Lighting for Profits - Episode 200

We’ve made it to Episode 200! 💡 Join host Ryan Lee for a milestone celebration of Lighting for Profits as we reflect on the journey so far and look ahead to what’s next. This special edition features surprise guests, unfiltered stories, and powerful lessons from some of the brightest minds in the outdoor lighting industry. Whether you've been here since episode one or just tuning in, this episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and a few laughs you won't want to miss.

Celebrate. Reflect. Level up. This is Lighting for Profits—like you've never heard it before.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Lighting for Profits. Powered by Emory Allen

Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

All light, All light, All Light.

Powered by Emery Allen. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

What is up? What is up?

The Landscape Lighting Show is celebrating its 200th episode today

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the number one landscape lighting show in the United States of America. That's right, guys. It's hard to believe, but today we're celebrating the 200th episode. What? I don't know, someone should fact check this and make sure that we've actually done this because it doesn't feel right somehow. We've done 200 episodes. This is the 200th episode. So we're going to be celebrating and, don't worry, we're still adding value. We're still here to educate, to motivate, to help you dominate in your area. So, gonna be a great show, guys. I'm kind of surreal. Like, I didn't know how to even prepare for it because, actually, to be honest, I don't like celebrating, myself. It's kind of a weakness of mine. I'm like, yeah, well, I like to celebrate, celebrate others and help others, but when people, like, give me compliments, I just get all, like, weird and shy and stuff. So. But you know what? I'm working, on becoming a better human being. And I'm looking forward to celebrating because it's not just about me. It's about what we've done as a community, what we've done in the lighting industry. And so, that gave me a lot of courage to be like, you know what, let's celebrate this because what we're doing is awesome. And it's not just about one person, it's not just about the podcast, it's about what we're doing in the lighting community. So, super excited. I've got a panel of people, that are joining me. So, stick around. We've got some of our most popular guests, most popular episodes, and we're going to be discussing all things lighting, all things profitability, and some of the things that, you can expect to see happening in the next 12 months in the lighting industry and all the good stuff. So, really, really excited and, grateful to be able to celebrate 200 episodes. Thanks guys, for being part of it. really, really appreciate it.

Less than 1% of all podcasts reach 200 episodes, according to Google

by the way, I looked up, on chat GBT, it said less than 1% of podcasts, reach 200 episodes, but Google said 3%. So we'll say 3% of podcasts reach 200 episodes, 56% have 10 episodes or fewer. So a lot of people that start them don't keep them going. And to be honest, you know, I had this idea. This was four years ago, guys, and I had this idea to start a podcast. Maybe, I had the idea before then, but at some point I was like, I'm not going to do it because I don't want to start it and be that person who does 10 episodes and then just stops. And so I really got intentional. And I was like, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this every week. Now, I do take a few weeks off a year and stuff like that, but I, you know, when I say every week, I didn't want to, like, do every week in April and then take Mayoff and March and whatever else. Right. And so is that how it works? April, May, March, I don't know. but I had this idea, and I thought it would be good because, you know, a lot of lighting people are stuck in their trucks and they're stuck out in the field and they're doing all this stuff. I thought it'd be a great way to consume content and a lot safer than, you know, YouTube, when you got to watch these videos. Like, how are you going to watch videos driving down the road and stuff like that? And so here we are, you know, and I just want to thank you guys for listening, for watching however you take your lfp. It's pretty awesome. So thank you guys for continuing to show up. And, to be honest, when I started this, I had no idea, like, how much I would learn. You know, I was. I was doing it as a way to, like, try to bring the lighting industry together. Have different manufacturers on here, different distributors, different, service providers, designers, contractors. Like, I wanted people to get their stories out and I wanted to share. I want to make a. A community of sharing knowledge, right? And, I find myself, like, taking notes on every single episode. I'm jotting down stuff, and I'm like, this is so cool. But I really didn't know, had no idea how much I would learn personally about success and, happiness. And so as I was preparing for this episode, really, over the last few weeks, started thinking about, okay, what do I want to talk about? And, like, what are the takeaways? And, like, what? It's kind of a cool milestone, right? Had, so many notes and takeaways and things like that. But I narrowed it down to two major things, okay? Two major things that I wanted to just share quickly. And then again, we've got our panel of, lighting pros that we're going to have on, but the two things that I took away, and again, I have a lot of takeaways, but I narrowed it down to these two kind of major, major things. Number one is success is intentional. Okay. Success is intentional. all the guests that we've had on that are sharing their stories and their, their, their lives with us and just their takeaways and things like that and the things that they've gone through. You know, success doesn't happen by accident. And every win came from a choice to show up and take action. And so we've had so many people share their experiences. And yes, we all do have our own gifts, right? We all have our gifts. But, the way that you use your gift and the way that you get to different levels of success in your life and in your career is intentional. And your decisions, and especially, you know, I'm talking about our guests that have come on and shared their personal lives and their vulnerabilities and stuff like that. Their decisions all led to this momentum shift and led to their breakthrough. And to me, that was very impactful. I started realizing I seeing a trend here and I was like, yeah, you know what? Nothing is going to change if you don't change. And so whether it's your mindset, your beliefs, your actions, whatever it is, like a lot of people are literally crazy. They're expecting something to change without them changing themselves, right? And so we really have to get intentional about what we want. We have to get intentional about why we want it, and then finally what has to be true for us to achieve it. And that was a huge takeaway for me because I started reverse engineering my own life and I started reverse engineering and say, okay, what has to be true? Like, I don't want to do everything, I want to do certain things. And I just started asking that question, what has to be true? So number one, success is intentional. And number two, success is not a destination. Success is the journey, right? And, I've had this backwards a lot in my life where I'm like, yeah, once I get to a million dollars in revenue, then I'll be happy, or then I'll be successful, or once I sell my business, then I'll be successful, or once I start this, then I'll be successful. But I realized like, you don't arrive at this destination of happiness or success. you're happiest when you're growing, you're happiest when you're building, right? And, I've built a multi million dollar lighting business. I sold that business for a decent sum of money, right? And I have friends that have sold their businesses for tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. And they kind of say the same thing. It's like it wasn't this magical place of happiness. Like in fact, they were kind of less happy after a while. They had to get back in to building something because it really is about the journey. So I'm just sharing this with you because in my experience I've learned that, you know, the act of accomplishing something is not as rewarding as you might think. I mean, it does feel good. It feels good to get to 200 episodes, right? But you know what feels even better is the fact that we did what we did along the way. And the the screw ups I had on the, the things and the, the questions I wished I would have asked or the, the things I said that people made fun of or whatever. It was like it truly is the journey and the process, that's, that's what's rewarding. So it's the experiences, it's the growth, it's the learning that happens along the way that forges you into this newer, better version of yourself.

Go to work because you want to, not because you have to

So I want to encourage you guys to fall in love with the journey. and I still think it's important to set a destination. I mean, it's important to be on a trajectory and understand like, okay, I'm going this direction, I could go over here, or I could go over here, but no, I've decided I'm going here. But again, it's not like you have to sacrifice your short term happiness because you're going to be happy later on. It's important to get super intentional about what you're doing on a daily, almost hourly basis to fall in love with what you're doing. And I've noticed that most people are not that happy. Most people don't love what they do. And if you think, well, I'll do this now because I'll be happy when this event happens or when I hire this person, like, that's not really how it is. So, one of these phrases guys, that I'm really trying to go viral, I've shared it on here before, I share it at different events is go to work because you want to, not because you have to. And I realize it's super like pragmatic. It's not very, well written. You know, it doesn't sound cool like some of the the cool quotes of the famous people. But like, I truly believe in it and it's so important to me. Go to work because you want to, not because you have to. And that means that you're going to show up and get excited about what you're doing. And if there's not something that you're excited about and you're. You feel like you have to go to work, like, ask yourself the question, what happens if you don't show up today? What's going to happen to your business? What happens if you. If you don't show up for a week? What happens if you don't show up for a month? What's going to happen to your business? What are these things where you're the bottleneck in your business? And if you don't love doing those things and you need to delegate or you need to stop doing it, or you need to sell your business or you need to go do something else. Like, there's lots of different paths you can take here, but if the main thing in your business relies on you, then you're probably not going to work because you want to. You're probably going to work because you have to. And I'm telling you, like, when I. When I discovered this and made this switch in my personal life and in my business, I. I became so much happier because it's like, no, I'm only doing the things that I want to do. And it's not that I'm perfect. It's not that I've got it all figured out in every single task, every single moment in my life. I'm only doing the things that I want to do. There are still things in my business that I don't want to do that I'm doing. But I'm getting better. And every week, I'm checking things off the list. Every month, I'm getting better, right? So if I could just be known for one quote, you guys, I'll have left a pretty sweet mark on the world. Go to work because you want to, not because you have to. To me, that is the definition of a successful business. So, again, big takeaways for me over the past 200 episodes. one, being intentional. Two, enjoying the journey. It's okay to be happy, guys. we don't have to sacrifice everything today just to achieve this futuristic version, some happier version of ourselves, okay? So we can achieve these significant results and success in life and be happy along the way. If you are intentional, that's the key. So want to encourage you guys. Build your dream business. Build your dream life. Ask yourself what has to be true and create your masterpiece.

Emory Allen's Pro series fixtures are a game changer for lighting projects

So, again, guys, celebrating 200 episodes and, pretty much almost the whole time we've had this show, we've had the support of Emory Allen and, let's face it, quality matters in every aspect of your lighting projects. That's why Emory Allen's Pro series fixtures are a game changer. The Ranger Pro offers adjustable lumen output and swappable lenses for optimum beam spread, allowing you to customize the lighting to your exact needs. Its solid forged brass construction ensures durability, and IP68 rating means it's ready for any environment. The Scout Pro offers a big punch in a small package. This small fixture is perfect as an accent fixture where you want subtle lighting with a discreet footprint. Don't settle for less. Upgrade your installations today. Reach out to tom gmeryallen. com to learn more and take advantage of their contractor pricing. Again, all you need to do is mention Lighting for profits and email tomgmeryallen. com and he'll hook you up with that discounted contractor pricing. Or you can just hang out for a few minutes because Tom G is going to be in the house on today's show. So thank you, Tom. Thank you, Em. Appreciate your support.

The Tom Garber Show has now reached 200 episodes

All right, guys, I think it's that time. again, we've got a panel of experts, friends, previous guests on the podcast, lighting pros. Awesome people. So we're gonna have them come on now. Gonna be a great show. Let's get them coming on. Where is our cool intro music? Here it is. Oh, there it is. You might know him as Tom g@emeralenm. com, but I know him as, ah, Tom Garber. The man, the myth, the legend over at Emory Allen. Let's go. Welcome, welcome. What's up, Tom Garber?

Hey, Ryan. Good. How are you, man?

I'm doing good, man. I'm. I'm actually excited. I was a little hesitant and nervous to celebrate 200 episodes, but now that it's the day, I'm stoked.

Yeah, as, we mentioned earlier, you know, in the, in the back room, you know, it just seems like a couple of weeks ago we were here celebrating 100 episodes, and here it is, 200 episodes. But it's great. You've done a great job and done a great job for the industry.

Thanks, Tom. you know, it's. It's cool somehow. You were, on board early. You said, I want to be part of Lighting for Profits. Where the heck did that come from? Did you think we'd ever make it to 200 episodes?

I think it came from you calling me and saying, hey, I screwed up. I stole your name.

Well, I'm still pissed at that, you know? Like, I, I, I always invent stuff that's already invented. It's so annoying. Like, I thought I invented steak, fingers one time, and turns out they were around for, like, decades. Like, damn it.

So I'd never heard of you. And then you called me that one time and said about, you know, podcast names being screwed up and all of that. Then right after that, I started listening to you, and it's like, well, heck, I gotta do something with this guy. So that's how it all started.

That's awesome. Yeah. Quick story, I, I thought I had invented the podcast called Light it up. And I, you guys, I take action when I talk about, like, take action and, like, you know, ready, fire, aim, or. Yeah, is that right? Yeah. Like, that's really what I do. Like, I don't do a lot of research. I don't, like, think a lot. I just go do things. And I literally started the, like, two episodes in, and I think it was Andy Thomas. He's like, oh, lighting for profits. Yeah. Is that the, Is that Tom Garber Show? I'm like, what? And a quick Google search will tell you that there's light, it up, by this guy, crazy guy named Tom Garber. I'm like, oh, my gosh, dude, why did I start a podcast that already exists? So I had to call Tom and say, hey, I, just so you know, I've already done a couple episodes. but, we can switch, no worries. And then we became friends after that, so that was cool.

Yeah, no, that was great. That was great. You know, the rest is history. I don't know how many landscape lighting live events that, you know, we've attended, plus all your lighting summits and all of that. We haven't missed many. I mean, it's, it's been a great, it's been a great thing. It's been a great relationship.

Yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate you. I mean, you know, it's, it's easy to be like, well, I'm doing this regardless of how many people support us or whatever, but it would be really hard if we didn't have your support. so, really, really appreciate you. Your, your company, your family. It's. It's pretty dang awesome. Appreciate you guys.

Thank you.

Next guest coming on the podcast is landscape lighting expert Greg Matthews

All right, let's get our guest coming. Next guest coming on here. Oh, here we go. You might know him as the grandmaster for designing the largest landscape lighting Projects in the world. That's right. It's Mr. Greg Matthews.

I feel old. 200 episodes and I'm still around.

It's only two years.

Oh, that puts in perspective, I guess.

But no, that's definitely a lie. I think he's just saying that to make us feel better about ourselves.

So I don't want to make the other guests jealous, and I don't think even know about this, Ryan, but I got this box today. Do you know about this box?

I don't know. Should I?

So when Darcy emailed me, I said, sure, I'll go on the podcast. But I made a joke. I said, well, in the green room, I only do the red Skittles. So in the box, she sent me only the red Skittles.

Oh, that's awesome.

And then all the bags with the leftover Skittles.

Oh, that's sweet.

So now shout out to Darcy. Thank you. I get the red Skittles.

That is so cool. Did you enjoy the red Skittles in the green room?

I will.

Yes, you will. After. How did green room? Dude, that's awesome, man.

Ryan Seacrest brings you this see through beer to celebrate 200

well, I guess this would be a good time. I got to give a shout out to my team because, you know, I'm the face of the thing. But, it's. It's a huge, you know, it's a one hour show, but it's hours and hours of prep and organization and, you know, communicating with guests and. And so much stuff. So my team is pretty phenomenal. Thank you guys so much for everything you do behind the scenes. All right, we got Greg on the show. Let's get to our next one here. All right, you might know him as the beer drinking bookkeeper who made finance great again. It's the best damn bookkeeper. Mr. Dan Plata.

I even. I even brought you this see, through beer today just for you, Ryan, to celebrate. But since you're over there and I'm over here, I just figured I'll do you a favor and drink it for you.

Oh, you're so kind.

Congrats on 200.

Does that mean you're drinking two for 200?

Do I'm a two?

Well, one.

Get started.

One for you.

I could. Yeah.

So I like the koozie landscape lighting secrets, of course. let's see the full see through beer effect.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to find these see through cans. You gotta know your way around the liquor store to. To round up one of those babies.

You have to, like, show it with something behind it. So we can see that it's see through. Like put up in your face.

Well, then I don't.

There you go.

I mean, you can see the. You can see the best. Damn.

There we go now. Logo coming through. Perfect.

That's cool.

Yeah, that's killer.

If you're into that sort of thing. Yeah.

Oh, we're all into see through beer. Oh, yeah. Oh, let's see. By the way, thanks, guys, for jumping on here. We got Joe Robino, Alejandro Mike Long, Billy Coggins, Chris Applestadt. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. all right, let's get our next one coming on. And then, where's the music and stuff?

Ryan Kaufman takes a 200 beer challenge on the show

Here we go. All, right. You might know him as the lighting guy. With a multi million, multi location lighting business, it's the king of Systems and Scaling, Mr. Kenny Kaufman. What's up, Kenny?

Did Dan just take a 200 beer challenge? I think Dan just accepted a 200 beer challenge.

Yeah, I heard it.

As long as there's no timeline that. Okay, we'll be done m. By the.

End of the week challenge for him.

Yeah, I'm from Wisconsin. That's like, that's a normal weekend.

Yeah. Ryan, I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. 200 episodes, man. Congratulations.

Thanks, man. It's. It's crazy. I. I never. I don't know. I don't even have a goal. I don't. I'm not like, once we get to 200, then we'll figure it out. I truly am just enjoying the journey. And, And I'll tell you, like, I don't know, like, I was thinking today, I'm like, how. How long are we gonna do this? Is it 300, 400, 500? And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna stop the day that I don't want to do it and the day that I don't think it's adding any value. And the only thing I probably would do, like, if it was like 243, I'd probably go to, like, 250. You know, I'd probably wait seven weeks. But, yeah, it's cool, man. Thanks.

Did you think you'd hit 200 episodes when you started this podcast

So when you set a question for you, when you set out on this journey, did you think you'd hit 200 episodes? You were even, like, thinking that far ahead?

I actually was not. I, I, I just knew I, I talked to a few people that had podcasts, and, and the, and. And the thing that came out was just, you need to be consistent. And I was like, okay, I'll be consistent. And do it once a month, because that's about, in my head, I'm like, you know, that's probably what I, I can do to commit, you know, and then I'll, They were like, no, you can't do once a month. Like, is that. That's not a podcast. That's a, that's a weird. That's a hobby. That's something weird. And so I just said, well, I'm. I'm only gonna do this if I, I think I probably in my, in my mind was just thinking like, you know, a few years maybe, but I wasn't thinking number of episodes. I just, I just knew I wanted to commit. Like, I gotta commit to this every single week for the next few years.

Understood.

But like Tom said, I mean, I, I literally feel like the hundredth episode was just a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago, but somehow another.

100 this thing, and tomorrow we're gonna feel like we're gonna find out. It's like episode 86 or something.

I know. What if that happens? We'll delete. We'll just delete this.

Because, if it's one a week, 200 episodes means four years, right? AM I doing this math correctly?

That's about right.

Pretty damn close.

We started in 2021. And you know, like I said, I'll miss, some weeks here and there, but for the most part, we try to, like, if I, if I know I'm going to be out of town for a few weeks or whatever, we'll pre record some shows, but I usually try to get them in, but like around Christmas, you know, we, we take off those two weeks and some others. So I, I think it's legitimate. Guys like you go through the thing, it says 1, 2, 3, 4. It goes down to 200.

Numbers don't lie, man.

Coming from an accountant.

Yeah, perfect quote, Dan.

Trying to buy you a few less beers. Dan.

Don't scare everyone off and talk about numbers yet, Dan. We're trying to keep people engaged here.

Yeah, you're right. M. My bad.

Numbers don't lie. All of a sudden, everyone's just gone.

He said the damn magic word. Hey, the last time I was on, I don't think I talked about finance stuff at all. As a matter of fact, you tried to get me to, and I think I declined. You.

That was cool. I was trying to trick you. I was like, yeah, but let's really talk about these things. And you. You didn't.

Yeah, even I think bookkeeping is lame, so.

That'S a Pretty cool sales pitch.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just agree with everyone.

Dan: It'd be too boring right now to start the show

all right, I do have some questions for you, Dan, but I feel like you would probably. It'd be too boring right now to start the show.

I agree.

you are not a boring person, but I can't think of what else to ask.

That's what we were saying. No.

Okay, you're great, but I can't think of anything else to ask you. That's not a boring question.

Just feed me the lame. I eat that up.

I. I had a really hard time planning this. I've got, like, questions, I've got ideas and stuff like that, but I'm like, I'm not good at interviewing multiple people at the same time, so I'm hoping you guys are going to help me out. Some of the things I was thinking about is like, did you guys have any takeaways? Like, you know, you guys have all been on the show multiple times. maybe. Maybe we'll start there.

Ryan: Having conversations on a podcast can help build your network

Like, did coming on the show give, like, actually being a guest, did that give you any insight? Did that. Have you any mindset shifts for you guys actually being a guest on the show?

I don't know about mindset shifts, but you had hit on a thing that I find to be probably the most important part of being a business owner and having conversations and building your network, which is, holy smokes, the amount of stuff you learn from just hanging out and chatting with people in a, in a podcast is such a unique way to do it because you're just immersed in it, right? There's. There's kind of no distractions, especially if it's just a one on one thing. And so you react.

You.

You really, like, get to the hardest stuff of conversations that you otherwise wouldn't have unless you had this avenue to do it like a podcast. So I think, I mean, you, you know, we can all go watch YouTube videos, read books, and there's a whole bunch of things we can do to go out and learn and make ourselves better. But. And I, and I think this is. I don't want to put words in anybody else's mouth, but we all find this when we go to conventions. Like, we go and watch speakers, right? And. And a lot of times some of us are speakers, but the best value that we always get from those is building relationships and, like, knowing when I'm gonna call Kenny or knowing when I'm gonna call Greg and, And like, those relationships and, and having the one on one is. Is where you get the most value. A lot of times. And so I think a podcast is another cool way to do that where you didn't do it to learn, like you said, Ryan. But damn it if you didn't learn some anyway, right? You just start like, having conversations and picking stuff up. And, And I think whether you're the interviewer or the interviewee, you get so much out of that dialogue that it's invaluable.

And, And I would say, like, I, I do this more as like, one of my contributions back to the industry. Like, I don't do it for my own arrogance or to build myself up. It's kind of like what I do with AOLP and ILLY and join these organizations. Like, I want to be part of a revolution. And I learned stuff from watching the other people on here. If nobody comes on, then what do we all learn? So if we can all contribute in our own way, our own little specialty, our own aspect or own little differences, and we can all grow together. you know, I'll learn something from Kenny, like Dan said. Something from Dan I have. Ah, Tom, I'm still learning why he says bulb inside of lamps, but we'll fix that one day. but yeah, I think it's more of a, A, giving back, a community growth. I was thinking, I think this is my fifth time on here, so I've been on approximately 2.5 of your podcasts. Like that number, Dan? Like that percentage.

That's good. That's high density. High density.

I did that. I did that without paper or pen. so yeah, I think it's more of a giving back and just sharing like, what I've learned so far. Like not all goods, but bads also, you know, kind of got, you know, sharing some, some stuff I don't share with a lot of people, but online with hundreds of people. So it's, it's interesting, kind of aspect.

I think also that there's the whole credibility that goes along with it as well. We're all in the, basically the same industry together. We attend a lot of the same events, we talk to each other, network and all of that. I think it's a lot different than just going and listening to a speaker, but there's the credibility of really listening to, you know, Greg talk or Kenny talk or Dan about. Because, you know, we're all in the same industry together and these are all the same problems that we face. So, you know, I think the podcast is really helped us all network together and, you know, bring a lot of people together.

Yeah, I, I totally Agree with that, too. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm all on talking about growing the entire industry. Grows the entire industry. Right. but I was super adamant of, like, I want to do this podcast in person. And part of that was because I wanted to know who Ryan Lee was if I'm going on his podcast. I wanted to understand who you were, who your family was, and, spend more time with you, understand what the mission was behind everything. So that was like, super impactful for me is like, really understanding behind the curtain of why you're doing what you're doing and understanding that it's okay to kind of hitch my wagon to you and, and help you along the way as well. So I'm super committed to what you've got going on. Help in any way I can because I believe, your message is important.

That's cool.

You're passionate about helping landscape lighting grow, even when it's difficult

Well, early on, Kenny, you know, when you and I started talking, I was kind of surprised because I, I think most business owners, doesn't matter whether we're talking landscape lighting or not, especially getting started. You, you have this kind of like, fixed mindset of, like, what if someone else grows, then that means I can't, or they're going to take market share or whatever else it is. And I don't know if you were born that way or if it was something that was learned, but you're not like that. Where you're like, like you were super excited to not just join the community, but, like, help grow it. And, ah, where. Where does that come from? And how did. Yeah, where does that come from?

I was not always that way. I was a killer. I, I thought, like, I needed to step on everybody in order to get where I was going. It took me a long time to figure out, like, if you grab hands and drag everybody along with you, you end up a lot farther than trying to step on everybody along the way. and that's kind of like, you know, it took. It took a long time. You know, I've been doing this 20 years, and probably for the first 12 years of that, I thought that there was a limited amount of jobs in the industry, and I had to go get as many of those limited amount of jobs as I could get. Get. Took me a while to realize that the industry itself needed to grow, needed to gain awareness. In order to do that, more people needed to join, which means more companies needed to join, which means more houses needed to get lights. Right. And, and as that continues to grow, all I got to do is be the best one at it. And I'll automatically get those jobs or I'll get a large portion of those jobs. So helping other people doesn't matter because it just means more jobs are there to get.

Ryan: When you grow the industry and educate, then it makes everybody better

That's cool.

And I want to chime in from like a finance angle because I watch it from how guys price and from like the success of every other business. And we've seen it happen in other industries. And I think landscape lighting is still like going through this maturity in a way. And Ryan, you're, you're definitely a force and like pushing it along so many, like whenever there's that scarcity mindset and, and you're not growing the pie, it leads to other operators pricing like putting like making the industry look bad and actually like reducing demand because people are driving around seeing shitty work and they're like, oh, I don't want that on my property. Right? What? You know, and landscape lighting is one case, but it could be pressure washing, it could be landscaping, it could be any number of home service things. And so growing the pie helps everybody in a way. And it, and it, even the Greg Matthews of the world that do the coolest projects, they're way better off if the guy that just started prices a ten thousand dollar job at ten thousand dollars instead of three thousand dollars. Right. Like there's a temptation of, of newer people to try to like undercut and not, not actually run a good successful business. And it makes the industry look bad and it, and it puts this weird price contention between other operators. And it's funny, it's like you're better off educating them so that the, the homeowner has like a realistic option to pick between and there's not somebody just sitting out there undercutting stuff. And to Kenny's point, I think when you grow the industry and educate, then it makes everybody better. And then more homeowners want lights, surprisingly, because it all looks really nice. And if the neighbor has it, they're going to want it too if it looks really nice. So I'm, with you, Kenny.

Well, and we're seeing that actually right now with the permanent lighting industry, whether you like permanent lighting or not and think it looks good or not, like there these neighborhoods reach a point of saturation where it's like, whoa, they have it, they have it, they have it, they have it. Like, okay, what about me? Like, now you have the FOMO reaching and it hits this marketing cycle of fomo. Landscape lighting has not hit that, that leg yet. So mostly because it's like you see a lot of like what, what? I, I say landscape lighting. But you'll see builders and their electricians will throw lights on a house underneath a window, and they'll go, well, we don't need exterior lighting. We have it. That, floodlight under the window not only lights the window, which you love a good lit window, right, but it lights the tree that's 30ft away because the lights everywhere, right? So unfortunately, any light's better than no light. And so they think, well, I don't, I don't need a pro, right? So the more pros that we do have in that are providing good lighting designs, priced accordingly, it's gonna, it's gonna help the market, and at some point it's gonna be kind of cool. It's gonna piss off a lot of people too, but it's still going to be cool. Landscape lighting is going to end up being one of these industries that hits this, this, this shift in the neighborhood where everyone's going to want it and be like, oh, wow, I didn't, I had no idea.

We're starting to see it in holiday lights a little bit. Like, holiday lights are a little bit farther along in that sense. And it, it just 10 years ago, like, yeah, it existed, but it wasn't the thing where you're like, I gotta pay somebody else to hang my holiday lights, right? It's like, yeah, I'll get it out this weekend. This weekend is the weekend we're gonna go out with kids and put the lights up. And now it's like, why would I put my own lights up? Be crazy to put my own lights up. And so, like, that industry, you're already seeing that start, like it's turning where when you drive it through a neighborhood now you're like, yep, like 8 out of 10 of those houses are professionally done, in nicer neighborhoods. And so it's just a, just a matter of time and a matter of education.

I've been cranking out designs with my new designer, Kelly, and we have 17 on the list right now. I got to get out this week, and two of those are seven figure projects. So there is plenty of work out there for a lot of people. And those are just incoming calls that I'm getting without doing any marketing right now. I know we always talk about marketing, Ryan, but got time for that right now. It'll be soon. but yeah, so there's plenty of work out there. And like you said, once you start lighting, once you start doing excellent, projects coming from a design centric point of view, you know, doing Better work brings more projects. Referral partners, once they see that work, happy clients brings on more projects. So just do the job, right? Bury the wire, which is like rule number one that nobody does, you know, hang the transformer straight. do your design properly. Take lessons on that. Learn how to close a deal properly. we don't sell anything here at Luxury Illumination. We only design things. But you have to sell your design to that client, otherwise it never gets installed. So people sometimes have, you know, get kind of gun shy. They'll say, hey, I want to use this many lights, but I'm afraid to present this to the client because they won't go for it. So you need to create that kind of confidence within your company to really create those better projects, which leads to more projects for your company.

Company. I. I think you stuttered or it cut out. Did you say two seven figure, proposals?

Yep.

All right. Just want to make sure I know what seven figures means. It's not.

Those aren't designs. Those are visions.

Those are two commas in that number.

I already got them in my head as a vision. It's got to put them on the paper.

Yeah.

Ah, that's like a video versus a film. Greg's making films, you know, and no amateur video thing.

Yeah, exactly. Feature films. Hey, I see we got one more guest pulling, in here. Let's see if we can get our. Let's see if we can get them on. You guys ready?

Fill up. We gotta get some symmetry.

We're going to get the real Josh Latimer, not the AI Josh

All right, here we go. you might know him as the, Everything is marketing. Marketing is everything. Guy slay like David. Let's go. Welcome to the show, Mr. Josh Latimer.

There we go.

How about you? Doing well.

I think I'm doing well. Did anyone else here. Josh. Come across as a robot?

He's big. He's a little. He's a little choppy. Really?

Oh, no.

You gotta go yell at your kids and tell them to get off the Internet. It's AI Fortnite sucking up all the bandwidth.

It's AI Josh.

Yeah, it's Chappy, unfortunately.

Yes.

Okay. I'll be back.

All right. He'll be back, guys. We will. We're gonna get the real Josh Latimer, not the AI Josh Latimer. The AI is still working out the kinks. okay, well, very cool.

Ryan: I was curious about your favorite episodes on the show

what about, Yeah, I was curious for you guys. You know, you guys have been on the show, but did you have any favorite episodes? Did you have any favorite guests, favorite topics, anything that you remembered that inspired you? To make a change or, you know, do something different.

I got, I got one. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that to Kenny.

I want to talk about the life coach. No, not that one. no, but honestly, I think one of my favorite episodes was, Ryan, when your wife came on and, you know, you and Lindsay were talking, you know, back and forth and all of that. And, you know, we're all, you know, family, businesses. Whether, you know, how much of our family participates in our business is one thing or another, but then it's how it affects the family, how much time that we give our business. You know, it's that whole, what is it? Life, work, balance thing. And she was very, very candid about that. And I think you were also. And, you know, it's. It's very true. And it's everything that we all, we all deal with. And I think that's something that, you know, people should go back and reflect on, you know, as they're, business continues and all of that, but just keeping that whole life, work, balance and the right proportion.

That's cool. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. I, that was an important episode for me just because, you know, I, I want to be kind of as real as, as transparent as possible. I don't believe that I should share, like, my bank account info and like, everything to be fully transparent. But, you know, like, life is hard, business is hard. It's not easy. And you know, for me, the reason. One of the reasons I wanted to start my own business and, and I like being a provider is I wanted to be the dad that I didn't have. I wanted to be the husband that my mom didn't have. And like, I, I did all the things wrong at first. Like, it sucked and, and that, that we had. We, we shared that with everybody, the audience. and then I'm hoping that it will inspire someone to, to do things differently than I did. Luckily, you know, Lindsay called me out on my BS and, you know, we got the help we needed and we have a good relationship. But, yeah, I, I thought that. I thought. I was glad that she came on and was willing to talk about that stuff as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

If I, if I remember right, she, she really didn't want to do the, that podcast, right? She was, ah, reluctant to do it.

No, she's happy being behind the scenes. She doesn't want to be on camera and get on the mic and do all this stuff. Heck no.

Yeah, my wife would have been out as well.

Hey, do we got Josh back? Josh, did you make it?

I hope. Do I sound better?

2025? Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm tethered to my iPhone now. Apparently, our office Internet just broke. We're supposed to have a gigabit connection, so. Apologies, boys. excited to be here. Didn't. Didn't mean to do the robot voice, but, yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. You're the man.

No, thanks for being here.

Lee: Couples that start a company together have a 7% divorce rate

We, you know, we're celebrating 200 episodes. We. It's hard to believe, but, we kind of. We went and looked at the. The metrics, and we're like, okay, what are some of the top shows? And, you guys, you guys fit the bill. So people liked your message, they shared it, they listened to it multiple times and all that stuff. So I appreciate you guys jumping on here and spending some time with us.

You're talking about marriage. Is that what I was catching when I reconnected?

We're talking about it all, basically. Favorite episodes. And Tom was talking about how Lindsay and I, we. We did an episode and kind of shared the. The behind the Scenes of Orion. Lee. Business, lifestyle.

Well, marriage is super easy. Luckily, so is business, so that's good. Parenting is, like, super easy if you. Why not mix all three of those together? Like, have a bunch of kids, get married, and start a company? Sounds like a great idea, right?

The end.

You should write a book, like, Being m. Sarcastic. I wish you would have been that sarcastic. Me, before I started doing this.

Did you know, though, did you know that couples that start a company together have a 7% divorce rate? Seven.

Wow.

Like, there's some weird stats, on things like this, but if you have, like, a shared vision with your spouse and you actually. Trauma. Bond together, building the hard thing, it's the most galvanizing thing ever for a marriage. Which is. I think. I think that's the problem is, like, just unmet expectations or. My wife always says that, you know, an entrepreneur's spouse can be the push or the pull. Right? They're either the push or the drag. Right. And it's hard enough to build a company, but if you have, like, a nagging spouse or someone that's not on board, it's really hard. Usually it's our fault, though, because we cast no vision whatsoever. We've done nothing but disappoint in the past. Right? Like, so, like, I don't know. I think. I think starting a company forces you, in some ways, to level up at home. Because you have to get more clear on, like, the vision and your core values and who you are and their system. Your business has system. So does your family. Like, the way you talk to your wife is a system. The way you parent your kids is a system. So I think there's a lot of crossover between family stuff, which is really an organization, just like a business is. It's people and systems. Right. at least for us. We. We were this close to getting divorced early on in our marriage because of the business. My wife called our business the other Woman. Actually, she called, but we've been married 23 years now. And, it's been. It's been amazing. Hard, but. But absolutely amazing.

Ryan: When we were having peak marriage problems, we systemized sex

so, Josh, what KPIs do you give her weekly?

Well, there's one in particular. we call that Purple Unicorn. You know, it's our code word for special mommy, daddy time. No. This is going to sound totally crazy, and I don't want to ruin your awesome podcast, but when we were having peak marriage problems, one of the things we did was we systemized sex, which sounds totally insane. And yes, I just said that word on your landscape lighting podcast, and no one expected it.

But.

But the thing is, is, like, we had some rules. We're like, okay, well, we're only allowed to fight if we're naked in the shower, which I'm sorry for giving you that visual while you're looking at my face, but we only fight for naked in the shower was a one fun rule that changed a lot for us. And the other thing was, are you.

Picking fights, like, a couple times a week?

Yeah, exactly. That was big. And then the. There's two other things. The second one was we would schedule it. We don't do that. But at that time, we scheduled it, which sounds really bad. It sounds like sterile and corporate and dumb and not romantic and. But, you know, it kind of works itself out about two minutes in. You know what I mean? So it was a big deal. It was a big deal because. Because, it puts you in momentum. Like, I actually think that the. The connection you have with your spouse could parallel, like, your net worth and your. And your business success in a lot of ways. Because when you feel empowered, like my. When we were young married, my wife would use sex as, like, a weapon. She weaponized it. And. And we talk about this publicly, right? And it was a very effective tool. She has a lot of leverage. Right? And when she let that go, everything changed. Like, not just financially, like, our joy and happiness, our parent, everything opened up. So if you can get that right. It might sound asymmetrical, but if you get in really good momentum with your spouse, making money is, like, way easier.

So true.

Ryan, I think you need to have episode 201 with Josh.

The whole hour sex talk with Josh and his wife.

And his wife.

I want to hear handles in the background.

All right, we're definitely. Yeah, we're definitely having her come on the show.

All right, can I transition this to my. My sexy host that I like the, the best episode of? Is that a good transition? All right, I'm going to transition it to my North Korean pit viper, moonshine brother, Patrick Clark. Yeah, for those who know, they know that's a long story, but, yeah, I like his, his, you know, is saying, goya, get off your ass. That's always a good thing to wake up to. Get off your ass and do something, learn something, be better each day. So that's refreshing.

Yeah, that was a super motivational podcast. I think I like that one. Hit me. that was a good one. I liked it. but I, My, My favorite was Jody Moore. Thank you for not stealing that. I gave that up while we were talking, ahead of time. But, she's the life coach that, talked about human behavior, which I found really interesting. I thought the podcast was. Was really educational, so that was the one that I liked the best.

If you're intentional about your systems, then you can succeed, right

Well, a couple things. I'll just share one. Like when Josh was talking about your. Your. Your family as a. As you have systems, right? And we all have systems, but we don't think we do. They're just bad systems. I think that's why I was that close to divorce, too, is because I just wasn't being intentional. Kind of pulling back into what I was talking to start the show off is like, your systems are going to happen. It's just like if they're. If they're. You're not intentional about them, they're just going to be crappy systems. If you're intentional about them, then you can succeed. And, like you said with Pat Clark's episode with Goya, I mean, like, most people just aren't intentional enough. And that. That phrase is intentional. Like, you. You got to do something today that's different than you did yesterday, otherwise, you're gonna get the exact same result. So.

Well, it just the. The hard part about intentionality, too, is that the minute you decide to actually do something, good disruption happens. Myron golden always talks about how disruption follows intention. So when you set an intention, you're going to have resistance almost immediately. And most people shrink back or change their mind, right? So, for example, if you say, I'm going to start dating my wife, I'm going to do this stuff, it's pretty much guaranteed you're gonna have the worst fight of your life the minute you make that decision in your head. I don't know why. You know, as soon as you say you're going to save money, your transmission on your car is going to go out. As soon as you say you're going on a diet, you get offered the best birthday cake you've ever seen in your life, like, immediately, right? And so I just want people to know going in that intention, it sounds warm and fuzzy. It's like, prepare for battle.

It's gonna screw you over.

Intention. You got to get ready to fight because you're going to have resistance. Or Steven Pressfield, in the book the War of Art, talks about the resistance. And most people think that the resistance means they should go the other way. Like, it's evidence that they're going the wrong way. But the opposite is true. The resistance is evidence that you're on the right track. And people don't know that, right? So they think the fight with their wife is evidence of something bad. It's evidence of something good. you know, the birthday cake being offered is good, right? So just throwing that out there because you're going to motivate all these people. Like, I'm gonna change my life, and, like, their world's gonna fall apart in 48 hours. That's good. Like, lean into it.

Yeah, that's right. Maybe I should be excited when I. I'm the fall guy. Like, blank. They'll be like, no, I listen. He said. He said get intentional, and he ruined my life. I'm like, hell, yeah, I ruined your life.

Just temporarily, Just for a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true.

You can't make a big comeback if you don't fall behind, you know?

That's true.

It's math.

What does intentional success look like for you guys

What does. What does intentional success look like for you guys? Like, have, Is there. Is there. Is it all the time? Is it on Wednesdays? Like, is it when you're feeling good? Like, what. What does that look like for you guys?

I. I'm like. I'm a schedule hacker. Like, I, like, schedule everything out. I'm very, My. My time is very important. And so I don't, like, I don't start a task. It's not a scheduled task. And I. And I work on those things within the Business, try to delegate anything, that if I have to push it out more than three days, I shouldn't be doing it kind of thing. And so I, I, I'm able to push that stuff around, but I'm a big goal guy. That's how I, I really, really get intentional with everything. I set a goal, and then I reverse engineer the goal and how I'm going to get there. And that's how I get really intentional with everything I've done is setting a real goal and then a path to succeed to that goal. And I always don't, get there. Like, I set a goal to read 50 books this year. I didn't even, like, do the how much time it's going to take to read 50 books. I just said, like, January 1st, I'm reading 50 books. Well, I'm like, seven books in. We're half the year, you know, right now. So I'm like, doing the math. Like, how am I going to reach this goal to the end of the year? How do I schedule out that time to read those books? and I'm definitely not hitting this goal. But, but that's one of the things. Like, that's how I stay, Stay intentional.

Kenny says he read 50 books last year and now he's seven

I, I got two questions for you. Number one, are you going to start scheduling fights in the shower with your wife?

Listen, what I want to know is, is how quickly did she become an expert at not fighting? Like, that's, is that how you train? Like, like how to better communicate? All of a sudden communication, Right, Exactly. All of a sudden, no longer want to fight.

So good.

So funny.

My real question, Kenny, is I forgot my real question. Now I'll think about it after. I really, I really forgot it. I was like, I have two questions. That was one. And then how are we supposed to.

Focus when we're all thinking about our wives naked in the shower?

I know, exactly. I gotta go. And Lindsay, why, why do you want to fight right now?

I'm gonna pick a fight.

You suck. no, it was. So how do you guys feel about this? When you have a goal like Kenny's. This is a perfect example. You have a goal. You say, I want to do 50 books a year. You're seven in, like, how important is it that you do 43 more? Or how is it, okay, that you read seven more books than you did last year? Like, you just moved forward. You, you moved closer to the goal line.

Yeah.

And I don't actually think 50 books is important at all. I think the right book and for, for the message it, could be three books this year. But how, how much time did I spend on that book? How did I let it affect me and how did I focus on making change based on that book, right? So I just decided I was going to read 50 books. I should have decided I was going to read five books, but I was going to go full deep on every one of those books.

So good. I heard a Hormozi talk one time about when the hardest part about books is choosing which ones are, are worthy of being read in the first place. Place like, you got to be real careful on the ones you pick because most of them are not worth anything. But the ones that are good, as soon as he finishes it, he starts over on page one and he does it multiple times until he feels he has total, you know, he's digested all of it correctly, right? Because we. I tell my kids the purpose of a book is not to get through the book, it's to get the book through you. And you know, if you. Or sometimes I'll ask people, imagine I gave you a book and I asked you to read it, and then in a month I'm going to give you a quiz on the book and let's say that you score a 50% comprehension, right? I don't know. What I do know though is that if I gave you the same book and I told you in 30 days, I need to give you to give a 60 minute keynote presentation on the contents of this book to 5,000 people live. I know that if that was true, the way that they read the book fundamentally changes, right? The, the level of digestion, of nuance, of highlighters of this, like, one of the best ways to learn is to teach. And like, so I think the way you consume the content. Oh, the other thing Hormozi does too is he listens to the audiobook while he's reading it, right? So he, he'll do it multiple times, listening while he's watching, which is hard work. Like it's freaking hard to have mastery. And it really understands them. It's super intense. But it makes sense because if you pick out, you know, know five good books like Kenny said, and you do it like that, level up automatic.

Ryan, you and I recently did a podcast on goal setting

Ryan, you and I, this is, this is a little bit of a. You had asked her like, what was the favorite episode or whatever the case is, and now we're kind of talking about goal setting. And I haven't. This is honestly got truth. I don't listen to any other business podcasts. Like, by Intent. I don't consume other business content. I'm not going to get into why I don't. But I don't listen to any other podcasts. I don't listen to Josh's, even though I love Josh. I don't listen to yours, Ryan. I don't listen to anybody's. Don't listen to Harmosis.

How do we turn him off? Hold on.

Yeah. but my, my favorite podcast that we did was the one on goals, and we kind of got into this stuff versus, like some, static goals versus, like, continuing goals. And I would say that like a static goal would be, I'm gonna hit this level of revenue or I'm gonna read this many books. And I have found for me, I don't like those goals because they're like feast and famine and, and they, they're not something I can do tomorrow again. and Ryan, you had brought up your 200 push ups a day. and so I like repeating goals or recurring goals or I called it dynamic goals. Like, in our, in our bookkeeping business, we have no revenue targets, we have no profit target targets. Those are results, but they're not goals. And I think a lot of goals get set on things that are results instead of things that we can really control. The, the thing we can control the most is doing a badass job for our clients. And so our goal is zero attrition. That's our KPI for the business. We don't lose clients. And I tell our employees that all the time. Like, I don't care how much money we make, that'll happen. Right? Like, the money thing is a result. What's super, super important. The only thing we need to care about is that we deliver at such a high level for our, clients that we don't lose any clients. Clients. So we have one goal, zero attrition. And so tomorrow, if we lose a client today, tomorrow, that goal still exists. And it's the goal every day. Just like, Ryan, if you don't do 200 push ups tomorrow, the goal is 200 push ups.

Yeah.

and so I love those types of goals because they never, like, you just never lose sight of them. There's never like this, like you said earlier, Ryan, talking about kind of the joy and happiness. There's no like, oh, I got to here and I'll, I'm ecstatic for the rest of my life because I hit a million dollars or $5 million or whatever it is. Like, you get there and you go like, oh, I still gotta like, show up and work today and it's actually not what I thought it was going to be a lot of times. Right. And so I love setting goals where every day it's just part of the routine in a way. It's part of the, the habitual nature. I should definitely set a goal to fight with my wife in the shower naked every day. That's not, that's just like a great goal.

I just need, I think our lives were changed today.

Yeah. Like my new favorite episode.

Ryan: Dan says you should celebrate your birthday every day

Ryan, back to, your earlier question. My new favorite episode is this one right now.

it's starting to sound like a pity podcast or something here.

We should take this podcast downstairs and confront my wife right now.

Yeah, yeah. Josh, tell her what you told me.

He says it worked.

But, but I do think, I mean, even, even just like the, the joy of this podcast, right? Like, there's so much joy in our journeys and it's so, I mean if you, if you want to go do, the thing where you like set a long term goal and man, I'm gonna be happy when I get there, go get a job and then you'll be happy when you retire, right? Like, that's what, that's what that is is you get a job and you grind and you grind and you grind and you just look forward to retirement. And, and I think we have this amazing scenario as small business owners where we get to control every single day and the joy and happiness of every day and the impact that we get to have on people in every single day. And yeah, there's not a, you don't need to wait. You don't need to wait till your birthday to celebrate being alive, right? Celebrate your birthday every day. You don't need to wait till one day a year. You get 365 of them. Like, why wouldn't you celebrate it every day, right? Don't wait until you get to somewhere like, enjoy the hell out of this. This is a lot of fun. You get, you get to run your own business. You get to control your destiny. Enjoy the hell out of it. Sorry for that. Bombs. get a little excited.

So, yeah, my intention always starts with a picture. Like I walk on a property and like I got the finished picture in my head and then I have to do all the steps in between to get to that picture. Like, I'm always for the portfolio. Like, I'm going to walk a yard tonight. It's about 850 fixtures. It's been done for about a year and a half and I Got paid about a year ago. But tonight I'm actually more excited than getting that final paycheck because I get to go and photograph it and drone it and, like, see the actual work that we went through, the whole team, like, from. From start to finish, like, that's my satisfaction. So my goal is to do the best properties in America and do the best projects that I can for them. And that's what I try to do every day.

You know, for. For me, you know, it's a lot of similar goals to what all you guys have is, you know, it's the end result. And it's not all about money, but it's about the challenge. It's about the reward of, you know, the job, what you've done, and all of that. And I think one of the latest things that we've been able to put cool off was, we were awarded a job for Carnegie Hall. And, I can send you some pictures of it, but the entire part of Carnegie hall was lit up with our products. And we had some challenges with different types of coloration that we had to do and work within certain types of dimmer systems. But it was. It was the goal.

It was.

Thing at the end, it wasn't about the money or anything like that. It was just like, you know, this is cool. You know, nice to be able to hang your hat on something like that.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's way cool. Congrats, Tom. That's cool.

Yeah, that's super. That's dope.

Do we get free tickets?

I haven't even gotten in.

We're gonna go check it out. Let's go.

Road trip.

I think I more or less just agree with. With Dan, which, by the way, Dan, I like the serious side of you. That was some deep fire you were dropping over there, but normally you're just always joking around. But there's some good stuff in there, man. goals. A lot of the people I look up to don't set goals, which is like, oh, so controversial. Hot take. But what they mean is, like, they divorce themselves from the outcome of a goal, which is really what Dan was saying. It's like the. It's a paradox. It's like, how can you be ambitiously content? How can you push harder than ever with. With a complete detached emotional state from the final whatever. You can still aim at something but not derive your joy from that destination. Right? Like, you can directionally aim at something. But it's very tricky, man.

What I notice with small business owners is that people set placeholder goals

And the book Atomic Habits is awesome. Most people have Read it because it's super famous book. But he talks about how the goal shouldn't be to go to the gym. The goal is to put the gym shoes and your gym bag in your car. Or the goal is like, get in your car and start the car at 6am like if you do that, you'll probably go to the gym. So he talks about derivative goals and stuff. So some of it's semantics. What I notice with small business owners is that people set what I call our placeholder goals. They're goals that don't even mean anything, even to themselves. They just don't know what to do. So they say, I'm going to have a seven figure business, because that's what they think they're supposed to do. They look in the Facebook groups and. But when I dig deeper, what I'll do sometimes is I'll ask them, you want a million dollar business so that what? It's called a so that bridge. It's really powerful. And there's, there's a story from years ago where I asked a guy this and he thought I was dumb. He's like, I want a million dollar business so I can make more money. Stupid. I'm like, okay, hang with me. You know, you want, you want a million dollar business so that you make more money, okay, you want more money so that what? And the super short version of this, they took about 45 minutes. But here's the, here's what happened. He said, I want more money so that I can pay off my debt. Took him over a half an hour to even tell me that part because he had pride. He didn't want me to know he had debt. I'm like, I don't give a crap if you have debt. But I said, you want to pay off your debt so that what? And he said, so my wife will stop nagging me. And now I've done this a long time. So I'm like, okay, I'm getting cooking with gas. Now I'm getting closer to what we really want. And I, And when I asked him, you want your wife to stop nagging you so that what? He started crying. And he said, so that she'll trust me again. And so the reason I say that is a lot of people's goals are just totally made up, fictitious placeholder bull crap, fake things. And one way to try to figure out what it is that you actually want is to use a so that bridge. It's not perfect, but it can get you closer. Because the reality was this guy paid me A bunch of money to help him. And he was going to do impossibly hard things for the next year so that his wife will trust him again. Like, he didn't have to do any of that stuff to get his wife to trust him again. He could have done something like at 2 o' clock that day to begin that process, right? But we start optimizing for the wrong thing when we set the wrong goal. So I do think it's an important subject. I haven't figured it all the way out, but I do know that, having a direction and then figuring out, like Dan said, how to get rewarded through the process, the process is the payoff, right? Like, how do you. The, the, the, the. The joy should come from the journey, not the destination. And I know it sounds like a bunch of weird, cheesy sayings, but I think there's real truth in that. And I'm still working on it.

I got, I mean, I mentioned Ryan's 200 push ups a day. I have an hour and a half blocked off in the middle of every day of my schedule to go exercise, exercise. Today I ran like basically a 5K. And I don't, I don't especially love running. I'm built to sprint. I'm not built to run long distances. If you've ever seen me, like, I'm, I'm, 100 yards is all the farther I should run, but I'll, I'll get out there. And to me it's like fresh air, clear head, right? It's business owners, it's, it's employees and customers, employees and customers, employees and customers. And so we have to intentionally like, carve out time to be like, I need to get somewhere where nobody can ask me anything. And the, the worst it gets when I'm out running is like somebody calls me and I just hang up on my watch, right? It's like, nope, not doing it. and like, I don't even enjoy running. But I. So look, I mean, like, I'm looking forward to a thing I don't even like to do, right? But it, because I understand the journey of it. I don't have a weight I need to get down to. There's no other. I mean, I want to be in shape, right? I got little kids. I want to be able to carry them around. I want to be fit. I want to not look like a fat ass when I'm hanging out talking to you guys. But it's just like the process thing and, and if I miss it, I miss it, right? It's not the end of the world. And Ryan, you had mentioned that on our last podcast. You're like, yeah, I don't. If I do two, if I miss 200 push ups that day, it's not like I do 400 the next day. Let's do 200 again the next day. Right? And so, like, every day, we can. We can achieve that goal. And, yeah, we're going to miss some goals. And Kenny, you kind of talked about it. It's like, man, now I got this goal that I'm not going to hit. But it's like, well, that's not going to stop you from reading as many books as you can and doing it in the most functional way possible. Like, you don't just go like, well, I guess I'm never gonna read another book again. I'm done. Done reading forever. and so I like just that part of the journey and enjoying the experiences along the way, like, knowing that it's. It's helping us get better, it's helping us improve, it's giving us clarity. I think that's super important.

Very cool. Thank you. Is your beer done? I think you're. I think. I did turn my camera off earlier and go get

Very cool.

Oh, somebody's pizza is done.

Get it. Is your beer done? I think you're.

This is.

I did turn my camera off earlier and go get you a beer. So now. Now I'm drinking your beer.

Thank you.

This one's your beer. Yeah, you're welcome.

I think. I think. Thank you.

Um, I want to shift gears a little bit, and I know we're overtime

I want to shift gears a little bit, and I know we're overtime, so if you guys, like, have obligations and you just, like, hit end, you'll. You'll be off the show. But if you want to stick around, I'd love it. we won't go too much longer. I want to ask you. You out, Tom.

I have to scoot. That's that family life. Balance that.

Go do it. We already took one more time than we.

congratulations on 200. It was nice talking to you all, you guys. And, we'll catch you all later. All right?

and feel free, guys. If you guys gotta run, I totally understand.

How are you guys feeling about the economy and the lighting industry

but what we've succeeded to do was do another landscape lighting podcast without talking about landscape lighting. that's one of my. One of my goals is how do we not talk about landscape lighting and landscape lighting secrets and lighting for profits. But, I just want to do kind of a. You know, I don't know, I'm celebrating, like, getting this far and reminiscing on some of the past, but I want to kind of look into the future a little bit. And you know, none of us really know what's going to happen. But how are you guys feeling about the economy? How are you guys feeling about business in general? Like, what is the next 12 months look like in the landscape lighting industry? if you guys wouldn't mind, just, let's just kind of end on that. Talk about, how you guys think the the forecast. Are we going to make it to 250 episodes? Are we going to make it to 300? Are we going to make it To 400? Like, what does it look like?

I think you'll make it as long as you want to make it. I don't think you, I don't think you're stopping anytime soon. When, when you stop, it'll be because you choose to, I believe. So I think you got a good thing rolling here. I don't see that happening. But as far as the economy and the lighting industry is concerned, you know, I, I really struggled to plan this year out for my team, because I'm a very, I'm big on setting the, the, the plan and then running the play. Right. That's how we get, going for the year. And so, I had a hard time setting our goals and figuring out what we were going to do, investing in infrastructure and how we were going to grow and, and what, and, and you know, I, I ended up settling on a flat year. But, but, but all of, but one of our locations is actually up this year and I believe that one location is really only slightly down because he had such a good year last year and so trying to, you know, compete with that. But I, I really do see us staying flat or up slightly. There's still a lot of big projects, a lot of good things coming in and we're actually growing, right now, which I, I didn't really expect. So I'm, I'm, I mean I, I've kind of taken that, that breath of like, okay, maybe it's not going to be as big a problem as, as a lot of people said it was going to be. Let's go ahead and plan. Like, I'm, I'm definitely planning on growth for next year. So, so I'm, I'm excited for what's in the future. I know that lighting is at like, I think 10. If we could fast forward 10 years from now and look at the lighting industry, it's going to be 20 times what it is. It might be 30 times what it is right now. It's, it's, it's Worst, this industry is set to blow any minute now. And I think we're, we're like really, really close, close to seeing that. So I wouldn't sell a landscape lighting company right now, that's for sure.

I gotta, I gotta run in a minute here to get my kiddos. but I, I see this from the finance end of watching a bunch of people's businesses, which is it doesn't really matter what the government and the economy does in a really like high level way. the playing field levels, right. You can have the tariffs, you can have a, ah, recession. what does matter is your own beliefs. a weird example in the maid service industry. One of my friends, Holly Moore, has a, business in Houston and a business in Austin and her Houston business is crushing it. And her Austin business is like really slow and it's, and, and like we all live in the same world, but the people in Houston are like, Trump, yeah, we're doing this thing. And the people in Austin are like, oh my God, what the hell's happening? Right? The, the economy is caused by people's beliefs of what's going to happen. And, and that's an, that's on the consumer level. But as business owners, same. Right. Like our success as a business is, is a function of our belief of what's going to happen. And when business owners start to retract and get scared and, and their team sees them getting scared and they start like playing defense instead of offense, you already know what's going to happen. Of course you're going to retract. Right. But if you stay on offense. Yeah. Like your marketing levers might change. You might be buying businesses instead of spending money on Google Ads. But like there's offense to be played. And so like, like sometimes the, the businesses that grow the most grow the biggest in a, in a weird economic time because they're the only one that has the balls to do it. So the industry is gonna be fine, the economy's gonna be fine, the world's gonna keep happening. Like just don't wait for it. Right? Don't be scared. Go figure it out and go get it. Make it happen. Don't, don't wait for it to happen.

That is absolute fire. Damn Platter.

He's on it. He's on it today.

Speaking of fire, I'm gonna get fired if I don't go get my kids, so I gotta go get my kiddos. But you guys are awesome.

Mic drop. That was a good time to leave.

See you, Dan.

Bye, Dan.

Yeah, that Was. That was really great. I, I don't know. World War iii, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. I don't know. Like there's a lot of fear and uncertainty but there's always opportunity. So like there's always, there's, there's no, no such thing as a one sided anything. There's no such thing as a one sided pancake or one sided piece of paper or one sided. So, so there's always opportunities.

In a booming economy, language like luxury opulent does well

for the past two years, most of our clients, I have them adding like acquisition tabs to their website and even if they have a really small company, because it's a non verbal signal that like we're growing and so they literally just add up. Mergers and acquisitions. To have your website, even if you've never bought a business and you have no idea what you're doing. I also have them sending out acquisition letters once a month to all their competitors, which makes people mad but you want to be the first person they call when they panic. So you don't need to panic. Like people will panic and there could be opportunity for you. Other tactical tips. I think for example, in a booming economy, language like luxury opulent, premium top shelf does well. People buy luxury sounding things more. But in a, in a, in a, in a recession or a down economy, you want to use different language. So it might be your lighting package, might be called your luxury bundle. And maybe right now we keep the same package but we call it the super saver or the essentials package. And so if you re language things that can also help a lot, a lot more than you think. there's just always a way to navigate this stuff, you know. but I, I'm actually really, really, really optimistic personally. We'll see what happens. I think 2026 is going to be maybe one of the best years in the history of our country. I just have a weird feeling that the setback is actually a setup. I think there's going to be tons of opportunity. So I'm personally preparing with that belief and we'll all learn together on you know, next year I guess. Oh yeah.

I'm Greg from Super Saver Illumination.

I was wondering. He was standing. I'm like, he is not making a one single change.

I'm renaming right now Essential Illumination. yeah, I just looked at my retirement fund and I. The graph goes like that in a good way. If you look at the last year. So if you turn off CNN and the other news channels and you actually look at the real numbers, the economy is doing great. And the people that actually know the numbers and have money invested and are doing it properly, a property money management, they're still making money throughout this entire process. We had a couple of dips and guess what? When you have dips, people invest more money. They don't take it out of the market.

It just means things are on sale.

Yeah, things are on sale. You buy it. Like I actually, invested, I bought, I put my kids investment funds into the market when the things dipped during this whole thing. And that dip was really quick if you look at the actual, amount of time. So smart people are not losing money right now. and that, that's what you have to look at it. Like I said, we're, we're doing great here. I had a little bit of a downspout in revenue, which I don't even like looking at numbers. Sorry, Dan, this is like blasphemy. Glad he's gone. He can't hear this good. Yeah, yeah, okay. Smack.

He said he doesn't watch the show.

Anyway, but the reason we went down is because of Ryan Lee. So he made me get intentional. So I've been hiring people. We have the perfect general manager, I got the push perfect director of operations. We have a new designer, I got a field foreman running things. Even a new guy, Isaiah, who's 18, who I'm training up to be, you know, one of the new leaders in the, the company. Over the next few years, like I'm, I've been hiring, we've been working on systems. We've been getting revved up not to just like stay stable, but to actually grow. So some of my new wins have been like, you know, getting new hires without me even knowing their name, which has been really out of place for me of my comfort zone. And that guy hasn't been fired yet. So apparently they did a good job. but also it's not my job to fire him if he does fail. So that's kind of a good feeling too. But the economy is in a good spot. And just like Josh said, you may have to make some adaptations or some verbiage differences or give some more options, but prepare yourself. I mean, we, we looked at more American made brand lines as secondary brands when the first China thing happened, what, five years ago? Four years ago. So we've had that set up in the last half a decade. So when Tariff said, I'm like, okay, no big deal, I have an advantage now over the other guy. And now that's become one of our more over primary Brands where we have that advantage. We're not just, you know, sitting there worried about what that percentage is going to be charged week to week to week. and even if you look at these numbers increasing the tariffs that are being charged these manufacturers, most of the increases that have been given to us through distribution or from manufacturers have not been that big. I mean, like 5%, 7%, 10%. That's not that crazy. So you should have enough cushion in there or be able to raise your prices enough to not only cover that, but, you know, be able to compensate for that and to grow with these new numbers.

People make decisions based on what if the tree dies, right?

Yeah.

So I think we're in a good spot.

I. I had a client one time, lighting client, when I had my lighting business, and we put together this design. They had this beautiful large oak tree. And I, you know, I had probably only four lights on at the time. Now I'd put like 17 with what I've learned about design, but add some lights on. There they go. It looks great. Let's do everything. But we don't want to light that tree. I was like, why would you not like the tree? It's freaking awesome. They go, well, we think it's dying. Yeah, our tree guy said it's dying. I'm like, it's, it's. It's dying, but it has leaves on it. Like, but it's not dead. It's still there. But you think it's dying. Yep. Yep, we think it's dying. They. So I literally couldn't convince them to light this tree. And I said, well. And I was like, well, you know, if it, if it dies, we can move the lights to another area. We can plant another tree. Like, I'm trying all these different angles. Nope, we're not lighting the tree because we think it's dying. Literally, two years later, you guys, two years later, they call back, hey, we. Turns out the tree didn't die. We want to light the tree. And I'm thinking, you know, like, I'm addicted to light. That's two years that they couldn't celebrate this tree, that they couldn't live with this magical tree in their front yard. It was beautiful, right? So that's how I feel now is, like, people are going to make decisions because, like, what if the tree dies? And that's just no way to run a business. Like, what if the tree lives? What if the tree live? Like, don't we want to celebrate this portion of our lives and our business? And are you going to really forego two years of enjoyment just because something might Happen, statement is we change.

Lives one night at a time. So like every night you don't have our lighting, your life sucks a little bit more.

Yeah.

So if you don't believe that, then you need to start believing that in your company.

Opportunity costs are, are, something we definitely need to be looking at a little more.

Tom appreciates all of you coming on the show and reminiscing

Well, guys, I really can't tell you how much I appreciate. I know we went long. I'm just grateful to have friends, I'm grateful to have mentors. I look up to all of you guys. Dan's, gone. I don't look up to him. he's not gonna hear this. He doesn't listen to the show, like, whatever, you know, Tom, really everyone that appreciate you guys coming on and all of our past guests, you guys just happen to be, you know, the all stars with the most downloads and stuff. But, really appreciate you guys coming on here and kind of reminiscing about the past and talking about the future and, and all the things. So really, really appreciate you guys.

Greg Goya thanks Ryan Lee for supporting the landscape lighting industry

Anything you want to leave us with a final message, a final thought?

Well, I just want to say thank you for supporting the industry too, Ryan. I know you get a lot of flack from different areas, but, with a genuine opinion from a design centric company as myself, like, not based on sales, all this stuff, you have helped us grow and, you know, systemize and like I said, we're right here now and like, we're going to be here in the next five years. and part of that's going to be because of you. So thank you. Even though you almost killed my wife in Utah on a mountain. But we'll let that slide for now. And then I have three quick things. 10th anniversary party, luxury illumination, West Palm Beach, September 27th. That's gonna be in conjunction with Ryan Lee's the Landscape Lighting Live, which we all also hosted. The first Landscape Lighting Live ever here, which is awesome. And then we got Illy, which is a fall course, November 6th through 11th. That's going to be in Taos, New Mexico. So if you want to up your design skills, go to that. It's life changing. Ryan was the, the top Rover mentor of the month.

Yeah, Are you kidding? Of the whole year. I was.

Of the year.

I was the first and last, I think Rover mentor of the year of Illy. they. I guess they invented it for me. I don't know. I'm kind of a big deal around there.

And then the Last thing is AOLP, Illuminate. 2026. It's going to be February 5 through 6. Next year it's a 25th anniversary, Carlsbad, California, where it kind of all started. we're working on a spotlight like talk headliner show. It's going to be amazing and I'm trying to get like a record breaker, you know, attendance there. I'm not trying. We are going to get a record breaking attendance there. So it's going to be awesome. So put all those dates down and come to all those. Goya. That's it.

Oh, yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Greg. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for saying those things.

Yep.

Kenny, thanks, man.

What? No, I, I, I'm just impressed with what you've built. So kudos to you, man. there are a lot of guys, a lot of naysayers. I do, I just love, I just don't listen. Like, I'm just gonna push forward. I'm not gonna listen to, to the naysayers. I learned that about you, spend some time with you. I really like the, I've enjoyed being a member, so, you know, actually getting involved, the community. You know, something I've learned being part of Outdoor Lighting Perspectives is that community is so valuable and you've built that landscape, lighting community that, that spends a lot more time together than even the A guys and the illy guys and, and those are great, communities as well. But you, you've just kind of built it where it's just a lot more communication, a lot more education going in. I'm just, I'm just pumped to be a part of it.

Ryan Lee: Thank you guys so much for supporting me on this show

So thanks for allowing me to be a part of it.

That's awesome. Thanks for saying that. Appreciate you, Kenny.

Yeah, you're pretty much pretty awesome, Ryan Lee. We all think that. I've, people really, they don't need to understand, but they really will never understand how hard it is to just blaze a path and create a thing from nothing. And all the little arrows you get in your back and you know, all the educational content you've had to build, like, because the thing about your program that makes it unique is that it actually works and it's irrefutable. So it's like if you do the work, you get the result. It's a big deal. It's a best in class type of thing. You're a great guy or family guy and you've just, you invented a thing in your brain that's rippled into people's lives. And I respect anybody who does something like that because it's really hard. and this is just the beginning for you, bro. Really?

That's awesome. you guys are amazing. Josh, you know this probably the most. I don't like compliments, but thank you. it does. It does feel good in a. In a weird, awkward way. but honestly, I. I'm gonna flip. It gonna make it about everyone else because that's, you know, it's. If I didn't have your guys's support, I'm just a one man show, so you. You guys mean the world to me. I appreciate everyone's support. And, we're doing this together. We're doing it as a team, you.

Know, with my wife.

I'm gonna go get naked asap.

You know, when you, like, correct an employee, it's called a criticism sandwich. Where you tell them like, hey, you're really great at this, but we really need to work on this. But again, you're really great at the need, like, the opposite. I need to, like, be mean to you.

I know.

Stuff a compliment in there and then, like, mock you again, then you'll accept.

Dude, you just figured out that's like a life hack for me. That is so true.

Like, yeah, it's like, you're such a loser, man. You really did a good job with landscape lightings. But again, like, you're weird and bad jokes suck.

That's what I'm talking about. Now we can end. Go. Thank you guys so much. That was a great way to end all. right, guys, thank you so much. 200 episodes. Can't believe it. On to the next one. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks, guys for being here. Appreciate you. Thanks for staying late. All right, let's go change the world one house at a time, right? Thank you.