Ryan Burch: "Most Things Just Don't Matter."

Extraordinary.Network: I had a boss at the time. and this is this is like a a a crazy story. So this is this is when I ri recognized that when you are an executive at a Fortune 500 level, you are operating at a t on a totally different plane than everybody else. So we worked in a startup. Our startup got bought by eBay. And I got to work early, seven in the morning, and I got called into the office by by the the leader at that time. And We had these these glass windows. All of the conference rooms had these glass windows. And they they pulled the screen, the glass window. Now a good sign. Yeah, I I thought I was losing my job. I'm like, I'm done. I I'm out. Like, this is it. and and like I I literally was just like, man, I can't believe this is happening to me. Like I thought I was doing great. And and the CEO sat across from me and he said, Hey, Ryan, I understand your mom has cancer out of nowhere. I never talked to him about that. I, you know, people that have worked with me knew that. And and I said, Yeah. Why are why are we in this room? He said, Listen, your boss has cancer, and in an hour, I have to tell the rest of the company that she's got to take a leave of absence. And I understand this has affected you and it's affected one other person in this hundred person company. And I wanted to get out ahead of that and tell you first. Wow. So that if you didn't want to be in that room, you could tell me. If you wanted to have a conversation with me about it right now, we could do that. And he said, I didn't, I'm not firing you. I closed these curtains because I know that this is an emotional thing for you. I know you're close to your boss. Wow. So I want you to take this time and just let me know how you feel. Wow. And yeah, get goosebumps talking about it right now. That's crazy. and and so to to see that and to understand the humanity of that and to experience the humanity of that, that changed me as a leader. my other bosses, when my mom passed, took red eye flights from New York to be at her funeral. They had never met this woman. Wow. Okay. And part of that's a testament to who she was. She was a little bit larger than life and had like this influence that was like kind of radiating. but you look at something like that and you're like, you know, God, I hope nobody on my team ever has to go through anything like this. Nobody has to go through this. But I'll be damned if like if somebody does, like I'm gonna react differently now. Welcome to Extraordinary Stories. I'm your host, Forb Shannon, and today we have one of my favorite people here in studio. he is the he's an entrepreneur, he's a mentor, he's an ad guy, he knows how to get what he wants. he's the founder of Toby Group. the one and only Ryan Birch. Ryan, thanks for being here Yeah, thanks for having me. you were nominated by me and by Aaron. How do you know us? I met you. Many years ago we were building community around Phoenix Startup Week, which is you know obviously something that super passionate about coming, you know, growing up in Phoenix. so that was, I mean, we're going back almost 10 years. It's been amazing, which is pretty crazy. Yeah. And Aaron Aaron as well, you know, I it's interesting, I I I know him through you, but also just, you know, working marketing, advertising. we have a lot of paths that I've crossed through the years. so it's been really cool to reconnect with him as well. Yeah. It's been a it's been a really good time. I I got the opportunity to work for you at Toby Group. That's right. For a little bit and to really see how in the agency model, what I learned probably the most from you is how to work with your clients to make them feel like that they're getting the most out of it, but also to present I guess what I'd call collaborative boundaries of like, hey, this is what we will do and what you know, you kinda have this mentality of the answer is yes, what's the question? And getting further into what the question yeah is. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's it's interesting you say that. So w I I started the company because and we say this a lot, you know, we we think businesses deserve flexible marketing. So my background, I came from a world where I I used to run, you know, media for really, really huge companies, massive, massive brands. And you know what was interesting about that is it's like smaller marketers or smaller teams that weren't resourced, they kind of had like the the rug pulled over you know, or out from underneath them. whenever something came up, I saw a lot of people being taken advantage of by, you know, advertising companies and marketing companies and things like that. So it's like kind of core to who we are is like, hey, You actually deserve this. You should you need like something you you deserve something better than what you're getting. or at least we've tried to do that. So it's cool that you that's what you've taken away. Yeah, for sure. And like even in the time that I got to spend with these clients, like when we reconnect, like I wanna follow up and ask you like how they're doing. Yeah, because I felt like I was like, you know, you really develop this ability to develop relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Soup we're super lucky. I mean the the the business was built on former clients of mine that I, you know, have going back twenty years. there's still people I'm in touch with. every once in a while I'll get a a a text or a phone call. I I just had a phone call with a a former client of of ours the other day, which is a whole other story. yeah. you know, to to follow up and see people, you know, through like where where where they've gone and where they've been and again to you know refer us business and I come back around. We're super lucky for that. And really it comes down to the work we do and the and and the people that one of the things I'm most proud of with with our team at Toby is just everybody on the team has that same mentality. You know, they they want they want those relationships to matter and they they are willing to stay up all night to get stuff done. And you know it's not always the best business plan for us. You know we we probably Leave a lot on the table, but we make people happy. and we execute, which is which is great. So so from the business standpoint, super proud of that. But yeah, those relationships obviously are are excellent. So Yeah. You had a a really cool party that you threw for your employees where we got we got branded T shirt swag, you know. I was like, all right, this guy really is a marketer. He's that's a you know, somebody listening to this might think, like, he got t shirts. Well, you gotta remember, like, a lot of the people that were on the team or worked with us, they dip in and dip out of of the work that we're doing. So we we have a lot of contractors that we bring on for very specific things. So You know, like somebody might have been there for like one little project and you know, for five hours and you know, they're walking away with a T shirt. And we have a lot of young people that work with us too. So, you know, not that young people don't enjoy the finer things of life, but a T shirt might mean a little bit more to it might have meant a little bit more to ten years ago Forbes, versus now. yeah. I loved it. Yeah. I I wore it and washed it so much that the lettering started to fall apart. Yeah, we're gonna have to get you a hat. I I am trying to find somebody, and it it might I'm not blaming you, I'm not saying it was you, but I got a text from a friend. I grew up in North Phoenix and I got a friend that was at PV Mall. So this was a couple of years ago before they demolished it. And they said they saw somebody wearing my shirt. So somehow it wound up at Goodwill or it wound up somewhere. And I'm like, I yeah, I I so I'm like immediately I'm quizzing this person, like, all right, what did they look like? You know, guy or girl, you know. So there's somebody out there that are just giving those away for us. No, they ain't me, man. I promise. you know, and the I wanted to talk about the culture because I think that was like A big reason of your genesis for getting into the entrepreneurship because you were doing this for big name brands before, right? So tell me about why you took the leap, you know. I think I think one of the podcasts you did recently, you said you were unemployable. Yeah. and you know, I I I I think I think there's an element of a lot of entrepreneurs that, you know, that they, you know, we are unemployable on some level because we have our own. Well you should know I worked for you. Yeah, no, that's true. to be fair, I didn't fire you. So I thought you were very employable. I should have given you more t shirts now that now that we're thinking about it. But I there's there's like this irrational confidence when you're an entrepreneur in in whatever your idea is and whatever you want to do, and you've got you've got an idea that you wanna see done a very specific way. And for me that's I've always had that. Even when I was working, I worked at Arizona State, you know, I worked, I I worked there. I w you know, very young in my career. I still had this kind of like, hey, I could do this myself in a different way. Yeah. And I think that that was kind of the catalyst to say, like, okay, I'm gonna do this on my own. and also the relationships, you know. I you know, I worked for so so w when when we got sold from the Fortune 500 company I worked for, I went to a smaller agency, you know, it was it was a great experience there. but then I I noticed that a lot of those relationships, they weren't there because of the agency that we were with. They were there because of the work that we were doing, my team was doing. so that that meant that there could have been opportunity there, right? So But yeah, it's just like this irrational confidence that all entrepreneurs have and you have it too. Yeah. and that's what the that's what that's what started all this. So So like because you you post a lot of really funny content online where you talk about how you know part of the entrepreneurship journey is like, I'm gonna have work-life balance. And then you get into it. Yeah. It's hard, man. It's hard. There's no work like balance. and I'm not sure where you're going with the question, but it it's just it's it's one of those things where I have I I had to create a separate Instagram because I was getting too many people coming to me and saying like, hey Ryan, that thing you posted the other day was hilarious. And I keep things like pretty PG13. Let's be honest. And I think, by the way, anybody listening, if you're an entrepreneur or a founder, keep things like PG 13. That's probably okay. Yeah. but but yeah, I had to create a new Instagram because that's only people wanted to like talk about All this dumb crap that I was posting all the time. Did nobody want to talk about like the cool ideas that I had around advertising? So I'm like, okay, all of you guys, like, you're cut off. No more of this. So that's too funny. No, but you know, to that end, right? You're traveling now, probably more than ever. Yep. You know, so like part of it is, you know, running an agency, high touch, right? You had to build the team and build the systems. You've you've been in this for seven years. So what's it like now getting to this point where you're able to have that lifestyle that you started that you, you know, were dreaming of, I'm sure, seven years ago? I don't think it's played out the way that I thought it would. and I think there's a lot of business owners that are probably listening that would agree with me where, you know, we have this idea that we're going to You know, be on an island and the company's gonna run itself. And you know, that's only been amplified by, you know, AI, like, Claude's like running my whole company and ChatGPT's like hired my whole team and it's working. That's just not the reality. So I think maybe what it is, Forbes, is I've gotten better at understanding how to block my time out, better at understanding what it means to work remote, what you know, how to align myself with different time zones. so over seven years, it's not so much that I've unlocked something, you know, I'm st I'm working probably more than ever now, but I've gotten better at doing it in multiple places. And that was that was a real learning curve, you know, to not be stationary somewhere. And and look, do do not believe the people on Instagram they're telling you that you could just start your company and it's gonna run itself. Like that's just not, you know, like last night I was up till midnight. This morning I was up at five, you know, preparing for a presentation I'm giving tomorrow, to a big marketing conference, right? Like people don't see that. And so if you're on that Instagram and like in between like political memes and things like that, you see me you know, on an island somewhere, there's also like this other side that you never are seeing. and I've just gotten better at I think juggling that. So So then like as a high performer. That's able to like run this business and travel and do all these awesome things that you're doing. Like when you say time blocking, like what what is your schedule build like? Yeah. it n now I have to actually back this up with some real with some real data. I I t I start most days around seven in the morning. And I I would say that I end most days probably around 637. But there's a lot of times that I will end a day you know, seven, and then I'll hang out with you know, a fiance for a couple of hours. and then I'll I'll be back at it for a couple hours. Okay. now what happens in between those times, I do try to time block, I do try to kind of follow the Cal Newport, you know, deep work, you know, style stuff as much as possible. But again, the reality is when you're a business owner, there's a lot of chaos coming at you. Sure. And so I don't have, I don't think I've mastered the system of doing the same thing every single day. That's not what I'm good at. What I am good at is identifying and prioritizing stuff. And at the at seven in the morning, I'm pretty good at going through reorganizing what my priorities are and getting three or four things shipped off so that, you know, maybe a couple like a week later, those things are ready to come back to me. And that's what I try to work with my team on a lot is. You know, what are the things that you need to delegate so that when you push them out, they're ready to come back to you? And how do you keep track of those things? Right. and I think really great managers are great not only at delegating, but also follow-up, keeping track of things and all that stuff. And and again, it's just kind of a learned behavior. It's taken me, I've been a manager for gosh, 15 years now. and and I've not I haven't always been great at it, but I've improved pretty immensely. So So let me ask you this. I think what you're talking about is signal, right? Signal versus noise. Yeah. You know. How young were you when you started to realize like what matters? boy. there's two there's two sides to this, and and I'll get we'll get we'll go the easy business side first, and then we'll get super personal after that. in advertising, there are two people that you need to keep happy. the creative person, whoever's doing the design work, the content work, you keep that person really happy. The second person is the accounting person. So whoever's finance and accounting, you keep those two people happy and you are golden in advertising, right? So I learned that at 23 years old when I got my first job in in marketing advertising. and and so like when you're talking about okay, what's signal? Okay, so those are the first two things, right? Okay, creative's important because I've got to push that out. That's like an example of something that you are sending off to somebody. If you want better work, okay, you have to give people enough lead time. And again, my team's probably laughing if they're listening to this. They're like, Mike want stuff at the last second. But you've got to give people enough time to think about stuff. Like, you know, your your team or your clients, they're no different than we are. If we have enough time to actually think about a project and really put our energy into it, you what you get back is gonna be way better. Right. And so that that is a function of my ability to. prioritize that and get that delegated out. Right. and finance is just like you if you want to get paid, you gotta get paid. Right. Yeah. so that's the first part is, you know, how old was I when that happened? On a personal level, I lost my mom to breast cancer when in 2014. Man. And how old were you then? Well I gotta go back in time now. So that was twelve years ago. I was I was thirty one years old. So I'm 31, damn. Yeah. So and and I know you, I know how important your mom and and your family is to you. Yeah. if you've gone through that experience, you recognize very, very quickly what is and isn't important. And I I don't, you know, you you say I'm a high performer and look, I I've I've been very successful in in a lot of things. but I was like really anxious about stuff. I mean like crazy intense about things. And after going through that experience, it really draws a line in the sand is like most things just don't matter. Like what were some of the things that you were like really anxious about? I mean, just dumb things. Like I I'm talking like especially at work, like work, you know, getting caught up in like hey dumb things I'm anxious about too. So yeah, well it's just it's more it's more just you know stuff that you thought was like the most important thing. is just not anymore. You know, life and death is important. And so small things or or work things or different things felt like life or death until you had life or death. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, we we would lose like a a a massive client, right? and and that in that moment just feels devastating. But it's not. Right. It's not. There's gonna be another client, there's gonna be another, there's gonna be other work, there's gonna be other things. You know, people would lose their jobs, people like those things are devastating things. I don't want to minimize those. But when you go through something where you've got a family member that has an illness, that's a whole different level of waking up in the middle of the night. Yeah. and and waking up anxious and and feeling that. And then seeing the rest of your family go through that, right? Right. so those are two answers to your question. so 2014, yeah, just it it put things in perspective real fast. So how do you think that changed you as like like as a leader, you know, as one, but also like as a man? Need to take a second to think about that. I'm not sure that it changed me as a man because I don't, you know, I I I don't think of, you know, like roles in that way. Like I'm not I'm not somebody that's like, I'm I'm a man, I'm gonna provide for my family. I'm gonna do all these things. I I've always just kind of felt like that comes if you if you work hard enough. And and I don't think that that was ever affected. I think as a leader, I had a I had a boss at the time. and this is this is like a a a crazy story. So this is this is when I ri recognized that when you are an executive at a Fortune 500 level, you are operating at a t on a totally different plane than everybody else. So we worked in a startup. Our startup got bought by eBay. And I got to work early, seven in the morning, and I got called into the office by by the the leader at that time. And We had these these glass windows. All of the conference rooms had these glass windows. And they they pulled the screen, the glass window. Now a good sign. Yeah, I I thought I was losing my job. I'm like, I'm done. I I'm out. Like, this is it. and and like I I literally was just like, man, I can't believe this is happening to me. Like I thought I was doing great. And and the CEO sat across from me and he said, Hey, Ryan, I understand your mom has cancer out of nowhere. I never talked to him about that. I, you know, people that have worked with me knew that. And and I said, Yeah. Why are why are we in this room? He said, Listen, your boss has cancer, and in an hour, I have to tell the rest of the company that she's got to take a leave of absence. And I understand this has affected you and it's affected one other person in this hundred person company. And I wanted to get out ahead of that and tell you first. Wow. So that if you didn't want to be in that room, you could tell me. If you wanted to have a conversation with me about it right now, we could do that. And he said, I didn't, I'm not firing you. I closed these curtains because I know that this is an emotional thing for you. I know you're close to your boss. Wow. So I want you to take this time and just let me know how you feel. Wow. And yeah, get goosebumps talking about it right now. That's crazy. and and so to to see that and to understand the humanity of that and to experience the humanity of that, that changed me as a leader. my other bosses, when my mom passed, took red eye flights from New York to be at her funeral. They had never met this woman. Wow. Okay. And part of that's a testament to who she was. She was a little bit larger than life and had like this influence that was like kind of radiating. but you look at something like that and you're like, you know, God, I hope nobody on my team ever has to go through anything like this. Nobody has to go through this. But I'll be damned if like if somebody does, like I'm gonna react differently now. So I'd say that that's it, it wasn't the experience that changed me. It was how everybody acted toward me. Wow. And how much I appreciated that. And how much if I ever have to give that back, I got I just I hope I don't. I feel like I'm better prepared to. Yeah. That's that's powerful, man. Like I think when you're going through something like that, you know, because I had a I had a period in my life where, you know, huh, like all my roommates died, you know. Yeah. Right. And the weird thing is like you're trying to figure like you don't know what you want in terms of support, you know? And then when it shows up, you're like, yeah, that's what I what I needed. Yeah. You know. So like, you know, how did that change your ability to like ask for help or recognize other people needing help and helping them? I think I'm a little bit more mindful of it. You know, as far as, you know, emotional intelligence around some of those things, I I I definitely a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, we're we're very like hard driving, you know, blinders on. and so I I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily great at recognizing some of those things, you know, right off the bat. and it's probably somewhere I need to to grow as a leader. I think it's more about if somebody did come to me in that instance, I I would hope that I would be able to react, you know, you know, the the right way. But I mean what you bring up is interesting because you had your peers go. Mm-hmm. And and in some ways I feel like that's like it's it's it's it's a very different thing. I'm yeah, I'm sure. I I'm luckful you know, luckily I have both my parents, you know, and Yeah, it just it makes me wonder what like having those those peer relationships 'cause these are some of your best friends. Yeah and Yeah, I'd I'd ask you the same question. Like, how do you think that that has do you think that that has made you a different type of leader or made you operate in business differently? yeah. I mean, pressure is nothing now. You know, like You feel pressure, you know, you're you're in pressure where it's like, you know, you're coming up on the end of the month, you got to hit a revenue goal, you got people counting on you, you know, you're counting on it, right? You know, like there's that kind of pressure. But yeah, I I mean, kinda to go back to what you were saying about life and death, it's like the new habit that I got into was waking up every morning and the first, you know, the first thing I do is I think of three things that I'm really grateful for. Yeah. That day, you know. And you know, you just kind of realize like I get to I get to wake up today, you know, right? Even when the sky is falling in your business, I get to go deal with this, you know, right? Like somebody on a podcast, Brett Harmling said it to me on an episode. He said, you know, healthy person has a million wishes, a sick person only has one. Yes. And you're just like, Damn. Yes. Right. Like there's there's this whole level of crap you could be in, you know, and you're at you don't even know that that's beneath it because you're you've moved past it. Yeah. You know what mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Pressure doesn't do you feel like that when you're on stage as well? Like, or this is a different type of pressure that you're talking about. I have a I have a firm belief that everything's gonna work out. When you're on stage or just in general? Just in general. You know. And if it doesn't, that means it's still working out, you know? Right? Like you're bombing at a show and you're just in the back of your head, you're like, Yeah, it's it's gonna work out. Yeah, you just lean, you know not that you've bombed at a show. I mean, this is Forbes Channel, right? Yeah. No, you've been and you've seen some of those bombs, too. no, my favorite thing when I'm bombing is to just be like, I thought that was gonna go better. Because that's honest. I thought it was gonna go better. You know. no, I had I had a relationship end that really bummed me out. And I called Aaron and I was like, Yeah, man, I just got dumped. And you know, this is the this is what he's instilled in me about like it's always working out, you know, because he's like, That's great. I was like, What do you mean? He's like, Better to find out now. Yeah, you know, and you're like, Okay, so then if everything that everything crappy that does happen, you realize it doesn't happen to you, it happened for you. Yeah, yeah. You know, and even the like really dark, painful things, I can look back and I can think about, you know, Zach and Nick and I can think about them and be like, okay, that happened for me to figure out what I needed to do in life. Sure. You know, to realize how important these things are that I really you know, and I you know, do you think you must think I don't know how to start this question without presumption. Do you think about your mom like a lot? Yeah. I mean, I think anybody that's lost anybody does. the it yeah, it it's just I I think that there's kind of a sentimental side to that. but there's also just like a you know, especially look, I I don't I don't know your, you know, your your your roommates, right? But there's definitely a scenario of like, man, what would they say in this situation? Like, man. And and my mom was kind of, you know, she she she had that kind of she was she's like Italian mom, right? You're kicking constantly kicking around the table. So when things would there's always things that happen that I'm always just laughing. I'm like, man, this would not have gone well. Like, you know, if mom was here, man. But it's also like, you know, sometimes I've been in like you you're arguing with somebody and I'm just like, Yeah, my mom would be so proud like that Italian DNA just coming through. But I I wanted to say one more thing about that. So so my fiance, she she lost her her father when she was really young as well. and I'm curious about this for you too. she has the ability to live in the moment a lot better than I do. Sure. So she and one of the things she says is like, Ryan, you are a shopper. I am a buyer. So when she sees something, she's just like, yeah. She's like, she's like, yeah, like she's ordering the appetizer. She's like, I'm getting the bottle of wine, not the glass of wine. And and I she she ties a lot of that back to just like, hey, like, we're only here for a while. Yeah. You know, do you feel that at all? I mean, when it comes to like money, the the thing is like, I'll just make more of it. Okay. Right. So it's it's kind of an abundant mindset in the sense of, yeah, you know, there's there's that thing that you see on social media, what I forget what athlete said it, you know. But you got this many seconds in a day. Somebody says something to you, let it ruin 10 seconds, not the rest of it. Right. So, you know, even when it comes to stand up, you know, like just brushing off a joke that didn't go well. It's like, all right, well, I'm not gonna let it ruin the rest of my set. Like I'm gonna keep moving forward. I think the it's music that brings me to the past. Okay. Music has a way of really getting me in my feels. Yeah. I feel like th there's some science about that. Like, you know, your auditory nerve is like t more tied to memory and some things like that. So Yeah. Like it's I'll be I'll be fine, then I'll listen to some music and I was like, Man, Zach loved this song and then I'm just like messed up for like five minutes, you know? Well, I hope it's like you know, I hope it's at least good music. It's not like, you know No, it's great music. It's just like Weird Owl, you know, like you know, every time Weird Owl polka starts, you're like, man, Zach, I wish Zach was here. I do think there's a lot of you know, I think it's kind of along the same line of like wishing people were here to see it. I think the what I've learned is to take a lot of self, I don't know, appreciation when I succeed and no one's off. Sure. Like those little wins that you can't go tell somebody. Yeah, that's entrepreneurship, right? Like you nobody's there to see nobody's there to see you you you do the things, you know. It was midnight. I was the only one sitting there. Yeah. you know, trying to get that stuff done. And, you know, some of those wins, it's like Wow, I c I crushed this. Well, guess I'll go to bed. Right. It's hard. It's hard, you know. Sorry to take us down the death spiral. No, this has been a great conversation. This is one of my favorite interviews so far. No, I I I didn't mean to do that, but I think it's a radical transparency, I guess. Yeah. So but yeah, I think I think celebrating the little things, you know, whether it's about somebody dying or not. Yeah. if you are a business leader, and again, I I'm not I'm not the best at this. I feel like, you know, a lot of those little wins. it's easy to charge through those and forget about them. Or, you know, trying to celebrate other people's wins. That's something that I try to work on. I'm trying to work on. because those things do matter because I've also been in that person that's been in that seat that worked on something for 10 hours and nobody notices. Yeah. What does that feel like? So I think there's a lot of lessons for any manager or any, you know, leader that are, you know, you you've got to celebrate the little stuff for yourself, but then also those around you. I think part of my Problem is, and maybe you can relate to this, is like I can, I'll just say I can do something, you know? And then I'm so proud that I figured out how to do it. Cause when I said I could do it, like I'll edit out your green screen. You know, I have no idea how to do that, but I was like, I'll do that. And then when I did it, I was so proud that I figured out how to do it. But it's like, I can't tell people how proud I am that I figured this out because I was like, Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Do you you see what I'm yeah, I think, I think there's like a it there's a When you have that curiosity to go chase things down. And then when you solve that, it is super rewarding. in as a business owner, the advice that I would give you is you have to limit the rap, you know, the rabbit holes that you go down. Because and look, I've I've I've done this AI is like the biggest rabbit hole of all time. Right. Because now not only is it like, hey, I've got all these ideas, but it's like I think I can do all of them. right now. Yeah. And so and and look, if they don't if they don't make you money or make your life better or you know make my life better or make your life better, I really shouldn't be doing any of those things. Yeah. You know ideation and strategy, I realized became a comfort zone for me. It is. It's like, I'm but I figured out the strategy. It's like, yeah, but you didn't do shit. You know? That's yeah and and that's Again, that's like when you look at the the true high performers, like the billionaires, you know, they're really good at just, you know, focus. And I am not great at focus. I, you know, there's there's a entrepreneur operating system, the EOS, people that are familiar with that. There's kind of the visionary and then there's the operator. Like I need to find myself an operator that can just really kick ass at like just sticking to like one thing and focus and systems because Otherwise, like I'm off all over the place. Yeah. because it is a comfortable space. It's a comfortable space to have an idea and then go build something. And then you get to come back with like that shiny, hey, look what I made, and nobody cares. Right. I know. And AI like it lets you do that. Like you I'm just like building stuff. You know, I built something the other day. It's like you push a button and it cycles through a hundred marketing topics and then stops on it. And it has like sound and everything. Look at even the way you're looking at me right now, you're like, I don't care, Ryan. But I was so proud of this damn thing, you know? it didn't move the needle for us in any way. Now, I'm gonna use it for like social media and some things like that, but I could have spent my time doing something way more easy. It's so easy to just be like, look at this new feature. And it's like, yeah, but nobody asked for it. You know? Yeah, nobody wanted nobody wanted the like the price is right of marketing, dinger, even if the sound is great on it. Like, how do you deal how do you deal with a client who asks for something where you're like, nobody wants this? man. how do you have that because like let me step back for the reason I'm asking that question is visionaries are great. People have a a a vision, you know, they come to you to make their vision come to life. And I've noticed in the age of AI, like a lot of AI, you know, psychophancy on the rise, you know, like they AI said this is a good idea, I gotta go do it. And it takes someone to be like, but is it? Right. You know, so what do you how do you manage that? And it doesn't have to be clients. I'm just curious. Like, how do you manage that when people there's a there's a dichotomy there when you work in advertising because I've seen enough crazy ideas work where I I have to I have to hold my tongue. I've seen enough things where I look, you know, client comes with to me with an idea and I'm like, there's no way this is gonna work. Like just this is not like we are not doing this, not gonna work. And then You know, somebody like that's the dumbest shit I ever heard. Somebody bends my arm and like, hey, let's just try it, and then it blows up. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? So there's this weird dichotomy between being an expert and then realizing that you don't know shit, right? So and and so there's like the there there is this. I'll give you a very very direct example. I don't know if you're thinking about this right now, but I've got a I've got a a client who's an attorney who wanted to write a book. And I'm like, nobody's gonna read this book. That's a great point. Yeah. And you said nobody's gonna read this book. Well, I'll tell you what, like, here we are a few years later, and that client's now on the news. They're getting mentioned in Phoenix magazine because of all these things. And the book has been the linchpin to that. They just had a case that came through that was one of the bigger cases they've ever settled, ever, over 40 years, right? and I it would never would have got off the ground if I said if I just dug in on that. Yeah, yeah. And it took a while, right? It took while. Yeah. And so there's like this like, all right, we got to be willing to like give it a try and test it. but then we also got to be patient with it. And I think that's really difficult. I mean I think today, just speaking from like some of my clients, a lot of clients are, you know, they want to test and learn, test and learn, test and learn. Yeah. I'm much more, hey, let's take a measured approach here. Let's go into it. Let's have the right inputs into this campaign. And then those outcomes are going to be a lot better. But we've got to also be super patient. Cause if we go into it with really defensible information, defensible data, we know what we're getting into, then we can feel more confident that what's going to come out of it is more sales, more RY, all these things. And I think that that's the piece that like to to to getting back to your question, it's like. If we would have started that book project and I would have had a better sense of like, all right, what are we getting from this? Or how exactly are we gonna execute this or what are the resources we're gonna put behind this? Let's make sure that it's resourced, then I think I would have been much more open to it at the beginning. But yeah, it worked out. Yeah it took a few years. Yeah. But here we are. So it was a fun project. Yeah. speaking of patience. Sure. What what are you as you trust your own process? As you're patient, what does the future hold for you? I I'm I'm building, you know, with my team. My team is amazing. we are we're all on the same page with the type of company that we're we're growing. and I'm super proud of that. And my goal with that is for someday me not to be the one that's actually running that. I I'd love for the all of those people that are executing and doing such great work to be leading that. I'd I'd eventually like to to be teaching somewhere. I'd like to, you know, bring some of the knowledge that I've learned over time back to people. What are you gonna teach? Whatever. No, I look, I I I I've seen some stuff in advertising. Like I've I've there have been I mean you name it. I have I have seen it. you know it's you you I I worked working in ad tech you know I had We had we had on on our team, we had between twenty-five and thirty million dollars of revenue. We had 180 clients. most of those clients were in the Fortune thousand with really massive budgets. And today we're working with a handful of them. But you know, back then the the margin for error was so small because they were all like very, very specific retail clients, ROI, like people were losing jobs if we didn't execute, right? And that just creates like this kind of pressure cooker of nonsense. Like just so many wacky things. And I would never trade that experience for the world. Like I it was amazing, but it definitely took 10 years off my life. Sure. And if I could take some of those experiences and some of those things, you know, when you sit across from the CMO of a Fortune 500 company and you say you're doing this wrong, and then you're right when you're 28 years old, like I don't wanna act like everybody's gonna have that exact experience. But I want to be able to let people know that you you if you put in the work, put yourself in those types of positions. and and I think that that would be a neat thing to be able to to bring back to people. I had some mentors like going through I I don't think I had a lot of great mentors you know, in my career. I, you know, it's people that I just I got to know really personally. Yeah. Right. So you have a personal relationship with Aaron. Mm-hmm. I had bosses. I had managers. A few of them have become friends afterward, but I didn't have that same relationship. Right. and it was a real gap for me. And so if I can provide that back, I'm willing to do it. So well, and plus, like when you teach, you learn. Sure. You know, Aaron always says he's like, I got so clear on my message, 'cause I tried a thousand ways to teach it to you that I had to figure out, you know. Like the running joke is if Forbes can get it, anyone can get it. Well, you know, look, I'm I'm teaching or I'm I'm speaking at a digital marketing conference tomorrow and and I'm literally completely rewriting the entire thing right now because of an article that came out the other day that is making me rethink things. And just going through that process, you know, like you probably experienced this with your writing. You know, when I'm putting together a presentation for a client. Or, you know, digging deep, like just sitting down with my thoughts. that's an opportunity to learn something, not only about like that client and this very small thing, yeah, but rethinking our processes, rethinking how we're approaching stuff, re-examining, like, hey, I'm going out there and I'm saying this thing. Is that authentic? yeah. Like, is this like an authentic? Like, I'm saying this. Are we actually doing this? and so there's a lot of value in doing that. You've given a lot of great advice on this podcast, but one piece of extraordinary advice that our listeners can do to be more extraordinary today, what would it be? I was a high school athlete and they you write they our parents wrote letters to us. and the letter that my dad wrote me, and I've I this is my favorite quote, is defeat the defeatist that dares to deny you. Defeat the defeatist that dares to deny you. Yeah, and other than having really great alliteration, I think it means what you want it to mean. And I think To that kind of entrepreneurial spirit where you're just gonna tackle whatever it is. I think it's always in the back of my head. And I think so. If you're listening and whatever it is you're dealing with, whether it's like a business problem or something else, like defeat whatever that defeat us is. It might be yourself, right? Yeah. You might be standing in your own way of something and don't let you s don't let yourself deny you what you're trying to get to. It is usually me. It's usually it's usually ourselves, right? but it could be anything, external or internal. That's a great piece of advice, man. I can't believe they had pickleball that long ago. You can read more about Ryan Birch at the Extraordinary Network. That's extraordinary.network E X T R A O R D I N A R Y dot N E T W O O R K and at Extraordinary Network on all of our socials. I'm Forbes Shannon. I'm Ryan Birch. We'll see you next time.