Tim Washburn is the Founder and Owner of Integrity Technologies and Computer Doctors.
He has an inspiring story about pursuing a life of entrepreneurship and becoming a technology leader in our community. We talk about Bitcoin and the evolution of cryptocurrencies in our economy.
Tune in for a great conversation and I hope you learn something new!
*Due to technical difficulties, the audio quality is lower. We apologize, but it's still a great listen!
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The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
Tim Washburn is the Founder and Owner of Integrity Technologies and Computer Doctors.
He has an inspiring story about pursuing a life of entrepreneurship and becoming a technology leader in our community. We talk about Bitcoin and the evolution of cryptocurrencies in our economy.
Tune in for a great conversation and I hope you learn something new!
*Due to technical difficulties, the audio quality is lower. We apologize, but it's still a great listen!
💡Learn about LoCo Think Tank
Follow us to see what we're up to:
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
💡Learn about LoCo Think Tank
Follow us to see what we're up to:
Facebook
Music By: A Brother's Fountain
In today's episode, I was joined by Tim Washburn, the founder and owner of integrity technologies and computer doctors. And integrity farms. He's got a great story about leaving his college education to really pursue a life of entrepreneurship and becoming a technology leader really in our community. We also talk a lot about. Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency kind of evolution and what it can be going toward in the future. And we talk a lot about his own personal pursuit of excellence and recently, 75 hard, which is a program that he's been doing. There's a little bit of audio challenge in this episode, but bear with me. It's a great conversation and I think he'll learn a lot. Thanks. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. This is your host Kurt bear, and I'm here today with Tim Washburn and Tim is the founder and owner of computer doctors and integrity technologies. And we were just talking about how computer doctors kind of gave birth to integrity technologies. So let's just talk about those two companies. Computer doctors came first, Tim. And why don't you describe that?
Tim:Yeah, thanks Kurt. Um, yeah, computer doctors was founded in 2010 and, uh, primarily focuses on retail services and residential it work mm-hmm And that company gave birth to integrity technologies in 2016, which has taken over the hosting and the business. It,
Curt:so we were talking kinda like you have a lot of retail, residential customers that have computers that need work and things like that. And then some of'em. Hey, I have a business and my business needs services as well. Mm-hmm so mm-hmm that was kind of the birth of integrity. Is that right? Yeah,
Tim:that's correct. Yeah. When we first opened, um, you know, we were primarily residential, we didn't touch business it and as we had residential, um, Repairs, you know, those, those people also own businesses too. And those business owners, you know, they came to us and said, Hey, did a great job on my, you know, on my laptop, on my desktop, you know, whatever it was. And they said, can you, you know, take care of our infrastructure at our business?
Curt:And where did your love of computers get started? What was the inception of that cuz uh, really, I think you love computers probably. Less than your wife, but more than everything else.
Tim:Hmm. Well, my wife, yeah. I, I didn't know my wife yet, but, um, a actually, uh, quick tangent. I actually did know my wife, when I first started building computers. She took piano lessons from my mom. Oh, wow. At that point, but, uh, there's yeah, nothing more than that at that point.
Curt:Interesting. Well, we'll, we'll hear the love story a little, a little while
Tim:later. Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. So when I was 12, um, you know, my. They told me, Hey, you can't have a console. You can't have, you know, PlayStation play computer games, you know, that sort of thing. You'll, you know, waste your life. Right. Doing, you know, games and there's more to life than just games. Right. And so, you know, my, my answer to that was what if I build a computer and you know, then I can play computer
Curt:games. And that was pretty common back then, right? Like, yes, you could buy like the. Kind of apple computers or the, the Dell even was probably selling computers, but building a computer was pretty common. You could buy parts and different motherboards and different things.
Tim:Yeah, it was, uh, it was definitely the, the early stages of, you know, building computers for sure. You know, they, uh, when my dad and I first built, you know, our first computer. Um, you know, it came as a kit with instructions and, you know, this is what you put together. Um, you know, most people were just, you know, going out, going to, you know, HP buying a computer, Dell, buying a computer, going to your, uh, going to your local circuit city. Right, right. Um, and, uh, you know, so that was, uh, I don't wanna say unheard of, but usually is the, the nerd. Smarter smarter, smarter people, um, that were doing that. And, you know, I wouldn't lump myself in the latter part of that category. Uh, but definitely the nerdier
Curt:side. Yeah. Well, and the point is, I assume that you could customize it a little bit. You could make it faster here. If you're not really con too concerned about the graphics, you can leave that part out or whatever.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. A lot more, a lot more upgrade. Um, also, it was a whole lot cheaper. Oh, to, yeah. You could save, you know, uh, a computer that you buy for, you know, a thousand, you know, thousand bucks is pre-made you could probably build for, you know, almost
Curt:half that. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, actually that was my very first, uh, Business investment was in a computer building business in Fargo, North Dakota in about 96. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, uh, kind of ahead of the curve in some extent, and mm-hmm, there's a whole long story there. I lost my money, uh, but have a lifelong friend from it anyway, but, uh, it was, it was a pretty interesting thing because there, you could get all these parts and put something together. Mm-hmm that really fit people's needs. And, and there was so much hand holding needed still at that time. Shoot emails were brand new just about
Tim:yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you know, in 96, I think 96 was when Hotmail was first born. Is that right? Um, yeah. And is, um, I, I think if I recall it was the second, uh, the second free email that was available. Okay. And yeah, by, you know, 98, 99, that's when you know, it really started gaining. And they offered, I believe as two megabytes of storage.
Curt:Right. Well, and I'm just reflecting back. I mean, it seems when I, when you hear 1999, it doesn't sound that long ago for some of us old guys, but it was like Microsoft office version two. Right or something, right? Yeah. Like word was barely a thing you had it, but it was not nearly in the, in the fashion. It came to be later
Tim:and right. Yeah. You're still word perfect at that point, right.
Curt:Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't thought about those days much. I mean, even the, there was floppy discs four and a half inch drive things and whatnot. Right. Not long before that.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No things have evolved, uh, quite a bit. Uh, my wife. Was telling me this morning, she said, Hey, 10 years ago today, I got my first smartphone. Mm. Yeah. It's, it's crazy that we've only had smartphones for 10 years.
Curt:Right. And yeah, we've impacted our world a lot in 10 years. And the adoption, I was actually listening to a podcast the other day and it's, it was with the inventor of the first mobile phone mm-hmm and he called into this show and it's the widest adopted invention ever. Hello, the mobile phone. Yeah. That makes like, there's like makes sense. 5 billion people or 4 billion people in the world, you know, just about, everybody's got a mobile phone, even if you have a grass hut with a, you know, a stove that burns Buffalo chips for your
Tim:feet, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Some people have two
Curt:phones. Right, right. Yeah. So, so you became kind of this nerdy kid, building computers, playing video games, uh, when your folks. Paying too much attention, getting email addresses and stuff. Um, and really ultimately becoming, I remember when I was, I was a little sooner than you. I I'm five or 10 years older or something mm-hmm and computers were brand new at that time, you know, the ti 2 86 and things like that. And there was a certain contingent that we're like, well, you're good at math, you should become a computer. Yeah, right. And I was like, eh, I don't think that's me. You know? And so I never really did go that path, but I remembered how much excitement there was about those who weren't scared to death of those things. And I imagine in brush Colorado, it's a lot the same as North Dakota where I grew up, which is mm-hmm, more than not, people were pretty intimidated,
Tim:right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, people, people thought I was a genius and I'm like, well, Playing with Legos to have circuits on'em, you know, you know, plugging one thing into the, you know, only spot I'll go
Curt:into. Right. Yeah. interesting. I never really thought of it that way. Yeah.
I
Tim:mean, you have compatibility issues, but sure. You know, it's yeah. Still to me it didn't seem like genius of one. I don't think I was a genius as a kid by any means,
Curt:but you are now getting pushing there. Yeah, no, fair enough. So talk to me about that, that high school student now that's, uh, uh, thinking. Like what's next for him. Mm-hmm um, I remember you mentioned that you were, you were homeschooled for your youth and then kind of high school in brush Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, where do all the, where do all the graduates go from high school in those days in
Tim:brush? Well, um, yeah, so it's homeschooled through eighth grade. Um, and then yeah, went to high school, my four older brothers and I, we were all homeschooled through eighth grade and then went to the brush high school brush, beat diggers, and. and, you know, most, you know, there's a lot of people at brush that actually went to CSU. That
Curt:seems like that was the most likely I'm from North Dakota, as I mentioned. And mm-hmm, you know, anybody from within 250 miles of Fargo, kind of their first choice at that time for their college education was North Dakota state mm-hmm And I have to think CSU kind of draws in that same capacity.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Being a big ag school, you know, that hospital, that sort of thing. Sure. Yeah. A lot of people went
Curt:there, crops programs and all those
Tim:kind of things. Mm-hmm A lot of my friends actually went to school of mines as well. Oh
Curt:yeah. So, well, those are the smart kids. Aren't they usually right?
Tim:Yeah. That's why I went to
Curt:CSU. you weren't that smart yet. yeah. Um, and so you got off to CSU and did you know what you wanted to do right away?
Tim:Well, I thought I wanted to become an electrical engineer and that. yeah, I went there for a semester, decided that wasn't wasn't right for me. And so, you know, I don't think I was actually ready, you know, hindsight. I don't think I was ready for school when I turned 18. Anyway, not for college. Yeah. And
Curt:so I, were you a good student in high
Tim:school? Uh, overall, um, you know, compared to my brothers, I wasn't, but, um, yeah, no, I was, you know, like 3.5 GPA. Oh. And you know, that sort of thing.
Curt:So, but they were all like super achievers. Oh yeah. Apparently yeah. You
Tim:know, can't live up to them. Was
Curt:that awkward? Um, I, so my. My own demographic is my, I have a brother that's 10 years younger. Mm-hmm and then a couple siblings in between. And I, so I was that first child mm-hmm got pretty good grades and stuff. At least before college. That's a different story after college, but right. My youngest brother, he was kind of. like, he was just as smart as me, but he screwed off a lot more. Right, right. Uh, because he kind of had it, you know, by that time my dad's farm had grown and mm-hmm, you know, I had a 30 year old pickup for my first one and, and Joe inherited my dad's three year old or four year old farm truck. Right. Right. And things like that. And so he had a, he was a child of much more affluence and stuff. Mm-hmm, at least in my perspective, but also didn't have the pressures. Try to set an example. Yeah,
Tim:yeah, no, I, I would definitely say I was, uh, I was your younger brother, uh, from, you know, uh, eh, definitely could gotten better grades, but I was a little bit more outspoken and, um, probably didn't study as much as I should have. Yeah. Um, but you know, I, I guess I've always had a little bit of a chip on
Curt:my shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. As part of that, uh, having those. People ahead of you and whatever. And, um, so you mentioned that you thought you were going to CSU for electrical engineering after one semester. That changed. Yeah.
Tim:Yeah. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. Um, so I transferred a front range. Okay. At that time, You know, semester, uh, uh, full time was like 900 bucks. Right. And
Curt:so, and CSU was 10 grand or something probably, or more than
Tim:greater than$900. yeah. Um, but significantly. And so, yeah, you know, I, I, wasn't gonna go to CSU and pay a bunch of money to figure out what he wanted to do. And so, yeah, I went to front range. I took a pretty wide variety of classes. Um, you know, everything from business to automotive to. Uh, computers actually as well. Um, and yeah, the first.
Curt:And were you just like yawn during the computer courses? or did it teach you some
Tim:new things? Um, so actually during the, uh, my first semester there, um, I was taking a plus course and I end up, uh, basically teaching the entire hardware section of the, a plus class, just because the, the professor.
Curt:had never built a computer before and you'd built four by then. Yeah.
Tim:She understood the software side. That's where her background was from. And, uh, and so she said, Hey, can you just help me with, you know, through this? You can probably explain it better. Yeah. Because you actually know what it is.
Curt:The Lego portion of the
Tim:Exactly. Yeah. I'll take over Lego 1 0 1. Yeah. Right.
Curt:Yeah. Interesting. And so how would you contrast that CSU experience that you had and were you like on campus at CSU and. Like Fort ranger doesn't really have any housing. Right. So you had have some housing, you didn't commute
Tim:couldn't yeah, so yeah, I lived in Fort Collins. Um, one of my brothers had a house there oh, right on. And so, you know, I helped landlord the house and, you know, collect money from tenants, you know, take care of the house, all those things. Um, you know, cuz he lived out of state and so, you know, I was there, um, at, you know, at his house. And then paid minimal rent, um, hindsight, holy cow. It was a minimal, um, and, uh, you know, in return I landlord at the house. And so yeah, the transition over to front range from a housing standpoint
Curt:was, yeah, that was easy. Yeah. Pretty easy. And how about from the class standpoint and yeah. You know, much different environment.
Tim:I imagine. Absolutely. I mean, the class that front range are, you know, a, a large class is 30, a small class is probably. So, yeah, a lot, a lot more, uh, you know, one on one type of stuff. I, I really enjoyed my time at front range as well. The, uh, the professors that are there, um, you know, when I was there, most of'em owned their own businesses. Hm. And so, you know, like my accounting teacher, uh, she's still, she's still in, in Fort Collins, uh, Sonic Kendall. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. Yep. Yeah. And so, yeah. Hi saw. Yeah. Shout out right here. Yeah, no, she was, uh, she was definitely a, a great teacher and mentor as well. And so, um, yeah, I look up to her a lot, but yeah, she was my accounting one and two interesting, uh, teacher. I, I'm not a big accounting person, but I got through it and you know, I think she's a great teacher. Yeah. Becomes just not for me.
Curt:Well, and I remember when I was at CSU. a striking difference between the professors that, or at CSU at North Dakota state mm-hmm there was a striking difference between the professors that had had like real world experience mm-hmm and those that had academia as their only experience mm-hmm and I always favored those teachers that had actually been in the world a little
Tim:bit. Right. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I mean, you know, going back to, you know, front range, I would say. probably of the business classes I took at at least 75% of'em were business owners. Wow. Yeah. Or, you know, retired and, you know, right. This was
Curt:their, their, they had three businesses in their past and whatever mm-hmm that's so cool. Yeah. I didn't realize is that dynamic still in place there as far as you know, or probably not so much. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure what it. Yeah, by the way I recommended you. I don't know if you've talked to the SPDC, they were looking for a technology person. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate. And I realized they were, you were a front range grad. When I was, when I was, uh, I was like, well, this, he should definitely go back there and do volunteer. Nope.
Tim:I met with Sally and, uh, yeah, we're gonna put on a cybersecurity class for small businesses. in November. I
Curt:believe so. Making things happen again. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim:Very good. We go shout out to Loco think tank, right?
Curt:right. So did you graduate from front range and then, and did, did you ever go back to CSU or.
Tim:Yeah. You know, I eventually, once, you know, after a few semesters decided, okay, business is the route that I want to go to. Mm-hmm um, and so all
Curt:business and computers, or didn't know that much that, yeah. Um,
Tim:just actually just, yeah. General business. I kind of thought I may, you know, want to do something in computers. Um, you know, at that point it is kind of like, okay, I want to do computer stuff, but how do I make money? Yeah. You know, doing, you know, what my skills skills do without, you know, getting a double E. Right, right. Um, and I already knew at that point, yeah. I double E's not what I want to do so well, a lot
Curt:of times they don't trap you and like put you in a cubicle for. way too many hours every week. If you're mm-hmm, an engineer and whatnot,
Tim:so, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the, the goal was to actually transfer to CSU, um, and then get a four year degree mm-hmm um, you know, through their business program. Uh, one of my older brothers, he got a four year. Uh, in business at CSU and you know, their top grade school in business. And so in the meantime, I actually was, you know, doing it work for the college of business as well. Yeah. So, yeah, so, uh, which, you know, the professors there were, you know, excellent as far as the mentors, um, you know, there's a handful of'em that I met with, uh, quite a few times outside of work and, you know, Yeah. Mentored. Yeah. And you know, which was, which was really great. And, you know, ultimately they were the ones that, you know, really pushed me forward and said, Hey, you know, you've got a good thing going, why don't you just make it happen? You're young. If you fail, you fail when you're young and then you get on your feet and you, you know, yeah. Do something else. But it's better than, you know, having regret until you're 50. And then deciding, you know, can. Yeah. Can I
Curt:handle start something now? Yeah. Mm-hmm interesting. Yeah. So, so even though you hadn't finished that degree and stuff, even those professors there and things, so were you like, like through college, were you like moonlighting fixing computers and things like that? Or, yeah. What was it? That was,
Tim:yeah. So, um, yeah, so I worked at CSU, um, throughout the time does that front. And, um, and then I also, uh, was doing stuff on the side too. So, uh, you know, that was, you know, either professors at CSU professors at front range or, um, you know,
Curt:uh, professors, sisters that, yeah, exactly. Loveland.
Tim:Yeah. Pretty much. Everyone's like, Hey, I know a guy, you know, and I just happen to be the guy. Right.
Curt:So fair enough. Yeah. So. You didn't start computer doctors yet for another seven plus years or something though, right. Or five plus years. Yeah. Yeah. Like not
Tim:officially, right? Yeah. So I didn't actually start computer doctors, you know, under that LLC until 2010, September 9th, 2010. Yeah. And so, you know, that was, you know, we jumped in, you know, two feet in and, you know, got a building, uh, you know, with nice retail. And okay. You know, that was my only job that was, that was it a hundred percent. And at that point, uh, my wife was pregnant. Well, my girlfriend was pregnant with twins. And so, um,
Curt:let's take us into the lead up of that. Did you have other jobs along the way, the CSU college of business, you mentioned doing some of their it support and things like that, and some, some moonlighting, but was that kind of your experience? just that limited amount. And then boom, here I am. Um,
Tim:pretty much. Yeah. I mean, you know, so I worked for CSU at surplus property for two years, and then I transitioned, um, you know, John Schroth. I met him through surplus, gave me his business card and said, Hey, if anything goes sour here, Let me know you have a job at the college of business. Okay. So shout up to John Schroth. Um, hi, John. And, uh, also, you know, speaking of mentors, John, you know, great mentor of mine as well, so awesome. Um, and so yeah, one day I showed up at the college of business after talking to John and I met with Eric who have been my direct boss. And he's like, who are you? what are you doing here? I was like, oh, did John not tell you? I have a job here? Oh, all right. Well, I guess I'll, I'll get you in with HR then and we will onboard you. so, but yeah. Um, you know, my, my jobs went from a high school job at a grocery store to surplus property at CSU to college of business at CSU. And then, uh, yeah, that summer after I graduated from front range, uh, you know, I just ran the business outta the house and September. Opened a business. Wow. And that's yeah, that's when computer
Curt:doctors was born. And did you like write a business plan or mm-hmm yeah. Yeah.
Tim:So that was, uh, that was actually part of, uh, one of my classes at front range. Oh,
Curt:okay. Yeah. So, so you actually wrote a plan for the business that you were mm-hmm legit gonna open
Tim:when you got done. Yeah. And so, um, you know, future me looks back on that business plan. Just like, man, you really should put a lot more time into that thing. Fair. You know, not just the, Hey, get it done. Get the grade graduate, move on. You already know everything that you need to know about business. You know, now future me is like, man, you had no idea what you were doing. You should have taken that thing a lot more.
Curt:Seriously. Yeah. Well it's actually present me now. Oh, yeah. Present. Yeah. but I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Past me was like, not ready for that. Right. Well, and frankly, you probably did three times as much work as most people that started business do in terms of actually planning it, unfortunately. Right? Yeah, probably. So, yeah. So was it like successful. Right from the start. And, and so computer doctors is born. You, it's not a location that it's still at there on college or has that been
Tim:there for a long time? Yeah, so, um, no. So our original location was off of Monroe in college. Yeah. Um, there's that steakhouse there now. So that building that we were in is all part of the outskirts of the mall. Okay. And so yeah, that all got bulldozed and there's a steakhouse on top of it now.
Curt:Yeah. Yeah. So, and then moved it up college to the north a little bit there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's pretty like almost what I consider kind. A a drop off repair or by mostly secondhand
Tim:computers. Yeah. Yeah. So typically what we do, um, uh, is, you know, so we work with the asset liquidator. So they'll work with these, you know, multi-million, multi-billion dollar companies that, you know, every three years they get new machines, no matter what, you know, every one year, two years, three years. Okay. Um, and then they cycle'em. And so, you know, they pay an asset liquidator oh. To make sure that everything's securely wiped. And they assume that risk of the data that drives. And so they get paid from the first company to, you know, recycle their stuff. Sure, sure. And securely wipe it and then they sell it to us. And, you know, so we usually get these machines that are in perfectly good working order just without a hard drive in'em. Yeah. And so we'll put in, you know, high quality, solid state drive, you know, if they need some more Ram, we'll do that. They're, you know, interesting screen or something, you know, we'll, we'll replace the screen, but. I mean they're business grade computers that brand new come with a three year warranty. So, I mean, they're awesome machines. Yeah. You know, similar quality to what you would expect out the Mac. Right. And you know, and that's not what PC people are used to. They're used to, you know, the, the cheap stuffs you get yeah. Are less the cheap stuff that you get a big box store that's, you know, built to last a year. Yeah. You know, the consumer grade. So like an HP pavilion would be their consumer. Whereas, okay. You, they have an elite book, which is their business line that actually has some level of quality to it. Yeah. And so we sell only business grade. So then our customers, they end up getting a high quality
Curt:business grade to the household market. Exactly.
Tim:So they end up getting, you know, a machine that better computer, less money probably cost 1200 bucks to, you know,$2,500 brand new. They end up getting it for, you know, four or 500 bucks. Wow. And we put a one year warranty on it. So we end up matching the same warranty that you get at. Oh, that's pretty cool. And you get a better quality
Curt:product. And is that like half the business at computer doctors is that kind of retail sales and then the other half is fix my thing. It broke. Yeah, pretty
Tim:much. Yeah. I'd say it's about 50, 50. Um, you know, cause a lot of times the, the fix, my thing that broke isn't worth fixing. And so. They say, okay, I'm not gonna put$300 into this computer that I bought for$300 a year ago. Right. You know, what can you sell me? That's not gonna break in a year, right?
Curt:Yeah. Here's the answer. Yep. So, um, you start getting more and more. As we talked kind of requests from business owners to take over the it services had kind of a, a split personality with computer doctors and for what it's worth, I think integrity technology is a much more business. Yeah.
Tim:Brand like, yeah, I would agree. I mean, computer doctors to me is a little bit more, I don't wanna say corny, but right.
Curt:Uh, it's kind of in the geek squad category. Exactly.
Tim:Exactly. You know, people love it, they love the brand name, but, um, you know, when, you know, when a law firm comes to you with, you know, 25 users and they're expecting you to, you know, secure them, right. Cuz that's their livelihood. Right. And if something. Uh, you know, geek squad or, or computer doctors, um, just
Curt:doesn't seem like the, exactly the right brand to trust
Tim:there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, so you know, that, that really evolved, um, the business it side evolved from computer doctors in, you know, 2012. And you know, that grew, um, in 2014 it was about half of our business was just the business it side of computer doctors. So is that is at that point I knew, you know, something has to change, you know, management, um, was difficult, you know, managing the consumer side and the business side and you. Who takes precedence and you know, how all of that works. And so that's when the idea was born and then it was, you know, really came down to, are we keeping the brand name, you know, computer doctors for business. Yeah. Um, you know, or do we need to put it in its own entity and, you know, recreate the brand and that's what we decided to do. Yeah. And so in 2016, that's when integrity technologies was.
Curt:And talk to me about like the business model of a, of an it services company. Is that, would you call yourself, is that that or are you yeah, we're consulting
Tim:in services. Yeah. So we're classified as a managed service provider,
Curt:managed service provider.
Tim:Okay. MSP. Yeah. And so, um, you know, essentially our job is to minimize risk. You know, um, you know, as we were talking before, you know, kind of like the bank world, like you're, you're assessing the risk. Yeah. And then, you know, trying to, you know, mitigate that risk as much as possible. And so, you know, our job, you know, our first and for most job is to make sure our customers, you know, they don't get hacked, their data, doesn't get, you know, leaked,
Curt:um, their employees know good best practices. Mm-hmm to keep those things
Tim:thus. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, we actually provide, um, you know, sections of hand. Uh, for our customers as well. Mm. You know, that go over all the security, uh, procedures that the company needs to follow. Um, you know, and that, that all gets audited as well. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, education, you know, is a big piece of it then your traditional securities, of course, you know, like, you know, endpoint and virus. And then, uh, you know, just enforcing, you know, proper securities as well. And, uh, the nice thing about having an it provider enforcing all of those things is that, you know, we have kind of like a top down view. And so, um, you know, it doesn't allow users to accidentally, you know, shoot themselves in the foot. Oh,
Curt:really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, so everything's kind of going through you anyway. Mm-hmm exactly. And I imagine something that's probably a side benefit almost is. The employer doesn't have to be the bad guy. Like mm-hmm, you know, don't click on links that you don't know the right origin.
Tim:Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, we can, we can be the bad guys. We can be, you know, the, the bad sheriff that's enforcing everything. Right.
Curt:And then do you do like a, like a, almost like a membership kind of thing, or is it based on like the amount of work you do? Do you have maybe an expense, extensive onboarding where you charge'em quite a bit, but then you charge'em less on a monthly after that.
Tim:Yeah. So, um, you know, the, the way that things start is, you know, it's always a cybersecurity risk assessment. We need to go into a business and assess their risk. You know, we need to know like, Hey, you know, do you have, you know, 20 laptops that all have, you know, credit card numbers, social security numbers, you know, all of that stuff on it, you know, what does your email look like? Is your email currently compromised because as your it provider we're, uh, assessing and, you know, accepting a lot of your liability. And so, you know, if we onboard a company without doing our due D. Then we're assessing all of your risk or, uh, you know, uh, you know, taking on all of your risk. Yeah. And so we need to see where that risk is at. And then, um, you know, we, we create a, a plan and just say, Hey, this is what's going to take to get you where you should be. Yeah. So you don't have any risk.
Curt:Yeah. Um, or at least not very much, or
Tim:yeah. Yeah. Minimal risk. Um, you know, you're at a good, you know, point right now, and then you. Here's what it's gonna cost for us to one, mitigate it and then manage it and then also assume it as well. Mm. You know, so, you know, we're, you're, we're both, um, you know, we're both, uh, in charge of that security and, um,
Curt:it seems like an interesting challenge is that like, you're kind of liable for the risk mm-hmm but it's a shared. risk anyway, like their mm-hmm their employees and their practices. Mm-hmm, really matters a lot to what your risk level is.
Tim:Yeah. Well, and that's why, you know, an it provider that's doing their job properly. Mm-hmm is managing everything for you. So, you know, email, you know, for example, um, it's not like. A company of 20 people, you know, they have their email through one provider. They have their shared drive through another provider. Um, you know, they have their security solution through another provider and each provider manages their own little thing. The way that we approach it is we manage everything. So you pay us just one bill.
Curt:Everything and you know that, oh, so you're the one that's subscribing to Google workspace. Mm-hmm or exactly all these other technology platforms and stuff. Yeah. Oh, and so then I've only got one login, like back in my banking days where I got one login and then all the softwares that I need. Are there.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. So things, yeah. Some, you know, work seamlessly together. Yeah. And then you pay us to do everything and the bill ends up being exactly the same. Whether you were to go out there and buy it yourself or have us, you know, sell it to you, we sell it to you at the same cost. The difference is, you know, when you onboard and off board an employee, right. We're setting it up and we're setting it up to all be compliant for your industry. Yeah. And so we've already, you know, put in all those, um, You know, all the, all the policies that say, you know, Hey, you cannot shoot yourself in the foot because you can't turn off multifactor authentication. Right. We require it. We enforce it. If you don't like it, period, under a story. Yeah. We're, you know, this is our risk, so we're not gonna allow you to make our
Curt:risk greater. Yeah. Well, and I was just thinking that, uh, I was, I got into the Google drive or the Google workspace or whatever with all the other day. Add a new employee and clean up whatever. And I had like two or maybe three former employees that still had email addresses that arguably probably could have still logged into their email account. Mm-hmm you know? Right. Yeah. And, you know, and plus I'm paying five bucks a piece per month or 10 bucks a piece per month or something. And you know, it's just not something I really thought about, but mm-hmm, in your case, it's like your job to think about all those things, right? Yeah.
Tim:So, I mean, you do what you do best. while we do what we do best. Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna go facilitate, you know, a lo theme tank. That's not what I do. It's not what I do. Well, that's your job. Right. You know, and that's what you do. Well, yeah. Like that's your passion, whereas you know what we do, you know, we're, we're securing our customers. We're enabling them to, you know, be the best, their best.
Curt:So while I'm thinking about it, like as a free sample of smart advice from a smart guy, um, what are like the three concentrations of risk? for a typical business when you do that, that, uh, cyber security assessment, mm-hmm like, are there certain, like areas that are you're especially focused on or is it really comprehensive? And it really depends on the business.
Tim:Um, yeah, I mean, it definitely depends on the industry cuz you know, the level of risk, if you're, you know, if you need to hip a compliant, your bank
Curt:or a medical office, it's totally different. Exactly.
Tim:I mean your, your risk is humongous. Um, you know, you know, versus, you know, someone who, you know, sells board games. Right. You know, that, that, that risk is gonna be minimal, but still present a lot more present than you'd think it actually would be. Um, yeah. You know, uh, a big place that we see, you know, the most negligence, if you will, is just the, the way the data is stored, you know, you'll, you'll see, you know, credit cards they're stored in. Plain text. So, you know, it's not encrypted, it's not password protected. Mm. You know, so, you know, it could be accessible
Curt:to people have a file on their computer. Like here's all of our customers credit card numbers in case you need them. Right. Yeah,
Tim:exactly. I mean, you would be surprised like, you know, how, how negligent of, you know, of things that we see. Um, you know, I mean, you know, that in itself, um, is a pretty big one that we see and, you know, that's part of our cybersecurity risk assessment, you know, Uh, you know, we have agents that go out and they just scavenge all that
Curt:stuff. Mm that's. What I was gonna ask and that kind of tension between, and I haven't let you get to the three yet the tension between like, trying to charge them. Right. But trying to what's that trust, but verify mm-hmm like, if you're gonna trust that they're not putting you at significant risk mm-hmm you almost have to. Effort to verify things, right? Like try to get their employees to click on a link they shouldn't, or right. Snooping in the background of their virtual workstation to make sure they're not going back to their old habit of saving all the customer. Right. Credit
Tim:card numbers. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they say, you know, weakest point, um, insecurity is always the employee. Yeah. And so whether. You know, the, the employee that's, you know, at the front answering phone calls or whether it's the CEO in the back. Yeah. Um, you know, either way, you know, that's, that's the biggest risk and because they have to have access to files, you know, you can firewall, you know, people out of files. Sure. Or you can't firewall the people out of files that need access to. Right. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that, that would be kind of, the second thing is, um, you know, the. Like, you know, fishing, you know, fishing, right. Attempts and then, you know, fishing, employee education kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people, oh, you know, ups said that the credit card didn't go through, I guess I better go update that. Right. Click click. Here's the credit card number, um, you know, or, you know, like a medical office, um, cuz these are targeted as well. I mean, these are a lot smarter than they were, you know, even, you know, pre COVID, you know? Yeah. That's what I'm hearing. I mean, yeah. In 2020, this entire. The whole, you know, ransomware and hacking industry has, you know, blown.
Curt:Is that just cause more people at home mm-hmm hanging out.
Tim:Yeah. I mean it's yeah. It's just more of a requirement. And so, yeah. Um, yeah, rather than having these confined systems that, you know, we've been using for the last, you know, 30 years, Where you have it on premise server. Everybody comes into the office. Sure. It's tried and true. You have one network that needs to be protected now you're protecting, you know, everybody's house. Mm-hmm and yeah, not just the office space. Yeah. I
Curt:never really thought about it that way. Mm-hmm so I guess what's oh, you, you were gonna go to the third item or did you have a third item there? Um,
Tim:pH, I only had to pick one, huh? Um, Yeah, I would say, you know, probably the lack of backups, you know, so ransomware, you know,
Curt:I think ransomware between I've had like three or four of my. Friends and contacts and clients, uh, have ransomware tax later.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and I'll explain it real quick. Just, um, uh, there's a lot of people that haven't ever heard of ransomware don't know what it is. Yeah. Please do. So go into, you know, quick detail. Um, essentially what happens with ransomware is, you know, they get into your computer, it runs a script, it encrypts all data, and then it leaves you a nice little note that says we have all of your. it's all encrypted. If you want the key, please
Curt:kindly send us four Bitcoins. Exactly.
Tim:If you want. Yeah. If you want the key to unlock it, we are literally holding your data ransom. Yeah. Send us Bitcoin. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, we've, uh, we've taken over, oh, probably at least a dozen companies that had gotten ransom. And then,
Curt:you know, either they either paid the ransom or they didn't. Yeah. Either
Tim:they did or they didn't. And then, you know, they, I don't know, shoot, maybe we do need
Curt:an it provider. I read an article the other day that said like 65% of ransomware attack victims never get their data back. Mm-hmm like the, the, the ransomware perpetrators don't even have access to it. A lot of times they're just like,
Tim:yeah. You know, I there's, there's a lot of good faith that goes there. you know, cuz if the industry as a whole doesn't give out the keys right. Then no one's gonna pay. Right. Um, so you know, majority of the time, uh, from the, the records that I've seen majority of the time, if you pay. You know, they'll make good on it. Oh really? Um, you know, one thing that we started
Curt:seeing lot, that's probably disinformation from the government trying to get people to not pay. It
Tim:could be cuz yeah. The FBI, their stances. Yeah. Don't
Curt:pay right. Yeah. Easy for them to say. So the state, but that pipeline company paid real quick last year, right. Or two years ago.
Tim:So the state of Pennsylvania, they're actually, uh, there's a state law that was passed in 2020. This says they are not any municipalities, public municipalities in the state of Pennsylvania. They're not allowed to pay ransom. Wow. It's taxpayer money and they're saying it's not allowed. Yeah. And so, yeah, you look at some of the case studies, um, interesting. Uh, like I think it's Jackson county, they decided we are not gonna pay the ran. We're gonna, you know, order and do computers. We're going to rebuild everything from the ground up. We're gonna try to reproduce the data from these backups. And they were down, I think it's three months and it cost'em over double what the ransom would've been. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, you know, not only, you know, should you have backups, make sure that they're proper backups. Yeah. Won't also get ransomware. Right. And then also make sure that they're tested. If you don't want to do it, you know, get an it provider.
Curt:I was just thinking to myself, like with local think tank, we don't have. that much data. We've got our customer list and it's a membership organization and stuff. Mm-hmm we wouldn't lose that much. Like somebody couldn't hold us up for that much hostage because we don't have our customers credit cards and things mm-hmm But I was just thinking to myself of like a medical office or an architecture firm mm-hmm or something, they might have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drawings and stuff that they haven't delivered yet, you know? Right. And you're literally. Can't reproduce that stuff sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. There's that? Uh, right. Medical images of somebody's teeth.
Tim:Mm-hmm yeah, there's a hospital in England. Um, or in the U somewhere in the UK, um, that was held for 250 million range only 20,
Curt:20. Wow. wow. Ended it pay mm-hmm mm-hmm wow. It had to sounds like a burgeoning career field. Yeah. yeah. Um, while we're kind of in that, in that space, um, I think you've also been a hobbyist of sorts around the cryptocurrency and mm-hmm and that whole, you use some of your extra computer server space to go mine Bitcoins and different things like that, or, yeah. I don't know if that's allowed to even say that you do that, but like, talk to me. That technology, that industry it's been, you know, it's getting beat up right now. It's mm-hmm, what, 20,000 or something
Tim:like that. Yeah. Yeah. 20,000, uh, last 60 is actually dropping. Um, and I think it's gonna drop quite a bit more really. I, I do, yeah. Based off technical analysis, but okay. Um, yeah, so yeah, I, I got into that space in 20. And, um, there's multiple
Curt:times back when Bitcoins were like 20 bucks a piece. Yeah.
Tim:Yeah, exactly. I remember when it hit a hundred bucks and I was like, oh my gosh, like this can't last. Right. you know, and, uh, and, and I didn't understand Bitcoin at that point at all, it is, is easy money. Yeah. That's what all it was. And 2012 for me is like just easy money. And, um,
Curt:because you could mine'em already and stuff like that, or you figured that out
Tim:can mean we had a surplus of hardware, right. That could just mine. Right. Because you know, more, you know, more cost effective than electricity. And.
Curt:Yeah, right. Plus you got all these machines that have been refurbished as are sitting on the shelves. Not could you even just do it that simply, um, like just turn it down and
Tim:go, uh, kind of, yeah. So at that point, I mean, you're using dedicated graphics card, so it's not, it's not, you know, units that we are selling. Right. But we had, you know, the basis, um, that all we had, you know, of all the computers, power supplies, all we had to do was just drop cards in'em. Yeah. And, and go, so our expense was minimal. Then you can write off the power. So, and I remember
Curt:there's like proof of work or something like that. Mm-hmm, like, like, is it different puzzles all the time that you have to do to get your, to win your prizes? I like, I'm pretty much, uh, uh, I'm slowly learning, but it takes a lot, a little while for me.
Tim:Yeah, no, you're fine. Um, yeah, so essentially they're using, you know, proof of work, so Bitcoin and theum, they both use the proof of work, um, uh, system, if you will. Essentially, what you're doing with proof of work is you're using a bunch of hardware to run a ledger, you know? So going back to the accounting type thing, mm-hmm, you know, you're, you're just running a ledger. That's all it is. Oh, really? And so you have, you know, millions of computers or, you know, now with Bitcoin specialized units there for, you know, running
Curt:cause it's all public ledger anyway. Right. Mm-hmm like at any point in time, anybody can. Exactly. You can't know exactly whose it is, but you know, that that ledger is there,
Tim:right? Yeah. So if I, if I knew what your, your Bitcoin wallet IED was. Yeah. I could see all of your transactions. Oh yeah.
Curt:So interesting. Mm-hmm and so should a person like have multiple wallets or something like that to increase an anonymity. Um, or just don't tell anybody, I guess. Yeah. I
Tim:mean, what, what, you know, what, what good people are doing with it. Cause they're just using it as normal cause they don't care. Right. Um, what the bad guys are using, you know, people that are, you know, uh, you know, doing all the ransomware, you know, type of things, getting paid in Bitcoin, they're typically, you know, basically they're laundering money through crypto exchanges. Mm. So it'll go into a crypto exchange with one wallet. And then it goes out to a new wallet from the, uh, the exchanges inside the exchange. Oh yeah. So that's how they're
Curt:laundering this month. Oh, it looks legitimized from having been in the exchange. Mm-hmm then a new
Tim:wallet shows up and just, you know, random and leak it set of
Curt:Bitcoins in it and da, da, exactly. Oh, interesting.
Tim:And so, yeah, I mean, so that, you know, so you have your, um, know your customer, your Ky. That's been a really big thing over the last couple years. Um, you know, just to try to,
Curt:oh, like, even if I wanna sell some coins to somebody or whatever, like I might not want just sell it to anybody kind of, no, it's not that simple. Don't have it been
Tim:liability there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Eh, yes and no, there there's a lot that can go into that, I guess. So, I mean, yeah. Technically if, if you, you know, sent, you know, a Bitcoin to someone who also just happened to be, you know, doing ransomware scams and there's other money going into it. Right. And they figured out who the, you know, the person was that had that wallet, you know, they could go back to you and say, Hey, Hey, at
Curt:least Snoop your transaction histories and stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Um, I'm gonna grab a quick break and come back. So Tim, um, you were saying that according to the technical analysis, you see crypto Bitcoin, especially kind of going, going lower, still talk to me about that marketplace. It seems like something that you've got your eye on, is the, is it going down so fast because of kind of the excessive lending and exchanges and stuff that popped up so fast and it, it blew up because it was over leveraged and now it's just retrenching or is. Like government attacks on things like that or their willingness to issue their own digital currencies is pressuring that marketplace or mm-hmm like, where, where is that
Tim:market right now? Yeah. Um, you know, I think a lot of it, uh, right now, Bitcoin, so Bitcoin follows, has been following the Dow and the S and P. uh, pretty closely interesting. Uh, yeah. Which is kind of funny because Bitcoin was actually created in 2009 to, um, really oppose the countercultural
Curt:counter.
Tim:I, you know, yeah. And so, but you know, right now there's, you know, a. Yeah, Bitcoin is, is following, the market pretty well. So
Curt:there's a wealth effect there, or what's the theory behind that? Yeah. So
Tim:there are, um, there are a few major lenders, um, in the crypto space that went belly up. Right. And so, yeah, that's definitely given the market some turbulence. Um, you know, it's funny, uh, earlier in the podcast you had mentioned, you know, crypto's not doing so hot when you zoom out. and you go back to 20, 20. Yeah. Beginning of 2020. You know, when the world changed forever, what's outperformed is Bitcoin outperformed the us dollar as the us dollar outperformed
Curt:Bitcoin I would guess it's probably the Bitcoin. If
Tim:I'm asking the question, you probably
Curt:know the answer. Like Bitcoin was 10,000. So, yeah, cruise passed 20 through 30, through 40, up to 60, and now it's back to 20, but it's still twice as high as it was. Right?
Tim:Yeah. So I, so actually, uh, you know, when the market was the lowest. Right when the
Curt:right after the got shut, shut down. Yeah. And
Tim:Bitcoin was also the lowest, I think Bitcoin hit about$4,200. Okay. So maybe still a five X, right. 500% increase right over the last couple years. Um, yeah, it's funny. It's not 60,000, but you know, when you zoom out, um, Bitcoin continues to go up and up and up and yeah, I, I think that a, um, You know where we're going short term. I think that, you know, we're still consolidating, we're still gonna be going down a little bit. Um, which is fine, you know? So
Curt:I know some people that are really interested in the, the monetary element of Bitcoin and kind of the scarcity of it. Right. Mm-hmm like that, like you can't just print Bitcoins, you gotta dig'em out of the digital. dirt mm-hmm or whatever. Right. But then there's others that, um, are more focused on like blockchain and its utility mm-hmm and all the functionality around that. I know NFTs tie in there somewhere as well. Yeah. Like talk to me about. That realm and, and where you slide if you
do.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, you know, so Bitcoin, um, it's kind of seen as more of like digital property yeah. Than anything else, more property than currency, you know, it's utility, isn't nearly what the utility is of, you know, some of the other cryptos, like Ethereum mm-hmm um, you know, some of those major, you know, uh, coins that you've, you know, that you've heard of the crypto projects. Um, and I'll, and I'll get to those in a second. Um, so with. What you're seeing is you're seeing mass adoption of businesses right now. Um, you know, uh, like micro strategy, for example, mm-hmm, um, they own, I I'd have to look up the amount that they, they, they own, but I think that they own somewhere, like.$300 million worth of Bitcoin. Yeah. Because they understand the utility and the value of it. And it's, you know, over, you know, when you zoom out, it's always increasing. Yeah. You know? Um, and so realistically, uh, your, your business is your large corporations. All they're doing, you know, when they buy up their stocks and the S and P you know, skyrockets, you know, with inflation, it goes up and up and up. They're just buying their stocks back. Their giant hedge inflation. Right. And so they're, you know, they're like, well, no, I don't know where to put this money at. So I may as well put it into my own stocks. And that's why you see like, Tesla. Right, right.
Curt:You know, Tesla
Tim:buyback being so overvalued compared to, you know, where it should actually be at. Um, but you know, so now we're seeing more adoption where these companies are buying Bitcoin as a hedge to inflation. Yeah. Yeah. Because, there, this is a little bit, uh, more subjective, but if you look at, you know, you're not giving
Curt:investment advice here. Yeah,
Tim:exactly. I'm not giving investment advice. Thank you. Uh, you know, if you look at inflation being an average of 7% year over year for the last 40 years, right. These companies that was two and a half percent. But that's what they tell you.
Curt:I I'm sure you, as long as you don't count food and
Tim:energy, I was gonna say, I'm sure that you've, uh, known, noticed that when you go to the grocery store, it's about 8% more expensive than it was last year, right? Yeah. Only 8%. The
Curt:package is a little smaller
Tim:every year. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Curt:Yeah. So I'm, I'm imagining actually I'm thinking about this Bitcoin and these other, uh Ethereums and things mm-hmm and it's almost like Bitcoin, is that real estate? It's the actual. Dirt mm-hmm and then some of these other technologies that have, you know, it's almost like, okay, I'm gonna build a fast food restaurant on my dirt. Mm-hmm you know, it can do stuff, right. Or write an office building that can house all these people, right. That can do stuff. And that's where those other. Kinds of things come in, but you can't do any of those things without that underlying real estate kind of.
Tim:Yeah. I mean, so that property, theoretically, you know, like Ethereum would metaphorically anyway. Yeah. Metaphorically. Yeah. Ethereum would go on without Bitcoin, theoretically, really. They're not tied to each other. Okay. But at the same time, I think if Bitcoin failed, I think that the whole crypto space would probably fail. Right. Um, but yeah, you have your, your other projects. You know, like Ethereum that are executing smart contracts and, getting rid of, the use case for like escrows and
Curt:that sort of thing. Oh, right. Yeah. Mm-hmm and that's where those other more tech that's what I, I guess now I'm starting to kind of pull it all together. One of my big concerns or my angst, I guess, is that mm-hmm there's no like. Barrier to entry. Like mm-hmm, I could have a local coin. Right. And just kick it up and print a million units and they're right.$10 each or whatever, you'll pay me for'em. And I'll see you later when I get to Costa Rica.
Tim:Yeah. You know, and that's what happened in 2017 when you had all the ICOs, the initial coin offerings mm-hmm and yeah, there were a, a bunch of, just terrible projects out. And people buying
Curt:Lamborghini and yeah,
Tim:exactly. You know, they're, they'd sell all these ICOs they'd, you know, it'd be a rug pole and there's zero utility, but so many people were greedy and saying, Hey, this coin went from half a cent to 10 cents overnight. Right. I want my, you know,
Curt:where's my, I wanna get it at 10 so I can get it, sell it at a hundred. Exactly,
Tim:exactly. And so, that's really what caused that, that huge crash in, beginning of 2018. Mm.
Curt:Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I feel like I could spend another hour talking to you about this whole industry, because you are one of the, three or five people that seem to understand it more than the, the rest of the yahoos in my world, but I've become kind of a believer lately, like in the last six months, like. I at least should divert a small portion of my income or assets into kind of inflation proof. Mm-hmm re inflation resistant, right? Yeah. Assets, uh, goal being one and, and mm-hmm, you know, uh, Crypto being the other, I suppose. Yeah. And real estate, if you got room, right. I
Tim:mean, you know, the nice thing about Bitcoin versus gold or silver, um, you know, just as a hedge anyway, uh, you can move it
Curt:a lot easier. Right? Right. If you decide, if you're trying to escape Ukraine, Way easier to bring your Bitcoins than it is to bring your gold bars. Exactly.
Tim:Exactly. It's really hard to move a house across country or out of country. Yeah. Yeah. You, can't more business. You can't move more than, you know,$10,000 out of, you know, country. Right. You can't, you can't take
Curt:gold if you're Canada, you can't even get your money. Right.
Tim:Exactly. I mean, and, and really that's the best use case. Um, you, you look at at how stable of a, country Canada is, you look how stable of a country Australia. Was was, and you know, that overnight, just boom, you know, bank accounts froze. If we don't like what you're doing, if you're not doing what we're telling you to do, right. We're
Curt:freezing everything. Either your job is gone or your, your livelihood, like yeah. Your bank accounts, whatever, all you, as I
Tim:say, or,
Curt:or suffer freeze for your money. Yeah. Yeah. Um, What else would you tell me about business? You've been a local think tank member for couple years, three years now. Almost just a year.
Tim:Just a year resolve. We've known each other
Curt:for yeah. Yeah. I chased you for a while.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. Time wasn't right time. Wasn't right time. Wasn't right. And then boom, the time was right. And you
Curt:had just bought your farm at that point. I think, uh, or maybe six months before or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're raising chickens and ducks, turkeys, Uhhuh and children you have, and children.
Tim:Yeah. We have three kids. Okay. Yeah. We have twin boys that are 11 and then, uh, our, our daughter just turned five.
Curt:Okay. Yeah, we always, uh, and we, we normally go into the faith family politics. We might as well just start with family, if, unless there's other businessy things that you wanna talk about here.
Tim:No, that's fine. People care more about my family and my businesses
Curt:anyway. Yeah. Fair enough. So, um, I love to get the one word description of the kids. Hmm. You got twins. Identical fraternal.
Tim:No, they're fraternal. Um, completely opposite. Um, like there's not one word, but I would say they embrace the dorkiness. Um, and I think that they get it from their parents. Are they the,
Curt:well, you said they're completely opposite. So what, what are their names? First of all, evently in David.
Tim:All right. Yeah. And so, yeah, personalities are completely opposite, but you know, they're their own person. They're not afraid to be their own person. Yeah. Either. Um, even if they are a little bit dorky. Yeah.
Curt:Fair enough. And that's following their dad's footsteps. Right. Exactly. And their moms too, not just me. And what's your, uh, well, what's your wife's name before we Sarah. Sarah? Yeah. And with an H though, with an H of course. Yeah. As it should be exactly. Sorry. Sarah's without an H you're already feel bad enough about yourselves. And now here we are dumping on you, but, um, tell me about the love story there. Music lessons, uh, from your mom, piano lessons from your mom, way back in the day, but then, right. Like when did you guys connect?
Tim:Yeah, so, um, yeah, she took piano lessons from my mom when she was like, Right. And it was only for, I don't know, a year or something like that. And so, um, yeah, you know, we, we went to high school together and, um, so we knew each other. We were friends there, but our friendship actually didn't really develop until, um, I went to college and, you know, we had just met up and.
Curt:Yeah. And she did two. She was here in Fort Collins or, uh, no,
Tim:she was still in brush. Okay. So yeah, she's a few years younger than I am. Ah, so yeah. And
Curt:so yeah, also the college guys are always way cuter, if you're in a farm town. Right, exactly. Maybe he will get me out of here.
Tim:yeah. Yeah. As fast as possible, right. Hey, it worked. Yeah. It worked. Um, so yeah, so we've been dating for a little over 15 years. Wow. Yeah. And so, yeah, we had our, uh, the boys are 11, so, um, yeah. Got pregnant when we were dating for three years. Okay. And, uh, yeah. And then, um, moved to Wellington, uh, what, 2015, I think 2014, somewhere around there. Um, yeah, bought a house there and loved Wellington kind of loved the smaller town. Yeah. Not, it's not brush it's, uh, different than brush, but still it's
Curt:not isolated, but like brush, but it's
Tim:right. Yeah. Still has that small town feel. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so it always been a dream of mine and, uh, I've God give kudos to my wife because I, I feel like I could say this a hundred times, it's always been a dream of mine. And so she, you know, supports you.
Curt:She makes sure it happens
Tim:exactly. She's like, that's what you want to. I'll support. You I'll follow. You. I'll make sure that, things are good here. Um, you know, and so,
Curt:and what would you say, what would you say it is about you that makes her want to do that? Because she could offer that kind of support and encouragement she could have, I guess, uh, you know, why did she choose you? Right?
Tim:Yeah. I mean, my mom says that I'm handsome, so yeah.
Curt:well, your mom's biased. just, just like mine.
Tim:Um, Yeah. I don't know. We were each other's first love. Yeah. So, that helps, you know, she didn't know anything experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, it makes it easier. Um, but we really do. We do mesh really well. Yeah. Um, we, she balances me out, she, she really helps ground me quite a bit. You know, sometimes I'm like, oh, I want to do this and this and this. And. And, you know, we're gonna do all these things. She's like, whoa,
Curt:slow. We can do down two slow down.
Tim:right. Yeah. Is that really a good idea? Should you really be doing all those things? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And so, yeah, no, she, she definitely, you know, helps, uh, yeah. Ground me.
Curt:Um, and before I forget, you've got a five year old too, and I didn't get the one word description of the five year old. Ooh.
Tim:Uh, exuberant. Exuberant.
Curt:Yeah.
Tim:That's exciting. Yeah. So yeah, man, she. She is a nut. I've never met anybody like her. And what's her name? Danny.
Curt:Danielle. And is she more like you or more like your wife?
Tim:Uh, she's kind of a, a M smush between both of us. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So yeah, you know, she's, she's really embraced the farm. Yeah. So, you know, last year for her fourth birthday, we had a, a chicken birthday, a chicken theme, birthday party. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, the chicken shirt, my wife made this awesome cake that you know, was, you know, looked like a chicken, had like little
Curt:cupcakes, no chicken in it though. I
Tim:assume. No, no, no, no chicken in it. Yeah. That's good. No, just sugar and flour and more sugar and a little bit of butter. You. Um, but yeah, you know, we'll see her out there. She'll go to the chicken coop and just be holding a chicken and that's pretty cool.
Curt:Yeah. Grab it's a different kind of existence. Uh mm-hmm my wife and I, we don't have any children, but we do have a chicken coop and, and a fish pond. And, you know, just that. Garden beds, you know, just, just that willingness and desire to put your hands in the dirt. Mm-hmm, feed the chickens, you know, and do stuff like that. Yeah. I think it's a different kind of lifestyle than experience. That's,
Tim:you know, that's a lifestyle that we've won for our kids. Yeah. So, um, you know, teach'em the responsibilities. I mean, that's how my parents taught us responsibilities on, you know, a pig arm. you know, going to give that to our kids too. Yeah.
Curt:So, and does Sarah work or has she worked or, um,
Tim:yeah, no. So, um, when we got, uh, pregnant with the twin. The cost of daycare, would've been a bazillion times more than
Curt:yeah. You know, equal to her monthly income.
Tim:Right. Exactly. So you know, who, who else better than, to raise the kids than mom. And so that's not what she wanted to do. She wanted to have a career. Um, oh really? She never, you know, wanted to be that stay at home mom. And so, you know, she put a lot of stuff on hold. Yeah. For, you know, for me and for us and, our common goals. For
Curt:sure. And so, and well, she's got her youngest is gonna get, gonna go to school pretty soon. Mm-hmm that's gonna open up a like 9:00 AM till 3:00 PM kind of right. Opportunity for her. Is she thinking about what she wants to do? Does she wanna work? Does she wanna go back to school? Well, you
Tim:know, we've, we've discussed that and, integrity farms is, you know, a possibility, um, as part of that, especially if we turn that into a larger scale nonprofit. um, you know, that's a possibility, um, we've talked about college as well. Um, yeah, over, uh, we actually just started the 75 hard program on Sunday and so, you know, restarted, right? Re yeah. So yeah, this is my second go round this year.
Curt:So for our listeners, nobody knows what 75 hard is. Yeah. I was ignorant. This might as well fit in the family segment, I guess, unless it's faith. I don't know. Perfect. So, um, yeah,
Tim:so, and she's in it with you too? Yeah, so she's in it with me. Uh, we both started the 75 hard program at the beginning of the year, last year. She ended up having surgery for hernias repaired at day 55, we got up at 3:00 AM to get our first exercise in. She was hoping that she'd be able to continue and yeah, for hernia being repaired
Curt:was, uh, did she break the hernias because of all the hard workouts or they were just there and got evidenced by all these,
Tim:uh, they, they were existing. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, two of'em had to be Rere repaired and yeah. So, so she was super proud. So she tapped out. Yeah, she made it fif day 55. Like once you've made it to 55 for the last 20 days, you're on cruise control. You're in it. You're doing well. What's 75 hard. Okay. Yeah. 75 hard. Um, so it's a program that's meant to teach you self discipline. Mm. Um, I hate self. You know, I mean, self discipline, that actually actually every single aspect of your life, a lot of people see it as like, you know, weight loss program or sure. Some sort of a diet or a fad and it's like, well, that's not sustainable. And it's like, no, 75 hard is not meant to be any of those. It's to teach you self discipline, which goes into every single avenue, of your life, including your diet. But yeah. So the rules for 75 hard. Is, you have to do two workouts every day. One of those has five minutes, uh, 45 minutes. 45 minutes. One of those has to be outside. Okay. And the reason that it has to be outside. You know, there's stuff in life that just sucks. Sometimes it's hard, you know, there's things that you don't, you're still gonna do it, wanna do, and you have to do it. Whether, you know, whether you're a student and there's an exam coming up and you're procrastinating it, like you have to do it no matter what, the sooner you do it, the better. Yeah. You know, if, if you're, business owner, uh, there's a lot of things you have to do to suck and you just have to do. And this is what that program teaches you, the day that she had her surgery, I went out and I did my walk, uh, outside on her farm. Oh, is negative 20 wind chill.
Curt:Does it wa a walk count?
Tim:It does. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you figured out your workout and so, whatever gets your heart rate up and going. Yeah. So typically I'll. You know, lift in the morning and then outside will be a walk. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you kind of, create the program a little bit, but you still, you know, have to follow the guidelines. Okay. So,
and
Curt:so two
Tim:workouts every day. Yes. Two workouts every day, whether it's, you know, blizzarding or 103 are first day, this time around was a hundred and well it's in that's rough, so yeah. Is, is a little brutal, but that's all right. Embrace the suck. Right. And so, um, there's no, Okay.
Curt:No alcohol at all. That's why I'm drinking, uh, mezcal and you're drinking iced tea. Yep, exactly.
Tim:And, uh, and a gallon of water every day. So, you know, that's easy.
Curt:Everybody should drink a gallon of water. Yeah, I do that every day. Yeah, exactly. That's yeah's piece cake. Does beer count? No. No, just straight up water as ice tea count. Nope. Just water, water. Okay. Just water. I could still do it. Yeah.
Tim:Harder. Yeah. Yeah. See in the bathroom in 30 minutes. Right. But that's right. You get used to that too. Um, and then, um, 10, 10 pages of, you know, personal development every day. Okay. So which is F I mean, that's great. I mean, it gives you a good excuse to be like, Hey, I have to do this. Right. And so, yeah. Um, and yeah, personal development too, that's it really. Just well minimum, that's the bulk of
Curt:it. Minimum. Those are all the minimums.
Tim:Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, take a progress, uh, picture every day. Okay. And I feel like there's one I'm forgetting. Let me pull up.
Curt:Is this like an organization that puts this together? Do you sign up, get daily email reminders, things like that, or what's, I've never heard of 75 hard before you mentioned it as we were scheduling this podcast.
Tim:Oh. Uh, the other thing is follow a diet. Ooh. Yeah. So, I mean, you choose your diet, every body's different. Right? Right. So for me, uh, last time and this time it's, cutting out all, all the craft food, so like sugar is processed foods. Exactly. Things like that. Exactly. So it's like, yeah. You know, low carb, refined carbs. Sugars added, all of that sort of thing. Just cut it out. Yeah. And then, you know, I did high protein just because, we're doing the workouts, gotta feed your body. Yeah. So, um, and then, yeah, there's no cheat meals allowed none. Um, no cheat meals. Yeah. So premise behind that is that, how about cheats? No cheat snacks, no cheat, nothing. So if you, yeah, if you fail one day, if you fail one of those things, right. You fail and you start all over. If I have a piece of cake. Yep. I'm go back to day one. so, yeah. It's no compromise. Can I do seven hard? Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, that doesn't count. No, it doesn't count. It doesn't count. Fair enough. So, but yeah, it's no compromised. It's, you know? Yeah. Telling yourself. why cheat yourself. Yeah.
Curt:I think why do that, I mean, to, even though I'm kind of laughing and, and goofing with you a little bit and stuff, mm-hmm there is so much value in being disciplined. Yeah. You know, and, and not every season will be that way where you've gotta work hard. Mm-hmm all day long, I was a farmer's kid. Mm-hmm right. And so my dad, my dad is a wealthy man. He's I'm gonna turn 48. So he's 68 years. and there were, and they had rain all the time. This spring mm-hmm it was like raining, raining, raining about the time. It was gonna be time to see it rained again. Mm-hmm And so they had this narrow window and he worked, I think he said 11, 16 hour days in a row and a couple of seventeens and eighteens mm-hmm And embrace the suck, right? Embrace the suck, you know, there's there's 12 days. Mm-hmm, where you're up as soon as you can, after a really short night of sleep. Yeah. And you're staying up as late as you can. And I'm not saying that that we should worship work or things, but in his industry, that was. Crucial. It was essential. Mm-hmm mm-hmm and he would love to sleep in an extra three hours. I'm sure. Any of those days after the second one,
Tim:right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, no, I mean, it, it was literally life changing for me. I mean, I would re I, and I have been, I, you know, we actually have a team that's following us this year. Yeah. It's you know, that I'm just like, Hey, do you want to change your life forever? It's only 75 days. Right? You. Just
Curt:do it. I did sober October last year. That's kind of disciplined ish. What's that? Sober October. Oh, sober October. Okay. Yeah. I mean, no workouts, no, nothing. Just no alcohol for a month. Yeah. Extra weed. It's fine. Yeah. So
Tim:so yeah, the, the program, uh, Andy Illa, um, who has a podcast, he's the one that okay. Kind created this program. Um, you can go on his website, Andy versa.com and you know, sign up and he'll send you. Emails, um, you know, to podcasts, that sort of thing, but you know, it's ultimately anybody
Curt:can do
Tim:it. Yeah. Anybody can do it. You know, I download the app as$5 just cuz it helps keep track of what you've done that day. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's not a program. It's not an official program where you have to go and give'em a thousand dollars and yeah. You know, do this, that and the other, you know, it's just, it's just you and yourself and just, just make it happen.
Curt:Yeah. I dig it. I dig it. Well, I'm proud of. Hey, thanks. Yeah, no good job. You might sell me on it. I'm I'm thinking about it. Yeah. We'll let the farmer the summer pass by here first. Yeah. Fall is a good time for that kind of thing.
Tim:Yeah. Until it starts blizzarding on you and you have to be outside for 45
Curt:minutes. So good point. Yeah. It's only 75 days. Hey, um, so I think that covers family largely, although we didn't really talk about your family, you were the youngest. Five boys. Yeah.
Tim:Mm-hmm all boys. No girls. Yep. All boys.
Curt:Yeah. And so what was that like? Um, and what was the span of ages? How much older is your oldest
Tim:brother? Uh, my oldest brother's nine years older than me. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I would say kinda every other year almost. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like competitive. You know, and we're all really super competitive. And I think that athletes, uh, mostly, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, we all are into sports. Um, we have a fancy football lead together that was, uh, started in 1990. Wow. Yeah. So, before internet, so you just tore out, you tore out the sports section of the paper on Monday morning. Oh, that's hilarious. I had no idea. Yeah. You use pencil, pencil and paper. Wow. Had everything up. I'd
Curt:never heard about it before. About 2005. Mm-hmm
Tim:Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So yeah, I don't think I joined until, oh, I was probably 10 or so. It's like late nineties, right?
Curt:Yeah. What an interesting thing. Yeah. Um, any, um, of your brothers that really were a special relationship for you or is it just kind. Everybody's
Tim:in the, there, we all have our relationships with each other in different ways. Yeah. My oldest brother, I always looked up, to him, he was like, the smart one and like always the nice one. Like the one that like, you know, come home from college and he'd throw the football with you. Yeah. Do full stuff. Like we made, dry ice bombs. One time at our farm, just messing around just some small ones and a two liter, you know, that sort of thing. Um, my next brother, he was like always the athlete. So he was the one that's this is how you, you know, throw a ball. This is how you kick ball. This is how you catch ball. Um, he played some spring ball at, uh, CSU for a couple years as well. Mm-hmm so, my next brother, uh, the middle one, uh, he actually, he was my best man at our wedding. Oh. And. His mentorship was always appreciated, just on like, just like daily Life. Yeah. Sort of things, always like just great listener and then, you know, my next brother, um, you know, he was the one that's closest to me, uh, two and a half years. Yeah. We always, you know, growing up, we were always super close, talked a whole lot. Um, yeah.
Curt:What a cool thing, really interesting dynamic to have that. All boys too. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned your dad was, um, like, uh, Service or no something. Yeah. So,
Tim:yeah. So he worked power, energy. Yeah. Big, big grid power.
Curt:Yeah. Yeah. And then your mom, was she a, like just chasing boys around all the time or did she also do
Tim:some? Um, so she, uh,
Curt:whoa almost took microphone over.
Tim:Um, so yeah, so she was formally a teacher in elementary. Okay. Uh, music teacher. Oh, fun. And then, um, yeah, my oldest brother's born, um, stopped doing. And became a piano teacher, which she actually, I think, continued to do piano since she was, I think she started teaching when she was like 10 wow. Or something. So I won't expose her age, but, um, she's been teaching a, a really long time,
Curt:longer than longer than you've been most people. Yeah. I don't know if that's true. We'll see. Um, uh, But yeah. Well, kudos to your mom and dad, do you want, give you wanna name them and give them
Tim:any special prompts? Yeah. Keith and Marsha Washburn. Yeah. Keith Marsha. Yep. They were, were the ones that yeah. Taught us how really, how to, uh, gave us the work ethic and really taught us how to, uh, Kind of do whatever we wanted to do. Yeah. Figure things out. Um, there's not a whole lot of things now that I look at I'm like, there's no way I could figure this out. It's yeah, they kind of taught us how to think. Yeah.
Curt:I like that notion taught us how to do. so, yeah. Fair enough. Well, it's a blessing to have a, a family like that. Mm-hmm right. Like you can't even imagine what it would be like not to. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we've got faith or politics. Which of those would you like to take on as your topic next? Um,
Tim:going, we'll go into faith and wrap it up with politics. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. So yeah. So in short, you know, I I'm a Christian, I believe in God and the one and only God. Um, I believe in the Bible and no variations
Curt:of the Bible, this was reinforced throughout your early life. Your parents were the same way. Mm-hmm
Tim:yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, growing up, uh, grew up in a Christian family, so,
Curt:and. that? Do you wanna name your church? I mean, is there a place where you can get that? Just the Bible, not too much extra
Tim:stuff. Yeah. So it was, uh, life fellowship, which was a Foursquare church. Okay. Yeah. So that was, that was the primary church growing up. And, you know, kind of leading a little bit into politics, um sure. With this as well. There's, um, there. There's a lot of attacks on Christianity. Yeah. And, you know, and I feel like a lot of that is
Curt:poof. I had somebody tell me about a year and a half ago after the black lives matter thing, but mm-hmm, after opening and things, they were like, well, you know, my neighbors are, you know, they're kind of, they're Christians and they're kind of racist. Mm-hmm like, it was almost the same thing. And I think that's part of the legacy of Donald Trump. And if anything, the Christians were the ones that were responsible for getting rid of slavery right.
Tim:In our nation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, the Bible teach seed and in the world
Curt:to love. Yeah. Right. And there were all the human race, like people considered other tribes to not be humans, something subhuman before the Christians came along and said, no, we're all one
Tim:family. Right? Exactly. Yeah. No, I mean, love your neighbor, right. It's as simple as that. Yeah. Yeah, no, there's, there, there shouldn't be hate in, in Christianity. And I think that there's a, uh, a very bad spin, um, that there's a lot of hate.
Curt:Yeah. What's that all about where's that coming from?
Tim:Well, you know, I, I think, with like gay rights and that sort of thing and
Curt:role
Tim:versus Wade, no Roe versus Wade. Yeah. I mean, you know, and I think that, that's a media thing. Is really dividing. Yeah. Dividing, trying to, you know, intentionally, where, and this is where I, you know, religion and politics kind of mesh a little bit, I, I don't feel like my religion, me being a Christian should supersede your rights either. Okay. Your, your human rights. Yeah. You know, and I, I think that that's. You know, a lot of that, um, perceived hatred comes
Curt:from, well, I think that's where the challenge of, of Roe versus Wade. Mm-hmm really, what's why it's so deep. Mm-hmm because if you don't think God is real and you don't think natural rights are a thing mm-hmm well, if I'm a walking meat bag, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to snip out the little piece of the walking meat bag. Right. That's inside me. Mm-hmm
Tim:you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a challenging topic. Yeah, for sure. And. I mean, you know, there really isn't a right answer, you know, nothing's black and white there. No, I mean, and every party wants it to be black and white. Right. For sure. Yeah. And it's just not,
Curt:so let's talk about politics, not just on the faith element, but yeah. Yeah. We were amusing a little bit before we got into this podcast, but cuz there's. I tipped the, I tipped my, my title for my next month's blog. Uh, Liberty from Liberty is the title and the notion I I'm starting with my, my great-grandmother. The matriarch of my family was mm-hmm the, the daughter of. Dutch, Netherlands, uh, farmers mm-hmm that immigrated to North Dakota and then started a farm there and then had my grandmother and she married some dumb bear mm-hmm and the rest is history, right. But they're like shutting down all these farmers or they're threatening to anyway, right? Because they want to use nitrogen fertilizer and things and taking farms out of production. When agricultural production is basically the one thing that the Netherlands. enough of to have exports, right? Yeah. And so as a nation and as a people, um, that notion that they can't apply their craft, mm-hmm, the way that they think is appropriate or best is, is really been bothering me. Oh, okay. Um, and that's looking forward to reading that. Yeah. I hope it's good. I hope it's good. but like, talk to me about that, that notion there's to me, there's a lot of people. Would like people to be able to be whatever they want to be. Mm-hmm and there's a lot of other people that would like to control everybody that wants to be whatever they'd wanna be.
Tim:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so politically I I'm Mo mostly libertarian. Yeah. You know, live and let live. Um, and so usually that means I end up pissing off both parties, we're saying right in the. Cuz you know, usually they're a little bit too extreme on too many sides or illogical
Curt:illogical is what I don't like the most. Yeah.
Tim:Yeah. It's like, well, so this is okay, but this isn't yeah.
Curt:Right. My buddy, my choice. Right. Except when
Tim:it's not yeah, exactly. Unless we changed our mind. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um,
Curt:yeah. And where do you think we're going? That's kind of the notion of my. Big picture, like, do you think that the Liberty movement is growing? Is it being suppressed? Uh,
Tim:It's, it's tough to say so true Liberty. I think that we are going away from true Liberty. I think that the country is going, I, I think that it's going to. extreme conservative. Hmm. Um,
Curt:over as a reflex against the, against where we're at right now, the trans agenda and different things like that, or? Yeah, I mean, I think that there were, we're just overspend. like, is it a fiscal swing? Uh, is it a fiscally derived swing or is it a
Tim:philosophical? I was talking more philosophical. Okay. Rather than fiscal. Yeah. Um, cuz they're both just as guilty fiscally, right? Um, right. Fair. But one's just not afraid to tell you that they're, you know, wasting your money. So um, but yeah I think that we see this pendulum, you know, it goes back and forth and, you know, I think that we've, hit a
Curt:very, it can't go any farther left. It can't
Tim:go any further left and it has. And I think that, I mean, just seeing, like Roe versus Wade, you know, is that the beginning of the pendulum swinging, you know, towards the ultra conservative, you know, we see gas prices, right. And so, you know, since Biden's president, it has to be his fault. Right, right. So, so naturally, we're gonna vote the other way now. Right. Right. And they'll fix, you know, the world. Um, and
Curt:so you're equally cynical about Republicans almost.
Tim:Yeah. And so, you know, I, I feel like we're, we're probably gonna swing ultra conservative, which, you know, at the same time,
Curt:you know, do you think so? Really? I don't think like, like when it comes to like gay rights or things like that, mm-hmm I don't really see going back against that to
Tim:you. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think for gay rights. I don't think that that'll ever be, you know, I don't think that that'll ever go back. I mean, you know, so many of. you know, the, the moderate conservatives, most of your conservatives, that's not on their agenda, they don't right.
Curt:They don't really care about that. They don't care about
Tim:that anymore. There's other things that they
Curt:want. And some of it's more like the critical race theory and mm-hmm, that kind of element, if
Tim:you will. Yeah. I, I just see extremes on both sides. Yeah. And I, I feel like we're probably swinging towards a different extreme and, and both of those extremes are still authoritarian. yeah. Neither of'em are, are for the
Curt:people. Yeah. That was one of the things I wrote in my blog last month actually, was that notion that abortion is a very special issue in that it's kind of a change of hats for the individualists and the collectivists mm-hmm you know, the, normally the conservatives are very much in favor of you do you you'd be whatever you wanna be. Mm-hmm but then you can't kill babies. Right. Right. Right. And then the others are. or the, uh, you know, the, you know, wear your mask, get vaccinated, right. Et cetera, et cetera. Um, but free love mm-hmm right, right, right. So it's, it's kind of a change of pace there, I guess, here, while we're in the politics section. Mm-hmm how was, uh, how was your brain during the lockdowns? Um, and how do you feel about like the various states and. Reactions there, the vaccine mandates, all that kind of stuff. Do you wanna play in that world or do you wanna just leave it alone?
Tim:Um, sure. I'll, I'll dabble. I'll dabble. Sure. You can dabble. Um, you know, so towards the beginning of, the COVID stuff, um, computer doctors and integrity technologies, they're both considered, Uh, essential business, essential, essential. So, you know, the, the Kings and Queens that allow us to do and not do they, the deciders, I like to call them. Yeah. They, they graced us by allowing us to continue business. So that was wonderful. Um, uh, obviously in, being a little bit sarcastic there, but. You know, that was fine from that standpoint. Um, mentally I was okay. When all the BLM stuff started coming up, holy cow, it was just a rush of emotions. Um, I mean, you're just seeing just hate yeah. From both sides. Uh, you see, the media, spending BL it was Fann. Yeah, it tremendously, absolutely fanning it, you know, blaming, Antifa, well blaming BLM for Antifa stuff. And then you have the opposite, you know, side of the pendulum that, I mean, there's a lot just like just outright racism. Right. You know, I mean, the comments that you would see and it's like, we haven't given your people enough already, you know, that type of right. And it's like, oh my gosh. Like, I, you know, you see your friends, you see people that you, used to respect, you know, on both ends of this spectrum. And it's just like, oh my gosh, Why are we filled with so much hate, right. Just absolute hate. And you know, and ultimately I end up, like the month, month of June, mentally, I was not good. And I end up just unplugging. Yeah. Like from so many things cuz it's like, this isn't good. Wow. You know, I have a family to raise, I have, I have my own obligations and if I'm not at my best, then you know, they can't be either. Yeah. And so, yeah, so I would say, I mean the whole BLM stuff.
Curt:That was more, that that was worse. That was more traumatic to you than the, than COVID than lockdown. Yeah,
Tim:absolutely. Absolutely. And
Curt:it's interesting to me that that conversation just kind. You know, it was hot and heavy for three months and then it's just kind of gone away.
Tim:Right? Yeah. There's something else. Something
Curt:else. Right? The new something else, the new big thing, right?
Tim:Yeah. The new variant of COVID.
Curt:Yeah. Right. Whether it's variant of COVID or it's mm-hmm you know, I, I guess I shouldn't brush, brush a Ukraine under the rug right. And stuff like that. But to me, that's a really important thing too. Mm-hmm is that well, it's authoritarian. Right. Like in a lot of ways, the crisis there was caused by, you know, enhanced dependence on Russia and all these things. And mm-hmm, it, there's just a whole lot of people that like to tell other people what to do. Right. But there's a whole lot of problems if nobody tells everybody what to do right
Tim:too. Yeah. I mean, we can't have anarchy. Right. You know, we need some government, right?
Curt:Yeah. Some leadership would be good. Yeah.
Tim:Yeah. Some representation. Huh? That's
Curt:probably my biggest disappointment. In like our political system since like you and I started voting is that like Congress has abdicated their position of power. Mm-hmm like, they don't really bring stuff to the table anymore. Mm-hmm you know, there there's a few this and that, but the, you know, since really Obama, the executive order has replaced the lobbying for support for this bill that will make our nation better.
Tim:Yeah. And so, yeah, definitely, uh, yeah, way too much control and way too much, uh, or I guess way too little representation of the people,
Curt:right? Yep. I feel that, um, anything else in the politics side you want to, who's your, uh, we got a governor's race coming up here, you know, here you're voting.
Tim:I honestly, I haven't even looked at
Curt:it. Episode of 56, I think is Heidi Al of the local experience podcast. She's our Republican nominee for governor. Oh, okay. And J S of course is our incumbent. Okay. There we go. Vote variety. always vote lo right. the, the, uh, the Loco experience is our closing segment. It's the craziest experience, whether it be a moment a day, a week, a year in the. uh, do you have a local experience that you would like to describe to our listeners?
Tim:Um, explain that one more
Curt:time. Uh, a crazy experience, a crazy time of your life that was especially formative or significant in shifting your views or thoughts. Did you get kidnapped by terrorists or anything like that? Bought a farm, bought a farm, got married, had twins. Um, I
Tim:don't know. Yeah. I mean, twins was big. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I hate to harp on this again, but 75 hard was life changing. Yeah. You know, as the beginning of this year, there have been, you know, many impactful things, but as far as something that has, you know, you're in business, you know, at that point been in business for 12 years. Yeah. How can, you know, how can you make the most. To, I mean, just your bottom line, you know, based, based off of like focus and self discipline, um, is there a business element to 75 hard, well, self, self discipline sure. Helps. Right. Right. Focus. Sure. Helps. You know, getting all the crap outta your body. Sure. Helps. And yeah, that, that personal, the forced personal development that sure helps. So, yeah, I would say, I mean, uh, you know, just shooting off the top of my head, I would say 75 hard has been probably one of the most impactful things in my life, you know, to date. Yeah. And in my business too
Curt:well. And you were telling me that your business has, has nearly doubled its. Monthly recurring revenues this year and mm-hmm and so that's pretty amazing.
Tim:Yeah. Yep. Nope. We're we're our goal is to triple this year and we've already exceeded
Curt:doubling. And did you make that goal when you were already on the 75 hard program, your first time around or,
Tim:uh, that goal was made about a month prior to 75 hard and then it was, you know, boom, what's kicking empowered
Curt:by 75 hard. Exactly. exactly set while I was thinking normally, and then, uh, accomplished while. Kick an ass mm-hmm exactly. So, if people are curious about, you know, whether they're a small business owner that needs some it support, or just curious about getting a new computer for their daughter, that's gonna last more than a year, right. From computer doctors, you know, how do they find you? Yeah.
Tim:Yeah. Um, you know, on the residential retail side, Colorado computer doctors.com. Okay. And then integrity technologies. You can either Google. We rank really high or you can go to in tag tech.net. Uh, you can also find me Tim Washburn on LinkedIn as well.
Pretty
Curt:easy. Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me appreciate it. And uh, we'll see you next time. And until then, uh, let's uh, hope to Bitcoin prices keep going up. Yeah, always hot. always hot. Hot. Yep. Oh. Oh, yeah, you never buy. Don't never sell Bitcoins. Never sell it. That's what my dad says. He said land is for buying. Never for selling. Exactly.
Tim:You can leverage it too.
Curt:Fair enough.