Brett Gelfand: My father sold his business and now I sold mine: Lessons from 2 generations

27:26And those things combined. Absolutely, I would say I'm a much more easygoing, happy person now than I was before. And those things led me to experience these very happy experiences that I may or may not have had before the exit. I would probably say there was more likely that I had these big experiences that I could afford. For example, we paid for our own wedding last year in Mexico. That was way more expensive than I would have ever planned. At first, I didn't even plan on having a wedding, but we had a whole blown out wedding that I would have paid double for after we went through the experience.

28:08So the fact that I had the confidence and the finances to invest in that was absolutely worth it. And then we went on, you know, a four week honeymoon to Africa. And, you know, without me having that financial security either, maybe I would have taken a smaller trip or something that would have been beautiful and great. But would it have been as amazing as the trip we took? I can't really say, but I doubt it because the trip was just so incredible. is everything that we wanted to do were not restricted because of finances. And I think that is a very important component of if you're considering an exit, if you have things in life that are important coming up, you only have those experiences once in a lifetime, really.

28:51And if you could bank some cash to be able to experience those, it's typically more worth it than making an extra million, two million bucks in the long run. I think you have to take advantage of those critical experiences in life that only come once. Was it all worth it for you, all the stress and suffering and hard work that came with building and selling a business? 100%. And I think the entrepreneurs and the founders that even decide to take a step into starting their own business, that's a step that the majority of people on this planet might not be comfortable ever to take. And I think that step is critical in personal development, in confidence, self-esteem, education, learning.

29:44I mean, the amount of skills that you can accumulate by stepping into the unknown and starting your own business and creating your own financial security. I try my best to recommend it to anyone that's in high school or anyone that's considering what they want to do post-college. because it's too easy in our society now just to take a nine to five job and get your benefits and get your 401k, get your health plan and think this is it, you know, like I'm going to have a good life. And for some people, it serves them perfectly because that's what they want to do. But I think a lot of people are, it's really out of fear as well.

30:17Maybe they really are interested and excited about diving into a new project. But the fact that they might not be able to go out to dinner as much sure they might have to, you know, cut down on their finances, or maybe they will be broke in a year. It's going to essentially limit them to always have to call in for vacation days. They'll always have to report to their boss if they're sick. I never want to live a life like that. And for me to have taken that, that challenge and to deal with the stress and the hardships that I think people deal with in a day to day basis at work also on a nine to five job, you know, but maybe it's a little bit more stressful or you have more things that you need to do.

30:59But at the same time, I know a lot of people, especially in New York that are working nine to five, getting paid good, but they're way more stressed than me. Why not build equity in your own project? Why not build equity in your own business if you're going to work that hard anyway? So for me, going through that, getting that life experience and knowing that I can do it, and now I feel comfortable that I can replicate it. I've gone through the beginning stages to the M &A process. I dealt with all the lawyers and accountants and everything that you need to know to be able to do this again and again.

31:29I think that skill for me at my age is going to serve me hopefully very well in the future. And it's just like if you go through a 12-week workout program that sucks and it's hard, most likely you're going to feel pretty damn good when you get to the finish line. So now that you've completed an entrepreneurial cycle, you started and built and sold the business, What are the biggest, say, three lessons you learned from that whole experience? One would be trust your gut. If something doesn't feel right or if something kind of smells fishy, you need to really trust your gut. Because my gut was telling me one thing for so long, like over 12 months of it might be ready to sell.

32:22well, this partnership and business isn't serving me well. And I had opportunities to really take that feeling and exploit it and really go after like an exit that I wanted. And I think looking back, I probably could have had a bigger exit or a more desirable outcome. And instead, I kind of waited for that feeling to like eat me alive and for things to get so ugly that I was kind of forced to get out. where it was like, so number one, definitely trust your gut. And that kind of goes along with maybe number two, which is be very careful going into 50-50 partnerships. It sounds so perfect, you know, when you, especially if you're at your first business and you got somebody that believes in the idea, great, let's just do 50-50 and we'll just split everything and everything's gonna be perfect.

33:10But once you start making money and roles and responsibilities matter, and I'm sure you've spoken to a ton of people about this topic, but it's, it's a, it's a very, very challenging dilemma you can run into. And one of those dilemmas is if one partner wants to sell and the other partner doesn't want to sell, if you don't have those discussions beforehand, that like there's drag along of one partner, you know, can make that final decision. If you don't have that clear, then you're really forced into a tough situation that can really affect you, um, income financially if that's not ironed out in the beginning.

33:46So I think that's an important one is be careful on 50-50. And I guess the last one would be, you know, take the money and run sometimes, you know, like if, to be honest, if you have an offer, and you're not feeling great about the business anymore, you can start getting into analysis paralysis about what you can maybe have and how much bigger you thought the business would be. But if you have an offer that seems reasonable and you're ready to leave, take the money and run and go on to your next thing. I don't think anyone, any entrepreneur that had an exit, their first exit is going to be upset about the value of their first exit.

34:32I don't think anyone's going to look back and say, dang, I could have got 3x for that. I think anyone that had a reasonable exit is going to be happy. I think the founders that don't take the exit, and I'm going to use my last company as an example, the company I don't think exists anymore. I think after a year it went bankrupt. Or who knows where it is today. And we had an opportunity, and he had an opportunity to take that ride with me. And I think he even admitted to me when things weren't going well a year or so later that he wished he listened to me. Um, so I think it's an example for most entrepreneurs and founders.

35:11If they, you know, if you have a good offer on the table, don't be greedy and take the money and run and go on your next thing, unless you're in love with the business and you want to be doing it for a very long time. That's a different story. Um, let's talk about your globe trotting because I know you still traveling a lot and you're an Argentine right now. So what did it give you and why do you continue living around the world? I love that question because it gave me pretty much everything I have in my life today. You know, when I was starting my business pack, I was so close to just living the normal lifestyle like all my friends were kind of committing to.

35:46I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, and pretty much at the age of like 25 to 30, everybody either owns a house, you know, has a wife, a dog, and, you know, they kind of have a steady home and routine, which it's a beautiful place to live. and I don't shame it at all. And I was so close to buying a condo and getting a dog and kind of settling down with finding a partner in Atlanta. And I decided one day right before I was about to sign an offer on a condo and adopt a dog, I was like, what am I doing? I have my own job that I can work anywhere in the world. I have my own company. It's expensive. I mean, it's way more expensive to live in Atlanta than it is to live in some places in South America.

36:31I'm going to take a four-month trip and see how I like it and travel to Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico City, a month in each country. There's a program called Remote Year, which I highly recommend to anybody that's looking to travel and not sure how to do it or doesn't feel comfortable. They basically set you up with a group of other digital nomads or entrepreneurs, freelancers that can work remote. They set you up with housing and co-working space, and they make it very easy for you to go travel and work in different countries. So I said, I'm going to sign up for this program. It was cheaper than my rent was in Atlanta.

37:03So why not? And, you know, after meeting some of my very closest friends today on this trip and having probably the most fun I've had since I was maybe in college, my last weekend of the trip, I was in Mexico City, and I ended up meeting my wife when I was down there, who, you know, is from Mexico. So, you know, we ended up meeting, this was like three months before COVID and we fell in love extremely quickly. And I ended up deciding just to live with her through the pandemic. So I lived in Mexico city for four years through the pandemic. And now my wife and I are, you know, traveling, waiting for her, her citizenship to move to, to Florida and St.

37:43Pete, um, you know, later this year. And the fact that I was able to learn how doable it is to live in South America, Latin America, being able to work anywhere, the power of geo arbitrage, making dollars, spending pesos, you know, it's just huge. Like it's so massive for anyone that can do it where so many people are looking for their next investment or their next get rich quick scheme to make an extra 10, 20 % a year. Just move to Buenos Aires or move to Colombia and make U.S. dollars and spend pesos and your money is going to go 3x, 4x because of the cost of living. And I think a lot of people don't pay attention to it, but more than just the financial aspect, I'm able to learn an entirely new language and connect with like twice as many human beings on the planet.

38:32So it's just so fun for me to be able to go out and have conversations with someone that I would have never been able to have a conversation with. You can meet the love of your life like I did because, you know, it gave me a new perspective of just people out there in general. And there's people all over the world that can resonate with you that don't have to come from your specific bubble at home. And for me, that was super important. Yeah, the food, like you can't, the amount of like the amazing food that we get to eat in Mexico City. And even in Buenos Aires, I'm so incredibly surprised by the quality of the food and these places and how organic the foods are, how fresh they are, how healthy they are.

39:08And in my part of the world and the States, it's extremely difficult to find clean food. So there's just things that you don't think about that I advise to anybody, especially someone that's graduating from college that has a remote sales job in tech or, you know, can work remotely where a lot of people can do now after COVID. instead of moving to New York City or moving to London or moving to Miami and spending$4 ,000 a month on rent and having four roommates and living in a closet, like go to Medellin and live in a penthouse for half the cost and meet new friends and you're doing the same type of work, but then it also just gets you out of your comfort zone because you're now going out and doing things that, you know, taking salsa lessons, or there's just so many more activities and cultural experiences that you can have and learn from than just doing what everybody else does.

40:05And I become extremely passionate about this way of life. It's not going to last forever. My wife and I are talking about potentially having kids, and we're going to have to have a home and have, you know, maybe more of a steady life. But up until that point, you got like maybe five, 10 years to really take advantage post-college of being free and independent, go work remote. Like I'm a huge proponent of it. Yeah, me too. I've done it too. I traveled quite a bit, especially after my first exit actually. And one thing I found particularly impactful looking back is that I've learned so much about myself.

40:44When you put yourself in a completely different situation, you just understand yourself much better. I don't know if you also had that conclusion. Yeah, totally. Where'd you go, by the way? Well, all over the place, Asia and Europe. Not as much South America, actually, as you did, because I lived in New York at that time, and I kind of really wanted to go to something outside of both Americas. But I think in a way it doesn't matter as long as it's in a completely new environment. It doesn't matter what culture you pick to explore further. Absolutely. I mean, I think the hardest part for me was being the gringo, you know, being the white boy, you know, in Mexico City with my wife and all of her friends.

41:29And, you know, fortunately, my wife, her family and friends, they all can speak English fluently. But when they're all together, you know, especially in the beginning when I was just learning Spanish, I was that weird kid in the corner kind of like hiding behind my glass, you know, because I didn't understand a word that was happening. And I was so used to being more of the outgoing one, the one bringing people together in my hometown and having a bunch of friends. And now I'm here like kind of as the quiet one that couldn't really participate in the conversations unless I really forced myself to learn more Spanish.

42:02And that's a huge growing opportunity for me. I learned that it's OK to be quiet. It's OK to listen. It's OK to be uncomfortable. and it took me a long time to learn that because there were many nights where I was extremely frustrated of like oh like I miss my people I miss being able to speak my own language and I have to ask my wife to make dinner reservations and I can't really be like the man of the house to be able to really like you know do much in this city even driving took me some time I mean Mexico City is insane when it comes to driving and for many months I wasn't ready to drive there so My wife had to drive me around like I was handicapped, you know, like, and finally I had to step up and say, okay, like, I'm going to learn to drive here.

42:44I'm going to learn how to speak this language so I can do basic things. And like you said, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge growth and personal development. And I think I'm very proud of, of a lot of those achievements that I've had making new friends from different places. Even the friends that, you know, don't speak English for me is, is, is the most fun where I've got really close friends that we built our whole relationship in Spanish. I even went to, you know, therapy a couple of times and saw like a coach or therapist in Mexico City. And I did it all in Spanish. It was definitely a lot cheaper than finding a U.S.

43:17counselor. But at the same time, it was so fun for me to be able to express my feelings and emotions and things in Spanish. And that that to me has has led to, you know, a lot of experiences that I've had and strange experiences that I would have never had unless I was in different places. So I totally agree with your testimony there. You mentioned coaches and therapy a few times during this interview. Talk to me a bit more about it. What role, say, therapy played in your life generally? Yeah, so the first time I got kind of introduced to coach therapy, my wife is big in therapy. She loves, you know, speaking to different therapists and doing all kinds of different rituals around therapy.

43:59So she definitely opened my eyes to the positive aspects of being able to share your feelings and emotions with somebody that can help, etc. It all started, I guess, through the dilemma I was having on my first business that I was trying to get out of, where I started feeling extremely nervous, uncomfortable. I wasn't happy. I was kind of in the dumps for a while trying to figure out what to do and stress. So that's when I started exploring what coaching could mean. I, the first engagement I had was actually with a business coach. Um, and I respect him a ton. You know, he was a fighter pilot, uh, in the air force and he sold oil and gas business did incredibly well.

44:43And he was very logical tactical, but at the same time had, you know, a really great perspective of life in a spiritual sense. So it was definitely more of a, of an, of an expensive engagement because of his credentials versus a standard, you know, I would say counselor or therapist or psychologist. But for him, he was, you know, it was very tactical, like, all right, just sell the business, you know, like, you're not happy, get out, you know, versus let's go in deep and let's talk more. And, and I and I learned a lot from that. And I and I appreciate that a lot also, because what I learned through that coaching, and then I went to more of a typical therapist, I was looking for someone that could also teach like Zen or meditation and more on the spiritual psychs, I think that's really where it comes from, where you can find peace and be present, then you don't really need to overthink where you got to today and how everything evolved.

45:33You can just do your best to focus on the present moment and move forward. But with those different aspects of therapy and coaching, which I really just did through kind of the tougher parts of my life, and now I'm trying more and more to just practice meditation and read books about being present. That's really been my best kind of therapy. Um, but through that, what I really learned, and this is for me personally, is I could have been going to a therapist for, you know, years to talk about how anxious and upset and stressed I was about a certain thing. Usually something is causing this anxiety and you typically know what it is for me.

46:09My partnership wasn't serving me. I wasn't happy where then get out, you know, like then sell, You know, then if you're in a relationship where, you know, you keep going to a therapist to talk about how your boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or spouse is causing you grief or is not getting along with you or, and if that's a repetitive theme, you typically don't need to like fix yourself. Maybe you're just in a bad relationship, you know, and I think sometimes the world of therapy can become problematic when you're overthinking these things that like my coach told me in the beginning, well, then just sell.

46:51And then the minute I sold, I was I was good. I didn't have to go to that. I have to talk about my feelings much anymore. So I think there's a healthy balance between maybe figuring out what's causing you problems, what's making you unhappy. And a therapist can really help kind of dial in, you know, the core problems if you're having, you know, anxiety or stress that you might not be able to really dial in on. But once you dial that in, it's back to you to be decisive and to be clear about, you know, what your next step is. And as much as it's scary and, you know, jumping into the unknown and there's so many feelings around it, that's what's going to make you feel better, not going to more therapy.

47:27And that's what I learned from my experiences. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Therapy is great to help you understand yourself, but it's still you who makes the decision and it's extremely important. It's like, for example, getting advice from lawyers when you have a business. it's still on you to make the decision whatever the legal advice is it's similar i agree yeah i do i do meet quite a lot of people who become very dependent on therapy um and that's not healthy that paralyze their ability to make decisions or they make decisions that don't come truly from this understanding of themselves and then like you said it becomes almost a dependency of of how much can you trust yourself versus needing to get clearance from a therapist or a professional, you know, and I agree.

48:20I've seen that. Confidence also in your own ability to make decisions for yourself. And as entrepreneurs, we tend to make decisions that are quite different from what other people do. And I think it's important to keep doing that to stay on our own path. Yeah. And like I mentioned, for me now, I think from what I've learned through going through that experience, which I think any everybody should test out, you know, if they're not feeling great, or if they feel like they want to work on themselves. Absolutely. It's super healthy to test out different therapists and coaches and figure out what serves you.

48:52For me, through that experience of trying different therapists and coaches, what what I've realized is working on being grateful and present, and maybe a coach and maybe like a meditation coach or, you know, some sort of coach that can help you focus on those tactical tools to get you there is great, but it's really just going to come down to practice, you know, like that's when, you know, for in Buddhism, you got to practice meditation and that's the main part of that sect is just making sure you're being present and sitting down and you can even just go for a walk or just putting things in your life to help you be present.

49:34That's really it for me, at least at this point where I have a ways to go. I have a long way to go, but at least trying to sit down for 15, 20 minutes in the morning and meditate and taking time in my calendar to go on a walk in the afternoon, things that I didn't do years ago, I can sense are helping me enjoy my days. They make the days longer. Um, and they help me be, you know, way more mindful, you know, for the things that, that, that are going on in my life on a day-to-day basis versus just getting wrapped up, starting your day, picking up your phone and boom, the next thing you know, you're just all in your head and the day's over.

50:08So that's really it for me. I like to call this spiritual fitness because for me, it's not that different from physical fitness. You need to put a bit of effort to understand the rules, what works and what doesn't. And then you have to practice and there's no other way to ensure you have this spiritual growth. And spiritual growth is how we make our life more fulfilling, more meaningful, more purposeful. There is no shortcut. Like you can't just become an Olympic swimmer if you don't train every day. It's the same thing. You can't have a fulfilling life if you're not working on your spiritual fitness on a daily basis.

50:44The earlier you understand it, the better. And I think you are extremely lucky or wise, maybe, that you came to this conclusion so early in your life. Thank you. I feel the same way. I feel like we all get caught up in these new biohacks of getting up and doing a cold plunge and sauna. And those things are great. I love taking cold showers in the morning and it wakes me up and great. But it's way more important to just do your best to take a step back throughout your days. And like you said, practice rituals, just like you would go to the gym on a daily basis, then having to hire XYZ coach and read xyz book and just do the practice and i think what's most relevant is there's not a secret solution just be happy you know all the time they have people that have 100 million dollar exits 200 million dollar exits they're they're still going to be working to make another 300 400 million dollars like it it's a constant rat race where until you know you get to a point where you realize that and you're aware that you don't really need that much and you don't need to be that spectacular.

51:58You don't have to do, you don't have to save the planet. You just have to be a good person and live a good life and, you know, keep your, your relationships close to you. Like for me, I'm starting to realize as I start thinking about, um, children and raising a family, like that's really all I care about is becoming like a great dad and being a great husband. And I don't think that I need to have any kind of legacy of being like a entrepreneur, businessman, cannabis, whatever. I think it's more important to have a company or a business or job that allows you to have the freedom to be that identity that you want to be or just be the person that you want to be.

52:35And for me, that would be as simple as just being a great contributor to my family and being there for the people that love me. and it says sometimes we overcomplicate things a lot where I did an exercise where it was it was kind of like called like your perfect day exercise I think it came from Tony Robbins or something but it was so basic where I went to this mastermind and they had us all essentially write out what our perfect day would look like our perfect week would look like our perfect month would look like in our perfect year would look like. And as, as detailed as what time are you waking up?

53:11Is someone cooking breakfast for you? Are you going to yoga every day? Are you doing that on a weekly basis? Uh, where are you living? Are you living on the beach? How big is your house? How, and you know, um, how often are you going on a trip on a, on a yearly basis? How long is the trip? And then you put a budget next to every single one of those items. So it's going to cost 40 bucks a yoga class. It's going to be a$10 ,000 trip every year, what, you know, whatever the numbers are. And you add that up and with the you know 15 people in this group that we did this exercise with I think about 80 percent of the group had this eye-opening experience including myself and it was like wow but the money that we're making now we're already there there's nothing else that we need like the the income that every one of the people in the group was already generating could afford them that lifestyle so so what are we doing you know what what's the point of working harder what's the point of going to these masterminds?

54:04What's the point of pushing, pushing, pushing when everything on paper was already, it was our dream life and we could afford it tomorrow. So that was a huge kind of eye-opening experience for me of like every, you know, why do we keep pushing so damn hard when it could be so easy to take a step back and say, yeah, there's not really much more we need. Oh, well, you continue the running businesses and building new businesses and creating an industry association. So there was something else in it besides money that drove you. And I would love to understand that. Yeah, it's a good question. And it definitely sounds super critical of like, okay, great.

54:41You have what you need. I'm making enough money to do what I want to do. And then I'm going to keep building businesses or starting new things. And I, you know, from the evolution of the collection agency. So after I sold the packaging business and focused on the collection agency, it was almost an organic process of an evolution of this new company. And it was as simple as we help companies collect money in the cannabis industry. If anyone's owed money, we help collect it on a contingency basis. So we've helped collect more money than any other group out there in cannabis. And we built a really solid foundation for debt collections.

55:19Now, our clients will say, Brett, thank you so much for helping us collect all this money. but how can you make sure this won't happen to us in the future? How can we protect ourselves from these bad actors and these people that don't pay their bills? And in cannabis, nobody's really reporting to the big credit bureaus. No one's really accustomed to credit reporting in general. And Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax, TransUnion, they hardly have any data on cannabis companies because it's not normal in cannabis. So because we already had the clientele, we already had the credibility, the name, We set up a sister company called the Cannabis Credit Association, which was intended to do just that, to bring our clients and different companies in the industry together to report their AR data.

56:06And in a sense, they can finally make better decisions. So for me, it was as simple as just solving a problem. You know, there was a problem out there. I tried different solutions. I tried, you know, working with these other partners and credit agencies that already do this work, but there was no data there. And they really weren't pushing the initiative either. So for me, it was just a way of solving a problem. And if it turns into a huge financial success, that's icing on the cake for me. At this point, that's fun. For me, it's been an amazing experience because I've partnered with someone who's really doing the day-to-day acting as the president where I'm not the go-to guy like I have been in my previous companies.

56:49and for me it's been an amazing experience more than anything else to learn and work on on more management high level strategy really becoming an owner more of an investor mindset and how I can take those skills to other ideas or opportunities in the future versus me having to be bogged down in the entire business setup from A to Z so aside from the business solving a problem and that being kind of a driving force for me. The other is more a little bit more internal and more high level of, okay, this is teaching me something that I've always wanted to get to a point. How can I build a business without having to take up 40, 50 hours of my day and learn to delegate, learn to hire better, learn to, you know, work on the company versus working in the company.

57:37And I think that's another, you know, great challenge for me that I am enjoying. Brett, do you have a sense of purpose? That's a good one. I think I'm getting there. I think I'm getting there. I think I'm finding it. I think, like I mentioned before, the process and bridge of just identifying as a good human being and a family man is really all I want to be. I think there's a lot of ways I can improve the level of attention and contribution in my marriage. And I think there's a lot of ways that I can prioritize my relationship with my friends and family over my relationship with my business. And that's a conflict because of the last seven years of being in a certain habit and a certain mindset of company needs to succeed and I need to work super hard and I can't fail.

58:33and realizing that I identified as an entrepreneur for so long as like that was number one of I needed, I wanted to be a founder that had an exit and business, business, business to being, that's completely secondary or, you know, something that's going to just channel the ability for me to identify and have a purpose of being, you know, a great friend, a great husband and a future great father. I don't think I need anything more than that. I don't need to save the planet. If I do one day, great. I think I can do my best to support good, you know, positive things in this world. And if it becomes a charitable nonprofit idea one day, great.

59:21things that might circulate. But right now, if I'm just a good human that treats the planet well and treats my family well and treats my friends well, I think I'll be an old man one day and say, I lived a good life. Can I make a prediction? Please do. Let's do it. I think you'll be a fantastic father. But when your children leave your nest, you'll get absolutely obsessed about saving the world. That's a great point, right? If I identify so much as a great father and they believe me, I'm going to be absolutely destroyed. But I actually heard something on a podcast or a quote, I might butcher this.

59:57So I'm going to try my best to remember, but it was like, the definition of success for me is my kids considering me their best friend when they're adults. And I love that where it's like, if I can essentially become best friends and super close to my children when they're out of the home, then I think I've mastered everything that, you know, I would want where I was obviously the husband and father and person that my kids want to be around. So yeah, I think I like that quote, but we'll see because I don't have kids yet. So maybe they're just absolutely rugrats and I can't stand them. I actually don't think you'll be devastated necessarily when they leave home.

1:00:42um given even this whole experience you're having with your father right now i think it will probably be a smooth transition transition and maybe you and your kids together will be uh on a journey to save the world yeah that would be fun more than telling you that you'll be devastated i would love that would be so much fun for me i think to like be able to to pass the torch you know from generation to generation and pass it down to my kids and and work with them in a business capacity even, that would be great. And my dad did the same thing. He's been extremely supportive. He even loaned us some money in the beginning of starting my first companies.

1:01:20But everything was very transactional too, which I really appreciate. Everything's in writing. I treat him just like any other investor. And I love the way that he taught me that where if I ever get into business with my kids, it's yeah, like I'm your dad, but at the same time, we're doing business here. So, you know, two of my three children are almost out of the house. And one completely life-changing advice that I got from a much older father and also exited founder some time ago was that it's extremely important to not miss this moment when you need to switch from being a parent to being a mentor.

1:01:53Not necessarily a friend, by the way, but a mentor. And it sounds like your father did exactly that. And look at the results. You turned out great. You have the amazing relationships. And you have some wisdom that he taught you that he will be bringing to your own family and your kids and probably doing even better job by then. So it's fantastic to see. Yeah, I love that. That's a really nice way to look at it. Yeah, thanks for sharing. Yeah, I do it with my children. And I can't say we're necessarily best friends, but I know we're extremely close. And they value my opinion. They respect me. And it makes me so happy.

1:02:31And maybe in the future we will be more friends. But right now, I think they still need a mentor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's also a delicate balance, too, of still having the respect of a mother or father versus them sharing and treating you like a best friend, which maybe in high school or, you know, we might not need all that information. But you clearly have an amazing EQ, emotional intelligence, especially for your age. So I'm absolutely not worried about you being an amazing parent. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to do our best to live the next maybe nine months or so and be selfish and do what we want to do and travel and not have a lot of stuff.

1:03:12But yeah, it's starting to be a topic. Try to be selfish and love each other before kids come to their life and challenge everything. Exactly, exactly. And make you live in one place and not all around. That's how my gloop trodden ended. Yeah, that's what I've heard. So we were like, let's try to get it all out of our system and, you know, basically be ready and excited to settle down versus being forced to settle down. So how do you want to be remembered? Yeah, I'm going to go back to kind of like this, this common theme that it's kind of new for me, even speaking about it out loud. but a good father, a good husband, and a good friend, a good son.

1:03:53I think the pressure of saying I want to be known as a CEO of a certain company or being a multi-ultra wealthy billionaire, millionaire, it doesn't really resonate with me. I don't really care. Maybe in the future, if we do have this podcast in seven years, maybe I find a philanthropic opportunity where maybe I might want to be remembered as somebody that helped a particular part of this planet. And that's something that I'm definitely going to let marinate a little bit. But other than being just a good family man, the other thing is, and I think it's something that people do see me as today, is being supportive, being enthusiastic when it comes to, you know, entrepreneurship and somebody, deciding to take a risk and leap into an unknown situation that could help free them from the constraints of what our capitalist society has put on us in the terms of nine to five and kind of corporate slavery.

1:04:57I've become passionate about that topic a lot. And I think people resonate and are attracted to speaking with me because I might be able to share some of that energy to say, You don't have to be stuck. Like you can do this. It's not that hard. If I can do it, you definitely can do it. And if I'm remembered for that, that'd be great too. Because I do think, you know, the word entrepreneurship has just been very trendy lately. It's thrown around a lot. And if you really dial into it, for me, it's as clear as like entrepreneurship is equal to freedom in my perspective. Some people get stuck in their jobs and some people actually like, you know, work themselves into a job that's harder than if they work for somebody else because, you know, they haven't really learned to delegate or they don't know how to.

1:05:42But if you can get to true entrepreneurship where you can build a business and become an owner, your life opens up substantially. And I think the majority of people, at least in my circle, have more than the accolades and experience and skill set to do it. It's just being a different world for them. And if I could help them see that that world isn't so scary and it's not that hard, that'd be a cool thing to be remembered for as well. So now that you've achieved financial freedom, how do you define freedom? Right now, where I'm at, it's essentially being able to do, live, eat, work on whatever I want, wherever I want.

1:06:24Essentially, I don't have to think about, should we go to this restaurant tomorrow because can we afford it or not? I don't have to think, should we take this trip in a couple weeks? And I have to be conscious about my responsibilities at work, which is also something that I enjoy doing. You know, I'm choosing to come back and I don't want to spend three weeks on a vacation because not only do I know it's going to be a little bit more stressful for when I come back, but I do want to come back home earlier because I want to spend more time working on the business. I actually enjoy it. Yeah. And so there's always a limit to, of, it's not a problem.

1:07:04If you, if you like to work either, you know, it's not a bad thing if you want to come home and, and, and, and work on your business. Um, but I have the option to choose what I want to do and how long, I don't think I actually started getting a little bit uncomfortable after four weeks of traveling and not having a gym to go to not being in a routine, not working on the business. It was one of those things where I felt, okay, I had a great time, but there's a balance where, you know, there's only so long I could sit on a beach and read a book. Um, I think that's what happens to most retired people.

1:07:37They think that they're going to hit this retired, you know, heaven of, of doing nothing and chilling and relaxing and it's boring and your mind's not stimulated and you're not learning and you're not growing. And I think that's what leads to people, you know, unfortunately getting old and um you know not having purpose and that really destroys a human being we either grow or we die right yes and we can decide to keep growing and then we keep living exactly i think that's how our dna works we are designed definitely is we crave growth and if we stop at some point thinking that this is where happiness is life teaches us very quickly that no absolutely not you you keep growing in all the necessary direction and only then you get this reward of fulfillment.

1:08:22And with financial success, it allows you to be a little bit more creative in those options. You know, I feel a bit more open to taking risks that I wouldn't have taken otherwise or think about business opportunities that I didn't think would be possible otherwise. For example, if I wanted to get into real estate, I could decide, let's start, you know, and buy a multifamily and Airbnb it and see how that goes. And that's been a consideration. And just the idea of having those thoughts fly is fun. It's interesting. It's enjoyable. And knowing that I would be able, I have the confidence in myself, not only from a financial level, but from an experience level where I could say, okay, I'm going to put more time into real estate instead of these companies.

1:09:05All right, great. I'm going to take these actions to delegate the businesses and focus on real estate. Before the financial security and before the experience of learning these skills, I probably wouldn't have had those same thoughts. and I would have probably freaked out about the idea of buying a multifamily house or starting some other company or starting a business mastermind or doing anything else because I'd be like, how am I going to do all this? It's too much. Now it's way easier for me to say, okay, I can take that risk. I can try it out. If it doesn't work out, okay, I'm going to be okay.

1:09:40And it's not the end of the world. What's your investment philosophy? I'm pretty boring. I put probably 90%, maybe 85 % in ETFs and in a stock market. And the other small percentage, I'll dabble in crypto. I still think we've got legs on Bitcoin, Ethereum. So I'm pretty bullish, especially living in these countries like Argentina. And having a wife that's from a different country, there's also a philosophical element of I really hope this thing works out because trying to send my wife money through banks is just absolutely ridiculous. And then having to send money to someone in a different country when we're also globalized now, working with people from all over the world, and they make it so hard to take your money and share it with somebody else, even though I can send you a photo, I can send you a video, I can send you anything else digitally, except for money that I made, I think is absolutely ridiculous.

1:10:45So long-winded answer of saying I really hope and personally invested in cryptocurrency becoming a thing. And the rest, you know, small investments. Maybe one or two times I've invested in friends' companies or other people's businesses really as more of a show of support to them. And kind of a fun kind of, you know, like you go to a casino and you start gambling. Like it's just a fun thing for me. But very boring, you know, put money in the ETF. And then if I ever plan on investing more in my current companies, I will take money out and put it into those businesses. But for the most part, if I need to raise money, I typically prefer to find strategic investors or investors that could add to the business versus taking it out of my family's portfolio.

1:11:36So it's pretty basic. Sounds great. Sounds great. Bre, thank you so much. This was wonderful. I really, really enjoyed this interview. I did as well. This was great. Thank you so much for having me. And we'll fight again in five or seven years. Maybe with your heart. I'm down. I'm down. We're very down. So sign us up. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.