SPEAKER_01: 0:20

All right, everybody, Ryan Garland here. Welcome to the Paradigm Shift. I have a really good friend of mine, which we've got a chance to get to know each other today. We got Greg Tracy. And I think what's really exciting is that, you know, we continue to grow our platform with all kinds of different walks of life. And I think what I loved about his background is that he's actually a stunt car driver. And I think we're gonna have some fun today and just gonna hear a little bit about his background, and we'll just kind of collab on Lake Havasu and all the wonderful things. And today is also really exciting because we're actually doing our first podcast in our new headquarters building, which is called FOF, uh, right off Dover, right next to Industrial in Lake Avaso. And so this is our first one, and I'm glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

And I'm stoked to be here. Super legit, by the way. I mean, I came up, I wasn't sure what to expect. I walked in, like, wow, this place is impressive. Yeah, thank you. Really impressive.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

This bit, yeah. I remember telling Matt, I said, Hey, when he uh make sure he doesn't run over the concrete when it comes in, we just poured it. Yeah. But thank you, that was really cool. Yeah, we you know, we we spent a lot of time on this. I actually bought the land from another builder, a good friend of mine. He was just looking for some liquidity and goes, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna build something else. I need some liquidity. We looked at the plans, we made some adjustments to it, and we said, Yep, we're gonna make this our headquarters building. Yeah, so yeah, we love it. So thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28

Perfect, right in the middle. I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

So 20,000 square feet. We have uh probably half of our equipment in here now. Um, and we'll probably have this all finished up. I think we're shooting for next uh next uh weekend, and uh, we're gonna have a March 1st grand opening for the motion for it. Yeah, we're not sure if we're gonna have a party yet, but I think what we're gonna do is at least have our friends and family here, and then we'll do a big party maybe in a month or two. We'll just kind of fill this place up and then go have some fun.

SPEAKER_00: 1:52

I'm good with big parties, I'll be here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53

So, okay, so you uh, you know, we ran across each other on social media in essence, right? You are marketing, you kind of came in as a as a possible investor, and you live across the the across the lake, you're on the California side.

SPEAKER_00: 2:03

Yeah, so I've been coming up here since I was a little kid. I mean, I think I actually started coming here in 1969 or 1970, obviously as a very little little little kid. Uh spent a lot of time on the city side, but predominantly, yeah, we're on the we're on the California side. I live in Belmont Shore, California, majority of the time, but this is our happy place for sure. I mean, the memories, uh, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand miles of riding and off-road cars up here. Uh my parents now have a place on this side, so we do spend a lot of time over here. They're they're also going back and forth between Belmont Shore and here here as well.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

No, we were talking about the pandemic and how many people were coming out here. And you said you came out here, you're planning on coming out for what, two weeks?

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

Yeah. So my wife took our youngest to school, and the the principal happened under their friends, and he told her, hey, they're talking about closing down schools. So she came back and told me that. I'm like, wait a second, this is this is for real. They're talking about closing down schools yet. We're not hearing about this yet. We're out of here. That's our this is our safe spot. Always feel better and happier and have a sue anyway. So we packed the kids up. We came up here and we drove in and and uh kind of figured it was gonna be like two weeks. I think the first week we were here that the tribal security came around and said, Hey, you guys are here, but if you leave, you can't come back, but you can stay. So that was, and I think at the time maybe there were seven families out of 750 uh on the California side. So it was basically like a ghost town.

SPEAKER_01: 3:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

And uh we sort of, you know, got into the into what we had to do to just stay there. As soon as everything shut down in California, obviously the school shut down, Hollywood completely shut down. I mean, I think Hollywood shut down more than any other business uh on the planet at that point. Extra cautious, you know, how they were. So um at that point, the the guard gate was closed, the marina was closed, and we were we were stuck there. We're there, we were there for 190 days.

SPEAKER_01: 3:56

But you were able to come back over here.

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

Yeah, I mean, I keep that kind of quiet. Yeah, yeah. I figured out a way to get to get across, and you know, we were out on the on the boat. I mean, just it was a crazy time too, because the you watch the lake change. I mean, everything, obviously, when you have hundreds of thousands of people boating, and it's different than when you have you know not so many people. Yeah, I'm like, started seeing yeah, coyotes and I mean animals I'd never seen before. I think I saw like seven or eight rattlesnakes in a short period of time that you know you never see that. Normally there's just too much density and too much going on that thing, you don't see them, but it's a great time.

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

That it was getting the snakes were getting rattled out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny is when I had uh right during the pandemic, we had the first phase of paradigm storage going. And right before the pandemic, I never noticed all the donkeys.

SPEAKER_00: 4:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

But then once everyone kind of started swelling up out here, because this was like the spot to go to from Southern California just because all the recreational and families and so forth, and everything was shut down. So the amount of donkey poop that was on my driveways at paradigm storage, every day I got there and I'm like, there's more donkeys. Yeah, I'm like, let's get out the shovel. So but it's true, and then it I think they started shipping some of those donkeys out of here because there was a lot of them, they came through here.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

Yeah, it's the same on on our side. There's quite a bit, I think that happens. Like it gets to a certain number and they they need to move them somewhere else. But there's got to donkeys. The donkeys are great, they're actually super friendly. My I have a golden retriever that has a couple that he's friends with, and they they'll say hello to each other.

SPEAKER_01: 5:23

It's cool, however, they communicate, I don't know, but I remember it took me right when the pandemic hit, it was an off weekend, it wasn't even a busy weekend. It took me three and a half hours to get my boat on the water. That's how much like this is swelled up. Yeah, it was pretty impressive. That opened my eyes to the demand here, and then how many people wanted to stay out here? Meaning, you know, buy a second home and now start coming out here more. And I think a lot of people as well, at least some of the friends I'm talking to, they spend so much time with their kids and their family. They're like, this is what we want to continue to do. So they bought side by sides, or they bought, you know, uh a fifth wheel and they started doing that type of stuff, and now it's just kind of now in their blood.

SPEAKER_00: 5:59

Well, I think, yeah, uh just real quickly, I was gonna say, I think uh one of the things that I love about what you guys are doing, and even from what what I saw some of the social media stuff and I was impressed, and uh you really hit on uh what habasu's all about, right? And you know, we always talk about or talk about generational wealth, right? That's one thing, but generational happiness, that's the one thing that people miss for the most part. I think about like my time in LA County and Long Beach, which I I love where I live, but I think we were talking earlier. I get I definitely don't get flipped off here as much as I do there, right? People are just they're not happy, they're on edge all the time. The people that are in Havasu are happy people, they're adventurers, they like they spend generational happiness, right? That's what they're transferring to their kids. That's what I want to transfer to my kids. You know, I'm gonna bring tears to my eyes if I think about it too much. But my dad, who's who's 83, I'm sure he's got 10,000 miles this last year of uh, you know, side by side on this side and that side. And that's what he instilled in us. It was about family, right? So when when the pandemic hit, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna take care of my family and make sure they're safe. Well, not only make sure they're safe, but then we had hundreds and hundreds of hours on motorcycle riding and shooting guns and driving off road cars and on the boat and wakeboarding, and that's the most important thing in life. Wealth, great, whatever generational wealth, yeah, that's nice to create. And obviously, it's nice to have some money to spend on these toys, but that's where life is really the most present. And I think, you know, I looked uh looking at the at the uh barn caves and storage, etc. What are those places? Those are like the point of your happiness. That's where all your toys are, that's where all your friends are. And you know, you pull into that place, it feels good, you feel happy. You feel like you've, you know, not only you're creating something for your family, but you're able to enjoy, you know, your toys. For me, like California, I mean, I gotta pay 15 million to be able to store my stuff, right? I don't have 15 million, so all my stuff lives out here, right?

SPEAKER_01: 8:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 8:00

And uh, and it's also not everything's used here. People use their toys. They're not, you know, they're on the water with their boats, they don't just sit in driveways. Uh Belmont Shore, we have Naples there. And you know, I my wife and I laugh about it a lot. We'll take the Duffy out and go around the canals. And you know, very rarely do you see somebody outside sitting on their porch. Very rarely. Yeah, and we always ask, well, why is that? Yeah, why is that? Well, because they're too busy making money to pay their bills, they don't even get to use it. Here, it's a better lifestyle. I just that's what I love about Havasu City. You guys have definitely hit it, and that makes me excited. It's fun to watch as you guys grow up in this place we're in right now. This is insane. It's gonna be so cool.

SPEAKER_01: 8:39

Thank you. Yeah, I I I that means a lot because I think a lot of people that follow us or track us or listen to our podcast, they don't know the the culture of Havasu. And that's why I think someone like you that comes out here is a is a great fit for us because you you already believe in it, you already see what we're doing. So it's kind of a it's a makes sense scenario. The the common conversation, and we always joke about it, is people have more toys in their garages than the the house of the value of the house, right? So you may have a hundred, you know, a million dollars worth of toys in your in your garage, but the house is only worth a million bucks kind of thing, right? Yeah, and it's so true. But it is there is there's a lot of truth to what you were saying too, is that people just want to have a better life. And when the pandemic hit, um, you know, the journey, but when the pandemic hit, you know, we really focused because our kids weren't able to spend time with their friends, you know. If you were in high school, you know, a lot of people didn't get a lot of the kids didn't get a chance to go to their their proms or get or even graduate and walk. And I if you if you were a parent during those times with kids, you know, you wanted to try to get them away from that, knowing, hey, this is a crazy time of life, but you don't want them to be too negatively impacted. So you start doing more things as a family. Yeah. And that was a big thing that was going on in Havasu. So the the parents seem to be a little more hands-on than normal. No, obviously they had the time, but the you saw just the kind of that core group of families coming together, and I thought that was really neat. So that's who I am, my three kids. And and I I just it was it was so important to me. And then the the relationships I was building, listening to their wealth and how they're trying to maneuver. And I'm like, if we instead of building storage units where you just rent them out, how about you can buy one at a at a lower price? It's fee simple. You get the ride off, you know, from a real estate side, because I'm a real estate nerd. Right. And but you can start building and retaining general generational wealth, but then you can also store your toys. I'm like, how about you can do both, right? How is there a way to kind of and that's the really kind of in a nutshell, really, is why we went down that road. And then listening to what people are looking for and watching the migration here and healthcare and so forth. We're like, why don't we build, you know, these storage units with real houses, which is already here, right? Three bedroom, two bathrooms, it's still very common here. But I'm like, why don't we go vertical, build it more dense, and try to do something a little more affordable, affordable? Because we didn't know which way the world was going, right? This is prior to elections. Yeah, it didn't matter because even today, if you look at the stock market, just the volatility is insane. So we knew no matter what, we want to build something that was going to be sustainable, affordable. And as people migrate, if the cost of living is still high, they can start maneuvering their lives to at least enjoy the journey, not just hand over the wealth that they've created. Because it's true, out here, going back in California, not everyone's outside on their on their backyards. Here, this time of year, especially with everything that just happened in you know, back east with those storms, yeah, everyone's outside. I mean, it's what it's 71 degrees right now.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

And everybody's happy, and everyone's happy. That's I mean, to me, that's the biggest thing. Like we just come here and it's uh we walk in the door, and it's an instant, you know, 50-point reduction in tension and stress. And you're just stoked, you're just stoked to be here, and around other people that are stoked to be here, and that creates its own, you know. I mean, I I go side note here, but spent a lot of time on gratitude over the last year. And uh it's everything, right? It's like to be so thankful to have number one, a place like this, and then to have people around you that have similar philosophy, it just feeds on itself, right? So pretty soon you can't help but be happy. I mean, I so if you run into somebody who's unhappier, there's probably, you know, probably give them a hug or something because something's going on in their life that you don't know about. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 12:12

You know, it's it's I'm glad that you brought that up because you know, I don't get a chance to talk that much about that personal side on on the on the podcast. And I really like that you you touched on that. I think when you go through enough in life, you start chasing peace.

SPEAKER_00: 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:26

And and I think that is probably the best way to put it. When you come out here, you have the what the life, the cost of living here is a lot cheaper. You can go to dinner almost every night if you needed to, you know. It's just it's the peace is it's so different. You don't have the traffic, right? You know, it's just a completely different vibe. But my father retired as an LA County Sheriff, and he went through a lot. I mean, he was in the trenches in LA. And, you know, he's been shot, he broke his back. I mean, all the horror stories, he's one of them, right? He just, of course, he was in he was his own worst enemy, he kind of put himself in the mix, you know. But but when you hear his stories and you hear about when he retired, he said, you know, there's there's places in the world that are a whole lot better than LA, you know, just certain things. And there's other really great places about LA, but you the at least what he wore. He worked the one ways in Norwalk, that type of stuff, you know. And um, and now I see his peace and happiness out here. It's so different because growing up with him while he was still, you know, uh employed, uh, he was thinking everybody was the worst enemy in the world. So growing up with a in a law enforcement family was really hard. But it took about 15 years once he retired and came out here with enough, you know, exposure to good people and happiness. He's not the same person as he was 20 years ago. He's sleeping better, he's not fearful, have to have a gun under his bed. Like he doesn't have to feel that way anymore. Yeah, when he's out here, he doesn't even have the gun on him. That is not my father. My father was the guy who always had a gun somewhere, so stacking somewhere. And he's not that way now. And I think that's a big deal when you see a guy who was, you know, a cop for 35 years and then he goes to a place where he can get away, and then he doesn't have to feel that fear anymore. Right. That's a that's that's what caught my attention more than anything. Yeah, you know, and and again, the the family, the family environment, the amount of young families that have moved out of California or Vegas or all these other places that have come here is impressive. And I think that's what I want to do more is continue to try to build stuff that's for the youth here. Yeah, every every city has deficiencies, and that's one of them here. And I think what we can do as a firm, because we have a niche, is to continue to build maybe stuff where people can go and enhance their lives and build a community and meet new people and hence the family office society, you know, that type of stuff. And just continue to try to give a good environment for people, it's safe.

SPEAKER_00: 14:31

Bring Trader Joe's too. I think that's it.

SPEAKER_01: 14:33

If I could get I have been trying to get Trader Joe's and Sprouts, yeah. If we can get a Sprouts and a Trader Joe's, I think we're gonna be able to do it. Solid, rock solid. We're killing it. Okay, so let's have some fun. Let's talk a little bit about your career. Okay, which got you on on got you on the podcast. So um now you showed you shared some uh parts of your story with me. I want the I want the audience to kind of hear from you. So let's talk about, you know, kind of give me the spill kind of what we talked about from the very beginning, how you got into it, kind of, you know, dirt bikes, your accident, kind of getting into, you know, you wanted to go Formula One. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

So yeah, so I started off uh racing motocross. That was my dad had raced motorcycles, and my brother and I got into racing motorcycles, and we were fast, quick. Did you ever go? I'm sorry to interrupt, did you ever go to Star West or do any of that stuff out there?

SPEAKER_01: 15:15

Oh, yeah. You did all that, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:16

Oh, Star West was probably kind of the later part for me. Yeah, it was even like Saddleback and Indian dudes, which are tracks that don't exist anymore. Glenn Helen. Glenn Helen, so many tracks that don't exist anymore. Um, but started off with motocross and really uh turned professional at a very young age. I think I was 15 when I turned pro. I was a I did crash a lot though. And I mean, even in my car stuff, all my crashes have been over 100 miles away. Well, you're walking fine. Yeah, really. Give me wait, because it's warm here. That's probably why I like it here too. T-Share. Uh but um yeah, so motocross was a big part of my life. That was through through high school. I broke my back and my neck in Anaheim Stadium, Supercross 1986. I think Rick Johnson, uh, who's a rock star buddy of mine, won that year in 250 class. But uh, we decided we're gonna go race off road cars. My back wasn't healing, and so we started racing go-karts. Long story short, that kind of moved into formula cars. And I had a you know a successful uh formula car career. I really wanted to race Formula One. At that time, really weren't Americans weren't really going over there. I had planned on going to race in uh Switzerland at one point. Raced, I won the night before the 500 in India in 1992. Oh wow uh thinking I was going to Europe in '93. Sponsorship stuff fell apart, took a one-off ride with a team that hadn't been really super successful with their car yet. 93, uh on my way to win the race, had an engine blow. I got hit head on by another formula car, broke my cheeks, my nose, bruised my brain, broke my wrist, got hammered. While I was healing, my best friend at the time was Mouse McCoy, who you probably know from Dust and Glory. Uh, we were living together and he was oh, it was a great time. But he he was working his way up in the film business at that time, you know, very at the very bottom level, but was starting to get into the stunt stuff himself. His dad was a director, producer. He's like, you got to come try this out. So I was still really trying to race full time and expect, you know, at that point now I'm trying to transition, like, okay, the Indy 500, that's my that's my goal. Uh got into the stunt business uh with the cars. There was a transition kind of period of where guys were stunt guys were you know really good at everything, great athletes, but not any one particular thing. And there was that transition where the car movies were getting more prevalent, yeah, and being able to slide a car next to a wall was, you know, a very specialized deal. And that was kind of how I got in.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Gone in 60 seconds was a thing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, fast forward, all of a sudden it's you know, 10 years later, and I really was starting to make that's where I was making my living, was with the stunt business, and that's that was the transition. I still have raced professionally for years. Uh race Pike's Peak, which probably for me was like that was really my ultimate from my racing perspective. I raced it 20 times, I won it seven. I was the only guy that ever broke this the 10-minute mark in a car and on a motorcycle. Race for Ducati, which was a great experience, great brand.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

I didn't know that. Ducati was for Ducati.

SPEAKER_00: 17:59

I was with Ducati for for several years. I was had their first win on the hypermotar and first win on their multi-strada. Oh my gosh. So that was pretty great. Really fun. Um, a lot of risk. But that's I had the right, I think I had the right skill set for it because I had the car background, the motorcycle background, and then the stun business. You know, you're showing up, you got to be on on point on the moment. You got 200 people watching you, you're gonna slide into an intersection, got to hit your mark, or hit a car, or whatever you're doing. So, you know, you build that skill set, it becomes part of your mindset, and it becomes somewhat muscle memory. Yep. Um, so here I am all these years later, still doing it. So it's been great. I've got to do some great, you know, some fun movies. You said uh, you know, I wanted to go to Formula One. I worked on the Formula One movie. We did the Daytona stuff there. Is that the one with uh Sylvester Talon? That was uh that was no, that was the first one. That was driven. That was a Sylvester indicy car movie. That's right. And it's sort of panned by the motorsports community, but it was fun to work on.

SPEAKER_01: 18:52

So yeah, that's so cool. What other movies have you been on? Shows, TVs?

SPEAKER_00: 18:56

Yeah, so I did the F1 movie that as far as what's out right now, the Family Plan one and Family Plan Two, both those just came out, or Family Plan two just came out. I've worked on probably four Fast and Furious, Spider-Man, Italian job. I was uh I was Matt Damon's double for Ford vs. Ferrari. Oh, no way. I didn't know that. Yeah, it was Edgar. I just watched that the other day on Netflix on Netflix too. That was a fun one to work on.

SPEAKER_01: 19:18

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00: 19:19

Yeah. So my gosh. So you get a lot of exposure.

SPEAKER_01: 19:21

And you're still doing it. Still doing it. What's uh any plan to retire anytime soon?

SPEAKER_00: 19:25

I don't know. It's like I still enjoy it. So um, and it's funny, the funny thing about the stunt business, you know, you show up. I had a funny thing happen last week where I was doing a commercial, riding a motorcycle through a through a house, knocking over tables and things. But I get there and I brought my son Wyatt, who's 17, he's starting to get into the stunt business.

SPEAKER_01: 19:43

He's my son's age.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

Yeah, he's a great motorcycle rider. And uh so I'm like, hey, you know, tag along with me. I want you it's nice to be on set and see what's going on and check it out. And so we we get to set and the producer sees me, who's a friend of mine, and walks me over to introduce me to the directors. It's a director team, they're probably in their early 20s, and he's like, This is our our motorcycle stunt rider, and they both stick their hand out to shake my son's hand. And I no, no, not this guy, the old guy standing next to him, the gray-haired guy. They're like, Whoa, I could see that moment of like, whoa, uh something doesn't seem right here. But you know, you're just developing skills for years and years and years, and I understand camera and you know, still have the skill set to ride bikes or crash cars or slide cars.

SPEAKER_01: 20:24

So might as well keep going. Just keep going. I love it. You probably get to get to meet some really cool people too.

SPEAKER_00: 20:29

Yeah, I meet some great people, and you know, I think one of the things that really attracted me to Paradigm was you know, I spend most of my life around risk takers and creative, right? And that's a beautiful mix. So a risk, you know, when people think about risk takers like you're crazy or this. No, risk take if you're a crazy risk taker, your career is really short. If you're if you're a crazy risk taker in business, your career is really short. So it's it's a somebody that knows how to really balance risk and at the same time have a creative part of it. Like that's the that's the most perfect uh situation, right? And so, you know, even when I saw your guys' stuff, I was like, okay, this this would make sense. Obviously, the creativity is there big time, and you know, risk you you you when you first came here, yeah, that was a risk, but then you realize the what you guys were doing, and you're able to keep recreating the process and maybe do something that's different, like what we're sitting in right here. That's gonna be incredible, and that's gonna be a great addition to the community. Uh, barn caves, the storage, like on and on and on, right? So that's most of my days with, and and I enjoy that the most. I like the creatives. People are constantly coming up with new ideas, and you know, you show up on something like the commercial I was just talking about, like, oh, this is a really great concept, and I get to be a part of it. That's super cool.

SPEAKER_01: 21:47

Yeah. I love it, I appreciate it. Because the first thing you said when you came in here, you're like, nobody else is doing this in Havasu, right? And I'm like, not that I know of. This is definitely one of a kind. And really, that's what you're that if because if you think about what makes you known if you're trying to build awareness, is your brand.

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:02

You know, what do people know you as, right? And then if they know you as a developer, it builds really neat stuff that people really appreciate and like, then you got a good brand. You know, then if you're making people money, you really get a good brand. You know, and uh and bringing something that's a little more forward thinking to the community that other people just haven't thought of yet. And what that did is for It created a niche, but it also did it eliminated us having um competition. We don't have any competition because we're not doing what everyone else is doing.

SPEAKER_00: 22:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

And I think that's helped us a lot. And I think that, like you nailed it, the creativity, people are going, you know, the world's changing so much faster than it did 10 years ago in a year. Right. You know, if you look at what happened with the pandemic, even with our existing administration, they are cooking every single day, weekend, they're just cranking. And I tell everybody if you're in the capital markets, you have to watch how fast like the world is shifting politically, everything else, and you have to move just as fast. So creativity has to move. You have to look at the like I love the risk component, calculated risk. You know, what are people doing? Where are people migrating? Data now is at our fingertips more than ever before. You know, can we look at what people are looking for, wanting, migrating to, healthcare, spending habits, and lifestyle, and trying to have some sort of a decent journey, but leave, but yet leave something for your grandkids. That's all we really try to create.

SPEAKER_00: 23:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:18

So it's kind of more ears to the ground than anything else. One of the things that I always preached, and I have worked for other big firms, and I was the only guy on the streets building the relationships, bringing all the you know, intel into the corporate office. And I used to tell them, like, guys, what you guys think is happening compared to what's on the streets are two different things. Um, one of the things that people tell me and they love about me is I'm on every one of my sites every day. I'm getting a chance to meet everybody who works on the site, I'm listening to the problems, the hurt, the hard uh the hurdles. And when I see it live in real time, I can start planning for it down the road on the next project, right? How to pivot, how to migrate around it, whatever. That that gives us that edge. Then you have, you know, if you if you take just that simple concept and you look at it from an investment side, that's all we're trying to do, you know, is build something that people want, focused on, like uh, for example, you know, steel building methods. And in my opinion, that's going to be the fastest growing trend pretty soon because look at everything that happened with the fires in LA. Right. Insurance costs have gone through the roof. It's been continuing to go up prior to the fire. So we saw that trend happening. Now it just kind of uh spiked it. Now it's a topic of conversation. But even when you're under construction, that's when you have the the most risk of fire is up, is you have no water on site yet. You have, you know, everything's going vertical. Yeah. If we went to steel, the likelihood of uh fire goes down significantly. So you're able to start mitigating risk and dropping your cost by using different methods, and and nobody else is doing that out here. So it's not that this is new. This happened in other places across the country. I'm just bringing it here. So it's not that I'm inventing the wheel, I'm just creating a brand in this area and just building awareness of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00: 24:53

Yeah. Well, and it's funny, and we get back real quick to you talking about being on on site all the time. You can feel that energy, you know. I felt that one of the projects I've already looked at. And uh I'm just thinking to my my personal experience from a directing standpoint, the directors are the ones that are run the show, right? You show up on a movie set, commercials, TV show, whatever. It's a director's vision. He and the AD is making it happen. You've got all these different sub you know, contractors in a way, right? You've got the electric department, you got camera, you got all the different guys. But you can I can walk on the set, maybe somebody I haven't worked with or somebody have worked with, you can feel it when you walk on, like, ah, that's gonna be one of those days, right? Or you can feel the ones where the guys are like super switched on and they're excited, stoked, and all they know everybody on the team, and they're you know, given the camera department props or given you know the gaffers props, whatever. It definitely funnels down and it creates a better environment. And you feel that environment, and then people work harder and you get end up with a better product. So it's a training. It's a literally the same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

It's culture, right? That's a that's another topic of conversation for businesses if you're gonna run a well-oiled machine or not. And what I've learned is for me, if I focus on culture, I can run a I can run a better business with a leaner overhead. You have people that are excited to be there, they typically can carry more weight. Yeah, if you have people that have the ability to take on more responsibilities, it gives them purpose to wake up. And then they have the ability to elevate within the company, and then I say, hey, instead of me hiring this person, do you want to take on that hat? I'll give you a little bit more pay. So now everybody's making more money, I have less bodies to deal with, less you know, emotions to deal with, right? And then everyone's getting paid well, and then we're all we're we're humming because everyone's communicating well, right? Not everybody fits the mold, but when you get them, when you get when you're in sync, it's it's it's like the best team to play for in the world, you know. And there's nothing better when you're winning and you're playing for a good team. Yeah, you know, so that's what I try to preach to everybody uh within the firm is you know, the culture, uh, given Billy uh the ability for people to elevate. Um, I built, you know, uh a structure where people get equity in the company. So as people come in as they're new, they get to see that other people have equity, they get to work up to that. So you don't have this ability to just you know tap at the there's a ceiling, you get to tap. You have the ability to tie into all the profit that paradigm is able to do, right? To ever to accomplish. And that's what helps us be successful for our clients, because with that culture, it always starts with the culture. If I'm gonna try to deliver, you know, a project where our investors are gonna make money, I need a team to get there. If my team believes in it and they work hard, knowing like, hey, if we are successful, I get a piece of it too. They get pregnant with me and they're like, I'm all in. You know, and that's the way that's all we're trying to do. So it's like, what does it actually take? And I think people don't see that. It's like, what is it actually going to take? And if you have a firm that understands if you can build everybody up that you bring in from the bottom, they'll they'll they can if they really like want to be there, they'll do well. Yeah, last example was uh Brianna, she's my controller. I say it respectfully. She was working for an actually big firm, she just hated traveling. So she applied to work for us, and she was traveling down to San Diego from Temecula every day, and she was just being beat up by by um uh traffic, and she didn't want to deal with the traffic anymore, rightfully so. So two hours one way, two hours back, it's a long way. So she was like, you know what? I will take a pay cut, not have to live this like this. So when we brought her on, we didn't know really. I mean, we saw a resume and we're like, you know what? She's consistent, she's got some good predic pedigree. Let's see what she but you never really know who they are, right? You look at paper and who they really are, two different things. So we bring her on, and she was um she was, I mean, strong, but what I really I was the one who paid attention to it. She was like the first one there and the last one to leave.

SPEAKER_00: 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:34

And she just always worked. And then I had the the lady that was underneath her. I never even really interviewed her. I so I never I didn't even see her. I had a big, big firm at the time. And uh, and then the lady that uh was kind of in her, so she was in, she took over her position. She uh had a baby, so she was on leave for a little while. So she came to me and her name was Joanna and she goes, What do who should I bring under me to kind of take over some of my weight? And I said, Well, there's probably four or five people you can spread it out to. And then Brianna just kind of kept showing up and kept doing it. I said, You know, I think Brie can do it all. And she's like, I'll give her, I'll I'll give her, I'll let her try. So we gave it to Brie, and Brie just crushed it. And I'm like, I can't now I have two of them, I'm excited. So now Brie's the vice president of the company, she's our controller, but she literally started at the bottom, you know. And so it's that's a that's a great feeling for people as we bring them on that doesn't matter where you stand, if you work hard, you have some knowledge, and you you want to you you believe in it and you're gonna show up, right? Let's go, you know. But you also know have to this is a war, too. You know, you got there's a lot of stress. This is great, but it was a lot of stress to get here. I think I had like 50 gray hair more than oh, yeah, yesterday than I did today, kind of thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

So you don't have to stop writing checks for a while, you know, it's part of the deal. You know, so you gotta make them worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

But you know, when we when you deliver this stuff and you do it over and over again, it just becomes a little more you build the scales, you build the track record, you build kind of the ability internally to just get it done. So you just don't, it's not emotional anymore. It's just getting it done and hitting our marks and moving on. And so, you know, we we feel very blessed that we've been able to accomplish what we, especially in the small town, because that's got its own hurdles in itself, yeah. You know, so to be able to deliver this out here and all the other things that go along with it, as far as just economically and you know, materials and just all the stuff that you know you have to kind of deal with. We did okay. Yeah, and I really appreciate you seeing it in us. No, no, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 30:21

Yeah, it's great. Great, great to see.

SPEAKER_01: 30:23

So we we should talk about Joe a little bit because Joe over there, look at him. What's up, Joe? Hey, what's up, Joe? How you doing, buddy? He was a stunt man, so he was on uh what were it, Fear Factor. He was on Fear Factor, he had to flip a car. He made fit, he actually won. He got fifty thousand dollars. Yeah, that's cool because he slid the car as far as it could possibly go, right? That's how he won. Yeah, nice. Congrats. His back's still messed up. I took him golfing the other day. Well, how are you? 33? I tell everybody he's 33, he's got a back brace on it, he'd even play, he didn't even make it through 18 holes. I'm like, dude, is that from the is that from the the from your stunts that you drive? Did you see this stunt driver right here? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 30:59

He's not doing that. I played Havasu last week. I should say I drove the golf cart and my wife played. So I get it. I'm pretty beating it.

SPEAKER_01: 31:06

It's usually the other way around.

SPEAKER_00: 31:07

Usually you're playing the bike cart. That's great. I just yeah, hand her a drink and drive the cart. How cool. Right on.

SPEAKER_01: 31:13

Yeah, it's it's uh that's the one thing I want to see out here is uh better golf courses. Yeah, it's coming. Yeah, doesn't matter if if it's a win. Um the uh the refuge just cleaned up too.

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

Yeah, oh yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01: 31:24

Yeah, that iron wolf and then that little, very cool. It's like a little top golf they created over there.

SPEAKER_00: 31:28

Yeah, it's really pretty neat. We actually looked at houses there for a little bit ourselves, trying to figure out what our next next spot is.

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

But we're trying to. I have a client that came to us to want to build. She's got she wants us to build a spec on one of her lots in there. Yeah. And uh, she's just kind of getting tired. She doesn't want to deal with it, but she's got a great background in development. And she comes to me and goes, Hey, you want to build over here? I was like, I'll build it for you. Yeah. But you know, let's let's see if see what we can do. So we're kind of going through the design right now. Yeah, that's a really good area. I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:55

I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 31:56

A lot of family in there. Um, when I say family, like little family. I have my two uncles that live in there now. Um, Ray retired as well, law enforcement from LA. Came out here to spend some time with you know the old man. So they're in there and they're always like, Well, Ryan needs to build in there. Let's go see if we can get it in there. Yeah, it's good. It's really pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 32:11

Got an ammo shop up the street. You're pretty well covered. Everything.

SPEAKER_01: 32:14

And you know, it's if if you've driven, if you've driven on uh London Bridge Road lately, they there's a guy. Did you see that big man cave that guy built across from Golfview? It's another oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, pretty neat. Yeah, yeah. I forget what he calls it. It's PH something. I forget what he calls it. Do you guys remember what it was called? I don't I forgot what he called it. Playhouse? I think he called it a play, something like that, but it was pretty neat. He's got these uh hectagon lights in there, and you know, a lot of guys coming out here building man caves. Yeah, this is the man cave mecca.

SPEAKER_00: 32:39

It's gotta be the capital of the world for that, actually. You know, it's so much going on. I mean, it's so much fun for we'll come across on the boat. You know, I think there's like the Volkswagen uh bus show that was just a couple weeks ago, and there's always something happening, which is really cool. If you're into cars or motorcycles or anything, you know, boats.

SPEAKER_01: 32:56

They had the Raptor Fest here with a month ago.

SPEAKER_00: 32:58

Yeah, kind of a place to be, right? It's pretty great.

SPEAKER_01: 33:00

To have all the raptors in the country come here and do off-roading, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Of the um Desert Storm, yeah, that was a big deal.

SPEAKER_00: 33:08

Last year, did you were you did was it last year with the boat flip? We were we left the day, I think the day that that happened, we had been on the water that week and then uh was going somewhere for a job or something, and we left and started getting the videos about two hours after we were on the road. I was like, oh I mean, not that I hate to see people crash, but if we are gonna crash anyways, I would like to have been there.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

Well, if anybody knows it's you, but it's it's pretty crazy. He flipped at 209, so not only did he win this fastest speed, but you know, at 209 he came up out of the water and it's kind of like did you see it kind of grabbed additional air and just kind of flipped?

SPEAKER_00: 33:42

It was a little bit like a wing, you know. I mean, at a certain point, it I think it saved him as it was coming down, got all that air airflow pressed against it and calmed it down.

SPEAKER_01: 33:50

I think one one guy broke his rib, another guy broke his, I could be wrong, but I think another guy broke his his ankle, but that was it. So, I mean, if that's all you got after that, that's I think you're pretty safe. A lot of a lot of dynamics going on with that stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 34:01

I was actually talking with one of my stunt driver friends, Reese Millen, who's who's a uh off-road racer as well. And we were talking about trophy trucks and talking about horsepower, and someone was asking, like, oh, what is it, like a thousand horse, two, you know, 1500 horsepower? He's like, No, we're like at like 950. So honestly, like you get above a thousand and you're just pushing the airflow. You're you know, those they're big trucks, so you're pushing against the the air so hard that you just end up starting to get wheel spin, which is crazy. Think about 150 miles an hour, now you're getting wheel spin because you know, you're literally pushing against a wall of air in these big trucks.

SPEAKER_01: 34:34

Those that dynamic, just the the calculus, the engineering behind that stuff is just unbelievable. There was a uh you probably know them. I think it was underground racing. I think one of the guys he had a he had a just recently, a couple weeks ago, uh it was the Lamborghini, uh, it was a hurricane that was the fastest in the world. I think it did 260. And there's another guy who just did 265, same setup, uh, but it was an Audi R8. And there's all kinds of you know stuff going on. But 265 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_00: 35:03

It's pretty fast. That's unbelievable. Yeah, it's things happen real quick.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

Yep. So, Greg, is there anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_00: 35:09

No, I mean, I think uh again, it's you know, I'm so happy to see what's going on here. Havisu City is an amazing place, great place to bring family. Yeah, you know, it's about family for me. Like, and I think maybe, you know, you have a the population here has kind of they've made it, you know, they're what I think the average age is 55 or 57. So they're sort of, you know, obviously you have above and below that, right?

SPEAKER_01: 35:32

So it was higher before. It's coming down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 35:34

Yeah, well, I I can see that that's happening, but I think what's happened is you're bringing people out here that are what you were talking about earlier, like kind of that peace, peaceful spot, right? That's it's the point where you're like, okay, I've I've had my successes, I've done the great things I wanted to do or whatever, and now I want to just spend time with my family and enjoy enjoy my toys. And uh that's to me, that's I love I'm happiest when I'm here as well, like we talked about that earlier.

SPEAKER_01: 36:00

So you know, one of the I'd say probably the most popular part of I'd say the most popular conversation that I have. Once I really start building my relationship with my clients, it's just you know how volatile the market and the world really seems to be right now. Yeah. And you know, you get to a certain point where you're like, look, I still have some fight in me, but I don't know how much I want to continue to try to fight, you know, and and so people are just trying to migrate to areas that they either grew up and went to or they see other people that are, you know, kind of like-minded, and and you know, the the facts are you got more healthcare kind of move in this direction, again, cost of living, and you just kind of start downsizing in a way where you just don't have to deal with the stress. You can kind of disconnect from watching the news so often, you know, you don't have to watch it every day to survive almost, you know. It's just different.

SPEAKER_00: 36:44

Ultra critical.

SPEAKER_01: 36:45

And I think for us, we keep watching it every day. So, my my rule of thumb for my team is they have to watch the uh basically the business news every single day. I want them to know exactly what's happening with stocks and what have you, because people are gonna, you know, they're maneuvering money around and we want to be on the forefront. We need to understand what's happening, you know. Um, and and and of course, when you're in the financial market, every asset class has to be considered and people are diversifying. But what I'm one of the things that I'm realizing is when I when I meet with people and they come out and do the site visits, I'll have other, you know, former builders and developers. And they're like, you're right in the heart of your career. You have the young pack. I believe in you, I like what you're doing, and you're on the right direction. You have the team. I can invest with you because I know the risks. I've been there. And I also know that, you know, what you guys are doing because I believe in the community, I think you're on the right track. So I get a lot of people that are part of my um, I would say a part of the company have invested at some point, or even, you know, other companies I work with just on third party side that have just that are just really being a big, I would say I have a big advisory board. Yeah, there's nothing better than that. So that's the hence the whole you know, family office society network. The amount of people that I can call for help or what have you, it's it's impressive. And these are people that have money when they're gonna they're gonna answer the phone. Ryan's calling, what can I do for you? You know, yeah. Um, so it's really kind of neat because I can sleep at night knowing I have resources. And sometimes that's you know, not necessarily a conversation that I bring up, but I do have a lot of resources to kind of help if things are kind of weird, you know. Um, or I'm trying to look for material or whatever the case may be. So we've we've been able to, we pulled those cards, and uh, and I I think that's what you see with the people that are investing in and want to be a part of this community. It's again, it's it's just uh a bunch of people that all see life the same way, right? You know, and it's it's I feel very blessed because you know, Tony Robbins said it best the most you know, where the real wealth is within your relationships, right? Literally friendships, personal relationships. You can't take all this with you, you know. What how deep are your real relationships? You know, and it's really pretty neat.

SPEAKER_00: 38:41

So yeah, that's a hundred percent. I believe in that. That's just so true. It's so true. Friends, family, you know, I have I have I have friends that are family.

SPEAKER_01: 38:49

Yeah, you know, it's just the way it goes. You have your family, and then you have your friends that are family, you know, and you kind of get that you get that vibe here from side by sides, the groups out here, people who do all the side-by-side stuff, or jet ski guys, or boater guys, you know. I mean, they literally have like, you know, Eliminator has the regatta, you know, the Eliminator guys get together. You know, it's just such a cool vibe out here. I love it, man.

SPEAKER_00: 39:09

But that's one of the great things about Havasu, I think, is yeah, you have all these subgroups, right? You got the guys that are just strictly side by sides, you got the hot rodder dudes, you got the moto guys, you got, like you say, the jet skiers, the sit-down guys. All you know, you can go down, like go by the bridge, and they've got the jet ski guys out there practicing for the nationals or whatever. A jet ski national champion can walk into a eliminator club and they're totally connected, right? Oh, totally, yeah. Because it's the same mentality, like yeah, I love this, but you're stoked to be with those same, because it's the same personality type, right? I think uh you know, you definitely have that. You are that person as well. When that and it translates to what what what I'm seeing. So I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:51

Yeah, it was um it was I was talking to um so Jeremy, one of the owners of Eliminator, him and I were talking a while ago, and he was just saying that there's so many people that have bought boats throughout the years that he doesn't remember names. He remembers the he remembers them by the name of their boat.

SPEAKER_00: 40:05

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01: 40:06

So I'm like, what's their boat? What kind of boat did they have? How do you know this person? Well, I don't what kind of boat do they have, or what kind of car, you know, what's the name of their boat? Oh, yeah, that guy, you know, it's actually pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00: 40:14

So I was here. I mean, I will say, you know, I said I was been coming here since 69, something like that. I can remember like when you had an 18-foot boat, you were a baller. Yeah, right. And now it's like, come on. You have an 18-foot boat, you're sinking because the guy in the 40-foot boat just went by with five motors. It's so true. 205, you know. So it's got to be on your toes, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 40:34

It's crazy when you see a 16,000-pound center console that's 40 foot long, still doing 100 miles an hour. With 10 people on there, you know, you're like, oh my goodness, this thing's it's just that's opposite. That's why people want to be out here because there's no uh speed limit, too. Right. You know, so it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00: 40:48

I like that.

SPEAKER_01: 40:48

I'm a big fan of no speed limit.

SPEAKER_00: 40:50

Yeah, right. Well, Greg, thank you for being on here, buddy. Appreciate it. Yeah, it's great getting to hang out.

SPEAKER_01: 40:55

I love bringing uh kind of different walks of life onto the platform. We have a really big following, and and uh people I get I get comments on this type of stuff. So I I wanted everyone to see kind of the the type of people that come across our desk. You know, it's really neat. Glad to be a part of it. It's so much fun. Yeah. Thanks for being here, buddy. I really appreciate it. Anytime. Talk soon. All right, sounds good.