He Was Racing to the Bottom... Then He Started Building His Own Equipment

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1. 0:00
   Wes Mathews

   Super excited to have Chris Meso with us.

2. 0:03
   Chris Meso

   In the first five years of business, we were a distribution model for temporary heating, temporary cooling equipment. You always compete against somebody. I don't care what industry you're in, you're competing. Going back to that garage, I didn't know anything about anything. I was at 3M, so I was in a sales program, which was phenomenal for me of understanding. I was a manufacturer's rep for industrial controls.

3. 0:29
   Wes Mathews

   I'll actually prototype equipment and if it doesn't work, you won't pay for it. What capacity did you stay on the first sale? Were you still the CEO visionary or were you more like engineering prototype? More the president visionary, but that changed very quickly.

4. 0:44
   Chris Meso

   Kevin, on a golfing trip up north here, and he looked at me and he said, you're miserable. So he's the guy who said, hey, why don't you go and run another company, start another company? I'm like, you know, I could never work for a large company. That's impossible. I just didn't know how to put it into words, but it was terrible.

5. 1:03
   Wes Mathews

   I look at having like a nine to five working for a large corporation, like way more scary. Like the fact that I could be fired on a Friday is way more scarier than like the latter. This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw, no BS, no sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Mathews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5% learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family, and business. This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI, and no surprises.

   So I'm super excited for today. I want to introduce our guests today. Super excited to have Chris Meso with us. A little bit about Chris. So Mobile Air was the first company, multi-state footprint, 28 years straight out the garage. I love that. We're going to get into that. I'm not even going to read this really cool intro because I want you to unpack it. But then sort of phase two of you is T-Rex Advisory Strategic Business Coaching. Great story coming out of that for eight years.

   Chris, I'm excited to have you. I look up to you. I think you're a great friend entrepreneur. So really excited to kind of unpack today because I think it's kind of a treat for people to kind of listen to what we're going to talk about. But let's talk about that. I mean, to me, you are a pure entrepreneur with a pretty awesome story, but just take me back to like the garage days of starting Mobile Air. Sort of unpack that and kind of what your thought process was during those times.

   Sure.

6. 2:44
   Chris Meso

   So for once, so Wes, you know, back at you, but I appreciate our friendship and just, you know, I love to be here with you, you know, unpack and some of the history. Hopefully it makes sense for some people to go back to the garage. Sometimes I don't want to go there because I knew so little. And then knowing what I know today, you know, understanding the level of risks, understanding the amount of roadblocks, understanding today, the what it would mean on a personal sacrifice with relationships.

   If you were to put all that in front of me and had a time, I would I would have paused a little bit. I'm like, it's just worth the squeeze here. For me, it is. Everybody's got to make their own decisions. But going back to that garage, I didn't know anything about anything. All I really did know is that, you know, I was at 3M, so I was in a sales program, which was phenomenal for me of understanding. I was a manufacturer's rep for industrial controls.

   And I did that for years. So knocking on doors and talking, making presentations was getting to be second nature. Took a while. And so getting into starting a company, it's you. And it's, you know, it's a very small footprint. It's literally inside of a garage in Berkeley. It's next to the animal clinic, the very small building. And they had a bathroom, a desk, and a roll up door. And again, I didn't know anything about anything. And here I go.

7. 4:45
   Wes Mathews

   How old were you? What are you?

8. 4:47
   Chris Meso

   That was that was 28. And I literally used the phone book to start calling people. The phone book. It's a physical phone book, the yellow pages. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I want to go back there. Right.

9. 5:05
   Wes Mathews

   Yeah. Like what made you take that leap, right? Because like the 3M or like you got this great sales program, you're feeling good. Like what took you out of that to kind of make that leap?

10. 5:16
    Chris Meso

    Yeah. So you're so good at this. Uh, the, uh, so you and I are, I think much alike. I could never imagine. I still cannot imagine. So I'll be 65 this year coming up in at 28 are already could understand 100% in my gut knew just didn't know how to articulate it. I could never work for a large company. That's impossible. I just didn't know how to put it into words, but it was terrible. And being on my own was less scary than working for a large company.

11. 5:55
    Wes Mathews

    It's interesting because I meet most of, uh, most of my ecosystems, like your ecosystem, like entrepreneurial folks, right? But then I have the other, like, you know, they look at entrepreneur entrepreneurs, like that's really scary, right? Like there's a lot of risk. I look at having like a nine to five working for a large corporation, like way more scary. Like the fact that I could be fired on a Friday is way more scarier than like the, the ladder, right? So it's an interesting dynamic, like how our brains are wired.

    Well, I love talking to you cause you know, you've already shared your, your age. So we're 20. We have a 20 year spread, right? So I always love talking to you cause like right now I'm 44 and like, sometimes I think I have it together and I realized like, I really don't have it together. Um, none of us do less, but like going back to those days, right? Like talk a little bit about mobile air. Cause I think it's a really unique business that you started.

    Like what prompted that, you know, um, and just talk about, you know, what it actually did. Cause I think it's, it's a really interesting business model.

12. 7:01
    Chris Meso

    One of the first things that rolls through my head West is it taught me how to survive. It truly taught me how to survive. And here's what I mean by that. Cause this is flashed into my head. In the first five years of business, we were a distribution model for temporary heating, temporary cooling equipment is all commercial and industrial. At this time it was just commercial like commercial, not even industrial. And there was, you always compete against somebody. I don't care what industry you're in. You're competing.

    If you, if you're not competing, you don't know your competitors yet. So you're just still, you're really early on. So I found out who my competitors were. And, uh, and these guys have been button heads for a year. So they had probably a 20 and 30 year head start on me. And, uh, that's a lot that that's a lot of investment and a lot of shaking hands, a lot of knowing people in the industry of which I did not have yet. And these guys were, were killing each other.

    So in the first five years, if I bought a piece of equipment, and if I say I made $2,000 at a leasing, a piece of equipment for a number of months, within that five years, that same piece of equipment did not go down the price for me to buy it as CapEx. It went up in price. At the same time that that's gone up in price, the capture dollars to lease that equipment out fell by 50%. So if you put that on a graph, uh, that's a race to the bottom and that's where I was.

    So I'm at my kitchen table and I'm charting out my race to the bottom. And I just went back to, so we called on like Skanska or Barton yellow or, you know, a lot of these other, you know, wall bridge larger general contractors in our area at this, at that time. And I just went back to not everybody at all, but just some of the guys I knew when I say knew, I mean, like, I, I know them. I trust them like you and I know and trust each other.

    So I could have a conversation that is, you know, on a better level, deeper level, more true as true level of, Hey, this is what I want to say. I'm not sharing with these guys. I'm freaking out, but I am because I know that I'm not going to survive. I am sharing with them that all the equipment that I own, that my competition owns, that the last engineering renovation change update upgrade 30, 40, 50 years ago. And the building, how we build buildings has changed. So what we're doing is we're locking in moisture.

    We're very inefficient on heating or cooling or drying or dehumidifying. And I just give me permission. I'll actually prototype equipment and we'll, with your ideas, with my ideas, we'll work on equipment. I'll build it. I'll prototype it. We'll use it. And if it doesn't work, you won't pay for it. It does work. This is what you owe me. And, and I'm not talking Taco Bells. I'm talking like we had, we had projects at 911 switch gear rooms for AT&T. We had projects for DMC hospitals, Beaumont hospital for U of M building, you know, a class buildings.

    And, but these guys, we had like you and I have a bond of trust. We had a real good, some of these guys, a good bond of trust together. So I was able to prototype equipment, put it together, bring it to a job site and experiment. And they let me do that because of that, I became a prototype shop. Because of that, we had new designs in the industry that were just, they needed to happen. And I just happened to be the one at the right time.

    And then what really did happen is I became a niche manufacturer. I built five of those. Next year I built 25. Next year I built a hundred. And I just kept doing that for almost 30 years. And then what did happen because of that is I went from a half of what I used to make to two or three times. So I was way more expensive by two times at least than my competition. But the value that they got from using my equipment was that high that they did it.

    They actually wanted that equipment more than the cheaper equipment. So we dug moats. You know, people talk about digging moats. That's my digging moats. How long did that take, right?

13. 12:20
    Wes Mathews

    Correct me if I'm wrong. You mentioned you started this at 28. Yeah. You have that, if you go back to that moat feeling, we're like, I've got this, right? And you're going two to three X your competition. Yeah. What was that timeframe that you can comfortably, was it 10 years, five years?

14. 12:36
    Chris Meso

    I mean, yeah, it's more than five. It was probably less than 10. It was not overnight. And that was, so we, you know, we talk about entrepreneurs and you talk about as an entrepreneur, just in your gut, you know, where you need to go. You're just not there yet, but you actually understand you actually have to get here. That was in my gut. And it took, you know, it took capital, capital that I didn't have. I actually started a rep firm to resell equipment so I could pay for the cap backs to keep prototyping and building.

    I mean, you talk about being a nut. I think I was, I was full nut.

15. 13:20
    Wes Mathews

    What helped you do that, right? So like, if you're 28, and I want to evolve this conversation into, you know, operating system, but like, did you just have this all as in your head as a vision or did you start to write all this stuff down? Like, how did you get everybody around you bought into your craziness of this growth and scale?

16. 13:43
    Chris Meso

    Well, I have a, I had a partner, Mark, and he was also my brother-in-law, right? So small business. And I'll give Mark a lot of credit to, I did have a lot of ideas. Not all of them were, you know, capable of being implemented or even designed or built or even put into action. So he was a really good sounding board of keep thinking what you're thinking, right? And so that caused us to have lots of conversations to get it nailed down. But writing, Wes, I would take every Sunday afternoon for 20 some years, and I would be in the, in the basement of my house, I'd be like a man rule with a projector and stuff.

    And, but I would go down there and I'd just close the door. And I had a football game or basketball game in the background, but I would spend two, three, four hours by myself every Sunday. And I would look at all my notes from the past three months, just read them. And then I would look at what I did past couple of weeks, and I'd read those notes. And then I would make notes of what I have to do this next week or two weeks. And I would just keep checking stuff off the list.

    It was so complicated. I just couldn't have it not in writing all the ideas.

17. 15:14
    Wes Mathews

    You know, you were, was it 28 years you had this business? Yeah. Yeah.

18. 15:21
    Chris Meso

    So I was, I was 55. Yeah, 55, 56. Yeah. So may I start, I was 28. It was May, it was May of 1989.

19. 15:33
    Wes Mathews

    So walkthrough, right? I mean, as an entrepreneur, I mean, people start their own business for various reasons. And then things usually evolve, right? Like my first company, I did it to make as much money as possible. And like, then that evolved into like, Hey, this is a real business. And there's these other dynamics going on. And I kind of like it. But obviously, there's so much to unpack in 28 years, right? There's probably, we could probably do a podcast recording every day for the next year if we wanted to.

    But like talk about at 55. Like what takes you from building the moat and all these things to, to like sell your company? Yeah,

20. 16:14
    Chris Meso

    that's another great question, Wes. So in Houston, well, in South, in the South, like Houston and Florida, we, and this is probably what I'm going to say, 2009, it was 2009. We had those, you know, big hurricanes. And I was experimenting on a bunch of equipment that we were coming out. So we, this was like generation five or, or six of some of this heat equipment. And it would cost us it. At that time, I was not using the bank. We had paid off all our debts.

    And we were a cash flow company. And, and I had seven figures in a personal account saved up to build this next generation of equipment. And I was going to cash it myself. And so was Mark. And so to, we needed to experiment on this stuff. So when I say experiment, I'm, I'm saying like, I need like a hundred thousand square foot building or greater. And I need to flood this thing with water and I need to just find out what happens if I dry it too quick.

    And no one's going to do that. But in a hurricane, Katie barred the door. I mean, you've just, I mean, it's, it's, it's in your face. So I, I loaded up a bunch of prototype equipment into a semi. I got a couple of guys, we drove separately and we went down to Houston and I knocked on a couple of doors for literally a day. And I got all the jobs I needed. Yeah. And I experimented on these buildings and within, within about maybe 10 days I was gone.

    I went, I went back home because I, I had all the information that I, I needed for my tests. What I did learn is that one, very hard to get a hotel room in a hurricane. Didn't really figure that one out until we got down there. We were in the seediest part of town you can imagine. And I had a chair literally like against the door at night. I just figured, I don't know where we are. It's terrible. But on TV, I'm listening to other on the television, like talking about Lehman brothers and Bank of America and Merrill Lynch and I mean, all these entities that are just grenading.

    And at that point in time that, you know, those couple of days, I was convinced that I don't know money and neither do these other buffoons. These are the guys who are smart, completely missed it, right? These are the money managers. These are investment bankers. These are the guys who were selling collected commissions and everybody else's left, right around us. And that was not small. It was huge. And so that was a great financial crisis that was unfolding. We just didn't know it yet. So that's what got me to sell my business, Wes.

    I started to read incessantly focused, maybe too focused on macroeconomics and money and money flow. And so fast forward a couple years later in 2015, I got an investment banker because I was doing my own math and I just thought my business is worth twice of what it would have been worth five, seven years prior. Nothing's changed except for interest rates and how we value purchasing businesses. And I got in front of a guy at Merrill Lynch. John Stewart is his name and he was just a great guy for me to know.

    And I gave him all the other things that were in my head and he said, you're pretty spot on. You know, you've done a lot of research. So you're pretty close. It's not perfect, but you're pretty close. And I just went to my partner Mark and I said, hey man, you know, we could graduate from high school all over again and do whatever we want to do in life. And we've just two extra exit and we had nothing to do with it except for being here.

    You know, I said, what do you want to do? Because I want to sell. And he said, yeah, let's go. And we actually sold that company to private equity. And I stayed for three exits,

21. 21:03
    Wes Mathews

    three additional legs, they're like private equity and we sold in total.

22. 21:07
    Chris Meso

    So we sold, sold again, sold again. On this, on the second sale, I was gone. I just could not work with these guys.

23. 21:15
    Wes Mathews

    What capacity did you stay on the first sale? Were you still the CEO visionary or were you more like engineering prototype or?

24. 21:22
    Chris Meso

    Yeah. So more of the president visionary, but that changed very quickly to these guys come in. They're a new sheriff in town and how you run a business. And I'm not saying this is bad or good. This is just my, that's how I think about it. As an entrepreneur, Wes, you and I are going to run the business the way we want to run a business. And we're not going to run it for a quarterly mark to sell it in three years. We are going to run a business as, as a way that in our minds, we want to run that business as a holistic entity.

    And it's not, it's not just peeling off dollars for additional EBITDA to get, you know, get it to the next guy. There's is such a different dynamic of running a company. I just couldn't do it. It was not, it didn't flow well for me mentally. I mean, this is a whole different rabbit hole here, but I, I would, I stayed for a very short period of time. West. I just could not, but, but here's a, yeah, go ahead. Here's the nice part about the learning curve.

    I was, I don't know for one, you're, you're learning how to be purchased. So what you learn in that process is nothing that you've ever been taught in business school. It is, it is like, it's, it's a whole new world. And then after being bought, being on the other side, watching my, my biggest competitor that I competed against for almost 30 years. I mean, you talk about if you play a game of basketball and you were elbowing each other, pushing each other, blocking each other, pulling out of each other's Jersey, but you're doing it for, you know, 48 minutes.

    I'm doing this for 28 years. We hate each other. And to know that we were about the same size company and to understand how the lens that we're using, we just purchased him at 50% value of what we just purchased me for. So that is how, that's the difference of how you run a company, the value of a company, how people buy and sell companies. It's, it's, it's worth the understanding of how that's is valued.

25. 23:56
    Wes Mathews

    How long did you prepare from like the day you were like, I'm going down this journey till you actually sold? Are you talking two, three years or

26. 24:05
    Chris Meso

    way less than that, Wes, when I made the decision, it was probably too fast to be honest with you. If I would have understood what I need to understand as a business owner, I would have understood that this is a journey to get to here. So I have to have the context of how long that journey probably should be at least three years, if not long, could be 20 years, you know, who cares, make it 20. But the context is, I have to know the length of the journey.

    It's not going to be perfect. But then I have to put it not in future tense. I have to put what I need to do in present tense, and just start executing on a model over a period of time. Isn't that how you run a good business anyway? Yeah,

27. 24:58
    Wes Mathews

    like how much did that, like, as soon as that entered your ecosystem, right? Because I just have this vision of you and your Sundays, you know, knocking out notes, kind of doing your thing. But now you introduce this whole new idea of now I'm going to sell. And I kind of have this emotion around. Once that enters your ecosystem, it's like there's no turning Chris around from this, like, this is happening, right? So you've already run the light. Yeah, you're, you're through. Yeah, you're gone. Yeah.

    Like, how much did this like, just to give people a sense of like, what did this do to you? Like, how much did this actually consume of you during this process? Yeah.

28. 25:32
    Chris Meso

    So you and I both understand the output here. It is all consuming. Once you pull the trigger, it's like you're not partially pregnant, right? Or the gun, or the guns kind of going off, right? Yeah, it's over. So the race has started. And once that does start, it is so consuming, it's consuming at every level in life, you can imagine, it does take over.

29. 26:03
    Wes Mathews

    So at the end of it, right, you sell the company. And there's a sum of money. Yep. Did you think about like, so you're 55 ish, right? Yep. Did you think about that moment or like beyond the next year, three years, what your life looks like? Because I, I kind of put myself in your era, like, Chris is as hard fat, like, go. And then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, we sold like, not now what, right? Like, what, what happens now when you're 55, you sell your company.

    And you're Chris Meso at 55 on a Monday, like what goes on?

30. 26:41
    Chris Meso

    So my attorney, so he is a Dickinson, right guy, this is always this is a small community, you know, the Detroit area is big, but it's small. So, and I had known Kevin for a couple decades, and good friend of mine. And I hired him as my as my transition attorney, because I knew he had a team. And I knew that team sold businesses. And so they protected their client. And I knew I didn't know what I didn't know. And that's why I had my conversation with Kevin is, I don't know what I don't know, you are going to help protect me, you're going to teach me.

    And I'm going to you're going to send me a bill, and I'm going to pay it. And we're going to work together for I don't even know, Kevin, for six months, Kevin, and I worked together for about five years. And he sent me a lot of bills. And, and I had a tremendous learning curve, that truly, I just like, I had a education in selling and buying. But to answer your question, you know, it's, you don't know what's going to happen, you don't know what's who you're going to be when you leave.

    Kevin and I had conversations going, like, I'm up north right now in our cottage. And we were going up north to this cottage to go golfing. Now, you and I have golfed together before. And I'm not at the greatest golfer, but I just don't, I just don't pay a lot of attention to it. Back in the day, I golf a lot more. And that was a lot better stick. And I told Kevin, because he said, Where are you going to do with all your time? And I just said, Hey, Kev, I'll do a lot of golfing.

    I still belong to Red Run golf club. And I'll, you know, I'll just I'll golf when I want to, hopefully a lot. And he laughed. And he goes, and he goes, good luck with that. And I thought, well, how pompous is that, right? And so that summer, when we did sell, I golfed three days in a row at Red Run, if I ever told you the story. And I can't remember who I was, all that was in the fourth time on the third day. But third day in a row, it was beautiful day.

    It was stunning, you know, week for golf. And we're coming down 16. And I had just, you know, so we're coming up to our second shot. And I told the guy that I'm walking with, I said, I'm gonna quit. And he thought I was going to quit the round. He goes, well, I got a couple holes left. And I'm like, no, I'm going to quit the club. I'm just, I'm going to, I don't know how to live here. I don't. And if I stayed here, I'm just going to drink here every night.

    And if I do that, I'm going to get arrested driving somewhere. And I'm just, I even told him, I said, this is just not me. I don't understand what I don't understand. But what I do understand that this is not me here right now. And I quit that day.

31. 29:55
    Wes Mathews

    Yeah, I do remember that story. It was a powerful story of just like decision making. So where, where, so then you kind of evolve into, it's like you work with them for six months. You know, where was the drive for, you know, because right now T-Rex advisory, you know, you're, you're, you're a business coach, which is amazing because I love, like, you've been through it. Like you're 20 years, like the wisdom that you have and the experience is so valuable to any entrepreneur that's on your path.

    Because you also have four kids and like, you've gone through this journey, right? And I also think there's a lot of consults out there. I don't want to like bash anybody, but I like people that have been through an experience to give their own experience, shared feedback, right? People are like, Hey, I'm not sure what the answer is, but here's what I did, right? Good, bad, or indifferent. I think you and I have that same kind of delivery when we're talking to people like, here's where I completely messed up.

    Like talk a little bit about like how T-Rex advisory came into your ecosystem, you know, through that transition, right? Because it sounds like that's a pretty heavy time for you. Yeah, it's a lost period.

32. 31:05
    Chris Meso

    When you lose yourself in purpose, if you want to use a word, when you lose yourself in purpose, what is your purpose of being? And what is it that makes you fills your bucket with energy? I lost that. I didn't know you needed that. I had no idea. Kevin, again, on a golfing trip up north here, towards the end of the summer, told me we had just golfed all day with a bunch of buddies. Ron Burtlake, we're drinking beers. We have the music cranked up. I mean, this is beautiful.

    And I'm like, this is really, this is how it should be. And he looked at me and he said, you're miserable. How would you know that? How would you know that? Because I didn't say that. And he was right. I was bored. I was bored to tears. So he's the guy who said, Hey, why don't you go and run another company, start another company? I'm like, Yeah, I'm just, I know who I am. I'll, I'll, I'll be two feet, both arms, the whole body, I'll be in the pool.

    I'll be underwater in the deep end. And I'll be fine there. Because that's where I would be. And I said, I don't want to do that again. So I don't know what to do. And he said, why don't you just then go back and talk to other entrepreneurs? Why don't you teach them what you did? And my, my feedback to Kevin was, I've never taught, I don't think anything like that. So I wouldn't know how to do it. You know, so that's, again, that's a skill set that I wouldn't possess.

    And he said, Well, I'm going to introduce you to a guy who ran EOS, you know, Geno Wickman. And I worked with him for a number of years. It was a very positive experience for me. Great learning curve. Light in how I would need to have it presented to me, I wouldn't need more depth. And then I found that with another group called Pinnacle. So, I mean, so these things are, you know, thank God for me for Kevin, you know, you need a few good people in your life that really help you with your decision opportunities.

    And Kevin was that for me. So he's a guy who got me into strategic coaching.

33. 33:42
    Wes Mathews

    Now, is it like, do you focus on, you know, entrepreneurs that are looking to exit? Or is it just being in that ecosystem? Like do you gravitate towards that founder visionary? Or is it the leadership team? Like what's your, where do you sort of gravitate towards?

34. 33:59
    Chris Meso

    Sure. That's a great question. Again, the when you're working with a, with an entrepreneur with another business owner, I think it's very personal. It really is. You're going to not at first, but over time, you're going to get past the tools, you know, past the concepts, past, you know, sewing these tools together, so you can actually run a better business. Once you get past some of that initial conversations, you're going to get into the more personal world with them. And so for me, having the ability to know what I had to do to survive, what I gave up in relationships, what I did really, really well, what I did, you know, do so well, because, you know, everybody does both, something's well, something's not well.

    And having, I think, a clear understanding, trying to lay on that unemotionally at first. There's always emotion in there, but try to lay on that unemotionally so you can put it in context. And then go and have these great conversations with other leaders. We are having these same thoughts as individuals in over periods of time in our life, with our wives, with our, with our children, with our business partner, with the, you know, the, you know, how we compete, you know, what's driving us. Most of these guys that I work with look like me, you know, they're, they got white hair, they're a little older, and they're just great people.

    They really are. And when you get down to it, if you get down to the humanness past the robotics of running a company, you get down to the humanness, you'll find that, for me, I look for someone who is very honest, and I look for someone who can make good business decisions, typically. Someone who is, wants to be coachable, and learn, like, I've got a couple people around me that, they've been very good coaches for me, as a human being. And that's given me the opportunity to get to another level that I could never even imagine I could have gotten to.

    So I think if, you know, the right couple people that come together, it starts with the owner. And from the owner, there's always a couple people in leadership team that are just outstanding. And if they choose to be on that journey of, you know, being better at the human being level, getting a little deeper, their progress in running the company is exponential.

35. 37:04
    Wes Mathews

    Is that too deep? Yeah, I love your approach. No, that's great. I mean, look, if I think, I look at you as like, I'm gonna use a karate analogy, even though I don't do karate. Like, if I'm, if I'm a black belt one stripe, you're like a eight stripe black belt guy, right? So like, you know, my kids ask me when they're really young and private, now they're like, what do you, they like thought I was kind of like a therapist, right? I'm like, I'm kind of like one of Michigan's best unlicensed therapists.

    Yeah. Because I think that, and you're like at the top, like you Google search the Michigan, like you're, but I think there's this unspoken thing about entrepreneurs, which is kind of weird. Like, you know, it's kind of lonely, right? Being a poor Chris Maitzel told his company for a bunch of money. I feel really sorry for it. Like, but like, I don't think a lot of people really understand like what goes on in visionary's heads and the demands, the stress, the pressure, and like a million things are happening, right?

    Not to discount anybody else and what they do, because everybody has the same pressures, but like the fact that you can now transfer that and help navigate somebody through that, but I love the fact that they have to sort of like recognize something, right? Like, what do you think that is? Right? Cause I, I'm able to look in the mirror a little bit and know my shortcomings and not all of them, but I've, I've had a dose of like, you know, I have some people around me that will not be a yes man and tell me, which is great, but like, how does that visionary get in that mindset to be like ready or, you know, to accept what you're talking about?

    Cause going deep, some guys might be like, yeah, I'm out, right? Like I just run a company, do my thing. I'm going to go to Burlake and drink and golf, and I'm great, right? I'm great. That was me. But how do you, what do you see in your experience as a coach and just your life experience on like when that can sort of change, that makes sense.

36. 39:00
    Chris Meso

    Yeah. I got in front of a guy named John Bell. And so he's a neuroscience guy. And so I started working with him first, um, as a third party. So he was working with clients of mine. And I discovered that these people who are much like me, um, were coming back to me three months, four months, five months later with continuous conversations with John. And they're, they're actually more humble and more, there's a lot more humanness to them and our conversations, uh, were added at a deeper level, uh, very quickly without any prodding on my part.

    And I had called John, I said, what is it that you're saying to these people? Um, because this person is, is like me, but this person is, is, is developing quicker than I am. So what's going on here? And, uh, so I went through that program with, with John. And so what you're asking is, do we really not to get too deep in the woods, uh, but what we're really talking to each other about is intrinsic value. And so on a human level, if you can understand, um, how to take that thing that's been, uh, coddled and then built and then coddled and then built for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years called ego.

    And understand how that thing is weaponizing you as a person. And you can understand how to blow holes in it, not to kill it, but to, uh, make it less strong. And then, you know, you're more open as a human being. And if you understand the human being, then you understand the ego is your human doing, but you need to understand and concentrate on the human being part of you, the open part of you that really is your base. It's not the golf clubs you belong to.

    It's not the cars you're driving. It's not the houses that you have. It's, it has nothing to do with that. That drives your ego. Who are you as a person?

37. 41:26
    Wes Mathews

    So again, I'm going to go back here. You're the eighth stripe black belt, right? Chris may. So 64, I think you said, how do you keep refueling yourself, right? You have T racks right on the business side. You're helping other entrepreneurs kind of grow through that journey. But what's the big change in you now that, cause I'm sure you still like to go to burlake and have a couple drinks and golf and all that and have fun. But like, how do you stay in this lane, right?

    That you're in now, like, what do you have to do to do that? Sure.

38. 41:57
    Chris Meso

    That's a great question again. So I think that in the past, I've been doing this for about eight years, um, the strategic coaching, I'll be going on my ninth year pretty soon. To be honest with you, Wes, I don't think I've worked any harder ever. I can't, I can't even think of me working as hard as I've worked in this past eight years and relearning and rereading. I mean, I can't believe how much I've been reading, uh, just to understand what is it that I didn't understand before.

    And if I understand these concepts in business better or deeper, and I take that relationship as to what I used to think, how I used to think, how I used to execute on that and what if I was to do it differently and thought through that as well. Um, I could actually explain it and teach it and coach it to others. And, um, it's just to me, it's, it's, it's where I belong. It's, it's a good sweet spot. No, that's great.

39. 43:05
    Wes Mathews

    So we're kind of coming up on some tide. I could build out a whole series with you, Chris. I really appreciate the time and the knowledge, but if there's an entrepreneur listening to this or somebody like what would be a next step with you or like, how do people get in contact with you? Uh, cause I think, you know, somebody may listen to this and it might really pull at them and say, Hey, like I gotta make a change or, you know, cause again, I love your red run analogy, right?

    Like just, you just had this epiphany, right? Or I don't know if that's the right term, but you're like, I'm changing course, you know, and not a lot of people do that, right? A lot of people just go through the motion, but how do, you know, what's the easiest way for somebody to, to connect with you to maybe chat through some of this?

40. 43:45
    Chris Meso

    Yeah. So, you know, I'm on, I'm online. So there's, you know, T-Rex, T-R-E-X, t-rexadvisory.com. And there's a website and you can, you know, look through that and contact me, you know, through the website if you want. But what I would say, Wes, is that, um, you know, these over, over the, the years, if I was to have known what I know today, and people, you know, everybody can say this, but it is so amazing to me to understand in the context of business ownership. If I was to have known what I understand today, and if I was to implement these tools and concepts 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even 10 years prior to me leaving, I was so fortunate in life in how we exited our business.

    We would have crushed it by multiples more. And now I'm not talking just money, because I am referring about money right now, but past money of understanding what I understand today about people and the humanness, I would have done a better job as a, as my own person, and my family would have benefited more. Had I understand the total package that I, that I'm trying to relay to clients today, I would have done a better job as, as a, as a dad,

41. 45:17
    Wes Mathews

    as, as a husband, as well as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I love that. That it's, you know, it's like, is it the journey or the destination and everybody's, you know, trying to do this thing, but it's like, you can really kind of give hindsight on that journey. I think it's, it's so invaluable. Well, Chris, I really appreciate you taking the time at your, at your place. I know your time is very precious, but I really appreciate this experience. So what's an email people can get in contact with you?

    Yeah.

42. 45:45
    Chris Meso

    [email removed].

43. 45:53
    Wes Mathews

    Well, I think I, you know, I recommend like seven things in my life. You're, you're always one of them. I think you, you, you bring such a unique skill set and experience for entrepreneurs. So I hope if somebody's listening and they're kind of at that crossroad, you know, they reach out to give some insight, but I really appreciate the time. Enjoy the rest of your time up North. I really appreciate it.

44. 46:14
    Chris Meso

    Wes, it's such always a pleasure to spend time with you, my man. I mean, like always. Thank you.

45. 46:20
    Wes Mathews

    Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it. This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us for show notes or other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel.com until next time.