Welcome to the The VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who have battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory, one story at a time. What is up? Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose-driven journey, Unreasonable Hospitality, where we study how to leverage strategic storytelling, brand partnerships, and operational systems to reclaim freedom in the hospitality industry. And if you don't know, in the hospitality world, most owners are buried in the daily grind of execution. But today's guest has mastered the art of being a high-velocity dealmaker, focusing on vision and closing while building playbooks that buy back his most valuable asset. You guessed it, time. Brady Lowe is the founder of Taste Network. Since 2003, Brady has been a pioneer in the artisan food movement, known for his out-of-body wine and cheese pairings and his ability to unite chefs, farmers, and distillers under a mission of social responsibility. He has devoted himself to transcending the boundaries of the food world, to creating unique combinations, not just with ingredients, but among stories and people. Now a food educator and taste influencer, Lowe manages one of the most hyper-local food tours in North America. The purpose of today's discussion is to explore the CEO's choice. We're diving into how Brady's childhood love for Choose Your Own Adventure books translated into a business model centered on the operational clarity and passive income. Brady is a visionary in the hospitality space who has successfully bridged the gap between high-velocity, high-level culinary artistry and high-velocity business systems. His focus on unreasonable hospitality and buying back time through operational clarity makes him a perfect fit for the Vici Code philosophy and moving from operator to owner. Brady, it is an honor to have you. Welcome Thanks, buddy. I am excited to be here. And that is one hell of a door opening right there. So appreciate that. There was a lot to squeeze in a short amount of time. And like I said, it's an honor to have you. And I want to jump right in. I want to get right into the breakthrough. You had a moment in Atlanta at the start of your career where a cheese pairing caused an out-of-body experience for a customer. That moment changed your life, but when did you realize that creating great experience wasn't enough, that you needed a system to scale that feeling without being Without being in the room. So do you want that story or do you want me to explain I'd like to know the impact of that story and how it made you, or did it? Did it make you realize that in order to scale, you needed a system so that you could still provide that same feeling without being Yeah, I think It had a profound impact on my life, right? So there was a moment where I was open. open to a new conversation and a path open enough to have an idea come across my small calorie infested brain at that time. And I listened enough to slap my hand down on the counter and be like, I want to chase this. I want to go all in. I want to build my company around it. And I want to believe that I can do this. And I think anybody starting off in business needs to be open and selfish at the same time. does it solve where you want to be, who you want to be, where you want to go, what it looks like, feels like, tastes like dream, like be around with who's in the room. What's the party feel like? What are people going to say about you when you're gone? Right. And when you have the control of the room is different than when you're a passenger of the room. And I think it's, I don't know, a little bit of like entrepreneur versus, you know, cattle prop, like cattle goer, like cattle team. Like you're just there in the community to be part of the community. And, you know, there's, there's value on both sides, but that had a profound ability to listen, had a profound impact on my life. And it changed every room that I went into going forward. And, you know, being that experience was so important to me. It was me just being true to myself. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? And how am I going to get there? And is it a listen to your feelings and your emotions and try to tell too many people what's going on and how they're going to respond? And that doesn't sound like a real path. How many times you heard that? Like, So if you add the vision, listen to it, internalize it, and then decide if that's the journey. And I don't know, being that young, I was 25 years old, I was a great opportunity to like, touch that, feel that, do that. But you were saying something at the beginning, and I just want to like, you were telling me about who's listening, who we are, what we're doing here today. And the one thing from listening to that moment that comes to you in the shape of an experience or a conversation or a vision or a dream and you wake up and you got to put that thing on paper. to the moment where you're actually doing it. The bookends were, the other one that was very unique for me was we were in Napa, hosted an amazing event, French Laundry, one of the best restaurants in 2011 of the country, Thomas Keller's team. Thomas wasn't there, like we're not that cool yet, but his team comes up and says, You know, Hey, chef, chef comes to me and says, Hey, Brady, I just want to say thanks. And I'm like, what? He's like, everything you said was delivered. No surprises. What you promised was here. It was on the table and as expected, nothing more, nothing less. And if everybody did that, the world would be a better place. That was the book. And I knew I was on the right path. I didn't put that up as a KPI. I didn't tell my team that that was the standard. But from that moment forward, I listened again. I said, that is the standard. So anybody who's ever worked with me since knows, no So I read Choose Your Own Adventure books. We must be pretty similar ages. I don't hear about them that often, but it's a core memory for me. Can you tell me how those books It's not a linear direction. It's a choose your own adventure. Going, you know, there is a book by Dan Sullivan and, you know, called 10X is better than 2X. And that book tells you, choose your own adventure. Do not go in order. Go outside the order. People will take notice. People want to work with you. People want to listen to you. But if you continually go through the alphabet one letter at a time to try to get your expected outcome, it's going to take a long time. And I think with that being said, I wouldn't suggest that people don't follow the rules. I would say, understand the rules, understand the field, but go for the long pass, right? I mean, that's how those Hail Mary moments are made and and go for it. And if you fall, pick yourself up and assess what the damage was and what Yeah, someday that same game, that same play is going to be sitting there. Yeah. And it's going to say, Joe, are you going to do it? And Montana's going to like, hell yeah, I'm going to do it. You know, like I have the opportunity. I can change the world today with the game of the week or the play of the day. Right. Yeah. And are you going to do that or are you going to sit back and let the naysayers tell you which way Nah, I learned a little bit too late in life to just ignore the naysayers. But we're here now and we're forward thinking and it's good advice. Don't think about what everyone else says, especially if they haven't accomplished anything either. Those are usually the ones that are going to try to talk you into not A hundred percent. And I wouldn't say that I don't, you know, like naysayers are there for a purpose in life, right? I mean, I love my wife, but at times I think she's a naysayer because she's trying to ground me and keep me on, you know, like the ground, the plane it's lifting off like two minutes to the Wright brothers. Right. But That's where I'm happy. And you've got to listen. It's just a matter of how much you listen to the naysayers and how much internal conflict that it creates. And that's the callous that you have to build as an entrepreneur and a business owner in the SMB space, wanting to take your vision or dream and go somewhere. You have to listen to everything. There's nothing that's protected. I mean, when I go out to dinner, everything that's going on is part of that naysayer crowd. When I go to hotels, I see everything that's going wrong, but it just determines how much am I going to act on and how much am I going to carry forward, right? And business partners and everything like that. You just have to, you have to figure out where your calluses, you know, you got Right. Uh, it's good to have, uh, some balance. And I know, I know my wife and I are a lot alike, uh, but also the ways in what we're different, we compliment each other. So, um, it's good to have those people in your life that bring some balance for sure. Um, I want to talk a little bit about, so that, that I can see that you're like a risk taker, right? You're a high velocity deal maker. You love pitching and closing. How do you maintain operational clarity so that you don't get sucked back into the execution weeds Uh, great question. In order to stay operationally clear, it has to be a North star. There's no way around my life, no way around my energy. Like the, the, the brakes, the sprains, the kneecaps, the elbows, the sliding down a Hill, you know, on my back, there's none of that without having, Oh, just get back up and go back to the top of the mountain again and try it again. Like you have to have that, that benchmark and that North star of where you're going. And I think if I looked at the day that I understood what the North star method was, And I went from all business plan to all North star. They didn't exist in the same space and I lived in a very unique place for 10 years where I was like, all right, everybody, my North star is that everybody has to have business plans because the moment they have business plans is the moment that they can learn that a North star is next. Because you have to have a business plan to establish a footprint. You have to have a Brown foundation and executive summary. You have to build a team. They have to be clear where you're going. And then North star fell after that. And that's where, you know, I am now in my career. I'm like, I want to give everybody a North star. How can I be that guy? How can I coach on being the North star provider? Because there's a lot of people in hospitality. There's a lot of people in small business areas that they don't understand what it means and what it looks like and what it feels like to have 20% more clarity and where you're going next week. And if that 20% can increasingly compound by 1% every week for the next 300 weeks, well, you're heading the right direction. What, what is your North star Brady? Right now, my North star is to, is a 10 year play and it's to die empty. I want to give away everything that I have and everything that I am to a universe that So if you come across me, you can probably get a good, you know, a good bit of info out of me because I want to help. I want to see where you're going and what your struggles are. And if I can help you get out of it or not skin your knee as hard as I did on the first fall, then that's a win, right? Even if it's 1% less painful. And, uh, that's, that's the, that's the game plan, you know, and in that system that broke down to like, what are the things that are going to make me happy? How am I going to thrive and survive in that North star environment? What do I need to do for money? What do I need to do for family? What does my health need to be like? So you cut down those barriers and then you break it down even one layer deeper. What am I actually doing that solves the problem? Why does anybody want any shit for me? then you get your USP, you know, and the USP, which is your unique selling proposition and your North Star work independent, like work independent, but they work together as a team. And they say, Follow Yeah, that's why they call it the North Star, keep following. So you talk about creating passive income and buying back time. What was the first task you delegated that finally gave you the freedom to What was that first task? Maybe it was emails or calendar. What did you delegate that finally gave you that freedom So, all If I were to say, what is the task or thing that helped me kind of see that I needed this bigger vision was I wanted to create a product called piggy bank and piggy bank was a charity. I was sitting at the top of a 20 city tour across North America doing 20,000 guests, a calendar year,$450 average swipe to come through the event. It was an experience. We were talking about small family farmers. Those small family farmers were raising heritage breed pigs. Those heritage breed pigs were having a tough market, uh, place like acquisition point. So they couldn't find the chefs and the restaurants that were going to harvest them and serve them to guests, which is a much better, safer food experience for everybody. So you're supporting local economy, you're supporting local ag, you're supporting local families. This is like, if you said heritage breed pigs and you ate heritage breed pigs, you were supporting a small family farmer at the impact of about $1,200 per purchase of that pig. It's not me buying a factory farm animal and I don't know what's in there, right? That's a whole different space. And like, I don't eat grocery store pork. Like it's just a thing, right? I decide where I give my money and who gets it. And I want to spend my money in those spaces. So given that those small family farmers I was working with about a hundred a year buying pigs. So I was basically like the pig butcher. Like I was like putting pigs to death. Like, Hey, I want to buy your pig. 1200 bucks. Here you go. 700 bucks. Here you go. 1200 bucks, 1000 bucks, 800 bucks, 600 bucks. And I was buying all these pigs and we were doing butcher demos and everything. And then I would get to know him. We'd be having beers, drinks. I was throwing these crazy bespoke parties and like, all right, so What, like, how's business? Sucks. What's going on? Can't do this. This chef doesn't do that. Blah, blah, blah. Like all the pains and suffering, right? We're all coming out, especially in a vulnerable alcohol ridden States and round amazing food. You get people really vulnerable and you listen and you hear. And then I was like, do you have a business plan? And they go, Nope. And I go, what? How do you not have a business plan? And then that became the echoed question across all the cities that we're going to. So as we're going to six different farmers in 20 different cities, every calendar year, that is crazy when 95% of them don't have business plans. And that was the reason I said, I want to create piggy bank and piggy bank became the charity of cause for our culinary tour. And I went out and found a coach slash mentor at the time who was just to me, just a vendor. And I just basically, Hey, can I just buy your time to teach me how to write a business plan for this charity? And he goes, you need a North star. And I was like, really explain. And we went through it and that became the part of the life where I knew that I needed something like that to drive every decision that was going to make me choose a path. So if I have my wife, if I have my restaurant, if I have my team, if I take a project on or a client, like, you know, if I have a product tie system, I don't have a North star for every single client, but for a product that I'm offering to a solution to a marketplace, and I'm going to have more than four clients, I'll do the same thing. Yes, there's a whole North star. So my team knows exactly what the outcomes are going to be. And I want predictable revenue. I want predictable outcomes. I want stuff not to come banging on my door when they need a decision to be made, that they have the power and effort to be able to do that themselves. And that's what North Star, it's like, start that way. Windstorm, snowstorm, hailstorm. It will clear, just keep kind of walking the same direction. You can steer Yeah. Yeah. Stay the course. I like that. Uh, you said you stay away from like the supermarket, um, meet. We buy exclusively from local farmers. We feel a lot more comfortable that we know where that food comes from. We know the farmer that it impacts. So we're definitely on the same page with you That $25 you paid for two pork chops. Yes, it's more than the store. But you guess what? I probably just bought some socks for their kid. Like, how does your pork chop not taste better after that? Yeah. You I think it's also a part of controlling your own food supply too. I think there's a lot of distrust with the government. I think we waste more food than we actually eat. It's kind of sad. So I feel like I'm doing my part into being more sustainable with the environment and I guess it's more compassionate, right? I feel like I'm buying animal meat that, yes, I'm eating it, but at the same time, I know these animals are treated well. I know that I trust the farmer and all that too. But yes, of course, you're helping become a part of that community and you're You're buying socks or whatever you said for that family. So I agree. So let's talk about your mission to educate consumers on honest food. In the VICI framework, we look at faith as our guiding purpose. How does your commitment to environmental and social responsibility serve as the spiritual If it doesn't get into my house, I don't do it. If it doesn't, if it's something I won't pour for my family or friends, I won't drink it in my house and I won't take a check from it. I won't necessarily promote it. And it's a filter and it is part of that North star. You just decide. So I'm against factory farmed anything, but then I'm going to take a $50,000 check to do factory farm sponsored logos on my product. And then I'm not going to eat it. And then I'm just going to let everyone else eat it, but I'm not going to eat at my house. I'm gonna eat the farm, the family farm stuff. That's not Yeah. And that just became the thing, like the the moment that that happened. I'll give you a quick story to take about 10 minutes. Is that I was. You got five. Yeah. Here's a two minute window. So I'm at an event, beautiful. I was like, this is back, like, Taste Network early days, right? So people would pay me, box of wine, box of cheese, Brady shows up. And I walk him through, like, it's like $300 a head for me to do, like, a wine and cheese thing at your house. And then afterwards, you'd be like, dude, this guy's pretty cool. Can you stick around and do dinner? And I'd be like, yeah. So that would go. And this is, like, how I built Taste Network up. And I would be like, yeah, let's stick around, do dinner. And we do 14 courses. So seven courses, wine and cheese in the living room, and then seven courses at the dinner table. Like people will be like, like schnockered, you know, like, but it's fun because I'm excited. I'm telling everybody about everything, the storytelling, where this cheese came from, what kind of milks, like everything. So a little out of his time. And then people would be like, um, Can you do 18 people? I'm like, sure. And I would destroy their kitchen. Like, I was just like, I was a fireball in the kitchen. Me having seven glasses of wine, cooking dinner, it was a frigging mess. I'm not even good at my own house. So after 14 people, I made the rule. I have to hire. So I'd ask the client, I'd be like, hey, what restaurant is your favorite restaurant in town? They gave me three restaurants. They're like, can you get that celebrity chef at the restaurant? I'm like, No, you don't want to pay his $10,000 fee. I'll get his, you know, like his executive, like his sous chef, or I'll give his like CDC and we'll get him for like a thousand bucks. That cool. Makes the same food. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So they would, I would start working with like the chefs who were actually behind the scenes. And one of them, one time I came across and he comes in and I'm at the table and he comes walking in the back door with this bag from Publix or Kroger or something, you know, I didn't even think about it. I was like, Oh, you just go buy some salt or whatever. And he knew my drill. And then all of a sudden, like the dinner table, I'm out there pouring like this crazy Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris from King Estate. And the table's like, oh, my God, this salmon is so good. Where's it from? And he goes, Kroger. And I'm like. Motherfucker, he did that. I'm like, that's it. Never again, never, ever again. It just deflated the entire night And did the guest tell that you were deflated or was it just, you know, I guess was it, was it deflated for you or was it deflated It was deflating for me as a purpose driven organization. Like if you don't stick to what you believe in, you might as well not fucking do it. Right. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, if someone said, Hey, I don't understand the faith part of it. You're like, well, there's the door. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's, it's how we approach our customers. It's how we handle our gratitude. It's how we handle our morning appreciation of showing up to work that we have actually a good place to work with people who care, throw that out the door, follow it. You know, like that's, I think standards, you know, Yeah, we know a thing or two about being no nonsense here at Vici. Sometimes we just have to say no to clients. We say no to business. We have to get rid of clients. We have to fire them because it's just not a part of our core mission, our core value. So I feel you on How do you fire people? do you like give them a full on explanation or are you just like, Hey, it's not working vibe You know, I say, Hey, listen, this is, this doesn't seem to be going in the direction that, you know, we were hoping it was, um, you know, we, we can make some, uh, recommendations refer you to a few other, uh, we try to give them, you know, I'm always a big, like, don't bring me So one, three, one, three, one, always every day, always. Right. So it's like, I don't, How would I look not giving that same advice to a client that we're just no longer interested in working with? So we just make sure that we try to do a nice handoff, but that's really how it is. And we don't have to do it very often because we're pretty strict with our sales process about bringing people in and what's your purpose and where you see yourself. We go through a lot to make sure that it is a good fit. By the end of that conversation, Um, we're hoping that we've already kind of fleshed out, uh, whether this is a good fit or not. Um, so that's kind of It's interesting. I like that. I mean, like my style is, and you know, you just, it might help some of the listeners, but like, I always realized in 20 some years of business in this industry, that when we either let people go to our team, vendors, or clients, that there's usually, and ChachiBT has made this so much easier on me. but give them a full explanation of how you feel, why you're there. So I go into chat GPT and I say, and this is the newer version, like older version was spending an hour plus writing an email to them, like, and help them understand. And the response that I'd always get was, Thanks that I, you know what I mean? Like versus just leaving the door open that we, it's, there's some closure and clarity to like how you feel about people. And you know, it's, it's always like a mixed bag. Do you do it or not do it? And I think across the years, those relationships, that I've done it, I've always, you know, never been damaging in the hidden space, I guess. At least I don't think so, because there's, you know what I mean? It's just like, they get something out of it on the departure of maybe how to be better, and it's constructive criticism. And I wish Yeah, I think we're all people and we're not perfect and we all just have different fits. And, you know, we never let somebody go that probably didn't see it coming anyways, right? We usually let them know how we roll and how we do things so that we can set them for success. If my team's not winning because you're not winning and you're not doing the things to help us do the things we said we would do for you, then It just doesn't make sense. And, you know, the writing's almost on the wall, but at the end of the day, like, you know, it'd be narcissistic to think that we're the perfect fit for everybody. So we know we're not. So it just is what it is. But at the same time, you know, because everyone. We hope the best if we part ways and or if like we have a client that doesn't want to work with us. It's like, you know what? We hope you the best. We leave the door open that, you know, that oftentimes they do come back because they're like, oh, the grass isn't all that green on the other side. So. So, um. we're in the business of rooting for people. We want people to win. We want people to, to do well. So if it's not a fit, we just, we still wish them the best, um, in the next chapter. So it's Yeah. My little act is like, I just get on chat to BT now and I'm just like, Hey, so I'm going to give it to you straight messy as hell. I'm going to swear and I'm going to say all the things, but I need you to make it sound really professional, caring and nice because that's who I want to be. But that's just not how I speak. And I use that prompt for a few things, too many sometimes, but it really helps you see what you want to come out of your mouth and what you actually need to do and put on paper. It takes me a very long time to say what I really want to say, and chat definitely helps with that. But over the course of time, if you have to do it a few times, you kind of figure it out. And chat obviously learns from previous responses. So it gets more streamlined the You just have to proofread it. Always, always. Let's talk about your partners. How do you choose partners, chefs, butchers, winemakers, You set the bar pretty high. So, yeah. So, all right. Great question. So there's the unpolished 20 year version. And then there's like the last five being coached and mentored version. The unpolished got me to where I am today is the triple D rule. And the triple D rule has saved me a lot of times and helped create a filter. And that filter is no douchebags, no dickheads, no divas. So that's the triple D rule. People would say, Oh, Brady, I got to introduce you to this chef, buddy of mine. We cooked at so-and-so together. I want to introduce you to this person, this great, great, et cetera. And I'll be like, triple D rule. And they'd be like, what? And I would tell them and they'd be like, Oh, maybe I'll hold that one. You know? So that was basically like who I work with and who I work with. Well, I knew my chemistry, right? I knew that numbers are my financial crypto or my crypto, like kryptonite. I knew that I hated, um, micromanaging people. I knew the things I didn't like. And the thing that I really didn't like was dealing with people who don't care about my time or my value. And that triple D rule kind of encompasses a big, big, big cylinder of those people. So that was choose your room wisely and make sure you live a life with those you care about and can invite over for dinner. Then there was the quick interim. My friend said, Hey, you know, from partners, and this is like your wife as your partner. So Like, because, you know, we've had issues like who, like who comes into the house and how do we like pick our friends, et cetera, like that. And then my buddy told me, he's like, so ours is pretty simple. My wife and I, not me, his wife and her, him and his wife, they have a deal. It's like, if we do not both love that person. then they don't come into our house. Like, so if you do go into that house, you know, both of them actually love you like as a human. And I was like, all right, I like that rule. So that's like the internal personal one. And then the partnerships now after coaching and mentoring, I spent a couple hundred grand on like coaching and masterminds in the last like 18 to 20 months. And that has taught me just a new system of filters. how to evaluate what your time is really worth and how to fill the room with the right people that make you closer to your zone of genius at all times. And that takes a little bit more work. Yeah. So if your zone of genius is X, then be in the room with people who make you feel like X. Make sense. You don't get clients on who make you feel like you can do what you're supposed to do. Like we just had a conversation with a potential client today. And I just, the other party is just like, you know, the other proposal and party sees an opportunity to seize dollar signs and busy work, right? Life busy, life busy with money. Like that's not an exciting part for me right now. It's like, do you want to take a litmus test? Like our next partnership is based on this, a chemistry test. So here's two other filters I'll give you, if you like the filter stuff. Filter one, if I'm hiring you, we're gonna go get fucking wasted together. Why? Because I wanna see how you order food, how you basically treat the staff. I wanna see how you operate in a hospitality environment because I guarantee if you succeed in my company, you're going to be in a lead position doing that someday with my name attached to you. So I wanna see how you operate. Number two, if you're a client, then before we sign any big deal, and I'm not talking like 30, $50,000, I'm talking like we're going to be hanging out for a year together. and you're going to be like paying me a salary. I want to go out and I want to have a lot of fun with you to see if we actually have chemistry. Because the worst is worst is when you go out with someone and you find out that they have a weird like hidden agenda with their wives or their family or their how they deal with share their spouses and they're kind of crooked or like, and it all comes out when they're drinking. Hey, how about we just do that beforehand? Can we just figure out if we have like, so I call it the litmus test and the clients who I really want to work with get to know me about that. And that's created trust before we sign because they're like, yeah, I'll go out with you. Like, let's go have a chat. Those And I feel like that's more important in your industry too, because there's just There's so much art. There's so much personality. There's so much passion in food and beverage. And I feel like, you know, to an extent, I feel like we're accountants, right? You know, like I want to make sure that, you know, the work's getting done, that it's, that it's accurate, that it's complete and that, you know, the client's happy and like, you know, we obviously want to be able to have a personality surrounding like our interactions with our clients. But I think it's, I think it's, I think there's a lot more personality there in your space. So I can see, like, I wouldn't take an accountant out necessarily to dinner to see how they behave. You know, I'd probably give them like some transactions that I wanted to work through. Like, can you do this, you know, right here, right now while I'm sitting here? Um, and I, I assess, you know, eye contact, social skills and stuff in the multiple interviews that we usually do when we bring somebody on. Um, But I think it is important because there's just so many people you deal with on a daily, weekly basis, and most of them are strangers. Maybe not always after you've met them, but most of the time, these people you met the first time. So I think it is really important for you to really distill who it is you're bringing on to represent you, Well, it's interesting because I would say if the accounting position is on one side of the spectrum and hospitality is on the other, and I've got to do my filters, right? I would almost say on the accounting stuff, I would almost say that's moving closer to mine, and here's why. Because if I have an account who is client-facing, ever, and they have to go have a meal with them at a dinnertime environment where alcohol is in the environment, Anytime I want to go, I'm like, you know, honey, like Heather, like my wife, I just don't know about this guy. I'm gonna take him out to dinner again. It just set a weird vibe to me. And I want to make sure that I can just trust that, you know, cause it's, it's the question, like six months later, you give them like, they win a big account or do something. And then you're like, Hey, what happened to that client? They just, they just canceled. And you're like, he's like, oh, I don't know. They're just weird. That to me is another reason to be like, so I just, I feel like people in small business that if you have that entertainment account that you have to vet and interview that entertainment experience before you put that person into three or four account entertainment roles, because now you've got their money. You got my money as the owner of the business. You're entertaining my clients, which is my livelihood. yeah, maybe you shouldn't be going out to dinner right now. Maybe you had like a really bad week with your wife and you talked about it with somebody in the office and you're not in the best place to entertain clients. You know what I mean? Versus, so I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a little transferable. I You know? So the last person we hired, um, they're actually fully remote. Um, and, There was another candidate that was probably more qualified, a little bit more qualified, but they showed up to the interview with a white t-shirt. Honestly, it looked like they just got done gaming, if I had to be honest with you. It didn't even last long. I got through some of the stuff and it was like an immediate not going to happen. If you don't know that you got to show up, even though you're fully remote to like an interview, like professional, like there's no way I can put you in front of my clients. No way. You know, the one we ended up with is a perfect fit for us, but I, but I passed up on somebody who had more experience and probably with more, a little bit more technically sound. Um, but I can teach that. So I don't know with, we're still at a, we're still at a, at a point where, you know, I am doing, a lot of the client interaction. So a lot of my clients do happen to become friends. We have their golf, we go out to lunch, we go out to dinner. I invite them over to the house. They have their kids over. So I'm still very involved, but I would say that, yeah, I guess if I'm bringing on, if I'm replacing myself in that level, I would definitely probably take them out and want to see how they react. The biggest turnoff to me is someone who's rude to the staff. That's a litmus test for everybody anywhere in my life. If I go out to dinner with you, I already know so much about you if you're a dick to the staff. I don't care if we're going to Chili's or we're going to a one-star Michelin. It doesn't matter. How you treat people is everything. Listen, in interviews, I make it very clear. If you can't pick up a broom, this is not a good fit for you. And Heard on that. Well, but I do have one follow-up question to All right. How many times do I need to ask for my baby back ribs Yeah. Just don't go there for that. Right. I don't know. My kids love it for some reason. Like my kids, my kids have like good taste. They like sushi. They like good barbecue. Sometimes their default is chilies. I don't know. I think there's some core memory stuff built in there. Even my older kids, it's funny. So I don't know, but I want to jump into this next one. So Building a legacy requires a balance of finance and family. As a high-performing CEO, how do you ensure that your deal-making energy doesn't drain the energy you need for your personal life and And now it is work hard, play hard are the same. It can't feel like one or the other. It has to be the same. Pick what you do, love what you do, or get out of it and run and find something you want to be in. Don't play someone else's game. Don't rep for someone else. If Yeah. What about in terms of fitness? How do you maintain the stamina required to produce these massive events without I don't know, to be honest. I, I'm, I turned 50 last year and I got into the best shape that I've been since I was 25, 23. And 23 was I could run the hell out of some basketball pickup and games and do whatever. I mean, biking, sporting, like all that stuff. I just wasn't like a pro, like a athlete So I've always been in like the, you know, skinniest fat man pants that you've ever seen for my entire life. So, but now I was like, it's starting to where the energy is starting to like falter. So somehow I had like this drip, like driven by calories, driven by experience, driven by people who appreciate. And if I see someone having a good time, it gives me that jazz energy. So I was always driven by the experience giving. And then the dopamine, when I came off of those experiences, never, It never was like a drop. Like I'd have like my highs and then I'd have like my mediums, but I never went to like heavy lows unless I was like drinking and partying and that, that takes a toll on you. Right. So yeah, I think over the time it's just, you know, from an energy level, I just realized now that one of the goals I need is to pack my bones with my skeletal structure with muscle. So when I fall down, when I'm 65 years old, that don't hurt I think the common denominator with both of those answers really is, you know, you say work harder. Um, I, I also hear in that work smarter too, right? Like, you know, it's, if you, if you've thought it through, like, you know, working harder because you love what you do, that's the smart way to do it. Working harder because you have to do it and you think you got to get somewhere. I mean, if you love it, it's not really all that hard. And then with, you know, with maintaining like some sort of fitness level, like just becomes a smart thing to do at a certain point in the party doesn't have to end. Right. But it's we just redefine fun, I think, is really what it is. fun for me isn't going blackout with the guys, uh, the way it was in the twenties and not knowing what happened and being hung over for days. Um, now, you know, obviously with a family and a business and I have teammates, uh, at work and I got clients, like my fun is just totally redefined and it's more like, experience getting out in the wilderness and you're really getting outside of the house mostly. And just trying to turn fitness into fun and being smart about it. So going on hikes, going on bike rides, stuff like that. So that's kind of what I'm hearing from you as well. There's that undertone of like, do it smart. And you Yeah. And it has to feel like part of your identity. I think that was one of my big lifts last year was, you know, of course being, you know, the book behind you, buy back your time on your counter. There is a really important place to understand that one, You are a CEO, act like it, go pro. What does that mean? Well, if you're doing a 10 hour, a $10 an hour job and then billing someone $500 an hour, if you're doing both of those things, you're not acting pro and you have to look at your time usage. So if you have, you know, a thing where you spend half your day hating what you're doing, probably chances are you're doing something that doesn't make you much money and you should pay someone else to do it. So you can spend the time doing the stuff that makes you money that you love doing. Absolutely. It's a replacement of time. Right. And, you know, that was a very unique thing to learn and really kind of start to put in your life. But then when you start to look at it from a working out perspective, I thought working out was going to the gym, looking like somebody who works out. Going to the gym to me now means that, like, I wrote a children's book while I was at the gym for a week. Like, I literally used ChadGBT to, like, crank out a project. When I get up into the morning and it's nice out, I'll do a 45 minute walk. I'll do three sets of pushups and I'll break those three sets of pushups in a 45, every 15 minutes, I do like 75 pushups. And before I hated pushups. So I was able to like do pushups and then add a pushup every day. So see a like incremental win. And then in those 15 minute blocks in between I'm doing content or doing something that I love or doing something I hate. And basically like delegating out tasks, like where other people are just like walk in and listen to a podcast. Like that's great for 15 minutes, but then take what you learned on that podcast and then get on social media for 15 minutes and just talk to the camera and tell it what's going on. Or take it and put that into chat to BT of how you filter that out and then share that with your social media people to like build a contest and the captions to go up live, like re re-identifying yourself as somebody who uses your time. to help others, you know? So yeah, I think it's, it's a great question. And yeah, I think there's a lot of ways to like, look at how you spend your time working out. And I think once I decided how I can redesign my working out hour that I have every day and use Spoken like working out, like getting muscles wasn't my identity. It was just, you know, a part of it. I wanted like more, I wanted cash or Yeah, just breaking a sweat's good enough. And honestly, that advice you just gave is, that's elite mastermind vet, you know, advice right there. You can just tell you live it and it shows. So I just want to go over real quick some key takeaways for our audience. You know, the power of storytelling, you know, we talked about having a business plan. That's great, and it helps guide you in the right direction, but the 40, 50 page business plans aren't necessary, especially if you can tell the story. If you can tell your story, that's almost more important than the business plan itself. So as you can tell our guest, Brady, he can tell great stories. He's got a lot of stories to tell. The ability to be able to do that will really help you, not only in business, but also in life in general. Our people, our species was built around storytelling. We see evidence of that that goes back thousands of years. Also, the necessity of buying back your time through systems. At some point, you have to really look at what you can and what you can't do. If you're doing that $10 task like Brady said, but you're billing somebody else for something that's 500, you got to replace that. You got to spend more time helping because if your goal is to help people, which it should be, no matter what you do, you can help more people if you're not bogging yourself down with these little tasks that you can have somebody else do. And then the honest food is a mission worth building a business around. Integrity will take you a really, really far away in business and in your life. Just be honest, and if you make mistakes, own them. Brady, thank you so much for your visionary leadership and for reminding us that business ownership should be its own adventure. If you're ready to scale your vision and reclaim your time, Brady, you can be found on Instagram. You've got a website. We're going to have all that in the show notes for our audience to find. Stay blessed, stay hungry for purpose and keep building. We'll see you on the next episode of the Vici Code. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels