The Random Show - Phil Rankin

Another episode of “The Random Show”!

Today I’m sitting down with one of my favorite guests & clients - Phil Rankin - it’s cold and snowing but we’re behind the mic warming our souls with strong beverages and good conversation. A couple of farm boys hitting various topics that are important today to our businesses, management, entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and life.

Phil Rankin, CEO of Even Mix and Triad Capital - Even Mix designs and manufactures foldable mixing blade mixers.  Using aerospace engineering techniques to design pump technology into variable pitch blades, bringing true mixing technology to in-drum liquids.  

I hope you enjoy the show - we sure had fun making it happen!

Learn more about Even Mix and Drum Mixing at https://evenmix.com

A few things we hit:

University of Chicago Booth School of Management 

Bob Feller and the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, IA

The concept of the Efficient Frontier

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Transcript

Randy: 0:02

I'm Randy Rohde and I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs and small business owners. Plus I love baseball. Every show I sit down with a small business owner and we discussed their running the basis of entrepreneurship. We throw the ball around on strategy management, execution and innovation, plus a little fun baseball tag. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Settle in, grab your cracker jacks and you know what they say. Okay. It's a great day for a ball game. And today we are stepping in again into our world of experiments and continuing with our random show. And I do have to say. Thankful and humbled that our guest today, , actually appeared on our second show ever, , of the podcast. And then it's Phil Rankin. This was way back in may of 2020, right? It's that seems like a university. Yes. But Phil Rankin, CEO of even mix and the triad group and a another farm boy to join me here in the studio. And I brought him in evidently it was out snow blowing right before he came into the

Phil: 1:25

studio. It's too exciting though. It's, it's nice and chill outside and you can move the snow and it feels good. I don't know. I always enjoyed that. It feels good to move the snow feeling good.

Randy: 1:39

It's funny you say it and put it that way because I agree. I there's a piece of me. That's like, I don't know. I kinda like, you know, I have. Moving the snow and seeing the concrete underneath. I get a weird satisfaction about that. It's an odd, I know my family, like, why are you moving that snow again? I'm like, it just feels good. It's what I

Phil: 2:00

want it to be. It's you know, it's a nice crisp day. I'm getting exercise. I've been hearing people talk about, oh, you know, people aren't clearing the site. She has to walking to school. I'm like, you know what, my street dominate. I'm like, you're going to be totally clear. It is good.

Randy: 2:19

Yeah. That's so funny. And I was going to ask you, because we're kind of along this vein. So growing up on a farm as well, I grew up in embarrass, got a farm you're from Iowa and, you know, work. Friends still, regardless of the competing states still, still, but to you, you know, when I talk with people and I'm like, Hey, how's it going? What's what's new, but as a farm boy, and evidently I say something or comment about the weather, it's like, it's almost just like ingrained in me and I don't know why. It's just like, wow. You know, Hey, it's cold out on it. We're dealing with the snow. It's a beautiful blue sky or whatever. Right. And I don't know if that really is just farm boy or if that's just my quirk.

Phil: 3:10

Well, yeah, I'll tell you something. And I just, I realized this when I started my career, you know, I lived in Chicago after I went to university and, and one thing I realized that really surprised me, that I miss is when I was growing up in Iowa, you know, dry and we'd drive like six miles into town to school. I always knew what season it was, of course, because just, you could just tell by looking around the plants were, and not only what season it was, but where exactly you were in that season. Because I drive down the road, it's like, oh yeah, the corn is about 11 inches tall. It's like, it must be in the middle of June, you know, knee-high by the 4th of July, that's the corn, you know? And then it's like, okay, it's, it's about October. They're not quite harvesting yet, but they're getting ready. And you could just, you could feel it in the air. You could feel it right here. I can see it in the plants. I, I do definitely miss that being, you know, among the plants, among the crops, because you really, you felt it, you didn't, you didn't have to have a calendar. Right? I didn't need a calendar whatsoever. Of course. You know, you could say, well, Phil, you don't need a calendar right now. We got snow. And this time it was always kind of hard to tell, but summertime fall spring, I knew exactly when it rains,

Randy: 4:27

feel it. See it, are you that way with directions as well?

Phil: 4:31

I'm really bad at street names. I'm like,

Randy: 4:34

oh, I I'm horrible with street names. Like if somebody, like what my wife says, oh, it's over on mill court or wherever. I'm like, where's that I've lived here 15 years. I don't know where that is. Is that south of us or what? The

Phil: 4:49

directions that our house used to be like, you know, take highway 1 69 south until the road takes a hard, right? Yes. And you see a barn right in front of you and then you take the next, right? Yeah. And then you keep going. Until you see three blue silos on the left-hand side, and then you take a lot, you know, if you smell, if you pass the big farm too far. Right. So see the three big blue silos.

Randy: 5:15

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I know. And I know you have a, a, a daughter that's a grade older than my son, I think, or maybe even older than that, actually., so you probably have gone through this, but my son now is 16 is out driving, not on his own yet. He hasn't gotten his license yet. He's still going through the driver's ed piece, but we'll go out driving and I'll let him drive. My theory is with him and I've had the sense he got his permit last July, which is, I want you to try as much as I can get you behind the wheel. So anytime I'm in a car, you are going to drive because I it's just, you get. With more experience. It doesn't just happen. Right. So, oh yeah. But then when we're out and I'll tell him, well, come up here and I'll say, all right, go, go north at this light. And he's like,

Phil: 6:07

yeah, well, if you a few comments on that, yes. Directions, like as far as north, south, east, west totally lost on them. They really ought to think about it as well as, you know, reading a clock. But you know, that's another shift. So there's one, here's a real quick story about driving if I can. So growing up so my mom is at a meeting in Minneapolis and we just lived outside of Des Moines, Iowa. And my dad used to every once in a while, let me, when I was in. And that was probably like, you know, 13, 12 sit in the passenger side. Oh, yeah. So this is like a Friday night, you know, he'd been working all week. I get it now. He was dead tired. So, and we get in the car and my dad and my sister and I were driving out to Minneapolis, like a three-hour drive from Des Moines area. So we're driving up, I'm listening to of course like the star wars, like movie on a tape, listening to that soundtrack. It's not the music, like the entire pool

Randy: 7:10

with the

Phil: 7:11

dialogue and everything. Like the audio that's even know that that was available. Oh yeah. So listening to the movie sitting in the driver's side, steering on interstate 35 and it's, and it's getting late, it's like nine o'clock or something. And my dad's. He fell asleep. My mom was super pissed about this. When she found out who's

Randy: 7:35

controlling the gas, are you doing the gas

Phil: 7:37

control? Okay. So, you know, there's, there's not enough cars, so we're cruising along 60 miles an hour. I'm steering from the right hand side. And then I finally had to wake my dad up. I'm like, damn, I'm like, we're getting close to Minneapolis. Like there are some cars coming. Of course I didn't, you know, I didn't say anything to my mom. My sister told my, oh yeah, my dad got in big trouble for that one. And that's a, that's a classic story in our family. Never

Randy: 8:05

fails if you know, if it's just between you and your parents, you can good chance. You can probably contain it. If there's another one, forget it. Oh

Phil: 8:14

no, no, no, no way. Yeah. Same thing with my kids. I'd take them to, you know, this isn't being recorded. Right.

Randy: 8:22

But just between us, just between

Phil: 8:24

you and me. Oh yeah. I take my kids, you know, 12 I'd take them to a big parking lot. Sure. Put them in the driver's seat. And it's like, all right, you drive, aren't you aren't you nervous? I'm like, listen, you're not stupid. You know, you understand mechanics reasonably well, they're not going to kill you. You're not going to kill me. You're definitely not going to kill yourself. Let's drive around a little bit. You need to get a feel for this and understand how it works. I mean, you need to fail. I mean, don't run into anything, right? You need to, you need to get a feel of how

Randy: 8:58

you know, where the break is. Right. So that's, that's important right there. I, you know, that's funny you even say that because I think when Nick was a 13, I took him out to the geography fairgrounds and the way that that is laid out, they've got like roads. And so I'm like, just pretend we're out on the street and you just. And so we would just I'd since then I was out having him do that, just to get a sense, there was nothing out there. And so I was like, what a you're not going to hit anything and you know, that break. So just stop if you're unsure of anything, but , I was like the only way that you're going to be a good driver and where I feel that you're safe. And you know, what you're doing is if you just have hours and hours and hours and hours of experience, and first snow, we had this winter, like, let's go. And I took them out in the parking lot, like, all right, hit it, go accelerate, see what happens. And we got speeding, like slam on the brakes and just justice so that they get a sense of, you know, in Coleman driving,

Phil: 10:03

what's driving the way it's supposed to be all the time. Then it's like, well, They're never going to hit the brakes and sly. So then when that happens, I mean, right. So it's like, great. Let's let's let's do some stuff.

Randy: 10:17

Do a little control freak out

Phil: 10:19

here. Yeah, exactly. So, yes. So for my wife, I grew up in the suburbs, Chicago it's like, they had to pretty much play by the rules. And so I'm like, I know 180 degrees different listen, babe. I'm like, we were on trackers and we were like eight years old. It could have killed ourselves. And many other people w we weren't idiots, you know, and we learned to respect the machinery and how to

Randy: 10:42

use it. And that's the big piece. Respecting machinery., I will tell folks, you know, Phil and I are just sitting here in the nice cozy can't find the studio. And I got a little of our favorite bevy. Portas three fingers of some nice, a hundred proof here just to see how I don't know, I'm feeling toasty anyway. It feels good. So Phil CEO of Even Mix what's new in the world of mixers,

Phil: 11:11

you know, so we, we did a lot of product development last year, 2021 is big area of product development for us. And yeah, so we've been getting into just a lot of new markets. Farming is big for us right now because they buy a lot of chemicals, you know, before the end of the tax year. And then a lot of them start to thaw out and they're all separated. They need mixed again. They know they need mixed. And how are you going to do it? It's a lot easier with our equipment. That's what it's built for. So I've found a lot of that, you know, we've, we've got a lot of video content out there, a lot of written content and it's, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I have my bachelor's in accounting, my MBA in economics and finance and stuff, you know? Yeah. I grew up on a farm, so I kind of have, I don't have any kind of formal engineering degree, but I understand machines. I understand, I understand respect them and how they work. And I've gotten to know so much about mixing just by talking people and doing it on our own people call me up now. I mean, pretty smart people call me up with their mixing challenges and such, and they're like, you know, yeah. I will say, well, you know, we have this, you could watch this video that like you have, I've watched it. I've watched that like, feel, you know, a lot about mixing, like. I guess I do. I guess I do understand a little bit about it. So the fact that they're calling me and ask me questions and you know, very early on when I was selling the product, you know, I wanted to sell it. So I was like pushing it hard. Right? I wanted to answer yes. To every question. Now I answered no, a lot more. It's like, they're like, ah, could I do this? Like, you know, in Mike's I'm not going to tell you say no, but in my experience, it doesn't work very well. So you can try it if you want. But my experience, it doesn't work very well, but here's an option for you, you know, you try this. So I find myself, you know, confidently saying no, a lot more. It's like, I I'm totally fine with telling a customer. No. And if he says, oh, you know, this guy fills a joker, you know, I'm outta here. Okay, man. That's cool. It's like, yeah. Also the mixture of somebody else, you know, I don't, I don't have to sell a certain number and it's like, I enjoy what I doing. I'm Joe. I enjoy the fact that they get good results and that they call me back. Like, man, this thing is awesome. It's like, that's cool.

Randy: 13:32

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's for me as well. I think it's just a better approach to business as a whole. I mean, I think customers, and regardless of whether you get that sale today they're going to remember you and the honest feedback and you know, they'll come back at you and two months from now and say, you know, we talked about this, but what about this? Right. Can you do this? Right? You know, so I, I think it's a good way to do business and I respect

Phil: 14:00

that so much more fun. Yeah. So much more

Randy: 14:02

fun. And you really did do a lot of development. I you know, we've been working together for quite some time and this digital drive that you have out there. It's really

Phil: 14:13

cool. Yeah. That thing is super cool. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, you know, I had some obviously great, you know, I, I can't design this stuff myself. I have the ideas for it, you know, and I can find the right people. So yeah, the engineering for it was spot on. And the greatest thing is like putting this together just, and then analyzing the market, knowing it's like, yeah, we, we can do all this stuff. They can do this and it's not even close. Right. It makes it so much fun to sell because you're like, well, you could do this with ours, you know? And, and, you know, you ought to check those out. You know, I'm not trying, I don't try to talk down any, any of my competitors. I'm like, you can check this out. This is what the competitors can do. And just like, okay, ours weighs 15 pounds. There's ways about 85. Make your choice, you know, I'm just trying to lay facts. You can look it up yourself. Right, right. But this is the way they work. You know, ours is variable speed. There's you have to add something on. We can go to like a third of the max speed. They can go there and AC drive, they can only go to 60%. Right. You know, we can go a lot slower. If you want to, we have all these different capabilities. It can go stop, go stop cycle indefinitely. You know? And people are like, I mean, the fun thing is, you know, you can tell when you talk to somebody long enough, it's like, okay. Yeah, Randy, Randy is going to buy it right here. Right. And it'll be like, and it does this. And you can do these cycles. And they're like, really. Yes,

Randy: 15:51

I'm a digital marker. And so when we were doing this stuff on the digital drive and it was coming down, like, this is pretty cool, actually, what this does, you know? And I can only imagine that guys actually need this thing. We're like, wow. You know, I mean, for them, they really get the

Phil: 16:08

well, and the fun thing is, and I'm sure I'm a complete novice at it is, you know, I, I try, you know, I'm an accountant. It's like, you know, I'm, I'm a business guy, I'm a finance guy, but I try to, you know, I try to do as good as I can, like thinking about the psychology of the person buying it and, you know, thought a lot about our name even mix before we came up with it. You know? And there's reasons, there's reasons why it ends in an ex. Yes. It goes with what we do. But you know, I've also heard a lot about, Hey, if you end things in. You know, people like that sound and, you know, I could very easily call it the electric mixer, but,

Randy: 16:50

and applies you have air and electric. So you got,

Phil: 16:54

but the digital mixer, because it is, it's a digital motor, right. There's a digital readout. I mean, there's reasons to call it that and how much cooler it's like, that just sounds like it's a digital mixer versus like, oh, it's an electric mixer or something.

Randy: 17:09

Right. No digital, it sounds like it's revolutionary, you know, it's Sydney or right. Yes, it is. It is. And signs as we like to say. All right, well, that's good. That's good., since the beginning of the pandemic, you guys have been busy doing a lot of development, which is great. The random shows. I'm going to touch back on something that you threw out there, because I did have this as a I was wanting your insights, I guess, on this. So you went to university of Iowa. Right on go hot guys, go, huh? I'm from Nebraska, go Huskers. And then took the John up to university of Chicago catcher MBA at the booth school of management. Is that what they call it? Booth school of management. So they say school of management, it's just, or the booth business school. I don't know what they call it,

Phil: 18:01

how they term it. I'm not really, I'm not totally of, I think it's the booth school

Randy: 18:06

or yeah. Yeah. It is the booth school of management. Well, we'll call it that. So here's a question that I had for you. So, you know, you've done quite well for yourself. I mean, you came out of there, you had a great career and we talked about, by the way, folks, you want to get really some great stories from Phil. Go back and listen to a show. Number two with Phil in the even mix. But with your MBA from the university of Chicago, one of the best MBA programs in the country, I think it's the best. Oh, the best? Yes. Okay. Certainly is. I, I think it certainly is ranked in the top five in the country, actually top three. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, not to, yeah. In, in the world. Okay. Ah, there we go., this will be good. I'm sure I'll get some feedback from folks on that one. Here, and so I just did some quick research a little bit. So did you know that the average student coming out of the MBA program at booth specifically has a debt of just over 79,000? I don't know what you that's not the question that I'm going to point to, but so knowing people going to that school prestigious school, you know, it's got a name associated to it. So I, now the simple question is, okay, what is it worth it? Right. But really what I want to know, knowing your career trajectory, the path that you took as in your career, was it necessary? So it's different from saying it wasn't worth while because I love education and I don't know that I'd ever put a dollar figure on education, but it's different from saying, well, that was necessary that I needed to do that in order to what I'm doing now, which is, you know, today you're sitting in my studio kind of three-day beard on you and wearing snow blowing clothes. So

Phil: 20:10

for me, for this moment in life, this is exactly this

Randy: 20:17

exact moment. Yes. Tricking some bourbon and right. Specifically, specifically the bourbon I'm sure. You know, and I, I really went all out and so poor to my $20 bourbon here.

Phil: 20:30

You know, you didn't have to tell me that it tastes like a thousand. Ooh. But yeah. Great question so, well, That's a heart. Of course, it's hard for me to say what would have happened if I just had stayed at my bachelor's and carried on I'm sure. I I'm sure I still would have had a good career because, you know, I went back to this part-time after I'd been going to school for awhile. However, I will definitely say that you know, So when I did this, I was working in a company Amsted industries in Chicago.

Randy: 21:04

Okay. So that's good. So let's kind of put this a little bit into perspective from a timeline. So you are working for a company at the time, so you didn't go directly from all right. I just got my BA and I'm just immediately going off to get my MBA. Right. So you took a job with a company, whatever role you were probably. I don't know what world, of course you're Phil, you know, you probably were like, you know, assistant CFO w you know, they brought you in, but assistant controller,

Phil: 21:33

there you go.

Randy: 21:34

The corporation of the corporation. So you were working and then you decided, you know, I should go get, or did they encourage you to say Phil, you should go. And,

Phil: 21:43

Not, not personally, not specifically you know, the company I was working at that were a few people that had gone to Chicago or DePaul, or, you know, even, even,

Randy: 21:53

and the company was based in

Phil: 21:55

Chicago. Right. Even Northwestern, some people go there a little bit competitive there. But yeah, they're there. And the folks that were doing better in the company had gone to, you know, gotten their MBA at some good schools. So I had actually started my MBA when I was living in New Jersey at Rutgers. So real quick story. So I'd started my MBA at Rutgers. I, you know, I was actually halfway done there, halfway done, you know, basically after one of the classes I was halfway right. Halfway done. And then I had the opportunity. So this is right before Y2K at the opportunity to come back to Chicago and be the ERP project manager. So you're implementing the business system. Like the world was going to share, otherwise

Randy: 22:40

the lights are going out folks.

Phil: 22:41

So absolutely. So those of us that are old enough to remember all that, oh, you know, my, my kids don't have any kind of stuff, all that stuff. So why two K and they're like, what? But it was a big deal back then. So, so first I had the opportunity to come back. I'm like, be that project manager, you know, that's kind of like an it finance, you know, management thing. Great, great opportunity. Super hot at the time. So it's like, all right. Yeah. And you know, back at the corporate office division office for us, so yeah. I'll take that transfer back. So then I applied to schools in Chicago and of course Chicago is like, Yup. You'll start

Randy: 23:17

over. That's what I was wondering if you transferred. I haven't Rikers is not a slouch either for a program. I mean, you would have been, you know, well-respected to get an MBA from Rutgers, but I would imagine that Chicago probably would have said, yeah, so

Phil: 23:32

they don't take anything from anybody, nothing, you know, you start and you take all the classes, number three in the world, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I had to really think about that and I was accepted. I'm not going to detail, but I was accepted to a couple of other schools in Chicago and it's like, Yeah, this is university of Chicago is pretty serious. This is a very well-respected school. I'll start over, you know, I'm, I'm working. So luckily, you know, I graduated with no debt. It's like my employer Amsted industries paid for a lot of it, you know, thanks to them. I mean, I worked there for like 10 years, great company going Aesop company. Okay. Great experience. And, and then I even worked for a federal signal while I was there too. And they paid for, you know, so they didn't pay for all of it. They paid for park w you know, Kristen and I, and my wife, Chris and I, we, we made the decision to do the investment. So let's say, you know, as a finance person, then what I say, well, 7,900. Per se it's like, is that, is that worth the investment of the incremental increase that you've gotten over time? Right? Hands down. Sure. No doubt. And I can tell you it's was

Randy: 24:43

now that by the way is just the average debt, not what it cost the caregiver. I don't know what that I didn't, I don't have time to look up what the program caused back in 1953 or whenever you were there.

Phil: 24:55

Right? Come on. I'll even say my very first class. You didn't

Randy: 24:59

hear that TIG. I threw in there in 53. When you were in there. Yeah, that went right over

Phil: 25:04

your head

Randy: 25:05

to my answer. Okay. We are at a 10, if you are from Iowa. So that's shut Ching. But it did. I think you do have to kind of make some of those decisions. Like, am I going to put in this big investment? Am I going to get the return on it? Certainly

Phil: 25:26

for sure. For sure. And it was, yeah, it was, it was a decision that we made to make that investment. It was definitely worth it to us. And it's, I would say, you know, like I said, it's hard for me to say, I know where I've ended up. It's hard for me to say what w what would it have been like otherwise? Right. But I don't think, I mean, at least a couple of companies that I worked for after VAD, you know, and I I've had people say to me before, they're like, you know, dah, dah, dah. Yeah. So your background's like, wow, like, yeah, you went to university of Chicago. You're really smart. Yeah. And I'm like, Hmm, sure,

Randy: 26:00

sure. You could take that. Kristin did most of the work for me, but

Phil: 26:06

like, whether I am smart or not, it's like, that'll work out over time, you know, but thank you very much. Hey, Smart enough to make it in smart enough to make it out. It was, it was, it was an impressive place. There are a lot of really smart people going through two quick things going through orientation, you know, what where'd you go to undergrad? They went around my class of a hundred, all the part-timers like listed off in courses like Harvard brown, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these like Ivy league schools. And they were like, and then a few Michigan's and I was the only dude from Iowa. There's like a couple people from Illinois, you know, there was a few big tenors, but it was a lot of Ivy league. Sure. So that was, that was a little bit intimidating, you know, right at that point. Okay. I'm like, I'm cool with getting a B in these classes, you know, I'm all right with it. So it

Randy: 27:00

doesn't matter when you're at that level. Anyway, you're just like, I just got to get my degree. So whether you get a, B, nobody ever asked, did anybody ever ask you, well, what was your grade point? And coming out of

Phil: 27:13

the university of Chicago we have a non-disclosure policy, so you don't talk about grades. It doesn't

Randy: 27:20

matter, even. So it doesn't matter. So that's great. So that's, you know, you come out of their university. It is an impressive school. I mean, we lived in Chicago for a number of years and I just, I know the reputation and the people that that I have met coming out of there really quality, quality

Phil: 27:36

people. Well, thank you. Thank you for, including me in that crowd. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Randy: 27:40

I guess I'll throw you, right. So connecting you then kind of staying on this education vein a little bit. You just finished out your term as our local school board president. Yes. Yeah. Yes. What was that like? Not finishing it out. I, I missed the invitation to the party for them.

Phil: 28:07

It was small.

Randy: 28:08

But what was that experience like? I mean, we live and for our listeners, we live in a small it's, it's a village., I don't know what the exact population is like 3,500, 4,000 somewhere around in there., school, rough, the district, I don't know, 17, 18 hundreds, something around there. Give or take., so we're not huge by any means. We have, you know, essentially one school at each panel level. you and your term on the board really steered the district through quite a few different things. We had a very large capital project voted passed, and executed to, for us it was 34, 3,000,032 million. Yeah. And and then as well, you had the pandemic COVID you know, hit and had to guide the district and with that. So you had some pretty big issues

Phil: 29:04

going on. Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's a four year term, you know, it's an elected office. It's a four year term. I was very lucky where when I ran. Yeah, we basically ran unopposed are two of us running for two seats. So that's great because the last thing that I wanted to spend any time on was campaign politics. I just have no no appetite for it, zero. So, but yeah, it was a four-year term during that four years, we, the board of education pretty much in every school, they have two people that report to them, the superintendent and the treasurer. And when I came in, you know, pretty shortly thereafter, we hired a new treasurer and it is a very different hiring and, and well on then at the end, about three and a half years, we hired a superintendent. So we replaced both positions real quickly. It is a very different hiring process. And you're used to in the normal, you know, private enterprise world, very different it's a very gated process. You know, we found it because it's such a tight community. I mean, you advertise for a position and everybody in Ohio and most people in your Pennsylvania, you know, Indiana and know about it, right. It's a very tight community. So, and you have a lot of information on the people that apply for it. But a very interesting interviewing process. We replaced both those positions. Yes. We built a for us, we have three, three different campuses essentially. And we rebuild which in our town. Yeah. Small town. So if you're any kind of small, medium sized town, you'll understand this, this is like the 1914 building right. In the center of town. It's like, Hm. Do you abandon the building and like, turn it into condos or you rebuild the school there. I mean, there's so there's a lot of like hot political issues there. I'm like, Hmm. Well, I just, you asked, you know, my gut decision is like, it's the best thing for the community to have that there, you know, I just, I always try to visualize in the future, what would it be like, what would it be like if that was a condo building? Right. Interesting. You know, what would it be like if that was offices interesting? What is it like when it's a school? Well, that's like, that's like the hub of the town, especially in a small town like this, where it means so much to all the people in that community. So that was very important, you know, and then, okay.$32 million. So once we get it approved, it's like, all right, guys, on time, on time. On time, under budget, on time, under budget. Like, did you understand? You know, and that's the way we ran the project, you know, there, of course there's lots of details inside there, but we kept it on time under budget because the entire, you know, who are your shareholders? Who your investors, the entire community, they're all watching and they all walk around it all the time. Yeah.

Randy: 32:09

And, you know, I always wondered about this actually in with that project, huh. Essentially was the overseer or the oversight of that project. Was it the school board? Was it the superintendent? Jointly

Phil: 32:23

much more so like superintendent and for us, the assistant superintendent, Chris wafter. Yeah. So he w he was on that project all the time. Of course, the superintendent Dr. Hunt was on it quite a bit as well, you know, but the assistant superintendent was all over it cause he he's in charge of facilities. So he was on it, the board, you know, and of course people can take few different positions. Strategy is on board. Okay. We're going to be a very active board. We're going to be right in the school of shorts. We're going to have input on a lot of things. My position was always like we're a board of directors, you know, we guide, we set policy for the superintendent and the treasure. They execute they're their every day. I don't want to run the school. I don't, I don't want, I don't want to run the details of the school. I want to set the general policy, give you guidelines and let you go. Because you know, I've got other things to do. Like we have meetings, you know, public meetings and, you know, that's another aspect that is very different, you know, I'm not, I wasn't there, especially at the beginning, I wasn't used to public meetings. I mean, you have to say everything in public, there's no closed door sessions, Randy. Like, what are you really thing? You know, there's, there's not much of that. I mean, sure. You can do that. One-on-one or uptown over a beer or something, but you know, like, not normally, so you have public meetings. So it, it was very interesting and, you know, yeah, my last two years as president during COVID time, of course, very interesting stuff. But then again, so that, that's all very interesting. That was all kind of fun, but that's what a leader does. I mean all the time, every day, that's what you do. And yeah, somebody asked me that like, ah, you know, you've been, yeah, you've been through a lot. It's like treasure replace superintendent replaced COVID stuff. And I was like, that's what leaders do. You know? I said, I personally, I would have had a hard time if like, you know, God forbid, if there had been like you know, some kind of social disrupt, you know, disruption in school or that would be hard for me to solve, but the leadership stuff of like, okay, transition, hiring, and firing. Well, that happens, you know, if you're in any kind of business, any kind of organization, people change. Right. And you know, you have big projects and you have stuff like COVID, you know, I mean, not particularly like COVID, but okay. Here's an unseen variable and unseen change. You deal with it. You set the objective and you move with it. You know that, okay, I'm not going to begin COVID with, like, this is our policy and we're just going to ride it all the way throughout. Ah, no, you know, three months in two months, in two weeks in, you're going to make some kind of change to it. And that that's leadership. That's what, that's what we do. Yeah.

Randy: 35:15

I love that approach because you're absolutely right. It is leadership and you break it apart or you look at, and really a lot of things in life and a lot of things maybe that we might be involved in, but if you look at it through that lens, then it really kind of breaks it down and into a different perspective, I think.

Phil: 35:32

Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of big takeaways for me, you know, things that I, a lot of things that I learned, you know, of course public meetings, very different, but like, you know, it's just such a, a huge appreciation for teachers. You know, what they go through, what they sacrifice, what they, you know, personally pour into the job. Oh my gosh. I mean, these people are so committed to what they do. You know, the craft of like raising your children, you know, yours, raising our kids, teaching them to think, I mean, just incredible. What, you know, the almost all, you know, like what teachers pour into it. So I have the utmost respect for what they do. And, and then, you know, sure. It's like school boards face, you know, they face a challenge, no one in Ohio. It's basically like your revenue line is. It's set. The only time you can change it as if you pass a levy with, you know, the community. So, you know, if and your operating expenses go up, keep going. I mean, the teachers want to make sure of course,

Randy: 36:35

cost of living increases inflation,

Phil: 36:38

do the math. It's like your expenses are going up continuously, theoretically with inflation. And if your revenue line is set, it's like, Hmm. So we need to adjust that revenue line once in a while to be able to like, I mean, you're not looking to make a profit, but you're looking to break even and keep enough cash to keep rolling

Randy: 36:59

all over the same level, if not better, a set of services that you've been accustomed

Phil: 37:04

to. Right. And I, I was really tried to approach it like a business. Like we have customers, you know, you were one of my customers, Randy. It's like, you know, as a parent of a child in the district, you were one of my customers. So it was my job. For us to make sure that we're delivering like a quality education. It had to look at it from that perspective. It's it's not like, yeah, I'm on the school board. And you know, this is this, this is the public school in the area. And sorry, you know, Mr. Roddy, you have no choice to send your kids here. It's like, this is what they get, right? No, I mean, they have a choice. I mean, you could, even though you pay your property taxes, which, you know, fund the school, you could have chosen to like send your kids to private school, choose to move somewhere else. So everybody, every role, every leadership job you have customers. Yep.

Randy: 37:55

That's a good perspective to have. I love it. Everybody's got a customer. Absolutely. So a good experience you would say,

Phil: 38:04

yeah, go

Randy: 38:05

ahead. If you need to take a drink of prayer, but it's good stuff. Nice and smooth. So a good experience for it. I have a question for you. So you came out of Chicago with your MBA and you said economics and finance was that right? Economics

Phil: 38:21

finance, operations management. Okay,

Randy: 38:23

good. So I have a question for you in regards to kind of in this finance economics venue a little bit, right? Just your opinion is what I'm looking at here. Crypto, do you give it any thought? Have you looked at an opinion on crypto from your booth school of management background?

Phil: 38:48

Yeah. Think about crypto. They're not, they're not going to like this. I mean, I, I don't want to have a honest, quite honestly, I don't have a negative opinion. I don't have a super positive opinion. I mean, I think it's, I think it's very interesting. So like digital currencies and ensure that really

Randy: 39:05

now there's a difference when you're saying digital currencies, because one, there's a number of countries already that have digital currencies, so it's different because that's still essentially a, a local fee for them.. They still controlling our government. Us government is. Investigating, we'll say entertaining thoughts of having a digital currency, their own, you know, and ultimately who knows where all of you know, 15 years from now, we may all just be paying for something with the chip instead of any kind of currency. I mean, we essentially do where the credit card, but, you know,

Phil: 39:45

yeah, so I would say, I mean, it's different from like

Randy: 39:48

crypto, so saying a, a decentralized blockchain, right? Transaction transparent completely off the radar or not off the radar, but off scope of a government controlled.

Phil: 40:10

So, yeah, you ask a very interesting, a very complex question,

Randy: 40:15

but as I wanted to get your,

Phil: 40:17

you know, so unfortunately I'm going to give you a very simple answer.

Randy: 40:23

I would have expected that from the farm boy from Iowa, but all right,

Phil: 40:29

you're welcome. So, yeah, so hopefully you're not disappointed with this answer, so, and Kristen will definitely attest to this. So Phil Rankin lives on what I call the efficient frontier. So in investing,

Randy: 40:44

I love that phrase, the efficient frontier. Yeah. Very good. All right, then

Phil: 40:49

that's trademarked by. So, so in, in finance, you learn about the efficient frontier. Of investing basically. It's like, okay, if you're going to invest in like, us savings, bonds or something. Okay. What's your interest, your interest rates, your returns are going to be super low. No. Oh, I

Randy: 41:06

just grabbed the treasury series. I pawned 7.12%. Okay. Well, okay.

Phil: 41:13

Except for that. But it, when I'm basically painting is like the risk return. Sure. So risk return, you know, versus you invest in small companies, theoretical your returns going to be high, but your risk is also high. So, , there is this efficient frontier, , where you've got risk return. And I, I kind of in, I apply this in several areas of my life. I like to stay just inside that I don't want to stay right onsite right on the edge of the frontier. I don't want to stay outside of it. You know, for me, it's, it's an investment of time. It's an investment of thought, , at the end of the day, we only have so much time. Right. Only so many years, so many weeks, so many days, so many hours. So I really look at how I invest my time, you know, and what's going to make a difference at the last day of my life. What am I going to think about? So

Randy: 42:09

this seems like a real departure from crypto. Right? All right.

Phil: 42:13

So bring it in, connect the dots. All right. So it's like, I can, I, you know, and I, I know it's like, okay, I guess you could say, okay, you went to university of Chicago. He's probably smart enough if he could figure it out. Yes. I I'm confident. I'm confident in myself. I could figure it out. Yeah. I could figure it out. I can understand it. I could decide what I'm going to invest in which of these cryptocurrencies, you know, where I'm going to go with it for me. I don't really think about it very much. I'm I'm waiting until it gets flushed out a ways that all, then I'll pick it up, then I'll figure it out. Because right now it's like, I would have to, I would have to. Think about it so much, you know, and look at it and decide all these different things. And then like in a culture index, if anybody's familiar with that, I'm a tech friendly tech expert. So I like to understand things before I jump into them. I like to understand, you know, like cars. I like to understand the mechanics before I jump into things. So before I would invest in cryptocurrencies, I want to, I want to understand the economics of it. How does it work? What are the flows? What's it supply chain? What are the risks? You know, I'm not going to have to flush it out completely, but I'll want to understand it pretty well. So for me, it's, it's very interesting, but it's like, I'm sorry, but it's, it's going to be one of the last things that I invest my time in because I get so much joy and so much value. Yeah. You know, a kicking button, my business, you know? And so let's go through priorities. Yes. The

Randy: 43:45

last day of your life. What was that phrase that you said on the last day of my life, I'm going to, you know, those are the things that are going to be concerned about. Yeah.

Phil: 43:53

Every, every day, really, you know, I gave the same speech to the boy Scouts a while ago and they, you know, they didn't seem too interested because they're too young. But, but so what, what did my jobs every single day that I get up, I am a father. Why am I in order? I would say, I'm a husband, father, son, and brother. And then I'm a business leader and a mini civic leader. And, you know, we can go on from there, but those are at least the top three. Those are my jobs in order, every single. Day. So I would far rather invest my time in those three and cryptocurrency is going to be like, okay, yeah, Friday night, eight o'clock yeah, yeah. You know, more bourbons then, then I'll start kicking around. It's going to be kind of for Follies conversation. So I'm a very simple guy. It's like, I like to really prioritize and focus on things that are going to make a difference to me, you know, me and those priorities in order. And yeah, crypto's, I'm sorry,

Randy: 45:03

it's down there. It's down there. It's not, it's not crossing the

Phil: 45:06

bar yet. Right. I mean, I I'm interested in that kind of stuff, you know, and, and I'm also. Chicago taught me a lot of this stuff. It's like, I'm very interested in arbitragers let's see areas where I, I see disconnects and value. It's like, wow. So I can invest or I can borrow it this and I can achieve this. You know? So there's a spread in between the two. And my mind is like, is it worth the risk? You know, or what is the risk of that? I assessed, what is the arbitrage? What is the risk and how much am I into it? And there were a lot, lot of people that are very interested in cryptocurrencies and, you know, trading and all that stuff. I mean, me and, and I'll tell you, so this goes back to Chicago. I took an investments class there, and I thought, man, when I get done with this class, I'm going to be able to invest my money. It's like, I'm going to be a superstar at this. And there are a lot of super smart, great people that come out of there. And that's what they do. You know, they're private equity guys. They run investments. That's what they do. My takeaway from the investments class, you know, 10 week class. I did I did. I learned a lot. I learned how to calculate a whole lot of stuff. My takeaway invest in the S and P you know, spread out your portfolio and invest in the S P 500 and have a, I say, have a margarita, but I'll say have a bourbon. You know, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Invest in the S and P 500 index. If you want to invest in large stocks or invest in whatever other index have a bourbon, you know, my dad used to he'd day traded for awhile. Well, it was a job, like, yeah, he, he made like, I

Randy: 46:43

gotta be like, nerve-wracking I wouldn't be

Phil: 46:45

exactly. Yeah. So stressful. He made like, whatever, $60,000, it's like a dad that basically was your salary for the year. It's like, you were stressed about this every day. Well, you made 60 grand. I mean, you could've made 60 grand doing this. Right. And it's a stress. It's not worth it, you know? Yeah. Some people make, oh, make a lie. But does everybody make a lot? No. You know, it's just, it's not worth it. So

Randy: 47:14

in your line of thinking something that I've been exploring and, and have, I don't know, several years ago even actually started and now I'm expanding even further, I think, but what I will say is just. Put my financial world into autopilot. So, you know, I have, I have a number of index funds that I have invested in for years. And I, you know, I just automatically send some money out into the account to like go and drop into those buckets every month. You know, I believe in that dollar cost, average aspect and And now I've been thinking in other terms, like how can I just really fully automate everything around the fire? So I don't have to worry about, I don't want to think about paying bills ever. You know, that's just, I just want to, similar to you. I was like, Hey, well, I don't want to waste my time on that. So I'm like, listen, I'm like going to start automating everything. You know, I'm paying my electric bill and doing everything else and just so I don't even have to think

Phil: 48:16

about it. So I'm right with you, man. It's like, you know, if you looked at like my you could call it a lot of things, like what is my daily pain index or stress index versus like happiness, not even close. Yeah. Because I, I manage that like a Hawk 'cause, you know, It's my life. And I I'd rather get as much happiness every single day, every single day. Not like once every month, once every six months. Right. You know, I, and that's, I'm sure that's some of the, like the Iowa farmer coming out at me. It's like, we do it every single day. Religiously. Yeah.

Randy: 49:00

Well, you could stock from Iowa. It's what we do. Even the B team, but you know, it's good boys across the river, you

Phil: 49:12

know? Neither one of us have an office, although

Randy: 49:14

it's true. Last time you were on the show, we talked two years ago. We talked about the importance of building and having options in your business. You know, that thinking about the events of the. Two years with the pandemic has, has that impacted your options? I know you and that discussion, you really outlined like, Hey, I wanted to have options as I formed our business and what it is that we're doing, you know, for my family and things that they could do. As you look now at your options or how you've crafted things or, and what you're pursuing now has, you know, have you expanded your options the pandemic, everything that's been going on, is that, how has that influenced

Phil: 50:00

significantly signal? Absolutely. So I'll try to touch on a few different elements. So, Yeah. So, so first of all, you know, in my business, we, we have like probably two thirds of the number of people, two thirds, two thirds of the number of people that we used to have we're doing about the same amount of business. And I've got like, just a really focused crew. That's there now. I haven't hired anybody in a while. I've been looking, I've been looking, but I haven't hired anybody in a while because I haven't been able to, I haven't been able to find anybody that really wants to work or find anybody that wants to work that much in manufacturing. Right. It's it's it is hard. You hear this and it's true. It is hard to find good people. Okay. Got it. So let's, I mean, you could say, well, you can change that. Yeah. I'm working change that, but I'll somewhat take that as a given. Okay. So if that is, if that's a reality that I'm dealing with, then. It's like, how do I, how do I, you know, pivot or work on my option? It's like, what do I do with the people that I've got? Well, I've got an option of like, I can move out, less profitable stuff, just retain the higher profitable stuff and keep maximizing higher profitable stuff. That's what we've done. So we have fewer people we're making about the same amount of revenue. We're making more money because we're focusing on the right stuff. And, you know, we're somewhat refocusing our strategies. So even mix, you know, and it, and it makes us. Sentence to it's like in the beginning we made a lot of this stuff in house because we were figuring out what does it really need to, what does the dimensions really need to be? How do we really need to make this stuff? Well, we kind of worked that out internally. Now that we've got that worked out, I send a lot of the stuff outside because I outside I can get it made much more consistently and much more cost-effectively than I can. And I don't have to worry about the people part of it. Right. It's like, great. This business is growing. I want more of these. You hire the people,

Randy: 52:16

right. Sourcing your business process. Right.

Phil: 52:20

That's not my, that's not my core competency. And, and it's a really hard thing to do right now. So it's like, you go figure that out and all figure out what we're really good at. So we're kind of, yeah. We're, I mean, we are changing our strategy. Every single day, you know, we're always moving towards a different goal. It's like, yeah. I would say that my business is not like we haven't made big gap movements over the last couple of years, you know, because that's not who I am. I mean, you just heard all about that. That's not who I am. I mean, I make a lot of slow changes, right. Towards the same direction. I'm always running towards the same sun all the time.

Randy: 53:05

Making small course

Phil: 53:07

corrections, incremental course corrections. I mean, I, and trust me that's so it was another thing that I live with constantly. I am wrong a lot, but I'm okay with it. And, you know, my, my ego is certainly okay with that, but I learned from it that is, you know, yeah. That's one of the, as, you know, you hit the brakes, the car slides, right. And just learn from being wrong there. Well, yeah, that is those, I mean, that learning, you can apply to like everything. I can't think of many things you can't apply that to. And I do that every day. I I'm humble enough to understand that I'm wrong a lot. And then I need a lot of people and I, well, I don't need a lot of people, but I mean, I need people's input, you know, in different aspects of my life. And I course correct to those. I mean, I'm changing my course. And let's say if you wanted to track like 60 different tracks that I'm on I'm course correcting like 50 of those almost on a daily basis. I mean all the time, because,, yes, I'm a very logical person. I think of things is like formulas and inputs and variables, and the variables are changing. Constantly. Inputs are changing constantly the weather, you know, and there's so many variables it's, you know, in a mathematical mind like mine, there's so many variables. It's not even funny and you're just developing a better, best fit equation, constantly,

Randy: 54:34

so much good stuff out of that. One of the things I think just in that I pulled out of, out of that, that just struck me probably the most kind of reflecting back in your earlier statements around leadership you know, the role of a leader, things that you do as that leader, what you mentioned here just now as well, that you know, that you're humble enough to recognize when you're wrong. And I would say that also is a very. Important quality characteristic of a leader you know, both ends of that statement, humble and understand when you're wrong and need to take a different direction. Because I think man, if you can actually implement those characteristics, you can I don't know. You can pull a lot of people along with you.

Phil: 55:23

Oh, for sure. You know, and, and to be clear, I want to be very clear about something you do. I mean, of course, you know, you're a leader, whether you're Elon Musk, , or Jeff basles, let's put them like way up on a pedestal or right. You know, you're a dad. Right, right. I mean, let's sure. I mean, of course somebody will be offended if I call anything the lowest common denominator. Right. But let's say like, okay, being a dad. Kristen. And I, you know, we share being the leader of our five main crew. Right. You know, you're the leader, you and Kathy shared the leadership a year four man crew. I mean, you're, I mean, you want to talk about impact, right. you are making a significant impact on your two kids every single day.

Randy: 56:12

And bully me, I know that when you were like, rattling off the things and I'm like, oh yeah, dad, that is, so I think about that every day, every 10 minutes, it seems like.

Phil: 56:24

Yeah. And that, you know, that's a role. I mean, how many people do you, and I share that role with, I mean, millions in the United States, billions, around the world, how many leaders are there? I mean, I don't have enough fingers to count them. It's a massive number. And every single one of those things that I talk about, you know, about being humble and stuff, I mean, yeah, Yeah, that applies in every single area of our life. And I mean, it applies to every single one of us. We can all be better. It's continuous improvement.

Randy: 56:56

Good lessons, good life lessons. I love that. All right. So just as always, even if it's the random show we do have I know you're like college football a little better, which is, I don't know if I'm going to go out to say I like it better. But it certainly love baseball in college football. I've got this is a great story. So connecting, you know, like give you a hard time about being from Iowa, but connecting Iowa with baseball. All right. Maybe the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Iowa and baseball and the history and what have you it's maybe like that whole field of dreams, right? Did

Phil: 57:43

you ever see that. Oh, c'mon. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I love that. That's

Randy: 57:48

fantastic. Great movie. So you got the field of dreams. Did you know last year opening day game of MLB was at the field of dreams, little stadium. Did you know that? Oh, you knew that I watched it. Oh, you watched it. Were

Phil: 58:04

you there live? What? Oh, it wasn't there liar. Oh, Dyersville

Randy: 58:08

yeah. Dyersville Iowa. Just kind of in that Northeast corner of Iowa a little bit, but Dubuque. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's where it was a little small little 8,000 seat, little stadium out there. Yeah. Very fun. Yeah. And Chicago, the two Chicago teams, they always have a lot of great history in Iowa baseball, but the Cubs, they have a foreign team that's in Iowa as well as the white Sox. So, yeah, very good. A little more history. Do you know a little more history about the first field of dreams? I'm going to get you on this one. This is good. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to try to weave the story for you. All right. The original field of dreams in Iowa. All right. Predated the movie years and years and years. So there was a dad and his son. It can kind of picture this right dad and the son just out having a game of catch the eight year old boy reportedly fires a ball so hard. It broke three of the dads. Coming away from that. This is an Iowa, by the way. All right. Would it be sure it's like, this is the stories happening in Iowa. And yes. And so the dad at that point said there might be something here. He built his son, a ball field, similar to the movie on their family farm in van meter. I want, do you know where that is? You grew up around de Moines. So intimately. Yes. The Iowa farmer built a diamond for his son installed generator lights in the barn, so they could have night practice. And it was William who taught his son, Bob, how to pitch, huh? All right. In July of 1936 at the age of 17, now this young boy made his debut and with an MLB team while still enrolled at van Metre high school. Hmm, impressive. Yes. Struck out 15 in his first start and three weeks later struck out 17. Wow. Yes.

Phil: 1:00:27

Hopefully you didn't hit any of them in the ribs. And then

Randy: 1:00:29

that next year he graduated from Ben meaner high school. Here's your question. You ready? Yeah. Who is that player?

Phil: 1:00:38

Are you serious? Bob feller. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. Grew up in van meter, Iowa. 10 miles away from my house. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Oh yeah. I know van meter instantly. Yeah, yeah,

Randy: 1:00:54

yeah. Intimately. I'm sure you do. Knowing where I grew up, you knew every little town, very intimately around you. Yes. Yeah. Isn't that a great

Phil: 1:01:03

story though? It is a phenomenal.

Randy: 1:01:05

Now they have a museum there. Have you ever gone to the museum? The fellow museum? See,

Phil: 1:01:10

here's the second I've never been in the museum and, you know, driving to Des Moines on interstate 80, , inner city like LA to New York runs right through Iowa. and I would see. You know, Bob feller museum, right. All the time,

Randy: 1:01:29

three times a week.

Phil: 1:01:32

Yeah. Who he was. And I did know who he was. I going through college and sheriff. And then when I moved to Cleveland, I, I got a much greater appreciation who Bob cause he's a large figure. The Cleveland Indians.

Randy: 1:01:49

Yes. Yes. And so for the listeners Bob feller long time, a well renowned, respected Harold pitcher for at that time, the Cleveland Indians. And he had his whole career here with the Indians 18 years as a matter of fact and was fabulous and hall of fame inductee in 1962.

Phil: 1:02:11

Yeah. Very impressive guy. Yeah. From good stock, right, Iowa.

Randy: 1:02:17

Good, good boy from Iowa. That's the way we built it. So unfortunately the farm is gone, but the red barn though is still there

Phil: 1:02:27

to really, yeah. I am going to have to go to that

Randy: 1:02:31

museum, go to the museum, check it out. I love that story. So the research team through this, and I'm like, really, I guess, I didn't know the backstory of the feller. And so I'm like, wow, that is, that is a great

Phil: 1:02:45

story. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I, I knew who he was. I mean, I drove, we drove by it all the time. I knew who he was growing up, but then I come, I came to Cleveland. Holy cow. It's like, he's people are obsessed with it. And yeah, when we would go to things at auction or stuff from Bob filler, I'm like, wow,

Randy: 1:03:06

just, I mean, so you say that they were obsessed with him, but so think about this and some of his numbers. So he won throughout his career. One, two hundred and sixty six games pitched three, no hitters, right. Struck out 348 in a single season. Holy cow. Yeah. That was amazing. So the guy, I obviously incredible talent from little van meter.

Phil: 1:03:33

That's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. A

Randy: 1:03:37

hero, a hero and Iowa hero.

Phil: 1:03:40

Absolutely. Just one of them up there. All

Randy: 1:03:43

right. Let's get back into it. All right, Phil. So I know, you know, we'll kinda stick on this lines of, you know, health and sports and that kind of thing. I don't know several months ago you're in the office and we started talking about health or whatever, and you had the aura ring. Ah, yeah, yeah. Still have yours. Yeah. You know, you, as we discussed, I'm like, wow, that is really cool. And I'm probably a month lighter. Went and got my own as well. And I dig it. Did you upgrade to the aura three?

Phil: 1:04:13

I, you know, I didn't. Okay. So it, it gives me a lot of data on sleeping. Sleeping gives me a lot of this stuff. So, you know, it showed me obviously like how many hours I sleep. I can, I could figure that out if I had to, but it keeps track of it for me. Movements, heart rate. So as, you know, a lot of heart rate movement, information, breathing information while you're sleeping, which of course is just paramount in the amount of, paramountly important to the amount of energy that you have every single day, you know, it's like, are you ready to go like snowball the driveway and then say, yeah, let's go do a podcast now let's go. It's very important to that. But actually, so, talking about options and pivots, so as I was heading into this year, We've done a lot of product development. I, you know, and we're doing more with fewer people. I'm spending time out on the shop and it's like, well, Hmm. It's like people call and they call, call our number and they hit sales and they expect to talk to me. So how can I, how can I make sure that I'm available? So, you know, I basically invested in an apple watch with like the cellular and all that stuff and the AirPods. So it's like, yeah, I, you know, perfect example and I can make several examples, like holidays go I'm out there running the paint line, helping the guys, because we're sure that it takes a lot of people. So I'm actually running part of it. So I'm out there running it and at the same time, sure. I'm taking a call. You know, a gentlemen in Paris, you know, with the family business, Hey, I want to talk to you about mixer. So I just try to step into a quiet area, talk to them and then back on it, you know? So, so yes, I do the ordering, but I, the big part that they stepped up, I think in aura three, which is a new one. So it was a lot of like the daily monitoring. I get an apple watch. Yeah. I do an apple fitness, you know, it's like, we've talked, you're kind of in the Google universe, I'm in the apple universe, you know, Competing universes. And it's like, so I do all that apple stuff and it tracks all my steps, all my activities, or it gets all my sleep.

Randy: 1:06:26

Yeah. Yeah. I've find the whole wearables and technology. I am. So that really fascinating to me because I similar to you and you think about tech, you know, and, and I really love tech. I should, you know, in my industry but the whole wearables and where that's going and nanotechnology, and I know there will be a time and I really believe it'll happen in my lifetime. I will be able to have a chip implanted, something that I will just have the ability to do so much more from a pure wearables and meaning. I think it will be like where I could just think and have a conversation with my wife. Who's, you know, eight miles away. I think it will be like, yeah, that's freaking. I don't know. I I'm telling you some of the technology that's out there and the capability of some of this stuff is it's not there. Oh,

Phil: 1:07:19

it's amazing. You know, I mean, I'll admit, I look at it every single morning and see what kinda I know what's going on. You know, I know how I feel. I know what time you went to bed. I know how I, I pretty much know how I slept, but you know, it gives me data every single day. And the most important question is like, what do I, okay. That's, that's all data. That's interesting, but what do I learn? Right. What do I learn? So for me, you know, what, what have I, so changing behavior. Yeah. So has it made any change in my behavior? Yes. A couple of things. I don't sleep very well if I eat too late. Yes, of course. We're going to talk about meat, sweats, Midwest guys, sweats. Like if I eat too late, I don't sleep very well. Two hours before I go to sleep or sometimes I'll even stay up, I'll make myself stay awake. Right. So that I can, you know, spend a couple hours before I go to bed. So eating and drinking, eating and drinking alcohol. I try not to, you know, I've probably, I probably, you know, I pro I'm, sir. I'm sure that I have decreased my consumption of alcohol since I started wearing it, because I can see the effect that it has on my sleep and eating late

Randy: 1:08:35

on the alcohol side. It probably has. I probably have decreased as well, if I'm honest with it. And even though, but really what it's done is to say, Hey, if I have a bourbon. You know, we'd started at one 30 in the afternoon, you know, to tell people I do not. I do, I do now usually sit around the office and number, but but if I have a bourbon, like at one 30 or three o'clock or four o'clock, it has very minimal impact if at all on my sleep that night, right. If I have a bourbon at eight o'clock or at nine o'clock or 10 o'clock, if I'm out with some guys and were having to drink, now, I begin to think about what do I have to do tomorrow? What am I, what am I scheduled for tomorrow? Do I need to be on, right? What is my level of engagement need to be? Because I know I'm not going to get a great night's sleep typically. And you know, I always knew that if. Of course, if I, on those rare occasions that I would overindulge your kid overserved, you know, I knew it could be a rough day the next day, but even just one I've found, even if I have a bourbon at nine o'clock at night, I don't, you know, it absolutely impacts my sleep. And and so that from a behavioral change that I'm like, all right, I'm not going to do that in the less, , it's something I'm going out with some guys or something, but I don't, you know, I used to like, eh, probably maybe two, three nights a week, I would have a bourbon at eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, maybe and wind down or whatever. Nah, cut that stuff out.

Phil: 1:10:17

Yeah. I used to think about it the same way it's like outside of like a nightcap or something now I'd be like no, like let's, let's have an evening capitalist. Yeah,

Randy: 1:10:27

yeah. Yeah. Because I really like how I feel in the morning better if I don't have that. Yeah. The other thing with the wearable now is, you know, the, or it gives you as well, body temperature. So, and it's like, Hey, you're, it gives you a baseline. And then if you deviate, it gives you. And like, just oddly this morning I was looking at my dad and my body temperature was elevated, like 0.8 above my baseline. And it gave me like, Hey, you know, and gave me a little indication of like, and what I have found. I don't know if you've gone through w. My wife probably did, even though she tested negative for it, but we all came down with COVID right after Christmas. Like literally right after Christmas, like the very, you know, two days later. And when I was watching, , my data, , it was amazing to see like, just specifically this body temperature, how it spiked while I was going through, COVID not because I was running a temperature because I really, you know, if I took the temperature with a regular thermometer, it wasn't indicated in anything, but it was a deviation of when I was sleeping that was being recorded through the aura that demonstrated my body was fighting something. Yeah. Yeah, it

Phil: 1:11:46

was interesting. I saw it when I, when I took the. Vaccine shot in the second vaccine. And then even the booster, it's like one degree, one degree higher. Like both those nights I could feel it and oh yeah. It was clear as day. It was right there. And even yeah, even interestingly, so yeah, we took a Christmas vacation to Puerto Rico. We talked about that a little bit. Awesome. Puerto Rico was fantastic. And, and we tested, we all tested negative before we went there. You know, we kept having negative tasks, but while we were there one night, I mean, so weird. It's like I even walked on the beach that night with my daughter, you know, I mean, I was moving around. I didn't feel great. I felt pretty hot. And you know, of course we were always kind of warm compared to your shirt there, but, you know, I went to bed that night and then got the next morning three degrees and I was. Baking all night long. Wow. I was three degrees above normal, which, you know, you think that's huge? Yeah. 98 points. What? 98.6 is normal. Right?

Randy: 1:12:49

Huge. Cause I just know in checking my own data, like for me, like looking at it this morning, it was 0.8 over it. I'm like, wow, that's right.

Phil: 1:12:57

Yeah. But three I was cooking. I was on medium rare in the morning time I was cooking, but in the morning. Good. Really? Yeah. Very strange that I got

Randy: 1:13:09

over. Have you don't think he had COVID or you don't know, you were always testing? I

Phil: 1:13:14

was, we were always testing negative, so I don't know. I don't know. Who knows. Maybe I in a bad burrito could have been. Who knows. I don't know what happened, whether it was food poisoning, whether I too much

Randy: 1:13:28

pina coladas, what are you drinking in Puerto

Phil: 1:13:30

Rico there? Yeah, lots of that's where the pina colada was in Venice. Yes. Yeah, no, we, I came here rum

Randy: 1:13:38

and drinking and rum. Did you tour a little rum?

Phil: 1:13:41

We didn't. But there is like cane

Randy: 1:13:46

sugar cane plantations there and yeah, a lot of processing going on there.

Phil: 1:13:51

Lots of, lots of that stuff. I mean, you know, we, we focus, we did a lot of, I think it's a family vacation. Oh yeah. A lot of it. Yeah. It was a family. Come on, man. The kids were there, Randy,

Randy: 1:14:02

of course. Sorry. Yes, I can hardly wait. Alright. Hey. So thinking over the last couple of years your show. I loved your, when you're first on the show, because we were just you know, in may of 2020, right. And it was like six weeks or so before everything just got shut down and we were talking about, wow. You know, just that challenge and the fear and everything right. Was going on. So thinking over, you know, now in retrospect over the last couple of years, what has been your biggest challenges? Both professionally and personally, whether it's related to the pandemic or not, but

Phil: 1:14:43

Hm. I would say the sound cliche, but courage, you know, I haven't just having the guts, having the courage. And I'm sure I share this with a lot of people, the courage, the courage, like move forward. It's like, wow. And you know, not, not that, I mean, I'm, I'm probably like the farthest from a germaphobe or anything like that. I wasn't like afraid to go out in the society or anything. I wasn't really afraid of catching anything. I was like, you know, if I catch something, it's like, I'm going to beat it. Right. It's like, and I'm going to see how quickly I can beat it. You know, that's just the way I'm wired. But you know sure, sure. In business it's like, I mean, certainly, I mean, I employ a few people, not a huge crew, you know, but if you people. Yeah. People were out. It's like, all right, you know, what am I going to do now? It's like, I've got to cover for this person for a week. Okay. Right. Like, you know, we can get through this and yeah. It's like, you're going to be out. Okay. You're going to, you're out with, COVID like, we'll figure this out. It's going to happen for awhile. You know, some people, some off some of my office folks. Great job. It's like, even though they're out sick with COVID, it's like, Hmm. Phil, like, I know how to run payroll. I know that you can do it, but you're not going to be very efficient at it. And they know that I hate being efficient. They know they don't know the whole frontiers story, but the efficient frontier, but they know me and they're like, you know, I'll do it. You know, I will log on this date, just get me this information and I can do it. So, but still just like just the courage to keep moving forward. And it's like, you know, of course, yeah. You never know. I mean, you look back at the Spanish flu or you read that. It's like, how did that react? And it sounds like we're following pretty much the same trajectory that that did as well. It's like, duh, this has happened before this, this isn't the first time the world has ever dealt with this kind of stuff it's happened before. And this is the way it played out. Well, Hey, no big surprise. It's playing out, right? Yeah. Okay, go on with your lives. But you still, you don't know, you know? Yeah. We both had kids. It's like, what is the future going to look like for them? But I don't know. I, so I say that courage was probably my biggest challenge, but at the same time, I will say that, , I I'm an optimist. I believe in options, I believe in pivoting. And I don't think there's anything that I can't overcome. I got, I was actually just having this discussion. One of my kids the other night, it's like, You know if like, let's say, okay, we got their car fixed and it, and it costs a lot of money. And I said, , and we were talking about budgets is great. It's like their team, they're 17. They're starting to understand. It's like, okay, well I want to prepare, I want to make this much money because I want to be able to spend like, and we try to really empower our kids with like, you know, we say, okay, Christmas, you know, we, we used to buy them all gifts. They were younger now they're all teenagers. So we're like, here you go. Here's like, here's 400 bucks. Knock yourself out what you want to do. Right. You'll pick what you're going to spend it on. Because if I try to spend $400, I'm probably going to pick some chunky

Randy: 1:18:04

that's right.

Phil: 1:18:05

Yeah. There were probably going to be like, oh dad, oh my gosh. Why did you buy this? So I'm like, here you go. You know? I mean, it's just like driving. Like you need to be. I'm not going to take a three year old and force him into situations, maturity, but I'm definitely going to take high schoolers. I mean, again, it'd be like, Hey, here you go. Here's some responsibility. You

Randy: 1:18:25

all it now, especially if it's in a safe environment, right. How bad can they fail when they're still at home with you? Right. I let my kids fail today. I don't care. It's not going to be the end of the world. And I'm there to help and whatever support, whatever I can, 10 years when they're out on their own and they fail, you know, I'll still be there, hopefully knock on wood, but you know, it's could be potentially more consequential.

Phil: 1:18:52

Right. For sure. But, you know, so, so I look at like, okay, when to repair your car, it costs this much, you know, I could look at that and say, Hmm, it's like, all right, so we need to do a, B and C. You know, we're only going to do a and B because that's the only amount that I can spend on the car this month. I could be like, , I'm just, I'm over an entrepreneurial mindset. I'm like this, we need to do, it's important enough. I will say, I'm going to spend the money now I'm going to go find it because I know I can go find it. I don't know where, right. I have no idea where it's going to come from, you know, but it's like, I, but I do know I can find it. I haven't, you know, unwavering kind of confidence in myself. It's like, I'll solve it. Right. I know I can solve it, whatever it is

Randy: 1:19:40

that I, I have a very similar or exact kind of approach in call it, whatever I have the mindset as well, that there is no shortage of money. I think, and, and regardless whether I'm very similar, maybe that's some of the farm boy in us that I just, well, I can fix that. I can do that. I could figure it out. I just, it out, I just have that innate. Sure. I can do that. You know, I'll figure that out, right?

Phil: 1:20:10

Stupid. It's like, yeah, I'm going to buy this Lamborghini and I'll just figure it out. No, you know,

Randy: 1:20:16

but in most life challenges, I think I can figure it out. You know, I'll go a learn study, I'll reset what I think I can do this. But I do have this optimism and, and mindset that the world is so flush with opportunity money, opportunity that I'll figure something out. I need more money. Sure. I'll figure that out. You know, will, whatever that may be. And and. Instilling that a bit with our children is, you know, that mindset, I think with, you know, that's always a challenge.

Phil: 1:20:52

And that is, like you said, that's a very, that's a very hard, you know, challenging thing to instill in your kids. And sure. It's like my, my, my kids know this. Like they, my girls had been complaining to me about, you know, their car, the car that we, you know, we're providing you a car. You don't have to walk everywhere. We're providing you a car. And they're like, oh, but you know, it smells and this is wrong and this is wrong. This is wrong. And, you know, they'll start complaining and their mom and I, you know, not, not like we're trying to penalize them for anything and their, their mom and I, Chris. And we'll just look at me, you know, it's like, it's like, Like you'll make it, you'll figure it out and you know sure. It's like, we repair things. Oh, this is the way it's supposed to be., but they realize, and I feel fantastic. I, I love it because they're like, yeah, they're driving like a 2009 car. Right., it's okay. It's got probably 175,000 miles on it. And I do that on purpose. Right. They're safe. They're safe. They can get places, but I do it on purpose. Like, could I, especially since a business is doing well, could I like buy them and brand new Jeep or whatever that they would be like, yes, that's what I want. Right. I could, I, you know, we're we're guys, we could figure it out. I could figure it out. I could make that happen. Am I going to do that? Not on your life. Right. Because they need to understand this. Right. They need to experience that grain, you know, 'cause, you know, sure. I didn't drive great cars all the time, you know, but I learned a lot from it. So they get that all the time. They're like that, , we get it. It's like man, other, other kids get given stuff and , we have to work for it a little bit. And they're like, , we kind of appreciate that. I

Randy: 1:22:45

think so. I completely agree with that. I think it, I think it gives kids though. Well, I will say certainly it did for me when I had to work for something because I, I wanted something and I had to go work for it. It wasn't going to get given to me. Right. I appreciate it. Far greater. And I took care of it, whether it was a vehicle or whatever it was. I respected that item at a much higher level, I think than probably if if I, if it was just given to me, because I realized the effort that it took to

Phil: 1:23:20

acquire that thing. Right. And, and, you know, to be clear, it's like, yeah, it was apparent. It's like, it would probably be easier for me just to give them the easy path. It's, I mean, it's, it's a pain in the butt for me. It's like, I'm out there fixing the car here and there doing this and that I'm listening to them or coaching them on it. That all takes a lot of time. It's like, I could, I could do something that's a much, interesting. So this may be, this may be kind of bucking against my efficient frontier philosophy. It's like I could have an easier path. But that's, but this is the right path.

Randy: 1:23:58

See, there you go right there that this is the right path, because sometimes in the lessons that you're trained to teach your kids is not always. The easiest path. Oh, because usually it's the hardest path. The life lessons are not easy. Right. You know, we've, we've lived them. We're trying to instill those lessons for them in an easy way. They may not recognize it as that way. That's so funny. Even talk about that. Cause I I don't know, last month too in December my wife was driving and she got a flat tire somehow. I have no idea. And not far, literally. Eight houses, five houses down from our house. Even she pulled into their driveway and called me. And it was snowing. It was middle of December, right. And cold. And I told Nicole like, all right, Hey, we're going to go down and change this tire. And he looked at me like, what what'd you just call AAA and have him come on dad. Actually, my wife even said the same thing. I'm like, no, come on. We're going to go down and take care of this.

Phil: 1:24:58

It's a

Randy: 1:24:58

few doors down and yeah. Yeah. But it was a good lesson and it was fun to do my

Phil: 1:25:04

son and, and they do. They think I'm kind of nuts sometimes because yeah, we had, we had a flat in summertime. Yes. I'm like, what's change it so

Randy: 1:25:15

weird. Oh, I have to be honest with you. I have not had to change a flat tire in years. I had to look up online. Cause I couldn't even find where the hell the spare tire was on this fan. I'm like, where is this? It's it was not where I was expecting it to be. Right. It was actually way almost under the front passenger seat. It was where it was not quite that far forward, but almost right there. On this Toyota van, I was like, wow. I, yeah, so anyway, so it was fun. We had a good time. All right. So here we are. We're moving along here. It seems like, I don't know. I still have some pair of, so I'm still getting through out some stuff there. And it was this kind of a nice back again, previous show, we were having the conversation about having the right mindset to navigate the world and the environments that we're in. Any additional lessons you can think about from a mindset standpoint?

Phil: 1:26:05

Yeah. Yeah, eh, yeah, through the last couple of years in COVID. So, like I said, I'm an accountant by training, you know? So you would think, okay. Conserve farmer, iron farmer. I wouldn't really, I can't respectfully call myself a farmer, not out of respect to people that do that. I can't call myself a farmer. I grew up in Iowa. I grew up on a land farm land. Yes. So you'd say, okay, you're a pretty conservative. And, and, and you're right, but let's say like during COVID for example,, the us government, God bless him. It's like, through the SBA, they gave a lot of different programs to small business , including things like you know, alone and idle alone, EIDM alone , I'm an accountant. I have a finance background. So I understand numbers and money stuff pretty well. And I saw things like, okay you can get this loan for 30 years, amortization three and three quarter percent fixed. And, you know, Mike. Okay. So like I know, I just, I, I know I can see what's going on out there. I know that inflate, you know, I've been saying for like a year, it's like, they're saying, well, inflation is transitory. It's like, no, no way, no way possible. You insert this much money into the money supply. Inflation is going to happen. It's like, don't you understand how world currencies work? It's inflation is going to happen. Hopefully, you know, we're the United States. We won't come to a devaluation. I don't, we're not going to do that. But inflation inflation is going to, I mean, we've been lulled into two to 3%, probably 2% for several years, we're old enough to not have experienced it. But at least to remember when inflation happened, when we were younger and it was. Painfully obvious to me than inflation is calming. It's coming and it's going to be here for a few years. Okay. Got it. And then it's like, okay, great. So you're offering this money at this time. It's like, Hmm. Should you borrow the money? And I'd say, so this is, this has been a challenge for me. It's like, I would usually I'm conservative, but I'm like, heck yes. It's like,

Randy: 1:28:22

go get it. What do they call that? Like a negative rate borrowing or something like that. Something about a negative rate, because the money you're borrowing is at three and a quarter, three quarter, whatever you stated, but inflation is at seven. You know, and so that gap you're like, I am borrowing below the rate of what, you know, yeah, so it's this negative rate computation. That's just essentially, it makes it a no brainer

Phil: 1:28:50

because you, it makes it a no brainer. And I told, you know, talk to told as many people as I could. I'm like, go get that right. Get, get that and get as much as you can, And we come back to, you know, it's, it's all the same themes, right. Then it's options like, okay, great. Now you've got it. So what are you going to do with it? Do you have, do you have capital money that you need to do? You need to buy new equipment? Do you need to do things? Can you learn better than three and three quarter percent return on that equipment? Do it, you know, you, you almost would like say write down all of your opportunities with a highest return to the lowest and keep going until you either run out of money of this borrowed money or until you start hitting and it's like, Hmm. Yeah, I could do this, but I'm going to get a 2% return. Okay. Don't do it right. It's I mean, the math is. It's very simple. So yes. Get the money first because it's here for a limited period of time and then invest in, do all those things and then stop when you hit a certain point and you know, let's say, Hey Phil I've like exhausted my options. I'm down to things where it's, you know, and I've got $200,000 left. Great. You've got an option that term alone says you can prepay it back without a penalty, give the money back. Right. You know, or, you know sure. Like, you know, investing in corporate bonds that are paying like 5% and you can arbitrage, you know, 125 basis points 1.2, 5%, just earn the money by doing nothing or return the money. Right. Great. Maybe, maybe, you know, and it's all about risk, risk reward. Maybe you sleep better knowing that you've paid it back. Okay. Great. Pay it back. Yeah. Just get it first and then pay it back. So I guess the lesson is for me you know, even though I'm conservative, even in times of peril, it's like recognize the opportunity and go, man. It's like push the accelerator, pour gas on the fire. Like you got to in certain circumstances, you've got to go, just go for it. And that's, that's what I did. I'm still, it's still in the process of doing it. You know, God bless the us government for helping out small businesses. Cause they helped out a little,

Randy: 1:31:03

a lot. Oh my gosh. Yes. There are so many businesses, you know, I'd tell you about a lot of businesses. So many people I've talked with , thank God that various programs out there like that where small businesses could tap into, because it was,, essentially the lifeline for them, the

Phil: 1:31:22

government SBA, God bless them. They say they did as much as they, you know, yes. They inserted a lot of money in the money supply, but you know, it's, it's the largest economy in the world, you know, it's a great, it's the greatest economy, you know, I'll say great. And there are a lot of people that are spewed that, but it is the largest economy in the world. I mean, Hey, I know I grew up here right in the middle of the country, but it is the best country in the world. Yes.

Randy: 1:31:53

Agreed agreed. Hands down. All right. So typically in this stage of the show, where can at the bottom of the 19, I'd ask about advice for rookies in the game, but instead of that particular question, as your kickback here, last, you said it was a ninth inning, all of bourbon there. He has how about what's just around the corner for Phil and for even mix even mix, but just fill even, you know, you give your full of insight and great. I will wisdom and not just like, oh yeah. Wow.

Phil: 1:32:28

See,

Randy: 1:32:29

yeah. See, now I've been drinking a lot of bourbon to complementing your eyewitness.

Phil: 1:32:37

That's it? The term of respect your Iowa wisdom. Wow. I don't think I've ever heard that combination of words come out of your mouth.

Randy: 1:32:45

Not out of mine typically.

Phil: 1:32:48

Hi, so what's coming up. Well, you know, I mean, a lot of it's about like, what's happening in your family. You know, my kids are getting ready for college. My fraternal twin girls, you know, they're juniors this year, there'll be seniors next year. So college is a very,, that's a big decision. Like, as we talked, you know, in my development, there's a big, massive milestone decision you make in your life. Right? So then making that decision, that's a, that's a big deal for them. Spring break, you know, we're going and touring a bunch of colleges and stuff like that. And of course, you know, the cost of. Crazy outta control, really, really high. But you know, even having said that there were a lot of, you know, a lot of great bargain or not bargains, but you know, values out there and cool universities to go see. So I'm super looking forward to that, doing that with my kids even mix, you know, we're growing a lot, you know, still significantly in the United States and we're even growing quite a bit in order starting to get foothold and established partners in south America. And in central America, we're kind of focusing on that first because the digital mixer is 120 volts. You know, so we were trying to stay on the same electric system and then we're going to go to two twenties and we can go into Europe and Africa and Asia but you know, so, so even makes this next year what's in the future. It's like expanding. Globally, you know, taking over the world.

Randy: 1:34:16

right. That's

Phil: 1:34:17

right. So, you know, growing even acts a lot. I mean, that is just so, I mean, I know we share that passion so much fun and you know, it helps when you're having success, you know,

Randy: 1:34:31

it's a lot more fun when you're successful.

Phil: 1:34:33

You have wind at your sails. It's like the world, the path is a lot easier. Yeah. So we're, we're going to be growing that quite a bit, you know, going through with my family, the college selection process, which, , personally, I've already told my girls, I'm like, , I'm a little pissed that we didn't start doing this in the fall because you don't understand how much fun that could have been for

Randy: 1:34:55

now. I know we've talked about this before, but I know that we've had this. Discussion around that, , the band is going to be, we're not going to be together again, you know, this will never be in. And I think about my son is, yeah, it's just a gray behind your girls. And you know, I'll be there in a year from now and thinking about, and we're already starting to, you know, plan. We're where we have been doing vacations. The last, maybe the last year. But with the idea of, if there's a major university, wherever we're going, let's, you know, swing through, let's go, just go take a look at it. Just not because you're interested in it, but just so you see what a university campus

Phil: 1:35:38

is. Right, right. Sure. Yeah. Oh, I, I, so look forward to so several things, but like road trip with my girls and hopefully John will come along too. I mean, I'm going to kind of give him the traces, right. You can come with us, you can stay back with mom, you know, cause she's, she's, she's actually in a school system where we have different spring breaks. So, but oh my gosh, taking a road trip for a week with my girls. I mean, there's, there's nothing better. Yeah. So that'll be fun. Totally look forward to that, you know, totally look forward to a lot of great moments on a, you know, we have lake house and I love being on the water, grew up a lot of time down at lake of the Ozarks and Missouri. And so yeah, like going to lake Chautauqua and just like wake surfing and just being on the water, just hanging out with friends , love to see out there and my family and yeah, we just have so much fun. Like I said, I mean, you know, it gets back to, it's like, , my fun index versus stress index. I mean, I'm, I'm working on optimizing that every single yeah.

Randy: 1:36:46

I dig that. I know, I

Phil: 1:36:48

know being on the lake is a big part of that super big part of that. And go in there, go in there tonight. Good for you. It's frozen.

Randy: 1:36:56

They've had enough bourbon. Maybe John will be, you know, in the right. Driving steering. There you go. Yeah. Well, listen, Phil, thanks for coming back and being part of the random show experience. Absolutely love having you love chatting with you and we'll we'll have game three with you down the road. I'm sure

Phil: 1:37:18

it would be my pleasure. All right.

Randy: 1:37:21

And listen folks, that's the ball game. Thanks for joining us today. And if you like our show, please tell your friends subscribe and review and we'll see around the ballpark. Running the basis with small businesses is brought to you by 38 digital market. A digital marketing agency committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions and increased sales connect with us today at 38digitalmarket.com.