December 16, 2024 • 52 mins
What if balancing the demands of a thriving IT business with personal well-being was as simple as training for a triathlon? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Nathan Whittacre, co-founder of Stimulus Technologies, as he shares his transformative journey from a childhood obsession with video games on an Atari 800XL to launching a successful IT and cybersecurity firm. Nathan's story is a testament to the power of self-taught skills and the evolving landscape of technology; his insights offer a roadmap for aspiring tech entrepreneurs navigating their own paths.
Nathan opens up about the personal challenges of entrepreneurship, drawing parallels between the strategic planning required for endurance sports and business growth. He candidly recounts the early days of Stimulus Technologies, where neglecting self-care was a common pitfall, and shares practical strategies for maintaining mental well-being, like turning off work notifications and engaging in endurance sports. From the hilarious misstep of an illegal candy store to the gritty realities of juggling business decisions and personal health, Nathan's anecdotes provide both inspiration and cautionary tales for anyone building a business.
Listeners will gain valuable insights from Nathan's experiences, particularly in the balancing act of setting career goals alongside personal ambitions. He discusses the intricacies of training for an Ironman and how the calculated risks and strategic decisions made in sports mirror those in business. For those eager to connect with Nathan, he offers a unique opportunity: reach out to him on LinkedIn for a chance to receive a physical copy of his book, "The CEO's Digital Survival Guide." Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge on navigating both the digital and entrepreneurial landscapes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
How's it going, nathan?
It's great to finally get youon the podcast.
You know, I think we've beenplanning this thing since
probably May at this point, andyou know it's like perfect
timing, right.
Every single time that we weregoing to record something came
up Incidents at work, kidsgetting sick.
But I'm really glad to finallyget you on.
I think this will probably bemy last episode of 2024.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it's great to be here, joe.
I'm excited to have theconversation, so thanks.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, nathan, you know I starteveryone off with telling you
know their background of howthey got into IT or security
overall, right, the reason why Istart everyone there is because
not only paints a good pictureof you know you as a person and
your journey.
But you know there's a portionof my listeners that might be
(00:51):
trying to get an IT or securityfor the very first time, right,
and I remember when I was tryingto make that jump hearing
someone else's story that wasthat was you know closely like
mine or, you know, had the samebackground as mine.
It just opened up my mind tothink, oh hey, this is possible,
right, I'm not going down somerabbit hole that's never going
(01:12):
to pay off or anything like that.
This is possible for me, right?
So what was your journey likeinto IT or security?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Sure, I have always loved technology, ever since I
was a little kid.
So my story goes back to when Iwas four years old, over 40
years ago, that my parentsbought us an Atari 800XL, which
is similar to a Commodore 64 oran Apple IIe it was just the
Atari brand of a home computerand my brother and I who's a
(01:44):
little older than me used toplay on that machine.
But we had to learn basicprogramming to do anything on
that computer, because you justbooted it up and it came up with
a prompt for to start enteringbasic code, and so we wanted to
play video games, like any kidsdo, and so, and we've had to
figure out how to either writecode or copy code off of
(02:07):
magazines that we would get inthe mail.
We'd go.
You know, there was nodownloading, we'd buy some games
and things like that, but itwas.
It was mostly because mybrother and I wanted to play
video games.
When I got into PCs about 10years later, same thing I wanted
to play better video games,learned about graphics cards and
how to put memory in thecomputer.
You know it was, uh, these olddim chips.
(02:29):
You had to add one at a time,and so I learned a lot about
hardware just by experimentingaround on my home computer, to
the chagrin of my parentsbecause I broke it a bunch of
times.
But you know, eventually Ilearned a lot more, went to work
for a small computer storebuilding computers, just helping
repair and build computers, andI got my degree in computer
science bachelor's and master'sdegree in computer science from
(02:50):
University of Nevada, las Vegas.
And while going to college mybrother and I decided to start
Stimulus Technologies to helpfriends and family build
computers, work on theirmachines, fix problems, and it's
grown from there.
So 1995, we started Stimulusand now we're about 75 employees
in five states and do all kindsof variety of IT work
(03:14):
cybersecurity, internet voiceacross the country.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So that's my journey, yeah, that's fascinating.
My journey, yeah, that'sfascinating.
You know, there's kind of twoparts of it that I want to like
highlight.
I guess, right, you know, inthe beginning, when you're
building the computers, whenyou're, you know, gaming on it,
making them better, upgradingthem, right, those computers are
(03:41):
not like the computers that weinteract with today.
You know, back then it was likeit's very rudimentary, you know,
like if you wanted to use itand you know use like an audio
driver, you had to like unpackit, install it, hardware level,
where you are, you know, reallyintimate with the underworkings
(04:08):
of how the computer is actuallyworking, which is an interesting
, it's an interesting backgroundnow, in 2024, right, like not
very many people starting outtoday or getting started, you
know, the last couple yearswould have that sort of
experience, unless they decideto go into a linux os for some
(04:28):
ungodly reason, right and, andstart playing around in there.
I mean, of course, you know, ifyou're in this field, you
probably have messed around withlinux to some extent.
I still have a linux vm, youknow, installed on my desktop
just to make it feel like I'mstill, you know, in the weeds at
times, right, but like it'sinteresting right how you
(04:49):
started your background fromthere.
Because, like you were startingit from like the ground up,
with the industry as a whole,you know, like you were
technically right like we're allstill on the cutting edge of
technology to some extent, but Imean like you were there at the
foundation, you know yeah, it'sinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I mean I, I you know when I talk about this.
It brings back memories of likebill gates saying you know,
we'll never need more than 640kram you know, and it just you
know, because it was my first pc, it was dos 5, 2.
You know you just have to toplay doom, which is, you know,
something I wanted to play.
You know the original I wantedto play.
You know the original Doom game.
I had to, you know, work withextending the memory after I
(05:28):
added two megs of RAM to themachine.
You know, figure out how tohave this extended memory and
move all the drivers to theright portion of memory.
I mean it was always a lot oftinkering.
Then I did get into Linux.
My first kernel, I think, ofLinux was 0.92.
So I don't think you've liveduntil you've had to compile a
Linux kernel from scratch.
So I did a lot of that.
(05:50):
You know Slackware was thefirst distro of Linux I used.
I mean, this is all late 80s,early 90s and I was just a kid,
you know, just honestly, justplaying around trying to figure
out how to Computers again, myparents, I'd drive them nuts
because I'd run network cables,coax cables, across from room to
room in the house.
But yeah, it's definitely ajourney, um, and I miss the
(06:13):
experimentation.
I don't get to do it as much asI used to.
You know, now I do mostlymanagement inside the company
and talk high level.
But um, you know it'sdefinitely different times back
then and I I miss it.
It was simpler a little bit.
You know you wanted a virus,you had to go out and look for
it or get a floppy disk thatincluded one.
You know nowadays it just youknow they're always attacking us
, so it's a different certainlythat you went straight into
(06:42):
starting your own company, right?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So did you always have that kind of
entrepreneurial spirit?
Were you always looking forways to, you know, like, make, I
guess, make an income.
Right, I approach it from thisway, right, and you know, I
didn't even think about this formany years with myself.
(07:04):
But when I was younger, like Iwas, I mean I was doing
everything I could just to makemoney.
Right, and that's not the samefor every kid, right, like, most
of my friends were cool with,you know, having no money,
having nothing, and just youknow, playing baseball or
whatever it was Right, just youknow playing baseball or
(07:25):
whatever it was right.
But for me it was always like,okay, well, I can, you know, mow
my grandma's lawn, and thenshe'll refer me across the
street to her friend and I'll,you know, mow their lawn and
it'll snowball.
Right.
And even in high school, I wasmaking friends with the vice
principal and the principals toget me jobs that I had no
business being in in the school.
(07:45):
And you, jobs that I had nobusiness being in in the school.
And you know, I should havebeen fired 10 times the first
week, right, like, that's justhow I was as a kid right, I
needed that like social.
I needed that socialopportunity to grow into the
professional that I am today.
But it's interesting becauseyou just started right into it,
you know, and you kind of jumpedin.
(08:05):
Were you thinking at the timelike, hey, this is, this is a
little bit crazy, or was it justlike second nature for you?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Probably a little bit crazy, but it was.
It was in in our family blood.
My dad had owned a couple ofbusinesses service businesses
back in the late seventies,early eighties, and so so, all
surprisingly, all four of uskids eventually owned our own
businesses.
So my my oldest sister owns apiano studio.
My other sister ran aconstruction company for 25
(08:35):
years.
My brother and I obviously wentinto business together.
We eventually split the companyinto one doing software and the
other doing the IT services.
So both of us ran businesses.
But as a kid, you know, Ilearned from my parents, you
know over the dinner table, ofwhat it took to run a business,
and I don't think it scared anyof us away, which is surprising
because it was certainly astruggle for them.
(08:56):
But you know I, like you, Ifigured out ways to make money,
even from a little kid.
You know I I was selling candy.
I had a little candy store inmy house.
From the profits of that Ibought a dog and we bred the dog
and so made the money off ofthat and, you know, just trying
to always find ways to to makemoney.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So very similar yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
You bring up selling candy.
Like I was selling candy inhigh school.
I was selling candy in jordan'sin high school.
That was.
That was very in Jordans inhigh school.
That was very interesting.
My best friend I couldn't evenremember how we met and at my
wedding I got married almostfive years ago at this point and
(09:35):
at my wedding he's giving thebest man speech and he brings up
how we met and I couldn'tremember for the life of me of
how we met and he's like, yeah,you know, back in high school,
like you didn't go to FootLocker for the latest Jordans,
you went to Joe's Locker for thelatest Jordans and Joe always
had them and I I was like man,like that's, that's how we met,
(09:57):
like that's, that's really uh,that's really funny.
And I, I like remembered, youknow, the pair of Jordans that
he ordered from me that day andeverything else like that.
So it was uh, it was fast.
I mean, like that alone Iprobably should have been like
arrested for back then.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Funny story I, I, actually I was shut down.
My candy store was shut downbecause we weren't collecting
sales tax and we didn't have abusiness license.
So I got it big enough thatsome of the neighborhood moms
complained that I was sellingtoo much candy and the local tax
department came and said yougot to shut it down because you
can't have a small business in ahouse in this area and you have
(10:37):
to have a business license.
So unless you open up a biggerstore in a commercial area, you
have to shut it down.
So I was deviant deviant,obviously, you know.
Yeah, running an illegalbusiness out of my house selling
candy and baseball cards that's, uh, that's fascinating, that's
that's interesting, that Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I I just it's interesting that someone would
like complain at just overall.
You know, it's like it's a kidselling candy, like he's not.
You know, I mean nowadays,right like that would be very
highly suspicious, right likeI'm sure a lot of people would
be like, oh, he's selling drugsor something like that you know,
and that's probably a likelyscenario, but I just it would be
(11:18):
shocking back then for that tobe true.
You know when, when you're, whenyou're on that journey of being
an entrepreneur, starting ayoung company in an industry
that's essentially at the verybeginning of its kickoff, right?
How do you manage your mentalhealth?
Right, because I would assumeit's probably very easy to work
(11:40):
24 out of 24 hours a day.
Right, like there's no end inthe supply of work that you have
to do, especially in that inthat timeframe.
Right?
So how do you, how do youmanage your mental health?
How do you step away and dothat self-care.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Well, I did it for many years and so I'm glad you
bring it up because for probablythe first 15 years of the
business I didn't take enoughtime.
You know, I was going to school, you know, was married, had
young kids trying to run thebusiness.
I remember a story that I leftmy cell phone in my office.
At this point this is like 2005, 2006.
(12:20):
I left my cell phone in myoffice and I was working in our
server room trying to get somestuff done and I lost complete
track of time.
And at some point I walked outof the server room and I heard
this banging on the front doorand I walk out there and it was
my wife wondering where I was,because it was three o'clock in
(12:40):
the morning.
She had been trying to call meto figure out where I was and I
was just lost in work.
And you know, she packed up theyou know young kids in the car
and came down to try to figureout.
You know, hopefully nothing badhad happened to me and I
realized at that point that Idid need to take the time.
You know there's always more todo and work.
It will always be there, but we, we potentially might not be
(13:02):
there.
And it took, honestly, somedeaths in the family of seeing
people die too young because ofstress or different reasons or
you know, just mental andphysical health, that I went,
lost a lot of weight.
I've lost 80 pounds and starteddoing a lot of endurance sports
(13:26):
.
So I'm now a marathoner,ironman, and I take the time
every day for myself to makesure I'm physically well and
mentally well.
And it's important to take thattime away, because it's so easy
in this industry to say I justneed to do that next ticket, or
I need to solve that nextproblem, or I need to do that
(13:48):
next research, and if we're notphysically able to do it because
we're sick or unhealthy ormentally not healthy, we're just
not performing for our clientsor our team or whoever it may be
.
We're just not performing well.
So it's I had to learn thathard lesson about 14 years ago
that and I I have to do this, Ihave to make this change.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
yeah yeah, that's, and it's interesting.
You know, I've had on a lot ofpeople I mean this is, I don't
know, 225 episodes or somethinglike that.
Right, and most people take theeffort.
I've only had one person thattells me yeah, I don't do
anything, I just deal with it.
(14:31):
I'm like man, that's a terriblesolution to this problem, right.
But I have found that like Ireally need that time, you know.
So I'll do sensory deprivation.
Float tanks.
I'll do, you know, one a monthand that is like more than
enough for me, or maybe it's theright amount, right, for me to
(14:53):
kind of just shut off my brainfor an hour, 90 minutes and just
float right and kind of gathermy thoughts and process
everything that happened sincethe last session and whatnot.
That, really, that really doeshelp.
And then I also take a veryconcerted effort when, when I
take time off, even if it's aday off of work, you know in the
(15:14):
middle of the week or whatever,like I'm turning off all work
related notifications.
You know in the middle of theweek or whatever, like I'm
turning off all work relatednotifications.
You know like I'll, I'll use mycell phone and whatnot, but you
know my boss knows if somethingbad goes on you need to call me
, and it doesn't need to bethrough teams, like you need to
call me directly and I'll get toit, right.
But in that scenario it needsto be like hey, we're completely
(15:36):
breached, like we need you tohandle this.
You could take your vacationnext week, right, something like
that.
And I've also found that youknow, really hard cardiovascular
exercise really really helps,like significantly, which is
it's frustrating, right, becauseI hate running, but I
(15:57):
unfortunately like the resultsthat I get after, and so I tend
to try, and I try to fit it inwhen I can and I'm trying to
change my schedule right now,really just mostly my sleep
patterns so that I could do itin the morning before the kid
gets up, so that I can get it inand then take her to daycare
and start my day.
(16:18):
But it's very beneficial to doto daycare and start my day, but
it's very beneficial to dosomething hard like that, I
think.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, there's so many studies that show that a good
cardiovascular workout,endurance workout and that's why
I got into running andtriathlon because it generates a
lot of hormones, endorphorphins, and gets rid of the stress
hormones.
And study after study shows,you know, the longevity that
(16:43):
produces in our lives but alsothe alertness in the work that
we're doing.
And you know we've got to showup at our best all the time, and
if we're not showing up at work, at home for our kids, whatever
it may be that we're trying todo, if we're not showing up at
our best, we're not giving whatwe should to them.
And so taking that time whetherit's meditation or yoga or
(17:08):
running or biking, hiking,whatever it may be that you
really enjoy, I enjoy all of it.
But I think it's important totake that time away and really
disconnect from yeah and pushthe body physically.
That gives so many benefitsafter the fact.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Right.
So how do you, how do you findthe time to train for something
like an Ironman?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, you know, everybody has 24 hours in the
day, so it's all aboutscheduling, you know.
So I get up early in themorning, like you were just
saying, so I drive my kids toschool and I have to get up
before they have to be to school.
So I get an hour to an hour anda half in the morning, and as I
approach the date of theIronman, I have to increase the
(17:50):
time that I'm doing.
Four days, four to five days aweek, I'm training an hour, hour
and a half in the morning, hour, hour and a half in the evening
, and then on Saturdays it'susually four or five hours in
the morning and I try to do itbefore everybody else is up, you
know, and so I'm.
You know I'm around when other,when everybody wants to do
something else.
So, and luckily, my wife and Iare both training for the same
(18:13):
races, so she's also a runnerand triathletee, so we get to do
a lot of it together, which isgreat, but it's it's just about
eliminating something else inour schedule.
So, you know, maybe eliminating.
I don't play video gamesanymore.
I I just don't, you know, watchtv or play video games as
something I just eliminated.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
um, and I just focus on the physical time, and so
that's what I do when everybodyelse is sleeping usually yeah,
do you have certain days of theweek that you'll train certain
you know parts of the iron man,because the iron man is running,
biking and swimming, not inthat order, that's the wrong
order, but I, you know, whenI've, when I've trained for
(18:54):
something, it's typically, youknow, like a race right, like a
marathon or something like thatwhich I haven't done a marathon
yet, because I keep on gettinginjured right at 15 mile mark in
my training, which is prettyfrustrating for me.
But you know, when I wastraining for that, I mean every
day was running right.
So I assume in your trainingfor the Ironman maybe you're
(19:19):
touching all three each day, ormaybe you're having select days
or select training sessions fordifferent areas that maybe
you're stronger at.
You know what does that looklike, because I've never.
I've never done it and I'venever looked into it.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, it's, it's, there's.
I think I have a mug that saysI'm a triathlete, I make things
three times harder than theyshould be.
And there's another one that Ihave that says I'm not good at
running, biking or swimming, Ijust do all three or something.
I can't remember exactly whatit says, but triathletes are a
little different type of crazy,so I do alternate.
(19:56):
Usually it's three to four daysa week of running or times
training times of running, threeto four times of biking and
usually two swimming, and then Iget two strength and or
stretching times in there.
So like Monday, monday,wednesday and then Friday and
Saturday are usually running,and the length of and the type
(20:17):
of exercise varies depending onwhat I'm trying to do.
And so those dual workoutssometimes I'm doing a run in the
morning, a bike in theafternoon or vice versa, or I'm
doing a run and then a bike anda short run right in a row.
So I spend most of my time onthe bike and the run, because
those are the longest parts ofthe event.
Swim I'm usually doing like twoone, the bike and the run,
(20:37):
because those are the longestparts of the event.
Swim I'm usually doing like two, one hour workouts a week
because it's it's the shortestpart of the Ironman.
I just got to get through it.
I'm I'm a decent swimmer.
I'm not a great swimmer and itwould just take a lot of focus
for me to get faster at swimming.
So I get through it.
I I have, you know I have fundoing all of them, but uh, but
uh, but yeah, you have to varyit and that's the tough part is
(20:59):
figuring out how to schedule itall in.
And then I travel periodically.
So when I'm traveling it's Ican't take my bike with me, or I
could, but it's a pain in thebutt.
So you know it's the weeks ortimes that I travel that those
are my running days, becauseit's easy to throw a pair of
tennis shoes, running shoes, inmy bag.
That's the nice thing aboutrunning is you can just go down
to the gym and the hotel and runon the treadmill most of the
(21:20):
time.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, it's interesting, my wife's cousin, I
think.
She's currently even trainingfor a triathlon and a year or
two ago she attempted her firstone.
And she was talking to me and Iwas like, are you confident in
your swim?
Because I know you're good onthe run and the bike, but are
(21:42):
you confident in the swim?
And she's like, oh, I don'tknow.
I was like, if you're notconfident on the swim, like you
shouldn't get in the waterbecause, like you know, a mile,
two miles, is no joke in thewater, like that's a really long
way and you're in the water,like you could have a massive
issue, right, and and and she,she kind of was like, okay, well
(22:04):
, I don't have any more time totrain, so I'm just going to do
it and see you know what, whathappens?
And you know, half a mile in,and she's needing to be rescued
by the, by the paddle boardersor whatever it was right, pull
her out of the water.
And that kind of takes me backto you know, after I donated my
kidney in college, the doctortold me it's like, yeah, six
(22:28):
weeks, you know, don't really doanything.
You know you're not going to bethe same for six weeks, right,
Like you literally need to takesix weeks.
I know you're going to thinkthree, four weeks, you're going
to feel great and you will feelgreat at that point.
Right, this is like week fourof my recovery, week four, five
of my recovery.
I'm feeling great and I'm astrong swimmer.
(23:03):
Like I swim very well, I canswim.
For a very long time I didn'tlike do it as a sport or
anything like that, but like I'mvery comfortable in the water
even to this day.
Right, so we get in the waterand they have a great idea of
swimming around the lake, justdoing an entire loop, and I'm
like that's fine, that's notthat difficult, right, we were
just going to start where wewere, swim straight across the
(23:26):
lake, the center of the lake,and then go right around and
come back.
Right, I get to the middle ofthis lake and in Germany, you
know, there's no like, there'sno like ease off into know a
deeper end, right, so you'reliterally going from two feet to
10 feet to to.
You can't see the bottom at all, you know, and hopefully it,
(23:49):
you know, evens out again, right, and it's very, it's a very
short amount of time, like it's,it's uh, it's pretty crazy how
it just drops off like that andthere's no signs or anything
like that.
I'm in the middle of the lakeand you know, I'm very aware of,
like, my, my, my physicalitystatus or my physical status,
you know, and I'm like if I, ifI go any farther, I'm gonna
(24:13):
drown, like I'm not, I'mactually not gonna make it to
the other end, you know, and I'm, I'm literally in the middle of
40 feet.
You know, no one's out this far.
I'm alone.
Right, my friends left me and,uh, I, I immediately had to, you
know, come back and thankfully,you know I'm good with like
rescue swims and you know rescuefloating and whatnot, right.
(24:34):
And so I did a lot of that allthe way back, because I
literally reached the middle andit was like my, my, my fitness
level was, it just fell off acliff out of nowhere.
You know, that's what my doctorsaid.
He's like you're gonna dosomething, you're gonna feel
completely fine in the beginningand then it's going to
evaporate like nothing was evereven there and you're going to
(24:57):
be left, you know, with nothing.
And I I had never experiencedthat before, but in the water
that's like the worst time to doit.
So I, when I asked you aboutyour training, I'm also thinking
to myself from an athleteperspective.
I would over-train, right, Iwould over-prepare for the water
side of it, or the running andor the running and or the biking
(25:20):
, right.
But you saying you're doingjust enough to ensure that you
can make that distance rightmakes it makes a lot of sense,
because you kind of have tofigure out where you're going to
spend more of your timetraining yeah, I just have
enough experience to know whatit will take to finish that leg
in the amount of time that Iwant to.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
So I'm glad you had the wherewithal, though, to head
back to the shore, because thatcould be one scary, because a
panic attack can set in.
So I remember on my first evertriathlon that I did, my wetsuit
was a little too small for me.
So every race I've done hasbeen wetsuit legal.
So I'm able to, which helpswith buoyancy and speed and
stuff, but I couldn't stretch myarms out.
(26:03):
It was my only my second timeusing this wetsuit.
I did one practice swim and thenwent out and I had a little bit
of a panic attack about it inthe water and luckily I was able
to finish.
I gathered myself, uh, together, one of the paddle boarders
came over and just checked on meand like no, I'm okay, I just
calmed down, I made it through.
But yeah, that could be a real,real issue and it can happen at
(26:26):
any time.
My wife's done a lot moretriathlons than I have and she's
recently had some issues in thewater with panic attacks and
it's a scary, scary thing to toand it's hard to get over that
mentally.
Yeah, it's um, yeah, certainly,and I'll tell you that
triathlons and especially ironman, the swim is not always nice
(26:50):
calm water, like I just didthis race up in in california.
The water was 58 degrees, itwas in a river, which sounds
great.
You're swimming down river, butthe river has a lot of current
and there's debris and it wascold and kind of choppy and it
wasn't a fun swim.
By any means done swims with,uh, like 10 degrees or 10 foot
(27:10):
swells in in an ocean.
It's man, like I said, I I swimenough in the pool and I do
some open water swimming topractice for it and I do enough
to be confident that I canfinish.
But I know that to get a big20% reduction in time I'd need
to spend 100% more time swimming.
I'd rather focus on other areasto make improvements.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, that's really challenging swimming against
current.
Yeah, that is that's reallychallenging swimming against
current.
That's probably the number onereason why, whenever I get the
you know poor idea of trainingfor a triathlon, you know, as
soon as I think of that, I waslike I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, I think every time I sign up for a race or
right, and then I go you knowthe day or two before the race,
I'm like what the heck was Ithinking when I signed up for
this thing?
So it's stupid, yeah, but thenat the end you cross the finish
line like that's amazing, I'lldo that again.
Then you pay for another race.
You're like why did I do that?
it's like yeah, it's a viciouscycle, but it I don't know.
(28:11):
I I like I'm very goal orientedand I like to have a goal to
work towards, and that's whatinspires me to take the time to
train and do the things that Ineed to do to stay physically
fit.
So I don't know what I would doif I couldn't race anymore.
It'd be hard to motivate myselfto spend as much time on my
physical fitness.
I think for me it's some lessonsin business too.
(28:33):
We need to focus in business onthe things that generate the
best outcomes.
You know we need to focus inbusiness on the things that
generate the best outcomes.
You know, a lot of times we,you know we want to do tasks and
get things accomplished, butmaybe those tasks don't lead us
down the goals that we want.
And so, you know, focusing onthe most important things that
(28:54):
will lead us to the bestproductivity and best outcomes,
I think is an essential part ofany career and or business that
you can do, because there'salways going to be things coming
at you, whether it's, you know,random emails, or, you know,
browsing social media or thing.
You know things that might beinteresting or good, but if we
focus too much time on those.
It certainly can detract usfrom doing the or distract us, I
(29:14):
guess, from doing the thingsthat we really should be doing,
or distract us, I guess, fromdoing the things that we really
should be doing.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
You know, when I was maybe atthe beginning of, like, my real,
you know, entrepreneurialjourney, right, let's just say,
with this podcast, right,because I started it from
scratch, did it all myself,basically.
And you know, when you see alittle bit of success, you want
to not just double down but youwant to increase it, right, well
(29:43):
, I could do more content, I canput out more videos, it could
be more helpful in this way.
Right, and in the contentgeneration world, it's very
common for your favorite contentcreator to post five videos a
week, you know, and there's areason behind it.
Right, they want their audienceto be engaged as often as
(30:04):
possible throughout the day,because that boosts them in the
algorithm and everything that ofwhich I really hate.
And there's things that I dothat do not benefit the
algorithm at all in any way, andthat's you know, why my podcast
has grown at the rate that ithas grown.
Right, like it's steady growth,but it's not insane growth that
(30:26):
you see from some of theseother platforms that you know
kind of came from nowhere andnow they're doing 50,000 views a
month, or whatever it might be.
Right, I know those people anda lot of those people paid for a
lot of those views, yeah, and Ihaven't done any of that, right
.
But when you're in that mode,you know, it's very easy for
(30:47):
your brain to say, oh okay, I'llpost another episode, right.
And then what happens to me?
I get burned out, right, likelast year.
I posted two episodes a weekfor almost the entire year and
by the time October came around,I was like, yeah, I don't want
to do this anymore, like, like,like, I'm going to post like one
episode a month, you know, orwhatever.
(31:07):
It is just just to recover, youknow, and it's it's really
important to kind of be mindfulof that.
And I feel like it's verydifficult to be mindful of it
when you're going into it, right, because you don't know what
you don't know and you know, ifyou don't know your limits with
it, you know you'll run intothat brick wall and you have to
find a way to dial it back andthen recover properly, I think.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, whether it's sports or in professional
careers, there's always a finebalance between pushing yourself
enough for growth and pushingyourself too hard for injury.
You mentioned, you know, theinjuries at mile 15.
And that's often what we do inlife in general is either we
(32:00):
just don't do enough, you, wedon't focus right, or you know
we go on the opposite side, thatwe're, oh, I could do this, and
you push yourself so hard andthen you eventually fail because
you push you, you've gonebeyond the limit, the breaking
point limit.
You don't see it right away,but you see it over time.
And there's always this finebalance.
You know it's whether you're,you know, weightlifter or an
endurance athlete, or you know,whatever it may be, you have to
push yourself to a little bit ofpain for growth, but not too
(32:23):
much, and it's always a veryfine balance.
My wife and I talk about thatall the time, you know, because
we're training together and kindof coming up with our training
plans.
It's like, you know, do I do?
I do this workout which I knowis going to benefit me, but I
have this little bit of nagginginjury.
Is it going to cause me moreproblems or is that?
(32:43):
Can I work successfully throughthat and I think it relates on,
you know honestly, to a career.
You know some decisions.
You know I've thought about Iagain, I'm very busy with a lot
of different things running thebusiness, and I wanted to get a
new certification, a couple ofnew certifications, and I
thought to myself, what's thegain on that?
You know, is that pushingmyself too hard right now or is
(33:03):
that the right thing to do?
And I chose to do one ratherthan two at the time and I was
really grateful that I was ableto get some additional learning.
But I think that we have tomake those balanced decisions
all the time.
You know, if you're runningyour business, it business, it's
always.
You know, there's always aquestion of how far to push it,
(33:25):
how hard to push your team, howfar to push the company, and
sometimes you can push too hardand and there's some, always
some consequences with it.
So you know, everything in liferelates.
That's what, again, that's whyI like the endurance sports,
because it does relate to what Ido every day in work too.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, so talking about you, know your company,
what, what services or whatdomain of IT do you guys
specialize in?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
So our focus is small to midsize businesses, mostly
professional services.
So we focus on companies thatare 10 to 50 employees, that
that kind of lower middle marketor small business market, and
we help companies with allaspects of IT, from help desk,
server deployment, cloudmanagement, cybersecurity.
(34:08):
We have our own voice over IPsoft switch and we operate
broadband networks too, soeverything and we're our own
network provider, so everythingrelated to the technology for
those businesses.
And we focused on the smallercompanies because those are,
once you get about eight to 10employees, there's a lot higher
(34:28):
need for technology support.
You're often buying maybe aline of business application or
subscribing to some line ofbusiness software.
You want to implement some newtechnologies.
You know whether it's an ERPsystem or AI or whatever it may
be, and there's just moreintegration that has to happen.
And then you're obviouslydealing with, maybe, some
(34:49):
compliance.
You know having to implementcybersecurity policies and
procedures, implement new toolsto protect the company.
So that's where we in and andtake a comprehensive approach of
how to how to go after.
Um, you know the solutions forgrowth inside those companies.
So I love the.
The companies that we work withthat, you know, start small.
(35:10):
You know a couple of people andthen they've grown over the
years three, four hundred peopleacross multiple states, and
going through that journey withthem it's it is one of the
greatest things that I do in mybusiness is seeing a company
grow from an idea to a greatsuccess and using technology to
get them there.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, that's really fascinating, you know, because
I'm trying to figure out thebest way to word it.
You know, I feel like whenyou're not starting a company,
when you're not doing consultingmaybe even when you're younger
on in your career you alwaysthink, I mean, even right now,
(35:50):
right, like I still think, oh, Ineed more knowledge, I need
more skill before I do that, orwhatever it might be.
But when you go out and youtalk to other companies, other
potential customers and whatnot,especially in the small
business area or the mediumbusiness area and you find out,
wait a minute, they need thisthing, and I know that very well
(36:14):
, I've done that many timesbefore and it kind of unlocks
your mind to an extent of whereit's like, oh okay, if I could
do that, then maybe I could dothis right, and it kind of
snowballs.
For me that was the case, andnow I'm doing a bit more
consulting than I've ever donebefore, specifically on cloud
security.
So more to come on that forsure in 2025.
(36:36):
But I am doing a lot more onthat side now.
But was that mentality presentfor you?
Potentially starting out, youknow, was well, who's going to
buy a service for me?
Who's going to do this?
Who's going to give me moneyfor this thing?
Right?
I mean, I remember when Istarted, when I was starting the
podcast, you know, I've kind oflike what I call a focused
(36:58):
group of friends, right, all ofthem have different opinions.
All of them have different, youknow, political, religion,
cultural beliefs.
All of them have differentbackgrounds.
And there, you know, there'sone subsect of that focus group
that literally had all of thosequestions for me.
Well, who's going to actuallylisten?
How are you going to market it?
How are you even going to findguests to come on?
(37:19):
Right, and 225 episodes later,here we are, right.
So, did you have that same sortof, you know, kind of internal
battle going on then?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I did.
It was very interesting.
So, if you remember, when youwere 17, 18 years old, you knew
everything.
Teenagers know everything, andso my brother and I knew
everything, but we knew nothingand I was humbled.
Very quickly we got a contractto set up a small office.
(37:51):
I think it was about 10 to 15computers, to wire up the
network and set up all thecomputers and nothing worked.
Like I had done this a few timesbefore, I had done it in my
high school and my job at the atImage Computers, where I had
worked for about a year and ahalf.
I'd done it before but I alwayshad somebody I could ask if
(38:14):
there was a problem, I alwayshad the computer teacher or I
had my boss that I could ask,but there was nobody I could ask
.
And this was before you knowinternet forums or Reddit or you
know whatever it may be.
There was nothing, there wasnobody to ask and my brother and
I sat there until you knowearly in the morning just trying
different things and it washumbled, like really humbled,
(38:36):
that no, nathan, you don't knoweverything.
And amazingly we figured outwhat it was.
It ended up being a hardwareproblem the network cards that
we were trying to use wereincompatible with the network
switch or hub at that time.
Weird issue, just the brandsdidn't like each other and so we
swapped out the networkadapters and all the computers
and everything worked just fine.
(38:56):
But it was a humblingexperience of just realizing,
you know, there's so much moreto learn and it's just going to
take time.
I think it took me on thejourney of lifelong learning of
saying, you know, I will neverknow everything and there will
always be people smarter than methat I can learn from.
So that's led me to look I canwork in my domain, I can do this
(39:18):
well, and I want to gather moreknowledge, I want to do more
well, and so it's, you know,this goal of lifelong learning.
But I think you have to take alittle bit of leap.
You can't just always learn andnever do.
That experience also taught methe biggest and best lessons
that I can learn is whilefailing, and when you fail and
you and you overcome thatfailure, that's when you learn
(39:40):
the biggest lesson.
So without ever trying, youwill never fail.
And if you never fail, younever really learn.
And so taking thoseopportunities to learn and grow
through failure, through success, and finding people that will
help you along the way.
So I've gotten coaches,business coaches that have
helped me a lot, listening to alot of speakers, reading a lot
(40:02):
of books.
There's just a lot of peoplealong the way that have helped
me on my journey from, you know,being a technician, being, you
know, the tech guy, to being abusiness owner.
And that's a very hardtransition, I think, for a lot
of us in this industry, becausewe love what we do, we love
working on the tech.
But really running a businessis about managing people,
(40:23):
whether it's our clients oremployees, and that's a very
hard lesson to learn.
I mean, it takes a differentskill set that comes with time
too.
So just finding those people tohelp you along the way, along
the journey, is, I think,essential.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, that is something that in 2025, I
probably need to do a better jobof right, because I am at the
point where now it's like I haveother experts in the field
doing the work on my, on my team, under my you know company name
and everything right.
I mean, like that's for me atleast, that's a ginormous
(41:02):
milestone, you know, to thinkthat I have a network that's
willing to work with me on aproject that may be potentially
even rudimentary for him.
I mean, I got one guy that youknow used to be a cyber warfare
officer for the us military.
This guy, you know, builttarget packages and ransomware
(41:23):
and all everything that youcould think of.
This guy built it from scratch,you know an edr system.
He built a sim system fromscratch.
He built right and it's interms of, like, business.
You know, progression right, Idon't have my m, I'm getting my
PhD in something highlytechnical, you know, but it's
turning into.
You know, now I'm thinkingabout having an operations arm
(41:46):
right Now I'm thinking abouthaving a governance and
compliance arm that does theconsulting, and I have cloud
security and pen testing and allthese other things.
And now I'm in a position whereit's like like, well, I can't do
all of that and run thebusiness.
Like I have to do one or theother right and I, if I choose
one, I can't do all of that.
(42:07):
I still have to have otherpeople right.
So who's going to run thebusiness?
So it's an interesting.
It's an interesting problem,right.
And now I'm kind of likecontemplating do I want to go
down this route?
Because if I go down this route, I know, I think I know where
it will end and just knowing meright, like I, I have like a
never quit mentality right, likeno matter what happens, I'm not
(42:29):
going to be quitting, but Ihave a young family right.
So I have to like kind of gaugethe risk and manage it properly
and then go from there.
It's an interesting.
It's an interesting predicament, I guess yeah it's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I go to these industry conferences and when
the speaker that's the runs theconferences often says in our
industry there's a lot of peoplethat are tech with helpers and
transitioning from a businessthat is tech with helpers to a
real business that the CEO isreally a CEO and a business
(43:05):
manager, that's one of thehardest transitions ever.
One of the hardest hires youmay ever do is hiring an
accounting person or asalesperson or an account
manager.
We're really good at talking toa technician and talking to a
tech person and really knowingif they know what they do.
But hiring somebody in a domainthat we're not familiar with
(43:28):
hiring somebody to do accountingand hr is much harder for us
than hiring somebody that'sgoing to do cyber security work
or compliance work right, andit's harder to manage that
person because they'll come toyou and say things like oh you
know, this is our profit andloss statement, a balance sheet,
cash flow statement, let'sreview those, and you're like
(43:48):
I've never read one of thosebefore.
What does?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
that mean.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
So how do I do payroll and you know, handle HR
compliance and you know thatkind of stuff.
So I mean those, those are, youknow, good problems to have as
a growing company.
But they're definitelydifferent and you know each one
of us have has to decide, likeyou know, if we're starting a
business, is that what we wantto get into or are we starting a
(44:11):
lifestyle business that we'recomfortable with?
You know, being a tech withhelper and helpers and managing
a small team that's doing greatwork.
But it's definitely thattransition from, you know, four
or five people in a company to10 or 20 people is is a huge
transition, it's difficult yeah,yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
That's fascinating when you I'm just trying to, I
guess I need to do a bit moreresearch, right, like because
when you're growing to 10 to 20people, right, like still even
doing the math or trying tofigure out, like, how much money
I need to have coming in to paythat person, right, and you
always, you always hear, oh, youonly need to worry about you
(44:52):
know, two weeks, right, twoweeks at a time, or one paycheck
at a time.
You need to be able to coverthat one and then figure it out
for the next one.
For me, I like to build incushion, you know.
So I like to build in, you know, six, 12 months of cushion.
Maybe I'll project out 12months, but I'll have, you know,
a quarter of cushion, right?
(45:14):
It's a weird dynamic that I'mtrying to figure out now of how
to negotiate that.
And you know, figure outsomething that that works, right
, because I don't want to bring.
The last thing that I wouldever want to do is bring people
on and then close doors, youknow, a quarter later saying, oh
, it didn't work.
Now we all got to find new jobsright Like that's.
(45:34):
That's terrible.
You know, I would not want thatfor anyone.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Well, the nice thing about our industry is, for the
most part, the work that we dois recurring revenue.
If you, you know, you could dothe project, so to say.
But really, it andcybersecurity and compliance are
all reoccurring work it neverends is?
You know, we can business plana lot easier in our industry?
(46:00):
You know managed IT,cybersecurity, managed security
services better than you know aconstruction company that always
has to look for that next job.
Or you know, whatever, whatevertype of business it is, it's
always looking for that next job.
And so, I mean professionalsrecommend, you know, having
three months of cushion.
I think that's a greatrecommendation.
But what's great about you knowwhat we do is, honestly, if we
(46:22):
set it up as recurring services,as managed services or managed
security services, it gives, youknow, a nice revenue stream
that allows better forecastingand easier forecasting, and it's
the right service thatcompanies want to buy.
They'd rather, you know, buy anongoing service than just like
one project to say, oh, you'regood and you're you're never
good Right.
And in our industry it's always.
(46:43):
There's always the next thing,next threat.
You know you got to stay up on.
You know audits and penetrationtests and you know help desk
work.
Whatever it may be, there'salways something more to do.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that
that was when I when I kind ofhit that reality, you know,
because I guess the biggestthing when you're starting a new
business right is how do I findcustomers right, how do I find
people that are interested ingiving me money to provide a
service, even though I do itreally well, right, Like that's
(47:18):
like the hardest thing.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Don't you just throw up a website and everybody just
comes to you suddenly, right?
Or maybe like you know a bunchof ad space or something.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
You know, it's a, it's an interesting problem, but
I feel like it's getting solvedin other ways, and this being
this being one of them.
Right, this platform, like onceI start talking about it more,
I think more people will bewilling to reach out and whatnot
.
But it's a, it's an interestingpredicament.
You know, not everyone goesdown this path, right like and
(47:52):
rightly so right like there'sthere's a lot of like sleepless
nights that go into running andstarting a business and whatnot,
and and there's a lot of likeanxiety built in around it
because you're not given thesolution to everything.
You really have to think aboutit, figure it out and, you know,
execute on it.
I think that's the biggestthing is the execution.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
It is.
It is hard.
I mean, when you look at thestatistics of businesses that
last more than five years, it'shonestly pretty disheartening.
You know, I think it'ssomewhere around 80% that go out
of business within the first,you know, year or two and 90% go
out of business within fiveyears and most businesses it's
like 99% of businesses nevermake it past a million dollars
(48:34):
in annual revenue.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
You know, no-transcript time here.
(49:22):
Time really flew by andunfortunately or maybe
fortunately, you know, howeveryou look at it.
But you know I really enjoyedour, our conversation.
I'd love to have you back onsome time in 2025 and, you know,
continue the talk.
Yeah, happy to.
It was a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Appreciate it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well, before I let
you go, you know how about?
You tell my audience where theycould find you if they wanted
to connect with you and wherethey could find your company if
they wanted to learn more.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
So I'm on LinkedIn.
I post a lot there, so you canfind me, nathan Whitaker, and
it's spelled a little differentW-H-I-T-T-A-C-R-E.
So feel free to connect with methere and, if you, I'll give
you an offer.
If you message me, send me adirect message and connect with
me, I'll send you a copy of mybook, the CEO's Digital Survival
Guide, so a physical copy of it, not just a digital copy.
(50:13):
And then my company is StimulusTechnologies and we are based
in Las Vegas, nevada, but wecover most of the western United
States, so you can find us onStimulusTechcom.
It's our company website.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Awesome.
Well, thanks everyone.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Have a great holiday everyone.
How's it going, nathan?
It's great to finally get youon the podcast.
You know, I think we've beenplanning this thing since
probably May at this point, andyou know it's like perfect
timing, right.
Every single time that we weregoing to record something came
up Incidents at work, kidsgetting sick.
But I'm really glad to finallyget you on.
I think this will probably bemy last episode of 2024.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it's great to be here, joe.
I'm excited to have theconversation, so thanks.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, nathan, you know I starteveryone off with telling you
know their background of howthey got into IT or security
overall, right, the reason why Istart everyone there is because
not only paints a good pictureof you know you as a person and
your journey.
But you know there's a portionof my listeners that might be
(00:51):
trying to get an IT or securityfor the very first time, right,
and I remember when I was tryingto make that jump hearing
someone else's story that wasthat was you know closely like
mine or, you know, had the samebackground as mine.
It just opened up my mind tothink, oh hey, this is possible,
right, I'm not going down somerabbit hole that's never going
(01:12):
to pay off or anything like that.
This is possible for me, right?
So what was your journey likeinto IT or security?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Sure, I have always loved technology, ever since I
was a little kid.
So my story goes back to when Iwas four years old, over 40
years ago, that my parentsbought us an Atari 800XL, which
is similar to a Commodore 64 oran Apple IIe it was just the
Atari brand of a home computerand my brother and I who's a
(01:44):
little older than me used toplay on that machine.
But we had to learn basicprogramming to do anything on
that computer, because you justbooted it up and it came up with
a prompt for to start enteringbasic code, and so we wanted to
play video games, like any kidsdo, and so, and we've had to
figure out how to either writecode or copy code off of
(02:07):
magazines that we would get inthe mail.
We'd go.
You know, there was nodownloading, we'd buy some games
and things like that, but itwas.
It was mostly because mybrother and I wanted to play
video games.
When I got into PCs about 10years later, same thing I wanted
to play better video games,learned about graphics cards and
how to put memory in thecomputer.
You know it was, uh, these olddim chips.
(02:29):
You had to add one at a time,and so I learned a lot about
hardware just by experimentingaround on my home computer, to
the chagrin of my parentsbecause I broke it a bunch of
times.
But you know, eventually Ilearned a lot more, went to work
for a small computer storebuilding computers, just helping
repair and build computers, andI got my degree in computer
science bachelor's and master'sdegree in computer science from
(02:50):
University of Nevada, las Vegas.
And while going to college mybrother and I decided to start
Stimulus Technologies to helpfriends and family build
computers, work on theirmachines, fix problems, and it's
grown from there.
So 1995, we started Stimulusand now we're about 75 employees
in five states and do all kindsof variety of IT work
(03:14):
cybersecurity, internet voiceacross the country.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So that's my journey, yeah, that's fascinating.
My journey, yeah, that'sfascinating.
You know, there's kind of twoparts of it that I want to like
highlight.
I guess, right, you know, inthe beginning, when you're
building the computers, whenyou're, you know, gaming on it,
making them better, upgradingthem, right, those computers are
(03:41):
not like the computers that weinteract with today.
You know, back then it was likeit's very rudimentary, you know,
like if you wanted to use itand you know use like an audio
driver, you had to like unpackit, install it, hardware level,
where you are, you know, reallyintimate with the underworkings
(04:08):
of how the computer is actuallyworking, which is an interesting
, it's an interesting backgroundnow, in 2024, right, like not
very many people starting outtoday or getting started, you
know, the last couple yearswould have that sort of
experience, unless they decideto go into a linux os for some
(04:28):
ungodly reason, right and, andstart playing around in there.
I mean, of course, you know, ifyou're in this field, you
probably have messed around withlinux to some extent.
I still have a linux vm, youknow, installed on my desktop
just to make it feel like I'mstill, you know, in the weeds at
times, right, but like it'sinteresting right how you
(04:49):
started your background fromthere.
Because, like you were startingit from like the ground up,
with the industry as a whole,you know, like you were
technically right like we're allstill on the cutting edge of
technology to some extent, but Imean like you were there at the
foundation, you know yeah, it'sinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I mean I, I you know when I talk about this.
It brings back memories of likebill gates saying you know,
we'll never need more than 640kram you know, and it just you
know, because it was my first pc, it was dos 5, 2.
You know you just have to toplay doom, which is, you know,
something I wanted to play.
You know the original I wantedto play.
You know the original Doom game.
I had to, you know, work withextending the memory after I
(05:28):
added two megs of RAM to themachine.
You know, figure out how tohave this extended memory and
move all the drivers to theright portion of memory.
I mean it was always a lot oftinkering.
Then I did get into Linux.
My first kernel, I think, ofLinux was 0.92.
So I don't think you've liveduntil you've had to compile a
Linux kernel from scratch.
So I did a lot of that.
(05:50):
You know Slackware was thefirst distro of Linux I used.
I mean, this is all late 80s,early 90s and I was just a kid,
you know, just honestly, justplaying around trying to figure
out how to Computers again, myparents, I'd drive them nuts
because I'd run network cables,coax cables, across from room to
room in the house.
But yeah, it's definitely ajourney, um, and I miss the
(06:13):
experimentation.
I don't get to do it as much asI used to.
You know, now I do mostlymanagement inside the company
and talk high level.
But um, you know it'sdefinitely different times back
then and I I miss it.
It was simpler a little bit.
You know you wanted a virus,you had to go out and look for
it or get a floppy disk thatincluded one.
You know nowadays it just youknow they're always attacking us
, so it's a different certainlythat you went straight into
(06:42):
starting your own company, right?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So did you always have that kind of
entrepreneurial spirit?
Were you always looking forways to, you know, like, make, I
guess, make an income.
Right, I approach it from thisway, right, and you know, I
didn't even think about this formany years with myself.
(07:04):
But when I was younger, like Iwas, I mean I was doing
everything I could just to makemoney.
Right, and that's not the samefor every kid, right, like, most
of my friends were cool with,you know, having no money,
having nothing, and just youknow, playing baseball or
whatever it was Right, just youknow playing baseball or
(07:25):
whatever it was right.
But for me it was always like,okay, well, I can, you know, mow
my grandma's lawn, and thenshe'll refer me across the
street to her friend and I'll,you know, mow their lawn and
it'll snowball.
Right.
And even in high school, I wasmaking friends with the vice
principal and the principals toget me jobs that I had no
business being in in the school.
(07:45):
And you, jobs that I had nobusiness being in in the school.
And you know, I should havebeen fired 10 times the first
week, right, like, that's justhow I was as a kid right, I
needed that like social.
I needed that socialopportunity to grow into the
professional that I am today.
But it's interesting becauseyou just started right into it,
you know, and you kind of jumpedin.
(08:05):
Were you thinking at the timelike, hey, this is, this is a
little bit crazy, or was it justlike second nature for you?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Probably a little bit crazy, but it was.
It was in in our family blood.
My dad had owned a couple ofbusinesses service businesses
back in the late seventies,early eighties, and so so, all
surprisingly, all four of uskids eventually owned our own
businesses.
So my my oldest sister owns apiano studio.
My other sister ran aconstruction company for 25
(08:35):
years.
My brother and I obviously wentinto business together.
We eventually split the companyinto one doing software and the
other doing the IT services.
So both of us ran businesses.
But as a kid, you know, Ilearned from my parents, you
know over the dinner table, ofwhat it took to run a business,
and I don't think it scared anyof us away, which is surprising
because it was certainly astruggle for them.
(08:56):
But you know I, like you, Ifigured out ways to make money,
even from a little kid.
You know I I was selling candy.
I had a little candy store inmy house.
From the profits of that Ibought a dog and we bred the dog
and so made the money off ofthat and, you know, just trying
to always find ways to to makemoney.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So very similar yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
You bring up selling candy.
Like I was selling candy inhigh school.
I was selling candy in jordan'sin high school.
That was.
That was very in Jordans inhigh school.
That was very interesting.
My best friend I couldn't evenremember how we met and at my
wedding I got married almostfive years ago at this point and
(09:35):
at my wedding he's giving thebest man speech and he brings up
how we met and I couldn'tremember for the life of me of
how we met and he's like, yeah,you know, back in high school,
like you didn't go to FootLocker for the latest Jordans,
you went to Joe's Locker for thelatest Jordans and Joe always
had them and I I was like man,like that's, that's how we met,
(09:57):
like that's, that's really uh,that's really funny.
And I, I like remembered, youknow, the pair of Jordans that
he ordered from me that day andeverything else like that.
So it was uh, it was fast.
I mean, like that alone Iprobably should have been like
arrested for back then.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Funny story I, I, actually I was shut down.
My candy store was shut downbecause we weren't collecting
sales tax and we didn't have abusiness license.
So I got it big enough thatsome of the neighborhood moms
complained that I was sellingtoo much candy and the local tax
department came and said yougot to shut it down because you
can't have a small business in ahouse in this area and you have
(10:37):
to have a business license.
So unless you open up a biggerstore in a commercial area, you
have to shut it down.
So I was deviant deviant,obviously, you know.
Yeah, running an illegalbusiness out of my house selling
candy and baseball cards that's, uh, that's fascinating, that's
that's interesting, that Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I I just it's interesting that someone would
like complain at just overall.
You know, it's like it's a kidselling candy, like he's not.
You know, I mean nowadays,right like that would be very
highly suspicious, right likeI'm sure a lot of people would
be like, oh, he's selling drugsor something like that you know,
and that's probably a likelyscenario, but I just it would be
(11:18):
shocking back then for that tobe true.
You know when, when you're, whenyou're on that journey of being
an entrepreneur, starting ayoung company in an industry
that's essentially at the verybeginning of its kickoff, right?
How do you manage your mentalhealth?
Right, because I would assumeit's probably very easy to work
(11:40):
24 out of 24 hours a day.
Right, like there's no end inthe supply of work that you have
to do, especially in that inthat timeframe.
Right?
So how do you, how do youmanage your mental health?
How do you step away and dothat self-care.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Well, I did it for many years and so I'm glad you
bring it up because for probablythe first 15 years of the
business I didn't take enoughtime.
You know, I was going to school, you know, was married, had
young kids trying to run thebusiness.
I remember a story that I leftmy cell phone in my office.
At this point this is like 2005, 2006.
(12:20):
I left my cell phone in myoffice and I was working in our
server room trying to get somestuff done and I lost complete
track of time.
And at some point I walked outof the server room and I heard
this banging on the front doorand I walk out there and it was
my wife wondering where I was,because it was three o'clock in
(12:40):
the morning.
She had been trying to call meto figure out where I was and I
was just lost in work.
And you know, she packed up theyou know young kids in the car
and came down to try to figureout.
You know, hopefully nothing badhad happened to me and I
realized at that point that Idid need to take the time.
You know there's always more todo and work.
It will always be there, but we, we potentially might not be
(13:02):
there.
And it took, honestly, somedeaths in the family of seeing
people die too young because ofstress or different reasons or
you know, just mental andphysical health, that I went,
lost a lot of weight.
I've lost 80 pounds and starteddoing a lot of endurance sports
(13:26):
.
So I'm now a marathoner,ironman, and I take the time
every day for myself to makesure I'm physically well and
mentally well.
And it's important to take thattime away, because it's so easy
in this industry to say I justneed to do that next ticket, or
I need to solve that nextproblem, or I need to do that
(13:48):
next research, and if we're notphysically able to do it because
we're sick or unhealthy ormentally not healthy, we're just
not performing for our clientsor our team or whoever it may be
.
We're just not performing well.
So it's I had to learn thathard lesson about 14 years ago
that and I I have to do this, Ihave to make this change.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
yeah yeah, that's, and it's interesting.
You know, I've had on a lot ofpeople I mean this is, I don't
know, 225 episodes or somethinglike that.
Right, and most people take theeffort.
I've only had one person thattells me yeah, I don't do
anything, I just deal with it.
(14:31):
I'm like man, that's a terriblesolution to this problem, right.
But I have found that like Ireally need that time, you know.
So I'll do sensory deprivation.
Float tanks.
I'll do, you know, one a monthand that is like more than
enough for me, or maybe it's theright amount, right, for me to
(14:53):
kind of just shut off my brainfor an hour, 90 minutes and just
float right and kind of gathermy thoughts and process
everything that happened sincethe last session and whatnot.
That, really, that really doeshelp.
And then I also take a veryconcerted effort when, when I
take time off, even if it's aday off of work, you know in the
(15:14):
middle of the week or whatever,like I'm turning off all work
related notifications.
You know in the middle of theweek or whatever, like I'm
turning off all work relatednotifications.
You know like I'll, I'll use mycell phone and whatnot, but you
know my boss knows if somethingbad goes on you need to call me
, and it doesn't need to bethrough teams, like you need to
call me directly and I'll get toit, right.
But in that scenario it needsto be like hey, we're completely
(15:36):
breached, like we need you tohandle this.
You could take your vacationnext week, right, something like
that.
And I've also found that youknow, really hard cardiovascular
exercise really really helps,like significantly, which is
it's frustrating, right, becauseI hate running, but I
(15:57):
unfortunately like the resultsthat I get after, and so I tend
to try, and I try to fit it inwhen I can and I'm trying to
change my schedule right now,really just mostly my sleep
patterns so that I could do itin the morning before the kid
gets up, so that I can get it inand then take her to daycare
and start my day.
(16:18):
But it's very beneficial to doto daycare and start my day, but
it's very beneficial to dosomething hard like that, I
think.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, there's so many studies that show that a good
cardiovascular workout,endurance workout and that's why
I got into running andtriathlon because it generates a
lot of hormones, endorphorphins, and gets rid of the stress
hormones.
And study after study shows,you know, the longevity that
(16:43):
produces in our lives but alsothe alertness in the work that
we're doing.
And you know we've got to showup at our best all the time, and
if we're not showing up at work, at home for our kids, whatever
it may be that we're trying todo, if we're not showing up at
our best, we're not giving whatwe should to them.
And so taking that time whetherit's meditation or yoga or
(17:08):
running or biking, hiking,whatever it may be that you
really enjoy, I enjoy all of it.
But I think it's important totake that time away and really
disconnect from yeah and pushthe body physically.
That gives so many benefitsafter the fact.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Right.
So how do you, how do you findthe time to train for something
like an Ironman?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, you know, everybody has 24 hours in the
day, so it's all aboutscheduling, you know.
So I get up early in themorning, like you were just
saying, so I drive my kids toschool and I have to get up
before they have to be to school.
So I get an hour to an hour anda half in the morning, and as I
approach the date of theIronman, I have to increase the
(17:50):
time that I'm doing.
Four days, four to five days aweek, I'm training an hour, hour
and a half in the morning, hour, hour and a half in the evening
, and then on Saturdays it'susually four or five hours in
the morning and I try to do itbefore everybody else is up, you
know, and so I'm.
You know I'm around when other,when everybody wants to do
something else.
So, and luckily, my wife and Iare both training for the same
(18:13):
races, so she's also a runnerand triathletee, so we get to do
a lot of it together, which isgreat, but it's it's just about
eliminating something else inour schedule.
So, you know, maybe eliminating.
I don't play video gamesanymore.
I I just don't, you know, watchtv or play video games as
something I just eliminated.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
um, and I just focus on the physical time, and so
that's what I do when everybodyelse is sleeping usually yeah,
do you have certain days of theweek that you'll train certain
you know parts of the iron man,because the iron man is running,
biking and swimming, not inthat order, that's the wrong
order, but I, you know, whenI've, when I've trained for
(18:54):
something, it's typically, youknow, like a race right, like a
marathon or something like thatwhich I haven't done a marathon
yet, because I keep on gettinginjured right at 15 mile mark in
my training, which is prettyfrustrating for me.
But you know, when I wastraining for that, I mean every
day was running right.
So I assume in your trainingfor the Ironman maybe you're
(19:19):
touching all three each day, ormaybe you're having select days
or select training sessions fordifferent areas that maybe
you're stronger at.
You know what does that looklike, because I've never.
I've never done it and I'venever looked into it.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, it's, it's, there's.
I think I have a mug that saysI'm a triathlete, I make things
three times harder than theyshould be.
And there's another one that Ihave that says I'm not good at
running, biking or swimming, Ijust do all three or something.
I can't remember exactly whatit says, but triathletes are a
little different type of crazy,so I do alternate.
(19:56):
Usually it's three to four daysa week of running or times
training times of running, threeto four times of biking and
usually two swimming, and then Iget two strength and or
stretching times in there.
So like Monday, monday,wednesday and then Friday and
Saturday are usually running,and the length of and the type
(20:17):
of exercise varies depending onwhat I'm trying to do.
And so those dual workoutssometimes I'm doing a run in the
morning, a bike in theafternoon or vice versa, or I'm
doing a run and then a bike anda short run right in a row.
So I spend most of my time onthe bike and the run, because
those are the longest parts ofthe event.
Swim I'm usually doing like twoone, the bike and the run,
(20:37):
because those are the longestparts of the event.
Swim I'm usually doing like two, one hour workouts a week
because it's it's the shortestpart of the Ironman.
I just got to get through it.
I'm I'm a decent swimmer.
I'm not a great swimmer and itwould just take a lot of focus
for me to get faster at swimming.
So I get through it.
I I have, you know I have fundoing all of them, but uh, but
uh, but yeah, you have to varyit and that's the tough part is
(20:59):
figuring out how to schedule itall in.
And then I travel periodically.
So when I'm traveling it's Ican't take my bike with me, or I
could, but it's a pain in thebutt.
So you know it's the weeks ortimes that I travel that those
are my running days, becauseit's easy to throw a pair of
tennis shoes, running shoes, inmy bag.
That's the nice thing aboutrunning is you can just go down
to the gym and the hotel and runon the treadmill most of the
(21:20):
time.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, it's interesting, my wife's cousin, I
think.
She's currently even trainingfor a triathlon and a year or
two ago she attempted her firstone.
And she was talking to me and Iwas like, are you confident in
your swim?
Because I know you're good onthe run and the bike, but are
(21:42):
you confident in the swim?
And she's like, oh, I don'tknow.
I was like, if you're notconfident on the swim, like you
shouldn't get in the waterbecause, like you know, a mile,
two miles, is no joke in thewater, like that's a really long
way and you're in the water,like you could have a massive
issue, right, and and and she,she kind of was like, okay, well
(22:04):
, I don't have any more time totrain, so I'm just going to do
it and see you know what, whathappens?
And you know, half a mile in,and she's needing to be rescued
by the, by the paddle boardersor whatever it was right, pull
her out of the water.
And that kind of takes me backto you know, after I donated my
kidney in college, the doctortold me it's like, yeah, six
(22:28):
weeks, you know, don't really doanything.
You know you're not going to bethe same for six weeks, right,
Like you literally need to takesix weeks.
I know you're going to thinkthree, four weeks, you're going
to feel great and you will feelgreat at that point.
Right, this is like week fourof my recovery, week four, five
of my recovery.
I'm feeling great and I'm astrong swimmer.
(23:03):
Like I swim very well, I canswim.
For a very long time I didn'tlike do it as a sport or
anything like that, but like I'mvery comfortable in the water
even to this day.
Right, so we get in the waterand they have a great idea of
swimming around the lake, justdoing an entire loop, and I'm
like that's fine, that's notthat difficult, right, we were
just going to start where wewere, swim straight across the
(23:26):
lake, the center of the lake,and then go right around and
come back.
Right, I get to the middle ofthis lake and in Germany, you
know, there's no like, there'sno like ease off into know a
deeper end, right, so you'reliterally going from two feet to
10 feet to to.
You can't see the bottom at all, you know, and hopefully it,
(23:49):
you know, evens out again, right, and it's very, it's a very
short amount of time, like it's,it's uh, it's pretty crazy how
it just drops off like that andthere's no signs or anything
like that.
I'm in the middle of the lakeand you know, I'm very aware of,
like, my, my, my physicalitystatus or my physical status,
you know, and I'm like if I, ifI go any farther, I'm gonna
(24:13):
drown, like I'm not, I'mactually not gonna make it to
the other end, you know, and I'm, I'm literally in the middle of
40 feet.
You know, no one's out this far.
I'm alone.
Right, my friends left me and,uh, I, I immediately had to, you
know, come back and thankfully,you know I'm good with like
rescue swims and you know rescuefloating and whatnot, right.
(24:34):
And so I did a lot of that allthe way back, because I
literally reached the middle andit was like my, my, my fitness
level was, it just fell off acliff out of nowhere.
You know, that's what my doctorsaid.
He's like you're gonna dosomething, you're gonna feel
completely fine in the beginningand then it's going to
evaporate like nothing was evereven there and you're going to
(24:57):
be left, you know, with nothing.
And I I had never experiencedthat before, but in the water
that's like the worst time to doit.
So I, when I asked you aboutyour training, I'm also thinking
to myself from an athleteperspective.
I would over-train, right, Iwould over-prepare for the water
side of it, or the running andor the running and or the biking
(25:20):
, right.
But you saying you're doingjust enough to ensure that you
can make that distance rightmakes it makes a lot of sense,
because you kind of have tofigure out where you're going to
spend more of your timetraining yeah, I just have
enough experience to know whatit will take to finish that leg
in the amount of time that Iwant to.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
So I'm glad you had the wherewithal, though, to head
back to the shore, because thatcould be one scary, because a
panic attack can set in.
So I remember on my first evertriathlon that I did, my wetsuit
was a little too small for me.
So every race I've done hasbeen wetsuit legal.
So I'm able to, which helpswith buoyancy and speed and
stuff, but I couldn't stretch myarms out.
(26:03):
It was my only my second timeusing this wetsuit.
I did one practice swim and thenwent out and I had a little bit
of a panic attack about it inthe water and luckily I was able
to finish.
I gathered myself, uh, together, one of the paddle boarders
came over and just checked on meand like no, I'm okay, I just
calmed down, I made it through.
But yeah, that could be a real,real issue and it can happen at
(26:26):
any time.
My wife's done a lot moretriathlons than I have and she's
recently had some issues in thewater with panic attacks and
it's a scary, scary thing to toand it's hard to get over that
mentally.
Yeah, it's um, yeah, certainly,and I'll tell you that
triathlons and especially ironman, the swim is not always nice
(26:50):
calm water, like I just didthis race up in in california.
The water was 58 degrees, itwas in a river, which sounds
great.
You're swimming down river, butthe river has a lot of current
and there's debris and it wascold and kind of choppy and it
wasn't a fun swim.
By any means done swims with,uh, like 10 degrees or 10 foot
(27:10):
swells in in an ocean.
It's man, like I said, I I swimenough in the pool and I do
some open water swimming topractice for it and I do enough
to be confident that I canfinish.
But I know that to get a big20% reduction in time I'd need
to spend 100% more time swimming.
I'd rather focus on other areasto make improvements.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, that's really challenging swimming against
current.
Yeah, that is that's reallychallenging swimming against
current.
That's probably the number onereason why, whenever I get the
you know poor idea of trainingfor a triathlon, you know, as
soon as I think of that, I waslike I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, I think every time I sign up for a race or
right, and then I go you knowthe day or two before the race,
I'm like what the heck was Ithinking when I signed up for
this thing?
So it's stupid, yeah, but thenat the end you cross the finish
line like that's amazing, I'lldo that again.
Then you pay for another race.
You're like why did I do that?
it's like yeah, it's a viciouscycle, but it I don't know.
(28:11):
I I like I'm very goal orientedand I like to have a goal to
work towards, and that's whatinspires me to take the time to
train and do the things that Ineed to do to stay physically
fit.
So I don't know what I would doif I couldn't race anymore.
It'd be hard to motivate myselfto spend as much time on my
physical fitness.
I think for me it's some lessonsin business too.
(28:33):
We need to focus in business onthe things that generate the
best outcomes.
You know we need to focus inbusiness on the things that
generate the best outcomes.
You know, a lot of times we,you know we want to do tasks and
get things accomplished, butmaybe those tasks don't lead us
down the goals that we want.
And so, you know, focusing onthe most important things that
(28:54):
will lead us to the bestproductivity and best outcomes,
I think is an essential part ofany career and or business that
you can do, because there'salways going to be things coming
at you, whether it's, you know,random emails, or, you know,
browsing social media or thing.
You know things that might beinteresting or good, but if we
focus too much time on those.
It certainly can detract usfrom doing the or distract us, I
(29:14):
guess, from doing the thingsthat we really should be doing,
or distract us, I guess, fromdoing the things that we really
should be doing.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
You know, when I was maybe atthe beginning of, like, my real,
you know, entrepreneurialjourney, right, let's just say,
with this podcast, right,because I started it from
scratch, did it all myself,basically.
And you know, when you see alittle bit of success, you want
to not just double down but youwant to increase it, right, well
(29:43):
, I could do more content, I canput out more videos, it could
be more helpful in this way.
Right, and in the contentgeneration world, it's very
common for your favorite contentcreator to post five videos a
week, you know, and there's areason behind it.
Right, they want their audienceto be engaged as often as
(30:04):
possible throughout the day,because that boosts them in the
algorithm and everything that ofwhich I really hate.
And there's things that I dothat do not benefit the
algorithm at all in any way, andthat's you know, why my podcast
has grown at the rate that ithas grown.
Right, like it's steady growth,but it's not insane growth that
(30:26):
you see from some of theseother platforms that you know
kind of came from nowhere andnow they're doing 50,000 views a
month, or whatever it might be.
Right, I know those people anda lot of those people paid for a
lot of those views, yeah, and Ihaven't done any of that, right
.
But when you're in that mode,you know, it's very easy for
(30:47):
your brain to say, oh okay, I'llpost another episode, right.
And then what happens to me?
I get burned out, right, likelast year.
I posted two episodes a weekfor almost the entire year and
by the time October came around,I was like, yeah, I don't want
to do this anymore, like, like,like, I'm going to post like one
episode a month, you know, orwhatever.
(31:07):
It is just just to recover, youknow, and it's it's really
important to kind of be mindfulof that.
And I feel like it's verydifficult to be mindful of it
when you're going into it, right, because you don't know what
you don't know and you know, ifyou don't know your limits with
it, you know you'll run intothat brick wall and you have to
find a way to dial it back andthen recover properly, I think.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, whether it's sports or in professional
careers, there's always a finebalance between pushing yourself
enough for growth and pushingyourself too hard for injury.
You mentioned, you know, theinjuries at mile 15.
And that's often what we do inlife in general is either we
(32:00):
just don't do enough, you, wedon't focus right, or you know
we go on the opposite side, thatwe're, oh, I could do this, and
you push yourself so hard andthen you eventually fail because
you push you, you've gonebeyond the limit, the breaking
point limit.
You don't see it right away,but you see it over time.
And there's always this finebalance.
You know it's whether you're,you know, weightlifter or an
endurance athlete, or you know,whatever it may be, you have to
push yourself to a little bit ofpain for growth, but not too
(32:23):
much, and it's always a veryfine balance.
My wife and I talk about thatall the time, you know, because
we're training together and kindof coming up with our training
plans.
It's like, you know, do I do?
I do this workout which I knowis going to benefit me, but I
have this little bit of nagginginjury.
Is it going to cause me moreproblems or is that?
(32:43):
Can I work successfully throughthat and I think it relates on,
you know honestly, to a career.
You know some decisions.
You know I've thought about Iagain, I'm very busy with a lot
of different things running thebusiness, and I wanted to get a
new certification, a couple ofnew certifications, and I
thought to myself, what's thegain on that?
You know, is that pushingmyself too hard right now or is
(33:03):
that the right thing to do?
And I chose to do one ratherthan two at the time and I was
really grateful that I was ableto get some additional learning.
But I think that we have tomake those balanced decisions
all the time.
You know, if you're runningyour business, it business, it's
always.
You know, there's always aquestion of how far to push it,
(33:25):
how hard to push your team, howfar to push the company, and
sometimes you can push too hardand and there's some, always
some consequences with it.
So you know, everything in liferelates.
That's what, again, that's whyI like the endurance sports,
because it does relate to what Ido every day in work too.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, so talking about you, know your company,
what, what services or whatdomain of IT do you guys
specialize in?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
So our focus is small to midsize businesses, mostly
professional services.
So we focus on companies thatare 10 to 50 employees, that
that kind of lower middle marketor small business market, and
we help companies with allaspects of IT, from help desk,
server deployment, cloudmanagement, cybersecurity.
(34:08):
We have our own voice over IPsoft switch and we operate
broadband networks too, soeverything and we're our own
network provider, so everythingrelated to the technology for
those businesses.
And we focused on the smallercompanies because those are,
once you get about eight to 10employees, there's a lot higher
(34:28):
need for technology support.
You're often buying maybe aline of business application or
subscribing to some line ofbusiness software.
You want to implement some newtechnologies.
You know whether it's an ERPsystem or AI or whatever it may
be, and there's just moreintegration that has to happen.
And then you're obviouslydealing with, maybe, some
(34:49):
compliance.
You know having to implementcybersecurity policies and
procedures, implement new toolsto protect the company.
So that's where we in and andtake a comprehensive approach of
how to how to go after.
Um, you know the solutions forgrowth inside those companies.
So I love the.
The companies that we work withthat, you know, start small.
(35:10):
You know a couple of people andthen they've grown over the
years three, four hundred peopleacross multiple states, and
going through that journey withthem it's it is one of the
greatest things that I do in mybusiness is seeing a company
grow from an idea to a greatsuccess and using technology to
get them there.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, that's really fascinating, you know, because
I'm trying to figure out thebest way to word it.
You know, I feel like whenyou're not starting a company,
when you're not doing consultingmaybe even when you're younger
on in your career you alwaysthink, I mean, even right now,
(35:50):
right, like I still think, oh, Ineed more knowledge, I need
more skill before I do that, orwhatever it might be.
But when you go out and youtalk to other companies, other
potential customers and whatnot,especially in the small
business area or the mediumbusiness area and you find out,
wait a minute, they need thisthing, and I know that very well
(36:14):
, I've done that many timesbefore and it kind of unlocks
your mind to an extent of whereit's like, oh okay, if I could
do that, then maybe I could dothis right, and it kind of
snowballs.
For me that was the case, andnow I'm doing a bit more
consulting than I've ever donebefore, specifically on cloud
security.
So more to come on that forsure in 2025.
(36:36):
But I am doing a lot more onthat side now.
But was that mentality presentfor you?
Potentially starting out, youknow, was well, who's going to
buy a service for me?
Who's going to do this?
Who's going to give me moneyfor this thing?
Right?
I mean, I remember when Istarted, when I was starting the
podcast, you know, I've kind oflike what I call a focused
(36:58):
group of friends, right, all ofthem have different opinions.
All of them have different, youknow, political, religion,
cultural beliefs.
All of them have differentbackgrounds.
And there, you know, there'sone subsect of that focus group
that literally had all of thosequestions for me.
Well, who's going to actuallylisten?
How are you going to market it?
How are you even going to findguests to come on?
(37:19):
Right, and 225 episodes later,here we are, right.
So, did you have that same sortof, you know, kind of internal
battle going on then?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I did.
It was very interesting.
So, if you remember, when youwere 17, 18 years old, you knew
everything.
Teenagers know everything, andso my brother and I knew
everything, but we knew nothingand I was humbled.
Very quickly we got a contractto set up a small office.
(37:51):
I think it was about 10 to 15computers, to wire up the
network and set up all thecomputers and nothing worked.
Like I had done this a few timesbefore, I had done it in my
high school and my job at the atImage Computers, where I had
worked for about a year and ahalf.
I'd done it before but I alwayshad somebody I could ask if
(38:14):
there was a problem, I alwayshad the computer teacher or I
had my boss that I could ask,but there was nobody I could ask
.
And this was before you knowinternet forums or Reddit or you
know whatever it may be.
There was nothing, there wasnobody to ask and my brother and
I sat there until you knowearly in the morning just trying
different things and it washumbled, like really humbled,
(38:36):
that no, nathan, you don't knoweverything.
And amazingly we figured outwhat it was.
It ended up being a hardwareproblem the network cards that
we were trying to use wereincompatible with the network
switch or hub at that time.
Weird issue, just the brandsdidn't like each other and so we
swapped out the networkadapters and all the computers
and everything worked just fine.
(38:56):
But it was a humblingexperience of just realizing,
you know, there's so much moreto learn and it's just going to
take time.
I think it took me on thejourney of lifelong learning of
saying, you know, I will neverknow everything and there will
always be people smarter than methat I can learn from.
So that's led me to look I canwork in my domain, I can do this
(39:18):
well, and I want to gather moreknowledge, I want to do more
well, and so it's, you know,this goal of lifelong learning.
But I think you have to take alittle bit of leap.
You can't just always learn andnever do.
That experience also taught methe biggest and best lessons
that I can learn is whilefailing, and when you fail and
you and you overcome thatfailure, that's when you learn
(39:40):
the biggest lesson.
So without ever trying, youwill never fail.
And if you never fail, younever really learn.
And so taking thoseopportunities to learn and grow
through failure, through success, and finding people that will
help you along the way.
So I've gotten coaches,business coaches that have
helped me a lot, listening to alot of speakers, reading a lot
(40:02):
of books.
There's just a lot of peoplealong the way that have helped
me on my journey from, you know,being a technician, being, you
know, the tech guy, to being abusiness owner.
And that's a very hardtransition, I think, for a lot
of us in this industry, becausewe love what we do, we love
working on the tech.
But really running a businessis about managing people,
(40:23):
whether it's our clients oremployees, and that's a very
hard lesson to learn.
I mean, it takes a differentskill set that comes with time
too.
So just finding those people tohelp you along the way, along
the journey, is, I think,essential.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, that is something that in 2025, I
probably need to do a better jobof right, because I am at the
point where now it's like I haveother experts in the field
doing the work on my, on my team, under my you know company name
and everything right.
I mean, like that's for me atleast, that's a ginormous
(41:02):
milestone, you know, to thinkthat I have a network that's
willing to work with me on aproject that may be potentially
even rudimentary for him.
I mean, I got one guy that youknow used to be a cyber warfare
officer for the us military.
This guy, you know, builttarget packages and ransomware
(41:23):
and all everything that youcould think of.
This guy built it from scratch,you know an edr system.
He built a sim system fromscratch.
He built right and it's interms of, like, business.
You know, progression right, Idon't have my m, I'm getting my
PhD in something highlytechnical, you know, but it's
turning into.
You know, now I'm thinkingabout having an operations arm
(41:46):
right Now I'm thinking abouthaving a governance and
compliance arm that does theconsulting, and I have cloud
security and pen testing and allthese other things.
And now I'm in a position whereit's like like, well, I can't do
all of that and run thebusiness.
Like I have to do one or theother right and I, if I choose
one, I can't do all of that.
(42:07):
I still have to have otherpeople right.
So who's going to run thebusiness?
So it's an interesting.
It's an interesting problem,right.
And now I'm kind of likecontemplating do I want to go
down this route?
Because if I go down this route, I know, I think I know where
it will end and just knowing meright, like I, I have like a
never quit mentality right, likeno matter what happens, I'm not
(42:29):
going to be quitting, but Ihave a young family right.
So I have to like kind of gaugethe risk and manage it properly
and then go from there.
It's an interesting.
It's an interesting predicament, I guess yeah it's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I go to these industry conferences and when
the speaker that's the runs theconferences often says in our
industry there's a lot of peoplethat are tech with helpers and
transitioning from a businessthat is tech with helpers to a
real business that the CEO isreally a CEO and a business
(43:05):
manager, that's one of thehardest transitions ever.
One of the hardest hires youmay ever do is hiring an
accounting person or asalesperson or an account
manager.
We're really good at talking toa technician and talking to a
tech person and really knowingif they know what they do.
But hiring somebody in a domainthat we're not familiar with
(43:28):
hiring somebody to do accountingand hr is much harder for us
than hiring somebody that'sgoing to do cyber security work
or compliance work right, andit's harder to manage that
person because they'll come toyou and say things like oh you
know, this is our profit andloss statement, a balance sheet,
cash flow statement, let'sreview those, and you're like
(43:48):
I've never read one of thosebefore.
What does?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
that mean.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
So how do I do payroll and you know, handle HR
compliance and you know thatkind of stuff.
So I mean those, those are, youknow, good problems to have as
a growing company.
But they're definitelydifferent and you know each one
of us have has to decide, likeyou know, if we're starting a
business, is that what we wantto get into or are we starting a
(44:11):
lifestyle business that we'recomfortable with?
You know, being a tech withhelper and helpers and managing
a small team that's doing greatwork.
But it's definitely thattransition from, you know, four
or five people in a company to10 or 20 people is is a huge
transition, it's difficult yeah,yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
That's fascinating when you I'm just trying to, I
guess I need to do a bit moreresearch, right, like because
when you're growing to 10 to 20people, right, like still even
doing the math or trying tofigure out, like, how much money
I need to have coming in to paythat person, right, and you
always, you always hear, oh, youonly need to worry about you
(44:52):
know, two weeks, right, twoweeks at a time, or one paycheck
at a time.
You need to be able to coverthat one and then figure it out
for the next one.
For me, I like to build incushion, you know.
So I like to build in, you know, six, 12 months of cushion.
Maybe I'll project out 12months, but I'll have, you know,
a quarter of cushion, right?
(45:14):
It's a weird dynamic that I'mtrying to figure out now of how
to negotiate that.
And you know, figure outsomething that that works, right
, because I don't want to bring.
The last thing that I wouldever want to do is bring people
on and then close doors, youknow, a quarter later saying, oh
, it didn't work.
Now we all got to find new jobsright Like that's.
(45:34):
That's terrible.
You know, I would not want thatfor anyone.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Well, the nice thing about our industry is, for the
most part, the work that we dois recurring revenue.
If you, you know, you could dothe project, so to say.
But really, it andcybersecurity and compliance are
all reoccurring work it neverends is?
You know, we can business plana lot easier in our industry?
(46:00):
You know managed IT,cybersecurity, managed security
services better than you know aconstruction company that always
has to look for that next job.
Or you know, whatever, whatevertype of business it is, it's
always looking for that next job.
And so, I mean professionalsrecommend, you know, having
three months of cushion.
I think that's a greatrecommendation.
But what's great about you knowwhat we do is, honestly, if we
(46:22):
set it up as recurring services,as managed services or managed
security services, it gives, youknow, a nice revenue stream
that allows better forecastingand easier forecasting, and it's
the right service thatcompanies want to buy.
They'd rather, you know, buy anongoing service than just like
one project to say, oh, you'regood and you're you're never
good Right.
And in our industry it's always.
(46:43):
There's always the next thing,next threat.
You know you got to stay up on.
You know audits and penetrationtests and you know help desk
work.
Whatever it may be, there'salways something more to do.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that
that was when I when I kind ofhit that reality, you know,
because I guess the biggestthing when you're starting a new
business right is how do I findcustomers right, how do I find
people that are interested ingiving me money to provide a
service, even though I do itreally well, right, Like that's
(47:18):
like the hardest thing.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Don't you just throw up a website and everybody just
comes to you suddenly, right?
Or maybe like you know a bunchof ad space or something.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
You know, it's a, it's an interesting problem, but
I feel like it's getting solvedin other ways, and this being
this being one of them.
Right, this platform, like onceI start talking about it more,
I think more people will bewilling to reach out and whatnot
.
But it's a, it's an interestingpredicament.
You know, not everyone goesdown this path, right like and
(47:52):
rightly so right like there'sthere's a lot of like sleepless
nights that go into running andstarting a business and whatnot,
and and there's a lot of likeanxiety built in around it
because you're not given thesolution to everything.
You really have to think aboutit, figure it out and, you know,
execute on it.
I think that's the biggestthing is the execution.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
It is.
It is hard.
I mean, when you look at thestatistics of businesses that
last more than five years, it'shonestly pretty disheartening.
You know, I think it'ssomewhere around 80% that go out
of business within the first,you know, year or two and 90% go
out of business within fiveyears and most businesses it's
like 99% of businesses nevermake it past a million dollars
(48:34):
in annual revenue.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
You know, no-transcript time here.
(49:22):
Time really flew by andunfortunately or maybe
fortunately, you know, howeveryou look at it.
But you know I really enjoyedour, our conversation.
I'd love to have you back onsome time in 2025 and, you know,
continue the talk.
Yeah, happy to.
It was a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Appreciate it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well, before I let
you go, you know how about?
You tell my audience where theycould find you if they wanted
to connect with you and wherethey could find your company if
they wanted to learn more.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
So I'm on LinkedIn.
I post a lot there, so you canfind me, nathan Whitaker, and
it's spelled a little differentW-H-I-T-T-A-C-R-E.
So feel free to connect with methere and, if you, I'll give
you an offer.
If you message me, send me adirect message and connect with
me, I'll send you a copy of mybook, the CEO's Digital Survival
Guide, so a physical copy of it, not just a digital copy.
(50:13):
And then my company is StimulusTechnologies and we are based
in Las Vegas, nevada, but wecover most of the western United
States, so you can find us onStimulusTechcom.
It's our company website.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Awesome.
Well, thanks everyone.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Have a great holiday everyone.
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