Defining Success with Tommy Richardson (Part 2)

In Part 2 of Tommy Richardson's interview we dive further into his life philosophies and what some of his mentors have taught him along the way to get Tommy to where he is today. We also discuss further about marketing and some pet-peeves businesses do in their marketing and customer interactions.

How to reach Tommy:
Instagram @trichnubs
TikTok @tommynubs
Email: tommy@nubsmedia.com

Transcript

Tyler (2): 0:31

Welcome back to the Whiskey Wisdom podcast. This is part 2 of Tommy Richardson's episode. As per usual, you have myself, Tyler Yaw and Chris Kellum as your co-hosts. Please enjoy Part 2... Here's Tommy Richardson again,

Tommy: 0:44

Dude, six months ago, this completely changed my perspective on life. And it was a Facebook post nonetheless. of all things. It was a Facebook post and it was one of my, one of my friends, his name is Sam, and he put on there, if you're stressed, you're living in the future. If you're angry, you're living in the past. If you're content, you're living in the moment. And I was like, holy shit. That is so smart. And I started thinking about it and I'm like, okay, everything that I'm stressed about right now, what is it about? And I called my buddy Mike who works with me at ccp. I was like, dude, I was like, I just, I just read this like, help me process through this real quick. Cuz Mike is about 10 to 15 years older than me. He's somebody that I deeply respect and, and when I have problems, I call Mike. Yeah. And he's probably sick of me calling him but I call him at least once or twice a week. Me and him have probably hour long conversations about stuff. Yeah. And he's like, all stress. Is it, how did he put it? God, I wish I would've wrote this down. Stress is basically your body's response to not having control. Yeah. That's all it is. And or your body's response to what might happen. Like, cuz like, like the Post said, if you're stressed, you're living in the future. So we've developed all of these things in our brain that might happen to us and we have no idea if it's even true or not. Mm-hmm. we have no clue. You know, like today, if I got sued today, right. Somebody, somebody sued me, now I'm in a mindset of I'm not gonna stress about it. You know why? Cuz we ain't been to court yet. Right. All it is is a piece of paper. Right. don't mean a damn thing. True. Mm-hmm. So what's their stress about you? Turn it over to somebody who can control the situation, which is an attorney, and then hopefully you hire the right one, and they'll communicate and they'll communicate with you properly. You know? So it's like, I'm not gonna sit here and get stressed out about something that is six months down the road of a court date. I can't let that paralyze me to not being able to live my life or not get sleep or go to the gym or spend time with my wife and my kids, or go play golf or whatever it is. Right? Like, you can't let that paralyze you. And there's too many people, I'm about to go on a tangent here, so y'all just get ready, do it. There's too many people out there that are like, you know, I need to, I need to know my inner self, or I, or, or something like that. Like I've heard it so many times and it's like, or I, I need to take care of me or I need to focus on me and all that good stuff. And I'm like, well, you can't focus on yourself if you don't know who you are. Your first, the first thing you need to do is figure out why you're even here. Yeah. Why are you even on this earth to begin with? Cuz we're all put here with a purpose. One of the things that I wrote down was you're not here to be a nobody but a somebody that is un that isn't like everybody, so you can help anybody. Mm-hmm. like, we're all here for a reason. So go find what your purpose is and go freaking do it. And you'll find out who your supporters are. Once you tell, start telling people what you want to do. Oh, for sure. You know, go get that core group of people that's gonna support you, but also be real with you. You don't need a bunch of Yes men standing around you telling you everything you should do is right. Yep. Because that's gonna lead you down a terrible road as well. But I mean, for me, man, I'm, I, I know why I'm here. I know what my purpose is in life. My purpose is to help people. If that's in marketing freaking great. If it's not, whatever. Yep. You know, it is what it is. I get paid to coach people in marketing and I fricking love it. Mm-hmm. and I wouldn't have it any other way. You

Tyler: 4:05

hit on something that's been super close to my heart rate recently too, is there's some people in the media, I guess you could say that's prominent and they keep a lot of Yes. Men around them. Mm-hmm. and that's not what you want either. Mm-hmm. exactly what you said. And really what it comes down to is people that are so close to you and that understand your heart so similarly to what you need to be Yeah. Led to. And they will lead you to that. If you find the group of people that are willing to be so honest with you and so truthful with you, you need the truth. Yeah. You don't need Yes men. You don't need no men. You don't need anyone to tell you that you can't do it or that you can't do it. You need the truth and you need the truth around you. And if the truth. can truly be around you and you find those true group of people that can surround you with that. Mm-hmm. that's the true way to success. Yeah. And don't get

Chris: 5:01

offended by no matter what that is. Exactly. And then don't be offended when somebody tells you the truth. Mm-hmm.

Tommy: 5:06

like, we live in a society of of, of just people who can't handle that, in my opinion.

Chris: 5:12

And, and I don't mean to generalize

Tommy: 5:14

like that cuz there's certainly many people out there that can handle the

Chris: 5:16

truth. But what I'm just going based

Tommy: 5:18

off of what we see and what absolutely. And, and all that good stuff. Like I'm not, I'm not a pessimist whatsoever. I don't think the world's going to hell in a hand basket by any stretch of the imagination. But

Chris: 5:27

you have to, you have, you have to respect other people's opinions. Oh, for sure. Like, I'm sure if we taught long enough, we would find something we all disagree on. Absolutely. I'm sure we would. But there's a level of respect that you have

Tommy: 5:41

earned as a man and a father. Mm-hmm. There's a level of respect that you are, are you a dad? No. Okay. You, there's, but there's a level of respect that you've earned as a man that I owe you and I respect. Like you've had different life experiences than I have. Same thing applies to you. So you look at the world a little bit differently. You have a different lens that you view the world through

Chris: 6:02

and that's okay. Mm-hmm. that's what makes us all great. Yep. That's what, and, and if we could just stop getting so damn offended by everything when

Tommy: 6:09

someone disagrees with us, we might learn something. Yeah. And

Chris: 6:13

it just bugs the shit outta me. I'm sorry I'm cussing so much. But it

Tommy: 6:16

does, it just bugs the crap out of me when people just get so offended that I disagree with. It's like, I'm, I'm not telling you you're

Chris: 6:23

a bad person. I'm just telling you what

Tommy: 6:25

my experience is and trying to get you to look at the other side of the coin here. Yeah. Because there's two sides

Chris: 6:30

to every story. I say that all the time. Yeah. Actually I say there's three sides to every side. Oh yeah. There's actually, yeah, there's actually three sides. Yeah. There,

Tommy: 6:38

there's your story. My story, then the truth. Yes.

Chris: 6:41

people are like, you're, you sound ridiculous. I'm like, no, everybody, like, I work with a bunch of people and like someone will tell me a story and someone else will tell me the story. And I'm like, I'm gonna take both your sides and come up with the actual what should, what happened. Mm-hmm. And so many people, like you said, just take offense to everything. I'm like, I don't have to agree with you. Mm-hmm. I just have to hear your point of the view, like your point of view, your side of the story. Yep. And like, okay, cool. Like I see it. Do I agree with it? No, I, we, we were talking about this earlier today. I was like, I don't think that just because you have money, you should keep making money and or, you know, get higher things. I think the person who hasn't created any money at the point he saved up, he wants to buy something. Sure. I think they should have the opportunity. Yeah, of course. I mean,

Tommy: 7:31

and, and like I said, money is like money, religion and politics or the three things you don't talk about. Right. Yeah. But like with me, man, you know, I make more money now than I've ever made in my life. Mm-hmm. being where I am, sold the company, you know, I'm working with contractor, coach pro, you know, and all that good stuff. And I. I probably got a couple things that I can make some side money on if I really wanted to. But just because I make more money doesn't mean that I'm, I've changed. No, it doesn't mean that

Chris: 7:56

I owe anybody a damn thing either. No. You, I, I don't know anybody, anything except for my wife and kids. And, and, and at the end of the day, all

Tommy: 8:05

of us are trying to make a better life for our kids

Chris: 8:08

than what we had when we were kids. That's not to say our parents did anything

Tommy: 8:11

wrong. Like, I loved the way I grew up on an 82 acre to back farm in Wendell, North Carolina and a freaking double wide trailer for the first 10 years of my life. Yeah. Wouldn't have it any other way. I loved it. I learned hard work. I learned work ethic. I learned respect. You know, I, I watched my, my parents had me at 19 years old guys, 19 years old. Wow. They had been married for seven months when I was born, and I was two weeks late, by the way, do the math. All right.

Chris: 8:38

So, I mean, my

Tommy: 8:40

parents, I mean, I could easily not be here if my parents would've chosen a different route. Right. Right. But guess what? They didn't. They chose to have me

Chris: 8:46

and I learned a crap ton, you know, but I also had the

Tommy: 8:51

ability to watch my dad in his late twenties grow up as well. Mm-hmm. you know, my dad tells me all the time, I hate that I wasn't a better father to you. I was a much better father to your sister, who's 10 years younger than me, by the way. But I was like, I don't care. Yeah. That Don. don't beat yourself up about that because I got to watch you parent her the right way, which is gonna help me be a better dad because I was old enough to watch that. Hmm. Because I didn't need as much attention as my sister who's 10 years younger than me is mm-hmm. True. So, so you're, I mean, that's my perspective on that though. I know we just went off on a big tangent. Oh, no, no, that's fine. Because

Tyler: 9:28

it, it was very similar to what Reggie's story was, part one and two. Right. Yeah. And then Chris and I disagree on a lot of things and we, we share, we share stuff back and forth all the time on TikTok about things that we agree with or disagree with or what, whatever the case may be. Yeah. But here we are still a year later, years later from when we know we've known each other a year later from when we started the podcast. And then even on top of that part to what you said is the reason why I have the burn that I have to do better for my kids is my dad grew up in the projects. and just growing up the way that he did. So my part of my burn is being able to provide a better future for my kids than what my dad was able to provide for me. And just be, cuz I know that was part of his, his drive, his his drive was to provide a better future for myself. So if I can provide something better for my kids mm-hmm. just to just continue. that kind of perpetual motion Exactly what you said. Yeah. And I think that's extremely important. It's just taking whatever the cards that you've been dealt and being able to make the best of whatever that worst is to make yourself better, is one thing that you can do better

Tommy: 10:42

for the world. Yeah. And knowing how to play those cards. Yeah. Sometimes you're gonna have to bluff it. Right. Like, I lied that. Right? You

Chris: 10:48

did. I, I lied and said I knew how to fly drone into videos. Right. I completely bluffed with the cards that I had been dealt, but guess what?

Tommy: 10:54

I freaking won on that hand. Yeah. You know, and there, but now there's been plenty of times I've bluffed

Chris: 10:58

and got called on it too. Yeah. You know, so it's, but I'm gonna reverse

Tommy: 11:04

the rolls on your, I'm gonna ask you some questions real quick, so. Sure. Cuz I don't know much about either one of you guys. Yeah. We had what, a 10 minute conversation before I walk in here. But what do you guys do for a living? I mean, seriously, like how, because I have no idea what you guys do. I'm a financial advisor. Okay. I'm int retail. Okay. So why, why are you financial advisor? That's a long story.

Tyler: 11:23

But the short version of that story is I found out I was good with finances mm-hmm. and then I found out what happened to my grandma and how she could have better, better produced that for herself. Yep. And could have provided better future for

Tommy: 11:38

herself. Yeah. So, and, and I love that. I'm not like trying to challenge anybody on anything. Right. Yeah. But like why, why are you in retail? Oh, I just like helping people. Okay. But the thing is, is you, you both of you have a. Mm-hmm. of why you do what you do. Absolutely. And there's too many people out there that just have a job because they have to have it, not because they want to have it. Mm-hmm. you know, for you, cuz people buy your why not your what. Yep. Every single time. So for you, your why is great. I, this is why I do what I do. I don't wanna see you end up where my grandmother was. And that's the lens that I look at this is, is that lens. And that's awesome. You know, for you, why

Chris: 12:13

are you in re I just like helping people man and dude, there ain't nothing wrong with that. That's great. Yeah. I love that. I just wanna help you out. I'm here, I'm a smiling face. Mm-hmm. I like I some days right? Like some days. Yeah. I like bringing joy to people.

Tyler: 12:52

He's lying. He's always a smiling face. Anytime anyone walked into the, into that Reid story, he's a smiling face. Unless

Chris: 12:58

I'm

Tommy: 12:58

hungover or sore from CrossFit. Fair enough. Dude. And he's still a smile, bro. I gave up. He's not inside. I gave up CrossFit two years ago, man.

Chris: 13:05

It's a good workout. Like we've been doing it. Hold on, watch CrossFit. Were you going to I

Tommy: 13:09

was a CrossFit Wilmington Goji. I'm not gonna do it.

Chris: 13:14

I'm not gonna, so I, so I know it different. So I know Anne,

Tommy: 13:17

me and Anne to work out together at CrossFit Wilmington before she started E Central CrossFit. And I've been there to train with her and work with her. It is just, I'm way too competitive. Okay.

Chris: 13:27

Okay. And it's now that makes sense. It's, it's my

Tommy: 13:29

fault. I get why I had to stop doing it and I'll fully admit that it's not CrossFit, it's my fault. Like I went in there and my first class I was like, dude, just get through the workout. Right. Yeah. And that's probably my mentality about the first two to three months. And then I started realizing like, I can actually beat these guys. Yeah. And so then I started training to compete. So I was doing two a days, you know, I was doing a strength training session, then a wide session and all that good stuff. And then shoulders started becoming a problem. Yeah. And then I turned 33 Yeah. And it also doesn't help in CrossFit when you're over six feet tall. And I'm six two-ish. Yeah. Six three-ish. Somewhere in there, depending on what bar I walk out of And it's a joke by the way, I don't drink that much I know what you mean. But man, things just started hurting. Like, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning because I was just, it wasn't soreness anymore. Like I know what sore feels like. Right. And it was not sore. Like I was, I was hurting. Yep. And it also didn't help that I was, you know, holding Mitz for a freaking professional MMA fighter at the time, too. like that certainly didn't help. So my shoulders were just completely toasted and I was like, I gotta, I can't do this anymore, man. Like, I, I gotta go find something else to do. Yeah. I just, I have to go find something else to do. Fair So it makes plenty of sense. Yeah. So now I just, I go in and do your, your typical workouts at True Fit right there on Market Street. Cause it's close to the house. They're great too. Yeah. I love True Fit. Those guys are good, man. I, I like those guys. I enjoy working out there. Nice. Them. Yeah. I also have a member, I also have a membership at at Planet Fitness as well. Okay. Just because I do try, when I traveled a lot and I'll stay overnight, there's a Planet Fitness everywhere. So for 20 bucks I can train anywhere in the freaking country. Yeah, that makes sense. And if we're in a. I just need to jump over, go get like a quick 30 minute workout in. I can just literally jump over there, go get a quick workout cuz it's closer than any other gym. Yeah. And then jump back over to the house and we're good to go. Nice. So, but yeah man, I got one more thing I wanted to say real quick if I said it. Yeah, please. So I actually, actually, two more quotes. One of'em is actually from a client of mine. Okay. So he's a he's a mentor. Mm-hmm. that's like what he does and he's trying to grow his company Okay. And get things moving. And his, his saying for his company is reduce complexity, maximize simplicity and transfer clarity. Like that's the saying for his company. And then the last thing that I, that I wanted to make sure that I said, and these are just all things that have just made a difference in my life. Yeah. You know I saw this quote, I don't even know who Billy Sunday is, but I just saw this quote, but, and he said it, he said an excuse is the skin of reason packed with a lie? Hmm. And I was like, that's there's a lot of truth there. Yeah. You know, so I've never heard. Yeah. That's been, yeah. And, and, and I gotta thinking about it, I'm like man, like my daughter sheep so we got her this dollhouse. We didn't freaking grandparents did This

Chris: 16:13

thing I've seen Alex's, this thing is like five feet

Tommy: 16:15

tall, bro. This thing is huge. Oh, it's a true dollhouse. Oh, it is a true dollhouse, bro. This thing is massive. It's taller than your wife.

Chris: 16:23

It's, it's up there. My wife's like five one. Yeah. Five two, somewhere in there. Like she's eye to eye with the roof. All right. And she's always,

Tommy: 16:32

she's forever like, daddy, come play with me in my dollhouse.

Chris: 16:35

And I don't know. Do you, are y'all at that stage yet to where it's like, come play with me here and all that good stuff? I, I have a two and a half year

Tyler: 16:41

old son, so it,

Chris: 16:42

it's getting close. Okay. So I don't know why that is exhausting to go play in that dollhouse for me,

Tommy: 16:47

dude. Yeah.

Chris: 16:48

Like, it is just like, it burns me up and I'm forever just coming up with an excuse. Mm-hmm. I'm just like, oh, daddy's gotta do this real quick. Or Daddy's gotta go do this. I'll be over there in a

Tommy: 16:58

minute. And it's like, no, it's just, I've reasoned in my mind that I need to go do something else, but it's really a lie. I don't have to go do that right now. Like, the priority in my life needs to be my daughter. Even it. And dude, it, it's 10, 15 minutes, man. And then she's onto the next thing and it's over with. But it's like, for some reason in my mind that 10 to 15 minutes is just like, this is exhausting and it is so hard to do this, but having a daughter first forced me to calm down. Mm-hmm. Massively forced me to calm down. Dude, I was high strung. Like all throughout the military. You've seen it. Yes. Right. I, I was high strung, 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Young, dumb, full of cu, whatever you wanna call it. Right. Like, that's just what I was and when I got to college, I, I calmed down a little bit in college, you know, being at Liberty certainly brought me down a couple pegs a little bit and did not drink and certainly helped out That'll be cuz it was alcohol abuse. I'll go ahead and tell you that I did not drink for the enjoyment of how it tasted. I, I drank for the purposes of tonight I'm getting hammered and that was it. That's why I drank Natty Lights so much when I was in military. Yep. And I'm sure, gosh, I'm sure you've had one or two of those. Ugh,

Chris: 18:11

I remember

Tommy: 18:11

Natty Lights. Yeah. I had to move on. It's the cheapest beer in the world. It's, it's one step up from Milwaukee's best. Yes. Because it is not mil. If that's Milwaukee's best, I ain't going to Milwaukee. No, because it tastes terrible. This is the joke, like

Chris: 18:23

my mom is from like Wisconsin, like before she moved down to North Carolina and like Milwaukee's Best is probably their second worst beer.

Tommy: 18:33

Oh, it's terrible man. It's awful. I've never been to Milwaukee. I don't really wanna go

Chris: 18:37

but I'm just saying it is. What's, but I mean, and then when I

Tommy: 18:41

met Alex, you guys don't know this cuz y'all were only with her for an hour. Mm-hmm. she's a pretty emotional person.

Chris: 18:47

like her, her emotions are all over the place. Right.

Tommy: 18:50

And I had to learn how to slow down and just be like, all right, what is actually the problem? Mm-hmm. because it's not what you say it is. Yep. And just ask questions. Yep. And then having my daughter force me to have to do it even more, because two year old reasoning is not very good. Reasoning. Reasoning, you got that right. It's just not right. Like, my daughter will be four in a couple of weeks, which is wild to think I have a four year old. Mm-hmm. But like now I had to learn with

Chris: 19:18

her. I have to take her, remove

Tommy: 19:20

her from wherever the problem is, get one-on-one with her. Get down on her level. Yeah. And

Chris: 19:25

just have a conversation, which also helped me become a better coach as well in what I do. And, and I don't mean that by saying business owners are like three year olds, but I mean that from the perspective of I've

Tommy: 19:37

gotta slow down. Like if somebody's like, I want leads.

Chris: 19:41

Okay. Okay, cool. We all

Tommy: 19:42

want leads. Yeah. Right. Of course we do. You guys would love to have leads for sponsorships for this

Chris: 19:46

thing, right? Like, we all want leads,

Tommy: 19:48

but it's like, okay, you don't just want leads. Where do you want leads from? Yep. What kind of lead do you want? Because if you just te if you, me and you talked about this outside, if you tell me, well, anybody with

Chris: 20:00

a roof, hell, I can send you that. Yeah. Do you want the trailer park repair then? Because I can send that one to you, you know? Do you want the guy who's four hours away? Because I can go get that one for you too. Well, no. Okay. So it's

Tommy: 20:12

not everybody with a. So there's, there's a geographical location that you're looking for, you know, okay, now who's your target audience?

Chris: 20:20

You know? So just going through all of that stuff and then figuring out, okay, now that we know who your target audience is, where are they actually located digitally? Not geographically. Yeah. We've already established that. And we have tools that tell

Tommy: 20:30

you broken down between men, women, and age group, where they are. you know, now

Chris: 20:36

everybody's

Tommy: 20:36

gonna be on Facebook. We, we all know that that's a given. Yeah. But you know what the second most visited quote unquote social media site in the world is right now? TikTok. Huh? YouTube? Yes. YouTube's number two. Oh, you know what number three is?

Chris: 20:51

Probably TikTok. Oh, no. As she's Uhuh.

Tommy: 20:54

No, It says social media not searching.

Chris: 20:57

No, it's

Tommy: 20:57

Instagram. I can see that. Okay. Yeah. And then it's TikTok. Okay. And then it's Twitter and no, then, no, sorry, I'm wrong. LinkedIn is number three. No shit. Instagram is number four and TikTok is number five. And then Twitter falls after that. Okay. So it's, that's just how it is though, man. I mean, but you have to know where that target audience is based off of age and gender. Right. So, and once you figure that portion of it out, then we can develop an entire marketing strategy that falls around it. Mm-hmm. because everybody goes to Google. Yep. Like if you were to go, if your roof started leaking tonight, where you gonna go and what are you gonna type? Yep. You know, roofer near me, or roofer in wiling. Do you show up, you know, so, and, and it's under how much do we spend, you know, and, and putting all those things together and then figuring out, do you actually wanna do this yourself or do you wanna send it to somebody? Do you wanna send it to a third party and let them take care of it? Right. You know, how much time do you actually have on your hands to get this stuff done? Mm-hmm. And then lastly, what do you expect out of them? Right? Because that's the last place that there's massive loss of communication. You go to them and say, I want leads. And then they send you leads and then you fuss at'em cuz they're not good leads. Mm-hmm. Or you say, I want leads and I want to hear here, here, here and here. And then they do that, but you're still getting a couple of'em that aren't good. Just be like, well, you suck at your job. Like, no, I

Chris: 22:23

don't, I can't help it. But so much, man. Like, you know, but it's having clear

Tommy: 22:27

expectations and then telling them, these are the things that I need you to do. This is how I'm judging

Chris: 22:32

success. Mm-hmm. because marketing companies typically,

Tommy: 22:37

if it's Google, it's cost per click stuff. So what we have to do is tell them, I'm not, I don't view success on that. I view it from phone calls and form fill outs and, and stuff like that. That's how we're judging whether we have a successful campaign. So now they know what the barometer is and for success mm-hmm. and, and those are the types of things that we kind of go through with the folks that we work with. And then also budgeting and tracking and Sure. And all of those things too. So that's, that's really what I'm passionate about and really what I'm digging into. Right.

Tyler: 23:06

Yeah. So a real life situation from that too is something that my wife and I experienced not too long ago, is we have our our laundry room, our is on our second floor. Yeah. And our washing machine had a leak. Mm-hmm. So it was going through going to the garage. Thank, thank goodness it was the garage. Yeah.

Tommy: 23:25

Right. Right. But

Tyler: 23:27

beyond that is we were making phone calls, and I don't wanna say we had an unlimited budget, but it was a high budget. It was significant enough that we, we would've

Chris: 23:38

paid what needed to be paid. So, yeah. And why, why were you willing to pay what needed to be paid

Tommy: 23:43

though? Yeah. Because there was water coming through our roof.

Chris: 23:45

Exactly. Right. That, that's why. But you also didn't wanna

Tommy: 23:49

be taken advantage of either, right.

Tyler: 23:51

So like, I was willing to pay what needed to be paid to get it done. Yeah. Instantly. Uhhuh And we called so many people, I'm like, oh, well we don't really do that. Oh, ohm

Chris: 24:00

like, God, what the fuck are you talking? Why are you showing up first on my Instagram? Oh, my Google search. Oh dude, I can, we, we could literally go for an hour about this. This pisses me off more than anything else. Look, if you roofing con, I'm gonna look at the camera when I say this. If roofing contractors watch this, y'all are dumb asses. If y'all don't take repairs, here's what, how old's your house? 10 years, 11 years old, not when's the last time the roof was replaced? Never. Exactly. So guess what? The life of your roof is done already. I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that right now. If you have an active leak coming into your roof, it's done. And you probably have discontinued

Tommy: 24:34

shingles on your roof as well. Cause they don't make'em anymore. So you got that

Chris: 24:37

right. So you can't do a repair on it. Yeah. So what do you have to

Tommy: 24:39

do? A full effing replacement on the roof

Chris: 24:43

And you're probably gonna get it paid for by insurance. Yep. Which means it's probably only gonna be 1500 to$2,500 outta your pocket. You're more than happy to pay for that if that means getting the whole thing replaced. Yep. Roofers are so dumb sometimes it's like, why in the world would you not go look at a repair? Yep. Why? And even if you do go look at it and it is repaired, you do a good job. Guess what's gonna happen when they actually need you to come do something? They're gonna call you back. Yep. Oh my god, dude, that drives me

Tommy: 25:12

nuts. Man.

Tyler: 25:13

Is someone, if someone would've come, cuz I'm gonna be 100% honest with you, it took me five phone calls to figure out to, to get someone out to my house. And if anyone had showed up and been like, oh hey, it's just this, but, oh hey, by the way, when I was looking at it, you have this, this, and this issue. Yeah. That might show up. I would've been like, oh shit, fix it. Let's go. Because at, at the. Issue itself, it was$1,500. Mm-hmm. But if the whole issue together would've been what? 6, 7, 8,

Chris: 25:44

10, 15, the thousand. So, so the average roof right now is$15,000 in the country, paid 15,000. So, but guess what? You're still in paying 1500. Exactly. I would've paid 1500 to$2,000

Tyler: 25:54

outta my insurance. That

Chris: 25:56

company got

Tyler: 25:57

$15,000.

Chris: 25:59

But refuse to show up because it was a repair. That drives me nuts. I can't stand it. It's absurd. Drives me bonkers, dude. Like we had a hailstorm, I don't know if you remember this, A hailstorm came through here. What about a year and a half? Two years ago? Yeah.

Tommy: 26:09

Mm-hmm. It was like pea size. Hell, I didn't do any damage or anything, but I called folks because I know what hail does to a roof. I've been in the roofing industry for over five years now doing the marketing form. So I know what hail

Chris: 26:19

does. Yep. It took me five phone

Tommy: 26:22

calls to get something cuz I, I wasn't enough. Hail

Chris: 26:25

Come look like bro. Just come look at it. And the weird, the craziest part is, is they don't know what I do for a living. Yeah. And they don't know the people that I know. And if they would've come out, said the company that finally came out, Val and Restoration, by

Tommy: 26:39

the way, shout out to you for actually showing up and looking at my house.

Chris: 26:43

And they drove 45 minutes to get there cuz they're not based in Wilmington. They're in freaking

Tommy: 26:46

Leland shit. Good for them. So they find,

Chris: 26:49

but it took me that, it took

Tommy: 26:50

me that long to finally find somebody to give us a call

Chris: 26:52

or not give us a call, but actually show up. Show up. And they showed up. And now everybody who asked me, cuz they know what I

Tommy: 26:58

do for a living in my community. Mm-hmm. you know who

Chris: 27:01

they're gonna ask when they need help with all that good stuff, they're gonna ask me. Exactly. So who am I gonna tell? Damn. Yeah. Like you never

Tommy: 27:08

know what it could lead to like, and I love that about what you guys do here, like the networking that you do and respecting what other people do and showing up. You never know what that connection can make for you. Mm-hmm. that's another form of marketing Yeah. Is referral base. Yep. And, and for some reason home service contractors just freaking forget that. And I'm sure other, other businesses do too. It's just, that's who I work with more than anybody else. So that's where I see, and God bless, just

Chris: 27:37

freaking show up.

Tommy: 27:39

That's 90% of the battle. Yeah. At the gym with your kids, in business, with your spouse, church. Mm-hmm. just show up. You've already, you've already got an

Chris: 27:49

a just cuz you you're

Tommy: 27:51

there. It doesn't take that much effort to get the last 10% to give a hundred. Yep. So that's right.

Tyler: 27:59

When we first started, we were still getting over what a hundred listens episode. And there was people that weren't, weren't willing to come out for 45 minutes. Episode of a listen now, now we have a line out the door. Yeah, of course. Right? Yeah. But before, like, you're getting in front of a 400 people Yeah. For 45 minutes of your time. Yeah. And I don't know, I mean, for me, that would've been worth it. Yeah. But I mean, whatever

Chris: 28:25

the heat may be. But, but the thing is, is that now you guys have the power to choose who you want to bring on here because you have people reaching out to

Tommy: 28:32

you to do it. Like, you guys reached out to me after you saw the video that I posted, that I sold the company. Yeah, yeah. Or whoever runs your social media did anyways. Reached, I was like, Hey, we'd love to have you. I was like, the good news is, is I already knew who you guys were because Alex was already scheduled to come on here. So I was like, all right, they're legit. I, I, I can go check these guys out. You know what I mean? But now every week when the podcast comes out, I listen to it. Right. Like every week. Yeah. Because to me it's good stuff and there's a relationship there, which is why I like forming those relationships with people Exactly. Is because now they're willing to listen to what I have to say. We can have hard conversations now. Mm-hmm. like, it's not awkward for me to call them. It's like, dude, you're like two months late on your invoice. come on, man. Or, or girl or whoever it is. Like, we're better than this. Yeah. You know, I know you're better than this. This isn't who you are. Mm-hmm. And now I can have that conversation with'em and it's not nearly as

Chris: 29:28

as hard because there's

Tommy: 29:30

a relationship there. Right. And they know it's coming from a place of, I. Mm-hmm. and, and not a I want your money type of thing. Yep. So, I mean, our, our saying at contractor, coach, coach pro is love, serve care. Okay. Yeah. That's what it's all about. Love on you, serve you and care for you. And at the end of the day, our mission statement is empowering people to believe. Yeah. That's all, that's all we care about, man. That's all I care about. Yeah. Like, if I can make you believe that marketing can work for you, there's power in that. And the, in the first meeting, cuz we do what's called discovery calls, which are completely free by the way. You can do that with me cuz Yeah. I, I'm a 10 99 contractor with ccp. Through everything they send me, I, I split with them. Right. But if I get it myself that that's my money, that's yours, You know what I mean?

Chris: 30:18

That's on me if I

Tommy: 30:19

procure it myself. But like I tell people from the beginning, as long as you have the belief in the budget, we can do whatever you want to do. Yeah. But you have to have belief in budget. Always get, push back on the budget part. By the way. I can see that sometimes on the

Chris: 30:33

belief part because the, usually the

Tommy: 30:35

first 20 minutes is a, like a therapy session. Mm-hmm. of them telling me how much marketing companies suck.

Chris: 30:41

I, I'll help you with the

Tyler: 30:42

budget part because the, the whole entire time I grew up, it was all about how to save a buck. Yeah. And not na and not knowing how to spend a buck to earn a buck. Mm-hmm. And when I finally started working with the coach that I have now, Really,

Chris: 30:58

which

Tommy: 30:59

is Reggie, right? No. You work with Reggie? I, I don't work with Reggie. Oh, I thought you did. I thought of was what I

Chris: 31:03

heard. I,

Tyler: 31:03

so let me say, I highly recommend if you're in the Wilmington area and you have a Wilmington based business work with Reggie. I, I went to his playbook. It's fantastic. Go to it. If it makes it for you, do it. Mm-hmm. My coach is not Reggie, it's someone else. Okay. Fair enough. But,

Tommy: 31:20

picked up a coach before, before I Oh, okay. I, I thought I

Chris: 31:23

heard you say that you worked with

Tommy: 31:24

Reggie. I couldn't remember. No. Yeah, it's

Tyler: 31:25

But just a coach in general because the money that I'm spending for a coach now easily out spends what I'm spending for there. Oh, a coach. Oh yeah. And if you find the right coach or the right time for the right thing, it makes so much sense. Mm-hmm. So don't fear spending a dollar to make

Tommy: 31:45

10. Yep. And then also the other piece of advice that I'll give on when you're working with a coach is those, the wife those first couple weeks you're probably not gonna get, but so far because you're still learning each other mm-hmm. and you're also establishing a baseline of where you are. Mm-hmm. That, that's just the reality of it. That makes sense. You know, because you have to Yeah. Like the, when, when

Chris: 32:06

the first couple of sessions that I have with people, I'm trying to figure out, okay, what's your culture like within your company?

Tommy: 32:13

Number one, cuz culture. If, if you're a business owner and if the business owner doesn't establish the culture and stick to it, the employees will do it for him. every single time. So as a business owner, you have to take responsibility for that. Mm-hmm. And then, and then it's like, okay, well what are you passionate about? Like, why do you do what you do? Like for you, you, you explained it to me because of what you saw, you saw happen to your grandmother for you. Yeah. You just like open people. Right. Hey, that's fine. You know, like I'm, I'm working with a company right now where they're all about giving back the autism awareness. That's like the big thing for them because their family's been directly affected by that type of stuff. And it's like, okay, that's great. I love that. Do you think your target audience would also appreciate that? Fair? Yeah. Is it yes or no? It's like, well, yeah, they would love that. Okay, so why don't you talk about it? I'm not saying get up there with a big check and be like, Ooh,

Chris: 33:00

look what we did. No, but

Tommy: 33:02

it's just communicating that with them. It's like in, in the sales process. Yeah. Just communicate it with them. When you're sitting there with us, you'll be like, Hey, we just wanna let you know that this is something that we're passionate about. We give back X percentage of our

Chris: 33:14

profits to this

Tommy: 33:16

organization to make sure that we're actually helping somebody. Yeah. You know, is there another company that's probably gonna do that in your area? Probably

Chris: 33:24

not. Mm-hmm. So you just set yourself apart. So now they know

Tommy: 33:27

it's not all about the money to you. You know? So understanding what they want and knowing what your why is. Like, do we go through that for

Chris: 33:35

probably three weeks before we ever actually get

Tommy: 33:38

to the process of marketing? Yeah.

Chris: 33:41

And, but I established that from the very beginning.

Tommy: 33:43

This is what it's going to look. And if you're not willing to give me six to eight weeks of your life and committing

Chris: 33:50

to that for two months and spending$10,000

Tommy: 33:54

over the course of two months to make sure that we're setting you up, then I'm not the coach for you. Go find somebody else who doesn't care about your culture. Yep. So that's cool. Your laptop died. Oh, oh, it is what it is. I don't care. nah, it's fine. Yeah. It's all, but I

Chris: 34:11

mean, but that's,

Tommy: 34:12

that's, that's the philosophy that I take into it. Like, I can't help you until I truly know what you want. Yeah. I, I just can't, I mean, even in marketing, I can't do it until I know what you want. Right. So that, but that's my coaching philosophy. It works for some, it doesn't work for everybody. Not everybody's my client and I'm not, everybody's coaching. I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, dude, there's plenty,

Chris: 34:34

plenty of really good coaches

Tommy: 34:36

out there. Yeah. Like I

Chris: 34:37

was listening to the one with Reggie. Yeah. There's a couple things that he said that I didn't necessarily agree with it, but That's okay. I still respect him. The guy's still a fricking phenomenal coach. That doesn't mean he sucks at life.

Tommy: 34:48

Right. You know, that just means that we have a philosophy. Disagree. And I'm sure if I sat down with Reggie and had a conversation with him, he could either change my, he could probably change my mind because there's not, but so much you can really get into in a one to two hour long talk with somebody and really discussing a philosophy behind why you do what you do in coaching. Like we're prior military. Yes. You know, for me, my wife's tried to get me to go to a therapist. Because she swears up and down. I have ptsd, d honey. I don't have ptsd. I just don't like fireworks, you know what I mean? Like, I, I just don't like fireworks. You know? There's, I don't, I don't think I personally have ptsd, but that's me though. But it's also relevance. Yeah. I've seen guys with horrible ptsd. Like, dude, they couldn't even, like the fan can't be on in the room cuz it reminds'em of a helicopter. Yeah. You know, like, I'm like, I'm not that bad, you know, and, and I know how to control my emotions. I don't just get randomly pissed off and start punching walls and, and losing my temper on people. Right. I'm, I'm pretty subdued compared to what I was 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. You know, so I'm like, I don't need a therapist for that. I don't have mommy and daddy issues. Mm-hmm. you know, because that's how I look

Chris: 35:56

at therapy. Yeah. And, and I'm prob and I might be wrong if I'm wrong by God, I'm just wrong.

Tommy: 36:01

But that's just how I personally

Chris: 36:03

look at it.

Tommy: 36:04

I don't see where a therapist is gonna help me a whole. And again, I'm probably wrong. This is probably the part that you should have been recording cuz I'm sure tons of therapists would comment

Chris: 36:12

on that and just be like, no, you need a therapist.

Tommy: 36:15

But that, that's just,

Chris: 36:17

that's just where I stand though. I'm not, and maybe I'm

Tommy: 36:19

just not ready for that in my life yet because I also think you need to be ready for that. Like, if I'm not gonna commit to it, why would I waste your time? Number one. Mm-hmm. and mine number two. Yep. It's the same thing in coaching. If you're not ready to do it, don't waste my time. Yep.

Tyler: 36:34

I, I happen to say this out loud on the actual podcast, but, but I will now cuz you brought it up and. I feel a connection to you and I feel like it's the right time. Yeah. I never felt like, I actually needed a therapist. Yeah. Very similar. Like, I don't have the mommy and daddy issues. I don't have the da, da, da, whatever the case may be. And it's just helped to be able to like, sit down and talk to someone to just like, Hey, you know what, this is what I'm going through. Yeah. And someone that has zero connection. And being able to have that conversation and and when Reggie especially said, Hey, you should have, you should have a therapist, a

Chris: 37:06

personal trainer. Personal trainer,

Tyler: 37:07

and a performance coach. Yep. Yep. And already had a performance coach. Mm-hmm. already kind of had someone that was kind of helping me in the physical side. I was like, yeah, you know what? You're probably right. I should probably go talk to someone.

Chris: 37:18

Yeah. Well, I mean, and, and what

Tommy: 37:21

I hear when you say that is make sure you have a great support system around you. Yeah. That, that's what I hear. And

Chris: 37:26

I, you're right, I am very,

Tommy: 37:28

very blessed that I have a phenomenal support system around me. And that's, yeah. And, and I, and I know. like I have three people in my life that I could literally call it any time and just be like, dude, this is, this is where I am, this is where my head is. I just need somebody to talk to. Mm-hmm. And now that I'm with ccp, probably more than that. Yeah. But I know I have those people around me and that I trust that aren't my Yes. Men that we talked about earlier that are just gonna tell me

Chris: 37:55

the truth of where we are. Mike being one of'em, like I told

Tommy: 37:58

you earlier. Yeah. I have at least an hour long conversation with him a week. Yeah. You could call him my therapist if you wanted to, but like that's, I have that support system that I've built around me through the networking opportunities that I have in building those deep, meaningful relationships. Yeah. And not getting offended when someone just tells me the truth about something. You know, because, and, and I feel like that's, in my

Chris: 38:20

opinion sometimes that might be why

Tommy: 38:21

people need a therapist, is to have somebody who's not connected to them to just be like, no, this is, this is

Chris: 38:26

actually what's going on here. Yeah. You don't have

Tommy: 38:29

a psychiatric problem. You just need somebody who understands where you're coming and also someone who's not emotionally attached to tell you the truth. I, I would a hundred percent agree with him on that. A hundred percent.

Tyler: 38:40

I think you hit it on the head right there. And

Chris: 38:42

that was a lot of the things.

Tyler: 38:43

Yeah. And then just being, having someone to be open and honest with. And now that you have that, like with Mike. Yeah. So you're blessed enough that

Chris: 38:50

I have to pay that person So I, I like the money that I have in my bank

Tommy: 38:55

account and don't wanna spend it. I'm just cheap. That's really what it comes down to. I'm just cheap. Frug, dude. We say Look, man, lemme tell you something. You can call whatever you want. Lemme tell you something, man. I far outspend my wife every month, and I will fully admit that. Yeah, I'll buy a new pair of Jordan's every month.

Chris: 39:10

We had a conversation about that the other day. Oh, with my wife? Yeah. Oh, I hun. Oh, I will fully admit that I spend more than she does fully admit it. Well, no, we, she was arguing, she's like, well, he wants to buy me a pair of j's. And I'm like, you need a pair of J's. She's like, thank you. Oh no, we did then we need another podcast. But this shoe was like, well, but I want a pair of golden gooses. And I'm like, I mean, why do you want a pair of dirty shoes? What the hell? What the, so

Tyler: 39:35

I

Chris: 39:35

saw on an answer. Let me tell you what, what the hell is a golden G? Let me tell you what a

Tommy: 39:38

golden goose is. It's a freaking pair of shoes from Walmart that they rubbed in the dirt and put a star on the side of it and sell it for$400. That's what it is. I'm not buying a pair of pre dirty shoes. Fair. I'm not

Chris: 39:50

doing it. I mean,

Tommy: 39:51

if she wants it, she can go buy it. But I'm not buying a

Chris: 39:54

pair of$400 shoes that are already dirty. Not, I'm sorry, I'm not doing it. I've never even heard of that

Tyler: 39:59

before.

Chris: 40:00

Was it Champion that's now like stupid expensive? Probably. Like there's another

Tyler: 40:06

that's, that's another one. New Balance is having some crazy reason out.

Chris: 40:10

But my argument was freaking dad's shoes. Yeah. I looked at her and I was like, okay, I understand if you're gonna get them dirty, might as well get'em dirty. Cuz I know if I get a pair of J's, they're going to be worn at this time. they're going to be scotch guarded. Yes. I'm gonna walk this way, but if you don't care, well, so, so I, these are goretex. Okay,

Tommy: 40:32

so they're, they're with the Goretex

Chris: 40:34

material, so they're

Tommy: 40:34

waterproof. Yeah. Right, right. So I didn't mind wearing them in the rain today because they're waterproof, but guess what? I'm only walking on asphalt concrete

Chris: 40:42

walking in the mud. So my, my car was parked in front

Tommy: 40:44

of the house and there's like not a walkway to get there. I went out the back door

Chris: 40:47

while it was raining to make sure that I could stay on concrete. Asphalt got soaking wet before I got in the

Tommy: 40:52

car, literally. So I didn't get my shoes dirty. But so I, I think, I'm not saying my wife doesn't think through things, but like I'm willing to do, whereas my wife is like, Nope, we're one track minded. Get to the car

Chris: 41:02

You know what I mean? Like,

Tommy: 41:03

I purposefully try not to crease my shoes. I'm not gonna resell'em. It's just like, and you're gonna crease'em. There's nothing you can do about it. But at least the first couple times that I wear'em, they're not gonna be crease it.

Chris: 41:16

You have to mentally learn to walk a certain way as

Tommy: 41:19

not increase them.

Chris: 41:21

It's so hard, dude. You look like a freaking penguin.

Tommy: 41:23

Yeah. I swear to God.

Chris: 41:24

You do. You look so dumb. But like with these, the Gordon, they don't crease. No. Goretex is great. It's not. Cause that's what our, we had as our cold weather

Tommy: 41:31

gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like,

Chris: 41:33

oh, this, it's

Tommy: 41:34

awesome. That's

Chris: 41:35

why I bought these cuz it was cold weather. I knew exactly. Like I know these are gonna work. I know this works. Right. Yeah. So that's why I did what I did. But

Tommy: 41:42

at, at the end of the day, I mean, I know this is supposed to be a one hour podcast, That's fine. It's

Tyler: 41:47

what it is.

Tommy: 41:48

We, we have don't let,

Chris: 41:49

Trying not to turn this into a two-part series, either

Tommy: 41:52

But you know, for me exactly what I said in the video of how you communicated with me to begin with. I want meaningful relationships with people. That's it. Mm-hmm. That's all I care about, man. Like, I wanna know you for you. Yep. And, and that's it.

Chris: 42:05

Like you have experiences. I don't have, like we said earlier, man, and I wanna know what those are. It makes me a better person. It makes me wiser as a

Tommy: 42:12

person cuz I can understand where you're coming from. Yes. At the end of the day. Same thing applies to you as well. Like you, like you said, your dad grew up in the projects. Mm-hmm. My dad grew up on an 82 acre tobacco farm. And guess what I grew up on the same frigging tobacco farm, you know, like, so, and my, but my dad was the one that broke the mold of being a farmer. He goes, I don't wanna do this for the rest of my life. So he became an engineer? Yeah. Okay. And he's retired now at 53 years old. Yeah. He was able to retire because he worked with the state for 30 years. So he's now, he's living his second life and he's young enough to where he can enjoy time with his grandkids and I'm like, I see what he did. I want the same thing. Yeah. Which is why I work so hard right now is trying to get us financially set up to, by the time I'm 40, 45 years old, I don't have to work unless I just want to Yeah. And my daughter's only gonna be, what, nine, 10 years old. Mm-hmm. And now I have the chance to be there for her through those critical years of preteen and early teen and high school and you know, developing a relationship with my daughter and son as well to where they can be truthful with me. Right. You know? We're really good with discipline right now. Really good. My daughter's probably one of the most respectful three year olds I've ever met in my life. But it took a lot of like hard work to get to that point. But I was able to give myself that opportunity to do it because I have more time now than what I've ever had to be able to do. Those types of things. Yeah. And I would encourage anybody, if you have an idea of something that you're passionate about and you think there's something there that's a legitimate business, what do you have to lose? Mm-hmm. Because you don't wanna be, you guys said it last week on the podcast, man, you don't wanna be 65 years old going, I wish I would have. That scares me more than anything else. Mm-hmm. thinking that I could say at 65 I wish I would have and I'm not gonna do that. You

Tyler: 43:59

bring a good point too, cuz one of the things. I hear often, just like in society, right? It's like, oh, I don't make enough money for this, or I don't make enough money for that. So I'm at the point where I, I have a good job, but I'm kind of tailored to the point where I, I have to show up every day, right? Because Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm beholden to the, the corporation that I work for. Yeah. And if I would've had the opportunity almost, I almost at the am at the position where if I didn't make as much money as I do now mm-hmm. I'd be able to make the sacrifice to give up what I have to do this. But it's almost like I have too much to give up to try something new. And I, and I know it's not the case because that's what I'm, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now, right? Mm-hmm. But there's so many people that's like, oh, well I don't wanna give up what I have now. My question will be

Tommy: 44:51

why? Exactly. Why ask why five times? Mm-hmm. and then you'll actually get to the root of the problem.

Tyler: 44:58

So that, that's exactly where I'm at because my times dad, my dad is in the operations industry, and the one thing that he said to me when I was going through college, when I had to actually go through a internship mm-hmm. I actually internship with my dad. Mm-hmm. And he said, actually ask why seven times? And same concept, right? Yeah. Same concept. And you'll get to the root of it Exactly. And ask why seven times, and you'll find the. Root of where you're at. Exactly. And, and that meant a lot to me, and that's why I'm taking the risk that I'm taking now. Yeah. Like, okay, I could be at a different point, but I'm willing to take a risk to where I want to go. Yeah.

Tommy: 45:39

Because of that. Yeah. And, and that's the, I actually learned that just a couple weeks ago. So you were years and years ahead of me with that one. It was, it was my buddy Chuck, who's a sales coach with CCP as well. Mm-hmm. He's like, just ask why five times? And it was more of a sales type of thing. Yeah. But I was like, how do we kind of apply that to just life in general? You know, like, well, I can't start a company. Well, why? Yeah, because I don't have the money. Well, why don't you have the money? And you get people to start thinking kind of down that road of, well, why

Chris: 46:06

don't you have it? Well, I don't have it because

Tommy: 46:08

I'm locked into this job. Well, why are you locked into that job? Right. You know, and, and you start getting to the root of why they're not willing to start the company. And now you can start overcoming what that genuine fear is. Mm-hmm. And because the presence of

Chris: 46:22

fear,

Tommy: 46:22

so without fear, there's no bravery. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. doesn't exist. Right. So when you say somebody is brave, that means that they took the fear that they had in front of them and they were willing to say, F it, I'm gonna go do it anyways. Right. That, that's, that's all bravery is, is just overcoming fear. But you have to have fear in order to create the bravery. Mm-hmm. that makes sense. That that's, that's a reality of life. So like I was scared to death to start Nubs Media. I was petrified, dude. I had a great paying job at the company I was at before I started it. And then it just all went. And on top of that, I had what, a one and a half year old. My just found out my wife was pregnant with the second one. And we also just bought a$400,000 house that we had where we were, depending on that money to be able to pay for it, right? And only had one more paycheck coming from that company. And it wasn't even a full paycheck. And I was like, this is scary, dude. Mm-hmm. But I didn't have a safety net anymore, so. And it's amazing the risks for me. It's amazing what you're willing to try when you don't have a safety net. Yep. Or you're either gonna not do it because you don't have a safety net. Those are your two options. You can either take the risk and try to walk the tight rope and just get it done. And if you fall, then it

Chris: 47:47

sucks, right? Like it really does. It freaking sucks. But that's the

Tommy: 47:50

fear portion of it. But you become braver because you were able to, and then once you start walking it, you get those life experiences where you're like, okay, well we made it through this so I know we'll be able to do this. Or, Hey, this is what I did wrong last time. Let's do it differently. This go around. If I ever started another company, I'd do it completely different than what Nubs Media was. Sure. Completely different. First off, it wouldn't be in marketing first off, that was, that was the first ultimate change that we're making. But second, I'm going to, I'm going to immediately start bringing people on that I can give responsibility to. So my presence doesn't determine the growth anymore. I want the company to grow without me there. Mm-hmm. which commission structures and paying people the right stuff and all that jazz. So Yeah. But that's, but yeah, man, at some point you have to overcome that fear of wanting to do your own thing. Like, dude, small business built this country. Yeah. It did. It, it genuinely did. And small business still is the crux of this company. No matter how much Amazon and Tesla and all those guys think they own it. They don't. Nope.

Tyler: 48:51

The majority of the United States is built on 80% of employment is based on an small business. Yeah. So it it's incredible that way. And then I posted something on my personal face or my Instagram not too long ago that, that the difference between bravery versus safety mm-hmm. and what the difference is there. And it's huge. Yeah. It's it is, yeah. There's, there's nothing else that can really go against that. And it's having that safety net is what's keeping you from hitting the, the point that you can actually reach

Tommy: 49:21

yourself. Well, I, I, I wanna make sure I say one more thing before we jump off of this podcast. Yeah. I'm gonna try to make it through this dude, cuz this one hit me really hard about a week and a half ago. So, y'all forgive me for a second. This is gonna get really, really deep because this is, this situation is very, very like, oh dude, it just, it hits me right here. Like, I in church this morning, these folks were sitting in front of me and dude, I just, it took everything in me not to cry. So, a good buddy of mine, his name's Aaron, I'm not gonna like blast their names all over the place. Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna say his first name. He's a lawyer here in town and they just found out his wife has cancer. Dude, they are 35 and 36 years old. Ah, super young. They have two kids and they just genuinely, gimme a second, ma'am. You're good. They don't know how much longer she has. Wow. At freaking 36 years old, dude. And I put myself in that position this morning because dude, we were in church. No one, this woman has cancer. It's lung cancer, and it's already spread to her brain. Hmm. And dude, she's just in there just worshiping and getting after it, dude. I mean, and, and there's too many people. And, and he, and, and they're just standing there beside each other, dude, just loving on each other, holding each other's hands and just worshiping together. And it was, I'm sitting there, I'm like, dude, I, I hope and I pray, If me and Alex were in that situation, we could, we could still, and dude, they're, they're

Chris: 50:46

smiling, coming in the church, just as happy as they can be hugging on everybody. Mm-hmm. I mean, just, just thrilled to be there. Just taking every

Tommy: 50:54

ounce of life and just, and just soaking it in, man. And whether,

Chris: 51:00

if you

Tommy: 51:01

pray freaking great, if you believe in a higher being, awesome. I love it. I do. I believe that God exists and he's real. Mm-hmm. that, that's my experience in life. And if, if you have it in you, man, just pray for these guys, dude. Like honest to God, man, like they got two beautiful young kids that are both under four or five years old and they don't know what the future holds for her now that she has lung cancer with the potential of it spreading to her brain, man. And it's just, man, like, I couldn't make it through a worship song this morning, dude. I couldn't do it. Like, I had to quit singing because I felt tears coming. I was like, I ain't gonna sit here and break down any tears. And true. I ain't no, no, I ain't doing that. But I don't know, man. It is just that, just seeing that this morning just brought the, just brought to the forefront of my brain. Like, dude, she knows that there's a potential that life is limited for her and she has a really good idea of how long it might be. Mm-hmm. And it's like, dude, if I knew I had less than a year, what would I do? what's the most important thing to me right now? You know, how would I spend my time? How would I spend my money? You know, who would I spend my time with? Mm-hmm. Because for me, I know you're gonna ask me this, but I'm gonna go ahead and ask the question to you. For me, the definition of success is being able to do what I want, when I want, how I want, with who I want. That's success to me. Yeah. And because if you have all the time in the world, you most likely ain't, don't have any money, so you can't do what you want. If you have all the money in the world, you most likely don't have enough time to, to do anything. Yeah. So it's finding the perfect balance, the time and money to do what I want, when I want, how I want, with who I want. Mm. To me, that's what defines success in my mind. Mm-hmm. And, but seeing that this morning was like, if it was only a year feels 30 days, 60 days, whatever, put a time on it. Don't care. What would I do tomorrow? Or what would I do this afternoon? Does the money really make a difference at the end of the day? Now, does it matter? Did the Jordans make a difference at the end of the day? Mm-hmm. you know, does the fact that I own a company mean anything to anybody? You know, so for me it comes down to the legacy side of it. Like how am I remembered with the people that I'm around the most? Yeah. Or the people that see my social media posts. What do they perceive me as? Did I actually make a difference? Three weeks ago, a guy that is known in the roofing industry died in a terrible plane crash, 34 years old. Wow. Plane crash dead in Nebraska, owned the largest roofing company in the world. Probably got 20 different locations around the country. Not one person talked about his business of how they remembered him. Everybody said he was just a good, quality, genuine dude who would give you the shirt off of his back. And I'm like, that's, that's a legacy right there. Yeah. That's a legacy. So that's, that's the one thing I, I could not get off of this podcast without mentioning it, just because it was such on the forefront of my mind this morning. Man, it just, it, it just really hit home with me, dude. It really, really did. Cause I struggled for a long time. My grandfather passed away at 59 years old. Mm-hmm. super young. Yeah. He died of this thing called hemochromatosis, which means your blood iron is way too high. Yeah. That's, that's, that's what it is. Like less than 1% of the population will ever get it. My dad has the gene, which means I could get it. Wow. All that means is that it just go donate blood

Chris: 54:24

That's how you prevent it. Right. Like that. That's it.

Tommy: 54:26

That's how you prevent it. It's not like a medicine or Oh my God, he might have it. No, it's just go donate blood and you solve the problem. Yeah. But I asked my dad, cuz one of the commandments in the Bible, the only commandment in the Bible with a promise is honor your father and mother and you will live long in the land. That's the only one with a promise. Mm-hmm. if you look at all of them. And I told my dad, I was like, that doesn't make sense to me. Now. He's like, well what are you talking about? I was like, he said he will live long in the land. He died

Chris: 54:51

younger. Any of his friends did. Like, it just doesn't check out

Tommy: 54:54

to me. He goes, life goes past the grave. That's what my dad taught me when I was 16 years old. Right. Or 15 years old. Life goes past the grave. He goes, you're still talking about him today. Cause this was like 10 years after he had passed away. He goes, you're still talking about him today. So he still lives Hmm. Still to this day. So just because he is not here physically doesn't mean we still talk about him. This man died 18 years ago and I'm still sitting here talking about him to this day. Right. So his legacy will live on him. I'll tell my kids about him as well, because I don't want that to ever stop because he made such a big impact on me as well. So there's, there's a last little drop right there. I appreciate it. So sorry about that. But it was like I said, man, it was just, it was on my mind, man. I couldn't, I couldn't go this time without, without saying something about that. Cuz seriously, man, pray for Aaron and, and his wife and his kids and that entire family, man. They went, they got tests done last week. They're supposed to know something by the end of this week of exactly the extent of how bad everything is. But she did have adhesions on her brain two weeks ago. Wow. Yeah. So definitely be

Tyler: 55:59

in prayers.

Tommy: 56:00

Yeah. Yep. So if that's that, I'm sorry. I just, I had. Yeah, no, that's important

Tyler: 56:05

that that's what this is about. So I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing. Yep. God bless,

Tommy: 56:09

Sorry about that guys.

Chris: 56:10

It's, it's a true echo. I'm used to

Tyler: 56:12

it by now. Yeah. Yeah. One last question before I end though. Yeah, man. If you were to tell your, your younger self one thing, would it be,

Tommy: 56:19

God, I've been thinking about this for like two weeks,

Chris: 56:22

you're like, since she's been on, I know. Nah, man. For me, that quote

Tommy: 56:28

that I said earlier about stress, if you're stressed, you're living in the future. If you're angry, you're living in the past. If you're content, you're living in the moment, I would go back and tell myself. So the song that reigned in my mind when I thought about it was this song by Brad Paisley called Letter to Me. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have ever heard that. If you haven't, go listen to it. It's a, it's a really good song. And, and what that song kind of says to me is,

Chris: 56:48

everything's gonna be fine, man. Like, you're good. Like, dude, this stuff we used to stress about when we were in high school was so stupid.

Tommy: 56:55

You know?

Chris: 56:55

Like, it was like, I, I mean, I, I broke up with my high school sweetheart like two weeks before

Tommy: 56:59

prom. I thought my life was, it was senior prom, by the way.

Chris: 57:02

Yeah. And I thought my life was over, dude. And it's like, if I

Tommy: 57:04

could go back and tell my 17 year old self, like, bro, dude, you got a beautiful wife. You have two absolutely amazing kids. Like, bro, just chill, man. It's all good. Don't worry about it. Just, just enjoy life, man. Like you, you're angry because of what happened and you couldn't control it. You're stressed out because you don't know if you're gonna find somebody else that'll ever be her or whatever it was. You know, like that's just one small example, but it's like, Man, don't live in the future, but so much. I mean, I think it's good to think about the future.

Chris: 57:33

Absolutely. I think it's good to plan for the future and all those things, but don't

Tommy: 57:36

stress about what might maybe could happen. Just freaking relax, dude. Like all we have is like, I've been solely focused on this since we started because this is the most important thing in my life right now. This is it. When I'm riding home, who knows what the next important thing in my life is gonna be. But guess what? As soon

Chris: 57:55

as I walk through the front door at my house, my wife and kids are now the most important thing in my life. All of a sudden. Absolutely. And, and that's all that matters. Are there things I need to get done?

Tommy: 58:04

Yeah. I've been working on freaking a shiplap wall for four hours this afternoon, bro. Like, I still got crap. I gotta

Chris: 58:09

get done. Yeah. I gotta

Tommy: 58:10

clean out a garage. I gotta do all these different things. But guess what? That's not important right now. And I could stress about all those things that I have to do when I get home, but it's gonna take away from the time with the wife and kids. Yeah. Which that needs to be the most important thing. And that's kind of,

Chris: 58:27

I hate to be that guess. Oh, just live in the

Tommy: 58:29

moment, but prioritize what's in the moment. That's what I would say is don't live in it, but prioritize whatever it is that you're currently doing right now. That's the most important thing right now. That's it. When, when I'm at work, that phone goes on silent. The only person that can get through to me is my wife. That's it. That's why it took me so long to freaking respond to you guys. makes

Chris: 58:51

sense. It's because at that, With all due respect, y'all were not the most important thing in my life.

Tommy: 58:56

No. But for the past two hours you have been. Yeah. Yeah. You know, my wife's texted me six times since we've been here, but guess what? I, I love my wife to death, but right this second, this is what is important. And so prioritizing those things and, and that's what I would tell my younger self man. Yeah. Is just prioritize whatever's sitting in front of you. And that's where you need to be, because whatever happens in 30 minutes doesn't matter right now. Yep. Makes sense. All right. So

Chris: 59:25

do you have anything

Tommy: 59:26

you wanna plug social media wise? Yeah, man. I mean, you're the marketing guy, so Yeah.

Chris: 59:31

no, man. So first and foremost,

Tommy: 59:33

I mean, look, I I, I I love helping people. I think we've established that very well. Marketing's the passion. That's what I know better than anything else in this world. If you're listening to this and you need help with marketing, you know, or you're just confused. You don't even know what your best next step is. you know, or it's just not working, or you've never done it and you're just not sure, man, I, I would, I would love to, to connect with you Tommy Richardson on, on on Facebook. It's a black and white picture of me, That's, that's about as good as I can really give you at t Rich Nubs on Instagram. And I think I gotta recheck my TikTok dude, cause I really don't remember what it is. Do you post anything on TikTok? I do. Okay. Post pretty consistently at Tommy Knobs. At Tommy Nubs. At Tommy Knobs. Yeah. So the double. Huh? Is it? Nah, just one. Okay. Just one. Just one. Yeah. So I mean, you can connect with me on any of those. I mean, if you wanna learn more about me, go watch the videos man. You can kind of see, cuz we didn't really dig into philosophies behind marketing and all that good stuff. I didn't feel like that was very important, but but I mean, seriously, go, go watch'em. I mean, you'll see what my philosophies are pretty quickly after watching a couple videos. Yeah. I it's pretty straightforward. So that's, I mean, cool. Or you can always email me if email's your preferred way of communication. It's Sure. tommy@nubsmedia.com if you're over 47, Dude, lemme tell you something, man, I got people younger than me that prefer email to communicate in business. Yeah. Oh, business-wise. That makes sense. Yeah. They prefer that. So, yeah, I mean, I, I'd love to help anybody, man. Cool. Whatever you guys want. Perfect. Down. Yeah.

Chris: 1:01:04

All those notes will be in the show notes pretty much underneath the Instagram post as well

Tommy: 1:01:11

as on social media. And I can also get you a Calendly link that I'll just send to you that you can post in there as well. If you just want to directly just jump on my calendar and have a,

Chris: 1:01:18

like I said, the first call's free don't cost you anything, right? Yeah. I mean, it doesn't, but if you're not serious about it, don't waste everybody's time. Yeah. don't, don't waste everybody's time, man. Like my, I mean, I, I prioritize a

Tommy: 1:01:30

bunch of things in my life, you know, like, I, I wanna make sure if, if we're. And we're gonna work together. We're

Chris: 1:01:35

gonna have a conversation. It worthwhile. Yeah. Let's, let's

Tommy: 1:01:37

make it worthwhile for everybody. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, let's make sure you get something, you know, mutual, mutual respect to one another. Certainly. Lovely. Yep. Cool. Or top up. Sorry. Almost forgot that one. We have an event coming up at the end of February. If you're a salesperson,

Chris: 1:01:53

go to top rep.

Tommy: 1:01:54

What's that? Top rep training.com. Okay. Okay. I got all the plugs, man. I'm a bargaining guy, man. I

Chris: 1:02:00

got all the plugs, baby.

Tommy: 1:02:01

What was like, you gotta plug something.

Chris: 1:02:03

I, I got all the plugs, man. And,

Tommy: 1:02:05

and, and go ahead and hit that subscribe button for Whiskey and Wisdom. While you're at it, if you're listening as well, just go ahead and hit that subscribe button,

Tyler: 1:02:11

depending on how ambitious or lazy, I feel like being in the next couple weeks. This may be two episodes, but we'll

Chris: 1:02:16

see. Oh, And I'm sorry man. I promise. I love it. I love it. I promise myself I wasn't gonna be that guy that you had to split this up into two, but No, we love that. I'm sorry man. When it,

Tyler: 1:02:26

when it happens, we love it. Cuz if, if we didn't want it, we would've cut it

Chris: 1:02:29

off. That's true. Love it. That's true. There was a couple times

Tommy: 1:02:33

I was like, all right, he's fixing to cut this off. No, not at all. No. I appreciate you guys man. Thanks for bringing me on. It's been fun. Thank you so much.

Chris: 1:02:40

Thank you everybody. Like you said, follow, subscribe. Leave a nice five star review for us and we'll catch you on the next one. Cheers.

Tommy: 1:02:47

Cheers. Yeah.