Episode 18: Building A Balanced Life W/ Curtis Little
September 19, 2023
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TRANSCRIPT
Leland Gross (00:01.09)
All right, welcome Curtis Little to the Self-Employment Success Podcast.
Curtis Little (00:05.173)
Thanks, Leland. Thanks for having me.
Leland Gross (00:07.414)
Let's just dive right on in. Why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do, what your business does as it stands today.
Curtis Little (00:17.101)
Sure. Yeah, I'm I live down in Charleston and have lived here for a while and that's how you and I met the College of Charleston and have always wanted to get into real estate was always super fascinated by it. But getting into real estate means virtually anything. So that's like saying I'm in finance. It could mean anything.
there's a lot of different avenues in I just happened to kind of fall into the which is called triple net retail company we've got build restaurants for a bunch of national so
Curtis Little (01:18.454)
It's kind of case by case we have a bunch of different projects happening at once. So yeah.
Leland Gross (01:23.778)
So, and just so listeners know, what's the name of your company?
Curtis Little (01:28.297)
The name is Mount Oak Capital and it's just the name of the street that my best friend and I who are business partners grew up on. So not super creative but you know.
Leland Gross (01:37.75)
Love it.
Leland Gross (01:41.182)
I remember when I was trying to name Peace Link and I was like way overthinking it. I was looking at like Greek and Gaelic and all these like different and it just, you know, simpler the better. Okay, so.
Curtis Little (01:46.035)
Oh yeah.
Curtis Little (01:52.381)
It's also, I mean, the bar's pretty low in our industry. Um, there's some really terrible named companies and bad logos and people are finance people. They don't really, you know, put a lot of thought into that. So in fact, we had, uh, we had, we had, we didn't want to spend any money on a graphic design. So had Blakely just sketch a little. Logo for us. And that's still our logo. Um, but I think it looks pretty good. Yeah.
Leland Gross (02:04.958)
Yeah, no one's like a branding specialist.
Leland Gross (02:17.166)
That's awesome. Honestly, I think that's genius. For listeners who don't know, Curtis's wife, Blakely, is a professional artist and does incredible work. And so pretty nice to have that in the household where you can just be like, I need a logo. I need a piece of art.
Curtis Little (02:21.34)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (02:35.741)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, to whips it out in about 10 minutes on our iPad and there we are. Yeah.
Leland Gross (02:41.134)
That's amazing. Okay, so Mountout Capital started with you and your best friend, and you guys basically develop national chain restaurant buildings. So like Starbucks could call you and say, hey, we need a new building in San Antonio and you guys would be in charge of finding that, buying it, developing it, and then selling it or maintaining it if you want to.
Curtis Little (02:52.009)
Yes. Yeah.
Curtis Little (03:08.541)
Yeah, pretty much. So we do, I mean, there are real estate agents still involved. So like, we'll use, go with your Starbucks example, because we do work with them. They have a broker in every market that they're in. So they have a broker here who's based in Charleston and she selects or helps find real estate for them all over the state of South Carolina.
Curtis Little (03:44.692)
so we'll work with her opportunities and then we have to look standpoint and see if they work so comes whether it's underground storage tanks all kinds of and so the numbers have to Starbucks is only going to pay so much
Leland Gross (04:06.774)
No, no.
Curtis Little (04:06.913)
everybody you know they obviously have deep pockets but each restaurant has to make money so it all kind of has to pencil and that's where it gets complicated. To give you an idea let's just say we've got an assignment from them that's what we call them so let's say Starbucks says all right we need one in Newport News or in Virginia Beach.
well we'll probably identify eight different properties and underwrite all of them so we'll put pen to paper and try and figure out whether or not um the deal pencils are not before we land on one so it takes a long time i mean it takes usually about a year from start to finish to even identify the right property yeah
Leland Gross (04:42.338)
man.
Leland Gross (04:54.878)
Wow. WIC is so funny because as a consumer, you drive around, you're like, ah, they're putting in a Starbucks here. And you're like, this journey probably just started. It's been years in the making of them trying to figure that out. Wow, that's really interesting. And so how did you, like you said, real estate is so broad. You gave a great example. I feel like finance is that way. Anybody who says they work in finance is like, I have a heartbeat.
Curtis Little (05:00.945)
Yeah, now it's a lengthy process.
Curtis Little (05:08.789)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (05:23.87)
and I work with money. It's like there's a million ways you could do that. How did you get in? What was your story or journey to get into this specific niche?
Curtis Little (05:25.203)
Exactly.
Curtis Little (05:33.537)
Sure yeah, no I mean they say if you don't have any friends in real estate you don't have any friends, it's just everybody knows somebody in real estate, that just could mean a bunch of different things so yeah no I am I was in college and I knew at College of Charleston and knew that which was always interested in real estate my dad was a civil engineer so I was kind of always around real estate development.
Leland Gross (05:41.387)
great wine.
Curtis Little (06:04.169)
seemed too painful through a friend of a friend with an working for a company that built office and then leased them to a bunch of point floor to Uber and it was like we're
Leland Gross (06:33.314)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Curtis Little (06:34.769)
they were they're growing quickly and pretty random that I got into office I found it super boring personally an office building doesn't have a but I liked I liked the industry I liked deal by deal basis of it.
Leland Gross (06:46.062)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (07:01.725)
also like the flexibility of the schedule real estate careers come where you're so busy and you're working periods where it hour weeks but it kind of that it just
Curtis Little (07:31.901)
Anyway, I liked being in commercial real estate. I knew I didn't want to do residential once I started working for this company. So I interned with them and then I got a college or I got a job with them right out of college. Just was it in DC. Yeah. And it was great. But really, you know, my career ended up changing more because I wanted to get back to Charleston.
Leland Gross (07:47.358)
in the DC area, that job up there.
Curtis Little (08:00.881)
anything else. I wanted to get out of the didn't really know how I was you know was doing so I just by chance got a job Atlanta and they wanted to have an means is
Leland Gross (08:03.188)
Mm.
Curtis Little (08:30.169)
my boss had a house on Sullivan's Island expense his trips to his house and say the office was just me yeah exactly this was great move and that company was a retail company
Leland Gross (08:43.494)
I get down there, meet with all of my Tarleton clients, you know, it's, you know, big deals happening.
Curtis Little (08:56.905)
we would buy and sell buildings on King Street and that's really what kind of the entrance point was into retail and you know King Street's really awesome it's for those that don't know King Street in Charleston is a pretty big it's the main shopping street where you've got all your national you know J.Crews and anthropologies and all those guys, but that's a really small part of the retail sector like if you just look at the landscape.
Leland Gross (09:30.286)
Hmm.
Curtis Little (09:35.039)
of the US a lot of it is suburban markets is and so street retail prefer that but it's just really hard um
Leland Gross (09:48.454)
I'm sure that you're not the only person trying to do it, but there's only so much like you're working with one street
Curtis Little (09:53.129)
there's only so many building exactly, residential real estate there are a ton real estate folks like most everybody has um well that's because distill it down even further to just that's across all sectors that's retail it's industrial all of it um
know that makes up about 20 percent compared to homes and then further than that is high street retail opportunity there wasn't anyway so ended up doing in the suburbs and was
Curtis Little (10:47.681)
and kind of fell into working with I remember when I was working you know Amazon really disrupted and you know all the shopping centers were all a lot to do with Amazon and so
Leland Gross (11:00.45)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (11:13.977)
retail ended up becoming more and more which I love because that's honestly passionate about I love restaurant groups and in places where so all these different restaurant groups like national chains like Chipotle and
Curtis Little (11:43.249)
even guys like Duncan and Popeyes and exciting but they're growing one company I was working for and then group all the while I was getting my masters was kind of like a hybrid distance
Leland Gross (11:52.325)
Mm.
Curtis Little (12:17.724)
I was and Charleston for two years so was able to go stay for free somewhere Geier Morris in Atlanta and really enjoyed the work
Leland Gross (12:28.268)
Mm.
Curtis Little (12:41.681)
over the southeast I even had a project in Colorado it was just very national development group and commercial real estate is that way more so than residential you know you kind of have to back to the inventory thing like there's just not as many commercial real estate opportunities you've got to cast a wider net so yeah got some really
really good experience built the starbucks people knew me and company i had these relationships and weren't really reinventing the wheel when john and i started our company were company was doing just on a smaller scale um
Leland Gross (13:19.413)
Mmm.
Leland Gross (13:34.51)
So, okay. So you started in commercial real estate up in DC, mostly with office spaces, knew you wanted to get back to Charleston because it's Charleston. Yeah, and Blakely's there, you guys were getting engaged. So transitioned to work with this company out of Atlanta who did, you said High Street Retail was the name, but because that's just an intense market, there's not a lot of demand, kind of moved you into
Curtis Little (13:44.711)
Charles.
Curtis Little (13:48.381)
and true.
Leland Gross (14:03.882)
more of the suburban areas, built these connections with restaurants. At the same time, you switched jobs to be with more of a developer side of that and was getting your masters at Georgetown. And that kind of led you to being able to say, I think I can do this, what I'm doing right now, independently with my best friend, John. And that's kind of how you guys stepped away from just, you know, the...
buying and selling piece into the, now we're gonna work with these connections we have in the restaurant industry to find, underwrite, and develop their properties. Is that right?
Curtis Little (14:45.549)
That's right. That's exactly right.
Leland Gross (14:48.645)
Um...
So John calls you, he says, you know, hey, we've always dreamt about starting a business or like going to work together and jump in on that. Were there any nerves going from like this whole time you have been an employee? So like, what did that feel like? Was that just pretty, you know, we're confident in it and we're running with it or what was the transition like from going from employee to owner and now employer of other people?
Curtis Little (14:59.467)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (15:10.07)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (15:22.577)
I mean there's obviously nerves um all of a sudden you're kill catch you if you fail real estate in particular
Leland Gross (15:41.183)
Mmm.
Curtis Little (15:48.885)
that in real estate, there's less of a leap to entrepreneurship and starting your own company because already you're on a kind of a deal by deal basis. So each project is kind of its own little business if you think about it that way. And so it's not totally foreign. Like I kind of already was running point on my own projects. And so.
Leland Gross (15:59.682)
That's true.
Leland Gross (16:14.677)
Mm.
Curtis Little (16:16.141)
was less scary I also think just doing it with my best friend kind of instilled confidence in me, yeah exactly I think if I was doing it by myself I would have been more afraid to make the leap, I also think I was just gonna say we also we talked to a lot of people before we made the jump.
Leland Gross (16:22.066)
Yeah, not doing it alone. Doing it with someone who knows you super well, who has similar vision.
Leland Gross (16:34.794)
When it makes sense like the... Oh, go ahead.
Curtis Little (16:44.585)
wasn't like we were just like, he called and we did it. We talked to a lot of people that we both respect that have had success in lots of different places, some in real estate, some in others. And so anyway, we felt everybody we talked to kind of believed in us. So I think that was a big piece of the equation.
Leland Gross (17:06.478)
That's awesome. And yeah, I think it is profound what you said and of like already being in real estate, it's already such like an entrepreneurial space. Like you probably were already eating what you were killing, but now you get to eat a bigger portion of it and you don't have as much of a safety net. Like there's a little bit more higher risk and a little bit more higher reward that goes along with it. It's just sort of the next stage.
Curtis Little (17:19.274)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (17:22.578)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Leland Gross (17:35.582)
So you started this business in 2019, and shortly thereafter, the world shut down, and one of the places that was really impacted was restaurants and retail and people, like commercial spaces specifically. So I'm curious what that experience was like for you. A, how'd the business do? And B, how did your like mental health do when you're like, we just started this business? And now we can't like.
Curtis Little (17:46.174)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (18:01.77)
Everyone, no one can gather. And you just said I like building places where people can come and gather.
Curtis Little (18:06.269)
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the short answer is not well. All of it was we were, we were not well. The business was not doing well. My mental health wasn't doing well. Yeah. So we, John and I started talking in the summer of 2019. And then by the time we actually got up and running, it was October of 2019. So then, you know, within a few months.
Leland Gross (18:15.891)
Hehehe
Leland Gross (18:33.162)
Really solid five month start.
Curtis Little (18:36.377)
Yeah and you know the lead time on a it takes months if not years to get into you know we brought on investors when we started count on a six month just halt
Curtis Little (19:03.509)
Chipotle, Starbucks, all these big guys, everyone just hits the brakes, completely stops, backs out of all their projects that they're doing, mostly just because of the uncertainty. No one knew what was happening. We didn't know what was happening. I think similar to everyone though with COVID.
Curtis Little (19:22.077)
I was so, it's not like we knew that this was gonna be a two year ordeal at the time. Every week you're kind of like, well, maybe this is gonna end. You know, like we just, yeah, it did. So it's like a lot of stop and start through that. And then what happened that we were, you know, pretty fortunate in is a lot of the restaurants we work with have drive-throughs and
Leland Gross (19:30.67)
It's true. I'll probably leave what made that so exhausting.
Leland Gross (19:50.666)
Mm.
Curtis Little (19:51.557)
the restaurant sales actually went up something to do I think people were allowed to go swing by a Starbucks I'll wear a mask and do that and so all everybody hit the brakes they stopped data came in that their sales were up growing so it was terrifying
Leland Gross (20:27.478)
Yeah, it makes sense.
Curtis Little (20:35.194)
um started going to a counselor really helped still fortunate just because pretty big business through covid.
Leland Gross (20:43.346)
It's so interesting when you ask different business owners how COVID impacted them. And commercial real estate was one of like probably the more brutal sectors. But you don't think about like, yeah, I remember going through drive-throughs. I remember restaurants in Virginia Beach have like using their parking lot to create like a drive-through experience. And just like part of all these businesses is they're also entrepreneurs. And so they're like, you're built to survive. You're like, how do we...
Curtis Little (21:02.443)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (21:10.797)
We've got to figure it out.
Leland Gross (21:11.966)
Yeah, how do we have to ebb and flow and transition just to keep the doors open? And so I wouldn't have even thought about drive-throughs, but you're like, yeah, that makes total sense. And I was like, people, I remember myself being like, I just need to get out of my house. My wife and I would do, we'd call them walktails. We'd just like make a cocktail and go walk, because we were like, what else do we do? Can't go anywhere. Yeah, truly, you know? I mean.
Curtis Little (21:33.086)
Yeah.
little day drinking why not?
Leland Gross (21:39.982)
Virginia Beach, the beaches were closed. It was like, this is like the most wide open space with a breeze. Okay, so that's interesting. And you guys have, I mean, since COVID, continued to grow in a great trajectory. I mean, you have more and more business. You said you have a couple employees now. What is the direction? Is it just like keep sailing the same speed? Is it like what?
Curtis Little (21:43.021)
Cheers.
Yeah.
Curtis Little (22:07.722)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (22:09.11)
What's next for the company?
Curtis Little (22:11.333)
So it's a good question, there's a couple of different and I either one of us want to have a I don't see us ever getting to a employees right now there's I do think we're looking to expand
Leland Gross (22:24.245)
Mm.
Curtis Little (22:41.405)
another developer so that's and so bringing on someone kind of or next to me that would maybe cover a that's kind of the way you grow up so Carolinas right now makes life easier on us to work with covering huge territories
Leland Gross (22:53.556)
Hmm.
Leland Gross (23:02.988)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (23:12.913)
take the clients you have the hope is expand with them to other places. the other place that I think John and I back into more urban areas and working more local restaurants so I don't
Leland Gross (23:16.354)
wherever they're going, yeah.
Curtis Little (23:39.901)
and putting it together and building this thing from scratch. But it's not like I'm super excited about drive-through fast food restaurants. That's not like my passion. It's a good investment vehicle and it's a good business to be in and it's relatively safe because when I go build a Starbucks, they're signing a lease for 10 years and that's corporate Starbucks in Seattle. So unless they go out of business.
Leland Gross (24:03.822)
Mm-mm.
Curtis Little (24:09.297)
as a whole company you're getting rent possibly be in our space local chef charleston you know you see restaurant
Leland Gross (24:12.267)
Hmm.
Leland Gross (24:27.998)
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's my thought. That's my thought with like King Street is you're like, I go back to Charleston and it's, you know, different restaurants everywhere. You know? And so, and what would that look like from, this is just pure curiosity, like, thinking about downtown Charleston or thinking about like a local chef doing that, those are all historic buildings. Like, how do you develop that or retrofit it?
Curtis Little (24:37.548)
Yeah, COVID did a number for sure.
Curtis Little (24:53.291)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (24:58.409)
Yeah, it's really, I mean, every city you deal with, so like that's, you know, a lot of our job is just fighting with local government to get approvals for what it is that we're trying to do. And it's not even like they're necessarily opposed, they just can't get out of their own way. And so it just, it takes longer than it should. But anyway, so each town, even if I'm in the middle of nowhere building a Starbucks, it's not easy.
Leland Gross (25:17.038)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (25:32.988)
can be easier, historic regulations time frame yeah there's a there's an architectural sophisticated and I actually think that's part of the charm of Charleston is really strong
Leland Gross (25:37.75)
more paperwork to get the approval, more time to get the approval.
Leland Gross (25:50.734)
Mm-hmm
Curtis Little (25:56.773)
it adds probably another year on the through all the architectural review the quicker we can turn around a project is less likely to fluctuate in that small you know the worst is when you get into a now where interest rates were at three percent
Leland Gross (26:24.649)
Mmm.
Curtis Little (26:26.473)
and when we go to sell them our properties what we thought they were going to be. more risk through their
Leland Gross (26:30.777)
Mm-hmm.
Leland Gross (26:41.294)
creates more time. And how, from like a logistics perspective, I'm curious, like Starbucks comes and contracts you, do you get paid at the end of that? Like in two plus years, are they paying you along the way? Like for you to keep the lights on, how does that work?
Curtis Little (26:57.429)
Yeah. Now.
Curtis Little (27:02.385)
Yeah no that's a that's a great question we get paid at the end so it's a it's a and so when we build our company you kind um you've got to raise a lot of upfront to give you the runway to then get to three year mark um we're
Leland Gross (27:24.558)
when things begin to like close.
Curtis Little (27:32.733)
and so we've now built and sold several rounds of projects and so you're able to pay off your investors on the front end and then start actually making more money and in our initial capital raise we built in salaries for ourselves, they were he and I both took pretty big pay cuts and it sucked but that's just part of starting a business I mean I think to just come out of the gates.
Leland Gross (27:50.411)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (28:02.973)
making more money than you did at your take some time to build.
Leland Gross (28:09.542)
That's a quick way to go out of business. If you're like waiting to pay yourself, give yourself a raise from your corporate job. That's like part of the entrepreneurial pain and part of the risk. And I think why a lot of people shy away from starting their own business is like, how am I gonna support my family if this thing goes south or even just in the window it's gonna take to get there? Okay, so for you, what surprised you most about this whole journey from,
Curtis Little (28:11.667)
Yeah, for sure.
Curtis Little (28:24.609)
Totally.
Leland Gross (28:38.194)
employee to employer from, you know, DC, Charleston, office space, restaurants, just everything that you've been through, what has surprised you the most?
Curtis Little (28:48.727)
Um
Curtis Little (28:52.009)
I think it's harder real estate is it's hard to the development side especially developing real estate is difficult it's way harder than I ever thought it was going to be also just takes way more time right like you think you kind of like you know you said when a Starbucks opens there's like a good two-year runway.
Leland Gross (28:56.941)
Hmm
Curtis Little (29:19.569)
of a lot of thought, a lot of variables, a lot of things that are out of my control too, that you're relying on to happen and to have any kind of success. So I think the time that it takes and also just the lack of control is not what I was anticipating when I got into it. Now I'm used to it at this point.
Leland Gross (29:25.175)
Hmm
Leland Gross (29:40.782)
Hmm.
Curtis Little (29:47.925)
but I hated it for a while and made me question whether or not I wanted to keep doing it. Just because, yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm a, probably says a little bit about me that I'm a control freak maybe, but not having full control over a project is tough, especially when there's a lot of risk.
Leland Gross (29:52.789)
Mm.
Leland Gross (30:08.042)
Yeah, I mean, well, we're all built to like mitigate pain. Like in investing, just as an example, like people enjoy gains less than they feel pain on losses. And so like they want, the average person would rather mitigate losses than like experience gain. And so I can imagine for you, you're like, there's so many factors out of my control. Like the interest rates, the markets, the company that I'm working with.
Curtis Little (30:21.889)
Totally.
Leland Gross (30:37.742)
COVID, national pandemics. Like, it's not as straightforward as like, all right, we're just gonna choose a proper, do some numbers, choose a property and build it. It's, there's so many other things that can blow the wind in different directions for you.
Curtis Little (30:40.21)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (30:53.693)
Yeah, I also think the other thing that you don't really think about is like when you're working for another company, they do have this platform that they've built where, you know, even just bookkeeping and insurance and, you know, office space and computers and all the things that you just kind of don't put a lot of thought into the back of house stuff, you know.
Leland Gross (31:02.696)
Mm-hmm.
Leland Gross (31:16.595)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (31:20.877)
I think you take that for granted when you're an employee ready to jump to go start your own thing or at least I did. I think a lot of people do that. So that yeah, I mean, I wouldn't sleep on that part of starting a business.
Leland Gross (31:26.711)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (31:34.526)
I think that is probably one of the biggest like
pain points for most entrepreneurs, I would say like, even just on this podcast interviewing different people, there's people who love business. Like they love that stuff. Bookkeeping, taxes. They're like, we could sell anything. I don't care what it is. I just like the business piece of it. And I think that's fewer than the people who find something else they enjoy. Commercial real estate, finance, art, whatever it may be. And then you're like, I can do this on my own because you can. You can do the trade itself.
Curtis Little (32:05.131)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (32:09.407)
right.
Leland Gross (32:10.166)
But then you become a business owner and you're like, well, crap, now I need to figure out, I need to give time to my bookkeeping. I need to give time to thinking about my taxes and my employees and my insurances and all that takes to run a business just to keep it up to code.
Curtis Little (32:31.509)
Right and when you're starting out too you don't even have the money to pay the accountants or all these other third parties that you would love to just pay to just deal with it so you've got to figure it out yourself it's your only option. Yes totally yeah exactly, exactly right.
Leland Gross (32:41.389)
Yeah.
You're just like swimming in QuickBooks like, I don't know, I think this is right. I know. So what was the low point for you in the journey?
Curtis Little (32:56.709)
Yeah I mean definitely the summer of 2020 with COVID you just start to question why did we do and as the reality of COVID set more and more
Leland Gross (33:06.666)
Mm-hmm.
Curtis Little (33:27.057)
um it was bleak there for a little bit and breakdowns and just what to do or where to turn um so yeah I also think this last year has been you know interest rates have just shot up you know we're somewhat insulated you
Leland Gross (33:34.445)
Mmm.
Leland Gross (33:50.054)
Mmm.
Curtis Little (33:56.145)
guys that are building apartments and but it's just been a it's been a but at the same time you know we hurdles
Leland Gross (34:13.374)
Yeah, definitely. A question came to mind that I wanted to ask earlier but had forgotten. So I want to pause before I get your definition of success. You and Blakely are both self-employed and I think a lot of people when they start their business or just own a business, the other spouse has a salary, has a steady income, or you know might be a stay-at-home mom, but like you guys are both independently dealing with this.
Curtis Little (34:37.365)
insurance.
Leland Gross (34:42.582)
world of variable income and running a back office. So what has that been like for both of you to be business owners?
Curtis Little (34:54.069)
Yeah it's scary for sure and it stinks because prior to me starting my business with John you know I had worked for companies so I had benefits of those companies whereas Blakely has been an artist for quite some time doesn't have benefits so she was using mine so all of a sudden that was a huge part of the equation when we were trying to decide whether or not I should do this.
Leland Gross (35:11.511)
Hmm.
Curtis Little (35:22.413)
all of a sudden we're paying for our own insurance we have zero benefits um and that was a definitely hard decision to make I think we're fortunate and that Blakely we weren't starting from scratch at the same time she already had started her business and had some success um so made it a little less daunting um for sure.
Leland Gross (35:48.234)
Yeah, that makes sense. I think people don't, I think people underestimate the value of having benefits where like someone else is willing to pay half to three quarters of your health insurance and can provide you a better plan than just you can provide yourself just paying astronomical amounts of money independently that having someone who matches your 401k.
Curtis Little (35:59.273)
Yeah, big time.
Curtis Little (36:05.275)
Yep.
Curtis Little (36:16.331)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (36:16.526)
having a 401k, there's so much there that I think, similarly like when I jumped ship, it was a conversation for us, but I don't even think I fully understood like, wow, okay, yeah, I need to come up with my own benefits plan. Or like I need to figure out how to provide this.
Curtis Little (36:34.125)
Right, exactly and it's one more thing that you have to think about too you've already as you've jumped into entrepreneurship you've got a lot that you're trying to think about with just your business and now all of a sudden it's kind of changed your personal life massively and you've got to learn about health insurance you know you've got to you've got to try and figure out all of that on your own and it's like you've
Leland Gross (36:51.412)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (36:55.892)
Yeah.
Curtis Little (37:03.201)
data you're trying to absorb and now with it.
Leland Gross (37:08.926)
Yeah, the room in your head gets filled up pretty quickly. And over time, I think like you said, as you push through, as you find success, as you get these systems in place, it becomes easier. Like, you know how to do your bookkeeping or you're able to pay for someone to do that. You know, you kind of get through that, but in an initial hump where you're already taking such a big risk and you're already thinking about so many pieces to also have that.
Curtis Little (37:14.025)
Absolutely.
Curtis Little (37:26.784)
Right.
Leland Gross (37:37.522)
is definitely like a huge jump. So this is a podcast about success, but if, for today's example, if you went out to King Street and just asked anybody on the road how they define success, you're gonna get a different answer from each person. So for you, how would you define success and how will you know if or when you've achieved it?
Curtis Little (38:02.273)
Yeah, it's like, obviously a big question. I think first thing that comes to mind is lifestyle. I think that that's probably the thing that I would point to because, you know, a lot of, yes, sure, making money matters, but I think that we try and make money so that we can support a certain lifestyle.
Leland Gross (38:30.884)
Mm.
Curtis Little (38:32.713)
and you know if I can have time for my family, do a good job at work, have a balanced life of you know exercising, being with friends, all of these things and also while trying to reduce stress then I think you're succeeding so I think that I know a lot of people that make a ton of money
Leland Gross (38:54.819)
Mm.
Curtis Little (39:02.721)
highly stressed people burning the candle at both ends by most people's definition that successful, I think I chased that for a while and realized that I would rather dial back a little bit and have more balance and kind of a more balanced lifestyle.
Leland Gross (39:14.242)
Mm-mm.
Leland Gross (39:31.546)
I think that is so wise of, I mean, we're just all climbing a ladder and you don't wanna get to the top and realize it's on the wrong wall. And I think what I tell people that I get to serve is, money has two types of value. It has quantitative value, which says, $100 can buy $100 worth of stuff. And then the qualitative value, which says,
Curtis Little (39:43.082)
Yeah.
Leland Gross (40:01.326)
is what is that $100 worth of stuff doing for you? Like how is it progressing your lifestyle or helping you build the life you want? And the quantitative value is only as valuable as the qualitative it provides, which is like an interesting principle. But like you said, you don't need more just to have more because you'll just be stressed. But to use your resources, your time, your business to create a balanced lifestyle.
where you're healthy, you're not stressed, you're spending time with the people you love, doing the things you love, living based on your values.
Curtis Little (40:38.953)
Yeah, I also think, I mean, it depends on you, you are obviously. So that's for me. I'm just naturally a highly stressed person. So I think that's, I've done a lot of learning and particularly learning about myself and starting a company will force you to do that. And you know, there are people that don't carry a lot of stress and they have crazy bandwidth and they can.
Curtis Little (41:12.715)
go and what looks like an for them but that's just not my experience.
Leland Gross (41:13.547)
Mm.
Leland Gross (41:18.794)
Yeah, I'm in your camp. I'm just like a type A anxious human. And so, well, I appreciate all that you shared and just can't thank you enough for being on the Self-Employment Success Podcast today.
Curtis Little (41:22.295)
Ha!
Yeah.
Curtis Little (41:33.993)
Yeah, Leland, thanks for having me and I've enjoyed it.
Leland Gross (41:40.639)
Oh, all right. It's off.