Yeah

... and universities or conventions, if you will, to keep myself occupied my retirement besides golf and pickleball.

And one thing I did was I downloaded the PDF of the book into ChatGPT, and I said, "Give me 20 lessons from the stories from the book and the life lesson," and it came back with answers within 30 seconds and saved me the time of painstakingly going through everything.

And then I had it narrow it down to self-deprecating stories, humorous stories.

... one thing a business owner should?

Yeah.

I, first of all, I can echo what Susan said.

I was a f- I'm a first time author, and I didn't realize how the marketing gets thrown at you.

So why did trust and customer service become the foundation of your business philosophy espec- specifically?

Sure.

It, it goes back to baseball.

Um, as an umpire, what, what is every umpire looking for? And that's, and that's respect, and that only comes by, by getting mutual respect.

As an umpire, it comes from getting plays right and having very good interactions with the players and managers, something that you, you don't see but goes on behind the scenes.

So in my business, what I tried to do, and it's something 99% of accountants or financial advisors wouldn't do, is I, I came up with a process.

Again, another thing that winners in sports do is they develop the winning processes.

[laughs]

With wealth management, what do people want? Is it to hand it off to the next generation? Is it true freedom? I wonder what they want, or does it vary?

They have one question.

Am I going to be okay? Am I going to be okay? And the typical person coming to somebody in wealth management would be a do-it-yourselfer that did it themselves up until their mid-50s.

They're like, I don't need you people.

I can do this on my own.

And they build up a 401k that has two commas in it.

Their kids are through school.

A diet, a drinking.

What were some of the key items that you that you took in picking new people that you were going to do business with and develop things with?

Well, one of the and again, I can keep going on with things I learned in baseball.

When you're an umpire, the one thing umpires want is respect and you only get respect by giving respect.

So so a lesson I learned in business was to try and get mutual respect between myself, my clients and people that work in our office.

So I developed processes for getting respect quickly.

Part of our process in the wealth management business involve meeting with, when we meet with a client for the first time, shutting up, listening to what they have to say, hearing their story.

And we do a very, very detailed data gathering process.

What are some of the leadership skills that have transcended both of your careers?

[laughs]

...

in taxation, I got an insurance license and securities license.

I didn't even know wealth management was a job back then.

I was just throwing educa- I, I'm like, "I'm gonna become the smartest person in the room." And it helped me, by the way, deal with my depression from baseball.

I could not watch a baseball game for years after my release took place.

It was the equivalent of the death of a close person.

You know, what was that that you really, you know, drew upon in order to be able to, to really persevere through what you were going through?

... and how you came to where you are today.

Sure.

So, um, when I graduated from high school, I was a good, very good high school baseball player, but my parents had no money to send me to college, so I took up officiating, and I officiated basketball and baseball, encouraged by my next-door neighbor growing up, a guy named Ed Sanicki, who played for the Philadelphia Phillies.

He suggested I tried umpiring.

I thought he was nuts, but he said, uh, "You were a catcher.

You'd be, you'd be good at it." And through my four years of college, I graduated from Seton Hall University, I found myself working some of the best amateur baseball games, high school state championships.

They were sneaking me on college games.

Mm.

Can you just kind of set the stage for us and kind of give us the full picture?

Sure, I was in AAA, and I was on a really good path for the major leagues, by the way.

I remember thinking that I don't have to fall back on a plan B. I thought I had a really good shot at the major leagues, even though it's a lottery ticket when you first start.

But at the end of my eighth season, I received a letter in the mail with a check mark saying, you have been released.

My wife told me I got it, along with many other umpires at the time.

They got rid of a bunch of us all in one shot.

And at the time, it's shocking.

Or what would you tell somebody who's going through it now?