The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Audio Ep 43

00:00:00 Speaker: Average is the enemy of greatness. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Welcome to the Grit Factor podcast, where we strip away the highlight reel and get into the darkness beneath it. The real stories, the real battles, and the battle plans used to conquer them. I'm your host, Carl Jacobi, combat vet, entrepreneur, resilience and performance coach, keynote speaker, husband and father. I've built, scaled, and exited multiple companies totaling over forty million in revenue. But here's what that highlight reel doesn't show you. Life has been smacking me in the face with a two by four since I was just five years old. Broken home. Constant chaos. No playbook. No safety net. Just grit. And if you're anything like me. You know, you've got another level in you, in your business, your career, your faith, your leadership. You're just not sure how to get there. That's exactly why we're here. Be sure to follow me for more great content, and check out my website success with Karl dot com. Now that's Karl with a K. Now let's get to work. All right. Welcome back for another episode. And today I'm sitting down with a guy who on paper looks like a clean success story. He and his business partner built a health care company from scratch into a nine figure enterprise without taking a single dime of outside money. Sounds pretty impressive, right? Well, stay tuned, because we've got a lot more in store for you. He has a book on the way, and he is the kind of guy people point at and say that one just wins. Like he just wins. But that is not the reason I want you to listen to him today, my friends. I want you to listen. Because years before any of that, this man was weeks away from graduating law school when all came apart. Dismiss seventy thousand dollars in debt with no degree, his first marriage falling apart. And at the very same season, he was a kid from a nine hundred square foot house who was supposed to make it. Sitting in the wreckage of a very public failure. Everything you see now got built on top of this, my friends. So please lean in to this conversation. So if you carry anything remotely similar to this right now and it feels too broken to be useful, you feel too broken to be useful, perhaps a failure that you're ashamed of, a season that you would give anything to undo. This hour is for you. Eric lo. My dude. Welcome to the show, my man. Yeah. Appreciate you having me. Yeah, man. Absolutely. I'm super excited for this, for this, uh, for this episode, for this time together. Because as I was reading through your bio, reading through the information, I'm like, man, I've got to have this guy because, you know, you definitely have a, an impressive resume. Even before we hit record, you, I was excited talking about what you're excited about and highlight and you're talking about the, you know, the release. We'll get more into that. That's something you're really excited about. But man, dude, let's, let's just dive in, man, because there's so many different things we could talk about here before the company, before the book, before any of the framework you teach now, you were a kid in Mount Washington in a nine hundred foot square foot house chasing a law degree as your ticket out. So take me or take us back to that time. What version Was that a view that you were building toward, and what did that degree mean for you and what were you expecting that period of time? Sure. So I think, you know, it's a common thread amongst people that grow up either on the poverty line or right around it. You know, you're, you're always looking over the fence. You're always seeing what other people have that you don't. And it does two things to you. Either you see life and you say, this is all there's going to be. And this is just my plight and this is where I'm going. Or you look at it and you say, I want more, and I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I'm going to get there. So for me in Mount Washington, Kentucky, just a suburb outside of south south Louisville, it's a small town. Uh, had, uh, two older brothers and there were five of us in a three bed, one square, one bathroom, nine hundred square foot house. My oldest brother, uh, went to the Air Force. My middle brother went to the Army, and I got to play college football. So my dad had a rule, and I heard him tell my brother when I was seven, my brother was seventeen. He said, uh, you know, whatever you've got planned, you got to make that plan by eighteen because you're out of the house. So he went to the Air Force. My next brother went to the Army. And then I was fortunate enough to play college football at a small Naia school. But, uh, it got me out of there. Uh, and it was really in, uh, undergrad where I realized, uh, I want, I want something more. And law was kind of that next step for me. But there were a lot of, um, trials growing up. Uh, you know, when you're, when you're in that kind of environment, you're usually in the rough neighborhood. You're usually in the rough end of town. Uh, and that comes along with a lot of things that, uh, you're surrounded by that you either fall into or you get out of. And, you know, part of my story and part of my life is I've danced on both sides of the line. Uh, I've been in the trenches and I've been able to dig my way out. But, uh, but, you know, by the grace of God, uh, I am where I am today. Ah, man, I love it, man. Thanks for sharing that glimpse of your story, dude. I mean, I'm just imagining you right now. You know, if I heard you correctly. House of five in a nine hundred, you know, nine hundred square foot house. I imagine between the three of you, there were some brawls. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, and, uh, man. And, you know, for your brother's journey, you know, being a veteran myself, you know, think of think from a service because, uh, you know, I'm being a veteran, I'm very personal to, you know, those that are affected either served or are still families of service members. Um, so take us to it, if you don't mind. You were weeks from graduating, years of work, late night. Um, every dollar you borrowed all pointed at that finish line. Right. And a lot of people will just see that through, regardless of what they saw over the fence or regardless of any emotions or feelings, they would just see it through. Right. Um, then the honor code violation comes to light and you're dismissed. Right? And so walk us through that moment where you found out what was actually gone. Yeah. So I was fortunate enough to, to really focus and do well in law school. I was, you know, top of my class, won all kinds of awards. Uh, for anybody that knows law was, uh, the managing editor for our law review, you know, big, big title, all this great stuff. Mhm. Uh, while I was in law school, I was working full time. I was in school alternative placement teacher, which is essentially a babysitter for the bad kids. Uh, so I was working full time during the day and going to law school at night. So it allowed me to study. Uh, and then my second year in law school, I had decided to go full time, go ahead and clerk for somebody full time. And that was a great opportunity, but a lot less pay. The bills don't stop coming. And like I said, you know, I was, you know, kind of bearing the brunt of the cost of everything at that point in my life. Yeah. And, uh, confided in a student that I was in law school with that student just happened to be, you know, in his mid to late forties and an anesthesiologist in law school. So he was going to law school at night and we became friends. I confided in him my financial situation. He said, well, I've got some companies I'd love for some help. If you want to do some research, some writing, I can pay you on a per contract basis. That was phenomenal opportunity for me, able to cover my bills, all that great stuff. And until those projects until until they stopped and when they stopped, he approached me one one night, uh, after, after class and said, hey, Eric, you know, it would be really helpful. I'm going to take this summer class if you could help me revise and edit this paper and, you know, do some of this stuff for me. Uh, and it was really, I was at the crossroads there. I could have said no. And I could have figured out another way to, to be able to cover my bills. But, uh, you know, I was weak at the time and said, yeah, sure. Why not? I had helped a lot of people at that point, uh, in law school, even made a fake test for a study group at one point. You know, I had a lot of people in my study group and, uh, had had performed well. So they'd all, you know, kind of looked for me for or looked to me for help. And I did that at that time for free. The difference here is he started paying me for that help. And it slowly started compounding from, hey, help me research or help me do some blue book citations to, hey, you're not in this class. Can you help me do this assignment? Can you help me write this paper? And eventually another student caught wind of that and then turned me in to the Honor Council. And that's when everything started to unravel. It went from, you know, going into, uh, my last year, towards the end of that first semester when I got the notification in September. And then, uh, by December, uh, everything had really just fallen apart. Mhm. Man. Man. I'm just imagining, man. You know, in these moments, you know, you're you're just gradually, you know, scaling up the risk, right? You know, and get kind of desensitized to it. All right. You just kind of keep climbing and climbing and climbing. It's like, well, you know, I've gotten away with it so far. And you know, we've all been there. We've all done these different types of things. I know I have. Maybe not to, you know, I mean, I've done some stuff school, don't get me wrong. But, you know, we've all done stupid things, you know, looking back, I mean, it's just part of how we grow and part of how we evolved, you know, um, but what I'm hearing there in all of this is this entrepreneurial bug, right? Um, which, you know, kind of led to the path that you've, that you've been on for, for some time now. But you know, what did the days look like after that? You know, um, you still had all the hearings, uh, you still had the face to people who, you know, believed in you and had faith in you. And, you know, so what did that aftermath look like for you and how did you handle that? Yes, it's September of twenty ten is when I was notified, uh, that same month. Literally a week later, I was leaving to go get married to what I thought was going to be, you know, my wife forever. Uh, we come back from the honeymoon within the first two weeks. I find her in another apartment while I'm in night school, take all my stuff and leave within another week, we, uh, we get the notice that. Hey, uh, so the way this works, it's it's wild. So we call it a kangaroo court. It's not like true. You know, you've got, uh, precedent that you have to fall, you have to have due process. You have all that stuff like a regular courtroom. It's an administrative hearing. So the Honor Council itself was comprised of other law students. Well, when you're pretty highly ranked and those other law students aren't there, they're looking for a reason to go ahead and say, let's step over you. And that way I get the better job, a threat. Right? Exactly. So we have the hearing, and the hearing goes well. And they say, look, we don't find any fault. We don't we don't think you did anything wrong. So I get a letter in the mail. At this point I have moved out. I'm staying with a buddy on his couch. Uh. Marriage is falling apart and I get a notice saying, hey, we we find no reason to do anything to you. Essentially, we're going to go ahead and send this to the dean for the dean to make a decision. Towards the end of that semester, I'm studying for my finals, and my friend who represented me through all that calls me and he says, hey, Eric, have you have you seen what the dean said? And I said, no, I'm I'm in. I'm in the library. I have, I haven't seen anything. And he's like, dude, he's, he's kicked you out. He's dismissed you. He says, you have two weeks to show cause why he shouldn't kick you out otherwise you're out. And I was like a gut punch. So I go from, you know, I'm I move out staying in a friend's couch. Honor council says we don't find anything wrong. Now I get this new letter saying the dean says you actually did do something. So I immediately asked my attorney at the time, hey, can you call and make sure I can take these finals? Because now it's in, you know, December. Like, can I finish these finals? And then we figure this out. So they allowed me to do that. The next week we were able to meet with the dean. The dean said, look, I found some searches in your search history that make me think that you did do something. So then at that point, it was the first time, and I go into detail about this in my book. So part of it's memoir, part of it's the framework and all that stuff. But, uh, we, uh, I just told him everything at that point, I had not been able to meet with anyone outside of the other student, the other student, his attorney was always there. And that guy had a lot of money, a thirty six page CV. Uh, I go into detail about who this guy was and, uh, and I just told him, here's all the stuff I did. Like, I'll admit everything to you at this point, I haven't been able to meet with anybody and tell my side of the story because this guy is threatening to, you know, ruin my life and sue me. Here's the real truth. So that happens. Uh, and he says, okay, we're going to suspend you for a year. You finish your finals, all that stuff. I'm thinking we're good to go. A month later, I get another letter in the mail saying, I've got another honor Council violation. Everything that I told the dean in that meeting. He then went and met with the honor Council, told them all that, and they brought a second case against me. So we go back to the dean. The dean says, uh, listen, this is just part of the process. We want to document everything. We're kicking the other guy out. You're going to get a one year suspension. Here's the settlement agreement. We're going to put a special prosecutor. You sign that, we're good to go. I do that we meet with the Honor Council again. They end up just destroying me in that in that hearing because they're like, look, you're a liar. You lied to us. Why should we do anything? Why should we cut you slack? They then recommend I get dismissed. It goes to the dean. We at this point have signed a settlement agreement for one year. I'll be able to finish a year from now. He then a month later sends this notice and says, no, I agree, you're kicked out. So all this stuff, I mean, it was up and down, up and down. I thought it was going to be resolved. Uh, and then, you know, during all that stuff, my friend that I was staying on his couch ended up having to move. I ended up back on my parents couch. This is supposed to be the end of my last semester in law school. Top of the class. Going to be the first, you know, professionally trained person in my family. And I'm sleeping on the couch in a nine hundred square foot house. Uh, and, you know, essentially my life as I knew it ended at that moment. Man. Dude, that that's as I'm listening, man. I'm, I'm watching this emotional roller coaster, you know, and I, I've been through my fair share of lawsuits, uh, over the last four or five years, you know, because of a partnership, betrayal and anything to do with legal or any of that man is so draining. I don't think people really understand just how draining it is. You know, um, everything you're doing is comes to a halt. You've got to research and find all this information and defend yourself And to me, I'd love to hear your input on this, especially since you've been through this wringer too. Defending yourself as ten times harder when people already have gotten an opinion based on what they've read. Right? They've already developed this perception of you. They've heard, especially your peers, you know, dude, that's man, you're already set up for failure. You know, they're, they're looking to eliminate a threat at that point, right? No, that's exactly where I found myself. So it was, you know, every emotion you could have. You go from, you know, your top of your class, you're getting married. You get the first accusation, you find out they're having an affair, you're cleared and then you're not. And and then you think you have a settlement agreement and you're going to be okay after a year, and you just gotta weather that storm over the next year, and then you get the news, you're dismissed. And so from a career path, it took me I mean, you can't practice law without a law degree. Uh, and at that point, you go into kind of just this spiral of how do I survive? And immediately I went to, you know, my brain went to the military. I said, well, you know, the Navy takes, you know, officers at older age. I'm at twenty five at this point. I'm like, I can still go in the Navy. At least it would help me pay my student loans, all that stuff. And you just I just tried to solve the problem. I'm like, this is an utter collapse. How can I solve this problem? Mhm. Man, I've certainly have been there. And fortunately for me, the Army was the way out for me. But if you told me the hardest part in all of this wasn't necessarily the money or not even, you know, the marriage, right? It was the shame. Right. Being the shame, you know, the shame. Being the kid who was supposed to to make it and didn't like you were saying you were going to be the first one, you know, to graduate and move into a field as a profession and really just take the the legacy, if you will. I can't think of another term, but really just take hold of the legacy and build from there. And then having to look at people around you who invested in you and tell them the truth, man, I for me, I've been there. It's gut wrenching. Real quick, before we keep rolling, maybe life hit you hard. Business fell apart. Career isn't working out. Relationship ended. Health took a dive. And now you're standing in the rubble. Trying to figure out what the next move even looks like. Or maybe nothing blew up at all. On paper, you're winning. Sure. But on the inside, something's off. If you're not in crisis, you're at a crossroads. And the playbook that built the life you have is not the playbook that builds the one you want. Either way, you're stuck. Not broken. Stuck between who you were and who you're becoming. Most self-help just piles more weight on load you're already carrying. I do not want to do that. I put together a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed, and I want to invite you to check it out. Seven short videos. That's it. The five laws that change everything for me. In every client, I coach the same five that every person who's ever come back from the fire has walked through where they had a name for it or not. No fluff, no ninety minute webinar, no bait, just the free video series. You can start it tonight. Grab it at grit. Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit code exposed dot com. It's free. You don't need any more hustle. You need the next version. And this is how you find it. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you inside. All right, let's get back to the conversation. Where were you in that time when the shame was at its heaviest? Like when you had to really trench through that? Yeah. I mean, walking back into the law school to meet with the dean. I mean, you see all your peers around you and these are people that respected me that, uh, really looked to me for help. I mean, I was kind of the go to guy to answer questions to help study. I mean, being the manager of the law review, winning all these awards, being top of class, all those things. I mean, you had all the accolades. You know, I looked the part, the amount of people that had said the potential and I was going to be the next great trial lawyer and all these things to then, you know, you're, you're a nobody to nothing. And, and the hardest part about it is, you know, the shame of what you've done, but it's also the feeling that you've let everybody down, that you were the one that was supposed to make it, that you're the one that everybody knew had potential. And then you, you blow it and it's based. And that's the hardest. The hardest pill to swallow is when you're the one to blame for the situation you've gotten yourself into. And I think that's why it's really difficult for people to recover sometimes when it's a self-destructive decision or action has created the crisis. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Which leads me to where, you know, I'd love to hear next. I'm sure like everybody's kind of like leaning in right now. So you didn't write, um, you, you essentially look what happened, right? I mean, the average bear out there, um, you know, would just spiral probably, you know, I don't know, go to McDonald's and, and, you know, get a job and so forth. And maybe it's too premature to say this, but oftentimes in these scenarios that you just walk through. It was likely the best thing that never happened to you. Yeah, there's no doubt now. I mean, looking back, it. But for that happening in my life, I wouldn't be where I am today. No way. So take us to that moment. All right. So you went through that, um, you didn't let it affect you. Or maybe you did. Talk us about next steps. Like, what did you do? What did you decide to do? Not choose, but decide to do in that moment to, you know, get where you are today? Like what was the pivotal moment for you? Yeah. So I think, you know, it goes back, I can literally see the night where I'm on the couch. I'm, you know, breaking down at this point, crying out to God. I had gone so far away from my faith, so far away from pursuing God. And at first you're you're just mad and you're you're upset. And human nature is look for somebody to blame. And then it was boom. A moment of clarity is you're the one that did this. Nobody did this to you. So at that point, I just said, all right, I give up, I give in. Just show me what is next and I'll listen. And, uh, from that moment on, just step by step, I was given opportunities. The path was made clear. Um, but, you know, one of the things that, that, uh, I've naturally been good at my whole life is problem solving. So when I, when I separated, the emotions, when I separated, the, the guilt and the shame and the sadness and sorrow and just saw this as a problem and got to solve the problem. It was okay, what's the, what's the first step? And the first step was, who do I know? And what value can I bring to somebody based on who I am and what I know? Uh, and really, it's, uh, that's where you see, and I, again, I go into this pretty deeply in my book. There were just so many God moments when, uh, the guy that represented me through all this, he had started his own firm and said, hey, Eric, um, I really need some help setting up my firm, doing some pleadings, doing demands, doing all this legal work, this legal writing. And, you know, it's ironic, the thing that got me in trouble in school writing and doing somebody else's work is exactly what was there to help pick me up out of a hole. So, uh, he started feeding me work, helped him grow his firm. He ended up telling a lot of his friends that got me work. So all this contract work, I saw it as an opportunity. Uh, and then the pieces just, just kept falling together. And I could go into the next the next part is really how I ended up falling into healthcare. That's, that's, that's a great pivot right there, man, because I, I heard two things in all of this. And I want you to confirm if this is accurate instead of self ruminating, right? Instead of beating yourself up and ruminating and so forth, you unpack the lessons, right? You pick the lessons. You okay? Yes. This was stupid, blah, blah blah. But you stop beating yourself up over it. You extracted the lessons and removed the deadweight, right? Right. And also, what I heard here is you didn't wait for the whole staircase or for the whole field to be lit up in order to figure out what the next step was. You just took the next step, right? Yeah. I didn't need to know where I was going. I just needed to know where I was going to start. That's so good, because I can't tell you how many people. And I've been victim of this, you know, coming from one space of almost twenty five, actually, over twenty five years, you know, where I was making moves, I had the whole playing field well lit, right to spotlights. Right on. You've been playing football. So imagine football field. You can see the whole field well lit up in the middle of the night. Right. Um, and then it was like somebody turned a light switch off, you know, when that two by four of a life event occurred. And too many times people are looking at that playing field like, okay, God, you're gonna turn the light back on or what? Yeah. So I can see all the moves right for my next season, the next chapter, whether it's in business or relationships or any of that. And for you, what you did is like you didn't have the luxury for that, nor did you, you know, decide to either say, you know what, I'm just going to take the first move and wherever that leads me next, that's where it leads me. Yeah, I mean, I, I genuinely believe that it is if you are able to experience true loss and true trauma, something that's completely devastating to you as your ego and will humble you. Yes, it creates a, it creates a superpower because you're not afraid anymore. If you can survive something like that and take it and build on it all the fear that a lot of people have about why they don't do things, or why they don't start a business, or why they don't take risk, that fear is gone. You've already lost everything. What's going to happen? Do you have to lose? Right. Exactly. Yeah. So that's where I found myself. Yeah. That's so good. I, I, I agree wholeheartedly as you're starting to say it. I'm like, I already know where he's going with this because that's, that's a valid point. I mean, what else do you have to lose at this point? You know, and, and I guess that's the benefit, the irony, if you will, of hitting rock bottom, hitting that moment because you have nowhere else to go at that point. All you can do is up from there, take the lessons, learn just one step at a time, you know, and ironically, I was just talking about this earlier today, uh, your, your, your spiritual man. You're, you're a man of faith, you know? So in the Bible, it's always called upon us to, to, you know, step out in faith, right? Um, just one step at a time. And so I went from one season change to a next in a, in a, in a, it was for me the same thing. I literally was on my knees. I got, you know, I, I need something here, bro. I like, I need something to be revealed and and in full transparency, I was waiting for the whole field to be lit up. And, you know, a coach of mine is like, dude, you've got a perspective problem. You're trying to look at the whole field like the flood lamp is shining on this field, when all you've got to do is rely on the foot lamp to shine on your next step and just take one step, one hundred percent. I'm like, oof, that hurt, but a good way. Yeah. So man, this is so good. I, I love this redemption here. So walk us. You know what? Walk us into what you're, you know, working on next, right? You moved into this healthcare, you kind of sneaked in here. So what happens next? Yeah. So, uh, it was one of those situations where I was, uh, and I, at the time, I saved up enough money to get out of my parents house, was only there for a month or two, moved into a rough end of town with a five hundred square foot apartment, had a little office inside my my bedroom, which is essentially the entire apartment. But I was working that night riding for one of the firms and to my left just saw a business card and it was a doctor's business card. And I was like, you know what I need to call him? And who it was is my best friend that I played college football with. It was his uncle in my second year of law school. Uh, we helped him move a couch and it was the heaviest couch ever manufactured in the eighties out of, you know, pure spite and oak. Uh, and we had to move it, move it upstairs. And, uh, he got talking to me. He was a physician. He was a general surgeon that had a three man practice. Uh, one partner had to retire medically. One partner went on mission and decided he wasn't coming back. So he was a one man show running a three man group and said, hey, I'm leaving. I'm going to start. I'm going back to my original board certification, physical medicine and rehab. I'm going to start an outpatient clinic. I've been thinking about doing it and some medical legal stuff. And at the time I was clerking at a personal injury law firm and I was like, yeah, give me your card. You know, we can never find doctors to talk to or to do opinions or anything like that. And so I'm sitting here now doing some of this legal work, and I see his name and I'm like, man, I need to call doctor B. So I call him nicest guy in the world. He's like, Eric, how you doing? You know, because at this point, nobody out in the community really knows what's going on except the law students and some of the people in the legal profession. And, uh, you know, he's asking me, he's like, oh, so you're getting ready to finish? And I said, well, hey, you know, kind of detoured a little bit, uh, going on a different path right now. Uh, but look, I think I could help you setting up this practice and getting you some referrals and all this stuff. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to talk to you. Let me introduce you to my business partners. Uh, and that's when I met with them and, you know, told them like, hey, here's my background, this is my education. These are the contacts I have. I think I could really help you guys. And, uh, you know, at the time, this is now twenty eleven. I think they, uh, initial offer was like twenty thousand dollars and three percent commission to come on. And I was like, look, man, because I knew, you know, I think they had heard through the grapevine of some of the stuff that was going on. I was like, look, I don't need a whole lot. Let's do thirty thousand and five percent commission. I'm in. And I got a job with them. And, uh, within my first week, uh, those guys, the business partners were on vacation and I was able to go in and audit their billing team, look at their contracts and fined them two hundred thousand dollars. And, uh, so yeah, yeah, so I pulled my weight pretty quick and it was just, yeah, you don't know what you don't know. So I didn't know going in to, you know, what they call revenue cycle management that most of the people that are doing billing and collections and coding and all that stuff, at most have like an eighteen month associate's degree. They don't have any training on contracts or negotiations or any of those things. So I saw like, hey, I've got a real opportunity here to be able to use the knowledge that I didn't realize would transfer and create some value here. And that's really how I got my foot in the door and saw a huge opportunity that was kind of just a void in the market, where people in that industry didn't have that ability, and I could bring that value. That's an incredible story, man. Incredible story. So is, is, you know, you find this this leak, if you will, right? The partner is on vacation, you find this leak, um, that's got to give you some major, like belief in yourself, right? Um, you, you go from one season, man, where you're at rock bottom, your belief in yourself is probably pretty low. Um, and your identity has been rocked and everything you knew about your life was essentially a question. And now fast forward, you get this renewed sense of confidence, belief proudness. Right. You're proud of this accomplishment. Um, almost to the degree of like, hey, look what I did, right? And, um, so at what point? I mean, where did it go from there? Right. I mean, did you know, did, uh, what were the next steps after that? Yeah. So it's one of those things that when you have had such a major failure, now you have something to prove. So the type of motivation that that gives you as far as like, I'm going to outwork anybody, I'm going to prove, you know, to everybody that who they think I am is not who I am. Um, so it went from that initial step to me helping with business development, changing a lot of the processes changing over the course of three years. I worked there and really started evolving the business and finding gaps. It was really identifying, uh, issues. And one of the things that I talk about in my book, that two hundred thousand dollars beyond them congratulating me when they came back that next week, I never brought it up again until a year later at my review. And it was because I didn't have the relational capital yet. I didn't have where I had proven that they could trust me, that I had credibility. I hadn't I hadn't really shown, I think a lot of people and I talk about this will will take those withdrawals way too early. They will say, oh, I did something. So now look, now you owe me something. That's not true. You've made one deposit. You have your relational currency is not built to capital account yet that you need to be able to withdraw. So keep making those deposits so that you can build that trust, that credibility that other people know you're going to come through. And then you can have the ask. So that's where I started. And it was really just growing over the next couple years and identifying different holes. And there were different opportunities that I brought the partners that they just didn't want to do. So I decided to do it on my own. I would always go and say, hey, you're not doing enough medical legal. We could contract with all these different physicians, connect them to insurance companies, to brokers, to. That's not really what we do. We do treatment. I'm like, okay, well, can I do that? And I'll just pay you a percentage. Sure. Because they didn't think it would be anything big. And it started growing the revenue cycle management, the stuff that I had shown them. I said, well, can I just start my own billing company then? Well, sure, if it doesn't detract. So then we did that, uh, and my now wife, when, when we became married and had our first son, uh, that's what she took that company over when we had them. So there was all these things that were starting to build and create what I call kind of a virtual practice. So we had all the practice management, we had the billing and coding, we had the revenue cycle management down, we had the ancillary revenue opportunities. And the next progression was, well, let's institute something that's different, a new healthcare model that could really change how it's done. Mhm, mhm. Man, I love this redemption story more. You talk about this because again, I'm just imagining this, you know, this kid, if you will, on, on the, you know, the living room couch of your parents place again at rock bottom and you're you're building something big. You know, as I said in the description, it's now a nine figure enterprise, right? Was there ever a moment, Eric, where you heard noise in your mind? Where, hey, Eric, remember what you did back in law school, man? Do you remember what you did here? Remember what you did there? Was there ever a time in in this transition? It's about the best way at this growth phase, that you had these voices in your mind trying to remind you of your mistakes and things you've done in your life. Yeah, a lot of it is just for a long time. I mean, up until the last few years, honestly, I would kind of skate the question about, you know, I would always tell everybody I went to law school, never took the bar, never, never finished and went into business. But I don't really go into detail of why that occurred. You know, one, it's it's not an easy conversation to have. Two it's, you know, it turns a two minute intro to a thirty minute intro because it's a long story with a lot of depth and a lot of changes. So, uh, one of the reasons that, you know, I really wanted to write the book was, you know, kind of that redemption story. I mean, if you look back biblically, like everybody that God uses is a broken vessel. And the more that we can come to terms, the more we can come to terms with that, the more we can accept that we are not our past mistakes. That's so true. That's so true. There's Donovan. You're one hundred percent correct. You know, one of my favorite dudes is Moses. You know, um, you know, speech impediment and all. And he was, you know, approached this burning brush and, you know, the average guy like, man, I must be on something, right? But he was asked to, you know, free his people. And man, this his life changed dramatically since. Right. Yeah. Committed murder. I mean, I mean, he was he was a murderer. I mean, yeah, that is true. Who would think that you can redeem a murderer and it's one hundred percent true. And I thank you for saying that, actually, because I know there are a lot of people that's listening to this right now, and they're currently right now disqualifying themselves from anything in life because of something they've done right for you. You could have easily disqualified yourself from the success you're having right now because of stuff that's occurred in your past. This is why I like to ask this question, or why I ask this question to you, because I know in a large part of my life, there's always this voice. It's like, Carl, you remember what you did last year? Remember what you said to your wife or what you did in your twenties, or remember what you did, you know, whatever, you know, fill in the blank, right? There's always that voice is trying to, you know, that voice is trying to distract you. The noise. Right? Mhm. Um, so thankfully you didn't. You ignored it. Talk to that person, Eric. That maybe is having a hard time dealing with that voice. And I'm not talking about the schizophrenia type of voices. Yeah. Yeah, right. But, you know, the voices that you and I know of very well that's trying to derail us. Cause we were men of faith. We call it the enemy. But there's other people that don't believe in that, and that's perfectly fine. I definitely want to challenge that notion. But that aside, how do you deal with that? Like you're obviously here. So how did you deal with those noises? Yeah. The best advice is comes from Scripture. Take every thought captive. When you know that a thought that you have is contrary to what the word says, it's not from God. And if you keep steadfast in your faith and in Scripture and what God tells you, he will do. Uh, you know, tithing is something I talk a lot about to people is, you know, there's no other challenge that God gives us beyond tithing as far as he challenges you. He says, challenge me in this that I will press down your cup. It will be overflowing if you trust me and give me those first fruits. And those are the things that you know, faith requires action. You can't just say that, yes, I'm going to do something. You have to act on that faith. Yes, yes. So for for me, it was it was really not just praying and crying out to God to show me it was, what am I going to do to take the steps to show that I am faithful? And that was to start working, start finding solutions, start solving the problems. And that led me, you know, through that three year course with that group. And at the very end, and again, I go into this more in my book, I end up meeting my now business partner. Uh, he was an ER physician. They had thirty five years, uh, his group, he was a minority partner. They were getting ready to sell. We decided to join forces on the medical legal consulting arm and said, hey, we can start another healthcare group sixty miles from where we're located in Louisville and Lexington. And at the time, the business partners of the group I was working with decided to schedule a lunch. Uh, they told him to get there thirty minutes before I did, and they told him, hey, you know, Eric's our employee. He's not our partner. So if we're going to do this, it's going to be you and us and not Eric. And, uh, my business partner calls me on the way back and tells me what exactly what happened. I was like, well, what'd you say? He said, well, we're already fifty, fifty partners in the medical legal. Like, I'm not doing something without you. And that was really where I had to come face to face that I had been put in a position and given an opportunity where I was now, you know, making six figures. We had started the medical legal business. We started the billing business. My wife was running that everything was going great. And now this plan that we had to start a separate healthcare group, It looked like it was going to die before it ever got started, and the group had offered me a three percent minority partnership in the existing healthcare entity, locked me out, was going to do a non compete, try to take over some equity of the businesses I had started. So I end up having to come home and look my wife, you know, square in the face while she's holding her son, who's probably six, eight months old and say, hey, um, I think, I think I gotta quit. I think I got, I think I gotta do this on my own. So that was kind of the second time of, and that's, that's something that I think a lot of people miss. A lot of people miss that you to be faithful. It's a one time thing. It is a forever race until the end of time. Yes. You are going to continue to get challenged. You're going to continue to have to make decisions that that are going to challenge you, and you're going to continue to have to show that you have faith. So at that point in my life, I told my wife like, hey, I've got a plan. I can defer my student loans. I found a credit card that gives us eighteen months at zero percent. We've got enough money to live for six months. I'm going to quit my job. We're going to do this on our own. So that's what we did. That's awesome man. Let's pin this for a second because man, I want to extract something that you you said through a story, but I really want to make sure the audience is heard what you said. First, let me rewind for a minute. You said something I really want to highlight. Faith requires action. I know too many people. I'm like, obviously name them by name, but I know too many people. You know that just praise or just, you know, wishes and so forth. They say they have faith, but they don't even take the first flippin step. Right. And I just said this the other day, it's like I saw this video somewhere. I don't remember what it was, or maybe it was a meme, but, you know, at the end of the day, we have to do the rowing, right? God's the rudder in And all of this we have to do the Roman. The moment we stop, guess what happens? We stop moving forward, you know, or start drifting. Yes. Yeah. Very true, very true. And, you know, and so, um, so I really want to highlight this, you know, for those that are wondering, man, why can't I make any momentum? You are one hundred percent responsible for your own momentum. God's the rudder. You've got to still do the rowing. You know, um, something that I can resonate with, uh, to a large degree is the partnership aspect. You know, um, I went through a couple of partnerships myself and man, I, I will tell you, hindsight of course, is always twenty twenty and I'd love to hear your perspective on this. You've been through several partnerships. Was there any, was there any where in this partnership where he felt like this wasn't for you, or maybe that you're being edged out, or maybe there was a, you know, some work ethic issues not on your part, but maybe on their part or like, walk us through, if you don't mind as much as you can on a micro level, like where did you start to see that disruption where you no longer felt like you're a partner? Yeah. So Tom, my current partner, is a phenomenal human being. Uh, we get along really well and it's still one of the most difficult relationships I have in life. Anybody that tells you partnerships are easy, they've never been in one. Amen to that. You know, we know how, you know, often marriages end in divorce. And that's supposed to be the person you're most intimate with and closest. Having a business partner, uh, is, is very difficult. But, you know, previously when I left, before I left and started Efetiva health, I was really just the guy that you could feel. I was the young, talented guy, but I was the employee, not the partner, and they didn't see. And a lot of people make this mistake. And I give this advice to people because now, you know, I'm forty one now. At the time when I started, I was still in my twenties, but I don't ever want to be the guy that doesn't recognize talent because somebody, the young dude on the block or the young lady on the block, if they have value and they have talent, recognize it. Otherwise, they're going to leave and take it to somebody else. Yeah. Because that's the one thing about hustlers and entrepreneurs and people with the IT factor is if you don't take them seriously, somebody else will. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened in my situation, is they tried to trap me in a situation where I would be a minority partner, but I would be the one doing the ninety percent of the sweat equity work. I knew I walked through it with, you know, with my wife. When we're talking about numbers and we're talking about responsibilities. And the other thing for me was, you know, at this point in my life, I had come back to faith. You know, I, I was raising a family. We were in church. The guys I was working with, we were at, you know, steakhouses two or three nights a week. We were out playing golf. We were doing all the things that you do as an entertainer or somebody that's taking people out drinking every day. You can't say you believe and you have faith and then live a way that's exact opposite of that. And that conflict and that dissonance kept growing in me to the point of, you know, now it's it's funny. It wasn't like I came home and made the decision in day one. There were fifty to sixty nights of prayer and really argument and challenges. The God of you can't really be wanting me to do this. And I've got a young son and a young family and you know, now. Yeah. And it was, it was just when you have that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you, you have to do what he's telling you to do. I mean, it's, it's just getting that discernment to be able to understand, to feel that push and then submit to it. And that's really hard as a human. We are all ego driven and we are all we all think we know best. And that's the first step, is surrender. Man, I agree wholeheartedly. You know, for me, in fact, I don't remember what episode it was. But, you know, a guest shared this with me and I love that perspective shift. It's little pebbles that drops in front of us, right? To get, you know, that God drops in front of us to get our attention to, you know, for things that we need to start taking action on, right? Whether it's a career change, you know, business pivot or relationship change or whatever those events are. Right? And if you don't pay attention, if you don't like, especially if you're asking for it, right. Um, he's eventually going to drop a boulder and be like, hey, dude, like he did in my life. He's like, hey, dude, you've been asking for this. You've been praying for this. I'm trying to get your attention. So I'm just going to put a big boulder in front of you, you know, to finally get your attention right so you can slow down and listen and be quiet Or you can stay distracted and you're gonna run off the bridge. Yeah. Real quick, before you go, if you're still with me this deep into the episode, something in it hits you. Maybe it was the guest. Maybe it was one line. Either way, you're still here. And that feeling in your chest right now, that's the signal. Most people get a signal like that and do absolutely nothing with it. They close the app. Life rushes back in. The moment's gone. Six months later, there are the exact same spot. I don't want that for you. So I put something together. I want to invite you to check out a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed. Seven short videos. The five laws. I walk every client through. The same ones that rebuilt me when everything else fell apart. And if you listen closely today, you heard them running underneath the entire conversation because everyone who's come back from the fire walks through these five laws. Some find them on their own, some get help, but the laws don't change. Free video series. You can start it tonight. No fluff. No ninety minute webinar. Just the series. If you're going to do something with what you heard today, do this before life talks you out of it. Go to grit Code Exposed dot com one more time. Grit Code exposed dot com. And hey, before I let you go, thank you for writing with me this long. It means a lot more than you know. Thank you. Uh, I agree wholeheartedly. And one thing I forgot to mention. I'm going to kind of take this back for a minute. The other thing you said here I really want to highlight, because I think a lot of people miss this and I really want to highlight this. and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Whenever you're driven towards change, this is where you're going to feel the biggest resistance, whether whether regardless of what your faith is, you call it the universe. We'll call it God, right? This is our true test of like, how, Eric, how bad do you want this next level? You sure you want this next level? I'm about to test you, my dude. You sure you want that? Right? But so many of us, we get that resistance and it's like, hmm, maybe it wasn't for me. Maybe, you know, this is bad. I'm going to. I'm going to quit because this isn't for me. What do you say to something like that? How do you how do you approach something like that? Yeah, it's where are your goals? You know, I remember hearing a Ted Turner special back when I was like fifteen years old. And his advice was to and, you know, everybody has a different motivation. but his voice in that special was pick a number that is so big that you think you can never reach that number. He's like, and if you really use that as your anchor, he's like, I can promise you something. Not only will you, will you hit it, you'll beat it, and then you'll already have developed the habits that you're going to keep going. So for me, I set some goals for myself at fifteen. And at this point in my life, you're, you know, you've fallen away from getting kicked out of law school. Now you're in this great opportunity where you're making six figures. Somebody is offering you a minority stake in a business that's worth, you know, at least a few million dollars in your mid to late twenties. I'm thinking twenty eight at the time. Yeah. A lot of people just, you know, jump at that opportunity. But to me, I had anchored myself and these are my long term goals. And when I examined will this short term, uh, will this short term kind of, um, step, get me to that long term goal? And, and I knew it wouldn't and I knew it couldn't. So when you're faced with that now, it's not a decision anymore. If you've already set your anchor and you said, this is where I have to go, and this decision is not going to get you there, it's not a decision anymore. You got to move past it and put yourself on a path where it's going to get you to that long term goal, that purpose. And I talk a lot about that in my book. Everything has to be anchored to purpose because if it's just a number, if it's just an accolade, it's eventually going to wane. As far as how attractive it is to you. You have to set something that this is who I am and this is why I'm doing it. I agree so so so agree. In fact, that's a large part of what I do in my framework is, um, and that's why I do what I do right now, you know, because I, I came from a life where I had no fulfillment, I had no peace, I had no joy. I was flipping miserable. I was trying to chase, I was trying to fill a void by trying to, you know, trying to prove my mother wrong. Um, you know, some things she said to me. No fault of hers. I mean, it's the program she received, unfortunately. But, um, I certainly understand where you're coming from. I've been there. I've been in that space where I had no fulfillment. I hit every external marker of success and still feel like, man, is this it? Right? I mean, yeah, uh, yeah. How many people have said, I always want this car? And then they get that car and they say, I don't even like this car. Yeah, I always wanted this house, and now I'm having to pay all these bills for this house. And I always wanted that. I don't even like. Yes. Like the stuff is not going to bring it for you. No, it's not, you know, and I mean, I forget who said this. I think it was Ed Mylett. He said this, I'm going to butcher this up. I know I will, but it's not necessarily the thing that we're after. It's the feeling that we're going to get from others looking at us, right. And how they feel that we're going to feel makes sense. So yeah, when I, when I heard that, I'm like, I had never thought of it that way. It's not that the thing that we want, it's the experience of the feeling of what other people are going to perceive. Like, oh my gosh, man, that's a beautiful car. It's that hit, right? Yeah, man. Great episode man. Fast forward to today, man, because I know we're limited on time here. Um, and you keep talking about your book. So I definitely want you to, to, you know, mention this, but fast forward to today, man. What are you excited about today? I know we just talked about in the green room, so please mention that. But what is the world you have yet to see? What has the world not seen from you that you're most excited about? Yeah. So from when we started, uh, in November of fourteen to where we are today, now we're at, you know, fourteen locations. We're throughout the state of Kentucky and into Indianapolis. Uh, we have a surgery center that's going to be, uh, developing. The biggest thing that we're doing right now is what's called direct contracting. And that's the future. What we're doing is we're going directly to self-insured brokers and self-insured employers, people that have, you know, a couple hundred employees plus. And when we go to these brokers, what we're able to do is negotiate direct rates with our group. So if any employee for any of those self-insured employers come to us, we're a tier one provider. There's no co-pay, there's no coinsurance, there's no deductible. So we've had people now that have flown from Alabama to Louisville, Kentucky to have spine surgery. It costs them nothing. They were able to get great care, great outcome, and it cost them nothing because by us doing this, the self-insured employers know exactly what it costs. If you have spine surgery at a hospital, uh, a lumbar fusion could be two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, depending on where you go. We can contract a bundled rate that includes the surgery center, the surgeon, anesthesia implant, everything all up front. And by giving that price transparency to the employer, they're willing to pay the entirety of the cost of that surgery and keep any patient responsibility out of it. So what I have seen again, I think one of the best gifts that I have is that I'm not from healthcare. So I have an outsider's perspective on how healthcare should be. It is broken. It doesn't make sense. It's not transparent. It's not how any other business could sustain. But somehow we've accepted it as the American healthcare system. So for me, everything is about how do we educate patients. And you and I were talking about it before we got on. We just launched the Viva Health Learning Hub, just learn dot health dot com. It's one hundred and fifty different pages. It has a EOB explainer where you can hover and it tells you everything about an EOB. It has a deductible calculator. So you can look in and you can put your own deductible. What something's going to cost, how much you're actually going to owe. It has a denial claim adjudicator. So if you ever get a denied claim, you can click a button and it'll walk you through how to appeal it to get the care you need. Our goal is to bring healthcare literacy to people. To explain why health care is so complicated, what you can do to take control of your own health care, and how you can be your own fiduciary. So a lot of people don't realize if you get an MRI at a hospital, it might be three thousand dollars. That same MRI is often read by the same radiologist at an outpatient center. And for us, we do cash payments for three hundred and fifty bucks. If even if you have health insurance, three hundred and fifty dollars is cheaper than your your coinsurance, cheaper than your deductible. So those are all the things we're combining all these things that it's the way health care should be. And it's crazy to me that it's not really rocket science. All you're doing is being fair and reasonable and transparent. My business partner and I have the same mantra that we tell everybody we're not altruistic, but life's pretty easy if you just do the right thing. It is. It's true. I mean, if you're honest with people, if you show them what it's going to cost, if you truly try to help them, they're then going to tell everybody else they know about it and that's going to grow your business. And that's what we've done in health. Well, I mean, the results speaks for itself, right? Like, you know, as I was leading into the intro, you know, nine figure enterprise, you know, it's so true and you're so correct, man, not to, you know, go get, you know, go there politically or any of that. But our health care system is so jacked up. I, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't care what side of the fence you're on, our health care system is so jacked up. Um, and it's only going to get worse, unfortunately. But, uh, man, I appreciate you, you know, stepping in there and trying to make a change. And I think that's largely why you feel fulfilled and feel that have that sense of joy and peace and so forth. I'd love to hear from you, man, on this. Looking back, do you see all this making sense for you now and a sense of how your progression, everything that's led up to this point, does it now make sense to you versus at that time, like, man, why is this happening to me right now? Yeah, it's, uh, at the, at the point I was just in the storm. And when you're in the storm, you can't see through the clouds. But now I'm on the other side of the storm. And who I see throughout the entirety of that storm is God. And he was leading me on the path that I'm at. And I could have never gotten myself to where I am. Uh, and I talk about this a lot in the book is a lot of everything that I put in my frameworks are, are life lessons. They're, they're forged by fire. I actually had to do it. It's not, you know, an idea. It's not, you know, a theory. They are lived solutions that really work if you implement them. And I take that whole through the entire memoir because there's a lot more to the story that I think that you love. If you read it in the book and, uh, it goes through like how we develop these frameworks based on the problems we were solving. And for anybody listening, the biggest advice I can give to anyone is just solve that first problem. Don't look for the end result. Just start with the first problem and compound the problems you solve over time and where you are a year from now is going to be a much different place than where you started. But just start with the first problem. I agree man, I so agree. Thanks for sharing it man. Then this makes you a lot more valuable in a marketplace and you know, it just, uh, yeah, solving other people's problems. And that's at the end of the day, that's what we're designed to do. You know, we're designed to be creatures, you know, to create things. We're designed to create things, i.e. create solutions for other people's problems, right? You know, whether it's through art or it's building cars or it's building houses or it's, you know, coaching people or helping people with their health care. I mean, you're creating solutions to solve other people's problems, right? But man, you've been mentioning about a book or this book, plug it in here, man. What's the name of this book and where can people find it? Yeah, it's called Be the Broker. So, uh, you can go to the website broker driven dot com and just commit to, uh, Pre-purchasing. So it's not released yet. I'm doing a lot of these talks and refining everything right now, moving towards publishing probably towards the end of the year, but there is a free toolkit that's already available. And it gives you, if you sign up and, uh, ask for the toolkit, I'm going to send it to you for no cost. It's actually a workbook that goes through all these different frameworks, uh, goes through the, the Lasso method that I call it leverage alignment, Systemization optimization. A lot of it's based on the relational capital idea I talked about earlier and, uh, the currency, the relational currency that you deposit, you make to build that account. So what I will tell you in business, in healthcare, in any business you're in, relationships are your biggest account that you can have in business, how you treat other people, how you show up, how they can depend on you. It's going to open doors for you and rooms you never walked in. As long as you come through and you build that credibility through integrity, through doing what you say you're going to do and always showing up. I agree. I agree whole flipping heartily, and I would submit to you that it doesn't apply just to business. It's in every aspect of our lives, man. Every aspect, um, every aspect, you know, and, uh, and I think that is the most underutilized tool, especially in today's times. You look back in the last five or so years we have gotten, it's gotten way too easy to be isolated, you know? And so I agree, man, that relationship capital, too many people just don't leverage that, unfortunately. And it can I mean, you hear this right? Net worth right. Your net worth is equals your net worth, you know, or net it's the other way around maybe. But um, well, awesome. Dude. I love to give everybody 60s or 90s to talk to the previous version of themselves. Now that you've come through the fire, now that you've Walk this journey. What would you tell that previous Eric that's been that was laying on the couch? It's like, man, that's full of shame. That is probably questioning everything about himself. What would you tell that person? Because there is another Eric right now that's in that that is laying on that couch, metaphorically speaking, of course, that needs to hear something from you to get them off the couch to give them hope or some type of aspiration that that they too can achieve what you've achieved. You're the you're the author of your own story. So regardless of where you are today, it's not where you have to end. You know, take everything that you are experiencing today and use it for motivation. Learn from it. Use it as fuel. Use it as drive. Make it develop a a willingness to do whatever it takes to get to the next step. And you don't need to know where the end of the story is today. You just need to know that I'm going to make the next decision I'm going to make. I'm going to solve the next problem, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and give it everything I have. And if you do that every day, I promise the story you write will be epic. That's so good, man. That's so good. I got kind of goosebumps on that one, man. Thanks for sharing that, dude. All right. As we wrap up, I've got a couple of rapid fire questions for you in this season that you're in. Eric, what is your definition of grit? How do you personally define it? Yeah. So it's being able to let go. It's the opposite of what a lot of people think. A lot of people think that it's being able to stick it out or be able to control everything or, you know, hustle for hustle sake. It's really the opposite. Once you want to scale, you want to scale. It's how do you prevent yourself from being the bottleneck? It's, it's a lot more difficult to delegate and to trust other people to get the job done than just do all the work yourself. So to me, that takes grit. Mhm. Addition by subtraction. Agree. So hard. Agree. So hard. Man. Dude. All right, last two questions. When you're in the thick of it and you're in the trenches, lights go out. Is there a quote or a scripture or even a directive that you use to coach yourself through that moment or season? What comes to mind? Yeah, so a lot of it is a combination of different scriptures, but it's really just know that, you know, all good things come from God. And God has the best plans laid out before those who love him. And if I believe that with all my heart, and I know that I am not in control of the vast majority of things that occur in this life, whether my heart beats the next beat, whether I wake up tomorrow. The illusion of control is what a lot of us have bought into. So instead, I replace that with faith and I. You know who better to have faith in than the creator Almighty? I can't argue with that. I can't, I know there are others that could, but that's fine, you know. Right. We're all we're all entitled to our own beliefs and opinions. But I agree, man. For Harley. All right man. Last question comes in two parts. Those are listening or watching, especially for the first time guys, I love to give my opportunity, my guests, an opportunity to challenge my future guests with a question in their own. And guys, the, the lineup is completely anonymous here, right? So Eric, my previous before I ask you yours, let me ask you or I'm going to ask you, uh, my previous guest, this question era, um, Hadley Nightingale, um, had this question for you. If you could go back and start your business again, what are two things you would set up differently today than what you did with initially or then when you, when you first started? Yeah, it's a great question. So we started with physicians on a part time basis with a different model. Uh, you know, paying per click never took out any loans, never, you know, did any of that stuff. I think, you know, analyzing, uh, taking credit and potentially purchasing the buildings that we occupied sooner. We, we've done that now for, you know, the past six or seven years holding those long term assets on the balance sheet open up a lot more doors for financing and funding and growth opportunities. So not to be afraid of good debt is probably something I would, uh, give myself advice. Uh, I got burned a little bit. When you get kicked out of school and you got seventy thousand student loans. I don't want to owe anybody any money. Uh, but now, knowing what I know, I probably would have done that sooner. And what was the second part? Uh, no, it was it was just, uh, you know, that was it essentially. Okay, cool. And then, um, your question, what would you love to ask my future guest? What would you love to challenge my next guest with a question. Yeah. If, uh, if if it all ended today, if at all, if the business that, you know, and what you do right now failed, what would you do? How would you pivot and, and what problem would you solve first? Ooh, how did I know it was actually going to be around someone with a problem? Yeah. Awesome, man. Dude. All right. For the person listening that wants to connect with you, they will learn about your book or, you know, the, you know, what you're working with at Teva. Where can they connect with you? Maybe just to support you encourage, you know, to thank you, but where can they connect with you, man? Yeah. So I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me pretty easy. It's, uh, Eric Lo, if you look up at Teva Health, uh, you can find Aptiva health at aptiva health dot com. It's A p t I v a health dot com. And then information about, uh, the book be the broker, uh, go to broker driven dot com and you can connect with me there. Like I said, you can ask for the free resource, the free toolkit It is incredible. It's a lot of value for for free, I promise. I mean, if you work through that workbook and you go through some of those frameworks, I think it's going to open your eyes to some opportunities that you don't realize you have. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. I'll be dropping all of that in the show notes, guys. So please take advantage of all this, all this tremendous value he's providing guys. Eric. Man, dude, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you for sharing this last hour with us. And you know, not to share, you know, the amazing success story of this. Nine, you know, nine figure enterprise and book. You're writing all these things that you're, that you're doing now, but allowing your yourself to be vulnerable and sharing, you know, all this stuff. I say all this stuff, you know, the nuggets and the journey and the fires you've had to walk through to give you what you have today, man. So honor and respect to you, man. Big time, I appreciate you. Yeah, no, I've really enjoyed it. It's been great. And you know hopefully for everybody listening, you know, know that what you're going through today, that's like I said, that's not the end of your story. Use it as motivation. Mhm. That is true, man. That is so true. All right, guys, listening and watching the gap between average and excellence is just action. Guys, you heard what Eric said today. Don't just have faith. Step out in action and take those actions even in perfect action. So again, don't just listen, Eric, take one thing. Of all the things he's talked about today and use it in the next twenty four hours, that is the cost of the tuition. In listening today, my friends. And please be the reason someone doesn't quit today. Don't just keep this episode to yourself. Someone in your circle needs this right now. Send it to him. Eric. Again, my dude, thank you so much for stepping in. It was such an honor to have you, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. It's great. Absolutely. Man. Man.