Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream. This isn't an interview, and we're not journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success.
Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Welcome, everybody, to Selling the Dream.
I am here today with, as always, my good friend Joe Iredell. And not to be confused, a lot of people think it's Otterdale. You know, you get that a lot.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Joe Iridel. There's only one or.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Iredale.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it goes. Goes back to one of our very first Supreme Court Justices of the United States, James Iredell, and then his. His son, who was the Governor of North Carolina. So there's an Iredell county as well. So somewhere between them and me, the train went terribly off the tracks. So I'm trying to bring it back.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I could tell you a story about my last name being Jordan and the lineage, but the reality is I do have a claim to fame. Our family bloodline has a claim to fame. And you have to be from our area to know that the George Platt Bridge is the alternative way to get from here to the stadium. Right?
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: And my great, great, great grandfather was George Platt, Medal of Honor winner in the Civil War. Most people don't know that, so.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I had to change a tire on that bridge one time.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: That's. That's risky business, man.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah, it was in high school.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: That's a good Delco secret, huh? Is. Is using the. It's to the airport or bust. Coming from the wrong direction.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Well, see, that's it.
[00:01:56] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Coming the back way. Anyway, joining us today.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Someone who was referred to us by our good friend Jay Duran. Culture Matters podcast. Shout out to Jay, who was awesome enough to introduce us to Alex Rodin. Alex is the business development officer, carries a badge, Westcott Financial Advisory Group.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Alex, first of all, thank you so much for joining us today.
Really looking forward to our conversation and really looking forward to just kind of talking about sales, talking about leadership, talking about entrepreneurship, all the fun stuff that we get into here on the podcast.
[00:02:40] Speaker D: I love it, man. Ken, good to see you in the flesh, or virtual flesh, as it were. Ken and I were introduced by Jay, as Ken mentioned, and Joe I just met about 48 seconds ago, and I'm already in love. So really, really good to meet you both. Or to see. To see one, to meet the other, and just on the last name front. So my last name is Rawdon, but you did it. You nailed it. No, no, no, no.
But like, we were talking about Joe's last name, which is the name of a county and the name of. I don't have any of that prowess behind mine, but what I do have is the ability to say, it's like raw dinner, minus the nerve. And every single time, people get it. If I don't do that, I get Radwin, I get Rodin, I get Rodent, I get.
It's. I. This. This is my cross to bear. I will never. Joe, I feel your pain, man.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: I will never forget that. That's raw dinner.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: That's actually pretty good.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: All right, let's close it up. We're good. We're done.
[00:03:39] Speaker D: If you got something better, I'm all ears, man.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: So did everybody call you the raw dog in college or what?
[00:03:46] Speaker D: Now?
[00:03:48] Speaker D: What do you. What do you think?
[00:03:49] Speaker C: What do you think? I think so. Right?
[00:03:51] Speaker D: And it. And it pervade. It's pervasive. It continues to this day.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: There we go. All right.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I love it, man.
[00:03:59] Speaker D: It's not on my LinkedIn, but I guess, you know, it's out there now.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: There we go.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: As always, before we get into. I'm going to ask you to share a little background on your professional career and your journey. But before we get into that, you know, one of the games we love to play is two truce and a lot. And we started this game, if you remember, we had a guest on who was a professional lie detector. She was a behavioral.
What was her title? Remember, Joe? She was some sort of behavioral scientist.
So. So she tried to tell if Joe was lying about stuff. Right. And we thought it was hilarious. And I don't. I don't think she got. I don't think she did.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: She did not.
The falcon had become the falconer at that point, Right?
[00:04:48] Speaker B: So we figured, let's turn it around. Let's have a little fun. So we ask our guests to give us three facts. Two of them are true, one of them's a lie. And by the time we're done, Joe, the new human lie detector, is going to try and figure out which one is the lie and which two are the truths, obviously.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: So I'm also not that good at it either. I'm just going to throw this out.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: His track record sucks.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: I think I'm like 33%, which would make sense.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: As far as a batting average.
[00:05:17] Speaker D: That ain't bad, Joe.
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: All right, Alex, give us three facts.
[00:05:22] Speaker D: All right, so number one, won a pizza eating contest once.
It was a whole pie. First to finish, wins.
[00:05:32] Speaker D: Attended Ryan Howard. Yes, the Ryan Howard's wedding.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: And once played music.
I used to be a musician, maybe still a little bit.
Once played music in front of somewhere between four and 500 people. That was my biggest audience.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: In front of four or 500 people, something like that.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: We'll talk about that.
[00:06:00] Speaker D: It's squishy, you know, the devil's in.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: The details, you know? And then they come back, they're like, no, it was actually 399.
[00:06:07] Speaker D: I was just gonna say it was 300.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: See?
[00:06:10] Speaker B: All right, let's not ruin it, because then we know it stays to the end if they. If we give it away now, like, yeah, gotta keep them engaged until the very end.
All right, Alex, yourself. Give us a little bit about your background and how you ended up in. In financial services.
[00:06:26] Speaker D: Yeah, man, thanks. Well, first. First again, just really good to be with you guys. Thanks for having me on the pod.
So I have a little bit of a zigzag journey, and I'll give you the Cliff Notes, but I grew up in the area. I'm from Cheltenham.
[00:06:43] Speaker D: Famed town from both Reggie Jackson and Lil Dickey. You know, just to.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Drop in left and right.
[00:06:53] Speaker D: That is our two, you know, the either side of the continuum claim to fame.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: Went to undergrad in Syracuse at Syracuse University, and then went to New York City to live and work and play for a while. And I studied entrepreneurship in undergrad, and that was kind of my way of saying, I don't want to pick a specific business area. Let me just kind of study it all. And I got a great exposure to marketing and to create. There's literally a creativity class, which is super cool. Accounting, finance, et cetera, et cetera. So got an idea of the business world that I knew I kind of wanted to get into. And, you know, low and just in the background.
My dad founded this business, so I'll get to that point in a minute, but founded this business, and I, you know, I was wearing a little suit jacket and carrying on her briefcase when I was a kid, so I knew I wanted to, like, do something in this space. But along the way, I discovered music.
So in college, I was playing in bands. I was playing solo.
And when I moved to New York City, I moved to take a job at a music agency. So we were representing artists, and I continued to play music while I was there. I worked at the agency, started as an intern, worked my way up to senior agent, and after a little while, decided I wanted to move into the tech side of the music world.
And after a couple of zigzags, I ended up at Pandora Radio and working on sales and revenue operations and kind of the amalgamation of those things and learned a ton while I was there, not the least of which is how to be within a really.
[00:08:39] Speaker D: Burgeoning, but established somehow those two things are related.
Corporate culture, it's very cool, but there's also the nature of it being a many thousand person organization.
And I decided to move home to Philly after I got married. And when I moved home to Philly, I stayed with Pandora for about a year.
But it was always in the back of my mind, you know, my dad founded this business and you know, I've said in the past to people he could have been selling telephone poles and I still would have wanted to follow in his footsteps.
But, you know, once I got back home, I thought more about, you know, what's.
What do I want to do, you know, how do, what do I want my life to look like.
There's very few people in the world, you know, relatively speaking, who have the opportunity to work with family.
And I didn't want to, you know, regret passing that opportunity up if there was an opportunity there. So, long story short, I asked my dad to go fishing one day we were down at the Jersey shore and I dropped the bomb on him. I said, I'd love to, you know, see if there's a place for me at Westcott. And he said, great, what are you gonna do?
I was like, I don't know.
So we thought about that a little bit more because obviously I need to do something that's going to be productive and helpful. And he put me through the interview process maybe a little bit more stringently than some of the other folks who come.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Did you.
Or how did you put, like, what was your.
[00:10:04] Speaker D: No, I. Yeah, everyone was Mr. And Mrs. And had the pocket watch and everything. I mean, I was, I came in guns a blazing. And you know, among the things that we do through the interview process, and this is just one of the things that I love about this firm and culturally it's kind of ingrained in us. We administer this Myers Briggs like it's the best comparison I can give.
[00:10:27] Speaker D: Personality test called the Caliper. And one of the things that it tests for is empathy level.
And if you are not testing, you know, extraordinarily high on the empathy scale, regardless of what everything else is and the other things are important. But if you cannot feel others, if you cannot feel their problems, their issues, you can't like, put yourself in their shoes.
This is not the business for you. And so luckily that Was, you know, I'm a chip off the old block and to some extent, and he's got it, I've got it. So that part was not as hard for the interview piece.
And I came on board and, you know, I was skipping some details, but I landed in this business development role after a few. It was three years working here and the need was, we had a need for a business development person, someone to lead business development, organic growth.
And my hand was raised for me, said, hey, this would be a really good opportunity for you. I think you'd be really good at it.
Okay, great. That was our coo, not my, not my father. My father was. He's been, you know, he's arm's length. He's an incredible mentor and he wants to and as do I make sure that it's very clear that this is not a family business.
We are family members working at a firm together. And yes, there was a door that was open for me, but I had to walk through it and I had to prove my worth once I got here. And I, you know, utmost respect for him for that.
So I got into this role beginning of 2020, which was a really interesting time to start doing pure sales.
And now here we are on zoom or some version thereof. And this is how so much of our business gets conducted now. So it was a good entree to that. And I've been leading business development ever since. So every new prospective client that comes through our doors usually almost always comes across my desk. Could be a client referral, it could be a center of influencer, you know, a contact that I've been working or another member of our team has been working. It could be just a cold reach out from someone, which happens luckily very frequently, any number of different ways, and then that's. That's reactive. The proactive stuff is getting out into the community and getting to know everybody and trying to solve problems where I can and just trying to be a good guy.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: You had mentioned something that Joe is passionate about. I don't know if you picked up on it.
You had said, what was your major in undergrad entrepreneurship. Okay. So we interviewed the dean of the school of entrepreneurship at Dresden University here on. On the podcast.
[00:13:04] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: And we went, we actually went round and round.
Tell me about your experience through a structured college entrepreneurship major and how is it valuable to the reality of being an entrepreneur? And Joe, I'm let you talk a little bit about it, but Alex, I'd like you to go first.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I was curious too. That's a great Lead in.
[00:13:31] Speaker D: I think it's a really good way of describing a generalist business education.
[00:13:38] Speaker D: And the entrepreneurial element of it. I mean, how do you teach that? Right. Like I mentioned, there was a class that we had on creativity. There were a couple of other kind of elective style classes that tried to, like, poke at that. Right. Brain stuff.
But ultimately, like, you know, business education, certainly undergrad is going to include some of the big things that I mentioned, like accounting and finance and marketing.
And so there, the attempt is to try to tie it all together.
And one of the things that I really liked about the program was in tying it together, they really tried to spark it for you. Right. Like, what is it that turns you on?
This is a framework. This is a shell into which you can inject your passion and ideas.
And that's a really helpful education to have. But there's something that's gotta be within.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: There's like a capstone at the end of your program where you come up with a business plan, you pitch it. It's a big old competition. And so that's like a more formal way of kind of giving some Runway for aspiring entrepreneurs or at least aspiring business leaders to do something with that. The way that I looked at it was a little less like, I have a business idea, I want to start it. It was more that I was interested in finance and I was interested in marketing, and I was interested. And this was a really good way to get exposure to all of it.
And so that's the path that I took. But, Joe, let's kick it over to you, man. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
[00:15:02] Speaker C: That. That's actually a pretty succinct way to put it. And I've My whole.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: Not theory, but, like, contention with entrepreneurial programs as a. As a structured way is like, there's. I asked. I asked the dean, I said, so how do you. How does someone get accepted? Do they fail every single class.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: And then they finally pass one, like, all right, cool, we want you.
[00:15:33] Speaker D: That adds up. Yeah, yeah, that's like.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: That's basically how I would envision training to be an entrepreneur would be. But like, I guess in the framework of understanding the vehicle of. Or how all the. How everything kind of ties together and, and moving towards the. Your. Your vision or your goal of what you want to make money, like to do or grow or whatever, that. That makes a lot more sense. But like, I've come to grips with the fact that, like, these. In universities that have entrepreneurial programs, it's the same as having, like, getting a degree in art, like Mozart or Picasso doesn't go to get an art degree, but you can certainly study all the great artists and understand the, you know, the techniques and all of that kind of stuff in a. In a scholarly fashion. But that doesn't make you.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: It doesn't make you an artist. It doesn't make you. You can, you can go to art school.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: So that's, so that's. I've, I've. Because I've thought about it. Great. You know, like, how do you. What creates an entrepreneur? Like, so if you frame it that way, that's, That's a little bit more.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: Well, and Joe, as I sit here, I mean, I, I am not by definition an entrepreneur. I'm a company man. I've worked at several organizations and, and, you know, I'm proud of the work that I've done there, but I haven't started an organization, and I don't know that, frankly. I don't know that I have the.
The steel to do it.
I. I embrace.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: Probably too smart. That's the problem.
[00:17:07] Speaker D: I'll take that.
[00:17:10] Speaker D: Well, you know, like, the.
[00:17:13] Speaker D: Certainly there's an element of that 100% more than anything. I mean, personally, I just. The fear of failure, which has decreased as I've gotten older because, you know, age breeds some amount of wisdom a little bit.
I still, you know, there's this tug between, like, progress versus perfection.
And I have always lived on the perfection side of things. That doesn't mean that I've done it, by the way. That's if sometimes it's stymied me. And so like, to be able to be okay, and not only okay, but embrace the failure and look at it as another opportunity and max out your credit cards and maybe ruin some relationships. Like, you have to be so passionately, powerfully driven to accomplish this thing. At least that's the way that I've always seen it from the outside in order to be an entre, you know, in order to do this. And I have a little bit more risk aversion to do that.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:14] Speaker D: Like, I've. I've chosen some paths that, you know, you could argue some are a little less traditional, some are certainly a little more traditional, but none of them have been wildly risky, you know, and I've just been fortunate to be in good places at good times.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: It's funny, it kind of. It validates in some way our Joe's contention before, which is like, you can't produce an entrepreneur. And while you went through that program, it didn't produce an entrepreneur. And it doesn't mean that it wasn't insanely valuable for what you're doing today, but it does kind of reinforce that. The idea of.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Your analogy of studying art versus being an artist, I do think that that's 100% valid. That being an entrepreneur is. Is not something that can be taught in a classroom in a lot of ways, you know.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yeah, like, if I'm being real, for me to be able to have the lifestyle that I want it and, you know, which isn't like, whatever, I look pretty simple, but like, I didn't have any other options. Like, I could get a job and I could work and make okay money, but like, I wasn't gainfully employable. Like, you know, I didn't have the best grades. I didn't have, you know, none of the things that would have put me in a situation where I was getting a great job out of college and then, you know, working my way up in a law firm or something like that. Like, I didn't have it. So it's like, how am I going to make this, like, okay, well, I gotta figure something out. And that. That's how it went. So, like, you know, there's a. Definitely, there's a comfort level of.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Going a corporate structure and working your way up that way. But, like, there's also. You have to be able. You have to have the credentials to be able to do that. So I, I know personally for myself, I know a lot of other entrepreneurs and business owners and people have grown stuff like, they didn't have any of it. I was like, all right, well, it's like, I got nothing to lose.
[00:20:09] Speaker D: So if you got. Yeah. If you got nothing backing you like that, I mean, you. I think you're right. And they're certainly. This is going to sound a little weird, but it might even be the less the. I was going to say easier, but I don't know that it's an easy. It's not an easy path. But versus climbing that corporate ladder and just getting.
You're. You are not in control of that. You are in control to some extent, your own destiny and the entrepreneur seat. Now just a little bit of pushback. Because I do know a fair amount of people now, they, they went to college, they did okay, you know, nothing super impressive, but they, you know, they had some bit of credential behind them and they convinced somebody to give them a shot and they started at the bottom. And I'm thinking about one, one friend of mine in particular who, you know, and he went to college, he did fine. Smart, really smart guy. And he got into real estate and he just climbed. Climb the ladder. He rocketed it up it.
And it was because he's charismatic, He's a great salesperson. He's this is, he's like a savant when it comes to this area of the real estate market. I mean, he just, he knows it so well. And some of that is practice and some of that is just, you know, innate instinct. But, but, you know, it's like anybody can cut. Anybody's story could be different based on any number of different factors. And one of the things that I keep, that I've been, you know, kind of reflecting on the last few months, I guess, is just the way that your life kind of can come together. And there are, you know, you don't want to live with regret, right?
But how do you not, you know, there, there are things I look back on, and if I had taken a left turn, maybe things would look a little bit different.
But two things you can't control. You can't control yesterday, you can't control tomorrow. It's just that that already happened. This hasn't happened yet. So here I am driving forward and I'm enjoying the ride.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: I think that there's also, to that point, like, I think that there's not enough, there's not enough kind of credit given to just straight luck sometimes.
Because, like, you know, I heard somebody say it recently. They're like, I've made, you know, 10,000 left turns and 10,000 right turns in my life. It's like, and if I didn't make that one right turn that one time, I wouldn't be where I am right now. So, so there's, there's a lot that goes along with that. But then also you have to be ready to jump when you have the opportunities. And you have to basically just like, you know, we say cut the parachute or like, whatever, like, you know, and do it. So I think that having a skill set and being trained and knowing that you can rely on what you've learned and so forth, it makes that transition a lot easier to go out. But then it also makes it a lot more scary because the more that you know, the more scared you get because there's more things that, like, you're not just some blissful idiot. That's like, all right, well, I'm going to start a business tomorrow. Let's see how that goes. So, like, it's such a, such a give and take.
[00:23:20] Speaker D: But yeah, there's a Lot to be said about being a blissful idiot man and especially being in the seat that I am, you know, not to put too much focus on it, but, like, I'm the son of the founder, and that fact is never lost on me. I mean, I came in here first, you know, a little un. Just uncertain, you know, like, what does that mean? How do I prove myself? And do I. Am I, you know, lacking in my confidence? Because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do it the way dad does it or not, you know, and, you know, that's all kind of resolved out over time and experience, but that. That imposter syndrome voice. And I know I'm not alone in this.
It's always there. I mean, it's. It gets it. The volume goes down as you kind of train yourself or, you know, whatever your mental health practices are, that they get you into a better spot, but it's always there. And I just, you know, I'm doing it less frequently and less loudly than I used to, but I still. Every once in a while, I'm turning around and be like, shut the fuck up. Like, I'm good. And. And that is like one of these universal truths that it doesn't matter who your parents are, it doesn't matter what career path you chose. It doesn't matter. Everyone has it every. It's like a great equalizer among others that you just, you know, you. At some point, you start. Have to. You have to start trusting your gut and that you're in whatever seat you're in, not only because of whatever other factors you think might be contributing to it, but because you are you, and you have your own set of skills and you bring value.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Actually, I'm glad you touched on that, because that's. I'm really curious because I can imagine that you coming in with your dad as the founder, that can go one of two ways.
[00:25:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: So was there. Tell me about that, you know, reception of the employees? Were there power struggles or there people who are, you know, like, not. And you don't have to dish, you know, like, no, no, no. This podcast anyway, if you want to give the dirt, the dirt. But, like, you know, perceived. And, like, how did you. How did you navigate that? Because I feel like.
[00:25:31] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:25:31] Speaker C: If I could do that. Like, that. That'd be such huge shoes to fill, and there'd be so much on me. Like, I'd either want to knock everybody out or, like, you know, not do it.
[00:25:41] Speaker D: Here's where the blissful idiot syndrome Comes in being, you know, fairly, you know, advantageous. I don't know if it was, you know, emotional immaturity or just like, kind of willful blindness.
[00:25:57] Speaker D: I came in not really appreciating whether or not or how big of a deal that could be.
[00:26:03] Speaker D: And so my, like, my sensitivity to it occurred in more reactive terms because I, like, started to feel like I.
Not even that I had a microscope on me, but, you know, their eyes were on me a little bit more than your normal, you know, your average Joe.
And I mean, to everybody else's credit, and I do mean this not just because this is publicly. This is going to be publicly facing, but, like, everybody embraced it.
I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that, you know, longtime employees, they all trust my father.
You know, this. There's. We've got people here who have been here almost since the founding of the business, which is almost 40 years ago. And then folks who have 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 years of tenure. So people come here to work here and stay here. And so, you know, that doesn't happen by accident. So if you're. If your founder is saying, hey, why? This is a decision that a number of us, you know, a fair plurality of us made. We think it's the right move for the business, and we put him through the, you know, the process as it. As it stands and as all of you went through, and we still believe it's a good idea, you know, let him prove his worth, but, you know, give maybe a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. And so I paralyzed myself at the beginning. I paralyzed. I. I was my own, you know, kind of hurdle at the beginning by not getting out of my own way and out of my own head. Excuse me. Out of my own head.
I've seen, Joe, to your point, like.
[00:27:35] Speaker D: Financial services, it is not unusual for a father and a son to work together. This happens a lot.
And I've seen fathers and sons work out really well, and I've seen it go just absolute shit show.
Business dissolves and they go their own way, or son fires the father, father fires the son, whatever the case may be. And frankly, have seen all of that happen to this point, and I knew that I didn't want that to happen. Now, I didn't see that until after I had gotten into the business and started to network around and went through the certified financial planner program and met a bunch of people. But the knowledge came at some point that this is a possibility, and I need to be really careful. About that. Listen, my dad and I, we are. We are not the exact same person.
That may shock some people who know us because we sound alike, we think, we do think alike in a lot of ways, and we present similarly, but.
[00:28:31] Speaker D: We are not built exactly the same way. So that is going to have some inherent tension from time to time. But if you respect each other and you love each other and you know that what you're trying to do is ultimately for the betterment of each other and the business as a whole, and maybe flip that first for the business as a whole, it's hard to get hung up on the personalities around it. It's really all about driving the car towards the same mission. And that's what has made this work for us as well as it has.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: You used the word respect. And I know similarly, my father in law got me into this business. So Joe talks about luck. I got lucky enough to meet my wife and marry her, and you know, my father.
[00:29:14] Speaker D: I kicked your coverage. Nice work.
[00:29:20] Speaker C: That was a good left turn.
[00:29:21] Speaker D: Yeah, there you go.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: I knew coming in to this business, number one, I respected my father in law, and I could tell you respect your father. But I also knew I was gonna have to earn his respect. And he respected me already. He saw what me and Joe were doing at the yellow pages. We were selling, we were successful at what we were doing.
He saw my work ethic.
But I did not take it lightly that coming into this business, I was going to have to almost outwork him, which was not an easy thing to do. Now my father in law passed away.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: But.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: It was early on. Every bit of my motivation was, I need to earn his respect.
I need to work hard and basically live up to the expectations kind of that.
And he was great. He never put the expectations on me. I put them on me.
But it was an incredibly important thing to me early on that I live up to the expectations that I was creating because he gave me my shot. There's no doubt. And this is the greatest business in the world, in my opinion. I wouldn't want to do anything else, so. But it's a lot of pressure, man. It really is a lot of pressure.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: So do you think, Alex, do you think that your dad had this master plan all along to get you in?
[00:30:45] Speaker D: I mean, I didn't buy myself the suit, jacket and briefcase when I was.
[00:30:48] Speaker C: Three.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: But I feel like the older. Like, the older I get and I see younger guys and, like, you know, I can only imagine what Mason saw. Kenny, when we were. Was like, dude, this guy's gonna like, you know what I mean? Like, this dude is a talent. Like I see, you know, like, so there's definitely this old sage that sees these young bucks. They're like, all right, we, we better get a hold of this guy because he's, he's doing great things. Do you think your dad saw that in you and that's really kind of guided you in that direction?
[00:31:22] Speaker D: I.
So he, he really, he.
His guidance was not specifically directional.
It was fairly supportive. I mean, other than the fact that, you know, I was like, if I want to be a professional musician, great. Well, how are you gonna make money though? Which is a very fair question.
So that was part of what, like, you know, as I'm going, as I'm going to undergrad, I'm thinking, alright, well I should study something that I can actually use and that, hey, maybe I have some interest in too.
And because I did have interest both on the creative side of music and on the business side of music and ultimately, you know, went into the latter.
But my. When I took my dad on that fishing trip, he was floored, man. He'll tell. He'll say it. To this day, like, I never expected you to make that ask or to suggest that to me.
I had cut out what seemed to be a pretty, you know, a decent enough career path.
I just felt like I was gonna. Speaking of regret from earlier, I felt like I was gonna regret looking back on my life and not having taken a shot at this.
[00:32:34] Speaker D: And you know, just really, really a lot of gratitude to whatever it is that landed me here because among, you know, among the things that I know, my, my.
I wanted to make the ask. My dad was open to it, a lot of people here were open to it and whatever other universal forces kind of put me in this chair, you know, it's really, it's really, really worked out.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: I'm gonna, I'm gonna switch gears here for a minute, but I want to point out that Joe's got a fly flying around his head like he's some sort of a third world nation hunger commercial.
[00:33:08] Speaker D: Feed it to the fish.
[00:33:10] Speaker C: I think that's where. That's where he came from. No, I have.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:33:16] Speaker D: I thought California was beautiful, man. What's going.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: I got home and the kids left the sliding door open and apparently.
[00:33:23] Speaker D: How old are your kids, Joe?
[00:33:25] Speaker C: My oldest is 16 and my youngest is 16 year old. I got five kids. Yeah.
[00:33:31] Speaker D: You look good, man.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Thank you. I mean, I'm going to turn.
[00:33:35] Speaker D: How old.
[00:33:39] Speaker D: You look better crazy.
[00:33:41] Speaker C: On Sunday, I turned 47. On Sunday.
[00:33:43] Speaker D: Happy almost birthday, man.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: What's.
[00:33:45] Speaker D: What's the secret to longevity?
[00:33:48] Speaker D: Good skincare routine.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Well, I know what it is.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: It's. You know what?
[00:33:53] Speaker B: You.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: If you're with the right woman, then that is the key, because that is. That is definitely the. The key to peaceful, sometimes peaceful living. But. And I also, I about.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Get up early, work out, and don't drink, right?
[00:34:10] Speaker C: Yeah, that's it too. Four years ago, I really took it serious to get. I started fighting. So I got into fighting really heavy. I actually have a fight Aug. 9 at Caesar's palace in Las Vegas. So I'm fighting next week. So, dude, I'm a little svelte right now. I'm under 200 pounds, so.
[00:34:28] Speaker D: So I'm under 202, but I think you probably have six or seven inches on me, maybe.
[00:34:34] Speaker C: No, I just. I get up, I don't drink, and I work out every day.
[00:34:37] Speaker D: I don't drink.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: 200 in a while.
[00:34:40] Speaker C: Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time for you. That. Not that difficult.
[00:34:44] Speaker D: I'm trying to get on the straight and narrow like you, Joe and Ken. I don't know what your routine is, but, like, mine is just. It's gotten better over the years.
I actually stopped drinking about a year ago. A little more than a year ago.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:34:57] Speaker D: And feel great.
But at the same time. Well, I shouldn't say, but. And at the same time getting up early, I am just struggling, man. I. I admire people who can really pull it off. And I think some of it is just my own, to borrow the phrase.
God, who is it? Goggins, the, you know, the bitch voice. I think that's kind of what's going on with me.
So I just. I need to get over that hill. But good for you, man.
[00:35:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's just consistency that's the key to life.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Boring.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: Yeah. If you can be okay with the monotony of doing the same thing over and over.
Jocko says there is freedom and discipline. That's right.
That's the idea.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: I'm gonna bring up a topic here. You had mentioned the Myers Briggs and. And I heard this recently, and I'm genuinely curious for both of your perspectives on this when it comes to sales and leadership. Some salespeople don't make great leaders, and some leaders are shitty salespeople. Like, we know that to be true. But in your. In your business, one of the things that the culture of your company really leans on, or I guess puts focus on, is empathy.
And I heard recently that, you know, as a leader.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Empathy can crush you.
And they say great leaders have compassion and that there's a difference between compassion and empathy. You know, empathy is internalizing feeling, experiencing in some way the pain of another person, whereas compassion is the willingness to make hard decisions, knowing it's what's best.
How do you. Do you feel like.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Your. The company, does it have the empathy, or is there compassion there as well? Do you feel like there's a difference between it, too?
Do you think it's an important distinction?
[00:36:57] Speaker D: I totally buy that.
And I think that you're talking about each one of those traits. One is going to be facing a little more externally for us, client facing the other one's going to be more internal. And I think both are really important because you can apply each to both of those situations. So from an empathetic standpoint, when you're sitting across the table from a client who is.
Let me give you just a quick story. So we signed an older gentleman, an older couple, recently, and we had just started working together, and we learned that.
I'm trying to keep it vague just for.
We learned that one of them had experienced a pretty significant medical event.
And we're talking to the other spouse, and they said, you know, is this something that you can help us with? We don't know what's going on. We, like, you were the second call we made after we called our son.
And I was like, this is. I'm so glad that we are working together now. I think I actually shared this with Jay. We're so glad that we were working together now, because if not, you know, if this had happened before we signed the paper, it's fine. I mean, we'd still obviously lean in. But the fact that we are now, you know, contractually linked means that you get everything we can give you.
And frankly, like, there's excitement isn't the right word, because it's a terrible event.
But there's a feeling of usefulness and service and the fact that you are feeling what this person is going through, and you know that there's something you can't fix the medically, but you can bring clarity to some absolute chaos.
And you're in a position to do that and help somebody and do it professionally. The compassion piece.
[00:38:56] Speaker D: If you have an employee who is just, you know, they're struggling, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, or it's just, you know, it's round peg, square hole kind of thing, empathy is important. You know, you can appreciate their struggle. You can feel it. But I think that's where the compassion piece becomes much more important, because you need to do what's right for the business. And ultimately, you know, you're trying to do right by your employees.
And so having those hard conversations and ultimately, if you need to, letting them go so that they're able to find what it is that fits them better, and if there's anything you can do to help them, that's great.
But that's kind of. That's the. It's not a divided line, but maybe like a dotted line between those two traits internally, externally, at least in our business. But I'm curious how you guys think about it.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: No.
[00:39:49] Speaker C: It'S. It's really always refreshing and interesting to hear that perspective, like, when it comes to employee relations, right, because people will get jobs that. And they won't change. Like, they'll be miserable. They'll be terrible at them, and they don't see it. And their ego and, like, they're just. They just think, like, oh, you know, like, this is my life. Like, oh, well, like, I'm gonna get better or whatever. And, like, as a. You have, like, a responsibility as, like, a boss or as a business owner to, like, coach these people. Like, dude, you could be. You're better at something else. It's. I don't know what it is. It's definitely not.
But if you go do something else, your life is going to be much greater. But, like, what we're doing right here clearly isn't working. You're not happy, we're not happy. Like, let's get you happy. And, like, it's so. It's such a hard because, like, ego comes in and like, you know, as. As a. As a manager, as an owner, you're like, oh, I can get this person to the next level and whatever. And sometimes, like, you just have to accept. And, like, that's where the compassion comes in, where you're like, dude, like, I got to put you out of your misery, man.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Like, you know, the piece is so hard because as a.
You know, in the analogy that we're giving, when someone is too much on the empathetic side, you know, they don't want to inflict pain, and they think that by not letting them go, by not being tough on them in some ways, you know, especially the performance on the. On the obvious performance side of things, the sales side of things.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: But.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: But even on the. On the operations side, when systems aren't being followed correctly and models are not being, you know, processes are not being Followed.
[00:41:41] Speaker C: Let's just say they're not good at their job.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Good at their job.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Because that becomes painful to you. And I think that empathy is actually, like, for.
It's one of those things you gotta learn. You have got to learn how to differentiate between empathy and compassion. And it was a hard lesson for me to learn. And one of my favorite things from Jay was when I lost a couple of people that got recruited away, and he was.
Called me up one day, hey, what's going on?
[00:42:13] Speaker C: We're talking.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: He's like, you're right. I'm like, not really. And he's like, what's going on? I told him. He's like, oh, that's awesome. Like, what the hell do you mean, that's awesome? Like, that was his compassion. Like, he knew I was hurting, but his compassion was like, hey, man, this is gonna work out for you. You know what I mean? This is a good thing that this happened, and there's going to be other opportunities that come along from this and you're aware from this and all this other stuff. And I.
I think that.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Is a skill. That is an absolute skill to be able to kind of pull that out. And I think that's the compassion side of things versus the empathetic side of things.
[00:42:50] Speaker D: I totally buy that. And just to your point earlier, Ken, about, like, you know, salespeople being salespeople, not necessarily being good leaders. Leaders not necessarily being good salespeople. I think that if you started a baseline where you say, I want people who are empathetic, because our core business, regardless of what role you have, our core business is being able to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and feel what they're feeling and let that drive your behavior and your ability to try and solve their problems and help them achieve their goals. Great.
Now we need to figure out who among those, you know, in our case, 50 employees are. Those that are just better suited to be leaders, better suited to be individual contributors. And some of that might have to do with compassion versus empathy. Some of that might have to do with skill set or education or experience or whatever it is. But I think, like, you know, I guess. I guess the little bit that I'm pushing back on is the broad brush, because I think about empathy, at least in our context, as being a fundamentally important trait. Because I don't know how you teach it. I mean, maybe you can develop it a bit, but to some extent, you got it or you don't got it. There's a binary there.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: But, like, the thing with empathy too, though.
And like, in its true definition is essentially like feeling what someone else is feeling in the moment, right?
So you can.
You could use that for nefarious objectives, right? So like, someone. Sociopaths are incredibly empathetic. Like, that's their whole game. It's like I can get in your head because I know exactly how you're feeling. I know what buttons to push. I know that if I say xyz, you're gonna react this way. And like, they.
I say they. I'm not one, but, like, I'm assuming.
[00:44:41] Speaker D: Like, who we are as a community event.
[00:44:44] Speaker C: If you're highly empathetic, you can literally.
No, if you're hot. If you're highly empathetic, you can, like, crawl into someone else's mind and then you can deconstruct and. And your conversation and how you guide them and get them to see things your way. And ultimately, like, that starts from a first, seek to understand before your understood situation. So, yeah, great sales people, great leaders have.
Sociopaths, for that matter, have very, very high levels of empathy because they, you know, in layman's terms, they figure out what makes people tick, and then that.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Goes back to driving. That goes back to. One of the fundamental hazards or issues, I guess, with sales and leadership, for that matter, is that there is a propensity for manipulation. That, you know, you, as a person, you have to constantly check yourself and make sure you're pure of heart in everything you're doing, because you're obviously a talented person and you have the ability to. To get people to do things.
So that's where the.
[00:45:50] Speaker C: That's where the compassion comes in. Because you can be empathetic and you can understand how to guide someone to a decision. But then ultimately your compassion is, do I want to leave this person in a better place than when I found them?
That is where compassion meets empathy. Because you can be empathetic and you can screw everybody over because you've empathized with their situation, and then you've got them to do what you want, even though it's not for their best interest. But if you're compassionate, you can figure out what makes them tick and then you can put them in a better place because you're compassionate and you. You care about them as a person.
[00:46:28] Speaker D: I agree with both of you. I think that if I was to distill this down a little bit, I think about it in relation to a moral compass and are. Are you. What's the next right thing to do?
And are you the type of person, even when it's hard.
Nobody does it all the time. But are you the type of person who, generally speaking, is going to try to do the next right thing? And if you are, and you pair that with your ability to feel what others are feeling, and you pair that with your other ability to appreciate that they might be feeling something, but this is the message they need to hear, and it's hard, but again, the next right thing to do.
Now, you got yourself the ingredients of a real. Well, you got a really good person, but you got a really good individual contributor. You got a really good leader. You got a really good. You know, the list goes on.
And those are all things that I can speak from my own experience that they've developed over time. I mean, I can't tell you, you know, the number of times where I. When I, especially when I was younger and I knew the right thing to do and I, you know, turn right. Well, I'm going left.
And I don't think that. That, you know, younger.
[00:47:37] Speaker D: You know, disobedience or, you know, kind of sticking your. Your. Your finger in the eye of authority is unusual, but you kind of have to get scraped up a little bit in order to appreciate why you should have turned right. And it comes. It comes with, I think, with age and experience, and that breeds a little bit of wisdom. And, you know.
[00:48:00] Speaker D: I guess. I guess what I'm floating around here is that as I'm sitting here and I hope that this continues for. For me, you know, daily basis for the rest of my life, that I feel just a little bit better every day. I feel like I'm getting a little bit better every day because of the things that I have been doing to this point, which include, like.
[00:48:22] Speaker D: Well, there's. There's mental health stuff, right? There's meditation. There is your. Your therapist. There's, you know, your community. There's your. The health of your marriage and the relationship with your kids and all that.
But just kind of checking in with yourself and making sure, like, it's just what you said. Ken, are you pure of heart? Like, is this you, you know, if you're doing the right thing or not? I mean, everybody kind of knows. Whether or not they listen to themselves is a completely different story.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: All right, listen, we are. This is awesome. I want to keep going. However, I do have two truths and a lie to get to and that they're always fun.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: So.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: So let's. Let's jump into our two truths and a lie number.
[00:49:03] Speaker D: Let's see how good Joe is.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Joe Number one was Alex won a pizza eating contest. One pie, one pizza, one whole pizza. Finish it first and you win. He was at or in Ryan Howard's wedding. I want to say he was. Addison, you said at Brian Howard's wedding and played in front of 400 to 500 people.
[00:49:27] Speaker D: 397.
[00:49:33] Speaker C: So.
[00:49:36] Speaker C: So let me see here.
[00:49:39] Speaker D: I want your listeners to know that I am stone faced right now. There is absolutely nothing coming off of me.
[00:49:46] Speaker D: Stop.
[00:49:47] Speaker A: Stop.
[00:49:49] Speaker B: Man.
I think I have an idea, but I'll.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Let's see. So.
[00:49:59] Speaker C: If I were to guess. So here's. Here's what threw me off when he said. After he said pizza eating contest, he did the tell, which it was very quick sequence between like pizza contest and then Ryan Howard's wedding. Right? So, like, it was hard if the tell was. Because he just told. A liar is about to tell a lie. So, like it's definitely between those two.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: I agree so far. So far we're on the same page.
[00:50:27] Speaker C: All right.
[00:50:29] Speaker C: So I'm gonna. I'm gonna say that you were 12 years ago in Hawaii.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Hold on.
[00:50:37] Speaker C: Don't.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: Don't confirm until I get my shot together.
[00:50:40] Speaker D: Stone faced, stone effects.
[00:50:43] Speaker C: So I'm gonna. I'm gonna say that the.
The pizza eating is. Is the lie.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: I would agree. Here's what I'm gonna say.
I'm gonna say the four to 500 people that he played in front of was at Ryan Howard's wedding. I'm gonna say he played Ryan's. Howard. Ryan Howard's wedding, which is how he got in front of 400 to 500 people and that the pizza eating was alive. However, I think he attempted a pizza eating contest and lost.
That's my prediction.
[00:51:15] Speaker D: That is very good.
[00:51:18] Speaker D: All right, Are we good? Can I.
Yeah, we're good. I don't want to. Yeah.
First of all, your. Your powers of deduction are incredibly.
You got prowess there, gentlemen. And maybe that's another offshoot of this pod.
[00:51:32] Speaker C: I'm empathetic.
[00:51:37] Speaker D: I thought psychopath was the term we were going with.
Sociopath. Pardon me. Pardon me. You'll hook me up with the group.
[00:51:44] Speaker C: Important difference. It's like peeing in the pool versus peeing into the pool.
[00:51:52] Speaker D: Joe, you've given me a couple that are going in the back pocket.
All right? So, yes, I played in front of. That was the biggest audience. I was in college and it was like a talent show or something. And it was all Greek life. It was a ton of fun. Guitar dude. I'm a little Jewish guy from the suburbs. Like, I play guitar and sing and listen to Dave Matthews. Like, that was my shtick.
And it was my way to, like, you know, engage with the opposite sex because I had no game. This was my game.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Guitar's good. Guitar's good game.
[00:52:25] Speaker D: It's better than drums. You can take it wherever you go.
[00:52:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:28] Speaker D: So that was not. That's what. That's actually something that. Well, something that someone told me when I was like, I kind of want to play an instrument. Like, don't. Don't choose drums. And here's why.
[00:52:40] Speaker D: The pizza.
[00:52:41] Speaker C: Somebody told can you dad about the flute.
[00:52:48] Speaker D: Can you edit out the cough laugh.
[00:52:50] Speaker B: You can take that anywhere.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: I'm not.
[00:52:54] Speaker D: I'm not taking the.
[00:52:55] Speaker C: Very versatile.
[00:52:56] Speaker D: It's your part.
And yeah, he's a man of many talents. So pizza eating contest.
[00:53:03] Speaker D: Is the lie. My brother did it and he won.
[00:53:08] Speaker D: And.
[00:53:11] Speaker D: You. You were on it.
[00:53:15] Speaker D: And I'm talking. I'm talking to two Delco dudes. And we already talked about the Platte Bridge. Like, clearly I had to bring Philly sports into it. So when I was working for a music agency, we booked the talent for Ryan Howard's wedding, and part of the package included bringing the band and the representation and whatever. So we ended up in Hawaii at his wedding.
[00:53:43] Speaker D: It was just such an incredible experience.
So, like, surreal and out of body.
[00:53:50] Speaker D: And, you know, it's not like we were. We. We were helping to put it on in, you know, to. To a degree.
But he could not have been more gracious and invited us to come to the after party, and we hung out with a bunch of, you know, legendary Phillies and. And drank the night away. And it was just like, what an incredible memory that is. So.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:54:12] Speaker D: Yeah, it was cool.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: You think Schwarber's gonna break his record?
[00:54:21] Speaker D: The reason I'm pausing, man, is because I. The question is, like, do I. Do I want him to? And I. Of course I want him to. But, like.
But like, Ryo has. There's. I. I don't want him to lose his lore in, you know, the. The legion of Phillies greats. And I don't know that breaking his record would necessarily do that, but, you know, and who doesn't want to see a million shore bombs?
So I. Can they tie. I don't know. Like, I just don't want to lose Ryo history.
[00:54:48] Speaker B: I. I hear you. I. I think that he was Must see tv, man. Dude, when he was up, you had.
[00:54:54] Speaker D: To stop what you were doing 100%.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: It was awesome. And he said he kept his roots in this area. Right. I believe he was in bluebell or. Or up that way, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:55:08] Speaker D: But your knowledge is exceeding my own. At least, you know, so I trust your word, Kenny.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: All right, well, congratulations to your brother on a. On a pizza eating victory. That's awesome.
[00:55:23] Speaker D: He felt like absolute. You should have seen it. He was like ghost white. It was so not worth it.
[00:55:28] Speaker C: Those guys are athletes. The competitive eaters, dude, they're athletes, bro.
[00:55:33] Speaker D: Yeah, well, you got to move your jaw that much.
[00:55:38] Speaker D: It was somewhere in, like, Glenside or I don't remember which was Jenkintown, something like that. But it was not like a particular.
[00:55:45] Speaker C: So it wasn't really like good pizza either.
[00:55:47] Speaker D: I think it was like fine pizza. It was just a.
[00:55:50] Speaker C: It wasn't like Thunderbird, you know?
[00:55:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:54] Speaker B: Like Imperial. You need to do that. Imperial Pizza down. Sea King. All right. We could go on and on about pizza places in the greater Philadelphia area. Alex, thank you for joining us today. This was a ton of fun.
I really enjoyed it. I hope we'll have you on again. I really think that there were, you know, three or four other topics that we didn't even get to and I'd love to, you know, kind of, you know, explore in another conversation. So hopefully you'll come back.
[00:56:18] Speaker D: Sign me up, man. It's so good to be with you guys. Ton of fun on my side too, and I really appreciate you having me on.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:56:25] Speaker D: Be good.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Selling the Dream.
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