>> So now I'd like to give a It's less of a presentation, it's more of a talk. And it's on the word that's up on the screen and the word is obsession. And you know, when I reflected on this word, I couldn't help but think of my father. Um and I'm going to be sharing some childhood memories that are rather entertaining and then like I usually do, I'll loosely relate that back to to stock picking and micro cap investing at the end. But I remember as far back as I can remember, when my dad wasn't working in his small business, he was tinkering with his hobby. And you might be wondering what was his hobby? Well, my dad's hobby was radio-controlled airplanes and radio-controlled helicopters. And it was a hobby that started around the time I was born and and every year after that kind of those creations of radio-controlled aircraft got bigger and bigger and faster and faster and you know, and I remember every evening he would be either tinkering with one or fixing one or building one and he became obsessed with this hobby and he ended up bringing our family along for the ride and on weekends our family would pile into our van and my mom would pack up snacks and pack up lunches and my dad would pile in a few of his planes and helicopters in the back of the van and uh we would head off for these RC hobbyist meetups where all these whackos would, you know, sit around and fly these aircraft all day and it would be 10 or 20 other families and the kids would be playing all day long and my dad and the dads would be flying their aircraft and helping each other all day long and I remember doing this probably every other weekend since the age of four, you know, up until probably the age of nine or 10. And across from our house, we owned four acres of land and it was all grass. So if you want to envision four acres, that's like two football fields put together. And on this open field of grass, my dad would also practice flying his airplanes and helicopters. I would also have a soccer goal where I would practice my soccer and then later on, this is where I would practice golf. And I remember one day when I was around the age of 11, I was getting off the bus, and I remember seeing my dad measuring something over across on this open field of grass, and I remember I went over there, and I asked him what he was doing, and he was measuring a 60-ft diameter circle, and he was tracing lime around the perimeter of this circle, and um I asked, you know, why he was doing that, and he just kind of looked at me and smiled, and he said he was starting to take helicopter license to get his helicopter pilot's license. And he was going to learn how to fly a real helicopter. And he was he said that he was going to end up, you know, buying a helicopter with his cousin Mark, and the circle in the yard was going to be a helipad. And he pointed to a uh a stack of cinder block slabs that were delivered on our driveway, and we were going to take those slabs and paint them white and outline the perimeter, and that was going to be the the helipad. And so, that's what he did. He ended up buying a Bell 47 helicopter with his cousin Mark. And don't get the wrong impression, this helicopter is not maybe what you're envisioning. This is not like from the show Airwolf, if you were old enough to remember that show. It was more like the show MASH, you know, if you're old enough to remember that show. Yeah. >> >> Small helicopter, glass bubble in the front. But it I mean, these are only like $40,000 aircraft, you know, it's kind of an entry-level helicopter. And so, they ended up buying this helicopter. They kept it at the local airport, which is probably 5 mi away, and they had a hangar there where they would keep it. And I remember my dad's flight instructor, he was a Vietnam War veteran, and he flew helicopters during the war. And he lost a leg in the war. He had shrapnel in his chest, and his name was Charlie, and Charlie was quite a character. You know, he smoked a few packs of cigarettes a day, and, you know, had a hint of whiskey on his breath, and I remember one day Charlie was over, it was actually the first day I met Charlie. He was over at our house for dinner, and I remember walked I walked into the house, and what I noticed first was there was a six-pack of beer on the kitchen counter. And this was an odd thing for me to see, because my parents were very conservative Christians. You know, they didn't believe in drinking alcohol. There was never any alcohol in our house. And but I but I saw this six-pack of beer and I saw Charlie drinking one and talking to my dad in the living room. And it was just this bizarre thing for me to see. You know, the other interesting thing about Charlie was he kind of just swore like a sailor. You know, and and that was also something my parents didn't condone, swearing. In fact, I I don't think there was ever a curse word word in our house. And when I when I sat down and was listening to that discussion, I think there were more curse words in 1 minute than I heard in my entire life. And it it was just funny cuz I could see my mom preparing dinner in the kitchen kind of cutting up vegetables. And Charlie would be telling a story and he'd be dropping D bombs and F bombs, you know, every bomb, hundreds of them. And my mom would be cutting up these vegetables and you could tell like every every three or four curse words, she'd put the knife down and like just recompose herself. And then she'd like look over her shoulder at me and I just be you know, smiling at her from ear to ear. And you know, it's funny like years later, probably when I was 16 or 17, I remember having a conversation with my dad when I was mature enough to have it. And I remember asking him, I was like, "What you know, what what allowed what what why would you think it was a good idea to have Charlie, you know, let him in our house to to drink and swear?" And my dad just said, "God gives grace to those that had experiences they shouldn't have had." And you know, I I didn't know what that meant back then, but now I realize how philosophical that was. But you know, when my dad got his pilot's license, he became obsessed with that helicopter. And when I mean obsessed, I mean obsessed. We flew that thing everywhere. The grocery store was only 3 miles away from our house. Would we take our car? No. We would fly a helicopter to the grocery store. >> >> When we would go out to eat on the weekends occasionally, you know, we would only go to restaurants that had parking lots big enough to land a helicopter. And where my dad knew the owners where we would get clearance to land there. You know, and as you can imagine, you know, when you're landing a helicopter to grocery store, at a restaurant, or taking it to church on Sundays, which we did quite often, you know, landing a helicopter is quite a spectacle. You know, people would come out of the building, you know, cars would pull over, you know, it it it it was quite a and I hated it, you know, cuz I was only 11 or 12 years old at the time. I was completely embarrassed by it all. Like you you know, why can't we just take a car like a normal family? But my biggest embarrassment came during travel soccer tournaments. You can probably see where this is going. So, I'm sure many of you have been to soccer tournaments before, you know, you can envision whatever you're envisioning, six, eight, 12 soccer fields. You know, all these games happening simultaneously, hundreds if not thousands of family members, parents, and grandparents watching their kids and several occasions we would all pile in our helicopter across from our house and fly off to my travel soccer tournament. And as you can imagine, when you see a helicopter start to land at a soccer tournament, everything just stops. All 12 games stop. All all the thousands of people there are just like staring and and they're just waiting to see who these are that are coming to the soccer tournament in a helicopter. And I and I would hate it. I would plead with my dad, "Please, can we just take a car?" And he'd say, "No." And we So, we flew. He was obsessed. I remember the probably the the memory I remember most was my dad and I were flying around in a helicopter and we were coming back to our house and we were several thousand feet in the air. And I could see our house below us again. Like the front of this helicopter is a big glass bubble. And we're several thousand feet in the air. And I remember in rather crystal clear HD memory, my dad reaching over and turning the engine off. You know, I'm going to say that again for emphasis. We're several thousand feet in a helicopter and my dad turns the engine off. And I just remember my heart stopped beating for like 5 or 10 seconds and I like gripped the seat with all my might and I probably had this WTF look on my face. You know, but a surprising thing happened. You know, we we didn't drop like a stone to our deaths. Um we actually My dad did some maneuvering with the pedal controls and he we actually glided down rather gracefully and at the end I think it's I forget if it's the collective, but he pulled up on the collective and kind of as we landed the front of the helicopter kind of came up and we landed softly, you know, right in the middle of that helipad across from our house. And uh when we landed he was laughing and I was laughing too because I was still alive. Um but he actually said the safest aircraft to be in is a helicopter because you can the engine goes off and you can still land it safely, which most people don't know about that. You know, there's enough downforce because of the way the helicopter produce enough rotation on the on the rotors that you can still land it safely. We ended up walking over for dinner and before we went in the house he just leaned over and said, "Don't tell your mother about this." And I said, "Okay." My My dad's obsession with that helicopter, I think it land it lasted about four or five years. You know, one day I came home from school and the helicopter was gone. You know, he never flew it again. I asked him why he sold it. He just said he didn't know. He just and he kind of just said he was done and he decided to close that chapter of his life and his obsessions and curiosities turned to other things. You know, so you might be wondering, you know, why am I telling you this story at a microcap event? Uh I think there's several parallels here which I'll try to make to investing in microcap investing. You know, I'm sure when my dad built his first radio-controlled airplane, he had no idea Well, I know he had no idea that he would be flying a real helicopter 11 years later after that. And that's where his obsession led him. And when you start researching and obsessing over a new stock idea, you never know where it's going to go or how long it's going to last. It could That obsession might last for a few seconds or maybe a few decades. You just don't know when you start the journey. You know, when when my dad went to his first RC hobbyist meet-up, you know, I doubt he really understood how many friends he would meet or how many other families we would come in contact with that would impact our family over the next couple of decades. There was There was one family in particular that we would vacation with every single year for 18 years down at the Jersey Shore. You know, and and that friendship continued long after that obsession with RC uh airplanes and helicopters kind of dwindled. You know, it's in that same family was at my wedding 20 years later, and it didn't matter that I didn't see them for 20 years, you know, because you still have that mutual respect because of that memory you shared chasing obsession 30 years prior. And I think it's the same thing with investing. I think one of the most fulfilling things about stock picking are all the new relationships you make you meet while researching companies. You grow close to them because of that obsession with that one company. You share due diligence. You share your notes from your last management meeting. You become sort of comrades in arms as you share in the future win or loss in that company. And there's lifelong connections they just kind of end up compounding over time, and it doesn't matter if you didn't see the person for two or five or 20 years. You kind of can just pick up where time left off. My My dad's flight instructor. Uh he was a character. You know, and and he left an impression on me. I didn't I never really met anybody like him up to that point. And you know, what other area has a lot of characters? The micro cap space. I mean, I'm a character, you're a character. Look to your left and right, in front and back. You know, there's just a lot of unique individuals in this room when it comes to just themselves personally and the way they invest. And I think that's what makes micro cap investing so much fun. When I was younger, you know, I thought my way of investing not only was the best way for me, but my way of investing was the best way for everybody else. And anybody that thought differently than me or invested differently than me, they were just wrong. You know, I kind of viewed everyone else's uniqueness is as faults and imperfections. And as the years pass, I think you start to realize it's actually our uniquenesses that are our strength. It's how you are different from other investors that are your strengths. And you start to appreciate that more and more as you grow and evolve as an investor and I don't know, a switch goes off maybe three or five years into investing when you stop kind of viewing investing as a zero-sum game. You stop comparing your year-to-date return to somebody else's and you start really just appreciating those that are successful that invest differently than you because that's exactly how you get better as an investor. Seeing what somebody else is doing differently, you know, applying some tool or skill to your own strategy and getting that 100 basis points of alpha out of your strategy that you wouldn't be if you didn't know them and get to know them better and it's our uniquenesses that are our strengths. And in micro cap investing, you know, when you're good, you're probably right half the time, which means that you're going to be wrong half the time. And if you're public about your portfolio when you're wrong half the time, it can be embarrassing. It's sort of like having your worst mistakes being dragged off at a soccer tournament, you know, for everyone to stare and gawk at. You know, but I think you know, one of the worst things that can happen is for you to kind of retreat um in your strategy. You know, those embarrassing moments, they're just part of the journey. It's part of winning, actually. And when you run after your obsession, that embarrassment is part of that and being wrong is part of the journey. In many ways, your willingness to look look wrong is as important as winning because scared money doesn't make money. If you're a micro cap investor, you wake up at least once a year. Believe it or not, I woke up today to a position down 30% pre-market. Yeah. Or maybe a few times per year. You know, and if you're not used to that, you know, it feels like my dad turned the engine off in a helicopter at 5,000 ft. You know, when you never experienced it before, you freak out about it because you never experienced it before. But once you experience it a few times, and unfortunately I have, you know, many times, you know, you just get used to it and you learn to remain calm and land the helicopter safely. So, this is a a family photo from 1994. So, I think when I showed this picture to my kids, they're like, "Where are you at in this picture, Dad?" I was like, "Really? Come on, you know." But, they thought I looked like a nerd and I had to remind them that nerds rule the world, but um you know, my my dad's only like 2 years older than me than I am right now, which is wild, but I believe to be successful, you know, you you must find that thing to obsess over. You know, that thing that kind of occupies your thoughts and your dreams. And I think it's important because only only after you chase after your obsessions, do you see what you're truly capable of. For And for my dad, it was really his business and this helicopter for a time period. For me, it's microcap investing, and I'm sure for many of you it might be investing as well, but it could be anything. It could be, you know, woodworking in the evening or collecting baseball cards or coaching or teaching, but I do believe to be the best, you must be obsessed. And I do think if you obsess over something long enough and with enough intensity, you will become successful and you're probably even get rich doing that. But, just because you're successful and rich doesn't mean that you're happy. You know, the world is full of examples of people that chased after an obsession, got rich, but they didn't have a family photo at the end of it. That's why I believe that the secret to happiness is really summed up in this photo. You know, the secret to happiness is kind of chasing your obsessions, chasing your dreams, and bringing your family along for the ride. And when you do this, you teach your kids what success really looks like, and it also makes for the best memories and tells the best stories. And so, my wish for all of us is maybe we all get lucky and that in another 10 or 20 or 50 years, one of your kids will be up on the stage telling a story about you. Thank you. >> Woo! >>