Jesse Barnett - F2F

Jesse Barnett: Hello.

Chris LaFay: Love that hat, dude. That's freaking awesome hat.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, yeah, my howdy hat. I got mustache. I decided to go little doc holiday action, dude.

Chris LaFay: That's what I'm talking about, man.

Jesse Barnett: It's the whole deal, you know, I.

Chris LaFay: Need one of those hats. That's literally what I say all the time. It's how I. My line for, like, all of my emails is, howdy. How do people think I'm like, ultra southern? I'm like, I'm not ultra southern. I am southern.

Jesse Barnett: So this. I know I got one that's in this color and then in this color, but I. So this is a company called Forged 4x4. And they like restore or they like build out like. Like off road vehicles and then they give them away and so they have, like, apparel and it's. It's all that kind of stuff. So I was like, oh, I like, I'm a hat guy. Right. So they did this one and I bought it, and I'm not really a brown guy. And then they came out with like a navy blue, and I'm like, all right, so I'm gonna do that.

Chris LaFay: I want the blue.

Jesse Barnett: Nice. Hey, I like your big podcasting microphone. You look so official.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, I'm trying. I. I've been told that it doesn't pick up well, so I've normally. I normally have it, like right over here, which picks up decently. And so I was hoping that I could put it in front. Like, I have my keyboard right here.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, yeah.

Chris LaFay: And I would prefer to not have to move it. And it just be here all the time.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: But I'm also told that it sounds like I'm a mile away. And then when I put it over here, it sounds like I'm a lot closer, but then I have to.

Jesse Barnett: That does sound. Yeah, that does sound. If you could. I wonder if it could go up above you off screen.

Chris LaFay: So what I'm realizing and what I've read is so I've had this blue Yeti for, like, probably a decade at this point.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: I'm thinking about getting a, like, shotgun mic.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: That will sit lower on the. On the desk will be solid black. And I could actually put it, like up to like, right here because then it would be about 12 inches away from my mouth, but pointed directly at me. And those are a lot more one directional microphone.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah, yeah. Because those are meant, like, I've got the snowball one that I bought, and it's like that. It's like it's supposed to get everything, and I've never even used it. Like, I just use what. I mean, I'm on my laptop right now. Like, I, I kind of want one of those. That's a little bit better. But at the same time it's.

Chris LaFay: I'm not podcasting or anything, so it's not worth it. It's not worth it for you? It's worth it for me because I do podcasts sometimes and things like that. And. But if the thing. The ones I'm looking at are like 250 to 400 bucks, which this thing has lasted me a decade. So, like, it's just a microphone. Like, it's not gonna go. It's not something that I would need to buy more than once every five or six years, if not longer than that. So, like, yeah, I'm okay with spending 400 bucks on a microphone that'll make me sound good and I don't have to rearrange my desk every time I do a meeting.

Jesse Barnett: That's the thing. Like I, and I, I want to get one of those. Have you seen the. So I bought this thing forever ago, the gimbal deal for your phone. And. But your, the phones are so big and heavy now, it's like I have to take the case off almost. And so now the DJI has that pocket, that OSMO pocket thing. Have you seen this?

Chris LaFay: Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah, it's like got a little screen, like a 2 inch by 1 inch screen. And you can do it like portrait or landscape. And it's a gimbal. It's a tiny gimbal. Like it's. But it's like $600. And I'm like, but I, I want to do more like, teach. Like the times I've like walked and just talked and taught have done really well. And I'm like, I need to do more of that.

Chris LaFay: But yeah, anyway, hey, now you're self employed now it's a whole different ball game, man.

Jesse Barnett: I'm not quite, I'm not quite self employed yet, but I am getting very close.

Chris LaFay: So when are you done?

Jesse Barnett: I don't know. I, I'm frustrated because I got like two ghostwriting projects that are just like, I can't get them to commit. And so that was going to be kind of the big tripwire for me is like, okay, now I got a little bit of a cushion thing.

Chris LaFay: Oh, have you not talked to your.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, no, no, I haven't. I haven't done that yet.

Chris LaFay: Oh, okay. I thought when you and I chatted on the phone, Last, which was like a month ago, like, when you kind of made the decision, like, this is. This is the next step. This is what's going to happen. I, for whatever reason, thought, like, you were within a week going to be like, not. Not leave, but you would know, like, you were gonna go ahead and prep like a month or so or two in advance, being like in April slash May. That's going to be where my deadline is.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah, it's. It's hard. Yeah, I'm. I'm. Well, we have. It's been interesting last few weeks because my. My wife's grandmother died, so we had to go to Louisiana for a funeral. So it's just been kind of like disruption type things, you know? And so I'm like, okay, I. I really am wrestling, like, am I supposed to just blindly jump in faith or. You know what I mean? Like, it's almost like I don't know what kind of pressure I'm carrying that I wouldn't know is there if it's gone, you know? And that's part of this challenge, like, why I reached out to you, because I'm like, okay, I built the site, but then it's like, like, I stopped paying for ConvertKit because it was 39amonth. And I was like, oh, no, I need ConvertKit because I did a pretty cool, like, opt in thing. And then it's like, I got to finish this site. And then it's like, I did that podcast and then I renamed and I was like, oh, crap. So it goes to the site that I don't want it to go to. And then I was like, I hate to bug Chris. I guess I'll bug Chris, you know, and, you know, he's used to it now, but it's like, oh, my gosh. So there's so many things, and on top of the things that I'm doing, and it's kind of killing me because it's like I'm so fractured in my attention, but I'm doing the best I can. You know what I mean? I'm doing the best I can. And just like, I read an interesting post today about regret, and the guy was saying, like, reframing regret. And he was like, we, A lot of us carry, like, this shame or this, like, we beat ourselves up because we should have done this, you know, And. And I. This is like, sort of philosophical, I guess, but somebody was saying something about, like, you know, the past really doesn't exist and the future really doesn't exist. Like, only thing you have is now. Like, And I've thought about this. Like, your past is like, it's some proteins and some synapses and like, it's gone. Right. Like there's nothing. Like, there's nothing. It's a mem. It's a snapshot. It's a memory in your mind. And the same thing in the future.

Chris LaFay: Now say that same thing about the past to somebody that is a therapist and see what they say.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And like, so I, I, I agree with you. Like, I don't, I do not see a, in, in general, I don't see a reason to dwell on the past.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Like, obviously we all do in some way, shape, form or fashion. But, like, it's done.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah. Turn the page.

Chris LaFay: It's a story. Don't get me wrong. It's a thing that you can learn from, but it's, it's a story. It's not worth going back and recounting time and time and time and like, living in that.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: I also know that some people can't help it. They can't help it. And then they're stuck there and they can't get themselves out.

Jesse Barnett: But, and I'm not that bad. But like, I, in 2023, when I went to this conference and I came back and I started posting on LinkedIn, and you remember you were, I was getting like 20 comments and I was getting all this interaction, like, oh, this is great. And then for some reason, I didn't think I was, I was trying to adjust and then I stopped. And, and so if I, if I did beat myself up, it'd be like, what an idiot. Like, if I had done that for two years, I'd be in a vastly different spot, you know? But I also was trying not to step on story builders toes, and I wasn't quite dialed in on what I was doing. Like, even the people I talked to, I didn't really have an offer. Like, okay, I can.

Chris LaFay: Oh, no, yeah, you were, you were just, you were, you were talking to the void in some way, shape or.

Jesse Barnett: Fashion, figuring it out. And so.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Jesse Barnett: But anyway, I like that idea of like reframing regret and being like, okay, that's done. It's like a, it's like a football player that throws an interception. You're like, I got to shake that off because I got to go right back out there and do it again. Know.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, exactly. Just don't make the same mistake twice. Like, yeah, yeah. But it is what it is. There's a great By Judah and the lion called it is what it Is. And I love it. That band is actually really interesting because the lead singer had a Christian upbringing. I don't know. Like, I've not done, like, a. A. A bazillion de depth research of this dude.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And a couple of years ago, he went through a nasty divorce. Apparently it was nasty. And he wrote an entire album about the. Is it the seven stages of grief? And every song about it. And those songs were very raw.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: But at the same time, or shortly. Actually, shortly before that and shortly after that, the lead singer also released on his own name, not his band name, but his own name, Christian music, which is also very storytelling. S. It was not standard Christian music stuff. And then I don't really know where he's at now, but it's really interesting to listen to his music pre divorce, during the divorce, and then the Christian music stuff and seeing how, like, how ingrained in, like, real life stories, all that is. Because it's not perfect. Yeah, it's not perfect at all. But there's also this, like, real. There's also this, like, really wonderful thing about it not being perfect at the same time to where it feels very much like the human experience. Yeah. So anyway, that's the past. All right.

Jesse Barnett: The past, man. I'm just trying. I. I really am excited. Like, I don't know if you got to skim through the site that I made or not. Like, it's. It was. I. I'm really excited for where I'm going. Like, my wife is on board. She's excited about it. It feels like we're marching in the right direction, and so that's what I'm trying to do is go just do something every day that moves the needle, you know, like, do a little bit of something. Yeah. Just keep. Keep going. So keep.

Chris LaFay: Like, move slowly but surely. Yes. Yeah. It's the ability to do it. So.

Jesse Barnett: That's right. And that podcast is great because it was. I listened to it. I'm like, oh, I'm getting better at this. Like, I'm not. I don't sound like a goober.

Chris LaFay: Hey, look at that.

Jesse Barnett: I didn't usually sound like a goober, but I'm trying to be more intentional about filler words and just slowing myself down and delivering value and things like that.

Chris LaFay: I was talking to a friend of mine at dinner the other day, and I was telling him about. I hosted a couple events, and I was like, man. I was, like, shocked. Like, it went well. And he's like, what do you mean you're shocked that it went well? I'M like it. People showed up. He's like, dude, wipe that vocabulary out of your mouth. Of course people showed up. People like you. This is a good thing. Like you're doing a good thing. It's gonna start small, it's going to grow. It'll be good. Stop talking as if you're like, surprised. Yeah, good things happened. And I was like, I know that's not what you're saying. I know you're talking about like messages, inherent confidence. At the end of the day, it really is.

Jesse Barnett: It's the same exact thing. And, and I, I'm so happy that that's doing well because that's such a good. You like, it's your personality and I love that. And I think it's wild, this book. So this reality benders book is about to come out that we worked on and it's really a good book. But he talks about the reality cycle. So like the way that you, the, the thoughts become actions and the actions become beliefs and behaviors. And you know, there's neuroscience on that. Like you, if you, if you envision, you know, your ideal week, you know, next year, like two years from now or whatever, like what you want it to be, or you're living in this place, like your brain doesn't know if that's something that's already happened or it's gonna happen. Kind of going with that memory thing, it's the same chemicals flood, the same things that happen. So if you, if you talk about, oh, I'm so shocked that didn't go, or that went well, or people came like, you're reinforcing that negative instead of going, this was great. I'm actually really good at this. Next time I'm going to have this many more people. And like you're, you're kind of putting it out there into the world, you know, And I think, I think that's scriptural too. I think there's like, I think there's scriptural evidence of that. Like, hey, say to this mountain, it'll move and it'll move. Right? Like that's. This is a Jesus thing. This isn't just a like woo woo or something like that.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, exactly.

Jesse Barnett: Okay, let's do this. Let's do the redirect and then let's chit chat about all the awesome stuff that you have.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, help me know. Go ahead and share your screen with me.

Jesse Barnett: It is in bluehost. So. Share screen, check.

Chris LaFay: And then where are you hosting the app on? Lovable.

Jesse Barnett: Yes.

Chris LaFay: Okay, so the two tabs I want you To. Okay, so go ahead and click on the DNS tab over here and dope, you have all the change. Okay, perfect. Awesome. So keep this up. Now go over to your other tab where lovable is and login. Okay, I'm not as familiar with lovable, so show me where the. The settings are for that project where you initially. Because you initially you pointed a domain to this. This app, so you had to do something. So where did you. Where did you view that. That Lovable? I'm assuming it's a project. The message co website. Is there like a settings section for that? Yeah, settings. Alrighty, alrighty, alrighty. Here we go, here we go. URL. Click on. Yeah, click on the edit button. URL, Subdomain. Nope, not going to worry about that. Okay, go ahead and close that. Scroll down. Oh, there's more. Okay, cool. Civil Analytics Cross Project. Keep on going. We're looking for like add a domain name. All right, Please hold for one minute. Let's hear how domain to lovable, please.

Jesse Barnett: Domains.

Chris LaFay: I have a custom domain name. Here we go. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Project settings. Domains. It should says that there. Oh, right, okay. On the left hand sidebar, there's a tab that says domains right underneath Project settings. Up, up.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, I just saw that and clicked it there.

Chris LaFay: Hey there, look at us. Buy new Connect domain. So bottom right hand corner. Not corner, but bottom right. Yep. Type in whatever is the domain name on that Bluehost.

Jesse Barnett: The Message Accelerator one.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. That's what you want to point that to this one, right?

Jesse Barnett: Yeah, yep.

Chris LaFay: So Message Accelerator. I would copy and paste it. I wouldn't type it in. I know it sounds stupid.

Jesse Barnett: No, it doesn't. I was. Because it doesn't have like HTTP, all that stuff, right? Like.

Chris LaFay: No, we're just doing just the domain name.

Jesse Barnett: Good. Voila.

Chris LaFay: Dope. Redirect Message Accelerator. That's all fine. Connect. Is that. Yep, that works. Click the. There's an advanced link. No. Okay, we don't want that. Okay, click on Connect Domain name, bottom right hand corner.

Jesse Barnett: Sweet.

Chris LaFay: Click on Complete setup on the top one. You don't. I don't. You don't need to do that. Just click on Continue. Just click on Continue. It should give you the option to.

Jesse Barnett: Like, I did something with this yesterday.

Chris LaFay: Maybe do the Go to man. Do the manual setup. So click. There's a little link below. Continue. Go to manual. There it is. Okay, so go ahead and copy the first one. The. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Copy on the right the value. Copy the Value. So the IP address. Now go back over to bluehost and scroll down a little bit. All right, so we have two. We have two A records that have the AT sign. I want you to go ahead and delete one of them. Does not matter which one it is. Just pick one of them.

Jesse Barnett: It's 10 or 11, it doesn't matter.

Chris LaFay: But do the one with the at sign. So there's two. The top two have the at sign.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, my bad.

Chris LaFay: In the second column. So yeah, pick one of those and delete one. Delete. And now we're going to edit the other one. So click the dots and do edit. And then you're going to go ahead and delete that IP address and then paste in the other one. And then click on edit, which should say save. I don't know why it says edit. Now go back to Lovable and go ahead and copy. Oh, these are TXT records. Okay, go back. Actually, let's go back over to bluehost and fix one other thing first. So there are two WW records that are a records. Go ahead and delete both of those.

Jesse Barnett: Both of these guys.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. And then I want you to click on add a record at the top. Right. Do single record. The type dropdown menu is going to be a. TXT record. Now go back over to. Should be. I don't know what that's going to be. Go back over to level.

Jesse Barnett: This one.

Chris LaFay: Do the host name first. So the. The first. The other side. Yeah. And then just paste it in this value field. Okay. Go ahead and delete it from the value field because it is actually not the value. Go ahead and the refers to dropdown menu. Click on other host and then paste in what you have on your thing. And then now go and copy the other one into the value box.

Jesse Barnett: Such a good student.

Chris LaFay: There we go. Change the TTL that last dropdown menu to scroll down to the smallest value. Fifteen minutes.

Jesse Barnett: There we go.

Chris LaFay: Add.

Jesse Barnett: I want to ask you what all this means, but I realize we don't have time and it doesn't matter.

Chris LaFay: It doesn't matter one bit. So go back over to Lovable. Just click copy on the hood. It's not letting you click the accept button because you didn't click copy. Okay, now click the the blue button. That's stupid. Click on Done. Now we're going to go to the so now scroll to the next one. So www.message accelerator. Click complete setup next to it. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I don't like giving random apps access to my DNS records. That's the reason I'm not having you do the automated stuff. All right, go ahead, copy the. Go ahead and click on add a value add. I'm sorry, add a record. This time we're going to keep it at an A record. We're going to refer to www.and now go back to lovable and copy the value of the first one paste and then change the TTL to 15 minutes.

Jesse Barnett: Is TTL time to load time to live. Okay.

Chris LaFay: Daisy. Daisy, go get Ally. Go get her. Go get her. And then go ahead and add another text record. And then change the drop down for refers to. To other host. And then go do the. The host and the value. And then TTL to 15 minutes. So the text. All the text records do just validate that you own the domain name. That's it. The. The A record that is the at sign is the root of the domain. So message Clarity Co or Message Accelerator.com and that points that domain name to the IP address of Lovable. The WWW record basically just duplicates that because the root domain name and then the www.are2 are different things.

Jesse Barnett: Okay. Oh, interesting.

Chris LaFay: That's good. So now go back over to Lovable.

Jesse Barnett: I was going to ask you, is there a way to like copy the site, like get all that stuff, but it doesn't matter.

Chris LaFay: No, I. It's on my server, so yeah.

Jesse Barnett: Okay, cool. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: All right, go ahead and click on the copy of that last one so you can click the submit button. Okay. Now it should just be. All it should be doing at this point is saying lovable should be bait. So all your traffic is being routed to this. So now I think all that is doing is actually behind the scenes on Lovable that says, oh, we're getting traffic now. Let me make sure that it's like pointed to the right application. Okay, got it. Which should already happen, but I don't know why it takes time to do that part, but.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: The fact that you're already seeing lovable means that you probably. Everything should be set up.

Jesse Barnett: Right. Okay, well, and I had the guy. I had the guy re change the show notes on there. Like so it shows, but it. But even if not, like. Yeah, I just figured I might as well do this now since I got it. It's one of those things on my to do list, you know.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. And this is what message accelerator.com Let me pull it up over here. Message accelerator.

Jesse Barnett: Yep.

Chris LaFay: It. The message actually says setting up the project. So it should be. It should just be the project.

Jesse Barnett: Okay. Which is what's happening right here. Yeah, I'll just let that.

Chris LaFay: You should be. You should be fine. Okay. If you're not fine, there should be error messages in lovable that say something that explained what's happening. The hard part should be done.

Jesse Barnett: Okay, cool.

Chris LaFay: So cool. Yeah.

Jesse Barnett: You are the best. Yeah, it is. If you know what you're doing. If not, you're. It's like, dude, are you sure you want to change this? And I'm like, I think so.

Chris LaFay: And this is why I'll have a job for a long.

Jesse Barnett: That's right.

Chris LaFay: You could have figured that all out with AI. Like, it wouldn't have been hard. But even I'm realizing even smart people aren't. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you are going to do something.

Jesse Barnett: Well, and also because I have done some stuff with AI. Like, I've researched it, but what I find is what it thinks you should do doesn't always align with what you can do inside of something. You know what I mean? Like, you can go in and go, oh, okay, yeah. You're saying look for this. Well, wait, that tab doesn't exist. Like, I don't know. You got some bad information, you know?

Chris LaFay: Right.

Jesse Barnett: So it's like, exactly. It's like, it's so good that in fact I was trying to come up with an easy way to put like a blog type of a thing on the. The lovable site. And it was like, oh, you just need to use Sanity IO and you go over here and you connect this and you do this and there's all this stuff. And I'm like, okay. And try to do that. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I just like, I abandoned. Abandoned ship. You know what?

Chris LaFay: Yeah, that makes no. Yeah, that makes no sense. You should be able to. Okay, see? And so again, this is why I'll have a job in the future.

Jesse Barnett: I want to go in and put like, I've got a kit like ConvertKit allows you to do a newsletter. I just haven't ever quite figured out how to do it well. So, you know, like, this is what Kit's page share screen. This is. This is what like my home page to this point looks like on Kit. But I don't have a. I don't have a way really to connect it to the site. So.

Chris LaFay: So you just need to grab the ConvertKit, embed code and have it just embed. It won't embed the whole site, but just like the form part of it. Because, yeah, like on WordPress, you just installed the ConvertKit plugin and it just popped up.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah. So this is one of those that I need to tinker with and see because, like, there's an embed code on a form, but a landing page, there's not. It's just stuff like that. It's just, like. It's just clunky, so. Which is why you'll have a job.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. It's a wonderful thing.

Jesse Barnett: You did the wonderful thing. What is something awesome that's happening in your life in the next few minutes. Like, you're doing those in person things. I know you were shuffling some things and people and all that last time we talked. And what's awesome in your life, they.

Chris LaFay: They have been shuffled.

Jesse Barnett: All right.

Chris LaFay: Cards are out of the deck.

Jesse Barnett: The decks cleaned up and. Okay.

Chris LaFay: It's a wonderful thing. I actually crossed over the. Like, every year I have, like, a required revenue number, and most years I don't hit it. Yeah. And I've already hit it.

Jesse Barnett: Nice.

Chris LaFay: I also. That includes contracts for the rest of the year, too. It's like, I got to keep current clients happy. Like, don't get me wrong, there's that, but it's been hit, and so that makes me thrilled. So there's that little tiny checkbox. And then the second thing, which is something that you should do. I am. I'm hosting a lunch club with, like, my agency friends, and it is May 20th indicator.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: So it's in, like, three weeks.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: You should come to that.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: Do you want to come to that?

Jesse Barnett: Yeah, I would like that. I'm. I'm going out of town on the 22nd, so that would be awesome. That's a Wednesday.

Chris LaFay: What email address is good for you?

Jesse Barnett: Do it to this new one. Do it to Jesse at. No, do it at my J. Barnett writer. Jade Barnett writer. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Dip.

Jesse Barnett: I got so many calendars now, I'm trying to get everything.

Chris LaFay: So confused, huh? Yes. So I'm doing. Basically what I'm doing is I might make this a regular thing. I don't know. But my goal is to do lunch with about six people. Okay. Every month, month and a half or so. And have all of them bring one of their, like, agency friends with them.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: And then use that as a growth tool to meet for everybody, to meet new people. Do you have somebody in agency world that you think would be fun to hang out with? Yeah. You can invite to that.

Jesse Barnett: Let me think about that. That's my big problem is I don't know anybody locally. Everybody I talk to is on is Zoom. And it's like, oh, okay, you're not close by, so. Yeah, let me, let me think about that.

Chris LaFay: Okay. I just sent you the event invite from 11:30 to 1:30.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: Basically all you gotta do, like I'm not picking up everybody's lunch and so basically just you grab your lunch and that's. That's it. New people. And I figured Taqueria del Sol is an easy place to, to do that.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah. That's awesome.

Chris LaFay: I'm doing that. And then what else am I doing?

Jesse Barnett: What else is up?

Chris LaFay: I am. I have a couple of other. I did another content day about a month or so ago and it went 10 times better in terms of just overall quality and structure. And everything went so much better. It's amazing. You do things more than once, they get better as you do them. Shocker how that. Shocker how that works.

Jesse Barnett: Pretty cool.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Jesse Barnett: The beta test versus the, the. Okay, let's do something. Yes.

Chris LaFay: And I did it with a friend this time as well too, so I got to meet some of her friends, which is great. And what else am I doing? I'm also, I'm hosting a. I don't think this would be beneficial for you, but let me see, let me pull it up. Agency leaders workshop. I am doing this as well.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And so the, the, the long story short is the summary of the exciting things that I'm doing is that I'm basically just leaning into events this year. Like, okay, straight up, I'm leaning into just doing things with other people. And because I don't have this like humongous revenue goal that I have to hit.

Jesse Barnett: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: I'm just co hosting events all year and basically just building up a network of agencies that all know that I build websites.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: Because if we could, if I could grow the way that I did the last few years revenue wise. And I wasn't really trying super hard. I wasn't intentional about trying to grow it. If I actually was intentional about growing it, what could happen?

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: And that's my thinking.

Jesse Barnett: So that's cool.

Chris LaFay: Yes. So the bigger thing I'm doing right now is this that I just texted you the agency day. And so I'm co hosting this with a branding person that I know. We're doing content day in the morning, have lunch, and then we're doing this co. This workshop where you basically leave with a solid messaging structure for your company and updated homepage content as well. Which I realized there's overlap with what you do there. Fully realize that. But I also know that it's sometimes Good to sit down with somebody else and actually work on your stuff, even if it's in your wheelhouse.

Jesse Barnett: So that's cool. Yeah, I'll look at that and see that's really. I love that you're doing that. I think that's so good. Yeah. The shock crew. The shock social crew, huh?

Chris LaFay: Yeah. My. My middle school teacher introduced me to them and found out that the redhead guy in the middle of that photo used to go to the church that I used to go to and knows, like, a ton of people that I know. I found that out on Saturday. So what church he went? Oh, he went to. He went to first out to Snowville back in the day.

Jesse Barnett: Okay.

Chris LaFay: His mom was Lori Lauren. Lori Heron.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, I know her. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: That's what everybody has said. And so he's the redhead. Is hers. One of her sons. And so, yeah, she.

Jesse Barnett: She did choir right there. She was a singer, right. Like, because I think. I think. Yeah, I think my, like, something popped up about, like, Easter 10 years ago, because my son was, like, little bit, like, I don't know, seven, and he sang a solo and it was. Yeah, like, and that popped up. And I think she was. Did, like, children's choir stuff.

Chris LaFay: That sounds about right. And I happen to talk to Joe Lewis and JC Sosia all today, and I was like, do you recognize this person? They're like, yes, I do, actually. Let me show you photos that I have with him from years.

Jesse Barnett: Oh, that's so funny.

Chris LaFay: So it was a. A small world moment. Moment throughout the day today. So.

Jesse Barnett: Awesome. All right, I gotta go. I don't want to, but thank you so much. Thanks for always being such a good friend and helpful. I always feel bad. I always feel like I'm like, hey, I need you. And, like, I don't feel like I reciprocate well.

Chris LaFay: So. You are perfectly fine, sir. You are perfectly fine. We haven't hung a while, and we should probably remedy that at some point.

Jesse Barnett: We should. We need to go. We need to go have some. Some food somewhere.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Jesse Barnett: So.

Chris LaFay: Yes. Let me know where it works.

Jesse Barnett: All right. Sounds good, buddy. Have a good day. Thank you. Bye.