Selling, Growing, and Moving
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In this episode, I chat with Jeff Arnold from the Armstrong Company about his unique path through retail sales, tech, cannabis consulting, and eventually landing in the world of professional moving. Jeff opens up about lessons learned from early jobs, why he keeps gravitating toward sales, and how becoming a dad reshaped his priorities. We dive into the wild economics of cannabis, what it’s like selling complex moving services, and why building trust and relationships matters more than any sales tactic.
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Jeff’s Background 00:00:38
• Starting in retail at RadioShack and learning commission sales early
• Studying economics at UC Santa Cruz and developing a big-picture thinking approach
• Stints in tech, marketing agencies, and various consulting gigsEntrepreneurial Lessons in Cannabis 00:06:00
• Entering the cannabis space during a period of rapid industry change
• The economic realities of legalization, oversupply, and commoditization
• Consulting on everything from manufacturing SOPs to agricultural efficiencyReturning to Sales and Finding Stability 00:19:26
• The impact of health, marriage, and fatherhood on career choices
• Building transferable skills across industries, including supply chain, product development, and brand strategyLife at the Armstrong Company 00:29:16
• Selling residential, commercial, and specialized moving services
• The importance of taking responsibility end-to-end in complex moves
• Comparing DIY moves vs. full-service moves—and what’s worth the premiumThe Heart of Sales 00:39:40
• What keeps Jeff coming back to sales: relationships, puzzle-solving, long-term growth
• Sales as a lens for understanding people and building professional momentum
• Advice for those struggling to find joy or sustainability in their sales careersBooks & Inspiration 00:47:36
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander: a must-read for perspective on systemic inequality
• Using quantitative analysis to bridge ideological dividesFinal Reflections 00:51:50
• Billboard message: “Be nice to someone today”
• The power of empathy, small gestures, and assuming the best in others
• How being kind costs nothing—and can change everything
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Jonathan Mahrt (A):
This is on the Flywheel, a podcast where each week we talk to entrepreneurs and professionals about the practical things they do to build and keep momentum in their personal and professional lives. Hello and welcome to on the Flywheel. My name is Jonathan Mart of Flywheel Consulting. I'm very excited to have on the podcast today Jeff Arnold of the Armstrong Company. He does corporate sales there and I'm excited to chat with him and get to know him a little bit better and see what makes them successful. So welcome, sir.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Thank you for having me, Jonathan. I appreciate it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, no, no problem. So the way I always like to start is to give people a little. Have you give people a little bit of your background and kind of how you got to where you are today from kind of a professional and personal level.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Sure. So out of high school, I went to work, just retail. Went to work at Radio Shack in the mall.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And I would do one of those. It's like, I needed job. I'm going to put on a nice shirt and bring a resume and let's just go door to door in the mall. There's 30 retailers here. How can you go wrong? And they signed me up. It turned out to be a commissionable sales position. I was selling contracts for cell phones that required doing some like actually pulling credit checks. And so you're asking for some in depth information from people that just happen to walk in. And I was able to be pretty successful there. I actually made good money on commissions for the time. Right. Being 19 in fresh high school, I was on that track for a couple years where it's like, okay, now we want to make you an assistant manager. And I'm watching what my manager does. I'm like, you work 50% more hours than me and you're getting paid less than me as a salesperson. Like, my job is cushy in comparison. So given that there wasn't really a sales track to make it a career, unless you're like top five in the company, which is a huge grind. And even then it's. There's a lot better paying work out there. And then the management track was just like, okay, you're going to sacrifice for five to 10 years to hopefully get.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
On like classic kind of corporate America. Just, just grind.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It was still a great job, but I just, I didn't see a trajectory there. So I decided, well, I will go to college. How about that? Yeah. So I went to UC Santa Cruz as a freshman because I just taken that gap and it ended up being a really good experience in terms of Getting what I will call like a framework or a toolkit. I was an economics major. At the end of it I did some other stuff first, but I changed to become an economics major. And since then it's been a really helpful lens when I'm dealing with something at work, when I'm trying to figure out an interpersonal interaction, when I'm trying to look at, okay, where should I be thinking about for the next few years and terms of what the political environment is or what the likelihood is of an industry going one way or the other. It's not a certain thing, but it's a helpful way of looking at what are the incentives in play in a quantitative way and what are the interests from there and what are the tools available. And that is a much different picture than arguing about any particular term, any specific policy. And it translates also into an opportunity for business success. I come in, I'm very much a big picture thinker. The downside is that's often not the role. And if you're an independent contributor it's like that's great that you get the big picture, but that's.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
I need you to, I need you to just like have the tactical nuts and bolts here.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah. So came out of college, went into another commission sales role selling cables and cable assemblies, high speed data cables in the data centers and stuff. So again, kind of in a tech space. There is a theme there. I grew up coding my own websites in HTML off of Microsoft Word, save to HTML, then take it into notepad and paintbrush. All the classics, all the hits. I had kind of a context for tech and did that job for a couple years. Ended up feeling like I had a stress related health condition condition. I mean not just feeling it realized I had it backed off and it's like I don't know if I can work in an office or for a person. I what am I going to do? I got to figure out consulting and it'll be a 1099. And so, you know, I worked on some startups with friends. They didn't work out but they were really good learning experiences ultimately. It's one of those where in retrospect the amount of money that was not exactly wasted but put into an effort that didn't come to fruition was so much less money than I would have easily sent after a losing proposition in the future. Like you know, orders of magnitude worse potential for loss in the future.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
For having been burned in the past, so to speak on a smaller transaction like or not even interact transaction. But you Know, just endeavors with friends and it helps to temper expectations in term and like, help temper that naivety. Right?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So those were kind of like the very broad category, you know, all these different individual consulting things. I landed at a marketing agency doing research. They, you know, do. Their big account was very. In medical. Right. So relatively high end research. And you know, these are like cancer treating equipment, targeted 3D radiation, stuff like that. And I did well there. You know, I could talk the talk when we were getting into technical details. So they brought me on to start doing interviews for other websites. They were developing and doing copy points and then doing copywriting and they had a partner agency that did their web design and development. I ended up moving over there and that was where I had my highest title to that point was head of client services.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so it was very broad. I got to big picture with the owners, really small group, you know, it's like five of us ultimately on the team, but it was at a much higher level in a smaller group. So I realized, okay, I'm actually competent at this level. Right. I didn't have a clear picture of that before as I'd always been an independent contributor. And I did that for a couple more years. It ended up where I went back to consulting for a little while. That was really where the main, like startup stuff was happening. And it was around marketing and web development and. And then into the cannabis space.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
In varied forms.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Did you, did you get into it at the right time or the wrong time?
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know, I got into it at an okay time. I was, I was in one of the plateaus on the way down.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay, okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Just. I got to throw it in every time I talk about cannabis now and economics. The price of milk, how long has it taken a double in price? Few years. Right. Gallon of milk? Five, ten years? Well, something like that, yeah.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, and it, well, it actually fluctuates a lot because it's a commodity. So it.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Sure. But I mean, overall, the price with inflation, it's pretty significantly higher in a few years. Right. Price of cannabis has come down in half at the same time. Like the top shelf price is half of what it was in nominal dollars.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, I mean it, I mean, that's what happens when you legalize something and you make it a commodity is that the big boys get into it and they make it a. They make it just a machine, you know, in a factory.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And crucially, it's a cottage industry. With decades of history of having to overcome prohibition, cannabis is still as far as I recall, the number one agricultural export from California. And it is illegal to export. Is it?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
It's really the. No. Based on, based on dollars or based on volume.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Oh, good question. I don't know the answer to that actually, because that would be a very critical metric.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yes. Because there's risk premium. Yeah. Because I. Yeah, I could, I could see. I could see possibly by. By dollars because you're, you're selling when you. Not a weed user. So I'm not a very expert. I don't really know, but exactly. Okay. Yeah, there we go. Exactly. So I. I'm pretty square that way. I'll take, I'll take that. L. But no, not at all.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You're saving money. That's a win, man. No, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're not missing it, you're not missing out.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
No. Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
There's no downside.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. Yeah. So. But they sell by. By the. Is an ounce. Is ounce or grams or.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Okay. Back in high school, it was by the gram.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It was. Even buy the nickel sack, which is like half a gram. We were struggling, you know, struggle. 20 bucks a gram when I was in high school was 20 years ago. $20, $2002. Yeah, maybe that's too revealing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
But no, we're old now, you know.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And now you can go buy a gram at the store. It's like five bucks.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Wow.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Six bucks. I'm sorry, I know I'm going down a rabbit hole.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
No, I think this is an interesting, interesting. It's an interesting discussion from both an economics and, you know, just general business perspective.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And it's not a fad like it's going away either. It's a. It's a pretty unique economic example. You can equate it kind of to wine. You can equate it kind of to microbreweries. They're relatively similar because there is a hype element to it where it booms in popularity when it became legal. And suddenly everyone's realizing, like, I can actually walk into a room, retail establishment, have a conversation.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, I think it's. I mean, a. At least we're. This is, I assume for you as well, this is a very California based perspective because I don't know, I'm sure other parts of the country, it's different.
Jeff Arnold (B):
But I mean, the legal realities are different too. I'm not risking what someone in other states are potentially risking just by participating in what here is a legal market.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right, right. But I just, I think the, the popularity in it has to me just Anecdotally, like hearing people talk about it has soared dramatically and yet the price has gone down because everyone does it now, at least to some level. Recreation. Not everyone. A lot of people do it just.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Casually, especially if you count people who are using CBD without a lot of thc. Oh yeah, that's sort of cohort as well.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well the whole, you know, gummies and helping you to sleep and all that kind of stuff now has become so popular because it's so accessible because of the legalization.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So yeah, it's really true. It changed in a pretty dramatic way.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah. So the, I think that's. So you got into the space and you guys were trying to market it. You guys were trying to like, well, this was consulting.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So ultimately we were. And again I say we. And this was like three or four different endeavors with different unrelated people for the most part on different projects. So one was extraction based and like looking to have a set up to create concentrates basically which is taking the active ingredients of cannabis and separating it from the plant material. Teaching other people how to do that was part of that. Consulting manufacturers that you know, wanted a different technique or that were looking to refine their product. We do, you know, a degree of manufacturing testing and process revision writing. So standard operating procedures, stuff that does not sound like cannabis.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right, right, right, right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So technically it's like manufacturing consulting, agricultural consulting because you know, go in and you know, help people understand like you're wasting a lot of money on a lot of different pesticides and, or different like interventions and a lot of labor associated with that and the result could be better just by starting with the better inputs. Yeah, take more labor up front, more investment up front. But overall total picture, less spend, better result.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. I think what's interesting is because I've heard lots like many stories about people trying to, you know, okay, marijuana is legalized. Everyone sees how much money people, you know, make and then they're going to get into it and try and start a business. It's like, but it's a lot of people like, oh, I like weed or I know a lot about weeds. So then I'm going to start getting, I'm going to start a business or get involved in it. And people wasted so much money because they don't understand. As someone who's from agriculture, you don't understand and a, the amount of these are people with no real business experience and no real agricultural experience and you're going in and trying to then compete, you know what, in, in an area that now Became a commodity. It's a very. People do not understand how difficult commodity agriculture is.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know, you of kind, love food, start a restaurant, have no clue what you're doing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Exactly.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You can love beer, start a brewery, have no idea what you're doing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Perfect analogies. Because there's people also do both of those things, you know, which is insane because they're both very difficult, very difficult business. You know, you can't, like, you have to, you have to run a business and you have to know how to make a good product and do it for, you know, cost effectively.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Now, what is relatively unique about cannabis in this way is that because again, it's. So when I say cottage industry, like everyone in their uncle's been making it, buy it from your cousin, your neighbor, whoever, because it's easy to do in your backyard. There's no barrier to entry other than the well.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
And when you're paying so much for it, you can be really inefficient at making it and still make a lot of money.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, I mean, even with the price coming down, it's still, you know, like a lot of people just want it for their own consumption.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It's very casual that way. But in terms of the license, the like retail industry, when that came to town and we saw a huge influx of out of state cash in a way that we didn't when it was strictly medical when it opened up. And you know, people are saying, well, hey, there's a, there's a bunch of latent demand here. There's much wider market here. Why wouldn't we tap that super hard? You have folks coming in who are not really familiar with cannabis in terms of growing it necessarily or how it can be used in different ways because it's a very diverse plant. And so it's kind of corporate money is just a very broad way of putting it. Right. And then you have this cottage industry that's for decades been working very hard to not have to deal with any kind of legitimate business transaction and now they're co owners.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, that's a very, that's a great point. And that's a super unique, unique situation as well. You're not used to having to answer anyone, used to doing everything under the table because you had to. Right. It's not just, hey, I'm going to go do your landscaping and we're going to do it cash under the table. It's, it's now I have, in order to stay in business, I have to do this and to survive I have to do Everything under the table.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I've never heard about the federal government going after interstate landscapers.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. So it's. Man, it's. That's such an interesting thing. I assume it's settling out now, but it's not something that I'm doing it reliably.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Are able to stabilize a bunch of people who are what I would say leaned one way or the other. A lot of corporate money fizzled out because they invested in huge operations that the profit margins changed and they were underwater. And so they either put in more money chasing the loss, trying to capture market share, or they left. And then you have, you know, I'll call the OGs. Right. Who are, you know, really just trying to do whatever they can to be able to participate to the degree they can. They closed shop, but really went to the traditional market for the most.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay, interesting, interesting.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So, I mean, inside the industry, you know, the wink, wink, not, not is a lot of places do more business out the back door than they do on record.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Interesting.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And the rationale for that is very understandable. There is a huge premium out of state and that's ultimately where a lot of product will go.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
I mean, we're talking, we're talking about basic supply and demand economics.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I mean, it's arbitrage for a lot of these people because they already have the network. Right, right. Like, oh, I get it in this state. Put in that state, it's worth twice as much.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Like, of course, I mean, those are the incentives. When you're incentivizing people to do that, it's going to happen.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Of course, then when you pass through a state that has different laws, you know, like, that suddenly is a whole different picture and it's no longer smiles, handshakes, and having a good time.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right, right. Well, and I think that's too. Then there, then there becomes a relationship, you know, the risk versus reward, you know, discussion. And probably the riskier it is, the higher the reward is. But at what point, you know, do you keep playing?
Jeff Arnold (B):
And there's not much of a risk premium in California is part of that too. Right, right. And we've made it that way. Honestly, that's a really good thing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Risk premium is not going to everyday folk.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It's going to people who can be really organized about what they do.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a. It gets. It gets it. Yeah. It's a very interesting thing to see, but I, I mean, you keep seeing more and more states hop on board, so I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it's legal and federally pull the reference.
Jeff Arnold (B):
But there was a study that came out recently that there's now more people using cannabis habitually than using alcohol habitually in the United States.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Really?
Jeff Arnold (B):
Which to my mind is a net benefit.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, that's. That's. Wow. I guess it depends what habitually means, right?
Jeff Arnold (B):
I'm sure it's a pretty broad. But just in the sense of regular use. And I mean, maybe it's. I would assume it's kind of casual use. It's a lot less consequent. Consequential in terms of potential damage to society, potential damage to oneself. We're finding there's even more actual, like, systemic consequence to casual alcohol use, which is kind of mind blowing to me because it never really seemed like casual use was a big problem at, you know, small degrees and recommended or whatever. I digress, though.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, that was a great. That was a great digression. Very interesting. So. So we get. How do we make the final jump to the Armstrong company?
Jeff Arnold (B):
So I, you know, I did a bunch of consulting and I kind of. It fizzled out. You know, I worked with business partners where I invested a lot, kind of on spec, and that wasn't the right call to do. We needed to be building more gradually. We parted ways and I went back and realized, okay, I've actually got my symptoms managed enough. I decided to discovered CBD was really helpful. And I haven't used that as part of my regimen up to that point.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay. Just as a way of managing stress, as a way.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Okay, I know we're going down the rabbit hole. Keep it super short. CBD does almost nothing in isolation. If there's even trace thc, it can be very helpful and activates. They both bind to the same point on two different. Any again, they need one another to really function this way. THC and isolate. They did studies on it for AIDS patients and patients who were dying of cancer back in the 80s and 90s. It was called Marinell Marinol. It was synthesized THC. They did not have a good reaction. They felt paranoid. They basically felt all the uncomfortable parts.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
And none of the good and none of the good parts.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And. Yeah, and you know, it really didn't allow for that. And so it's not just the chemical. It's what's called an entourage effect of multiple different chemicals.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Interesting.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Multiple chemicals, multiple terpenes, which are flavor, smell, but also psychoactive potentially because linalools from lavender is kind of a sedative. There's other ones that are from. There's limonene, which is more of a stimulant. And that's sort of where you start. Oh, sativa indica. Okay. Yeah, much larger.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Start nerding out on all the details much deeper.
Jeff Arnold (B):
The short version is I found CBD super helpful and it was not part of my regimen at all at that point, despite using cannabis extensively. And I realized, well, okay, I could functional function at job.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
So.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So let's do this. You know, I. I was married and. Or was getting married and realized that, you know, it would be nice to.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Be putting more stable income. Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
To be able to plan for the future, you know, by wanting to buy a house, wanting to start a family.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
I mean, you're. Yeah. You're talking about the. The benefits of, you know, of like why getting a job is great is because you can count on. Count on those things.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Y. So I went from, you know, wake up 8030 or 9 in the morning and you know, whatever to okay. I started on a cybersecurity certificate at Empire College. I started selling cars, selling Ford in Petaluma, both at the same time, you know, up at 6, do the whole double thing in 10, 12 hour days. And it was actually, it was great. It was great. Like wake up, okay. I haven't done this in a long time, but I'm capable of it remind myself that I capable of like sticking to a regimen and actually keeping along with it. And I was just getting to that point, like, okay, sold a few cars. Okay. I've like gotten the big picture about where I could fit in if I wanted to do red teamwork. Eventually. There's a path there in cybersecurity. Right. Doing the penetration testing and fun stuff.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And while I was there, a friend who I had worked with at the web development company back in the day called me up and said, hey, I'm director sales at this cannabis company or director marketing at this cannabis company. We need someone to do sales. Are you free? Dragged me back in and I worked for them for a couple years. They were a actually really, really old club in Berkeley and they had their own distribution center, which was again, one of the oldest distros in California and their own. So between those things, it was completely vertically integrated. I got to play a lot at each stage. I had consulting knowledge for each stage. It was the owner directly who brought me on. So again, I'm having that like high level kind of conversations. I can. I brought in a brand collaboration with an extraction, an extractor, do like co branded Products. So I have these things that if I remove the word cannabis, suddenly they look good on a resume.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Oh, interesting. So I'm curious, what do you put on your resume for that kind of stuff? I gotta check out your LinkedIn and see what it says.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So supply chain, because I brought in 100 pounds of smalls for them to process when they were out of material, best sale I ever made was to my own company from a third party I knew. So supply chain, I'm having to manage sales, distribution and product development with this collaboration, brand development. And all these things are a bunch of that's in line with the marketing company, a bunch of that's in line with the cable manufacturer. So I'm able to kind of draw a narrative out, like extract.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
When you're in an interview, are you directly referencing like your cannabis experience or are you kind of dancing around it?
Jeff Arnold (B):
For this job? Yes. For this job, I straight up, yes. The circumstances might be their own podcast. But the shortest version is that I was directly referred by my mentor at the old company to the president of the local branch of this company, one to one. And so I'm talking to him the Monday morning after I'd been let go, the Thursday before. Right. And same industry analogous role. And we're just really straight talking with each other, like, what can you do? Where would this fit? You know, what's your history? And like, you know, I came out of the cannabis industry before this and he said like, oh yeah, my son grows great weed.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay. Okay. So he was, he was, I'll put it, like, able to relate.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So, you know, you get drug tested before virtually any job, even here in California. And he tells me now, be sure to tell them no thc. They're not. Tell them you're not a driver to give them the no THC test. I'm glad that you're as concerned about this as I am.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah. Because you, as someone who has experience managing and hiring commercial drivers, if, even if you smoked, like sometimes you smoke two weeks ago and it'll. And you just like that one time you're hanging out with some friends and you do it once and you're not, you know, and you drive days later, it sticks in your system. So it's a big. It's a big deal.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It's detectable in your system for a very long time, it's not still a affecting you.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Correct. That's an important distinction.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, it can be detectable 30 days plus.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
This is something that is, you know, it binds in our lipid System, we have endocannabinoids in our body already. Right. So it building up allows it to be tested for, for a very long period of time. And so it depends on use, it depends on frequency and all that kind of stuff. But it is true, people have failed drug tests from like, oh, I took a hit of a joined a week ago.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we've had that, we've had that. You know, my family's business, we had issue a couple issues here and there with people saying like, I, you know, I barely did anything and it was, I wasn't high while driving, which, you know, we did have no reason to stay, you know.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so what are we going to tell people? You can't go home on the weekend and relax?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, yeah, if you're, if you're a commercial driver, you can't because, but even commercial drivers, like it's so strict. Like you really basically can't even get a ticket. Like you can, you have, you know, there's a little bit of leeway there. But if you're a commercial driver, you can't mess around that stuff in your everyday car. You mean in your everyday car. Yeah, yeah, you can't. And, and even, even if you still technically have your license, you becomes difficult to insure you. And if you have get a couple point.
Jeff Arnold (B):
If you get a couple point or attractive to whoever.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, yeah, or exactly. Or the company is like, well, I can't. My insurance company won't insure you. Yeah, like you have to, you have to, you go through the process, it's like drug testing. And then you say send their, you know, you pull their DOT records and then you send them to insurance and say, hey, you want to insure this person? Like, you know, similar. If you're a young driver, if you're 20 years old and you just got your commercial license, you're pretty much like, at least with larger companies you're pretty much not going to drive commercially because you're basically uninsurable, you know, because you're a young kid driving a big heavy truck and you can, you know, you're just more likely to do stuff that's.
Jeff Arnold (B):
A lot of tonnage.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I, I, anyway, that was a digression, so.
Jeff Arnold (B):
No, not at all. I think that it's relevant. You know, we're talking about the state of drugs that are of varying legality.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
In the states and yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know, we have total, we have programs that are in total conflict with one another in that way.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know, we, okay, sorry, last example.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay, let's go.
Jeff Arnold (B):
In the intelligence community, they are regular having to recruit high level for cyber security both directions. Right. They had such a small pool eventually that actually came out and said in their recruiting, we're no longer drug testing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
We just, I totally believe that. Yeah. And I mean, a certain degree, you know, especially for like marijuana use, it's. You kind of, you're gonna kind of like, you can just judge it by. It's typically not so devastating to someone's lifestyle that it's gonna ruin their lives. Right. Not that it has never ruined a person's life. I'm sure, I'm sure. But. But also like then at that, if, if you're hiring someone, you know, it's. They're not just immediately it's gonna ruin their lives and they're just gonna immediately be a bad employee. At that point you can just say, okay, we either see the quality of your work or not and just judge it based on the work. And that has no bearing. Just like you don't, like, basically, maybe if someone's an alcoholic, you're not going to hire them, but if they drink beer like, you know, recreationally, are you going to be worried about it?
Jeff Arnold (B):
How do you find out they're an alcoholic?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, yes, that's the other thing. I mean, you are not legally allowed to really ask those kinds of questions. Right. But if you're somehow aware of it, you know, so.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And it's, I think that you make a good point in terms of how consequential these things are. Keeping it really short. Cigarettes are fully legal. They're way more consequential to individual health. Alcohol, fully legal, way more consequential to the rate of accidents, rate of domestic abuse, a lot of other associated problems. Right.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Do you think, though, that's because of the, do you think since we're in it, do you think that that's because. I mean, because I feel like a lot more, I mean, I know you said earlier that across the whole United States, habitual use, but I feel like people drinking alcohol is way more common. And so are those statistics like accounted like that, those differences accounted for in terms of.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I don't, I don't want to defend this study. This is like going on and on.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay, I know, I'm just curious. Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
But I will say that anecdotally certainly too, there's a lot more cannabis use among people that I, you know, five, 10 years ago, like it's legal now for I don't know. So, you know, the stigma's pretty much gone in California. Pretty close to gone.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was more just referring to the fact in terms of the impact on people's lives and stuff like that, you know, just because the sample size is so much different and stuff can be.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Developmentally, it can be in terms of, you know, dysfunction. Basic dysfunction. Right. And so that is a problem. We don't want a dysfunctional society. We don't want people to not be productive or contributing to.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
That's important 100%. So there's arguments about, okay, what does, what does responsible use look like? We haven't really had that conversation around cannabis that much.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
No, that's fair. That's fair. I mean, 100%. So let's, let's get in. So you're, you're. Because, I mean, there's been a great conversation. So I'm not, I'm not complaining, but.
Jeff Arnold (B):
We should get to the moving industry eventually.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right? Well, so you end, you end up at the Armstrong company doing basically selling jobs. Right. And you guys, I'll let you explain it. Let's talk about real quickly what you're doing for them now.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Sure. The shortest version also is that I wanted my wife to be able to quit her job. So I went to a full time W2. This was during the pandemic. And, you know, it was the best job market I'd ever experienced. So I took my time, got a sales position that had good pay, that was a different move mover, and I was doing just commercial moves. So I was moving offices and to a decree data centers.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And it was a great crash course. I got good pay. I signed the contract. My wife quit her job so she could stay home with our baby. Right. So that, that was why things took such a fast, hard turn in a different direction from like doing cannabis sales.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Marketing brand stuff, which was fun, but was not a consistent enough income to.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Where kids change things, man. Oh, gosh, that's a whole nother rabbit hole. Right. Grossly change your priorities and your perspectives.
Jeff Arnold (B):
That'll be its own episode.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so I was totally outside the industry. I had no experience in moving or facilities or the areas that are generally associated logistically trucking. No experience in that stuff, and probably three months to really get up to speed on the product. Six months to feel like I could talk about it reasonably. And then by 18 months, I could see a trajectory and I was fired. So. So again, you know, came over to Armstrong and it ended up being a better fit. It was One where instead of. Of just selling commercial moves, they were fully integrated, do residential logistics, all these other things which the previous company did, but under like six or seven different individual companies. So there was no collaboration. It was entirely a handoff. It was completely siloed very intentionally here. It's like, okay, what's your customer want? Okay, we'll teach you how to do. Okay, we'll give you all support around that. Perfect.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So there's nothing I can't.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
It's so interesting. When I met you, I never heard of my perspective on moving companies. It was either. It was either you're getting a U Haul and doing it yourself or you like have some guys throw some stuff in a van and then drive it somewhere, you know, and so the comprehensive nature of what you guys do was. Was kind of new for me to hear about.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So. And again, this is because we're like, I've told you offline before is we're the biggest mover there is. And so we are this very big umbrella of services. And then it's like, well, okay, what within there is actually relevant? So in terms of picking up a U haul or doing a pod, there's going to be cost savings there because you're doing the labor. Sure, right.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Oh, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Or if you're using two guys in a truck equivalent locally, which there are totally good services. I work with some of them or for business to some of them, you know, because if they're right here in town and they're not having a dispatch from far away and they're literally just moving a storage unit, of course I'm going to connect them with someone like that who can do it super quick and easy if there's nothing delicate, whatever. But then when you are moving across the country or you're moving your mom's house and there's a lot of stuff to go through and it's delicate. Right. Those are the situations where it kind of goes beyond the general level of service that is reasonable to expect from a company that size. Right, right. Because if it's two guys in a truck, they're going to be trained to.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Doing what two guys throwing couches and boxes in a truck.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And they can be super nice about that too. They can be. There can be good customer service, there can be really friendly folks and you know, they do their best to take care and that's all fine. It's just not the same service. So where I am, my services are relevant. When anything gets complex, when anything gets to the point where it's like you just need to not have to work, worry about it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And it's not because things aren't going to go wrong. Things can totally go wrong. It's whose responsibility do you want it to be when something goes Right, Right, right, right. Because, you know, over time that stuff happens. So a recent example, and this is bni, right? I don't know, I assume you talk about.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
We've mentioned, we've mentioned, I've mentioned BNI before. Yeah, for sure.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Business Referral Group.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right, right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And just joined. And the first referral. Referral I got that I closed was they were going to do a U Haul. They had a pod, they had a local moving crew that was going to load the pod. They had a transit company that was going to ship the pod. They had an unload crew that was going to do that. Those were all different companies. They were orchestrated by U Haul, but they were all different companies that you have to contract with. And you know, I talked them through what the alternative was like. If I do it, I'm responsible for every step. Door to door packing, do disassembling, delivering, unloading, replacing, reassembling. And it's going to cost you more. It'll cost you about $1,000 more, a little less. Great.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
I mean, if I'm doing a substantial move, a thousand bucks does not seem like. Seems absolutely worth it, you know, and.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Those are the kind of trade offs and the example I like to give in work. And this is also something I do on the commercial side because there, when you're exiting a space, the requirements can be a lot more extensive.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Sure.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It's like we rented it to you with white walls. All right. Back to, back to that state. We want it now. Wow. And so I can bring in other trades. And the story I love to give, or the analogy I like to give is imagine that you have your plumber, your painter, your drywaller, and there's a delay with one. Okay. And the other one was scheduled to come in right behind them. Okay. Now they're delayed. Well, their schedule isn't freed up until, until two weeks later.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And all those downstream effects and sometimes there's money involved with that, sometimes there's delays of things that completely shift. You know what the plan was to get out. It can affect employees and those costs get really serious. So the idea is that if it's my team responsible for that, I literally have to replace someone if it comes down to it, because I've guaranteed the delivery. Right. So. So for a homeowner, what that Means is one point of contact to deal with. It's usually more customer service related at that point. But then there's an insurance element for residential as well, which is this is going 1,000, 2,000 miles in a truck over roads with bumps.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Things happen. Things happen.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so having a greater sense of like, okay, truly, I. I've seen stories where, you know, a driver didn't pick up something or something was damaged along the way. And drivers are an independent resource because we're not dispatching and getting back. We're looking for, okay, who is willing to go from here to here.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And you know, as I'm sure you deal with.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so when something happens there, we have control.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Because try shipping eggs across the country. Happens all the time.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I mean, you're in refrigerated trucks. Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Refrigerated eggs. Yeah. So that's. That's also an issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It got crazy during COVID how expensive refrigerated trucks were. It was insane how expensive that stuff was. And we also get, not eggs, but other things overseas. The cost of shipping containers was insane from. From like, you know, it being like a couple thousand dollars to ship a container to being $20,000 to ship a container. Wow. That's how crazy it got during COVID So that.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So I wasn't there for that part of it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you would have. Yeah, you probably would have had some interesting stories if you had been doing that stuff during COVID Most of it.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Would be people being sad because I couldn't deliver probably. Right. I mean, during that supply.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, there. There was definitely a lot of juggling around and dealing with logistics and because there were shortages and there was such huge demand because everyone's sitting at home buying stuff and things and trying to get pro anyway.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Well, trucks are an independent of market though. Is. Is like the takeaway here, right?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Oh, yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So there's all these unknowns for that middle portion of it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so something happened and it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
And truck drivers lie all the time. I could talk all day long about it. Okay.
Jeff Arnold (B):
We have mechanisms in place. Part of that umbrella is that like everyone is in the same system for communication and verification and if there's a problem, like, everyone knows about it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah. We. When I first started working with like long haul truck drivers, I used to care a lot about, like, about how I. Not that I wanted to be ever want to be mean or anything, but I used to care a lot about how they reacted to things or about being really concerned about the things they told me. And then I realized that everything they say is a lie. And you just gotta be like, well it just is what it is. Like sorry, I can't help you. Like that is what it is because they just lie through their teeth about things all the time. They're saying, oh I'm right down the road and they're five hours away still and just like. Or they, you know, we. So many things we say, hey, you need to do these, these, this, this, this before you come here. And they show up with fake documents and stuff like that and just like crazy stuff.
Jeff Arnold (B):
That sounds like it may be a very by industry thing because I haven't encountered that.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, maybe I don't know who you guys are contracting with and how. You know the broker truck.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know what I mean? Like we're. It's kind of a different category, I think.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, I mean most, I mean I would say most. Most long haul refrigerator trailers are on airbags. Oh, they're.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Sorry. Yeah, refrigerators.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, they're gonna have airbag trailers and stuff. It's just mostly like for. Anyway, it's a whole thing but just, it's very mixed in terms of there's some great drivers and there's a lot of ones that just kind of do whatever they need to do. And it's just kind of a. It's a weird, it's a weird. Because we're all independent contractors, there's not a lot of accountability that basically say.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It sounds like what's different because our drivers all have to be participating in this program. They're independent but they're all under a pretty tight.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. So. And I, I assume it's probably you're getting fed pretty consistent work at a reasonable rate. And so you don't want to like you want to play the game to stick with it. So.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And I mean, you know these guys. A single household probably takes up a fifth of a truck. So they're doing five pickups, five drop offs. They have to have customer service. Yeah, they're going to be dealing.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
So I think it's really attracting a different crowd for sure.
Jeff Arnold (B):
If you're dealing with homeowners versus if you're dealing with businesses.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Just right off the bat you got two different.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. And we're doing single, you know, one big. You drive to a place, they load your whole truck up and you come and you drop a whole truck. It's just like a little, it's much different. So.
Jeff Arnold (B):
But so end result is, you know, I've seen things where okay. Something gets broken, something gets lost. And that meant we had to pay out of pocket for additional storage trips to site, however many it took. Oh. Oh. We got there in the thing wasn't actually ready. Damn, that sucks. We're gonna have to eat that cost.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
This is what we signed up for.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's. That's really. That's an interesting service. What I want to get. Because we're actually kind of almost running out of time here. And I'm enjoying. Not because I'm enjoying the conversation, but I don't want to take up too much of your time. I want to talk about the fact that you've like kept coming back to sales over all the years. And tell me a little bit. Talk to me a little bit about why you keep coming back to sales.
Jeff Arnold (B):
You know, it's the most consistent through line, I would say, of my work history as a starting point, given that the motivation was to get a job at as high a level of pay as I could. You know, the commission part of it made that hard. And so I was looking for things that had high salary. But ultimately the fit I found was in a sales position that had that salary, which is relatively uncommon. And it was trading into an industry that I was unfamiliar with, but that I was supported in networking around and supported an education around. I had a great boss at first at that company. And so that just took me on a whole professional track that was really different. I was suddenly involved with my local chambers of commerce and local politics, not in an advocacy way, but in terms of interacting with them directly, like back channel understanding what some of the problems where I started. I'm volunteering to run our Petaluma City hall election center again. I've done that for the last couple years now. And that all came about from looking for that work. So the sales component of it is where I see the long term of it. Because you're building up a book of business and you're setting it up to grow over time. That's really attractive to me is growing something over time. It's relationship based. So that is already kind of cathartic to me of having those kind of interactions. I just enjoy it. And the negotiation component is also satisfying because it's taking a puzzle and figuring out how do we make this fit ultimately. So those components of it end up lending themselves to technical sales that end up lending themselves to large, relatively large dollar amounts sales. There's much bigger ones. But you know, for me, and.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
How.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Do I want to put it? It's like I could imagine myself doing plenty of other things, but having this consulting background, doing business consulting, it. It's just so obvious. If you own a business, you're a salesperson. So if you want to be successful, kind of whatever you do, you have to at least have the mentality of I'm selling you on wanting to work with me.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I'm selling you on wanting to interact with me at all.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, well, there's the whole. And I think this is true with a common thing about everyone's a salesperson in some degree, you know, because you're in business. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but even if you're, even if you're just having, trying to get a job, right? Yes, it's true. I mean, you're trying to like, you know, you're trying to sell yourself to your boss, sell yourself to a potential partner. I mean, even, hey, even, even this is the more cynical side of things, but even churches are trying to sell themselves to people to come visit their church. Right?
Jeff Arnold (B):
That's an interesting one.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
You know, so I could talk. That's a whole, that's a whole other. We're just stacking up some episodes for the future here.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I like it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
But the point is that everyone is selling. But I do think that is. And so being successful at selling, I think you can translate that to success in a lot of different ways. But I think it is different. Not everyone is cut out to be, be a professional salesperson because it is, you know, it is depending on what kind of salesperson you are. If you're out, like you're doing, you're going out and like having to create something from nothing. And you're not just being fed leads. It's, it's, it's. That's a difficult thing. Not a lot of people can't handle the ambiguity of that.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It can be scary. It can just be straight up scary. While you don't necessarily know. So when I say like 18 months, I saw the trajectory. That's a pretty standard schedule for me. About six months, I start being confident in the product. About 18 months, I start being confident in the trajectory. So I think that with sales, it is always going to be a time investment and that's tough. It's kind of like, you know, if you're going to start a company, you should already have a backstop. You should already have cash.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Backstop. Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so if you're doing a sales position, you kind of have to expect there to be a ramp up where you need a cash back stop. And that's not, that's not a normal job position.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
No, it's not.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So I think, you know, for people that want to do professional sales and be successful at it, I would say be prepared for it to be. Not even. I don't want to use the word grind because if people feel like they're really grinding in sales, they can be very successful and they'll probably get burnt out on it. But if they're approaching it, how do I want to put it, In a way that's compatible with their personality, where they can enjoy some aspect of it, then, you know, the financial rewards are obviously the goal. But if you're able to do it in a way that feels compatible with your nature, like I'm out networking and talking to people and building relationships because that's allowed in my role, I'm really happy doing it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Sure.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So it's going to be a balance for anyone, you know, if you're going into sales and you, you don't like sales, you can anticipate having a bad time.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Well, I have a friend literally had this conversation Saturday. Yeah, Saturday. And he has done. He's had a sales job basically his entire career and he sticks with it because the money is good, but he's kind of miserable most of the time, you know, And I'm like. But he's also feels kind of stuck because now that's his entire experience. That's his entire. In kind of a manufacturing industry. So he'll.
Jeff Arnold (B):
So he's got a book of business.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
He has a book of business.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And so he can either take it with him or he could walk away from it.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yes.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And either one of those is kind of scary.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. And. And the thing is, is that he, he just doesn't like selling. You know, he's kind of an introvert a little bit. Like it doesn't enjoy the relationship side of it, which I think is like, to be a good salesperson, enjoy selling, you have to, even if you're an introvert a little bit, but you have to enjoy the relationship aspect of it and just like the putting yourself out there and meeting people aspect of it. And he, he doesn't really like any of that. And I'm like, dude, you got to start working on something else on the side because it's not worth it for money for your entire life to be doing something you're not actually really enjoying.
Jeff Arnold (B):
At the very least, it's going to be really hard to find success ultimately that way. Right. Because if you are in that place where you're unhappy with what you're doing, you might get a good financial compensation, but at least let that be like a jumping off point to do something that you actually want to be doing long term.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, but the thing is you just get it. I think this is, this is another quick digression, but I do think it's also like, it's easy to get sucked into something that you don't like because of money. And that's the danger of a traditional job. Right. Is the steady income, is the, the reliable? Especially when you get. You're getting a high paycheck. Reliable. High paycheck is. Is its own addiction. You know what I'm saying? And so which for some people, like going off and starting your own business or it's not the right fit. Right. But alternatively, I think people also get stuck because of it and are afraid to try other things for the. You talking about perspectives change. You get married, you have a kid, and then all the. You have bills pile up, your lifestyle increases with your income. It becomes. You get more and more entrenched and it becomes harder and harder to like break free from the paycheck.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, no, I think that's totally fair. And that's leverage.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Abs, Abs, absolutely. It's always a dance. So, Jeff, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I want to get into the. Hit a couple of the bonus questions here because those ones are always fun. So the first one is I like to ask people, what are some of the books that you've either recommended the most or gifted the most to people?
Jeff Arnold (B):
Gosh, I should be gifting more books probably. And we talked about this before we started the interview. I had to kind of rack my mind because I do a lot of news reading, I do a lot of paper reading. I do like a lot of short term, short form content reading.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
So last, this is a judgment free podcast. If you're not a heavy book reader.
Jeff Arnold (B):
That'S okay, I would say, and that this is a heavy book, but it's a very educational book and I think is relevant to the moment and is pretty timeless in terms of its relevance. And that is Michelle Alexander's the New Jim Crow. Again, this is a topic we haven't delved into in the interview today, and it is heavy. But the shortest version of it is that the terms have changed and the rationale has changed over time, but the stats have not changed dramatically over time. And if we start looking at what that means in and of itself. Before we start talking about the whys or any of the specifics, you kind of have a clearer picture of where we exist as a society today and why.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I definitely dug into a lot of that stuff. This is not a political podcast, but I'll just leave this. I'll just leave this little thing. I think it's really. As someone who. I dug into a lot of that stuff, you know, when the Black Lives Matter movement was happening and all during COVID and all this crazy stuff.
Jeff Arnold (B):
And this was written before that?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, well, yeah, this is a long. I mean, I've. This has been a. I was first exposed as someone who grew up in Petaluma, you know, a white straight male in a pretty. A predominantly white town. I was. My perspective on things was very narrow and I don't think that I was necessarily missed, you know, that I've ever like, you know, mistreated anyone or anything like that, as far as I know. But. But it was just like I had a very narrow perspective. And then I got exposed to call it. That was something that. College was great for me, is getting exposed to a lot of people from different backgrounds and that means a lot of different things. You, you know, just socioeconomic, racially, all these different things. And then I married. My wife is Latino, so that was a whole. She's Puerto Rican, so that was a whole learning experience for me being the, you know, only white guy at a family gathering. And so it's been. It's. It's a. It's a journey. And I think reading those kinds of books, whether or not you agree with them completely, helps provide additional perspective because no matter where you are, I think it's very, very easy to end up in an echo chamber and be very like self centric and not. And. And just thinking about those things, even if you conclude that you don't agree with some points of it, is super helpful for understanding where people are coming from. Being a more empathetic person.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, totally. And if you can. My view is if you can do so quantitatively, it just makes it so much easier to communicate. Communicate across otherwise really hard boundaries, identity politics, and a lot of really, really difficult to overcome places. If we're just talking about the numbers and the stats, well, those are what they are. And then we can decide what we want to do about it. That's a different question.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So that's a great recommendation. The other question I like to ask everyone is if you could put like one thing on a billboard, you know, One piece of advice for people, you know, what would it be?
Jeff Arnold (B):
Nothing appropriate.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Fair, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.
Jeff Arnold (B):
No, I mean really, if there was, I don't know that it's a slogan or anything, but if there was a message that, you know, people could look at a billboard and somehow just feel that feeling, be like, just be nice to someone today.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah.
Jeff Arnold (B):
It doesn't cost you anything to be nice to someone to take.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I think, I think that's, I think that's great. We get so, you know, we get so sucked into our own little worlds and we just these like, we're these little self contained ecosystems just bouncing off all these other people and you have no idea what's going on in people's lives.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I like how that's literally true, by the way. We are our own little ecosystem.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I think about that like I get. You're driving along and you get so, and someone cuts you off, right? They're in a hurry or they do something and you're like, well, what the heck is wrong with you? But maybe they're like, maybe they, a family member just died or their wife is having their baby or like there's so many circumstances where, you know, because I've done things like that and I felt totally justified in the moment or it was just a complete accident because I was distracted for a second and it wasn't intentional, you know, so it's just so easy to get so self righteous about things. So that's great advice. Just be nice to someone today. Put some positivity out in the world.
Jeff Arnold (B):
My point is just that it doesn't cost you anything.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, right.
Jeff Arnold (B):
What's the downside?
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
That's absolutely, absolutely true. And there's only, there's only upside to it. Well, Jeff, I've really enjoyed our conversation. I always want to give people a chance to plug anything where, you know, if you want people to be able to find you online or you know, what would you like to put out there?
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, Please drop my LinkedIn in the chat or it'll be in the video.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Description.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Yeah, yeah, description. There we go. Gosh, I almost know terms and that'll be the easiest way to connect to me one to one. And I am basically the main point of contact for any move. So if someone does actually want a project directly looked at, it'll be me that they deal with the whole time. That's one of the upsides I can offer.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah. If you need to move, if you need to move anything at all. All right. Talk to Jeff. Yeah, my business, literally anything.
Jeff Arnold (B):
My elevator pitch, like, literally now is. Yeah, exactly.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
That.
Jeff Arnold (B):
I move anything or anyone anywhere in the world. And I'm not messing with you.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, that's great. No, that's. That's. That's perfect. You can find, please, you know, like, and subscribe this. This podcast. You can find. You know, follow it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all the places you can find me at flywheelconsulting co or on. On LinkedIn. And we'll see you all next time.
Jeff Arnold (B):
Thank you. Thanks again, Jonathan.
Jonathan Mahrt (A):
Yeah, absolutely awesome.