378 – Think about the people that have made your life better: Tom talks Christmas 2020

Episode 378 – Christmas 2020
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode three hundred and seventy eight of Screw the Commute podcast. This is Christmas 2020.

[00:00:32] Today I want to publicly give thanks to the good things and good people in my life and maybe it will stimulate you to write down and thank the people that are important in your life. I hope you didn't miss Episode 377. That was Mitch Davis. He's best known for expertclick.com and the Yearbook of Experts, but his new venture is SpeakerLeads.com and it's free. It's free to get speaking engagement leads. What a deal. Check that out at Episode 377. Any time you want to go to a past episode, just put Screwthecommute.com, forward slash and then the episode number 377 for Mitch's episode.

[00:01:16] Right now, in this short episode, I'm going to dispense with all the sponsor messages for my school and mentor program and get right to my purpose for today's episode.

[00:01:28] The first person I'd like to thank is my dad, who passed away a little over 20 years ago. He was a working man his entire life. And many of you know, I regularly do a tribute to him. But for now, I'll just give you an insider's scoop to what he means to me first to really give you a flavor of what he was like at 90 years old and legally blind.

[00:01:52] Ok, if nobody was watching him, he'd be carrying a 90 pound roll of roofing material on his shoulder and as he climbed up a ladder to work on a roof.

[00:02:04] Ok, meantime, one time I came home from school and he had a cement mixer going behind our car. The rear quarter panels were rusting out, so he fixed them with concrete.

[00:02:21] You could break your foot if you kicked them. I mean, the car didn't get very good mileage after that, but it would go like heck in the snow.

[00:02:32] When he retired at 73 years old from being an electrician and only with a 2nd grade education, I might add, he sat down and read the entire 26 volume World Book Encyclopedia. All right, that was just a taste of what I grew up seeing. So let me tell you some more inside scoop about me and my dad. When you hear me on this podcast, you're actually hearing him.

[00:03:03] Behind me on the mantel is a picture and a flag, his picture and a flag that was on his military funeral coffin.

[00:03:14] My dad taught me to do things. Last night, I'm recording this Christmas Day, Christmas morning, but last night, Christmas Eve 2020, I built a portable sound booth to really raise the quality of the recordings of my audio books.

[00:03:33] That's what he was right there with me, he taught me how to build things and use tools, I still have his toolbox in my garage and I literally get a tear in my eye when I go to Home Depot or Lowe's, and not just because of the prices.

[00:03:51] Can you believe I paid thirteen dollars for a piece of three quarter inch copper pipe, which would have gone for maybe 50 to 75 cents when I was a kid. I guarantee you he was spinning in his grave when he thought that. He really loved Harbor Freight because, you know, they're cheap prices. Anyway, I go to those places sometimes just to get an extra burst of his presence.

[00:04:21] Even my employees marvel at my frugalness in my willingness to buy used and to fix things rather than throw money away on new stuff that's frequently junky.

[00:04:32] Anyway, thanks to my dad and if you're interested, I'll put a link to his eulogy that I did for him in the show notes. I mean, it got a lot of attention and inspire, people were begging me to do a keynote speech on it, but I mean, still to this day, I can't read the whole thing and I get teared up. Anyway, it got a lot of attention and inspired many other people to do a similar document for their mom or dad while they were still alive. Anyway, I can't really read it without tearing up, but it'll be in the show notes for you.

[00:05:07] Next is my longtime girlfriend, Kay, and her entire family, which other than my dad has been a better family to me than my own. OK, so she took care of me when I was torn up from a hunting accident and just has been the best thing in my life.

[00:05:36] Next would be all the people that have worked for me over my 44 years in business. Currently, Jen, who has been so wonderful to me over many years and Marc has been running my video operation in school for at least 12 years, I mean, he's been here so long, we can't really remember when he started.

[00:05:57] Travis worked here for a long time and the mentees just love his kind and patient manner. He's now going off on his own, but still freelances with me and takes care of the mentees.

[00:06:09] Larry, who is a graduate of my school, has been a godsend. He's totally on the ball and he watches over my sites way better than I do. And his can do attitude would have really been applauded by my dad.

[00:06:25] Now Ilya is another person that stands out, and I recruited him out of 10th grade back in 1997, I think it was. I helped turn him into an entrepreneur and he just sold his third startup company. Are you sitting down?

[00:06:45] Three hundred and forty million dollars, he sold Pluto.TV to Viacom. All right, but you know the stuff he helped me with way back in 1997. So it goes both ways. I'm still using today. But I told him the next time I go to L.A., he's paying for dinner, that's for sure.

[00:07:07] Next are my friends, Bob and David, who I've known and respected since the 80s, who they worked on my ice machine back then at my nightclub in Morgantown, West Virginia. And still to this day remotely, Bob helps me work on my air conditioners at the retreat center. Saves me a fortune. And you got Joey, my cop buddy, who, when I got in a hunting accident, actually went to Wal-Mart to get me underwear for my stay in the hospital. And he also taught me a lot about welding.

[00:07:42] Nicole and Stephane, who are my professional dog trainers, lived with me for nine months when their new house was getting ready and they asked me to be the godfather to their little daughter. And I'll be down there having dinner today and seeing them. And last but not least, my wonderful neighbors, Fran and Cathy, you just couldn't ask for any better people to share a cul de sac with, I think they feel sorry for me living in this big house by myself. So super cook Cathy makes Fran bring me care packages to pass over our mutual fence. It's like that show on TV. We're looking over the fence at each other and the stuff she makes frequently gets gobbled up before I get to my front door. It's so good.

[00:08:35] Well, I'm getting a little sentimental here, so if I've left anybody out, I really apologize. But next are all the mentees I've had the privilege to work with over the last twenty two years. There's been over seventeen hundred of them from all kinds of businesses and all walks of life. They've really kept me on my toes to keep up on what works and what doesn't on the Internet. Also, the tens of thousands of audience members that have laughed at my quirky humor and taken action because of me, I thank them. Now, for those of you speakers out there, you just never know who or how you're going to touch someone with your words. I was doing a fundraiser in Philadelphia not too long ago, and a lady ran up to me pretty much bursting in tears. She said that I think about 10 years ago she had heard me speak and she couldn't afford to join my program. But she did what I talked about in the speech and she said it saved her family. Oh, my God. And.

[00:09:44] And she still has a nice online business. She hugged me and of course, I started crying, too. I just these things are so powerful. So if you're up there speaking, remember that you could be touching somebody's lives and change in it for the better. And I can't forget, my God, like animals, many of them are in doggie heaven, unfortunately, but my boy Rubix, his funeral has been seen about 14000 times on Facebook. I'll put that in the show notes also. I've shared tons of little guys and girls with Kay over many years, really too many to mention, but my two German Shepherd protection dogs, Tuck and Abby, are my best buddies. And and they literally scare the heck out of delivery people. I was outside once when a substitute U.P.S. driver was making a delivery. I met her at the mailbox and she said. This is the place with the scary dogs, right? I guess I guess word gets around.

[00:10:54] Anyway, I hope this little foray into my world of people and animals didn't bother you too much. I hope it inspired you to think about the people that have made your life better. So Merry Christmas and I'll talk to you on the next episode.

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