The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Ep 50 Audio

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 you in the face with a two by four since that 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 today, guys. I'm sitting down with a guy who left Wall Street, a Wall Street career, moved to Paris, France, and is currently raising three kids there with his wife, Fabian. I hope I said that correctly. That's good, that's good. Nice job. Awesome, awesome. I'm on a good track record so far, and she is the founder that he went to work for. He spent more than sixteen years as her second in command, right hand person, the operator behind the curtain, and he built her company into a self-managing multiple sim figure business that essentially runs without her being in the room, which is amazing, right? He is the guy who makes the founder look so good and never needs his own name in the door. But that is not why I want you guys to listen to him today. My friends, I want you to listen because being the invisible one carries a cost almost nobody ever talks about. When your whole job is to make someone else win your victories. Don't even carry your own name. But your mistakes do. And little by little, your identity gets wired into a vision that was never yours. So when he finally decided to step out of his own shadow and build something of his own name on it, for the first time in his life, he ran to a question he had been dodging for who knows how long years, perhaps. Who am I when? Let me try that again. Editor, make sure you get this. Who am I when I'm not the one? Everyone else is around. Succeed. So if you've ever had been the reliable one, the engine behind everything. The. The person everyone leans on while you're quietly wondering if you'd be the one you'd be stopped pulling it all together. This hour is for you, Derrick, my dude. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you Carl. It's great to be here. I love your I love your intro and your setup. That was really, really good. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah man. Appreciate it. As I was putting this together, I think so many people can resonate with this, myself included. Right? Is, you know, especially in a line of work that I do, and especially from what it sounds like for you, I love helping people win. I love being that guy behind the scenes, you know, giving them that thing that they need, right? Whether it's, it's encouragement, support, infrastructure, whatever it is that may be needed. Right. And so I think a lot of people are going to resonate with your story a lot with what you're going to share. So I'm super excited. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah man. So Derek, let's get started. So let's start way back before the solution you have today, right? The company you've been building, we're going to get to that here in a moment. But before before Perry, before Paris, right before any of that. In the late nineties. You're on Wall Street, you know, uh, Deutsche Bank, Lehman, UBS, running project management, doing all this stuff. Paint us a picture of that version of you, you know, because you said there was a moment on the Metro. You're watching a guy who had been making that same commute for decades, and then something clicked. Take us to that moment. What did you see? What what it what did it make you realize that you didn't want your life to become? Yeah. Thank you for that. I, I still remember that moment vividly. I probably wow could recall it was probably around. I remember because my my daughter, our daughter was about one years old at the time. So that was two thousand and four. She's now just turned twenty three. So yeah, that moment was, as you said, I was working on Wall Street and investment banking in New York. Um, and I thought that was my professional track. I thought that was the corporate ladder. That's what I had studied. That's what I had meant to do. It's what I'm supposed to do. It's reliable, it's dependable, uh, it's steady, etc.. And, um, you know, I, I was commuting from Connecticut to New York and I would sit on that commuter rail. And funny joke is that when you do this commute, you have your train. So I was on the five forty one train. I remember the time, the five forty one train that would get me on Wall Street at about like seven, seven, ten. And after, you know, several months, you have your seat and you just you sit there, you read the New York Times, you read the Wall Street Journal. I looked across and I saw this guy that, you know, I was in my upper twenties. You know, he must have been in his mid seventies. And he looked exhausted. Oh, wow. He looked exhausted, you know, and I looked and I just kind of said to myself and said, is this is this what I want? Is that who I want to become? And I'm not saying anything negative about that, but there was this kind of like, reflective moment that I had now. Yeah. In fairness, part of the reason why I think I was aware to that type of reflection is that I, with my wife, she was an entrepreneur. She had a coaching business and very, very different corporate Wall Street entrepreneurial coaching businesses are like. Yes, very. Yeah. And I enjoyed what I did. It paid well, but there was no meaning. There was no purpose. There was no mission. There was no real fulfillment. Right? Yeah. And yeah, for an entrepreneur, especially if you're in the coaching business, there's all of those things, right? Yeah. Create transformation. You create change, you create that, that positive impact in somebody's life. And so I think I saw what my wife was creating in her own business and those elements that were very present for her and the financial piece. But for me, there was just the financial piece. There was no real meaning. There was no real fulfillment. So I think that moment on the train allowed me to reflect on that way and become present to that, because I could see and observe and really feel what my wife was experiencing in her business. And so a couple of years later, we made a very, very big, big, bold decision to have me leave my corporate job and join, um, you know, join her company. Um, and I'll get into that a little bit as well. But that was, that was the moment that really kind of shifted for me. That's amazing man. Thanks for sharing this. You share this very, you share this story, you know, on the metro. And I'm actually envisioning this guy, right? I'm actually envisioning this guy seventy years old, exhausted, tired, looking like and looking at yourself in McMahon's this is this it, is that really what you know, I want the rest of my life to look at, you know, to look like, right? And to your point, man, there's nothing there's nothing wrong with, you know, it's just it is a moment of reflection for you. Like me. AM I on a right path? AM I on the right journey here to to what I want? And here's what's I guess I wouldn't say I wouldn't say depressing. I think, um, what's the word I'm looking for? I, I guess, uh, disheartening is so many people look at that and don't move. Yeah. Yeah. Right. They look at that and they're like, yeah, that sucks. And they don't do anything with it. Right. But but you, you made a very bold move. And so walk us in that moment, right? Because I'm sure walking from one thing that would be that would give the appearance of security in and all those things, right to now you're working for your wife, which you know, on a multitude of things that can present some, some conflicts. Right. Um, so, you know, help us understand what, you know, was there any fear in that was, you know, what was going on in your mind when you said, okay, I'll make this bold move? Did you do it because you didn't feel any fear? Did you do it because you felt fear? Like, walk us in that moment, man. Um, I would be lying if I said there was no fear. I mean, I'm a I'm a guy that's a fairly kind of analytical, uh, consistent, you know, risk averse. Right. So I think the idea of makes sense from, from corporate into entrepreneurial space is not something that an individual like myself, you know, makes those decisions lightly. There are a lot of, uh, you know, entrepreneurs that are, that are, that are born in the sense that their, their, you know, high risk takers, their high idea generators, their creators, their visionaries. That wasn't me at that time. You know, that was my wife, but that wasn't me. Um, and so it was a very calculated decision that the both of us made together. Right. And it came from an opportunity to to create what we wanted for our for our personal lives. Right. So at that time, this was two thousand and eight, just around as the whole financial bubble was going on. Um, we had just had our second child to, uh, you know, about two years before we just bought a house. So it was a pretty significant investment. So there's a lot of like, you know, are you sure you should be making this type of decision on one side or the other side was just like happiness and fulfillment and purpose. Yeah. But, um, I also knew that for us to make this work, I kind of described the scenario that it's one plus one equals three because she would be able to do what she could do. I would be able to do what I could do. But because we both had the same mindset and the same focus on what we wanted to create, and that intention and that energy was there, it felt like we would get more out of it than if it was just bringing on somebody else as part of her team. Um, but I will say this, the thing that really, really shifted for me is that it was a huge identity shift. It really, really just being brutally honest, it a completely crushed my ego because, you know, you're a guy in Wall Street, you're making the big bucks, you're talking to the other guys and you're like, and even you said it, Carlin, I'm not going to blame you. But one of the things that I've always come up is that, you know, I didn't work for my wife. I worked with my wife. And even that differentiation was huge because if I went to my buddies and said like, hey guys, hey Carl, guess what? I'm working for my wife now. They'd be like, dude, what's what's the matter with you? What's wrong with you? You know? Are you not? Yeah, yeah. Not machismo enough and everything else. So yeah, that was number one. Number two, even though I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, business coaching, marketing, anything like that, we paid ourselves the same from day one because again, we have to be on the same kind of level playing field. Otherwise, there will be a little bit of like, am I less than? Are you more than am I? Yeah, that's a good point about you and not about me. So I had to stroke the ego a little bit in there, to be completely honest. But the thing that was really interesting is when I did share this with our social, with our, you know, friends and such. If I shared it in this context of, yeah, I'm working with my wife. She's got a multiple seven figure company. I'm going to be doing some of the day to day operations. They'll still hear like wife, like working for even though I say with, but if I flip the scenario and say, yeah, I've got this great startup that I'm working with, or I'm basically be running the company day to day, I'm in charge of the team, I'm going to be making the vision happen with the execution. We're going to hit eight figures, everything else to be like, oh, Derek, that's amazing. Great. But yeah, there was this dynamic of the wife component. It kind of shifted it a little bit. So I needed to let that go. I mean, let that go in terms of what it would mean to my ego. Let that go in terms of those relationships where that felt like it was the kind of filter by which they were looking at and judging those decisions that I was making. But then also, one of the things that's really ironic was in the first six months, we could very clearly see how we could two X the business, how we could three X, the business. There was just all of these opportunities started to surface because I was in my lane and I could execute. She was in her lane and she could execute. And it really just started to gel. Now, in the beginning, there was definitely some conflict, right? I mean, sure, you know, not telling the truth. If there wasn't a bit like, are we really making the right decision or are we crazy? Yeah. You know, but after some time and some bumps in the road, we made it work because we also knew that we had personal dreams and personal goals and, and, and aspirations that we wanted to accomplish, which we wouldn't be able to achieve if I was still stuck in my kind of nine to five. So it gave us that type of freedom and independence, which was a huge motivation for us. Man, that's so many good points there, man. You know, so many good points, right? Because you several things I want to pack here, especially the identity shift, right? You go from being an expert in one area and this is something I've learned in my own life. You know, you go from being an expert in one area where things are just automatic for you, comes easy to you now because you've pretty much mastered your craft to a degree, right? Not not to say that there's not anything more you can learn, but you've pretty much already got a rhythm routine and so forth, and a lot of people would stay in that comfort. Yeah. Right. A lot of people would stay in that comfort because it doesn't require them to get uncomfortable to do things that really move the needle, you know? So how did you go from being the expert and just doing things in rhythm and automatically just. Yeah, just being living that automatic life, if you will, to now you're being a beginner again, learning all these new things. And a lot of people look at that and they're like, um, no, I'm going to focus on the things I'm really good at, right? To give the illusion that I'm making stuff happen. Right? How did you do that? I always tell the story that, you know, in my wife's coaching business, I started in the mailroom and worked my way up because I literally, I literally knew nothing, right? I knew nothing about the business. Yeah, nothing about business coaching. I knew nothing about your clients, how you made money, your products, your programs. Yeah. What's a mastermind? Why do you do these three day events? And you know, what's an email newsletter list and everything else? But one of the things that we did that I think is, was a pivotal shift in this was that, uh, we believe, and to this day, I do this with all of my team and clients. You know, we believe in assessments, know how your know your strengths, know how you're wired to take action. Zone of genius, of assessments that are out there that are not personality assessments, but it's getting to the core of who you are. And I call it your DNA. And one of those assessments that if I can share as a resource is called Strengthsfinder. Um, and it's done by a company called Gallup. And the idea, which is somewhat contrary to popular educational belief, is focus on what you're good at and don't try to be good at the things that you stink at. Yes, one hundred percent dude. Yes. Naturally good at and get better at those. And if you're not good at other things, don't try to get good at those. Don't do those things right. Yes. Yeah. My natural strengths were behind the curtain. Backstage, you give me a vision. I'll come up with the plan. You've got a strategy. I'll come up with the execution. We need to find resources with team or systems or structure or process. I'll create the A to Z framework. That was like, and I used this analogy, which is with my wife, you know, she had a lot of ideas. There was a lot of new things that she wanted to create because she was a creator. That was her strength. But I was often the string to that kite. I would land the plane, I would make it happen. She would start things, I would finish things. She had the idea. I would see the execution. So there was a lot that was beneficial from that. And then there's another assessment that we use called Kolbe K o l b e and it's a it's it's a test in terms of your cognitive abilities, in terms of how you process information, how you think in terms of structure, how you handle risk and ideation. And again, when you know yourself, you do better. And so I knew what my lane is. And it was very much in thinking in terms of structure and systems and process and, um, kind of creating the framework. And I could provide that because those weren't her natural ways of thinking. She would create something, she would ideate. So there was this partnership. And this is one of the things that we use even to this day when we work with founders and CEOs, because they are the creators, they're the visionaries, but often they lack that, number two, in their business to land the plane, to be the string to the kite, to execute all the way to completion. So I think that's where it really started to shift in the beginning. And also just, I think, you know, I was, uh, a natural, I think just learner problem solving, like I like to get into the weeds. I was just, you know, how does this work? How does that work? And if I could leverage a resource like a team or a structure, a system to help kind of make that more efficient or make that better or make that more effective? That's the way that my brain would think. So I think, you know, for your audience, whether they're founders and CEOs, however you're wired, whatever your strengths are. Be more in that lane. If you have people that are more like the operators, the ones that are the people that make things happen and like to execute and implement. Be more of that. Don't try to be somebody else. I didn't want to be a front stage guy. I like being the backstage guy. So that's really how I, you know, embrace that more and more, especially in the beginning. Man, that is so good. I hope the audience actually 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. Grasp that. Because really that leans on, I think of what Jay Hendricks talks about in his book, the Take the Big Leap, right. Operating your zone of genius. Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, and I can't agree more on that. And I've heard Garyvee say the exact same thing. Quit trying to be a great thing that you suck at. You know, leverage what you're good at, not, um. And and and, and attack it with, uh, aggressive patience every single day. And I think so many people and I, I get myself caught up in this sometimes. And that's where my team's like, hey, Carl tactfully, of course, Okay. Let us operate in our zone of genius, and you operate yours. Yeah. You know, because especially if you have control issues, especially if you've made mistakes, uh, either selecting the wrong people or they've posed themselves as the wrong people, we oftentimes revert back to, well, nobody's going to do as good as me, right? Because, you know, maybe because they made a mistake or because they hired the wrong person or whatever. Right? I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do you overcome that? Like, how do you overcome? In fact, I've got several people in mind as I'm asking this question. How do you overcome that barrier, that block where you eventually start trusting yourself again to make those decisions, to surround yourself with people that can operate in their zone of genius where yours is not? That makes sense. Yeah. No for sure. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's been top of mind for eighteen years. Right? And I'll say, how do you overcome it? You don't. It's never gone. It's always present, right? New level, new devil. Right. So what you. Yeah. That's true. Maybe what you got started, uh, when you created the company, you know, for example, we have some clients of ours that are in the wealth management business, right? So they're kind of certified financial planners and they do insurance and wealth management and everything else. And you know, these guys have been doing this for twenty, thirty years. They've got a very sizable business. They've got team, they've got clients that love them. Multiple seven figures. Great. In the beginning, they needed to be the jack of all trades. They did the delivery, they did the marketing, they did the selling. They probably did their own damn bookkeeping, right? Or they did their own website or whatever. That might be true time thinking, oh, I'm going to bring in an assistant. I'm going to bring in somebody else that can help with the delivery. I'm going to bring in somebody that can manage my schedule. So there's always an evolution, right? So we've always done it. You just had another phase and you just need to go back to sometimes what we do with our clients, which I think is a really helpful exercise and it takes a second just to walk you through it. But if you imagine, take a piece of paper and break it up into four quadrants, two in the top, two in the bottom, and you start with the upper left. And this is what we call your unique brilliance. This is what your zone of genius. These are the activities that you love to do. People recognize you for them. You get better and better at it. And it's usually where you get paid the most in terms of value and financial resources. Right next to that, on the other side is excellent. Same concept of unique brilliance. But the difference is if you had to go up and do it all over again the next day, you'd probably feel a little bit drained, right? So you need you could just do it over and over and over again. And some people, you know, whether it's speaking, connecting, selling, coaching. Yeah, I just want to do that all day long and I want to do it again tomorrow and the next day. Excellence is like, yeah, I could do it one day, but if I had to do it all again the next day, maybe not so much, right? Yeah. That's true. The bottom two and in the lower left you have competent. These are the things that you can do, but frankly, you're probably not the best at. Right. These might be things like my social media, my schedule, email, calendar, bookkeeping as an example, right? Oof! Then you get to incompetent. Frankly, these are the things that you stink at. And any time you put your finger in it, you're probably costing your business money because you just are not the right person. I remember we had a client was like, I'm still building out the WordPress template to get my website live. And I said, do you enjoy WordPress and web development? He's like, no, I can't stand it. I said, like, then why are you doing it? And then the reason we do this exercise is the idea is that if you can delegate, automate, systematize, outsource as many of those bottom two quadrants, because most people spend a lot of their time in the bottom two quadrants because it's safety, it's what they know. But if they delegate that stuff out in the right person in the right seat, and they spend more time in those top two quadrants, that's where you spend. That's where you make most of the money in your business. And so if you look at bookkeeping, WordPress calendar, you bring in a VA, an ops assistant, a second in command, somebody that you can outlay at an hourly rate that's worth less than what you can make with that time back. That's how you're going to exponentially grow and build your company. And so when you see that black and white, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll see that like the SOPs need to be created, the structure needs to be in place because I need to get out of that lane because my lane is more on the vision and the future growth of the company, but I can't do it if I'm sucked down into the day to day, spending that time and stuff like bookkeeping and building my website. So yeah, I agree. I mean, that's that's so good, man. I love that that quadrant you just broke down there, you know, the ultra brilliance. If I wrote that down correctly, the the excellence, the competent and incompetent and, um, and still to this day, man, I spent well. And just whenever I work with, you know, I stress this not in this quadrant. You've kind of specified, but basically, you know, operate in your zone of genius, right? Because, you know, so many people, you know, they start off as that solopreneur, right? And I know I've been there multiple times in my life. And so we tend to hoard everything because once we've learned a few things, it's like, well, is it worth the hassle of training somebody and going through the headaches? And sometimes it's just easier just to do it myself, right? Um, you know, even if it took me five minutes to do that task, sometimes it's easier for me to just do that five minute task than train somebody for an hour one time. Right. Um, but I, that is so good, man. I love how you broke this quadrant down. Thank you. And I'll just I'll add on to that if I can for a moment, I think. yeah, of course, you know, because some people may think, well, I don't want to be the one to build out the steps. I don't want to create the SOP. I don't want to. Yeah. So I'm just going to do it myself. Right. And so, you know, the do it myself when they're multiplied over time, that's where they're, that's where the time goes. And I think one of the things that, um, really helps is looking at, you know, bringing in a resource where their, that is their lane to create the structure to create the SOPs, right? You know, if we work with a client and the SOP of their business is up in Bob's head. And if Bob's the founder, you can't scale Bob, but you know, all the knowledge that's in Bob's head. But we got to get it down on paper or on screen. Project management systems, onboarding, checkbooks, runbooks, playbooks, checklists, SOPs, etc. that's how you scale. You can scale structure, you can scale simplicity, but you can't scale. Bob. And sometimes what's going on in Bob's head is pretty complex and you can't scale complexity. So it's an exercise of getting the people, the resources that that's their lane to kind of get all of that down. Out of Bob's head. Let Bob be in the Rainmaker Lane. Let Bob be in the one that develops the relationships with clients and prospects and, you know, networking and then have somebody else in the lane that's running the day to day that's executing on the marketing, that's delivering the service to the clients, you know, that's handling the books and records. That's a scalable model for a company that's not so dependent upon the founder. That's so good, man, I love it, dude. Thanks for for adding that man. Yeah, man. Because I see this because, because I, I not only in my own life, right? But in working with so many business owners, founders and so forth. Man, I see that same, same habit, you know, where they, you know, they, that's where they trip them up and they wonder why they stagnate in, you know, for so long and they burn out and they get tired and so forth. So yeah, yeah, I want to take this in a, in a slightly different direction for a moment because you're, you're one of the unique ones. And I say this because I haven't had too many guests on where they worked with their spouse. Right. And I know, and I personally know quite a few husband and wife teams that have ran businesses and so forth. Some of them were very successful and some of them not so much. Right. And so for you, I would love to, you know, uncover some secrets, if you will. Sure. Um, because, you know, if I understood correctly, there were some stress markers, right. You said there were some red bumps when you first went to work with her and Fabian. Right. What was the hardest thing that that dynamic did to you and Fabian? Um, and was there a stretch where you genuinely did not know if the business in the marriage could both make it, if one of them had to give or one or the other, you know, walk us through that, man. Um, I'll say, uh, you know, in full transparency, the way that we approached it was, listen, at the end of the day, if this the working relationship isn't going to work, if we can't make this happen, I'll go back and get a job on corporate. Right? That was that was the fallback, right? We weren't willing to sacrifice our marriage in order to get the business relationship to work. And that was just our value based approach, knowing that, you know, we wanted it to work, but it wasn't going to be out of necessity at all costs. I think the other thing that, uh, like I said, some of the assessments in the beginning, because there weren't a lot of people out there, you know, this was back in two thousand and eight and the entrepreneurial space that we're talking about working with your significant other, right. Um, you know, there are people that maybe had a, a family business, you know, like a, you know, son and pop type of thing or, you know, brother and sister or something like that, like a family office, but not like in a partnership. And listen, I, I've told this story and I know there are many that are out there, but like, no effing what? I would never work with my wife. My wife would never work with me. And I'm like, that's good. Having that awareness means you don't need to listen to this part because it does not apply. But for some that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's really interesting. But I think you really get to the core of making sure that, listen, you don't want to jeopardize what's already there and what's already the basis of that relationship, which is the marriage, right? Which is the personal side. Yeah. One of the things that I'll just say, I think one of the best hacks that I learned after several years, because I'm a person who doesn't normally shift off, meaning like I'm always thinking, I'm always focused on, should we be doing this? Could we be doing that? My wife is half French, half American, and the French have this mindset, which is they don't like to work after a certain point in time. Right? You're right. I've been there and they like to enjoy the evening and they're not tied to their desk. Right. The success of yeah is they're very good at that. Yeah. Is, is it's not the main driver. And so I would sometimes mistakenly bring in work into our personal communications. So for example, if it's a evening and we're having a glass of wine after we put the kids to bed and, you know, I say something like, oh, did you see that email about the client? And she's like, what are you doing? So one of the things I learned is I wear two hats. I wear the husband hat and I wear the cowboy hat. And I never let the two coincide because if I did, I'm screwing the CEO side and I'm kind of screwing the personal side, if I'm being honest, because then I'm blurring the lines. So the idea was to separate those two and never have them co-exist, because otherwise you're always on, right? Because you spend a lot of sense partner. And if you're working together, you can spend a lot of time talking about the business with your partner and like, where's the off switch? Where's the date night switch? Where's the let's not talk about work for an evening or weekend switch. So I had to learn that the hard way. Um, and she was very good at coaching me be like, we're not talking about that because this is, you know, just the way that her brain kind of thinks in that regard. So that that worked very, very well. Um, you know, and I think the other thing is, uh, part of the benefit, at least for us, was that, you know, we have three children and we were able to kind of model, I think even at a young age, the relationship, not just as husband and wife, but also, as you know, in a business setting, like they would come to one of our mastermind meetings and see three hundred and fifty people in a, in a, in a conference room, in an event room that became normal for them, right? They kind of just like, okay, so this is, this is something that I'm, I'm seeing, I'm observing. And I think that kind of, um, you know, planted some seeds, you know, the two that are, uh, ones, uh, still in high school here in Paris. The other two are graduate. They're both entrepreneurs. Like they both have their own business. They're both thinking about creating in their own way. And I think they kind of drank the Kool-Aid of looking at that through the entrepreneurial filter. Be like, I can create what I want to create and I can have that type of, you know, freedom and financial resources because I saw my parents do it. So it seemed like normal. It seemed like I could achieve it because they could. So, um, but the hat thing was probably the biggest hack that I've learned over the years. Don't, don't blur the hats. Yeah, that's, that's a great point, man. Maybe even sometimes literally wear the hats if you need to. But I think that's, that's a great point because the lines can get kind of, you can get very easily, uh, um, confused. Right. And before you know it, man, there's no personal life. It's just all business. And, um, I, I've seen several relationships get destroyed over that because it was all, it was all business. Right? And there was no personal and, um, and it wore both of them out, you know, and I love the fact that you modeled it before your kids because it gave your kids a different perspective of what's possible, right. And allowed them the freedom to, to do the things on their own. Right. That's so good, man. So, so for sixteen years, you know, because I know there's a lot of people out there that are in a season of change, you know, whether it's after a couple of years, maybe even a couple of decades, like I went through a pretty, you know, big season change myself where I went from, you know, twenty five years of building a business in a certain vertical thought leader, expert and so forth into something that I had to start all over as a complete newbie again. Beginner, right. So you say sixteen years was tied to identity that was making someone else win, right? So talk to the people out there that are in their in your boat, right. They're, they're, they can resonate with you out on your own. No founder to stand behind, no safety net. Who was left? Right. Did you recognize the guy trying to build, you know, from scratch in a foreign country? Uh, or did you have to figure out who you were before somebody else, before somebody else's vision. Yeah. Uh. The serve. Yeah. I think it was a it's a similar identity shift that I went through when I left corporate and then started to work with, with, with my wife. Um. Yeah. Uh, because it was like you said, I've been doing, you know, c o o chief operating officer, call it a second command, call it an operator. You know, basically, you know, I for sixteen years I would run other people's companies. That was my that was my zone of genius. I did that for many years with my wife's business. And I did that fractionally meaning part time for a handful of other companies that were scaling it, multiple seven figures. And I was good at it. That was my identity. Yeah, that's how I got significance. That's how I felt I was valuable, was be able to create the execution for other people's visions to become reality. Mhm. And I think at a point, two things happen. Number one, on a logistics level, living here in France and our market and our client base is us. I only have a limited amount of time in the afternoon in order to work with US clients, right? So it's true about three in the afternoon, which is nine a m eastern to about seven p m if I work that late, which is about one p m eastern, that's my window. If I'm working with a couple different companies, not just the founder, but their leadership teams and doing things virtually. I didn't have a lot of time available to do that, so it wasn't sustainable. There was only so much of me that I could scale and build because it was based on me. So in twenty twenty four, I very deliberately and I say deliberately, meaning I took my time, I did the thought process, I weighed the pros and cons to step out of being that number two operator. So I often say I took off the operator, love it and put on a visionary CEO hat. I had my own vision of what I wanted to create for my company, and that took a long time in the making for me to get to the position to make that decision. It wasn't like I woke up this morning and be like, you know what? I'm not going to do this work anymore. I want to be a CEO. Right. Exactly. It wasn't like that. Again. I'm not a born entrepreneur. I needed to kind of, um, think through what the decision was going to be. There are two types of people that exist in this world, those that are talk thinkers. And then there are others that are think talkers. I may think talker, which means I think then I decide where there are some people that decide, then they may think about it, or maybe they don't think about it, right? So for me, I really had to kind of make that calculated decision. What would it look like? How would I construct it? What would my role be? Who are the clients I want to serve? What are my non-negotiables? What would the marketing look like? How would I differentiate? Like I did all of that. And so I simplify it in this way, which obviously is a lot easier said than done. But I kind of took my playbook of how I scaled other multiple seven figure companies and have just been kind of plugging that in to what I'm doing here at the Co solution. Right. So in the last two years, we've got a team of twenty five people. We're at multiple seven figures. And I don't say that to brag. I say that because I was very deliberate in my intention of what I wanted to create, not just on a whim, because that's not the way that I'm wired. I created it because I know what I want to have in place in the next ten years. So I started with the end in mind and then reverse engineering what it's going to take to create that. And I not ironically, that's exactly what I've done for clients. I'll say, what's your ten year North star? What's your what's your why? Why are we doing this? I'm doing the same exercise for myself and kind of, you know, there are those that say like, I walk the talk, I'm talking the walk, which means I'm talking about it because I've done it, which is different than, you know, talking about it, then doing it like I've done it. Now I'm actually talking about it. So that was a very big shift. And only in the last two years that I've decided to, you know, kind of take off that I say, take off the CEO hat and put on the CEO hat and launch a company. So yeah, yeah, that's so good, man. Uh, there's a couple of things I want to extract in there, uh, one of which is a phrase I just said, uh, not even a few days ago because I launched my first book on Friday, went live. And, uh, we had the thank you had the launch party and I was talking with another lady. Um, and she's got at least ten books in her because of, you know, her story and things that she's been through and things that she's accomplished and so forth. And she's like, where do I start? You know, it's like you start with the end in mind. You know, I've had to learn that you start with the end goal in mind, you know, and you work backwards from there. So I love that you said this not even three days or two days actually, after this conversation I had with her because a lot of times we get so caught up in the how to start that we just what is the end game, right? And that's really in my mind, in my belief, that's really the determining factor is because if you start with the end game first, right, the end goal, right, which should be exit or to pass as a legacy or something. Right. That helps you understand like where you work backwards from there. Yeah. You know, but, um, one thing I really want to highlight that you said here, and I love that you said this because I hope everybody's paying attention. I'm about to say, you said you're not a born and I'll fill in the blank here, but I'll say specifically, you said you're not a born entrepreneur, right? And I, I feel a lot of people and I can put myself in a situation here. I feel a lot of people don't start something because they feel like I'm not a born fill in the blank. Exactly. Entrepreneur, business owner, athlete, whatever. Author even. Right? I mean, hey, I never thought I was gonna be an author. Still hasn't fully landed yet, right? But how do you go from, you know, not being, you know, that person to now you are this person, right? I mean, was there a hack secret sauce? Did you have to believe it? Then start doing it or did you just do it? Then start believing it? Walk us through that process. It's a great question because I knew how I am, that I am not the type of person to just create something on a whim. And I say that because again, I go back to entrepreneurs like to create things. They like to ideate. Yes. I don't know if you know this little known fact, but the word entrepreneur is originated from French and it means entrepreneur, which means to start something. It means to initiate something. It means yes, it does to another level. I do that, but I don't do that naturally. So I needed to kind of do it in my own way, which is why I said I made a very deliberate, careful, strategic thought through decision to create my company as opposed to I just want to create a business. And there are some that say, I just want to create a business and I applaud them and that works for them. So be more like that if that's how you are. But if that's not how you are and that's not how I am, I need to go about it in my own way. And so listen, I still am very much an operator at heart. I'm very analytical, I'm very disciplined. I'm very consistent. Those aren't necessarily the traits of your classic entrepreneur, right? Your classic entrepreneur is going to be more about activating something and maximizing the potential and, and seeing a bigger future. I see a big future, but I see big future based on spreadsheets because I do the analysis where some people have big futures because they create vision boards and that gets their true life. So there's different ways to go about doing it. But I'm still very much an operator at heart. And this is why I have my own CEO in my company, because I need to again, walk the talk. But sometimes she'll tell me, you know, Derek, that's not really your lane as the CEO, you should really be focused on these things. I'll handle the team, I'll handle the projects, I'll handle this. So I have to remind myself to kind of respect, but I also just know how I'm wired. And so I kind of, you know, don't shame myself for being not like everybody else. I'll share a quick, quick story that I think can really go for this because I think your audience is maybe can resonate with both elements of this. So number of years ago, I was in a mastermind with a number of other entrepreneurs. I was there because I was the second in command and my wife's business. So again, I was fortunate to be like the partner in the room. We went out to a dinner with the owner of the mastermind. And after one of the days, uh, there was about ten of us at the table for dinner. Um, and all of them were talking about creating new things and new ventures and new ideas and big visions and bigger futures and everything else. And I looked around the room and I'm like, am I in the right room? Should I be here? Because I don't think like them. And I'm wondering if maybe I'm a little bit of an imposter trying to pretend to be like them when I'm really not like that. And so I shared this to the owner of the mastermind as we were kind of finishing up and he said, um, do you mind if I share with the table what you shared with me? And I said, sure, that's fine. And he said, here's what's really interesting and great about people like Derek, because if we had this conversation tonight and all of these ideas got thrown onto the table without a person like Derek, and we pay the bill and leave the restaurant, those ideas are going to live and die on that table. But when you have a person like Derek that's wired to think about how do we take those ideas and then actually make them into action? That's where you really can move the needle. And so I felt really validated. Be like, I don't need to be like all of these other people. I don't need to be the big idea generator. I can live in my lane of being the big idea, get it done guy. And that's what lights me up. So I remember it was a real validation that I don't have to trust you. Whoever's listening don't have to be like everybody else. Be who you really are to your core and be more of that. And that's how you can really make impact. That's how you can make a mission. That's how you can make purpose. So I felt really validated in that moment where I was almost teetering at the point like, should I even really be here anymore? Yeah, man. Dude, that is so, so good. Because I 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 riding with me this long. It means a lot more than you know. Thank you. I know so many people put them either afraid to put themselves into a bigger room, or when they do get into a bigger room, right? There's this whole, like you said, imposter syndrome. There's that quiet voice nagging your mind, what are you doing here? Yeah. You don't belong here, right? You only do this, or you're only at this level or you're only doing this. And that's so true, man, is when you put yourself in those bigger rooms and just operate. Remove the mask, remove the the whole, you know, inauthenticity, right? Just be authentic. That's man, I, I feel you could get one hundred times more value in that type of environment because people know. Right? People do feel that when you're trying to put up a front about something that's not true, whether it's a income level, it's a title, it's a business or any of that or how you, you know, operate. But when you show up as you did in that moment and just, you know, be real, be authentic and made it loud, right? Yeah. Um, in spite of fear, it's I'm sure you have sweaty palms. Your heart was racing and you know, all those. Exactly. Right. So I'm only saying this out loud because so many people think they're the only ones, right? They say they think they're the only ones that feel this way. They feel like they're, they're the only ones that have that voice in their mind. Like, what are you doing here? You don't belong here. You know, remember what you did last year. Remember this mistake or, man, you need to stay at this level because you don't belong at this next level, whether it's income or it's finances or whatever, man. So that that is so good, man, I love that. Thanks for sharing it. Yeah, man. Let's go tactical for a moment because I, I love, I love routines, right? I love frameworks and you give credit to more than anything to an embarrassingly simple routine thirty to forty five minutes every week reviewing move with didn't all that right. So walk us through this man just real quick. Just get some tactical and not that we haven't given any value already. But you know what do you ask yourself? Give me one specific time where it stopped you from leaning on pure reaction. You know what? Yeah. Um, and it's something that we do with all of our clients. I think it's a, it's a, it's a, an element of, um, how do we provide clarity to a business owner and entrepreneur, um, on how things are actually doing because we can do a lot of gut checks. I think the business is doing well. I feel like we're okay. Right? I think cash flows. Yeah. Pretty good. I, I have a sense that leads are, are coming in. Right. Um, which is good. Don't, don't negate the, the importance of feeling. Um, but I also firmly believe that, um, numbers don't lie. They tell a story about true things are actually working. So one of the things that I do in my business, and again, this is one of those, like what we do in my business is what we help with our clients. Um, is that we do a weekly metrics review. Um, and this is not just a, you know, a fifteen minute discussion looking at a couple numbers on a spreadsheet. Um, this is an in-depth analysis every single week. And I mean, every single week, consistently and frequently, not once a month, maybe not every other week if we feel like it, etc.. This is a very consistent and frequent pulse check on how we're doing. Um, and one of the things that we look at is across all spectrums of a business. So marketing, sales, operations, finance, I know it kind of simplifies it, but you know, operations can be the product, it's the service, it's everything. Um, and there's a couple key metrics that we look at every single week across marketing, sales, operations and finance. And there's a couple questions that we ask, are we on track or are we off track? What I mean is if we have a goal and I use marketing as an example, because everybody needs to be marketing their business, right? So what do you agree? Business. You need leads, right? If you don't have leads, you don't have prospects, don't have prospects, you don't have clients and customers. So there should be a benchmark, a goal, an objective. How many leads do we need? Ideally every week. Could be five. It could be one. It could be fifty whatever the number is. But then you track every week. How many leads did we generate that week and are we on track? Meaning we're on target or more? Or are we off track? Meaning we're less? And if we're on track, you don't just say great and move on to the next number. We say, why are we on track? What caused us to be on track? I like that who and what and when can we do more to be more on track? Conversely, if we're off track, why are we off track? Who owns the fact that we're off track and who, what, when and why are we going to do to get back on track? And we do that consistently across the key metrics. I'm not saying every single number, but if you have a business that's dependent upon leads and most businesses are, you need to be putting your needs, your leads and making these type. This is accountability, right? This is ownership. This is not just putting a number in a spreadsheet and being like, but I don't know why we're off track and I'm not sure what we're going to do about it. And I don't know who's going to be responsible for it. No, we provide the ownership, the accountability, and we look at that across key metrics of marketing sales. I do this in my business. I did it this afternoon. I do that every single Monday with my CEO because I know exactly how we did next week, sorry, last week. And then what we need to do differently this week. So this is just an example of like a very tactical numbers based accountability system that I think works really, really well in practically any business. Um, and it's just something that I think when you put it into action and you can hold people accountable. It can really start to move the needle. Here's the reason why I think especially for numbers, like I said, numbers tell the story of what's working and what's not working. And we can, you know, kind of litmus test how we feel about things all the time. But at the end of the day, if you look, the numbers are going to say, how's cash flow? How's leads? How are sales, right? And you need to be making decisions based on that as opposed to just kind of feeling. So I agree. That's so good man. Thanks for sharing that. That's very, very tactical. And I know the answer, but I want you to say this out loud. Right. You said you want to know why. If it's, you know, on track, why are we why are we, you know, finding out why, right? You know, it's understandable why something's not working because you want to know the root cause, right? Um, so, you know, on the other side of the spectrum, a lot of people just leave off. Is it working or are we on track? And a lot of people just move away. Yes. Right. But you go deeper. Why is that? Yeah. You're asking me why we go deep? Because, yeah, it points to the reason of what we're doing that caused that result. So I'll give you an example. The same, uh, finance, you know, wealth management professional, uh, you know, they track their leads every single week. Um, and, you know, they have a goal and if they look at their scorecard and say, okay, let's say our goal is five. And last week we had fifteen. Well, if you just kind of chalk it up to like, great, let's move on. But you missed the learning. So if you ask the question why? Well, why is because Bob went to an event and spoke on stage and a bunch of people came up to him and he collected their business cards. And now we've got them in our CRM for follow up. That generated fifteen leads. Great. How do we get Bob to do more of that? Because that's working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basic example. Right. Or if you say why it's not working, I'll use another example. We have some businesses that do a lot online, uh, like real estate coaching as an example. And if their lead flow is down and they'll say the reason lead flow is down is because our budget, uh, got decreased because of cash flow reasons. Okay. Well then how do we fix that? Because lead gen is dependent upon budget for ad spend. You know, it gets the issue. This is the thing. Sometimes I think people are generally really good at solving problems. The problem is leads are down. The problem is cash flow is tight. The problem is prospects aren't closing. But if you ask the why question, it gets to the thing that's underneath the problem, which is the issue that we're trying to solve. We don't want to be fixing problems all day. We want to be solving issues. And solving issues is actually getting the story of what's really working or not working, as opposed to just kind of fixing problems. So I look at it that way. Yeah. So good man. So much gold in this episode, dude. Thanks, I appreciate it. Yeah, man, I need to put this into a paid portal or something. Man. Master. Master class that we just shared here. Yeah. Man. Well, fast forward today, man, you're running this co solution. You're building a bench, you know, a fractional CEOs. Um, I think you have a podcast you're on if I remember correctly, um, you're living in Paris. Like what, what are you excited about right now? What are you fired up about right now? Maybe the world hasn't yet seen. Oh, that's a great question. Uh, one of the things that I'm most fired up about is what I call my ten thirty one. Um, and again, this is something that we do with our clients. I call it your ten year vision, your three year plan and your one year picture. And I'm, again, because I'm very intentional. When I created this, I started with the end in mind. So I know based on whether it's number of clients, revenue, number of CEOs, profit, Valuation. I'm very excited about what my ten year vision is in terms of what I want my company to look like, and I look at that all the time because that's my motivation to do what I'm going to do. And it's not just about the numbers, but it's about the impact, right? In terms of like, I've got twenty two clients now that might look like I've got eighty two clients in the next five years, right? Or next ten years, whatever that might be. Um, so I always look at that. I look at the three year picture because the three year picture allows me to be on track for what I'm doing for my ten year vision. And then I've got my one year plan, which is what I'm doing now. So like the one built into the three and the three builds into the ten. I don't share the numbers of that publicly, but I share the idea of that all the time. I speak about that on my blog post, on my social media, and my podcast with our clients, because I think they all could be thinking more. Yeah, I've got some like I've got a bag, right? Big, hairy, audacious goal. But I'm like, break it down. What does that look like? Like play with those numbers. Like be in the sandbox of what you want to create without any attachment of how you're going to get there. Because the how can be figured out if you reverse engineer ten three one, right? So it's very kind of compartmentalized, but I like to be in that type of an environment and that gets me excited. That gets me fired up both internally for my own company, but also when I can feel it. Yeah, you can, I can tell, man, I could tell I, yeah, I could definitely, uh, you know, sense it from you. This fires you up, man. That's awesome. Yeah. We're cool man. Let's get some rapid fire questions for you as we close because, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, we got to wrap this up. Um, it's been such a, I can't believe an hour has gone by already, um, in this season that you're building in, you know, building this CEO solution and scaling and going over your, your, your in game and stuff of that nature man. How do you personalize, how do you personally define grit in this season that you're in. Um, I would say the, the, the, the, for me, the grit is the, the thing that probably puts it right over the edge. It's the tipping point. Mhm. I think in building a business, from what I've experienced, both in what I'm building and having worked with a number of companies over the last sixteen years helping them build something, things are never linear, right? The path of entrepreneurship is the entrepreneurship is the fastest path to personal development. It's going to bring up all of your stuff. You got that right. And so I think as a result of that, there are high highs and low lows. And I think in those moments, the thing that's going to get you through the low lows is that determination. It's the why. It's that it's that tipping point, which is maybe it's the the motivation that you're tapping back into that is why you created this or the bigger impact. Maybe it's looking at your ten year vision, right? Don't forget about that ten year vision. Always keep that top of mind. So I think if we can always plug back into the why, that can kind of help address some of the, the negative talk, the self-doubt, the beliefs of like, who are you? Why are you thinking you can do this? You're not going to be qualified. It's not going to work. All the stuff that I, I don't I don't name this expression, my wife came up, but she calls it the drunk monkey, the person that's on your shoulder and your voice and your head. Yes. Like, who are you? You're not going to do this, right? So when I talk about imposter syndrome, I think about drunk monkey bigger why? And it helps me kind of push through those obstacles. I think that's really important. Oh, man. Drunk monkey. I love that dude. That was my main takeaway this whole episode. Drunk monkey. Oh, man. All right, man, last two questions. Uh, when the lights go out and you're in the trenches, what do you find repeating to yourself, whether it's a it's a quote, it's a directive, even scripture. Um, what do you find yourself repeating? You know, to coach yourself through those moments? No small children will be harmed. Ooh. Meaning at the end of the day, no small children will be harmed. No one's bleeding. No matter. It's so true. It looks like we can figure it out. We'll get through it. And I think I've just in my corporate to entrepreneurship, moving from us to France, starting my own business. Right. There's been a lot of pivots along the years. And I think, and I've learned this in this relationship with my wife because she's got a very positive, uh, mindset around things like, listen, no small children will be harmed. Everything's going to be fine, right? We've got a roof over our heads. Nobody's bleeding. It's all good. Don't worry about it so much. Don't beat yourself up about it so much. Take a nap. Go for a walk, listen to music. Get yourself back into a positive state if you're kind of negatively going down the rabbit hole. No small children will be harmed. I like that, man. Awesome, dude. Well, cool. This last question comes in two parts. Uh, for those that are listening or watching, I love to give my guests an opportunity to challenge my next guest with a challenge question of their own. And guys, the lineup is completely anonymous, so Derek has no idea who my next guest is. So when he asks this question, he doesn't know. And so far, this question has landed perfectly. So. Uh, Dylan boast of my, you know, previous episode had this question for you. If you could change one thing about the world, big or small, it doesn't matter. And it would change in a blink of an eye. But it's only one thing. What would it be? Arrogance. Ooh. I think people who believe and think that they know more than others and rely on that to their advantage. I feel like that, that that the world would be a better place if we didn't have arrogant people. Yeah. That's so good. I agree man. Okay, I agree. Awesome. Well, cool. Well your turn. What would you love to challenge my next guest with? I think the question I'd love to toss to you, Carl, to ask your next guest would be if they were to think of and I mean really think and go back to one of the darkest moments that they've experienced personally or professionally. And I'm not trying to have it be deep and, you know, yeah, sad, but find something that's like, maybe you don't talk about so much. That seemed really negative, really sad, really deep at the time. What was the positive from it? What was the learning? What was the lesson? What was the upside of something that maybe on paper in your experience has always been in the downside? So good man. That is so good. I'm looking at my. But I hope your guest will be able to handle it. Yeah, one hundred percent, man. I'm looking at my guest line up here and it's perfect, dude. So I can't I can't tell you who it is. You're just gonna have to tune in. But, uh. Yeah, this this is good. Well, man, Derek, this has been such a great episode. Great conversations, so much information, so much nuggets to unpack here. So, uh, thank you. Where can. Yeah, man. You know, for the person that's listening right now that that resonates with what you're saying, either because of the husband wife perspective or the identity shift or anything at all that we've talked through. Maybe they want to learn more about, you know, your solution, your CEO solution. Where can they connect with you? Where can they find more about you, man? Thank you. Uh, probably the best place is the website. So my website is called the co solution dot com. Um, there's a podcast. I love that, uh, talk about some things like we talked about today, but I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn. So if somebody wants to reach out and DM me and if anything resonated from what we talked about today and they want to connect with me there, that's, that's fine too. So the co solution dot com or just on LinkedIn. Awesome. Man. I would definitely be dropping all of that in the show notes guys. So make sure you scroll down below, click on it, check it out and, uh, reach out to him if any of this resonate. If you want to check out his services, make sure you reach out to him. Derek. Man. Dude, this last hour has man by a in a seemed like a flash. So thank you for coming in here to not just talk about the, you know, the life that you guys live between you and Fabian and your kids and living in Paris, right? But really have given us a very small glimpse into the story that led up to all of this and really sharing your heart, sharing your story, sharing the wisdom that you've shared, man. So I appreciate you doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Karl. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yeah, man. Absolutely. All right guys, so those listening or watching, you know the routine by now, the gap between average and excellence is just action. Even in perfect action. Don't just listen to Derek today. Take one thing of all the things you shared and use it in the next twenty four hours. And in addition to that, be the reason somebody doesn't quit today. Don't just keep this episode to yourself. So in your circle needs it right now. Send it to him. Derek. Again, my dude. Thank you, my man. It was an honor to have you appreciate it. Thank you.