The Reality of Growth: Leadership and Transformation with Craig Carder

Speaker A: Hey, uh, y', all, this might be one of my favorite conversations that we've had so far, so I hope you love it. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever wondered, how do I build a business that lasts? How do I do it in a way that I don't wreck my family and my life? Because a lot of people end up in places where they're stressed out, worn out and ready to quit. Even when you're starting an idea that is kind of your dream, it can end up that way. On this conversation, I get to talk to Craig Carter from C3. And gosh, we get into everything, uh, going from being an engineer to starting an early business while getting married and having a child at the same time, growing that business over time and trying to figure out how do I do the things that I don't know how to do, like accounting and marketing and sales, and then how do I, uh, deal with the identity of being an engineer and then transitioning to a business owner, but not letting that be the sole identity that I have? We cover it all. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. Without any further ado, here's my conversation with Craig. Hey, Craig, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: So I'm super excited to dig in because you're the kind of guy that has a lot of technical experience. You've done all kind of cool stuff, you get to work with all kind of fun startups. Uh, but before we dig into all the details of it, let's back up to the beginning. Uh, every entrepreneur has a story and it starts somewhere. How long ago did yours begin and why did you start working for yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, actually we just hit our 15 year anniversary not too long ago, which was really exciting. And, uh, I actually started just by myself, um, as what I wanted to be is an engineering consultant. And, um, there's actually a funny story. I worked, um, as an engineer. My background is electrical and biomedical engineering and I worked at a medical device company. And we were doing a brand new product. And the director of that, um, project, he said to all the engineers, he gathered us all in a room and he goes, this, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be an engineer and to develop a new product. And I thought that was a little bit odd in myself. But looking at the industry and engineering, a lot of times engineers don't get to develop new products. They sustain products and make sure that they continue to work. I developed that product at that company I left and I developed another new product at another new company. And then I did that again to eventually a point where it kind of felt like you, you know, maybe I wasn't holding a job down too well, because every couple years I was leaving and finding a new job, and I'm like, well, this is starting to look bad. And then I kind of dug, uh, into consulting a little bit and be like, well, maybe I could do this as a career for myself. Start my own company, develop new products, help bring them to market, and just keep doing that. And so from what that director of that project said of once in a lifetime, I do 12 new projects a year. Uh, so really I just love that excitement of bringing new products to market. And especially in the medical device industry, being able to help save lives and help people make their lives better.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, congrats on 15 years. Uh, I always say almost nobody makes it that long. Um, the vast majority of businesses don't make it past one year. And almost nobody, it's like 10% make it 10 plus years. So 15 is a big deal. And, um, it's always interesting to me when somebody moves from a engineering type, tech, technical, tactician role into more of an entrepreneurial role. There's, uh, a great book that I read a long time ago called E Myth by Michael Gerber. He talks about all companies need three kinds of people. Entrepreneurs, managers, and technicians. When you're starting a business, you have to wear all three of those hats. And so talk about that transition a little bit versus working for a company and working for yourself. What was that like for you in the early years versus what it's like now?

Speaker B: Yeah, to be honest with you, it was messy. It was very difficult being a traditional engineer. Um, that's really what sold the company, was my reputation in the industry and being a good engineer, uh, being able to develop products quickly. But that was the only thing that I did well, as you mentioned, you need multiple roles. You need, uh, the sales, the marketer, uh, you need the accounting. Um, and I was doing none of that well, at one point when I started out, I was talking to some folks and they're like, well, how are you doing profitability wise? And I just would say more money is coming in than is going out. And that was my accounting. Um, so I really had to, uh, learn how to be an accountant myself and then eventually hire that right team to help out, learn how to do sales, learn how to do marketing, and then eventually bring those teams on when I knew those were my weaknesses. So it was a bit messy. Thankfully, um, I had enough of a reputation, uh, in the industry, uh, that it was able to keep me going for a while. I do remember specifically it was right around the 10 year mark and I started to notice, uh, the amount of projects that we had going on start to dwindle. And I was at a conference and during one of the breaks I was talking to a doctor and I was mentioning to him, we were just having a casual conversation about how, uh, the number of clients I had was starting to decline. And he goes, well, how long have you been in business? And I'm like, well, it's been about 10 years. And he goes, yeah, that's about how long it takes for your network, your personal network, to decline. He goes, well, because your colleagues retire, they change careers. And he goes, you're going to have to start doing something besides just word of mouth to make new projects come in. So even that whole process of learning how to bring in new clients was unknown to me at the time.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, my uncle used to always tell me, uh, everything's funny when you're making money. And in the early years it was the same for me. You know, I spent basically a decade as a contractor or using contractors. I worked for myself. I didn't have a full time team. And until I finally started hiring full time team members. And it's interesting thinking back on those years because it was always one of those things like what you just said, where you have enough contacts initially to just build upon that, but then at some point it does kind of dry up unless you're out expanding and building that network in addition. So one of the things that you mentioned, which I think is really interesting, is you talked about how all the things you had to learn that you didn't know how to do, accounting, sales, marketing, all the attributes of a business, you have to know at least the basics of them. Although I would say for my first multiple years, I'm not sure I could have told the difference between a gross margin and a net margin. But we managed to figure it out. And I did the exact same thing as you, ironically, which I think a lot of people out there do, which is you go, well, how do I just do better than I did last month? How do I do better than I did last year? And so I was, the person I was competing against was me. It wasn't some other figure out there. Um, as you start, one of the things you said was you outsourced your weaknesses. You may not say exactly that, but essentially that you looked at things, you went, okay, I learned as Much accounting as I can. I've gotten the basics down. I understand that I still have money left over at the end of the month, but I need somebody else to deal with the taxes and the bookkeeping and all these kind of things. So what were some of those areas that you said, you know, this is something I need to bring on a team for, but maybe not hire for. I can just outsource to another company or to an individual?

Speaker B: Yeah. And actually my business model for my company is very much an outsourced type of model. Even, um, my engineering team. So I'm at least up until about a year ago, I was the only employee that was in the U.S. um, my entire engineering team, which is about 35 engineers now, is all based in India. Um, and a lot of them are full time hires that work right for me and then some of them are hourly that we take on as projects expand. But starting out as a consultant, just myself, it was easy to cover the costs of just hiring myself working out of my basement. That was easy to bring on a full time bookkeeper, to bring on a full time sales and marketing person. It just wasn't in the books. And, uh, so the first thing I did was bring on a virtual cfo, which was essentially a team of, I have a bookkeeper, an accountant, a controller, all of that type of thing where I have just a basic monthly fee where they handle everything that I need. Uh, and so that covered that and then the next step was actually marketing. And that's when I brought on business builders. So, yeah, a lot of the model really is just bringing on team members for as long as you need them. I even have a virtual assistant that, that she probably works 10 hours a month for me. I don't need much, but every once in a while there's tasks that I just don't have time to take on. So I hired someone to do that for me.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, there's a great book that I love by a guy named Michael Hyatt called Free to Focus. And he talks about this idea of figuring out, uh, basically what am I really good at and I love to do. Those are the things I should fill most of my time with. Things I'm really good at and I love to do. I'm uniquely built for these things. And then arguably everything else should be outsourced to either a full time employee or a contractor. And interestingly, I ran my business similar for a very long time until I just couldn't run it any other way. Um, but the beauty of it is Is on the, on the outsourced side, you can't always bring in a team member to do all the things. And the accounting and the marketing are a great example of this. Because, you know, on the marketing side, it's not like you can have one person, people think you can, that's a unicorn that can do all this stuff. Because you might need a designer and a writer and a web developer and a hosting manager and a ad manager and a social media person and who can afford a half million dollar a year team at minimum, to really provide all the assets. Same thing on the accounting side. You don't just need a bookkeeper, you need a bookkeeper and a controller and a cfo. But almost no small business can actually afford to hire all those people. The overseas thing is one thing I'd love to tap into a little bit because I think people have a lot of questions about that and I think it can be confusing. And I think for years outsourcing overseas had this kind of a negative connotation. It was like, uh, in some cases it does. I think it's gotten a little bit different. But I always said, I'm like, look, we believe as Americans that we should help the world. I mean, I think that's a general thing that most people believe. And sometimes we just drop stuff and money on people and I'm like, I'd rather give them jobs to people wherever we can. And ultimately they're just regular people like me and you trying to provide for their families and use their skills and. And if we're able to provide stuff at a cost that m makes it possible for our clients to work with us that maybe they couldn't otherwise, it makes a lot of sense. But hiring that first person overseas is a little bit of a scary thing.

Speaker B: It is.

Speaker A: So how did that evolve for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting philosophy because you know here when you hire someone to your team, you're going to hire and, uh, I'll speak to engineers, you're going to hire a young engineer and you're going to train them to do their job. And then when we think about overseas, there's just this philosophy that I'm going to throw everything over the fence and hope it comes back the way that I want it. Well, that wasn't my model and I took time to find the right team members overseas and train them. So now when I say I have 35 engineers, it's not 35 random people. Uh, on the other side of the world, it's 35 engineers. Who have been trained, uh, do business the way that I like to do business, treat clients the way that I like clients to be treated, and do the things the way that I like to do them. So it took some time to build that team. But one thing that was actually very interesting, that, um, was extremely helpful is once I found a team lead over there who was trained and who I trusted. Now, if I needed another team member, it wasn't me who was virtually finding someone over there. It was this person that I trust, and she's phenomenal. She runs essentially the whole company. And I say, this is the type of person we need, and she'll go out and find them and bring them in. So I trust her to find the right team members over there. And that model has worked great for us.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Um, my first extended hires overseas was a developer way back in the day. His name was Salil. Awesome guy. Worked me probably almost a decade. Um, and I just got to a point where I'm kind of the jack of all trades. So I can do design work better than most people, but not better than most designers. I can write code better than most people, but I'm not building a whole app from scratch, you know? And I got to a place with a client where it was like, this is beyond my capability, but I'm confident I can find somebody who can do it. But at the time, uh, this particular client and myself couldn't afford what it would actually cost to have an American do it. And I found a guy in India to do the work, and he worked with me for a long time. It was awesome. We built a lot of cool projects together.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we actually grew the business kind of like you're saying, beyond my capabilities. So my background is electrical hardware and embedded firmware. And when you're developing medical devices again, 10, 15 years ago, that was all you needed. But now everything is connected. So it's got a mobile app, it's got a cloud connectivity, it's got AI, it's got machine learning. Uh, and that's something. A capability that I don't have. It's still in engineering, so it's still in my realm of expertise, or what it should be. And so once I built this team and we were building hardware and we were building firmware for that hardware, the next thing was to bring mobile app and cloud. And so Now I rely 100% on that team. And someone will ask me something, and I'll be like, I have to ask my team, because they know more than I do now. And it's been good.

Speaker A: One of the quotes that I love is from a guy named Andy Stanley. He does a lot of leadership stuff. He's also a pastor, and he says, as organizational authority increases, individual competency decreases. And that can be a hard thing for somebody like me or you who did. Huh? You know, kind of built our chops doing the actual thing, and then at some point you gotta go, yeah, but I can't do that thing. It's expanded beyond my ability. But that's the beauty of building a team, whether it's here or somewhere else. You know, at the end of the day, we're able to provide expanded capabilities for our clients that either of us individually could never do.

Speaker B: Yeah, and it's interesting when you talk about that, too, the things that you have to let go. Um, you know, as an engineer, engineers in general are very particular about how things are done. And I'll have something come from one of my engineers, and first thing in my mind is, I wouldn't do it that way, but it's still right. And so I kind of have to give that up and say, he's doing it right. It might not be exactly the way I want it to do, but I've got to trust my team, you know, to do the right thing and give a little bit of that authority up to them and allow them to do their job and allow them to grow.

Speaker A: So that's a really, uh, experienced, seasoned thing to say, because I think this is where a lot of leaders, businesses and entrepreneurs struggle, especially those that are bent more towards perfectionism or this is the way that we do it is exactly what you just said. And I always say, if you can find somebody that can do it 80% as well as you could, uh, that's way better than you doing it, because you just can't scale at a level. We all only have 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. So it's like, how are you going to solve for that? And they're never going to do it exactly like you. The question is, does it solve the. The issue for the client? Not is it done the way that I want it to be done? And I see a lot of folks running companies, running teams who get caught up with this, and it's like, yeah, but that's not how I would do it, so I'm just going to do it myself. Because this is the lie we've been told for so long is if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. And that is not true. The best companies in the world are not run by one person doing all the things. They're run by teams with many skills, talents and abilities.

Speaker B: And you're limiting your team when you do that because now them trying to be a good employee, they're trying to translate it into your language, which is not necessarily their gifting. And you want to let them flourish in their talents and not try and flourish in your talents. So it's a little bit of a challenge. But you can see your teams grow if you give them authority.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And give feedback in areas where you do need things to improve. But at the end of the day I think some of your kind of role or even in mine, the best thing for a season is how can I do the first 10% and the last 10%, everything else in the middle, how can I delegate that out in some way? One of the frameworks I love to teach people when they got too much on their plate, I call it the dad's framework and it's D A D S. Uh, delete. What can I delete that doesn't actually need to be done? What can I automate that can be automated? Which today the answer to that's more and more and more what can I delegate? Whether it's an in house full team member or contractor doesn't really matter. And then what can I schedule to do myself? Which matters a lot. One of the things that you mentioned that uh, as you were talking through things that the team had skill, uh, set and abilities in that maybe you don't is AI machine learning. There's nothing hotter right now than AI in the marketplace. So I'd love to hear from you on how it has already impacted your business and provided opportunity and kind of what you see in the future as it relates to AI in a practical application that actually matters for people to that might be listening.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the medical device industry, when it comes to AI machine learning, there's been a long evolution and the uh, medical device industry typically lags behind everything else for obvious reasons is we can't jump in and make decisions or have AI make decisions for medical applications and things like that. But um, the evolution of medical devices is very interesting and I always think of starting with a thermometer, like when you have a thermometer and when do you take your kid's temperature is when they're feeling sick. And so that's med devices at its core is when it started and then more and more as technology evolved, even like with fitness trackers and things like that. You're actually recording information 24, 7. And not so long ago, maybe less than five years ago, everyone was saying, even in my industry, when we started to get into developing apps and cloud solutions, they were saying, we just want to collect all the information. Well, what for? We don't know yet. We just want to collect it. Prior to AI, everyone was collecting this information and researchers were out there trying to say, well, what are connections between trends that we're seeing in data that we're collecting? Um, and they were learning things from that. But still our human brains miss things. A nice addition of AI is it can pick up trends that we might miss. So we're seeing a lot in the industry. I've seen a lot really pop up recently when it comes to imaging technology, like looking for tumors, uh, pathology. There's a lot that's happening there with AI where the machine learning is looking at images and finding things potentially that doctors are missing, uh, which is huge, um, because it can likely detect something before we would normally be looking for it. Like, it'll tell you to give your kid, take your kid's temperature before you know they're sick. Um, so the evolution of it has just been really phenomenal, scary, a little bit at the same time, because at least with respect to the fda, uh, they always want to have a clinician in that diagnosis loop. Um, and that's really been a big pushback is we don't want to have technology that makes a diagnosis. We're almost there. But we always want to have information going to a clinician, and then the clinician who's qualified makes that diagnosis. So there's a really big, I don't want to say a storm brewing, but at some point, especially with doctors as well, they tend to have high opinions of themselves, uh, and their expertise. To have a computer making a diagnosis versus them, it's going to be a little bit of a challenge. We'll see how that goes.

Speaker A: It was interesting. I was actually at an event the other day, and there was a guy I was talking to who's a radiologist, and he was talking about how they use some of this technology to, to just basically help expedite. And so instead of him spending being able to do. I don't remember what the number was, but let's say it was 100 scans in a day. He could do 400, you know, because it's automatically identifying something and he's just basically validating. Yes, he's going, yep, that looks right. Yep, that looks like. I'M not sure about that one. Let's pull it to the side. And so all of a sudden, he's able to move at a pace that he couldn't move at before without putting any more hours in. He's actually able to accomplish a lot more. That, like, machine combined with a human capability, I think, is where the magic is.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you do need to keep those two things together. There's really an interesting story. Um, it probably is. Almost 10 years ago, uh, technology came out. It was the digital stethoscope. And essentially, with just like a typical stethoscope, instead of hearing, uh, an audible signal like doctors do, it actually plotted it out on a screen. And from that, you could actually diagnose arrhythmias much more simplistically. But it never caught on, because doctors, they have that classic stethoscope around their head, which they listen to patients, and they just have a knack for hearing certain things where they weren't willing to let that kind of interfere with their training and what they had learned. So your point is actually very valid of saying, well, I don't want you to take me out of the picture, but if you can make my job easier, especially with all of the data collection, the interviews, a lot of that stuff is now being automated through AI, and now the doctors can do that one thing that they want to do. And for instance, with that stethoscope, the one thing I want to do is I want to hear the heartbeat. All the other stuff, yes, let's automate that. But the most critical aspect of my diagnosis, I want to be a part of that. And so we're seeing a good balance there so far.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, 100%. It's super interesting, like, where all this is going to go in AI land. So as a business owner, not even necessarily specific to the work that you do, but just in general as a business, what are the things you think people should be paying attention to in this AI world? Uh, of the future?

Speaker B: I mean, that's a really interesting question. I think one thing that we have to pay attention to is to kind of stay with the trends in what's happening, because we see that in our culture in general, when there's a new technology come out, everybody gets excited about it, but no one seems to know what it is. If you ask deeper, probing questions, they're really unsure what's happening, uh, with AI. And AI has such a broad scope, um, really determining what your business and what your industry can gain from AI and kind of digging deeper into what that technology is, um, and not losing touch with what you're doing. Uh, there's a fear, actually, it's very analogous to what we were talking about of overseas, um, staffing, is everybody thinks, well, I can throw it over the fence to India and I'm going to get a product that I want. And now it is. I'm going to throw it to AI and it's going to do exactly what I need it to do. But that's not the case because AI is still something that technology that has to be taught, um, by humans and programmers and coding and all that sort of thing. So you have to know your space to know if you're getting an effective result from whatever AI solution you're looking for.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. One of the things I've been saying is I think one of the most valuable things for any leader or business owner, entrepreneur is to have somebody on their team who is AI curious. Um, it doesn't have to be the leader, owner, entrepreneur, but they need somebody on their team who is that person? Because, um, in my case, that is me. I'm a technology early adopter. I'm the guy that stood in line for the iPhone for hours back when that was a thing. Now they just ship it to your door. Um, and I love it. I love the tools, I love playing with it. And what does this make possible? And I think in these kind of environments, what happens is people have one of two emotions. They either become very scared about the future and they become very uncertain. Especially in our world in marketing land. It's like there are some really great AI tools that can automate a lot of the work. And some people go, well, that's going to take my job. And I'm like, I mean, maybe eventually, but the reality is right now, what's going to take your job is somebody else who knows how to use AI, because they're going to produce a better result and they're going to produce it faster, faster. And it's the machine plus the person. It's where the magic is. But I've been saying for a while that the three times in my life where I thought this changes everything about everything. The first was the Internet itself. I'm old enough to actually remember when you couldn't type in www.I was a kid, but still, and then you could, and that changed everything. The second, I would say, is the iPhone itself. When Steve Jobs announced that, I thought, this is revolutionary for good and for bad. In some cases, like, there's been a Lot of negative as a result of these devices in our pocket that connect us to everybody all the time. But there's been a lot of good, too. And then the third is this whole world of AI. And you made a good point a minute ago, which is the term AI is a very broad thing. People have been using AI for a long time. Arguably their mapping system on their GPS is some version of an AI. It's just not what they're seeing today in some of these generative platforms. But is there anything else that you think on that topic before we kind of transition that people should be paying attention to or that you think, um, has unsettled you or what excites you about it? Anything in that category?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you make a valid point when you talk about early adopters for AI. And I'm in a much more cautious industry, um, with Med device. And I think people in general need to hesitate a little bit when it comes to anything medical, because I can go on AI right now and say, here's my kid's symptoms and it's going to. It might actually, I think Google might not even be allowing that yet, but I'm sure very soon it will. It's going to make a diagnosis or speculative diagnosis. And we just have to be a little bit thoughtful there because I'm sure you've played with AI enough. If you add a few different keywords, it can give you a different result.

Speaker A: Yes. Garbage in, garbage out.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. So just being a little bit more hesitant in certain areas. If you're asking AI what's a great restaurant to go to tonight, when I'm feeling hungry for Mexican food, that's perfect. But when it's a diagnosis for your kid, you know, maybe use it as a reference, but still call your doctor.

Speaker A: You know, it's not a whole lot different, though, than, like, searching for your diagnosis on, like, WebMD or something like that. At the end of the day, what I always find is it's like, okay, I got this little thing, I'm searching on the Internet for it, and the end result is you're going to die. Well, I mean, we all are. It's just a question of how soon. I'd like it to be farther away than sooner. Um, think. So, thinking back on business, you've been in business for a very long time, and at some points along the way, you had to have thought, I'm not sure this is going to work, or I don't know if I have what it takes or what am I even doing. Shouldn't just go, I'll just go get a job somewhere. Everybody thinks that at some point, if they've been running their own business long enough, what were some of those. Maybe one of those difficult moments. And then secondarily, how did you get out of it?

Speaker B: Yeah. And to that, I would say probably on a fairly consistent basis, I feel, um, am I doing the right thing? Should I get a job? The one good news is I'm the type of person that fear motivates me. So making sure my family is fed, I am up at night. Being a business owner, sometimes it is hard to sleep at night, but that is a good motivator. Um, so, yeah, that is something that comes up quite frequently is, am I doing the right thing? Another motivator is I don't know what I would do anymore because as you've mentioned, I'm not who I was when I started the business. I was an engineer. I don't know if I could be hired as an engineer. I wouldn't hire me as an engineer because so much of my expertise has been broadened and about being an entrepreneur, uh, so where would I go again? Is a little bit of a motivator. But yes, frequently it comes up often of, am I doing the right thing? More often than not, for me, it's related to, um, you know, the bottom line is there are those times where I'm like, wow, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay my employees this month, or I don't even know if I can pay myself. And early on, there were a couple of months where I was like, I can't pay myself this month. I can pay my employees, but I can't pay me. Am I doing the right thing? And so it is a struggle. And how you get through that and I think is a little bit of, you know, as I mentioned, motivational fear is like, I want to get through this. I want to persevere. I want to press in and make this work. Because I feel like this is called, um, if you feel like you're in the place that you're supposed to be. At its core, even those down times, you know, you still just continue to press in and, you know, run the race to win and just press through it, stay up a little later, work a little extra harder, and somehow you pull through. You make a few extra phone calls, you send out a few more emails, you just try and get things right. And, uh, somehow it just continues to. Continues to work.

Speaker A: And this is it. The thing that you're Referring to specifically, if I had to put a pinpoint word on what causes some people to last in business and others not, it's perseverance, it's the willingness to go, this sucks. This is really hard now. What needs to be true to get to where I want to go, it's having a vision for the future, which gives me a direction of where I'm going to head and then locking in on that. And the other thing I always talk about, I don't know if you resonate with this at all, but I always say everybody needs four people in their life. Somebody to look up to, somebody that you're kind of learning from, somebody to stand beside you. People who have experienced difficult things and understand it. Someone who's looking up to you. I think that when we get the opportunity to teach other people, whether it's speaking at an event or whatever it may be, there's real value in that. And the last is somebody that believes in you. You don't believe in yourself. For me, in the early years, I remember, uh, I almost did quit. I went to work for my uncle in the insurance business for six months when I was probably 21 years old because I didn't think I could grow this thing. I didn't think I could make it work. And my wife believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. And her encouragement is what, uh, took what was a multi thousand dollar business back then to make it a multimillion dollar business now. So I don't know if that resonates with you as far as the people around you, but what kind of impact have people had on you?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think that's so true. Actually. It's funny, uh, because I'm actually going to be, uh, preaching a sermon this Sunday at our church and it's on, um, you know, identity. And um, we live in a culture and I think even we have taught ourselves that. We really, we try and self identify, we try and say, this is who I am. And a lot of times, um, we're a very poor judge of ourselves. And I have young children and I coach a lot of youth sports and there's a lot of kids who think they're different than they are. And it can be in a positive and a negative way. Some think they're better athletes than they are, some think they're not good athletes and they really are. We need people in our lives that we trust that help us uh, get that identity of who we are. Like you said, that close friend who tells you, no, this is who you were made to be. Um, and even from a spiritual sense, um, you see that a lot in Scripture. A lot of people were called out by God. Here's who you are. Even when their thoughts were contrary to that. And so really, a lot of our identity comes from who's around us and how we're connected into community. And less of sitting in a room by ourselves and trying to decide who we are, because I feel like we miss the mark a lot of times. We undervalue ourselves that way.

Speaker A: So let's dig in on this identity thing, because I love where you're headed with this. Um, there's a talk that I do about building a business that lasts in the beginning of it. One of the things, the data that I point out is entrepreneurs are three times more likely to end up on medication for mental health. They're two times more likely, uh, to commit suicide, and. And they're significantly more likely to get divorced. And in this book that I read where the data came from, it's called the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. They didn't pontificate on why that's true. But I believe that the reason is identity. And I think that what happens is business owners and leaders and entrepreneurs place their identity in the business. And most businesses fail statistically at some point. And so if the business fails and our identity is rooted in that, then they're a failure intrinsically, and then nothing else matters all of a sudden. And so talk about this idea a little bit. We'll do a little sermon prep. You know, since you, uh, got to preach on Sunday is for you. How has that evolved? Because it's easy for identity to be in who we are, what we're capable of doing, what our title is, how our business is doing, by whatever definition, how many. How much money we're bringing in, how many team members we have, how many clients we have, who are those clients? That's easy identity stuff to lock onto. But for you, what does that look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very thankful that I've had a good group of men in my life that have invested in me and we've invested in each other. Uh, that's been extremely helpful. And even practically today, I'm part of, uh, an advisory group that's, uh, a group of small business owners that we, you know, it's very lonely at the top. That's true. You really have no one to confide in. And when you sit in a room with a bunch of men who are telling the same challenges, same difficult stories that you're having, it kind of gives you a little bit of peace. Um, and actually I remember very, very recently, I, um, was actually hiring. Um, it was going to be a new hire, the first US new hire. Essentially another me is what I was trying to do. So I'm in a phase right now where I'm trying to grow the business. And I realized that I was becoming the bottleneck because everything was going through me. So I wanted to hire, uh, someone else. And, um, I had this candidate that I had interviewed and he seemed like he was a perfect fit. Um, he had the experience, um, I actually to a point where I gave him an offer and he took the offer letter and he's like, is it okay if I review this with my attorney? And I'm like, no problem. Of course he came back with some, um, comments on it that seemed a little bit of a stretch, but I kind of said, well, I'll compromise on a couple of these. Um, I gave it back to him. He went to his attorney again, came back with more red lines and said, based on how this is set up, um, if I'm ever let go, I want a six month severance guaranteed in the contract. And I was kind of like, wow, this is. And at that point too, I was really close to, I mean, if he had agreed to the contract, I would have hired him that day. And it just so happened that that came back and I'm like, you know, let me think about this a little bit. And I had that, um, meeting with my advisory group and I kind of told the story to the, you know, small business owners and I was like, I think I'm going to rescind the offer. I think there's, there's just something that doesn't feel right about this. But I feel foolish. I feel like I've given this guy an offer and now I'm going to pull it back. I mean, first of all, that feels terrible. I don't know where he is in his career and he's already making plans, plans. Um, but everyone in the group was like, you're doing the right thing. And even one person said, he's already pulling in the lawyer today. What about when something goes wrong? That's the first person he's going to call is that lawyer. It's going to be nothing but trouble. And I left that meeting just feeling so comfortable and confident because of getting that insight. And again, I'm trusting my own self by myself. And that's difficult. And I know I could have made a bad choice. But then when you have a kind of A band of brothers around you. It, uh, gives you confidence to make those, those wiser decisions. And I don't know if I deviated from your question at all, but, uh. But yeah, that's just what really came to mind.

Speaker A: No, that's exactly right. And I think this is so important. I think it's true for everybody, but I think it's especially true for men. And the reason I say this is I think that women in general, and this is, this is stereotyping. But I do think women in general are, are better at community. They're better at making friends, they're better at getting together in groups. They're better at doing things in groups. And men tend to be a little bit more lone wolf, especially when somebody who kind of classifies themself as an entrepreneur. Those people especially end up being lone wolves. And I think it ties back explicitly to the mental health issues and the dangers and risks there. Because we're not meant to be alone. Um, I mean, I always point out, uh, regardless of what people believe, uh, spiritually, in the Bible, one of the first examples that I give is it says, God made this and it was good. God made that and it was good. God made man. And he said, it's not good for man to be alone. It's the first time he said something was not good. And then the other thing that I love, and you talk about this with your peer advisory group, is there's a story in the Bible where there's, uh, a man who needs healing and needs help, and they want to take him to Jesus and they put him on a mat and they tear off this roof, which I can't imagine, like, they literally tore off a roof. And these four guys lower their. This other guy down to see Jesus. And the example that our pastor always gives in the context to this, it's really for everybody. It's not just for men. The question he asks is, who are your corner toters? Who are the people when the rubber hits the road, when things are not going as planned, when you're trying to make a difficult decision and you're not sure if you're right or not? Um, when your marriage is on the rocks, when your business is on the rocks, who do you have that's going to carry your mat and take you back to Jesus? In my case, that's the way that I would want it to be. And I remember myself probably it's been a while now, 10, 15 years ago. Um, I couldn't make you a list of those men. You know, maybe There was one or two, but there weren't enough to carry a mat. Mac needs four people, you know, and that has. My wife has been a big asset in that because, uh, she's the one who's kind of pushed me towards, hey, you need a band of brothers, like you said, who will help you get through these seasons. And now I can make you a big long list of guys who I could call at 3 in the morning and say, I need help, I made a mistake, something's wrong, and they come on the way, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's a big deal.

Speaker B: Yeah, you need that guy who can you call at 3am when you have to take your wife to the hospital and someone to watch the kids. You need that person in your life. And yeah, I feel like I've lived that way a long way, thankfully, just for the community. I remember, um, I was meeting with, um, an individual and kind of in a discipleship relationship. And uh, he was very interesting because he was very, very intelligent. He had his PhD, very socially awkward, just generally, but a great guy. And I remember I was meeting with him one on one. We'd get together before work, we'd go to a McDonald's and we'd get a coffee and we'd sit and chat and we'd talk about life. And one thing that I always similar to your four corners. I'd always challenge him. I'd say, you know what, you need a one up, one down. And you need someone who's investing in you and someone who you can invest in. And so I was like, hey, I'm investing in you, but I want you to go find somebody that you can invest in. And he just uh, latched onto that. And it was funny. It was like a couple weeks later, he's like, craig, okay, I got these three guys I'm meeting with him now. And this is someone who just having a conversation at the start was a challenge for him. Um, but then he started to get in community. And what he's doing now is this socially awkward individual is teaching high school science. Um, and he just has evolved just because men speaking into his life and again, his probably self identity and where he was maybe a little bit introverted was because that's who he thought he was. But then he surrounded himself with a group of men and said, no, you have more to offer. You have gifts that can be released. Not only are you bright, but I can tell you care about people because you're investing in all these guys in your community. And it led him to now speaking to probably the most challenging group of people on the planet to communicate with if you're a little bit uncomfortable as high school students. But he's flourishing in that.

Speaker A: I love this. This is exactly what I'm talking about. And this is why I do this podcast, is because so many times people are so worried about how do I just go make more money. And look, money is helpful. It provides many nice things, and without it, life is more stressful. There's no question about it. There's three reasons marriages often fail. Money, sex, and in laws. And so money's 30% of that. So it's a big deal, no question. But it is not everything. And having those right people around you. I love the one up, one down thing that you talked about, uh, is critical because. And I put not nearly enough value with this in the early years, and if I had, I would have accelerated my growth. So what I'd love to talk about now, thinking on that context is a lot of people go, okay, well, that makes sense, Jay. That makes sense, Craig. But where do I find it? Where do I find those relationships? How do I do that? So where did you find your peer advisory group? Where do you find these other guys? How do you find your one up, your one down? So talk about that a little bit.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, really, you know, the sky's the limit, really, where you can find that community. I mean, when I started meeting, um, one on one, it was through church community. Um, and I met, um, back before I was married, back before I met my wife, um, I was meeting with men from church. And usually it was just one on one. And it was, go get coffee in the morning, go get lunch, meet each other for lunch and just hang out and chat. And really, I think, uh, sometimes when people talk about churchy type of things, it gets a little scary. And even you're like, oh, I meet a guy from church. You're like, oh, oh, well, you're sitting down, you're studying the Bible. I don't know the Bible. It's like, well, actually, we don't do that much at all. We just talk about life, what's going on in life. And then usually at the end of that time, we're like, hey, how can I be praying for you? And it's like, that's when, kind of honestly is when you're the most vulnerable. It's like, you know what? Hey, it's been great chatting with you, but here's something that's been hard lately. Here's something that I've been struggling with. And, you know, once you communicate that, you automatically have someone in your corner. Cause that's what that person is there for. And so meeting with someone, finding a church community, um, and then through small business. So I'm part of Entre Leadership Program, which is a Dave Ramsey program. And that's my advisory group that. Who I meet with there. Um, but to be honest with you, it could be a college buddy. Um, it could be anyone. I have a friend who, many years back, was struggling in his marriage, and he just called me up one day and like, hey, a lot of things are going on. It's not good. I'm like, get in the car. Come to my house right now. And he hopped in the car, he did that. And he stayed with me for a few days and just sat with him and talked through things and tried to encourage him and help him process some difficult things. So really, it's just finding someone saying, hey, do you want to get together at some regular interval? It could be once a week, once a month. Let's just get together and talk and figure out life.

Speaker A: I love it. Uh, um, I love ENTRE leadership as well. So shout out to those folks. Um, I've known a lot of people there for a very long time, and it's had a huge impact and influence on me and on my business. And we wouldn't be who we are today without those folks and those teams. And, uh, I just love it. The other one is C12. I spent a lot of time in C12. So there's some of these groups out there that people can go find, uh, that they can just go sign up for a thing. And a lot of times I'll see people. I don't want to pay for X, pay for Y. And I'm like, I promise you, some of these, either events or mastermind groups or peer groups, whatever you want to call them, um, have provided exponential return for me. Not just, um, in dollars, but also in relationships. And, um, I think this idea of men especially, you know, I heard this thing the other day, and it said, if you're 90% known by somebody, are you even known by them at all? And it's like, well, that's really interesting thing to think about. And then, uh, the other thing I heard was if you. If you're not fully known, you can't be fully loved. And I see so many guys who are like, well, I'm just, you know, I'm just going to make some more money and get the right watch and the right car and the right house. And the right. Whatever. And it's like, man, those things are not going to fully and finally, finally satisfy you. They'll be nice for a while. There's no question. I like nice things. Um, but at the end of the day, it's getting the right people around you.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's hard, too, because a lot of times we'll all go first to our spouse and we think, well, I have someone, I have my wife, I have my husband, and I have an amazing wife. And she speaks into my life. But I think the longer you're married, I think the more my wife misses things. She gets so used to who I am that she misses those details. Um, that she could speak into my life. And also, she's not a guy. And so she doesn't quite get how my brain works. Where a group of men do.

Speaker A: We think a lot slower and a lot simpler than women do.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. And also, too, I think just the way that we interact with our spouses. And I hate it that it's this way. But my wife could say something to me and I'll go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then five minutes later, a guy will tell me, and he'd be like, you're right, I should do that.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. So how long have you been married?

Speaker B: Uh, so My oldest is 15, so 16 years.

Speaker A: I'll put a pop question. So you got married and then you started the business, like, right afterwards?

Speaker B: I did. So we had my second. So I have three kids, um, and my second was just, like, six months old. When I started the business, I told my wife, I'm going to quit my job. We actually just bought a house. We were living in the Boston area. We just bought a house. And, uh, she was like, go for it. And, uh, so, yeah, I'm thankful for her.

Speaker A: That's awesome. So let's talk about that a little bit. Being married and being an entrepreneur can be a little bit tricky sometimes, because I don't know about you, but for me, I started my business even before I got married. So I've been married for 21 years. Uh, and I started the business 25 years ago. So, um, sometimes I have been accused of being, uh, married to the business, rightfully so, because it can easily become a version of a spouse and. Or a child. Um, and often neither one of those things are healthy, especially when you have this other relationship where you've actually promised to a human being that you're going to be with them their whole life. And how do you nurture and care for that? So, um, what are some things that you and your wife have learned along the way that have helped you navigate running a business and staying married?

Speaker B: Yeah, it has been a challenge. I mean, it really has been a blessing, but it maybe started out as a challenge, is what I'll say. M so my wife, um, was stay at home mom. Just recently, just in the past couple years, she went back to work, ah, kind of to live out her passion, but she was a stay at home mom, which, as you probably can imagine as an entrepreneur, is scary. Um, I am the breadwinner. I've got to make this work. One of the challenges was, um, the business not being where you expected it to be at a certain time, because we had a vision of what life would look like when I had my own business. Being an entrepreneur and what that was and kind of one, um, focus we had with entrepreneurship, which I kind of chuckle to myself when I think about it, is flexibility. Oh, well, I'll be flexible. You know, I'll be able to work from home. And even kind of like we talked about meeting with guys, you know, that was a passion of mine. Like, you know, I could meet with guys and off times I could go to their work and meet them during lunch and I'll be flexible. Um, that didn't happen as you'd like to think it did.

Speaker A: I laugh only because I have experienced said feelings.

Speaker B: Yeah. And financially as well, because you're coming from stability, you know, regular paychecks and you're like, well, you know, I think I could be successful and I can actually make more money than I did when I was working my job as an engineer. And an engineer is a bad place to start from because it's the most stable, really good salaries. I mean, it's a very comfortable place to be. And like you said, do you think about some days going back to that? Some days I do because I'm like, wow, it was nice having that consistent paycheck. So, yeah, there was a bit of that struggle and we had to have a lot of conversations about this and being like, hey, this is for now. But here's where I see this going. Um, and it really has been a blessing. One place that I see that is I feel like I'm there for my kids. I can now be there early on when they were really little. And in hindsight, it probably was the perfect time when the kids were little, I might not have been able to be around as much, um, because I was working. Um, but now that the business has grown and it's stable Um, I can be there. I see all of my kids get on the bus every day and I'm there when I get off. They get off the bus every day. I go to sporting events. And a lot of times, especially my kids are in middle and high school. Those sporting events are like 3 o' clock, and if I had a 9 to 5, I would miss out on those. But I get to be there, uh, and I get to be a part of what they're doing. And even more recently, I'm thankful that I could turn the tables on my wife and encourage her because her, her gifting is caring for babies. She was totally a baby mom. She loved that phase of life. And now our kids. So our youngest is 11 and our oldest is 15. And you know, as what happens when, when they become teenagers, they feel like they need mom and dad less and less. And so we really feel like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they feel a lot of things.

Speaker B: They know everything at that stage. Right. And, um, so we were really mindful and prayerful of, hey, what is your second act? And, uh, an interesting thing kind of guided that for us. So my, uh, so I go daughter, uh, son, daughter in the breakdown of our kids. And my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter are both dyslexic. So they struggled. We kind of found this at a very young age. They struggle with reading and very bright, both of them. My oldest is straight A student. Um, but, uh, my wife, being a passionate mom that she is, and we had to learn a lot about what it meant to be dyslexic. Um, she took a one year training in learning how to teach kids with dyslexia so that she could help our kids. And through that she found that passion for teaching. And, uh, so proud of her. I might even get choked up when I talk about her. But, but she went back, she. Very quickly after that. I remember she finished the course. And, um, it was around Christmas time, I think maybe it was like three years ago, um, she got a call from someone at a private school that teaches kids, specifically with dyslexia and adhd. And they were offering her a job and to teach reading to these kids. And we're like, well, thinking to ourselves, you've been a mom for all this time, how do you feel about this? And she just was so encouraged about doing it. Um, two years later, she's now a dean at a, uh, private Christian school. Trying to instill teaching every child is really, the philosophy is they want to make sure any kid that walks through their doors, no matter how they learn, if they learn differently, that they have a place where that they can learn. And, uh, she's just started that job recently in that role. So from stay at home mom in two years to being a dean level at a school, um, because of her passion, uh, and I just was so, so thankful that we could, I could encourage that in her and. Cause she's now like that entrepreneur. She's taking on something totally brand new. She's like, I don't know if I can do this. She comes home a lot of days saying, I don't know if I can do this. And me knowing her and being like, I think this is what you were made to do. So, uh, it's been such a blessing in the recent years for us to see that evolution in my wife and my business is stable. So I can kind of step back and say, now it's your turn. Go get them.

Speaker A: You know, I love how proud you are of her.

Speaker B: I am, I am.

Speaker A: Um, a couple things, many things. I had like 80 notes on that one section. One. We have a lot in common, which is probably why I'm enjoying this conversation so much. My kids, my youngest is 11, my oldest is almost 20, which is crazy. Um, and my, uh, second son has dyslexia. Turns out I probably do too. Um, at least some version. His is a little worse than mine. Um, but the flexibility thing, I think a lot of people start a business and they think, I'm gonna have more freedom, I'm gonna do whatever I want, nobody telling me when I can work, where I gotta work, all this kind of stuff. And it's like, yeah, but you have to make enough money. And obviously people work for three reasons, primarily freedom, money and purpose. And usually when you're starting something brand new, you got a lot of purpose in your heart of what you're trying to accomplish, but you have no freedom and no money. Um, and eventually you try and figure out how to balance those things over time. Where now you've reached a point where things are a little bit more stable. You can kind of adjust the levers for any of those three things depending on the season. And the second act thing matters so much. People that are listening, who especially are in that 40 plus category going, what does the second half of life look like? What is my halftime in season? What am I going to do for the rest of my life? And I think it's incredibly important. I love how. Because I've been thinking a lot this with my wife is she has homeschooled our kids her whole Life. She is. People are always like, uh, are you a teacher? I'm like, yeah, she's a teacher. She's taught five children, five different grade levels at the same time for, like, I don't know, 15 years, you know, um, but at some point, they're not going to be there anymore. And there's a million things she could do. But I'm constantly thinking in my own head, how do I help nurture that? So I'll have to call you when I get to that place.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: And we'll navigate through it. But, um, gosh, I just love. I love your heart in it all. I love how proud you are of your wife. I love the honest reality of people listening, going, I'm starting this new thing and I don't feel like I have any time or money. And it's like, yeah, that's normal.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Welcome to the game.

Speaker B: It is.

Speaker A: And you. The question is, do you have the endurance and the ability to change and adjust over time to get to a place where it is stable? It takes time.

Speaker B: And you do build that muscle over time because, you know, like you said, are there ups and downs? Absolutely, there are. But the more downs that come up, you build resistance to that or resilience, and you can fight through it. And it does come up a lot. And you pivot and you adjust and you scramble and you figure out how to make things work. And I feel like you grow from that and, uh, it just leads to next opportunities. Um, yeah. And that's kind of the fun part. I don't think that's why I could do anything else. Is there is a passion associated with it. Not just the industry that I'm in at Med Device and helping people, but really, um, seeing something grow, seeing, you know, that I'm hiring people, I'm giving them an opportunity to work. Kind of like you said early on. Uh, and just seeing, I think to myself, oftentimes what I'm doing didn't exist without me kind of taking that risk and making it happen. And it's, you know, there's a certain level of, uh, you know, encouragement in just thinking about that.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think exactly what you said matters a lot for people to pay attention to is it's kind of like if you're not hurting, you might. If it's not hard, you might not actually be growing. I mean, the analogy I always use is if you go to the gym and the next day, you're not sore at all. It's like, did you even work out? Like, does it even matter, because the reality is I don't want to be so sore the next day that I'm debilitated and I can't walk. But I want to feel it. I want to know that the work that I did yesterday is going to pay a benefit of my health, my growth, all those kind of things. And business is the same way. It's like, if it's hard, good. Like that means something. Something's. You're learning something and you get to choose. Am I going to learn from this thing or am I going to be debilitated by it? And I think one of the things that Dave talks about in Entre leadership is this idea that pretty much anybody who's successful is just standing on a big pile of failures. Over time, we've had all. Both of us have had exponentially more things that did not go the way that we planned than the things that have. But it's perseverance and consistency that wins the day.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I've heard this a lot, and you and I obviously listen to a lot of the same podcasts and read a lot of the same books. But, you know, they talk about, you know, CEO, successful CEOs, and I remember hearing a talk on, um, there's a thought that's where this came with kids and really just encouraging kids. And I don't want to speak positively or negatively about one because, uh, I, you know, I coach a lot of sports, but give every kid of a trophy so that they're confident, so that they succeed. Well, they're kind of learning that it's not the confidence that comes from the reward, it's confidence that comes as a result of the failure. And growing that muscle is why those CEOs, uh, succeed. Like you said, it's that mountain of failures. And so sometimes you gotta let your kids fail so that they can persevere and get through it. That's how they grow and mature 100%.

Speaker A: I always say, as a leader, one of our biggest responsibilities is to create an environment where people have the opportunity to fail, just not fail catastrophically. Ironically, I think that's actually true of parenting, too. It's good to let your kids skin their knees every now and then. It's good for them to, like, do something and go, oh, uh, that kind of hurt. I don't want them to end up, you know, in the icu, but little scrapes every now and then is actually good for them. So, uh, one of the things I'd love to transition to and just talk about a little bit is success. In business, we've talked about difficulties, we've talked about trials, we've talked about overcoming these things, how they apply in marriage. But what's the time where that you can remember, maybe it's recent, maybe it was a while ago where you kind of gave one of those like behind the scenes fist pumps of like, this is gonna work. Like, I'm doing it the thing, I'm doing the thing. Tell me a story about a situation where you can think of that you thought this is going well.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I'm very, being an engineer mind, I'm very slow and steady, kind of wins the race methodology of how I do things. Um, and maybe this might not be super exciting, uh, as far as a success, but, um, I like to build up a financial infrastructure, if you will, of how our life looks. And I remember getting to a point of where from our family standpoint that we had gotten out of debt. We had, uh, an emergency fund in place personally. And then I remember getting to a place where I had six months of retained earnings for the business and it was the first time that I felt profit came in. And it's gonna sound weird, but it was like it was mine, you know, the business, everything was covered for the business and everything on top we could use for what we needed. Whether it was like paying down our mortgage or saying, you know what, we're going to invest in this for our family. Maybe it's a vacation or something like that. And you've probably found this in your business where you can take a two week vacation and, and not have a meeting and not have to check your email every five minutes. Um, to me, as an entrepreneur, that's a huge win to me. And I remember even like that advisory group coming back and everybody's like, craig, how was your, uh, vacation? I didn't have one meeting. I got to spend time with my family. I wasn't checking email. I wasn't sneaking away to check email.

Speaker A: Yeah, man.

Speaker B: Because with, uh, your spouse watching, if you're on your phone, you kind of get the side eye. Rightly so. You're supposed to be there with your kids. But being like, you know, I didn't have to sneak away and check my email. I could just enjoy my family. And to me that was a win.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a huge win. It's such a big deal, especially for people who are out there going, I don't know if I'm ever going to get there. I mean, it might have taken me a decade to get there. Honestly, at that place But I remember being in a place where every vacation was. I was so connected to work. Uh, emails, text messages, phone calls. I'd sneak away a thousand times, and there. My wife never told me that she was disappointed or that, you know, she was never angry or upset about it. But you can sense it. You can sense the. Like this. You really got to go do that right now. And it's like, yeah, I have to. And. And building the right teams, the right systems changes everything. I remember, actually, I was at an entre leadership event. I got to ask Simon Sinek a question, and he was talking about, um, the kind of, what is the strength of a business? And he said, really, the strength of the business is how long it could last if you're not there. If you die tomorrow, if you get hit by a bus, what happens? My team got so sick of me saying, like, we should think about what happens when I get hit by a bus. And over time, that creates freedom. Another book I read was, uh, Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, the prophet first guy. And he, in that book, talks about taking 30 days off, which I ended up doing in the middle of COVID in 2020. We had planned it a year before, and then when Covid hit, we were like, well, should I still do this? And it's like, yeah, we built. We planned for it. Like, let's just. Let's just go. And I honestly have a hard time not working for that long, because I actually really do like the work that I get to do. But at the same time, it creates so much stability for everybody else at the company, too, because there was certainly a time period where if I got hit by the bus, the company doesn't last probably a couple weeks at some point, you know?

Speaker B: And it's interesting kind of how you said it too. It's not ignoring. It's an intentional stepping away. Because I'm the same way. I love what I do. And I've talked to clients before and be like, I would do this for free if I could.

Speaker A: Yeah, me too.

Speaker B: I love it. Um, but you have to be intentional and, like, invest in yourself, invest in your family. And you just need time to turn off your brain. That's kind of. You can't be creative if you're constantly in the grind of work. And so sometimes, and I'm a morning person, I get up at 4 in the morning on a normal day. Um, but my family, we love to vacation up in Maine, on the beaches up there, and I'm the first one up, and I'm down, sitting on the beach, literally by myself. There's no one else on the beach. And I just have a cup of coffee in hand, staring at the ocean. And I think a lot of things happen there. A lot of healing, a lot of creativity, a lot of refreshments. Um, it's not like, okay, I'm going to forget about my business just to forget about it. It's like, no, this is, this is purposeful. You know, there's a reason I'm getting away for sure.

Speaker A: You know, the thing I always remind people of in like a church context is, uh, especially I get to do a lot of work in the church. And what always amazes me when I see people in there running around like a chicken with their head cut off. And I'm like, Jesus. It says in Luke, Jesus often went away to a quiet place and prayed often. And I think, well, are we doing that? Am I going away to a quiet place? To be fair, I'm more of like a late night guy than an early morning. I'm more likely to stay up until 3 or 4 than I am to get up at 3 or 4. Um, but it's the same thing, right? It's like, where is that space where, especially in our technology world where we're constantly, you know, reaching our pockets, pulling out these phones and it's like, man, we're never disconnected. Um, three final, uh, questions to land this plane, because I probably could keep this thing going all day, um, because I'm enjoying this conversation a lot, is we're already talking about this particular subject actually, but I want to kind of land the plane with it and two others. The first question is going to be this. What does work life balance mean to you? It means something different to everybody else. And how has that changed over different seasons of business and life? We've talked about a little bit. Let's specifically hit on it then. The second one is going to be, uh, where people can find you online. And the third question will be, um, any parting thoughts to help people build a business that lasts? So first question. Um, work life balance, what does it even mean to you? And, um, how has it changed for you over different seasons of business and life?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny, and I think someone spoke this into me a long time ago is we think of, uh, priorities in life. Kind of pyramid shape of one thing at, at the top. And this individual kind of said, aside from God being at the head, everything else in life, instead of a pyramid, it's like a wheel. And there's always one thing at the top at a certain season of life. And when you're starting a business, there was a season where the business was at the top and some other things have to be sacrificed. And I mentioned when my kids were little I could have been there more, um, but the priority was getting the business going. And then it shifted and it shifted. Now actually I love being around my kids and that's actually kind of a hard thing is, you know, with a business, I love being present in my kids life. I just enjoy their company, I enjoy, I coach sports, I love being around them. And so that's really turned, uh, in this phase of life for me now. My wife, where she loved the babies, I love the teenagers, I love when they're active and they have projects and there's things going on. So the wheel has shifted where it's investing a lot in my kids and so if I can step away from work. So the balance has shifted more towards spending time with them. And I imagine it's going to get to a point where the wheel is going to shift and my kids are going to be old and moved out of the house. And then it's going to be focusing on my wife. And my wife and I actually plan for this because more often than not you hear of, uh, retired couples who can't stand to be around each other because they don't know how to be around each other. And so we actually kind of talk about that a lot as what does life look like, you know, 10, 15 years down the road when we start thinking about retirement, um, where we can be together. And so that's going to shift. So it's thinking about what is the priority right now in that balance and also a little bit of forethought of how that could shift moving forward.

Speaker A: I love that. I love especially people thinking about that reality that like some point the kids are going to be gone. I have five of them, you know, four now because one's already gone to college, which is crazy. I'm telling you right now. The one thing nobody prepared me for was this, which is when you have your first kid, you read all the books about babies and all this kind of stuff, you think you're prepared, then you have a baby and you realize you're completely not prepared, but somehow you keep them alive. But nobody ever prepared me for the reality of when they're 18, you're not done. Yeah, when they're 18, you get to be the parent of an adult. And I love, I'm into it.

Speaker B: I'm looking forward to that. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and there's like a grief to it where you're like, wait, the majority of my time that I will ever spend with my oldest son is done, you know, and it's like, ah, that messes me up thinking about it. Um, because it's there. I'm there now, and nobody prepared me for it. Um, so I'm telling everybody else, just get ready, because it's going to be tough. And to your point, how do I maintain that relationship with my wife? Because I want. I know many people who have done this well, and they love their emptiness season. I'm into that idea, you know, I'm into the idea of being, you know, 50 years old and my kids calling me, going, hey, I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z in my business or my job or my marriage. What should I do, dad? Like, I want to be that guy, you know?

Speaker B: Anyway, yeah, it's funny because I have that conversation with my kids. I have something that I've kind of said, spoken to them, is like, you know, when you guys get older, like college age, I like, I have a rule. I'm like, I don't want this, but you have to leave. And what I mean by that is, like, you know, not just get out of the house. Like, you have to go somewhere. I don't want you to be around here. I want you to experience life. And then at that point, I want you to come back. It's really up to you. You have freedom. But at that point, if he wants to come back, I'd love for you to come back. And my. My son, who's my middle, and. And he and I are really close because he's athletic, and I was athletic, and so I coach his basketball team. And I was talking to him the other day. It was just kind of a sweet moment. I was like, you know, I kind of gave him the talk of, like, you know, when you're older, I want you to. To go somewhere and experience the world. And he's like. I'm like, but if you want to come back and you have a kid and he plays basketball, I'm gonna coach with you. And he's like, you will. And he, like, got excited. I was like, oh, thank you. Such a sweet moment.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: Uh.

Speaker A: It's so true. All right, I better keep going before I start crying more.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker A: All right, so. Man, I just love that. I love this conversation. I hope it encourages people that are listening, you know, to think about these things, because I think the biggest mistake is you can get so m buried in the business that it becomes everything. And at some point, that thing's probably going to go away and you're going to be left with the people around you. What does that look like? Um, so, uh, two last things. One, where, uh, can people find you online? They want to learn more about you and your company and what you do. And the second is, uh, parting thoughts to build a business that lasts.

Speaker B: Yeah, so our website, easiest place to find us. Um, c3mdc.com and so c. The number three mdc is for medical device consulting. And, you know, so we do engineering design for medical devices. C3mdc.com awesome parting thoughts.

Speaker A: To build a business that lasts. What would you want to leave people with today?

Speaker B: Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I have some real practical advice. And it's funny because I had, um, someone call me up this week. He actually was. He interned for me for a little while, um, and he worked for me for a little bit. He was at a startup company, um, that went under just very recently. And he called me up and he was like, I'm thinking about doing what you're doing because he's an engineer. And he's like, what's your advice for me? And, uh, it was funny because I told him, I'm like, get a job. And so my first advice was get a job at an engineering firm. And he's like, you know, what I did is I worked at a company and I saved up a, uh, year's, uh, salary before I started my company. So I had a good cushion to get started. And I was like, well, when you're working full time, I want you to work nights and start to build your client base while working nights. Because he. It was very funny. We actually had this very similar conversation. He's like, I want to do what you do so I can have flexibility. And I said, now you're going to work a job and another job, you're going to have no flexibility. Uh, so m. My recommendation for him was work so you have a steady paycheck, start building up a client base at night, and then when you feel like you have enough coming in from your second client base and you've got enough saved up, then jump and start your business. And that way you've got a little experience of doing something on your own. So that was my advice to him. Really, really practical. But, um, yeah, those are my thoughts.

Speaker A: Greg, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for being on the show.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me. It's been great.

Speaker A: Hey, I hope this video has helped you with some tips and ideas to build a business that lasts. Make sure you subscribe to our channel so that you don't miss out on the next videos that we roll out. And more importantly, for some awesome free resources, head over to our website at buildingabusinessthatlasts.com you can get a free copy of my book there where I tell you how I have built an agency that's grown year over year for the last 20 years in a row. So go grab that buildingabusinessthatlasts.com and make sure to subscribe to our channel. Thanks. We'll see you soon.