How a Rogue Trader Cost My Company $10 Million

Sean Weisbrot: David Miller is the founder and CEO of Alchemy of Scale, a coaching practice that helps entrepreneurs scale their business beyond $10 million a year in revenue. In this episode, we talked about what it was like starting and growing and selling multiple businesses, the struggles and the successes of those businesses, and the most expensive mistake he's ever made, and more so if you like Founders Journeys and Psychology of Entrepreneurship. You're gonna love this episode with David Miller. Let's get to it. What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? You.

David Miller: Obviously need to be self aware of yourself and how you're leading. But even more so whenever you face those challenges, recognizing that, um, that you fail, even if it's to a small degree. How do you take those failures and transform them into opportunities to learn and grow? I embracing your, your. Cynics out there that are emotionally charging you with feedback that's sometimes hard to interpret it, but there's, there's a lot of golden and gems and, and the, um, and the cynics out there that are telling you how, how you failed and how to get better. So really embracing the, um, the failures for lack of better words and the, and the feedback there from, so you can strengthen your company, your team, and your overall leadership capacity.

Sean Weisbrot: What's been the hardest thing with running companies?

David Miller: Allowing my self-limiting beliefs to not get in the way.

Sean Weisbrot: What are some of those self-limiting beliefs that you had and battled with?

David Miller: So in the beginning it was an abundance issue, and recognizing the fact that there's enough business out there for everybody. You're really only competing against yourself. If you focus on your business, you focus on your core purpose, you focus on your competitive edges, and and you implement that in the marketplace, there's plenty of business and customers and clients are gonna buy. So it, having that scarcity mindset really hurt me in the beginning, even though I grew a wildly successful business or businesses, you know, letting go of that scarcity mindset knowing that there's enough business out there for everybody. And just to, to go get it, how

Sean Weisbrot: many businesses did you go through before you cracked the 10 million in one of them?

David Miller: My first business, uh, cracked the. 10 million after 11 plus years. And so the funny, that's a great question, Sean. 'cause the funny thing was, is um, I scaled my second business to 10 million plus and approximately two and a half years, you know, they had started with a couple hundred grand in revenue when I acquired it and totally transformed it. Built a leadership team, but it took me. So long to to get through, really to understand how to run a business, to be honest. Um, and how to, how to run it, um, in a way that is smooth and, and all the people are, um, really communicating on, on a higher level. So, so once I understood how to actually run a business. And I got through all my own and adequacies and how to run it, run that business. It really didn't take long and it shouldn't take long for everything. Now, that second business, yeah, I scaled to 10 million in two and a half years. There was some market timing that definitely helped us out and was favor favorable to us, but had, had I not put those systems in place that I learned from my first business. Um, the people systems, the structural systems, the financial systems, all the various components of a business. There's no way we could have scaled to 10 million in that two and a half years. So, um, if I were to start another business, I'd say I could probably do it in, in well under five. And this is bootstrapping with, with no, with no funding, of course. Um, it's all organic growth. But yeah, I would say that's probably the main thing.

Sean Weisbrot: The one you mentioned, it took you over 10 years to get to 10 million. That was the very first business you had ever created.

David Miller: Yes, that's right. Unless you want to count like a, a candy vending machine when I was younger. But yeah, that, that was, uh,

Sean Weisbrot: those all count, all of those experiences teach you along the way. I mean, I had started several businesses that were fantastic in the social sense, but didn't really make that much money. And it wasn't until I finally hit on something that had good market timing. Right. I was in the blockchain space. I was in China. I could speak Chinese. I'd already been learning Chinese for seven years, and I had been learning about blockchain for about a year and a half in Chinese and in English. And so I was like the only white guy in China that could understand you and your culture and your business and your needs and your industry in your own language. So you didn't need any translator to talk to me. And I had connections outside of China to the industry, so I could give you what you wanted when you wanted it. I was just telling them how much to pay me and I was just cashing checks left and right, but, but like, nobody would've thought that, like, that's, you know, the thing that, that makes sense. You know, I, I, I sold $15 million of services in two years and my previous business maybe made like $30,000. In like two years. So I had never handled anything like that before. It was a huge change for me. I was like, oh. And you know, yeah, I, I, I've been trying to do something like that again and it's been impossible. And so I'm trying to build an agency, build smart build for the long term now because I realized that I was in the right place at the right time. People say, you know, this, uh, o 10 year overnight success. Well, if I. Hadn't spent seven years learning Chinese, I would've never even been able to be in that position to learn about blockchain and then to to use it. So, you know, like you spent all those years learning to be confident in yourself. I was spending those years learning to be confident in Mandarin while learning to understand their cultures. So that, 'cause I knew when I got to China, I knew that there was an opportunity, I just didn't know what it was. But I knew I had to learn the language if I wanted to understand what that opportunity was gonna be. And then it just fell in my lap once I was there.

David Miller: So, and everything that you learned, um. Obviously the, the cultural nuances were important. Where do you, where do you feel like you were able to just pour the gasoline on the fire to make, to make all that 15 million in sales happen?

Sean Weisbrot: Because I am really great at talking to people. I'm great at networking in a meaningful way, and so I was very fortunate to meet a few people that trusted me, and so I learned, so my, my degree's in psychology and so I applied the psychology of trust. It's, it's a, a triangle of trust or a trust transfer system. So I got these people who had these clients that I didn't know. Who had a ton of money and were needing services and these guys couldn't provide these services 'cause they didn't have the relationships that I did. But they knew me and trusted me. And so they said, Hey, you need this. You, you gotta go to Sean. He's your guy. He's the one that can get it done. And so instead of me having to go and build a sales system. These people were my salespeople, and so they brought me their clients and I gave them hefty commissions, sometimes $20,000 for a client. So they saw that I was doing the job, I said I could do, and that I was paying them really well and fast. So they were emotionally incentivized to get me as many clients as fast as possible so that they could make as much money as they possibly could. And one of the guys I worked with, he bought his mom a house. He, he earned $250,000 in commission working with me over those two years. He bought his mom a house in cash because of it, and he was like, uh, you know, it feels so good to be able to do this for my mom. And I was like, yeah, man. It's great. I love it. And I love these stories. I love to be able to help people and, and I'm glad I was able to work with you. And so I, I didn't have any social media. I didn't make any content. I didn't have a website. I didn't have an email. You know, people were just. Talking to me on WeChat. Alright, what do I do next? Where do I send the money?

David Miller: The fact that you said trust, I mean, that's one of my keynote speak speeches is I was featured in, um, Inc. Recently, and it it, the articles called The $10 million Mistake that I Made and, and how it taught me how to trust in business. And, uh, you're, you seem to be a lot younger than me and you've learned, seems, maybe you learned it a lot quicker than me, but. Um, you know, what I've found through overextending and me trying to earn that trust, um, kind of going too far, wanting to earn trust that, you know, just isn't gonna come the other direction, um, allowed me to see that trust is the most valuable intangible currency in business. And, you know, learning how to trust in a business environment is quite a bit different than learning how to trust with personal relationships. That was, those were two areas that I were confl, that I was conflating. Um, so yeah, I mean, hats off to you for, for understanding that way, way, way before me.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm curious to know what your actual, what you call the $10 million mistake is. But before I do that, I'll shed some light for you on how I learned it earlier on. It's because I grew up with my dad owning a business. He's a, he's a dentist. He's still a dentist, but he doesn't have a business anymore. And the reason being is because he was, he was really good as a dentist. He was awful as a businessman in the fact that he didn't know how to run a business and so he was so busy serving the patients that he didn't know how to turn it into something that could scale. And his customer or the, the patients, some of them would take advantage, they wouldn't pay, or some of his, uh, employees were stealing money or. Just all left, right and center people were abusing him because he was a good kindhearted soul. He was just a good guy trying to help people get out of pain and do right by them. And people were taking advantage of that. And so I learned from a very young age that one, I didn't wanna be in dentistry 'cause people suck and, but two, that you can't really trust people. Or that you have to be really selective about who you trust. And that's why for me, I, I try to trust people from the moment I meet them while also being skeptical until they give me a reason to not fully trust them. And if you lose my trust, you never get a second chance. Because what I, if, if I tell you something, if I make a promise, I am gonna keep that promise, even if it kills me. If I can't make, if I can't deliver, if I'm not sure, I won't make the promise and I may not even try, or I'll say, look, I'm gonna try. I can't promise that I'm gonna be able to do this. If I can, I'll give you your money back, whatever. And people are drawn to honesty because so many people are not honest. And it's difficult for a lot of people to tell who is being honest and who is not being honest. And I feel like I have a really strong bullshit meter. Because of, of watching my dad get screwed around.

David Miller: That's interesting that you say that. Um, my, my wording is a little bit different, but I, I feel like we're going about it in a very similar way. I kind of bifurcate or I separate it into an illogical component on how to trust and then a logical component on how to trust the, um, illogical or creative, more synergistic energy type approach is. What you said, just kind of you get that gut feeling if someone's honest, if someone has that, that that level of integrity in them. And that's something that I feel like if you sense that from someone, you can give your trust or at least some of it. And when you initially meet them and, and get to know them. But then, then comes in that logical component for me, which is the second piece, and that's the whole trust but verify. You know what I found, Sean, is that if people are trustworthy and something doesn't make sense and you ask. Questions in a, in a curious fashion, really wanting to know the answer. Like, Hey, this does not make sense. Will you please explain this? A plus B doesn't equal C, and I get the whole one plus one equals three thing. That's more on the illogical side. Right? But on, on the logical side, there are some cases where one plus one does need to equal two, especially in a systems driven world. So like using that trust but verify and, and if, if you, if. Situations where I've become more confused when I've been in a trust but verify situation. That's where trust really starts to erode with me. And if, if I don't just, you know, cut bait, then. Then my cynical and skepticism meter is, is is on red hot alert. Right. Going forward. So, yeah. I I love the way that, that you're approaching, that I do. In a similar way, you got kinda like the, the method and the magic of trusting and how do you, how do you kind of mold those two together?

Sean Weisbrot: I find an interesting tell for me around trust is when you try to verify how do they respond? If they are able to supply evidence, do you have screenshots? Do you have, or even the screenshots you have to, you know, the screenshots can be, uh, faked, but like, if they, if they say, sure, I'll get you this, and they get it to you, then it's more likely to be real and not faked. Or if they get defensive. Why do you need to know that? Like, you know, like, I'll, I. Uh, for example, I was talking to a friend who, uh, has a, a tax expert in, in, in Portugal because I, it's time to file taxes and I said. You know, how can I get in touch with them? Well, my friend knows the person, and I've never talked to the tax expert. I just paid my friend, and my friend paid the tax expert. Obviously, the, the person is taking a cut in the middle for pr, you know, providing the service or, or the connection, whatever. I. Doesn't wanna rely on the tax expert to pay them, or maybe legally the tax expert can't give them a commission for finding a client for them, whatever it is. But the person wasn't willing to give up the, the relationship with the tax expert directly to their own friend. So knowing that I can't get access to that person, but I could get access to her friend, I was like, I don't even wanna, like, I'm not gonna send your friend hundreds of euros for what? I don't know. Like I want to talk to the expert. I don't wanna give this person my personal income documents to send a tax expert. No way. That's none of their business what it is. I'm not gonna do that. I'd rather find a tax expert that I can have a direct relationship with, right? I'm still gonna have to pay them for the work. But why do I wanna give a stranger this money? And she's like, well, this person helped me and, and I know that the tax expert actually did the job that they said they're gonna do. And I said, well, I'm good for, you know, I'm happy for you that you were able to save a lot of money on your taxes, but that's not gonna work for me. And they're like, yeah, that's fine. Like, no big deal. I'm, you know, so that, that person was just trying to help. 'cause I mentioned it to them, you know, they're like, you can talk to my friend, like, I have no problem with it, but just letting you know my friend is not going to introduce you directly to the tax expert. That's what happened for me. That's what's gonna happen for you if you go this route. And I was like, cool. Appreciate it. But not for me.

David Miller: When you have a company and you have a clear vision and a clear purpose and company core values, and, and you're moving in a certain direction, you know it's not necessarily a good or a bad thing. There's gonna be people that just don't align with you and that just, you know, there's not that level of trust because they don't have the same core values, principles, what have you, and. You know, it's, that's one of the things that I've learned, you know, it's me wanting to give, give, give, you know, kind of being in, in, in my soul, for lack of better words. You know, it, it's okay to say no, and whenever those red flags come up, if they wanna be on board with, with the purpose and what you're promoting and believe in, then. That's fine. Just let 'em go and move on. We'll be somebody else that will.

Sean Weisbrot: So what was your $10 million mistake?

David Miller: 2016? Uh, we were the fastest growing firm in the Inc 5,000 fastest growing financial firm in the Inc uh, 5,500, depending on what instance you're looking at. And, um, we were, we were humming, we were cranking on all four cylinders, and I probably hired approximately, I. 10, uh, key employees for the different roles that we had, that we needed and that we were expanding into. And one of those I launched, uh, I believe it was about six companies that year, um, either subsidiaries, uh, launched and or acquired. And one of those was a hedge fund, um, that I self-funded and that, um, was self-funded by the clients of my firm. Uh, some of my most trusted relationships, 10, 15 plus year relationships and, uh, picture perfect resume, gentleman from, uh, UBS investment Bank that I hired. And we had a very clear purpose. We had a very clear strategy and he, he went rogue and he traded against the strategy. And lied about it and covered shit up and, um, you know, lost, uh, millions and millions of dollars in a matter of seconds because of. Um, his personal greed or, or whatever his reasoning was for doing what he was doing, so that, that ended up costing my firm well over $10 million that I was the, uh, majority owner of, um, in addition to the millions and millions of dollars that, that our clients lost and ended up voluntarily repaying back our, our clients. But that, but yeah, that, that's a process that lasted probably six years. Um. From that, from that one trade. And yeah, it was easily a $10 million mistake that, that that'll teach you how to trust. It's not, not the easiest way to learn, but um, definitely teach us some, uh, some new ways to go about doing things. And

Sean Weisbrot: did you trade on leverage? 'cause that would've made it a lot worse?

David Miller: Uh, no. There was, there actually wasn't a lot of leverage. Um, it was the, um, intraday trading that was not on the end of day balance sheet. That, um, that was the reason for the loss in value. Did you get him sent to jail? That's one of the interesting lessons that I've learned in business is that, you know, the buck stops with the CEO. You know, leadership starts at the top. In some instances, especially when you're dealing with the government, in my case, the Securities and Exchange Commission, um, they didn't give two flips about him. It happened under my watch. Um, I needed to take responsibility of it, and they would not let go and not let up. Until they had my head.

Sean Weisbrot: If you were managing billions of dollars, they wouldn't have cared

David Miller: that. And, uh, I would've had, you know, a war chest like some of these larger, uh, financial institutions to, to pay all the legal fees. But when you're, you're a small business, you know, we paid a couple million dollars and legal fees over the, over five or so years. And in addition to all the other things that was, that was going on, the collateral damage. Like them just threatening to continue to grind against us. Cause problems for our farm.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of we're in, every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. The SEC was, was, uh, had sued you for six years.

David Miller: We were going through their, um, their process that they have. Um, and, and after six years, it's just like they, they grinded us to the bone. And it's like, do we want to focus on our business? Do we wanna focus on our clients? Do I wanna make sure my employees are moving in the right direction? Um, or do I wanna continue fighting? We would've made a lot more money had I continued fighting. But that risk was out there of, you know, they could impose millions of fines and they could, these legal costs could continue to grow. But, so at a point, I was just, I, I was like, this, this isn't worth it. This isn't worth it for me. My emotional health. It's not worth it for the, for the employees, you know, it's. If you've seen that show billions that, that New York, uh, ag in there, like they, there, there were some points of really extreme things that the SEC did that I'm, that I'm not gonna disclose that is very similar to how they, how they operate in billions. And it's quite unethical. But, um, that's, that's the world that we live in.

Sean Weisbrot: What happened? You have the second business. Then the hedge fund was after the second business was started.

David Miller: The hedge fund was a component of it, a a small portion, um, that was went on. I had that for about 15 years from starting, starting the financial crisis, 2008. Great time to start. Um, and so my second business, um, was in a completely different industry. I bought that business when I, a couple years, uh, before I knew I was gonna sell my first one. So I kind of transitioned, um, into that business, um, over the course of a couple years.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you think it's easier to buy a business and change it or start a business from scratch?

David Miller: You know, I think that's on a case by case basis in this case. Um, I was in a completely different industry. You know, I was in financial and accounting, um, and capital raising, and I moved over to the cannabis space. And now I don't know how to grow cannabis. I, or I did not know how to grow cannabis. I didn't understand hydroponic systems, I didn't understand the genetics. Um, and the growing process, the crossing, um, the, the D two C, um, component, uh, you know, I, it was a service business. My first one, and this one was a product business. So I vertically integrated that. And it was, it was really easy because the founder was a really, really, really adept grower of cannabis. So I did not know how to do that. I got to watch them and, and learn from someone who was really good at it. And once I understood the details and understood what it took, and I, you know, I did everything from mopping the floors to cleaning the, the reservoirs to. Lollipop to trimming, to the processing, to, to everything. So I understood how to do every facet of the business. So once I understood that, you know, I let the founder continue to do what he was so good at. Um, and then I just focused on the business from a macro level and say, Hey, how do, how do we apply this to the market that is wildly expanding? In this case, it was the, the hemp derived cannabinoid space, and so we expanded it from. Having a couple online customers to 30,000 D two C customers and, uh, one, one to two wholesale relationships to over a hundred wholesale relationships in a matter of a couple years

Sean Weisbrot: in Colorado or California or where.

David Miller: So we operated under the, uh, the hemp rules, um, the federal, uh, hemp rules. So we were in Tennessee. We are in Tennessee so we can, we can sell to all 50 states. I think there's actually one that we can't, maybe the Dakotas or Idaho, one of those. But um, yeah, we were in Tennessee. In Tennessee,

Sean Weisbrot: were you affected by the banking rules?

David Miller: We were, uh, got a banking relationship shut down just out of the blue, and we had to scramble. Luckily I had kind of fostered some relationships at one of the conferences. I went to some that embraced, uh, the type of business that we did. And, um, we actually were, had a lot of our products just. Not allowed to distribute on Shopify. So we ended up flipping over to, um, BigCommerce. Um, so like our, our distribution method was, was threatened. Our banking system was shut down. Um, our QuickBooks, um, was shut down because they saw us as a high risk. Um, so. Yeah, it's that that was definitely a new component.

Sean Weisbrot: It's something I see with a lot of e-commerce brands, even if they're just selling like shoes. Like you don't have to sell anything remotely or tangentially illegal or, or, or, you know, concerning or whatever, high risk. But everything in e-commerce is high risk, and yet e-commerce is one of the largest drivers of growth in the economy.

David Miller: Yeah, for sure. I agree

Sean Weisbrot: with you. And, and yet everyone gets their payment processing shut down. You know, every, like, I, I knew a guy who was selling, um, uh, turmeric. Just turmeric in a little bottle. You, you put on your food and he got his accounts shut down. He got his payment processing shut down. He got his ad accounts shut down.

David Miller: Yeah, I mean that was one of the sad parts is that, you know, the social media that we had, um, you know, we had gotten to that cusp. I know it's not, not a lot, maybe it was five, 7,000 followers, but you break through those gra glass and that was all organic. That wasn't getting you fake followers and all that. And, um, we, that account was shut has been, we've kind of had to change the name several times, like. 3, 4, 5 times. It's just gone, you know, after years and years of work. And while it wouldn't be shut down now, I guess because the policies have changed and gotten a little more, um, acclimated to the way business has done, you know, what's happened in the past, like we can't get that time back. So yeah, I mean, everything from social to banking to. Payment processing through our e-commerce platform. It's, that was a, so that was, I was in a, in an industry that had a very, very high level of compliance and the financial, and the money and accounting space. Um, and moved to a, to an industry that was, had a lot of compliance and regulation, but in totally different ways. So I was able that to actually apply a lot of my compliance experience in the financial space. I. Um, and knowing how to deal with compliance issues, um, and, and deal with it in a different way in, in the hemp and the cannabis space. So that was one of the interesting things that I learned about just completely changing industries. You know, they're, they, they were different. Um, but there's so many similarities and just running a business and running it smoothly that apply their, their industry agnostic.

Sean Weisbrot: Like I had an event company and that got me into. Knowing people who were speaking about Bitcoin at the time, this is 2013, they were talking about Bitcoin and they were the ones that were like, Hey, you need to know about blockchain. It's coming up, it's some, it's 2013 in China. And they're like, this is coming. It's coming. And like you need to look at it. In 20 13, 20 14, I ignored it. 2015, I heard about it like three or four times by then, and I was like, all right, I need to see what's going on. And so it was, if it wasn't for that business, even though that business financially failed, was socially incredibly successful. Because I was backed by the Chinese government and you know, they gave me media coverage. They gave me a free, you know, free media, free venue. They were giving me a stipend for each of the events that I was organizing. They were like, just behind the scenes. There was, it was wild. The, all of the opportunities that they were just throwing at me, and I wasn't earning a lot of money, but the brand, the personal brand I was building, and this was before social media, but this, the brand that I was building for myself led me to so many other opportunities in different industries. That, um, I was able to learn, you know, that that psychology of trust was really that, that came into play in that next business because the, if a Chinese government official trusts you, the media's gonna trust you. If the media trusts you, the, you know, these other business owners are gonna trust Oh, the working with the government and you're a foreigner. Yeah, yeah. All right. You're fine by me. Right? I'll do business with you because like nobody, like foreigners don't have opportunities like that. Like in other countries, it's so hard. So just that recognition, you know, the government's working with me, the media's working with me, gave me the, the, the stepping stone to the next business and the next business.

David Miller: What were some of the two, or what are maybe a couple of the main, I guess, nuggets that you. Have learned from the psychology of trust and how to, how to apply that in, in business because it sounds like you got a lot of experience around that.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, the most important thing is do what you say you're gonna do. Don't make promises you can't keep, or you're not sure. You can't keep, have something that people want. Find people that have that. Right. So be basically be a networker or be a connector, but do it with. Purpose because I met a lot of people that networked to network. They wanna know everybody and everything that they're doing and why. I'm like, there's people I don't wanna know because they're not like, it sounds wrong, but like, they're not useful to what I'm doing. You know? Like someone offered for me to interview their client who discovered SEO in the 1990s. Like he's the found, the, the godfather of SEO and I'm like, why do I wanna interview this guy? Like, sure if he's talking about how AI is replacing SEO on Google, like okay, that's interesting. But the guy's like in his seventies, my audience isn't gonna want to hear from this guy 'cause he is like 50 years older than all of them. So it doesn't make sense for me to offer him an interview. He's sadly probably, I could probably learn something from him, but he's not gonna be the right person for me to talk to because the audience won't get value out of it. So. I am choosing to, I'm choosing where I spend my time to network so that the people I network with, if I can help them or if they can help me, we know what it's gonna be and we know it quickly. So trust is knowing how to not waste people's time. How to, how to talk to the right people at the right time. And through my knowledge of different cultures and different languages, I've traveled to 50 countries and I, and I, I don't say like, I went there for two days and that's it. Like, I try to go for a month, two months, three months to every country. I try to really get into the culture and try to understand what they do and why they do it, and, and I get into their history and their politics and their culture. I'm just fascinated by everything about everything and the more knowledge I accumulate, the more I can. Understand other people so that when I come across someone from Germany, I can go, oh yeah, that thing. Um, like for example, I was talking to a Portuguese taxi driver the other day. 'cause you know, I go in the taxi sometimes and he was saying, oh, you're from America. I was like, yeah, I'm from America. And he's like, he is like, I always, I struggled to, to deal with like this idea around Trump and like, I really want to talk to Americans about Trump, but like, I'm just not sure. And I'm like, you should probably understand that the people you come across that are from the US. That are here, they probably don't like Trump and they're probably here 'cause they don't like Trump. And he's like, oh yeah, that's a good thing to think about. So I was giving him some cultural nuggets. I go, that's like my aunt saying, do the, do the people here speak Spanish or Portuguese? It's a lack of understanding about other things work. I go and, and so my next thing to him was. If you were to ask a Spanish person, they would probably say, Portugal is part of Spain. And he is like, ah, you get us. You understand where we're coming from. 'cause Spain's been trying to take over Portugal for a thousand years. They've tried multiple times and they failed each time they got repelled by the Portuguese. So as you travel, as you talk to people, as you learn about who they are and what they do and what they think and why, then you can. You have information that you can share that goes, I understand you. I know where you're coming from. Now you know, I'm not just another American guy. You understand that I'm a guy who's of the world who understands what's going on. And so as you learn more, as you travel more, as you network more. Uh, correctly, you can more easily get people to know you, like you and trust you faster, especially when you've been to their country or you understand their culture, or you can speak some of their language because then they know that you're more familiar to them than someone who doesn't know those things. And so if you and I go up to the same person and we try to pitch the same service. I'm probably gonna beat you because I could probably figure out how to relate to this person immediately and you may not have that same social skill that I do that I've cultivated for decades. And so trust is all around that.

David Miller: That's a great point. Um, especially the approaching it from the aspect, call it cold or call it, um, understanding it, I guess it's kind of both. It's that not wanting to waste people's time. Not giving time to people if it is gonna be a waste of your time.

Sean Weisbrot: I learned that one in China. 'cause everyone, when I wa when I was the founder of a co, of a, of a community of 15,000 followers and we had live events. This, we had 700 people attending these events in person, like at like an event. One event had 700 people. Everybody wanted to know me because I was the one who founded it. Everybody wants to know the founder of something, especially when it's large like that. So everybody wanted to waste my time. So I had to learn who is the right person for me to give my time to and who is not. This is again, you know, like in that early thing with my dad and, and him getting taken advantage of, this is something I learned in my mid twenties. By being the leader of a, an offline community like that,

David Miller: I'm approaching a situation that, um, you've already tackled. So I'm interested to hear your perspective on it. Uh, you had went to China and learned Cantonese or, or, uh, Mandarin. You did that so you could understand the culture, so you could understand how to do business. So you could really, you know, engulf yourself in, in that environment. And that's something that, you know, I'm getting ready to do. Uh, while I speak Portuguese. I certainly don't speak Spanish. I don't speak Kalan, and I'm moving to Barcelona in two weeks to, uh, to do business there. And so I'm definitely gonna, gonna have, yep. It's definitely gonna be a challenge. And that's one of the many reasons I'm doing is, is to really have the cultural fabric of how to do business in Europe, how to, um, how to communicate, um, in a way that is different than, um, way American business has done so. Yeah. Any, any, uh, guidance you have there? Having done it and learned it, I, I'm all ears.

Sean Weisbrot: The most important thing you need to know about Spaniards is that they don't eat before like 10:00 PM They nap in the middle of the day for several hours, and during that time, businesses are closed. They don't care. And if you make plans for seven o'clock, they'll show up at like eight 30 or nine maybe. So I, I find it honestly, doing business with Europeans very frustrating. So even though I love living in Europe, I typically just serve Americans because I understand them in a way that they, they're also not frustrating for me. That's interesting. Okay. Well, thank you. What's the most important thing you've learned so far beyond this 10 million plus dollar trust? Issue.

David Miller: Mistake, I would say in leading people, you know, whether it's, whether it's your team, whether it's a client or a customer, then you need to run as fast as they're capable of running and you need to go at their pace because if you don't, um, it doesn't matter if you see the answer, you know. What needs to be done if they're the one who needs to do it. If you're not going at their pace, then it's, then it's not gonna happen. Um, and if you want to build a team and a successful team that you can trust and can operate with you not there, then going slower than you want to go, um, requires a level of patience. And yeah, so run as fast as the team needs to run at that time.