Your Legacy Is Built Through Every Interaction You Make Today

Ty discusses the importance of legacy, leadership clarity, and leaving a positive impact on those around us. He shares personal stories that shaped his journey from a young carpenter with a ponytail to the leader of a thriving construction company.

• Using clear communication to empower team members rather than just telling them to "figure it out"
• The story of Pat, the mentor who changed Ty's life by teaching him everything about siding and roofing
• Creating an organizational chart that prevents people from being overlooked while clearly defining departments
• Building a "trust bank" with your team through consistent positive interactions
• The challenge of weathering difficult business seasons without sacrificing team members
• Balancing giving enough guidance without micromanaging to foster growth
• The importance of surrounding yourself with people smarter than you
• Having clear goals while avoiding "one foot in yesterday, one foot in tomorrow" thinking

Join us next week for guest Brad Akers and make sure to like, subscribe, and share this podcast. We're now on iHeart Radio and need 1000 more downloads for YouTube monetization through Buzzsprout!

To watch your favorite episodes of Behind The ToolBelt plus much more content, go to our YouTube Channel and subscribe.

You can find us on Facebook and instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWoTMarRV_h-gKZErp7KQAw/

https://www.instagram.com/tcbacker/

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=991937949647176&set=a.409382311236079&__tn__=%3C

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt
• 1:29 Technical Changes and Future Guests
• 4:52 Pat's Legacy: The Mentor Who Changed Everything
• 11:20 The Cemetery Story: Leading with Clarity
• 18:39 Overcoming Viewer Fatigue and Content Evolution
• 23:34 Creating Legacy and Servant Leadership
• 31:16 Building Trust and Weathering Business Challenges

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt, where the stories are bold, the conversations are real and the insights come to you live, raw and uncut. Every week, host Ty Cobb-Backer sits down with game changers, trailblazers and industry leaders who aren't afraid to tell it like it is no filters, no scripts, just the truth. Please welcome your host of Behind the Tool Belt, ty Cobb-Backer.

Ty Cobb Backer: 0:27

Hey, hey, hey, we're live. Welcome back to everybody to episode 274 of Behind the Tool Belt. I am your host, ty Cobb-Backer. Thank you for joining us on this fantastically flipping Wednesday Sun's back out. I believe that we ended up actually getting some hail earlier today, so that's good for us.

Ty Cobb Backer: 0:49

Up here in the great state of Pennsylvania and, like I had mentioned last week, vic and I plan on doing some things a little bit differently and Vic is in the background as usual, and today we actually had planned on going live from my truck. Again, we ran into some technical difficulties. We completely changed things around from the way that we were going to do them, or the way that we did them last week, because I didn't really like the way that it was going through GoPro. Gopro had its own interface that we could stream through Facebook and it was just kind of difficult to see and read people's comments. And then, of course, I couldn't figure out how to freaking end the live without actually hitting the off button on the GoPro. So, anyhow, we kind of came back to the drawing board here a little bit, because we had our YOLO box that we haven't broke out and it had some updates that needed done on that which, if you're not familiar with YoloBox, it is your all-in-one streaming. You know, audio video monitor. It's basically a small computer that picks up on a network. You can actually add a SIM card to it and pick up. You know, if you have AT&T or Verizon or whatever. So we were going to attempt to pull that off from my truck because we have built-in Wi-Fi in the vehicle and, of course, power and all that good stuff there. But something wasn't working right so we thought screw it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 2:19

So we kind of came back and we're back in the office here real quick Thought I'd get back on here because this show must go on. You know how dedicated we are, but be prepared for some changes coming up, as you know and as you can see and as you're experiencing here with us that we're changing things up. We want to get back to some of the bootstrap grassroots of you know plug in, you know TC Backer and of course, of course, some of our sponsors. Before I forget them, I wanted to do a big shout out to Roofhole Lead Scout Hook Agency. If you want to know more about them, put a comment in the comment section and we will hook you up with their websites and get you pointed in the right direction there. But again, thank you all for joining us live today and and we're you're going to see a lot more of this of me, you know, doing more Q and a. So if you guys have any questions about life, about business, about personal development, professional development, anything like that, please put them in the comments and I will answer them to the best of my ability while we're here live. But then I can also go back in the comment section there and maybe put a more elaborate answer in there for you guys to be able to answer your questions.

Ty Cobb Backer: 3:30

But we got some great guests on the horizon. We are going to continue to keep bringing people in. Brad Akers from Brad builds builds businesses, I think, and I think he's got a couple other platforms and stuff like that. But he'll be on next week and then Woody is actually flying in from Texas. He'll be, he'll be in studio in a couple of weeks, I think, sometime first or second week or Wednesday, rather in April. So Woody's coming on.

Ty Cobb Backer: 3:59

So it won't just be me running my mouth and discussing kind of where I'm at today in the world and mentally and what season I'm going through, cause we talk about that a good bit the ebbs and flows of life and the ebbs and flows of business and like that. But and of course, you guys know that we talk a lot about legacy and leadership and or whatever you know that we're shooting for, like we want to leave an impact, and it's funny because my nephew Zach came in to see me. He works for us. He's been working for us now for a couple of years. He's been such a great asset to the team and has such a powerful impact on the team, and he brought me some photos in of some family members, and I was very young and I used to have a ponytail down to the middle of my back and he shared this photo with me. I might as well bring this up, because this photo had taken me back quite a few years.

Ty Cobb Backer: 4:54

So I am, however, from a long line of carpenters, and my dad I consider him a master carpenter. My great grandfather, his father and you guys have probably heard me tell that part of the story you know my uncles, my grandparents, like everybody in my family, is pretty much a carpenter, and a very good carpenter. I'm not just talking about, like rough framing houses and stuff like that, but I'm talking, you know, furniture and cabinetry and staircases and things like that. But so I had moved to York County, uh, my couple of decades ago, let's, let's say that and, um, I moved in with my, my sister and my brother-in-law, and, and, uh, I really didn't have a pot to piss in or window to throw it out of, but they were gracious enough to to kind of, you know, uh, help me get back up on my feet and and, uh, my brother-in-law, rick, his, his best friend, his name was Pat, and and hence, where his construction company's name came from, is PAR1, and PAR stands for Pat and Rick, and and that's you know.

Ty Cobb Backer: 6:01

There's probably three different other versions of that story, but that's what I remember of it. And and, of course, my nephew, who, who still works, his name's Pat too, so it's very fitting and and it's it's such a great story and Pat, long story short, pat, and I'm going to speak for myself on this if it wasn't for Pat, who brought me into the siding and roofing space, and I want to say this goes back to you know, I say that I've been in the industry 30 plus years, so let's go back 30, 30, probably close to 31, 33 years ago, 17 years old, and I was introduced to Pat, who was at that time Rick, my brother-in-law's best friend, and Pat was in the siding space and he worked for a local company GC Winters, an associate, and Glenn was his name GC Winters, glenn Winters and so I went to work for those guys and I was the ground guy. And so, speaking of legacy, if it wasn't for Pat cause I could probably talk about that all day long but if it wouldn't be for Pat um and I just showed his picture earlier for those of you checking in Pat here, my, my nephew, of course he was a lot younger in those days. Pat has has passed on and is no longer with us. But you know, for me and speaking for myself and and, and in terms of legacy, if it wasn't for Pat um, tc Backer wouldn't, and, of course, if it wasn't for my brother-in-law and my and my sister, I can't, can't not mention that too, but I'm pretty sure Pat showed Rick how to hang siding too, probably way before um I came along.

Ty Cobb Backer: 7:44

But I remember struggling and trying to get jobs and stuff like that, and Rick and Pat decided to start part one construction and it was just us three for the longest time and Pat showed me everything that I know today and of course I've I've learned some things and pick some things up over the years to be, you know, better mechanically inclined and processes on installation and things like that. So if anyone ever asked me like what is my strongest suit when it comes to the profession I'm in, it's always been the production side of things, because that's where I grew up. I didn't get a business degree at Harvard or Yale or anything like that. I did go end up going back to school many years later and I went to York business Institute for for a few for for a while actually and had met some really great people there. But again I I didn't get like a, a, a major or anything like that in business, not even accounting.

Ty Cobb Backer: 8:44

But I did take a lot of accounting courses and I'm sorry, somebody keeps blowing my phone up Obviously they don't know who I am and that we go live every day or every Wednesday at 12 noon PM. That's probably something very important because they continuously keep calling me. Hopefully they'll leave a message and I'll get back to them. But you know well I guess we don't think about it where we come from enough, right, like, don't forget where you come from, bum, and you know I lived in a basement. I brought nothing with me, basically like a Martin's bag, which is a giant grocery store over in Waynesboro. It's called Martin's and literally I had that bag and I slept on an air mattress in my sister's basement and those guys showed me everything, whether it was entrepreneurially, along with my dad and my mom my mom and dad had owned a bar and a restaurant for a long time and things like that but most importantly, the production side of things, of of knowing how to do takeoffs and measurements and installations and things like that.

Ty Cobb Backer: 9:48

All come from Rick and Pat, and I have another picture here of of all of us together. You can't really see my ponytail, but my hair is pulled back. Um, in in a ponytail. I'm sitting on a picnic table. That and that's going back a long time. I'm, I'm this little dork right there. Then you kind of see I got my hair pulled back and a lot of people don't tell them that story Like yeah, I used to have long hair.

Ty Cobb Backer: 10:14

They're like no way, and some of the other stories of the chaotic lifestyle that I lived back then. They don't. They don't believe me and it's always a trip to to reminisce and walk down memory lane. But you know the importance of, of, of legacy, the impact that we're leaving on people's jumping back in and grabbing and pulling things back from people and, you know, taking away their growth and allowing them to figure things out, but at least pointing them in the right direction and and it and, and I know over the years I've I've not done such a great job of always articulating the message very well. It's kind of like we hire people and recently I'm going through this thing where it's this, it's, it's a clarity note from Ty. I'm, I'm, I give, I'm giving myself about eight weeks to give everybody a clarity note of the direction of the company and the direction of their position. If the position is going to change or just you know, and not everybody's note from Ty is going to be the same.

Ty Cobb Backer: 11:37

But I'm so guilty of, you know there's a cemetery looking out my window here, so I'm going to use that as an example slash metaphor. Where it's like I'm so guilty of, like, go to the cemetery. For where it's like I'm so guilty of, like, go to the cemetery. Okay, not, not really giving them a reason, so they're kind of lollygagging on their way over to the cemetery trying to figure out. You know, why does he? Why is he sending me over to the cemetery, opposed to letting them know? Like the reason why I wanted them to go to the cemetery is becauseies, because, hey, in that cemetery over there there's an oak tree and every time the wind blows, the lower limbs of that oak tree tend to blow across the top of the headstones. Could you go over to the cemetery, trim up the bottom of those tree limbs and so that way when the wind blows it doesn't affect them? Well, if I would have articulated the point because I'm guilty of like hiring people, they're like what do I do? Like, figure it out is a lot of times has been my response over the years. So I know that is something that I wanted to work on this year was like giving people better direction, better vision of where and why, why they're doing things you know and and it's funny, funny stories I worked for a company called Homes by Keystone.

Ty Cobb Backer: 12:58

I was an electrician there back when I was probably you know, I don't, I don't even know Cause I, like I said I had moved to York County around when I was 17, but then I ended up moving back and I got a job down there as an electrician. But I had a mentor I guess my guide to show me how to you know wire houses, modular homes and stuff up like that. But so he would basically just come in and be like you got to drill all these holes and then pull all these wires. And some of these wires are for receptacles and some of these wires are for switches, some are for smoke detectors. But he never really got real granular on it with me. Like he never told me the difference between, like the, the ground wire from the white wire, from the black wire, and why some had red and some had green. You know he didn't tell me the difference between a single pole switch or a three way switch. You know. You know the ground wire, the green ground wire and the red and the negative and a positive and things like that. Like he never really told me you know exactly why I was doing things. He just told me to do things but he didn't exactly tell me why.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:00

And unfortunately I've I've been guilty of that myself, but if I would have told somebody exactly why I needed them to go over to that cemetery, they would have grabbed the chainsaw and they would have ran. The vision would have been clear. Then they would have had direction, they would have had motivation, they would have been able to just run over to the cemetery with their chainsaw and while they were over there they probably would have noticed that there was two other oak trees over there that needed trimmed up. And probably without asking me, because I've empowered them right, I didn't necessarily, you know, one of my sayings is you know, oh, I can't even think of it right now, but anyhow, I've empowered people enough to that they would have saw that there was two other oak trees over there that needed trimmed up. And then they would have looked around and they would have realized that was two other oak trees over there that needed trimmed up. And then they would have looked around, they would have realized that, hey, maybe I should break these leaves up over here, maybe I should mow the grass. And hey, I can't even read the names on the headstones anymore. Maybe I should power wash them.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:00

But with that little bit of guidance up front and a little more, you know, vision of like why I needed you to go to the cemetery, opposed to hey, vic, just pick that camera up. You know what I mean. Vic has a clear direction, he knows what it is that we're trying to accomplish and we're trying to create the most bad-ass content possible. You know, and Vic has the, the, the. I don't even want to say it's an honor, but I have the honor of working with Vic and jiving and gelling and vibing with him that some people in the building may not always get to see me on a day-to-day basis to hear that vision. So I thought you know why not write these, you know, these clarity notes to everybody and considering the fact of, like, where we're at, we're in a different season, we're coming into a new roofing season and, and it wouldn't hurt me myself to, to, to re reevaluate and realign my vision and things like that, and it's and it's okay.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:54

So, if anybody out there that's listening to this, I kind of like in a funk or or something that can't figure quite, put their finger on you know, like what's going on, or you know, because sometimes you just wake up and you're kind of like you're, you're in a funk and I and I've noticed myself being in a funk and I've noticed myself being in a funk and I just feel like there's, I don't feel completed. I don't feel accomplished and it's kind of like I had to really do some inside. I had to take a look inside and find out, like, what's been going on. And just like this podcast, it's kind of like I'm sure we're getting what we call, you know, in the content world, viewer fatigue. Well, we also suffer from content fatigue as well. So one of many things that that that we're stepping up our game in, you know, not just in TC Backer and not just in Lead Scout, and there's a lot of great things going on over there that I'm sure I could, you know, create a whole entire podcast about Lead Scout.

Ty Cobb Backer: 16:46

But you know, sometimes when we go through these seasons and these changes and stuff, like what got us here is not going to get us where we're going to go, and I think so much we base, we, we threaten our long-term goals over our short, short-term emotions, whether it's our own short-term emotions or other people's reactions to the changes that we feel like we need to make. And we can't always get hemmed up and and I know it's hard, especially for me it's hard for me to not get in my way because of my emotions and the pain that I might be experiencing right now or the pain that might be cast upon somebody else due to these changes and things like that. But but I guess the message there, at least in this small little piece you know, is you know, don't, don't, don't get distracted by your short-term emotions and and screw up your long-term goals. And the goal is on multiple fronts, like, like we want to kick out, like the best content that we possibly can kick out, and that's why we're changing things up, because we want, we don't want you guys suffering from, from viewer fatigue. We don't want to suffer from content fatigue. And and same goes in your, in your personal life, right, like if you're not working, waking up with purpose, and you're kind of just waking up and going through your day by mistake and and not very intentional, about wanting to take care of your body, not wanting to take care of your mind, and I I tend to slack in that thing Sometimes. I have to switch up the content that I'm listening to. I listened to a lot of Craig Grishel, I listened to a lot of Pedro Koolian, I listened to a lot of the Hermoses, both of which, and I kind of got a switch between all of them because I get. I suffer from from viewer fatigue. That's right, jay. The key is to start small and build momentum and reconnect with your why Exactly and it's funny that you talk about your why, because I'm actually reviewing my why. Today I pulled open my why.

Ty Cobb Backer: 18:43

I have this, this, this note section, on my phone here where over the years, I've put in my why, so so I don't forget one where I come from, plus I I jot down a lot of things, um, you know that might be on my mind that I could use later or not to forget. And and uh, you know it's good to journal too. It's kind of like my journal and there's a lot of good stuff in there. So that way, maybe someday, if I'm not here, my journal and there's a lot of good stuff in there. So that way, maybe someday, if I'm not here right, vic or Jana somebody can pop open any of my devices. That's why I choose to use Apple devices, because anything I do on my phone shows up on my MacBook, shows up on my iPad, and not that Google doesn't do that. I also use a lot of Google stuff as well, but I like using notes. I find that I can do just about anything in notes, as I can in a Google Doc, and then I transfer it over to a Google Doc and that's where I've started to create these clarity notes from Ty to.

Ty Cobb Backer: 19:42

I'm starting with some key players and then I'm kind of working our way down, and we just revamped our work chart, our organizational chart, and if you're listening to this and you don't have an organizational chart in your company and I think there's a misinterpretation of why you should have an organizational chart it's not always for who you're supposed to report to, but it's also very important to differentiate different silos or different departments. I hate both of those words because it creates separation and creates division. Right, and division is another horrible D word that I don't like to use, but sometimes I have to use it. In this context, right now, I'm going to use the word, you know, departments, right, it helps kind of clean up and it gives me a thousand foot view. So I don't forget people that are in certain departments, because I think we have close to a hundred people that work for us today. So we need, at different locations, from production to administrative, to accounts payable, to receivables, to salespeople, sales managers, sales trainers all of these people and subcontractors right, we do have a lot of our own in-house crews window crews, gutter crews and things like that. But we do have subcontractors too, that I don't want to forget about them too, and with them on the forefront of my mind with the organizational chart right, then I can keep them in mind.

Ty Cobb Backer: 21:04

For, you know, spring fling parties and events and stuff which I know that we're due for something. I don't know if we're going to start working on the food drive or if we're just going to kind of do like some kind of open house networking, spring fling. So if, david Bruner, if you're out there listening to this right now, and if you want to be a part of maybe hosting another, you know networking, you know, but it just kind of keeps everybody engaged and everybody coming back and it just re revigorates and rejuvenates the culture that we, we we've strived so hard to create. And culture goes into a lot. You know the piece of of, of legacy as well, you know, and, and what I mean by that is like we've had a lot of people come into our organization, you know, and, and they become family, they're, they're not employees, they, they're, they're family, they're teammates, they, they're co, co, co-members, co-leaders, and you know most of them stay. You know and, and. Over the years, a couple of them left and and, and those that that stay continue to grow. You know, whether it's personally, professionally, financially, you know they are not the same people as it was when they came here. And if somebody does leave, at least now they have the tools to go.

Ty Cobb Backer: 22:21

And we've talked about this before where it's like, I know, when people come here they're not the same person that they were. I know for a fact that I've changed. I've grown immensely and again, that's what I'm talking about Leading by example and continuously working on myself so we can develop leaders, we can build teams, we can create legacies. Even the people that work here are creating legacies, like Glenn, for instance. You know, glenn. Glenn has created such a legacy for himself, whether he knows it or not.

Ty Cobb Backer: 22:51

And again, I don't have to take the blame, or the blame or the credit for any of that, but I will take the blame, unfortunately, when, when shit does hit the fan and that's the difference between selfish, selfish leadership or servant leadership, right, like we're here to serve, and when we can keep that on the forefront of our mind and don't get it twisted. I am not the most always giving. I am not the most always forgiving. I don't always give grace when grace is, or being empathetic and things like that, and really a lot of it has to do with what's going on with the six inches between my ears. But again, that's where all this personal development comes from. And I can tell you this, the thing I'm not who I want to be, but I'm definitely not who I used to be.

Ty Cobb Backer: 23:36

And on a day-to-day, day-to-day, I review my day every night, whether I want to or not, because it's just become a habit for me to do a reflection upon my day. Where did I do well? Where didn't I do those do so well? And the difference today for me is is I know almost instantaneously when I'm not behaving or acting or performing very well. That is the difference today. So I am more apt and more prone to add an amend, correct my actions immediately, because, let's face it, none of us are put on this earth to feel uncomfortable or feel awkward or feel weird or anything like that, right? So life is too short for us to not be happy.

Ty Cobb Backer: 24:18

Wake up with a purpose and motivation and achieve that goal, whatever that goal is, I think we should all have like this one year, five year, 10 year goal, right. What does it look like? Where does behind the tool belt look like in one year from now? I'm you know, and that's starting to come to fruition right now for Vic and I where does it look like? What does it look like in five years from now? Like these are all things you know, and I'm not saying dwell in the past or or live in the future. You know, have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow and pissing all over today, but that you should have goals and you should have dreams and you should have aspirations, and most of that should affect and impact most people's lives positively.

Ty Cobb Backer: 25:02

And when you can put that into perspective and start working that intentionally into your life, great things can happen. You start, start, people start to gravitate towards you because they want to be a part of that, they want to join a force that is to be reckoned with and they know, when there's that positive force, there's nothing, nothing that you can't do, and I said this to Kim the other day and I might've mentioned this last week, but it's like what I can't do by myself we can't do, and I said this to Kim the other day and I might've mentioned this last week, but it's like, what I can't do by myself, we can do together. Everything is we, even if I'm by myself, because it's not me. It's it, whether it's the man upstairs or, or the force, the universe or whatever the case might be, it's not me.

Ty Cobb Backer: 25:46

I know for a fact I wouldn't be here If it was left to my own devices. I wouldn't be here today. I know that, I know that I'm on borrowed time, I know that I don't want to take that for granted and I'm going to totally take advantage of it and make the biggest impact that I possibly can. And I've been given second chances, so why wouldn't I give second chances? And I'm not saying and see, there's a fine line there too of being taken advantage of too that I've gone from both ends of that spectrum where I've been cold hearted and I've been overly generous and have been taken advantage of. But again, I think a lot of that was self-infl-inflicted stuff, right, and it's so hard to kind of like, find that happy medium where you're given just enough and not not ruining or spoiling people and giving them enough room to grow, because you're not giving them too much.

Ty Cobb Backer: 26:42

And, and I I practice this a lot with with my children. You know, rocket, we had a family meeting the other day and it's kind of like rock, I don't mind doing these things, but you're going to have to do X, y and Z around the house, right, and? And you know, because I don't want to raise weak children Right, so he's out, you know, cleaning the shed, he's building things, and I'm asking him because now you know he he can build stuff. Now he's 16 years old and he's getting ready to get his driver's license. He's getting ready to get a car. There's going to have to be fuel put in that car, there's going to have to be insurances paid and things like that. And over the summer he's going to come work for us here at TC Backer Construction. But most urgently, he's got to do things around the house. If he wants a skateboard and he wants these things and all these pretty, pretty little things.

Ty Cobb Backer: 27:28

You know that sometimes we can't always afford, you know, which is also a good thing. Like we, we can't afford that right now. Right, you know patience, he's going to have to learn patience. He's going to have to learn tolerance, right, and and, and I think you know he I know he's such a great kid, mckenzie, you know and and Jacob, jacob is has turned out to just be an outstanding citizen of society. I mean, I think Jana and I have done a great year, great, great job with our kids and any other parent.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:01

You know, it takes a village right, it really does. When it comes to raising children, it takes a village. But I guess, getting back to what I was alluding to earlier, it's like what I can't do by myself, we can do together, and that is so important to not ruin it, because I am the only person that can ruin this right now. At any given day, I can show my ass and go out there and just remove responsibilities and criticize people who I've empowered, who I've encouraged to grow and and allowed them to make mistakes over time. All it would take is one day for me to go out there and show my ass and and and don't get it twisted I have done that. But over the years I have built what I like to call the trust bank, every now and then that I have to take a withdrawal, but I think I think for the most part that I've. I've, you know, made enough deposits where, if I do show my ass where things don't go to. You know.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:55

Go to plan as as as accorded or however that that saying is, you know, because sometimes it does things don't happen in our time, like, for instance, this has been a long winter for us. We haven't experienced a winter like this and our projections were were BHAGs. They were big, hairy, audacious goals, but I honestly feel like we can still achieve them. But we basically lost the entire first quarter of the year and, being from South Central PA, we we do get winters. We usually get like a one or two week stretch where it's below 30 degrees and nobody's working. But it seems like for the past three months like it has just been cold, it's been raining, it's been windy 40, 50, 60 mile an hour winds and a lot of people are like, well, that's probably getting you more work, isn't it? And it's like, yeah, but like we can't even get out there to do it. You know the guys are working one or two days a week but we try to keep everybody busy with 40 plus hours and that tends to put a stress financially on the business.

Ty Cobb Backer: 29:55

Yes, we had prudent reserve. We lasted for four to six months prudent reserve. But when you start getting down and the overheads still up, it creates stress right on the company and our revenue goals weren't met. Yet Now we're getting back on track, which we we knew, but unfortunately that variable we couldn't control. All we could control was the variables that we could control and we did.

Ty Cobb Backer: 30:19

We did the best we could. We cut some things back, um, our spending habits and things like that, but we didn't knock on wood, have to lay anybody else, anybody off, cut out anything that really affected anybody. A lot of it had to do with just things that nobody really sees other than, you know, a couple of our people on our leadership team and things like that. And we actually were able to pick up some really great people my daughter, so totally grateful Mackenzie big shout out to Mackenzie, who's become Kim's-hand woman. We picked up Pete big shout out to Pete who is just a came from a $1 billion company. We were blessed to have him in in our regime because he is just so fricking smart, right, and you can't be afraid, can't be afraid to bring smart people in your circle, right, you can't, you can't.

Ty Cobb Backer: 31:11

And this is the thing that I struggled with too, especially when I was younger. I was terrified. I was intimidated by bringing people or hanging out or going places where I knew other people. The people that were there were going to be smarter. I mean, it's kind of like what a fricking, you know, what a lie that I was telling myself. You know, and and if I am the smartest person in the room, and if and if I'm the smartest person in this building, I'm in the wrong building. I'm I'm at the wrong event, right, like I should not be, cause if you know me, you know the only thing that I really have going for me. I mean and don't get me wrong I have common sense and I am street smart and I have all the things that it takes, the grit, the resiliency, you know all the things that that it takes to to be a successful entrepreneur and have great impact on people's lives. But again, going back to you, I'm not a certified public accountant, like Pete is right, he is definitely stronger in that area than I am.

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:15

You know, vic, at this point in time, has has over exceeded not not just my expectations but, like you know, one point in time it was just this was an iPhone eight, and then we brought Vic in and not really necessarily coming from the content creation background, but but very intelligent when it came to audio and video. Maybe maybe more so audio because he is a magnificent musician, but hopefully I've encouraged him enough and I know, I know I have to become one of the greatest content creators that I we know today. You know, and, and, uh, you know he's making it, making a name for himself in in, in this space and, um, you know, slowly, slowly but surely, um, you know there are some things and again, that's getting back to that topic of us switching things up. The more that he learns, the more that I learn that you know there is such things as viewer fatigue, that there are such things as content fatigue and what got us here this five years? Right, it's not going to keep us sustainable or relevant for another five years, zach. It's okay that you're late, buddy, but thank you, thank you for joining us and being a steady Eddiedie every week coming in and coming out. So, anyhow, um, I enjoy you guys if, if you haven't liked, loved, subscribe to our youtube channel. Vick just got us on iheart radio. We had enough downloads for that, but we are still in need of a thousand downloads before YouTube for Buzzsprout to monetize us, so we need 1000 more downloads. So if you haven't downloaded any of these episodes yet, please do that Episoded If you like what you like what you see, like what you hear, want to hear about a specific topic, please, please, hit us up in the comments here.

Ty Cobb Backer: 34:10

Bradley said he's going to be in Baltimore June 17th through the 20th. I'll see if I can make a quick trip up. That would be great. I don't know what days that falls on, but one of those days has to be a Wednesday, I would imagine, and if not, it doesn't really matter, because we're doing more things outside of our Wednesday content creation of Beyond the Tool Belt podcast. So maybe we can meet halfway, or maybe we'll even come down to Baltimore to see you, jay, and create some kick-ass content and see where you're at and how you're impacting people's lives, because I know your head's in the right place, as Vic and I's are, and everybody here, the TC Backer and Lead Scout family is. So anyhow, I'm going to get off here.

Ty Cobb Backer: 34:50

It looks like we're at about 30 couple minutes into this and we've also found that it's it's very difficult for people to listen, you know, for for a complete hour. So we want to make this more viewer friendly, uh, listener friendly, you know. So, anyhow, I'm going to get off here till next week. We got, uh, bradley acres, who will be our guest next week at our regularly timed scheduled behind a tool belt, 12 PM Eastern standard time. Brad will be zooming in and, uh, we're going to probably I know for a fact that we're going to kick out some, some kick-ass content. So, until next week, like love, subscribe and share this with anybody that you think might get something out of this. Love you guys. Thanks for hanging out.