How To Fail At Everything And Still Succeed - An Interview With Matt Guse

Matt Guse admits the road to success is bumpy, but with all the mistakes he's made, he has also achieved great success.

From a small garage workshop to national recognition, Matt Guse has transformed M.R.S. Machining Co., Inc. into a powerhouse of precision machining. Founded by his father in 1986, the family-owned business has become a beacon of excellence in the machining industry, earning prestigious accolades like being named one of American Machinist Magazine's Top Ten Machine Shops and a TOP SHOP by Modern Machine Shop Magazine.

With over three decades of industry experience, Guse is more than just a business leader—he's an inventor and education advocate. He's developed two patents for cutting-edge machining tools, demonstrating his commitment to innovation. His passion for nurturing future talent is evident through his instrumental role in launching Cardinal Manufacturing at Eleva-Strum School, where he continues to donate equipment, time, and expertise.

Guse's influence extends far beyond the workshop. He's a respected community leader, serving on the local school board and the Chippewa Valley Technical College Machine Tool Advisory board. His expertise has garnered national attention, with features in the New York Times and appearances on Fox Business News Channel.

When he's not revolutionizing machining, Guse embraces challenges with the same intensity he brings to business. A licensed sports official for football and basketball, he's also an avid cyclist who has conquered Pikes Peak and logged an impressive 9,000 miles on his bike in a single year.

Alongside his wife Vicki, Matt continues to lead M.R.S. Machining Co., Inc. with a blend of family tradition, innovative spirit, and unwavering commitment to excellence.

[00:00:10.12] - Alice

Hello. Welcome to Books in the Biz, a podcast that looks at both the financial and operational sides of success. Please welcome our hosts, Dan Paulson and Richard Veltre. Dan is the CEO of Envision Development International, and he works with leaders to increase sales and profits through great cultures with solid operations. Rich is CEO of the Veltri Group and a financial strategist working with companies to manage their money more effectively. Now on to the podcast.

[00:00:43.10] - Dan Paulson

Hello, and welcome to Books in the Biz. Thank you, Alice, for that wonderful introduction. She nails it every time, Rich. I tell you. Every time. It's amazing. It's almost like she's a robot. She's that good.

[00:00:55.16] - Rich Veltre

Almost, right?

[00:00:57.14] - Dan Paulson

It is. Hey, we've got a guest today, so I would like to welcome Matt Goosy. Matt, how are you doing?

[00:01:04.17] - Matt Guse

I'm pretty good. That lady reminds me of my wife. She's always great.

[00:01:10.25] - Dan Paulson

Well, hopefully she's a little bit more in person because our lady is an AI gal that we have just conjured up through the internet.

[00:01:20.27] - Rich Veltre

Dan, she'll hear you.

[00:01:22.09] - Dan Paulson

She'll hear me. I think the last time I criticized her, she screwed up a bunch. She did. She did, yes. So we'll have to keep that in mind. She's always listening, Matt. She's always listening. Well, Matt, you are part owner of MRS Machining. Maybe you could explain the name a little bit to us because it has to have some significance.

[00:01:48.08] - Matt Guse

Well, the other owner is much better looking than me. That would be my wife. So that's where the Mrs comes in. My dad and mom started back in '86. My dad always wanted to woman owned because we did a lot of government work and they thought Mrs was going to be the recognition of that. I don't know if it ever materialized. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But we actually ended up getting away from the government work side of it. But we just kept the Mrs going. So we get later in my story, I lost my mom and dad, then we just put my wife's name at 51 % and kept me at 49. So nowadays, like I said, I have a boss at home and I have the same boss at So I can never get away from it, can you? No, I can't. But no, she's not here the day to day stuff. She just does her preserving. Her full-time job now is more or less watching grandkids, what she really enjoys.

[00:02:48.08] - Dan Paulson

Good for her. So you do machining. What type of machining work do you do?

[00:02:53.08] - Matt Guse

Well, we do a lot of different types. We could be here all day, but we pretty much do anything across the board, except for maybe We're automotive automotive automotive. We're not a high volume, we're more of a low volume, high mix. So 50 pieces or less, from the ones Tuesdays, that's our niche. We do a lot of placement parts for folks where we stock them I can store them, I put them on the shelf. I consider myself more like a grocery store. You're not coming to us to look for one load. You're not coming to look for us for 100 loaves. You're coming to look at one, two or 10 loaves just to get you by through the week or for In the future, we will take it and we'll make sure we put 10 loaves on your shelf every week if we have to. So it's what we are. We do a lot of complex parts. The simpler stuff, we're not really that we're good at, but we're a little more expensive. But the more complex products. Anything around with side features is our niche. We have a lot of five-axis machines, we get more into that, and now we're putting them on robots with them.

[00:03:55.26] - Matt Guse

So that's making a lot more... We can run more volume through here when If the robot load, unload. What's really nice, it can unload, load, and check the part. It really can't check reverse. But it's a whole different philosophy when you're running robots and machines. Some of the major industries are medical, space exploration, food, power generation, fluid, hydraulics, a lot of that. A lot of their automation is in hydraulic cylinders and stuff. So we're doing a lot of manifold blocks and customize stuff that way. Industrial products, a lot of people that make stuff that we use every day. Oh, boy. Our biggest industry is no more than 15 %, and we don't have a customer over 15 %. So when we have to grow, we have to either dilute the system to have other current customers grow with us that want to grow with us, or we have to say the word no. And sometimes that's tougher than what it is. But it's not healthy to have... Oh, Some of my life learning lessons that don't have 70 % of your business with one customer as I did a few years ago. So in a nutshell, that's who we are.

[00:05:11.07] - Dan Paulson

How many employees do you have?

[00:05:13.06] - Matt Guse

Currently, we have 53. And then we have about... At all times we have probably three interns. We help kids from a tech college. And usually we have three different schools, kids in here for three different schools. That's my passion. My part-time job is getting youth into manufacturing, showing them curves in the manufacturing. Hey, they're in high school, right? So let's make their mistake now. Instead of going off to college spending $1,000 in liberal arts that they're never going to get a job in. Then we try to, once we get them in here and they like it, they're good, we try to incentivize them to stay in the manufacturing careers as much as we can. We roll out and say, here's your future plan, here's your growth. So it's exciting. The kids we always got here are great. Our work And of course, is really young because of that. It just seems like youth feeds youth, which is exciting.

[00:06:07.11] - Dan Paulson

Good. I know Rich probably has a bunch of questions, but I'll ask one more here before I turn over to him. So you mentioned getting youth involved? How do you see the employment market going right now? I always like to ask that question of guests that we have on. Where do you see it going?

[00:06:23.23] - Matt Guse

That's very interesting. It's getting better. For a while there, a year or two ago, it wasn't so great. But we're seeing today, we're seeing a lot more applicants. But it's tough for a skilled machinist to come walking in here, that's like a grain of salt or needle in a haystack. So that way we have to bring them in and teach them ourselves. The soft skill part is what we need in schools. And that's what I really emphasize on when I go to schools and speak soft skills. For work early, stay off your phone, be a team player. Put your time into it, get better, learn. Because a lot of people go to college and they get done, they think, I got my degree, I'm set for life. Or you're only set for about six months. So kids need this direction. And now it's like you got to have about five or six of them, and they need a mentor. It just seems like we got that COVID gap. You can tell when they're flashed, your senior had that when they were freshmen, they didn't have the communication skills. But no, you just have to be the mentor and help them and show them the way and show them the path and lay it out.

[00:07:40.20] - Matt Guse

So that's what we do here.

[00:07:43.11] - Dan Paulson

Good. Rich, what do you got?

[00:07:48.28] - Rich Veltre

Well, I love the space. So I started out my career. Yeah, I'm a numbers guy, but I started out my career with my one favorite client because I work for a really, really a big accounting firm. My favorite client was actually the smallest client that was in the office. And it was the one that secretly had this weird-looking warehouse, weird-looking facility. And when you went out there, you realized what they were making was a part that was maybe that large for the landing gear on the F14. So that's why I love that client, because I was manufacturing a part, or the company was manufacturing a part that actually meant something. It wasn't a metal shelf or anything else. It literally, you knew what that part was for. So is there anything that you are working on that falls into that I'll call it passion. That was a piece for me. I was part of the consumer industrial products group. So it was like, I'm making something that is American and as American as you can get.

[00:08:56.11] - Matt Guse

Oh, yeah, we do that. We have a lot of parts Back in the days when the landrovers were going on the Mars, we made a little camera bracket that holded it on the landrover. So that was really cool to see. It went off the JPL seeing it. Nowadays, we're doing some of the space exploration stuff that we're doing. Things are going up in the sky. There's probably parts over your head right now that we made here. So that's intriguing. And that's what kids like to see. They like to see that new technology. So when I pull some of those parts out, I go to career shows. They're like, wow, that's really cool. And which is good for us because that helps us recruit them in here. So every day we make them cool stuff. And everybody here is very gifted, talented. So we have great customers. There's a lot of key factors of what makes MRS successful. It's just not me. I'm in the bottom of the barrel. But our biggest number one asset here is the people. And that, to me is more important than some fancy shiny art. But And then we got great equipment.

[00:10:03.27] - Matt Guse

And then just like I said, our team culture is what really makes us. Okay. Got off the direction. I'm sorry about that. That's right.

[00:10:12.09] - Dan Paulson

No, no.

[00:10:15.04] - Rich Veltre

I guess the other question is now I've transitioned instead of being the guy that was the accountant and checking the numbers and doing that. I'm looking a little bit more forward towards strategy, towards markets and what's actually growing. So if I now switched gears here a little bit and ask you, with all of the discussions out there about manufacturing and bringing it back to the United States and getting more things built here as opposed to being built in South Asia or anywhere else over there, where everything got shipped over the last 30, 40 years where it just shifted. Now, all of a sudden, it seems like, hopefully, it's starting to come back. How do you feel about that? Do you feel like that's correct? Do you feel like the market's starting to show that this is where we're going to head?

[00:11:03.04] - Matt Guse

Yeah, there's definitely signs of it. There's two problems with that. I guess the most obvious is one thing we've already talked about is the needs going like this, but the people coming in to it are going like down. So we can be sure we can bring all these companies back. I'll just work back. But until we get the skills up there, I don't call it our training gap, I call it more or less instead of a skills gap. Until we get that up there, none of this is going to be possible. Because the more you learn, the more you get better. And automation helps. We're all dabbling with automation. Oh, yeah, that does help. But robots aren't cheap either. They cost money. We got to get more innovative. And America is one of the best companies in the countries that are most innovative. And we'll get there. We just have to. We have to build up our skill set here in America until that happens, because a lot of it's to do with price. I had a couple of companies call me and, hey, we want to bring these parts back overseas. But the problem is they're paying 10 cents for them now, and our costs are a dollar ten.

[00:12:08.00] - Matt Guse

So that's the problem. But then you got to, like you, Harry Mosner, if everybody knows him, you got to figure out your true cost. And sometimes I can sell that on them. What's your true cost? What's your shipping? What's the container? What's the risk of bringing them in here? Now they're bad and trying to get them fixed because that does happen.

[00:12:25.13] - Dan Paulson

Happens a lot.

[00:12:26.24] - Matt Guse

Yeah. Just can't jump your QC guy on a plane every day and go over and check your parts and sign off on them because that's very expensive. So until we get that fixed, that's the problem. And then to get people in this trade, or machining trade, or welding or whatever, we have to up our wages a little bit because plumbers, electricians, they can't just go overseas and get your plumber fixed or come and fix your bathroom. So there's a demand for that, and they're struggling. So they I can just put more money on it. That's a little easier than trying to get a skilled machinist where they're, I'll just take it overseas and get it made. Where are that line drawn? But some of our customers are What they're doing now is they're designing, and they want to just design and assemble. Because when you try to make it yourself, it's not a fixed cost. We make it here, there's just so much involved in machining a part or welding apart, their stresses, there are different batches of material. And we're humans, we make mistakes. So our costs are up and down. If I'm a manufacturer, I'll just go get it made, and that part's coded at $10, it comes in here, it's $10.

[00:13:44.29] - Matt Guse

If I try to make it in here, I can maybe make it for seven one day, and maybe next day it's $16. So the fixed cost, that's where we're seeing some of our growth. And the part of that, taking full ownership of the product line and all the parts, that's That's where our growth is coming from, and we're seeing great success for that. But I have some really skilled guys, and we can prevent a lot of those mistakes from happening beforehand. And I have a lot of people that are not just the machinists on the floor, but also the people in the office when we buy material, procure it. We know where to go and who has good material, and we know how to work with all that. So yeah, it's a very sensitive subject right now. But like I said, until we... I want to be the guy known for that To bring in the up, to get the wages up for all our machinists and manufacturing people. Get on the level playing field with everybody else. I'm not saying that we don't need plumbers, electricians, but everybody should be treated the same because I mean, when you're a machinist, you're just not a machinist.

[00:14:48.02] - Matt Guse

You're a scientist, you're a chemist, you're an engineer. Now you're more of a tech savvy person because everything is going digital. So you got to understand that. And then AI is coming into it. So that's getting me more interesting. It's actually making people's jobs easier than it is harder. I can rattle on.

[00:15:11.11] - Dan Paulson

Well, have you found that schools are more receptive to people moving into a skilled trade versus going to college? Because I've got a couple of kids, and I remember one, my daughter, when she was getting into her junior senior year, the push was for college. And it seemed like college was the only thing they talked about. They didn't talk about alternative careers or going anywhere else. It was really, no, you have to go to school and get that four year degree. And I think every one of us on here knows that, well, that might be a good fit for some people. It's not a good fit for everyone. So I know you said you're doing a fair amount of schools. Are they being more open to really looking at skilled trades or helping develop these skills that you need?

[00:15:53.11] - Matt Guse

Yeah. The small rural schools like where we're at in Indiana, Iowa, they're great to work with. We've flipped that switch already. And that's why I say it's going to take about 5 or 10 years to bring that in. Now, the bigger the school, the bigger the city, it's the hardest. It's just like there's so much bureaucracy they have to go through. We had a great thing going on here about two years ago, three years ago, where we would pay the teachers $5,000 to take a week class at school. We had donations for equipment. We bought equipment. And this one school down the road, Eau Claire, we're going to give them 15 pieces of equipment. And they denied it. They didn't want it because the mentality was a four-year college. We don't want our kids underskilled. We want our kids to go to colleges mentality. And that's just a shame. All that does is hurt the kids, their careers. Your philosophy is not trying to get too political, but you're telling what you think your kids are. When kids are in school, they should explore everything. And that's why I love doing it. That's why I love bringing kids in here for tours.

[00:16:58.04] - Matt Guse

And if they walk away here, like yesterday Every day we did a tour. They walk away here and it's like, no, that's not for me. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. At least now you know what you don't want to do. So that's what my dad always breached. So, yeah, the rural schools are really a septic. We're putting robots in. Midwest Labs is doing a really great job of doing that. And kids love seeing that fancy technology and get them involved. And one of the cool things I started doing now is I had got in an accident about a year and a half ago on a cycling accident. And I didn't really go to the schools as much as I could because I just wasn't focused. And this summer, I work a lot with Cardinal Manufacturing, Craig Krakowski over there. And I was telling him about it. I said, I need to get over here more. And he goes, well, Matt, you got in an accident. And as we're drinking coffee, and I'm like, you know what, Craig, I'm going to come over here and have coffee. And he goes, you know what? That's a really good idea, because a lot of kids nowadays with the coffee is the new thing.

[00:17:58.12] - Matt Guse

I know they like the fluffy, the creamy stuff.

[00:18:00.27] - Dan Paulson

Yeah, it's more sugar than coffee, I think.

[00:18:04.04] - Matt Guse

Like Craig says, you just got to show your presence and the rest will take care of itself. So every month I have coffee with me. I go to the schools now. I buy the coffee shop for coffee. There's my shout out to him. That And we have coffee. And we talk about machining careers? Yeah, a little bit. But we talk about life. That way, when they see me on the street or they see me somewhere, they feel comfortable with doing. And it just now it's really taken off where a lot of kids that start to have to... My list is getting like, who can we bring an internship? And it's like, wish it was like that for a job applications, but we can pick and choose our kids now. Students, we want to come here versus just bringing them in because they can... So It's working. And I'm trying to put them in the other schools or other businesses as much as I can because I don't want to lose that opportunity, shut them away.

[00:18:55.21] - Dan Paulson

Well, let's transition to life a little bit because the The name of this podcast was How to Fail at Everything and Still Succeed. And that was something that when we talked last week, you were talking about how you've made a number of mistakes and still seem to figure it out. I think that's interesting to a lot of people because we all make mistakes and we all have failures. And some people get too wrapped up in the failures to realize that they can overcome them. What did you mean by all that? You failed so many times or what?

[00:19:25.16] - Matt Guse

Well, I'm going to use the three apps, fail fast, fix fast, and forget fast. I like to do things in three, by the way. For every success story I have, I can guarantee you there's probably at least five failures right behind it. And boy, I'm in the process of writing this book, and How the heck am I still here today? Just all the things I did wrong. But I guess when I was in high school, I had a teacher, and I thank him today for it. At the time, I didn't. He told me I was going to be a loser and I wasn't going to be nowhere in life. And I put a chip on my shoulder. And funny story is that we're on a school board one day and I was on a school board and we had to do your negotiations, and he was ahead in your negotiations. And I'm sitting on the other side of the field going like this. So now who's successful? Not going to be successful. But no, you have to learn. And when you fail, don't just put it on your shoulders. I mean, there's so much help out there.

[00:20:22.15] - Matt Guse

And if anybody is having struggles, get hold of me. I'm happy to help you. But you got to learn by your mistakes. That's why I say feel fast. Okay, we failed, right? Now, are we going to sit there and cry over our spilled milk, or are we going to do something about it? Let's fix it, right? So let's figure out a plan. When my employees or someone in my team comes in me and tells me he has a problem, he better be coming with a solution, right? The next word is because I don't have the solutions, but he probably does. So I want to hear your solution. And then we're going to we're going to fix this. And then we're going to forget about it because don't dwell on the past, don't look in the rear-view mirror. One of my quotes I like to say is push forward, easy roads lead to dead ends. Hard roads lead to best destinations. So it's easy to go on the easy road, and it's going to end you a dead end because you're going to hit a wall. But when you take a rough road up in the country, up in the mountains, you're going to see the best views there is.

[00:21:14.20] - Matt Guse

But it can be a bumpy road, right? So that's what I did. I'm just bumping around, making failures, but just keep going forward and trying to just keep your head up. A lot of my failures, we could be here all day talking to them, I guess. Some of the worst ones I've done is I bought machine tools without a business plan. I just went in and sign some paper. And I remember my mom was just like, Mom, you got to... Because she had to sign off on it. I said, Just sign this. And she was, What am I signing for? Well, never mind. Oh, I just bought a $200,000 machine with no plan. My checkbooks in the red, right? So, oh, boy. And then the bank, you go to the bank and you just count it into them and they just gave you some money, but you didn't really have a plan. Are you going to pay it back? And then when it's so where my mom and dad did... I had to buy my mom and dad out before they passed away. I didn't have a plan. I just got the money and all of a sudden now I got this big debt over my head.

[00:22:18.05] - Matt Guse

How am I going to pay for it? Because you buy a machine, it's a little easier because you can get a revenue off that pretty fast. It could be a one, three or five year plan and it's paid for. So that's a little easier. But when you go just buy your mom and dad, that isn't good. So I tried to hire a consultant once. I thought that was going to solve all my problems. And that turned into another very nice situation. It turned it up being what my chapter and my new book is going to be called When the Snake Came to down. That's exactly what he was. So that was my $150,000 education. I get him out of here. But you know what? That led to a path now where I got a new CFO. He's been here nine years, Michael, has been wonderful. He's helped me out so much, learned a lot about the finances. No, I don't have to worry about all that stuff. He just breached me on it and we go over it and does a wonderful job. Oh, man. Another one of our failures is one week, we lost three of our customers.

[00:23:15.12] - Matt Guse

And that was back when we were smaller. Those three customers were 90 % of our business. And it wasn't really nothing we did, but that was our livelihood. One called up two or three of the material issues, and they had bad material, and they didn't know when they're going to place orders again. And then the other one was they lost their contract with their customer. So now we're sitting here. Monday started all good. By Friday, we're twiddling our thumbs. They had no work. And now I have eight people on staff. What are we going to do? So I didn't just sit there in the wall and wait for the work to come back. We didn't have cell phones back then. We didn't really have computers and Internet back then. I just got in the car and jumped in it and started knocking on doors and started finding work and started asking around. And within a week or two, we had work. We had more work we knew what to do with. And then to make things better, all that work eventually came back. So now I just doubled in size because of that bad incident.

[00:24:17.16] - Matt Guse

So don't take a failure as a... Like I said, there's help. There's always help. You can get your way through anything if you just ask for help and keep a cool and calm head. It's like officiating sports. That's where that came from. I'll make a bad call. If I just sit there and dwell on that, it's the first quarter, if it's the first half, I'll be like a deer in the headlights and I'll just keep making failures. Just take a deep breath A little kinky thing I do, that I do, I have a root beer in my car, and that's my thing to get me back in track. So I just think of that root beer, boom, I'm back in track and I'm going. So I don't know if that answers that question. There's Like I said, I'll get more in-depth in the papers in my book someday.

[00:25:03.26] - Dan Paulson

So tell me more about the root beer. What causes the root beer to give you focus? Thinking about enjoying that root beer after you're done with the game or what?

[00:25:11.27] - Matt Guse

Yeah, well, it's first off the sweet treat, right? It's like a little treat. But If I'm, let's just say that bad call at travel or I just made a bad business, I just made a bad offset in my machine and I crashed it. And I just keep focusing on that, I'll just keep... It'll just get that intention to keep building. But wait a minute, I got this treat over here. I got sweet pop. And you just forget about it for a second. You forget about that. You come back to it like, oh, okay, I'm good now. It's like a switch. I think it works for every official out there because some people, I mean, some of my friends, they look at the the flag, and they look at a certain flag, a star in the flag, and that's enough to get them back in track. So just don't dwell on the bad, dwell on the good.

[00:25:55.29] - Dan Paulson

Excellent. Rich, you got anything to add to that?

[00:26:00.05] - Rich Veltre

I totally agree with the theory there. You can't dwell on the past. I've said it so many times that people roll their eyes when they say it, but water's under the bridge, right? You can't get it back. So don't dwell on the water that's already passed while in the water it's still coming. So it's a good theory that let the other stuff go, move on to the next, clear your head, whether it's with a root beer or whatever else you can use. And just keep moving forward.

[00:26:33.24] - Matt Guse

Another thing I do, I go to schools and I have talked to the kids and I got like 24 different things I talk about. But the first thing it starts in the morning, you tie your shoes and you get out of bed. Think of something positive. If you think negative, you're going to have a negative day. It's a true fact. Tie your shoes. Hey, I just screwed up apart or I just made a bad business decision. Forget about it. Tie your shoes. Hey, it's going to be a great day. I'm going to overcome We're going to move forward. I'm going to go tell somebody they did a good job or something. And that's another thing. Do something nice to others and you'll get 10 times the reward. You're going to go to gas stations and grocery stores or wherever you're on there. Just say hello. I smile. Hello. You may not know that person, but you don't know what that person is going through. And you do that, you might have just changed that person's life or someone else's. I know it helps me when someone says, Hey, have a good day. And I'm like, Well, all right.

[00:27:26.24] - Matt Guse

It's a good day. So just I'm starting to be the influencer, because I guarantee you, if you just try it for a week, just I tell kids, Go try it for a week. Just say hi and smile at somebody and wait, because in another week, your life is going to be that much better and the people around you are going to be much better because you're going to be happier.

[00:27:45.29] - Dan Paulson

Nice. That's very true. Mindset makes a big difference. Matt, what's next for MRS machining? What's your plan? So have you worked something out?

[00:27:59.15] - Matt Guse

Oh, I was working on a plan. As far as future growth, we have a three to five year plan. So we have it laid out where we want to grow. Because if you're not growing, you're dying. As I get older, I'm not getting younger, then we have to start talking about our strategic plan or a succession plan, I guess I call it for MRS. And I look up my... I go out and off the door here and I look at a bunch of young kids. I'm like, okay, Here's some kids that want to grow. Here's some kids that are eager to learn, energized. How do we get them involved in MRS? So that's the process we're starting now, which is exciting. Do we do an E-stop? What does that look like? So we're in early, early stages of that. And there's a lot of people here that want to be involved in that. So that's where we're at. But otherwise, we're just moving forward. Like you said, like I said, people coming in the machine The need's going down and the needs going up. So there's opportunities that are unlimited. Just how much you want to grow and how big you want to get.

[00:29:09.09] - Matt Guse

I don't want to get too big and not have that family culture. But that's one thing I always tell people when they work here, I want them here. They want to be here. We'll make it feel like we never work another day in our life again. And then I had to add this one. And we got to like to eat because we have cookouts and we have Tuesdays and Thursdays snack day. Like Christmas, we had the 12 days of Christmas, so we had smorgasks of food for 12 days, and we all gained a bunch of weight. So you got to make work fun. Everybody out there that doesn't... It works not fun. It's time to move on. One thing I have, I have addiction here is seeing people being successful. I want people to proceed. To me, it's not about me, it's about them. If someone's working here and can go better themselves, I'll help them, because that's what It's about being successful in life's so short. It's just that you have to keep moving forward and be happy in life. I tell people, I know some really wealthy people. I know some people that are like billionaires, and some of them are the most unhappy people.

[00:30:13.22] - Matt Guse

They should be the happiest But the people working day to day, making a paycheck to paycheck, they're the most happiest people. They're living within their means. And it just seems like the more money you have, the more problems you have. I don't know if that's Well, I'll tell you what, what would you recommend to...

[00:30:37.15] - Dan Paulson

Maybe what's the top three things you'd recommend to a new business owner or a business owner that might be stuck where they're at and trying to figure something out?

[00:30:48.19] - Matt Guse

Well, there's lots of things. First of all, take care of yourself, exercise, eat right, because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take anybody else around you. If you're going to go into business, you're starting There's three things I tell people, you better say yes to all three. You're 24/7. You're going to be in your business 24/7. If you think you're just going to work from 9:00 to 5:00 and that's it, well, it probably better not going. Financially, you're going to risk everything financially. You're going to be willing to go all in because you're going to hit bumps and valleys and you better be doing that. And the most important is your family. You better have your family on board because they're not going to be seeing a lot of you and they got to make sure they're on board. And if you have a family member coming in with you, that could be a little bit dicey, so make sure everybody's on board. And if you get through those three things, you're going to be successful. So that's my three words of wisdom for that. Someday I'll have to... I should probably send you my 24 or whatever, 24 or three words of wisdom quotes I got out there.

[00:31:47.27] - Dan Paulson

Nice. No, that'd be good. So you did mention you're writing a book.

[00:31:53.05] - Matt Guse

Yes, I'm writing a book. I've been talking about it for about 10 years now. And finally, AI technology. You love it. I'm like a blind man that's been blind all his life, and all I can see again because AI helps me out. I know what I want to say. I know how to word it, but like I said, I didn't do very good grammar in English. So then I thought about Ghostwriters. Well, I tried just recording it, and that didn't work. And finally, I found this AI app, and I'm like, wow, this is great. That's exactly how I wanted to say it. So I'm about halfway through my book right now, and I'm just talking about the whole path from where I started where I started and all the failures. And it leads into like 9/11, the financial crisis, oil and gas boom. And when the snake came to town, I got through COVID and it just laid all out. And then at the end, I got some words of wisdom, and what I see the future holds. Like I said, I'm not a professional bike. This is me in my first book. I'm not a professional rater.

[00:32:54.22] - Matt Guse

I do have a good mentor. So he's wrote several books, Amazon, best seller. I met them down to IMTS. If everybody wants to go meet people and cool people, go to IMTS every two years in Chicago. It's a great event for manufacturers, the Super Bowl of Manufacturing. So I'm going to throw that out there. And all the cool people I met, I'm associated with, I met at IMTS, so that's helped me a lot.

[00:33:19.15] - Dan Paulson

Nice. Very good. How do people get a hold of you? So we wrap this up. What's the best way for people to contact you if they want to talk to you or if they eventually want to find out about your book?

[00:33:32.29] - Matt Guse

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn pretty much regularly. You can reach me through LinkedIn. You can just type up Matt Goosy podcast if you want to listen to some more of my lovely stories. I don't want to bore you to death. Or just Google my name That's a big thing. And you'll find his ways. You can MRSMachining.co. That's our website. Then I have my phone number on there if you need anything. So I'm more than happy to help anybody out.

[00:33:57.11] - Dan Paulson

Well, excellent. Maybe there's some people out there that need some machine work done and we can get them over to you. Rich, we've got our own little venture going on. So why don't you tell us more about that?

[00:34:09.26] - Rich Veltre

Well, if you are interested in fractional leadership and whether it is finance, operations, or HR, or marketing, give us a ring. We'd love to hear from you. And on top of that, if you are interested in actually working in those areas that I we talked about, then we want to get you on our bench so that we can bring you and match you up with companies that are looking for you. So that is xcxo.net is the website. Take a look at it, check it out, reach out to us and connect, and you can always reach me directly. My email address is rich@xcxo.net.

[00:34:50.25] - Dan Paulson

Awesome. And just to reiterate, we have been interviewing some really great people. We're going to be filling our bench. That's a lot of experience that I I think is going to be helpful to different companies who maybe don't want to hire somebody full-time at a high six-figure salary, but need some extra help to coach their people along. So that's a great opportunity here. But you know what? I'm going to let our other AI person, Bob, tell us all about it. Bob, take it away. And Matt, thanks again. Really appreciate having you on here. And once you get your book, we'll have to get you back on so we can talk more about that. Okay?

[00:35:24.04] - Matt Guse

All right.

[00:35:24.24] - Bob

Thank you. To boost your sales and profits but need the talent to help you grow. XCXO is a one of a kind platform to find skilled fractional executives to help develop your team into a high performance powerhouse. Fractional leadership is a great choice when you consider the average executive level candidate can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries, benefits, and incentives. Xcxo finds you the executive and utilizes their talents to build your team's experience, all for a fraction of the cost of a full-time C-suite leader. Contact XCXO today to fill the gaps in your leadership Visit xcxo.net to look.