central Phoenix, and I'm driving back on the 101. I was living out in Peoria, west side of Peoria, and I started seeing them come up and, first thing, I'm a paranoid bastard. I'm a paranoid passer. I'm like what the fuck? Those are rockets, because they've got the tail, they're great as shit.
Speaker 1:I'm like that's. Oh, you're talking about the actual launch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the actual launch. I'm talking about the satellites themselves, no, no, no, I'm talking about when they launch them. Oh, those are so cool, so they're bright as hell and they've got that halo effect. As they're clueless, start googling shit right now, and then, you know, it takes her five minutes. And I'm kind of freaking out. I'm 20 minutes from home. I'm, you know, probably doing a little faster than I should have been, because I'm like how much ammo do I got? What guns are? Where are they at? Okay, we're good there. Um, and then, yeah, she figured out it was starting like five minutes later. I'm like, all right, that's pretty cool. But, yeah, the first time I saw it, I was I thought some shit was going down. I was like, oh cool, it's starting. Wishful, wishful thinking. Yeah, they're here. Yeah, good thing, I already know the neighbor's house I can take over. That's going to be sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll say it on there. I've got a running joke. There's a certain culture that's always prepared. They have a food storage. I'm like you know we don't have to have food. I've got thousands of pounds of ammo, so I'm just going to go take stuff as I need it to be protection.
Speaker 2:I know exactly what house. It is Right exactly. You probably got a no firearm sign or maybe a certain political sign a couple months ago.
Speaker 1:My wife has a sign in our window that says rednecks live here. You're going to hear the Lord's Prayer, some other stuff, redneck country music and we'll say amen, or something like that. It's hilarious that she actually had that in her window for years. I like it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:You can see throughout the house. I got a couple random things just randomly placed there and it's like it's art and I was like it's not art, it's not art now, so what?
Speaker 1:well, we make, we make me ma. You know JD Vance talking about his me ma had guns in three different. You know, I've got these big boxes that came for handguns and a couple for rifles and these are fully loaded. I can't wait to be a TSA and be like I want to check this, I want to check this, I want to check this. You know, and they'll be like okay. So the moving company told me we won't load ammo but we'll load car parts. So I have a couple thousand pounds of car parts and I've got to put stickers over because each box is loaded or is labeled currently with what caliber is in the box. So you know, these Mustang parts might be 9mm and that part might be, you know, 308s or whatnot.
Speaker 2:When the military moved us, it was the same thing they could do firearms, you had to do a little bit extra, but ammunition at all. I had a good amount of ammunition. So they also told us hey, we can either pack your boxes, or if you pack them, we'll just load them. Make it a little easier. I'm like perfect, I love it. So, yeah, each box, just had you know, a couple little things maybe hidden in it. Well, I found a company.
Speaker 1:During, uh, during covid, I found a company that did a subscribe and save like auto ship for ammo. And people like, are you stockpiling for for that stuff? Like no, you have toilet paper, like no, but I've got you know, 500 worth of nine millimeter that showed up. Or 40 cal that just showed up. And yeah, I realized like I had all these, all these cool guns, but for some of them I never had the ammo. Yeah right, like a 357 or 44 mag, I've got a couple of those and like I've got plenty of ammo for them now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I pretty much I'm the same way. I have a few guns that I don't carry ammo on, but I've got a bunch of .45, a bunch of .9, a bunch of different types of .223 or .556, whatever parade it is.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you like guns, I might have a couple, a couple. Yeah, I only got two. I lost mine in a boating accident yesterday.
Speaker 2:What do you think of people carrying?
Speaker 1:I think everybody should, should 100%. But if you're trained to, trained to, you know, one of the things I love about living in Arizona is that we're a concealed carry state Shit. We're carrying however the hell you feel like carrying state Right as long as you're not in a bar, you know, or you know like. So I I volunteered at my church for a long time for security and the deal of the church was you weren't allowed to carry for the first six months and I had to go take a class which was a civil, civil liability class and the guy training. It is not true. He helped write some of the gun laws here in town and he was like people.
Speaker 1:Someone asked, like what happens to go into a restaurant and they serve alcohol. He said if you're not drinking, carry. And you know, if you're drinking you might want to consider leaving your, your handgun in your car. I don't drink, so I carry pretty much everywhere we go. I may or may not be carrying right now. I respect it Right. But you know I'm a, I'm a believer, like my, my 18 year old. You know my kids both know how to shoot. My wife knows how to shoot. I bought her a handgun for like a good old redneck for Christmas a couple years ago and then she didn't want to carry it right.
Speaker 1:I bought her this badass little sig and she didn't want to carry it. And then a couple years ago she's like I'm ready. Well, while she wasn't carrying it it was like this little teeny sig, I was carrying it forever. And then she's like I'm ready to carry it, like Like, oh man, I got to give it back now. So I went out and got me a new one, similar gun. But I was talking to one of the guys I do jujitsu with. That's a cop here in Scottsdale and we're fairly close, and I said my kid's not old enough to have a gun in her car, but the car's in my name and when she drives her grandfather's car in Florida there's a handgun on the car. She, florida, there's a handgun on the car. She may or may not know about it. So what are your thoughts on, on the legality of that? He said what's your car?
Speaker 2:She just happens to be borrowing it, so she may or may not have a gun going with her down to college here. I had a interesting experience with Scottsdale PD by accident a month ago. We were just coming back from the rodeo, the Cape Creek rodeo, okay, and right there on that street you come up and I'm not going to name it, but the one that comes into the neighborhood. You know, normal street, straight, double lane frigging pretty wide. There's a car just parked in the dead center of the street, lights off. I do a slow drive by, I don't see anybody in it, but it's just it's parked in the lane, not pulled off to the kids off, uh, kids and wife off at home and I'm like I'm gonna go check that out you know, my first thought is maybe someone needs some medical attention, that might be something.
Speaker 2:And then the paranoia creeps in. That could be a setup, same thing as that. So, anyways, grab a gun. And I was wearing just a regular pair of shorts, I was being lazy, I didn't want to holster it, so originally I tuck it into my pants and I do a drive by. The vehicle again brought a light looking. Okay, I don't see anybody looking in the bushes. All right, it looks pretty normal. Pull up in front of it. My wife called the non-emergency line and typically the non-emergency line is going to be 45 minutes to an hour. I'm three minutes into this, so I started approaching the car light and I realized if something goes wrong.
Speaker 2:I'm not holstered, I don't, you know, it's a little bit looser, like the gun is not going to pull well, so I pull it, you know, put it behind my back, just holding it in my hand, and all of a sudden a car starts pulling up and I'm like, okay, let's let him drive by. This is goofy. I'll explain the situation and also the blue lights go on and I'm standing there in the middle of the street, you know, semi tactfully, tactfully, approaching this SUV with a gun in my hand. Cop gets out and uh, you know, I immediately just stop. I'm like the fuck, like literally, I have my hand out, knuckles backwards, so he can see that my hand is open, nothing's on the trigger. I go, uh, in my right hand he just weird, pause light goes over. He's like oh, uh, yeah, put it on the ground. I'm like, yeah, no problem, dude, so puts it over.
Speaker 2:Uh, he comes over and talks to me a little bit, told him hey, my wife's the one that called this in, we were just doing. He's like well, why are you coming up to it with a gun? I'm like, well, my first thing is to make sure no one needs any medical. But you know, I'm also paranoid bastard, so if anything goes wrong, I want to be armed. He's like well, what would you have done if something was wrong? I'm like I don't know, we didn't get that damn far back off, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, then he has another sergeant come up and it does a little bit of the scare, just like dude, did you even really think about?
Speaker 2:this like what if it was an ambush situation? What are you gonna do by yourself? Like, honestly, you know pretty good shot, like I would have taken the risk and well, you need to let us do our job. Like, honestly, I'm 100 on board with that, I go. The problem is it wasn't a 911 emergency, so we're not going to waste that resource and I go. Maybe once or twice in my life we've called the non-emergency line and it's always been 45 minutes to an hour.
Speaker 1:I was like good for you guys for actually showing me.
Speaker 2:It's like, honestly, the only reason we were in this part of town is because we were doing a speed trap up the street and he's like I just happen to be here. He's like normally we don't show up that quick, of course, all right. So, yeah, they, you know, took the gun for a minute, you know ran my stuff and I'm like, dude, you can search my car, you can run my idea for us I go. Yeah, the minute you pulled up, I realized how fucking stupid. I looked in the middle of the street with a handgun in my right hand, like I quickly realized.
Speaker 1:But yeah, good guys, they let me go and, uh, no real issue.
Speaker 2:And you know my, my wife was thinking it's gonna be a five minutes there and back and ended up turning into 45 and it's because you were stopped and detained.
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I'm dealing with them, like my cell phone's not that fucking important. Like she can wait and figure this shit out, Like would you just talk to her here she's calling, just tell her I'm like, okay, I'm just a kind of detained here with the police.
Speaker 2:So I'll be a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's like what I haven't been arrested, but I I usually have a handgun in the car and I've been pulled over more than more than once, and I always say the same thing you know, sir, for your protection, or ma'am, for your protection and for mine, I won't let you do.
Speaker 1:Let you know that I do have a load of handgun and it is wherever it is. And I got pulled over in front of talking stick years ago for speeding it was. It was the Arizona state patrol or or highway patrol, whatever they call it, and he was like what are you out driving? I said I was driving some drunk friends home. He literally took my ID, threw it back and he goes you're not the fish I'm hunting for, get out of here. And I've done that with every you know.
Speaker 1:I got pulled over doing 92 in a 65 in Florida last summer by the Florida State Patrol and I was like hey, you know, here's where my gun is and he's. As long as you don't try and touch it, I'm not going to touch it. But what I've noticed every time I disclose it with a handgun except for one, I've always been let go with a warning. I think they appreciate it. They also pull far over, put all the windows down, turn the inside lights on cars off, keys are on the dash, hands are at 10 and 2. I don't move until they tell them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hands up there so they can see it man yeah, just do what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2:And I've had as a kid I had a little bit of a law enforcement interaction that went stupid, but I don't know it went stupid. But other than that, every time I've been pulled over I mean here in arizona, I've had great experiences. The handful of times I've been pulled over, they've all been respectful, um, you know, all been pleasant to be around, even you know, joke around a little bit, because even your one time where, yeah, like I was just joking with the guy the whole time and he was still able to freaking laugh at me a little bit Once, once the situation cooled down at first it was tense- Well, you hear there's a story I can't remember.
Speaker 1:The guy's name was Ryan. Guy was playing video games with his girlfriend and neighbor downstairs called. He was pissed that they were talking, laughing and playing games. He calls I think it was Phoenix PD and he's like you know. He's hitting her and all of a sudden they get the boom boom, boom, boom, boom and he opens the door with the gun and they go drop it. Drop it and he goes to put it down. As he goes to put it down, he gets lit up and killed right there by the PD. So that's my like at our house. We've had some weird noises at our house. Don't know if it was happen to come in the house. It's a bad day for them.
Speaker 2:So the day after my little incident we get a knock on the door, probably 830. It was still probably a couple months ago because it was dark by then and 830 should not get a knock on the door. Who the hell's knocking on my door? Like you know, like we have cell phones nowadays, fucking text me, if you're right. That's weird when people knock at your door without a text. And, uh, so first thing I do, I go grab the gun and, you know, approach the door and I, you know, peek to the side of it and there's a scottsdale pd. I'm like, oh, I fucking know you're the guy yesterday. So now I'm standing there again, gun in my right hand, like, all right, I'm gonna slip that in my pants this time. Open the door. He's like, hey man, uh, I, and I don't know how this happened, you might have dropped it, but here's your ID. I'm like, oh, that's nice dude. And chatted with him again, went through it, but I was like that could have gone a little bit different, could be really bad.
Speaker 1:We were almost in the same situation.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you know about it but I do, but no, super cool people. So talk to me a little bit, because I do want to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a digital marketing agency and we're kind of a full-scope agency. So, whether it's driving organic, seo, paid ads, development, we have everything in-house except for video, audio, post-editing stuff like that. Okay.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you about this, because I mean everybody and their mom right now is a marketer and a fucking ambassador or whatever the hell it is you get 400 DMS a fricking week on Instagram with these great marketing agencies. If someone's like going out, like, cause I'm in business quite a bit, I'm always looking for like what are you looking for in a marketing agency? Like what would a client want? Type of questions they would want to be asking to see if you know it's bullshit.
Speaker 1:You've got a book on your shelf. I won't point out which one it is, but the COO of that company was in my office seven weeks ago and he said you know, michael, I've hired X number of marketing agencies since I took over. What makes you guys different? And my belief is this Like as a military guy, you'll appreciate this. You're looking to see which one it is.
Speaker 2:You're going to figure out which one it is, as you're'll appreciate this.
Speaker 1:You're looking to see which one it is. So he said you know what makes you guys different. I said we start with a battle plan first. Most agencies, I believe they start, jonathan, by looking at we'll just spend more ad spend and that'll illuminate where the challenges are. That'll show you where the where the holes are. I think that's total, utter bullshit, because most agencies get paid on percentage of ad spend.
Speaker 1:So we do is we start with a four to six week engagement where we're not doing anything yet except we do a lot of audit. We basically start we understand where you are right now, today, where your desire is, and then we reverse, engineer a plan with knowing the entire lay of the land. So we recon everything. We know what your cost per million is, cost per thousand for paid. We look at Google, facebook, et cetera. We're looking at organic reputation, but understanding what the client's desires are, then making sure that it's got to make sense before it makes dollars. And so we literally come to the table and say here's, you know, here's your desired, here's your desired, you know, pinnacle of your desire, goals. Here's where you are. We believe, based on data, this is what it's going to take to get there. And if you've got another team that can build that stuff, have them go build it. If you want us to build it for you, because we've got a whole dev team, several dev teams, we'll build it for you.
Speaker 1:And what I found is that and this is an ambiguous made up number, but it's 90% plus of our clients start there and I think that's one reason why we have such a high retention rate. Typical agency, typical marketing solopreneur has a nine month span with a client. We've got clients to stay with us three, four, five years and beyond and it's because we deliver. We under promise over deliver. You know it's, I've been. I got into digital marketing in 2004. This thing called Google AdWords and a guy that I was working with my my wife was a college cheerleader and her best friend from college had just started dating this guy who just retired from a semi-pro soccer team and he started in our business with us. And one day I said you know, you're just getting these killer results. What are you doing? And this is how long ago. This is 04, right, this is 21 years ago. He goes I'm buying keywords. Nobody even knew what a keyword was Like.
Speaker 1:Google AdWords was a brand, was a fairly new thing. And I go what is that? And he goes you know, it'd be easier if I just showed you. And he said I'll be at your house in 10 minutes, ready for me. He rolls up in his brand new S 600 Mercedes.
Speaker 1:So he definitely went out and rewarded himself for his new, newfound wealth with Al Gore's internet and within within like 10 minutes I'm getting 25 cent leads. I'm getting a hundred dollar conversions that were equaling thousand dollar sales. Do the math, how many dollars are you going to put in if you're getting a 10 to one return on ad? Spend All of them Right, spent, you know, quite a bit of money doing that and saw good results.
Speaker 1:And that was really for me. It was like it's like giving a crackhead their first rock. I was like wait a second. Um, you know I'm, I would like this internet stuff, I like this computer stuff. I was kind of drawn to him but I wasn't nerdy or smart enough to be a coder, a programmer. That stuff bores the shit out of me. But if I can take it like sales to me has always been a sport I love when a client says no or a prospect says no and then months later you're walking out with a signed contract going yep, I won. But it's always, you know, I don't want it to sound like it's all about me. I'm always a service first guy.
Speaker 2:Like if I could, but it's still an adrenaline rush.
Speaker 1:It's a huge rush and it's even a more rush when you close a client and then you're doing a call with them and then you're hearing the results they're getting from it. Like to me, it's just became such a big deal to watch people get kick ass results and I take immense pride in that. You'll appreciate this. You know our philosophy inside our company. Easy is very much Marine Corps ethos. I don't know how it was in the army, but very much Marine Corps ethos. I don't know how it was in the army, but in the Marine Corps it was job number one is mission accomplishment. Job number two troop welfare. So we are obsessive about getting results for our clients and taking care of the clients and taking care of our team. And if you make me choose between my team members or a client, I'll pick my team. 10 out of 10 times we fire clients who abuse team members. I don't care what you're paying, you're not going to put our guys in the hospital. We've had that happen before, but with the agency now I'm involved in a couple of different businesses. We just started working with some partners. We bought into a digital marketing education company, which has been very rewarding for me watching people that don't know anything about digital. They're paying us, we're teaching them, we're training them and then we sell them a private label agency. So it's not a business in a box, it's not done for you, it's we teach you. And then for the early adopters, I support them. So I'm on a lot of zoom meetings with clients that are basically clients of clients and now we approach it Like if you bought an agency, a private label agency from our education company, you're my client, your clients are not my client. So you continue to have the relationship with your clients and you build that trust and I work with you to help you with the scope, with the project. Our team we have a dedicated team inside easy that does the fulfillment specifically for our education company, bright marketer, and that's been hugely rewarding is to watch these people that know jack when they start.
Speaker 1:And next thing you know there's like this lady walks in, she collects a $36,000 sale on her very first sale. She's a real estate agent in some small town in North Carolina and she put $22,000 in her pocket and she's like all I did was invite Michael to a couple of Zoom calls and I said, well, I'm training you, it's on the job, training, right, and so there's like stories like that super inspire me, get me fired up. I love what we're doing there. I'm meeting with, with clients of clients, tomorrow with the actual agency guys tomorrow, and for them it's probably all, all in all, if they get this contract deal from their client, it'll put six figures in their, in their, in their pocket. And my partner, who handles, you know, the recruiting side of that business because I'm obsessive about the agency side and helping them with, you know, contracts, fulfillment, stuff like that he said, michael, I think this is the biggest deal these guys have had.
Speaker 1:And I met with this company. This company's 20 plus years old. I won't tell you who the client is, because there's a good chance that most of your listeners have heard of them or something like that, but you know, just to see that super, super impressive. So there's the agency, there's the education company, and then the third thing that I did is my partner and I are in the process of acquiring a business that helps people save money on their energy bills. I mean, they're energy bills and it's a product that's been here in Phoenix for 40 years plus. Okay, thousands, tens of thousands of these devices put on homes and we're super, super fired up about that part. Probably take a guess on what that one is. Yeah, probably not. It's not solar.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 1:Not solar. It works with solar. It works without solar. We call it the solar killer. Okay, Um, but guys are in solar, probably would love to have this. It's not batteries, it's a. It's a device that that manages how your electricity is. So here at your home. Do you have a time of day plan?
Speaker 2:So like yes, kind of, we don't have a smart thermostat right now. No, you don't need a smart thermostat, we have a time of day plan, time of day plan.
Speaker 1:So this thing works ideally with those time of day plans and it turns. You set a threshold, so, like your size of your house here, you probably have two air conditioning units right. When that air conditioning unit turns on, there's a big extra spike. That happens and the APS or SRP whichever power company you have here looks at your greatest mistake during that window of the entire month. And so let's say you had a 20 kilowatt spike and they're going to look at that one mistake and that sets your rate for all of your usage for the entire month.
Speaker 1:So this is just a. It's not a load manager. It's not a smart thermostat. The smart thermostats are basically bullshit. I've have one at the house. Just took it off Saturday. I'm pretty proud of myself for taking it off Super, super. Not technical, even though I worked on helicopters, you know it comes to that type of stuff. But yeah, we're excited about it. We're starting to see adoption. We've got a door-to-door sales team that's working with us and now I'm working on relationships to get people that have trust with homeowners. Talked to a buddy of mine that I trained JITs with that has been selling a lot of these large homes. I said tell me the house right now, with most air conditioning units you sold, he's like six. We did a guesstimate on the bill. The bill was like probably 4,000 to 4,500 in peak months I'm like you're going to say 40%, that's 1,600. This device pays for itself in a year and it's got a 25 year warranty. So this is why I get fired up about it, because again we're saving people a ton of money.
Speaker 1:The guy that was in my office today used to if I say this, probably people could connect the dots, but his position is his position. He was the chairman of the organization that all the public utility companies report to and I shared with him this idea over breakfast in December. And I shared with him this idea over breakfast in December. We always meet up for breakfast, and breakfast with him I always say is 05 o'clock or 0530. And so I asked him yesterday if we could meet. He was like, how about breakfast? I'm like no, let's do 11 o'clock at my office so my business partner can be there.
Speaker 1:And as we were kind of walking through this, I showed him the device like a showing, showing Christmas presents in December and shared it with him today and I said would you, you know, would you see this being a value? Cause we didn't go into too much. I didn't go into too much detail in December Cause I didn't want to put him in a in a bad position in his role, and today he was like I think it's the most brilliant, most logical thing I've ever seen. And why is it not out there more Like? Well, that's why you're sitting in our office. I think you can probably help us figure out which direction to go and how to really get in front of the public utilities, because the reason there's so many here in Arizona is they started promoting this product back in the nineties. It was literally one device on the website. It's not there now, but I'm on a mission to make sure it gets put back there again.
Speaker 1:And here's the cool part you can pitch it if you want but if you can't talk, I won't talk about it yet, all right.
Speaker 2:You know I asked you after this thing for sure, Cause now you got my mind fucking going through a million different things.
Speaker 1:My business partner has one being put on his home. Saturday, when I get you know, for the summer I'm I'm in a rental for the summer, just to make sure I like the area, yeah, because, and so then come august, september, we'll put one on our house wherever we end up digging roots, if we find the right roots for there. Dude, I'll tell you this, I was sharing this with my go. I feel like I uncovered, like this jewel, because it's been there for a long time it's been in. This guy invented this product in 78. It's older than his kids it's a fucking tesla.
Speaker 1:It is. It's very similar Not really, but the algorithm is pretty cool. It's got suicide devices built in If you try and break the, we're in the 38th rendition of this device. And it's got a commercial application. It's got a residential application. It works in 77 residential markets. The solar guys are going to be frothing over this because it works with solar.
Speaker 1:I had lunch yesterday with a guy who pre-ordered a hundred of these with the solar company and he came in our office in December and said I want to renegotiate our agreement because after doing 70 of these in residential, he's like there's no money in residential solar right now and I really want to put these as standalones. And when the guys we were working with at the time agreed, and yesterday he's like how do I play with you and how do I play with you bigger, I want to put these as standalone on homes, no solar, because the solar business is only commercial these days. So anyway, I feel like a little kid kind of telling you what's behind. Pull the rabbit out of the hat over here. Anyway, I feel like a little kid kind of telling you what's behind. Pull the rabbit out of the hat over here. It's a cool fucking device and here's the deal. You're in sales yeah, every so every customer.
Speaker 1:The way I've designed this is every customer. We sitting at somebody's table or they're ordering it. It's a retail experience, like if you were to go buy a Tesla. You're not negotiating, the price is the price. One of my challenges with solar is that there's a red line, no different. In the car business. There's a red line and a red line and a red line. You came out of the car business. If you and I walk in the dealership, we make the same offer on the exact same car Not similar, but the exact same. That's stock number 6127. Your price is different than my price.
Speaker 2:Depends on how good of a negotiator you are or how tenacious your salesperson is, For, like you know, used car managers. You can ask a hundred used car managers the price of it or the valuation of a used car.
Speaker 1:You can get a hundred different answers, right.
Speaker 2:It's all just value or it's all opinion. A hundred percent, the only thing that settles is Kelly Black Book, Yep.
Speaker 1:And then you're still going. Okay, I can add 10% there. The buyer makes the decision.
Speaker 1:I didn't buy a Saturn with my girlfriend. I was helping a girlfriend shop years ago, long before I was married, and she was looking at a Saturn and I'm like we're fucking out of here, man. She's like why I go? Because the price is the price. I want to negotiate. I was taught you negotiate and you're willing to get up and walk from the table. Let me ask my manager yeah, go to Our whole thing.
Speaker 1:Is we really want to separate ourselves from that solar experience? My business partner's parents are just the sweetest older couple. His mom coded three times last year and was brought back every time. And if you want to see how incredible a human my business partner is, look at his mom and dad and you go. I know exactly why he's the guy he is. They're just. I couldn't tell you how great they are, couldn't stop. They got taken hard by some solar guys and so that's part of our internal motivation, cause I know what it did to them financially. It devastated them.
Speaker 1:So for us, we're like look, we want a retail experience where it's like ordering a Tesla. When I ordered my Tesla in 2015, I literally put in all the features I wanted, hit the buttons, put in a credit card and I was done. When I bought my car last Friday, same experience online. I decided to get me a little beach beater for Florida and the price was the price and that's kind of the experience we want to have there.
Speaker 1:But here's where I think, as a sales guy, you'll appreciate this I'm building what I call the wall of irrefutable evidence, and so if I go to buy something online, if I'm buying at Amazon, I know there's a return policy. My business partner is a former engineer, worked for Jack Welch as electrical engineer at GE, and he reads all the reviews Totally different buying habits, right Me, I'm squirrel, and if not, amazon takes it back. So what I thought was like let me do this at point of sale. If it's a salesperson sitting with them at their counter table, they download their 12 months previous bills right there and then every month, jonathan, you have a financial incentive with us to send us in a bill. Now we have year over year, january to January, because here in Phoenix, your your January bill or your.
Speaker 1:Your April bill is different from your May bill. Your May bill is so different than your June bill. So month over month isn't fair. But if you look year, year to year it makes a whole lot of sense. And so we have called our obsessive guarantee. We're obsessing that you're going to save money or you're going to live more comfortably. It's not always about saving money Like.
Speaker 1:I've learned a lot in the last two years that we've been working with the company is that, like you know, there's a lot of people that put their, their, their electric, you know their. Their AC goes up to 78 during the day and down to 72 at night or 74. That costs you way more money than just setting it at one temperature and forgetting it and even going cooler in the summer. So you'd enjoy it a little bit more, you'll save more and you're living better. You know so if you're three generations under a roof and I won't make it an ethics slur but if you're three generations under a roof and you're keeping it 78 in Phoenix in the summertime, you're sweating your nuts off Even at 78, right, yeah, because it's 100 plus degrees, 120, 115, 110 outside. You can feel it radiate through the walls and it was crazy about living here, but if you kept it at 72, 24 hours a day, you'll save money and you'll live more comfortably. So my whole thought is every time we make a sale, we download all 12 months. We're going to actually come out to your home two or three times a year. Every time we come out to look at the box and make sure it's set for the first year, we're bringing you dinner for two. Thank you for your time. And every time you get that bill, there's your face with month over month or year over year and next thing you know you go from a hundred, a hundred testimonials, case studies, whatever you want to call it to thousands and at some point you go. It's irrefutable, you can't argue with it. There's Jonathan in Scottsdale, there's Bob in Virginia, there's Sammy in Charleston, south Carolina, and all the other 77 markets. It's a game changer man. And as equally yoked and excited as I am about my agency and I have been I'm so grateful for what we've been able to create there and the longevity of it. I'm equally excited about this next game, because the agency is what really feeds the machine there.
Speaker 1:You know, we started doing Legion for the guys and we had the opportunity to work with the owner, the inventor, the mad scientist, and he'll tell you, his biggest Achilles heel was sales. He was so laser focused on his product 38 renditions since 1978. He was creating cash flow. Well, he didn't have to. He sold one company to Raytheon recently. He's got more money than he ever knows what to do with.
Speaker 1:He's like either you guys buy it or I'm sunsetting it. I don't want to sell to those guys. I don't want to sell to those guys. There's something about you and your partner. My partner talks to him every Saturday for two, three hours every Saturday. We got the guy to agree to sell it. He so we got the guy to you know to agree to sell it. He made us change a little bit of the structure of it. But all in all, man, I think that we're going to help a lot of people and the energy companies are going to love it because they're so overtaxed with grid capacity they have. They don't have the energy to put into the requirement of the grid pulling out, you know.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:You going to be looking for sales guys?
Speaker 2:for that I'm always looking for sales guys for that Cool Drop. What's the best way if people contact you? If they wanted to Instagram, facebook.
Speaker 1:I'm on all of them LinkedIn. Yeah, my agency's easyzeycom. It's a good place, but my last name, Hamburger. I'm easy to find. There's a lot of Michael hamburgers I found out because of the internet, but only I think one of them is bald and, and you know, in Scottsdale and soon to be Florida. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Cool man, anything else you want to talk about? We've been running an hour and 40.
Speaker 1:It's been a good time. I've enjoyed, you know. I'll just tell you I've been time before you go to Florida. I know we did a mastermind together for a while. I've enjoyed that.
