Entrepreneurs: The Hidden Wealth Strategy-Oil; Minerals & Off-Market Investing with Jace Graham + Others

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Is the biggest risk in your life, the one you've
been told is safe, in your money, in your career,
or even the choices you make, or the people that
you love.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ramping up your business?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
The time is near. You've given it hard, Now get
it in gear.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Richard Gearhart.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your house.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to the Passage to Profit Show, the Road to
Entrepreneurship podcast. What if Wall Street isn't the real opportunity
that it used to be. Well, joining us is Jace Graham.
He is betting on something very different. He is focusing
on oil minerals and even off the grid AI infrastructure.
Jase is the CEO of Rising Phoenix Resources and a

(00:58):
fourth generation oil man and he's here to talk about
a different way to protect your future.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
And then we have the women of the show. We
have Amy Scruggs, a returning guest. Thank you Amy for coming.
And she had a high profile career with media coaching
and she was really going up up, and then she
left to take care of her dad, and we're going
to hear all about that journey and how she's getting
back into her media training again. And then this is

(01:27):
near and dear to my heart, Jackie Jacola and Maggie
Plusser are helping millions of cats live longer, healthier lives.
They have every cat dot Org and they're doing research
to help cats. And you know, I have many cats.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
We do know that.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
I know, first we got many cats.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
But on top of all that, we're also going to
talk about why Taylor Swift just got sued and her
new legal troubles. The first it's time for your new
business journey. We'd like to ask our panel, when you
look back, what was the one to say in our
moment that most changed the trajectory of your business? And
what did it cost you to make that decision? Welcome
to the show, Jays Graham. What was the one decision

(02:09):
that you made that changed the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 5 (02:12):
You know, excited to be on the show. Yeah, there's
been a few, but one definitely stands out more than
any of them was COVID, Right, it affected us all.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I'll never forget.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
I was down at our ranch in Central Texas in
an airstream raising a capital for our mineral fund, and
while everybody was heading for the hills, oil was dropping
from say, seventy bucks a barrow down to under twenty
bucks a barrow. I was trying to raise as much
money as we possibly could and ended up being successful
at doing that at that time frame. So I think

(02:46):
when a lot of people were trying to figure out
what was going on, we were doubling down and trying
to raise as much capital, found some wonderful opportunities at
that lower price point, and definitely changed the trajectory of
our businesses from that point forward.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
That's great. That's one of the first stories that I've
heard where COVID has actually helped somebody. Amy Scruggs, Welcome
to the program. What was the one decision that you
made that changed the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 6 (03:11):
It was when I decided to really put myself out
there as keynote speaking. So when I started fine tuning
and really honing in what my presentation was and going
in front of various audiences, it opened up so many
opportunities because then I was being approached, can you work
with me? It put myself out there and showed what
those basic and common mistakes are that individuals make, and

(03:32):
being in front of the camera or in their own speaking,
you get a lot of laughter. And it opened up
such great conversations and it opened up opportunity that was
filling my business with incredible entrepreneurs that wanted to work
with me.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
That is so true. I'm putting yourself out there has
so many great benefits and if you're a business person
or if you have something to say, I always want
to encourage people to get out there and say it.
Jackie and Maggie, welcome to the show. What was the
decision that you made to change the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 7 (04:03):
I will actually answer on behalf of Every Cat Health Foundation.
We are almost a sixty year old nonprofit organization and
I joined five years ago as CEO. At that time,
two weeks into my tenure. The board had been working
diligently for a few years, but we changed our name.

(04:24):
We completely rebranded. It was a big leap along exercise,
but it has really served us well. We used to
be named after our founder, Robert Wynn, and we were
known as the wind Feeline Foundation.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
And we were very well known among the people who
knew us right, but we.

Speaker 7 (04:44):
Did a major rebranding and it was quite a shift
for all and really quite an adjustment for me, having
been only with the organization for two weeks, but it
was a great move.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, it's really true that when you go through a
red it's a huge exercise. You think about all the
legal documents and contracts and everything else, and then all
of your advertising. It's a big risk to change your
name and not lose traction with your current clientele. So
thank you very much for sharing that.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Mine's kind of like Amy's, only not as intense. But
I started speaking. I started teaching a class, and then
people ask me to speak. And then I have a
very dear friend who told her I'd help her start
a podcast if she would help me promote the media
studio Gear Media Studios, and she's just been getting me
these speaking engagements, and then tholes are snowballing into other ones,

(05:38):
and it's just crazy. And I think it's the topic
I'm doing. I'm doing AI and marketing, but anyway, it's
just I'm finding that some of the people don't know
anything about AI, so that it's just kind of interesting
how it has just snowballed once you get up there
and start speaking and people like what you're saying and
like your topic. The sky's the limit right.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Amyly, and it really has taken off for you, so
absolutely amazing for sure. I guess for me, one policy
change that we've had at the law firm is trying
to get the timing right on hiring people. And I
think in the past I was always reluctant to hire

(06:18):
new team members because I was concerned about the cost,
but I didn't really look at it in terms of
an investment, where actually hiring somebody can help move the
business forward. And so I've changed my perspective on this.
Now I'm trying to hire sooner and not wait so
long because I feel like I'm leaving things on the table,

(06:39):
and it reduces bottlenecks and the whole organization just seems
to be happier. So that's it for me, So thank
you very much. And now I'd like to introduce jas Graham.
What if everything you've been told about safe investing is
quietly draining your wealth? Well, Jase Graham, the CEO of
Rising Phoenix recas sources and a fourth generation oil man

(07:03):
is shaking things up by moving money from Wall Street
and redirecting it to oil minerals and even off the
grid infrastructure. So welcome to the program, Jays. Why are
you taking the approach that you're taking.

Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know, we focus primarily into what we call alternative
investments alternative to the stock or bond market, and our
firm looks not only at oil and gas minerals, but
also drilling opportunities in oil and gas, real estate investing,
private credit, as well as hard money lending. So we

(07:35):
play all in the alts. We like that we can
kind of understand how they operate and what happens with
our capital as we invest in directly into those tangible assets.
And so you know, when you look at a portfolio
that investors have, obviously there's investments in stocks and bonds,
but there also needs to be some investments in alternative
investments like real estate, oil and gas. We're kicking up

(07:58):
an AI data center concept here next quarter that's really intriguing.
So we just find a better return profile and higher
upside investing directly in those types of asset classes.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I guess that's the question that we're all wondering. It's like, well,
why go there when normally you just go and you know,
to the stock market or the bond market. What makes
these alternative investments attractive and why should an ordinary investor
consider those?

Speaker 5 (08:26):
I think having stocks in a portfolio is important, and
even bonds. Bonds typically are a much lower interest that
you would be earning, but safer per se. On the
stock side, there's a lot of volatility, meaning you can
invest in a great stock, a great company, and the
market shifts out of that sector, the stock drops and
you're back to flat on what you earned. So again,

(08:47):
on the out side, investing directly into real estate, let's
just say a single family home that you can purchase,
fix up and resell it, or rent it or provide
sellar financing on it. You have a tangible asset that
you and it has cash flow as a component of it.
Same thing with boil and gas minerals. Oil and gas
minerals are real estate just subsurface, right, So it's part

(09:09):
of the bundles of sticks that go along with real estate.
A lot of people don't understand that, but in the
United States, the only country in the world where owners
of surface rights. I Ea, the land on top can
also own the minerals underneath it, all the way down
to the center of the earth. We play in a
fun space with alt Again, return profiles tend to be higher. Okay,
we're not to say tend to be higher. We're looking at,

(09:31):
you know, twelve to thirty percent type cash on cash returns.
You can see that in the stock market. But again
it's very volatile on how that happens. But that's the
kind of profile we're looking for.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, So just to make clear, So the land that
we have our house on that we own, we go
all the way to the center of the earth, and
we own all of that too, to.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
The same of the earth. And they say to the
zenith in the sky. So all right, time and interest,
and that may feel even better. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
We're in New Jersey. We may oiled all the chemicals.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, you know, I thought mowing the lawn was a
big job, and now I have like all this ground
to the center of the earth to take care. But
you had it. Elizabeth had an interesting question, well about oil.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
I don't know if you want to answer this. So
we are recording this in early April twenty twenty six,
and we are in a skirmish of war, I don't
know what you want to call it. And Iran has
held hostage the straight of her news, and oil's not flowing,
so gas prices have I don't almost doubled. It's been crazy.

(10:35):
But my question for you, Jason, is that I had
thought United States made enough gas and liquefied natural gas
to meet all of our needs. I thought we had
enough in our own country. So why are we being
affected by what's going on in the rest of the world.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Great question, and you're right, that's South end room right now.
Oil went from sixty five bucks a barrel a little
over thirty years ago, too, as high as a hundred
ten bucks a barrow about three days ago. It's back
down around ninety four. So a little bit of momentum
on oil. Natural gas is a totally different story, Okay.
A natural gas is sitting around three bucks in mcf,

(11:13):
which is pretty low.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
So yes, we in the United States have more oil
and or natural gas than we can use. So what
you tend to see though, is oil and natural gas
are traded on a world market, so it's not just
contingent on what's going on in our supply in the
United States. You can drill an oil well in West Texas,
recover the oil, and sell it to the biggest purchaser,

(11:36):
the highest purchaser on a worldwide stage. What's happening with
the straight up rom mez is there definitely is kirktailing production.
But that's affecting all oil prices around the world, not
just in the United States. Interesting time. We are finding
phenomenal opportunities right now while prices are rising again, not
in favor of any sort of war or conflict, but

(11:57):
when things do kind of happen like that, MUNDI prices
tend to rocks, and so we like to be able
to play on those sides of the coin. As far
as our investment strategies.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, I read they shoot up like a rocket. Gasoline
prices for cars shoot up like a rocket and come
down like a feather.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
So in your world working with investors, do you work
with mostly private individuals, do you work with companies or
who do you work with? And what is the appetite
for investment products.

Speaker 5 (12:30):
Our investors range from high net worth are credit investors
to family offices that are focused in oil and gas
We work with a few wealth advisors that have clients
that also are looking to divest into alternate investments, and
so we provide that product for them. And we now
are about to open up a investment club that is
also going to be talking to unaccredited investors. It may

(12:53):
have an old four to one k sit around they
want to put back in play. So we're kind of
starting to find some ways to even bring all investor
types under our platforms. We don't necessarily do any sort
of private equity or institutional capital raising. It's more direct
to pigh net worth than individuals that want to achieve
higher returns. But you know, the way we look at it.
You know, we've got five pillars of capital allocation and

(13:14):
how we invest Number one oil and gas minerals. We
have drilling opportunities a little bit different, but also directly
in oil and gas, massive tax write off associated with
those types of investments in higher return profile, but also
additional risk with some dry whole risk meaning that Wales
may not perform the way you want to investing in
directly in real estate private credit where we provide mortgages
private mortgages to homeowners that may not be able to

(13:36):
get a traditional mortgage from the bank, and also hard
money lending to investors. So can we use these five
different ways? But when real estate slows down, you know,
we're shifting over to minerals. Right when oil prices drop,
we're buying minerals. When markets are volatile, we're investing and
putting more private credit out. When distress appears, you know,

(13:58):
we're looking at real estate and disco. So again, we're
playing a lot of different areas. It's all rooted in
real estate, and so we just kind of zig and
zag because the shoes never dropped at the same time
across those different pillars that I talked about.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
So, Jason, if I were rich and I gave you
a half a million dollars and said investors, would you
spread it out across those five different project types and
then move it around as necessary for me? Is that
how you work?

Speaker 5 (14:23):
Well a little bit. We do have different types of
funds that we provide to investors, but it is kind
of more specific on the niche and where we are
and kind of what we think is an ideal opportunity
right now. So right now we've kind of pumped the
brakes on real estate because interest rates have been so high. Okay, direct,
but we've also been lending on hard money with real estate.
But right now we've been really big on buying oil

(14:45):
and gas minerals because we did see oil prices at
sixty five bucks in barrow, natural gases at three bucks
in mcf, which is really low on that side, and
so we've got a lot of upside to play in
there as well as doing opportunity. So it really just
depends we don't have like a fund that's kind of
mixed with all those assets. That's something we're kind of
looking at maybe down the road, but right now it's
kind of specific to the investment strategy or thesis.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
What's the return on ourmental funds.

Speaker 5 (15:10):
I could just we've averaged this seventeen percent cash on
cash last five years, invested one hundred grand seventeen thousand
on average on an annual basis, and those funds typically
look to do a one point five to two to
one multiple on your capital in about a three four
year period, so that's track record, so we kind of
look at that. But on the drilling side, you know
you're looking at a two to three to one type return,

(15:30):
plus you get a big ninety percent uppers of ninety
percent tax right off in the first year of that investment,
so big tax right off, you can write it off
against W two earnings, ordinary income, all that kind of stuff.
So we start to see a lot of people starting
to look at that type of investment towards the back
half of the year where they know how much money
they're making and how much they want to look to
offset right off.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's really interesting. I wanted to ask you a question
about oil drilling. It just brings to mind all of
these old Westerns, you know, where people are riding around
out in the desert and they're like drilling here and
then drilling there, and then oh there's oil, and then
the hills hillbilly.

Speaker 8 (16:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
But so I'm imagining things have changed now and they
probably have all sorts of technology that can look for oil.
Is that a more accurate process now? Are they able
to predict whether you're going to hit oil? Or is
there still pretty.

Speaker 5 (16:22):
Random much more chance of success today than it was
back in even like when my dad was drilling oil
wells back in the seventies and eighties. Back then you're
drilling what's called conventional pockets you're drilling a vertical well
down to find a pocket, and you're either in the
pocket or you're out of the pocket. All right, that's
called conventional drilling. What happened in early two thousands is

(16:46):
the advancement of horizontal drilling. Okay, so now you're horizontally
drilling into these shale basins. It's called unconventional drilling. Big
one that's one of the biggest in the world is
the Permian Basin in West Texas. So a little bit
like you talked them out out in the West Texas
flat planes, there's a lot of activity of a lot
of our oil. Most of our oil comes from that.

(17:08):
But this is where operators are drilling horizontally into a
shale formation several miles horizontally. So it's not a matter
of whether they're going to be in the pocket or
out of the pocket. Now it's a matter of just
completing the wells in the zone and then they stimulate
the rock. I e. Fracking. I know that's a bad word,
but it has allowed us as a country to become
energy and dependent, and so that's a huge thing. So

(17:30):
we're not relying on That's why you hear Trump talk
about We're not relying on any of the oil over
from Iran at all. We have more oil then we
can use it, and so we export it out and
we sell it for the highest possible price. So yes,
it is a lot.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Drill horizontally, that's just this counterintuitive to me. I mean,
I understand drilling down, but drilling sideways. Who came up
with that?

Speaker 5 (17:53):
It was a gentleman, you know, out of in the
Barnet Shell, which is actually right outside of Dallas Fort Worth,
that developed that whole horizontal drilling. And they basically just
slowly I mean remember you're several miles deep and then
you're actually going several miles lateral, so they slowly start
to turn that drill bit. They've got directional motors on

(18:14):
the end of that drill bit to kind of turn
that drill bit and that drill pipe to where it
goes horizontally. It's fascinating. They continue drill.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Into my property and then sneak over to my neighbors
and oil not anymore.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
That was definitely back in the kill Billy's days, that
that whole you know, there's so many uh you know royalty, yeah, exactly,
you got it. Who drank my milkshake. But that's no
longer a thing. But it was a thing several people
back in the you know, twenties and thirties out in
East Texas and Tyler, several prominent families got tone in

(18:47):
jail because of that. But no longer, there's so many
directional surveys and reporting agencies that you can't just sneak
over into somebody else's middles.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Is fracking really dangerous for the earth, because, I mean
there's a lot of people who are concerned about it. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (19:03):
Again, it's a louder country to become energy independent, which
is massive. We no longer rely on foreign oil or
natural gas for anything. You know, there's so much oversight
in how these wells are drilled. You know, they first
they drill down, you know, a couple hundred feet, they
set surface casing and they cement it all the way
to the surface. Then they drilled out another call it
three or four hundred feet, and they set what's called

(19:25):
intermediary casing, and then they cement that all the way
to the surface. Now you got two sets, and then
they drill the mainstream of pipe. I mean, it gets
a bad rap, but again, it's allow our country to
become energy independent. You're not seeing any sort of blowouts
or anything like that. I mean, if you are, it's
it's minor at most. So I'm all in favor. If
it went away, do you know what would happened to

(19:46):
oil and natural gas prices? They would triple, maybe quadruple.
So the crowd is fickle. We like energy, and we
like to turn on our shower and have a hot shower.
We like to drive over to McDonald's to get a
cheeseburger right now, So again, how WoT I go back.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
To the investing a little bit. So we have had
a very turbulent month for the price of oil. Right
what did you do with your funds during this past month?
Did you just let it ride? I mean because you
were seeing, like especially with crypto, people were buying and
selling like huge amounts based on the whim of whoever.

(20:21):
I don't want to get into politics here, but based
on Twitter feed right well x feed? Did you guys
just kind of hang tight?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Two things.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
One, the current funds that are in our portfolio are
going to do phenomenal. We don't see the price, the
spot price, the price. It's just you're seeing right now.
The hundred bucks a barrel for another two months. I
mean the operator gets that price, then they distribute their
checks out to the mental owners, but that happens about
two months after that occurs, so we're not going to

(20:49):
really see that until probably gym on our check stocks.
But that's just increased revenue, increase yield back to our
partnerships because those partnerships bought say oil, the mental interest
around fifty sixty bucks a barrel. Now, what we're doing
today with our current funds that we're deploying capital on now,
we're not chasing the current price at all whatsoever. We're

(21:10):
negotiating and talking to sellers at that sixty seventy bucks
a barrel price range. And so there's a big arbitrage
where it's trading today and what we're negotiating direct to seller.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Okay, so you're not doing these wild swings in and
out of the market and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
It's a longer play.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
That's the difference of an alternate investment versus maybe a
stock or investing in crypto where you can just push
a button and sell, push a button and buy, push
a button and sell. Our opportunities are longer. You're invested
in a partnership, and then we kind of determine the
best time to exit based on timing and quality price swings.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
So we're with jas Graham, who is the CEO at
Rising Phoenix Resources. Jase. I assume that the risk in
the oil business is that oil prices are going to
drop and stay low for a period of time. Is
that the risk to your investors or do you have
a way to manage that risk in the event that

(22:05):
that happens. I would assume that if the Iran war
comes to some sort of event, right, the prices aren't
going to go back down. Anybody who is investing now
is probably going to take a loss on the money
they put in. But if production improves and prices trend
downward over time, is that what the risk is to
the investor or is it something else?

Speaker 5 (22:27):
Yeah, I think you're looking at that right. Is commodity
price effects the return profiles of the funds, whether that's
on the drilling funds that we do direct drilling funds
or the oily gas spinos. Now what we look at
when we price these types of assets. Let's just say
that we're pricing right now to be buying mentals around
seventy bucks in barrel. We're looking at a return profile
that's going to get investors all their money back within

(22:47):
five years or less. So that's about a twenty percent
cash on cash on an ail basis. So that's at seventy.
So if oil goes down and let's just say thirty five, okay,
which is really low, and I don't see it staying
down there for long, but let's just say it does,
so it drops by fifty percent, in effect, that yield
would just be cut in half, okay, So that twenty

(23:08):
percent is now a ten, and a ten is not
the worst case scenario at thirty five bucks a barrel.
So that's some of the things that we're pricing in
and hedging in when we're negotiating and making these purchases
and making them up some offers. So yes, we did
see So when COVID occurred and oil prices went down
at twenty bucks a barrow, we're still doing distributions monthly distributions.

(23:29):
Distributions went down around six to eight percent. But that's
like my worst case scenario, I would think, And so
you know, we kind of look at that and we
factor that in on our acquisition should cost.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
So how much money do you have to have to
invest with your funds?

Speaker 5 (23:43):
We have an offering. This is the investment club where
people can come into an investment club. A minimum is
ten thousand dollars and it's more of a debt type
scenario that pays a ten percent interest rate on a
two year term. The collateral is the minerals and the
mineral funds. So all we did is we started raising
our own debt versus going to a bank, and we
continue to use our banks, but we also started raising

(24:05):
that because we had investors saying, Hey, I just want
to flat return. I don't want to deal with any
of this volatility that you guys were talking about. You know,
I'm sixty five, I'm seventy, I'm retiring. Here's half a
million or here's one hundred thousand. I just want to
get my nice little interest payment that I can live
off of and at the end of two years get
it redeemed. On the other funds, the menial funds and
the drilling funds. It's a fifty thousand dollars minimum and

(24:26):
it's a credit investor only at this time.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
So if you have a four to one k sitting
there can you move that money over.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
That's a great question, because if you have a four
to one K that's active right now with an employer,
you're kind of with that employer and there how they're
managing that four to one K. What we tend to
find is there's a lot of people with old four
one ks. I bet there's ladies on this panel right
now that probably are sitting on an old four to
one K from a prior employer, and when you leave

(24:52):
that job, it just kind of sits there. It's not
really actively being managed. So you can actually convert that
to a traditional IRA with a custodian that allows you
to self direct it. Then you can start investing into
alternative investments like oil and gas, or real estate or
hard money venue or private credit or whatever you want.
So it allows people to get in the game, but

(25:12):
it's through the self directed irate custodium that allows that.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Jas Graham, CEO of Rising Phoenix Resources, will be back
with more right after this Stay Tuned Passage to Profit
with Richard An Elizabeth per Hart. We're going to hear
more about Taylor Swift's legal problems and also we'll hear
from Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind.

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Speaker 3 (27:31):
Now back to Passage to Profit once again. Richard and
Elizabeth Geerhart, we're here.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
With Jason gram from Rising Phoenix Resources. You're a serial entrepreneur,
Jace tell us what a serial entrepreneur is and what
businesses you've been involved in, and why you got involved
in this one. What I kind of realized is that
I just don't think I'm employable.

Speaker 5 (27:52):
I don't like being told what to do, and so
now having in a situation where no one can tell
me what to do. So that was probably how it
all started. No, I mean it started as an early
age with me. You know, my father was an entrepreneur.
I got to see him kind of build a business
from the ground up, so I got to learn from
the shoulder of a giant. But I mean I was
early on. I mean I was washing cars, shine and shoes.

(28:14):
I had a landscaping business, and by the time I
was in a senior in high school, I had two
four man crews working for me, and I was just
kind of driving around and making sure the lawns were
getting done. So it turned into a pretty big business
that actually got me into Cornell University on a landscape
architecture kind of program. So it's kind of interesting you
can connect the dots looking backwards, but it's always kind

(28:34):
of been in my blood. And then had an opportunity
in twenty sixteen, I decided it was a good time
to maybe start my own career at Rising Phoenix and
open up the shop, and I was scared to death.
I run scared every day as an entrepreneurs as part
of what goes along with it. But no, we started
and we were raising money for a mineral fund with
just some friends and family, and I needed to figure

(28:56):
out how to make some immediate cash, and so we
kind of learned about real estate whole ceiling from a
podcast that I listened to with a gentleman named Justin
Colby who's now a very close friend of mine, and
my wife and I got going in it, and I
was trying to make some money and flip some real estate,
and so I sent out ten thousand mailers. We had,
you know, like probably ten thousand dollars left to our name,

(29:18):
sold our house, pulled out all the equity, and started
a company. Okay, sent the mailers out. I put my
wife's name in phone of her on them. She didn't
know it at the time, so she got a ton
of calls and she's like, what's going on. I was like,
you're you're a realtor, so you understand, you know the lingo.
I'm just kind of trying to just make things happen
in the back end, and so that's kind of how
we got started, and we flipped our first house. We'd

(29:39):
made about fifteen thousand dollars on that flip, just flipping
the contract, literally double closing same day and not doing
any fix up. And so then I was like, geez,
that was interesting, So let's learn to try to scale this.
So then I started bringing on a sales rep and
then we started building a team, and fast forward to today,
we've done over twelve hundred of those on the real
estate side.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
So I have a question, Jay, So a lot of
people are great at doing something like maybe being in
real estate or starting a business, the next step always
seems to be hiring. So how did you make the
transition from building kind of a solo entrepreneur or a
couple entrepreneur to more of a business owner and you know,

(30:24):
bringing people in. How did that work for you?

Speaker 5 (30:27):
Well, I mean at the time I didn't really I
knew I didn't want to be going out to all
these houses and actually trying to do the underwriting all that,
So I was really wanting to try to train somebody
in that capacity. So I think when you look at
your business, you can break it down to just sales
and ops. Sales and ops, those are the two basic fundamentals.
Now marketing is part of sales, and OPS kind of

(30:48):
takes care of everything else as far as the oil
and the engine. But what's happening is I read a
book called Traction by Geno whickmen change my life forever,
because in the meantime, I was just in my head
far as how I wanted to build this out and
the systems and the processes around it. But reading that
book Traction allowed me to kind of understand what the
entrepreneurial operating system look like that you know, talks about

(31:11):
and that's a cadence that we use from our meetings
to how we run our accountability chart, to the functions
to how we just operate as a company. Since I
read that book in twenty seventeen, so that allowed me
to start thinking as an owner and not as a solopreneur.
And so then I started to figure out how to
start hiring and getting people excited about the mission that
we were trying to get on and the mountain we

(31:32):
were looking to climb, and bringing everybody into that so
we're all rolled in the same direction. So that was
definitely a pivotal moment is reading that book and learning
that you can apply this to all these types of businesses.
But now I've got a framework that I could launch
from and kind of start building these other businesses out of.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Didn't you find it kind of terrifying to hire somebody
else and have to trust them, and then, of course
if they screw up, you're the one who gets the
fallout from that. Richard's had success and some not so
successful experiences with hiring people. How do you handle how
do you manage that? I think that's a real hard

(32:10):
thing for entrepreneurs to do.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
The first thing you got to start thinking about is
building out systems and processes. Okay, so just bringing somebody
into your world and kind of just saying, hey, do
what I do and learn how I do it. It's
not the right way. So what we did initially is,
like we had, we had to bring in what was
the framework, What are the activities that this individual or
this role or function needs to do? Great? Now, what

(32:32):
are the metrics behind it? What's the scorecard, who's keeping track?

Speaker 2 (32:36):
What's the number?

Speaker 5 (32:37):
And so then being able to have numbers and metrics
that then you could manage your business from scorecards. That
takes all the you know, gray out of it. You know,
he's a likable guy, but he's just not converting. No,
we look at conversion all the way down to you
know what that looks like on a percentage basis, and
either you're on or you're off. And if you're off,
let's get you back on. If you continue to say

(32:59):
off and off, and often you're a sales rep, then
maybe this is not a fit for you. Maybe should
go over to the OPS team. But I think it's
really about building out a process that's easy to follow,
keeping it simple. At times I've made it too complicated,
and we go back always to just keeping it so simple.
For those particular functions, what are the three, maybe four
key responsibility areas that are associated with that function? And

(33:23):
then what are the maybe two or three key KPIs
key performance indicators associated with that? And then it's just
training and manage. I mean, managing people is not easy.
I mean that's the hardest thing because you know, what
you tend to find, especially as an entrepreneur, is that
you know people are not going to be on that
journey with you forever. Right, things change, you know, life,

(33:43):
events occur, people lead, people come, and so it's maintaining
that focus and having those standards in place in those
processes that you can bring people in, get people up
to speed, having them contribute, and then also having them
a part of the game.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think too, it's a part of it is just experience, right,
I mean, you figure out what works and what doesn't,
and when you're hiring somebody. Hiring is sort of a
black art, you know, in the sense that they can
look Somebody can look great on paper and show up
and then they're just not a good fit, right. And
then there's other times when we've taken a flyer on

(34:22):
somebody who for some reason they didn't really look that great,
but we thought we'd take a chance and it worked
out amazing. So I find that it's unpredictable. Now as
we get more mature, we have more people inputting on
the decisions, and maybe you get a better, more rounded
decision when that happens. But it's still not a perfect system,

(34:44):
but it is. I think when I was first starting out,
I made a lot of hiring mistakes. I trusted everybody.
Somebody said they could do something in the interview, I
trusted them. That's because I would never say something in
an interview that I couldn't do. But it's not always
the case, right, and it took a while for me
to learn that lesson the hard way many times.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
So, Jase, you've had other companies, did you sell them?
Did you have successful exits with them?

Speaker 5 (35:11):
We've had successful as it's with our funds that investors
invest in the companies operating companies we still maintain. So
the real estate company, the Mineral and Loyalty Acquisition Company,
and the capital raising company are all still, you know,
part of the Rising Phoenix umbrella. But we create different
unique offerings that people can invest directly into. And now

(35:32):
those are the ones that you would look to go
on and sell to somebody you know, as those funds.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
But true, So what are you going to do when
you retire?

Speaker 5 (35:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
You're not going to retire Grill and Oil.

Speaker 5 (35:45):
I'm a lifer in the game. No, I mean, my
wife and I started a foundation last year. We're pretty
excited about that. Still trying to figure out exactly what
we want that to do within our community, but that's
something that we're passionate about. My boys are nine and twelve.
They're kind of got this entrepreneur bug with what they're doing.
My son goes out on powerwashes trash cans in the
neighborhood and charges people. So I'm excited to kind of

(36:07):
bring them on board and talk to them about what
we're doing to kind of pass the torch. But I
don't know. I mean, I'm having a blast kind of
doing what we do. I don't see an end in
anytime near.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, we don't see an end inside either. So anyway,
how do people get a hold of you?

Speaker 5 (36:23):
You can go to our website www dot Rising dash
or hyphen Phoenix dot com. Learn about what we do,
how we do it. You'll see the different strategies that
we plan, and of course you can schedule a call
with someone on our team and top more if that's
of interest. Also just somem on LinkedIn under Jas Graham.

Speaker 4 (36:41):
Great, thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Jas Graham with Rising Phoenix Resources. Really insightful. It's time
now for our AI segment, Yes, take it away.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Now it is time for real AI use cases Business
owners round table. I'm going to ask everybody here one
way that they're using AI in their business, and then
we're going to talk about all the other ways they're
doing it, but everybody just do one way to start.
So I am going to start with you. Jas Graham
with Risingphoenix dot Com. What is one way that you're

(37:12):
using AI in your business today?

Speaker 5 (37:14):
We are using AI in a few different places, but
one that's really kind of created an impact directly is
in chat GPT. There's a way that you can set
up your own GPT knowledge base where you can load
the GPT up. So let me give you an example.
I've got a sales team. We've loaded the knowledge base
up into this GPT to be able to grade calls,

(37:37):
provide feedback, provide an email back to the person that
they talk to based on the conversation that they had.
And so now they're getting real time feedback on their
sales calls because we've created a knowledge base and said, hey,
here's what we're looking for, here's how the call is
supposed to sound, here's what's supposed to happen, and here's
the grading breakout. And so now they're able to use

(37:57):
that at real time to be able to get feedback
and be able to execute and have conversations with people.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
Excellent. Thank you. Amy Scrugs with Amyscrugsmedia dot com. What's
fun way that you're using AI in your business?

Speaker 6 (38:10):
I would say the most important for me is the
repurposing of content for not only myself with my clients,
being able to really grab those key soundbites and key clips,
whether it be from our coaching so that I can
send that to them for their review and they're repurposing
in their learning, or if it's being used for the
public facing for social media, their LinkedIn, for emails, whatever
that is. Being able to use AI to recreate and

(38:34):
repurpose really great content and soundbites is a game changer.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
Jackie Jacola with Everycat dot org, what's one way you're
using AI in your business?

Speaker 7 (38:43):
To help with meeting summaries and distilling some of our
summaries and that is a huge time saber from meeting
recaps and follow ups, and it really is of good
use for our.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Tiny little staff at our nonprofit. Doctor Maggie Plisser, what's
one way you're using AI?

Speaker 10 (39:01):
Yeah, I would say when I'm contributing to articles on
behalf of every Cat, I'll write my own response to
whatever questions we're getting from the journalist, and then I'll
also do a search to see maybe if I missed
a resource, but also how does AI do their formatting
on the same topic, So it kind of helps me
to strengthen my own voice.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
An article excellent Richard Gearheart with gar Heart, MA, what's
one way you're using AI?

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Well, I was just in a bunch of meetings this
week about all of our AI processes and I'm totally confused.
I'll tell you, this stuff can really go to the
end degree. We're trying to use automation to help us
with a lot of our administrative stuff, and all I
can say is AI takes time sometimes. I mean, if

(39:49):
you're using it for content generation, yeah you get an
instant answer, and that's great, But if you're like using
it to look at different system So we've got our
time tracking system, and we've got our file system, and
we've got our docket system, and there isn't a system
out there that covers all of those. So we're trying

(40:10):
to pull it all together with AI and integrate it.
And we've been working at this a while and every
time they say they have it ready to go, they say, oh,
just one more thing we have to change.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
So I've been in some of those meetings. It's pretty detailed.
You have to tell it every tiny little iota thing.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, and you know there's like with some of it
is it's not always consistent. I mean, if you ask
the same question twice, you get two different answers, right,
And so you're using it with data and stuff, you
have to be really careful that you set it up
so that you get it done, in it consistent.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Okay, we'll come back to you.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
No, it's okay, I'm done.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
So for me. Elizabeth Gearheart with gear Meeting of Studios.
I have a meetup group called Podcasts and YouTube Creators Community,
and we have a Facebook group and people ask for
us to do a demonstration on how to start a
YouTube channel. Well, I have a bunch of YouTube channels,
but I hadn't started one for a few months, and
I thought, well, you know, there might be some stuff
I don't know. So I asked Gemini and I watched

(41:09):
a couple of videos. It's like, yeah, I kind of
already know all this stuff. But what Gemini told me
that was super good was if you're going to walk
people through this it's on zoom but also in person,
we're doing this hybrid thing. Then why don't you start
the channel and pre record it, like screen record yourself
doing the channel, and then when you have you know,
because you have to wait for twoth factor authentication on

(41:31):
the stuff, then you can edit that and then you
can put a really polished product up there for people
to watch during your meetup, so they're not sitting around
waiting for the two factor authentication to come through. And
I thought that was really smart.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
That is really smart. It feels like four factor authentication.
Now every time you try to sign in is like
you got to get the password, you got to go,
and then as you put something else in and you
get caught in this infinite loop. By the time you're
done actually authenticating and you get into the software, it's
time to go home.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
So how else are you guys using it? Anybody just
chime in?

Speaker 6 (42:03):
My daughter teases me that, she says, I'm having an
emotional relationship with AI because I utilize it in so
many different things. ANYAI platform that's available that I see
is credible, that works. I use it for everything, even
maintaining you know, my daily journals and my daily protein counsels.
It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Well, thank you all so very much. This has been
real AI use cases Business Owners Round Table. You're listening
to the Passes to Profit Show with Richard Elizabeth Garhart.
Our special guest today Jays Graham, and we will be
right back.

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Speaker 3 (44:35):
Forty Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Quick shout out to our friends at WPSEE fourteen fifty
AM and one oh seven point one FM in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Thanks for listening and if you're new here. Passage to
Profit is a top ranked entrepreneur podcast and radio show
heard in thirty eight markets across the country. It's a
place where founders share what really works. Now it's time

(45:04):
for intellectual property news. Many times we've talked about Taylor
Swift suing somebody for intellectual property infringement, whether it's a
trademark or a copyright. As a big brand and a megastar,
she's always enforcing her rights. But this time she's the
one getting sued, which, let's be honest, probably doesn't happen
very often in her world. If you're a Taylor Swift fan,

(45:27):
you know that she recently released an album entitled The
Life of a Showgirl. But somebody else has a similar
trademark registration and is suing Taylor Swift. The suit was
brought by Maren Wade, who owns the trademark Confessions of
a Showgirl. Maren has been touring a show under that
name for the last twelve years, and in it she

(45:48):
talks about the candid and often humorous realities of life
in entertainment. So she didn't just think of this yesterday.
This has been out there for a while. There is
an irony here because the US Trademark Office actually blocked
Taylor Swift from getting a trademark on Life of a
Showgirl for music performances and live entertainment services because of

(46:11):
Wade's earlier mark, which is probably the first time somebody
at the USPTO told Taylor Swift. No, it's hard to
believe that the US Patent and Trademark Office would deny
Taylor Swift anything. Personally, I don't think that Life of
a Showgirl and Confession of a Showgirl are so similar
that it would cause confusion in the public. Two trademarks

(46:33):
are considered confusingly similar if there's similarity in sight, sound,
and meaning, and to me, the marks look different, sound different,
and mean different things. How could someone confuse life with
confessions unless they're really having a long day or just
listening maybe to too much Taylor Swift. The examiner at

(46:54):
the Trademark Office was obviously not a Taylor Swift fan.
Lawsuit has been filed. The focus shifts from what happened
at the trademark office to whether the public would actually
be confused between Marion Wade and Taylor Swift. While Wade
is not as well known as Taylor Swift, she does
have an impressive background TV appearances, touring with football legendary Bradshaw,

(47:20):
singing backup for Wayne Newton, and performing with Chris Stapleton
at the Country Music Awards. So this isn't exactly an
unknown act stepping out of nowhere, and it's hard to
believe that Taylor Swift's attorneys weren't aware of Wade's mark.
They would have done a search before filing, Wade's mark

(47:40):
would have shown up, and Swift likely moved forward assuming
that the marks were different, which is exactly what trademark
lawyers get paid to argue about. What's fascinating is that
after Swift's album was released, Wade actually appeared to embrace
Taylor Swift and the album them on social media, which

(48:02):
either shows good sportsmanship or a really patient litigation strategy.
So now the big question will Wade have the resources
in the stamina to take on Taylor Swift's massive entertainment empire.
Is this just a publicity move and what a jury
really believe that Life of a Showgirl and Confessions of

(48:24):
a Showgirl are confusingly similar, because if they do confusingly similar,
just got a whole lot more confusing. We'll keep you
posted and this has been Richard Gerhart for Intellectual Property News.
And if you have an idea or an invention you
want to protect, the team at your heart law helps

(48:45):
entrepreneurs turn ideas into protected assets. You can visit learn
more about patents dot com or learn more about trademarks
dot com for a free consultation and practical guides to
get you started. Later, we have Secret of the Entrepreneurial
Mind coming up, what successful founders think about that most
people never see.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Now. We are so pleased to welcome back Amy Scrugs.
We had her on the show a few years ago.
So impressive and she helps people with their media appearances.
Welcome Amy. Tell us about your journey because I know
you've been through some things and what you're doing now.

Speaker 6 (49:22):
It's been an interesting journey since we were last together.
And I still have to say that I love the
clips in the interview that we've done before because I
still use them all the time when I talk about
repurposing and using those soundbites, we did some really good stuff.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
You've always been one of our favorite guests, so thanks
for coming back.

Speaker 6 (49:39):
Yeah so much. I feel the same way about this show,
So when you guys reach out, I'm like, absolutely, and
I'm here for a different twist on it today. Yes,
I love speaking about media coaching and helping professionals be
more articulate and speaking. But I was thrown a curveball
after we were last together, and it's that my family
needed me. We have a lot of kids. I have

(50:00):
parent like many do. My youngest was just going off
to college. As I realized that my father's advancement in
his Alzheimer's disease had gone to a next level, and
I went up during the holidays about two hours north
where I live to visit and saw that his needs
were beyond what my mother was able to handle. And
she didn't realize yet. She was in it so much

(50:22):
she couldn't see from the top down. And it was
an immediate response that says, this has to be handled now.
And here I had my business, I had speaking engagements,
I was working full time with clients, but my family
needed me, and I literally stepped away from this desk,
packed up the car, and moved in with my parents, Yes,
fifty something living with my parents. That was a whole

(50:44):
different video series. Living with my parents to care for
my father with Alzheimer's. The caregiving crisis was immediately opened
up to me because I love being educated and empowered,
and so minute I knew I was going into this,
I engaged in every possible resource that was of Alzheimer's education,
caregiving support groups online, Facebook groups that were other caregivers

(51:05):
and you know, oh, what do I do? How do
I handle this? And that really was eye opening to
find out how many families are impacted by this. I
spent a year and a half, almost two years with
Dad and walking beside him, and I decided to take
my joy and media and combine these two things at
this time, and I turned the cameras on in pigtails

(51:28):
and braids and no makeup in the trenches with Dad
because my dad is very He was wonderful and joyful
and loved to play, and I love to play. So
we decided to make it his best last days ever.
And I recorded our journey in play and in engaging
with this disease and working with it not against it.
Our carpool karaoke. We called it carpool caregiver karaoke. I

(51:51):
had the baking series, crafts projects in the yard, We
caught squirrels, We did everything, and it was the most amazing,
life changing journey I could ever experience. However, we want
to go with this in this discussion because it also
completely annihilated my business. When after he passed, I sat
down in a notebook on my desk still said December

(52:12):
twenty twenty three, and it was now mid twenty twenty five.
I said, Okay, what do I do? What do I do?
At the time, our dad was life changing and he
made an impact on people's lives. He had so many followers.
He went viral. He was hilarious, he was sweet, he
was loving, and I did everything with him and for
him up until his last breath, which was the hardest,

(52:33):
most beautiful moment in my life. What was his name,
Tom Scruggs. My dad from the time I was little,
said I was going to be another barber Mandreu. When
I grew up, he knew I was going to be
a performer and a singer. We loved music together. That
was our thing. I would go with him to the
hardware store and work on the cars in the garage.
I would be out in the yard with him. We
would laugh together. He was very very loving, very supporting,

(52:55):
very playful as I am as well. We were both jokesters,
and we're both very klutzy, and so we had had
in common our love Johnny Cash, our love for country music.
I have a picture right here on my wall if
he and I standing together with Clint Black in my
first big national show. He was there with me for
all of that, always supportive of my kids, and so
when it was time for me to care for him,

(53:17):
he still knew who I was. When I got there
about five six months in, he really didn't remember who
I was, but he knew he loved me, and there
was this twinkle in his eye and he would say,
you're really good at this, and he'd say I love
you so much, sweetheart. But then he would say what's
her name?

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Again?

Speaker 6 (53:36):
That was heartbreaking to go through that, But it's okay,
it's okay. I wouldn't tell him no for anything. He
wanted to play, he wanted to do something, he wanted
to go out in the yard. Yes, we're going to
do all of those things. I took him on his
last kind of bucket list experiences. We went to the
casino the last time I pushed him in the wheelchair.
I took him to the restroom. He just pushed buttons.

(53:57):
We did the penny slots, but he just pushed buttons
and he had a blast. We would go to the
airport and watch the airplanes and have lunch. And I
took him out into the community every day. He would
shake hands and meet people. Every checker at every store,
at Target, the grocery store, all of the places we
frequent at every little restaurant I took them to. They

(54:17):
knew us, and he loved it. He would smile and
people would say, oh, my goodness, you guys look so happy.
And I tried to show the joy in dementia care.
As hard as it was, there were so many beautiful
moments in What I realized is I had an opportunity
to live with him, partner with him, and play with
him and be just a kid. I wasn't worried about

(54:39):
the phone ringing or my business because I had to
throw it out the window. I had to let that
go and Sae. I wouldn't change this for anything. I
wouldn't change a minute of that time with him, no regrets,
and I would actually ask every entrepreneur if it's possible,
even if it's just a day, that you leave it
all on the ground, and I say, I just want
to be me and I want to play for a
day because I found my self again. And I think

(55:01):
if I hadn't found myself, I wouldn't be in the
position to have reintegrated into my business with such new
insight and new joy in it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
I saw a LinkedIn post by someone who's been on
the show, Jessin Fergheezy I think it was. And he
took a week and no electronics, no social no computer,
no anything. He hung out with his kids and his
family and they just went on adventures. And he said
he came back so strong from that, like you're ready
to create and really go again. I do think that's

(55:29):
an important thing for entrepreneurs.

Speaker 6 (55:31):
It is, and I didn't realize I was forced into it,
but I've been running and chasing since I was eighteen
years old. Just go go, go, chaste, taste, do do, climb, climb,
be coop, you know. Go through the recession, all right,
rebuild again. Rebuild again. I don't remember a time since
I was a kid that that all stopped and not
all didn't exist, and all of a sudden because of

(55:52):
being in this disease with him and finding the ways
to make it the most joyful, playful experience ever. I mean,
we were still singing his last few days alive, whatever
little strength he had, he was singing with me at
said and it was beautiful. It reinvented me in a
different way as well, and I feel like I'm ready

(56:13):
to be back, better and stronger. It took me about
eight months after he passed before I could even face
going back in. I wasn't ready. I actually was having
a hard time speaking, which as a keynote speaker, is
not a good thing. I was actually really stuttering and
struggling speaking, and I realized it was just the deep Greek.
Because not only did I lose Dad, I lost my
identity as a caregiver. I would tell people I'm a

(56:34):
recovering caregiver. There was an identity crisis because it became
my business. I put just as much into running that
his doctor's appointments, his plans, his activities, our daily agenda
as I did my business. And it was such an
identity swap there for me.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
I remember when my mom was going through her last
stages of life. She didn't have dementia so much, but
she was in the hospital a lot, and she was
in a coma. Elizabeth had to watch the kids and
get them to school. I was just starting out at
the law firm. I remember sitting in her emergency room
while she was in a coma, you know, typing emails

(57:09):
and stuff. But at least I was there and I
was able to spend time with her when she was cogent,
and I'm glad that I was able to do that.
And it wasn't always easy. I mean sometimes I was
kind of irritated about having to take the time from
my other responsibilities. But in the end, I look back

(57:31):
at it and I say, well, you know, this was
something I'm glad that I did, and I know that
she was happy that I was there too. You know,
There's just that loyalty sometimes if you have a good
relationship with a parent, that sort of transcends all the
other things. And Amy, I think it shows a lot
of devotion and loyalty to your dad to have gone

(57:51):
that route and supported him for such a long time.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
I think it shows a huge strength of character. Really,
So Jace, do you have any questions or comments for Amy,
like how did you put your life back together afterwards?

Speaker 11 (58:03):
No?

Speaker 5 (58:04):
I mean I think that's I mean, that's an amazing story
that you took that time and spent that time with
your father like you did. Unfortunately, my father passed away
from a heart attack and you know, did not get
that opportunity to really spend that quality time with him.
So I just think that that is just an amazing story.
And you know what you did and how you supported
him during those times when you know he was confused

(58:25):
and scared and just to have you there to be
that just person, that that that rock, I know he
was comforted by that. So I'm very amazed by the story.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
Amy. How did you finally pick up the pieces and
start your business again? Did you do it one step
at a time?

Speaker 6 (58:41):
It was definitely one step at a time. That's a
lot of tears. And at one point I was just
going through the list of things. Okay, well, underwater basket
leaving sounds fun. Let's see what else, what other what
other careers could I do here? Because I really was
feeling that I was left behind. You can't be gone
that long and then just step back in and have

(59:02):
people go, oh, there you are. But I realized it
by putting our journey online, by sharing the real, raw,
vulnerable experience of what we were going through, that everybody
was connecting and resonating with me and sharing me on
the whole way. That when I said, Okay, I'm ready,
I had to put my hand out and say I'm ready,
I'm ready. Who can I work with? And I'm telling

(59:22):
you the phone rang. It was like it was a miracle.
But it was just this beautiful like I wasn't forgotten.
And I think as an entrepreneur to realize that decisions
that I made in my business ten years ago, I
got to reap back today by being able to plug
back in, laying the right foundations, doing honest work, working
with people with integrity is what allowed me to come that.

(59:47):
And I wasn't forgotten. And I still made a difference
in Dad's life. We made a difference in others' lives
and any little business. I actually the first client I
had back with someone I had known for fifteen years,
and she was so wonderful and she called me in August.
She said, Amy, I need you out of your funk
because I need you for exactly okay, And it was

(01:00:07):
so eye opening. Okay, I'm coming back. It's another moment
of Okay, I'm able to speak again, and I'm back,
and I'm so appreciative that your show is still here
to say welcome back, So thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Which did you find more challenging being a caregiver or
being an entrepreneur?

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
The entrepreneur is still harder. The caregiving was tough and
a different way. The entrepreneur is that it all falls
on me. I didn't have a team to sit here.
Can you beat me while I'm gone? Can you go
speak for me while I'm gone? I think the entrepreneurship
is scarier. It's scarier again as I'm back in it.
It is definitely the scarier part. Caner giving was just

(01:00:43):
nothing but love and life and joy and beauty. And
I think the entrepreneurship is really not for the famous but.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Always have all of those things, right. That doesn't have
joy and beauty every day.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
But you don't know what's going to happen as an entrepreneur.
I mean you pretty much knew what was going to
happen with your father's heartbreaking as it was. But as
an entrepreneur, you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.

Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
You know, as an entrepreneur, you don't have those resources
necessarily if you're working for somebody that you can take
that family leave or whatever those benefits are. It's on
us and so as a community, how do we change
the narrative to start supporting entrepreneurs more? As caregiving is
becoming a larger crisis in today's especially in our country,
you got one in four adults are a caregiver.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
So I was going to ask, I mean, what advice
would you give to entrepreneurs who are facing the same
sort of situation. They're moving along and all of a sudden, bingo,
you've got a sick parent or somebody that needs your attention.
What advice would you give to them?

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
Start having conversations now, don't wait till your loved one
is in the point where they need it. Then there
should be conversation with siblings. I had a sibling who
works at w two full time career, so who was
unable to help, and my mom's as well. He has
a job, well, so did I well know, it's just
your business, So there was a communication there as to

(01:02:08):
who should be helping, of what the priority was. And
I think having communications is a family with your parents,
with your children's state when this happens, because it's not
if it's when when someone has a need in your family,
Because it's going to happen. What is our response, what systems?
Who can give up? What where can we make those adjustments?
How could a business still continue? The conversation should have

(01:02:28):
happened three years ago, four years ago, not when I
went into a burning building, as I described it. I
feel like I just dropped everything and locked into a
burning building. So I think finding out what can your
family do, who can do what, when can they do it?
And already have a system in play so that you
are not just thrown into the wolves and your entire
company or business or whatever you do is throw them

(01:02:51):
to the wayside. Even a nonprofit, who's going to run
it if you're not there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
I do think though, as an entrepreneur, you are somewhat
at an advantage if you need to take a couple
of years off, because you can come back, as you said,
and maybe if you hadn't come back to speaking, maybe
you would have come back to I don't know building
AI agents or something. Who knows Amy Scrugs. So impressive,
Amy Scrugs Media.

Speaker 6 (01:03:14):
You can literally find me on any platform under Amy
Scrugs Media, the website, any social media handles. I am
the easiest to find. Just google Amy Scruggs and you
can't miss me.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
Thank you so much. Amy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Passage to Profit with Richard Analysabeth Gerhart.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
And now we're on to our next guest. We have
two guests that work together at every Cat dot org.
And for those of you have never listened to this
or seen the show before, I am an avid cat lover.
I was born with a cat.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
In my arms.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I can't remember a time in my life when there
wasn't a cat hanging around. Yeah, anyways, being.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Born with a cat, that's quite a trick.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Well, you know you're right. So we have Jackie Etchikola
and doctor Maggie Pliss there with every Cat dot Org. Welcome.
I am so excited to hear about your research that's
helping cats and other animals. So please tell us what
you're doing. Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:04:05):
We are with Every Cat Health Foundation. But I have
to ask you a question first, how many cats do
you share a home with currently if you were born
holding one.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
Right now. We have more than Richard and I have
ever had together in our married life. We have four.
We had a cat pass away. We had three. We
had a cat pass away. We went to the shelter
just to look on Memorial Day weekend a year ago,
so year ago, and came home with two little black kittens.
We're not taking a back, so we have four. Now.

(01:04:36):
It's a lot. It's a lot, but they love us.

Speaker 7 (01:04:39):
We are Every Cat Health Foundation is a sixty year
old nonprofit foundation, which is a good long run and
we hope to be around for sixty more because we
focus on all cats everywhere throughout the world. There are
tens and millions of cats and homes throughout the world,
many different breeds. Self also have three related black cats

(01:05:02):
that came to me via a good story, but we'll
save it for another day. But we fund research behind
everything that goes into keeping cats healthy and happy. From nutrition,
I mean, not that long ago you'd go to the
store and you'd buy a can of food that said
dog and cat food. Cats have very specific nutritional requirements

(01:05:26):
unlike other species, so we funded research back in that
might be before the early nineties, but that's as far
back as my memory is serving right now, just the
fact that cats need a certain levels of touring in
their food or else really bad things are going to
happen to them. So looking at behavior, kidney disease, cancer,

(01:05:48):
really anything of vaccines and doctor plus there can talk
more about that. But as much as we all love cats,
we need to realize that their medicine and the science
behind that has to come from somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Are there a lot of human based medicines that can
be used for cats? I know that sometimes animals can
take human based medicines, but I don't know about cats.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
Well, Max is taking one right now, JACKI or Maggie,
do you want to answer it?

Speaker 10 (01:06:18):
So, yes, a lot of medicines on the human side
do trickle down or come over to veterinary medicine and
help a variety of species, including cats.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
I have to tell a little bit of Max's story.
I actually started a podcast because we could not find
a cure for Max. He was scratching. Well, first of all,
I got him from ASPCA and I thought he was
in New Jersey, but he came up on a van
from Kentucky and he was almost dead. I didn't know it. Like,
he was so small and he's for anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
You picked him up from a truck driver in a
Walmart parking lot at four am.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
Yeah, they were making their rounds anyway. I had to
pay for the gas money too, But anyway, so I
started feeding him. I took him to the vat you
start getting his rounds vaccines. He started scratching all the
fur off his face and scratching his ears. I kept
track of it on an Excel spreadsheet. There was one
month I either called the vet, changed medicine, or took
him to the VET twenty eight times, and finally found

(01:07:14):
this VET that is an allergist dermatologist for cats. It's
not that much more expensive than the other vets. And
he found some medication that helped put him, actually put
him on I think bena drill or something, a little
bit of benageryld on something. Now he's on a new
medication that was just that came out for dogs, to
your point, and it's off label for cats, but it's

(01:07:36):
really working for him. But he's also taking an anti
allergy human medicine too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
That cat gets more medical care than I do.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
That poor cat was on so many different medications. His
first year of life was just horrible until we found
the solution and then this new medicine came along, which
is even better. But is that what you guys are
doing research on to your mention of extra label use?

Speaker 10 (01:07:57):
So in the vet world, it's hard to know everything
about every yet we want to help every species.

Speaker 6 (01:08:02):
So yes we do.

Speaker 10 (01:08:03):
Sometimes there'll be anecdotal stories vetsels share with vets, but
to have the proof of what works, what side effects,
that is part of the research we do in our
specific species cats, How shouldn't that drug be used beyond
just kind of what we anecdotally know?

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
And then how do you get the information out to
vets so they know? Do you have a newsletter or
do you have a website? How to communicate that.

Speaker 7 (01:08:26):
The way our foundation works is we am taking a
bit of a step back, but we put out requests
for proposals on cat health research several times a year,
and we usually receive those proposals back from universities, from veterinarians,
from perhaps masters students. The proposals come back to us

(01:08:48):
and we have a scientific review committee that kind of
ranks those proposals based on the specific cycle of the
year and what every cat health foundation is looking for
in funding research are the most innovative leaps in cat
health that could affect the most cats. Now there are

(01:09:09):
different layers upon that, but we're really willing to take
a leap and to find a discovery that's going to
lead to a cure or a vaccine and the translational
piece of this that I'm kind of going to bring
back to your original question about human medicine for cats.

(01:09:29):
Sometimes we accidentally are funding research that leads to accidental
cures for humans, and we can get more into that.
But as the research happens, those investigators will give us
progress reports. Does research need to continue, did we discover
something that was unexpected? Will have webinars. They're often published papers.

(01:09:54):
There are some recent articles I know in Science magazine
and also other peer reviewed journals.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
So we try.

Speaker 7 (01:10:02):
And distill the information coming back from the researchers and
broadcast through a variety of ways to reach everybody who
even thinks they might love a cat someday, to pet parents,
to veterinary professionals, to pharmaceutical and food companies, because we
all want to share and help elevate how we care

(01:10:24):
for cats.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
So if I was very grateful that we found this
medication for Max, I should probably donate to you because
it was probably research that you were funding, or somebody
like you was funding that led to this discovery that
this medication could help my cat.

Speaker 7 (01:10:40):
Right, the inventions have to come from somewhere, Yes, but
I find it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:44):
I was going to ask you, and I'm glad you
brought it up. I was going to ask you, do
you ever find that you're doing research, maybe you develop
a drug and it's working well in cats, and you're like,
you know, this is the same mechanism as in humans,
like maybe it would work for people, And you said
you are finding that. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:11:01):
To Jackie, use the word translational medicine. So some of
the ways every cat's work has helped in this capacity
is we recently funded a studies published in science looking
at the genetics and cats when they have changes in
certain types of cancer that is showing promise to potentially
help treat human cancer, specifically memory cancer. There was a

(01:11:24):
movie with Tom Hanks and a cat in it. The
man had hyperterrific cardiomyopathy, a heart condition. A lot of
the research done in that condition in cats, because it's
very common in cats has helped the human world. Feline
infectious paraitonitis FIPS kound of the way you might here
referred to is a mutation in a coronavirus that has

(01:11:45):
been fatal for cats for years.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
Decades of research, millions.

Speaker 10 (01:11:50):
Of dollars has gone to trying to find a cure
for this disease in cats. All of that research into
that feline coronavirus was a springboard when COVID became an
issue here. So definitely our species helping other species beyond
just keeping your cat healthy and furthering the human animal bond.
It's the species helping species. You never really know what

(01:12:12):
you'll find and who it might help.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Are cats smarter than dogs?

Speaker 4 (01:12:16):
Well, that depends on who you ask.

Speaker 6 (01:12:19):
You.

Speaker 7 (01:12:20):
Each species has their their own smarts in their in
their own ways and adapts to their environment. Cats are unique, right,
They're very clever. They do mask their illness quite well.
Some can be very stoic, some can be playful. Sometimes
the changes as they age can appear a little less

(01:12:40):
dramatic because they tend to want to take care of themselves,
but they really are relying on you to help take
care of them. I really it just depends on the individual.
But I think I love all animals. I have dogs.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
That that was a very diplomatic answer, But we want
to know what you really think that's smarter than dogs.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
She's not gonna say.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
I mean, I think cats are pretty smart. What's so
interesting about them is that they can be so random
in their behavior, Like all of a sudden, one day
they'll be in a spot that they've never been it
and you've had this cat for ten years, and all
of a sudden, they're, you know, hiding under the sofa
or sitting in a corner, and you look at it

(01:13:24):
and you're like, holy cow, why are you there? You know,
you never went there before. But they seem to have
that kind of behavior well the biggest part of their
charm in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (01:13:33):
Yeah, it is interesting that the biology is close enough
to humans that there is some overlap. There is there
a disease that you have funded that you've actually been
able to cure or at least find a vaccine or
treatment for.

Speaker 10 (01:13:46):
So again, that feline infectious paratonitis. All the work we've
done in other places, I've contributed to that body of work.
It is now treatable. Yes, And so I've been out
of that school.

Speaker 5 (01:13:56):
It'll be twelve.

Speaker 10 (01:13:57):
Years in May. I remember having to give a kit
in peace because it was all that we could do.
And now it can be cured. So that's huge for
those people, those pets. And then just the research on
the virus.

Speaker 4 (01:14:10):
Are you developing new vaccines? Are you finding people that
are developing new vaccines for the cats?

Speaker 10 (01:14:15):
We do get some applications on people looking to yes,
advance the efficacy of certain vaccines. So all the vaccines
your cats need. Those diseases are still around, but we
always would like things to have less side effects or
be easier to administer.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
Things like that. What about allergies. Max has an autoimmune
condition and all we can do is give them stuff
that makes them not feel itchy. Well, can't cure it
right now.

Speaker 10 (01:14:40):
I had a cat with dust MTE allergies and I
was giving him shots just like I take I have
treue net allergies to build up a tolerance against it.
So yeah, the fuel in dermatology is veterinary dermatology is
advancing and more things are making their way to cats.
So we always say cats are not small dogs. They
are their own species, but they are getting more unique

(01:15:01):
care as we can put resources towards learning more about.

Speaker 4 (01:15:04):
Them and how much does the food affect them.

Speaker 10 (01:15:07):
Animals can have food allergies, so there can be just
food they don't tolerate well, like some foods don't sit
well with us. There can be allergies specifically to certain
proteins in their food, So it's a way allergies can
manifest and respiratory reactions, say candles or things in the
animal's environment gi upset or the skin. So allergies can

(01:15:27):
present a variety of ways, and they can definitely have
reactions to the foods they eat.

Speaker 7 (01:15:31):
And now if you look at the varieties of foods
that are available for cats that weren't even available three
five years ago. I have two of my three cats
are on prescription diets. The other one still kind of
likes strung food. But nevertheless, I.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Have no idea what's in their cat food. But they
won't eat the super healthy cat food. We tried giving
Max every kind of protein we could he ate kangaroo
for a while kangaroo and it still didn't work and
it was expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Real kangaroo.

Speaker 4 (01:16:03):
Yeah, they make that for cats. The freeze dry pellets
for cats to have these bad outs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
Yeah, alligator is another one.

Speaker 10 (01:16:10):
So I'm in South Louisiana and I'm kind of thinking, oh,
you have pet food. We have access to alligator farms
around here, so yeah, novel proteins can be well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Never eat cat food.

Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
Don't say never. Never say never. Had more cat food
in the house than real food.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Anyway, plenty of kangaroo in the house. I didn't know
that until right this minute.

Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
Jackie et Takola, Doctor Maggie was there with every cat
dot org. What do you think causes people to donate
the most?

Speaker 10 (01:16:37):
I think after a loss of a cat, we get
some people reaching out, or when a cat is ill,
they're looking into where his work being done, or who's
trying to learn more about this thing that you know,
really impacted my loved one. So I think we do
get a lot of people donating in memory of their
cats or to champion a cause that, if we knew
more about, could have prolonged the life of their cats.

Speaker 4 (01:16:58):
That's good. What about people who us away and don't
want flowers or gifts? Do they put you as somebody
to donate to? Yes, indeed, they do.

Speaker 7 (01:17:06):
Most of our donations come from individuals, whether they are
with us now are leaving a memory, and they have
passed on people who are passionate about cats or have
family members that we're passionate about cats. We really have
opportunities to be involved with every cat in any way.
And as Richard asked, we do have volunteer opportunities because

(01:17:29):
we do have information booths and ask the vet sessions
and talk about our research at various cat festivals or
cat shows or even in concert with veterinary clinics. And again,
tens of millions of cats in the world, and you can't,
as we know, have just ones. I have three four

(01:17:49):
home sous to boot.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
Do you sell any merchandise?

Speaker 7 (01:17:57):
We do have a store online at Every Cat Yes
we do. We have T shirts and some mugs and
some other fun swag to help support research.

Speaker 4 (01:18:06):
Excellent. Well, thank you very much. So people can just
go on your website everycat dot org and buy merch
or donate. They can great, Thank you very much. You're
listening to the Passage of Profit show with Riginaliz with
your heart our special guest today Jays Graham, and we'll
be right back.

Speaker 8 (01:18:21):
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Speaker 5 (01:19:20):
It's Passage to Profit.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Alicia Morrissey is our programming director at Passage to Profit
and She's also a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can scroll
to the bottom of the passage profitshow dot com website
and check out her album.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
It is now time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind.
We're gonna start with jas Graham with Risingdashphoenix dot com. Jace,
what's a secret you can share with our audience?

Speaker 5 (01:19:49):
You know, I think you've got to have the right mindset.
Do not take a victim mindset ever. I think you
have to be proactive and understand that all this is
for a reason, and you're dealing with all kinds of
the unique changes and unique environments and decisions and pressure
and all that stuff, and take advantage and learn from
that stuff. I mean, you can connect the dots looking
backwards always right, but when you're in the heat of

(01:20:10):
it and the thick of it, it's not always easy
to see the trees in the forest. But I definitely
think not having that victim mindset is key. Early on,
I mean, I was washing cars, shine and shoes. I
had a landscaping business, and by the time I was
in a senior in high school, I had two four
man crews working for me, and I was just kind
of driving around and making sure the lawns were getting done.

(01:20:31):
So it turned into a pretty big business that actually
got me into Cornell University on a landscape architecture kind
of program. So it's kind of interesting you can connect
the dots looking backwards, but it's always kind of been
in my blood. And then had an opportunity in twenty sixteen,
I decided it was a good time to maybe start
my own career. I was scared to death. I run
scared every day as an entrepreneur. It's just part of

(01:20:53):
what goes along with it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
But I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:55):
I mean, I'm having a blast doing what we do.
I don't see an end in anytime near.

Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
I agree one hundred percent. Thank you and Amy Scrugs
with Amyscrugsmedia dot com. What's a secret you can share?

Speaker 6 (01:21:06):
I always tell myself that my future self will thank
me for this, even if it's a task I really
don't want to do, or a day that the phone
just doesn't ring or you can't reach anybody, but I'm
going to do it anyways. My future self will thank
me for this today, even if it doesn't make sense
right now. And I have found that to be true.
Probably ninety nine percent of the time, even if it's

(01:21:27):
what I consider a failure or a loss or letting
go of something because it's no longer a fit, my
future self thinked.

Speaker 4 (01:21:33):
Thank you, so Jackie out Jacola. What's a secret you
can share?

Speaker 7 (01:21:38):
Find the joy in absolutely everything you're doing. It'll help
you keep focused with passion on mission. If a challenge
seems too tough to tackle, pause, figure out how tackling
it might just have a glimmer of fun associated with it,
because it no matter that the outcome, even if not

(01:21:59):
one that's persue, you will feel the joy and the
success of just the challenge.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Then excellent and doctor Maggie plus there also with everycat
dot org. What's the secret you can share?

Speaker 10 (01:22:10):
I would say, be humble, kind of know your weaknesses
and trust the right people, know who you are, Be
honest with who you are, and find who compliments you
the best.

Speaker 4 (01:22:19):
I love that one too. Richard Gearhart with gar heart Law.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
I would say, be out there. If you're an entrepreneur,
one of your big jobs is sales. You've got to
sell yourself and your company, and so to do that,
you've got to be out there meeting people. Whether it's podcasts, networking,
social media, whatever it is. You've got to be out
there making connections to bring people to your company and

(01:22:45):
hopefully understand and appreciate your offering.

Speaker 4 (01:22:47):
I was with your Heart withgearmedia dot Com. My secret
today is even if you think you know everything about something,
you don't. I'm going to give this presentation on starting
a YouTube channel. Started so many and I've done it
my way and I've just kind of blundered my way
through because I figured it out. But then I watched
a video and I asked Gemini, and there are a couple

(01:23:08):
of things that I picked up on that were little
nuggets that I can share with the audience. Every once
in a while, it's good to read the instruction manual
or watch a video on something.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
That I already think you know step one and read
the instructions. Well that's it for today's Passage to Profit show.
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast and
leave a quick review. Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x and subscribe to our YouTube channel for bonus content.
Tune in next week for another episode of Passage to Profit.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
The proceeding was a paid podcast iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.