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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
TEDM – Tommy Mello – In it to Win It, Together (Episode 213)
01:19:51
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- [00:00]
Tommy Mello
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Patrick Francie
Hi there and welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. My name is Patrick Francie and I am your host. And I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show, I am having conversations.
- [00:14]
Narrator
With seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also.
- [00:31]
Patrick Francie
How they celebrate their their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest.
- [00:42]
Narrator
Like many business owners, my guest today, Tommy Mello didn't grow up with a silver spoon. And because of that, he knows what it means to work hard and to get what you want. Tommy ventured into different jobs as a kid, from busing tables and being a lifeguard to trying to flip cars until he finally started his first home service business. As a young man, he grew up hearing his parents talking about bill issues and today, in reflection, he realized that it is what motivated him to remove money from the equation so that he could actually spend quality time with friends and family without having to worry about it. He built a mall at the time that turned into a multi million dollar business with over 700 employees and it took a lot of hard work and going through that inspired him to help other business owners succe succeed like he did. It became a key driver for what he created which was the Home Service Expert brand and has put many of his learning resources into the public like his Home Service Expert podcast, the Elevate podcast and the events like the Freedom Event. Now, aside from being named top entrepreneur in Arizona under the age of 35 at the time, some of Tommy's other accomplishments include running a home service business that surpassed $200 million in revenue with over 700 employees in 20 different states. He's been published in several top publications like Forbes, the Huffington Post, Entrepreneur and Inc. Magazine. He is the host of his top 100 podcast, the Home Service Expert, where world class experts like Michael Gerber, Ken Goodrich, Jay Abraham, Joe Polish, Gino Wickman, just to name a few, have been featured. He's also the author of the bestseller book that authored Home Service Millionaire and Elevate Build a business where everybody wins without any further delays.
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Patrick Francie
Let's get this show started. Tommy Mello, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks for joining me.
- [02:58]
Tommy Mello
Pleasure to be here.
- [03:00]
Patrick Francie
So Tommy, as I often lead in with my guests, you know the reality is that you've got a very impressive bio, a long bio, you've Accomplished a lot currently. You know, when somebody meets Tommy and says, so, Tommy, what do you do? How do you answer that question?
- [03:16]
Tommy Mello
I guess I'm a serial entrepreneur. A lot more than life than just business is what I've realized over the last two decades. But, you know, I enjoy running businesses. But in the future, I'd rather be like Richard Branson and more employ the CEO than be the CEO.
- [03:36]
Patrick Francie
Well, yeah, and that's a great outcome to work backwards from. You know, a good friend of mine is a very accomplished CEO and his basic philosophy is, every day I'm going to work trying to figure out a way how to put myself out of a job. And I go, oh, that's kind of a cool way to look at your business and what it is you're trying to achieve. So he's always, you know, replacing himself, hopefully with people smarter than him and kind of literally stepping back to that end, which is to one day I'm going to own the business, I'm going to employ my CEO, and I'll enjoy having conversations with him. So that's kind of a cool philosophy. Now, you're still a pretty young man, but you've been at this for what, 20 years? How long you been at your business?
- [04:19]
Tommy Mello
Well, I started in the garage industry in 2006 and I formed the LLC in 2007. So it's been about 18 years.
- [04:27]
Patrick Francie
So tell me a little bit about the operating company that you've got right now. You have come off. You're in that 250 to 300 million a year range in terms of your, you know, in terms of this particular business or. Or how does that all come together for you?
- [04:41]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, so garage doors, it's called A1 Garage Door Service. Started the business, like I said, 20067 by my partner out or the way I describe it is, took on the debt. We didn't know what we were doing back then. I got my mom and stepdad to move out from Michigan and my mom answered phones and my stepdad did all the stuff that I hated, like payroll. I did sales and marketing, and that's kind of what I've stuck to in culture. And if there was a mistake that could be made in business, I guarantee you I made it. I fell down. I fell down, I fell down. I just got back up. There's not one really day I could remember that I'm like, I'm just throwing the towel. There's been a lot of days where, I mean, girls I dated stopped dating me just because they're like, you don't stop. You walk out of the movie theater to take phone calls. You never have dinner, you can't sit still. You go run emergency calls at night. And I'm like, yeah, but who else is going to do it? I don't have anybody else. But like I said, a lot of mistakes. I think the coolest thing about my experience is I didn't make the same mistakes twice. And a lot of people took time to nurture me throughout the process. I met the right people at the right time throughout the last two decades. And this notion of revenue started to change a lot in about. At about 2017, I stopped talking about revenue and I started talking about profit. I used to walk in a room, beat my chest, and talk about revenue to everybody. But little. Deep down inside, I knew I wasn't making much of that. None of it was making it into the bank account. And now I call my buddies up that are super successful. It's a great industry to be in, home service. And we say, how much profit did you make last month? We don't even talk revenue. It's like, not even in our vocabulary anymore. So this whole notion of revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. Is very true.
- [06:35]
Patrick Francie
So tell me a little bit about the model. Like, so when you started the business, what. Why that? Why garage door service? What kind of opened up that door for you in terms of thought process? Well, hold it. This is a cool business, a service business, home service business. That makes sense. Like, what made sense about it back then? And then when did you transition into a thought process of, holy, I can scale this.
- [07:00]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. So 2005 and 6. I had a roommate that was working at a garage door company. And at the time, I had a landscaping business and I was bartending, and I was still busing tables at Cheesecake Factory. And I just, I had the entrepreneurial tick. I mean, no matter what, I always used to say I was a hustler. I could figure stuff out. And by the way, the hustler had to die for the leader to become who I am today. No more hustling at all. But I used to hustle. I used to grind. I used to just figure out how to do a lot of things at once, which actually is not a good thing. ADHD did the highest level back then, and they still have it today. Just learned how to tame it. But, you know, he. He asked me one day, his name's Sean. He said, we can't find a good painter in all of Arizona. We got more business that we could handle. Would you consider painting garage doors? Of course. I said, how much do you pay? He said, 100 bucks a door. You cover the paint. I went to Home Depot. I. I saw this Glidden speed coat. It was 12 bucks a gallon. I figured, shoot, I'm all in. Fifteen bucks. I gotta pay for gas. Make about 80 bucks a pop. I got to the point where I was painting 10 doors on Saturday, 10 doors on Sunday. So I was making good money. And as I'd meet up with technicians that would hand me the. The paint samples, I realized that they were making great money, too. So me and my other roommate said we could go start a business. So A1 fell first in the phone book. This is the last year the phone book meant anything at all. So A one. It was A one garage door specialist at the time. And I got into Valpak and a couple other mailers. I mean, that's all this is. Right when Google had started. So very soon, I learned what algorithms were and how to get found on places like Yelp and Angie's List. But that was the beginning of the business. I figured out an employee identification number, went and took the business test. Me and my roommate still best of friends. We were roommates, business partners. And I just realized I'm probably not the best person to be in a partnership because I felt like I was working harder than he was. And I feel like fathers and sons don't. I feel like this happens a lot within partnerships. It's just the nature of the beast, I guess. But 2010, I gave him an ultimatum. It was not easy, and he said, you take the business, you take the debt and do what you want with it. So that was it. And 2014, I found an integrator. 2017, I got on the right CRM, started a podcast, wrote my first book, and got in a couple right rooms. And 2022, I exited half of the business to private equity. And mine's not a story of doom and gloom. It was a great story, and I love our partners. And, yeah, I mean, it's a great business. It's literally the number one ROI on the home. Wall Street Journal two times last month, wrote two articles. The best investment you can make on your home is your garage doors, more than your kitchens or bathrooms, more than adding a pool, more than anything.
- [10:07]
Patrick Francie
Oh, hold it. Let's unpack that just a little bit. You know, I get a lot of real estate investors who listen to this. You know, does it apply to real estate investment? Why is that? Why is that a thing?
- [10:17]
Tommy Mello
So 40% of your home's curb appeal is your garage. Most of the time if it's facing the street. We trademarked the garage door as a smile of your home. It really does dress up the home. I mean you add windows, you do the right stuff, it saves you on your electric bill. You add in the technology, you could open and close it from your cell phone. Amazon, Walmart could deliver all the nasty critters, whether you got spiders or if you're in Arizona, scorpions. On the other side of the garage typically is the kitchen. So that's where they find their way in. It's the number one edge away for bugs. But I definitely like 30, 40 years ago there was only a few types of garages and a few types of windows and inserts. Now you could get full view glass. You get some really cool windows along the side, fog glass. Just really dress up the home. And they analyze the pricing every single year. And front doors, windows, kitchens, baths and everything. And garage doors are. It was 193.9% this past year. Return on investment.
- [11:19]
Patrick Francie
So the, yeah, so there you go. So the roi, you know, and so what's it going to cost you? What's a typical, let's say a double garage? You know, you're going to do two doors, maybe one not as common, I'm not sure. But what am I going to spend on a garage door to get? And then what's the ROI that I would realize on that? Approximately. Just throw kind of rough numbers.
- [11:39]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. So if you, you add up Remodel magazine and a couple Wall street journals, it's somewhere around six grand for a two car garage. You'd get about, you know, 10 to 12 grand back. And really when you, when you drive up to the home. Listen, I, I used to, I've read every sales master out there and I used to read a lot of a guy named Tommy Hopkins, Tom Hopkins. And when you walk up to the home and you see it, you pretty much, a lot of people decide this is where we're gonna raise our kids. This is it. So anytime you could get that extra like this, they, I feel like when you walk up and you see they, they took corners like they, they literally like just the landscaping is a little janky and the garage door is kind of falling apart. You kind of like what else in the house is like this? But when it's all taken care of and it's just sold from the beginning, they're like, they're more committed to buy.
- [12:31]
Patrick Francie
Yeah, you can't really understate you know, the value of curb appeal to somebody who's, you know, what wants to be proud of their home. And so curb app a big deal now. I mean, obviously that whole concept has worked for you. You're 700 plus employees, you're 20 plus states, you're hitting big numbers in terms of revenue model. So as you went through the process of growing your business, Tom, was there a vision? So when you start out and you're going, okay, well, I'm just here to make money. I got this entrepreneurial spirit, I'm going to make money. Your partner says, here, take the debt, take this. You have to have some vision saying, okay, I got this. But when you look back the years, where did the vision start to evolve to say, oh, hol, I can scale this and I can make it as big as it is today. Was that an original intention or was it. Did you just kind of morph into it as you went along?
- [13:21]
Tommy Mello
I'll tell you, I always had this grand vision. My dad told me, you get on direct mail 2 to 3%, people will call you. So I found an old work doc from like 2008, and the plan was this massive vision. I was almost, I let myself down for the next decade, but I always had this idea that I could build a monster. But here's the crazy thing. During COVID you know, five, six years ago, the multiples in home service for a really big company, 20 million of EBITDA plus what was 8 or 9x during COVID when all the restaurants and hotels and nail salons and movie theaters all shut down. The multiples in home service. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's real. For the, for the largest, best in class, demand driven home service companies got to 18 to 20x. So that's really where the wealth was generated. I didn't understand what EBITDA and multiples were. When I got into business, I didn't know how to price a company. I had no clue. I didn't really know much about profit. I didn't know what, you know, cruel versus cash accounting or gap, you know, general accepted accounting. I, I got very lucky. But it started to make more sense, you know, when I started looking at the numbers in the CRM on our fifth CRM, which was service titan. And I'm like, man, If I book one more percent, when we were $100 million, if we booked one more percent of the calls that came in, that was a million bucks. And if I could reduce cancellation rates by 1%, that was a million bucks. And all of a sudden, the math formula started to make a lot of sense. And I'm like, this is going to be fun.
- [15:03]
Patrick Francie
But there's a. There's a part of this that, you know, to grow a business the way you did, I mean, you've got certainly the operational side of things in terms of just sheer infrastructure. Then you're buying and, you know, I'm assuming you're stocking inventory to some degree. You've got some basic stuff I'm sure that you carry in your inventory, but you also got a sales team that you've got going, and, you know, at some point, you're having to surround yourself with good people. And when did that light bulb go on? Or was it there all the time?
- [15:37]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. So service tight in 2017 was big. I think the combination of service titan and getting a podcast. When I started in 2017, podcasts were coming around, but they weren't really a big thing. I didn't have a whole lot to do. Like, I didn't have all the answers, but I had all the right questions. So people fell in love with my podcast because I'm like, I need help with hr. I'm going to find the best person in HR in the country. And then I'm like, man, search engine optimization or Google my business, how to get reviews, or how do I dominate the, you know, the algorithm on Yelp, and, hey, I'm having a lot of turnover in the call center, or how do I get vehicles and how to get accelerated depreciation? All these questions. So people always say, when I started listening to your podcast, I figured out a lot of the answers based on where you were in the business. So that. And then I just. I didn't care if somebody said no to me. I go to everybody, especially the people I knew that were winning the biggest. And I say, listen, I want to come. I want to fly out to see you. I want to buy your whole company lunch. I love to take you. I've got your book. I've read it three times. And I bring an empty notebook, and they're like, well, what do you do? And I'm like, garage doors. And I never called garage door companies. They were always H vac and plumbing and sometimes roofing. So they're like, how old are you? And I was in my, you know, mid-20s, early, you know, late 20s at the time, early 30s. And then they'd be like, yeah, kid, come on out. But we'll let you sit down with our CMO and our cfo. You know, you could ask me questions. They're like, you're not even in our industry, you're not even in our state. And they'd open up the doors and they'd literally answer all my questions and teach me and tell me who their consultant was for this and how they figured out the manuals and SOPs and, and you know, this happened not once or twice, this happened dozens of times. And I, I'd make the trip and you know, I still, you'd be shocked to hear this. But I don't talk to a lot of companies that are smaller than me. I talk now I'm talking to companies doing over a billion and they take my phone calls still. And I'm still able to be the dumbest guy in the room as much as possible. And I'm not gonna outwork anybody. Like I used to, I out delegate people. Now I got two EAs, I don't have to work nights, weekends and holidays anymore. I got people that handle that for me.
- [17:57]
Patrick Francie
So is your vision then, you know, aside from hiring a CEO, but is your vision to grow to a billion or multi billion dollar company? Is that your thought process that you kind of are, is that your next benchmark in terms of what you want to do with the business?
- [18:11]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, so $1 billion of revenue. I'd like to be over 30% of the bottom line. And I don't mind being the CEO right now. You know, right now I'm still having a lot of fun. I would tell you that I'm starting to get a lot. Here's what I realize is you might think, man, if he continues to work 70 hour weeks, the company. But that's not, it's getting easier. I got to be more humble and continue to tell people how much I love them and appreciate them. That's what I need to do now. I don't need to come up with the answers and run all the projects and then be the guy on the front line. I need to, I still do orientation. I got a three and a half hour orientation tomorrow. I'm never going to give that up. I do a lot of the commercials. I don't have to do that, but I enjoy doing it. But there's certain things I ask myself now, does can this be delegated or should Tommy do it? And most of the time it could be delegated. And I'm like, you know, my mom and dad got a divorce when I was 7 years old and I said I'm never gonna let money ruin my family like it did when I Was a kid, so I'm engaged now, but I have no kids, never been married, never been engaged. So I'm gonna start life a little bit later. I'm 41, so now I'm a little bit more focused on my faith, my fitness, my family and my future self. The finance side, if you think about it, is the. You can't delegate praying and going to church, you can't delegate spending time with family, you can't delegate going to the gym. You could delegate a lot of the stuff in business, but for some reason that's the last thing we do learn how to delegate is the finance side of things.
- [19:45]
Patrick Francie
When you, you know, when you think about your journey, I mean, you've got remarkable results. But let's go back a little bit. You know, when you consider what you went through as a, you know, As a child, 7 years old, parents get divorced to the degree that you have an understanding and awareness of that. But you know, your entrepreneur spirit, you know, I often am investigating, is it nature, is it nurture? You know, what is the most common way for entrepreneurs and you know, to, to go into the next phase of actually going from entrepreneurs which I kind of, you know, think about solopreneur. Solopreneur entrepreneur, where you're really, you know, you've got a great job, really, and maybe it looks like a business, but you're still in the trenches every day. You've also, you know, you've built this business to a place where, you know, you've got a great team of people and you know, if you got you, if you break a leg or you're out for a few weeks, I'm sure that, you know, your business continues to prosper and continues to do what it is. But let's go back a little bit and the question I would have for you is that do you come by this naturally? Like where does this drive that you have? Where do you think it comes from? Or have you ever considered it? Thought about it?
- [20:55]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, I think about it all the time. My mom, she made sure I understood that no matter what, I, she's one of the, the women in my life, man, that if, that if something happened bad, like let's say I got a really bad car accident and someone else got hurt, she'd be like, I'm bringing a shovel and we're going to take care of it, we're going to bury the body somewhere. My mom just, she loves me. If I ever, and you know, I'm a law abiding citizen, but if I something bad If I went to prison, she'd move to the prison. She loves me more than anything, and I believe that. She said you could do anything you want in your life. And she moved her whole life from Michigan to be with me in Phoenix. When I called and I beckoned on her to come out here, and I said, I could only pay you 15 bucks an hour. She had money, but, but not a lot. I mean, it was not like she was like loaded and she took, she, she moved her whole life since 1954. We were born on the same day, March 4th. And my dad, My dad was just. I wasn't allowed to lose. There was no celebrations. He was in that, like, like he, he was my soccer coach, my baseball coach. Taught me how to swing a golf club when I was 4 years old. Taught me how to negotiate the CB radio. My first time at a car or at a garage sale. And I was four and a half years old. We didn't, we didn't really ever say a great job getting second place. So he taught me how to win this, like, aspire to be number one. And my mom gave me enough love. You combine love with this constant fight to win. If I am the most sore loser you're ever going to meet. And when I think about winning, it's the only one I think about is Elon Musk. I'm like, when it comes to money. And then there's, of course, this guy's at 7% body fat. How do I get to 6%? Like, everything for me has been evolved around winning. And then there's this notion that I have of like, just because I win doesn't mean the other got people in the garage industry have to lose necessarily. Just because I win as the owner or founder doesn't mean my employees, which I consider co workers, lose. The vendors. I, you know, we're going to spend $65 million with vendors this year. I want them to be healthy and grow and invest in technology. They don't need to lose. So my mindset's changed a little bit over the years of we all could win in the game of business. It's not like a sport that there needs to be a loser.
- [23:21]
Patrick Francie
I love that there's a, you know, my, my observation, you know, I've been doing this podcast for over eight years, about several hundred guests, of course, and, and in my own business journey, I've talked to many, many entrepreneurs. I've been in business 40 years. My observation. And like you, and we've only really just met, but as I'm Listening to your story, there's an intensity about individuals like yourself who take a business to this level. And it seems that there is that phase, a common story, it's intense. It's like, win at all costs. And then there's a gradual morph. And understanding is that I'm only as good as the people I surround myself with. And in order to surround myself with really great people, I have to show up differently. I have to have sincere appreciation for who they are, what they're doing. But as you build your team out, given that you're national in scope of what you're doing, do you also notice that your best team, whether it be your sales managers or even your cfo, whatever, do you also notice that there's a difference in how they vibrate from an intensity point of view? Because you're that guy. You're definitely that guy, that intense, go, win, get shit done. No excuses, no blame, no complaint, just go. And you notice that as well as a pattern with some of your best team.
- [24:44]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, my coo, I'll tell you this, I started working out pretty hardcore now. My COO, he just sent me, he's 10.3% body fat. He was 24%. I start every conversation is what's in it for them? How do they get to win? And then we've got a full time dream manager. Their job is to help people dream again. And sometimes they're not dreaming about money, they're dreaming about getting their teeth fixed. Sometimes they're not dreaming about money, they're dreaming about taking their kids on a vacation. They're thinking about just quality time with dad, maybe taking them camping because he's sick. I don't know their dreams. And so it's our job to kind of ask these questions. Sometimes it's prying. You got to peel back the onion and then you got to peel it back again. And then you got to peel it back again. Money was never. See, freedom and money are two different things. Money destroys people. But the freedom to do what I want with anybody I want any moment is different. But I know if someone were to hand the money that I've got and they were to take this money, it would literally destroy most people. They would literally. They wouldn't trust anybody. They would buy a bunch of stuff. They wouldn't think about the money. Like all I think about and every transaction now is what is my principal going to go to and how. What's the compound interest going to come out for that now what am I going to buy? If you said hey, you got an extra billion dollars? I would not say, here's the houses and cars I'm going to buy. I say, okay, let's say conservatively, I can make 8% on that. A billion. That's. That's $80 million a year. And let's say I spent 10 million. I got 70. I'll just. That's the math I break down in my head. And I'll tell you one thing, too. You interview a lot of entrepreneurs. All I do all day is mumble to myself, math. The most common open app in my phone is my calculator. I'm a KPI guy. I reverse engineer all my goals, whether that's working out, grams of protein, calories, everything I do is math. And I think that's one thing that I think everybody needs to understand is if you don't understand how money works, compound interest. You don't understand how interest could work against you. You don't. No one ever. No one ever taught us this, which is crazy to me, that I went, I got a master's degree. I did that while I was in the garage door industry. I didn't use any of it. I just did it because I wanted to have it. But they didn't talk about money. And you know something? I talk to all the time with the people I work with because I'm like, you weren't taught this. You wouldn't spend $32 at Circle K today. And you got some Twinkies and some jerky. Go spend that at, you know, go. Go buy some healthy meat. And you're right. I am intense. My CFO is super smart. Smarter than I'll ever be when it comes to finance. My COO is super smart. And they always joke around and they say our job is to make Tommy's dreams come true.
- [27:25]
Patrick Francie
So what is it that drives you? Do you think if. Yeah, you want to make money? It sounds to me at this point, when you get into this, I guess this benchmark of accomplishment financial is. And you're not driven to buy stuff, it becomes just a scorecard. Money's just a scorecard for what? It's like, you know, you're 41 years old, you say, okay, well, I'm going to train. I'm going to get body fat down to 8% or 6% or whatever the number is for you. But the question I have for you is, what drives that? So what drives the desire to grow a billion dollar company? What drives the desire to have 6% body fat? What is kind of, if you reflect on it. Is there something there for you that goes, I need this because, you know, is it. What is it for you? I won't. I won't suggest anything. What is it for you? Do you. Do you kind of think in those terms?
- [28:23]
Tommy Mello
You know, you kind of want to re. You want to pull this apart and figure out the why, and you want this why, the Simon Sinek crazy why, to stand out. And yes, I want to become a philanthropist and become more giver and help the church out more. But a lot of it's fear, you know, it's. It's the goal post moves. I don't know why. It's like, you got this goal and you're like, this is everything. And then all of a sudden you're like, I mean, today it's crazy. I got. Look, I log in a goldman. I'm down 700 grand a day, which is no big deal because I'm used to looking at that and it's just a percent of a percent. But ultimately it's like, I think a little bit is. I've got. My mom and dad are still alive. I've got a niece and two nephews. I've got no kids yet. I've got. My dad had 12 siblings in his family and my mom had five. I don't feel like it's my responsibility, but in a way I really do. I don't know why, but I want to bring everybody. I don't want Tommy to be okay. I want to bring us all. And that's kind of how I. And by the way, at A1, they're my family just as much. You know, we're not related by blood, but during the first transaction, there was 25 millionaires that came out of it. The $100 million got dispersed among 25 people that we did a. It's called a profit units, but an equity incentive program. And I coach on how to do these equity incentive programs to make sure everyone's sprinting in the same direction. And if people want to understand why I won so much, I've done the math on a whiteboard giving this money away or not. And it's way better off giving it away of what the results were, because they treated. They were owners sitting right next to me, running in the same direction, knowing we've got a transaction coming up and the same thing is going to happen on the next one. That's why they're sprinting so fast. You know, I get sprint pretty fast, but when everybody's sprinting alongside of me or past the Baton. It's a lot easier to win the race.
- [30:20]
Patrick Francie
It's interesting, isn't it, that as we go and grow in our businesses, we start to evolve and start to understand ourselves a little bit more. To your point earlier, you know, and I think every entrepreneur goes through this process. Any successful entrepreneurs that I've known over the years, and I've known many, is there is a part of it where you're kind of 24 7, you're doing it, you're in the trenches, it becomes all about you. Until you realize that you are the weak link in the chain of growth. And so you start to realize that delegation is the answer and the solution. Putting those processes in place and systematically working at growing your business, which takes a whole different mindset and think and effort. Like you have to. Now you're doing both. You're operationally running it and training and doing all the things that you're doing. Again, I look at it and I go, now you come to this place where you reflect on it and you go, you know, I was a fanatic, lost girlfriends over it, all the rest of it. But I. You know, personally, I got into early on in my life around business is that I was often had that same. I'll call it a judgment. People going, dude, all you're doing is working. And I'm. And I go, it doesn't feel like work. And I remember coming off stage after I spoke once, and a young man approached me, and he goes, and I've done a whole presentation with some background, what I do and how I operate. And I came off, and a young guy comes up to me, and he said to me, patrick, he says, how many hours a week do you work, dude? Like, you're doing so much. And I'm going. And it really threw me off. And I said to him, I go, I don't know. I don't even think in those terms. I'm having fun. I love what I do. So it's not really work to me. It's just what I do. And because I enjoy the relationships I'm creating, I enjoy the benchmarks I'm sitting. I enjoy some of the challenges that I face because you get to lean into it, put your shoulder into it, whatever language you might want to use around it. So to me, that's how it always has been. Yeah, I work a lot, I guess, by somebody's standards, but I'm not punching a clock. And I'm doing what I love to do. I'm now 66 years old, and I'm you know, in my world, I'm. I joke about being on the Freedom 95 program because I just don't ever intend to not be doing something. And. And now I'm picking and choosing a little bit. I'm slowing things down, giving myself a little bit more space and. And more mental space. So that's for me. So does any of that kind of land or resonate for you, Tommy?
- [32:47]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. I was listening to a guy the other day, and he goes, can you imagine working 10 to 12 hours a day so you could go home and have two hours of fun? And I'm thinking, here I am sitting with you on a podcast. I was on a podcast earlier. I got the family office in town. I'm going to the waste management open. The next three days. I'm having the biggest super bowl party. Last week, I was at Barrett Jackson. Barrett Jackson. I helicoptered in. I bought Eleanor from Ghana. 60 seconds. And I'm not bragging about it. I mean, listen, I say, like, as humbly as possible. I. I trained with a guy named Dan Martell, one of my coaches, one of many coaches. I hire a lot of coaches. Lots and lots of money spent on coaching. And he taught me, what if you. How much do you drive? We did the math. 12 hours a week. He's like, you're hiring a driver? And he said, you love cooking. I'm like, yeah, I don't mind barbecue. And he's like, then we're gonna hire a chef. He's like, I used to think it was like. I was like, that's not me, though. And he's like, why do you have this bad taste in your mouth about people that, like, wouldn't you rather praise your employees and call them and tell them how great they're doing and train them more and have great conversations with your CFO and your COO and your FPA team than drive? And I'm like, I never. He. He had a way with me. I was changing my perspective and my outlook. There's this quick story. I'll tell you. My. My preacher, Gary Kiddiman. It was. Now I go to a different church called Impact Church, because he moved on. But he's. One day, this lady's looking outside of her window, and she's. She. There's this other lady out there kind of cleaning the clothes and always pinning the clothes up. And the lady always grabs her husband every morning. She's like, what is this lady doing? Every day she does this. Her clothes are dirty. Like, does she not notice when she's hanging up? Her whites that there's always a smudge on her clothes. And every day she's nagging and telling her husband, and one day she goes, honey, come over here. You're not gonna believe this. The lady's clothes are clean. And he goes, yeah, I cleaned the windows. Moral of the story is this lady, she wasn't looking out of the right. The right window. And for me, I've always. I've had to change the way I think, like, because I'm like, me. And who would. That house show, like, who would hire a driver? Like, that is so pretentious. And then I'm like, oh, my gosh, how much time am I wasting that I doing things that are way more productive? Like, if I love to drive it, it was my absolute, like, look, I understand if you love to mow the lawn and you love to listen to audibles while you mow, this is your getaway and keep doing it. But if you don't love it and to have a passion for it, then why are you doing it? And when you, you know, when you get to a certain point, no matter what, there's still things I don't want to do. My life is hard when I wake up intentionally. It's not made for comfort. It's made for discipline. And if I could continue to live with this. This high intensity of discipline, because what happens, you know, my podcast, I've learned a lot about dopamine, and we weren't intended to smoke cigarettes and use drugs and everything else to get our dopamine rush. We were meant to do hard things. And so, you know, I continue to try to do hard things that I don't love to do early in the morning to get me going. It's not easy every day, I'll tell you that.
- [36:09]
Patrick Francie
Well, that is really the. I think that's the. You know, in my other podcast that I do with, I co host with my wife Stephanie, you know, we called Mindset Matters. And, you know, we often hear about, well, you just need great habits. You need great habits. And I get all that. But really, it isn't about the habits. It's as much as it is about discipline. I think that's, for me, has always landed as the more appropriate word than habits. Habits are a thing. But you also have to have the discipline, because we all know good habits. I mean, there's. You get to that point in your life and you're going, well, we know what good habits are. Do we have the discipline to stick to those habits? And, you know, I think about Habits in this, it's like once you have a habit, it's like a no brainer. And that's bullshit. I don't agree with that at all as I come to realize that it's about systems and yes, it's about habits, but if you don't have the discipline to carry it on, it isn't like in 21 days you have a new habit, you know, and you're a workout guy. I've been a workout guy for 35 years. My point is, is that on any given point in time, if I don't have the discipline to go to the gym, that habits for nothing. And I've worked out for years, but I know it'll go away the minute I drop my guard around being disciplined around it. And then that is why am I working out and getting to that so that the discipline actually gets my ass out of bed in the morning, et cetera. Does that make sense for you or am I. Do you have another philosophy on that?
- [37:37]
Tommy Mello
Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think you hit the nail on the head. The only thing that I've kind of changed for myself as accountability partners, that I don't pick them easily. I don't pick somebody that says, yeah, hey, what do you say we cancel today? What do you say we just caught 15 minutes early. If they're not pushing me as hard as they possibly can, if they're excited a day I cancel when I'm supposed to meet with them or they catch me cheating on a mill or they catch me getting drunk and doing five shots or whatever it is, I want them to be angry and disappointed. I want them to look at me and say, I lost a little bit of respect for you and I know you're better than this. And to pick those people takes discipline in itself. To know that they're not going to let you off easy. That's the problem. And you got to do this with you, said Stephanie. I got to do it with Bri. I got to have especially the one that I share my life with. And we got to agree on these things. It's a lot easier when you go through life that has that discipline is going to. They want the best for you and they know that that that short term sugar rush or whatever it might be is not what's best for you.
- [38:44]
Patrick Francie
You bring up dopamine and I recently been doing some research in prep for my next Mindset Matters podcast, which is around the difference between pleasure and happiness and how we've come to believe that pleasure is Happiness, it's actually gotten so convoluted in our world that we don't understand that pleasure comes from things outside of us. Those dopamine hits and that happiness is an internal game and it's always about the people in our lives. Almost always is what brings joy, what brings happiness, and that's serotonin. And what kills serotonin, by the way, dopamine. And it's really profound. I'm looking forward to dropping this podcast and sharing with people the difference between and what dopamine does in terms of giving us pleasure, which gives us that moment of high, which we think we're happy, we're not happy, we're going through a moment of pleasure. And true happiness lives within the relationships that we have. And that is what drives serotonin. So we never ever kind of, you know, happiness is what we strive for, but we confuse it with pleasure. So we do those short term hits of dopamine and in the moments of happiness, by the way, hit those pleasure buttons and dopamine kills serotonin. So it's a really cool dynamic that I'm going to be sharing with you. I don't know if you've investigated it that deep or not, but that's kind of where it's at.
- [40:16]
Tommy Mello
I didn't know that. I know that. You know, you look at cell phones, you look at Instagram, Tick tock, you know, even LinkedIn and you get these little spikes and you know, the food they put in. I had kind of funny enough, whether you like him or not, he, he was in my, at my house about six months ago, rfk and, and I'm a big fan of what he discusses about the food that we eat in the chemicals. Whether you like him or hate him, I think he's right about the food. We're giving it to our kids and there's a spike in insulin levels and everything else. So I think happiness is like, people are like, I'm just not happy. And I'm like, you know, throughout the day. There are a lot of times I'm not ecstatically happy. I'm like, you know, I might have a bad minute, I might have a bad hour. I don't really have a whole lot of bad days. Now, if somebody passes away, that's close to me, a life event, don't get me wrong, that that's something that's going to be a big deal. But for the most part, here's what I figured out. If I eat right, I exercise. You know, I'm on several peptides I have creatine daily. I push myself when I work out. I worked out this morning. I was at the gym at seven, pushing myself harder than most. And that's automatically putting me at a much better chance of having a great day, I can tell you that. And not to mention, the biggest thing for me is my sleep. You know, I just. Bree just told me our new mattress arrived today. We had a tempur pedic for one month, and we were told by 83 people to get the sleep number. And big fan of, like, I've been trying out. I must have two dozen pillows. I'm like, look, I'm going to spend a third of my life intentionally eight hours a day sleeping. And I'm really pushing for that. Eight hours. I mean, you know, great, great day for me is eight and a half per night. And people are like, dude, you might think, hey, does this guy even sleep? Yes, I sleep great. I close my eyes, I'm very comfortable, and I sleep as long. And I dream. I'm not one of those guys that brags, oh, I only get four hours sleep. No, that's not. That's not. It's not healthy. That's not how you're going to age. Well, that's not how. By sleeping. Right. I tend to make better decisions about my food. I tend to have bigger willpower. I tend to want to work out harder. I tend to be less cloudy when I'm thinking. I tend to tell Bri and tell my mom and tell my sister and my niece and nephews. I love them more in a deeper way. Yeah, I think it's important. And I think a lot of people, they're not setting their stuff up for success. And by the way, I'm not perfect. I'm far from it, of course, but.
- [42:46]
Patrick Francie
We also said high benchmarks for ourselves. So you mentioned earlier on in the conversation, Tommy, know you've made all the mistakes, and I think most entrepreneurs will say that. And, you know, certainly individuals who've had a great degree of success, you know, often make that comment, you know, is that if there's been a mistake to be made, I've made it. And so for you, is there when you talk about mistakes and somebody listening to this, you know, can you give an example of a couple of really kind of mistakes that you made and. Or even perhaps a mistake that you made that because of it shifted something or the outcome turned out better because of it? Any. Any of that kind of stuff that shows up for you in your journey?
- [43:29]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, I started being really, really Intentional with my time. I mean, I own my calendar. My calendar is like, it says, call your mom. If there's a book I need to read, there's time for Wall Street Journal. There's literally like the calendar is so very intentional. If you saw my calendar from 6am till 8:45 tonight, there's no voids in it. There's. And if there's a void, usually it's a bathroom break. There's very few. Like, some of it is seven minutes on my calendar. The smallest things, like my assistant Ashley might come in and say, hey, knock out 60 push ups real quick, right in the middle in my office. Bam. Like everything gets scheduled. And I think that is the first thing I would say. If I was going to look at somebody's life and tell you how productive you are, how intentional you are, what your life's going to look like, I'd say, let me see your calendar, let me see. Or is it just by luck that you happen to fall into some great things or are you intentional with that? That's the first thing. The second thing, I really believe that if you find, you look at your circle and this includes family, this includes your significant other, this includes mom, dad, brothers and sisters, this includes everybody. If you don't look at your inner circle and get inspired, I do believe it's a cage. And I'm not pushing people to get a divorce and I'm not pushing them to not talk to dad anymore. But the people in my circle inspire me. And my circle's not forever. I couldn't pick my circle when I was in first grade. It was who was at my school and who lived around the corner. I was kind of stuck. Now I get to pick my circle and I choose very, very wisely. Because if you want to figure out how to get in the DeLorean, the 85 and go 88 miles an hour, change your circle fast and watch what happens. You could be anybody you want. But if you want to be a better dad, hang out with great dads. If you don't, you know, hang out with the guys going to the strip club, it's that simple.
- [45:22]
Patrick Francie
So, you know, I often talk about, you know, living a values based life. So in other words, I'm clear on what my core values are, what my driving values are, what's important to me, and then, of course, aligning. The more clear I am, the more I attract people that are aligned with my values. Do you fall into that kind of thought process or some version of that so that in fact you're really clear on what's important to you, what your values are, what you're driving, slash core values are. And then, you know, realizing that that's actually what attracts or repels the people that you would have in your life. Do you, do you break it down that way, Tommy, or how do you look at it? I mean, choosing the right people. Got it. But, but, you know, there's got to be some, I guess, framework, at least mentally. You're breaking it down whether you do it on paper or not. But ultimately, are you, are you kind of motivated that way or inspired that way to be really clear on what your values are so that you are, in fact aligned with the right people, whether it be business or personal?
- [46:19]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, it's interesting. I find myself, you know, I just had Travis Hearn, my pastor, on, and I'm starting to, to really. And by the way, like, like I said, I wish I could tell you I. I pray for a half an hour at the night and half an hour of the day. I say quick prayers. I don't read a Bible enough. There's, there's a lot of things I could be better at, but it's important to me. There was a time in my life where I never wanted to share my faith. And then I made a deal with Jesus and it changed everything. And there was a time that I didn't make time for myself to work out. And it seems like the people that want the same things as me, I say this lightly because I'm off balance on purpose. There's a great book by Dan Thurman, cut off balance and purpose. But I don't believe you're going to be one with God. You're going to have the perfect relationship and go to counseling. You're going to be a six pack. You're going to be very close with your, your entire family. You're going to be making a billion dollars a year. I think there's phases of life where we need to focus and navigate where to be spending more time. And you said, you know, you're 66. You're finding yourself more time now to make better decisions. Be a little bit more careful with your time. You're not like, slowing down as much, but you're, is this worth it or not? And I'm making a lot of decisions like that too. Is, like, is the truth worth the squeeze? It's harder. It's a muscle we flex. It's harder to say no than it is to say yes. Entrepreneurs, it's easy to say yes. We put our Minds to something. It's so easy. Sure, yeah. But to me, it's got to be easy, lucrative, and fun. If it's not elf, then I'm not very interested anymore. And it's a muscle that I've had to really flex of, having this ability to say no to people. And I say no to people that are. I started the podcast because I wanted people to listen, to learn from me. So I can't get mad when somebody calls me up and says, hey, I got this idea, this thing I'm working on. Would you be interested? I can't be like, why would you do that? Why would you? I brought this upon myself. But then again, I'm like, look, you gotta understand, I've got a family, including a one. And this is where my heart's at right now. And so instead of saying no, a lot of times, I'll say, I love your idea. Check back in with me in about six months or a year. So I kind of just pawn it off a little bit most of the time.
- [48:32]
Patrick Francie
Don't want to take it on. Now, you'd mentioned coaching. Do you do some. You should do some coaching for independent businesses or what do you have kind of that. That part of your life that you enjoy doing, and so that's what you do.
- [48:45]
Tommy Mello
I tend to do my coaching. Like, I get on with about 10 people at a time. I do a lot of webinars, and typically I'm talking mostly about mistakes. I'm literally talking about things I'm going through that hits home. And just a lot of it, what I try to remind them is the math of, like, this is what it costs. This is what you're giving up. This is. And I tend not to do one on one. I think when people. I understand now, when I ask for my coaches, I don't expect them to change my life. I want somebody that I actually respect when they tell me. Basically, a lot of my coaching that I get from other people is like, dude, you're smart. Think about it. It's literally counseling. And so when I talk to people, it's like, dude, remember when you wrote down why you were doing this? I'm like, I want to revisit that because let's look at your schedule and let's get your credit cards, and let's really see if that's what the most important thing was to you, because you told me your family was everything. When's the last time you went to your son's soccer game and turned off your phone the whole time? Because if that's what's so important to you and that's why you're doing all this. Then I want you to prove it. So for me, it's more of a wake up call for sometimes it's, it's, it's for some people, but I, I don't necessarily do one on one. The mostly one on one stuff I do is with my team and I'm not the best, I gotta tell you, I, I'm not the best at a lot of things and when it comes to one on ones, I try to get them to just, they're going to present to me and I'm just going to listen.
- [50:31]
Patrick Francie
Got it? When you reflect on maybe some fork in the road moments that were, that really you could look back on and go, man, I could have gone right or left straight ahead. I chose this road or this path. Was there a fork in the road moment that stood out for you that went, holy crap, if I wouldn't have chosen this, it would have been a totally different story. Do you have one of those? It seems many do, not everybody. But what is it? Is it for you? Do you see those fork in the road moments?
- [51:03]
Tommy Mello
I had a guy come into town that I liked a lot and I trusted him. And he's a very big mentor that he just knew I wouldn't say. He, he, he wasn't very optimistic. He was very pessimistic. But he had told me he was a pessimist. He was just a realist. And he's still one of my great friends. And he, he looks at my balance sheet, income statement, P and L, and he goes, he looks at all my markets and I was pretty big at the time. And he goes, you need to close down Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Tampa. And I said, there's just bad leadership there, brother. I could fix it. He goes, tommy, look at me in the eyes. He goes, you are bleeding. You will be bankrupt if you continue to bleed this bad in these four markets. You need to close them today. You give your guys a $5,000 opportunity to move to another market. You need to do this now. And I'm telling you, if there was anybody else on the planet that told me that, I would have said, go screw yourself. I closed those markets that day and we started to print money. And I've had a few different stories along the lines of just sometimes I'm pig headed. And I don't want to hear sometimes you, you're so stuck in this, the circle, it's almost like you're in your own atmosphere. If you're. If the Earth is the atmosphere and when some people can look outside of a spaceship or they're looking from Mars and they can see what's going on, it's so easy. And we want to believe that, yeah, we could fix it and we got the answers. But, you know, the more that I've realized, here's one thing I'm really great at is I'm good at seeking out the best and not being afraid if they say no. And by the way, I never look for deals anymore. I never say, hey, can you give me a discount? Because I've realized the more I buy, how I want to be bought from, the better. Like, people don't want to do deals with me anymore either. They don't call our company and say, hey, we're looking for the cheapest. They say, we want it to be fixed the right. We want you to be safe around our family. We want to make sure when we hit that garage button, it works every time. But when I used to be the guy looking, shopping all the time, trying to make deals everybody wanted. It's just the way nature works, I guess.
- [53:18]
Patrick Francie
There's a part of what you just shared in, you know, the mentor or guide that kind of said to you, shut it down. You know, there's a part of that where that takes a lot of courage. You know, first off, there's a lot of confidence with an individual who can look at a balance sheet, doesn't understand necessarily the dynamics or the people that are in those regions that you mentioned and look at that balance sheet and detach from it and go, dude, you're bleeding. You got to shut this down. You on the other side of it are going, okay, well, there's people involved, there's money involved, there's reputation involved, brand involved. There's all the stories that go through an entrepreneur's mind that has to make those hard decisions. So there's two parts to it, you know, that stand out for me and just that story, Number one, your coach ability, and number two, your ability and willingness to make those hard decisions. And those are never easy. And I faced those myself. And I've actually. I would say that because I have a really strong connection relationally to team and all the rest of it. It took me a long time. Even though he said, shut this thing down now, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Turns out he was right. And I paid a price for it. You know, it's like. But I found for myself that that was really, really tough to do. I wasn't hard ass enough. And I couldn't wrap my mind around what that would mean to the team that I was having to shut down. You follow? So I hear your story and I really get that story because I've been through that scenario myself and failed once miserably. And the other time I picked up the slack and it was okay. But I don't know if you got any comment. I wasn't going anywhere specific with that. Just an observation.
- [55:06]
Tommy Mello
But anyway, I'll just say that entrepreneurs, you know, the classic is Shark Tank, where, you know, Mr. Wonderful will get on there and say, this pig needs to die. You know, he'll make a really jackass comment and say, your bleed. And what do we always say? I realized for Nora says, you don't understand. You don't know. Like, we've got to figure it out like that. This is our dream, you know, Our dream is all it takes. Sometimes you need just a dose of reality. Sometimes it's like if you put this much passion behind a product that actually worked, you know, like. Like some people, I. I gotta tell you, it's so hard. I know so many entrepreneurs and they tell me, I want to do what you did. I want to get to the business, at least to 100 million. I'm like, okay, why? And they don't have a good reason. And I'll say, well, no problem. Just tell me you're not married. Tell me you don't have kids. And they're like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, are you married? They're like, yeah. I go, how old are your kids? Three, five and seven. So do you. Do you love them? You can't. Why do you want this? Do you want to set them up for success? Do you want to have freedom? Do you want to have a nice house on the lake? Let's write down what you want first. Let's build the business that handles those needs. I'm not mad that you want to win big, but realize sometimes winning has consequences. And then let's define what winning even is. Because your definition of winning only evolves around money. It doesn't evolve around parenting and being a good husband or wife. And let's make sure we're getting the full picture of what winning is. Because, by the way, like, you know, I'm glad I've been to rock bottom. I'm glad I came up with a mom that worked three jobs. You know, when she came home, she had blisters on her feet. I mean, she was on her feet all day when she was done being a real estate agent. She would go serve tables and I got to see what it was like. And if I didn't see her pushing that hard, you know, and I'll tell you, I don't, I don't talk about this very much, but the church had to help us out a lot with, with birthdays and Christmas and, you know, it's not that she, she made sure we had clothes on our back and everything. And if she want, if I wanted to play a sport, she made sure she made it happen. But she never had us on, on food stamps, though. She just, she said there's no way. But a lot of people at the church knew what we were going through. So she, she accepted Bibles and student Bible. I've had a lot of student Bibles when I was, when I was a kid.
- [57:31]
Patrick Francie
So when you, like when you look forward and you say, okay, well, you know, my goal is whatever the number, you know, my bottom line, my top line, whatever that's going to look like, like when you think about it, do you think in terms of legacy or do you think in terms of I'm going to exit this or I'm going to take it public or, you know, like, what is, do you have a, do you think that far ahead in terms of your overarching plan of what you want to do?
- [57:58]
Tommy Mello
I mean, I got a number in my head here for the next 18 months that I want to get to before this other exit. And then, yeah, I've got a pretty good plan on what I want to do with that. And a lot of that though is people. It's not, I'd love to show, I'd love to tell you it's Honolulu and, and the Netherlands and all the houses I want, but no, there's more, there's, there's, there's more people on the list than there are objects. If I want something, I could just go buy it right now, you know. But also, I'm very careful with who I want to give money to because I've seen it destroy, literally destroy people and destroy relationships. I look at my sister, my niece, my nephews, my brother in law and they are so happy. They, they've done well. There's a but, but it's different. And they still do vacations together and I just know that this next level is. I don't want to be the one. You know, I want to make sure they're ready for that because I don't think a lot of people are.
- [58:57]
Patrick Francie
So when you, when you consider that you've got this lifestyle, you've built it. You know, I share a quick story, and I just like your kind of view of it. You know, a friend of mine wanted to buy this particular item, this big toy is a couple hundred grand. And I said to him, I said, well, you know, why do you really want it? You don't. You can rent what you need. You don't. You know, I'm just curious. Why do you really want it? And he goes, well, you know, he says, you know, my neighbor's got one. And, you know, they're just landed their new helicopter and, you know, kind of. So, you know, that's. That's part of it, too. I don't really need one because I can rent it. And I asked him the question, you know, I said, said, so if nobody knew you owned it, would you buy it? And he looked at. He smiled and he goes, yeah. No. I go, well, I think that's your decision. So when you think about what drives you as an example, and this isn't to be. Open up a door, it's not. I'm not looking at.
- [59:49]
Tommy Mello
No, no, no, I know where you're going.
- [59:51]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. It's just a question, you know, when you. When you consider, you know, I know at this point in my life, I'm going, the last thing I want is more stuff. As a matter of fact, I just want to get rid of shit, you know, And I joke all the time, but I'm really clear. If I got to wash it, if I got to park it, if I got to insure it, if I got it, I don't want anything to do with it anymore. Like, I just. The simpler, the more. The less cluttered, the more I feel good about it. So. But, you know, so I'm not driven that way. But ultimately, I look back, and when I was in my 40s, you know, a lot of my buying decisions were just based on the fact of. Of, you know, my. Whatever I thought my personal brand might be or how I would show up in circles of influence. I don't know. Do you give that any thought? What is it for you, if you. If you even have given it any thought?
- [60:40]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, no, I've. You know, I wonder what makes me tick. Sometimes I wish there was just this black and white, easy thing. But I. You've heard the line that your ego is not your amigo. But I definitely, you know, I walk into a room, I want to feel like. I want to feel like I'm the best version of myself, and I'm the baddest ass dude that ever walked in. And some of that, it's not about Rolexes and the nice cars, but there is a little bit of it. You know, I tell myself, by creating the nicest training center in home service, it created a place where people wanted to come work and people wanted to do deals with me, and people knew I cared about my people. Well, I've kind of said that, well, if I get a nice house, family's going to love to come over. We're going to spend quality time together, we're going to live our best lives. And. And I talked about this in my first book, but I call it creative justification. And I create the justification to do certain things, even though sometimes I know. Look, I always say if you lie to. If you start lying to yourself, you figure it out. Like. Like, don't lie to yourself. If you set a goal and you tell yourself, I'm not going to smoke cigarettes or cut back the drink or whatever it might be, your body, your brain knows if you're lying. So for me, certain things, I hate to admit it, but I. I do. I want some recognition. You know, I wasn't the kid with the new bike on the. In the neighborhood. So I think there's a reason I have Knight Rider kit. I have a DeLorean 1985 Back to the Future 2. I have an Adam West Batmobile, and I just got the God of 60 seconds car. I don't have any Ferraris or Lamborghinis. I mean, we could drive a sprinter van with Raul to work, but I think I'm just kind of. And, you know, part of me just got to figure it out. But I think I'm a big kid. These are things I didn't have when I was a kid. So that's what I wanted.
- [62:28]
Patrick Francie
Oh, 100%. Yeah. Again, we go through these phases of our life, right? And again, it's just what makes us tick. You know, you mentioned RFK earlier. And so, you know, my goal is always, you know, my whole life has really kind of revolved around personal professional development, either for myself or in coaching programs that I do, etc. But I looked ahead, you know, I look in, you know, at 65 years old, I looked ahead and I go, okay, well, what's my vision of myself at 70?
- [62:59]
Tommy Mello
You know, like.
- [63:00]
Patrick Francie
And one of my hacks is, is that, you know, find somebody you admire, look at those character traits, and then go, okay, well, take them on. You don't need to know the person. What do you admire about those Character traits. So Kennedy, I looked at him, when I think of when I started, really kind of paying attention to him. He's 68 years old. You know, he's smart, he's fit, he's still active. You know, he's. He's really engaged in what he's done. He's passionate about what he believes. And I go there. There's a whole bunch of character qualities there that I admire, that I can adopt those. I can take those on. And, you know, the realization is that, you know, my fitness level is important to me, like you. You know, I measure food, I measure body fat. I do all of those things less so now because I've really come to understand the difference between fitness and wellness. So my goal right now is very, you know, I do functional exercises. It's about wellness. It's less about fitness because I realized that you can be very fit and not well, and you can be very well but not fit. And I'd rather. I'd prefer wellness over fitness at this point in my life. Now, having said that, I realized what drove me a long time ago, you know, yes, health. I've lost a couple of sisters to cancer over the years, so I know that, you know, for me, there's a health component of it, and that drives me. But I also realized that a big part of what drives me is just sheer vanity. You know, it's like, you know, I'm vain enough to go, I don't give a shit if I'm 75 years old. I'm not going to be some old fat guy. That's just what it is. I'm going to be active. I'm going to, you know, when my young nieces and nephews challenge me to something, I'm going to take it on, you know, and have fun and have some laughs doing it and hopefully inspire others that I know or that know of me and. And are my age. And they go, well, shit, if, you know, if Francie could do it, I can do it. You know, that's really what, you know, part of what it is, but underneath all of that is. Is sheer pride. You know, it's like, I. I can't. You know, this is the benchmark that I set for myself, and I'm going to stick to it. And a lot of that's, again, ego, whatever you want to look at. And so these are just different phases that I've noticed over the years for myself in understanding who I am and what drives me and what shuts me down. And again, I don't know where I go with it. But going with that particular comment, other than when I hear you and see or recognize the intensity that you are vibrating at your own discovery about what's important to you, you set a really cool benchmark for others that are observing you. You know, are you that person that they go, you know something? I love some of these character traits of Tommy, and I'm going to adopt that because a lot of people, I find over the years in talking to people, they don't know what to do. And it's a really simple exercise that I walk them through, which is, you know, pick two or three people that you admire. They can be dead, they could be alive, you can know them, you could not know them. Make a list of all the character traits that you admire about those people. And that just became your to do list or to be list. And it's really effective way of doing it, you know. Yeah, there's just that when you brought up rfk, I was going, yeah, like, you know, not only do I believe in what he stands for and what he's doing politically, but, you know, to the degree I followed his career over the past five or six years as a Canadian, you know, I follow along and watch, you know, US politics and impact on Canadian politics, et cetera, but he's a stand up kind of guy. Just really admire him. And I love how he shows up. To the degree that I see him publicly, you know, it's not like he's my pal. He didn't come over to my house, by the way. But I haven't invited him yet.
- [66:43]
Tommy Mello
No, no, it was, it was by chance. I, I've, I've got to know him. It was funny. I was with a few of my buddies in my game room. I've got Golden Tea and Big Buck Hunter and we always play these games and it's like 10 at night. It might have not. It was like nine at night. And I go, I'm gonna call our FK. They're like, yeah, right. I'm like, no, I'm gonna call him. I'm. I'm just gonna see what he needs, how his campaign's going. This is before he dropped out, ran under the Trump campaign. But he answered and it was, it was funny as hell, man. It was great. I. So Darren Hardy wrote the Compound Effect and He wrote down 100 things he wanted in the Perfect Woman. Very descriptive, started to manifest everything he wanted and just motherly features and, and just the way she was gonna love and what she would like to do in her Pastimes. And really he got very, very, very intentional with what he wanted. And he read this list out loud and he looked in the mirror and says, there's no way I could ever get a woman like this. So he wrote down 100 things he would need to become to even be able to get a woman like that. And when I read that, I remember writing down 30 things I would need to become to get the people I wanted to work around. And I called them co workers. And I knew that I would have to be way more humble. I would need to give credit to them. You know, there's this. There's this saying on the wall that we have here is no one knows who the boss is. Meaning that I'm not sitting here. We don't run this authoritarian business. I'm like, you should. You'd be surprised if you walked into my office and you saw what people tell me and they're like, we don't. They. They say no all the time. In fact, I probably have more no people around me than anybody you've ever met. I mean, it's almost like hard to get anything done that I want. I've got to have a very compelling case. Yes, I could. I could always. And sometimes I have the veto power and I very, very rarely use this, but sometimes I do in marketing and stuff like that. But yeah, I think it's important to manifest what we want. The vivid vision. I don't want to do it when I'm 70 or 80. I'm just trying to go to like 45 to 50, what kind of father I want to be, because I'm not a father yet. And I feel like that's going to be my biggest. Like all this stuff was piece of cake compared to this next chapter. I'm looking so true.
- [69:00]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. Boss is a four letter word. When you think about your existing business, you know, it sounds like. And I'm curious, is. Is it intentional for you? So, you know, I'm a big believer in creating culture, environment for, you know, the business and, you know, being the, you know, pointing into the spear. The culture and the environment is really a reflection of what I stand for and who I am. And, you know, really sitting down with the team and designing culture intentionally, is that kind of the work? Do you do that body work or whether you do it yourself or have somebody come in to support you in creating that culture, defining that culture and environment.
- [69:38]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. I always tell people, if you don't define it, build your culture, it'll build itself. And when it builds Itself, it's usually not a good one. It's not intentional, it's not great. So, yes, the culture here is, listen, I'm going to give everything I've got. I'm going to give you everything I've got. My question I asked all my management two weeks ago is I said, every person on your team, would you bet your family's future of them? And if not, then why are they here? I don't. Look, I'm not the first one to just want to top grade and get rid of people. But how did they end up here? Was it our fault or their fault? Because for me, it's all mindset and I'm like, look, I can't imagine. I don't even want their name. I will write them a letter of recommendation. I will help them get a job. But I need winners. There's a good buddy that I've been hanging out a lot with. His name's Robert Ciadini. He wrote the book Influence. And this idea of being able to pick your own goals, your own benchmarks and set. This is what I'm going to do. And then to pronounce it to everybody at the top of the mountain and then to write it down on the wall to where your whole cohort could see it. And if you get that one right, that's probably the most powerful thing he talks about. That's what we're focused on, is I'm going to have you pick your goals. I'm going to pick my goals. They're going to be big, big, big, big, big goals. We call them Tommy goals here. And even if I don't hit them, I'm going to fail trying. Like, look, I'm not going to give up. And the people that are here, I mean, they can have anything they want. You know, it's not uncommon for someone to make 200 grand here. That's not a COO, you know, so I just, I wish people would dream a little bit bigger. I wish people, you know, that are listening here, I wish you reverse engineer. What would have to happen, you know, if I asked you a question and I said, what would have to happen for you to 3x next year or this year that we're in right now? And someone asked me what would have to happen if you were going to 10x 2025? I said I'd have to be way more grateful. I need to tell everybody how much I love them more and appreciate them. I would need to become the best interviewer on the planet. I'd have to be Doing way more checking, you know, their last boss and their boss before that, and really making sure everything's legit. And I would have to get out of the way more. I said, that's as easy. If I wanted a 10x, it means I got to go find more talent and more and more. And that, that's. So it was pretty clear when I figured out what would have to happen with me to 10x. And it's thinking outside of the box. It's not within this box. You got to start thinking so much differently to 10x.
- [72:11]
Patrick Francie
I love it. As we start to wind down, I got a couple quick questions for you before I kind of get into the last phase of our chat. I appreciate your, your time and, and the wisdom that you've shared and some of the insights you've shared. Tommy, it's been great. When you look at what's happening politically in the world today, when you look at the global macro and, you know, various wars and, you know, new president and you look at what's going on in other countries, do you get caught up in that? Do you concern yourself with it or is it just. No, this is what I'm doing. The rest of that is just noise. How do you view what's going on in the world these days, given the kind of, the uncertainty of what's happening in other countries, east versus West, Like I say, all of the wars that are going on, new president, you know, out with the old, in with a new, blowing shit up, you know, how do you, how do you view it these days? As a business owner in. To the degree you know, in the capacity that you are and to the degree you are. Because again, you're national in scope, you've got a, a big business going on. How does that all land for you?
- [73:18]
Tommy Mello
It's hard for me to avoid it. I mean, listen, I, I don't get into the doom and gloom, the depression. I gotta tell you, I'm very pro business, obviously, no entrepreneur. I don't really get into a lot of the, you know, guns and there's a lot of sides I take on things, but I don't really publicly, I just say, look, I tend to put my money into, like, I do give back to great causes. I've never seen the government, the bureaucracy, spend the money better than the people. So typically I'm voting for the economy. And I was very nervous at the end of times. Like, seriously, revelations like doom and gloom, like, I was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna get crazy. And all of a sudden, like all the prisoners were released in, you know, not Jerusalem, but Israel. And Putin's coming to the table now. I think that'll be done in 90 days. Do I think it's all clear? Do I think Trump is like the greatest thing since man? No. Obviously, there was some talks of tariffs. Mexico already came to the table. I do think Trudeau is going to have to come to the table because frankly, and I say this, listen, I know you're Canadian, and this I have nothing to do with the last 50 years, but if we were to do this with Canada, we're doing it with China, we would do it with Mexico, our GDP would get affected by less than a half percent. It would send Canada and Mexico spiraling into a depression, most likely, that, you know, these are economic outlooks. So do I. Doom and gloom? No. Do I think. By the way, I'm not LDS and I'm not Canadian, but those are two of my favorite people. Mormons and Canadians, probably. I've never met somebody from Canada that I didn't like or that was out to take advantage of me. Dan Martell is actually Canadian. So I'm, I'm paying attention to what's going on. If Mexico didn't do that. Chamberlain is made in Mexico, they're assembled in Mexico. Would have. Would have affected my business. But you know what? I said, fine, everyone else gonna have to pay. You know, it's. If it's going up for everybody. So that's the way I look at it. But I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. I don't, you know, no matter what.
- [75:36]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. Nobody really, really knows. We know that Trudeau's a very incompetent prime minister and leader, and we're paying the price for it as these things move forward. But, you know, those are my political views. I'm pretty public about my political views when it comes to our NDP Liberal government here in Canada. And we're going to pay a price for it, sadly. So that's just the way that rolls. Listen, as we wind things down and have a little bit of kind of rapid fire, have some fun as we wind things down. Just some quick questions for you, Tommy. We'll start with an easy one. Android or Apple?
- [76:12]
Tommy Mello
Android.
- [76:13]
Patrick Francie
You're an Android guy. I'm surprised by that, but okay. That's.
- [76:18]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, a lot of people are. Yeah.
- [76:20]
Patrick Francie
I used to be an Android guy. Switched over to Apple a few years ago. I like it. I like the ecosystem. It's a good system. Favorite Music, Favorite song. Are you a music file at all? Are you a music guy?
- [76:32]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, if we go to concerts, it's usually country. Morgan Wallen, Bri loves country. I love edm. I. There's not a whole lot of music I don't like. I could get down with anything if I gotta work out. Usually I like something fast paced. I don't work out to country, I'll tell you that.
- [76:48]
Patrick Francie
Favorite movie?
- [76:50]
Tommy Mello
Maverick, the second Top Gun.
- [76:53]
Patrick Francie
Ah, there you go. That was actually pretty good, wasn't it? And if God exists, what do you want them to say when you get to the gates?
- [77:01]
Tommy Mello
I'll tell you what I don't want him to say is I don't want him to bring someone up that looks a lot like me. Just better shape, made better decisions, lived a better life and said, hey, I wanted to introduce you to somebody. This is the guy I intended you to be. That's what I don't want to happen, but I'd love for him to say that. Welcome to eternity. And you're going to like this place.
- [77:24]
Patrick Francie
Beautiful, impactful book. A book that stands out for you or one that you would share or buy, gift something. Was there a book that's a real standout for you? I'm sure you've read many, like most have, but is there one that was kind of pivotal for you?
- [77:39]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, the most recent one, I really do like Dan Martell, buy back your time. But Dale Carnegie is my favorite book. How to win friends and influence people. Napoleon Hill, Think and grow Rich. I like that book a lot. And then I would say Robert Sheddini, you know, if you haven't read the book Influence or Pre Suasion, those two books will change your life.
- [77:57]
Patrick Francie
Wow. I will make a note of those. I mean, you named some classics. That last one I'm not familiar with. I haven't read that, hadn't heard of it actually. So that's great. Thanks for sharing it. And final question, Tommy. What are you grateful for today?
- [78:14]
Tommy Mello
This is going to be an amazing week. I've got everybody that I care about pretty much coming into town. For the most part, I don't. You know, I'm just. I'm just glad that, look, I'm healthy, my mom's healthy, my dad's healthy, my sister, my niece and nephews breeze healthy. If you put things into perspective, that's really all that matters. We wake up. I always say there's 2 billion stars in our galaxy, there's 4 trillion galaxies that we know about. Our problems aren't that big. I live in the United States of America. I'm healthy. I've got a roof over my head. Things are pretty darn good.
- [78:56]
Patrick Francie
Good answer. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet you, have you share your time, your energy, your insights with me on the podcast today. Like you, I'm incredibly healthy and very grateful for that fact as well. So thanks very much for all that you've shared today today. Appreciate it.
- [79:14]
Tommy Mello
Thanks Patrick. This was great. I really enjoyed it.
- [79:18]
Patrick Francie
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.
- [79:21]
Narrator
If you found value in the podcast.
- [79:23]
Patrick Francie
Please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is.
- [79:29]
Narrator
My goal to always improve and to.
- [79:31]
Patrick Francie
Provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email me at CEO@raincanada.com. that's CEO@reincanada.com. i look forward to hearing from you and until next time. Patrick. Oh.