Overcoming Adversity to Achieve Excellence | Phil Passante

Phil Passante shares why he prefers “excellence” over “expert,” framing it as a continual pursuit, then traces his journey from an idyllic childhood outside Milwaukee to moving to Arizona in 1986 seeking better weather and opportunity. After early work selling high-end men’s clothing, he learned the auto glass business from the ground up—sales, installation, leadership—and in 2001 launched Auto Glass Excellence, emphasizing responsiveness, integrity, and service. He describes early challenges including 9/11, industry changes, and major personal and financial betrayals: a builder taking $200,000 in 2008 and a trusted employee embezzling nearly $1 million over about a decade, discovered in 2016. Anchored by faith, family support, and regained health, he kept the business moving, expanded into window tint, and defines success as love, family, and his grandchildren—living the “dash” between life’s dates.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Expert never sat well with me. Excellence works better because it's something you always strive for. You can't, it's you're not there. It's always a an action, it's always a movement towards something, but you're not, you haven't arrived at expert. You're just in the pursuit of excellence.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Hey there, welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence meets Elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon, and this season we're raising the bar, diving into the passion, purpose, and defining moments of leaders who don't just aim high, they live there. Big ideas, real stories. Let's get into it. Sometimes the most powerful stories aren't about a straight line, they're about everything that happens in between. Tonight's guest was born in Milwaukee and raised in New Berlin, Wisconsin, but his journey would eventually bring him to Arizona in the mid-1980s, chasing opportunity and trying to make ends meet. College started in psychology, but life had other plans. And work quickly became the classroom, from selling high-end men's clothing to learning every side of the autoglass industry, sales, installation, and leadership. He spent a decade mastering the craft before taking a leap of faith in 2001 to start Autoglass Excellence, a company now celebrating 25 years in business. Along the way, he's built more than the company. He's built a life, 33 years of marriage, two kids, three grandkids, and a philosophy that life isn't about the dates, it's about the dash in between. Tonight we get to explore that dash with Phil Pisante. Hello. Hello. That sounds better on paper. Well, welcome. How are you doing tonight? Good. Good. A little whiskey is gonna help. That's good. Let you the the thought. I always say, for whatever reason, I think better once I have a glass. And I think it's the inhibitions just kind of go, okay. I can just allow the thought process to go.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

So maybe I'll find myself more fascinating the longer I the more you drink, the longer you talk.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

So you become, hey, I'm a I'm the most interesting man in the room. So Wisconsin, Milwaukee, New Berlin. Uh-huh. A suburb of Milwaukee. Okay. Is that south of Milwaukee? New Berlin?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Direct west.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

In between uh Milwaukee. I was thinking east. I'm like, isn't the water directly? Uh that's fine. I um spent three months with a company that is actually based out of Milwaukee. And I had to go up there for training for three months. And I was there in January, February, and March. And it was cold AF. Well, that'll that'll cure you from ever coming back. It's like it was brutal. I can remember landing and going to get my rental car and just like, oh my God, how do people live in that? So cold. You know, and then summer. And then it was beautiful. Like the end of March was gorgeous. I mean, it was absolutely stunning. April. I think I had to go back a couple times for different things. And you know, you get down by the lake and just the flowers and the bloom. It's just, it's absolutely beautiful. There was one time I went down by the lake. It must have been, it was middle winter because it was cold and whatever, but the ice was like piling up. It was crazy. I was like, oh my God, that's wild. It builds up pretty good. So, what what did that look like for you? What did growing up in Milwaukee and New Berlin look like for Phil?

SPEAKER_02 3:56

It was idyllic. We we moved out to the suburbs. I was uh went to kindergarten in Milwaukee, kind of a rougher neighborhood. Dad wanted us to get out into the burbs and he bought a small home. I think uh we lived in a 1200 square foot home. I spent my childhood with my brother in uh a 10 by 10 room, and we thought we were wealthy.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Isn't it crazy? I think about my childhood home. Well, the first one, the one that like really is like where most of the memories were made, and I think how big it seemed, yet it was so small. Like it was probably the same 1200 square feet. I mean, it was one bathroom. I don't think the bathroom down we had a basement that was unfinished. We had one bathroom.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Eventually, when we were teenagers, my dad added a half bath.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Okay, so next year, and and I it's so crazy because I think now, like, I don't know that I'd buy a house that didn't have three bathrooms. I don't know why, but it's like that's the number for me. I gotta have three bathrooms, anyways.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

There were three of us me, my brother, my sister.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Okay. You're the oldest? Okay. By how much?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Uh eighteen months.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Oh, okay. So not not too bad.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

You're no no, they had it all fairly close. My sister's five years though. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Younger than me. Sports band, piccolo. What'd you do when you were growing up? What was Phil like? Were you just a troublemaker? A grease grease head?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

You know, I I was a subtle troublemaker. Uh-huh. I uh was a collaborative troublemaker. Okay. I tend to get people to do my bidding for me.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Hey, I dare you.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

You want to paint this fence? I was I I exhibited some leadership skills when I was a kid. I had uh I ran in a neighborhood where most of the kids were older than me. Okay. Uh we lived in a very wooded area. We were surrounded by woods, so any direction you went, you were out in the forest. And um a lot like Tom Sawyer, we were having adventures, you know, building forts and having BB gun fights and all the things that you know you're not supposed to do today, but that we did back then.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

We did that all the time. I almost had a thought I was gonna share something. I decided, nope, I'm not gonna share. You know, it's so crazy because I think about that. I grew up in a small town in Washington, and we used to I I mean, I can remember not only the BB gun, but we and we didn't shoot each other with pellet guns and 22s, but but like we would walk to the end of the street almost with the 22 rifle and shoot stuff, some of it alive, some of it not so alive. Some of it looked like an octagon with a red exactly. So it's kind of it's crazy because I think about now, like, you know, growing up here in in the city, we'll call it we're suburbs, but it's kind of city. I mean, big. There's really nowhere you can do that. Like walk to the end of the street and just do stupid stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

No, and of course, everything now is recorded, so it's that 22 at the end of the street today is a felony. Right, right. And back then, you know, the police would have confiscated it and told your parents, and you probably would have taken it too much.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

I had the chief of police lived next door, and the sheriff deputy lived across the street. So they probably would have just taken it my dad and said, Yeah, hey.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

It was uh I always kind of went my own way as a kid. Um it was one of those things where like the kids in the neighborhood were older than me, so in order for me to get my way, I had to figure out a way to manipulate the conversation or you know, sell my idea, you know. And uh, you know, these were kids that were four or five years older than me. That's a big difference.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

So I do you think some of that translated to moving forward into what you've done with your life?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

I think so. I think I always wanted to be a persuader because I had self-serving reasons. I wanted to play the game I wanted to play. They wanted to play Kick the Can. I wanted to play, you know, capture the flag. And so I'd sell them on my idea. Right. You know, they want to play baseball, I want to play football. And you know, you got it, you got eight kids making a decision. You had to somebody had to come up with the reason why, and I seem to always have persuasive ability to we I was talking to somebody.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

I asked somebody, somebody on the podcast, I asked if they had known what kick the can was and they had no they didn't know. Oh, and I and I we used to play it all the time, we'd play it all the time. And I used to I used to jump, I'd hide on the neighbor's roof and then jump off many times doing a flip as I was coming off the roof. Oh, that had to be impressive. Just because and uh it's funny because man, we played kick the can all the time, you know, and then you set up boundaries because there are kids that were really stupid good at hiding, and other ones of us that got ADD, like, you want me to sit still for how long? I can't do that. So hence the jumping off the roof. When when you think back on your childhood, were there people that had positive or negative impacts on you as you were growing up?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

How far how about how far back do we go? You know, there were the two older boys in in uh my neighborhood, Brad and Tim, they were five years older than me, and uh we shared ideas and uh we used to talk about living off the land. And uh Tim went on to do that. Really? I moved to rural Colorado.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Um lived in a well, we didn't have a grid back then, you know, it was an off-the-grid home, and he he literally fended for himself.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

And uh that idea was implanted when we were, you know, I was six and they were nine.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

That would be so cool. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to just go live off the grid, just disappear into the mountains and leave all the worries behind, which I'm sure I'd still have worries, but that that just like sometimes I'm like, oh so did when you got into high school, junior high, w were you into sports or any anything in school? I played sports by default. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Um I grew rapidly. I entered high school 5'10 and 165 pounds of solid muscle just by accident. So you enter that size as a freshman and you learn that seniors want a piece of you, you know, and juniors want a piece of you because you're you're big, a bigger and intimidating kid, and you're just a freshman, you know. So I kind of entered high school with uh a target on my back and by default ended up in football.

SPEAKER_04 10:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

I could tell you honestly, I didn't even know how we scored the game. I was a defensive end and an offensive guard. I asked uh the running back which way I was supposed to block as an offensive guard, and as a defensive end, I was told to contain or get the quarterback.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

And if we scored, I had no idea, no clue. I could care less. I never looked at a playbook in my life. No kidding. I just I was so do whatever. Everybody was a Packer fan. And um, I was I wanted to be in the woods as quickly as I got home.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Are you a Packers fan of this day? As much as you could be.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

You know, I'm I am a Packers fan, but it's later in life than I understood the game of football. But playing it. No. Mm-mm. I had no interest in I just like there's a there's an aggressiveness that all young men have, you know, high testosterone, and you just want to hit people, and I just wanted to hit people. And so uh, you know, I was able to take out that aggression because I was generally at the time a gentle giant, you know, in a sense I was a giant among kids, and uh I didn't want controversy or trouble or anything. I wanted to be the peacemaker, but you know, it ended up finding me just because of my size at the time.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

So I got out of the field and I was able to hit people, and it it was one of those things that kinda let it all out. Gotcha. Then you'd have to do it in you know, lunch or the library. So that's funny.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Probably better to do it on the field. It was. When when when you got done with high school, because you y your bio says you went through to psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, no, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Growing up a bigger kid and then having that target on your bike, I was kind of a I was kind of an ugly duckling when I was growing up. Um, you know, I had big hair and braces, and I was a bigger kid and just developed a little quicker than everybody else, and then all of that shed. But the confidence never came with it. Never came with it, you know. So, you know, my mom was a big fan of Wayne Dyer, you know, and so she was my sounding board. Okay. You know, we were talking about our parents earlier. My mom was my sounding board. I got home and you know, she helped me straighten my shoulders and you know, look the world in the eye and and give me words of encouragement that she read in either, you know, a Wayne Dyer book or a Shirley McLean book, you know. That's fine. So I was interested in uh uh psychology and the way people develop. Okay. Because I think my mom had those conversations with me.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Do you remember at that point having any thoughts on what you th what you thought you wanted to do with your life? I mean, or were you just kind of going through I wanted to help people. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I was a good listener. Okay. I had a lot of friends that were girls. Girls made the best friends because they truly want somebody to listen to and somebody that will listen to them. And so back then, my best friend was a girl, and the you know, the the girls at school relied on me, you know, when they wanted to talk about issues that they're having with their boyfriends. So uh, you know, that need to help people was ingrained early in life by by being effective at it and by listening.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

That's really cool. Did you so when I was in high school, and you're probably a couple older years older than me, maybe one or two. I'm thinking a few more than that. I'm 61. You got me by six years. That was okay. I'm 55. So there was a program when I was in high school called Natural Helpers that was similar to what you're talking about. Like, like you were, I don't want to say appointed, maybe elected by your peers of of people that you know you were a good listener, you you and we they took us. I was kind of elected to do that, I guess. I don't even know how it became that, but we went off to a weekend retreat and they kind of taught us some of the listening skills and things like that. Was there any training pre-psychology stuff in college that helped you learn how to do that? Or do you feel like that was just through maybe some of the we'll call it older kids picking on you as a younger kid where you realize that you would like to have somebody in that position for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:05

You know, I think it's a combination of that, having a mom that was always there for me, and then uh, you know, I I hung out with older kids in my neighborhood. And so the perspective when I got to school from those older kids, the bullies, let's call them, was one thing. But then I had a safe place to come home and be with friends that were you know three to five years older than me. And they they gave me you know confidence that and an assurance that it it will pass, you know. And um, yeah, I don't know. It it just carried out, it was a theme in in high school for me. Um the drinking age in Wisconsin was 18. Um, I didn't drink.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

I was always a rule follower. I don't know why. I score super high on protective services in my personality profile. So I was just a rule follower. And um when I think about you know, all the kids that I took home from parties, uh that you know, drank to excess because I didn't drink. I they they still remember that to this day. I go back to high school reunions and they're like, you never drank. You always kept an eye on us, and I did. That's cool. I drove them home and made sure that keys were taken. And that was before drunk driving was you know, mothers against drunk driving existed.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

That's uh that's that's when the mothers were driving the car with the course light in their hand and the baby was drinking it sitting on her lap. Cheers. So, okay, off off the wall, random question. What was what was and I'm gonna say toy, but it doesn't have to be a toy like a young child toy. What was your favorite toy as a child? Or as as you know, any anywhere in that child to we'll call it 18-year-old. Did you have something where it's like you were fascinated by it or uh my dad's old erector set?

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Hmm. My brother had one of those. I was fascinated by. I put it together and made little things that moved. So when he gave me that, it was an antique at the time, and probably today it would still be back back before they uh syssified everything.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Lawn darts, you know, the erector sets, the metal erector sets. My brother had a darts.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

I have a barbecue on Friday. Um I have a group of men that I hang out with, and we call ourselves the buzzer bait bicyclists. Okay. And uh anyway, we're we're having a barbecue, and there's 35 of us, and I said to the guy that he said, What can I bring? You know, he he he said he has lawn golf or whatever, you know. And I said, Oh, how about some jarts? You remember that's what they were called.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

They were called jarts. Jarts. My grandparents had a set, and every time we went to their house, that's what we played with.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Oh, dodge the jart. Remember, you threw it straight up in the air and everybody ran scattered for cover.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yep. You know what's funny is they had a the actual dart board in their basement, and I don't remember what my sister did, but one time she made me mad. I threw a dart and stuck it in her calf. I have no idea. I could not tell you, I mean, it was one of those, you know, stupid yawn moments, but uh anyways.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Well, at least it hit the calf.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Right, exactly. Didn't hit anything really too important. But so you were in Milwaukee, eventually made it to Arizona. What what brought you to Arizona?

SPEAKER_02 18:20

So I'm I'm selling men's clothing for a Jewish clothier, and they were huge in the in the Wisconsin area. Anybody that know knows Wisconsin knows Cons. Okay. And they remember home of the two for one suit sale. Okay, he was the original. Al Khan was uh was a true service sales driven person, and uh anyway, he allowed me to be part of his organization, and uh I worked for cons for four years selling men's clothing, and um I had a girlfriend that out that whole time, four years, and uh she decided that after four years she might move. And uh I said, Oh great, I'm up for a you know, I was always up for an adventure. I said, you know, where where are we going? She says, Ah, this is something I think I need to do on my own. So the writing was on the wall, you know, that this four-year commitment I had made. No longer was not really so I asked my buddy, she went on a a retreat, went to Africa for a month. It was her final year of college. And uh I asked a buddy of mine at at Cons, Ron, who was an influential part of my life. He was a 35-year-old at the time that I was 20, 21. Okay. And he had been in my life for the you know, four years I worked at Cons. And I said, you know, I think I want to move. I want to move where I, you know, I was a huge outdoorsman. Okay. Fishing, hunting. I skied, I I name it, I've done it. I windsurfed. I had three windsurfers I kept down on down in Milwaukee for the lakefront. And uh it seemed I worked six days a week. And on my day off, I felt like Ziggy. What am I doing? The big cloud, you know. I it was always raining on my day off. You know, and I said to him, I said, Where can I go where I don't have to deal with the weather? The weather. And he says, You know, my parents live out in Apache Junction, Arizona. He goes, I said, one day I'm gonna move there. Well, Ron was one of those guys that if Ron said it, it must be good. I quit my job a week later, um, I packed a U-Haul, I drained my savings account, and I started driving west. Wow. My parents were in the driveway, like, you're really doing this. You don't have a job, you don't have a place to stay. And I said, I'll figure it out. And I uh I put a U-Haul uh trailer on the back of my Toyota. Well, at the time they were thinking they were called SR5s. Oh, yeah, to our truck, the first gen. And uh I got to about I-17 and Camelback, and I saw a sign that said, first and last months free,$200 a month studio apartment.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

You're like, sold. Sold.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Signed up at 15th Avenue in Camelback.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

And in uh 1986.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Dang. What what did kind of rewinding a little bit? What did working at the men's clothing, was it a department store?

SPEAKER_02 21:22

It was just a fine men's clothing store, you know, uh um it's like men's warehouse type. Like men's warehouse, but uh, you know, the original okay. Well before men's warehouse. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Did did any of the experiences there help mold you into kind of where you went in that four years? I mean, did it help you with with I mean obviously because you made a huge jump from that into glass.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Well, there's there's time in between there, but so I go, I yes, service, finding out a way to say yes to people even when it seems impossible. You know, I need both these suits by tomorrow. I'm leaving on a flight. So then I've got to go back and sweet talk the seamstress or whatever and uh see if we can get this thing done for them. And so, you know, you're not only selling to the customer, but you learn how to sell to your fellow employees. You know, you you learn how to treat them with kindness and respect so that when you do need something, like two suits sewn overnight. They're willing to help you. So I think that was you couldn't just be a good salesperson and then treat the people behind the scenes with disrespect. They wouldn't do your bidding for you then. They wouldn't help you. So I think the biggest thing I learned is how to be collaborative, how to be kind to people that you need.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

She came out of Arizona, 15th Avenue and Camelback, which at that point was still kind of sketch. Oh, was it sketch back then?

SPEAKER_02 22:52

I had a uh I believe a stripper on one side, and based on the arguments, maybe a pimp on the other side of me.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

So I so uh but I ended up befriending the uh apartment rental manager. Okay. And she says, Hey, listen, you're a little too white picket fence America for this side of town. And I said, What does that mean? She goes, and I and I said, This side of town, or she said this side of the valley. I didn't even realize I was living in a valley. Okay. Like back in in 86, you didn't know what Arizona was. I honestly thought it was nothing but I I thought it was gonna look like the uh savannah, you know, with a couple of cactuses and some big sand dunes.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

And camels walking all over. I did.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

You know, you'd have to crack an encyclopedia to see what Arizona was. So, you know, you didn't have phones. So I didn't realize I was living in a valley and she transferred my lease over to the East Valley to a brand new facility in Mesa. Okay. That's when my life began.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Gotcha. Gotcha. She moved to Mesa. What were you doing at that point for work and life?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Taking independent jobs. I was taking odd jobs through temporary services. Okay. And every time I took an odd job, I was offered a job. Because the one thing I do, I may be lackluster when it comes to like football. I didn't want to learn football. I had no interest in it. But I always wanted to hit hard and be the hardest hitter on the team. Or when I'm out doing a job, I want to be the hardest worker on that temporary crew.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

So I always ended up with job offers. I said, you know what? I'm I'm just taking some time to learn the valley. I explored every inch, any, every inch of Arizona. Nice. At that time. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

When when did you meet your wife?

SPEAKER_02 24:43

1989.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Okay, so a couple years after getting down here. Years after getting down here.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

1989.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

In some of the information that you sent over to me, you said that you were working on quite a few odd and end full-time jobs here and there, just jumping around. Was that all that space in that when you moved down here? Oh, yeah, that was playtime. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

It was, you know, when I got here at night. I came down from Flagstaff, it was snowing.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

I got here in November of 86, and um it was raining in the valley. I slept in my car until that place opened, but when the day broke, I could see palm trees and citrus. You know, where did I get to? And uh and I could see mountains.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

So I thought I was in uh uh playground heaven. And so I took enough work to exist so that I could play and I could learn, you know, where the areas are that I'm gonna explore next.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

When did when did auto glass come into play? Or when did the glass stuff come into play?

SPEAKER_02 25:48

So my wife, who was a girlfriend at the time, had an aunt and uncle that owned a large automotive center in town. Okay. Multiple multiple locations, and they approached me and said they wanted to start an auto glass division, and uh that they would kind of let me take the bull by the horns and run with it. But that I'd have to learn everything there is to learn. So, you know, I started by originally we they were subcontracting to Safelight.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

You know, they would they would generate a job and then they'd subcontract to Safelight. And uh I knew immediately we'd have to bring that in-house. So, you know, my first order of business was to hire technicians. We had a built-in referral source, so to speak, you know, with all these counters and uh service riders. You know, they could see that a piece of glass was broken and you know they could refer to the glass division. So it was service like repair service, not body shop service. Right. Okay. It was uh it was uh repair service. Okay. So I started that. I went to school for it, I went to autoglass technician training, and uh I built their business from scratch. I started calling on insurance agents, and uh that was back in 1990, and got to know all the agents in the area and that they needed our our service, and as long as I could perform well and I could uh represent them well, they would you know consider using us, you know. Now back then it was kind of goofy too. There was a lot of glad handing that went on, so I did play a little bit of golf and and things like that to uh uh get to know people. Have you ever had to give away 20 pounds of Omaha steak to replace the windshield? No. Well, back then though, there was uh the original JC Glass, Junior Coker, used to run around the you can edit this if you need to, but they used to run around with um call girls in a van. Really? Agents would disappear for a little bit and then come back.

unknown 27:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

That was uh those these were these were the old west days. I walked in to my first sales call. You know, I had all these clothes from Wisconsin, these suits and ties, and and uh I walked into uh I remember Terry Dobratz, American Family Insurance. He's he's no longer an agent, but he says to me, son, you're gonna have to lose that shirt and tie. You're in the Wild West now. He had a cowboy hat on.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

That's funny. That's awesome. Welcome to the valley.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Welcome to the valley.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

What what did those early days teach you about the business that you thought, okay, if and when I do this myself? I don't even know if that was an early thought for you, but but let's say, how how did you determine what was going to differentiate you from other glass companies at that time?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

My responsiveness, you know, I controlled all the equation at the time. You know, I was chief cook bottle washer. I was the router. I I spent a lot of time on the phones, then I developed a phone team, and then I went out selling. When I sold too much, I was in a truck installing, you know, so it was kind of this everything, and I could control most of the equation.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Have you done you have you personally done pretty much everything A to Z that there is to do in the autoglass industry?

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

So you so you so it's not like you had this idea to start it, which obviously you did it with your in-laws, but start it and then you're just running the operation. You've done it, you've been in the trench.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

In the trenches. So five years of doing that for them, you realize that family's not gonna pay you. And then their kids were coming out of college with nothing to do. And so they gave the glass division to one of their sons uh, you know, that I had built, and uh asked me to train them, and then you know, started, you know, the slow process of pushing you out.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Pushing me out, but you know, making making you want to leave is probably more more realistic.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

So um I got to the point where the one thing I'd learned from that experience is that I wasn't in complete control of our reputation because there was another entity, the automotive side of things. Um, I wasn't in control complete control of our reputation, and that reputation followed me places, you know. Oh, I I've used your company before to replace belts, and I had this experience, and so I started getting I started becoming the complaint center for all the stuff I couldn't control.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

So I decided that my reputation in the business was more important, and my word has to be paramount. And so when I gave my word that I'm gonna take care of somebody, the owner of that company had a philosophy that the customer was wrong until they proved themselves right, you know, because there was a lot of things they were blamed for. And so they got tarnished, you know. There's a lot of noises that occur in a vehicle, phantom noises that occur after you've had something done that you never heard before. Right. So they got tired of being blamed for things for years being blamed, and they that same philosophy trickled over into autoglass, and I was like, no, no, no, this is a different animal. You know, if it's leaking, it's leaking. They didn't create the leak. Right, right. You know, so there's there were things that I couldn't stand by because they made it difficult. You know, they had that you have to prove yourself right mentality. So I decided I was gonna move on, and I started putting the word out that I'd like to start my own account, buy glass, things of that nature. Word got out on the street that I was looking, and another company came to me and asked me if I would partner with them. They were already established. Okay, all they did was glass, and he made it sound real attractive. We would be partners at some point. And so I got there with all my grand ideas to a team that was already in place, and a lot of them were mediocre. And you know, I was prone to speak my mind. I always wanted to get my way, hence going back to my childhood, you know, and so it was important to me that I could honor the commitments that I made to my customers from the way we handle handle phones to, you know, uh the way we handle complaints, all that stuff. So I spent five years building their business, and um I guess I rubbed a few people wrong in the organization that you know they wanted to see me gone. And when I approached the owner and said, Hey, whatever happened to this partnership thing, he said, I don't need a partner. In fact, is what I need from you is I need you to sign a non-compete, you know. So after five years of building his business, he wanted me to lock me down. And the reason that comes into play, I say I started my own business because of a Ford Mustang. Okay, explain that. Extrapolate, please. Okay, seems a little too self-indulgent, but we all have a starting point, the thing that pushes us over the top. Um, there was a Ford Mustang technician went out, it was supposed to bring out the windshield with the pony on it. Okay. Technician didn't speak very good English, was there late. Guy had waited all day long, and uh guy says, This isn't the windshield that I ordered. I wanted the one with the logo on it, the pony. You know, there was that logo up at top. Yep. Technician said, basically drawing in the sand, will this do? You know, because he he really didn't have good communication skills. The guy's like, just put it in. You know, I waited all day for you, put it in. So he did, but in putting it in, he cut the cord to the rear view mirror. Oh no. Right. So now the guy's upset. He calls his agent, the agent calls me, I say, hey, to the owner of the company, can we when we have to take this out, can we go ahead and get him the right piece of glass? And the owner of the company said, No, absolutely not. What and and he his stance was he should have said something at the time. And I said, Well, the story goes that he couldn't really communicate with our technician, and you're you know, you we brought out the wrong one. He had ordered the you know, the one with with the pony. He would have been explicit about that. I said, I think this is a moment where we need to meet this guy. And we're talking about a$50 piece of glass at the time, and he drew a side uh uh uh line in the sand, and I think that was the indicator for me that they wanted to see me gone. And he said, if you want it done, you pay for it. And so I did. I paid for it out of my commissions, okay, um, preserved that relationship with that agent, and uh he charged me full price. Wow, he didn't charge me the$50, he charged me the entire invoice. No kidding, and then could tell I was disgruntled and wanted me to sign in on compete. And at that point in time, I'm thinking, if I'm willing to pay for these mistakes that my fellow employees are gonna make, then I need to just go go this and do this my way. Because then I wouldn't have to battle the uh bureaucracy, so to speak. You know, I I didn't have a say.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

It's it's awesome to me that it only took you ten years to get there. Obviously, two different stints, two five-year stints will say I would have stayed at this last company.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

I love this guy, but his ego, you know, after the company got big, you know, due to a lot of my efforts. His ego got bigger.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

His ego got bigger, and then he was starting to say, you know, you're you're either for us or you're against us, but you gotta be, you gotta choose, you know, and it that's it's so crazy because I think I think back on my life and my career, and I think about I spent 30 years. Well, I'm 30 years in now. I spent 23 years saying someday, right? Someday, someday, someday I'll do this. Finally getting to that point where the stick broke, and I'm like, I am done fighting for anybody else on this mountain, right? Getting to that point and getting to the point where you just go, uh I'm I'm done, because it's not rocket science to take care of somebody the way that you would want to be taken care of. And I'm with it's the cliche, right? The golden rule or whatever. But it but it's that thing. The our industries are not so different. Obviously, we work very closely in in industries, but I think the only thing that really differentiates me from any other agency out there, other than if I'm a massive agency and I've got tons of marketing money and all that stuff, right? That differentiates. But but as far as like truly the policies go, it's a relationship business and I'm the difference, right? I could sell you X policy, you could buy that exact same policy from somebody else if we put it together the same way. So it's really, it's really who that relationship is with. And so I think about that with the with the glass stuff. It's like, is there a cost if you have to redo it? Yes, absolutely there is, right? But you think about that agent that you save that relationship with about the pony glass and how many more referrals that agent probably gave you over time that made way more money than that$50 or whatever it was for that piece of glass. Right. And I and to me, it's baffling. And I've been in those arguments with previous employers where I feel like, can't you just see that this is the right thing to do? Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yes. And battling that and knowing that the rest of the team was also rooting for my exit, you know, there were a few that understood, I really knew what I was saying and knew what I was doing. I'd go out with a technician that they would hire, I'd ride with him. I'd come back and say, I wouldn't let him work on my worst enemy's vehicle. He's a hack. And they'd say, he comes with good recommendations, we've seen him install. I say, well, he's installing that way in front of you, not when he's out on this out on the street. And he wouldn't last more than a week. And I didn't have a big I told you so attitude about things. I was just glad I got my way, you know, that that it was discovered sooner than later.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

And my you know my uh downfall amongst all the downfalls I have, uh don't ever ask me my opinion on something. Right because I will tell you. Right. If if you want my opinion, ask me. Oh, yeah, and I will tell you. I'm and and know that it's not I'm not coming at you, I'm not attacking you, I'm not telling you that you're a bad person, but you've asked me my opinion on something. So don't you want me to be honest with right?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Well, I agree with you 100%. My wife loves that commercial, you know, the Abe Lincoln commercial where, you know, um Betsy walks in and says, Does this dress make me look fat? And he goes, My wife's like, That's you. Don't ask my opinion if you don't.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

It's so hard because I've gotten myself in trouble so many times in situations, mostly corporate, where somebody will come in. You know, you got a manager come in and they're like, Okay, so what do you think of what's going on? It's like, well, if we did this and this and this and this, it'd be better and da-da-da-da. Things are good, but just I'd be better off just keeping my mouth shut. But I can't. Don't ask my opinion, please. Don't ask my opinion. Well, I I know who to go to if I want an honest so I start you start autoglass excellence 2001?

SPEAKER_02 40:03

2001. Yeah, I get uh the non-compete kind of toward the beginning of 2001.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Okay. I get that. Did you actually sign it or did you just walk away?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

No, uh, he gave me a week to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

I said You're like, I'll file my LLC paperwork today.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

No, you know, I wasn't all that uh astute. You know, I hadn't really contemplated it. It was always that mental bailout. I guess I could do my own thing at some point, but I really didn't want to. I wanted to work for him. I loved the guy. And uh I think it felt like a betrayal more than anything. Uh it hurt to the core. It was, you know, the first of many betrayals in my life, but that was, you know, one that that one of the first that hurt because I would have, you know, died on the sword for him. And uh later on in life, he he contacted me and did apologize for the way things went. But it took a long time for him and a lot of anger, you know, because I ended up taking a fair amount of business with me when I left. But prior to that, I had to make that decision. And I looked at my wife, who you know, we had two young kids. We'd just moved into a new home, and I said, Well, this is do or die. This is my time to either start something or not. And she says, I got your back.

SPEAKER_04 41:15

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

That's incredible. And uh, we had you know two little ones, and I was scared when I filed LLC P LLC paperwork. Actually, when I went in, it was serendipitous. I originally wanted it to be AG, AGE, you know, uh Autoglass Excellence, but it was Autoglass Experts at first.

SPEAKER_06 41:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

And uh I filed the paperwork, and uh really it was because I wanted the acronym with Age Comes Experience.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

That's our that's our tagline. Okay. With age comes experience. And I had a lot of experience at that time, you know, 10 years under my belt. And um they gave me the go-ahead. So I filed the paperwork and then they called me and said, Oh, it's too close to another company called Expert Autoglass. As I was standing there, check in hand, ready to the whole thing, and I said, you know what? Expert never sat well with me. Excellence works better because it's something you always strive for. You can't, it's you're not there, it's always uh an action, it's always a movement towards something, but you're not you haven't arrived at expert, you're just in the pursuit of excellence. And I on on my LLC paper, if anybody ever looked it up, they'd see I cross through experts and put excellence. No kidding. And that's the paperwork I have for my corporate.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

That's cool, that is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Um and that's been our pursuit. Excellence. Excellence in autoglass.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

I really like that. I think that that's that speaks a lot. It speaks a lot, you know, for you to have that we'll call it epiphany with regards to, you know, expert, excellence, you know, that whole thing. So what do you think as you were as you were starting the business, did you lay the groundwork to be different than those that you had worked for previously out of the gate, or did you just go, I'm gonna go shake bushes and I gotta make money?

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Well, I knew I was gonna port over quite a bit of business because the relationships were mine. It's never been about the glass I represented, it was about the relationship I formed with the agents. You know, going back to what you were talking about, you know, you represent many carriers, but the relationships with Jan. And so you're only as good as the your ability to develop a relationship with your customer because it's not Secura or Acuity or any of those other carriers that are going to do this for you.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

So that was the same where I was. Um they did a decent job of supporting me, but not the job that I was willing to to go to when I started my own business. So my customers were already willing to trust in me because they could see my conviction. By starting my own business, they already saw that I was a man of conviction. Right? Because I didn't do it for the money. I like I said, I would have stayed where you I would have retired with that gentleman.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

But that's incredible. Were there were there times starting the business? I mean, because you just I mean, to say you would have retired with that individual, with that, with that person, and obviously you know there was some betrayal and things that happened in there, but so it wasn't like you were, I don't even know what the word is, pining for I need to go do this myself.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

I didn't have that in me. Yeah. Yeah. I uh interesting. I wanted to make decisions. I wanted to give be given autonomy to make decisions, you know, whether it was a good technician or a great person on the phone, or you know, maybe help with some of the rhetoric on the phone, you know, scripts, things of that nature. But then I just wanted to be left to do what I do, which was Develop relationships and then be able to say yes when somebody said, Hey, can you help me? Yeah. I got a problem. Yeah, yeah. I need you. And I was I wanted to be able to give them the assurance. And when I didn't have that support any longer, i.e. the pony, I realized now I have to do it my own way. Yeah. So put your money where your mouth is, Phil.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

You know?

SPEAKER_03 45:53

And uh we You started the business. Were there bumps? Oh, yeah. Were there things that made you go, I got I got in way over my head.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Oh, we started in 2001, and we all know what happened in 2001.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

December? So the world stopped driving, stopped breathing, and we sat around the TV in that small little office. Yeah. With this gathering of veteran employees that I had recruited, and we wondered if anybody would ever get back to driving and making decisions about autoglass. Yeah. And we just held our collective breath. So, you know, that was bump number one. Yeah. Right out of the gate. Yeah, there's always a little bit of growing pains. You know, the business came in pretty fast. I mean, you know, the the one thing I can tell any entrepreneur that, you know, caught that uh alleves all woes is sales. I didn't lack in people willing to trust me.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

So once we got past 9-11, you know, we were we we hit the ground running pretty fast and kind of overwhelmed my team and you know, I'd have to do things to remind them that I care. Yeah. Because I was out in the field selling and they were taking care of day-to-day business. I had to put a lot of faith in them, you know, to let them run things while I was out there. Yeah. And uh yeah, so that went on for a while. My wife, she was a nurse. Okay. She quit the hospital for a little bit, started working part-time, and started helping me with the books. Okay. Because we were just drowning in paperwork.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

You know. As most business owners are. Right. It's like the the job after the job.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Yeah. So she was there, and uh, there was comfort in having her there, you know, because she's family and yeah, she's looking over things while I'm out making sales calls.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

Somebody somebody that hopefully of anybody has your back. Yeah. Right. And she did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

But then it was time in 2006 for her to go back to work full-time. She really felt compelled. She was a labor and delivery nurse. Okay. And uh she felt compelled to help uh the hospital down the street from us open up. So she was in the ground floor of uh the uh new hospital down the street from us, Mercy Gilbert. Okay. She was she was part of the core team that opened that hospital. Oh wow. Yeah. So that was back in 2006, and that left.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Has that hospital been opened that long? I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Well, you know, I think uh there was a a you know a half-year process of opening, you know. That's crazy. Yeah. So that's weird how how how fast time flies. Yeah. Yeah. So um, yeah, there was there's been some bumps after that, you know, because then she left. My general manager at the time wanted to pursue, you know, that was 2006, so he wanted to pursue real estate. So he went ahead and started pursuing that dream. And uh the person that was left behind was already with me, you know, five years, and uh said he was you know mensa smart and uh already had basically an accounting degree so he could handle all the books, he didn't handle everything Tammy was doing. Just go sell, go do your thing.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

And uh yeah, there was there's some things that have occurred in those in those early days of of getting the business off the ground and move moving. Looking back, is there is there anything you would have done differently then that would have helped excel the business quicker?

SPEAKER_02 49:29

Looking back, the business was thriving and it was manageable. And I was making more money than I ever dreamt I would make because I didn't get into it for the money. So it wasn't until I started buying glass and seeing the margin and that I could see that um how much was in it at the time. I think I would have guarded that. You know, I would have guarded that from certain eyes, you know, because that's when people change if they don't have your back. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

And uh, you know, that's what happened to me.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Well, I think anytime money gets involved, yeah, it gets or can get ugly quickly.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Yeah. Yeah, it does. And you know, your wife has your back and she's counting the money, so it's all good, but you put that into the hands of somebody that's not family. Yeah. And that can change pretty quick. The dynamics. Pretty quick. I probably if anything, I might have duplicated my efforts out in the field and had another sales rep or two come on board and you know, recruited somebody out of the industry.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

And do you feel like there was a time where let's take that, another sales rep or two. Do you feel like there was a time where you could have probably plugged another sales rep in? And now looking back, you realize how that sales rep could exponentially grow the business. But at the time, thinking of if you did hiring another person, the stretch of doing that?

SPEAKER_02 51:03

Yeah, you know, there's the I eventually did do that, but it came on the heels of a downturn in the business that I couldn't put my finger on. So in 2006, we put the business in the hands of the person left behind. And um, my wife went back to work. I continued to make my sales efforts, and uh, you know, we're we're approaching the high years in in real estate, right? So I have money to invest because there's equity in your home.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

You know, so uh, but I start to notice the it's not the sales volume was slowing down, but the amount of money in the bank account is getting smaller. And uh, and you know, I'd go to my uh accountant, you know, who was in-house, and I'd say, you know, what's happening? Oh, you know, the industry's changing. They're they're cutting margins, they're you know, glass has gone up, you know. There was always a a reason for this to happen why the the bank account was was shrinking, you know. And uh, you know, so I'd hire I hire somebody thinking, well, I'll duplicate my efforts. So I'd bring somebody on and they'd be semi-successful, and uh there was never a translation to more to the bottom line. Interesting, you know, they got their paycheck, but mine continued to slide, you know. So, you know, this this kind of was the theme leading up to 2008. So, you know what happened in 2008? Yeah, market crashes, that's our next big 9-11 moment, yeah, right? So again, pressures on businesses in 2008, the world is you know, the sky's falling and uh people aren't making claims like they used to make. They're they're hunkering down.

SPEAKER_04 52:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Because they're losing homes. And uh he could point to that. He could point to that and say, you know, that's where the business was spiraling, that's where the business was going down. And uh I think there was a moment in the middle of my business, thank goodness I never abandoned my operating principles to take care of people. No matter how low my income got, and it was cut by three quarters. Wow, no matter how low my income got, I always took care of my customers. I didn't care if I had to take it out of whatever cash fund I had, you know, in equity position somewhere, uh, whatever, whatever it took, I would take from my own personal proceeds and I would make it happen for the customer. So while that was unveiling itself, and the business was in that kind of moment where I was feeling dejected, no matter how hard I sold, no matter how many people I put on, my income kept going backwards. There was always an excuse. Hey, the big gorilla is out there, safe light, you know, taking business from us, whatever they were, you know. There was always some excuse, and he was very good at manipulation. Like I was gaslit from probably 2007 till I discovered in 2015 he was embezzling, but in there you need to know that your gut is your primary source. Yeah. Again, you knew, but you didn't want to know. Betrayal is one of those things where you have to change your entire paradigm, your entire way of thinking about yourself to acknowledge that you put trust and built an entire storyline and life with somebody that I considered like a son to me. And then to be confronted with the fact that the ultimate betrayal could have occurred in that relationship is something you have to kind of confront yourself. Yeah. You know, because that's where it really comes. That's where the work is. It's like, okay, am I really that gullible? Is that how is that how I operate in the world?

SPEAKER_04 55:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:15

You know, from that, and then from that point forward, you know, how will I operate? You know, how am I gonna how am I gonna perceive the world from that moment forward? Do I really want to acknowledge any of this?

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Yeah, I mean, that's that's deep because I think human nature, when you find out you've been taken advantage of in a situation like that, is to curl up in a ball and want to give up. Oh, yeah. Right? So it's figuring out okay, how how do I push through? And and I guess my question to you was how how did you move forward from that?

SPEAKER_02 56:26

So once again, yeah, I'm I'm a firm believer. Uh uh, I'm faith-based. Okay. I'm a I'm a believer. And uh, I looked at this scenario in one way. I was being prepared. So I took back in uh 2014, after all the stress of of continually taking a paycheck home that was less and less and less every year from you know 2007 all the way to 2015, I whittled it down to a point where I started thinking, yeah, I better start looking at maybe Costco.

SPEAKER_04 57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Home Depot. Wow. You know, because even though the freedom was there as an entrepreneur, because you're addicted to freedom, you're not gonna, you know, you really don't want to be a now you become very poor employee.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So even though you work more hours than you've ever worked, right? The thought of going to work for somebody else is like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

But as we we go forward in that moment, I had blossomed up to oh, probably 290 pounds. Oh wow, yeah. And uh I started taking control of my health in 2014.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

I lost a total of 130 pounds. I got down to 170. Wow. I was running. I was I just decided if I can't control my business, because at the time I didn't know what was happening.

SPEAKER_04 57:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

If I can't control my business and it's and I I can control one thing, I'll control my health. So I took it you know, advantage of some of the freedom that I had, and I just really focused on my health for an entire year. So coming to 2015, I am stealth and healthy and strong. And we make it through 2015, and I'm still making a push forward in business. And it's in 16 that I really discover the unmentionable, you know, the what what had happened, you know, how how I figured it out.

SPEAKER_04 58:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

And uh, you know, it was in 16 that I did that. My daughter was to be married in my backyard in 2017, the beginning of 2017.

SPEAKER_04 58:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

So I find out, you know, in it at Christmas, and I've got three months to prepare for my daughter's wedding, and we had 250 people invited to, you know, have this backyard wedding. There's a lot for me to prepare for, and I no longer have the freedom to do it because I not only you know discover without any refuting that he had been doing this, and to the tune of almost a million dollars in uh in a 10-year period.

unknown 59:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

That then we uh, you know, I've got that backyard wedding to deal with, and it's my daughter, my only daughter.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

And she is worried sick that this thing's not gonna happen. And and you know, she's got she's got reasons to be worried. I mean, the most heinous thing has just occurred to me. My employee that was like a son to me that went to all our family functions was finally discovered as embezzling, and I've got to I've gotta push forward.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Right? I was going through hell, but like what you know, there's country songs, and you know, it's church Churchill that said, you know, if you're going through hell, just keep going. That's right, just keep on moving. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I I I had no choice. Yeah. I well and I think God kind of prepared me for it in a sense. I had taken control of my health, I had, you know, been reattached to to you know my faith spiritually. I'd been I'd been going to church. I you know, there was just a lot of things that kind of prepared me for that moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

And uh I was fortunate to just have no choice but to keep moving forward because uh the the idea of disappointing my daughter on her wedding day, her one and only to her high school sweetheart.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:31

It's like never.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

No. I mean, I had one moment, one day where I I looked up at the sky and I said, I can't do this. You know, I there was too much pressure because I'm now running my own business and hoping that I can resurrect that. Yeah. And, you know, trying to prepare for that wedding. But I had friends and family and people that were, you know, that that lifted me up at times when I didn't think I could. I had a network.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Yeah, and I think that's important. I was gonna ask you a question, but I think that that's really important what you just said. I think having a network as a small business owner, as a business owner, people that are vested in your success invested in your success, but not invested in the business, I think is wildly important.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

But they have to genuinely care. Absolutely. You know, it can't be like a vendor who wants to see you succeed because they have a right, because they need to sell you more. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's the I had a network of people that cared for me, loved me. Yeah, and uh I was grateful for that. And it wasn't for them, there would have been times that uh, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

Have have you gotten to a point where you now or even before that happened in 2015, where you look back and you and you feel like I've created something successful?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

It's hard for me to embrace that. You know, you go all the way back to high school when you know my mom was telling me how to keep my shoulders straight, right? You know, you you the the the things that develop early in life, you know, the the lack of confidence. Yeah, I had a I I knew my dad loved me, you know, but when I asked if he would help me with college, he said, I you know, son, I I just don't think you're college material, you know. And uh he had sent my my son, you know, my my my brother to college, UW uh Madison, but my brother was a s a scholar. He was he was uh a smart kid that worked hard. I was one of those kids that just got by. I just, you know, yeah, I wanted to be out in the wilderness.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:38

Just, you know, I was passionate about things, but it wasn't school.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

You know, I just got by. I did what I had to to get by and and get get get get a degree. And so he recognized that. To no fault of his, he just said, I don't want to invest in that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

So I went ahead and paid for my own college. I got three years in a psych degree. I had great grades going and uh transferred those to ASU and you know just stopped because work got in the way. And then I figured out that I don't need a degree to be successful, be successful, you know. And so there was no reason for me to go back other than to prove maybe my dad wrong, and I don't need to do that. Yeah, he's proud of what I've accomplished. So I live vicariously sometimes through their eyes, right? They're very proud of me. My family's proud of me. They tell me so, and I'm grateful for that, but I don't really allow it always to sink in. Yeah. Because there's still that little that little voice that goes back many years that says, you know, you're an imposter.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

Yeah. Well, we've talked about that too, imposter syndrome, and that's the thing, right? Well, tell me uh family. Talk to me about your family. Tammy's your wife. Yeah. She's been with you for 33 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:00

Well, well, we've been together, you know, almost 36.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:04

Okay. Since you know, she ever grabbed you by the throat, slapped you around, told you wake up and quit belly aching? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

Well, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she she's she she's defensive. She says you're too hard on yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:19

And I don't want to see I I love you, and it hurts me to see you talk like that to yourself. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And that's the ultimate form of love that she's doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And she is my person.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

She's my favorite. How about how about the kids? How how does the business or lessons that you've learned throughout life and the business translate to how you deal with your kids, have tried to rear your kids?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

So, you know, it was it's it was a great experience for them to see me go through this. So back in this was the ultimate betrayal, but I had one other that occurred in uh in 2008. I had a builder that had taken$200,000 from me to uh start a project, you know, start building another home for us. And then he swiftly went bankrupt and named me in the bankruptcy. And that I was living in Circle G at the time, and I I now found myself in a place where I couldn't, you know, I didn't know what this individual was doing to me on my business side, he was eroding my income. This person just surprised me, you know, with it was a handshake agreement. Yeah, you know, he was a family friend, and he took$200,000 and and then virtually vanished. And uh, you know, it set in motion the fact that I had to move from a 4,000 square foot home into what I thought would be a rental. And again, I tell you that God worked in my life. Yeah, I used to walk past this old home, this old little farmhouse, and it reminded me of my home that I grew up in. It's a little slump walk home. I didn't know the acreage, but it looked like it was on acreage. Yeah. And I used to dream about that little home. One day I'm walking by in this desperate moment where I don't know where I'm gonna go with my family because I've got to short sell my home because somebody took all the equity, you know, and ran off with it. And you know, I'm in that situation, and and a sign's up in the front yard of this little house. And I call the guy, and you would think serendipitously he said, Yeah, it's for sale, you can have it, whatever. It didn't happen that way. It was here's the deal. I got a buyer, it's under contract, and my hopes were dashed.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Right. So I'm back to the drawing board. A week later, I get a call. He goes, Hey, if you still want the home, here's the deal. I know what you're going through. You know your credit's garbage. I'll finance it. I'll I'm a realtor. Wow. I'll carry the note. It's your home. We'll go do a quick claim deed, and you'll have a place for your family. And I was so grateful. But I had taken a 4,000 square foot home and I had moved it into what was an 1,800 square foot home. My son had his own room, his own bathroom. He, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little tight all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden, we're living in what one of his friends referred to as that's like my grandma's house.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:25

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

Yeah. So so they learned a lot of lessons about being attached to things. Things. Yeah. You know, and uh my daughter learned to love being that close to us, you know, because she was on the other end of a home, a 4,000 square foot home. Now she's right across the hall from us. My daughter, my son eventually came around, but he was more impressionable. He used to walk back to the old neighborhood. He used to let people drop him off at the old home. Oh, really? When he was being dropped off from school to make him think he that he was still there. He was still there. Yeah. And it was within walking distance. Yeah. But they have learned invaluable lessons. Watching me go through this. I don't know if they'll acknowledge them today, but down the road, yeah, you know, I mean they're 31 and 27. Yeah. So I know that they've learned a lot though.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

But you know, the things that are important to your family, that's what you learn in all this. I mean, all that other stuff was just stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:29

You know? It was uh it was a cabin in Pine Top and it was uh a home in Circle G, and now it's a 1900 square foot slump lock home on acreage, and I couldn't be happier.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:43

And it was all orchestrated. And none of this happens without all the timing. Yeah. And so I believe fervently that what what's success?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:56

Have you have you reached success?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

Or what does success mean to you? She is it's in the eyes of my grandchildren. Watching my daughter raise kids so much better than I did. I mean, she is I could tear up. She is so much better a parent than I am. And uh and I thought I did an okay job. And I think I did because I see the fruit of my labor, my wife's labor, in the way she's raising her kids. Aren't great grandkids the best? You know, a comedian once said, if if I'd have known how good they were, I'd have started there.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:32

Yeah, right. You know, we just we just got to watch my grandson last Friday, and it's like, oh it's it's love, it's the love of your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

It's it's amazing, you know. And uh they they they adore me, so that's success. Yeah, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they they look at me and they they race to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:51

That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

Now, have I had success? Yeah. Otherwise, I mean Do you feel like you've been successful? Yeah, and I've had opportunities, you know, come my way, and I I'm always willing to take the risk. You know, if somebody says this this could be a good idea, I'm pretty confident. Yeah, you know, I'll I'll I'll throw some money at it and I'll I'll try to make it work, you know. And we had that opportunity here not too long ago. One of my biggest competitors had sold out to uh Safe Light, and a lot of their employees were stranded because they don't want to go work for Safe Light. That's where careers go to die. I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't be. You might have to edit that stuff out. Yeah. So but the fact of the matter is, is you know, one of them who was influential in the business said, listen, I got a lot of business. Here are my terms. Can you handle me? I said yes, figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:47

I kind of gone through a ever since the incident letting leading up to my daughter's wedding, and coming through that, I have had a insatiable appetite to say yes and figure it out. Yeah. So I have been doing that since 2017, and uh it's led me to some really great experiences. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

So uh we we're still under you know a lot of industry uh pressures, but you know, we'll we'll make it through. Like we're doing window tint now. Okay, and um we're very good at it. So we're reaching out to our past customers who had already had a great experience with us, and they're saying yes, so now we've got another business within a business. That's good. We'll figure out a way to make it through these industry turns, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:44

You mentioned the dash between the dates on the headstone. Yeah. Tell me, tell me what that means to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

Well, if I could replay my my life from the moment I could remember to today, I was always living for the adventure, you know, whether I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, as you referred to earlier, in in the woods with my friends, or it was always what's on the horizon, what's the next adventure? I didn't like complacency, and you wouldn't find me in front of cartoons you know, in the morning. Uh, it was a quick bowl of cereal, and I was out the door until the lights came back, and that's been my life. My my wife says I'm the energizer bunny. I, you know, she's she's troubled by how much I do. Yeah. Because sometimes she'd just like me to sit and watch a binge watch a Netflix series with her. Yeah. And I'm so grateful to be married to her because she allows me to live the dash even if she's not interested. She's not a needy human being where you know, I if she doesn't want to do it, then I can't do it because that would make her lonely. Yeah. She's a self-confident, self-sustaining person, and and says, You go do it. So, you know, when I first had my my first opportunity to go to Europe, a friend lived in Denmark and had a place on the ocean, and he said, You want to come? I said yes. And then how cool is that? Yeah, asked my wife, and she says, Go see the world. I know I don't want to hold you back from who you are. She knows who I am. Yeah, I'm an adventurer. You know, and so I will always say yes to a new opportunity. That sounds exciting.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:23

How incredible. So, in we'll say 20 years from now, if somebody were to ask your kids about your dash, what do you hope they say?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:33

Um that that they could feel my love. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's powerful. Yeah. They could feel my love at all times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:43

I think that that's that's I think as parents, and now you're gonna make me emotional, jump over that one. But I think as parents, right? I mean, that's you hope that no matter what the circumstance that the kids that that that that they know, and and I will say people in your life that are important to you, whether it's kids or whatever, understand that everything you've done, every decision that you've made has been to try to do things that will make their life better. Right. So it made me emotional. You weren't supposed to do that. That's a new one. If s if somebody's listening now and is in the middle of questioning where they're at, what they're doing, maybe in a situation similar to what you found yourself in 2007 to 2015. What advice would you give them to possibly encourage them or move them forward to help them in this time?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

Know that if you just take a step, there's moments you want to freeze, those moments you want to curl up in a ball. If you will just take a step, literally walk out into the sunlight, yeah, but put your face toward the sun and let it bathe you and do one thing for yourself that day, it will pass. I it this too shall pass is so cliche, but it's so relevant. Take it from my experience when I thought I could get any worse than this. Yeah. And then I found out it could. You know, and and yet I took a step forward, sometimes begrudgingly, you know, defiantly, and it it just passed. Yeah. And it and and and don't hold on to a regret too long. You know, you know, I I may beat myself up in many ways, but I don't regret these things that have happened. You know? If if that person wouldn't have stolen that money, I wouldn't live in the home I lived. I live in. I would have still had a circle G life. Yeah. If that other person that I trusted in my business wouldn't have milked me for so much money to the point where I couldn't, you know, resurrect any of these things I thought I wanted, yeah, I would have remained attached, my heart attached to my wallet a little too much. You know, so the refinement came when I needed it. Yeah. And I couldn't see it at the time. At the time it felt like failures.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

Um, at times I had to change my view of who I am. I'm a gullible person. I'm I must be ignorant. I must be, you know, and all these things that go through, you know, the and you have to wrestle with those and say, no, I I'm a trusting person and I care to put my faith in people.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:47

And I'm not gonna let this tarnish. Yeah. So if anything, just know it will pass.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

I was I was gonna say that I've I find myself a very what some would consider gullible. But I think my problem is that I know deep in my heart that whether it's my word is my bond or whatever the cliche is that you want to throw out there, I like to believe everybody else is the same way, which obviously everybody else is not the same way, but but you want to be able to say, okay, well, you know, if you say this to me, if you if if if you and I have a conversation and you say X, well, X is what it is, right? There's no reason for me to believe anything other than what that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:33

Yeah, my dad, you know, your your your word is your bond. You you shake a person's hand and you look them in the eye and you mean what you say. Yeah, and uh and the other thing that he, you know, I took from my dad was give good credit. You know, he's like he's like you can do anything in the world as long as you got good credit. Yeah, so he was right, you know. I through all of this, I have always maintained and tried to re rebuild credit. You know, I had to do a short sale, but I I worked my butt off to rebuild it because that afforded me the opportunity to invest again. Yeah, people would lend me money if your word is your bond, it's the same when it comes to borrowing money from people, yeah. You know, and so I held out as long as I could in that 2008 period defiantly, and then eventually it caved. It took me down, yeah, took me down. But I guess my my uh my point to that is is that you know you can you make it through anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:32

You can tell me about autoglass excellence. Where can people find you? What do you guys do?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:38

Well, we replace anything that moves or is glass on a vehicle.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:43

Okay, do you do do you do pain glass on buildings and houses too, or just auto?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:47

Just auto.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:48

Um we can tint tint uh buildings. Okay, and then we do window tint. We're a preferred provider for all the insurance companies.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:57

So what that means is I'm not just using a cliche that says, oh yeah, we're preferred by insurance companies. No, we're preferred providers, which means I signed all the network agreements to adhere to their pricing guidelines as well as their standards for insurances and things of that nature. I have to have a self-standing building, uh, you know, not self-standing, but I have to have a building.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

So I give up my autonomy in the way I want to price things in order to be an advocate, insurance customers, you know. So we do that happily because I've, you know, my my whole social circle is insurance people. Yeah. I've known, you know, quite 250 people went to my daughter's wedding, about 50 of them were insurance agents.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:42

Yeah, I'm sure. What what has changed in the industry? I mean, obviously, there's no longer$50 panes of glass.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

But glass got more expensive, got more uh complicated to uh to install. It's not the installation procedure is still the same, but uh all the gadgets attached to your glass now, a lot of them need to be recalibrated, and we had to invest large large sums of money into calibration equipment and you know and technology to do that. So, you know, the price went up, but it again it was prescribed to us. Yeah I didn't get to say, well, I'm gonna charge$350 for a calibration. They said, You're gonna charge$350 for a calibration, yeah, or you're not gonna do business with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:26

So, you know, uh, so everything did go up. But what happened is is there was this um this casual affair with your insurance company at one point in time, where and I remember the day when somebody I would say, you know, I can repair that for you, do a chip repair, I can repair that for you. And the customer would respond with, oh no, I'm not gonna look at a chip in my windshield. That's what I have glass coverage for. You know, and so they would just insist that you replace it for a little chip in the windshield. Yeah. And they would do that because they were encouraged to do that by outside sources, you know, that said, hey, you know, get 20 free dinners and whatever else. And uh this this doesn't go against your insurance. Well, eventually they enacted a law where they could rate you based on claims frequency and uh people that were in that mindset that I get five, ten windshields a year if I want it. No, yeah, you don't you don't get that right to just go to the well re and uh regularly. So I think if you got glass coverage, you use it for a big claim. Yeah. You know, when your windshield is broken, it's gonna be a thousand dollars and that's gonna hurt you, then use it.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:39

But what don't what would it cost? And I don't know if you can share this on the air. I don't know if that's proprietary information. So tell me say nope, can't help. But like let's say I get a wind, let's say let's say I get a chip, just a little rock chip that can be repaired. We do rock chips for$90 mobile.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

Okay, so it's the average person and uh uh sixty dollars in shop, but uh you know so it's it's inexpensive to get that stuff fixed. We look at it as a a loss leader, and if somebody says, listen, you I was referred to you by such and such, whatever, we'll invite them in and sometimes we do them for free. It just you know, it's it's one of those we want to make friends by doing the small stuff first, yeah, and keeping it reasonable, and then you know, when they do need us for something large where it's not repairable, they call you. They call us and they remember us, you know, and you can you can make a lot of friends by just doing yeah uh nice simple things for people. For sure. How do people find you? Well, autoglassexcellence.com, you know, or we're in Tempe off of Kyren.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:45

Is your building built back up?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:46

It's back, yeah. We got destroyed by the uh Tempe storm, yeah, but we're back and so yeah, but uh the the phone number for us is 602431-6109. That's the best way to communicate with us, just give us a call. Okay. We answer our phones with professional people that are employees of ours, and uh they know the claims process and they can process the claim. You don't need to involve your insurance agent unless you want to ask them, you know, a specific question about your policy. But if you know you got glass coverage and you want it replaced, just call you. Call us, we can we can file the claim. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:32

You know, you know what the insurance companies want. Yeah. Or require.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:37

And what you can expect from us is uh an undying attention to service and a willingness to listen when we fall short.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

That's the thing. We're not perfect. That's why the name is excellence and not experts.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:52

I like that. I like that a lot, actually. I really do. I think that's really ingenious. I don't know if ingenious is the right word, but I like it. It was born out of necessity. Yeah, right. You know, so well, I really appreciate you coming on. Is there anything else that we should know about Phil or Autoglass Excellence that we haven't run through? I mean, I'm sure we could probably sit here and talk for hours, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:13

I mean, uh you and I, I'm sure we could find a lot in common. Yeah, I'm actually really curious why you got such a an obsession with Halloween.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:21

That's a story. That's a story. Yeah, no, I uh I should share that story sometime. You should. I should. Yeah, it it actually starts when I was five years old, oddly enough. And I was my dad was a teacher. I'll share this because you asked. My dad was a teacher, and they did a haunted house at the high school every single year, and we were with the babysitter. The babysitter took us to the high school and they were doing a dress rehearsal for the haunted house at the high school. I got somehow behind a strobe light at the end of a hallway, alone as a five-year-old. Oh, yeah, with what I remember, strobe light and the smoke, you know, whatever, and Dracula coming at me. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I was freaked out. I mean, scared me to death. For the longest time, I could not go into haunted houses because I was scared of the haunted houses. And then uh as I started getting older, I went into a haunted house with some friends, and I just became very fascinated with what they looked like on the inside and how you could use light and darkness to make things look like they're something that they're not.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:43

And through, I mean, through that, it kind of just started fascinating me and just the whole thought of being able to create something like that. Yeah. Um, and then I was going through a haunted house and and a character jumped out at me, scared me, and and it was one of those, you know, fight or flight moments. And I reeled back and was that close to knocking the person out. And then it got to the point where I just became like almost fascinated with okay, I need to go into a haunted house so I can get scared. Like I need to feel that fear.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:19

So it was a high.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:21

Yeah. Yeah. You were getting a high.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:23

And I got a feeling there's gotta be a psychological component to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:26

I would think so, yeah. And it it really got it to that point where it's like, okay, and so then now when I go into a haunted house, before I even get to the end of the hallway, I'm thinking, okay, if I was creating this haunted house, where would I be putting things? Where would I, where's the where's the jump? Where's the scare? Where's the loud noise? Where's the, you know, and so I'm creating the haunted house when I walk through it. So now, I mean, decorating that the house at Halloween, I don't do it scary, I don't think, but I it's just I love creating props and and obviously the woodworking and stuff too. But and I just if I had more space to store stuff, I would have a lot more stuff than I have. Because I just I have lots of thoughts and concepts and things. I'd be like, oh, this would be cool here, that'd be cool there. I've gotten to the point now where I don't even overseed the front yard until after I take the Halloween stuff down the first of November, which everybody else has already got their first cut of grass off at that point. I'm like, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

So yeah, you know, started young. It was uh somebody at MABE that said once, if you're not scared, then you're not if it doesn't terrify you, then you're not living, you're not doing something. And and I think, you know, part of your entrepreneurial spirit is living that way, you know what I mean? In that in that fear zone. I mean, I'll stand above a black diamond run on skis at 61 years old, and I'll see a bailout and I'll see the moguls. Yeah. And I always choose the moguls because they scare me. Yeah. Because I know what can happen in them. But for some reason, I always choose the moguls. And I think we might be addicted to a little bit of fear.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

I think so. Adrenaline. Yeah, I I could say adrenaline for sure. Like I and and as a kid, I mean, I say as a kid, but in my twenties, when I was fighting forest fires and stuff, I was heavily addicted to adrenaline. Yeah. You know, what can I do today to be stupid? Good thing there weren't cameras back. I mean there were cameras, but none that people carried in their back pocket. Yeah, you know, to to record everything. But yeah, I but it's it's funny because it has evolved over time from a scared, terrified little five-year-old kid to the point now where I mean I've done things you faced your fears. Oh yeah, or I've yeah, exactly. I've done I've done things where like I one year dressed up as a scarecrow with a shovel in my hand, and I was slumped by the tree in the front yard, and the kids would be like, Is that real? Is it you know, they'd come up, is that real? They'd get real close. You slam the shovel down and scare them, you know, and it's like just the I don't know. There's just something about that euphoric, you know, that just does something.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:17

So knowing that you just created a core memory in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:20

Right exactly. Maybe they're pursuing uh their fears now. Could be, they could be. So hey, well, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much. Yeah, I do have a gift for you. Well, everybody that comes on gets a gift, and I've neglected to mention, well, but there's a there is a challenge coin there for you for you came on the uh part of its AP in there, but the other side is uh you went above and beyond. Oh beautiful. And then you've been sipping out of this highball glass, but you've got a personalized one now.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:52

So I went above and beyond? Yeah. Well that's perfect because as you can see, I I do, yeah. It's easier to uh the town when it's watered down. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:02

Right. So anyways, but I appreciate you coming on. I I really Thank you for taking the time. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:09

This is Phil Pisante. And I went above and beyond.

unknown 1:30:14

APS becoming our guiding light.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:22

Lunch mom's buzzing ideas in the air. Go thousands where stories we share. Beyond the fairways, friendships grow. In APN's embrace, opportunity slow. No happy talking, just real deals. Authentic connections, a kind that heals from bomb springs and pine tops grace. APN's network spans every place. Above our network, we're going above and beyond, reaching new highs. In networking realms, scaling the highs from lasers to golf.

unknown 1:31:04

Our spirits unite.

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APN's the beacon, our guiding light. So here's to APN where dreams alight.

unknown 1:31:19

In every connection, a chance to shine. Above and beyond, we'll always drive.

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In APN's network, we truly thrive.