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- [00:09]
A
When Ilana Lezra moved from Israel to the US for college, he knew one thing. He was going to make it in America no matter what it took. And he had the whole thing planned out.
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B
There's no way that I'm not going to grind and work really hard. There's not going to be a scenario that my kid needs a kidney that needs to go after school programs and go on trips. I'm going to buy it somehow.
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A
And he did. What started as a side gig fixing smartphones in his dorm room as a college student blossomed into a real estate development career with multimillion dollar properties. Alon had officially made it, but his ascent wasn't without struggle. No matter how many times he could have quit, he refused.
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B
It is a true nightmare if you talk about nightmares in this type of work. But it is what it is, all with the punches unshakable.
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A
And today, that's the story we're telling. Not the story of a business or an invention or an abstract idea, but of one man with a clear vision of how he's taking on the world. Welcome to the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. There's nothing small about the impact small businesses have on our country. Every day I hear from owners who are not only fueling our economy, but also shaping the character of our communities. Yet too often you tell us about the hurdles you face. Regulatory red tape, access to capital, and the constant challenge of finding resources to grow. These aren't just headlines. They're your stories. And. And they matter deeply to us. We don't use the unshakables typically to talk about us. This podcast is about you. But it's important that we also bring to you important resources that may help. And in this case, I'd like to talk about JPMorgan Chase's recent American Dream initiative, which is designed to help put the American Dream back within reach for small business owners everywhere. Through expanded capital and coaching, advocating for smart policies that matter to small businesses, and continuing to innovate around services that help small businesses run and grow, we plan to support 10 million small businesses over the next several years. To learn more about the American Dream initiative, go to jpmorganchase.com Communities America. Hey, Kathleen, welcome back. You heard already, but we're talking to Elon Alezra.
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C
Elon is a hustler, and I mean that in the best possible way. He is moving a million miles an hour.
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A
Yeah. And for those of you who were not in the room with me. He's quite young, so it's pretty impressive how quickly he's been able to do this.
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C
I was texting one of our producers asking that very question. Wait, how old is he when you were mid conversation.
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A
Put it this way, I have infinity percent more gray hairs on my head than he does. The guy's just making it happen.
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C
Making it happen. What did he say? Stopping at nothing.
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A
On today's episode, a man on a mission in Huntsville, Alabama. So how exactly does an Israeli end up in Alabama? You might ask to start. Alon's Israeli. Yes, but he's also an American.
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B
My mom is from America. Her family moved to Israel when she was 4. And then I do have an uncle and an aunt that live in Alabama.
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A
So that's why alon is in Alabama, but it's not why he's in Alabama.
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B
Everybody hear about the American dream, the land of opportunity. And I just wanted to get out of Israel because I was hoping for something better here. Also college opportunity here in Israel. It's also a different path. You know, you finish high school, you go military, and then you start your life. Then you start to figure out college. And selfishly, the way I view it is I get to start my life about three years earlier because I didn't have to serve.
- [04:04]
A
He wasted no time starting his life in America. Alain ran his first business out of his dorm room.
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B
Fixing smartphones, advertising on craigslist, on facebook groups. I was actually making maybe like $50 an hour as a college student, fixing iPhones.
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A
He got a degree in accounting as
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B
my backup plan, my safety net.
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A
And after phones, he started a digital storefront facilitated by one of the largest reselling platforms in the world.
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B
You buy x amount of products, you ship it to Amazon warehouse, they store it, and then they ship it.
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A
Who pays for the inventory?
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B
You do. 100%. You got to pay for the whole thing.
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A
So it's your capital tied up while it sits in their warehouse.
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B
That's correct. But you don't have to start big. You can start with products that are fairly cheap, and you climb your way up.
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A
So what kind of products were you selling?
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B
Fidget spinners that were very popular, some dog collars. The most successful thing that I had was a pillow that you put on the arms of your office chair.
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A
Fascinating.
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B
Yeah.
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A
He sold pillows for three years, and he worked formally as an accountant, but only for six months. He saved up as much money as he could. Even then, the goal wasn't to have money for the sake of having It Alain wanted to work for himself.
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B
So he wasn't just living to do nothing. He was living for something, hopefully greater,
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A
with a financial safety net. Alain was ready to jump on an opportunity. One presented itself in the form of a roofing company started by his uncle. Alain joined him, and they opened the business together.
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B
It was good for what it was. But the roofing company, I guess the roofing industry, you don't have employees. The labor pool for it is subcontractors. And it's just, how can you make a business big that everybody's a subcontractor? You tell them, hey, I have a job for you. They're going to tell you their price, but then you schedule everything. Then the next day, somebody else offer them, I need it. Tomorrow, they'll move you. But now you have to push things with your customer. Can grow a company that the people that execute the work are now your employees. There's really nothing proprietary to it. So how can I grow? How can I be different?
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A
After a few months, he sold off his half of the company to his
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B
uncle for very little. I didn't really care. I just wanted out.
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A
One thing you should know about Alon is that he's always thinking two, even three steps ahead. By the time he left the roofing company, he'd purchased a home, but not to live in. While at the roofing company, he went to a networking event where he met someone in the hotel business.
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B
She said, yeah, our hotel is about 98% booked throughout the whole year in this specific city. And I was very familiar with this city. So I went and I bought a house, and then I started doing Airbnb, and that was well.
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A
Now, by going well, Alon means he stumbled into the market for midterm rentals.
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B
Somebody on Airbnb reached out to me and said, I want this house for six months, and they're paying the normal price. I was like, whoa. You know, Airbnb normally deal with two, three days. And then you get a lot of parties and a lot of turnover and a lot of headache. And then somebody just came and ran my whole place for six months with the same rate, not even negotiated. I was like, dude, that's crazy. So then I went down that rabbit hole.
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A
When Alain decides to go down the rabbit hole, trust me, he goes in deep. He didn't stop with two or three houses. He bought 36.
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B
So it's been a very good business for me.
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A
If you define a very good business as one that's profitable, then it could be fair to consider the roofing company, not a good business for Elan. It was sort of a failure, right?
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B
No, it's still running.
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A
It's still running.
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B
No, it was not a failure. It didn't make a whole lot of money. It just hit a plateau. I guess that might be a good explanation.
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A
In Elon's mine, there are no failures. Even the ventures that didn't pan out to him, they were learning opportunities or steps to the next thing. It's a mindset Kathleen and I were both fascinated by and we'll discuss later. So if you're keeping entrepreneurial score at home. So far, we've had smartphone repairs, online shopping, we've had roofing, and we've had midterm rentals. Is this all in Alabama?
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B
All in Alabama. As an entrepreneur, you learn that there's always something better, and I have found my something better. But you can't just jump to it. You can't just jump to a $10 million development without building up your cash. The bank won't just give it to you.
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A
Oh, no, we won't.
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B
Yes. Right. So you have to build your story. And we're not growing the houses because I don't want to put my time there.
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A
Once the midterm rentals were up and running, Alain found himself with extra time on his hands. Then a cousin approached him with a garage door company idea. Alain had already been in roofing, and he didn't like that so much, but he felt differently about doors.
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B
I saw how these ran with a real operation. Everybody that works in the company works for you. You treat them right, they'll treat you right. And then on top of it, what I like about garage doors is that it's a lot quicker. The transaction from you show up to somebody's house, you can fix his door the same day. If you don't fix it, you got to replace it. You can replace it the next day. And it takes one person. It doesn't take so much material orders, and it was just more profitable business. I'll give you a side note. Till today, I do not know how to fix a garage door. So I was always the driver from the back. The computer, the pushing on Google, and the pushing on advertising and the softwares and all the backend stuff was mostly me.
- [09:25]
A
What was your brand positioning? How did you grow?
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B
I think I've played all the cards right. That's, I think, how we grew up. From the beginning, you got to think about what do big companies have. You want to play with the big players, you got to act like them. So all the big companies are very beautiful branded vehicles. They all have nice offices, and they all have showrooms. You got to grow to it, obviously. But the idea is, what do they have that I can copy? So we did a very good branding from the beginning, and we got really good software to manage, and we got marketing company that we vetted out. And then the biggest thing that I would argue is playing the Google game. Everybody looking for home service eventually goes on Google and search for garage door company near me. Roofing repair, Alabama.
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A
It's the modern yellow pages.
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B
Everybody does it, right? So this is the game that I played.
- [10:10]
A
Alain loves this game so much that when he opened an ice cream shop last fall, he named it near me. When people search ice cream near me, his store comes up first. Pretty clever. As for the garage door business, Alain sold it last year. When he sold, he had 43 employees and $11 million in annual revenue. During that time, you also took on commercial property, right?
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B
During that time, yes.
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A
He and a business partner bought their first commercial property in 2022. They loved the process and the profit, so they bought another.
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B
It used to be an old skating rink back in maybe the 70s. And then it was bingo, like they call it. Because gambling is illegal in Alabama, some places they're able to get away with temporarily, at least to what they call charity bingo, which is slot machines. And after that, got busted. It was a church before I bought it.
- [11:04]
A
He and his business partner planned to turn the building into seven commercial office units. He rehired the team from their first flip, including a great general contractor. He was reliable, and more importantly, he had the right price.
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B
He gave me a bid. It was $260,000. I need $60,000 up front to buy materials, and I start right away. Okay, no problem. Here's the money.
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A
But then the guy, he disappeared.
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B
It was just five, six months of him barely doing stuff. Like he was answering me, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sending my framers there today. But then, like, nothing was getting done. So it was about four to six months until I said, okay, take my losses, move on. By that time, it was a lot of back and forth, which was not fun. A lot of time wasted, $60,000 gone. And it weighs on you when you have to deal with bad things. It's not just like, you take the phone call and then it's over. It lingers after the phone call. That's a tough thing about being an entrepreneur. A bad thing could turn into a bad day, a bad mood, bad attitude. But some things last longer. Some things don't last as long. And sometimes you got to have the attitude that it will get better. And if you got a good deal and you know that the numbers at the end are gonna be very high, so you might make less, but at least you're not losing your pants.
- [12:23]
A
When you own your own business, you need to keep things moving. Need to book a last minute flight. Earn a $300 travel credit to cover that. Need to take a meeting before takeoff? Do it from the comfort of the Chase Sapphire lounge by the club. Need to catch your breath before you board? Done. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. The business card that gives back all you put in. Visit chase.com ReserveBusiness to learn more. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank. Any member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply. Kathleen, what did you think of Elan? I mean, I'm like a little dizzy. I'm not gonna lie.
- [12:59]
C
Yeah, your head must have felt like it was on a swivel. I have been chomping at the bit to talk to you about this. I was absolutely gobsmacked. This is not our typical episode. This is an episod that is not about a business. This is an episode that is about a person. A person who believed in the American dream, who came over to this country, who believed possibilities are limitless and still does.
- [13:24]
A
Still does.
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C
And was willing to do anything to make a dollar. I mean, it's crazy. Just to rattle it off, we had armrests, roofs, ice cream rentals, flex spaces, garage doors.
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A
Garage doors, Garage doors. When I think about Ilan and all the different businesses that he's built, I think he's had a good mix of relying on himself and partnering with others. And we've talked about that on the show before. But he's had partners for almost everything he's done. He partnered with his uncle on the roofer. He had a partner for the garage door business. He had a partner in the real estate business. So he has found ways to partner with other people who can compliment him. And we've talked about many times partially the value of having a partner so that you're not so alone in it, but also so that someone can bring things that you can, can't.
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C
Yeah, just thinking about the city that you're based in as a partner too, and so thinking about what is the strategic advantage that you have with where you're based. And I just thought that was fascinating. One could say, well, Alabama, there's so much less opportunity there with where he's living. And he's actually made this A real arbitrage where he's thinking about this being a location where maybe there isn't as much entertainment or there isn't a fun ice cream like, option. Like he's flipped it on its head to think about the location as a partner, too, and a real advantage. Do you think that that is really something that folks could do more of, think more about?
- [15:00]
A
Yes. And that exists in a couple ways. I mean, look, this guy came from the Middle east, and he's planted himself in Alabama and made a success of it. So I would say a couple things. Number one, very often there is an entrepreneurial ecosystem in local markets. We talked about that with Gretna Machine Shop in Houston. Right. So she's got a group of manufacturers that all talk to each other, that are working together for the ecosystem on behalf of each other. They're not sharing customer lists, but they're sharing training programs for employees, other things. So that's one way in which your location helps. The second is lots of cities around the country have all kinds of incentives for small business, for development, for other things because they're trying to spur the local economy and grow the tax base. So there'll be all kinds of tax abatements and incentive programs and other things that can be taken advantage of at the local level. And then finally, local knowledge is a competitive advantage. Knowing the contours and the assets and the deficits of an individual place, that's a competitive advantage in and of itself.
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C
And this is what makes America so special. There's no excuse like, if you are not in a big city, you can still fulfill the American dream. He is a living, breathing testament of that. I just thought it was so powerful.
- [16:10]
A
Let's get back to Elan. After he fired his contractor, he had to find a new one.
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B
I reached out to a few GCs, got multiple quotes.
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A
Of course, by GC, elan means general contractor.
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B
All of them were at about 400 to 450 range. In the meantime, you know, Textilema, GC doesn't just come and give you a quote right away. You have to do a lot of things. You have to reach out to multiple tradespeople, and they have to come and look at it. And that time, the place got broken into.
- [16:38]
A
You have to keep a skating rink frozen, of course, which requires a lot, and I mean a lot of electrical wiring. If you were into stealing copper, finding this building's electrical room would be like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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B
So one weekend, all that copper got completely busted out. Everything got Broken the electrical room, everything. Just one big mess.
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A
Which changed his new contractor bid again. They had to reimagine all the wiring now, which to Elan was an opportunity to tear it all out and start fresh.
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B
It would have potentially turned out be more expensive trying to use this electrical stuff versus just going blank, like brand new. Everything electrical because it's old. It's very heavy duty, and I don't need heavy duty for flex space.
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A
Plus the insurance payout on the theft, Things were looking up. He found a new contractor who was more expensive than his first guy, but definitely more reliable.
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B
And now he had to go back to the city and repermit this under his name. And that's when the city decided to switch on us.
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A
Elan's original permits allowed for seven units in the building. The city didn't like that.
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B
Now they said, no, no, no, we don't want seven units. We only let you have two units. The only way you have seven units is if every single one have individual bathroom.
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A
The existing bathrooms were typical public bathrooms, multi stall, multi sink.
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B
But now they want individual bathroom in each one. And that's expensive. You got to break concrete, you got to bring plumbing. You have to go to the water company.
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A
So paying for seven bathrooms was one option. The other was to keep the existing bathrooms and only make two rental units versus seven.
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B
Not ideal. When you rent higher square footage, you cannot charge as much as you charge for smaller square footage. So now my property is going to be worthless.
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A
Did you think about walking away?
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B
Yeah, that was an option to walk away. But it is what it is. All with the punches, unshakable. So that's the route that we decided to go. Turn into two units. And now architect have to get involved. That took another month or two more money, you know, five, six, seven thousand dollars to an architect, and eventually the city approves it. Now another months of renovation, but happy ending. Place gets rented out. We were about 1,350,000 all in into this. You know, it was over a year. But you still have to pay your mortgage.
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A
Right? Times money.
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B
Correct. So forget the time money as well. The bank, you guys still want your money. Don't matter to you. You still want the monthly payments, Right. So the interest was about $60,000 a year. That's just adding to the cost. It was a long journey, a lot of headache, but it stabilized. Got two good tenants. That made it good ending.
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A
So you're clearly a serial entrepreneur. You've started all these businesses. How do you allocate your time?
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B
I've Became more picky. I no longer want to buy more single family homes from MTR because it's not worth my time. I can only have so much time. So what should I focus on? And that's, you know, like I said earlier, no more buying houses and focusing on commercial real estate development. And then I have my fun project, my ice cream store. And I thought it would be fun, but it's not. I regret it because it takes so much of my time. It's doing really well, but extremely well for an ice cream store is not that much money. It's in my neighborhood. That's why I opened it. I have kids, so I thought that would be fun. I wanted to open something there and also maybe something that I would truly enjoy, but I have yet to enjoy it. It's open for about five or six months and I find myself sometimes working there for 12 hours a day.
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A
You're going to have to turn it into a self serve system.
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B
Yeah, find a machine. It's tricky, but you know, there's always bad parts. And eventually it will be a very solid system that all I have to do is show up there and enjoy it with my family and eat ice cream, not work.
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A
At least not work in ice cream. Alain is still working and getting more involved in commercial spaces with families at the forefront of his decision making.
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B
I was like, what's the best real estate? It's plazas with an anchor.
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A
By anchor, he means anchor tenant, which is a store that people will come to. Places like Target, Nordstrom, household names that consistently have high traffic. These stores anchor the plaza or strip, bringing people to the smaller surrounding businesses.
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B
So I said, maybe I can find an anchor. And then I found Slick City Action park, which is indoor water slides with no water. So it's really fun. Slick City, I think genius idea. So I give huge credit to the inventors of it.
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A
So is this a franchise model?
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B
It is a franchise, yeah. So I got territories in Alabama. I have already one project. It's under construction. I'm developing a plaza. I'm calling it like a family entertainment plaza. I want everything to be related to family entertainment. And that's gonna have Slick City and other retail. And I'm working on a family entertainment district, which is a whole district with a green space and stage in a hotel. When there's Christmas, we'll have a huge Christmas tree. When it's fourth of July, we have a bunch of fireworks. Slick City is an anchor that will bring families in. And there were a bunch of restaurants and the nail salon and Barbershop for parents and then maybe some dentists on the second floor. I'm not sure yet.
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A
All things that are AI proof.
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B
Yes, I think that families will enjoy.
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A
Kathleen, we got to stop again here. I really didn't expect him to say that he'd become a franchise owner.
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C
Let's talk about that. Yeah.
- [21:49]
A
Because everything else he'd done was his. His own garage business, his own roofing business, his own real estate business, and this is his own. But he's clearly operating inside someone else's framework. So I thought it was fascinating that he decided to go the franchise.
- [22:02]
B
Right.
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A
I actually think it was really smart. Now, he'd made some money already, so he had the capital to do it and he had real estate piece of it, but he was willing to sign up and go in and take a bet on someone else's idea.
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C
Guess who was one of the, or the, I should say keynote speaker for one of the biggest QSR restaurant chains in the world.
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A
I'm guessing you.
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B
Da da da.
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C
I mean, it was not on my bingo card, but I gotta tell ya, I was so struck by the work ethic.
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A
Oh, it's hard.
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C
It is so hard. A toilet breaks at 2 in the morning, they're there. Someone coming in to flip hamburgers doesn't show, you're there. And I couldn't believe what it took. But I think we're now seeing, when you look at franchise owners, the lion share of them are first generation, that is, who tends to open up a franchise. I think that one of the important questions to ask is, am I someone that likes to color within the lines? Paint by number style, which is really what a franchise is more all about. Or someone who just likes a white sheet of paper and I'm just going to figure things out on my own.
- [23:04]
A
Some things are hard to figure out on your own and scale on your own. Like how do I design a slide park? That sounds pretty hard. They've already done that. But I also think not all franchisors are created the same. They're very, very different. They have different rules, they have different standards, they have different capital minimums, they have different experience minimums. They require different things of you. We bank a lot of franchisees and many of them are very successful. They've chosen what they want to franchise intentionally, in a way that complements other skills that they have in the restaurant space. Very few of them will even let you do it if you don't have restaurant experience and often restaurant experience at scale. Sounds like Slick City's very different. You need to pick one that's looking for your kind of experience and where you know you have something to bring to it.
- [23:48]
C
That's true. And also feeling like you're really prepared for whatever that is. When I was speaking to these franchise owners, for example, they were saying that the corporate mandates that just keep coming down with the changes in branding and then they have to revamp the whole store. And it takes a lot of liquidity to be able to do that. So again, making sure that it aligns with what you can really do, it isn't magical thinking.
- [24:13]
A
Even with all of his success, Alain is still learning and growing. He mentioned a hotel at this plaza. That's an entirely new venture for him.
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B
Hotel is over my head for now. I know nothing about it.
- [24:24]
A
Right.
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B
I don't actually have the money to also do a hotel. So I'm working with a hotel developer. This whole project together with hotel is probably going to be 40, 50 million dollars. I can't handle the retail spot. It's about half of it is going to be hotel, half of it is going to be the family treatment district. You know, I'm a big fan of saying there's always something bigger and better, and it's just been true for me. And when I started Sleek City, that wasn't the plan. When I reached out to do a family entertainment district, it just evolved from ideas that just hit my head. I was like, it's actually a good idea.
- [24:53]
A
I want to ask you something that we ask to all of our guests on the show, which is if you had one piece of advice for a current or aspiring business owner or entrepreneur, what would it be?
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B
My advice will be? The only thing that matters is customers. If you don't have customers, you have nothing. These are people with ideas. You gotta focus on how you get your customers and do absolutely nothing to stop. And the perfect example for this is my garage door company. I've put enormous amount of effort into getting customers, which is playing the Google game, as I mentioned earlier. And we would have not sold it for 10 figures without playing this game, without listening to the economy or the industry of where people find you and then you do absolutely nothing to stop to get there. And my ice cream store, it's open for five, six months. I have over 700 reviews. I made it. The culture is there's nobody leaving that store without asking them for a review. Anyway, that's my advice.
- [25:46]
A
Okay, Alon, thank you very much for being here and thank you for coming on the Unshakables.
- [25:50]
B
Thank you so much
- [25:54]
A
okay, Kathleen, I got to say, Elan is like no other guest we've ever had before. And I know he mentioned it earlier, but I have to say it again. This guy is really unstoppable. I got tired of just listening to him.
- [26:04]
C
Almost seven businesses in seven years. I have so much reverence for this person. It's unbelievable. What were you thinking on the other side of this, Mike?
- [26:13]
A
Well, you heard me ask the question about how he spends his time. Because even though it was over a few years, normally when we have a guest on the show or frankly, when I see a client, occasionally we see one somewhat like Ilan. We don't typically. We typically see someone who tells the story of their early days, being all in deep on one thing, really hard, suffering through it. All the trials, all the highs, all the lows. And maybe eventually then they turn it into a success and they're on to something else or they start a second thing. I have not seen anyone be as serial an entrepreneur as he's been in the time that he has done it in as many different industries with at least modest success in all of them and really outrageous success in others. And just the head down drive, take no prisoners, get it done, make it happen. Really impressive, right?
- [27:02]
C
Like the prevailing school of thought would be double down on what you're doing, like once you've finally gotten the lay of the land. Cause it's so hard to learn. And he's taking courses and he's trying to get up to speed on completely new industries. There's a school of thought that would just say focus on that and then scale that even further and build it out. But he's by his own mantra, it's bigger or better, just keep going. Bigger or better. Keep it rolling.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah, it was super impressive. The other thing he seemed to do well is he seemed to take something away from each thing he did and bring what he learned to the next thing in a sort of compounding way. So if I think about what he's doing with SlickCity, he learned about, okay, I want something where the employees work for me. I want something that has a recurring revenue stream. I've learned in real estate that you need an anchor tenant. I'm going to create that myself. I know how to leverage a project. This guy has a young family and Alabama. Why do you think he feels like there aren't places for young families to go in Alabama? Because he's got one and he's looking for places to go. So I'm going to build it myself because I can do that.
- [28:02]
C
Nothing's lost. And I was so struck listening. He's got stealing happening with those copper pipes and yet keeps this opportunity mindset going. And I wanted to talk to you about that because I'm obsessed with mindset, as you know. And there's something here to me that speaks to, again, the American dream. Like, it's 250 years. Our forebears, the stock that we come from, had this sort of mentality which was like, I'm going to do whatever it takes and go to whatever lengths to provide for myself, to provide for my family.
- [28:39]
A
There is only one way, and it's through. It's that just relentless drive of. There is only one answer, and that is, this is gonna work.
- [28:49]
C
Burn the boats, baby.
- [28:50]
A
Exactly. And it doesn't matter what I have to do within reason to get it. He didn't bring any laws, but he was willing to sort of push the limits on everything to get it done. He was pretty clear about, like, he'd go up to the line but not cross it. And I think there are others who cross it. And I think that was an interesting thing to sort of frame up.
- [29:07]
C
Yeah. Willing to do whatever it takes to get those reviews and asking everyone for them.
- [29:11]
A
Exactly. Like, he's not doing anything wrong. He's playing the system the way it is.
- [29:15]
C
Do you think we've all become a little too precious? Like, everything's just a little too manicured, a little too safe? Like, we could push the boundaries a little more.
- [29:26]
A
You know, look, I work in a bank. We have to be.
- [29:28]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:28]
A
And we want to be.
- [29:29]
C
Yeah.
- [29:29]
A
So I think different industries are different. But here's what I would say. What you can't ever give up is your integrity, because you only get to lose that once. And so you have to operate within the bounds of integrity. But I think a lot of these frameworks that are set up are not as prescriptive as you could interpret them. And the people who are winning sometimes are the people who. They're not crossing those lines, but they are kind of living on the edges of them.
- [29:54]
C
Yeah. And I should have said that differently. I think probably what I was more intending to speak to is, like, a humility of just being willing to get gritty and dirty and roll up your sleeves and, like, do what you need to do.
- [30:05]
A
I think that's right. And it's like the system rewards reviews. So I'm gonna do what it takes to get reviews.
- [30:10]
C
As I was listening, I was like, am I cut from this cloth? I'm like, I'm a little wimpy, you know, like, it made me feel like there's more that I could do to just push the envelope and like go for it. I just, I loved it. I really did.
- [30:25]
A
Kathleen, as always, thank you for the insights. Thank you for the energy. It's great to have you back.
- [30:30]
C
What a thrill this one was. So, so glad to be here with you.
- [30:37]
A
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it.
- [30:44]
C
At the early stages of a small business, every job is quite critical to the survival of the business. A job can feel like the razor's edge. Next episode we'll hear about a machine shop. In that very moment on a critical
- [30:58]
A
job, it couldn't happened honestly at a worse time. There was just no opportunity for any failure and we had an issue with the machine. I'm Ben Walter and this is the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iheartmedia it. We'll see you back here soon.