Welcome to the Purpose Driven Investor, where we build more than portfolios, we build communities. I'm your host, Robert Howell, a real estate investor and founder of Define Communities. Each week we'll explore how purpose and profit connect through affordable housing, land home packages, and impact driven investing. If you're a lender, land seller, or a partner who believes money should move with meaning, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Purpose Driven Investor podcast where we talk with entrepreneurs, investors, business owners about the purpose behind what they build, not just the profits. Today I'm joined by Ben. He's the founder of Beacon Accounting Solutions. Ben is a CPA with both an undergraduate, under undergraduate and master's degree from Clemson University in accounting. Started his career at one of the world's top accounting firms and now helps real estate investors and service businesses across the country with bookkeeping, accounting and advisory services. Ben also has personal experience investing in real estate himself and comes from a highly entrepreneurial family with seven brothers. I think today is going to be a great conversation. So Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on, Robert. All right, good deal. Well, Ben, let's start first with a lot of people listening today, probably first time hearing from you. So let's give them a background on who you are and what you're focused on today and then we'll get back up a minute and talk about your early career and entrepreneurial roots. But let's kind of start with who you are and what you're focused on today. Okay. Well, you kind of mentioned, I feel like whenever I talk about who I am, it always kind of goes back to family and, and the, the key thing there is the seven brothers. Growing up in a home of eight boys, we were homeschooled and we moved to, we moved from New Hampshire to South Carolina. So here in the Greenville area since 2008, several of us went off to North Greenville and I went out to Clemson to, and I got my undergrad like you mentioned and then did the master's downtown Greenville and in accounting. Kind of followed in the footsteps of one of my older brothers who's now my business partner, Thomas. He's an accountant as well. He's a cpa. And so he went to North Greenville and got his accounting degree there. So I figured I wanted to go into accounting after seeing him go into accounting and went to Clemson and then started with a company called Forvis and they were the 8th largest accounting firm at the time. And I started as an auditor. So I used to audit non profits and hospitals and then Realized I wanted to do something different. Like you mentioned, my dad was an entrepreneur. He had his own business for 40 something years, and then later in life, he's really invested in real estate pretty heavily. So he invests in apartment complexes and things like that. And then the older brothers, several of my older brothers had their own businesses, and so kind of was always on my heart to go start my own thing. And just naturally, as I took on my first real estate deal in 2023, realized that as I was talking to real estate investors and stuff like that, that there was a lot of need for accounting and financial sense within. Within that area. And so it was just an easy plug to kind of start my own business. So I started Beacon accounting solutions in 2023, and as you mentioned, doing bookkeeping, accounting, advisory stuff for real estate investors and service businesses. That's awesome. Then you're newly married. Yeah, beyond the way. Married in June last year and baby on the way in September. So life is moving very quickly. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. All right, well, great. So talk about what it was like growing up with a family of seven brothers, eight brothers total, in that entrepreneurial environment. Oh, man, it was. I. I really feel like I had one of the best childhoods. My dad, he. We grew up on a farm. We were on, like, 12 acres in New Hampshire. We had, like, I think at the time, 10 horses and goats, chickens. We were the stereotypical homeschool family out in the middle of nowhere with the farming and. But it was. It was my brothers and my best friends. But it's kind of funny. My oldest brother's 40 and my youngest brother's 25, so we're all about two years apart. So we all grew up super close, though, hanging out with each other every day, riding horses, going out the woods, all that type of stuff. And it's cool now to. To be, you know, working every day with one of my brothers, being my business partner, and then we share an office space with the oldest brother who has his own real estate brokerage. But, yeah, I don't know now, now going to the period where I'm, you know, have my first kid on the way, sometimes I look at my parents, I'm like, you guys were crazy. Especially with eight boys. I see now, too, why my dad worked so hard and everything else had to be insane. That's awesome. Do you think watching your dad be an entrepreneur, did you always know you wanted to own a business or it's something that came later in life? I think, honestly, no, it's weird because like when I first started my career, I didn't think that much about owning it. The idea sounded cool because I did get to see the lifestyle that my dad was able to provide for us. I mean, my mom, right from the first kid, she didn't, she never, she never had to have a job again. He wish my parents, I kind of came along and things were much better. My brothers, when there was the first four, they lived in a two bedroom apartment, four of them in one bedroom. So. Yeah, but by the time I came around, dad had, dad had started doing pretty well. So. But no, I mean I feel like at the initially I didn't, but as I got a little older, probably my first year out into the workforce, I was like, man, I know the challenges that it was for my dad and how hard he had to work, but I felt like the lifestyle that he provided, it was, you know, it's kind of a give and take, that entrepreneurial lifestyle. You put, you put the time in and you put the effort in. You can really provide an awesome life for your family. I felt like it was just a little bit harder to do in the corporate job that I was in. I just didn't see the opportunity long term. And so I, I feel like my first year working, I kind of clicked for me that, hey, I should probably try to start this before I have a family because one of my goals is to be able to have my, my wife, to be able to stay at home with the baby. And, and so early on, before I met my wife Anna, I had that mindset. So I, I quickly started the business in 23 when I was single and I was like, we'll see what this, see what this does. I have, I had no clients and no revenue. I had eight months of savings. And I was like, we'll just see what happens. And it took off a lot faster than I thought. And then I met, I started in November of 23 and met in June of 24. So it's kind of perfect timing. That's great. Well, your, your goal is fast approaching, so you better hurry. Yeah, no, I know. Oh, I know. No pressure. All right, so let's talk about account and studying. Studying public accounting. Working in public accounting. What that teach you? That maybe most oppo entrepreneurs never get to see public accounting. So there's, you know, in, at Clemson they, they kind of push you. The accounting in like education area. It's always kind of pushing towards like, hey, go to public accounting, be an auditor or go into tax. And, and I didn't really even truly think about the idea of doing like this small business accounting. But going into that, the idea is always, hey, you're going to, you're going to go into public accounting, you'll have awesome career opportunities. You're going to be dealing with, you know, honestly, as big of clients as you want to deal with. You could be dealing with international stuff, you could be dealing with, you know, massive Fortune 500 companies. And so I think the biggest takeaway from public accounting, obviously outside of experience with like big companies that I was working with is the, the work ethic. That job, it was, it was a great job, but it was, it was some serious, serious hours. And so it kind of trained me for an, as an entrepreneur, you got to be self motivated and you got to put in some serious hours, especially at the beginning if you're starting something from the ground up. And so I feel like because of the job that I had and we worked especially during busy season January through April, we pretty much lived in that office. I ate all three meals a day at the office. So it was, it kind of prepped me for the lifestyle of the entrepreneur of like, hey, here at the beginning, first several years you're going to be putting in some serious hours, hopefully investing for the payoff on the back end once you kind of build, build the business. So that was my biggest thing was truly the work ethic that I feel like it instilled in me. Love that. That's great. So let's talk about Beacon Accounting Solutions. So in 2023, right, you launched Beacon. Yep. Walk us through that leap and the initial thought and then when you said, okay, I'm going for it. Yeah. So in 23, it was in, I believe January of 23, I actually bought my first real estate property. And so that was a six unit property out in Anderson, South Carolina. And we bought, I bought that in 2023 with a couple of my brothers as my partners. And I quickly was like, man, I like this real estate thing. I should start learning more about it. So I started going to some in person real estate stuff. Upstate Korea, downtown Greenville. I started going to those meetups and, and then I joined an online mastermind that was all about real estate investing and purchasing businesses, small businesses. And so that was while I was at my W2. At that point it was just like, let me learn some information. And, and so I was doing a lot of that. I had that property going and then in June or July of 2023, I'll go back sometimes and speak on Like a panel at Clemson for upcoming students to, like, just discuss what career path they could go to and things like that with accounting. And so at the time, I was at my W2 and I went to go speak and I met another panelist, and she was a cpa and she had started her own firm. And so we were in the elevator going up and I was telling her about my goals. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do what I want in life at this job. And, you know, sometimes I wish I'm pretty extroverted. And at the job I was at, I spent a lot of time just in my cubicle with a computer. And so I didn't love that. And I was like, man, I want to do something different. And she was like, well, you know, I started my own business doing bookkeeping and advisory and all that for small businesses. She's like, I love it. I love my clients. She's like, you could do it. And I was so. That kind of put the seed in there. And that was in, like, July. And then I'm a pretty. If I'm going to. If I get onto something, I'm going to go for it. And so I kind of was like, man, I guess I could continue investing in real estate and then I could meet, you know, small business owners and real estate investors all around Greenville, but all around the country. Maybe it's people that I would partner with someday. And maybe it's people I just, you know, I'm providing them a service, but I'm also able to pick their brain. You know, of a guy that owns a company that's doing 10 million in revenue, and he's much further along in his entrepreneurial career than I am. So I figured as, like, I'm almost getting paid for education in a lot of ways. And so I was like, well, this is an awesome opportunity. And so I thought about it for probably two. Two months. Quickly was like, all right, I'm going to save really hard and make sure I have the Runway to, like, get this off the ground. And then In October of 23, I put in my. My notice and just went for it. Started with a friend of mine. He had a landscaping company. And I was like, hey, I'll do your books for free. And just like, just to clean it up, just for my first client, I'll do your. And then we'll do monthly ongoing, if you like it. So that was how I got started. And then it is just, yeah, it's gone. Way faster than I thought now or where. You know, my brother, who was a controller previously, he bought into it in April of 25 and then we hired another CPA in December of 25. So we're a team of three now. But growing quickly, that's huge. That's great. And why'd you focus specifically on real estate investors and service businesses? Definitely because I'm a big fan of real estate. All through high school I like worked on renovating and landscaping and maintenance and all that for my dad's apartments that he bought. And just talking to him, I love real estate as a tax strategy. I love it as just a tool. I love it as, as a retirement plan in a sense. And so real estate has always been something that I'm very interested in. I think that's because my dad invested in it and I was involved in it through high school. So. But then buying that property In January of 23, it was such an easy, such an easy, just like transition. I already invest in it, I like it. And now I can just go help other investors like yourself that, you know, are going and doing a bunch of deals, but they don't want to have to deal with, you know, classifying and dealing with all the numbers and the books and all that. They just want to be able to see how they're doing and go and get the next deal. So that was, it was such an easy transition. And then just service businesses, that space, I feel like is very easy for me to work with. My brother is also a controller for a construction company. So we're. I love the blue collar worker. So it's just an easy, cool space to work with. Sweet. What are some of. You've been doing this for a few years now on your own. What are some of the problems that you're seeing business owners struggle with? The biggest thing truly is, is is people flying blind. They work just off their bank account. If it's got some money in it, they think, man, I think I'm, I think I'm making money. My bank account goes up and down. Like I have the money to pay payroll and things like that. But yeah, the definitely the biggest thing is flying blind. You can make it for a couple years and maybe even less, but you can make it for a little while kind of going off your bank account. But as you're going to scale, add that next location or purchase vehicles or hire employees. You really have to know, you know where you're going. The numbers tell the story. So you can go underwater very quickly. And I see A lot of guys, they just, they're phenomenal at what they do. Whether that's owner, like they're an owner of an H VAC company or they're a real estate investor. They're phenomenal at closing deals, they're great at getting funding. But their books are a mess. And so they'll get two, three years down the road, but their books are two to three years behind them. And so that's when the chaos and the problems happen. They'll get, you know, they're not able to file tax returns or they're not able to provide financial statements to a lender. And so that stalls growth. So I, I always see business owners, that's the biggest thing that I see is like, successful go getters that get two to three years ahead of their books as far as like tax return filing and being able to produce financial statements for tax planning or for like getting a new lender or something like that. They just can't do it. Yeah, love that advice. Talk about, and you touched on a little bit is your opinion on how important clean financial reports are. When someone wants to scale, man, I just, I see it in, you know, I have one client that they were able to scale. They almost doubled in size and business because of the clean financials. They were able to. One, once we cleaned them up, we were able to get rid of a lot of spending that was unnecessary. Whether that's like subscriptions they were paying for that they didn't know they were paying for, whether it was switching them from maybe one software to another for bill pay or cutting, like certain vendors that are overcharging. Oftentimes, once we have the financials clean, we can then actually sit down and look at and be like, all right, where are we spending? Where's the money going? What changes can we make? And so I think the biggest thing for people is when they are clean. You're operating from a position of like, now you can go be strategic. You can see if you, if we need to try to reduce costs here, or if we need to, you know, invest in this, or if we have the money to go and invest in it and add it, like, what, what will, you know, adding two or three trucks for our, you know, landscaping company that does spraying for yards and stuff, how much additional revenue could that bring in? If we have those going those type of decisions, I feel like that's what really helps people move forward as opposed to just being like, man, I have, you know, $40,000 in my account. I can go buy this $20,000 truck. And I hope it works. Should bring in more re. That's the type of thing. Well, now we got to talk about loan payment. And so we had a couple of clients that we can really help where it's like, hey, also sometimes let's not pay off, you know, the vehicle. Let's do that payment is okay, let's not get cash for. Because we might need to hire the next employee to be able to go do more of these jobs. So it's that type of stuff that I feel like people don't think about or if they don't have the accounting background or the finance background, they don't think about that type of thing. And they just kind of make decisions on a whim that you really can protect those clients, you know. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So let's move to the next area of discussion around real estate investing. You know, I love that you're, you're not just advising investors, but you're actually investing yourself. So tell us a bit about your real estate portfolio. What's that look like? Yeah, so I started, like I said, I started in 23 with the 6 unit. We bought that. I'll give you some of the numbers on. We bought it for 470. We got it from a guy that was going to retire, was kind of selling some of his portfolio and was headed to the beach. He was in his 60s and it was a headache property for him. But really quickly we liked it because it was a lot of growth potential. It was under rented, the rents were pretty below market. The property needed repairs. It was a, it was three duplexes of six units all on one lot. And we, we increased the rents, cleaned it up, repaired it, did some improvements and then held it for a little over a year. No, it was two years almost. Yeah, two years to where it became long term capital gains and ended up. We bought it for 470, we sold it for 795. So it was a really good first deal for me to kind of get into. And a lot of that was because we were able to move those rents for some of them were down in the 600s and then we got them as high as a thousand fifty, I think was kind of the range we landed in. So we're able to increase the rents a lot. They were, was well under market. But also the apartments needed some improvements. And so that was the first deal that I did. My brother and business partner, he owns a Airbnb right here in Greer. And then this year I'M really focused on hopefully getting to the point where I either invest with a partner or try to buy my own short term rental or something like a mobile home park where I can do cost segregation and get a lot of the appreciation. So that's kind of the focus this year 2023 was that first property. Over the last year and a half I haven't focused as much on more on purchasing more real estate because I left my W2. So my earnings went down a little bit initially. And now the last year and a half has really been focused on business growth. It's now grown to the point where hopefully in August or September, I'm looking at trying to invest in something that I can do a cost segregation and wipe a lot of that tax liability out. Yeah, that's great. Once you start making the money, you got to start buying again. Right. And using that for tax savings. What would you tell somebody that wants to buy their first multifamily deal today? What should they look for? What should they watch out for? I think that to me, the way that we've, you know, I've invested in the way that I've had success or seen success from my brothers are also we buy, they buy multifamily. The deals that I'm not in and things like that. We really like the ones that I, I would say that other people necessarily don't want. We, we're more so looking for ones that value can be added to it. So kind of like that one in Anderson, one that they need a little bit of improvements. But we can move the rents, you know, up a good bit because they're, they're way under rented. They just need to be. The properties just need to be cleaned up. We have a lot of good connections with different contractors and vendors to go in and, and polish them, make them look nice and then get them back on the market. So I, I think in this area, which Greenville now I saw something the other day, one where the most moved to South Carolina is the most moved to state per capita across the entire country. But here in Greenville now there are, there is an almost like an overflow now apartments especially available for rent. So I feel like you kind of have to go towards the outskirts of Greenville. Things like Clinton and stuff like that is where now the investing is starting to get good. But I would say looking for properties that have a lot of opportunity to add value to is where I like best. Because whether it be something like that property in Anderson, we wanted to 1031 that and then it just ended up working easier for, for a couple of the guys in the deal to just, you know, take the long term capital gains. But I like the ability to, we made them the, the money was made on the, on the purchase. That's where I like to be. Make the money on the purchase and then it's kind of from there just adding the value and getting it back set up. So looking for those, they're getting a little harder to find, especially with where things are in the market right now. But they're still out there for sure. Yep, that's great. All right, let's move to your advice for investors and business owners. You see a lot of books, you see a lot of financial, I'm sure you do a lot of financial analysis. What financial habits do you see that are creating long term success for your clients? Truly, and I say this and I'm obviously an accountant selling my own service, but truly the business owners that realize early on, I don't know what I'm doing with my books, I don't want to do it. It's a non money making activity for me. I'm going to make more money going and finding the next deal that I can flip and get a 20 or $30,000 profit or whatever that may be. It's the people that realize early on, hey, bookkeeping, accounting, this is a service that I should outsource and I should go focus on what I do well when they hire. I noticed that when business owners or real estate investors, if they hire early and just focus on what they're good at and that could be, like I said, getting funding for a deal or underwriting a property and figuring out which properties are good deals. If they focus on that, they grow so much faster than if they focus on, hey, I'm trying to save a couple hundred bucks a month doing my own books at night when I'm trying to spend time with my family or when I'm trying to underwrite or getting a call from a contractor who's, you know, putting in the H VAC unit or whatever it may be, moving one of the mobile homes, whatever it may be. I think the guys and business owners that, that invest in that early, they save themselves from, I haven't had my tax return filed from 2023. You know, they save themselves from the outpace in their books and so they just stay in a, in a pace of growth. And I think that, I think that's where I've seen a lot of success for people is people that are on it early. So I have a Client even just, just now he reached out to me. He's buying a small pizza restaurant up in Michigan and that was the first thing he did. He hasn't even closed on the deal. And he's like calling me, hey, can we get set up with the books? June 1st is when we go live. He doesn't want to be behind at all. He wants day one to be able to just know that his numbers are being recorded accurately and he's getting financials to be able to make decisions quickly and he wants to make it into a franchise and all these things. But I think that, I think that he has a great mindset of, okay, this is not my expertise. My expertise is he was a prior chef. He's a top. Like, he's got a, I forget the license or whatever his status is as a chef, but he's, he's got that, his skill set. And he is, he's managed. He had, I think 30 something staff that he was managing, but he knows what his skill set is. And so he's focused on just that, going, doing what he does well and then outsourcing stuff that he doesn't necessarily do well. So I think a lot of times business owners that get that from the beginning, do that right from the get go, they end up having more success. They don't have as much stress on that end. They just get stuff that they can review the report, they can speak with someone like myself and then go make decisions and move forward. That's awesome. On the opposite side of that, where do you see as you're looking at books and seeing people's business, where do you see that people are wasting money or maybe creating unnecessary stress for themselves? I think with real estate investors specifically, I've noticed in more than across any other client base, real estate investors hate paperwork. They hate it with a passion. They do not want to sit there and reconcile a bank statement or reconcile a credit card or find the receipt for, you know, this job, this item that they paid for, whatever it may be. They really hate paperwork. And so I think with real estate investors specifically, they don't put as much value on their books as they should. And so they'll get themselves in a position where. What often I see is, you know, if they're getting private money, kind of losing track of. All right, you know, did that money get when it came through the bank, if they were doing their own books or they had a bookkeeper doing, did it get recorded as revenue or to get put on the balance sheet as a loan? You know, Earnest money deposits, keeping track of those and making sure that they get those back from the lawyers of a deal falls through sometimes, or escrow funds, like they have money being held in escrow, keeping track of and reconciling that to when they actually receive draws on the project and making sure they don't overpay loans. I've seen time and again. And not that people are being deceitful or anything like that, but I mean, you as a business owner, you're responsible for your books, your accounting. You got to make sure that that's right. Other people, you know, life gets busy. Other companies have their own thing going on. They're trying to keep their records. But you should, you should always have your records, right? So that you can go to them, be like, hey, this doesn't reconcile. Let's talk about this. Whether that's with a hard money lender, private money lender, whoever that may be. I feel like I see a lot of real estate investors miss on where they don't get an earnest money deposit back. That's $2,000. Or they overpay when they repay a loan and they overpay by 10,000 or $8,000, something like that. Those numbers, they quickly add up and they kill your cash flow. And I think. And then also too, they get a couple years behind on tax returns and so they now owe the IRS interest and penalties and things like that. It's just, it's money wasted that, you know, prevents you from investing in that next deal or investing in that, you know, va that's going to save you a bunch of hours every day because they're, you know, $2,000 a month. Well, that 2,000 or 8,000 that you overspent on repaying the hard money lender because you can keep track of like the funds now, you could have paid for a VA for two or three months with that money that you missed out on. So I just see a lot of times with real estate investors, they're a little more disorganized in a way just because there's a lot of documents. And honestly, a lot of, I mean, the money that moves with real estate investors is usually large chunks of money. And so it's really, really key that that's tracked appropriately, you know. Yeah, 100%. You've helped us a ton track things that otherwise might have slipped by. And like you said, based on other people's accounting, not necessarily ours, but because ours was in order, which is great. All right, let's talk the podcast really about purpose here. Right. And the purpose driven investor. So let's, let's spend a little bit of time on purpose and then we'll conclude with some rapid fire questions. But let's talk about what, what motivates you beyond just making money? Two things. One, for personal gain. I mentioned I would like for my wife to be able to stay home. And that's a goal and desire of hers. I really loved the childhood that I had. I grew up in a Christian home, home school with eight brothers. I mean, seven brothers, eight boys. I just feel like my parents really invested a lot of time in me and it, I absolutely am so thankful for where I'm at today. I think that's in large part to them and I think that I wanted to, definitely wanted to be able to provide that for my children. I thought I saw the impact like my dad, he's impacted my life greatly. I saw the work ethic, I saw the grit and the way that he provided for a family of 10 of us on one income. So I have so much respect for him. And then also on the other side of it, my mom, you know, homeschooling eight boys, I have so much respect for her. And I always tell people, I'm like, I feel like a lot of who I am, my character, my morals, things like that, that comes from the work and time that my mom put into me in homeschool. And so I joke that I went to seminary growing up. We, we did an hour of Bible every day. And so it was a, it was an awesome, awesome experience. So I wanted to provide that for my family. But that comes from, I mean, it's hard, especially in this, in this day and age to provide off of one income. And so I knew that early age I'd have to put in the time, put in the work. So definitely a big motivation and purpose for me is I think that, you know, I married. I always tell people, just for me personally, I want to homeschool Anna and I would love to homeschool. I married Anna because I respect the woman she is and her morals and her character. So I would love for her to be able to teach and raise our kids. And so that's kind of one goal behind what I do and the goal with Beacon. But then the other part of it is I man, since I've started my business, I love, I love my clients. I love dealing with like small business owners and seeing how when I worked at that big firm, I was just in a cubicle, didn't feel like I was having much impact with my clients. Sometimes it's more than just doing accounting. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking them through like different life things and financial struggles and like, you know, even some of my clients are younger. So we're talking about like what we do in our marriage and the appropriate, like, you know, how we should raise our family and stuff like that. So it ends up becoming like a lot of my relationships with my clients and sometimes go into that like friend type of relationship and stuff like that. And that that's really the purpose behind it is I see the impact that these smaller businesses. I love watching, wanted it, like you mentioned it does financially benefit me, but I love watching my clients grow. It's a cool feeling to help someone solve a business problem and then see them make more money and the impact that has on their family. So working with the small business owner, I, for a little period of time, I was going to ditch accounting altogether, truthfully. And that caused a little bit of a panic with my parents. Like you get your CPA and your master's and all, but I didn't truly love it when it was just me buying a computer in a cubicle. But now that I'm like meeting, you know, people day to day and I'm talking to them about their business and growing it with them and, and helping them and seeing, like I said, the financial impact on their family. That's huge. Yeah, that's huge. That's great. And I can attest to that too. I mean, I think we have a great friendship. You've helped our business a lot and helped us beyond business, which is great. As you think, about 10 years from now, what, what success looked like for you, hopefully Beacons grown to goal is. I don't know that I really want it to be bigger than like 10 people. So hopefully it's grown to like that size and hopefully I've got four to five kids. Let's go. I think we, Anna and I discussed that before and then, and then, you know, hopefully I've invested in some more real estate. I want to get, I want to get my real estate portfolio back up. I have an LLC sitting there, waiting, got nothing in it right now. And I want to get it, you know, built back up. So yeah, I feel like 10, 10 years from now I want to have Beacon to the size of, you know, a 10 person firm, hopefully several properties in my portfolio and four to five kids and join life. Love it. That's great. All right, rapid fire questions here. Okay, so you got one sentence to answer each question. Let's start with what's the best advice that you've ever received? I just saw it on the podcast today. It's stay small enough long enough, you'll be big enough soon enough. I like that. I like that. That's great. All right, what's the biggest lesson entrepreneurship has taught? It's really, it's really hard. Some days it's harder than others. But the highs and lows and yeah, I wouldn't trade it, but it, the highs and lows are something else. All right, good, good. All right, last question here. What's one habit that's helped your success. Starting? Doing the hardest thing of the day that I need to do that day first. I, I forget to have a saying with the boil the frog or something like that. But yeah, truly doing the hardest thing first because I can some. I'm, I'm a list person every night, night before I'll write out my to do list for the next day. And so it's sometimes it's easy to, like, give yourself the satisfaction of doing the easy thing, but if I do that hard thing first, I feel like my day goes so much better. 100. Yeah. All right, that's great, man. Well, Ben, I appreciate you joining. If people want to reach out to you, where can they contact you? Where can they learn more about Beacon? They have. So we can go to beaconaccountings.com that's our website. And then also you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, either either my personal profile, Benjamin Chisholm, or just that, Beacon Accounting Solutions. We have a Facebook LinkedIn and then the website beaconaccountants.com. sweet. I'm sure there's not a lot of Benjamin Chisholms on Facebook. No, probably easy to find. All right, well, Ben, I appreciate you joining. Thanks for coming on the Purpose Driven Investor podcast. And thank you for everyone that's listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you share it with someone who's building a business, investing in real estate, or trying to create something meaningful through entrepreneurship. Thanks again, Ben. Thanks, Rob. Thanks for listening to the Purpose Driven Investor. 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