Revolutionizing The Healthcare System with Shane Foss

From his early days navigating the complexities of the medical field to becoming the Founder and CEO of Hooray Health, committed to providing affordable basic and urgent healthcare alternatives, especially for those facing high-deductible health plans.
Shane's relentless work ethic and commitment to education shaped his rise through executive roles, where he observed the under-served status of many Americans in the healthcare system. Frustrated by the limitations, he decided to make a significant change by launching Hooray Health in 2018.
His leadership earned him a well-deserved nomination for "CEO of the Year" by D Magazine. Through strategic partnerships with companies like Sedera, Ameritas, and Aflac, Hooray Health adds critical services and supplemental plans, offering immense value to both employers and individuals.
Get to know more about Shane Foss and how he is changing the healthcare system at www.hoorayhealth.com
To learn more about myself, Michael Esposito, and find out about public speaking workshops, coaching, and keynote speaking options, and - of course - to be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
The Michael Esposito Show is hosted by Michael Esposito and produced by iHeartMedia Hudson Valley. Be sure to subscribe on iHeart Media, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.
This podcast is powered by DenTen.io

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This show is sponsored by DN tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
insurance for all their insurance needs.Visit dn ten dot io to get a
quote dn ten dot io and remember, when you buy an insurance policy from
dent ten, you're giving back ona global scale. Hello all, my

(00:21):
entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcometo the Michael Esposito Show, where I
interview titans of industry in order toinform, educate and inspire you to be
great. My guest today built himselfinto the business leader and innovator he is
today through more than twenty years oftenure as an executive in the medical industry.

(00:43):
With humble beginnings at the University ofthe Incarnate World, he would go
on to earn an MBA from RiceUniversity with lessons that would last him a
lifetime, a veteran of the UnitedStates Air Force, where he completed a
Surgical Technologist Technologist excuse me certificate,and would use his love of medicine to

(01:06):
fuel his venture into the private sector, placed in notable leadership roles such as
the Chief commercial Officer of pro Nerve, the Chief Operating Officer of Employer Direct
Healthcare, and Partner at Castle DevelopmentGroup, he'd work to negotiate complex,
multimillion dollar contracts, work in devicesales management, create business strategies, and

(01:29):
optimize P and L before starting hisown business targeting affordable healthcare named Hooray Health.
At Horay, he and his teamfocus on offering peace of mind to
lower income individuals and families who facemedical challenges, while also providing business owners
with an affordable way to reward andretain employees. Please welcome CEO and founder

(01:55):
of Hooray Health, Shane Foss.Welcome to the show. Shane. Oh,
it's nice to be here. Thanksfor having me. Michael, You're
very welcome. It's it's really greatto see a founder like yourself on my
show today, or to speak withsomeone like you on my show today.
And the reason why I say thatis going to your website. It is
there's just so much there. It'snot just a You're not just like a

(02:19):
healthcare solution that just has all right, here's our providers and fill out a
form and then we don't know whathappens next. You have this really creative
website and innovative website that allows peopleto interact with you and then also download
your app, which I thought wasreally cool, and there's like a scheduling
component in there. There's all sortsof different ways with the copay. I

(02:40):
was just like, I was blownaway. I got to tell you because
it was really really cool technology thatyou've incorporated in this business. And I
love it. Yeah, well,it's it's yeah, obviously it's a passion
of mine. I think that,you know, when when we had Obamacare
come in a few years ago,I think it you know, we uh

(03:02):
we really did the opposite of whatit intended and uh and so we've been
a lot of people have been strugglingand you know, we've really we've created
a good solution that we can getpeople access to basic care, which is
what we really try to do.Yeah, and you know, again you
know, to applaud you for thattoo, is that you know, you're

(03:22):
trying to make sure that people getthe right type of affordable care. I
mean, at den ten, that'sthat's my insurance company, but we only
deal with the P and C.I would love to be able to offer
health care benefits to my employees,but you're right, it's it's expensive and
it's really hard to offer it asa small employer like I only have two
on staff right now, and soit's hard to be able to offer that.

(03:44):
But again back to what you weresaying as benefits in terms of retention,
you know, that's huge. IfI can offer health care, I'm
going to be able to get moreemployees, you know, which is certainly
a challenge for the small business owner. Well, I think, you know,
you look at how the administration youknow, really brags about, you
know, we've got fifteen million peopleon the exchange now, and we're subsidizing

(04:09):
all these people. But what they'rewhat we're not really talking about is how
supplemental health insurance really supports that population. Because the challenge is if I if
I've got five hundred dollars in mybank account, which fifty percent of Americans
have less than five hundred dollars inthe bank account, and I have a
seventy five hundred dollars or five thousanddollars deductible, I'm not able to get

(04:31):
the care that I need, rightAnd so having a low cost supplemental planned
where we can sit underneath her andtake basically that gap, it's you know,
they're non coordinating benefits or accepted benefitsto where we can go in there
in an innovative way and cover thoseexpenses. It's it's really important, and
so you know, it's it's avery complex issue and there's a lot of

(04:58):
there's a lot of key players init that have ulterior motives and you know,
so it's it's really it's really aninteresting problem, and you know,
I love being here. Yeah,it's it's always going to be evolving for
you and creating new challenges for youto try to solve. Yeah. Absolutely,
What inspired you to go off anddo this? You have obviously a

(05:19):
huge resume behind you have just reallygreat accomplishments, and I'm sure you were
doing very well and and innovating whereyou are. What inspired you to do
this kind of work? Well,it's interesting because I had never been in
that. I've been in healthcare prettymuch my whole career, but I had

(05:40):
not been in health benefits. Andso my last role as COO for Employer
Direct, what we did was wecreated access to surgical bundles for large self
funded employers and and it was Iloved it. It was great. But
I saw a ton of opportunity inthis space to innovate and I know it

(06:00):
sounds crazy, but there's not alot of incentive to innovate in this space
really from an employer standpoint employee standpoint, Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot
to innovate, but they can't dothe innovation. And so when we sold
Employer Torect, I thought, youknow, this was a great opportunity to

(06:23):
kind of look at what's going onin the market. And when it happened
was urgent cares, which to me, you know, it's the most convenient
access to care, right. AndI had I had a you know,
one of the big major medical carriers. I had a seventy five dollars copay
and I went in and I hada back issue and I never had a
back issue before, and it washorrible. Well, I paid my seventy

(06:45):
five dollars Copey and I had anX ray in my neck and then I
had two injections in my back musclerelax or an anti inflammatory, and they
thought that I had a nerve thatwas irritated, so it was inflamed.
So three weeks later, I getan eight hundred dollars ballance bill. So
I call them up. I said, wait a sec I paid a seventy
five dollars copay. They're like,well, you know, we have carve

(07:09):
outs and there's no transparency. SoI knew that since there it was a
carve out, it wasn't contracted.So I literally negotiated. I think I
paid eighty bucks for it. Butthe problem is ninety nine percent of Americans
wouldn't do that. And when youlook at you know, the really the
big ugly truth is that I thinkit's over sixty six sixty nine percent of

(07:31):
all personal bankruptcies, all personal bankruptcy, So three quarters of all personal bankruptcies
are due to medical related bad debt. And it's crazy. I mean,
it's it's really shameful. And soit gave me the idea that, you
know, maybe I should take whatwe did on the bundled surgery side over
to the health insurance side. Andso what we did was we created a

(07:55):
national provider network based on an indemnitypayment, a fixed pain and and with
no balance bill in the contract.And so it's so it's really it's really
a unique way of just solving avery complex problem. Right. I'm not

(08:16):
a very you know, I'm notreally a smart guy. I'm just kind
of a pragmatic and look, Ialways look at how do I simplify it
right? And so you know,understanding that most people go to an urgent
care now, they don't have aprimary care. If you're under the age
of fifty, you don't have aprimary care physician today. It's really weird.
And so you know, they're openseven days a week and they have
on site lab, on site Xray and so it's you know, for

(08:39):
a twenty five dollars copay, Ican literally pay and not have to worry
about a balance bill. I meanthat's huge. And you know, I
think that you know, when youlook at the government, they're they really
you know, you have a lotof bad players out in the space,
and then you have some good playersthat are trying to be innovative and do
things differently. But you know,when it boils down to it, I

(09:03):
think you're both on the same sideas where you want. You want the
American, the person that's buying thatpolicy to have access to care. Right.
The challenge is, I think oneof us really understands what the problem
is and the other one doesn't.And because when you look at you know,
when we talk to people that arein the government, or you talk
to people that are in you know, in business and they've done really well

(09:24):
for themselves. They can't relate tosomebody that is living paycheck to paycheck,
that is worried about paying rent,right They're they're worried about a car payment.
How am I going to get towork? And so, you know,
there's I think there's there's the answersare out there. It's just you
know, we just got to youknow, we all have to get on

(09:46):
the same page. It's funny,as I kind of had a smirk while
you're talking about the urgent care becauseI literally just did a virtual visit yesterday,
Yeah, to my urgent care provider. You're right. I I was
also I have a dental appointment comingup, and they sent me over my
forms. They sent over I lovethis, you know, they sent over
the forms now via text message soI don't have to do it while I'm

(10:09):
in the office and asked for myprimary care physician, and I just said,
I don't know, yeah exactly,I don't have one. I mean
I do have one, but Ido have one and I go annually.
But that's the point is, likeI just go it to him. Annually.
But if there's anything that comes up, you know, like a cold
or you know, like I thinkI have like a signus infection is what

(10:30):
it is. I'm like, UrgentCare is quick and easy. It's like
and they do the virtual visit andI don't have to book it, you
know, three days or excuse me, three weeks out outside of right,
you know, I can just login. You know. I had my
virtual visit which was so awesome.I had I had it done in like
twenty minutes. Like, I loggedin, I called the gate, they
texted me to log in. Ilogged in. Boom, I was on
camera with the PA who actually Irecognize him because we go to the same

(10:54):
Urgent Care, so I know Iknow him better than my right. Yeah,
that's funny. So yeah, hundredpresent to your point. Yeah and
there, and they're the fastest growingprovider model out there, so it I
mean they're everywhere. Yeah yeah,so it definitely is is uh is happening?

(11:15):
And I liked that you brought upthis carve out piece because that's another
piece in terms of negotiating the withthese providers are However, it ends up
of like having these huge bills toyour point, and the average person not
knowing how to negotiate it. Ihave a good friend who broke his arm

(11:35):
in I think it was three orfour different places and ended up having to
have surgery and a steel plate putin and everything. And he received the
bill, the bill from the insuranceprovider that said, you know, this
is not your bill, but thisis you know, this is what it
cost. And it was ninety fourthousand dollars for his arm. It was
ninety four thousand dollars. And hewas sharing this with me because he said,

(11:56):
and guess what, Michael, guesswhat they ended up setting on twenty
k. So to your point,again, you know, the insurance provider
knows how to do this negotiation,but the average person doesn't. And so
if my friend didn't have insurance,he would have a bill for ninety four
thousand dollars sitting on his desk andhe wouldn't know where to begin. And
to your point, he probably wouldend up personally bankrupt. He's not a

(12:20):
millionaire of sorts, you know,so that that would really put him in
a big bind. He's actually closerto his years of retirement than he is
you know, anywhere, right,now. So it's nice to hear that
your your app, your company isactually somebody that can can help people in
that. Going back to your youknow, I mentioned to you in the

(12:41):
show, I really like to learnabout you as a person. So I
kind of want to just take astep back now from her ray health and
your and your medical career and intoyou know, your upbringing and growing up.
You know, right now we havethe great pleasure of being able to
meet each other virtually on zoom andyou're You're from from Texas, but right
now you're out in Colorado, Sothis is really cool. You got the

(13:03):
river there? Where did you growup? So? I grew up in
northern Minnesota, a very small townjust outside of Duluth called Cloque, and
so I had great upbringing, uh, you know, just middle class family
and uh, and it was uh, you know, I had lots of

(13:24):
family up there. Everybody's still upthere, and so it was a it
was it was it was really agreat childhood. And so when I,
uh, when I graduated high schooland then I I started in college,
I just didn't really know what Iwanted to do. And so I ended
up joining the military, the AirForce, which I became what it's called

(13:48):
the surgical technologists. So what youdo is you assist surgeons during surgery.
Right, so it's a clinical job, and so I absolutely loved it,
and so I, uh, youknow, I was I was lucky enough
to work at Wilfrid Hall, whichis the Air Force's largest facility hospital and
it's in San Antonio, and soI worked what they call the weekend shift.

(14:09):
So I worked sixteen hour shift Fridaynight, Saturday night, and then
eight hour shift Sunday night. ThenI had the whole week off. So
I started going to school full timeduring the week eighteen credits a semester,
and so I met my wife atIncarnate Word and it was a you know,
great experience, and you know,twenty eight years later, here we
are, but it really it openedmy eyes to what I wanted to do

(14:33):
and where I wanted to be.And so when my wife and I got
married my last year of college,and then she got accepted to medical school,
so we moved over to Houston andthen she, you know, came
home one day and she's like,I'm pregnant, and so I was like,
all right, one of us gotto work. And so I got
a job with Johnson and Johnson Orthopedicsselling orthopedic implants, and so, you

(14:56):
know, that started a long careerin orthopedic medical vice and really stayed with
Jay and j for a couple ofyears. But then I moved over to
Striker, where I spent the majorityof my career and just loved it.
It was, you know, greatplace to be. Love orthopedics, you
know, love the clinical side.But then then I then I got into

(15:18):
you know, that I was workingI left there, and I was working
from for a private equity group indifferent portfolio companies and and so just really
kind of rounding out my experience andexposure. And so, uh then ended
up at Employer Direct with one ofmy best friends from from Striker, and

(15:39):
he was a CEO at the time, and that was my entry into medical
benefits and so it was a itwas a great experience. I loved.
I loved solving the problems on thehealthcare side because there, you know,
it's it's really interesting because you know, you have a business aspect of it,
but you also have the clinical aspectof it, and uh, you

(16:02):
know, and I love both ofthose. So and that's where I am
today. I've got you know,I've got two kids and one's about to
get married in January, which ishard to believe that I'm old enough to
have a kid that's getting married.And then I've got a I've got a
junior at Old Miss and so it'sit's really exciting. That is really cool,
And congratulations on the engagement thinking aboutthis idea of rounding out experiences and

(16:26):
using uh, your experience in thesedifferent areas of of being on the clinical
side, on the private equity side, and then working on the health benefits
side, and then bringing all ofthat to what you're doing today with Ray
Health. It's very interesting because uh, you know, we have so many
of us today. Being an entrepreneurhas become a very popular, a very

(16:48):
it's been. It's it's it's almostlike it's a job description now. It's
like, do you want to bean entrepreneur? Yeah? Absolutely, the
signs are out there, but somany of us come from these backgrounds and
can use them, like for myself, Like my background, I didn't just
start in the insurance industry. Istarted in marketing sales, and then I
went into merchant services, and thenI went into marketing sales again and then

(17:11):
finally into insurance, and I usethat marketing background and those merchant services you
know to in the insurance world.And so I think about this rounding out
of experiences, and I think aboutour listeners of entrepreneurs and business leaders and
how they can tap into their pastexperiences and use those as kind of a

(17:32):
learning or some sort of educational backgroundfor what they're doing today. And I
wonder how you're able to do thatwith what you've learned over the time.
Yeah, if you're not learning andgrowing, you're dying, right, I
mean, I'm a lifelong learner.So I think that. You know,
it's interesting because when I the firstprivate equity group that I worked with was

(17:53):
out of Chicago and they I wasa chief commercial loss serve for one of
their portfolio companies called Avaline, andwe sold medical device manufacturing services. So
we manufactured implants, instruments, stufflike that. And I had no idea,

(18:15):
none, But it was really interestingbecause you know, now, all
of a sudden, it's a differentsales cycle, it's a different process,
there's different people that you're so itwas really interesting. And so you know,
and then I was on a clinicalservice side with pro Nerve, which
was neuromnitoring clinical services, and everywhereI was, I learned and we grew,

(18:37):
you know, and we grew thebusiness. But one of the things
that was really interesting, that thatwas really a theme was when you come
in with a from it as anoutsider and you come into an industry,
you really see opportunities because I thinkwhen you grow up in an industry from
you know, the first time you'reout of college, you're kind of blind
to what else is out there,right, and you know, sometimes it's

(19:00):
good, but sometimes it's it's notas good, right, And so I
think that I've always taken that thatapproach where I come in and like,
hey, we need to look atthis a little bit differently, and so
you know, and and it's reallyit's worked. And so I think that,
you know, as a as anentrepreneur, you need to be nimble,

(19:22):
but you need to be also reallyyou need to learn, and you
need to listen to other people.And I really got that from my grandfather,
where he always listened to other people. He was always asking about them.
You know, these the other peoplethere, what do you guys do
and how are you guys doing?You know, and and and so I'm
always interested in how other businesses orindustries operate, and so I think that's

(19:47):
as an entrepreneur, I think thatreally helps your business because you know,
you're you know what you know,and then you don't know what you don't
know, right, And so ifyou if you're looking at how other industries
do things, it's you know,you can usually apply some of it and
improve your business. And you know, and look, if you've got a

(20:10):
ten million dollar business and then youimprove something by one percent, that's one
hundred grand, But if it's tenpercent, that's a million dollars. And
so it's a you know, itcan be impactful for you. Yeah.
I love that perspective of using theother industries, and it's so true nowadays.
I mean, we see it especiallywith now that online marketing has grown
so much and there's so much outthere in terms of online marketing, and

(20:33):
you just see it how it justapplies to so many different industries. And
I love how some of these marketersdo it where they actually just use different
case studies from three different industries butshow how similar they are, so we
can really see it, which isreally really cool. A quick interesting story
on what you were just saying interms of perspective of like when you're in
one place for so long, andhow your perspective is just that and unless

(20:56):
you step out of it, itdoesn't change. Was when I I first
got into the insurance industry, Imade one of my biggest sales at the
time. I was at a smallbrokerage, local brokerage, and I made
my biggest sale and it was twentythousand dollars in premium. And this is
important premium. So this is premiumis what the client pays. Right.
So we're at this big this bigconference, this insurance conference, and there's

(21:19):
one of the carriers are there andit said, you know twenty thousand and
above. You know, this isthe table for you. You know like
this, come to this table getmore information about clients that are twenty thousand
and above. So I'm all happy. I'm skipping over there. I'm like
I just closed this huge sale.I'm like, this is awesome. So
I go over there. I'm grabbingthe golf balls and all the chots keys
off of there. I'm like,tell me more about your product. Tell
me, you know, I justclosed the sale like this, this and

(21:41):
that and a woman's talking to meand she starts asking me about it and
I said, yeah, I justclosed it with you guys with that carrier,
and she goes, oh, that'sgreat. She starts asking me some
questions and I said, oh,yeah, they have you know, five
employees and three locations. And she'slooking at me. She goes and it
was twenty thousand dollars in revenue.And I said, huh. She goes,
twenty thousand dollars in revenue, that'swhat this table is. And I
went, wait, wait, no, no, I said, twenty thousand

(22:02):
in premium. She goes, youknow, this is revenue. That means
it was like two hundred thousand inpremium. I was like, whoa wait
a minute, right, So Iwas. I was blown away, and
I remember sitting back down. Itwas like, you know, somebody was
speaking and I'm talking to the partnersof our firm and I said, I
said, could you believe that tableover there? They're two hundred thousand dollars
in premium? And they were likeyeah, wow. I said, what

(22:22):
businesses are out there that are twohundred thousand dollars in premium? And I
was, you know, very again, closed minded, I soon was recruited
by a really large brokerage, whichis the fifth largest brokerage in the country,
and I worked there for a briefamount of time before opening up Denten.
One of my first sales there becauseit's the largest largest brokerage in the

(22:42):
country and their minimum requirement is fiftythousand dollars in revenue, one of my
first sales was four hundred thousand dollarsin premium. Wow. So it's like,
you know, it just opened upa whole new world. It's like,
oh wow, this is out thereand available. So I love that
you bring that perspective in in thatthere's you know, when you you don't

(23:03):
always even have to change your jobor your industry, but just changing your
mindset and your perception. And whatI love what you said too, is
like if you're not learning or growing, you're dying. And like, so
it's not just it's not just jumpingship or changing jobs, but learn about
other industries. Like for me inthat moment when I was at that small
brokerage, a good thing for mewould have been to maybe go and ask,

(23:26):
well, what are the businesses thatare two hundred rather than being blown
away, right I was just blownaway. I didn't know what to do
with myself. I want to goback to your grandfather and him asking other
people questions. Now, was hean entrepreneur or was he in business?
No? Neither, he you know, he was you know, he was
really one of my best friends growingup. I did a lot with him.

(23:48):
I mean he taught me golf,We fished, we hunted, we
did everything. And he had retiredprobably when I was about twelve, so
it was like perfect timing. Andbut you know, we would go to
breakfast and whether it was you know, Bridgeman's or one of the other multitude
places. He just knew everybody andhe was a he was a world class
bowler. He I think he bowledlike four different leagues a night or I

(24:11):
mean a week. But but he, you know, he was you know,
he was a you know, seniorchampion, national champion. I mean,
he was really a good bowler.But but he knew everybody, and
he was so kind to everybody.And it never it always struck me because
I remember one time he was talkingabout we met this guy, and he
was like, oh, yeah,that's you know, that's the best.

(24:33):
Damn janitor. You know, blahblah, and I'm thinking janitor, I'm
like, you know, but Imean he was just he just made everybody
feel really good about themselves and andand people wanted to and people wanted to
be around him, which was youknow, which was awesome, right.
And so I just that always struckme as is something that was was important

(24:57):
because you know, you know,you you you know, you go through
some of the trains and they alwayssay, oh, they want to hear
their names and blah blah blah.But I think people just generally want to
know that you're interested in them andwhen you ask questions about it, and
then they want to talk, right. And you know, because if if
you if you have somebody that's interestedin what you're doing, you're going to

(25:17):
talk about it, right. AndI think there's so many opportunities to learn.
I mean, I think you knowWalton right from Walmart. I mean
that's what he did. He walkedaround with a yellow notepad and would talk
to the janitors, talk talk tothe truck. How do you get better?
Right? And so yeah, thatjust always struck with me. And
he was, you know, he'sjust a great person. Yeah. I

(25:41):
always think that that's interesting in termsof communication and sales and building relationships is
that you know, the best wayto do it is not to talk about
yourself. It is to ask openended questions and learn about others. And
when you tell me that, youknow, he always asked other people about
how they did it or how theydo it. It's no wonder he was
so popular and everybody knew him becausethey were like, oh, this guy,

(26:03):
this guy cares about me. Hewants to know, right. And
to your point, people people wantto talk about themselves. I mean,
they want an opportunity to talk aboutthemselves. They don't really get to.
So it's very important. When youwere talking about, you know, the
different I would say I would callthem challenges to some extent because you kind
of framed it that way. Youdidn't say that word, but you were
talking about three different avenues of likeprocesses, sales, cycle, and people

(26:26):
when you were like kind of goinginto that new position in the firm.
I'm interested in which one did youfind to be the most challenging and why?
Well, I think it's I thinkit's always people. It's it's the
reason. The reason is getting theright people is always the most difficult because

(26:49):
it's it's very you know, youknow, I talk to people all the
time. They're like, oh,I'm one hundred percent and I'm ninety percent
on my hiring. But I'm like, man, if I'm twenty five percent,
I'm ecstatic. Right. And soI think getting the right people is
always the most difficult part of it. And then from a process standpoint is

(27:12):
probably the second, and then thelast is sales. I think sales is
easy. Right for me, it'sit's looking at how do I solve this
person's problem or this company's problem?Right? And then it's it's it's a
simple amount of problem. I mean, are are we you know, is
there enough value there to justify themto buy from us? Right? And

(27:34):
differentiation is easy in my you know, I I think that position, how
you position yourself there is easier.So people to me is that's why,
you know, Like for us,I'm very knock on wood proud to say,
you know, we haven't lost anemployee in for maybe five years that

(27:56):
we weren't we didn't work out,but we spend so much time on the
front and making sure that we getthe right people. But it's the other
thing is really how do you getthe most out of people, empower people,
and that's where we spend most ofour time, is you know,
really, you know, and justkind of my personality is I am not
a micromanager at all. I'm not. This is not me And I think

(28:21):
good people like that autonomy and theywant, you know, and if you've
hired the right person, they're notasking you every three seconds what should I
do? How should I do this? What should if I feel like a
failure? If that's what they're ifthat's how they are. So I think,
you know, people is definitely Ithink the most difficult, especially when

(28:41):
you're going in a new organization.That's why for me, I mean,
I don't know if it's a positiveor negative, but I think my last
three businesses, I've taken people fromone business to the other because I know
them, I trust them, andI can bring them along and they'll,
you know, they'll they'll flourish.So but yeah, I think, you

(29:02):
know, that's a to me,that's a no brainer. I think people
is always the most difficult. Yeah, I think that that's pretty common.
So so it's probably a compliment toyou and that people, uh, they
kind of leave to gather in packs, and especially when you're forming a good
culture where you are. It's it'sactually, i think a compliment to you
of having these people come with you. I'm sure the company that that lost

(29:25):
you guys was not too thrilled.But you know, you can't stop you
can't stop a dreamer and an entrepreneurfrom from going. Yeah, exactly,
you know you can't stop them.Of course, you know, so much
is happening in terms of quiet quittingand great resignation, and then of course
people just having a hard time offinding people to hire, and so I'm

(29:48):
interested in your strategies around recruitment fornew hires and and how you grow that
team. Yeah, it's you know, we have the same challenge as everybody
else. So you know it's havingsolid benefits four oh one k That is
now standard, right. But youknow what we do is and I've done

(30:11):
this since I was at Striker,which is you ask your top people,
Hey, what are your friends doing? What do you would you do you
have anybody that you can think ofthat would be in a position that you
know would be interested in coming over. And so we do a lot of
internal recruitment and then we do alot of external with partners that we have,
and I think that's worked really wellfor us. Uh, most people

(30:38):
aren't going to refer somebody, especiallyin internal right. Uh, that's not
going to do a good job becausethey don't want that a that scar on
their on their on their name.But also they don't want to have to
pick up the slack, right,So that's always worked really well for us.
But you know, it's interesting.I mean the book I just read,

(31:00):
you know, it's twenty thirty whenthings will change for us. I
mean we're going to have this thisoverage of jobs and under it, you
know, of the shortage of employeesfor you know, really the you know,
the next six seven years because it'suntil it really levels out. And

(31:21):
so it's it's going to be achallenge. What book was that? So
there's there's two of them, oneof one of them is The Accidental Superpower
and the other one both by thesame author, and then the other one
is the newer, kind of updatedversion of it. And I'll tell you
that I always I'm horrible with names. The end of the World is just

(31:42):
beginning. It's Peter Zaehon and itsounds dramatic, but it's not he's he's
basically an economist that talks about thede globalization that's happening. Really really that's
dependent on a few things, butit's you know, one of them is
is the birth rate? Right,So globally the birth rate, how it's

(32:05):
gone down. So I think it'sreally interesting. So I won't go into
the book, but both of themgreat books. So birth rate has declined,
is what you're saying. Oh whathe's saying? Oh yeah, I
mean so if you look at China, China has now surpassed Japan. You
know, Japan for the longest time, they've always said Japan is dying because
they're you know, first of all, they have the luck they live until
they're ninety, right. But theother side of that is they've they've they

(32:31):
you know, they've averaged one child, you know, per couple. Right.
So the problem with that is youneed to have a two point I
think it's two point two birth rateper couple to keep your population growing,
right, And so you have tohave an average age that is younger that's

(32:52):
going to be supporting that population.And so China now has exceeded that.
They've they've actually gotten there faster thanJapan did is if you remember they had
the one child rule forever. Well, so the problem is now you have
this burden of the elderly population thatis drawing, you know, they have
the cost is higher there because they'renot producing. And so anyway, it's

(33:16):
really interesting. You know, Ilove that stuff. You know, I
think that you know, the onething that I take out of those two
books, we're in the right country. Let's just put it that way.
Yeah, we're in the right place. And now speaking of which of being
in the right right place, andwe were talking earlier about just you know,

(33:37):
the entrepreneurship piece where you know,if everybody wants to be an entrepreneur,
then there's nobody to hire kind ofthing. What's your take on that
or this book's take on that interms of what that looks like. So
you're saying not until twenty thirty thatthings might balance out well when the challenge
is there's only three ways to affectpopulation, right, So you've got a

(33:58):
birth rate, a age at whichyour life expectancy, right, and then
the third one is immigration. Andso you know, we don't have a
good immigration policy today. Our birthrate is I think one point seven.
So we're not at that two pointtwo. And then you know, our
life expectancy, believe it or not, was at eighty two before COVID.

(34:21):
Now it's gone down. I thinkwe're creeping back up, but you know,
it's so the challenge is, youknow, we're we're going to have
to raise you know, so whenwhen when the retirement age was set for
Medicare and you know, social securityand stuff, you know, our life
expectancy was sixty six, right,So the problem is now that our life

(34:45):
expectancy is you know, eighty oneeighty two, the retirement age probably needs
to go up. And I thinkwe can we can fix our social security
problem. I think it was bylike raising it to sixty seven. I
mean, as silly as that sounds, two years, but it had that
big of impact at so, youknow, so it's going to be interesting
to see if if we can keepthe workforce working just a little bit longer

(35:08):
to help help soften the blow withthe decline birth rate. So we've got
yeah, it's twenty thirty is reallythe time when the baby boomers are starting
to get you know, start todie down, right, And now my
generation is now just entering retirement age, and so you know, you've got

(35:31):
the gen x's gen yse gen zers. They're going to start, you
know, making up the bulk ofthe workforce, and so it'll be it'll
be really interesting and millennialism of course, but it'll be really interesting to see
how if we get a president andthat really addresses the immigration politics policy,

(35:52):
because you know, we need skilledlabor in the United States, we need
programmers, we need you know,there's a lot of stuff that's going on
in the US where we need.We need a workforce that we're not addressing.
And and so you know, wealready have a lot of people coming
in from Mexico, which is great, but we need to really get them

(36:14):
in here, you know, legallyright, so they're paying taxes and and
uh you know in that that yeah, in that demographic that's coming over.
You know, a lot of peoplein the North see this as you know,
this horrible thing and all these murdersare coming over. But that's not
the case. I mean, wehave quality individuals that are family oriented.

(36:36):
That birth rate you know, wherewe're lacking, they actually have you know
two point seven. You know,I think don't quote me on this,
I think it was two point seven, but per family, so that helps
our birth rate, right, andyou know we need to get them on
the payroll if you would, topay taxes and and so and you know,
and the Mexican population is a isan awesome population, hardworking, family

(36:59):
oriented, faith based, so,you know, great addition to the United
States. But on the flip side, you know, we have in my
neighborhood, we have a lot ofa lot of the Indian population coming in
professionals, doctors, lawyers, andthen programming, you know, which is
a different demographic that we need.And so you know, I see it
in our in our neck of thewoods because we're growing like crazy. Dallas

(37:22):
is you know, one of thehottest and fastest growing, you know,
cities in America. So you know, I think it's I think it's good
for America because that's really how wewere founded, right you know. It
was the you know, the Irishand the Italians that came over initially,
and you know the English, andyou know, now we're we're expanding,
so I mean we need that populationto come over and to supplement so supplement

(37:44):
our growth. Yeah, I certainlyagree with that. I like that perspective
of it of having this I guess, uh, open door to be able
to bring in people and like yousaid, to be able to high them
and get them to where we canhire them. And it's uh and I
think it's it's not really even apolitical statement at all, and I always

(38:07):
stay very far away from that.It's more of I think there's a humanity
aspect to it, and I thinkthere's also just a logical aspect to it,
which is what we're speaking to here, right here, right now.
It's like, just logically, doesn'tit make sense that we, you know,
are lacking people in the workforce andthen there's people coming over saying,
hey, I want to work.Yeah. Absolutely. And you know the
thing is we're we're a victim ofour own success, right so we if

(38:31):
we're if we don't have the populationto support you know, all the way
from janitorial all the way up tohigh you know, whether it's physicians,
you know, professionals. I mean, we have a gap. Why wouldn't
we bring immigration into because what itdoes is that it limits our growth if

(38:52):
we're not able to I mean,there was a great article in Wall Street
Journal, I think last week onfor restaurants. You know, they're struggling
so much. It's so hard toget people to work in the restaurant now.
And you know, we were verypatient during COVID and right after COVID,
But what the article was saying isthere, we're not patient anymore.

(39:12):
We've got to fix this problem.But how are you going to fix a
problem if you don't have anybody towork? Right? So it's it's really
interesting. So, yeah, Iagree with you. It should not be
a political issue. It's it's literallyit's a very pragmatic approach to legalizing and
bringing people in a systematic basis thatadd value to what we're doing. Yeah,

(39:35):
And I can speak firsthand to immigrantsbecause my mother is an immigrant and
my father is. He's second generation, but his family's immigrants. And what
I want to say in this isthat there as they come over and as
they settle here and work legally andare able to they can they can develop
here as well. So my my, my, I'll speak about my father
first because he's second generation. Youknow, his grandparents came here with pretty

(39:58):
much nothing. They came over theboat there this on the Italian side.
They came on the boat and theycame with nothing. And I remember my
grandfather worked at kan Ed and hewas like alignman at kan Ed, and
my grandmother was a waitress and that'swhat they did. That was their profession,
you know. But then my father, who's second general or second generation
because they would be first a secondgeneration then you know, went to the

(40:21):
military, was in Vietnam and wasa medic and everything, and you know,
had a passion for medicine and becamea PA, a physician's assistant.
And then you know, he wasthe first generation to go to college and
his family, you know, andthen myself and then my sisters and everybody
else. So there's a progression.I think that happens with immigrants, which
is really great because it's this foundationof like they're going to do some of
the hard jobs because that's what's availableto them. But then as they settle

(40:45):
here and develop here, they cangrow and really help our entire economy,
our entire culture here. And mymother, who's first generation here, who
came over from Haiti. She cameover, came over when she was an
high school, went through high school, went through college and everything, and
became a teacher who soon became adean, a principal, a superintendent that

(41:07):
went through all of the rest andsoon retired to now where she helps with
the different schools, and I meanshe's always getting awards for the work that
she does in the community and howshe serves the community. So again,
it's just showing that, you know, when you give these immigrants a chance
to be able to work and bea part of our culture here in America,
it can lead to really, reallygreat things. I want to go

(41:30):
to now the hiring side of things, because you mentioned something about hiring and
you were talking about when you werebringing up your your hiring process and how
you do it, it brought upI was just in a training, did
you know, Mel Robbins. Soanyway, well, anyway, it's one
of those you know, I meana lot of these trainings, and it

(41:51):
was talking about company culture, andwhat he was talking about was hiring for
the culture and not for the resume. And so I'm just interested on your
perspective on that because it sounded likethat's where you were at. Absolutely,
we do so we we spend alot of time on that with multiple people
getting interviewed from I mean interviewing peoplewith multiple people within our organization, Uh,

(42:19):
to make sure that they fit tofit our our culture. And so
the other part of it is wewe do a I don't know if you've
ever heard of gallop, but wedo. We do the strength finders TSK
with them, so the interview,so they they provide us. Everybody that
we're we bring in, we doa strength finders to make sure that there

(42:43):
their their strengths are what we needin that role. And so there's multiple
layers and we're just a small organization, but you know that's really important for
us. I mean it's really importantfor us. And so yeah, I
think that making sure that so wehave our core values and making sure that

(43:08):
everybody is bought into those those corevalues and your vision is really important.
So I think that has to bepart of your hiring process. Yeah.
The core values, I think,you know, are really important internally.
Of course people speak about them externally, but internally, it's one of the

(43:28):
one of the biggest pieces. Ibelieve. We talk about it all the
time in my team meetings. Imean our core values. Yeah, I
think they come up on a naturalin a natural way, on a regular
basis in our team meetings. Yeah. Well, I think you know,
for us, we don't even showthem externally, we don't talk about them
externally. It's you know, ourvision and our core values is internal,
and it's it's important to us becauseI think, you know, one of

(43:52):
you know, my favorite one isgrit for us, right, and one
of the other ones is entrepreneur asopposed to an entrepreneur. And we you
know, we really look for that. I mean, we want you know,
I'm I'm I'm the person that isthe exact opposite of a lot where
if if I put something out andsomebody comes back, what about doing it

(44:14):
better this way or that way.I'm like, that's a great idea,
that's great. I don't I don'thave to own anything, right, And
I think that's what we really tryto encourage in our organization. And and
the other thing is, you know, when you look, there's nothing more
disheartening than people that have a challenge, you know, because whether it's in

(44:36):
life or whether it's at work,that don't have the grit to work through
it, right, and they justlike, I'm looking for another job and
I quit, right, And soyou know, being having a young startup
is not easy. I mean itis, it is a grind, and
it's a grind for everyone, right, and so trying to keep everybody focused

(44:57):
on what the ultimate goal is andwhat you know, where we're going and
why we're going there. You know, you've got to be able to pivot,
and so making sure that you're bringingin people that aren't aren't going to
distract from that, because the otherproblem is if you have a person that
can't do that, they're bringing otherpeople in. Oh my god, you
know what's going on here? Thisis oh, this is a sinking ship.

(45:19):
We're leaving, We're blah blah blahblah blah. Right, and so
you know, I remember there's onetime we lost we lost one of our
carriers and then we lost our secondcarrier. Both were completely separate reasons.
And we're going into open enrollment seasonand we have no carriers. So as

(45:39):
you can imagine the board, yourinvestors, you know, this is this
is pretty I mean, probably oneof the most difficult times in my life.
We didn't lose one person. Wecommunicated through it, we fought through
it, we fixed it, wegot taken care of. But but you
know, there's people that would havebeen like, I'm out, We're you

(46:00):
know, writing off the business,we're going blah blah blah. And so
you know, then COVID hits thesame thing, you know, and and
that's why I think, you know, hiring the you know, focusing on
the right people with those core valuesthat meet your objectives is really important.
You know. I'm interested in thisof this grip because this is a real

(46:21):
life situation where it's not we're notjust talking about an employee having a tough
day or tough time with something.We're talking all the way up to CEO
level, to you to board,the directors and everything of losing these carriers.
And just just for some reference pointshere, Well, two corrections I
just want to make. One.I didn't mean I said Mel Robbins.
I meant to say Mel Abraham.That's the persons Mel Abraham. That Mel

(46:42):
Robbins. She's an author. He'salso an author, but it's a male
and a female, so Abraham.Uh. And two just for our listeners
here, when he's talking about carriers, we're talking about insurance providers on the
healthcare side, So insurance carriers thatthat you lost there, and they're the
ones who give us access product rightexactly, And so what I'm interested in,
here is your grit and your perseverancethrough that and the reason why why

(47:07):
was it so important for you tostick it out to look for different options?
And and perhaps maybe that's not eventhe right question in terms of like
maybe it's it's how did you stickit out and find the options? Well?
I think communication strategy, right isthe first one. Right, having
having a having a path to getout of it is really important. And

(47:30):
over communicating it, I think isreally those are the key. That's how
we got out of it. Butthe why is you know, look,
I I you know, I'm I'man investor in other businesses, and and
you know, I think part ofthe part of the failure in a lot
of businesses that I've seen with entrepreneursis they give up, right. I
mean, you know how we looktoday versus when we started completely different.

(47:55):
I mean we're night and day right, and and so part of the journey
is learning right. And so whatwe learned out of that was we ended
up with two really solid partners movingforward where we have long term agreements that
they can't just give us ninety daysto get out and blah blah blah.

(48:16):
Right, and so we've got amutual commitment. So I think, you
know, there you got to lookat what can come out of it,
and so so, you know,I think I've got a commitment to our
investors. And that's really important tome personally, because you know, not
only do I have some institutional investors, but I've got you know, friends

(48:36):
and family and and that's really importantto me. And you know, I
you know, I'm not saying thateverything will work out perfect, because it
you know, sometimes it doesn't.But you know, I certainly want to
be able to look them in theface and say, man, I did
everything I could. Yeah. Soand that's you know, and that's just
me personally. Yeah, your integrity, of course. Could you could you

(48:58):
speak to us about your state ofmind during that time you said it was
one of the most difficult times thatyou had experienced, and you know,
speak to us about your state ofmind and how you were also able to
work through that. Yeah, youknow, I think it was. It
was incredibly it was an incredibly darktime in the sense that you know,
I felt that first of all,it was really uncalled for. It was

(49:23):
there was a miscommunication and in oneof the situations where and they wouldn't even
they they wouldn't even respond or callback to where you could talk through stuff.
You know. For me, youknow, we we take our partnerships
very seriously and we you know,we value all of our partners and so

(49:43):
you know, we communicated and openlyright good or bad, and so not
having that was really hard for meto stomach and understand, right, I'm
because I'm I'm very yeah, Look, I'll talk about anything, right,
I mean, let's look, I'mnot I'm not gonna to shy away from
a difficult conversation. And so notbeing able to have that, you know,

(50:05):
communication was very challenging, and soand you know, and you I
think in that situation and initially,you you know, you lose you lose
a little confidence from the board,your investors, which is really hard,
right, and you've got you know, you've got to have thick skin and
you've got you know, you haveto have enough confidence in yourself too to
push through it, which you knowwe did. And you know, so

(50:30):
it's hard just because you feel alone, right, and I think that's the
biggest thing. And you know,you have this responsibility to your employees,
right, I mean, to me, nothing drives me more than making sure
that the people that I work withand I'm responsible for, you know,
not only have a job, buthave have the stability and the you know,

(50:52):
and the financial stability to stay withus, right because you know that's
to me, that's increatly important becauseI never want to take that for granted.
Right. So, yeah, it'sa state of mind. Was very
very dark and lonely. But youknow, you, you know, you
come out of it on top,and you know you're all the better for

(51:14):
it, right, I mean,what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
And it's so true. I meanputting yourself through express and I deal with
it pretty regularly as you can imagineover here as well. So it's it
certainly helps. I think it createsnew ways and in our brains of looking
at things. I look at thingscompletely differently. I realized solutions. You
know, goes back to that exampleI gave earlier of that twenty thousand versus

(51:36):
two hundred revenue or excuse me,twenty thousand and premium versus twenty thousand revenue.
Right, It's like, you know, now I have a different you
know, when when you get throughthat problem that like you said, you
don't give up. You get throughthat problem, you have this whole new
perspective and you're like, wow,okay, yeah it was hard, but
there are ways to navigate around it. Did you have a mentor or a

(51:58):
confidante that you were a coach thatyou leaned on during those times or that
you currently lean on, you know, besides yeah, yeah, I was
gonna say my wife is key inthis obviously. Yeah. You know it's
funny. Is I've got different I'vegot different people, right, I've got
you know, I've got one ofthem is Clint Hampton. He was the

(52:20):
CEO at Employer Direct that brought meover, and he's one of my best
friends from Striker and so you know, I talked to him a lot.
You know, I've got you know, Rob Galton, who's on our board,
one of our key investors. He'salways been a very level head to
speak with Long Tran, who's uhmy business partner and COEO. You know,

(52:44):
he's always level headed and you know, factual based and not going off
the reservation on on stuff. Soyeah, I mean, I've I've always
had good friends and and mentors toto, uh to talk to, and
so you know it helps for sure, right, But you know, just

(53:04):
me personally, I still feel likeI'm on island a lot. Well,
I mean there's a lot, youknow, there's there's a lot of responsibilities
when when we wear the title CEO, I mean it's yeah, it's it's
on you. I'm interested in thevalue of those relationships. You know,
we we see all these quotes onlineof like you know, show me your
your the five people, your fivefriends, and I'll tell you how successful
you'll be those those kinds of mantrasand quotes that you see, and there's

(53:27):
a ton of them, and andthere's some truth to them for sure.
So I'm interested in your perspective onthe importance of these relationships and dialogue that
you have with these gentlemen. Well, I think it's incredibly important for different
reasons, right. I mean Ithink that you know, your wife loves
you unconditionally, and you know,you got to be careful with the amount
of information to give her because right, I mean, she's gonna feel a

(53:50):
little insecure herself. But I meanI think that that's incredibly important to have
that open dialogue. And I'm incrediblyblessed because my wife is a perfect entrepreneur's
wife. Right. But then youknow, I look at Clint where he's
just always been a very positive influencein the sense that when you when you
put us, you know, aproblem in front of him, there's at

(54:12):
it's it's always a talk of asolution as opposed to a you know,
oh well man, you better youbetter think about getting out or you better
think you know, it's more hey, well what about this? What about
this? Even if he doesn't understandthe full scope of the problem, it's
more positive. And then you know, Long is just you know, he's
in it with me, and soyou know, we're you know, he's

(54:34):
got as much to lose as Ido. And so, you know,
having a very you know, he'she's the smart one, he's the he's
the process, he's the getted dyingperson. Right, I'm the I'm the
visionary and the salesperson. He's theokay, I got to clean your mess
up and actually make this work person, right, And so, but you

(54:57):
know that that relationship is you know, you know you is incredibly important because
you know you are you're in ittogether and and there's this uh, you
know, this brotherhood. If youwould have of being the entrepreneur in it
together and and so you know,I think they're they're all important. And
you know, I've got other relationships, you know, Jared Pope or even

(55:21):
Russell Huber, who is you know, one of our he heads up sales
for us, but he's been areal influence. And uh, and so
I think that you know, thisthis group of people that you know are
your friends, everybody serves a differentpurpose, right, Not everybody is always
patting you on the back. Imean, because you know, look Rob

(55:43):
Galton, I mean, he he'sgot some concerns he's going to tell me
and rightfully, so, right,but you need people that are going to
do that as well. You know, I think that we're you know,
I think some when you're younger,I won't even say younger generations. I'm
just going to say when you're youngerand you know, so many people are
telling you how good you are allthe time, and then something bad happens

(56:05):
and you're like you can't take it. Right, So, so I think
you need that balance of you know, positive and you know, realistic feedback
as well. Right, yeah,it certainly helps. I have a mentor
myself who I really wasn't willing tolisten to his guidance. When I was
first building my company two years ago, and you know, I was taking

(56:28):
it kind of like what you're saying. I was just like, Ah,
you're just kind of just negative newsright now. And I was just like,
I don't like it. I don'twant to hear it, so I'm
not calling you anymore. And that'skind of what happened was I did start
just kind of like distancing myself.And maybe it was a good thing,
maybe it was a bad thing.I don't know, but I do know
that more recently, he and Iengage a lot more now and he still

(56:49):
speaks the same way that he didthen, but I appreciate it more because
he is helping me realize, Okay, that's the reality. It's not that
he's being negative. He's just givingme real talk, and he's just not
sugarcoating it for me to the wayI want to hear it. He's just
saying this is this is black andwhite. You can't do that move because
if you do it, you're outright. So and I think, like

(57:10):
you just said, it has todo with maybe it maybe it has to
do with age, but I thinkit's it's more experience and age if anything,
because you know, if I startedthis business back in my twenties,
well, I don't know, that'dbe a whole different story. We're not
going to go there, We're gonnaright, We're going to go back to
you and and everything I do actuallywant to go back to you on this
one. In terms of the perfectentrepreneur's wife, I thought that was an

(57:30):
interesting statement and I think it couldcertainly apply to spouse in general, because
of course there's female any type ofout there. So let's let's go to
spouse here. What what are thequalities that you see in your wife that
make her so solid for you asas an entrepreneur. You know, I
think you know, really starting withthe unconditional love right up and down,

(57:52):
because you know you're going to have, like I said, you're gonna you
know, entrepreneurs, you have veryhigh Harry Low's right, she's pretty steady.
So I think that's steady with expectationsI think is really important. I
think, you know, patience inthe sense that you know, I didn't
pay myself for the first three years, right, and so you know,

(58:15):
having having the where with all theyou know, not for me, not
making any income for three years ispretty pretty uh pretty uh important. And
you know, really feeling like she'san owner in the business as well,
I think is really important because youknow, she she knows all of our

(58:38):
employees, she knows you know,families and you know, and it's really
important to be that that other personright in the relationship. So I think,
you know, she you know,she loves that. But even my
kids are part of the business,right they they know everybody, and they
really you know, I mean,both of my kids just adore along and

(58:59):
you know, and and it's it'sfunny because you know when we have parties
at the house and they come overand you know, they're just super engaged
with him, and you know,our other our other uh our other people
and and so it's you know,it's a family event. And I think
that you know, the key characteristics, you know, really you know,

(59:20):
patience, engagement, and you knowthat unconditional love is really important because it's
it's not easy. It's not easy, yeah, and not be an entrepreneur's
wife, no right spouse, spouse. Yeah, but yeah, it's I
see it with my wife and andlike, like you said, the unconditional
love, but also that the unconditionalbelief in us. You know, my

(59:40):
wife says that to me all thetime, like when I'm talking about things
and you said that the ups anddowns, Like you know, some days
it's great and she's like she's happywith me, and in the days that
it's not great, she's like,you know, I know you can make
this work. I know you canmake this work. Yeah. And uh,
it's so necessary to have that supportsystem around us when we're we're doing
this because, like like you said, sometimes we do fill alone, that's

(01:00:01):
for sure. Yeah, switching gearsa little bit to some of the philanthropic
work that you do. There's anorganization called Faith and Practice that you work
with, and you're, yeah,go for it. Oh, I'm sorry,
go ahead. No, No,that's all I got, So you
go ahead. Very very important partof our life. I think it's an

(01:00:22):
organization that grounds us. My wifeand I have been doing this now,
I think for eighteen years. Wherewe go to Guatemala on a medical mission.
I only go one week year.My wife does three trips a year.
My wife's santy c geologists And soI had mentioned I was a scrub
tech in the military. And thenI was with orthopedic companies and so we

(01:00:42):
actually go with three orthopedic trips andso I still scrub the doctors. Are
you know, our dear friends likea huge family, because I think,
you know, there's maybe fifty people, fifty five people per team that go,
and I think forty five our goevery year. So we're like family,
you know, and we've you know, there are dearest friends. But

(01:01:05):
we've been going down for you know, eighteen years to Guatemala. We perform
surgeries at no cost of the thethe Guatemalans and uh, you know,
we're doing total knees, total hips, complex trauma procedures. Uh. Sometimes
my wife she'll go with E andT group and so you know, and
I think both my kids have nowbeen on two trips with us the last

(01:01:28):
two years each, so they're they'regoing to be you know, going from
here on out. And so itreally important to us. And I think
that what it does is it reallygrounds you on what's important. And you
know, you're you know, moneyis important. Don't get me wrong,
I'm not saying everything's free, butyou know, when you're when you're down

(01:01:51):
there with people, that what wewould view is have nothing, but they're
as happy as can be. Theywant their total knees so they can get
back to work, they want theirleg to get fixed so they can get
back to work to support their family. And they have this you know,
love of God, they have thislove of their family, and and it's
just, you know, it's incredible, and you know, you feel like

(01:02:14):
they have so much more than you, right, and so it's you know,
selfishly, it's an incredible experience.And so we've you know, we've
been doing it for a long timeand it's just a really big part of
our lives and now we're incredibly luckyto have our children going now. And
yeah, it's just it's a greatexperience. And as a matter of fact,
my son's getting married. We goto Antigua, Guatemala, which is

(01:02:36):
up in the mountains. My sonand his fiance, they're getting married in
Antigua, which is incredible for us. We're so excited that that we're having
that there. So our family isactually getting to fly down and we're getting
to show them where we've been goingall these years. So it's really exciting.
That's that's really really cool to beable to experience it. That way,

(01:02:58):
And of course obviously it's rubbed offon the kids because it's it's become
a special place for them. Uh. Just because you brought this up,
and I'm very interested in this asan entrepreneur, is that you did.
You said, you go away fora week. How do you how do
you manage the business while going away? Because I mean, you're scrubbed,
You're you're doing surgeries all day.You know, you're not answering emails while
you're doing that, So how howare you delegating tasks and how does that

(01:03:22):
work for you? Well? SoI go, I go the trip I
go on every years in February,and it's kind of our slower time.
So but I've got look, I'vegot the best leadership team I've ever had.
And we we put in place acouple of years ago, or no,
excuse me, a year ago,the EOS, which is entrepreneur Operating

(01:03:44):
System. I don't know if you'veever heard of it, Attraction right,
yeah, yeah, from the Attractioncourse. So we implemented that and we
and it's incredible and so one ofthe things that has come of that is
really long leads more of the dayto day operations and and I'm freed up
to do other things, and soit's it's worked out really well. But

(01:04:08):
you know, even before that,you know, I've just got incredible leadership
team that you know, I'm nota micromanager, like I said, and
we you know, we we setthe tone in our weekly meetings and people
execute. And I've got a greatteam, my CFO, you know,
I mean, I've got Alex devRussell along Carrie who heads up our provider,

(01:04:31):
uh network development. You know,they're they're incredible people, and they're
you know, really their family,and so we you know, we've we've
got each other's back when we whenwe need it, and it's something that
they've always supported me doing every year. So it's uh yeah, no,
no no issues. Yeah, Ithink you know, just to kind of

(01:04:51):
like put a fine point on thatfor you, is that it's it's having
a great leadership team and great processesthat support that team. And then you
mentioned it earlier about yourself and yourpersonality, is that you're not a micromanager.
So therefore you've already delegated so muchto them prior to all of this
to you leaving, they already areand I kind of and this is great
because this goes back to what Iwant to ask too about being an entrepreneur.

(01:05:15):
They're already entrepreneurs, so they alreadyhave this like vested interest in the
business. And what I wanted togo back to is just your definition on
that, because I think it's kindof becoming a new buzzword that's that's been
going around, but it's on anewer phase, so I don't not as
many people have heard of it.So I'm interested in your definition of it.
So our our definition is really isreally from an entrepreneur's standpoint, it's

(01:05:40):
owning your part of the business,right, and it's it's making decisions as
a as a as you would asan entrepreneur who's your own business. And
so that doesn't mean that everybody's offthe rails on hand customer service, I'm
going to do X, Y orZ E. What it is is it's
thinking of the business as a businessthat it would be yours and what would

(01:06:03):
you do, and so having ownershipin that and so you know it's uh,
you know, give you an example. You know, one of our
implementation leads who's been with us fora long time, you know, he
comes up and he's I'm in theoffice every morning early. He's in the
office early and he comes up.He's like, hey, I think we
need to look at this differently,and I think we need to do X,

(01:06:24):
Y and Z. And it waslike, that's a great idea.
Why don't we talk to deb aboutthat? And we put you know,
he puts a plan together, andthat's you know, now what they do.
And you know you can't you youknow, you can't be the smartest
person in the room all the time, right, I mean, I don't
have the strength to make every decision, and so having teams like that and

(01:06:51):
supporting them is incredibly important. Sothat that's our that's our definition and how
we look at it from a corevalue. I don't know how other people
look at it, but but youknow, we we really try to we
really try to live that. Andso yeah, I think you know,
when you when you see like yousaid that they have ownership in what they're

(01:07:13):
doing, and like you said,there there's these guardrails or or around everybody.
That's very important. I mean,even as an entrepreneur, we have
guardrails, like I mean, youknow, we like you said, you
have you have a board to respondto. You have investors to respond to,
you have your team to respond toif you're you know, listening,
and so we we we have guardrailsand so everybody has to have them.
And if you put together a goodprocess and a good plan, I mean,

(01:07:35):
it's it's great to be all years. I love that and I love
that definition of it. As westart to conclude here, I'm interested again
going back to you. Well,you know, before I do that,
I am interested in one one otherthing about your business because I thought this
was really neat when I went toyour website and I mentioned it in the
top of the show, which wasthat you have your own app. And
so just I'm a little bit interestedin and not a lot, I'm a

(01:07:57):
lot of bit interested, but justin terms of time, uh in the
in this app and how it cameabout and the development of it, and
you know what you did in orderto get it going. Well, So
it's funny is day one when welaunched, we had a mobile app,
and we thought it was really importantbecause to me, it's so ridiculous that
we have a mobile app where Ican order coffee in the morning and pick

(01:08:21):
it up right pay for it,pick it up, you know, but
yet I've got to call somebody orgo to the website and you know,
search around for a potential provider.Right. And so we you know,
we centralized, centralized all of ourbenefits on a mobile app day one,
and so Long who is our CEO. He he found a development group out

(01:08:47):
of Bangladesh and so he manages itand he we put together everything ourselves and
built it. And as a matterof fact, we're still working with that
same development group out of Bangladesh andwe have food you know, a years
now. And and so it's uh, you know, it's really a testament

(01:09:08):
to you know, too Long andhis ability to you know, get things
done. And so it's uh yeah, that was really important for us from
day one. And and what's funnyis we still don't have competitors that have
a mobile app, which just cracksme out. Well it's hard. I
mean, you know, when Iwhen I started DN ten, which again

(01:09:28):
you know, we're a P andC world, We're we're DN ten dot
io. And the reason why wasoriginally in my my action plan or business
plan, was that we were goingto be a tech company that sold insurance.
That was my thought process and tobuild out an app and everything.
But there are a lot of challenges. There's a first of all, there's
a huge financial investment, right,you know, even even if you're outsourcing

(01:09:51):
the Bangladesh and in fact, Ithink that that's who I had spoken with
at the time. So there's one. There's a huge investment. But it
is very tricky and challenging work.And then especially in our industry of insurance
with all of the regulations and thecarriers and all of that. So in
terms of all of that, waswas that hard for for you guys or

(01:10:12):
was that something that was just partof the process of like you said earlier,
the grip it was, it waspart of the process, right.
You just got to you know,from a legality standpoint, you got to
make sure that you're you know,you're gotten your eyes and crossing your t's
and you know, insurance is avery complex business and so you just you
know, you've got to find theexperts that can help you, the legal
experts, and uh, you know, you pay for it and you just

(01:10:36):
get it done. Yeah, yeah, and you invest in the right team
as well as you can imagine.All right, So you grew up in
in Minnesota. You're out in Texasright now, you're in Colorado. What
are your I guess favorite hobbies todo? Like, what's what's what's something
that we can find you doing?You know, a lot of golf.

(01:10:56):
I love golf. I play alot of golf, and then went on
and call I play all right,flyfish a lot. So I love fly
fishing. So yeah, we Imean we're literally right on gold medal fly
fishing water up here. So flyfishing is great. But I play a
lot of golf. So those aremy two. Those are my two passions

(01:11:17):
that are outside of work. Yeah, that you know, very good passions,
are very very relaxing. I'm sure. I'm sure the golf can become
a bit stressful sometimes when you're nothitting it the right way or whatever it
is. But I'm sure fly fishingcan be like a nice relaxing, meditative
type of Yes, my blood pressuregoes down dramatically. Yeah, I mean

(01:11:41):
I can only imasure you're kind ofjust standing in a beautiful river, just
kind of waiting for whatever's coming yourway. That's pretty awesome. This has
been really cool having you on forour listeners. Of course, this will
all be in the show notes.But for our listeners, where can everybody
learn more about Horay Health? Howcan they connect with you? How can
they reach out? Yeah? Absolutely, So if you want to connect with

(01:12:01):
me, you can. I alwaysconnect with me on LinkedIn. I'm there,
it's open. So I'd love tohear from you. And then Hooray
Health It's www dot Hooray h oo r a y health dot com and
you can learn more about us andwe'd love to help anybody that needs to
help benefits with their hourly population.Awesome, awesome, Yeah, And I

(01:12:21):
gotta tell you, I did loveyour website. I thought it was really
cool. I love how you havethis like video montage going in the beginning.
It's it's just a really great innovativesite. It's it's modern, it's
it's not like the clunky healthcare sitesthat we typically are used to. And
so I really really like that.So I love that. And then you
know, one question I always askedis like how'd you come up with the
name? But I mean the namespeaks for it stuff. It's like,

(01:12:43):
hooray, this actually works exactly.Ray Health Insurance worth sharing for Yeah,
I love it. So I don'teven have to ask. I mean I
spent I spent weeks trying to figureout what it was going to be called,
and and I found Horay Health andI was like, this is it.
This is it. Yeah, that'swhat we did. That's what we
decided to do. That's awesome.Well, rest is history. That's right.

(01:13:04):
Well, thanks so much for comingon. It's been it's been a
pleasure. It's been awesome having youon and Vesta Luctia. All right,
thanks Michael, who's really enjoyed it. Thank you. This show is sponsored
by dn ten Insurance Services, helpingbusinesses get the right insurance for all their
insurance needs. Visit dn ten dotio to get a quote d N T

(01:13:26):
e N dot io and remember,when you buy an insurance policy from dn
ten, you're giving back on aglobal scale. Hello all, my entrepreneurs
and business leaders, and welcome tothe Michael Esposito Show, where I interview
titans of industry in order to inform, educate, and inspire you to be
great. Thank you for listening toThe Michael Esposito Show. For show notes,

(01:13:54):
video clips, and more episodes,go to Michael Esposito Inc. Dot
com backslash podcast. Thank you again. To our sponsor dn ten Insurance Services
helping businesses get the right insurance forall their insurance needs. Visit Denten dot
io to get a quote that's dE N ten dot io and remember,

(01:14:15):
when you buy an insurance policy fromDenten, you're giving back on a global
scale. This episode was produced byUncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie.
Special thanks to Lara Rodrian for theopportunity and my team at Michelesposbolink