So here's me a young kid from this place that's not supposed to have toy companies making

it work, growing this thing and feeling kind of cocky.

And as I've come to learn that a little bit of ego and pride leads to overhead and just poor decision

making. And very quickly the company went from being a hero to zero because we tipped some

covenants with their bank, got upside down our balance sheet, and I was thrown into

special loans. And that was actually in a fantastic forcing function to me to

stop and reflect, you know, for maybe the first time and a long time

as to what had gone wrong. The thing that I've come to learn is that pride comes before the fall. I'm Sreni Rao and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window

into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements,

built thriving businesses, written best selling books, and created insanely interesting art.

For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakable Creative.com.

Brad, welcome to the unmistakable Creative.

Thanks much for taking the time to join us.

Hey, I am super excited to be here today and really looking forward to the conversation and seeing

what we're going to explore together.

Yeah, so I was introduced to you

ran a way of Dan Martel and his wife and when he told me you ran a toy company I thought yeah I have a one-year-old nephew and I've always loved toys so I definitely want to talk to Brad

you have a new book out called Start- Santa, all of which we will get into.

But given the subject matter of the book, I wanted to start by asking,

what is the very first toy that you remember getting as a kid,

and how did that end up influencing where you've ended up and what

you've been done with your life? Yeah look that's a great question because I think

...