Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Special Episode - Flipping the Script: Anthony Codispoti’s Journey from Entrepreneur to Podcast Host | Special Series

Transcript

Special Episode - Flipping the Script: Anthony Codispoti’s Journey from Entrepreneur to Podcast Host | Special Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
• 0:07
  share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
• 0:10
  how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
• 0:13
  they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
• 0:18
  the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
• 0:21
  experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
• 0:24
  by how they've overcome adversity.
• 0:27
  My name is Anthony Kotaspodi. Today's guest is, well, me.
• 0:32
  We are flipping the script today, and one of my previous
• 0:35
  guests is going to interview me. So the host today will be Bashar
• 0:39
  Haddad from SSI, which is a prime contractor for staffing in
• 0:43
  a variety of government and defense environments.
• 0:46
  He first proposed this idea a couple months ago, and I'll
• 0:49
  admit that initially I was pretty hesitant.
• 0:51
  I'm much more comfortable asking questions than I am talking
• 0:55
  about myself, and after further reflection, I realized that this
• 0:59
  was exactly the reason I should do it.
• 1:01
  Growth comes from doing things that makes us uncomfortable.
• 1:04
  So here we are. A little bit about me.
• 1:06
  I'm a married father, two boys, ages 8 and 10.
• 1:10
  I live in Columbus, OH, graduated from Ohio State in 97,
• 1:14
  started my first business that year.
• 1:16
  In fact, we had our first client presentation the day after I
• 1:19
  graduated. I've gone on to start, build,
• 1:22
  and in some cases sell different businesses and different
• 1:25
  industries, each time taking what I learned in the previous
• 1:28
  venture to apply it in a new way to the next thing I did.
• 1:31
  Fast forward to 2024 when I started this podcast.
• 1:35
  In the first year alone, we've recorded well over 100 episodes
• 1:39
  and we're still having fun. I don't know what questions
• 1:42
  Bashar is going to ask me today, but we'll find out together.
• 1:45
  Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
• 1:48
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• 1:52
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• 1:55
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• 1:58
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• 2:00
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• 2:04
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• 2:07
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• 2:11
  qualifies, contact us today at Add Back benefitsagency.com.
• 2:15
  OK, now to our host today, the CEO of SSI, Bashar Haddad.
• 2:21
  I appreciate you making the time to help share my story today.
• 2:25
  And with that, I'll do my best to spend most of my time
• 2:28
  answering questions instead of asking.
• 2:30
  Them all right, well, first of all, Anthony, thank you very
• 2:34
  much for allowing me this opportunity.
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  I had shared with you in the past that you know, I'd love to
• 2:40
  start doing my own podcast, not necessarily what you do, but you
• 2:44
  know, something different. And this is an opportunity for
• 2:47
  me to get my feet wet. So I certainly appreciate you
• 2:50
  allowing me to do this to kind of dig into your closet a little
• 2:53
  bit, find out a little bit more about you.
• 2:55
  I'm sure the listeners want to know more about Anthony as well.
• 2:58
  So without further ado, I have a couple prepared questions that I
• 3:03
  wanted to ask you and then hopefully we'll get into a nice
• 3:08
  conversation or rhythm and see where it goes from there.
• 3:13
  So you already told us you're married.
• 3:15
  You have two children, 8 and 10. You live in Columbus, OH.
• 3:20
  Is that where you were born and raised?
• 3:22
  So I was actually born in Monterey, CA.
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  My dad was stationed at an Army base out there and I was very
• 3:30
  young when we moved. All of his family was back in
• 3:34
  Northeast Ohio. So when I was just a couple
• 3:36
  months old, we moved back to Canton, OH, which is where I
• 3:39
  grew up the age of 18 and 1992. I moved to Columbus to attend
• 3:45
  the Ohio State University and just fell in love with the city.
• 3:48
  It's sort of the the right size for me.
• 3:51
  Canton was kind of a great city, wonderful place to grow up.
• 3:55
  Little small for me. I visit places like New York and
• 3:58
  Chicago and I love visiting there, but they're a little bit
• 4:00
  too hectic and busy for me. Columbus is sort of a a nice mix
• 4:05
  where there's a lot of stuff going on, but not too big and
• 4:09
  congested and and kind of overwhelming.
• 4:13
  Very good. And your wife?
• 4:14
  She grew up in. She grew up in northeast Ohio
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  slash western Pennsylvania, so kind of like Youngstown border
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  Youngstown, OH and Sharon in Sharpsville, PA on the the
• 4:30
  western side. And she moved to Columbus
• 4:35
  shortly before we met. Boy, I guess I should know what
• 4:40
  that date is. You're going to get me into
• 4:41
  trouble. Kind of like early to mid 2000s.
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  She had graduated from college and she came down here for a job
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  and a mutual friend introduced us.
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  And so she's she's called Columbus home ever since then.
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  Your wife asked me to ask that question to see if you actually
• 4:58
  remember. Great.
• 5:00
  All right, now I know I'm in trouble.
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  So so I've had employees work for me in Monterey, CA OK at
• 5:08
  Defense Language Institute and I've been there several times.
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  Absolutely beautiful place. And you chose to leave Monterey
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  to? Live in Ohio.
• 5:17
  Well, the choice wasn't mine to make at two months old.
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  I didn't really have a whole lot of input, but yeah, my dad is a
• 5:24
  Family Guy 1st. And so I think it was kind of a
• 5:29
  little bit of a challenging decision for him to to sort of
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  just make the decision to join the military right after he
• 5:38
  graduated dental school. And there was some consideration
• 5:43
  to stay in the military. A lot of conversations that
• 5:47
  happened around there. But ultimately he decided that,
• 5:50
  you know, he wanted his kids to grow up around grandparents and
• 5:54
  aunts and uncles and cousins. And so I, I certainly appreciate
• 5:59
  the, the family environment that we were able to, to grow up in.
• 6:02
  But yeah, I've been out to, to visit that part of the country a
• 6:04
  couple times. And yeah, it's hard to beat the
• 6:08
  weather out there. Yeah, I, I, just, as I mentioned
• 6:11
  to you, I just got back from San Diego yesterday and, and it's
• 6:15
  just beautiful every single day. So you say you started your
• 6:22
  podcast in 2024 this year and you've already done 100
• 6:29
  episodes. Yeah.
• 6:31
  What? What was What made you want to
• 6:34
  start a podcast? So the idea first came to me,
• 6:41
  gosh, this was probably more than 15 years ago.
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  And back then, I don't think, I don't even know if the word
• 6:48
  podcast was a thing. I don't, I don't think there
• 6:51
  were podcast platforms, but there was one video interview
• 6:57
  show called Mixergy. The host was Andrew Warner.
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  I, I think it's still going strong today.
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  And he interviewed founders of companies and told their
• 7:07
  stories. And you know, what they did to
• 7:11
  help make them successful and what, what was challenging, what
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  tools they were using, shortcuts that they found.
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  And the content to me was just enthralling.
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  It was like somebody had made a television station just for me,
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  you know, like I would enjoy occasionally watching things on
• 7:28
  National Geographic. Sometimes there's a show on
• 7:31
  network television that interests me.
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  And you know, I like watch. But like every single interview
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  that he did, I was on the edge of my seat just soaking it all
• 7:39
  in. And at that same time, I had
• 7:42
  started a high end eyewear business and we were we were
• 7:47
  making our own frames. There was a unique design
• 7:50
  element to them, which you'll actually see.
• 7:52
  I'm wearing a pair of them here called the Split Fit Temple.
• 7:55
  So the extra surface area gives more grip on the head.
• 8:00
  So, you know, they stay in place as you're sort of being active.
• 8:04
  And it also distributes the weight more evenly so you don't
• 8:06
  get those pressure points behind your ears.
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  And so it was this, this cool brand, It was like a mash up of
• 8:12
  both form and function, sport and style, you know, kind of
• 8:18
  these cool eye shapes, but with, you know, a truly functional
• 8:21
  element to it. And we were selling into high
• 8:26
  end eyewear shops. And so it's kind of a a like a
• 8:31
  close knit community, these like higher end shops.
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  And, you know, we were trying to, you know, establish
• 8:37
  relationships with the stores, with the sales reps, with the
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  distributors who are, you know, known for carrying these
• 8:44
  different brands that we would put ourselves in the same
• 8:46
  category with. And, you know, I was trying to
• 8:51
  think, how do we, you know, how do we kind of connect with more
• 8:54
  people in this space? And somehow the idea popped into
• 8:58
  my head that if I did a podcast, maybe this would be a way to
• 9:01
  connect with people in this space.
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  It would be a way that I could give to them, you know, rather
• 9:07
  than calling up and just, hey, can I, you know, sell you some
• 9:09
  eyeglasses or, you know, something like that.
• 9:12
  So, so I had the idea, I practiced it.
• 9:16
  I, you know, with some, with some friends.
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  And then I, I sort of had the, the details worked out and I
• 9:22
  went to present it to my business partner.
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  And he was kind of like, I don't know, seems like a whole lot of
• 9:27
  time spent on something that, you know, may not prove
• 9:31
  fruitful. And so he, I mean, he wasn't
• 9:33
  telling me I couldn't do it. Like, it wasn't that kind of
• 9:36
  relationship. He was just like, if you're
• 9:37
  going to do it like you're on your own, like, you know, and I
• 9:41
  kind of let that be like a wet blanket.
• 9:43
  And I'm like, yeah, I don't know, I'm busy with other stuff.
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  So I let it sit on the shelf. Fast forward several years
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  later, a friend of mine who I want to give a shout out to, his
• 9:53
  name's Jeremy Weiss. He runs a business called Rise
• 9:57
  25, and he actually helps people set up their own podcasts.
• 10:02
  That's like his business. He's been interviewing and
• 10:05
  podcasting longer than pretty much anybody I know.
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  In fact, he was Andrew Warner's producer on that Mixer G show
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  that I first met. And that's the yeah, that's
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  that's how we first met. And so I reconnected with
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  Jeremy, and he explained what his business was.
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  And, you know, this is his approach.
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  You know, he helps other businesses set these up as a way
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  to, you know, sort of for folks to grow their network.
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  And I thought, see, I knew that that was a good idea all those
• 10:32
  years ago. I should have done it.
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  And so I'm like, OK, you know, no more regrets looking in the
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  rearview mirror for, you know, not having done this thing that
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  I was interested in all those years ago.
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  And so I started the podcast earlier this year and really for
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  two reasons, you know, 1 is that I enjoy it.
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  You know, these are the kinds of conversations that I seek out at
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  dinner parties or, you know, if I'm in a social setting where I
• 10:59
  don't know folks. And, you know, my wife can
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  always tell if, if I've connected with somebody, she'll
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  see me across the room. And I'm, you know, deep in, in
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  conversation. And I'm, you know, I got smiles
• 11:12
  on my face and, you know, talking and gesturing a lot.
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  And then, you know, the other reason is it's a nice way to, to
• 11:19
  grow and support my network. You know, how do I get to meet
• 11:23
  other interesting people? Great ways to reach out and, and
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  offer to give them a platform to, to help tell their story.
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  And one of the things that I've started doing more recently,
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  once the interview has concluded is, you know, I'll ask my
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  guests, Hey, you know, and I'll tell them exactly like, Hey, I,
• 11:42
  I do this as a way to grow and support my network.
• 11:45
  Is there something I can do to help you?
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  You know, is there something in your business that you're stuck
• 11:50
  on? Is there something that you're
• 11:52
  on the lookout for? Is there an introduction that
• 11:54
  would be helpful? Maybe there's somebody in my
• 11:56
  network that I can make an introduction to.
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  And since I've added that, you know, component in I, you know,
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  I've been able to, to connect a lot of folks with the, the types
• 12:06
  of resources that they're looking for and that feels
• 12:09
  really good. Case in point, right here, just
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  so you know, folks, Anthony reached out to me a couple weeks
• 12:16
  after he did my interview, said there's someone I think you
• 12:19
  should meet, government contracting, you know, getting
• 12:22
  started, whatever. And if you, if you ever get a
• 12:25
  chance to watch my interview, I told him I'm always here to help
• 12:28
  people out. And so he's already made that
• 12:30
  connection. So that's I could tell you from
• 12:32
  experience that's 100% true. But do me a favor because I'm
• 12:36
  watching you and you took off your glasses to show how they
• 12:39
  grip. Can you put that a little bit
• 12:41
  closer to the camera so people can actually see?
• 12:44
  See that? That's pretty cool.
• 12:46
  Yeah. Antlers, man.
• 12:47
  Is it Christmas time? I wish I could take credit for
• 12:51
  this. I had the the best business
• 12:55
  partner ever. I, I sort of had sort of the
• 12:58
  seedling of an idea that I had this performance pair of frames
• 13:02
  at very lightweight and very comfortable, but the, the, they
• 13:05
  weren't very stylish. And so I went searching for
• 13:08
  somebody who could, you know, help me design a pair of glasses
• 13:11
  that would sort of fit what I was looking for because I
• 13:13
  couldn't find them. And he took sort of the seedling
• 13:17
  of an idea that I had and, you know, created this design and
• 13:23
  others that go along with it and the branding and all the
• 13:26
  accessories that were just incredible.
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  And I initially hired him as a as a contractor.
• 13:32
  And we just really hit it off so well that I'm like, hey, I, I
• 13:35
  would really love for you to be a part of this.
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  And so, yeah. So I've got to give credit to,
• 13:38
  to Mark Craig. So whatever.
• 13:40
  Happened to that business. So after growing it for a few
• 13:45
  years, I decided it was time for me to move on to another
• 13:49
  opportunity and I exited the business and sold my portion to
• 13:53
  Mark. And Mark has kept it alive.
• 13:58
  It's kind of been a, a side thing for him for a bit because
• 14:04
  his, his primary business had been designing eyewear for
• 14:11
  probably most of the brands that you've heard of.
• 14:14
  And so, you know, that was kind of the bread and butter.
• 14:18
  And I, I don't want to say anything out of turn, but there,
• 14:23
  there may be a resurgence of some things coming around the
• 14:26
  corner. Mark and I have stayed very
• 14:28
  cool. If someone sees those glasses
• 14:30
  and their interest in them, how do they find them?
• 14:33
  Activisteyewear.com. What is it?
• 14:37
  Activist A/C TIDIST eyewear.com And I was a little hesitant on
• 14:44
  that name when we first got started because it has like, so
• 14:47
  it's so charged like politically and that was not our intent.
• 14:53
  It was more about like an active lifestyle and being like agents
• 14:57
  of change, doing things differently than they had been
• 14:59
  done. And, you know, we were a bit
• 15:02
  younger and our, our eyes were as big as the saucers and we
• 15:05
  thought, you know, we could kind of help redefine this word, you
• 15:10
  know, in people's minds. And it's still a wonderful
• 15:13
  brand, great quality. You know, one of the, the
• 15:17
  physical products that I'm, I'm most proud of ever having been
• 15:20
  involved with. That's very cool.
• 15:23
  I myself have been through several different businesses,
• 15:26
  so, you know, I totally understand what you're going
• 15:29
  through. I don't know if it's ADHD or
• 15:31
  what, but you know, the business I'm in now, we, we just
• 15:35
  celebrated 22 years in business. This is the longest I've ever
• 15:38
  done anything so. And how do you keep from getting
• 15:42
  bored? Well, the business that I'm, are
• 15:45
  you asking the questions or am I?
• 15:47
  See, I told you I'd do my best. You know what it's it's always a
• 15:52
  new opportunity, always a new challenge.
• 15:54
  It's not the same thing day in and day out.
• 15:58
  So that's what keeps I, I love when my customers call me and
• 16:02
  tell me, hey, great job or they're, I mean, that just makes
• 16:06
  my day because we've bend over backwards to keep our customers
• 16:09
  happy. But enough about me, let's talk
• 16:11
  about you. So you were in the eyeglass
• 16:15
  business. You have, I would call it
• 16:19
  somewhat of an insurance company where you have insurance
• 16:22
  products, not your typical insurance products.
• 16:26
  I've heard the pitch. I think it's kind of cool what
• 16:28
  you guys do. Do you want to talk about that
• 16:33
  at all, just a little bit? Yeah, maybe just just briefly
• 16:37
  prefer not to make it the primary focus, but yeah, it's,
• 16:40
  it's a really innovative insurance product.
• 16:43
  It offers employees telehealth 24/7.
• 16:47
  So that's urgent primary care counseling and therapy.
• 16:51
  So access to a psychiatrist as well as counselors and
• 16:54
  therapists, there's a list of 190 prescription medications
• 16:58
  that are also included. All those benefits as well as
• 17:02
  others like some lab screening, genomic screenings, access to a
• 17:06
  health coach, They all come without any co-pays, Co
• 17:10
  insurances or deductibles. And there's, there's some pretty
• 17:14
  innovative things done on the back end that allowed the the
• 17:16
  whole product to be very fiscally efficient for both the
• 17:20
  employee and the employer. Yeah.
• 17:22
  And. I think it's it's somewhat
• 17:24
  subsidized by the government. So therefore it's not just a
• 17:30
  cost savings. You actually get a little bit of
• 17:32
  money back when you use the product, correct?
• 17:37
  Probably not accurate to say that it's subsidized by the
• 17:39
  government, but yeah, there, there.
• 17:42
  There's some innovative things done on the back end that allow
• 17:45
  it to be really efficient. And those are things that, you
• 17:48
  know, for folks who are interested, I can certainly get
• 17:50
  into, you know, more on a one-on-one basis.
• 17:53
  And and the last thing that I'll say is when you did give us the
• 17:58
  pitch on this product, we wanted to use it.
• 18:01
  Unfortunately, most of our employees are overseas and it
• 18:04
  just doesn't work for employees that are overseas.
• 18:06
  Obviously 99% of the companies in the US, you know, their
• 18:09
  employees are here in the US and this product is, is awesome
• 18:14
  anyway. Yeah, as I said in the kind of
• 18:17
  the sponsor intro there, it is certainly not for everybody.
• 18:20
  And yours, your company was an example of that.
• 18:22
  I think, you know, we kind of got to that conclusion pretty
• 18:24
  quickly. But yeah, for for those
• 18:26
  companies that it does work for, it's it's a really nice and
• 18:29
  welcome benefit. It allows folks to give some,
• 18:32
  some benefits to employees that, you know, maybe didn't have
• 18:35
  access to them before. So let's go back to the
• 18:38
  beginning. In your upbringing, who is who
• 18:41
  is the motivator in your life? Who is your biggest inspiration
• 18:45
  that got you to do all these different things?
• 18:47
  Because you obviously have a very entrepreneurial mind.
• 18:50
  Who is who is the person that you look back now and say, man,
• 18:54
  that person really had an impact on my life?
• 18:58
  That's a really easy question for me to answer.
• 18:59
  It's my father. He's, we're, we're very similar
• 19:03
  people in a lot of ways. I, I grew up with a, a great
• 19:08
  role model, somebody who is highly entrepreneurial.
• 19:10
  I think I mentioned, you know, he, he graduated from dental
• 19:13
  school, went to the military, came back and he started his own
• 19:16
  practice. And while he had his dental
• 19:20
  practice and ran it very efficiently, he was also
• 19:25
  investing in starting, you know, being involved in a variety of
• 19:29
  other businesses. And so I got to grow up in that
• 19:32
  household seeing, you know, how he carried himself and how he
• 19:35
  operated. And I think, you know, it, it's
• 19:40
  certainly in, in my genes, It's innate in me.
• 19:43
  It, it's not innate in all my siblings.
• 19:46
  I, I would say I might be the only one who kind of, you know,
• 19:49
  have, has that entrepreneurial tendency.
• 19:51
  But being able to watch and observe him, especially as he
• 19:57
  navigated some really challenging times, you know,
• 20:01
  when businesses were not going well, when there were
• 20:06
  partnerships where, you know, he was taken advantage of.
• 20:11
  And that that caused a lot of strife and a lot of economic
• 20:14
  hardship and seeing how, you know, he didn't run away from
• 20:19
  those and he didn't. He didn't run towards
• 20:24
  bankruptcy, which would have been the sensible or you know,
• 20:29
  the, the certainly the much easier solution.
• 20:32
  He stepped up and you know, and I've had people that he dealt
• 20:38
  with in these situations come to me and say what what your father
• 20:41
  did during those times was incredibly admirable. 99% of
• 20:47
  people wouldn't do that. And so, you know, it's, it's
• 20:50
  kind of one thing for parents to sort of teach their kids through
• 20:56
  their words. And I think, you know, that's
• 21:00
  certainly, you know, a way to do it.
• 21:02
  But one of the the great things about being in the house that I
• 21:05
  was growing up, you know, having the father that I did is I also
• 21:09
  got to learn from his actions. You know he the the lessons that
• 21:13
  he taught us in in words and in parables lived out in the way
• 21:19
  that he carried himself through the.
• 21:20
  World, real life, yeah, absolutely.
• 21:25
  You know the old expression, do what I do, don't do what I say,
• 21:29
  or something along those lines Where?
• 21:31
  Do do what I say, not what I do, but with and, and certainly some
• 21:36
  of that applies to my dad as well.
• 21:38
  You know, he, he would, he would chew ice all the time and he's a
• 21:41
  dentist. And then he would yell at us for
• 21:43
  chewing ice 'cause it cracks your teeth.
• 21:45
  But I think on the really important things about, you
• 21:48
  know, how to be a good human being, how to be honorable, how
• 21:51
  to be trustworthy. Those were things where there
• 21:54
  were never competing messages. It was what he was saying is
• 21:59
  what he was doing in living. Absolutely.
• 22:02
  And you said he was in the army? He was in the Army for two
• 22:06
  years. Yeah, he.
• 22:07
  Was is he still with us? He is, yes, very much so.
• 22:12
  That's great. Yeah.
• 22:13
  Excellent. Yeah, well, make sure you tell
• 22:15
  him I said hello and thank you for your service.
• 22:18
  Thank. You for his service?
• 22:19
  Yeah, I'll do that. OK, so your dad.
• 22:23
  Most people say their dad is their most inspiring individual
• 22:27
  in their lives. Go to college, meet your wife.
• 22:31
  What was your You said you started a you had your first
• 22:38
  presentation immediately out of college.
• 22:41
  What was that business? Yeah, So this was 199697.
• 22:48
  You know, I was prepping for graduation.
• 22:50
  I had got a bachelor's in business and was, you know,
• 22:54
  trying to think of next steps. And I started applying for jobs
• 22:57
  and the things I was seeing, you know, they weren't really
• 22:59
  exciting me. I don't know what I had in mind
• 23:03
  that I would be doing, but I don't know.
• 23:06
  None of them were like, oh, this would be amazing.
• 23:09
  And at the same time, a good friend and my roommate, Brandon
• 23:12
  Smith, was working on his doctoral program at Ohio State.
• 23:17
  And he was kind of doing the job search thing too.
• 23:21
  And like, he also wasn't super excited about what he was
• 23:26
  finding. And this was like very early
• 23:28
  days of the Internet. And Brandon had a very technical
• 23:32
  and creative mind, one of the, the smartest guys I've ever
• 23:35
  known. And we started to, you know,
• 23:38
  kind of half jokingly kick around this idea about starting
• 23:41
  a, a web design company And it, you know, went from a joke to,
• 23:46
  you know, something a little bit more serious.
• 23:48
  And so we had kind of, you know, the corporation set up and the
• 23:51
  logo and our own website and everything prior to graduation.
• 23:55
  And then with my dad's help, who was our business partner as
• 23:59
  well, he set up our very first client meeting the day after
• 24:02
  graduation, which was with the Ohio Dental Association.
• 24:06
  We did not end up getting that job, but it was, you know, a, a
• 24:10
  good start for us. And yeah, so this, so it was
• 24:14
  called Netlogix. We, we started out just doing
• 24:16
  very basic websites, kind of what we called brochureware back
• 24:19
  then. You know, they weren't very
• 24:20
  interactive. It's just you, you want to put a
• 24:23
  marketing piece up online, We can help you do that.
• 24:26
  But then, you know, relatively quickly we evolved into
• 24:30
  building, you know, some of the early web-based applications
• 24:34
  that you would find online. And you have to keep in mind
• 24:38
  like this was really early days. Like a lot of people we talked
• 24:41
  to didn't really even understand what the Internet was.
• 24:44
  I, I remember I would tell like family and friends, you know, we
• 24:46
  were building web pages and they didn't understand what a, a wet
• 24:51
  page was. And so, you know, it was like
• 24:54
  really having to, you know, explain what the Internet is and
• 24:58
  how it might be useful to them. And so that was a business that
• 25:01
  we, we built up probably had for about 5 or 6 years before we
• 25:06
  decided to exit. But yeah, that was the very
• 25:09
  first business that that we started.
• 25:13
  So you wake up every single morning.
• 25:20
  You have your insurance business, you have your
• 25:22
  podcasts. What motivates you the most to
• 25:26
  wake up every morning? What are you excited about when
• 25:28
  you wake up? You know, I would say it's
• 25:36
  different on different days depending on what my calendar
• 25:38
  is. I most days I do have a podcast
• 25:43
  interview schedule and I always get excited about meeting
• 25:48
  somebody new and hearing their story, helping them tell their
• 25:52
  story and being able to learn from what they've gone through
• 26:00
  and see, even for myself selfishly, like what can I take
• 26:03
  from their life experiences, their business lessons and, and
• 26:08
  apply to my own life? So any day that I've got a
• 26:12
  podcast interview, that's something that I get excited
• 26:14
  for. And then, you know, depending on
• 26:16
  what kind of client interactions that I have arranged for that
• 26:21
  day, you know, I, it's the, the product that we talked about.
• 26:25
  It's something that I, I'm very passionate about, really excited
• 26:28
  about, you know, believe really helps a lot of people.
• 26:31
  And so, you know, when there's the opportunity to introduce it
• 26:34
  to folks or to, you know, how kind of take them through the
• 26:37
  onboarding process and put them in a position where they can,
• 26:40
  you know, offer this to their employees, that's something
• 26:42
  that's really satisfying. You know, I, I, I've got, you
• 26:46
  know, a number of clients who, you know, they're thanking me
• 26:49
  profusely. You know, this is such a, a
• 26:51
  great opportunity. Like I, I really appreciate you,
• 26:54
  you know, helping us with this, making it available to us And,
• 26:57
  and that feels really good. Sure.
• 26:58
  So I'd say, you know, there's, there's certainly depending on
• 27:01
  the day it's, it's a combination of those two things.
• 27:05
  Very good. So your podcast, Where's the
• 27:07
  broadcast? You have it on YouTube.
• 27:10
  I know that you have it on on Spotify.
• 27:13
  Yep, We put it on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music.
• 27:18
  There's a couple of few other smaller platforms that I'm
• 27:21
  forgetting the names of now that I know my producer pushes them
• 27:24
  to as well. It's also on our own website,
• 27:28
  inspiredstoriespodcast.com. And yeah, so those those are the
• 27:35
  big platforms that we push it to.
• 27:37
  And then, you know, some of the things that we do for the guest,
• 27:44
  you know, we after the podcast goes live, we'll send them kind
• 27:48
  of a little, almost like a little press packet.
• 27:51
  It's got links to all the places where the episode was posted so
• 27:56
  that, you know, they can backlink to it or, you know, use
• 27:58
  it in any way that they want. We give them some collateral
• 28:04
  that's easy to share on social media.
• 28:06
  There's some quote cards, you know, where we pull out, you
• 28:09
  know, little snippets that were said during the interview, you
• 28:12
  know, kind of stylized them so that they're easy to share on
• 28:15
  social media. We create an audiogram for them.
• 28:18
  So take like an audio and video clip from the from the interview
• 28:24
  and, you know, put it in a format that's easy also to share
• 28:27
  on social media. And then especially for those
• 28:31
  companies that have got some, you know, someone on their team
• 28:33
  that's creative or they're working with a creative agency,
• 28:36
  they get really excited that we make the full audio and video
• 28:43
  available to them to use for free.
• 28:46
  I've heard from some folks that, you know, the other podcasts
• 28:49
  that they're on that there's restrictions on how that content
• 28:53
  can be used. And I can certainly appreciate,
• 28:55
  you know, why some other platforms might do that.
• 28:56
  But for us, you know, for me, again, like a big reason I do
• 29:00
  this is to, to build, you know, to grow and support my own
• 29:03
  network. And so, you know, I'm always
• 29:05
  looking for how can I give to people.
• 29:07
  And so, hey, here's the raw audio and video files.
• 29:10
  If you guys want to put this in some ads that you're doing, if,
• 29:13
  you know, you want to slice it up and use in social media posts
• 29:17
  or, you know, blogs, newsletters, whatever it is like
• 29:20
  you don't have to ask any permission like this.
• 29:23
  This is free for you to use. Yeah.
• 29:26
  When it when it comes to that, you were incredibly generous and
• 29:30
  open and forthcoming with all that.
• 29:32
  When we did our interview, we haven't utilized it yet because
• 29:36
  we haven't had any marketing needs.
• 29:38
  But I I haven't saved in my in my emails that I can access at
• 29:43
  any time I need which. Which platform do you use?
• 29:48
  Or which platform gets the most views out of all the places you
• 29:51
  put in your videos? I think it's probably Spotify,
• 29:56
  yeah, that's, that's the most popular one.
• 30:01
  And I don't, I don't know if that's because that's what my
• 30:03
  producer is pushing or promoting.
• 30:06
  I I suspect that's the case, or if that's maybe the most popular
• 30:12
  platform for people to listen on, or, you know, some
• 30:14
  combination of the two. OK, in all the things that
• 30:19
  you've done, what is your biggest regret or what business
• 30:23
  were you in? Do you regret it the most or
• 30:26
  what mistake do you? Can you look back at and go,
• 30:29
  man, that's the one thing I should have done differently?
• 30:34
  Wow, I've I've got a long list of those things, but the, the,
• 30:39
  the, the first one that pops into my head is.
• 30:42
  So I mentioned that first business that we had, Netlogix,
• 30:45
  and while we were running that business, I came up with an idea
• 30:51
  for our own SAS software as a service.
• 30:55
  And it this was back before SAS was even a term.
• 30:59
  Back then we were calling them application service providers,
• 31:03
  but I had an idea for something because we had a need
• 31:07
  internally. So we were using QuickBooks as
• 31:11
  our accounting software and QuickBooks had this stand alone
• 31:15
  time tracking application that you could install on a Windows
• 31:19
  machine. And people could, you know, keep
• 31:21
  track of the time they spent for a client, you know, switch
• 31:24
  clients and you know, start the timer and stop the timer.
• 31:27
  And then at the end of the week, they could create an export file
• 31:30
  that we could easily import into QuickBooks.
• 31:32
  And it made the the billing really easy.
• 31:36
  The big problems with it were that it was very buggy.
• 31:39
  And so at least once a day somebody's Windows computer in
• 31:42
  our office crashed and you could hear the the beeping sound that
• 31:46
  it it made when it did it. And then two is, you know, we
• 31:50
  had programmers that were using Windows, but we had designers
• 31:53
  who were using Macs and there was no application available for
• 31:57
  folks on a Mac. So they had to manually keep
• 32:00
  track of their time or in a spreadsheet.
• 32:02
  And then at the end of the week, they had to get access to
• 32:04
  somebody on a Windows machine so they could put their files in
• 32:07
  and and then create the export file.
• 32:10
  And I'm like, there's got to be a better way to do this.
• 32:12
  So we went looking for something that we could just buy or, or
• 32:16
  you know, pay a monthly fee for that would, you know, solve the
• 32:19
  problem. And we couldn't find anything.
• 32:22
  But what we found were QuickBooks message boards where
• 32:25
  a lot of other people were complaining about the same
• 32:28
  issue. And I thought, well, we're, we
• 32:32
  know how to build software. We know how to build web-based
• 32:34
  software. We've been doing that for our
• 32:35
  clients now for a while. Let's set this up as a side
• 32:38
  project. So when we've got downtime where
• 32:41
  we're not working on clients, let's build this thing for us to
• 32:45
  use internally first. And I don't know, let's see if
• 32:49
  maybe we want to try to sell it to people after the fact.
• 32:53
  And so it took a little while to build, to use internally, and it
• 32:58
  instantly solved, you know, all the problems that we were
• 33:00
  having. And, you know, now we had ideas
• 33:02
  for new features to add on to it that made it even more useful
• 33:06
  for us to use internally. And so then we're like, OK, what
• 33:10
  would it take to actually make this into an application that we
• 33:14
  could sell to people? And it wasn't even entirely
• 33:16
  clear to us on what that might look like.
• 33:19
  Like now, SAS is a very common way of selling software.
• 33:25
  You pay a monthly fees, often times a monthly fee per user,
• 33:29
  you know, per license. But back then that wasn't as
• 33:34
  common. And, you know, a lot of software
• 33:36
  was distributed on Cd-roms and maybe you paid a one time fee.
• 33:41
  And it also wasn't very easy to take credit card payments
• 33:44
  online. Like we had to build our own
• 33:47
  mechanism to do that. And so we put it out there and
• 33:52
  but we just started replying to people on the message boards to
• 33:55
  see, you know, if they would be interested.
• 33:57
  We got people signing up and giving us feedback.
• 34:01
  And it was such early days with credit card payments that some
• 34:05
  of our clients were actually mailing us checks every month
• 34:07
  to, to pay for the fee. And I thought, well, this is
• 34:11
  great, you know, nice little side business that it could
• 34:15
  have. And I had sort of visions and
• 34:17
  ideas about where to take it. Folks were asking about expense
• 34:22
  tracking. So we wanted to do that.
• 34:25
  Folks wanted like more project management, which at that time I
• 34:30
  don't think existed at all in a web-based format.
• 34:33
  I, I could be wrong. This was like 99 two thousand.
• 34:36
  So it's possible that I, I'm misremembering things, but we,
• 34:41
  we already had, you know, a bit of a user base in an audience
• 34:44
  there. I think, you know, looking back,
• 34:47
  what I should have done was rather than treating this as a
• 34:50
  side project as I, you know, worked on other main businesses
• 34:53
  along the way, I really should have invested my full attention
• 34:59
  in in that and really built out the the feature set for it.
• 35:04
  So can I tell you something? We, we, the software that we use
• 35:07
  in my company is called Deltek. OK.
• 35:10
  I don't think this was even discussed on our interview.
• 35:13
  Deltech is probably the most well known government contractor
• 35:20
  accounting system. So we, if you do work with the
• 35:22
  Department of Defense, you get audited by DCLA, Defense
• 35:25
  Contract Audit Agency. Most of these guys are ex
• 35:29
  Deltech employees. So when they come in and they
• 35:31
  see Deltech, they already know how to navigate through it.
• 35:35
  You're already, you know, 10 steps ahead of the next guy and
• 35:40
  Deltech does everything from time keeping expenses and
• 35:43
  project based accounting and they're huge.
• 35:49
  You could. Have been on us.
• 35:51
  I mean, there's a lot of really great platforms out there even
• 35:54
  outside of the defense industry. And, you know, they're doing
• 35:58
  things way beyond what my vision was, you know, over 20 years
• 36:02
  ago. But yeah, I guess that's, that's
• 36:06
  probably one of the big ones because we we were real early to
• 36:08
  the game. There was nobody doing anything
• 36:13
  like we were doing in that moment.
• 36:16
  Yeah. And so that's, that's the one
• 36:18
  big ship that kind of went past us.
• 36:19
  I mean, that was a nice little side business for a number of
• 36:22
  years before I sold it. But that that's one that, yeah,
• 36:25
  I I should have spent a lot more time focusing on.
• 36:28
  So if that one is, I don't want to say a disappointment, well,
• 36:34
  it's a disappointment that you didn't get to take it where it
• 36:36
  probably could have gone. What would you say your biggest
• 36:39
  success is? Don't say marriage and kids.
• 36:41
  Everyone says that but. You know.
• 36:43
  Wife see he's going to say that. Business wise or personally,
• 36:48
  what would you say? You're one of your greatest
• 36:49
  successes. There there's two that come to
• 36:56
  mind. So as I left the as I left
• 37:03
  Netlogix, I joined a business that was already in existence
• 37:07
  and I became a partner and selling beads and jewelry
• 37:11
  components like costume jewelry parts.
• 37:14
  And it was already a very successful business, but not run
• 37:18
  in a very structured and organized way.
• 37:22
  And you know, my partner already had lots of great client
• 37:27
  relationships, lots of great vendor relationships.
• 37:29
  He understood the space and you know, what I was kind of
• 37:33
  bringing in was, you know, understanding technology like
• 37:36
  we're going to build a website to allow people to purchase
• 37:38
  online. We, you know, introduced
• 37:41
  barcoding in our warehouse environment.
• 37:45
  You know, so we, we are about to, it used to take hours in the
• 37:49
  rare event that we would get somebody call up and place an
• 37:52
  order, it would take us hours to fill it because these things
• 37:56
  were in these giant Rubbermaid tins and we had to sort through
• 37:59
  them and look for the right colors.
• 38:00
  And is this blue or green or green blue or like there was
• 38:04
  just, you know, there weren't product ID codes or any of that.
• 38:07
  And so, you know, I was able to kind of bring in some
• 38:11
  standardization to the ordering process so that we could order
• 38:15
  from a supplier without having to hop on a plane and go
• 38:17
  overseas to, you know, visit with them in person.
• 38:20
  That a client, you know, customer here in the States
• 38:22
  could do the same thing. You know, if, if they bought
• 38:25
  from us once they knew that this was the, you know, M 123 product
• 38:30
  and you know, they could call up or get on the website and
• 38:32
  reorder that. And so we took what was already
• 38:35
  a very successful business, made it even more successful by
• 38:38
  layering in technology in a way that, you know, when I, when I
• 38:43
  first told my partner and, you know, as well as some of his
• 38:46
  customers, like what my plans were for the business, they they
• 38:49
  kind of smiled and laughed at me.
• 38:51
  Like, you know, that that kind of stuff isn't going to work in
• 38:54
  this type of industry. Like, you know, young
• 38:57
  whippersnapper thinks he's, you know, going to reinvent the
• 38:59
  world here. And so certainly I had my own
• 39:02
  doubts about, you know, whether this would work and whether
• 39:04
  people would buy these kinds of products online and whether they
• 39:07
  would respond well to, you know, the catalogues that we were
• 39:10
  creating and some of these systems of standardization.
• 39:13
  But it worked really well and, and people appreciated that we
• 39:17
  were kind of at the forefront of that because it made, you know,
• 39:21
  their lives a lot easier. So that's, that's one that I was
• 39:25
  really proud of. And then the second one is I
• 39:30
  started an organic tea brand and this came about through through
• 39:37
  my own personal journey. I was, I've always been
• 39:41
  interested in sort of ways to optimize my own health.
• 39:46
  You know, how can I have the right level of energy, you know,
• 39:50
  sustain good moods, you know, could sleep at night.
• 39:54
  And so, you know, any time I'd, I'd read about a supplement, I
• 39:58
  would try it out. And most, most supplements, I
• 40:02
  would never notice a difference in, in the way that I felt.
• 40:06
  So I kind of had this supplement graveyard in in my linen closet,
• 40:10
  things that I tried and OK, I don't need to try that again.
• 40:15
  But there was there was one thing that I tried and that was
• 40:21
  it's back up just a little bit. I was also at the same time
• 40:24
  trying to drink green tea because it.
• 40:27
  Yeah, that's very good for you. Lots of antioxidants.
• 40:30
  I didn't really care for the flavor and drinking it,
• 40:34
  particularly on an empty stomach upset my stomach and I forget if
• 40:39
  I had the idea. I think maybe a friend, you
• 40:41
  know, why don't you just, you know, put the tea leaves at the
• 40:44
  same time was making these smoothies and I was putting some
• 40:47
  of the supplements and different super foods into the smoothies
• 40:51
  that I was trying. They're like, why don't you
• 40:53
  throw the green tea leaves into the smoothie and see what that's
• 40:56
  like? I'm like, OK, And so I did that.
• 40:59
  And the flavor profile was very good, much better than for me,
• 41:03
  drinking the green tea straight didn't upset my stomach.
• 41:06
  And then what I noticed was that my energy levels were ideal
• 41:15
  rather than like, a cup of coffee.
• 41:18
  And I I used to love drinking coffee, love the flavor.
• 41:21
  But, you know, coffee kind of gives me like, a big peak of
• 41:24
  energy and then a crash. Yeah.
• 41:27
  And like now today I can't drink it at all.
• 41:30
  Like it makes me super jittery. But the the nice thing that I
• 41:33
  sort of discovered by consuming the green tea the way that I did
• 41:37
  is that it got absorbed into my body more slowly.
• 41:40
  And green tea, in addition to having caffeine lower amounts
• 41:44
  than coffee does, it also has this nice little sidecar called
• 41:48
  L theanine, which is a calming agent.
• 41:51
  So for folks who you know, might get a little bit jittery from
• 41:54
  other forms of caffeine, this is a a nice substitute.
• 41:57
  And so I noticed that. There was just tea.
• 42:01
  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
• 42:05
  And so I noticed that when I would have one of these
• 42:08
  smoothies, I would have just this nice kind of sustained
• 42:12
  energy lift throughout the day. No big peak or crash.
• 42:16
  I was more focused. I just, I felt more on and you
• 42:20
  know, when it that happened the first day I thought, well, most
• 42:24
  supplements I tried, I don't notice a felt effect from maybe
• 42:28
  this is like a placebo effect because, you know, nothing works
• 42:31
  like that. And so I kept doing it and I
• 42:32
  kept experiencing the same feelings.
• 42:34
  And then, you know, I recommended it to some of my
• 42:37
  friends. I'm like, here, try, try this.
• 42:39
  Tell me what your experience is like.
• 42:40
  And I was hearing similar reports coming back from people
• 42:44
  and so little bit of a securities route as to, you
• 42:47
  know, how we got there. But at, at one point I I had a
• 42:52
  business partner and we decided to start this business selling
• 42:56
  what initially I was calling edible green tea, an idea that I
• 43:02
  thought that, you know, I had sort of stumbled on and
• 43:04
  discovered and later, you know, understood and learned that
• 43:08
  Asian cultures have been consuming matcha green tea
• 43:11
  powder for centuries. And so, OK, but so then we were
• 43:18
  selling this matcha green tea powder and our primary Ave. to
• 43:21
  sell it at the time was Amazon, which at that time most people
• 43:26
  still kind of considered to be like a book platform, right?
• 43:30
  Like Amazon started out. I myself, I didn't even realize
• 43:34
  that you could buy other products on there, but we were
• 43:36
  sort of early days to to sell matcha and we recite a right
• 43:42
  place, right time, you know, doing a good job.
• 43:46
  But like the stars just kind of aligned for us where the Amazon
• 43:49
  platform started taking off, Macho started taking off in
• 43:53
  popularity in the US. We had a great quality product.
• 43:57
  The, the messaging, the marketing, the brand was great.
• 44:01
  And we, we were able to, to ride that to success and add some
• 44:06
  other really great quality organic tea products along the
• 44:10
  way. And so that, that's one I, I was
• 44:12
  also really proud of as well. So where did you make the tea?
• 44:17
  Did you buy it from? Overseas.
• 44:19
  Did you grow it here locally? I mean where, Where did you?
• 44:23
  Get yeah so so most tea is not grown in the States.
• 44:31
  It's just yeah it there are some exceptions, but by and large
• 44:35
  most tea is overseas depending on the type of tea like we we
• 44:39
  eventually we were sourcing Rybus from South Africa.
• 44:42
  We were sourcing Yerbamate from, oh, I think it was Brazil.
• 44:49
  Was it Argentina? I think it was Brazil.
• 44:50
  It's been a while, but the green tea, the matcha was coming from
• 44:53
  Japan. We had started very early on
• 44:58
  with a Chinese supplier and it was really good quality, but we
• 45:02
  wanted to improve the quality. And so we spent a lot of time
• 45:08
  testing different T samples from from different farms around the
• 45:12
  world. And, you know, we were looking
• 45:14
  for the levels of catechins, the antioxidants, we were looking
• 45:18
  for levels of, you know, the Alpheanine and the the caffeine.
• 45:22
  But I was mostly interested in levels of contaminants or heavy
• 45:26
  metals. And so any time we found a farm
• 45:29
  where those levels were raised, you know, that was something
• 45:33
  that we took out right away. And that was actually one of our
• 45:36
  strategies early on was, excuse me, you know, since we were
• 45:41
  going to be recommending to people that they consume this,
• 45:43
  that they ingest the whole leaf into their bodies, we wanted to
• 45:47
  make sure that we had the purest product out there.
• 45:49
  And so, you know, not only did we test the product, but, you
• 45:52
  know, we made those those test results freely available to the
• 45:55
  public for anybody who wanted to see them.
• 45:57
  And it yeah, as it turned out, the best quality product that we
• 46:00
  found was from a a great supplier in Japan who I got to
• 46:05
  be friends with and got to to visit the farms and tour the the
• 46:08
  production facility, which was a a really neat experience.
• 46:12
  Very cool. So you've done so many different
• 46:15
  things. What's on the horizon for
• 46:18
  Anthony? Next three years.
• 46:21
  I like that question. Five years where?
• 46:23
  Where do you plan on being? I don't know the answer to that
• 46:28
  in this moment, Bashar, I'm really enjoying the, the, the
• 46:32
  two primary things that I'm, I'm focused on now the the
• 46:35
  innovative insurance product that we've talked about as well
• 46:37
  as the podcast. I, I always leave myself open to
• 46:44
  the infinite possibilities of the universe.
• 46:46
  And you know what new conversations and new
• 46:49
  friendships, you know what, what opportunities may unfold from
• 46:52
  that. But yeah, for, for right now,
• 46:56
  I'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
• 46:58
  And yeah, I try to take it one day at a time.
• 47:03
  All right, so I have two more questions for you.
• 47:05
  First one, what are your words, your wisdom to anybody out there
• 47:09
  who either wants to start a podcast or maybe get in the
• 47:12
  insurance business or any of the other businesses you were in?
• 47:16
  What is Anthony's quote of the day?
• 47:24
  Yeah, What would be my quote of the day?
• 47:29
  Business is hard. You know, I think be prepared
• 47:35
  for ups and downs. You know, I think one of the
• 47:38
  things that I try to to highlight as I'm interviewing my
• 47:42
  guests is, you know, kind of helping people see that the path
• 47:48
  to success is almost never a straight and easy path, right?
• 47:55
  It's it's filled with potholes, it's filled with setbacks.
• 47:59
  It's filled with times where you were on the verge of bankruptcy
• 48:02
  or couldn't make payroll or, you know, thought you were going to
• 48:05
  have to shut your doors because you lost a big client or there
• 48:07
  was a fire or an accounting scandal or, you know, like
• 48:11
  they're all these curveballs that get thrown at you.
• 48:15
  And I think for some people, when those curveballs come, they
• 48:21
  take it as a sign that, well, this wasn't meant to be and
• 48:26
  that, you know, I should, I should move on.
• 48:28
  Like, it shouldn't be this hard. If this was going to be
• 48:31
  successful, it it should be easier.
• 48:34
  And, you know, I think the reality is that a lot of people
• 48:39
  don't see from the outside looking into a company that is
• 48:43
  successful. They don't see like all that
• 48:47
  stress and the worry and the the shenanigans that go on behind
• 48:51
  the scenes. And, and you're laughing because
• 48:53
  you know it, you've lived it yourself.
• 48:55
  You've got countless versions of that story yourself.
• 48:59
  So, you know, I would say, you know, go into it with the
• 49:04
  understanding that it's, it's going to be hard.
• 49:06
  I mean, a lot of the guests I talked to, they will actually,
• 49:11
  you know, say in their own words that had I known that it was
• 49:14
  going to be as difficult as it turned out to be, I probably
• 49:17
  would not have gotten started with it.
• 49:20
  But, you know, once they were in it and, you know, their
• 49:23
  livelihood depended on it, they had employees livelihoods that
• 49:26
  depended on it. They were like, we're just going
• 49:28
  to figure this out. And so understand like, like, go
• 49:33
  for it. Like don't, don't sit on the
• 49:35
  sideline. Go for it.
• 49:37
  Life is not meant to be a spectator sport.
• 49:39
  You're meant to get in the game. But understand it's going to be
• 49:44
  hard and there's going to be setbacks.
• 49:45
  And I think one of the best things that you can do for
• 49:49
  yourself, you know, as you're getting started and as you're
• 49:52
  going through those tough times is not to go through them alone.
• 49:55
  Like find a network of like minded people who can support
• 50:00
  you, right? Because if you're say, maybe
• 50:03
  you're married, your spouse can be a great source of support.
• 50:08
  But, you know, if they're not in business themselves or business
• 50:12
  minded in that way, they may not really understand what you're
• 50:15
  going through and they may not be able to pull from their own
• 50:18
  experiences and wisdom to, you know, be able to offer you
• 50:21
  advice. But if you can get into, you
• 50:23
  know, some kind of a mastermind Group, A networking Group, A
• 50:26
  trade association where, you know, you can share your stories
• 50:30
  and, you know, hear that you're not alone.
• 50:32
  Like that kind of communal support is really helpful.
• 50:37
  And, you know, being able to then, you know, ask for their
• 50:40
  advice and ask for their help. That's something that I think
• 50:44
  human beings in general have a hard time doing is asking for
• 50:46
  help. And entrepreneurs probably even
• 50:48
  more so because they want us to be seen as the leaders and not
• 50:51
  somebody who needs help. But you know, seek out that
• 50:54
  support because it's, it's going to be really helpful to you.
• 50:58
  You know, that's that. I couldn't agree with you more.
• 51:00
  So many great leaders, you hear all the success stories, you
• 51:04
  don't hear about all the failures, all the speed bumps
• 51:07
  along the way, everything they had to go through to get to that
• 51:10
  point. No one's born knowing
• 51:12
  everything. And you know, at a very young
• 51:15
  age, I learned to ask the right questions and ask as many
• 51:19
  questions as you want because that's how you educate yourself.
• 51:22
  You sit on the side, well, I don't want to look like an idiot
• 51:25
  by asking a question. Well, then you're going to walk
• 51:28
  away not having the information that could be very vital to your
• 51:30
  success. So last question, Anthony, what
• 51:36
  is something that you'd like to share with your audience that we
• 51:39
  haven't touched on today? What do you want them to walk
• 51:42
  away knowing about Anthony that never shared before?
• 51:48
  Well, that's a big question. I don't know that I've got a a
• 51:51
  big answer to go along with it. What's what's a good parting
• 51:59
  thought here? And I feel like we we were we
• 52:03
  were hitting on some really good stuff with that last question
• 52:05
  about, you know, life is not meant to be a spectator sport.
• 52:11
  Life is full of worry. Let's let's dive a little bit
• 52:14
  more into actually kind of the point that you were making there
• 52:16
  that people don't see like, you know, all all the stuff that
• 52:19
  happens behind the scenes. You know, you see somebody who's
• 52:23
  really successful, they're living in a nice house, they're
• 52:25
  driving a nice car, you know, and I've heard a lot of people
• 52:27
  make this comment. Oh, must be nice.
• 52:29
  You know, like, you know, like this is somehow, you know, they
• 52:33
  pulled the, the lever at the, the casino and you know, it just
• 52:37
  came up triple cherries for them and it, you know, it was just
• 52:39
  the stroke of luck. Like, you know, certainly there
• 52:42
  are exceptions, but you know, most people who got there,
• 52:45
  they've had their own trail of hell to, to, to do it.
• 52:48
  You know, there, there's been a lot of struggle and strife along
• 52:52
  the way. So surround yourself with people
• 52:55
  who are smarter than you, who are where you want to be rather
• 53:02
  than, you know, wearing your green coat of envy and being,
• 53:07
  you know, having a feeling of distaste towards them.
• 53:10
  You know, see, see how you can learn from them.
• 53:13
  You know, off see, see if there's something that you can
• 53:15
  offer to them, give to them so that you can spend more time
• 53:19
  with them and you know, and learn the things that they've
• 53:24
  learned. You know, there's a, a very
• 53:27
  common saying that if you're the smartest person in the room,
• 53:30
  you're, you're in the wrong room, you know, and there's
• 53:33
  another one that says you're the average of the company that you
• 53:36
  keep. So, you know, so step up your
• 53:39
  average, I think would be a a good parting message for people,
• 53:42
  you know, find, find a group of people that you can spend more
• 53:46
  quality time with. That's going to help you elevate
• 53:49
  your game. There you go.
• 53:51
  And that's not really using people or whatever, but surround
• 53:53
  yourself with these people, you know, get into their mix.
• 53:58
  Success begets success, you know.
• 54:02
  And I'm glad that you mentioned that point, Bashar, because
• 54:04
  that's really important. You know, I think human beings,
• 54:07
  not everyone, but a lot of human beings by nature are, are
• 54:10
  takers, right? Like we, we want to, you know,
• 54:13
  we want to take care of ourselves.
• 54:14
  We, you know, we got to take care of number one in our
• 54:16
  families. And so it's like, oh, there's a
• 54:19
  dollar bill. I'm going to, you know, take
• 54:20
  that dollar bill. But when you're able to sort of,
• 54:23
  you know, turn that mindset into, you know, how can I give
• 54:26
  first, which is a big part of what the podcast has been about
• 54:29
  for me. Yeah.
• 54:31
  How can I give to this person first?
• 54:34
  That's a really powerful way to start a relationship with
• 54:37
  somebody and, and, and you know, and then things can kind of
• 54:41
  evolve from there. But I, I'm glad that you
• 54:43
  mentioned that point about it. You know, it's not, you know,
• 54:46
  what can I take from this person or how can I Leech on to them or
• 54:48
  take advantage of them? I think a really powerful way to
• 54:52
  start a relationship is how can I add value?
• 54:55
  And, you know, if you can add value to, you know, those people
• 54:59
  who can help elevate your game, I think good things will come
• 55:03
  from it. I couldn't agree with you more.
• 55:06
  I don't want to take up more time then you've allowed me.
• 55:09
  I can't thank you enough for allowing me to do this.
• 55:12
  If you guys want to see the interview that Anthony did with
• 55:16
  me just look up Bashar Haddad on YouTube and it'll pop up.
• 55:20
  There's not too many Bashar Haddads, although Bashar
• 55:24
  al-Assad is probably all over the news right now.
• 55:27
  I'm Bashar Haddad. Anyway.
• 55:31
  Anthony, I wish you nothing but continued success.
• 55:33
  I certainly appreciate the time and just like you want to be
• 55:37
  there for all the people you've interviewed.
• 55:39
  If there's anything you ever need from me, just give me a
• 55:43
  call. I appreciate that, Bashar.
• 55:45
  Thanks for helping me tell my story today.
• 55:48
  I'm I'm grateful for it and how. About you Sign off.
• 55:52
  Yeah, folks, that's a that's a wrap on another episode of the
• 55:55
  Inspired Stories podcast. So thanks for learning with us
• 55:57
  today.