Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner, where we talk growth, business mindset, and the bigger mission behind it all. I'm your host, Blake Elsner, and today we're diving into something powerful. My guest today runs a platform called Ecom for Heroes. And when I say they're changing lives, I mean it. They're taking men and women who have spent their careers serving others, oftentimes putting themselves last, and giving them the tools to build a business, build confidence, and build a second chapter filled with opportunity. And that's what this show is all about. Taking your experience and elevating. So without further introduction, welcome Thank you, sir. Yeah, I just realized the beauty of connecting digitally is we are probably in two very different weather climates right now. I'm in Los Angeles staring at 72 degrees just Yeah, that's actually today, I think is I think we're going to hit the 50s today, but then I think we're back down to like 11 this weekend. So, yeah, it's it's a roller coaster ride for not only, you know, our bodies, but, you know, our nostrils, our eyes. I mean, it's like you're just trying to get out of bed in the morning. Yeah. So, no, I'm glad you're down there enjoying that warm weather. Better, better you than me. Right. You'd say. Yeah. No. So before. Yeah. So before we dive into tactics, take me back like where you were in life, mentally, financially, emotionally, when the idea Yes, sir. All right. So, hmm. So let's start. It was a Tuesday. Um, yeah. So essentially I was, I was working with LA fire, uh, for 14 years, um, you know, pro promoted through the ranks was firefighter, paramedic engineer was on the captain's list right before retiring. And I, you know, in the middle of my career, um, and just to create context, right. Very busy department, extreme, like cannot stress that enough. Like people always talk about firemen and getting cats out of trees and playing video games all day. I like literally never did either. Like, I do just run and gun. And very well trained. So in LA as well, right? Someone calls 9-1-1 for anything. It's the same people that show up, because it's such a versatile city area climate. I had, in the same day, kid you not, I had a snow rescue where I had to pull someone off the ice and fly them out to a trauma center. Then I had a structure fire in a commercial area. And then I had a beach rescue. where I was cliff rescuing off of a beach cliff and pulling someone off a cliff in the same day. I was like, dude, this feels like an episode of Chicago Fire, some TV show, right? So very, very diverse department in, obviously, the metropolis of Los Angeles. And I just set that context to kind of iterate Very busy job, very all-consuming, and didn't leave much room for anything else. And I'm not alone in that, right? There's many employers, many careers, whatever, that feel that way, all-consuming. And I wanted to build something of my own. So the whole goal of building out an e-commerce business wasn't to replace the job, it was to create additional income, create something versus being part of a career that You're constantly in repair mode right you're you're showing up responding and repairing versus creating and developing and that's when my wife and I both working full-time for you know other gigs started building out e-commerce and it went very clunky took us 18 20 months to get live spent a lot of money wasted some money and then finally got successful and it started kicking and we started doing a good job and eventually that income surpassed my full-time income, which, you know, you guys can check out on Transparent California. The first responders here get paid very well. It's equivalent to cost of living. So that was a nice thing to do. Now, again, my goal wasn't to replace the income and, you know, get out of this line of work because I loved it. But then what ended up happening is that all encompassing jobs started to overwork us. And what I mean by that is I was home maybe one to two days a week. And this went on for about six years. And I mean, it led to the most extreme burnout I'd ever seen in a culture. Not to get too dark too fast, but suicide's the number one cause of death for first responders. And I started seeing that happen left and right. And it kind of was a bitter pill to swallow, not only one to lose people that I knew, to that, but also understand that what one man can do, so can another, meaning I never expected that from them. And if I'm doing the same thing they're doing, who's to say I don't go down that path? So it was a big gut check. And then also, was dealing with some physical injuries. I had a shoulder injury they wanted to operate on. I had a back injury they wanted to operate on. And at the time, I was in my 30s and healthy and vibrant and trying to train for an Ironman. So obviously, I'm not thinking, man, I'm going to go get my back surgery here. So I kind of just questioned what the hell I was doing there. And then lastly, I think the final straw that broke the camel's back was I lost a buddy in a fire. So in the same year, I lost three people. And it was just that big gut check. And luckily for me, I had built something that allowed me the option. I wasn't frozen to my career. I wasn't frozen to what we call the golden handcuffs. You're paid just enough with just enough benefits to keep you there and keep you comfortable, but you got nothing else. And I took the option of leave, which we do have here. You can take a leave for up to a year and maintain your position without pay. So I did that. I figured, Let's do a little sabbatical, regather. Hopefully this is just a period and I can get past it and re-engage with the career that I used to love so much as opposed to getting burned out and watching literally everything blow up around me. you know, and then I also wanted to try this e-commerce thing out at the time, you know, I was only giving it maybe four hours a week, five hours a week. What if I went all in? And so I dove in and never looked back. And that's when I realized, you know, I was, I was about to make captain and the golden handcuffs were off and I had the option to, to carry on. And then the other thing too is it's a very, very highly, highly sought after career. If I'm not enjoying the seat I'm in, it's time for me to get the hell out of the way and let someone else take that position. And that's essentially where I was at. I loved it, forever grateful. The fact I'm a paramedic allowed me to save my wife's life twice, which is a really fun story, two times. So we were definitely meant to be, that's for sure. So I wouldn't trade for the world. But at the same time, I don't think I was someone who was meant to be in that career for a lifetime where there are others that aren't. salt of the earth, those guys and girls. So when I did leave, that does not happen. So it's very rare. I think I know two other guys out of tens of thousands of people that I've met in the line of work that have chosen another career. And the rumor mill starts, guys start hitting me up. They're like, dude, I heard you got fired. Heard you lost it and started a surf camp down in Costa Rica. And I'm like, that sounds awesome. I know, I'm like, shoot, I might still have to. And then, of course, what happened? And then how'd you do it? And then, of course, the last one is, can you teach me? And that's when I started teaching guys. And I realized that this ache, this yearning is, albeit common in first responders, firefighters, law enforcement, military, It's not synonymous with that. It's not, you know, it's across all careers, you know, wanting to create something of your own that creates value in the world. And I know that's ethereal, but how do we do that? And, you know, if I'm a firefighter and all I know is, you know, riding big red and, you know, checking out my medical gear and patient triage, I know nothing about business or do I? And that's when I realized the SOP structure and the tiered MCI, multiple casualty incident, like how we kind of ICS everything, incident command structure, how we operate every single scene. So you show up and within a split second, you need to delegate resources, people, you know, who's treating what, who's doing what, and you need to do that. Obviously, there's no time, right? You're not hopping on your phone and Googling. You need to know. That same structure applies to business, like literally to a T. You could just change the position name to VP, to manager, to associate, to whatever. And I realized that as soon as I could flip that mindset into the fact that they have and we have the skills beyond belief to handle life and death situations with a structure and an SOP that operates without emotion, which is what's needed. You know, we've actually seen life and death, we battled against it. Then when you're operating and growing a business, it doesn't feel so extreme. And you can actually reach that success because structure is what provides room for freedom. And, you know, we could dive into that a lot more. But that's what I started teaching guys. And, you know, we've been doing that for a few years now, worked with a a little over 150 first responders, one-on-one, and about three for four, maybe four for five on success stories of getting profitable businesses. But I would say, regardless, 100% win across the board, because the only way you fail is by quitting. And when we teach these guys these skills on how to sell something online, they can go and continue that and rebuild, redo, rinse and repeat, and sell something online. whether it's a product, a service, a coaching program, a tutorial, whatever, right? Once you learn that, you can just keep going. Yeah, that's so true. And thinking back on some of the handy people that I use, there's actually a guy, he was a former paramedic, and now he's got a business called First Responder Handyman Services. And like the guy is great, like he shows up, he's on time, he does what's told. And like you say, I think that's the discipline and accountability part within your business, or I say business, it is a business, being a paramedic. Like you're saying, it's structured like a business that when you transfer it over into just something else, it's easy to transfer it. Um, and I think the way that you all are set up, maybe it's the fact that, yeah, you're, you know, maybe you're like thinking to yourself, well, my value doesn't exceed this certain salary cap when in fact the business mindset you can make as much as you want with the exact same mindset you have inside of a Correct. I mean, yeah, look at guys like Jocko Willick, like, full-time Navy SEAL, you know, coach, commander, all that stuff. That guy is killing it. He literally just took the same structure and applied it to business. Like, that was his first thing. He would walk into business, you know, consulting and just said, do it as we did in the teams. Nothing different. Guys were like, wow, And you're putting out fires, no pun intended, in a way like and and I can't imagine going to work. And then the next day coming back to work and a guy is just gone or a woman's just gone from that job. And you go, holy crap, that could have been me. Like that is reality. at its finest right there. I mean, I so to hear that, like, how did you how do you just like show up and continue to do your job after Well, majority of the time, it doesn't happen right in front of you. And so ignorance is bliss. I think, you know, to go into the mindset of, you have to remove the reality. And I think subconsciously, I think the survival mechanism of our brain does it anyways. It's like, yeah, yeah, you're risking your life for this job. You don't actually feel that. You don't actually fully comprehend that, because there's no way you would continue to do what you're doing every day. When I lost guys around me, I was told about it. The final one that hit me hard, though, was my friend who died in a fire. And when I had to clean out his room, the dent of his head from where he had been sleeping was still in it, on his pillow. And that was when it just struck the cord. I was like, holy shit. This is real. And you know, it's cool. And we want to say like, yeah, man, I put my life on the line. But until you actually like see it and feel it, do you realize what that means? And you question whether it's for a bigger purpose or not. You question, do I need to do this full time forever? Right. You question a lot of things. And unfortunately, right, for my buddy who lost his life there, it was in an empty house and a fire that they didn't even need to be interior on. The whole thing is ridiculous when you actually break it down. And the other thing, he didn't do anything wrong. And he didn't do anything that I wouldn't have been doing. So it literally could have been any of us. He was a phenomenal firefighter, probably twice the fireman I was, actually. Been on longer, trained guys, never did anything but smile, just one of those dudes. And just things went wrong. And he followed the SOPs and did everything right, and just things went wrong. And yeah, I think that's when it fully hit. So in reality, you ask the question, how do you keep showing up? The mission has to be bigger than yourself. And until the day it's not. And that's the day when you move. That's the day when you move on. And the greater mission for me was no longer about that line of work. It was for my family. And for wanting to create and empower individuals became my bigger mission. And so that's when I aligned with that mission, as opposed to riding Big Red. When I say Big Red, fire engine, but riding Big Red people So, yeah. I love this so far. And in terms of like, so kind of switching, like we know that there's a lot of first responders. They're very good at business, but on the struggle side, why do heroes struggle with business? Like we didn't really talk about that. And obviously that's the niche that you're filling in order to eliminate Yeah, and I'd say it's the same reason that most people do, is you've never done it, and there's no absolute clear-cut path. So I'll just talk from my personal experience. Sitting at the station table, I didn't think I was prep for it at all. I remember talking with my wife and saying, I'm not really applicable. I can't apply to any job other than this. And she laughed. She's like, what are you talking about? Dude, you pick stuff up so fast. You learn and you execute. She started talking about all these amazing things. It's not that you aren't prepped and right for any other job, especially in leadership. It's that I don't think those employers fully understand what you do. So your goal is going to, essentially your job is going to be to educate them if you want to go get another job. Be like, this is what I did. I was not getting cats out of trees and playing Xbox all day. Like literally never. This is what we did. This is the SOPs we operated on. You can see that as fitting in your business as the most grit, hard work ethic, integrity style employee that'll get shit done without asking two questions. I'm your fit. And believe me, every employer I know, including myself now would be like, hell, yeah, dude. Like, we could teach this skill, but you can't teach the the ethereals. You can't teach that stuff that is learned over time and over execution. So yeah, when I when I realized that I'm like, okay, All right, I'll start doing this. I'll start building. I'll start building the teams. I'll start building my company. Let's go for it. And when we see the clear laid out structure, which is hard in entrepreneur, right? Because there isn't really. But there kind of is. And this is what I mean by it. OK. In majority of jobs, there's a clear laid out benchmark structure. If you want this position, you got to hit this, this, and this, and this, apply, interview, do the thing. It's like, OK, if you don't, you will not get that next position. Got it. So I have to hit those benchmarks. They're literally written in paper. I think legally for most jobs, they have to be written in paper because then you could sue on favoritism and all this stuff. It's set in stone. Hit that, do that, achieve this. Cool. In business creation, it's not really as black and white. How do we operate that? How do we operate in a structure to then achieve that next benchmark? And what we realize is it's ever-changing ecosystem. So we want to fall in line with those that have done it right before us. So you find yourself a coach, you find yourself a trainer, you find yourself a consultant that, you know, has walked that path recently, right? I don't want someone who's 85 years old and walked the path in the eighties, like very different ecosystem. Like we're playing with AI and Enough said, actually, I could just stop there. We're playing with AI right now. If you didn't build your business and aren't operating with AI, I got nothing to learn from you. You know what I mean? So operating in those and finding a path and finding a structure. And so that's what we're building. People, especially from a career style job or a first responder style job, operate extremely well in structure. We get ADHD and flounder when we don't have it. And you actually notice that when guys will walk out of that career and shift is they founder for a good two, three years. At first, it's freeing. And then a year and a half and two years in, they're like, what's going on? Like they literally can't think straight. And I know this personally because that's how it was. I used to go to work. I would. I had a schedule for every time I essentially shit, showered, and shaved. You did it on a timeline. You work out. You do this. You check this out. You do this. And you're running calls in between, but then you get right back to that schedule. And you don't even think twice about it. And your attention is then on the task, not the decision matrix, because it's already made for you. And so you can work freely in that. So yeah, it's building that right we built that for building out your own e-commerce business is we built that structure in place like this is when you do it this is how you do it and obviously keeping up with the ecosystem is super key but Yeah. So I'm assuming you have a awesome like blueprint, like first 30 days, first 60 days. I'm sure. Okay. So, um, and I guess what does the first 30 days, I guess, look like in a, in a quick synopsis, I Yeah. So, um, we are teaching how to sell things online. So to dumb it down as simple as possible, that's it. If you learn that skill, if you learn how to sell one thing online, you can sell anything online. You can sell a product, you can sell a service, you can sell a course, you can sell. All you have to understand is the process in order to do it. Now, if you've done that in any way, shape, or form, you understand that that's about a million step nuanced process. is you have to build something of value that answers pain points, that actually creates more value in the person that exchanges time or money for it, which then wants to continue perpetuate that life cycle. We teach specifically in building hard, good products, CPG, so something you can buy on Amazon or Shopify or DVC or Instagram or TikTok shop, whatever. How to build that product, right? You need to figure out, and in the first month, it's all about build your foundation while discovering the products you need to sell. So we teach private label. I'm not here trying to copy the next guy. I'm not trying to do arbitrage where you buy on sale somewhere and sell on another platform. Definitely not trying to do wholesale where you buy someone else's stuff because they own it all. We want to create our own products so that I can get the IP, I can own it, and I can create what's called a business asset versus a liability, and I can sell that business. So during that first month, we create the foundation, right? If you don't build your business on the correct foundation, you will fall in line with the 75% of businesses that can't exit even if they tried. So we want to be part of the 25% of businesses that could eventually sell if you so choose. It would be awesome is if you had the option and you're like, nah, I want to keep this business. It's paying me so well. That's cool, too. But we want to build that LLC, that S Corp, that C Corp, and Elevate it accordingly. During that time, we're also discovering what product are we going to create? What product are we going to build? It's this process right here that you can apply to anything that you're going to build and sell online. Is one, what are people searching for? Easy. We have platforms. We have AI. We have tons of stuff that we can do to use this. Now, we're looking through Reddit forums, TikTok ads, TikTok comments. We're looking through reviews, competitor reviews. We're looking through millions of data points. And I mean that realistically, millions. We're using AI to analyze it now. We used to have to spreadsheet and word analysis. So yeah, think about how long that took. We're reviewing across entire scenarios and sectors, getting data from McKinsey, getting data from Harvard Business Review, getting like all across the platforms to figure out what are people searching for? What do they like about it? What don't they like about it? How do we fix it? So if you can follow that process right there, you will be able to create something of value. Do not get lazy in any one of those pieces. So that first month is we're building the foundations of the business while we're figuring that piece out. And then we land on what's called the UVP, the unique value proposition. Is your product going to be good enough to be the new premium price for the premium customer with the premium value? That's what we're reaching for. We're not trying to build $25 trinkets. We want to build a$50, $150 high-value item, whether it's a supplement, whether it's a piece of jewelry, whether it's a pet accessory, which is one of our first products. We literally built pet food mats that had home decor designs, which no one was doing because most of the pet stuff was ugly and would sit in a corner. It would be an eyesore. We're like, why don't we make it look good in a nice kitchen? Who thought? Or one of my first products was a journal for men back in 2019 when those didn't really exist. So it was like a healthy masculinity journal of following a line with the five-minute journal process, but also really focusing on how to show up as a man of service. Build something of value. The pain point on that one, it didn't exist. Easy. The things that people liked about journaling was, you know, the whole five minute journal process, make it easy, make it applicable, make it handwritten. And then the things they didn't like about it was it was too general. It was too generic. There wasn't something specifically for me. Who am I? I'm a, you know, Masculine male got it. All right, so I'm gonna build something for the person I used to be is the person I'm most Educated to teach or educated to coach. So that's exactly what I built it for and that was my first product. So Yeah, that first month is all about foundations and UVP And again, if you do that with a product you can do that with a service you can do that with a tool an AI tool a platform Yeah, that's pretty neat. I like that. So you kind of, they have like multiple lanes to kind of choose to like, you know, that, you know, cause the course is, you know, you see some of these courses that people build. Um, and, and I think of, it's funny, there's this company called tiny town. I saw, I saw it on tick tock or something and it's like a big, like, warehouse like you got to like take like a former weekends only that closed or a former Sears that closed and they turn into like a little town with these golf carts and they teach kids how to drive like you got to turn your signals your and they have like real police officers that are like workers and golf carts to like pull you over like stuff like that like to teach you how to teach kids how to drive and I'm like only is that kind of fun because I'm thinking like, you know, work outings, you know, you have corporations like, Hey, come take your business to this little event or insurance company, et cetera. So I think to myself, I'm like, that's probably like, it wouldn't be surprised if it's a first responder that probably started that business. But yeah, no, it makes me just think of like, yeah, stuff like that. Um, you know, it'd be perfect. Like these, there's so many different business opportunities out there that, um, I know that the discipline and the accountability people in the first responder industry have and then 100% easily transfers over to any type of business with the proper structure guidance. I mean, that's the easy part is like you're saying to give people that it's you can't teach some of the stuff that you joked about like, you know, I don't necessarily joke about you having to go fight fires to snow, but like talk about experiencing all the seasons we experienced, but instead in one day, right? So I mean, you're jumping in the water, snow, fire. So you know, I'm over here complaining about 22 degrees, so I'll go ahead and shut up after that one. Yeah, that so you know, you know one thing you talk a lot about is impact and obviously it's big on our on our. you know, show. So do you have like a story or someone who came in unsure, maybe struggling that really walked out with a new sense of purpose? I mean, I'm sure they all do, right? Yeah, that's the goal. But maybe, maybe it's the first one. I could see it being like, you know, maybe yourself was the one where you go, I walked out with a new sense of purpose. Yeah, yes. Yeah, because I have been through it. So the golden handcuffs is the funny way to say it, but dude, it really does feel like you're trapped. It honestly does. And I, and I know I'm not alone in that with different types of careers. Like you name it, you pick it, whatever. It feels like I spent so much time committing to this, that I'm not good for anything else. There's no way I can find something as good or better, uh, when it comes to pay benefits, et cetera. So whatever I do, I'm going to take a massive pay cut. Uh, it might be, you know, the joke is homeless living under a bridge, like every, a lot of bridges out there. Apparently everyone's under it. Cause that's where everyone thinks they're going. And the reality is, is no, you're not like. You'll be all right. You just have to risk, go for it, trust your character, and get after it. But yeah, it feels like your mission and your purpose is aligned with and directly correlated with the department or whatever career you have until it's not. And then you start to feel lost and flounder. And then that's when I jumped into creating something of value. When that changed, when that shifted, the world lit up, dude. It became amazing. It was no longer was I living under the shadow of someone else's mission. I had created my own. And that's what we see happen time and time again. We have plenty of guys and girls that have gone through the program that haven't succeeded. And it's the old adage of, I want your results, but I want it my way. So they don't actually go through the work. And I'd love to say every first spawner is built for this. But no, they're not. Not everyone's built for it. We're not all created the same. But majority of the time, the people who are willing to do the work, who are willing to take the chance, who are willing to walk the walk, will achieve that next level of purpose. And we suck at everything that we start at. And when you suck at something, you don't have fun with it. It's not enjoyable. And it's hard to create momentum. And so that's why we create habitual habits. The habits create consistency. Consistency creates success. Success creates momentum. And that's how you get motivated. Whereas the whole motivation curve that we're taught is I need to get motivated to do the work. It's actually you need to do the work to get motivated. So it's the irony of, uh, You know, I guess false sense of gratitude there. But yeah, you want to jump into the process to create the purpose. Don't wait for the purpose to find you, if that makes sense. Yeah, I It reminds me a lot like the first form, you know, they first forms big into kind of like. doing the work at home. And when you come to work, it's not time to practice. It's time to work. Work isn't practice. You practice at home. You come in and you should be ready to solidify that work that you practice at home. And I feel like that's Yes. Yeah, exactly. And to double down on that, one of the reasons that I would argue majority of, you know, the guys and gals that I worked around for, you know, 14 years that they were attracted to first responder military style. Life's was the purpose is already built in. Now it might've felt like a calling might've felt like however you want to say it, but I didn't need to go create my purpose. I essentially attached myself to someone else's. I went, Oh, that's cool. Big shiny red thing, right around getting waved at. People like it, you do good work, you bring people back to, you know, recover them, you save them, that's awesome. I like that purpose. I'm gonna go align with that. I didn't have to create one. So that's kind of where that floundering happens when people leave that career is they might have used it as a crutch a little bit versus stepping out on their own. You know, good and bad on each side. It's good, yes, it's amazing purpose, align with it. And then don't ever stop, right? Like always help, always serve. But when you have to create your own, you don't have that crutch anymore. You don't have that. notoriety anymore, especially in LA, like, you know, only job I know where the worse it gets, the more guys are praised. You know, we just had some big wildfires the past few years and, you know, everyone's high five and I'm like, but, um, yeah, it's, it's a alignment of purpose is definitely something to, uh, consider when stepping on your own. So if you're not choosing it, someone else Totally. And I think probably one thing you probably teach, and you probably would agree with this, is that some first responders, they probably have trouble open to receive, right? Because they're always helping, helping, helping. When it's their time to actually receive help, I'm sure it's Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like we had a client who one of the launching strategies that we do is, and this is, I think majority of all companies, when you first started, as you lean on friends and family, you preach it out to your own community and you say, Hey, I created this thing. I'm proud of it. And I want you to participate if you would so choose. And so you get that flywheel going in order to vet your storefront, vet your listing, create authority, get good reviews. And one of the clients was like, I literally don't feel comfortable asking. I'm like, Why? And he goes, I'm not trying to get handouts in life. I'm like, in what world is this a handout? You created something of value. Do you believe it's going to put value in their house? Yeah. Well then tell them about it. Like they want it. I'm sure they would love to have it. And if they don't want it, they're not going to buy it. Don't worry about it. You're not asking for a handout. You're not peddling on the corner. And he couldn't wrap his head around it. And he would not do it. And I'm like, dude, How hard is it to literally go to the people that love and support you and be like, hey, I built this thing. If you so choose, will you support me in it? Let it be their choice. Show them the value. And that's the thing when you build something of value is, believe it or not, whether it's friends, families, or strangers, there are people searching for the thing that you built. And your job now is to put it in front of their face so that they can make the decision. If I invented a new medicine that could save all blind people and make sure that they could see again, and I thought, hmm, I feel grimy trying to sell it or trying to ask friends and family to buy it, how ridiculous would it be? You would be like, are you crazy? Give me that thing. I'll go put it in front of everyone. Dude, we're going to literally give people the gift of sight. Yes, I know I'm using You're being ignorant, holding information back. It's kind of like my coach says, he says, who's missing out because you're not showing up. And that's similar to not asking like, hey, going to the people that you think would support you and saying, hey, look, having that confidence that this product or whatever it is, is going to solve the pain point, provide a solution. for a current problem. And that's the, the value part. I think that's hard. Like you say, to get to wrap your mind around, even for business people, I think even, um, you don't even have to come out of the industry. I think like just in general, as a business person, it's hard sometimes to go, I am that valuable, like that I deserve that amount, like for what That is. Yeah, it's very true. The old imposter syndrome and then gut check. Right. If you're having second thoughts about it, did you build enough value? You know, so Now you're now you could go on to another episode right there. Yeah. Did you bring the value? Yeah. No, I I really love this. So what like in terms of in three to five years, let's say, because now I'm getting into these five-year type vision goals, like more programs, more cities, national Yeah, we want to build 1,000 businesses worth a million or more dollars. So essentially a billion-dollar enterprise. I think it's very realistic. I think it's, I mean, fall to fall, you know, set up plan. We don't take ownership in any of the businesses we help build. We allow that. It's a 12-month program in specifically the consulting part, where I'm coaching first responders, network marketers, like very similar, you know, aligned mindsets. Doesn't have to always be military first responders. Um, a lot of our clients are not, but we want that 12 month program to result in seven figure businesses. We want to do it a thousand times. And I think in the next five years, I think it's very achievable to see what we've done in the last year or two. Um, just to get this thing off the grounds, you know, the physics, right? The hardest part is getting the rocket off the ground and then it's literally The fact that you say you don't take ownership in any of these businesses, to me, is an amazing trust building aspect. And I could probably, as this goes on and gets a little bigger, that's probably going to change. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but down the road, if you're building some big companies, there's probably going to be some ownership opportunities. So my point is, hey, reach out now. This is a great opportunity for a guy to build your business and not take any ownership of it. That's powerful. That's trust. That's somebody I would reach out to if I was needing to start a business inside of, um, or wanting to get out of the, you know, that industry, um, first responder industry. So, yeah. And so how can, uh, listeners like anybody listening kind of support the mission, Instagram, do we have, what, Yeah, I'd say most direct way would be, you know, reaching out via DMs on Instagram. We obviously exist on all the platforms, websites and all that stuff, but e-com for heroes, 1M. Yeah, so at e-com for heroes, just DM us start or, you know, something that you're interested, you know, have some people talk with you and whatnot. You know, and there's lots to offer here. So like one of the, one of the free things that I'll offer, if anyone does reach out and you DM the word built. So if you give me that one, I will send you the prompt that we use right now on our LLMs to do our product discovery. So this is a nine year prompt in development. So this is from back when we had to do spreadsheet to word analysis, to then using Google searches, to then using Reddit forums, to then using TikTok trends. to then leaning into AI, so it's a thesis. And yeah, if you want that knowledge and you're ready to jump in and execute, we'll give that to you for free so that you realize how easy and Yeah, I love that because I know a lot of first responders listen to this on just because I talked to a lot of first responders, obviously, with a with a education like that I have. So I know somebody is going to want to listen. Somebody is going to probably want to reach out to you and just kind of pick your mind in terms of how they can. You know, exit maybe the industry or not feel like they are stuck and maybe just have that conversation to know like, hey, there's something out there that you can do if you so desire to. Yeah, I love it. I love that too. Obviously, this episode reminded me of something extremely powerful. Heroes spend their lives serving everyone else, and eventually someone's got to serve the hero. Ecom for Heroes is doing exactly that. If this episode hits you, share it with someone who needs that second chapter, that opportunity, that spark. Go follow today's guest at Ecom for Heroes on Instagram. And as always, build, scale and Elevate everything in your life. I'm Blake Elsner, and I'll see you on the next episode of Elevate with Elsner. Until next time. Any last final words from you, Sean? Yeah, never quit. I love that. Never quit and always Elevate. One love. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. 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