Dashboard: A Business Owner Exits on His Own Terms

[Music] Welcome to another 21 dashboard. I'm Lauren Felman and I'm here with Jimmy Cow who until very recently was CEO of Triad Components Group which is based in San Diego and manufactures electronic components. Welcome back, Jimmy. >> Hello. How are you? >> I'm doing great. It's great to have you here. Jimmy, you you've been on this podcast before mostly to talk about ESOPS and other succession related topics. So, with that in mind, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that one day very recently, you simply announced that you've retired, but I was surprised. It happened a little quicker than I expected. You're still a young man. Why now? >> Um, well, first of all, it's not that I I retired five months early. It's not as though I I retired years early. The plan was always to retire in December. Um, so that wasn't I shouldn't say that. It wasn't always. It was in the last 18 months that I've decided to retire. So at at one time I thought I to coin a phrase I thought I was going to die with uh with the mouse in my cold dead hands. And I think uh it was Bo Buringham who said you know my exit plan is a gurnie. Um and and as I as I proceeded um to go on, I decided that that wasn't a really good exit plan and it wasn't a really good strategy. And um I had some really capable people in place uh to to really take over. And there there's a really important distinction here as well. U and we'll talk about this I'm sure a little bit later but and I maybe I heard somebody on the podcast say this not too long ago but there's a big difference between ownership and leadership. Um it might have been Jay I don't recall now but um the the point is that I changed the leadership. I'm still the owner of Tri Components Group or the primary owner. There's an ESOP that owns 12% and my brother owns 8% but I I still own 80% of the business. And um the business is very profitable and it still you know provides me dividends to live on forever and ever and ever if I have someone leading the company. It's it's not as though uh and I'm still chairman of the board and I'm still the ESOP trustee and you know so I still have roles in the company and I'm still a mentor to the current president. >> That all makes sense. Um so so what changed for you? Why did you move the timing first to you know, December and then even sooner. >> Um, well, the December seemed to be the the right thing. And and by the way, December wasn't necessarily a magic number. I started this process approximately 5 years ago. Um, I identified who my successor was going to be and then he and I created a plan for him to come in and do various roles within the business for him to be ready to take over um in this role and identified him um and and here's a guy who's only I say only only 32 years old. So he's been here um maybe he's 33 then so um but the point is he's a young guy. >> Got it. And uh and um this is the first and this is the only job he's ever had. I mean only job he's ever had. He was a division one athlete. So he he he uh played soccer year round. He never had an internship, never had a another summer job. He didn't have anything. We hired him right out of school. And uh this is the only job he's ever had is with our company. And so he's been able to uh demonstrate incredible leadership and and a propensity to learn quickly and and think outside of the box. >> That's all really interesting. I want to come back to that and talk a little bit about how you uh picked your successor and how you prepared him. >> I didn't understand the question, did I? >> Okay. So why why that? So I I chose that 5 years ago um with the understanding that it would probably be sometime at the end of 2025. I am a young person. I do have multiple multiple interests outside of work. Um, and I had been, as I've been building my team around me, I've been taking less and less uh, day-to-day activities and mostly working on strategic um, objectives and things and and and offering up my opinion and doing a lot more mentoring and like you mentioned perhaps earlier about processes that you know, how do we process uh, create processes so I don't necessarily have to be that uh, that person and Evan My successor is also really big in processes and um and sometimes uh uh I I wonder if we get too process you know process driven um and instead of people you know because we're also big thing about people it's just not it's people and processes really >> understood. All right. Well, first of all, congratulations. As we both know, not everyone manages to build a business, uh, but certainly even those who do, not everyone manages to leave the business on their own terms. Um, it's a very happy thing, a real accomplishment. Um, which which leads to my next question, which is kind of what did you do, right, that allowed you to get to this point? Looking back, what worked? I I was incredibly lucky uh in a lot of ways. Um luck and and intuition and and certain amount of skill. I I should say it's a blend of all those things. That's really >> always don't you think? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. I think Jim Collins talks about that a lot and and such. So, um one of the things that we had or I had was I chose the right industry to get into. I listened to your podcast uh with Liz this morning and um you know she's talking about the bear the bear uh bins and about how why she loves that because there's a lot less competitors in that marketplace and she feels as though and she's a very small player or and so you can take market share away from the leader and we did the same thing with fuses basically you know there it's dominated by two players uh think if you want you know ever ready and duracell batteries and named the third guy. And so we're that third guy. And but it's a multi-billion dollar industry and we're, you know, I don't know, 15 to20 million, which is nothing. So we can continue to grow forever and ever and ever. Not they won't even know we exist. So you have to pick the right industry in in the first place. Opening another restaurant, even if it's the best restaurant in San Diego where I live, it's it's, you know, it's so hard to differentiate yourself. Um, >> how did you pick the industry, Jimmy? How did you know? >> Um, I came from the industry to be honest with you. I've only had, you know, two professional career jobs and that was one of that was the last one I had was with a fuse company, one of my big competitors. So, I learned the industry by working for the competitor. And um, and I thought I can do a much better job than this big behemoth company could. And um, it it it I many times I almost ran out of runway. Um because it's difficult to move a market leader out of uh out of it. So I like to say I'm a you know after 34 years I'm an overnight success. Um and and that's the truth though. It's you know you and I have had discussions before. It's doing the mundane things over and over and over and over again. It's not, you know, oh, we got a a $10 million customer in the door that helped to to move the needle. That's not it. We're selling 15 million or 17 million, whatever the number is, at 25 cents a fuse. That's the average price of a fuse. It's 25 cents. So, you got to sell a lot of these things to a lot of different people who um and so it's this mundane in a very mundane uh industry. and and it's very old. They've been making glass fuses since, you know, the 1920s that went into Model T's. Um, and so it's been they've been doing the same thing for a long long long time. And there's not a lot of innovation, at least not of yet. There has been, don't get me wrong, but it's it's it's innovating in different ways, but um and I do expect it to be there for a long time. So it's but back to what made us successful is one having a certain amount of philosophies that drove our business and those philosophies came from where I originally met you Lauren through the small giants. Um it just helped me to articulate what those those things were and things like having you know a vision and values um having things like servant leadership and having things like um uh fostering relationships like you know between the three-legged stool again we're talking about vendors employees and customers you know each one of those those are relationships and those are the ones we want to find the right ones we want to keep them and we want to grow them uh throughout throughout the time and and that takes time, you know. So, we're grow and and you've heard me say this before, you know, we're growing apple trees. We're not a carrot farmer. We don't put a seed in the ground and where you get a plant and you can eat it in four weeks. We're putting a seed in the ground that's growing, you know, our salespeople are apple trees. We put a seed in the ground. Uh we hired them right out of college and we don't expect them to be profitable for three to four years. Um that's a long time. um paying out salaries and doing other things like that, not hoping that they will become profitable. So, you're investing in this long-term growing them and nurturing them and to the point where they're producing and producing and producing for years after years after years. It's not sexy. >> It's not sexy. But here's where you and I kind of gently disagree a little bit. You describe that as mundane, doing the same thing over and over. I and I I understand there's an element of that, but I also look at the fact that you figured out what works for you, which is hiring somebody right out of school, training them yourself, and being willing to live with the fact that they're not going to be profitable for a considerable amount of time. Not everybody's willing to do that. Do >> you know why we we we uh I I I did that? >> Why? >> Because I did it the first way and it didn't work. And I hear all, you know, listen to Jackie Russo talk about the best hire she ever had turned out to be the worst day of her life. Uh or whatever. It wasn't the worst day of her life, but you understand what I'm saying. Um >> the hire did not work out. >> The hire did not work out. And we had several of those. And pretty soon it's like one of those things where, you know, okay, why am I why am I doing this over and over and over again? We have to try something new. Uh and and and if that doesn't work, let's you know, we'll continue to try something new until it works. And then once you figure out what works, keep doing it. >> I understand. I get it. Let me ask you this. When did you start thinking seriously about succession and ultimately retiring? Um and how did you plan for that? What went right in terms of that that allowed you to actually pull this off uh the way you have? So it well it probably started 20 years ago. I went to a uh seminar here in San Diego uh at it's called the Bisonser Institute which is a place that has it's it's a it's um a nonprofit that that centers around employee ownership. And so I went to this seminar daily. It's like NCEO um you and I with Corey Rosen. And so I went to this this seminar or I went to this this conference and all these people were talking about either ESOPS or Phantom Stock or other things like this because I had always believed and I wanted the employees to have a stake in the outcome. Um like Jack Sack and and those guys um and so I've always wanted that to to happen. And so when I started digging in and learned more about ESOPS um and since then I've learned a lot more about EOTS too. And I think maybe EOTS might even be better than ESOPS, but I've already gone down the road of ESOPS, so I'm not going to change. Um, but back to so I started thinking about this 20 years ago and I started doing investigations and I started learning about things like the ESOPs and such. And so, so about six years ago, we got to a point where I thought the ESOP could be a good exit strategy for me, especially with all the tax benefits and the valuation and and knowing that I had a potential team uh that could take over for me and they didn't need me to be around any longer. And so that's what kind of got me going. And the more and more stuff I started handing over to uh my team, the less and less stuff I did. And the less and less stuff I did was realizing that these guys are really capable. I maybe I've did a good job of training them or whatever or hiring in the first place and then training them. They're really capable. And it's not one person. Yeah, the president is is is a young kid, but guess what? our operations uh manager who was our marketing manager. She is amazing. She lives in Spain and she used to work for Deote Consultant and guess what? She's 33 years old MBA. Um and uh she's amazing and for as as far as a process person goes and and understanding how marketing works and and such and again she for three years she was a delight consultant and working in that industry and and I've got other people who are um I've got several people on my staff that are CPAs u I have a board member who's a CPA and my my uh um so I understand the all of the the financing stuff. So, I've got great people around the financing side of all this stuff, um, and and accounting side. And so, I've just surrounded myself with these amazing people. Um, one of the lynch pins I have, and I'm not going to mention it too much, but I mean, he came to me with an ankle tag because he was on work release from prison. And and he is now been with my company 25 years. and he is an amazing employee. One of the smartest guys and quick and um he he just gets it and he's absolutely a lynch pin. But here's someone who's just hadn't grown up a little bit now. Now he's he's an amazing guy. >> What did you see that allowed you to go ahead and hire him? >> Um he was well I didn't actually to be honest with you I didn't hire him. um somebody somebody else hired him in our warehouse just working, you know, just as a as a laborer for the most part. And then I just saw him, you know, come to my office and and talk about, hey, if we did this, we could do this, we could save this much or we could and we can improve it in this way. And it's like, well, those are really great ideas. And so when other openings happened in our org chart above that, it was easy for me then to say, hey, do you want to take this on as well? and do you want to do this and do you want to do our purchasing and do you want to do our be lead our customer service department and such and so um but he's an amazing guy who has no college education um and but he has 25 years and understands I know we've taught him accounting because we have open book management we've taught him you know purchasing and and we've taught him our software system and our ERP system and and and how reporting and all that kind of stuff and how to purchase better u and we've given him some tools in order to uh some min maxes and and other things like that that helps him to use our ERP system to to buy better and to maximize uh our our return. So, but but these are just amazing people around me that pretty soon I didn't have to do anything there. I you you find them once again you you find them, you train them, you or grow them and you keep them and you keep them by sharing a lot of the profits. These we pay a little bit better than most people out there in the marketplace. Um actually a lot better than a lot of people in the marketplace and so they want to stay with us and they have a lot of autonomy. So they love that as well. Well, you you make it all sound easy. We both know it's not always easy. Um, but let let me ask you this. You you're clearly very processoriented. I've seen some of the, you know, your writeups and they're really impressive, really detailed. H how did you get good at process? Did you do EOS? Did you bring in consultants? How did you figure that out? >> Uh, first of all, my undergraduate in engineering, so there you go there. But, you know, so was Ty Hadler who who was a member of our our organization for a while. I'm sure if he still is, but he um he he you know, it's about understanding the the numbers and I've always been good at numbers. Um and it starts with maybe the accounting side and and the numbers to start with and then how do you improve those numbers? How do you improve ROI? How do you improve, you know, inventory turnover? How do you improve? How do you get people to stick around? And a lot of that is continuous learning. That's one of the things we preach at our company. So, you and I have talked about this before. One of the things I started about, I guess about eight years ago was book club. And so, book club is this on Friday afternoons, our employees wanted to go home early because, you know, a lot of our customers are on the east coast and we're on the west coast. And so, they were sitting around doing nothing and cleaning up their desk on Friday afternoons. And they said, "Can we just go home?" And I said, and I thought about it. And so I said, "Let's let's see if we can marry something really. Why don't you guys come in a half hour early on Fridays and we will find a book for us to read and we'll read a couple chapters and every week we'll meet a half hour before the office opens up and we'll discuss it. And then if you guys do that, I'll give you a credit for an hour worth of reading and the half hour you came in early and we'll just shut the office down at three o'clock or you know it was 3:30, but now it's three o'clock. You guys can go home on early on a Friday. So yeah, did it cost me a couple of hours worth of employee time that they weren't doing anything anyway? Yes. But guess what? We've read like 35 books over eight years, which are the some of the most classic business books you can you can imagine. Was this everybody or >> everybody? >> Was it voluntary or once the decision was made, did everybody have to do it? >> No. Here's what happens. If you you don't have to do it, but guess who's going to be there at 5:00? >> Understood. >> Or you or or you can go home at 3:00. But you and and I and I moderated the you know so we had there was some people like you know our sales people were traveling they got excused um if you were sick or if you were on vac took a vacation day you you didn't have to do it that week but and and I moderated and everybody participated I called on everybody we so that we were doing zoom meetings way before co because we were doing book club and so um and everyone participates and when you get everyone thinking and and and and working together because you could speak the same language because we have read you know Pat Lencion or Jim Collins or Michael Gerber or a variety of other people. I just can't think of all of them there. Um, but we're all have read these books and you know, how to negotiate, how to sell, how to how to um have better management, how to hire better, how to interview better, and we're all in that same understanding how this all works. And so, we're all rowing together. And it makes for us to and so it's not the boss doesn't come in and say like, "Hey, we're going to do this uh and you guys are going to follow me on this." It's like they've already done it. They already know what the game plan is cuz we have already talked about it for 10 weeks every every Friday morning. >> So, how did you figure out who your successor was going to be? I think you said his name is Evan. How how did he if it was five years ago and he's 32 or whatever now. It's a young guy. How did you pick him out? >> He wasn't the most successful person out in the field. He was he came from sales uh moved to Chicago. Um, one is he has a temperament to to be able to do it. Um, let things roll off his back because there could be some stresses. You know, in any business there's there's stresses that come along. Sure. >> Um, and but if you have the temperament to say step back and say, "All right, how are we going to handle this? How are we going to problem solve? How are we going to make this, you know, tariffs? Oh, in one day tariffs were there." And it's like, "All right, how are we going to deal with this? And how are we going to put our heads together and think about this and and figure out what we need to do?" and he was he was really good at that stuff. Second of all, he was incredibly well read u and I'm not talking about like you know Jim Collins easy to read or Pat Lension books and things like that. I'm talking about Daniel Conaman and um um can't think of guy's name um anyway the Warren Buffetts of the world and things like that. These are are Charlie Mongers of the I mean these are deep books that he has has has spent a lot of time thinking and learning and and and such and talking with him he really kind of understood all that and I think he also is a people person. I had a I have a gal who's probably better processes um in sales and she's she's an amazing salesperson, but she's not a good people person in terms of leadership and understanding how processes work and and and why things happen. She's really good at at at innate things and and pushing herself to to the wall and and the limits and and getting past those things, but she's not necessarily good at motivating other people andor taking the time to explain to other people why this needs to happen. So, she doesn't very good at involving others um in what she needs to do. She's more vertically integrated than horizontally integrated. So you identified him and then obviously you must have had some kind of conversation with him. What was that like? >> So he was out from Chicago. He was like I mentioned he was our Midwest salesperson. So I had him come in. We went out to dinner and I told him what I was thinking and I said, "Is this something that interests you? Would you be interested in doing this?" And I said, "You think about it for a couple days before you go back to Chicago? Let me know." And um he says, "Yeah, I'm very interested in in in talking to you." And so I said, "All right, let's create a game plan." So we said, "All right, in, you know, a few months time, we I want you to come in and I want you to take on a role, which happened to be quality control, so you can learn about our our inventory, learn about our vendors and and and be able to communicate with some of our vendors." And um and from there, he then went, we knew our warehouse manager and logistics manager was going to retire. he was already 65 or 66. So he took over our warehouse operations, had a then um was working with about four people, five people out there in our warehouse in production. Um and then from there he we knew that our operations manager was going to retire because she was 67. And so he then did that for a year and a half. Um and got him learning that. the meantime, he was in my office a lot learning about other things that he didn't know much about. Uh he had to learn our ERP system inside and out. He had to learn a little bit more about marketing and he his one of his deficiencies was accounting and he really needed to learn and get real a lot more well-versed in our accounting side as well because you know numbers rule everything as Jack Stack will tell you um and and SRC. So we do that open book management but you know you really got to dive into those numbers and and find out why those things are happening not just what they are because reporting is history. You now you have to be predictive and you know what what's going to happen in the future not necessarily what happened in the past. And so he's been really really good at take and so he's been taking over more and more and more of that those of my roles as I've been handing them over. Um and so got to a point where I was only doing one or two things. Um, and I decided that it makes no sense for me to stick around and go in the office three or four or five times a week. And plus, I really like playing golf. So, I start I started playing more and more golf. Uh, first once a week and then twice a week. And so, and so, um, he started doing more and more stuff. And then I >> At what point did you make it official? When did you say to him, "You're the guy." So, I went off on a a vacation in June, uh, June 21st, I left for Africa to climb Mount Kilamanjaro. Got back on Fourth of July. While I was gone, everything was just cruising along and and doing well. Uh, I came back in July and decided I really um didn't want to do this anymore. And so, and um and so ultimately I started cleaning out my desk and pulled him aside. he was already in the, you know, as an operations manager and I'd handed over a bunch of stuff in my absence for those two and a half weeks. He um uh he was doing everything there already and uh has and even in the I don't know what has it been six weeks now, seven weeks. Um you know he's done some things that I wouldn't have done but it's not me you know it's him and I have to step. >> Is that hard for you to see that? No, I'm a parent, right? So, I I' I've had kids, you know, and my kids don't do everything I want them to do. Um, >> I can relate to that. >> Yeah. And so, you know, I look at all the employees kind of my kids and and also you don't treat your kids necessarily the same. You have to, you know, separate but equal. No, it's not true. It's there there is no equal. you you they you they earn privileges and they ear you know you draw some boundaries around it and let them play freely within those boundaries. Um that's kind of what we've done with all of our employees. You know let them make I talked about autonomy before. So you know they've always been working very autonomously but within a framework that that we've set up for them. Um, and so what ultimately what the hardest thing I had to do was kind of negotiate a salary structure for him. And that we we spent a good 30 days going back and forth on h how to pay them because here's the here's the thing for me. Um, as the owner of the company, I don't need to I don't need to take that much salary. I just need enough to live on and maybe some going savings and things like that because every dollar that I keep in the company in terms of EBA dog as a valuation of about 6x for my type of a company in valuation. So, if I pay myself an extra thousand, if I don't pay myself an extra th,000, the company's worth because we bring that $1,000 down to the EBIT dollar line and that now means the company's worth $6,000 more because it's really 6x. And so if for me someone who's was looking to sell through an ESOP, I wanted to maximize the EBA through their so I didn't necessarily pay myself everything and suck out every last dollar in salary out of out of the business. >> So you're saying you had to pay him more than you were paying yourself >> ultimately. I Yeah, exactly. But I was trying to be smart enough in the same way I I pay a lot of people. We set up a lot of KPIs and profit sharing and and andor conditions in which they can make a lot more money, commissions and things like that. And so his base salary was maybe just a hair smaller than mine, but with his ability to make a bonus, which I didn't have myself, um he he can actually make about 140 to 150% of what I was making, >> which is fun. Interesting. >> Because if he does those things, that means the company's worth an extra million dollar or $2 million. So what? I gave him an extra 75 or 80 or $90,000. Um, but the company's worth a million dollars. And same thing we do with our sales people. You know, our sales people, including our management and our inside sales people and our our customer service and our outside, they they take about 22% of our gross profit. But guess who gets to keep the 78%. >> Right? >> So you say, "Well, 28% that or 22% that's a lot of money that you're handing over to your sales people. I've got a sales gal who makes a half a million dollars a year." Um, which is great. I love it because that means I'm making about $5 million or excuse me about $2.5 million. >> Got it. >> So I make about Yeah. So you roughly 8020. So, if you go to a cocktail party and somebody asks you now what you do, what do you say? >> I say I'm retired. Um, all right. So, I am going to start some other businesses, but just fun businesses, lifestyle businesses. And in fact, just just two days ago, I was at the lawyer's office and incorporated a new business um called integrated business services. And so it's a catchall for a bunch of little things I'm I'm going to be doing that I think are just going to be a blast to do. >> Can you give us a hint of what that will be? >> Okay. So I like I said, I like to play golf. Well, here in San Diego, we have one of the best golf courses in the United States called Tory Pines, the host of two US Opens. Um, and as a San Diego resident, I can actually get tea times 90 days in advance by paying $32 a person or $32 a person, $128 for a forsome 90 days in advance. So, I can go get a Saturday and Sunday tea time three months from now. And then I could go online and sell that spots I have to play. So, I have three additional spots that I can sell to an out oftowner who want to play Tory Pines for, I don't know, $700, $600. uh have to pay their grains fees, which is about $300 plus the $32 plus probably a cart. So I have about $375 worth of worth of um cost into it. And so I'm going to make about $400 a person times three is $1,200 to play golf on Saturday and Sunday. What do you think? >> Is this about making money or is this about finding a way to spend more time on the golf course? >> I don't know. I make $1,200 a day. playing golf. >> I see the appeal, >> right? Okay. Or maybe not 1,200, maybe it's a thousand. But the point is, and I meet some really cool people. Um, and so my other one is I I travel, my wife and I travel a lot and we go to different cities and we always tend to have us get some sort of exclusive tours with some locals that show us around the city and we pay I don't know higher because we want we're looking for a better experience and we're not just looking for you know the the bus tour and so um so I'm going to do the same thing once a week. I'm going to take a a group of people around in my and and give them a seven-h hour tour and a luxury tour of San Diego. And um and so I'll do that once a week or if I do it 20 times a year, but I I'll probably net about $1,000 for the tour. Uh so that's 20 grand that'll keep me in golf golf balls and, you know, and things and get me out of the house once a week and once twice a month or something. can do that. >> What's What's the highlight on a 7-hour tour of San Diego? >> Um, well, you get to see, you know, the our our like our club district, the gas lamp, the historic gas lamp. You get to go to Coronado, which is the historic hotel here, Coronado Dell. You get to um some really hot some really cool spots like La Hoya and the and what's old. I don't know if you know anything about San Diego, but there's a Bow Park and then it ends up with a iconic restaurant which sits above the uh it's like a rooftop type of uh dining place very famous been around for about 50 years called Mr. A's. And so we'll have drinks at Mr. A's and I'll take pictures of them while the sun's going down and um they'll uh they'll hopefully they'll appreciate it all. >> Amen. >> Yeah. So, I it's it's it's not going to be cheap, but it's it's it's not gonna it's not going to be inexpensive or it's not going to be cheap. So, I'm not cheaping it out on anything. So, you know, I'm going to have take them to a nice lunch in a nice place right on the water. And so, it'll be a a luxury tour. And um and then I also the last thing, well, actually not that I have three or four other things I'm doing. So, um, another thing that I'm going to do is, uh, I still supply raw materials to our factories over in the Far East. You know, I don't know, but the biggest zinc factory in the world is in Tennessee. And so, I buy zinc from Tennessee. And zinc is used in the manufacturing of fuses. So, I then sell these factories zinc that they use in the manufacturing of their products. This they sell back to us. And so, um, one, it helps to keep their costs down low, but two, which is the bigger thing out of them all, is the Zinc company lets me pay with a credit card. So, I get about 2 million points a year by buying zinc and selling it to them and paying for it on a credit card. >> So, this is a separate business from the business you're retiring from. You're saying this is something you've done on the side. >> This is something This is something I've done for a long time. >> I see. So, so there's three or four or five different, you know, and then I also sit on a couple boards that I get paid for and so I'll have some consulting services there. All that kind of stuff. But I have a corporation now that has all the the catchall umbrella. >> It sounds like you're going to keep yourself busy. I think that's the important thing. >> Well, I think that's so so that's one thing you didn't ask me about, Lauren, but I'll I'll and that is if here's the advice to somebody else is you have to have a landing spot, right? I have all kinds of things I want to do and and truth truth is that the work was just getting in the way of me doing things I really want to do. Um it's not like I'm going out and I'm sitting in front I haven't turned the TV on in three or four months. So I have I don't even know why I have a TV. But um so I I'm I'm way too busy to sit around and and goof off and and sit and watch, you know, news every day, be it MSNBC or Fox. It doesn't really matter. But, you know, a lot of these guys sit at home and do nothing but watch the news 24/7. It's like really it's to me it's just frightening. Um and uh so anyway that and I I'm also involved with several charities at least three that I'm involved with and um in fact that's one of the things and we travel my wife and I travel a lot so I' I've been well you know I've tried to get out to see you a couple time by the way we're coming to New York City in uh November. Hope to see you. >> That would be great. Let me know. >> We'll do. >> Listen this it sounds ideal. That's why I wanted to have this conversation. Um, it actually reflects something I think I've understood since I met you at Small Giants. I don't know, more than 10 years ago. You just always seem to have a really positive, healthy, sane approach to running a business. And I think you've carried that through your transition. Um, and that's great and something that I think will inspire other people. I consider myself the luckiest person ever. I really do. I have amazing friends, you included. I mean, it's it's just I I've got some amazing people that I've surrounded my entire life around and I I so lucky to have you guys part of my life. >> Well, we all know it's not all luck, but um but I hear what you're saying and we you know, those of us who do well are, you know, there's always luck involved. For sure. >> Sure. like but but again I it's and I don't think it's right I don't think it's luck it's you've got to put the effort and you got to put the work in um you know it's it's keeping contact you know it's it's calling people on their birthday it's you know making time for them when they call you just don't say hey you're bothering me or not take their call or you know or whatever it is but you know it's it's all about people still around in your life whether it's friends and family and and relationship ships that you have. It's I I'll leave you with the um because giving back the community has been been a it's also a small giants principle too. But um and and I stole this from Isaac Newton and it says the reason why I can see so far into the distance is because I'm standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before me. And and so where I'm where I'm at today, not because of anything I did, was because I'm standing on the shoulders of you and and and the 21 hats community and the and and the small giants community and my you know, I really am because that's that's what's that's that's the best part about life is just getting to know people like that. >> Well, I'm not going to keep arguing with you. Uh, I take your point. But if you look up Jim Calb on LinkedIn, you'll see he's already proudly listed himself as retired, even though he remains chairman of Triad Components Group, uh, which is based in San Diego and manufactures electronic components. Jimmy, thank you so much for taking the time. >> By the way, you want to know what my fantasy is? >> What's that? >> The day I get to delete my LinkedIn account. >> What day will that be? >> Really soon. probably within the next uh 18 months. I've already Yeah, I don't have a Facebook. I don't have Snap. I've never had Instagram or any of those things cuz I don't do social media. >> I don't know if you want pe people are going to be coming to play golf with you, take the tour. I think you should put that on LinkedIn. >> Yeah, it'll be a different profile, I think. >> Okay. >> So, >> okay. >> All right. Thanks, Lauren. Appreciate everything you do. >> Thank you, Jimmy. I really appreciate it. >> All right. Bye. >> Have a good week, everybody.