Most entrepreneurs are Type A personalities, they're driven people. And if there's an I experienced this myself after we sold our business, if, when you wake up in the morning, there's not something driving you and not something purposeful in your life. It's really, really unsettling. And we've watched that with our entrepreneurs as well is you've got super thoughtful about what was next and and why is that important in your life? One of the questions we always ask our clients is, what is a what's a sale of your business? Possible? That's not possible today.
Welcome to The Healthy investor podcast with Bob Mastriani, where you and I will learn from successful real estate investors, entrepreneurs and other highly driven individuals about their journey, and the healthy habits and routines that play an integral part of their growth. All right, welcome back to The Healthy investor podcast. I am your host, Bob Mastriani. And today I have with me Chris, younger, Chris is the CEO and founder of class six partners, Chris co founded classics in 2005, with a mission to empower the entrepreneurial spirit, sharing a passion for what entrepreneurs mean to our community. Chris felt that class six could do a better job for business owners by integrating personal and business planning. And by taking a holistic view of the entrepreneurs journey. While Chris, I'd love to dig much deeper into that. So let's talk just a little bit. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me on. Bob. Thanks for doing what you're doing for printers out there.
Excellent. Excellent. So tell me a little bit about your story. I mean, what brought you to class six, I'm sure there were some some things along your path that brought you to this point. So maybe you can kind of back up a little bit and tell me how you got to this place.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. We started the firm. Back in 2005. I started with my partner, David Tolson. And I hit prior to that he had helped found and was initially the deal guy in doing a roll up in the communication space, we built what ultimately became the largest value added reseller of communications equipment to small and medium sized businesses. And I did a bunch of acquisitions, and then ultimately became the CFO and the president of that business. We built it up, we got to maybe a billion 2,000,000,003, and sales, and then we sold it to Avaya, which was our major vendor and tried to retire. That didn't work out too well. I was definitely too young. And I like to joke I was reorganizing Mary Beth's she's my wife with the years her spice drawer. I won't use exactly the language she used. But she said you need to go find a hobby. And I said, fair enough, I want to stay married. And I'd gotten a chance to meet David. And so we started the firm. And we really started it just because we never wanted we love doing deals, which is fun. But more importantly, we loved working entrepreneurs, they are some of the kind of most interesting, talented, smart driven systems, it's fun to hang out with people that I know. And I'm very, very fortunate in that every day I get to work with them. And it's just been a it's a blast, we got an unbelievable team at class six, that makes makes me and David and our leadership team look better than we are and, and we get to work with some of the greatest people on Earth, which is, which is a lot of fun.
So what is your main value add you're adding for entrepreneurs, what is your main business value? And
yeah, when we, if you think about the journey of an entrepreneur, ultimately, for a lot of entrepreneurs, it's going to involve some kind of transition from the business. And oftentimes, that's a sale of the business. And our goal is really how do we make that sale as rewarding, both financially and, you know, kind of spiritually to that entrepreneur as possible. How do we find the right home for their business? How do we get them a fantastic deal? Because it's not only important for them to get rewarded for all the time and money and energy that they've put into their business. But I think as a community, we need them to be successful. Because we want other entrepreneurs or would be entrepreneurs to feel like hey, it's worth taking all that risk and putting all that time and managing all that stress to go build a business. I live in Colorado and we look our client base are the types of businesses that will fit into our client base. They're the ones doing most of the hiring. They're the ones, you know, really responsible for most of the economic growth. And one of the things that we've learned, and one of the stats that we're most proud of is they're also some of the most generous people in our community. We did a, an informal tally. And we've, we have, our client base is given what we estimate to be over $200 million back to the community in some form or fashion. And that's pretty cool. And I don't know that entrepreneurs, frankly, get enough credit for that. And so, again, our mission, right back to empowering the entrepreneurial spirit is, hey, how can we give them the best advice as they are starting down this path. So we typically will start with an entrepreneur, maybe two or three years before they're gonna sell a company, and work with them to really optimize value creation in their business, and then our investment bank will manage that transaction for them. And then we have a family office that manages their money, I'll kind of weave, what we've learned is by incorporating kind of both the personal and the professional planning together, we can deliver a much better result. So it's, like I said, it's a lot of fun, we get to work with awesome people, and we get to work with them and their families long term.
Very cool. You know, before we came on, I was going over some of your information. And I mentioned a business name is class six. And you said something very interesting to me, you said that the business was named after the most difficult rapids, because those are the ones that you need a guide through. And as you're talking about your story, and you're talking about the value add that your business provides for entrepreneurs, it all makes sense to me right now, right? I mean, that is really, you know, from when we talk about the entrepreneurial spirit, I think we often talk about the creative, the making the business happen, the getting it off the ground, the thinking of the ideas, and that's all on the front end. And I think, you know, we don't think about the back end, although the goal is often I want to create this business because I want to eventually sell it or eventually move on to the next thing. But you know, you're you're providing value and helping them on that portion of the business, which I would guess that for many entrepreneurs, that's not necessarily the most exciting part, right? They generally love the creating the business idea that that's where they are, and maybe even and you can go into this if you'd like, but maybe even the excitement of what am I going to build next right now that I'm leaving this? So?
Yeah, it's a really, really important conversation to have with entrepreneurs. Because if what we've learned doing this over 100 times, if the entrepreneur is not running to something, and again, that could be spending time with their family, distressing, you know, getting a more diversified personal balance sheet, maybe their next startup, if they're not running to something, but they're only running from something right that, hey, they just, you know, they just need to get out of this business, because it's killing them. That's generally not a great recipe for them. It's, it's a lot better if they've got most entrepreneurs are Type A personalities, they're driven people. And if there's, and I experienced this myself, after we sold our business, if when you wake up in the morning, there's not something driving you and not something purposeful in your life. It's really, really unsettling. And we've we've watched that with our entrepreneurs well is you've got super thoughtful about what was next and and why is that important in your life? One of the questions we always ask our clients is, what is a what's a sale of your business possible, that's not possible today. And hopefully, that helps them distill. Because of, you know, the transaction is a blunt instrument. I mean, it's, it's stressful, it's time consuming, it's expensive. And if you're not thoughtful about it, you know that you can end up wasting a lot of time and energy without that true Northstar of what you're really trying to accomplish. And, you know, the classics metaphors, we've, we've been down the journey out down those rapids, you know, a couple 100 times and so we know how dangerous they are. And so it's really, hey, when our entrepreneur client gets in the canoe or the you know, the the kayak, hey, can we sit alongside them and guide them so that, you know they can get through them safely and not have a problem?
Got it? I think there's sort of two aspects of that. Right. The first aspect is that, you know, I've heard many entrepreneurs say that, you know, when they, when they're selling an opportunity, they're selling a business, you know, oftentimes they look at that business and it has a valuation. And really, that's just a number on a piece of paper. But when that sale goes through, then all of a sudden, there's a really big dollar value that they now have, and it's like, what am I going to do with this money? Place this money? How am I going to handle this money? It's not always, you know, I remember seeing an interview with Tom Bill, you and when he had sold his, his health bar business, he was like, you know, there was like a, there's like a significant nine figure number in my bank account. And I never really seen that. And then it was like, What am I going to do with it? How am I going to make a difference? You know, and how to keep myself inspired to keep moving right?
Well, the nice thing about entrepreneurs is they're very creative. And, as I mentioned, a lot of our clients are just very charitably driven, and the number of cool ideas that we have seen them finance, and help. It's just, it's awesome to watch. And we've gotten exposed to hundreds and hundreds of charities through our clients that we in turn make donations to, and it's just, I think, at their core, I think most high quality entrepreneurs, I think they understand the role of fortuity in business and the role of luck. And I think most of them count themselves really, really fortunate, hey, I was, at some level, I was there at the right time with the right strategy. And it worked out or I got this big customer at the right time. And I think most of them feel this need to give back and to pay it forward and to or to help other entrepreneurs, maybe that's investing or giving them advice. I know, with our clients, anytime we call them, and ask if they could help one of our other clients. It's a absolutely let me know where and when I'm happy to help. And it's really, it's inspiring, and humbling, and, you know, fun all at once to watch them. Really find their groove and, and, and be back into that giving role because I do think, look successful entrepreneurs, it's all about, how am I serving or producing something that's a value to somebody else, you know, and in their first life, they got paid for it, and their second life, maybe they're paying to do that. But all that's still around service to others.
I love that even from the beginning, you started to speak about the generosity of the entrepreneurs in your local region, and, you know, doing what I'm doing here, between the podcast and, you know, I'm involved in real estate investment communities, and I meet many people who have had a solid amount of success entrepreneurially and the give back portion of it is never left out. It's something that it's a conversation that comes up every time. Where do I give back? How can I give back? How can I help others? And, you know, that's it's been a very interesting thing for me in these conversations. And I think it's interesting, sometimes we see a certain headline that it looks good to say like, you know, mean, old, rich person or something like that. But I found the exact opposite to be to be true. And I've found that exactly what you're saying most people who have, especially those who have created something, in order to see their success, know that somewhere along the line someone gave to them, or many people gave to them, and help them along their journey. And that's just the it's just deep inside them to try and provide value back for others. And sometimes that's from financial investment, or, you know, giving back, have a conversation and you know, mentorship and you know, anything that they can do. So I'm so glad that you sort of went down that road right away there. And so
well, it's when we explained our why to our team. Look, it's not that motivating to just help somebody get rich, right? That's fine. It's fun. You're doing transactions don't get me wrong, or there's a certain amount of adrenaline with that. But that's not why we do it. Right. We're doing it because number one we respect and regard what that entrepreneur has done. And hopefully they can be a role model for other entrepreneurs, but it's also for that very reason is that we found them to be just incredibly generous people. I've got a good friend and He's a little bit older than I am. His name's John Kelly, who is here in Colorado. And he's been just a role model for me in terms of giving back, John has had unbelievable success across a number of different businesses. But there literally isn't a charity that has called him that he said no to, and, and he's on a number of different boards, and, and he's still running a company. So it's, it's people like that when you look at and say, You know that, that. That's truly what it's all about. And, you know, I think when we're all looking at our last minutes on Earth, we probably are not thinking about what's in the bank account, we're probably thinking about, obviously, friends and family, and hey, whose lives do we make an impact on?
Yeah, that's great. So I want to transition over a little bit to, you know, we call this the healthy investor podcast. And I like to talk to entrepreneurs and success minded individuals like yourself, about what their healthy habits and routines are, and how that affects their life. And before we jumped on, I had mentioned that to you, and your face lit up. So we did a deep dive. I don't know the answer. But I'm really excited to hear what that means in your life, because I just knew right away, that you have some sort of habits and routines that play an integral role in your day. So I'd like to learn about
Well, I'm really excited to talk about this. This is actually the first podcast that I've done, where we go into this topic. And I'm really grateful because I think too few right entrepreneurs and folks that are in the work world, pay attention to this because it is, as I tell the folks that work with me, and certainly my kids, look, this is a marathon, it's not a sprint, and in order to to, to kind of maintain your pace, you got to be paying attention to things. I'll give you a good example, when I was running the communications company. I was traveling all the time, we had a couple of young kids at home, I was on the road, you don't eat that, well, certainly wasn't exercising, and my wife kept saying you really ought to go in and get a physical and, and I didn't do it, I was still working, working, working. And finally after we sold the company, I went in for the physical and he kind of had the result you might expect say, Hey, you're you're probably 20 pounds overweight, your cholesterol is high, your blood pressure's high. Here are all your prescriptions. And I this is my first experience with this. I said, So how long are these last a couple of weeks? And he said no, no, these are lifetime. I said that that's not going to happen. So I said, Can you give me six months and completely change the diet? I'm predominantly vegetarian, eat some fish. So completely change the diet. Like You I started doing triathlons probably overdid it a little bit. But, and that was really my kind of the start of my journey. And I think what I learned was the time that I was investing in, just making sure I felt good. The return on that was, you know, much more significant than if I'd spent another couple hours at office. And so today, my wife thinks I'm a little nutty. But, you know, I still eat a really, really healthy clean diet. I've got my aura ring on so I can see how my sleeping is gone. I pay a lot of attention to that. I tried to exercise, you know, seven days a week. You know, whether that's weightlifting or running or cycling, I do a lot of mountain biking here in Colorado. And, and then you try really hard I mean, I do some meditation, I journal quite a bit just to try to get thoughts down on paper. I have found that. And I'm sure there's some great philosophical quote on this. But you know, most of the bad stuff in our life that we've imagined just never happens. And so just being able to articulate some of those things and be thoughtful around it, when I write is really helpful. So yeah, I I'm, there's a couple of great podcasts out there, Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, there's there's some great podcasts just on how do you try to optimize your health and I certainly as I've gotten older, I'm 56 and it's become a lot more important to take good care of the body because, you know, things are getting a little more sore these
days. So what's the only one you have? Right? Yeah,
exactly. Exactly. So you know, I've got a great physical therapist and got I think I got every device known to known to us that you know, whether there's some massage gun or the the leg throws to stimulate your muscle, all that stuff, right to try to alleviate some of the pain. But it's been it's been fun.
Yeah. Well, you know, you triggered a couple a couple of thoughts for me. One is, you know, I, you brought me back to something that I probably don't think I ever mentioned on my podcast before, which is that before I started to become healthy, I had some cholesterol and triglyceride issues. And I was in my mid 30s. And the very first response was to put me on medicine that I reacted to. So the medicine had high portions of Niaspan and niacin in it, no, yeah. And so I would get, I would be in a meeting and I would be bright, red and itchy. And, like, you know, I would start flushing and it was like, Okay, how long do I have to take this similar to what you're saying, right? Okay, is this a temporary thing? Or is this going to be for the rest of my life because I can't do this for and some of the right changes, some of the exercising some healthier habits, you know, removing certain things from my life, right, you know, maybe less beer pizza and weighing a little bit of water throughout the day and sort of things and now I've been, I guess it's probably been about seven or eight years that I've been off of that. And I, I actually sort of forgot about it, and then you brought up the pills and I was like, Oh, yes, that that actually was a portion of the, you know, of the push for PSA. I don't want to do this anymore. That's definitely something I don't want to do for the rest of my life.
Well, unfortunately I think Peter T is referring to medicine to Dotto versus medicine three Dotto and, you know, medicine to Dotto is basically Hey, tell, tell me all your symptoms, and I'll get you on this drug regimen. It's it's almost, you know, a lot of our healthcare system reaction is we're just going to treat the symptoms versus and maybe it's because hey, a lot of people just don't have the desire to make those, you know, more fundamental changes in your life, and maybe the doctors just get, you know, here's your solution. But you know, the side effects as you've experienced, I experienced, it's just, I would much rather, you know, go run and feel that runner's high afterward. And because it is it's just, I wish I could describe to people just how good you feel after you get a good round of exercise. And I'm also
not great, and I'll openly admit this, I'm also not great at being regular about taking medicine. Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. And when it causes a reaction, that doesn't feel so great, then I'm not all that inspired to take it again tomorrow.
For sure, for sure. Now, I've a good friend of mine just started doing I think it was statins and, you know, the muscle aches and other side effects that he's had to deal with. And so again, look, I know, there's a place for all those things, but, you know, to the extent that we can eliminate them through good habits, I think we ought to at least that's my personal life.
And I sort of thought in the beginning that at the very least if I could get to a lower dosage, right, that was still sort of the plan like okay, if I get to a lower dosage, it probably won't bother me as much. And yeah, for sure. And now I'm just in it sort of better position overall.
So you had mentioned that you compete in triathlons. What does that look like for you?
Well, I haven't cuz I did like a lot of things that life right you know, you kind of get you go over get pretty overzealous and so I did I did a bunch of triathlons. Many I've done but did the the Ironman of Florida and then one quarter lane and one in Wisconsin and and then I think I ultimately concluded Those are great the the amount of time I was spending training was pretty excessive and so I scaled it back and today I haven't done any reversing in a while but I still like i said that i mountain bike a lot it's for me it's kind of spiritual to get outside and be nature and I ride up in the mountains here in Colorado and I can ride and not see anybody for two hours which is just I mean that's that's as good as it gets. There's I've always said you know if you if you kind of want to experience the you know the the best of Colorado mountain bike in the fall through the Aspen's there's just literally nothing better. And and so I do a lot of that and still run and still, like I said, probably do more strength training than I did before as I've gotten older, but we're getting ready to install a pool that I can swim against. I said, Oh, yeah, pools. Yeah, it's I think it's called Max And I'm going to put one of those in because, you know, again, as the as the joints start to break down a little bit, that's a little bit easier. So,
yeah, I, I didn't realize that I would enjoy swimming as much as I do when I started I for sure. You know, as a as a kid, I would go to pools and sort of knew how to, quote unquote swim, but I was never on the swim team. I never took the type of lessons where you would swim laps and all of that. And it took me probably I started when I was 40. And so it took me probably a good two years before I really figured out what was comfortable for me as far as breathing is concerned. Yep. And then that's when I was really able to lock in. And you know, what's funny is I, I belong to a triathlon group. And we get together a lot in the summertime. And we were doing a pool swim, I guess about two or three years ago. I'm pretty sure it was during COVID. And some things were turned down. You were there anyway. But one of the trainers noticed that I still hadn't fully figured my breathing out. And he said, Bob, do you stop breathing between steps when you're running? I said, No. And he said, Then why do you think you're supposed to stop when you're swimming and my face is in the water. And he sort of helped me with, you know, inhale, exhale under exhale. And it took me a little bit to get used to I mean, that's not the most natural thing in the world, I would, I would say, but then once I did, I think, now all of a sudden, it went from swimming was the struggle for me. Biking was natural, because everyone knows how to ride a bike from a kid right and running. And those two were sort of the two that I could lock in the mental portion of it to have like, I can enjoy this. Whereas Swimming was a little bit more stressful. And I feel like once I learned how to regulate my breathing properly, then I could really lock into that enjoyment of it versus just trying to live through.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, my, my wife joined me on the last two Ironman races, and she didn't know how to swim until she was 40. And just and she learned that doing triathlon which as you will know those those mass starts are quite challenging and yes, a little scary, but I do I agree with you, I think the feeling you get after swimming. It's just you know, a little bit of euphoria. It feels really, really good. And but it does. I think swimming is one of those the you have to try it less. You know, it's almost the you want to relax your way into the right stroke and right body position and all that.
Yeah, well, you mentioned that the way triathlon start with the way those swim start anyone who ever tells you that triathlon is not a contact sport. Oh, yeah. has never been in a triathlon.
I got a funny story with so I've done these three Ironman races, you know, I thought I was really good and, and there was a sprint triathlon up in Boulder, Colorado. And so on all the Ironman races I started at the far right, I would basically just, I had to steer clear of most of the people and I knew I wasn't going to be, but this one for some reason I thought, I'm just gonna get I'm going to try to get out in front. And I was in front for probably 25 yards. And then just to get the snot kicked out of me by all of these huge swimmers, just right over top of me like that's a horrible idea.
Yeah, I do mostly sprint and Olympic right now. haven't worked my way up to the to the Iron Man. Although it's fun. The table as consideration at least maybe it's 70.3. Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's a it's a lot of training. That's the downside. It's just a lot of time. You know, you spend I mean, this is our kids were younger. We used to hire a babysitter. So Meredith and I could go do a seven hour ride. You know, we'd start at 4am on a Saturday. Have a babysitter come over it was it's kind of crazy when you think back.
Yeah. And that's that's actually the portion that has been the biggest reason I've been tentative. You know, I have a daughter who's 12 years old. I have a family we oh, yeah, we do a lot of things together that we really enjoy. And, you know, I just did a half marathon a few weeks back I'm not worried about the half marathon on the end of it. I know I could, you know, I know I can do the the 1.2 mile swim in the beginning you know, I've done mile distance swimming, but I have not prepared or even tried to attempt the 50 plus mile bike ride. And every every one of those, you know, plan your first even you know half Ironman schedules that I look at it Like, okay, five hours on the bike today or four hours on the bike today, I've two choices, I either wake up at four or five o'clock in the morning and go get on the trainer for four hours or just spend a lot of time away from my family. And I'm not sure that I'm ready to commit to that just yet.
I don't think either one of those is worth the trade. So yeah.
For sure. Well, that's great. And, you know, you had mentioned that meditation is part of your schedule. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yes, it's usually in the mornings, right? When I wake up, you know, 10 or 15 minutes. And I have found that at least for me, it just helps kind of get me centered and kind of a great start to the day. And it's, I would tell you, I don't think I'm a very good meditator. I, my brain tends to be pretty active. And so, you know, that whole focus on the breath. I'm kind of constantly trying to refocus. recenter, because we focus but yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. Is that I think I'm definitely bottom quartile in terms of effectiveness of meditation. But but it has been, it's been helpful for me. Yes, it helps to manage stress and focus. Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah. And I've noticed that it's, it's a positive thing for me, I actually was just just this week in a conversation with a couple co workers who are bigger into meditation than I had realized. And sort of what brought the conversation up as that one, we were together for a work event. And one of my co workers said, Oh, I was at a meditation event for two days before I came here. And that sort of triggered the conversation. And I learned a little bit more about meditation just from having those conversations, I learned that some people actually involve physical movement in their meditations, sort of, I guess, on a Tai Chi type level. And meditation has mostly been silence, focus, breathing focus. So I'm interested in learning a little bit more about that.
Yeah, I've never tried it, I would be I'm curious.
I've always either sat up or sat in a, you know, half laying half sitting up position or sat on the floor or sat on a chair. It's always bad. Never Sure. I never even tried standing to meditate. I didn't even consider that. So.
Good. Good. Well, I'll be curious to see what you learn.
More Great, great. Yeah, this is, this is really cool. I want to transition over, be mindful of your time of you know, we're starting to move along a little bit here, want to transition over to the final segment, where I asked the same three questions of every guest. And so for you, Chris, what is your definition of success?
I was listening to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. And Warren Buffett, I think somebody asked him the question, and he said, Hey, how do you write your eulogy? And live according to that? And, you know, as you think about the activities that you're undertaking, how are they consistent with what you want people to say about you, and, you know, I would love hay, at the end of at the end of my life, to be able to look back and say, you know, you helped a lot of people and you made a difference in people's lives. And I do think that's changed from when I was younger, I think I was a lot more competitive as a as a young, certainly, starting my career, I thought a lot more about money than then probably was healthy, thought a lot more about career advancement that probably was healthy. And so I think one of the things that I've learned in terms of building our business, and you know, 35, or 40 people that we have working with us is just how gratifying it is to watch others develop and hopefully have a small impact in terms of what they can do for their families. And, and, and in turn, Hey, what are we doing for those foreigners? And what are they doing for their families and their communities? It's been, I think, I've gotten a lot more pleasure out of watching other people succeed based on help, you know, hopefully, that I've been able to give them than certainly any success that I've had personally, which is, I hope that I can look back on life and say I was I was really successful at it helping others.
And so powerful, very powerful. I love that answer. Question number two, for someone who is newer to investing or even learning to focus on their goals and their path to success? Could you give a good book recommendation?
So I'm going to draw again on somebody from Berkshire, it's not Warren Buffett, but Charlie Munger, who's his business partner, if you haven't gone on to YouTube and watch some Charlie Munger videos, you owe it to yourself to do that, but he there was a book that he didn't write it, but it was a collection of his talks and some of his philosophies. It's called poor Charlie's almanac. I don't know that it's still in print. I think it get it on Amazon, but it might be out of print. So it might be a little expensive. But I give that I've given that book to all three of my kids. It mostly just because there are unbelievable life lessons in there he is such as smart, wise person, I think is most 100 Now, and still sharp as a tack. And I've just I've, I've read that book probably three or four times, I've never read it, I learn something new, or get some other nugget of advice. So it's, yes, it's about investing. But it's much more about life, which is pretty cool.
I really appreciate that one. I have not heard of that. And now I'm excited to check it out. I'm going to add it to my list right away.
It's really good. You'll enjoy it. When you're, I gave it to all my kids, I think when they turned 16 or 18 and said, Hey, this is this is good life advice.
You know, I asked that question semi selfishly, because sometimes I get great book recommendations. But I also love to be able to pass those on. And I don't always remember them. So I feel like this is a great way for me to learn things and pass it on to other people at the same time. So that was a really good value. Awesome.
Awesome. Awesome.
So before we move on to the final question, I want to again, thank you for coming on, this has really been fun. I appreciate your value and your input and everything you're doing for entrepreneurs, how can we support you? And how can people reach out to you?
Oh, certainly reach out to us. I'm on LinkedIn. And and you can certainly email me if that makes sense. Chris at class six partners.com. And, you know, always happy to be helpful if we can and and really enjoyed the time with you, Bob.
All right, great. So final question. If you can think back with me to a young Chris around ages, you know, 10 to 12 years old, knowing what you've learned so far in your journey? What are three pieces of advice that you would give to young Chris or to any preteen child to help guide them towards success?
That's a good question. I probably the first one is, you don't really need to be that serious. I think I was a, I guess a pretty competitive kid and certainly competitive at the early start of my career. And I think I think it's probably healthy advice just to be a little bit more relaxed. Obviously. It's I think it served me well at that time. But I also would look back and say, you know, you probably took some years off my life by being that competitive and that serious. I also the other piece that I would in my family, we we would always have debates at dinner, right there was whether it's political or something else. There's lots of debates. And I think one of the things that I've learned, certainly being married is that there's significant price to being right. Sometimes it's not worth it. And I think I think oftentimes we get caught up and trying to win our point or be right, certainly at the expense of other things, which are probably more important, you know, whether that's marital harmony, or you know, just to having great relationships with people. So that was a significant one. And that last one will be very unique to me, which is, you know, when your buddy says, Let's go buy some eggs and throw them at the cars. Race and passed on bright Road, which is where I grew up and Findlay, Ohio. Don't go to judgment. Yeah,
yeah. Well, I think there's a good lesson in there about who you surround yourself with right choosing to spend your time where,
yeah,
I like that. I don't think there's I don't think there's anyone so far who has taken it that literal to say I want to tell myself specifically not to do this one thing. So
yeah, that was not something to be proud of.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, Chris, thanks so much for coming on. For everyone who's listening. Make sure you check them out. Chris Young from class six partners, the sixth is V i and make sure you check them out. If you've gotten value out of this, make sure to give us a positive review and the like and go out there and make it a great day. Thanks so much for joining me on the healthy investor podcast. Check out the show notes for more information about connecting with our guests. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please head on over to iTunes and leave a positive rating and review. It would mean the world to me. I'm grateful for your support. And I wish you an abundance of success on your journey to help the investments and a healthy life.
