Latest / Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders / 213: From Struggles to Success: John's Journey

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213: From Struggles to Success: John's Journey · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:02
  This episode of the Customer Service Revolution podcast is brought to you by Fin the number one AI agent for customer service.
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  say that?
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  I don't know how to say it.
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  I don't know how to say it.
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  Well, say it, you have to help me.
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  Sin, sin, I don't have it in front of me.
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  Synthesia?
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  How's it spelled?
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  Synthesia.
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  S-Y-N-T-H.
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  Okay, just do that last part over with that last line and, no you don't have to do the whole thing over, just do that last line.
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  just to including in the drop again.
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  Anthropic and Synthesia.
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• 1:34
  Thank you, Fin, for being a sponsor of the Customer Service Revolution podcast.
• 1:38
  Welcome, revolutionaries.
• 1:40
  Hi, John.
• 1:41
  Hello, Denise, how are you?
• 1:43
  Wonderful, how are you?
• 1:46
  Great, enjoying the, well, ah the nice weather we have.
• 1:51
  I guess we're having nice weather.
• 1:52
  It's hot and it's raining a lot.
• 1:54
  Yeah, it's keeping everything green.
• 1:56
  Plants are growing.
• 1:57
  Cleveland looks good this time of year.
• 1:59
  Yes, but you're traveling, you're gonna go to Chicago in a couple days.
• 2:05
  Yep, I'll be in Chicago just for the weekend and then actually Pittsburgh the following week.
• 2:11
  What kind of exotic places are you going?
• 2:14
  Uh, nowhere.
• 2:16
  I'm, well, I'm going to Pittsburgh, uh, this weekend too, as well.
• 2:20
  Um, but yeah, that's the, that's the exotic, and, um, try and think.
• 2:27
  Nothing else, nothing else.
• 2:29
  Um, you're going to see the guardians play, which, um, they are not doing good right now.
• 2:34
  Unfortunately, they're not, but still going to watch him.
• 2:37
  My summer is ruined!
• 2:40
  Because of the Guardians?
• 2:41
  Yeah, they're the brand I can't live without.
• 2:44
  Ah, yeah, a couple injuries and.
• 2:50
  They just stink.
• 2:53
  That's it, stink.
• 2:54
  If I had to do a different topic, I'd do a baseball podcast.
• 3:02
  Guardians.
• 3:04
  Well, I mean, besides the Guardians.
• 3:06
  No, I just love baseball and follow it.
• 3:09
  And I always thought it looks like fun to sit around with a bunch of guys and talk about baseball.
• 3:18
  Right?
• 3:19
  But I'm not going anywhere.
• 3:22
  Yes.
• 3:23
  Yeah.
• 3:23
  Right?
• 3:23
  Just record my patio.
• 3:26
  You grew up playing ball though, didn't you?
• 3:29
  I did?
• 3:29
  That's what we're going to find out about today.
• 3:32
  You want to talk about John growing up?
• 3:34
  John growing up, John is still growing up.
• 3:40
  Let us know when you get there.
• 3:42
  The Major League draft is coming.
• 3:46
  It'll probably have just happened after the release of this podcast, the amateur draft from college and high school.
• 3:55
  And I always tell my friends, don't call me during that draft.
• 3:59
  This year's the year that I'm going to get drafted.
• 4:04
  It hasn't
• 4:05
  try out?
• 4:08
  You played in college?
• 4:10
  I did?
• 4:12
  Yes.
• 4:13
  Still playing.
• 4:15
  That's amazing.
• 4:17
  How's that shoulder?
• 4:19
  the cortisone is working.
• 4:21
  I am a cortisone junkie, like bad, like I get way too often, but it allows me to work out and play.
• 4:32
  That's a good thing then.
• 4:34
  It's important to have those hobbies.
• 4:36
  Keep fit, stay active.
• 4:39
  Yeah.
• 4:40
  Yeah.
• 4:41
  Hey, so we're gonna talk about you growing up today.
• 4:45
  How John started and how you became obsessed with customer service.
• 4:54
  So I'm sure there has to be some stories of you young, um good or bad service.
• 5:02
  Yeah, that's interesting.
• 5:03
  I don't know if I've ever thought about it that way, but for some reason, some people find my backstory interesting.
• 5:13
  So, you to get into it?
• 5:15
  You know a lot of it.
• 5:18
  Well, I know you were born in the Cleveland area.
• 5:20
  Yes, South Euclid.
• 5:22
  So when I was born uh in the 60s, I was the youngest of six and I was born into a typical middle class family.
• 5:36
  um South Euclid was a middle class area.
• 5:40
  um Five older brothers and sisters.
• 5:45
  My dad had a good job.
• 5:47
  He was like a salesman for
• 5:49
  God, I forget the name of the company, Electronics.
• 5:52
  And uh my mom was a stay at home mom, which I hate sounding, making it reductive, raising six kids.
• 6:02
  And all my brothers, and sisters went to private school, grade school, and then high school.
• 6:11
  it uh seemed like my mom was involved, both my parents were involved in the church.
• 6:19
  and all that.
• 6:20
  But when I turned six, um we lost my dad.
• 6:27
  And we didn't lose him in the traditional sense that he died.
• 6:32
  We literally lost him.
• 6:34
  Like we couldn't find him.
• 6:36
  And he left.
• 6:38
  And what we found out was uh that he started his second marriage during his first.
• 6:46
  And him and his secretary
• 6:49
  just left.
• 6:52
  And I believe he, you know, the story goes that he may have gone to New York initially and then off to California for near almost ever.
• 7:04
  And we never heard from him again.
• 7:06
  And so...
• 7:07
  grow up visiting him at all during that time.
• 7:10
  No.
• 7:10
  Never got a phone call.
• 7:12
  Nothing.
• 7:13
  He disappeared.
• 7:17
  Wow, that would be hard on all of you.
• 7:21
  I think it was harder for my brothers and sisters and I'll tell you why, but let me back up first.
• 7:30
  So now my mom is raising six kids.
• 7:35
  I was the youngest.
• 7:36
  I was six.
• 7:37
  uh Never worked probably a day in her life, you know, at least when she had kids.
• 7:45
  Again, I hate saying that because that sounds so reductive.
• 7:47
  She's working her ass off raising six kids.
• 7:49
  m
• 7:51
  Because my father left and never gave her a dime or any of us, she had to go get a job and she had to get two jobs because she had no experience in anything.
• 8:06
  The only thing she could do, thank God, was type.
• 8:09
  She was a really good typist, if that's the word.
• 8:13
  And so she got a secretarial job making $2.65 an hour because that was minimum wage.
• 8:20
  in the 70s.
• 8:23
  So this is the early 70s.
• 8:26
  And then she had to get a job at night and on the weekend.
• 8:30
  So she'd work at night, bingo, two, three nights a week at our parish.
• 8:39
  And then on Saturdays, I think it was in the summer, maybe in the...
• 8:43
  She'd work at the city hall and sell pool passes.
• 8:49
  um But that was my mom, know, she, she, so in essence, we lost two parents um because, you know, lost my dad and then my mom wasn't around.
• 9:02
  So, and no fault of hers.
• 9:04
  And how much older are your brothers and sisters?
• 9:07
  Are they taking care of the house?
• 9:08
  they?
• 9:09
  Yeah, so they span 15 years.
• 9:13
  The oldest is 15 years older than me.
• 9:16
  And it goes all the way down to the second youngest is four years older than me.
• 9:22
  um I certainly was a accident or surprise.
• 9:27
  I think they were, obviously there was problems before he just upped and left.
• 9:34
  But.
• 9:34
  um
• 9:38
  You said it was hard on all of us.
• 9:40
  I honestly believe it was probably a lot harder on my older brothers and sisters because most of them were teenagers.
• 9:54
  The older ones got cars when they turned 16, and they were going to good schools and all that.
• 10:01
  In 1971, when this happened, this was a scandal.
• 10:08
  you don't have divorce.
• 10:10
  So I remember it was a big deal in the parish.
• 10:12
  My mom had uh a, uh if I have it right, a nervous breakdown and was in the hospital, whatever, you know, like probably a uh mental place for, I'd have to ask my brothers and
• 10:26
  sisters, seemed like three days, maybe a week, but that was the, know, and then she didn't go out of house initially for a while when it first happened.
• 10:35
  So.
• 10:35
  there was the scandal aspect, not that we were, but it was just in your neighborhood or in your parish.
• 10:41
  um So I don't think it affected me from a standpoint of a quality of life because I wasn't used to being a middle-class kid, if you will, and knew what that is and knew what the uh
• 10:57
  stigma, I didn't know in first grade, I don't think anyone was...
• 11:05
  aware of it, their parents were, but I don't think my friends were aware of it or cared in the first grade.
• 11:11
  So I really think it was harder for my brothers and sisters, but they stepped up, most of them, and took care of me because my mom couldn't.
• 11:23
  I mean, just, know, just, you know, my one brother coached me, started coaching me in baseball and
• 11:34
  uh Kathy took me everywhere and Peggy, my oldest sister, would take me to the Cleveland Indians games at the time.
• 11:41
  ah And Kathy and her husband Eddie, uh they were dating in high school and they just took me everywhere.
• 11:51
  They just probably didn't want to.
• 11:54
  But I didn't know we were poor.
• 11:57
  I had an advantage.
• 11:58
  Maybe I did, but...
• 12:01
  we immediately go on...
• 12:04
  welfare and food stamps, but I'm not aware of it.
• 12:09
  And uh I just don't remember realizing I was poor.
• 12:16
  This won't surprise you.
• 12:18
  They gave me so much attention.
• 12:20
  Some say I demanded the attention, but I was happy with it.
• 12:25
  I was happy with it.
• 12:26
  So I don't remember really being poor.
• 12:29
  So...
• 12:29
  ah
• 12:31
  Yeah, so that was the initial uh impact and what you have.
• 12:36
  Now who's the who's next up from you is that Mimi So there's three girls three boys
• 12:44
  girls, three boys.
• 12:45
  Yes, I was the youngest of all.
• 12:49
  So, going through grade school, I don't know how, I'm sure this had a lot to do with not having either parent at home.
• 13:00
  I don't know how much it had to do with my genetics, ADD, and hyperactivity, but I was a horrible student.
• 13:10
  uh constantly getting in trouble, mischievous trouble, pulling your pigtails or spitballs, or just because I couldn't sit still.
• 13:20
  And when I'd get home after school, my mom wasn't home, uh my brothers and sisters were consumed with their lives.
• 13:29
  It's not that I was being ignored, but I didn't have to do my homework.
• 13:32
  So I'd go out and play.
• 13:34
  So I was just the worst student.
• 13:36
  And I remember I thought, I literally thought,
• 13:40
  We owned St.
• 13:41
  Greg's because my mother used to, I heard her on this phone often fighting with the teachers.
• 13:48
  You're not holding him back.
• 13:49
  um Fighting every year, every year.
• 13:54
  I I have a report card hanging up, my grade school transcripts, my average grades in first grade, F, second grade, F, started doing better in third grade, D.
• 14:09
  minus peaked in fourth and fifth grade D plus.
• 14:14
  And then it went back down to D, D minus.
• 14:20
  Yeah.
• 14:21
  But a lot of times I was kicked out, sent to the principal's office.
• 14:24
  Again, I didn't do anything bad.
• 14:26
  I was disruptive and it would hurt everyone else's ah learning.
• 14:33
  And they didn't know how to handle me.
• 14:35
  So I remember I heard my mom telling someone,
• 14:39
  of it was my family or her friend, that to get John in the fifth grade or the sixth grade, I had to buy that school.
• 14:47
  So I thought we owned it.
• 14:48
  So I went in the next day, started telling teachers, you watch yourself.
• 14:56
  But I honestly believe,
• 15:01
  I don't know if what my mom did was right or wrong.
• 15:03
  I think she forced them to pass me more so because of the stigma of a failing student.
• 15:12
  All my other brothers and sisters got really good grades.
• 15:15
  Peggy was really smart.
• 15:17
  She got a master's degree.
• 15:20
  Mimi was really smart.
• 15:22
  I don't know if the guys were too smart, they were whatever.
• 15:26
  if my mom would have held me back, I would have done no better.
• 15:32
  because I wasn't gonna listen to the teacher.
• 15:34
  I wasn't gonna comprehend the content.
• 15:37
  So um I don't know if someone uh smarter than about this, if that would have, ah I was just hyper and I wanted attention.
• 15:49
  And my philosophy I realized today, because I've seen it in my kids when they were younger, Bo.
• 15:57
  um
• 15:59
  My three boys all have ADD and hyper, they had structure.
• 16:05
  uh But I wanted attention, and negative attention was better than no attention.
• 16:14
  And I was so small.
• 16:18
  I remember in eighth grade, the only reason I remember this is because they had just come out with a football team at St.
• 16:27
  Greg's, first time ever.
• 16:29
  and the lowest you could weigh was 70, which is so small.
• 16:34
  And there weren't many kids in the 70s.
• 16:37
  I was 67 pounds and my mom had to sign a permission slip to say I could play.
• 16:46
  like, you know how football pants, Denise, they come down to just past your knees and the knees have knee pads in them and the thighs have thigh pads in them?
• 16:57
  Well, the smallest pants they had, they gave them to me and they were to my ankles and the knee pads were over my ankles and the thighs were over my knees.
• 17:07
  Like I was just so small.
• 17:09
  I never played, you know?
• 17:12
  I don't know.
• 17:13
  I mean, it was,
• 17:14
  We have to see if we can find some pictures.
• 17:16
  I'd love to add some pictures to this podcast.
• 17:19
  yeah.
• 17:19
  Well, I got my report card.
• 17:21
  You could oppose, or my transcripts.
• 17:25
  So my mom's constantly fighting with the school.
• 17:28
  Well, let me go back.
• 17:29
  I said I needed attention, and negative attention was better than no attention.
• 17:36
  So probably not only in class, but in the playground.
• 17:41
  I get into fights, and some people would say I got bullied.
• 17:48
  Um, because I was the smallest and I beat up a lot, right?
• 17:53
  But I don't think I got bullied.
• 17:55
  Everything that happened to me, I brought it on myself.
• 17:59
  I was the agitator and you know, I don't know, you know, so, so, so, so now my mom is fighting with the school, you know, every year.
• 18:09
  And she takes me to some doctor, psychiatrist, there is a psycho, I don't know what the proper doctor was to get me tested.
• 18:18
  And I remember I go in um fifth or sixth grade and we sit down and it's going to be an hour appointment.
• 18:25
  And my mom leaves me, she's in the waiting room and I see the doctor has a baseball card on his desk.
• 18:35
  And I go, that's Willie Sargell.
• 18:37
  He's, yeah, you like baseball.
• 18:38
  I yeah, I love baseball.
• 18:40
  I go.
• 18:40
  um Why do you have a Willie Stargell car?
• 18:43
  Because he plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates and we live in Cleveland.
• 18:46
  He goes, I'm from Pittsburgh.
• 18:49
  I go, man, he had a good year last year, not as good as the year before.
• 18:54
  And he's like, yeah, you're a Willie Stargell fan?
• 18:57
  I'm like, no, no, just follow baseball.
• 19:00
  um I said, uh last year he did pretty good 28 home runs, 105 RBIs and this, but the year before in 1973,
• 19:11
  He was the MVP and he had 37 home runs and 120.
• 19:14
  And he picks up the baseball card and he goes, you're right.
• 19:19
  In baseball I was, right?
• 19:22
  And Willie started, but I had baseball cards and I knew all the baseball cards.
• 19:26
  So he asked me, he had something else about baseball, another baseball card and he goes, well, you don't know who this guy is.
• 19:33
  And I'm like, yeah, I do.
• 19:34
  And I rattled off his stats for the last three years.
• 19:37
  um
• 19:40
  And he just said, all right, we're done.
• 19:41
  And he goes out and it was like 10 minutes.
• 19:43
  My mom's like, you know, what, what?
• 19:46
  And he goes, all school is is memorization.
• 19:49
  And your son has no problem with memorization.
• 19:52
  Your son's problem is he, he, what he chooses to memorize.
• 19:57
  But like he, he thought I was like Rain Man from a standpoint of, you know, a baseball savant.
• 20:02
  I, you know, I had, I didn't have a baseball, I didn't have a memory problem.
• 20:05
  I just didn't, you know, wouldn't listen to anything.
• 20:10
  So that was.
• 20:11
  like it was your first experience using FORD
• 20:15
  Yeah.
• 20:16
  Yeah.
• 20:17
  But that's where it was, it was statistics.
• 20:19
  And the only thing I liked when I was younger, that's still today, I don't know if it's something you liked when you were a kid, but I liked baseball.
• 20:29
  And probably the reason why I liked baseball was because at that time, the sports I knew about, football, basketball, and baseball, were the only sports.
• 20:39
  I don't remember knowing about hockey, but we didn't have hockey in our area.
• 20:43
  We didn't have wrestling, never heard of wrestling.
• 20:45
  So those things weren't exposed to me.
• 20:47
  I couldn't play football because of my size.
• 20:51
  I couldn't play.
• 20:54
  I tried out for the football team, made it, but never played.
• 20:56
  Tried out for the basketball team every year, got cut and tried out for the baseball team and I made it.
• 21:03
  um But I was so small for baseball.
• 21:06
  I was so small, but I loved it probably because it was the least prejudice of my height.
• 21:13
  And so then as I started getting older in junior high and all that, my friends who were much better athletes, they would play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and
• 21:26
  baseball in the spring.
• 21:29
  I would practice baseball in the fall, practice baseball in the winter, only to be able to make the team in the spring.
• 21:40
  If I didn't do that in the fall and winter,
• 21:43
  I wouldn't have made the team.
• 21:45
  And maybe that's where my OCD comes from, where I'm kind of all or nothing.
• 21:50
  um I just became obsessed with baseball.
• 21:55
  So baseball got me through, I guess, hard times or whatever.
• 21:59
  That was like my fantasy.
• 22:01
  I was gonna be a professional baseball player no matter what.
• 22:03
  When my mom took me to uh parent-teacher conference, it was not good.
• 22:08
  um
• 22:11
  Because I frustrated the teachers, rightfully so.
• 22:14
  I was disruptive.
• 22:20
  one of them, teacher of my mom, would say, what are you going to do?
• 22:23
  What do think you're going to do?
• 22:24
  You and I have been getting into high school.
• 22:26
  I don't play professional baseball.
• 22:28
  I don't need this.
• 22:31
  And something else that was really interesting from a leadership standpoint that I learned back then, but didn't dawn on me until when I started.
• 22:40
  having employees is my mom came home from parent teacher conference, I didn't go with her this time, and mad as hell, and sat me down and just laid into me because of what she
• 22:55
  heard from all the teachers.
• 22:58
  And I said, did they say anything nice?
• 23:02
  And she pauses, and I know she made this up.
• 23:05
  Didn't know it then though.
• 23:07
  She says,
• 23:09
  They said, you always look nice.
• 23:11
  You always come to school looking nice.
• 23:14
  Which I know today was untrue.
• 23:16
  Like I had crappy hand-me-down clothes.
• 23:21
  I probably wore them the same day, know, every day, right?
• 23:25
  Didn't wash them.
• 23:26
  I had this long flowing hair that, you know, never took a shower, right?
• 23:31
  It just wasn't something that, you know, I had a parent making me realize I did get make fun of, you know.
• 23:38
  that I smelled in self, I mean, that was part of it.
• 23:41
  But here's the psychological thing.
• 23:44
  My mom tells me, she searches for something, didn't they say anything nice?
• 23:51
  And she says, yes.
• 23:53
  And she says, they say you always look nice when you come to school.
• 23:57
  So now the next day in the morning, I am taking longer getting ready because I have a reputation to uphold.
• 24:07
  I remember that vividly that I'm like, I look nice in school.
• 24:12
  That's my thing.
• 24:14
  And so I remember taking a little longer and it's like, you what if they would have said, well, he's really good in math or he's, you know, would I have, you know, spent more time
• 24:22
  on that.
• 24:23
  But it's so funny that that little thing that I remember that I was a nice dresser or whatever, you know, the thing was.
• 24:31
  I spent more time in the morning being a nice dresser because I had to live up to that reputation.
• 24:36
  and you still dress nice.
• 24:38
  Well, yeah, but I didn't back then.
• 24:41
  I didn't.
• 24:42
  I wash my hair heck of a lot more.
• 24:47
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• 26:38
  So when you were playing ball during school, didn't you have to make certain grades to be on the team?
• 26:45
  Not in grade school, that in high school.
• 26:49
  So I'm gonna uh shock, well, I more people that know me.
• 26:57
  So I played division one baseball in college, okay?
• 27:02
  And I played in grade school, but no one knows this.
• 27:06
  I don't think enough Claudia knows this.
• 27:10
  I never played high school baseball.
• 27:13
  No, for two reasons.
• 27:15
  One.
• 27:17
  Two reasons.
• 27:18
  I was four foot nine or 10, my freshman year in high school.
• 27:24
  Three reasons.
• 27:25
  Four foot nine or 10, 80 pounds.
• 27:30
  I went to St.
• 27:30
  Joe's, which you may remember St.
• 27:33
  Joe's back in our day.
• 27:36
  St.
• 27:36
  Joe's uh put more professional football players in the NFL than probably any other.
• 27:57
  Before Le BronJames from Cleveland and I went to school with Mikek Golic Big guys
• 28:15
  were 6'5" I was five or four, 10, 80 pounds.
• 28:19
  And so I was a fish out of water.
• 28:21
  I didn't get accepted into St.
• 28:22
  Joe's where my brothers went, two of my brothers graduated from, but through connections, I got in um begging and pleading and all that.
• 28:33
  uh So one reason is I was fricking tiny.
• 28:37
  Second reason is um St.
• 28:41
  Joe's didn't care about their baseball team.
• 28:44
  and they uh only had a varsity team.
• 28:47
  Every school has a freshman, JV, varsity.
• 28:50
  So no freshmen would make it.
• 28:52
  I couldn't make it.
• 28:53
  um I would have maybe made the freshmen team, maybe.
• 28:57
  But we didn't have a freshman and a JV team.
• 29:00
  So now I don't play my freshman and sophomore year.
• 29:05
  So that didn't help my development.
• 29:09
  I shoot up.
• 29:12
  to a five-four my junior year, but then I'm ineligible.
• 29:20
  I'm ineligible my junior and senior year, so I couldn't play.
• 29:25
  So I'd never play, yeah.
• 29:29
  Summer ball, which, you know, yeah, didn't help.
• 29:34
  So I fail, I graduate dead last in high school.
• 29:43
  and I applied to the only school I could, Cleveland State, local.
• 29:49
  We don't have money.
• 29:51
  I'm trying to think of, oh, I'm getting jobs.
• 29:55
  My first job was in fourth grade.
• 29:57
  um mean, so I, don't really remember being poor.
• 30:03
  I remember if I wanted anything, I had to buy it.
• 30:08
  I started fourth or fifth grade, I started collecting carts.
• 30:13
  at Mozulos Mancuso's By-Rite because my oldest brother Barry was a manager there.
• 30:20
  He didn't hire me, but someone did.
• 30:23
  I don't know if anybody's ever done this before, but you take your cart to your car, I'd run down and get it and bring it back.
• 30:30
  Then I was cleaning doctor's dentist office and I had a bunch of odd jobs.
• 30:35
  Oh, that's another reason.
• 30:38
  There's a lot of reasons.
• 30:39
  But if I would have made the Cleveland State baseball, I'm sorry, the St.
• 30:45
  Joe's baseball team, I wouldn't have been able play.
• 30:49
  Because I had to have a job.
• 30:51
  I worked every day after school and high school at a plumbing company where I was stocking shelves.
• 30:59
  And when the plumbers would come back, I'd empty their trucks and put all their things away.
• 31:04
  So I was always working.
• 31:07
  So now,
• 31:10
  I graduate from high school and everyone was going to college, so I was going to go to college.
• 31:18
  And I couldn't go away, couldn't live at a school like a lot of my friends were.
• 31:25
  So I'm going to have to go to Cleveland State and live at home and commute.
• 31:29
  And Cleveland State has to have over a hundred percent accepted rate.
• 31:33
  I didn't get accepted.
• 31:34
  Well, I got accepted conditionally because my grades were so poor.
• 31:39
  I got accepted if I took, I think it was called remedial math and remedial English, which is high school English and high school math.
• 31:52
  So my first quarter, 50 % of my classes didn't count.
• 32:00
  You don't get credit for them.
• 32:02
  And I flunked the English and math.
• 32:06
  And so next quarter I got to retake them.
• 32:09
  positive about these classes is they don't count against your GPA.
• 32:14
  They also don't count for your credits.
• 32:17
  So I don't know how much of it was I was flunking because I couldn't get it, or I flunked it because I didn't care because I knew it wasn't going to hurt my GPA.
• 32:28
  So I don't know how many times I had to take the remedial math.
• 32:32
  It was like 098 math, right?
• 32:35
  And I was pretty good at math.
• 32:36
  I'm good at math today.
• 32:39
  but it took me two or three times to pass that.
• 32:42
  And then I was able to go into whatever, freshman English, math.
• 32:47
  It took me, I flunked English class, the remedial English in college, five semesters in a row.
• 32:58
  I'm an author, right?
• 32:59
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:00
  But I still couldn't tell you, I don't know if this is normal or abnormal.
• 33:06
  I could tell you what a noun is.
• 33:08
  I could tell you what a verb is and I could tell you what an adjective is.
• 33:13
  But other than that, I don't know sentence structure.
• 33:16
  I mean, I think I write okay and uh my people who edit get to edit less.
• 33:21
  Well, now I have Grammarly and AI, uh literally, which I've let go of, uh no longer use our editors.
• 33:28
  uh But I couldn't tell you all those prepositions and all those other terminology.
• 33:34
  I have no clue.
• 33:36
  So...
• 33:37
  Around this time, so I got to go to college for free because of financial aid.
• 33:48
  So that's great.
• 33:52
  Still I'm working two jobs right after...
• 33:59
  Go ahead.
• 33:59
  entrepreneur mindset at this point?
• 34:03
  Or where did that?
• 34:05
  So I started ah managing and playing on my own team.
• 34:12
  So I'm managing my friends or people my age, which was like really strange.
• 34:19
  So I was organizing and that's a great question.
• 34:23
  Bring me back to that because I have an interesting story about that.
• 34:28
  So that's the only thing I see of my entrepreneurs that I'm managing, but it's a very competitive team.
• 34:35
  It's not just a team.
• 34:37
  We're traveling.
• 34:39
  We get a sponsor, Famous Supply Jay Blaushield
• 34:42
  who you know that.
• 34:46
  gives me an unlimited budget, which allowed me to recruit better players because if you play with us, we get jackets, two sets of uniforms, bat bags, and we go to a tournament
• 34:58
  every weekend and he flew us once, was the first time I ever flew to St.
• 35:04
  Louis for the Nationals.
• 35:06
  And I needed to have that to recruit people from other good teams that maybe they weren't having.
• 35:13
  Um, and so it gave me, I'm negotiating with Jay saying, need this.
• 35:17
  Can you, is there any chance?
• 35:19
  And then I'm recruiting and managing people that are my age, which was really odd.
• 35:25
  So where am I?
• 35:28
  All right.
• 35:28
  So I get to go to school for free.
• 35:32
  Financial aid.
• 35:33
  Great.
• 35:33
  Thank you.
• 35:34
  Uh, state of Ohio.
• 35:37
  I would take the typical courses recommended, whatever you're supposed to.
• 35:43
  you know, freshmen, let's say accounting, one and something else, uh English, and then you take two electives.
• 35:54
  That was kind of, um you know, that made your workload easy, right?
• 35:59
  Two hard classes with two electives, jazz survey and something else.
• 36:04
  Well, every, at the end of, we were on quarters, at the end, at the halfway point,
• 36:14
  I was flunking the math and the English.
• 36:18
  now this time this was college English account.
• 36:21
  So I would drop them.
• 36:26
  You could just drop them.
• 36:28
  So I would drop them and then get Ds on jazz survey and whatever else, which those were supposed to be easy A's.
• 36:41
  So I do this every quarter.
• 36:44
  drop the hard classes, keep the electives, get shitty grades on the electives.
• 36:53
  So now after my freshman first year, I don't even have half the credits of a freshman.
• 37:02
  And I'm on probation because if you went under a 2.0, two quarters in a row, you either were on probation or you got
• 37:17
  suspended.
• 37:17
  First quarter, my second year, even though I'm still a freshman, do the same, get a 1.5, so I must've gotten a D and a C, and they kicked me out.
• 37:31
  So now I'm kicked out and the...
• 37:38
  I have to stay out a full year before I could reapply.
• 37:42
  So I'm just working jobs, uh landscaping, doing all this, working, working, working, and playing baseball every night.
• 37:53
  are you still at this point thinking that you're going to be a professional ballplayer or wouldn't go on through your mind that you're going to be one day?
• 38:01
  uh So that's a great lead into the next thing.
• 38:04
  Yeah, I know I didn't play in high school and was both ineligible and working jobs after school.
• 38:14
  I don't play in college.
• 38:16
  So there had been six years of me not playing baseball, at least scholastically.
• 38:23
  I gave up on that.
• 38:25
  I don't know what I'm going to do.
• 38:26
  uh I know I'm not going to graduate from college.
• 38:30
  Okay?
• 38:31
  So, work, work, work.
• 38:37
  when the year is up of my suspension, so I like to say I was one of the first people to take a gap year.
• 38:47
  It was forced, but a gap year.
• 38:50
  So I go back and apply and Cleveland State lets me in, but financial aid drops me because I wasted their money.
• 39:01
  They paid for a full 16 credit.
• 39:07
  and they paid it and I never took a full six, for uh three quarter, four quarters in a row, because I had three quarters and then the freshman, the next year.
• 39:18
  So now I have to pay and this sucks, but it made me a little bit appreciate that, all right, I don't wanna take these classes and drop them, right?
• 39:30
  Because that came out of my money.
• 39:32
  I don't get the money back when I drop it.
• 39:34
  But here's the thing.
• 39:37
  Here's what I remember.
• 39:40
  thinking to myself, why am I wasting my time in college?
• 39:45
  I know for certain, 100 % certainty, I'm not graduating from college.
• 39:52
  I don't go to class still.
• 39:55
  I hate it.
• 39:56
  I can't sit still.
• 39:58
  Why am I doing this?
• 40:00
  And why am I working my ass off to pay for tuition?
• 40:05
  Thank God, tuition back then was like $900 a quarter.
• 40:09
  We were on quarters.
• 40:10
  And here's what came to me.
• 40:12
  Why?
• 40:13
  It was for marketability to the opposite sex.
• 40:20
  This is honest to God, what I realized.
• 40:25
  I'm out.
• 40:25
  And so the year I was kicked out of school, this happened to me.
• 40:30
  I'm out at bars, Rascal House, Cosmo, know, all the bars back in our day.
• 40:36
  And I meet a girl and she says, what do you do?
• 40:42
  I'm pumping gas.
• 40:44
  I work at a gas station.
• 40:45
  I work in a grocery store.
• 40:47
  I work at chess king.
• 40:48
  Do you remember chess king?
• 40:49
  yes.
• 40:50
  I worked at Chess King at the mall, men's clothing store.
• 40:54
  And you, yes, and you could see, oh, okay, and they'd walk away.
• 41:03
  But now when you're in school, what do you do?
• 41:06
  Oh, I'm at Cleveland State working on a business degree.
• 41:10
  And what you do on the side may not even come up, but if it does, it's actually impressive that you're pumping gas or working at a clothing store while you're getting your degree.
• 41:25
  And that is, I mean, it sounds so shallow.
• 41:28
  That is 100%.
• 41:29
  I just wanted to buy more time.
• 41:32
  to be marketable in bars.
• 41:36
  I don't know what that says about me, but that was 100 % true.
• 41:42
  here's what changed my life.
• 41:45
  Before I go to that, you asked me a question.
• 41:47
  said, good point.
• 41:48
  I wanna circle back to that.
• 41:49
  Do you remember?
• 41:52
  yeah, so, oh no, yeah.
• 41:53
  Don't let me forget that.
• 41:54
  That's gonna come at the end.
• 41:57
  So still coaching, managing my summer league teams.
• 42:02
  and playing on it.
• 42:03
  And that's all I cared about.
• 42:04
  Like I was, mean, you know, I quit jobs.
• 42:07
  I'd get fired from jobs.
• 42:10
  I got fired from chess king because they put me on Saturday night and I said, I don't work weekends.
• 42:17
  I play in baseball tournaments.
• 42:19
  And they said, we have nobody.
• 42:22
  And we told you, you have to work this Saturday in July.
• 42:25
  And if you don't work, you're going to be fired.
• 42:26
  I'm like, okay.
• 42:27
  Well, when it came,
• 42:30
  I didn't leave the tournament.
• 42:32
  So I lost jobs, I got fired from jobs only because baseball would always take precedent, okay?
• 42:40
  So I'm still obsessed with baseball.
• 42:42
  Don't think it's a future for me, but here's where my life changed.
• 42:49
  I'm just floating along, struggling.
• 42:53
  Every other quarter, I'm on the academic probation.
• 42:59
  And I couldn't, can't remember.
• 43:00
  think it was, if two quarters in a row, you got under a 2.0, you got uh kicked out again.
• 43:07
  All right.
• 43:08
  So I'd always get, you know, 1.8.
• 43:12
  And then I, the next quarter, I do just enough to get 2.0.
• 43:16
  Get off academic permit.
• 43:17
  The next quarter, 1 point something, I'm back on academic permit.
• 43:21
  So that was kind of like my thing here for, you know, two, three years, which is really,
• 43:28
  three, four years, right, after I, when I came back from being kicked out.
• 43:34
  And I know this gig's gonna be up, you know, anytime now I'm gonna get a, you know, two quarters in a row under a 2.0 and I'm done.
• 43:43
  And you're done for good.
• 43:44
  And Cleveland State's not a good school.
• 43:46
  It's not, you know, I mean, it's not a hard school.
• 43:50
  This is what changed my life.
• 43:54
  I get a job, I'm making $5 an hour, which is right around minimum wage in all my jobs, landscaping in the summer, doing construction in the summer, playing baseball at night,
• 44:11
  yadda, dadda, but not making anything, just enough to pay my tuition, which is a waste, wasted investment, and maybe enough to have some beer money to go out with my buddies.
• 44:24
  and to play baseball.
• 44:26
  I get this job at UPS.
• 44:30
  Changed my life.
• 44:32
  UPS, back then, I got a job to work 3 a.m.
• 44:39
  to 8 a.m.
• 44:41
  in the middle of the night.
• 44:42
  I didn't want that.
• 44:43
  But it paid $13 an hour.
• 44:48
  Overtime and health benefits.
• 44:53
  And so there's so many things that come from this.
• 44:56
  So now I get this great paying job, backbreaking job, but I love that.
• 45:02
  I'm 21, 22.
• 45:04
  I love the physicality of a job.
• 45:07
  You were married to a UPS driver, that's how I met you.
• 45:12
  I know you ever heard this quote.
• 45:13
  Someone said, I've never seen a skinny beer driver and a fat UPS driver.
• 45:20
  And it's so true, right?
• 45:22
  But anyway.
• 45:22
  got this backbreaking job, but here's what changed.
• 45:33
  I, the next fall.
• 45:38
  It was my fourth year.
• 45:41
  I know this because of uh eligibility.
• 45:44
  The fourth year, just for kicks, just to say I did it, I walk onto Cleveland State.
• 45:53
  Haven't played in, never played after eighth grade scholastically.
• 46:00
  Not in St.
• 46:01
  Joe's and not my first three years at Cleveland State.
• 46:06
  Couldn't even consider trying out and I wouldn't have made it, but couldn't consider trying out because I have to work every day after school.
• 46:13
  Every college athlete that I know that my son's, they don't work.
• 46:17
  It's a full-time job, 12 months a year.
• 46:21
  But now I'm working 3 a.m.
• 46:23
  to 8 a.m.
• 46:24
  That's not why I I just do it because I'm available after school.
• 46:28
  And in the fall, I hear that they're holding uh walk-outs.
• 46:33
  I just want to...
• 46:34
  It's my bucket list.
• 46:36
  So I walk on and I always say this, God blessed me with two things, the ability to talk and an arm.
• 46:52
  I don't know why, for a little guy, I had a rocket.
• 46:56
  uh a rocket, a really hard throwing arm.
• 47:00
  I was a pitcher, but in high school or college level, I wouldn't be a pitcher because I was way too short and pitchers are always like six, two and taller.
• 47:09
  um Yeah, short And I had a rocket.
• 47:15
  Yeah, right.
• 47:16
  So tryouts, they had you run and they had you throw.
• 47:23
  And I'm not quick.
• 47:27
  as quick as I should be for being a little guy.
• 47:31
  But I had the best arm there of the people walking on and the coach just like, he couldn't believe it.
• 47:39
  And they think they could teach you anything else.
• 47:42
  At Major League tryouts, or professional tryouts, that's a first.
• 47:46
  They have you run, they have you throw, and then they start cutting you.
• 47:48
  And they don't even see if you can hit or do anything else.
• 47:52
  So I made it.
• 47:55
  I make the team and it was just a joke.
• 47:58
  It was just, I wanted to be able to say I did.
• 48:03
  And I, so this is the fall.
• 48:07
  We don't start the actual baseball season until spring.
• 48:11
  So I go see the athletic director or someone because I knew I wasn't eligible.
• 48:20
  My GPA is 1.8, right?
• 48:24
  and you have to have a 2.0, proposition 48.
• 48:27
  I didn't want my coach to find out about this because he wouldn't have uh taken me.
• 48:33
  So I go see someone in the athletic department and I give them my name and whatever you give them back then, social security number, and they say, oh, you're ineligible.
• 48:43
  I go, no, no, no, no.
• 48:44
  I go, the quarter we're in.
• 48:46
  He goes, that's all you got.
• 48:52
  you know, to become eligible.
• 48:54
  What do I need?
• 48:55
  A 3.3.
• 48:56
  This quarter, now thank God I didn't have that much schooling.
• 49:01
  So this is my fourth year and I might be done with my freshman year of, even though it's my fourth year, I might have enough.
• 49:11
  But had I had three years done, I wouldn't have been able to move my GPA like that.
• 49:17
  So he figures it out.
• 49:18
  He says, you'd have to get a 3.3.
• 49:21
  Mind you, I've never probably gotten over a 2.1.
• 49:24
  I guarantee you, 2.1 was the highest I've ever gotten.
• 49:26
  I gotta get a 3.3 to get my overall GPA up to a 2.0 to be eligible to play.
• 49:34
  The second thing was in Division I Baseball, I'm sorry, Division I Sports, the moment you step on any college campus,
• 49:46
  for school, the clock starts ticking.
• 49:50
  You have five years to compete in four.
• 49:53
  So you, whoever can go to school and not play a sport, the clock's, and if you get, if you strop out of school, get kicked out of school, take three years off again, that clock
• 50:04
  doesn't stop ticking.
• 50:06
  So it's my fourth year of, I only have two years of eligibility because I wasted the first three years.
• 50:14
  So I,
• 50:14
  beg whoever I was speaking to not to tell my head coach.
• 50:19
  My head coach thought I was a freshman.
• 50:22
  If he would have known I only had two years of eligibility and I wasn't eligible currently, I begged him and I didn't think this person would listen to me, but he didn't
• 50:31
  tell him.
• 50:33
  So I got a 3.3.
• 50:37
  Isn't that funny?
• 50:39
  Oh my God.
• 50:40
  I just remember sociology.
• 50:42
  remember I went up and told every teacher.
• 50:44
  And I worked my, but I got an A in sociology and the teacher was so nice.
• 50:49
  I don't know if I deserved it, but she really liked me.
• 50:52
  Like, you know, she, you know, she liked me.
• 50:54
  thought it was nice and she knew I was trying hard.
• 50:57
  And I remember the class.
• 50:58
  I remember all these things.
• 51:00
  I don't know what other classes I took.
• 51:01
  I know, you know, I'm in, you know, a business major.
• 51:05
  So I know, you know, some of you know, you know, I had, you know, at least get a uh B in them.
• 51:11
  got, I got, I was eligible.
• 51:13
  couldn't believe it.
• 51:15
  So here's another thing.
• 51:17
  Now, in the middle of the night, if I didn't have the UPS job, I wouldn't be able to play baseball.
• 51:27
  So the thing with...
• 51:33
  The other thing, remember, I start every quarter, I was still doing this after I came back.
• 51:39
  Start every quarter with four classes, full-time.
• 51:42
  Drop the classes I'm getting an F in and finish with what a season D is so I, you know, hopefully don't get kicked out again.
• 51:52
  Well, now I'm playing for Cleveland State.
• 51:54
  You have to be a full-time student.
• 51:57
  You can't drop under 16 credits.
• 52:03
  per quarter or you'll be ineligible.
• 52:05
  So besides I need to have at least a 2.0, which is such a low bar, I can't drop to less than 16 credits.
• 52:16
  So now I'm taking four classes.
• 52:19
  I got to get at least a C in all of them.
• 52:22
  um I played baseball, which I was the Rudy on the team.
• 52:28
  was the, you know, the,
• 52:32
  the weakest personality.
• 52:33
  These kids were all real Division I athletes recruited to the team scholarship.
• 52:39
  They were good.
• 52:40
  uh Several kids on Cleveland State that I played with uh played minor league baseball.
• 52:48
  And several that we played against played minor league baseball and some played in the pros.
• 52:55
  So did I hit?
• 52:59
  I was more of my defense.
• 53:01
  in college.
• 53:02
  mean, they threw hard.
• 53:04
  They threw upper 80s, lower 90s.
• 53:07
  and having not played at a good level in seven years, my summer ball didn't have that type of competition.
• 53:18
  But I had a decent glove.
• 53:22
  that's all.
• 53:22
  But anyway, now I'm done with baseball.
• 53:28
  And I just thought I was going to college to play baseball.
• 53:31
  Now, first it was going to stay in college to be more marketable to girls.
• 53:36
  Maybe my thing was that maybe I'll meet a girl, she'll fall in love with me.
• 53:40
  So when I finally get kicked out of school, which I thought was inevitable, it'd be too late and she, know, but that didn't work out.
• 53:47
  didn't really meet anyone.
• 53:50
  So, all right, let me stretch this thing out and play baseball for two years.
• 53:55
  And then I know I'm done.
• 53:58
  Now,
• 54:00
  I'm done with five years of school, including the year they kicked me out.
• 54:05
  um And because it forced me that I had to get over a 2.0 and had to take full-time credits, now I finish.
• 54:17
  And I'm mature, I'm older now, God, I'm 22, 23.
• 54:21
  I had a woman teacher in Cleveland State, I forget what subject.
• 54:28
  that graduated the same year I did in high school.
• 54:32
  And she was my teacher.
• 54:34
  All right, so anyway, now I am uh done with baseball.
• 54:40
  Five years have gone by and I have, I'm almost a junior academically.
• 54:47
  I am just a couple credits short of finishing my sophomore year academically.
• 54:54
  Five years, I don't even get two years done.
• 54:58
  But because I took full-time classes, got my GPA padded at a 2.1 or 2.2, I'm like, I could graduate.
• 55:14
  and then I became obsessed with school.
• 55:17
  So in two years, my sixth and seventh year of college, I actually took, I got more than two and a half academically, because I wasn't fully a junior yet.
• 55:33
  And this was the other thing.
• 55:36
  All my classes now would be accounting two, statistics two, economics, and something else really hard.
• 55:48
  I didn't have electives.
• 55:50
  I had taken all the electives and did really shit.
• 55:53
  You you're supposed to take two hard classes with two, and I don't have that luxury.
• 55:59
  So now I became obsessed and didn't go out and
• 56:05
  I got competitive because now I was in business courses marketing.
• 56:09
  That was my, ended up being my major.
• 56:11
  And I used to think I'm smarter than anyone in this room.
• 56:16
  And that got like my ego and like, I wanted to demonstrate that.
• 56:22
  And, but I was OCD.
• 56:24
  Now I began, I was home on Fridays and Saturdays trying to pass my four hard business courses.
• 56:32
  And now.
• 56:33
  It took me seven years to graduate from Cleveland State.
• 56:39
  But you did it.
• 56:39
  In the end, you did graduate.
• 56:41
  I did graduate.
• 56:43
  Yeah, but was all those funny stories along the way.
• 56:46
  UPS changed my life.
• 56:47
  So now I want go back to UPS.
• 56:52
  It's this great paying job, 12, 13, $14 an hour, union, health benefits, vacations, all this stuff.
• 57:03
  And it allowed me to focus more on school.
• 57:06
  I wasn't going to ever give up baseball, so I'm still playing baseball at night.
• 57:10
  So now...
• 57:17
  I have enough seniority at UPS when I graduate from college to go driving or take my marketing degree.
• 57:30
  And I dipped my toe in the water and interviewed at some businesses.
• 57:34
  My marketing degree back in 1989 got me offers between $18,000 and $22,000 a year or fully commission, sell insurance type of jobs or
• 57:46
  I had enough seniority to go driving at UPS that paid $45,000.
• 57:51
  Double.
• 57:53
  So just, looked this up on chat GPT last night to tell you what UPS drivers make today, the average makes $150,000.
• 58:02
  Okay.
• 58:03
  I think that's good money.
• 58:05
  All I know is $45,000 a year to me in 1989, 90 was a billion dollars.
• 58:13
  Right?
• 58:13
  I'm coming, a kid from welfare.
• 58:15
  coming from all these things.
• 58:18
  oh so in college, now I'm getting into my courses, I lose sleep at night every night over, I wanna be an entrepreneur.
• 58:30
  I wanna own my own company.
• 58:31
  I don't know what.
• 58:32
  And I call my friend Joe Panito every night and talk to him and say, Joe, I'm so nervous.
• 58:37
  I don't know what I'm gonna do.
• 58:39
  I don't wanna work for someone.
• 58:40
  I wanna own my own business.
• 58:42
  And I would drive him crazy.
• 58:45
  flip that switch?
• 58:46
  Like when did you decide you
• 58:48
  The only experience I had was this managing a baseball team, which was intense and logistics and recruiting and being better than everyone else and all this.
• 58:57
  But it was just the mind.
• 58:59
  Like I would just look at everything in class and things and question and like why, and I'd go to restaurants with whoever and question why.
• 59:09
  So I just had that uh contrarian mindset.
• 59:12
  ah
• 59:14
  And so I just started losing sleep at night.
• 59:16
  What am I gonna do?
• 59:17
  Like there's nothing I like enough other than wanting to own a business.
• 59:22
  So I realized, I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna open a sporting goods store.
• 59:26
  Cause that was the only thing I could find two plus two.
• 59:29
  Owning something in sports.
• 59:32
  I'm like, that's what I'm gonna do.
• 59:33
  But I'm deep in whole, by this time I'm taking care of my mom full time.
• 59:39
  She got sick and her health was bad and
• 59:44
  around 21, 22, she became my full-time dependent.
• 59:52
  I'm living at the house I grew up in, but I'm paying for it.
• 59:56
  I think it's in my name.
• 59:57
  It is in my name now, and my mom can't work.
• 1:00:00
  So I'm taking care of her.
• 1:00:02
  So we have bills, and we're poor, other than my $12 an hour job at UPS part-time in the middle of the night.
• 1:00:13
  So I graduate in 89 and I can go get a marketing degree.
• 1:00:17
  I mean, I use my marketing degree for $20,000 or I could get a job driving UPS at 45.
• 1:00:24
  I take the UPS job because, you know, and so my plan was I'm gonna work there for five years, get out of debt, put money away, and then be able to open my sporting goods store.
• 1:00:38
  And that was my plan.
• 1:00:41
  And,
• 1:00:44
  So that's almost what happened.
• 1:00:47
  The money was great.
• 1:00:49
  Oh, so I just want to go back to there's some point at UPS when I'm loading trucks that I realized my life changed forever.
• 1:00:59
  As long as I didn't screw up the job.
• 1:01:02
  I realized that the worst I was going to do in life was a UPS driver, $45,000 a year, which was more money than I ever thought I could make.
• 1:01:13
  you know, which is great.
• 1:01:14
  And it was the first time in my life I realized I wasn't going to be poor.
• 1:01:18
  That UPS would give me, you know, if I get a better job than UPS driving at $45,000 a year, great, I'll take that.
• 1:01:26
  But my fallback was driving a truck for UPS for $45,000 a year, which again, was a billion dollars to me.
• 1:01:33
  And so that UPS changed my life in so many ways.
• 1:01:39
  I mean, going to work every...
• 1:01:41
  middle of the night at 3.30, discipline, hard work.
• 1:01:47
  I needed the job more than they needed me.
• 1:01:49
  I wasn't gonna screw that up.
• 1:01:51
  And I just knew my future was gonna be decent.
• 1:01:57
  And that was the first time in my life that UPS, I realized I'm not gonna be a poor kid.
• 1:02:03
  So we have from the UPS driver to...
• 1:02:10
  whatever podcast that really takes it on after that.
• 1:02:14
  That I meet my wife and instead of opening a sporting goods store, we open up a hair salon, right?
• 1:02:21
  But circle back to something you asked me.
• 1:02:24
  In the early days, and still it happens occasionally, but in the early days in the 90s and maybe early 2000s, the success of John Roberts Spa, we're winning every award possible.
• 1:02:37
  You remember we're going to, you know,
• 1:02:39
  events, black tie events, it seemed like every week, winning some award.
• 1:02:44
  um And I started figuring out when we'd win the award because an editor or writer would call me from that magazine and say, hey, you're a finalist for top whatever, entrepreneur
• 1:03:01
  of the year, right?
• 1:03:03
  That's it, okay.
• 1:03:04
  They say, you know, in case you win,
• 1:03:08
  we need to have an article ready.
• 1:03:11
  So they interview me and they spend 45 minutes to an hour interviewing me.
• 1:03:17
  And then we win.
• 1:03:18
  And then the same thing happens for the Pillar Award for Community Service.
• 1:03:22
  I realized no one's going to spend an hour of their time if you're not a winner.
• 1:03:30
  And it worked out every time.
• 1:03:32
  So I know.
• 1:03:33
  That's why when we won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Ernst & Young, I knew to...
• 1:03:38
  buy a table, right?
• 1:03:40
  I didn't think we'd win, but then when they interviewed me and spent an hour of interviewing me, I'm like, we're buying a table.
• 1:03:45
  And you remember that?
• 1:03:45
  We got a limo.
• 1:03:46
  That was a big night for all of us.
• 1:03:49
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:50
  And it really put the slug.
• 1:03:52
  But here's the thing.
• 1:03:57
  One of the inks, Small Business Magazine, huge, calls me up.
• 1:04:03
  All right, we apply, we apply.
• 1:04:06
  Call me up and say, you're a finalist.
• 1:04:09
  And I think 100 people won.
• 1:04:12
  And it was the most prestigious thing we would have won.
• 1:04:18
  Small Business, fastest growing Small Business, ink something, it was very prestigious.
• 1:04:25
  He says, all right, in case you want, need to interview you.
• 1:04:28
  I just have to have the...
• 1:04:29
  I'm like, yeah, okay.
• 1:04:31
  You're gonna interview 200 people, right?
• 1:04:35
  100 people is gonna, you and I'm sure there were several writers that were working on it.
• 1:04:39
  He wasn't interviewing all 100.
• 1:04:41
  So tell my whole story of how we built John Roberts and the vision and the story and our obsession with customer and he loves it.
• 1:04:49
  He can't write fast enough and I'm a good interview, right?
• 1:04:54
  One last question for you says, yes.
• 1:04:57
  He goes, what did you do before you opened your business um that was the most valuable thing for why you're a successful entrepreneur today?
• 1:05:10
  I that's easy.
• 1:05:11
  He goes, good, good, tell me.
• 1:05:12
  That's all I need.
• 1:05:13
  Then we're done.
• 1:05:14
  I said, I managed a baseball team.
• 1:05:16
  He goes, what?
• 1:05:17
  I go, yeah.
• 1:05:18
  And I tell him this.
• 1:05:19
  I said, I had this phenomenal backer sponsor.
• 1:05:24
  that gave us almost unlimited budget, but I had to work with him.
• 1:05:28
  I had to recruit guys my age, older in a lot of cases to play on this team and had to lead that.
• 1:05:37
  I'm telling him all, and he goes, no, no, no, no, you're misunderstanding the question.
• 1:05:41
  He goes, everyone else, they worked at a Fortune 500 company.
• 1:05:47
  They worked in corporate America.
• 1:05:49
  They did it and that helped them.
• 1:05:52
  I said, I didn't.
• 1:05:54
  And my UPS driving wasn't what he was looking for, but that was the only job I had.
• 1:06:01
  I said, no, you're not understanding me.
• 1:06:03
  And I go back and tell him the whole thing about recruiting and how good we were and how I had sit players that were older than me and the dynamics.
• 1:06:13
  But all that is the same things I use in the salon business, right?
• 1:06:17
  Which backfired because I found out the hairdressers don't like the competitive side of it.
• 1:06:22
  You went through that.
• 1:06:25
  And I give it to him again and he goes, are you sure you want that to be your answer?
• 1:06:31
  I said, yeah, like I was proud of it.
• 1:06:34
  I thought he thought maybe I was gonna be embarrassed that I was put in print.
• 1:06:37
  We didn't win.
• 1:06:39
  And I know for a fact it was cause he didn't like that answer.
• 1:06:44
  But that was my answer.
• 1:06:46
  I mean, I took that, and that was the first thing managing a team.
• 1:06:55
  It was an obsession 24-7, talked about it, called up my friends Hooper and all these people.
• 1:07:04
  And we would talk on the phone for hours about the lineup and about who we're playing and this.
• 1:07:11
  I mean, it was an obsession, but it was the first thing from 18 on that I put everything I had into it and it was successful.
• 1:07:25
  It was the first thing it gave me confidence that, we do things, that I could do things.
• 1:07:31
  And it sounds silly, but it was like, and it was the same stuff that carried over.
• 1:07:37
  So yeah.
• 1:07:39
  Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  on at CSU?
• 1:07:42
  Walkout at CSU wasn't about confidence.
• 1:07:44
  That was like someone, and you can't compare the two, that goes to Ohio State, that played football at Lake Catholic, and just for kicks, wants to say he walked out of Ohio State
• 1:07:54
  and knows he has no right.
• 1:07:57
  No.
• 1:07:58
  Denise, I hadn't played in seven years.
• 1:08:03
  It's not skillet, but it wasn't competitive.
• 1:08:05
  I these guys um at Division I,
• 1:08:09
  did that.
• 1:08:10
  I mean, that had to be another boost though.
• 1:08:13
  You know, yeah.
• 1:08:15
  And then you get the 3.3.
• 1:08:19
  You have to feel invincible at this point.
• 1:08:21
  I'm more scared, because I know I don't belong.
• 1:08:25
  I know I don't belong.
• 1:08:26
  These guys are big, good, top of their high schools.
• 1:08:32
  And I didn't belong, and it was obvious at first.
• 1:08:37
  But I eventually worked my ass off.
• 1:08:41
  And one of my top accomplishments was towards the end of the first season.
• 1:08:47
  my coach started putting me in as a defensive replacement, which three months ago, my coach regretted uh taking me on the team.
• 1:09:02
  Because he realized the small sample size of what he saw in the tryout, the walk-on, that I had a rocket arm.
• 1:09:10
  I was so far behind those guys.
• 1:09:14
  I just didn't have the...
• 1:09:15
  the baseball skill set that they had because of my time off and all that.
• 1:09:21
  And I'm still, you know, not their size.
• 1:09:24
  I'm not, you know, these are really good athletes, but I worked my ass off.
• 1:09:28
  became decent enough.
• 1:09:31
  um But I'll tell you another funny story.
• 1:09:36
  There are listeners may or may not like, I was so paranoid to, I was starting a game.
• 1:09:46
  And I was so paranoid to not play because I thought, you know, I'll be replaced and I'll probably be let go or I won't be asked back for the following year.
• 1:10:00
  Have the flu all day.
• 1:10:03
  coming out of both ends.
• 1:10:06
  But I got to play tonight.
• 1:10:08
  So luckily, ah throwing up stopped.
• 1:10:15
  Had body aches, but the other part didn't stop.
• 1:10:22
  And I'm not going to give someone an opportunity to take my spot.
• 1:10:27
  Or I was so paranoid, and rightfully so, that anytime I could be cut.
• 1:10:32
  So I drive to the drug store and buy a box of Depends and played that night in Depends.
• 1:10:42
  And actually played good, got a couple hits, which is good for me.
• 1:10:46
  And I'm on first base, leading off.
• 1:10:50
  And the first baseman looks over at me and goes, do you got gas?
• 1:10:54
  I go, yeah, really bad, really bad.
• 1:10:56
  That's a true story.
• 1:11:04
  There'll be debate later on whether to edit this part out.
• 1:11:07
  yes.
• 1:11:08
  So that's my childhood.
• 1:11:11
  I want to circle back to something else.
• 1:11:14
  We started, as you know, and maybe some of our listeners know, the third business we started is Believe in Dreams, which is uh a dream for uh economically disadvantaged kids
• 1:11:25
  uh in Northeast Ohio that really face some horrible hardships.
• 1:11:31
  My hardship does not compare to theirs.
• 1:11:34
  I'm not in the same, but that's why.
• 1:11:36
  That's what motivated me to start believing in dreams is because, yeah, my circumstances changed drastically when I was in first grade.
• 1:11:49
  Father left, never saw us again.
• 1:11:52
  Poor welfare, all those things.
• 1:11:55
  But I had an amazing mother um who unfortunately died too young.
• 1:12:01
  um
• 1:12:02
  But I didn't know we were poor, didn't know we were on food stamps.
• 1:12:06
  ah And I had five older brothers and sisters that just showered me with attention, took care of me, which sucks to have your seven-year-old brother hanging around you when you're
• 1:12:20
  13, 15, and you're going to McDonald's and trying to meet and all that.
• 1:12:25
  But they did it.
• 1:12:26
  Or they coached me in Little League.
• 1:12:27
  Or they took me to...
• 1:12:29
  Cleveland Indians games.
• 1:12:31
  And so that was, you I realized how lucky I was and how little I knew how bad our circumstances was, that that's what motivated me to, you know, open Believe in Dreams
• 1:12:42
  because I know these kids may not have that support system of anyone in their life, brothers and sisters and all that.
• 1:12:53
  So that is a long story of why we started Believe in Dreams.
• 1:13:01
  Thank you for finding a way to give back like that, recognizing it in others.
• 1:13:05
  And again, it's more of a tribute to my mom and to my five brothers and sisters who, um like I said, had to take care of this little tag along in a time where I'm sure that's the
• 1:13:16
  last thing they wanted.
• 1:13:17
  Why are you bringing your little brother to a party?
• 1:13:21
  And they've all worked with us.
• 1:13:25
  Every one of them have worked or still do in my businesses.
• 1:13:34
  Yeah.
• 1:13:35
  Yeah.
• 1:13:38
  Yeah.
• 1:13:39
  It's quite a story, John DiJulious.
• 1:13:41
  Yeah, I think so.
• 1:13:43
  I was lucky.
• 1:13:44
  Lucky, lucky, lucky.
• 1:13:46
  What percentage luck to hard work?
• 1:13:49
  What do you think?
• 1:13:50
  Cause you put in a lot of hard work.
• 1:13:51
  mean, I think your competitiveness probably drove a lot of it.
• 1:13:57
  Yeah, that definitely helped when I had the confidence.
• 1:14:02
  I think, God, think I'm lucky.
• 1:14:04
  ah It feels like 90 % luck.
• 1:14:07
  I don't know.
• 1:14:09
  I'm one of my TikTok.
• 1:14:13
  whatever you call that, where I'm watching, I like to watch TikTok at night.
• 1:14:18
  And I have no problem saying it because my algorithm is awesome.
• 1:14:22
  It's motivational mentors, inspiration, learning more about things I need to learn about, know, family, parenting, all those things.
• 1:14:34
  But someone was talking about maybe the victim mentality versus not having the victim mentality.
• 1:14:41
  And they said,
• 1:14:43
  that a great indicator of how someone thinks about themselves is you ask them how lucky they are.
• 1:14:53
  And, you know, victims will say, oh, I'm the luck.
• 1:14:57
  If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all, right?
• 1:15:01
  I am so lucky.
• 1:15:03
  I think I was lucky that my dad left.
• 1:15:07
  What if he would have stayed?
• 1:15:09
  And that would have been my role model of how to be a dad, husband.
• 1:15:15
  I mean, he was cheating on my mom for years.
• 1:15:18
  You know, I find out later.
• 1:15:21
  wouldn't come home for weeks.
• 1:15:22
  ah You know, whatever, like people are like, that's so sad.
• 1:15:26
  No, it's not.
• 1:15:27
  What if that would have been my dad?
• 1:15:29
  That I got to grow up.
• 1:15:32
  I'm lucky because I was the youngest of six kids and didn't know what life was supposed to be like.
• 1:15:37
  I didn't go from knowing what a middle-class lifestyle was to a poor.
• 1:15:42
  I just was.
• 1:15:44
  Like, think I'm so lucky I had the mom I had.
• 1:15:48
  I'm so lucky I had the five brothers and sisters I had.
• 1:15:51
  I think it's more than 90 % luck.
• 1:15:57
  Good answer.
• 1:16:00
  All right.
• 1:16:01
  Maybe you should put the links to the podcast from UPS Driver to Customer Experience Authority on here so they can finish these.
• 1:16:15
  We'll add the links for the UPS Driver uh podcast episode.
• 1:16:20
  So in case listeners, you missed that one, you can listen to that and pick up from here to hear the rest of John's story.
• 1:16:29
  Thanks, Denise.
• 1:16:30
  You probably knew most of this.
• 1:16:32
  Any surprises?
• 1:16:33
  Yeah, I think there are some, for sure, for me even.
• 1:16:37
  was lucky to get the UPS job.
• 1:16:40
  I'm telling you, that changed my life.
• 1:16:42
  I often think about where I would be if I didn't get that.
• 1:16:47
  I don't think I would finished college.
• 1:16:49
  I know I wouldn't have.
• 1:16:51
  And I would be doing something I hate.
• 1:16:56
  Isn't it something?
• 1:16:57
  And it's a, I mean, who would think a job at three in the morning and,
• 1:17:05
  Yeah.
• 1:17:06
  And that had something to do with it, it was just outstanding pay and a hard job that had opportunities for advancement that I was able to take advantage of, do it for five years
• 1:17:16
  and open my business.
• 1:17:18
  So it's funny that my plan was exactly right.
• 1:17:22
  It just wasn't the business I thought I'd be opening.
• 1:17:25
  Do you ever um think about going back to sports?
• 1:17:30
  Retirement one day, doing some.
• 1:17:33
  so as you know, I still play hardball.
• 1:17:35
  I've played hardball for 54 years in a row.
• 1:17:41
  Since I was six, I have not stopped playing hardball.
• 1:17:46
  It is so much fun.
• 1:17:49
  I did, I did, I did.
• 1:17:50
  Surgeries, shoulders replaced.
• 1:17:52
  I've had, you know, I had my left shoulder replaced uh two years ago, so I missed last year.
• 1:17:58
  And then I have to have this one, my right one replaced.
• 1:18:03
  and pushing that back to the fall so I could finish the season.
• 1:18:07
  yeah, I've had injuries at my later years have cost me a season or a half a season, but I love it.
• 1:18:16
  Do so manage your team.
• 1:18:18
  No, no, no, no, God, no, I haven't done that in 30 some years.
• 1:18:21
  It's your question.
• 1:18:23
  do think sometimes, yeah, I'd like to coach high school.
• 1:18:26
  I know I'll never stop working.
• 1:18:29
  So I know that my traveling will always be a difficulty with that.
• 1:18:34
  But I would love to coach high school baseball.
• 1:18:35
  I don't know if I'd like to coach it in one of the cities like Aurora, Solon, Bainbridge, or inner city.
• 1:18:45
  Mmm.
• 1:18:46
  and try to give back.
• 1:18:48
  I hear a lot of times they just go grab the math teacher and make him coach hardball and he doesn't know baseball, but they needed a coach.
• 1:19:00
  Who coaches on the Niners?
• 1:19:03
  I know.
• 1:19:04
  They have a summer ball league.
• 1:19:06
  I'm not sure.
• 1:19:09
  I would think you'd be a shoe-in.
• 1:19:11
  Hmm.
• 1:19:13
  Yeah, but my schedule may never allow.
• 1:19:16
  And I'm okay with that, because I'm not.
• 1:19:21
  I have 30.
• 1:19:23
  I have 30 more years of this.
• 1:19:26
  We hope so.
• 1:19:28
  We hope so.
• 1:19:29
  Customer service is an important topic and companies need you.
• 1:19:35
  All right, well thanks Denise for being my therapist today.
• 1:19:41
  Thanks for sharing, John.
• 1:19:43
  Listeners, we'll catch you on the next episode of the Customer Service Revolution.