Ready to step into the shoes of a business titan? Join us as we navigate the inspiring journey of Michael Malgiere, a towering figure in the flooring industry. From opening a restaurant at 19 to weathering the storm of 9/11, we, your hosts, guide you through Michael's strategic pivot to starting a flooring business, and his unique ability to communicate in multiple languages—a key differentiator in his business. But that's not all. Get ready to understand the emotional grit necessary to handle rapid business growth and potential company-ending blows, including the COVID pricing gouge.
As we delve deeper into Michael's life, we explore the powerful impact of family and upbringing on his remarkable success. We take you through his transition from a challenging neighborhood to the suburbs, his successful business partnership, and the tragic story of Charlie—a terminally ill colleague. This chapter of Michael's life underscores the resilience required in times of loss, and provides a raw and intimate look into the adversity that came with the pandemic.
Finally, we unearth the invaluable lessons from Michael's business journey—patience, having the right people around you, and the pivotal role equity plays in a business. We also share the hard truths about dealing with loss in your business and the emotional strength required to keep going. In this episode, you'll discover that success is more than just monetary gains—it's about the intangibles in life. So, come join us on this emotional rollercoaster ride and discover how to navigate the ebbs and flows of the business world.
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Ready to step into the shoes of a business titan? Join us as we navigate the inspiring journey of Michael Malgiere, a towering figure in the flooring industry. From opening a restaurant at 19 to weathering the storm of 9/11, we, your hosts, guide you through Michael's strategic pivot to starting a flooring business, and his unique ability to communicate in multiple languages—a key differentiator in his business. But that's not all. Get ready to understand the emotional grit necessary to handle rapid business growth and potential company-ending blows, including the COVID pricing gouge.
As we delve deeper into Michael's life, we explore the powerful impact of family and upbringing on his remarkable success. We take you through his transition from a challenging neighborhood to the suburbs, his successful business partnership, and the tragic story of Charlie—a terminally ill colleague. This chapter of Michael's life underscores the resilience required in times of loss, and provides a raw and intimate look into the adversity that came with the pandemic.
Finally, we unearth the invaluable lessons from Michael's business journey—patience, having the right people around you, and the pivotal role equity plays in a business. We also share the hard truths about dealing with loss in your business and the emotional strength required to keep going. In this episode, you'll discover that success is more than just monetary gains—it's about the intangibles in life. So, come join us on this emotional rollercoaster ride and discover how to navigate the ebbs and flows of the business world.
Contribute to the granola bar fund :)
Follow The Journey on Instagram
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So, michael Malgiere, are you okay with being recorded for a podcast? Yes, sir. Well, there goes that liability. This is I Took a Hike. I'm your host, darren Mass, founder of Business Therapy Group and Parktime Wilderness Philosopher, here we step out of the boardrooms and home offices and into the great outdoors where the hustle of entrepreneurship meets the rustle of nature. In this episode, I am stopped in my tracks when I hear the inspirational tales from a flooring giant, michael Malgiere. Our topics include the intuition required to pivot and take over a business, rapid growth despite facing several potential company, ending blows and surviving the COVID pricing gouge. We are filled with ups and downs, moments of silence and lessons on emotional strength when I took a hike with Michael Malgiere. Hello, listeners, before we proceed, we'd like to issue a trigger warning. This episode contains discussions about suicide which might be distressing or triggering for some. Please prioritize your well-being and consider skipping this episode or seeking support if you feel like it might be sensitive for you. Remember it's okay to ask for help and there are resources available if you need somebody to talk to. It wasn't until I embarked on this podcast journey that I realized the impact of problem-solving in nature, and now I would like to help you. I invite you or your team to join me on a hike and experience business therapy, all while on the trail, exploring nature's wonders, while reaching higher potential is a rejuvenating experience, and together we will forge a path to new heights. Visit itookahikecom for more information on our hiking therapy and discover that much-needed reset before you can take off again. Alright, so let's officially start. We are hiking the Eagle Mountain Reserve and it is about to start pouring, so we're going to try to do this hour and a half trail a lot quicker, so we don't get soaked and we don't ruin our gear. But, michael Malgiari, who are you and why are you here?
Speaker 2:So my business was started very organically. I had owned a restaurant at the time. I opened my first restaurant when I was 19 years old. I couldn't even serve alcohol, but my brother and I opened up a restaurant, a 120-seat Italian restaurant, in Upper Montclair, new Jersey. Things going very well. Then 9-11 hit and things weren't going so well after that. So I started another business with a very good friend of mine doing kitchens and bathroom remodeling. After about the third or fourth job, somebody asked us if we could do their hardwood floors. We didn't know anything about hardwood floors so we told them no. Two or three requests later it seemed that every job we did for the bathroom and kitchen remodels, 70% of the people wanted their wood floors done. So I said to my partner let's open up the phone book, find a wood flooring guy, sub it out. So that's what we did. Turns out that all of the flooring guys in New Jersey are Brazilian. Most of them live in Long Branch, new Jersey. They do a great job on the floor. However, only the owner of the company spoke English. I speak five languages. One of them is Portuguese. So how did you learn five languages? Grew up learning Italian and English pretty much same time Italian family Everyone spoke. No, actually, my parents don't speak. When my grandparents came here, they wanted their kids to learn the language of the country they moved to. They didn't speak Italian to them, they wanted them to learn English. So my parents actually don't speak. At some point we lived with my. So you learned it from your grandparents At some point. My grandparents lived with us in a mother-daughter home so I would go down and speak to them. Spanish kind of came naturally to me because it's so close to Italian and Portuguese very similar as well, so I was able to Really.
Speaker 1:Portuguese is similar to Spanish.
Speaker 2:Portuguese has a lot of similarities to. It's a Latin-based language Tutoban, tutoban. See. You have, for example, comostai in Italian, comostas in Spanish, comová in Portuguese. So all very similar. There's a lot of words that are different but very similar. So, would you say, you're fluent in all these languages. I'm fluent conversationally. Can't write in all of them, but I do have a natural knack for languages. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law live in Kenya and we were going out to visit them one year. 30 days before we went out, I got a course in Swahili and by the time I got there, I was conversational in Swahili. No way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you've got one of those brands. Say something in Swahili, put you on the spot.
Speaker 2:Ujambomama.
Speaker 1:Ujambodada.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? It means hello. How are you Great? I knew that.
Speaker 1:No idea. That's amazing. I mean, I have a natural brain for picking up conversational language, which is great, which puts you at a very intelligent level.
Speaker 2:Correct. Very cool, I have a knack with numbers and that's that same part of that brain, I assume. So we went to Greece, Me and my wife went to Greece on our honeymoon after week one. Certainly don't speak Greek, but I picked up on a few phrases and a few words and I could ask how do you get to the bathroom? Hello, how are you? Which restaurant do you think we should go to?
Speaker 1:I'm sure that serves you well because, as I've done some international travel, I realized, if you at least make the attempt to say hello, how are you? They appreciate it. They appreciate it Right. Same thing in growing or living in New York. If a tourist came up and just tried to attempt to say hello, how are you? Can you help me with directions? I noticed people are more willing to point with them, show them maps and take the extra time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely 100%. They definitely appreciate it. They notice when I go to another country and I try to learn their native language. They appreciate it. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law have some workers in Kenya and they absolutely loved that I was speaking Swahili to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got a kick out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they actually were making fun of my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They said you guys been living here for four years. Your brother-in-law's been here for a week. He speaks better and on top of it, because I learned from tapes it's the proper. So they actually thought I was a Swahili, like a Kenyan educated person. Swahili night Exactly Swahilian.
Speaker 1:Swahili.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, so in any case.
Speaker 2:Back to the flooring. What happened was we wind up hooking up with a company to do the flooring and it turned out the only guy that spoke English was the owner of the company. So he would go set the job up very charismatic personality, great guy he would whether it was with the homeowner, the GC developer, he would set everything up, but then he's only one man so he'd be off getting other jobs. If anything changed and the GC or the person in charge of that job wanted anything changed, they would go to the person that was installing and they would say I want to turn the board this way and, in this room, go this way. And they would look at them and say, see, having no idea what they were saying, no idea, no idea. So the job didn't get done, right, he wind up not getting paid. It was a big mess. So we basically my partner and I spoke to him and said listen, let us take over. He told us he was going back to Brazil because he couldn't take not getting paid on every job. So he wasn't getting paid on 70% of his jobs. So we wind up taking over. Within the first year we had two vans. By year two we had 20 vans. So you guys grew exponentially, exponentially. It was the niche of English-speaking representation on every job. There were times we had guys that didn't know anything about flooring, but they spoke both English and Portuguese, so they would, let's say, be the driver of the van and they would be there just to communicate if need be.
Speaker 1:OK, so, backing up, you took over somebody's business. It was an already existing business. You had just the will and desire and drive to understand that you had a niche ahead of you, correct, and your niche was language-based. You saw a hole in the market and you capitalized upon it Correct.
Speaker 2:I always thought the way to make money was to fix a problem, and the problem here was there was nobody able to communicate with the customer to get the job done properly if the owner wasn't there, and he wasn't there most of the time.
Speaker 1:So, you saw a big hole. A big frustration for a client is when you cannot communicate to the worker or the employee of whatever company or service provider you're working with. Correct, and in this case it's a true language barrier. Correct, ok, correct. So you saw a great opportunity here and you capitalized on it, correct. So that took guts. That's the glory that took, as one would say, chutzpah Right, you had to take a huge risk, so you left the restaurant business, you left the bathroom and kitchen remodeling business and you started a flooring business. Because of the vacuum and the void that was there, did you continue to service bathrooms and kitchens or you just completely did an about face 180 pivot?
Speaker 2:Pretty much an about face. We had a few jobs on the books that we had to finish and honor those contracts for kitchens and bathrooms. But once those jobs were done we didn't go after any more and we strictly concentrated on the flooring.
Speaker 1:Of course. So you did the noble thing. You finished your jobs, your obligations. Correct, absolutely Deliver upon your promises and never, ever ever break your promises with your clients. Correct, because that'll just destroy your reputation. Correct. So you go from a few trucks to 20 in under a year, and just about a year, yep, wow. That is phenomenal growth. Now, were you growing with, or taking that risk, based on revenue or based on just more intuition? You needed more truck rolls.
Speaker 2:A little bit of both. My partner and I had the philosophy you need to spend money to make money. True, and are you a?
Speaker 1:gambler yes, I am Naturally in everything, or just business.
Speaker 2:I like, if you're asking about gambling, let's say down at the casinos I do like to gamble, but definitely in business.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to take a risk, ok, but educated risk, correct, clearly, because you run a very successful business, correct, ok. Ok, so you took another gamble and a risk, but, as we can surmise, the best bet or gamble is always on yourself. If you can't gamble on yourself, then we've got other problems we need to address.
Speaker 2:And back to the restaurant. You said I left the restaurant. It actually that was another thing where the stars were kind of aligning for me. The restaurant at first was very successful. For a 19-year-old kid and my brother was 22 at the time we had a restaurant that had an hour wait on a Tuesday night. Oh wow, you couldn't get in on a Friday and Saturday night. We were very busy when 9-11 hit. We took a big hit. Shortly after 9-11, when I say shortly, relatively speaking, maybe a year, a year and a half somebody came by. They said I want to buy your restaurant. I said we're not for sale. We were sitting at a table. He slipped a piece of paper across the table that had a number on it. I said OK, we're for sale. So it actually worked out.
Speaker 1:Hold on, let's not skip past that.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:I've heard this argument from several business owners. I've helped them sell their businesses. We're not for sale, we're not for sale. And every time I'll look them in the eyes and say there is a number where, if you were to look at that number and tell me you're not for sale, you're foolish, because everything and everyone has a number, has a number, and when you're staring at millions in an offer, you really have to think about turning that down Because you never know if you're going to get that offer again. And you said the key word everything.
Speaker 2:Everything is for sale, for the number.
Speaker 1:Everything is for sale for the right number. So it's important that you highlighted that. You demonstrated that we're not for sale until you saw a piece of paper with a real number on it, changing your bias.
Speaker 2:And, the truth be told, we weren't for sale. We didn't have any word out on the street oh, the balcony might be selling. Didn't contact any realtors. This fella came by. He liked our location, loved the look of the place where we were and he wanted it. So he gave us an offer that we couldn't refuse, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Exactly right. So your head space was truly occupied on. We're riding the high road here. Everything is going well, I have so much success, the line's out the door. I'm not for sale because I'm enjoying this, but whoa, there's a number. That's where it's important, as a business owner or an entrepreneur, to understand that you have to know what your long-term strategy is, but also be malleable with the course Correct, ok. So let's take a way back machine, because I happen to know you and I know about you and I consider you a personal friend, which has been great. We certainly have appreciated a few beers and enjoy life, so I do know a little bit about you and, if you're comfortable with telling more of your personal story, I think it would be good to highlight how you grew up, the person that you once was and the person that you are today.
Speaker 2:And whoa there's a thunder. That sounded fine.
Speaker 1:Well, that was pretty apropos for the story we're about to hear that sounded fine exactly, but what I will say is we can fast forward to somebody that I know is a pretty upstanding person. A great father just had another baby. This is your fourth baby, someone I call friend and neighbor. So let's hear a little bit about your past.
Speaker 2:So I was born in Livingston at St Barnabas. My family lived on the border of Bloomfield and Norck. I lived there until I was about 11 years old. The neighborhood started getting pretty bad, so parents moved me out to the suburbs East Hanover, flawn Park area, mars County. When we moved there to East Hanover, that's where we moved into the mother-daughter home. My grandparents lived in an apartment down below. My family lived up top and I think that's what gave me a huge sense of family value. Family is the most important thing to me. As you mentioned, I have four children and an amazing wife. We have a very good marriage and I attribute my upbringing to the family man that I am today, and the family is more important to me than anything. So the drive for my wife and children, I think, is what keeps me going in the business, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does. It does. So let's take a deeper step back. The person you are today was shaped by the circumstances of growing up. You grew up in this tough area. Your parents and your family moved out, tried to give you a better upbringing. Like most parents do, they want more for their kids than they have had. Times are getting tough. You want to take your kids out of a tough situation. Were there any tough challenges you had to face that most people probably wouldn't face when they find this path of success that you're on?
Speaker 2:Well, sure, yeah, with respect to business, not necessarily family, before the pandemic hit. Well, let me go back a bit. So my partner and I were partners for just about 20 years and, unfortunately, right before the pandemic, at only 41 years old, he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer given three to six months to live. Oh, wow, and that's a concern.
Speaker 1:That's scary.
Speaker 2:Being great partners. This was devastating. My partner and I literally in 20 years never had an argument. In fact, there was a time where our wives got into a little bit of a tiff. The next day we walked in. We looked at each other. He said no. I said OK, me neither. We never discussed it. Two months later they were best friends again.
Speaker 1:I had a similar situation with a friend. It happened to be over something really silly and I called one of my closest friends and we laughed at how silly it was. But it was a real situation. You can't deny someone's emotions and thankfully our wives made up, but we both laughed at how silly the situation was so we literally never got involved for the full two months.
Speaker 2:They had their tiff. Our partnership was amazing. Literally never had an argument. We were always on the same page, and that's very rare in business.
Speaker 1:That is probably one of the most rare scenarios in a business is to have a partnership that truly mesh as well, where one is the visionary, one is the integrator and there are really very few, if not any, disputes. That doesn't mean that you can't have disputes, sure Right, just in marriages we have disputes, but at the end of the day, how we resolve those until we come back to center and neutral with each other?
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't get me wrong, there's times we disagreed on things, but we talked through it and in the end, if we went his way, great, if we went my way, great. So what was his role? Was he more the visionary?
Speaker 1:CEO of the vision.
Speaker 2:Charlie was operations in the field. Ok, so he was the integrator. He ran the jobs. I got the jobs met with the suits, went over contracts, ran the office ordering material, warehousing material, made sure this glue is good with this material. And then Charlie ran the jobs in the field.
Speaker 1:So he was your integrator in traction standpoint for following a business model and you were the visionary. You were the one screaming about the company from your soapbox, getting everyone rallied up, making the big deals and the sales meeting with customers shaking hands, kissing babies. Correct, all right.
Speaker 2:And we both truly were equally important in the business. Of course, Without me getting the jobs he doesn't have jobs to run. Without him running the jobs as an owner, doing as good a job as he did, maybe we don't get all of those jobs.
Speaker 1:You are exemplifying the true, classic form of a well-organized, visionary, integrator, balance, correct. One person does one thing completely better as a strength than the other partner, and vice versa your weaknesses are filled by your partner's strengths and your partner's weaknesses are filled by your strengths. That is a true symbiotic relationship and a partnership that absolutely works now.
Speaker 2:Correct. And just to throw in there, it happened organically. We didn't sit down one day and say, ok, you're going to be responsible for this and I'm going to be responsible for this. It just sort of happened.
Speaker 1:So you hit my next conversation point. How did you make this happen? It happened organically. And guess what? This is how most successful relationships find each other. It just happens to work out organically. And I'm not a big astrology believer I think my wife is Certain a tourist meshes well with a Virgo, whatever. But the same rings true in business and business partners as well. Now, if you're starting a business and someone approaches you or a friend and you don't get along normally, you better not form a business, because a business is going to stress everything. You're certainly not going to get along during the business. But if you're approached by somebody where you do have a classic, historical, great working relationship, that's a good idea. It's always good to have somebody to work with that pairs well with you, agreed.
Speaker 2:If I had to pinpoint one possible event that I'll say pushed us into the direction we had, was when we first got started. We had an installer who was great, was working with us for a couple months. So it wasn't a long term relationship, but we were starting to form a relationship. He was with us for a few months and it turns out he stole a $200 bucket of glue. I immediately fired him. Charlie said Mike, what are you doing? I said well, he stole from us. He said well, let's talk about it Now. Let's see exactly what happened. He said Mike, you can't go firing everybody all the time. We won't have a crew. I said I agree, but we also can't have a precedent set where we get stolen from and it's OK. So from there, he more dealt with the guys in the field than I dealt with the people in the office. So if there is one single possible event that pushed us towards that, that would be it.
Speaker 1:OK, so let's take a brief pause for a second. Let's do an interactive segment, if you'd like to, while you're listening to this episode, weigh in. Should Mike or did Mike do the right thing by firing or terminating the employment of the individual that stole a bucket of glue, no matter how big or small? Should that employee have been terminated? Or do we agree with Charlie on not terminating that employee and possibly training or working with the employee? Let us know what you think. Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at hightookahikecom. Or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail or to simply drop us a line. So I will tell you what I think. I think you're both right. I think you have to weigh the decision. One you can't let an employee steal from you. That's not okay. So you're absolutely in the right in letting this individual go. At the same time, you also have to consider how hard is it to find a new installer? And is this something that you can re-educate my bias? I lean towards you and made the right decision, but let's see what the viewers or the listeners think. But regardless of how big or small the item is, that's being stolen or that is stolen or pilfered. You know it's the product of the company. It's up to the company to decide. But yeah, I think there should be a zero tolerance policy, regardless of what it is when it's stolen. And also unbeknownst to many, the number one item that is stolen from a company that the employee steal is time. Time has a cost to it and if an employee decides to not work or not show up or not report time off, that's stealing, technically Now agreed. Should that employee be fired and terminated? Probably not. That's a conversation at first Agreed, right, not a physical item. But if a physical item goes missing, it's certainly something that we need to consider. And yeah, in Jersey, in Jersey Spirit, we are coming across a highway. You know, sometimes I pick the trails because they have excitement, so crossing a highway is probably very exciting for us. The ominous buzz of the car. Yes, I think we are escaping the storm, at least on this side of the trail.
Speaker 2:So, in any case, back to the story. Charlie and I had a great business relationship. He winds up getting diagnosed with this terminal, terrible disease. Charlie was a very, very strong person. He wind up living about three years, even given the three to six month diagnosis, and he made it three years.
Speaker 1:So let me navigate this path here, All right. So what was it like when Charlie told you his diagnosis?
Speaker 2:It was devastating. What were your immediate thoughts? My immediate thoughts were he's going to be the 1% to beat it. Oh, you were very hopeful. I was very hopeful, feeling Charlie was such a strong person. If anybody could beat it, it would be him. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was just too strong.
Speaker 1:Well, you weren't wrong, though In a way he did beat it. He beat it for a much longer period of time than statistics would have allowed.
Speaker 2:He did. He lived almost three years when he was given three months, they told him not even to do any treatment. Go get your affairs in order, spend your last couple months with your family and enjoy it. And he refused. He did many different treatments. His wife became pretty much a nurse and she helped him and he lived as long as he possibly could. Wow.
Speaker 1:All right. So he had a true fortitude, not only mental but physical and emotional, to survive at all odds. I would say three additional years is certainly a lot better than the diagnosis.
Speaker 2:Than the diagnosis right.
Speaker 1:Now, when he first approached you, did he have that same strength and resolve, or was he, you know, in a way panicked and worried?
Speaker 2:Yeah, charlie never had panic. I was actually there when he got the diagnosis. I was in the hospital, in the waiting room when he came out for his final test. That was going to say whether he you know how bad it was. And he came out into the waiting room, he had his hand on his stomach. He looked at me and he I saw it in his eyes that it wasn't good, but Gut-wrenching, yeah, gut-wrenching. But he never panicked. He didn't want me to go and tell everybody in the office or tell everybody in the company. He didn't want anybody feeling bad for him. He didn't want anybody, you know, saying oh, charlie, you know he did not want any tears shed for him. He wanted to go about business as usual and act as if nothing was wrong.
Speaker 1:So he had an extremely strong resolve and that's commendable.
Speaker 2:Correct. I got to be honest for me. I don't know if I'd care. What would is going in Unit 310 if I just got a diagnosis of three months.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, but in a way the you know what would is going in. 310 is a distraction from inevitable Correct. That's what we do in life is we tend to distract ourselves from the obvious right, you have to medicate somehow, and sometimes medication is work and work is medication and that was it.
Speaker 2:Work was his strength. Work was what kept him going. Obviously his family he has three young children and his wife and that but work is what he focused on. That kept him going through it. So shortly thereafter the pandemic comes, which created another problem for him because he's now immunocompromised Yep and he couldn't be out in the field, go into meetings. We were shut down for a while, but when things did get back and we were able to get to the buildings and start working, he couldn't be there. So he did everything he could do from home through email. We hired from within a fellow by the name of Vinny who had been with us for about 12 years. He was a project manager. I promoted him to do Charlie's job in the field. Charlie still did what he did by email and coordinating. Vinny took over his job in the field. Okay.
Speaker 1:Good, good pairing and good compromise there for a while.
Speaker 2:Oh all right For a while. Vinny was with us for 12 years. Great guy, company guy. Vinny was at the office one day. It was a Friday. I said, vin, you don't look good, go home early. Ah, you know it was making fun of me. I said, vin, I'm not making funny, you look, you don't look good, I'm just. I think you should go home and get some rest. His wife called us 4.30 in the morning. He had a massive stroke and died. Oh Jesus, wow. And that was about a year after Charlie's diagnosis. So he had been doing Charlie's position for about a year Actually, no, I'm sorry it was about, it was about two years, sorry, wow, that's horrible. And then three months later Charlie passed away.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's horrible. So you had these immense business, soul, emotional, personal, crushing events happen all at once.
Speaker 2:I mean, charlie was my best friend, my brother, for years, over 20 years, but I was close with Vinnie as well. Of course, someone was working with you for 12 years you become very close with the people you work with, and Vinnie was a great guy, company guy and it was. It was tough when he passed, very tough, wow, all right.
Speaker 1:So so all this, let's stay on the business side of things. What's going through your head?
Speaker 2:So this obviously is tough at any time For anybody, for anybody, for any company, for any person. But in the interim, I'm in the wood flooring business, which is lumber, and as most people know, lumber was one of the biggest materials that was affected during the pandemic. Lumber went up 300, even 400% in some cases. And I say in this particular case and I'm about to explain my success was sort of my downfall. When the pandemic hit we were on 21 active contracts, and when I say contracts it's not doing our neighbor's house couple thousand square feet, it's three, 400,000 square foot jobs, two, three, four million dollar contracts, big contracts.
Speaker 1:Big contracts. You're one of the largest in the tri-state.
Speaker 2:Correct. So being on these 21 jobs would normally be great, but not when a pandemic comes and lumber goes up 300 and 400%. 18 of those jobs we were on and I could name every one of them had a product. That product, before the pandemic, which is when these contracts were negotiated, was about 97 cents 98 cents per square foot. When the pandemic hit and lumber went through the roof, that product went up to $3.50, $3.70, even $4 in some cases.
Speaker 1:Wow, massive, massive price increase.
Speaker 2:Massive price increase.
Speaker 1:Is this because of distribution, creation of the product supply chain, or gouging?
Speaker 2:I personally think both. I definitely think people weren't working as much, so they weren't producing as much of supply and demand. But I also think there came a point where it was gouging Okay.
Speaker 1:But it's human nature to take advantage of the challenges of another. Unfortunately, it's the ugly side of human nature, correct, so I went to these clients.
Speaker 2:Just to give you one example, it was a 310,000 square foot job. We needed two layers of this product, so I needed 620,000 square feet. When the pandemic hit we were only about 20,000 square feet in. So I went to the client I said guys, here's the problem. Can you make up the difference? Prove it. I said prove it. I said turn on any news station, open up any newspaper. You see, the price of lumber is up 300% or 400%.
Speaker 1:Now do you feel those clients didn't believe you where they were saying the prove it just to buy time.
Speaker 2:At that point they were buying time. Okay, Everybody knew these are builders. They're multimillionaires and billionaires. They know what's going on.
Speaker 1:Ignorance is not an excuse Right.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I went back with my office. We got every single PO for the job, every single invoice, every single check, and I went and presented it to them and they saw that my cost, that I budgeted for that job was about $620,000. And then my actual cost was about 2.25 million. Okay, basically the response was we have a contract, honor it. Too bad, too bad, basically Too bad, stop it so. I basically now that job I mentioned. That happened to be the worst of the 18. Okay, so that job was a $1.6 million, $1.7 million upcharge that I didn't get one penny for. That happened to be the worst of them they trickled down to. The next job was a $900,000 loss. There was one that was a $700,000, one that was $600,000, all the way down to one that was only about $120,000.
Speaker 1:And because of the nature of contracts, you couldn't say, well, if you can't come up to a regular price, then I have to walk off the job.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. I had two options. Option A is to walk off the job, in which case they're going to send me a letter that I'm in default to get back on the job within three days, or they're going to get someone else to finish my job, and they're not only going to come after me for the difference, which we know. There's going to be a difference because those are the true costs. I wasn't making it up and they would come after me for liquidated damages If there was any delay that they had to get somebody else, if the other person charged them even more if the customer backed out of buying a unit because there was a delay in the flooring to finish the unit.
Speaker 1:So not only do you have to navigate the challenge of losing your two closest and best employees, if I may, as well as business partner, you have to navigate the fact that you have COVID, pricing, gouging, pandemic strife and the fact that you are locked into doing jobs for your client. So that is an amount of pressure that I don't think many business owners deal with or consider, and I apologize for all of this traffic. Where we get it out of it soon.
Speaker 2:So to finish up on option A, that's not a good option because my reputation will be shot if I walk off these jobs. My guys aren't working, no checks are coming in, so that's not a good option. Option B just man through it. Charlie was alive for part of this and we made the decision together that it was best to just man through it, and manning through it is just what we did. We finished every single job that we were on have a good day. Every single job, from the one that was a $120,000 loss to the one that was a $1.2 million loss.
Speaker 1:You're talking about big losses Correct.
Speaker 2:All in all, it was about $13.5 million upcharge that I didn't get one penny of help for. Not one penny.
Speaker 1:That is a beyond complex challenge, I would say unknown to many in the small business world, because you still are a small business in the classic definition of it. That is a challenge that requires a lot of strength. So what's going on in your head? How's your mental game?
Speaker 2:So I draw strength from my wife. She's an unbelievably intelligent person, on top of being beautiful inside and out.
Speaker 1:You are racking up some credit. Well, you know my wife yes, she's probably smiling from ear to ear right now, while others are like uh-huh, go on.
Speaker 2:But she. I had conversations with her and through my conversations with her, I basically tried to make lemonade out of the lemons. Finishing every one of these jobs was a huge, huge financial and stressful burden. Of course, what I did was I went to these clients every single one of them, and I'll give you the first one. I went, made an appointment with the owner, who usually doesn't meet with subs. That's why he has a team. He's a big company in the city and he said Mike, I can't really help you. We already went through this Ownership denied the change order. We can't help you. I said that's not why I'm here, eric. He said okay, why are you here? I said we can say that I finished your job. In fact, I finished it with flying colors. Your team probably said I was the best sub on the job, even though I was losing money. He goes you did so. What can I do for you? I said, being that, I suffered through and I did the right thing, I didn't walk off, I didn't sue, I didn't call force major. I want all of your work moving forward. I want every one of the jobs that you can give me.
Speaker 1:So you came in with a list of demands when they hit you with a list of demands in the beginning, pretty much.
Speaker 2:I mean, I didn't say it as a demand, but basically he was understood and he said to me he goes, mike, you're right, you did do the right thing. You finished a job with flying colors. You deserve every job we can give you and I will give you every job I can give you. Amazing, I went to pretty much all of my clients. Some of them I had better relationships with others. None of them flat out said no, we won't work with you. Most of them said yes, same response as Eric, you deserve everything we can give you. Some of them said we'll see how it goes, because they know I took a huge financial hit. They weren't worried about giving me the job because I couldn't finish it and couldn't handle it. They were saying, mike, in this conversation you told us you took a huge financial hit. Do you have the wherewithal to now do all of these jobs? And they're right in a sense. Obviously, a 13 plus million dollar hit for a small business is not easy to get through.
Speaker 1:That is devastating.
Speaker 2:It's almost impossible, but nonetheless I'm here and I'm still fighting through, starting to get the bigger jobs now, and people like Eric are making good on their promise, giving me the jobs they can give me.
Speaker 1:Good. So what would you say was the strength or learning lesson you took from dealing with what I would call business hell Absolute, insufferable hell.
Speaker 2:I'll never give up. Never give up. It might not be the best scenario. It might not look so great in front of you, but you can get through it.
Speaker 1:I will say I'm very proud that you were able to have this conversation, as we literally hiked through a highway we did. I will pick the trail a little bit better on the next go.
Speaker 2:So when I was younger I heard a story about a grandfather who gave a broken down watch to his grandson and he told him take it to a jewelry store, see what you can get for it. And he took it to the jewelry store. Jewelry store owner said he would give him 50 bucks for it. Kid went back to his grandfather. He said they told me 50 bucks. He said okay, take it to a pawn shop. Pawn shop said they would give him 10 bucks, told his grandfather. His grandfather said take it to a museum, see what they have to say. Museum offered him $500,000. It was some type of antique watch that had some crazy value. And what I took from that is someone knows your worth, someone knows what you can do. Put yourself around people who see your worth and see your value, not around people who don't.
Speaker 1:That is a very glamorous learning lesson. So I think, unfortunately, patience in that story is probably the biggest takeaway, because having patience to find the right deal, or the art of the deal, is something that you need to have skill or at least practice with. We're an impatient species. Unfortunately, usually someone who's panicked and desperate will take the first deal. Sure, great lesson, though. How's the business today? What shape is it in?
Speaker 2:As you could imagine, it's a huge hole that was dug. Right now I have more work that we're bidding on that I think we've ever had in the 20 plus years we've been in business. Congrats, thank you. Great problem to have Correct Some of the jobs I'm having a hard time actually landing. For example, I have one job. It's over a $6 million job. The client is one of those who I finished the job for during the pandemic and he wants to give me this job. The only problem is the financial part of it. You have to have a certain amount of financials to be able to be qualified to do the job.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're on a catch 22 situation, correct. You can't get that first job without having a job on your resume, but you can't get a job on your resume without having that first job.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So what do we do?
Speaker 2:There's different ways to go about things. I have a couple of different options. I will get the job one way or another. I will get it, Just a matter of how I get it. Do I partner up with somebody in the business who might normally be a competitor and possibly have to share the job with them? Do I reach out to some type of funding institution that might need to take a lot more than traditionally? There's a couple of ways that I'm going about it and one of them will come to fruition. I will not give it up. I mean, this is a job that he's I don't want to say begging me to take, because there's plenty of other people out there that can do the job, but he recognizes what I did, recognizes my integrity, and he wants me to get this job.
Speaker 1:So, based on everything that we now know about you about how you grew a business from two trucks to 20 trucks, how you survived the death of a partner, a fast, rapid passing of a partner and a long-standing employee something tells me you're going to come out on top because you figured all of the other stuff out. You got through a pandemic, so you're certainly going to figure out this part too, and even if you have to take less profit, you're going to get back to the top, where you want to be, in a relatively quick period of time. Agreed.
Speaker 2:And you just hit the nail on the head too even if I have to take less profit, I was only always a 50% owner of the business. My partner was 50%. Now, unfortunately, I'm 100%. Why do you say unfortunately? Because he passed away in order for that to happen.
Speaker 1:Okay, so unfortunately, from that standpoint, but being 100% owner of business is not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm 100% owner of the business, so I'm not greedy. I don't mind having to give away a little bit more. Don't slip on those rocks. Yeah, I don't mind having to give away a little bit more because of the circumstances, because I was only always a 50% owner anyway Got it. So in my head, I don't mind if I have to give away to another competitor, possibly partnering up with them or some type of funding institution that might want to take more than what would be additional.
Speaker 1:Well, as a human says, would you rather have 10% of a watermelon or 100% of a grape? Exactly, that's an important lesson for business owners to understand as well. Equity is a tool. It's a powerful tool. It's a resource that you can utilize to motivate people or to bring in other resources, and owning 100% shouldn't be the holy grail for you. Correct Right? You're better off using that tool and that resource to the best of your disposal than just being greedy about it, because you can get a lot further if you learn how to utilize equity properly.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's talk about some mega challenges other than this trail right now. We've certainly traversed some ground and I think it's going to get a lot more buggy in a few minutes, looks like. Take the spray out. Yeah, you should probably hit yourself with some bug spray. You got some. We're going through streams still streams due to all that rain so ready to resume, let's do it. Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at hightookahikecom, or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line. Let's talk about some points of pain and biggest challenges you've overcome. Right, we've established that you are clearly a successful minded, intelligent business owner and business enthusiast. You are a visionary. You have suffered a lot, you have gone through a lot, more so than most, and you have risen to the occasion each and every time. You have not quit. So let's talk about tell me some failures. Tell me some challenges that you have to think back upon, like that could have truly stopped you and outside of your, losing your partner and all those, but something that really could have set you on the wrong path.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a couple of things that I could possibly say to that, but there were some other challenges. With regards to death, obviously, losing a partner who was integral to the business is a huge challenge in itself. Then the person that you put in that spot passing away overnight was another major loss. Not too much long after Charlie passed a couple months actually, I'm sorry, a couple weeks we had a foreman who was with us for about 10 years. His name was Julio. Julio was a very charismatic Brazilian guy who learned the trade and learned English very easily. People on the field loved him. When Charlie passed, I promoted him to a sort of a head foreman, not necessarily to take over Vinny and Charlie's job, but sort of a halfway. Vinny's gone to. At this point, vinny's passed. At this point, charlie's passed. At this point, charlie's passed. At this point, two weeks later, I promote Julio. Julio says to me Mr Mike, thank you, thank you, I appreciate it. I said Julio, you're going to have a little more responsibility, a little more pay. He was very excited. About a week later, him and his family had some type of argument over Bitcoin. They had bought a bunch of Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:They didn't know, they're not the only one that had arguments over Bitcoin Exactly.
Speaker 2:They didn't know whether they should sit on it, sell it, buy more some type of argument over Bitcoin. Now, clearly, julio must have had something else going on, but he called his family down in Brazil from Long Branch, new Jersey. He called them on FaceTime. He walked around in front of the camera, walked up a ladder and hung himself.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on FaceTime in front of his whole family watching in Brazil.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, all right, we're going to have to pause on that one WTF is the only thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2:Is that too much?
Speaker 1:No, that's wow, that's a shocker, okay, his family's watching His family's watching.
Speaker 2:They called the neighbor that lived around the corner by the time he got there. They brought him. He died the next day and we're just in the ICU. Oh Jesus, Is that insane? Yeah, Is that too much for this?
Speaker 1:No, no, this is raw, real and authentic. So we keep our real stories in. Wow, that is just a lot for me to digest at this second, but okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, it was nuts man.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's like a fucking movie.
Speaker 2:Could you imagine his poor family?
Speaker 1:watching him do this. I can't imagine anybody having to deal with that. But clearly there are warning signs, right. What we know from suicides is there are plenty of warning signs. We don't really pay attention to them, right, there are cries for help, there are discussions of suicide, there are visible markers of depression, but unfortunately we don't realize those signs until afterwards. Right, one of those signs and I suspect something I know is going through it now is that you start getting text messages of, hey, remember when we did this, but in an eerie sort of way, out of complete left field. Or remember that time we did that? Yeah, that was fun, right, they start collecting memories again and reminding people. That is a sign. But yeah, now I've dealt with it near and dear to my heart between friends and other situations, and each time you can think, oh, yeah, there was that time where they literally said under their breath well, maybe it's better I'm not here. And then the next thing they're not there. So, wow, that's deep man. Okay, so that happened. I don't mean to skirt over that part, but that happened. So now you are at a loss of three key employees.
Speaker 2:Now I'm at a loss of three key employees and I certainly wasn't as close with Julio as I was with Charlie and Vinnie. Julio was a field guy. Still a shock, it's a crazy shock. And another employee. You start thinking, geez, what the heck's going on here. Is it you?
Speaker 1:Exactly. Are you the guy, are you the mush?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, which I don't believe People can't see but.
Speaker 1:I do not believe that this is a you thing.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, that's actually not the last of it, there's more. So I have an estimator who was with me for about six and a half, seven years Fabrice great kid, two-year-old son. Him and his wife were going for another child. Fabrice was driving home from church on a Sunday morning by himself. His family was in a different vehicle. They were going somewhere else. He was on the Garden State Parkway. It had around exit 100. It had just started to rain. Something must have fallen out of a truck in front of him. He swerved to get out of the way, lost control of the vehicle, slammed into an overpass and died on impact.
Speaker 1:Oh my god.
Speaker 2:His brother showed up at the office Monday morning telling us what happened and it was just devastating. Now it's here. Four people in the company, four people. How many employees do you have In the office? 20. In the field, we have four out of 20 people passed away within nine months. All within about nine months.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know what to say to that. What's going on in your head?
Speaker 2:There comes a point where I start saying is this, is it something I did? You know is it's no.
Speaker 1:This is not a situation where you blame you. This is outside you.
Speaker 2:I get it, but you start thinking, geez, what's going on here? Because, truth be told, I've always been a person that's had pretty good luck, you know, I feel like you create your own luck, says everybody, until the pandemic hit right.
Speaker 1:The pandemic was the ultimate luck reversal, correct, right? Anyone you know, including yourself, including myself, that had great fortunate luck instantaneously wiped out. No one had luck. Agreed, and not to not, too, you know, to glorify a suicide in any way, but the pandemic did usher that in a lot more. In fact, we don't talk about it enough. Agreed, there have been more suicides in the past three years than in any year prior or series of years. Agreed, agreed, and it's, it's the depression that sat in, just being lonely and irrelevant in the world and not having purpose anymore. And you know the polarizing effect of society and being outside of your own powers. Agreed, agreed, it's a topic we should certainly talk about more.
Speaker 2:Couldn't, couldn't agree more. Taking all this, one of my competitors, who I have a relationship with, called me up and she said, michael, how you doing? I said why? Yes, she's okay. Well, you know I'm sorry for loss, I know you. I just heard you had another, another loss, so sorry for that. But how are you doing with all the jobs you were on? She said I know which jobs you were on and I know that they have to be a huge financial burden. Somebody said to me they said, mike, aren't your competitors going through the same thing? And I said no, that's when I came up with the line of. In this particular case, my success became my downfall because I was on so many good, high-end jobs. If you recall earlier I said 18 of the 21 jobs I was on had this one product that was a big financial burden. The other three jobs that I was on had no loss at all. They had no products that shot up in price. They I didn't have one dollar of upcharge on those three jobs. The competitor that called me she was in the reverse situation. She was on about 16 17 jobs, but only two or three of them had that product that cost her financial problem she knew was she calling you to rub it in? I don't think so, because I think she was calling because I think she might have saw through the death that I've had, through everything we were dealing with and she knows my context, she knows my connections. I think she was calling because she wanted to. Possibly I don't want to see partner up, but she saw an opportunity right. I think she thought maybe if Mike's gonna fold the company, let me take him on with all his contacts and connections. We could double away.
Speaker 1:She was rubbing it in a way. Anyway she was. You know, all too often in business we separate emotions from things. Right, we stop being a person and we try to see where we can negotiate. Right, we're haggled, and that was, if I had to guess. She was being a person. She was checking in on you. Right, competitors can be friends as well, but she was seeing if there was opportunity. Absolutely, she was definitely suffering, then why don't you suffer over here?
Speaker 2:a great and I don't want us to just say rubbing it in, but definitely opportunities, seeking an opportunity. She was seeing if there was an opportunity and I thought about you can't blame somebody you can't, you can't blame her for it, and I life life does go on, absolutely absolute listen, the Queen of England died. You know, two billion people you know tuned in life went on life goes on.
Speaker 1:There's still in.
Speaker 2:England. Exactly right, yeah, so I thought about it. I thought about possibly partnering up with her, doing something along those lines. There was a lot of possible good, but there was also some possible negative, okay well, that would have changed everything that you have built.
Speaker 1:Right now you have another partner you have to deal with.
Speaker 2:If that was even an opportunity to be a partner versus a acquisition with a minority stake we really never discussed it, but I think it was probably her looking to more of an acquisition and then me having, you know, a small stake, possibly doing something. You know, percentage wise on the jobs that I brought in, I certainly wouldn't have been a majority. Or, you know, equal, equal partner.
Speaker 1:Can I give you my advice? Yep, good move, not taking up that deal, because you would have hated it with your personality. You would have been extremely frustrated and that would have been a disastrous relationship, and that's probably why I didn't do it. Yep, your intuition led you to the right decision. Right, all right. So let's jump back for a second, because I'm still kind of spinning in my mind here. You lost four key humans, partners and employees. Please tell me there's no more. There's no more. Okay, that's it all right. So that's a challenge. How are you getting out of bed in the morning? How are you going into the office and what are you saying to all of the people that depend upon you, that work alongside you?
Speaker 2:at first, getting out of bed was very difficult, one can imagine wanted to sleep as long as I possibly could. Depression no, I'm not, not depressed, not to go back to the family, but I have a very good family life and that drives me okay. So not depressed, frustrated, angry, many emotions, but not depressed. Okay, it's okay to be depressed. Yeah, no, I got you, but I've always been able to compartmentalize. You know, if my father taught me when I was younger to wipe your face of your tears when you leave the house? Now what I took from that is not that you can't show emotion or show weakness, but what I took from that is if I'm arguing with my wife, I don't go take it out on the kids. I'm arguing with my wife. I don't go yell at the employees.
Speaker 1:If I have a bad day at work, I don't go home and fight with my wife about it by the way, it's a very Italian father thing to say right but it's true, he's not telling you you can't have emotions, right, telling you to have emotions agreed, but have him privately at home because you don't want to show weakness, especially in this case, in business, right and not even necessarily, probably at home, but keep them where they're supposed to be.
Speaker 2:If I'm upset at something that's going on at work, keep it at work. Don't come home and fight with the gas station attendant because I had a problem with them.
Speaker 1:One of my employees well, all too often you hear about police officers getting into a divorce situation and that's because they take their job home. Sure, right, how could you not right? And one of the psychologists in the police departments they try to tell you don't take that job home.
Speaker 2:Be willing to discuss certain things, but you can with your partner, but don't wear it on your sleeve and I've always been very good at compartmentalizing that and keeping things where they need to be. So a lot of emotions running through my head and certain times didn't want to get out of bed felt if I just slept I wouldn't have to deal with it and keep in mind my partner was also my best friend for over 20 years. So it was, it was an emotional struggle. Well, I mean it's.
Speaker 1:It's very often the case where you choose your friends, you do not choose your family, and it's often where your best friend is closer to you than your family right, absolutely friends of the family that you choose. Yeah, so completely understandable scenario for anybody to feel the same way you did. And you know, even though you're not saying it, there was some depression in there.
Speaker 2:That's okay they might have said you were sleeping late.
Speaker 1:That's a telltale, sure, and that's okay, because we all get depressed. I get depressed too. It's if you can get out of that state of depression, if you can find a way to climb out of it, versus having it as a long-lasting manic state or a long-lasting depressive state.
Speaker 2:That's the challenge so how I got out of it was you know, I have a family that depends on me. I have a work family that depends on me. I can't just bury my head in the pillow.
Speaker 1:Yep, and it'll go away so you got out of that by having your brain. You are very well trained and exercise brain say get up, get out of bed. Maybe you heard your father's voice, you know.
Speaker 2:Stop moping around, get back to work, right, okay, great when I was 19 years old, I went to one semester of college. I told my parents it wasn't for me, and no college degree no college degree.
Speaker 1:Look at you.
Speaker 2:Another success story no college my father woke me up at like 4 30 in the morning, pulled the sheets off me, turn the lights. I said what he does for 30 mornings like. I said, I know you don't have to go to college, but you're not gonna lay in bed all day. I said that I have to get a bed. I said that's 4 30. But I understood what he meant and that's when, less than a year later, my brother and I opened our first restaurant there you go, and that begins the adventure of the trail to success, correct?
Speaker 1:okay? So now we have a good sense of your business acumen. Kudos to you for getting through all of this. Do you think you're successful? Very successful, very confident? Okay, you? What is your personal definition of success?
Speaker 2:living a happy life. You know you didn't ask the question and say financially successful.
Speaker 1:Well, you just said successful because I wanted to see what your definition was. But I have, at this point, been on this crusade to figure out what success is, true success, and when I ask it openly like that, I get a real answer. And not one individual has stated anything about riches or wealth. So that is a valid point. When we are growing up, especially in America, we are taught that money is power, money is authority. Right, you want to be successful, you need to be rich. But when you are an adult and you finally have those riches, you learn it's quite the opposite. Great, and any successful minded individual, at least that I have met or interviewed, so the same thing and it that same thing never contains wealth and riches, because we've learned that real success is not tied to the tangible, it's tied to the intangible. Thank you for the bug spray so yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:For me, success is not measured by what kind of car you drive, how many zeros you have in your bank account. It's the amount of relationships, your family, your friends. What do people say and think about you? Not necessarily caring too much what people think about you, but it's what do your friends think about you? What do you truly have, friends?
Speaker 1:and that's a good point. Should you actually care what people think about you?
Speaker 2:to some extent. I think we should that outward face. I don't think we should let it control us or drive us, but I think sometimes perception is reality. It's like if one person calls your horse, tell him to go scratch his two people, the third person saddle up. So if Everybody has got the same opinion of you, maybe it's true. So I always just try to be a kind person. I'm someone who holds the door for people, someone who you know. If I see someone in distress, I'll help them, and that, to me, measures success more than the kind of kind of kind of car you drive.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Absolutely. Sometimes I see those fancy cars and I just think, wow, that was a horrible investment. Second, you bought it. It's worth half Right Now. Now you've got a six inch rapid river. Here Are we crossing this Rapid hardly, but we are going to navigate over this so we don't hit the mud. So I'm going to record you doing that.
Speaker 2:You want me to go first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I can watch my path. Hold on, I'm going to let you go over this and I'll come back to it.
Speaker 2:You still don't know how sturdy they are.
Speaker 1:Well, we're about to find out how I'm going to navigate. Oh, he did it. Look at that.
Speaker 2:My turn. Want me to video it, sure.
Speaker 1:Ah, child's play.
Speaker 2:Well, he just didn't know how sturdy they were going to be. I don't know if I was going to step on it. I was going to move.
Speaker 1:So what other advice do you have for either a budding entrepreneur or a wantreanor or a business owner?
Speaker 2:We've all heard the he's a jack of all trades or a master of one. I think it's good to know a lot of things like being someone who speaks different languages but when it comes to business, I know you're supposed to diversify and invest in many different things, but I think you should really put your focus on the one thing that you know how to do and one thing that you're passionate about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, investing in yourself is your best investment that you can ever make. And you need to bet and invest in yourself first and foremost before you extend outside. And I just want to state the proper saying it is a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. That's the real saying, Correct. So I fully agree with that. To learn a little bit of many things is going to be much more enjoyable and you'll be more well rounded than fully mastering one and only one thing. You don't want to be a one trick pony.
Speaker 2:Correct. But when it comes to business, when you're starting off, I don't think you should have your hand in five different pots. No, you should focus, focus on the one thing, then, when you become successful in that, then you could endeavor, move on to other endeavors.
Speaker 1:But you also want to be at least somewhat malleable, absolutely, and you want to be able to flex, because in your example and you have a great example you were doing kitchens and baths, of course yeah, so you saw an opportunity to move to something that I can absolutely, definitively say was far more lucrative for you. Correct, and that was in flooring. And had you not been malleable and willing to waiver, you would have not had the opportunity of flooring, at least at that time.
Speaker 2:Correct. But when we decided to go into the flooring, we sort of cut the bathrooms and kitchens, because you went where the business wanted you to go.
Speaker 1:Right, and in the startup business, you can't be so steadfast in your thinking that this is all I'm going to do and that's all I'm going to focus on. You have to go where the business takes you and that's okay. So, mike, we were talking about challenges you faced in the world, because everybody is Google-able or research-able. I know that's the first thing I do when I meet someone is I look them up. Some stuff that happened in your past and your 20s that, if you're comfortable with, I'd love for you to share what happened and, full circle that to your success story today, who you are today and sometimes mistakes of the past do not dictate or indicate our successes of the future. Are you good with talking about that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. What I'm thinking you're talking about is a road rage incident. Yes, that one. Yeah, absolutely so. My partner, charlie, and I were in the process of opening up another business, a tanning salon. How? Jersey? Well, you know it's funny how we opened up the tanning salon. We were trying to rent a location and the owner of the building is someone who we had done floors for. He was a developer and he had known my background that I opened up a restaurant when I was 19. He knew I had a successful flooring business and he was wishy-washy about leasing to us on the tanning salon. So we're standing outside of his building and he says guys, I know you're successful at a young age. You have so much stuff going on. You're clearly successful, but every day in the news you see something about tanning causes cancer. It's no good for you. He's like I'm just a little bit leery. We've rented this prime, you know, 3,000 square foot plus location to a business that you know I don't see it working.
Speaker 1:Oh, so he was worried that if he rented it to you it would go under, or was that a little bit of the squeeze?
Speaker 2:No, he was where he. We were friendly with him. We do flooring for him and his development. So he knows we were successful in business. He was truly concerned about putting a lease together in prime location and then the business, not protecting his business, protecting his location, right, I said to him. I said, donald, listen, you're clearly much older than me. He was in his mid-70s at the time, clearly successful. I don't even think I have in my whole body which you have in one pinky when it comes to business acumen and business intelligence, but that's the third cigarette you've had since we've been standing here having this conversation. And as the smoke came out of his mouth he said good point, I'll sign the lease, okay, great.
Speaker 1:Great.
Speaker 2:So, in any case, charlie and I were opening up a tanning salon and we were coming back to the tanning salon from the location where we were buying the equipment from. There was a merge on Route 80 and it was our turn to go. I was the passenger, charlie was driving a big 18-wheeler just came out of nowhere and smashed us into the guardrail, the white stone guardrail. In fairness to him, he was such a big truck he hit us at the tail end of his truck. He might have not even known that he hit us. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. So he kept driving. Once the road opened up, he just kept going. So we pull over. Oh, so he didn't know he hit you. I don't know. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn't know he hit us. I didn't know it. So Charlie pulls up, equal to him and much higher than us. I'm mouthing to him through the window pull over, you hit us. Pull over, you hit us. I don't know if he understood me, didn't understand me, but he basically fucked me off, said fuck, you gave me the finger and wasn't pulling over. So Charlie tails off, gets behind him and at the time there wasn't iPhones, it was flip phones. I don't know what made me. We were just under a sign for the town we were in, so I called information for that town's state police department. I didn't call 911, I called 411. As I'm getting the number and I'm hitting one, it's press one if you want to go through for an additional 25 cents, whatever it was. Charlie says he's pulling over. So we pull over, charlie pulls over. The phone's ringing. At that point I think the officer had just answered, but I hear Charlie yell he's got a knife. He's got a knife. I don't know why, but I got out of the car after hearing he got a knife. I run to the front of our car, which was at the back of the truck, and as I'm in between the two vehicles, he sees me. He turns towards me. He lunges towards me with the knife. I grab his arm, somehow rolling around on the ground. Me and him are fighting on the ground. It was all happening so quickly I don't even remember exactly what happened. Next thing, you know, I get up. I have blood all over me. I didn't know if it was my blood, his blood. I said let's get out of here. We get in the car. At the time, charlie and I sponsored a softball team for our company we call it old man softball and we had full equipment in the car catchers, equipment, balls, bats. When he came out with the knife, I was assuming that's when Charlie got the bat. But Charlie never hit him with the bat because I was rolling around on the ground with him fighting on the ground. As I get up and see all the blood on me and he's basically charging me, I said get in the car, let's go, let's go. Charlie hits him in the head with the bat. Ouch, the guy did not move, he continued to come after us. Charlie was a six foot 210 pound strong, very strong guy. As we pull away he's smashing on the window. We wind up driving a couple miles down the road we wind up getting pulled out, pulled over. They pull us out, we get arrested and in the end it was all thrown out because he was on PCP. Oh my God, he was on angel dust. He had multiple weapons in his truck. He had multiple arrests for violence, domestic violence, aggravated assaults. So in the end the judge basically said really, what you guys did wrong was flee the scene. I said your honor. I can respect that. But if I didn't flee the scene he was either going to kill us or we were going to have to kill him. We thought what we did was best and before we could get to a police station we were pulled over. So I don't know that we really could have done anything differently. We were fighting for our lives when someone who just hit us with a vehicle and we were just trying to get him to pull over to exchange insurance information is what you're supposed to do he gets out with a knife, attacks us. I'm at the point where I have adrenaline flowing through me. He gets hit with a bat and he doesn't move. So we didn't know it at the time that he was on PCP.
Speaker 1:But clearly he was on something.
Speaker 2:I mean, the guy got hit full swing in the head with a bat and kept coming after us and he wasn't a small guy, he was like 320 pounds. It was a big, thick, solid guy and driving a truck. Driving a truck. I didn't know what else he had. Did he have a gun on him? I had no idea. So we did what we thought was best In the end. It probably doesn't say this in Google, but everything got thrown out and I didn't get any probate.
Speaker 1:I got nothing because so you found not guilty or quit it, Everything was thrown out oh completely thrown out. It was completely thrown out, because so the investigation did prove that you were saving your life. We were basically, we were self-defense.
Speaker 2:He was on a narcotic. Pcp is, I think, referred to as angel dust. It gives you superhuman strength and we were not stopping this guy. No, you were not stopping, we were not stopping this guy. He was coming after us and he was not stopping, and the only thing we could do was to get out of there, which is what we did, and in the end, all the charges were dropped, all everything was thrown out. So, but the story lives.
Speaker 1:The story lives, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain it in your own words, because it just shows that sometimes really bad shit can happen to someone in a bad situation. Good people, bad people, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Timing is everything.
Speaker 2:It's a story where you found yourself in a really dangerous scenario and you did whatever the human instinct told you to do to get yourself out of the situation and scenario and ultimately, the law did prevail and you know, justice prevailed, and what I take from that scenario is, honestly, I believe about half of what I read in the newspaper may be less, because things aren't always as they seem, and I'll give you just a little bit of examples.
Speaker 1:Things are seen from the lens of the most profitable in whatever your definition of profit is in the scenario.
Speaker 2:Correct and I know exactly what you mean. So, to flash forward 20 years now living in the town we live in and a coaching pretty much every sport my kids play. In fact, I never wrestled. However, they asked me to be the wrestling coach and when I said to them I said, guys, I never wrestled, yeah, but Mike, you're great with the kids, so so-and-so will take care of the technical responsibilities and you'll just be like another coach on the team. Kids love you, the parents love you. Please, come on, would you consider it? So I did. I coached even wrestling, which is a sport I never did. I coached football, I coached basketball, I coached baseball, I coached soccer. I sport the kids play. I coach for all of my kids. And at one point someone saw this article and they wrote a letter to the town and said, oh, should we really be having someone who did this coaching our kids?
Speaker 1:And which, before you go further, you could understand of course, this person had an ulterior motive.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility that if somebody who had any sort of Google-able offense would be questioned, Correct and I understand where they're you can understand where they were coming back from, but if there was an ulterior motive this particular person had ulterior motive and it came through because the person that they sent this to was the head of the football league, the director of football, and he said his response was first of all, I've known Mike for the last eight or nine years. Everybody loves him. Second of all, this incident was 20 years ago. At the time Maybe it was 18 years ago, so I don't see what you're trying to do here. So even people knew that this person had ulterior motive. In the end, because he wrote the letter, the town did have to interview me. I had to go in before the board. They had to interview me. There was nine people that I had to be interviewed by in front of the town council, whatever, and it was a unanimous nine to nothing in favor of having me coach.
Speaker 1:Well, I can also vouch for you. You're a great person, you're a great father, you're a great business person, you're a great friend. I will say that all of the greats are there. Unfortunately, when public stuff happens, it lives with you, regardless of if it's your fault or not, and you can understand both sides of things.
Speaker 2:Sure, I appreciate you saying that and obviously I feel the same. But my point is you read that article you might think man, what kind of person is this? But when you really know the details, I was a businessman trying to purchase equipment for my business, had an accident with a vehicle and happened to be with a bad person who was doing bad things.
Speaker 1:And you were just in an unfortunate situation, right, and I'm not going to say that to that which most people probably would have reacted in a similar fashion, right, depending on the scenario, we don't know because we're not in that, but I will say, when I first met you it's the first thing I saw, but I quickly dismissed it because I read the full article, I read the background and I saw that it was dismissed. So here I am, putting together two and two, saying OK, I can understand how the situation happens. But the reason why I wanted to bring it up is I know you do wear that with you always, because when we first got together as friends, as a couple friend, one of the first things you said to me is listen, I know if you ever Google my name, you'll see this. So I know you wear that and I know it takes a toll on you and it shouldn't. Sure, that was so long ago.
Speaker 2:I think when the first time we got together might have been right when I was dealing with it with the town maybe just in that time frame.
Speaker 1:So you were.
Speaker 2:So it was probably weighing more heavily on me at the time. Listen, I've definitely had some challenging circumstances between the deaths in that situation and my own car accident, but in the end I would not. People say, oh, if you could trade lives with someone, so who would you trade lives with? I would Nobody. Nobody Love my life. That's a successful life right there.
Speaker 1:You should not want to desire to be someone else, and if you do, then we need to find out.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't want to be the Sultan of Brunei or Michael Jordan, or I love my family, my friends. I would be, Michael Jordan. It would be cool for a very, very long time.
Speaker 1:I would at least you know if I could be Michael Jordan? I just want to play one game being Michael.
Speaker 2:Jordan. That would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:That's my ultimate wish. I want to be Michael Jordan for a day. Back in the day. Back in the day On his third championship the first time around. Yeah, living that highlight All right. Well listen, I had a great time hiking with you, as most people went to work today, we went to hustle.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly Awesome, great time. Thank you, thank you so much. Thanks for coming Anytime.
Speaker 1:Next time on. I Took a Hike. We get a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the mega brand Price Line. When I took a hike with Bob Wiss I think everybody knows PriceLinecom and PriceLine. If you don't, everyone knows who William Shatner is. I hired Will Shatner. You hired Will Shatner. Yeah, I was part of the selection committee that selected him. He was our second choice. William Shatner was your second choice. Yes, who was the first choice for spokesperson for Price Line? Bill Cosby. What, yeah, oh, what a hike it was. Till next time I'm Darren Mass. Thanks for listening.