#65 - Mike Bodkin | The unexpected ROI of checking your entrepreneurial energy

Hello and welcome to Radio, a podcast by Antropanies, four Antropanies. I'm your host Ross Drake's and in this podcast we share the stories of EO Antropanies, their personal path, experiences and stories of what they've learned building their businesses and what drives them to keep good. Today on the podcast I'm talking to Mike Bodkin who's the co-founder and CEO of Talent Scouts. He's a proud EO South Florida member and he's part of the post-exec founders community. Welcome to the podcast Mike. Thanks Ross, excited to be here. So my first question is the same of everyone, like give me your current elevator pitch. Like elevator pitch. All right. Yeah. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll elevator pitch talent scout. So we are a niche recruiting company that focuses on placing senior marketing operations and creative talent from Latin America into US businesses. Go. And that's our, that's it. Let's go right back to the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. When you were growing up, we were like, you know what I want to do. When the one day when I grew up, I'm going to find creative talents in Latin America and sell it to people in the US. Like how did you how did we end here? All about arbitrage when I was young. I was the whole, the whole concept, right? No, you know, it funny enough. I was in the creative realm, but, but much further adjacent to where I am now. I, I actually got really obsessed with movies when I was a kid was lots of kids do. I just happen to have an uncle that was in the movie business. Since I was like a little kid, I was really interested in, in movies and I just so happen to have an uncle who was in the film business. So we went out to visit him. He got to choose one of us from the family to bring on a movie set. And I won that lottery and got to go on the set of cops and robbertses, which was really just kind of mind-blowing experience at the age of 13. And I walked out of that movie studio. I walked out of that set and I said, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be a director. I want to make movies. And so I did pursue that that that for a long time. I actually had a pretty significant career in filmmaking for about 15 years before I got the entrepreneurial bug. So, but that was the creative side of me. But then I learned that maybe business was more, was more my fit after after kind of doing that for a while. So, so what kind of a movie set, so you're saying you did created movies? You were a filmmaker. What kind of stuff did you, were you producing in your career? Yeah, yeah. So, I kind of ran the gamut. So, I worked with him originally. He was a production, is still a production designer, pretty big production designer. And so I worked in live action in the art department at first. That's kind of where I got my feet wet. Then I moved into animation. I was part of the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie. If anybody is seeing that, you know, and then I moved from that into stereoscopic filmmaking, which was basically in 2010 became, you know, a technology that kind of got revitalized. It's the one where you put the glasses on and it comes off the screen at you. And so, I was on a sort of ground floor of the film tech company that was the biggest in the world making, you know, those movies basically taking movies that are already filmed and then converting them. We called it into 3D. So, I've done movies like The Avengers, you know, all the, the whole suite of Marvel movies. We'd take Titanic. We took that. We converted that. So big, big films across the board have done over 30. But I was in charge of the post-production for that process. I was the head of the studio doing all that. That's amazing. One of my first jobs was I used to have to run the beta tapes from the studio where they were cutting them out to pick the tape up and then run it through to the live broadcasting. And I hand them the tape with the live time codes written on it. So that was one of my first jobs. There you go. That's, I mean, it's a great industry. It's a, it's a crazy industry. I've probably got a lot of stories from those days running around. But yeah, it can be really fun as well. I just kind of had hit it. I hit a threshold where I was, especially in the post-production side of things. There's a saying that they use in filmmaking called Will Fix It in Post. And that's kind of a common thing. And it just means just keep pushing the crap down the line. And what ends up happening is the release date for the movie can never change because there's so much revenue tied into that. So then the people at the back end of the pipeline keep getting squeezed. And so I kind of got, got sick and tired of being the brunt of all that, you know, work in, you know, 14 hours a day, six days a week, and for other people. And then I said, okay, I think I'm going to go do my own thing and build my own businesses. So that was a motivation behind how I actually got into the entrepreneurial field. So what, like what business did you create? What was the idea that you were trying to bring bring to life? Yeah. So from there, I had met one of my vendors was a guy up in San Francisco. I was in LA. And I was, I was talking with him and he really wanted to start a creative agency. And so he was more of the creative, you know, behind it. And at that point, I was much more of the producer and business operator behind it. So we teamed up and in 2015, we launched our agency, which was called Giant Perpeller. And it started as a creative agency is kind of the background that we both came from. We bootstrapped it. We were able to leverage all of our contacts. We were making music videos, you know, some, some pretty interesting ones. I think my favorite one is if anybody knows the artist a little dickie, we made a video for him called pillow talking, which was basically like a short film. I think that was our biggest claim to fame. It's like an 11 minute, you know, film, but it out. Tone to visual effects in it, whole production. So we were doing all sorts of creative projects at first. And that allowed us to bootstrap the company. So we didn't have to get any investors. We kind of just used those connections to part of the money back into then growing the business, which then became sort of step by step a full service ditch remarking agency. And so we focused on e-commerce brands, direct to consumer and grew that business from creative into into the full service and managed that, you know, throughout, you know, the years, you know, basically from 2015 up and through 2023, you know, so went through COVID, went through all the stuff everybody's gone through, kind of the ups and downs. But then we had an exit in in 23, which was, which was pretty incredible as well. So all in kind of solo running that for eight years and we stayed on, you know, stayed on for two years after that with with the company that had acquired us. So 10 years running that agency. It was a lot of a lot of a lot of down slowdowns. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, I think there's probably an interesting conversation in what was it like growing the service offering, you know, so you were quite focused at times like the beginning and then expanded the offering. What was it like expanding your services and providing more and more to the market as they sort of demanded it? Yeah. Well, we, it was, it was an interesting time. Maybe as 2015, there's a couple of other agencies in LA that became quite, quite large, one called mute six, another one called hawk media. And we were all kind of at back in the day, we were all kind of neck and neck. It was really when e-com and direct to consumer was really kind of, you know, in full force at that point. And so we'd make, you know, we'd make a video or we do some creative assets for somebody and then they'd say, and I remember this very, really clearly they'd say, could you do this, could you do that? And and my partner was much more on the creative side of things. I was much more the business side of things at that point. And eventually I was like, listen, we got, we got to start saying yes to this work. Like we can grow this into sort of this, this other machine. And so we leaned into that and sort of the first additional service we added was email marketing actually. And from there we just didn't let off the gas. It became a, we can do everything model, you know, we'd say we'd start saying yes to everything. So whether it was email marketing, social media, media buying, right? Like we just kept saying yes, which again, in talking to a lot of other agency owners, it seems like, you know, a fairly common theme. I mean, in some cases, especially in the full service side. And we just started adding those services in. So just managing headcount, bringing people on, you know, at the right time, you know, starting with contractors freelance, you know, moving an over full time as we kept drawing and then starting to shape our contracts and our models based on our ability to offer full service. And so that was, you know, we kind of, you know, started off, you know, year one, year two, we doubled, year three, we doubled again. So we were really honest like doubling path, which was really really productive and great. And by year four, we kind of started a plateau a bit. We couldn't get that double stride. And you are, remember, I remember being on our yearly trip and being like, oh, should we say we can double our revenue again this year? And we both agreed to it. But we fell short that that fourth year. But it was a really, you know, just sort of accelerated path in the in the very beginning of those first three years. We're just skyrocketing by adding these services on and servicing our clients, you know, with everything that there was to offer from a digital marketing perspective. Yes. And I mean, was it was the growth coming from like additional revenue streams and new people coming in? Were you like also sort of like selling stuff effectively? How were you like managing to grow like to double and double and double? Yeah. So we had this this this theory which proved itself to be true, which was, if we start with with our creative experience, and we start the agency down here with service offerings, we can eventually kind of cross these over into becoming just the service offering and kind of let go of that creative work. So that's what we were doing. We still were doing the music videos and the production stuff on the side while we were growing up service business. And so that I think really allowed us to increase to your point, the revenue stream. So we were adding revenue streams and services from the marketing perspective, but we always had this sort of baseline of creative execution if you will through our contacts from our previous relationships. And that's what really allowed us to keep doubling, and growing the business accordingly. So it was kind of both of those things. It was sales efforts plus the increased revenue through the new streams. - I want to put some other lessons that you learned through this process of that kind of growth, that period of time. - Yeah, I mean, I think retrospect is really interesting. I think for all of us, especially with what I do now, I think if I had to go back again, I think over diversifying our offering was maybe not the best idea in the long run. - I think that it was great to kind of increase revenue, but I would sound so many conversations with people about, oh well, you could be really good at everything. So what are you actually really good at, right? And I think my lesson would have been, hey, maybe it would have been better to narrow our focus a little bit more. I think that would have been a lesson I would look back on and say, I recommend to people that are in the agency world, especially these days, is narrowing a focus a little bit. I mean, it works for us, obviously, in a lot of positive ways, but that would be one thing. The other thing I learned was employing people in California is a tremendous headache, and just the rules and regs around that whole thing. I feel like I became an HR professional, just by way of owning a company, and that was a lesson learned of just how complicated things can get, especially in that state, as far as the rules and regs around employment and employment issues, which was always an interesting thing as well, to kind of be a part of and learn about, I think it as a business, or it's probably not always our favorite thing to be a part of, but it's an important part of the process nonetheless. So there is that. And then what else? I think that that, if I kind of think about it off the cuff, I think that those are two things that I've definitely learned through that journey. And then the other thing is like, the emphasis on unmarketing as well. I think as a company, especially a marketing company, and you see this a lot, they tend to like not take care of yourselves from a marketing perspective, and I think we could have, focus more on that earlier on, which I think would have also been beneficial in the long term for the business, and just gotten us additional revenue earlier, which I think would have been really helpful, and just not letting that lag as far as the timing to execution. - What is that all saying? The cobbler shoes, the missed agency, the worst marketing in the West, so that I'm doing something. - Exactly. Now Tommy, how did you get from, you'd have this astronomical growth, you sort of plateaued, like what happened between there and like talk us through that into the eventual sale, like out of all of that take place? - Yeah, yeah. So, you know, sort of, you know, we'd have our ups and downs. We had, you know, we had a fairly consistent sort of plateau, like run from like year four, year five on through year eight. We'd always kind of end up with a sort of big one-time campaign project, which was always really, really helpful as well. - From a revenue stream, but, you know, the reoccurring, you know, month or retainers were obviously always the, the, you know, most valuable component, I think, to the agency, you know, and so that's always what we were, what we were seeking and what we were after. But yeah, we, we, you know, we had our ups, we had our downs, but I think what, what happened at the company was, me and my partner started to have a little bit of, little bit of tension around that time, which was based on on sales and kind of what we were doing and how we're executing that. And, and that was a, was a theme that then started to kind of boil up, you know, I would say, you know, more regularly than anybody would want with it, with a co-founder and a partner. And it was, it was something that we both had to kind of frequently deal with, kind of running the business. You know, I'd say the business was kind of growing at its clip, obviously, you know, with the rumor, you move COVID and all that stuff from it, everybody kind of became dispersed at, you know, at a certain point, which everybody had to deal with, but I think the biggest thing that we kind of went through outside of just kind of more of a plateau from a revenue standpoint was the, was, was the friction that was kind of created between him and I and sort of, you know, what we wanted to do with the company and kind of what our jobs were at the company and that became kind of a theme. - It's amazing enough. I started my business with three partners and now this is me. So I could do multiple podcasts and, you know, the kind of importance of having clear roles and clear responsibilities and in a way, I think one of my mistakes when I reflect back on it is like the people that would be part, like the partners were too similar and wanted to do two similar things. There wasn't like this difference of human beings. Like I've got operations person in my business now who's been a game changer for me because like the things he wants to do and the things he's good at are completely different to the things that I'm like I want to do and good at and that makes such a difference. But just clarity on roles and having those discussions before you get to the bad stuff is something that if I ever took another partner on would, I'd like spend five thousand times more time on that piece than I would have like going into the business when I started it. - I completely agree Ross. And it's again, we talk about these learning lessons. So my partner at the company now, he was my COO at the last company and he can with me to this one. But one of the things we decided on was, which we've never done was to run EOS, which is not something that I was familiar with and I'm not sure if you guys run it at your agency or not. But we're self-implementing, like we're going through the process but it's been really, again, it's been really enlightening for both of us because we have a lot of similarities but we also have a lot of differences as well and it's kind of running the EOS playbook if you will. And just from an accountability play, accountability chart standpoint, that's been really great to kind of do. It's not something. We just kind of ran the company before. It's kind of the way that we thought we should run it as fresh new entrepreneurs and we're actually putting a lot of structure behind how we're running this current one and do that point focusing on who does what, who sits in what seats and who's accountable for what. Which so far has been really helpful. We're still in the process of doing - And also the thing of, like, if it's my thing and I disagree with your inputs, I can disagree and I can just do what I'm supposed to do and then have to fall into that trap. - So how did you get from tension with your partner into actually selling the business? Was that how it was that your plan on how to resolve that? - Yeah, it's funny. It was a bit, there were kind of two independent things, obviously. So the tension with my partner ultimately ended up with me buying him out. So that's ultimately like how that kind of resolved itself. Which was unfortunate 'cause, you know, again, good human being, all that stuff, we just couldn't kind of see eye to eye when it came to it. And then about a year after that is when the acquisition happened but he was still kind of part of the company through the acquisition. So there was still, he's still got some benefits from the actual sale itself. But, you know, I look at those as, you know, obviously it's two separate sort of milestones at the company. There was the his exit component and then there was the acquisition component kind of following that. So, you know, everybody kind of benefited from a company standpoint. I still, but, you know, I was able to direct us and lead us into that acquisition just based on. - So did you, I mean, was this, so this was gonna be my next question. Does this, did the sale happen because somebody just walked up to you and said, "Hey, I want this thing." Or is that like your strategy to actually sort of set yourself up for that? - You know, it's the first. And I mean, I've been lucky, wow. Yeah, I've been lucky in a lot of ways in my life and a lot of different things that have happened but this opportunity literally fell from the sky into my lap. And it's through EO to be completely honest. I was in an EO forum. There were four of us and there was another, there was another group of four that were out there and we decided to, we like, all interview each other, we decided to sort of, you know, combine the forums. So we got R8 through that process. Okay. And in doing that, one of the guys on the other forum was consulting with a group up in New York, okay? And they were a manufacturing and licensing company but they had gone through an acquisition strategy in '22 of buying all these consumer-facing brands and they basically didn't know how to do any directed consumer marketing. They like had that huge gap and they wanted to consolidate everything into a team in order to start to manage these, I think it was four businesses, yeah, it was four businesses that they had bought. Shoe company, jewelry company, skin care company, makeup company, like they bought all these companies. And so about a month, two months into forum, right? As we learned about each other and what was going on here, He's like, "Hey, Mike, I have a question. Would you ever like set, would you ever sell your business?" And I said, well, like, maybe, like what's like, what's the deal?" And he's like, "Hey, like I think because of this stuff that's going on, there might be an opportunity, they're looking for a solution to consolidate this." So, I was like, "Sure, I'll have the conversation." Like, "Why would I say no? I'll have the conversation." And so I met with the chief strategy officer and the CEO and they basically made me an offer. I couldn't refuse and, you know, I was like, let's do this. So, that was how it happened. It literally, again, just talk about luck that we merged and all that stuff. It literally fell into my lap. And so, they did the acquisition, it kept everybody on, that was part of the deal. And then we started to then manage all of these companies and their E-Com strategies and what they were trying to do. So, it was a pretty amazing thing that happened. That's super cool. I mean, I asked all of my interviews I did on radio was Bull Gallagher and he's a scaling up coach at year member. And he was like, he fundamentally believes that every entrepreneur should have their business sale ready at all times. Like, it should be one of the things that they think about. I mean, I've had my business not, you turned 19 at the beginning of February. And I've been like sort of year and a half have I been getting the business. I don't want to sell it, but it's interesting. The process of getting it ready to sell is so valuable because you start to look at the business in a different way back in some of the emotional attachments and some of that sort of falls away when you put that lens on it. Yeah. And you've kind of a conversation with the bank today and they were like, yo, you need to have X amount of assets. And I was like, well, one of my biggest assets and I was like, is my business? But how do you truly value a business? It's like it's only, your business might be worth $50 million. But if I'm only willing to pay your million dollars, that's the price. Like, yeah, of course. That's like that is it. Of course. Until somebody actually physically gives you $50 million for it, that number is just, it's a story that you tell yourself. And so it comes actually real. It's speaking volumes to me, right? Like, at the end of the day, I didn't sell my company for $50 million and that, right? It was a strategic acquisition at the end of the day. But it would have never happened. Had we not, you know, kind of, you know, I had been thinking about it, right? Considering it, but that opportunity just kind of fell and fell in our lap, right? As far as like being prepped in the right team and the right makeup and doing the right servicing for that thing. Again, it could have been you. It could have been anybody as far as I'm concerned. But I think that that kind of shows the power of Yale, the power of networking, right? And the power of being able to be open to those opportunities when they come up and that's what happened, which was just, again, just incredible. Now, what was that journey like from being owner to being employee, you know, and then kind of eventually leaving the business and starting the-- Yeah, listen, I think that all the stories that I've heard and I'm sure you've met some people too. It's not easy. It's a bit of, you know, square peg round hole situation sometimes and the company that acquired this great people, great business, but it comes with its own sort of set of issues and landmines, if you will, especially in kind of our situation. There's the onboarding technicality nonsense, getting everybody situated and benefits and all this, payroll, all that type of stuff, right? Which is like par for the course. But then where I ran into sort of the most kind of, you know, headwinds where it was, hey, everybody, all these companies we just bought, here's Mike. And he is now in charge of creative and marketing. And-- but, you know, he's going to tell all of your businesses how to like do marketing and work with you guys. Yes. That was not like the most comfortable situation for any of us to be in. And so just navigating through something like that was a bit, you know, heavily friction-based, if you will, right? Is it my call? Is it the brand's call and kind of working through those relationships and figuring out how that was going to work and whose responsibility was what? And, you know, who was accountable for what? And that was, I think, the biggest sort of, you know, problem sort of aspect of it was just the onboarding through structure and org chart of like how we are all going to function together. And I think that that can come. And, you know, every business, I think, is different, of course. But that, for me, was definitely the biggest challenge. For me, and my team, right? Because all of a sudden it was like, here's this gaggle of people that are now part of the company. And how does everybody interact with us and figuring out that workflow was problematic at times, for sure. But-- I guess the same thing because they didn't-- the other leaders, Mark, not if they didn't choose you-- Exactly. And they might not even have believed that they had a problem. So now you're kind of being forced to solution that you didn't necessarily want or ask for. Yeah. And that comes with its own challenges. 100%. 100%. So as you know, we're working through those relationships and navigating that stuff, you know. And hopefully having your head on straight where, you know, you can do that. But yeah, it's exactly as you said. It's like, you know, what's called corporate pulls in, you know, me and pulls in, you know, CEO of shoe company, right? And you're like, oh, so he's now going to be doing this. And that's like shoe company. Like who is Mike? Like what's going on, right? So it was a bit of, you know, Spider-Man like pointing-- everybody pointing in different directions, you know, me. And so, but, you know, that was certainly the biggest issue coming into it. But, you know, you work through it. You resolve it. You figure out who should be where, what we should have our ion, versus what they should have their ion, you know. And a lot of it ended up pushing war towards, you know. And I was a big advocate of this. And like, hey, these brands really need to have a strategic leader in them. They're the brand. And then we can help facilitate obviously the execution of things and help guide. And that's kind of the model that we ended up, you know, ultimately adopting, which was, you know, this sort of internal agency, if you will, letting them be the lead in letting us add, you know, strategic advice to their plans and then help execute on what they wanted to get done. Cool. Let's talk transition. I understand you had an EO transition at this time. And then you can talk through that and the transition out of the company and the journey to going from established business to start up mode again. Yeah. So the EO journey was, again, like I said, I got to give EO all the credit in the world for the input me in the same room with with my, you know, one of that, one of the guys down here to even have that happen. But they started off in EO and I was like, all about it. Get these forums and all that stuff. And then that led me up to this, you know, forum, the forum, then you'll mash up, if you will. Then we're looking at each other. We're in the same forum. And now he's consulting and I'm working there. And it's like, hey, this doesn't feel like it's going to be productive for forum, right? We can't revolve our genuine selves because you guys are working together. And so-- You can't be like this. And this bloody consultant to sting stupid things. Yeah, he's here. Yeah. So there was a bit of a vulnerability lever that was kind of, you know, ratcheted down. At least that was a forum's perspective, which I did I totally understood. And so I said, you know, I'll happily leave the floor. Hey, thank you so much for her. The opportunity, I'm out of here. It's all good. Like, you know, there's no-- We have to vote on this. This is like, I will stand down. And so I did. And that was in March of '23. And then I was like, eh, I'm kind of like-- I'm not really like feeling a yo right now. And so I didn't join another forum. I stopped going to events. I kind of just wound a yo down in a way. I was like, oh, I got this great thing out of it. And I didn't feel like I was obligated to it. No, I had the company paying for it, right? Like, it wasn't cutting out of my checkbook, if you will, or my bank account. And so I maintain relationships and things like that. But I didn't feel this like draw to it. I felt like I kind of had extracted, you know, a really great value from what I was doing. And so I just wound it down almost entirely. And so then I was with the company. I had like two-year exit transition with them. And so literally a march of last year was when I had wound that whole thing up. And so through that transition, I was like, oh, I was trying to think about what I was going to do. And how I want to handle my time. And through Jennifer Pellar and kind of what had happened, I kind of uncovered this new business when I had moved to Miami, which is what Townskaud has turned into. And so I got remotivated, right? So basically April of last year, I launched Townskaud and this recruiting company, which was what we were doing at Jennifer Pellar. Like when I moved to Miami, I was like, how did I not know about Latin America? I thought it was the smartest guy in the room. And all of a sudden they're like, how do you not know about Latin America? And so that became this game changer. The time zone alignment was just like totally, totally, you know, made the difference of everything. Full service agency, everybody clattering together. So when I sold about a third of my team, you know, 12 were from Latin America and so we're already kind of used to this. coming out, you know, we've been talking, you know, with my CEO and we said, hey, like I think that this business that we created within our business is actually its own business. And so kind of parlayed that into starting talent scout. And he came, he came with me as I was mentioning. And as soon as that happened, right, I was, it was June was our dues are due in June, right? This is, you know, prior prior prior to leaving. I was like, I know, I know I'm going to have to pay this bill. And so as soon as it came out of my bank account, I was like, Oh, I like, I should really, you know, put effort into this whole thing again, given how expensive it is, right? So I've this whole last year, I've been like all over everything I go to all the events I can possibly go to all the socials. I'm back in a forum again and just like redoing this entire experience almost like I was totally new again, which has been totally amazing. And, you know, I'm almost saddened that I kind of, you know, pulled off for so long because it's been, it's been a great kind of just reawakening of doing all this, this work and, you know, networking and meeting people. Obviously, it's, it's good for business in like a lot of regards, but being able to have these people to talk to again, especially in this new phase, this new growth phase has been tremendously exciting and really valuable as well. So again, who knows what the next exit looks like if it'll be through the over not, but I'm back in the circle and, and doing the things, which has been phenomenal for, for about a year now. There's never such thing when, you know, I think one of the things that I've really underestimated about running my businesses, like what your energy levels represent and how you feel and how important that is because like when I'm on fire, when I'm excited, when I'm like engaged, when I'm like, like in it and you know, like potential clients become on it. So they want to do more business with you. Yeah. You know, you're near to a kind of season. They're kind of excited for you and they listen to what you're saying. You're, your team and potential teammates look at them. They're so much happening here. Like I'm super excited. I mean, your energy dips or at least, you know, speak for myself. Like when, like, it's been moments where I've been like, I'm trapped in this thing. I don't want to be here anymore. Like I don't want to do this. I'm tired of having these same conversations with people about the same things. You know, that energy starts to bleed into the organization and can actually have a like a detrimental effect. I think there is something powerful about being able to sort of re-excite yourself about your business. And you know, like actually managing that, you know, like I've been looking at, looking at my years and like quarters, like whatever habits that I want to establish, like per quarter. And the one that I'm really trying to do right now is I'm trying to get my sleep better because like I sleep five, six hours a night. And it's just not enough for me to maintain the like level of energy and excitement and happiness. I mean, I haven't slept so many. Everything's a little bit worse. Like every meeting is a little bit more friction for. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Everything's like a little bit worse, you know, and that kind of resonance bleeds into stuff I believe. I agree wholeheartedly. And I think that that's, you know, EO networking, you know, that's just, again, it's a new business, right? So that's just part of I think what, you know, businesses need to do, especially when they're starting something fresh, but it has totally, you know, reinvigorated me, giving me the motivation. I'm excited to go to EO events and tell people what's going on, you know, people want to hear about what's going on and it does just create a much more vibe of excitement. And I think that I think that I can exude it sometimes in like a really positive way. And I think the people, you know, also appreciate that as well. And I think that it's just great to have the ability to go out there, but, but want to go out there and do it, right? Like want to be part of the groups, want to be part of EO and want to share that stuff again. Because again, it became less of a priority for me. I saw, I was like, I still the business. Like, I don't, I don't need to do this stuff anymore. I don't need to put the energy in anymore. Which again, in retrospect, probably wasn't the best decision I've ever made. But, you know, now I now I understand it a lot clear. And I'm happy I could be out there and figuring out these things and seeing how it impacted me in such a positive way. I was living in a debate with a friend there that I'm talking about like celebrities and marketing and how this kind of works. And the person that sort of popped to my mind as you were talking is Ryan Reynolds. And I think Ryan Reynolds is an example of how a human being who's excited about the product or service can make a phenomenal difference to a company. And obviously he comes with his famous, you know, like he's round Reynolds. So he has like natural sort of draw card. But, but one thing he does exceptionally well is he champions those products. He like he adds that, like, that love and excitement about the products and people fundamentally react to that on all levels. They see it and they're like, Oh, if he's excited about it, I should probably be excited about it too. So they're probably meeting you at events going, Oh, Jesus, Mike is really pumped about this. Maybe I should like just have a look like them. He just at least, you know, like, there's just at least explore what this thing could look like. And I think it really is an underrated skill to maintain that over a long period in it. And it's easy to be excited with your new shiny toy. Yeah. Yeah. Five years time, six years time, like, are you still excited? Is is a much like bigger question to be asking yourself? That's a much bigger question. And you're 100% right. I mean, I've even, again, it's, it's all of this sort of timing of everything, right? It's, it's back in EO, it's the new business, it's the other groups that I'm in. But to your point, like, I've gotten a few responses, right? To say like, wow, like, you're really excited about this business. And I can see them smile. And so like, in that right and right, the fact, right? It's really, it's nice to see that that sort of, the tonality is, is received well. And I think that, you know, how could that hurt? How could it hurt for for somebody to know just that you're so excited about something? Even so motivated by it. And I've certainly been, been feeling a lot like that in a really positive way. That's right. So, so I'm aware of times. I'm going to ask you two more questions. My second last question is, what do you think the greatest movie of all time is? And why do you think it's the big Lebarsky? So I did go to film school, right? And so my, I've got, I've got, I've got two movies. One is a French movie called Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard. And it was just because I had to like, do this project on it. And I like, studied it. And I thought it was like, really great Jack Polanses in it, Bridget Bardot, who recently passed. That was great. But I love Amadeus. That's probably my favorite movie of all time. I absolutely love that movie. So, but I also Big Lebarsky's second. How about that? So, so let's, let's, you know, in closing, like if you could go back to kind of, you know, young Mike is busy leaving the film industry and about to start his agency. Like what, what lesson would you love to be able to just sort of like give to your past self, like knowing what you know, no going into the agency? I think I touched on on this a little bit. I guess I would have said, I really like to quote this too shall pass. And I think that that's just a really important sort of just mentality to have like in all aspects of your life. I would have told myself to remember that part of it and enjoy the ride for sure. And I'm also a big believer in that people that work really hard, everything will end up being okay. Not just by saying you're going to work hard, but I mean like actually putting in the work and actually putting in the time. And I think I would have reminded myself about that as well. Just keep motivated, keep going. I would have just kind of put that advice in my ear. But if I was going back even further, I would have told myself to go to business school instead of film school. That's what I would have done. Like to skip all creative things. Yeah, like why did I want to, I shouldn't have been on this path that or or I would have said or I would have said to myself, you know, this is actually maybe more fair. Buy Apple stock just buys my bit coin whenever you hear Bitcoin buy it all. Yeah. No, I got, I think I got really caught up in my early 20s by by money. I think I got like really focused on and I got a lot of I got a really like a lot of great opportunities when I was younger to to make a make a bunch of money. And they chose that path rather than pursuing my creative path, right? I was like I can't wait around to be a director. It's going to take forever. I got this opportunity over here to go make a bunch of money and these big, you know, these big executives see this like path. I mean, I may have, you know, I think that maybe I don't know what I mean, if I believe what I just told you, I probably would have spent successful as a director, right? I just want to add to work hard and stay stay with it. So I don't know. We're talking a lot of maybe I would have said like, you know, stick with your creative path. Like you everything's going to be okay. Don't worry about the money. Just yeah, it'll come. Maybe that's what I would tell myself. Right. Mike, thank you very much for sharing your story with us. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I'm kind of I guess what I'm taking from our conversation is this idea of checking my energy. Like what does my energy look like? Like how am I showing up in these sort of things? Like can I steal some of that rebirth excitement and pull it back into a 19 year old business is what I'm going to think about. There you go. Hopefully you can. Yeah. You got a quick EO and then join again and they just see what happened. Well, I'm currently forum lists. So maybe that'll be there you go. You get your new form. We'll be fine. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you having me. This was great. Yeah. Thanks for spending the time. and great to talk a bit and yeah just appreciate being on here and being part of it part of your whole thing so thanks for asking me to jump in. Thank you for listening if you enjoyed the show please share it with someone who you think might need to hear it. I personally believe that sharing actionable knowledge is one of the most generous things a human being can do. The show is produced by me, Ross Drake's, I'm an entrepreneur and a proud member of EO and if you run your own business and you want more information go to EOnetwork.org I promise you it'll be worth your time and your investment and with that we'll catch you in the next one. Thank you and bye bye.