The Ryan Hanley Show - How Kris Dehnert Built a $55M Brand Without Selling His Soul

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Join our community of fearless leaders in search of unreasonable outcomes... Want to become a FEARLESS entrepreneur and leader? Go here: https://www.findingpeak.com Watch on YouTube: https://link.ryanhanley.com/youtube Kris Dehnert Website: https://dugoutmugs.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dugoutmugs/ In this conversation, Ryan Hanley and Kris Dehnert discuss the multifaceted journey of entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, self-awareness, and understanding personal currencies. Kris shares insights from his experiences, including the significance of balancing family and business, the role of relationships in success, and strategies for audience engagement through gamification. The discussion also touches on the challenges of navigating business growth while maintaining personal values and priorities. Episodes You Might Enjoy From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delk From One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymello Is Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9 Recommended Tools for Growth OpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opus Riverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riverside Magai: All-in-One AI for Professionals: https://link.ryanhanley.com/magai Taplio • Grow Your Personal Brand On LinkedIn: https://link.ryanhanley.com/taplio Kit: Email-First Operating System for Creators (formerly ConvertKit): https://link.ryanhanley.com/kit Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9

Being a true visionary, can you see something so vividly, so clearly that everybody else around you can see it as well? If they can, now you're at a point where you can, I love to say this and people laugh, give direction, not directions. You paint this picture so clearly that they see it, feel it, taste it, hear it, and you can just back away. The micromanagement is not necessary. What you'll find is that people really flourish in an environment like that. Chris, so one of the things that I have taken away from your work and just the way that you handle yourself, Instagram channel, just looking through all your stuff, you're very authentic dude, very transparent dude, right? And you've had to come through business failures. Like you said, this is your ninth business, like, you know, ups and downs and all that shit. and I find for a lot of people, especially people that kind of reach out on the side

after a guest have like these side questions. A lot of this shit comes back to like ego status. Like I'm scared to fail because what will this person think? Or if I fail here, then I'll never get money for my next business. Or how did you working through the various ups and downs like stay yourself? Like not get caught in. I got Charlie Kirk signing my bats and athletes and, you know, all these famous celebrities, you know, and you're getting all this attention,

how do you kind of stay who you are, stay grounded in what makes you successful when you're going through all this shit? I mean, it's kind of, it's two parts, right? Number one, you've got to know who you are, right? And that comes down to just kind of reflection and being honest with yourself. I know who I am and I know I'm not. You know, I know what the shit I'll put up with and I know what I won't put up with. Right. I think like understanding the the makeup of you is important. And then really understanding that who you are and what you do are two different things, you know, because a lot of time those lines get blurred. And lastly, and probably most importantly, like, you know, I have a whole talk I do about currency, you know, and the different types of currency and not just dollars, right, but like real currency, time, experiential.

living relationship capital things like this um i think understanding what your core currencies are is super important um because like if i'll run into like you said you know the hardships in business but i'll be gaining a lot like this summer i was i was completely useless from the business standpoint but i spent i mean i partied with my kids all summer We went to Chicago, we went to the Bahamas, we went to Michigan, we went bowling like 40 times, right? Literally. And it's just like this summer I collected a currency that is really finite, you know, not the dollar bill. So I think when you realize you can accrue different currency simultaneously, you don't get so, I'm not winning or losing only, right, because I didn't make a dollar.

or 10 dollars or a million dollars you know i think that mentality saves my ass a lot how does someone determine which currencies are important to them and which aren't reflection asking themselves right you got to just you know what's important to you you know if you're if if your parent has a month left and you knew that now how important would each day be right it's just reflection man like And I got, you know, I got kind of sick when my daughter was born, about, she was about six months old and could have not been here. You know, I got sick enough where I could have had a different, you know, that alternate timeline you're talking about. I don't even know what this timeline would look like. You know, everybody I've impacted ever since 2015, right?

So it's a time, experiential living. Can I play with my friends? Am I having fun? You know, these are the questions. And that's why I got the golf company, the cigar line, the bat mug company. I still do consulting, but that's because I get to chat with cool people, you know, on cool projects and shit. Like, so, like, for me, that's kind of how I measure things anymore. And that's what I tell people other people to do, too.

It's like, oh, if you get some advice to a young entrepreneur, what would you say? I'm like, that. Figure it out sooner than later because you could be running real hard. You don't know if you're going in the right direction. That doesn't do you much good. I love this idea of understanding what currencies are important to you. Yeah. And this to me seems like a really core tenant of being able to persevere.

Because when you haven't, you know, I sold my business right at the end of 2023. And that was the first time that I like didn't know what I wanted to do next. And it's very first world problem. You know, you sell a business and now all of a sudden you're having some existential crisis. but like you know you're it's tough when you're like a doer and a builder and a creator and all of a sudden you're like looking out at the world going what do I do now like I had this thing that I did for all this time and now like you said detaching your identity from what you do and who you are it's not easy it's a daily practice it's not something oh I figured that out next check that box and it doesn't work that way you know it's just like being clean or dirty fat or skinny like it's a daily practice dude you know whatever you do consistently is going to be the outcome. So reminding yourself that, you know, I am also independent of what I do is important. Yeah, and it's when those bad days come, I just, this idea. I'm like, I'm working this idea through my head because, and through my own experience, because when you have those moments where maybe business isn't

going well, but you can, like you said, spent, not that your business isn't going well, but maybe take someone whose business isn't going well, the currency associated with that part of their life isn't what they want it to be, but they're spending more time with their kids or they're able to be the coach or whatever is important to them there or time with a spouse, partner. You know, that balancing and perspective and awareness

and that seems to me like how you get through it because otherwise you just marinate and the bad shit that's happening in your business and all of a sudden you find yourself on a habit train that's never going to get you back to where you want to be. Or just, you know, the perpetual lack of fulfillment. Yeah. You know, you're always trying to fill a cup that never really mattered if it was full or not.

What a fucking useless waste of time that would be. So, dude, talk to me. How did you get to where you are as an entrepreneur today? You got multiple businesses. They still use some consulting. Obviously, dugout mugs is blown up all over the place. I mean, anybody who's even touched baseball and sports even beyond that has seen these things, wants them. you know, et cetera, talk to us about that journey.

Because I know this isn't certainly your first business. So, so how did you get to this place? Like, how did you become the entrepreneur that you are today? Well, it starts all the way back at Gold's Gym, actually. That's where the whole journey started. And, you know, I was able to kind of learn people, you know, and the core of everything I do and all the projects I've been involved in, the wins, the losses. It all comes down to people, right? Even in a world that's so

digital and technical, it really comes down to people. And that's where I really learned people and people's skills. Now, my stepfather was the town barber. My dad was a car salesman. My mom was a solo entrepreneur before it was cool. So, like, I've been around very outgoing people my whole life, and that's a true blessing. And I actually think that's where the kids are falling off right now is the lack of interpersonal skills, right? But that's a whole other conversation. But I think that was where it started for me, was dug out, or a gold's gym. And, you know, I was, I leveraged this new website that came out called Facebook and how to talk one to many and get people to drive into the club. And I was putting up record numbers for

the state. We were winning awards for the southeastern United States for the best club. You know, I was, I was top sales 18 months in a row. I mean, there's no more room on my wall for awards, right like and and that's when I really figured out that I had a knack for for connecting with people and and sales and communicating right like really just communicating and a guy came up to me his name was Brian I always remember I was standing at the front desk and he said the owner's never going to step aside and let you have this place you've gone as far as you can go and I was oh that's a good point and I put in my two weeks and it happened to be April Fool's Day which was hilarious. And they're like, oh, ha, ha. I'm like, no, I'm serious. I'm out. I'm out. And so then I went

into real estate in 2007, 2008, right when everything was crashing. But I was flipping short sales with a buddy mind, Mike. And that's when it really kind of ramped up. I realized that I could go from knowing nothing about real estate to being a national influencer in a matter of six months. It shouldn't be like that. But what I learned in that in that time is that if my plan's better than their plan, they're going with my plan. And this is something that has carried on into several other companies, and I can explain it in a little bit, but being a true visionary, can you see something so vividly, so clearly that everybody else around you can see it as well? And if they can, now you're at a point where you can, you know, I'd love to say,

this and people laugh, give direction, not directions. And you paint this picture so clearly that they see it, feel it, taste it, hear it, and then you can just back away. And the micromanagement is not necessary. And what you'll find is that people really flourish in an environment like that, especially the newer age employees and the younger kids and the generation is coming up. The micromanagement's not cool, right? They're not feeling that as much, but if you can be this legendary visionary and have them see your vision, they can walk towards it, usually without your involvement, because I'm a huge fan of outsource, delegate, automate, replicate, right? And just get the hell out of the way. Like, I do not want to be in the way. I want to

do what I do best and then outsource the rest of it and, you know, keep that train going. So anyway, back to the real estate side of it. I started to realize that I could, I could see these visions, and I had national, guys on TV were hiring me to do online what I was doing for myself without all the credibility and recognition, right? So anyway, that's when I launched my consulting company. I had, you know, probably $50,000, $60,000 a month. I was bringing in, just telling people what to do, and it was beautiful. I loved it. And then all the technology, right, the Facebook and the Instagram, and way back when it was called Real Estate Investor.com and my

space and way back and what I identified is that these platforms gave you an opportunity to speak one to many but in a very interpersonal personal style conversation and which was my forte so then it was like okay so I just communicate and connect and whatever and I started getting these big pages um the biggest page in the world for Tim Tebow or Duck dynasty or Andrew Luck or any of these you know all I did was created a fan page for these people but because I understood how to communicate with people better than they did on their own, my pages grew bigger, faster, stronger. And then I was like, oh, so now I controlled seven million fans I had at one point. And it's like, so what do you guys want to buy? And they started telling me. I was like,

okay. So I go over to the resources. I'm like, hey, I'm sourceding this. And then I got into the print on demand t-shirt world back in like 2013, 2013, something like that. There was a brand that came out. It was called T-Spring. I'll give them a shout-out, even though they screwed me over. But I got on T-Spring, and we ended up doing like $20 million in sales and on-demand T-shirts, never, no inventory, no nothing, using OPM, other people's money to pay for it all. It was kind of dreamy. And then I got into physical products. And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. And we made a bunch of money and then I lost money. I was in the cannabis space. I was in a restaurant I was anywhere I could literally burn money into ashes that's what I got involved in and you know

and if we're talking about actual application of thoughts like from an investment standpoint now one of my first first checkboxes is can I impact this deal positively using my skill set or my network if not I don't invest right and that has served me pretty well and I've stopped burning money to death and you know one thing led to another and you know I got sick in 2015 and I came out the other side of that with a completely different mindset we could dig into that later if you want to but but then I came out it for the sake of time I'm gonna shorten it and I came out of that and I met a guy named Randall who invented a baseball bat mug right and to me this was the same

as a t-shirt it was a blank canvas that I could put something on and And I told Randall, he was like, oh, I need you to invest. I'm like, I got no money. I burned it all, basically. I just got done being sick and almost dead. Like, I can't do that. But what I can do is I can take this thing for a ride. So if you want to quit your job, call me back.

And we'll partner up and, you know, chop the company. And we took it from 60 or 70,000 in sales. So we're over 55 million now selling bat mugs, right? So that's a sped up version of 15 years. but that's kind of how we got here. I want to dig into this idea of like, so you said something that I found very intriguing. One of the ways that you started to leverage an audience

and build an audience and a distribution mechanism was by creating fan pages for companies that weren't paying you. Is that the idea? So you would pick a celebrity influencer brand, etc., create a fan page for it, grow an audience, and then dig into that audience for products that they could potentially want associated with that that you could create? Is that the block?

Kind of, yeah. So what I looked at is it's, I call it data harvesting, right? What, if I put something out there for, let's say, Duck Dynasty, because that's the picture on my wall over here, a picture or a gift I got from them. So it's like if I get, if I put that out there, who is the demographic, right? I always try to dig a few layers deeper. Who's going to follow that page? We know the demographic that's going to follow that page more likely.

Christian, more likely older, more likely certain interests and things like that. So what I did is I would post with purpose. I would post things that would gauge or where I could gauge interest. You know, everything was a test for me. If I posted a certain design with a verse on it from the Bible. And people really resonated with that. I was like, immediately like, hey, what do you all think if I put this on a shirt? you know it was it was this ab testing instant right because you're using social media and um the

the the fans for like sports are way more um predictable on they're only buying when their team's winning for the most part we know the type of stuff they're going to get and it's really just aggregating all this data right because i don't look sophisticated but i'm a data guy i really lean into data as much as I can, and you've got to trust it, right? So that's what we did a lot of with these pages. We tried to understand who's following, why they're following, what they're following for. And then what I did is kind of a 2.0 of that. I use gamification a lot. And you're familiar with gamification? Yes. Yeah. So I loved it, right? Even something as simple as you post two pictures and now with AI, oh my God, like this would, what a dream that would

have been back then where I could take a picture and say, hey, I come up with five differences in this picture and duplicate the picture here. That post, you put it out there and say, sue the first person to guess all five. Well, all we're doing was manipulating the algorithm, right? So all this engagement, people staying on the picture, zooming in and out, commenting, man, and it would just manipulate the algorithm to a point where every time we would post, time we do anything, there's so much engagement that the organic sales and traffic were just through the roof. And, you know, then we did games where the first person to comment five times in a row win something. Well, then there's people commenting 10 times a second, right? And it's just

I mean, with 40, 50,000 comments. What does that do the algorithm of Facebook or Instagram? Right? It was amazing. So I started again because I felt like I understood people and why they were there what they were there for and god forbid they win i got to give them something worth like 10 or 20 bucks yeah right but what did i get in return you know from a from a growth standpoint and then uh yeah so that that's kind of what we did with the pages but ultimately i always post with purpose because i'm not i'm not here to the the vanity metrics are useless oh i have 10 million followers it's like dude how much money did those 10 million people make you right that's a real number right and from a business standpoint when you're looking at bottom line, vanity metrics aren't on the

spreadsheet, you know. Where did this idea come from? Like how did you, like this fan page business? Because again, and I'm not, I'm not interested just in the fan page side. I know a lot of people, like so many people today, so many owners, this is where they get stuck, dude. Like the stuff that you're describing, the second level stuff that you're describing, not the tactics of the page,

but the stuff that I'm really interested in is, is this idea of thinking through, like your Duck Dynasty example, right? Developing a fan page for Duck Dynasty because you understand the demographics associated with that brand and know then you can find ways to add value and ultimately extract it as a business. Like that's a level, that's a second level thinking

where most people stop at, I need to find something I like and create a faceless fan page because I was told that they make $5,000 a month from wherever, right? Like, they get caught in the surface. What are some of these second-level ideas, like data harvesting, like trying to gamify things that you found work over and over and over again or continue to work today? Gameification and reverse engineering, right? Like, so number one, something you just said, people think, well, stop, because that does not matter. What you think is so irrelevant. Like, it doesn't matter at all.

You could have an idea, but that's it. And then you put it out there and you get real-world feedback. You know, Mr. Wonderful, take the dog out back and shoot it, right? Take it behind the barn, man, sometimes. But, like, you got to rely on feedback. And actually, that's what happened with Randall. When he gave me the mug, I was like, that's kind of goofy, I think. But he's, like, carried around for a week.

Took me like three days. I carried it around. I was like, all right, dude, you're right. I was wrong. Let's go. Right. Thank God I was. I wasn't chock full of ego at this time. Or I were like, no, that's stupid. And I know everything. Right. And walked away. I would have missed out on a tremendous opportunity. So gamification. And I feel like gamification for interaction is always going to be relevant. And I think it comes down to a couple of things. It's the average person's mentality when they're scrolling through social media. They're sheep, right? And I hate to be so blunt about it, but it's what it is. They're sheep. They have an attention span of a housefly, right?

It's like, you got four seconds. If you made them laugh, and even in the post, if it says, share, if you laughed, like they're that basic they're like oh i laughed chair right and it just starts going viral and then but all pages are different so you have to try different things um all audiences are different you have to try different things and and once you find something that works you do more of that thing it's not rocket science right and then the reverse engineering piece of it is kind of start with the end in mind right i know that's obvious but that's important And, you know, what is the metric you're measuring by here?

Like, what do you consider a success and then what does that look like when with here's the, here's the end? Well, then if I need success, I need 10 people to buy something. And if 10% of people engage and I need to get a hundred, right? Like, it just kind of back it out. And then it kind of at least helps you put the, the rails in place, you know, the infrastructure a little bit. this stuff takes a lot of discipline right because what happens is anything we're doing does yeah you just throw up you know i got to be active today so i throw some nonsense post up and i've been guilty at this probably times too and what and what i do and you get it up there

and you get that little dopamine hit of oh i was active today i put something on my page nothing happens you get one comment nothing you know what i mean and then you just rinse and repeat the next day. So I completely agree everything worth doing takes discipline. But when you're running multiple organizations or you're trying to run multiple pages or you're doing like how do you personally stay committed to these things? Like is it just having a North Star? Do you have a system? Do you have a process? Like you have a lot of things going on, right? You're responsible for different decisions in your business. As much as you say you outsource, automate, et cetera. How do you stay disciplined and through these decisions to make sure that you're not just being active for active stake

and you're actually continuing to do the things that push the ball up the mountain. Well, if you take a look at my business pages right now, you will see that they are not being attended to. And that comes down to the fact of the hierarchy of importance. It's not important for me to be doing that right now. It's more important for me to be fixing the gears within my company with things like tariffs, with things like labor, with things like cost of goods increase with the things like the economy doing weird stuff right like so in fact that's you know i'm living that you know you will see that it is not the most important thing i need to be focusing on so i don't do it right now would things work better if i did sure right but i but when i only have

so much time in a day and in my world money's not always the north star right i dropped my kids off at school this morning they started back right i'm going to pick them up from school today right like so there's other things that are more important to me and and if it's that or post on social media well social's just going to be it's going to be crickets for a bit right now on my personal stuff which is more private there's it's consistent you know consistent on there because that's where i share my world with my very close circle and in you know until i can do it better on social or put somebody in place to do it better on social the way i would want to do it done we're just going to let it let it idle um but yeah i mean how do you stay dead and i see now

if you go back to when i have pages that was my business right like that was like that was the point so we had we had meetings and i think digitally and this is something for the listeners too is like digital you know the whole world went digital and people treated it as like a side hustle or just a digital thing. We had meetings. We had designer meetings. We had creative meetings. We had ad meetings for ad spend and things like that.

You have to treat it like a business. If you don't have the discipline to work from home, I've been working from home over 10 years, way before it was cool, right? I had the discipline to do that. A lot of people don't. And you have to understand that, and that comes down to self-reflection.

If you can't do something the right way, you know, that's not the way you need to do it. Yeah. So anyway, that's a lot of answers to the question, but. No, I think it's good stuff, man. I mean, I think your point on the hierarchy of importance. I'd like to dig into, because one, I think this idea of a hierarchy importance is incredibly is important because what hierarchy of importance is important.

You can tell my brain to mouth is working really well today. So, because this is essentially, right. strategy, which is prioritization. And what, you know, I think a lot of people look at you and from your business from the outside and say, well, shit, he's got a physical product company. He's selling these these mugs. You know, he's got to be active on social. He's got to be driving new leads. He's got to be driving new traffic. You know, and they would get caught up in, and okay. So if someone's listening to this and they're, and they're, they're kind of latched on to this idea of a hierarchy of importance, not necessarily your hierarchy, but how do they think through

the things in their business to understand how to create it for themselves, right? I think people get lost in this. They get lost in what they feel like they should do versus what they actually need to be doing and don't necessarily have a plan for figuring out what that is, as crazy as it might sound. Yeah. And then it's, and then the whole plan is just we're going to try to make more money than we spend. Yes. And that's not scalable. It's doable.

It's not scalable. And it's not fun. I would say, you know, reflection, man. It's reflection. And I know what I'm not good at. I know what I'm really good at. I know what I'm not good at. I know what I like and I know what I don't like.

And you've got to be really clear about this. I mean, I'm a 290-pound guy. Why am I not out there jumping hurdles? Probably because I'm not going to get it. over it right like maybe i shouldn't be a running hurdles and that's and that's what a lot of people do like i've seen some of the worst sales pitches on earth coming out of some founder's mouth i'm like dude you don't need to talk to people in public like you're horrible at it um you did yourself a disservice just now so so like my point is it's like if you're not good at sales don't sell if you're not

good at public speaking get the hell off the stage you know find somebody who who, you know, is your, the puzzle pieces, you know. And now there's times I'm not, you know, I'm not foolish. I realize that at the beginning of a business, you are, you know, you wear all the hats. You're the janitor. You're the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, you know, and the salesman. But it has to be very short-lived, in my opinion. You have to be very clear on what you stand for, what you don't stand for, what you're good at,

what you're not good at, what you like, what you hate. I hate numbers. hate the bean counting, right? Like, I want to be the visionary. I want to be involved in the sales, the marketing, the promotion. Put me on TV. You know, I'll fly up to New York and be on Fox and Friends. Put me on, you know, World News Tonight, right?

Like, that's where I belong, front man. And the, I don't go, I haven't been to the warehouse in like weeks, right? I was in, you know, hanging out with the kids and Bahamas and all over the place. Weeks. I don't belong there. I'm not good there. I just get in the damn way. So I think, you know, on a smaller scale when people are getting started, you still have to understand these things about yourself

and try to avoid those lanes as best you can. Yeah, we talk about it in my company. We talk about it is Zone of Genius. And the company that I'm currently running, I started actually as an angel and board member. And these guys were great technical founders, There's very, very nerdy, smart, top of their industry, top of what they do. As much as I love them, the death couldn't sell their way out of a box.

And, you know, what ended up happening was, you know, to this conversation of Zone of Genius, I'm raising capital, business development, visionary. They are ones and zeros, dotted eyes, cross-tease guys. And, you know, we had a very long conversation around, look, like, the operations of the business are a mess. The product itself is fucking amazing. But the product is never going to get in the hands of your customers. If this operationally, there's no pipes connected.

You know what I mean? Like we, this is a problem. And when we move them out of, you know, operational leadership over into the technical side, where now all they had to do every day was wake up and operate in their zone of genius. and I stepped in and took over an operational role as the president running day to day. Now all of a sudden the last three months we've seen, you know, we've seen this massive uptick. To your point, it took, and I give them incredible props, you know, very proud of them for making the decision to say, you know, it's a tough decision to say like, I'm going to step out of operations as the founder, you know, the person who came up with the idea for the company in the first place to step aside. but it's again, it's just aligning.

They had the self-awareness to know this is not what I'm good at. Like, I don't see the deals. I don't see the connections. I don't see how to get from this point, but I can make the ones and zeros do shit that no one else can do. Right.

And like, I think for a lot of people out there, these are conversations we have to have. We can't avoid these conversations. That ends up happening that I see in a lot of dysfunctional companies and I'm interested in your take two is like everybody sees, a move like this, but no one actually talks about it. No one is willing to bring up this topic

of, you know, I know, founder, CEO, COO, whatever, you're very good at this one thing or this technical skill. You're destroying our sales process because you don't have a clue. Like, you know, let's talk about how we take that off your hands. And without that, like your reflection and self-awareness, man, this is how you crash on the side of a mountain. You could have the most amazing product you crash inside of a mountain because as you said people aren't reflecting and they're not self-aware of what their zone of genius is yeah well and and and and i can't tell you how many different levels of ego i've run into over the years yeah the whole your ego is not your amigo i love what i heard that but that's the truth you know um that's that's you know i was a

victim of that too and and uh you know life got shook up a little bit and the older you get the smarter you get. It's funny how that works. And, you know, do you want to be right or do you want to be rich? You know, I choose rich. Yeah. Yeah. That's our internal mantra is it's not about getting it right. It's not about being right. It's about getting it right. That's it. We don't, we don't know egos. That doesn't matter who finds the solution. It doesn't help. It doesn't help. You need to be able to marry. and I'm interested how you do this, like I do find you have to have some sort of ego slash ambition to create something and to make it bigger, right? Like that drive has to be there. But that has to be

for the growth in ambition of the company, not your personal ego. And I find it's very hard for people to detach the ego associated with ambition, drive, pushing forward, growing the business with their specific expertise, credit, et cetera, associated with that growth. That feels like a very hard thing to disconnect. Was it your health scare? Was it, you know, what allowed you to start, you know, because you said you had ego issues earlier in your career, like what allowed you to detach from that and continue to push forward and be that driven visionary leader while removing the, or, you know, embracing the humility that it takes to actually move a company forward?

yeah when you lose everything or almost everything it kind of puts it in check i remember a long time ago my password on my on my computer was the kid can't miss what an asshole right so like that's uh that that was my uh that was my belief now i've never had an issue with confidence um and confidence and arrogance a walk really close together so i think I, when I started understanding, you know, reorganizing my, you know, priorities and what was important and what was not important, right? Like, impressing other people is, I could give two shits, man. Like, I really don't care. And being somebody that my kids grow up and be proud, their dad, that matters.

And I think, you know, just that times 50, like in all these different areas. and then also, you know, understanding now where, you know, some of the guys in my organization are young, I realize the impact that I'm going to have on the world by helping other people succeed and excel is awesome. And again, it's a different mentality before. It's, you know, I'm going to be judged by how well I did. And now it's I'm going to be judged by how many people I helped along the way. And because of that, it's allowed me to build a pretty astounding network because I do so authentically.

You know who you're getting. Sometimes you like it. Sometimes you don't. Either way, I'm fine. But I operate that way now versus, you know, what's in it for me every time all the time. because that's just it's just it doesn't serve you really long term man and yeah the health scare with you know when 2015 that certainly um put put things in check yeah yeah so dugout mugs doing 55 million happy with that growing it like what are your plans how do you continue to leverage i mean

you've the celebrities the athletes the you know the individuals who've had custom mugs done i mean I see pictures of them shared all over the place. You talked about being on all these different shows. And like, is there a next phase? Like, do you want to take this to a whole other level? Are you at a place where it's like growth can happen organically? You know, where are you with the business? And what's the next steps for you?

Well, it's a little over 55 million since 2017 when we started. Yep. Right. And we doubled year every year. Every year. And then we peaked a few years ago and then started coming back down. And for multiple reasons. But we hit, we were Inc. 5,000 three years in a row.

Yeah. Which was awesome. But, you know, it, you know, a friend of mine, Jason, mentioned something. And it always stuck with me because it was simple but powerful. And it's not what it makes you. It's what it costs you. And when you really look at this, like right now I'm at a place where if the company only does $5 million, $7 million, $8 million, $10 million, sub 10 million. I think sub 10, and then we just focus on, like, I'm happy, like, I just blew the whole summer with my kids.

You know, we were everywhere, going everywhere, doing everything, you know, four-hour train rides and different states and cruises to the Bahamas, whatever we want, right? And nothing really, they didn't need me for anything. Like, if I can work for 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week, and. And all my bills are paid. I live in a big, nice house, great neighborhood, tons of friends. I'm going to, you know, celebrity events and baseball games and World Series and Stanley Cups. And, like, how I measure success now is different. You know, I don't need to be tens of millions of dollars stacked up all over me, you know.

If it happens, great, you know, but that's not the number one priority. It really, really isn't. I want to have all that I need, you know, I don't need all that I want. right i don't need that that that's the ego so that's the vanity side of it in my opinion um and some people get caught up in that and you know maybe that's their journey i don't know but for me with dug out and the growth of dug out um some international distribution we're playing with that there's a couple companies some product companies that are uh there's a lot of synergy so maybe rolling up some of that stuff um you know currently i own 92 percent of the company so

that's a great number and I can make a lot of unique decisions I own a golf company as well big golf and I recently brought that into the into the warehouse because of the equipment we own you could print on the golf balls so corporate gifting golf balls right and again like I'm just trying to find other things that have synergy that fit our our model and it fits our vibe and you know that kind of stuff you know there's a couple really cool companies and products out there that make a lot of sense so probably pulling those under the under the umbrella um continuing to be extremely present for my kids while they're young two kids under 10 that's more important than anything we're doing here like in anybody that thinks otherwise you best of luck with that

but i understand you know for me that's super important um yeah it's self-development, you know, reading more. I know this isn't really the answer to your question, but it is too, you know. So dug out, as long as it continues to serve me and grow and take care of the people that are making it run, it's, you know, it's doing what it's supposed to do. And if somebody shows up and wants it more than I do, we'll have that conversation. I think it's a perfect answer because it goes all the way back to how we started talking about the currency that's important to you in your life and what you just described was your breakdown of

at this moment in your life the currencies are the most that are most important it's your relationships it's your standard of life the experiences you're able to share with your family etc and i think that that's a wonderful perspective because so many of the shows that especially younger kids listen to and these influencers they listen to push push grow grow grow if you're not standing next to the or the Ferrari or the Porsche or whatever bullshit they're looking at you know it's it's this constant state of and you talked about it like a lack of fulfillment like no matter how much they have right there's this there's a sense of being unfulfilled and what I hear from you not just in the words that you're saying but literally the tone of your voice your body language um the way you're

speaking is a sense of understanding what creates fulfillment of your life and a reorientation towards that and and I agree I mean I made it very clear when I took over over the president position of Linkora that my kids are my number one prior. I'm in the golden years too. I got 11 and 9 year old boys. They both play baseball. I coach both of them.

They play other sports, right? Like going to their games, being present for them, picking them up from school. My wife and I are divorced, ex-wife. So the days that I have them, I want to be there. I don't wanna be missing those days, et cetera. So like, you know, this part of, this time period is so important

because they're gonna hit 13, 14 years old. and no matter how good a parent you are, they're going to have their own life, right? And when you invite them to do things, they're going to be like, well, dad, you know, Johnny and Tommy are doing this or Sally, you know, whatever, I don't know if you got boys or girls, but like they're going to have these things

that they want to go do that aren't necessarily just go hang out with dad and dad and mom. And I think it's very unfortunate when you hear people who miss those years and they look back and they're like, I wish I had spent this time or I wish I had been more present or I would have loved to have coached, but my job wouldn't let me, you know,

I couldn't. And it's like, it's not your job that stopped you from doing those things. You know what I mean? You chose the job or stayed at the job that kept you from doing those things. And it's why I just love this idea of understanding the currencies that deliver the most value to you. I'm going to, I'm going to dig in and reflect on that a little more. It's incredibly powerful. So, well, because they, they operate and like, if you think of just the word currency, right? And I mentioned this in other chats, but currency, it's a current. It just flows, right? And it's never yours. You just have a turn with it. Money. Same way. It's never yours. You just have a turn with it. It's just a current. And all these currencies like flow

simultaneously. Every day you have time. Every day you have experiences. Every day you have money. Every day you have fulfillment. Every day you can you can choose happiness. Like all these these are all currencies, right? You can't go into a store. and buy shit with happiness, okay? I get that, but these things are all flowing at the same time. Chris, you buy peace of mind with that. So like, so to your point,

right. Yes, that, that's, that, that is such a crucial point that you just made there. And I apologize for interrupting, but I want to make sure the audience caught it, was that you, you can buy the house or the second house or go on the vacation with money. You can buy that with that currency,

but you can't buy peace of mind with money. You're not getting, piece of my own money. Well, and in relationship capital, it's extremely valuable when you truly care to connect with other people and bring them value in a way that they, what's valuable to them and really, like, you know, I see these networking events and you show up and you just talk and wait for your turn to, you're listening with the intent to reply, not to shut the hell up and listen, right? And a lot of times you'll realize that you can be extremely valuable to this person. They may just they may be having a really hard time with their spouse and they needed somebody to talk like

there's different values right it's not always monetary and I think that's the reflection point like what other if I took money away what else is valuable that I have or that I need right and then and then you can start to see these you know think about like the matrix right you can start to see those types of things floating around you and you're like oh I can today suck financially but you know what I could really pack this bank account full of time you know or whatever whatever it is So there's a lot of young in entrepreneurship individuals who listen to the show. And surprisingly, a lot of second career entrepreneurs, right? First half of their career was in the corporate world, got fed up for this or that reason.

Maybe it's a quality of life. Maybe it's more time with kids. And now they're either exploring or have just started entrepreneurship. That was actually a pretty key insight that we got out of a little survey we did about six months ago. So talking to that specific group. If you, you know, they, they stand in front of you, whatever the business is it is, right? And they kind of give you the open-ended question, like, hey, I'm just getting going. I need to take care of my family.

Because this is the key, this is the key issue that they find, right? They're not 22 coming in with zero expense, right? Or they can't couch surf or live in a cot in a fucking gym for six months. You know what I mean? Like, I love Ramosi's story and the shit that he shares is great and there's literally nothing against him but the whole like go sleep in a cot in your business for six months thing doesn't really work for people who have a family or a kid right so like so this group of individuals who feels who wants to have the entrepreneur life has an idea etc but is dealing with

the pressure of i also have like a real life i have a spouse that i need to work with that take care of the family and i want to have a relationship with kids etc how does that particular individual well, what can you tell them to kind of get them off the ground? Is there any, like, key insight that you have to help them or just, I know it's a very open-ended to go wherever you, wherever your mind takes you, but that person is struggling today, and there are a lot of them, and I'm very interested in where you would take them. Yeah, my mind goes all over the place, right? Like, there's, one of the things that popped into my head was, you know, you don't

lose until you quit. You can be losing, but you don't, you don't. So it's a, it's about outlasting the problems, right? Like, you know, how stubborn are you? And realize you don't deserve this. You have to fucking go get it. Like, you don't just deserve it because you woke up and you think you do. Like, you still got to go get it.

You know, and if you're scared of work or you want a bitch about it or you're going to try something just long enough to complain and then quit, like that's a problem. and it's going to be a perpetual problem it doesn't just stop at the first one right so it's like it's about commitment and and but if you bring it all the way back you have to start with like the the why right like the reflection point why am i doing it because a lot of them and i was guilty of this and that's why i know oh i'm doing it for my family it sounds good right it's a great excuse to kick to your wife so you can just fuck off and do whatever you're doing. But the truth is

when I really started thinking, you know, at the beginning of this summer, I just bought my partner out a year and a half ago. This is not the time for me to just check out for 90 days, dude, but you know what? I made a commitment that this summer was going to be that summer. We sat over our neighbor's house having a cocktail and we was laughing about it. We're like, dude, let's do it. This summer. This is the summer. And we went ham, right? It was a commitment. and the pain you know what do they say like when the pain

of experience something becomes greater than the pain of fixing it then you'll make the change or something along those lines you get it figured out look it up Google right but but what it was like what did it

what did it for me is is I don't miss nothing bro and I like to the point where Fox asked me to come up to New York live up there at Fox and Friends and go live with the mugs and I said look I got to dance with my daughter this afternoon. If I can get a red eye when I'm done dancing, I will be there in the

morning. And I did. And I did. And it worked and we crushed, right? But that, how many people would bail on that for that opportunity? A lot. I refused. I wouldn't do it. I said, if I can do this, that's going to happen. And that led me to three more times live on air and twice on World News Tonight. Over a million dollars in revenue from that one decision but I wouldn't going to do it if I if I couldn't do the daddy daughter dance that was more important to me and when you really reflect on that like what's more important to you and and not just say it because it sounds good right I think that's that's part of that preliminary setup and reflection dude that's like a dagger shot for me because I made that mistake too I uh when my

speaking career first took off I thought I was the big swinging dick and oh my god here we go and I'm getting all these inquiries and five to 10 grand of pop. And I'm like, this is another level. You know, I grew up poor as shit. So all of a sudden, this is, this was like my first real. The main metric is money, dude. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was the first real like ramp where I was like, oh my God,

each one of these is a jump, a jump, a jump, a jump, making more money than I ever made before. And dude, I'm on the road. And this isn't even a lot for some speakers. I was, I did 47 gigs in one year with it, with a three and a one year old at home. doing it for my family. That's what I would say.

Come home and I'd be like, babe, I'm doing this for us. I'm doing this for, I just, I take these checks. They're not even mine. I literally just hand them to you and you put them in the fucking bank account. You know what I mean? Like, I'm doing this for you. And she's going, yeah, except like, I want you here.

Like, if you were doing it for me, you'd be here because that's where I want you, like with the family, not out on the road. Like, and it was just me, Dude, when you said that, it was like, literally, I just lived that life. And I remember, like, her sitting me down one day and going, Disney, like, I know you love doing this, but if this shit doesn't change, we got a big, big problem. And we did end up getting divorced later on for different reasons. Not we fixed that problem.

I listened to her and dialed it back. But, but, dude, I think that's, I think this excuse of I'm doing it for my family, I'm doing it for my kids. This is such a whitewashing excuse for. bad behavior, for bad habits, for a lack of discipline. I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah. Well, and so after I took, I bought my partner out of the company 18 months ago, that very first, it was Black Friday, Cyber Monday. If you knew anything about e-com, that's where it's happening, right? And I said, you know what, I got to stay back. I couldn't go to North Carolina with them for Thanksgiving. And I saw those pictures of them up there doing that,

and I wasn't there. Yeah. dude, that sucked. That sucked. And so then when this summer came, it's like, summer's like barren. And that's what I need to create and do and whatever. I was like, you know what, fuck this. I'm not doing it.

I'm not going through that again. And so some, it's a practice, right? Like these thoughts are a daily practice, like taking a shower to stay clean. Like, you've got to, you know, and it's on my wall. I'm not going to, and my computers are here, but it's on my wall there. It's over there. it's on my desktop it's on my phone like i guarantee you every time i turn my phone on it's my little one you know it's what it is and and it's a daily reminder and it's i got fucking posted notes over here

don't forget this don't forget that alex is helping me out you know so um i i think i think the you know if you take one thing away it's it's start understanding where you want to end up and how you want to get there and and i feel like time and money and control these are illusions you know you can only control the things you can control and and i feel like the sooner you can get a grip on because again it's a practice but you can get a grip on the direction you're going because some people like you said you what if what if what what you decided early was where you wanted to be but your ass is running that way like you're just getting further and further and further away from it and then you're past

a point of no return and it's like well this is what i've done for you know i'm I've sold cars for 30 years. What am I going to do with myself now? It's like, bro, you, I don't know, you wanted to be a teacher. You knew that from the beginning, right? So I think, you know, the whole chase the happy, not the money. It's a great question, you know, write it down. I mean, like we're visual.

We see, we hear, we think, you know, start touching on these senses and understand who you are a little better and then realize where that person wants to go. and also who needs to be in your life to get there because I outgrew a lot of people man not because they were bad people they just weren't right for me and and that's real that's real because you end up spending your time with

and your thoughts with and you're in an eco you're just an echo chamber of just like dumbass comments about money doesn't grow on trees but it sure it does right like we can manifest almost anything and it's like you know you get what I'm saying like you can't be you can't grow one of the dude I just did a post

about this the other day on LinkedIn I loved it being a millionaire because I'm a millionaire yeah right whatever but it's like being a millionaire when I was a kid in my 20s and the kids in their 20s you're still a kid trust me I was there I get it now and reflecting back you can see it a little more clearly but when I was a kid it was like I want to be a millionaire because then I can go where I want do what I want with who I want, whatever. But what the prize really was was growing to be a person who could be a millionaire. And that realization was really cool. And I think I compared it to a balloon.

When you blow up a balloon, as big as it can go, hold it for like five minutes and let it go. It'll never get as small as it once was because it's expanded. And that's how we are. That's how our brains are. that's how our once once i know i can do a million dollars in a day in sales bro i can never unknow that right to for someone to think they can make 10,000 dollars in a month is so baffling that they can't even understand how that works because they're living on you know peanuts but it's just it comes down to uh belief once you once you expand you can never

unexpanned, right? Like you never shrink back to that person who had those small thoughts and those small actions and those small friends. And yeah, that's, that's really been kind of the second or third stage of my life that I've been enjoying a great deal. And I try to get other people to get there sooner than later because it's really refreshing. Chris, this has been phenomenal. I could go for another three hours. I have like a million more questions. You're phenomenal entrepreneur. I got all these quotes in here that you just I love your insights I love the way you frame things people who want to get deeper into your world not necessarily through dugout mugs but just your thoughts what you do is there a place where you capture any of these ideas that people

can follow along where would you send them LinkedIn is probably the only public uh social media I have man um dugout with the companies though with dugout mugs and big golf I mean they are a of who we are, how we think, what we do, how we operate, and if people want to see it in motion, that's where we are. That's what we do. We make cool stuff. We love on people. You know, we got, you know, like Jesse Cole owns the Savannah Bananas, fantastic human. And I will always give him props because he's so good at what he does, and he's so good at who he is. And, like, you know, follow, I follow him and try to learn on a daily basis because sometimes we get in a rut, And seeing somebody else do something that we know is in our, you know, are we in alignment?

Like I'm very much in alignment with him and several others, right? But, you know, Jesse, I just saw a video from him this morning. You know, just try to surround yourself by, you know, by people, with people that are, you feel alignment with, right? And, you know, I spent some time on LinkedIn, but dug out, you know, that's us. That's who we are and what we do. There's no facade, right? and yeah but I you know the consulting stuff I still do that from time to time it has to be a cool

project you know again when we talk about metrics the check boxes do I like you right is this going to be fun or is it going to suck can I leverage my network to make this better can I play with my friends you know are you a good owner operator do you listen are you have an ego like are you gonna so you know it's it's cool and then you find somebody that checks all these boxes that's how i get into these companies yeah it's because i i put it together and you know 90 days in 120 you know i don't go more than like 90 days anyway because i fixed all the crap i can fix and then send them on their way but sometimes it's like pretty cool little company i'd have a lot of fun doing this what do you think right and then i get involved that's how i got dug out and big golf yeah i love it man i appreciate you

i appreciate you taking the time with us uh this has been phenomenal We should dug out and everything you're doing, nothing but success, my friend. Putting good vibes out there, buddy. You bet.