Transforming Tragedy into Triumph with Lori Raymond

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This show is sponsored by DN tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
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dent ten, you're giving back ona global scale. Hello all, my

(00:21):
entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcometo the Michael Esposito Show, where I
interview titans of industry in order toinform, educate and inspire you to be
great. Hello all, my entrepreneursand business leaders, and welcome to the
Michael Esposito Show where I interview titansof industry in order to inform, educate

(00:42):
and inspire you to be great.My guest today is a dancer, an
artist, an inspiring leader, andso much more. She has been in
sales since she was a little girl, following her dad around in his commercial
real estate business. Soon she becamethe sales and marketing lead for her husband's
business, Tourmaline Enterprise. But whenhe passed away in twenty fifteen, she

(01:07):
made a decision to take over andbecome CEO. At the time, the
business was in decline. Under herleadership, she grew the company by over
three hundred and fifty percent. Todayshe prefers the title of CVO Chief Visionary
Officer. Please welcome CEO of TurmalineEnterprises, Laurie Raymond. Welcome, Laurie.

(01:34):
Hi, good morning, Michael.Thank you. Wow, that was
quite an intro. It's like weshould wrap it up now. It is
and I know that I'm butchering thename of the company, and I'm sure
we'll get to that in a second, but yeah, you know, you
filled out the intake form and forour audience, I usually have an intake

(01:55):
form that I send out to allof my guests, and every guest responds
differently. Some fill it out withthe copy and paste their bio, which
I'm perfectly fine with, doesn't botherme one bit. They put a couple
bullet points. Cool with that too, whatever it is. And then there's
some guests that take the time toshare their whole life story with me in
the intake form. And when Iopened up your intake form and I saw

(02:17):
it, I went WHOA. AndI read through everything and you really shared
and took the time, and sojust reading your story and everything else that
we're going to get in, Ifelt that you deserved a little bit more
of a unique, custom tailored introfor yourself. Wow, I feel really

(02:38):
special. That was great. Thatwas great. You know when you think
about if I'm ever, if I'mever about a big stage, how would
somebody introduce me. No, I'mjust gonna it by when I get there.
You can. You can be thatguy I'll intro You'll be I'll be
more than happy to do that.So you said, good morning, and

(02:59):
you know what I love about wheremy show has gone. And you and
I were talking a little bit offlineabout this. When I first started,
I'm in Poughkeepsie, New York.And when I first started, I had
a lot of my chamber guests.My chamber friends come on as guests and
they're all local to me, andthey would come here in studio and everything.
And then as the podcast grew andI got hooked up with ten X
stages and other pr agencies, Istarted having guests from all over the country,

(03:22):
more so the East coast. Ihad a lot of Florida, maybe
some Midwest. And then now I'mkind of like spreading my wings over to
the West coast and you're all theway in California. So this is really,
really cool. It's very cool.It's very cool. My sister used
to live in New York and I'mthinking, now, you know, you're
three hours ahead. It's like lunchtimefor you, and I'm just having my

(03:45):
first cup of coffee. And howgreat the world is these days with technology.
I mean, I had a doctorwho once, his wife once said
the world is an egg. Andshe was from Brazil. And there's a
crazy story that goes with that.You know. I have a distributor in
Brazil, and my late husband wentto this doctor and we found out through

(04:12):
just a few questions that he wasactually the nephew of my distributor in Brazil's
aunt, wow, best friend,one of his best friends, sorry,
not his aunt, one of hisbest friends, and this doctor was her
nephew. And it was like,okay, we're in California, this is

(04:34):
all the way in Brazil, andhow weird the world is. And when
he ended up coming up here fromBrazil, they had us Ober for dinner
and his wife said, the worldis an egg. It's no bigger than
that, right, you know,And you really realized, like the world
is just shrinking because of technology,you know, yeah, and it's expanding

(04:57):
and shrinking at the same time,right, because and our social networks and
all these different things, like Imean even like this, like the podcast.
Right, we're getting to know eachother through through this format. And
you know, who knows, ayear or so from now, we see
each other at a trade show andgo, oh, my goodness, I
know you're from the trade from fromthe podcast. Yeah, I know,
I know, or hey, Iknow somebody in New York I can call

(05:17):
up. That's right, Yeah,exactly exactly, and it happens for sure.
So you aren't. You currently livein California, but you didn't grow
up there. You grew up inWashington, and I would love to learn
about your upbringing. And I introducedyou as a dancer and an artist,
and I would love to hear aboutthat passion and where it wins. Yeah,

(05:41):
it's funny. You know, youdon't really talk when you get to
be the stage of life. Youdon't really talk about when you were so
much younger. But thanks for asking. I had a really unique upbringing.
In fact, my sister was tellingme last night on the phone, you
have to watch this movie. It'sour story, it is our life.
And I was like, oh,okay, great, anyway, she started

(06:01):
telling me about it, and itreally is. So our life is pretty
pretty unique and yet pretty not unique, right, kind of normal. But
I grew up in a small townin Washington called Edmonds, and it's right
on Puget Sound, so we youknow, out of my bedroom window you
could see the ferry boats going outin the morning and going out to the

(06:27):
Olympic Mountains behind and going out tothese little islands. And off to the
right is a very famous island calledWouldby Island, and you could see that,
and I had relatives living over onwould Be Island. But I mean,
it's just like this picturesque, beautifultown and very kind of almost Norman

(06:47):
Rockwallish in some ways, right.But what made us really unique was my
dad is Jewish and my mother isnot. And now today they have been
married sixty nine years. So ifyou think back sixty nine years ago,

(07:09):
there were not a lot of Jewsmarrying non Jews, or non Jews marrying
Jews, right so, or anyother inter religious or interracial marriages going on.
So those people always stuck out right. Well, in the town I
was in, my dad was oneof two Jewish people. That was it.

(07:30):
Yeah, you're in New York,so you don't know what that's like.
No, now we don't. Thatis shocking, right, And I
went to Catholic school and I hadJewish friends. Okay, yeah, exactly.
Plus nobody knew what we were.And my parents had always said that,
you know, that they had challengesgetting married, and so that they

(07:55):
would allow my sister and I togrow up and make up our own minds
when it came to religion and faithand all that. And years later we
both told my parents that that's prettydetrimental to a child, like kids need
a foundation in you know, ourreligion was the love we had, and
so that was our foundation. Andso in that way we were incredibly blessed

(08:20):
and lucky because my parents, youknow, obviously sixty nine years later,
they bucked the odds and they andthey made it right. But so that
made us a very unique family.And there was I clearly remember there was
another girl in school who was Jewish. Her mother was Jewish and her father

(08:41):
was Jewish. And when I reallywent through that seeking in my life of
wanting to belong right, I wentto temple with her every week. You
know, her family embraced me andsaid, come to temple with us,
and so I did, and Idid that for about two and a half
years. And so my father wasvery artistic. My sister was very linear

(09:05):
in studies and athletic and that sortof thing. And I got into dance
when I was very young. SoI was I don't know, elementary school
age, you know, early elementaryschool. And I took ballet, and
then my mother had us taking piano, and you know, we did all

(09:26):
these other things. We were veryvery lucky, and I just gravitated towards
dance because it just made sense tome. I could, I could express
myself well in dance, and soI stayed with ballet and then jazz as
I got into my teen years,and then I clearly remember when I was

(09:52):
seventeen and I'd never been there,but I started dancing hula. I just
saw your eyebrowser raise. I don'tknow if your audience is ever going to
see eyebrows raised, but that wasa good one. Yeah. And and
so here I am in Washington,never been to Hawaii, and I just
somehow was introduced to it and foundfound what's called a kuma hula uh Hawaiian

(10:20):
dance teacher in the town I livedin, and it was a woman who
had lived on the islands for yearsand came back and started teaching out of
her home. And I fell inlove with it, and that really took
me down a path of more uhethnic type dance. You know. I

(10:41):
took belly dancing and I and Idanced, you know, hula, And
to this day, I still dancehula. If I go, if I
go to Hawaii, I go andI will find a hulau which is a
hula school, and I will,you know, take a class or I'll
you know, because I absolutely loveit. You can dance it. You

(11:03):
can dance hula until any age ofyour life, and being in my sixties
now, you know, and youdon't need a partner. That's the other
thing. It's very organic, it'svery natural, and you can and you
don't have to have a partner todance it. So and then, you
know, I was in my lateteen early twenties and my old ballet instructor

(11:30):
it was like the disco era,and she said, hey, let's start
teaching some disco. So I partneredup with her and we put together a
group of people and we would teachdisco. Believe it or not, this
was clearly in the late seventies,so I am dating myself. But it

(11:52):
was a fun time, you know, it was a really fun time.
And we also put together a cancan troop. If anybody knows what can
can is, so can can isa form of French dancing where it's raucous
and wild, and they used todo it in bars and women would raise
their skirts and shake them and doall this stuff. Well, we put

(12:15):
together a can can troop and wewould randomly just go into bars and jump
on the counter and start doing cancan and then we would wrap up our
music and out the door we wouldgo. That is like such a fun
adventure. I feel like that youexperienced through those times. Yeah, my

(12:37):
eyebrows raised during a hula one,because yeah, it is unexpected. And
I started thinking, as you weretelling me more and interesting, like how
you said me being in New Yorkand of course seeing more people that are
Jewish, and I started thinking,well, you are on the West Coast,
and I guess you would meet morepeople from the Islands, which which
would make sense that you would learnabout hula. And for me, I've

(12:58):
really never seen a hula dance outsideof maybe in the cartoons or maybe go
into a resort. Now that Ithink about it, you might see something
like that, but very it's veryrare that you see it. To your
point that you had said earlier,of like picking up hula, I am.
I am familiar with belly dancing.My aunt actually took up belly dancing,
and I remember her doing it fora birthday party because we have cousins

(13:22):
who are Lebanese, and so oneof one of our uncles, you know
as they're called out of respect,of course whose Lebanese. I think it
was his like fortieth or his fiftiethbirthday. I was a little kid,
and my aunt came out in thefull garb, the belly dancing garb,
and it was really cool to seeher performed because she was doing it as
as kind of like a gig aswell. She was, she was doing
it, so it was cool tosee her perform the belly dance and to

(13:46):
see, you know, all thebeautiful jewelry and you know, different accessories
that come with it. So itwas really cool. Something that was now
you're making Now you're making me likeempty my secrets here. I worked in
eleven, he's a restaurant and bellydance there as well. Oh my goodness,
that's so cool. Well, wellI'll give you a secret back then,

(14:07):
my So, we culturally we haveLebanese in our family, so Lebanese
and belly dancing is part of theculture there. And so what we started
doing when when we got older,my cousins and my uncles and father,
we would start getting like a guysnight out and we would go to different
Lebanese restaurants in the city. Andit was a guys night out for the

(14:30):
Lebanese restaurant of the Lebanese food,because it's it's all that you know,
it's not just one big meal.It's kind of very family style and there's
like little portions coming out. Imean, very many cultures do it that
way too, but in terms ofrestaurants in New York City that offer it,
it was something that we used todo guys night out and we would
have we'd wear a Lebanese restaurant andof course the belly dancing is a big
attraction for the guys, all ofus included. So there's my confession for

(14:54):
you. If it makes you feelbetter, I like it I like it.
That's a kindred spirit for me.I love it, you know.
And we share some more things incommon in that, you know, I
took ballet. My sister and Itook ballet when we were growing up,
and piano when we were growing upas well. And I think these different
after school type of things that wewere doing kind of helped develop us differently

(15:18):
in school and learn differently. AndI'm interested on your perspective of that,
of you know, being raised withmusic and dance and the arts, not
just in the home, but alsobeing raised in a way where it's encouraged
and taking lessons. And I'm interestedin this because I think it plays out
later on in life when we startgetting into self development and we start thinking

(15:39):
about the things that you're doing withyour team of the Grant cardone University,
in that it's more than just goto school, come home to your homework.
It's go to school, come hometo your homework, and why not
learn about this? And so I'minterested in your perspective of that. Yeah,
Oh wow, Okay, so that'sreally a good question. You know,

(16:00):
it started not just with my danceand all of that, but my
parents really nurtured the love of thearts with my sister and I. And
when you think about the era thatI grew up in, which was the
sixties and the seventies, and thenI started raising children in the eighties,

(16:22):
you know, I was exposed.It's so funny, so many things are
coming back now that you know.This questioning has got my mind going in
some different directions. But out ofthat little town that we lived in,
right, my dad worked in downtownSeattle, which was like twenty eight miles

(16:48):
south of this town. And alot of the kids that I grew up
with and friends that I had,their dads worked either locally or they worked
in the next town over or not. A lot of them worked down in
downtown Seattle. My dad was incommercial real estate, as I told you,
and so he worked in the highrise buildings. And we used to

(17:11):
go downtown on a regular basis.We would go down every Saturday with my
mother to the Pike Street Market.Everybody's heard of the Pike Street Market,
which is very famous, and wewould go get our fresh produce and fresh
fish. And that's where Starbucks started. Right. Starbucks used to only sell
beans. They never sold brewed coffee. They used to just sell the beans,

(17:34):
and my mom would go get thebeans. And it was funny because
being Jewish, we would get freshbagels and go home and our friends would
come over and they had never seena bagel. Like they did not know
what a bagel was. Now youcan't even walk down the street in New
York and not know what a bagelis. Right. But so my parents

(18:00):
and I think it had to dowith my dad working downtown. Our social
activities went there, you know,meaning culturally. We went to the opera
house and we saw ballets and thatwas I had a once a year date
with my dad and we would goto the Jeoffrey Ballet together, and that
was a big thing for me.That was my you know, that was

(18:23):
my day with my dad. Andwe did all kinds of other things.
Of course, we went skiing andyou know, different things. But that
I don't even know what he didwith my sister. I'm gonna have to
ask her. I can't remember.But so he was a big lover of
jazz music, and so I wasexposed to some of the jazz greats at

(18:49):
an early age. And I wouldgo with my mom and dad and I
would I have seen Stanley Turantine andChuck Mangioni, and and it just led
me into a love of live concerts. You know. I saw Johnny Mathis
when I was like seventeen something likethat, sixteen, seventeen years old at

(19:12):
the Opera House in Seattle. Andour friends that were in the town that
I grew up with, they justit's funny. Years and years later,
I ended up going out for cocktailsone night with an old high school English
teacher of mine and had come backto town. We ended up going out

(19:33):
for drinks one night and we werechatting and he said, you know,
there was a group of teachers,the ones that you and I are talking
about. And he said, weused to get together and we would talk
about different students, and he saidwe all said there was something about those
yaffy girls. They were going togo do amazing things in the world,

(19:55):
like they just didn't belong in thistown. And I was is blown away
by that comment. You know,I thought, why us, You know,
we weren't, but I guess wekind of were really unique that way,
you know. And my sister's extremelyentrepreneurial. She well, she worked
in corporate America for years and years, but then just six years ago started

(20:19):
her own women's golf ware company.Oh wow, that's incredible. I know,
like she's super accomplished and she's mysheiro and I love that. And
you know, whenever I get stuckin business, I call her and I'm
like, hey, this is what'sgoing on. And because she has a
huge corporate background in the garment industry, which is completely out of the industry

(20:45):
I'm in. But from her corporatebackground, i'll, you know, I'll
tap into her for advice. Andnow that she's a small business owner,
she calls me for small business advice, which is kind of cool. That's
cool. I'm gonna have to haveher on the show. Then. Yeah,
she's amazing, amazing. Yeah,that's really cool. And I think
this goes back to my original question, and I think you answered it just

(21:07):
beautifully in that it's that cultural exposurethat helps open up And when you're talking
about this teacher looking back and sayingthose girls are going to go off and
do amazing things, I think ithas to do with that cultural exposure that
you were exposed to, that Iwas exposed to, that so many other
and successful people are exposed to.Now, of course there's plenty of successful
people who aren't. But I thinkit's just a different element. I think
it adds a different perspective on things. And that's why I was so interested

(21:30):
in that in your background, andit comes across oh, thank you,
thank you. Well yeah, andyou know, you know, if you're
curious, I think that goes backto curiosity and your question about you know,
even training my own team and CardoonUniversity is you know, my mom
is eighty eight years old, andshe's she's fierce, Like she's fierce.

(21:56):
She was a secretary for a counselorand middle school system, right, so
she like she was not entrepreneurial,but she was sort of that rock in
our house, you know, whilemy dad was off doing commercial real estate
and all that. But my motherhas always had this insatiable appetite to learn.

(22:17):
And so she's eighty eight and theother day I got home, she
had I went to go visit herand my dad, and she had had
a newspaper article and she had cutit out and stuck it in something she
was sending home with me. AndI get home and I opened this and
I go there, she is tryingto teach me something new again. You

(22:37):
know, she's always reading and learning. And she was in her you know,
seventies and going to the community collegeand taken classes on you know,
music from the thirties and learning moreabout you know, composers and just and
she's just a super fun, curiousperson. And I think that she instilled

(23:00):
that in my sister and I andI think that's what I that's what I
try to pass on to the peoplethat I'm leading, is that if you
are always curious and always wanting toknow more and learn more, your life
is so much more fulfilling. It'sso much richer because you're open. You're

(23:23):
just open, right, if youthink you know it all and you go
about life in this very methodical,I know it all, nothing else is
going to phase me kind of mentality, you you close yourself off to experiences
around you. And I think,you know, when you look at our
lives and you're in New York andI'm in California. But from Washington to

(23:47):
New York, you couldn't get twomore different places, right, Culturally,
you could not get two more differentplaces. Yeah, And it's like Tony
Robbins says that you know, ifyou're not if you're not growing, you're
dying. And I think about itvery often too, and that you know,
I do workshops and public speaking anddeveloping your interconfidence type of workshops,

(24:07):
and I think about that when ifsomeone's there and they're not tuned in and
they're not you know, they're notthere because they want to learn or grow,
like well, then you know thisjust isn't right for you, because
you know this is it's all aboutpersonal development. It's all about growth,
and it's not about what you know, it's it's about what you can learn.
And I think the other the otherpart that I'm trying to get to

(24:27):
in terms of that statement there isI feel like I love this other quote
that I that I have on onmy on my computer. It's it's the
the teacher. I'm gonna butcher quotebecause I'm not in front of me,
But it's like the teacher can learnfrom the student, and the student can
learn the teacher. The student canlearn from the teacher, and a student
and the teacher can learn from thestudent. And what it means is like

(24:48):
what I'm thinking about in terms ofthe workshops of an experience that I had
is is that even if the personin the audience that I'm working with has
more experience than me, has moreknowledge than me, has more whatever you
want to call it than me.If they're in a growth mindset, then
whatever I'm saying to them something's goingto land with them and help them somewhere

(25:10):
in their life. And that's whoI'm trying to work with. And if
they're not in a growth mindset andthey're shut off to it, then they're
probably not ideal for me, andsomething's not right because they're just shut off
to your point of like, theyjust don't want to grow anymore, because
you could learn from anybody, LikeI learned from my daughters. We're six
and eight years old. I learnedfrom them, Oh my gosh. That's
who I learned from the most ismy grandkids, you know. And some

(25:34):
of my mentors that I really followare much younger than me. They have
a completely different mindset at thirty thanI did at thirty, and they're entrepreneurs.
Like when I was thirty, Iwas busy raising kids, right and
I always had a very entrepreneurial spiritand was always doing something outside of a

(25:56):
job. I had a nine tofive job, but I was always doing
something else side of it. That'sand now I look backwards from a different
viewpoint, right, And so Ilove learning from younger people. Yeah,
you know, I'm the oldest onein my office and now and to your
point in terms of like what you'rejust saying there of being the oldest one

(26:18):
in your office, right and havinga younger staff, is that's so important
as you're building a business, andwe're going to get into your business in
a little bit. But as you'rebuilding a business, it's not just for
now, it's for the legacy.And if you're going to build it for
a legacy and for a longer term, then you've got to tap into the
next generation and you got to appreciateand absorb them and take in what they're

(26:40):
looking for and what they want andnot just what we want as the older
generation. Exactly exactly. So speakingof the older generation you have you have
piqued my interest, my curiosity,as you said, on your parents,
because originally when you were talking aboutthem, you said, you know,
sixty nine years married and everything.I said, oh, that must have
been, but they're both still aliveand going sixty nine years of marriage.

(27:04):
I have two questions. One oneI hope is easier than the other.
The first one, which I hopeis the easy one, is what do
you have planned for their seventieth?What are you and your sister planning?
Yeah? Okay, good funtion.We haven't. We haven't gotten to the
seventieth yet. If you want meto answer that, or you want me
to wait till next question, no, god, yeah, is there anything

(27:26):
good? We haven't planned that yetbecause in about three weeks, my dad's
going to be ninety one. Ohso that's the big one. So that's
a big one. That's us.That's the big one. You know.
The ninetieth was the big one,and now he's he's going to make it
to ninety one. That's awesome.That's awesome. Yeah, we've had a
real we've had a real a challenge. Since April of this year. They

(27:49):
came down from Washington for a visit, right to visit my sister and I
and my sister had she had beenup there most recently. I was up
there for my dad's ninetieth which isOctober fourteenth, and she had been up

(28:11):
there most recently. And after thatsaid, you know, they just can't
travel on their own anymore. Theywere going to have to fly up and
fly back with them, and theyjust it's too tough. And I said,
okay, I get it. Ioffered to go up. She said
no, no, I got thisbecause she was going up for Jewish holidays
for Passover, and so she flewback with them, and four days later

(28:37):
they were supposed to come to myhouse, and without going into the whole
long story of it, they bothended up with COVID. Oh no,
yeah, and my dad ended up. I picked them up and brought them
to my house. She had somethingmajor going on and couldn't keep them at
her house. So I brought themto my house knowing that they had COVID,

(29:00):
and I'm like, got this,don't worry about it. I'm going
to take care of you guys andput them in their room and all that
started taking care of them. Withintwenty four hours, my dad was in
the hospital. So it has beena very rapid decline since then, because
my dad was walking a quarter ofa mile to a half a mile every

(29:21):
day before he came down, andnow he's been in bed since save Wral.
So it's really been hard because it'sbeen one thing after another, and
my sister and I had been tryingto get them to move down for at
least the last eight years. Butbecause they're so independent, and because they're
so stubborn, and because my motherthe Swede in my mother so stubborn,

(29:47):
she was like, no, weare fine. We you know, in
the same house that I grew upand from the time I was in the
seventh grade. Right Anyway, theycame down and he ended up in re
inspiratory failure for COVID and then gotthrough that, but was in the hospital
literally for five weeks, and thenended up going into a skilled nursing facility.

(30:11):
Now I've found this lovely little homeabout fifteen minutes from me. The
owners happened to be a registered nurseand a certified nursing assistant. They're married
couple, and they opened up thishome during COVID because they were so frustrated
with the medical system at the time, and they had both cared for their

(30:33):
fathers at end of life. Soanyway, my mom ends up not only
having COVID, but after that endsup with like two emergency surgeries. So
they'll never be back in Washington.We've just gone up and are preparing their
house to sell it. But theblessing is because there's always a blessing.

(30:56):
There's always something going on right that'sgood. We have my mom and dad
within fifteen minutes of me, andall all but two of the grandkids are
within fifteen or twenty minutes and greatgrandkids and they're so they're getting constant visitation

(31:17):
and people are there. Now.My mom has a new heart valve that
was one of her surgeries, andshe asked her doctor how long is this
valve gonna last? And they said, oh, it'll last at least ten
years. And she said, okay, I'm going to be here at the
time until i'm a hundred And wesaid, okay, let's roll, let's
go, you know. So,and it's it's wonderful to go every night

(31:41):
and visit my dad and play cardsand sit and talk about what's going on
with business and ask him is thisa good deal? Dad? Do you
think this is a good deal?Or do you think it's not a good
deal? And he'll tell me,well, this one's got more risk involved,
this one's safer. What is yourgut telling you? You know?
And I'm still getting advice from himat ninety one, and it's a blessing.

(32:05):
It's great. Well, my heartof course goes out to you and
hopefully, you know, things getbetter. But on the other side of
that, as you said, theblessing and all of that is phenomenal in
being close to them and them beingable to still talk and you go to
have play cards with him and allof this stuff. And I'm just thinking,
as you're sharing so much with me, how parallel our lives are at

(32:29):
different times, different places. Butit's so interesting in terms of like just
going back to the whole ballet thingand a piano thing. And then we
go into the parents and so myparents. I'm up in upstate New York,
which is about eighty miles north ofNew York City, and so my
parents live in New York City inQueens, New York, and they don't
want to leave there. And nowthey're only in their seventies and they don't

(32:50):
want to leave there. Whenever theycome up to visit me, they go,
you know, it's beautiful up here, Michael, but we have too
much going on in the city.You know. They dance and they do
all this other stuff, and theylove their life down there, and they
live in the house that I grewup in when we moved in there when
I was in seventh grade. Ohmy god. And so when you said,
I'm going it's incredible. The worldis an egg, Michael, and

(33:15):
you started with that, and I'mgoing to proceed a little bit further in
that one. I'm very hopeful thatmy life continues to be as parallel to
yours with your success and of coursewith your parents, and even though they're
they're aging in a little bit moreand sick right now, it's still just
a one wonderful life and we're goingto get into their life. That's my
second question for you. But whata wonderful life to get into your eighties

(33:36):
and nineties and have this determination tolive into your hundreds. And so I
hope that that's the same for myparents. But we also had an experience
with my grandmother very similar of aninsisted living where we didn't want to get
rid of to get her out ofour home and put her in a nursing
home because she lived with us.We wanted her in a safe place,
and we found a woman who wasa nurse and had built a home for

(33:59):
other because she had done it forher father in law, similar to your
story for your father. So I'mgoing, oh my goodness, I got
to share all of this with her, because this is crazy, how parallel
all of this is. And so, like I said, I hope that
it continues in this parallel universe.My parents just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary,
and so, oh god, Ihope that they can make it to
sixty nine as well. So Iam very interested in your parents and their

(34:23):
upbringing, and we're going to comeback to yours because there's so much more
of you doing commercial real estate.Well you didn't do commercial real estate,
but you tagging along with your dad. And there's a phrase that he said
that I want everybody to hear fromyou, but I want to just kind
of dig back a little bit moreinto their story, because I mean,
you know, your mother's eighty eight, now, your father's going to be

(34:43):
ninety one. Their upbringing must havebeen something interesting as well to get them
to commercial real estate and into educationand learning. And you're spreading your arms,
going they're going to be further fromgo ahead. Yeah, I mean
they were like polar opposites. Polaropposites. You know, my hands are

(35:04):
going apart because they're just so opposite. And I don't know how they ever
met and how this ever happened,you know, And that's the beauty of
travel and curiosity in the world.Right. So my dad is Russian Jew
and born in Montreal, Quebec,so he's Canadian. I mean, it

(35:27):
just gets so much more intricate andinteresting. His mother's his father used to
own six different shoe stores in Quebecin Montreal, and it was called Paramount
Shoes. And my dad is oneof two. He had a younger brother

(35:52):
who was eight years younger than him, and his mother was very My grandmother
was a worker, like she wasalways in retail and she was always working,
and she came from more of awealthier background than I believe his father

(36:14):
did. Don't know much about hisfather, my great grandfather, because he
actually committed suicide when my dad waseight. And the story that we've been
told, or that we believe,is that he had gotten into some financial
trouble in business and had taken outsome loans and was probably struggling to pay

(36:37):
those loans back and did not knowhow to do it and committed suicide.
And my father didn't even remember thisor know this until he was in his
forties and he was in some therapyand did some regressive type work, and
this is what came out. Andhe had always been told that his dad
was away on a business trip andhad a heart attack. So it wasn't

(37:00):
until he went and confronted his mother, who my grandmother had moved from Montreal,
Quebec when she remarried. She movedwith my dad and his brother,
who was eight years younger. AsI said, the first they went to
Chicago, then they went to California, then they went up to Vancouver,
British Columbia. They lived there,then they came back to California. So

(37:22):
high school years. My dad wentto Hollywood High and yeah, there's stories
there too. So anyway, sheultimately landed in San Francisco and settled in
San Francisco, right on Lombard Street, you know, the Cricket Street,
the famous Cricket Street. Yeah,yeah, yeah. And my dad finished

(37:50):
school and went into the military andwas up in Washington. He was in
the he was this was during theKorean War, and my mom and dad
met at a USO. My momwas otherwise engaged to another man who was

(38:12):
in the army, who was inKorea, and it kind of was expected
from the families that she and thisguy would marry and all of that.
And she met my dad and theyfell in love, and she was very
young, she was eighteen years old, and she said she would never write
a Dear John letter because you know, during it was wartime and different things

(38:38):
and different and she said, Idon't want to assume that what I'm feeling
now is real until I actually seethe person that I thought I was in
love with, right, And sowhen he came back, when his name
was Bobby, when Bobby came back, my mom said she saw him and

(39:00):
it was like seeing an old friendand she knew, she just knew.
And so that's how my mom anddad got together. And uh, my
grandfather, my my mom's dad.I think the story is the first time
that he came my dad came tothe house, my grandfather met him with

(39:21):
a shotgun at the front door andsaid, so I hear, so I
hear. You're Jewish, you know, and you want to date my daughter?
And what was your what was whatreligion was your mother? I guess,
yeah, Well, she sort ofwas raised in a Lutheran home Christianity.

(39:45):
Yeah, my mother, my grandmotherwas Swedish and my grandfather was Irish,
English and Scott. So I'm amutt, you know, I'm a
mutt for sure. But and andyou know, my my mother didn't know
what Jewish was. My mother's mother, she didn't even know what that was.
But it wasn't the guy that mymother was supposed to marry, right,

(40:07):
So they were like not happy aboutthis at all. And then my
dad, his parents, his motherand stepfather didn't meet my mother until after
my mom and dad had married,and then they went up to Vancouver.
They were living in Vancouver, andthe first time my grandmother met my mother,

(40:30):
who's no bigger than a minute.Okay, I'm just going to tell
you she's quite small. And shesaid, well, I certainly hope you
don't get any fatter, because Harolddoesn't like fat women. And my mom
said, well, welcome to thefamily, you know. So you know,
from adversity comes tremendous growth. Andthe amazing thing is is that that

(40:55):
again, it was the love myparents had for another that became the foundation
of our family and brought everyone together. You know, when my sister was
born, people finally started letting theirguard down, right, because she was
the first one. And for twoyears they were married for two years.

(41:17):
Before my mother's mother would come andvisit, she would sit in the car
and my grandfather would go in andvisit my mother, you know. And
yet my dad and my grandfather becamegreat buddies. And my dad gave the
eulogy at my mother's mother's funeral,and my dad's mother became very good friends

(41:43):
with my mother. And yeah,it was like, you know, but
they had to break down the walls, you know. It's we go back
again to the beginning of our showthat we were talking about being this world
getting smaller and smaller with technology,and I think the blessing of this world
getting small and smaller is that we'relearning about other cultures, and we're learning

(42:04):
beyond the stereotypes. And look,the stereotypes sometimes are true, and that's
okay, we can accept them forwhat they are. But learning about a
culture beyond those stereotypes and understanding maybewhere that stereotype comes from and then appreciating
it is what is really beautiful aboutour world today. And you know,
back then, it was a differenttime. And I think the thing that

(42:25):
we realize is that you didn't knowabout others, You didn't understand their cultures,
you didn't understand the differences, anda lot of assumptions were made without
being able to really get a fullpicture of what's going on. And so
I could just assume based off ofunderstanding certain parts of history in that there
was some assumptions of whatever it wasof and just using some simple things of

(42:49):
taking our jobs or taking our thisor whatever it is. And so therefore
I'm going to close off. Andit's nice to see that time was able
to chip away at that and helpeverybody appreciate each other. Oh yeah,
and then we were just this big, happy family. I mean it was
crazy because when when I ended upgetting divorced from my first husband, I

(43:13):
remember telling my dad, you know, sometimes it's hard to be having been
raised by Ozzy and Harriet, like, you know, like we kind of
had this utopian little upbringing. Andmy parents were very and are very sound
in the philosophies that they had abouthow to raise my sister and I.

(43:36):
I never saw my parents' fight never. That was not something that they felt
was necessary to do in front ofmy sister and I that if there was
something they disagreed on, they shelvedat that until we were asleep or not
in the house or whatever. Theywould find their way to to have their
conversations. I just didn't see themargue. I didn't see them disagree.

(44:00):
And when it came to discipline,my mom was more than disciplinarian, but
they agreed. They always agreed,And so I think what is so confusing
for kids is when there is conflictparents allow because kids can't articulate what's really

(44:22):
going on. All they see isall this anger, right, and it's
difficult for them to understand why twopeople are arguing. And sometimes it's necessary
to have an argument to break throughsomething right, But they don't know how
to work through that until they getolder. So if you're exposing them to

(44:46):
that all the time, that's why. I think that's one of the reasons
why we have such angry kids today. And I think kids are so unusually
angry. Sometimes I just want togo, what are you so mad?
Well? I would also blame someof the shows on TV, oh,
without a doubt, the dramas.I actually part of my whole interconfidence presentation

(45:10):
has to do with removing habits thatdon't serve us and replacing it with habits
that serve us. And one ofthe things I focus on, and I
really believe because I've experienced it inmy life, is that by removing shows
that have drama and violence and negativeyou know, just that that negative storyline
that makes you, that pulls youback in for more. You know,

(45:31):
that dramatic negative storyline of whatever itis, murders and divorces and and cheating
and all this, you know,all this bad stuff that that trust me,
I watched and loved you rite likeI was, What's when's the next
episode? Right? And when Iwent through my personal and continue to go
through my personal development journey and decided, I want to say it was about
two years ago that I decided,you know what, I'm no longer going

(45:52):
to watch violent movies and that kindof trickled into drama and other things like
that. And so therefore I haven'tseen a Marvel movie in a while,
you know. Yeah, and Iused to go to the premieres. But
I have noticed a change in mylife and how I'm able to be more
present in those moments of disagreement withmy wife and sure we raise our voice
and and things like that. Butthen we also say, well, let's

(46:13):
go step aside, let's go tothe room, close the door, and
let's talk, and we have theconversation, and yeah, you know,
the girls will come in and what'sgoing on. You guys are arguing.
Yeah, we're arguing, and weneed a minute and we need to talk.
But it's a much different argument todaythan it was than it once was.
And I think, you know,that's one little piece. There's so
much more, you know, likemeditation and all this other stuff. But
there's so much more. But Ido believe that, and I didn't believe

(46:36):
it before, but I do believethat the video games and the movies and
the show play a huge role init. And I will say that,
you know, this isn't just mebeing older talking about it. I mean
I used to have Call of Dutynight with my buddy, one of my
best friends. We had Call ofDuty Night. We would play Call of
Duty till two in the morning.And I loved that game. And I
still if I you know, ifI saw it playing, I'm like,

(46:59):
oh, that'd be kind of coolto play again. But I also understand
how it made me so desensitized toso many things in life more than just
well, and I agree with you, Michael, and I think that,
and you know, there's good thatcan come out of it and bad that
can come out of it. Butthere's obviously we obviously today kids are spending

(47:20):
way too much time on that screen, right. We know that studies have
proven studies have proven that it's verydetrimental to to people in general. But
it's the desensitization that I think allowskids to act out. And I say
kids because anybody younger than me isa kid. But you know, teenagers,

(47:43):
young adults all the way down toto you know kids in elementary school
that are kicking their teacher or doingsomething completely inappropriate. Well, they see
these things on screen and they're animatedcharacters, and there's no repercussions, there's
no consequences for it, right,for that bad behavior. They just see

(48:06):
it over and over again, whetherand young boys or girls who are playing
things like Call of Duty or whatever. People get killed and then there's not
a lot of repercussions that you justgo on and kill some more. Right,
So I do think that has atremendous effect on what's going on in
our society today. And that wecan go down that rabbit hole. First.

(48:30):
We're not we're going to get backto you, but I will say
that, yes, God, butI do agree with you that that you
know that desensitization has a lot todo with what's happening. And I will
say this, I want to puta little ownership on the parents as well,
because it's it's not necessarily just thescreen time, it's what are they
watching. And the only way you'regoing to find out what they're watching is

(48:51):
if you do it with them.And so my wife and I we will
watch the girls shows. We'll watchthe shows with them. We'll watch the
YouTube videos that they watch, andwe know what they We kind of know
what they watch, right, Imean, because they do tuck away sometimes
and watch their own thing, butthey're typically watching and they're younger, so
unfortunate in this sense right now.But video music videos or art videos or
different things and different toy videos andlike you know, these things are crazy,

(49:15):
but you know, the unpackaged unboxingvideos. But where I'm going,
where I'm going with this is thatthey also watch shows that I think sometimes
make the parents look stupid and thingslike that, and it's funny for the
kids, and I get that,and that's fine, but we'll see the
girls acted out sometimes and we haveto let them know, like, hey,
look, this isn't the ThunderMan,this isn't that episode, and you
got to stop there. And thenthey're they're like, oh, that's right.

(49:37):
Dad watches that with me and heknows, you know, or we
will cut it out. We'll say, you know, look, you're acting
a little bit too much like NickyDicky and Dawn and you need to you
need to chill out. We're notgoing to watch that for a week because
you're you think it's funny, andit is funny in that context. So
I think so the parents also needto be involved to really see what their
kids are watching and what they're doing. And I think it's really important we

(50:00):
want to go back to your parentsfor a second year because there was something
in there that was very important.There was two things that I thought,
you know, of course, ourwhole story is tremendously important, but two
things in terms of business that Ithought were very important for our audience to
kind of just talk a little bitabout and we don't have to go too
deep. One of the things hasto do with your grandfather's suicide and the

(50:20):
business loans. And I think thisis so important because we're talking you know,
my listeners, our audience, thepeople that are going to find this
podcast somewhere are somebody that is startinga business, that's an entrepreneur, or
that works in a business with anentrepreneur or a business leader or an executive
or whatever it is. And Ithink that when we get to this place
of loans, of debt, offinances, there's a tremendous weight that's put

(50:45):
on our shoulders, your shoulders,whatever it is. I think it's so
important to understand the big picture ofthings and the reality of things because look,
I mean, there's a movie outthere, right it's a wonderful life.
And what does he think? Hethinks his life is worth more dead
than alive. And so it's nota concept that's new to any of us.

(51:07):
Of I got this life policy,and my family will be better off
with the money. And so Ithink it's so important to realize the repercussions
of that, and that you know, the finances, they don't make the
person and they'll never make up forthe person, right, absolutely not.
And it's the legacy of what it'sleft behind, because I know my dad
was so determined and he's so driven. He's just that person anyway, which

(51:32):
is an amazing thing, because hisstepfather wasn't that way with him at all,
and this drive came from from withinhim. And I think that had
his father been around, they wouldhave been a force to be reckoned with.
I kind of write my own fantasyabout that in my head, about

(51:53):
had my dad really gotten to knowwho his dad was and been able to
appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit that obviously hehad. Man, could they have done
great things together? So I tapinto that to do great things, you
know, with my dad and gainknowledge from my dad that way. But

(52:15):
yeah, you know, you getinto business and you know, I just
and I don't know if I hadmentioned this to you when I talked to
you before, but I think sothat I had read something about getting rid
of the three p's. Go ahead. Yeah, so you need to get
rid of the three p's in yourlife. The first is that whatever you're

(52:40):
going through is permanent. Nothing's permanent. Everything is changing, you know.
I always go back to somebody whoI just adored was Bruce Lee and you
know, be fluid, bewater.Its life is always changing, so nothing
is permanent. So whatever you're in, whatever that storm is, it's not

(53:04):
permanent, nor is it pervasive.Pervasive is meaning that it's seeping into every
part of your life. You allowit to seep in if you want to,
but it shouldn't be pervasive. Whateveryou're going through. You can think,
oh my god, my whole lifeis falling apart, when it could

(53:28):
be just you owe money to thisloan person, right, don't allow that
to seep into every part of yourlife. Compartmentalize it, and nothing is
personal. It's not personal, itsnumbers and its business. So if you
can get rid of the three p'sand eliminate those from your vocabulary and your

(53:52):
mindset, how great does that openup your world? I mean, it
just really allows for expansion in yourmind because whatever you're going through, it's
just compartmentalized into this small thing andyou can deal with it that way,
you know, versus thinking it,you know, all omnipresent, right,

(54:15):
it's all over you, right,yeah, and you know, and there's
I mean, certainly there's exceptions.You know, you end up with a
with a terminal illness or or somethinglike that. And it does become pervasive,
it does seep into every part ofyour life as you're dealing with it.

(54:35):
But you know, and I canthink of other things. Yeah,
I do remember you actually sharing thatwith me. Now that that you went
through the three piece. I lovethat get rid of the three piece.
Nothing's permanent, nothing's pervasive, andnothing is personal. And I think that
that's exactly why I wanted to bringthis up, was because I knew you'd
have some really great insight to sharewith everybody of Like, look, I
if you're dealing with a hard timeright now, whatever it is, financial,

(54:58):
personal, whatever it is, Ithink that you dig into this and
understand the idea of nothing's permanent.You know, when you think about that,
that has to deal with happiness too. So if you're in a dark
place right now, just think aboutit. When was the last time you
were happy? How long did thatlast? For? Right? It's going
to change? Things change, yes, they do. Yes. And then

(55:19):
the entrepreneurial spirit that you come from, and I want to get into your
entrepreneurial spirit now of six shoe storesand having the string of shoe stores,
I got to ask my parents becausemy mother came to the country through Montreal
and yes, yes, yes,this we couldn't. We couldn't craft this
podcast any better, could we.My mother, So she's from Haiti,

(55:45):
and when she came to the States, she came in through Canada, and
we have family that lives in Quebecand in Montreal, and so she came
through in the States through there,and so I'm interested to find out if
she knows the shoe stores because shelikes her fashion. She's fashionista, and
so we would as little kids wouldtravel up to Quebec in Montreal when we

(56:05):
were kids as well. Great,yep, yep, So I'm familiar with
it. We used to go thereall the time, our cousins were up
there, and my godmother lived thereand everything, so it's very familiar with
it. So I can't wait tofind out at the shoe stores. But
this brings me into your entrepreneurial journey, right, And I kind of always
like to dig back into the parents, the grandparents, or somebody that was
a mentor. And the reason forit is because I feel like, as

(56:25):
entrepreneurs, there was somebody who kindof laid the groundwork or planted that seed,
and we may may know it orwe may not know it, but
I feel like this was going onin your life of this grandfather starts youse
shoe stores. Then your father isthis commercial real estate mogul for what it
is, right, and then ofcourse you get into your own entrepreneurial journey

(56:47):
of selling, making and selling jewelryand then starting to work with your husband
in the business. And so Iwanted to go into that. Now.
You know, I'm going to teeyou up with just bringing you back to
being a little girl with your littleyellow pad and writing notes with dad and
some of the lessons that he taughtyou on your journey. Oh wow,
that's such a good memory. Soyeah, you know again, now I'm

(57:10):
going to have to ask my sisterwhere was she on Saturday night? Because
Saturday mornings I would get in thecar with my dad and he had just
started in commercial real estate. Iwas young. I was about six or
seven years old, so obviously tooyoung to be left alone. And I
would get in the car with himand we would drive around and he would

(57:32):
find apartment buildings, and I didyou know, obviously we didn't have the
technology we have today, so Ihad a little legal pad and I would
write down the addresses of all ofthese buildings and we would drive around for
two or three hours and write downaddresses, and he would pock at a
different area on Saturdays. And thenwhat he would do is he would go

(57:55):
home and start researching those addresses.Who was the owner, how long had
they owned the building? You know, when was the last time the building
had sold, what did itself for? And then he would reverse directory and
contact the owners and ask them,are you interested in selling the building?

(58:17):
And that's how he's built his pipeline. Now you can get you know,
list builders, and you can findall kinds of people that can help you,
you know, create lead generation.Right. That's how my dad did
lead generation back in the day.And we would have these great conversations while
I was in the car, andI would ask him, you know,

(58:39):
questions about, well, Dad,why do you do this or why do
you know? Why are you focusingon this area? You know? Or
he would say, I have aseller, or I have a buyer who's
really interested in, like something that'seight units or less, and so he'd
be out specifically looking for eight unitsor less. And I really learned from

(59:02):
him that that art of listening toyour customer, understanding your customer and what
their needs and wants are, andthen how to go out and find it
and deliver it right, and thatdrive that he had to do his research.

(59:27):
And then you know, in lateryears he had more referrals and you
know, didn't probably have to workas hard at his lead generation, but
he was he was always very driven. And he always said that, you
know, he because he was oncommission only. My dad was on commission
only, right, And most peopledon't like being on commission only. They

(59:52):
want that security, right. AndI remember in the sixties, early sixties
when there was a big Boeing crashbecause Boeing is a big, big manufacturer
up in Washington for airplanes and huge, huge employer. Right, there was
a big crash that you know,the airline industry went down for a while

(01:00:15):
and people they weren't building planes andall of that, and that had a
big influence on the housing market andthen the commercial real estate market and all
of that. I remember there werethree years that we were living on my
mom's secretary salary, you know,because my dad was really working hard in

(01:00:37):
commercial real estate and it was areally difficult economical time, and we look
back and I think you could makeit then easier than you can now because
there wasn't credit. There wasn't theamount of credit that there is now.

(01:00:58):
So people lived within their means becausethey lived based on the cash they had,
right all the way down to whenwe adopted a dog in the neighborhood
that got torn up by a Germanshepherd, and I brought this bloody little
dog home and said, we haveto save him, you know, And
I remember now clearly because we hadthat dog forever. We took that dog

(01:01:22):
to the vet and the bill wasoutrageous. It was like three hundred and
fifty dollars. That was my mom'sentire salary for a month, right,
And my mom told the vet,please don't ever send a bill to my
house, and don't call my house, and I promise you I will pay
you every payday. And she probablypaid ten dollars a month, you know,

(01:01:43):
or ten dollars a pay day orsomething, but she paid it off.
You can't do that now, youknow, you cannot do that now.
It's like you go to the vetand your dog's you know, got
some some ailment or that's going tocost three thousand dollars. You better have
a piece of plastic to drop down, right. Well, I'm going to
challenge you on that. Okay,you're going to like the challenge because Mom,

(01:02:09):
Mom taught you something. I'm jumpingahead here, Yes, I am
jumping ahead here, but I thinkit's right here in line with what you
just talked about with Mom and whatshe did with the vet. You did
something very similar as well. YesI did with a distributor that was owed
a lot of money as well.Yes I did. I did that to

(01:02:30):
one of our vendors where I wentto them and you can't find that.
I mean, for sure you canfind that. But society as a whole
today is built on this system ofcredit and plastic and you know, and
so I think we will get intothat. Yeah, you know, we'll
get into that. But back tokind of that entrepreneurial spirit. I remember

(01:02:53):
really at times wishing my dad wasaround more on the weekends as I got
older, because he was always outshowing property or he would say, you
know, I have a buyer whoflew in town from Vancouver, and you

(01:03:16):
know, I have to show buildings. But then when my dad was with
us, he was very, verypresent for the most part. Now,
my dad's a sports fanatic, that'sthe other thing. So he had season
tickets to the SuperSonics and we wentto basketball games. Oh yeah, and
then to go to the ninety sixfinals. No I did not go.

(01:03:38):
I was at ninety six. Iwas way grown by that time and out.
But no, I did not.But I would go, and we
would kind of like flip coins,who was going to go? And you
know, and I remember my momwas not really as big into basketball.
I loved going to the live gamesbecause I loved it. I loved all

(01:04:01):
the action. And then my dadgot season tickets to the Seahawks the first
year they became a franchise. Ohwow, and yeah, and he had
season tickets until he was in hisseventies and he eventually sold those tickets.
But it was either my mom wentor I went, or my sister went

(01:04:23):
with him. So he would havemade a Super Bowl then, yeah,
oh my dad did not my sister. My sister made a Super Bowl.
I don't think my dad's ever beento the Super Bowl. But the Seahawks
won during during his time of owningthe Tificates, is what I'm thinking.
They did. They did win.So I was not as big into football

(01:04:46):
as I was into basketball because basketballis much faster. It moves much faster,
and I really enjoyed it. Andmy favorite basketball player was pistol Pete
Maravich and he didn't even play forSeattle SuperSonics, but I used to love
watching that guy. But anyway,so you know, you had to love
sports then my dad, and becauseof dance and art, I was off

(01:05:08):
doing something else. My sister tookup golf with my dad. That's what
she was doing with him. Yeah, that's what she was doing, not
not when she was little, butwhen she got older, and and that's
how she ended up in this passionof developing her own women's golf work company,
and she's golfed all over the world, and you know, and then

(01:05:30):
I grew up and later had horses, and when you have horses, you
don't golf. So that's another story. But so my dad really instilled in
me. I remember him clearly tellingme at one point, you know,
honey, you can do whatever youwant in life. As long as you
are willing to work, put inthe effort, pay the price, you

(01:05:54):
can have do or be anything youwant. In life as long as you
are willing to do those two things, work hard, pay the price,
and I so, you know,I think that always led me, with
my artistic background, to believe thatI'll always fall back on my own talents

(01:06:16):
no matter what life throws at me. I'll always find something to land on
my own two feet. And yeah, I've worked, I've worked for other
people, but I've always done somethingon the side. I've always done something
entrepreneurial. I sold when I hadmy first daughter, and she's forty.

(01:06:40):
I can't even believe. I wantto say she's going to be forty four
in a few weeks, but she'sgoing to be forty four in a few
weeks. And she was an infant, and I sold tupperware, you know,
I just I was working at alumber store and I sold tupperware on
the side and then I knew thatwasn't for me because it was an artistic

(01:07:00):
enough. And then I sold maryKay for fourteen years on the side.
And I would, you know,teach my kids because when I had to
go out and do what I wasdoing in the evening with doing a home
party or whatever, I was taughtby Mary Kay and her philosophies as a
single mom, because she was thatyou incentivize your kids to appreciate the fact

(01:07:27):
that you're gone and doing something.So if they wanted a new horseback riding
pad, because we bought their horseswith my mary Kay money, and we
bought their you know, all oftheir accouterments with my Mary Kay money.
And I would say, Okay,here's your envelope. What is it you're
working towards. Well, I needa new bareback pad. How much is

(01:07:49):
that forty five dollars? Okay,we'd write it on the envelope, and
every time I would go out andwork, they would get a percentage of
what I earned for doing their choresat home and all that stuff, and
then I would pay them. Sothey saw the value in me going out,
you know they Yeah, they sawthe value in me going out.

(01:08:13):
And then, you know, mysister took a stage further with her own
kids. They used to have what'scalled a zadaka box, which is a
Jewish tradition in the community. It'sa charitable box and you put money in
it and then the community decides wherethat's going to go. Well, in
her house, they chose what charitythey wanted to give to and the kids

(01:08:39):
would have to They would get anallowance, but they would have to put
a certain percentage of their allowance inthe zadaka box. So it taught them
to give back. I love that. That's beautiful. That's really that's really
cool as part of this journey thatyou had in upbringing. And I'm not
going to go into the parallels becausethere are plenty there for us in terms

(01:08:59):
of my upbringing and my parents alwaysgiving back and nonprofit and all the different
things, but it's it's incredible howsimilar. And I feel like you and
I need to have a dinner afterall of this, But I want to
continue with your story here because itgets deeper, and as I made for
you the parallel of like what yourmom did and what you've done, I
want to get there because I thinkit's so important that people hear how you

(01:09:21):
were able to overcome, of coursethe death of your husband who had had
dealt with cancer for so many years, and then uncovering what happened in the
business and what was actually happening behindthe scenes that you at the time weren't
aware of but were able to overcomeit. And I think you're sharing a
lot of where this grit comes from, of learning from your parents and all

(01:09:45):
of these different strategies and techniques thatthey used and to be able to get
through things. And one of thethings that I highlighted in my notes that
I loved you that you shared withme was that your father had said to
you that the highest page people inthe world are in sales and the lowest
paid people are in sales. Youget to choose which one you'll be,

(01:10:10):
And I just love that. Iactually, on my notes here, I
have my full notes here, Iactually bolded it out because I, Oh,
my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah, that's an amazing lesson and an
amazing phrase because I asked him sooften what drives you in sales? Right,
and he always said, the highestpaid people in the world are in

(01:10:30):
sales. But remember the lowest paidpeople in the world are in sales as
well. So many people get intosales because they're not sure what else to
do in life, right, andthen oh, I'll take a sales job.
Right. There's a lot of peoplewho are not passionate about selling.
And if you think about it,we sell all day every day, I

(01:10:53):
mean every time I want to goout to eat somewhere, I have to
sell my husband because I'm telling you, the man does not like to go
out. And I adore him,but he just doesn't like He would rather
me pick up food and bring ithome. Right. My wife is the
same way. Yeah, And he'sa great cook and I love that and
I'm a great cook. So thatall works out. But every once in

(01:11:15):
a while, I really want togo out. But so we're always selling,
and we sort of it depends onhow you were raised, but a
lot of times we have this taintedview of what sales is because we've either
had a bad experience with a salespersonor we know some kind of a creepy

(01:11:38):
salesperson that is just not ethical andthey'll do anything to get the sale or
whatever. But when you really embraceselling and the love of solving a problem
for somebody, sales is a naturalbyproduct. It just is, you know.

(01:12:00):
And that's what I loved when Ikeyed into Grant Cardon's teachings was that
he hated sales. You know.Now he's worth something like four billion dollars
and you know, could probably sellice cubes to an Eskimo with a broken
freezer. But and you know,but it's but it's so it's so true.

(01:12:21):
If you if you think that salesis yucky, then of course you're
never going to make money at itand you're going to suck at it.
But if you embrace it and youlove what you sell and you know that
there's a need for it and therethat it's solving a problem, right,

(01:12:44):
the actual sale is the easy byproductof it. Yeah, work at it.
And I think what you said,too is which is so important,
is like you know ethical, youknow, if you're ethical, and and
then you said something, if youlove what you're selling too, right,
so you're you're passionate about the product, and then at the end of the
day, you care about your enduser and you're and caring about them means

(01:13:05):
you're finding you're solving a problem forthem and finding how your product helps them.
Well, then it becomes easy,it becomes fun, it becomes less
of a sleazy thing. And Ithink the industry or hard or you know,
it's no longer hard, right right, right? And no, no,

(01:13:28):
no, that's okay. And andof course it's uh, it's like
you said, you know that Ithink that there are a lot of bad
sales training and trainers out there whoyou know, they just don't sell in
a way that people appreciate. AndI'm talking about the negative sale type of
people, and that gives the industryof sales a bad taste, a bad

(01:13:51):
rap, right, But the truthis is that you have phenomenal sales people
out there who really care about solvinga problem and that's why they sell and
that's why they're successful. And Iwant to bring it back to you in
that, you know, before yourhusband passed in twenty fifteen, you are

(01:14:12):
the sales leader of your organization.Of course, as the CEO, you
still are, but this was moreof your role, and so I'm interested
in you know, I'm going tojust kind of like speed us up here
in that you know, you hadall these different types of sales roles.
You were doing this entrepreneurial journey.You were selling jewelry, you were selling
top, you're selling all this otherstuff. And then you enter your you
meet with your husband and you hestarts this business and you become the sales

(01:14:35):
arm. And so I'm interested inthis what you were doing that was because
also you were also overcoming some boundariesas well as a woman and leading a
sales organization. So I'm interested inthis journey there. So yeah, So
when I started with my late husbandin two thousand and eight, I had

(01:14:57):
been in the staffing head hunting worldfor almost twenty years by that point,
and I had been placing architects andengineers. So in two thousand and eight,
guess who got laid off? Youknow, architects. People weren't hiring
architects, right, And at thatpoint my husband had just started his own
business, and he said, whydon't you come and sell for me?

(01:15:24):
And I thought, Okay, thisis going to be interesting, you know,
and it was. And I wasalways fascinated by manufacturing. I'd been
in and around manufacturing many times.I used to be division manager of a
chemical manufacturing company and uh yeah,that wasn't probably in the intake for it,
but that was no. No,A lot of what you just said

(01:15:44):
was not. Yeah, So youknow, I I love that everything we
touched, everything that we touched,somebody designed and somebody had to manufacture.
So facturing just fascinates me. Sohe was in this industry where we manufacture
industrial equipment for bar coding and datecoating on food and beverage, packaging and

(01:16:14):
pharmaceuticals, automotive, aerospace, youname it, anything you touch. And
the easiest way to explain, asI think I mentioned before, is that
we're sort of in this invisible fieldwhere where you don't even know we exist
until you grab the milk out ofyour refrigerator and you open it up and
smell it and it's bad. Thefirst thing you do is you look at

(01:16:35):
the expiration date that got there somehowright. So the equipment that we distribute
and sell prints those day codes.So that's what we do at Termaline Enterprises
is we bring in finish goods fromAsia, the UK and Germany and we

(01:16:57):
sell through distribution inkjet printers and theinks and supplies. We do some light
assembly over here at my office,and I hold an HP license for engineering,
so we can actually manufacture here anddesign here if we want. So
he was in that business, hestarted his own business. I started selling

(01:17:20):
for him and for three years hehad me only sell the ink. He
said, if you're going to learnthis industry, the best way to do
it is to learn the ink.So we were representing a very unique line
of ink out of Germany and wewanted to sell it into the hp OEM

(01:17:43):
original equipment manufacturing market. So ourcompetitors, my competitors today, I was
calling on them selling them ink.So it was a great training for me
to learn who buys these printers andwhere do they put them? Right,
and you put them on conveyor systems, and you put them in production lines.
And if you think about craft foods, let's just think about craft foods.

(01:18:08):
Okay, maybe it's I don't knowwhat craft foods make now that I
think about it. Okay, Let'ssay it's a jar of mayonnaise, right,
and you've got all these jars ofmayonnaise coming down a conveyor system.
There's a printer going to print anexpiration date on that that jar of mayonnaise.
That's what these printers do. Butthe true beauty of it is,

(01:18:30):
or the secret of it secret sauce, is marrying the ink to the product
that's going to print on. Becausenot every ink sticks to every single product.
Yeah, we've seen that, thesmudge, I've seen the smadge,
or where it doesn't really you can'tsee it right, it doesn't drive fast
enough, where it's not dark enough, or it's not you know this or

(01:18:53):
that. You know, So thereal magic is the ink to substrate and
and figuring out that component. Yeah, because it's either going on paper or
a plastic or a glass or aglass or steel or whatever. Right,
and so that's the real that's thereal magic there. And so I started

(01:19:14):
with the inks. So I didthat for like three years, and then
I really became the face of thecompany. I was at all the trade
shows and people would come to seehim, but then they would start talking
to me, because he didn't Thatwasn't his love. His love was not
talking to the people. And youknow, the people who are in our
industry still that knew him say youeither loved him or hated him, and

(01:19:38):
vice versa. And he was greatwith the customers, but he was hard
on his vendors. So I learneda lot of great lessons from him.
But to fast track this for thelistener is that he did ultimately pass away
in January of twenty fifteen. Andalluding to the lessons that you think they're

(01:20:00):
that you're talking about, I foundout very quickly that the business was not
even solvent, and I got intothe back end of the business and I
thought, what was he doing.What in the world was he doing all
the time? Well, I thinkhe was more ready to retire and really

(01:20:23):
was looking for that big thing,that big deal that would kind of give
him that opportunity. And in themeantime, the economy had changed in two
thousand and eight, so that wasn'ta great year to be opening a business.
So there became a lot of robbingPeter to pay Paul, And ultimately

(01:20:45):
I think that's kind of what gothim when he became sick. He just
sort of started shoving things in thecorner and hiding them. And I didn't
really realize, you know, Iwas out doing what I was supposed to
do. I was selling printers inink, and so I quickly found out
the company wasn't solvent, and wehad about one hundred and seventy five thousand

(01:21:06):
dollars in receivables that had never beencollected. What I know now, eight
years later, is that being anentrepreneur takes a lot. It takes a
lot of grit, It takes alot of guts, and it takes a
lot of vulnerability to admit when youdon't know something, and if you don't

(01:21:29):
know it, you need to gofind somebody who does that is willing to
teach it to you or help you. And I think that's the gift he
gave me. I mean, youknow, I say, you know,
I can be better or I canbe better, right, and I'm going
to be I'm going to be better. And how I got better was realizing

(01:21:51):
that when I'm not good at something, I better find a mentor who who
is really good in that area andcan impart the knowledge on me or help
me get better, right. Andhe left me with the gift of being
stronger today than I was before,because when you lose everything, and I

(01:22:14):
lost everything. I didn't lose thebusiness, but I lost everything around it.
I lost my home of twenty threeyears. He had gone through everything,
he'd gone through our retirement money,he had gone through yeah, family
trust money. There was money gone, it was gone. So he was,
as you were saying, he waspropping the business up, just trying
to just dump personal find money intoit, whatever it was, in order

(01:22:38):
to just prop it up so thatone day get that big sale to where
it all gets paid back. Soyou see, yes, Yes, And
Michael, I think so many peoplego through that, they think that big
deal is right around the corner,and they miss building the foundation, right
because they're so busy looking for thatbig deal that there walking over small deals.

(01:23:01):
Like I said, one hundred andseventy five thousand receivables that were overlooked,
overlooked and not even collected on becausehe was such a nice guy,
right, Okay, Well, atsome point you need to collect that money.
So it took us time, butwe collected every time. We only
wrote off two thousand dollars. AndI want to say about it and stand

(01:23:21):
the collected collecting for a second,because I think also, as as I've
learned in my entrepreneur journey, isthat sometimes we think, well, why
why didn't Why wouldn't he collect it? That's easy, it's money, it's
owed to, But there's also workthat goes into that as well. Right,
receive collecting money, Go ahead andplease, there is there is.
And he didn't want to. Hedidn't want to put that job on anyone

(01:23:43):
who was working with us because thenthey would know we weren't getting paid,
right, So there was somebody whowas doing accounts payable but not accounts receivable,
So it was like where's the money? Right? So that was Oh

(01:24:04):
my gosh. I used to tellmy best friend at the time, I
don't know, sometimes I feel likeI'm living in a house of cards.
It was this gut instinct and Iwould ask him about it and he'd say,
Babe, don't worry about that.Go do what you're good at.
Go sell more printers. Well,yeah, because you thought if you sell

(01:24:26):
more, but yeah, you know. I think it's important that we hear
this and that you know. Andof course if you're doing an accountable you
need to have account receivable. Butalso it's it's challenging too, right,
you have to call just because youhave somebody who owes you money, they
don't always think about you. Youhave to call them. You have to
stay on top of it. Youhave to. And sometimes the relationship there's

(01:24:47):
complexities in the relationship of maybe they'reproviding a service for you and you don't
want to you don't want to ruinthat by you know, whatever it is
in terms of the collection, ormaybe there's a value issue here of they're
offering you something and maybe the vastSo there's a lot that goes into it,
and so I want to make surethat we're aware of that, that
you know it's not. It's notas easy as it sounds to collect that.

(01:25:10):
And and that goes hats off toyou of where you said you only
wrote off two thousand of it,so more into the work that you ended
up having not just some cover,but having to do of calling these vendors.
It was. It was a lotof work. And it wasn't me
that was doing it, so youknow, the person who was doing accounts
payable. I started saying, wegot to collect this money. Like,

(01:25:30):
I don't know what you have todo, but you've got to get a
hold of these people and you've gotto start collecting the money. And of
course once you start reminding them,reminding them, because they know they owe
you money, they'll pay you.Right. So that was that was a
big lesson. First of all isyou know when people owe you, go
get it. And then and thenthe flip side was the vendors. So

(01:25:56):
it's a really quick I want totouch on what I did with the customers.
I stopped allowing terms right. Itook my customers to pay upfront and
I had to, and that washard because I thought we're going to lose
business. We didn't. We justsaid, you know, due to current

(01:26:18):
circumstances, we're going to need paymentupfront. And we had inventory, so
we had to sell the inventory.So that wasn't the problem. But if
it was a custom build of somekind, no, you have to pay
upfront for that, right, Andso I changed those terms. And then

(01:26:38):
what I did on the vendor sidewas I looked at all my suppliers and
anybody that I bought from internationally,so out of the country, I was
always on pay up front. Thatwasn't an issue. But one of my
vendors I was buying from, weowed them over seventy five thousand dollars and

(01:27:00):
I have like no money and I'velost everything, and I'm like, how
am I ever going to pay thisperson? So what I did was they
contacted me and let me know thatthey were going to be in town excuse
me for a trade show and wantedme to come down and go to dinner,
and I said, I'd love tocome down and meet with you.

(01:27:21):
By that time, I had figuredout what was going on. I figured
it out, and I was like, this vendor is too important for me
to lose. And so I hadhad dinner with one of our other competitors
not a direct competitor, but Iknew him, and he happened to be

(01:27:43):
in town and called me, andI said, let's go to dinner.
He knew my husband had passed away, and we went to dinner, and
I gutted myself. I just toldhim I owe this person money. I
don't know what to do. Ineed I need to get ink. I've
got to be able to sell inkto our our customers because it keeps production

(01:28:04):
running. Right. He said,Laurie, you have to be honest.
I went through this when my dadpassed away, and he said, you
have to be honest with him,and you have to let him know I'll
pay you, but if you demandpayment now, I'll be forced into bankruptcy

(01:28:27):
and then you won't get paid.Nobody will get paid, not what they're
owed. Right. And it wasthe greatest piece of advice that I ever
got. And Roy, if you'relistening, thank you for that, because
he said, people are much morewilling to forgive and work with you if

(01:28:47):
you're honest with them, then ifyou dance around the fact that you don't
owe the money. Right. SoI readily met with the vendor when he
was in town, sat down andto him, said, here's what's been
going on. I hate to saythis. I don't want to throw a
bad light on my late husband,but I'm the recipient of unintended consequences here

(01:29:12):
and therefore so are you. Solet's work through this and I will pay
you every dime I owe you,but I can't pay it to you all
at once. And he said,I know, you will just pay me
every month. And every month wemade a payment. And it took me.
It took me a while. Ittook me a while, I'll say

(01:29:34):
that. And when I when Ipaid him his last payment, I walked
up and I handed him a checkand I'll never forget it was twelve thousand
dollars. And he looked at thecheck and he said, are you going
to be okay if I cash thischeck? And I said, I'm so
okay. I'm really in a goodplace, you know. And I think

(01:29:58):
there's value in taking your self tozero, not using credit cards, looking
at the numbers and just saying okay, this is gonna And I wasn't grind.
I was in a grind. Iworked six and seven days a week
for three years and we were flat. We didn't start growing you know,

(01:30:19):
we did not start growing and Ihad three people. And because I'm a
visionary, I see my company withone hundred people. I don't think three
people is enough. And I don'tthink, you know, the revenue that
we're doing now is enough. Wecan do more, and we're good.
We're really good at what we do, and we're great with our customers.

(01:30:43):
And our mission statement is that wesupport the success of our clients with intentional
solutions and unprecedented service. And webelieve that because anybody can go out and
sell a printer, right, anybodycan go sell a piece of equipment,
but it takes somebody really special tosolve a problem and create a lifetime customer.

(01:31:10):
And that's what we're looking for.We're looking for the company that wants
to grow with us. Yeah,and that specialness we're going to talk a
little bit about in terms of howyou support that. But I just want
to go back here for a second. And some of the hard things,
and that are so important for everybodyto hear, is that you handled this
head on. You didn't skate theissue. I wrote this down because you

(01:31:31):
said it. You know, yousaid to this person, this vendor who
you owed seventy five thousand dollars toI would love to meet with you.
And we think so much right,Like, imagine you call somebody up who
who owes you money to go?I would love to meet you. You
go, wait a second, whatyou would do? You have my check?
You know? I think that there'sso much to say about that,

(01:31:53):
of vulnerability, of authenticity, ofjust wanting to eat this challenge head on.
That that is so important for everyoneto hear is that you know,
you said it earlier with the withthe three p's I think of in one
of those of like when you're willingto just meet it head on, it's
gonna work itself out and you're goingto be able to figure it out some

(01:32:16):
way or another. The other partthat I love about that is the honesty
part. There's a couple of thingsin there that are really great and that
you met with a competitor. Andwe've talked about this on my show before
about you know, competition is almostlike a mindset, but there truly isn't
competition out there. You know,everybody's going to go to where they need
to be and you're going to havesomething a solution for the right person and

(01:32:40):
when you have that mindset like Royhad with you, of like, hey,
look, you know, you're thereand I'm here, and you know,
we have our own lanes and allthis other stuff, and we might
be competitors to the marketplace, buttruly we were human beings to each other.
And him sharing with you to bevulnerable and you being able to bring
that to the table with your withthe person that you owed money to.
I think it's such another important lessonhere in that you know, reach out

(01:33:02):
to your peers, reach out toyour counterparts, reach out to the people
that you view as competitors, becausethe insights and the knowledge that are going
to be able to share with youis obviously invaluable here. So I love
that part. And then the nextthing that you said here is about how
much you worked and working three yearsand having flat sales, And I'm reminded

(01:33:23):
of the story of the bamboo ofthe you know, the bamboo tree that
you know is is you know,planted in the first year and seeded and
watered, and nothing happens. Andin the second year it's watered and the
gardener takes such good care of thisbamboo seed, and still nothing happens.
And then the third year is stillnothing happens, and then you go into

(01:33:44):
the fourth and the fifth year andall of a sudden that It's why it's
called the bamboo shoot, because itshoots up to the sky. And you
know, when I introduced you andI and I made the claim of turning
your company around three hundred and fiftypercent, that is the bamboo shoot,
three hundred and fifty percent. Itwent from ground zero, from nothing to
six foot tall. Right, Solet's go into supporting your team, because

(01:34:10):
you know, I think a lotof what you were able to do had
to do with dealing with situations headon of accounts receivable, of dealing with
vendors, of changing terms of doingsome really challenging things that you had to
have some tough conversations with with people, but the other and of course making
sales throughout all of this. Butthe other huge component to this is that

(01:34:31):
you brought up customers, and youbring up the end user and making sure
that they're taking care of and serviceand all this other stuff. But who
speaks to the end user is yourteam? Is the people that you that
are your direct reports and how yousupport them. And so I will I
will hand it reins back over toyou after saying this of that one of
your longest standing employees have been withyou since two thousand and nine, have

(01:34:54):
seen all of the ups and downs, and obviously there's a support system that
you've provided that people like that stay. Yeah. So, and interestingly enough,
that person happens to me, myoldest daughter. So I'm going to
flip and talk to the person andtalk about the person who's been with us
since twenty twelve, so still beforemy late husband passed away. But my

(01:35:18):
oldest daughter, honestly, I willsay this about her. She has supported
us, She has been through thiswith us. She had a five month
old baby when my late husband passedaway. So the amount of stress that
came upon her shoulders because she washandling the financial side, but only what
he was allowing her to see wastremendous. And she's sacrificed for years by

(01:35:43):
not getting a raise. And Imean she's a rock star. She is
a rock star. She's the motherof my nine and seven year old grandsons
now and she's she handles a lot. But to the person who's been one
with us since twenty twelve is myoperations manager and he was hired fresh out

(01:36:05):
of tech school with no experience,and my late husband hired him and his
management style was here's some books,read them figure out how to fix the
equipment. And this kid is amazing. So I always give props to him

(01:36:27):
because he's a first generation. Hisparents are from Mexico and they didn't speak
English, and he and I wentto Quebec bringing it all back around.
This is funny. We went togo visit one of our longtime customers and
he had never really other than Mexico, been out of a country. So
I said, we're going to goto Quebec city and we're going to go

(01:36:49):
visit this customer. We had athree hour drive from Montreal to the customer
and we're on the road and Isaid, tell me why or how it
is that you are so driven atyour age to accomplish the things that you
accomplish, because he had a bookon his desk that said do something every

(01:37:11):
day that scares you. And Italk about learning from younger people. I've
learned so much from him because hesaid, well, you know, my
parents were immigrants and they didn't speakEnglish. And he said I had to
take I had to help them.I had to be able to be become

(01:37:32):
good at self study in school becausemy parents couldn't help me. I had
to learn everything on my own sothat I could help them. And oh,
man, did that resonate with me. I was like, what a
remarkable human being? You know,what a remarkable human being? And he

(01:37:55):
said, I know that I willhave a better life because I am willing
to put in the effort to learnthe things I need to learn to be
better at what I do. Andso every day I will stretch myself further,
right. And this was early aftermy late husband had passed away.
It was within the first year,I think, and I thought, Okay,

(01:38:18):
there's a lot of lessons here inthat that I can take away.
And I just believe so much inhim that as we began to grow,
he would step up naturally and askfor more responsibility. He's our operations manager

(01:38:40):
now and he's thirty four years old, and he has He and I butt
heads constantly, just so you know. And that's the beauty is that we
also respect each other so much thatyou know, he can come in and
he can say, I need totalk to you, and here's what I
think, and I want you tothink about that before you respond to me,

(01:39:04):
because I'm very reactive, right andI need to. And that's something
that I work on all the time. And that's something that I've learned from
Brandon Dawson, especially of Cardon Ventures, is that there is one emotion in
business, and that's celebration. Otherwiseit's just business. Like you should celebrate

(01:39:30):
the things worth celebrating and otherwise keepthe emotion out of it. It's business.
It's interesting. And I have toremind myself that all the time,
because you know, this is likeit's a passion project and it's a child.
It's a baby, and you're growingit and you get so invested in
it that if somebody comes in andthey tell you something you don't want to

(01:39:53):
hear, you naturally want to respondwith no, that's not how I feel,
that's not how I think. Well, let's get the feeling out of
it. Let's take the feeling outof it and look at data. Let's
look at data, and let's lookat structure and all of that. So
we really learned to create core valuesthat we instill in this company with who

(01:40:19):
we hire, how they act andif they fit and what I mean by
that is, if they're not inalignment with the core values, they're not
a fit for us. And ifsomebody is not working within the core values

(01:40:40):
and representing the core values of ourbusiness on a day to day basis,
they find a way to get outof our culture because it's almost like the
ecosystem will spit them out, youknow, because they become uncomfortable because everybody

(01:41:00):
else is aligned and when they're they'renot aligned and they're trying to do something
that doesn't doesn't resonate with us asa company. It just doesn't work.
It just doesn't work. And we'reand we've had our and trust me as
a business owner, this is reallycritical for any entrepreneur to know you are
always going to be hit with theunexpected. Expect the unexpected. Yeah,

(01:41:28):
as good as you can get atprocesses and procedures and and following policy,
the unexpected is going to hit you. You know. I feel like in
my lessons with that and it's uh, it has it's just part like I
look at it as it's part ofthe journey. Is that and that sounds
simple, but it took me along time to understand that of of you

(01:41:49):
know, I would say to mycoach, when is this just going to
get easier? When is it goingto get easier? I just want to
day. I just want a weekwhere it just feels like it's easy,
or or I just want to getand not even a day or a week.
I would say, I just wantto get to a place where where
things are on cruise control, whereI can just kind of like relax or
whatever. And she would talk withme about it, and I think what

(01:42:10):
I've realized by going through my ownhardships and my own ups and downs with
business is that but that's part ofthe journey. If if I wanted it
to be easy, I could havejust gotten a nine to five as a
cashier somewhere exactly exactly right. AndI like to use that, Michael in

(01:42:31):
respect because you're raising children. Withraising children as well, you know,
you always hear people say, ohmy god, they're in the terrible twos,
or they're you know, in thefighting force, you know, or
whatever they're coming up with, right, And I used to say, it
doesn't get worse, it gets different. It gets different. Business gets you

(01:42:56):
don't get to an easier place,you get to a different place. Sometimes
it's a better place. Sometimes it'snot right, but be prepared, like
be prepared with certain things you haveto There's some basic fundamentals you have to
know about being a business. Oneis twenty four hours a day doesn't solve
your problems. You have to knowthat you've got to be able to shut

(01:43:20):
it off and walk away because tomorrowit's going to be there, and tomorrow
there will be a difference set youknow. That's why I always tell my
salespeople call them again, because you'reno longer their priority today. Wow,
Like you have to follow up becausewhen you're talking to a business owner or

(01:43:42):
a decision maker, some other priorityjust jumped on top of what you once
were the priority. So you haveto follow up and become their priority again.
Right. And it's the same thingin business. So you have to
know that twenty four hours to somefixture problem, you've got to know that
tomorrow there's going to be there's goingto be a whole, It's all still

(01:44:05):
going to be there. The stackis still going to be there. It
might be different things in the stack, but it's still going to be there.
So shut it off and walk away. That's what I learned after working
six days a week for three years, right, is that you've got You've
got to get to a point whereyour own personal sanity in life takes precedence

(01:44:26):
over it, right, or youhave to figure out doesn't make sense to
walk away. The other thing isyou have to learn how to exhale.
I really found myself holding my breatha lot, and I would drive,
I would drive, I'd be drivingto work or whatever, and I'd realized
i'd like past three exits and Iwas holding my breath, and I I

(01:44:50):
really started studying breath work and learninghow to exhale. Again, it's only
in the exhale can you take innew thoughts and new ideas and fresh perspective.
Right, you have to learn toexpale that that you're holding in.
So that's another That's another piece ofadvice that I always like to tell entrepreneurs

(01:45:15):
is that you know these things arenot easy, but they're if you practice
them, they become easier. Yeah. And something you said that I just
picked up on that I that Ithink we cannot overlook is you had to
coach. You have to have acoach. There isn't a winning team on

(01:45:36):
the face of this earth that winswithout a coach, and same thing in
business. You need to you needa coach, and if you don't have
one because you say you can't affordit, my my advice to you is
you can't afford not to have one. It will pay you dividends. M

(01:45:58):
h. Yeah, it's a hasfor me. It's I think in terms
of the coach, and I lovethat you bring up the analogy of like
any winning team or every right,how to coach? I think, of
course finances is one of the thingsthat come up, But I think the
other thing that comes up is well, what are they going to teach me?
Or what am I going to learnfrom them? And I think that
there's two things to that. Ofone, you will look for a coach

(01:46:23):
that you can learn from, ofcourse, right, and look for somebody
who might know a little bit morethan you know. I think that there's
some value in that, of course, But I think the second part is
probably the more valuable part, whichis you're having somebody that you could bounce
your ideas off of and that youcan get some objective feedback from. And
that is like, to me,the most valuable part of coaches, because

(01:46:46):
I think we'll find mentors out there, you know, like I would view
you as a mentor to me eventually, right of after this, I can
probably reach out to you and say, hey, I'm dealing with this.
What do you think of it?That's my right, of course, that's
a mentor relationship. You could giveme some advice. You know a lot
more about different things than I know, and I can reach out to you.
But to call you every week foran hour, you'd be like,

(01:47:09):
hey, Michael, listen, here'smy fee. Yeah yeah, no,
right, yeah, because I don'tthink, well, I look at a
coach differently, just like you do. Right, There's a difference between a
mentor and a coach. But this, this reminds me of one of my
favorite quotes. For sure, whenthe student is willing, the teacher will

(01:47:30):
appear. Yes, and you haveto be in life. This goes back
to my mother. Okay, I'mgoing to bring up full circle my mother
and my dad is you have tobe curious, you have to be teachable,
and you have to be coachable.And those are things I ask in
interviews. How teachable are you?You know, oh, I've been doing

(01:47:55):
sales for years. Okay, buthow teachable are you? Right. And
if you're going to come in andjust go through the motions of getting on
Card owned university every day and youdon't employ, you don't employ and execute
on the lessons that are taught,you won't last here because you're not teachable.

(01:48:16):
You have to be teachable. Itgoes back to that audience member I
was telling you about of You know, if you're looking at it going what
do I have to learn from you? Well, then we got a problem
there, right. I want tostay with card University and because something that
you said in here that was importantto me. There's a few things that
you said in there, but youknow when you talked about it originally in

(01:48:39):
your intake form as I was readingit, it was you're going through card
own university. It is like,of course she is. She's she's a
leader, and she's growing and everything. And then you said, and you
are. So it's so valuable toyou that you've invested in it for all
of your employees. And I thinkthe end is even just as important and

(01:49:00):
allow for them to have thirty minutesa day to start their day by going
through the training. The reason whyto me that is like speaks volumes is
I think as employers, of course, we're going to invest in our employees,
right, We're going to send themto the training program, or to
send them to the trade show.We're going to send them to this.
We're going to get them the coachto mentor you know, we're good employers
and we can afford it. Wewill write all this other stuff. That's

(01:49:23):
great, but we're like, doit on your own time, but you
say no, come in and doit on our time, because that's how
important it is to us. Andso I'm really fascinated and interested in this
mindset that you have. Well,I think that if you expect people to
raise up and be better, youhave to be willing to invest in them.

(01:49:46):
And that means an investment of Ifyou take thirteen employees I have now,
and you take half an hour thirtyminutes a day and you do the
math, how many hours of theday is that that I'm giving up productivity
to have them do personal training?Right? Well, I'm not giving up.

(01:50:08):
I'm gaining because of what I'm gettingout of them. And we just
had somebody who left and he wasin our shipping department and he was with
us for a year and a half. He had more certificates of training than
anybody here. So I feel goodthat wherever he goes, he is going

(01:50:31):
because he is we bettered his life. People are going to come and they're
going to go, and it's okay, yeah, that's that's incredible though,
that you make the time for them. I value that. I know that
I'm not where I am if Ididn't do the personal development work on my

(01:50:53):
journey to where I am today.And you know, I every morning I
wake up and I follow Brennan Bochard. Now I'm part of his A Growth
Day app and so every morning Igot my daily fire going or one of
his courses going, and that's whatI work out to. But the one
thing that I've been doing since thebeginning of my journey is toast Masters.
And I've been a toast Master nowfor six years. And I'm very fortunate

(01:51:17):
in that my chapter we meet weekly. Not every chapter meets weekly. We
meet weekly, and I still goto every meeting every week, and it's
on Wednesdays at noon. And Ibring that up because that's right in the
middle of the workday, or thatsome people's work at lunch hour, whatever
you want to call it. Butit's right in the middle of the work
days. It interferes with the workday. But to your point, it has

(01:51:39):
been so valuable in my life,and it has given me so much more
than it's taken in that hour,and more than at an hour, because
of course I'm preparing my speeches,I'm preparing after, I'm giving feedback,
I'm now I'm mentoring and helping andall these different things. It's but it's
given me back so much more inthe personal development space than I could have

(01:52:00):
ever imagined when I joined. Yeah, it becomes your non negotiable, right,
it's a non negotiable and people whoshow up like that I used to
I'm gonna take this back to MaryKay. I mean this is back in
the day, right, Mary Kaywas just a brilliant trainer, and we
used to have weekly meetings and Idid not miss a meeting. I never

(01:52:23):
missed a meeting. And my youknow, it's you can take it to
AA or any other valuable thing.Is that when you're down, you need
those people around you. When you'reup, they need you. So show
up every week. If it's aweekly thing, if it's a daily thing.

(01:52:45):
It's like working out at the gym. You know, you need it
or those around you need you.You know, it's part of what we
as humanity need to do for oneanother. I love that outlook on you
need them and they need you.It's so true. There's so many times

(01:53:06):
that I've shown up to a Toastmastermeeting and I'm like, you know,
I just got out of maybe atough one, or I have a tough
meeting coming up, or whatever itwas, but I'm still at toast Masters
and there's something that happens in themeeting. Now, toast Masters is very
structured, where we have an agendaand everything, but there's always something that
happens in the meeting where I go, oh, that might have brought me

(01:53:28):
up from where I just came from, or it might have helped prepare me
for the next meeting. So sotrue in that down phase and then in
the up phase, it's the samething of being able to go there and
be able to perform and motivate andinspire, and then people come to me
and afterwards and ask me and Ishare with them, and my journey was.
You know, I have it recordedon my YouTube channel, always talk
about it. I said, goto my because people will see me speak

(01:53:49):
today and they're like, wow,you know, so so polished, just
this and that, And I appreciatethe compliments and I still work hard at
it. But I always say,go back to my YouTube channel, which
was back in two thousand whatever itwas it fit sixteen or so and my
very first YouTube video where it tookme months to record that video. It

(01:54:09):
took me a long time to feelconfident enough to actually get behind the camera
and then post it. And youlook at that video, you go,
oh, my goodness, he hastraveled. That's awesome because that gives hope
for the kid who's scraptinating or justgotten out of school. I want to
have a podcast. Well, thosekids that do their research, they're going

(01:54:30):
to see. You know what,you got to put a lot of crap
out there before you get really good. That's right, that's right, you
got to put in the hard work. I want to go into lifestyle now
a little bit, because you know, you are at a high level.
You have a large company, youare you're at a high level. You're
operating at a very high level.And I think that you know from the

(01:54:51):
outside, people look and they go, how does you know she must not
have time to herself. But I'mgetting there. I'm not there, but
you do. What I think isthat you make that's important to you,
and you make a priority. Isyou wake up early and you go for
a walk with you with your husband, and you walk your dog. You

(01:55:13):
also make time to play cards atyour father. As you said earlier,
I'm interested in your perspective on valuinglife outside of work and how as entrepreneurs
who their work is their passion andtheir baby, or at least view it
that way, and how you're ableto you said it earlier, compartmentalize the

(01:55:33):
business from lifestyle and making that animportant part of your life as well.
Thanks for asking, not one howdo I do it? Well? It
goes back to non negotiables, right. So I've been very blessed to fall
in love again and I have anamazing husband who's just a rock star.

(01:55:58):
Thirty years in the Marine Corps,you know, retired as a master gunnery
sergeant. And you know, Ilove to travel. And it's funny because
I asked him, you know,do you like to travel? And he's
like, I have been everywhere inthe world that I wanted to go,
and most places I never wanted tobe, so no, I don't want

(01:56:20):
to travel, right, And I'mlike, okay, so I need to
travel, buddy, if anybody knows. But other than that, we are
like, he grounds me, andhe's led three hundred and fifty people at
a time, and I don't havethree hundred and fifty people. So I
can go home and I can andI can unload on him. And he'll

(01:56:42):
say, let's look at this fromall angles, you know. Or I'll
say, but I had a planfor that, and if it went awry.
He'll always say, a plan isa great place to start when you
need to debate. That's cool,right, because we all need to pivot
some times, depending on what's whatwe're facing, right, And he says,

(01:57:04):
you have to be ready for anythingand be willing to pivot away from
it. And so a non negotiableis I wake up at five o'clock every
morning. My alarm goes off atfour fifty five, and then I negotiate
my way out of the bed forfought. Yeah, and then and then
I'm up and we get dressed andout the door. We go in the

(01:57:27):
dark now, and we walk fora mile and a half to two miles
every morning, and several days aweek, I get right upstairs into the
gym and I do my weights andwork out because I'm getting older and it's
important to take care of you.You've got to, you know. I
have a coach that I'm working withright now who calls our body our soul

(01:57:48):
chariot, right, And I lovethat because we're in a human form,
but it's really our soul, right, And my soul's getting a little older.
So I need to take care ofthat chariot for sure. And so
that's a non negotiable. And nowthat I am blessed to have my mom
and dad near me all the youknow, all the time, for whatever

(01:58:10):
time I have. This is thecycle of life, and it's really in
my face. I know that.My mom said to me recently, she
said, you know, you don'thave to stop by every day, And
I said, yeah, Mom,I do. I'm not doing it for
you, I'm doing it for me. I said, you can tell me
not to come, but Dad won'tever tell me that. Dad will never

(01:58:35):
tell me not to come. SoI go and I sit by his bed
and we've been watching the baseball gameslately. Or I'll come in and He'll
be watching a golf tournament and Igo, who's golfing? And he goes,
I don't know, And I'm like, well, that was a really
good hit, you know. Andwe can talk and we can share,

(01:58:58):
and then I'll ask him certain thingsand I'll bring up a memory and I'll
say, you know, Dad,remember when we used to go to the
ballet together every year And he saysyeah, and I go, that was
my favorite, and he goes,it was one of my favorites, you
know. And he and he doesn'treadily come His mind is sharp when he

(01:59:20):
wants to be, but he doesn'treadily come up with things. You have
to kind of draw it out ofhim. And he used to be like
I was a mirror of him,right, So imagine me in male form.
That's my dad, Like bigger thanlife and boisterous and you know,
loving and warm and all that.That was my dad. And people who

(01:59:42):
know him now, like my husband'snever known him that way. And he's
like he's so quiet, and I'mlike, yeah, you don't know my
dad. Like my dad. Ithink he's talked himself out. Well,
he's ninety, who were going togive me? That's my lesson to myself.
Though sometimes I think, oh mygod, I got a lot of
words, you know, in there, and someday I'm going to run out
of them. Yep. But youhave to have some sort of balance,

(02:00:08):
whatever that means to you. Sotake care of your physical sense. Have
some non negotiables. Maybe it's gettingout of your office for lunch. Every
day. I tend to eat atmy desk, but I need to get
out of my office and walk.I need to, you know, I
need to clear my mind. Oneday a month. One thing that I'm

(02:00:28):
trying to implement now is one daya month I need to work away from
the office. It gives me afresh perspective, and it also allows me
to realize that everybody is taking careof things and I can be away.
Yeah, yeah, I love Ilove that idea. Yeah, you have
to. You have to have aperspective. You need a fresh perspective.

(02:00:50):
And and I think just believing inthe people around me, you know,
giving them some levity and some leewayto be autonomous and work a deal.
Oh, I just heard the salegong. Somebody made a sale, they

(02:01:11):
have a gone. We have agong in our office. And I went,
oh, Okay, great. Ilove that brings us back to what
Brandon Dawson said, celebrate, celebratethe way. I love that. I
love that. I love everything thatyou're talking about in terms of I think
that it's like a respect for life, right. I think that when we
think about our lives and why arewe here, and of course our passion

(02:01:32):
and what we're doing. And weknow we focus a lot on the entrepreneur,
but also our business executives out thereand people just doing really wonderful things,
and yeah, that's a passion,right, but it's also you're you're
the driver behind it. You're theengine, and you've got to take care
of the engine. And I thinkthat that is your life and appreciating it
and appreciating the people around you.And I love how you were able to

(02:01:55):
bring that together for us, ofhow you're able to do it for yourself
and bring it back to your parents. And I'd be remiss if I didn't
bring up this other parallel here forus as we move move a little bit
closer towards towards the other things thatyou're doing. But my grandmother, when
she was in the assisted living shehad dementia and Alzheimer's, and you know,
we didn't really know that I wascoming, and I would go.

(02:02:15):
She and I were very close.We have the same birthday, and she
she was my person and in fact, I named my daughter after her,
Denise, and I would go andvisit her every week, and I remember
her caretaker Maureen would say, Michael, you don't you don't need to keep
coming. And I would watch theJets game and all the different things sports
with her. She wasn't even therewatching it with me. I was just

(02:02:35):
laying with her, and Maureen wouldsay, you don't have to come,
and and I would say, notreally coming for her, you know,
I'm coming for me, you know. And so so another parallel for us,
and all of that. I thinkit's just incredible how much in common
we share it And this doesn't happenin every podcast. I'll say that much
for sure. I was gonna asknot this often. A couple of little

(02:02:59):
things every one in a while,like there's a few similarities, but this
has been There's a few things thatI even didn't even bring up that you
were talking about that I was like, oh my goodness, same here.
But I do want to get intowhat you do from a charitable standpoint.
Because when we first met in myig live and we talked, you brought
up Charity for Charity, and Iremember this beautiful concept or smart concept really

(02:03:24):
of just going out and getting onehundred bucks from one hundred people and raising
ten valus. Was like, Oh, my goodness, mind blown by this.
I thought that was just incredible.And the more I've learned about you
is how this charity plays such adeep role in your heart. And so
I'd love for you to share alittle bit more about it and the work
that you do there. Oh,I would love to. It's not it's

(02:03:46):
my charity, but it's not mycharity. I did not start it,
I did not found it, butI am so a part of it.
I've been a part of it forthe last sixteen seventeen years, so I
think we're in our seventeenth year.But it's called Charity for Charity and you
can find it at Charity for forCharity dot org. And it was started

(02:04:12):
by a woman named Charity Presta Felipowho she and her husband are local restaurant
tours and seventeen years ago, youknow, they were she had a very
close friend who had cancer and wasin construction and had no health insurance,
and Charity, being the giving,loving person that she is, said I

(02:04:36):
can help this person. And shegathered a group of people for a dinner
and raised I think it was fivethousand dollars. Somehow she raised this money
and the next year, a groupof high school friends of hers, girls
that she knew, they all pulledtogether and they created a board. They

(02:05:00):
were kind of the drivers behind itand said, we can do this,
and we can do it bigger.Let's do it, and let's grant a
wish for somebody else, and Charityfor Charity was born with the idea that
whenever there is a catastrophic illness,life threatening illness accident, usually you are

(02:05:24):
so caught up in whatever that isthat you don't allow yourself to have a
wish or dream of something. Andso she kind of took the best of
make a wish and the oscars.And you know, she's always been very

(02:05:44):
starstruck. We tease her all thetime. She's incredibly starstruck. She was
an actress as she when she wasyoung, she was in gentle Ben,
which is funny. But so shepulled it together and every year, this
dinner got bigger and bigger, untilnow it is an annual gala in our

(02:06:05):
community that sells out at one hundredand fifty dollars a seed to four hundred
and fifty plus people every year,and we have this big gala and we
now grant wishes for an adult,a young adult, and a child.
And then throughout the year we doother fundraising events like the ten thousand dollars

(02:06:28):
Day, and it will grant smallerwishes, but we choose three beneficiaries every
year. And because of my parents'illness, I have not been involved in
the last several months. And theother day I went, oh, my
gosh, they just had this bigevent and I reached out to them and

(02:06:49):
they're like, Laura, we missyou, and it's family. It's just
family. We've granted some amazing wishesfor some amazing people, and I happen
to have. You know, whenI talk about life just throws you the
unexpected. There's somebody who works forme now who just found out within the

(02:07:11):
last three weeks that his wife's canceris back and it's now in her liver
and her bones, and it's very, very life threatening. So I got
on charity for charity, and youcan't do it when you're part of the
board. And I'm not part ofthe board at the very moment because of
my parents. I submitted a nominationand I got a phone call yesterday that

(02:07:38):
they selected his wife and we're goingto grant to wish for her and she'll
find out next Tuesday. So it'shuge. You have to be part of
your community. You have to giveback whatever your charity is, make sure
that the money goes to the people. You know, there's so many charities
that you should vet them out.But giving back is I get tenfold ten

(02:08:03):
I get back tenfold with whatever Igive in time or money or anything.
And my wish is my own wishis to be able to give that charity
one hundred thousand dollars. That's myown wish, So I work towards that.
That's awesome. And I think,you know, we go back to
when you were talking about the kidsand teaching them responsibility and service. It's

(02:08:24):
I think when you're giving back todifferent charities and working with different charities,
it teaches not just your kids,of course, you know, I bring
them up as one of the examples, but also your employees and your team
and your community. It shows themand it gives them. It shows them
how how much value you put intoothers, and they in turn learn that

(02:08:46):
to give value to others as well. So when we think about a sales
team, if we want to showa sales team how to give value,
show them how to give back tothe community, and they're going to learn
how to give value. And oneother one that I can't that I I
have to bring up as well,because we didn't get to talk about this
at length. But you know,your your husband today Today's husband. He

(02:09:09):
had a presidential award, which heclaims everybody got, but as you made
sure to find out, not everybodyreceives a presidential award. And so I'm
sure that you're donating to the veteransalso is a very important place in your
heart as well. It is,it is, And you know, I
just don't think there's enough gratitude forwhat these people have done for us in

(02:09:31):
our country. And and I'm soproud of him and who he is.
But yeah, when we first movedin together, he spent one day putting
a bunch of things up on thewall, and then very humbly, I
was looking at it one day andrealized that he had really was instrumental in

(02:09:52):
saving a village in Iraq from theTaliban and from that town and being infiltrated
by ISIS, and I just hadthis level of respect for him that just
washed over me, and I said, wow, can I cuss on this
show? You could do whatever youwant. I said, oh my god,

(02:10:13):
you're the shit and he said,ah, they give that to everyonxiety
and I was just like, no, they don't, and then of course
found out no, they don't,and so yeah, I get back to
veterans when I can as well.Yeah, I think it's so important,
and I don't think that it's youknow, a political thing at all and
to get into, but they doso much for our country, and whether

(02:10:39):
you agree with why or where they'regoing or what they're doing, it's the
simple fact that we have these menand women who are willing to put themselves
in harm's way for what they believeis helping us and helping our children and
helping our legacy as a country.And so therefore it's so important to give
back to them and make sure thatthey're taken care of, because so often

(02:11:01):
they have a tough time getting back. We all realize this with PTSD and
getting back and even into the workplaceand all sorts of other things that happen
from just being away and at warand dealing with different health issues and everything.
So very much appreciated. And thenone other charity that you're also involved

(02:11:22):
in is the Underground Railroad. AndI think that this is also another I
mean, every charity is phenomenal andgreat, but all of them play a
role in our hearts, and sothis is another one that is important to
you. And I'm also a littlebit interested in this too. Yeah.
Well, I just really started getting, you know, giving to that one

(02:11:43):
because of you know, the childsex trafficking and the human sex trafficking that's
going on, and was just rivetedby the movie and know it to be
true because I've seen, actually hadexperiences with people here in southern California that

(02:12:07):
I know they're on the street andI know that someone is pulling on their
strings, you know. I knowthat that there, you know, And
I can't go into details of it, but I just know of a certain
incident and it just it is heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking, and I think

(02:12:28):
we need to become more and moreaware of it. Children. You know,
people who say it's not really happeningare not really looking. Well.
I'll bring this up for you verysimply in that we had Chemitria Gonzalez on
the show and she speaks about herentire experience of being sex trafficked and everything
that happened from there. And sheactually she actually flew in from Texas to

(02:12:54):
come meet me in person to shareher story, and so we we shared
her story. We even got toI've toured her around Poughkeepsie a little bit
since you could see the area.But the awareness of it is so important.
She was fourteen years old, andof course you can listen to her
podcast episode here on the show,but she was fourteen years old and you

(02:13:16):
know, she thought she was,you know, being taken care of by
the right people, and they misledher and it was human sex trafficking.
And I think awareness to this situationis very, very important. We're going
to lighten it up a little bitnow with your mantra and get into what

(02:13:37):
you kind of live by. Andyou talked about the three p's, which
I want to make sure that everybodyremembers of getting rid of the three p's,
which are permanent. No problem ispermanent, pervasive. You think it's
affecting all areas of your life,it's not. And personal, it's not
personal, which is something that youbrought up earlier, and I think is
so important for everybody to hear.But I love this other one that you
have here is that behind every strongperson is a strong is a story that

(02:14:00):
gave them two choices, sink orswim? And what do you choose?
Oh, you gotta swim, keepswimming, so swimming? Tell us about
it? Yeah, well I lovethat. I you know, when I
think about my life and people askme all the time, how is it
you do what you do? Likethe other thing that we didn't touch on

(02:14:26):
was it because we started with youknow, when my husband had cancer,
but I'm a cancer survivor as well. We both had cancer in two thousand
and seven, and people used toask me all the time, Oh my
god, how do you get throughthis? And I said, how do
you not get through it? Whatam I going to do? Stay in
bed? I mean, And that'snot to diminish anybody who goes through cancer

(02:14:50):
or anything else and they're so sickthey can't get out of bed. But
I'm just of the mindset that Ihave to do my part, right,
I have to do my part.And so I think what makes my story,
or any survivor's story, really great, is that you have a point

(02:15:11):
in your life where your choice iseither sink or swim. I choose to
swim. It's a choice, youknow, it is really a choice.
And you see people that go throughso many hardships, you know, a
catastrophic divorce. I know somebody whowent through a catastrophic divorce and honestly,

(02:15:33):
she never recovered from it. Andit was so sad to me because I'm
like, Okay, well, isthat going to be the story you write
that that happened to you? Isthat going to be the story that you
leave. Is that the legacy you'regoing to leave for your children that,
oh, this happened to me.I choose to be a victor and not

(02:15:54):
a victim, you know. AndI think that everything in life just really
comes down to choices. It soundslike it's so easy, but it's it's
not. We all battle with ourown demons, but it could be a
million different things. It's not youknow, for me, it's not alcohol,
but for some people it is.It could be food, it could

(02:16:16):
be a divorce. But you chooseif you're going to become a victor over
it or you're going to become avictim of it. Right, And it's
just like somebody who is sex trafficked. Right, she could be and she
was victimized, but look at howshe's become victorious over it. That's right.

(02:16:39):
Yeah, Smitria's story and becoming victoriousover it is tremendous. She goes
through the entire She went through theentire story from start to finish with me,
and yeah, she was she asyou said, may have been victimized,
but she was never a victim.She was always able to overcome it.
You know. Just keep swimming.You know, of course the movie
would do, just keep swimming,Just keep swimming. It's so true,

(02:17:03):
as long as you keep trying.I just had this conversation with my daughter,
actually with Tenley the other night.She was doing her site word list
with me and she was on thesecond page. And I have a feeling
that she has and I hope thatshe doesn't, but I'm dyslexic and I
have a feeling that she has alittle bit of it. As well,
and so when she was going toher site, words on her. By

(02:17:24):
the time we got through the thirdpage, she was done. She didn't
want to try anymore. She wasdone. And that typically, that's what
I'd noticed with myself, is whythat's why I don't read a book.
I listened to the book because bythe third page, I'm pretty much done.
I'm checked out. It's too challengingto continue reading. So anyway,
so she was having trouble, andwe got into a little bit of me

(02:17:45):
trying to get her to do itand whatever, and at the end of
it, you know, she thoughtI was frustrated with her because she didn't
know the word, and I toldher, I said, I'm not frustrated
with you because you don't know theword. I don't care that you don't
know the word. I care thatyou stopped trying. As long as you're
trying. As long as you're trying, I'm going to help you. As
long as you're trying, someone willhelp you. As long as you're trying,

(02:18:07):
people will see that you're trying,and they will help you. But
once you stop trying, once yougive up, it's over. No one's
going to help you, right andand they will. They will forget that
you were ever trying right because theydon't see the struggle anymore. I love
that, So just that, justkeep swimming right. I have that.

(02:18:30):
I have to bring it back tothe beginning because I was so curious about
this and I forgot about it,but you reminded me. For some reason,
something just reminded me. What isthe movie that your family that your
sister said that your family resembles?Do you remember? Okay? Okay?
And I have a hard stop here, yes, So so if you don't
mind, I have a staff meeting. So no, no, you're good.

(02:18:50):
It's been great. Let's see arelooking it up? I'm looking it
up because I asked my sister yesterdayto please text it to me. So
don't forget. Hello, God,are you there? It's me Margaret.
Hello, God, are you there? It's me Margaret. And as we
conclude, so this is the endof the show, I want to make
sure that everybody knows where to findyou and where to contact you if they

(02:19:13):
need to. So if you couldjust share, and of course this will
all be in the show notes foreverybody who's finding it on wherever they're finding
it, Spotify, iTunes. iHeartwherever you are, but if you could
for our audio listeners, any handles, any websites that you would like to
share. This has been so fun, Michael. Let me just tell you

(02:19:33):
that I've been on I don't knowhow many podcasts now and it's been fun.
This has been one of the best. I just and there is a
thread that runs through our lives thatwe're going to explore further. So I
love that and I owe you dinner. So where can people find me?
They can usually find me here atTurmaline Enterprises, but you can find me

(02:19:56):
at Lori Raymond CEO at gmail dotcom. Awesome, Lori Raymond CEO at
all Right, Lori Raymond ceo dotcom dot com. Gotcha? Or you
can look me up at Termaline Enterprises. That's t O R M A l

(02:20:18):
I n E Enterprises dot com dotcom. Fantastic. This is Lori l
O R I l O R Ifantastic. This has been such a fun
show. We're well over two hours, like this is I have a one
thirty allso and I'm just like,I don't know if I'm gonna make it.
Oh well, I'm already late.There we go. I didn't even

(02:20:39):
look at the time, but thishas been amazing. I want to thank
you so much for coming on andwe will certainly be in touch. Thank
you so much, Michael, havea wonderful day. Awesome by Lari Okay
bye. Thank you for listening toThe Michael Esposito Show. For show notes,
video clips, and more episodes,go to Michael Esposito Inc. Dot
com backslash podcast. Thank you againto our sponsor dn ten Insurance Services helping

(02:21:03):
businesses get the right insurance for alltheir insurance needs. Visit Denten dot io
to get a quote that's d nT dot io and remember, when you
buy an insurance policy from Denten,you're giving back on a global scale.
This episode was produced by Uncle Mikeat the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special

(02:21:24):
thanks to Lara Rodrian for the opportunityand my team at Michaelsposito, Inc.

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