Jimmy and Stephanie Thorpe are seasoned entrepreneurs with a dynamic journey in real estate and hospitality. From their beginnings in the construction industry to managing bars and multifamily properties, Jimmy and Stephanie have continuously adapted and thrived. Currently, they are making waves in the boutique hotel industry, leveraging their extensive experience to create value and inspire others.
Jimmy and Stephanie share their remarkable story of perseverance and innovation. They discuss their transition from construction to bar ownership and their eventual pivot to multifamily properties and boutique hotels. Their journey is filled with lessons on overcoming financial challenges, navigating market shifts, and the importance of strategic pivots to stay ahead in the entrepreneurial game.
You will find invaluable advice on balancing risk and opportunity, the significance of mentorship, and the power of networking. Jimmy and Stephanie emphasize the importance of learning from both successes and failures, and how having a coach or mentor can drastically shorten the learning curve. For anyone interested in real estate, hospitality, or entrepreneurship, this episode offers practical strategies and motivational insights.
Question this Episode Answers
1. How can I successfully transition from a construction business to real estate investing?
2. What are the best strategies for managing and growing a boutique hotel business?
3. How can mentorship and networking accelerate success in real estate entrepreneurship?
https://www.visioninmotion.co
Jimmy and Stephanie Thorpe are seasoned entrepreneurs with a dynamic journey in real estate and hospitality. From their beginnings in the construction industry to managing bars and multifamily properties, Jimmy and Stephanie have continuously adapted and thrived. Currently, they are making waves in the boutique hotel industry, leveraging their extensive experience to create value and inspire others.
Jimmy and Stephanie share their remarkable story of perseverance and innovation. They discuss their transition from construction to bar ownership and their eventual pivot to multifamily properties and boutique hotels. Their journey is filled with lessons on overcoming financial challenges, navigating market shifts, and the importance of strategic pivots to stay ahead in the entrepreneurial game.
You will find invaluable advice on balancing risk and opportunity, the significance of mentorship, and the power of networking. Jimmy and Stephanie emphasize the importance of learning from both successes and failures, and how having a coach or mentor can drastically shorten the learning curve. For anyone interested in real estate, hospitality, or entrepreneurship, this episode offers practical strategies and motivational insights.
Question this Episode Answers
1. How can I successfully transition from a construction business to real estate investing?
2. What are the best strategies for managing and growing a boutique hotel business?
3. How can mentorship and networking accelerate success in real estate entrepreneurship?
https://www.visioninmotion.co
If somebody's had the yellow brick road and that's all they've ever walked on, you're never going to know if you fall off that yellow brick road and you hit that ditch, what do you do now? Welcome to Motion Matters, where we shine a light on the entrepreneurial journey, sharing real stories of triumph and challenge. Guided by Jamie Tilka, we connect, inspire, and educate. This is Motion Matters. Hello, and welcome to Motion Matters. This is the entrepreneurial podcast where we take a deep dive into the entrepreneurial journey of fellow entrepreneurs, the trials and tribulations. Today, I got some guests on here that I'm super excited about. Jimmy and Stephanie Thorpe, we first met, I don't know, probably close to three plus years ago. We met at a fellow real estate investment meetup down in Charleston, South Carolina, connected. We were just entering into the boutique hotel space. They were entering into various multifamily deals. And so we connected and super excited to have them on the show, share all their experiences. So with that, I'd like to say welcome, Jimmy and Stephanie, to the show. Hey, thank you for having us. Yeah, man. Thanks for having us, Jamie. Yeah, man. Super excited about this one. Yeah. Let's start it off with the stereotypical one that I do, which is to ask you guys to just give a little bit of background about yourself. What you did before you kind of got into this current entrepreneurship that you're in, and kind of your transition into it, if you could give us some background on that. You going or I'm going? I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah, we were builders early on. I was a builder. Stephanie was a building inspector, worked in the plans and zoning offices and all the government offices. We got into the restaurant bar business in 2006, 2007, a few of those. Had a land clearing company on the gym. We had some single family rentals. And then along the way, I started watching these Grant Cardone videos about thinking bigger. And I always thought that it was out of reach for us. And we're learning more about the syndication model and partnerships and trying to think bigger. And we started to join a group. That's where we met you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to go back. I'm going to ask a few questions just to try to shape it out a little bit more. So you got in the bar and restaurant business. You said you were a general contractor before that. You did land clearing too. Was that all as a W-2 or did you own those businesses? I can go way back. So my dad was a contractor. And so I wanted to get away from the contracting world. So I started welding. I took welding back in high school, had some after school, had some W-2 job welding, left that to try the land clearing company. You know, this whole time, Stephanie was a stay-at-home mom. At that time, land clearing company crashed and burned. Long story there, but we were just way too young to be in. We were 20 years old. Went back to work as a welder. Then I started building our house. We dug the foundation. We framed it. We've been from the contracting world. But we built our house. It kind of escalated us into building other houses. So we left the W-2 world and worked for ourselves as far as being a contractor. The land clearing company was your own business and you said it crashed and burned. So was there hesitation when you went back into the small business entrepreneur world? Because there was a middle ground there of you working a W-2 probably to make ends meet and stuff, correct? Oh, yeah. I'm not going to say hesitation. Stephanie can weigh in on this because we had a long conversation about it. But I burned a candle at both ends for as long as I could. Then it was time to either go all in on one or go all in on the other. What's your perspective on that, Stephanie? I had hesitation. So I don't come from the same family background as Jimmy does. So Jimmy's family has always owned their own business. They never worked for anybody else. So they never knew another world. That's the only world he'd ever known. I'm not like that at all. I come from the family where you go to school, you go to college, you get a job, you work that job, you work that job hard and you save your money and you retire. And then maybe you can do what you want to do. And that's how I was brought up for the most part. And so we come from completely two different backgrounds. So when Jimmy was like, oh, I'm ready. I'm ready to go again. I'm going to quit my job. I was terrified. I was terrified. We had two little kids and I thought, oh, my God, well, we failed the first time. What's going to keep us from failing the second time? And so I think that was our saving grace is the recognition that we failed. We failed fast. We failed hard the first time. But it was recognition and the communication between the two of us that OK, we know we failed. So how do we keep that from happening again? Where did we go wrong? What do we need to change before we start this next road? And we put things into places and grew and grew and grew. And so when it got when it came to the point that he said, OK, I've got to quit my job. I was I was OK with taking that road. I remember sitting on the front porch and having an hour long conversation about what we needed to do and how we needed to do it and doing it. So it sounds to me like he was still working the W-2 job while building that business behind it. OK, OK, that makes sense. And so then when you got to that point, Jimmy said it's time to poop or get off the pot. Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. OK, what roughly what year was that? It was 2004 because Grayson was born. Yeah. So it was 2004 spring in 2005 was our second huge life change. OK, so 2004, 2005, you guys are all in on your your builder's business. So I'm assuming that 2008 had an impact on you. Actually, no, completely off. It didn't. I'm told this story. So now from the new construction, right? Like died. Luckily, fortunately, you know, whatever we're going to use, we were in a position at a key wall, Seabrook Island, you know, which is really high in houses. So 2008 to us was it was the best thing that happened to us as a contractor, because that got rid of all the guys that really shouldn't have been in business anyway. And we exploded new constructions, but we exploded with really, really, really high in renovation. I mean, I mean, we did average renovation was probably eight hundred to two million dollars. You know, so we did we did really well. Our best years in business ever was 2009, 2010 was our best years ever. We also knew what was coming and we could see the changes happening because we could see it affecting everybody else. So we were we were cautious and careful with what we were doing and how we were doing it. So we pivoted at the same time. We we were doing well, but we pivoted to protect ourselves in case it got worse. Can you expound a little bit on what you're referring to, though? You saw kind of what you saw coming at that time. Yes. So the housing market crashed. Right. And it was I'm not going to say it was overnight because you can see the bubble. You can see the bubble getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And eventually the bubble has to pop. So when the bubble did pop, it changed very quickly. OK. And to prevent to prevent us from losing anything and to make sure that we were on the right path, we decided to pivot at the same time. And so we that's when we got into the bar business. And you may want to cut this out later, but if there's anything that sells during a time that nothing else sells, it's sex, drugs and rock and roll. So now we're keeping it real. Let's go. So drugs, you know, there are people are always going to they're always going to drink. There's always going to be a bar that there's a reason for that. So we we put our we put our bets on the bar and it it did better than we ever dreamed of. So did you shift out of building 100 percent at that time? No, no, we kept going. OK, so you started the bar business. Yeah. Yeah. So we got a bar business in 2006, 2007. But from a contractor standpoint, you know, we exploded there that time. I mean, you know, we we we we grew to contract it from 2007, eight from our contracting. You know, you know, we were building, let's let's call it 15, 20 houses per year. And we we saw the gradual coming down on the contracting. So then we started doing renovations, additions and we opened the bar at St. John's. So so, you know, we wasn't counting on the new construction anymore after that. And we was counting on the renovations and additions on the higher end homes that could afford it. You know, your average middle class people. Yeah. But but but like Stephanie said, the bar business, we opened one in 2006, seven, and we opened another one in 2009, 2009. So, you know, right there in the middle of all that. So, yeah, I mean, we went from like 15 employees in 2007 to over 70 by about 2000, 2010. How long did the bar business go and how long were you overlapped with the with the renovation slash building business? Until Stephanie got got a what's the word I want to use. And then she has enough and she had enough of all of it. She said, I've had enough. You know, we had a yes, she explained this to you better. I can't. But you know, just back for the for the cloud based stuff. So so when you have $10,000, $15,000 to match out at the end of the night, and when when you two bars and I'm at one, she had to load the kids up to go to the other one at two o'clock in the morning to get on the phone or to to meet the credit card guy there to try to try to batch out. And that's what she said. I had enough. I had enough. She said, I'm done with all of it. And so within 90 days in 2011, within 90 days, we we sold both bars, the retail store, we and we wrapped up all the projects within 90 days, we were 100% done with everything. What year is this? 2011. Yes. So we kept replaced the country. And she said, I won't back up to the farm. If you want to be married to me. Yeah, yeah. You put your foot down, Stephanie. It was, like I said, we pivoted and we knew it was coming. So we put, you know, we separated all of our eggs. And we said, we're going to do these baskets because we need to make sure that we're going to be profitable. So we said, you know, something is not going to do well. So let's we're going to put our eggs out there. And, you know, to our surprise, everything did well. So then everything was booming. And we did not anticipate that. And there's only the two of us. So we grew so fast, we couldn't grow with it. Like it was just it just like it shot up overnight. So we were it was it was really hard for us. And if we had if we if we'd had like the years of experience, like we have now, we could have put people in places to make that, you know, a little easier for us. Oh, man. Yes. And so we just, we were young and stupid. And we once it got to that point, and I like Jimmy said, I literally three Saturdays out of a month, at 2am, I loaded my babies up into my car and drove up to the bar and parked at the back of the bar with the door open so that I could lock my babies in the car. And then still see my car and go inside with their credit card guys and he could fix our credit card machine so we could batch out. And that third time was it I'd had enough and I I wasn't. We're not those people like we're very family oriented people. And we we believe in hands on and you know, I, I can't I couldn't do that. I just can't do it anymore. So I said, I'm just done. Like I'm done. I'm gonna I'm gonna sell the bar and I'm gonna sell the house and I'm gonna go back home. I've had enough. So we did and it was actually I mean, it was really nice. Like neither one of us worked for a while. Well, I was gonna ask. So I have so many questions. But I also want to make sure we have leave ample time to get kind of into your current stuff. Because I think that's interesting as well. So we're sitting at love. So right now we're at roughly 2011. You guys, I'm going to call it I'm going to simplify it and saying you guys cashed out. So from 2011, I met you guys, I believe I met you in I can't remember if it was before or after the pandemic. I think it was probably 2021. Okay, so so what happened in 10 years? Because from what I understand, you were just getting in there, you know, maybe a year to two years before I met you unless I'm on. Well, you can't sit right, you're an entrepreneur, you can't sit still for too long. So we thought we're just going to retire, we're going to invest our money, we're going to retire. So we had single family rental. At that time, also, we were, we were, we were self managing. Um, how many? That's not when we had a three at that time. Okay. Okay. We're sold another one. And we, we did flips and also back, you know, for this. But I got tired of working in the yard. I tired of fishing, believe it or not. I'm not fishing all the time. So right down the road from us is this 20,000 acre plantation that they're railroad on. I said, you know, don't pay like 35 grand a year for hunting guys and the fishing guys. And you're basically a caretaker for the plantation. So I told her, so I'm a little flyer for the railroad caretaker job. And so I went to an interview, and you know, and they had this big video about the railroad about the, the benefits and just, it's pretty cool. It's like, wow, I had no idea anything about the railroad at that time. I didn't get that job because they have the interns and So I applied for the railroad. This was late 2011. Or that's well, I applied for the railroad. You know, I'm getting a job at railroad like, yeah, that's well. So I did signals where the lights and the gates flash and all that stuff. That's what I did. I had to pick up truck, get on track. I mean, you know, you know, making the$35, $36 an hour, you can't tell me I didn't have to go beyond pay anybody on Fridays. I had the best job in the world. I mean, you know, we all think, you know, that pickup truck to ride down the track. So yeah, it was a great job. But like, like, like she said, as an entrepreneur, you know, I can't punch a clock. And it was really never meant to be a long, long term thing anyway. But uh, fast forward one year, our oldest son got sick with leukemia. So, you know, I'm not real religious and think, you know, God, you know, your God plan. But it was like, it was like, you know, God said, Hey, y'all got a big fight coming up. You need to get rid of all your stuff, your bars, your contract thing, everything else. You got to get a job that's got your good insurance, because you got this fight coming up where you're going to need insurance. And it was it was just like everything happened the way it was it was supposed to happen. So anyway, so it's about I worked there for a little over a year when he got sick. And but then, you know, I, you know, there was no leaving. But how we got back into contracting again, was when he got sick, you know, we was around all these, all these kids, the handicapped, whatever. So we started volunteering to do bathroom renovations, you know, for handicaps and wide doors and ramps. And it kind of escalated us back into building again. So we've done some planned developments the whole time. You know, I'm working for the railroad. And we're building houses on the side again, it was just like we already did early 2000s, you know. And so anyway, it got escalated, escalated, escalated. And then, you know, we go backwards. But I keep talking about all the world. No, that's good. You're filling in a lot of the gaps. Because I mean, it's interesting because again, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this show is when I've met other people to include you guys, we all share our stories about like, what was that pivotal moment or thing that changed? I mean, you we have talked before, but I actually didn't know a lot of those details that you're so I didn't realize, I didn't realize to Stephanie's point that you basically only understood entrepreneurship from, you know, because I to Stephanie's point, I grew up, you know, very poor, like there was, there was no discussion about that. It was just like, hey, get educated, get a job. So the fact that you did that, and then you stepped away, and then and then ultimately, you went back, I think it's super interesting. And also, you know, there's a lot of struggles that you guys went in through that time, I mean, that we we haven't even really dabbled into. Because that's really what I want to get down to is like, you know, when you hit some of those critical points, like, how do you make that decision? So So I mean, even right now, let's talk about the current one. So you got the job, you feel like potentially the stars align, things came together, you had this when your son got sick, so that you had the insurance, so you had the stability. But what made you transition out of that? I built a house for the devil. Yeah, it was custom home building. I built a house for this guy, the surgeon, and I've got hundreds of houses, right? And this guy was oh my god, he was so awful. And you know, the whole, the whole lawsuit involved in it, and he went license board. And it was just it was just a nightmare held in the house is all over your magazines. I was beautiful. But what it comes down to is he didn't like he didn't like your punch list, right? And what he said was, how would you like if your surgeon had a punch list? And my answer to him was, I'm sure y'all do like right before you close up somebody, you make sure there's no gauze left in there, no tools left in there. You know, that's your punch list for surgery. But anyway, after that, I told her, I said, I can't do it no more. I just I've been doing for 40 years. I'm done. I'm just I'm just done. So that's when I started watching it, you know, the Greg Cardone videos and multifamily. And, you know, I got into Jennings and them through there where we met. But let's let's back up to 2013. So when we sold one of the bars in 2011, we were still tied to that lease. How I've known it well, I don't know how, but somebody dropped the ball and we were still tied to the people that bought it from us. They weren't qualified for the for the lease. So we just we just served a lawsuit. May 2013 of that, you know, being still tied, at least because they they they closed the door. So they still had seven, eight years left on this lease, which is 7800 grand or whatever it is. Wow. Yeah. So they won't always got free because they wasn't tied to the lease. But well, we were, which, again, another learning point from being in entrepreneurship that, you know, we didn't dot I's across the T's. Well, we thought we did and then lawyer did. So anyway, we got over that lawsuit. May 2013, we started fighting it, fighting it. And then July 2013 is when my son got sick. And so I went back back to the lawyer. I said, look, you know, the son said, this is what we're what we're facing here. I don't have the energy to fight both of these. What can we do to make it go away? You know, our son is our priority. And he said there's he said, of course, you know, you know, typical lawyers, you know, you know, you know, we can beat this. He said, but it's going to take you a couple of years. He said, you know, and he said, they're they're not going to take, you know, probably probably no less than probably three point a grand buyout or pay off. So I saw I saw I said, what's the office? He said, he said, he said, I would call bankruptcy. But it was our personal name was was tied to the lease. It wasn't just a business. And I said, I said, man, I can't do that. That's not who we are. And the lawyer said, look, he said, this is this is not your problem. It's not your financial obligation. You know, you sold the business somewhere along the line. It wasn't recorded properly. So you're you're tied to it. He said, he said, he said, just just file bankruptcy, focus on your kid. And anyway, we and we talked about it for like a week. And then we finally said, you know what, you know, let's just let's just file bankruptcy. We filed Chapter seven. And it wiped all that claim. And so when I when I when I tell people we filed bankruptcy, and, you know, automatically, it's like, you know, like a red flag, like, oh, my God, you know, but is it once I explain the whole your situation is like, well, I guess I mean, that makes sense, because that was the right thing to do. Yeah, well, I mean, when you get back in the corner, and you have something like that, I mean, we all know this. But I think, unfortunately, many of us have to be hit with those life altering situations that make you really contemplate what matters. You know, I mean, I threw one at my brother the other day. And I was like, you know, because they were they were going through some hardships. And I was like, look, if you if you legitimately knew you had 90 days to live, does any of this shit matter? The answer is no. Right? You don't even have to answer a question. It's a rhetorical question. So I'm saying the fact that we're sitting here having this conversation is blowing my mind, because your life is not worth that. After something like that happens. Your entire mindset is just like that. Like you, nothing is really bad. It's just not like we're I, that's, I think that's the reason why we can, you know, we take, we take what we do with a grain of salt. Like we're, we're not afraid. We're not afraid. We're not. You know, if it if it doesn't kill us, it makes us stronger. So we are like, Superman on crack. Yeah. I have a specific question for you, Stephanie, because I'm listening to you. And I'm thinking to myself, and I'm listening to Jimmy, and I'm saying, I feel like there's a lot of similarities between Jimmy and I, and, and I'm just going to oversimplify it, because for the sake of time, and just say that we have too many ideas and too many aspirations. And we want to go in 13 different directions. But there's only, you know, you know, 12 parts of our body. Yeah. How is it that you deal with being his spouse? I medicate myself. No, I'm serious. Like, listen, let me restructure the question a little bit, though, because I really want to hear your thoughts on this. And that is like, when you're married to somebody who constantly has new aspirational ideas, plus all of these things, we had to file for bankruptcy, our, our kids is, you know, you know, potentially deathly ill, you know, we lost our businesses and all these things. And then he's like, I got a new idea. I got an idea. Let's do this. Let's do this. Like, I'm saying, how do you manage that? I think it's just like, it's life, right? Like, that's, that's everything that you do. And not just not just him. Like, I, I, I looked at Jimmy for a long time, like, we call it his Rolodex, like, literally, it has a name, we call it his Rolodex. And it's literally like, whatever card the Rolodex lands on. But it's kind of his, that's his whole personality, right? That's who he is. That's how he works. So it's, it's his thoughts, his like, literally, that is just who he is. And you cannot help but to love and admire somebody that truly has no, he has no off switch. He has no off switch. So once he has this, whatever it is in his head, he's like, we're gonna do this. And to be around somebody like that is, it's inspiring, aspiring. I aspire to be like Jimmy. And yeah, he's truly like, yeah, I see you. He's truly and I'm not trying to like, be an anti feminist. But Jimmy is truly the head of our house. He is truly the he's the man of our house. So if in his world, he thinks that this XYZ, whatever, then I am behind him 100%. But that's not to say that if I said I wanted to, I want to, I want to buy a Gucci coatel in the Caribbean. He'd be right behind me, you know, so like, I, because you just gave him a new idea. It works. It works both ways. And I, I truly appreciate the person that he is, because I'm not that person. Like Jimmy is the person with the wings. I am the person with the anger. Yeah, no. So I mean, you just summed it up really well. And that's kind of what I was just wanting to hear your insight is because I'm, I think that generally speaking, it is a positive thing to M compliments me on the same thing. But I also know that she struggles with watching me. Just sometimes she's like, I can't keep up with it. Like, it's, it's crazy. And so, you know, listening to you guys, I'm like, you guys are basically, you know, we're two couples in two different spots, but doing the exact same thing. Yeah. So yeah, coming back. So all of that transpired. And then I'm guessing the whole, like looking at the Grant Conradone thing and stuff and getting back into that, that was probably somewhere around 2019, right? 2018, 2019? 2018, somewhere in there. So 2017, 18, somewhere in there. And then we, then we, we, we started putting into work in like 1920. Dude, we're on the same timeline, man. Anyway, sorry. We actually did a little bit of commercial renovation on some hotel properties. And it was a, it was historical renovations, and they were amazing. And they took forever. And we, we looked at, I think that was probably the lightbulb moment is when we were doing those hotels, and we spent a lot of time doing them. And it was, we got to know. Oh, yeah, we got to know the ins and outs of how that worked. And it was kind of like a, why aren't we doing this? Yeah. And they wouldn't tell me what they were bringing in every day. It's like, you know, we got to be friends. And, you know, just, just curious. Hey, how was your weekend? We had a $75,000 weekend. I was like, you know, you're not going to make that in your single family apartments and all that. And they had tours where they were, last weekend, they did $75,000. This week, we did $64,000. You know, it is like, you know, why are we down, you know, $11,000, you know? And anyway, it was just, so we did a lot of that. And we always wanted to, well, I say wanted to, but you know, we always talked about it because the cash flow in the hospitality industry is a lot better than any other asset class. Yeah. Well, that's how we met, right? So we met, we got down there and I told you that I was building short-term accommodations for military personnel. And obviously then you guys reached out there shortly thereafter and said, Hey, we're looking at this hotel down in the Caribbean. And much like Jimmy would respond, there was zero hesitation. I was like, when should I book the ticket? And you guys are like, December 1st, which is my birthday. And I was like, babe, I'm going to St. Croix on December 1st. So I want to dive a little bit into that because that's a bold move right there too. As you know, there's a lot of people that don't like the hospitality space because it's too risky because you can't get the same loan to value ratios on there because of the risk and stuff like that. So what's your experience been so far? Because I know it's been, there's a lot of rough roads to travel when you actually no crap run a business in which people demand virtually instantaneous responses. How's it been? You're absolutely right. You have to learn like, what did you say? Sometimes it's an ass kicker. Yeah. But we've learned the people that want the best deal, the people that are trying to get the best deal they can, they're ones that's complaining because they're going to come here and they're going to complain. Can I get a free night? That gets old. But if you get five of them out of 100 good ones, I'll take that all day long. And then from the staffing point, that's always whatever business that you're in, you always got to have a good staffing on you. Down here, that's been pretty difficult, but we've been cycling them out. They don't fit our value, they don't fit our work ethic, they're out. But overall, man, with what we've done in this property in the last 18 months compared to what it's done in the last 10, 12 years, it's night and day. And that's obviously increased the value of that property tremendously. How long have you, since the closing time, what has it been, 18 months, 24 months? 19 months now. Yeah. 19 months, we paid $7 million for it. Now it's worth $14.2 million. We have it on the market for $12.5 million. I'm smiling. This is why I tell people I love... Look, I realized that value-add properties are challenging, particularly probably now more than pre-2021, I guess-ish. They take a ton of work. I think they're brutal on your relationship unless you're going it alone, because it just never stops. Between the operations and the retrofitting or upgrades, whichever it is, you're going to classify that, it's brutal. That's why I'm in St. Croix and she's in South Carolina. There you go. You fired me. What I told her is it's not fair. Number one, it's not fair to us as a couple to live, work, play, everything. And then we come back to the room. Back home, we have 3,000 sisters who grew up at home and we're staying in here and stuff. It's not fair to her. I can't treat her as my wife here. She's my work partner. Yeah, I know that. We had to make that separation as well, so I very much understand that. I'm looking at the clock. We probably have about five minutes and I need to wind this thing down. We spent a lot of time going through your history thing, but I think, again, it's... This is why I love podcasting and sharing information of any types, is because your story is going to resonate with somebody who's going through very similar type of stuff. There's more pieces that we could unpack on a different day, but I think I'm going to just transition to just talking about... If you guys were sitting with some people and they were debating on whether or not they want to get into the entrepreneurial space, even after listening to all your stories about the personal struggles and about the financial struggles and the bankruptcies and all of that stuff, A, would you or would you not tell them that they should become an entrepreneur? And B, if so, if yes, then why? I would tell absolutely yes, but get a coach. Don't try to do it by yourself. Mentor, coach, whatever the word is you want. Because people like us, you and I, we've all been through it. So if they can try to somebody... But the YouTube... I mean, the people nowadays have so much more information at their fingertips than what we have. We just have to go off the idea and hope for the best. I would like to hear your perspective too, Stephanie, on how much value do you think it brings having a mentor? I think it's priceless. I think that you're absolutely... You're shooting yourself in the foot if you don't have somebody, a coach, a mentor. If it was me and let's say I wanted to I wanted to open a shop that made hair bows, I don't know. If I wanted to open a shop that made hair bows, I would search the next state over or two states over and I would find somebody that made hair bows and I would connect with them and say, hey, I'm not going to be your competition anyway. I'm two states over. But I would really like to come and spend several weekends with you and just watch what you do and see your systems and I'll clean your house. I'll watch your kids while you're not there. I'll do anything that you need me to do if you will show me how to do what you're doing. You'd be shooting yourself in the foot to not take the opportunity to try to learn from somebody else and not just from somebody that has succeeded because you need to know the failures. You have got to see... If somebody's had the yellow brick road and that's all they've ever walked on, you're never going to know if you fall off that yellow brick road and you hit that ditch, what do you do now? It's invaluable to have somebody else that's had struggles and you'd be shooting yourself in the foot to not have somebody else help you along your way. I always bring up this question because the first time that I saw some of the price tags of joining a short-term mentor group or something like that, I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I had sticker shock because I had never... And I was not looking at it as an investment at that point. It was an expense to me. I was like, dang, I don't want to spend $2,000, $4,000. But when I finally pulled the trigger and went there, I was like, holy crap. I wish I had done this earlier. I appreciate both of your guys' perspectives on that. We've ran out of time really quickly, so we'll have to have another conversation. I know we're closing down, but I was going to say this earlier and you just reminded me. One thing that's impressed me about you since the day we met is I was like, Jimmy is shucking and jiving 24-7. I'm like, this guy is finding more deals than you can shake a stick at. I was like, just blown away. And I was like, dang, man, I think it's paid dividends. You probably have to deal with a little bit of crap, but I think it's paid dividends that you're always out there constantly trying to network because I definitely think that's the most vital aspect of building any of this is your relationships. I mean, connectivity is everything. I'm going to close this down. I want to thank both of you guys for taking the time to sit there and come on and have this conversation and sharing your story. Again, my whole point of doing this is just to hopefully inspire other people to take that leap of faith. I'm absolutely amazed at how many people will never take that step to potentially build financial freedom and just freedom as a holistic view for themselves. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for sharing all your guys' experience. Y'all too. Thank you.