Episode 120 - Killing the Idea Fairy with Hamilton Powell
Well, would you look at the time? It’s another Tuesday with Faith Driven Entrepreneur, and today’s episode is for all you old-schoolers who check the time by looking at your wrist. That’s right, we’re talking about watches, not phone screens.
Today’s guest is Hamilton Powell of Crown & Caliber. He buys and sells used luxury watches, and today he’s going to share with us how he got started on this entrepreneurial venture and what it means to “kill the good idea fairy.”
It’s a fascinating conversation, and we’re glad you’ve decided to join us today. Let’s listen in…
Useful Links:
Hamilton Powell at NOAH 17 London
Episode Transcript
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Henry Keastner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast Hamilton Powell. We're very glad that you're on the program today. We've got a lot to cover. So let's start talking about crown and caliber. You guys buy and sell used luxury watches. Where did this idea come from? How'd you get started?
Hamilton Powell: Sure. Yeah. Well, thanks again for having me, guys. Privilege to be on the program. Give you a little bit of background on crown and caliber. I'd be remiss if I didn't start with our purpose, though, because that's really what guides everything we do. We're pretty intentional in our business of adhering to a purpose, which is to leave a positive and lasting impression on the lives that we intersect. And all 74 of us, a Crown and Caliber, believe in this. And we also believe that a watch is a pretty unique item that can be used to accomplish this purpose. And we think that a watch can almost be like a Trojan horse, which allows us to enter a unique chapter of somebody's life that maybe very few people are in or engaged in that allows us to leave that positive and lasting impression. And so we're after leaving a legacy and not just creating a business. And that's really how we do it. So a little bit about us. Every year in the US, there's about five billion dollars worth of brand new mechanical watches sold at retail and keywords mechanical. So that doesn't include Castillos and Timex's and things like that. That's Brightlings and Omega and Rolex and things of that nature. And so what happens when five billion dollars a year are sold into the economy? It's not like another asset, any other asset that eventually goes to a scrap yard to watch us own the phrase. It keeps on ticking. So these assets, these watches accumulate. And as a result, there's an estimated one hundred billion dollars worth of used luxury watches in circulation in the U.S. alone. And so I had previously been in private equity. I've been engaged in several different businesses, but got exposed to the retail space and learned that there was a lot going on in this resale market and learned that the watch market was kind of the last great industry that didn't have an active second hand space.
So there wasn't like the car space, a trusted way to engage with this inventory. So that's really kind of what got me started and allowed me to leave private equity and found Crown and Caliber about seven years ago.
Henry Keastner: Some amount of people might say, you know, gosh buying and selling Rolexes where do you see the redemptive purpose in that and how do you think about that? And I don't know if you can say something about the fact that these are keepsakes. There's stores of value and there are things of beauty. And the craftsmanship behind some of these things is actually amazing. This is tangible sign of beauty that we carry around with us. I didn't know if you had a thought on that.
Hamilton Powell: So one of the things that's beautiful about a watch is it is a tiny machine that in some ways is one of the great feats of human engineering where you can take metal and steel and forge it into a device that captures the most scarce thing that we all have. And that's time. And so when we look at our purpose, which is to leave a positive and lasting impression on the lives that we intersect, we're selling a device that basically measures time, which measures how purposeful we might be using that time. And so what's beautiful about that is we are able to engage in a customer's life that watches almost like a Trojan horse that allows us to enter into a customer's life either as a buyer or seller, where maybe few people are allowed.
So we use an example. If you're trying to sell a watch, sometimes there's a reason. Many times there's not. We've had stories of people there selling watch, watch, maybe pay for a medical bill or to put a kid through school or things like that. And so we feel like we can be a light in that customer's life during that moment, whatever it might be. And we have an opportunity to lead that positive, lasting impression. And for people that are buying a watch. We feel like we have a similar opportunity because nobody needs a watch. And 20/20, like use your iPhone until the time. But why do people buy a watch? It's something to celebrate, something to give to somebody special. And similarly, so we can be engaged in that chapter of that person's life, too. And so we feel like a watch is a perfect asset to fulfill our purpose of leaving that positive and lasting impression. And I don't know of a more perfect asset than that. So that's why we get deeply passion about it.
Henry Keastner: I see it. I see it. Thank you for sharing that. That's super cool. So when I think about luxury watches, a bunch of different things come in my mind. I think about status symbols and I think about Rolexes and guys trying to show what they've got. And then on the other end, I think about maybe some our listeners think about this, too. I think about stolen watches and things like that. So you found yourself in kind of a really interesting spot, and that is one of the last places for you to go ahead and innovate and provide some value. And a really great marketplace for something is clearly of value and it's a big market. And yet it's fraught with some things that have some baggage associated with them, whether it's the status side or just some of the things that are done in pawnshops. Help us to think through just as you wrestled around that. How do you process the space that you're in? Riff on that a bit.
Hamilton Powell: Sure. So I think that the watch space, much like other industries, before there were active second hand players that were certainly difficult industries to transact in the secondary market. So think of the car space back in the 70s before there was CarMax or Carvana or places like that, you're kind of forced to go to the local used car lot with a guy in a cowboy hat, in a leisure suit and negotiate over a used car. And that's kind of how the watch industry was before we came on the scene, as it really was kind of a Wild West market. And so, like you mentioned, is it stolen? Is it authentic? Is it working? Those are all questions that people ask when buying a preowned watch. And so what was missing was a brand that was known for trust. And so what we've done over the last seven years is really create a trusted brand that allows for both buyers and sellers to uniquely engage into this market. So what we do is we are what we call a uniquely better way for buyers to buy in a uniquely better way for sellers to sell a used watch. So if you have watch that you want to sell, you go to crown and caliber dot com. You enter information about it, you click submit, and then we will get back to you with a market based price. And if you'll like that, then we send you a prepaid and insured shipping label. You wrap up your watch, you send it to us. It arrives at our secure facility in Atlanta and we inspect the watch, authenticate it, and then we pay you.
So we're not a consignment business. We actually own the asset. And owning the asset allows us to own the customer experience, which means we can then take that watch. And we have 30 individuals on our watch making repair, polishing teams that will get that watch into as light new condition as possible. And then we list the watch on our site and we list it with a no questions asked return policy and a full one year warranty. So you as a buyer can feel comfortable purchasing and transacting in the second hand space. And so that's really what we've been able to do over the years.
Rusty Rueff: It's fascinating, I have a dear friend who has the watch gene, as I like to say. And he's a loyal customer of yours. So I think that's really cool. And I always wanted to know what makes a watch guy tick.
Henry Keastner: (laughter) it's going to be a long day.
Rusty Rueff: Hey, Hamilton, you talk to us about this career evolution. As you said, you left private equity and you found this. But, you know, there are those who have given you a little bit of a moniker. You know, the good idea fairy is what you're called. Talk us through how you came to be the good idea faery, but also give us an idea of some of the things that you might have pursued along the way that just didn't work out.
Hamilton Powell: Sure. Let me start with telling you kind of where we are today because I think that helps to understand where we then. So we now have at any given time about three thousand watches listed on our site representing 40 brands. We've done seventy five thousand successful transactions since roughly 2015. We have about thirty thousand people coming under our site every day, unique visitors. But the thing I think we're most proud of is our net promoter score, which is how we rank our customers experience is in the mid 80s consistently.
And that just proves that you can do luxury online as long as you obsess over that customer experience. And so that's kind of where we are now. But as you alluded to in the early days that say like the first three years, the business, it was really, I call it discover and learn time, if you will. That was really where we discovered and learned because I wasn't from this industry and nobody from our team was from this industry. But we actually felt that was really important. That was a benefit, because in order to make any changes to a 300 year old industry like this, we felt like you needed to bring some fresh mentality into it. But there was a con to it. There wasn't negative. And that's. Early on, we had to fail a lot in order to determine the right business model. And in one of the problems that we faced is a high class problem. But it the problem is that there was so much white space in this fragmented industry.
There's so much opportunity in this industry. And the second hand watch space that was just kind of ripe for professionalization, that it was almost paralyzing. And so early on, this gave rise to what we affectionately call the good idea fairy. And sometimes she would appear to be a late night e-mails or other times she would appear during a silent pause in a meeting. But she was always around and seemed to be present more and more frequently. And at first it was great to have these kind of good ideas.
I think any startup needs to have that kind of mentality early on. It's like ready, fire aim like you've got to go, go, go. And it helped us to press on. But eventually she started to become kind of toxic. And if the other guests, like you mentioned, the good idea fairy was me.
And I think these ideas were sometimes in this early stage, they could be distracting. It was what helped us to understand our niche in this market. We tested all sorts of things. Should we have a consignment model or should we have a marketplace format? Or should we hire a sales force to go to people's homes? Or should we try jewelry like all these things? Were the results of that good idea fair? And again, it was critical early on to have that. But as you move into this next chapter, which is like the last three years of our business, where we've now nailed down our business model, so like in twenty seventeen, that's when we really just nail this business model down.
We knew what works and more importantly, we now knew what didn't work. We were growing at 70 percent year over year now, and that's what we've been able to do the last three years. Yet the good idea for her is still poked her head into meetings and occasionally a late night email. And while, like I said, she was needed in the early years. Now that we're in this mature chapter, it actually became a detriment to our success. And here's why. It's because when you're acting on impulse, it takes away from core strategy and every ounce of effort that isn't committed to a startup score strategy, at least we witness it can cause burnout. And one of the best examples and illustrations of this is Jason Allen, who's our chief revenue officer. He's just critical to our business and critical to me personally. He told me, he said, look, Hamilton, if you're driving the bus and you make a pretty severe turn, you don't really feel the turns as much. But the people in the back of the bus are getting carsick. And that's what ends up happening with these constant pivots, these good idea moments. And so we had then and still have now I think the most committed and hardworking team you can imagine.
And these guys and gals, they just bleed crown and caliber. And there's nothing wrong with ideation. Not at all. But it's got to be done in a restricted way at this mature phase, because otherwise, even no matter how great the team got the best team I've ever worked with. But it can cause confusion. It can cause burnout, can cause ambiguity, like are we. Are we not? And we were doing 70 percent year over year growth and we didn't stop to celebrate because it's like there was always another mountain to climb. And so we needed to grow into processes and systems. And there's a great quote I heard about how we needed at that point to go from being a pirate ship to being a Navy fleet. And we all had to work just as hard, if not harder. We had to maintain that same spirit of scrappiness, but we had to become more disciplined and use processes and systems. And that's how a Navy fleet will absolutely destroy a pirate ship all day. And so that's ultimately where we ended up.
Rusty Rueff: That's fascinating, because I think we all get at this point. How did you know you needed to get to that point? And then very practically, what can we pass along to other entrepreneurs to say, OK, you know, they're listening right now, going, I'm there, I'm there. What should I do?
Hamilton Powell: Yeah. The answer, your first question, how do you know? Fortunately, we had some wise counsel around this. There's a great quote Glenn Jackson gave me who I know who's been a guest on your show. He said startups don't die of starvation. They die of indigestion. So it's usually not because you're doing too few things, is because you're doing too many things. And so I think having that benefit of really wise counsel in our business early on to let us know, look, you are now in a mature phase and you need to now grow into that phase. I also think that having a really good feedback loop with the team, things like 360 reviews, and that that's a humbling thing when you hear your team screaming like a we need to move forward and a process oriented way is where they we're at this mature phase. So what we did about it. Second question. Yes. The first thing is we implemented an operating system. There's a great book called Traction. I'm sure a lot of people familiar with it. It's what's known as iOS. So we implemented that, which really got in a lot of our decision making, a lot of our goal setting. It just helped to, I guess, contain a lot of this and organize it. We also got really serious about goals. And again, I mentioned Jason. He was keeping me very accountable on the gold side of things. We obsess over the planning process. But I think the last thing which has been just as important, if not the most important, which was we are really serious about purpose and values and getting back to why we all came to work in the first place, leaving that positive, the lasting impression on the lives we intersect and celebrating and recognizing that there's are kind of some of the things that we did about it at that point.
Henry Keastner: Hamilton, we've done over 115 of these and I cannot think of a single episode in which my shortcomings have been laid more bare than this one is. You're talking about your coworker talking about being in the back of the bus and just getting car sick from it. I've been accused of doing the same thing. And it wasn't until later in my career that I started understanding some of the impact. Of course, the good ideas you had and have and the ones that I have and Rusty has and William and and the whole team have are good ideas and they're coming from a good place. But it takes a certain maturity to be able to really understand how they're perceived and understand that you and I can get together over a beer and get really fired up about exchange of really great ideas because we're wired the same type of way. But they're really important members of our team that are not wired the same way. And thank God they're not because they actually implement and make things happen and they thrive on process and structure and framework and think that you've really hit on something really big there, which is just to understand that and that how different folks react to, you know, I've got a comfort you need me to execute for the next three months on this process. And I feel safety in that and I excel in that. But as soon as you go ahead and you threaten that, my whole being is threatened. And as an entrepreneur, that's such a big blind spot. We expect that everybody else will be just as excited. But our idea is we are we've introduced some outside force. It is unsettling to people, very valuable, incredibly important members of a team that need to feel settled. And I love that we're having this discussion.
Hamilton Powell: I would completely agree with that. I think there's a Patrick Lencioni quote of whenever a CEO whispers, everybody else hears a scream. And what's dangerous is during that ideation process, you might kind of be half committed to an idea. But you've got to be really careful because it can create all sorts of confusion, chaos, disorder, when even that ideation processes unrestricted because everybody else, like you said, who's committed to employing these ideas, they hear you and they want to do them. And so I think we have to be very cautious as leaders.
Henry Keastner: OK, so since 2017, you've continue to have a ton of really good ideas about a whole bunch of different things, I'm sure. What's your outlet for that? How do you maintain that tone of creativity as one of your unique skill sets. What's the outlet for it?
Hamilton Powell: I think the trick is to making sure that you're weighing the opportunity cost of the ideas. So that's where having a really good process like EOS or something like that, that allows you to put these things down. And then if you're committed to goals, then you really have to ask yourself, is this supporting the goal? Is this detracting from the goal or is it creating an entirely different goal? And if so, then how do we rank that among the other things that we now have committed to? And so it's all about creating, I think, an opportunity cost to any of the ideas that you might have. But like I said, it is second, ideation and pursuing new ideas dies like the organization will, too. So it's not that you have to do fewer of them. It's just they need to be done in a more constructive way, because if you don't, then you as the leader, I think will cap the growth of the company into always being a pirate ship, you always be swashbucklers and that's it.
Rusty Rueff: So do you process that? I mean, do you have a standard process to say this is where the ideas go, and this is when we talk about him, and this is when we explore.
Hamilton Powell: Yes. And in the past they used to find that highly bureaucratic, like, oh, great, we've become a big business. We now have meetings where we set aside time to go through this. But that's exactly what we have to do. And to me, it was eye opening to see that a lot of companies have had to mature through that immature phase all the way to the more mature phase and do so through processes and systems at the end of the day.
The difference between a lifestyle and a business is processes and systems. You can wait tables all day inside of a small restaurant, but if there's no processes and systems, you're going to be limited to a lifestyle business. But if you are able to implement those processes and systems for the business, then that's how you can leverage it to a greater size. And that's really what when I began to see as those kind of processes and systems were not a threat, but they were essential to us growing.
Rusty Rueff: I'm glad you contrasted process and bureaucracy. I've always said that process that becomes unfriendly becomes bureaucracy, but friendly process. You know, we should feel comfortable in because we can create on top of that. Right. We know what's there. 70 percent per year growth. That's a lot. You know, you've also said, hey, once a company doubles, it's probably time to rethink and break the model. How do you balance those two things together with what you're saying about holding on to your process?
Hamilton Powell: Yeah, I think that is true is roughly every time you want to double, you need to break the business. And I think that that breaking typically happens and they want to four areas. It's either your systems, your marketing itself. The people that are in the business. And I think that the leaders role in the organization will also have to break. So for us, we've had to break off for those things. The systems in 2017, when we really started growing, I mean, we were operating off of some pretty basic systems that were supporting our day to day back in. And we had to scrap that completely, build it from scratch in order to grow the business on the marketing front.
I think a lot of businesses get to the size they are by operating at the lower end of the funnel, if you will, the kind of the lack of a better term performance marketing side of things or whatever. And that photo that gets dished out. And so at some point, you have to break the, quote, marketing of the business and begin to go further up that funnel into things that are more branding, brand awareness, particularly in a DTC or consumer business like ours on the people front. You know, our first priority has always been to elevate existing members as we've had leadership positions open. Sometimes you can do that, sometimes you can't. But either way, we've had to build leaders that led didn't manage like it's a very different skillset and there's a kind of a breaking there. So you want to go from pirate ship management to naval fleet management is a totally different skill set, but I think the most important thing is the leader. And in my case was me and recognizing that as the business grew, so too did my role. I needed to wait fewer tables for lack of a better term and instead focus on what Lynch Yoni calls the organizational health of the business. So building a cohesive team and creating a lot of clarity and over communicating that clarity and then reinforcing that through systems.
Henry Keastner: So, Hamilton, you've got another important role, of course, as well, which is being a husband and a father. How has this kind of light bulb moment for you and the way that you're ideating in creating and working hard? Any carryover or any lessons for you as a husband and a father?
Hamilton Powell: Well, I think the hardest working person in our business is my wife. She has sacrificed a tremendous amount to allow me to spend the time and energy doing these things. And I'd say, you know, early on it's never been in this position before. So just learning how to be able to balance work and home. And I don't think I've done it perfectly. But ultimately, I think it's about having that intentionality of going on a walk or just carving out time to talk and not overdoing it, not creating this overly elaborate date night kind of thing, not being an entrepreneur on that side, but just being available.
Henry Keastner: Yeah, I felt myself being an entrepreneur in my relationship to say, well, we could go on that vacation, we could do this. What do you think? I'm doing this with the kids. Maybe you could sign up for that sport and we could do that. And I think that the person who has the most whiplash in my life. Maybe it wasn't my employee so much, but maybe with my wife, my kids.
Hamilton Powell: Yeah, I would agree. I think we look for the extremes in work and that then bleeds over to home. I don't know that our family needs the extremes. They need the time. And it's easy to overengineer it because it feels like you're doing something or you're in control. But I think just being there, being with them, I've got three kids to have an eight five and a three year old and don't want to pass that up right now.
Henry Keastner: So talk to me also about the parallels. If you've seen them in your faith, walk as you've come to learn some of these lessons about entrepreneurship and creativity and managing and the way that. People are wired seeing that work on your house. Has it changed how you view God in your faith at all?
Hamilton Powell: Man, it definitely has. I will say that there's been chapters that I've been forced to my knees in ways that nothing else could have forced a guy like me that's hardwired like me to my knees, like the unknowns of business. Realizing that I can do nothing, not partially, literally can do nothing. Absolutely nothing. And until you've had a especially early on a day where nobody is buying anything or is completely out of your control, it's almost like a farmer just looking up in the sky and realizing there is nothing that you can do to make it rain. And I think that it can be difficult in our industrial society to have that experience, but certainly experience that. So, yeah, there's been a lot of those kind of lessons. And there's I think the big lesson for me was around identity. And I'm still learning that. But. I think that being an entrepreneur means that God hardwired you as a person of action. I have a great mentor in getting Roy Jones here locally. He showed me that there's this great. Remember the Chariots of Fire movie, Eric Little, of course. And he said, I believe God made me for a purpose. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure now. And I feel like some of us have been hardwired like that, which is a good thing. But our Achilles heel as entrepreneurs can be our identity in that. And I think that we all battle identity, obviously, in some sort of way. But the battle of the entrepreneur in terms of identity is unique. We battle it in our own unique way.
Rusty Rueff: So you've mentioned a number of different books and resources for our listeners. Are there two or three things that you would point them to? Because, you know, I think everybody wants to get to exactly where you are, but they're in this growth stage or maybe it's not growing fast enough in there. Should I hang on? Should I let loose? You know, when do I stop ideating? When do I start? Can you point us to a few resources that might be good and we'll turn round it posted on the Web site and all that good stuff.
Hamilton Powell: Sure. So I love everything. Lencioni. The advantage was critical book for us. And there's been several similar books these written like that, but that one in particular has been super helpful. This isn't a specific book, but I highly recommend, particularly if you're a founder without a co founder and doing it by yourself. Get a coach. And without that level of accountability, you're just going to stub your toe into either failing or figuring it out. But it's gonna take you a lot longer. And so that was one thing that I did early on and was really glad that I did. And so I think then the last would be for us. Again, traction was a highly helpful methodology for going from pirate ship to naval fleet. And any entrepreneur that finds him or herself in that space, in that time, I think that you got to grab something to get the processes and systems to take you to the next step.
Henry Keastner: So I want to go forward three years from 2017, kind of shutting down the idea very a bit and just ask if maybe this is an opportunity in your business to resurrect the idea of faery a little bit in light of the fact that the marketplace has changed a lot. Right. How do you think about the space that we've found ourselves all in in this COVID 19 marketplace? And are you seeing the market differently? Are you seeing the opportunities differently? Are you seeing your product differently? Talk to us about how you're processing that right now.
Hamilton Powell: Yeah, that's a great point. And I'm certainly glad that we have processes and systems built around pivoting during COVID for us. We certainly have a lot to be grateful for. While we're definitely not where we planned for the year, we've seen a lot of customers that may not have gone to an online environment for purchasing watches that now are. And so it's been in that sense, a great time of customer acquisition. But I think, to your point, it's allowed us to take a step back and really look at our vision, which has been to be the number one solution for buying and selling preowned luxury watches, then mean that we're the number one disruptor or the number one buyer or seller or the solution. And so this time has really helped us to look at what being that solution means. And we spent a lot of time brainstorming over the last two months on specifically how we can empower the industry, brick and mortars, mainly to be in the watch trade in space through using our data and our technology. And I think that had we had those kind of conversations three or four years ago, it wouldn't have been as structured. We wouldn't have been able to see the opportunity cost of pursuing certain things. But now it's a relatively efficient and easy way to make new decisions and pursue new initiatives, which these aren't really new. They're just extensions of our vision all along.
Rusty Rueff: One question I have for you and then we'll come to a close is trust. So how do you build trust in customers like you've had to do? Right. People are buying very expensive items from you. Those items have to work. Those items have to be validated in some way that they are what they are. Talk a little bit about that for us. Building trust with your consumer.
Hamilton Powell: So trust is absolutely critical in our business, as you can imagine, somebody is well. Think about some guy selling the watch their dad gave them and shipping it to somebody they've never met. Or conversely, Smy buying a watch to celebrate their fortieth anniversary or something. And just we have to do. Trust me, we found that there's definitely tactics you could use and all that. But ultimately, the way to convey trust is to have people at crown and caliber who care. And I think that you can get hung up on the tactics. But if you have like minded individuals who are engaging with the customer, looking to pursue a legacy like purpose of having a positive and lasting impression on a life that they're going to intersect, that is the way you can be. Trust better than any tactic or any piece of content or anything like that is the customer experience, I believe, is the number one thing to convey trust. And behind that customer experience is a person that works at crown and caliber. And that's why we spent so much time and energy making sure we're hiring highly empathetic individuals that truly are dedicated to that purpose. They're not commission. They're there to help. They're there to actually engage in that customer, be a light in that chapter of life for them.
Rusty Rueff: That's cool. That's cool. So for anybody who's listening, who wants to go buy a watch, valuation's good now during the crisis or.
Hamilton Powell: You know, it's been kind of interesting. There's been certain models of watches that have gone up, some have gone down. But for the most part, it's been a relatively consistent pricing environment at this point. So that's certainly why we spend so much time and energy on data is making sure that we see those fluctuations right now. They're somewhat minimal.
Henry Keastner: What watch do you wear?
Hamilton Powell: So I've got a 1972 Heuer Carerra right now. But the problem with being in this business is you're like in the candy store everyday. Right. So you kind of fall in love and then fall out of love pretty quickly.
Rusty Rueff: My buddy I was telling you about, he had a significant birthday recently and I was going to buy him a watch and I told him afterwards and he goes, I am so glad you did not buy me a watch because I would've been constantly conflicted. Right. Because I would I had my good watch on one arm and my iWatch on the other. Right. I can't have both. And so it's a very funny thing about who wears what was interesting.
Hamilton Powell: The whole iWatch phenomenon. This obviously here to stay. It didn't really affect US sales of brand new watches. In fact, there's kind of a theory that what it's doing is, is getting people used to putting something on that real estate on their wrist in the 70s where there was the quartz crisis that almost killed the mechanical watch industry, those cheap swatches. That's what kept people used to wearing a watch. And so in some ways, people are wearing watches now that otherwise wouldn't. And the thought is eventually they could potentially upgrade to that or at least love watches that maybe they didn't.
Rusty Rueff: You mean you mean those cheap swatches then that if you'd held onto them, were worth a lot of money.
Hamilton Powell: They're awesome watches. Yeah. A lot of people love them. Yeah.
Rusty Rueff: So as we come to a close, which unfortunately we have to do usually William, our co-host, ask this question. But as we are recording this, I think he's in Salt Lake City driving a Winnebago with his family from the East Coast to the West Coast, moving to a Wally world. US. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, William's favorite question is just to ask all of our guests, you know, what's God saying to you in this moment?
Hamilton Powell: Yeah, well, there's certainly a lot. And I kind of go back to what I was talking about on identity. So I think that as it relates to the entrepreneur's identity, we certainly have our own battle that's unique versus most others where we're hardwired to perform. And I think that we have to be very careful to make sure that we're wrapping our identity, not in our performance, not in the day to day, but we're wrapping it in where it should be.
And for me, my go to verse here recently has been in Psalm 119:33.
It's teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the paths your commandment for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.
Confirm to your servant your promise that you may be feared. Turn away the reproach I dread and another person is a disgrace I dread. For your rules are good. Behold, I long for your precepts and your righteousness give me life.
So that idea of take away the disgrace I dread. How often am I or any of us so fearful of that disgrace that we dread, particularly as entrepreneurs? So instead turn my eyes from looking at worthless things.
So I've just found that verse is now sitting on my desk. I look at it every day and it's like every month it has new meaning to me. There's a new layer that's peeled back on that and just shows the power of the word that is living and it changes as you go through other things. The word itself doesn't change, obviously, but its meaning to me becomes more and more rich with every chapter I go through. So anyway, hopefully you guys will find similar encouragement in this verse.
Rusty Rueff: A man indeed. Thank you. Thank you. It's been great. Hamilton has a lot of fun.
Henry Keastner: Thank you, Hamilton. Thank you very much.
Hamilton Powell: Pleasure being with you guys.