Jared Miguez

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All right. Well, welcome to another episode of Dropping Knowledge. We are happy to have Jared Miguez here today, who has become a good friend of mine and also has his own podcast, which I'm sure we'll hear about. And so with that, we're going to jump right in. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. Um I am very excited to chat with you guys today. And you got a nice hat on? I do. Thank you. Yeah. We have we we we like our swag at arena. And I'm branding the A, right? So we branded the arena, we branded Teddy the Lion, we have pressed out he's on, and now we're branding the A, so everybody knows that the A is for Arena. Yeah, I think that's really cool. And we were co-workers at one point. Yeah. Which is why I think this is all great because uh you never know when past cross and recross, and and um, and again, it's thankful for you know all the experiences that you have with different people, but uh, this is cool because I know all of the experiences Chris has, and when we had the conversation about him doing this, doing a podcast, it's like dude, you've you he's so cool when it comes to his personal life and the things that he does and he likes doing and the ambition that he has and then his professional experience and relationship he has. I think he has a lot to say, so I'm excited you're doing this, buddy. Well, we'll see if anyone else agrees with her. Well, I want to, you know, I know a little bit about your background, but one of the things that's kind of cool is we've had some people on that we don't know very well. We've had some people on that we've known that we've actually both known for over 30 years. And what's been very interesting to me is I'm learning stuff about people that uh I didn't know even happened or more about them. So it's been very cool. So Anna knows very little about you. I know a little bit, but just give us a little bit of your your your background, kind of where you grew up, and and then you know, obviously want to get into you know how you landed, where you are, and what you're doing. Yeah. And I'll try not to be the traditional, like long-winded explanation of everything about my life, because I know that obviously with people listening, but you know, I think some of the big important things to know about me as a as a person was I grew up as the oldest of four boys, the oldest grandson to a mother and father who are both the oldest in their family. Okay. And so my entire life, my grandmother always told me I was the lead horse and everybody was watching. And then I, you know, I think that it, I I probably don't realize how valuable it is that my family is still so close and we still spend so much time together from like my grandmother who and grandfather who's still alive in their 80s, all the way down to my cousins who are graduating high school. We still spend a lot of time together. It's and it's great. And and it's because we have a shared value system, and our grandmother, my grandmother, and grandfather such a good job keeping that value system so tight. But I I know that, and my grandmother's always reminded me that people are always watching me to set the bar, positive or negative. And I've done positive and negative things in my life to do that. But I can say that I've always tried to figure out how to do the right thing and and was I'm always looking around because I didn't have a big brother, so I was always looking at coaches and older uncles and bosses about how to level up who I was and become who God intended me to be. And so, you know, that's why I'm here today, right? I I Chris believed in me when I was 25 years old to help him with a new startup title company. And uh I looked up to Chris and some of the things he was doing, and I thought they were great. And and I implement some of those things today. And so I'll say, like for me, if you want to know about me, it's you know, I'm a 37-year-old man with a lot of passion and and ex and life ambition, and I'm working on a journey of knowing that it's not a short race, it's a long journey. You've got to constantly be working to improve, putting the right people around you to succeed. I try to be a role model to the right people, and I have a wife and three kids that I'm responsible for taking care of, and I take that very, very, very seriously. So, and then we'll get into more details about me as we go. Yeah, and it's almost like you know, you go through life, it's um it's like this blank canvas is there. Yeah. And you know, we talk about luck sometimes, and I'm not just I don't really like that that term. I think the only luck you have is your parents and your siblings or the family you're born into. Um and unfortunately for some people that's not necessarily. Um, you know, and um for me it's like, you know, I hit the lottery. Yeah, and so you kind of have this blank canvas as a child and then it's like it gets painted over time. And in the beginning it's uh being painted when you're really young by those around you. Yeah. And then you get to this point where it really starts to shift into your ability to start to change that picture to whatever you want it to be. Yeah, right. And and I think that uh that's created by the relationships that we all uh create or the people we interact with, the people we choose to interact with, and ultimately, you know, when you say you take your last breath, the canvas is uh finally complete. To me, it's a work in progress all the way through. It it's never done. Yeah, you know, and it's it's all like who's the guy that the art the joy of painting? He had like the Oh Ross. Oh yeah, Bob Ross. Yeah, yeah. So I watched his documentary the other day and it's kind of interesting because it's coming to me now. It's like he talked about you know, he would uh get to the end and he'd make a mistake, but he really wasn't done until he was fully done with that canvas, right? Until that 30 minute segment was ending. And he would just add a tree. Or he would add something, and he would say, you know, it's not really a mistake, it's just a sh it's a little shit. And so to me it's a lot I loved watching him as a kid. Yeah. But it's a lot like that, right? Like over life, you know, we're surrounding ourselves with people. Yeah. Some of them are good influences, some of them are bad influencers, but they're fun to hang out with. Yeah. And, you know, and then you get you get chances to change, and it's really never over till it's really over. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's two things to that. We actually had a podcast episode on our podcast, and we we talked with Jason Navarre, and that's my my partner, Lauren's husband. And his perspective on life is that that there really is no good or bad instances in life. It's all part of the journey or the canvas that you're creating for your life, and you have to be able to take all of those experiences and recalibrate on the what on the the not so straight line of you getting where you ultimately gonna be, right? It's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, j ziggning and zagging, but all of those experiences kind of keep you on on path as long as you're spending the time and being self-aware of where you're going and trying to be intentional about analyzing and self-assessing, like, am I moving in that right direction, right? Or am I veering too far off that I gotta make a pretty hard turn? Or are these just the little adjustments I gotta make in my life, right? So it's like you know, people maybe take the approach that they're a victim or they can't control their situation. But if you look at everything as a whole and you really think about like, what is the purpose of this? If you're a spiritual person, what is God trying to tell me where they trying God trying to get me to be? And what kind of helped me connect that that was a couple years back, I was actually listening to a homily at church, and the priest said that the greatest gift that we're given is the gift of time. Because if we didn't have time, we'd be stuck with exactly who we are right now. And with that gift of time, it allows us to become the person and developing the person that we ultimately need to be to get in our to our last or place in heaven, right? If that's where you're trying to go. And so it's like you're you have to accept your life and be aware enough that this is all part of shifting and shaping you who you're gonna be ultimately, because you know, the the uh the number one cause of death is being born. And so it's ultimately gonna be where you're born and you're gonna die, right? And so all these things are just part of that life experience you have to wherever you are gonna be whenever you do pass away. And so when you think of life that way, you're thinking of everything as opportunities to just improve and get where you and be whoever your ultimate goal is as a human being. Chris and I, we were talking about this earlier about opportunities, about being able to to see them, right? And we were also saying that younger people today kind of tend to struggle with seeing those opportunities. Yeah. You also mentioned when you were 25, you had the opportunity to kind of be mentored by Chris. Yeah. You know, but you could have done nothing with that opportunity and not had all those life lessons, right, that you learned. For sure. So I think that I've got I I do have a knack for and I or lucky enough or or accidentally lucky, you said the word lucky and to find myself in the presence of people who actually have some ambition and drive, and or maybe I just pick up on those nuances. Because I mean the first time I met Chris, we had a meeting at his house in Natchez Trace, and he gave me a book by Gary Vee called Crush It. Still have the book today with Chris's note in it, you know, and like, you know, it's just taking those little nuggets that people give you and and finding that there's some value in all of that and figuring out what that value is, right? There's something that also I I find that people do often is that they notice a lot of the negative things in certain people, right? Like they'll they'll take somebody that that that shows up in their life and maybe they kind of paint them in a they're skeptical at first, or they look at them and they say, well, they've got these flaws, so that maybe they're not the right person to maybe look up to or try to emulate. I just have a hard time seeing that side of people. Um, and maybe it's just overly optimistic part of me, but I'm always looking for that positive thing that I can kind of chase. And sometimes people are like, Well, why do you trust those people so much? I'm like, Well, I see this one thing that I look up to that I want to be like, and I want to be around them and learn that skill so that I can add that to my to who I am as a person so I can get where I want to be. So, you know, I just I think all those little things and putting myself in the right place and spending time with people and listening and seeing what their gifts are and following those things has really been something that's helped me and when I was 25 getting lucky enough to meet Chris and seeing those things that he was doing to run a very successful debt collection practice was impressive to me. So I just latched onto it. Okay. Well, you know, and we've talked about this before. It's like you you've got to be proactive for yourself as you come in contact with people. And when people give you a feeling that they're interested in you in some form, you you really gotta find the time to to chase that down to wherever it's gonna go. Uh and I think too often uh people pass up those opportunities. Yeah, if that was one piece of advice I can give people is that um when someone shows interest in you to uh pursue it, regardless, which is hey, it was nice meeting you the other day. If you ever hear of an opportunity of X, please keep me in mind. Yeah, you know, can I share my resume with you? Even if nothing happens, one day that person will go, like, oh wait a second. I remember this person, let me go back through my emails. That it is the most important thing you can do. 100%. I think you can't you never know when the rip paths are gonna recross in in your life. You have you have no idea. And like you always have to say, and toss people, follow the people, don't hold a grudge. I always I was actually speaking to some Southeastern students. I got asked to speak to a hundred Southeastern students as they were transitioning from their college career to their professional career. And one of the things that I put on there, and I'll give a shout out to Missy Lopez, she has a family set of rules that she gave me a long time ago. Again, just picking up on things that people have that are that are that I think I believe in and holding on to that. She gave it to me probably right around the time that we met, right? Because she was in the real estate business. I was marketing to her. One of the things that she put on, one of their family rules is don't hold a grudge. So no matter what happens in your life, just don't take everything so personally that it affects who you are as a human being. It's just it's not worth it, right? And so you never know when people are gonna come back in your life, but you should also never forget what somebody's done to you, right? You always have to remember, you know, how people treated you in a way that doesn't that that you're not naive to the fact that somebody may act a certain way, but you don't take it so personally that you can't lose sleep over it, or you become less of a person of yourself because you either think of them the wrong way, talk about them the wrong way, treat them the wrong way, or or talk about them in a negative way. Right. I like that. Yeah. I like that. That's difficult to balance sometimes. So it is, for sure. We're human beings. But it's but it's possible. For sure. And thinking about it and hearing it that way, yeah, you know, helps you set the stage for those scenarios. For sure. So what made you want to go to law school? Yeah, all the wrong reasons. Let's hear them. Yeah. You know, you you have that like my grandmother, who I talked about already, made a huge huge impact on my life, always told me I could do anything to put my mind to. She also told me that I argued really well with her, so that I should go be a lawyer. And so that's why all my whole life it was always you should go be a lawyer. And my dad's a physician. There's no lawyers in my family. I had no idea why I wanted to be a lawyer. And so I just all through college, really undergrad and college, I was going to law school. It was just my my thing. And I wasn't the smartest student. I successfully graduated high school with a 3.0, college with a 3.0, and law school with a 3.0. I am the most average B student that there can exist. But I'll say that the the reason why I ended up, I think, finishing law school was more of the determination that I had as a as a person. And what I tell people about what law school had done for me was that I feel like everybody that has clarity on what it means to work hard or has a clear purpose has gone through something in their life that has been a challenge to the point that it broke them down to where they almost felt like they couldn't make it and they had to push through that thing. Okay. And when they got through it, when they got on the other side of it, they're like, There's nothing in this world that I can't do. And that could be anything. It could be a childhood trauma, it could be joining the military and going through very hard, rigorous training, it could be athletics. Mine happened to be law school. Like there's people that I've talked to that are like, law school is a breeze. I studied for the bar for a week and I never studied in law school and I passed the bar on the first try. That was not my experience. Like I was eight, not even eight to five. The moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep studying for the bar exam. And if it wasn't for that effort that I put into it, I would have never passed. It wasn't like it came easy to me. But when I got finished with it, the effort it took, the dedication I gave to it, I remember calling my dad while I was in the gym because I didn't do what everybody else does and go look online and refresh the page a hundred times whenever the bar results came out. I was like, I refuse to be that guy. So the bar results came out at nine, went to the gym at 8:30. I knew it was taking me about an hour. At nine o'clock, my phone was leaning against the wall. I saw it going to pinging. I walked over, I saw the word, congratulations on my text, and I just closed my phone. I didn't even go to the Supreme Court website and look at it. I didn't care. But I called my dad after I left the gym. I said, there's nothing in this world that I can't do after passing that bar exam because I hated it. I wasn't good at it. I didn't enjoy reading. I didn't enjoy any of it. But I learned how to put that effort in. So there's nothing I can't do. And to this day, I still believe that there's nothing in this world. I probably can't, I will never dunk a basketball on a 10-foot goal. Probably. Unless I get on stilts or somebody holds me up. But, you know, short of that, I really feel like there's nothing I can't do. And there's and talking about a village, right? Like y'all's whole purpose and the the vision of this podcast is talking about how it takes a village to get through life. The the I've learned more now after graduating from law school and discovering that I really wanted to do real estate law. I I got a I found a passion for that early on in law school, and um I stuck to it. My wife and I got engaged in my law school cap and gown at the Superdome. Really? I had my ring in my in my sock as I walked across the stage of my law school graduation. And in Champion Square, I got engaged. That was in May. I took the bar in July, passed in October, and I actually didn't take my job at my first title company until April. And my wife was furious. She was like, We're getting married in June, and you don't have a job. I don't want to do anything other than title work. It's what I want to do. And I was hard-headed enough to get a job in title work with a man named Keith Andrews, a desire title. All right, you know, rest in peace, Keith. You actually passed away about six months ago. But again, talk about taking the village, right? I mean, it I've started by learning from Keith how to be a professional for good and for bad. And then from there, it was just getting in front of these, you know, people and and professionals in my life that have gotten me where I'm at today. And then pouring into me and and having my back in ways that I needed to be able to get where I wanted to go. But to answer your question, why to go to law school? It's because I was told I needed to. And if you're gonna think, if you're thinking about going to law school, I highly recommend that you take the time, y'all might be able to speak to this too, right? Take the time to find what you're passionate about in life, go do that, and then figure out how the law applies to that. Because if you go and you it's in your law school cover letter and you say, I want to go to law school, and you're like, I'm passionate about women's rights or sports or real estate or whatever else it is, and I've worked in that industry for five, six, seven, eight years, and I see an opportunity to impact that industry with my law degree that I'm gonna get from your school, I believe that law school are gonna find that more attractive than I was a runner at Couch Lambert or at Arena and I went to the grocery store and I've got experience in a law firm and I want to be a lawyer one day, right? I think that's that makes sense. Yeah, that's that's great advice. Yeah, but you know, getting into the work world into a career path and then going to law school is also pretty tough. It is. But I've seen a lot of people be able to stick through the hard times in law school because they have a real path of what they want to do when they get done. Right. If you get in law school and it gets hard, and like I really don't even know if I want to do this law thing, right? I don't know, I don't know what I want to do with this when I get older. This is really hard. I think you have all you're gonna have a harder time pushing through that than if you have a real clear clear purpose on the back in law school. You go to law school, you get out, you go to work for the title company, realize that's what you want to do, and then why do you leave that company? Yeah, so I you know we're gonna go back to this whole village conversation. I'm I'm actually liking this theme because it's bringing up people in my life that I've kind of haven't thought about in a while. Um, Keith was a very good boss, he was smart, and he taught me a lot about being a title running a title company because I did everything except be a title attorney. So I was the processor, the closer, the runner. I did all of it, even though I had a law degree. He was just me and him. I was the only employee other than him. So he ran a lot of the legal day-to-day. And let me let me just center up real quick. So for those who who may not be aware, a title attorney, give us a quick definition. So we what a title company does is we help people buy and sell real estate by three main things, right? Making sure that the buyer is gonna take clear title to the property, they own it 100%. We manage all the funds for the real estate transaction, and then at the closing table, we explain all the documents, make sure everything's signed correctly, and then properly recorded the public records. Those are the main three things that we do. Okay. So when you're saying you wanted to be a title attorney, it was basically be involved in that process. Help primary uh home buyers that are gonna live in homes and real estate investors who are gonna use real estate as an investment, acquire real estate was what my goal was. Okay, got it. And so Keith ran a very he ran a decent title company in uptown New Orleans and I was his only employee, so I got to learn a lot, but I didn't see much upside there. You know, he was a single guy and he was his business was where it wanted it needed to be for himself. And so I just got I saw I needed an opportunity. And actually, somebody who works for me now, Cal Berthlot, who's a good friend of ours, was in the role that I took next before I got into that role. And he stepped out, called me, and said, Hey, I think you might like these guys. You should meet Chris Couch and named Jeff Fleshish here. I think you should meet them. I think you really enjoy working with them. So I had coffee with, I had lunch with them at Albasha and Lettery. This was 12 years ago. I had a combo chicken swarm Euro plate, uh extra salad, and you know, we had a great conversation. And you know, they they had a pat a vision for starting a new title company and they wanted me to be a part of it. Okay. And I had ambition and I was confident in myself. And I remember having that conversation with Chris, and I said, I'm gonna my goal is to double your title company's uh uh file count with us as fast as I can. And uh they said, Okay, let's see what you can do. And I the the the relationship the three of us had was, you know, Chris ran a company that was outside of title, Jeff ran a title company, and me being ambitious and had the time to go out and knock on doors, it worked out really well. And I did a lot of business generation for the firm. We were able to grow pretty quickly. You were and this was new to you too at that time, right? Okay, me and Chris were uh yeah, he he but he had he had operated a business that was scaling, right? And so that part of it to a local company and to somebody who was coming out of school really kind of pulled all three together. And so, you know, I the the the in that at that time I was starting a family, Keith was kind of where it set in his ways, and I saw this as an opportunity, and I actually saw the vision that y'all cast, and I had enough confidence in myself to say, I will do this job for very, very little base pay, and I just wanted a commission. And that was more intriguing to me. I uh that step which was good because in the beginning we didn't have it for everyone. Right, right. But but you know, for me so just just to back up, is that why you're like, hey, I'll just do commission because you really wanted to land with them, get that experience, and knowing what you're doing. No, that was that was the model that they offered. Honestly, I wanted to battle myself. You know, when I got out of law school and I had that feeling I could do anything I wanted, I wanted to be able to battle myself. And I would rather have been able to be in control of how much money I generated or how much business or how much impact I had. And I didn't want anybody to be able to tell me what my what I was worth. And that and that was my mindset. I was willing to take that risk, right? And it and and you know, as a business owner now, having employees, like there is that whenever you're owning a business, you gotta assess the risk of, you know, am I giving somebody, I'm committing to some to somebody this X amount of dollars. If they would have committed that to me, they might not have given me the rope that they gave me in order to try to scale that business, right? By me saying I'm willing to sacrifice just like you guys and take a risk and I'm gonna take this little pay, but I'm gonna have this upside. And they were like, okay, well, if if all you gotta do is bet on this guy and see if he can do us, give him at least a little bit of time to see if he can pull it off. Right. Um, it was just the right three guys in the room at the same time, we'll be in the right connection. And again, it was just total fate that I had gone to law school with Kyle in undergrad. It wasn't a good fit for him in his life at that point. They were looking for a guy who had that type of Maybe stubborn, naive ambition, and I was ready to take it. And they gave me the opportunity and we took off with it and ran. And it was the it was literally the the I can't be more thankful to those two, to you and Jeff for giving me that shot. Because if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here today doing what I'm doing today. But they had they did things that were that I couldn't do, right? It took a village to get that business off the ground because from Chris's perspective, all the tools that he plugged in, and then Jeff's expertise and my ambition and and again lack of any awareness of anything going on in a title, I was just going out there and getting work, right? And so they kind of taught me the ropes while we were growing the business. And it again, it was completely necessary for the three of us to be together to be able to get that business off the ground. Yeah, and and I think the other thing that that uh Jared uh brought to the table in that scenario was he uh he had an intangible he had this mindset of um this is where I think this thing can go. And in order to get it there, we need to start thinking today about what steps we need to take so that as it goes there, we're prepared. Yeah. And so you and I obviously lived that for many years in the firm, and it's almost like the build it and it will come mentality. And you have to find a balance between that and knocking on the doors and getting the business, right? Because you need money to come in to eat. But it was that combination of all of those things that really put us onto something, and and I think we're all a little bit surprised by how quickly it was growing it was growing. Yeah. And and so and Jared has had that instinctually, right? That was almost like this just kind of how his brain works. Yeah. Also, he was eating the same thing for breakfast every day. So there's lots of other pieces to him that are weird. But wait, what is that? Yeah, you still eat the same thing for breakfast every day? I I uh my my I might I might not eat the exact same I did then, but I still eat the exact same thing for breakfast every single day. Yeah, yeah. You want to know what it is? Yeah, I want to know what it is. I eat eight ounces of chicken and six ounces of sweet potatoes in four or five dates every morning. Okay. Now, do you eat the same thing just because it's easy, it's simple, you just or because it works. Yeah, go going down that rabbit hole. If you in my opinion on health and fitness is that if you're going to get to your ultimate goal from a health and wellness and fitness standpoint, you have to know how many calories you're putting in your body down to the calorie, in my opinion. So every night before I go to bed, I put that many calories in a Tupperware that I want to eat and in a lunchbox and I eat the next day. And so I just have a math problem that I put together. I know that that is a base that helps me be able to get where I want to be at the end of the day. So I eat very similar things. I eat about a pound of berries a day, about a pound of chicken a day, and then I have a couple things that I kind of sprinkle in. Yeah. Interesting. Before he was this scientific, yeah. An intangible thing he brought to the table was a psychosis around he ate the exact same thing every day. It's a little bit a little bit of crazy, but it also is the level of discipline. It makes sense. And I'm thinking of it as a, you know, you're on this health journey. This is simple. I know it works. I'm gonna do it. Just like people that only wear guys, I'm not gonna say girls, wear like white t-shirts and black jeans. Well, why do you always wear a white t-shirt? Because it's easy. It's easy. And I don't think about that Einstein did that, right? Yeah, and Steve Jobs does the black on black stuff. But I I mean, from from my perspective, just again, side note on that, it really is certain things that you that there's this idea of people feel like that type of discipline takes away freedom. But in my opinion, if you have goals and those things are consistent every day, then it gives you that it that takes up that stuff. You don't have to think about it, and it creates space for you to be creative, right? You have to put the things in place that need processes and consistency in place so that you have the time and freedom to be able to do what you need to do. I wouldn't be able to be here today if I didn't have my day time blocked and my food already budgeted out and all that stuff. So I can say I can take two hours of my time and go do this and enjoy myself as part of my day and not feel like I'm pigeonholed and I'm always kind of trying to figure out what I'm doing. And so I think that's required. All right. Well, I was giving him some shit about that. But I appreciate that she finds value in it because I think it's helpful. But let me let me bring it back to when the discipline that it took to eat the same thing every day or his workout regimen at the time, as I was getting to know who Jared was, what it was teaching me was how he was wired. Yeah. And to me, when you're building a team, if you build everybody wired the same way, you can have success, but it's just gonna be different. And it's not gonna be as uh as good of an experience in my mind. If you don't get good passionate conversations without different perspectives and things, right? So he was he brought a level of discipline that uh I certainly didn't have at that level in that approach. And I'll go ahead and speak for the other guy. I don't think he had it that way either. So in in my mind, as I got to know that about Jared, I was like, this is interesting because this is something he's bringing to this team that could really be helpful, yeah, not only for him, but for us, right? Yeah. And let me I'll I guess I'll challenge the audience in this way to go back and think about all the relationships in your life that you've had that are that have made an impact on you, and then try to document one thing that that person was that you could emulate that would help you to get where you want to be in life. Because again, if you go back a couple steps, part of me that that skill goes back to a man who impacted me whenever I was in high school named Jeff Adams. He was my high school baseball coach, and we had a great athletic baseball team, but you can be a bunch of great athletes and never win the championship. We want to take championship in our senior year of baseball, but the freshman was a semifinal run, quarterfinal run, sophomore year, semifinal run, junior year, and we won it my senior year. And what he taught me and all of us was this level of discipline when you come when it comes to practice, right? Sometimes you're like, why does my coach make me wear this this every day and have it on this schedule? Um, and a lot of coaches who force it don't do a good job of explaining why. He always talked to us about how those little details were what we're gonna allow us to get where we wanted to be. And we had studs on our team, but we won a state championship because he taught us what it meant to be discipline and hold us, held us accountable to that. And so experiencing that, seeing the fruits of that in the last organized high school sporting event winning, going to college based on that high, and experiencing that college run, which had a great college experience, and then going to law school and then having all those wins, and then getting out of law school and then getting to spend time with Keith and then getting to meet Chris and Jeff, and then all those next steps were accumulation of it. So if I go back and think about it, I have to thank Jeff Adams for helping me become that person, right? Again, it was a village. It was all these people in my life that gave these little nuggets to me to help me get where I want to be. And right around this time, I don't even know if Chris and I have talked about this a ton, but right whenever I got on with Chris, I got this opportunity, I met a somebody named named Don Kazazu, who was the team leader at Keller Williams at the time. Keller Williams was a real estate brokerage that refers a lot of business to title companies. And I sat with her for one day for a meeting, and she sat there for like an hour and a half and she was like, all right, dude, I'm running a company and I don't know how I'm still sitting here an hour and a half after I don't even know who you are. I gotta go. And then like a week later, she found herself in the same room and I had convinced her to come talk to me again. And I'm just pull pulling things from her and trying to learn from her. And eventually she was like, Okay, if I'm gonna come back, you have to pay me of some some sort. If you're gonna coach, I'm gonna have to coach you of some sort. And so I started investing more time and energy and spending time with her. She gave me a book called The Millionaire Real Estate Agent that it it's a book about consistent steps in order for you to become a successful salesperson. And so she gave me that nugget that helped me understand that if I do this task every single day, it'll result in this goal at the end of the year. You don't need to worry about the goal once you set it. If you break it down into these actionable steps every day, you're gonna get there. And at the end of the year, if you do these steps every day, every single day, and you don't get there, well, obviously the steps you broke down are not the right ones. So you need to recalibrate your steps. And so my first year working in the title as a title company at a title company, I said, Well, I'm gonna make 10 contacts every single day with somebody who can refer me a real estate deal. Every day. So that every morning I would wake up, I'd send 10 text messages to 10 people. And it might just be like, have a great day. That might have been all of the extent of the text message, but it was just those small touches that I was making with people over time so where they knew who I was. And it wasn't necessarily asking for business. And I might send the text at 7:55 in the morning and not be able to get back to my phone until 11. But I continued the conversation throughout the day with those people and just started getting to know them. And that end goal came to reality that I had set for the year just by doing the 10 touches. So the next year I was like, what if I double these touches? Well, I doubled my business. I doubled the touches, I doubled my business. And I kept manipulating the numbers and just being disciplined about it. So again, those small wins and that that that teaching that Dawn was doing helped me shape to who I was to generate business. So again, opportunity and then having somebody give me a little direction and having the wins kind of stack up helped me kind of take it into the next phase of my my career. There's no doubt that discipline is important to success. One of the things that I think is happening in the social media world is we have all these people who are taking that what I think is a fact. Okay, but they're making it sound like there's only one type of discipline. Yeah, 100%. Okay. And that discipline is you gotta wake up at 4 30 in the morning or you gotta have 10 touches a day because it worked for Jared. Therefore, Anna, if you want to be successful, it's 10 touches a day. I mean, if you do eight, you're gonna be a failure. It needs to be 10. Yeah, okay. So we see that all day long on social media. And I I think that's absolutely incorrect. Yeah. What I think is correct is you have to have discipline. That discipline has to be learned and applied to whatever way you learn to operate in the most optimal way. 100%. Okay. And so as I'm listening to you go through this, you do tend to be one of those people who could wake up at the exact same time every morning and very early. That's how you're wired. But ultimately, you've you've created your own discipline model that works for you, right? By look by listening and learning and picking it up. And uh we had this conversation the other night, it was about you know routineness. Yeah. And and I'm routine, I I am pretty disciplined at a macro level. If you analyze me from the micro level, you may wonder, you know, how anything ever gets done. And I struggle with that because sometimes I read books or I talk to people and they're like, all you gotta do is wake up at five in the morning. Everything just works out. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. What works out is I'm really grown. That's completely ridiculous to think that. Yeah, and so I think that uh what I try to communicate to people is discipline is vital. It is vital. How we define discipline is really unique and it really depends on you. And you really have to put the time and effort into it to learn how to calibrate it. And so it was interesting hearing your story about how it took all these different pieces from different people and different books, and then applying it and and calibrating. Yeah, so the the um early on when I first picked up that book, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent that Dawn gave me, I believed at that point that it was that or the miracle morning, right? You gotta get up at five, you gotta journal, you gotta meditate, you gotta do the vision, right? You gotta do all the stuff, or you're not gonna be successful, right? Which I completely agree with you now, is not a requirement to be successful. Something else that Dawn taught me, this is funny how that you brought this perfect segue, because I think that the second piece that Dawn really taught me was something about behavioral assessments and the value of behavioral assessments and growing your business and and and really outside of growing your business, becoming a more self-aware human being in general, right? So Kelly Williams uses what's called the disc assessment, which is similar to the strength finders and the working genius, they all kind of have the similar elements, right? But the disc assessment puts people into four categories, and really you're a blend of all four because you have a little bit of each trait within your personality, but most of the people identify themselves as their highest trait. But the DD, the D, the I, the S, and the C. And so, you know, when you look at yourself on a graph as your behavioral assessment or on the circle graph and where you fit, you know, each one of those behavioral assessments has a strength and a gift, and they're completely required for the world to go around or for a business to be successful or for you to be happy. And so I'm very proud of who I am on the assessment and very aware of what my weaknesses are and tendencies are on the opposite end of things that I don't do well. And to kind of to kind of connect the Doss and what you're saying, I believe that if you are a driver, interpersonal, people-oriented human being, that you making 10 phone calls a day is going to help you grow your business. Cold calling or walking in, cold calling, and just connecting with new people, right? But if you're not that person, there's a whole nother way and a whole nother way of being disciplined around who you are as a human being that will allow you to accomplish things and do things at a very high level. The key is just like sitting down and journaling on those people in your life that that made an impact and figuring out what those one things you can apply to yourself, going and studying your behavioral assessment and being truthful to with yourself about what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and and and diving into the strengths, right? And being aware of your weaknesses is what people are missing. I think people just are they run away from it, they don't want to deep dive and be and think about where they may be struggling and why, and they miss out on being able to lean into their strengths and and and accomplish the things they want to accomplish. And so, you know, we use that at our company for a lot of reasons. We want to make sure that the people get put in a position that they're gonna be successful in based on what we're asking them to do, right? Your behavioral assessment is gonna make you more likely to be enjoy doing this task than this task, right? But if you're in a sales role or you're out there trying to accomplish something or starting business, you understanding who you are as a person will allow you to say, okay, what of the hundred things have to be done throughout this business to make it operate? I like these 25 out of the hundred. And now I'm gonna focus on those and I'm gonna start delegate, delegating out the other 75 as you grow. And that is what I think you're trying to say, right? You dive into a book about this person who is very, or you listen to this conversation, you say, Well, Jared made 10 contacts a day and he was able to grow his business. Yeah, but that may not might not be for everybody, right? Your discipline may be you need to, you know, get you might go buy a book of business from somebody else or go integrate yourself into somebody else's business and meet with their current clients and make sure you're utilizing those people to the maximum capacity because you like to be and connect with people who you already know, and to go deeper with those types of people might be a better way for you to generate business or to make an impact. While for me, I'm trying to cast the widest net as I can. And John, my partner, who I'm very well aware of, his gifts, is the one that's really good on keeping clients there and making sure that client experience is great. Right. I had this conversation literally this morning on a project I'm working on, which was talking about two different individuals and how one of them, based on their experiences, is wired as the almost like the SWAT team. They're going in, they're identifying it, and they're closing it. And then they want to move on. And the other person is starting to demonstrate that maybe that's not what they're really good at. But what they're really good at is building the relationship and maintaining the relationship on a go forward. Yeah. Right. Those really are two different things. And sometimes you're you're caught that you have to do all of it because there's only you. Right. But at the beginning, you have to. You should never see. You have to do all 100 tasks. Yes. But the key is understanding what your gifts are and being able to say, okay, when I'm going to find that next person that's going to come support me, starting to give them the bottom 25 that you don't like doing, you're not good at. That needs to get done. That needs to get done. You're not the person. And so you delegate or leverage that. And then the next thing is the thing that you like doing, but you're not good at. And then the last thing that you don't like doing, you're not good at. And now you're just focusing on your top 25%. And you do that by self-awareness, right? And how you are and how you take as a person. Totally, totally agree with you on that, Chris. Totally agree. And that's that's not just in the business world, but in life in general, you know. Sure. Me and Stephanie had that conversation about our house and the things that she's got that she does around our house. It's like, you know, as a as a as a married couple, you know, we have look at what 100 things do we have to do to make our household function. What other things that we enjoy doing and that we are good at? We're totally different behavioral assessments. So luckily she's good at a totally different 25 things than I am. And so, but the other things that kind of in the middle of both of us that we don't like doing, we could find somebody else to do it or force our children to do it because they don't have a choice right now. The older they get, the more they can do, which is really good. Yeah, they complain more. But that's kind of what I was thinking in the household. Like, I don't I don't like cleaning. I don't like cleaning toilet toilets. I don't like so higher made. It's perfectly reasonable to get it. If you if you can afford it, higher made, get that done. Go focus on something else. Yes, for sure. For sure. And I again it again, it's so crazy. I love this conversation because I'm using it as a way to kind of go back and I hope that the people I'm talking about listen to the episode, because I mean, again, that they're part of my village that helped me get where I'm doing it. I can't thank Dawn enough for what she did, which came into my life for the time period she was there to help me get where I'm at because it was a huge impact on who I am for sure. So you're at the the the title company that was the startup that we're all involved in. And then a period a period goes by and you decide that you're gonna go out on your own. And I think this is an important thing to talk about because um I certainly have had to cross that path in my own career. I talk to people all the time across industry that have these thoughts in their head about a maybe changing jobs everyone, same industry and going to work for someone, or maybe they want to start their own business. Yeah. And there's a lot of fear around it. And and I think sometimes that inhibits the decision. So I'm very curious to know a little bit more about that decision to to leave uh the company you're working for and into you know what was what was in your head and and you know, what did you see as the pros and cons at that point, and then we can talk about where we are today. Yeah. You know, we if you want to if you want to again talk about the village, we go, I'll put there's a guy named Chaz uh Wilson that uh helped me get to this realization. Um after Dawn had stepped into a new role, I she was no longer able to coach me, so I started meeting with a guy named Chaz Wilson, who I'd met in Dallas, and he turned me on to a book called EOS, the entrepreneur operating system. So if you've heard of Geno Wickman, he talked his he wrote the book Rocket Fuel, Visionary Integrator, right? CEO COO type of mindset about how a business can a visionary sets the standard and sets the pace, and then the integrator of the COO really holds the the team accountable to the standards and makes sure that everything kind of happens the way you're supposed to. That's what we touched on too. For sure. So uh and just kind of exploring that or kind of set that to the side. So that was one of the reasons why I don't we can get into that kind of at the end. But you know, we had that company had grown quite a bit at the at that point. Well, when I started, I don't remember where we were in the ranking. I know we weren't close to where we were whenever I finished five years later, but we uh we were top five title companies in the in the state. Um, 10x the revenue over the five, six years I was there, and it was a lot of fun. Like the the people that we brought on and the and the team that we had and where we were going was it was it was impressive. Like, you know, people were were looking at us like saying like we were the newest kids on the block, right? Like the the older companies that had been there for a long time who had been established were obviously making the impact they were making, but we had come in and people were noticing. So Chaz introduced me to EOS. I went to with Patty Bittard and Brian Chamberlain to Movement Mortgage's headquarters in North Carolina. And I had seen the impact that Movement Mortgage was making, a giant company making an impact across the world, right? And you know, you live in Louisiana in our smaller town, and if you stay here and you don't get out, you don't really see what opportunities there are out there and what people are actually doing. And so that was a huge perspective shift for me about making a bigger impact on a larger geographical area or just making a bigger impact on the area which you live, right? And uh I I had gotten away from so much of the what the purpose of what I enjoyed in the business, right? Making relationships and helping the people that I got to know do business, right? So I was spending so much time helping grow the company I didn't get to spend time in the town that I was in. And so uh my partner now, John, and other partner Lauren, the three of us were running in the St. Tammany Parish market for this, the title family we were at. And Lauren being from Slidell and me and John kind of making the impact we had made. And I personally had the feeling that I wanted to be go back to where I was from and make an impact on that community. And so part of the transition that kind of made me think was I need to go back to going what I love doing, making those 10 contacts today, connecting with people, and trying to be the best attorney in my market that I could be. Um and so that was a huge factor in wanting to make the shift. And what the reason I'm saying this, and to kind of make this a little clearer and make it more direct, the purpose in which I was operating was not aligning with who I was and what the purpose that I truly was called to do, right? And I think in business, whenever you're operating a business or whenever you're operating in life, if you don't take the time to think about and consider what your true purpose is and why you're here and what you actually love doing, you can get distracted by the dollars and cents sometimes or the the fear of not wanting to take that step back because it is scary to go out on your own. And so I I I I had a desire to do that. And then some other things that kind of happened that I had a conversation really quickly with John and he was like I'm I'm with you wherever you want to go, buddy. Like he was my my wingman. We went to college together as an attorney brother of mine and we had we had done a lot of business together over the years. And so he was like I'm with you wherever you want to go talked to Lauren and she was like this sounds like a good idea but she was you know again this happened quickly. So at the end of whatever year 2022 we met we met and then like a week later we had committed but she wanted me to make sure that it was what we were all on the same page that we shared values that we had a shared common purpose that we knew that if we were going to grow this business together that it was going to be where we were all trying to go and we were going all be on the same page. And so she I presented her a business plan. She said nope I I'm not ready yet. And so you know went back to the drawing board and what some people might take a week to do I did overnight and I presented to her the next day and within a within a short amount of time she was like all right I'm willing to do this because she really wanted to go and make a bigger impact on St. Timmy Parish. And coincidentally our fourth partner Becky who is a huge part of our success right now was kind of like John to me. John was my wing person. Becky was Lauren's wing person. Like they did done so much together as professionals already that it was just natural for me and John and Becky and Lauren to kind of partner together to do what we were doing. And so we just decided that we were going to take a risk on ourselves and we decided to go and operate this business together with a shared set of values and an alignment on how to grow and scale a business, right? And so if you go back to EOS, some of the things that were happening, I tell people this whenever you're working for an organization, you have to have you can't have an infringement on values between you personally and the organization you're working with. It's better if they align, but if you're just going to go work in eight to five and you're operating on your set of values on a daily basis and these values of the company don't cross over a ton and you'll be, they don't infringe and you'll be fine. The more you get integrated into an organization and the higher you move up the more you have to be in lockstep with the people that you're on the leadership team, for example. And if there's one thing that kind of is out of line, not whether not like a good or a bad thing, right? It's just a misalignment of values then you're ultimately not going to it's not going to work long term, right? Well give us an example of a value that would be important that could be maybe not as important when you're just in the early stage. Yeah so perfect example right I one of our values is teamwork. And a lot of values for other organizations is family. The way that I define family or the I define teamwork might be different than what you guys define as family and teamwork. And if we don't come to the same page with what that value means, there's a maybe we might say the same value is important to both of us, but if we don't want to believe that those mean the same things there could be a misalignment there. And so if I if if I say teamwork is a value like it is at Arena and that to you means that I'm going to step in and I'm going to save Jared behind every single time that he needs something and I'm going to always get his back even though he has some struggle or weakness then that might be a great I always have my teamwork teammates back. That sounds great, right? But our definition of teamwork at our organization means that but also means having a hard conversation with somebody and telling them when they're struggling and holding accountable to the making sure that they're living up to that A plus standard that we've all agreed to right and so if that part of it that second piece is not in alignment with people and if I try to hold you accountable we might infringe on each other's value and it's going to be hard for us to operate and grow a business together right. We're going to hit a ceiling and we're not going to be able to get past that until we get on the same page. Right. And so that piece was missing where I was at at that time. We just had a misalignment of a few values and what we were doing and it came to light during a time period we were struggling as an organization and not struggling in a bad way, just like had some hard decisions to make. And so I I made a decision for myself that because of that misalignment of values I wasn't going to be able to stay anymore. And so when that experience happened that's when I talked to John I talked to Lauren we spent about a week discerning and we decided that we were going to take this step together and we did. And it has been nothing but the right positive momentum since then. And I truly believe it's because and we've gotten to where we were at that other organization at Arena within a quick amount of time not quite there yet but we're not far behind that because of the fact that there's a very very clear alignment of values and purpose and we trust each other and we and we and we value of the same values and we are just running as fast as we can because of that. And so again it was the the the people in my life that kind of shine the light gave me some tools to discern whether it came to EOS again the disk assessment came into play in that analysis our purpose and what we wanted to do right shifting from a large geographic mindset to a huge impact locally on our local area all of those kind of factors helped us make a very easy clear decision like we're going to do this on our own and start our new our own brand and we're going to take the world by storm and we've you know we're still growing and we haven't got where we want to be but we've we've done pretty well over the first three and a half years of our business it does okay I mean I have more I'm happy to dive more into it too because I think Well I think I think not to cut you off but I think touching on you know so now you know you've got three four people deciding they're they're leaving a job they're leaving the security of an income. No we all are the same place. Oh y'all are four in the same place. The four of us were were managing and running the St. Tammy branch of that company. Got it okay wow okay so you're gonna you know each of you at various stages of your life but most married its only kids etc. So now you you make this decision you know because all the stuff is about the theoretical stuff the purpose doesn't feel fulfilled important stuff you know more importantly the food's got to get on the table. And so talk a little bit about you know what helped you pull the trigger on leaving an income stream. Yeah and and then and I'm not necessarily talking about into the details but and then how did y'all prepare for that from the business side and maybe the personal side because I think that's stuff that causes a lot of fear for people. All right so if you remember I said it took me six months to get a job out of law school because I was hardheaded. It takes a village too is the theme of this episode. My my buddy Colin Melassaw who had started his own law firm a year and a half earlier told me you need a year's worth of expenses to start a firm. I was like dude I got this so I I think a little bit of naivety on my end if that's the right word to say and also a lot overconfidence I stepped out and did it but I think that the from a I I believe in myself enough and the people that I had surrounded myself with enough that I didn't think that there's no way that we were going to fail. A year worth of personal expenses yes got it personal expenses and uh he was right by the way Colin was right he needed at least a year probably more so we so did you save all of that before no so you were like whatever we're gonna run. Got it and and again we were able to come out of the gate for our company at a pace in which we were able to our family we all were able to provide for our families right but it wasn't the life we were living before and and it was but I was okay with that I'm okay I was okay with that because I tell people all the time that your true purpose and living that and and working with people that you can align from a value standpoint and enjoy working with is going to make you happier and that journey of getting there is going to make it you're gonna be more fulfilled than keep staying in a place that you're making more money but you're not enjoying where you're at what you're doing and who you're working with. Every day all day because I've experienced I've experienced both right and now look it's great to have money coming in your and having that stability but it's worth taking the sacrifice and the risk in order to get where you want to be to put yourself in a better position to be able to go farther than where you're at, right? And that was part of it. I saw the four people that I was partnering with three we was partnering with we had way more potential than we were where we were at because of the fact that we were more aligned. And so you know three and a half years later I'm sitting here and we have made the strides in order to get where we need to be now it three years have been hard because I had a life that I had that I had formed for myself and I did not plan on making this decision. In August of 22 I had my my my third kid my son right I had bought a new house in August of that same year and I started a business three months later. And so we had established ourselves in a lifestyle and we had a family to provide for which also was part of my motivation for getting it off the ground as fast as I could but I also had that confidence in myself and and the and the fact that I'm not going to sacrifice my happiness or my purpose for earning an income. It's just how my how I'm wired right and I knew that I I know and I knew that we were going to get where we were going to be there's no doubt. And all that pain and struggle are are going to get me where you're gonna be I was listening to a a homily on an app that a priest gave and he said that everybody has these that has has this life that they live and and then kind of a caveat to this some Navy SEALs use this concept too so I'm gonna combine two things right they talk about type two fun where you live this life according to this homily where you don't know where the the beginning middle and end is you don't know whether you're living the end of it or you're in the middle of it but at a certain point you're gonna get to the end of whatever that life is and you're gonna look back and you're gonna say did I do what I was designed to do and live my purpose or did I sacrifice that for something else that was ultimately not going to make me as happy as whatever was going to be at the end. And then from a from a Navy SEAL standpoint when it comes to type two fun I got him uh Chad told me this the other day he had he had just run a race without training 10 miles at midnight uphill at Bogachitta and he called it type two fun. It's one of those things when you're in the middle of it like it sucks. Like you're like this is miserable but when you get done you're like that was pretty cool and pretty fun right like type one fun is like it's fun while you're doing it. Like this is type one fun. We're having a good time. Type two fun is you suffer a little bit while you're doing it. When you get done you're like man that was awesome that I accomplished that right and so you you the that the adventure race I signed up for randomly. Seems like the adventure race I did once. You get through all that stuff in the middle that's hard and you get on the other side and you think well that was hard but at the end of it you're like and you look back that was worth every bit of it. And I know that that's what I've experienced over the last three and a half years. I don't know if in the middle or the end of it but I know that when I get to the end of it I'm going to be thankful that I made that decision and took that risk and made that sacrifice. And and I'm I am well aware of that's the experience that I've chosen for myself. And look I mean a lot of the circumstances at that place kind of gave me a good reason to want to do that too. And so I I'm it I'm thankful that I took the chance and all of the things in life the all the people that led up to that that gave me the confidence from my grandmother when I was a kid telling me I could do anything and put my mind to to my dad gave me the opportunity to go to law school and telling him there's nothing I can accomplish to Dawn and chess to you and Jeff all those people who kind of were all part of that Keith now that I've had all those experiences and all these people who have kind of showed me what I need to do and then taking the step with my three partners it was like all right I got this. I've had the life experience I'm ready to take on this chance um and and I learned something new every single day from my three partners too that have gotten me through the last three years, which I can't thank them enough because they have my back in every single way and they hold me accountable. We have hard conversations, we yell at each other, but we all love each other and we're all moving in the same direction so we all have that confidence that we're going and doing the right thing. What's the best advice someone has given you we'll focus on business. On business from a business perspective something that I always Lauren has all these isms that she always says and and they always resonate. She she always says that you should preach the gospel daily and when necessary use words. And so what she means by that is and again we go back to this value thing it's a huge port it's a huge thing. Like you people are going to relate to you when you're being a genuine person. And whenever you're living your values if you try to be somebody that you're not then people are going to be able to see right through that right and so you businesses and people have core values and you don't have to go out and tell somebody what those values are. People are going to recognize what they are by just being around you right that's the pre-told gospel daily and when necessary use words live your values every day. Every once in a while tell the people what they are if you have to but you should people should know who you are without having to do that. So you know it's just being genuine and and living your purpose and your values do that on a regular basis. People are going to be attracted to you. And there's something like a couple of things to it kind of pick stick out too second thing is that hard work will get you to the top of the mountain integrity is what's going to keep you at the top like people work really hard throughout their lives to get to the top of the mountain and then you see people quickly fall off it's because they were able to get there because they work really hard but once you get on the top that spotlight's on your back and people can start seeing all the good the bad and the ugly about you and if you don't have integrity and do the right thing all the time you're gonna fall off of that really quick. So you have to working hard and and is is is key but if you want to keep the success you also have to have the integrity to stay there too. And if I sit here long enough I'll probably think of some other good pieces of advice that I got. Yeah and I'll and and I haven't talked a ton about my dad but he didn't really he didn't really tell me this my dad was was a very successful physician or he is a very successful physician and my mom was the one that either was beating me into doing the right thing because I was always the one who was trying to run off or she was always telling me how to do the right thing like always in my ear which I thank for every day for being persistent with me because she could have given up a lot of times and I probably wouldn't be where I am without her but my dad was always that silent lead by example type of a person which is how I like to lead and manage people too is like I'm gonna show you what to do from that discipline get up eat the right same thing every day type of mentality but you know that mentality of working hard that my dad taught me he only said a few things like that really stuck out to me that for were advice and it this one was I was folding an American flag one time as we were picking it up. I didn't do it the right way I kind of stuck it in the corner and like yeah my dad didn't say much but he looked at me and he's like what was that I was like oh yeah I'll just put it there he's like so when nobody's watching I can do the right thing and he just walked away and like one of those things I was like 12 years old I'll never forget that moment right he didn't really say much right didn't give me his life lesson but it was just like that part of like he he's one of those people that would always do the right thing no matter what whether people were watching or not and so it just kind of was ingrained in me young that it by leading by him doing the right thing all the time that taught me that you should do that whether people are watching or not and that's how you maintain success long term. I bet you folded that flag oh I folded it right yeah I didn't have Google at that point but I like figured out real quickly how to fold that flag the right way. Yeah for sure. That's really cool it's interesting hearing you talk about purpose in the way you talk about it. And I wonder how many people ever have the opportunity to or who have the opportunity to actually take the time to kind of pause in the in the grind and and ask themselves whether it's on a personal side or a business side like it's crazy how we am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing right and do I really feel fulfilled or have I fallen into this just this routineness. People are gonna listen to this and think that we like wrote out a script or that I'm a really good bullshitter or something or you got like prompts on the screen because like you're thinking what I want to say out loud by asking me these questions. And it's been this has been a great conversation. Because the the uh the next person that I brought into my life that had made an impact on me has done that exact thing for me. Gave me the space in order to think and solve my own problems for myself. And I had the same conversation yesterday on the podcast. So Dominic Luke he is a St. Tammy Paris business owner he owns Love More Yoga on top of coffee rainy in in Covington. He was a former special operator in the Air Force he was a pararescue man in the Air Force and when he was in the military they taught him a lot about how to just military tactics in order to accomplish things that you want to accomplish the objective of the mission right and then when he got done with being in the military he learned a lot about yoga and meditation and quiet time and silence. And so one of the things that he wanted to do when he got out was he wanted to help business owners create the space in order for them to be able to accomplish what they want and solve the problems that they have. And so one of the things that Dom does for me once a month is that he puts me in a very hard situation to get me present in the moment. A lot of business owners walk from one meeting to the next and they don't give themselves the space to like decompress and shove off of some of that energy that they had from that last meeting before they go into the next meeting, right? I'll come into the meeting with Dom and he'd be like, dude, like calm down like give me a set like take a second breathe two minutes just like clear your mind so that you don't bring that energy into this next meeting because you're you're you're not giving yourself the ability to be truly present. And so what he does with me is like we do different experiences every month from sauna ice bath hot cold therapy to jujitsu to a long run to a hard workout to a swim lesson to swim exercises whatever it is to get me to the point of I'm tired and I have to be present and then he gives me a a dry race marker and a whiteboard and he says what's your intention for the day what are you what are you struggling with and then we're gonna take this next 45 minutes and he's not going to tell me what the answer to the question is. It's in me. He tells me it's in you you have to give yourself the space to figure it out. Just to back up a little bit is is this part of like a a workout like like who is who who is he so Dominic he's he's a performance coach so he he he is his business is to work with the executives and CEOs and business owners on how to become the best version of themselves in order to accomplish something they want to accomplish. So he's not the executive coach that's going to give you advice on X is in there for your business. Okay. It's how do I help you give this yourself the space to either work through your personal shit that you have or your professional stuff to come up with a solution. And so right whenever I started Arena, me and Dom started meeting and you know what I was writing on the dry erase board were things that I was carrying over months over months over month, but it kept getting better and better because I was doing small little tweaks and giving myself the silent time to actually process those things to be able to become the better a better version of myself or the person that like you somebody said fake until you make it or becoming that person that you ultimately want to be I think you said that Chris right you have to live that the the that person before you're there in order for you to actually get there right you sometimes you might feel like you're two steps ahead of yourself but you got to kind of be that way and then it you your your life catches up. So can you I'm intrigued share with do you mind sharing with us something you would have put on the board three years ago when you walk into one of those meetings. Yeah so wait when I first got started it was a lot of putting a lot of energy and time into my business so that but not giving myself that space with my family and figuring out how to get control of my work schedule. Like a balance. And yeah and I don't want to you the balance kind of is a word that I don't love throwing out there because I think everybody's balance is different. So it's not like I'm like eight hours here, five hours here. It's like different phases of life might apply but like I said earlier putting those things the structure in place on the things that I have to do so that I can have the space to be able to do all the things that I want to do right. And so he kind of he helped me figure out how to start dialing that in and as my business was growing more problems were showing up that were distracting me or getting in the way of me able to spend time with my family. So it's constantly a tweak and Lauren my partner is really good at this too. So between Dom giving me the space to think about it and process what Lauren's trying to teach at the at the office was helpful. But you know as I've kind of worked and and now I've dialed in and and become a better leader at work and had better habits for myself personally like the food being one of them. That's what my mind was going back to for sure all of those little things help me become a better version of myself so that I can accomplish what I want to accomplish and Dom gave me the space to whiteboard and write those things down. He doesn't he's asked a lot of questions he's not judging and he's quiet most of the time he's not giving me the feedback and every once in a while he'll throw something in there that that's helpful but and he's very helpful but most of the time he's asked me questions so I can self-discover what that is. So that's the first thing that stuck out when you said people get in the space. The second thing is that silent aspect of life that most people don't experience Dom and Jason Navarre talk about silence all the time and how important silence is in people's lives. And if you either one of you or the audience can think about the last time they were silent for more than 20 minutes, 30 minutes. It's truly fair because I'm a coach and genetically speaking we are wired to not only not be in silence but make sure people around us are not in silence. For sure. So it seems unfair whether it's music or a podcast or something is so right. Do what I said you're so right we don't nobody ever silent. And so um talking about village my I'm gonna keep saying this and I hope I'm not aggravate people by saying it but it's true. The the theme of this podcast is is great. My father-in-law John Bloss four years ago five years ago I gave him the the Bible in the year app and he started listening and he listened to the Bible year a couple times and since then he's gotten really into faith I'm not taking credit for that it's just the fact that he got the the Bible in the year app and he has gotten really into it he went on a retreat called Manresa right and so Manresa is a 72 hour silent retreat where you put your Phone down and you're quiet, right? You're there, there's a hundred men in at the at the retreat center, but there's no expectation of anybody speaking to each other, not even acknowledging somebody for opening the door for you. It's like there's no expectation of speaking. And I I went on my first silent retreat two years ago. And what I've discovered, whenever you give yourself that silent time, that the struggles and the things that you're having a hard time processing, the solution is always so simple, right? It's a small little thing that you can do that's going to make such a huge difference. But when you give yourself the time to actually be quiet and think about that, it it shows up. And again, the Man Risa is a spiritual experience that you can go on. But if you're not even there for that reason, and just being on a ground with other people who have the same mentality of being quiet, and you are being quiet, truly being quiet. The things that you can discover about yourself and the problems that you're having and the struggles you're having and the clarity around who you are and what your purpose is is incredible. And it's I do it one weekend every year, and I'll do it every one weekend for the rest of my life just to be able to recalibrate and assess where am I struggling and what is my purpose. Is this the same purpose that purpose I've been having? Are these struggles things that I can overcome with small little simple things to fix? But you have to sometimes it takes the whole 72 hours in the last three, you actually make that realization. But it's incredible what you can learn about yourself and the solutions for your own internal problems by giving yourself the space to be quiet. Right. And you don't have to have a 72-hour silent retreat to get there. Jason Navar, who will tell you that he goes on a one-mile run every single day. He's done it every day for nine years. When I say every day for nine years, not 90% of the time, not 99% of the time, every single day for the last nine years, he has run at least one mile. And he said that the purpose of it is the silent time that he gets while he's on his runs. So he does not wear headphones. All he does is just think about his past experiences, process all those things, struggles he's having, the gratitude that he has, and it's in silence so he can be aware and and work on the things that are going on inside of him that he that he would not get to to process if he didn't give himself that silent time. Wow. Yeah. You think you could do a retreat like that? Well, what's I could. But you said you couldn't or you could you couldn't. What's interesting is I have found in the last couple of years while I was joking about my DNA, um I have been and I don't know why. Like if you said, Were you doing this intentional? I mean, it has a little bit of intentionality, obviously, to not turn the music on, of course. But if you said were you doing it for a reason, I would say no, I don't know why I'm doing it. But I found myself maybe driving to the gym in the morning and literally not turning the radio on and it's a really kind of a pretty drive, yeah, and just focus on I don't know why just sit silent. Yeah. You know, Haley will walk into Thomas and be like, Why are you laying in the den in the silence? And I'll be like, I don't really like I really don't know why I'm doing it. Yeah. But I do find, and it's been about the last year and a half, but that I'm doing it more often than I ever did. Yeah. And something you said where you're like, you know, the problems you uh you have sometimes when you're thinking about them in in silence, sometimes they don't appear to be as big. And obviously you could have some big problems that are not gonna magically, you know, go away when you take ten minutes in silence. But I do think that there's truth to that because I find that sometimes things that I've been just bothering me and I've been thinking about I may not get the solution, but I find the silence allows me to ground myself. And what I find is it it something in me then goes, like seriously? Like you really think this is a problem? Yeah. It's almost like, you know, whether it's the angel and the devil on your shoulders, you know, like that kind of stuff. Where it it's almost a grounding moment where it's like, this isn't a problem. You're making this a problem. And in the bigger picture of life, this is really, really insignificant. You're sort of being selfish about about this. I find that that's kind of what's happening to me in the silence. Yeah. So yeah, I'm listening to you and I'm like, hmm. There's really and there's and what I I challenge people when you when you talk about silence is that there's no real expectation and way of being silent that is a right or wrong way, right? Like you might be silent on a run, you might be silent sitting on the couch, you might be silent walking around the pond in your backyard, it might be silent walking your dog. It's just being silent, right? And you might not have anything every single time that kind of you know that changes your life, but consistently doing it will allow you to give, you don't know what's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen. You just have to give yourself the space to be able to let it happen. And if you if you're having a hard time being present, like Dom has done for me, do something hard. I've in my mind, I envision myself having these like big epiphanies in my life whenever I'm in like a pool moan, sweat, laying on the ground after just getting completely beaten down in some form or fashion of like exhaustion, to where you're like, all right, there's I I don't have anything else other than to be vulnerable in this moment because I'm at that point to where I can make I I I'm I now have to make a this decision of how I'm gonna change my life, right? Even if the exhaustion is not gonna result in the accomplishment of whatever I'm trying to solve in my brain, it just gives me, I just feel like that's it. So like if I go sit in the sauna and I'm sweating and I'm at the point of like just complete, like I gotta get out of this thing and I'm sweating so much that when I get done, I'm like, okay, like I'm I'm good. I purge myself of all the energy that I've been carrying. So now I'm just gonna sit here and try to figure out this answer to this question without anything else holding me back from it, if that makes sense. I'm gonna give you one thought. I'm gonna take a quick break. My thought there is that that exertion andor the silence, it's given our brains maybe like the ability to to flush out the noise, right? That we from the moment we get up, we're grabbing our phones, our kids, whatever it is. It's like these moments of of it's like a flush out, which then gets you to a point where you're like, okay, whether it's from exhaustion of a physical thing you're not used to, where your body just doesn't even know how to react to it, right? And it gets you to that point of just like calm and clear. Yeah. I think the silence from a different reason does the same type of thing. It kind of calms you, lets your brain slow down a little bit, right? And then all of a sudden these other thoughts start popping in your brain that there's no room for. They've been sitting there waiting to come out. Right, they're in there, but there's no time. There's no room for it. So I think cleansing whether it's cleansing ourselves, using that term loosely, through a retreat, like you were referenced to me. Whether that's a silent retreat or otherwise, I think there's a still it's a way to kind of just cleanse yourself, your brain a little bit, right? Silence, I think, is another example. I think pushing yourself to do things out of your comfort zone and then taking a moment after that is another way to certainly accomplish it. And I was getting to, and that I love everything you've gone through. I never really thought about those things until you said it. You know, I just like I was saying, I think about people all the time, and I'm like, how often you know do they uh get a chance to really reflect on are they are they doing the things that they really want to be doing? And then when they do reflect on that, if they come to the answer of maybe not, whether it's a family or a career, or maybe if it's a spiritual too, then you know how many people are really in a position or feel they're in a position to make those adjustments? You know, and if you listen to the things you've talked about today, you know, you've made a lot of you've had a lot of uh decisions and a lot of change that that you've made and you attribute it to lots of things, whether it's the spiritual side, mentors and coaches, or maybe just being ingrained in you as a child. Um but I I oftentimes I I certainly I feel blessed that I've also been inspired whether it's inspired or prepared or whatever it is to be able to recognize sometimes that purpose and then make decisions based on it. And for me, you know, like I said, I feel blessed because I I think there's a lot of people who uh either aren't uh able to recognize it, or if they do, then they they feel like the obstacles to make the change are too big, yeah, too much risk. So they stay in where they are, which as we know leads to just not as not as fulfilled for life as maybe they're they deserve, right? Yeah. I feel like I see a lot of that. Yeah. I mean from yeah, you're from young people who get the golden handcuffs put on them early on in business where they go work for a company where they're they get paid a little bit more than what maybe a young person deserves, and then they ought bonus you a couple years later, and now you're like, well, I don't really the money's great, but uh it's not really what I enjoy. And now in order to take the next step in my career, I've got to take a step back financially. But now I've compiled all these things and I'm not willing to take the risk, or my family's not willing for me to take that risk, right? Because I mean, one person I haven't talked a ton about in my life is my wife Stephanie. If she didn't truly believe in who I was and be comfortable taking the same sacrifice that I've made, I wouldn't have made the decisions either. Because you know, if you want to pivot this a little bit, there's this also this idea of commitment that people I think miss. And I think that is it's a big thing right now for us because we've had some things happen in a business where when somebody commits to something, whether it's a spouse or partners or to do a job for an organization, people don't really take that as seriously as I believe that they should. They don't see that as like, okay, I'm I've committed to helping this organization do this task, and maybe they're not truthful because they just want a job or they need a job or they need they like the money, and they just are in it for they're not in it for the purpose of the organization or really to commit to what they're doing. So, you know, when you have that level of commitment, like Stephanie's had for me and what I've had to her, and and all the things that I'm doing are to help our family get where we ultimately need to be, as well as my business and my partners' commitment is something that's important that I think people need to like evaluate, especially from a business owner's perspective, clearly identifying what you're asking your people, your partners, or your employees to commit to is huge, right? I think a lot of people will hire somebody, especially early on in business, and say, I need you to help with, I need I need an employee, I need an admin, or I need a person to come help me in my organization. Will you come work for me? Right. And that person says, Yes, I'll come work for you. And in a way, they've committed to helping you get where you want to be. But unless you have clarity around what the expectations are for that person, they have a hard time actually committing to you fully, and then the commitment ends up falling apart at the end. Does that make sense? It does. Well, and I think it's a two-way street because I think both sides should be bringing things to the table in that commitment. Yep. And I think too often the employer expects a sli a level of commitment from the employee that is greater than what the employer is willing to give the employee. For sure. 100%. And the same thing from your like your spouse and your life partner, right? When you talk about those things, I think, you know, and we're me and Stephanie are still working through this a lot, right? We've been married for 10 years this year. But for her and I to know what we both committed to by just being a husband and a wife and and the raising family and kids and what that means, and to trust each other and all that type of stuff, you know, she has done a great job of living that commitment to me whenever I was go from providing of great income to stepping out on my own and taking a hundred steps back with the trust that we're gonna get where we need to be, right? Like I would not be able to be here if it wasn't for her level of commitment to me and the trust that I needed that she that I needed to know that and a feel from her that I was gonna get where I needed to be. Um, and then same thing for my partners, right? We all were very clear about what we committed to, right? We wrote our purpose out and our values. We were very clear on what each person's role was, right? So we built out our organizational chart and we said, these are the seats that need to be filled. This is where we're gonna sit, this is the long-term place that we're ultimately gonna be when we can fill all these other seats up. And this is what you're committing to, right? And we all signed a sheet of paper saying these were the tasks that I have that I'm gonna commit to doing to get us where we need to be. And we then now it's clear what we all expect of each other, and we hold ourselves accountable to that every single week when we come to our leadership meeting. And as we bring on new employees, here is our values that you're committing to, clearly defined, like we talked about earlier today. Uh, and these are the job duties and priorities that you have, clearly defined. This is what we're committing to paying you to do this job. And then you're going to sign this document just like we are, so that you know what you're committing to and what we're committing to you to, right? And then we're all going to move forward trying to get to this ultimate vision as an organization. I think a lot of people miss that. And then as an employee, you then have now committed to two people, right? Your family, and you've committed to that organization. And then you have this third commitment to yourself, which sometimes maybe they don't always align, right? Like, and and that's the hard part that people might get unhappy with themselves and where they're at. They have this commitment to their family. They've got this commitment that they made to work for the salary that they're earning, and then they have their own personal commitment to get wherever they want to be. And if those three things are pulling in different directions, that's when people can tend to get off track and have a hard time. And then they have to be willing to make that sacrifice of, okay, am I going to find a new business to commit to, or am I going to reshift my priorities and make sure that I can somehow change my personal life and my family life to shift and meet that commitment? And it's hard to shift the personal and family to your business commitment a lot of times too. So a lot of times it's that sacrifice people have to make with their business to get where they are ultimately happy because everything's back in alignment. That was a lot of words, but no, I mean, I'll follow you. Yeah. And know exactly what you're saying. The word purpose keeps coming up in this podcast. And I just want to touch on how often, if you even go back and reassess your purpose. Yeah. Do you? Yeah. Every year our the the my four partners from a business standpoint reevaluate our purpose to make sure that we are still living our purpose every day and that we're not distracting ourselves from our purpose. Um, and so our purpose as an organization is to create an environment where the business owners of St. Tammy Parish can thrive and grow. And so that's why, from a from a legal standpoint, we offer our legal services. We help remove barriers so they can get where they want to be. Real estate professionals on the title side get where they want to be. Um, that's why our media company exists. Business owners need a marketing person to grow and accomplish what they want to accomplish. And we believe that. And so we try to give them that resource. And so a lot of times people come to us and say, You want to open an office and you won't. Our purpose is to make an impact on St. Tammy Parish. And sometimes that opportunity seems great, but that great thing distracts you from this ultimate thing that you have. And so we have to check ourselves to make sure we're coming back to our purpose, right? Right. We invested in a property in Slide L that we're flipping, right? That property aligns with our purpose because it helps make our community better and it provides, you know, housing for people that ultimately are going to be able to join the workforce maker community better. So we've invested in a flip property because it aligns with our values and our purpose. So we check that often. And me being a visionary and somebody who wants to see the squirrel every day that I want to go pursue, John Lauren and Becky have to be like, that is not in line with where we're trying to be. So that's what the beauty of having people on the same page. It keeps you in the right direction. And then, you know, the same thing at home, right? Me and Stephanie have a purpose of trying to help our kids get to heaven and become help the actually productive people in the world. So we have to remind ourselves that if we get invited to go on this trip that's going to cost us a lot of money, that it might not be ultimately what we need to do because we should be spending time with our family and our kids because we're working a lot, we need to spend time with them. So sometimes you have to make decisions based on that. So I think about it often from a business and a professional standpoint. But I do think that as things can change, right? As you get older or you accomplish some things and your purpose can change, your kids get older, maybe they leave the house, or you have a life experience that might kind of shift you a little bit and be able to re-evaluate that is important. And so, but also the the broad purpose of our organization allows us to kind of be flexible within our boundaries of what we're doing, and we can invest in other businesses in St. Tammy Parish and help them operate their business more effectively. So to answer your question, I guess succinctly evaluating that at Man Rhys every year personally, with Stephanie personally, and then with my business partners every year at our annual meeting, we do it at least once a year, if not every quarter. Yeah, and I mean, you know, for me, I'm listening and self-reflecting as well. But you know, my decision to make a change in what I was doing from leading the firm to, you know, reducing my interest in it and my my impact in it was absolutely tied as I reflect back to a feeling that my my purpose wasn't being fulfilled anymore. And which ultimately led me to my decision of it's time which felt in some ways premature in probably what I was planning in my strategic planning and all that stuff. But it was these other signs that would that were coming to me, and I was like, it's the purpose. It's it that that's what it is, because everything else is in a good place, personally and business wise. I just wasn't feeling and I couldn't verbalize it at the time that way. But when I look back, there's no doubt in my mind that that that that's what it was. So I I that's why I say I feel blessed to have been able to recognize it and be in a position to make some changes. Yeah. Um and knowing that everything that you go through in your life is getting you where you need to be. And if you trust that, right, you have those feelings that that make you make those types of decisions. And what you might have thought was the the end goal and the goalposts might be just kind of getting you to that point in your life to where you now are close enough to what the real goal is, to have the clarity about okay, now it's time to pivot, right? And all those things that got you to that point were what allows you to really see beyond. It's like you're going up the mountain, right? You think the top of the mountain is your ultimate goal, and you get there and you really, okay, now I'm I actually have the clarity now that I've gotten there of all the things that are the potential. So now I can make another decision of pivoting to what I thought was the goal, but was really just getting me on the path to really seeing what it was. Now I can go take that next step. Because at 50 years old, right, you now have another half of your life to make the rest of the impact that you have. And like that's how I like to think about it, right? Some people think that at 65 I'm gonna retire and never work again. I think that at 65 years old is when you have accumulated the experiences and the resources to they really go make an impact on the world at that point, right? And it might take you that long to get to the top of that mountain to be able to see what the opportunities are on the other side. So I'm I'm 37 years old, but I'm I'm I'm excited to keep moving and ultimately figure out what the next thing is. I don't think this would be the last thing that I do, but I'm definitely not at some point gonna go sit on a beach drinking margaritas for the rest of my life. That just would not function for me. And definitely nobody really wants to be hung over the rest of their life, right? Like people say that's what they want to do, and then you do that for a week, you're like, I gotta go do something else than this because I'm gonna die in a very short amount of time. I agree, right? Well, this has been this has been awesome, by the way. Yeah, and we wrap up everybody with the same question. Oh, okay. So it's it's gotta be short because we're almost out of time. It's rapid fire. You get two questions, yeah. If you could have dinner with anyone, past to present, doesn't matter, who would it be? Um and why? You know, uh I I I was lucky enough my entire life to grow up with a godfather who was a priest, and uh, he lived with my grandparents for the last 20 years of his life, and he passed away two Novembers ago. So if I could get one more dinner with him, that would be pretty cool. Awesome. Where would you go? Do what? Where would you go? He would want to go to Applebee's, but um I would take him be to nice state. Honestly, I wouldn't even have to eat. It's just, you know, he again, another village, part of the village, right? Like he was just always there, and it was almost it was it, you know, for my whole life, it was just like having a priest in in the house was just like a thing. It wasn't weird. We would be able to say master where we wanted and just be able to just a different perspective, right? And so it was cool to do that. And I haven't thought about it, but I mean he's been gone for like a year and a half, and I've you know, you miss him, but it would be cool to have dinner with him again. That's for sure. That's pretty cool. Well, we appreciate you. Thank you so much. Yeah, this was great. This was great. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. All right, Jack. Take care.