Does Manifestation Actually Work? A Millionaire and a Skeptic Debate It | Sit On This Ep. 2

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world says manifestation is complete nonsense. Scott Suprina says that's only half the story. This is Episode 2 of Sit On This.

Scott and co-host Trevor Jackson dig into the debate that's split the business world: is success built through hard work alone, or is there something else at play? Scott went broke, rebuilt from zero, and spent 40 years figuring out the answer. His take might surprise you.

Also in this episode: how Scott defines success (hint: it has nothing to do with money), what his sons taught him about pride and work ethic from a job site in Florida, the rift between Scott and his father, and what he would say to his dad if he had 10 days to clear the air.

Plus: why Scott thinks society is heading in the wrong direction, what it really means to help a stranger, and why getting addicted to being proud of yourself might be the best addiction there is.

00:00 Manifestation vs. hard work: the debate
05:00 How Scott defines real success
12:00 The cost of everything going up
14:00 Helping strangers and why it spreads
20:00 Scott's business background and going broke
26:00 His sons in Florida: an impossible job
31:00 The rift with his father
37:00 What he would say to his dad today

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

How do you define success?

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The most successful I ever felt in my life was a couple of days before my surgery, sitting on a couch with my grandchildren. It could have been any couch in any house, anywhere, but it was there. And I assure you there was no money present. Is he talking about financial success or is he talking about success? Is he talking about that his cup runneth over in every direction, or is he talking about I made money? Which one of those is he got supreme point for? Instantly proved he didn't know what the f he was doing. And he proved it to himself. My sons have respect from the people they work with. It's not a money exchange. I gave my word I would do this. Somebody must say, guys, sit on this. Think about what I'm saying. Think about we lead with the dollar. When if you want to be happy, you gotta lead with your heart. Scott Saprina. Yes, Trevor Jackson. How you feeling, man? I'm uh feeling pretty good. I've been asked that question, I don't know, a million times over my life. How are you feeling? I don't think the pretty good is gonna deliver actually how I'm feeling. I'm feeling wonderment. Grateful, satisfied, thrilled. It's just crazy. Bordering on crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Manifestation is a lie. It is not real. Hard work is in order to get to where you want to go, you gotta work hard to get there. You can't just sit here and go like this, hum, and get to the path. You gotta put screws and chairs, cold call, get on the phone, call people. You have to build relationships, you have to go to New York build, and you gotta do all those things because you're not just gonna build a company sitting on a mat practicing a meditation, a hymn, a hum, as you people would call it.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

You're not? Now, see, here's the beauty of this. It's an impossibility. I know when I say to you, you're not, that you immediately don't want to say, yeah, you're absolutely not, because you know I believe I did. I will tell you one thing that I know for certain that I think even you will agree with. If you do not believe that you can manifest.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

All right, so I was listening to a podcast. The guy's called with Alex Ramosy, right? And he was on his YouTube channel, and he's talking about manifestation and mindfulness and business and family, and he was like, manifest, and he's probably the most successful business personality and entrepreneur, and his success is back with fact. It's not a lot of there's these lot of bullshit gurus that aren't really really good at what they do. What's his success in? He started a gym, he went broke like you. One of his step one. Step one, go broke. Step two, recover. Recover. Figure out why you went broke, don't do that again. There you go. Probably do it again, and then step three, don't do it again again. But no, so he went broke. He started a gym, built a gym franchise. I might be saying that wrong, but he built multiple gyms. Uh, they were successful. He had a business partner. Eventually, his business partner ran off with all the money. And he had to start from zero again. During that time, he realized like your mentor before he started the gyms, I'm backtracking a little bit. He had multiple businesses. And then he got a beautiful young lady in his life, much like yourself, who they started working together. And the young lady or mentor, one of the two, basically said, Hey, which one's doing the best? This one. And then the person said, Okay, well, if this one's doing the best, well, just do this and don't do anything else. Just focus on this one thing and the multiple things within that one thing and don't worry about anything. So I digressed. Um, the point of the story is he, having started this business, went broke, then started another business where he went to businesses, went to other gyms to teach them how to scale their gym business because he became good at marketing his gyms. So he had the secret. So everybody wanted him to teach them. So he used to go. Scott had a gym in Arizona, he would go. Todd had a gym in Michigan, he would go. Then one day, he accidentally, someone called him and said, My gyms are gonna go out of business. I need you to teach me. He's like, I can't fly out right now. I went broke. I don't have time for this. He goes, What's the cost? Well, he named some unreasonable cost. $25,000 for him at the time. The guy goes, sold. Alex sits back and goes, I should have said more. He said yes, too easy. So then he tells his then girlfriend, now wife, because they're working together in business, hey, dump all this stuff that we're doing, trying to get back to zero. Dump all this stuff that we're doing. Let's call anybody that needs uh to get their gym ramped up. So he starts calling all these people. So he does 25,000 again. Yes, I'm not doing that again. Let's go 50,000. Yes. Let's go 75,000, yes. So basically, I'm making this stuff part of the story up. 10 businesses said yes to more money each time. At the end of it, he realizes I'm just gonna license this model and just license this out to people so I don't have to go to Arizona. I don't have to go to Michigan. I can just sell it from my house and teach them from afar. And then I don't get paid until they make X amount of money. And then once they make X amount of money, I then take a percentage of what they've sold. Once they break even and they cover all their costs, now anything else that they make, I'm getting. He got on a podcast recently and said, I think manifestation is complete bullshit. To what you say.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I'm not out here to change anybody's opinion. And he's probably already manifesting. He has a need to call it hard work. Okay. I think in this society, most times, and I don't know this person you're speaking of, spirituality is avoided through ego. You can either have had help from the universe or you could do it all your own. And in this society, do it in your all your own is just sexier. You're more of a man if you did it all your own. Well, I don't know, if I can align the uh creator with my thinking, I think that's rather manly. I think that's but there's no reason if he did it all through hard work, God bless him. That's the way he did it. Good luck. Go teach that. And the question I would then follow with is, and you and I have had this debate for seven years. Is he talking about financial success or is he talking about success? Is he talking about that his cup runneth over in every direction, or is he talking about I made money? Which one of those is he?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

How do you define success?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

The most successful I ever felt in my life was a couple of days before my surgery, sitting on a couch with my grandchildren. It could have been any couch, in any house, anywhere, but it was there. And I assure you there was no money present. There was no motivation but pure love. And I would say, for me, that is the success we all crave. That is the thing we all want. We want to feel enough. We want to feel loved. We want to feel our love is felt by others. And on that couch with those grandchild children, I could have spent the rest of eternity right there. I would have missed my kids. But I don't know that I would have ever sobered up enough to actually miss them. And two, I will say about your other friend who's claiming his success was all through hard work. There was no work in that environment. There was no work, there was just beings.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

But here's why I have to push back.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

It's why are you pushing back on not arguing? He can be as successful as he wants, saying that I did it the hard way. I'm the fucking man. I have this formula. Your formula won't work everywhere because nobody's formula works everywhere. You'll have to adapt. And by the way, the question is what is the fruit you're getting from this thing you built? If it's dollars, you've got a separate problem. I think that people, and and my question would be: why would somebody like that who's achieved what he believes is success have any statement about I did it through hard work? If people want to believe he manifested something, or if he believes he manifested something or did not manifest anything, why is that even a topic of conversation?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I guess. Well, he he brought it up. Like that was his well now that I'm because someone brought it up to him. That he had manifested it? Part of his success is manifestation. And the only reason I say I want to push back is because I've heard several stories about you uh burning the midnight oil, driving 12 hours to a job, then going to this job, and then to that job, and then missing certain things with your family. And, you know, going from literally going from on the job to the office to sell a new job, doing the accounting, doing the staffing, doing the then going to the place. And then you to you told me, Trev, if you're not willing to drill a hole, don't start the business. Figuratively comparing it from your standpoint and what your business was.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

So you are still getting in the car going to Boston to drill screws. If you didn't just have surgery, you'd be in Miami with your sons, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I would so love to be in Miami with my sons right now. 100% before. So love it. So what by the way, did you hear what I said? I would love to be there. Not to get paid. I would just love to be there to help them through a hard time in their career. And that's it's a conversation you can't have with people who are driven by money.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

But then you have the conversation of aren't we all to a sense driven by self-sustainability? When I say self, I mean the actuality of sustaining your family and yourself and making sure that they uh bear the fruits as well as you of your labor.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, I think I think where this society went wrong, you can feed a lot more people with a little bit of love than you can feed with a little bit of money. And I think our public opinion of what success is, of what wealth is, of what power is, has been so bastardized that everybody's, I mean, geez, if I hear one more time that gasoline's up to $109 a barrel. Have you ever bought a barrel of gasoline? I've never bought a barrel of gasoline. So why the f do I care that it's $109 a barrel? I'm sure that President Trump has barrels waiting that would cost him nothing to put on the market. So what is it? $109 is an indicator or a panic button that guys my age can remember when it was $30. But what's the motivation? It's just part of the process. Everything's going up. And what I will say, everything is going up at such a rate that it's not sustainable. Can't be in my lifetime that my dad went from making a $70,000 a year salary to now to be that wealthy, I would have to make $350 a year. To my kids will have to make $700 a year to be that wealthy. That's craziness. Something's very, very, very wrong. And the cost of a breath has gone up. Cost of what? The cost of a breath. Oh see, this is one of those crazy terms you hit me with. We're down to cost of breath. Cost of breath has gone up. Yesterday's price is not today's price. Correct. Correct. Now the question is, is everybody paying for their own breath? Sadly, the answer is no.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Let's backtrack.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Shall we?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

I want to continue our argument. Our argument is.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I find cause to say I love you now, Trevor.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I love you too.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Okay, good. I like love. Love is good.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

You still work hard to this day. You are set eight days out of getting your kidney taken out, and you're sitting on the couch talking to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Young man. Yes. Young man.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

If you would describe what I am doing right here, you would describe it as hard work. And I might describe it as just an unbelievably rewarding and fun hobby that I am blessed to be able to afford to do. And by the way, apparently on borrowed time. I'm into a double overtime right now. It's all right. They've taken a kidney. We're waiting for a phone call. But if this is double overtime, I'll take it, but I won't take it like I used to. And I won't say someday somebody's got to make a difference by standing up and going, WTF, what happened in my lifetime? Where all the encouragement, all the love, all the support, all the dream, the fairy tale life, all of that has left the building. And you're telling me what I'm telling young people to expect is gas prices of $210 a barrel and war wherever some guy with a relatively high IQ decides to have war and just a horrible future. Somebody's got to say, excuse me, we're making a this is not going in the right direction. This is not a positive thing. I'm not saying that for me. I've got positive things. I've got, I'm good. I'm saying that because somebody needs to alert young people to the fact that being passive about what is going on is probably not the right path to take. That somebody must say, guys, sit on this. Think about what I'm saying. Think about we lead with the dollar. When if you want to be happy, you got to lead with your heart.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

I was driving down Fifth Avenue, going from Brentwood to Bayshore. There's an old saying, God helps those who help themselves. So I'm driving. And I see a car with their hazard lights on, stalled out, and the dude is frustrated. But then he gets out of his car, opens his door, starts pushing his car. Before I process, I see someone else get out their car and help them push. Then I'm like, shit, alright. Unbuckle, park my car on the side of the road, and I start pushing. Then someone else comes out, they start pushing. Then you know there's eight motherfuckers pushing this.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Then you realize the first guy was stealing the car.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Welcome to the US. Welcome to the US. But the point of the story is God helps those who house themselves. People won't help you until you help yourself. And that is part of what manifestation is to me. It is nothing's gonna come to fruition until you help yourself. And the first thing you do to help yourself is to work hard. And then once you start working hard, you realize during that time of working hard, I'm not working smart. Like I can just get some people, I'm lifting all these cinder blocks to the top of the building. I can probably pull them up with something, or I can have someone help me. Now I digress. I put my attention to Todd Soprina. You've from afar had your own career, but you've watched Scott build his business and then build the empire he's building right now. He's continuing to build right now. Don't you think that yes, through uh a manifestation, meditation, and I'd say a quietness, because I went to class to learn how to meditate. And there, I used to think meditation was, but it's literally emptying everything out of your mind and being as still as possible. Don't you think that even though Scott did all of that, it the root of it was just his relentlessness.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I wouldn't say progress wasn't made. I would say, let's go with your story. If you're the guy watching the guy push his car, meaning the big guy, the big guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And Trevor is driving by. And you know Trevor's a relatively good person, so he's gonna think about helping the guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

By the way, uh Trevor is also six foot eight and black.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Big black man.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

So any any fear that you small white guys would have about getting out of your car in Brentwood doesn't exist for Trevor. Yeah, it didn't. Okay. So but the fact of the matter is, as you take that example, and it's an example for you. You got out of the car, you helped another person. What was your reward? That the guy didn't get hit by a car. What was your reward? What did you get from that experience?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I felt good to help somebody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I mean, that's why why is that something you say shyly? Because I gotta tell you, once we get over that, once we get to the point where people can say, of course, by the way, if you were in a wagon and you were in rural Utah, yeah, and that happened anytime in the past 50 years, the first guy passing you on a wagon would have helped you. Why are we going backwards? Why do I have to weigh everything in my head? I mean, Jesus, I think people ask themselves, how do you get in that situation? Does he deserve the help? He's probably just an idiot who ran out of gas. Well, he's an idiot. I don't want to help him. Why does the eye what I do now? And by the way, that's not true because I pride myself on one thing. And it used to be a joke when I was a kid because I didn't have money for gas. I have never run out of gasoline in a car. Never. But every other example of somebody cut cutting someone off in traffic, I've done.

unknown 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

I've been the cut-ee. I've been the guy who takes the exit last second and cuts you off. I've been all these people.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

So is everybody else. So why not just first thing, as of this podcast, when it hits the air, why don't we just help the next person we see in need of need of help?

SPEAKER_01 18:18

It's contagious. Help helping people is contagious because if someone helps you, you're gonna feel the need anything you feel grows.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

So if, like they've done on every news channel for the last week, somebody picked a positive story to broadcast week after day after day after day after day. And by the way, whatever the positive story is, if they broadcast it every day, more people will be positive in that upcoming week. Where's the guy who's saying, I can sell this positivity, I can make people look forward to coming onto my channel because when they leave my channel, they feel better. Why let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Why do you feel the need at times from the outside looking in, to lessen the massive amount of hard work you put in? Because I feel like that's what you do.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

I think work is good for you. Yeah. I think work cleanses you. I think work leads to knowledge. I'm not, I don't believe in AI. I don't believe a computer can tell me how to do something, and therefore I know how to do it. And by the way, the other thing is I'll know just how to do this very fine line of thing that the computer told me how to do. I won't know any of the derivatives that I would have learned if I picked up the thought myself. The thing is with work, I'm capable, production-wise, work-wise, thought-wise, of so much. And I'm supposed to be doing something while I'm here. Why not make the best of it? Why not use my power for good? Why not do good things and rejoice in the outcome? I it's like working. I would love to, and McDonald's, I'm here if you need me. I'll go into McDonald's and work that grill, and they won't stop talking about the guy who worked that drill like a motherfucker for the next month at McDonald's. But that is my point. It's hard work. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There, I have something in me that when I'm flipping burgers, if I'm flipping six burgers an hour, I can get six burgers cooked in an hour. I want that number to be 26 bad.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Because I know there's a way to get this down. Do you see my point?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

I do. That's just my point. You're a dog, as the kids would say, and a good dog. You just work really hard. The hard work is innate in you, it lives with inside of you.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

The joy manifested from producing work in a job you can be proud of is addictive. And the coolest thing about that is if you can get addicted to being proud of yourself, that's a really good addiction.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

So I want to give people if you have the right morals. I want to give people the backstory of why, what gives you your G14 classification to even be talking to people like you understand business and you understand what hard work is versus manifestation.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I don't think you need to have a doctorate program or to have a qualification to speak something from your heart.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

A lot of you guys out there and girls are absolute scammers, and you need to stop it. Because people are listening to you thinking they can do what you do, but you haven't even done what they've done. Scam or no scamming.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Now, back to you. What did you build? Wait, wait, well, it'll never work that way because no one's ever going to check the criteria of what I built or go back and do the questioning. That's what happens in a society. If I can put together a backstory of myself that you can check and verify, then I am that. But so often it ends up not being the case. The guy didn't go to Harvard. He he didn't graduate MIT. He's not an engineer. He's not a he didn't work at Chase for seven years. He didn't, that's all horse shit. What I say is horseshit. So then you're left with my actions. Okay? What if I told you there was a guy going to come on the internet and going to do a podcast and going to try to share what he has had as positive experiences and tell you the way he believes things have worked in his life and he'll never take any money from you. What if I told you that? Either I'm a very tricky scammer who has learned how to make no money into money, or I'm motivated by the right reasons. I'm motivated by the right things. And I am so overjoyed with the fact that when I started, one of the best things that could have happened to Scott Soprina happened. He went broke. Instantly proved he didn't know what the f he was doing. And he proved it to himself, to where Scott Soprina needed someone to help him. Someone he could believe in who would help him and have a clear motivation for helping him, but it couldn't be money.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Well, just for background, what did you fail at? A lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

I mean, all simultaneously. A good father doesn't lose his home. So I failed at fatherhood. A good husband doesn't lose his ability to provide for his wife. So I failed at being an adult. Probably a good way to class it up. Failed dramatically at being an adult. The beauty of it is, no, that it's funny, but the funny part comes from the candor that you don't expect anybody to say that. When you are as sick as your secrets and when you come to terms with the fact that what you did is what you did. Do I think they have bookkeeping that goes back that far to prove everything I say? Probably not. But who would claim bad bookkeeping? Who would do that? You got some guy recommending to gyms, I can save your business, just send me 50 grand. How bad could my business be if I have the 50 grand to save you? To save myself with? I mean, I was way.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

No, for them, for them, it was more they just wanted to grow.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, tune it up. But but uh, you know, for me, I had embarrassed myself. Always been a good talker, but talk is cheap. So I talked myself into the corner, the corner fell out, and there I was, naked and afraid. And and when you're there, you have a choice. You can vanish or you can make your claim to do it better, figure out what's important, and take better care of, firstly, yourself, and then learn to care for other people. That's why when you say, Why'd you work so hard? I would have done anything to make up for the stupidity that I did as a young man. I would have done I just sent this morning, this morning, it's on my phone, a text to my sons, a very close friend, and a close friend of theirs who are on a job in Florida that became extremely difficult, level 12 out of 10. And I said to them, keep in mind, successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people won't do. I am so proud of you guys right now. They have for the last four or five days worked 15, 16 hours a day to pull the rabbit out of the hat. My wish, they need to pull that rabbit from that hat. And then they need to sit back and realize that if they were not working their tails off, despite the assistance God gave them, they would not feel the way they feel about themselves after that job, which is a real payoff. Whether that customer pays you or not, the real payoff is coming out feeling like the best person that you can be. Not leaving a piece of yourself on that job, not feeling someone took something from you. But even your sons. You talk that I sent that text this morning. Yeah. And I got back shit from. So it's my son. My two sons are out there, a friend of my older sons, and a guy I've worked with, Peach. You probably met him before if you've been here. So Peach is like my age. So Adam texts me back.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Now, for the audience, while he's getting the text up. Might take a while. He has two sons, both run the business. One is, we would say, the CEO of the business. Scott had a seating company. He had two, he needed to give one away. He gave one away to his son Chandler. He's built it into something Scott could never imagine have having built. They're in Florida right now. Using the work ethic that Scott Saprina instilled in them to do an impossible job, to make the impossible possible.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

But that's not possible. By definition, that's not possible.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

What am I looking at?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

You can't make the impossible possible, is my point. Yes, you can. You were wrong when you described it as impossible, is my point. So I text my sons and the their two accompanying cohorts. Truth is successful people do what unsuccessful people won't do. Very proud of you all. Sorry I'm not there with you, but I guess that's part of the plan. Grateful. I am grateful. You all make me smile. Thanks. Love. SS. Adam Texback, the young guy my son's age, rooming with a friend of mine, mine age. Yes, but he is rooming with me, so he's gonna come back different.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Whatever that fucking is.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Which show you shows you that humor reigns in the in the seating solutions world, in the dream seat world.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Are you able to explain the story? What's going on down there?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

And can't or that's like um I I could explain it. We'll go to Chan on edit. Okay. Or no, this yeah. I will explain what happened. Long story short, because of manufacturing out of Columbia and coming into Miami, things got delayed and FedEx got delayed. And we will always pay whatever it takes to service our clients if we've made an error, if a product's not ready, whether it's a factory's fault or ours, we're gonna pay to get the product delivered. We're not gonna ask you for more money. That's our obligation. So over the last 10 days, there have been some hurdles with FedEx and with manufacturing. And we've had to put men on the site. A crew walked off the site because of a misunderstanding. They were subcontracted, weren't paid, so we had to end up paying them directly to get everything back in flow. And once we did, that started to help. But fact comes in that there's a product arriving today, it's got to be up by tonight. So you better have a shitload of people there motivated to get it done, or you're not gonna get it done. The beauty of this is for the most part, in the Dreamseat world, that's the company that they work with. Those guys have done a phenomenal job of staying on top of their products and get them delivered on time. But to see them take responsibility, by the way, for someone else's error. It wasn't their error. Yeah. But in real life, you can be a finger pointer and say, oh no, that was Todd. He did that. But if you promised to help this client get his job done and he entrusted your word that Todd would deliver, it is indeed your responsibility to deliver what Todd said.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

But in our society, they backtrack it and go, oh no, it was him. When if there was less blaming or shaming and more caring or effort, those problems would be reduced to virtually non-existence. But that's my point.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

And I, you know, this is a lot of me grandstanding. You're just trying to argue. Yes, for entertainment purposes, right? But the point of the story is that work ethic your boys got, and they're you're telling me stories of your youngest down there with swollen feet, held up, like I haven't done this in a while.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

He's been out of the field too long. That's the moral of the story. What? Get your ass back to that hard work. But the fact that he's the pen at the field. No, the fact that he's in the field is a testament to the person that spread the seed of love. It's only a testament to me presenting the concept when these guys grabbed onto it and said, you know what? That's what I want to do. It was primary teaching of Joe Calaruso, my mentor. When you promise something, deliver it. If you fall short, make it right.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

We had a conversation on the other episode that was shot terribly by this guy who's an idiot. Oh, I don't know who that is. That's how you learn being an idiot. But he sucks. Anyway. We won't go as long as we did on that topic during that day, but you were talking about how your relationship with your father ended and your relationship with your son and how you came at a crossroads, and you realize that you are now your father in this relationship. And to avoid some of those pitfalls, yeah, you need to act as if you know what he's going through and take a step back.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

It's not act as if I know what he was going through. I had I said similar things to my father. We were in those conversations. You have to know his experience. Every young man wants so badly for his father or his mentor, his significant parent figure to say to him, You're doing a wonderful job. And there is something in the air that keeps you from saying it as perhaps as much as you would like. And I think in this society, it's almost if I tell him he's doing too good, it will shrink what I did. There is an existence of that. But now it's like you said before, I don't have the need to convince anybody that I'm right. Geez, if you would have met me when I was 18 years old, I wouldn't let you leave that room until you agreed with me. You were not walking out if you didn't have my mindset because I had the right mindset as he flushed his house down the toilet. He said, I am right. I am right.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

So back up real quick, what was it that your dad was running a sporting goods supply company? And you were essentially taking that company over, or you were running your own company at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Interestingly enough, I bought it from him.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

And that caused a bone of contention as you started to do a little bit better than he did?

SPEAKER_00 32:36

I was selling more, but I wasn't making any money. So I don't know if you could say I was doing better. In the world of smoke and mirrors, you could say, wow, you tripled your father's business and you managed to make less than he did. That's impressive. You're very busy. You know, it's like uh Joe used to say to me, Scott, are you moving money or are you making money?

SPEAKER_01 32:56

So, what was the the rift between old man and young Scott?

SPEAKER_00 33:00

That wow, first time just had a news flash. Perhaps he knew I was not competent enough to make the right business decisions to stay in business, but he didn't tell me that. He didn't take the time to explain this is why I do it this way. I was just an annoyance. But in fairness to him, when you are shoveling the water out of the boat to keep yourself afloat, the last thing you want to explain is how the hole got there. But I don't see that till now. You know, my dad was as young and panicked a man late in his life about how he was going to find an exit strategy. How will I leave this world if I don't have money that I can take in for 15 years while I'm dying or retiring, as some people call it? How will I engineer that payout? What will I do? Oh, I'll sell my business to my son. Well, that would have been a viable deal had you taught your son business. But your son's a salesman and not a businessman.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

What's the difference?

SPEAKER_00 34:03

A salesman does exactly that, sells a job. And today everything's been micro cut up. Large part of the seating business, the salesman used to be the guy who built the bleacher as well, built the seating system. He would sell it to you, he would come to your house, he would build it. Like the guy who sells you the shed would come to your house and build it. Only since we became a big enough area has there been a separate job of selling you the shed and going to put the shed up. Okay. So in my lifetime, the thing that one of the things that saved my ass is my dad had one thing, right? He liked to learn everything from the ground up. If he was going to sell you a basketball backboard, he was going to build one because he can build it cheaper than the other guy. Oftentimes that wouldn't happen, but the education you would get from building one would allow you to make money building something else. So the stick tuitiveness is where a lot of the profit is. That would be my claim to surviving the gauntlet, I would say was my sticktuitiveness. To manifesting happiness, I would say it was meditation and manifestation. But I think they're separate. I think there's an awful lot of people in this country making money to the level of success that you and I would be impressed with. Scum baggage is what you would call it. No, it's only scumbaggardry if your purpose is bad. Predatory selling. If your purpose is bad.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

If you're giving people the value that they expect for the money that they're paying, okay. Unless you're doing something immoral, then it can be scumbaggager anyway. And there's a lot of that. That's everywhere. Really, if I could sell poison and make money at it, as long as it's not labeled poison by the FDA, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

If you had a message for your boys in both different messages, what would they be?

SPEAKER_00 35:46

I would tell Chandler to listen to Dalton. That's not fair. I rescind that. I wouldn't have significantly different messages. My sons have something that most people will never have the pleasure of having, and that is they are loved by a fiercely loving woman and their mom. And that has taken them so far. They have always known they had value. Nothing specific to either one of them that maybe I think the messages have transpired in the last week. Jan sent me a message that I'm using all those tools she gave me to deal with this. That's a first.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Why that just gave me emotional?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

It's on my phone. You can read it later. That that's a first that I'm out here doing what Scott Soprano would do. And shit, that's good. That's crack to my soul right there. Yeah, I'm a little annoyed. You're not gonna get me. No, that's good. I don't mind being God anymore. I I cried when I did the ayahuasca. It was great.

unknown 36:49

It was great.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Do you uh well what about doll?

SPEAKER_00 36:53

God, I hate to think of it as too nice that someone could be too nice. And I would just tell them to consider finding a way to raise the standards of how people treat you or what the bag they leave you holding. Consider changing that. But he is a just a beautiful person, perhaps a little more cooked than Chandler. Chan got out of the pan before he was fully done. He might be like uh over medium. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Well, it sounds like they're the perfect duo then.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Well, together they're awesome because one will, and I think this trip has made them both appreciate the other more. Because if you did not have the insanity that is Chandler, and you didn't have the level-headedness that is Dalton, you wouldn't have the fruit of what is going on down there right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Have you seen Sinners?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Uh no, I don't watch scary movies.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

No, it's not a scary movie. It was a build as that, but it's just a good movie. It's they sound like the the characters on Sinners. They're they're twin brothers, yeah. They're both the same at their core, but totally different in in and of itself. So Rap, if you if if your pops was here for 10 days and you guys got to clear the air and sit and go to Costa de Rica together, have a beer, maybe do some ayahuasca. He might.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

He might actually actually be open to ayahuasca, Frank. Yeah. Maybe do some ayahuasca.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Uh what would that conversation be like? Would you apologize for anything?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Oh, absolutely. I would, I think it's an unfair playing field that I think when we get to the planet, it's all about us. Where's my bottle? Where's my food? Where's my friends? Where's the party? It doesn't occur to you that the people who are bringing you your food, your bottle, cleaning you were once in your exact situation. And they only have the capabilities they have because of the people that raised them and what they showed them and what that gave to them. That's why I bring up before the uncharted love that is my wife Lisa. You can't not get it. It's not a around the back door kind of love. It's right here. You're gonna know you're loved to a painful extent. But with my dad, I would apologize just for being a pain in the ass when I was a kid. And I was a pain in the ass for no particular reason. I wasn't headed anywhere. I just wanted you to answer my question. It's like I was 18 and still asking, why is the sky blue? I mean, looking back on it, that's how fing annoying I was. I would ask questions that there was almost no answer to. And then I'd look at him and go, why don't you have the answer? You are the significant male in my life. And if he would have told me, well, I I never got interviewed for that job, it just gave me the job. Here's the kid. Go forth and raise this little fucker. Age gives you a quality of forgiveness. You know, if you're lucky enough to le live in more than one role, more than the role of a son, more than the role of the father. You know, getting to grandfather, what's going on becomes a little bit more clear. I'll say it to you this way. Quickly, Joe Colaruso, when I asked him what he wanted me to say about him when he died, he goes, Well, I thought about that when I was 18 and decided to live that way. No one needed to say anything about Joe. Everybody knew who he was by what he did. They knew who he was. So when I look at my life now, the highest compliments I get regularly are wow, I met your sons. Two wonderful kids they are. Wow, I've seen your sons at work. They do really nice work, they have pride in what they do. These are fucking dreams of mine. These aren't, God, I hope everybody likes them. I don't mean like them. I don't mean want to take one home. I mean respect. They have respect from his industry, they have respect from the people they work with, from the fucking crew who is bolting seats next to him today. They have their respect. They don't need the money to bolt that chair in. It's not a money exchange. It's a obligate. I gave my word I would do this. I need to do everything in my power to do that. That includes tightening a bolt. That's what it includes. And if I can be there tightening a bolt and overseeing the job and while I'm on the job, tighten the bolt. Isn't that better than just overseeing the job with my clipboard and having all the guys who have been working 16 hours go, who's the prick with the clipboard? Because that's what the guys say. They've said it when I was in the group working and they walk by and go, where's the owner? And I crawl out from under the bleacher and they go, right there. They go, that can't be the owner. Yeah, it can be. And there is joy in that. There is love in that. I love my crew. My crew is great. Scott Soprina. Trevor Jackson. Scott Soprina. Trevor Jackson. Matt Scarduzio. What's up, Maddie? Matt, you gonna take the chair next week? Okay. Get Maddie in there. We'll fire this thing up, baby.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Sit on this with Scott Soprina. Appreciate you guys.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

That was a lot for you guys to sit on, so I'll give you a couple of days.