Summary

Dan Cosgrove, founder of Wellness for the Workforce, discusses his journey in creating a wellness program for small businesses. He explains how he discovered a way to increase employee benefits while increasing profits for his own company, and how he has since helped other businesses do the same. Dan addresses the controversy surrounding wellness programs and the legality of implementing them. He also explains the benefits of wellness programs, such as telehealth services and mental health support, and how they can attract and retain top talent. Dan emphasizes the importance of understanding the US tax code and the government's interest in reducing healthcare costs through preventative care.

Takeaways

Wellness programs can increase employee benefits while increasing profits for small businesses.

Understanding the US tax code is crucial in implementing wellness programs.

Wellness programs offer benefits such as telehealth services and mental health support that can attract and retain top talent.

The government is interested in reducing healthcare costs through preventative care.

Sound Bites

"Wellness programs have taken off like a rocket ship."

"Wellness programs are innovative medical programs to reduce healthcare costs."

"Telehealth services and mental health support are key benefits of wellness programs."

Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/findanewjob/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@financialfreedomforyou

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dancosgrove23/

X: https://twitter.com/dancos23  dancos23

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dan.cosgrove23 

Medium: https://medium.com/@financialfeedom 

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/AdventuresOnTheCanDo

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.manning.com/books/think-like-a-startup-founder

Jothy’s website: https://jothyrosenberg.com

The Who Says I Can’t Foundation: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk on disabilities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

02:11 Discovering Wellness for the Workforce

03:39 Controversy and Legality of Wellness Programs

06:20 Benefits of Wellness Programs

08:21 Attracting and Retaining Talent

14:22 Implementing Wellness Programs for Startups

35:13 Grit and Determination as an Entrepreneur

Dan.

Well, hello there. Hi.

Hi, Dan. No, starting again. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Starting again. Hi, Dan. How you doing?

I'm good Jothy, how are ya?

I'm good too. Hey, I like to start these off by just setting context. Where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. And I still consider it home, but I live out in Boston, Massachusetts for the last decade now. And I'm a runner. And so I can tell I still have the Midwest in me, because when I go on runs, I still wave and smile at people, which is commonplace up here in Boston. So I still have the Midwestern in me. But.

You

I will say I support Boston sports teams so long as they're not playing the Bengals or the Reds.

Okay, okay. My wife is from Dayton, so she's kind of with you on that.

45 minutes away. That's right. Yeah.

Which part of Boston, because I'm in Boston right now.

Yep. So I'm in Somerville, Union Square in particular.

right. And I'm in Wayland and it's not possible to get from Wayland to Somerville. It's just not even possible. The roads just don't work.

You know, it's true. I mean, it's what, you know, 20 miles away, but that's like two hours in Boston traffic time. I think, I mean, going down to the Cape is disaster. It's like three hours to go 70 miles. So it's just Boston.

Yeah, it's Boston. OK, we're going to dig in now. So you have this concept called Wellness for the Workforce. And I'd just love you to tell your story of how you came up with this. And what's the problem? And how are you going about it? Just sort of let's get that started.

Yeah, yeah. So how did I really come about this? A bit of a background. I'm a business owner. I own a mental health company out here. And one of the things I was looking into as a small business is you're always looking for ways to increase your profitability. And, you know, I looked into the Paycheck Protection Program and the employee retention credits, which are really common during COVID. And both those programs were pretty much being sunset.

So I had to figure out another way, recognizing that the most important thing to me as a business owner is my people. And how do you keep good people? Well, you make sure they're appreciated. And appreciation is all across the board from recognition to better benefits, to better pay, et cetera. And so I was just going down this rabbit hole more or less trying to figure out ways that I could attract new talent.

retain existing talent and increase my profitability. And what I found was hidden within, you know, the great US tax code under the Affordable Care Act and amendments created thereafter, there was a way for me to essentially increase my employee benefits while increasing my profits. And so I rolled it out with my own employees with wide adoption and acceptance. And then it's like, wow, why aren't more companies doing this? And from there, it's just taken off like a rocket ship.

Okay, so, but I get the sense from some of the other things that I read from you that this is controversial and so people sometimes say to you, is this legal?

Yeah.

Yep, 100%, yep. And that's where I get to be kind of that consultant or financial strategist is helping people kind of understand why what they might be seeing on Google may not be reflective of what is actually accurate. So to be true, if we look like if we typed into Google right now, IRS and wellness programs, you would still find things dated back to 2023.

and they don't understand that the IRS actually can't make a law. All they can do, similar to you and I, is we can express our like or dislike of something and create an opinion of it. But it's ultimately going to be voted on by the House and Senate. And I mean, the House and Senate and Republicans and Democrats, they all get along so well. So we know they're going to agree on something like this unanimously, which is hopefully people could sense some sarcasm.

That outlines that wellness programs have been fully blessed on both the fixed indemnity front and the sim.

I'm not sure I, and therefore maybe the listeners, know what a wellness program is.

Yeah. So more than likely, if a listener has been working at a bigger employer, they have had a wellness program offered to them, they just may not be utilizing it. So 80 % of employers actually offer a wellness program. But the sad fact is, and this is why HR people I feel for them why they get so frustrated, is you really only have about a 30 % utilization rate.

So a lot of people might actually have a wellness program available for them at their employer and they're not utilizing it because it's just kind of like it seamlessly augments on top of your health insurance. So some companies work with Rally or Personify or Virgin Pulse. Like those are some standard wellness programs that are layered on top of your existing health insurance that you might have as an employee. Other companies just call it like Blue Cross and Blue Shield wellness programs. And so a lot of people may not know they have it.

And part two, they're not utilizing it. And why are they not utilizing it? Well, what's the real motivation for them? It's not like they're getting any major advantages, at least from a financial standpoint for them. And unfortunately or fortunately, a lot of motivation for people is money. And that's kind of the main difference in these utilization rates is we have about a 93 % utilization, because guess what? The employees get to benefit from it too.

They're saving in the range of let's just say $1 ,500 to $3 ,000 a year. And they're only getting that incremental money by actually participating. Versus all these other wellness programs, you're not getting any incremental money, you're just getting access to various wellness benefits. And that is why I'd say it's a differentiator and why people might actually be more interested in this than what they might be having today already available to them.

I'm still, that's great. But like, okay, I'm an employee at your mental health company and I've got this benefit and I've signed up for it. Now, what do I get? What do I get?

Yeah, so wow, a full suite of things. But let's just start with telehealth. You know, if there's one thing that came good out of COVID, it was the fact that more people became more comfortable with being treated virtually by their doctor or nurse practitioner or whomever it might be. Now, this isn't saying like, hey, if I break my arm or if my wife is pregnant again, yeah, I'm not going to get that treated via telehealth. I'm still going to physically go into a doctor's office, but

If I need to just have my prescription filled, I'm probably just gonna utilize the virtual doctor, the doctor in a pocket, as I like to say. Or if I wanna do a weight loss program, or if I wanna quit smoking. There's all these just nice convenient plans that I can take advantage of from the convenience of my own home. I'll tell a little story there. So my wife and I were traveling back to Cincinnati for Easter to see...

my parents and of course my toddler decides he wants to wake up and be sick the day before Easter. And first off, we're out of state. Second off, it's the day before Easter. So no doctor is gonna be available. And yet from the convenience of my own phone, I just got on the app and was talking to a doctor in 15 minutes and we were able to address everything from the comfort of my parents home. That's the type of convenience that people wanna be able to take advantage of from that health standpoint. And then like the mental health perspective is,

Hey, you're having a bad day, you wanna vent? Call somebody up. They have mental health therapists on demand here. Now, if you're having a lot more anxiety, depression, stressful situations, then I strongly recommend you seek out a full -time therapist, because this is more of just like an ad hoc on -demand type feature, versus you really, if you wanna address your mental health, you still wanna find a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist that you can know and trust and routinely see. But those are some of the elements you're getting.

When you vent, is it to a human or is it an AI?

No, it's a human, it's a human, yeah. You get connected, and actually, well, you can determine how you want to vent. If you just want to vent via text message, sure, vent via email, fine. Or you want to vent virtually and be connected on the phone with somebody and you're venting to them, you can do that too. So there's various forms of venting, allowing for people to customize how they want to vent.

Yeah, so this sounds great, but as you said, there's a very low utilization. So other than what you already said, which is people just haven't maybe dug in and paid attention to it, but are there other reasons? Are there any drawbacks to a

to a program like this.

honestly...

I think the only real drawback, if I really think about it, because the way the employee is seeing incremental money is they're paying less in taxes. They're taking a pre -tax deduction, similar to if they put money into a traditional 401k, they're paying less taxes because it comes out before. And so in a similar way, if you are paying less in taxes, and that means you're paying less in federal, state, local, social security, Medicare, all those types of things.

And for some people, they might be banking on Social Security for them when they hit 59 and a half or whenever they actually might want to retire. Truthfully speaking, for anybody under, let's just say, under the age of 50, I wouldn't be banking on Social Security. And for a lot of these people, I just educate them. I was like, okay, let's play this theory out because I work with a lot of, let's say, employees that are in the 35 to 40 range.

Let's just say they're working for another 30 years. The pre -tax deduction that they're taking is gonna net them, let's just say, $2 ,000 more a year. In parallel, by taking this pre -tax deduction, let's just say they're getting this pre -tax deduction for the next 30 years. That means when it comes time for them to draw down on their Social Security, that they're gonna get about $3 ,800 a year less from their Social Security because they're paying less in taxes.

And so then I just say, okay, but that's in 30 years, but you're getting $2 ,000 today. Historically speaking, the dollar doubles every 30 years. So if you wanted to do a true apples to apples comparison, would you rather have $4 ,000 in 30 years time or 3 ,800 coming from Social Security? So even that number is higher than the Social Security number. The other thing is, you know, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. You just take that $2 ,000.

you put that into a Roth account, an IE Well, a 529 for your kid, any investment vehicle and just let that conservatively compound at 6 % year over year. That number I ran for the employees I was talking to, gosh, I want to say it was like 21 or $22 ,000 a year, they'd be getting from that compounding amount over 30 years, versus that 3 ,800. So again, for a lot of people, it's just understanding.

that yes, you are getting less in social security, but if you are intelligent with your money, and we help solve for that too, we give people free financial advisor, but if you're intelligent with your money and each year you're just taking that incremental savings and investing it in the right vehicles, it eliminates the one risk that they might have.

Hmm. So a lot of the people that are, that listen or watch this podcast are founders of, of startups. So when is the best time to implement something like this?

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's great question. I've had probably over 200 conversations now with business owners. The best way to look at is how do you qualify? Because not everybody is able to qualify for it. The prerequisites are the following. One, the employer has to offer group health insurance to their employees. So if you're not offering group health insurance yet, I wouldn't suggest then doing this program because you wouldn't qualify. To clarify that though,

I'm working with a company that has, I think, 75 employees right now. Only 30 of them actually are utilizing the health insurance. The other 45 are on their spouse's plan. And they had a misunderstanding of thinking, so only the 30 people can get access to the wellness program. No. So as long as you're offering group health insurance, it does not mean your employees all have to be on it. Every single one of your employees can qualify. So.

In that example there, all 75 employees get to be on the wellness program, even though only 30 are actually utilizing that company's existing health insurance and the other 45 are using a spouse's plan. That's part one. Part two, employees have to be W2 and working 30 hours a week to count as a full -time equivalent for government standards. So as long as those two prerequisites are being met, then people can start. Then the next question is, well, if I'm a person that is offering group health insurance, but I only have 10 employees, I don't have enough time in the world to do this.

One guy I was texting last week, he has an 11 person company. I was like, hey, do you have 60 minutes essentially to be able to save yourself about $6 ,000 a year and pay your employees about $3 ,000 more? He's like, okay. So it's really only 60 minutes for me. I can carve out 60 minutes for $6 ,000. So it's just helping people kind of prioritize and understand the size of the prize and how turnkey it is. Because for them, legally, we're the ones with the professional liability. So we are the ones that have to.

be implementing the program, executing the program, et cetera. The employer just has to legally sponsor it. And so it's a low lift for the HR friends that I have out there. I always encourage people to start it sooner rather than later, because it's a competitive differentiator out there. I will speak to it from owning my mental health company. I've been able to attract and retain top talent, and I'm in an area. We know Boston pretty well. We have some of the best hospital systems in the world.

and I'm getting routine talent from those hospitals because I can offer a pretty comparative salary and benefits package now.

Let me actually amplify that comment because as I've started, well, I've started, I guess, six or seven, I can't remember, of my startups have been here in the Boston area. And so for all of that time, not just the recent ones, the market to get good talent is very competitive. And one of the things that you...

as a 25 person company, A, can't qualify for and can't afford is any kind of a match on a 401k. And so you have to come up with something else. And what I, before I didn't even know about this, but just separate, just on the health insurance, I actually offer, have been offering the last few startups, we don't ask the employee to pay anything.

for health insurance and we offer a good plan that basically is $1 ,000 a month plan. And yes, it sounds like it's kind of a lot of money, but not compared to not being able to attract that talent. And then we offer the family members 50%, we cover 50%.

Yep.

And when we combine that with very good maternity leave, like not quite as good as the Europeans, but we offer a full six months of maternity and paternity leave, we offer unlimited vacation, which is a good employee benefit. And it's also good for the company because you're not building up any liability associated with a crude vacation. When you do those three things,

And you're interviewing employees and one of the things you make sure they find out about on the first round of interviews is here's our benefits package. It raises eyebrows. And I think if you added this, well, I don't know if there's room on their forehead for the eyebrows to go up even any higher.

okay.

Thank you.

So is there any, so you already said that the IRS has said some things and that sounds good. It sounds like you're in the clear. Would you say that means that there's no risk for the employer to implement this?

So you can never say no risk, right? You can say with 99 .9 % certainty. And why I feel really comfortable about that is like the group I work with, we offer indemnification to the employer and we provide the orissa attorneys in the event of anything popping up, because guess what? We are in a litigious society. So you can never say never, but we can say, hey, we've got you covered employer. And that's why we give them the indemnification and the lawyers in the event of something popping up. So.

Yeah, I can't say 100 % right because nothing's ever 100 % just like it's not 100 % that Celtics are going to win the NBA championship. They're just having to be up 3 -0 right now. So, you know, I have some pretty good certainty, but I don't want to jinx it.

You made me very nervous by saying that, because I really like the idea of them sweeping one more series.

Hahaha!

That'd be cool. That'd be very cool, right? At their own, what a 10 game winning streak right now in the playoffs. But yeah.

They swept two series, so that's eight games. And then they won, they did, they won the last, so they won, wait a minute, if they won, they swept two.

Well, no, they lost game two against the Cavs. So they won three in a row with the Cavs, four with the Pacers, three in a row now against the Mavs.

you're right. It wasn't a sweep. I keep thinking of it as a sweep, but it was an almost sweep.

Yeah, exactly. Same with the heat. Almost sweet. So they won in five in the first two rounds.

Okay, so one of the things I've always noticed as CEO of these startups is that in the case of healthcare, and now it's gonna be with this, is sifting through all the options is kind of a Augean stables type of task. And...

Yep.

And you've done it. And so you're a resource to people. I guess for a small fee, people can get you to give them, tell them what you've learned. And then does that make it really easy? I mean, they can just follow your advice. And that takes less than an hour. I mean, what?

TREX.

Yeah, so there's, there's a number of things there. I liken it a lot to almost real estate, and that you have these real estate agents on the buying and selling side. And they're the experts there, they're going to guide you through the process. And, and in this case, if you're somebody buying a house, you're not in the one paying the fee to the real estate agent, it's the selling person that is paying the fee in

this case, something that's reaching out to me, it's not even them paying me the fee. It's Uncle Sam that's essentially paying me the fee because I actually get paid for via the tax savings, meaning my group is only compensated if I'm delivering significantly more value for the employee and the employer. So at no cost, if anybody's reaching out to me, at no time will somebody be paying out of pocket, meaning having a negative cash flow.

as a result of utilizing my team's service. And that's what makes it such an interesting value proposition because yeah, we are no cost solution and we deliver, you know, $500 to $600 savings per employee for the employer and that $1 ,500 to $3 ,000 for the employee. Again, we're just getting paid for via the tax savings. So it's a third party of Uncle Sam essentially that's subsidizing the consultants like us.

And for the listeners, I'm putting all of the links that Dan provided me in the show notes, so they'll be able to directly find that. Okay, so is there anything else they need to know about putting this in place? They...

Yeah, I would say, you know, when I talk to most companies, I tell them it takes about 45 to 60 days to go live. And, you know, it's through multiple stage gates. The first one is having that initial. For me, I'd say for a business owner, just to make sure that they fully understand it and how it works, I like to spend about 30 minutes.

having that initial conversation with them, which I'll pop up the deck, run them through it, give them the six objective facts so people can objectively look at it versus taking the emotion out of the decision. Because when they objectively look at it and understand it, it's like, this is why the IRS wants something like this in place or the government wants something like this in place. It then makes it more easier for them to understand why this is in fact even available. Because again, it sounds too good to be true if you're able to increase your employee benefits and increase your profits. And I can get to that whole story as why would the government even want that if you want me to?

But so the first part is a 30 minute conversation then the next stage is Maybe a 15 minute zoom call Between whoever runs payroll at the company and my group to be able to do the data extraction necessary to do the verification check to say yep Employee number one qualifies employee number ten doesn't qualify an employee number 20 does qualify etc So we do the verification check and then we come back we give the official proposal the company gives the thumbs up

We sign, of course, our legally binding contract that says, yes, I am sponsoring this program as the employer of record. And then from there, we roll out the program. And that's pretty much automated now because it's an on -demand 15 -minute presentation that employees must watch before they opt in. So that's kind of like the process there of how it works.

I guess your comment a minute ago about why would Uncle Sam want this, warrants asking you to explain that.

I set myself up for that one, didn't I? Yeah, so there's a few facts that I always try and run through with people is one, they think the IRS is out to get them as a small business owner, which couldn't be further from the truth. It's just we don't understand how to read the US tax code. In fact, if I have, yeah, I do, I love keeping this book by me. Tax Free World Strategy by Tom Willwright for any person that likes reading tax books.

But so he's the CPA of Rich Dad Poor Dad, if anybody's ever read that book. And in something that stuck out to me when I read Will Wright's book, he's just like, a lot of Americans think the IRS is out to get them, and they don't understand that 95 % of the tax code is written in our favor. It's just the 5 % that's reflected on that day in April that we're all fearful of. And so that's where I had kind of that hypothesis of like, well, if in fact that is true, then.

what are the things out there? Because the IRS, again, isn't going to be holding up a sign that says free money come and take it companies. You have to figure out how it works. That's kind of like one highlight for me is recognizing IRS is not out to get small businesses. The bigger thing is the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. A lot of people knew about like the marketplace and insurance companies couldn't reject pre -existing conditions and they were going to reduce health insurance costs and everything like that.

and expand Medicaid benefits, et cetera. A lot of people don't know about the fifth thing that the Affordable Care Act was, which was provide innovative medical programs to reduce healthcare costs. And that is what a wellness program is, is an innovative medical program. It's commonly overlooked because nobody ever knows about it. And then the biggest reason, and like I would say this is the number one thing people should take away. You look at our government budget.

Last year, I think we increased our deficit by one and a half to one point six trillion dollars. This year, we're already sitting at about nine hundred billion dollar increase in our deficit. And of course, everybody's clamoring on, well, how do we reduce our debt instead of increasing our debt? OK, well, turn around and look at our chronic care costs in the United States. Over 60 percent of Americans suffer from at least one form of chronic condition.

and chronic conditions cost us about $4 .1 trillion a year. So it could very well bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid if it's costing us $4 .1 trillion and it's only going to increase. And the frustration with chronic care and why people want to try and address this is chronic care can usually be avoided if you just have the right preventative healthcare programs in place. You get it at its roots.

And so although we're not going to be able to help solve for the people currently suffering from chronic conditions, but maybe 20 years down the road, if all of a sudden you have people that you have, instead of 60 % of the population having chronic conditions, you have 20 % of the people having chronic conditions, that's a meaningful adjustment for the US government. Because now instead of $4 .1 trillion going towards chronic conditions, maybe now you only have $2 trillion. And all of a sudden you've got a $2 trillion difference in spending.

which means our government is no longer running at a deficit of one and a half trillion dollars a year, but we actually now have a $500 billion profit, meaning we're slowly chipping away at our debt. That is a big reason why the government wants this in place, is they actually know having a healthier workforce in our country means a healthier economy. That's why they're doing this. It's not just to think we're the greatest people ever. No, it's to help reduce our debt as a country.

So you still own the mental health company, and you've got a bunch of employees there. And this is where you kind of tested out this wellness program. But you also have this consultancy. Is that the correct definition of what this other business is?

Yep. Yep.

Yeah, sure. Consultancy, financial strategist, whatever it might be just to try and help business owners and the C -suite executives that make decisions get the right programs in place for their people.

How many people work on that?

That's a great question. So technically speaking, Wellness for the Workforce is really just an individually owned company, but I have over 200 plus affiliates across the country. So they're all kind of like 1099s working on their own because the way we get connected is, you know, I go to, I say, hey Jothi, do you think there's going to be some business owners that might be open to having a conversation? They might listen to you. They probably aren't going to pick up a random phone call from a 513 number from Cincinnati, Ohio.

They're not going to respond to random email from Dan Cosgrove, but they might respond to something from you. So I've got 200 plus affiliates on that side helping me get connected with businesses. And then on the other side, I've got a partner and a third party administrator and they've got a big staff of people. I've got a wellness vendor and they've got a massive staff of people.

And then I've got the Simmer provider, the fixed indemnity provider, and they have a couple thousand people as well. So I have just, I call it kind of a consortium. It's all third parties I work with and I liken it to kind of a band. I might be playing the drums, somebody else is really good at the flute, another one's good at the trombone, et cetera. We each just play our instrument and that's why it sounds good in unison.

big wellness company, that provider, they must, they have to look at you as a channel. Do they pay you a channel fee when you bring them business?

I'm fearful you cut out there, Jathi.

yeah, a few problems with the internet here. I asked if the wellness provider, which is a big company, they must view you as a channel and therefore do they pay you a fee when you bring them business?

Absolutely. So realistically, my payment is received via the tax savings that comes out of an employee paycheck. That's really where my fee is generated. So everything and the provider also, all third parties I mentioned there are third party administrator, wellness vendor, wellness provider, section 125 provider or a fixed indemnity provider and a similar provider. All of those things, and a project manager, sorry. All those things are paid for via

the tax savings on a bi -weekly basis or a monthly basis, however paychecks are done, that is all paid for via the tax savings coming out of the employee paycheck. So I am just one of those elements that gets paid for out of that paycheck.

Cool.

Do you even have any time to run your mental health company?

yes and no. so luckily is, I've got great partners over there and they're phenomenal. And we don't, we don't have a lot of, you know, strict rules at that company. we really have, we try to recognize that autonomy is key and everybody is an adult. And so I, I hated all the processes in place that I used to have at the big employers. So we have a few rules. It's just like.

use good judgment in all that you do. That's rule number one. Rule number two is if your patients want to be seen in person, you see them in person. That's pretty much it. And so as a result of it, it's kind of crazy when you give people ownership over their calendars and who they're going to see as patients. Things seem to run pretty smoothly. But yeah, I've got a great staff over there. I think the world of them and I'm grateful to have them in my life.

Okay, I'm just going to end with one more question. Okay, so you did all the big company stuff. You worked at Berkshire Hathaway, Nike, and it's good to see that you survived those companies with your sanity intact and you can still smile. That's nice. But...

Please.

Ha ha.

But then you've gone on and you've started a business of your own. That was one of your goals when you left the big company. Great. And then in the process of doing that, you discovered a really significant problem slash opportunity. And all of this, to me, takes a lot of grit to just fight through this and figure it all out. Where does your grit come from?

Gosh, I don't know. I played sports my entire life. I was a soccer player and a basketball player. I feel like sports gives you a lot of motivation and determination and perseverance, whatever the word is. And I'm also, my mom is very German, her name's Ilsa. So my parents definitely raised me to be a very determined individual. Because yeah, but believe me, going through these,

these parts, especially in the startup phase, you're not cash flow positive in those initial years, you have to be able to manage your budget wisely and be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and recognize that the barriers in front of you are just little speed bumps, even though they might look like the Great Wall of China. Fortunately for me now, I do have some successful companies, but yeah, nobody notices all of the ones that I tried 10 years ago and they never came and saw the light of day.

I would say all those previous failures that I've had, I wouldn't even call them failures, I would call them life experiences of trying to launch a business. All those previous experiences have then helped me figure out, okay, that thing didn't work, let's tweak it and do this thing now. And then that thing didn't work, all right, let's tweak these two things now and do this. And so that's where I've continued to done is you just keep building the plane as you fly it and eventually the plane really does turn into a plane and then it's flying and now you get to pick the destination where you want to take it.

So I think it's just been through a lot of experiences that I've been fortunately being able to kind of get to that other end.

That's a good, I think that's a good story. You know, what I tried to do in this book, by the way, as a gift because of, you know, thanking you for being on this podcast, I'll be sending you an autograph copy. It's going to the printer. Well, they told me that two weeks ago. I think it's really true this week. So it'll be in print in July. It was originally supposed to be.

Hahaha!

Love it.

end of June, now it's end of July, but okay. And so it's doing the same thing. It's basically saying, wow, these are all the mistakes I made back 35 years ago. And then the mistakes that, there are an infinite number of mistakes you can make. And so you're making a few and...

Yeah.

And my goal with this is I think people learn really well, better from hearing about someone else's mistakes and with the commentary about what should I have done or what would be a better way to have handled this situation. So it's not a book of bragging. I definitely don't brag. And it's not a dry sort of...

Yeah.

a formulaic type of book. And it's written in the first person primarily, so it's kind of easy to read. But basically, this episode of this podcast, it's like you got to write an appendix to the book because you have all this great information for people.

Obviously it was told in the first person by you. And so that's really wonderful and I appreciate it.

Yeah.

No, I can't wait to read your book. I'm a big reader. You know, when I'm not chasing the toddler around the house. But you know, what's the old wisdom saying? I think a book has at least two years of wisdom in it. So somebody is able to read like 50 books in a year. That means they became 100 years more wise in just one year's time. So my guess is yours has a lot more than just two years of wisdom in the book coming out.

That's...

I hope so, and we'll see. By the way, one of the reasons there's a slowdown is that the publisher, my publisher's name is Manning, but they are closely affiliated with one we've all heard of, Simon and Schuster. And the Manning usually publishes very technical books. And Simon and Schuster looked at the title, looked at the cover and said,

Yeah.

Okay.

This is actually a business book, which you're not used to creating, Manning. And our opinion is that the cover and the name of the title of the book should change to be more of a business book. So I don't even know what the title is going to be right now. And they asked me, was I going to be upset about a big change like that? And I said, OK, look.

I'm responsible for the stuff between the covers, front and back of the book. You're responsible for what it looks like on the outside because you're supposed to sell a lot of them. So I said, you do what you have to do and tell me and ship me a copy of the cover so I can tell people what it looks like.

man, I can't wait to read this book. Honestly, I think it's going to be fantastic. So can't wait to get that free copy. Hopefully it's coming in July. Yeah, let's let's hope that Manning has that ready to go for you. But yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And when you say toddler, is your child two or three or what?

He's 19 months old right now. So he's the first of hopefully three kids for us, but we shall see. Goal number one is to keep the first one alive. We definitely like to plan in this family.

my God, you're a real planner. Yeah, three kids. We have three kids too. The only problem with three kids, I mean, is that as soon as you have that third kid, you're outnumbered.

True, it's definitely true. But I was one of three, my wife was one of three, just makes sense to both of us. So, you know, God willing we can make that happen. But yeah, the first is just keep them alive. And then we'll focus on the second one once we get to that stage.