From Sinking Boats to Building a Marine Empire | Austin Tennant

In this episode of the Gold Coast Podcast, host Eric Winegard sits down with Austin Tennant, owner of Native Son Marine Services, for a raw and authentic conversation about entrepreneurship, boats, discipline, work ethic, and building a business in South Florida.

Austin shares how he got started in the marine industry, the story behind Native Son Marine Services, lessons learned from commercial fishing, sinking his first boat, and how those experiences shaped him into the business owner he is today.

The conversation dives deep into:
• Building a reputation-based business
• The realities of the marine and boating industry
• Growing up around hard work
• Entrepreneurship and personal discipline
• Drinking culture, success, and self-awareness
• AI, technology, and the future of business
• Florida lifestyle, boating culture, and South Florida growth
• Why customer trust matters more than quick money

This episode is packed with real conversations, business insights, and life lessons from two entrepreneurs who understand what it takes to build something meaningful.

Guest: Austin J. Tennant
Owner of Native Son Marine Services

Follow Native Son Marine Services:
Instagram: @NativeSunMarine
TikTok: @NativeSunMarine

Hosted by Eric Winegard
The Gold Coast Podcast

Make sure to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more entrepreneur stories, business conversations, and South Florida culture content!

Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Gold Coast Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Weingard. Today I got another awesome entrepreneur, a young man by the name of Austin Tennant. He owns a really cool business called Native Sons Marine Services. He works up in beautiful Stewart, Florida. He's got an awesome business, a growing business, a great, a great dude, cool dude, and an unbelievable entrepreneurial story. Comes from a great background, great family, and um I'm excited to introduce this guy to you. Welcome to the show, brother. Now, what's what what are the genetics in your family like? Like outside of your brother.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

So my my last name is actually Scottish. Okay. But my sister did the 23andMe thing. Yeah. And I guess we're mostly Irish, so I'm guessing someone defected or however you want to term it. Yeah. Microfunders? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, you just get a little get comfortable however you want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

But uh, I guess, you know, someone at some point went there, and uh, so that's where the name comes from. Like my last name's Tennet, and that's the largest brewery in Scotland. Oh wow. So I feel like if I ever go there, I get the drink for free. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

At least one. So I I grew up, my last name is Weingard. I never got a straight story about who my dad was and everything. I did an ancestry DNA when I was 37 and I found out who my family was. Extremely Italian last name. And I have a a thicker build too, for sure. And you know, I was always kind of frustrated by it because even right now, dude, I'm like 254. Like, I just no matter how my body shapes body fat percentage-wise, I'm like 250.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, no, I'm going through like two years ago, I was probably about the same body weight, yeah, but completely different body composition.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

It's hard for me to get down, but I saw my I saw my dad and my half-brothers. Dude, my two half-brothers are even more round than me. You know, so it's a hundred percent genetic, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

No, I mean I've I've fought that my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

You know, I grew up like ironically, I think I was in like eighth grade, and I can't remember when I started, but when I was a kid, I took you know ADD medicine. Yeah. I think it was concerta. But um they put me on something new and it just zapped my appetite. But however, I was a fat kid, like I ate too much, and I lost like 20 pounds, and the doctors like thought I was being like anorexic, and I'm like, no, I'm still eating. I'm just not coming home and packing four Pop Tarts down my throat as soon as I get home from school.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

And then eating dinner and then going back in the fridge before I go to bed and shoveling something else in my mouth. Like I'm eating three meals a day like you're supposed to. Because I don't remember what my body weight that was then. But in a different way. How much are you right now? Uh I don't know, I've slipped on my skin a little bit, but probably like 240. Okay. And in the past year, I've been down at like 230. Yep. I'm trying to get down to 220. Because with doing the triathlon stuff, I mean, having body weight is of no help whatsoever. No, yeah, yeah. Like I was listening to um watching a bike video on YouTube, and they're talking about even on like a 1% incline, like 25% of your power output is just fighting gravity.

unknown 3:09

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And when you go to like a 5% incline, it's like 50% or 75%. It's crazy. Yeah. And like any bike race I've done, you know, on flat and on downhill, like I can keep up with most people and do pretty well. Yeah. But you start going uphill and I'm just getting left.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I don't know. So when I was young, I was a really good athlete. Quarterback, and I was a strong quarterback. I was I wasn't 250, but I was like 205 in high school. I was definitely the strongest kid by far, right? Playing quarterback. But I returned the punts, I returned the kicks, and I was actually a really good basketball player, too. I played varsity basketball in ninth grade. And what and I was I went into the military, and when I came out of the military, I was yoked. I was like 219, probably 8% body fat. But then, you know, I was 23 years old. After that, you know, I just fell into uh once I became a real professional, like 25. How old do you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

33.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

33? Okay, so once I became a professional at 25, dude, I just I don't know. I fell into a lot of drinking, a lot of partying on the weekend, like the sales culture, you know, and like no matter what I ever did, I just I don't know, I just incrementally kept putting on weight over the years. And next thing you know, I woke up in the year 2020. Christmas of 2020, I was 284. You know, and I and that's really when I was like, damn, I'm pushing 300. Like I got yeah, that was that was a that was a wake-up call. So I definitely changed my lifestyle and habits, and got I got down to about 250. And I'd say in the past in the past eight weeks, I'm actually down 4% body fat. But fasting actually doesn't work for me. I have to consume a little bit of protein in the morning. Fasting, it's weird. I think I have such high cortisol that like it my body fat just kind of stays, but I've been losing fat now that I've been consuming a little bit of protein first thing in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

That's good. Yeah, I've I've tried fasting, I've actually I shouldn't say I've done fasting. I don't know that I've ever like put actual effort into it. Like, okay, like I had a point in my life a few years ago where like I just wasn't waking up hungry anymore. I'm like, all right, well, I'm just gonna skip a meal, like this can't hurt me. But then I usually end up just eating it at the end of the day. Like, I've definitely done a lot of drinking in my life, and uh anytime I would stop for like a month or whatever, however long I could stand, I'm like, oh I'm gonna lose so much weight, dude, because I'm not drinking you know 1200 calories at the end of the day, but I'd just eat it. Yeah, you know, if I wasn't drinking, I would just eat like if I was drinking, I wouldn't eat another meal that I don't need, but if I wasn't drinking, I would just eat.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So I'm like, this is bull crap. I'm like, you know, all the different podcasts. Oh, if you quit drinking, it'll change your life. You'll lose so much weight. I'm like, it definitely changed your life. It doesn't make me lose any weight.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, no, so yeah, no. It's nice to be able to talk to another, uh, I don't even know. You know what I call my body? Huscular. Right. Yeah. Like another like I need we should make a brand of clothes together.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Dude, I am super appreciative that most smart people that are making t-shirts nowadays do like the next level type shirts, like the athletic fit. Yep. The worst thing ever, man, especially when I used to, I used to wear a 2XL, now I'm finally back down to an XL. Me too, yeah. But 2Xs, it they don't, they either get wider or longer.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, they go down to your knees.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, that's all they do with the 2X. It doesn't get the shirt doesn't necessarily get any bigger. You know, it's it was always um like uh Seth Ferrossi, Bodybuilders got Axe and Sledge is the supplement company, and then All American Roughnick is the apparel brand, but they both have clothing lines. And his 2x's, I would like order five shirts at a time and one of them would fit right.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

And I'm like, you guys are making how many shirts you can't get them all to fit the same.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, I uh I wear like a lot of uh because once I find a brand, I'm sure you're the same way. Yeah, you want to just stick with it a little bit, and I hate shopping, I'm not trying to go walk around the mall, you know. So once I find like a brand, like Robert Graham does fit me really well, and I don't get like the crazy colorful shirts anymore, but like the polos for the summertime and in uh South Florida, if I want to go out to dinner with my wife, like I love the polos, right? You know, 200 bucks a pot, but they're they're great shirts, right? And they fit great. But dude, I used to wear the 2XL, you know, when I was 265, and dude, they come down to my knees.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

And it's like it does, it looks a little like weird, but like if I wore the XL.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Then you don't look like you're trying too hard. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Or you just don't look good at all.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah, look like that douchebag trying to like show off my biceps and triceps or something, you know. But finally I've gotten down two XLs and they they look better on me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Well, dude, when you're wearing a dress shirt, you know, you want to you want it, especially you're spending some money on it, you want to look nice. For sure. You know, the whole point of wearing nice clothing like that is to look nice. Yeah. You know, you got some shirt that's halfway down to your knees. Even if you're tucking it in, like then it's like some big bulge around your waist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Well, dude, let's talk a little business. So I love, I love, you know, and by the way, we just roll into it. Yeah, which is cool, right? All right. Tell me so, so when did you tell me a little uh name of the business is Native Sun Marine Services. Native Sun.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Native Sun Marine Services.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Native Sun Marine Services. How long have you owned it? How did you get into it?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So officially speaking, as far as state is concerned, I started in 2016.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

And that was kind of off of my accountant at the time, was a family friend. And so I actually at that time I was actually good about doing my taxes because he would bug me, like, hey man, you need it, I need your information, I need this, I need that. Um, but he was looking at my personal and he's like, hey man, like you're doing enough money with this now that he's like, you could get away with just doing it as a cash business. He's like, but if you plan on this being a business, just make it official now. Yeah. You know, and don't end up in trouble later on. He's like, realistically, it's not gonna cost you a bunch of money. Um, and so I didn't previous to Native Sun, it was actually necked out boatworks and it was spelled all weird, and that came from doing fiberglass work in the garage with my dad as a kid, and we just kind of we were do there's a technique in fiberglass and called vacuum bagging, where essentially you wet out the fiberglass and you suck it down with like a vacuum like you would use for doing AC work, like a vacuum pump, and it flattens everything out and it can push it into places that like fiberglass doesn't want to go into by itself. And but we were using a vacuum cleaner, which in hindsight we could have blown up the whole garage doing it. But um so my dad was like, Man, this is so necked out, this is redneck, and I that was my business name first. But every time I had someone write me a check, I'm having to spell it out, and they're like, What is what is this? And you don't really want to perceive to someone like or you know, tell the story like, Oh, yeah, what I do is redneck.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Trust me with your million-dollar boat, I do redneck work. Um, but the business name now actually came from the first boat that I bought was named Native Sun. And ironically, the guy who built it was one of my neighbors in the neighborhood that I grew up in. And I we bought the boat, and uh, I think I can't remember how we put two and two together, but figured out that my neighbor had initially owned the boat, and then when I knew that I needed to make a new business, I also had let the old business lapse. Yeah. And you know how the state they're like, oh, you waited 10 extra days to give us our money, now you owe us $3,000.

unknown 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

It's so funny, it's like I think it's $165 a year when you do it on time, but if you're not on time, it's like another fifty dollars every day you're late. Yeah, it's wild. Um, and that was just the name I came up with.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Because I never wanted to do it off of my name or anything, and I just thought it'd be something different.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

You don't want to why didn't you want to name the business off of your name?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Uh I'd like to say that it was preemptively thinking about selling it at some point. Okay. You know, if you build a business around your last name, then you are the business. I don't know that I actually had that thought in the moment. I think I just didn't want to to me like Tenant Marine didn't I don't know, it just didn't sound flashy to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Um and that boat meant a lot to me. Um, I had bought it because I saw it on Craigslist and my dad and I had gone to a boat show and saw the boat manufacturer's gold line. Um and basically all they made was boats for commercial fishing. Like I'm sure recreational guys have bought them over the years. But uh we went to a boat show and saw that, and I was like, oh man, this thing is awesome. Um, it'd be so cool to have one one day. And we saw one on Craigslist, and my dad's like, oh, well, you want to go look at it? And I'm like, Really? I'm thinking that we're just gonna go look at it. Um and we went out and did a sea trial, and my dad's like, Well, what do you think? I'm like, What do you what do you mean? What do I think? He's like, Well, do you want to buy it? Because it was it had a commercial fishing permit with it, and in high school, one of my good friends was a commercial fisherman, and I just kind of fell into that. I was like, dude, this is what I want to do. Yeah, not realizing at the time that I was basically buying my way into commercial fishing, and an amazing day of recreational fishing is a horrible day of commercial fishing. So I bought my way in, that didn't that didn't go very well. Uh tooth I sank the boat. Um kind of stupid decisions, kind of just mistakes happened. But uh that sort of pushed me towards going to school. I went to Wytech in Daytona, which I think the whole business is shut down now because they would promise everyone that, like, oh, you're they probably promise everyone job placement.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And their job placement was really good until you looked about six months out, and then the job retention was like 20%. Because they're graduating guys that don't know that I mean it's a mechanical school. And there were guys that I graduated with that on paper have the same degree as me, um, but they couldn't tell you the difference between a flathead and a Phillips head, you know, and you want to pay so this guy to work on a boat.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

But um where was I going with that? So boat sink, that kind of pushed me to doing other things. Also, in when the Exxon, or wasn't Exxon Valdez, the the oil spill that happened in the Gulf in 2009.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Wasn't it Exxon?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I no, Exxon Valdez, that was somewhere else. But there was an oil spill in the Gulf. I forget which one it was.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah, massive.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And in down here in South Florida, the fishing you do commercially for most people's king fishing. Well, all the fish that you catch in the Atlantic in the summertime are in the Gulf in the winter. And so that oil spill happened and it killed off a bunch of fish. So that next spring, we had no fish, and guys that had been doing it for 40 years were like struggling to catch fish. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall, and I was struggling with it anyways because I didn't know what I was doing, and probably too dumb to or too shy to like actually ask for help. Or, you know, just hop on someone else's boat and say, Hey man, I'm I'm gonna come for free today. Teach me what I need to know. And there were a couple guys, there's one guy in specific that uh is actually a customer of mine now that was always super helpful to me, had no reason to help me. Um, but I think he was smart enough to realize that I wasn't you know a threat to him. Yeah. Because commercial fishing is like in most places is super cutthroat. You know, every fish on your boat is one less fish on their boat, which couldn't be further from the truth, but that's how a lot of people see it. But not to down commercial fishermen, I mean everyone loves to eat fish, and it's you know, it's a definitely a very difficult job, but a lot of guys that do it, they don't know anything else. So they are super threatened by someone else coming in. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

What why why do you think commercial fishing is so cutthroat?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Because the guys that do it don't have any other option. You know, like I've been at a fish market and watched like someone had their like 12-year-old kid with them, and it was a school day, and the lady at the fish market, you know, she the kid's got a basket of fish in his hand. She's like, Oh, hey, go put it over there to the right. And he steps to the left. And she's like, No, honey, to your right. Steps to the left again. Now, being older, I realize that probably the kid just that's just something in his brain that left and right there's confusing, and I've as I've gotten older, but in the moment I was like, this kid's so dumb, he doesn't know his left from his right. But I've just I've met a lot of commercial fishermen. If you know tomorrow they weren't legally allowed to catch fish, like what are they gonna do? And then you know, the next step is charter guide fishing, which is extremely cutthroat, depending on where you're fishing at. You know, if you're an inshore guide, it's definitely because you know, when you're fishing inshore, you're going to specific spots where hold the you know, I go fish this dock, I go fish that dock. That's where you have to go, that's where the fish are at. So if there's 50 guys trying to do it and you all want to catch fish for your customers, you know, you're gonna have to share the same spot. It doesn't really work out.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yeah, that that's an industry I know not I know nothing about. Yeah. I I don't even fish and I want to. Like, you know, um I keep saying I'm gonna go, you know, charter a boat and and have a professional fisherman take us way out to the Atlantic. I don't care. They're like six, eight, ten grand. I don't care, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I do it's cheap, way cheaper than that. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah, you wanted someone to I want to bring like you know six to eight of my family members and friends too.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, most boats are gonna be a six-pack boat. Okay, meaning you can bring six passengers. Okay. Some will let you cheat it a little bit and bring a seventh person, and they if you get pulled over, you you know, hey, they're the mate. Um because when you go from a six-passenger boat to a twelve-passenger boat, especially if we're talking about like a private boat, like there's drift boats where you can bring 12 people along, and you can rent those out completely too. Most of them will like, hey, if you pay for 12 people, even though you're bringing seven, okay, or eight or whatever, you know. But if you want to go out on like a sport fish boat, usually it's going to be a six-passenger boat.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Um, but I mean, you know, to go out of like Palm Beach, I don't know about down here, but in Palm Beach, you know, you can go to Sailfish Marina, and I think most of those boats are like twelve hundred bucks for a day, maybe fifteen hundred.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh wow. I was what if I want to go like Marlin fishing way out?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So if you're gonna do that, I mean you I don't know what the legalities are, because I know the Bahamas has been like tr um really hunting down guys that are like doing illegal charters in the Bahamas. Okay. I'm not sure what constitutes an illegal because like my dad, when I before I was born, he would do dive charters. There's a guy that still does it now, and they go to the Bahamas on a boat from here and they go shark diving and stuff like that. Um but yeah, if you want to catch Marlin either you want to go like over to Venice in Louisiana or go to the Bahamas. Because there's not, I mean, your chances of catching a marlin off the coast here are really slim.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Really? There's no marlins over the room.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

There used to be um in pollution and there's not enough food and just stuff has changed.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Um they're in Louisiana, though, you can find them?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, in the Gulf, yeah. Fish in the Gulf is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Wait, you can find a marlin in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Well, you're 60, 80 miles from there, but that's where like a lot of charter boats leave from. Like Venice is a Venice is a huge charter boat place.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Venice, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

I've never even heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah. Uh I couldn't tell you where it's at on the map, but I just know it's in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Okay, no, you're you're this is cool stuff. I want to I want to do cool experiences like this.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, the cool thing with, and I'm saying this based on what other people have told me, but Louisiana in general, the fishing industry is wild because you've got these guys that like they're big money, but they're oil money. So they're rednecks, you know, with like you go to you go to Sailfish Marina in Palm Beach, every boat is pristine. You know, they wash their boats every single day. Like you have a couple million dollar sportfish boat, you wash it every day or near every day. Um, because God forbid it have water spots on it.

unknown 19:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

You know, I mean it's it's like it's like owning a you know a Porsche. Rolls Royce or something. Like you got I saw downstairs here, there's a you know a car wash guy, right? Yep. You know, I'm sure people in this office building get their cars washed, you know, every couple days. There's some nice cars. You gotta keep up your image. So same thing, but you go to Louisiana and like they just don't care the same way. They're like, no, this is a tool, this isn't some toy that I'm using. I just I need this million-dollar boat because I want to go 80 miles offshore and I want to be safe and comfortable, but I don't care what it looks like. And uh I met a guy at a training class that I forget where he's at in Louisiana, but he has his customers will pick him up on their helicopter and fly him because they live like in the middle of the swamp, and it's like, yeah, you can drive to my house, but it's a four-hour drive, or I can pick you up on the helicopter and it's 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, fly over the swamp.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. It's Louisiana's a like, dude, that's like a different country.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, oh, it is. Have you ever so I've done a lot of traveling in my life, and I haven't seen every corner of the country, but I've seen a lot. And uh one of the most interesting places I've ever been to, it's right outside of Lafayette, Louisiana, called Brobridge, Louisiana, and it's like the crawfish capital of the world. Dude, they don't speak Creole. They speak a whole another language, and it's it's a very interesting language. Um, because it has like, I forget what it's called. Um it'll come to me.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Damn, I want to this is a little bit of French, a little bit of redneck.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

No, it's it's it's one little area of this. What's the name of the dialect they speak in Bro Bridge, Louisiana? Cajun.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Like so it's just redneck reel, probably.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Probably, yeah. Oh, it's bro, you can't even understand them.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Oh, I I've kind of got a one of my customers is from Louisiana. Um partially where what my knowledge of Louisiana comes from. But uh when I first worked on the boat, he had his upholstery guy drive down. The boat was in Jupiter, yeah, and his pollster guy drove down from Louisiana to pattern everything and take what he needed back to his shop to remake all the upholstery. And the son I could understand, but the dad, it was like listening to Boomhauer. He's just like, and I'm like, dude, you got subtitles you can turn on or something? Yeah, yeah. And his son was even like, dude, I struggle to understand him. I've known him my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah. I went um, like I went on a business trip down to Bro Bridge, Louisiana, one time, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And I'm a great salesperson, dude. Like I can read people's body language and I know when to when to be assertive, when to back off, and I can usually massage a sale, you know. And um and I was put to the test here, yeah, because I couldn't communicate, dude. It might might as well have been me trying to sell people speaking Chinese. This Cajun dialect, dude, I couldn't understand a thing they were saying. So it's Like when I was communicating with them, you know, the only thing I could understand that they would say is crawfish. If you like like if you go to TikTok or Instagram or something, you type in Cajun dialect, do it later, bro. It's it's it's a it's a far out way to communicate. The sweetest people, so I could read their body language, they're just good, hard-working Americans that love their country. But boy, Cajun is an interesting dialect, dude.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Well, it's interesting too when you meet someone like that. Like my experience is with Bahamians. Like I've got a couple guys I know that are white Bahamians.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Um Bahamians? Yeah. I don't even know what a Bahamian is. From the Bahamas. Oh, Bahamians. I'm thinking like Bohemians. Yeah. I've never heard of Bahamians.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yeah, so obviously the Bahamas is majority black, but there are there's, you know, still like old English families, like one of the big families is the Aubrey's. Um, but a couple guys I know that are from the Bahamas, when you talk to them, like they have a little bit of an accent and you can understand them, relatively speaking. I mean, maybe there's a few words here and there, but for the most part, you can have a conversation unimpeded. But then they turn to their other buddy that's Bahamian and start talking, or just being in the Bahamas, you talk to some, you know, some guy on the dock that's fueling up your boat. Like, oh hey buddy, how's it going? You know, and he's got a little bit of accent, you understand him. But then he turns and talks to someone else, and you're like, What in the world did you just say, dude? Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't understand. Like, and it's the same language, it's English, but it's just so accented that you can't understand it.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah, for sure. Uh accents are weird. It's really a unique thing. I mean, you know, like where I'm from in upstate New York and Rochester, like I probably sound pretty you sound you sound normal to me.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Right? I feel like I probably sound normal to you. Do I have an accent to you? No, no, not New York. Yeah, not New York. Yeah. Well, where I'm from is like six hours away. It's close to Canada, right? And it's more like the Midwest. Like people in the Midwest, I feel speak normal. Uh people in the Northeast speak very dialected, if you want to call it. Southerners obviously have a draw. You know, it's interesting though. Like you can go to part, you know, you go out west, there's not really a whole lot. Um, but I will say there are parts of the west that almost sounds southern a little bit. Um, and then, you know, South Florida here has so much of a New York influence. You obviously get that. But it is interesting how dramatic just, you know, Cincinnati is in Ohio versus Cleveland, Ohio.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah. You know, or even like you said, like, you know, you're from New York, and so growing up anywhere else, you're like, oh, New York accent is in New York accent. It's like, no, it's really in like a New York City accent.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

And then, you know, same thing like Boston. You go in the city, everyone sounds like Mark Wahlberg, but then you go an hour outside and it's normal or totally different. I've always been really intrigued by accents, like, where does that even come from?

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

You know, and there's some explanations to it here and there, but you know, like Boston is a majority Irish city, so in some sort of way, the Boston accent's kind of an offspring of Irish, where New York is very Italian. Yeah. Um, but actually, I think New York initially was like Quakers or something. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

You know, I I I don't even trust history. I'm such a conspiracy theorist that like whatever I read in these books, I'm like, maybe. Yeah. You know, I I'm not saying they're all a lie, but I just wonder if we're, you know, how much truth we're being told, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Um yeah, no, especially comparing like public school to what's reality or just the way they teach it.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Like even I don't know if you've ever seen on TikTok or on YouTube, there's a dude, uh fat electrician, and he's a military vet, and he started out doing TikToks, just like pointing out different people in you know, Vietnam War, World War II, they like did crazy stuff that you probably never heard about. Yeah. But he did one video recently where he's talking about how many people like he'll have history teachers and and students in middle school and stuff like that. They're like, dude, I don't know what it is, but when I listen to you, like I actually retain it. And he went on to explain, he's like, Well, I I take one person and build out the whole story. When you're in history class, they start out here and come in, but they only come in so far. So, you know, and also in school, you're not actually learning anything, you're memorizing dates and times. And wildly enough, nowadays, like, I mean, in general, I've never had my life depend upon if I knew when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Now, do I think it's a good thing to know? Yeah. But is it necessary for life? Not really.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, no, I I'm a big uh, I'm a big, what's the word I'm looking for? Not advocate. I'm the opposite of, I'm an optimist when it comes to no. What's the word I'm looking for? I challenge our opposite, you know, I have a lot of opposition towards our college system and our education system. And it's even more, it's gonna be more rampant today. Because I remember when I was younger, they would say, Oh, you know, what you learn in the year 2005, you get out of school in 2009, it's not gonna be the same. Well, with AI right now, and AI is changing every month, there's something coming out every every month, yeah, something vast is happening. So I don't understand how colleges and universities are gonna keep up with that. Um, if colleges and universities are even actually a viable thing over the next decade, I mean it's it's gonna be it's a weird time, dude.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah, it's it's definitely very strange. I mean, I I use it for I use AI almost every day. Uh well, I use chat GPT every day. Um, I probably there's probably 20 other places in my business where I should or could use it. Um either I just don't know or like no one's made a compelling enough uh argument for it. Like I use it when I'm you know doing electrical stuff on boats, I've got 30 different devices in the boat and they all need to be fused. And so rather than going to the manufacturer's website of that product, going to that product, going to the installation instructions, and scrolling through what size fuse do I need, I just ask ChatGPT and it's like that. And I use ChatGPT for my triathlon training.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Because I just don't care to hire a coach. Like I'm, you know, I want to do as good as I can in the sport, but I'm never gonna be on, you know, a podium competitor, yeah, like unless I lose 100 pounds. And I don't want to lose 100 pounds because if you're under 200, then you're not really a man. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I uh this is how crazy AI is, and like chat, this is how crazy AI is gonna be to our kids in the future. Because like if you say to somebody today, like I'm old enough to where you know, um, I used to have to go read books in the library, or I'm old enough to tell stories about. Do you remember when we had flip phones and we didn't have internet on the phone? Yeah. Do you remember when we couldn't text message each other? Do you remember when you had to leave a voicemail for somebody for them to call you back? Like there's all these crazy stories. In 10 years, uh a 16-year-old uh high school student will say to the teacher, Wait, you mean you guys used to type in every letter of every word and type it all out? That's obscene because today you can just say, hey, give me uh, you know, tell me why um the Miami Dolphins are gonna win the Super Bowl this year and big, baby, baby, baby, big, you know, it'll give you all these things, right? Yeah. So just the fact that we're doing individual keystrokes is gonna be like unfathomable.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, once we get to the uh the point of um what the Neuralink thing, you know, where you implant something in your brain and then you you're just not even speaking. It's it's definitely scary though. Like I'm all for technological advances. I mean, you know, what I do in my business is technic technology for boats. Um, so I'm all for it in in many ways, but like in some ways it's scary. Like I went to what do you call it, like a business leadership meeting, like uh Gary or not Gary Breca, why would I say that? Um Gary V was one of the speakers.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

There was a bunch of other people, it was down in Lauderdale, it was really an interesting event. There's like so many people that are there to network and like dressed in the finest clothing. So I'm like, dude, you're going to hear people talk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but to me it just seems silly. Like I wore what I'm wearing, I wore a t-shirt and shorts. Yeah, yeah. Um, but also I'm not the person that's gonna go to one of those events and actually try to network.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Um, so maybe I'm the one that's wrong.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

But anyways, he was talking about it might not be networking. Well, does that help you networking there?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Not to not to interrupt the yeah, it it probably would. I'm just not super great at like going to something like that and then just talking to the person sitting next to me.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Um but anyway, but they're saying on stage.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah, when Gary Vee was talking on his example about AI and like why you need to use it, but also the fears of it, he's like, here's a situation, you know, 10 years in the future. You've got mom at home with uh you know your daughter and her two friends are over. And you want, and it's like, oh, everyone's hungry, but your kid wants pizza, kid number two, Johnny wants you know a cheeseburger and the other person wants tacos, and you're just gonna go to Alexa or whatever the thing is, and you're not even gonna be specific that, oh, hey, Charlie wants Pizza Hut, because either AI is just gonna know, or on the back end, like Pizza Hut's gonna pay that AI company, you know, to like, hey, when someone says I want a pepperoni pizza, you're gonna call us. But you're not gonna call anyone, you're not gonna go on your phone, you're just gonna say, hey, we need a pepperoni pizza, we need you know, chicken fried rice and uh uh chicken gordita.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

And it's just gonna show up with no thought, no effort from you. Yeah. Which on one hand is super cool, but also it's taking the choice out of it, it's taking you thinking out of it. Like at a certain point, I feel like taking all the thought out of your life's probably not the best for you.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah. Um, no, it's interesting. And that you know what's crazy about that? That shows you how important brand is because you want them to say, like, as Pizza Hut needs to continuously do branding and marketing because you want that mom to say Joey wants Pizza Hut. Joey wants five guys cheeseburger.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

So that's so that's brand, right? So that's interesting. Um maybe it'll just be Neuralink and you just think it, right? Yeah, you don't even Yeah. I um so I think here's what I think is obviously gonna happen in the future. Like right now, people have migrated over the past six years across this country like never before. Yeah, like I didn't like upstate New York during COVID, so I made a decision. I started voting with my feet, and I moved on to Florida. I feel like Florida has drawn a line in the sand, it's the freedom state, right? Yeah, so I made that choice. Now, some people, God bless them, move from, you know, maybe they think uh Texas is too country bumpkin in some small town and they want to go live in big city LA because they align with it better. God bless you, right? But I feel like there's gonna be people that, you know, maybe um Charlotte, North Carolina is too techy of an AI city, right? Or Austin, Texas is too techie of an AI city. So they're gonna say, I don't want to be a part of this, I'm gonna move to Omaha, Nebraska, that has drawn its line in the sand. Hey, we're gonna kind of keep things a little traditional here, right? So I think people are gonna pick and choose where they want to live just like they are today. And I don't think I I don't think AI is gonna take over the world. I think it'll take over like all the big cities and all the big metros and and most of the country, but there's still gonna be people that go, I I'm gonna go to this this city in Oregon that um is kind of like how it was in 2010.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah. Just like I mean, today you go to small town Nebraska, you know, that's got a population of five, ten thousand people or something like that. There's probably a McDonald's, you know, probably one, two, three fast food restaurants, but most of the restaurants there are still mom and pop.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Um, and like that's what I prefer. I mean, something where you know you're buying food and you're contribute potentially contributing to someone's college fund or you know, paying off someone's mortgage rather than just making some uh you know, shareholder more money. Um completely aside from food quality. Um, so I think you're right that there'll be places that'll be like way in the future, and there'll still be towns that are just normal, and and maybe kind of what I'm hearing from what you're saying is maybe moving around is gonna be more popular. People like, well, you know, I love it here, but this fits my lifestyle better.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Like, if I could somehow create a town where I lived on the water and I had like five acres, and like ten miles west of me was the mountains of North Carolina, I'd move there in a heartbeat. But I don't think that really exists. No, I know.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

No. Um yeah, I mean, I so for me, South South Florida is a nine out of ten today. Um, it gets a little busy traffic, but the cool thing is, is I'm not in it much. You know, I I live in East Boca, I work in East Boca, so I'm not really like I'm in a little bubble for sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

And and Boca's got everything that you need, right? If I want to go to Miami, go to a UFC event or a Miami Heat Game or something, I go do that, right? Um, but the one thing I wish the one missing piece here is mountains. I do love the scenic view of mountains, and there's something, you know, when you're in Colorado or California and you got uh or Arizona and you got nothing but mountains in the scenery, there's something I don't know, I can't even describe it, like visually euphoric about it the whole time, you know, but whatever. We got palm trees and sunshine, and you know, I can smell the water.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

You know, there's just really in Florida, there's not that much nature. I mean, like we have to fight tooth and nail to keep what we can. And my envisionment of it is like the trips I've taken to New York and Massachusetts and other places in Connecticut, you know, you look at you're just driving around and look at vacant land, and you're like, you'd have to do a lot of work to develop that piece of property. Where look here, wait, oh, I gotta fill in, I gotta bring in 10 truckloads of dirt. That's level ground we can build. It's so much cheaper, perspectively, to build here than it is elsewhere. Um and so we're just like, oh, we need to develop everything. Like, you know, another place where I like I'm half like I like advancement, I like improvements. Um I also like a slower pace of living. Like, I where I live in Stewart, it's definitely a little bit slower. Like I grew up in Jupiter, and um like it is all the pro golfers live there now, and dude, it the city I graduated from Jupiter High in 2010, so 15, 16 years ago this year. The Jupiter is a completely different city, yeah. Um, yeah, like every time I see someone like you on TikTok or Instagram, whatever, and someone will post like a beach, like a local spot. It's like, dude, stop doing that. Like, I get it that it's a beautiful place and you want other people to experience that. Like, I can totally understand that. But also you're taking something that was special, and part of the reason it was special was because you could go there and be the only one there. Or everyone else there, like you can even go into like some smaller restaurants, you know, in different cities, and like you can go in a restaurant, you can tell when the people who are in there live there, you know, and the people that don't live there. And there's something nice about like going in a restaurant, and it's all your neighbors, whether you know them or not, rather than going in some place like I don't recognize anyone in here.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

I do you ever uh have you been out and had dinner in Delray Beach at all? Or uh I don't think I've ever been out in Delray at all. So Delray Beach, Florida, is like a happening town. You know, like Mark Wahlberg just bought a house there. I think it's like 47 million bucks or something. Are you okay? Okay. And uh, you know, so it's got like it's really hip and and modern and but it's really uh affluent, right? So a lot of people, it's gotten more popular, so you get the crowd, they come down to Atlantic Ave, and you can just tell it's not a lot of locals, but there's this area right off of Atlantic called Pineapple Grove, where there's some restaurants maybe half a mile down, three-quarters of a mile down, and there's like another half in an area, and that's where a lot of the locals go. More dive bar ish kind of area. Well, no, it's still nice. It's still nice, yeah. Not dive bar, but but it's where a local can go to a nice place and be around their people. Yeah, you know, like you're more likely to bump into, oh, hey, bro, how you doing, versus you know, everybody come, you know, flooding uh from up north during the month of March.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, like what tin roof is uh is in Delray, right? Yeah, yeah. I've never been there, but I know it's that place as busy as can be.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, but you know, and the right time of day, it's actually a cool spot, you know. Like if you know, like uh if you came down, you don't want to be there Friday night from 11 to 2 a.m. But if you went there Saturday afternoon, you'd have a blast. They'll have some live music, they'll have uh the college football game on or whatever sporting event, and it won't be slammed, you'd have a blast. You know, you you know what I find here is if I'm gonna have a drink, and I don't drink as much anymore, but I definitely like to day drink. Right? Like do my drinking from 11:30 to 2, you know, have a couple bloody Marys, you know, maybe a couple mimosas, enjoy the the sunny day of Florida, and then not be hung over the next day because I'm already like getting it out of my system by dinner time. But that's the way to do it. If you live down here, day drinking's the way to go. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

I uh certainly enjoy that too, but I'm also good at continuing the drinking through the night. I say now uh I'm not emotionally available for alcohol. So I just I when I drink the next day, I can have like three beers, and the next day I'm just emotionally wrecked. Yeah, just like, oh, I don't want to live anymore. Like, not straight up suicidal or anything, but just like just super depressed.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Um, but it's I definitely had a drinking problem too. Like I used to drink at least a six pack every single day. Maybe here or there, I might not, but for the most part, I drank every single day. Wow. And I was like, oh well, I and it's stupid, but I look at, you know, watch like some sitcom, you know, and two things I hate is like they normalize the fuck out of drink. Oh, I had a long day, I need a drink. No, you don't. Like, does it help you relax? Absolutely. Is it actually helping you to get over the problems that you've created throughout your day? Not at all. And the other one that bothers a hell out of me, you know, sitcoms, every single sitcom, TV show, whatever, the dad in the show is always a complete moron. Like, that's not reality. And why are you pumping that to kids that are watching the shows, people watching the show, that like, oh, all dad knows how to do is do his job and in the show, he's not very good at that. He's got some dead end job that he hates and he's not good at it. And it's like, I don't know, bothers me probably far more than it should.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Yeah, so it almost normalizes being a knucklehead.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah, like an overweight, unsuccessful, you know, alcoholic. It's like, I mean, that's pretty popular in America, but it doesn't have to be the norm.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

You know, where I'm there's this other culture too, and I'll tell you where I'm from. There's this other culture where men that are successful, and you don't have to be a business owner to be successful. Let me get that out of the way. Yeah. I used to make uh between three and five hundred grand a year as a salesperson and as a uh vice president in another marketing company that's successful, right? Yeah, I don't care who you who how you slice it, right? And I was hanging out with guys that made half a million. I was hanging out with guys that made a million bucks, a couple million dollars, that uh in sales. Like you can you can do very well. And and I and I had a circle of people that all did really well, but and that weren't entrepreneurs. Um and that was just kind of like the people that I fell in, fell in with. But the culture was because I am successful and because I make money, I'm allowed to screw off and drink and do drugs and you know, do some coke in the bathroom at noon on a Wednesday. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Waffle Wall Street type stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

And it it was normalized. It was like, oh, that's what the husbands do. You know, they're they're bringing home the bacon, so what they do is they go get wrecked at lunch. And and there were periods in my life where I like I fell into that little trap when I was younger, and it was like it was like, oh, this is what I do. Wolf of Wall Street, yeah, Wolf of Wall Street normalizes it. And and Wolf Wall Street's hilarious, like I I can laugh about it, but but like when I was Doing it and when I was in that world and that culture, like I like I it wasn't me, like it didn't feel good because the next day, bro, I was I was shot, I wasn't motivated, I wasn't inspired, you know. I didn't feel good about myself. I I I felt I don't want to say I felt evil, but I definitely didn't wasn't spiritually connected. And part of me relocating down to South Florida was to get into a new environment, you know, a new circle of people. So most of the people that I that are in my circle today, most of them don't drink at all, right? They definitely don't do drugs, I mean unless they're hiding it really well. Um, you know, I I've probably had I've probably had drinks twice this year. I I did it at my gender reveal. I was like, no, I'm gonna celebrate this. Uh and then actually this week I had a bourbon after a long day, but like, so I don't know. I I go back and forth about drinking too. The am I going to ever be a consistent drinker ever again in my life? Not a shot. No way. But am I keeping it open to you know, having a glass like I'm going to dinner tonight with a couple? Well, I if they ask me for a glass of wine, I don't know. I'm I'm up in the air. Maybe yes, maybe I will. Um, but for me, bourbon is the killer because I like it so much. And I'll drink four of them that are quadruples. You know what I mean? It's the killer. Like, so so for me, I just gotta stay bourbon's my nemesis. So, but I don't know. Like, I don't have I I think I'm just um opening up to you. Like, I don't, I don't have anything, I don't have anything against people that drink at all. I there's no judgment. Just for me, me personally, I'm not the guy I want to be when I do drink.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, I can definitely become a I get much, much louder. That is one thing I do enjoy about drinking is like I've I've always I I say it's you know, growing up fat kid, I've always been shy and nervous, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

You don't come off that way.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

I once I start talking, I'd yeah, I'm pretty good at talking, but like for me to start a conversation is pretty rare. Like I always joke, the only time like go to the sandbar on my boat, and I can go talk to other people about boats because I know boats. And I've always like I've got uh a good friend of mine, Colin, that dude, he's super eclectic. He can talk to anybody, he'll find something to relate to them on. But to me, like if I talk to someone and like they don't enjoy the same stuff I do, I'm like, I don't know what to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Um, but you know, drunk me, still still pretty shy, but I think part of it is like I get loud and I think it's like the little kid in me that wants attention. Like in high school, I would, if you would have asked me, I would have told you, I don't care what anyone thinks about me. Truth of the matter was I cared more than anybody what people thought about me. But I I outcasted myself so that people didn't want to be around me or didn't want to talk to me, so I didn't know their opinion. It was like I think it was a few years ago when I finally kind of figured that out. I was like, oh, I really cared what people think. Yeah, I just did all this outlandish stuff to get so I would outcast myself.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

But uh I go back and forth on that. No, no, I I appreciate you being honest about that, and that's good you're honest with yourself about it, seriously. Like, because whenever whenever I hear somebody say, I don't give a fuck what people think about me, no, you clearly do by how aggressive you just said that. Yeah. Right? Right? Like you clearly do, and it's okay. Like, like you do want people to admire you, you do want people to respect you, um, you do want people to be friendly to you. So you I think you should care what what people think about you. I think the right statement is I'm not gonna change who I am for somebody who doesn't like who I am.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

That's the statement.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

I think it's how do I word this? Um you need to care what people think about you, but you need to choose what cares you have. You know? For me, I'm not I don't super care what people think about how I dress. Now, I also in the same sentence, when I see people out in public in pajama pants, it drives me nuts. I'm like, dude, you're not at your house. Put on some freaking clothes. But, you know, to me also, like, if I go and work on a boat in Palm Beach, like I have collared shirts for my business and stuff, and I used to wear them, and now I'm like, dude, I am who I am. And my clothing doesn't change that. Now I again, you know, I'm if I'm gonna go work on someone's boat on Palm Beach and like you know who those customers are, I might, you know, try to find a shirt that has the least amount of stains on because like I work with my hands for a living. Like my shirts are gonna get dirty. I buy new shirts for myself, I buy 10 at a time and probably do that every six months.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

I think you look presentable, like looking at you right now, this you look very presentable. Yeah, you know, and in your line of work, like do you know how many guys like uh I had a roofing guy in here this week, awesome dude, $15 million a year roofing business. Cool ass dude. Dude, he had a hat on and a t-shirt and shorts. Like, this is his line of work, like yeah, you know, he's crushing it. If he's making 30%, he's making you know four million bucks a year. Um, and uh I mean, he had a Rolex on, he had a nice chain on, you know. I noticed that, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:27

That's just South Florida for you.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Yeah, that's you know, but awesome dude, by the way, totally down to earth and everything. Uh got real emotion on the podcast about his son, too. Really cool story. But um, yeah, I mean, you know, I see a lot of c people in certain like in your line of work or contractors and trades. Yeah, why why would you have a suit and tie on? Maybe on Palm Beach, I'd throw a polo on. I get that. Um, but I think you just I think like when I dress in clothes, I try to dress in what I feel best in. Yeah. Does that make sense? Because I think you're gonna be your best. For me, I don't like suits. I don't like them at all because I hate wearing ties. So what I usually do is, you know, khaki pants with a blue blazer, untucked or uh untied white shirt underneath. I feel comfortable in that. I feel loose, you know. But when I suit, my my wife's always like, oh, we gotta get you a bunch, you know, a bunch of custom suits. I'm like, dude, I I I feel stiff. I feel, you know, so you gotta you gotta dress what you feel best in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

I remember uh my dad used to be part of uh this, I don't know if you call it a club. It was like a business. Every Tuesday they would meet at on Palm Beach Island and have I think breakfast or lunch or something, and there's a bunch of business owners, and they'd just, hey, I've been trying this, it's been helping my guys out or try this new software, whatever, business stuff. Um and it was called Junto, and every year they had a uh Christmas dinner. And one year I went with my dad, and I was 17, I think, it was a senior in high school, and I didn't own a suit and tie, and it was on it was at the uh Sailfish Club on Palm Beach. So at the Sailfish Club, when you're there for dinner, you have to wear a jacket. I didn't own one, and my my dad was wearing one because he had been there before and knew, but he didn't every time he went there, he wore a jacket. So he didn't know you have to wear a jacket. So I show up and like, oh, you need to wear a jacket, and they have some for you, but I thought it was so silly. The only time I needed to wear the jacket was to walk to the table, and when I went to the bathroom, I had to put it back on to go to the bathroom. I'm like, what's the purpose? Do you want the backs of your chairs to look nice? Like I just it was so strange to me.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah, I um if you if you see me walking around, like this is this is actually what I like a hat, a t-shirt, you know, jeans. Actually, I prefer sweatshorts and flip-flops. Like that's how I'm walking my dog usually, you know? Yeah, yeah. There's the flip side to dressing nice too. Like I've seen, I've seen, I'll give you an example, not not to name drop right now, but this is where dressing too much can give this image, or dressing up too much can give this image. Because there was this group of guys that I was going to these events with and they were dressed to the nines, pinstripe suits, you know, 22-year-old dudes wearing Rolexes, and you're like, God dang, how are you making that much money? Right? And of course it puts your radar up a little bit, yeah, right? How can it not put your radar up? Dude, it turns out this entire community it was a Ponzi scheme. Total Ponzi scheme, and it's all over the news. You can Google it, bang, bang, bang. And yeah, so the culture from the guy who's running the Ponzi scheme is dress to the nines, we're making money, and and because that's what he was about. He wasn't really about helping people, he was about helping himself. So the entire community underneath him, these young guys, they were just, yeah, they looked like they looked like douchebags, and they turns out they are. And so, so I never want to give off that. Do I wear Rolex? Do I have nice cars? Sure, but but I'm it's it's I have to have my like the rooms that I walk into, there is a entry-level status I have to have. Yeah, but dude, you can go way too far the other way and and be too gaudy with how you look. And usually if you are, usually if you are, usually, turns out there's something fishy going on there. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, like I totally agree. There's a time and a place to dress a certain way. Um, if I can live most of my life in board shorts and flip-flops, like I at work, I used to just wear like my company shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops most of the time. And then when I hired my employee, I was like, well, I can't exactly tell him he has to wear shoes every day if I'm wearing flip-flops every day. So that kind of changed it. But the funny thing about working on boats, like I worked for a guy before, and you know, most boats, the rule is you do not wear shoes on a boat, especially if you're working on a boat, you know? Because who knows what you stepped in, you're going to leave shoe prints, like it's an inevitability, no matter what pair of shoes, like on big yachts, like the crew, they all have shoes they keep on the boat and they never leave the boat. So they wear shoes on the boat because you know, some rich dude doesn't want to see your nasty feet. Um but I was working on this boat and had to take my shoes off. And I was like standing down inside the boat and I slipped and kicked something and sliced my foot open. So and I was on a mobile job, and when I got back, my boss, I was wearing flip-flops, and my boss's like, What the hell are you doing? Why are you wearing flip-flops? I was like, Oh, I sliced my foot open, it hurts to wear my shoe. Oh, what'd you do that for? I'm like, he's like, Well, what'd you that? Why weren't you wearing shoes? I'm like, Are you serious, dude? Like, day one here, you're like, no shoes in boats, anytime whatsoever, even if a customer tells you yes. And I was just like, This is so stupid. So it's kind of funny, like, you know, yeah, now every day I wear shoes because that's you know what you should do to look presentable. Um although I know plenty other like um buddy of mine, Justin, he wears crocs every day, all day. Oh god. And I'm just like, it I mean, he does well for himself, you know, so it can't be detracting from his business too much. Yeah. But I'm just like, man, you look like such a bum. Yeah. But you know, it's each his own.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

I'm not a croc guy at all.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

No, I think I hate them in any place or situation.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Um I wanna I want to talk about your business a little. Um let's yeah, tell me, so what's kind of break down the business for me? Who who's who's your who's your ideal customer? What are you doing? Um, you know, break break down native sun for me a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 55:51

So I would say uh I'm still working towards my ideal customer, or you know, having those guys. Um I don't really want to find myself in like the sport fish industry, and maybe I'm wrong about this. Um, and maybe when I have a bigger team, it makes more sense. I've worked on a few sport fish boats, and it's you need a team of people to do it because there's just like when you I typically work on center consoles, and probably the average size boat is 25 feet. But for the most part, you can do every bit of work on that boat by yourself. Occasionally you need someone, most of the time it's just convenient to have someone. Um, but at 25 feet, not that there's not brand new 25-foot boats, um, but the budget of those customers is has, you know, there's a budget. Um, so I'd like to get more into the guys in the boats, the guys that have larger center consoles, who obviously the base price of the boat is a little bit more expensive, um, and their budget to add to it is larger. And my ultimate goal, really, the guy I worked for in Lauderdale, um, company's called Parker Yacht, and largely what we did there, he was an outboard dealer, so we sold engines and did general repairs and maintenance and stuff. But I would say the big part of the business was doing retrofits. So someone buys an old boat, you know, 1975 Seacraft, completely gut it, all new, and you know, all new structural components, new transom, new stringers, new deck, paint the whole thing and completely customize it. Um, and what I found to be what really stuck struck out to me was there was a customer that his grandpa had bought the boat brand new from the factory in 1968 or somewhere around that time. And the boat stayed in the family until him in 2018 or whatever year it was, or no, yeah, that'd be like 2018. And he brought it to that shop and we completely revamped the entire boat. And the guy was like in absolute tears when he picked the boat up. Because like his grandpa bought that boat when it was brand new, and he was able to, you know, and cool for him, like whatever he did for a living, he was able to do it well enough that he could spend because it's not cheap to do that stuff, but he was able to spend that money and bring it back to life and make it better than it was when it was brand new, and like that really struck me. I was like, that's what I want to do, and I also want to do it too because like I mean, I just love boats, you know. Like I was uh according to my dad, I was made on a boat, my mom denies the story, but um, I don't really care for the details of that. Yeah, but I mean my first memories, my first memory that I can think of is on my dad's boat going out Palm Beach Inlet, and I was sitting on the front of the boat. I'm like, dad, go faster, go faster. And I just love being on the boat. Uh story, I was like standing in the live well, like dip netting shrimp, like handing them to people. Um, but getting back on track, I really want to get into having a full operation where I can do the fiberglass work, I can do the paint work. I don't ever really want to get into upholstery because that's its own animal. But I would love to, you know, have it have a say 15,000 square foot building, hopefully that I own. So if one day I decide I'm fucking done with this, I can just, you know, lease it out to somebody and and go on my way. Um, but right now, definitely the push is just to get more high-end clients.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Um, because I think there's, I mean, dude, there is in South Florida in general, there is so many people that do what I do. It is a flooded market. However, there's not many people that are doing it well or doing it to the best of their abilities. Because like, I know other people in the industry and I know what they're capable of doing, but they're so focused on the money in their bank account that they're just running through jobs and doing crappy work. And I've just built my business on, I don't even know where it came from, but like when I do any of the work I do, if you come to me and you're like, oh hey, I want to replace all the pumps, all the lights in my boat. Replace all the lights, you buy the lights from me, I install them, two years warranty. You know, anything happens, I'll take care of it, no cost to you. Because I'm also confident that in that two years, the likelihood of something going wrong is pretty slim because they do the job correctly. So you get the value of you know, having that trust that, like, hey, if something happens, he's gonna take care of me. Um and oh boy, blank.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Um he can take care of you, you're trying to grow the business, get better customers. Yeah.

unknown 1:00:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

So I just try to provide value because dude, I mean, boats are expensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

Like, I don't think I don't I truly don't think in a lot of ways that if you're paying someone to work on your boat, budget and boat don't go in the same sentence. Now, like what I grew up doing, I mean, me and my dad worked on our boat in the driveway. Yeah. You know, and in hindsight, I kind of think that uh half of my dad doing that was just to like shit, because my dad grew up on a farm in Indiana. So I mean, he kind of had that mentality of like, well, you gotta figure out how to fix it. Like, very rarely did I ever have, you know, experience my dad call someone else and pay them to do, you know, fix stuff. Like, there were certain things that, like, hey, the air conditioning unit at the house goes out, like it just dude, I don't have the tools, I don't have the know-how, I gotta hire somebody. But if he was capable of fixing it, he wanted to fix it. And I'm super grateful for that. Um, and I mean, in that too, my dad taught me so much. I'd one story I remember, we were working on one of my boats, and it was like two in the morning, and I'm sitting in a chair, like nodding off, and my dad's like, hey man, just go to sleep. You know, I'll wake, you know, we'll get back to it in the morning. I'm almost done. And that was at like 2 a.m. I woke up at like five in the morning to pee, and he was still working. And then at 6 30, he comes and wakes me up. He's like, You ready to get to work? And I'm like, Did you sleep? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, I got a couple hours. I'm like, No, you didn't, dude. I saw you an hour and a half ago still working. Because my dad would never, whether it was I grew up uh racing bicycles and doing mountain biking stuff, and like my dad never ever let me beat him. You know, he always it I remember one time specifically riding bikes, he was ahead of me uh on a mountain bike trail, and he stopped at the end of the trail waiting for me. But every time that we would stop at the end of the trail, like he's just like to me, seemingly, he's just chilling, like, oh hey, you ready to go? And I'm like, you know, trying to keep up with him. But there was one time where the way the trail is set up, like I could the trail comes like this and does like an S turn. So at this one turn, I'm like only five feet away from him. I can hear him huffing and puffing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

And I like now in hindsight, I'm like, oh, I'm like, he was pushing it. Like I thought he was just chilling, and that I was just slow. Like, no, he's just making sure, like, hey, if you want to be like me, like you're gonna have to push for it. You know, I definitely attribute every bit of my work ethic to my dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

I mean, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Yeah, I watched a hardworking mom my entire life, you know. All I all I know is working, dude. I'm here on a Saturday. I mean, this is fun for me, don't get me wrong, but but you gotta find stuff that's yeah, but it's still work, it's still time out of your day. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

I mean, I you know, I I always find it funny when people are like, oh, I worked X amount of hours this week, or I've gone this many days without a break. I've never kept track of that. Also, like I don't want to. If I actually were to look back at how many hours I work a week, I'd probably be disgusted by it. And it's a weird thing in the entrepreneur space where like dudes are bragging, oh, I put in a hundred hours this week. It's like, all right, how are your kids? How's your wife? No, for sure. Do you know them? Do they like you? Like, I don't that to me, it's not a bragging point. No, especially when most people get into business so I can set my own schedule.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Or or you know, a good sign of success isn't just money, it's your relationship with your kids, and I would argue your health. If you're 300 pounds, you know, are you are you gonna live to to to be your daughter's wedding? Yeah, you know, or are you gonna be in a wheelchair because you had a stroke? You know, you can you walk her down the aisle, you gotta roll her down the aisle, right? Like get your lose some freaking weight.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

You know, I I can assure you there's probably not a single child on this planet that go would tell you that I wish my dad spent more time, or my dad or my mom, whoever. I wish they spent more time working and less time with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

Like it doesn't exist. Like, yeah, when we're 13, 14, I mean, I don't have this experience. Like me and my dad were best buds when I was in high school. Um, but you know, like when you're a teenager, most of the time, like you don't want to be around your parents, you just want to hang out with your friends. Um so like there is that, but in general, you're not gonna look back and be like, I wish I had less time with my parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, that that's a tough parenting is a tough balance. Parenting for a man is an even tougher balance because there is an element to I gotta get so far ahead to where you know, if I lose my job or the economy crashes or whatever it may be, that that I have enough to support and take care of my my children, our children, and but there is an element of you know, where a man's ego, maybe he's a very successful, you know, entrepreneur or political figure, and and now he's just obsessed with the limelight and you know what comes with that, and it's more about him. I don't know, like it's interesting. They asked Tom Brady if what he if he has any regrets. And he said one of the regrets is it is he wasn't able to spend as much time with his kids. And you know, it's interesting, like he was chasing this greatness, and I don't know, that that's a personal choice. But but I also seen have seen it the other way. Yeah. Well, you know, the total other way. Like I'm gonna be with my kids, I'm gonna well what your kids also really need is for you to be able to pay for their college education. You your your kids might need a little bit of money to help, you know, maybe buy their first house, or they might right so Yeah, there's size definitely levels to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

But I mean I think there can be I think there's more arguments, arguments to be made for being there for your kids rather than being able to give them things. You know, teach them the hard work so they can get it for themselves. You know, like I mean, I would love, I hope that I make it to a point that I can ha afford those type of things. Like when my kid wants their first car, like I can buy it outright for him or at least help like I would rather, like, hey, I'll give you the down payment. Because that I mean that's how I was taught.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

Like I grew up pretty damn privileged, but also like, you know, my mom side of the family, my my mom's dad did very well for himself. Um, so I had that side of my family, and my dad grew up on a farm in Indiana. Like, all he knew was work. And sometimes, you know, like I have that in me to where I'm just like, you know, fuck the skills involved, screw all that, just work harder, which we know that doesn't work. Yeah, but uh, you know, I know that and I trust that, and it's a little bit too much, but I think there's a lot of value in that because there is the part of me that's been given a lot of stuff, and like the first truck I owned was bought for me completely outright. I didn't pay a dime for it, and I treated it like trash because there was no value in it to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

You know, now maybe I could argue like, oh well, you know, parents, you know, maybe my my dad didn't instill the values in me, but I I think he did a pretty good job. I just when you don't have to work for something, you don't value it. So I think you know, I I want to be able to give my kids whatever they want, but within reason, because like it just destroys them.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

This is this is the craziest thing to think about. Let last thing I'll say, because I don't want it to go too much longer, but I agree with you wholeheartedly, and and I've and I've learned the hard way over the years, and I've changed my behavior here. If you if if you're a dad and you just give your son the car, the clothes, the best basketball camp, whatever it is, and and and they never have to work for anything. And let's say they become an unproductive contributor to society, you know, maybe they they try to find a place in your company, but they have no perseverance or ability to handle obstacles, right? Um, and and they just become a low productive member of society, they're gonna resent their father. Right? So it's like you could they could either resent you now for not giving them a Mercedes at 16, or they're gonna resent you for the rest of their life. Yeah, and and and and some that's where I'm agreeing with you gotta make the hard choice, make it a little more difficult on them.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

So I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah, I had some of that. Like I went to when I was between seventh and eighth grade and eighth grade and freshman year high school, I went to a sailing summer camp. It's like $5,000 for a two-week summer camp. I mean, even that was then, I'm sure today it's probably $10,000. Yeah. And the first year my grandpa paid for it. Awesome. Um, and it was a great. And I went the next year, and he's like, all right, well, hey, listen, this year you need to make a thousand dollars. And I had a little bit of a cheat code. I worked for him and I was making $10 an hour in like 2005 as a you know 12 or 13 year old. I was getting paid pretty well. Although, like, I would argue I didn't, you know, it wasn't like I was just there, like I was put to work. Um, in another portion of my life where like I learned how to work. I remember my dad going to my dad's office again and again. What next? What next? What next? And finally he's like, dude, how much have you worked here? You know what needs to be done. Are the bathrooms cleaned? Are the floors swept? Is the trash taken out? Go through your list. And then when I got my first real job, my manager was like, dude, I don't have to tell you what to do. I'm like, you shouldn't. He goes, No, that's not the norm, dude. And I'm like, what do you mean? I'm like, you've given me this, you know, hey, listen, when there's nothing, there's no customers in the store, I worked at AutoZone, you know, check the trash, align the shelves, and to me too, I was like, well, this makes the day go by faster. Like, why would I not do it? Yeah, but that's not the norm. But, anyways, going back, you know, my grandpa's like, you got to make a thousand dollars. I remember towards the end of like, because I went to camp in like the middle of summer, and so I was working weekends throughout the year, and then the beginning of summer, like, okay, now I'm going to the shop full time with my dad. And I was like at like $900 and had like two weeks to go, and I'm like, Oh no, I don't know if I'm gonna make enough money, and I'm like, I'm not gonna go to camp, not knowing the camp was already paid for. But my grandpa like let me sweat, and he's like, Well, if you don't make the money, you know, uh you so like he made me work. I think I remember like having to come in on Saturday and stay later to make overtime to pay for it, yeah. You know, and just proving the point because my grandpa, you know, he made a fuck ton of money, but he grew up legitimately dirt floor, poor had a crazy childhood. Um, and he they lived on the water when I was a kid, and I would go to their house and go fishing, and he took me to the tackle store one time, I was like, you know, needed some hooks or whatever and bait. And he's like, Oh, how much money do you need? And I was like, Oh, like five dollars. He hands me a 20 and had no idea this was a test. So I got a $20. Oh, okay, I can spend $20. I spent $15. And he destroyed me when I got back in that car. Because he just let sent me in there. I handed him a change. He's like, I thought you said you needed five dollars. And I'm like, Yeah, but you you gave me $20. I was probably like 10 years old, you know, 10 or 12 years old. But just he's like, That's not your money, that's my money. You said you needed five, you should have only spent five and just went to town on me. You only always good, but it was an important lesson. Yeah, you know, respect other people's money, you know, and it goes into to business now. Like someone is paying me a bunch of money to work on their boat, like I need to do it to the best of my ability. Yeah, you know, yeah, I need to make money too, but I need them to, when they pick up their boat, to feel like it's money well spent. And that goes back into the value. Like I give every boat that comes in, I care about. I want to it to be a way better boat when it leaves my shop than when it came in. And I want the customer to feel that way. Yeah. Unfortunately, that it doesn't always translate because they just they're like, oh, cool, it's done. You know, there's people I'll do you know 100 hours of work in someone's boat, and I'm like so proud of it, and they just like look at it, like, all right, cool. And I'm like, thanks. That's all?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:21

Yeah, yeah. Well, you seem like um, you seem like a real solid business owner. I think you got a real bright future ahead of you if you want to start getting those uh you know 70, 80 foot boats. I think you can do it. I can help you do it, by the way. We'll talk about that down the road. Um, and uh you seem like a great dude. Sounds like you come from a great family, and I have no doubt um you know you'll carry on that legacy when you when you choose to do that. Do me a favor, look in the camera. And uh, if somebody's interested in your services, uh what's the best who should reach out to you and where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

Uh anybody with a boat pretty much to reach out to me. Um, but mostly I work on center console boats. Uh easiest way is probably my phone number, but uh the Instagram for my business is at Native Sunmarine. It's the same on TikTok as well. TikTok is uh usually more funny videos than it is informational or showing off products. But uh Instagram, Facebook, TikTok at Native Sunmarine.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

Guys, thanks again for tuning into the Gold Coast Podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Eric Weingard. Make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you again.