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Edwin Veguilla: Welcome to the Total Oxidation Management podcast. I am your host, Edwin Veguilla. I am here with the man of the hour, Mr. Tom Porter. We're going into his solo journey. So excited to hear him talk about this pivotal and crucial part of his life, where it was basically just Tom and figuring out the path that eventually led to everything else. That is who he is today and the things that he's built. So, Tom, how are you today?
Tom Porter: I'm well, I'm well. And you?
Edwin Veguilla: I'm great. Thank you for joining us. So, Tom, take us through. Take us through this journey of, you know, we talked in the last episode about high school. We talked about things you enjoy a little bit of your child. Now, let's go into college. Let's go into this. This place of you being a young adult, figuring out your life and figuring out things that you're passionate about, trying out things and how that plays out. Walk us through that piece of your life.
Tom Porter: Thanks. I appreciate it. Edwin, you know, we finished when we, I realized that moment of the walnut. So, I think the perfect place to start is college. And you might recall that I shared with you my goal in college was to graduate, and I graduated in ten quarters. I wasn't studying the textbooks quite as much as I was the handbooks, as I mentioned earlier. I wanted to, I had the exact number of hours to give me a degree. In fact, I had two degrees, one in education and one in psychology. So, I graduated, and, through my summer experience, the best part of my summer, I mean, best part of my college experience were my summers. I was a lifeguard. Not just lifeguard. I was the aquatics director for summer camps in the Smoky Mountains. And so, I spent my summers training and adventures all of every day was adventures because we were in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, literally in the back woods of, the, you know, with wild animals. And I had responsibly for a lot of young people. We'd take them on hikes. That's where a lot of my reference to cooking over the open fire. That was a great experience, and I was heavily exposed. I put a lot of chlorine into, a lot of swimming into, especially the camp swimming pool and checking the pH, having to keep the water balanced. So, you know, the aquatic director is responsible not only to test the water, but to teach. I have taught more, I would hazard to say over a thousand people to swim and that is adults and children in my career. That was very much a part of what I did. And I did a lot of it. And then I left, you know, every year, went back to school, finally graduated. And the day I graduated, I was graduating off season, after a winter quarter. And I told my parents they don't need to come to my graduation. And they were fine with that. They didn't. I don't think either one of us thought much about it, but I had a plan. I wanted to and did go sit up in the audience of the basketball stadium where because this is the University of Tennessee, and even though it's an off season, there's still a lot of people graduating. So, I knew I would just be one of many, but I did want to have a memory of it. So instead of participating, I went up and watched it, and I watched it until they got to where my name would have been, so I knew exactly where I would have been sitting. I knew exactly the experience. I got up, went to the back of the hall where the real diplomas were being given out.
Tom Porter: I found out, and so before the crowd even got released, I had my diploma, went and drove my Lincoln Continental that I had bought for $500 and, because it was a tank and I needed a lot of truck space to carry the things, the few things I had, and I went off on my journey.
So, it took me a couple of months. I'll go for it. You know, I was.
Edwin Veguilla: And the degree you got there was the education and a minor in psychology at Tennessee.
Tom Porter: No, it was two majors. I had two majors. I had a degree in psych and a degree in education.
Edwin Veguilla: Okay. That's fascinating. Let me ask you a question with that. Really quickly, because typically this is making a lot of sense. You start with being an aquatics director and being in the woods. And all that ties into your childhood and being part of the scouts and all that. But then the fact that you work so hard to get a degree, and most people, the anticipation, like the highest point for most people is graduation.
It's that reward system. And you don't want to be a part of that. You want to just sit back and observe. That's fascinating to see. I want you to remember the whole experience, not from the inside out, but from seeing it more like a video, like a spectator, almost of your own.
Tom Porter: That's exactly what I was. I was a spectator on my own life at that moment.
Edwin Veguilla: Whoa. Okay. And that's going to tie in with something we're going to talk about. And this makes perfect sense with a quote that we're going to refer to here in a little bit. So, just keep going. This is awesome. Keep going.
Tom Porter: So, I drove my Lincoln Continental around the southeast and went to different family and friends and just tried to figure out where do I want to go. I wasn't sure that I was in touch with exactly where I wanted to go. I just knew I wanted out and get on with my life, and I'll tell you why I wanted out so bad. My parents did something that Deb and I actually also did with Trevor. We did it deliberately. I found out my parents did not do it deliberately later in life. It was brilliant. They raised the three of us with the phrase, well, “when you graduate from college, you can.” And whatever they were talking about, I remember one very specifically when my brother wanted to buy a motorcycle in high school and my dad was great. He goes, well, you can do that after you graduate from college. Everything was after you graduate from college. So, it's just like we all raised well, it was expected without us even knowing. And it was built into not really our DNA, but it was certainly it became part of us realizing that that was the expectation. That is the lowest standard. What's most interesting is my mother and father. Neither one had a college degree. And for me to find out later in life that they didn't even know they did that separately in discussions. They're like really? It was part of their desire. And that's how it was in my family. My brother has his doctorate. I have my degrees. You'll hear about how my sister has her master's in mental health. So, it's quite interesting how parents can set goals.
Edwin Veguilla: Certainly, and not even realize it.
Tom Porter: I give them credit because I didn't really care about college. I just knew I needed a degree, and I know that I needed. I was told I need a minimum of a 3.0 to really do well in, trying to find jobs.
I graduated with a 3.0000001. Literally, I couldn't have been any closer to 3.0. So, I just scooted by and took off to live my life, but I wasn't sure where that was or what that was. I ended up a couple of months later exactly where I wanted to be, but it took me a while to figure it out. I called up my parents on the phone, and I say, great news. I have a full-time job. What are you doing? I said, I'm a lifeguard on the beaches of Florida. And what did they say? My parents gave me support throughout my entire life. I've given them crazier things than that. And you're going to hear many of them in this session. My parents never, ever questioned. They supported me. No matter what I did. I heard a lot of be careful. Well, and they also unconsciously build in your mind, which is a huge point that I want our listeners to take away. How when you raise the bar and you are only expecting a certain level of success, that's huge because it's like high school, just finishing high school should not even be an option. Finishing college, that's the path you go, or you want your children to go should not even be an option. Success or even failure. Failure. If you put the bar that you're going to do whatever it takes to succeed at whatever you're doing, and that's the only thing you're going to go for, that's what you're going to get.
Edwin Veguilla: I feel like I've heard a song or a quote. I heard those words so nicely. This is making sense. Okay, so let's go. Let's keep going with that because you. How old were you, Tom? Let me ask you how old were you when you when you graduated college?
Tom Porter: The first time I was 20.
Edwin Veguilla: You were 20 years.
Tom Porter: I turned 21 the next year. So, I was 20.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah. You were super young. You don't even know anything at that point.
Tom Porter: I remember walking on the beach early in spring. Early in the morning. No one was at the beaches. This was dead season. End of winter, man. That's where I wanted to be. And I walked on the beach, and I saw a guy in an EBS lifeguard shirt, Ed's beach service, and he was lifting chairs and umbrellas and setting them out on the beach, digging them into the sand. I could tell he was working his tail off and I asked him, hey, how do you get on with this group? And he gave me the office address. I drove just down the road and walked in the door, told them my qualifications and the next day I had my own beach. I had one of the largest hotel beaches in Panama City, so I have just stepped my game up a lot.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah, and your parents probably were blown away by that, I'm assuming.
Tom Porter: Oh, my parents, they were probably just shaking their heads when I went to school. That's a degree. You're so smart. Sure. And now you're a lifeguard. I'm sure it was a bigger question mark than an exclamation point. So that experience was very difficult. It was hardest work I ever did. And it's actually where I realized it's not where I wrote it, but it's where I realized I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to remember it. Yeah, that became a big mantra for me as I looked ahead and thought, well, what do I want that to be? Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? I had a lot of private time on the beach while I was lifeguarding. In between the work of setting up all those chairs and those umbrellas, digging those umbrellas deep into the sand, every one of them talk about a workout, right? And then at the end of the day, after being exposed to the elements all day long and I was the darkest lifeguard, I had hair to my shoulders. It was oxidized from the air, sun and water, blond streaks and the end of the day all sweaty. And I'm having to put all those back up. But I spent about five months every day, no days off setting those up, renting the chairs. Also, I had the first sunscreen called Pre Sun that was put in my station to sell and also native tan to make people darker. So, it's kind of interesting that I was selling oxidize tanning. Now were the big sunscreen at one time and then immediately they realized they were dangerous. But the truth is even the pop of free that were used were dangerous. Still, everybody was trying to block the sun.
Tom Porter: So, I'm selling both. Now I didn't sell a ton of it because I was already selling the chairs. I had it available if people needed it but sold quite a bit. But interesting as we will learn in the future, the fact that I was the, it was my product, Malibu Tanning Sorbet, that actually led to the formulas of one of the biggest tanning companies that have come around in the last 20 years, called Australian Gold.
Edwin Veguilla: Whoa.
Tom Protner: So that'll be an interesting story, that it was a result of our formulas that led to that story. Trevor Gray's story. Trevor Gray, that was the owner of Australia, actually, European Tanning Systems was the name of the company. But going back to being on the beach, I realize I was fortunate, I had 18 rescues. I did not lose one soul on my beach, where there were souls that were lost on some other beaches. But these rescues, some of them were, well, I'll tell you, they became my son's bedtime stories.
Edwin Veguilla: I can only imagine listening to growing up.
Tom Porter: It helped me remember them. I had a double drowning once. And many times, after the rescues, I would have to go into the restroom and just violently vomit.
Edwin Veguilla: Ooh, to just to release the stress.
Tom Porter: And probably I had consumed a high quantity of salt in the rescue, because it was usually riptides and high surf. And you know, where people did not understand. Eventually about mid-August, I started questioning, probably during one of those violent vomits, why do I think I'm always coming back in? And when I asked that question, well, it was when I asked the question that I decided I didn't want to have that responsibility any longer. I think as long as I wasn't asking the question, it was a lot easier. I was very proud, but it was time to move on. And so, I started telling others, I'm heading to California, I'm taking my money, and I am moving to California.
Tom Porter: I think looking back, that as a teenager I was influenced around the seventh grade with the beach movies. Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, followed by the Beach Boys. I think somewhere in one of those movies, I started identifying and using the role of Frankie Avalon as my mentor who I wanted to emulate after as an adult. And I think it really as an adult, I thought, that's a great lifestyle because he was probably 15 years older than me. He was a young man in the movie, at least from where I say that, from where I was. In the seventh, eighth grade. So, I headed, along with another lifeguard who said, you're going to California? He said, I want to go.
Edwin Veguilla: So, you go. So, you went. You left Tennessee went to Florida, had your own beach, saved some lives. Let me ask you a quick question with that. Was there any point that you saw as you went into the water? I could lose my life in this process.
Tom Porter: Oh gosh. No, not one time. And that's the reason I tell you. When I did have that thought, that's when I realized I needed to stop doing it and move on. It's not about I mean, you know, I live at the Pacific Ocean now, and I look out and see people swimming, and I question if someone is in trouble, at the age of 67, where am I in the physical condition to go and rescue them and I don't have the answer. I think if that happens, it would be tested, but probably I would be better off now dialing 911.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah, I bet you could save them. I bet you could. So, there you go.
Tom Porter: Okay, I jumped in, I jumped in that Lincoln Continental and this guy and I head west and we went to every beach town in Southern California to check it out. Lo and behold, he gets homesick. This is a guy who seems like Mr. Macho Lifeguard. And he wanted to go back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I drove him all the way back for the third time across country. No. Second time. Second time across country to drop him off at Baton Rouge and turned around and went back and moved to Imperial Beach, California, the very last town on the Mexican border, just outside a part of San Diego County, right next to the slice that you walk across, which is a little body of water to be in Tijuana. And Hells Angels were there. But I found a place that I could rent for $125, furnished four blocks from the beach, and I could see the ocean from a small window over my toilet in the bathroom. Now that was great. This was just better than I could imagine.
Edwin Veguilla: How old were you at that point?
Tom Porter: 21. Almost a year after graduating. I remember it well it was at the end of the same period because, remember, the lifeguarding experience was only five months. So it was that during that same period ended up there. I'm sure I'm 21 by now. And it was during that time that I refined and actually wrote the song. I live my life the way I want to remember it.
Edwin Veguilla: So, you were 21 when you wrote that song?
Tom Porer: I was just yes, I was 21 when I wrote that song, and I wrote some other songs while I was there. And I remember very distinctly that that was the period that I made a conscious decision, and probably based on those words, that I wanted to change the relationship that I had with my dad. As I stated earlier, we weren't close when we were young. And what I realized is I didn't like our relationship, and I finally had to take complete ownership of that and decide that he was, who he was. He is not going to change, and he's my dad. It's up to me, the relationship that I want because I can't put it off on him. So, it was there that I used those words to live my life the way I wanted to remember it, and we started communicating more by phone. And then over the years, became closer and closer, spending more time together, fishing and just sharing and the last years of his life after my mom died, I talked to him every single day from no matter where I was in the world. So, you know, it's amazing how you can shift your relationships if you want to change the relationship. It's really on you. That is sort of my take away from that. Now, I say that all the time. You know, you can't change people, and you can't control people, but you can control yourself.
Edwin Veguilla: Very good point.
Tom Porter: I actually learned that when I took the job, not only as an aquatics director, but finally a professional position, I was hired as a mental health therapist at a private, it was a residential, mental health facility where people came in and I, along with other therapists, provided them therapy, and they stayed overnight. I was a therapist, while I was in San Diego, and it was probably one of the best learning experiences for me because I found I am a lousy therapist. I found that I would allow anyone to be whoever they wanted to be. Yeah, I probably was enabling because I will let people be anyone they want. I am not a judge. I just don't judge people. I don't figure out if they're lying to me. Which is been very, you know, a high risk. And I have been taken many times by not treating people well, but I think I would rather keep living, trusting people, telling me the truth instead of doubting everyone along the way, because I think it would just impede my journey.
Edwin Veguilla: But to add to that, I will say this. One of the really, and I guarantee you that's a huge part of why Malibu's been so successful. That's a huge part of your leadership skill and how you manage people. You don't fit people into a mold that doesn't fit you allow them to create their mold. And that's really how you maximize.
And I've watched you do it with countless of your team members. It's more like, what do you like to do? What do you enjoy. And it's fluid, like it changes as a person's interest change. You add responsibility. You take depending on how they're doing. I think that's how you get the most out of people. And that makes a lot of sense that you learn that early on, because I've seen a lot of that now, too, that's a huge point. You know, instead of trying to change them, you work with them. What motivates them? What is their personality? What are the things that make them tick? What are things do you think they really would enjoy or where do you see that they would function better in doing and performing and in that and the return the year from those are a person that gets the most out of their day and out of their duties. So that makes a lot of sense.
Tom Porter: Well, I'll share with you in your whole, very kind, message there is characterizing your observation. One thing that you said that actually might clarify why some of that worked, and that is you said the people that I manage, you made reference to the people that I managed. The real reality is we have a very strong position in our company.
And this came from my thesis, later in life, which you'll hear about later that we don't manage people in our company. Yeah, we manage processes. We just manage processes. We supervise people and the supervisor’s role is to motivate, incentivize, be there for them if they have a grievance, that's who you go to help hold them accountable, but just supervise them. Don't manage their processes. We hold each person responsible to manage their own processes. So, you will never hear in our company reference to my manage. Or it may be the manager, the manager of that process, of that project. That may be something you would, or that department. That means they're managing the department. It does not mean they're supervising anyone. It just means they're managing the processes. So, I think that helps explain to, you know, why. Perhaps it works because we don't try to step on each other. I think Malibu is a company that you can be whoever you really want to be. I think that's a huge part. And people have been whatever they want to be and have branded themselves through using Malibu. See, professionals are figuring out how to use Malibu C to brand themselves. It can be on the local level. We can make you a magician. We can help you solve problems and explain things to your clients that you just have not been able to explain. But you're right, they can be anyone they want. And that's a big part of the culture at Malibu C.
Tom Porter: So going back to being a beast, at the same time, I met a guy and an older man, probably 20 years older than me, who lived in the same apartment building. I did okay. And he, you know, got to know him along with some really good lifelong friends, people that I, you know, are still some of my closest friends I met. And they were right downstairs to this guy was across the way, and he was staying home every day and making jewelry. And I was fascinated with it. And it turns out, and I joined up with him and actually took my salary and help finance it, because he had told me his story about being a POW, and you could tell he was affected.
You know, he was a likable guy. He wasn't able to function as well working. And so, he was making jewelry. Three days a month, we would go down or go up to Shelter Island in San Diego and shovel at the very lowest tide, three days a month that we had access. And there were snails called Olive Shell.
Tom Porter: Olive is what it is, the olive shell, but they are Latin, is olive villa by black carters, and we would take them and then choose the best, the prettiest, throw all the others back, and we would hand scrape them on a limestone slab, actually a concrete slab at the one end and work wire, stainless wire through it and create jewelry in the night and the weekends. When I wasn't a therapist, I actually during the day, because I was a therapist at night, I was on the night shift and so I was able to make this jewelry. And on weekends where you go to craft fairs. So that prepared me for trade shows as well, because I had done it. I had been out cold, you know, sitting there selling stuff that we had been making. So, he and I were in business together and trying to build that. There was it was beautiful jewelry, and the story was so cool. And he and I went to a soccer game in ocean. Let's see OB Ocean Beach in San Diego, and a woman jumps up out of the stands, runs across the field and says, does anyone know CPR? And my buddy goes, he does. And all of a sudden, because I doubt I would have jumped up and said, oh, me. And next thing I know, I'm giving, CPR mouth to mouth and heart compressions to a stranger on in the middle of a soccer field. We fortunately, we resuscitated him. So, I'm assuming because I kept looking in the obituary because I got his name and never saw it. So, I felt good about that. To two weeks later, as I said, I was on the night shift, and I should preface this with I had sort of become part of the administration of the hospital. It turned out that the people on the day shift wanted me to do the report, which, you know, I appreciated. I thought, you know, they recognized that I have good attention to detail. I'll be sure this is done properly. And they were, you know, so that helped me grow into the administration. I still had patients I was responsible for on the night shift, but I, you know, I appreciated being part of that.
Tom Porter: Lo and behold, years later or not, years later, but after I'd been in the role for a while, I found out that it really wasn't my attention to detail or skills or anything. The crew just loved listening to my deep southern accent, and they laughed through the entire report of me talking about every patient’s activities during that shift. You know, I have often said something about having South in my mouth and one person came back with a very smart response and said, we have elected five southern presidents, you know, and as you see, I still have South in my mouth. Not as much marrying a New York girl and living in California. So, what happened was soon after the CPR incident, I had a patient that was on my list that, you know, we would watch and then be available to. She was actually another therapist's patient, but he was, it was his day off.
So, we all shared caseloads, and I came in one afternoon and she was asleep when I started my shift late in the afternoon. And so, you know, no big deal. And her roommate was asleep, too. The lights were out. All is well. I was back up, sitting in the lounge with other, you know, adolescents because this was the adolescent wing and hanging. Probably watching TV. And all of a sudden I saw a gal, one of the nurses, running down the hallway with a crash cart. I followed her right to that room. But both of those girls had, apparently, during the day shift, gone into a psychiatrist office that he must have left unlocked, found a bottle of pills that he was testing for high anxiety levels, and they shared the entire bottle.
Edwin Veguilla: Oh my gosh.
Tom Porter: We resuscitated one of them. But Danielle passed. And the saddest part of the story for me, the tragic story, is that her parents were of a specific religion, that it is written, if your child commits suicide, the child never existed and they never took claim to her body.
Edwin Veguilla: Oh my gosh, it makes you kind of see the connection of maybe why she was in an adolescent ward in a mental health facility, right? If those were some of the conditions that were that she was held to.
Tom Porter: So, I think, you know, what you and I were talking about parents and setting standards. They need to be standards that we really think through. It's, you know, being a parent, it's a responsibility that is not well defined. And it takes a lot of thought, you know, going back to cause and effect. It's trying to figure out what your behavior and what you say is going to lead to. What happened with all of that within a week or so, as I recall around that time. Or maybe it was all around that time I started getting the feeling that this guy that I'm in business with, making these shells, has been lying to me, and he very well could be psychotic. And what I soon found out is he was actually hiding out.
Edwin Veguilla: Hiding?
Tom Porter: He had assaulted, hiding himself from the authorities. He wasn't a pow. He had read books about P.O.W. and he had taken on a character. He apparently had assaulted a dentist in the next town. Because I guess the dentist was having an affair with his wife.
Edwin Veguilla: Oh, my gosh, he's a con artist.
Tom Porter: He's a con artist. But the jewelry was real. What we did was hard work. It wasn't hard work. It was just tedious work. And a lot of it to get necklaces and other jewelry bracelets built. But I realized I needed to clear my head. And so, in 24 hours time, I decided I am driving back across the country again. Now I have purchased a Datsun pickup.
Edwin Veguilla: You got rid of your Lincoln?
Tom Porter: I got rid of my Lincoln. Didn't know if I can make another trip, and I had a $7,000 mini truck. That was unusual. Had it never come to the US. This was, to my knowledge, one of the very first vehicles made in another country, which didn't go over very well for my grandfather, who was the Ford and Lincoln dealer in my hometown. He did not understand when I came back that I'm in a foreign car. He did not appreciate that I was clueless. I didn't get it, didn't make sense to me. Well, there would be a disconnect, you know, today that's, you know, very meaningful to me. So, I head back to Tennessee and within the first day met up with one of my best friends, an Eagle Scout with me, football, church, Bobby Holloway. We went up north, where we had both graduated from, and he had, along with two college friends, had established an aquarium shop in Nashville, Tennessee that didn't do well, and he and the guys decided just to close it. And in one day, the two of us decided, let's do this together. Let's just turn it around, let's build it.
Tom Porter: And so I went in business with my best friend with a common goal that we were going to establish this as a successful business and sell it and go back and obtain our graduate degrees.
Edwin Veguilla: How old were you, Tom?
Tom Porter: How old was I? It must have been in 74, 75, you know, probably 22, 23.
Edwin Veguilla: So, you at 23, you go into business, you have an exit strategy or any which
Tom Porter: Actually, I was 22, I was 22. I'm doing the math. Yeah, because you'll hear more. I squeezed a lot into a short time.
Edwin Veguilla: Okay.
Tom Porter: So went back. We established that aquarium shop. That is where, here's what's interesting. He said, okay, Tom, you take the saltwater tanks, and I'll take the freshwater tanks. We had over 50 freshwater tanks and we had 19 saltwater tanks. Well, I didn't know the difference because I never had an aquarium. He grew up with aquariums, but he took the freshwater, which technically is much easier. Freshwater fish can sustain a lot of change because waterways sustain a lot of change, whereas the ocean environment is very stable. So, it has to be maintained at a very high level of stability. And it takes a lot of chemistry, water chemistry, to understand it. Well, that is where I learned all the water chemistry combined with me throwing in a lot of chemicals in testing pool water. And all of this combined became the foundation of what I have learned and shared with the world through hairdressers, through colorist, through skin professionals about total oxidation management. This is the chemistry now. Oh my gosh, this is the water chemistry that I learned. It was all from because it I had to understand it. These were lives I had a shark, I had an amazingly trained fish. I found that a little red spotted hawk who had his pectorals split instead of treading water, he would hop around so he could put his energy into watching me. And I started realizing that when I fed him, his eyes were watching every move. He'd move wherever my hand was. I was able to train him just like Pavlov's dogs. With conditioning. We were able to promote that. We had a trained fish and sure enough, he performed every single time, he and I had a relationship. He did whatever I'd ask him to go, he would go. I would feed him. We had a whole thing going. And had a shark, a leopard shark. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I'm pretty sure this is exactly the same year that jaws came out. And I don't watch movies like jaws. I've never watched a horror movie in my life. I've never watched a movie that intended to scare me. I have never allowed that, even at a very young age. I never, I guess I realized that whatever I put in my brain is going to be my brain. The way, the emotions that I'm supposed to act, I just, so I never have watched any movies. There are all kinds of categories of movies I've just never seen.
Tom Porter: It's not because it was so conscious. It's just I wasn't attracted to it. I didn't want any part of it. And same with jaws. And it's a good thing being a scuba diver, being a water skier or being a lifeguard.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah, being fearful of sharks would immediately prevent you from being very effective.
Tom Porter: Yeah, in fear. Not a way to live life. But we were able to create a buzz, and we had busloads of people coming to the aquarium shop. It became a museum. We became extremely successful in a very short time at 22 years old. At 23 years old. And at the end of the experience, we split up the money, he took most of it as he should because he had invested, but he was very generous. We had said our partnership into place and one thing I'll tell you about a business partnership. I would recommend no one go into a partnership. If you have not already set up your exit plans, document them. Know how you can get out because the first partnership I didn't do that. It didn't end well. This partnership, we knew exactly what our objectives were, our goals were, and we decided what our exit plan options would be. We executed it. He went back to the University of Tennessee to law school. He is now one of the most highly respected circuit judges in Tennessee, and I took my money and went to Santa Barbara, back to California, to the University of California, Santa Barbara at UCSB. And I entered the master's program for administration because I needed business. But I did it in the education department because my undergraduate degree put me in that direction, and I was able to take my business, law and all of my business. I statistics, everything was under education. Well, what happened along the way? Being in that environment, I became extremely passionate about my belief and conviction that we need to change the public education system. And I became a voice in my papers, especially talking about the importance of media becoming the source and looking to teachers as facilitators as opposed to the source of the information. And I felt very strong about that. And so, I kept talking it, and I even wrote my thesis, The Role of the Change Agent in Reforming Organizations. And I presented a model of how to go about implementing change no matter what change.
Tom Porter: But I was all about the media. You know, what I wanted to see happen? Produce more videos that you get the information consistent to everyone. So that I'm from Tennessee, things that were told there were not necessarily I learned what things were told in other parts of the country. We needed a source. We needed we needed a common source, not the opinion of the teacher.
Edwin Veguilla: So that's interesting that you, with the comment you made earlier about what you put in your brain is what you become. Media is probably maybe not so much now, but back then media was the number one influencer really in the world at that point, but not in schools.
Tom Porter: But no, definitely not in schools. Not in schools. Schools were just the opposite. They weren't using the media. Sometimes they allowed a TV set in the room. Sometimes, possibly they would use other, mediums like, you know, but we didn't have much media, and we had some video then so we could start using video and, you know, the 60s and 70s. So, it was becoming more mainstream at that level. However, what ended up happening is that I wrote this thesis about the role of the change agent, and it has become now an entire presentation that I make for companies, all organizations, all, well, so many different big companies, small companies, chains, stores, just because it's a model.
Tom Porter: Yeah, it's an approach to being deliberate. When you want to make a change. And it really helped me because in order to ensure that this company grows, it has had to go through so many changes. It cannot be stagnant. And especially in the last 30 years, probably we would all agree the highest frequency of change ever in the history. Well, I don't know. I guess every generation thought that their change was, you know, accelerated by the Industrial revolution. I'm sure they saw all the change. But with all the technologies going on, we're on a high pace for change. And it's good that I have a vision of at least, you know, we talk specific ways in our company. We have a language, and we use those words very deliberately.
Tom Porter: You know, it was interesting that my degree led to that. But what was most interesting, I think, is that my professor, who was the head of the department, said, Tom, you keep talking about the influence of media. I want to tell you about a program called Instructional Systems Technology. I asked, there's only four programs in the country FSU, that's Florida State, Syracuse, USC and Indiana University. They are focused only on use of media and new ways of bringing that into education. And while I was in Santa Barbara, even though I had some really good jobs and I really connected, I never was able to connect to Santa Barbara to end up with a job there that took my career, you know, in Santa Barbara. So, you know, now it's my second attempt to live in California, and I decide to go to Indiana University because I asked him point blank, which one's the best program? And he said, Indiana University. I was back in my Datsun pickup, and now what am I on, my sixth trip across the country going to a state that I really didn't know even where it was. I've got a master's in education administration, and I'm going to a state, and see in Tennessee if the state didn't have anything to do with the Civil War, we really didn't learn much about it.
Tom Porter: And so Indiana, it turns out, was only straight up I-65 of about five hours, but I didn't know where it was. I drove all the way across country, ended up on highway seven, started on highway I-10, got up to I-20 3040. You know, a lot of people don't realize. And I learned with all this travel, many people don't realize that Eisenhower and his administration, when they developed the interstate system in the United States, they just put a grid down and drew lines and created from South to north, I-10 in a north of that 20, then 30, then 40, then 50, then 60. I-70 goes through Indianapolis. I 80, I-90, and then the other direction. It starts on the West coast I-5, I-15, 25, 35 all the way 65 goes right through Indianapolis from New Orleans all the way to Chicago until you end up at 95. And I found a lot of people don't even know that. So, I'll just toss that in.
Tom Porter: I didn't know that really. I didn't know my travels. So, I'm scaling my way up to Indiana. I pull into Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and I go to the chairman and he with my degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara in education, he admitted me into the educational doctoral program with a specialist in a field called instructional systems technology. And it was awesome. I was learning the media. But what might be the most interesting part of that story? Because now we're talking around 1977 and the word computer was not mentioned, not yet. There was no such thing, wasn’t even part of learning yet. We're talking videos and photography and learning how to make things, how to do things from scratch, how to communicate information differently, where to source information not knowing.
Tom Porter: But what was interesting is I was a graduate assistant in the Department for summer sessions, and I was sitting I remember over the holidays, once sitting at what looked like a pipe organ hitting these big keys, and I was key punching cards for the admissions of new students. Lo and behold, I had no idea I was creating punch cards to be run through a computer that was the precursor of computers becoming our source of information, of course. But that's about the timing. And this was an issue. And this was at IU, Indiana University. Supposedly the best DST program, I will tell you at that time, I think it was probably the publishing of the articles that made the reputation of being the best. I don't know, but what USC may have been better with new, you know, California new things. I think the program at Indiana University was excellent. I love my programs. I was able to produce television. In fact, my very last semester in my doctoral program, I made a 4.0, never made a 4.0 in my life. And I decided to take a break. I was on top. This, to me, was the best thing that could happen for me to be, hey, I'm in the right program. I'm doing what I love and I made a 4.0 and that's confirmation was my passion. Yeah, well, I went out with a girl in the spring of that after, you know, at the end of the semester. And she said she was going to teach swimming lessons and with a new organization in town called a YMCA that had just started up and they were at schools and churches all over the community, and she said they needed aquatics director. I needed a job because it was summer and I need cash. I was putting my way through. I put my way through on college loan for my masters and for my doctoral program.
Edwin Veguilla: Okay, so let me ask you something real quick, because going back to the aquarium, when you guys saw that, which I had a question about that, how did you finance, how did you guys finance that?
Tom Porter: Whe aquarium shop? Yeah, he had already done that. He was very fortunate that he was left. His father had passed, and he had been left some money. And that was he had financed it. That's the reason I said he took away the larger share. But he deserved that because he had put up the initial investment.
Edwin Veguilla: Okay. And then he gave you basically the hardest part, which is so fascinating because if he wouldn't have given you the hardest part of that business, it's just it's so fascinating to see how everything is translated, how these minor decisions would probably seem like nothing. He was probably at that point just saying, this is the hardest one. You do it because I kind of putting up more money now.
Tom Porter: That isn't what he said at all. It was more of, hey, I've got control of the freshwater, why don't you take the saltwater? He knew it was tougher, but he already had the freshwater. And it was more of you take that. I know, because I know, Bobby. You know, it was very deliberate and interesting as you're making that point, how Ricky and Bobby from my childhood. Both played pivotal roles in my path.
Edwin Veguilla: It's mind blowing. And then if you want to have learned all that and the skills that that kind of gave you and then saw that which that's your first super successful venture at that point, you learn how to attract a crowd. You learn how to get people going. You learn how to how to basically educate, how to educate each people.
Tom Porter: Yeah, we sold through education. If we didn't educate them on how to take care of those fish and how to set up an aquarium, it was all about education.
Edwin Veguilla: And again, going back to saving lives in your journey shows your care for people and your care for living things. And then you go from there. That decision basically you sell, you go, you meet this professor and then he influences you and tells you this is the best program. It's in Indiana and you're like, yeah, on your journey, pick up, let's go.
Tom Porter: I just went and I ended up in Indiana.
Edwin Veguilla: Indiana.
Tom Porter: You are in Indiana and I'm in California. And you're right, I ended up there. That's crazy. And was admitted into the program, had a wonderful experience. And when this gal told me about this aquatics director position, I said, I'll go interview. It was a Friday. In fact, I went and interviewed with a guy. I went to the director who was younger than me. He was a runner at IU. I interviewed for the job. I was hired on the spot and showed up the next day at a school with probably, well, a whole morning of various classes of swimming lessons at different age groups. Every age that wanted to learn had the opportunity to learn. And I met four swimming teachers that had already been hired. So, I took that over literally in 24 hours. Within two months, he offered me the program directorship to run the entire school and church programs all the way, because the goal was that a board member named Bill Cook, who is recognized in Indiana is probably one of, if not the most successful entrepreneurs. Bill Cook’s company is the largest privately held medical device company in the world. He started it in his apartment building stents and catheters with metals wire himself. He saved so himself and then hired a jewelry maker's son who was good with his hands to help him develop new devices. And it led to more stents and catheters. New research saved probably as many or more lives as any technologies ever did for, various ways of accessing the inner body without being obstructive and intrusive and going through the veins through the arteries rather than cutting through. And he became eventually a billionaire. And he pioneered that. He pioneered that and is well recognized for that. William Cook, one of my heroes.
Tom Porter: He is one of the six heroes in my life. Just like my dad was just like the camp director in Tellico, Sanford Gray, Tellico Mountain camp. Those were some heroes in my life. My scoutmaster that I mentioned, he was a hero of mine. He was a role model. We all need him. And then, you know, that leaves only one. And I'll share. That's where the story goes today. So, I was able to work with Bill Cook, who decided he wanted to finance the building of the most progressive Y wellness center in the world with cardiac rehab, pulmonary rehab, which was unlike anything anyone had ever even tried working with the local hospital, create these programs and build a building. At the same time, he had selected a guy to do the job and grow this business, and it was a football coach from IU. But unfortunately, Lee, the football coach for them was there only less than a month when the whole facility was starting to be designed and built, and he went to Bill Cook and said, I want to be a football coach.
I do not want to do this. And this young kid that's 25 years old is already running it. I would just let him keep doing it until he messes up. And that is how I had the opportunity to lead, with the community of Bloomington, the development of what is now the largest, to my knowledge, the largest independent Y wellness center in the world that is private.
They have a line in the last few years with the Indianapolis Association, but when I was leading it, we were totally independent, and it led the way for others and put me in the most incredible position that anyone could be in because everyone around the country wanted to know about it. And Bill had sent me out into the country before I started designing it, started furnishing it, staffing it, programing it.
Tom Porter: I had the opportunity to do it all, and he sent me on a great journey out around the US. I went to the Cooper Clinic down in Dallas, Texas, went to Princeton Longevity Center in Santa Monica, California. I went to other fitness centers to look at designs, and that is where I got the idea. I got the idea from talking to a guy, a concept of designing the facility so that the track went around the activity area that had never been done, and to my knowledge, had never been done. Now it's become a model where tracks are on the perimeter. Well, that was not done. And we had, to my knowledge, the very first indoor track where within it were the racquetball courts, two basketball courts, play center, weight center, multipurpose room and the pool. And we were told that this would not succeed because Indiana University had what's called the hyper building, which was health and physical education, and it was open to the community. So, we thought this in, you know, civic clubs, we're trying to raise funds. I was out raising funds to supplement Bill Cook's money because I needed to have this as a nonprofit organization, and we need the funds. People were telling me it's not needed. We don't need it, so I'm not going to support it. Well, lo and behold, we opened the doors, and I remember the very first time we opened the doors, we thought we hoped for about 200 people to come see the facility. It was in January, as I recall, and we ended up with well over 2000 people. This is in Bloomington, in Bloomington. And what's most interesting part of it for me is about six months later, when I met Deb, it turns out she was one of the people in the crowd. Did she remember me? She didn't. She wanted to come to see the new facility.
Tom Porter: Why? It was that it became a buzz, and she doesn't even remember seeing me and I stood up, I had ended up standing on top of the counter to talk to the crowds, to get them on a tour to see the facility. It became an immediate overflow. And it turns out she was one of those people. And she says that she just went off on her own, looked at the facility and then laughed. Yeah, our paths had crossed ingeniously and we didn't connect, but this was massive. I wouldn't have seen anyone in the crowd that day. This was such a surprise, and it turned out, and it just wasn't time yet. It became a very significant contribution to fitness centers to, you know, and to Bill Cook’s credit, he gave me the opportunity to actually fulfill his dreams. But it was my visions that he allowed to become the future of what's up now, though it is increased in size threefold since I did the first, you know, the very original 30,000ft. But that is where, one day, about probably four months after the facility was open and it was rocking and it was well attended and we ended up with somewhere around, I think, 10,000 members in a community of only 40,000 people, not counting the students. That was not talk about, immediate success, especially in that time. It was just, oh, it was the perfect time. They just didn't know it. Bill was the visionary on that. I wasn't though, I didn't know. I was just fortunate to be able to use other resources to pull variables together to create something that was very efficient. And it worked, and it put me in a very good position.
Edwin Veguilla: You were 25 years old at that point.
Ton Porter: I was 25 years old.
Edwin Veguilla: And so, you know, and basically it's crazy to think about, like from starting as so young, you had already your college degree, you had already started and sold your first venture and now in Indiana, you meet Bill, obviously here to see your drive, your dedication there.
Tom Porter: He's the one that influenced me. And these were his words. Tom, you need to get into manufacturing. Honestly, Ed, when I look back because Bill is passed, Bill was a great supporter of my company. Once we needed through the growth, he's there for me. His son Carl is still on our board. His CFO, John Cam Straw, marvelous man is still on our board. His influence with me still lives on. But, you know, he was the one that said, get into manufacturing. I have to laugh. I wondered later if what he was saying is, Tom, get into manufacturing, come work for me. But I never heard it that way. I'm not sure that that's what he was saying or not, but I heard him say, go start your own manufacture business. Yeah, and it was four months later, after we opened the doors, that a woman came in my office. My door was always open to the membership, and she knocks on my door and says, can I, you know, share something with you?
Tom Porter: I said, sure. Woman named Jean Stallion walks in and said, I want to tell you what it's about. Research that my son in law has been doing along with another guy named Joe Larson, who's a professor at the University of Illinois. I say, well, tell me about your son in law. And she told me about Doctor Keith Ault who had a very interesting use of vitamin C, and at that time I only knew vitamin C from Linus Pauling internal uses.
Tom Porter: There was never a discussion about external use. And she shared some of these, a list of things that it could be used for. And I saw things for aquariums. I saw things for pools. I saw things for rust. And I had a lot of rust already in the pool area, from the oxidizing of the metals that were used. That we should have realized you don't use those particular metals. So, there was a lot of learning going on and I thought, oh, I want to know more about this. So, we scheduled a time to meet him later the following June, the next month, because this was spring. So, I had that planned. Looking forward to it. And now we'll jump forward about a month. We'll go to Friday, June 19th. A buddy of mine who I owned a boat with, we had been water skiing every day that week after work because it didn't get dark in Indiana to get 8 or 9:00. So, we would go out after work and just ski water, ski our brains out and it came Friday and Fridays when everyone else comes on the lake, it gets really choppy. We both knew it, and he said, hey, there's some of our friends. Some of the group is going to get together at a restaurant called, you know, it's a restaurant bar called Jeremiah Sweeney's. I said, yeah, I'm all in. Let's go. So, he walked in. I walked in, and there's the group.
And I'm standing across just kind of observing, looking who's around and all of a sudden I saw the most beautiful gal I had never seen her. And I looked at her, and she looked up and our eyes locked.
Edwin Veguilla: That's so awesome.
Tom Porter: And we realized that we didn't care that our eyes had locked. So, I worked my way around and that was the moment that I met Deb. So, we got to know each other. We decided to go dancing that night. We danced the same. We were finishing each other's sentence. I'm telling her my plans. I'm telling her I'm planning to go back to California. Now that I've developed this. Why I've been my goal is still to be in California.
And she tells me her goal is to be in California. What are the odds of that? She took this job as the assistant director of the Career Center of Indiana University, so that she could work her way from New York, where she was from. She was from Ithaca, New York. She had her master's in educational personnel, which helped a lot with personnel in the company. Believe me, she's a great resource. She can read people well, unlike me, I let everybody be whoever they want to be. She's very good at that. But we met. We both wanted to go to California. This is going really well. So, I thought I had the best line. Hey, I got a boat. You want to go out on the lake tomorrow? It's Saturday. And she says, oh, I can't. I'm teaching seminars tomorrow, but I can on Sunday. And I said, oh, well, I'm not going out on the lake on Sunday because I want to go see this chemist. And she said, what? So, I told her a little bit about it, and she goes, well, I want to go. So, Deb's in.
Tom Porter: Our first real date was to hear Doctor Keith Ault talk on the back porch of a high school friend of his that lived in Bloomington, to about six of us who his family had told a little bit about what he was doing because he was starting a company using ascorbic acid, vitamin C. The company's name was Vida Chlor.
Tom Porter: And here is the story he told. That was my moment. It was Doctor Ault as a professor, a lead professor at Ball State University, was walking across Ball State campus and a walnut fell from the tree. And he looked at that walnut and wondered, how is it that a walnut can fall from the tree? And still the nut, the seed inside it, the nut of the walnut itself, eventually can work its way into the ground and become a new tree. He was so intrigued. How does it make it with all of the exposure from our oxidizing environment? Well, for those people that are listening to this and don't know what a walnut looks like, just think of it as an orange instead. It's about the same size a medium orange. The question would be, how is it that an orange can fall on the ground?
And still that seed has to work its way into the ground and be able to grow? How is it the sun doesn't just zap it when it's sitting on the ground in the air and just oxidize? And he theorized and started researching and found out it was because of the ascorbic acid content in that mass of materials surrounding the walnut creating what we see is like an orange size that you don't eat it. It's bitter, but it's loaded with vitamin C, ascorbic acid, he theorized.
Edwin Veguilla: It's so crazy.
Tom Porter: Well, here's what he wondered. Does every seed, does every plant have that same characteristic that it at the point of reproduction, is the seed surrounded by ascorbic acid, vitamin C, what we call now Malibu C? And he continued to research with Joe Last and Doctor Larsen.
And together they conclude, did that not only every plant, but every animal, including a human being at the point of reproduction, is surrounded ed by ascorbic acid.
Edwin Veguilla: I remember one of the first conversations where you were explaining to me, vitamin C or ascorbic acid, vitamin C, you use the example of when my wife is pregnant and that's correct. And that really, really put a different perspective on like, oh my God, this is really like the source of life in a way. Can you just kind of briefly use that example to, for our listeners? See, I think that's a the way you put it, it was so elegant and everyone that has everyone, period, especially people that have gone through a pregnancy or have children can really relate with that analogy that you use, which is not a lie.
Tom Porter: That's a good point. Even more so, those that are going to go into pregnancy when they hear this, I'm hopeful it will change their perspective of how they care for their body. What we learned in human beings is that we do not make ascorbic acid, vitamin C on our own. Our bodies do not produce it. Now, unlike a cockroach that produces mega vitamin C per its body weight and that is the reason you hear that when the rest of the world is radiation attacked, the cockroach is still going to be running around. Well, that's because it's loaded with ascorbic acid, vitamin C. You know that people say that about cockroaches, but that would be the reason that they would survive, whereas we do not make it. But when a woman, when a female is pregnant, everything she eats with ascorbic acid, vegetables and fruits, her body now has the ability to retain it. So, it holds the ascorbic acid and actually surrounds the baby into the fluids, protecting that seed. Throughout pregnancy, you often hear, and I remember the rage about placenta. Placenta for skin was considered the rage. It's the ascorbic acid that's in the placenta. That's where it is. And that's the reason you have to keep it in the refrigerator for it to be any good for skin, because it does regenerate skin.
Tom Porter: It is good for skin because of the compatibility of it to our skin. And it's almost too bad that we haven't found a way to use that placenta. For the mothers, their own placenta might be valuable to them, even in their own healing process, and probably in primitive times. It was.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah, I've never heard of that. Never theorized it, really hadn't thought about it till this moment.
Tom Porter: But the fact that women hold that ascorbic acid through the pregnancy, many women will say, oh, my hair and my skin were the best when I was pregnant. That is, it was because you were loaded with ascorbic acid, and the day that you birthed that baby, it started retreating and went through all kinds of hormonal changes, and you lost your ascorbic acid at the same time.
Edwin Veguilla: And they actually blame prenatal vitamins for. And I've always believed was like, how does that make any sense that you take for no reason out of nowhere, which we all know, like when you ingest things, you pee the majority of it out to. That makes so much sense. Very good point. Very good point.
Tom Porter: Let me see. Let me follow up on that because that's the second part of my. This is when I decided I wanted to, is that I had to tell the world of what you just said. The assumption that we just pee out what we don't use. So as males and women that are not pregnant, we know that whatever vitamin we take, and I will tell you, I'm not a big advocate of taking a lot of vitamin C supplements. I am a much bigger advocate of eating more vegetables with high concentrations of ascorbic acid, because you get the whole complex, even though probably 99% of the vitamin C compound is ascorbic acid, you still you have other components that seem to even help assimilate the ascorbic acid better than just pure ascorbic acid internally. But if you supplement, if you're not getting your fruits and vegetables, but still the point you made about we just urinate out what we don't use, what the body doesn't use. Well, this was research that was carried forward, doctor. All that and all stayed in Muncie, Indiana. I was doing research with aerobic activity with, I believe it was Doctor Gecko and Castile that had a human performance lab, and we were doing treadmill research with aerobic activity, since that was a big part of what we were about as a wellness center. And we carried the research so far that doctor all would provide various doses of ascorbic acid for these different subjects that are going through the research to take. So, what we did was before they started in the study, we took the sweat from their clothing. After all of their workouts, and we tested the presence of ascorbic acid.
Tom Porter: What we found, testing, is that none of them had any presence of ascorbic acid. None in their sweat. So, we gave them various doses of ascorbic acid. They started taking internally. Well, lo and behold, what we found is, and this makes sense to you, I'm sure, because you think of putting it out. That is the excretion system. Well, there's another very large organ that's also a big part of your excretion and that is the skin.
Edwin Veguilla: Your skin.
Tom Porter: Yeah. We discovered is nature is trying to protect us from the oxidizing environment by the vitamin C we take in. The problem is we, number one, we don't take in enough ascorbic acid in our diet. We're living in much more harsh environment. We are now hairless, pretty much so we don't have the protection from the environment that we once did, so it didn't take as much ascorbic acid to protect us. And as a result, what I learned is not only at the point of reproduction that ascorbic acid is protecting every seed, every seed in a plant and an animal. I also learned that it is attempting to protect us, and that's when I decided I have got to go spread this message and get everyone to start covering themselves with ascorbic acid, head to toe on everything that pops up that looks unusual. Try it. Yep, we can't make some of the claims that we know it can do. We can talk about ascorbic acid, but we can't talk about Malibu C and all the things that people tell us that are life changing.
But my message is use it all over your body, head to toe, and that's really what being in the mode with Total Oxidation Management is using Malibu C products. That all started from those experiences. And it happened that Deb and I and Keith on that day became partners.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, think about and we're going to do for our listeners, we're going to do an episode strictly on the benefits of ascorbic acid by the C in Malibu, C, and how you can utilize it to really maximize a lot of different aspects of your life. But think about how different somebody has to be wired to have a walnut. And you, you look at it and you're like, I wonder what that does. I wonder what makes us do that? And what are the possibilities of you being there in that moment with them, to listening to this person speak. So, think about how that journey kind of took you to that point. And I have a I have another question really quickly, why was Deb in Indiana being from New York?
Tom Porter: Because she had three job offers and Indiana University was the most west of all of the three job offers that she had to. Her goal was to get to California. So, she took the opportunity at Indiana University and Indiana University is a very, very highly recognized university. So just like me working on my doctorate there, Deb, working her way into the assistant director of the Career Center, we were very proud to be part of Indiana University and the community of Bloomington, Indiana, a community that's unlike any place on Earth. And the fact is, it wasn't that I left Bloomington, Indiana. When I left, it wasn't that I left Tennessee when I left. It's been all about me wanting to be in California. That was a goal. That's how I wanted to live my life. And it probably goes back to those movies I saw and TV shows and music. It influenced me and I didn't even know it was happening. So, I look forward to sharing more stories.
Edwin Veguilla: Yeah, and that's exactly that's exactly what I want to discover in this podcast for our listeners, is what are these things that happen through your journey that it gets the deeper we go into it, the more fascinating that it gets you. And the next episode, for our listeners out there, you really do make sure you listen to this, because we're going to go into now the next chapter of Tom's life and how he actually starts kind of building Malibu C and all the different turns that that takes. And I want to go a little deeper into you and Deb's relationship and how you guys, kind of founded everything together.
And we're going to talk about some of those things. So, Tom oh my gosh, what a huge pleasure it's been hanging out with you today and listening to this portion of your journey. Until next time. Be well everybody. We will catch you guys soon. Thank you, guys, for tuning in and we will be chatting again very, very soon.
Thanks, Edwin. You be well.
