091 - Summit 06 - Build a Network of People Who Support Each Other's Dreams with Chris Krimitsos

What I want to do now is I want to bring on a gentleman, but first I'm going to brag on him. So first, Chris, I'm going to brag on you, actually. Come on. If you don't mind, I'm going to brag on you while you're on the line, because I know you won't do it for yourself. Thanks so much for coming out, man.

Hey, thanks, Wade. I appreciate it. Let me get my camera here. Awesome.

I was just going to say something that was interesting.

I'm in the booth.

OK, Chris is he's actually a pretty normal guy most of the time anyway, so most of the time I love it. One of the sponsors event is Podfest and Podfest is just such an awesome community. Even if you're not specifically looking to launch a podcast and if you don't want to podcast, as you don't know why you'd want to podcast, you connect with me or ask me or whatnot outside of this. But Chris is just put together such an awesome community of people and this event would not be happening right now if it wasn't for Chris.

So first of all, thank you for that, brother. And just your leadership and what you do, Chris, really leads by example. He helps people start awesome things. He helps people serve in the world. He's one of those people that really believes that the world is a better place if everybody has a voice in it. And so, so much what he's done in there, in-person events, their online events have helped. And so that's been something that I've, you know, learned from I've mentioned with him and learned and sort of helped to moderate his events and studied being a speakers events and just want to know if any time in the next year, any time you invest in anything that they're doing their Bitcoin event.

That's coming up. One of their seminars, whatever it is, you let me know and I'll make sure you get at least a year of my online program for free, because just great people, awesome community. So first of all, man, thanks, dude. This is this is this might not be big for you having me bring Chris into my my event. It's like, whoa, Chris is inside of Debbie. Thank you. By the way, Debbie's there is their son Chris is in the chat.

This is that in and of itself has been actually a big highlight for the day. So first of all, Debbie, thank you for that. And Chris, first of all, a second all third of all, Chris, thanks so much for Shoman. How are you doing today?

I'm doing good. Just dealing with promotions. I'm always promoting another event. That's what we do. Community building and promoting.

That's awesome. And well, thank you. I'm going to get out of your way and let you do your thing. And then you let me know when you and I talked about we're going to share some ideas and stuff. When you want me to jump back in, I'm listening. I'm here the whole time and let me know when you're ready. You can just go ahead and share and we'll go from there.

So what I'd like to share, because I want we're talking about community building and I want to share a story, and I usually show these in a different format to the Podfest community, but I'm going to share and kind of give you a behind the scenes viewpoint. I'm going to set a timer because I definitely want to talk to Wade after we have a little Q&A. But my community started the Podfest community literally was birthed out of meet up and we had this other commune called e-marketing groups.

And I would teach Internet marketing basics around the Tampa Bay area at different restaurants on any given day of the week. So we would do 150 meet ups a year every week, each day. We were in a different region in Tampa. If anyone knows Tampa Bay, it's very spread out. So one meeting would be in Brandon, one in Tampa, one in Pinellas County, which is where Clearwater Beach's. And this one particular day was Monday, August 5th, 2013, I had a gentleman by the name of Steve Trevino, who was one of my attendee's.

And Wade, you'll appreciate this, Steve would always come to my meet ups and would be the first one to leave, and one day I said to him, Why are you starting out of here? Why do you hang out and get to know us? He goes, Well, the meeting's over. I figure I go home. I go, Yeah, but the priority of this meeting is all of us getting to know each other. And I said, why do you hang out with me?

I'd love to meet you as it so happened by me telling him not to leave so quickly. One day he felt that he could contribute to the community because I do podcasts and can I teach about that? And I said, as long as it's not about blog talk radio. At the time, a lot of people had blog talk radio shows that goes about podcasting podcasts. He said yes. And I said I would love that. It turned out he was one of the best educators I've ever found within my community.

And he talked about how he created a course teaching people podcasting. And this guy had just bought his course and did pretty well. I said, what's the guy's name? Because his name is Johnny Domus. He started this podcast, caught on fire. He just started to monetize and release his numbers. And at the time, Johnny was talking about possibly launching a course. So I started watching them thanks to Steve's recommendation. This gentleman here, Rick Levin, Spock is really important, and I'm going to explain to you why he's really important, but he was one of the attendees of the 13 people that attended that meet up.

I went home that day and I told my wife I want to start a podcast. And she told me that she wanted to start a podcast as well, because both of us were so excited about the concept. My wife won that argument. She got to start a podcast. But I also want I got to be her marketing manager and I got to go all over the state. And what I would do is I would ask Steve, when are you free to come teach the stuff?

And he said on this day, on that day, I would literally sell out a workshop of 75 people and we would be teaching. And it goes to show you how early we were, because on this table you see the blue Yati. Most podcasters would never recommend a blue Yudi. But that's what I bought at Guitar Center at the time and that's what we were working off of. But to see the seeds of our community were planted at these little workshops because a lot of these people started podcasting and then they needed support.

And at heart, even though I promote, I do events, I'm a community builder. That's what I do. I build communities. And what we figured was in twenty fifteen, we had planted enough seeds and in the ecosystem that we built a community of podcasters and we had 100 people attend the very first Podfest hour. Rick Bienstock spok the gentleman I showed you earlier was my number one first ticket buyer. Still to this day, you know, five or six years later, he's still the first ticket buyer of any Podfest there was amazing.

We hit it off and we decided to do it again in 20 the next year, you know. Twenty sixteen we had one hundred and eighty one attendees. That's Jessica Kupferman, one half as she podcast. And there is actually Jared easily. I helped him, taught him how to run meet ups. He actually runs another podcast conference. And there's Steve right there in the out in the flanks. Our, our we have to actually table him. The Podfest there.

He's like the Tampa version of the pod father. We love Steve. But out of this community, one of the members said, Chris, you really should move this event to Orlando. And I said, I really can't. It's going to be very cost prohibitive in Tampa. I can control the cost. And he said, listen, my sister runs a hotel out there. She's the banquet manager. She's going to help you get started in Orlando.

And literally true to his word, his sister gave me a deal I couldn't refuse. And we moved this event because I listen to a community member that felt very passionate about the growth of this community. To Orlando now, very next year, our event doubled not by any marketing tactic, but because we moved it to Orlando. It was easier for people to convince their significant others to come to Orlando because of the theme parks and for them to go to the conference.

And we also launched the first ever documentary film about the medium of podcasting that was crowdfunded from the community. And it was called The Messenger is a podcast documentary. The coolest part about this is we kept growing year over year. In twenty eighteen we hit about five hundred attendees. In twenty nineteen we had a thousand attendees and we helped launch she podcast. That individual I showed you earlier, Jessica's event, that's her event. But we helped launch a crowdfunding at Parliament House and we supported the birth of an entire conference out of our community and we were really proud of that.

Last year, Lucke broke our way in a major way in that we were the last and the only conference of our size to be held and in person with over two thousand people in attendance. But what's interesting is if you go back, this community of 2000 started with 13 people, and it's because we did the right thing by listening to our community, providing what they wanted, helping them launch their own concepts to the point. Now they bring friends to every Podfest.

We then went into a virtual environment after covid and we were able as a community to come together and literally hit a Guinness World Record for the largest virtual conference in the world for podcasting over one week's time. So that was really amazing. Right now we're in the process certifying we broke this record this year, sir, certifying our second Guinness World Record. But it's been an amazing journey. And we tell people the journey because it all started with 13 people at a meet up.

And then we were able to grow that community by loving up on our community members, giving them the tools that they needed to be successful. And they gave us the most precious thing, their time in attending our event and telling their friends to attend Podfest. So Wade, I'll stop it here. And you and I could have a conversation about community building. But it's been an amazing journey. I've been told by other people. I've interviewed me, we looked at your social stats.

You're not a superstar. You know, you're not like super famous because they're trying to track how the heck are you getting so many people to the fold? And I always tell them it's not me, it's the power of the community. I represent the community, but I am not the community. I am a member of the community. I think a lot of people have trouble with understanding that concept.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many things that I think you live and. One of the things I've shared with you a couple of times, you mentioned about the gentleman leaving early. I love that you coached him up. And that's one of the things that I loved you did. Some people might call them out and say, oh, hey, what are you doing? And you didn't do that. I was like, hey, can can something better come of this?

And that's something I'm still looking to figure out how to do. Even people that say that apply to be on my podcast that I don't necessarily want them. I don't think they're an exact fit yet. I want to find a way to do that. I love that. What you've done is look to find a way how you can make it happen. You've told me this part, but I wouldn't if you wouldn't mind sharing. Real quick one thing.

What is it you do? You have people that have, of course, apply to speak at Podfest. And I've never heard you, but I heard you mention this on on a on a on an interview, a podcast interview shocker of what you do when people apply and you don't think they're right for the event. What do you do with that and how is that played out for you?

There's a couple of things, so we actually have a group of people that review a lot of the speaker presentations because we don't do all of us have different blind spots for different things. So we either give it a thumbs up or not just yet. We never do a thumbs down. It's not within our community guidelines. The only time there's a thumbs down is if someone violated our trust by trying to sell or did something pretty egregious in order for it to be.

And that's from previous experience. It's a thumbs down. And then the people that aren't quite ready, if they ask us for feedback, we would give them feedback, tell them kind of where they need to be at. And we've actually even created a case study talks for people that just didn't fit that year. But we could still feature them in some way, shape or form. So we're just trying to figure out a way to support the community, like I said.

So the thumbs up are not ready yet. We don't do thumbs down. It's culturally it's against what we stand for. So it's it's part of the culture of the community.

I know. It's awesome. I used to have a supervisor that said, you know, no, doesn't mean never. It means not now. That's right. And it's that same concept, which I think is so great. And one of the things you promote this is not just your book, but this is you know, this is Chris's book. It's called Start Ugly. And one of the things, you know, just that phrase, that concept actually going to hold it up a second here, because this is something that a lot of people.

So much of coaching, like at least 50 percent of the coaching profession, is giving permission to people to do what they already wanted to do in the first place. It's about giving people the permission, the confidence to, hey, go get them, go do it, you know, the pep talk, whatever it is. And one of the things that I love that you've done is given so many people permission like this. I mean, here's the thing.

So depending on where you you look at this event from an angle, you can look at this angle to your point of, you know, how many people you know, what are the metrics, how many people are, you know, and we, as the speakers know, how many people are in the event right now. And, you know, is it big? Is it huge? Is it this? It's that it's like we'll know. First of all, ironically, it's been about 12 to 14, around about 13 average people that I guess.

So I'm liking my numbers. I've no problem with that. I have no problem with the journey of it. But because also what I know we're putting on is a certain level of quality. And I think it's funny because even though you say start ugly, you have very high quality to what you do. What have you found that is one of your quality filters, not so much in judging people, but in taking risks and I'll finish. It's a long question, but I'm clarifying it because you had met me, you and I had met twenty nineteen in person and maybe had one memorable thing that I gave you a book.

But I know you made a gazillion people that time. And then we met a year later and you said, OK, Wade Galt, you can be one of the moderators that's doing all these different things in the background. I'm not looking for a compliment, but you don't give that to everybody. I remember you told me you like Wade. I just want you to know I'm giving you a level of trust that I don't give everybody almost like her.

Like like you better not mess this up. I'm giving you a lot of responsibility. It was just very good, but. When I look at all the things you've done, whether it's Wendy or Andrew or Glenn or all the different people, and also, I mean, just for those who listen Podfest the last two live virtual events. Six thousand people, five thousand people, a few hundred, three hundred and five hundred speakers, whatever the exact numbers, but huge numbers of people.

And you're going with this concept of whole ocracy rather than hierarchy, more of sharing that. Again, what does that filter to have that trust, because to an outsider, it might say, oh, well, you know, Chris is just blindly lucky and I've worked with you enough. I know you're not. And I've even heard you sometimes say no. Well, this person is not ready right now and said with respect and said with love. But it's a clear no.

How do you have that filter or has that just developed or how do you do that to know who's ready or that who might be just about to be ready?

There's a couple of things that go into that, and that's a big process. I'll just I'll try and give you some broad strokes. Let's say you're starting a promotion of any sort. You're going to do your best to crowdsource the best people, you know, that you have. And it's going to be your it's going to be your start, right. Whatever it is it is. You're going to bring those people on. Now, the one difference, so there's a culture, delineation and Podfest.

So and we've said this before, but I want to make sure people know this. Our attendee's our speakers and our exhibitors are all treated as long as well as our staff and volunteers, all treated equally well, meaning traditional conference does have a hierarchy. The speakers are usually the people treated the best. They have a special private green room, which I hate. I don't have that for my speakers. We might give them VIP access and all that.

But I don't like like a back of the house screen room for just speakers. I'm not a big fan of that because it tells the speakers they're better than the attendees are speaking in front of. So I don't and hate's a strong word, but I would it would classify my disdain for that. So now you have to create an even program. What that means is if the attendees feel that respect, you actually have attendees many times that are more qualified to talk on a topic than the speaker you've chosen.

So part of the staff, ugly, is being able to identify attendees that are actually better equipped, like when it comes to productivity. Wade you're better than most of the top speakers in some ways because not only do live it, you have entire programs built in. If you're just happened to be in a niche that's separate than the niche that the person that got famous for. So we became very clear that your community has a lot of subject matter experts that should be up on stage.

But the problem is no one spotlighting it and they're not giving that opportunity. So what we do is we put out a speaker submission that goes out to our entire community the first time it went out. You don't get a lot of people submitting because they're not sure. But now here's what happens. Let's say the first time we did it, we got twenty people submitting. The majority of them got picked to speak. So what happens is when they're up on stage, they're like, yeah, I submit it to speak.

And I got a spot. Now, what we do and this is some of the secret sauce Wade, let's say. I'll give you an example. Let's say you put in four, I don't know, Instagram and we check out your Insurance like Wade is not that great at Instagram. But when we looked at this, he's really good at this multi network's growing a community offline thing. So what we'll do a lot of times is we'll go back to the speaker and say, listen, we think that you'd be a better fit here.

What do you think? And this is what they'll say. I was afraid to put in for that because I wasn't sure you cover it. So that's us actively listening. Actively listening means we're paying attention to what's in front of us. And then we're saying, OK, well, this may not fit, but there's also this other thing that might fit. So that creates a very unique thing. Then the other the other thing that we do that we hear is unique and I'm surprised it is.

But most promoters don't hold what we call town hall forums with their speakers to tell them what's expected of them, to tell them some rules of thumb. And that makes a huge difference as well, because no one ever communicates that. And if you have a really good group of speakers, they need that feedback to be better for the audience. So then we we make sure that our speakers are not talking in platitudes or generalities. Like if I have to hear the Tony Robbins quote one more time about the definition of success, you know, it's like I've heard it a million times.

We all have I'd like a speaker to teach me something about something I don't know so I can improve my life. And then keynotes. Absolutely. Broad strokes. So so Wade what happened was the first time we did this process. We had some good speakers and we had some not so great speakers, but everybody gave it a try. But even at that level, we were better than any other promotion out there because we started listening to the audience.

Well, as you hit that cycle that started ugly cycle. Now you're perfectly executing. I mean, we literally featured 520 speakers at the most recent Pod Global. I don't know, people understand that that means over 500 people had to apply for us to feature those people. That in itself is like a miracle that that many people wanted to contribute. Then it's up to us to figure out where everybody fits and communicate. So that's that. So what's happened now is our speakers are better than the national experts that you read the books on in some way, shape or form, because we're finding highly specialized individuals in very specialized niches and sometimes people aren't the most famous people.

But here's what they do. They take the extra time, they study, they're perfecting their presentation. Whereas a lot of times we notice some of these big experts, they do the same stock presentation 100 times over. They're not necessarily all excited. And then we have people like Al Mega that pump up the chatter. So when you have an Al Mega we have and I would say is like, you know, one of a kind. You know, I say that with all due respect, there's only one Al Mega we love when we see our pop up.

It's amazing. But then al inspirers, two or three other people to be themselves and then they start popping off. So the community starts engaging, the speaker start engaging, and then the sponsors are like, we don't know what you guys did, but everybody made us feel so welcome. Thank you so much. So so it's it's a full circle kind of thing.

That's awesome. And there's so much in there. And and for those who have not experienced it, go to a Podfest event. There's always we're not always most of the time there's some sort of way to either at least contribute or be part of something to check out their Facebook group or is something that you didn't even have to invest anything yet. And it's well worth the investment. One of the things I was I got the last thing I'll tell you, it just popped off.

You did ask about moderation. So that's the one area that's probably the most important in the cycle. So you have to be careful. Someone doesn't want to moderate because they want to get out in front of the crowd, a moderate or someone that understands that they're now taking a back seat, even though they're going to get credit like people don't know who they are. So they get credit that way, but they understand that can't be the primary. To be a successful moderator of a track, they have to give everybody the stage and love up on them and make sure that they feel welcome and do a little bit extra work.

So that's not always a great speaker, isn't always a great moderator. They don't go. I would say that's the facilitator. Moderator is probably the toughest skill to come by because that's someone that also has a presence of what's going on. And Wade you had that presence. You understood what we were doing. I remember we did have someone that, oh, I want to be a moderator. When I talk to her. I realized she just wanted to get in front of people and talk, and that's OK.

But I said, you know, moderator has to do a lot of work. You're actually going to talk. Oh, I don't have time for that. OK, so you just want to speak. And she said, yes, she was a terrible speaker. That being said, we gave her the opportunity and she was very passionate and she loves the community. But we know now and I'm OK with someone being when I say terrible speaker, the content was good, but she did explain it well.

OK, so no one understood she was talking about. So that's an individual that will be a case study talk next time around if we could, and then we'll give them some blinders to understand what we want. But not everybody is a great speaker, not moderators. And facilities are hardest people to come by because they have to be brought into the community. They actually own the community, if that makes sense, like they understand that they're literally part of the fabric of that community.

So you Wade what if you messed up? It's a reflection of me and the rest of the community. So that's why those are the people you want to be the most careful with, because they have to understand they're there to serve. And not everybody understands, like when we're doing platforms like this, there's this service behind the scenes. It has to happen for it to appear.

Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. That's something, first of all. And that's what we do with me today. I've known Debbie for years.

Great job, by the way. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, absolutely. And being comfortable with, you know, when it is your turn to speak, if it's your turn to speak, to speak and when it's it's not even something. It's funny. And I, I you are rubbing off on me because in some way there's something about the way you operate. It became clear to me for that because I did. I like attention. I mean, hello. But at the same time I also know I wouldn't wear the shirt as a moderator.

Like I've even I've even thought, like, OK, when I'm when I'm hosting if I'm for my podcast, I will not be wearing the shirt. If I'm interviewing, let's say you from my podcast. Now, if I'm on your podcast and I'm there to shine, you know, great. But just different things like that, I think you modeled it so well. And then I look at someone like Andrew who's going to be speaking later today, who's come in and who's younger, but is such a high quality person.

And he was able to see, OK, yeah, that's that's the track. I'm going to slightly pivoted a little bit. How would you say, because you're one of those guys that everybody wants to grab a beer with, whether they drink beer or not, and because I think there's a genuineness and I think that's a lot of what has come into the community. And I'm I'm wondering in your personal life, because also part of what we're talking about today is just people looking at and I'm going to be the next thing I'm focused on his relationships.

When you look at personal relationships, is it really much different? Because I know you and your from what I tell you guys. Well, you guys have a beautiful family. You guys are happier and enjoying life. You work hard, but you enjoy time outside of work. How would you say your filters, perhaps even in your personal life, or maybe either similar or different as far as not a quality of person in the sense of whether a bad person I'm better than them, because I don't think you have that, but in a sense of who you will spend your time with or who you want, is it kind of a similar sense of that person that kind of gets the full picture or what's that like for you?

Kevin Hart wrote a really great book that I read a while back, and he rose with the posse that got him to the dance. And he hasn't changed over, even though some of his posse has some deficiencies. I'm a very loyal person, so I roll with the people who've been with me forever and they're all characters. A lot of my friends are very eccentric in different ways. So I met Anthony Kovik, who used to help me with Avi, but now they've grown so big it's a different size class.

But when he was small, but I met him through my TV days, so I collect friends for life. I would take Katey's much more selective with their time because she is also the primary parent. I parent with her, but she is the primary and because she has her business, she's very careful how she utilizes her time. This is what I have noticed Wade the people that are loyal to their friends are family. First, I tend to connect with the most the people that are driven by money.

I don't connect as well. I'm more of a freedom of time to spend more time with friends and family. And if someone was to say what would be your ideal thing? My ideal thing with financial freedom and, you know, we're on we're on the way to that is having a full time, what I would call assistant or whatever you want to call it. But all they're doing is booking lunch for me and my friends to get together. So I've built a lot of deep relationships.

So I built a lot of relationships. I built them very deep. So I'm very fortunate in that I have a lot of amazing friends and a lot of different parts of not the world, but just like different you know, I used to work at public access or not work with TV shows there. I still have those relationships. Then I did Tampa Bay Business Owners, which was for local business. I still have those relationships I did in marketing groups, have those relationships now podcasting bedfast.

So I once you're a friend of mine, you're pretty much a friend for life. And I as long as you're good to the people, what I tell you is if someone treat someone poorly like a waiter or waitress, it's probably not someone I'll be hanging out with. That's not my style. Like, literally what you see is what you get. I always learn the waiters name or which I'll refer to them by name, and I do my best to see the positive.

And then it's very easy to see the negative self condition myself, to see the positive side tend to do better with people that are more positive outlook in life. That being said, I'm a New Yorker, so I do have a little bit of bitching about things as well. A little sarcasm, a little. You know that you grew up in New York. It's going to be in you a little bit. You see things a little differently at times.

So that's what I say right there.

That's awesome. I grew up in southeast Florida, which is little New York. So, yes, we've got a little bit of that as well. Well, and that's, you know, one of the things that your example has shown me and with using PodMatch Alix's service and whatnot is I by my nature, I do pre interviews because I want to get to know the people and I want to create the possibility for a long term relationship. I'm not looking to have a relationship with every person if if it flows, flows great or whatnot.

But to your point, I think that there's something I've just found that there's some people that are more focused on the quality of life, of business, of relationships, and there's some for whom numbers and quantity are more important. And it's just a different focus. It's like know zone defense versus man to man defense. It's you really almost can't do both of them one hundred percent at the same time because they lead you in slightly different directions. And again, no knock on anybody who does things differently, but I think that's a lot simpler.

Dude, man, thank you. There's there's the last thing I'd say is I. I'm impressed by your ability to, again, balance reality with friendship, and I think if if there's a second book that you choose to write or whatever, it would be something like, yeah, your friends, but there's no f ing way that's happening like like this. Just the sense of, yes, I can be your friend, I can love you, I can support you.

But if it doesn't work now and you won't even say, well, maybe what I don't know, but know just in the generic sense of I think most people either are too harsh and critical and they folks will know you're not this, you're not this, you're not this or they're just like, oh, anything goes. And again, I think to your point about what Kevin Hart said, I think you can still even be true to the people you've been friends with and do that.

So thank you, dude. There's there's so much you're doing for those people, again, who've not checked it out. Check out Podfest. There'll be more stuff to look at in there and then. What are your last thought? What are you reading right now, what's what's what's the best book you've read recently that people should take a look at? Because I know your answer to this, but I want our people to walk away with something other than that they could maybe check out.

No, I love David Gorgons book. If you know the title, I forgot what it was, but it was. I lost 10 pounds listening to it. And what I mean by that, not by it. Like sitting there listening a lot, but like it motivated me while I was listening to it that I was really watching, like, things without trying it. So it definitely moved me. If someone knows the title of David Guirgis book, please.

I think it was. Can't get it. I'll have to look it up. But anyway, that one was good. And then I got into Jesse. It's a book of living with the Navy SEAL, which was Goggins. I got into the whole trilogy and then he had living with the monks. So I enjoyed those three books. I can't hurt me. I think that's why I was I knew somewhere on there, the last thing I'll tell you, Wade, is my wife and I live very intentionally.

And I'm part of this group of CEOs and a lot of them are high achievers in their businesses. But what I have noticed is their work life balance, the the life balance side really suffers. And the ironic part is. I was in a group where we're talking about vacation spots, and for Florida, like local, I literally had like two pages and they're like, well, how the hell do you know this? Because Katie and I and our two little ones, we've taken upon ourselves on the weekends and the three day weeks, weekends that we have to go explore.

So we wind up learning, you know, like whether it's fossil hunting in the Peace River or going to stream something in the middle of Florida or Gainesville, like we have all these great memories in these spots. And it wouldn't have happened if we didn't intentionally say, listen, we got to allocate time for ourselves and our family. Don't get me wrong, there are times that we work like dogs, but overall, we've invested time in the family and as far as the future unfolds.

My goal is, if you're watching this in real time, Wade, as I'm building the team that runs Podfest right now, you know me as the face. There's going to be other people and you've seen this now in the they're going to be up there. I may have some key moments where I welcome people and I'll be in it, but I'm transferring that to the community because really, Podfest is not one person. It's a community of people.

That being said, well, there'll be some people are not happy about that. Absolutely. They know it as Chris is doing that. But for the community's growth, you have to take your ego aside, say, listen, that's the right thing for the community, for the ego. It definitely says, man, they need me. But the truth is, you know, we're all temporary beings here. Who knows where the next frontier is. So I just want to enjoy my time.

And the best way I can is with my family and my friends and doing things in business that give me a lot of passion. And that's what Podfest, Podfest Podfest to me is like someone said to me, oh my God, you make so much money when you sell it. And I said to them, what would I do if I sold like I took me so long to build into what I wanted to live into. What would I do if I sold now?

There may come a time when that is not any time soon. I got a lot of life to live and I got a lot of experiences with great people like you to hang out and and create some cool things. So thank you for inviting me. Thank you for everybody here. I appreciate it. Thank you for promoting Start Ugly. It's on Amazon if you'd like it. It's a short story. Thirty minute read by the physical book is my recommendation only because it's a keepsake in your office to remind you to not get stuck to start up.

Awesome. Thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate it, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right.