How this award winning serial entrepreneur is giving back to his community

Episode
Larry Hachey and his wife Donna reside in Quispamsis and have been married for 37 years and are very...
Key takeaways
- Learn the business by working for someone else first before starting your own company, making mistakes on their dime rather than your own.
- Stick it out for the long haul as an entrepreneur because building a successful business typically takes three years or more before seeing profit.
- Connect with other entrepreneurs regularly to share challenges and ideas, because the entrepreneurial journey is lonely and you need people who understand what you're going through.
- Plan your exit strategy from the beginning by considering succession planning with loyal employees instead of selling to outside entities.
- Balance business with community involvement through volunteering, as it creates unexpected benefits including valuable networks, business contacts, and community respect.
Transcript
Full transcript page · Interactive episode
============================================================ TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS ============================================================ [00:00] SPEAKER_00: restaurant operators and retail brand managers. Are you tired of unpredictable utility bills? [00:06] SPEAKER_00: On the GWT2 Energy Podcast, we deliver short, sharp episodes that turn real-world energy wins [00:12] SPEAKER_00: into practical steps you can use today. From smarter HVAC control and lighting controls to [00:18] SPEAKER_00: utility cost optimization and efficiency strategies, we show exactly what works, not theory. [00:24] SPEAKER_00: Save money, reduce waste, and get back to running your business. [00:28] SPEAKER_00: Subscribe to the GWT2 Energy Podcast on your favorite podcast app and stay ahead of rising utility [00:35] SPEAKER_00: costs. Welcome to Canada's Podcast. [00:41] SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada's podcast, the Atlantic Canada version. [00:47] SPEAKER_02: And my name is... yeah, my name is Riff from Scorpion. I am your host and really pleased to [00:53] SPEAKER_02: have with me as my guest Larry Ashi. Larry has been in the leasing business for close to 30 years [01:00] SPEAKER_02: and has done some amazing work during that time period. We're going to talk about this career [01:08] SPEAKER_02: and there's an entrepreneur but also his career in the leasing club. So welcome, [01:13] SPEAKER_01: Larry to Canada's Podcast. Pleasure to be here, Riverson. It's pleasure to be talking to you. [01:18] SPEAKER_02: Thank you. Yeah, right on. So tell me about what got you into the whole leasing spectrum 30 plus [01:26] SPEAKER_02: years ago. What was the button that said I got to get into this? Yeah, no, there was no button that [01:32] SPEAKER_01: said I had to get into this. It was more serendipity than anything else. Basically coming out of [01:38] SPEAKER_01: university, there were three jobs that I applied for that I really, really wanted. [01:44] SPEAKER_01: Yes. The one that I didn't, the two of them that I really, really, really wanted, I didn't get the [01:50] SPEAKER_01: third one I didn't really want, but I got was the leasing was in equipment finance business. [01:55] SPEAKER_01: And just serendipity, it ended up being a lifelong passion for me, but it wasn't the one that I [02:01] SPEAKER_01: wanted from the beginning because I didn't understand what it was. Right, right. So for [02:08] SPEAKER_01: audience, tell us what is it? So equipment finance, so panlies basically what panlies does [02:15] SPEAKER_01: are company is any equipment that a business will use, we will finance it. So giving an example, [02:23] SPEAKER_01: if you're a doctor and a physician and you need very specific types of equipment to [02:27] SPEAKER_01: order to provide a service to your customers or your patients, those pieces of equipment are [02:33] SPEAKER_01: very expensive. And so we often get doctors that apply to us and say can you finance this for me? [02:39] SPEAKER_01: So in effect, what we'll do is we'll rent, we'll buy the equipment, we'll rent it back to the [02:44] SPEAKER_01: doctor and we'll design it so it's very tax-efficient for them. And that goes for any business person [02:50] SPEAKER_01: by the way. And in the end, they'll, so they'll they'll pay us rental payments on an agreed upon [02:55] SPEAKER_01: term and then we will sell it to them for an agreed upon price and it's as simple as that. [03:02] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that price could be a dollar. Sometimes that price could be a hundred dollars, but it [03:07] SPEAKER_01: isn't expensive. And so we do that for landscaping businesses, we do that for service providers like [03:13] SPEAKER_01: plumbers and electricians. They might need anything from the vehicle to to go to the service call, [03:20] SPEAKER_01: to very, very specific types of diagnostic equipment. So those are the things that we finance [03:29] SPEAKER_01: and we do a lot of it. So in Atlantic Canada, for example, our every size transaction is about [03:35] SPEAKER_01: $40,000, but we do anything from $5,000 up to $1,000,000. So yeah, so we have right now in [03:43] SPEAKER_01: Atlantic Canada about 5,000 business customers that we've been able to help acquire equipment. [03:49] SPEAKER_02: That's crazy. So how do you find that? How do you find that? That's not easy. So the good news is, [03:58] SPEAKER_01: as I've been in this for 30 years, so I do have a lot of customers that I knew. But this is, [04:06] SPEAKER_01: I worked for a couple of companies and I built up a certainly a client base with them. [04:14] SPEAKER_01: But at Harcans Back, this whole thing actually, Rivers Harcans Back did piece, the best piece of [04:20] SPEAKER_01: advice I ever received about starting a business. And it was love. If you want to start a business, [04:26] SPEAKER_01: go find a company to go work for. Learn from there, learn on their dime how to make mistakes, [04:33] SPEAKER_01: and then see a need and fill that need. So for me, coming out of university, that was the best [04:40] SPEAKER_01: piece of advice. I always knew I wanted to start a business. I didn't know how to start a business. [04:45] SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what was required to start a business. So I went to work for a couple of companies, [04:50] SPEAKER_01: and those companies taught me those things. The opportunity to start my own company only came about [04:56] SPEAKER_01: where, again, Serendipity played another role. One of the companies I was with sold. And when they sold, [05:04] SPEAKER_01: they, they company that bought them didn't really want any of the assets, including the people. [05:10] SPEAKER_01: And so I was sitting there with a severed package. With a group of other people, I knew that [05:17] SPEAKER_01: were really good at doing what they did. And I knew this, how to get the see, I knew the secret sauce [05:22] SPEAKER_01: to how the business function because I had taken that mantra in my mind. [05:26] SPEAKER_01: Great. Learn about the business. And so I took my severed package, I hired the people that had been [05:33] SPEAKER_01: let go, and I started my own company. And we've been doing it now for 30 years. [05:38] SPEAKER_02: Wow. So that's a long time. How do you retain customers? How do you, how do you retain employees during [05:46] SPEAKER_01: that period of time? Yeah. So when I say 30 years, that's that's continuous service in this business. [05:53] SPEAKER_01: But I've had two or three businesses in that time period. So the answer your question in a [06:00] SPEAKER_01: indirect way, it wasn't easy. The first business I started, we grew to be the second largest in the [06:08] SPEAKER_01: country. And we were working with another company. We had a close working relationship with them. [06:14] SPEAKER_01: They were much larger than us at the time. And they just made me and my partners an offer we couldn't [06:20] SPEAKER_01: refuse. And so every entrepreneur dreams of that day, when you build up a business and someone [06:26] SPEAKER_01: wants to come along and write to you a big check and you go, yes, I, this is the day that I've been waiting [06:31] SPEAKER_01: for. And so, you know, I fell into that as well. And absolutely loved it at the time. In retrospect, [06:40] SPEAKER_01: it probably wasn't the best thing I ever did because they took that business and grew it exponentially [06:44] SPEAKER_01: again. I could have done that as well. So it was just being in love with that sort of entrepreneurial [06:49] SPEAKER_01: dream of that happening. Yeah, but I so I when they bought my company, I stayed on with them for [06:57] SPEAKER_01: a couple of years. It was a development for the larger company, but quickly grew bored because [07:03] SPEAKER_01: I was used to the entrepreneurial roller coaster ride that sort of adrenaline rush you get from [07:08] SPEAKER_01: one day not being able to afford payroll to next day, you're doing great, you know, it just that [07:13] SPEAKER_01: bed fresh. And so I actually did the business for a couple of years. And then in 2010, I started [07:21] SPEAKER_01: this business, which is Hamlet's all the customers I had were with my previous company. So now I had [07:28] SPEAKER_01: no customers and I've been out of the business for a couple of years. So it was very difficult [07:34] SPEAKER_01: because I was competing against the very company that I had built. Now that was difficult to do. [07:42] SPEAKER_01: And how do you do it? Basically, you just get out there and you knock on doors, you hire the [07:49] SPEAKER_01: right people and you've got to be into the long haul. So I just like the very first time when I [07:55] SPEAKER_01: started this is my severance package. This time I had a little more cash because I had sold the [07:59] SPEAKER_01: business a couple of years before. And I was able to use my reserves, but also I knew it would take [08:05] SPEAKER_01: a long time. And and quite honestly, it took about three years before we saw profit. So though that [08:12] SPEAKER_01: and I knew that and I expected that. But so being able to stick with it was a very important part [08:18] SPEAKER_01: of the process. But knowing I had the resources behind me was so important because in starting [08:25] SPEAKER_01: a business, you've got to make sure that you're in for the long haul. The customers want to see [08:29] SPEAKER_01: that you're going to be here and that they want and then when they're ready to buy, you're you're [08:43] SPEAKER_02: in a little bit of the coldness. Talk about that that advantage of being an entrepreneur. [08:49] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so everything you do or I do as an entrepreneur, I think about the long term. [08:56] SPEAKER_01: How what will this look like? What's the bigger picture? So I knew that in the beginning, [09:01] SPEAKER_01: it would be very, very, very difficult. And it was. There's no doubt about it. There were times [09:05] SPEAKER_01: when it was like, oh my gosh, are we going to not that we weren't going to make it? But [09:10] SPEAKER_01: this this is not fun. This was very, very painful. But what kept me going was the long term. I [09:16] SPEAKER_01: knew that I would stick it out. I knew that I had what it took to stick it out. The grit that was [09:21] SPEAKER_01: required to see us through, I was going to do that. And it did. So when it turned the corner, [09:28] SPEAKER_01: I started to think a little bit more broadly like, okay, so how am I going to exit this business? [09:34] SPEAKER_01: The last time I sold it, I won't do that again. I won't sell it. What's going to be different [09:38] SPEAKER_01: about this time? I had several employees who joined me from my previous business. And they were [09:45] SPEAKER_01: long-term loyal employees and one in particular, who I was thinking that would be a good person to [09:52] SPEAKER_01: groom and to have her take over my business. So I spoke with her and she was looking for that [10:01] SPEAKER_01: opportunity. And so we developed a succession plan, a succession plan, excuse me. And so I decided [10:09] SPEAKER_01: that, listen, as part of that succession plan, I've got to get out of her way. So I said, I can work [10:16] SPEAKER_01: anywhere. Our businesses that doesn't require me to be in somebody's space all the time. And my [10:22] SPEAKER_01: employees, which store work that remote work environment several years before the pandemic hit. [10:29] SPEAKER_01: So we knew we could work from anywhere. So I decided, well, why not go down south? [10:34] SPEAKER_01: I'll work from here. That way there, it allows her to run the business. So I'm not in and she feels [10:41] SPEAKER_01: like I'm not in her way. And at the same time, I get to work from a wonderful location. So to me, [10:45] SPEAKER_02: it's a win-win. Yeah, that's beautiful. And congratulations on that journey that you're on. [10:50] SPEAKER_02: And so if you get any tips for our entrepreneurs in general that you can relate to them, [10:59] SPEAKER_02: based on your experience, I know that I have one. [11:04] SPEAKER_01: Sorry, what was that? [11:06] SPEAKER_02: This is sticking out one you've got to stick it out. [11:08] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah. So I would say that if an entrepreneur wants a started business, and I go back to [11:14] SPEAKER_01: the original advice that I had for which is go find a business that you're sort of interested in. [11:23] SPEAKER_01: And work for that business and see what opportunities are in that business first. Learn the secret [11:28] SPEAKER_01: sauce of how to run a business. I see entrepreneurs and God love them who come out of the gate saying, [11:35] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to find a problem and I'm going to solve that problem that I think makes that's [11:41] SPEAKER_01: sort of interest me. Well, that the answer you have might not be appealing to everybody else. [11:48] SPEAKER_01: And so you're going to build a whole business around what you hope and dream will be the next [11:55] SPEAKER_01: better most trap. So what I would suggest is going to work, serve that what I would call [12:01] SPEAKER_01: a middle time apprenticeship, work under mentors, work under other entrepreneurs. If you want to be [12:07] SPEAKER_01: in small business, work for a small business person, understand what they do, understand what's [12:12] SPEAKER_01: required. You may have to change the trash, change the light bulb, make the sale, you know, do the [12:19] SPEAKER_01: payroll, understand that those things are all part of the mantra and the excitement of building [12:24] SPEAKER_01: a business. So my suggestion would be to buddy entrepreneurs is learn under somebody first, [12:32] SPEAKER_01: then seek out opportunities as you see them. That would be my piece of advice to entrepreneurs. [12:40] SPEAKER_01: Don't go out there, don't get me wrong. We do have the incidents of somebody starting a business [12:46] SPEAKER_01: in their garage and it becoming a multi billion dollar corporation, but those are outliers. [12:51] SPEAKER_02: Those are unicorns. Those those happen rarely. So what's it like doing business and push band [12:56] SPEAKER_01: shifts? It's a blessing and a challenge. The the blessing is is that I live in New Frontier [13:06] SPEAKER_01: and I live in Atlantic Canada. And that is wonderful, you know, even though it's nice to be down here, [13:14] SPEAKER_01: there's traffic down here, there's not traffic at home. We all kind of know each other in the entrepreneurial [13:20] SPEAKER_01: environment, a lot of the small business people know each other just from working with each other. [13:26] SPEAKER_01: That's a blessing. The downside is is that economies of scale aren't there in a land of Canada. [13:32] SPEAKER_01: So so if you want to grow a business, you've got to you've got to export your business or you've [13:36] SPEAKER_01: got to be extremely efficient at at how you make money in a land of Canada. So it's a it's so if [13:44] SPEAKER_01: you can do well in in in Atlantic Canada, you can do well anywhere in the world because it's a [13:50] SPEAKER_01: tough environment to do really, really well. And so if you look at some of the companies that have [13:55] SPEAKER_01: that are icons like Irving, McCain, Sobis, the Joedries, the Braggs, they are world-class entrepreneurs [14:06] SPEAKER_01: because they started here first and they learned how to do business here first, which is very, very [14:12] SPEAKER_01: tough. I know lots of entrepreneurs or and people that have gone on to Toronto or gone on to Ontario [14:19] SPEAKER_01: and then it's extremely well out of here because they've learned that School of Hard Knocks [14:23] SPEAKER_01: working out of here. So that can be a blessing and a curse. So um talk to me about uh [14:33] SPEAKER_02: both your personal life. How do you how do you combine that personal slash work life [14:42] SPEAKER_02: to do the things that you like to do during the journey that you're on? [14:48] SPEAKER_01: So I decided a long time ago, Riverside, I was going to be a what was called the lifestyle [14:55] SPEAKER_01: entrepreneur, right? That's what I called it. For me it's always about doing interesting things [15:03] SPEAKER_01: and working with interesting people. It isn't about the money. Don't get me wrong. I do I like money, [15:09] SPEAKER_01: I have course I do, I like a lifestyle course I do, who doesn't? But it never was about that. [15:14] SPEAKER_01: So I decided that anything that looked interesting I was going to attach myself to it because it [15:20] SPEAKER_01: seemed like fun. Starting a business to me is fun. Um, grain it, don't get me wrong. There are [15:27] SPEAKER_01: lots of scary moments involved in that but the challenge of it was immense and I've done it [15:32] SPEAKER_01: you know a couple of times now. Um but also too I have a fierce pride for my community. I love where [15:39] SPEAKER_01: I'm from. I love the community that I'm in. Um and I wanted to be able to give back to that. [15:45] SPEAKER_01: So I decided that that I was going to dedicate a significant amount of my time to volunteer [15:53] SPEAKER_01: in the community. And if I have to my surprise even though I wanted to do that I wanted to work with [16:00] SPEAKER_01: organizations that I found extremely interesting that the work that they were doing was interesting [16:06] SPEAKER_01: and that they were relevant in the community. So I so for me that was the University of New Brunswick. [16:12] SPEAKER_01: Um, fit that bill perfectly and now I'm in my 20th year of volunteering there. I just served as chair [16:18] SPEAKER_01: of the Board of Governors. Recently, uh, the St John Airport was extremely interesting and also [16:25] SPEAKER_01: relevant to our community from economic development standpoint. From an economic development standpoint [16:30] SPEAKER_01: again, I served as chair of, of the enterprise St John which dealt a lot with the economy of, [16:37] SPEAKER_01: of the region of, of, of the Southern New Brunswick. And the things they poverty reduction with the [16:42] SPEAKER_01: a team resource center and the credit counseling services of Atlantic Canada. Those things are all [16:47] SPEAKER_01: relevant to me and they do good work. So I spent a significant amount of my time in that as well. [16:55] SPEAKER_01: And to my surprise, um, I get more out of it than I put into it. So business contacts and phenomenal. [17:03] SPEAKER_01: Again, an unexpected surprise. Um, the, the respecting the community that you gain because you [17:10] SPEAKER_01: giving your time is also relevant and it also affects your business. So that wasn't what I [17:16] SPEAKER_01: intended to have happened. Um, and then the, the ability to work with other entrepreneurs in that sort [17:23] SPEAKER_01: of network where we're not, you know, we're doing something for a greater good. But we learned to [17:30] SPEAKER_01: trust each other and work with each other was also an unexpected byproduct of that as well. [17:35] SPEAKER_01: So those are the things that I like to spend my time with, um, outside of business is in the [17:41] SPEAKER_01: volunteer capacity and I continue to do it and then I love doing. Do you and do none of it down in [17:46] SPEAKER_01: Florida? No, the only volunteer work I do here is trying to find the shopping mall for my wife [17:52] SPEAKER_01: when she wants to go shopping. So that's my, that's what I'm, that's what I'm here to do. [17:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's, that's very cool. So where are you located now in Florida? Uh, four Myers. [18:03] SPEAKER_01: Four Myers. Four Myers. Yeah. So we wanted, we wanted to go to a place that was warm. Um, [18:08] SPEAKER_01: and the four Myers is the, uh, warmest part of the United States evidently. So it is, yeah, [18:15] SPEAKER_01: it's very, very warm here today. It's 32 degrees in, uh, in February or March, excuse me. [18:21] SPEAKER_02: I'm loving it. Absolutely. How long you've been down there? Um, [18:26] SPEAKER_01: two months, two months. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to going home as well. Don't [18:31] SPEAKER_01: get me wrong. Like this is, this is awesome, but home is awesome. Yeah. Did you drive down here? [18:36] SPEAKER_01: Did you fly that? We drove down. Yeah. We drove down, um, we drove down because, uh, we want to have [18:42] SPEAKER_01: the experience as well as we change seasons like, you know, driving at a winter and driving into [18:48] SPEAKER_01: sort of what I would call summer, uh, and take our time along the way and enjoy the ride. [18:52] SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Tell me, um, what's the, uh, your employee that's in success? Do you talk regularly to her? [19:03] SPEAKER_01: Do you have, how's that, how's that relationship going? So, yes, as a matter of fact, I spoke to [19:09] SPEAKER_01: there just before this, or before our discussion servers. So we speak weekly. Um, and, uh, but what we [19:17] SPEAKER_01: did was we sat down together, we sit down together at least once a quarter and we would develop a [19:22] SPEAKER_01: plan. So what is it we're going to do this quarter? Uh, what are her goals, what are my goals, [19:26] SPEAKER_01: and how does that fit into our overall and the of succession, but also company growth? [19:32] SPEAKER_01: And so we, we both agree on what we're going to be working up at a quarter and then we meet, [19:38] SPEAKER_01: you know, sometimes once a week, sometimes once or two weeks, just depends on the situation, [19:43] SPEAKER_01: but usually it's once a week and we just go over a, okay, have we hit these milestones along [19:49] SPEAKER_01: the way that we set up? And if we have, then it's going, it's going well. If we haven't, [19:55] SPEAKER_01: then what adjustments do we have to make to our overall plan? So even though we run a small business, [20:01] SPEAKER_01: small businesses can also be very complicated and can be very intricate, um, because, you know, [20:07] SPEAKER_01: a small business can get blown away in a tsunami, small things can get blown away in big wins. [20:12] SPEAKER_01: And so we're constantly looking out in the landscape, what are interest rates doing? [20:17] SPEAKER_01: What's happening with banks, you know, who we compete with sometimes? What's happening with [20:23] SPEAKER_01: the marketplace? For example, you know, in 2021, we found that Atlantic Canada, equipment was [20:33] SPEAKER_01: extremely hard to find. And because we have in Atlantic Canada, we don't have a lot of suppliers [20:39] SPEAKER_01: of equipment. We get most of our equipment, the Ontario or the United States because of the [20:43] SPEAKER_01: pandemic and because of supply chain shortages, equipment was extremely hard to find. And so our [20:50] SPEAKER_01: vendors weren't selling equipment, which means we weren't doing a lot of leasing. So how do we overcome [20:54] SPEAKER_01: those challenges? And what do we do to become more efficient when those things happen? And how do we, [20:59] SPEAKER_01: how do we over, how do we get through this particular storm? So in touching base quarterly and [21:05] SPEAKER_01: weekly, we keep an eye on those trends, those headwinds, so to speak, they can blow a small business [21:10] SPEAKER_02: off course real quick. So you said you decided not to sell and you wanted to do succession [21:18] SPEAKER_01: this time for listeners, what's the difference? The difference is the last time I sold my business, [21:27] SPEAKER_01: no, an entity came in, they bought my shares or they bought the asset, usually it shares, [21:33] SPEAKER_01: in this bigger case, it was shares. And in effect, they own your employees, they own everything [21:38] SPEAKER_01: about your business, they own your customers and you're off to the races and you get your money [21:42] SPEAKER_01: and you go home. And that's a great day for a lot of entrepreneurs. And certainly was a good day [21:48] SPEAKER_01: at the time I thought as well. But what I like better is if you're going to have a small business [21:53] SPEAKER_01: and you're going to have a group of loyal employees work with you, why not sell to them? [22:00] SPEAKER_01: Why not allow them to continue the business that they've helped you build? [22:06] SPEAKER_01: Right. So to me, the succession plan was exactly that. It was building internal strengths [22:12] SPEAKER_01: so that they could run the business on their own and then pay me out over time. [22:19] SPEAKER_01: So if you use the proceeds of the business, the pay me out, and then I get the one thing that's [22:24] SPEAKER_01: most important to me, don't get your own, the money's, you know, that's a given, but I get [22:29] SPEAKER_01: time back. So I work less in the business, they work more. The risk is transferred from me to [22:36] SPEAKER_01: them over time. And I get more, and like I said, they pay me out and I work less. And that's what's [22:44] SPEAKER_01: really important to me right now. And with my time, I can put more into volunteer and the other [22:49] SPEAKER_01: challenges that I find interesting. Very cool. That's the way that I've decided to do it. And [22:56] SPEAKER_01: by frankly, I'm very pleased that it's working out so far. Yeah, that's really cool. Congratulations [23:01] SPEAKER_02: on that, Larry. Yeah, thank you. This has been a, you know, this has been a quick, [23:06] SPEAKER_02: fired conversation with a lot in it. So congratulations on that, [23:12] SPEAKER_02: and on the conversation we've had today has been really wonderful. Is there anything that we missed [23:19] SPEAKER_02: from an entrepreneur perspective, perspective that you would recommend to an entrepreneur? [23:26] SPEAKER_02: In any stage, I guess, you know, it's one of those ones. And you say, yeah, that's pretty important too. [23:34] SPEAKER_01: I would say there's a couple of things that an entrepreneur should be thinking about. I mentioned [23:38] SPEAKER_01: one already, which was the mentorship. But the other one is the life of an entrepreneur, [23:43] SPEAKER_01: rivers, as you well know, is a lonely one. Because you don't have anybody to really share the [23:52] SPEAKER_01: challenges of being an entrepreneur with, you know, you can share it with your spouse, you can share [23:57] SPEAKER_01: it with a friend, but they don't always understand exactly what you're going through. Because it's [24:03] SPEAKER_01: very unique to you and it's very unique to your business. I would say that any opportunity, [24:09] SPEAKER_01: and I chose, you know, volunteerism, but any opportunity you have to interact with other [24:14] SPEAKER_01: entrepreneurs who understand your challenges, who may also present to you some good ideas and take [24:21] SPEAKER_01: you maybe in a place in your head that you hadn't thought about is that is critical. Because if [24:28] SPEAKER_01: you're the smartest person in the room, you're in trouble, at least for me. So I think working [24:33] SPEAKER_01: with other entrepreneurs and sharing ideas in any form that you can find in again, I say, for me, [24:39] SPEAKER_01: it was volunteerism. That is critical to be successful. Beautiful, man. Beautiful. This has been Larry [24:47] SPEAKER_02: Ashley ladies and gentlemen, kind of halfway between being in the States and halfway being all [24:53] SPEAKER_02: loving both spots. And that's where we want life to be, loving where you're at. So congratulations, [24:59] SPEAKER_02: Larry on your journey and the, you know, the succession you've got going on. And thanks for being [25:07] SPEAKER_02: here today to talk to us on Canada's podcast. My pleasure.
