Why You Should Never Be a Houseboat —Pete Dosik, Esq.

Have you ever been on a houseboat? I know that I have been in a house and I have been on a boat, but I have never been on a boathouse.  Today’s guest, Pete Dosik, Esq., shares with us why you should never be a houseboat.

Pete Dosik is a franchise and distribution lawyer and has years of experience in business expansion and franchise law.  He also started his own small business after he finished his undergraduate work.

If you have an interest in learning more about Shipe Dosik Law you can reach him by visiting his website: https://shipedosik.com/

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:03):

You’ve worked hard to build your business and now it’s time to grow. Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast. I’m your host, Tom Dufore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team, and a serial entrepreneur. Join me each week as I interview leading entrepreneurs, executives, and experts who share their misses, makes, and multipliers. If you are a growth-minded entrepreneur, investor, or franchise company, then this podcast is for you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in business and in life, it’s that you can always learn something new to make things better. Our purpose for this podcast is for you to glean some wisdom and practical ideas to implement on your expansion journey. We look forward to being your guide to multiply your success.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:50):

Welcome to the next great edition of the Multiply Your Success podcast. And before we get started, I just want to remind you, if you have not subscribed to our podcast, please do so now and leave us a review or give us a rating. We would really, really appreciate it. It helps us continue to be able to bring you some great content and great resources. So, please make sure that you subscribe and give us a review. We would really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:16):

And as we get into our episode today, I have a question that I was thinking about as we were putting together today’s episode. And that question is, have you ever been on a houseboat? I mean, I’ve been in a house, and in fact was actually out enjoying some time in a boat earlier today. But I’m wondering if you’ve ever been in a houseboat. I have not. And every time I think of a houseboat, I always think about Seattle and that movie with Tom Hanks. Maybe that was Sleepless in Seattle, I can’t remember exactly. But anyway, have you ever been on one, and what do you think about a houseboat?

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:03):

Well, today’s guest, Pete Dosik shares his thoughts on that. And to share a little bit of information about Pete before we jump into the interview with him, Pete is an expert in franchising and distribution, and all around and just in general business expansion, which is why we wanted to have him on the show, because he’s dealing with growing businesses, expanding companies all over the country and all over the world. So, he brings a great perspective to things.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:36):

I’ve worked with Pete for many years now. He’s worked with many of our clients and he just brings a great perspective to franchising and to business and helping clients figure things out. So, Pete is a partner with Shipe Dosik Law. He’s worked at Starwood Hotels, Church’s Chicken, and many other franchise brands throughout his career. He’s also a Legal Eagle as recognized by the Franchise Times. And so, without further ado, here is my interview with Pete Dosik.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (03:10):

I’m Peter Dosik. I was born near Binghamton, New York about 49 years ago. Started my law career. I’m a franchise lawyer, probably I should say that up front. I’m a franchise attorney. Started my law career at a big firm in Atlanta and was in-house lawyer for Church’s Chicken for about five and a half years. In 2013 started our own law firm, we call it Shipe Dosik Law. There’s a person named Shipe, a person named Dosik. We keep it pretty short and simple and we focus on franchising.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:42):

Great, great. So, there’s a whole lot condensed in there. Great job condensing that. But let’s expand into that a little bit. So, I guess let’s talk about, so born in New York and now you’re in Georgia. How does that happen? How do you go from New York to Georgia?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (04:02):

I went to Duke for university. That was my first time living in the South, and after that decided I wanted to live in the South, in a city near a beach. I didn’t realize Atlanta was six hours from the beach, but that’s how I ended up in Atlanta. It’s a great city. It’s a huge mecca for franchising. About over 100 different brands located here, including some big names like Waffle House and IHG and Church’s Chicken and Popeyes. Popeyes used to be here. But Arby’s and a bunch of others here. So, it’s a very thriving franchise community.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:41):

Great, great. And I guess I’m thinking about, is going into law school, or just thinking about this, what was it that made you decide you wanted to be a lawyer? How did you know? What made you go that direction?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (05:02):

To be honest, a lot of it was my parents. Though I did go to college, and my father always told me I needed to learn how to do something, after college I was bartending and waiting tables and that was the skill I had. And I realized my father was right, that I’d gone to college and had a degree, but didn’t have any real marketable job skills. Did spend a year after college, having started the business with a friend of mine. I was waiting tables at night. We had this publication we had started, didn’t work out but also didn’t really lose a lot. It was an inexpensive venture. And having taken that year off and tried to be an entrepreneur myself, that gave me a lot more desire to go to law school and understand the value of that.And in a sense, I’m still an entrepreneur. I have my own law firm, but also realize being an entrepreneur really is hard. We work with a lot of entrepreneurs and it’s just amazing what people can come up with and how they execute and succeed. And I love being a part of that. I really like sharing my knowledge with people, what I’ve learned over the years, and helping other people grow their businesses.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:15):

One thing I actually did want to ask about, Pete, was about your business that you started. It sounded like you finished undergrad.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (06:22):

Yes.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:23):

So, when you finished undergrad and you’re kind of working nights and weekends in the restaurant and bar business. Tell us about this business. As an entrepreneur, what got you into it? What was it?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (06:41):

Yeah, so the simple answer was, it was a print [inaudible 00:06:46] internet and it was a weekly compendium of editorial cartoons and comic strips and humor. It was a free paper that we supported by advertisements. It kind of was a few lessons and it reflects my approach to things in a few ways. First of all, it wasn’t original. There was another similar paper like it where I was living. So, we just really tried to copy someone else’s idea. I didn’t want to create something that had never existed before. And I also liked it because it didn’t take a lot of cash to start. It was, the worst case scenario was not bad. I’m in awe of people who can really risk at all, who can really take on a big risk, take on a big loan and invest in a big business. That’s not for me.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (07:33):

This is something we tried and I figured, oh, hopefully it’ll get off the ground, hopefully it’ll be a success, but also it’s limiting the downside risk because it was something we could do from home and we could kind of stop it at any time. So, no, it didn’t work. It didn’t really lose much money but it was never going to be a success. And so, we took the lessons from that and said we could move on to something else. And I did get better at waiting tables and bartending in the meantime.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:02):

Well, look, I think that’s a great story for the listeners here. I mean, here you are a proven, polished, seasoned professional franchise attorney and specialist. And look, you had your own early beginnings in what sounds like your early 20s and starting your own business and giving it a go with a business partner and trying it out.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (08:30):

One thing I never forgot from that, that’s always informed how I deal with entrepreneurs to this day, is [inaudible 00:08:36] partner, he had an uncle who was [inaudible 00:08:39] formed the company for us. We formed a corporation, we each had 500 shares and I said, “Okay, what’s a corporation, what’s a share, and why are there 500 of them?” Because I’d been to college but this was the whole new language for me, nothing I had any familiarity with. So, now as a lawyer, it’s the language I talk every day and I always try to be very careful to listen to the people I’m working with and understanding, is this a language they’re familiar with or is this all new to them? And I need to help [inaudible 00:09:12] never talk down to people but also never assume they understand the legal gobbledygook that I’m doing.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:18):

Pete, you mentioned having spent time in Church’s Chicken in-house, and so that’s a large brand, a well-known brand that most of the listeners probably are familiar with Church’s Chicken, have been a customer of, it’s a large brand, I think a large international brand at this point. And so-

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (09:37):

It is, 28 countries when I was there.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:41):

So, you go to law school. How do you end up in franchising, of all the fields you could end up in? How do you end up there?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (09:49):

It’s like a lot of things in life, it’s partly luck but also partly making your own luck. I do believe that I’ve been given a tremendous number of advantages I was born with, and don’t ever claim to be just a self-made person. I’ve had so much help all my life, but I also believe a lot of luck is being open and being friendly to people and helping other people and then that comes back to you. So, I’d started off at a big firm and I was focused on finance and general business practice, and by finance I really mean finance, really mean lending. And that’s actually always been a bit of a secret weapon for me as an attorney, is understanding borrowing money and how that works from both the lender and the borrower’s point of view. Because that’s just such a critical piece in any entrepreneur, in any business and has its own set of laws, its own set of markets there.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (10:52):

So, that’s always been very helpful. When I did interview at Church’s Chicken, I had some experience with franchising, some experience with the other areas of it, but not as much as I should have. But I was in the right place at the right time to interview for that job. So, it really changed my [inaudible 00:11:10] quite a bit. I really was excited to be in-house, not have to record my time in six minute increments for billing to clients. And I liked being part of a larger organization. We had a huge variety of work to be done, but I really liked working with the different people there. And one of the proudest things from my time there, was someone told me that I was the [inaudible 00:11:35] lawyer to… she’d been there 20 something years and said I was the best lawyer she’d worked with.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (11:40):

And it wasn’t because of what school I’d went to, it wasn’t because of how smart I am or effective as a lawyer, it was because of my attitude, that I really looked my job there as helping her. How do I help her succeed every day at her job? And so, when she came to the question, she knew she’d had a simple, straightforward answer if possible, understanding not just what’s the legal issue but also, what is the larger challenge she’s facing? What’s the problem she’s trying to solve? How to make her life easier. And so, that was the best part of my job, really.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:14):

Wow. Well, and that’s a great lesson, I think to take out of this. I think one of the things, and this was something I learned from my wife that she would always say, kind of summarize what you said, where she says, “My job is not really my job, it’s to make my boss look good. My job is to make my boss look good.” And it sounds like that’s what you were doing, helping get things done and accomplish the task and working with your superior or boss and helping them through that.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (12:47):

Yeah.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:48):

Well, Pete, tell me, I’m always interested, especially in larger franchise organizations, I’m sure a lot of our listeners who are growing their company or looking to maybe be that large franchise company over time, is there anything you can share with us that’s obviously not proprietary, but things with maybe international franchising, large scale franchisees, any nuggets or lessons you’ve learned that you could share with us?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (13:21):

Yeah. No, I learned a tremendous amount working at Church’s and I could talk for hours about that and it’s hard to figure out where the most useful thing would be, but still, it’s like in any business, it’s the people, it’s the process, it’s the product and understanding all of these. But we learned a lot of lessons there. One thing I learned, and I think this is really important for any business, is understanding the root cause of a problem. So, a good example might be a franchisee isn’t paying their royalties and someone calls me as the lawyer and so I get them to pay their royalties, problem solved. And that’s how a lawyer would typically look at it. What I really learned is, that’s not really the problem. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t pay their royalties. The problem was, why were they not paying? So, if you can figure out why did they not, because otherwise they might just not pay next month and the month after that.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (14:12):

You haven’t solved the problem by getting them to just pay up what they owed. You want to know, why did they run into a problem? And sometimes you have to ask why five times. This is a, why did they not pay their royalties? Because they didn’t have enough money. Why did they not have enough money? Because the cash wasn’t available. Why was the cash not there? Well, it turns out they were giving way too much in refunds. Why are they giving so much refunds? Oh, it turns out the manager was stealing by disguising money as refunds, and now you’ve understood the root cause, the problem of why they missed their royalty payment. Usually it’s not quite that simple, but I find for the lawyer in me, it is sometimes important to put that aside, just understand what is the problem, what’s the root cause?

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:56):

Great point there. Great point. Well, Pete, let’s jump into some of the heart of the content that we usually like to go over here with this idea of misses, makes and multipliers. So, would you mind sharing with the listeners here a miss that came up in your career professionally, personally, and what happened and something you learned from it?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (15:18):

I love that question. I think we spend way too much time looking at who are the successes and trying to copy that, which is fine, but you really learn the most from understanding what went wrong, where were the mistakes? And the first step is to have an attitude of, I’m going to learn from my mistakes. I’m not going to try and hide them. I’m not going to try and pretend they didn’t happen. And there’s so much you can learn from things going wrong. I’ll give you one quick example. Last week I got a client’s name wrong on an email. I’m like, “Ah, it’s kind a basic lesson. Get the person’s name right.” I don’t know if there’s a larger lesson there, but understanding, hey, that’s a mistake. It happens.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (15:55):

But I think that every time we make a mistake, we can learn from it. I think that just as a large [inaudible 00:16:06] failures happen, things will go wrong. So, the two things you want to do is, how do we limit failures from happening effectively? How do we do that? And then, how are we prepared to deal with them when they go wrong? And that’s really a critical lesson for any business. I think one of the lessons I learned from that was, one time I didn’t realize the boss I was talking to had that same view. This boss’s view was no mistakes, failure’s not an option, was kind of her approach. I’m like, “Yeah, it’s great to say that but that’s not how life works.” And so, we didn’t see eye-to-eye, and my mistake was not understanding how my boss thought very differently than I did, and she thought I was not taking the right attitude that she wanted. So, I guess the lesson I would say, is make sure [inaudible 00:16:58] what people want from you.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:00):

That’s great advice and great… I mean, I like your example here of just something simple. I know I’ve done it too, just where you just blank or type in a name and you hit send and realize, oh my goodness, I just misspelled their name or typed the wrong name or what have you. So, it’s a good lesson even just, hey, slow down, take a breath for a second there.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (17:27):

Yeah. I’ll tell you, that person I mentioned earlier from Church’s who gave me that great compliment, one time she came to me as the lawyer and said, “Pete, I sent an email to the wrong person. What do I do?” I’m like, “I do that every week. Why, is that a big deal? I do it all the time.” Because Microsoft sometimes fills in the name for you if you’re not careful. And it can be a big problem, but also, I think sometimes people need to keep their problems in perspective. That could be the lesson in there.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:53):

Great point, great point. Well, let’s turn to the other side here and talk about a make, something that you did or a choice or a decision you made or something that happened that felt like a make for you.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (18:09):

Yeah, that’s always a hard question. I always feel like any success I’ve had always involved a lot of other people. There’s never anything just about [inaudible 00:18:18] stuff. And the example I had for you, you may laugh at this, but it’s actually, it’s working with you with one of the big make for my career at the law firm. So, you may remember four or five years ago, I had just started my own firm and I needed to build a client base and I saw a need that you guys had for legal services for your clients that were also high quality and could work with the product you were trying to deliver.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (18:49):

And so, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about, how do I give you guys something? How do I convince you to bring me on board as part of your process? And that took some months and it was definitely a huge boost to my career. I’ve gotten a lot of clients out of it. In any business, I think it’s critical to understand, where are your customers, where are your clients coming from? And we’ve gotten back at our law firm and done that exercise of understanding where our sources of customers, what’s working to bring people in, what doesn’t work to bring them in? And we definitely identified you as one of our best critical pillars of our success.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:25):

Wow. Well, thank you for that. And look, I can speak as a testament that you have been a fantastic business partner relationship, referral, whatever word we choose to say in there, but the value you add to the client is phenomenal, where you bring the in-depth background and experience, and yet just how you’re talking now, just very approachable and understanding and recognizing that a lot of the folks and clients that we’re working with, they’re new to franchising or they’re going through some hardship right now.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:06):

We were just talking about a client that we’re getting you connected with here later today or tomorrow that unfortunately, due to the pandemic, they’ve got to make some changes. And one of those is trying to find a new franchise attorney and they’re nervous about where to go, who to turn to, where do you go, because there are a lot of folks that all look the same. And I know that I have absolute confidence in your ability and what you’ve done in supporting and serving our client base. It’s been fantastic.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (20:39):

We could have a whole podcast of just complimenting each other, if you wanted to do that. I would really enjoy that very much.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:44):

Well, let’s talk back to this for the next question here, this idea of multipliers. Is there anything that you’ve done, whether it’s personally, professionally, that you have done, that has really helped multiply what you’ve been doing to advance your career or whatever?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (21:03):

So, multiplying your success. I love that line, because that’s really what franchising is. I mean, the basic concept is, if you got a store and you can copy it, if one’s successful, we can do five. If five is successful, we can do 50. And that’s easy to say, hard to execute. But the concept is really that simple. In terms of multiplying success for our firm, we’re lawyers, the typical way you multiply your business would be to hire associates and kind of grow that way. And I’d pay people one amount, they produce work that I make more money on. We’re actually not doing that as a law firm. We decided to stay small. It’s two of us. We have a little bit of contract support. So, we’ve actually potentially decided not to multiply our business in that sense of growing it. But we try to multiply it in the sense of both doing a better job, but also trying to find out, how do we basically make more money but work less hard, is one direct way to put it.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (22:07):

And so, the multipliers we do in that sense, one is, we talked a bit about understanding your best source of clients and customers is a critical one, and where they’re coming from. And then the other part of it’s just understanding who your best customers are, which is, I think true for any business. When I’d first started my law firm, I went to an all day seminar on how to build a law firm and networking, those things. And one great line someone explained to me, when you meet someone in a professional setting and networking, you might ask, “Who are your ideal customers?” And then a lot of people will answer that by telling you the worst possible customer they would accept. Which is a different question. People make that mistake all the time. So, really it’s important though, to just understand who is your ideal customer and who is not your ideal customer?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (22:57):

And it’s good to know who’s the worst one you would accept, but also focus on, who are the best customers and keep them. And the other way you leverage the opposite though, is not taking on the clients that are not a good fit. And I’ve made that mistake a number of times. There are some clients I’ve terminated or fired. It’s not pleasant and I never want to take on someone and realize it was a bad fit. But that happens sometimes. Had a couple clients on the West Coast and the time zone was a problem. They had a lot of issues with California law in particular. I’m not a California lawyer. The obvious solution was to get them hooked up with a California-based lawyer who focuses on their needs.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (23:38):

So, I think understanding who your best customers are, understanding what it is they need, listening to them, I think that’s really a critical piece. We do a lot of franchiseurs, which have a lot of similarities, but everyone is different as well. And understanding what that particular customer, that particular client is looking for really helps our business a lot.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:03):

Well, Pete, I think what’s really interesting, what you said there, that I’m pulling out of this from a couple of the things that you said. What I’m gathering for you and for your partner as a multiplier for you, what it sounds like to me at least, is you’ve decided to be very clear and intentional about the types of clients you want to work with, number one and number two, the quality of service that you want to provide to those clients. And to me, that’s a pretty substantial multiplier, where you said, “We’re going to provide a certain high quality personal service to our client. And in doing so, that means we are going to limit the size that we’re going to grow to because the clients that we do have, we are going to make sure they are well taken care of.” That’s what I’m gathering from what you’re saying. I think that’s a big, bold move because that’s not an easy decision, to put a cap on your own growth potential. But maybe talk to that a little bit.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (25:09):

Yeah, that’s right. I think you summarized it very well, and part of it’s our personal situation. There are lawyers who make a lot more money than I do, but that’s not my main goal, really. I was in a very fortunate place where I don’t need to maximize, be the richest lawyer on the block. That’s not what gets me satisfaction. And I think it’s important to understand what your goals are, what you want to achieve. If someone wants to be the richest lawyer with their name on a big firm, great, that’s good for them. Not what I’m looking to do though.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (25:46):

What I get the satisfaction from is almost really having the expertise to help someone achieve their goals. That’s what I find I like the most. So, that’s what I try and do most of the time. If someone has an issue that I don’t feel I’m the best person to understand or address it, I’m very happy to refer them to someone else who can help them better. And then those referrals end up coming back to me as well. That’s where I get business from.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:16):

Well, Pete, well this has been a great interview so far and we always like to close every episode with the same question, which is, what does success mean to you?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (26:29):

I guess I jumped ahead a bit, that sort of answered that question. So, I’m turning 50 this year. I still don’t know exactly what success means to me. I do know at the end of the day, your relationships, your family, your friends, those are the things that are important, helping other people. Those are the things that are important and you can’t really measure those. You can measure your income. You can measure wealth, those things. You can’t measure how good you are or how happy you are with other people. So, I don’t know what success means exactly. Hopefully someday I’ll figure it out. But I guess a better answer, it’s always evolving and changing. The things I want at this point in my life are a little different from where I was [inaudible 00:27:14] years ago. But I’m very happy with the way things have been going and I’m very grateful for all the opportunities I’ve been able to have and where I’ve been able to get to.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:27):

Great. Well, I really, really appreciate your time, Pete. And is there anything, just as a closing comment or anything you’d like to leave the listeners with here?

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (27:36):

Something someone told me once, made a heck of a lot of sense for any business. You don’t want to be a houseboat. The concept, it’s a bad boat and it’s a bad house. You’re trying to do two different things. It’s always good to focus on the one thing you’re good at, not trying to combine different things. It’s an analogy that works in a lot of situations.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:57):

Yep. Well, it’s a great point. Either you’re a house or you’re a boat, not one or the other. Just choose. Just pick one.

Pete Dosik, Shipe Dosik Law (28:04):

Yeah. No, there may be a case where you have to do both and you get a houseboat, but just understand it’s a crappy house and it’s a crappy boat.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (28:09):

Pete, thank you for being here and for doing this interview with us. We really, really appreciate it. And so, let’s jump into our three key takeaways. First, let’s talk about attitude. And Pete referenced attitude several times throughout the interview today. The one I really want to talk about is when he said, “You have to have the attitude that makes sure you are going to learn from your mistakes.” And Pete made a very good point about focusing on how he makes sure to learn from his mistakes. And it’s something I think we all need to do. And here at Big Sky Franchise Team, it’s actually one of our core values, is continuous improvement. It’s making sure we’re always trying to find new ways to make things better. I think it’s a fantastic, fantastic takeaway.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:00):

Number two is making sure you figure out what the root cause is of any problem and making sure you get to the root cause. And Pete, even making sure you ask the question why multiple times, maybe five times, six times, 10 times until you can get to the root cause to figure out what it is. Because otherwise it’s just putting a Band-Aid on. It’s just a temporary fix. It’s not a real solution.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:31):

And the third key takeaway that I took away from the interview today is to know who your best customers are. And Pete referenced earlier in there where he went to a conference and he heard other business owners that were talking about what the lowest common denominator was of a client they would accept. And that’s not what he’s talking about. What he’s talking about is really identifying who that best customer is or that best client is. Do you have what’s been popularized or talked about rather frequently, is this idea of your customer avatar or figuring out who that buyer profile is. So, figure that out. That’s really critical and important.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (30:17):

And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So, today’s win-win is to focus on what’s important. Focus on what’s important. And we’re going to talk about the houseboat here, because as Pete said, a houseboat really isn’t a great house and it’s really not a great boat either. And so, when you focus on what’s important, if that houseboat would focus on what’s important, it would be either a really great house or it would be a great boat, but it probably wouldn’t be both.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (30:54):

And so, I think it’s important for you to think about what’s really important to you and focus on it. And a lot of times we hear people say, “Well, my family’s most important.” Well, if it really is, what are you doing to actually show that it’s the most important to you? Or whatever that top priority is. Very often we find, and I have found, I should say, that when people are asked, “What’s most important to you?” their answer does not coincide with their actions.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (31:29):

So, I leave you with this today, focus on what’s important to you, reestablish those priorities and have your actions match what that list says on what’s important to you. And so, that’s our episode today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. Again, please make sure you subscribe, give us a review, and we’ll see you back here next week.

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