Episode 106: Zeiders American Dream Theater
The driving force behind the theater is Michael Zeiders, Founder and CEO of Zeiders Enterprises, Inc. Today, Zeiders Enterprises employs over 1,000 professionals nationwide, including 200 in Hampton Roads. Services include family counseling, personal financial management, spouse employment and career transition. Zeiders is also the Founder and Chairman of the Quality of Life Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable organization that supports the families of severely wounded, ill or injured veterans. Mike’s experience also includes writing a musical comedy that was performed in 13 cities, and teaching audio production classes at Northern Virginia Community College. Michael Zeiders has a BS degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and an M.B.A. from George Mason University.
Mike is the Chairman of Zeiders Enterprises, Inc. a Quality of Life company he began in 1984. Zeiders Enterprises is a human services company developing and implementing programs designed to enhance individual productivity, strengthen readiness and resilience, and address the challenges faced by military service members, veterans, and their families. Zeiders currently employs over 1,000 professionals delivering counseling and education services to military and family members at over 100 locations and military installations worldwide. Mike is also the founder and Chairman of the Zeiders American Dream Theater (The Z) in Virginia Beach. The Z is a professional non-profit theater that provides creative opportunities for gifted artists while encouraging each member of the community to pursue their dreams – no matter what they may be. Mike has been involved in career and educational programs throughout his professional career. He is the author of the book “Entrepreneurship, The Art of Succeeding in Business”, Past Chairman of the Northern Virginia Workforce Investment Board, and Past President of the Prince William County Public Schools Education Foundation. Mike graduated with distinction from the U. S. Naval Academy and was the 1975 recipient of the Operations Research Society of America Award. In 1984 he was awarded a Master’s degree in Business Administration from George Mason University. Zeiders Enterprises has been recognized by INC. magazine, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce for excellence. Mike’s proven business skills, vast experience with non-profit organizations, and commitment to making a difference in peoples’ lives provide the Quality of Life Foundation with leadership that will guarantee success, whatever the mission. Mike is dedicated to improving the quality of life of military members and their families and working with young people to instill an appreciation of education and a drive towards entrepreneurship.
Transcription
Kenny: All right. Hey. Welcome everyone. Kenny porter here. KP’s BlackBox. Before we get started today and I introduce our guest, I just want to give a massive shout out to the greatest fraternity in the world. Not the midshipmen.
Mike: The Navy?
Kenny: The-the department of the Navy. The men's department. Ha-ah. How do you like that? Mike said, “no” [booing] He didn't like that. All right so shout out to the marine corps, actually to all of our services, because you guys are important to us. We love you. We appreciate what you do and our guest today actually does an amazing job at serving our military, military families. We’ll talk about that in a little bit but let me introduce a friend of mine, Mr Mike Zeiders.
Mike: Hey Kenny. How you doing?
Kenny: I'm wonderful.
Mike: Wearing that marine shirt today?
Kenny: I did. In your honor. You know, the marine corps supports our navy men and women of the world with protecting the shores and storming the shores and all that good stuff so. You had to put up with some marines for a number of years right?
Mike: Hey I—I’ve got a lot of friends that are marines and I could—I’d have a hard time really busting any chops of any marines. I know that I shouldn't be able to say that, I should be able to just jump right in, but, I got a lot of respect for the marines and and what they do and what they do for our country. So, I'll just just just give my props. I'm glad that they’re part of the department of the navy.
Kenny: How about a, uh, a quick toast to all of our service people?
Mike: Cheers.
Kenny: Johnny Walker blue label. They're not a sponsor, one day they will be.
Mike: Okay.
Kenny: So, that's to all of our troops. Thank you. We appreciate you. So, that's a good segue. You spent a little bit of time at one of the greatest institutions in the world, the US Naval Academy.
Mike: I did.
Kenny: So you're a graduate?
Mike: I am. Graduated in ’75.
Kenny: 1975.
Mike: Shows how old I am now.
Kenny: Wow, so, wow. All right, so 1975. What was the naval academy like? Or even I guess 1971, you reported.
Mike: 1971 is when I, when I, entered for—for plebe summer. It was and it’s—it was busy.
Kenny: To say the least.
Mike: It was busy from beginning to end but it was a it was a good experience. You know there's a there's a saying “it's a great place to be from” and uh, uh, it certainly is a great place to be from. But I had a, I had a lot of good times while I was there too. I mean it was a—
Kenny: Do you remember your first instructor, probably a sergeant in the Marine Corps, staff sergeant, maybe? Maybe a gunny?
Mike: Yeah. I had a—I had a couple couple marines. They—they weren’t, they weren't gunnies. Had a couple majors, who were some of my favorite instructors. They were actually my calculus instructors and differential equations instructors were—was a marine I had, I think, for three classes.
Kenny: Wait a minute.
Mike: Great guys.
Kenny: Wait a minute. Did you say marines and calculus in the same sentence?
Mike: I did. I did.
Kenny: Okay. Because usually if you say Crayola crayons and marines.
Mike: And he was a bald-headed, big chested, hair, head-shaved marine.
Kenny: It wasn't me. But if he had said big gutted then maybe.
Mike: He was. But it was a—No.
Kenny: Wow. So your time in naval academy, wha—what led you to the naval academy as a young 18-19 year old, I would assume?
Mike: I was 17. I was 17 when I went in
Kenny: Wow
Mike: to the naval academy. And I just, you know, I think I was probably different than most. And I'll just, I can probably summarize my transitional experience with what happened the very first night we were there. And as plebes we really got, we got pressed and hassled a lot. But that first night, our first class, which was the seniors that were really the ones that were in charge of us, minute by minute. They actually sat us down in the hallway and actually had a very decent and real conversation. And our first class went around and asked, wanted to ask, everybody “why did you come here?” He pointed to me first and I thought this is a really silly question. I said, “Okay, I came here to go to college” and he said, “okay, that's good.” Then he went to the next guy, he said, “why did you come here?” He said, “to be a pilot.” And I-I just looked and said, “whoah.” I said I never even thought about that and then he went to the next guy, “why did you come here?” “To be a marine.” I'm going, “ooh what did I?—maybe I've missed something about about this whole process.” So, by the time the whole thing—
Kenny: Did you say, “can I change my answer?”
Mike: No, no. I was—that, that was my answer. But I was the only one out of uh about 36 of us in the group that gave that as the answer. Everybody else was going to be a submariner, a pilot, a surface navy, a marine, whatever. So, you know, that was—that was sort of the entrance point for me. I just viewed it as, from the day I entered, it was going to be a a nine year education process. I know that for the, from the really gung-ho, that may not sound like the most patriotic way to do it. But I viewed it as a nine-year process and that four years at Annapolis, five years in the fleet, and unless something changed you know dramatically in that time frame it was—I was looking to move forward and and that's what I did. But you know I think every day since I’ve, since I, actually took the uniform off, I've been serving the the navy, the marine corps, and now—now all the military services. Both active duty card.
Kenny: Yeah
Mike: You know, across—literally around the world, right now. So that’s—I've never stopped serving, I just have done nearly 40 years out of uniform now.
Kenny: Wow.
Mike: 36 years or so out of uniform.
Kenny: I'd love to share with the audience a little bit about what you're doing now and as a young midshipman and as a graduate and you spent time in the navy. What did you do specifically in the navy while you were in?
Mike: I was a surface warfare officer. I was stationed on a fast frigate. Which is about uh 220-250 people or so, out in San Diego.
Kenny: And for those who don't know what a frigate is, what is it's like a friggin frigate?
Mike: It's a destroyer. It's a small, I mean in the world war—I mean in today's world it’d be a destroyer. In the World War II days it would have been a destroyer, so it’s a—we had a mission to, it was an anti-submarine warfare mission, was one of our core missions. Actually the ship that I was the on was a special project ship, so we had some highly classified things that we went out and did. that unless you were the CO or the XO you didn't even know what it was so.
Kenny: Wow.
Mike: We had ship writers who would go out and run a lot of the equipment and so—
Kenny: You probably didn’t. Did you have a small cadre of jarheads on the on your boat or was that too small?
Mike: No, we were too small for that. No.
Kenny: Yeah, you’re lucky. It's not like the carrier where you got 3 000 marines there
Mike: No we
Kenny: harassing sailors.
Mike: We had a couple helicopter pilots and they were—they were strange enough for us.
Kenny: You had to keep a box of crayons and a coloring book around right? They would eat the crayons. Isn’t that the joke, Noah? Yeah. Right. You know Noah's Army Reserves, right?
Mike: Okay. Well, very good.
Kenny: And my son, I can't say his name. He's trying to do this special stuff right now, but he's in the army. And I—I had a great conversation with him when he enlisted and wanted to go do this high speed low drag stuff. I was like, “well you know why they have the Army? It’s cause not everybody can be a marine. So”
Mike: Okay.
Kenny: There you go. But, I'm just kidding. That's why I wore the t-shirt today. A bunch of my marine bodies were hassling me, because, a couple weeks ago over memorial day, I wanted to you know, give a shout out to our nation's military. And I wore a ranger shirt. You know, for my son and all those guys that laid their lives down. Specifically going back to that celebration of celebrating our soldiers, not the event, but Normandy.
Mike: Yeah.
Kenny: Uhm and uh, you know, holds a special place in my heart for those folks. And so thank you for your—your service Mike. We appreciate that.
Mike: Thank you. On a little lighter note, you know what all West Point Cadets and Naval Academy Midshipmen have in common?
Kenny: Okay, I can't wait. What?
Mike: They all applied to the naval academy.
Kenny: That’s awesome. A delay on—There we go. [applause] Yeah, we got the audience to clap on that one. That's awesome. We'll give ‘em a [air horn].
Mike: I actually have to be careful what I say. My-my-my corporate business development director is a, he's a class of ’75 Grad from West Point. So we're like you know, honestly we're like brothers with different mothers. You know we both—I knew he was a West Point grad when he when he came on board but I didn’t realize he was class of 75 until we sat down and started talking. So that's
Kenny: That’s pretty cool
Mike: Really, it really is. It really is. We’re prett—pretty good buddies. He actually went to the Navy Air Force football game with me last, uh, last season. And wore all of his West Point, actually was pretty tasteful. He—he, nobody doubted he was from west point, but it was all tasteful dressing. And everybody stopped, nobody wanted to talk to me, everybody stopped and talked with him. And he was just chattering all over the place. “What's the—what’s a West Point guy doing here?” And—
Kenny: That’s funny.
Mike: So he said he was there scouting.
Kenny: We tend to— scouting. I love it. We tend to be a equal opportunity offender in our family, as the branches of service, because we cover all the branches. My-my father-in-law’s a retired Naval physician, my wife's grandpa was a communications guy, senior chief in the in the Navy. My son is in the Army. I'm a Marine, my brother was Navy, my wife's father was a fighter pilot. Thud pilot, in the Air Force. Shout out Grandpa Wayne there.
Mike: Yeah.
Kenny: You better be listening to our video podcast, Grandpa. So let's fast forward a little bit and talk through you, you graduated, you departed the navy and you decided to become an entrepreneur.
Mike: yeah I graduated in 75. and in 1980 I left active duty, but, no even when I was on active duty, I actually had several entrepreneurial activities. I actually started buying audio recording equipment to record music. I like to write and that's what I did for, for fun. I used to when I was on active duty, I would bar hop like any other good sailor, but I wasn't looking for girls, I was honestly looking for bands
Kenny: Charlotte’s glad to know that, right?
Mike: to record my music. And so I found a couple good ones, and I started buying equipment to do my own recording. And eventually I end—opened up a a commercial 8 track audio recording studio. Back in the old days, where we had the big, okay the big reels, and I was running on half inch tape. And running that so I was—I was doing that while I was still on active duty. I even actually wrote a musical comedy that we toured. I had the Navy Recruiting headquarters in DC and San Diego split the cost and had the Morale Welfare Recreation Department, we put together a theater show and we toured through 23 cities in California and Arizona. And I was doing that while I was still on still, I was on shore duty by that point, when I was doing that. I was—I had left the ship but I even had a pinball business. When I was—I bought pinball machines that I would put in clubs. And then I'd come back from sea and run around to try to collect my quarters. And we could we could go all about that. Collecting quarters out of a pinball machine isn’t as easy as it sounds, because, when you're out at sea, you come back after three weeks and find out that the slot got jammed the first night. And you come back and there's three quarters in the machine. You go, “oh well, that didn't work out so well.”
Kenny: So do you think that the navy prepared you as an entrepreneur and-and dealing with adversity? Dealing with your machines clogged up and you can't get quarters in?
Mike: Yeah, you know, I mean to me, I-I don’t. I-I could go back to when I was a little kid, I mean, when I was a little kid I would, I-I mowed 13 lawns a week. I—there were houses being built in a neighborhood near us and I went and asked the builder if I could go clean up all the construction dirt, you know, every night and go do that. I sold sold Christmas cards. I sold flower seeds when I was a little kid. I mean, you know, the idea of you know just coming up with an idea that-to go out and do it I've been doing ever since I've been 10 years old. So, there were many little forays along the way that ever since I was a kid. So, you know, it continued when I was in the Navy. I think I was, I think I served the Navy well as a naval officer but I still had these other itches and interests that I just continued to do on the side.
Kenny: So, were your parents entrepreneurs or business people or?
Mike: No. My mother was a high school teacher and my father was a hospital administrator so they really weren’t.
Kenny: So where do you think that itch to be an entrepreneur came from?
Mike: You know, I never thought of it as an itch to be an entrepreneur. I never even heard the word ‘entrepreneur’ until I was taking an Econ class at the Naval Academy. And when the professor mentioned the term entrepreneur and he described it to me, this is-this is what—this is the way I interpreted it. If I had, and I asked, and this is the first time I probably decided I probably am an entrepreneur. That was only because there was now a word that was there, that I had never heard before. But the way I interpreted it was, if I had a choice between being a research scientist and curing cancer. And this is honestly what I thought when I was, I was probably 19 years old at this point. I said if I had a choice of being a research scientist and coming up with a cure for cancer or building the research laboratory that the research scientist worked in, that cured the cancer. What would I rather do? And there was no question in my mind. I'd rather build the research laboratory and hire the research, cancer researcher. With the feeling is, is once I had the research laboratory that could cure cancer than what else could we do? And we could keep going with the whole thing. So there was no question. So that, that was the moment in that Econ class, that when I made, when I connected those dots. I thought personally that’s, that's where my enthusiasm, you know, really is. And so it's really just came down to not a specific activity I wanted to do. It was just this, was just a way of life, a way of thinking. That you know life just sort of evolved and it's taken on many different, now you could use the term, entrepreneurial lives along the way but or lives along, the way but yeah.
Kenny: That’s that's an amazing outlook. I-I appreciate that thought process of, it sounds to me, like you're encouraging others who are experts in a maybe a micro facet and you're thinking macro like, “okay I can build this entity.” I can build this thing and hire experts to do what they're really good at, it’s what it sounds like you're saying.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. And in a sense that's true. I-I would, just just to sort of answer your question. I, you know, when I finished my-my active duty service. I got out and I formed a for-profit company called Zeiders Enterprises. And when Zeiders Enterprises was initially formed our, actually, our charter says that we are incorporated to produce and distribute music. And then the next line says or to do anything else that's legal. Today—
Kenny: So you're selling weed?
Mike: No. No. No.
Kenny: No? I’m off there?
Mike: No. So-so-so-so today—
Kenny: I’ma going to give myself a boo here. [booing]
Mike: Today Zeiders Enterprises uh—
Kenny: Okay people.
Mike: It’s—it's still running and we have—we have approximately a thousand people working in virtually every state in the country and about eight foreign countries or so right now.
Kenny: A thousand people?
Mike: And we provide support for military. We do quality of life programs for military service members and their families nationwide for all the services but—
Kenny: How old were you when you started this business?
Mike: Uh, I was 29.
Kenny: Wow.
Mike: 29 when I started I got—I got out of the navy when I was—got commissioned when I was 21. I guess I got out when I was 26-27. I actually incorporated back in 1981 but I didn't really start actually working full-time in it until about 1983. So I was 29 when I went—when I went independent.
Kenny: So if you could think back to that 29 year old and you you got your first contract and—you and I talked off camera before about this. So that first government contract that, that you received or were awarded. How many employees did you start with?
Mike: It was me. It was me working in the basement I-I had—
Kenny: Working in the basement.
Mike: I did have a—well there's a sort of a cute story. That my when my oldest son, who at the time I think was probably in first grade or second grade, his—and I was working out of the basement at the time. His-his teacher was going around the room, I guess asking kids what their-what their parents did for a job. And so when they got to my son, they asked him, and I said, “well Steve, what did you—what did you tell her?” I said, “I told her you typed.” I said, “okay.” I typed. That's what I did. Because that’s all he saw me doing, was sitting behind the computer and so but, you know, the—to me, to me what entrepreneurship was, is it’s a lifestyle. And I-I today even in the orientation videos when we—when we go over the history of Zeiders Enterprises and new employees go through the new employee orientation, one of the videos I have that I say in all honesty is, I formed Zeiders Enterprises because I wanted to coach little league. And I say I coached little league for 13 years and so I consider Zeiders Enterprises to have been successful. Now, we've done a lot beyond that, but honestly, I want it—it was a lifestyle issue. It was a matter of—
Kenny: So basically being with your family, raising your sons, your children—
Mike: Well bei—to me what entrepreneurship meant to me was, it—it gave me the freedom to do what I was enthusiastic about doing. Part of that was having the flexibility to, to go and coach baseball at four o'clock in the afternoon. Where if I had a regular nine to five job, I couldn't go coach baseball at four o'clock in the afternoon. Now that meant that I was working at you know ten o'clock at night and I was working on Saturdays and I was, you know, at points in time I was working easily 100 hours a week. But I could pick 100 hours a week I was going to work.
Kenny: Right.
Mike: For the most part. I mean sometimes you got clients, you know. I—I jokingly say that if you didn't have employees and clients, jobs, you know—running a business would be really easy.
[Laughter]
Mike: But, you know, with that said, you know, as the business began to grow. Even though it started out with the audio recording studio and I had a, a baby shower gift record that was going to be sold in gift shops across—
Kenny: A baby shower gift record?
Mike: It was a little 45 rpm record. Again, it shows how old I am. But I had a distribution arrangement with a gift shop distributor that was going to sell, distribute, put the records in gift shops. It didn't turn out.
Kenny: Zach do you even know what a 45 rpm is over there? Zach our local musician audio guy.
Mike: Yeah.
Kenny: What does rpm stand for Zach?
Zach: Rotations per minute.
Kenny: Rotations per minute.
Mike: I think it’s revolutions per minute, so, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I’d have to google that and find out which one.
Kenny: Yeah, fact check him Zach. He's our fact checker by the way.
Mike: It may turn out that he’s, he’s the right one and I'm going to be embarrassed.
Kenny: Zach loves being right, Mike, so.
Mike: Okay so no matter what google says.
Zach: It’s revolutions.
[laughter]
Kenny: It sucks to be wrong, doesn’t it? So,
Zach: It's my first time.
Kenny: Yeah yeah, on audio, we've got you.
Mike: Right.
Kenny: So, so you're doing this and we’ll pick on Zach later.
Mike: Yeah. So you know, so-so to me the essence of that is and as the business started to grow and we transitioned into doing more government contracting work. I mean, actually our first government contract was with a recording studio. It was to record radio advertisements for the small business administration but then we then we segued in and to other types of events.
Kenny: How did you find these contracts back then? I mean, the internet wasn’t around, right?
Mike: Oh there’s, there's always been a—
Kenny: A job listing? The Fed, the uh, what was that paper—the published paper?
Mike: Fed Bis Ops
Kenny: That's it
Mike: is what, what where we would find them and so. And then I was doing subcontracting to other companies that had larger contracts in the early years. And, you know, without getting into all the details, it took probably about seven-eight years till we transition Zeiders Enterprises out of the music world. Actually, we had a couple interim things we were doing and ended up in the military quality of life and that kind of
Kenny: So your niche found you, not like you were purposely headed towards this?
Mike: Absolutely. I mean I'm a very much belie—I very much believe that you find opportunities as they come along and you have to position yourself to be able to do it. And that's one of the things that as the company started to grow and we started to have the ability to hire people and have payroll and have benefits and had offices and had those things. We—I’d sit down with my wife on, for our anniversary or whatever, say you know this life's pretty good and it’s pretty pretty exciting. Because we're getting to the point now that almost anything I think of I want to do, I actually have it—I actually have a little bit of an infrastructure and base of resources to go and—and do what it is. And so we’ve we've done a lot of things, I mean the company Zeiders Enterprises has done a lot of things over the years. We eventually clearly identified a market area that we felt good about doing. We thought we were very good at it. And that was supporting military service members and families and the commands that they serve in. And that's what we’ve-we've done exclusively for 35 years or so now. But beyond that and I've told my, my executive team, I have a very strong management team that runs Zeiders Enterprises right now. I'm just serving as the chairman of the board at this point. I have a president and CEO and VPs and the whole, whole works, that do a wonderful job of running it. But I don't have any problems telling them, “you know I still feel like the same 14 year old, 22 year old, that I was at one point, and I still have ideas of things I'd like to do and I want to continue doing them.” And so, we've now, we've started a couple not-for-profits along the way so.
Kenny: So at what point did you become comfortable with turning over the day-to-day operations? So you know, I'm asking this for the young entrepreneur out there, who wants to control everything, who wants to be in charge of everything. Chief bottle washer. Chief cook. In a small business, to having this vision, to having a thousand plus employees now and having a leadership team. Where was that transition for you? And can you give me any insight on—on how you got there and how you were willing to just give up this responsibility, well authority as the owner, chairman of the board and I'm sure you realize that you ultimately have the responsibility for the entire organization. But you, you gave up a lot of authority, it sounds like.
Mike: I mean, honestly, I know—I know some people that is something that they they they can struggle with a little bit to do that. Clearly in the beginning when I was the only person working and as I started them bringing other folks on board, I was doing the majority of the work. And I had the client relationships and the clients would call me and if they had issues or questions or expectations. I was the one that had to give the answers and try to solve things. But it also became very clear to me how limiting that was. So I-I can't say there was ever a time that I wasn’t looking for opportunities to have responsibility go to other people. I mean I, you know, in the early days I would define that not as me not being the president or the CEO of the company but I would define that as, if we have a client, does the client call me or does the client call somebody else? And so I mean it took, you know, four-five-six years to get to the point where we could say that we were transitioning to the point that the clients were calling somebody else.
Kenny: Calling the team members.
Mike: And it was getting to the point that, you know, who's going to hire the people? You know, am I going to hire everybody or are other people going to hire the people? And I was never uncomfortable with that, with that delegation. As a matter of fact, without you know giving up the responsibility that I legitimately had it was something that I really, I really saw as my challenge. I can sort of—
Kenny: This is a great interview. We're not missing any of this audio are we?
Ian: We're good.
Kenny: We are good? Okay. Yeah. Thank—thanks. So I’m, man, this is massive for me. I'm getting a lot out of this. So as a—as a CEO and transitioning to chairman of the board and putting this leadership team in place. When you started making those changes like five or six years in and was there ever a point maybe before, that where you're like, “oh crap I'm not sure Charlotte, your wife, I'm not sure this is going to work.”
Mike: Oh absolutely. There was never really, well there—I could say that there never was a point that I thought it wasn't going to work or I could say that there was never a point that I-I— as a government contractor primarily—we have a few number of clients and even when we're large, they're just big clients.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: So, I have always lived with the reality that all it took was the loss of one or two decisions and we could not have the business base that we have. And at times there have been—there have been two times, in our 30-some year history, where in fact we had a sales decline. There's only been two years, out of 30 some, that are sales in one year were less than the year before.
Kenny: Okay.
Mike: In both cases, we re-won the contract that we lost, several years later. And so if you take a long-term growth curve, it's a straight line going up. But there are two dips in the middle of it that took place, but, the you know, the reality that things could end—
Kenny: What was your behavior like then? I'm sorry to cut you off, but, when that dip happened did it shake your core business?
Mike: No. No, I-I remember very clearly that the first time we lost a major contract it represented 80 percent of our business. And so we woke up one morning with only 20 percent of the business that we had yesterday. And I-I had probably about 15 people or so, that were working for me in the office that we had up in, our corporate offices were up in Woodbridge, Virginia. And that's where I lived at the time. I remember very clearly that morning, after we got the word, sitting everybody down around the table and exactly what I said to them is I said, “every good thing we've done in the past is still good. And every good vis—and every good dream that we have for the future is still there. The only thing that's changed is we don't have some of the work that we were doing yesterday, but you know, we have nothing to hang our head about for what we've done and every dream that we have is still there. Let's just go for the rest let's just continue on the path to get the rest of the dreams." And you know, that’s, that's what we did. The team stayed right with me. Nobody—nobody quit, nobody—I didn't lay anybody off. I mean there were folks that were working out providing direct services under the contract that weren’t weren't with us anymore. But in terms of the corporate team, you know, this-this never was about, it never was about money. And it was never about just trying to figure out how do you maximize the dollars that are coming in. This was a lot about—always about, the people that were doing it. The relationships you were building and what we were trying to do. Obviously you can get to the point where you need to have a certain amount of money in order to be viable.
Kenny: Sure.
Mike: There's no question. I mean, I'm not, I'm not naive or ignorant.
Kenny: I think I'm following with you, because, I've heard that said. I've got a lot of successful clients in my financial business and they, they’ve said that same thing. It when it, when it becomes about the money it really shows up to your client. And you know, they start seeing themselves as you've got a dollar sign over their head.
Mike: More importantly it shows up to the staff.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: You know if you want really gifted, talented people that are going to help you achieve the, the goals and the objectives and the dreams that you want to have, you have to be a value-value based organization. And the—if—achieving profit is not a value based. I mean for some for some groups, you know, it may be. You know maybe in the bank or investment world or whatever, you know but, I really don't think so. I think that there is a, a purpose that you know even, you know, straight up money investment, you know, businesses are still providing a quality of life for the for their clients or what they're trying to achieve what they're trying to do. I-I think that's probably part of the way you approach—approach your work and, and doing things. And it's you know, it just isn't a dollar—if the dollars are there, people aren’t going to be loyal to you. People aren’t going to, I learned real real early and I think it's important to recognize that every person that works for you is as, has, has their own personal dreams, their own life, just as I have dreams in their life. And that a big part of the challenge is making sure that they can fulfill their dreams and that their life can be just as full-fulfilled as I would like mine to be. And they if they make a decision that they're going to come in to a business and and tie into a dream that I had and link their dream to my dream, that's a pretty awesome responsibility as far as I'm concerned. And I owe it to them to give them as much opportunity to let their dream grow. And so to me, part perhaps the most important part, of being the the chairman or founder, the entrepreneur, is creating an environment that other folks want to and can hook their dream wagon to your dream wagon.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: And one of the things that happens at that point is the dream changes.
Kenny: Sure.
Mike: You know and you've got to be willing to let, you know, to let things shift a little bit. You know, as they, as they start adding their—their piece, you know, to to the puzzle. But that's actually one of the really fun parts about the whole thing. That’s one of those satisfying parts about the whole thing.
Kenny: So I-I know you don't like patting yourself on the back. You know, I've talked to you off camera, pre-show, and you and I have a relationship. In full disclosure here, I serve on one of Mike's boards, that we’ll talk about in a few minutes. But—but this guy, I have seen so far, in the short time that I've been able to meet you and be around you is what you just said, is you—you live by that. I've watched how you have managed your team, I've watched how you've managed this board and that I serve on. And it it gets me charged up, gets me really excited, because, it allows me to see as a young entrepreneur, who's still growing, who still has a vision for growth. But the way you're doing it, I get to sit back and watch you and kind of emulate that. And I would encourage young entrepreneurs who are maybe in the grind right now, maybe in that first one or two years, is just stick to it. Serve your people well, serve your vision well, and if you do well by doing good, over time, it'll pay off. Nobody said it's going to be easy but —
Mike: It's not and, and for young entrepreneurs, it would be a mistake even from my own experience to try to imply that. Those hundred hour weeks were hard. And—and sometimes there's a little bit of, for me, there's a little bit of ego. There's a little bit of vanity in this. And the ego for me is, I didn't want to fail.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: And I would be times—I would go back to my 10-year class reunion. And I kept thinking, I do not want to go back to my 10-year class reunion and say that that I have failed at what I— what I, you know, at this business happening. I wasn't worried about the money, but there was there was a sense of pride. I mean, there was a sense that I-I started this and I want, I really, really want this to succeed. And you know one of the one—I was doing some reading early on and it said that one of the strongest attributes of successful entrepren—entrepreneurs is a fear of failure. You know, you usually think of entrepreneurs as being ones that are risk takers. That's the classic answer. What's an entrepreneur? They're a risk taker.
Kenny: Right.
Mike: Which therefore implies that they're willing to roll the dice and maybe they'll win, maybe to lose. I think the truth of the matter is-is a good successful entrepreneur is petrified of losing. And they will do anything, anything that they can do hopefully legally, morally and professionally, you know, appropriate to not to not fail. And that will include working very hard and it will probably include living on a much tighter budget than other folks that are otherwise are. I know I'm talking a lot here but there was—
Kenny: No, that's awesome. I am loving this.
Mike: We used to have a
Kenny: It’s one of my favorite podcasts so far, sorry to everyone else this is awesome.
Mike: When I was in our—in the early years, I used to-to come home and I would show Charlotte who has nothing, I mean, Charlotte’s helped with the business because she’s just been a wonderful wife and helped raise a great family. But—and she's just a partner who has—we could live in a one-bedroom apartment or we could live in a mansion, as long as we were together and had our kids it really wouldn't make any difference to her. And that's the biggest plus as far as I'm concerned a spouse can give you, is to put no pressure whatsoever what would happen. But in those early years, I used to tell her we can't afford to buy Cheez-Its. The crackers Cheez-Its. I said don't buy Cheez-Its. I love them they’re—and she knew I loved them, I said, “but I don't think it's in the budget to do that.”
Kenny: Cheez-Its.
Mike: Cheez-its. And at that point, you know, I probably had, you know 100 people working for me at that point. And every year, we'd been in business for five, six, seven, eight years at this point, and we had been profitable every year. I’d show Charlotte the income statements and, which didn't mean a whole bunch to her except I could say, “look we had a real, real nice profit down here at the bottom.” And then she would ask me, “so from having this profit every year, why can’t we buy Cheez-Its?”
Kenny: That's right.
Mike: And I say because, “we're putting the money back into the business. I don't have any money to buy Cheez-Its. Every time we grow means I have to hire more people there's more salary I have to pay. There's a lag between when I get paid for hiring the new people. And so, rather than buying Cheez-Its we’re, we're hiring new staff.”
Kenny: And, and
Mike: One day I told her, I said, “Charlotte let's buy some Cheez-Its! I think we're to the point that we can buy this.” Cheez-Its has become a metaphor in our family of —
Kenny: All right guys, you hearing that? Next time Mike visits, we-we know what to have in here. I think we have some cheez-it’s here, Mike. We do? Noah go grab him some, please sir.
Mike: I don’t, I don't eat them as much as I used to. But no they-they used to, they used to be my big thing.
Kenny: Well you know what, we were talking about the team earlier. I've got a great team. I'll give a shout out to him now, some massively talented people. and you know one of my entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, one of my mentors years ago said, “Kenny, hire people around you who you think are smarter than you. Who you think can do things better than you.” And well—what are you doing there Zach? Well, I was going to brag on Zach but now he just he lost that attaboy. Here we go, yeah, cheez-its.
Mike: Oh my. Okay.
Kenny: Here we go.
Mike: Thank you.
Kenny: This is
Mike: Okay now
Kenny: Cheez-Its.
Mike: My day is successful.
Kenny: Mike has a couple of organizations Cheez-its. Who makes Cheez-Its? I don’t even know. Nestle? Don't you love this noise right in the mic? Nestle makes Cheez-Its? Are we sure?
Crew: Or maybe Nabisco.
Kenny: I-I need my readers on. Can you see, Mike?
Mike: I can't see. I think Nabisco may be right, but, I don't know.
Kenny: So we’ll-we'll find that out. We're sorry.
Zach: Kellogg.
Kenny: Kellog?
Zach: Yep.
Kenny: Thanks Zach. He's over there fact-checking. So Kellogg, you see this? Mr. Mike Zeiders has a couple organizations that would love to have a donation from you, and he didn't ask me to do this. But he does some amazing things with some amazing organizations. And this is a great segue to talk about your philanthropy. Let me see if I can say that after having some Blue Label.
Mike: Yeah.
Kenny: So Cheez-Its you need to look up these two organizations we’re going to talk about. And we're going to put this out on the website, Zach. We’re going to try to get them to-to help us out here. All right so that's one of your tasks, is to get Cheez-Its to support us, in our philanthropic efforts so.
Mike: I will be impressed. I will be impressed.
Kenny: We’re going to make it happen.
Mike: Okay, well then, then I am impressed.
Kenny: Vision.
Mike: Okay.
Kenny: There's a phone call. Team we know what we got to do here. Look, we're giving you some promo here cheez-its. Mike Zeiders, he would not buy cheez-its until he had an opportunity to do so and he sacrificed and made sure his employees were taken care of first. Which just leads back into the guy you are, and you know, I have this awesome opportunity and responsibility to serve on one of your boards, but I want to talk to you before we get to the Z. I want to talk to you about years later, you've had some success, god’s blessed you and great things have happened in your business and you-you-you and Charlotte give back and the one of the areas that's a special place in my heart is for our wounded veterans. And so, you set up an organization called Quality of Life Foundation. And guys, if y'all can put that up for our audience to see. Mike share with us, a little bit, about the Quality of Life Foundation.
Mike: Okay. Well the Quality Life Foundation actually formed it around 11 years ago, I think, and it’s-its mission is really to support the-the caregivers and the families of our nation's most severely wounded, ill, and injured veterans. And the real focus is on the caregiver and the family. Not that we don't have a strong sentiment for the veteran and—and their needs and certainly the two of the caregiver and the injured or wounded, ill or injured veteran are-are closely linked. But our focus really is on helping that caregiver who, for the families that we deal with—we only deal with with families that are caregivers. Who have a catastrophically wounded, ill or injured veteran. So these are these are individuals that could, they could be spouses, they could be parents, they could be grandparents, who have basically rearranged their life entirely to assume the responsibilities that caregiving demands. They do it, it can bring a tear to my eye whenever I think about it, because in most cases it's done with so much love and willingness but they're still a major—their visions of their dreams have had to be totally rearranged along with those of-of their loved one who's the—he’s been injured. And so in the—when we started the quality of life foundation there was minimal amount of support that was available for the caregivers. Many of them would have to give up their jobs that would cause, obviously, loss of income. It could also mean that there was a loss of-of health insurance, especially, if the if the caregiver was not a spouse. If this caregiver was a parent or the caregiver was a, was a sibling or a grandparent then they didn't have any, you know, they didn't continue to get the pay from the-from the veteran. They didn't have any health insurance. They didn't have any life insurance anymore. They didn't have—they gave it all up in order to-to take on this caregiver role. So we started the Quality of Life Foundation after doing almost a year's worth of research to figure out where-where is the greatest need? And at the time when we were in more of a combat situation, unfortunately, there were more casualties coming back. It was when that service member made the transition out of typically a veteran's hospital back-back home. And that transition home is when the spotlights went off. When they were in the military hospitals or the VA, celebrities would go around and see them, politicians would go around see them, there'd be all kinds of you know publicity in the nation to support them. But once they went back home the cameras went off, the lights went out, and it was now the caregiver, which was the spouse or a parent in most cases, and the veteran having to figure out how to do everything. And so, that's what the Quality of Life Foundation was formed to do. It was-it was to provide a resource to help those folks figure out what needed—what needed to happen. And it was daunting.
Kenny: So I have on your page here, we have up on the screen, if-if someone needs help from the Wounded Veteran Family Care
Mike: Program
Kenny: Program. There's a place on your website for them to go to process an application.
Mike: Right. Yeah, we—the Quality of Life Foundation is the name of the organization. The program that we’re running now is the Wounded Veteran Family Care Program.
Kenny: Okay.
Mike: And, so, you know if somebody who is a tier one caregiver. Tier one is the highest level of caregivers as designated by the by the VA.
Kenny: Okay.
Mike: Then we—those are the families that we will, that we, that we support. If there's other families that contact us that don't meet the criteria that we serve, we'll still help. We'll still give, you know, information and referral. But in terms of, really coming on and becoming a client. We typically work for nine months to a year with a family, to help them identify what they need to have done, and then putting together a combination of resources which could come from federal government, governmental resources that they're just not tapping into, they could be other not-for-profit organizations. And a lot of cases it’s the private sector that we can reach out and get private businesses to step up and help address the needs that they have. And so we basically become a, we call it a family support coordinator, that identifies what the family's needs are and help find the resources either in the federal government and not-for-profit world, local governments or local businesses to help-help address those needs.
Kenny: So if you want to know more, you can go to WoundedVeteranFamilyCare.org or qualityoflifefoundation.org QOL foundation.org. We'll put this on our on our site, so folks can have hyperlinks to get to it. And especially you, Kellogg’s, Cheez-Its. This would be a great, great program for you guys to get involved with. So reach out. Reach out to Mike's team at QOL and support these folks. I, as a veteran myself, my father-in-law was the XO at the National Naval Medical Center. And years ago Kathleen and I, my wife, went up and was able to go on a ward that was treating wounded veterans. Wounded warriors. And man, it was sobering for me and it really stirred in me, that this is a community that I want to continue to give back to, continue to serve. Because these warriors and their families have made massive sacrifices for the rest of our country and it's super important and I thank you. Applaud you. Cheers to you for
Mike: Well thank you
Kenny: providing that, that care. You know, I was asking you off camera earlier, if you really thought of yourself as a philanthropist? And you kind of scolded me a little bit.
Mike: Well, I don’t think I scolded you a little bit.
Kenny: You know, for the cameras here, so.
Mike: Right, yeah.
Kenny: But, you refer to yourself as a social entrepreneur. Define that for us.
Mike: Well, when you ask me the question, you know, you said, “do I think of myself as that?” You know I—it’s like, well yeah, I understand that philanthropy is giving-giving money, is fundamentally, is giving money to help to help social causes. But I have chosen for the most part to form organizations that I am actively involved in. So I basically have formed two companies, one is the Quality of Life Foundation and I assume later we'll talk a little bit about the-the Z
Kenny: Yeah
Mike: which is an arts organization. but I-I am more inclined to to use the money to—to look—to use our investment money to really be an investment and to leverage it just like a for profit business. Hopefully leverages to the resources and generates, you know, profit. I'm hoping that the-the money that we invest also gets leveraged and brings other folks in. So typically, we would in starting the Quality of Life Foundation, we put up—we, my wife and I, started a family foundation years and years ago. It was one of the best investment advice I had very early in our career. When we started getting to the stage of life that our ability to make charitable donations, and I've always felt that that was an obligation to do that, but when it started getting to the point where we were capable of giving more than a hundred dollars to the Red Cross or you know $250 to St Jude's and I—you know that's wonderful that folks do that. But there was a point where, you know, could we now give ten thousand dollars to something or could we give twenty five thousand dollars to something? Then I started saying, you know, if we can do that maybe we should just sort of let that money accumulate. Which we could do in a family foundation until we find the right opportunity to make an investment. A social investment. And the Quality of Life Foundation was the first major social investment that we that we came up with. And so therefore we use that money now. That in-in this case possibly has accumulated over a four, five, eight, ten year period of time, now we can put it in to create something new. And in so doing we can get to the point that, you know, maybe five years out of you know—into operating, we have enough other financial supporters that it's not dependent on me funding the whole thing. It's taking on its own life. It has its own staff. It’s it's a real business, but, it's a not-for-profit business. And that's the same path that we're trying to do with the theater right now too so
Kenny: Yeah. That's that's a good segue, you know. So again, shout out to our troops and you’re doing a great thing there. Quality of Life. You-you and I met in my capacity as a financial guy and you were at one of my workshops. And, you know, you and I just ended up hitting it off, having a conversation about music. And found that we knew some-some common folks. And long story short, through a series of just conversations I got the awesome opportunity and responsibility to serve on your board, with Zeider's American Dream Theater. And guys, if you would. Ian, if you'd throw that up on-on the board here. So what was the-the passion? What was the inspiration to starting this-this amazing theater here in Virginia Beach, Virginia?
Mike: Well, music has always been an important part of my life. From-from being a little-little kid on. Obviously, I've and we've talked enough that you can probably gather, I never made a—never made my living as a-as a musician. But I have always enjoyed, starting out as a, as being, a drummer, in-in everything from big bands, was probably my favorite type of music to play as a drummer, but in jazz bands and rock bands. It's just always been—and then I segued into or moved into writing. And I liked finding other artists and I enjoyed working with artists in the recording studio. And I just-I just felt that-that creative process was one personally enjoyable to be part of. But I also felt that-that created that creative process. When I looked back at it, I mean, when I was you know in my—when I was 27-28 and I incorporated Zeiders Enterprises, it was to do something in the music world. Well then, I obviously spent 30 or so years outside the music world doing other types of business activities. And then an opportunity in life that now the kids were all grown and I had some more time and now I was in a different position both in terms of space experience and-and financial resources to go back to what was the dream in the beginning. And that was to do something artistically. But now I was in a position to do it a little bit differently and to realize that the creative, the creative spark, that caused me to write a song when I was 14 or 15 was the same creative spark that caused me to want to start Zeiders Enterprises or to start the Quality of Life Foundation. There's no, there's no difference. You get a little fire in your belly, a little you know idea in the back of your head, and then rather than just letting it sit there you go about the process of figuring out how to bring it to life. And whether you bring it to life as a song or bring it to life as a business it's really all the same process. And I had the ability to see that, you know, 30 years later.
Kenny: So if you’re visiting Virginia Beach or if you’re from the local area, this undertaking that Mike took on a number of years ago in Zeider's American Dream Theater is a beautiful facility, that you have now in the Town Center section of Virginia Beach. We'll make sure we'll have the address and everything up on-on the website. But you-you built a great 270 plus seat arena.
Mike: Yeah. The-the main stage is about 300 actually 299 seats on the main stage and then the-the studio theater seats about 120 or so. But that's a black box flexible-flexible space to work in. And-and really the mission of the theater, I never really answered your question. I mean but I was getting, I mean, the point was, is that it’s-it's to support is to support creativity in our community. We're a professional theater, which means that although we do a lot of community activities, the majority of our performances are paid professionals. We produce, self-produce, probably about half of what we put on. the other half maybe or maybe less than half are touring type groups that we bring in. Fact it's probably more like a 60/40 — 70/30 split between what we produce ourselves versus what we what we bring in. But is to provide an opportunity for-for new writers, for new performers of all genres be it-be it music, theater, dance, to come in and give them a venue that they can move their careers forward. In the process, we provide a venue for the community to experience that creative process. And I and I genuinely hope, and I realize this is a little—a little altruistic, you know in-in aspiration but I really hope we become a venue that encourages everybody to realize that they have a dream, they have a talent. And for most of us it's not going to be in the arts, that we're going to do that, but whether it's to be a teacher, whether it's to be a social worker, whether it's to be an entrepreneur and I consider entrepreneurship to be a very creative process.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: I want it to be a venue that encourages and helps facilitate. So, so we also do things with entrepreneurs in the community and do things that are outside the arts, that-that to me are still creative in nature.
Kenny: Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So, to that point you know one of my team members. Behind the camera and behind the mic here, that really makes this stuff go, because I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I just, I go, “look I want to do this video podcast. I want to have some great entrepreneurs on board that I can interview.” But behind the camera over here, Mr. Zach Stein. He's going to be a guest coming up. What's the date Zach?
Zach: I don't know.
Kenny: June? 18th?
Ian: Tomorrow.
Zach: June 18th.
Kenny: Isn’t it June 18th, Mike?
Mike: I think. I am not sure.
Kenny: Yeah. Yeah June 18. This guy man, he is.
Zach: I thought you were saying on the podcast.
Kenny: Yeah, no, I'm talking about when you’re supposed to play.
Zach: Yeah. June 18.
Kenny: Okay, now we got him back. Yeah he's over there, he's worried about the option trades today, that are going on. And I'm getting all these signals over here that things aren't going well. I'm guessing. Right? So, yeah. Well, you win some, you lose some, then you die? Zack is that?
Zach: Life sucks then you die.
Kenny: Life sucks then you—yeah whatever. So let's bring this back up. We're talking about the Z here, and this is amazing program that Mike has created for our community. Zach, we're gonna—we're gonna promote you a little bit. So when's the date you’re playing?
Zach: On the Z?
Kenny: On the Z.
Zach: June 18th.
Kenny: June 18th. You've got a song queued up that you wrote?
Zach: Yep.
Kenny: Now Zach, let me—let me preface this. And Mike's aware of this. But Zach's not signed by anyone, but, you've given him a platform to be able to to bring his talent to the table with a number of other artists. And I think you're actually playing on that night?
Mike: I may be.
Kenny: And I—we hear you're a pretty amazing gazoo player, right?
[Laughter]
Mike: I'm not pretty amazing anything.
Kenny: I don’t know. In all seriousness, Mike's a pretty amazing guitarist. We’ll-we'll let you hear that in a bit maybe, too. But—
Zach: He shreds.
Kenny: He shreds, Zach? Is that what it is? Shreds, all right. Let’s-let's hear a little taste of what Zach's gonna be playing on the 18th.
[Music]
Kenny: Yeah, here we go.
Music: Maybe I'm blind or maybe I'm stupid. When I look at you can't help but lose it.I think about you and me. And all the things we’d be. Oh I think I might have got shot by cupid. Filling my dreams all day and night. Everything about her is what I like. I’d love it if we could go where no one has been before.
[Music]
Kenny: That’s pretty amazing. So this is the kind of talent that you have at the Z. Not only musicians but theater, spoken word,
[Music]
Kenny: you know. Thank you so much for bringing that type of programming to the community. And Zach, you can turn it off now, man. Geez, I'm losing my train of thought over here.
Mike: That's because you can't get it out of your head.
Kenny: That’s right. It is a catchy beat. What is that called Zach?
Zach: Cupid.
Mike: Yeah, it's a good song. Great song.
Kenny: Yeah, yeah. So you know, we’re-we're still in this kind of Covid crisis. And we’re-we're slowly starting to open up here in Virginia. And I know, Mike you and the team at the Z are looking forward to being open at full capacity in the in the very near future. But until then, this actual programming we're doing now will be available online via zoom? On the 18th, is it zoom you're going to be performing Zach?
Zach: Yeah.
Mike: I'm not sure whether it's actually going to be broadcast through zoom or through our facebook. I don't know. If you go to the website it'll tell you exactly which.
Zach: I think we're connecting on zoom and it's broadcasting on the Z site.
Kenny: Connecting on zoom and broadcasting. Okay. We'll put all of that up on our on our podcast.
Mike: Sometimes it's available both, both. Either you have to look sometimes in the facebooks and the website.
Kenny: Yeah.
Mike: So I'm not sure exactly which, for this one it's going to be put on. But, you know it, you know it’s, it certainly isn’t anything like being live and in person and having a live—live experience. But
Kenny: Yeah
Mike: it’s—it's we thought. I think we've done a pretty good job. We've sometimes, we probably do two three events a week online through facebook or uh the website. So it’s—we've certainly stayed active.
Kenny: You know, and I just got to give you some props, Mike. As an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and the visions that you've had in the both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses, that you've created and visions that you've have ran with, when—and again you're probably going to punch me off camera for telling this but—you didn't have any support when you when you built this. You did this all on your own, initially. It's not where you wanted to go long term but you believed in the Z so much that you and charlotte really funded this and-and made it happen on your own. Early—and I know you had team member, team but you really got behind this financially.
Mike: Well, financially that's true. But, I mean there's many kinds of support beyond financial support. We had a very strong relationship with the city, to support where we're going into for Virginia Beach. We had strong relationships with-with the developer of the project, Armada Hoffler, that built the project. So it would be a gross misrepresentation to say that we did not have a lot of support from other, from other folks. There were a lot of people that helped bring this to life and you know money's just-just one one aspect, but, without the other connections throughout the community and the support, you know connective support, throughout the community, it would not have happened.
Kenny: Well we have theZ.org up and available for you to go take a look at and if your hearts with the arts or you just want to be able to support, there's a button here on the site called, support the Z. If you click that, it gives you the opportunity to decide how you would like to be a contributor, and how you would like to support the arts in our community. And if you know folks that have artistic ability or have a musical talent, reach out to the Z. Share, you've got a facebook page too. I should have had that up today. But you have an opportunity for folks who are like our young guy Zach here, that have some talent. And you know, Pharrell put it best there's something in the water in-in Hampton Roads.
Mike: Yeah. Let me—let me make one other comment. Actually I said I didn't want to talk about this earlier perhaps this wasn't going to be a major subject. But I think it's important, that I should make a comment. I mean, obviously our-our nation right now is going through, social challenges, and justice—justice is a very important word in our nation. Our ability as a nation, the pillars of our nation, that you know we who served in the in the armed forces, serve for the right for people to to have the right to assemble. The right to have free speech. The right to try to contribute, to help make this nation the best nation it can be. And we don't all necessarily have to be on the exact same page in order to respect that-that right is-is valuable. So, you know, as you go through and look at the website, you will see that, you know, we as an arts organization—and I feel that the arts one of the beauties of the arts and one of the reasons I thought it was worth making the investment, is the arts are a way for the community to come together. It's a way to have a form of communication and a dialogue that perhaps is in a slightly different form than you could have in a more political rhetoric type thing. So we are hoping that the Z can be a community forum and a focus that can help, work through the the challenges that we have. Because certainly I don't think anybody would argue that we should all live in a land where justice is something that is the foundation and the standard that everybody has. And it's a-and it's an aspiration that we'll continue to strive for. And I hope that the Z is an arts organization can help be a forum to have that discussion happen. So we are we are committed to realizing that as a not-for-profit and as a member of the community, we have a role in the community. And we need to make sure that we don't abdicate that role but we do it in a way that encourages all voices, all opportunities, to help make things better. To-to come to life. So, that again, that's another hope that we have in this time that we're in right now.
Kenny: Well you you have certainly done your part in the community here in Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia, and throughout the country. And I would sure folks from the Quality of Life Foundation to the Z, would echo my belief that you have you've put your money where your mouth is. And you’ve you've rallied people around you and your vision and your dream to-to make this world that we live in a better place. So I salute you, sir. Thank you for doing that. It's been an honor and still is an honor. Hopefully, you're not firing me after today, from your from your board. But it's been an honor to have this early opportunity to serve with you and looking for forward to many more days of serving with you and seeing the vision of the Z specifically, and what I'm serving now, grow. And seeing the arts in our community here in Hampton Roads grow. And who knows, maybe, old Zach Stein over here, may from this shout out that you've given him today, that there will be a great opportunity to see him grow. And I've heard that he's probably going to give like 90 percent of his profits back to the Z. I-I don't know that for sure, but we’ll we'll find out.
Mike: Okay.
Kenny: Hey, thanks so much Mike.
Mike: Sounds great. Appreciate it.
Kenny: Thank you very much for joining us today and sharing your story of entrepreneurship and what it is in-in your mind's eye to be an entrepreneur. Social entrepreneur. And being such a servant leader to our community. Thank you sir, I had a lot of fun with you today. This was great. Our audience wants to give you a little, where's my button here?—Give you a little yay. [children cheer] There the kids love you Mike. You know the adults want to also chime in and give you a golf clap. [Golf clap]
Mike: Well, thank you.
Kenny: All right, hey, enjoy your weekend with your family. And I do want to talk to your son, who’s an entrepreneur. Two sons that are entrepreneurs, right? That one is up in Woodbridge Virginia, he’s a barber. And your other son, is a-a cigar aficionado.
Mike: Cigar club. CigarClub.com
Kenny: There you go man. Shout out. All right. Hey thanks and we appreciate you. We’ll-we'll chat with you soon.
Mike: Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks.
Kenny: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it, bye.