Unscripted Arena S2:E13 Jeff Levy

Thanks Tony, it's really a pleasure to be here to sit with you and chat a bit. Those who know us, I was a mentor at Seattle University for a number of years, and you were one of my first mentors. I think I passed 25 years of being a mentor there not too long ago. Then fate brought us back together when I had to make a switch out of Merrill Lynch for some stupid policies they put in place, and you were there to come in and pick up the pieces and keep me solvent. It was an interesting way of reconnecting. They wanted my credit card but they didn't want me anymore. Anyway, a little bit about me. I have a real long story, so I try to keep it short.

No, no, keep it long. Well, I'm a kid from Brooklyn, New York, went through the New York City school system, and was fortunate enough to get a job out of college. I've been working all my life, but there was something about me, maybe a little bit of New York arrogance, that I didn't necessarily want to work for someone else. I actually got recruited by a company in Seattle to work for them in New York. It was really fun, got a lot of good experience, but developed a reputation as a guy who can get things done. I got asked to come out to Seattle to help start a company back in 1984. The company was called Source Kramer. I like to tell you it was Amazon or Microsoft, but I can't. My wife and I sold everything we had. We were adventurers with two young kids. She hadn't finished college at that point. We moved to Seattle, and interestingly, the company had enough funds raised to pay half my move and half my salary for four months. Everything else we had to basically eat what we killed. So I learned how to raise money. We started this new company, but unfortunately, some technology overtook what we were doing, and even though we had a good idea, the company never really got its wheels going. Part of my investor group asked me to join them, and to make a long story short, we put together a team with the idea of buying companies in the Pacific Northwest with what was called leveraged buyouts in those days, where you use the assets of the company to borrow money. It took some expertise to do that. I didn't have much to my name at that point, but myself and two guys did a leveraged buyout of a manufacturing company in Renton in the construction scaffolding industry. I started out as VP of marketing, became president and chief operating officer, and then we sold the company to a public company after five years of running it. We were very excited about that. I stayed with the public company for five years. We almost quadrupled the size, from a $20 million company to a $70-80 million company in the public environment. Then I felt I was back in the corporate America world that I didn't want to be in anymore. Even though you were in LBO, not those days. We were out of that. It was quarterly earnings, having to make the shareholders happy. The chief operating officer and I put together an offer and did an acquisition and made the company private again. I'm going through a lot of details, but it was an amazing learning experience. We both ran the company with outside investors for five more years. We owned about 28% of the company. Our outside investors and my partner and I had a serious disagreement about where we were going. You'll learn that he who has the gold rules. Since they owned 70% of the company, we negotiated a passing of my partner and I, and they brought in a guy to dress up the company and sell it. Then I took a little bit of a hiatus. Maybe that's where my story gets interesting. I sat down with a journal and really thought about what I wanted this next stage of my life to be like. I was 53 years old. I just sat down and really talked about changing my perspective, that work was now going to be the engine that would create the quality of life that I wanted. I worked on a whole list of activities. Today, I'm sort of on the downslope of the mountain, not working as hard as I have, but in the last 20 years, I wrote a good business book. It's been very successful. I found out yesterday we have 105 five-star reviews. I haven't looked at the reviews in two years. People like the book.

Making the Jump into Small Business Ownership, by Neelen and Levy. We co-authored it. In the last 20 years, I became the chairman of the board of the Entrepreneurship Center at Seattle University. My book became a class taught at Seattle Central University. I've been involved in some local social community activities that I think are really important for people to look out for their community. I still have an interesting coaching business where I became a franchisee of a company that helps people identify and evaluate franchises for themselves. That's been very rewarding because I can bring into those discussions my personal life experience. I also do a lot of pro bono work, just working with entrepreneurs, trying to encourage them in terms of how to get started, how to get out of that corporate rat race. On a personal level, I've got a lovely wife. We've been married somewhere around 42 or 43 years. I've got two grown adult children and five grandchildren. They're a very big part of our life.

I think the proudest moment or the thing that I feel most good about is that I really am the captain of my own ship. You live and die on the decisions that you make. I was able to transition from being part of an organization to starting my own coaching consulting business and developing a brand for myself where I'm pretty well known in the community. An indication of that is that today I probably do two or three seminars a month as a subject matter expert. I feel good that I have had the background and good fortune to have so many different broad experiences that people find value in inviting me to talk to their groups. That impact is big. I also still play tennis. I feel proud that I've stayed pretty healthy. Both my wife and I work on financial planning, long-term thinking, but also being healthy and staying well.

Certainly I do. When I talk to someone, I try to cover a whole broad range. It's not just about work. It's about why do we work and what's important in life. I talk to them about physical health, mental health, and financial health as well. You need to find the right environment and people to help you in all those things.

It's really interesting to have you ask that question. When I started, from the franchise perspective, my typical client was a 55-year-old white guy who got laid off and through age discrimination wasn't necessarily going to get a job, so he'd be a good franchise candidate. I've worked through the recession of 2010, when I started in 2002 there was a recession, and we went through the pandemic. What's emerged is a change in the mindset of people. They're looking for exit strategies outside of the corporate world. More franchises are awarded today for people under 40 than people 55. A good example is my youngest son came to me and said he wanted to have his own business and wanted help. It took me a while to say yes, not because I don't love him, but I said just get a job. He's got three kids. I helped him start a franchise in January. Absolutely, there's a generation shift. If you're 50 to 65, on the edge of that baby boomer, you still feel that working in a corporate environment is a good thing. But people in the younger generation believe in the gig economy, believe in a portfolio life which might include more time with family, more quality time, and work not being the center focus.

I think it's reality. If you have fooled yourself that the corporations are there for your benefit, it's just not true. I learned that lesson when my company got bought by a public company and I was on the board. It was very stressful because it was really about earnings per share. The way you get earnings per share up is you reduce cost. The way you reduce cost is you reduce headcount, and that's in a three-month time frame. We have an earnings call coming up with shareholders. What are we going to do? The old Jack Welch ranking systems, your A, B, C, D's. Your D's get fired, your C's get told they're going to be fired. I didn't like that. I think it's created a change in the culture where people don't trust corporations. Those who say they have to get a job today are looking out of economic necessity and fear of doing something on their own. Unfortunately, it's not sustainable. The tough thing is when you get into your 60s today, if you haven't developed a broad base of generating income, you're not in good shape. It's a huge risk. It's like running into a wall. The wall's there, but people don't take it seriously. I have been busier than I want to be because people just want to... The other problem is that you're in retirement, or semi-retirement. I don't think I'll ever retire. I just can't. My wife retired. She has a doctorate in curriculum instruction and mathematics from the University of Washington, tenured professor, worked really hard. She knows how to do retirement. You should interview her. She just filled her life with things. I've seen parts of her that I didn't see in the last 45 years of marriage, artistic things that are just amazing. It goes to show that now more than ever, you have to have multiple sources of income, but also think about other passions you have and live it now as opposed to later.

Yeah, I believe that. But talking about that fear, I feel like every entrepreneur has that going into it. It really just takes a leap of faith to do whatever endeavor you're focused on. I was talking about this with another guy yesterday. He hasn't generated revenue for three months now, but he's also been in his field for almost 20 years. I said, you might be fearful and worried about income coming in, true. But keep in mind, you've survived several recessions. Now you're coming from a place of worry, and you're driving a Mercedes, you own an apartment complex. What are you really worried about?

Well, some people are wired that way. That's their mode of operation. Candidly, a little fear, a little anxiety is not a bad thing. It's sort of the motivation that keeps you going if you can't find it someplace else. I've always found my motivation to be based on forward thinking and planning. If I were to talk to that person, I would say, what was your plan when you started this business? What were your assumptions? Were your assumptions correct? Are there things that you have to do differently than you're doing now? To just say, oh, three months, no revenue, how does that relate to your business plan and what you expected to happen every month? Sometimes we let our emotions take over and we don't use the left brain that helps us figure out that activity equals productivity. Good activity equals good productivity, but you got to have a plan.

It's interesting. For some cases, that's not a bad initial plan. We have to realize we're living much longer today. The issue of rushing into anything is not a good idea. In my experience, when I graduated college, I eventually got a job with a company called American Hospital Supply, a huge multi-billion dollar corporation. They had sophisticated management training programs, so I learned a lot from them. I'll tell people, look, learn, make your mistakes on somebody else's dime. Part of it is where their passion is, where their culture is, where their parents are. Sometimes if parents are entrepreneurs, it's easier for them to make the transition. But I don't think there's anything wrong with having a corporate experience. But overstaying your welcome is where the problem is. Getting comfortable. If you're not progressing within the corporate ranks, you got to take a step back and ask yourself what else could you do. It's very hard today. When I was in the corporate world, we had six people reporting to one manager. There was a track to grow. Today, organizations are flat. You might have 80 people reporting to one manager. It's very hard to move up in a corporation. You sometimes have to change from one company to another to move up. But people get stuck, they get comfortable. Maybe through your 40s, that's okay. But once you get into your later 40s, management is looking for ways of reducing cost. I learned from a mentor that if you're in the creative stage of work in a company, you got the best chance for longevity. If you're implementing things you helped create, you probably have a reasonable runway. But once you're maintaining things, once you're just sort of same papers, different date, then you can start hearing those little feet behind your head that your job is on the line.

They see it after they get laid off. It's like, oh, I didn't see that coming. It's crazy. Next Tuesday, I'll be doing a seminar for a company called Right Management. We'll have 86 to 90 people on that seminar nationally, all executives that have been laid off. I just was working with a guy who was the VP of Ford Motor Company. It's that level of people. They get to that point and companies say, thank you, we love you, but we'll miss you.

Well, maybe. It depends on the lifestyle you live. You have a couple of homes, couple of boats, big vacations, kids in $100,000 a year universities. It takes a lot. I think most people put their heads in the sand. They don't see themselves potentially being laid off. No matter what you do today, you have to be thinking of the next steps. That's something I've always believed in. Making sure the work got done today, but I had to be planting seeds for what I need happening in the next couple of years. When you're working for someone else, you can easily lose sight of that.

It's depressing. Then their spouse, the trailing spouse, is like, can't you just get a job? First of all, people need someone who's going to give them straight talk, people that are going to care about them. I won't work with someone who is not a nice person. You want someone who genuinely wants to figure out their own two-point-oh, what they're going to do next. I start with a process of getting to know them. Tell me about yourself. If you could take all the burdens off yourself, all the fears off yourself of things that hold you back, what would your life look like? What would those things be important going forward? We start to build a vision of a dream and then try to put in place those things that might help them get there. It's something that's really gratifying to me. I love that kind of work. But I will tell you in all candor, and I'm good at what I do, I've been doing it for a long time, about a third end up wrapping their arms around a dream, putting in the commitment. The other two-thirds go to the job market, get a job as a greeter at Walmart, do something they perceive as low risk because the energy and the motivation aren't there.

I knew for myself I was not that person. I just could not sit down and be reviewed by somebody else because I knew I was putting in my best effort.

I guess so. But it's very complex. The numbers keep going up in terms of people that become self-employed. Part of why I like the franchise area is that most people don't have that unique idea. If they have the unique idea, they don't have the structure to put together a business plan, to put together the financing, to do recruiting of employees. They have the idea but they don't have that structure. They don't know how to market, they don't know how to evaluate who their customers are, when they buy, how they buy, how often they buy. In the franchise world, even though you're not going to have a hockey stick type of business success, you will probably have a very predictable model that you can do as long as you want. It's no secret, I turned 75 last month. I own a franchise. I did my third renewal and they were happy to keep me. They made me feel extremely comfortable in being able to continue for as long as I wanted. If I was working for someone else, they would have told you when you're done, see you.

I just did a big seminar on Tuesday and refreshed my data. It's stunning. When you get into your 60s, one in six people are self-employed. When you get into your 70s, unfortunately because some people still have to work at that point, half are self-employed. I believe in entrepreneurship. I really do.

Ask me another question. I'm kidding. I'll give you categories because something might be hot, but it may not be the right one for the individual. When I start working with someone, I tell them legally you can sign a franchise agreement in 14 days, but I tell them it's going to take two to six months because we really want to vet out the franchise, see what's the right fit for you. The health and fitness area is always a very big category. Today you have yoga franchises, Pilates franchises, typical gym, boxing gyms, mixed martial arts gyms, all sorts of things in that health category. The other categories, of course, you have casual fast food. Even though that's a very big part of franchising, it's a small niche of people that go into food seven days a week. Those aren't lifestyle businesses. Those are like your Dairy Queens, Papa John's, Boba, Jimmy John's, those small boutique type stuff. Once you get into things like Applebee's, they're very costly with big build-outs. It's usually corporations that do that kind of investing. You got gyms, you got fast food restaurants. You got a lot of franchises in an area that I like working in, which do home services. They do kitchen cabinet repair, home painting, lawn care, window cleaning, small appliance repair, electrician work. That work is always there. In fact, my son went into a franchise that builds high-end cabinetry for inside kitchens, pantries, and bathrooms. Then there's another category of franchising that most people don't know about. I call it bridge franchising, where you don't work in the business. They are things like hair salons, gyms, weight loss centers. In hair salons, there are probably 25 different hair salon brands, some very niche like Fantastic Sams, Sport Clips, Great Clips. You don't need to be a hairdresser. They don't want you to be a hairdresser. They want you to work on the business. Most people that do those kind of businesses have some other kind of work, but the work gives them the flexibility to spend 10 to 15 hours a week, probably more when you're getting the places built up. They're great husband and wife type of businesses, but they want you to own multiple locations. One of the questions I want people to think about is when they think about a franchise, are they looking to replace income from their W-2, or are they looking for a return on investment which might be more attractive in the stock market or some other kind of investment? Hair salons, those kind of things, they're not necessarily going to replace income, but they can give you a better return on your investment than you might have in a mutual fund. You invest cash, limited amount of management, and you're getting a return. Sometimes it's maybe 20% of the total investment in cash and the rest in an SBA loan. There are other vehicles today for financing these kind of things. Those are some of the general categories. I always need to keep an open mind myself because sometimes you're working with someone for two or three months and all of a sudden you can see their light bulb going off as to what's the right fit for them. It might be different than what we thought of when we first got started. They have to keep an open mind and I have to keep an open mind.

Usually if they're going to get to the point where they will be signing a franchise agreement, two to six months. But after a month, they might get a job. After a month, they might just say this isn't for me. What happens more often is the trailing spouse says, you're not going into your own business. You're not using our home equity. You're not using our 401k. Nobody in our family has ever been in their own business. I don't want you to do it. Unfortunately, we see that a lot. I see people's dreams often times just being splattered by the fact that the fear from the trailing spouse, could be a husband or wife or other family members. It's their own fear. They're not willing to be uncomfortable for a while, and that kills the dream. If there's one thing that's frustrating for me, it's when I see that happen. I have to be careful because it's their partner, their wife. I can't say... I had one client get divorced though. He said no, I'm doing the business, she's out of here. I guess I helped speed up the decision. It wasn't my goal. I've got one gentleman, I won't mention the business either, but it's hard for him because there's a misalignment in terms of goals. I've been very lucky. If you look back at my history and some of the decisions Andre and I have made, without her support I would have never been where I am today. I attribute whatever success I've had to two things: her undying support and having some wonderful mentors myself. I've had four mentors actually. In my book, there are a couple of chapters that talk about how important those relationships are. That's why I do my volunteer work. Big shout out and a huge thank you to Zin for making this happen. They have an amazing platform. Check out their website, zin.com.

Different times. The first one I can remember, I didn't have a lot of money. I went to Fordham University, a private college in New York, the Jesuit college. It's a great school. I couldn't afford it, so I had to go to night school and work during the day. One of the guys I worked for sat down with me and said, what are you doing with your career, what are you doing with your life? I said I'm going to be a high school teacher, that's it, history. He said, have you ever thought of being in business or working in business? I said never thought of it. He said, let me help you, let's think about it. When I graduated school, he offered me a job. That was my first mentor. It made a big difference. Then I had another mentor when I was before I got to Fordham. One of my teachers talked to me about my educational plan. I said I'm going to go to Brooklyn College, everybody goes to Brooklyn College. He said, you would have never left York 11. He said, why don't you consider going to Fordham University? I said, I'm a Jewish kid from Brooklyn going to a Catholic university? I don't think so. He said, let's talk about the value system the school brings and how it might affect your life. He was a great mentor. Then probably moving forward, when the first business I came out here to start raised money and never got off the ground because technology was overcome by another company's technology, there was a guy named Bill Greenwood. Bill just saw something in me. He said, what are you going to do? I said I don't know, we ran out of money in the business. He goes, how about if I pay you to do a market study and maybe join me to evaluate businesses to buy? Bill became my most profound mentor in my life. He made a huge difference. Between him and I and another guy, we bought this company in 1984-85. I spent 17 years building it up, selling it, buying it back. Bill has always been a dear friend. He helped me understand business, look at it from a different perspective, and he believed in me. That's probably one of the most important things. He believed in me, that there was something there. He always kidded me around too. He had lost a lot of money in that first investment because you owe me. But he's been a dear friend and remains a dear friend today. He even has a nickname for me. He calls me Gus. But good guy. In terms of other mentors, probably my business partner when we ended up being part of the public company, myself and a guy named Tom became very good friends. He was chief operating officer. We constructed this plan to take the company private. He was a lot smarter than I, a lot more experience than me. We just learned together. Then it was very interesting. At some point, my wife said to me, you've been mentored, you've got a lot from it. It's time now for you to be a mentor. That resonated with me. I started my work at Seattle U. I think it sort of underpins my approach to coaching. I don't want to be a consultant. I don't want to tell people what to do. I just want to talk with them and try to share what experiences I've had and maybe encourage them and help them come to the realization of where they need to be. If it's not the right thing for them at this point in their life, that's okay. But at least take the time to figure things out. Some people get caught in their own, wrapped around their own axle, and they are just afraid to learn, afraid to look at other things.

Yeah, I think so. It's just been a great ride. Before, what was I most proud of? I really feel good when I've reached somebody and helped them in some fashion. Sometimes it's not even thinking about it, but somebody was like... I was taken out to lunch the other day by a guy at KeyBank who I had met 10 years ago. He just started his career with the bank. He came to one of my seminars, reached out for a friendship, and we just kept in touch. He said he just got a big promotion in the bank and he wanted to take Andrea and I out to a really nice dinner to thank me for the mentoring. I didn't even think I was a mentor to him. I just liked him and enjoyed talking with him and sharing ideas. Those are things that make me feel good.

That's an interesting question. I have to always, I'm a bit of an old school dinosaur in some ways. Things that I don't fully understand, I'm really hesitant about. I've read that when the Industrial Revolution came in, people became fearful. When television came in, they became fearful. I have a belief that AI used correctly will enhance humanity in many ways, but I am fearful about the potential misuses. For example, if I'm on a Zoom call and somebody has their bot recording everybody's voice, I'm not necessarily comfortable with that because I know those voices can be used in other ways. I have a real good open mind about it. I used AI for one of my seminars. I wanted to rebrand it because I felt the name was missing some elements. A friend of mine helped me. AI gave me 10 suggestions and one of them was a winner. So I like it. I'm afraid sometimes that we'll lose the creative thinking that people can do themselves if they rely too much on it. But right now, I'm sort of having an open mind about it.

Not seeing that. What I am seeing is that people are having their resumes written by AI. You can tell. I don't necessarily see the resumes, but it's sort of the talk around. I'm in a lot of networking groups of people that have lost their jobs, so that's a big topic. But I would say the majority of people are embracing it in a constructive, positive way. I want to see where it goes.

I think again, I was a great classical warrior. I was probably one of the best warriors you'd ever meet. I used to say that I earned half of my salary. I got paid the other quarter of my salary for worrying. I worried about everything. 25% I was overpaid. That was my mindset. I wouldn't sleep at night. I got to a point though that I learned that worrying is not productive. A little bit might motivate you, but if it's making you sick, keeping you up, making you overeat, it's not a good thing because it really doesn't work. I talk to people a lot about how to manage that anxiety because it's not productive. I've done a really good job myself figuring that out. You have to be really good at that because you need to coach people in a way that gets them to action.

People say, Jeff, you look so calm. I say, yeah, I am calm. But sometimes it's like that duck. When you look at the feet under the water, the feet are going like that. But I've learned to sort of bounce it out. Also, thanks to you and some people like you, my wife and I have always been really good planners. We planned out our financial picture so that we didn't have to worry as we got older. That is a big factor. When people tell me, I want to go into my own business but I got kids in school, my wife doesn't work, I got a big mortgage, we just bought a boat, those are realities. You have to deal with them and think about how to untangle that web you got yourself into. That $20,000 a month outflow, figure out if that's what you really need and how to get that. I'll talk about that with folks as well, and then I'll get them over to you because that's the limit of my expertise, to identify the problem, not the solution.

Oh boy, that's a great question. The younger guy apparently has been talking to me for a couple of years, and I have not been listening.

Because as much as I encourage people to go into their own business, I know the frustration, the sacrifice, the hard work. When you're not getting that bi-weekly paycheck that you've always gotten, it's hard. I didn't want my younger son to go through that. So how do you not go through it? You keep a job all your life. That fear came from a place of care. Absolutely. I knew that. So what I was doing was just sort of avoiding the discussion. He was sort of asking me around it. Apparently, he went to Andrea and said, why isn't Dad listening to me? When Andrea comes to me, I know it's serious. We talked about it and decided that I was going to do the best I can, treat him like a client. He's certainly competent to make his own decisions. I took him through the whole process that I do with anybody else. I tried to just stay as a coach to him as opposed to telling him what to do. He went through it. Him and his wife chose the business that they thought would be the best for them. He got his first order in the first month, two orders in the second month. He's used to getting a pretty significant income. He was a tech, the Amazon global program manager for Prime. He had big jobs. He was looking to exit the rat race. He made... I can't say it's a bad decision on his part. He went to work for a startup automotive company. His college degree is automotive design. He's always been very close to that area. He went to work for an electric car company, and the car company has not done well. In fact, its stock was just delisted. All the stock options and everything are down. I invested in it. I've never owned a stock that's been delisted. It went from 25 to 20 to 15 to 10 to 12 to 7 cents, and then it's just gone. It's probably on the OTC market now. So he saw that coming and really put the energy into saying, hey Dad, come on, let's go this way. In my work, I get paid a pretty nice commission when someone's placed. I gave him that money back, which really helped him buy additional territory and gave him some operating capital to get started. That's something I normally don't do, but I made an exception in his case. He started January 1st, so it's really pretty new. You just got to be patient and work your plan. I feel that the group he's with is a high quality franchise. We'll see what happens.

They do. I don't want to tell you that everybody is blazingly successful. There's some percentage of people that for one reason or another don't make it. It might be health, it might be they don't follow the franchise system. But where I get the feedback is people always ask me, Jeff, once I sign the franchise agreement, what's our relationship? Will you still be working with me? I tell them after 30 days, it'll be Jeff who? Because you're going to get absorbed in the franchise system. You're going to find colleagues that will mentor and coach you. There's very little I can do to help you. But let's connect through LinkedIn, etc. I have a fairly healthy resale business. People I put in business 10 or 15 years ago, when they're in their 60s now, want to sell. They come back to me and say, could you help me sell? Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. But I always spend time with them giving them an understanding about the best way to position their business, particularly in the franchise arena, which isn't always the best going to a traditional business broker. Sometimes it's good to let the franchisor act as your broker, let them do non-exclusives with the different franchise coaches in the community. I've had people tell me that their lives have changed. I connect with all of them on LinkedIn and Facebook. We sort of watch each other's families, stay in touch. I know that some of the choices they made have been life-changing.

I really believe it's having control of their time. That is far and away the most important thing. But if you don't have income and if you don't build equity, then it's a hobby. So that's important. I never want to take credit for the success or take responsibility if someone isn't successful because I get them to the point that they believe they're in the right spot with a good business. But I had one story that is just wonderful. A friend of mine, he used to be the president of a hotel chain. He retired at 44. We were able to get him the rights to all of Sport Clips for Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho. He had at one point four of his own stores but maybe 60 stores of which he was getting royalties on. Then the franchisor came back and said we want to buy yours back from you. It was a very successful transaction. I remember him and Lori took Andrea and I out to dinner just saying we so deeply appreciate what you did. Other than seeing him socially, I wasn't involved in his business life, but that decision that he got to worked out really well.

Oh yeah, absolutely. LBOs were the thing. Was that ever a goal to become like a KKR or Blackstone, which was just starting around that time?

Interesting. We had a group called Windswept Capital. Windswept Capital was Bill, Richard, and I. The idea was never to have one company but to be investing in and acquiring multiple companies and offering our management expertise. That was the dream. The first company we bought, we had a significant problem. One of the owner's sons, we thought was going to be the president of the company. It ended up that he was an entitled brat who was a horrible manager. We had to have the police come and take him out. We then found out that their insurance company had failed or was in failure. We weren't told that was happening, and we didn't find it out in our due diligence. We ended up just focusing on that business. The idea of spreading out our management talent to different companies didn't work. At the same time, we bought the business for a million dollars in cash and four or five million in leverage borrowing from the bank.

Yeah, it was quite a sales job on our part. We did that. We sold the company for stock at a $6 million value, but the buyer took our debt. Our investors got a six-time return and got the stock in the public company which went up significantly. It was a sweet deal for everybody. Even though we didn't spread our management talent around like the KKR type thing, it ended up being a significant success. One of the things I learned is that when this insurance company failed, we had probably four or five lawsuits. The company being in construction always had product liability lawsuits whether we were guilty or not. It was the nature of the business. We were in deep trouble. We went into special credits with the bank because we couldn't meet our obligations due to the lawsuits coming through as uninsured. That's when I became president and chief operating officer. I ran the day-to-day. My partner Bill worked with the state insurance guarantee funds to get us some breathing room. Richard worked with the banks to make sure they weren't going to shut us down. I learned through trial by fire.

Well, Bill was an investment banker. He also knew he was a big player in Seattle. He knew the Jeff Brockmans and the Jack Benaroyas. At that point in my life, I got to meet these guys and raise money from them. John Kaiser, I don't know if you ever heard the name, he started Expeditors and built the marina north of Seattle. Back in those days, I had no money, but I was willing to work hard. I learned so much. When you're out making a pitch to investors, you really learn quickly what works and what doesn't work. It's instant feedback, like fighting without the bruises. I remember once I was in front of John Kaiser, a wonderful guy. He said, okay Levy, what's your plan after three years? I said, I'm probably going to move on and do something else. He almost came across the table. He goes, if you're the captain of the ship, you're the last man off. Don't ever think you're not. I also learned that if people give you money, you have an obligation to them, a significant obligation. I learned that a couple of times in my career. I don't know if you ever heard the name Sam Stroum. Sam was a very successful guy in Washington state, him and Jack Benaroya. He started a bunch of automotive things. Sam has passed away for a number of years. He was a godfather of giving, an amazing man. Him and Jack Benaroya would come up to the earlier company and want to look at our financials. They weren't pretty good because we were really struggling. They just told us, I don't care if it's good news or bad news, we just want accurate reports. They came up once again and we didn't have the financials. They just basically abandoned us. I learned if you take money from people, you got to give them the reports, you got to answer their questions. I remember that guy. My wife and I were on a plane to Paris once. He was on the plane and he remembered me. I still today, that guy who is a pillar of the community remembered who I was. I think it was because I tried to always act with integrity. I wasn't responsible for the books, somebody else was, but he always remembered me. I always remember him with integrity. I've been lucky. I'm a guy with a high school education, a college degree in American history. I think I've got my MBA numerous times over without actually getting it through my life experience.

I taught a college course for three years at Seattle Central and have been a guest speaker for years at Seattle University. One of the things I'm very proud of too, I was asked to be a fellow of the Fordham Consortium on Business. The dean of the business school at Fordham had a grant. The purpose of the grant was to bring business people together from around the world and have them study the business side of different stuff. We would go out to New York and sit down with the big mucky-mucks of the healthcare system and learn what that was about. We went to Juilliard and learned about the business of the arts and music. It was just great. I was a fellow of the Fordham Consortium on Business. I'm really something I'm very proud of, especially going back to your university after having zero experience coming out of there. It's an opportunity for you to give back. We had a program during the pandemic called Fordham Rams, Rams helping Rams. We would help students who were struggling during the pandemic. They'd align us with a graduate. I just have a lot of different things that I've been able to do in the last 25 years because I changed my perspective of my work. My work was no longer my life. My work was going to be an economic engine that would give me the life that I wanted. I spent months and months sitting down with a journal trying to figure out what were those elements that I wanted to reach and do. I started from my lifestyle. What do you want your lifestyle to be? What do you want your family to be proud of? It's all about legacy and impact and how I use my time. Part of it is because I had that near-death experience. I just realized that if you ask me today what is the most valuable thing I have, I would say my time. Then of course my family. But if I didn't have any time, I wouldn't have the family and the health. Andrea and I do a lot of work around trying to stay healthy. When you started saying they're going to get rid of cookies, it scared me at first, and then I realized what you were talking about.

For people graduating today, realize that we live in a world of opportunity, not scarcity. As long as I've been around, I've lived through many recessions, the Vietnam War, political upheaval. There are always opportunities. You have to have the right mindset. The foundation you have to have is being open to learning and identifying mentors and coaches and attaching yourself to them in a constructive way. Also come with the idea of what can you do to help other people. When you're just graduating college, your abilities are somewhat limited, but you can volunteer your time. People appreciate sometimes when they're listened to, when they have a story to tell and you genuinely want to hear it. Getting out of college, set your priorities straight. Start understanding what your true gifts and skills are, what you can be successful at, because those will reflect later in terms of longer term decisions. It compounds. You need to really understand yourself. If you can get a job, get a job. But also give that person you're working for more than you're getting in compensation. That's the best way to go as far as you can in the company. Take every opportunity to learn. Read a lot of business books. Be involved in your community. If you're lucky enough to have a spouse and a family, never take them for granted. Realize that relationship takes time to nurture and grow. It's not perfect from the beginning. For people in their 40s and 50s, if you didn't get some entrepreneurial training when you were younger, let's get on the stick now. First, make sure you've got a financial planner that you can talk about what you have to do to get to a point or an age where you can choose whether you work or not. Retirement means you stop working, you start living. We don't want to do that. We want to start living today. You want to have that in place. You want to inventory your transferable skills. With the financial plan, figure out if you do a business or if you have investments, how much do they need to contribute to that long-term financial security to buy back your time. Being part of the community, don't get so wrapped around yourself that you lose sight. There was a thing by Dale Carnegie, a very motivational guy, who said you can get anything you want in life if you help other people get what they want. I believe that's very true. Probably the most important thing I can share with someone is that we're going to live longer than we think. Retirement age is right around 62 to 65. That's how the world looks at you. You might have 20 or 30 more years of productivity after that. Be thinking about that. For me, when I started thinking about retirement, I didn't think about what age and position is best for Andrea and I. I said I want to be able to help my aging parents. That changed the vision. I wanted to be able to be helpful to my children and my grandchildren. The only way I could do that is have my own business that could be successful, but I can control my time and work as long as I want. I still make money today and put it into a fund for kids' education or family issues. Hopefully those answered your questions.

If they look me up on LinkedIn, I have an unusual spelling of my first name. It's J-E-F-F-R-E-Y, no E, only one E. So they can look me up on LinkedIn and feel free to reach out and connect. I have an email address, jeff.levy at theentrepreneurssource.com. People can reach me that way. But probably the best way is just look on LinkedIn and find a guy who's done the things that I've talked about today. My business is called The Entrepreneur's Source, which is a great name because that's what I try to be.

Tony, a pleasure to see you. It's a pleasure to be seen when you get to my age, let me tell you. But I appreciate the work that this young man has been doing in the background. It's been fascinating.