Adam Parks (00:01.134)
Hello everybody, Adam Parks here with another episode of Receivables Podcast. Today I'm coming to you with a more personal story and a personal journey from, I'm gonna call him the king of auto, definitely a legend in the automotive space, Mr. Jeremiah Wheeler, has taught me more, who's definitely forgotten more about auto than I'll probably ever know. But his personal journey, I think is just such an interesting.
Jeremiah Wheeler (00:05.362)
of course.
Adam Parks (00:29.718)
It's such an interesting journey to talk about somebody who has come up through the industry and has continued to grow themselves. But Jeremiah, I really do appreciate you coming on and having a chat with me today. For anyone who has not had the opportunity to get to know you through the years and play some golf and go to shows and share some meals. Could you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got to the seat that you're in today?
Jeremiah Wheeler (00:53.844)
Yeah. So thanks Adam. I appreciate you having me. Well, I mean, it's been, it's been a really fun journey. I started in the recovery space back in 2006 and I would consider that kind of the kickoff of my professional journey. I worked with a nationwide repossession firm. We also had a directory possession firm that covered six states and operated 65 trucks across those six states. And we had about 165 people in a
in a call center environment. We were servicing 18 or so of the top 20 other lenders. And I was there for roughly four or four and a half years. And I met some of the folks at DRN, DRN Data, and they were just getting off the ground. And we actually bought some of their first generation one cameras, the LPR cameras and put them in the market. it was a learning experience for everyone.
The cameras were definitely better paperweights than they were scanning devices and so So we learned a lot about each other as far as companies go and I left the recovery company in December of 2010 and DRN called me and said hey we need some help Would you come come join us and I was employee number 22 or 23 when I joined the company and so they were they were still a baby startup at that time and
And so we grew that company over the last 13 or so years through a variety of different industries and verticals and growing the data collection footprint to now 400 million license plate scans a month and over 400 markets. And we sold the company in January of 2019 to Motorola Solutions and still growing from there. We've made two other acquisitions since then.
And it's been a really fun journey, but that's more on the business and professional side. I think on the personal side, I've learned a ton about myself as a leader and about other people in the industry and how to navigate. I had some good mentors along the way as well to teach me how to play chess while everyone else is playing checkers. And so I think that's really important. And that's what I try to teach my team now.
Jeremiah Wheeler (03:20.052)
400 plus people.
Adam Parks (03:20.11)
you
400 plus people. Wow. I mean, that's really incredible. And I've had the opportunity through the years to really take a look at the product and get to know the LPR technology. I think one of the interesting things from as an outsider looking in has been your ability to apply the technology to multiple marketplaces. right? Like what was a repossession based technologies become a location technology has become so many other things over time.
Jeremiah Wheeler (03:25.416)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (03:53.02)
Yeah, well, and you know, it helps. There's a lot of public good too from it. Obviously we collect a lot of data and location intelligence and that data is used and sold into different verticals. Insurance industry is one where they're able to help find fraud, mitigate fraud, identify fraud, find stolen cars. And, you know, I look at it as two public goods that the data does from a
Adam Parks (04:03.894)
Yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (04:19.774)
from a financial services standpoint, it helps balance that collectibility, the collections and recovery side of the business so that it helps spare and equal access to credit for all because without collections or recovery, you can't afford to price a loan, especially for subprime borrowers. And then on the insurance side, obviously we're helping to try to mitigate fraud and identify it earlier in cycle and cut it off so that we actually are able to
help lower prices of insurance across the board. So there's a lot of great good that comes from it for sure. But at the end of the day, it's about creating an ecosystem that works and self fuels. And so the more data we collect, the more recoveries that happen, the more revenue that our partners make. And it just continues to sell fuel and they continue to buy the equipment and put more out in the market.
And so it's been a great model and it's applicable in other places. We started a marketing arm where we collect license plate scans and create marketing campaigns for certain businesses that choose to put those cameras up in front of the businesses. And that's pretty good and at a rapid rate right now. And so we have over 100 locations up and operating for that service. And it's continuing to expand. There's a lot of uses for it.
Adam Parks (05:42.54)
I agree. And it's been interesting, but like now that we've kind of talked a little bit about the LPR technology, and I'll link your last receivables podcast below so that people can go hear more about the technology behind it. But really, where I wanted to concentrate on today was your kind of personal journey of growth.
It went from being employee number 22 to being part of a, you know, a sale and then running that company as part of a major international organization. I mean, that seems like a, a pretty meteoric rise, but you know, no story is as simple as it sounds. right? Like none of us get from where we started to where we are today in a straight line. And so talk to me a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced and have.
some of the adversities that have happened because we all know it's not a straight line, but like talk to us a little bit about what that personal journey feels like.
Jeremiah Wheeler (06:33.246)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and I'm pretty open and honest about it with everyone, been, you know, I've been sober now for six and a half years. September of this year will be seven years for me. And I think the biggest learning moment for me was working through and working my way up in the organization, but not only in the organization, but the industry, right? I think that for entrepreneur,
Jeremiah Wheeler (07:00.424)
folks and for people that are really go-getters and that hustle really hard, we go out into the market and we think that we have to be everything to everyone all the time. And, you know, I considered myself a people pleaser for many years, right? I want to please everybody around you. I want to be, you know, the person that people go to when they want to have a good time, when they want to go out and, you know, have drinks and dinners and, you know, connect and, you know, we find ourselves in Las Vegas.
Jeremiah Wheeler (07:30.344)
five or 10 or so times a year. And so it kind of starts to create in a way a lot of people, you know, I see it, it creates a little bit of a different persona. It's a, you you're living two lives in some cases, cause then you have to go home and you have to be dad and husband and family man. And you don't really know how to separate the two. right? And as a young entrepreneur, I was hustling pretty hard. I was traveling.
most of the time, five days a week. I mean, for the first two and a half years when I lived, when I started with DRN, I was living in a hotel five days a week. And so I was six and a half hours away from home and I commuted back and forth. And you you find things to do with your time. And you know, a lot of times it's like, go have dinner, go have a drink and go have two drinks and then, you know, work late, work really late.
And, you know, I'm working 18 hours a day sometimes and getting little to no sleep. So the quality of work-life balance was not that great. But I did it for years, right? And you push yourself beyond breaking points. And I think the number one thing that I learned was not knowing, right, you tend to disconnect from the people that are closest to you.
Jeremiah Wheeler (08:54.9)
because you're so focused on being the biggest and being the best and being the brightest and you know being everything to everyone you forget about the people that are closest to you and those are typically always the people that suffer right from from our bad habits and Bad habits can come in all forms right whether it's alcoholism or or or too much work or you know, enough quality time so
Adam Parks (09:20.461)
Yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (09:24.606)
There's been a lot of development for sure over the years that we can continue to dive a little bit deeper into, but that's just the surface really.
Adam Parks (09:34.37)
Well, and think it's a really interesting story because I've, you know, we've been friends through this entire process. right? And I think we met for the first time on a golf course. And back then, meeting on a golf course meant we were going to have some drinks and, you know, kind of play golf or lose a case of golf balls, I think is pretty much what happens to me. But it's been really interesting to see kind of that, that evolution of a professional, right? because you are from a professional standpoint, someone that I
Jeremiah Wheeler (09:50.994)
Yeah.
Adam Parks (10:04.692)
absolutely respect. right? Just through the years of our interactions and everything else, I think that you're one of those pillars of the both the debt collection and the recovery communities. And to be able to look at yourself and say, okay, hey, it's time to make a change. You know, it has inspired others of us to, you know, find that life work balance as we were talking, we're preparing for the podcast we were literally talking about.
You know, my daughter coming any day and kind of how I need to find that balance as well. So part of the reason that I wanted to do this podcast today was really to learn more from you because we've had some of these discussions, but they've been in passing or hanging out for a few minutes. So I was kind of interesting to, to bring that together. Was there a, um, you know, was there, was there a catalyst for you that helped you to identify, you know, how life had changed?
Right? Cause you don't go into it like that. Like you've never really been just like a party animal to be a party animal. It's always been more like you said, a people pleaser type thing. So is there any, you know, anything that you kind of identified in yourself that others might want to start looking inward to maybe evaluate?
Jeremiah Wheeler (11:11.346)
Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest catalyst for me was, was my wife, coming to me and saying, Hey, you have a problem and you need to, you need to get it fixed. Right. and immediately most people become super defensive and, know, I don't have a problem. we went back and forth with that for a little while. And then, you know, I think the number one.
Jeremiah Wheeler (11:39.376)
word for me right now in my leadership journey and my personal journey has been accountability and you know being accountable to yourself and not allowing yourself to lie to yourself right. I think that we don't consider them lies we consider them small justifications that end up adding up to bigger things and I think that if we discount what our loved ones are telling us
Adam Parks (11:54.198)
in.
Jeremiah Wheeler (12:07.936)
And you continue to justify your actions and you continue to justify the things you do, even if it's working an extra two hours a day, then you become disconnected and you become another person, right? Because you're always on the defense and you're always pushing back because I'm right, you're wrong. and I think the biggest thing that, that catalyst moment that, really changed everything for me was it was, it was an ultimatum. And it was like, you know, it's either us or them.
Jeremiah Wheeler (12:37.606)
And so, you know, I had to take a step back and really look at my professional career and look at life in general and decide what was most important. And when I did that, you know, it took some pretty honest conversations with myself and with a therapist and with other people around me and, you know, looking at me from the outside, looking in and saying, do you really have a problem? And
Adam Parks (12:47.406)
you
Jeremiah Wheeler (13:06.792)
The answer was absolutely you do. And it's something that you need to get your arms wrapped around. And I think looking back now that, you know, that I am a different person from a professional standpoint, from a husband's standpoint and a father's standpoint is, you know, all those things were not important. And I think, you know, I've said this before, I talked on a panel last year and we were
Jeremiah Wheeler (13:32.286)
It was kind of the only panel I've ever been on that really wasn't focused on business. It was focused on professional work-life balance and having those hurts, habits, and hangups that we tend to have in life. And I thought it was very revealing. And what I said was, you know, we create identities for ourselves that we believe. This is who we are. This is who I have to be. In order to be successful, in order for people to like me, I have to be this way.
And I have to do these things. And typically the people that get left out are your family and your loved ones that are closest to you because you're so focused on being successful. You know, I grew up, I grew up pretty poor. I grew up in a broken home and I grew up in an environment that was full of drugs and alcohol and all the things that, you know, you don't want your kids growing up around. And that's the environment that I grew up in. And so, you know, I was given
Jeremiah Wheeler (14:30.672)
handed many generational curses that I was literally getting close to passing down to my kids and you know, I'm very fortunate and blessed that that I was able to break that cycle and that was the other conversation that my wife had with me was do you want to pass along the same generational curse to your daughters and then watch them pass it along to their kids and You have an opportunity to break it. And so, you know when we create these identities for ourselves, we're so focused on
pleasing other people and being the person that you think you need to be when in reality and that was that fear too in the back of my head was if I change who I am and who this this identity that I've built for people outside looking in and and you know I change I'm not no longer the cool guy that wants to take people to nightclubs and party and you know hang out till three three in the morning people aren't going to like me.
people aren't going to want to hang out with me and people aren't going to use my services or buy my product or whatever, right? You tell yourself all these little lies. And that was the biggest fear for me was flipping that, flipping the coin or flipping the spectrum and saying, I'm going to be something different and I'm going to focus on it. I'm not going to give up. I'm, I'm relentlessly pursuing.
Jeremiah Wheeler (15:51.752)
sobriety, I'm pursuing to be a better leader, to be a better example to my kids and to my employees. And so it took me about a year and a half, I would say, to kind of dump that old process, kind of nagging at the, in the back of your head of saying, you you're going to be a failure. And then realizing that people actually gravitated more to the new me than they did the old me. And
Jeremiah Wheeler (16:21.256)
you know, I got, and I continue to get example after example after example of people coming to me and saying, you know what, I've changed my life because of what I saw you doing. And so it's much of a, it's definitely a blessing for me. And it kind of created a true purpose in my opinion, where I think I finally found that. And it's great. mean, you know, I'm definitely happier than I've ever been.
Adam Parks (16:49.314)
Well, and your career has skyrocketed to over that time period to if you look at the last six and a half years where you know where you were where your organization was and where you are today seems like it's a meteoric rise. And just to note that I am one of those people who, you know, is modeling
themselves after the changes that you've made, seeing the success that it's brought not just to you, but to your family around you. right? And as someone who's been close enough to you to spend time with your family and go do some scuba diving and other things. right? Like on a personal level. And as someone who's just starting their family, it's definitely something and part of the reason I wanted to do this podcast today. So I'm to take it to a little bit of a personal level for myself. And I have some additional questions, but probably a little bit more related to myself too, but
How do you balance the workaholic side? I definitely understand the other side of things, the substance side, but the workaholic side is where I think I find myself struggling and I had found a really good balance for about two years. And so the first two years that my wife and I were together, I really found a good balance of how much time I should be spending working and how much time I should be spending not working.
Right, and a lot of that we still travel a lot, but my wife was traveling with me and so we found this kind of happy balance. But then something goes wrong, right, a deal goes sideways, whatever, and we find ourselves having to dig out of the pit. But how do you then, sometimes we have to do those things to stabilize a business or to save an organization, but once you, how do you shift back down again? Like how do you change modes?
Jeremiah Wheeler (18:30.548)
So I'll tell you for me, it's 100 % communication with my wife. My wife is my balance. She's the balancer and she's honest, brutally honest. so in my opinion, right, you have to have that accountability partner. And I heard another leader say one time, it's like, have to have a board of advisors around us that are our accountability partners.
Jeremiah Wheeler (18:59.976)
that are our personal advisors that keep us grounded, that keep us honest and that challenge us, not just in work, but challenge us in personal ways. And so when you think about doing like a 360 review with your team, right? And you're saying, give me honest feedback. Well, you're the boss. You're never really going to get true honest feedback all the time. And so, but in order for me to get honest feedback from my wife,
I have to communicate with her about what I'm doing. I have to communicate with her about the business and the structure and how we're doing things and what we're working on, what big projects keep me up at night. through that process, she understands when I need to be available more to the work side versus the family side. But at the same time, it's a challenge to say, you know, if I'm on the phone too much after five o'clock, she
Jeremiah Wheeler (19:57.598)
She comes to me and says, hey, you've been on the phone a lot lately. And so my immediate response is I could take all the fear and anxiety and stress of managing all the things, right? And all the problems. And I could be defensive about that and say, well, you don't understand. I got to be available. I got this problem and that problem. Or I could look in the mirror and say, accountability, honesty, she's right. And I need to shut it down, right?
Adam Parks (20:00.654)
Thank
Jeremiah Wheeler (20:25.522)
Because now I'm stealing from her, right? I'm taking away her quality time. And, you know, in order to be a strong team, you have to communicate and you have to be open and honest and, and not get defensive, with the person that you love the most. mean, that's the biggest thing is like, she's looking out for me, but she's also looking out for her and you have to respect that balance. And so, you know, that's one really, I ask for the, you know, the most time. And the other thing too, that
I think that a lot of people have a lot of struggle with is, you know, that personal me time, right? We think that we need me time away from our closest loved one. And that's not how I balance things. mean, every available moment that I have in my personal life is spent with my wife. you know, because I, I neglected that for years, thinking that I had to be something that I didn't need to be. And.
Jeremiah Wheeler (21:24.254)
you know, I'll never take that for granted again. And so, you know, the only time I do play golf is typically when I'm at a work event, when I'm entertaining clients. I don't play personal rounds of golf on the weekend. I don't go to the hunting club and, and, know, hang out with the boys. I don't go, I don't go do all those things because I'd rather be hanging out with my wife and talking about the next real estate investment that we're doing or talking about the things that excite her and that make her.
Jeremiah Wheeler (21:53.768)
you know, feel like she's part of the team. And that's the important part for me. And so I think it kind of goes to, you have to be willing to truly willing. There's a willingness that we tell ourselves is like, I'm willing to do things right. That for her, I'm willing to do things for my family without allowing that negative nag to come into your head to say, you deserve.
free time. You deserve to go play ball. You deserve these things. We don't deserve a damn thing. You know, no human deserves anything. And so the minute that you stop allowing yourself to lie to yourself that you deserve something, the better off you'll be. Right? If anything, we, we deserve to be truthful with each other and we deserve to give each other all of our time. That's what we signed up for. Right? That's the marriage. That's the bond.
Adam Parks (22:44.94)
Yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (22:47.332)
And those are the vows that we took. so living that, I think has allowed for us to become closer than I could have ever imagined and happier than we could have ever imagined. And, you know, that's the, that's the balance. She, she checks me whenever it's time to be checked and says, you got to slow down. cause she's kind of protecting me from myself too. Right. and you know, we don't allow ourselves to get defensive when we, when we call each other on our stuff.
Jeremiah Wheeler (23:17.404)
And so, you know.
Adam Parks (23:18.496)
Empowering your partner is what I take from that. Empower your partner and listen. right? If you chose a partner, you chose a partner for a reason. I chose my business partners for a reason too. right? And it's because we can have that open, honest communication. And if I can't do that same thing at home, then that would be a really terrible situation. Sure.
Jeremiah Wheeler (23:22.994)
Absolutely.
Jeremiah Wheeler (23:28.562)
Yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (23:34.088)
Yeah, and the other thing too, would say, just one other small point is don't allow other people to influence your relationship. Don't allow other people to talk bad about your spouse or to give you advice because their life or their personal relationship is crap. Don't let them project that onto your relationship because that's the worst thing. If you want to talk to someone about your relationship, talk to your wife or your husband.
Jeremiah Wheeler (24:03.828)
and be honest and just communicate. It's not always going to be what you want to hear. It's not always going to be, you know, nice and warm and fluffy. You got to get the hard conversations out there. And so, you know, that's what we teach our daughters is communication, communication, communication. You have a relationship will never work out if you can't openly and honestly communicate about your feelings, you know, regardless of whether you it's good or bad. You got to throw it out there and then deal with it. Right.
Adam Parks (24:13.837)
Yeah.
Jeremiah Wheeler (24:33.848)
and so, yeah, that's, that's it. mean, I think it's, it's not a, it's not a secret, but it is tough. It's hard. It's hard to have those conversations.
Adam Parks (24:41.71)
The shift has always been difficult for me going from one speed to the other. don't I upshift really well. I do not downshift really well. But like, you know, I'm, I guess it's my ADHD, but I'm the calmest person in an emergency and the most frantic person in a time of calm. And it takes me generally a week or two for me to really downshift from that, but I have to put
Jeremiah Wheeler (24:52.52)
Yeah.
Adam Parks (25:10.51)
I have to put things in place like time limits on when I'm going to depart from doing something regardless of whether or not it's done. And if I can't get the work done, then I probably need more people. And not that I just want to always add more people and have that be my, you know, my silver bullet, so to speak, but it's kind of the the realization that I've come to over time. And that's probably why our organization is grown by 100 % in two years. But
Adam Parks (25:38.754)
Because I'm realizing that you can't just throw it all on your shoulder. And as someone who started their business as a one man band. right? Like Branding Arc was a one man show for 10 years. And having done all of those jobs, it's sometimes it's hard because you know, you know what can be done, you know what's possible. But sometimes you have to let other people fly and kind of organize things for them to be successful. And I've tried to change. I'm curious to your feedback on this. I've tried to change my role in the
I'm trying to look at being a CEO a little bit differently. I think my primary job at my company is to empower the people around me and to give them the tools to do their job. And that has become my primary focus across the entire organization. Do you have the tools to do the job? If somebody comes to me with a problem, do you have the right tools to solve this problem?
Adam Parks (26:31.808)
And that doesn't mean that you don't assist and you don't drive strategy and other things, but I think that's really my number one responsibility as a CEO.
Jeremiah Wheeler (26:39.518)
Well, it is and it's, it's, that's kind of crossing the chasm, right? Where you, where you, a lot of times we cross the chasm and we never realized we crossed it and you look back and go, wow, I crossed, I crossed it and I became a leader. And so, you know, people ask me all the time is like, your leadership journey, like when did you realize that you were a leader? And I said, well, it just kind of naturally happened and I didn't really realize it, right?
But then you start to understand that you have to start letting go of things and you have to start empowering others to lead. And I think one of the things that kind of started making, forcing me to do that was creating and having always a succession plan. You know, being bought by a larger organization that's publicly traded and worldwide, that's one of the things they require. And they want you to have an immediate replacement at all times.
Jeremiah Wheeler (27:37.992)
facing that reality was, wow, well, I don't think they're ready yet. Well, why aren't they ready? It's on us to get them ready, right? And if we're developing leaders the right way and we're developing people the right way and we're giving them all the tools and we're giving them everything that's within us in terms of how we manage, how we make split level decisions, how we do those hard things and come up with those hard strategy answers to the questions that we're faced with.
Jeremiah Wheeler (28:07.528)
That's what we're required to teach our people. And so, you know, back to that first word earlier that I used of accountability, the second word is trust. And I think trust is really important for me in trusting the people around me. I have to trust myself, first of all, that I made a decent decision and hired the right people, that I did my due diligence. And then I have to trust to let them go and do their thing, right?
We hire professionals, we hire strategic specific people for specific roles that they've trained for, that they've gone to school for, that they've done different courses for. They're ready. You just got to let them do their thing, right? And empower them, give them everything in the bandwidth to go do it. And so I think that, you know, when, when, when we're letting go of all those things and we learn to start delegating tasks and duties and responsibilities,
And then telling people, trust you to do a really good job. I trust that you're going to manage this as I would, and that you're going to manage it like it's your own, right? And I'm going to, I'm going to compensate you appropriately. I'm going to support you. I'm going to defend you. And I will be here for you every single step of the way. It creates that bond that people feel like they're part of something great and they're part of a family.
And then they will, you know, they'll run over hot coals for you. And, you know, those are the people that I want to surround myself with, but I also want to make sure they know that I'm here for them. And, you know, that trust is a really big component in my opinion.
Adam Parks (29:47.054)
You know, for me, it's interesting to talk to someone who found their way over the chasm. And I think that's a really good explanation for that growth into a leader, right? Like we're the do everything person until it's time to make the leap. And I never actually found my way across the chasm. I got thrown across the chasm. And it was, you know, was an emergency in my family. My mother, you know, became fatally ill overnight and required an ostomy nurse.
Jeremiah Wheeler (30:07.025)
Yeah.
Adam Parks (30:15.636)
So I studied everything there was to learn about ostomies and, you know, managing that process. And I had to go do that for six months. Just so happened that was the day that my divorce started. So it was a lot of things happening at the same time that I couldn't physically manage. And really what I ended up having to do was I had to hand over my role in the organization to other people because there was nobody to do it. couldn't be.
Adam Parks (30:41.164)
I couldn't be awake for 20 hours and then get on a call and be a reasonable, well thought out person. Like I just physically hit my barrier and I was forced into it. I wish I had taken advice from those that I trust, including you that were telling me to, you hey, you got to start building your team. You got to start building leaders around you. Can't be a one man show forever. Like you really need to start doing that. And it wasn't until I was forced into it and
you know, as crazy as it sounds, it's probably the greatest thing that's ever happened in my career because it forced me into a new way of thinking. And my management style is completely different than it ever has been before. I have an Executive VP on my team who joined the team with no job description. And I said, I want you to go investigate the company. I want you to go around and I want you to tell me what's wrong here. What am I not doing? Well, you have you just got you just got here for the first time.
Her first day was actually at a DCS conference like hey meet me in Vegas for this show and we started going through and it's like here's all the departments like go spend time in each department and come back and tell me what's wrong and within a couple of weeks she came back and said Here's my job role. Here's what you need me to be doing right now. Here's where I can add the most value and I said perfect go
Right? And I've been trying to empower the people in my organization ever since to be able to replace me. If I'm not hiring my replacement, I'm never going to get to the next level. I'm never going to be able to take the step back and look at the real estate investments and do the other things that I'm fully capable and should be focused on because I'm so laser focused on the minutia. And that as a leader is a terrible trap to fall into. And you have to take that step back and see the wider vision.
And as I've watched you take that journey over the last 10 years, it's been inspiring. You've inspired many of us to kind of take that step back and better understand ourselves. And I really do appreciate you sharing your story because it's not always easy to come up here. don't think some of the things we've talked about today I've never talked about with pretty much anybody in the space, nevermind on camera that I'm gonna release on a podcast. So.
Adam Parks (32:52.27)
I really do appreciate you coming on and telling your personal story. I had one more thing though that I wanted to call out here today before we kind of wrap up. Aren't you working on a book?
Jeremiah Wheeler (32:52.308)
you
Jeremiah Wheeler (33:04.308)
I am. Yeah, I actually have it right here in front of me. So it's a bit of a, you know, I've had these conversations with people for years and people like, well, how did you get started? Similar to our conversation that we just had and kind of going through the whole, you know, I talk more about my childhood, obviously, in some of the stories that I tell. And then, you know, I was one of the few people that got out.
kind of thing, right? I can go look on the inmate roster of our county sheriff's department and I probably know four or five people that are locked up right now. you know, I was one of the few that got out. You know, a lot of my friends are either dead or locked up. And I was very fortunate and lucky. so, you know, going through that evolution and the leadership journey and the generational purses and all those things.
Everyone's like, man, you need to write a book. need to write a book. And I've heard that for years, right? And so it was somewhat bad timing, but really is there ever good timing? You know, I started, I started, I started school almost two years ago now and getting my MBA. And not long after doing that, I was approached by a writer and said, you know,
Adam Parks (34:17.432)
Never.
Jeremiah Wheeler (34:33.492)
It was just a really good relationship, a good conversation. And I said, you know what? I took the leap. I'm getting my MBA. That's kind of the best way that I can describe it. I'm two feet in wide open. And so I had, you know, I made the decision. I'm writing a book and it's been fun. It's been a journey for sure. And doing a lot of recordings and scripting and
rewriting and editing and reading again and again and again and it's coming along. Hopefully I'll have it out within the next few months. I do not have a title yet. That's probably the hardest thing for me is coming up with a title, right? Because it's like you have, it's your life story, at least up until this point, right? There's a lot more life to live and a lot more stories to write, but it kind of goes all the way almost to current date and
Adam Parks (35:22.84)
you
Jeremiah Wheeler (35:32.146)
Now I've got to come up with a title that encompasses all the chaos and craziness, but also the leadership journey and the things that I kind of want to talk about and get out there. so it hopefully will be out before summer. Let's put it that way.
Adam Parks (35:47.234)
Well, we'll be sharing it through our channels when that book becomes available. And as a creative professional, I can tell you, Jeremiah, it's going to hit you all at once. Sometimes I sit around trying to go with a title for something or, a particular line or a tagline or a logo or whatever. And then it just snaps. It's going to be while you're driving somewhere or you're standing in the shower. We call them shower thoughts. you know, it's it. I'm telling you, that's where a lot of it comes from. It'll it'll just hit you all at once and it won't be when you expect it. But.
Jeremiah Wheeler (35:56.125)
Yes.
Jeremiah Wheeler (36:07.933)
Yeah.
Adam Parks (36:16.878)
I really look forward to continuing to watch the journey. I want to thank you for coming on, sharing your insights, sharing your personal story, your personal journey. This is probably the best podcast.
Jeremiah Wheeler (36:29.3)
Thank you. I appreciate you having me. And I enjoyed, thank you for sharing as well. I think that's important, right? The only way we can ever get through things is to throw it out there.
Adam Parks (36:40.95)
I really do appreciate for those of you that are watching, if you have additional questions you'd like to ask Jeremiah or myself, you can leave those in the comments below and we'll be responding to those on LinkedIn and YouTube. If you have additional topics you'd like to see us discuss, you can leave those in the comments below as well. And I'm willing to bet I can get my friend Jeremiah back here at least one more time to help me continue to create great content for a great industry. But until next time, Jeremiah, really thank you so much for your insights. Looking forward to seeing you at CRS in May.
Jeremiah Wheeler (37:08.02)
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you having me.
Adam Parks (37:10.358)
And thank you everybody for watching. Thank you for your time and attention. We'll see y'all again soon. Bye everybody.
Jeremiah Wheeler (37:15.966)
See ya.
