Solo #3: The Business Card That Changed My Life

I’m recording solo at 9:18 p.m. in a quiet house with a sleeping seven-month-old upstairs, and a baby monitor to my right. It starts as a simple reset, then I clean out my garage and stumble into a time capsule that stops me cold: an old business card from the founder and chairman of Niagara Bottling, the company where I’ve spent nearly my entire career.

That card pulls me back to Cal State Fullerton, a guest speaker, and a moment that seemed minor at the time. After graduating with a broad business degree and no real plan, I spiral through job boards and sketchy listings until that card reappears in my wallet. One email later, I’m in an interview for a supply chain logistics role I barely understand, and that “dumb luck” decision becomes an 18-year path in transportation, operations, and leadership.

We also talk about the power of networking as a real asset, the surprising impact of early offer letters and pay raises, and why most success stories are way less mysterious than we want them to be. My takeaway after dozens of conversations with high performers is simple: consistency wins. Think baseball: you can swing for home runs, or you can keep slapping singles and let the results stack up.

I wrap with a quick family check-in, coaching youth baseball, sibling dynamics, baby-proofing for a crawler, and one invention idea for keeping shoes clean indoors. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Intro And Subscribe For Adrian

Paul 0:00

Hi, Let's Red listeners. Quick thing before we start. This podcast technically has a boss. His name is Adrian, he's seven. He checks the subscriber numbers every week, he sets aggressive targets, and I've been told just try harder is his full management philosophy. So follow or subscribe and tell a friend to do the same. It'll help me keep my job. And stick around, because this is a real-time journey. Learning, parenting, work, life. I'm sorting through all of it out loud for your entertainment. So come on this journey with us. Now, let's ride. Probably, let's see, not probably. It is 9 18 p.m. And uh just today at home. Quiet house. Oldest two boys are gone. The grandparents, the wife is on the other side of the country in Miami, having a good time. And I just got a seven-month-old sleeping child upstairs. Monitor is to the right of me, so I can see what's going on and may need to pause at some point if uh I hear some commotion. But so far, so good. And what's interesting is I've been thinking about the last time I did a solo episode, and it has been seven months more or less. How do I know that? Because when I was talking about that solo episode, it was right after we had our third child, our daughter, and I was kind of going over the scenario and all the things that just kind of happen as it related to that. And I don't know, I've been kind of thinking about doing a solo episode for a while, but just haven't done it. I know I've had some really great guests lately, some former guests, I've uh introduced new guests, and so had this steady stream of new people to talk to, which is really fascinating. And yeah, just haven't had the time to do a solo episode because I've I've had a full roster of new um people to talk to. So, but we're back. We're back whether you like it or not. I'm gonna talk um a little bit and just go solo today. So let's get into it. So I want to start with I was cleaning the garage. That's this is uh what you would consider you know something fun that you do in your spare time now because there's not always a ton you could do when you have three kids at home. So I'm cleaning the garage. You know, it's that one thing where it's just you're staring at a pile and you walk past it every day. Sometimes it gets a little bigger, grows. You might, you know, chip away at it, and then miraculously it just grows again, and you just kind of feel like you're treading water for a while. And so one day you wake up and you just tell yourself, today is the day that this pile goes away for good. And so that was the intent. That was my plan. And so I had a desk that I had been using for probably two decades, I'm gonna say. And it's just one of those things where you kind of would just throw knickknacks in there. You know, you get something and you just kind of don't know where else to put it. And yeah, it should be ridiculous to throw it in the trash. So, what do you do? You just kind of throw it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it. And so, in a way, it was almost like this time capsule that I'm going through that I really hadn't looked at at all. So I'm going through there, I've got a bunch of newspaper articles. So I've got an article from I think uh Vin Scully's all Dodger articles. So Vin Scully's uh la farewell game, his last uh broadcast, uh No Mark Garcia Para hitting uh a home run, I think after the Dodgers had hit four home runs in a row to tie the game, go to extra endings, and No Mar Garcia Para hits the game winner. Um things like that. I had some guitar picks in there. I maybe had casually strummed a guitar a handful of times, but somehow had 35 picks in there that I was saving for some reason. Old business cards, headphones, lots of old headphones, an old laptop, tons of papers, just lots of different papers that didn't mean a whole lot. Some old soccer socks that appear um didn't appear to have been washed before being put in there. So that was that was interesting as well. Um, anyways, I could go on. But there was a couple things in there that really got my attention. And one of them was a business card. And it was a business card of the chairman, founder of Niagara Bottling, who's the company that I've worked for the majority of my career, probably 90 plus percent of my working days after college have been spent at this company. And there's a very interesting story about it, and you're gonna hear all about it right now. So, times where you think about moments in your life that literally change the trajectory of your life. And what's interesting is that sometimes it's these things that are seemingly insignificant or a small decision at that time that fast forward five, 10, 15, 20 years later ended up being something much more meaningful than that. And that was the case. So I was going to school at Cal State Fullerton, and we would have periodically, they would have guest speakers come in and from the local community, business, local business owners, and they would just come in and tell us a little bit about their business and you know what they did. In this particular instance, um, this guy comes in, Andy Paikoff, and he brings all these little cylinders, uh, I'll call it, these little plastic things. And he just kind of gets up there and he just, you know, I'm you know, 21, 22 at the time, not particularly interested, but you know, I'm just kind of there. And, you know, I do remember him talking about him working for or him owning a company that manufactures bottled water. And he was up there talking about how he had engineers that were focused on reducing the gram weight of the resin inside the plastic. So basically he's like, hey, I make these bottles that are 30, 40% less plastic than what you see from you know the all the other bottled water out there. And I just remember thinking at that time, like, well, that I mean that's kind of interesting, but I mean, this, okay, would this is kind of, I don't know, if this feels like an engineering thing and I have I have no interest in doing engineering. So I didn't kind of think that much of it. And at the end, he said, if anybody wants to talk, you know, connect at any point, here's my business card. You guys are welcome to reach out. And he passes out his business card. And so I take said business card, and I'm not typically one for cluttering things like that, although I just mentioned to you this desk um that I threw a bunch of random stuff into. But for the most part, I really, really like throwing things away. So quick tangent. If something's sitting in a place for definitely for more than two weeks, that's a fair great game to get thrown away. If it hasn't moved from that spot, then no one's using it and it probably can get thrown away. And so I'll I'll lean that way. And has it bitten me come back to bite me in the rear? Yeah, absolutely. There's been times where I've, I'll admit it. There's been times that I've thrown something away that I probably shouldn't have. But I'm gonna I'm gonna say 90, 95% of the time, it is absolutely the right decision. And I'll deal with the repercussions of all the other five to 10%. Okay. So moving on. I get this business card and I just I don't know why, but I decide to keep it. And keep in mind, I'm going to school for entrepreneurship. Maybe I think I'm gonna start a business. I don't know. So I don't do internships, I don't do anything to try to identify what I might want to do for a career. I got a general business administration degree. It's about as broad of a degree as you could possibly get. It's not like I'm getting into some very specific thing. And so there's really no direction in terms of what I could do from a career perspective. It was just like, hey, getting a business degree is probably a good thing. I can definitely use it. Let me just do that, and then I'll figure out the rest of the context in mind, right? And so I graduate, I believe, that summer and had a graduation party, had some very generous family and friends, and you know, got maybe a couple thousand dollars from graduating. And so I'm like, fantastic. I don't need to get a job right now because I've got all this money. And I'm, you know, living at my parents' house at the time and, you know, don't need that much money to live off of. So I'm okay, so let me just go have a good time. So I proceed to spend the next probably six to eight weeks, let's call it. Having the time of my life, spending time with friends, going out. If anybody asked me to go do something, there was no no, it was like, yes, we're going. We're let's go have a good time. And then I I will never forget this day. It's summer, it's probably like around, I'm gonna say July or August. And I'm sitting in my parents' living room, and it just kind of like dawns on me all of a sudden. I'm just like, shoot, I don't have a plan. Like, I've graduated, I have a diploma, I don't have a plan right now. What am I gonna do? And so I kind of panicked. Like in that moment, I remember this very, very vividly. I sit down at the computer, I go to monster.com or career builder, whatever you know, the site was at the time. And I just start going through these different job sites and I don't even know what I'm looking for, honestly. I'm just kind of like loosely reading descriptions of things that might sound interesting and applying and getting some responses and just thinking to myself, like, what? I don't even know what these companies do. And I remember this one like wanting to interview me, and I'm just like, I don't even know what this company does. And so I don't know, I had this kind of this come to Jesus moment where I'm like, I don't, I'm applying to things to make myself feel better that I'm making quote unquote progress towards getting a job. In reality, I'm just kind of aimlessly going through this process with no real plan. And I remember one day just saying, like, man, some of these jobs, they're a scam. The ones that are calling me back and asking me, you know, to come in for an interview. I feel like I, you know, I'd read the job description. I'm like, this feels like a scam. This doesn't feel real. So I kind of am getting a little discouraged. And finally, I uh it's probably a week or two later, I'm cleaning out my wallet, and there's this business card, Andy Paycoff Sr., chairman, Niagara bottling, right? Right there is his cell phone number, his email address. It's all there. So again, I remember this day very vividly, and I get on the computer, I send him an email. I don't remember exactly what I said. I just I very much remember clicking send and then just kind of saying, All right, feel I feel good. Like this is a little bit of a different approach. I kind of know this person, there might be something here. And I maybe go around hanging out in the backyard or something like that. And two hours later, I go back. This is before I had email on my phone. I go back and check my refresh my email. Sure enough, there's a a response from Andy saying, Hey, um, great to hear from you. And come on in tomorrow, actually, because then let's talk. Right. And so I just remember being over the moon, ecstatic. I'm like, man, I have like a legit opportunity here, and you know, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I found somebody that might hire me, and this is great. And so, you know, I slap together a suit and tie, whatever I have, and I go to this office. It's in Ontario, it's probably a 30-minute drive from my parents' house. And I don't know that he told me who I was gonna meet. It wasn't gonna be with him, but it was gonna be with somebody. And I remember sitting in the lobby, never really interviewed for a real job before. So don't even really know what to expect. And I'm sitting there, I think I'm supposed to be there for probably, let's call it a one o'clock interview. And 15 minutes goes by. And by the way, there's no receptionist in the lobby, so I don't like actually know what's happening. I think maybe an hour later for when I was supposed to interview, somebody comes in and goes, or comes, yeah, comes into the lobby, says, Oh, hey, you're here. Um, you know, we're really busy right now. Um, somebody be will be with you soon. And then maybe like another hour goes by. Anyways, finally, somebody comes in and it's this guy, and I don't even know what I'm interviewing for, by the way. I just know that I'm coming in to talk to somebody. And I sit down there and he's you could tell he's super busy, super stressed out. There was a lot going on. And so I think, you know, when the chairman and CEO of a company tells a manager, hey, I have this guy coming in, you need to talk to him. And it kind of felt like that, right? It's like this little burning, like, ah, okay, well, I gotta go meet with this guy, and I'm super busy, I don't have time for this, right? So it kind of felt like that. But I go through, you know, he's asking me questions and I'm like, I have no experience. I've basically couldn't, I mean, if I were to be interviewed today, there's zero chance I'm getting that job, right? But I just because I knew this person, there's a lot of leeway there. And so fast forward and I get this job, and I don't even know exactly what it is. I just know that it's in supply chain logistics and I'm gonna figure it out. It was basically like an internship. I was getting paid within a couple months. That would lead into a management trainee, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 18 years later, I'm basically in the same industry doing the same thing. And it happens to be something that I really enjoy now. I built a really great career, I think, doing it and met some really fantastic people. I've got a fantastic network. I'm very experienced and educated in this topic, and I like to talk about it. Um, so it ended up just kind of really turning out. But, you know, when I think about it, it was just complete dumb luck. I had no intention. I didn't even know what it was. I remember maybe there was a paragraph about transportation in one textbook in college ever, but I didn't know anything about it. And so it was just really fascinating that I was able to stumble, dumb luck, stumble into something that I just happened to really, really enjoy and something that I'm doing 18 years later. And so now I kind of think back, if I didn't meet this person, one, if I didn't save his business card, which nine times out of ten I wouldn't, and if I didn't actually have the foresight or thought to actually reach out to him, right? And I did ask him this later. I when I and I saw him and I said, Hey, you know, you handed that card out to, I don't know, 30 other people that day. How many of them did you hear from? And the answer was zero, other than me. I think about it now, and and you know, I every once in a while I'll go talk to whether it's you know interns at our company or you know, going to back to Cal State, Florida and talking to students or whatever. Like I'm happy to go and talk to people. And one of the things I always say is, you know, hey, here's my at the very end, right? Here's my contact information. Feel free to reach out whenever you want. Almost nobody, I can think of probably a handful of times that somebody has followed up with me after that. And so there's one of two things is true. One, they heard me talk and they're not interested in what I had to say, and so they didn't reach out, which is fine, fair. Or two, they just don't have the initiative or maybe understand or they're not paying attention. They don't understand what that could have turned into. And all it takes is a 10, 15, 20, 30 minute phone call that could change the course of your life. And you have no clue, right? And so I guess all that is to say I feel extremely fortunate. I have no clue what would have happened. I, you know, I might have gone and applied for a police department, you know, if things didn't work out, or I really don't know. But I because I had no plan and I just stumbled into this and super fortunate and lucky that it happened the way that it did, and that I just had the foresight to actually pick up the phone and make that or send that email. You don't know who you're gonna run into. And I think maintaining relationships and things like that goes such a tremendously long way. And you know, you just think about your network, whether it's your friends, family, business contacts. I look at it now and I didn't know that at the time, but you think about these different assets that you have. There's a value to it. If you own a house, you know the value of your house, you own stocks, 401k, um, whatever, you know the value of it. And I don't think people think of a network as an asset per se. But the more I get into this business thing, the more I realize that your network could be the most valuable asset that you own. And you just don't even realize it. It can help you get jobs, it can help you do start a business, it can help you do, I mean, so many different things. And I don't know that people are as deliberate in crafting those networks as they can. And I just feel like it's a missed opportunity, especially for young people today that for whatever reason, you know, don't pursue these types of things, that it could just be tremendously helpful. And so I can beat a dead horse, but I'm very fortunate that I kind of followed that. And that's a very long-winded story, but that's one item that I found on this desk. And so I'm gonna hang on to it. It's, you know, it's it's very, it's got this nice patina to it, let's call it. It's just very, it's beat up. It's you know, 20 years old at this point, but it put a smile on my face. It was really a nice reminder of where I've come from. And that was really exciting. And so kind of along those lines, I've also saved a lot of my different offer letters that I've gotten from, you know, jobs, promotions, things like that. And I did save those as well. And so I have some of that, I won't tell as long of a story on that, but I will say I have, you know, so fast forward, I'm doing this internship. Within a couple months, I get this offer to be a manager uh trainee. And uh I had no other prospects, so it was a pretty easy decision for me uh to go ahead and take that. And so I did, and just I I more looked at it just from so the letter is dated August 29th, 2008. And, you know, just kind of all the legal ease that you would expect. Um, but it has my salary on there. So uh fresh out of school. Now I don't know inflation what this would be today, but at that time it was a salary of$50,000. And I was over the moon. I mean, now it was like, I was like, wow, you guys are gonna pay me this much money. I mean, I had never seen that much money in my life, right? I'm waiting tables, living off tips, uh, working in a clothing store, working in a grocery store, making$6.25 an hour,$575, whatever it was at that time. So$50K to me, whew, that was living real big. Uh really excited. And I remember kind of getting into that too and just thinking like working a 40-hour work week and coming home. I'm still living at my parents' house at the time, and just be like, how do people do this? This is so tiring, right? Just like get home because I'd start early, um, get home maybe 3 30, 4 o'clock, and just want to jump in bed and just be like, I am exhausted mentally, physically from working all day. I'm, you know, I'm here used to working four or five hour shifts, not eight, nine hours, and doing a big boy job. And so uh, you know, it kind of reminded me of those times too. And last thing I'll say on that is that was year one. You know, I go through this management training program, and then at the end of year one, I get a annual review. We go over, hey Paul, here's what you're doing well, here's what you're not doing so well. What I did not know was that there was also going to be a salary discussion, right? Because again, I'm the dummy that hasn't spent any time in the corporate world before and didn't know how this stuff works. And so I wasn't expecting that. And uh, this is another one of those very, very moments that I won't forget. But I'm sitting there with our, I think he, I don't know, I think he was the director of supply chain at the time. And he's like, hey, well, you know, so we we really like what you're doing. You're doing a great job, and we'd like to reward you. And so he's like, Yeah, we're gonna bump your pay up to six sixty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Let me let's bust out my calculator here just so we're we're precise. So sixty-two thousand five hundred divided by fifty thousand. So twenty-five percent rate. Uh, you know what? I don't think it was that much. I think it was fifty-seven thousand five. Let's see, fifty-seven thousand five hundred, fifteen percent rate. I remember thinking in the back of my mind, I'm like, you guys, thank you, right? Externally, thank you, thank you. That's super, super nice of you. I would have kept doing this job for the same amount of money that you're paying me before because I don't know about annual merit increases and things like that. And yeah, so you offered, and I just thought that that was an astronomical amount of money. And I just like, man, I would have taken zero or way less than this, but you gave me something more. And I do remember though, and I don't know if this was deliberate on their part, that was something that created a lot of loyalty for me. That one, I I should have had a lot already because this company had given me such a huge opportunity, putting their faith and trust in somebody that had no work experience. I already should have been greatly indebted to them. And I think I was to a degree, but once there was that money component and I felt like they were really taking care of me, that's when it's like you're the loyalty there was just kind of through the roof. And you know, it's a main re uh one of the main reasons why I've spent so much time at that company, as I have is just especially early on, this is feeling as though they're really looking out uh for the people. So that's uh I don't know where I was going with that. But anyway, so just going through and I'm sure everybody's kind of got their things that they look at and they've got a place where they kind of just throw stuff. But if you don't, or yeah, if you do, go look at. Just take some time. Like go down memory lane, go see what kind of stuff you've got in there, and you know, see if it can jog some memories and give you some fresh perspective on different things. There goes the baby. I hear some coffee. I think we're good. We're gonna try to power through this uh until I hear the full on crying. But yeah, that just got me thinking about the power of seemingly small decision at the time that you have no clue uh what it could turn into. So it did get me thinking about that. Was me at 22, 23. If I could go back and give myself advice to that 22-year-old self, what would I do? And I know people say this, but I'm not I'm not sure that I would have done anything differently. Again, I think I got very fortunate at this particular company, but I don't know that I would have done something differently. I guess the outcome could have been better than it's been so far, but I'm then the outcome's been pretty great so far. And I do think it did get me thinking that there are I think there are people that are looking for this flashy piece of advice or just something that maybe moves the needle more. And at least for me, it has not there's been nothing really flashy about what I've done or how I've done it. It's really just like if I could describe it in one word, it's just been consistency, just kind of doing the same thing over and over again and just doing it to the best of my ability and just seeing where that goes. I think you have people out there. And by the way, ever everyone has their own approach, works for their personality, works for them. But like the way I think about it, you know, being a big baseball guy is you have the guys and girls out there that are are in the batter's box and they're looking at those pitches coming in and they're looking for that pitch where they can hit a ball, right? They're gonna hit a home run. They're gonna go for a big swing, they're gonna swing for the fences, and you know what? Guess what? You make contact sometimes, and it does go over the fence, and you do hit that home run. And you see those people out there, especially on you know social media today, you see these super, super successful people that have taken big swings and had big results. So it that absolutely works. So every, you know, like I said, everybody's approach is different. But if I could describe, you know, my approach, I'm like that very unassuming, middle, light-hitting middle infielder slash super utility player that hits just good enough to stay in the big leagues, you know, maybe has to go down every once in a while. It's kind of like that fringe player. But they come up and they just slap singles. They slap singles and they slap a single and they slap a single, and they're very consistent. And if you think about in baseball, yeah, with one swing, you could change the course of that game and score a run or score three or hit a grand slam and score four runs. Like you can do that. You can also achieve that same outcome by walk by getting a walk, drawing a walk or slapping a single, going the other way, slapping a single. It's not glamorous, it's not, you know, that sexy at all by any means, but it does you could get the same result. You can still score three, four, five runs. And that's how I would describe how I've gone about things. And yeah, sometimes you do wish and that you would take those home run to home run swings. And maybe I still have that in me, right? I'm still, you know, 40 years old. And so there may be a time where I'm just waiting and I'm sitting on that fat pitch and you know, waiting to drive one out. But I also can't knock the results so far, which is yeah, it's just kind of it's getting a little boring and monotonous sometimes, I guess a little bit, to just keep slapping singles and getting your paycheck and you know, saving consistently and investing it consistently. And but it's wor it's absolutely has worked. It has worked, and it's worked very well. So it's interesting um how everyone has has a different approach, and that's mine. I'm it's boring. I get it. But for those of you other boring people like me out there, it's uh absolutely a way to go. All right, let's see. I will say this last thing I'm gonna say on this one. As I've been interviewing all these really and if you guys can't tell by now, a lot of the people that I interview are just very successful people. There's a lot of entrepreneurs in there, or just a lot of people that have succeeded. And and that's my intention is to find those types of people. And when I first started doing this, part of me thought that there was a secret sauce that I was gonna have and interact with these people, and they were going to tell me the secret that I've never known and how to be successful. And I would just need to get that secret and then deploy that myself, and bam, I would happen. As it stands, if I could summarize, you know, the first 32, 33 episodes we've done, it's it's not always that interesting what people are doing. They're literally, it's like overly basic. It's I worked really hard, I did what I did really hard consistently, I didn't give up, and I just kind of went on until it worked. And so you hear somebody say that, and it just says, like, no, no, no. There has to be a secret sauce, the secret something, right? And I I guess I'm finding for the most part, it's really not that secret one, and it's also not that complicated. It could be as simple as you want it to be. I think we in our minds we make it way more complicated, but it doesn't have to be that hard. And I think that's something that I'm learning through talking to all these people is like literally, you just need to slap singles all day and good things will happen. All right. That's kind of some heavy stuff. So I'm well, I don't know if it's heavy, but it's just it's fine. We went down memory lane. But I'm gonna go also now and look at, you know, what's been going on. So let me let's take a minute here and go through some stuff. You know, a lot of what this podcast is, is sharing this journey, but also educating, right? And so that's where talking to people and different guests comes in. And then I tried to, you know, through that first two to three minutes, give you a little peek into what's happening, you know, in my personal life, into maybe different milestones or just just different things. So you can kind of see the progression of what's happening, especially from Adrian's eyes. Again, if you guys want to hear this, but uh just for the sake of experimenting, I'll tell you today. So when we first started this podcast, Adrian was six and a half at the time. So obviously fast forward, now he's a little over seven and a half. And part of I want you to just kind of see one, how the types of questions and conversations that come up and how he approaches them versus how he does today. But let me know if you want to see things like a check-in on I don't know, he talked like I know he talks about baseball a lot, and I try not to bore you guys with all the the little league baseball updates per se, but just you know, anything, just want to show progression, you know, how things are happening. I can do that. Just let me know. All right, so we're gonna try this, all right, and then uh and then we'll wrap up. But just if you want to know the progressions of the family, like I said, I try to do that through the the introduction so you kind of get a sense of what's happening at home and just with the family life. But I'll just kind of be very a little bit more explicit and then just make this quick updates. But there was one question that came up, it's a little cliche, but it's for a reason. But I'm just for the purposes of memorializing this and in recording, I'll just talk about it anyways, and hopefully you guys will find it interesting. But it's what is something about my kids right now that I know I'm gonna miss someday? And I have this feeling frequently, and you know, just coaching Adrian and his baseball team is whether whether it's at practice or or at a game, it's just sitting on, you know, for those of you that have played baseball, they you know, you put baseballs in a bucket typically to carry them around, and those buckets have a lid, so it kind of can go as a seat as well. But just kind of, you know, popping a squat on on those buckets and just like watching, watching them out there play and just you know, thinking back to his early days, especially, you know, on the pitching side and watching him get frustrated. I mean, it's that's such a hard thing, right? Especially at that young of an age to have parents on both sides watching, and if you don't throw strikes, strikes, the game slows down. It's it's a lot of pressure. And you know, to watch him back then where just going from meltdowns where you'd have to go walk up to the mound and just hey, breathe, take a breath, just relax, you got this. To today, you know, in particular, where it's you know, he he struck somebody out, he just kind of like peeks over and throws me this quick thumbs up, right? So just you know, way more confidence, feeling a lot better, you know, comes back into the mound and just smile on his face, right? Just uh really, really proud of himself and as as he should be. But just putting in that work in when he wants to, which is hey, I'm not gonna tell you to do this every day, but when you want to, I'm I'm ready to do it with the end. So just really nice to see, you know, that the fruits of his labor kind of work itself out in a game situation. And it's just, you know, sports in general, just such a great vehicle for all the things that the life lessons that you may want to teach your kids. And so it's you know, really great. And so, yeah, I think as far as Damien is concerned, he kind of reaching that age, five and a half, where he's not just gonna kind of sit there and take it anymore, right? Like what your older brother says goes, and that was the case, it's very agreeable, just kind of going with the flow, you know, whatever Adrian says goes kind of thing. And now more recently, noticing this trend, not every time, but just kind of creeping in there every once in a while, where if something's happening that he's not particularly excited about or, you know, on the game plan with, he's gonna make his opinion known a little bit more. And I think I can sympathize more with Adrian as the older brother in the room, which is hey, what I say goes kind of thing, to uh oh, I'm being uh being questioned here a little bit and kind of just the the power struggle that seems to be going on there is just you know really fascinating and and fun to watch and just also you know gotta break it up every once in a while. But you know, for those of you that have siblings, you know how that that goes. And then last, you know, Camilla just seven months old, uh chugging along, just doing her thing and um you know starting to army crawl around the house as you know, it's we've reached that stage where you gotta start plugging every outlet, make sure, you know, no forks end up in there, knives end up in there, and just you know, bubble wrapping uh the corners. Nope, haven't done that yet. But you kind of get it, right? Just gates everywhere, kind of entering that zone again. Take it, don't don't you dare walk into my house uh with your shoes on, right? Because you got a baby crawling around the house. So just making sure those are clean. I kind of like uh thought about, well, a couple things on that, by the way. One being, you know, they have those little booty things. Well, so a couple things. Well, one, you can take off the shoes, right? That's just kind of an easy way to go about it. Two, you can put on those little, I don't know what they're called, those little they almost look like the the hairnets that you put on, but they go on your shoes. Can you that? That seems kind of like a little bit much, but I guess technically that's the thing. But what about this guys? And maybe this exists, but just kind of a thing where you would, you could keep your shoes on, but like you would put your shoes in and it would just, I don't know, use UV lights, maybe um some sort of uh fabuloso, some sort of cleaning um material that would just scrub the heck out of those soles of the feeds, and you can keep those babies on walking the house, right? So you kind of get the best of both worlds. You got your clean feet and you can leave your shoes on. So if you that doesn't exist, if it does, please let me know. I might be in the market for that. If it does not, to all my inventors slash entrepreneurs out there, you have at least one customer for sure. That's it, guys. I'm gonna end it there. I really appreciate all the support and listening. I do this for myself, you know, just to be honest. It's um it's kind of like this living, breathing history. It's it's you guys seeing how I how I go about learning and trying to get better at what I do every day. But I really hope it helps you guys as well. And not maybe not everything, but at least just something here or there. Either way, I genuinely appreciate the support. You know, so does my wife, to be honest, because I'm editing this thing, you know, putting timestamps doing all this stuff after hours when I probably should be spending time, you know, watching a show or doing something with her. And um, thankfully she's been very supportive. But, you know, those are the times that I'm taking away to focus on on building this. And I do it, like I said, for myself and for the family. But if you guys get something out of it and I cannot have a benefit for that too, then all the better, right? So thank you so much for everything, and we'll see you guys soon. Bye.