Episode 5: Failure, Identity, Reinvention and Peer Groups with Tracy Bell from WMI

Levi, Colby, and Tracy Bell have an unfiltered conversation about entrepreneurship, failure, and personal identity. Tracy, former CEO and co-founder of Millennia Tea, shares her journey of building a business from passion, facing public closure, and navigating what comes next. They dive into business resilience, identity beyond work, and the power of peer networks in shaping both professional and personal growth.

Links and Resources:

• Tracy Bell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracybell10/
• Wallace McCain Institute: https://wallacemccaininstitute.com/
• Entrepreneurs Organization: https://eoatlantic.com/
• The Secret (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(Byrne_book)
• Mel Robbins (Podcast and Author): https://www.melrobbins.com/

Quotes Worth Sharing
“I don’t introduce myself by my title anymore—I’m working on introducing who I am as a human being.”
“Failure isn’t an identity—it’s an experience that reshapes you for the better.”
“Peer groups aren’t about fixing each other’s problems—they’re about sharing real experiences and holding each other accountable.”

Redefining Identity After Business (01:09 – 04:09)

• Tracy’s Personal Journey: Tracy explains how her identity was once tightly bound to her roles—as a journalist, corporate communicator, and later as co-founder/CEO of Millennia Tea.
• Transition & New Beginnings: Discussion of how closing the business reshaped her sense of self and led to her current leadership at the Wallace McCain Institute.
• Key Quote: “I don’t introduce myself by my title anymore—I’m working on introducing who I am as a human being.”

The Emotional Impact of Business Failure (04:09 – 11:30)

• Facing Public Closure: Tracy and Levi dive into the emotional toll of publicly closing a company, discussing both the inevitable pain and the unexpected lessons learned.
• Handling External Validation: Conversations on how personal identity and public perception shift when a business fails.
• Shared Experiences: Colby and Levi contribute reflections on the challenges of dealing with external expectations versus internal growth.

The Power of Peer Groups (11:30 – 32:00)

• Value of Trusted Networks: In-depth discussion on how peer groups (e.g., Wallace McCain Institute and EO) create safe spaces for honest conversation and experience sharing.
• Real Talk vs. Advice: The trio contrasts superficial advice with the “experience share” model, where real, unfiltered lessons are exchanged.
• Comparative Insights: Colby explains the differences between accelerator groups and full-fledged peer forums, emphasizing the unique value of candid support and accountability.

Future Outlook, Succession, and Economic Development (43:30 – 57:00)

• Preparing for the “Gray Tsunami”: Conversation shifts to the challenges of business succession and the broader economic impact in regions like Atlantic Canada.
• Succession Planning: Discussion on how traditional businesses need to think proactively about transition, especially when long-time owners retire or step back.
• Regional Opportunity: The speakers reflect on the unique strengths of Atlantic Canada and the need to create a collective, supportive ecosystem.

Chapters

• 1:09 Redefining Identity after Business Failure
• 11:30 The Power of Peer Groups
• 43:30 Future Outlook, Succession, and Economic Development

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Welcome to built to last the podcast where entrepreneurs share real stories about the triumphs and challenges of building enduring success, hosted by Colby Jardine and Levi Lawrence. Great. We are so excited for this conversation, and as we were saying earlier, like we're not even really saying this is just all about the podcast. This is about having really great conversations with great people on meaningful topics. We call the podcast built to last. And the idea is we talk about the things that are professionally and entrepreneurially, the things we need to focus on or figure out or fix, but then also the human stuff that drives us and that we are challenged by. And and as people who lead things, they tend to intermingle. So I'm really excited this conversation. I've known Tracy for a long time. I feel like I was a part of the very earliest days of her entrepreneurial journey. And I'd love to, you know, catch up. And Colby and I and Tracy all have some similar but different road rash that we're excited to get into, and I notoriously hate when somebody just reads the bio, you know, the LinkedIn article around introducing a person. So I was hoping I could just pass this to Tracy. And I'd love to understand, how do you introduce yourself today, given that you've gone through a couple cycles in the last recent future, and we'll discover the rest as we go. How do you introduce yourself these days? It's a funny question, because for seven years, my identity was very much tied up in what I did, and so I used to introduce myself. Hi, I'm Tracy. I'm the co founder and CEO of millennia tea. We are a food is medicine, yada yada yada. So now, because we're long form, I'll maybe take a couple of minutes to do that and Note to self, I probably need to work on what my like 32nd pitch is, if you will, because it's changed anyway. So I'm storytelling and communications is my background. Originally from Southern Ontario and moved to Atlantic after school, after graduation, I did my first seven years in journalism as a CTV reporter. I did my second seven years in public affairs and corporate communications, and I did my third seven years as the co founder and CEO of food is medicine startup called millennia t that I co founded with my husband and ran and We closed down operations at Millennium three, and the first couple of months of 2024 after that, I've spent eight months as the CEO of the st John region Chamber of Commerce, and since December of 2024 so a handful of months Now, I've been the head of the Wallace McCain institute, which exists to help transform the economy in Atlantic Canada through private sector growth, by helping entrepreneurs and the companies that they Lead grow bigger faster. It's an intimidating pitch. Yes, I stopped. I stopped answering that question just in, like, small talk with people. And my answer now is, do you have 15 minutes in a whiteboard? It's my new response, yeah. And and my whole, like, the introspective work that you do when you go through change and you shut down something that your identity was very much wrapped up in. Now I feel like who I am is not what I do. Because even though what I did felt very important, and it like in creating collective well being. I'm like, it's still not who I am. And so how do you get, like, a layer below that and introduce yourself not as the thing you do, but as the human being, not human doing, but human being that you are. And I'm not there yet. I don't know how I'm good answer for that one, but I'll let you know when I get open. Yeah, it's actually a really good I never thought about that, but it's like, I many, know, like, my first business was kind of, you know, there, there was some overlapping world, because I was the local food guy. And local food searched in Google brought up my picture, and it was definitely I was the food guy for a lot of time, and now I'm like, anti like, I don't want it to be the business to be me, vice versa. You know, part of that's having partners, Part of that's not having my name in the company. You know, all those fun things. Like, it's like, what's your identity, what's what's what makes you you, but also effective a business development, right, right? And that whole piece of like, I. When you're when you're what you do is tied to a company, and then it's public. And not, not as an IPO, not like a but like a public facing company, where you're doing interesting things and you're in the spotlight, and it becomes a public journey as you grow, then that piece of it becomes a very public journey, as you falter or as you close. And that's a whole that's a whole other thing. Well, I was in the health and wellness space as well, with the with a health product and and when that kind of went belly up for me, I didn't, I didn't really want to go outside for a couple of months because it was like, how's that thing doing? I saw you on, you know, this TV ad, or this YouTube ad or this interview, or whatever it might be, and it was just, you know, the external validation versus internal validation battle is, uh, is a real one like and if you thought you had any semblance of an ego remaining, it's like I could cut down real fast. And I've talked to because our, because our, our dismantling, our, our announcing that we were closing operations was so public, like I was in the paper on the rocket ship up, and I was also in the paper when things went south. And so I've had a chance to talk to other entrepreneurs who have had that experience now, because when you've gone through it, then you're a safe space. And some of them didn't go like, it's like they disappeared off the map, because they either couldn't talk about it publicly, there was some legal reason why they couldn't, and just the, I don't know that it's the the shame of it, because it's not a shameful thing, But it's that like that, just feeling of loss and having a group of people who cared about the thing you were doing and now you're not doing anymore. And so it's this collective law, and like, some people just have to leave and close the lines or get out of dodge and not talk about it for a while. Yeah, I feel like, and I'm happy we did. I feel like we dove right into the deep end. And so I was like, I thought these are the things I was gonna bring up in about a half hour, but I think we're here. But just to directly comment on what you were saying. And like, I closed my wife and I closed real food connections was the company. It late 2016 so we're going on nine years ago, we closed, and I, you know, I get lots of advice. I love peer groups. We're going to talk about that and how we talk to peers and share journey, all that stuff. But there was a while where I thought I was kind of getting over it, and there's rebound. And then, you know, I noticed some things were tangibly different. And then I learned somebody, and I can't remember, I get these quotes that can never attribute, but they said, like, you know, when you have scar tissue, you don't you're not the same, you're different. And so it's like, you You suffered an injury. It's not like a thing that happened to you that you get over. You suffered an injury, that scar tissue, and you're now, you're re acclimatizing how you're different. You probably, because I say this in kind of circles of people who get it, but one of the little, tiny things that is different is like, I never, ever cried at movies, but now I do, like, I watch a movie and I'll tear like, I just like, there's certain things that are just closer. And the reason I go into all that is like, there's things that'll never be the same, that aren't, I think, tied to shame and ego, like I feel like I'm on the other side. I feel like I'm in a positive place. I still don't go to the farmers market, though, and there's just some things that are just like, I just made peace with some things are different. I don't have to go back the way I was. You know, a lot of the things I do today are only able to be done because of what happened. And there's like gifts that come with hindsight. They're also a Colby. I don't know if this was your experience, but there was a group of people, so I jumped pretty quickly into a thing. So we closed down millennia T and within four or five weeks, I was announced as the CEO of the st John region chamber. And there was a whole group of well meaning advisors and friends who came and said, Look, that was a big loss. Are you sure you shouldn't have taken some time to mourn, to regroup, to do the like, inner, inner work that you have to do. And I did that process pretty quickly, because I was already on the like, it's already my head lives there, my heart lives there, and so I could get there maybe faster than some other people. But for me, that piece of being alone I'd felt on. Helpful for a few weeks leading up to that, and I was like, No, I mean, to dive into something where I can derive value, create create meaning and be helpful again in the space that I still love. But to your point, it's been, it's been a year now, and I noticed things come up sometimes where I'm like, Oh, I am still processing that. When I did my I guess we're, guess we're going right in when I, when I did my interview for for my current position for the head of the wealth campaign Institute in the in the interview, one of my interviewers said, Are you over millennia? T and I said, Yes, in so far as and I started to talk, and I teared up, and he knew he's like, don't know if you are, it said with like compassion, but I was like, I don't know that I am either, and I don't know that I've had enough hindsight to even be able to properly realize the gift that it was. If I if that makes sense, but I still tear up all the time. And when I hear of someone who's had a diagnosis or something where our product like, the reason we created it, the impetus, I still am the first to be like, No, I've got some got some product in my freezer. I'm coming over now, and I get emotional about those things because I'm not right, but it doesn't exist in the market. You so I'm, I'm years past when that happened to me and like, I've been extremely like, went through all the emotions I did. There was a lot of shame attached to it. Just, you know, I was in a new relationship. Who's my fiance today, and like, for her to go through that with me and me, I brought my whole family into the business as well, so that it was like, it felt like, for like, a quick minute that I, like, I let other people down, but then, like, realizing, you know, people are in control their own lives, and like, there's only so much that I can do as a person, but I it used like, now when I talk about it, my heart rate doesn't change. So it's like, that's good. And like, I can reflect back on that moment and realized, like I realized now that if it would have kept going. You know, even though I was selling a health product, I was living a really unhealthy life. Was traveling so much, and I was like, the heaviest I ever was, and I just didn't feel like, you know, it just didn't feel right. And I reflected on that and and so I've gone through all those little emotions, but the big moment was I remember vividly, vividly, and funny enough, I'm sitting in my parents basement right now moving houses, but the I remember sitting in their basement, I had to move back from Halifax, and it was like pretty dark time. It was pretty terrible to have to lift furniture after something like that happened in January and and, you know, move back to your parents basement. I remember sitting pretty much in the dark in the basement with like, you know, my my arms on my knees and thinking to myself. And I was 26 started when I was 23 had zero experience in anything before that. And I remember thinking, I'm either going to make the decision that I can't trust people and that most people are out for themselves and or everyone's out for themselves, or I can think of the handful of people that I would like go to war with for the rest of my life, and assume that there's more. And like chills, yeah. And it was like, I remember it perfectly, like it's like a, like a third person view of that moment. And yeah, so I just kept chasing, chasing people that I like. Even if I had a short conversation with him, I could, I could tell they had this like kindred spirit spark that morally and that I would gel with, and I would just start chasing that. It's like, oh, maybe I'm really good at bringing good people together and collaborating, and so I just kind of kept, kept doing that. And, yeah, anyway, there's a thank you for that. There's a there's a YouTube video that I was listening to yesterday, and it and it just reinforced that piece of the meaning, like there's no right and wrong and black and white, and it's and my version of past will be different from the version of somebody else who was in that same experience. And it's not that one is. Right or wrong. It's just the way we process things, but the the meaning that we give to events and the conversation that we have in our heads as we reflect on hard things that have happened is the big driver or determinant in how we come out of them and how we, like, rise up again, if you will. And I thought that was interesting. And I got that like feeling of like, what are the, what are the good things in this? What am I good at? What are my what are my strengths? Um, that you can pull out of that anyway, part of why I was looking forward to this conversation, and not just because of this, although we're deep into it now, is like other things like this, where there's, like, hard things that lots of people go through. Like, I would put parenthood there, and not a parent. I would put started business there. I would put, you know, a lot of these hard, complicated things everybody talks about. There's somebody you can go to, or you can get a YouTube video, or you can get to somebody else who's gone through it. In most often cases, you get unsolicited advice up the wazoo. Some of these things, like a business failure. Failure is the word I use, but closure, you know, it doesn't have to be that word. There's just probably not enough people talking about it. And I know it's loaded, like somebody once said, is like people like to talk about, people like to hear people talk about, you know, the scars they have and what they learn from it. But they don't want to hear people talk about wounds. So I think there is a little bit of, you know, when is the time to start really getting into it, you know, when you start to see the benefits of hindsight. But I'd love to not, not put it on a pedestal. Like, I don't want, you know, everybody has to fail. I don't want to put it on pestle, but I also don't want it to be so hard to talk about that people who are trying to be polite avoid it. Like, I want to make it more approachable as a topic in certain circles, in a safe space. There's so much in that, and it's an odd it's an odd scenario when you do, when you and I'm and I'm okay with the word failure, because when you fail at a thing you do, you do learn from it, you grow from it. But it's an odd thing. Once you fail at something publicly, and then people are really interested to hear about it, not from like, uh, we want to, we want to dig the knife in and here, but, but understanding that personal experience with struggle is something that that's, I think, that the humans are curious about, and it's weird think you can get all kinds of Advice. You can get advice anything from so many people and and lots of times, I almost had that experience of, what do they call it? Where you're over mentored, where you where you get too much advice, fatigue, yes, because you get so much good advice from well meaning individuals, but who are walking a different life experience than you are. And now I try to actually catch myself. I was on, I was on a call with a startup entrepreneur earlier today, and he was talking about his innovation and funding round and his runway. And I, like, couldn't help myself but jump in and say, when the money hits the bank, don't spend it. There's like, an expectation that from your shareholders, and just this feeling of like, okay, we gotta hit the ground running. Now I'm like, don't spend it right now. Just, just rest. But but there are some things you can't learn until you go through them. And in his example, I don't know what it'll do. He that whole running at a runway, and all the things people talk to me about how you have to pivot at a certain and, and I had the some things you have to go through before you could really get the lesson. All of us have really strong, trusted networks as well, like people we can really ask for real, unvarnished, deeply truthful things. And I went to my network, and there's nothing wrong with the advice they were giving, but, like, I'll give you very specifics, because it's something that I hope other people, like, look into. You know, there was a trend towards potential failure. Like, it didn't happen overnight. There was like challenges for months prior, and I started seeking out, as everybody should, like, what's that look like? How do I prepare? How do I protect my family, all those things? And everybody said, Well, if you. To do it. Don't worry, eventually you'll go in and if you decide to go bankrupt, and you go to a trustee, then you just, you know, it's hard, it'll be a hardest day of your life. But then everything gets easy, because they do everything for you. I got it again and again and again and again. It's like, you know, if you get to that point, then at least, then it's all done. And we got to that point, made the decision. Told people went into the Trustee's Office and they said, Oh, we can't put you in bankruptcy. There's not enough assets in your company to pay our bill. And so that's like, so what do you do? And they're like, well, just stop opening your mail unless it's registered, and if it's registered, deal with it and see what happens. And sometimes they'll come after you. Sometimes they won't, and that started, like, four or five years of waiting, and it's like, like, nobody had ever heard of that. It's like, like I and I trust everybody I talked to. But is every story is a little bit different, and it's wild. It just brought up a memory for me that had I thought about in a while, but I there, I remember the moment where, because we got some advice that would have been similar and and different, and I remember those months where you're scared when the male comes in, and I was out walking my dog, and somebody was In my driveway, and my kids were home, and I could see them standing in the driveway, and the person, I could just tell it was, like, it wasn't a normal UPS or FedEx or Canada Post, and I could just see this envelope in their hand. And I saw my kids, and I just kept walking my dog by the driveway, and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what that means. Like, I don't know if that's just deferring something. I don't know if I'm supposed to not take the envelope. Like, I just don't, and then, and then core value kicks in. And I'm like, Yes, we do the right thing no matter what. Just deal with whatever it is. But that sickening feeling of like, just keep walking. Just keep walking. Doesn't matter that your kids are pointing at you to the person standing in front of them. Just keep walking. Yeah, that's that yeah, like, and the the thing you mentioned about talking to that young entrepreneur and them receiving a funding round, and, you know, go, go, go, and like, you can't transfer that knowledge, that understanding, it's like a visceral feeling through your entire body that you deeply understand that is impossible to pass on. And Levi and I were just talking about this the other day. We were talking to somebody that's got a young firm, and they were telling us all the things they were going to do, and all I could think about it was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. Make sure we're gonna take knives to all their dreams. It was just like, Yes, this is it's great, great. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and, but we didn't do that. We didn't do that. It was just like, Okay, well, like, you know, you, you seem scrappy. I'm, I'm sure it'll like, but like, it's just going to be offensive for me to have this conversation. So it's like, you know, it, it's just that deep, visceral understanding. Like, I mean, Tracy, you you must when you go see because you're talking to a lot of entrepreneurs now, you get like, a bird's eye view of a lot of different things. You just see and understand things differently so much faster you get to skip a lot of the the the learnings and the pain and all that kind of stuff now and hopefully, like, you know, like dumb always joking about, you know, if we can just not make the same mistake twice. But anyway, yeah, but tough. I'd like to segue us a little bit out there we go. Is there anything else you want to say? I do and this might come out, because this is a meaningful topic that I want more people to talk about. Like, I'm not. I've told dozens of people it's like, if you want to talk about any part of my experience you call, well, don't call because I won't answer the phone, another side effect of all this. But LinkedIn me or message me, and I'll share everything I can possibly share to help you avoid hard lessons I had. And it'll be an experience share. It won't be me trying to solve your problem. And when you say and it'll be an experience share, that's something that's like since closing the business is kind of new for me. I understand the model of peer coaching. It's, it's what we do in our different right? We've all lots of guys stole experience shared completely through a peer network. But it's that was something that's been interesting and surprising to me, is so I LinkedIn is the platform. It's a it's a place for me where storytelling is my love language. I wrote a book when I was in grade one and was about three friends, a dog, a cat and a turtle. But it's, it's like the place that I can go and. And write, and it helps me unpack things and reflect and like things in in a place that that I can digest them well, and I love to share because it's helpful. But the interesting part, and what you were just saying, is I've now had so many people in recent weeks and months reach out to say, Hey, can I just, I'm going through this. Can I talk people who I've never been connected to, but just know that you've been through a thing, and that intuitively, you must be like, you're a safe place to go and talk through it and and you don't give advice. I was on a call with an entrepreneur who was like, at the end of the runway and trying to figure out, do I close the door? Like, what are the options? There's sort of three options here. Can you talk and I was like, I can talk you through what we did, and I can talk you through what the like, what the associated ramifications were of that, and I'll ask you questions about what you're going through, and you'll and you'll come to, probably won't come to a decision, but you'll come to a level of clarity from that, that you can, that you can discuss with your partners, etc, etc. And that's been a interesting, anyway, interesting thing. And we, and not everybody, picks up on it quite the same, but like and I kind of want to start talking about a bit about the peer group. So this is a great segue, because I'm an alumni, and I've in the past moderated the Wallace McCain institute. You are a past alumni career. I guess you're always an alumni, but they're now leading it. And Colby is a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization EO. And I'm a deep believer in the peer group and having people to talk to in WMI so the Wallace McCain, we talk a lot about not being prescriptive and not telling people what they should do at any time, ever, in their format. And it is just about like, this is what I've done, or this is what I've seen, or this is what I feel, this is what I think, never what on the person. But then, you know, I've been spending time, and I've had a chance to go to some of the events, double citizen, a little bit into the EO world. And then I really liked the way that they described because they had the same principle, just a slightly different way of I don't know if you want to take it over before I just bastardize what I've got secondhand, but like, the experience share I stole from EO, like from the group sessions I've had there, and I really like the way they use the same language, same principle, slightly different language, yeah, and we do now, anytime I call anybody from there, it's like, Well, funny enough. Hats off to peer groups, because the way we just dove into this conversation shows that we've got some practice, right? Yeah, yeah. We went pretty deep, pretty quick, which is exactly the the whole idea. So the experience share thing. Now it's like, when you call somebody and you're talking about a situation to be like, well, quick experience share. And we just, we use the common language together. And let me tell you, like it, I don't know if it like makes you feel safer calling people because, you know you're not going to get bombarded with advice. And we've all agreed to this playing field and and you know, they, if they don't have an experience share, they don't know somebody that does. And it's been, yeah, it's been great. And there's a couple examples I can give of those later, but yeah, there's some good ones, and I like that. So I would love to peer groups. I don't really, there's not really a comparison. There's a number of them in the market. For me the most meaningful thing. But what I'd like to tell you is what's meaningful me about a peer group, and then I'd love to see if there's anything you guys would add or change, because they're a little bit different, I guess maybe we should introduce them a little bit. Do you want to introduce Wallace McKay? Or you want me to I'm like with you. You could as well or better as me. So take it away well from my perspective, because everybody's a little bit different, and I became an alumni at a meaningful moment when I was growing my business in 2013 and they my I had a peer group, and you get a you know, I have a deeply trusted group of people that I've been meeting with on a semi regular basis since 2013 so we're now at 12 years, and it's like they helped me grow my business. They helped me fail my business. They helped me start again, and they had the context of the entire they helped me make the mistakes, probably, if I was to think about it that way. So for me, it was that ongoing connection, but it was also that understanding that's deeply rooted, understanding that it's it's everybody, like, if you think you have a problem that's unique to you, you get over yourself pretty quick, because I've never seen anybody's problem, not shared. I just like that just makes it easier to carry anything, and it means I can like nothing against chambers I love chambers of commerce as a way to meet people. But when I go to a peer group, even other people I know are in a peer group, not in the same network or brand or system that I'm in, like me going to EO event, you. I know I'm going to get about three layers deeper when I ask the question, how are you doing? And I know if somebody asked me how I'm doing and I say, we doubled in revenue this past quarter, likely they're not going to say, yeah. They're going to say, are you okay? Like, it's an immediate, visceral understanding of context that is just really important. So, so interesting to me now, meeting and I joined in 2019 so we were sort of the cohort that started in 2019 went into COVID. But so interesting for me now to meet with entrepreneurs who aren't yet in a peer group, first at my experience at the chamber, and then, and then, obviously, in my new role. But I was in part of, like, I was part of lots of startup accelerators where you, like, you're a wash with information and best practices and templates and all the like, the tools for advice. So, yeah, right, and you feel close to people, but you don't share the really hard stuff. The difference when I meet with entrepreneurs who are not part of a peer group is it's like they want to sell you on the like they want to talk about all the momentum, the good stuff in the pipeline, and everything that's coming up, and recent successes and all those things that you would put on an application of some sorts. Anyone who's been in a peer group, we get in, and immediately it's the How you doing, and you're not leading with, like, all the good stuff. It's like, it's like, you start, you lead with the what's keeping you up at night right now? And how can I help? Kind of a sentiment which you just don't get out in the real world. You just like, you don't get that out in the public world. And so for me, we call it w i we call it in forum. And that idea that you have this, this here, you have this, like this group, where a few of you are sitting around the table, and that it becomes almost like a mastermind. That was the part I remember the first day I walked in and sorry to Yan, we're on, but I remember first day I walked in, or the other side. I wouldn't choose these humans in business to be my business best friends, but by the end of the first weekend, you're like, Oh, these are my these are my people for life, and the people who I wouldn't, you know I wouldn't choose walking down the street who I will now tell my biggest, hardest things to and trust them. And then so you get this mastermind where you're like, we're all wired different. We've got different experience in business, and we have different competencies. So if I'm good at storytelling, you're good at operations, you're good at imitation, you know a lot about money, right? Like, you put this group together that becomes a mastermind that arguably can help solve any problem, or at least highlight it from a from a perspective you wouldn't consider but then the fun part is, and I expect you've got that same experience with EO Colby, is you can then go and I can pick up the phone, and I can call anyone in this 600 strong alumni group around Atlantic, and I can say, Look, this is Tracy. I'm part of ELP. I'm part of cohort number 12. I need to talk through something. Can I Can you have a conversation in forum, and as soon as you sort of invoke that in forum, they'll stop what they're doing, and you can go deep and you can go deep quickly. There's no superficial things you have to do, and that that level of trust is something that you could never create at the chamber. And I know when I went there, I was like so much potential to do so much here, and it has an amazing place within the ecosystem, but you just can't get deep like that in a group where the profiles of people are so like, like, it's a place for everyone, and that's wonderful, but it's experiences that a middle manager at a bank can't relate to someone who's got everything On the line because they are the owner? Yeah, yeah. It's almost like, like that. There's a little bit of that exclusivity, or the the exclusionary piece that makes it so that you can have a safer conversation, because everybody gets it. I'd love to go because I know you know you're our guest, and I'd love to know, like, kind of where you're doing a W my but maybe Colby, do you want to introduce EO before we dive? Like, give us a chance? Because I, I know a lot about it, and I've had a chance to be on the peripheral, and I there's a lot of aligned things from like a trust and peer group and community aspect, but there are some differences. What? How would you describe EO? Yeah, well, first of all, I guess. When I look I only got into into EO. I started in the accelerator program, which is anybody, I believe it's 300,000 in revenue. You have to have at least that us to get into the accelerator. And then the next level is a million US to graduate to proper, I guess EO official, if we want to call it that. But so take a step back. Um, I moved to South Africa for three years when we started on Iron House, and my fiance was in vet school there, and I really was interested in the whole virtual kind of lifestyle and stuff. So that was great, but I felt super isolated for three years, and I didn't even know I knew about Wallace, McCain institute through Levi and iron. But, you know, I couldn't, couldn't join while I was away, or couldn't even attempt to join. And I just remember feeling like a little bit of jealousy, of like I'd hear some of the things that would come back, but I didn't really understand. And then when I got and I also didn't know that they have a huge EO kind of presence in South Africa, and I had no idea. I didn't even know what EO was. So looking back, I wish I could have found them earlier, but, yeah, I guess joining it in accelerator was very based on, like, how do I get to a million bucks? So that was really all we were focused on. Is we followed the scaling up book, The Vern Harnish scaling up book, and it's like you got in there. Yeah, always, yeah, it's so accelerator was basically that you you meet pretty regularly. You meet monthly with your group, and then every couple of months they do, like a day where all the accelerators come together and you focus on cash, the next one strategy, the next one's execution, the next one's people, and you just keep repeating that, they'll bring in EO members to do a little panel, or something like that. And then, you know, that's just very much revenue based and growth based, which may feel like more of those accelerator programs you were referring to earlier, where you're like, in a thing, or whatever it might be, and then getting into EO, and we didn't really talk about the personal side of things we did in our accelerator group a little bit, because we had a really strong group of really, like, self aware humans, and I love them dearly, and but we were, like, five, I think we were six people in that group. And when you get into EO, you're good, you're getting placed in a forum. And I was part of EO Atlantic at the time, and I couldn't find a forum at that time, and there was a bit of a transition period, so couldn't find one that felt like a good fit. There was some options, but it was just I was looking for, I was looking for a pressure cooker for myself. I wanted to be I wanted to be overwhelmed by who I was surrounded by. So I my friend Martin Balcombe told me about the bridge chapter, which doesn't have a location. It's a Canadian chapter, but we travel all over the world with a group of 35 entrepreneurs, and we meet in Miami or Brazil, or they're in Turks and Caicos right now, I didn't go to this one, but so it's, it's a, I was really like the small fish In that, and it's been great. And, and it's funny, like, I thought it was going to be, like, really business strategy, but it's just been mostly personal stuff which affects the the business strategy. So going deeper on, like, why we believe things and like, just that the conversations are wild. And so we've got 35 people, and we do a forum mash up, so we're not in the same group every time, every time we get together, it's a new group of five or six people within the chapter. So you're getting to deeply know 35 people COVID When you're somewhere, when you're on location with the group, the wider group, and then the smaller group. How is it like, two days, three days? Are you staying longer because you're in crazy cool spots in the world? Yeah. So usually we'll do, like, there's this thing called My EO events, and, like, you can use it in the portal in the back where, like, Hey, we're going to Brazil. Here, someone will say, I'm going to go three days early. We're going to go rock climbing or surfing or whatever, and we've got these dinners planned. So the retreat itself is usually, like, three to four days long. And, you know, we bring in entrepreneurs from those areas or. Like, you know somebody from the embassy, or, you know, like, wild stories from doing, you know, being an entrepreneur in Brazil was fascinating, hearing you know, somebody that owned like, 10 restaurants over there and is very successful, like, just understanding how work is done in different areas. And then when we break up with those small groups, usually, like, we'll get a big hotel somewhere, and we'll just, like, pick the suites, and we'll just have our own isolated area. In the mornings, we'll start with forum. So we do two days of that, like, in the in the mornings, where we'll go and each deep dive is about an hour long that we do with each person in the group. And we do that over two days. And then in the afternoons, we're doing, like, you know, beach activities together, or there's a speaker coming in, or, you know, it changes a little bit every time. But I asked because the impact in your obviously, you're going to grow in leaps and bounds as a human When you surround yourself, it's that whole like five people you surround yourself with, right? Have you seen the being the small fish in the room? Have you seen the impact translate into your business of just being surrounded by people who are striving and achieving like really exceptional results, both in the group and then in the places where you go, yes, yes. But it goes back to what I said at the beginning of the whole external validation versus internal validation, because just recently, I've realized that I've been chasing too much external and therefore I'm a little bit more at peace with where I'm at. And yeah, I would say that like those I know that I can call advisors that have been through, like, wild, wild stuff in that group, and are also, like, internationally, doing business, because that's what we want to do. We want to be more international as a business, and choosing to maybe stay small and nimble and go purchase another business is like those. I just feel really, really supported because they've all been through it. Like, they've all gone through multiple stages, like, you know, one of the guys that I'm quite close with, he, he was telling me stories about, like, digging ditches to to make money. And now he's got like, a$200 million construction company that's just like, it's like, you know, he, he's been to all in through all the scrappy parts and, and there's multiple people that are like, we have people fly in from Australia, New Zealand. There's a lady that just joined us. She's got a business in, oh my gosh, where is it? Where? Somewhere in Africa. She has a big construction, big construction company in Africa, and she lives in Toronto now. So if they want to do business in Canada, they can join the EO bridge chapter, even though they don't live here. It's getting like, global perspectives on things and like stuff I didn't even know was possible. Like, one of the podcasts that we just released was with guy from Australia who owns a offshoring business. I knew nothing about iron. I heard the term, and I got my pre needed ideas about it, but like, you know, I can call them now and be like, Hey, this is what I'm thinking about offshoring to grow this SEC section of the company. It's like, oh, like, so in that regard, I'm getting a global perspective on business that I didn't anticipate. So it's a BIT RAMBLY, but it's cool. That's cool value, I would say, from because I'm I'm in a peer group. But our WMI, for those who don't know, is, is really the mission has always been around, really transform the Atlantic, Canadian region by transforming the business owners in the region, and we can talk more about that. What I've liked about is we have our own internal strategy, and then we come back, and you've been to one of those retreats, or you've connected with your broader and having those really large, or really big external, international perspectives. I think it's probably the right word. We said it a few times, but that's really where feel, if we had to have like points, who has what like, that's one thing. Is like the International Perspectives is something I personally I'm like, how do we bring that to Atlantic Canada? Because there is no EO chamber, except for Atlanta and Halifax. It is like, how do we bring more exposure Atlantic to Atlantic? And I will say that, like the things, Tracy's got it all figured out. Face lit up. He's got all the answers right there. Well, the the, I should say that, like the bridge chapter, is extremely. Unique to EO, that what you're describing, yeah, so what you're describing with the with the forums, and deeply knowing your forum group, and you're within a region like the Halifax, Toronto, like Quebec, you know that there's chapters all over the place that would feel more, more like that. It's just, I really enjoy traveling, and when I heard so, I was like, this is an interesting opportunity. But the difference is also like, we're going, we're going to Atlanta for work, and we're able to connect with a group of people there. Like that connection around the world, I think, is where I'm at when I first started W my like, everybody, I wrote down, like, what you're looking for, like, either you do or do not know, but usually, once you're in you kind of know, what is this bringing to me, value wise, my first time in a peer group, when I started W my I was looking for people who gave me the honest truth, because everybody said yes to the local food guy who's a good speaker. I had nobody once in my entire life say, and I had an idea that wasn't good. So when I came into my peer group, I needed, I needed, like, bullshit buttons and critical feedback and people holding me accountable. I didn't want somebody to help me with big ideas now, like, if I was to start over and join a new peer group from whoever I'm like, I want somebody who makes me think different, think bigger and change my perspective. I want people to feed me the stuff that I'm not thinking about. So I think there might be a seasonality to it as well. Well, there's definitely a seasonality to it. Yes, absolutely. And yeah, there's 18,000 members globally. And we've got all these different WhatsApp groups for anything we need anywhere in the world. They even have, like, a medical one where, like, you need a second opinion from a doctor. Yeah, very like stuff I don't have time to tap into. But there's, like, there's just so much there. It's just, yeah, anyway. So before we leave the topic, like, you're new in the role, Tracy, what excites you? Like, why? What? What are you most excited about? So can I say that when you Colby, when you were talking about all of those experiences, and then Levi, you were like, what you know, WMI has this piece. I love the global perspective, and I know you and I have talked before about, like, when you're in when you're in New York, when you're in the US doing business. And you say, EO, lot of people recognize that when you say Wallace McCain institute, it's like, it's like this special, pristine, secretive thing here on the east coast of Canada. And so I'm excited one to be able to extend the reputation and reach of WMI. I'm not talking about going outside of Atlantic Canada and recruiting. I'm talking about making us developing, you know, taking the foundation that was built here the last 18 years that's such a special little nucleus, and helping the rest of the world understand what's what's awesome about that and what they might also want to replicate. But the other piece that has me like, lit up right now is, there's EO, there's YPO, there's McCabe forums, there's Wallace McCain institute, there's like, there are a handful, and then there's the whole the propel, ICT, the accelerators, the startup ecosystem and WMI is usually like, we don't play in startups so much, although, I mean, I'm sitting here, I'm the example. I was a startup. We launched. We were with. I joined WMI just before we did a Sobeys sort of national launch. I just raised my first round of equity investment, and my group was there to help me through all of that, but, but usually, our core demographic is a viable business, somebody who, like has gotten past startup that they don't need the supports in how to create their financial projections and their P and l's and They're like to write a business plan. Usually they're operational, but, but, but my point was that there's like, who's the connector that brings the whole ecosystem together? It's about the relationships with the startup guys and the venture funds and the economic development agencies and the chamber and and the YPO and the EOS that, like we all start to have some sort of a synergistic relationship. Because what's everyone's goal? I can't speak for anyone else. My goal is transform the economy in Atlantic, Canada, and in doing through private sector growth, and in doing that like I chose to call this place home, right? I'm from Southern Ontario, and so if we can grow prosperity in the region, leverage our assets and our IP help business owners grow and prosper, then we're. Creating good jobs, and we're putting more tax dollars into the economy, and by extension, we're helping with all of the quality of life problems that governments are like so challenged with right now to address that you can address problems far better from a position of strength and prosperity than you can from a position of lack so that's what gets me excited. And that's why, when you were talking about the things that yo does, and then you were like, well, what like looking at that whole puzzle and figuring out, and I don't want to sit and publicly say, I want WMI to become the glue that becomes the nucleus that feeds go. I will say that in my head, having a whole bunch of like leaders and entrepreneurs figuring out that sounds a lot more likely to happen than, say, provincial trade barriers, like, with a bunch of like officials, and then no offense to the officials, but it sounds like like problem solvers go getters and make things happen. Kind of people are the head of all these things, just governments like and I, and there's a better appetite impetus moment in time to address all of those inter provincial trade barriers and like to get solidified across party lines in a way that we haven't before in This very moment. However, if you look at government like they still need to make sure they're checking the boxes of business, we get singularly focused, right? Let's solve a problem, and let's drive all of our effort towards solving that problem. And we can do that because we don't have to answer to everybody, and if you're in government, then, I mean, the premiers can say we want to tackle this problem, but they still have so many like folks that they need to. I just don't know how they could ever get focused enough to make the level of difference, because there are so many people and priorities and things that they need to accomplish, because they take such big blowback if they chose a priority and they looked at the business model, piece of it without considering All of the are we equally distributing? Just it'd be tough. It was so tough. So yes, that was my long winded way of saying, Yeah, I think so well, I think I think it's also gonna really depend on the collaborative mindset of the the leaders in those, those areas, right? It's like, how can we how can we complement each other? How can we play well together? How can we like, what can we do together and right? Because, and even within like organizations that might be considered competitive, there's a somebody fits well in one isn't quite like, there's literally, there's just like, alignment and fit that matters, same as if you're in a coaching relationship, the coaching process matters less than the fit of the person that you're with, and so I don't I don't want to sit and be head to head competing with other organizations who deliver. I want the entrepreneur to grow. And even you'd ask how it's going, Levi some of what I'm hearing is make sure we're really clear about who we do exist to serve and how we do that, because the tagline at WMI has always been grow bigger faster. And I am hearing some conversation, Colby, you were saying earlier, like earlier, like being surrounded by people who are high achievers and like, just driving for growth that it's been a learning to be, like, maybe it's not growth at all cost. Like, maybe I don't need to be then maybe we just have a good surrounding mindset. Maybe I'm going to grow iteratively, or I'm going to grow through acquiring other company. Like, the model can be different. I have heard from some people who are like it is grow at all costs. Is that what you want to be, your your like flag that you plant in the ground. So for a long time, I ran a lot of those recruitment costs and discussions. And of course, you did, and I I always disliked and it wasn't always grow bigger faster. At least I didn't read it until we did the major rebrand on the website in the late teens. But the word the problem they had, the Pro, the word I had the problem with is bigger. Because I think what I like about grow is that grow depends on what you're trying to do. And I think everybody should be trying to grow faster, but grow could be just whatever you're trying to achieve. There's been some fantastic people in peer groups I've talked to, like their goal isn't to grow the revenue of their business, it's to grow the impact or it's to grow into the next generation. So it's a transition problem. It's not necessarily a growth problem. Them like, like, I can define growth in a lot of ways. Bigger isn't a great word in my, in my opinion, because it's, it's so single lens and the word be like, it's just problematic, yeah, because it's my own opinion. There's a lot of businesses that maybe shouldn't hit a million US. Maybe they should be 800,300 1000 in profit and live a fantastic life, right? And that like that. That did come up for me, but it was just like but you know also the carrot at the end of the stick, what would have to be true for us to be at that spot. Yeah, it's just, anyway, I just, I saw that like, it's not a, you know, having a $700,000 business and or an $800,000 business and it being really profitable and really fun, and you've got a great culture, and, you know, you can take vacations and you can take dividends and have a good life. The great cool the more because I had a real rare privilege to be under the hood of a lot of different businesses, both for what we do and the W my and even before then, I was working with people all over the place on their food businesses, just because they're well known that space the dogs should the the I did this my train of thought though, I'm sorry everyone My kids are getting home. No, we can cut. We can cut. The dog barking. It's all good. We'll just wait a second. It's all good. Levi, I think you're saying, see under the hoods of all kinds of businesses. And do you want me? I could literally mute myself for a minute and just come off mute in a minute? Yeah, sure. So I've had a chance to look under the hood of a lot of different businesses, and the more that I do that again, I really lost it. Sorry. I I was so excited to talk about. So what, what I said before that, though Levi was this might trigger the thought again, was that, you know,$700,000 business, or an$800,000 business choosing, oh, yeah, okay, so like being under the hood of a lot of businesses, seeing and talking to tons and tons of entrepreneurs, is like to even try to compare one business to another using some of these metrics, like revenue or profitability or like you can do it from a government census point of view, but it is no different than comparing communities or comparing families like It doesn't make sense. There's not apples to apples. It's different. Like, I have now been involved in, you know, professional services companies over a million dollars in revenue. Like, let's just do a million a professional services consulting company at a million dollars revenue is completely different in always, from a retail store, restaurant or cafe at $1 million revenue, margins are different. Costs are different. Staffing is different. People involved are different. Stresses are different. Like us, using revenue in any meaningful way to compare businesses is possibly damaging to the conversation, but misleading at best and without full context, something you were, something you were saying in there was like, and unless we had the context of a peer group, of being in, like, a safe, trusting, vulnerable space, then and maybe and Colby jump in, maybe, like that group, where you hit a baseline revenue threshold, but you're not at the million. And so all efforts driving toward getting to that, getting to that million dollars, because that's the club, the that, unless you're part of a peer group, and you get to see under the hood of other business owners, you feel like you're not worthy, and that the struggles that you're going through to get to that basic and it seems like, it seems like the rest of the world has already hit there. Obviously they have, if insert whatever story you want to put in there. And then you meet other business owners, and you understand where people are at and that there are some people who you'd never hear of who are doing 10 and 20 and $30 million in revenue. And then some of the, some of the businesses who you thought were just killing it, maybe, maybe they have a profitable month, but not month over month, they're like, it's just, and I say that not to say business owners aren't as successful as we all think they are. I say that only to be like, it's a pretty lovely place when you're like, dealing with all the heaviness of it, until you start to talk to other people and realize, as you said earlier, we are not. Special. You could have special pro like, I have special product, frozen t cube, small scale farmers, global innovation, awarded patents all the things. But then, when you're in the room with other people, you're not special. We're all working through the same problems, just in different spaces and places and sizes. Sorry. Go ahead. Colby, I was just gonna say I keep going back to this comment about external versus internal validation, just because I'm exploring it lately, I think that, like, I probably wouldn't have pushed for that revenue, and I probably wouldn't have thought it was possible if I didn't know that that, like the carrot was dangling in front and and so I think there's like, it's like, if you're good at, well, in a startup though, like, or a small business that joins the accelerator group, it's like, our favorite, Our favorite term, right lately has been It depends, like, it's just, it really depends on a lot of factors and and the conversation, like, I had one conversation with a guy in my EO bridge chapter, and he's a new member, and he's just extremely innovative. And I was telling him about this, like, startup idea that I had, and he go, he just casually says, he's like, Oh, that's interesting that he's like, I would, I would, that's funny. That's It's so interesting that you're going to do that. He's like, I would never start something unless it could hit 100 million. And I was like, I sat for months on months, months. And we, we ended up sitting on that, yeah, but I just, I never heard anybody say that to me before, and I was so offended, and my ego was stripped down, and, like, I really had it, and he didn't even really mean it that way, like it was, it was, like, over lunch, we're eating pitas or something somewhere, and he just said it. I just said it, and I just kind of sat there, and like the rest of the trip, the months afterwards, I just could not compute COVID. Can I say the part that internal versus external that was so interesting to me in the story you just pulled is you'd said it early, earlier about the what would have to be true in order for that piece of like imagining what's possible and expanding your purview, if you will, on what you thought was originally possible, that piece of the getting to the threshold, I think it's probably so Powerful on the introspective piece, and when you said that comment just then, I was like, Oh my gosh. That leaves me with like, Oh, right. There are guys who show up and are like, Oh, I wouldn't get out of bed for less than$100,000 today. I would never start a business if we couldn't get it to 100 million in whatever XYZ doesn't that like? Just expand your thought of maybe not for me, but, but, oh, what is possible for humans? I wasn't hanging out with 100 million dollar guys just recently until now, and it just got bigger, yeah, although I am also as a counterpoint, because I like life is lived between paradoxes, and I love I collect paradoxes. They're gonna be a tattoo on me, but which is, I can talk about that in a second, but we need to. But like, what you said is true, and it's exciting, and it pushes us and it shows us what's possible. But I also fundamentally believe that if everybody knew more about what was possible, we wouldn't have as much great businesses. A lot of the people I know who are doing amazing things today did it from a place of naivete that is necessary to do new things. Yeah? So, like both need to be true. Yes. Yeah. I rate and in this moment in particular, they are BC released a stat that there are 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs in Canada today than there were 10 years ago. So like, we gotta hope that people still believe in jumping before they're ready and figuring things out on the way down. Because, like, that's a problem when people have stopped taking that risk and the climate right now, is it? I'd be interested to see the numbers, because I and I wrote down a note earlier when we were talking about, like, the comparing of business and stuff. And there is one hard, hard, it's like, it's one of the first, like, pragmatic, direct conversations I have to somebody, if I have a place to trust is like, I ask them if they're like, honestly, they just want to know, to know if how I should have a conversation. Are you making money with a hobby? Have you created a job and you're self employed? Or do you have a business? Because they're very different, from my point of view, and success is very different. Right? And if you're a hobby and you're self employed, great, you're not actually my tribe. Like, where my passion is is in the building of a business separate from a person that has structure, investment and race. You know, I'm not a free but the reason I bring that up is because I love that conversation, because it leads into, like, because a lot of people don't underneath, and the word entrepreneur is equally ascribed to all three. But I think more and more people are not identifying as entrepreneur when they're freelance, gig economy, fractional worker, and that is exploding. And so I'm wondering if we're not necessarily losing entrepreneurs, but they're showing up differently. I'd like to believe that it's not a loss of that. It's, it's a shift interesting. I i And I don't know. I know only enough to be dangerous in this. I don't know those deeper levels to understand. Because you're right, there's so much more side. My side hustle. I'm a fractional CMO, CFO, CF whatever, um, or or solopreneurs. That's the like piece that's just exploded. And those are people who, yeah, they awesome if you want to just create something that you can do at home and and, I mean, it's super smart for so many, but yes, it's very different than think going out and creating business that could scale and be sold. Creating, yeah, yeah, create other jobs, yeah. And to the comment that you made about, like, you know, the 100 million dollar comment, or just like that. Now I'm able to think about that and go and feel patience and calm that I'm headed in a good direction, and this is where I'm at. This is what's happening. These are the people around me like I feel like I can come back to center a little quicker and know that, like, okay, those big, international kind of perspectives and guys that are doing, guys and girls that are doing, you know, really big things, it's like, that might make me think that, you know, okay, we're gonna keep this iron out stuff small. But like, how can we do vertical integration with this thing and take, you know, not do it in a stupid way. Let's take our time, like, really check things out. And that built the cell book to, I'm sure we've all read more on the show. Yeah, it's just, you know, iron houses is, is getting there, and we're putting all those things in place, and I'm just happy with where things are at, and we're not making the same mistakes twice. And so it's just like the exploration of the validation thing has been changing a lot, and now, yeah, again, another segue. We're good for it, because it's similar, because I feel like your internal and external, one of the things I wrote down that I was hoping to talk about, I can't remember how I warned you or not, is I think I've seen you, Tracy, go through some pretty stressful times, and I've seen you go through like, personal and professional challenges and money raises and team stuff, and from different points of view and different levels of understanding. And of course, the decision to close is another one that you know, again, it was fairly public. My opinion is, from my external perspective, you've never lost grace or your values in that, and I see a lot of people who do. And so the way that you've been able to be kind, especially and caring and polite, no matter the shit that's going on in your world, I'm just wondering if that's an intentional practice or just something that's innate, because you talked earlier about core values, and that symbol signals to me that you've you've put some time and thought into that. Any any transferable learnings. Thank you. And yeah, maybe so I remember when I joined WMI on our first session that we meet. We do this thing. There's this idea of one life, and we did this thing called the Lifebook. Founder Nancy Mathis run ran us through it. And in that we held this sort of we took the time to really understand our core values, or those principles. And I remember mine, and the in there in this order, wisdom, connection, fun and adventure, time, freedom, peace and harmony. Those are mine, wisdom. And if I had a core value being helpful would be that, not from a like. Not from an altruistic, philanthropic sort, but like, helpful, um. And so wisdom is at the top of my list. And so wisdom is learning, but at a really deep level. And so I the process of millennia, because we were doing a lot of new things in terms of, like working with work with Buddhists in in the mountains of central Sri Lanka, spent time in the tea fields. And had, I remember our partner there was like, at one point, he said, you know, Tracy, these leaves are picked with love. And at the time, I was like, oh, but over time, starting to, like, absorb what that means, the intent we put into things. And I'll tell a, do we have time for me to tell like, a, okay, um, so there. You know how we all have those moments in our life where things are like, where they change for us. So I think I can bring this back around to my point about grace and going through hard things is so I worked in I came from a life, a childhood life, where there was some good contrast, right? You see, what you what you don't want and equal and opposite, right? And so I think sometimes it's easier to get to a place of some like outward success, when you're clawing yourself up and you didn't come from a like anyway, that's far too much background. And that doesn't mean I think anyone but, um, I worked in journalism, where if it bleeds, it leads, right? So spent my days trying to have the top story at the six o'clock news, which is the most terrible story that there is, and having a live hit with the anchor talking about that hard storm. And then I went, and I was the head of public affairs and corporate communications for an emergency services provider. I spent my time working on death. We emergency preparedness plan. I was the Head of Communications, and so we planned for bad things to happen, and we scenarioed them, and we spent our time in the media. Calls that I did, the times that I was like with the minister's office for Department of Health, were not because there were good things that were happening. It was because things were falling apart. People were hurt or dying or dead, and there was a like an airplane crash, and one of the the air transport, like the air ambulance from Grand man, went down like that was the background. And then I went into CO, creating this company that was born out of a really serious, personal, family health scam. And I went right into my background, where I was comfortable and where I was good planning for the worst. So we Rory, my husband, had this idea of like, food is medicine, the tea plant is its mighty medicinal plant. And had this hypothesis. He spent so much months researching the tea plant and learned all teas are made from the same leaf. It's just how you cook it that determines that it'll be a black tea or green tea or white tea. And if you take the leaf, which is not clean, it's dried and it's cooked in and then we drink it, if you take it and you clean it and you wash it in a lemon water, then the bioavailability skyrockets. So this is Roy's hypothesis, and I, from the moment he had that idea, I cut him up like I, I told I tore that stuff apart for months, and he had to keep proving and keep proving. Him, keep proving. Um, and so he did, and we created this company and did this really beautiful thing, um, my point, and this is what I'm getting to is we started off. We were working with partners from Kenya. So worked with a farmer cooperative in nanny hills, beautiful family farms, 300 of them, and and we worked with the farmers. We went there and they picked the wash the flat fruits froze fresh organic tea leaves on the day they were harvested. And we went for our first big harvest, and we'd lost a couple of we lost a container to a month slide. We had product coming over that got held up because it wasn't recognized as tea. So we sold everything we owned to de risk the model as much as we could bring to life a new product, a product that governments around the world didn't recognize as tea, temperature sensitive, frozen product. So we had to get our own Import Export codes. We, like, had some uphill battles, um, just trying to get our product recognized because nobody. He saw it as T but we got this container. Finally, we were like, Okay, we're good. The container came to so it leaves port in Kenya, it makes its way to port Montreal. It's 39 days in transit. I get in our vehicle, I've got like, a plug in freezer in the back, and I drive the nine hours to get me to the cold freezer, short place where it's been offloaded. And I'm so excited, because this is so we've risked everything. I wasn't bringing over a few units at this point. We'd done that trial. You and I had interaction on that. This is my first this is my market entry product. There's 36,000 units in this contain. And I get there, and I start opening the boxes and our bags, which are supposed to, I've got one back there, but they're supposed to stand up like this, right? I start opening the boxes, and the bags are like this there. It's like they've been vacuum sealed and they won't stand up. And so bags that are supposed to stand on a shop like this, what won't stand and I anyway, so our entire container was wrong. I didn't know at the time that if you take the altitude difference between Kenya and Canada, over 39 days, suck all the air out of all the products, and I, I called my husband, and I packed as much tea as I could into this little freezer, because I'd opened box and box and box, and I packed it into the freezer. And I turned around and I drove the nine hours home, and I lost it on the way home. I literally, I lost it, and I got stuck in traffic in Montreal, and I was screaming and crying and and I couldn't handle it in that moment. And I was like, think we're done. I don't know what we do. We have no money left. This was, this was supposed to be it. And then occurred to me, so I'd listen, this is gonna sound silly, but somebody I apparently am the only one in the world who'd never heard of the book The Secret, and somebody had told me about it, literally, a few days before my trip to Montreal, and I had a nine hour drive, and so I downloaded this law of attraction book I listed on the whole way up. Then this happened, and I lost it, but there was a light bulb moment when it happened. And I remember, as I was in traffic in Montreal, just howling, where I was like, Oh, you planned for this. You've been planning for this for years. I expected failure. I expected the worth from my company since, since before it was birth, um, and I'd been planning my whole career. I expected bad things to happen, and I prepared for them, and I shone in those circumstances. That's how I'd made a living my whole career, covering hard stories, showing up when things go sideways. And it was in that moment. And so to answer your question, that was the moment for me where I was like, oh, I need to change my whole way of being, because I may have just doomed my company, by the way I was thinking. And I'm like, I'm like, mature enough to not to not own that shame. But it set me on a journey to to know thyself. The word meditate means Know thyself really. And so it set me on this journey to figure out my internal dialog and the way I speak to myself and the way I speak to others, and the way I show up in the world. And if I'm going to imagine the success that I want and the impact I want to have in the world. How does that human show up to the game every day? What are the internal things I need to do in order to become the person that I see myself as in this, you know, greatest and grandest vision of self and so all that to say, when things went south one, I still it was still a shock to me, and a hit in so far as I was like, this product is helping people. It's a global innovation. It's, you know, list off the things. How could it have failed? I still had that like that hit, that shock of even though we could see it coming for a few weeks, but I thought like the miracle would happen at the very end, and so that was still a shock, but I could handle the whole thing with grace, and I could show up owning my pieces and being able to be there and not not have a. Hardness about any aspect of it, because I've spent years curating my inner sense of being to know some like some truths that things happen for me and that I am on a path and on a purpose, and like all of those kinds of things. So it enables me to walk through struggle in a way that that that it doesn't feel it feels on purpose, and not that the world is happening to me, but that even in the hard things, it's still happening for me. I i appreciate the story, and I'm glad we got kind of that whole because, because I didn't say it this way earlier. But it's not just the communication and the grace and the way you treat people in hard times. It's It's that when you do it, I can tell you're not on the stage, because I know lots of people who can do it with a technical proficiency, but now I like kind of understanding there's more below, and some self discovery for sure, seeing and knowing how you know, knowing yourself that kind of those worst moments, and your decision making and the way you treat people and like it's it's interesting when you find yourself in those situations and and you can really understand how people completely go the other way. And there's a new level of respect. Of like, you know, when you see someone having a bad day at a drive through, and somebody swears that somebody I now always think, was like, oh, put myself in that person's shoes. I have no idea what that person just went through today. The same in the entrepreneurship stuff. It's like, you can see how people get jaded, and they they see the world differently, and they become sharks, quote, unquote. And it's like, it's because of their experience and and, you know, either the the, yeah, I guess it's, it's their experience and how they perceived it, and how they're going to choose to go forward. Yeah, fascinating story. It's great. It's been good for me. The you mentioned teams, the piece that's been good for me is in my kids earliest years. Like, I was pretty thrust out and I and I was, like, seeking, right? I was seeking external validation and marked by success in corporate columns like I won national, global awards for really good things like CPR, public education to help save lives. I was still like chasing something, and then when we started the company, I left my family to go and move because we were one of eight companies in the world chosen for this prestigious food is medicine accelerator in New York City. I left my family for a big moment in time and went to do that came back this before COVID. And so that inner transformation that happened over the past few years has been helpful for the way I show up for my kids, because I used to like not necessarily recognize how we're all different and our wiring is different, and the way we process and handle like I used to kind of drive them pretty hard, and now at least I have the wherewithal to be able to recognize their individual beauty and and like, see how we show up differently in the world, and to be able to say to them, like, Guys, there's not a right and a wrong and and hurt people. Hurt people, because teenagers being a team, this right now, it's like, not an easy thing, and to be able to be like, we're going to have grace for ourselves. And people hurt people, and so don't be really, really mad and like, want an attack when, when hard things or when bad things happen, where it feels like people are to get you the way all teenagers feel of all the time. Um, it's been it's been good that anyway, I just think about my kids and how much further along they are. Took me until I was 38 to to even start to get there. Unlike, at least they get the learnings early their whole life. There's a lot of truth to that. Because, like, you know, I credit the the the giant leaps going forward, about talking about mental health earlier, and there's, like, just with YouTube and like, if you want to, like Mel Robbins, people like that that are just changing the world. It's so accessible. And like you just feel. You can feel at peace pretty quick, if you just do a quick search of like, you know, whether it's Mel Robbins or somebody like that. Look. I think kids are catching on to that kind of self awareness earlier now than they were before they are. Here, but they also have, on the flip side, they have, like the equal and opposite, it's so much easier to compare your self to every one. I was talking to my servant herders the other day, and she was she just got married, and she was talking about how so much because you then, because your tech recognizes you and it feeds you exactly what you're interested in, you see the best, most viral of that whatever domain. And she was like, it was so hard just seeing everything we could do, and what people are doing, and seemingly easy things, but that it racks up to 10s of 1000s like there's still that it's it's easier to see what's possible. And compare yourselves to that in the other way too. But yes, Mel Robbins and all the resources, if you can get your algorithm to start feeding you that stuff, and mine feeds me like dogs, babies, yeah, and Mel Ross, so, you know, as you guys were talking to the end there, like, because I'm not really, I can't really understand, like, Facebook was years and years away when I graduated high school and there wasn't Facebook, could actually diversity diversity, or any of the other stuff. And so I can't think, I can't even, like, put my head in the mindset of what must be gone through. I also don't have kids, but I have to assume everything you just described for teenagers, and the comparison and the mental health is the new business owner on social. Like, yeah, maybe that's one of the like, it's not just that. It's people aren't taking risks. But if I was to start a business now, I just realized what it would look and feel like. It would all be Grant Cardone and and Gary V and like, like or dislike them, but I would only be inundated with all these other examples of how other people did it, without context of the reality I would assume, Oh, 100% and there's, like, a lot of people right now are kind of uncovering the BS behind a lot of that stuff. And it's now becoming viral to make fun of that or expose that. And it's like, these guys are like, Yeah, I'm up at 2am for a two hour workout. And I there's one guy that's describing he has, like, six days in one day because he's manipulated time. And he's like, it's just, it's laughable, and but some people are really taking that to heart and be like, Well, I'm not enough. People need a chairperson, yeah, like, I'm quickly not doing enough to drive my business, because this person's over here having six days in one day, like, how, how do I compete with that? Like, like, and, but it's just not, it's just, it's just not true. Like, there's just, there's two sides to all those things and, and like, doing, doing a lot of the exploration I've been doing about this validation stuff, it's like, there's a it's okay for me to do things the way that I do them. And when I look at those people that are taking making 100 phone calls a day for sales, it's like, well, it's just it doesn't have to be done the same way, like everybody. Everybody can do it at their own pace, or do it in their own way. And it's fine. It's like, but you know, if you're starting out and you see those things for the first time, it's going to be pretty overwhelming. That's where, like, some time market years in years in perspective from peer group. Because until you've, like, developed that sense of discernment from just like experience, it's easy to get taken with that. Yeah, yeah. All of the other segues I have that I wanted to talk about feel so shallow now. What is there anything you want to talk about? Tracy, I I'm scratching itches here on the things that I was curious about, is there anything that drives you, that you want to ask about, or you're talking about. So I'm very much interested right now, because I'm looking at economic development and things that when you're running, when you own and run a business you like, you can be and should be, arguably, laser focused on what your business objective is and not. Never should. Sorry, take it back. You could be, folks. I'm now seeing things through almost like an economic, stronger collective looking at where are we going in the future from a wider perspective, because I get to but I know you both spend lots of time professionally, personally interesting like through your work and through your professional development. Connecting with entrepreneurs in other places who are doing cool things. And I'm so curious about things like industries of the future. I'm trying to figure out, you know, and there's lots of smart people, what are the assets in the IP that are special to Atlantic Canada that we should either double down on or figure out how to leverage when we're looking at an uncertain future and time moving so quickly that people can't predictably forecast out five years for the first time in our lives. So I'm just curious, have you seen anything as you go out into the world and do business and learn and grow that feels exciting industries of the future or perspectives that maybe we're not like hearing yet in Atlantic, because in food and beverage, people always said innovation starts in the southwest and the Northeast is the last place it comes. And in Atlanta, Canada, we sit in the Northeast, and anyway, I that was long. Do I know where I'm getting at though I do. Yeah, I do want to go first COVID. I try not to speak first, more and more. No, it's okay. I guess, to be totally honest, I've been less interested in innovate, innovation. Personally, I'm the big opportunity that I've been that seems to be smacking me over the head lately is the sheer amount of people retiring or wanting to step away from their businesses, and if enough, if young entrepreneurs have any kind of wherewithal at all, it's like this is a massive opportunity, and because it's happening, whether we like it or not, and people are, you know, we've got an opportunity in Atlanta, Canada, because we're Atlantic Canadians, And we do things a certain way, and, and, and it's just it's going to be based around building relationships with these business owners to help them understand and and be able to let go and see the future and live a good life after that business. And I just think more of those conversations should be happening when I think that, you know, there might be a manufacturing company in Amherst, Nova, Scotia, somewhere that, you know, we don't even know about. Maybe they do 20 million in revenue, and they run the whole thing on post it notes. And that's been fine for the last 40 years, but it's, there's so many of those things happening right now that I'm kind of thinking the reverse, like I want less innovation, like, you know, the startup thing, because I've experienced it, and I know a lot of people that are doing it, and I have like, a little startup thing on the side, but it's just like a hobby. But as for like, real opportunity that I want to go chase, it's the they're calling it the gray tsunami. I heard a term the other day and and I'm fascinated with that term, because all these people want to get out of these businesses, and maybe they're not even talking about it because they're scared to talk about it, because there's a stigma, and it's like a sleeping giant, and nobody's got succession planning until they're ready to close the door. But they didn't spend the two years or more, setting it up to be able to sell and such. Uh, yeah. So similar. Like, I align 100% like we even wrote down two years ago. Like one of the gave us chills and a strategic offsite was, like, I'd love to be responsible for allowing more the businesses of yesterday just survive through tomorrow. That was the chill statement. Like two years ago, yeah, and I think I've not given up, but I think that the focusing on helping the businesses that are 1020, 3040, 60, 100 years in operation, focusing on then getting prepared for sale is likely not going to be as impactful of how do either we or new people get the skills to take over companies that need a modernization, that need a revamp, that, like you can buy something the way it is and improve it, not to maximize profit, not to strip it, not to flip it, necessarily. But and you know what? The skills are not technical. It's not about going and putting AI a fancy website and E commerce and pricing and inventory management or whatever, into an older style business or more traditional the word we use, it's the Do you have the people skills to talk to a team of people who have been doing work for 20 years and over time, change the processes so that it's more effective, more efficient, giving people what they expect from a customer point of view, because customer expectations are changing. It's the like, I know lots of people in their 20s and 30s that I've talked to and sorry, Colby, I know you're not talking about you, but lots of people who think is like, I need a new idea, or I need to just, I'll buy it, and I'll put on a website. I'll buy and I'll I'll put in AI. It's like, No, you need to buy and you need to have to talk to a 50 year old on a. And respect them, while also changing their opinion on things. That's the skill you need. So that, like I would say, I would, I would worry about anybody focusing on needing a new idea, if you've got one great but there's a lot of businesses that are doing really great things that I'm worried we won't have in five years. That's the that feels like the future we should all be focused on. Because what will the effect of the economy be if all those businesses decide to close because someone gets sick and doesn't have a plan or just doesn't have the energy anymore, and they decide to close up shop, either because they waited too long find a buyer or a succession plan. There's going to be an interesting challenge of like that, because the Pearson who buys a business that's been in operation doesn't fit startup culture. I bet they wouldn't even self identify as a startup. They still have a newness to the world that, and I always hated the word startup. Like you, you actually use the word startup. I was like, I you were in a startup the day you sold a first bag. There's a mentality to it, like in no restaurant, it didn't consider it a startup after six months. Like, but you're a Kickstarter for 10 years. You have under employees and ten million in revenue and series 800 million. They're still never like the word startup, like a startup is like the period of planning or whatever. But there is going to be an interesting point of view where you're not, because even the way banking and financial structures, you kind of have to have two years of operation before they take you seriously. Going to be a lot of people who jump in and take some of this risk, who people think there's no risk, and it's, you know, it's stable. You just bought a business. You got the man, you kept the owner. But I think, you know, the business is selling now. Are going to be going through some pretty interesting times. Like, yeah, I and I'm excited about those problems, those messy people, because they've already figured out how to make money. So now there's just only a dozen other problems, right? And there's only like, can you just, it's like, the refinements right, to things that hadn't been looked at in a year or a decade just because they were working tickety boo. But that such an opportunity, exactly, a nicer place to work, like becoming an employer of choice, versus, you know, the way it was done for 50 years in industry is, like, there's going to be some Yeah, I'm, I'm already jazzed around this type of thing and, and also, I'll add, like you said, mentioned, the effect on the economy, and, like, the things that people about is, like, you don't know, and this is a real scenario, and I'll they'll remain nameless, as I'm sure they'd want to be, but we know a business and a small community that cuts $100,000 check to the hospital every single year, that's, is that going to go away? Like, like, the sports team, stuff that, like the all the ripple effects through a community is unfathomable, and there's a whole anyway, this is like opening up a can of worms, but it's the it's the startups, it's the the not yet viable good ideas that have expert, expert export market potential, that are getting the non diluted investment that are getting like that are getting money And the traditional industries that are the awards and accolades, and the ones that are the corner store stone, the foundation of the economy, are the ones that are out there funding for themselves. And it's a it's like a whole anyway, it's a whole thing. Because when was the last time we've had a unicorn in well, where we are in New Brunswick, we had we had radian six, we had q1 labs. And the co founder of q1 labs, Brian flood, lived down the street for us for the last few years, and we called him our roadside mentor. He's my I've got a 14 year old who's a beekeeper and a business and an entrepreneur, and Brian was his mentor, and we lost Brian A short time ago, but, like, that's years ago now, and we haven't seen Wait, where's the next one? And so where, where are we, like, where's our IP and where are the things that we naturally can do better? Clearly, we can do blueberries, we can do potatoes, we can do seafood. But what are those things where we can double down and create industries around or the support industries and businesses that have been running under the radar forever and. Are at risk if we don't anyway? Yeah, got it optimistically in the same stream, like we have started the road of, like, what would acquisitions look like? Because we are, we are in a unique position where we're exactly the kind because what we do is we help traditional businesses, the opt in change. And it's like, what if? What if we took one under a wing? What if we became that and, and I you know, we're exploring it, coming up with what's a fit for our skills. And we're not rushing, but we are looking now more than we have before. And what excites me is the businesses that have come out of that. Can we just talk to people we trust? Is like, this is what we're doing. These are our skill sets. Just keep an ear open. And we'd like to talk to people that were down that road, and less about the marketplaces and brokers, but we are looking at those as well. And there's been some businesses that I just didn't even know that was an industry. I didn't even know that was a business, and they're super successful, and they're 30 years in business, and I'm like, I just want to go learn how more from them, like, like, and they don't want to be known for anything. It's so exciting to hear these stories. So Levi, how do we like, how do we bring those people out of the woodwork in so far as, like, how do we create this space or this they just want to be done and and I'll also say that that there is a wide variety of personality mix within this, a lot of nuance and and I like, let's just as an example, if you brought the word retirement or succession or plan or future. If you say those words, it's immediately offensive. It's like triggering almost, yeah, this needs to be Trojan horse. Build the trust build the safe space to be able to talk. Change the perspective of the conversation. I'll give you a small example, in a family business. Let's say it's being passed down to daughter, son, whatever, and but the the father or the mother of the business or the both parents are involved in the business do not trust anything that the kids are doing, but they've never come out and said that they're just nitpicking all the time, and it causes this massive amount of friction, and those conversations never really go anywhere. Of taking over the business, they're literally going to have to die in order for them to take it over. And so approaching that in a different way, it's like, what do you love about your kids, then when they do like changing it from can they like, almost pulling out of them, getting them to say it. And I met somebody the other day that had this conversation with a stubborn business owner, and they said, like, do you what do you love about your kid? What do you love about your daughter in the context of the business? And it's like, Oh, she's so good at technology, and she's got this discipline and and he eventually came to the conclusion of like, oh my god, yeah. Like, maybe I'm more ready for this than I thought I was. Instead of, what's your plan to sell, what's your whatever? Like, it just the way we ask the questions that I'm doing a terrible job of explaining it, but the way that we set up and frame it has to be very you have to take a lot of caution and respect for what they've done so far as a business owner and like, find that middle ground of like, what's going to make them click? And it's not going to be a presentation at the front of a record, right? So it becomes their idea, and it's nuanced, yes? So that the insight you like walk them into, you help them walk into understanding how it was their idea. I just, Oh, I'm so like, it's such a thing. And when you talk about like, it has to be such a safe space because there's still stigma, and it's the sleeping diet over the next decade that's going to, like, be a huge challenge if we don't tackle it. But how do you and that's where my head's like, we're, we're but the people in your group at EO, in my group at WMI, the largest percentage of those people are still, and we might have some that, but are still not ready, like they're not at that retirement age by and large. And so how do you get the guys and gals who are 70, who are like, it's time to be thinking about this piece. How do you bring them to the table of this safe space? It makes me think about my dad, because they don't they're just not vulnerable. Like, sorry, I don't mean to say they're not born, you know what? I mean them, they're like, culturally. You. Get faring openly and talking about transition and all of those things, I had a heck of a ton just talking to my dad about his will. Um, anyway, I don't know what the answer is, but I'm there. I'm there for the problem with you, because it's a real thing. So, yeah, yeah, you guys, well, just waving a magic wand, it would be a small army of really self aware, kind, compassionate, empathetic people to go and volunteer at these businesses, get to know them slowly, over a eight month period before they have that conversation. Yes, can I just say my son, sorry to interrupt, Levi, to your point. My so my 14 year old beekeeper, part of the Beekeepers Association working with beekeepers in their operations. What's the goal? The goal is, in grade nine, by the time he finishes high school, the beekeepers are like, they're that demographic that we were just talking about, work with them, for them for the next four years. Then by the time he's graduating high school, it's a long game, but then they're ready to transition their business to Lincoln, and they do a vendor take back, or whatever, that that whole thing. But how many people have, like, lucky for my kid, how many people have that amount of time? And yeah. So I agree, and I like the not necessarily utopia, but the rosy. Like, what we'd like to do, magic wand, to be proactive. I think there's an interesting thing. It can't be just us. We're exploring it. I don't want to over commit, but I think I'm hoping that more people, especially in Atlanta, Canada, this isn't problem just Atlantic. This problem is hitting all over is people who are like, looking to go into acquisitions and buy multiple business, those investor and Angel investors types start looking at this as a viable because there's going to be death and there's going to be people who get sick, and there's going to be widows, and there's going to be kids who are unprepared and people who are ready and set up for that longer gain. Like, I'd love to start building that infrastructure and investment. So, like, it's not about rolling up, it's not about just merging. It's not about flipping. It's not about selling for parts, but like, what is that middle ground where I'm, I'm, we're ready to take on a business like that when they have to do, effectively, do a fire sale like that's typically what happens when I, you know, I say widow or or somebody who inherits a business that are not prepared to run the business. It sells quick, and it sells cheaper, and it, how likely is it? It's going to succeed? Like, I'd love to, like, get into like this the other side the like, how do we smooth that through? Did that mess? I was in a session with ITR economics, looking at the forecast, sort of depression, Great Depression of the 2030s that they're saying is going to come. And, I mean, I know lots of stuff is in the air right now, but that idea of Grow Your financial strength right now until 2028 ish, and that when we get to 2029 and they were looking at, and I'm not an economist, so please, like take this with a grain of salt, but it was fascinating, the picture they painted, looking going back in time, looking at everything, the demographics of the generational like the boomers, and also the kids and the and The different lines, all the factors they were like, so get yourself in a strong financial position right now, because when the tipping point happens, not that anyone like no one's looking to take advantage of anyone, but there will be a reality where it's like a tipping point and lots of things are happening fast, and you start to see exactly what you were talking about. And God willing, there's a group of experienced business owners with an appetite to acquire to be able to start buying those businesses, because when something hits bottom, it will be a moment in time the industries will come back up. And what are the industries that are going to survive? You know, a would be depression. What are the things we need? Is health? Is it education? Is it like? And what are the industries that AI is going to take out? Not to sound like Doomsday, but what? What survives when everything else gets stripped down and you're in a hard time? What are the things that need to continue to survive and thrive? Where can you financially take advantage if you're in a position of strength? Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. All the systemic issues, all the things are all working out. On. I think that if anybody makes it this far out of the conversation, which I like, I've always amazed here, people do like I do. And they said twice, I think recently, somebody is like, I listened to that whole thing, the whole thing, really, yeah, we I know I was there, but that's great. I really enjoyed this. Thank you. So I that's, that's, I love these conversations. That I want to have more of them. And that's why I like peer groups. That's why I like having meaningful conversations to people. That's why I want to do this. Maybe like I feel it's kind of coming to an end, where I like the other topics I have iron to talk about because they're so less important than the big ones we talked about. Maybe I was going to go into like, exactly like, what are like? What are the things that Tracy wants to get across and how to reach her? Is there anything else before we get into some of that stuff? Colby, I do have one final thought on what we were talking about before, which might take us a whole other tangent, but I don't think it will having so let's say 70 year old business owner. We send in 70 year old business owner that has more success, and they can talk on the same level that I've seen work, yeah, where, let's say, like a Paul a Paul Johnson, or a Joel Hunter, or those types of folks can go into a business disarm the situation because, hey, I've been there. This is what I've done. They've got street cred. There's more likely a chance of them listening to that conversation than if I went in there and started that conversation right away. I will say that staying. Oh my god, I there's a new brokerage coming together. We'll call it gray lightning, or something like, oh my goodness, though that whole and that whole, oh, okay, well, I would nominate to that group of warriors. Yeah, it's because otherwise, a special forum for them. Yeah? Think if I go in there, you know, wearing like, a suit, and I'm trying to have this conversation with them, it's just like, it's not computing. We are not on the same page. We're gonna be wearing sneakers or something, and you're gonna lose them, yeah? Well, that's right, I've been situation before. I like airman, air Mac 90 ones on and there's, why am I wearing this? But that that conversation can happen 10 times faster with instant respect, because, like, you know, they don't know, yeah, they assume that I've done this. Obvious reasons. It all comes back to having that EQ and that understanding of like they like, meet them, where they're at, talk to them through the people, that where it makes sense is like that you don't have the ego of saying I, I am the right person for all conversations. Like it all comes back to that soft skill, which not everybody would have, but I think it's the skill of tomorrow for sure. Yeah. Sorry, uh, magic wand. Somebody listens this podcast right to the end. What's the, what's what? What do you want for people? What if you had to ask the world, what would it be? Right now, Tracy, that's kind of not loaded, but like, that's like, treated as big, altruistic, or you can treat it as transactional. YouTube, nice little bow on it. Well, well, I could add a second part to that, of like, if there is a message to the entrepreneurial, you know, ecosystem within Atlantic Canada, or, you know, something that you'd like them to know or to what we were talking about, creating safe spaces to have these conversations and having a peer group. And it could, it could go in that direction as well. So I'll say thank you. I'll say that i It sounds that doesn't matter how it sounds. I, I literally, I love this part of the world, because the water systems here are world class, and we have some things that you don't have other places. And I would say that a rising tide lifts all ships, lifts all boats, and that if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a business owner in this part of the world, that you should have a collective. You should be part of a collective that is pulling together in the same direction to do something important. And I believe in Atlantic Canada that we could literally, because we're so small in terms of population, we could literally punch above our weight and and like, own our maritime friendliness, and just add some edginess there in a way that will carve us out a place in this world is doing something really special. So I just hope that if you're an entrepreneur and you're like. In the ring and working hard to do good things that you surround yourself with other people who are in the ring and don't get beat down by people who are in the cheap seats. Throw on insults who are not in the game, in in the ring, getting mad all over their face. That would be it for me. I'm also going to be more direct on her behalf. She is recruiting for the Wallace McCain institute. And I say that because I think anybody who's thinking about a peer group should talk to them all, or talk to a few of them, because it's all about finding your fit for your situation, your personality, and where eo is a bit more evergreen. I think you should be reaching out, because we've talked about all the benefits talk to them, and they're easy to reach, and Google able. And we'll put stuff in the show notes. There's a seasonality in a cohort system. So if you want a one on one with Tracy to talk about what the organization is from your perspective, now's the time go on. Reach out. I'm on LinkedIn. I'll give you the the unvarnished. I'm sure Colby would give you the unvarnished on the real world of the EO. But if you want to have those conversations around the details like, like, go on LinkedIn, find us. Wallace mckinneysoo.com we they are recruiting, and you get a one on one call with Tracy. So let's not be, let's not be subtle about this. I want to talk with you, listen to you, and it's not fit for all people like these groups, lots of groups available, but you should be talking to people who get it. And this shouldn't be a lonely journey, and these lessons you're learning shouldn't be something that you're doing on your own. Well, said That's That's it. That's all I'm done. Thanks, gentlemen, thank you. All right, we're all done. We'll just stop recording this episode of built to last is brought to you by Iron House Pro, your behind the scenes partner in building organizations designed to thrive. We specialize in solving the big challenges, the small annoyances and everything in between. So while you're out there dreaming big, we're here making sure your systems processes and people are ready for tomorrow. Iron House Pro driven to create lasting organizations. Learn more at Iron House pro.com you.