How to Handle Criticism and Build a Great Team

Intro (00:09):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs with your host Ritz Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration and those aha moments that change everything. And now here’s your host rich Goldstein

Rich (00:33):
I’m the host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast, where I feature top leaders and the path they took to create change past guests include Roland Frasier, Joe Polish and Ryan dice. This episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein patent law, where we help you to protect your ideas and products. We said we’ve advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 26 years. So if you’re a company that has software product or a design, you want protected Bota, Goldstein, patent law.com, where there are amazing free resources for learning about the patent process. And you could email my team@welcomeatgoldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You can also check out the book I wrote for the American bar association that explains in plain English, how patents work it’s called the ABA consumer guide to obtaining a patent. I have here today, Mitch thrower. Mitch’s a 22 time iron man triathlete, a company he co-founded sold for just North of a billion dollars. That’s a billion with a B twice. He also owned triathlete magazine. He’s an author and currently the CEO of events.com. I’m just honored to welcome here today. Mitch throw a welcome Mitch.

Mitch (01:33):
Thanks for having me. Yeah,

Rich (01:34):
My pleasure. My pleasure. And you know, so places there’s so many places to start, but you’ve done so many iron man triathlons. Uh, I mean, for many it’s the pinnacle of endurance sports. What got you into endurance sports?

Mitch (01:47):
Oh, wow. Uh, I mean, on a personal note, I got involved in sport early because I’d lost my sister. Sadly. She passed away in my arms when she was 16 and it, it, it, uh, yeah, she was an amazing person and, and it catapulted me into a life of how can you stay healthy? How can you stay alive? What can you do to celebrate the fact that you’re alive? And I fell in love with athletics. I fell in love with technology. Those were kind of my two early passions, um, started playing lacrosse, actually ended up, um, playing through high school then, uh, fractured my knees in college. Uh, so two knee surgeries, two knee surgeries on each leg later. Um, I started running again to recover and as I was running, I would be so happy that I could just run again. Right. I kind of had Forrest Gump moment where, you know, run Forrest run. Um, and it’s like that with everything in life when it’s taken away from you, you appreciate it so much more. And so I amplified recovery with swimming and biking and truly enjoyed it so much that I did my first triathlon. And it was just over after that, I just loved the sport, the people involved, et cetera. And so that’s, that’s how I kind of got, you know, but it’s really because of my sister who, you know, nudged me into a life of, uh, pursuit of health. Wow.

Rich (03:05):
That’s amazing. I’m, I’m so sorry for your loss. And it sounds that you have, um, you know, you’ve transformed it into, into something which, um, you know, has been huge for yourself and also just a great tribute to her memory, what you’ve accomplished with all of these triathlons.

Mitch (03:23):
Oh, thank you. It is. It’s uh, like I said, when you, when you have things taken away from you, whether it’s a person or your health, or, you know, your respect and appreciation for it, it grows so much. Like even this year, we’ve had our freedoms inhibited to get together. And so we appreciate those moments in our lives so much more.

Rich (03:41):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Now what does it take to be successful in an iron man?

Mitch (03:46):
Well, you know, success in the sport of triathlon in general is been redefined, right? It’s uh, just finishing many times is the goal, you know, and you’re crossing the Ironman. Yes. There’s your winners and yours, your age group champions, but just finishing a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and then a marathon. Um, and in particular, sometimes on the Island of Hawaii, the big Island in the lava fields with the headwinds and the cross winds and the heat, um, you know, just finishing that race is, is a win. And so that’s, you know, really the definition of, of I think, participation being what it’s all about. And more importantly, being in the sport, what I found was so many people, you know, it was kind of like the new golf, right? If you’re a triathlete, you might as well stand up and say, yes, I’m obsessive compulsive about success, or act like [inaudible] or whatever it might be.

Mitch (04:38):
And so it tends to translate, right. People who are very focused on three disciplines are probably just as focused on their careers. And so there’s an enormous amount of people that are, um, very, very focused in the sport and that have achieved great things. And, you know, I found myself looking to the left and looking to the right and, you know, the chairman of major companies and the heads of different businesses and the women who run corporation. I mean, they’re all, they’re all they’re there. And so it was a great place to be, right. It’s a great networkable comma because when you’re in that environment,

Rich (05:09):
Wow. That’s so interesting. I never thought of it that way, but it, it, it sounds like, uh, you know, it’s just the common notion of it’s the company that you keep. So you’re, you’re keeping company with people that are driven and, um, uh, driven, determined, um, and, uh, and just achieve amazing things. So I think that that’s pretty amazing. Um, let, let me ask you something like speaking of that and speaking of that type of drive and that type of determination, um, so for someone who has an idea, a notion of something that they want to create in the world, whether it’s a physical product, a service or a business that they have a vision for. Um, I mean, as I see it, what comes next and that the path they must follow to get it down to reality is in itself a bit of an endurance sport. I mean, what do you think about that?

Mitch (05:54):
Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think entrepreneurship is indeed an endurance sport. That’s the tagline on one of our sites. Entrepreneurship is an endurance sport and creating something, uh, after all, everything around you right now, and anyone listening to this was once a neuron in someone’s brain. And yet now it exists. Now you can see it, touch it, feel it, someone owns the patent for it. Maybe someone owns a trademark around it, probably. So that’s a fascinating, it’s almost, um, an unbelievable process when you look around and you think about how many things were once just a flicker of energy inside a brain, and then you examine the process of creating those things. I’ve, you know, my, my dad, who was an incredible idea, man, um, had this phrase that I inherited, uh, which is, you know, what would be great or wouldn’t it be great. And you know, that perspective when you walk around and you see things as they could be is something that everyone experiences at some point in their life. And some people decide to do something about it. And some people don’t, I think there’s a misnomer that people think that, uh, you know, what you’re doing when you start as an entrepreneur and, and the that’s really, really not true, you know, you, you figure it out as you go along and you make a lot of mistakes. Yeah,

Rich (07:09):
Absolutely. And, um, um, it, it is certainly not as glamorous as people think, and it’s certainly not. Um, you know, it’s not a linear path. Um, I want to circle back to that in a moment. Um, but you mentioned your dad. And so, like, I, I understand that your dad actually created the Yule log, which was something, I mean, in New York city, I guess it’s a bit of a tradition. Um, you know, um, since I’m a kid like the fireplace, um, continuous fireplace video. So tell me about that.

Mitch (07:42):
So my dad, uh, Fred thrower, uh, head of WPIX at the time channel 11, uh, came up with this concept in 1966. Um, he wrote a memo, a famous memo. You can find it online now. And he decided to recommend that they cancel things like roller Derby and that they put a loop of a fireplace burning on television, and it really sparked pun intended, a real change. Right. And, and in some places in Scandinavia, they have a concept of slow TV, uh, YouTube, you have lots of things which are just, you know, scenery that you play in the background kind of, uh, um, beyond. And this is, you know, long before a flat screen TV filled someone’s living room, but it was when a television was inside someone’s apartment that didn’t have a fireplace. And that meant a lot to my dad, you know, to be able to bring the joy of a fireplace burning with music to people’s homes.

Mitch (08:42):
And, you know, it was a real, amazing thing to watch. And, uh, you know, I remember he told me one point, he was like, I had no idea we’d get that big, right. When you first come up with that. And then even this like, cause it was the second year or the, the, when the, the filmed it, they burned the rug at Gracie mansion. So they weren’t allowed to film there again, I think it might’ve been the first year, so they had to film somewhere else. Um, but you know what a tradition, right? It’s and it’s just an example that your ideas can change the world. You know, whether it’s for a new software company or for, uh, something that’s going to spark slow TV and an experience of background imagery. Now there’s some, some great, great things out there for people to

Rich (09:22):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, you know, on the subject, you said your mom has worked for Jackie O as well.

Mitch (09:29):
Yeah. Um, it’s a heads as I lie that sort of good both by family background here, but yeah, my mom was, um, one of Jackie’s assistants for a while and, um, you know, what an incredible part of history Jackie was. So I think, um, you know, it was a wild, a wild degeneration. Um, I mean, certainly the things that JFK was able to achieve and the sad loss of JFK, very meaningful to our family. Um, but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, again, you know, at any moment, things can change, right. That’s a kind of a theme through history. Right. And, you know, things change instantly be ready. Don’t be,

Rich (10:05):
Yeah, that’s great. And I just, I wanted to cover that. I just thought those were really two interesting things about your pedigree and like, you know, um, but like circling back to what we were talking about just before, in terms of like the path of an entrepreneur and how entrepreneur is, you know, people think like, Oh, it’s easy. Or people think like, Oh, those guys know what they’re doing, and they don’t realize how much we just are figuring it out as we go along. Um, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And, um, you know, so one of the, one of the things in the, I mean, one of the, the ingredients, as I see it is resilience in that, like again, people imagine that the path to success is like a linear graph. That’s just a straight line that gradually goes up or maybe steeply goes up. Um, but you know, anyone who’s, who’s really been in, it knows that it’s up and down and up and down and this like, um, before you get to that thing that they call success. There were a lot of pretty low lows. Um, you know, and I think it takes resilience like to, to be successful, you have to be able to be with those low. So what do you think about that and the role of resilience in, in, for entrepreneurs and even in your own journey,

Mitch (11:19):
You know, the most important thing. And I don’t really know the exact moment in my career when I was able to achieve this, but I know right around when it happened was when I stopped looking at my business or my ideas and involving who I was with what I did. And I was able to take a step back from, Hey, I have an idea, or wouldn’t it be great if, and then have someone else be critical of the idea or the business as opposed to taking it personally. And that’s part of the entrepreneurial journey because so much of society says, Oh, Hey, rich, nice to meet you. What do you do? And so that there’s this, this connection, which is, you know, a misfit that people think they are, what they do. They’re not what they do is something they need to put in a box that they can walk around and be critical of and accept criticism from others.

Mitch (12:10):
In fact, welcome criticism from others because when I learned to love criticism and really, I mean, praise doesn’t do much for you, but when someone’s critical of you, if they’re right or wrong, they’re giving you a gift of a possible improvement. You know, you still have to judge whether or not you want to accept that gift and whether it’s correct or not, and how it applies to your life, but that’s your choice. So I think for, for me as an entrepreneur, looking at that process, as you mentioned of the ups and downs and the challenges that you go through, stepping away from what I was doing and putting that over there and analyzing it as this other thing and not wrapping my ego up in it was really helped me. And that just, it changes your perspective. And that’s something that I wish all entrepreneurs and any entrepreneurs that are out there listening, remember to, don’t take it personally and solicit and learn to love criticism and sit on the same side of the table as someone criticizing your business and be even more critical of it, um, because you can then improve it.

Rich (13:09):
Yeah. That’s amazing advice. It’s like the, the feedback, not necessarily the feedback you were looking for, but the feedback that helps you grow yeah.

Mitch (13:17):
Is the most meaningful. Yeah. And then there’s a mismatch between like the optimistic entrepreneur that is like, Hey, this is going to be great. And then there’s the person maybe next year that says, well, it’s not going to be great for this reason, this reason, this reason that’s not going to work because of this, this and this. Well, thank you for applying your super computer to help prevent problems with this idea. You know, it’s, it’s incredible people, just, they, they have the wrong perspective. Now

Rich (13:44):
I think through most of your businesses you’ve been in the CEO role or is that, is that fair? That’s correct. So then, um, what about like the COO, like what role, um, I mean, it seems like if you’re the visionary and this is kind of the role that I’ve always been myself being like the visionary and I always struggle with operations. And I, I imagine that you’ve, you must have paired up with some great COO’s to help you bring your visions out into the world.

Mitch (14:10):
Fair, very fair. And what I found, which is interesting is you need to find people and people need to find you that you trust. Not only that can, um, maybe, and ideally I’m in a great business partnership now with events.com, with someone who is also a visionary, but also an operator. And we can kind of roll our sleeves up and say, okay, there’s a problem. Right? You got that one. Or I got that one and then either of us can handle it. All right. Hey, here’s a great situation opportunity, right? You got that one or I’ll get that one. So a good COO can act and do the things you need to do when you can’t. And you can act when he doesn’t have the time do them as well. So, you know, it, you know, tight, I’m not really that big on the title component as I am.

Mitch (14:58):
And actually what you’re functionally doing with an organization and having concentric circles that overlap, isn’t a bad thing. So long as you can decide, who’s working on what, um, and, you know, again, leave your ego out of it. Cause most of the time hierarchical structures, um, especially when you put CS in front of them, tend to wrap up egos. And the reality is business is about investing your time and money to generate a return. And it’s that simple. And if you strip away all of the other things that happen in the middle of making that happen, it, uh, it it’s, it’s really, it, it becomes really pure and there’s, you know, intent and integrity and purpose and all those things you can add on to that very simple process of investing your time and money to generate a return. Um, so it’s a fascinating, fascinating process, but yeah, I, I’ve worked with, worked with, you know, all kinds of characters over the years, you know, hundreds of people and you learn a lot about people you’re older, you especially learn a lot about people when you add money to the formula. And when you add another zero to see them change, I love hiring. And then adding a trial period before someone becomes a team member, um, that’s been, you know, some of the favorite, uh, hiring components that I’ve done in the past. Cause then you get to know somebody before you, you know, have them, you know, officially a part of the

Rich (16:20):
Absolutely. I think that’s great advice for hiring and uh, and it’s, it’s really not about the title. It’s about the functional role. Um, and I wonder, do you have, um, do you have, um, I know you’ve worked with, as you said, hundreds of people over the years, you have a steady cast of characters, some people that have been with you through different ventures and kind of like an Adam Sandler movie where it’s the usual suspects.

Mitch (16:42):
Yeah. Uh, w definitely, um, you know, you always can pick folks that have been with you, um, and maybe in the past and, you know, bring them because you work with them and there’s that, uh, synchronicity, if you will. Um, certainly on the investment side, we have some investors that have been with me in every venture. Um, and that’s a really great experience because there’s, um, you know, an alignment of interests, uh, component. And if you are aligned, I’ll never forget. My, one of my mentors, Matt Barker, who worked at Hellman and Friedman for years, you know, really was such a proponent of align your interests, make sure that everyone’s interests are aligned industrials team members, managers, departments, if everyone has the same interests and you can all identify your interests, right. Cause there’s nothing worse than hidden agendas, but if you can identify and align, you can achieve.

Rich (17:34):
Yeah, that’s great. And I imagine if you’ve worked with the same people, the same investors, then you are aligned, they know what to expect from you and you know what to expect from them. And, uh, and you can be aligned in, in whatever it is you currently working on. And it’s true. And you also, you know,

Mitch (17:50):
How people, it’s, it’s funny because if you want to test your business partners and your friends and your investors, it’s almost, you almost want to go through a crisis with them, or you want to go through large financings with them to understand their patterns of behavior, uh, and who they really are. Because a lot of times that’s a lot of times that’s hidden. Um, and people respond differently to stress, uh, differently to stressful situations, um, or to, um, amplified return scenarios. Right. You know, so that’s something that could large corporations tend to have this kind of blame placing credit taking component often, which is, you know, very important to try and stay away from where, you know, if you did something, if something happened, that was good. I did it something that one was bad, you know, they did it. Um, and so, you know, to, you know, flip that over and, and really get a culture, that’s the opposite of that, where, you know, people own their mistakes, their mistakes are accepted and improved upon. And, you know, if someone else did something great, you, you know, embrace them and give them great credit for it.

Rich (18:53):
It’s like a culture of accountability and acknowledgement.

Mitch (18:57):
Correct. And that’s hard. That is so hard all the time, because when you’re in tech, especially everything moves so fast. And, you know, when you’re doing acquisitions or, I mean, certainly in the events industry, right. I mean, we had a whirlwind of a year@events.com, you know, in a pandemic. Right. You might as well have owned a bar when prohibition went in place. Right.

Rich (19:20):
Yeah. Um, so yeah, and I guess we’ll, we’ll talk about events.com in a moment, but first I’m just curious about the, just the, the notable parts of your journey towards, um, events.com like kind of like, what are the things that you did previously? And I know you’ve done a lot, but what are the things that really kind of led you toward building this particular company?

Mitch (19:41):
So it’s, it’s funny how love of sport and fitness, uh, helped, you know, getting involved in triathlete magazine, doing a leveraged buyout of triathlon magazine, participating in the sport commercially for a while, conceptualizing and then launching a company that, um, became sort of the primary place where people were transacting in that sport, um, and other sports, and then growing that, that company ultimately going public and then selling, uh, and then being involved, um, really the kind of parallel paths, right? Because I was still involved in triathlete as we rolled it up into a larger venture and went out and bought rock and roll marathons across the country, um, purchased marathons, turned them into rock and roll marathons 17 or so magazines in this group. And that was another business that we sold to a private equity firm in San Francisco called competitor group. Um, so, you know, having that, uh, passion for sport and being in the business of sport really is a wonderful thing. Uh, and, and, and on my journey, what I learned, and I think this, I don’t know what book it was in or where it was, where someone said, do what you love and the money will follow. I actually think that that’s wrong. And I think that it’s doing a disservice to the students or the people that are looking at it. I think the, the right way of doing it is find out what you love, analyze where value is transacting in the world that you love and insert yourself in the middle.

Rich (21:08):
That’s so interesting. So it’s kind of like figure out what you love, figure out what’s valued in the world. Look for the overlap between those two, where, what you love meats, things that are of value in the world and insert yourself there,

Mitch (21:22):
Right? Cause in, in the area that you love in our case, sports sponsors were sponsoring events. Participants were paying registration fees. And so, you know, Hey, let me help this relationship be better. Um, and actually I was very frustrated registering for the Ironman and like that, you know, seven page document, my handwriting is horrible. So it just made sense, right? Because I bought a show for a Broadway. I bought a ticket for a Broadway show online, and then instantly I’m like, wait a minute. This isn’t in the athletic world yet. Let’s build it. I called up my friends at the cog side department at UCFD and, you know, let’s, let’s build something exciting. Um, had a co-founder there had a great company were recruited in an amazing team that, that took it to the next level, as I said, went public. And then, you know, really in you take a step back and say, what can you do? That’s bigger. Where can you, you know, cause it takes just as much effort. That’s another thing I learned the hard way. It takes just as much effort to do something big as it takes to do something small, you know, you’re going to spend the same amount of time building a small business as you will spend building a big bus.

Rich (22:23):
It’s so interesting. And I guess it’s a matter of, um, um, you know, I guess picking the game that you, you want to play. And so picking a bigger game, lead you to a bigger result. I mean, you could spend just as much energy playing a smaller game. Um, and I guess it’s kind of like what you have the appetite for. You have the appetite for a big game and you could get a big return.

Mitch (22:43):
And, and another hack for entrepreneurs is when they’re thinking I want to start a business is to learn about, you know, liquidation multiple, because there are certain businesses that just trade or sell at a higher multiple of their revenue or their profit than other business. And it’s going to take you just as much work to create a business with a low, multiple exit than it is at a high, multiple and exit. So the question ultimately for the entrepreneurs is do you want to generate a million dollars in revenue and all the work that that takes to build a million dollars or a hundred million or $10 million in revenue, in a company and an industry where those businesses sell for one times their gross revenue or an accompany or an industry where those, uh, where it sells for 10, 20 times it’s gross revenue. Um, and that’s something that, you know, they don’t teach you necessarily when they say, what do you want to get involved in? Well, where’s the highest payoff for my effort as an entrepreneur and, you know, people like they, they, I fall in love with, you know, maybe a restaurant or creating a factory or a, the direct to consumer brand or whatever it might be or a software company or a publishing entity, et cetera. But very few people study the answer key to liquidation preference and liquidation multiples. And I encourage folks to do that. Absolutely.

Rich (24:02):
I actually learned that from Roland Frasier. Do

Mitch (24:04):
You know Roland? I don’t, I know of him of course, but I don’t know him personally.

Rich (24:09):
Yeah. Got it. And so, um, uh, you know, in terms of the, the different types of businesses at different multiples, so it’s something that he had said they had, they did over at digital marketer and they realized that, um, having an information business had a pretty low multiple, but having a software business higher, multiple, and even higher, if there’s multiple, uh, if there’s MRR monthly recurring revenue, um, so kind of, um, you know, transitioning the business, recasting the business into something that has a high multiple can, you know, just, it sounds funny, but multiply the, the, uh, the returns you get at when you get to liquidity, when you get to exit,

Mitch (24:50):
I have a formula that, um, I suggest if people want to create a, a, a billion dollar hour or a hundred million dollar awkward, just a big outcome, right. Cause you know, it’s very hard to do a billion, right. It’s, uh, everyone dreams, but I mean, it’s a lot of work, um, but don’t let that discourage you. The formula that I have learned that, um, is successful time and time again, in many of the technology businesses that I see is to create a, uh, let me think of it’s R R H M L M R multiplied by MDA. And that’s a, you know, a reliable, renewable high margin, low maintenance revenue stream that aggregates massive data. So, you know, you have, you know, there’s your recurring revenue, reliable, renewable, you know, revenue that has a high margin that has low maintenance, right? I mean, while we’re having this conversation, people are transacting with us all over the world and, you know, that’s low maintenance, you know, I don’t have to serve someone a plate of spaghetti. Um, and then you take that revenue and you multiply it by massive data that you can, um, really learn from and understand. And I mean, the application of data is just enormous. And if you can own that data, it becomes a very, very valuable enterprise.

Rich (26:05):
Yeah. And, and so I imagine that you have, have taken this principle and use it to decide what and how you, you built, um, for your various companies. Right. And so now with events.com, it’s like, you know, I imagine there was an initial notion or initial goal and intention, um, for this company, but why did you decide to build what you did on events.com? Why did you decide to build that instead of something else that might go toward that goal or intention?

Mitch (26:34):
Well, when we started initially as an incubator, we looked at all kinds of things, the connected car we looked at, you know, remote messaging, anonymous messaging, we at, um, the city space, we even dabbled in the city space. Uh, and you know, the events business, if you look at it and event organizers worldwide is still a very disconnected world. If I was to say, you know, rich, what let’s say, the pandemic is over and it’s December of 2021, and you go to New York city for the weekend. And I was going to say, what are you doing this weekend? And what are your friends doing? You kind of scratch your head, right? Maybe you’d Google something. Maybe you’d find something on one of the ticketing sites. Maybe your friend would have told you about something, but there’s no central repository, ally Yelp of what’s happening around you, customized to you, Netflix style connected to your friend network.

Mitch (27:24):
And there also is no central place. If let’s say we have a big festival, the rich Fest, and it’s a hundred dollars a ticket right now, what I’ve seen occur. And my business partner, Steven has been deeply involved in all of the different, uh, point disparate point systems that event organizers have been using or forest to use to solve their problems. Right. You’ve got one thing doing your ticketing. Another platform is maybe doing your check-in app. You’ve got another platform on a spreadsheet trying to sell sponsors. Then you’re trying to your digital marketing. And over here is somebody who’s going to try and help you understand your data. You know, you’re on up to 15 different platforms to make rich fast happen, and you just want to produce a great event, right? So, you know, for us events, isn’t so much about ticketing. Although it’s something that we do, it’s really about discovery and then managing all of the software for your event. So that’s, um, you know, the why really is in where the problem exists. And it’s because event organizers are losing time and money and we can flip it on its head and help them save time and make money. And, you know, when those types of opportunities arise, they tend to be pretty big. And, um, we, we love solving big problems.

Rich (28:36):
Awesome. So, um, you know, any final advice for entrepreneurs, people who are seeking to innovate, seeking to launch their first business around their idea or their dream,

Mitch (28:49):
Be afraid to ask for help and when asking for help, um, try and make sure that you’re putting yourself in the right environment. Um, you know, I found myself through happenstance and coincidence in the sport of triathlon that was filled with a very, I mean, the, the median income of a triathlete is, is really significant. And when you put yourself in environments where there are people who can help you, um, you know, there are probably two locations in every city that you’re every city in America. And one of those locations is filled with people who can probably help you. And the other location is not. Um, and also do, you know, the last piece would be, um, to manage so effectively the people you interact with. And I always run the, um, the kind of snapshot of there’s this game. You might remember it called, um, chutes and ladders.

Mitch (29:38):
And in, in, in England, it’s called a and ladders, right? And it’s been around for centuries, I think. Um, and chutes and ladders was the American version of a game that came here. And if you land on, um, number 28, what happens is you go all the way up the ladder to almost the end. But if you’re going through the game and you land on number 87, you slide all the way back down to the start. And in many ways, the people you interact with are either number 28 or they’re number 87. And you know, it, if you’re an entrepreneur, you can tell if there’s an energy vampire or someone you shouldn’t be investing your time with, or I should say, spending your time with, cause you spend time on things that you’re not thinking about. You invest time on things that you aren’t thinking about.

Mitch (30:22):
So, you know, those would be my maybe, you know, thoughts for entrepreneurs out there that hopefully will be helpful. And, you know, that’s a, that’s an ongoing, that’s a work in progress, I think with all of us, but we can think about it more often and really invest our time with the right people and doing the right things. It would be great. We make 35,000 decisions every day. Try and make more good decisions in those 35,000 tomorrow than you did today. Yeah, I think that’s awesome advice. So it really is all about people. Uh, one of my mentors says relationship is the foundation of accomplishment and, uh, I, you know, I really love that advice. So, um, if, um, if people want to learn more about you, how would they go about doing so well? Uh, so I think if folks are out there and they’re, they’re looking for any help with their events, they can certainly reach out to events, not, um, um, you know, my email is mitch@events.com.

Mitch (31:14):
Um, and if folks have other reasons to reach out, you know, feel free to reach out, you know, give me a week or so for a response time, just based on volume, um, given all the things we’re managing this year, we’re really excited about emerging and effectively what we think will be, you know, hopefully the roaring twenties, because every prior pandemic in history has had a period after it, of the celebration and exuberance. Now we’re a little ways away from that right now, but truly excited to be a part of what happens in the world as we all emerge from this challenging, challenging time we’ve been through it. Absolutely. It’s going to be so exciting the, um, the next roaring twenties. Um, and, uh, so Mitch, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking it and taking the time to, to have this conversation with me and share your wisdom with the audience. Great. And rich, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our other conversation even before the podcast on patents. So I deep, deep appreciation for what you do and helping people protect their ideas. I should have mentioned that if you have an idea and it’s patentable find out and start to think about it.

Outro (32:21):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web@innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.