The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - The Kyle Miller Show: Chris Tobey Of Tobey Media Joined Kyle Miller

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Chris Tobey, Owner/Photographer/Videographer/Drone Pilot at Tobey Media, joined Kyle Miller live on The Kyle Miller Show! The Kyle Miller Show airs live Thursday from 2:15 pm – 3 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Kyle Miller Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the show. I'm your host, Kyle Miller, and today I'm on a mission to bring you stories from individuals doing great things in our community for our country, and I'm here to share them with you. Before we get started, a word from our sponsor. Today's show is brought to you by Apex Allies, your key to slashing cost and boosting productivity. With Apex Allies, you gain access to exceptional virtual assistants at half their traditional cost, transforming how you handle admin tasks. Say goodbye to overwhelm and hello to more time focusing on business growth. Apex Allies offers

you the support you need without the financial strain, making it easier to prioritize what truly matters. Visit GoApexAllies.com now to elevate your business efficiency with Apex Allies. With that said, our guests today, we have Chris Tobey, dad, photographer, videographer, drone pilot, business owner. Welcome to the show. Thanks very much for having me. Absolutely. I'm excited. Before the show here, just talking about our experiences in the military, I'm excited to dive in. You've had what looks like to be a pretty interesting career.

Well, thanks. Yeah, no, I've definitely been blessed on a lot of fronts, particularly the dad portion of it sometimes can be challenging. They'll definitely put you in their in your place. The kids, you know, they don't really, you know, reference your resume and definitely acknowledge all of the things that you've been through, particularly when they're, you know, younger. I've got an almost three- and almost six-year-old. Okay. So, but still it's, yeah. You're right. It's a fun part of it, though.

Yeah, blessed trying to be a dad and build a business and, you know, also lead an Army Reserve unit. So it's a big plate, but I'm very fortunate. Totally get it. I got a, well, he turns 13 in April. 13, a 10, and 16, 16 months. Oh, man. Oh, 16 months, that's big.

Yeah, so I got a... 13 to 16 months, man. Yep. So it's months, that's big. Yeah. So I got a 13 to 16 months, man. Yep. So it's, it's exciting. It's fun. It's sometimes stressful, but my 13 year old, he's smart. He's like going on 21. So we'll see how that goes. I feel like my six year old is pushing 21 too. Yeah. Yeah. She asked for the keys the other day. I unfortunately have given him the keys. He drives around the farm. I said, hey, go grab my truck, bring it down here, do this, do that, hook up the trailer, bring it down.

No, that's awesome. Yeah, I grew up in kind of a more rural area. I think it's good for them to drive around the farm a little while before going out on the real roads. I have them backing up the trailers. I have them doing it all. That's good. But tell me a little bit about how you got into what you're doing and you're, you're, you're storyteller, you're, you do media for the army. How does this all come about? Um, long story short, um, kind of with everything in my life is it wasn't the original plan. Um, Kind of backed into a lot of stuff. Backed into my degree at Longwood. I started out as a music major and loved it,

but didn't want to be unemployed and didn't want to be a high school band teacher when I got out. So I added communication studies and then just kind of had the really kind of like out of nowhere thought, maybe I could join the Army to help pay for it. And got into public affairs, which actually helped me get through school a little bit quicker than I would have because a lot of the courses I did for the Army actually knocked off some of the requirements for the degree as well. Oh, wow. Nice. So that's how I got into public affairs. But when I joined the Army, I was trying to do print journalism. I, you know, at the time really wanted

to be a print journalist. I read the newspaper every day. That's really kind of what my mom was an English teacher. I thought that's what my calling was. But the recruiter actually put the wrong MOS in the contract. And so I realized it. And this is the second time I went to go try to enlist. And he said, oh, you can change that at the schoolhouse. And whenever your recruiter dismisses something for anyone getting into the reserve or the army, you probably should question that. Because that wasn't something I could change at the schoolhouse. But it turned out to be a fortunate mistake because I really, as soon as I started doing video,

I just really knew that's, I think, where I was more comfortable. That's where my skill set ended up. So you learned this in the Army. You learned your whole storytelling, all of that. A little bit, but I also think, I mean, just humans are storytellers just naturally. Like, I don't think I learned necessarily how to tell stories. I definitely learned how to do the video aspect of it from the Army.

But I think just humans just naturally are storytellers. I mean, you tell stories here just in directing the questions to the people you interview every week. And I think, you know, just in our daily lives, like, we don't, you know, think about the stats of the day. We think about the stories. I think humans just naturally are just in our daily lives, like we don't, you know, think about the stats of the day. We think about the stories. I think humans just naturally are storytellers. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think we all have stories.

Some are better at telling them than others. Yeah. And I think there's definitely a way to tell inspiring, compelling stories. And, you know, as you get with anything, the more you practice at it, the more you get better at it, right? Yeah. You've got to fail a lot. Yeah. Fail often and early.

Yeah, definitely. You know, and that's, I definitely feel like I've done that throughout my career. Yeah. Well, we all do it. And I think, you know, failing is part of the game and too many people shy away from failing. Yeah, but that's where you learn. Yes. part of the game and too many people shy away from failing yeah but that's where you learn yes i mean you learn not to touch the hot stove because you touch the hot stove and it hurts and um you know it's not failure it's learning right take the information in although i try to tell my six-year-old

that and i feel like that's a slightly higher level than uh she's able to comprehend at this time yeah well you know one day it'll sink in and be like, man, dad was right. You know? Yeah. My, my, my wife often tells me that I'll be a good dad for teenagers, but not quite for the elementary school ages. Well, you said she's going on 21, so you never know. Yeah. The, um, and so you got into the military, you, you got in with communications and I'm sure with the military, as with a lot of guys that go, you were active, right? So I joined the reserve from the beginning. But in the reserve and the National Guard, basically you go on to active duty status. So I've been on active duty status for training. I've been on active duty status for two deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, but never was active duty Army.

Gotcha. Well, tell me a little bit about those two deployments. So the first one to Iraq was in 2008. No, training started 2008 and then 2009 into 2010. But yeah, basically I had joined the Army halfway through my degree at Longwood. And then a deployment came up when I was in school. And it was just because of the timing of the training and just where I was in the semester there. I wasn't able to start any of the courses for six months, so I decided to take the deployment. And it was a challenging but I think

very fruitful opportunity for me. Yeah. Because I left straight from learning all of these skills with the cameras and everything like that at the schoolhouse, the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland. And then went right into a combat zone to like use those skills. And I think that's the best opportunity is to learn and then do. Like as soon after to just really ingrain and just perfect those skills. And yeah. And you probably learned a lot. You learned it in the schoolhouse, right? And then once you got out there, you're like, oh, that's why I do it that way.

Yeah, we often say that, you know, for the new public affairs soldiers coming in, they are learning the DINFOS way, and then when they get to the field, they have to learn the Army way to do it. Right. You know, like in training, like you always have to be on a tripod. You need to have the tripod with you. And in the field, I mean, the tripod's heavy, like still today. Like, I mean, they're they're carbon fiber. They're lighter than they used to be. Right. But if you're following a foot patrol. Right. I dare you to try to take a tripod and set up a stable shot of soldiers who are on a mission and are not stopping for some public affairs guy with the camera to get the perfect shot or try to get like a backlit silhouette. You know, you get what you can get, and you try to find, we call them god pods.

Yeah. Just find some place that's stable where you can put the camera down and get as close to a steady shot as possible. Yeah. Well, I'm sure being out there as well and going through those two tours, you had some pretty interesting individuals and stories that you probably came across as well. Yeah, I mean, I had, fortunately for me, most of my combat stories end in a punchline.

You know, I wasn't ever really in a, or at least for a long time, in a forward-operating post or anything like that where I was really out in like a um or at least for a long time in a you know forward operating post or anything like that where i was like really out in the sandbox um but i went out covering some of the the guys who were out there um one of the most inspirational ones at least for me and it kind of um i kept in contact with them like throughout my career, is the Troops First Foundation. They had a, while I was in Iraq, they had a mission, and it was the first one that they had done, where they actually brought soldiers who had been injured earlier in the conflict back,

called Operation Proper Exit. Okay. And that was really powerful, because I was still new to the army at the time. And these were all soldiers who had been there, done full tours, and then got injured on the second one. Some of them got injured on early, but like they, they had seen much more hardship than I had. And they wanted to come back. So the, the whole goal of proper exit is to bring the soldiers back into country after they've been injured.

And some of these were burn victims. Some of them were single or double amputees. So they had gone through a long recovery process after getting back. And it was inspiring to see how just kind of like rejuvenated they were to be back, you know, in like the same areas that they operated in and to see some of the same soldiers that they had served with. And then the whole point of the proper exit is that they leave on their own two feet, on their own terms.

So this program, now I think I get what you're saying. This program, guys would get injured, they go back. Yeah. They get surgery, they do whatever they needed to do, but this proper exit was a program that brought them back over. And, you know, I guess more personal training or physical therapy, is that more there? Yeah, I think honestly, though, so it's Troops First Foundation, which still does other things, obviously with not having the presence in Iraq and Afghanistan now.

They don't do proper exit anymore. But Rick Kell is the head of it. And they found that it was partially, one, like benefit the soldiers um they could kind of have that emotional um lift from seeing you know that their sacrifice had an impact right uh but they found that honestly for the soldiers who were over there it was more inspiring to them or almost as inspiring to them because it just kind of solidified that everyone comes home. Right. So they could see some of the soldiers who got injured, and it's a very abrupt goodbye.

Yeah, it's a very abrupt goodbye. They come back, and that just, all right, they made it. And they can see, joke around with them again, eat at the chow hall. All of them wanted to eat at the chow halls. It's not great food, but there's just something nostalgic about it. Well, it's the camaraderie. It's the camaraderie of the guys. I was in the army

for a little bit. And it's just sitting with those guys and having those times. The conversations, the jokes, the cuts on each other. Just being guys hanging out and giving each other a hard time. That's the stuff we miss. I played college football. I missed the game,

but I missed the guys more than I missed the game. Yeah. Yeah. I miss hanging out in the locker room and cutting up and, you know, and going through everything that we went through. Those are the stories that in the things that I remember, the 6am workouts, the bear crawling across a hundred yards while a guy's on your back. That's the stuff that I remember. I think it's the common purpose is really what it is.

I mean, you have a very clear purpose when you're doing it. And also you can do all sorts of sufferings when you're doing it with other people. Right. You can suffer longer for more. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, suffer longer for more. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that, that seems pretty awesome. So the stories that you were able, that's what you were doing. You were taking those stories and you were sharing that with. So yeah, we kind of, uh, in Iraq

was, there was still actually a radio mission. So it was AFN, um, Iraq and then AFN Afghanistan. I was working for AFN both times.N both times, which is really desirable for me wanting to do primarily video because with the AFN, it's like all broadcast. So in Iraq, we still had a radio mission. So for the first three months, I was actually basically like a drive time radio DJ. Okay. Just doing, you know, the, you know, playing music, kind of putting out, you know, random factoids and things like that, trying to do games. Yeah. I mean, we really tried to simulate just like the drive time format.

Right. Playing music, putting out, you know, command information here and there, but really it was more entertainment. So, but then after that, I kind of shifted to being more of a video focus, and I was very fortunate that I think one of my first or second stories was actually the Troops First Foundation, and that was just really inspiring and kind of really gave me the drive to be eager to tackle the other stories that I had the rest of the time out there. That's, that's pretty cool. That's, you can look back on that and be very

proud of, of that. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've kind of gone back and looked at some of the videos and, and I, I look at them, um, and now I think, man, I wouldn't have made that cut or I would have done this differently, but it, but it's still like, I remember doing it and it is, there's a lot of nostalgia. Yeah, no, that's super interesting. But then you also it, and there's a lot of nostalgia. Yeah. No, that's super interesting. But then you also worked with the MLB. So you went from American Forces Network. Yeah.

You worked with the soldiers, and you did all that. But then how did you get in with the Major League Baseball? So, actually, that was another perk of the reserve. That was the initial, I forget the name of the program, but basically they had an apprenticeship program with the Army Reserve. So I think we were the first iteration, but they had two soldiers who were in the Army Reserve that you could apply for this apprenticeship. And it was just a year-long apprenticeship.

Mine was more of a studio focus. There was another soldier who was there, and he was more with the editor and the graphics team. But it was an awesome experience. It was lonely. I'm from central Virginia, and that's pretty far away from Secaucus, New Jersey

and also it wasn't like they were paying me the same as the camera operators there I was provided for but it was still kind of like a little bit lonely being up there but an awesome opportunity

to just see some of my heroes, uh, you know, while I was there, I know, um, uh, Billy Ripken was one of the hosts. Uh, uh, one of the, one of the guys that actually came there, I'm a big Detroit Tigers fan. Um, and so, um, that was right in kind of Miguel Cabrera's peak and he, he came on to, to do a couple of segments there and I got to meet him and that was just really cool. as a lifelong tigers fan to be able to meet him it was i think the year after he won the triple crown okay um so but but yeah it was through the reserve that opened that opportunity and and uh it was it was a good opportunity just to see real world broadcasts, the complexities of it. Got to do a couple MLB games at Yankee Stadium.

And the All-Star game was there that year. It was at the Mets hosted the All-Star game. So it was just neat to just see all of that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. But I did learn that the traffic up there is just not something that I wanted to be living in for the rest of my life. No, I drove into Charlottesville yesterday, and I don't come to town often. I just come to town usually for these.

And there was traffic backed up all the way to almost to Black Cat Road exit. And I was just like, yeah, this is why I don't do this. Charlottesville doesn't even have that much traffic. but still, I hate it. I know. Yeah. I know. I've joked with people that I get frustrated about the traffic here as much as I did the traffic in New York. But really, the traffic here is you're just going to sit at the same light like two times for two iterations. That's about it. You know, there, I mean, it would, I would have to leave 45 minutes early, you know, for a 15 minute trip, right. Just in case, you know, traffic was blocked off and I had to take a roundabout way to get to where I was going. Yeah. It's, it's wild. And so

you've taken all these experiences from, you know, being in the army and doing that and the MLB, and then now you have your own business. So how does that come about? Um, honestly, it was kind of spurred on by the pandemic. Um, the, you know, I had been working at, um, uh, UVA health and was doing, uh, a kind of part-time or half and half video and half and half administrative role there. And when the pandemic hit, just because of the changing of everyone's jobs and roles, all the video fell apart or fell away. That was just secondary to what the initial focus was. And I'd been there. I didn't mind it but i knew that

i had a passion for storytelling and and uh we my wife was a teacher um or still is a teacher um she's not active she's at home with our kids now um but uh i stayed home with my daughter and kind of started setting the groundwork for what became Toby media, um, while she was teaching for virtually for, um, a couple of years. Okay. And, uh, that's kind of what led into it. Um, I just, the stories I was telling it that, you know, UVA, um, health were, were, were nice, but they weren't really the ones that kind of inspire you. Um, because it's, you know, it's kind of telling the story of the pharmacists and, and, uh, I love my time there and love the people that I worked with.

But it's only so many ways you can kind of... Spin that. Yeah, spin that. So what kind of stories are you telling now? What are the stories of some of your clients that you're helping with now? What specifically are you doing? Is it local? Are you going anywhere else?

How's that working? So, yes, to all that. I mean, I've got some clients in Williamsburg, some throughout the state of Virginia, kind of more central Virginia. But mostly local. Honestly, the ones that I started cutting my teeth on with just the business have been in the non-profit sector, some different ministries.

I've done some work for a number of Catholic parishes as well as Catholic student ministries at Williamsburg. And those are, I feel like, naturally inspiring stories to tell because the students who were there are very inspired. When you have a subject who is just very into the story that you're telling,

it's just really easy as a videographer to capture that beauty. Yeah. And so how are people reaching out to you are you doing like how how do they work with you in this um as far as like kind of like yeah client discovery just kind of say how does how does the process work with you in how how do they work with you like do they reach out to you and say hey i want you to shoot a story about my life or hey this is you know an outcome that i'm looking for how do they work with you? Do they reach out to you and say, hey, I want you to shoot a story about my life or hey, this is an outcome that I'm

looking for? How does that work? It's mostly organizations. For what I've done so far, I work with directors of development or the pastor or somebody in the organization that want to tell something. It hasn't really been as much of, you know, individuals reaching out. Although I've, you know, certainly gotten into some of the weddings. I did one really, it was, it's obviously not like kind of my standard fare,

but I did one, I think it's called a, what was it called? A karaoke video, which is basically, it's like a, I had never heard of it before the client asked for it, but essentially it's like a lip dub of everyone at her wedding. So a specific song. And that was a ton of fun to put together just because it mixes, you know, again, like the people who you're with are all super happy, you know, again, like the, the people who you're with are all super happy, you know, because they're at a wedding, they're celebrating. Um, but then like

mixing it with the music was a whole lot of fun. Um, so, and that kind of got to scratch the itch of, you know, starting out as a music major in school again as well. But, um, yeah, so it's, I mean, everyone is different. Um, every client is different. Every client is different. Every story is different. So it's really more of a collaboration. I need to work with the client, figure out what they need, what their story is that they're trying to capture, and then it really is a collaborative effort with them to bring that project to fruition. Now, when you sit down and collab together,

how long does this process take? Is it kind of like, alright, well, we're going to sit down and have a conversation for an hour. We're going to talk about it. We're going to go through it. Then we're going to meet next week and figure this out. We're going to storyboard this. How does that work? For some of them, yeah. For some of them

it is sitting down, doing a storyboard, trying to plan out the shoot you know sometimes it is over the course of of a month of production okay sometimes it's a lot quicker honestly there's a few and this is kind of been a a a channel that i hadn't foreseen initially, but I've also gotten into some live production as well. Not necessarily live streaming, although that's what I've been pushing in the Army Reserve is I work for a broadcast-specific unit, and live streaming is what we're getting into, using OBS and Facebook Live or YouTube.

But basically taking a live event that they're doing. I did one for CBIC, who I don't remember what the acronym is for, but I think it's Business Innovation. I believe the B and the I in that. But then also, I just recently did one earlier this week for the Institute for Family Studies.

And they had a live book launch when I set up the cameras there and then basically just kind of produce it after the fact so that way they can share it a little bit more produced. So you'll come, you'll do, you'll go through the whole thing. You'll bring the cameras, you set up the scripts, you'll get everything

together, you'll direct it, you'll do all of that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And it's a lot of hats and sometimes I kind of share the hats with the clients, in particular when it is like the director of development for an organization,

they kind of, you know, we both share the vision. And so that makes it a little bit easier. But it's a lot of fun. I'm not that type A personality that's rejuvenated all the time by social interaction. Right. But it is, so it's draining, but also very rewarding at the end. Okay. And then, you know, I take all that that I gathered

and I go into my basement and turn off the lights and just, like, work through, you know, the edit. Yeah. Well, how, where do people go to, like, where do people go to connect with you to do this to reach out have conversations with you

and kind of do a discovery process for this so on my website tobymedia.com T-O-B-E-Y like the pawn shop in town although there's no affiliation I'm sure probably like a century back there might be like a distant relative that we share but i have i have no

you are from central virginia right um yes but not historically um okay i was actually born in detroit that's why the oh that's why you're tigers yeah tigers fandom is that because family was a big fan of that and you kind of got sucked in by family? I was born there in 1984, the year that they won the World Series. So I think that just kind of mixed in with the genetic material in me.

Regardless of how badly they do, I can't not root for them. Right. Tell me a little bit about starting this business. As a business owner? We always go through different things. It's startups, it's, you know, getting the marketing out, it's figuring out this process, figuring out that process, dealing with customers, dealing like when you decided to go out on your own and do this through COVID, like what were some of the pitfalls that you were running up against and, and some of the things that you were, because as, as some of the listeners, some of them are here to listen to you and say, all right, well, I'd like to work with you. But I also like to hear the stories of how you were able to like overcome

obstacles and, um, you know, the things that aren't great in business, you know. Yeah. Things happen. As far as overcoming obstacles, I might be able to give you more tips in a couple years once it kind of like launches to, you know, kind of to the level that I'm hoping I can eventually build it to. But honestly, what I did was we had been saving aggressively before. I think for a while, this was kind of

the long-term goal. And then COVID just kind of seemed like the right moment to, we had about, you know, a year to a year and a half worth of savings built up. And so we just, you know, launched, I've gotten a lot of benefit out of collaborating with, um, the CIC, the community investment collaborative, um, just down the street from here, as well as, um, the small business development center. Um, so mentorship there, there's a lot of resources there that I benefited from some financial, um, management courses that I was able to take. And, um, uh, I did, uh, actually, and you've had a few other guests who've gone through them. Uh, yeah, the pie guy as well as, um, uh, Jay with mahogany,

um, and friends, uh, both of them are affiliated with, uh, CIC, um, did the entrepreneur workshop. Yeah. Um, so kind of doing that, um, but honestly just getting out there I know the video production I know there's always, not to say there's nothing that I can learn but there's always stuff you can learn but I know how to do that it's really just been using them to help me incorporate

the managerial the, you know, doing the finances kind of the forecasting expenses trying to balance the cash flow and everything like that. Because there's nothing that directly translates from just doing video production to doing all those managerial tasks. It's a very creative field. And then doing this very systematic work doesn't really lend itself to doing it at the same time. Well, it's the entrepreneur. It's the many hats that you have to wear.

Yeah. It's all of that, which is why Apex Allies, the virtual assistant company, that's what they do. They match skill sets, right? Yeah. So they'll come in and say, let's say for example, you're, you're more of the creative, you've got all this, you know, the bookkeeping, the paying the bills, the, you know, scheduling this, scheduling that, right? That's, they, they go out and hire, uh, or, or find virtual assistants that match you up with them and they take care of that aspect for you

at a cheaper rate than what you'll find in the states and these individuals have amazing talents, they're half the price of what you would pay in the states they're flexible on the hours and they just get it done

and so that's what they do they match them up and connect and so for entrepreneurs I think the biggest thing the hardest thing that we do is understanding that we can't do it all and then understanding

and I find this a lot with people is that they'll say, well, nobody can do it as good as me. Well, I think that's complete BS. Right. Because as a business owner, as a entrepreneur, you're good at seeing opportunities and seeing, you know, you're the creative. You're good at seeing the story. Yeah. How do we change the story? How do we do this? How do we do that? And that's our skill set. So everything else is not necessarily in our wheelhouse. We can do it, but does it give us energy? Does it make us happy? Is that the best use of our energy?

That's the thing. I learn that lesson on a daily basis, that I can't do everything myself. And I have started to embrace and tried to think about what are the most valuable things that I do for the business that other people can't. And really it is in the production, the weaving the narratives, taking the clients, just kind of free form interviews that I do with them, and then weaving that into a cohesive narrative that they couldn't have written if they had tried to, and sat down at the computer, you know, and just capturing that emotion. And that's your skill set. Yeah, and that's where I bring the value. Right. I don't think it's worth,

you know, well, it doesn't benefit the company as much when I just go through and then kind of get caught up on QuickBooks. Right. It does because it, you know, make sure that I have a good assessment of it, but using my time towards that isn't always the most fruitful. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I totally agree with that. Delegation, as we become larger business owners and, um, entrepreneurs, delegation is the key to success. Being a leader, a good leader and delegating, um, because there's so much stuff to get done on a daily task. There's no way, um, that you can do it. There's a great book out there. It's called who, not how, right? Um, I don't think I've heard of that one. It's no way that you can do it. There's a great book out there. It's called Who,

Not How, right? I don't think I've heard of that one. It's called Who, Not How, and I'm blanking on the guy who wrote it. Who, Not How. And what he does is, what he talks about is he talks about the questions that we say to our – Dan Sullivan is the guy who wrote it. Okay. So for example, the – I need to get – or let's say that. How do I make a website? Yeah. Okay. That's the one question that somebody asked. How do I make a website?

Well, with that question, it then makes our brain think about how do we do it ourselves, right? Instead of asking, who can help me do this? Yeah. Who can help me make this? Because inevitably, that person is going to be nine times better than you. They're going to have the skill set. They're going to be able to say, oh, you can do this, do this with, but if you tried to do it and you put that time, energy and effort into it, learning a new skill, learning a new task, learning all these new things and not even getting it

right. Yeah. Right. Um, that is not a great use of your time. And if you just paid somebody to do it, you would be so much further along. I feel like you may have talked to my wife about the website example because that's exactly the situation that I was in. For months, I tried to learn how to build on a variety of different platforms the website that I wanted. And then I found out through the SBDC, they had a program where they would collaborate with me and they would work with a designer to build the website. And I was very fortunate that I was able to get in before the funding ran out for that because they built the website and then I was able to manage it, you know, once it was built, which, which is, it's a whole different skillset. Oh yeah. I could, I could have built a website, but it might have had like single... It would have looked like it was made in the early 2000s.

And that's what I could do. But yeah, with a little bit of help. There's always things I would like to change and tweak about it, but I got a much better website than I would have gotten. And a lot quicker than if I would have tried to learn how to do that myself. And then, so I always ask myself that question. Who, not how? Like if I, and I get it.

People will always revert back to that. And I do it sometimes too. And I'm like, man, how do I get that done? How do I get that done? Yeah. Stop thinking that way. When did you start using a done? How do I get that done? Yeah. Stop thinking that. When did you start using a virtual assistant? Oh, 2015.

Really? Yeah. I've been using virtual assistants for a long time. What was it that, not to ask you all the questions, but what was it that caused you to make that change? All right. So I first started using a virtual assistant back in, I think it was earlier than 15.

I think it was like 13. Because HUD Home Store, which is a website that had properties on it, had hundreds of houses on it on their website. And we can make offers on those houses every single day. Um, and I wasn't going to sit there for all day long and make offer on every single house on that website every single day. I wasn't doing it. So I had talked to some other individuals. They said they got a virtual assistant to do that. So I paid somebody, you know, uh, the funds to, to do that all. And this was 2000, this was 2013. So I think I was paying somebody $5 an hour, maybe less to do that. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, this is, this is, this is amazing. And I think, I don't know how many

houses we bought off of that, but we got some really good deals. Yeah. Just cause you've got someone whose job it is to make sure that it's done. And yeah. So it was delegation. That was my first, you know, learning how to delegate. The other one is when I first started getting into flipping houses, I, I, the first house that I ever flipped was I did it myself and I learned, I had some skills, not much. And I learned that those skills, uh, I had done some construction with an individual, but the stuff I didn't know, I learned on like YouTube. Yeah. I was, I was, I, my dad has a picture of me. I have my phone in one hand and have a YouTube video on it. And I'm looking at

something at my first house that I'm ever doing. And I'm like, how do I figure this out? What do I do here? You know, and, um, and it's great. Like I use it for video editing all the time. It's YouTube university. You, I don't, I don't even, I don't even think you need to go to college anymore. Uh, these days I really don't because one, let's say, uh, you go to these schools for these degrees, and let's call it a marketing degree. I think a marketing degree at a college today is worth zero because you're learning from individuals who don't do marketing, who did possibly marketing back in the day. But marketing now is nothing compared to what it was 10 years ago. Progressing so fast. Just the field is changing. I mean, if you write a textbook this year, it's probably two years it's going to be out of date. You're going to need to

do a new edition. Which is great if you're writing textbooks. You're selling new textbooks every year, but it's not great for retaining that knowledge because by the time they graduate, it's going to be outdated information. Yeah. So if my, when my kids get to that age and if they don't, you know, God forbid they want to be a doctor or an attorney or a lawyer or something like that. Yeah. I think that there's certain fields where you, you want to have someone who, you know, has that traditional college formation. Right. And that would be the doctor, attorney, lawyer. Yeah. And I think that there are concepts.

I mean, there's still concepts, basic concepts from communication theory that I still apply. And I think that there is something to be said for learning how to commit to a program and completing it. Yeah. But I don't think that's the only route. I don't think college's the only route. I don't think college is the only route. I definitely, you know, we are starting to save for college for our kids.

Yeah. But we're not going to force them into it. And if they, I would be highly, depending on like what their goals are. Yeah. But if my daughter, you know, turns to the age where she'd be going to college and she really wants to start a business and be an entrepreneur, I would just as happily pull that money and use that as seed money for her business.

Absolutely. Where she still can learn. And I obviously would want, you know, to like give training, I encourage her to learn different ways and different strategies. But I think that there's not just the college. And I think pushing college as the only way to climb the ladder, I feel like is unproductive because it does lead to the situation where most people can't pay, so then they get the loans. And then that kind of forces them into jobs that they can do, not necessarily being an entrepreneur, because the jobs can easily pay off the loans immediately, whereas the entrepreneur may have longer, long-term, but like higher upside. Yeah, yeah. Find a mentor. The advice that I'm going to tell my son, let's find a mentor that it's something that you want to do. If they're doing it at a high level, go learn from them.

Yeah. Right? And then once you learn from them, you're going to be able to take it off on your own. I truly believe in mentors. I have mentors to this day, multiple mentors, and I'm learning from them. And I have other peers that I learn from on the daily.

I call one guy probably every week. We talk every week and we're like, is this working for you? Is that working for you? This is the results I'm seeing. What are the results are you seeing? Well, this is what's working. And we have these conversations daily.

Do you use any specific format for that? Is it a mastermind or is it just kind of more just like people that you've met? We're in a mastermind together. Okay. And so we're kind of on the same trajectory and doing the same stuff. And so he's in Utah. I'm in Virginia.

That's great. Yeah. We just talk back and forth and say, hey, this is what I'm doing. It's working. I mean, that's awesome because you're, is he doing similar things? So like you basically you're not competing. Yeah. You're only making each other stronger. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And I, people need to realize that, um, having mentors, having people that you can talk to, uh, that you can bounce ideas off the, the thought process and the thinking that nobody knows this but me

and I can't share it with anybody is so archaic. You'll never get it. I don't think you'll get anywhere with that. Yeah. You know? Well, yeah, you'll stay in the same place. Yeah, you will.

You won't grow. If you know the answer, you can't learn. If you know that you know something, you're not going to learn anything new. That's true. You know what I say? The only thing I know positively, 100% matter of fact, absolutely

nobody can tell me anything else, is that I don't know everything. I'm always a sponge, learning, listening. Oh, what's he doing? Oh, how does that work? That's been my life. Everywhere I've been. I don't know everything.

I'm going to listen to whoever's talking. I'm going to read whatever they're reading. Understand this. I never even read books coming out of, even out of college. But as soon as I got out of college and started reading business books, I devour them.

I can't put them down because it's something I'm interested in. It's something that I like. Do you actually read physical books? Both, yes. I read and listen to audio. Yeah, audio books is the only way that I've been able to do that. Yeah, if I open a book, I think it's just the parent with young kids.

If I open a book, I will be asleep within 10 minutes. Because that's, honestly, that's how I get to sleep. But no, if I can listen to the audio book while I'm doing the dishes, while I'm doing chores around the house, while I'm just kind of like hanging around the living room to make sure that the kids are actually going to sleep, then I can, yeah, I've gotten through tons and gleaned lots of stuff what i do need to do is i need to do it with a notebook because i you know i have to go back and re-listen to you know books that i know i got great nuggets from but i just can't remember right um but yeah no i i you know i've been very fortunate with that and you variety of different podcasts. Yeah.

The amount of books that came to my bookshelf after college and the amount of audio books that I'm listening to, the one I'm listening to right now is The Creature from Jekyll Island. Oh, what's that? It's a book on the Federal Reserve, actually, and how it came to power and what it is. Yeah. And it's very interesting, very interesting. And I'm really enjoying the read

because it really clears some things up of how our country runs. Does it go back all the way to like Hamilton and Jefferson and that whole rivalry between the two? No, it starts out in the early, late 1880s. Okay.

Yeah. It starts out there. Okay. And then kind of, well, I'm only, it's a 24 hour long book and I'm like, uh, I think three and a half hours in and I've already, I'm like, holy cow. Like this is a lot. Do you, how, how quickly do you listen? Do you do like one and a half times speed? Most of them, I do one and a half times speed. I can't do one and a half times on this because there's too much thinking

about what's actually happening. The monetary terms, the names that they're using. I want to make sure I get those names right. I've got to follow the story of the weaving of the web. How is this going? Who is that guy connected to?

And if I listed at one and a half, I won't catch that. Yeah, no, I had the same. I usually try to do one and a half, but I kind of went through a phase where I was doing some of the classic novels and was listening to the Crime and Punishment. And because of all those Russian names, like I had to drop that down to like,

almost like 0.75 speed because it's just like all these names. I'm like, wait, who was Roshmaninoff? And who was this person? And honestly, I couldn't tell you who was whom now. It's been a couple of years. But at the time, I was just trying to make those connections. I had to slow it down.

That's what I have to do. But I enjoy reading it now. I enjoy the business books. I enjoy all of that. But Toby, Chris, Toby. It's okay. They enjoy all of that. But Toby. Miss Chris. Toby. It's okay. They're both first names. My middle name's a first name and a last name too. What's the middle name? Richards.

It's my grandmother's maiden name. Honestly, I've been called Sergeant Christopher. Just because of the way that your name is in different orders on military documents. Yeah. I'll respond to all of them. I your name is in different orders on military documents and whatnot. So, yeah, I'll respond to all of them.

Well, I appreciate you coming in and sharing the story with us, sharing how you share stories. And, again, tell people where they can find you. Yeah. The best way is to visit the website, tobymedia.com. Again, T-O-B-E-Y. I think there's also another media company, T-O-B-E-Y. I think there's also another media company, T-O-B-Y, but they do more, it seemed like, music videos and whatnot. And they're also in the New York area,

so if you're looking for a local videographer in the Charlottesville area, they're not going to be able to help you. Yeah. All right. Well, give him a ring. Touch base with them. Check them out on Facebook as well, LinkedIn, the website. Your phone number is on the website. They can reach out to you.

And there's a intake form on there too. So if you're interested, just fill that intake form out and hit send, and he'll get back to you. Again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I appreciate you sharing the story of everything that you've been through and the lives that you changed with the American Forces Network. That's pretty cool.

I like it. Thanks. I enjoyed my time and thanks again for having me. Absolutely. Until next time, guys. Thank you for coming to the show today and we will chat with you later.