Mike Cobb: What Raising Kids Overseas Does to How They See the World

Transcript burning the ships · TXT Welcome to Burning the Ships podcast, and I'm your host, Jason Seward, and today I've got Mr. Mike Cobb on the show. How you doing, Mike? Hey, I'm good, Jason.

Nice to be with you. Nice to see you again. Yep. Last time I saw you, we departed as you just handed me a nice bottle of rum from Uruguay.

So, and that rum did not make it past I don't think two days after that. So, what? No, that was that was a nice gift.

How Mike and Jason first connected at a Dealmaker event in Richmond through Jim Ingersoll

And yeah, so I'm I'm excited to have you on here. And I'm going to tell you why. Because we met two months ago, almost three months ago, in Richmond at a dealmaker event that was put on by Jim Ingersoll. And both of us are very close to Jim, but we did not know one another.

So, unfortunately, when you spoke at that event, I had a vendor table on the outside of the main conference room, so I wasn't able to hear your presentation. But Jim, at some point at the event came up to me. He said, "Before you leave here, you need to meet Mike Cobb and get him on your podcast." I said, "Done. If Jim says that about somebody, they're they're coming on the podcast." So, it's true.

Yeah. So fortunately, I think on one of the breaks you grabbed me and we connected and had a good conversation. You're from West Virginia. We were getting ready to head out to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

So you kind of told me some things to I need to see there. But long story short, you have quite the resume for those that don't know who Mike Cobb is. And it's a very unique path through entrepreneurship. And you've got along the way a very good relatable burning the ship story where you left a very successful career and did your own thing in entrepreneurship.

What I'd like to do, Mike, is I want to turn it over to you and let you introduce yourself to the audience however you would like. And before I do that, I want to encourage everybody that's listening to this. We're going to do a second podcast on the Dealmaker platform here in a few months where you're going to really dive into the business side of things, the real estate, all the investment developments that you've done. This podcast is going to highlight the mindset and the story behind it all.

So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to you, Mike, and I'll let you take it away. Good. Jason, thank you. Yeah, you were off to go on vacation right after we met.

That's good. We need vacations. They help us clear the mind and regain perspective, I think. And it's important.

In fact, I'm off on vacation next week. So, I'm glad we got this in this week, you know. Yeah. So, back in the mid 90s, I went to Belize.

The mid-90s trip to Belize that accidentally launched a mortgage company

I'd never even heard of Belize, but I went to Belize with a buddy of mine and he's a lawyer and he was setting up asset protection trusts for doctors in the Pittsburgh area. I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and so u went down there, loved it, said, "Hey, Joel, next time you're coming back, let me know. Do it again." So, whatever.

A few months later, he's headed back down. I go with him. We found a couple condos in the meantime that were kind of foreclosure opportunities and we bought them and and so that was late 93 into the you know high season winter of 94 and so started going down to Belize quite a bit and really just enjoyed being there but but we found a hole in the marketplace. I think that's really the fundamental basis of entrepreneurship, right?

We find we find a need that's either not being served or not being served very well and if we can do something to change that or add that service then we can be successful if well if we're good at what we do we can be successful and what we found out Jason was there was no mortgage money so people who were coming down from you know Virginia Beach area tidewater area or anywhere in the US to Belize who wanted to buy a property or a condo or a home there was no mortgage money so you know no bank up home's going to lend you the money and no bank down there would lend a foreigner money.

Finding the gap: No mortgage money existed for North Americans buying in Belize

And so we we started a little mortgage company that was 94. 10 years later we turned that into a bank and we've been a bank in Belize since 20 2003. But that was our first business, the finance side of things, the mortgage and then the banking business. We also later on in 96 we started a development company real estate development to build resort communities and there were there are then and you know and still are product but it wasn't the kind of product that I would say would satisfy a middle class buyer.

Growing the mortgage company into a full bank, a process that took from 1998 to 2003

And so we said look we can we can do things like create the standards put all the door handles in put the light and the mirror over the front you know and put outlets on the walls and stuff like that. We can do a lot of these things and they're basically free to do and we can deliver a product to a North American middle class consumer that meets their expectations. So we could do it better, right?

In one case it was a need that was not being met and in other cases we could do it better for about the same money. And then in 98 we read about a reforestation incentive in Panama for really to replant a lot of the jungle and the and the rainforest that was being cut down. And so in 1998 we bought a 100 acre cattle pasture and in 1999 we hired a company to go in and plant it with teak trees. And so you know we did that back in 99.

And I remember there were there were six of us myself and five other partners. We just kind of said, "Well, we'll figure out what to do with it in 25 years." Cuz that's the growing cycle of teak. And now the teak trees are up and grown. They're 27 years old.

And a couple years ago, we said, "Oh, it's it's time to figure out what to do with it." And we actually built a sawmill and a production line. And in fact, I just got back from Panama last night. I was down there with a with a group and getting out to see the mill. So, we're really in three separate businesses, Jason.

We have our banking and mortgage business. We have our real estate development business and we have our timber business. And so we're really in three very you know different areas, but there's a lot of synergies between them. Yeah, understand.

So let's go back a little bit. Because all of that's very impressive and but it didn't just happen overnight. You just kind of covered a you know a 10 15 year window there and beyond that it's 30 plus, right? Yeah.

So you but your original start was not in other countries. Your original start was not in real estate. Where did you start your career as an adult? Yeah.

So right after college in northwest Pennsylvania it was 1986 the recession the steel industry had collapsed and so the whole part of western PA was still just reeling from all the mills closing and so no real job opportunities. So I moved to the DC area in Northern Virginia and got in and luckily just totally luck fell into the computer business on the personal computer side of things. This was I mean nobody even thought they would ever amount to anything. This going back to XTS right 286s and stuff.

Anyway so just lucky fell into that side of the business. Helped a Taiwanese couple grow a business very very significantly from 1987 to 1998. And you talked about burn the ships and in '98 our mortgage company had really started going and our development company was a couple years old and we we were I was really ready to step out. It's interesting though, Jason, because I had asked the owner of that company for probably the previous five years if I could buy a piece of their business, right?

Let me let me buy into the company. His name is Robert. Let me buy into the company, Robert. And for this reason, that reason, any reason, they always said no.

And I wanted to own a piece of a business, right? And so and not the whole thing.

Five years of asking to buy into the business, and finally deciding to burn the ships when the answer kept being no

I'm I'm not a big fan of whole ownership, although it can work. But I'm a collaborator, right? So each of the pro each of the companies that we have is a diversified ownership with partners and investors.

But anyway, but Robert wouldn't sell me a piece of the business. And so, yeah, definitely just said, "All right, stepping out, burn the ships, and build our businesses down in Belize, Panama, and now we're in Costa Rica, Nicaragua with projects in Honduras, and so we're all over the region now, but at the time it was Belize and Panama." Okay. So, what there was an overlap period where you were building a business while focusing on a career. Is that correct?

The job up in the computer business in the DC area. Yeah. The mortgage company was a really simple business. We went out to friends and family.

We we put a business plan together. We went out I went out to a bunch of my buddies in the computer business. Joel went out to a bunch of his doctor clients and we raised I don't know just under three million bucks, two and a half two point 2.7 2.8 something like that. Anyway, the problem was is that literally within several months, we'd gone to Belize a couple more times.

We'd met with the developers. We'd looked at their property. We checked out all the titles and we bought their paper and we were out of money, right? Not even a year.

We were out of money. So we went back out to the network again and we I think we raised another mill and a half maybe it wasn't two and we very quickly realized that by you know 98 99 like we just couldn't raise money as fast as the demand was for the capital and that's when we got the idea to turn it into a bank. And that took four years. We started thinking about it in '98.

We got our license in 2003. So I guess five years, but about four years of real focus on getting a banking license. But yeah, so when I was going to Belize for like a long weekend, three, four times a year, like get down on a Thursday, come back on a Sunday, like it was easy enough to do that while I was, working in the computer business. But at some point, Jason, you got to you kind you got to pick your path, right?

I think that's what burn the ships is, right? You got to pick your path and you got to commit to it and you just have to go all in and in ' 98 that's that's when I made my decision and action to that effect. Gotcha. So that I want to stay here for just a few minutes because a lot of our audience, is it's it's all over the board.

Some people know that eventually one day they want to build something that can allow for that what you just described. Or maybe they're right there now, where I was 3, four years ago where I essentially had a growing business and a very demanding career. I had to pick between the two. I it was I didn't have enough bandwidth to carry two forward and there's a lot of people at that space.

The risk calculation at 34: Newly married, no kids, and willing to restart if it failed

And then there's people that may be well beyond that still hanging on to the two and they're compromising everything else in their life. So all of that said, that framework, where were you personally in 98? Were you married yet? Did you have children yet?

Were you in a position that there were external circumstances that added a little more complexity to the decision? No, great question because you're right. People are at different stages of their lives, different external factors weigh in as they should, by the way. Right.

It's it is scary. It's a scary moment, right? But and the more I'm going to say fixed responsibilities you have because we have variable responsibilities. We can choose to do things.

Buy a car, drive the old car, that's a variable, right? But you got a kid, you got a mouth to feed. There's no that's a fixed responsibility, right? And I think the more fixed responsibilities we have, the scarier it is and the more seriously we have to take that decision, right?

Fortunately, I had just gotten married. I we did not have children and so we had the flexibility to my wife and I we had the flexibility to take a greater risk and I think that's really what we're talking about right it's it's it's it's a it's a risk calculation how risky is this and what's the ultimate downside oh if it doesn't work okay what happens well the business fails maybe or whatever and you have to come back and get another jo o right and you know I was in my early 30s and I guess I was 34 whatever 34 years old and so you know like okay if I have to start over again in two three four years I can do it so I think the risk calculation the risk analysis was low to medium might have been I don't know it didn't feel it didn't feel that way it never feels that way right but in hindsight you're going to look at yeah it's a low to medium risk you know but it is scary and so you know I think that's that's a big in my presentation that you missed by the way I'm just going, Robin didn't know. Yeah, I'll go back and watch the recording for sure. So, you don't need to.

I'll give you the cliff notes right now. My presentation was about saying yes, right? And the fear of failure has prevented so many wonderful things from happening. And I did this presentation on or this demonstration on stage.

I invited five people to come up. I took a I took a piece of cardboard and cut it into a 2 by 12, whatever 12 inches wide, about 10 feet long. I laid it on the ground. And I said, "If you just walk from one end to the other, I'll give you a chocolate bar." Right?

One of them from Belize or something. So five people walk across it. I hand them their chocolate bar. I say, "Okay, now just now." And now if we were to put this up on top of two skyscrapers in Richmond and walk across that same board, would you do it for a chocolate bar?

No way. Right? Would you do it for a hundred bucks? No way.

Would you do it for a thousand bucks? No way. Right? But nobody had any problem walking across it.

All five walked right across it. Right? And the idea is that the fear of failure, the consequences of failure, can really paralyze us. And I think so often in life, Jason, that we imagine this 2x12 that we're walking across is stretched between two skyscrapers or something when in reality it's not laying on the floor, but it might be a foot or two off the floor.

It might be five feet off the floor. Right? If you fall, you could break an ankle or twist something or hurt yourself, right? But a lot of times it's a foot off the floor.

But in our minds we're imagining something very different. And so the exercise was really about saying yes but saying yes with you know all the precautions and prudence and due diligence and risk analysis right and by the way it's not just risk analysis it's it's proper planning of whatever business that you want to carry forward that entrepreneurial effort right so I think you have to have a great plan you have to have thought it out I'm a big I'm actually a huge fan of writing stuff down make a business plan write it down flesh it out let other people read it and shoot holes in it right? Well, that's not going to work. And maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong.

Right? But the point is that you soundcheck this thing with a bunch of different people and let them shoot holes in it so that you create the best plan possible. And then as our good buddy Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face. But right, but you know what?

I'd rather have a plan and get punched in the face because that's what life does, right? That not have a plan and get punched in the face, right? Because at least we can come back to the plan. I guess it theoretically anyway but saying yes right saying yes but it is my circumstances were 34 just married no kids able to able to take this risk and very glad I did by the way but but my circumstances were different than many other people's and I recognize that.

So I want to I want to frame this up and see if it is the same for you. So and my circumstances were a little bit different. I had been married when I left my career. I had been in that career 17 years.

Very successful, high income, very safe, secure, every reason not to leave. Right. Right. I'd also been married at the time 15 years, 14 years.

I had two young kids. Right. So I did have fixed responsibilities. They were not variable.

But I had I had the mindset of what you said earlier. I had built a good resume in that career where if I did take a sabbatical to go try something I could go back I maybe not that company but I knew I could work my way back to some degree where I was. Yep. But the there's anxiety.

There's my wife had anxiety around it. All that we had to work through all that. But my question is I did not have as much anxiety around it because my whole life had been calibrating me to step out and take chances, right? And not be scared of worst case scenario all the way back to childhood.

Like I watched my mom take big risk and some of them not pay off, some of them pay off. I dealt with hard things and I knew how to do that. So, I think that conditioned me to be able to look at any risk and say, "All right, worst case scenario, my wife and I might have to live under a bridge for a little while until we pick things up." I'm okay with that. I'm good with that.

And I'm curious to know all the way in your background, were there things and experiences along the way that kind of calibrated you to be more accepting of the risk involved with something like this? Yeah, great question. I you know I'm gonna start with your living under a bridge comment. Right.

I think that if we look at the worst case scenario and it's still alive. Yeah. Right. Right.

Right. I mean living under a bridge. You're still alive. Right.

Like I'm willing to take almost any risk that keeps me in the category. Right. And healthy. I mean I don't want to hurt myself either, right?

But generally and so I think that's I think that's a good positioning for anyone in the position of thinking about whether they're going to do this or not. Can I do this and still come back to something that keeps me in the game somehow or lets me get back in the game? And the truth is for almost all of us, the answer is yes. Right?

Again, it's the fear of failure that really prevents us. As a kid, I grew up on the edge of a tiny little town an hour north of Pittsburgh. And the woods went behind me. I never got to the end of them.

They just went on and on and on. Right. And heaven and heaven. Yeah.

Heaven. Exactly. Right. And my next door neighbor two houses down, their mother would never let them go in the woods because what if they fell in the creek and busted their head open and laid there and died, right?

Like I whatever. I I think parenting, my parents, your parents, right, parenting is so important to shape somebody who's willing to be a risk-taker, right? And I don't know if the two neighbor boys next door ever really, were able to break free of the, I don't know what you call it, risk cage or something. I don't know.

Anyway, but you and I you and I had great examples and we had we had the ability to take risk at whatever level it was and suffer the consequences. You I got skinned up and banged up and you did too, I'm sure. Right, both physically and emotionally over life. But I think you know I think I again it's it's all about perspective to me is a is the risk worth taking right is there some reward on the other side of it that makes it worth taking can be financial it could be spiritual right it can be emotional it can be a lot I mean get in a relationship that's a risk right I mean oh she breaks my heart well that's emotionally whatever right but at the end of the day there's a risk and a reward and we have to do that analysis but you're right about the being raised in a certain way and then also surrounding ing yourself, right?

They say that you are the sum total of the or mostly of the five people you hang out with the most, right? Or something like that. I think I agree with that, right? The people we choose to be our closest friends and associates, business colleagues, right?

We all rub off on one another. And I'm guessing that you've chosen to hang out with people like Jim Ingersoll and others. I know you have who have a high degree of risk tolerance, who take calculated risks, right? And then work it through because it's not just the taking of the risk, of course, right?

It's taking the risk and then plowing every bit of your soul and energy into it until it works, right? That's the burn the ships, right? Like you have to plow into it. And when you surround yourself with people like that, I think that the likelihood of success is much greater because they are there.

They will be there to encourage you. Just people like Auggie and others, right? We we love to razz each other. We tease each other.

But at the end of the day, I think we all know, we each have our others backs so hard because we recognize how challenging it is to be an entrepreneur, what it takes. And we're going to be there to support one another. And that camaraderie or that that five people network or whatever you want to call it, it's powerful, Jason. It's it's it's it's tremendously powerful.

Yeah. 100% agree. When you're talking about going it behind the woods where you grew up. I think I've got this it's an a hilarious video of my son. He is he's probably six years old.

Yeah. And we have way behind my house same thing behind my house just woods forever. But we have a creek that runs through there and some points of the creek when the water's high, it's it's like you can't jump across it. A kid definitely can't jump across it.

And it's not deep, it might be knee deep. We were back there one day and my son said, "Dad, can I try to jump across it?" Now, probably a better parent would say, "No, son. It's dangerous. You can't jump across it." I knew what the danger was.

He might get wet, right? That's the worst thing. I said, "Do you think you can jump across it?" And about this time, I'm starting to record. He said, "Yeah, I think I can." I said, "All right." I knew he couldn't.

I said, "Let's go." And he goes, he get he makes about halfway across, goes in, gets soaking wet. He's mad, all that stuff. But had I stopped him from doing that, now he knows. He judged his distance.

He knows that I took a risk. Next time I know how far I can go and I'm learning through doing rather than somebody telling me to what I can and can't do. Absolutely. By the way, you said if you'd have been a better parent.

I don't think you could have been a better parent. Truly, that's exactly what I believe real best parenting is, is to let our kids take their risks and take their lumps and learn from that. I think I think that's awesome. Embarrassing.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So, let's let's move forward in the timeline a little bit because I know around two 2004 you're getting these companies going.

You kind of had another burn the ships moment where it sounds like at that point you're probably early 40s and you've been married six years or so. And you guys decide to make a big move. So, talk about that move and the next 12 years behind that.

Moving to Nicaragua in 2002 with a two-year-old, and staying 14 years

Yeah. So, so I'm going to back you up to 2002, which is when we moved to Nicaragua. Right. So, we we'd gotten married.

We'd had a our first daughter came along in 2000. And in 2000, and that was the same year, by the way, we bought about huge giant property, 2500 acres of property with three and a half miles of Pacific beachfront, right? That is a massive piece of property. Anyway, so two years later, we needed to go down and begin to build out our our business, right?

To hire, whatever. Actually, mostly consultants at the beginning end of it, right? Master planners, architects, engineers, I mean all that kind of stuff, right? But then build a team, accountants, marketing people, salespeople, admins, chief operating officer, right?

So, we had to build our, human resource infrastructure as well as our physical infrastructure on the site. Anyway, so we went down in 2002, took our two-year-old daughter, my wife, Carol. I said, "Hey, honey, need to go down there for a couple three years." She said, "Okay, it's Nicaragua, right? Nicaragua in 2002." And a lot of people, it was it was definitely rough around the edges.

And it's interesting because Carol and I had lived in Belize back in 1998 for six months. And and I say this from stage. I said it I was in Belize speaking at a conference a few months ago and I said this on stage in Belize. I said my wife and I lived in Belize for 6 months and it was five and a half months too long.

I mean people I mean people can't believe I say that but it's just true like Belize does not work for me as a place to live. I love it for a week. I like it for the second week and by the third week I'm like I'm done. I get me out of here.

Right. Right. Whereas Nicaragua we went for two three years and at the end of three years Carol and I went out to dinner. We'd had another little daughter came along went out to dinner and we decided that we would stay a while longer because we loved it there.

It hit our hearts, right? It just worked for us and we ended up living in Nicaragua for 14 years. So but we kept our house. This was not quite a burn the ship.

So, because we only thought we were going for a couple three years, we kept the house that I'm in today in West Virginia and rented it and then we just continued to rent it for that whole, 14-year period. But, but yeah, we, in some ways it was a decisive moment for sure and pick up your family and move them overseas. But what we didn't expect was that we would love the quality of life and that we would want to stay, for a long time. 14 years we raised both of our daughters. They grew up in Nicaragua.

So, yeah, that's a good segue because that was my next question. You raised two girls. Yeah. Outside of where you guys are from.

How has that, I know we could go on probably for an hour about this, but in general, kind of at a high level, how has that shaped them as human beings?

Raising third culture kids: The book, the fishbowl analogy, and what it means to grow up between two worlds

Well, that's interesting. There's a great book called Third Culture Kids. My wife read it and she would tell me about it like at night when she'd read a chapter in the daytime and she'd fill me in on it. What it what it says basically is that children who are raised overseas are really of a third culture.

They're like in our case my girls really weren't American per se, but they weren't Nicaraguan either, right? And just to give one dumb example, neither of my girls have ever been to a high school football game ever, right? And so when they go to college, well they're in college, but anyway, they go to college and they're hanging out with some bunch of, their friends and they're all talking about the high school football game, like they can't relate. There's zero ability, right?

And there's, you know, 50 other things like that. So what they, what this book talks about is that third culture kids are much more likely to connect with each other. And it could be a German kid who grew up in Japan meeting, my daughter, right? And that would be the kind of connection that would make sense because they were both a third culture kid, right?

So, it's really kind of a fascinating thing. But the one and you're right, we could go on because I give whole presentations. I gave a workshop, two and a half hour workshop on this a couple years ago to families considering a move overseas. The biggest and I end the presentation with this.

So, I just go all the way to the end. If you're a fish in a fishbowl, right, and the water of the fishbowl is culture. If you've never been out of that fishbowl, you don't even know that there's water. You don't know that there's a fishbowl.

Like, you're just where you are, and it is what it is. When you grow up in another culture, you have to go from fishbowl to fishbowl. Honey, that's not how we do it in the United States, but it is how it's done here in Nicaragua. Or, that they don't do it that way there.

Yeah. Whatever. And so now all of a sudden, you and the just this is incredible, Jason. Just the understanding and comprehension that there's something called culture and that we're in it is a powerful realization.

It's it's just an unbelievable because it just allows so many other things to happen. So I feel like the girls have done very well. I mean they're they're bumps. Look, you're a third culture kid and you've never been to a high school football game.

So, I think a lot of times maybe they're kind of pushed off to the side for the, norm normal girls or boys or whatever that they're in their friend groups, but ultimately I think there's a lot more benefit than the attraction. And I think they would also agree with that. Yeah. I'm I'm just thinking as you're talking through the benefits, that are have to be they have to be more compassionate.

They've been exposed to just things that other so they're they probably approach life with way less dogmatic of an of a view of everything than most people right because they've seen you know they're they're used to how you know your her dad your wife is their mom they are used to y'all's culture which you grew up in but they're being raised in a different culture so they're getting this kind of melting pot of everything that has to be no official, you know. It is. I think. Yeah.

Good. Cool. So you guys moved back to West Virginia in 2016 and been there since. Correct.

And the reason is my my oldest daughter, who was 15 at the time, received a dance scholarship. She got a ballet scholarship to the Joffrey High School program in New York City. Okay. Yeah.

Because both my girls I mean this is kind of stuff people don't imagine but like our quality of life in Nicaragua was way higher way higher quality of life and it cost far less and one of the things that they were able to really receive there was world-class ballet training and it cost Papa not very much money at all well played well you know anyway but they but she got a scholarship to the Joffrey program in New York and moved up to New York for a semester and then, Mama Bear was not living in Nicaragua with Baby Bear in New York City.

Moving back to West Virginia in 2016 after the oldest daughter received a ballet scholarship to the Joffrey program in New York

So, I get it. I get it. We came back.

So, good. Good. So, and but, through all that, you've been able to run and we talked a little bit before recording, but now you're kind of you've you've transitioned into the stage of where you get to work on your businesses, not so much in your businesses. And and as I say that I mean one you can't build what you have built without being obsessive with developing yourself as a leader.

Building 100-year businesses and what that mindset shift does to how you lead and develop people

So take a few minutes to kind of talk through like how because you were doing that in real time. You're building companies. You I don't know if you led a team at your previous job but once you start building these companies it's your baby.

So, not only do you have to lead the company, you have to build the culture and the vision and cast all that vision. So speak to that side of it and then I've got a follow-up question to that. Sure. I look, I it is all about self-development.

Very early in my my sales career. I've always been in sales largely. You build a business, whatever. But, someone recommended these are old authors, right?

Look at me. I'm bald. These are old-timers. I'm not bald.

Yeah, there you go. Tom Hopkins, right? How to master the art of selling, Zig Ziglar, Wayne Dyer, Og Mandino. These were people that I read religiously in early in my career and also, later in my career as well, although some of the stuff shifted, some of the material shifted to be more tech, I hate to call it technical, but let me use that word technical.

Lawrence Harrison is a phenomenal writer that writes about largely cultural issues in in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hernando de Soto The Mystery of Capital. The these are Pan-American Dream is Lawrence Harrison's seminal work. The these were books that helped me really figure out how to do business in the region.

So I kind of didn't really leave working on me but I morphed more towards you know how do we build a business in another region another culture right but the leadership element is so important you know when we first started our development company and we bought 2500 acres we said to ourselves my business partner said like we're building a small town and that's going to take you know 50 75 hundred years and when you start to look at a company and you say well you know we got to a company that's going to be around for a hundred years. And so we really very early on in the in the in the late 90s and early 2000s, we really had this big mental I don't know morph and we said, "Yeah, our bank, let's make sure our bank's around for 100 years." And we planted 25, we planted teak, which takes 25 years to mature and harvest. So when we did that in 1998, I mean, that's a 25-y year timeline. And when you cut it down, you have to re, have to, but replant it.

In 25 years, your kids get it and 25 years the grandkids. I mean on and on and on, right? And so we had this real it wasn't really an epiphany. I want to call it a slow awakening.

Each of these kind of added to it, right? But we just said like we're going to build hundred-year businesses. We better be thinking internally, how do we build hundred-year organizations with people who come along after us, right? And that's been and that's been big.

And and it's interesting because now you know a lot of the stuff that our team reads the I can't Jeremy some I can't remember some of these people I don't even read them right I got my I shouldn't say I got I'm an old I'm not changing right it's it's horrible but it's true I love the authors I love I read them I reread them I read a new thing once in a while but but the new generation of people coming up I mean there are new authors and there are new gurus and they're following and they're reading them and all they really care about is that people pick several authors they like that will help them become all that they can be as a leader, as a salesperson, as a manager, whatever that role is. And so we really focus on that. Although someone in recently corrected me, he goes, "Mike, I really don't read anymore, but I listen to podcasts." I'm like, "That exactly right." Yeah. And I am I so I tell everybody I'm obsessive with reading and I am but I listen to 90% of books on Audible and I make Yeah.

It's just what the reason it works for me is I just I mean I'm into my 40s now. I since I was a kid I can't sit still, right? So, like even if I'm reading, sitting still, if my brain's activated, it's hard for me to do. But I can put on put in my ear pods and I can go for a run and listen to a book or I can listen while I'm driving down the road.

And so that works for me. But it at the end of the day, it's the same thing. And it and it is just keeping the majority of the stuff that's coming in here your head u positive and motiv focused on the things that are going to help grow you those around you. But you talk about building hundred-year businesses.

You're building stuff that is going to outlive you. And it's I don't I might butcher the quote, but it's something like the best leaders plant trees whose shade they'll never sit under. Right. Yeah.

And it's that same idea and that kind of that sounds like where you're at now because you're you're kind of the businesses are built. Well, now your time is spent making sure that you're developing these up and coming leaders that they're going to be leading these companies long after you're gone. And then and then you've got to develop them in a way that gives them the tool to continue develop. And sounds like you're really focused on that now.

Well, I am. And that's been maybe the last, three, four, five years kind of, moving and I think for the next three, four, five, right? If I'm out of this, if I'm out of anything internal by the time I'm 65, 67, I'm I'm kind of right on where I wanted to be, a 10 12 year process, right? You hinted at something right there, Jason, I think it's really important.

It's not just about, you know, bringing up leaders and having them evolve into the leaders that they need to be and want to be. It's also about making sure they understand that their real job is to develop the leadership that comes after them and making sure they have the tools and resources to be able to do that like that really is what creates the ultimate sustainability inside an organization. So yeah, you hinted at that and I just want to drive that home that is critically important. Yeah.

Or in my former career, I was in insurance sales and then towards the end of it, I was, like a regional manager type. So, I had a lot of a big team under me and I kept hiring people. We would develop them. They'd be really good and then they would get promoted or go to a different company.

Why great leaders should expect, and celebrate, when people outgrow the roles they were hired for

They would grow out of the role and I remember early on as a as a leader, I would get frustrated at that like I keep losing this good talent. And I had a mentor of mine tell me one time and it stuck with me and I' I've kept this mindset ever since. You're not doing your job if that doesn't happen. You are not hiring people to stay in the role that you're hiring them for.

Now, there's some admin roles that maybe that's the case, but sure, for the most part, if I'm de if I'm hiring a salesperson and I want to train them and develop them into be the best that they can be, they're going to outgrow where I'm hiring them for. And that should be a good thing. So that kind of changed my mindset when it comes to development and things. Yeah.

Yep. So Mike, I have a million more questions and I think a lot of them I mean selfishly they're more related to the real estate side and the development piece because Okay. It sounds like the start of all this was, did I'm curious when y'all started up before becoming the bank, were y'all operating as a debt fund or like how were you guys structured at that point? Literally the mortgage company which we got started in late 93 early 94 was just a a group of I don't know 15 20 folks that all chunked in you know 50 100 $200,000 whatever it was to come up with that two and a half three million bucks on the front end and it was a I probably a corp I don't remember what it is anyway but we just set up a tiny little corporation to pull the money and then you know my business partner and I just went around in Belize and talk to different developers to buy their paper.

How the original mortgage fund was structured before it became a bank

We didn't actually originate loans. We didn't have the we didn't have the capacity to do that. We could but we could meet with the developer and say, "Oh, yeah.