Business Innovators Radio - Mikey Taylor – Professional Skateboarder turned Entrepreneur

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Mikey Taylor grew up in Southern California skateboarding alongside legends Rob Dyrdek and Paul Rodriquez and enjoyed a long professional skateboarding career himself. He even had his own shoe line with DC Shoes. Following his professional career, Mikey co-founded and eventually sold Saint Archer Brewery to Miller Coors for a reported $35 Million in 2015. In 2018, Mikey went on to start Commune Capital, a private equity real estate firm that is on its way to managing over $1 Billion in assets. Mikey also serves on the Thousand Oaks City Council and is a proud husband and father of four children.Learn more about Mikey and Commune Capital and follow him on social media:https://communecapital.com/https://www.instagram.com/mikeytaylor/?hl=enThere’s an old adage that says you should pay your fair share of taxes but not a penny more. We believe that to be true.We help business owners and high-income earners realize their savings by deploying time-tested tax strategies with decades of case law to back it up.Each strategy must pass through our sift of being legal, moral, and ethical.Get your complementary analysis to see how much you overpay on an annual basis. Click the link below to schedule your complimentary analysis.Learn More: https://www.stratnavinc.com/Schedule Call: https://www.navigatesni.com/NAVIGATEhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/navigateSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/mikey-taylor-professional-skateboarder-turned-entrepreneur

And Rob basically takes our business plan, freaking trumbles it up, front of our faces, leans over, and drops it in the trash can, and goes, you guys should not do this. Do not raise money from anyone. You're going to lose everyone's money. Hey, guys, welcome to the Navigate podcast. We are strategic navigators and we save entrepreneurs 40 to 60% on their income taxes. We're your host, Adam Dirkson.

I'm Mitch Salanti. And today on the podcast, we have Mikey Taylor, who is, a former professional skateboarder, co-founder of St. Archer Brewery, which he sold to Miller Coors for $35 million, co-founder of Commune Capital, Real Estate Investment Group, as well as a Thousand Oaks City Council member. Welcome to the podcast. We're going to just allow you to introduce yourself a little bit and share your background. Okay, first off, thanks for having me. My name is Mikey Taylor. My background, I started as a skateboarder. My first career, I actually became a professional skateboarder, which was a very fun 14 years. From there, I started my first business after my career

ended, which was in the craft beer industry. I started a company called St. Archer down in San Diego. And we were really successful with that business. It took off from the second we opened doors, which is not normal. And then we ended up selling our business in 2015 to Miller Coors. and then from there I started my current business, which is a private equity real estate firm. We build apartment buildings. We build storage units. And I'm also a council member

for the city of Thousand Oaks. And then I'm married and I have four kids now. Love it. So you don't have too much going on. I'm tired. I'm tired. There's a lot going on. Yeah.

Let's start with skateboarding. We said right before we started recording, And I used to skateboard as a kid. I stopped at like age 11 or 12, but came in third place in the John Shepard skate contest in Lake Bluff, Illinois. So there's a got a little bit of something to my name, not quite as much. I didn't have my own DC shoe line, but talk to us a little bit about that and that journey. Growing up in Thousand Oaks and, you know, how that all even happened. Yes.

So I picked up a skateboard for probably the same reason. picked up a skateboard or anyone else. I just saw other people doing it. It looked fun. And I don't know. There's something about skating that just kind of grabbed me, which was actually common for a lot of the things I did. Anytime I got into something, I kind of became obsessed with it. The only difference with skating is it never let up. You know, like normally I would get into, let's say biking and I'd be obsessed with it and I'd do it for like a year and then I'd be bored. And then I would get into playing hockey. And then I would, you know, all these other things, just the life. span of my attention, it weaned over time.

Skateboarding is just never stopped. It was a different experience. And because of that, I went 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 17 years old. I'm still skateboarding. And I started getting into the age of needing to make some money. So instead of quitting skateboarding and, you know, working a job, I made a bunch of videos of me skateboarding and sent it out to all these companies. I had a handful of companies start sending me free product. They started flowing me is what it's called.

And then I started selling a portion of that product to local skaters so I could make some money. So that was like my first hustle. And then I had the opportunity to start traveling with some of those sponsors. And then I later went pro with them. And then that led to kind of what you talked about. I started having my own skateboard line, my own clothing line, my own shoe line. And it turned into like a real career. It was crazy. What age did it click when it's like, okay, I can't make a career out of this. And my parents can calm down a little bit because I think I read something that your parents weren't stoked, you weren't going to college. Yeah. Yeah.

Me telling my parents I wasn't going to college was not a fun combo. They were not stoked on that. It took a couple years. So when I first decided to basically not go to school and start skating, I was making a little bit amount of money, $800 a month. And then I got to the point where I was making a couple grand. And I was like, yeah, this is sick, but like, I can't, like, really do it like this. And then it wasn't until, like, my fourth year where I started making, like, I think I was making like 80 grand a year, 90 grand a year. And I was like, dang, maybe there's something here.

And at that point, my parents kind of eased up. And then I, like, got to a point where I started making, like, more money than my parents. And they were like, this is crazy. Keep doing this. Like, they totally, you know, started encouraging me with it, you know. Yeah. What was the, where was most of the money? coming from? Was it sponsors mostly, contests? Like a mix of both? Yeah, the majority of it was sponsors for me.

So I had a skateboard sponsor, a clothing sponsor, and a shoe sponsor that paid me every month to be able to use my name. So it's typically a two, anywhere from a two to three-year contract. And then when you have your own line, like when you have your own skateboards or your own shoes, you start getting a royalty for every shoe where skateboard sold. So my income was a split from my basically minimum, and then I got a royalty for everything I sold above the minimum. Or let's call it like an advanced draw almost. Gotcha. Pretty early on, you're pretty wise about what to do with your money.

I read that you were living off of $20,000 a year and just throwing the rest into real estate or investing it. So, I mean, that's, first of all, that's rare because the reputation that skateboarders get is you're basically, you're like, you're a punk. Like, you're not smart. You're not going to be successful. I remember skating home after that skateboard competition I told you about. And some teenagers rolled their window down their car and they're like, you're an idiot.

Like you'll never be successful. So you got way more of that. I know than I ever would have. But yeah, talk a little bit about you started to be really wise with your money. And obviously you're successful now. So the thing about, it's not just skaters. Like, I'm with you on like the reputation that skaters have. But it's really athletes.

Like if you have somebody that's willing to go through, you know, the 10,000 plus hours to become like the best at something, it's a very obsessive personality. And that's somebody who does really well with discipline, right? Skaters follow that mold completely because learning how to skateboard is so difficult. It takes so much time to get there that if you master it, you are somebody that, that, that, that does well with, discipline is the only way to say it. Like, you do possess that skill. And so for me back then, that's what the whole money kind of thing was. It wasn't that I was like overly bright or had a lot of wisdom around money.

It's that I had somebody come into my life and say, dude, you need to think about your money. This is what you should do. And once he gave me the framework, the discipline kicked over. And that's where I basically was living like I was. was absolutely broke and was good with it. It wasn't even hard for me to do that. So the beginning stages, it was discipline that really, I think, led to the success of at

least how I was investing. And then I started learning along the way. But I would say the first five years, I didn't know anything. I was just like, what should I do? Okay, I'll do it. And I just had great guidance through those early stages. Right. To your point about discipline and skateboarding, I think something that's,

unique that I this just came to my head right now. Adam and I both played sports. He ran track in college. I played lacrosse in college. But something that's unique about skateboarding is that as you progress, there are like real tangible things that happen versus like in lacrosse like maybe you just like your stick skills get better. But that's not like tangible in the sense that like you couldn't kick flip yesterday and you can do a kick flip or a tray flip now. Things like that. So I think that's I think that's something unique that skaters have too. And obviously, in what you do now, you're very focused on meeting tangible goals. Right.

Right. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's a really good point. It totally is. Yeah, you get to feel the reward of the time you put in when you learn a new trick. Yeah. Where I played hockey before I skated and I totally get it. Like, it's not like I, like, all of a sudden one day learned like a slap shot.

I was like, yeah, I just got better at the thing I already knew how to do. You played hockey growing up in Thousand Oaks. Yeah, I played on a travel ice team, actually. Let's go. Yeah, I used to go back east for summer camp at Pennsylvania. And yeah, it was cool. Yeah, that's, I grew up playing too. I grew up in the Chicago area.

So that was, it's a little more, more common. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Go Black Hawk. Thousand Oaks, not as, not as big. Okay, well, let's let's talk a little bit about when you started St. Archer Brewing, Brewery in 2012. I just read that you one you did that with P-Rod among some other guys

which is that was cool to read I mean I like Ryan Shackler was the guy that I really I think everyone and kind of my demographic was kind of grew up looking towards Ryan Shackler but P-Rod started beating him because he was doing everything switch but anyway that was that was cool to read that you went in with him but talk a little bit about that process and going from skateboarder to entrepreneur and also I want you to share specifically what Rob Deirdek said to you and your group, because you shared a little bit about that in AT. Yeah.

Okay. So a couple things. One, Paul Rodriguez, for anybody who doesn't know, is basically the Tiger Woods of skateboarding, and Kobe Bryant of skateboarding. He's like truly the goat. And he was also one of my best friends growing up before we were ever sponsored. So him and I have been close for a long time now. Him, myself, and another guy, Josh Landon, we were the three partners that started St.

Archer. And in the beginning, we just had this idea that we knew how to market brands. And if we could come up with a new product that didn't exist inside of our industry, that we'd be able to create enough waves and a big enough splash that it could be relevant. And we might be able to actually build something significant if it was something that had never been done. And so, you know, we started talking about what type of product that could be. And really, like, to give you more context and skateboarding and surfing and snowboarding, you always see the same new businesses come out. It's always like a new skate company, a new clothing brand, a new hat business, but it's always the same niche. And at that time, industry, or not industry, energy drinks were like kind of

pumping. It was like Monster and Red Bull and Rockstar started infiltrating our space. And we didn't think energy drinks were cool, but we knew that like beverage had the opportunity to go so much further than the skate industry. And so we basically started talking about beer. Like, what would it be like if we did a brewery and had like skaters and surfers and snowboarders involved and we marketed it the same way we market skate product? Like, maybe that could be cool. And so we basically started a business. We didn't know anything. We didn't have enough money to start it. So we had to build a business plan. We had to go out and raise money. And then we finally opened doors in 2012.

And I think there was about nine of us total when we started it. And then by the time we sold, we had almost like 55 employees. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah. It was a little bit of a, it was our college. Like, we learned business through that experience. Yeah.

I believe it. Can you share the pitch story a little bit when. Oh, about Rob Durendick? Yeah, with Rob, because I remember, I'm not going to spoil it. I'm going to let you say it, but I love that part. Okay, so Rob Deardick was one of the first pros I had ever met. I lived in this area in Newbury Park, and one of my close friends was like really good at skating. So all these pros would come out to see him.

And I was his boy, so I would always, you know, meet these guys as well. Rob, I met when I was 16. I remember very vividly that he would always make fun of me for the clothes I would wear, right? Like, this pros making fun of me over and over. but we eventually became friends. Rob was the person who put out my first pro model skateboard. Rob was very influential in my skate career. He mentored me from basically the point of him turning me pro

towards the almost end of my career. Wow. And what we did is we watched him go from being a pro skateboarder to a reality star, to creating a venture fund, to selling businesses. like, you know, we were paying attention to what he did outside of skateboarding. And so when we came up with our idea of launching our first business, he was the first person that we reached out to.

And it wasn't just like, hey, we got to pitch Rob. I was so excited to pitch Rob. Like, I thought it was going to be one of those moments where, like, your mentor looks at you and goes, I'm so proud of you, you can do this. Here's some money, right? That's not what happened at all. We basically pitched him. And Rob could be a little bit overdramatic.

And Rob basically takes our business plan, freaking rumbles it up, front of our faces, leans over, drops it in the trash can, and goes, you guys should not do this. Do not raise money from anyone.

You're going to lose everyone's money. Like he just thought we were going to fail miserably. Now, where I'm going to give him some grace, in the beer space in craft beer, like no one did any type of marketing. Like there was no true brand. It was all product that sold, right?

So like somebody would go into the store, they'd look at the beer aisle, there'd be some new bottle that they had never seen before and they'd try it. That was all their marketing. So when we told Rob that no one did this and we were going to introduce the way we market

and actually build a brand, he thought we had not done our due diligence because he thought there was no way in 2012 that any business could be successful with zero marketing. He was like, there's no way that exists. And it actually, it was true. Like, the beer industry was just behind the eight ball when it came to marketing.

And so we were really successful, and he was one of the first people to call us when we sold and tell us how proud of us he was. And, you know, he's so glad he was wrong. I mean, he's great. I love him now. He's been huge in my life. I'm very thankful for him.

Full circle. I was going to ask what you said to him when he, well, if I didn't just say no, he's like, you're going to lose everyone's money and then goes through, like,

yeah, crumbles the paper. Yeah. Would you say, you know what, what do you say to him? It's hard because, like, knowing what I know now,

most people that do start businesses fail. Like, your first business is, is very difficult to do, especially when you have zero experience. And to have to raise money with your first business with no experience, like knowing what I know now, I don't know if I would give money to someone in that position. Like it's almost like you start to learn too much and you're the type of due diligence,

you do changes as you have more experience, more wisdom. So I don't even fault him for it. In some way, I think it motivated us to like prove him wrong, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I know you're probably hesitant to say it on the podcast, but I know what one of your friends said to him at the end of that pitch. You mentioned it at AT, but did he invest? Did he get a piece of that 35 million exit or was it? He did not. He did not. Yeah. He loved that. Yeah. He did not. Yeah. Okay. So you made the exit and then in 2018, you started commune capital. So talk a little bit about that process. Why? Why that direction? You do. just did, you started a brewer, like something very creative and unique. Why go into something so practical? Yeah, good question. So we had a model that we used to build St. Archer

that was, it was a little bit ahead of its time. Now it's a little bit more obvious, but we were doing ambassador marketing and kind of storytelling and building the brand around our investors through social media in order to sell the product, right? And I knew we had something that worked. What I was scared of doing after we sold St. Archer was trying to do the same thing in the same industry that had already seen that before. So part of my thought process when I was trying to figure out what was next was what industry is like Kraft Beer in the sense of they're behind they ball. They don't understand marketing. It's stale. It's not current. Like where could I apply this model that would separate me from everyone else. So that was the first thing I was looking for.

The second part was I started having skaters call me after my career ended and were asking me how I did what I did financially. Like how did you, you know, get out of the skateboard industry and start a business. How are you in a position now where you're not working and you're fine? Like, how do we do that? And after I started getting enough of those calls, I started to, I started started thinking about what I thought a new opportunity could be, which was replicate the guy who came into my life when I was 19, who helped me build the foundation, taught me how to build my credit, build a budget, build an investment plan, start investing. And then even when it led to real estate, like, I started getting real estate opportunities through him as well.

So I kind of felt like I could create a business that educated people, empowered people, and then had an investment vehicle for people that wanted to invest in the things I had my money in. And then I could apply, you know, this marketing aspect that we use of St. Archer into this new business. And I just landed on real estate because I wanted to bring an investment to, at that time, athletes who could put their money into something who could get cash flow because, you know, we're trying to figure out how to make money once our sponsors run out. So cash flow is important. But I also wanted them to be able to build wealth because they're at a young. young age and to just focus on cash flow in your 20s is kind of, I don't think that's that smart, but this offered both. And I liked the risk element of it. Like there wasn't great risk in this in comparison to some of the other stuff that I was investing in or even St. Archer. And so I landed

on multi-family apartments. I'm going to build an investment firm. I'm going to build multifamily apartments. I'm going to allow people to invest with me. And all of our marketing on social media is going to be educational and teaching people how to do this. And then we just went for it. It wasn't an easy journey. I was watching a video earlier today about when you started it. In the comments, the comments were brutal. Yeah.

People were ruthless. I'm not going to, I can't even say it. The first one made me laugh, but I can't say it on here. Yeah. This one was, commune, commune capital is the most complex artist business. I have ever done. And I think private equity is just by nature very difficult. On top of that, I had to transition an entire identity and platform along with that.

So I got hit on both ends, just a hard business that has a very high barrier to entry and, you know, creating content that most people that follow me didn't want to see. So it was, I got double whammed on it. What were some of the challenges in 2018 when you got started and how have those shifted to today now in 2024 when you're over five years into it? Yeah. You know, the first thing I noticed was I expected it to be easier to raise money for real estate than it was for the brewery. Like when we started the brewery. I would think so too.

Yeah. You know, I wasn't prepared for it. being hard on that regard. Like I went in going, you have three kids that knew nothing about beer, had no business experience, raised, we raised, I mean, it was about $8 million total by the time we were done with it. That was brutal. Now, like, I know how to do business. I've been investing in real estate a long time. Like, this should be a no-brainer. And what I wasn't prepared for was it's easier to sell a dream that has a shitload of risk tied with it than it is to sell an investment that is de-risked, but the upside is limited, right? Selling a 15% annualized IRA in a much safer investment is actually more difficult than selling, I can 12x your money, but the reality is I'm probably going to lose your money.

That ends up being the easier. Too poor and safe. Yeah, I was not ready for that one. So it was harder to raise money in the beginning than I was anticipating. But now it's like the amount of money we raise, like, you know, for context, we raised $2.5 million when we started St. Archer. It took us, I don't know, seven months to raise it. And I wasn't sure we were going to raise a million bucks. Right.

Now, like my partner just came in here. He's like, dude, we raised almost a million bucks this week. Like, it's, the amount of money we raised now is not even comparable, but getting started doing this was much harder than I thought. Yeah, gotcha. All right, so what are some of the challenges today now? Okay, so there's challenges for the moment we're in, and then there's just challenges to raising money in general.

I would say probably the challenge to raising money in the moment is more the, that, debt market. Like, you know, when the Fed increased interest rates, the way they did, a lot of lenders pulled out and it's just become harder to finance deals. So that's probably the challenge of right now. The things that are hard about raising money, I would say when you're raising money, you put the majority of your focus on the pitch, right? Like, how do I meet people and how do I nail my presentation? But the magic is actually in the follow-up. It's how you follow-up and how consistent you are and the type of things you're saying in the follow-up, that's where it happens. And so it's easy to forget that. So I would say if you are somebody who's raising money,

don't neglect the follow-up. If you are somebody who is going to step out to raise money, I'm telling you, without a follow-up, you won't raise money regardless of how amazing your pitch is. Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah. So it just gets hard when you start dealing with a lot of investors. Like, you know, I think we, I think we have like 300 investors right now in our current pipeline that our team is calling. And so having to follow up with that many people considering there's going to be times where people don't respond and the tracking of it, it gets harder as you attempt to scale it. And that follow up is so important. So it just takes a lot of energy that goes there.

What level are these 300 at? Like, what's your minimum and what are people kind of getting up there? Yeah, that's a good question. So our minimum investment is $100,000. You have to be an accredited investor. So there is a hurdle to get passed. And then in that group, it's basically there's, I think, four categories. There's, you know, zero to 50,000, even though our minimum is $100,000, there's people that will enter in that they're interested in investing less than that. They're still entered in. We still are going to have a touch point with them. Then you have 100 to 200. You have 200 to 250 and then you have 250 plus. And I would say where the average is, I don't know,

probably averages out somewhere around 200 when it's all said done. Gotcha. Okay. What do you expect the future to look like? I imagine you want to keep doing this for a while. You're obviously super passionate about it. You're helping people. So how does this change? How does it grow? For my business, commune specifically? Um, so we have a, right now we're managing about two we're about 250 million of commercial real estate. Our next goal, at least for management, is we want to be managing a billion dollars. We have the goal of doing it within five.

I really want to do it within three. So my goal is three. The team's goal is five. If we don't do anything, we just keep doing what we're doing right now. We'll get there in about 10. From a, you know, building the business standpoint, I, we are still doing, we are all still wearing multiple hats.

Even though we've been in business now like eight years, there's still times where we're doing things that, you know, if we were bigger, we wouldn't. We would just be really honed in on one kind of individual lane. I'm looking forward to getting it to that point. I think we're probably a year out to where it's just like everybody is very focused on their highest calling. There's no really bleed over. And then I would say in the next three years, I would like to get to the point where this thing is running completely without me. Not saying I'm not going to work here, but I think if you can't build a business that has the option to run without you, you're not building a business correctly. And I'm not at that option yet.

So that's kind of one of my secondary goals as well. Yeah. I mean, I think more founders need to have that outlook because a lot of them are just tied to their business. And Adam, I'll let you ask a question. asking. Yeah, I had a couple questions stored up here, but I didn't want to derail. But I want to talk a little bit about your content. I'm a new follower. I was looking at a bunch of your videos on Instagram. I love them. And one thing that I've learned just from here when you talk, Mikey, is that your coachability. You have that factor about you. I think that's

one reason why you're probably so successful. Would you agree? Yeah, I think so. I think there's a big part of success is bringing people in. And I learned a while ago that the best way to do that is to build people up around you. So yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. And going along with that, just looking at a bunch of your videos here, you're trying to help people.

And you're trying to help people with their finances. And you're looking for those people who are coachable. And your content is very value ad for just a couple of the titles here, like renting versus buying or mortgaging or how much money do renters need to afford a certain size apartment that's your space, that's your gift, that's like you mentioned, your calling, you're very good at that. And I hope more people grasp that and catch on to your content there because you're going to help a lot of people with that. Thank you. I feel like that's kind of one of the purposes of the business and I enjoy it. Like, I am thankful that I had that person in my life and I've now been

able to realize the reward of that. And I want as many people to experience that as possible, you know? Mikey, I got the question. I wanted to use this to close the loop on Commune. How are you guys different than other real estate investment groups? Here we does. Good question. Okay. So there's really, I would say, three things that separate us from others. The first one, I'll start with the strategy. We have a unique strategy. We have a unique strategy on how we do real estate. On our storage side, we are converting retail into storage, adaptive reuse. So we buy big box retail that goes vacant, Walmarts, Kmart's, bed bath and beyonds, and we repurpose those into storage. It's not an easy thing to do.

Like, cities do not like doing that. It's very difficult to get a city on board. Why is that? Well, because it doesn't, I mean, when you think about it, right, you got a retail space like a Kmart. That Kmart's going to create a lot of jobs. Yep. It brings it a lot of revenue for a city. When you convert it into storage, you don't need that many people to manage a storage facility, one person on site. And it doesn't bring in as much sales revenue or as much sales tax. So cities don't love that, right? And then you look at like the council members, there's not a lot of political gain in that as well. Like council members like going, we built housing or we created jobs. Like that's a good, you know,

political win there. So it's not easy to do. So we have a model on where we've figured out how to not only locate these distress assets, but get cities on board to allow us to do it, which is, it's a strategic advantage in itself. I would say on the multifamily side, we invest in California, which a lot of people will not go near because it is so difficult to do so. And we invest in the areas that are the most under supplied, which means it's the most difficult to get new projects through. So we, just by nature, what we do inside the real estate space is difficult, and we don't see a lot of competitors doing it the way we are. I would say what makes our group real different is most groups make money based on deploying capital, right? They raise as much

as they can to get as much out into the market so that they can get their acquisition fee. They you get their management fees, like that's how their incentive is built for them to make money. Our business is not done like that. Our business is basically me and three of my partners have the majority of our net worth in these projects passively. So when we're doing new deals, we're looking at it first and foremost, how is this going to affect our investment? How is this going to affect our family? And when we decide to move forward on a deal, then we bring investors alongside us to partner with us. You don't see a lot of groups like that. And so I would say those are probably the two

separating factors. Maybe the third would be, I don't know if there's any other group with an ex-pro skateboarder and entrepreneur that has four partners that are all financially minded, CFAs and CFPs. And you just don't see these two worlds collide. And I think how we end up going about projects, how we communicate to investors. It's a different experience because, truthfully, like, this group shouldn't exist. Like, you never see this structure anywhere else. So I think we kind of have a unicorn of a team as well. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's well said. Man, I know we were coming up on probably past the time that I said that we'd have from you, but we can't not talk about CD council. So I just want to hear from you. I have you scheduled

for a full hour. So go as much as long as you like. Love it. Well, let's hear about City Council. Why, why add more to your plate? You already, you have a family. Did you say, you have four kids, you said? I have four kids, yeah. 11, 9, 3, and 1.5. So it's busy. You know, we're in that tough life cycle. We're not sleeping a lot. But the reason why my wife was starting to talk about checking out other areas. live. And I did not want to do that. I love where we live. Like, this is where I grew up. This is where my family is. I love this place. Can I pause you? Where was she looking? My wife really likes down south. My wife likes San Clemente, San Diego. She wanted to go down there. It's just family down there. When we started St. Archer, we kind of, you know, expected that that would end up

being our home. But we didn't. And we'd be. been here and I love it here. So basically she was kind of talking about let's go check out other areas. I was like, no, why would you do that? And she started talking about like things that like she wishes our community ad. And so I basically said, well, why don't we just create it? Like let's just like be a part of the change. And she's like, yeah, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't know. And so she was like, well, try to think of ways in which you can get involved. So when I was doing that, some of the things I was thinking was one, I have a full time business that I'm running. So I can't step away from this business. It has to be something I could do on the side. And two, I was trying

to figure out where my skill set could actually be applied to benefit the community. And I started looking at what that would look like. And I felt like city council was kind of the perfect spot where it was part time. It was, you know, by and large land use designations and, you know, budgets and the local economy. I was like, this is like in my bag, you know. And so I decided. I would run. And so I ran a campaign. I had no idea what I was doing. I treated it like a business. And it ended up working. I ended up getting elected and I just finished serving my first year. So I have three more years left on my four year term. Come on. Congrats. Yeah. What have some unexpected challenges been with being holding a position?

I would say for me personally, I've had to adjust to the speed and which government moves at, it's very slow. It's really, really slow. So being somebody who's used to coming up with an idea and being able to get that idea into the market within 30 days, you know, I had to get used to adjusting that timeline. But I feel like it's a year in now. I've got a good grasp on it. And then I would say, too, you know, it's interesting because you run a campaign and you have an idea and a vision and you have other people that are running against you that might have a different idea

and you know you get a certain amount of votes the other people get a certain amount of votes but when you get elected you're now all of a sudden representing everyone you know you're not just representing your side and so you know you have to learn that as well like how do you represent everyone even though what what some of the people want to do is actually different than what you want to do

I had to learn how to navigate through that. Well, you've accomplished so much and in so many different categories of life, professional athlete to entrepreneur in two different ways, government. Very, very cool, very interesting. What do you want your legacy to be when you're done with this life? How do you want people to think of Mikey Taylor? I want, I think probably my legacy is probably going to be the kids. Like, you know, the, I think who my kids become is probably going to be a testament of, you know,

the responsibility that my wife and I hold. So I think that's probably going to be a big one, you know, when, when people think of me, I don't know. I would say, I hope that they think, I really liked him. I trusted him. He was always there. He was fun to be around. I think that would be it. But more than anything, I want my kids to have all of the tools available to them. And then I want them to be able to go out and actually make an impact. And if they do that well, I think from a legacy standpoint, I think my wife and I will be good. Well said. I like that answer. Adam's a father of three, so I know he resonates.

Yeah. So look, you know how it is, man. You got these kids that you're responsible to build into adults. You know what I'm saying? Like that's a huge responsibility. And you better lean into it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So there's no other alternative. Yeah, that's right. Something that I've, the owner of our company, Josh Sherrott, he talks about having a living legacy and a legacy. So obviously legacy after you're passed on, what are you going to leave behind? And then he asked people about a living legacy. And that's something I get really passionate about. What are you going to do while you're alive? How are you going to have fun with legacy while you're living? And sometimes there are answers when we ask our clients and the majority of time there isn't. And when Josh first asked me, I didn't have a good answer either. But it's definitely a good thing to think about.

And like you said, raising up children to be good adults, great adults, and hopefully take on after mom and dad. So yeah, and I think too, like another thing to think about is if you don't know why you're here, you have no ability to manage if you're doing a good job or not. It's impossible without knowing your purpose. So I think it's easy for us to not answer that question because it's a difficult question. But, you know, for me, when I stopped skating, there was an identity crisis that I was not prepared for. and I had to spend time trying to answer these difficult questions that most of us push out for

our entirety of our lives. And one of the big ones for me was, why am I here? What is the reason I am here to do anything? What is the point of this? And once I was able to answer that, it made it much easier to gauge if I was doing a good job or not to help me make a decision of yes or no based on if it aligned in my purpose or not, it's really important to do. So I would recommend to anybody spend time answering the question, who are you and why are you here? If you answer those correctly,

they will change the rest of your life. It's really important to do so. I 100% agree. And when you figure that out, then you can start setting goals. Yep. That's right. Otherwise, it just wishes.

A goal is something with the deadline. That's right. Somebody told me a long time ago, if you have a cup, right? You have like a, just pretend this is like one of those red cups, right? If you have a cup and you know that the purpose of the cup is to hold liquid, right? Then you can pour liquid in and know if this cup is doing its job or not, right? You poke holes in it, can't hold the liquid, it's not living its purpose. But without knowing if the purpose of a cup is to hold water,

you know ability to gauge anything at all. And it's the same reason, same way for us. Like you've got to know what you're here to do or you're just running around kind of like a, you know, chicken with its head cut off. It's like, well, what's the point? I think that's a good spot to wrap it up. That's a, that's a well, yeah, I like that a lot. Adam, do you have any final questions before we stop recording?

I don't. This is Nugget Fest. People are going to pull a lot of good things out of this. Thank you, Mikey. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Thank you, Mikey. Thanks for listening to Navigate.

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