Ep.8 | Strategies for personal and professional growth - Colden Blades

Colden Blades' entrepreneurial journey began over four years ago with the launch of Blades Marketing, a digital marketing agency. He discusses his agency, digital marketing, and the focus on transparency and letting results talk. Colden shares his thoughts on the importance of caring for both body and mind for business and personal success and moving from a small town to South Carolina, seeking more significant opportunities for his company. He sheds light on balancing traditional methods with innovative strategies to grow his ventures.

Colden Blades
Blades Marketing

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Host: Jack Moran
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Transcript

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Hello everybody, and welcome to episode eight of Shaken Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar Kid that is blue collar KEHD. We have a super special guest today, Colden Blades, the founder of Blades Marketing. Are we doing it cold? Dude, thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, absolutely. So we always just kind of start off the show by, you know, asking like, how did you get into entrepreneurship? Because that's obviously the theme here. Generally speaking, you kind of stumbled into it. I went to university to get a bachelor's degree in business admin and marketing, probably about a year and a half into college. I found out that they were programing me for a life that I didn't want, which was kind of built upon or predicated upon that corporate level route. And, wanted to drop out. So to finish out college for the sake of my father and, just started doing research while I was in school, was like, what kind of business models are there out there stumbled upon? You know, real estate stuff was watching guys like Grant Cardone. And then I stumbled upon kind of the smarmy marketing space and decided I was going to start a social media marketing agency. It's worked out thus far. So what did that journey look like? Like what was the beginning like getting the company started first client. It's struggles. very challenging. like I said, I was still in school. I grew up in an extremely rural town, in upstate New York. To give the audience a generalized idea of just how small it was. I had 21 kids in my graduating class. Wow. And we had about like 300 and something kids K through 12 in the entire school. Major. This is also not a private schools public school. And, I didn't really like we didn't have many businesses that I could tap into for this new agency model that I wanted to pursue. So I immediately started practicing what I was going to be selling, practicing what I was preaching, and started marketing myself online, creating videos, posting content. And then, followed that up with just doing like cold DMs would send like cold DMs people. But I know a lot of guys I get started in the agency space. They just copy and paste the same message or like send these just bullshit messages. And it worked back then. But even back then I was like, I need to figure out a way to to stand out from all these other guys. And so I would actually send like record video DMs. Yeah, I would record videos on the spot and send them to these business owners. Well, that's where, you know, I'd love to, you know, I have some ideas I'd love to share with you for free. I'd get them on the sales call and, would do everything but sell. I would just give them advice, give them tips, give them things that they could implement to, you know, kind of take their social media presence to that next level. And then at the end of the call when they would kind of like you could tell us from the body language they're waiting on the pitch, I would say, well, hopefully that's helpful. If you have any other questions like reach out anytime. that's all I have for you. Have a great rest of the night. And they almost like, stop me. Be like, wait, wait, like, can you do this for me? Like, I would like to pay you to do this. So I almost always had like an ATV close approach or an anti sales approach. And that worked for a little while. Then made the move to South Carolina about three years ago and, and kind of had that first opportunity in my life to get out and actually meet businesses and have a plethora of business options in my area to work with. And it's worked out quite well for me. So we're kind of like the tip. What was the tipping point where you're like, this is the moment. Like we're really picking up momentum. I think the, the tipping point for me was I think there was really two primary inflection points. the first was when Covid hit a lot of stuff kind of broke down. A lot of businesses and a lot of the clients that I had at the time were gyms, other kinds of that, that style businesses, real estate agents, whatever, whatever it may be. a lot of them were forced to close their doors or move their operations. And I got I remember there was like a two week span of time. I was still running the company out of my parents basement at the time. And, I had managed to scale it up to, I want to say it was like four, four, maybe five grand a month, you know, profit. And, I got three phone calls in the span of a week and a half from clients and woke up that following week and was like making a quarter of what I was making before. It's like it all just came falling down. And then I just had had a bit of a rough patch, you know, cause I was trying to get it up and going again. And I took the leap of faith because a buddy of mine convinced me to move to South Carolina. He said, there's all kinds of business opportunity, and it's growing fast. So I packed everything in my car 14 days notice, pretty much. And, just drove down South Carolina for hopefully. What what I hope to be a new beginning for me, but also for for the business to give it that breath of oxygen that I knew it needed and to find some businesses that that we're going to be able to work with the on a local level, on a personal level, I always talk about how it will in entrepreneurship, getting over adversity is like one of the biggest keys. That's like kind of what make makes or break you. You know, a lot of people encounter that adversity and turn back on because there's that fear of the unknown. but if you can push through that adversity, that's usually where the big wins come as is right after that adversity. How did you deal with or how do you deal with adversity? when you encounter it, you know, I think I've oftentimes thought about like what it is, what it takes for someone like myself to come from where I'm from and to achieve what I've achieved. And I think that there's a multitude of factors that are that are involved. But one thing, one commonality that I see in some guys is like being like, I know some guys that are just too dumb to fail, and they'll be the first to claim that. It's like, I like, yeah, literally. Just like, I'm just I'm too dumb to fail. Dude. And sometimes those guys, they just they throw shit at the wall and then something sticks for them and they're willing to, you know, they're willing to take every shot that they get. And I think that there's something to be said there. So I made that observation like persistence, just like just Dom found persistence of just like, I'm gonna hammer away at this wall for as long as it takes, right. And I think that that's like one avenue of it. My problem, especially getting started that I've become more self-aware of it in recent years, is I was almost, and I've tried to come up with like, I guess, a humble way of saying this, but I've always I've always understood business concepts and strategy long term very well. And I think that probably one of the biggest mistakes that I was making earlier on is I would look to these guys that were light years ahead of me in business and I would say, okay, well, this is what the top 1% are doing. So I'm just going to do what they're doing and not do what the 99% are doing. And the only problem with that, there's nothing wrong with that. The only problem with that is when you don't have the self-awareness to understand that you there are levels to it. There are steps that that individual or that company took to get to where they're at. And there's different implementation and strategies that that need to go into play at those different phases of your business. I was trying to implement level ten strategies in a level one business. When I was first starting out. I was like, oh, I need to optimize SEO on my website. I need to have email marketing campaigns. I need to have, full content marketing system. I need to be on every single platform, long form, short form, all this stuff. And in all actuality, when I sat down, it's like, well, what's like actually bringing in the dollars right now in at this level one stage as the number one thing I was avoiding or didn't want to do, or was filling my time with all these other tasks and not doing, and that was just cold outreach, like going to networking events, shaking hands. So I think that with that comes like the persistence comes in having the self-awareness to understand where like what league you're playing in and what needs to be done in order to conquer that league and move on to the next. I think another aspect of it too, is not not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship, and thank God they're not, because there's a lot of us, like I have had countless contractors do great work for me over the span of these years. I would not have been able to scale any of my companies to the point that they're at. If it wasn't for someone who preferred to just follow my lead. And I think that without the the 9 to 5 or without the people that are willing to, like, do some of the more monotonous tasks in our society, the true entrepreneurs, the ones that are just born and bred for it, they're not going to be able to succeed as well without having the support in the network of those people. So I think like having self like self-awareness is big and just understanding that not everyone is cut out for it. I don't think not everyone's cut out for it, and a lot of people too, like they're going to. Most people would probably have had that span of a week and a half that I had lose 80% of their clients, and a week and a half that they had worked two years to build up. And then, like, well, fuck this, this isn't for me. And I think I use entrepreneurship to define something that is like, not truly entrepreneurship. I agree, I don't think everyone's cut off to like a cut out to run their own business. and I think, like when I think of entrepreneurship, it's more like doing your own thing or like the big theme with this podcast is like getting people away from like chasing this definition of success that's not their own. So although, like, you know, you can be a contractor, you can work for someone and you can be very successful at that. But if you're doing something that you absolutely hate doing, that is not the best use of your time. That's not the best impact that you can have. on the world. That is how I define entrepreneurship. Kind of doing your own thing. Like how do you how do you define success? Well, I think it's different for every single person. It's definitely not a materialistic definition. For me personally. It's just like happiness. And I think that we have such a short life here. And so why would I not spend every single day doing what I want to do now? There's a little bit of deferred gratification, like putting in some work and like going through the hard times to get like a a bigger, better outcome, big picture outcome. but my success is not determined by like, fancy cars and big houses. It's like, I like the saying, which instant do you want to become? Your eternity? So I visualize like which how do I want to live in the present? Like when I look around in the present, what do I see that makes me feel good? And that is like the goal that I'm trying to achieve. Like that is success for me is like it's very intrinsic. It's not external things. It's like, how do I feel inside when I feel that I feel successful and it's, you know, happiness is a discipline. So could I have that feeling right now? It's like up to my own discipline. And what's keeping me from feeling that right now is like some anchor in my life. You know, we're not perfect. So it's like, I've got to start shaking those one by one. in order to get that intrinsic feeling of success that I define. Happiness is a tricky one, too, because, like happiness, I think chasing happiness in the wrong way really did some damage to me in my in my younger years and earlier on in my journey was I was like, okay, well, I just want to do what makes me happy and the real change in my life for the better, I believe. And when I started living a more purposeful life, was the day that I revisited what my the what the meaning of happiness was to me. And what like framing up like what success meant to me and to me. You know, what I realized was, I don't have to. I was like, okay, I want to do what makes me happy and business makes me happy. Okay, cool. So I start a business. Now all of a sudden I'm doing the business, the working in the business, on the business all the time. And I'm like, doing the mundane tasks that it takes to build a company from nothing to bootstrap something. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is kind of fucking miserable. Like, this isn't I'm not very happy in this moment. Like doing cold outreach. Do it. Building all these campaigns, doing sales calls, whatever it was. But the refrain for me was in that these things don't have to make me happy as long as what these thing doing these things provides me, gives me the means to do things that make me happy. Like if I something that makes like through my lens of success and happiness. One thing that makes me happy and feel successful is being able to take care of the people that I love, the people that I care about, and if I do these things, I don't necessarily make me happy being, but it enables me to provide for the people that I love and that I care about. Then to me, those things make me happy and those things fit my new frame of success. So I realized I didn't really have to necessarily be happy in every single moment. But you can also make yourself happy in those moments, too, because you can actually think about that and result like, oh, I'm providing for my family right now, right? I'm helping the people I care about right now. So I just think, like some people just might need a reframe. So how do you kind of get to that, like core, those core values, like I think that's one of the when we do our culture building. And I talk to you about like the, you know, a lot of the psychological training that we do within our company, the hardest thing is for people to make a decision and for them to find that motivation and find those core values like find that purpose, like how do you kind of identify that? You know, I think I would I would reflect on a conversation I've had recently about I had a conversation with a friend of mine about quitting vices, about like, you know, drug addicts putting down the drugs or guys that are, you know, alcoholics putting on the bottle. And it's like a lot of times, like those drugs and like what, what it's doing for that person is like giving them the peace of mind or whatever, or at least making them numb to certain things in order to quit those sorts of things, quitting has to be better than the alternative, which is not quitting. Right? So it's like you have to and that's why I talk about purpose a lot is like your purpose and your calling has to be higher than whatever the low frequency activity is that you're trying to deal with, cope with, relinquish from your life. So, I mean, I think as long as your purpose is strong enough, like you're I look, I look back on like former generations of men that like, went to war, worked in like the coal mines, worked in industrial plants day in, day out, 16 hour days, drove themselves, in most cases directly into the ground. And those guys you didn't catch them complaining like they showed up every single day, and they did it until the day they died. And it's because you might look at that and say, like, how does someone do something that hard and that detrimental day in, day out and keep showing up and doing it? And the answer is their purpose was was higher than than whatever suffering or whatever pain they were enduring because it meant protecting and providing for their families, putting food on the table. Right. Like, oh, I got I got a wife and kids at home. Like, what else am I gonna do? You know, like their purpose was bigger than whatever it was that they needed to to get through. So you got to dial in your purpose. And like our generation, I think, you know, people are having kids later in, later in life, like, I think I think kind of that I speak on kind of like the, the traditional relationship style of things. And I just think that, like a lot of, a lot of what men in former generations had, that I feel that myself included, and other people in my generation, a lot of them don't have is the family at home? Like for most guys, that was just their purpose. Yeah, it's like I have to provide for my family. Yeah. Where, where? So it's a lot. I think that's a lot less potent of it's like, oh, I need to like retire my parents, you know, stuff like that. Like, that's the next line of family, I guess. And most people kind of resort to that. But or oh, I need to like, I want to be able to take care of my friends. I want to be able to take my friends on vacations or take them out to lunch or dinner or whatever I can. That calling, it can be strong and you can dial in that as your purpose, but you got to find something, something higher, I think. Yeah. So before you were talking about like these like stages where you were trying to hit stage ten when you were early in the business, like for someone who is starting out their business in kind of in that first stage, like, what are your like, how do you dissect up, the steps? Like, what should they be? They're kind of their first checkpoint that they should accomplish. Then second third. Like do you have like a process for, you know, getting into entrepreneurship, starting your business? Step one I think for for anyone that that wants to get into entrepreneurship, that is like that's things that they might have. What it takes is you, you absolutely have to dial in your body, dial in your fitness dial in like that's what everything else is going to stem from. Like you're gonna be in a better mental state. You're going to be able to be more clear minded, and your ability to focus is going to increase when you're in better shape. So really, like focus on your body, your fitness, focus on your nutrition. What you're putting, what you're feeding the system. And then from there then it's like, okay, there's the foundation to go out and do what it takes. I think as an entrepreneur, it's like it's a simple thing, things. It's like taking care of your body, taking care of your brain, like putting the right information. And you know, you can go scroll on TikTok for three hours and consume a bunch of shit. Or you could read a book about whatever the business is that you're trying to start. Or you could watch a podcast on, like from someone being interviewed in the business model that you're looking to pursue and then the other component of like, I guess, the tiers and the levels to it and what I would tell any entrepreneur to do that's you don't have to reinvent the wheel, okay? The wheels already been invented. If you want to make a little better, cool. By all means. But if you want to just take the wheel and throw it on your vehicle and go, that's always an option. And, my, my line that I say is like, go straight to the top for your information, like if you want to, if you wanted to start like go into finance and you wanted to start your own, like financial firm or investment firm, whatever, or maybe like go straight to the top like Warren Buffett. Like who, who has done this thing at the the highest hour. If you want to learn basketball, like go to like Kobe Bryant, like go to the big guys but then dissect their journey. That's the piece that I think a lot of people skipped and like that I skipped earlier on as I looked at guys like Iman Godsey that had like the social media marketing company, and it was huge. And, or Gary Vaynerchuk was Vayner X is I looked at them and I was like, okay, I'm going to copy what they're doing. But it's like, okay, wait, wait, wait. I need to know what level one of how they got there looked like, because that's where I'm at. And so the probably the easiest way I've found to do that is just like, look at look up like their net worth and like backtrack it to when their net worth is as close to what yours is at your current stage. Like, you know, like that's a good idea if if you don't have to nickels to rub together and you want to build a social media marketing company, look at a guy like Garyvee VaynerMedia successful. That's so when I want to model myself after okay, great. Now reverse engineer his journey and find Gary when he didn't have to nickels rub together similar with your situation and then do the things that he was doing right and he was making like what? Like just making videos every single day. And then he got put up on some like news newscast or something that he just blew up one day. Right. They go, he was drinking wine out of like, a Jets helmet. Yeah, dude. Like he's right here. His dad's one shot. And like, I would almost suggest, like, take it literally. People like, okay, I want to start a marketing company and blah, blah, blah, blah. Gary was putting out videos online, so he was doing that part of the marketing business, okay, he was doing that, but he was also working for his dad's workshop. Why was he doing that? Well, because you needed fucking money to get buy right? There's nothing wrong with going and getting a 40 hour a week job to have money to get by and then spend all your spare time creating videos. Yeah, and maybe if you backtrack it in a literal sense and you're like, I want to be like, garyvee, maybe that's what you do. You go out and you get a job so you don't have to like, there's so many times I've had where I'm like thinking like, fuck, I don't know if I'm like, I got bills to pay, I got, I got to make this thing work. And I think that that pressure is, is necessary. but definitely don't sleep on, like how quickly you could expedite your, your journey and your process of building a business from scratch. If you had some capital. That was my biggest regret was I started with nothing and bootstrapped the whole thing, and it took me a little longer. And I look back and I'm like, well, I really could have outsourced some stuff, expedited that process, paid to play. If I had just gotten like a full time or part time job and then took all the money from that and pumped it into the business to get it started quicker, right. And like on the other side of that, I when you talk about like people making this decision, if they're entrepreneurs yet or not, a lot of people think that they are and aren't. So I wouldn't recommend to them. I take it out $100,000 bank loan and I thrown it into the business. Sometimes it is too good to test it out. Grassroots. But if you have made the decision and you're like, nothing's going to put you off your path, then like you can certainly expedite the process for sure, for sure. And you talked before about and I agree with this completely, like having the physical discipline and like the, you know, health is a big part of entrepreneurship. You can't sustain the work that it takes. If you're like, you know, a piece of shit fat ass with a bad diet, you know, I'm sorry. Like it says Ruiz. It sounds like it's it does definitely coincide. Your personal life does in flux or does leak into your business, but do you have, like a formula? Do you have a routine that you promote as far as like fitness side of things? So I'm a I'm a you. This might be the first time I use this phrase on a video. I'm a utility based lifter or utility based fitness advocate. I believe that you should be training for whatever it is that you want to actually do with that strength, with that mobility or whatever it may be like if you want to, if you want to be a faster swimmer, like if you want to swim all the time, going in the gym and starting up a bodybuilding routine probably is not the best route for you. Yeah, for me, like a lot of, a lot of my earlier years of training was very bodybuilder focused. Why? Because the utility was I wanted to have bigger muscles so I could get hotter. Chicks like that was that was my entire mission with it. So in my earlier years, I focused on that because the utility was getting more checks. in probably probably over the course of the last 4 or 5 years. So I shifted to kind of more like strength training, like almost like doing some CrossFit style stuff, like running, kind of more of like I see this new, like hybrid athlete kind of thing going on. So kind of being more of like a hybrid athlete, because for me, the utility in my life now is I want to be able to, number one, have energy like nobody should have, which I do to be able to work longer, focus longer, do whatever. And then for me, a lot of why I train as well is I've been in scenarios where my physical aptitude was going to save my ass in a literal sense, like I've been in five fight scenarios that I didn't warrant or ask for. Like, shit happens in this world and you need to be capable of protecting yourself and the people you care about. So for me, a lot of my training now is is angled towards that too. I do some boxing, I do weightlifting, but focusing more on less. So being the biggest guy in the room and whatever it was. But being being dangerous, I guess, is the way that I would put it. So going back, just circling it all up, utility based training, like, what do you want to be able to do, focus on that first? Like what do you want to be able to do? Well, some people, they just want to be able to get out of bed and like feel somewhat normal. Yeah. It's like, okay, well start wherever wherever starting feels like to you. Like if that means going for a 30 minute walk seven days a week, every single morning, then, then that's there's your there's your baseline routine. You can figure out the other stuff and start getting fancy with it. Once you're actually showing up to do the thing, you don't need to get like all these like science based lifters. Like, I think science based lifting is really cool and I'm extremely interested in that stuff, but it's because I've been working out for consistently like nine, 8 or 9 years now. And like I've shown up to the gym for 8 or 9 years and I can spend some time trying to optimize. There are too many people are trying to like, like I see all these guys watching, like they watch one Huberman Labs episode and they're trying to, like, fully optimize their fitness routine and their their supplements stack and all this shit that it's only going to last for three weeks. Dude. It's like, bro, I haven't seen you in the gym in 13 fucking weeks and you're trying to optimize. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't know, I think it's just showing up and doing the thing, figuring out like what's the utility of it if it's to be able to focus on work then optimize for that. But some, some level of like strength training is always good. Like make sure you know you want to be building muscle. You want to be in good shape. Maybe some running. But yeah, I agree. Like I think most of my stuff is catered. Well, to your last point, like the biggest thing for me is just doing some exercise. Yeah. Like if I can do some sort of exercise and like, my A.D.D. doesn't allow me to, like, show up and lift weights at the gym every single day. So I have to diversify with, like, you know, climbing or playing, like pick up lacrosse or, you know, whatever it is. And I think that, like, also, you know, I cater a lot more towards the business side. So like focus and longevity, I do a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation. just support that. And then I agree with you as well as far as like, you know, if I jujitsu and box. so that's important as well. And it is like such a basis for the productivity that's required. Like I can feel my productivity decline when I'm being lazy in my personal life. It's like there is no line between your personal life and your business. It all meshes together. I don't I don't believe in work life balance at all. Yeah, at all. To to think that there's some scale that you have to balance is just absolutely ludicrous, right? That that would be like me saying like, okay, well, you're butts if you spend a little time with your family because you want to, that means you would have to go. Like if you spend an hour with your family, you better go work an hour after so you can balance your little fucking scale. It's like, no, I'm going to go, hey, all the family of business or duty calls while I'm making out with them, I'm going to answer. I'm going to do whatever I got to do. It just it all blends together. And to try and balance something that can't be balanced, I think is just it's going to do nothing but act to your detriment. I've known so many people that have preached to me until they're blue in the face about, like, cold and like, you got to find some balance there to balance this, that. The other thing that. You know what? What hurt me more than anything was trying to balance things, trying to like, listen to them being like, shit, maybe they're right. And like trying to balance my life and everything would just go to shit. I was like, well, apparently this whole balancing act thing doesn't work for me. So I live my life in extremes. It's like if I'm if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. It's like if I say, I'm going to build a business, I'm going to go all out and build a business by, say, I'm going to be there for a friend of mine or a family member. I'm going to be there whenever they need me for whatever it is like. You don't need to, it's just so stupid to me. What do you think the time input is like to be successful at a specific thing? Like, I believe that it's not 40 hours a week at the beginning, like, oh, I love I mean, yeah, I think you got to, like, really, like, absolutely not. you're going to work. Yeah, you're going to work more hours. Like, you could go work a 9 to 5 job and make what I make double what I made my first year in business, working 80 hours plus a week. Yeah. You know, it's like you have to understand. It's, I think you mentioned it, off record before the podcast about, like, that delayed gratification. Yeah. Right. Like you have to be willing to make sacrifices now for what may or may not be in the future. And you don't have to necessarily believe in the markets or believe in the financial state of the country, or believe in like other people or your clients or whatever. You just have to believe in yourself to execute and to show up. No matter how things are going right or Sean, as long as your purpose is strong enough, you're going to right? I, I like to ask this question. If you had $1 million of, like, risk free capital to be deployed Vegas like straight. No, no, no strings attached, capital to be deployed, what would you do with it within the business?$1 million? Yeah, that's a really good question. I would probably deploy I would probably deploy a portion of it to content without a doubt. You know, I'd have a videographer filming everything, literally everything, and just chopping up edits and gear up and content out. I'm, I'm very bought into organic content space, so I'd be doing that. I would probably I would probably hire an assistant. Yes, like I could. That's the first thing that I oh my god. Yeah. I've had I've had some other like I said, contractors like guys working for me. I have this videographer doing stuff for me for a year where he was literally follow me around every contractor, every bit of work I've ever outsourced has led me full circle back to the fact that, like, I should have started with a personal like necessity. It's all the it's the little shit because it's it's those little it's those little tasks like that that just just throw me the fuck off. Like looking at my calendar like, yeah, oh my god. And it literally takes I have so much mental energy. Like people don't realize, like when you have when you're running a business and there are 15 different like things going on at once that you're trying to balance strategy on within your head, and then you have to fucking get the money back for a flight like that. You missed like it's impossible within completely throws you off track to like, put that focus into filling in like a business application. Dude, it's I was just there. So there's so much shit to like. I think in going back to like that whole work life balance, whatever. Like there's so much shit in your personal life too that I would outsource. Like, hey, like somebody calls me like just, oh, is this important? No. Well, okay. Well, never nip the bud there. If it's important, forward it to me. Like, you kind of just have a filtration system for. Yeah. Your mental bandwidth. Yeah. Which I think is, is I've started getting, made, which is like been dude, a game changer because I'm, like, habitually not the cleanest person. but it's like it's so important to have, like, a clean house and like, you know, you I've read with Steve Jobs, like, he didn't even have furniture in his house, like, because every single piece of furniture, every little trinket that you have, all the clutter is just like an external ization of your brain. And it becomes a distraction. So when you don't have that external clutter, like you can focus on the things that do matter. So yeah, I agree with that completely. Like getting made is a game. How often doesn't make them every other week you just comes and like cleans are all plays top to bottom. Yeah. And then like does laundry and she'll do laundry. Yeah. Dude, I have to get that. It's not that expensive. And like, you mean you can get a professional maid, but there's like, plenty of, people around that you can find that will do it for a lot cheaper. I got the poor girls I, I see right now doing all that shit for me. I'm sure they'd love me to hire a dude. It's like a game changer. Next question I'll ask. yeah. We'll jump right to this is what is one piece of advice that cold in today would give? Cold in just starting out. Call them today. I would say the cold and just starting out stay the course. What you did stay the course. So stay the course. So you didn't obviously need that advice because you did stay the course. But but like what would you tell yourself that you didn't do that you wish you had? I think that I don't think on that one for some reason. I think it would be to have the self have more focus on having the self-awareness to know the level that you're app and stop trying to implement the level ten strategies in a level one business. Yeah, because I spent hours upon hours upon hours of like trying to trying to accomplish strategies that I didn't have the means to execute at that level, like I wanted the the best converting like website, all those different shit. I wanted the best branding materials. And at the end of the day, like those things were like 5% of the reason for any other avenue that I was generating, right? Just focus. If I focus in on those things and then get to the point where you can start outsourcing that shit right? that's when you get to start, start playing ball. So final question before we wrap this up. This is one of Sam's questions. Is there one person but are be good. Sam, is there one person that you wish you could say? I told you so too? Well, honestly. Honestly, I don't think I would have one that any of the people that immediately are like, oh, he might be about to say my name, like, you already know who you are. and I'm not even going to do you the justice of mentioning your name on a on a podcast. But, I've always derived more, more fulfillment and more pleasure in proving myself right than I ever did, proving other people wrong. And, like, don't get me wrong, I am a competitive motherfucker, and I love when people hate on the shit that I do. Like, I absolutely thrive on that hate. But I don't really pay it any mind or attention. Like, I'm going to do whatever it is that I set out to do, whether you like it or not. And I'm not worried as to like whether you're chirping or not, because one, I love that noise. And two, I'm more interested in once again proving myself right. Right? Every single fucking time. It's a great point. What's what would be, what would be your response to that question? I got a bunch what I call the old, you know, switcheroo right there. Yeah. I mean, I had some mean teachers, dude. Like, I was just like, you know, an energetic cat kid, and, like, genuinely, like, wanted to learn, but just didn't survive in the, or didn't do too well in, like, a standard classroom environment, which is why I'm like, you know, a big advocate for alternative education styles. Because, you know, I see all these kids that I luckily came out of that and like had the confidence to say, like, there are alternatives. But I saw so many kids that, like, were genuinely smart kids, but just didn't thrive in the classroom. And they've now not amounted to very much because they have a teacher or someone telling them all the time that you're a piece of shit because you can't sit in a classroom, or like teachers telling me that I should be on Adderall. because I was in the same boat, you know, and it's like that. Those are the things that like, the biggest. I told you. So I have one teacher that I won't mention, that basically told me I wouldn't amount to anything, you know? So speaking of that, I'm gonna steal spotlight real quick from what I said. I know I said I wouldn't mention the name, but Mrs. Us, my English teacher from high school, go fuck yourself. And, like you were just one of the most horrible teachers in that fucking school, and I absolutely cannot stand you. And, I look forward to making you continue to watch me when. Yeah, I'd like mine as an English teacher, too. Oh, God. And, And she, you know, she told me I was going to amount to anything, but she was like, 250 pounds. so, I mean, I think that I won that battle, so I shouldn't be certain that some of the some of the teachers, man. Yeah, it is, it's it's like what they're what they're talking to these kids about. And like, I remember having colleges come to our school when it was like coming up senior year or whatever, and they'd come in the room for these talks and they'd be like, who? Like who's going to who's planning on going to college? 90% of the room, including myself, would like, raise our hand and like immediately they'd call out the 2% that didn't raise their hand. That was going they were going into blue collar industry, jobs, electricians, plumbers, whatever. And they would call them out and be like, well, don't you want to be successful? And I never forgot that shit, bro, because some of those blue collar dogs, those fucking mules making are making far more money. Yeah, are in far better spots than probably 99% of the other individuals in that room, like myself, that had our hands raised. I don't know if you seen the new, like, South Park episode where, like all the plumbers are showing up to the job sites and lambos and like, yeah, big chains because like, no one wants to do the work anymore. Do that at shift is common. Yeah. And I agree. Like I think that college as an 18 year old, I don't think you're equipped yet to be making the decision, of, you know, signing for $150,000 in debt. so definitely think about that. You know, before you go into the college, what you really want to do because having, like, if you have parents with a bunch of money, it's a different story. But if you're going to be paying for it yourself, having an English major, that's something was perfectly designed. Yeah. To keep you, a slave is like, well, what would be the most opportune time to approach an individual and get them to sign paperwork and sign up for more debt than they have any idea of, like, or can't even fathom? Yeah, well, probably when they have zero personal finance knowledge. Yeah. and then let's also make them a drug addict and an alcoholic. Oh, yeah. and then they're definitely going to be stuck to the system for their entire life. But I digress. that's like a three hour podcast in itself. What are, like some last comments that you would give to someone who is looking to make the leap into entrepreneurship or just start it up, focus on getting your your body right. Like focus on the fitness aspect. You know, if if you want to be a lot of people, I think start down this road because someone somewhere along the line said, you can't. And I think that the important aspect of that is like they they want to achieve whether you want to achieve status, respect, financial success, like whatever it is that's in line with your purpose that you want to achieve, you have to to become the man or woman worthy of what it is that you want to achieve. Like if you some powerful advice. Yeah, if you want to run a successful business, then you need to become a man worthy of running a successful business. Are they in good shape or are they in good health? Do they have good manners? Like what? What are the things that that person that has what it is that you want to achieve are actually doing? And that's one of the one of the actual positive aspects I think, of social media is like you can look at certain people, do your research, do your due diligence, look at some other guys out there that have achieved what you want to achieve, and then reverse engineer who they are as an individual. And what are the things that they're doing. Yeah, that's some really good advice. And, I appreciate you coming on. Where can people find you if they want to ask you any further questions or, I know you got this community that, you're starting to, you you can just find me on, on Instagram, cold and underscore blades. I think that's it. Okay. Sweet deal. well, I appreciate you coming on. it's been a pleasure. And that wraps up this episode of Shaken Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar kid. That is blue collar KEHD If you have any suggestions for episodes or guests, or have any questions that you'd like to be asked or answered, feel free to reach out to me at any time. But other than that, tune in next time. We got a lot more interesting guests and conversations coming, so thanks guys! For.