417 – From drugs, to a child’s death to Top Consultant: Tom interviews Tracy Brinkmann

Episode 417 – Tracy Brinkmann
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody it's Tom here with Episode 417 of Screw The Commute podcast. I'm here with Tracy Brinkmann. And I'll tell you what, this guy has overcome some horrendous stuff to get where he's going and where he's still at and where he plans to go in the future. And some unbelievable stuff. You just want to hang in here and listen to his stories. Quite inspirational. So I'll be doing this episode 416. Oh, my goodness. Nadia Holliday. I met her on the new social media thing clubhouse. And what a go getter this lady is. Oh, my goodness. She's into all kinds of stuff. She had to pivot because of the pandemic. And she's you just don't want to get in her way. I put it that way. So that was Episode 416. And if you want to listen to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com then the episode number, slash 416. And this is 417 with Tracy Brinkmann. Now, how would you like to hear your own voice here on screw the commute? Well, if the show's helped you out at all in your business or giving you ideas to help you start a business, we want to hear about it.

[00:01:31] Visit Screwthecommute.com and look for a little blue sidebar that says, send voicemail, click on it, talk into your phone or computer and tell me how the shows helped you. And hey, put your website in there so you can get a big shout out in front of thousands of people on a future episode of Screw the Commute. Now we give away a really, really great e-book just to thank you for listening to the show. But you will thank me if you do even a portion of what's in this book. It's how to automate your business. It's how I've handled up to 150000 subscribers and 40000 customers without pulling my hair out. So check that out, grab it at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're over there, pick up a copy of our podcast app, at screwthecommute.com/app, that you can put us on your cell phone tablet and take with you on the road. All right. I know people are still freaking out because of the pandemic and a lot of pain and suffering out there, and I really feel for that. However, I have been preaching for 23 years about the value of being able to sell online and sell from home.

[00:02:43] I've been on the commercial Internet doing it myself for 27 years, which is when the commercial Internet started around 1994. And it hasn't affected me or my business at all or my students. And so a lot of people are saying, well, we should to listen to you a long time. I said, yeah, I bet you do. So it's never too late to learn this stuff. And it's a great thing to pass on or get your children or grandchildren or nephews and nieces involved in. And so about thirteen years ago, I formalized the training in the form of a school. It's the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing school in the country, probably the world licensed operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's good quality distance learning. It's not like these colleges today that all of a sudden they got a distance learning class and they they developed it in two days. We've been doing it for thirteen years. And by the way, I'm really down on these colleges. I mean, I have a an anti scam show in development Hollywood and these colleges would be in jail in my not so humble opinion if they weren't for college, if they weren't colleges, because, you know, they're charging crazy fees.

[00:03:58] We even have a quiz, the show called Seven College Rip Offs that you just wouldn't believe that they're doing to families and so forth. And then they just teach you how to protest and then you're competing for jobs at Starbucks when you get out. So so we don't like that. My school is hardcore techniques that every business on Earth needs. You can have a career and is on its way in as little as a few months. So check it out at IMTCVA.org. And if you are in my mentor program, which I'll tell you about later, then you can get a scholarship to the school that you can use yourself or gift to a loved one in your life.

[00:04:36] Let's get to the main event. Tracy Brinkmann's here and he hit rock bottom using drugs, went through a divorce, a bankruptcy and even. Oh, my goodness. I can't even imagine the death of an 18 month old daughter. But he went from that to running the planning and marketing departments of some of corporate America's finest companies and then started his own company helping driven entrepreneurs and coaches scale their businesses by crystallizing and monetizing their passions. And. And now he's hosting his podcast focused on driven Dark Horse Entrepreneurs. Tracy, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:20] Oh, I'm absolutely ready.

[00:05:23] How are you doing, man? It's been like two or three hundred years that I talk to you,

[00:05:27] And it's been a long time ago. I was just chatting with you before I pulled out my Wake Them Up book that you put out on business presentations and then they'll wake them up. Kicked series for the what was that to tell a seminar for speakers. And of course, I used a lot of those tips back. And when you got started, like you said, way back in the 90s when the commercial Internet started, I used a lot of those tips to launch a pretty good speaking career. I would and then not lobby that into coaching.

[00:05:57] Yeah, well, the a lot of those things are evergreen, and I jumped on it very early in that I saw this, you know, back in the day. You've been around a while. It was hard enough to sell your products like it was selling cassette tapes and physical books. And it's hard enough to sell them across the street, let alone around the world, you know, so when the commercial Internet started, I said, I'm going to figure this out. And and but, you know, I didn't make a nickel for the first two years trying to figure it out until I got good training. So that's what most of us do to our value in the marketplace. We sell our own stuff and then we help others to, you know, to do what they need to do.

[00:06:34] And I think that's one of the key lessons right there, isn't it? Is that, yeah, you want to get out there and you want to be entrepreneurial and you want to start paying the bills with that entrepreneurial journey. But it doesn't happen tomorrow. Right? It takes a little time. You've got to get your feet in the water. I mean, of course, we've all heard the quote unquote overnight stories of success. And when you dig under the surface, usually those overnight stories are a decade long at least.

[00:07:01] Yeah, that's for sure. And you've done some some really great things in the in the face of some big adversity. And take us back to when you started. I mean, were you an entrepreneurial kid?

[00:07:15] I actually was. I was one of those kids that my dad was in the military. So we moved all the time. And I developed this, I guess, a sense of humor, this ability to connect with folks with with humor. And as that kid, we would be at a school in elementary and they would have that pencil machine. And you could get to know sometimes you'd get three pencils, but usually two for a nickel. And I would have them in class. And when some kid needed a pencil, it was like, sure, give me a quarter, give me a dime, write you up, charge it. That's the supply and demand I've got to supply. So it started off there and then on into high school, you know, I got into cars and I wasn't so much the engine guy, but I love stereo systems and paint and body work. So everybody was coming to me to paint their cars, install their stereo system. Sure. No problem. You know, here it is. Just give me a couple hundred bucks. I'll sell your stereo system. So that continued on. And I actually joined the military right out of high school. And when I got out a few years later, I settled back into Southern California with a new set of skills and started doing database programming for insurance preferred provider organizations in Southern California. So right there at the boom of dot com, right. I was I mean, I was actually doing really, really well, had good coin in the pocket. And of course, that was about the same time that cocaine and speed was just everywhere. And I got sucked into that war. And and that's that's like you alluded to in the in the opening there, got into the drug scene, you know, let the business just fall on the wayside. But I took the same skills that I used in business and started applying it in a more illicit manner, you know, people, management and everything else, and did that for about two years. And unfortunately. Well, actually, I'll say, fortunately, you know, five oh kicked the door open to my condo. I wasn't there when my wife and I were still in Southern California. It was a wake up call. You know, I was out on probably a pretty party heavy three, four day binge. And I came home that Sunday morning and saw my door kicked open. And it was just like you'd see in the movie, you know, things are thrown everywhere. Furniture was flipped over. Rice Krispie treats are poured out on the floor and everything. And it was kind of a you know, you use the phrase a come to Jesus moment. I had a three month old daughter and now wasn't my life that I was potentially hosing up. Right. I'll keep it clean. So, you know, I called. My savior, because it had been for her. I may have had that arrogant attitude like, oh, I can beat these guys and I'd be sitting having this conversation with you from behind bars. So that was, you know, that was a roller coaster ride, number one. And I think a lesson I took out of that obviously then don't do drugs was coming out of that scene. I could have walked right back into the marketplace with my computer skill set, but my my confidence had taken a serious kick to the head. Right. And so I went out there and started building my confidence back up, you know, by doing, you know, accounting jobs and warehouse jobs and, you know, for about six or eight months, just doing those little menial. I mean, I don't want to underrate anyone who's out there doing it, but I've done it. So I know I know it's not easy and it's not always fun. But certainly you can start building your confidence back up through these tasks. Hey, I'm out here. I'm providing a service. I'm I'm doing something to, you know, pay for my daughter's well-being. And when I felt confident again, I stepped into the market. And that's what landed me, you know, my rise to corporate America at Coca-Cola for 12 years and then into Home Depot and David's Bridal and Victoria's Secret just and each one of those phases learning something new about business and marketing.

[00:11:14] First of all, I did not know that you were a veteran. So I want to thank you for your service. We're very pro military here on our podcast. And also, I want you to mark on your calendar to get back with me in September. It's Vetpreneur Month on screw the commute. So we'll have you back on again. Then the next thing I want to ask you is like, OK, all those years you spent in corporate America, which, you know, I don't know if you've heard me rag on corporate America, but, you know, it's like I say, you know, I just couldn't stand it there because you got to have a two week committee meeting to take a leak, you know? Yeah, right. So so how did you survive that time? What did you do in those corporations and what did you learn in Coca-Cola?

[00:12:00] I was all about marketing and planning and I landed in a pretty lucky position. And I had a director of marketing for Coca-Cola North America that almost gave me free reign. You know, it was I had a pretty wide scope and she actually created a role for me that were my role was to go out and find places to improve the business, which being an entrepreneurial spirit at heart was just like, oh, I could just go crazy. It was like a playground.

[00:12:29] So don't tell me don't tell me you started with the New Coke. That was

[00:12:35] Actually that was not me that you know,

[00:12:38] That's good.

[00:12:39] But there's actually an interesting story behind that. Anyway, they so again, like I was saying, they could be pretty much free reign, which kept me entertained for a number of years, actually just over a decade. I was there for twelve years. But like you're saying, you know, at some point you're going, I'm really not happy here anymore. So I moved on to the next venture, which would have been Home Depot. And then there I was in charge of everything on their website. So, you know, I can imagine back in their late 90s, they had they had this mentality of everything that's available out there. They were almost Amazon ish about it. And they wanted on their website, they called it their extended isle mentality. So there was a lot of challenges with that. And so getting that up and running and keeping that in stock so your customers were happy. That taught me a lot about merchandising. And I did very well there to the point where I was actually wooed away from Home Depot by a catalog brand in Ohio. So they brought me on to be the director of their planning and marketing merchandising team for one of their catalog brands. And that was awesome because now I was running an arm of the business. So I felt very entrepreneurial in that. But then again, you still you hit that ceiling where you're like like you said, the two week meeting just to go to the bathroom. Right. And, you know, there's there is times you're like, here's the right thing to do and you lay it all out and you showed them the data and they're like, yeah, no, we're not doing it that way. And then when they were bought by house and I'm like, OK, this is my exit time right here in during all of this, you know, through the latter coca cola years and on into Home Depot in front gate, I actually was running some side hustles.

[00:14:23] Right. So I met you in that time frame. You know, I was doing speaking wherever people would listen to me. And I started my public speaking when my daughter got sick. And, you know, when she was on her way, she waiting on the organ transplant list. And before she passed away, I was talking to anybody that would listen in, probably quite a few that didn't want to listen about the benefits of being an organ donor. Right. And that got me in front of small groups. I actually went up. To Pennsylvania and gave a speech in front of like 1500 doctors and nurses, and I'm like, you know, that that feeding off the audience and I know you can resonate with this, right? That's that energy you get from an audience is engaged with your message. It was like, OK, I got to keep doing this. And that started a whole nother path of side hustle of doing public speeches and, you know, finding product to match with those speeches so that that entrepreneurial hustle was there, which is probably what kept me in corporate as long as it did, because I still had that entrepreneurial zing happening on the side until, you know, it's like, you know what? I just got to stop this merry go round of, you know, getting permission to go potty or getting permission to service a customer. Right. When you when you look at someone say, hey, if we want to serve as this customer, we need to do X, Y, Z, and they go, yeah, that doesn't bring us any revenue. You're like, what? Hello?

[00:15:51] Yeah, that's the way it is. So so here's something I like to delve into. And I've heard you talk about it on other places, so that's why I don't feel bad about asking. But this is the passing of your your young daughter that could just wipe some people out off the face of the earth. They'd just be gone and depressed and accomplished nothing the rest of their life. How did you cope with that? What mechanisms did you do to cope with that? I mean, I can't think of anything that we run into as entrepreneurs. Bankruptcy is nothing to get. I mean, look, the things that happen in business, but nothing like that. How did you cope with that?

[00:16:33] It was probably two fold. And you're absolutely right. I have met a lot of people on this planet that I do not like for whatever reason. But I have never met anyone I dislike so much that I would wish that upon them. It's just one of those things you if you haven't been through it, you can't fathom it. And I, I don't want you to be able to fathom it. For me, it was like I was saying, it was twofold. One, I still had my first daughter, who is probably four and a half, almost five by this point. And so here she is still looking at me for hope. And, you know, where can I what can I do in the world, you know, being, you know, the super dad. I was just super dad at that point. Right. And so I still had her. So she was really my my anchor. And then I was lucky enough still working at Coca-Cola at this time that I could go to all these amazing self-improvement, self-help. Tony Robbins, you know, Ziggler, Jim Roanne, Jim Hopkins' events that they were having back in those time frames. So I threw myself into work and personal development and the blend of the two kind of kept me grounded from slipping back. And I mean, it makes it three now. I paused in this personal development journey to really look back into the eye of the abyss of that drug scene that I had been in.

[00:17:53] I turned around and said, OK, I need to look at that so I don't slip back into it and and learn the lessons of that, you know, the good ones as well as the bad ones to say, I don't want to go back there. Let's make sure the signals that would have that would have been up there for me going into it, that I pay attention to them as I walk this precarious line of being. I'm still really depressed. I was, you know, kind of hiding it in work, in personal development. But, you know, as the personal development rolled through and I started paying attention to more than just a surface message, it's like a little self-examination. And that turned and told me, hey, you need to look back at that and learn from that so that you don't fall back into it. And I think that's like life lessons or business lessons is like you'll keep making the same damn mistake unless you turn and look at the data and look at the results and look at the actions you took and what you got out of them and say, oh, well, this is where I keep tripping up right here. No wonder I keep falling on my face.

[00:18:56] So some self reflection then and combined with personal development techniques.

[00:19:02] Oh, absolutely. And it's, you know, and it's self reflection with honesty. I mean, we can all like, oh, I scratch the surface. Yeah, I looked at that. Here's why I did it. OK, but you got to get go a little deeper, right. It's like, you know, why do you want to be an entrepreneur, you know, go I want to make money. Well let's go a little deeper than that because just making money isn't going to get you past the first obstacle. You're going to hit that first obstacle. You're going to go out. That hurt. I'm not doing this anymore. And you're going to go back into corporate America.

[00:19:31] Yikes. Boy, you're not supposed to cuss on this episode. Oh, man. So so I'm going to tell on you a little bit here. Hit me. So we were supposed to. Record this yesterday, I think. Yes, and you said, hey, I got to take this well being the super dad. Now, this five year old that you were talking about a minute ago is not five anymore. No, no, no. You had to take her somewhere. And you said to me, family comes first. And I'm thinking, I can't argue with that today. So tell us about how she's progressed in life and the and how that relationship is.

[00:20:20] Well, the relationship with her is amazing. You know, we went through some, obviously, the roller coaster ride.

[00:20:25] But she was five when when the other child passed.

[00:20:29] Right. She's in her 30s now and she's got a daughter of her own and she's married and often doing amazing things. She started college a little while back while my youngest is. That's what we.

[00:20:42] This is different.

[00:20:43] Oh, this is different. Yeah. I've got like four in the pocket now. And the youngest overachiever. You're an overachiever, right? She's going after an animal behavior major at a college about 40 minutes away from home here. So we were down there doing the last visit, kind of checking things out and making sure that we're going to give it the nod. And I think one of the cool things that you were saying at your at your intro was, you know, there's a lot of shady things that happen in the collegiate experience. Sure. You know, and so we spent a lot of time and doing research on, you know what? We don't want to go through the I don't want to call it libertarian, but we don't want to go through the the mind melding the mind adjusting of some of the scholastic ventures that are out there. Yeah, at

[00:21:32] Least she's getting a skill here.

[00:21:33] Yeah. Yeah. So we read music civilisational a school.

[00:21:38] Is that it is not.

[00:21:40] It is a independent school. It is not a public school. It is a privately funded college here locally and in a little town. So it was built. Oh God. What is it. Eighteen. Sixty. I believe it was built. It was in the late eighteen I of.

[00:21:57] I remember that. Yeah. When I saw that on the news when the when it came out. Yeah. So yeah but but

[00:22:06] Yeah it was about ten years old when I saw it. Yeah.

[00:22:09] So, so my school is considered vocational in marketing. You wouldn't think would like that do you think. More plumbing and eating and stuff. Right. Right. Yeah it's vocational. So I thought with the animal stuff it would be a vocational,

[00:22:24] Most of their, most of their main majors are definitely vocational. They're really known for their nursing program. Yeah. They're really known for their animal behavior. It's like one of the ten.

[00:22:35] So it is vocational.

[00:22:37] Very vocational. They don't focus on the athletics and all that noise. They have athletic programs. But that's not their focus. Right, right.

[00:22:45] Yeah, so so she's going to come out with a grace, and because I'm a total animal nut, I mean, I rescued tons of yeah.

[00:22:52] So she yeah, yeah, she's going to come out with an amazing set of skills to go out. And, you know, part of the program is they actually get to go work at the local zoo here in Milwaukee and like the last year or year and a half of their time there. So she'll come out with experience and a skill set so she can step out into the workforce. And I think on top of that and, you know, is the connections that you make as a part of that interaction with the zoo or, you know, the wildlife, you know, working with the wildlife organizations out here.

[00:23:26] No, she considered being an animal trainer.

[00:23:29] She has not. I think that's more of the some of the bad taste it gets left in the mouth of when you when you first think of animal training, you think of, you know, circuses or shows or different things like that. She's going more for the animal health, the animal welfare, going out and working with the Department of Wildlife and what have you.

[00:23:52] The reason I bring it up is because, you know, I have a protection dog company and the trainers that I use have a pet training company. Hmm. OK, and they are cleaning up. I mean, we're talking twenty, thirty forty thousand dollars a month for pet training, you know, because people are crazy about their pets. And and actually I don't know if there's anything good that came out of the pandemic that people were stuck at home with their pets more and seeing what little monsters they're they're raising. And so they go and get to training for them. So so that's just to let her keep that in the back of her head if she really wants to make some money and with these kids. So. So we got to take a brief sponsor break. And then when we come back, we're going to ask Tracy, what's a typical day look like for him and his company? And we're going to talk about his podcast that I'm going to be on here one of these days and how he stays motivated, which is probably tuition for the behavior. School was so so, folks, about about 23 years ago, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head. And the people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to teach this stuff. And I I'll tell you what, I knew a lot of these people. If you give them 50 or 100 grand up front, you'd never see them again. So it was kind of a lot of rip offs going on at the time. Still is, by the way. So I said, you know, that's not fair to small business people.

[00:25:24] I'm going to fix this. So I kind of turned everything up on it upside down. And I charge an entry fee, which was probably ten times cheaper than what those people were charging. And then I tied my success to your success. So for me to get my fifty thousand, you have to net two hundred thousand. Well, people really love this. And seventeen hundred plus students later and and 23 years is still going strong. It's at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique program ever of its kind. And I don't feel bad saying that because I've triple dog. Speaking of dogs, a triple dog dared people to put a program up against my in line for line and see who wins. And nobody will do it because I'm a crazy fanatic, I, I help people on weekends, evenings, holidays. I accidentally threw a teller class on Thanksgiving one. I didn't notice it was Thanksgiving, but guess what? Sixty people showed up for it. So I guess they didn't want to have to list the Uncle Joe screaming at the football teams on TV. But but it's you have an immersion weekend at the retreat center in Virginia Beach with our TV studio. And you actually live in this estate with me. Of course, when coverage done, everything is one on one.

[00:26:44] We don't like group coaching because if you're advanced, the new people are lost. And if you're if I'm talking to the new people, the advanced people are bored. So it's all one on one with me and my entire staff. You get the scholarship to the school, which is one of the best legacy gifts you could ever give to a young person because they can have their own career. We have people making money a few months into the school because the demand is so high for young people to handle social media and do all these things so so you can have your own business and work for somebody else or both, whichever you want. So anyway, check it out. GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com said it's the longest running ever in this field and no high pressure. I'll be glad to talk to you about your future online and the young people in your lives future online. Plus, if they get money, they won't come home and live in your basement. How about that? So check it out.

[00:27:42] All right. Let's get back to the main event. Tracy Brinkmann is here, and he has overcome some very serious downsides in his life, and he's been inspired by his own children to straighten his act up. And boy, he sure did so. So, Tracy, what is a typical day look like for you now?

[00:28:01] You know, I think a typical day looks like a bit of outreach, right? One of the things I like to do is a lot of organic marketing. And here lately it's been a lot of organic on Facebook. And that's a for me that means, you know, folks will be they good old Mark Zuckerberg and his infamous algorithm will send you all those folks that like, hey, connect with this guy and connect them and they reach out to you. And I have kind of a series of messages I'll engage with folks. Obviously, first thing you want to do is take a look at their profile. And if they don't, they'll look like someone you want to be a part of their lives. Then you move on. But certainly you don't except send a message, say, hey, thanks for their quest. You know, and one of the questions I like to ask him right out of the gate is what is your superpower? Right. And that's usually something that kind of catches people off guard, like, wait a minute, I have never thought about that. And it starts a conversation and I'm all about relationships and conversations. And if I can help you a step into my world, let me help you. If I can't, I probably know someone that can. Or maybe you're someone new into my sphere of influence that can help some of those that I'm trying to help. And so it's building that relationship pool, bringing them on into my sphere of influence, be it the Facebook group or the podcast, and then, you know, sharing value. And I think it's beginning of the day. If you're trying to run any kind of business, that's one of the key things you want to do is connection. And one of the biggest connections is by sharing that value with your audience. And then further, you know, for me, inside your audience is that that core focus of rabid fans who are your tribe right now?

[00:29:47] How much time do you spend on this? I do this every day.

[00:29:50] I do this every day. Maybe it's yeah, I'll be realistic and say it's an hour, hour and a half.

[00:29:56] So it's going to get up for a long time. Do you have any kind of morning routine that a lot of people talk about

[00:30:01] At my morning routine is roll out of bed, hop on to the treadmill for a bit or hit the weights for a bit. I'm lucky enough to have a little space in my home where I have a treadmill and some weight so I can just roll out of bed and do that, you know, hang out with the missus for a while, have some breakfast, you know, a little reading, a little planning, and then open up the laptop and hit that for a bit.

[00:30:26] I say there's one thing that you since you mentioned that I want people to know out there that treadmills can be used for a lot of different things. My mind is great for hanging shirts on the side of it. So a lot of you have to plug it in for that, by the way. So just want people to know that.

[00:30:49] Saves the power too.

[00:30:50] Yeah, yeah. Saves your electric bill.

[00:30:53] I think I think another thing that good treadmills are good for is it's a learning opportunity. So if you're if you decide to get on the treadmill, you obviously want to move the shirts out of the way and you want to plug it in, but you actually get up there and start walking. It's an opportunity to grow your knowledge base, watch a video on something, listen to a podcast. Maybe you've bought some program that you're like, oh, maybe I need just this thing off and actually get the value out of that. I bought for it.

[00:31:21] I just put a put a shelf across the arms of it so I can sit my laptop there and and work actually. And even I saw this some guy from Harvard or something we call it, and I applaud instead of an iPod. And it's like even if you're walking at like one mile an hour, it's better than sitting. Sitting is like the new smoking or something.

[00:31:47] So, yeah. And it gets all those juices. My wife is a personal trainer, so I could go deep into that and but I'd risk exposing my lack of knowledge anyway. So yeah, little of that in the morning and then over the course of the day it's, you know, having contact with students, you know, either the one on ones and the the occasional group contacts. And then you'll you'll get I do mine right now. I'm a solopreneurs will. Right. I'm doing the whole thing. I'm considering a VA is an opportunity right around the corner here. I'm getting to that point where it's like, all right, I got too many things going on, which is a good problem to have. Right. So let's get them focused on the non revenue generating activities so I can focus on the bigger ones. But, you know, answering the questions that pop in very emails, reaching out to folks like yourself to come on my show or get on their shows, that I can help spread the word again organically.

[00:32:44] So speaking of the show, tell them about your podcast.

[00:32:48] My podcast is The Dark Horse Entrepreneur, and I picked Dark Horse because I think during the course of our lives, so many of us has felt like all the odds were stacked against us. Right. That underdog kind of mentality. But for me, the the dark horse is someone that, you know, what? If I get out there and I actually take the action and I run the race, I could come in, win place or show you believe in yourself, but maybe those around you, even on your inner circle. And while they may mean well, they're like, you sure you want to do that? You could risk it all, lose everything, you know. So the dark horse entrepreneur is focused on what I call my dark horse tribe. And, you know, we get on just like you do here. You have guests come on on the Monday episode, folks that are out in front of me, I want to learn from them and help that help my tribe learn from them as well. And then Monday or excuse me, a Tuesday, third, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Those are the weeks right now. Those are Tuesday through Friday. I do short little episodes, you know, 15, maybe 20 minutes long that kind of are treacy's spin off of the topic. Maybe that the the the guest was talking about. I had Colonel Colobus on a couple of weeks ago, and she's this award winning writer and she's been teaching all kinds of people how to write powerfully and tactfully and in more short, succinct sentences, what have you. And so I spent the rest of the week talking about here, here's how you write for your Web page and here's how you write to convert. And here's how you set your space up to write all these different things around writing. So that almost become a week of writing and then a week of marketing. And then we also touch base on personal development because it was such a big powerful. Pivot in my life that, you know, if I hadn't gone through that and learned those tools, I probably would be again behind the bars not having this conversation with you.

[00:34:46] Wow, wow, wow. That's very powerful. So how do you stay motivated,

[00:34:52] You know, engaging with the folks on the other side of the microphone or on the other side of, you know, Facebook or the other side of the email? I actually I honestly believe 100 percent that if I could be in anybody's eulogy, it's like, hey, when they say I'm successful because of this one thing I learned and they learned it have say my name, but they've learned it from me, then my job here is done. I have made the world an inkling better than it was when I landed here. Right. I know I've made some things not so good if I can make it just a little bit better. And I know it sounds like woo woo and altruistic and stuff, but it's true. If you can, if I can change someone's life one degree early on, then that one degree becomes, you know, 300 degrees later in their lives if they continue on that path. And that really feeds me. I've been lucky enough to see a few people succeed past me. And you're like, yeah, that's kind of awesome.

[00:35:54] Well, yeah, the it happened like massively to me, you know, I teach people how to recruit young people. I call them geeks and propeller heads and to help you, you know, like the kid that's never going to get a date in his entire life. So the kids I started in 1997, stole him out of CompUSA, just sold his third startup for 340 million dollars. I thought you said you're buying dinner next time I come to your town. But, yeah, he wrote an article in Forbes attributing his start in business to me. And and I'm just thrilled to death about it. Yeah. He actually called me from a yacht in Greece with a couple of supermodels.

[00:36:42] Yeah. Hey, I'm going to represent us a little bit.

[00:36:44] Yeah, exactly. So so tell me the website.

[00:36:49] The website is darkhorseschooling.com. And, you know, obviously all the Sociales will be there and you can connect with me. I'm very active, like I said, on Facebook and on Instagram and LinkedIn. And you can link. Right. You can listen to the podcast right from there, or it will take you to any of the places that you like to listen to your podcast from, you know, Spotify, Google, whatever it is. And you can subscribe and start checking us out.

[00:37:14] Beautiful, darkhorseschooling.com. So we'll have the show notes for everybody. And, well, it's good catching up with you, Tracy. A really inspiring the way you overcame some really horrendous things to still keep doing good things in the world.

[00:37:31] Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me aboard.

[00:37:34] Ok everybody, we'll catch y'all on the next episode. See ya later.

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