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Successful Life Podcast
The Successful Life Podcast, hosted by Corey Berrier, is a globally recognized show that ranks in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide. It offers expert insights tailored for contractors, focusing on business strategies, sales skills development, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry.
Successful Life Podcast
Striving for More: Tommy Mello's Empire, Balancing Health, and the Artificial Intelligence Game-Changer
Ever wondered how top performers balance work, personal life, and big dreams? Buckle up as we sit across from Tommy Mello, a man whose success is a testament to the power of striving for more. Fresh from his vacation in Hawaii, Tommy doesn't hold back as he shares how he runs an empire, stressing the significance of key hires and the art of effective delegation. He also sheds light on the training programs he imparts to his technicians - creating a blueprint for success.
Now, let's talk health. How can minor decisions greatly affect our well-being? How challenging is it to break free from bad habits? Tommy and I tackle these questions head-on, emphasizing that health is indeed wealth. But here's the kicker - we also delve into the world of Artificial Intelligence. From transforming dispatching, marketing, and call centers to dealing with human resistance, Tommy gives us a ringside view of how AI is set to change the game.
We've all heard that business is business, right? But who says you can't mix in a little heart and sincerity? As we navigate the intricacies of relationships and success, Tommy shares that transparency and vulnerability are his secret weapons. He reveals the ups and downs of having family in business and even why he chose to leap into the world of podcasting. But, there's more - we also discuss how Tommy plans on ensuring that everyone wins from the lifestyle business he's building. Ready to be inspired? Join us on this revealing journey into the life of Tommy Mello.
http://2023.freedomevent.com
http://a1garage.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-home-service-expert-podcast/id1341478446?i=1000631202974
https://www.amazon.com/Elevate-Build-Business-Where-Everybody/dp/B0CFYN7283/ref=sr_1_1?crid=386HTK6N7MX9E&keywords=tommy+mello&qid=1697198017&sprefix=tommy+meo%2Caps%2C131&sr=8-1
https://youtu.be/DvTa7OYz4V8?si=3jB8TlznMfCkUWrU
https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with the one and only Tommy Mello. What's up, Tommy?
Speaker 2:Not so much. Just got back from a vacation in Hawaii. I worked pretty much every day but it was really fun Went on a helicopter tour, went swimming with some type of fish, ha ha, ha ha, and as much as I'd love to say, I worked the whole time. I had a lot of fun and just it was relaxing, recharged the battery and you know I'm looking forward to doing more stuff like that.
Speaker 2:The reason I work so hard is for opportunities like that and but I'm the type of guy that I don't just turn off, and it's not only fun or work, it's always both. So some people are like I can't work when I'm on vacation and some people are not, and I have a vacation when I work. If I'm on a trip for work, I'm having a lot of fun too. So I don't have an on and off button. But the reason I work so hard and it's not really worked to me is just, I'm living my best life, I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I got a lot of key hires to make. I mean, I'm gonna need to hire a chief of staff. That's my next big hire.
Speaker 1:Bam, that's a pretty big deal, I imagine. I mean, how many staff members do you have now? About 800, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, about 800. And you know we keep going. At the rate we're going, I wouldn't be surprised if we got a couple of thousand in 18 months.
Speaker 1:So you know that makes me think about. I was telling somebody the other day you put about how many technicians through your training is it every month that you do a training?
Speaker 2:Every single month. I believe there's about 20 this month. When we partner with a company, those classes tend to be bigger. The classes could support 100 technicians. The biggest we've had is a little over 50.
Speaker 1:That's a lot, that's a lot of people. So I mean to get off track there. So when you do unplug I'm kind of going back to where we were starting Do you feel like you need to go out of the country? You feel like you need to go where you kind of can't be reached?
Speaker 2:No, actually, I prefer to be reached. I do this trip every couple of years where we do deep sea fishing and I'd say right now I'm 50-50, I'll get reception, depending on where we go off the coast. And I prefer to have internet and just be able to keep up because I don't like to come into a big mess and I catch up on email and just it's kind of like the last two days aren't fun because you're like I know I'm going to walk into a mess and if somebody needs to reach me, but at the same time I have a staff around me that they can handle pretty much anything and everything. As I become more successful, become a better leader, a better delegator, it gets easier. Now the problem is that I tend to take on more and there are times that I'm like, oh my God, I've caught up, things are easy, and then I take on a bunch and then I'm playing kind of catch up and hiring the right people and recalibrating and setting up my team around me, and then I get caught up and then I do it again to myself. But that's, I think, what you do.
Speaker 2:There's a great book that I read about 20 years ago that kind of explained Alexander the Great and how much he conquered. And I'm an achiever. I like to accomplish things and I probably take on too much, and I talk a lot about Gary Keller's book, the One Thing, the focusing on one thing. But also, no day feels alike. I don't feel like the monotonous of a nine to five. I come in and it's always new. I don't feel like I have the same position I had two months ago. It's changing and there's an evolution to it and that's what I love. I love being challenged and I love new things.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of work that we have in front of us and there's very big goals I mean to accomplish in an industry that's never been done before. My goal is in 2025, to do over 100 million of EBITDA and some people say Elon Musk would say big deal, but there's a lot of home service guys that say is that even accomplished? Is that even accomplished? Is that even realistic? So there's only 24 hours into the day. It's the same 24 hours as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos has but it's thinking from their lenses of saying how do I get more done in a day, how do I get more efficient and how do I enjoy it? Because a lot of people. They go through life and they just hate every day. And I don't.
Speaker 1:I think to your point about having something different all every day. I think that plays a lot into feeding dopamine ADHD. I think we're both. I know you're ADHD, so am I, and that helps having a different almost dopamine hit every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it might be. Dopamine means serotonin and stuff, and I work out and I'm getting a lot of that from that. But you know I don't need to be here. I don't really there's. I did volunteer to be the CEO of this company and this next turn and but the money's kind of out of the way. So now it's just it's about how far can I go. I met Gary Vanderchuck and I said you know, my mom always asks me when's enough and he goes. I get that question a lot, but I'm having too much fun Is how far can I go? It's not like if your daughter became really good at solving puzzles and she was really good at putting puzzles together would you go oh, you've already done the hardest puzzle you're done. Or when you get really good at something, do you say, oh, michael Jordan, you should retire if he was 27. You wouldn't say that. You say continue to build a legacy. And I'm still having fun, so I'm still going to continue to do what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, I can't say I blame you on that one, so I want to shift for a second. Recently you've gotten in pretty tremendous shape. What the hell happened with you know what was the switch that went off in the first place? What went off in your brain that said you know, I don't want to carry around this tire anymore.
Speaker 2:So it was a combination of several things. I went out to Sam Point where we're building a house Travis Ringey lives out there. We went out to the lake. I just watched him making really good choices and just really had a lot of pride in his physique. Then my cousin prior to that had mentioned to me she's got a doctorate degree in physiology and anatomy and just health. She said you've accomplished a lot in your life. She said why don't you take care of yourself? Why don't you want to be the best version of yourself? You're talking on stages, you're writing books, you're accomplishing a lot in your business life. Why not be the full package? That really hit home. Then I had another cousin reach out, actually her older brother, and said listen, he was getting in great shape. He went to the doctor and then he said the doctor said to him if you don't start seriously doing a miraculous change the next 90 days I'm going to have to prescribe you three different medications one for blood pressure, one for cholesterol levels and just your heart condition or whatever. He got really serious about it and I saw him. And then I met Andy Elliott and he talks a lot about just being the best version of yourself.
Speaker 2:It was a culmination of all these things. One day I'm just like even just set me here, the guy that does a lot of my videography. He's like when are you going to start? He kept nagging at me, I think it was just I had somebody in town last week and they said, now that you're in great shape, I'll tell you this. My wife said you look like you gained a lot of weight and you got a tummy on stage. That's okay, I'm a busy guy, but that's not who I am At the end of the day. I know I'm better than that. I know I can control it. I know I could live with consistency and a little bit of discipline. I've worked out a lot in my life. I've been in great shape. Muscle has memory and I just said I said I'm going to the doctor.
Speaker 2:So I called. There's a guy I know his name's Jason and he's in miraculous shape. He's in his mid 40s. Six pack. I watched the guy. He has a beer, he'll have a piece of pizza, but overall he's got pretty good discipline. But he wants to have a little bit of freedom as well.
Speaker 2:I called him up and I said hey, man, I want to know everything you're doing. We met up and he wrote all these things down. He said first of all, I got to go to my doctor. You got to go get your blood test, your urine, and we did a saliva test. Then he said let's just see if there's anything going on. I had a little bit of a leaky gut or whatever.
Speaker 2:I got on all these vitamins, these peptides and these different things. The doctor said I want you to stay away from alcohol for a while. I said okay, he goes. I want you to get over 200 grams of protein. I said okay. He said I want you doing this type of cardio, this type of diet.
Speaker 2:It wasn't very hard. I say the hardest part is drinking all the water and eat all the protein. Alcohol wasn't really as tough as some people think, in a casual setting, if everybody's drinking. It wasn't hard because it was on these peptides. I'm working out every day. Typically, if you're working out, you don't want to blow out and go drink that night. By working out every day, it wasn't that hard to not do that. Now everybody's like dude, what's going on? You've changed. This is crazy. In my energy, my focus, my attention, everything is dialed. I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I don't want to see. I want to continue to take this further. I was at 26.7 percent body fat. I'm at 17. I think I'll get it down to 10. My buddy Keegan was another big push. It seemed like everywhere I looked was pushing me in this direction. It's nice to have great friends that actually care.
Speaker 1:It's funny when you mention whoever said that about you being on stage, because I thought the same thing. I thought it was so incongruent for you to have that belly and everything else being intact. I'm like I just never really I couldn't really put it together. I thought, because you could tell that you've had muscle memory, you could tell you've been in shape before. I thought, how is it? I mean, I'm just going to say this. I'm like how the fuck does he not see this? How does he not see that belly on stage? But, dude, you've turned it completely around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easy to talk about after when you do something about it. I will say I've seen it, but I don't know why it got to the point where I saw slipping. I noticed the shirts weren't fitting right. I'm like now they don't fit right because my arms are getting too big. It doesn't excel. But I just can't believe I let it get to that point.
Speaker 2:And now I used to say money, time, health and I never really thought about it. But now I say health, time, money. And it's easy to say that because I've done well. But health comes number one. If you don't have your health, you don't have time, you don't have money, you don't get anything.
Speaker 2:And if you don't put it in that order very quickly, you know, steve Jobs on his deathbed said if you don't take your food as medicine, you're going to be taking medicine as your food. And I believe that and I know that and I watch these Western doctors just prescribe medication after medication. They don't treat the problem, they treat the symptoms and I don't think I'll go to a normal doctor ever again that just wants to put me on medication. I want to be in great shape. I'm taking, you know, I just had my protein shake with my greens in it. I'm taking a lot of different supplements and vitamins and I'm drinking a lot of water and I feel different. I feel like I could be, I feel like I could I tell people, I feel like I could fight the hawk. I just feel incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it makes sense. I mean, yeah, if you don't have your health, everything could go to shit. I mean, it really makes no difference how much money you have, because you can't look at Steve Jobs perfect example, right, All the money in the world dead, yep. So, yeah, dude, that's not a good place to be, and I think the byproduct of this and I could be wrong, but this is what I think I noticed you had posted a picture with you and Brie, or maybe Brie, posted a picture, I don't know which one of you it was, but I think the byproduct of that is, I think, brie's getting better shape.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:She looks like she is anyway.
Speaker 2:She is. Yeah, she's doing a lot of cardio and doing she's getting to the point where she keeps pushing herself. I don't think she was ready to just flip the switch, like me, but she's definitely pushing herself. Well, she didn't let herself get to the point where we both have talked about how we felt about ourselves and it just I want to look in the mirror and I don't need to be ripped, chiseled, but I want to say I'm doing the best I could. I want to say I could do something about it.
Speaker 2:And it's little tough decisions at the time.
Speaker 2:It's saying no to a donut, it's saying no to carbs, but it's so small relatively to the big picture and I don't think people realize that it's like the little amount of.
Speaker 2:My dad had his 70th birthday and I watched all my aunts and uncles Some of them could barely walk and I watched him eat three pieces of cake and complained about their arthritis and their knees and their joints and I'm like this is so self-sabotaging, like don't complain about it if you're not willing to make those little decisions, all right. It's at the grocery store saying I'm just, I'm not going to get this stuff, it's not eating that pizza, it's not eating past a certain time and it sounds so difficult, but it's not. It's little good decisions that add up to a lot of great things and it's consistency. It's like Simon Sinek says you'll never have great teeth by brushing your teeth for 24 hours, but if you brush your teeth 15 minutes or three minutes a day, twice a day, you'll have great teeth. And I think that's the key is, I expected everything to happen so quickly, but it took me 20 years to get in that position, so it took me a few months to get out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's tough. It is tough when you get into the habits of especially sugars. A fucking nightmare, I mean. I think sugar is probably the worst drug on the planet because you can buy it anywhere, right? Secondly, I would say alcohol, but you know, I think sugar kills more people than anything. All right, well, let's shift from the health conversation for a second, because I was just interested in what happened, what triggered your brain to make the change, and so glad you did that, dude, because thank you, definitely tell it. I appreciate it. Yeah. So let's shift for a second and I want to talk about something that I love talking about and I want to get your opinion where you guys see AI going for your business, in the depths of this, for a minute. I've had several conversations with Jim, several conversations with a lot of people. Where do you see this thing going?
Speaker 2:So I think there's some easy wins with AI. I think dispatching is going to be one of those things where you could pull in a lot of data and basically do regression testing and find out who the best guy for that job is going to be. I think, with marketing, ai could do better ads. It could generate things faster. It could create a lot of compelling ads, the right content, I think, knowing who to advertise to who. I think the fastest thing that's going to take place is marketing, dispatching and your call center.
Speaker 2:I talked to Vaahe, one of the founders of Service site, and he said well then, the next year you're not going to need really anybody but the guy in the truck. But I don't see AI replacing that anytime soon as the guy in the truck, which is great, because that would make us obsolete. So I see AI becoming better developers. I think that's going to be obsolete. I see videography being obsolete. I see content being obsolete, but not the blue collar worker out there fixing the issue. So I feel really good about the position we're in. We're adopting a lot of the stuff out there and we're AB testing and we're basically Alpha Beta a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to make a huge impact, but it's like anything else. It's like the crypto thing, right, like crypto is going to take over the world. We're not going to have any checkbooks anymore. I just don't think the humanity is ready to move as quick as AI can move, and there's still people that have to sway up a credit card when other people are just tapping it or just tap their phone. So, as fast as AI can move, I just don't think people are going to adopt it as quick because of how human beings are uncomfortable with change. So I think it's going to be a gradual process and it's going to be some big innovations and because we live in a capitalistic market, you know we're going to be the early adopters, I think in the States, to really innovate these things.
Speaker 1:All right. So I know this is not really AI, but RILA, are you using it yet? Yeah, sebastian, yep, what do you think?
Speaker 2:I think it's pretty fantastic if it's used correctly. Once again, it's what is the tech? Is the technician able to reflect on it and make their presentations better? Are they mentioning the right things? I think it's absolutely going to make a huge impact, but it takes a while. I don't think people turn it on for two weeks and just like, oh my God, my problems are solved, right.
Speaker 2:I think the fact that it could listen and spell out and put a lot of it tells you what goes on during the call. It tells you how much you talk versus the customer. It tells you, when you made your recommendations, what the customer said, and I think, if you're willing to reflect and use that data I think there's a lot of data that Service Titan can provide, or you know, service Fusion or Job or a house called Pro that most people don't even use their KPIs to make decisions. So it's one of those things where a lot of people are like, yeah, I'm going to get it into that, I'm going to get it into that and I'm going to use that, I'm going to get that into that, and then they've got all these, this data, but they don't do anything with it. So it will not work for companies that don't embrace it and don't make it part of their culture.
Speaker 1:So are you dependent on your technicians to go back and listen to their own calls, or how are you making sure they're even using the data that they are getting?
Speaker 2:So we've got one-on-one coaching, we've got group coaching, and really what you look for is you study. I've always been this way about a business. I study the success more than I study the non-success. It's like the Bible. A lot of people don't believe in the Bible. They've never read it. They just don't believe for some strange reason.
Speaker 2:So I think you got to study success and see what are the outliers that's creating success, and then so it takes a pretty strong data set. Now we've only had it for about 60 days. So, by studying the success and finding out what are those KPIs, what are those driving forces, what are those outliers that are creating so much success, what are the words we use? Well, how much is the ratio of talking? And that's where you have learning moments, right. That's where you're able to identify those things and then implement them throughout the company.
Speaker 2:And I don't think it happens overnight. I think it's something that our whole team is working on, but personally I'm not into that. Every day. I look at a report once a week, so I can't say that we've got a lot of things here at A1. And that's not something. And fortunately I'm not the guy doing everything behind the scenes and I'm proud of that and I'm glad I got great people, amazing leaders that could handle tasks and run forward with them. Now do I have an inclination of what's going on? Absolutely I don't think I'm in touch with every day now.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. I just want you know, I wonder. When I first heard about it, I thought this could be, and I still think it could be, a game changer for companies if it's used correctly. I really didn't know. I was talking to Brian Burton, I asked him and I know he just interviewed Sebastian and I haven't listened to the whole thing, but he said I asked him. I said well, you know, as a technician, how would you feel? He's like? Absolutely not. Now I don't know if he's changed his mind at this point, but my guess would be that, especially in plumbing, for sure, I would imagine that would be the response. So have you gotten much pushback from the techs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my top guy didn't want to use it and he still doesn't want to use it because he doesn't want. It's kind of like the camera system that watches the guys elicits. It really wasn't about spying on the technicians during their driving. It was to know what's going on around them and who caused an accident. And there are learning moments on those cameras from driving that say you're speeding or you didn't stop completely. So it's one of the tools it's not to make trying to catch you and say aha. And really Aaron Gaynor called me about Rilla several months ago and said my top guys have embraced it, but it was really hard to get them to and I interviewed the guys and I found out exactly how they used it. And once they buy into it and see it's not a tool to say I gotcha, it's a tool to make you stronger. It's a tool to actually know what's going on, because we get I watch sometimes.
Speaker 2:I watch my presentations and I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so bad. I didn't realize what I do wrong until I watch it. And it's hard to watch it because you're like, holy shit, you should have shut up and let the crowd laugh and ask question or do whatever, and you didn't pause enough and you didn't do this right, but it makes me stronger. And the people that don't want to do it, they're already at the top, so they're like, why would I change? No one's ever beat me, but I think you get the other guys that they go. I am going to listen to my calls, I'm going to hear how I sound and wow, I didn't know I was doing that. And wow, I didn't ask the right question. Wow, that's a time. I should have just paused longer, but I talked too quickly. And the people that do that, they're going to find the fastest growth using that software.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I could totally see that. So you've got an event coming up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the freedom of November, our second and third in Orlando.
Speaker 2:Can we a little bit about who's going to be there. So Darius Slivers was one of the most impactful people I've ever seen on stage. I asked him to attend. We've got Martha McSally, who was the first woman combat fighter. We've got Aaron Gaynor as one of my best friends and he's going to be there. Al Levy taught me more than any one person about the contracting business. He wrote the seven-hour contract here, lots and lots of Diamond Dallas Page and we did a couple things to just I mean, he's in his 60s and killing it and he's all under the wellness and yoga and different things.
Speaker 2:So my main goal for the freedom concept is to give you a business that works for you. That's worth a lot of money. My buddy Keegan told me years and years ago. He said a lot of people depend on this business as their retirement plan. They might own a house, but this is. Nobody treats it like a business they could sell. And I promise you my mindset over the last year has been like I will never not build something that's sellable and I will never, ever continue to bill, bill, bill without taking chips off the table. And I didn't have that mentality before. And people say, well, I'm not ready to sell. I love the business. I love just having a lifestyle business that I don't want to show up to and I make the money and I'm like, if you build the right home service business, you're talking about tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. And I've done it and I know how to get there and I feel like everybody should have an opportunity to understand how this works. But, more importantly, in my transaction and I rolled half of it, so I still own half the company of the CEO still but in my transaction 25 other millionaires came out of it and that's where I think most people miss the bar. They say, yeah, I'm good, I'm living my lifestyle, but the people that helped you get there, that are basically your family. You could change so many lives and we've changed 25, we'll change hundreds more and then in the IPO we'll change probably a thousand and I think you have an obligation to make sure everybody's winning around you. That's why I wrote the book Elevate Build a Business when Everybody Wins.
Speaker 2:If there's no transaction ever in sight, you might say I give out bonuses and maybe some profit sharing, but you're not going to really change somebody's family tree forever unless you go through with a process and, I think, building a business that's performing at the peak levels that it could sell at any time because so many people want it. People have them. Well, I'm not selling it anyway. Well, what have you thought you were going to sell? What, if you want to build a business and fix the things now, because most people are like, ah, you know, this isn't the year, so I'm just going to spend a lot of money on a lot of projects and I'm throwing money down the drain. I know I need to get rid of a couple of people. I know I need to hire a couple of great people. I know there's some top grading and, yeah, I know we're supposed to switch that and yeah, I know I need to do that too, but you know that's going to take a couple of years.
Speaker 2:They don't have a plan, they don't have a dream, they don't have a destination, and I think that's a big mistake, and that's what freedom is about is defining what freedom is. And a lot of people just don't know what's going to happen when they do a transaction, and a lot of people, their lives are built around their businesses, so they almost have this fear of loss in this. What am I going to do? Because I'm the CEO. Listen, I report to a board and it doesn't bother me. Like I told you before we started recording is I wouldn't have changed anything for the world. The lives have been able to impact our.
Speaker 2:Money is not everything, but money does get free to. Money allows you to make choices you might not be able to do, you weren't able to do before. So I think money is a tool if you use it correctly, and it opens up a lot of options. And some of the people that I've been able fortunate to work with and that got money in the transaction, they bought their dream home. They never owned home. They're putting their kids in private school, they're going on vacations and building memories they never thought were possible. They deserve everything they had coming. I'm not taking any of their glory, but what I will say is it's selfish to just think I'm the one that's got to win because I took all the risk and I don't think that's going to get you very ahead in life.
Speaker 1:Certainly not going to make an impact. That's right. So has impact been? Is that been the goal? I mean, I know the money is not the mission, but the money makes the mission go. You know the money makes the mission, so to speak. So have you always been impact driven?
Speaker 2:No, I think during COVID it became apparent when I had a line outside of my door of people that wanted to give me. They wanted to take the motions on their pay, they wanted to get rid of their bonuses, they wanted to give me all their sick days and I just watched this group of people come in and volunteer to help out and I said, wow, they deserve a better leader than I am today. And I said I need to figure out a way to help all their dreams come true. I need to work a lot harder to make sure that their dreams, their bucket list, their goals are coming true. And that's why I said in the book I have a dream so big. Now all their dreams need to fit inside.
Speaker 2:And it changed a lot because I saw how much they wanted to give and I knew I had to give more and I needed to be vulnerable. I needed to communicate better and, trust me, I'm a work in progress. I've not arrived and I don't think I ever will. I think it's going to be a constant progression, becoming a little bit better each day, but to have a stake in the outcome and to be driving in the same direction is I do want to leave a legacy and I do want to make history and I want to change a lot of people's families trees, and it's a lot of hard work, but is the juice worth the squeeze all day long?
Speaker 1:All day long, all right, so let's shift for a second. I know you don't have kids yet, all right, is that something that? Are you just waiting to a certain time, or is it something you decided you may not do?
Speaker 2:No, I think kids are the best thing you could ever do. I have two dogs and they're like kids. I think a lot of people could relate when they have dogs and then they have kids. It's nothing near the same thing, but they understand where I'm coming from. If I could care this much about two canines, imagine how much.
Speaker 2:I think I was probably brought on this earth to be a father. And I don't think it's about timing, because I don't. Luckily I don't have a biological clock, but I don't also want to be rolling up to their graduation in a wheelchair, so I don't think it's more of a timing issue. I do think I'm making a really hard sprint to 2026. And I'm not letting that get in the way, but I think there's never a perfect time to be ready. But I do think we're building a house in Idaho. We've got more construction going on and I can make excuses as all I want. But do I want to be a father? Absolutely, but it's not. I don't have this destination Like we got to have it by this date. We got to get this happening. I just I look at a lot of people that have kids in the early 20s.
Speaker 2:Some of them plan on it. Some of them didn't. I grew up with a broken family, so the marriage has to be dialed in and you know, you say forever. Over 50% of people that get divorced the race shows are going on. 60% of people. They said forever and it's just not fair. It happens. It happened with my parents. The divorce happened, but it's just not fair. So I think that's got to be dialed in and concrete and if it's not, if something happens, it's. I mean it happens.
Speaker 2:Sorry, landscapers, I can't, but yeah, I think kids are the best miracle. I think it gives you a reason to live more than yourself. I think that nobody regrets having a beautiful baby in this world and raising them, and I think it's. I think you put on this earth the way that and this is not biblical, but there's two things that human beings really strive for is to live forever because they're afraid of death, or they want to have offspring because it's a way to pass on your DNA. That's why you look at the animal kingdom. So that's an interesting thought, but that's not why I'm doing it. I don't need my legacy to go somewhere. I just think it would be amazing to like really, once you see that baby for the first time. It's incredible and something special and you know your life has a bigger meaning than whatever else it was before that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's fair. I don't have biological children. I have one, my daughter. I would drive for you, since she was three and a half, so she's, I mean I'm her dad. But yeah, I never got that feeling that you're talking about, like I never had that experience, so I can imagine what that would be like. I mean, this stage of the game, I don't know that I will, and that's okay, like I'm totally fine with that. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of. You know you do have to sacrifice, for sure, which is okay. You know to make choices and sometimes those choices are not what you necessarily want to do. But I think in the end.
Speaker 2:It's worth that. You know, my main thing is I don't want them to. I know what it's like to be rock bottom. I know what it's like to not have anything. I know what it's like to have the church to have to get you gifts and I think it made me into who I am. But for my kids and there's a lot of parenting advice I'm sure out there and I don't want them to come from a silver spoon and be absolutely spoiled.
Speaker 2:But I'm gonna go through life first class. That's what I'm doing now. I'm going through life first class. If there's an opportunity I could do it. Money, health is on my side right now, so I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2:We went to Disney World a couple of weeks ago, didn't wait in any lines, had a fricking blast, and that's my plan is to continue to go through life first class and not let anything hold me back from doing what I want to do when I want to do it with whoever I want to do it with and you know some people say that's conceited. You know that's gloating or whatever. I'll continue to work hard for everything I get and that's why I love this country so much is I didn't come with. I had a lot of love. I mean, if love was money, I would have been rich as a kid, very wealthy, but that's important is to be able to. It's not about the big house or the fancy cars, it's about experiencing things. And it's not about first class and the planes, but it's about being able to do things on a moment's notice and build relationships and experiences. And that's what I want to do. And I don't have an off button. I wish I did sometimes, but I just don't have this button that says okay, stop. So I don't mind it. I'm pretty happy at the results so far and but I'm trying to design my life when I turned 45.
Speaker 2:It's five years from now. What is the day-to-day look like? How much am I golfing? Where am I spending my time? What's the fishing look like, cause I love to fish, and how much time am I spending with friends? But here's my biggest problem, corey, is I don't want to be at the top of the mountain alone. I want to bring everybody with me and I want to enjoy it around, everybody that's helping me get there, and I want to enjoy it with my family and I want to really be able to live.
Speaker 1:How often would you say that you've had that feeling now? I mean because, look, feeling alone in with a whole lot of people around you is a common thing when you get to a certain level.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't feel that way and I know a lot of people do and I'd be completely transparent with you on this podcast is I don't feel like I'm alone. I just I don't know why I have such a good group around me. I mean, I just was looking at all these tech strands, cause I'm in this group with Ishmael and Tom Howard and Aaron Gaynor and Chris Hoffman and Chad Peterman and Chris Gano and we just it's nice watching all of them win around. All of us are winning and so I think we're elevating each other and I'm around a lot of groups like that and I don't have this feeling of like man.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are like I wonder what the true intentions of these people are around me and I don't feel that way. I don't really care. What does it really matter? Well, well, bre noticed because you know she was an equity holder of the business is just, why are people calling that haven't called in a decade? Why are people around? What is their true intentions? And I see her going through some of that, but I don't feel that way. I don't. Yeah, I've got money. Everybody knows it. I don't hide it. I mean, I don't care If that's why they like me.
Speaker 2:Listen, if they like me cause I'm good looking or not good looking, or cause now I'm in shape or kind of in shape, or if they like me because I read a lot of books, what does it? I don't really care if they like the fact that. You know, I think a relationship has to be 50-50 or close to it, and there's gotta be. I was talking to somebody and they're like what do you get out of helping all these people on your podcast? And I'm like well, it helps me. It helps me become a master of a trade. It helps me become. When you coach something, you've got to really study it so it really gets me ahead further. You know, I wish the podcast was only to help others, but it helps me just as much 100%.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's extremely selfish. I mean, you know, what other platform can you think of where you get to talk to anybody you wanna talk to? I mean, this is just a great medium for that.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely phenomenal. I think podcasting was the best decision I've ever made in 2017 and it's part of my success is due to that 100%. But I also think I'm not afraid to let it all out. I think I talk about things I make myself vulnerable. Sometimes I talk about Jesus, sometimes I talk about health and I just you know I'm not necessarily Joe Rogan that goes all out on crazy stuff but I don't mind letting people know exactly where I'm at and what I'm struggling with. That people wanna hear that. They wanna hear the real things. They don't wanna just know you know glamour, the planes, the nice houses. That goes a certain. That gets people interested.
Speaker 2:But I've never really been flashy about stuff like that. I'm more about listen. Come see my shop, come see how we communicate, come see our leadership, come see what we built together. And don't get envious. Just know that if we, if Tommy Mello from Detroit, could do it, anybody can and I really believe that if they put their mind to it. But I don't have a lot of distractions. It's like I said I don't know if I had a kid at 22 that I'd be able to be where I'm at today, but I think the treasure would be greater of having that child, but that. But there would have been a, I'm sure when I was 22, I wouldn't have been with somebody because I remember when I was 22. And I don't know about that relationship, but it works due to my immaturity.
Speaker 1:So all right. So I know we're getting close to time. What was it like having Brie with you in the business, having you said she was part of equity? I don't know exactly how that whole thing worked, but how do you think that affected just your personal relationship with her working day in and day out? And I mean, I know there was a time when, well, I can't remember exactly what her position was, but she moved into a different position. Was that stressful, especially with the, you know, you selling, or the P group, whatever? How do you say it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think what you're asking is you know, what I always said is I was pre-dental, I was gonna go to dental school and I was like there's no way I could ever be in a relationship with somebody. That's like a hygienist, right? Because, like you, work together all day. And it's funny because Brie was my executive assistant for years and years and we started dating after that and I was good friends with her boyfriend and she was friends with my girlfriend. And the way that she tells people is sometimes I don't even see Tommy in a day, like my schedule, if you've seen it, it's pretty intense and that's why I need to probably hire a chief of staff. But you know, I think there's pros and cons to it. For sure, it's just like having family in a business, but I think the strengths outweigh the negatives or the weaknesses. So now she's doing some other stuff, but it's not easy. It's not easy being with a guy like me, because can you imagine being with a guy that all he talks about is football and every college game, every NFL game, and he calls all his buddies and he collects baseball cards and he's part of 10 fantasy leagues? Well, that's how it is being with a guy like me, but it's about business. Right Is, all I do is I live, sleep and breathe. But it's like Gary, or not Gary Vanitychuk?
Speaker 2:Grant Cardone said my wife lets me be me. She lets me do the things. She lets me build she. We have a great life together. I'm a great father, he says, but she allows me to be me. Alex Ramosy says the same thing. I think if you look at Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, then maybe these guys haven't had perfect relationships because money and times change. But I think Brie let me be me and she is okay with it.
Speaker 2:Now a lot of people ask the question is when is time, are you gonna slow down? And then I told her I said this isn't something that just Tommy grew out of that. He just grew out of that business thing that he was working on for the last 20 years. He just he kind of grew up and just you know, that's one of the things I think that sometimes someone goes into a relationship and they say maybe I could change them over time and that's the wrong way to go about it. So a lot of me is just like when I hire somebody, it's not. Are they the perfect fit for me. Sometimes do I fit them because can they be around somebody like me? I'm not leaving, I'm stuck here, so can they tolerate that? And so it's never the things that make you laugh in a relationship that are giggly oh my God, he just farted, she just farted. It becomes super annoying and the things that you think it's kind of funny and quirky and cool sometimes become really bad and it's just.
Speaker 2:I don't judge a relationship off the good times. I judge it on how well do you do in the bad times. And I think that's what builds a relationship is how well do you do in those adverse times, those times that things aren't going great, those times that just it feels like everything Murphy's Law is hitting you every direction, and it's the people that know how to work with each other through those and communicate and be okay and you got to be able to say this is something that really bothers me. And the question is can the other person work on it or not? And some people choose not to and it's tough and I don't think any relationship is perfect, but I think it's a constant. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:I think the book Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus is real. I think we're different creatures all together and it's definitely not easy. I wouldn't say our relationship is tough, but I think there's trying moments. I mean anybody that says, oh yeah, everything's hunky dory 24 seven is full of shit, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned you've said elevate a couple of times. Your book is called elevate right. It just came out not long ago. Audible just came out, or it is audible out, audible's out. I just looked.
Speaker 2:I think there's about 40 reviews of five stars. What I like about the book is I pulled L Levy in to talk about some stuff, I pulled Jody and I pulled Brian, one of my coworkers, and we talk a lot about scorecards and equity and stuff. And we talk a lot about scorecards and equity incentive programs and how to get people buy in and building a dream so big and trying to understand other people's goals your vendors, your customers, your partnerships and going about things in every game I've ever played. I'm an athlete, I'm a competitor. I was always taught there needs to be winners and losers. So when I'm winning, that means my employees are losing. When I'm winning, my customers are losing. When I'm winning, even my competitors need to lose, but what I realize now is none of them need to lose.
Speaker 2:My vendors get to win if I win. I want them to be prosperous and have enough money to grow and develop and innovate. My clients I want to win and say they had the best experience ever. My employees, which are my coworkers, I want to win, the partnerships I get into want I need them to win. So this whole mindset is different. It kind of throws everything I've ever been taught on its back. We all get to win if we understand the goals. I was recently talking to one of my vendors and I said I got to win for you and they said how so? And I told them and they said no one has ever looked at it from that lens. We are really interested in doing everything you want us to do because of that. You're helping us win, You're getting us to our goals, You're getting us to our three-year plan and it's crazy. It's crazy the outcome of when you look at things through how did the other people win? It doesn't mean you need to lose, which is a misconception.
Speaker 1:It is a misconception. It's programming. You've got to change the programming, so one more time November 1st, 2nd, 3rd, right yeah, the.
Speaker 2:Freedom Event. I just promise everybody that comes. I know a lot of people talk about this, but this is not about money. This isn't about fame. I do believe this event will help drive. This will be one of the best investments you've ever made into yourself and your company, and successfully. It's closed and I bring in everything. I get questions all the time, all day, every day, and I plan on answering everything at this event and giving people a good framework. And even if you've got a great thing going, I think the fact that we set a record for a multiple, I've got a lot of money for the business, I roll a lot of it in and we're going to do another big thing and then we're going to do an IPO and I think the lessons that I've learned, I think I could help a lot of people.
Speaker 1:No doubt, no doubt. Well, look, tommy, I really I enjoyed the conversation, as I knew that I would. How do people get a hold of you if they don't know who you are, for some crazy reason?
Speaker 2:Well, I actually I do answer a lot of stuff on Facebook personally, not so much on Insta, tiktok, twitter, linkedin, linkedin. I do get back to people, but I got 26,000 people on there, I think. Join the home service expert, it's free. On Facebook, home service expert it's a group, ask questions, help each other out. What I love about that is there's so many different industries in there. You learn door to door sales, you learn how to do service agreements and financing and how to get the best technology and what CRM is the best for what industry, and there's just a lot of people as a community helping each other there.
Speaker 2:And listen to the home service expert podcast. I mean, not everyone might be up your alley, but I'm sure there's gold nuggets you could find in that and that's the best way. And if you get a chance, I read the book Elevate and I read the book the home service millionaire and I've had a lot of people say Elevate was a much easier to read and it was a much better put together. And I can't tell you how many book clubs there are that have reached out that are doing the book club on Elevate. So it's an honor and I hope it's a movement. I hope it's giving back more than you expect. I hope that it's dreaming so big that everybody else's dream could fit inside. I hope it's figuring out how to change family trees for everybody around you, what you get where you're at, and I hope it's making sure your vendors and your clients are winning as well.
Speaker 1:Love it, man? Well, look, I appreciate. You Appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Listen, I had a blast. These podcasts usually they're all business and you asked a lot of great questions and I appreciate that. It was different side of me and I'm not shy and I'm not really really. If someone doesn't relate to me, it's okay, but I don't really care because I'm the only one that needs to care. And if somebody doesn't like something, that's okay. But this is who I am and it's all out there and whether you like it or not, I'm always going to be me and by not caring as much about what other people think, it's the ultimate freedom in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I appreciate you, my friend.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, listen, man, you need to make a trip out here. We'll spend some time together. You come shack up on my place I think you'll like it, and let's make sure we keep up. I know you're working on a lot of cool stuff, so let's spend some time here. And thank you for having me on your podcast. This is really fun.
