S3E09 - Lessons From A Serial Entrepreneur w/ Sean Mills

Subscriber-only episode

This week in The Biz Dojo, we're joined by Sean Mills - Co-Founder of FTR Golf and  Big Buck Golf, a serial-entrepreneur and a PGA of Alberta Professional. Whew - that's a mouthful! 

Sean sits down in the Dojo to share his story of discovering his entrepreneurial self, and what goes into becoming a successful venture. We talk a little golf, and a whole lot about tapping into your own potential, and surrounding yourself with those who compliment your skillsets. Seth even gets a chance to bring up JP's first venture, AntiSec. 

So, wake up nice and early with a Biz Dojo Coffee (Masters Medium - OR - Dojo Dark) in hand, and let's hit the links!..... FOUR!

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Transcript

JP Gaston: 0:01

Hey everyone JP here from The Biz Dojo just want to let you know about news Li. It's an audio app for iOS and Android, it picks up Web articles about some of the most trending topics, and then it reads them to you in a natural human voice. Much like this beautiful voice right here. Anyways, for the first time in the history of the internet, the web is listening. You can browse articles from topics you choose and start playing. So stop scrolling, just start listening. And they have a podcast too, so you can listen to us there, as well as a whole bunch of other podcasts from over 40 countries. To check it out. Download newsleave from newsleave.me or just click the link in the description for the podcast and use promo code v one zero 2021 that'll get you a month free premium description. Nothing like a china newsletter.

Voiceover: 0:49

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Seth Anderson: 1:18

So one year ago tomorrow, two young lads ventured into the forest. I liked that the starts with the young lads we were younger fair. There was a forest filled with other podcasts I guess I don't know the metaphor starts to fall apart pretty quickly but but it's been a good year

JP Gaston: 1:44

in the forest filled with weeds

Seth Anderson: 1:46

we went in with a machete and a water bottle and we have been cutting a trail through the forest for the last year

JP Gaston: 1:54

machete waterfowl we were well prepared for this venture

Seth Anderson: 1:57

I would say that's about how prepared we were What about what do you

JP Gaston: 2:02

I feel like we had a specific set of skills Okay, so we had a compass a compass and a machete being the microphone and a water bottle being an internet connection and here we are.

Seth Anderson: 2:16

What's your favorite memory or I don't know favorite memory what's the first memory that comes to mind of the last year

JP Gaston: 2:22

half of the memories that come to mind is actually the stuff that doesn't necessarily make it to air I we've we've had a couple of recordings where we've cry laughter way out and those those come to mind pretty quickly

Seth Anderson: 2:35

I think I agree with you I've never cried laughed this much in my adult life than in the last year

JP Gaston: 2:42

we could probably do an entire separate pod of like where we tried to be serious but it just didn't work.

Seth Anderson: 2:50

Yeah, Darren McGinty was I think the biggest laugh

JP Gaston: 2:55

no the Vaseline eyeballs here you're allowed eyeballs is my about eyeballs that's a real problem. I forgot about all that blinking keeping people awake I think a nice second to first cry laughing close second has been all the people that we've met today yes you know guess fans just everybody like there's you know there's family members that I haven't really been that close with like just in family members that like you know my brother or anything but there's been some family members who I've started talking to a lot more often recently because of the show which is pretty amazing too. Yeah, and I mean it's almost like I tried sitting there one day and just thinking of all the people that we've met and then the people we've met through the people we've met and it's like a big spiderweb right now it's like a network of

Seth Anderson: 3:55

I know we don't do our top three lists anymore we retired the podium for now but what would you What would you put for the third thing to bring it home? I would probably say the random learnings hmm yeah there's been so many I will call them aha moments paradigm shifts Even now I like aha moments because it makes me think of Take on me so I'll go with

JP Gaston: 4:19

but no there's just been so many of them were often from people I did not think we're going to bring that to the table in the moment so some of them are a surprise some of them are just like weird random facts about chicken and Louise from Nicole and Francine are like weird things like that but there's been so many so many things that I've taken away from especially from I would say this season in particular we've we've shifted the focus of the show a little bit so we get to those a lot more often. But they've they've all been pretty amazing.

Seth Anderson: 4:51

Yeah, one one that always sticks in my head actually is destination itis that with Jason. Yes. I think of that one a

JP Gaston: 4:59

lot. Do You ever use it on your kids when you're driving? there? Yeah, destination.

Seth Anderson: 5:06

weekend we go to Wayne, right? I'm busting

JP Gaston: 5:10

just enjoy the journey.

Seth Anderson: 5:11

So I think I think this week we kind of got back to our roots a little bit and like you mentioned, we've kind of pivoted, we've evolved and grown. But this week we have Sean Mills who I've known for many years, but you know, sort of arm's length like not super close friends, but we've known each other and really interesting background, very entrepreneurial as serial entrepreneur as it were. And it was kind of cool just jammin with him in the dojo.

JP Gaston: 5:42

We definitely centered around golf and how horrible our golf game was.

Seth Anderson: 5:46

I'm bad at golf. I yeah, it's not my thing. It's

JP Gaston: 5:50

I used to work at a golf course. And me too, I golfing. Like every day, we had like the same lives that

Seth Anderson: 5:58

we get literally like we could, yeah, anyway.

JP Gaston: 6:04

But I used to golf every day. And it's funny how good you get at something when you do it every day. And how quickly it leaves you but then you people say it's like riding a bike. And I think we covered this with JD riding a bike is not that easy. When you haven't done it, try and jump back on one. Golf is no different. Entrepreneurship is no different. It's very difficult. You'll learn a lot about yourself.

Seth Anderson: 6:26

Yeah. Well, I think what I appreciated the most out of this conversation was just, I think Shawn is very similar to us and how he thinks and just contract in radio. And then he also audio course, we you know, all those things, but he's always just looking for the next thing and he's growing. And he's he's a self learner, which I really appreciate. And, you know, sort of brings me to sort of the question of the week and maybe before we get to that, we ask our guests every week, you know, what's next for them? And I don't know, what do you think's next for us as we look ahead to the to the next year of this whole deal?

JP Gaston: 7:01

I'm thinking a whole lot more conversations I in part because I know who's on our list coming up and I think some of them are gonna blow people away. I'm certainly excited about what we have on the horizon or the near the near horizon near term near horizon. But yeah, I think I think more of that I think more of the personal development I like we've just gone through so many changes ourselves. Working on our coaching, working on The Biz Dojo as a business, not just a podcast, more than a podcast, one might say hashtag tm. Yeah, I think there's, I think there's a lot in our in our near future. Let's say you good, sir.

Seth Anderson: 7:42

Yeah, no, I agree. I think we want to start to figure out what are the components that surround the podcast that make it more than a podcast, you know, like, we're talking about doing a newsletter with some value add material. We've recently, last week launched the first sub pod, not the right word sub pod. Why not? The Biz Dojo presents next level mindset. Morning Coffee. So we're going to try some different things with that. And we've got a talks underway with a couple other folks that maybe have a network of podcasts under The Biz Dojo. So I think we get a spiderweb network, whatever. So I think we got a lot of exciting things on the horizon. And, you know, I'm just open, open to wherever this leads with no destination itis.

JP Gaston: 8:33

So it's amazing what comes your way when you're open? And

Seth Anderson: 8:37

maybe for a thought to ponder for everyone is, what's next for you. We're heading into the final quarter of the year and 2022 on the horizon. What do you got planned? Welcome to The Biz Dojo with Seth and JP. This week, we're joined by Sean Mills. Sean, welcome to the dojo. Thank you very much, guys. JP, Seth. It's an honor to be here. Yeah. Pleasure to have you. So you and I kind of go way back. We actually, for a very brief moment in time worked together flash, sort of ships passing in the night at the KT three radio station board opping Euler games.

Sean Mills: 9:31

Yeah, that was, that was years and years ago. I actually had got a job there. As an interest beast. I did a little bit of work from school participation type, type, kind of role, and learned about the radio industry. But early on when I was in grade 11, I was looking like, I knew I didn't have a face for TV. So I went down the radio path, and I was actually engaged and I looking at signing up to that Nate program. So that was kind of my first taste. In the radio business

Seth Anderson: 10:00

Yeah, so mine was similar because I moved to Wayne right in grade 12 and I think he must have been graduated already. What year did you graduate? Oh 2003 2003 we graduated the same year were you at the blasts or I was at the blast er at the blast. Okay, so we graduated same year. And it was Mr. Turetsky that got me on working at the radio station. I think it was Jeff Murray was was sort of the guy then.

Sean Mills: 10:23

Yep. Jeff Murray was the guy. He was kind of the primary radio host. There was another gentleman. I can't remember his name. And then of course Jeff Nuland doing the new Jeff, Jeff and Jeff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Nope, it's the rescue. What a what a guy. I really enjoy that.

Seth Anderson: 10:38

He's a beauty for sure. So now that we've gone down memory lane and caught up, maybe just introduce yourself to the to the folks who's who Sean Mills.

Sean Mills: 10:47

So yeah, so my name is Sean Mills. I'm originally born and raised in Wayne, right and a proud community member of the Wainwright area. I live in Beaumont now, but I've worked inside of oil and gas and the golf business. I'm a PGA of Canada professional. And have started a number of different businesses both inside the golf industry and out. Most of my career I spent working for large cap service companies. And more recently, within the last few years, I've kind of gone down the entrepreneurial road and kind of continued to develop a few businesses, one of which we have launched a website and another one that we have just launched in the last 12 months here, and I can I can continue to pursue so I'm a serial entrepreneur, as my friends and family would like to attest to, not afraid of taking risks, but much calculated risks. And overall just a general member of the community, by golf been involved in hockey for a number of years, and just kind of have a large social network just due to being a little bit more of the happy go lucky guy. I'm always looking for the positive in any situation. So that's what you're gonna find with me

JP Gaston: 11:49

I feel like when you get into being an entrepreneur, you instantly become a serial entrepreneur. Like everyone I know that's an entrepreneur is either it's their first time or it's their 1,000th time doing something entrepreneurial.

Sean Mills: 12:01

Well I think like when you talk about the 1,000th time you have to try things 1000 times before you kind of find the root of a few different successes and it really takes it really takes the courage the to take that step and being uncomfortable because being an entrepreneur is super uncomfortable if you're in situations with people that you don't know with businesses that are maybe don't want to take take your your information to heart and it can be challenging just to kind of get started and that's the hardest part is is you have to start and you have to feel uncomfortable

JP Gaston: 12:33

What was your first entrepreneurial venture What was that? What was that first passion that got you started?

Sean Mills: 12:39

Oh geez, I think um, my first entrepreneurial venture I you know, I guess if we want to go right back to it I used to be a ball spotter for the Wainwright oil men's when I was like 12 years old, I used to be an event because you could make a few bucks right? spotting balls and kind of just generally be outgoing but I started to sell golf balls that I found in the bush to some of the the oil men and during these times do you like you got more profitable later in the afternoon, I'll put it to you that way. But I but I think like kind of beyond that I've been working like I've had a job and I've I've been working and employed since I was 14 years old. So always in customer service base, always people facing so I think in terms of like an entrepreneurial spirit. It's more of a sales spirit, I enjoy the having a product and having something that's available for somebody to purchase. And, and just, you know, the golden rule in whether it be an entrepreneurial ship or sales is that people buy from people. So you, you put that face forward. And I think that's always been a skill set of mine that I've really enjoyed. But that's that's really what it is. I just enjoy the rush of the sales and I enjoy meeting new people and creating relationships. One of

Seth Anderson: 13:50

the things that fascinates me there's many things that fascinate me. sjp is well well known at this point, but particularly around skills that you develop through sport that then apply in business and particular entrepreneurship and being a golf pro. Like my head goes to patients, and like having a strong mind and all the things that would be required to become a golf pro. If you kind of reflect on that for a minute. Are there a couple of key skills from that journey that you've been able to apply to your entrepreneurial ventures?

Sean Mills: 14:26

Well, certainly and I think that like being a golf professional, a lot of times that you can take it two ways there's there's professional golfers and there's golf professionals. So the game is incredibly difficult. It's very individual. It's very mental based there is ebbs and flows of your emotions. So if it's any takeaway that I've learned from professional golf, and whether it be playing a tournament or being in situations where you're teaching, where you're teaching a group of people or individuals is kind of maintaining a level of emotional intelligence where you can reflect and take The the challenge and the difficulty and the frustration from either your participants or the just the situation at hand, and being able to remain calm and still kind of reside with a level of decision making that's, that's functional for the situation. So the I think the, the easiest relation is that they're both just so difficult to succeed in, and then just having the fervor to kind of continue to pursue it, no matter the situation, you have to take the positives out of situations, I mean, personally, as a, as a, as a golfer, whether it be in high level amateur golf, or even kind of dabbling in professional golf, I've been in situations where I've had a comfortable ability to maybe win a tournament or win a highly ranking tournament, and it never really got the job done. But what I did take from it is the experience, and then you apply that experience down the road. And I think that's equivalent in business that, for every positive experience you have, you lose more often than you win. And I think that's something that you can take from golf. I think for

JP Gaston: 15:54

me, golf is just different than the other sports like, I feel like in golf, you make 80 to 100 very distinct decisions, okay, for me at 230 very distinct decisions over the course of your game, whereas in something like hockey, like you're making a decision, but you're making them in such rapid succession, that they're not always affecting the next decision. But golf always is affecting that next decision. So I really feel like in golf, you can get inside your head a lot quicker. Like if your first shot off, the tee is not good. Your whole game could be gone. In hockey, like if your first shot misses the net, you're like, gonna have to dial that in, that's not a bro. Or like baseball, you strike out your first at bat, not a big deal, you'll have some more, you'll be good.

Sean Mills: 16:45

I agree that I think that there's there's relationships to be taken from both golf hockey, team sports. One thing that I found and one thing I've learned over my career, we're talking specifically about golf and the comparisons to if you look at really elite hockey players, and I've been fortunate enough also having a relationship with with Adam Huxley and just some of his pupils kind of through the years is that elite hockey players are able to make decisions that are not right now they're decisions that are going to affect the the anticipation of what happens in the future. And golf is very much the same thing where if you look at it from a point of view, where you're you're just trying to make the shot right now just to get it from point A to point B, it's more of a chess game than that it's it's looking at where do I need to get to, to finish the whole out. So if you're, if you're just looking at apart for, for example, there's a fairway and there's a green, and there's usually two shots in between you in there. So when you factor in the probabilities of if I can get it into somewhat of this general area based on how that I missed, and then getting it into this secondary general area based on how that I miss onto the green, your percentage chances increase of the ability to score well, and, and that's just anticipation. So thinking about it more of like a chess match versus just a very difficult present situation, then you can reduce your stress, you know that every shots are not going to be perfect, but the good ones are going to be that much better. And that's just what the the most elite professional athletes, whether it be in Olympians, or individual sports, such as golf or team sports, such as hockey is their anticipation to make those decisions is less stress on them, because they're anticipating kind of what the result of that might be. And if you kind of relate that to our experience as, as entrepreneurs or as business people, that's the whole kind of enlightenment of of what you're trying to accomplish. You're trying to accomplish the problem that you're trying to solve. Well, what are the what are the steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of stress on myself personally, or just on the situation to allow me to succeed?

JP Gaston: 18:41

I'm just worried about the people on the other fairways To be honest, like I can hit the not the one that I mean.

Sean Mills: 18:49

I there's a few courses that I've played where it's you could probably wear element, that's for sure. And obviously, like me being in the being a social kind of atmosphere that I've been in a lot. I've seen, I've seen some really good, really good misses put it that way.

JP Gaston: 19:05

I worked at a golf course or a number of years and at one point I got my handicap away down. I think it was like an eight or nine. And I was golfing with the club pro every day and it was great. And then you know, a couple of years of not golfing with a club Pro. And that eight or nine turns into an 80 or 90 and Oh yeah. It's amazing how fast it

Sean Mills: 19:26

leaves you for sure. And it's and do you find too like if you leave it for a while the first couple rounds you surprise yourself. You're like, oh, wow, I can do this again. And I can do it well and then you start to think about what you're doing and then it completely falls apart.

JP Gaston: 19:39

It's the T it's always the T that screws me up. Yeah, that's

Seth Anderson: 19:42

that's what killed me. I went I haven't gone golfing in a couple of years. But the last time I went out I was like man, I'm good at golf and I probably had like five, six holes that were like I was putting for par and you know, kind of fell apart but I was feeling good. And then the back nine I just couldn't do anything. And I think it was that point that you made their shot. Like I just started thinking about it, and then that it was over. And part of me, you know, as we relate that back to business and entrepreneurship, I think a lot of times as leaders or entrepreneurs, we think we need to be right all the time, right? Like he can't make a mistake, or the world's gonna fall apart. And one of the, quote I heard at a leadership conference one time is like the best baseball players in the world, bat 350, right. So they're still missing seven out of every 10. And they just get back up, and they do the best they can the next at bat. And as entrepreneurs and leaders, like what's a good batting average, on your decision making through the day? I don't know what the answer is to that. But I feel like if I bet 400 for the day on, you know, making a good sound decision. And you know that all that if you can do that over the course of a year or a season, you'll end up in a pretty good place.

Sean Mills: 20:52

percent. And I think that's a that's kind of the transparency of the decision making too is that just knowing whether you're right or wrong is sort of irrelevant. As long as you're making the decision at that point in time, at that singular point in time, that allows you to feel comfortable about what the future looks like. And whether you change your mind entirely is kind of, not the point, it's whether you have assessed the situation into a into a level of probability that's going to be successful for yourself. And if it isn't, then you've learned something. And I think that's something that's important is like, even look at your own life, the amount of times that you've done something incorrectly, or offside or wrong, but that you've learned from and change your kind of present and future. I mean, that's personal growth in a nutshell, I think, I

Seth Anderson: 21:39

mean, if you think about it, how often do you actually have all the information in anything? Right? See, like, I think that's part of being an entrepreneur or a leader or work, just a person, take as much information as you can get and make a decision and move forward, and then good, bad, or otherwise learn and grow and keep developing. Like, that's not enough. That's the secret to life, but it's got to be pretty close.

Sean Mills: 22:02

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely impactful. It's an impactful way to but I think that even for you guys with the podcast, I mean, it's, it's something that you've reflect on, on what, you know, what's the best path forward, we don't actually know. But we're gonna go down this road, and see where it takes us

Seth Anderson: 22:18

well, and keep trying new things. And I think that's one of the thing that, you know, that inspires me about about your story. And your journey is, you've just been, you've been kind of, I won't say all over the map. But you know, oil and gas, golf just in life, like you're willing to kind of get out there and try different things. And I think it's super cool to see, you know, you're taking all your learnings from you know, being a professional golfer from being an oil and gas, and now applying it to this new these new ventures that you have. Mm, maybe it's good time to dive into that. FTR like, I've got this screen up right now next to me with this beautiful looking golf cart. What What was the inspiration to go down this road? And how's it going so far?

Sean Mills: 23:00

It's kind of funny, like the the inspiration to start, it was really, me and my business partner were golfing. And we were playing a course. And we were in a rental car, and we played 11 holes, and the wrench cart was dead. And not only was it dead, there was no, you know, it's 2021 or 2020. At the time, there's no phone charger on there. There's no real like, there's no real consumer based excitement when you get in the golf car. And when you're playing on a day, that takes forever. I mean, sometimes in certain places, golf takes a long time. So basically, the impact that we had is that, in my experience, working in manufacturing and on supply chain and logistics was, can we make a better product? Or has anybody tried? So that was step one. And I think like when you look at it from what is the value that you're trying to create? What is the problem that you're trying to solve? We just felt like there was an opportunity where there's literally only three major manufacturers of golf cars in North America. So you have three options when you look at it. So we just looked down the road of can we create a fourth option, and something that's Canadian that we could maybe potentially, you know, generate some revenue off of create some jobs. But what we did is we took that problem and then we expanded it a little bit further. And we looked at what you know what technology is out in the marketplace, worldwide, not just in North America, but worldwide that's available. So what we ended up with through our discovery process is that we found Okay, the world's pushing towards more of lithium ion base battery because it's there, you're getting more energy, with less dense or with more density in the battery. So less, less space needs to be taken up for how long a battery can work. Well, that's a problem that we saw because we had to get our cart replaced after 12 holes in the middle of summer, or in the middle of the spring. So this is the beginning of the season. So we knew like the challenge is is that while from a golf course perspective, you just can't have electric cars that or you just can't have electric cars, they're going to be quitting on their customers and then you paying 25 to $30 just for the car rental right so in terms of how people would view that There's a perception base there that we could probably improve that on. And then we looked at a couple of things like some some technology things, just for the customers experience. So high quality seats, is there an ability to charge your phones? Can you listen to tunes. So we have a full Bluetooth connection in there with stereo that's built right into the car as a stock standard. But then we looked at it from a point of view, okay, well, if we can take in a lithium battery, anybody ever tried to put a solar panel on the roof to see what the extended range might look like? And and FTR is really the, you know, it's future less, the less the vowels, but we believe we have some technology that we're working on with the University of Alberta. And we have a couple of different partnerships that that are underway to kind of continue on that technology development. But what we're trying to do is take a golf car, and solve a problem operationally from the golf course, solve a problem, potentially environmentally, from the carbon footprint of gas cars, and, and the waste off of, you know, lead acid batteries that need to be replaced every two seasons, and create a longer running car. And we've kind of found through the discovery process that, you know, we may be onto something. So we built a prototype, and we got it tested. And we did some testing on our own. And our prototype is actually right now at the University of Alberta. But that's, that's kind of the genesis of what we're doing is that just with industry experience, and being coached and being on teams, historically, through our careers, we just took bits and pieces from each one of those experiences and applied it to ourselves individually. And Garrett Fraser and myself, we have a good mix of skill set where we thought Geez, we can, we can really create a business out of this,

Seth Anderson: 26:40

but I'm inspired. I mean, if you haven't, which I'm sure most of you haven't, because we're just having Sean on now. But FTR golf calm, like it is a really aesthetically pleasing golf cart,

Sean Mills: 26:54

it is and that that's honestly, that's the most important part, I mean, you can build a golf car, that would be functionally the same. But aesthetically, I mean, I'm kind of picky. So like, I would want to be the one I would want to drive this thing. So the roof is actually we have a partner company that we had found, and we've been working with for the last year out of Denmark, called solar drive. And they've tried this principle on on cars, where you basically add the roof to it. But we are the only manufacturer in the world that that stipulates as a stock and a standard that our car comes with the solar panel roof as a solar assist. And it does a number of things that we you know, through the discovery process that was really neat. So when you look at lithium batteries, the the biggest downfall of lithium batteries in terms of Yes, they have a lot of charge cycles. But if those charge cycles are from zero to 100, over the course of its lifespan, if you can, if you can trickle charger, you have some sort of charge to keep that battery a little bit more on the high end of its battery range, it actually increases the longevity. So when you talk about for battery would last, say five to six years, we're now doing studies on if during course operation throughout a day, do you even have to plug the golf cart in at all, which as of right now you don't. But what is the impact on that from an energy savings point of view. So we're looking at from if you're a course operator, and you have a fleet of 80 cars, typically, you know, those cars that we were driving into, that were dying throughout the day, they have to be plugged in boast all parts of the day just to be able to functionally run. And the only times that they're not plugged in is when they're not the orders when they're being utilized. So conceptually, we were looking at what is the energy reduction overall by not having to plug the car in at all. And then if you're charging at the end of the day on non peak hours for you know, 40% of the battery instead of 100%. Three to four cycles throughout the day. What does that look like? What is the carbon footprint reduction? What is the energy reduction on the cost point of view? So that's we're thinking about it, not necessarily just as Hey, we have an aesthetically pleasing car, that's just a bonus that allowed us to kind of continue on down the road to be able to kind of find the genesis of what FDR means

JP Gaston: 29:06

do you look at the private market at all like I know you're focused towards the golf club, or Yeah, golf clubs. But do you look at the private market because there's so many people especially those who live around golf clubs who have their own golf cart and they typically they did I know they just you know purchase the old stuff from the golf club. Let's just try to get rid of an old car but but are you also looking at that market when you're looking at features and whatnot?

Sean Mills: 29:33

Oh 100% Yeah, actually we do. Like as of right now we have our first 55 cars being built and tested will be kind of ready for delivery, late October, but our first the first cars that we've built are for individuals. So we have two seaters, which are the golf cars and we also have the four seaters. So the golf car with the two seats facing rearward so we have those available. Yeah, but that's a huge market in Western Canada. Not only from you know Just people who are camping or in campgrounds or late communities, but also for places like Wainwright and East Central Alberta where people can have their own cars and they can drive it on the course and and some in some ways they can drive at home to

Seth Anderson: 30:13

one of the things you mentioned there Shawn that piqued my interest was around your your business partnership and this is something we've talked about on the show quite a bit in terms of when you're going into business it is key to you know, if you're going to have a business partner it's it's it's really key to have complementary skill sets. And I think you know, JP that's something you and I have found, I have 100 ideas that I throw at the wall every day and JP kind of tempers the enthusiasm and you know, we balanced each other very well. I know you know the boys from shoot your shot Parker and Ambrose they kind of had a similar dynamic now just just kind of curious for you and Garrett, how did you know that that was going to be a good business partnership? And what kind of complementary skills do you guys have?

Sean Mills: 30:56

Well, Gary and I have had a long standing relationship both both from work like we've worked together. When he moved to Wainwright I worked for him as a as a teenager. So I'm sure that was quite the experience for him. But I think what what we found is that we you know, we found when we built the driving range so Gary and I both own a driving range on garretts land that's situated in between arm lake and Clear Lake just outside of Edgerton, which is, which is kind of our genesis of our very first entrepreneurial business, it's a big buck golf. So we've worked together for probably seven or eight years. But the one thing that I would say that, you know, what meshes us together between Garrett and myself is he is much more analytically and detail oriented, driven, where I am more business objects and operations of logistics and, and the sales and the sales and marketing. So between the two of us, I mean, not to say that neither one of us don't have those skills. But that's in Garrett's career, specifically. He was he's been involved in mass scale projects, infrastructure, project management, you know, a little bit of like political type environments where myself I've always been customer facing in an account management type position, whether it be large scale contracts, or one off sales. I think that bar business dollars together that we've shared over the years, allowed us to challenge each other. But in a professional setting. I mean, we are we are really good friends and, and best friends, he was the best man in my wedding. But what allows us to kind of continue that relationship without there being like fluff. Like without being like, yeah, you're the best, you're great. And like, keep doing this, we actually challenge each other more often than we, then we kind of, we always support each other. But we were not afraid to challenge each other in a professional setting. We could separate business from friendship, like we've had some heated discussions in business, and then turned it off, played around golf, had a beer and just had an enjoyable rest of the weekend. Right. So I think that that's one that's one thing about emotional intelligence, what that you learn kind of throughout your career is that at work, you have to take work as work. And then in your personal life, you need to enjoy your life. We're not here for that long. So I think that's our best matches that we have kind of similar personalities where he's a little bit more intense than I am. And I'm a little bit more easygoing, but we can also flip that around where, situationally, you know, he's a little bit more easygoing, and I'm a little bit more intense when I need to be so it's, I think that's the that's the good combination that we have is that and not only that, we'd like you know, we've been doing this for we've been working together on different projects and entrepreneurial projects for these seven or eight years now.

Seth Anderson: 33:48

I thought that was an interesting component. I don't know if you remember JP, but Parker and Ambrose talking about how they were linemates admitted triple A, and that just creates a certain dynamic between each other of like, accountability when your line mates, and how that sort of carried over into running a business together. So I mean, I could see that, again, linkage between playing a sport together and being able to have those, like, totally transparent. We'll call it tough conversations, just like no fluff, no bullshit, like, we're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna solve this problem together, and without it becoming like a personal thing. And now, like, I feel like flipping the question on JP, like, what do you think our complementary skills are? That's where I describe them. But I mean, now, I'm just curious what your take is,

JP Gaston: 34:31

I think that we're just we're both open to possibilities. Like it's one of the neat things about the podcast is, we've both worked in radio, but podcasting is a totally different world. So we both have our ideas, and they're very clear ideas, I think, and they, they're, like I said, complimentary, but they're not the same. I don't think I think we both have kind of a different idea of the branches that we can go down and we temper that for each other. And you know, you do a good job of keeping me on Track just as I do a good job of keeping you on track, I think one of our risks is that we are both spaghetti at the wall type guys. Like, here's 1000 ideas, I'm just gonna throw a ball and see what sticks.

Seth Anderson: 35:11

Yeah. And in that vein, I know, Shawn, you're a self described idea guy. Can you do you have any examples of like a big idea that you had that totally didn't go anywhere, but like you felt in the moment was like your best idea ever? Oh, and you're on the spot there. But

Sean Mills: 35:28

yeah, I, you know, I, I've just had so many ideas over the years that like, I couldn't, I couldn't pinpoint it on one. You know, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. I'm sure that there's one out there that if I think of it, I'll definitely bring it up. But it's, you know, it's a good kind of segue into Well, what is a good idea versus what's a bad idea, right? Or is there such a thing as a bad idea, but there might be there's probably great ideas out there that just functionally don't make any business sense when you kind of break it down. Right? So you know, I, I always look at a business idea in terms of, if you guys have ever heard of the value triad, or the value triangle. So the value triad basically stipulates, you know, does this product or service allow for the consumer? So whether it be a business purchasing it, we'll just use that as an example, if a business is purchasing this this product or service? does it allow for them to have a revenue game? does it create some sort of emotional game for them? Or their customers? Or does it reduce their costs overall, so all of which equate to further business or further profitability, no matter how you look at it, right. And I think that, you know, if you're looking at a product, like a singular product that consumer is buying, more often than not, there is some sort of emotional game that's attached to it, that allows to make their life easier, or they just like it, right? And, and then so from the business point of view, when you're from a business selling to a business, there's got to be either a cost reduction or revenue gain, or it has to kind of make their overall their consumers or their particular people that buy from them have some sort of emotional gain to so when you break down, what's a good idea? What's a bad idea? I think you can start with that, and just answer those three questions. And if it doesn't fit in any of them, then maybe tuck it aside and kind of rethink about what the what that product or service might be. But you know, and if you do find something that allows one, two or three of the above, then you're onto something, right? And then so by creating that value triad, can you generate revenue from that? And can you generate revenue from that is like, would somebody buy it, which is fine, but anybody can buy something. But if you don't know your costs associated with selling that product, a lot of times when people are entrepreneurs get into a situation where they have a great idea, or they have a great product, or they have something that they want to add, you don't truly understand your cost position, because it's not just the product, the product is just the the the, the overall revenue generator, but you know, there's, there's logistics, there's transport, they're shipping things back and forth. There's your time, a lot of people and entrepreneurs that I know that have been either successful or unsuccessful, at one point did something for free, because they thought, Well, shit, I gotta pay myself to, like I'm spending hours on this. And that's the difference between entrepreneurs and somebody who has a job is that when you go to work every day, you're no, you're making 200 bucks or 300 bucks or your, whatever your net kind of revenue gain on that day is. But when you're entrepreneur, you're, you have to kind of succeed to try and make whatever it is, that's profitable. And that's the thing is that not only on the revenue side, so you get paid for something, if you get paid for a service or product. There's tax implications. There's cost implication. So if for every dollar that you make, you don't actually make $1. And so that's one thing for future entrepreneurs or people that are listening to this, that when they understand that where they have a business idea, you have to understand that what is that you have to know your cost position better than you have to know what your revenue potential is, I think

Seth Anderson: 38:55

that's where a lot of people get stuck, because it's pretty easy to do. Some will call it bar napkin math, and be like, Oh, I could sell 1000 of these and make a million dollars. Yeah, but when you get into the details, and you know, start calculating EBITDA and cash flow, and, you know, some of those more basic business metrics, a lot of people, I would say, skip a lot of the unknowns because they don't know, right, you've never run a business before. So all those different tax implications, or those little costs that aggregate up into big numbers, all of a sudden you get into it, it's like oh, shit, like, I thought my margin was gonna be like, 45% and it's actually like, 20 what do you what advice do you have to people to like really, kind of get know what you're getting into before you go all in on a business based on your experience?

Sean Mills: 39:41

Well, I mean, you have to have self awareness, right? And you have to have self awareness and like what you know, I think and it is funny because I think about my life as a business, in a certain sense is like how much does it cost me to live? How much does it cost for my lifestyle to basically continue whether it be I like to golf or I like to like my wife, and I love to travel So I have, you know, I have a yearly and five year I can go on five years out on Well, my costs are as a person as an individual. And some of the goals that I'm having achieved are kind of ancillary to that. So that's one thing I can take is, you know, understand how much your month, month to month or week to week, typically a month is probably good. But month over a month, throughout the course of a year on the ebbs and flows of cash in and out, how much cash Do you need to survive. So that's one and that's basically a base start to, if you can generate revenue and know what your cost is, then you know how many products if you're an individual, you know how much you have to sell, to be able to generate a profit. So if that's one thing, just know, your costs, even individually. Secondary to that is, I encourage people, there's so much we're so lucky in this generation, between podcasts, and YouTube, and all of these, and the internet, just in general, like if you wanted to search something like you could search, what is the balance sheet, and you have 1000s of entries from both universities and videos and such. So and when I when I talk about being self taught is over the past decade. I just remember I just remember a situation where I was a young guy, I was 24 years old, I was in a sales meeting with all these people from all over, and we started breaking down our business and kind of what goes into it. And I was so I wasn't lost, but I was so enamored with how many different things go into just getting us to be able to get this product to a customer site. And so my encouragement is, is that if you enjoy entrepreneurialship just enjoyed business, like learn what the business is, what is what is all these things, and what I started to do just individually, and this helped me with my investing as a person, but I just started I took 45 of my favorite industries or companies sorry, within, like things that I buy. So like I looked at, okay, I have an Apple phone, you can all of Apple's information is public every quarter. So I started to kind of read the quarterly statements and just try and understand, like, I don't even know what any of this is, this is complete gibberish. But then you do that for 25 different things that you really enjoy could be 10 could be 25. But you're gonna start to notice trends on you know, how many different variances go into that. And then you just become, you become a fan, you become a fan of certain companies, you become a fan of certain businesses. And then what you on top of that, what I found is that, you know, it's, we're very fortunate being from Wainwright that the community is as as welcoming as it is to entrepreneurs or people but in my personal life, I just I, people who own businesses, I try not to probe them too much, but I interview them I discuss with them like what are their challenges? You learn more from from a half an hour meeting with somebody who owns a business about whether they enjoy it or not? Or like how they got to where they got to them? To me that's you know, those those are some of the things that you could do that there's just so much information available?

Seth Anderson: 42:54

JP when you started that what was your What was your first? anti sec?

JP Gaston: 43:00

Yes. D security company? Yes.

Seth Anderson: 43:03

So So JP is first entrepreneurial adventure with providing anti security resources to his boss. Maybe you can explain a gap but I'm curious it's

JP Gaston: 43:13

really like I was a security guard and I was just constantly looking at a location and thinking man, I could easily break in here. Like it would not an odd just because I'm a security carry because if I was just an average person and I objectively looked at this location sure there's a security guard sitting over by that fence but there's a giant hole in your back fence like we need someone to come around who looks at it from a thief's point of view not a security consultants point of view and provide you some insight on how they might break into your building or your yard or whatever the case may be so they're in anti sec was born as an anti security company and you know my my security bosses had some interest in that perspective. Now that I have added like I feel like the only thing I had stolen was like a penny candy from a 711 back with a penny candies or anything and it was probably completely unintentional

Seth Anderson: 44:07

but you saw my The reason I brought that up is did you did you have any resources to like build a business plan or was this just like

JP Gaston: 44:15

my business plan was purely Hey, look, I could break into this building.

Seth Anderson: 44:21

And so you convince your boss to give you 300 bucks to tell him that and then that was the end of it?

JP Gaston: 44:26

Well, you kind of Yeah. Hey, it worked. I had a client might where I lacked was, you know, the ability or desire to really go out and and you know, walk the beat and try and get more clients involved. That's, that's where it failed for me.

Seth Anderson: 44:43

That's that's the grind though of being an entrepreneur.

Biz Dojo Customer Service: 44:53

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Bill from the Coffee Shop: 45:10

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Seth Anderson: 45:59

I think a good segue into this week's question from Mama Seth, who is actually a entrepreneur and has a business and Wainwright beyond the beaten path. Yeah, so you know, a nice segue from what we were just talking about. But her question is, as a small business owner, always looking for tips and tricks on how to scale our business, given your experience in this area. And I know Sean, I kind of mentioned to her that you've that's sort of your background, whether it was an oil and gas or in your entrepreneurial ventures, growing businesses as part of what you do. So what do you have a couple, you know, two or three tips or tricks to small business on on scaling up?

Sean Mills: 46:38

Well, I think immediately, the first thing that would come to mind is is your business? Is your business able to go online? And and is there products in your store that you can create a store online to be able to sell those products outside of your out of your kind of call your Municipal District? So as soon as you have the ability, when you talk about scaling, scaling is just generally can I increase my sales? And by increasing your sales, you have to look at it from a number of different views. One, do I have the right product? So do you do you do a regular, you know, quarterly inventory of or just a walk around of your store and notice things that are selling versus not selling. And, and one thing that that you'll notice is that you'll probably take a few products, and if there's any way to get rid of them and turn them into cash, then cash is king. So if it's one thing that I you know, let's start there, let's start with, with the current products that you have available to you in your store, is there some of those slow move slow moving products that you haven't sold in the last six months, that you can just turn into cash? Because when you have inventory into cash, you don't have cash available to purchase the products? So that's one thing. And then the secondary thing to that is that are you staying current with the products that you're selling? So if you're selling any products, whether it be in your store? So let's take you on a bead path? For example, is there products in there that are non current? Or is there new products that are kind of on the cusp of, of what would be like a new idea? So what I mean by that is, when your customers come into that store, do they have the ability to kind of have some sort of emotional gain from some sort of a new products? Do they like it? Oh, that's cool. That's neat. And it has it as a price point that's that's functional that it were if they were to go buy it online? are they paying a significant premium? are they paying the same kind of what does that look like,

JP Gaston: 48:26

actually just listen to this podcast on mass customization, which is kind of a new, like it used to be mass production, right. And you know, Henry Ford was quite known for his quote that you can have a, you can have a Ford Model T in any color, as long as it's black. And like over the years, we've we've slowly transitioned away from that into this sort of idea of mass customization. So users actually having the ability to go in and get exactly what they want. And I mean, Levi's is an example of that you can go and buy custom jeans. And Coke is another one like their vending machine game. I don't know if folks have seen it, but like the vending machines that have the syrup, and you actually build your own drink with some bass flavors, and then you add your own. That's great for customization. But the interesting thing there that I think a lot of businesses need to do more of is the database that they get on their people who are ordering things they know so much about, like what's becoming popular flavors. What's the next big thing that we can kind of jump on the bandwagon bandwagon for? What are some of the older products that maybe we should bring back who's using our products like they get daily reports from those machines now. They give them an idea of who their consumer is and what they want,

Sean Mills: 49:41

or act and actually to expand on that this is probably a good good kind of point to touch on for us. So Gary and I with our big buck golf business. It would have been five years ago now so we basically had a relationship with four or five different small town community nine horses, and one thing that we noticed is they didn't really have any products or service. Is that they can offer inside of their inside of their Pro Shops. So we started a business where we supplied them with products. And we did a bit of profit sharing on on just simple things like golf balls, hats, gloves, you know, club brushes, and we offered them the ability to order clubs for their, for their customers. So the problem that we had is that we had an inventory that was scattered in a number of different places. And at the end of the season, like we The agreement was, we would take it all back, and but we didn't really have an avenue to kind of sell that product until the next season. And any of the non current stuff we were able to send back. So that's, you know, talking about non current items, are you able to send them back? And are you able to kind of expand on your potential there. So what we did is that we actually created big buck golf.com, which is kind of one of we're one of the few there's not there's they're starting to become more of them. But but big buck golf.com is an online golf retailer. And and I'll expand on a little bit of what you were saying JP, with the customization. But we launched it at the end of January. And we had, we had right away between February, March and April was incredibly successful for us. In terms of generating sales, there was a new place, we shipped direct to your door, you could get what you want. But one thing that we noticed is that we implemented the chat box in the bottom right hand corner, which we're going to probably expand on more in this upcoming season. But the one thing that we learned is for the average golfer, so see if you know if JP, or Seth, if you guys wanted to buy a set of irons, the cost on the irons now is so high Like you're between 15 $102,000. So to me just that there's a bit of discomfort and buying something that if I want a different grip, or if I want different shafts or if I wanted something specific to that, or I just had a general question about the product that I didn't maybe look at that would maybe kind of put my mind at ease, I call it the we allow we open the chat box, and that chat box talks to myself, Garrett Fraser and another professional in in Levi, which we hired as a general manager. So not only we take the online golf retailer as a presence, we allow the customization to for people to kind of order specifically what they wanted. And we were very candid with them. Like we're in a, we're in a COVID type environment right now. But so you're shipping like you may be delayed on certain products. That just might not be in stock. But really what it does is it created conversation. And then from that conversation, we have data because it's on a it's on a web base, that we have data on everything that we sold, we have data on all the requests, we opened up the opportunity to have when this product is back in stock button come in. And we noticed more so than anything JP to reflect on, what you're saying is that we noticed what people wanted to buy in the winter, more than what they would buy in the summertime. And believe it or not peak summer July and August was our two slowest months on the website.

Seth Anderson: 52:48

They have their stuff. Is that the Yeah, they

Sean Mills: 52:51

already have loaded into the pond yet. Yeah, like they, they they already have their stuff and you know, their people are pretty well generally happy most of the product is shipped? Well and like with the golf industry, much like few others like product was late for most of the seasons. But But yeah, we just if if you would have asked me talking about making decisions, I would have said, Hey, we should have more inventory in July. But what we learned along the way is that our position was we learned so much on what people actually buy in the wintertime that

Seth Anderson: 53:18

sort of you pivot your marketing strategy to match that then or I guess that's a work in progress,

Sean Mills: 53:23

we pit we pivoted our capital outlay. So if we looked at overall, like if we're, if we had to purchase supplementary products from July and August, well, it turned out that we didn't need to spend any money because we had, you know, we had a good chunk of those products available. But we just recognized from the traffic on the internet, and the traffic from social media that what people were searching for in their carts. And like the abandoned carts and some of the things that people were looking at, there was just no necessity to outlay capital on something that by itself. So we you know, we kept that cash flow closer to ourselves. And then I guess the last part that just lastly for beyond the beaten path and your mom's question there is, is there products and services within our industry that offer better terms than others? And by terms I mean purchasing terms. So if you could get the same product very similarly, and you're in a competing space, for something that does the same job? Is there a term is there a place that will offer you 60 day or 90 day terms, to be able to manage your cash a little bit better, so that you have an opportunity to sell that product and maybe commit to a little bit more of it or even just test the waters with it, versus things that you have to pay cash outright for. And it's fascinating because like on a on a retail level. Some business owners know that some business owners do put cash out to buy things to put into their store. Whereas you know, asking the question and talking about terms with your vendors might be a value discussion.

Seth Anderson: 54:43

those are those are great points. And I'm sure super helpful for mother Seth to dive into I think I'm always impressed. I know JP she's done. Well there's the sign behind me. Like she does some unbelievable custom work and if anything, I think it's a tricky spot. Because if she charged, like, I think it's art, right, like they do a lot of custom crib boards, that Yeah, you can go online and buy a crib board for 30 bucks, but she's building art pieces, and I don't know, I think she should be charging triple, but then it comes down to finding the right market and the people that are gonna pay that which is it's a tricky balance

Sean Mills: 55:21

so correct and actually, you know, just reflecting on that a little bit is that you people can charge for, you're just going to sell less. So it's understanding if you're charging, you know, if you're charging $10 for a widget and you're making $2 on it, if you want to charge $20 for that widget, well you technically only need to sell one versus five so it's the ability of like, is there the ability to kind of slowly raise your prices for certain things like art being one that's very specific, because you're selling to that emotional part of the person where it catches their eye and they're willing to pay for it. But I think you'd find that you can play around with that with certain products in that store or in that kind of particular area where people will pay more for certain things because they want them right now. I do not want to wait for this right now.

Seth Anderson: 56:03

Well they want it right now and they want to customize to your and they want that one. Yeah, like exactly with my name on it like right now. Yeah, for sure. You mentioned earlier and something we're really passionate about Shawn is you know community and surrounding yourself with great people and getting involved locally you know, in a variety of ways and one of the people you mentioned off the top is a mutual friend Adam Huxley previous guests on the show and I'm just curious for your take on what he has brought to the town of Wayne right because I think you know his life probably could have went any number of ways after he finished playing professional hockey but the comeback get involved with the the local Junior beat team which has been amazing but the sort of start Huxley conditioning and have all of these elite athletes like, like a factory that he's got going, but you know, when I went there and saw what he was up to, like, it's so genuine and real, like he legitimately is there to just help these kids get to the next level. And it's so inspiring and just kind of curious for your take on what that means to the community and what you think of it.

Sean Mills: 57:08

Yeah, and you know, if it's one thing like Hawkes and I have known each other for, for since we were teenagers, then you know, I pretty well be in every city that he's played in, but like the one thing that I that I revere, about Adam that I wish I had more of myself is just his dire work ethic. And that work ethic is is unapologetic and it just speaks volumes to the you know, as an entrepreneur, I mean he left professional hockey to come home for a variety of different reasons, but he basically started this business from scratch and and the thing that he created though within the community is that he created the ability for to have kids who you know, didn't need to travel or didn't want to travel who were elite athletes but but these kids got an education on training, regimen, nutrition and when you see the person that is doing the training and kind of running that program lives by those laws, you start to kind of have a reverence for that type of person and you want to be that type of person and I think that you know, Alex was also very fortunate to have some very good athletes that joined him but those athletes you know you those are those athletes kind of had the ability to be at home in a comfortable environment and and kind of continue to persevere and pursue their dreams and by pursuing their dreams they had to work their asses off and if it's one thing about those kids in that gym and and hawks is more elite players and some of the guys that I know I mean they they give me inspiration they give me inspiration to to get in the gym and get working hard and kind of get the get my mental clarity back by form of exercise you know it's less time because I am me at the end of the day but but the thing is is like I don't have to look far for inspiration and if it's one thing that's a caveat of having Adam in the town of Wainwright is that in that area and essential Berta, you don't have to look far for inspiration or somebody that you can look up to and and he was the he was that he had the ability to create a business out of it. Because he's very detail oriented. The thing is, is that when you go into that gym, their structure and everything that you're doing that day, you're doing it for a reason. And that plan is stretched out like I just think about the summer plans like that's that planet stretched out all summer and you have to meet certain benchmarks and if you don't meet those benchmarks, you're going to be behind and when you're going to be behind as part of a peer group he holds you're going to get our work so we it's it's creating competition. And just generally speaking like the number of athletes that that have come out of essential Berta and probably will continue to it's pretty prestigious, like it's pretty predominant it just you know, it's it shines a light on the area from from a media point of view. So there you know, you could argue there is there's a number of athletes that have come out of wind rain over the or east central Alberta just in general. So I always include vermillion, Wainwright's. I mean you have to include Irma, Irma.

Seth Anderson: 1:00:09

Irma. Irma is the the center of the eye of the hurricane.

Sean Mills: 1:00:12

Yeah, it is. Yeah. So basically you take her mind you draw 100 kilometer radius and then you include a Mr in that too. Like there has been some good some very good athletes come out of essential Berta. But but it's it's Shawna, it's Shauna spotlight on kind of our area, but it also from a point of view of like marketing those people. You know, in the background, you always have Adam as a cheerleader that's marketing his his players, not only because you can see their work ethic day over day, but because he's coming from his culture. And his culture is one that that people respect. And yeah, that's enough pumping out upstairs, that's for sure.

Seth Anderson: 1:00:49

But I mean, to your point, like I'm looking at his Instagram Stories right now, and there's like seven of them on there, like shout out to Conor McLennan and shout out to Mason Shaw for his first NHL goal. Matthew Swanson. Like he's, I don't even know who's keeping track of all this stuff. He's got like four or five different games go on at all times, he must be able to everybody like it just shows how much he really cares about his

Sean Mills: 1:01:09

players. Yeah. And you watch I watch his stories every day. Like there's highlights on every one of those players every day. Well, that's

JP Gaston: 1:01:14

that's an inch right? When you become when you become that successful. Yeah, now, all of a sudden, you've got more and more and more people, like I'm sure he's just got a basement full of TVs where every game is on and he's just like, scan in between them. Like he's running a TV broadcast company.

Seth Anderson: 1:01:30

Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Adam, we'll, we'll carve it off there. So Shawn, what, what do you think the ceiling is for this? This whole FTR business? What do you guys What are you guys after? What's your goal,

Sean Mills: 1:01:44

I mean, our goal is to create a great a Canadian product that has technological advances, and some technology built into it that that the world specifically hasn't seen, you know, we're attempting to solve a problem that that kind of most of most of North America knows exists, but is not as much talked about. But I think like what is our goal, our goal is to create a quality product, create some jobs, create a quality company with a good culture, and, and to kind of be successful in that and I think that alone is is kind of the root of our foundation. And then when you follow him behind that, you know, what is the ceiling? it I don't, I don't want to look that far ahead. I mean, I want to look far ahead as we have, we have a business that's that can pivot and grow and is scalable, we built the system to the creation of the product to be able to scale up as much as we need. The only challenges like you know, that we'll have to encompass would potentially be a supply chain related due to what's going on and world events and how COVID transpires and kind of what goes on there. But I think you have to take you still have to be humble and you have to take it one day at a height at a time. And you know, for me to say that I'm going to take over the world of the golf cart industry is a bit naive, but what we can do is we can make an honest effort and we can put a good product out that we believe people will support and any of the reviews that we've seen and I invite you guys if you're ever in the area to come check out the shop, see exactly what it is what you're doing, what we're doing sorry, it the product is that kind of speaks for itself. But you know, we're passionate about the technology, we're passionate about the difference that we can make. We're passionate about the the pressure that we can take off of the infrastructure of the power grid and and how it can benefit the end users. So you've got

JP Gaston: 1:03:41

a laundry list of things going on right now. Yeah, how do you how do you make time for yourself and what are you working on for yourself right now

Sean Mills: 1:03:49

you know, I separate golf, I said I separate my business life from my work very effectively. I have a very supportive wife, she's the best but as much as she's supportive I owe it to her to kind of give her my time and my efforts and you know, we're trying to start a family and we're going down that road but I'm lucky because I have such a good social network of people that I get to spend time with and good quality people that I've you know, that's evolved over the years but I'm just fortunate that like I look forward to my personal time, as much as I look forward to my business time and you find that I don't know about you guys, you find that being busy as an excuse. But being productive is never an excuse. So I'm more productive now than I've ever been in my entire career. Because I know that I only got 10 1214 hours a day to work on it. And you know I'm up at five I'm in bed by 930 and I spend four three to four quality hours with my wife every single day and weekends. I'm usually I can get my work done before she gets up. So but as like as as Like, uh, you know, I turn work off. Don't turn work off. Yes, it's hard. And there's situations where you don't but just turn it off and do the things that you enjoy.

Seth Anderson: 1:05:08

Well, we're on the same schedule. So that's cool. same frequency there.

JP Gaston: 1:05:12

Yeah. If I wake up at five, I'm also back in bed by 930. But that's am

Seth Anderson: 1:05:20

just sort of one last sort of top up on that one. Shawn, how do you feed your mind? Do you have any books, pods? Anything that that you're using to support your development that you could recommend to people?

Sean Mills: 1:05:32

Yeah, I mean, I have a book always ongoing. No, no matter what it is, it could be could be an investments book could be a growth book could be just a autobiography. I don't I'm not typically like I don't read stories like I'm not a big stories guy. Although I do have to hear stories quite often because my wife is enamored with true crime. So hi, everyone out so yeah, I find that I'm basically the recipient of every true crime case that's ever happened in history. So I so I, I get my information through her from that, but I typically always have a book going of some kind and I like podcasts. I listened to your guys's podcast, I listen to you know a few others, more sports space stuff, like I kind of like to keep my podcast light. Just because you know, I am fully engaged when I get what I'm doing all the time that if I have something going on in the background, you know, it's a little bit more, a little more more fluffy, like love the foreplay podcast that Barstow puts out with those guys just be an amateur golfers it's that I get a kick out of them. And then golf instruction type stuff. Honestly, if you listen, if you looked at my podcast history, it's pretty, pretty nerdy.

Seth Anderson: 1:06:42

What? And I guess just on the way out of here, how can people find out more about your serial entrepreneur, so you got a few things, so there's a chance to list them off? Yeah,

Sean Mills: 1:06:53

I mean, my passion and my future is in FCR golf and big buck golf.com. So both of which you can check out on the website, so FTR golf.com, where they can do we're going to continue to post updates. We're going to start a build blog here in coming days. Like I said, our first 55 units of the golf carts and five of the four seaters have arrived. We're just you know, waiting on batteries. So we're gonna do batteries and programming. So you can you can follow us on LinkedIn, we're gonna have an Instagram and Facebook page. So between those two and then big buck golf.com is live has been running over information is on there, our online stores on there. But between that and our social media channels, so the Facebook's the Instagrams, LinkedIn, we're getting better at creating more, more updates, but when it's just the two of us to kind of get rolling. We're doing our best things that are gonna continue to ramp up in terms of information out to the public, and we look forward to everybody joining the ride.

Seth Anderson: 1:07:51

Awesome. Well, can't wait to check out a unit. Best of luck. And thanks for joining us today. Thanks Shawn. Thanks

Sean Mills: 1:07:57

so much. It was a pleasure to meet you, JP and thanks again.

JP Gaston: 1:08:05

Hey, thanks for listening to today's episode.

Seth Anderson: 1:08:06

If you liked what you heard today, and you'd like to tap into your inner wisdom, check us out on The Biz dojo.com, Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook or

JP Gaston: 1:08:16

send us a message for a free discovery session two coaching at The Biz Dojo Comm. We hope to hear from you

Seth Anderson: 1:08:21

soon. See you next week.