On this episode of The Mobile Alabama Business Podcast, we sit down with Brooks Conkle. Brooks correctly identifies as an entrepreneur. And after you listen in, you'll understand why!
Watch
Transcript:
Brooks Conkle: Easiest way to introduce myself. I'm Brooks Conkle and I'm an entrepreneur.
Marcus Neto: Very good.
Brooks Conkle: Short answer.
Marcus Neto: You could not have picked a better way, actually said short. Welcome to the podcast, Brooks.
Brooks Conkle: Thanks, man. Appreciate it.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. So one of the things that we do beforehand is I give people some coaching on how to introduce themselves because, this is an aside but we're going to include this in the podcast, years ago, I listened to this podcast and I don't remember if it was NPR or whatever but it just stuck in my head where somebody introduces themself like, "My name is Marcus Neto and I am Blue Fish." And then there's some quiet music that plays and then it fades in and the person is asking them questions about, "Welcome to the podcast, Brooks. How are you doing today?"
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: So I just always had this like this is just being done in our conference room here on 920 Dauphin Street, but I'd like to think that it's NPR quality stuff and that we're entertainment people.
Brooks Conkle: Lookout, NPR.
Marcus Neto: I know.
Brooks Conkle: Lookout, NPR. I like it, man. I love it.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, Blue Fish is coming, but entrepreneur is a perfect way of, I guess that's where I was going, is you have so many things going on that entrepreneur is really the best way to describe you.
Brooks Conkle: I've honestly struggled to answer that question. My dad asked me recently, he's like, "Hey, so if someone asked me," my dad, my own dad, he's like, "Man, if someone asked me what you do," and he knows the things I'm working on and what I'm doing, but he never knows exactly at the time what I'm working on.
Marcus Neto: So for those that are listening that don't know you, list out the things that you have, that are businesses that you work on.
Brooks Conkle: Sure. It was more in the past. So what's happened is over the last couple of years, I've really honed in a little bit more on what I'm doing. I could almost say content creator instead of entrepreneur. That's the bulk of my time, probably 70% of my time, but it just has a weird, I don't know, coming off my tongue, man, just sounds weird.
Marcus Neto: Right.
Brooks Conkle: Content creator, people don't know what that means. What does that mean?
Marcus Neto: In Mobile, yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: It's what we're doing right now.
Brooks Conkle: Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I've been involved in the event space as a part of our ... We run a local media company called The Mobile Rundown. The brand has been around a long time. It's been around almost 12 years. We talked about we're having a silent disco headphone party. It's just a fun event to do in relation to it. So that brand has been around for about 12 years, but what does that brand encompass? It's everything. It's website development. It's SEO and content creation. This year, we're going huge into YouTube, is my plan.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, yeah.
Brooks Conkle: And so all of that encompasses that. But then I do that same stuff for my personal brand, the exact same stuff, writing SEO video, and that's what I've honed into and that's where about 70% of my time is, or 80%. The other 20% is probably real estate. I have a real estate broker's license and I'm always looking for a deal.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. Were you doing some flips at one point in time too?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. I've done a number of flips, probably a dozen, man, flips. We had ...
Marcus Neto: Some Airbnbs?
Brooks Conkle: ... three Airbnbs. Yeah. We've got one now. We have some rentals. We just finished renovate ... You know about building a house. We just finished a year-long part build, part renovation.
Marcus Neto: Renovation.
Brooks Conkle: Just moved in, yeah, four months ago. It's a year process, man. Just moved in. Even though that was for personal, I'm like, man, it's a part-time job as you know. Anyways, I put that in the time block of all that.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. For the last month or more of the build of our home, I was onsite every day.
Brooks Conkle: There's so much, so many questions.
Marcus Neto: It's simple things. I remember, I give the example of one day, they were pouring the concrete for the back patio and they were trying to frame up the step out of the back of the master bedroom, and the step that they were framing up was suitable. It would have passed code, but it was not what I would have wanted for that area. It was just right in front of the opening. It was very small. I wanted something that spanned the sliding glass door that was much bigger and made a statement and stuff like that.
Brooks Conkle: Makes sense.
Marcus Neto: It was just a small detail, but it made a huge difference. Every day, there was stuff like that all day long.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. It's either a project manager I guess that was hired, but who does that?
Marcus Neto: But they don't know your taste. They don't know what you like.
Brooks Conkle: Exactly. Exactly. Unless it's perfect in some plans or something, then that becomes difficult. And if you don't have the ability to be there, basically you get what you get-
Marcus Neto: Yeah, you get what you get.
Brooks Conkle: ... from the builder. That's what would happen. So yeah, it's good to be able to give that feedback on a daily basis. Totally agree, man.
Marcus Neto: Well, so the way we normally start is to get a little bit of bio from you. So why don't you tell us about yourself? Where are you from? Where did you go to high school? Did you go to college? If you did, did you graduate? What did you major in? Are you married? I know the answer to some of these questions, but yeah, give us some info.
Brooks Conkle: I'll throw it in there, man. I'm from this town, from Mobile, Alabama. Quick thing. I've been told even I say it incorrectly. I say Mobile. You say Mobile. I'm like, "I don't know if anyone says Mobile."
Marcus Neto: Mobile.
Brooks Conkle: A few people do, but I'm like-
Marcus Neto: That sounds awkward.
Brooks Conkle: I'm mobile like a hundred-dollar bill.
Marcus Neto: Mobile. Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: And I've been told I say it incorrectly.
Marcus Neto: Well, you're from Mobile, so ...
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. I feel good. I feel good about it. So from Mobile, I went to Murphy High School here locally. I went to Auburn University, graduated 2006. I disappeared for a year and a half.
Marcus Neto: What did you major in?
Brooks Conkle: Finance, business finance.
Marcus Neto: And quick aside. Did you go to school with Andy? Were you guys ... because you're about the same age, and he went to Murphy. Have you guys even ever talked about that?
Brooks Conkle: I don't know if we've talked about that or not. I need to talk-
Marcus Neto: Because we just finished his interview and he's like, "Oh, I went to Murphy High School." And I know you guys. He's 31. I don't know. How old are you?
Brooks Conkle: Oh, no, no. I'm turning 40. Okay, okay. So he was behind me.
Marcus Neto: Okay. So he's definitely younger.
Brooks Conkle: We have talked about that I think at some point. I'm like, "Man, was he there? Was he there when I was there?"
Marcus Neto: That would be funny.
Brooks Conkle: I have a buddy in town who went to Auburn with me, majored in finance with me. We discovered that we had a class together.
Marcus Neto: And never knew each other.
Brooks Conkle: We never knew each other. Met in Mobile and we're really good friends now.
Marcus Neto: That's funny.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, it's crazy.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, well, it happens.
Brooks Conkle: Totally.
Marcus Neto: So you went to Auburn, majored in finance.
Brooks Conkle: Auburn, finance. Right after graduation, almost took a job, got offered a job with a financial services company. I was like, "This does not feel right. Something doesn't feel right." My mom was like, "Dude, go travel. You're talking about traveling."
Marcus Neto: Yeah, go do it.
Brooks Conkle: She's like, "Go do it." I was like, "All right." And so I said I was either going to do a big US road trip or I was going to go to New Zealand. I had a friend that went to Auburn with me and she married a Kiwi, married a New Zealand guy. I was like, "Well, I know some people there." So I went to New Zealand.
Marcus Neto: Very cool.
Brooks Conkle: The thing is I didn't have plans, man. I was like, "Well, I'm going to go to them and I'm going to figure it out and play around for a while." And okay, I stayed for a year and a half. I did. It was crazy. It's one of the coolest experiences ever been.
Marcus Neto: My gosh.
Brooks Conkle: So yeah, I came by eight ...
Marcus Neto: It's not that big of an island.
Brooks Conkle: It's a tiny island, man. It's a tiny island. So I can give you the 60-second story, man, if you want.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, go ahead, man. We got time.
Brooks Conkle: All right. All right. So I landed, I did this thing called WWOOFing. It was called Willing Workers on Organic Farms. It's cool. You got this little book-
Marcus Neto: Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Okay, yeah, WWOOFing.
Brooks Conkle: Crazy acronym, WWOOF. And so basically, you look up people and you say, "Hey, I'm going to come to this area. Can I stay with you and I'll do some work or whatever?" They're like, "Yeah, sure." So they would have little, whatever, homesteads and farms and stuff. And so I did that. I met a dude. Where is he from? The Netherlands. Anyways, me and him traveled in cahoots together. Well after, I don't know, maybe it was three months or something, I landed in Queenstown, New Zealand, which is on the south island, and I was like, "This place is amazing." And I was also out of money. I was running out of money, spent all my cash. I remember calling my parents and I was like, "Hey, guys." I was like, "I'm either going to find a job in the next week or I'm going to book my flight home." I was like, "I don't have much money."
So anyways, I got a job there locally and so I hung out there for the winter. It was amazing, learning how to ski. I'd never been skiing before, so there was a few ski mountains around, so I got to ski a bunch. Then made friends with locals and people all around the world. My flatmates were from all over the place, Ireland, Canada, Scotland, man. It rotated in and out.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: I got talked into staying for the summer. They're like, "Man, if you like it here, you got to see the summer. It's beautiful." So I stayed for the summer and it was amazing. It was beautiful. Then after the summer, my local friends were like, "Dude, ski season is coming back." I was like, "No, man. This has been awesome, but I got to go. It's time for me to go home." So I came home by the way of Australia, I had never been to Australia, so I got to go visit Australia for a few weeks on the way home and then came back. So that was like 18 months and then, yeah, I pretty much have been here since, man. Yeah.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. No, it's super cool. Actually, a quick aside and then we can get back to your bio. When I lived in Virginia, in the neighborhood right down the street, the project manager at AOL, this is 20 years ago, the project manager at AOL for the Mac product that you would stick the disc in and install AOL, he lived in the neighborhood. And he was probably in his 30s and he had sold his stock and just exited. He was like, "I'm done." He had the old school Hummers that he had completely had decked out and everything, and he moved his family to New Zealand.
Brooks Conkle: Interesting.
Marcus Neto: And so I guess at the time, you had to pay a certain amount of money in order to reside there and there were some stipulations. He had income and stuff like that. And so he was able to not just visit but literally move there, and he ended up shipping the Hummer and a bunch of his other ... I remember it because the Hummer was just amazing.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: New Zealand has always been one of those places where when you see pictures of it, it is so beautiful that it's like bucket list. You'd love to go there, but at the same time, it's all the way on the other side of the world.
Brooks Conkle: To get there is insane. It's 23 hours of flying or something, I think.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, I couldn't do it.
Brooks Conkle: Biggest flight I've ever been on. Yeah. If you're going to go, you got to go stay for a while. You don't want to go and be like-
Marcus Neto: Yeah. You're not doing there for a weekend.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. You're not doing even a week. I wouldn't even do a week there.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. You got to go for a month or something.
Brooks Conkle: You got to go, man.
Marcus Neto: And while you're there, you're going to stop in Australia, you're going to probably stop in one of the more Asian influenced, Thailand or something like that and then ...
Brooks Conkle: I never have. So many people I met, all my friends, it's like the circuit over there, but I did go to Fiji. I went there for a bit as a vacation from my job in New Zealand. I took a trip, a week trip to ... It sounds goofy, right?
Marcus Neto: Yeah, yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, I went over to Fiji from New Zealand, but it was a break. I took a break and we went on a trip-
Marcus Neto: That's cool.
Brooks Conkle: ... over to Fiji, and that was really cool.
Marcus Neto: But isn't that the benefit of going to those kinds of places, is that they're so easy to hop to? Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Once you get there-
Marcus Neto: Yeah, it's easy.
Brooks Conkle: ... it's pretty easy to get to Australia. It's like us. It'd be like you doing a US flight.
Marcus Neto: Do I want to go to Florida? Do I want to go to Texas? No big deal.
Brooks Conkle: Exactly. That's what it's like once you're over there.
Marcus Neto: Well, some more of the backstory because you haven't gotten to it all yet.
Brooks Conkle: Murphy, college, left, came back. I am married. My wife, man, we just had our 10th anniversary.
Marcus Neto: Nice. Congratulations.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Thanks, man. She's been kind enough to deal with me-
Marcus Neto: I was going to say.
Brooks Conkle: ... for all these years. I think around year seven, she was like, we're like, "Oh, oh cool." Marriages, these things take work, man. It doesn't just naturally happen. If you want this thing to be good and have longevity like, oh, you have to work at this thing. And that's anything I think in life, but I don't know at what point. It's probably around year seven, we're like, okay, it doesn't just flow. It's not going to flow for 50 years or whatever.
Marcus Neto: It's amazing to me how much boils down to communication.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: And just making sure that the right words are chosen at the right time and with the right tone and intent and stuff like that, even just slowing yourself down a little bit. As guys, sometimes we just rattle stuff off.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: And when I went through premarital counseling back in the stone ages, they always described it as the man is the transmitter and the woman is the receiver. That's not true. In communication 101, you learn that it takes transmitters and receivers. It works both ways, right?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Neto: But I think what he was trying to say is that the guy oftentimes is just spewing stuff out into the world and the woman is the one that is receiving a lot of what ... In the sense of she's more in tune with what people feel. She's more empathetic, stuff like that. And so it's important for us to slow down and remember that and speak to that instead of just ramrod rolling over it.
Brooks Conkle: I mess up on that all the time, and it's not even-
Marcus Neto: I do too for the record.
Brooks Conkle: It's not even things that I say. Sometimes it's how I say things. It's not that I have a mean heart or mean-spirited, but it's like, oh, exactly what you're talking about. Makes total sense.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. I think all guys deal with that same thing. But yeah, it's a lot of work.
Brooks Conkle: But I love her dearly and I'm thankful that she loves me back, man.
Marcus Neto: Glad you added that.
Brooks Conkle: I'm very grateful. Yeah. She knows I love her.
Marcus Neto: We'll edit that and put that at the end of the paragraph so it seems like one continuous thought. No, I'm just giving you a hard time.
Brooks Conkle: It was all good.
Marcus Neto: We've known each other for a long time and I'm really glad that we're getting a chance to sit down because I don't know ... You're very active in the business community here. You're well-known and respected in the community. And I just think it's one of those things where we've just not had a chance. So I'm excited about this. But tell us about your first job and were there any lessons that you remember from it? What was your first job?
Brooks Conkle: Might have been at BayBears Stadium.
Marcus Neto: Okay.
Brooks Conkle: I'm trying to think.
Marcus Neto: That's a good story. Let's go there. Let's go with that.
Brooks Conkle: I'm going with BayBears.
Marcus Neto: So what did you do there?
Brooks Conkle: I might have been 15. I did a few things. I think I helped usher a little bit and then I also helped at that, they had giant jumpy slides and stuff out there.
Marcus Neto: Okay. Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Had to have a ticket for that thing, man.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. Were you the bouncer?
Brooks Conkle: And you couldn't do crazy ...
Marcus Neto: [inaudible 00:15:21]
Brooks Conkle: No flips, man. No flips.
Marcus Neto: No flips.
Brooks Conkle: I remember saying stuff like that all the time. So yeah, I think that was me, man.
Marcus Neto: So what lessons do you think you remember that ... because those jobs are workforce development. It's taking a 14 or a 15-year-old snot-nosed kid, and I was that guy too, and teaching them like, "Hey, you got to show up on time. You got to call when you're not going to show up. You got to treat the customers with respect and all that stuff." What were some lessons that you learned from that?
Brooks Conkle: I feel like I had those pretty well. Yeah, I didn't mess up on that stuff, but yeah, a hundred percent. You got to be on time. You got to do what you say you're going to do. You got to be accountable. I think if I'm thinking back, I probably learned, man, time goes by really slow on this dollar per hour and I'm not getting paid all that much. I had these realizations at 15 and I was just like, "Man, I don't want to do this type of thing always." Totally game to do it. Totally cool. But yeah, I just knew that the hourly job wasn't ... I don't know. I had the feeling then that it wasn't completely for me at 15.
Marcus Neto: And you've leaned heavily into the content creator stuff, especially for your own.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: Do you have a vision right now of where you're heading? Is it that content creator side of things?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Yes and no. I create roadmaps and ideas and visions and stuff all the time for the direction I want it to go. I have this really simple, maybe it's dumb, but I'm just like my goal is to continue building and moving up into the right and then discovering ... It's almost like the next pass almost reveal themselves. For me, personally, in my personal brand, content, I'm talking a lot about whatever business and things and moneymaking ideas and personal finance. I've sampled a lot of that to just get to where I am now with what I want to talk about. Now in 2024, I'm actually going to be talking mostly about the things that I'm doing to build our local media brand. I don't know why I just had the epiphany now or maybe it was just like it's gotten to a place where that makes sense, but that's my plan for this year, is to really, on my personal brand, talk about The Mobile Rundown and what we're doing to grow it.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: I don't think I could have had that idea three years ago or four years ago. You know what I mean? I don't think I even could have had that vision.
Marcus Neto: Business is like that though.
Brooks Conkle: It's an ever evolving ... Yeah, I think so. I think it's an ever evolving ... You have a direction you're heading. And not to get philosophical, but what does that even mean? This point out there that you're like, "I want to get there. What is there?" I was actually thinking about that 30-year-old guy that you mentioned that moved to New Zealand and I wondered, I was like, "I wonder how he did a year later. What is he working on now? What is he doing? Did he get bored?"
Marcus Neto: Because those of us that know, know that he probably in that vacuum, do you feel worth? At what level do you crave that excitement of building something that everybody in the world knew about?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. I just don't know if he got bored. I think about personality types all the time about people and what he wants. I've thought about, for me, I'm like, "Man, if I reach some level, some goal, if I even achieve it," it's not even about achieving it. I really feel like it's about this journey thing.
Marcus Neto: The process of being there.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. But let's say I get there, I just don't know how long I'll be excited about it before being like-
Marcus Neto: It's just like, okay, what's next?
Brooks Conkle: Being like, "Cool. What else should I work on?"
Marcus Neto: Because it's not what your focus is. Your focus isn't the money. Your focus is the journey. Your focus is the learning that you get on going there and passing that on and helping other people.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Don't get me wrong. Money is good. You got to make money to run your business and your life and everything.
Marcus Neto: 100%. Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: It's like, what's exciting, what's adventurous? Those are important variables to me when I'm choosing things that I'm working on.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. It has to be exciting to you.
Brooks Conkle: And I don't know if those are for everyone, for other people. I don't know if other people say like, "Is this super interesting to me or is this adventure?"
Marcus Neto: Give me an example.
Brooks Conkle: I don't even know if I have a tangible example. Just like ...
Marcus Neto: Well, if you were to say last year, what was your focus last year then, 2023? If you were to summarize your year, can you look back and say, "Okay, well, we accomplished X." So in 2024, you're focusing on the media company but ...
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, I think it was similar in 2023. I think in 2023, I got crazy into SEO in 2023, big time, obsessed, realized there's a whole, not only industry, but there's a whole networking crew and people talking about this stuff and helping each other and growing web properties. If I had to say, that was the bulk of my focus in 2023. Loved it. And I love what's going on right now with AI and what it means for search and what it means for ... not to get down that crazy ... I could talk for an hour just on that.
Marcus Neto: Well, not an hour.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, I know. Actually, we've talked about ... Maybe that's the topic because we were trying to figure something out to discuss on your podcast, and maybe that is the topic because we're definitely using AI for our purposes, and I know that that's something that ... I'll give this example. Well, maybe I shouldn't because I'll get him in trouble.
Brooks Conkle: Do it.
Marcus Neto: I would rather ... No, well, I will. I will say that ... And hopefully my ex doesn't listen to this. If she does, then maybe she'll understand. But my youngest son came to me and we were talking about his schooling, and he was having some trouble in his history class and so we were talking about that. Because while I didn't do very well in school, I have a very keen interest in history because I understand that it's important for us to understand where we came from in order to understand where we're going and all that other stuff.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: And so I asked him just like, "Well, what period is it?" And he described it to me. I think it was early American history or something like that so it was Cowboys and Indians and all this other stuff. And I'm like, "Okay, well I get it." The period that they were studying, there wasn't a whole lot happening. It was boring, and so it wasn't capturing his interest. It's not that he's stupid. He just wasn't interested in it.
And so he told me that he used AI to write a paper. And instead of being upset with him like some parents, I told him that I would much rather him learn everything that he could about artificial intelligence than that period of history. And the reason why is because right now, with the understanding that probably you and I have about AI, we could walk out of this room and get a job, making six figures tomorrow at some company, easy. We're in the infancy. This thing has barely even just been born.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. I think the first, let's call it the first consumer product being ChatGPT, just over a year ago.
Marcus Neto: It's insane to me.
Brooks Conkle: It hit a hundred million users faster than any other product.
Marcus Neto: In, what, one or two months or something like that? It was crazy fast.
Brooks Conkle: I don't even know how they did that. I honestly don't even know how they did it. I've actually thought about that a few times. I'm like, "Was it just that viral?" I guess it's just that powerful.
Marcus Neto: Yes, it was because everybody knew just how powerful it was going to be.
Brooks Conkle: You mentioned kids using it. I think every kid is going to have an AI tutor and it's going to be-
Marcus Neto: Geared towards them and know their-
Brooks Conkle: ... a hundred percent personalized.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Talk about someone that kind knows you, not someone, sorry, not to describe AI.
Marcus Neto: A thing.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. A thing that knows you and can help teach you and instruct you in an interesting way for you.
Marcus Neto: How do you learn? What are you interested in? How do I game this kid so that he finds this interesting? It is. It's truly the future, a personal assistant in the most intense way.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Yeah. Do I think tons of stuff is going to get disrupted? Of course, I do, man. I think pretty much nothing is safe from this technology.
Marcus Neto: I agree with that.
Brooks Conkle: At the same time, I'm like, "It's okay." I don't know. We'll figure it out.
Marcus Neto: It's been one year.
Brooks Conkle: I know. I know. You're like, "Slow down, man."
Marcus Neto: Is anything safe? I would agree with you that nothing is safe. I just don't know that we have the ... I don't think that I'm going to be affected by it, but one of the things that I've had conversations with people that have kids is I have no idea the world that they're going to grow into. How am I going to prepare? So Chrissy's kids are, and if I screw this up, please forgive me, Chrissy, 11 and eight.
Brooks Conkle: Ballparks. Ballparks.
Marcus Neto: Roughly.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, roughly. Sorry.
Marcus Neto: How do you prepare somebody that's in middle school or elementary school for a future when artificial intelligence has changed so much in the last year? I don't know what they're going to need to do. They may not need to do anything other than exist.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Because we don't know, so we don't know those answers to be able to help out.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. We have no idea. In generations before, they always knew what kind of, in general, what kind of world they were launching their children out into.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: This is a time period where for the next five years, it'll probably be about the same, but for somebody that's in middle school who's going to be graduating from high school in six, seven years, I have no idea what world that they're going to be in. How is AI going to affect what jobs are available? Robotics has come to a place where I fully expect that in the next five years, will we need servers at restaurants? Will we need people that wait on us at cash out, at checkout lines and stuff like that? I have no idea.
Brooks Conkle: Not if some of the current companies do what they're planning on. Literally, companies that exist right now with actual robots, if they work and grow and the price comes down, then no, it displaces tons of stuff. Knowledge workers and physical work. That's what I'm saying.
Marcus Neto: It's scary.
Brooks Conkle: Literally, nothing is safe. Yeah, it's scary and exciting. I don't know. I'm in a weird [inaudible 00:26:14].
Marcus Neto: Yeah, I agree with that. I was reading something the other day where you know the suit, I think it was an alien where they put it on and it was this big exoskeleton and it made them stronger and they were able to go and fight the alien, right?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: They're actually manufacturing those now for warehouse employees and they say that they've lowered ... You know how if you go and get a physical job like that, they say, "Well, you have to be able to lift over 50 pounds or whatever." There's a lot of disability claims and stuff like that because people get hurt and stuff. They're saying now with these exoskeletons that there will be none of those same issues.
Brooks Conkle: I think I saw a video of one of those. I was like, "Oh, man. It's like avatar come to life basically." The video I saw, it looked like that.
Marcus Neto: It's insane where we're at, and I think things have progressed so quickly that it also accelerates as it goes. I think it won't be long before we're dealing with all this mess.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: So that was your first job.
Brooks Conkle: BayBears, baby.
Marcus Neto: BayBears. Okay. So we did cover that. This is fun.
Brooks Conkle: I'm throwing you on a loop today, man. Sorry.
Marcus Neto: No, I love it. These are the podcasts that I love.
Brooks Conkle: All right.
Marcus Neto: All right. So what motivates you to work hard on your business?
Brooks Conkle: What motivates me to work hard on my-
Marcus Neto: Because you're not terribly ... Money is important, but you're not driven, extremely driven by that. So what makes you get up in the morning and actually put that in? Because nobody is standing over you saying that you have to do that.
Brooks Conkle: I was just talking to my buddy about that yesterday that he's in real estate with me. I was like, "Man, that's the interesting thing about working for yourself. It's awesome because no one is there to tell you what to do." But I was like, "The hard part is no one is there to tell you what to do." I have an infinite list. I feel like I'm a list guy. I'm always like notebook. I use Trello. I'm Google Docs, man. There's infinite things to potentially do. And so for me, figuring out what's most important or what I should be working on is interesting and fun. Maybe that's a part of what I look forward to, is all this potential and stuff and knowing what I should work on.
Yeah. Money is interesting. Growing something, just this general sense of building something is interesting to me, is a lot of fun, learning new things. I know these answers are very general, but I feel like that's like-
Marcus Neto: No. I'm-
Brooks Conkle: ... the camp I fall in.
Marcus Neto: The learning new things is resonating with me. And actually, and I wasn't going to interrupt you, but here I'm interrupting you, but I'm a list guy too. If I open reminders now, you'd find a laundry list of stuff that I'm supposed to do. And I was even having a conversation yesterday with Chrissy, and I feel like recently, because I'll go through a day like yesterday and I will ... Normally, what I would have is just a shit ton of stuff on my to-do list. And then I'm going through the day and I'm generating more stuff that I'm having to do, so I never actually get to the things on my to-do list.
And so one of the things that I'm trying out right now is, I'm going to refer to this book a couple of times in the next couple of podcasts, because it's just something that I'm going through right now, but I'm listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest book, which the name of it is escaping me, but it's something like Do Good or something along those lines.
Brooks Conkle: Okay.
Marcus Neto: And so I forgot where I was going with that.
Brooks Conkle: It's something about lists maybe, I think, related.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. So I'm learning now that I was not doing a very good job of what you're talking about, which is discerning what is the most important things that I have to do that day. So yesterday, I had a couple of sales meetings. The most important things are getting back to those people. It's not the tasks that I had about creating a graphic about how I want Blue Fish to look in five years. It's not any of those other things. And so what I'm having to do is I'm having to limit myself. I'm giving myself three things each day.
Brooks Conkle: I have a three-thing rule. Yeah.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, three-thing rule. And I don't know. I think that comes back from the Getting Things Done, David Allen books where he talks about putting a small amount and that if it's something ... You have to be able to discern whether you can delegate something, whether it needs to be broken down more, almost like a Trello thing. What's the project management term? Or the scrum where you have, and I'm going to get technical here for a second-
Brooks Conkle: All right. All right.
Marcus Neto: In scrum or project management, they have epics, and epics is merely just a term of, well, if I want this computer system to do this thing, that thing is made up of all these other smaller things, so I can't say do this thing. I have to make the tasks these small. I have to break it down because the epic is too big, so I can't quantify how long it's going to take.
Brooks Conkle: I can totally relate to all of this. First, that example happens to me all the time when I find that there's something that's on my list. But really, it's a multi-step project. And I'm like, why is this thing-
Marcus Neto: Learn SEO. Let's pull on that thread a little bit.
Brooks Conkle: But sometimes, it'll be like a week, and I'm like, "I didn't get to that." I'm like, "Oh, it's because I can't just sit down and do it." It's like, "Oh, there's three things that go under that." And then under that one, there's three things under that, and I need-
Marcus Neto: And then there's things that you have to do before you can even get to it.
Brooks Conkle: Exactly. And so I'm like, oh, I need to get those down and those are the three things that I need to do.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Man, I've come up with a bunch of different ways and things.
Marcus Neto: And here's the thing that I was going say, is that what I found was I was getting really discouraged.
Brooks Conkle: Got you.
Marcus Neto: And I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but I was getting discouraged because I would have these things on my list. And because of the way that my day goes, I was never accomplishing anything. And what I found myself, and this was some thinking that I was doing over the Christmas break, what I found myself thinking about is I do these projects around the house. I built a bed for us. I've done these really cool shelving things where it's like molding that goes horizontally along the wall and you can put, if this was it, you could fit a board between the two so it stays in there by pressure.
Brooks Conkle: Nice.
Marcus Neto: We've got these in the house now and stuff, but it has a start and it has an end, and what I was missing in my life was I was missing starting points and ending points on my projects, and I was getting this really overwhelmed feeling of there's so much to do, how am I going to get to it all? And that was a conversation where Andy was striking some chords with the mental health aspect of things because I was just feeling so overwhelmed with it all, I wasn't able to do anything.
Brooks Conkle: Got it. Got it, like overload, complete overload and shutdown.
Marcus Neto: 100%.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been there.
Marcus Neto: And so by dissecting that a little bit more like what you're describing and distilling it a little bit more and coming to a better understanding of what the important things are, and I'm still learning, but this hasn't been a problem that I've had forever. This is just a problem that exists now because I have an organization that's large enough that there's just so many things that need to be done. And as an entrepreneur, I'm having so many ideas, as I'm sure you are, that it's like, how do I get to them all? Hire five people and have them do it? No, I can't afford it.
Brooks Conkle: I had the idea to start a series about my shower ideas because 80% of my ideas come from the shower and I also had that idea in the shower. Wow.
Marcus Neto: In the shower.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Yeah. Am I going to do that? I don't know, but I might actually. It might be part of my series. I don't know about you, but I've done a lot of different things to work through organization and how I work or whatever, the three, I've totally done that and do that a good bit. If I have a really long list, even if I don't have the three things, I'll get overwhelmed. Just like it's a list and I could literally, I could go in order, I could do whatever, but I'll be like, okay.
Marcus Neto: I can ignore it.
Brooks Conkle: What's the most important on here? I can, what?
Marcus Neto: I can ignore it.
Brooks Conkle: I can ignore it. Yeah. Some of them, you can. Is this even actually that important? You can toss it or delegate it.
Marcus Neto: Or it's not that you can. It's just that you do sometimes, right? That was the problem. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ...
Brooks Conkle: No. You're good. But I'll star. So I'll just say, "Okay, cool." This is all psychological where I'll just be like before lunch, "Okay, one. This is two and this is three. Okay." I'll set my 20-minute timer, 25-minute timer. I'll do that and say, "Cool. Focus. Take a break." I do all of these things and not in some ritualistic like I always do it the same way. I'm always changing, man, how I do these things. I'm always curious about other people too. If they just find one set way that always works, I feel like I'm always adapting.
Marcus Neto: Do you think that this lends itself? Because I think we probably listen to a lot of the same people as well, that this biohacker mentality of always trying to figure out the best way that's going to get you into that flow state, that's going to allow you to get the most amount of productivity out yourself.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. It's funny because I don't get into the nutrients or the stuff or what am I eating. I should probably be a lot more serious into that. I do know flow state, and I do know that you know it when you see it.
Marcus Neto: You know it when you get into it too.
Brooks Conkle: You know it when you get into it where you're like, "Whoa, that was crazy." If there was an over the counter pill that just gave you flow state whenever you wanted, I hundred percent would probably take that flow state pill. I'd be like, "Cool, it's working hours. Time for the morning flow state."
Marcus Neto: Isn't there a movie, Limitless? It was about that. Remember that movie back in the day? I was doing some research last night about nootropics, and I'm probably butchering the pronunciation of that, but I was deep in some Reddit subtopic and they were talking about Limitless, the movie where he took the pill and it allowed him to use the remaining portions of his brain.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, okay. Okay.
Marcus Neto: And he was able to unlock all of these things about his business and personal life and all this stuff.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, crazy.
Marcus Neto: But then there's a finite, I think he only had ... And I don't remember because it's so long since I've seen the movie, but I think he either had a finite amount of time or a finite amount of the pills, and it was the question of, well, what do you do when this is over?
Brooks Conkle: Got you. Something to watch. I should watch that.
Marcus Neto: Are there any books, podcasts, people or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward?
Brooks Conkle: Oh, yeah, man. That's probably infinite. Podcast is a feed that I'll listen to. I'll switch. I'm always on podcasts, man. Usually, when I'm working out, I'll listen to a podcast, although I know if I listen to music, I would work out harder and better, but whatever. I still listen to podcasts because it's one of those times.
Marcus Neto: What are you listening to now?
Brooks Conkle: I like this podcast called My First Million. I probably listened to tons of episodes of that. A podcast called Niche Pursuits, I've listened to a ton of episodes of that. I should probably pull up my phone.
Marcus Neto: Any books?
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, to a book, I've read tons of books.
Marcus Neto: Or even audio books.
Brooks Conkle: There's one book that is this weird ... No one ever has it on a list, but I've read it three or four times. Every couple of years, I read it. It's called Dare to Succeed by Mark Burnett.
Marcus Neto: Interesting.
Brooks Conkle: Never heard anyone mention it before. I think I literally found this book at, I don't know, I have no idea where I got it. I think it may have been a thrift store buy. If you're at a thrift store and you're like, oh, okay, that's random. What was interesting about it to me is so Mark Burnett is the founder of Survivor and Shark Tank, so that's who Mark Burnett is.
Marcus Neto: I know the name now. You see it on the credits. Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Mark Burnett. Yeah. Exactly. He's the executive producer. He wrote this book 15 years ago or something. I'm not saying it's this amazing book or whatever, but something that drew me to it when I read it the first time and then have gone back to read it is it's his story from his mouth and you're like, "Oh, this is the creative dude behind these shows that put these deals together with TV production companies, pitched them and how he made it."
Marcus Neto: I was going to say because it's not coming up, so it must have been something, Dare to Succeed. Yeah, there it is. Oh, my gosh.
Brooks Conkle: It's like from the '80s or early 2000s, I think, maybe early 2000s.
Marcus Neto: Okay. So for those of you that are watching this on video, this is what he's talking about.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. It's going to be tough to find. That is it, man. That is it. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
Marcus Neto: That's wild.
Brooks Conkle: But ...
Marcus Neto: I can understand how that would be a ... because that mindset ...
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, it's a-
Marcus Neto: We're Not taught really to succeed, are we, in the way that businesses are ...
Brooks Conkle: I don't know. I don't want to go ... Yeah, I'm interested. I have this mixed opinion on college and the right path forward for kids. I think there's a bunch of correct paths. I think we've been corralling a lot of them towards university and maybe-
Marcus Neto: Shouldn't be.
Brooks Conkle: ... it's too many. I feel like universities should probably be the trade school for engineering, attorneys, whatever. So I think there's a lot to change in how to teach this stuff.
Marcus Neto: But just success. So I think what happens is that when you become a business owner and you start taking an interest in entrepreneur things that you're ... And especially if you are a student of it. If you're reading books and listening to podcasts and going to organizations and taking an interest in it, that there are nuggets that you learn about success and what it takes and the grit that it takes in order to do this and how to approach life. Because I think a lot of times, what we do is very much like science. We have a hypothesis and we come up with a way of testing that hypothesis and we go to prove whether that hypothesis is true or not.
So I want to learn SEO. I think that there's money to be made there, so I'm going to go and learn everything that I can about it, and then I'm going to see where this thing takes me, just to borrow an example. And I don't know that there's really anyone ... You know what? Actually, that's BS because as parents, I think we take a role in showing kids and mimicking the successes and how we deal with things in our life. The kids pick up on that.
Brooks Conkle: Kids definitely pick up on that. I think that's a big spot where you get that stuff. In the SEO realm, it's interesting because everyone that I've connected with or interviewed or whatever, I'm like, "Oh, cool." I'm like, "You studied this in school, right?" They're like, "Ha. Absolutely not."
Marcus Neto: No.
Brooks Conkle: This changing ever-
Marcus Neto: Yeah, there's no studying that in school.
Brooks Conkle: Not at all. All these people fell into this industry.
Marcus Neto: For those of you that don't know what SEO is, search engine optimization, it's the ability to take a website and make some changes, whether it's to the code of the website or to the content of the website, and nobody knows the algorithms for Google or YouTube or any of these other, even Amazon, Amazon is the number two search engine if I remember correctly.
Brooks Conkle: It's up there. Yeah.
Marcus Neto: And so gaming those systems in a way that allows you to rank higher so that you get more traffic and therefore, more traffic oftentimes equals more money, right?
Brooks Conkle: Sure.
Marcus Neto: Whether it's advertising dollars or whatever. But yeah, there's no schooling for that.
Brooks Conkle: Totally agree.
Marcus Neto: Right. Getting back on track, where are we at? Gosh. What's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business?
Brooks Conkle: Probably just being in it for the long haul, enjoy the journey, enjoy the ride. I find it really interesting how online, you only see wins posted. You don't see Ls posted. I just feel like for the most part, you don't see losses posted. I love it when people talk about losses. I feel like things that I've done for the last 15 years, I guess I've had more wins than losses, but I would almost think, man, maybe I've had more losses than wins, just things that didn't work out or whatever. And I don't necessarily talk about them, but I just think like, well, here's a prime stage to talk about that, man. It's just a part of the journey. I think enjoying the journey is the most thing that I've learned. It's all part of the big game of life and business.
Marcus Neto: Yeah. It's hard because success begets success, and so they always tell you, hey, talk about the successes because it attracts people. They want to be part of something that's successful. And if you talk about like, oh man, shit is just rough right now ... But there's a balance. I think especially here in Mobile, I think we have a responsibility to the other business owners, and I've been vocal about last year was just a really shit year for a lot of people, and I think the community appreciates it when other members of that community are vocal about it because they don't feel like they can, but when somebody does, they're like, yes.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Oh, me too. Oh, thank goodness I'm not the only one or whatever.
Marcus Neto: Exactly.
Brooks Conkle: I'm totally with you, man. It's the stats of small businesses. Was it like 95% fail in the first year or two years or something in the first year and then in five years, it's like another majority fail?
Marcus Neto: Yeah, it's not even five years. It's like every year, it's like-
Brooks Conkle: It drops. So I'm like you see those stats, but to really have people to not just see a stat but really get it and feel like, oh man, it's hard to grow and operate a business and pivot and change. Everything is not in your control, and to figure out how to adjust and adapt, all part of the entrepreneurial journey, man.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, for sure. All right. So here's some rapid fire questions, just real quick, one, two-word responses if you can.
Brooks Conkle: All right.
Marcus Neto: So favorite type of music.
Brooks Conkle: Oh.
Marcus Neto: See, these are meant to throw you off.
Brooks Conkle: All over, man, but man, if I'm working, some lo-fi, chill music.
Marcus Neto: Okay. What is your favorite type of food?
Brooks Conkle: Delicious food.
Marcus Neto: That doesn't count.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Pizza, pasta, seafood.
Marcus Neto: Pizza? Okay, I'll go with pizza.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, pizza. First thing came to mind.
Marcus Neto: It's a solid choice.
Brooks Conkle: I'll go with the first mental picture.
Marcus Neto: You can get solid because you can have that for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. Pizza is always good.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, yeah.
Marcus Neto: And it stays pretty decent. Actually, quick aside, the new Piggly Wiggly has a brand of pizza. It's Detroit something or another. It's a pizza from Detroit. It's not deep dish, but it's a thicker crust pizza, and by far the best frozen pizza I've had in the longest time.
Brooks Conkle: Really? Okay.
Marcus Neto: Definitely worth the trip to Piggly Wiggly.
Brooks Conkle: We went to the new Piggly Wiggly just to walk around, just to walk around. We were like, man, we didn't even buy anything. The night we went, we just went to walk. We were like, "Let's go check it out." Like date night.
Marcus Neto: We went and shopped and I was really impressed. And the thing that excites me is how they have pulled in other vendors from the city and are helping to bring them along as well.
Brooks Conkle: I noticed that. I thought it was cool. I saw some spice from Fairhope or something that I saw around.
Marcus Neto: Well, Cammies has a location there, ice cream. You've got three Georgias in there. You've got Naman's Catering with the hot meals and stuff like that. I just think they're doing a good job with that.
Brooks Conkle: Agreed.
Marcus Neto: Sorry. Back to the rapid fire.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, yeah. My mind. Right.
Marcus Neto: Favorite restaurant in lower Alabama?
Brooks Conkle: In LA, man, Jesus.
Marcus Neto: It's not coming to you.
Brooks Conkle: That's tough. The first thing that came to my mind was Squid Ink.
Marcus Neto: Okay, yeah, that's a good solid choice as well. Favorite city outside of Mobile?
Brooks Conkle: Let's go Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I know. I know. Threw a curve ball at you.
Marcus Neto: Wow. Okay. Ocean Springs.
Brooks Conkle: Well, I was also thinking close, outside of Mobile, close. You just meant in the world?
Marcus Neto: I just mean in general.
Brooks Conkle: I don't know. Queenstown, New Zealand. I don't know. I like Ocean Springs. It's a hidden gem for us.
Marcus Neto: I have not spent that much time in Ocean Springs. This is why I was laughing.
Brooks Conkle: Apparently, I heard your chuckle. Dude. I think it's called The Lady May. It's a restaurant. I went. And after we went, we went back three times. Every time, that's where we've gone, I get this burger, one of the best burgers we've ever had. They have a little downtown strip, very artsy. It's like the Mississippi in Fairhope.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. I almost said Fairhope because we just got done with a little trip over there. But I was like, "Let me go Ocean Springs to put it on the map."
Marcus Neto: Staycations are fun. We did a staycation here in Mobile once, stayed at the Admiral right after they had done a renovation, had breakfast at Squid Ink. We went dancing that night and listened to some music, had some drinks, didn't have to worry about going home or anything like that. It's fun.
Brooks Conkle: Cool experience.
Marcus Neto: Ocean Springs is the same thing, but you would be considered the same. These are supposed to be rapid fire, but we're losing that.
Brooks Conkle: I'll get you back on. Sorry.
Marcus Neto: City you want to travel to but have yet to visit.
Brooks Conkle: Ah ...
Marcus Neto: You're filtering too much.
Brooks Conkle: I know, man. That's not helping the rapid fire. Let's go Seattle, Washington.
Marcus Neto: Cool.
Brooks Conkle: No. Vancouver. Changed it.
Marcus Neto: All right. Same thing.
Brooks Conkle: Same area.
Marcus Neto: Just different countries.
Brooks Conkle: Exactly. Exactly. Same area.
Marcus Neto: What comes to mind when I say guilty pleasure?
Brooks Conkle: Chocolate.
Marcus Neto: Dogs, cats or none of the above?
Brooks Conkle: Dogs, man.
Marcus Neto: Summer or winter?
Brooks Conkle: Summer.
Marcus Neto: Favorite movie or TV show?
Brooks Conkle: Top Gun.
Marcus Neto: Top Gun.
Brooks Conkle: I don't know. Hey, rapid fire. It's the first image that came to mind. Is it actually my favorite? I would have said something weird, man. I used to have an answer like let's see what was on the list. I'm like, man,
Marcus Neto: Dead Poet Society.
Brooks Conkle: Sandlot would be on there. Sandlot would be a movie like that. Back in the day, I used to say Sister Act 2.
Marcus Neto: Nice.
Brooks Conkle: Literally for about a 10-year stint, I would say that was one of my favorite movies.
Marcus Neto: That's funny.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: Favorite holiday?
Brooks Conkle: Christmas.
Marcus Neto: Favorite color?
Brooks Conkle: Blue. Wow. It's like Family Feud, man.
Marcus Neto: Yeah, no. Favorite cereal.
Brooks Conkle: Lucky Charms.
Marcus Neto: All right. I'm not going to judge you about the Lucky Charms. The marshmallows throw me a little bit.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, you got to eat those last.
Marcus Neto: Or you could be-
Brooks Conkle: Yeah. Just scoop around them and then you eat them at the end.
Marcus Neto: Well, no, I think we've used her name before. Ella, Chrissy's daughter, and she likes to eat the marshmallows out of the cereal, so we'll find a box and it's got nothing but the cereal sometimes.
Brooks Conkle: Oh, she only ate marshmallows out of it.
Marcus Neto: Marshmallows, you know you can buy them on Amazon.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah, I've heard. I think you can buy the milk too. It's like marshmallow milk. Yeah, because that's also delicious. The Lucky Charm milk at the end, you can buy milk that-
Marcus Neto: Yeah, I don't know about that.
Brooks Conkle: You can buy milk that tastes like that. I've never had it. I've heard of it.
Marcus Neto: All right. So just to wrap up, what are you most thankful for? And this is not rapid fire. We're out of the rapid-
Brooks Conkle: Okay, I was like oh, oh.
Marcus Neto: No. No rapid fire.
Brooks Conkle: Thankful for.
Marcus Neto: Yeah.
Brooks Conkle: Man, I'm thankful for just opportunity, just the ability, just the ability to try things. I take it for granted, for sure, all the time that we live in this like ...
Marcus Neto: This is not normal.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: This is not something that other generations experienced.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: This is new. This is completely outside of the realm of what generations before us have experienced.
Brooks Conkle: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think it's a cool time to be alive, man. And I'm just trying to soak that up, so I'm thankful for it.
Marcus Neto: Not lose track of it.
Brooks Conkle: Yeah.
Marcus Neto: All right. Tell people where they can find you.
Brooks Conkle: They could Google me if they want and just reach out however. And then The Mobile Rundown is our local brand. You can find us there. I'm a big part of that, so you may get me connected with that. But if you Google me, man, LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook, Facebook Messenger, they're all the same to me and I treat them all like a phone call.
Marcus Neto: Very cool. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. I'm going to start over. That was horrible. I'm so out of practice. This is the second podcast in, what, a year. So anyway, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. To wrap up, any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share?
Brooks Conkle: Thanks, man. Just thank you. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Marcus Neto: I appreciate you making time for this too. So, well, Brooks, it's been good talking with you. I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. Look forward to having lunch sometime soon.
Brooks Conkle: Yes, sir. Thanks.
