#186 - From Military to Millions? The Truth About Veteran Entrepreneurship | Jonathan Bates

0:00 All of these skills equal this thing. And the more you can learn, the more action you can take, the more mistakes that you can make, the faster that you can compound that and get to the next level. Today's guest is Jonathan Bates. He's a partner at Patriot Growth Capital. Patriot partners with accounting and professional services firms that want to grow without losing what made them successful in the first place.

0:44 He also works closely with founders who are at an inflection point, thinking about scale, succession, capital, and what the next chapter actually looks like after years of building something meaningful. This conversation today for 30 to 40 minutes, it's not just about quick exits or financial engineering. It's about long-term thinking. leadership transitions, and how entrepreneurs make smart decisions when the stakes are high and the business is personal. Jonathan Bates, welcome to The Necessary Entrepreneur. Mark, thanks for having me on, brother. I'm so excited to dig in and see what I can learn. Oh, I think it's what we're gonna learn today, man. think we could probably sit here and talk for two or three hours. I'm pumped about you coming to Cincinnati at some point and we sit down in person.

1:28 But we talked for a few minutes before we kicked off this conversation. And I don't know if we're gonna get to the depth of your experience and what you've done throughout your life and what makes you willing to like eat anything and should be on Fear Factor. But... You believe in your business, we'll talk about Patriot Growth Capital and the impacts you're making and first principles and what your core values are, but you talk about this belief in providing and building durable value. Why is that so important? Man, durable value is, I mean, we've all had those investments that we thought were cool or the mindset of the average, you know, American or military person, you know, like, great, got a, I got a bonus.

2:16 Woo! And you see all these young kids with new trucks and things like that. And you're like, man. And you look back today, I'm sure that you have the same thing where you're like, man, if I hadn't a done all those other things, I could have done these other things. And so really building that durable value is, uh, how can we think a little more long-term and actually get to where we want to be for our families and ourselves, our dreams. And so that, that is the key is making sure that we have, I believe that we're actually this close to anything we want if we could just define it.

2:58 And defining it helps make those decisions on whether I buy a brand new truck with cash or I invest in a business or something. I think the most valuable thing you can invest in is your, is yourself, your education. Cause that compounds like everything that you you'd learn and then every mistake you make it compounds so that, you know, some people are like, man, they have a sunk cost fallacy. Like, dude, I got to start over. Durable value is. Dumb man, you've built all these things. You're never starting from scratch. You're just starting fresh. And you can't do that without durable value, whether it's through a business or investing in yourself or anything like that.

3:40 So I think the long-term good that you can do on this earth for you and your family and the rest of America and the rest of the world is built on, on really focusing on that durable. How long do you think we should define? purpose, the goal? Is it five years? Is it 10 years? Is it for the end of our life? Is it for legacy afterwards? What should the goal be? What should we define? Yeah, so I've been, I just had. A friend of mine commits suicide about four days ago now. When you, I think this applies to everybody.

4:22 Uh, when you transition from one big thing to another in your life, but I'm looking through the lens of a military guy. This gentleman worked for me, uh, for almost a decade off and on over 26 years and fantastic individual. But You know, he lost his hope and stuff like that. his goodness is just like, dunno, he lost faith in himself. It was, you know, I make sure you check your texts. like, did I do it? Everything I could. And the last things, know, is, you know, I was me reaching out, things like that. Um, about purpose as well is that what we're talking about?

5:05 that's what I'm talking about here is when you are in the military or you have a great job, like you've like, you're the, you're the man where you are. The people around you, like you're the superhero, you're the, you're the hero of this story, of your story. Your family's lives depend on you. The people that you work around, depend on the quality of work that you do. You have to overcome obstacles to keep winning. In the military, you have that. You're like, cool. This is, this is what I'm doing. This is the purpose that I have. These are the people I'm doing it with. is how I'm getting there. There's no question on that. Then the next day, you're not allowed to wear the same clothes. You're not allowed to talk to the same people.

5:46 You're not allowed to go to the same places. Who are you? And that lack of purpose and definition of why I'm here, who am I and what's next. You know, I think that hits a lot of people pretty hard. So when we talk about how long should I plan for purpose, I have a slightly different take on it. Uh, for instance, our onboarding process for our veterans, less than 1 % of people actually finish for our program, for our practical MBA that we do. And. The first thing we do now is we talk about dreams.

6:26 And the importance of dreams actually came around because I had a conversation with my daughter. She's 17. She's going to turn 18 in a month. And she was like, Hey, I'm like, are you excited? Cause remember when you were turned 18, you're like, woo, I'm out. Like, yeah, heck yeah. I can't wait to do this next thing. Yeah. And I was like, are you excited? This was one of the most exciting points of my life. And she looked up at me and she goes, dad. I'm scared. And I was like, man, like... What kind of failure as a father am I to create somebody who's scared about the rest of their life?

7:14 And just what an epic fail of anything that I thought I had done well as a man and a husband and a father. And so obviously I'm, I'm like, I gotta make a change. Like this is super, this is the most important thing right now. And. I realized that I had not, I, I traveled about average of 280 days a year in the military, you know, supported every major conflict we've had for the last quarter century. And there was a point in time where I was never home for more than two weeks in a row for 14 years. And I two of my kid's entire lives. Thank goodness my wife is, the fantastic, you machine that she is to be able to hold things down.

8:00 And one time she's like, why am in a foreign country with three kids and three dogs all by myself? She could do all of that. Like she, she, you know, she kept the goodness going. But what I hadn't done is I don't know about you, but my kids don't like to do what I say. They like to do what I do. And I hadn't shown my kids like how I come up with the next goal or the next thing to think about, or how I shaped my dreams or anything like that. They've never seen it. And so I fail. And so it was some hope, you know, some prayer and some contemplation. This dude, Dane Espergard, I saw him come on and talk to a couple buddies of mine, um, just in in a small group, uh, about his book, the dream machine.

8:47 And I was like, oh, thank you. This is exactly what I needed. And so I've ripped all that off. give him total credit, but the, did my dream sheet. And I brought it to my daughter and I shared it with her. And she's like, yeah, that's cool, dad. You know, I kind of want to get back to my phone. And I'm like, Hey, can we do this for you? And she's like, no, that doesn't sound exciting at all. I'm like, all right, how long do you want this to take? Cause you know, that's once, once we get to a point, they know like, all right, well dad's just. We're not taking no for an answer on this. Yeah. And so I was like, what does a dream mean to you? And she was like, I don't know, dad, Jeepers.

9:29 Like, well, sometimes it's easier to help define what they're not. The first thing a dream is not is it's not a goal and dream is not a commitment. So like, okay, like dreams actually are the definition of dream for us right now between you and me is something that you would be happy if it happened in your life. And she's like, okay. And I'm like, looks, the dreams are not something that we're shooting for dreams. And then this goes back to the purpose question, Dreams are actually a floor of hope and goodness that you've defined for you. And that floor needs to be as big and as stable as possible for you to build off of.

10:12 Cause when life slaps you, and that's what I believe happened to my friend, you're going to feel the feels and you're going to keep falling while you're feeling the feels. But as soon as you can get through feeling the feels, you land on that floor of hope and goodness that I didn't tell you was good. You defined as good. so that we can build up from there. And I can choose a dream and lift it up to be a goal or a commitment. And so that, I believe like the purpose, like you can pull that out of your dreams and stuff like that. But really defining them is super important. I can talk about this all day, brother, obviously, because it's made a huge difference in my life. like I said, we actually, this is the first thing, if you want to work with us, you're going to do your dream list.

10:58 That's the first thing we do and it goes back to our core values and all that sort of thing. But it's so that you know that I'm going to do everything I can for you. My vision and purpose in life has to be so crystal clear and so big that you can see it as a stepping stone inside of your journey to get to your dreams and your purpose. Yeah, have you found it's essential? Did this come out of, I'm assuming, massive deep dives, problem solving, things happening to your friend? I bet you could probably go through a laundry list of situations like this over the past decade or two that you're like, man, all you had to do was just keep going a little bit longer. if you could have gotten through today, if you could have found some purpose, if to your point now, it's like, man, if you just had some dreams, is it because when it's really hard, you have something to still believe in that it's worth it?

11:47 Yeah. Yeah. Um. I can say it has to be that foundation. Cause when everything that is in life can be taken away from you. Like when life slaps you, all the things that we think are cool, family, houses, businesses, cars, jobs, health, all that gone. There's only a couple of things that you take with you. One, for me, I know that I'm a child of God and that I'm made in Him's image and that I am good. because of that. That's the basis of everything. After that, the only thing that can't be taken away from me is what I've learned.

12:30 And then on top of that is the experiences that I've experienced. And so making sure that I have that core that when you're field of fields, you don't think about any of those things. Yeah, you don't. Yeah. What about what? How does this tie to identity? Because when you were talking about your friend and other people, it's like it seems like maybe when you guys were in the military and the unit and special ops and all this, I'm assuming that your complete identity 280 days a year was tied up in that role, that job. Am I correct? Absolutely. Yeah, because you know who you are as the Bomb Squad guy. I'm the leader of this team. I'm responsible for these things. Yep. And then everything else though, like you said, all of sudden, one day you're out of the military and everything that you had built your infrastructure on, your ego, personal, your self-worth, everything, even probably what you think the value to your family, it's all eliminated.

13:21 Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, uh, it happened. I retired, walked into my 14 year old room and I was like, what's up? And she's, you know, look at her phone and I'm like, what's going on? And she's like, uh, what? Who are you? What do you want to do? And she's like, dad, why are you in my Wheaties? And it was another crushing moment of all the things that my identity and my purpose that I thought was important so that I could have this time with her. She'd learned how to grow up without me. And become okay with that. And those years are gone. Those experiences that I could have had with her gone. And so, yeah, it's, uh, it is super important to be able to have that.

14:05 But that's what I said. Like my identity is based off of those four things and really focusing on the difference between guilt and shame. I'm just talking, going back to the, you the things that would cause somebody to hurt themselves. I lose probably four people a year to it after the. And those sting, you know what mean? Cause you always probably go to this place of, to what you said earlier, it's like, Hey, what could I have done? Where do I, where do I have responsibility in this? If I could have had one more conversation with them. So is a part of this in this belief in this foundation of what you're building with Patriot Growth Capital. Like we have the word capital in it, but it's so much more. oh yeah. Like I said, this is, this is exactly what we do.

14:47 our purpose at Patriot Go Capital is change veteran family lives through business. And like I said, that has to be super crystal clear of how we do that and why we do that and what the steps are so that people have clarity. I said, what we want to do is if you're interested, go ahead and apply. And the first thing we're do is dream work. And Like I said, less than 1 % of people actually pass our three-step onboarding process to apply for our practical MBA. And it's because going back to the, like, should I have a five-year vision or whatever? We have a five-year program.

15:27 So we ask for a five-year, once you've your dream works, the second thing we do is a family vision. And it's a five-year vision because we have a five-year program. And then the third thing we do is have a uh super quick video of saying, this is who I am. And these are my dreams. This is what I want for my family. And I believe that working with Patriot Growth Capital is going to help me get there. That's it. It's that simple. And I believe that the people don't do it because they have two fears and it applies definitely to the military and special operations. And I believe it applies to everybody. the dream work and the family vision. And I think that personally I would do three years if I didn't have a five year program to work on.

16:08 Cause three years is tangible. Next seems like a long time. Yeah. Next month though, it's two years and 11 months. shoot, and this is going pretty quick. Five years is a little, little out of touch unless you have something that like a program. Um, but the reason that people I believe don't do it is for two fears. And these are the fears that I had. Number one, I don't, what if I choose the wrong thing? And number two is, I don't want to look like a fool. What if I don't accomplish it? And so that's why the two definitions, the defining what a dream is not is super important first, because it takes a lot of heart, mind, and brain sweat to overcome those two fears.

16:56 Like if I was to ask you, what are your dreams right now? You might get through three dreams before you hit a dream where you're like, that's, that's a little crazy. I don't want to share that with him. You know, like you would vapor lock. Maybe not. But building those, I'm, yeah, you're probably better than the average person. Hahaha Well, I just think when you work on something for long enough, right? There's this principle about doing the work and I don't care if it's getting 1 % better every day, but you know, we touched on something earlier. I don't want to jump too far ahead, but we touched it. You said that, you know, action is the solution or answer for everything. And, um, I hate to just sit on a podcast or sit next to a guy when you get to meet him the first time.

17:39 Yeah, I agree. But I've just found that I've just found if you keep moving. It solves all the problems. That's what you're talking about. It just does. so that's why when I hear these people, the problems that people have, obviously me leading companies and organizations, um I hate when humans are holding themselves back from the potential that they want. I hate it. And all as it is, it's just a little bit of a mind shift. But when you said, I've never heard anybody say that about that, what if I choose the wrong thing? Yeah. mean, who hasn't had the sunk cost fallacy go through their head? And if I'm going to, so now we're thinking like about futures and the older you get, you know, possibly have a family or an organization.

18:26 These people all depend on me. What if I choose the wrong thing? Yeah, that makes me sad. You know, I'm smiling, but it does make me sad. It makes me sad for them because it's a self-limiting belief. Because what I do really quick when you say it, I'm like, let me go through my past of work experience. And every one of those things didn't turn out to be the thing I was going to do. However, every one of them pushed my growth forward. Right? So none of them were choosing the wrong thing. I just chose the thing in front of me right then. And the angle was. What has helped me achieve what I've done right now. And I hope in 10 years, I look back and I'm like, look at what I've done compared to what that guy has done, had done then.

19:09 But the benefit to me was whatever you choose to do, just do it great. Just do it the best you possibly can. And what I found is every time I did that, when I was finished doing the thing, when I realized it wasn't the thing that I wanted to define my life, I became a way more capable human being and a better version of myself to take on to the next thing. Right. And I believe that goes back to the, to the enduring value. Like I said, every single thing that we do builds upon itself. Uh, and then the, is our attitude and it's, mean, dude, try to explain this to a teenager is thank goodness for every drop of blood or tear or sweat that I've had because it got me here today with you.

20:03 Literally life would be totally different if you tried to look at the dominoes, if I hadn't have made that mistake. Isn't that just a, you're talking about a way of thinking. I was sitting down last night with somebody that, um, you know, I consistently, everybody that I come into contact with, if I can't provide value to them to help them live a little bit better life today, why am I talking to them? Whether it could be through friendship, sitting in a hot tub, but there's something about that conversation that's going to happen. That's going to move us forward. Um, but this idea, somebody from your field. Don't have to name names like one of the people has the biggest brands, the biggest podcasts out there.

20:43 His thing is good. Right. I don't know him. don't, I don't even know the guy to invoke his name and stuff, but he's very popular now. Right. But his whole response is whatever happens to you, all the bad shit, everything. he's like, good. That's what you're talking about. Right. Every experience. Good. Now I'm sure there's somebody that could be listening to this that had some very tragic things happen to them and around their life to people, things they didn't participate to in those moments. It might be too much to ask to have that response.

21:23 Well, yeah, I think in those moments. Yeah. And so I, you I'm always trying to learn from people who articulate things the way I feel better than me. And so if I was to say though, my favorite articulation of how to respond to that, of the, the way I look at it, you know, not everybody looks at things the same way and that's great. You know what mean? I want you to be happy, whatever makes you happy. That's the actual win in life. But, um, I think it was Alex Ormosi who said, okay. What if everything that you're saying is true and that you are the victim here?

22:07 All right. You get the biggest victim trophy. Now what? There you go. so, like I said, you're not going to think of any of these things while you're feeling the feels. the challenge is to build a truly brilliant and capable mind is to try to get as close to that as you can for those hard moments. Right. Right. That's Donald. Right. Well, for me, it's, you're going to feel the feels bro, whether it's a nanosecond or as long as you want it to take. How can I shrink that timeframe so that I can get past it and move forward and take. There you go. So you can start compounding things, get closer to that dream, that dream weaver life, right?

22:49 Yeah. So what are you guys doing at Patriot Growth Capital? I the actually business of the business. Man, I am. Like what are you, happening? What are you, what are you doing? Yeah. I'm so excited to talk about what we do, brother, because I love it. I love what we're doing. So basically we, like I said, change veteran family trees through business, but how do we do that? Well, we solve three problems. Number one is mindset. So we have a nonprofit called advancing line for veterans, atlvets.org. We served 9,000 people the first year we had. that go on four to 10 events a month. But what we do is bring big business, regular business and veteran families together to compare realities.

23:33 We've all driven past that house where we're like, man, I wonder what that dude does. Well, we interact with these experiences to where eventually somebody's like, man, if that Jonathan Bates suits a clown, if he can do this, I can do this. I mean, my dad had three jobs. We moved around every couple of months. I joined the military. Owning a business is something that Mark does and that's great for him, but that's not what I do. But if I want to be and have the results in life like Mark, maybe I should change what I do to create that reality for my family. That's what we focus on in the first step, the mindset. The second one is money. It's a two-part problem. Like I'm an American. There's a of the right. There's a lot of it around and people don't there is it money is not scarce it is not right I agree with you, but when you don't have those lens, that lens on, where am I supposed to get millions of dollars to buy a business?

24:23 That's what it takes, right? And the second part of that problem is, dude, even if I had millions of dollars, what does a good business even look like? And so Pager Growth Capital solves that problem by us and our investors. buy good businesses doing at least a million and a half a year in profit. A hundred percent. So they don't have to worry about where to find it or what it looks like. We focus on internet-based businesses because that's generally what a family can run with a team, you know, behind them. But a family can actually make a lot of money online without having to move everywhere or do different things. And so that's the second problem we solve. We take that, that piece on. They don't have to, nobody has to think about that.

25:04 The third problem we solve is experience. And we do that through our practical MBA. You can go to Harvard. for five years, get an MBA, be maybe 500,000 or so at all, and then have to decide what you're going to be when you grow up. But with us, we're paying a good six figure salary for our 16 month program. First two years is systems and processes and language of the business that you know on day one that we want you to own a piece of. The second two years is more bringing them up so they can learn how to work on the business. And the last year, we wrap it all up with a bow so that you can confidently step into business ownership.

25:48 Cause at 40 hours a week for 60 months, that's over 10,000 hours of expertise. You're not the same person who's coming out of the, any other experience with no, with no ability or knowledge about a business. can say, this is what I do. This is easy. With my team, I can accomplish this. can overcome these problems and you get to be confident into the, into us transferring a piece of that business to you and your family. So that your family now has an income stream that it never had before. And so those are the three things that we do. That's the problems that we solve. was getting ready to say it, said, man, you're solving a lot of problems all with one company here. Yeah.

26:28 Yeah. Yeah. It, took me a while to wrap all the pieces together, but once I saw that, man, the ability of private equity to create good instead of just whatever private equity used to do is astounding. And like I said, I believe that business is the greatest lever for good that we have here in America. Are you doing this for the most part? mean, is it veterans that you're embracing this program with? Right? people that apply, it's veterans that you're doing this with. Yeah, so probably the easiest comparison is if you qualify for USA, you qualify for our program. Wow. Okay.

27:08 That's, that's, at what percentage of the country is it like 20 % of the country that would qualify? Yeah. So if you, if you can say, Hey, my family served or I served, because if you've had to tell one kid brother, and I've had to tell too many over the past couple of decades, if you have to tell one kid that his dad loved him and to have a nice life, that person, the rest of your family didn't volunteer for this, for what we volunteered for. They have to suffer those consequences though. And, thankfully people out there focus on veterans and spouses. There's not a lot of people who focus on the whole family. And that's what we do. That's a big dream.

27:50 we're doing it. It's not a dream, dude. Like I said, action is the key. The, when did you start this? Just two or three years ago? When did it really start? Yeah, about two years ago, I retired, made a commitment to take 12 months off, worst 12 months of my life. Um, and then as soon as it kicked off, then I was like, all right, I'm putting the pieces together, putting the team together. And so, yeah, now we've been, uh, we've been at it. Uh, last year was our best year yet. Closed our first business. Uh, it's doing about 2 million in EBITDA now grew 30%. About 12 million in revenue and. Yeah, this year we're looking for three more and just going to continue to grow that way, bro.

28:35 Like I said. Nice. Let's move forward. you're looking for three amazing individuals that you see something in. They might not see it in themselves, right? You see something in them. They're the 1 % of the people that apply. Right. this is mentorship, tutelage, MBA practically to your point at a level that you probably believe and you don't see is happening at the level that you're doing. This is probably very unique and novel what you've created here, I'm assuming. yeah, yeah. like I said, imagine, so we, say there's five levels of crazy when you get out of the military. The least crazy thing is you go, I got a government job. And everyone's like, welcome to the womb.

29:15 I'm to be in the same desk with different clothes tomorrow. And everyone's like, yeah, right on. That's the least crazy thing. The second craziest thing you can do is like, I got a regular job. And people are like, well, it's not a government job, but right on brother, you know, good job. The third most crazy thing you can do is say. I'm starting a government contracting business. So people are like, that's not a job, but at least they're set aside. So that guy's a little crazy. Good luck. The fourth most crazy thing you can do is go, I had this dream last night. I'm going to start my own business. And people are like, Dude, there's, there's no set aside. That's, that's crazy. And the fifth craziest thing you can do is go, I'm going to buy a business that's already making money.

29:55 And people are like, what? Dude, who are you? Elon Musk, and there's probably some expletives in there. Like get out of here, dude. Like stay away from that guy. He's crazy. And so we focus on the fifth level of crazy and how we do it is with the practical NBA and our core values and things like that. So, um, but yeah, brother, we, we 100 % are all in on this. It is unique because you get paid. You know, on day one, you're not starting at some random mail room. You're starting in your mail. And as you grow, you're going to get more bit more responsibility. Also in that 60 months, we get to pour into you everything that, that our family offices are, are, are doing.

30:40 We have a system about 75 family offices and they have an education system for their family. Cause we're not trying to make lottery winners. They're trying to actually make fishermen. And so how can we make sure that your family goes from the mindset of, of what you had before to being able to handle. a large income stream and actually change that family tree. Like I said, we're not trying to just have you, you know, have new trucks for everybody in the family and that sort of So yeah, we have 60 months to pour into it. So this is, it's almost like the new social media commercial or infomercial they're going to make. They say, it's like, Hey, we're not going to buy lottery tickets.

31:22 We're going out fishing today. So you can bypass the counter of the lottery ticket. go get in the boat and you go fishing. And then all of a sudden they're catching little sunfish. And then you're like, Hey, just wait, they're going to get better and they're going to get bigger. We're going to teach you how to do it better. think that, you know, clearly defining what you're not trying to do, what you're doing is important for the world. Right. I think that you have respect for the responsibility you have when you take these people under your wing. And that's probably why only 1 % get through that initially apply is because they do need to be a certain individual, a certain mindset. And that's not too big. Everybody should make the video and send it to you, but they're going to have to come to you with a willingness and a commitment that they're going to see this through.

32:05 I'm assuming. Yeah. So I love the amount of friction that we have. Those first three steps sound simple, but like I said, you have to overcome fear. You have to actually do it. less than 1 % of people actually submit the video. There's no timeframes on it. I people call me and you're like, I'm still working on that thing. I'm like, great, send it in. What's important here is the fact that every single person on my team is investing their personal money and our personal time and millions of dollars with our investors. And if you don't want to invest in yourself and figure out exactly like you have to, like, if you don't want to invest in yourself, we knew like there's other things for you to do. That's great.

32:46 Not everybody should be a business owner and not for the fact of any kind of shame, which is another part of our nonprofit is we continue to teach what we call intrapreneurship. Where you create value inside of another company. And if that actually meets and makes your family and you happy, then that's the wind. Because having a hundred thousand dollar a year job is the same as having a million dollar a year business with 10 % net margins with none of the hassles. You know, I sat down last night, part of this dinner was I looked at someone and I said, Hey, listen, we had a very transparent, honest conversation about entrepreneurship and what it takes. And, I said, man, I'm getting to this place. I'm very positive. I'm not changing. I'm 20 years in on this game.

33:27 But I said, I know I have another decade in front of me now. And I said, what true entrepreneurship is, is that you make this said the issue with entrepreneurship is that when we all think about the business we want to build, we all think about the people at the top. That's what we all think about. The vision that we have and the dream we have is the people at the top. And I'm like, do it. I did it as well. I'm sure you've done it. really like what's the elite type of business. The issue is we don't have the full understanding about what the commitment is to get there. Right. And I don't know if we actually could, because if you haven't traveled that path and I just said, Hey man, if I look back on these 20 years, I'm going to tell you that if I would have chosen the other path to work inside the company and not start the business.

34:12 Listen, this is a no regret company, but I can look back and definitely tell you what that life would have looked like. And dude, it's 90 % easier. It's 90 % less complicated. Now it's 90 % less impacting other people's lives. But for me and my direct family. stress would almost be eliminated at the level that I understand it being an entrepreneur. And so I said, hey man, I'm not sitting here talking you out of continuing the path. You just need to be honest about what both of them are and try to design with the wife that you want and which one's gonna give you that wife sooner. And so um I think the reason why so many businesses fail is because people don't go down this path. It's probably what you help people do in this 60 month, this MBA and what you're talking to them on the front end because You have this responsibility and so do I.

35:00 The moment that somebody buys into our thing, eh we now have responsibility like they're our family. Yeah. Um, so I like what you guys are building here, man. I we got to wrap up cause you got to move on and stuff, but, um it is. Entrepreneurship. The benefit to me. Isn't the money that I've made. It's the person I've become and how capable I've become to help other people live better lives, man. Yeah. Yeah. think that might be where, uh, listening to you might be where, Tommy got it. He's like, I want you to make a million dollars a year. Not so you can have a million dollars a year, but so you can become the person that can create that much value. 100 % because I look at someone see our past I'm not worried about our past to say definitely what we're gonna do in the future But if I can look back and see that somebody has this trajectory of building this thing and they have it It's not that they have the million bucks.

35:52 I know now how much more they can do That's the part that's the person I want to go mess with and it's like wow We can do some big big stuff because the you already learned all the context of the road Let's take this thing and make massive impacts in people's lives now Yeah. Yeah. It's that, it's that compounding investment that, uh, that we talked about in the beginning, uh, everything like all of these skills equal this thing. And the more you can learn, the more action you can take, the more mistakes that you can make, the faster that you can compound that and get to the next level. That's why we don't want to retire. Screw retirement. a wife. You lived it. Yeah.

36:32 I'd want to go deeper there, but we both, we both got a run man. But I think, I hope to see you here soon because see on a second conversation that we could have, we don't have to have the first conversation again. Yeah, get. Yeah, no, it's a. It's been a blessing and an honor to get to know you, brother, and have this conversation. So thank you. Thank you for coming on and Patriot Growth Capital. I'm pumped. I'm pumped to watch it, to see it, to get to know you a little bit and see Jonathan Bates lights. His name is in lights. He had the identity of past his new identity of the marquee coming to find out what this guy's built. man. yeah. That's one of my things I'm trying to do better is be able to, get into the limelight before if I got in and out of a country without nobody knowing, then I win.

37:20 And the only time anybody got in trouble was videos and, stuff like that. So I'm getting over my PTSD and, and, sharing more brother. So I appreciate your, your giving me this opportunity. Congrats what you've done. It's great to get to know you. Thanks for spending this time and I look forward to knowing all the things and being around for what Patriots gonna do. Thank you, man. Okay, man.