Rocco Maurello

Rocco Maurello is a longtime friend, a baseball fan, and a businessman who has started companies. He launched the Butter Dragon, a barbecue tool, through Rocanna Corp.

The product is at rocannacorp.com. Rocanna Corp is on Instagram and Facebook.

This is episode 8 of Flipside Frolic. It was recorded January 31, 2025, published June 15, 2025, and runs about 2 hours and 55 minutes.

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Transcript

This is the conversation, proofread from the auto captions. Clear errors in names and places were corrected. The conversation itself was not rewritten.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic, where we learn to understand each other's perspectives by flipping the script and having some fun. Here we All right, we should be good. Welcome everybody to Flipside Frolic. I'm your host Carl Kmiec and I have with you me my good friend Rocco Maurello. How you doing Rocco? Good. How are we doing today? Awesome. So, uh, gave you a little bit of intro on what the format is on here, and we're just having a little conversation, a couple of things that, you know, uh, let the people know. I mean, we grew up from, uh, pretty much grammar school in the in the old neighborhood near, um, basically Fullerton and Cicero near Chicago or in Chicago on the northwest side. Um, played little league baseball together. Um, had a lot of a lot of things like that.

And most people know and I've said it before that the you know this is a an opportunity for me to just connect with some old people, meet up with some old friends, see what people are up to, all that sort of thing. And um one of the things that interested me just for what you've been into because you were promoting a product and entrepreneurial mindset and just kind of always doing things and I saw some things about inventions and different ideas and different stuff and and it's always cool to kind of get that um entrepreneurial mindset and and just see what makes people tick and what people what keeps people motivated and and all that kind of stuff. So, if you want to just kind of catch up and tell me what you've been up to since little league baseball, I guess we could start there and go from there.

Well, we probably need a couple days for that. Well, that's what you know, it's funny that sometimes, you know, you people say, you know, hey, you know, how long do you how long you you know, should I book for this thing? And and and I had somebody's like, oh, three hours. Like, are you kidding? You know, and and but it's amazing that when we hit like the two and a half hour mark, you're going to be like, what? I thought it was like 45 minutes. It just goes so fast because it's fun to get into conversations and, you know, catch up and all that stuff. So, we'll just get you going for that. And so, grammar school, work, history, just kind of like what you've been up to. Yeah, probably a lot. Um, you know, since grammar school, like I said, we all connected, you know, playing little league baseball. It's kind of what everybody did.

It kind of kept the neighborhood together, right? Everybody knew everybody. jump on your bike with your mitt and ride to the park and to practice and yeah, it's a little different today, that's for sure. We were not necessarily helicopter kids with parents hovering around. It'd be like, you know, they'd send you out the door with your bike and lock the door behind you like, "Get out of here. Go have, you know, explore, get into trouble, whatever." Um, yeah, there were definitely no rides to to practice or the park, right?

I just told my son that cuz you know he he was joking about like the maybe seeing a meme or YouTube video or whatever a short about somebody's parents talking about walking to school both ways uphill in the snow you know all this kind of thing but I said because we lived uh we lived west of Cicero you guys were east of Cicero so going to St. Genevieve's we uh St. Genevieve's uh grammar school.

Um we walked across that Wrightwood Parkway and there was a time where we got which is only that was Rightwood and then you know Schubert was like the next street over that we lived on and so it wasn't very far to walk through that parkway and then there was another four blocks or so or five blocks to get to school that we walked every day and it was so cold we couldn't even get through the parking the parkway before we like turned around like we can't make it. and we got went back home and my mom was just like, "The hell? What the hell? You ain't going to school, you know, like." So, she gave me a scarf and a couple of extra, you know, extra pair of gloves and maybe another jacket or whatever and off we went. Or maybe she gave us a ride. I don't necessarily remember. Like I said, I mean, I never get remember getting rides.

And the funny thing is that saying actually came up because we would ask our parents, "Hey, can we get a ride? Like, there's two feet of snow on the ground, this and that." They'd be like, we like, we have to walk all the way to school. They're like, well, we used to have to walk to school uphill both ways, you know. And now, like I said, you know, the kids we have now, you know, they won't even walk to school. Yeah. How dare you? And and again, you know, that's part of this parenting. How many How many you got? I don't have any. Okay. But my brother, sisters, there's a whole bunch of little ones in in the family. So, Gotcha. I'm there for all the chatter. No, for sure. I We got three. So, I got the the 10-year-old uh the 12-year-old daughter and and 14-year-old boys.

So, he's getting ready to start high school, and that'll be interesting. We got some great guests coming in for even educational talk and all this early childhood development and and all these just sorts of discussions that you can drive yourself crazy over trying to do the best you can. And at the end of the day, you know, now that they're even older, it's like, I don't even know how much most of that matters. It's like you give some direct attention. Um, so you give love, support, and all the rest of it is I don't know how much it makes a difference with different personality types and you know, they're all their own people and where does that come from and it gets deep and who knows, you know. Yeah, we have to pull out a couple psychology books for that. Yeah. And it's out of my out of my league. So, um, so yeah.

So you did the you did high school um after high school what did you do after that? So after high school just started working you know you worked with the city with your brother um worked for the city for a long time and then I got hurt on the city and I actually went back to school you know actually went back to Arizona State University to try to play baseball again. Nice. At what age was that? 25. God, that's that's pretty brave. Pretty brave. But uh you know, it was always inside you, right? And of course um walking on the team and about uh two practice games in blow my arm out again. So that kind of was the end of the end for me. Nice. And I said, "Well, now that's it. Time to get a a real real job again." Gotcha. That's interesting because Yeah. I remember I remember you were always on on the pitching mound for the most part.

That was uh and then I I I assess maybe your profile had Northeastern as well. Did you finish up there then? Yeah. So, of course, I had to come back home um had to come back home and I finished up at Northeastern. Nice. Yeah. Started out at Triton, went to ASU, and then came back home to Northeastern. Cool. And finished off with a BA or Y in what? Health sciences. education. Nice. That's cool. Yeah. I uh I went to the Navy after high school uh directly and then that was kind of a short-lived thing because Clinton was making all the military cutbacks then. So um was able to do a Mediterranean tour and went to Italy and Greece and all that paid for by the Navy which is pretty cool. and then came back and went back went commuted to Northeastern and was planning on playing baseball there.

But at that time it was 92 93 they had a pretty damn good program there. And it was almost like out of fear like I didn't I didn't after not playing my senior year in high school. That's kind of a long story that most the seniors on the team quit cuz a new guy came in and was trying to rebuild the program for future. So he was like starting freshman over juniors and seniors on varsity just because he was trying to rebuild the program. just like this might be the last year we played ball and you know it was just kind of it seemed like the seniors were kind of getting screwed so everybody kind of rebelled. Most of us rebelled and quit.

there was like maybe three guys that hung on and you know um but then coming after not so not after not playing for like two or three years it was like I I I I didn't even know if I was eligible or if I would try out or whatever and I think I was just too much of a chicken to try out you know because I wasn't a superstar even in high school pretty good hitter that was probably my thing mostly um but yeah so so that's cool so college work and then maybe talk about some of the ideas that that you you um I just had uh Andy Nathan on is a is a great social media guy and and one of the things he enjoyed with uh company startups like so so he would interview people and and he'd noticed the difference um in timeline.

So like so Scott there's making ideas happen and there's a few awesome books out there about how to categorize things and and try to prioritize things and try to do some beta testing on certain ideas and see what you know what seems like it might work. But um there's the some great movies out there about people that have done things and risk the mortgage the house on these ideas and and and tried to and fail and fail and fail and then and then Andy's thing was like you'd see that and then all of a sudden something happened and then things start happening and then you get a break and then something else happens and next thing you know they're very successful, right?

and and his interest was more into the what he called the startup gap because from the time that you started making this idea happen and the time things really started rolling is sometimes 3 four years and it's like nobody really talks about that gap and and that's perseverance and determination and and trying and failing trying and failing trying and failing and then all of a sudden something happens and then everybody's like oh that guy got lucky. Well, I mean, that's what everybody says with anything in life, right? If you don't know the person, if you don't follow the person, you know, maybe you haven't seen him since you were little and you're like, you remember what he was like from he's literally like that guy, you know, he used to eat the yellow snow, you know. Yeah.

And there's no way he could have done anything, you know, but there is a big gap though. I will tell you that. Um, I mean, I patented a couple of my products, a couple of my ideas, and my first patent took almost three and a half years to get. Three and a half years, you know, I mean, people could die in that time. No question. And, uh, so it it's a very it's a long process for that. And I think with anything too, just in life, um, you have to be at the right place at the right time. You need a little luck. No matter what you're doing, somebody needs a break. you got to catch a break. Um maybe it's timing, I don't know. But there's so many serendipitous coincidences a lot of times that come across as luck and sometimes whether it's the magical power of the universe or whatever the case may be.

I do believe in a little bit of that mystical magic because it seems like when we're doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons, those lucky situations just seem to happen more often, right?

So, and and and so some people could say you create your own luck and it's like, well, yeah, I don't necessarily know about that, but I do know that like following the following vision and st holding true to like whether people call it the muse and writing or whatever, like I think like with again I should look at look because I think I screwed the author's name up last time for the making ideas happy whether it was Scott Belsky Um, but one of those things is is like you, you know, you you can have these ideas and everybody's had them and you, you know, you just realize that most of us had a multi-million dollar idea that we just let pass. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that's actually what motivated me to apply for my first patent, right? Because I didn't know nothing about it. I didn't know how to do it.

And anytime you do something for the first time, it's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of research. You know, unless you have a lot and a lot of money, you know, if you're worth, you know, 20 $30 million your company, you know, you could just pass this on. But other than that, when you're starting out, you're not going to do that, right? You kind of have to learn and go as go as you go. And that was probably a really humbling experience, too. you know, anything I of course everything you know when you don't have an unlimited budget for sure you're filling out paperwork you could just hire a lawyer to do like just to start a nonprofit or to do all these different things.

Um, and I don't know if it's certain personality types that are just more of a creative type or more of a scatterbrain or more OCD or, you know, ADD and and trying different things, always into other different things, whether it's different sports and what different hobbies and that's always been my um my situation for sure. And sometimes but you know when you can come across something and have a vision and then make it happen. Obviously, yes, I can I obviously just starting this podcast and being seven, eight episodes in, it's it's amazing the the the startup energy that it takes, but yet I'm still my greatest, you know, worst enemy because there's definitely times where I'd have three hours to kill with things on the whiteboard that I should check off to do and just not do anything either.

So just the motivation to stay with and keep going and move forward and continue on.

Um particularly like you said for anybody out there that's you know I I believe like that magic is out there in a sense and good and evil and if you're doing things for the right reasons it seems that things fall in your lap at the right times and the right reasons and that you know even even some of the categorizing of ideas and then some you run into somebody or you meet somebody you're like hey man that guy is kind of just like and that's kind of what the this podcast too is that we talk to friends and we talk to people and then all of a sudden next thing you like, "Oh, you should talk to him or you should talk to him or whatnot." Um, but that's a big part of of of some of that kind of magic that seems to happen, you know, but and that that that evil or the devil or whatever anybody wants to call it is out there in different various forms of course, but that little guy in the shoulder that tells you, man, you don't have enough money for that.

you know, you don't you don't have time for that or you're not smart enough for that. Yeah. And I don't you know, I'm gonna go back to your first point and I think that's really what the eye openener was for me too is you said everybody's had this great idea in their head at one point in time and I did too and I had this great idea and then I'm like well somebody must have had to invented this, right?

somebody had to it and then you know you forget about it and then like two or three years later and you see somebody brings this product to market and you're like wait a minute I had this idea you know 10 years ago five 10 years ago and you're like wait a minute like nobody else did have this idea how's that possible right or like I said there was maybe hundreds of people who did but nobody actually went forward looked into it and actually made a prototype or patented or brought the product to market and that was the eye openener to me too right so then that's what got me interested right so then I just started looking up things right like this would be a great idea and you could go right on the web and go to the patent office base and you could just look and you could scroll through and it'll it'll come up with anything that's even close to what your idea is and I started reading reading all these other patents and I was like wow there's like nothing in here for this or for this or for that like and some were very simple ideas you know and um you know I mean I've seen people do some remarkable things like I mean there was this little girl I mean she was probably 12 and she just invented these little headphones that we're wearing with ears you know and it was a really big hit and it was just a really simple idea you know so many art man it's like I think the documentary was about the guy that um invented the the bottle opener that was the Simpson one that said m beer when when he opened the beer and that was finally after various products that he mortgaged his house on it and failed and failed like that was the one where he made his million or whatever.

Um but it sure as heck wasn't the first one. You know what I mean? And then and then again that evil of of it's too hard, it's too complicated. if it was really a good idea, somebody else would have done it already. You know, that's all that self-limiting belief that is just holding us back. Correct. And I think that the majority of the people that when whenever you hear really successful people, it seems that they just have I I don't even want to say a natural ability to just shut that off and say screw you. I'm doing this. Um but that's obviously what it takes to succeed on on any of those sorts of ideas. It does for sure. You know, you have to have self-belief. But there is this also a funny saying too that says, you know, there's a fine line between being a visionary and being wrong.

And the problem is you need to be a visionary to see it. Yes. So you do need to have, you know, everybody, it might be a great idea for you, but is it a great idea for everybody else? Right? And a lot of times a lot of people do get stuck on on their one idea that they think is just the greatest idea in the world and it's just not practical for maybe everybody else or the audience isn't big enough, right? Your consumer base isn't big enough for that. So I think there is, you know, um the market's going to tell you, the market's going to tell you, right? Don't lie. No, the market don't lie. And once that happens, then it's not over. you know, you just move on to something else.

Yeah, the ego could get involved and you just don't want to give this thing up when maybe you could maybe it's just not the right time and maybe you could just put it on a back burner or something and leave it for a later date or maybe production costs are too high. So, it's just not something variables, right? I mean, the market has to be big enough, the price point has to be big enough or, you know, at the right price point where everybody could actually purchase it, right? if it encumbers, you know, the $29 Christmas gift idea or whatever. You know what I mean? Like here, you could have a flying car, it'd be the greatest idea in the world. But if they're $5 million, how many are you going to sell, right? Elon talks about that through the roof because it's like it's easy to create a prototype, right?

Now, FAA is never going to allow you to fly those around. Yeah. I think about that, right? The problem is is when it crashes and falls on your house or you're just out walking your dog and a car falls on you, that's the problem. So that would be complicated for sure. But you know the one thing that's really so so for for people out there that have ideas or whatever so that like you said that I like even just the this the the learning curve for these simple tasks and and sometimes everybody's like it's out there on YouTube and you know all the information is out there but sometimes you don't even know the words to search in order to get the information because you don't really know the process.

So sometimes you might get some online guy that's selling a course on how to do this stuff and you think it's a scam cuz he's just charging you 50 bucks for this information that's available free online. Well, not really. If it's not in a step-by-step process and if if you can learn from somebody that's done it before, that is the key. If you actually know somebody who's actually done it, that's perfect, right? Because there are a lot of, you know, I hear, you know, I also sell real estate and I've, you know, had a broker's license for gosh, I can't even tell you how many years, 25 years. And I see all these people on the uh on TV telling you, "Oh, how how to flip an house and how you're going to make millions in real estate, right? And they're throwing conventions." Well, these people are making money throwing the conventions.

They're not making money selling real estate or flipping homes, right? They're making the money trying to tell you how to do it. And if they were so successful at that, that's what they would be doing full-time. They wouldn't just not teaching you, you know, just to stay positive. I assure you that there may be some a percentage and that's the key, folks. if you're here, if you're listening to some guru and if he's not willing to spin the laptop around and show you his actually marketing budget, his assets, you know, cuz like clickbait and, you know, there's clickbait.com and there's or there's a lot of different ways that you can make money online. That's the perfect one that I've had some experience with where make $30,000 a month online, you know, um, and working two hours a day from home. like sign me up, you know.

Now, is it possible? 100%. Are you only going to work 2 hours a day? And the guy has a a 2x3 foot cardboard sign that he posted to the city. Yeah. Stop sign right now. You can like go on Fiverr and get some pretty girl to hold a sign up with your logo on there and stuff nowadays. So, like some of these marketing ideas are it doesn't have to cost a ton of money sometimes or you don't have to hire a model and do a photo shoot and bring in a photographer and all this stuff. Um, especially with AI. We have a guest coming in that does a lot of AI stuff with music and images and stuff. It's just like the world's changing so fast. It's amazing and you got to keep up, you know.

Um, but yeah, those those those sorts of things when when you're trying to learn, but if you pay somebody $49 for a course and and and you you feel the value, I mean, what is money, right? We're just trading value, perceived value, even is my $50 bill worth taking the family out to Culver's yesterday and it was 80 bucks. Is that insane? We we could have a whole topic on the price of food. Yeah, everything with inflation and all the stuff that's going on now. We'll see. Hopefully things some some things are going to change, right? I'm I'm about to go uh steal a couple chickens and open up my side business selling eggs, you know. Well, I got Well, if you need I I was just So, speaking of serendipitous coincidences, right? And which is how amazing.

I was just talking I just asked around at work the other day because I'm like, "Hey, anybody keep chickens?" Cuz with the with the podcast, I I I I've done a few sound boards, you know, that that white board I made with some rockwool insulation in there to try to keep the sound quality somewhat decent in the studio here. And and uh and and and there's one on the door and one behind me over here. And and uh and it was one of those things where I was just saving egg cartons because that was the old school day. You tape the egg cartons up to the wall and and posters over them and it would help, right? and and and so you you could same kind of thing when you're on a budget, you know, you can't you could you can have somebody custom design all these boards to surround the whole room and hang carpeting and all this other kind of stuff.

Um but it's not cheap, you know. So I ended up saving all these egg cartons, you know, and it I have three garbage bags of them in my garage right now. And it was just like I'm I I haven't even gotten around to just taking them all out and stacking them up with the same styles that it's going to take up a quarter of the room. So, like I don't need to have three garbage bags of egg cartons. And yes, you could just throw them out, too. But it's like somebody could use these and I just can't throw them out. I don't know what my problem is, you know? But you just try to be helpful and try to help other people and and and you just try not to waste stuff, but it it's difficult, you know. Oh, so getting back so um to our entre entrepreneurship um discussion.

Have you ever seen they actually one of my favorite inventions and they actually did a movie on it which was actually really funny is about the person who invented the hula hoop and he used to work in the mail room at this company and he comes up and like I said he just he was bottom of the line guy at at at this major company and he walks in to the boss's office and boss boss is like who even let you in here right the CEO of the company who even let you in this office he's like I no way he's like I got this great idea this great idea like you you you have to look at it. And he hands him a piece of paper with a circle on it. And the CEOs just start screaming. He's like, "Get the hell out of my office. Where did this guy keep calling for security?" He's like, "Get this guy out of my office." Right?

And he's like, "You're absolutely" He's like, "What's wrong with this guy's absolutely nuts?" But I mean, that's what the picture of Huloop looked like. Just a circle on a piece of paper, right? That's the the technical drawing. Yeah. So, they actually want to take over the company, right? The CEO wants to take over the company from the owner who's passed and left it to his wife and he feels like she doesn't know what she's doing. So, they actually come out with this product to actually sink the company and drop the stock so that they could buy the stock and end up taking over the company. And what ends up happening is they make they make these hula hoops and the hula hoops nobody's buying any like none.

They're literally almost crashed the entire company and and they did it in a matter of months maybe 18 months because they invested all this money on the hula hoop and they made millions of these and put them out. They got, you know, they they were big companies. They had distribution. and they got them into the stores and nobody wanted one. I mean, nobody wanted one. Like, the price went from $2 to a dollar to 50 cents to, you know, buy a Twinkie and we're throwing one in for free. And what ends up happening is this little girl ends up going on Johnny Carson and spinning these hula hoops. And every kid after that in America wanted a hula hoop. and they went from literally taking a company out of business to making 20 $30 million in two years. It was it's it was just an amazing story, right?

But like I said, right place kind of right time. Well, like you said, maybe there's not a market for this or maybe you just didn't get the word out and you can't necessarily afford to spend millions on advertising to get this word out. Fortunately, now this is a different world. So with YouTube and Tik Tok and all these other avenues of of being able to just get your own stuff out there, you don't necessarily have to be captured with all this risk through some promoter or so.

So obviously there you know the negative person would be like you know that's that's one of the things too that through like through multi-level marketing or through through some of the making idea happens in self-help industry world like if you're so protective of your idea you're never going to tell anybody about it because you're so afraid somebody's going to steal it and there's a legitimate there's yes clause there too. So, I was talking to somebody else who I know and she invented this wonderful product and actually got the product to market and actually put the product um she actually got on QVC with the product and and just killed it.

killed it and made I mean sold out her entire inventory in you know four minutes and somebody did copy a major company copied her product put it out there actually got Disney to license like you know her original idea and you know now you're in court now do you have how much money do you have to fight this with a major major company it's really hard It's really hard. And here's the problem that people don't realize. Even though you have a patent, if somebody steals your patent or they call it infringing in the business, they infringed on your patent, you have a right to sue them, but there is no crimical criminal um law applied to it. Meaning, if I stole your product, I can't go to jail. I can't face any criminal charges. And that's a problem. So, it creates a situation, well, if I can't go to jail, what's the worst that could happen?

I gotta pay you back, right, for stealing your product. It's almost like for people that think that, you know, similar story is is I there was this guy that had a wholesaler's license and was selling stuff out of his basement in the fish industry, right? And you need a brickandmortar store in order in the old school days of having a wholesaler. And then there was the secret price sheet that was at there's this backer show that was at the Rosemont Convention Center. Both floors it was the the the Christmas end of the year um um show for the pet industry. Dogs and cats, leashes, treats, pets, and then there was some fish stuff too, but it was mostly dog and cat because there's a lot of money in that industry and people spend so much money on their pet.

So, this show like I supposedly like 80% of all sales in the whole pet industry happen at that show in like November and it's closed. It's not it's not open to the public. It's wholesaler only. So then you go in there and you have the wholesaler sheet. It's kind of an interesting thing because everybody's got their name tags and so it's you you get this look where people are like, you know, you look at someone, you say, "Hey, how you doing?" They're always like looking looking you down like, "Are you looking at my chest?" No, they're looking at your name tag. Like, who am I talking to? Is this somebody that's worth my time or important? Are you from Petco or are you from Mom and Pop Pet Shop or whatever?

Um but anyway, the the the the point of that was was that you know that those price points were an availability that you know there was a 40% markup from retail back then you know and it's just like that industry is just you can't do that anymore because so many of these production costs and all these things are so open to the market even shopping a car or whatever if you're looking at Kelly Blue Book and looking at real prices. So, it's hard to make money. Um, and then you get people that would think that, well, you're stealing from the workers and the people because you're making all this money on this product and it's just like cost of overhead and cost of marketing and cost of risk and all these other things.

So, what would you say would be like for for somebody with an idea to protect themselves not only from somebody else taking their idea? Well, some people would say like you still just work harder than that person and they can steal the idea and do nothing with it like most people would do or are you just going to work harder than them anyway? So screw them because you know that you're going to work harder than anybody. That's nice if that's you know what you can do but for the most part you know I don't know. But when it comes to the the process of of like even, you know, trademarking a logo or things like that that aren't that difficult, right? Um, but you don't know where you go to get the form to fill out and spend the 50 bucks. Like I said, and that's what I'm saying, it's a learning process, right?

Like I said, my first patent took almost four years to get my first patent. The second patent I got, I got done in a year and four or five months, you know, because I knew the process. And not also that um they knew me, right, at the patent office. So they're like, "Okay, this guy's legit, right? He's he's put this out. He has a degree in in science. He understands what's going on here. We understand what he's doing." And you get a little more leeway. They're not so so so tough as you know looking into every little piece. Right. Right. Right. But and I'm not trying to discourage anybody either saying your product's going to get stolen. It does happen. But on a good note too, I'll tell you I I know people who have actually sued and won millions and millions of dollars for people stealing their product, right?

And there are some really good law firms out there that understand this and they know this could be a big payday for them and they're happy to go after these big companies, right? Um, and there's something else that's called like liable. They could find a judge could find this company liable, meaning they intentionally directly stole your product and they could end up having to pay you two, three times the amount of money because the potential is revenue is unknown. Correct. And of course immediately too once that happens they're going to have to end and end sales of anything that they've sold under your brand or settle with you on future future commissions or whatever, right?

And and so so that was one thing that obviously is confu confusing too that people don't understand even like watching Shark Tank or something like that where you know you're presenting this move or if you don't really know. So, so I guess a quick analogy is kind of like if you're a beautiful blonde and and and and the stereotype is that you probably don't know much about cars and you go into a dealership and you say there's this bang click noise coming from my car, chances are it's going to cost you a few dollars, right? Listen, hey, once that service manager gets a hold of you, you're done. I mean, you you went in there for an oil change and you're going to come out beat.

It's possible you have a reputable shop and they treat you well and they don't oversell you anything, but they're more than likely not going to be in business that long, unfortunately. And and so if you have some knowledge of the industry and you start feeling like you're getting kind of one taken on you and then you start throwing lingo out there cuz I'm a mechanic. Absolutely. Now you got the sales manager on his heels because he knows he was trying to screw you and then you get a free car wash. You get something out of the deal, whatever the case may be. And so with even the same thing happened with with the podcast that if you're on a budget and you don't really have the unlimited resources to hire a producer and a video editor and marketers and all these things, right? But here's the good thing too.

People usually almost everybody you come across and I think you're going to agree with this that people either usually have money or they have time, right? So if you have the money, great. you know, you could find people who specialize in what you're looking for, what you need. And if you don't, you usually have time on your hands, right? And now you have time to do the research and start, you know, and and rolling your folks because cuz the the the what analysis paralysis, right, is is real, you know, and you try to make everything perfect and you never end up launching, right? as opposed to learn as you go, make some mistakes. Hey, it's okay that episode 4 is not as good as episode 60, you know, and you can tweak some things and add a sign. I don't think was here for the first couple. So, I got to tell you, I love the sign.

Yeah, I I I'll get the uh company name and shout it out a few times on future episodes cuz it was it's really not pretty reasonably priced and backlit. It looks pretty cool. I mean, I think I'm getting a butter dragon sign from this company. That's amazing, you No, there and then there's some there's some etched um plexiglass LED ones that are pretty cool that you know you could do with laser etching that people have done and there's a lot of different stuff but you know again you could you could get down this hole of trying to learn. So so I personally use Da Vinci Resolve for editing because it pretty much came with the 810 mini which is my video switch for anybody interested in that. But uh but you can spend it's like it's like AutoCAD or Photoshop.

You could spend a lifetime learning this program and you will not even learn half of what it's capable of doing because it's not necessary because it goes that deep. So you could dive down that rabbit hole even on just the idea of sound engineering for whether it's for a band or for um you start looking into the different gates and the different effects and the different things that you could do with sound.

I was down a rabbit hole and it's where I'm like ready to go get a sound engineering degree because it's so interesting with the different levels and what you can do and how you could cut background noise out and all and do all this other kind of stuff and it's so interesting but then you can look in like Adobe on Adobe podcast they have this AI editor where you can download an MP3 file of something you shot on your cell phone outside and it cuts out all the street noise like automatically and comes up with a pretty decent sounding audio and you're like that's kind of crazy. Now, if you're interested, you can dive a little deeper and try to learn what it actually did to do what you, you know, to get what you want, the results you wanted. Um, but that maybe is not necessary anymore. So, is it based on curiosity?

So, then you end up getting down these rabbit holes and you you end up not really focusing where you're supposed to be focusing sometimes, you know? Um but you know to stay on stay on track with that with the patent idea um is is yes. So so so I have another friend that that had u he has an idea with a tool and and so that's the same kind of thing.

somebody's going to just slightly change that um tool and and maybe you know how can you beat that when you when you have an idea but but without trying to get too scatterbrain here which I am feeling a little bit here um but to stay focused on you know the positive so much because most people are kind of there to help you too you know people aren't as as as negative And no, you know, and and when you hear like there there was one person that I knew that was really successful and he's like when you get into the country clubs and you start if you start living that kind of lifestyle and you start hearing people's stories, you're like their stories are incredible and you know most you know it's not all generational wealth and it's not all these people that are just trust fund babies and stuff.

You know, you hear the story of the single dad that created the hot pocket is an amazing is an amazing story. Or if you want to do these sorts of things, you have to you have to learn from people that have done it like we've said in the past. Now, now whether you know them or whether you read a biography of the founder of Home Depot, that was a pretty interesting story on how his vision, he followed his vision as true as possible, even though he didn't have the money to do so. Like the tiered rack system and opening his first store, he didn't have money for inventory to have all the stuff stacked up on these on these tiers.

So he got empty boxes and got the manufacturers to send product stickers and put them on these empty boxes so that he can hold true to the vision and trust the muse so to speak, you know, but if if this isn't what I need my I need to make this vision reality and now you see it's the standard for shopping with Menards and Home Depot and Lowe's and Costco and you know so it's incredible how those little things happen. Well, I think from what I've seen, most people invent something for two reasons. Either one, they just like to tinker around, right? There's people who just like to tinker with stuff and and just play with stuff and they're like, "Hey, I could add this to this or I could take these two products in form one, right?" Or the other way is it usually comes out of a form of necessity, right?

Like, man, there's got to be a better way to do this. This is driving me crazy. it's taking up too much of my time. I wish I could solve this problem so I had time to do something else that I really want to do. And either way, either way one of those comes, it puts you on a path of solving a problem, right? And and I think that the the coolest thing about this conversation and and people like yourself that that that exist is that, you know, this idea of being getting into the financial markets and moving money around and being some hedge fund manager and making trillions of dollars and never even making anything other than destruction of companies and consolidation of jobs and all this kind of negativity.

thinking that that's the only way you can get be successful or get a bunch of money, you know, and and a lot of times people so focused on money that they're never going to succeed either. And some of the self-help books and some of these kind of foofu ideas where they say if you just focus on like your income is directly proportional to the amount of value you give the marketplace. Like that sounds like crazy talk to some people and other people that have done it seem to agree. Like if you just focus on giving value, the marketplace is going to reward you. So your value is making somebody's life easier through your idea or whatever the case may be.

And and and the fact that you battled through that evil that's telling you you're too stupid for this or you don't have enough money for this or you don't you know you don't have time for this or whatever the case may be. Like I gave out a free idea to some people in the past because it's like it's a back burner idea. I'm probably never going to do anything with it. But hey, run with it if it's if it's something you think would work because but but it happened organically as you got some kids in hockey and they're, you know, five and six years old. It's not cheap, folks. And you they almost can't even make a whole season with the same equipment because they're growing so damn fast and it's not cheap.

So just sitting in the stands and people watching and listening and you know you hear the other parents you're like yeah you're going to be on a firstname basis with the guys that played against sports and you know all this kind of stuff and you're like man there's got to be a better way. Yeah. And then it's like what about like a subscription plan and you start a nonprofit so you're not actually making money for the kids to learn this game of hockey and you get CCM and Reebok and a few different sponsors to come in and for whatever the price point is is that you you're never going to know until you kind of do quite a bit of homework to to try to see for $59 a month anytime you need equipment, skates, a new pad, whatever, just come on in and trade it in or whatever.

ever trade up and then you could watch the stuff and warehouse stuff and you know and then it's like it could scale out because this could just be a Chicago program with with the local Blackhawks and different things or whatever and then you could go to other cities and you could expand internationally. It's like, wow, that sounds actually like it could be something that could work. As opposed to doing this whole play it again thing and then you buy stuff and then they don't want to take it back because it's beat up and it's like, well, it's not in any different condition than when I bought it the first time.

Like, what's so that's a tough game that you know you and and but you know, unless you are have an unlimited budget and you could just afford to just go out and spend 600 bucks on a you know, or four three 400 bucks on new equipment or more. for for your six-year-old, it's difficult. So, but trying to fill the void of hearing that problem and then having an idea or a proposed solution and then doing the leg work to see if that's something that can be reality, you know, right? And like I said, of all the patents that I have and the ones I have pending, everyone but one just came out of necessity. something that was bothering me that I was doing, right? I said, gosh, there's just this is ridiculous. Like, it's taking too much time. It's consuming too much of my time. Let me figure out just a simpler way of doing this.

And it's really that's how an idea comes up. It's that simple. It's really that simple. Now, you know, you get more into complex issues like, well, you know, um, time travel, right? Like, it sucks being on a plane for four hours. What if we can invent, you know, a portal? Well, that's a great idea, but it's just unpractical. And not that science says it's not possible. It's just going to be impossible most likely for you to do at the time where you're at right now, right? Great idea. Just unfortunately, um, you know, you don't have the ability to create that. So, so in in in in one way we we we uh tangented off a little bit about the idea of a few things, but but one was the the girl going in and getting kind of screwed by the dealership because she didn't really know the lingo. So, what's a good deal and what's not a good deal?

And and and so sometimes the negative attitudes of people like they think everything's a scam. Like they think a financial advisor that's making a commission off of you is a scam. It's like, well, not if you're making 15% returns instead of 9% returns on your money and acred interest over time. Like, and and the richest man in Babylon has a phenomenal book that talks kind of on the trades like with a chariot builder and and like going to buy jewels from Polynesia or wherever it is like who did you send? You sent a mechanic? You sent a blacksmith to go buy jewels? Like why didn't you send a jeweler? So sometimes we need experts to help us. Absolutely. And maybe I got off the point of that too that I confused people saying you don't. You absolutely do.

I remember when I was little, my dad, the one one of the few things he's ever told me is he was like, "You know what?" He goes, "In this life," he's like, "You need a good banker, you need a good lawyer, and you need a good doctor." And if you have those three things, you one, you need your health, right? Because if you don't have your health, you have nothing, right? You're not for sure. Um, and you need someone to if you don't know how to invest your money, you need somebody that you that's good at investing your money, right? Or getting some type of return on your money. And as far as the attorney, you just need somebody, you need some legal help here and there, no matter what it is, some advice, some legal advice to put you in the right direction.

So, yeah, I mean to it's crucial and I think sometimes that could be a problem that's some entrepreneurship too, thinking that they need to wear all of these hats. I need to do everything, everything, everything. Well, if you don't specialize in any of those, you probably don't have the time to learn all of them either, right? But yeah, so it's just knowledge isn't always knowing everything. Sometimes it's knowing where to go.

So like to to go back to like the podcast for example, if I'm using Da Vinci Resolve and I'm making my own edits and doing okay for now and then I get to a point where obviously especially when you get into income generating and different things that if the math says that you are making more money by doing content and this is you have to focus on making more good content, let somebody else do the production work because for that three hours you spent you could have done another podcast or whatever the case may be. And if the numbers work out that it makes more sense to spend money on someone to produce your stuff for you, then that's just a smart business decision, right? But at that point with you having some of this base knowledge because you were doing some of this work yourself and you understand what it takes to do this work.

So when you go into a computer programmer or a website designer that wants to sell you like this SEO idea of search engine optimization and getting on Google, this is like this magical thing that nobody really understands and oh well it's um the market dictates the price and and the current rate is about $2,500 a month or to run your website for you and you're just like uh like if you don't know what it takes to just build a WordPress website, you know that and and you know that the market really is 500 bucks should get you a pretty damn good base from most programmers, right? Or or website designers or something. So, you actually kind of got to know where you're lining in and what's what's fair so you don't get screwed, right? Because there's there's charlatans out there, of course.

But on the other the flip side of that argument is is basically that people have to make a living too and and and and people are absorbing risk. So the CEO that's making a lot of money is making a lot of money and absorbing a lot of risk most of the time. Right? So even if you go propose your idea to some marketer or some promoter or some something what stage so so what's your familiarity to like the price points on somebody else coming in and setting up partnerships and setting up like where are you at?

Is it just an idea that you have and you've done nothing or do you have a working prototype or do you have you done some you know market analysis or whatever to where now you're in a position to where you can negotiate leverage a better rate of return whether it's 20 cents on the dollar or whatever might be some of the deals that could work out in the future. So somebody might hear, "Oh, so you go to Shark Tank and you show your idea. Man, that guy's taking 60% of the money. Like I'm getting screwed." Well, not really, cuz what do you have now, right? Like, yeah, you know, it's it's saying the same thing. Like, you know, 5% of a billion dollar company is a hell of a lot more money than 90% of a tiny little company of 10,000 or 20,000 a year, right? So, yeah.

So sometimes when somebody comes in and they're taking a cut and Rogan like talks a lot about with the music industry because that's changing so much with YouTube and being able to get your stuff up on your own and not being owned by somebody for life or whatever the case may be. And this is actually the same sort of I the same sort of thing that's you know because they can invest in 50 different things and own all of them for life. If 12 of them don't work it's no big deal. And but that last one that really goes big and pays off pays for all those other failures for even somebody that's trying to promote some something or trying to market something or trying to manufacture something. But man to to try to that learning curve of not knowing context.

Um and that I know that documentary was really really good about sharing some of that with the with the uh the beer thing. I should look it up what that what that the name of that was. Um because you know even just to try to get the more like if you have a working prototype then obviously you're in a much better position to say I can get this done for this price point or whatever. Well so there's two things right? So if you want if you think you have a good idea and you can't afford to manufacture it and produce it, which is fine, which is probably 90% of the ideas, right? What you need to do, what I suggest is you just you file a provisional patent. And a provisional patent, it's it's it's pretty easy to do. It's pretty simple. Um, and it's not even expensive if you went to an attorney and you just ask for a provisional patent.

And what this is going to do is it's going to hold your idea in their database. And it's also going to give you 12 months to actually make any changes to your patent to upgrade it per se. And then what I would do is you absolutely need a working prototype. You need to make a working prototype, right? Whether it's a board game or, you know, it's a new wheel for a car, make some type of prototype that works that you could show somebody, right? And this is going to allow you to either get investors or go to a company that you think that they could sell a million of these. And if you bring them a working prototype, they'll tell you. You don't have to tell them, "Oh, you know, I could make this for, you know, $5, right? They have contacts. They have money. They have top engineers. They have top manufacturing.

They're going to, if you can make it for five, they're going to make it for three. and they're going to tell you what your idea is worth to them, right? You know, but those are the things you need. I would I would say that's the minimum that you would need is a provisional patent and some type of working prototype to to let them test it, right? And that, you know, and that makes sense. And and there's a a good story kind of similar to that. Um, I don't know if it was Open Pit or I think it was it might even been Chicago, but it was a local barbecue company. I don't know if you heard that story. So, the two brothers had grandma's barbecue sauce that was the best sauce ever and everybody loved it and oh, you should market this and you should do this and you know, everybody's got that thing, right?

Grandma's grandma's cupcakes, whatever it is, right? And the love of a good woman sometimes can change people's lives, right? So, one of the brother marries this go-getter that actually her family was into kind of like um franchising with like subways or something along those lines to where she was used to the idea of scaling up operations and stuff. So, so she's like absolutely you should do this, right? And and so she gets involved and they start working on it and they start testing and they start getting ingredients list and calorie counts and all the work and nutritional information to put on the bottle. And I I think the one brother might have been pissed that they used her on the label cuz sex sells and it's you know whatever.

Um but they ended up um getting this thing out there, getting a working prototype and and and and and marketing it and having the bottling process and everything else and scaling up and uh then eventually this thing takes off like crazy. And you know then 5 years down the line brother's like where's my hat? Of course you know like from doing nothing you know. So it's like it don't really work that way because you had the same information he had and chose to do nothing with it your whole life and now this multi-millionaire owes you something and it's like not necessarily. No. You know so taking that risk and and all the things that come along with it. Well, I love the fact that you brought up, you know, somebody's wife, right? And now that goes back to making good decisions as well, right?

Um, and maybe plays in a little the right place the right time, right? So, you found somebody who had a family that could help you that knew that knew how to increase productivity for your idea, right? You had somebody who's working with you instead of working against you. And that's huge in life. I mean, here, let's look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? I mean, don't get me wrong, great acting career he had on his own. But you think if he didn't marry his wife, who was a Kennedy, he'd be governor? Absolutely not. More than likely not, right? But they had the basis. They knew the program to set that up, right? To get some good name recognition.

like you wouldn't even probably incorporated even the idea of something that was even possible for and here's somebody who was well known who had millions of dollars who was popular you know he he would have never ever won that election without the Kennedys you know doubt so you know think about that too right not just in entrepreneurship think about the decisions you make the people you're going to be with right you need to surround yourself with good people and I think that's in any business, anything you want to do. Um, you know, even off of a business pro platform, surround yourself with good people. Well, that the the self-help industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and everybody's searching for something that's missing. And and and the idea of if you want to soar with eagles, you don't wallow with worms.

And and some of these choices in life that you want to hang with the cool guys or do you want to hang with the people that are making money or whatever. And that stuff rubs off on you. Their work ethic rubs off on you, their their contacts, their ideas, their accountant, their their their advice. Um, and so it's funny that, you know, like in some of the different areas, there's all kinds of different, you know, marketing things and and different things out there with self-help and with all that stuff. And and and it's just funny that like sometimes you could kind of trick somebody into the idea that money is what matters. And if and and if you want to make money, here's the path. But then along the way, you can maybe teach them that, you know, the money is really not what's important.

But because you're creating and because you have value and because you're accomplishing things and then you're giving back and then you're helping others and you're sharing your ideas and you're and guess what? Now you're feeling fulfilled and you're actually happy, you know, and and and whereas the money really don't matter. But now you're more attracted to people because they see money doesn't matter what you want as long as you have some of it. Right. Well, it helps. It helps if you don't have to worry about it at all. Exactly. That's the next step. I'm not quite there yet, folks. But, you know, it's it's nice when when when that's not affecting your daily decisions and you don't have to worry so much. But like one of my favorite books, have you ever read uh Rich Dad Poor Dad? I I have it. It's on the list. Yeah. A great book.

I mean, and it's just a great book to get you thinking and it's more of a philosophy, right? And he shows the different thinking between his rich dad, which was just his friend's dad that took him under his wing, and his own family, right? Both great people, both loving um families, but their mindset was totally different. And it just exposes the philosophy on both sides. And it it'll really actually open your mind a little to a broader way of thinking and and and folks leaders or readers and and and I I I over the last what maybe I guess 20 years now gez where I read a lot more prior to 20 years ago I read maybe the ghost of windy hill in sixth grade or something like that and and it's amazing that you know God puts books in your hands. It's just amazing that what like how did I even get here?

And like I said for people who don't even like to read because that's sometimes I don't have time and I mean I love the feel of a book but you know I'll go to sleep or if I can't sleep put on put on that audio book. Put on that audio book and just listen to it. Yeah. Nowadays it's so great that that's an option. Um and oh it always makes me fall asleep. Well at least you got a trick to fall asleep then. A lot of people have problems sleeping. You don't have to medicate yourself. Grab a book, right? There's a good chance you got 20 minutes of learning in. Right. Yeah. Right. How much did you retain before you dozed off? But the secrets of the millionaire mind, Tar Beckard, is another outstanding book because it was about mindset that you had mentioned, right?

So, so it's kind of harsh because it's I think there's like 12 or 15 or whatever the principles of gathering wealth are kind of thing. And it's like and he sometimes he's very blatant. He's like rich people think like this, poor people think like this. And and some of them you're like, "Huh, I definitely think like the poor person on this one like like the same it was the same kind of thing like like whereas like you know where where I think um they did surveys and and did some studying for a lot of different millionaires and it's just like how much time do you spend on your financing?" You know, it's like payday, pay the bills, that's it. It's like that's probably not enough. like you should have some sort of plan and at least think about it.

It's almost like well, right, look at it that in in the same aspect of how we're thinking now, right? Hey, you know, I'm I'm making whatever $4,000 a month, right? And I've got $3500 going out only leaves me 500 bucks for the whole month. And maybe that didn't include my phone and food, right? So, take that approach and say, "Hey, how can I fix this?" Right? How can I fix this? What can I cut out? what can I add? What what what can I do? Right? And and and interestingly, that almost kind of gets back to some of this magical power of the universe with, you know, manif manifestation principle. And some people think, well, that's silly. Like, you think you just put a picture of a Ferrari Tessterosa up on your desk and every day and you're just going to manifest this Ferrari out of nothing. Well, no, that's not really how it works.

But the truth is the only people that achieve goals are people that actually make goals. And it's like how when's the last time you made a goal? Sometimes we have to ask ourselves that. And then when we achieve a goal, guess what? You got to set another one. So you can't like just live on that success from achieving this goal for 6 months or whatever and then do nothing. Set another goal. keep going, you know, and and and that's powerful in in a lot of ways that if you have a goal and you're constantly reminded of that goal because you see it every day, then you just remember what did I do today to achieve this goal? Did I do anything or do I have a little punch list?

And because I get overwhelmed with stuff obviously like most people and sometimes just to chunk it down to a few baby steps instead of thinking this big project has to be done by within two months or something, you know, make a list of simple things. Can I do two or three of these things each day? And then these big things just seem to happen, you know, and a lot of that organization and discipline and and some of those things are are the challenge. And and because that resistance is so strong, the the resistance that you're feeling out there or that we're feeling, everybody feels that. And and so the people again once again the people that break through that and make these things happen seem to be the ones that succeed, right? Because or you could just go to work and do your job and support your family and that's fine too. Sure.

But you know, don't let life pass you by. And I think one of the most important things, probably some of the best advice I could give to somebody is you need to learn to do a little selfanalyzing, right? So maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year. Take a few minutes and go back and say, "Hey, did I accomplish what I want? Am I on a where's this path leading?" Right? What could I improve on? Right? Because the funny thing is there's answers. Sometimes they're right in front of you. I remember I was talking to my sister one day and she was just crying, right? She's like, "I need a new car. I can't afford a new car." And I said, "You know what?" And I said, "You still smoking a pack of cigarettes a She's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Well, you know what?

I was at the gas station the other day and the lady in front of me, I was trying to get a lottery ticket and the lady in front of me was like, "Yeah, I'll have a pack of cigarettes." And I I mean, we're in the city of Chicago. I couldn't believe it. It was like $17.38. Was that a pack of cigarettes for one pack? And one two things that went through my mind is one, God, I'm glad I quit smoking when I was like 15, right? And two, I I just couldn't believe it. So, I went back to my sister. I said, "You know what?" I said, "Pull out your little phone, right? You got a calculator on there?" She's like, "Yeah." I go, "I want you to do this. I want you to put in $1743 times 30." I'm like, "How much is that?" And I don't know the exact number off top of my head, but I'm guessing it's somewhere around $350, right?

And I said, "There's your new car payment." I go, "You actually don't need to get you don't need to do anything else but quit smoking and the money's right there. You actually have it already." Right? And she like, you know, she couldn't close her mouth. It just opened and just stayed open. And I said, "There's the answer to your problem. Like, quit smoking. You have a brand new car. Brand new. Right off the lot. There's your payment." Yeah. And and and the funny thing is is that, you know, that same thing happened. very similar story when it came to people that travel, right?

And and you look on Facebook and sometimes it's funny because when if you go to two or three places, even if it's Do County and then it's Starved Rock and then it's Miami and then it's, you know, Colorado or whatever the case may be on Facebook to other people that ain't doing anything. It's like, man, they're on another trip. Like, how are these people doing this? So, so some of it is just where you choose to, you know, if you got a hobby and you're, you know, you like old cars and you're spending a bunch of money on old car parts to re rebuild something and that's your passion, that's your love, great man. Welcome to America. I do whatever you want with your money.

But then sometimes you get these different flips flip side frolocks of of different positions of of of conservative and liberal or all these different things that nobody owes you anything. And it's not what you make, it's what you do with it. And it sounds like a what an [censored] to say something like that when you're working at McDonald's for nine bucks an hour. But so so this idea of what's fair is is interesting. But there obviously there is an idea of, you know, $100 to me and $100 to somebody at minimum wage is a lot is a big difference. I mean, I had a friend I was helping out that he was doing like the he was doing like the doortodoor stormchasing stuff where you try to work with the insurance company for them to make sure that they covered the damage from a hail stom or whatever. So, they get you a new roof.

They get you new gutters and siding and a lot of those are there there may be some shady businesses out there and some of it's just outside sales and they're subcontracting that and taking a cut of the money or whatever the case may be. But this was a scenario where it was like 10% of whatever the claim is is his fee. So, if you get nothing, he gets nothing. And then if the insurance company comes out and says, "We're only going to do half your roof and it's going to be a $2,500 claim." and then he fights with the insurance company for you and gets the whole roof plus the siding and the capping and now it's a $15,000 claim. You got $12,000 more than you would have had he not been involved because he understands how the insurance companies play games and what the laws are and what the rules are. It has to be better than it was before.

You can't make it worse and and all these different little taglines because he knows the industry. So, was that worth it to you for 500 bucks? Well, probably paid a guy, but it always came across as this kind of scammy thing. And then once the homeowner gets that $15,000 check in their hand, like, why am I giving you a grand? You know, what did you actually do? You know, and you don't know how many hours he might have been on the phone and chasing down this adjuster and, you know, you know, berating him until he submits to paying this claim that we don't have time to do or we don't think we do or whatever. So either way, he's he was giving value to the situation, but for some reason, it's just hard for alligator hands to to let go of that $1,200 check when you got a $12,000 check in your hand.

So, it's just that's kind of just one of those kind of same stories where, you know, just that almost a negative attitude. So, like the richest man in Babylon was kind of based on these 5,000-y old principles of gathering wealth that Babylon Babylon became the richest society in the world. And this is kind of the story of how it happened. And and supposedly the book is the these clay tablets were unearthed in this old language that nobody knew how to read, Sanskrit or whatever it was. and and they ended up sending these tablets to the University of Nebraska or some something where some language expert that was the expert in this language was there. And as he starts trying to translate this thing, he's like, "Oh my god, you have any idea what you actually have here?

This is the story of how Babylon became the richest society." And so, so this professor is like, you know, 5,000y old principles of gathering wealth. And then at some point he was like, I wonder if this would still work today. So he he started doing these things and started gathering wealth, right? And it it was based off of, you know, paying yourself first. So we we all pay our bills and then we see what's left over and then we get we wonder how much we could put in savings or whatever where this is like 20% aside, 20% aside, 10% to God, live off the rest. And it doesn't matter if you're making $9 an hour or if you're making a million dollars a year. It's there's more of a struggle for the person making $9 an hour.

But if we if we pay oursel first and just put that 20% aside out of each check through a separate account that we don't look at, we don't really notice the difference. No. Here, I'll tell you a great story, too. Um, one of the guys I worked with when I was on the city, um, what he would do because I mean, we started, gosh, we were 21 years old, right? We got the city job and check was really great because, you know, we went from making, you know, $7 an hour to $23 an hour, you know, overnight. And the really great thing he did is he had in his deferred comp, right, which is total separate, forget your pension, you're going to get that. This is like a separate 401k basically. And what he did is every time we got a raise for the city, you know, whether it wasn't much, it's probably 50 cents a year or an hour, right?

But whatever it was, he was already used to collecting the same check that he was getting, right? So anytime he got that raise, he acted like he didn't get it and he just put in the deferred comp, you know, and he actually just retired, gosh, maybe nine months ago. And there was $875,000 in that account. Nice. And it's one of those things for the new the younger kids out there, man. You think I don't have to worry about that. I'm 22 years old. Please, just 50 bucks a check, man. Just start. Please, anything. You You're not going to miss it. And then if you really sit down with a financial adviser and draw it out on paper, you lower your taxable income so you can actually talk to an accountant and then you say, "Oh, you're just on the cusp of that tax bracket.

If you actually put a hundred bucks a paid period into your deferred comp, that lowers your taxable income and then you're actually going to pay less taxes. So you actually make more money at the end of the year. So you're investing free money into this thing that you would have just paid for taxes and then it could end up being a million dollars or whatever, you know.

So, so it's funny my my story is not too different that when I started I basically with all this talk of pensions and all this other stuff that United took they took their pension and they can't take our pension because we contributed to it whereas United they didn't they didn't pay into that pension but it was still a promise from the company and you relied on that your whole life and then now it's gone so that's not great but to think that they're not going to take your pension because you contributed to it. No, they can't legally take the money that you put into it. But what they can do is say, "Well, we can't take your money, so here's your money back plus 3%." So, you know, we'll negotiate with the unions on what percentage of of they're going to give you based off of that.

When they've been making eight or 12 or 20 or whatever percent on your money over compound interest over 30 years, now they think they're just going to give you your money back. like it doesn't work that way either. So, I started almost with the knowing that more than likely I'm not going to have this pension. So, I'm going to be smart enough to say I ain't I'm going to pret if if I end up retiring with a pension gravy. But, I'm going to pretend that this is not going to be there. Yeah, you can't count on it. I remember um the city of Detroit as I first one that I've heard of. Um they filed bankruptcy. the city filed bankruptcy and then all those workers lost their pension. Now, not I don't know if the ones who were getting it already lost it, but the ones that were promised for people who were working, I'm pretty sure lost it. Yeah.

And and the interesting story on that, too, is so if you've ever been in court, and unfortunately, you know, throughout through all the years, I I had all kinds of little issues here and there before really straightening up 20 years ago and getting a family and and and all that kind of stuff. And you, some of you guys know my story and I'm going to be telling more of that on a live stream and try to just do a weekly rant so I can really just get into some of the political issues and really try to get myself cancelled. But the conversations are so fun, too, you know. So, and and so what I did is if you've ever been like with a workman's comp case or something where it's like, well, you know, I'm disfigured um and they don't care. like that's cosmetic and and you weren't making money with your face.

Well, I was thinking about being a model because I'm so damn sexy, right? And they're like, "Okay, well, show me where you have made money in the past with your face and now we can compensate you for this scar." So, the whole workman's comp world is really just about potential for generating income, right? It aesthetics don't matter. So if you were a model and you were making a few magazine shoots and you showed that you made a couple of thousand dollars over the last year, well then that would be included in your claim. Okay? So I understood that. I knew that to be true.

So, in a court case where you go in front of a judge after they stole your pension or said you're we're only giving you 3% returns, you'd be like, "No, that's BS because I would have invested that money and I probably would have made 12%." Over 30 years with that money, and this is the amount that it would be. And the judge would be like, "Probably." Yeah, we all could say that I would have done this, I would have done that, but you don't have anything concrete. So, in the event that that happened, and I like fighting. I like the idea of standing up for what's right, and I like having some evidence to back it up. And so, I'm not saying that in the event that happens, I'm going to win the case, but I have a much better solid case as a result of what I did. And that was from day one.

I matched my pension contributions with my 401k contributions. So when you take my pension, I'll say no, I wouldn't I I'm not going to say this is what I would have done. This is what I did do. So my number for my 401k contributions to this point is very similar to the amount that I contributed to the pension, right? For no other reason other than almost fight them. But it's good number anyway, right? You have some stat statistical facts to back up your statements, right? And then and then when the you know when the raise kicks in, then the pension contribution goes up too because that's a percentage of your income. So then I just kick up the 401k. But again, you know, it it's just that same kind of number number kind of gain. But so I heard this great story um last week. Now don't quote me.

Well, you could quote me on the story, but I didn't have time to fact check it, but it's it was amazing. So, and I wish I could tell you who said it because I hate not giving people credit for their statements, but I was I was reading something and somebody made the comment that if you would have bought Apple, not when it when it first came out, so the first iPhone, I don't know what the first iPhone was. the iPhone, probably just the iPhone, then they went to the three and the four and but up to this date, if you just would have purchasing the phone, whatever that phone cost, $1,200 at the time, right? The first one's eight. I think they're up to like 2,000 now, depending on their model.

But if you would have just taken that money and instead of buying the phone bought Apple stock, they said today your stock would be worth over $5 million. I believe that 100%. And which is amazing, right? So say they even came up with a new phone every year. So and you just invested $1,200 or $1,500 every year, which everybody has, right? Over the last 25, 30 years, you'd have $5 million. That's that's incredible. Yeah. And and that's society is changing with that. So So like like one of the one of the worlds that I was in and and I followed pretty straight was the AMC and GameStop uh meme stock fiasco as the mainstream would call it. And of course, financial institutions and brokerage houses don't want dumb money which they call these private investors, right?

So, Robin Hood came out with an interesting concept of how to allow private investors to buy stocks which seemed commissionfree which it wasn't. They delay the process and then charge a little bit of money. So, but they do it based on this payment for order flow scenario and it's kind of complicated, but it was a brilliant system because you can buy 10 stock 10 shares of a stock at $3.50 a share and we're going to sell it to you, but we're going to just do it for three. We're going to say that you got it for $3.50 a share because the two cents is going to be our commission. So, it looks like commission free trading. It really isn't. you just got the the the stock for a little more than you thought you did or you could have gotten if it was through a broker or whatever, but it's usually so significant because you're not spending millions.

You're only spending a couple hundred bucks and it costs an extra 40 cents or whatever and they made a bunch of money doing that. So as a as a private investor, you know, it's funny because now you talk COVID for instance, like the this attitude towards people that make money sometimes that's just not fair. Um that you think people are evil because they have money and they only got that way from stepping on other people. And it's not usually the case. You know, most scammers are this and that. Over time, it's like the the odds are against them in the long run. and if you just do the right thing and just whatever it seems to work out better. But that that sort of thing when it came to co for instance it's like the people that have a few bucks on the side.

So like if you were taking 20% and putting it to the side and just holding it and then something happened where the housing market crashed. Now everybody else is broke and their mortgages went up and they're they're they're streamlined on these interest rates and everybody's screwed, but you just happen to have this extra 20 grand sitting there or 10 grand or four grand, it doesn't matter. In a time when things are down or the market crashes because of COVID and you So I called my financial advisor up and I was like, "Hey, everything's crashed. it might still go down some more, but it's gone down quite a bit. Like maybe it'd be a good idea for me to just buy some stuff. What do you think?

And he's like, "Well, of course." And I was like, "Well, what should I buy?" And he's like, "Well," he's like, "The airlines are going to get bailed out anyway, so you you're probably pretty safe, you know, buying some stock in American or in United." And and I was like, "What about Tesla?" And he was like, "Yeah, hell, you know, Tesla sounds good, blah, blah, blah, this and that." And so I just threw threw I don't know it was $2,500 or something and in playing around with some independent independent uh Robin trades or whatever and you know you lose some money on some stuff. You make some money on some stuff and and if if you're a gambler it's probably not a great idea.

Um, but also that that's the same scenario where just dealing with funds and different things that are a little safer because you got a lot smarter people worrying about trading these different companies they're invested in for the fund, you're probably better off. And don't take legal financial advice from me. I just I'm just a goof. Um, but I I I do have a friend that owns a financial company that's going to be on coming in on the podcast, too. So hopefully he'll have a lot better advice for you. But uh for anybody listening, but the idea is that we're all kind of becoming we're all wearing different hats. So we might have our union hat on one day and we might have our financial hat on the the next day our investor hat and then we have our citizen hat, right?

And then and so so how all those hats are changing as different things come up is changing the way people are reacting to situations. Right? So we might not like Walmart and some of their business practices and how they you know set up shop just outside of town and then promise the world and then reig on it because they're not in the town and you know and it seems to be standard business practice. But the reality is is you could be a pro union guy and you could tell all your buddies screw Walmart. I'm not shopping at Walmart and and that's wonderful. And but if you really think you're making a difference, you're probably not because until you get Black Rock and some of these financial institutions to start pulling money, then that's what really matters, right? Yeah.

Um, my take on that is I've seen what some of these major companies could do, Walmart, and that's why I think it's really important that, like you said, you as an individual, it's hard for you to really make a difference, right? That's like I remember, you know, people going around, you know, yelling at me before for having a bottled water, right? They're like, you're contributing to the plastics that, you know, that are ruining this world. And yeah, technically you're right. I said, "But here's what you don't realize is like, you know, Nestle doesn't make water. Nestle makes plastic bottles. Like, you need to go after the companies.

You need to go after these big companies." And what Walmart's the problem, the scary thing about Walmart is you have a company that's so big that what they'll do is they'll set up shop in smaller towns and say, you know, there's a shop in town that sells hammers and there's another shop that sells bagels and there's another shop that sells car tires, right? Well, they have enough money to lower the prices that you can't compete with and they'll take a loss. I mean they'll literally take a loss because they have the power to leverage money. Meaning they have a hundred stores and these other hundred stores are making say just to do numbers easy, right? Say they're each making a million dollars so people understand, you know, so they're making a hundred million.

So they could take this store, sell everything for half the price that you get to take a loss on selling bagels and hammers and tires in this store where you can't compete. And unfortunately, people are going to go where they get a better deal, right? As much as they like you and your little corner shop, but if your bagels are are $8 and I could get a bagel there for a buck, you're gonna lose a lot of business. So they'll take a loss like they'll that store will lose a million dollars. They don't care because they still made 99 million off their other stores. So, as a whole, they're still making 99 million until you're out of business. And then once you're gone, now they bring the prices back up to normal, but you're gone. Now, that store makes another million. Now, instead of making 99 million, they're making $101 million a year. Right.

Right. And that's the that's how you leverage money. And at some point when a company gets too big, I think maybe it's like time to put a little just a little buffer, a little oversight, just a little oversight on them. Right. That's what that and that's what we're supposed to have when we have like when we talk about breaking up monopolies and all this other stuff, which hasn't happened in quite some time. Um maybe it should be something that could be considered possibly in the very near future when it comes to some of these social media giants and everything else with technology and AI and all this other stuff. But interestingly, you say that what with Walmart for one um cheap the high cost of discount culture is a is an awesome read.

And that that changed my view a little bit on that subject because it's funny that we're at this race for the latest greatest, right? And at some point I'm I'm not a I'm not a socialist or a communist, but I also realize that when I walk into Walgreens or Kmart or, you know, or what wherever, I don't need 97 choices for a tube of toothpaste, right? This isn't the most efficient way to do it, but it's capitalism and the market dictates what happens, right? So the the the the culture says we need the latest greatest thing. So now you need the teeth whitening and you need the tartar reduction and you need the this and you need the that. So you always have to keep coming up with the the next great thing for this product instead of just giving me a $2 tube of toothpaste.

Now you got with the vertical standing so it stays on your counter and it's like before you know it it's a $12 tube of toothpaste and it's like I just want a dollar tube of toothpaste to brush my teeth, you know? So, so that book was very interesting with some of that. And another thing they kind of talked about is almost that, you know, the next place, the next person comes and does it bigger and better than the last. So Kmart was a perfect example. That was a union company, right? And and but they were hurting Wall Street. They were putting Main Street out of business. Not Wall Street, Main Street. mom and pop shops were getting killed because Kmart was doing it bigger and buying in bulk and getting better savings and because it didn't seem to be as big of a deal because it was a union company and all this kind of stuff.

But now Walmart came and did the same thing. So bigger and better in a sense. Um so efficiency and soup capitalism if you know at some point the the market will dictate but you could look at most commercials in CPG Proctor and Gamble it's like how much how many of these products do they actually own? So is there really a fair market when it comes to do we need tartar control and teeth whitening and six different types of crust and 14 different types of aqua you know and it and it's it drives you crazy. Yeah. And like I said, yeah, you're at a big disadvantage, right? Because the market really isn't fair, per se. You know, imagine playing a game of Monopoly, right? And Monopoly, I love Monopoly. And it teaches a lot of good things. And really what it teaches you is to hold on to your assets, right? Just keep acquiring assets, right?

That's the key in life. Don't sell them. Keep keep them. Acquire them. Learn to get some dividends off of them. But imagine playing Monopoly. And like I said, the game's great and it's fair because everybody starts off with nothing and you start off with whatever $2,000, right? But unfortunately, when you jump into life, that's not how this is, right? You start with nothing and maybe $2,000. And there's companies that already own Boardwalk and Parkplace and, you know, New York Avenue and the the Three Oranges and they have hotels on there already. So you have to kind of jump around, right? So it's it's not really fair, right? It's you're not going to have the same advantage of competing with somebody else who has, you know, everything in place and millions of dollars, right? For sure. And so you you know, tread lightly.

Well, and and I mean that that goes to it'd be nice if everything was fair. It's just not right. and and so some who rolled the dice and said that you're going to be born on Rightwood Street in Chicago or whatever the case may be, you know, um that is in some ways the luck of the draw or the unluck of the draw because you could you could have been born in some in in much worse conditions.

The same kind of thing like you said, everybody doesn't start at the same place and then there's economic models and about how you could give everybody $100,000 and after 10 years the 10% of the people are going to have 90% of the money anyway because some people are just hyperconsumers and some people take that 20% and put it to the side and find ways to make that money work for them to generate more money or they start giving loans out to people and making money on interest and and so that that same process is more than likely going to happen and and you know people don't really and I'm not saying you know it doesn't work both ways either right like here I have a cousin that I guarantee you right if do if he won the lottery tomorrow or acquired like $5 million right now his lifestyle would be upgraded tremendously. Right?

He'd have a nicer house, a nicer car, but I guarantee you in three years he'd be like MC Hammer and he'd be broke, right? Filing for bankruptcy, right? It is incredible. And and part of that is, you know, you got you got leeches and vultures that are circling around, you know, opportunity knocking when somebody gets a big, you know, a big cut like that. And so that you have to be careful and you have to trust there. That's the perfect example where you have to, you know, have people that you can trust, you know, where you even see like I watched the the the Queen movie where, you know, this these people are stealing money from you and, you know, feeding you drugs and, you know, just keeping you out of the loop in a sense.

You're not really looking at what's going on and who's, you know, and you don't even realize how much money stolen from you and then you're broke and then all of a sudden your producer seems to be doing pretty good. could skim it off the top for for decades or whatever. Sounds like it sounds like the music industry or Don King we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, obviously you got to be smart, you know, because like you said, there's there's bad deals out there for sure. But and but again when you put no risk on the table. So if you if we you know so one of the things you mentioned the water bottles too which is kind of funny because here here's a here's another book that was recommended from a speaker at uh I believe it was from uh the saltwater aquarium conference hard grain.

And uh this is a little bit more in my wheelhouse because my degree from Northeastern Illinois University was geography and environmental studies with a concentration in resource conservation and management. whatever that means, right? And with a minor in jazz performance and in music. And uh but the reality is is I never filled out an application for my degree. I never even filled out a job application for my college degree. But fortunately, I didn't go into a lot of debt because the Illinois Veteran Scholarship Fund, if you serve active duty in the military and get an honorable discharge, tuition at state college is paid for 100%. So, I was just paying for books and some lab fees and stuff. It cost me three 400 bucks a semester um for for going to college. So, that worked out pretty well.

Um but this this book is the the subtext is saving the environment from the environmentalists and uh a conservative manifesto by Peter Hubert. Hu B- R. And let me take a quick look what year this was because I'm sure it's pretty old. Where's my little I gota put the specs on here. Oh, here's the title. 1999. So, that was a while ago. Um, but a couple of interesting things were just taking a different look at at some of these um environmental issues. And so sometimes like we'll have situations where activists are very passionate about something but they don't really do the work to understand the bigger picture.

And sometimes their activism may actually harm their cause more than it even helps with carbon footprint and overall solar panels like a solar panel technology just wasn't quite there then it especially in 99 that the amount of carbon that it took to produce that cell will never be recovered in the lifetime of the cell from generating energy from the sun. So, just because your KMED bill goes down or maybe you're in a part of the region where you could get a two-way mirror uh two-way meter and actually sell some energy to the grid because you have enough solar panels to produce more energy than you're using. You might actually make some money or or at least not pay an electric bill. So, you think you're doing great and you're walking around with this your chest out like you're Mr.

grain, but the reality is is your carbon footprint is increased. You're not actually helping the cause really, even but but you sure feel like you are or whatever. And that changes with technology and those those numbers might not be the same today as they were in 99 per se, but the same kind of thing where it's like you mentioned the plastic water bottle. How dare you? you know, and now it's like everybody's got a a water bottle and people are drinking more water, which is great. It is great. That's the great thing for health, but obviously um stainless steel and you know, some the the plastics and all this other kind of stuff, that's a whole another debate. But the the problem you were talking about was was like how you know that it's ending up in landfills and all this other kind of stuff.

So, there's one part, if I remember correctly, it's been a long time since I read that, but it's a petroleum based product and you pulled the oil out of the ground and brought these PCBs and these agents into our living space. You have to put it back. So, you bury it because you don't want to recycle it. So, it was almost like recycling is bad for the environment because reusing stuff just keeps it in our space where you got to kind of put it back so it's out of our space. and that kind of made a little bit of sense. Um, and and and just looking at these issues from a different way. So, so it was one it was almost like as the Flipside Frolic premise goes, if you could look at something from the conservative side and still be an environmentalist and a and a liberal or you know what, however these labels want to be generated these days.

You have to kind of know where they're coming from. And that's part of the reason starting the podcast is just trying to understand other people's positions better. Um, but part of it was like, okay, what's more, what's better for the environment, a plastic fork or a metal fork? What do you think? You know, my off the top, like I said, we're getting out of my realm of well,ertise obviously. But off the top of my head, I would say I'm middle for it. Right. And just the fact that I'm asking it in that way, the hustler in you saying, "Hey, remember, he's got a counter to this.

He knows where I'm going and he's got a counter." I remember the musical Guys and Dolls in high school was performed by some of the people at Holy Cross and and and uh it was one of those where it was like Sky Masterson is there and he's like if the Jack I'll bet you I can make the Jack of Spades jump out of this deck of cards and squirt you in the eye with water for 20 bucks. Would you take the bet? It's like well no because I'm going to end up without my $20 and a wet eye. I don't know how it's going to happen, right? But I already see where this is going. So, but the way it worked with uh with the plastic was the amount of energy that you have to produce to forge a fork. So, you have to heat metal up till it melts with coal, with some sort of fuel and forge this metal fork. Then you use it in a restaurant.

And yes, it's great that you can reuse it, but what do you do now? You have to heat water up to 140 degrees temperature to sanitize this fork. So you're we're washing this thing every day. So over the life of that fork, maybe over time it might be better, but god forbid somebody throws one in the garbage. Now you got nothing out of that fork, right? So you can throw out 700,000 plastic forks for the cost of what it's going to take to forge that one fork. So maybe it's better to use the plastic fork and then just bury it. Well, there you go. Back on to entrepreneurship, right? There's your idea out there. Come up with with an organism that eats plastics and and puts them back into our environment in a healthy way and you're you're going to make millions. I promise you.

Well, I guess you know that can get a little scary if we're going to do like gain of function research and we put Fouchi in charge of gen creating a bacteria that generates energy from eating Fouchy in charge of anything. Next thing you know, this this this thing mutates and decides it wants to feed off of human flesh. Well, the good news is it wouldn't be his fault because he'd just get a full pardon. Yes. In advance in advance full pardon. It's nice to have friends in high places and it doesn't matter that that friend may be unfit for trial. Um but he could sign sign 8,000 pardons. No problem. That's good. We'll see how that works out. But so back to entrepreneurialship, which is more my expertise.

So, there was this company that I I really like I was reading about and I thought their idea was is really interesting and at the very least it it teaches people like a little bit about investing and um I don't know the name of the company but the company what it does is you you download their app and it's like an Apple Pay so it's on your phone and anything you pay for you just Apple Pay like on your phone, they you know whether it's their credit card or they go through a different forum like Apple and just the change whatever the change is that's left. So if you say you buy you go to a coffee house right and you buy as long as it's on the market. So, say Starbucks because everybody knows Starbucks. You go to Starbucks, you buy a coffee, and it's, you know, it's outrageous. It's probably $7.82.

But that what this app will do is they'll take your change at 18 cents and it'll buy 18 cents worth of stock in Starbucks and put it into your portfolio. So, over time, you're going to you're going to have all these different stocks and they're stocks that you use, right? Right. So, you're kind of investing in stuff that you think is working cuz that's where you go. And basically what it does is it sets up a portfolio and just invests your change. That's very interesting because I remember like loose change or something where they would take your they would round your checking account and put that money in savings and then you just throw that into a savings account. So, you're saving money that you didn't know about, which was a kind of a cool idea whether it was through an app or through your actual bank or whatever.

But the idea of not even doing research, your research is what you actually use, which makes sense that you tr you believe in that company if you're purchasing stuff from that company. Absolutely. That's pretty interesting. So, I'm going to set the experiment up. So, I have two nieces now and they're at the age where they're starting to, you know, be hyperconsumers. Well, yeah. you know, even little stuff. They're still in their teens, early teens, and uh I'm going to give them a card and or I'm going to download this app on their phone and I'm going to say, "Hey, you know what?

I'm going to give you guys each whatever $20 a month, $50 a month each on your card and everything you pay for, you just have to you have to use it through this through this app to pay." And I'm going to see and how their portfolio builds up and how this works out. But it it seemed like a really interesting and it'll teach them a little too. Now, they're going to say, "Hey, look, I own Starbucks. Um, you know, I own stock in Starbucks and I own stock in I don't know whatever what other stores, you know, teenage girls are going to these days, right?" And it's going to build a little profile to see where they're going, too, which is interesting for me, right?

I'll be like, "Oh, look, hey, you know, I'm going to analyze this and say, hey, look, you know, they're spending so much at Starbucks or so much at this store and so much at this store." So, like just a devil's advocate, you know, one question would be, well, what if they're spending money at something that's not publicly traded? What does it do with the money then? And it doesn't do anything with it. It would put it on a separate account. No, it just doesn't take it out. It just takes or I'm sure maybe, right, I haven't went into the app yet. Maybe it'll roll it. You could do a default, right, where it rolls it into the last any goes direct to Tesla or something, whatever. Or the last the last purchase you made, right? The last purchase you made that was a traded company, right? Right.

And that, you know, and and some of that debate and question like on any idea, we could talk oursel out into never doing anything because you'll never come up with every problem that'll ever exist, you know, with making ideas happen. But it's interesting that that that like there's so many different ideas like that. like like for instance I that there was the um the hockey idea thing but then I actually had and it's one of those things too where where like you hear that somebody like you said you're crazy right if if some if people think you're crazy you're probably on to something because more than likely nobody else has done that idea right so there's an actual real saying in science that everybody uses and they say if If if if you're not doing work on things that people say you're absolutely crazy, you're not doing real science. Right.

Right. Yeah. For sure. And so so like one of them was I had a retail I had a re retail industry idea that I didn't do anything with and probably won't. So God bless you if you roll with this. You know, kick me back one half of one cent on the returns in 10 years. And no. Um, but it was a retail idea that in the past there was always every once in a while you'd kind of get a buy American plan thing going. Support American companies, buy American, but over being that I have a beard from COVID. I'm I'm not particularly a Harley writer. Um, but it was always kind of a Harley kind of thing by American, you know, it was more that kind of macho kind of thing as opposed to understanding that it's a global market. There's it's a world of economy.

So, so my concept was in and there was a a Kmart closed by the hip there that there was this open storefront. I'm like, man, I didn't go to business college, so I don't know how to draft up. And interesting like education system is going to teach you how to do a fancy business plan so you could present that to a bank so you could get a loan so you could start paying interest, you know, as opposed to if you had a, you know, just money to throw around it'd be a little bit easier. But the concept was this store that you would go into and there was a color coding system of platinum, gold, silver, bronze, and copper, let's say. And platinum is local, locallyowned, Americanowned, American manufactured, 100% American. And then the gold might be, you know, made in America, not local or whatever the case may be.

And then silver might be manufactured in the United States, but outsourced parts or whatever, partially. And then bronze might be, you know, American jobs but foreignowned. So, are we supporting American workers or were we supporting American companies? But just to try to educate the consumer on some of this process to read a label and say you're probably better off, you know, supporting a local company. And obviously, my best example of that is WeatherTech. Like, it's it's just ridiculous what quality product they produce. And you drive down 55 in Bowling Brook and at first they were just one white building and now there's another one and now there's another one and they keep growing and a friend of mine like did fishing with the owner or something. But the last every time I go there to get something I'm like this is ridiculous.

Every time I come in here, there's something else I need to buy because they have so much cool [censored] like the the the little the little rubber mat for under the Christmas tree when you have a live Christmas tree or the rubber mat to put under your sink so you don't destroy the cabinet and and then there's little tow straps and this awesome cup holder and you know it it's like there's for for for holding your phone and different things and they're they're doing this injection molding and they're doing this 3D printing and and they're just research and development and innovation is there that every time you're coming in there's something new and then you see a billboard on 294 and that's when I was starting to get into marketing a little bit.

So, I'm like, I wonder if they actually have the marketing department that they can actually track their increase in sales because of that billboard. You know, when you start playing with numbers and marketing, it gets fun. Yeah. Cuz it's kind of a game to tweak stuff. Not to cut me off, but just like the billboards, too. Like, I got to tell you, the ones I love are the the Erlacer billboards. You see that lacquer? They just run them down the thing. Every time I'm driving down the highway, I look at them and I just laugh. I think they're hilarious. But, um, back on WeatherTech. Yeah, love WeatherTech. I have them in all of my vehicles. Um, if you are listening though, WeatherTech, I I have an SUV and the back mat that I have that folds, it's just everything slides on it, right? I need something that grips.

Because everything I put in the back on the back mat, like groceries or whatever, they'll just slide because it's just the plastic, right? I wonder if there's an option for like the material that's got I need something that's going to stick just on my back mat that I have in the hatchback, right? the long big one because everything's sliding. Other than that, love weather. I love my weather. I like it. They they might just say stop armor all in the damn thing, dumbass. Or or you know, maybe spray adhesive or you know, something to give it a little tack. But yeah, that's that's amazing. But that you know, just one of those things. We're a local company doing great and and 100% successful. Why? Because the product is just better. You know, you it is superior product.

You might think that, you know, you can go to get some cheaper ones online for your floor mats and they're curling up and they're, you know, it's like I've had them for, you know, almost 100,000 miles in my truck and it just makes such a big difference to keep the dirt off. But WeatherTech, hopefully you'll be a sponsor for the podcast. We'll we'll reach out to you for that because we love you. But, you know, that's but it's part of doing providing that value, right? and and and and and creating something and rewarding, you know, that we were talking a little bit about the value of money or the perception of value or whatever.

you're trading dollars for something and if if I whether it was an online course or whatever and we're saying like with the real estate market that that's a big one where oh this $15,000 court's going to give you all the secrets and you know then you flip your first house for 30 grand and you made your 15 grand back so it's like potential income is there if you choose to do anything with it and a lot of people don't and then they feel it's a scam. I think there was pretty much like Trump University was that same kind of scenario where that they you got so many people that were calling it a scam.

But if he was teaching you what it takes to be a real estate investor and build skyscrapers in cities and if you if it was possible for you to follow those instructions without putting your own two cents in there and thinking you know anything cuz you don't. You know, you have to be humble enough to say, "Tell me what to do and I'll do And that's the richest man in Babylon was exactly that story to to close the loop on that one because they basically went to the richest man in Babylon cuz they were pissed that they're busting their butt and sweating their asses off in their in their shop. He was next to a blacksmith. I think he was a chariot builder. Master craftsman. Made the most undisputed most badass chariots that are available in Babylon. This is the guy, right? If you want the best, you're going here.

But he can only make so many chariots and he can only charge so much and he's working every day and he can't seem to be getting ahead. You know, why are all these people running around with the fancy clothes and and on his chariots, but yet he's just getting by one day at a time and doesn't seem to be generating wealth and he's having a beer and talking to the blacksmith next door. He's like, "Yeah, tell me about it. This is [censored] Like, why why can't we get ahead?" And then the thought hits him. Well, maybe generating wealth is a skill that needs to be learned like blacksmiths or like chariot building. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's the biggest challenge I think parents don't realize too is it's your job to teach your children the things that public school or any school isn't going to teach them, right?

It's not going to teach them financing, right? It's not going to teach them the stock market. It's not going to really It's more of a b babysitting service to be honest with you. You know, I mean, a lot of it is, right? Um I want my child I want the school to teach my child how to read, right? So then I could direct them into what they need to learn, right? Or what to read at least. Well, absolutely. You know, what to read. Yeah. So like and in in the Babylon story, then it was like, okay, so what's our options here? Well, why don't we go ask the richest guy in Bab richest man in Babylon if he's willing to teach us how to generate wealth. And so they did that. They went to Archus or whatever his name was.

And and they said, "Would you we be willing?" And he's like, "Interesting." He's like, "Sure." But here's the deal cuz I actually did the same thing with fitness, right? Like if you want to if you want to I I have some experience with fitness. I did a a bodybuilding show back in the day. I I I I did a Body for Life challenge and did pretty good once. you know, I can I can lose weight and get in shape pretty easy if if I'm motivated. Um but and and I'm planning on starting, folks. Um but but it's one of those things where I'm willing to help you and I'm not looking to get rich off it, but I'm taking my time and my expertise and giving it to you for free. You better take it freaking seriously because don't waste my time.

So, it's one of those things where it's like, write down everything you eat for a week and come back and we'll talk about it. If you can't even do that, we're done here, right? I don't I don't have time to do this for you, right? And so, it was the same kind of thing from this guy. He's like, I you're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you, and I want you to do this anyway, and if you do this, and you continue to do this, I'll continue to work with you. But the minute you stop doing this or think you know better, we're done here because I got a kingdom to run here or whatever. I got business to. So they agreed and they started doing that and that was about taking that 20% putting it to the side each week.

Take that 10% put it to the side each week and they frame it in silver coins and copper coins and you take one copper coin and you put it in the jar. one copper coin each week, put it in the jar, and at the end of the year, now you have, you know, 12 copper coins and $1,200, whatever it is, and and now you try to find a way to invest that money to make that money work for you to generate money instead of just spending money. And it's that's a great read. Basically, what that's saying is, right, no matter what business you're in, the people are successful, they have a process that they use, right? They have a process that works. And they continue to use it and they probably continue to upgrade it. But so and the to exactly right that to continue the story of the richest man in Babylon, it worked for these guys.

Next thing you know, they're hanging at the parties. Who's the new fish? Like we're not used to getting new people at the country club. Like where did they come from? New money. New money. Yeah. Didn't that guy used to build chariots? Like how did he get here? he doesn't deserve to be an aristocrat right in this how did we get to that next social structure and uh then the king ended up seeing them and was like what's going on here and then Archus tells him the story they came to me and asked me if I can help them generate wealth and they have and they they've been doing pretty good and then so the king says well I want you to bring in a hundred people and we're going to teach them what you taught them and they're going to go out and teach 10 people these same principles that you've taught them.

And then Babylon became the richest society in all the world. And that was all this information on these clay tablets that was trans transposed or or translated from this professor at this university. And then he was like, I wonder if it would still work today. So he started doing it. Lo and behold, it still works today. It's 5,000 years old. You know, it's I'm saying something. Hey, we still use the Archimedes screw to this day, right? Imagine if he could have patented that and got residuals. Right. Right. He might He might have owned Babylon. Yeah. No question. That's awesome. Uh I'm going to I'm going to pause real quick because I'm gonna take a quick take a quick look. Let's see if I can do this without screwing the world up here. All right, we're back.

Um, it did reset the timer, so I don't know if I pushed the wrong button for from a pause to a a stop or a pause, but either way, that shouldn't be too big of a problem. We got We do We have to figure I have to figure out the easy way to, you know, pause it and not create too much problems in post. But interesting enough is is it's like you you were commenting uh we went to the bathroom and in my newly I I remodeled the basement bathroom here and and there's uh there's a toilet with the bedet toilet seat. So you uh you were asking about that. Yeah. I mean it just looked um incredible. I mean there was even a remote for it. So, on a on a plumbing side job years ago, um when the these things were kind of new, um I think they were $1,800.

And a friend of mine that I was doing some uh trades work with in this high-rise downtown 22nd floor right by 56 seats McDonald's. And we had these three toilet seats to put in. It's like, you know, almost a $2,000 toilet seat. And I was like, "This is crazy." And uh his automatically flipped up. So, there's a few options, but the the the seller at the supply house was like, you know, the flip up ones, it's one more linkage to break, but it can be motion sensitive with the remote to where when you walk in there, it knows you're going to pee. It just flips the toilet seat up for you. Amazing. And I mean, here you want to talk about inventions. This one excites me. Like, yeah, I'm I'm dying to try this now. Yeah, that's it's so so we I installed those and it comes with a nice little tea that you put in uh to the existing water line.

You do need power. So, you need an outlet. Oh, okay. So, that's what I need. I need You also need power. Okay. Yes. So, regular. And is it a plug or is it hard wire in a plug? Probably could be either obviously, but um the plug just so you know out there as long as you if you actually just cut the cord, you you could just hard wire. You just stick it in. Well, and by code, I believe just to be legit that a GCFI because it's within 5 ft of water is probably is necessary as well. So, so you want to be careful with that. Um, but yeah, so so we ended up um hooking these things up once and then it was funny.

I was at a Oh my god, this is a little off off topic story here, but I I was going to a supply house for a separate job and they had a whole stack of like last year's models of white toilet seats that were the total bedet style toilet seats. And these things are usually like 900 bucks cuz they came down from 1,200 or 1,500 whatever 1,800 whatever they were. And uh they were 299. I was like that's it? This is crazy. Like cuz they were discontinued models or whatever. And I was like oh my god but we're going to get bone or almond. So I'm like for $2.99 this could be pink. This would have been the right decision. And I wish you were there to advise me cuz I'm like I got I already ordered the sink b the the shower base and it's it's almond or or bisque or whatever. So I'm like you the toilet's got to match the tub and the sink, right?

So I got I already had a bisque sink and a bisque or almond uh shower pan. So I'm like I need the almond toilet seat too to you know and toilet. So I never bought them. And then it then um time goes by because my pro project lasted, you know, a couple of years doing it on the side slowly or whatever. And then all of a sudden I I I I go to buy the toilet seat and well, I knew I wanted one of these toilet seats just because it's just one of those kind of next level upgrades that makes everything look fancier, right? So, and for practical purposes, they're wonderful, whatever. And uh so I ended up uh shopping them out and they were a little bit more money and then it was like then the toilet seat to get it in bisque.

At at the end of the day I couldn't get the bisque toilet seat that would have been special order and it would have been like 6 weeks out or whatever. But then I needed they didn't have I don't know if they didn't have the bisque uh the same color toilet so I'd have to get white anyway or there was something with the special Oh, you could get the regular toilet. Okay, sorry. You could get the regular toilet in bisque, but you couldn't get it in the plus. So the plus was this new thing. So the ones that I hooked up years ago, the the cords kind of wrap around the side of the toilet and you could barely see them. So it's not that bad. So the electric cord and the water that goes down to the to the valve. But now they have these plus toilets with actually a hole in the porcelain that's lined up directly with where the cords come down.

So the cords actually go through the toilet and out the bottom. So it's completely hidden. It's not going around the side like that. Um, can you push that close? Oh, close it. Anyway, so so but that plus toilet wasn't available in bisque. So after all this time, I ended up ordering one and and it ended up being white anyway. And then of course you walk into the bathroom, nobody cares, you know. So if you ever stop by, you're going to notice, hey, why doesn't your shower pan match your toilet, right? Oh, I'm not using this bathroom, right? I'm out of here. Yeah, scumbag. I don't know what kind of contractor did this shotty work. So that's our toilet seat. But so um like I said, I'm dying to try this. I've seen this. This is the fanciest toilet I I I have yet to see to this date.

Now I have seen what they're making now, too, is just the seats. So you could just add the seat with this bedet on your seat. That's what this is. It doesn't even look like it because it's so streamlined. Oh, so that wasn't part of the toilet. Didn't come with a standard toilet. Oh, and the seat is just the seat. Oh, so it is just the seat. It wasn't built into the toilet. Yeah, you could get those full models. And there's a few different models that are pretty cool, too. My Danny has one if you're ever by by him. But, um, yeah, they're pretty cool. This is just the seat. And that's why those that So, if I took that off and just put a regular toilet seat, it would work like a regular toilet. Got it. Because it doesn't flush. It does, you know, it flushes normal.

Everything's all the same, but the seat has a remote control and then it has a a wand that comes out and does the bedet. It's got a heater in there so the water's heated. You could set the temperature and then it has an air dryer that can dry you off after it kind of squirts water. Looks amazing. And I guess um you know if you can't find the right color and you get a deal on it, hey, maybe just you know painted gold and you have a gold toilet seat, right? Yeah. It's uh at the end of the day it cost me about triple for the same white toilet. you know, cuz I I didn't I didn't act I didn't I didn't strike when the iron was hot on that deal. But, uh, yeah, they're neat.

And somebody was I I know there was a joke talking I don't remember if it was Rogan or or another comedian that was talking about it because it was like all those years, you know, you're you're like, you know, if if your they're like, if your dog [censored] on the kitchen floor and you just go and take some dry paper towels and wipe it up, you don't feel like you're done. You got to get some fantastic or something spray. So it's like why would it be any different for your butt? Hey, a great analogy. It's a great analogy. Just wiping with dried paper. That actually gave me a visual. That's how good the analogy was. Yeah. And then there's some actually cool idea there. Did you ever see like in ch or in Japan because they're pretty stressed out for space? That's where that really started.

It was very common in Japan that they would have bet and then and then the other thing there's like an attachment that was really reasonable where they took the toilet. So they have the day they have the toilet and then they have an attachment where you take the lid off the toilet and then you put this other thing on and it's a pump that has a sink. So it's like this little sink that uses the toilet water which is clean in the tank. people maybe there's no reason to be grossed out from that. It's just the tank water is clean water and you wash your hands on without the tank top there which is pretty neat that if that had a heater as well. You can have warm water, wash your hands and you're all super sanitary in a very closed space. Well, I have to say you're very European.

Yeah, you're European on the boots because they've had these in Europe for years. I mean, it's just never come to America for some reason, right? And I think maybe because they were these two big separate units and I think maybe the space thing was the issue, right? Because you had you had it was like a whole separate toilet bowl, right? So you had two and I just think it just didn't work for the space, right? Well, unless you had the space and most of the people with the space can afford the extra, you know, and it's funny cuz the bed valve as a plumber, so I did plumbing 15 years on the side with a family member.

We did all Northshore stuff, so it was all high-end homes, which was really cool that you could see the cool things that they were doing and then you could duplicate it for a quarter of the cost if you're doing it on your own for your own house. Like that's when like under cabinet or undermount sinks were just kind of starting when it was like, "Wow, that's unbelievable cuz it looks so sweet. It's form follows function. You just wipe right into the sink. there's not that lip to clean and Yeah. And it's like you have to have that, you know, and and then of course if you got a granite guy, you could get it done cheaper, you know, all this other kind of stuff.

But but the the whole point was that is that when you look at high-end homes and high-end construction and you think, "How can that house be worth $2 million or whatever, it's like you don't realize that every trade in a luxury home is almost tripled because there's three more people. So you don't just have painters, you have painters, and then you have texture painters. And you don't just have brick guys, you have brick guys and then you have stone work for the fireplace. So you got like masons or different stone guys and then you have granite guys. You don't just have a counter guy, you know what I mean? And so so all the trades seem to be like, you know, more than a few extra things. And and so every the cost should be triple for a luxury home.

And sometimes we see those ideas and we could do do those things in our house because it makes that little bit of wow factor different than just some drywall in a room, you know, that what plumbing fixtures you have, those sorts of things are the little differences that a lot of buyers won't even notice, but some will and then they just know that it's quality, you know. So, so, so like when you do a kitchen, a perfect example because we did that kitchen up there when I first moved in. We gutted the kitchen and the two bathrooms upstairs and then and then did that, moved in and then remodeled the basement while we lived here. Um, but that upstairs kitchen, my one thing was like I didn't want the microwave over the stove like cuz that's the standard buy your kitchen packages that have the stove, the refrigerator, the you know all of that.

So just to not have the microwave over the stove is a ridiculous cost because this it's like the stove's more expensive, the oven's more expensive, then you got to get a hood and then you got to get a vent hood and it's like that's kind of expensive. So, it's just like funny that it was like triple the cost just for that one stupid little thing that made me feel like it was like that's taking the kitchen to the next level is just, you know, and so then we had the inwall oven, that KitchenAid one is pretty cool that the microwave looks like a pizza oven. So, it looks like a double an instead of a double oven, it looks like an oven and a half and uh the top is actually the microwave and it doesn't even look like there's a microwave in your kitchen. Oh, that's amazing.

Cuz I have to tell you, on one of one of my little condos that I have, um I have, you know, the microwave, same thing above the stove and it has the exhaust vent on it. It's horrible. Horrible. Does it barely works, right? It they don't work at all. That thing's going I'm putting in a real exhaust with, you know, 900 CCMs on that thing. So, it actually takes the grease out of the kitchen. Right. Right. Well, that that's how this this is a a pretty big vent. It's pretty quiet and it's an 8 inch duct that goes right out the so that'll like clear the room. But it is pretty loud, you know, when you really crank it up. But it it'll move some it'll it'll move some air. Oh, this is perfect. Look, we're getting high tech that. So this, if people were wondering, it's kind of what it was like. This is the the oven. That's the style.

And then the microwave is above it, but when it's closed Oh, I love it because it looks like a double oven, but it's a microwave. But then there's this the price. Yeah. I mean, that that's a right where you could buy a regular stove for, you know, probably $700 and a microwave for three or four, right? So, you three times the cost, you know, then you get a nicer, you know, the nicer stove with the thing and the blah blah blah. Listen, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with spending money on new technology and new inventions. That's something that I love. I think it's worth it. Right.

You're paying for innovation and you're paying for, you know, I wish I wish I could give Katchet a bit a better review though because I did have an issue with the fridge and there was some stuff and I ended up getting like an LG fridge or something that uh has been pretty good. Um, but yeah, it's innovation, technology, ideas, you know, whether it's a retail store or whether it's, you know, making ideas happen, we all had them. My mom actually had a good story you might like that uh she that was one of we all have them folks. Let's like leave a comment with your idea that you never did anything with that somebody stole 10 years later you noticed it's on the market. Send it to Rocanna Corp. I'll take a look at it for you. Yeah. Give us ideas. We need them. But but it was one of those where my mom's like I that was my idea.

Like they owe me. You know, Mom, I love you. You know. Um, but she broke her purse strap and so she ended up or she had a broken purse purse strap with the clip and so it broke. The strap broke and then so she took the end and tied it around her other purse and then she would clip her keys to the end of the strap. So instead of digging around in her purse for the keys, you just grabbed the strap and it brought the keys right to your hand. Brilliant. Yeah. Never did nothing. And then 10 years later, there's the infomercial for the 1995 Purse Buddy or whatever it was. And and that should be an an eyeopener for people. As a matter of fact, um I I'm going to end on that and I'm going to tell you all of the great things I thought of that have been invented already, right? But the super secrets are revealed right here on Flipside Frolic.

And I got to tell you, so for for starters, if you ever get a chance to come on Flip Side, frolic, it's worth it just to check out this bedet in the bathroom. I mean, that that'll make your whole day just right then and there. And I remember growing up, do you remember when your grandmother or your mom used to have that little change purse with the clip? They had that little snap on it and they had a little change purse that they carried all around. Huh. Now, now, now it's sitting in a museum, right? Because there's there's nothing you can even do with change. Well, and and but the that was the fix for trying to dig change out of the bottom of your purse, which was a pain in the butt. So, now we need a little pocket purse. A separate purse inside the purse.

Yeah, that's funny cuz I I I I just, you know, I pass pretty much changed the game with that, right? And and not only did they change the game in this area cuz you always had change dispensers in your car like or or it was always in the times they were built in, remember with the little the nickel, the diet to get the thing out. But the the the but whenever you had to dig for 40 cents to throw it in the toll basket, that was a pain in the butt, right? So I pass is simpler. Is it really? Cuz now you tripled the tolls in about six years and nobody is complaining because they don't even know it.

They just get their they don't even realize that their $20 auto replenish on your IP pass account that used to happen once every quarter is now happening twice a month and and and you don't never even see and the credit cards probably charging you a fee to do it because that's what they do now. And that's a whole another show that, you know, I'd love to to hear your opinion on is, you know, all these new uh I went I went I went out to a restaurant the other day and I got my bill and there was just all these crazy charges out there now. Like just they just crazy charges there. They're charging me now for using a credit card. They passed the fee on to me that they put on my bill, right?

that used to be considered this term that used to be like taught in business school like the cost of doing business was something that would be included in the price like what like tax is included and I took some clients out last week and you know we went out for some drinks just drinks no food and now they're charging me tax on drinks where you never used to do that right you used to go you go to a bar you could think you order beer was $3 right now they're charging you know $3 and 28 cents. I haven't seen I I I know that. Yeah. You see, you need to come down by me where you're downtown, right? I'm down you're down. I live downtown.

So I don't uh well I have a good friend that um I used to live by by Addison and Harlem right in the old B well that's not the old neighborhood but I used to live there and I used to joke about um going to the southside you know would be like past Grand like why I got no reason to go south of Grand. Are you kidding me? And then my buddy lived just north of Irving. And so he would pick on me about going to the southside because he he doesn't go south of Irving. And so I was living in the in the slum because I was south of Irving. Now I move north of Foster. And so I'm like now I don't go south of Machos, you know, and I don't go east of Austin. It's like Yeah. See, that's what happens with neighborhood guys, right? They have they have their perimeters. Well, Chicago is funny, folks.

And I, you know, there's certain things I love about the city, certain things I, you know, if you're if you like a city, if you're a city folk, this obviously this city has everything that you would want, right? If you Except for the weather. Yeah. And but you know and that you know I'll I'll try to remember to get back um because because it's it's funny that you know I moved out to Elgin initially when I moved out of the city to be able to afford my first house and you had to go farther west and it's what is it 40 miles or I I don't 20 miles or 25 miles Elgin but it was one of those things where I just got used to commuting around and So right now it's like my friends would be like, "You moved to where?" Elgin, right? You know, it's like in if you grew up in Chicago and you think you're traveling west past Rosemont. Oh, you're not.

You're like, you might as well been in Iowa. Yeah. I got to bring a daybag. Are we staying overnight? Like what are you talking about? You're going, "What? How? West of 294." And it's just so funny because it's like, dude, do you ever like go to Schaumburg? It's like Schaumburg, you know, these people think that's insane, but all the shopping and all the restaurants and all you're you're missing out on so much if you can't even go to Schaumburg. And the funniest thing was like, okay, here we'll race. We're right here by Cumberland and I 90, right? This is where we're at. And I'll race you. I'll go to Elgin and you go to the lake. I promise you, I'm getting there first. It's like you're only going three and a half miles east to go to the lake and I'll go 20 50 miles west. It is. Like I said, that was the issue.

Like even me coming here today, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I'm only maybe seven miles from you. I'm at the lake and you're up here on Cumberland and it's literally only seven miles and if the highway was free, I could probably get here in 8 minutes, you know? Yeah. And it was an hour. It was an hour depending on how far off the expressway you are because sometimes when you get on that Northshore area or you get to Hollywood or whatever it takes you 15 minutes just to get to the expressway. But we used to I mean from this same area here we would be downtown downtown for in 8 minutes on a motorcycle at night to go to the 50s cruise around the old school McDonald and you know all the different stuff downtown and whatever on motorcycles.

But that's the one thing that's about the Chicago, you know, like crime and, you know, all these all these other things, our our wonderful mayor and his recent comments, uh, with regards to ICE and different things and lies in the media and all this fun stuff that we can talk about. But it's so weird that with racism and with segregation and with with all these sorts of issues that are seem to be out there, crimes down because they're not prosecuting anybody. So if nobody's convicted, there's no crime. And and I think most normal people realize that, but there's still people cuz anybody I my personal friend got shot. Okay? Like this is not something that's normal. He was Ubering in a Tesla, went down to 22nd Street area by old by Chinatown. So wait, he owned a Tesla and was Ubering as a driver. Yeah. Okay.

Because it's electric and it's efficient or whatever. And and so he saw um three thugs kicking a guy, an old man on the ground like this is unacceptable kind of thing and he's not a hero. But he just drove up and flashed the lights and beeped his horn thinking I'll just scare these guys off. They turned one shot shot went into his driver's window through his seat belt into his chest. you and and but it was in the front section so it like went behind his nipple across his chest outside of the rib cage and stopped by his other nipple. So he got shot in the chest through the car. This is a like I know this person very well and it's like he even when he called me and told me this, it's like crazy. And then just right here in Norwood Park, there was an 83y old man that was tied up with duct tape on a home invasion and found dead.

So like even if you robbed the guy's house, you can't even call the paramedics or something. You just leave the guy there to die or did he die then or whatever the case may be. But again, and it's I'm I'm you know, you're not racist because it happened to be illegals that did it, you know. So it's like this is all part of the problem. But um anyway, the the the main point with Chicago was one of the best benefits and one of the biggest assets I think of our city was some of our neighborhood scenarios, right? We had these cultural centers all throughout the cities with his neighborhoods.

We had Chinatown and we had the Southside African-American community and we had Pilson with the Latino community and then we had Korea Town and up north and we, you know, so you had all these cultures that you can go visit and it's almost like you're going to the different country with the signs reading different languages and they had their own museums and art galleries and food.

you could you you could sample these different go get soul food and go get Korean food and go get you know uh Korean barbecue and you know all this wonderful stuff and it's like that was a selling point to Chicago right and because I mean look at all the people that go to um Disney World right yeah and it's like the wall around we had that here we had the the tour of the world right here in our city but unfortunately because of the some crime crimeridden areas that didn't make it pleasant for a lot of people that they you decide to just spread that crime throughout the whole city, diversify everything to the point that every neighborhood looks the same. Like that's not culture. That's not, you know, that's not what the city seemed to stand for which which was a beautiful part of the city.

Yes, we had to end the drugs and the crimes and the gangs in certain areas that were predominantly in in some areas more than others, but we grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. So, we're white privileged and unquestionable. And then, you know, there was mostly just white gangs. There's what, a couple of gaylords around, a couple of jousters around or whatever. And then we had the railroad tracks that were there. So, like North Avenue, South and North Avenue was in African-American communities mostly, right?

So they didn't really come north of North Avenue and then and then to the east of us were the tracks and then to the by Kelvin Park and what was there like Cobras and like Land Kings and stuff and and then it it started getting crazy cuz those Latino communities in Chicago in our old neighborhood was was trouble because you know that's when it's like no you can't call a Puerto Rican a a Spanish person or a Mexican a Puerto Rican or a Cuban. So then there was all these different gangs from different Latino groups and then territories were disputed and that's when you have trouble, right? But for the most part, you want to see real racism. Yeah. Call a Puerto Rican Mexican for sure.

And and and and the interesting thing though is like like you know when the territories are set and the gangs are kind of where they're at, it's like it's not that dangerous. You know what I mean? It's when people start infringing and and and interestingly enough, I had a an army friend that in Afghanistan initially. He's like, it's exactly the same thing as Chicago as far as there's there's different gangs that run different areas and they have territories, but they have heavy artillery and tanks. You know, they're a little more heavily armed than our gang bangers in Chicago, even though they got some pretty good weaponry, too.

Um, but then you get a government that comes in and starts moving lines and changing territories and then you're just creating havoc instead of things that have always, you know, been that way for a certain amount of time. So, I want to get back on this issue and I want to hear your your opinion on because uh I was driving the other day and I don't have an iPass yet, right? Because long I I had one, I got a new car and whatever. So, I go through the toll and of course there's nobody there no more to take your change. No, like nobody's there. No, you got to call or go online, whatever. So, why is it right? So, why is it my responsibility and I'm driving, you know, you're driving the speed limit 65 miles an hour, 60 m hour.

How is it my responsibility to know what toll number I'm at to own a computer, to own a credit card, to go online to pay this toll. Um, I mean, I I I feel like ignorance of the law is no excuse, sir. And if you want the privilege of driving on them roads, you have to understand the process and what you need to comply in order to use that road. Yeah. But who but who who said you could take the toll people out? I want I want to stop and pay my 30 cents. I don't want to have to go on. And then of course I get a bill now. They they found me though. They know who I am. They they found me. Got got a bill in the mail. And now my, you know, 40 cent toll, 50cent toll, whatever it is, is $3.60.

Well, you're you're letting your age show a little bit because just the fact that you said that it was a 40 cent toll is funny because because that means that you're definitely out of touch with reality. And when I said that they tripled in the last three years and nobody knows, it's 100% true. Not only did they triple, and that was part of the scam too for IP pass is that it's going to stay half price. You're going to pay double if you don't get iPass. So the toll is double if you're paying cash. Yeah. You can't because there's no one even there to pay the cash. I'm asking you to pay double and you won't even let me. Right. Then you get then you get a processing fee, right? So it ends up costing you 20 bucks because now there's a late fee because they didn't send you a bill for five months. Now, well, so, so I had then it's even worse.

Like I have an IP pass and then they used to have one where it had a digital readout and it would blink what toll you went through P17, you know, whatever the toll number was. And then it tell you how much the toll was and what your balance on your account was and it would beep beep beep beep and you know that it registered. Next thing you know, maybe cost was too much to have an LCD display on this thing or whatever the case may be. So now they come out with the new unit and there's no LCD display. It doesn't beep. It doesn't do nothing. You got to look at the light. Okay. So you don't So So what if the lights burnt out, you know, or whatever. So now you don't even know. I'll tell you what's going to happen. Uh you're going to be getting a bill in the mail for triple plus fees like I did, right?

And and and so then the battery would you Yeah. would have a battery monitor too on there as well. So you and then you could just change the battery with a lithium uh aoublea battery. Now it's like you got to go in and swap this thing out for a new one, but you don't even know the battery is dead because it doesn't beep. It doesn't do nothing. So how and then you're going on open road tolling where there is no light. So you can't even see that the light's not going off until, like you said, till you get the bill in the mail like, "Hey, you missed all these tolls." And then there's all these fees and because the battery was dead, it's like, well, how did I how am I supposed to know that your equipment's faulty, it it's a sore subject for me cuz I had a bill for like $150 for what would be the total of like $18 in tolls, right?

And there was nothing you could do about it, like the Oh, we'll wave the two late fees, but you're going to still pay these. Like, and so did you actually call them and talk to them? I went in. Yeah. Oh, you went in. You had to go in. Well, you could. Some of the some of the overroad tolls that have the the restaurants and stuff in there have a customer service place in there, but Oh, I didn't know that. They're only open um during regular business hours. Do they still have those? I haven't seen those in years. Yeah, there's a few of like I mean, I see it when I'm traveling like long distance, you know, like if you're taking a long road trip, you'll go and you'll see a few. But for the most part, at least maybe cuz I'm in the city, right? like really see.

Yeah, there's one at Deerfield like up north and then there's one further west and you know past Yeah, you didn't you wouldn't go past Rosemont. So, you know, and then and then if you go south, there's one as well, I think. But, um but yeah, it's it's one of those things, you know, they get you they get you hooked on this convenience fee and then, you know, before you know it, they're charging. the best story for fees like 100%. I pulled into I don't even have to name drop per se. Maybe it was Fifth Third. I'm not 100% sure, but um I was had an account there for 35 40 years or something since I was a kid or whatever. 30 at least 25 years. And I pulled up and I was going to deposit a check and pull some cash out. And they they said uh they're like, "Do you have a deposit slip?" I was like, "No, I don't have a deposit slip.

Can can you send me one out? I'm in the drive-thru." And there, you know, the deposit slip's always right on the counter in the bank. It's not that big of a deal. And they're like, "Oh, well, we're charging a dollar for deposit slips now." And I'm like, "What? Like, are you telling me that you're charging me money to put my money in your bank? Like, like you're doing me a favor?" Like, I said, "Well, why don't you check when that account was open?" And she, "Oh, wow. sir, you've been with us for 26 years, blah blah blah. I'm like, well, close the account because if you think I'm paying a dollar for a deposit slip, you're out of your mind. But that's the whole process. Like, they they try to get away with what they can get away with and then until the people say enough's enough, right?

You know, that's going to continue and they're going to try to charge you a $3 fee for your ATM because you don't, you know, you're going to take $25 out. You're going to take $20 out on an on a on a cash station for a $2.50 fee. like it's legal for you to charge me like 60%. And listen, so this is actually funny too, right? Because I said like I'm downtown which is only, you know, maybe five miles from you, maybe maybe six. And it's a whole different world down there, right? I actually I went to a restaurant the other day and they refused to take cash. They refused to take cash and I was like, "Well, do you see our menu and the cheeseburger I just ordered? That's $14.82. 82. That's what that means. $14.82 means cash. Like you cannot take American Express. You cannot take rubles, right? But you have to take cash.

They're like, "Nope, we're not taking cash." Well, obviously they're pushing for cashless society and obviously it's safer and obviously somebody's got to take they're not going to pay somebody to drop the cash off at the bank. You know, it's like this whole process. But I mean, it's legal tender. It should I I don't know. That's what I'm saying. You have to take cash. You cannot take credit, but you have to take it. That's what that means. That sign that says 1482 means $14.82 in cash, right? And now since I can't pay cash now, they've added a search charge for me using my credit card on the bill. So now my now my cheeseburger is $21. You know, that's funny. And it's it's it's funny because because the other the other aspect is I used to joke about that all the time. I'd go in I'd go into the smaller places.

I'm like, "Oh, do you do you still accept cash?" And they'd look at me funny like, "Oh, because you see it's coming." You know, you know, "Do you take crypto then? I'll pay with crypto. How's that?" You know, and they probably will. You know, there's another little place by me, too, and they said the same thing. They're like, "We don't take cash." But they're like, "We take Apple Pay and they they name they named three other sources of income that I didn't even know what what they were." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's Zelli and and and and Vimo and Apple Pay and Google Pay. And interestingly enough, I was like, "How about I just get in the back and do some dishes? How's that? Does that work for you?" Well, I'm sorry. All I have is cash. What are you going to do? That's right. So, yeah, that's your choice then. Restaurant.

The funny thing like uh one of the things uh that the technology worked to my advantage. I was in I was in Colorado and and we own a vacant lot out there and and I ended up driving into town for a part and so it was 45 minutes plus to get to this place. And sure as [censored] I go to I I I'm gonna grab this tool and this part and I didn't bring my wallet. So, besides the fact that I drove with no license because I didn't have my wallet with me, but I'm like, "Oh my god, I have to drive. It's going to cost it's going to be two hours at least in order to just get this stuff." And then I was able to figure out Google Pay and then set up a credit card with it and then without needing the three-digit code, you know, I was able to pay with my phone like some, you know, youngster would. Like, no question, Eric, can you help me with this?

But that's hilarious that everything's going to be tapped to pay with the chip in your hand. But we don't need the chip in your hand because you carry your phone with you. It's the same thing. But that's uh that's amazing. That is amazing. So, where are we at? Because my timer reset, but we're getting close. But uh just to get back, I guess onto the ent entrepreneurial what are some of your products? What are some of the things that you have available? What are the some of the things that uh worked out or didn't work out or what kind of Yeah. So, when I first started, right, um, so the product I have right on the market right now is our new product is the butter dragon, right? It's just it's just a way to butter your corn at a picnic, right? Or, you know, you could put it on your kitchen table.

It's just it's just going to save you time and energy and just a lot of headache, right? You simply all you need is a stick of butter and the butter dragon and you're going to be able to butter 14 corns in under a minute and you could leave it on your table for up to four or five hours and it's going to work for you with no batteries, no electricity. So that that's what we're doing. That's that's my hot product right now. Now, other products that I've had um have just been some I've sold, some I've sold some patents um and others just didn't work out, right? Like there wasn't a market for it. This is your site, right? This is our site. Okay. So, that's being displayed now if you wanted to comment on anything. But, um it looks like a cool site. Quick, simple, easy. $29.99. $29.99. I like it.

Uh so you know the market's going to tell you like I said you know what's good what isn't good but like I said most of the products that I have invented and came up with was just out of necessity for me. And like I said this product which is funny that's doing very well right now. I didn't actually invent this to sell this. I actually invented this for me, right? Because we'd have these, you know, us, right? We're neighborhood people. Yeah. I still got my neighborhood friends that, you know, we grew up with since we've been kids, right? So once a year, maybe twice a year, we we throw a big picnic, right? We throw a big party and now everybody has kids. And so we get 50, 60 people, sometimes 70 people show up for our picnics, right? And of course, I'm on the grill, right?

So, I'm on the grill and we actually have three grills growing and grills going and at one point somebody's on a corn grill, right? Because corn on the cob amazing in the summer, right? It's quick. It's simple. The kids like it. It's the only vegetable half these kids will eat, right? And we were just backed up. And what people don't realize is so we would take, you know, four or five sticks of butter, throw them on the table, right, with a knife. And it's outside, right? So, if it's too hot, the damn butter's melting, right? Or you want to see something really funny, you know what I mean? Watch kids try to butter butter a corn, right? Like outside. I mean, the butter's on the floor, it's off their knife. I mean, one kid was just eating a stick of butter in his mouth, right?

And the other problem is is when you got 50 people lined up to eat at the same time, right? Even if it took everybody just a minute to butter their corn to move on to the next one, you're talking 50 minutes from from the first person eating to the last person eating, right? An hour in line. Yeah. Yeah. So, um it was funny. So, uh my mom would come down and she had this like an old coffee maker, right, that plugged in the electric one and we would buy 18 19 sticks of butter and just melt them all so you could just come in like a like you go to um a fair, right? Street vendor or something. Yeah. We just take the butter and just dip it and walk out and we're like this this is amazing, right?

The problem was is we had to run an extension cord, a 40 foot extension cord from the house outside, plug this thing in, and we were using 18 sticks of butter. And by the time you were done, you know, you're throwing out 16 sticks of butter, right? Because you had to fill it up big enough to dip it, right? And so I'm like, we got to figure this out, right? Like, and I just figured out a way to just use one stick of butter that does the same thing. And like I said, this wasn't a product I was selling. And when people came and they showed up that they're like, "Hey, um, so I just built a prototype for me. It really didn't look exactly like this.

It was it was similar that that I just used at our picnics." And people were like, "Hey, where'd you get this?" I'm like, "I I made this." They're like, "What do you mean?" And then they're like, "Hey, can I buy this off you?" I'm like, "Well, I'm not really selling it, right?" And I mean, three people bought bought my prototype. I had three of them for like 50 bucks each. And I'm like, well, maybe there's a need for this product, right? So, we started the manufacturing process and we just started putting them out. Nice. But like I said, it was just built out of necessity. And like I said, this product actually I didn't actually build to sell. It was just something I was using. So, this is battery operated or no selfwarming though. No cord needed. No cord.

So, what we do is um you're going to fill it with hot water and we have um what we call dragon dust, right? You're going to throw some dragon dust in there. It's basically just a very high-end salt with some micronutrients. And what it's going to do is it's going to keep the butter on top of the water. So, it's floating on the top. It's going to keep it the pitcher itself is going to keep this melted for four, five, six hours, right? as long as you keep it covered. And uh that's it. And because it's on top, as you pull the corn out, it's just gonna actually it's going to dip through. So it's nice, too, because if your corn's a little dried out, it's going to rehydrate it because it's going to go through the water and as it comes up, the butter is going to coat it. Wow. That's awesome. And uh very simple. Very cool. Very simple. Yeah.

All right, folks. There you go. That's our podcast sponsor. We'll do we'll do a little commercial segment for you in the future. Well, we'll we'll for the for the cost of one product. But that's why, you know, was it's funny because like if if you know, whenever, you know, come by, bring one by, we'll check it out, show it, you know. Yeah. I feel bad. Like I said, I usually have um I usually have a couple in my car just to uh people ask for it. Yeah, that's a it's it's a cool idea. I got to visit your brother cuz uh my brake my back brake somehow locked up. I don't know why. I use the emergency parking brake. It didn't seem to release it. Oh, that's very cool. So, I had to uh Is it? Yeah. So, I had to uh empty out.

So, the the rule of thumb, folks, is that is that uh you never pull that lever or push that pedal down if you haven't if you have an older car and you haven't ever done it. Don't ever That's the whole thing. So, I bought this car brand new and in uh I've never ever used it in my life every day or you never use it. So, I my driveway has a bit of a a slope on it. So, I always push mine in since mine mine's a 2017, so it's getting old. It's I broke 100,000 miles on it. Um, but yeah, I I push that thing down every time. And Dan yells at me like, "Why do you even use that thing?" You know, cuz it's like you either use it every day or you don't because it if it freeze up, it's going to freeze up and then it takes a process to kind of clean that up and get it working again or whatever. But he's the right guy for the job.

my uh my my sun Sunday I have a podcast person that's coming. We're gonna kill two birds with one stone. He's we're dropping the car off. I'm gonna pick him up. Dan's gonna fix the car. We're going to do the podcast. So, works out pretty well for uh for our next guest. Hey, had I known that, you know, we could have invited Dan over and by the time I was done with the podcast, my break could have been released. Yeah. No, there's no question. Well, we we'll know for next time cuz, you know, we can always come back another time. You know, it's been a But yeah, so this is the website. Where's my I lost my glasses. There we go. So, if you guys want the Is that right? Rocanna Corp. Rocanna Corp. Yep, that's it. Rocanna Corp. R O C A N A C O R P.com. Get yourself a the butter dragon. Pretty cool. And then what about like social media?

You got anything like that? Where are you following on LinkedIn or anything like that? Yeah. No, so not right now. So basically we just we just uncovering this product. Um we did we got it out right like a a week and a half before Christmas. So, we got a lot of Christmas orders, you know, and now we're just really ramping up because for Memorial Day, right? As soon as the grills come out. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. People are going to or they're going to see it in action, you know. Yeah. That's going to be awesome. That's perfect. Very cool. Awesome. Well, Rocco, it's been a blast, man. I I It's so fun to catch up with people. It's so fun to connect.

It's like you you haven't seen people sometimes since you're when you're young and just remember, you know, you feel like you've known each other a long time after this, you know, and and and some, like I said, some good comes out from it. If people want to get in contact with you, you can uh info@ flipsf frolic.com and we can get a message or if you had questions about starting up new products and whatever the case may be, we'll uh we'll get you in touch with Rocco here and and uh and and get make those ideas happen like that that other book that I got here somewhere. Right. Listen, you know, everybody, I guarantee you, like, you know, we talked about this earlier that um there's probably everybody, there probably isn't one person I haven't met that said, "Hey, I thought of that idea." Right?

And you see it out and you know, even some of the products that I made, right? Um I've had people say like, "That was my idea. I thought of that 10 years ago." And there and they're probably right. They're probably not lying, right? Because I've done that before, right? There there were products that I said I should invent this, right? And I just never did, right? Like, you know, I knew like the online betting was going to be great, right? I'm like, we should do an online website for like betting, right? And you know, they've taken over the market now. You know what I mean? And just little things like that and you think, ah, you know, it's too hard. You can't do it.

You know, my I have a friend that does app development and he had like two apps that he was making like 60 grand a year on like, you know, you can almost live off just two apps that he developed that are out out there on the app store kind of thing. And and and everybody's had an idea for an app or something, but then we get stuck and we don't think that we know a person that can develop this for us or whatever. And what's the deal then? And how do you split commissions and you know, all the all the complication legal stuff, right? maybe goes too far with it with their mind, right? Just start off with, hey, for sure, here's my idea. How can I just get a prototype out, right? That's it. And don't worry about the rest of the logistics, right? Because that'll come later. That's something you're going to deal with down the road, right? Yeah.

Even Yeah. Even like you said, whether it's a manufacturer or a development, like an app for instance, if if you're just paying the guy to do this for you and then there's no other deal on the site other than his time to create this thing, then if you want a piece of the action or something, we can work that out later or whatever. But like you said, because getting that actual working app as a start prototype, it doesn't need to be the finished product, just like any prototype for for something you're making, right? And then sometimes you don't it can get better. It can next version can come out. You sell then now you're sell repeat selling to the same customers the newer latest greatest thing and and building that list there. There's there's a multi-million dollar company called 3M. Right.

And even their logo they don't even make products. They just make products better. Yeah. You know and they do I'll tell you what I see 3M on a logo and and I know that product's going to work. That's true. They got good brand. They got good brand recognition. I think I I think I remember reading a story about Did they start with Post-it notes? Was that their first thing about I mean, no, they I think they started with adhesives adhesive, but then there was a type of adhesive that was working for the Post-it note thing. Does there there's some pretty cool story somewhere down in the history of 3M with the Post-it notes?

I know though that was almost like a by accident invention, you know, like so many of these things happen or organically and and and you don't even realize it, you know, but I guarantee most of the listeners, how many of you guys out there had a had an idea that just somebody else stole? So if if it's possible that the magical power of the universe is really here to help us all and they basically gave us this information and yet we still have free will so we could choose to do nothing with this information or we can you know we can't bet it all on one goofy idea either. You know you have to be smart and try to plan it out.

But it is amazing how the the world, you know, when you're doing the right thing and trying to help people and trying to give value and trying to, you know, solve people's problems, you know, more than likely some good's going to come from it, you know, but that was one of the one of the tenants of uh like telling people. So yes, if you do this early patent as suggested by Roco, it's called a provisional provisional patent to at least have a little bit of protection. But because if you never tell anybody, nothing's ever going to happen, right? And so almost like in the MLM industry, don't tell people that don't have anything to do with upgrading, making, producing your product, right? Or somebody that's an expert in that field without something in paper.

You're not going to go into a a promoter that's g and tell them all your stuff without anything in writing or any NDA or something signed, which you know, whatever. Um, but that makes sense like but so so it was like one of the things um it's like if you really have an one of the making idea happen books or something it's like almost like an ML an MLM kind of scenario where it's like if you have an idea pick up the phone and call everybody that you know and tell them about your idea right so so either you're living in fear or you're trusting the muse and and and you're going to work harder than them anyway. way. So they can think it's a great idea and think they're going to steal it from you and then be they're probably just lazy and they ain't going to do crap with it anyway, right?

So is it really a risk to tell everybody, you know, and and so and you're almost trusting the marketplace at that point and because you're passionate about your idea and you really have this energy and you're like, "Oh my god, these people on the other side like, wow, this I man, this guy is something. I really like his passion." And then and there was a a a story where it was like something's going to come from that series of phone calls because you took action. And it might not have anything to do with your product, but somebody somebody out there is like, "Man, this Rocco, man, I love his energy. I love his passion. I need this guy on my team, you know, and you might end up with some opportunity that you never thought you could have had before." And it goes back, right, to the same old saying. You know what happens if you do nothing?

Nothing. That's it. Right. So, a lot of people when you first start out, you have nothing to lose, right? Like, you have nothing to lose. And I promise you, if you came up with a good idea, you're going to come up with another one and you're going to learn from the process moving forward, right? So, yeah, for sure. You learn everything. It was I had one person because I was always dabbling a few different things and coffee and some other stuff and and and it was like I had a friend that was almost like a kind of a negative thing. It's like, so obviously if you again, if you want to soar with eagles, don't wallow with worms, you don't have to you don't have to dislike people. You but you could choose not to go out of your way to be around people that are negative or or just kind of crush you down or like step on your your your motivation.

You don't need that in your life either because that's just cancer, you know? And so it was like, dude, you you got a pretty good job. what are you what are you always worried about this and trying to make money online or trying to look at marketing and doing all these different things like why can't you just be happy with what you got and I was like wow it's not even close to what the reality is here I am perfectly grateful and happy for everything that I got but if I have passions and ideas and I explore things and something works out to where if I'm not so so it's it not not to get too the the the Mayan calendar like had a had a had a hit had hit a had a rating on a one to five scale. How close do you feel right now or today that you are to fulfilling your purpose in this world? Right. I like that.

And so they would rate that on a daily almost on a daily basis like if you really felt your gift was a hunter and you're providing food for the tribe or whatever the scenario might be. It's an interesting way because one SSRI and medications and all this everybody's searching with this emptiness and this hole and they're trying to [censored] on other people and thinking that that's going to make them happy because you destroyed somebody else's life because they had a different opinion than you. So, you called their employer and told them that you posted some Nazi stuff about, God forbid, cuz you said maybe some sort of conservative thing or Christian thing online or whatever. It's just crazy. You will not find happiness tearing other people down, build something, you know, provide value for somebody, help somebody else.

And it seems that the people that have these principles seem to be happier people that I'd rather be around. And absolutely. So find find that and and and choose to be around that as opposed to some negative [censored] that that's not gonna, you know, help anything. Hey, listen. Didn't your parents say, you know, show me your friends and I'll tell you your future? Well, and then there's that if if if that money is not the the the the the goal, but one thing that really jumped out in one of these books was was if you want to know how much money you're going to make next year, average the income of the five people you hang around with the most. I love that. Probably close. It probably is. And and and so that was the same kind of thing where but that negative attitude of why why aren't you just happy with what you got?

No, I'm always trying to learn. I'm always trying to grow. I'm always trying to read. I'm always trying to toy with stuff. I'm always learning new things. I I started piano. I started playing piano at 47 years old. Like Like you're too old for that. No, you're not. You know what I mean? You're never too old to start and just start doing something different. start doing something better and start because because the truth is is is if I didn't have to rely on that pension or if I could step aside because I found a different way to support my family in a better way and I didn't have to turn wrenches and there might be a guy that's all he's got. He's not trying to get anything else other than the skills that he has in this as a as a technician for turning wrenches or whatever the case may be. right?

If that's all he's got and and he's working at some Jify Loop or some [censored] and I can step aside and offer my position to somebody that can support a family and send his kids to college because he's getting paid pretty decently through this new employer or whatever as I go off and do something else. Great. You know, what kind of gift is that to just be able to offer that spot for somebody else as opposed to, you know, thinking just just keep doing what you're doing. Do the same thing every day. Never give up, right? You got a chip in a chair and you're still in the game. That's that's the truth, my friend. All right, we got a few little things. We got uh if you want a hat, we got hats. We got uh love a hat. We got uh challenge coins. This is pretty cool. All right. What are What What's a challenge coin? Tell me about it.

Uh challenge coins is mostly Sorry, folks. I'm a little away from the mic. Challenge coins are are usually a military kind of thing. And uh but they're pretty cool. And some of you guys may have seen these. I guess I could sh You've seen some pictures online that there's a Flipside Frolic challenge coin, but these are limited edition ones that on the back actually have the episode number of the episode you were on. And this is a gift to our guests. This is an that's a sample, but I I I ordered one with 00 on it so I could keep one. Very nice. I'm like, I can't just give all of them. I got to have one. So, this is the official one that actually has the episode number etched in. Thank you very much. So, that's pretty cool. We got some stickers and different things, but um it's been awesome.

And then we're going to we'll have you back on the update and you know, keep coming back and we'll have some fun and it's been awesome. It's been a pleasure catching up. It's It's been great, man. I appreciate you coming out for sure. Maybe next time I'll have to bring the the ball and the bat with me and uh see if you still got it. That's funny. We'll we'll we'll we'll we'll take some swings and see if you don't hurt yourself too too too fast. So, all right. We'll catch you guys later. Leave a comment and uh we'll see you later. Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a little something about other people's perspectives. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and throw us a like on the video. Comment if you have any questions and we'll see you on the next episode.