He Turned A Summer Job Into A Nine Figure Exit - David Royce

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Escaping the Drift with John Gafford

Episode: He Turned A Summer Job Into A Nine-Figure Exit – David Royce
Date: May 19, 2026
Guest: David Royce (Founder and Former CEO, Aptiv)
Host: John Gafford

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Overview

In this episode, John Gafford sits down with serial entrepreneur David Royce, who transformed a college summer job into building and selling multiple pest control businesses, culminating in a nine-figure exit with Aptiv, a leading home services company. Their conversation revolves around finding life-changing opportunities in “unsexy” blue-collar businesses, building high-performing teams, scaling and selling companies, the power of door-to-door sales, and how to thrive in a world where AI threatens white-collar roles. David shares actionable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, stories from the trenches, insights on employee equity, and lessons learned from his journey—punctuated with humor and humility.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Humble Beginnings and Finding Opportunity in the Trades

• Starting Point (02:33):
  • David began as a broke college student at BYU, enticed by the ability to earn $25,000 in a summer selling pest control door-to-door.
  • Despite previous mission experience in Panama, he struggled early on but rebounded by studying classic sales texts and relentless practice.
• Quote:

  “I sold zero for five days. This is one of those jobs where it’s commission-only—so the only benefit I was getting was cardio out of my first week.” (04:00, David)

2. Leveraging Sales Skills and Early Management

• After failing initially, David committed to reading sales books (Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy) daily, leading him to become the company’s top rookie.
• He pivoted to sales management fast, writing manuals and launching training programs that doubled his team’s performance, monetizing his skills before even graduating (06:08).
• Ownership Hesitation:
  • Despite earning a quarter million dollars each summer, David never expected to stay in pest control. He dreamed of a finance career in New York—until he realized the saleability and returns of these businesses (08:06–09:48).

3. Building and Exiting Companies—The Playbook

• Deal Structure & Playbook (09:48–10:53):
  • David sold his first company to Terminix for $10 million, learning to sell only the customer base and technician contracts, keeping his salesforce and key operators.
  • He repeated this strategy, growing regional and multi-state operations, selling again (Forbes reports his second exit at $30 million), then scaling for a third time with increased capital.
  • He invested in tech, building software for targeted door-knocking, retention optimization, and high-margin customer acquisition.
• Quote:

  “We were like the first pest control company ever to go, ‘let’s start building our own technologies in house,’ because blue-collar businesses, they’re the last ones to get the best technology.” (13:46, David)

4. Scaling, Software, and Employee Equity

• By the final build, Aptiv, they saw $500M in annual revenue and sold for a multiple on revenue (estimated nine-figure exit), and, notably, gave away 25% equity to employees.
• Impact:

  “Hundreds of people made six or seven figures… You change the trajectory of hundreds of families, not people.” (16:16, John/16:20, David)

  • This approach, instead of taking outside investor capital, created life-changing wealth for employees (17:19).

5. "Unsexy" Industries Have "Sexy Margins"

• Industries for the Future (18:02+):
  • Blue-collar businesses have higher profit margins due to lower competition from white-collar professionals and limited tech disruption (AI cannot spray bugs, fix HVAC, or plumbing).
  • David cites industries such as pest control, car washes, oil changes, porta potties, and garbage/removal as lucrative, outperforming “sexy” fields like restaurants in margin and risk.
• Quote:

  “The secret about unsexy industries is that they have sexy margins.” (18:02, David)
  “Porta potties… 25% is the margin on average. It’s a crappy job.” (20:03, David/laughter)

6. Growth Through Relentless Sales and Data

• Market Entry Strategy: 100% organic growth via disciplined door-to-door sales, powered by data and retention analytics (22:09–23:44).
• The model yields 7–10x faster growth than traditional marketing in these industries.
• Home services businesses were selected as they require local, physically-present service—AI-resistant and private equity-attractive.

7. Customer Experience: Differentiation in Delivery

• Sincere attention to details like learning and referencing pets’ names, taking photos of pests as evidence, and proactive customer education drove retention and satisfaction (27:18).
• Quote:

  “We actually would take pictures of the pest so they could see it and understand where it was… helps retention.” (27:47, David)

8. The Exit Process, Private Equity, and Life After Wealth

• Private equity exit took nearly nine months, requiring comprehensive operational transparency, with a more exhaustive vetting than selling to industry strategics (29:09).
• Life-Changing Wealth:
  • The feeling of “life-changing” money is most intense at the first wire (the initial $13M—and the realization you’ll be financially secure for life).
  • Further exits bring diminishing excitement for material things; fulfillment comes from impact, travel, philanthropy, and unique experiences (30:12+).

9. Health, Lifestyle, and Longevity Practices

• David focuses on health, longevity, and sleep optimization post-exit, body-hacking routines, and family time. Discusses supplements, new wellness tech (Eight Sleep), and sauna/cold plunge routines (42:41–46:19).
• Both Gafford and Royce highlight the shift from “all in” on business to “all in” on personal health and experience.

10. Advice to Aspiring Entrepreneurs

• Starting Out:
  1. Research business types for high margins (try ChatGPT for brainstorming).
  2. Get industry experience before starting your own venture (“Just because I love watching the NBA doesn't mean I can play in it.”).
• Scaling:
  • Shift from operator to owner’s mindset: work “on” the business, not “in” it. Create manuals, delegate, and focus on strategy (48:14+).
  • Use the “80% rule”—if someone can do the job 80% as well as you, delegate.
  • Recognize that growing bigger lets you hire better people and learn from them:

    “I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I want to learn from other people.” (51:06, David)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Mindset:

  “So many people, they chase passion... but you got to be in the top 1% of 1% [in things like entertainment]. Most millionaires are in kind of these boring blue collar businesses.” (18:19, David)

• On Overcoming Stigma:

  “So many people have the hang-up with these businesses… what will the neighbors say if they find out I’m the bug man?” (08:06, John)
  “It’s embarrassing to say, but it just wasn’t impressive to me… until I saw my boss sell for $10 million.” (07:28, David)

• On Impact:

  “You changed the trajectory of hundreds of families, not just people.” (16:23, John)

• On the Hedonic Treadmill:

  “You adjust to everything. You normalize to it, and then you’re like, all right, what’s next?” (31:06, David)

• Advice to Young Entrepreneurs:

  “Go get experience before just trying to jump in. Get on ChatGPT, ask it lots of questions… look for really great margins.” (47:05, David)

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Notable Timestamps

• 00:00 – Intro & David Royce joins the show
• 02:33 – David’s first experiences in sales (door-to-door, BYU, Panama mission)
• 04:15 – David’s “zero for five days” and how he turned it around
• 06:00 – Early management roles & writing the training manual
• 09:01 – Realization of business potential after boss’ Terminix deal
• 09:48–10:53 – David’s rinse-and-repeat pest control company playbook
• 13:46 – Adoption of custom tech/software as a differentiator
• 15:03–16:28 – Nine-figure exit, employee equity, and impact
• 18:02–20:03 – “Unsexy” business margins; industry comparisons
• 22:09–23:44 – Growth: all organic, 7–10x faster via door-to-door sales
• 27:18–28:35 – Operational details: photos/legal compliance, customer service
• 29:09–29:58 – The private equity exit process
• 30:12–32:03 – Life after “the wire;” diminishing excitement of wealth
• 34:13–36:20 – New pursuits: creativity, philanthropy, and "detox" year
• 42:41–46:19 – Health, longevity, and wellness experiments
• 47:04–49:39 – Step-by-step advice for would-be and current entrepreneurs
• 51:06–52:18 – Learning from others and delegating to grow
• 52:03–end – The importance of setting examples for family and managing social media

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Closing Takeaway

David Royce’s story demonstrates that transformative wealth and impact can be built through persistence, leveraging “unsexy” industries, strategic scaling, and by focusing on operational excellence and building great teams. If you’re ready to escape the drift, get your hands dirty—and don’t underestimate the trades.

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Find David Royce:

• LinkedIn

Visit: www.escapingthedrift.com for more episodes and resources.

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"Just with focusing on things that other people just don't want to do, man, there is gold in them hills. You just got to be willing to go mine it."
– John Gafford (52:50)

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Transcript

[A]

Back again. Back again in time for another episode of the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, I mean, I don't know how else to say this. If where you want to be is filthy, filthy rich, this is probably the podcast for you. Because this dude we got today. I'm gonna. I'm gonna try to rattle off as many accolades as I can because this is just ridiculous. But this guy built a massive, massive home home services company called Aptiv. He was ranked by Ernest and Young as the national entrepreneur of the Year. He has led many companies, recognized on the Inc. 500, Glassdoor 100 Best Places to Work, American Business Journal Awards, fastest growing services company in America, featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune Entrepreneur. Yeah, I get it. You've heard enough. This is like Tiger woods teeing off at the Masters by the time they lay out all the accolades. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is David Royce. David, how are you, man?

[B]

I'm great. Good to be here, thanks.

[A]

Did I get you pumped up now? You ready to go for that? It's a big pump up. Thank you for coming in from la. It's always such a pleasure when people come in to talk to us, and I greatly appreciate it. These things are never as good on zoom as they are in person. They just aren't because there's always those weird pauses and everything else. But for those of you who don't know, Aptiv is a massive, massive home services company designed in pest control. And you built that thing from the ground up. And you have since exited it last year. And now you are just out giving back with all of your newfound glory. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, and we're going to get deep into it as we go, is with the rise of AI killing so many white collar jobs, if you will, through the finance sectors and the projections of what it's going to do through different white collar sectors. You know, home services is where it's at. And I mean, obviously private equity has seen that, which is why they bought you guys. And getting into those home services businesses. I want to talk about that to somebody that's listening to this because, like, there might be a kid somewhere that's listening right now that's thinking, what am I going to do? And I think that any of the trades or any of these type services are definitely something like AI is not going to show up and spray your house for bugs. They're not going to show up and put your H Vac in. They're not going to show up and plumb your toilets. They're not going to show up and do your wiring in your house. These are things that are not going to happen. And the value of these businesses is exponentially higher. Because we'll get to your opinion on why you think all of those things are getting higher. But first of all, where did you start out, man? I mean, obviously I don't need the full origin story, but when did you first get started with. With this type of business?

[B]

Yes. I was a broke college student.

[A]

Okay. Where'd you go to college?

[B]

I went to BYU and I had a friend who said I made 25 grand last summer. Got any interest in going out with us? You know, we surf on the weekends and then we sell pest control surgery services. And all I heard was 25 grand in three and a half months. And I was like, yeah, whatever that is, I'll go do that.

[A]

Now I'm going to interject here because I should have known you went to byu. I should have known that instantly because for those of you who don't know that, I've got a lot of friends that have done similar stuff that involve door knocking as a big part of their business career. And they will tell me straight up across the board, there is no better school for door to door sales than Mormon missions. It's like a factory for excellent. Because, I mean, I imagine the calluses that you built up on your mission, like, right. It's like if you're out there trying to sell literally religion to non believers people, believers of other faiths, man, that's a tough sell. Yeah.

[B]

All over the world.

[A]

All over the world, right.

[B]

Two years.

[A]

Where did you go? Where did you go?

[B]

I went to Panama.

[A]

You went to Panama, Right. Did you speak Spanish before you went?

[B]

I spoke. No.

[A]

No, you did not.

[B]

I took a couple classes, you know, in school.

[A]

Couple classes, but not fluent. So you're doing it. Not only that, but you're doing it in a language that's not your maiden tongue.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah. That's a challenge. So of course I've got a lot of friends. Of course you build a company like this. Of course. Byu, of course. So we're a struggling college student. You had this skill set already.

[B]

Yeah, I thought I had the skill set because I go out, I showed up and I was horrible at it. So I sold zero for five days. And this is one of those jobs where it's a commission only job. So the only benefit I was getting was cardio out of My first week, and everybody else around me was selling one to four sales per day.

[A]

Let's put a little bit closer, just, just to make sure.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Just a little closer. There we go.

[B]

So, yeah, so I was worried, you know, that that weekend, first weekend I'm going, gosh, am I going to go home? Like, can I actually pull this off? So I went to a bookstore, about half a dozen books, you know, all the sales classics like Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy. And I just said, I'm going to read 90 minutes every day for the rest of the summer and just stick it out no matter what. And by the end of the summer, I was the top rookie in the whole company.

[A]

Just from applying what you read in the books.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if you had to pinpoint what were the shifts that you made based on what you. The literature you read from what you were doing to what you started doing, that made you successful.

[B]

So, number one, it was really apparent I was horrible at closing. Like, I kind of tell people what the features were and then be like, so what do you think?

[A]

You don't have to say, yes, I can come back.

[B]

Right. As opposed to, like, no pressure, an option close or something. Right. Like, hey, we're going to be here tomorrow, you know, at 3 o' clock and also at 5. Which one would work better for you? Give some sort of option close. And then really, features don't sell. Like, the benefits of those features sell. And as I got more and more into it, I mean, there's, there's so many ways to improve your sales presentation to be more likable. I started studying body language the second year and that was amazing. Like, really, you realize how much of what you're doing is body language, not just the word. So yeah, so I did that. The second year I went back, I was a sales manager and I brought a bunch of friends out, but I went to go work for a smaller company that was a startup. And I got there and there's no sales training manual at all. And I asked the boss, I said, hey, can I write a training manual for you if I want my friends to do well? And he's like, yeah, of course, that'd be awesome. And so we trained, we created training videos. And by the end of that summer, he had two locations. Our location did twice as much per rep, the other one. And so he pulled me aside at the end of the summer, he said, why don't I pay you? I'll pay you a cutoff. Everybody in the company, if you Train everybody.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And you develop the sales program, you're writing the training manual, and then you come back until you graduate college and do that. So I did that. And then over the next couple summers, I had about 100 people working for me. My fourth summer, scaling it for him. I really ran with the opportunity.

[A]

Well, they were really working for you. They were being trained by you, but they were working for the other guy. That was reaping a lot bigger benefit from it than you are, for sure.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So it worked out. I was making 225 grand in a summer. Back then it was like almost half a million in today's money.

[A]

Dude, that's. It's so funny because literally at lunch today, you know, I'm on with, with one of my guys and because we take our top 25 performers out here every month for a really expensive lunch. And, and we were talking about his first job and he said over the summer I would go to San Diego because he went to. I think he went to Utah State, maybe.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And he said he would go down and he would make more money in the summer selling pest control in San Diego than he would anywhere else. I wonder if you train him. Who knows? You might have. That's funny.

[B]

About half of everybody that did pest control sales has worked for us just because we're so big now.

[A]

Oh my gosh. So when you graduate, you're making a quarter of a million dollars essentially over the summer.

[B]

Right.

[A]

When you graduate, do you know immediately you're going into this field or did you actually think you're going to get a quote unquote Norman job?

[B]

Absolutely not. So that was the last thing in my mind. I was sitting finance to go to New York and do mergers and acquisitions at an investment bank. And I went to my boss and I said, I need a really great letter of recommendation because this pest control thing, I'm not sure how it's going to look. I know it's incredible for sales, which I thought would team me up nicely with a finance degree to do M and A. And he's just like, I don't get it. Why on earth are you going to go work 800 a week for somebody else? He's like, you should go do your own company. And I was like, oh, no, no, no. It's like, not for me. You know, it's not sophisticated and it's kind of funny. Like, I was really. It's embarrassing to say, but it just wasn't impressive to me.

[A]

Is that. Dude, isn't that funny how I think that's the hang up so many people have with these businesses is they just, they look at them like, what will the neighbors say if they find out I'm the bug man? Right.

[B]

It's a card. It's like, how do you get passionate.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About it or whatever.

[A]

I mean, look, I wrestle with that same thing here. I mean, we built a mass company here by the scales of Las Vegas. I mean, we're the largest luxury brokerage. We have 500 agents. Somebody's a work here for us and. But still the stigma I get in rooms with people that are in high finance or, you know, have I met a couple high level masterminds. And the last thing I ever want to say is I'm a realtor or a realtor. I say, real. Gosh, I just said realtor. I don't know how to say it. And I just said, yeah, that's like the last thing I want to say. Because of the stigma, I think somehow attached to the job.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So I get it. And it's so funny how. Yeah, so, so, okay, talk about that. How did you get over that?

[B]

So he then told me, he says, well, just so you know, I'm gonna, I'm selling my business to Termin X. I said, oh, well, why are you doing that? He's like, because they're paying me a lot of money. I'm like, well, how much? And he goes, 10 million bucks. I was like, wait, I've been here for three of the four years that you built this business. I know how much you put into it. It wasn't that much. And you're getting 10 million off this deal. He's like, yeah, I'm going to take some time off, that kind of thing. And I was like, okay. So I started to think about it. It still took me a couple of months to come around to the idea, but ultimately I just like swallowed my ego and said, you know, I'm going to choose the opportunity and go after it. And so I basically recreated the same thing. I went down, I started my first company in Southern California. I had Hitmanvest into me as well. I had about 300 grand saved.

[A]

It was capitalized.

[B]

He doubled that for me. And then I could call him. It's like, hey, like, if you need something once a month, call me. I just want to be a silent investor. And yeah, I could just ask him about ops or something that maybe I didn't know about. I was really good at the sales side, not the operations side, but I had to learn that yeah. So we did that for four years and then sold that one. Did the exact same place, sold it to Terminix, but I only sold the customer base with the corresponding technician. I did not sell the golden goose, which was the sales force and a key operator in each location and you know, what would eventually become my executive team. So I was able to do it again. And then I took all that money and threw it into the next one so we could grow multiple.

[A]

You didn't have a non compete in your buyout?

[B]

We had an initially we had a non compete just in the locations, just in Southern California where we were. And then I ended up building the second one that was like really learning about how to build a regional business in multiple states. And then Terminix said, hey, we'd like to buy that one too. Can we buy it? I'm like, yeah, I could use more money. They bought that one. Forbes said it was for 30 million bucks. And then I had tens of millions of dollars to throw into the next company.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it just, we just kept kind of using that same playbook until we got too big and then private equity was the last one.

[A]

Yeah. So that, that's, that's such an interesting place because it's kind of where, you know, we are as a company and we're at a place where we're too big to get bought by another real estate brand. Like another real estate brand could never come in here and write us a check for what our valuation would be. They just couldn't do it. But we're not big. Well, no, no. Well, no, but, but we're not big enough for private equity yet. So we made a decision this year right now where we're currently building a growth platform anywhere Encompass just merge just had a merger so big. Big boy just bought biggest boy. Okay, well, but they are laying off a lot of very talented people through redundancy. I mean, that's what happens when you have a merger like that. So synergies. Yeah, we're talking to a lot of really great people. We think we can help us grow from a 500 person company to a 3000 agent company outside of the market. Obviously we can't do it here. We've maxed out kind of what we can do in this market, but into other growth markets throughout the Southwest. And I think when we get to that 3000 agent now we're big enough for Pete to step in to buy us, which would be obviously the dream. Because you know, it's funny when you start in business like You're a little different because you saw it happen.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You knew the model coming in. But most people, like, when we started this business, we were, we never built it.

[B]

So I was thinking about the end. No.

[A]

You know, you're just, I'm going to, I'm going to die here, Right? Yeah. And not to say that, you know, we're looking to sell the business, but at some point it's got to have. You got to have an endpoint. You can't work it till you're a million.

[B]

Yeah. At some point you're going to be old enough where you're like, I can't do it anymore.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like to retire.

[A]

You'd like to. You'd like to retire. I love that on the buyouts you got singular to those markets and just what you did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sometimes tough to do.

[B]

Second one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It was even crazier. I just said, well, if you want to buy me, then I can't. What I'll do is I'll agree not to buy the specific customers, but I have to still go back in the same markets.

[A]

So how did you. Okay, so. So the structure of your deal, did you. Were you like, were you contracting your salesforce as a separate company?

[B]

No.

[A]

So how did you.

[B]

We built out software that identified where every customer was that was our old customer.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then we told our salespeople where they could knock. And then we got really good at it because what we realized is retention is the key. Right. With the recurring revenue model. And we started like taking into account different factors. You know, we knew if somebody's paying their mortgage, we knew if they had a dog, if they had children, all those kinds of things, so they're paying their bills. And so we could actually decide not only don't knock homes that were our old customers, but then it was let's knock homes where we have the best retention.

[A]

High probability.

[B]

Yeah. We know this is a high probability of a low pay our customer. It's going to go bad debt. So let's just avoid knocking that customer. If somebody calls into us, like, we'll take the call and go service them. But if we can control who we're going to knock with.

[A]

You are surgically knocking neighborhoods.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

Yeah, we got into tech, too. We were like 17 years ago, probably the first pest control company ever to go, you know, let's start building our own technologies in house because, you know, the blue collar businesses, they're the last ones to get the better, the best technology.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, they're terrible people.

[B]

Just started Thinking about it. Yeah. And so we started doing that and it was, it was awesome. It gave us a really, like a front runner competitive advantage.

[A]

So when you did, when you, when you got in the tech world, did you, on your, on your buyout, did you option that out so you could sell it as software, as a service?

[B]

We didn't, no.

[A]

Well, I mean, look, I can read your buyout. You don't care. I mean, if you're listening to this though, he don't care. I can see what he sold for. But. But yeah, it's a lot, but. Yeah, but that's what I mean. Going back to restructure. Let's go back and restructure the best possible exit deal. Now, in hindsight, right, Is there anything you would have done differently or you were done to walk away?

[B]

So the reason why we didn't worry about the software is we always looked at it like it was a competitive advantage. But you're right, like if we had found a way and said, okay, we're willing to give that up to other companies, then we could license it to other companies. Companies, you want to make money that way. But for us, we're like, no, we want to dominate. This is ours. We're not going to give it to anybody. Yeah, we did fine. Right. Like we're doing 500 million a year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Companies sell one to three times revenue.

[A]

You know, you are usually more stupid. This is, this just. Yeah, the numbers are. You do the math on what he just said. 500 million revenue, 3x EBITDA is what you sold for.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, revenues, like revenue revenues. Yeah. So like, I can't tell you exactly how much because I have an NDA. But yeah, the cool thing is we gave 25% of the company.

[A]

Even if you're bad at math, you can still figure out that's a big, big number.

[B]

Yeah, that's a huge number. So we gave 25% of our company away to our employees too. And it was, it was unique because instead of like taking investors money, because I was able to do these asset deals to Terminix, I didn't have to give money away to investors. Yeah. So I could have total control and just give out equity if I wanted to. So we created this, we called it a long term incentive plan. But I knew on the fourth one that was going to be done after that and so said, hey, 25% of the company. Anybody who's a manager in the company, it could be like the lowest tier manager, you know, sales manager, could be a ops manager. Can be middle management, executive team. Everybody's got the ability to, you know, get a piece of this.

[A]

So how many, Let me ask you this, since you can't tell me the exact number on your NDA for the buyout. How many millionaires did you make on the exit?

[B]

That's a good question. What I'll tell you is that that'll

[A]

be like my favorite number to know.

[B]

It was a nine digit number.

[A]

Yeah, that would be my favorite number to know.

[B]

I would say, you know, hundreds of people made six to seven figures.

[A]

I mean, that's, that's awesome. Yeah, because that, that is, that is you, you have just through that. All right, Forget the opportunity, forget everything else through that one decision to say we're going to do this, you change the trajectory of hundreds of families, not people. I mean some, I mean some of the, if you're smart, look, I mean the way that some of us go through money or some way that we, we live seven figures is not going to necessarily. You're not going to buy a mansion somewhere for, you know, that amount of money and live forever. You still have to work. But still, what you probably enable a lot of those people to do, especially coming out of the blue collar world in some cases, you know, pay for colleges they might not be able to pay for, for their kids and, and create opportunities within their families that wouldn't have necessarily been there otherwise. That's amazing. That's the best part.

[B]

Paid off their homes, they bought their parents a new brand new car. Like there was a bunch of sports cars.

[A]

To be honest, after that you're like, go buy assets. Go buy assets. Go buy assets. Just buy an asset and then use that to buy the car. Put one step in the middle.

[B]

Whatever makes you happy.

[A]

Whatever makes you happy. So now, I mean, look, looking back now, obviously there's, there's so many things that you've been through to do this. If somebody's listening to this right now, there's a lot of fear from AI and all of that stuff about taking away white collar jobs and what's going to happen. What would you advise people to do when it comes to the trades and how to get into this and how to start and what would you advise and what. Let's talk about, let's just talk strictly for the next 20 minutes or so about that. Let's, let's teach a business lesson on that.

[B]

So I think that this is just one of those things. The secret about Unsexy Industries is that they have sexy margins because not a lot of People want to do it. And to be honest, there's not a lot of folks who have college degrees that are in it. And so there's some unique competitive advantages. I had one, I had worked at a large regional company that was like $100 million plus company initially. So I saw how a big company worked the first summer. Then I worked at a small entrepreneurial venture, but I also had a finance degree. Just super unique. And then in addition to that, I asked my boss, I said, okay, he had three kids, he's super busy trying to run the operations and do family. I said, what would you change? Like, where would you focus on the business if you could improve it? And he gave me a list of about 30 things that I could do. And so I had this idea of why not take like a white collar approach to a blue collar industry? And I work the same. Like I worked 80 hour weeks just because I'm like, I was going to do that in investment banking anyways. Why don't I do it to this and just crush it and see how big I can go, you know, at least until I have kids, you know, really, really work like crazy. It's insane. Like, so many people, they chase passion. I've noticed, like, it's like, oh, I want to have a restaurant, you know, or I want to get Hollywood or I want to, I want to be a rock star or whatever it might be. Right. But you got to be in the top 1% of 1% to go do that. Yeah. And the reality is, is most millionaires, they are, they're in kind of these boring blue collar businesses. So if there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, it said that the top 0.1% of income earners, so that means you make $2.3 million or more in the U.S. they're part of like 43% of those people are. They own boring businesses. It's just wild. It's not something that's really in the news. Right.

[A]

Oil change places, Car washes.

[B]

Exactly. Car washes are super lucid.

[A]

Lucrative.

[B]

Yeah, Incredibly lucrative. But you think about a restaurant. The average net Profit margin is 3 to 6%. Class is 10%. Yeah.

[A]

Failure rates 90%.

[B]

Porta Potties is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I looked this up the other day.

[A]

What is it?

[B]

25 is the margin that's on average. It's like you make 25 for your net profits. You tell me you want to go into restaurants.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm like, I get it. It's a crappy job.

[A]

Porta Potties. I see what you did. There. I see what you did there. I said you did there. Yeah. Because nobody wants to say I'm the porta potty dude.

[B]

Yeah. And some of, some of the best ones, it's stuff like that, like garbage is incredibly lucrative. Might be 30 to 40%.

[A]

There's a certain, there's a certain people. There's a certain kind of people that are in that industry. I don't know if I'd. In certain large northern, northeastern, you know, places. I don't know if I want to try to get in the garbage business. You might run into a little opposition. Maybe. Maybe a little opposition, which is funny. Where would you. What part of what. So if you could do it again, obviously you can't just say. You can't say pest control because it's too easy. Right. If you had to pick another trade to go out and start tomorrow, which one would you choose?

[B]

Depends. If you're starting out from scratch. What I suggest is go get experience in one of these trades. So it could be H vac, plumbing, it could be obviously talked about pest control. If you had some money, you could do car washers, you could do storage units, you could do.

[A]

Well, those are real estate plays more than anything else.

[B]

Yeah, they really, they really are. But they have incredible profit.

[A]

Great. You know, great.

[B]

So yeah, I mean there's some. There's so many that what I found is best is just get on chat GPT and ask it, say, what are the top 20 blue collar businesses that are out there? And rank them for me in terms of profit margin, in terms of growth, likelihood of success. Go through all these factors and you can just talk with. It's like having a mentor in business walk you through it all. It's. It's incredible.

[A]

So when you talk about all of those things too with another thing with blue collar businesses is like Cody Sanchez's preach preaches that.

[B]

You know, buy one, right?

[A]

Yeah. They don't want to do it like, like the boomers are retiring and the kids don't want to take the business Silver tsunami. So yeah, there's a lot of opportunity to take some of these businesses over. In those cases, with your M and A background, like did you find when you were growing your business, was it easier to do it through acquisition or was it easier to do it just by opening new markets?

[B]

So we did all new markets. We were 100.

[A]

That's what. Yeah.

[B]

And that was just what we knew. And we were already growing so fast. Like we grow seven to ten times faster than the traditional pest control company with that growth.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Well, the door to door model is crazy. Like it just, it grows seven to ten times as fast. It's just like say digital marketing or you know, direct mail or whatever other form of marketing you want to do.

[A]

Banging on doors.

[B]

And so we're already going so fast. We had so much money going into it, we're like, you know, we'll let the private equity people figure that one out.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's so funny you say that because like in this business, in the real estate business, right, I mean I, we spend, the top agents spend massive amounts of money on digital marketing and you know, YouTube and it's everywhere. You know, you said money, you have to just spend so much money and you try to track the ROI on all of your ad spend. But I know people in this business that will just get up at 8 o' clock in the morning when it's 114 degrees outside, go to a neighborhood and just start banging. And they are always doing well because just like blue collar, they're doing the thing that people don't want to do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's the unsexy part of this business. Right. And so I. But is that just in pest control or would you say any business? Would you say it's 7x faster to growth on the dockendoors?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I really don't know.

[A]

But in pest control it definitely, there's plenty, right?

[B]

You can do this for, you know, home security systems, you can do it for solar energy, you can do it for roof sales. You know, you can, there's all kinds of things that you can sell door to door. Yeah, certainly, you know, Realtor.

[A]

Yeah, no kidding. Speaking of, you're from Utah. Sam, that does the door to D to D con. Have you ever been to that? Sam's door to door?

[B]

I've never been to it, but I know about Sam Taggart.

[A]

Yeah, Sam's a good dude.

[B]

Sam's a what he's built.

[A]

It is. I can remember when he and Bridger were just. I can remember, I thought it was a joke the first time he said it. First time he said it to me. Now we're in Dallas and he goes, yeah, I'm gonna have this thing door to door con. And I was like, you know, again, the negative connotation of the door to door salesman with Khan, I was like, oh, that's a great day. When I'm thinking this guy's, he's lost his mind. And dude, what an amazing event he's pulled off with that thing. It's really great watching what he does, but back to door to door. So let me ask you this. When you're targeting people through especially your targeted software, obviously you're making the assumption that they probably already have some sort of a pest control.

[B]

It just depends. I would say about 30% of our sales were switchovers from other. Other companies.

[A]

What. What would make somebody switch?

[B]

Because I could say additional things.

[A]

I don't even think about our pest control. You don't even think about it, which is what makes it such a great repeat business.

[B]

So one of the things we initially did back in the early days, now most companies will do this, but when you get to home and if you look up in the eaves, you'll see spiderwebs and wasp nests. It's like the perfect little. It's almost like you have your little stage and you're talking to the customer. And it was something we could look up and discuss, and we would wipe that down, you know, with a Webster and get rid of that stuff. But most of the other companies didn't back in the day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so immediately people would say, oh, well, we tell them something your neighbors have loved about us as we get up here, we take all the down for. You never have to do it on your own. You're not out here with a hose trying to do it. Like, oh, that's great. Yeah, I'll switch over to you guys. If you're doing that, you know, it's for the same price. Why not? Then it might be a lot of the companies, they just have a license to do around the home or inside the home. They don't take care of the yard or they don't take care of certain pests that are out in the yard. And we're like, well, let's just add that to the service. Why would someone go to Home Depot and have to get their own products? I mean, that's the whole reason you have a pest control service. You don't want to store pesticides in the house, Especially if you have kids or people, pets or whatever. You just want to deal with it.

[A]

Are there certain markets that you just would avoid because of the bugs that are at. Like, I'm from Florida originally, so I'm thinking like, palmetto bugs is crazy. Yeah, Palmetto bugs are everywhere. Just whatever you do, it's like, you know, because who. When do you think about your pest control? When do you think about it? You think about it when you see a bug in your house.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you're like, what are these guys Even doing right out here, if you see a scorpion in the house, that's, that's the thing that's like, what are we doing? So like, what market? Do you have any markets?

[B]

34 state or 37 now. I mean, we're everywhere. It doesn't bother us. We know how to treat form everywhere

[A]

just because it doesn't matter.

[B]

But it's funny because, you know, in the summertime, whenever there's heat, you'll typically have more bugs. And then there's some bugs certainly in the winter time too, but there's usually more specific pests. And Florida, it's just like year round. It's just, it never stops.

[A]

Yeah, it just doesn't. It does, yeah. People that are not from Florida, it's

[B]

like a different country.

[A]

Yeah, it does. Yeah. Bugs don't bother me. I grew up, I grew up in north Florida. They don't bother me. It's a fine thing. You know, it's interesting that I have, you know, a lot of people that I know that have done so well in your industry. Tommy Mellow from A1 Garage being one of those. And one of the things that Tommy always talks about what made his company different was like the fact that part of their SOP was to like call the client when you're on the way and say, I'm going to Starbucks. Would you like me to bring you something? Little touches like that. Yeah, Tommy's got some crazy little touches like that. They're really separating them out. What were some things that you maybe implemented in your company that made you guys like, whoa, really stand out from that, from the, from the eyes of the consumer?

[B]

I think customization. Yeah. So like if a customer, like we'll ask questions like what's the name of your pet? You know, and so we get there, it's always in the paperwork. So even if there's a different technician that shows up to the home, they can go, oh, okay, get your dog, Freddie here. How's Freddie doing? Everything goodie inside. You know, we're going to treat the outside. We actually, we took photos of pests on the property, so trying to establish value and that we're still needed. Right. Because if you go out and you treat, everything's gone. Do I really still need.

[A]

Yeah, right. Of course. Yeah.

[B]

You know, but pests are like weeds. You know, you can have a gardener come out and pick up your weeds, but you know, in a month, two, three months, you'll have all the weeds back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, so you have to have that gardener consistently come and so for pest control, you're trying to help them understand like they will come back if we're not here. And so we actually would take pictures of the pest so they could see it and understand where it was and then we would ask for help in certain instances. So for example, if someone's stacking wood right up against their house, like that's a bad idea. Rodents. Yeah. Or the spiders. It's like, hey, can we move this wood to the back fence? You know, so it's away from the house. So that way you're not getting them coming in. Like you keep, you're telling us you keep getting them into your kid's room, which is right next door. Let's, let's move them back here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So in the pictures they really, they really helped. Helps retention. It helps work as a team because they slow reserves.

[A]

You prove you still need it.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

I love it when you guys were getting ready to exit or you're getting ready to sell out to pe. Now granted, again you're, you're a unicorn from this because you started with this knowledge and went into this from day one knowing what you wanted to do. But so many people, when they get ready to exit, they have to recast their books. I mean you have, there's so much work that has to happen prior to that exit. What was that process like for you when it got serious with P, like we're going to do a deal here. Was it a siege? Was it relatively simple because you had it? If you, if you could have structured something differently from the get go to make it easier, what would that have been?

[B]

You know, I'd say with private equity it's never easy, especially if it's their first deal that they're doing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because we were the platform company, we're the first company they were buying. And that's, that's a tough one. If you're selling to a strategic. They already know what they want out of the deal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They know everything about pest control. They know if it's just a plug and play, if we get your customers, we're going to have X amount of retention. They know you know how to treat for them and how long they last. And a lot of times like they're a public company, it's like, okay, well if we buy you at this price, they're immediately the value of all those customers becomes this price according to the stock.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's just like it's a no brainer.

[A]

Yeah. It's real simple deal buying you.

[B]

This is awesome. Yeah. Whereas private equity is like, okay, well we want to. It's like a full body inspection in every spot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Multiple times. It's not fun.

[A]

How long did a process take when you sold it?

[B]

B. Long time. I mean it probably took almost nine months from the time that we launched until later. And they kind of told us six months is probably typical. But yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So tell me about, so tell me about when the wire hit.

[B]

You know, I'd. So I'd had so many wires hit before, honestly. And so this is the thing.

[A]

People go, this is serious though. But here's the tone deaf. Do it.

[B]

No. Yeah. Because the most life changing event is the first time you have a liquidity event. And so when I sold my first company for Forbes, as I sold for 13 million bucks, that was crazy to me. Right. Because now I'd never even seen that type of money before.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you have enough where, you know, I had financial advisors tell me, you know, you have enough now. You don't ever have to work as long as you live. Sure.

[A]

Respectively, you can live well, but not.

[B]

You live good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But not. Not great. Yeah. And so, yeah, that was the life changing part to me. And quite honestly, each time I sold and made more and more money like, well, it's not, it's not that life changing. Like, you know, it's my vacations might be a little bit better or whatever. I guess I can have a second home or something. But I found the material things are not as exciting.

[A]

Isn't that funny? Yeah, it's. Yeah, they're fun at first, but. Oh yeah, eventually you, you know, it's

[B]

that hedonic treadmill theory. It's like you adjust to everything. You normalize to it as. And then you're like, all right, well, what's next?

[A]

I think I, I've saved, I have saved more high dollar real estate people with this one bit of advice. Before you buy the Lambo, just go rent one for a week.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just drive it everywhere for a week. And understand that when you go to the grocery store, you got to park it way out here sideways so nobody hits it so you don't get a door dings. You don't do that, like just all of the things. And after the end of a week, if you're not just like you're getting in the car to go somewhere than buy the Lambo. Because I mean, yeah, you buy stuff and you do. You get tone deaf to it so quick and you're just like, okay, this is another thing. I find that for Me, it becomes all about experience. It's all about, what can I do? I want to do some stuff that not everybody can do. That's my goal.

[B]

So what's on your list?

[A]

Well, I've already done some really cool stuff. So. So we'll talk about what's your thing? So, okay.

[B]

So.

[A]

So, okay. The two coolest things I've done ever. One of which I just did. One of which I did two years ago. Two years ago, we bribed the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt, which. Cheaper than it sounds, but because everything in Egypt is on a stamp. You have to get a stamp. So we got a stamp from the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt for my buddy and I to go to a live dig at Saqqara, which is the. The sarcophagus complex just outside the Giza pyramids. If you watch, there's two things. There's a. There's a. On Netflix, there's a show called the Secret Tombs of Saqqara. And then Josh Gates, who has a show called Expedition Unknown, claimed he was the first American there, but he was there three months after us. So we were the first Americans at Sakara. And when I. I'll show you the videos when we're done with this. I mean, it was straight Indiana Jones tomb raiding. It wasn't like, go a place where, like, there's a. There's a tour. That's not what we were doing. That was really amazing. And then a month and a half ago, I went to the South Pole.

[B]

No way.

[A]

Yeah. So I went to. More people climb Everest every year than go to where we were in Antarctica. It's really amazing. We went there and went through, like, rappel down a glacier. Went through, like. I mean, went through, like, ice caves. I mean, it was. It was pretty amazing.

[B]

See some penguins?

[A]

No, because you're in the interior. The penguins are on the coast. I saw penguins in Cape Town, but no pack. Yeah, because we were. No. They took a jet like as, like a 737 and landed on the ice.

[B]

I didn't know we could do that.

[A]

Barely. I didn't. I mean, it was. It was. It felt like landing and taking off in a cornfield in Iowa. I thought the plane was going to completely come apart. That was the scariest part was the landing and the taking off the jet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it was. It was super cool. It was super. Next year we're going to go to. We're planning a trip to the Don soon cave complex in Vietnam. So it's the largest cave complex in the world. It's a six day hike through it. It's really impressive.

[B]

So nice.

[A]

We just caught wind of that, so

[B]

we're gonna get to that.

[A]

But that's the stuff. That's the stuff I like to do because I want to go somewhere that I want to go do stuff that people can't do.

[B]

I'm the same thing. Like travel is my favorite.

[A]

All right, so what, tell me about you. Let's, let's go.

[B]

I don't know, it's something so, so sexy and unique and different. It's more that. It just, it expands my mind everywhere I go. I like thinking through a different lens. Right. My wife calls it a feast of the senses, you know, because the food's different, the architecture is different, the music's different, spirituality is different, all these different cultural things. It's just fun. And then oftentimes I'll bring something back, you know, differently. And I'm like, I don't have to do this this way anymore. I'm going to do it this way.

[A]

Yeah. One of my favorite things that's ever been said in this podcast studio is my friend Chris Connell said, I've never met a well traveled racist.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

I love that comment. I love that comment. What's your favorite place in the world you've ever met?

[B]

Oh, gosh, am I allowed to say Santa Tropez?

[A]

Anyway, that's it. Saint Tropez. That's it.

[B]

Just great place to relax, great food, great beaches, you know, really cool spot. I was thinking about when you said Vietnam is in Cambodia, Angkor Wat. Have you ever done that?

[A]

No, I have not done that.

[B]

That's fine. So they filmed Tomb Raider.

[A]

Yeah, that's Indiana Jones stuff too. I know, I know exactly what it is.

[B]

It's like I got all these jungle, jungle trees growing on top of these, you know, old ruins. And it's like 27 square miles of old ruins that were hidden for years and years.

[A]

The jungle just swallowed it. Yeah.

[B]

It's wild.

[A]

So how often. So now, I mean, I mean, look, what is your. Now that you're. I mean, let's face it, you're filthy, filthy, filthy rich in a magnificent way. What is your. What's the day to day now? What do you do?

[B]

Yes, I took, I took a year off. I just said take a year off to try to kind of detox from all the dopamine hits and think about what I liked, what I didn't like about last 20 years. Why did I do what I did? And then the next thing as I thought about it. It's probably something more creative or something more philanthropic, having nothing to do with what I've done in the past. I want to just expand my mind in a different way. You maybe use the other side of my brain, maybe have something be more service oriented. Not that building a pest control company isn't because you're developing a lot of people and you're providing service in that way. But now I'm diving down rabbit holes, you know, exploring different ideas. I have a lot of friends that will come to me and say, hey, what do you think about this business idea or this? You have any interest in doing this? A friend in Hollywood, it's like, want to come do movies and tv?

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

Just like, whatever it is, I'm open to it. And it's been fun not to have to commit to anything and just take time to think about it. Because the best part about a business, it's. It's the dream phase. Before it's for the rubber hits the road. You actually got to go execute.

[A]

And it must be nice to also, you know, what I found from my friends that are in similar situations to you is one of the best parts about them is they just stop having an opinion on everything. Like, my friend Alex, like, he says, yeah, I mean, probably. I don't know, man. Sure, whatever. Like, don't you have an opinion on this? He's like, nope, don't care. Like, I. Like, there's nothing in the world you could possibly say to me that is going to bother me in any way, shape or form. Life is good. I don't have to have an opinion on things anymore that make me angry. I can just let it roll off my shoulders because nothing is going to happen. And he says, that's probably the best part of the whole thing.

[B]

I notice that with a lot of people as they get older too, they're just like, you know what? Like, I don't. I've seen everything at this point. I don't care. Whatever you say. Sure. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Water?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why fight it like. Or why make you upset?

[A]

Yeah. Sky's green. Four plus four is five. Whatever, man. Have a great day.

[B]

Good.

[A]

I'm happy about it. I'm happy for you. Have a great day. So you took a year off. You did that. But what's it. So now that you're back into just like what come with your daily schedule? What's the daily schedule now?

[B]

I wake up, I work out for an hour.

[A]

I Do you wake up naturally. Do you have an alarm?

[B]

I have an alarm. Okay. So to make sure, most of the time, I'll wake up. Because if I'm consistent, every day, usually I get, like, seven and a half hours of sleep. Yep. Which is different. I did six hours of sleep for 40, like, a long, long time.

[A]

Do you have the eight sleep? The eight sleep. You know the eight sleep yet?

[B]

No, no, not.

[A]

Not a sponsor of the show, but should be, because I talk about this way too much. You got to get the eight sleep.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So the eight sleep is something that all NFL, A lot of NFL coaches make their players get. And essentially, it is a. It's a cover for your bed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That has coils in it that can be heated or cooled because it goes to a Control units on the side, and then it uses AI to raise and drop the temperature of your mattress as you're sleeping based on what sleep state you're in.

[B]

I need. I need it last night.

[A]

I've never slept better in my entire life than I'm sleeping on this thing.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

And it. And it's.

[B]

It's sleep.

[A]

Eight sleep.

[B]

Eight.

[A]

Eight sleep is what it's called.

[B]

All right.

[A]

When you owe me a. You owe me a thing now. Eight sleep. Come on. That's another plug for you.

[B]

I'll tell them you sent me.

[A]

Yeah. It's not cheap. It's not cheap. I mean, for you, everything's cheap, but, you know, it's. It's a little pricey, but it's. It's worth. Dude, it's worth its weight in gold. All right, so you get up naturally.

[B]

Yeah. Yes. Try to get the right amount of hours.

[A]

You go to the gym.

[B]

Focus on my health.

[A]

You go to the gym, or do you have a gym at your house?

[B]

I have a gym in my house. Make breakfast with the kids.

[A]

Love that. How old are your kids?

[B]

They're 13, 11.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Both girls, you know, so it's been amazing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They're.

[A]

They're still, like, still at 13.

[B]

They're good. Yeah, we're good. I mean, it's starting to change. I can sense it.

[A]

But. Yeah, it goes by so fast when you go from. You go from daddy to dad to brah, and it happens so quick. Happens that you're like, what did you just call me? Why did. What just happened? Yeah, I have 18 and 16. It goes by fast. All right. But you get to have. You get to make breakfast with them, which is awesome. See them every day. They go off, and then what do you do?

[B]

And then. So I'm building a house, so that's taken a Lot of my time.

[A]

Where's the house?

[B]

It's in Pacific Palisades.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I've really enjoyed just the architecture, the interior design, like that side, using that side of my brain has been really, really fun. For some reason. I've always loved architecture. And then I bought my neighbor's property. She was 90 and, and moving on to a home and bought that. I'm going to, you know, expand my yard and all that kind of thing. Yeah. And then just taking time, like the rest of the day is more just looking stuff up.

[A]

Wait, so wait, Pacific palace has burned down, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I just went to an event out there in Malibu and oh, my gosh, I. It still looks like a third world country.

[B]

It's nuts. Yeah. We lost our whole community when 10 schools burnt. And that's the hardest thing. It doesn't matter how much money you have, I can't fix it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's. It's been so depressing.

[A]

Well, the zoning on those sea walls is insane.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, first mile lands rough because you got to get the coastal commission to pass it.

[A]

Yeah, it's insane. Oh, boy.

[B]

So it's going to be rough. I mean, only 8% of people are rebuilding right now actually under construction. 25 of. Only 25 have applied for a permit. I think it's just, it's going to take. It's probably like a 10 year plus

[A]

play more than that. Probably, yeah. That's wild. So you work on your house?

[B]

Just working on that. We were really lucky. The new house I had purchased had not, did not burn. We're really close to the beach and we're, we're close, but we're about two blocks away from where it burned down to the house that we were renting, though, in the meantime, while we bought the new one and we're remodeling it, that one caught fire. So we're like, oh, crap.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

So when we got the news, we were up in Santa Barbara and we're like, you know what, let's just put the kids in school here because we can get them in immediately.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You got 10 other schools in LA. They're looking for places to go. I'm like, we don't want to play that game. Plus, everybody's looking for a house. It's really sad because it forced a lot of people just to leave LA entirely. We go back this summer permanently. But a lot of our good friends are in New York City, Miami, Orange County, San Francisco. They're just like, you know what? We're Kind of done with it.

[A]

Well, I just saw a report today. I want to say that LA county had negative growth of like 57,000 people from the first time ever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, God.

[B]

Not coming back with, especially with the fires.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Between Alado and Palisades.

[A]

Man. Al yeah, that, that is, man, that's, that's wild.

[B]

Yeah, we, we can do better. LA needs some better leadership for sure.

[A]

I, I think, yeah, I think the whole state could use a little leadership we could take.

[B]

I agree with you.

[A]

We, we had, we had a house in Orange County. We actually just sold it just cuz life changes and, and we, the kids, my kids are going to college, you know, next year and with those sorts of things, we just don't know how much time we were going to spend down there.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Much to the chagrin of my 16 year old who insisted we would still be spending all the time down there. But that's okay. Let me ask you this. So here you are. I know that people probably wonder what would happen if they could just all of a sudden literally do nothing. Do you do nothing or do everything? What's the last thing you taught yourself how to do or you learned how to do?

[B]

I think my, my biggest focus that has really changed my life is like my focus on longevity.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So getting the right amount of sleep per night. When I turned 40, I just noticed I wasn't as sharp as I used to be.

[A]

And you know, it gets worse.

[B]

My doctor, I'm like, all right, what

[A]

can I do so much worse.

[B]

I don't remember everybody's name. If I've seen some for six months, I can't remember names. It's like I feel like I have brain fog. And they say, well, are you doing, getting sleep? Are you eating right? You know, are you working out? Are you taking supplements? If your body doesn't have the right amount of, you know, vitamin B or vitamin D or whatever it might be. So yeah, I just got, I started. It's kind of like whatever I did in entrepreneurship, I'm like all in. Yeah, Same thing I'm like all in on.

[A]

All right, well, let's, well, let's talk, let's talk about, let's talk about it then. Let's talk about the. Because this is good because I love this stuff too. My wife's trying to make me live forever. How old are you now?

[B]

I just turned 40.

[A]

You turned 49. Okay. I just turned 54 two days ago. Earlier in the week on Monday on 54. So supplements, how many supplements do you take? A day.

[B]

So what I do is I. My main focus is. Do you know Brian Johnson?

[A]

I do, yeah.

[B]

Sold his company Venmo or whatever for 800 million.

[A]

Now he's trying to stay.

[B]

He spends a couple million bucks a year on all this crazy health stuff. And I've met him before. He's come and spoke to our YPO chapter with Mark Hyman and just followed him for a long time. And he's created certain supplements. He has a certain stack. And I'm just kind of like, you know what? If he's that intense, I'm going to do that. A lot of the stuff that he's doing, I was doing before where I had all these different supplements, and it's

[A]

just easier to buy it all from one.

[B]

He actually saves money, and you're just getting it from one place. It's easy. And then, you know, I do blood work a year, and I'm like, okay, I'm low.

[A]

You do it once a year?

[B]

Yeah, just once a year.

[A]

I do it every three months.

[B]

Do you really? Wow. Yeah. I'm like, all right, I'm low on vitamin B. I'm low on vitamin D or whatever it is, and I'll supplement and pick that up. Yeah, I mean, mostly for supplements. That's. That's pretty much it.

[A]

What about peptides?

[B]

Take creatine. I haven't gotten into peptides. Really? I'm a little leery.

[A]

Are you?

[B]

Yeah, like, so I, you know, when metformin, you know, there's things you could do additionally. You could do metformin, you could do rapamycin. And I started doing some of that stuff, and then, like, they came out like, yeah, metformin is not really what people said it was. And I'm like, I don't think I want to be a guinea pig on it. I'll let it. Other people, if there's science, actually says, yes, there's. And there's enough tests out there. That's kind of when I get into it. But I'm not like the early adopter.

[A]

No, no. I guess I'm. I guess I'm a little more freestyling. You. I do a microdose of the retitude guide for your brain. I do the BP157, the GKU5000, the TB5 or GKU, whatever that one is. The TB5000. That's all in one thing. Glow. I do. And then there's one more H something V that I'm on right now. But I don't know, dude, it's. I Feel. I feel like. I feel like my joints are better.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because, you know, I hit a. I had a place at like, 52 and like, my joints weren't that good. Like, all of a sudden I was like, man, I'm a little stiff. Like, I play golf and I'm like, I'm a little stiffer than I should be.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And since the BP 157, like, really, I mean, good. Just good for joints, which is great. It's helped me a lot.

[B]

We'll say that's fantastic.

[A]

But my wife is trying to keep me, to get me to live forever. Now, what about. What about the other stuff? Are you a. So like, I got really into Gary Brecker for a while. So we have his whole protocol where I have. I have the. The oxygen machine and the ewat training on the bike. We've got the red light, we've got the grounding. I have all that. We have all that stuff.

[B]

Where are you with all this stuff? Like, I have a sauna in my new house.

[A]

We have sauna and the cold plunge.

[B]

And it's like, I love that because there's so much data. Right. On saunas, you know, because they have these in Finland and Sweden, those places forever. And it's like, I think you're. Your Life extends by 29 if you do it four times a week or more. Just nice to have data on stuff. Like, I'm okay experimenting a little bit

[A]

with things, but the cold plunge thing, I just. That's where I draw the line.

[B]

Is it?

[A]

I can't. I can't do it. I just. I just.

[B]

I. Wakes me up. I feel like, so good after.

[A]

I don't, you know, man, I sleep pretty good. I don't have a problem getting up. So I'm like. I just. Something, you know, they're like, oh, see, if you like it, just turn your shower full cold. And in the wintertime and see it stay there for 10.

[B]

No, I think that's actually worse. Terrible. Is it worse all in. And just be there. Absorb it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you have half your body where it's kind of. It's cold, the other parts are like, warm because it's not hitting.

[A]

Oh, so it's the worst. It's the absolute worst. It's just terrible. All right, well, if you had to give one piece of advice to an aspiring entrepreneur right now, what would that

[B]

one piece of advice be like? One who's already in it and scaling, one that's thinking about getting into.

[A]

Let's do both. Both.

[B]

Both. If you're just barely thinking about getting entrepreneurship. I'd say one study, you know, study what a good business opportunity would actually be. You know, get on ChatGPT, ask it lots of questions, figure out what the types of industries where there's the most opportunity. It'll tell you all kinds of stuff. Look at, look for really great margins, and then go get experience in it. I'm a big believer you should go get experience before just trying to jump into something. Just because I'm passionate about watching the NBA doesn't mean I should go play in the NBA. Right, True. Especially if I've never played basketball before.

[A]

It'd be a tough road. Be a tough road to kick team.

[B]

It's like challenging LeBron.

[A]

It's impossible, but it'd be a tough road for sure.

[B]

Yeah, it'd be. So big believer in getting experience. And then if you're a, if you're an entrepreneur but you're small and you're trying to figure out how come I can't scale. I just, I'm too busy in the day. That's the number one complaint I hear. It's like, I don't know how you take the time to write training manuals, create job descriptions, figure out if something works, or open up a second location. I can't. I can hardly do one location. And my question's always like, okay, are you working like a manager or you work like an operator? Like, are you working in the business

[A]

or on the business?

[B]

And so many people get stuck. It's good to feel busy, but that's not necessarily effective work. And so I have this thing where I say, divide your time up into A's, B's and C's. A's is. It's not urgent, but it's important. B's are somewhat urgent, somewhat important, and then C's. It's important, but I'm sorry, it's urgent, but it's not important. So that would be like paying bills.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you can set that up on autopay, or you can have somebody else pay your bills for you. You don't have to do it. It's certainly urgent because they're due, but you don't, you don't have to do it. A. B would be like human resources, like hiring people. Right. In the beginning, you hired everybody. You want to make sure you only had the very best people. But can you train somebody else to do that? Yeah, you can. Like you got. Once you get it dialed in, you write up the processes, you hold them accountable and all that. The A's are its strategy. Right? It's creating a new line or a new product. It's decreasing your costs, it's increasing efficiencies. It's strategically finding ways to grow and develop or whatever it might be. Those are things that really make your business grow. Or it's, you know, it's writing down your recipe for success in the manual so that you can scale and grow bigger. So that's, that's my main pitch to everybody is like, you got to get out of the business. I've got some brother in laws that are dentists and orthodontist, and I'm like, guys, you got to get your hands out of people's mouths. You really want to grow your business.

[A]

You know the problem that I think it is, man, so many people can't scale because they run into the thing where they go, oh, you know, nobody can do this as good as I can. Right. So I personally, and that was me for a very long time. I do adapt what I call the 80% rule, which is this, if I can hire somebody that can do it 80% as good as me, then I'm good. And here's why. But here's the reality of that 80%. The 20% is ego. And there's an excellent. There's a good chance that it's more than that. Like years we, years ago, I used to, you know, in this company, I always kind of insisted on being the broker. Like, I want to be the broker just because I want to be involved. And I thought that was my, my magic touch to be in touch place with people. I was like, nobody could ever do this job as good as I could. Hired somebody I thought could do at 80%. And then in like one month in, I realized I'm like, oh my God, she's so much better at this than I ever was, ever was. Because her level of patience is so much greater than mine.

[B]

That's super fair.

[A]

Which for that job, you have to. So I think if you're out there struggling with that, focus on somebody 80%, because I think what you'll find is they're probably better.

[B]

The fun thing too is a lot of people think when you're bigger, it's like, I can't manage all of that. I don't even know how you do that. And I never work less than at a massive company. Yeah, like, the bigger you are, the more you can pay people to, to do those things. And you can hire even better people. You can hire seasoned executives who have worked at billion dollar Companies to come work for yours, and they do a better job than you, which is what.

[A]

That's what we're doing right now.

[B]

And you can learn more. Like, to me, that was. That was the funnest thing. It's like, I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I want to learn from other people. You know, at that stage before, you know, probably up to, say, 100 million, I was smartest guy in the room. And then as you start hiring other people because you're like, hey, we're at a massive scale. Like, we can't screw around now. Yeah, we got a lot of people at stake.

[A]

I should probably take this off a spreadsheet at some point. Something better than this. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, that's awesome. Well, dude, thank you so much for coming in. David. It was awesome to have you. This is a great conversation. If they want to. If they want to find you, how do they find you?

[B]

Yeah, they could just go to LinkedIn.com. i'm on there.

[A]

LinkedIn.com actually kind of a private guy.

[B]

This is my way of giving back.

[A]

Yeah, that's it. You're just like, yeah, I don't do that social media stuff. You're not gonna find me there.

[B]

100, like, five years ago, I'm just like, I'm off. I actually removed.

[A]

And how freeing was that? How free was that?

[B]

Because you don't think about it, like, I still will use Instagram, like, to follow things that are, you know, like longevity or whatever else.

[A]

And that's exhausting. Exhaust.

[B]

Have to, like, constantly follow. Update my life.

[A]

And it's like, no, just how many. Well, in business, especially, like, the business that I'm in, it's exhausting. You have to post stuff like, yeah, I'm not talking to consumers. I'm talking to agents. Right. That's who I'm talking to with all my stuff. And it's exhausting.

[B]

It's. It's. I've read so many books on, like, how unhealthy it is, too, for, you know, especially young girls. About a third of them are depressed, you know, if they're on Instagram. I'm like, you know what? My wife, like, encouraged me. Like, maybe we kind of set the example for it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

On it all the time. And our girls will actually see it and go, okay, maybe I don't have to be know into that or whatever.

[A]

My. My rule with it or what we try to stay with our kids is, is because I. You're fighting an uphill battle with teens with that that's just what they are. So my thing is, if you're going to be on it, be creating something, don't be consuming.

[B]

Right? Yeah, that's fair.

[A]

You want to create something that you think is good, it goes out in the world. Create something. Who cares if nobody watches it? But if you're creating something, that I'm okay with that. But if you're just sitting there mindlessly consuming, that's not good for you. It's not helping anybody anyway. All right, well, listen. If you listen to that today, you should be inspired, because literally, just with focusing on things that other people just don't want to do, man, there is gold in them hills. You just got to be willing to go mine it. We'll see you next time.