Episode 100: Talking Entrepreneurship With Cory Miller

Show Notes

Episode 100 Talking Entrepreneurship With Cory Miller

00:00

Everybody, Rob Cairns here, I’m the founder, CEO and Chief creator of amazing ideas that stunning digital marketing. Thanks for joining us today for this podcast. This week’s podcast is Episode 100. When I started this project, and I’ve said this on Facebook over the week, I wasn’t sure how far this would go. I had been blogging a long, long time, and frankly, was burned out from boggy decided to turn the podcasting. I haven’t even written a conventional blog post in probably a year and a half for myself. I have four clients. So, Episode 100, I think is quite an achievement. And I’m glad I’m still doing it. And there’s gonna be a lot more to come. For Episode 100. I reached out to a good friend of mine, who’s well known in the entrepreneur in the WordPress space, Corey Miller. Cory was the original founder of Vikings. And he went on to sell on iTunes and moved on to bigger and better things. And one of the things that stuck with me during this podcast and after the podcast was a quote Corey said, when he was looking at selling say, No, we’re family to me. He took care of his employees, because they had been with him a long, long time. And frankly, they were extended family, as a sub many entrepreneurs don’t do and something I think you should be aware of. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this great conversation. Cory I had, and I bring to you, Episode 100 with Corey Miller.

01:47

Hey, all right, Rob Cairns here. I am here with somebody who’s well known in the entrepreneur circle, and the WordPress space. Somebody I’ve looked up to somebody have followed somebody I’ve had many, many chat with, and thought for Episode 100. I get him on here. And I really thank you for joining us. I want to introduce Corey Miller, Cory, how are you today?

02:10

Hey, good. Thanks. I’m honored to be number 100.

02:13

Yeah.

02:15

It’s funny when I started the project, about a year and a half ago, we were talking offline, I said, I didn’t want to blog anymore. I was burned out. And I did probably 5000 blogs on three different websites in a number of years. And I said, Forget this thing and start podcasting. And I don’t think I’ve written a conventional blog post since

02:36

he learns on medium. He found the medium that works for you, you know, which I think is so awesome. I do a lot of webinars this year in particular, but, you know, podcasters, I can already tell like, as we were talking before we started recording that, like, you just got a natural, you know, I would say radio but podcasting. like yeah, it’s second nature for you.

03:00

Yeah. And we and we have a mutual friend Bob Dunn, who you know, very well and Bob and I, you know, I’ve had Bob on with me and Bob and I’ve been friends is probably as long as I’ve been friends with you. And and we talked about the same thing. You know, some of us just like doing it. Right. So

03:15

he’s a great podcast as well. You’re right.

03:18

And a good friend to many of us in the WordPress community. So shout out to Bob, we love the above. Um, you know, you’ve been through like this entrepreneurship journey. And you know, you start you were the founder Vikings where a lot of us know you were I first met, you want to find out? Why did you start it teams? How did that come about? And why did that happen?

03:44

So it goes back to real quick, not the whole history of Korea kind of thing. But growing up my two grandfathers were both entrepreneurs. Now neither of them would have said we’re entrepreneurs, when had a motorcycle business franchise, Honda and Yamaha. And then the other had a bait and minnow business like for fishing, your wholesale bait business. And so I watched them and all of my aunts and uncles on both sides, including my parents were employed by those two businesses. And I was like, this is pretty cool. Fast forward all the way back to like 2000 or forward to 2006. So I wanted to start a blog in my profession at that time. And so I started blogging, and my dirty secret is I was on blogger. And but I think a month or two into that I found this thing called WordPress. And yeah, I barely knew HTML, you know, but I wanted to tweak my own theme. And so I started doing that. And then eventually I put out my first free theme. And weird thing happened. I put it out into the world and people start hitting my contact form saying, will you build my blog for me? I was like, Hey, I’m learning but sure, you know, I’ll do this for you. And so I did that for about a year and a half. And I was making more money on my side business and I was in my career at the time, which is kind of public relations communications. And I met my I was blogging still for that same blog, which is totally unrelated what I’ve done for the past 12 years of my life, but um, and got some notoriety with the blog, crack the Technorati 100 if you recall that way, you know you

05:24

I do yeah.

05:27

I don’t ever say that typically, because it wasn’t like intentional that I cracked it it was because I had all these free themes out there. And Technorati was going by links but long story short met my partners pitched them what would become my themes in January 1 2008 started I themes in you know, back then it was just Hey, I wanted 100 punch ticket on this thing called entrepreneurship and I don’t even know if I called it entrepreneurship back then it was for just start a business and live this life that worked from home you know, be able to put products and services out in the world and people buy them and you know so that first year was real quickly we we grew organically and pretty fast and start building a team and I just rode the roller coaster of entrepreneurship for that next 10 plus years with I think

06:13

it’s funny because I had at one time I don’t anymore I had the entire plugin buddy suite. Yeah,

06:21

I’m old school S

06:23

Yeah, it’s old school. I’m still a backup buddy users to some degree to this day and I’m certainly I think spot a security product in your day which became my theme security and that is one of my two security plugins in my security stack so I still and I have a I have a good friend of mine who still thick using the I think builder believer not good thing Yeah, to this day.

06:50

So I believe it’s still running at themes calm and up until like a year ago still running my personal side two builders an awesome product but your Give me the style Jake here thinking back about all his products.

07:03

Yeah, I remember one backup buddy when it when you guys actually put it out, and then how it evolved and how it’s becoming the product. And really, when you think about it, I team security and backup buddy became the two core products of I think set the timeframe.

07:18

Yeah, absolutely. Backup a home run, you know, for a lot of years and helped us fund awesome products that you’re talking about to now. And you know, I still every time somebody says about themes, I always am very proud because most of my team is still there. You know, Matt Dan are still running the show. Kristen writes, they’re a dear friend of mine at Morris is still

07:40

Oh, AJ and I go back to the days of headway theme. So I mean, AJ, AJ, and I’ve been at conferences tomorrow, and it was funny. I was talking to him on Facebook. Then I said, Are you and I were talking he said, Oh, that would be a good conversations. Oh,

07:56

yeah. He goes way back. He He’s been around WordPress fear for sure.

08:02

Yeah, he’s a smart cookie. So you want to the items journey. And then one day you got up and I didn’t know how it became about it decided to sell it. Why did that come about?

08:14

Yeah, I never intended to sell early on people would ask me, what’s your exit strategy? And I was like, What do you mean? I mean, I found Finally, the best job I’ve ever had. With the people I love care about, you know, most people were at the hospital when our first child was born, you know, holding their child’s like, their family to me, and why would I ever want to exit that? But rally what happened that said in now is you know, just it got extremely competitive in WordPress. And I started saying, you know, we were a bootstrapped company. And, you know, we, we did some things that really took off, and then we did a lot of things and never, they failed, you know, over the years, but I know my batting average. And it’s just like baseball was, it was low, you know, one out of you know, every four or five ideas, you have my take off. And I was like, Man, it’s there’s just too much at stake. You know, we had 25 I think people on the team, at some point our children a part of the company that we’re you know, we’re more than our team itself. It was like, Man, that was a big deal. And just like staring down at big companies coming in with a lot of money, a lot of firepower, doing cool stuff. We thought, you know, backup buddy is a is a utility. It’s a backup and thinking okay, security is probably next. And so we had a great partner in liquid web at the time. And we had been having conversations around, you know, we were partnering with them and then conversations got serious where, hey, this is a great company with great leadership. And you know, our future looks brighter if we go together on that and it just looked like okay, this is this is our best opportunity to continue this cool show. We have going called I themes. I’m so proud today that it’s still kicking Still doing good stuff. The team, there’s been going way past what I could have led it to.

10:05

And and as you say they became family and what I think you really want. I’ve heard you say before, you wanted to make sure you took care of your family.

10:14

Lily? Yeah, man, I really in the partnerships, the partner team talked a lot about the team, like, you know, we’re just not in a financial exit for us. It’s Hey, you know, assurances that the team was gonna continue to do what they did did best in their role. And I think and, and the upside was, have, you know, now I think liquidweb, probably at 700. I don’t know what their headcount is now, but probably 700 people. So the career trajectory for our team also to grow past what we could just as a 25 person, company, but it definitely factored huge in the decision, our decision, I should say, about selling the company, it wasn’t taken lightly. I mean, I just wanted to keep hitting renew, I was on a five year renewal thing, like every five years, I’d go, Okay, do I want to do another five? Yes. And then it got to 10. I was like, oh, man, is this, this is gonna change substantially. And, and I’ve taken those lessons now that I learned that every business No matter if you want to or not, you’re gonna have an exit as an entrepreneur, God forbid, you, you know, you get hit by a bus kind of scenario happens. But every business, you know, I don’t know very many businesses that are over 100 years old. And so like, every business entrepreneur is gonna have an exit at some point. But I would rather my fellow entrepreneurs, brothers and sisters out there, be able to choose dictate and control as best they can their ideal scenario for those exits.

11:42

Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, even myself, I, for years used to do a variation of my name and my domain name. And then I finally switched four or five years ago, to a company name. And somebody said, Would you do that for and I said, an exit strategy. If I ever if I ever decide to retire, I’m fed up, you know, whatever, whatever world may bring? Yeah, I decided that I didn’t. I needed that option. It might never happen. But you need to be open to it.

12:12

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, man didn’t intend for an exit to happen in market, the market changes, customers change, audiology changes. I mean, you know, I grew up around the internet, that Yahoo is kind of the king, and then quickly get unsettled and seated by Google, and then Google is a behemoth. But then you got Facebook, you got Twitter, you got LinkedIn, you got different, tick tock, whatever it is the new fad of the day. But technology disruption is prolific in our country. Now we’re experiencing different kinds of disruption, which is like global pandemic.

12:43

Oh, no kidding. And the, and the retail world has changed like never before. I mean, I don’t know about you. But I’ve been all in with Amazon, which is unusual, because I’m 53 this year. So next one, actually. And normally 50 year olds don’t catch on to online shopping, and I and I live almost next to can the second biggest shopping mall, and I don’t go there, and my wife doesn’t go there. So. So for us, it’s that but we’re seeing disruptions. We’ve seen it with Uber, we’ve seen it with Lyft we’ve seen it with Airbnb. And you know where we’re seeing it now believe it or not, is with real estate agents, the brokerage model is about to go by the dodo bird. And, and I’ve got family. I mean, my aunt ran one of the most successful businesses outside of Detroit, Michigan for 40 years, my mom’s been in the business for 40 years, and they keep saying it’s changing and they’re all they were all looking at me like two years ago saying it will never change and now they’re all looking at me like I don’t like this.

13:49

He you know, it’s that fact of life change in COVID, particularly in 2020 now has really shed a light on that like it’s forced a lot of major institutions in and also just life on earth to change and have to catch up. I mean, I think about the legal system you know, trying to still operate and you know, get good things proceeding and

14:14

jumping they’re jumping on zoom calls to do hearings like it’s incredible.

14:18

And I you know, you asked me at the first about it like this year, and I think, you know, crisis, particularly in business can be such a catalyst for change, good positive change. And then my mantra is never waste a good crisis. Like there’s opportunities and I see this cascading throughout our society. No matter where you live and going. This is great like, you know, Robin in it should reach every person on earth.

14:47

have access. I had the best march in April I’ve ever had Cory Oh, it’s got all this and it just, and then I’ve got companies are pivoting or making changes or embracing In the digital world, I mean, you know, the world is a tough place right now we’ve got crisis we’ve got, certainly in the US. And now in Canada, we got political problems, I hate to say it, and we vote. And we’ve also got this whole Black Lives Matter matter for change and protests going on everywhere. So like, I mean, North America is in crisis right now. And to carry out one more, the guy that is succeeded the best of any entrepreneur in prices, is that little guy who owns a company called Amazon, Mr. Bezos. Amazon seems to thrive and run around building their business in times of crisis.

15:39

Yeah, they leverage it. I mean, I think if you look at it, like positive change in a catalytic moment, then you can take advantage not not in a malicious way right now, people, but take advantage of the opportunity that change, you know, causes. And we’re seeing it ripple through education work. I mean, work from home remote work, like we’ve done had is, is no stranger to the tech community. But like the rest of the world, just kind of waking up to it. And I’m seeing I really want some of those positive changes to last like this is, if we look at it in software terms, I think the world should get an upgrade on some key aspects of life, like the legal system, too often just slow. Government is slow,

16:25

because there’s political top how heavy healthcare is really. So. Yeah. And then you take education. And you’ve got a couple young kids. So yes, Dennis. And I’ve got friends. And I’m working with one of the boards right now in the Toronto area, Google Classroom who have ever thought, you know, are your kids using Google Classroom course?

16:49

Yes, definitely. Yes. Their school is all virtual right now. And they’re using Google meet and his classroom, probably, as I’m talking right now.

16:57

And it’s funny, I’ll share with you a hack, just have an interest point of view. Google Classroom is a great way to manage clients and put all your clients stuff from one place.

17:06

Interesting.

17:07

I’m actually doing that we can, we can talk about that. I’m doing that with my clients, where I set him up in a google classroom and said, Here’s all your resources.

17:15

That’s super cool. I had to take a look at that. Because I mean, I logged in just because the kids, you know, I use Google suite of products. So do I business, I don’t use Google meat. But Google me has come a long way.

17:28

And they’re making and they’re making more changes or adding. They’re adding virtual backgrounds or adding more zoom like features, they say by October. And they’re also integrating g chat into Google meat into G Suite, which will give Google a slack competitor. So I love I’m not a slack fan. I have to tell you.

17:50

Yeah. I love it. I mean, it’s amazing how much my world you talked about Amazon, but Google, you know how much of my world is intertwined with Google? Now? Of course, I’m all for it. I mean, that’s the cascade. That’s the ripple effect of some of the negative percent. I think most of our culture’s looking on the negative. And it’s there, no doubt. But there’s so much positive for humankind to advance. And oh, yeah, I’m excited for that side of it.

18:19

Yeah. And one thing I love about talking to you, whether it’s a Facebook chat or a tweet or something in one of the groups that you run, is you always take that positive outlook, and I think it’s better for the head, isn’t it?

18:33

Absolutely. And also, being positive and publicly is really good for myself. It’s a good reminder, like, hey, it’s a world entire world saying the sky is falling. It probably behooves us to have some people that say, but it might be falling right here, but over there is blue skies.

18:51

Yeah, so true. So I’m gonna I’m gonna go onto a topic as somebody who ran a company that published themes and you know, a real tough one we just went through in the WordPress computing community and that was this mess with Astra using you know, the Astra Gemini feel without stepping on any toes or getting in any of that? Do you have any feelings on how this should have been handled? Or what was done or not done? Or? Or would you just rather stay away from it

19:20

poses you know, WordPress is a is a is like most families and that’s a big freakin mess, you know. But by and large, this great worldwide community produces amazing software and good work in the world. And I think it’s probably just a symbolism of like, this happy mess that we have just kind of work somehow, you know, and but what I do like is that it’s a topic of conversation, you know, part of being any kind of community is participating in what’s going on. And, you know, if anything, I think it’s good that more and more people are are attuned to it, and staying close to

20:00

Setting up the WordPress community, we were kind of talking about change and everything else. And you said, the conversations been really great, which is kind of helped. So I just think we need to get to some point of transparency. Like, let’s make the rules consistent for everybody. Let’s make the conversations consistent for everybody.

20:25

Absolutely.

20:26

I don’t even want to weigh in on what happened and what should have been done or not been done. I think the key is, we just need to be having those conversations.

20:35

I agree with you. You know, like you said, transparency and how decisions are being made, and more people that say, Hey, I’m affected by this,

20:45

ya know,

20:45

early in, in my days that I think, in particular, like we’re very affected by it, you know, we, we, I think still has a plugin that has, you know, I think over a million installs right now. So, I mean, this issue is paramount to a lot of people that not just, you know, make the plugins and draw their living from it, but the users, so I didn’t see in depth about how that affected, you know, users that have asked her In fact, I think I have asked her on a couple sites. So they have ripple effects. And it just goes to show you like, I think more and more people being aware of it, because this is great, amazing software, it’s changed my life. so thankful for those that put it into the world continue making it better and better. But as our footprint grows as a community in the software, like we need to have more transparency on that.

21:38

No, no question. I mean, when I started with WordPress, I don’t know if you know, but my background was in healthcare. I was a project leader at one of Ron’s biggest hospitals. I was there for 22 years. And I started with WordPress on the side. And, you know, now I do a full suite of digital marketing things. I’m not doing just WordPress, but WordPress, I agree changed my life, too. So I’m so thankful for that. And I don’t I wish people would just get along. Yeah,

22:09

yeah. Yeah, that’s what we call it drama press. Every once in a while drama for us is running. That’s it for the early years is all about the GPL. And I was like, oh, man, I don’t want to hear GPL.

22:22

And I, and I’ve met Matt and I, he was up here for a WordPress meetup about six or seven years ago in Toronto. And I have to tell you, I don’t think he’s unapproachable. He’s just got a lot on this point. And he’s trying to make a lot of people happy.

22:36

Oh, yeah. He’s is a really great guy. When you talk to him. several conversations I’ve had with him over the year, in fact, have lunch with him. And he’s got a house in Houston and got to meet up with them and have lunch. And we had a great conversation. And he’s very, you know, charming is almost what I would say, Yeah, for sure. And, you know, on the other side, I want automatic to make money. They they’ve done so much the company his organization has done so much for WordPress continues to do so much for WordPress. It’s just a tricky, tricky dynamic when you got open source software, and you got a for profit company. Some of those waters get muddied sometimes, but by and large, you know, the software in the community is under because of people not because the code is people in WordPress that matter.

23:24

Oh, I agree. And I think what changed them making money was when Salesforce dumped a large chunk of cash. And last year, I think Salesforce is now an investor.

23:35

Yes, that was interesting to see. You know, I, when I was at I themes, I always paid very, very close attention to every move in WordPress, now known as much but now my role with post statuses for sure back kind of looking just with a different perspective. It’s great to see, you know, automatic continue to, you know, grow and see a bigger valuation. The question I always ask is, is what does it mean? What does it mean for WordPress, but to have that kind of influx of capital and movement and exposure in WordPress, I think overall, it’s a good thing. But yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting day. I remember when they first got their thing is like 160 million round, you know, and that’s when I tried to, you know, get down to Houston and see Matt, and just kind of talk talk to you and see what what what what his plans were, you know, I didn’t share much of any of that we just kind of talked about in generalities but like, so I, I always take note of those type of things. For sure.

24:35

No question. Now you moved on from iTunes, and I know you’ve done a multitude of things. One project I’ve quite aware of is a digital marketing kitchen. You’ve been working with Rebecca Gill, another one of my favorite people in the community. I known Rebecca longtime as well. very approachable. What else you working on these days? Rob, I’ve

24:58

got six or seven projects. All all know, and that I juggle and it’s a fun day, you know. And I think it’s, I get the opportunity to continue to roll out new products within our umbrella structure. In this next chapter for me, it looks like separate projects with different partners, Rebecca, dear friend of my life and also an amazing partner. So this marketing kitchen is awesome. I’ve got business value, Academy academy.com. To share the story, you know, my partner, Jeff there and I both have had exits. His was in a medical supply business man was obviously with themes and share the story that, you know, the best business strategy we believe, is the one where you’re thinking about your exit ultimate, like, if you think about the the reverse of the table, have someone interested in your company’s value and wanting to purchase from it from you, it’s a great perspective to make strategic decisions in your business to increase the value. So everything I do is around business value, too. And business value Academy is where we do that. And then I’m helping to what I call my Offline Client, but I do an awful lot of online work in the mental health and particularly the addiction space, I’m working with the treatment center in Nashville, helping them do some digital marketing, particularly with webinars, and they’ve got so many great experts on their team and pulling them into webinars and sharing their good news or what they’re doing in the world. And so that scratches my mental health, you know, purpose in life kind of place. And then I’ve got a project coming out in the next couple of weeks that I hope to announce in that space in the mental health space. That

26:37

that is so that is so awesome. Because we were kind of talking offline coming on this call and you’ve been pretty open in the community about your trials, and I was telling you about some of mine and some family trials. And I, I truly believe it’s like four and five that have problems in mental health. I don’t think it’s the three and five we keep talking about. I think it’s I agree with that.

27:01

And,

27:03

you know, I I To this day, and I didn’t say that, but I’ve been very transparent. But I still talk to a psychologist once a month, I make no bones about that. It’s the best thing I ever did. Because we all take care of our bodies, so why wouldn’t you take care of their head? Right? So

27:19

absolutely preach it, brother. Yeah, I mean, with my calendar every two weeks. And very, you know, open about that, because I wanted to be you know, you just sharing your story to helps it become part of normal life, like you said, like we exercise our bodies, and we talk about nutrition and all those things so prolifically, especially in states where the No, it’s northern. But, uh, you know, we need to talk the same about mental health. I mean, COVID has really, I think exacerbated the problems there, you know,

27:51

oh, no, no, no question. I mean, my wife. She’s a property manager in the building we live in. So she’s got some work to do. She had another part time job in a flower shop, which she effectively lost in the middle of this because she refused to go into work illegally. During the shutdown, the owner decided to stay open. And Jill said, No, I’m not working. So we’ve been through that. Even she has found it hard. And she’s a she’s the opposite of me. Like I’m an absolute introvert. extrovert, I’m like out there. And my wife’s the opposite. But she’s also got no immune system. And she will, she’s the type where she gets sick. She’s sick for like three weeks. And we actually think she might add COVID back in February before it was diagnosed big in North America, we actually think that so she’s kind of staying at home. And it’s hard. I mean, COVID is made the whole mental health piece very hard on people. And I think the best thing I can say is talk to somebody talking to a friend, talk to a professional, call a helpline, do whatever you gotta do, but don’t hold it and talk to somebody. Absolutely.

29:11

You’re absolutely right. I think that’s when potential bad things happen. That’s when we lock it up. You know, and don’t share it with people that care about this. But I have seen like you’re talking about the wave of just detrimental, like we’re talking about the positive things that happen as part of, you know, something like this negative that just kills me and I think it’s hardest for kids. You know, I’ve got two kids five and seven and I feel for them. But also, you know, those that are single or you know, shut ins or like your wife, I mean, compromised immune system, like it’s life threatening to be out in public and potentially get something like COVID. So

29:56

I’ve got a 75 year old mother who’s still alive and You know, touchwood, my brother lives with her, she’s not far from me. But that makes a big difference. And she’s gone up to their cottage in northern Quebec a couple of times, just to get away from it all, like, in the middle of nowhere, but but if she were by herself, it would be the same. It’s the same deal and makes it hard. So I think the best thing we can do, truly is support one another and help out one another and show some empathy to one another. Because, and, and and do the things that people are telling us to do to help us.

30:35

Yeah, it’s so tough, because the one thing we want to do is be able to give a hug, you know, and it’s a very human thing that we we need, we need that physical touch. We need that kind. And but right now, we can’t. And that’s the thing that it’s really tough to the whole deal. Unlike you are, I guess I’m like your wife, I’m probably more like I lived is kind of huddling at home and stuff like that. Yeah, no, yeah. So, but it takes people differently, especially if like, you know, you’re kind of moved by you need that, like, extrovert, you need people and sociable. And it’s tough right now for sure.

31:16

And and, you know, to kind of shift gears for the wrap up, your wife announced a new product today, which I, which I saw on a Facebook post, and you’re really proud of her. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

31:30

Yeah, thanks for asking about midstate. And so Lindsay is my wife and she just rolled out content journey comm to provide you know, we all talked, you talked about blogging, and you know, now you’re doing podcasting. And it’s tough to write. I mean, I, I spent since I was about 16 years old writing, but it seems you know, we had built a team and I was more directed and worked and doing a lot with the work. And I got out of the rhythm. And so creating content is tough, especially for businesses, so to content journeys to help businesses create that consistent good search engine optimized content, and I’m pumped for she’s been working on it for months now. It’s been on her heart and brain for years. But I’m excited for her to finally be able to launch that.

32:19

That’s awesome for Lindsay must be so proud of her.

32:22

So the thing we laugh about in the family is I’m her temporary CEO. And by the way, I add that temporary part like I’m a I’m just helping her like, you know, through her scaling number systems and hiring team members and all that. And she is such a prolific entrepreneur, I’m so glad that the world now gets to see Lindsay, as you know, on her own doing her thing, and how prolific of an entrepreneur she is.

32:48

And that’s a that’s a tough space. And you and I both have a mutual friend who is really big in that space. And that’s Kim Doyle. Right like, Oh, can we both know Kim very well and yeah, so. And Kim together Actually,

33:03

yeah, we met her last year at in Orlando for the recurring revenue summit. And retreat. I think Kim is one of those people like she is phenomenally talented. But Kim is is one of those people I should put on my calendar like I need some time to talk to Kim. She revs you up encouraged she has so many ideas but her energy and encouragement is incredible. She’s such an amazing person.

33:27

And and to me an amazing friend then you’ll get value.

33:30

Yeah.

33:31

I think before you had said it’s funny before you had appeared on Kim’s podcasts or vice versa, you and Kim before a window had never had a conversation. No, no, we knew it when I we’ve known each other for what 1214 years and never had a conversation.

33:49

It’s It’s crazy, isn’t it? That’s that’s the WordPress world for sure. Yeah, just like you’d like him. We got to meet. And I was like, I don’t know how we haven’t had any conversation over the years and quickly becoming fast friends and I know she’s moved up to Idaho now and No kidding. fun seeing her content creators planner. Take off with your partner. And so it’s Yeah, I love making friends especially like the Kindles and the Rob’s of the world.

34:19

Now Thank you. So if you had one last question for you, if the ideal world what would you do next? I have put you on the spot.

34:29

professionally.

34:30

Yeah, professional.

34:33

ideal world I mean, if I had a magic wand i’d you know, mental health is definitely on. On my heart is so many people suffering inside. ideal world. I feel like this is gonna maybe sound corny Rob, but I’m doing it right now. I feel like it’s been a hard road to get to this place today. But I just love the projects I’m involved in. I feel like I’m more a project entrepreneur than just one. We’re like, like having a diverse set of things. I like starting things up. I like, I love building teams, I love having teams that are just, you know, you get them in their sweet spot of their strengths and their natural talents and their experiences and expertise and like letting them run and do things you never thought were possible. So I’m in that today. And in like I said, with the treatment center, I work with the mental health stuff I still get asked to talk about. I’m, I couldn’t be happier today. So I think today is the ideal world for me, you know, as far as what I’m doing, and especially being able to spend some really nice time sweet time with my, my family and

35:43

personally, is there anything,

35:46

guys when I’m I light up when I’ve got work that feels fulfilling, that is also profitable, like my mantra is Do good in the world. And you should be able to do well in the world without apology. Do good to purposeful work, sir people support people highly, you know, as humans, and you should be rewarded for that. So, like, personally, like, I’ve got work, I’ve got these projects that are floating, and now have two team members that I’m working with. So I’m actually it’s probably more than that exposure status. We work we have two, two team members there. So and then all my partners are a team of interesting, you know, definition. That’s, that’s new to me, but it’s as far as working like, they’re part of the my team, and I’m part of their team.

36:31

So and then and then when you come home, you’ve got a wife, and I’m just gonna say two kids for the two kids to support you to spend time with him that, you know, you can’t buy.

36:43

No, and this sounds really good. where, you know, I think it’s a lot of us are knowing like, when we like come to my office on days where we have some childcare. And when I get back home, they’re like we missed you. I’m like, I was gone for seven hours. And that’s but that’s a good feeling. So this time is actually if there is that positive wave that’s come it’s like we’ve been able to spend some sweet time together makes it embrace.

37:05

And like families, everything we were saying I just before we came on the call, I just celebrated my third wedding anniversary. And three years ago, I married somebody new for 19 years if you can believe that.

37:17

Awesome. Yeah,

37:18

so sometimes the best things in life will take time. And they’re worth waiting for.

37:24

So Heck, yeah.

37:25

Yeah. So thanks for your time today. Cory. If somebody wants to get a hold of you ask you questions. Where is the best place these days?

37:33

You know, you can get them a website here my contact form at Cory cry Miller calm on Twitter is another way. Like, you know, usually somebody ever replies me, I always talk with him. And my username is Corey Miller 303303. It’s a very AOL type username. But that’s how you can best get hold of me. And I mean, my email is Cory at Cornell calm so it’s as simple as that.

37:58

I need a username and email haven’t changed in years. Thanks, Cory. Have an amazing days. And thanks for your time.

38:07

You too. Thanks, Rob.

38:09

Thank you, sir.

38:11

You bet.

38:12

I sorry about a very special thank you to Corey Miller for joining me for Episode 100. I was truly pleased and honored and privileged to sit down with Cory for now. Thank you, Cory. If you want to reach out to Cory, please do. Cory is very approachable and always there for the community and he’d be glad to help. As we move on with this podcast, typically the format we’re moving to is Tuesday is a short tips and tricks episode where I talk about a topic. And then Saturday, if I have an interview available, we’ll be doing that interview. It’s not an issue for the next while topics coming up will be branding, content creation, content creators, planner, live streaming, and LinkedIn and more. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride because it’s going to be a real good one. As people want to know more by going over my website at stunning digital marketing.com scroll down the main page down at the bottom and you’ll find a sign up for our free newsletter. I promise you only send you relevant information in digital marketing and business world. And I will respect to your inbox. Join 9000 other subscribers to learn how to get the edge on digital marketing. If I can help you any way please email me VIP at stunning digital marketing comm or tweet at me at Rob Cairns You can also find me on all other social platforms. links to those are on my website. If I can help you in any other way, please let me know as always This podcast is dedicated my late father Bruce, Cairns, I miss you very much every day and keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Make your business succeed. Bye for now.