Count Your Wins (Who Knew In The Moment)

Hello and welcome to another episode who knew in the moment the podcast I'm your host Phil Friedrich and today I'm on to have Scott Clary with me. Scott is the founder of the social club and an entrepreneur at heart and he's also the host of the success story podcast and one of the things that I think you're going to be able to hear in Scott's story today is it's okay to be working on multiple things at the same time because you never know where those opportunities are going to lead you to. So Scott, thanks so much for being on. I appreciate you having me. Let's go into working on all the things at the same time, which is good sometimes. Sometimes it can also be distracting. So I think that we should also talk about like seasons of your life and how to segment your life based on your priorities and your milestones and your goals and objectives. That's also very important too. So there is a caveat. Yes. So to start your story, growing up in Canada, you know, parents are in, well, dad and grandpa are in more traditional type jobs and so that's kind of the example that you see. So talk a little about one, growing up in that environment, but two, how that kind of starts forming, you know, ideas or thoughts about maybe what you should be going into versus potentially pursuing what you want to go into. Yeah, so I had a very comfortable upbringing, both of my parents, you mentioned my grandpa too. So on my dad's side, it was all law enforcement to various degrees. So I mean, my grandpa was RCMP, which is federal law enforcement, dad and uncle were federal law enforcement. My dad moved into Ceasis, which is like a counterterrorism national security on the Canadian side obviously. So the equivalent would probably be like a mixture of CIA FBI, depending on which branch of Ceasis you work for. So very traditional, very risk adverse, it's funny enough, counterterrorism is not a risk adverse job, but in terms of career path. So you get a job, you stay in that job for my God, I think well, my dad started his career in policing. I don't know what A.H. switched over to the federal government and moved away from policing into like counterterrorism, but it was very young. I think just a couple of years before you had me. So from then until like late 60s, he just retired. So you know, do the math, like 20, 20, 30, 45, like it's a very long career, right? Yeah. And you build up a pension and I think he bought his first house cash in Toronto, which anybody from Toronto knows that's like a certain thing to be able to do to buy a detached home, because Toronto, I mean, you know, New York, you know, Miami, you know, LA in terms of like unaffordable housing markets right now, Toronto for Canadians is very much the same. So different time obviously, very risk adverse mom was, she, she is by definition like a scientist, like she works in labs, she does research projects, she worked for universities to time off when I was born. My brother was born, went back to work after, also retired, but she worked in labs in university. So also very like, I mean, between education, institution and government, you can't get more risk adverse. So then, so that was sort of the career path that I was set up for some iteration of that. I think that for me, I was interested in policing to a degree, but I really wanted to go into law because I was like very ambitious and I'm like, listen, possibly living is not cheap. I saw what I was setting myself up for in terms of what I wanted my life to look like, and I wanted maybe a little bit more than like a salary that you'd be getting as like an entry-level police officer. I mean, years later, you can make some money, but also law sort of fast-track set. So yeah, I was set up for that kind of career. And I don't, there's like, I guess in the theme of the podcast, what had sort of pushed me away from that career was a job that I took in tech when I was like very early 20s. It was in Telecom, like Telecom was a large Telecom company called Bell. It's like an AT&T of Verizon of Canada. So it wasn't like it was a super high-risk job. I mean, you're still working for, I think, at the time, a fortune 1000 company, but it's, it was like the stepping stones and exposure to people that were different from government. Yeah. And exposure to people that worked in private, worked in tech, moved jobs quickly, moved jobs often. You worked in an environment that was obviously, it was a technology in software and hardware environment, but you still dealt with a whole bunch of startups, you still dealt with a whole bunch of vendors of partners that were in like the startup space. So yeah, it was something that sort of pushed me in that direction. And then I just like tripled down on software, on tech, on entrepreneurship. And there's like a lot to what led me down that road. But that was like the first point that sort of drew me away from everything my family knew. Yes. So as you're going into the tech world, there is obviously a gazillion different ways you can do it, right? You can work for large companies. You can do your own thing. You can do the startup route and you started with the large companies and as you're there, like I see great opportunities, but I also know that I'm still an employee of a business and there's not going to necessarily be ownership opportunity until, right, way, way, way down the road. And if I can climb a corporate ladder, so talk a little bit about that mindset and seeing that because I think a lot of people, they do that and it doesn't bother them, right? They have comfort in knowing they work for a large company, low risk of me, you know, finding out our company's not doing well or not going to be existing. And for you, you're like, I appreciate the large company I'm learning a lot, but I think there's something more to this. So for me, it was just because I was very anxious about moving my career forward. So I looked at the people that were, so see, see sweet of of a company that size. I mean, they're all 50, 55, 60, I mean, like there's a couple of exceptions to the rule, but many of them are very old and they're all Ivy League educated and at the time it didn't have an MBA. So I'm like, okay, if I want to, for example, and when you do make see sweet and a fortune 500, by the way, it's not always, you just work your way up. A lot of people are brought over from other companies, but anyways, the point is I sort of saw the potential career path. And I was like, listen, I'd love to make one, two, five, seven, 10 million a year. I'm pretty sure that's like a, you know, a fortune 1000 CEO salary. But I'm like, what are the chances of making that money realistically based on the fact that there are probably, I don't even know, maybe 10,000 people that work in this organization. So I have to maybe wait till I'm 50 years old to maybe make that kind of money. And I just felt like the odds weren't great. So I'm like, what can I do strategically to move and fast track my career? So that was when I started to go and look at startups. And I didn't even know about the idea of ownership. For me, when I was looking at those roles, I was looking at salary. I wasn't thinking about stock options and total compensation. It was really just, how do I make a shit ton of money in one year? And that's what I want my salary to be because that when I started, you know, my base was, when I started, I was working in stores. I'm sure my base was like 35, 40, and then it was a purely commission. But then you start to get into like higher salary roles, you know, 70, 80, 100. You can still make 200, 250, whatever, great salary, but it's not millions. So yeah, point is I wanted to fast track a little bit. I'm like, maybe if I work for a different company, I can move my salary up quicker and I can get more experience quicker. So I moved into a smaller telco in sales and marketing leadership role. That's when I first understood the opportunity of ownership because that company was sold to private equity at a very good multiple. And I saw the transaction take place because I joined, led sales and marketing, Rue, revenue, executive event, founder retired or quasi retired. So I was like, listen, that's like a light bulb moment. So this is, this is the fast, fast, I say fast track and air quotes. It's like, it can probably be hard and difficult and your sense of failure are exceptionally high. But this is like the, the potential fast track to getting to where I want to be. I enjoy the people that I work with in startup land. A little bit better than I enjoyed working with people in Fortune 1000. Just because they were more, I felt in line with how I viewed the world. They moved faster. They're more agile. They were, they were a fun cohort of people to work with because they thought the same way. And I think that that was sort of my exposure to startup. And then I was like, listen, I want to keep working in startup. I want to work and take equity positions. I want to start my own thing. Whatever iteration of startup and entrepreneurship is that I take on, I'm going to try it out. And if I don't figure it out by like 30, then whatever I can go back to law school. Like that's like my backup plan, right? And I'm like, whatever, then I'll do four years of law school. And then I know they're getting at a law school. I can start at like a hundred case salary. And then you know, in 10 years or five years, I'll make partner. I'll be pulling in 400, 500 and I'll figure out, you know, it was a very safe career path. If I can make 500 a year at 35, 36, whatever it is, actually the math doesn't work. It'd be 30 to 34 law school, maybe 500 a year by 40. I'm like, that's still a good salary. I can still, you know, raise a family on that. I can still get a nice house, live decently okay in Toronto. You're not like killing it, but like you're living pretty good in Toronto. So that was sort of my mindset. And that's what pushed me down the path that I'm on. So there's a couple of things you said in there that, you know, I think can be stumbling blocks or maybe potential breaks for people to make the jump you did. And I would imagine that if you went to your parents or people that you, you know, maybe trusted that had potentially a more, I'll just say traditional mindset, they say, Scott, what are you thinking? Why would you leave the big company that's, you know, guy probably great benefits? You know, it's a good place to be all the same benefits. By the way, benefits are starting to be removed too. So you don't have the pension that people who were hired 15 years ago at that same company had. So you have to realize it. Then you're thinking about retirement, which is a good point that just, I didn't mean to interrupt. Just like, I really want to, you know, double down on this. You think you're safe in traditional Fortune 500, Fortune 1000. Maybe they're doing, like pension matching or contribution matching. But if you don't save up enough money when you retire and you got to figure out what your number is, and then you map out how much money you want to live on till the day that you die and people are living longer and longer and longer. Like you are going to be stuck in a really shitty situation when you retire if you can retire. So my dad and my mom, they get a percentage of their best years until they die. Yeah. So it's not about how much they contributed. They had to contribute a little bit, but it's not, it's not a defined contribution pension, which is what everybody has. If you even have a pension right now, it's not, which is still better than RSP matching in general, at least. But defined benefit pension was government pension. So you make a, say you make round number $100,000 a year. I mean, if you work your whole career, probably more than that in government, not much more, but a little bit more. But say you make $100,000 a year, you pick your three or five best years of your salary, you make 70% of that till the day you die. So my dad, if you made $100,000, he'll make $70,000 per year till the day he dies. Doesn't matter how long he lives, didn't have to worry about where it's invested in his returns. That doesn't exist anymore, right? For 99.99% of people and that used to exist. So you got a little bit of self preservation kicks in and you know, future planning and foresight, which is why I'm like, you know what? Yeah, entrepreneurship is risky, but I also don't want to be 70 and be like shit. I can't retire because I only have whatever, maybe do the math. I have four million saved. Okay, four million. Cool. You know what? That's not so long when it's your rent and then it's your, you know, dinners. And if you want to travel a little bit, whatever. So no one's helping you. You got to go for yourself and COVID taught people a lot of that when they got laid off from these safe jobs. Absolutely. I love it. And it's so true. I think it's good. I think a lot of people will misconstrue, you know, what safe is, right? A consistent paycheck doesn't mean a safe job. It just means you work for someone that gives you a consistent paycheck. An inconsistent paycheck, whether it's commissions or you run your own business or sales. Doesn't necessarily mean it's a risky career. It just means you have an inconsistent paycheck potentially because you might make way more one month and less the next month. Just based on the way that financial work for you, right? Exactly. So as you're making that transition, I think a lot of people will go to people they trust and they'll ask their opinion on things. And one of my favorite stories on that and David Meltzer, he was looking to change his law trajectory and wanted to go work at this internet company back in the mid 90s and his mom said, even don't go into internet like that's such a bad idea. And he really respected his mom, but at the same token, he's like, I'm going to make the decision anyway. But I did ask her opinion. I think sometimes we ask people's opinions, even though they may not be an expert in that industry, but it's because we trust them as people. But then we might overvalue their opinion because we trust them, not because they have knowledge in where we're wanting to go. So was there anyone that you went to or did you talk to your parents about career transition or were you just like, you know what? This is what I want to do. I'm going to make the choice and let everyone else kind of hold their opinions to themselves. So it's a great point because I think we put a lot of value on people that we trust. And I think sometimes again, we feel that if we don't value their opinion, we're almost disrespecting them. Yeah, I never felt that. I always felt that the opinions that I need to sort of incorporate into my life. And there's a lot of people that have mentored and given me opinions and given me advice and told me not to do stuff and told me to do stuff. I take opinions from people that have accomplished what I want to accomplish. And that's really the go to resource for me. And there's two things that allow me to do that. So first, I take opinions from people that have accomplished what I want to accomplish. Both people that have accomplished it and then are exceeded what I've wanted to accomplish as well as people that have just accomplished what I want to accomplish because then I can really get very fresh feedback as to what to do next. And when I look at those people in my life and I've done it in my career, but I've also done it in like a content marketing strategy. So if I want to kill it on Twitter or if I want to have a great podcast, I'm going to look at somebody who's built a podcast or build a Twitter audience, obviously to just random examples that is just slightly bigger than my own or I'll look for somebody to build a company slightly bigger than my own. Those are the people I go to and a night either speak to them and get feedback or I will do my best to research and reverse engineer their success. And I truly do believe that nobody is that special and I believe that if somebody's accomplished it, I can accomplish it and I have an massive amount of belief in my own ability. So I will look at what they've accomplished reverse engineer the steps that they took to get there, whatever that is, if it's career, if it's they took this job and they learned this thing and then they went to this position and they whatever it or it could be. They have a podcast is bigger than me and I see their strategy and they post on this platform and they run ads here and they bring on this guest any of these collapse and they do this event, whatever it is, I reverse engineer and then I trust myself to execute those exact steps and then funny enough, I usually end up in a pretty damn good position. So I think that trusting yourself reverse engineering so the gap from A to Z is no longer opaque is one of the most powerful things that you can do for your own career for yourself and some people have lack of trust in themselves and the journey is opaque. So they not only don't put the energy and effort to understand the journey, but they also don't trust themselves to execute on it and I say to those people, the reason why you don't trust yourself is because you don't codify and keep track of your wins because the only reason why you wouldn't trust yourself is because you don't have belief that you can actually do it. And I think the reason why people have a hard time believing in themselves to the same level is what I just said I have in myself because they focus on the negatives and the losses in their life, I've always been very careful to understand every single win that I've had because literally every single day every deal every job you get is a win and like a proof point that you can do incredible shit. But as humans, we focus on the time you got fired or the time you lost the deal or the time you got dumped or whatever it is because those are the things that elicit this massive emotional response in us and it imprints in our brain and it really, really hurts how we almost trust and have faith in our own ability to do anything. So I think that if more people like literally itemize their wins and found a way to document them, I mean, however you want to do that, it could be, you know, some people like vision boards, maybe you just take a look at all the different things you've done in your career over the past year and put those on a board somewhere and like look at it once a month. I don't care if it sounds corny. The point is you got to remind yourself that you can do the things that you're set out to do and you've done them in the past, which gives you the agency and the authority and the confidence to do them going forward. So those two things trusting yourself, finding a way to trust yourself, plus mapping out the process is just like a rinse and repeat for me to any level. I love it. Rewind that a minute and a half. Listen to that again. That's sage advice. We'll clip that shit up. We'll put it on TikTok. We'll put it on a maybe not TikTok. We'll put it on. We'll put on everything else. Well, so to that point though, I love that you talk about your confidence there. And one of the things that I would say to your confidence was a next transition is a friend of yours kind of talks about, hey, there's this role open. It's a CRO role. And you've never technically had that role, but you're willing to put your name in the hat. Yeah. And willing to apply for that. And I think, you know, what's easier to do is think of all the reasons why I shouldn't apply, right? Well, I've never had that job. I don't know if I'd be good at it. And you said, well, why the heck not? I feel like I checked some of the boxes or most of them, like I'll put my name in the hat. So talk a little bit about one that experience, but then two, you know, kind of piggybacking off of the confidence piece, you know, what gave you the confidence to apply for a role that technically one would say you weren't qualified. Yeah, I think that I think that I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of quotes around like like take the job and then do the work. I think that there's many famous quotes around that particular concept that story was the first startup environment that I left after the large fortune. What fortune went with 1000 bell can I went to a smaller telco hired on as the one of the more senior sales reps and the guy that hired me on. He left as a director for Salesforce. So at that point, there was no one leading sales and marketing. This is where that particular story came from. So I put like I had led sales and marketing completely in an organization to any degree before. I put together a presentation as to all the different things that I'd be doing with the sales organization. I wanted to grow it some of the changes I wanted to make to how we build customers service contracts, new markets to go into grow existing accounts. It was really just like a 30 60 90 day plan that funny enough, the reason why I did that is because I saw all the people that were applying for the role externally, we're putting together for the CEO something like black and just do my own 30 60 90. I already know the company. I already know the products. I already know the people. I work with all of them. It's going to be a little bit weird because I'm younger than most of the people that I would be leading. But regardless, give it a shot. And that was that was it. It was. So you ask like why why I had the confidence to do that. I think that I've always found that the worst thing that people can say is is no. And if they say no, you're kind of just at the same spot as where you started. And I don't I don't want to gloss over the fact that that sort of head space that I operated from and the mindset is not an easy thing for people to internalize. Like it's really hard for you to just say, listen, I'm going to figure it out. It is entirely about maybe a little bit of delusion and over being overly self confident. But I actually think that you need those traits to a degree to be wildly successful or to move faster. You have to trust yourself and you have to know your own self worth. And that process that I just walk through with like, you know, categorizing my wins and understanding why I think I'm so cool and great and I've done amazing things. It's yeah, sure, definitely in my career, I've bit off more than I can chew, but I think I've always sort of had that feedback loop running of, you know what, if somebody can figure it out, I can figure it out. And if I can't figure it out, I'll let people know the things that I'm having trouble with because I also never had I had confidence, but I didn't have an ego. So people sometimes confuse confidence and ego, I would take the job and I would execute and I would probably work twice as hard to figure out the shit. But if I something wasn't working, I wouldn't pretend that I knew the answer. So it was a combination of the confidence plus the humility that allows you to succeed because you take roles that maybe are a little bit of stretch for your ability, but simultaneously, you're also like roping in all these people that want to help you succeed inside the company outside the company. And like it's pretty amazing if you actually ask for help and then work a little bit harder than most people have faster careers going to move. I love it. That's a great addition there, right? Yes, the confidence, but then there's the humility of being willing to ask when you need the help and admit that. So I love it. Now, at some point, you decide to want to start kind of a side business while you're working. And what I love about that is, and this is what we were kind of joking about in the first minute of the episode. And that is, it's OK to have multiple things you're working on. However, and you can tie this into it. Try and be strategic on when you're doing those things, right? Don't spend four minutes on this and then put to something else for 10 minutes and then back, right, segment chunk, whether it's by day or whether it's by time of day or, you know, however, you can kind of segment your time to be strategic. So talk a little bit about starting a side projects that business all the while doing your others and then how you kind of manage time. So the podcast was probably the biggest side business that I started, right? And I was building that. So four years ago, I was a CRO at a broadcast software company. We built that. We sold that four years ago. And while I was running that and building that company, that's when I started my personal brand, that's when I started my show, that's when I started writing a newsletter, that's when I started posting on social. So all like if you go to my social, that's about whatever, five, five and a half years old, the podcast is like five and a half, maybe pushing on six years old now. So I think that in my mind, kind of like I said, when I first started my career, if this doesn't work out, I'll give myself till 30 and then I'll go back to law school. In my mind, I said, listen, now I'm in like my entrepreneurship phase. I'm building a company, both a software company, and then I'm going to build my own company, which is a personal brand that I can leverage the launch companies off of in the future. But I'm going through like a massive build phase so that I own things that will be useful for the rest of my life. And the personal brand play was, I'm not going to build a company that I can monetize immediately to the same degree as like a product or a service or a software because I still have, you know, I still have building a company. It's a very time consuming, but let me start something that will give my brand and my personal, you know, me some longevity. So when you build a company, you sell it, it's over with, you have to start again, more often than not, unless you have like a, you know, an IPO where you become like a billion dollar founder, but that's not the majority. Most people, if you sell a company for any significant amount under like 50 million, maybe 60 million, really nobody knows who you are. Even though you've had massive success. So anyways, so I was like, listen, I want to build something that outlasts the company that I'm building right now and I want to do it fractionally. So I want to start and I'm going to leverage my expertise and I'm going to leverage sort of my free time to build something that's going to last for forever. And I chose to do, I chose to do a podcast and I chose to build a personal brand in the community because I knew from me that would be useful because I didn't really have a passion per say of another company I wanted to start, but to sort of paint a picture of how that could translate into someone else's career. So you're working nine to five and true nine to five, not like start up because start up sometimes is a little bit more, especially if you're leaving sales and marketing of it, you really have, I mean, you're on all the time. So if you're truly working a nine to five, my podcast could be whatever product or service you want to take to market and you're doing it from seven to 10 or on Sunday afternoon or whatever. And the point is you're doing this because you will eventually want to move away from the thing that you're doing or you know the thing that you're doing full time has like a lifespan on it. And then you know where you want your future to go. So it does take a little bit of planning and and sort of foresight to say, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to build my own software company. I want to do full time consulting. I want to open a restaurant. Whatever it is, you start taking the steps to get there because eventually if you spend enough time doing it in your spare time, that would become your full time thing, especially if you, I mean, if you iterate through all your learnings and your failures and you start to build these feedback loops that show you which direction you're moving in. Is it right? Is it wrong? Are you making progress? Are you landing some customers, you know, just at a very basic level without committing 100% of your day to it. And you can start to move in that direction as a full time thing. But I think that yeah, you, you have to, you have to block time for your future. And if you don't, you will never get to where you want to be. I don't believe for the majority of people that entrepreneurship means putting your job and hoping you figure it out in six months before you run out of money for rent. That to me is not entrepreneurship, especially in 2024. There's a really great graph that shows the amount of people over historically, the amount of people that are required in a company to take the company from zero to a million dollars in revenue. And you say like in 1950 say it was like 100 people and you fast forward to 2024. It's like it's one person because of the tools and the resources that we can leverage generative AI. We can leverage outsourced talent, take advantage of different geographies. We can use no code tools. We can use marketplaces to find customers. Like there's really no excuse for not being able to start some version of a side hustle side business on your in your spare time that can make you money. And that will get you know that'll dip your tone to entrepreneurship that'll dig your tone to you understanding what ownership looks like complete full ownership of that thing. And then you start to grow it. You start to improve it. And then eventually that will replace your full time thing. The reason why I started my show is because I knew that at some point this company would be sold and acquired. And then I wanted something that could live on that would benefit whatever I launched in the future. So I didn't really launch like a business replace the business. I launched a marketing channel that would be used to grow any business I have in the future. Very similar to like the Gary Vaynerchuk model with Vayner Media Vayner Sports Vayner wines this NFT project is just that's that it's the same model basically. Absolutely. Now one thing I don't want people to glaze over what you said was I gave myself a run. You know, hey, by 30 right I may get myself. And I don't know if you were 26 at the time, but let's just say it's 26. So it gives you yourself, you know, four years, whatever it is, but it gives you an amount of time. Where all right, I need to see something measurable, right, but at the same token, it's not to your point a six month timeframe. And it's like, well, if it doesn't work in the first six months, then it was waste of time or, you know, it wasn't the right thing to be doing. It's like, you gave yourself a runway. So talk a little about, you know, be willing to give yourself time to do something and post to expecting overnight. I mean, I'm sure you and I can both attest this. How many people we've met that during COVID started a podcast, right? And after five episodes, they weren't getting Joe Rogan type numbers. And they said, oh, I'm done with it then. And it's like, well, yeah, Joe Rogan's been at this for a long time. You know, it's just doesn't happen overnight. So talk a little bit about that window and timing. So I believe that if you want to commit to anything, you have to give it 10 years of your life. And what does that 10 years mean 10 years means you are in, like, a very high percentile of the individuals in that market or that category, five years. And by the way, these are just generalizations. Obviously, these numbers could drastically differ. But I think five years and most things that you sell, I mean, podcasts, it took me, well, now five and a half, where the podcast makes more than most salaries, right? So I think that if you give it five years, selling a product or service by the five year mark, you should be able to replace most salaries, like significantly. Meaning you should be able to make like half a million dollars, pushing on a million dollars a year. If you are smart about what you do five years, a long ass time to learn and to grow 10 years. I think is when it turns into like a significant business. And you have like, like, at that point, I mean, there's probably opportunity for you to exit or you just probably opportunity to raise capital. And at that point, you're making far more than you could ever make in the job. So I think that most people. Most people don't understand that seems like a long time, but it's not really a long time, in my opinion, in terms of the grand scheme of your life and the potential opportunity that 10 years committed to a thing can actually give you because 10 years will put you in, you know, the 1% in almost anything you do. And if you're smart about it, if you learn from, it's not like you're just doing it and you're never improving and you're never learning and you're never, you know, iterating through problems, but if you're smart about it and you are a self taught individual and you're constantly learning and growing and reverse engineering people that have done it before, you will become some version of successful in 10 years. And that's sort of the thesis that I've applied to almost everything. And it's difficult at the beginning, you're like, shit, okay, I'm going to start this thing. I got to, I got to give it that period of time. You also have to set KPIs to make sure you're moving in the right direction. So you look for like leading indicators of success, not like lagging indicators of success in anything that you do. So our, you know, if you're building a company on the side are more people reaching out to you organically are you getting word of mouth referrals. There's like a million different KPIs you can measure that would lead to revenue, which is kind of usually a lagging indicator. But the point is, are your KPIs, is your customer acquisition costs reducing, whatever it is, is your lifetime value increasing if you have like a software product or your customers churning less if you have some sort of subscription product. Whatever it is, you're moving in the right direction constantly, you're measuring those KPIs. And if you measure those KPIs and you're constantly moving in the right direction, like you start to be able to forecast out exactly where you're going to end up. So for a podcast in particular, I'm looking at downloads, which is a pretty, but I'm also looking at like ratings, I'm looking at like my my listen notes, I'm looking at my YouTube growth because there's massive organic search potential on YouTube. So if YouTube's growing, I'm kind of understanding that's going to lead to like audio podcast download growth as well. Is it growing? Is it going in the right direction? Yeah. Okay. So I'll keep doing it because if I just map and there will be a J curve and everything like that hockey stick growth curve, but don't count on J curve as like a business model. Right. So if you just see linear growth even at least and you know you're moving in the right direction and know there will be a point. It's very difficult to properly pinpoint it, but there will be a J curve and growth where like if you see linear linear linear than all of a sudden, there will be some event that you'll start to see massive J curve growth. But the point is you're moving in the right direction. So 10 years is not just this block of time again, and that's opaque where you don't know if it's working or not. You're constantly moving and you see that you're progressing and that makes that 10 year time spend very easy to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I love it. Now, as you have started entrepreneurial journey, you've got the podcast rock and roll. Also have a couple of businesses that you're working on. So talk a little bit about the social club. And then I believe it's on me. So on me, we actually ended up selling that to a vitamin manufacturer in South Florida. That was a transformer vitamin patch. That was something that was a fun sort of passion project for me because I'm super into health and wellness. So that company's now retired, but and we're done with that. But with the social club, that's sort of the current company that I'm building. So social club is kind of like the best way to say it is it's a private members club for later stage or exited entrepreneurs. There's a couple groups like this like YPO, EO Tiger 21. What social club is trying to do is serve people a variety of different things outside of just being with peers that are playing at the same level as them. I'm trying to bring in programming and speakers that help people at the stage of their career. So think somebody just built a big business. What do they care about? Well, they care about they care about business operational, talking to people that have built other cool shit. They care about wealth. So they care about deal flow, tax mitigation, legacy planning. They care about health longevity. Everybody should care about, but the second you make a little bit of money, you do definitely care about this. I mean, you talk about red light sauna and coal plunge and peptides this and whatever. And then lastly, influence. So after you built something important, are you trying to get on the TEDx stage? Are you trying to write a book? Are you trying to get a more podcast? Are you trying to how do you increase your thought leadership? For some people comes naturally, we're in this game, like we're both in this game. For some people that have built massive businesses, it's not so natural. So these are the four areas of an individual who is a high performing individual. These are the four areas of their life that I'm trying to optimize and help out with by bringing in workshops, mentors, speakers, whatever. It's very much the format of it is very similar to a YPO where we have monthly events, quarterly masterminds, but these are sort of the four buckets that a lot of the discussions revolver around. That's amazing. Now, it makes me think of Ed Milett says, you know, we are best equipped to serve the people that we once were. And so I think for you, you know, it's a natural meshing, right? Hey, now at this point, I'm only building stuff that I enjoy that actually serves me. So when I started the podcast, I started it because I wanted, first of all, like self-fishing doing this is like the best networking educational tool in the world. You get an hour with the coolest people in the world. It's like phenomenal, but outside of that, I also wanted to build something that would serve me at an earlier stage of my career. With the social club, I wanted to build something that would serve me at where I'm at in my career, because when I look at the audience that I've built or I look at the community and the network that I've built in my life, and I've been able to hack it because of shit like the podcast. Many people don't have that. Many people, because I know because I work with them and I speak with them as some of my friends, like they sell a company and you get bombarded with people selling you shit, you're, you don't, you're, you're a little bit aimless because you just work so hard at this one thing. And then all of a sudden, it's like, what am I doing now? And so I'm trying to build like a soft spot for these people to land. So they do have community and peers that can continue to sort of help each other grow for the next version of their life after they've achieved that initial success. Yeah. That's so good. Now, something that I think can be this interesting dynamic is I feel like in my life, when I was young, I tell people saying yes, as many things that I could was probably the best thing I ever did because it just opened doors that I may not have ever otherwise had the chance, but there does become this like shift at some point where it's like, you need to be strategic on what you say the yes to me, you can't just say yes to almost everything that's coming your way anymore. And so for you, you know, you've had a lot of amazing opportunities, but how do you kind of balance that saying yes to things while saying no to maybe, you know, things that at this phase in the game or not the best things to be using your time or energy on. I'm super, I'm super clear on the KPIs that I want to achieve. So when I just said that you have to know your KPIs for whatever it is you're trying to accomplish in your business and your side hustle in your life, I'm very clear on what those are. So I know that right now I'm building a business and then growing a podcast and those are basically the only two things that I care about and if the activity grows the podcast, if the activity gets members to sign up for the community that I'm building, then I do those things. And basically everything else is is a distraction. So I mean, that's how I segment my days and there's very few other things. Any, I mean, maybe I'll do a show like a podcast, it's like a personal brand building thing, which technically could aid in both of those items, but outside of that, I mean, it's like personal time with friends, family, or a task that immediately moves the needle forward on that. I mean, I will also segment time for, I mean, like if I, if I want to do fun stuff, I mean, that's fine, but that to me is not a commercial opportunity. So if I want to, for example, work with an entrepreneur as like an mentoring capacity, like segment time for that, that's cool. It's not like you have to be like a hard ass and only focus on shit that will ever make you money. But in terms of opportunities that make you money, I think that's where people lose themselves the most because they get massive shiny objects syndrome because there's a new potential opportunity over here that could make them a little bit of money. It's not like, yes, so you can volunteer time, you can get do what you want to do in your life. But I think it's the potential alternative money making opportunities that really distract you. And I know the things that are making me money and that I'm focused on. So anything outside of that to me is not is not worthwhile right now, or else, I'm almost like sabotaging my own success. Why am I building a business here. If somebody, for example, wants consulting work over here. It doesn't make sense. And this is actually why I think. This is why I think that you should still be working while you start a company because what happens in a lot of startup situations is you stop working and you start a company and you take on bad customers, not bad isn't like they're bad people, they're not right fit for your product or service. And then you'll start doing all these consulting jobs and random buildouts and these custom deployments and everything is not in line with what you're trying to build just so you can make money. And then you never actually get the thing built that you wanted to build in the first place and serve the market that you think you should be serving. So yeah, find a way to set up your life so that you're not. You're not like like crying at any bit of money you can get so you can focus on the shit they can actually move the needle. Boom, I love it. I love it. Well, Scott, I want to say thank you for sharing just all the pivotal moments that have led to where you're at. And the thing I'm probably most excited about is the clarity you have, I know that in two years, three years from now, we're going to have to do this again and highlight all the amazing businesses you've grown, the podcast is exponentially increased at that point. Sure, there's got to be a book coming, you know, I made all those things I'll just continue that's also a lot of work too, by the way, I'm trying to figure that one out. You're a harvors that right. It's a lot of work in that. So well, no, I appreciate you sharing your story and everyone go check out his podcast, find him on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter or probably your three biggest ones. Yeah, but make sure to connect with Scott and continue to follow his great content that he gives nuggets on. Thank you for appreciate it.