Outside of Your Scope: When My Father Bought a Sports Flooring Company

What a story today! My dad, an attorney in a small town in Michigan, decided to buy a sports flooring company in Boston? Yeah, I don't even know what to say.

Starting a business, buying a business, taking your career or life in a different direction CAN be great. However, beyond just 'knowing your why', it is critical to actually KNOW you why - the real, deep down, self motivating reason why. Is it pure? Are you sure?

Want some advice? How about meet yourself where you are instead of where you think you should be. Too often, we are reaching for things that are attainable, but not just yet. Or, we reach for things with poor intention and wrong intention. Be honest with yourself, reach for things for the right reason(s) to give yourself the best possible future. 

Sponsor I Wish I Had: 
Pink Miracle Quick Wipes

Jus the Tip:
How to tell if your basketball has enough air

Whisper In:
@snkrtechtalk on IG

Check out this related video: https://youtu.be/QtyASmEZ2F4?si=w_yRSENYi3L5-Ljw 

Check out the Story. Lesson. Advice. Podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/919333/14216914 

Have a topic suggestion for the show? Email me at saturdayisdadurday@gmail.com 

Music by Purple-planet.com Music by Wondershare Filmora 12 

Connect on IG: @saturdayisdadurdaymedia

Transcript

Yeah, I own two pieces of the Boston Garden parquet floor, don't you?
Welcome everyone to another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast part of Saturday is Saturday, medium, podcasts, videos, blogs, books, all in due time. I'm Justin, thanks for listening, we're gonna get right into it. I said that I have two pieces of the Boston Garden parquet floor. Now for some people that's gonna go right over your head. And it's irrelevant. I get it no big deal. For those of us who know what that means. The Boston Celtics, NBA basketball team, the parquet floor, probably the most famous basketball court in the world, if that means anything to anybody. And I have two pieces of it. But the way that I got it is a little bit different. So the story goes like this. Imagine being 10 years old, having your dad come home and tell you guess what, we now own a company that manufactures sports floors for NBA and college teams. As a kid, you can imagine my head must have exploded, especially as someone who loves basketball and loved basketball back then. So that is exactly what happened to me. When I was 10 years old, when my dad who was an attorney in a small town, came home and told me that we now owned a sports flooring company called the championship sports flooring. I fast forward to today. And I look back on that. And I think what in the actual hell was happening with this? I have no idea how or why, to this day that my dad got involved with this company. I think he had done some legal work for someone with this company. They had communicated to him that they were on the decline. They were available for the cheap. They were looking for new ownership and someone that could turn the business around. So the question that I would ask my dad is why you Dad, as an attorney in a small town, did you think that you were the right person for the job. And he was not. I was fortunate enough to travel with my dad, while he had meetings with basketball teams and college and universities like the Charlotte Hornets, the Georgetown Hoyas, the Philadelphia 70, Sixers, the Boston Celtics, the Sacramento Kings, we went to a whole bunch of different places, I got to be a part of some of those meetings, I got to step on these floors as they were being built in Boston, Massachusetts, which is where the plant was located, which was, you know, just a quick drive from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is where we lived. Again, I have no idea how my dad got involved with this company, and why he thought he was the right person for the job. As time went on, and I got to be a part of some of these meetings and my dad went and visited with some of these customers, I think he even went overseas for some stuff. It was clear that this company had an exceptional product, but was very poorly run previously, had only a few employees left, their books were in shambles. And my dad, I believe, fell in love with the idea of being able to turn a company around, being able to work with a cool product, meet some cool people be able to say at parties and with friends, not to D went to a lot of parties, but be able to talk to people about this company that he owns in this business that he owns. And there was a missed opportunity of understanding that this was a business that was outside of his area of expertise. And he did not have the infrastructure in place to be able to support running a second business while still being a full time lawyer and running his own practice. But the stories that I remember was being able to go to these places and meet with these teams and walk on these floors and see this stuff up close and personal and go to games as a kid and like young basketball fan, doing exactly what I wanted to do was just amazing. And at one point I was given two small pieces of the Boston Celtics parquet floor, I can confirm that Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson actually stepped on these and I've got a certificate of authenticity and all that to prove that so that was very cool. But I am still to this day just baffled and blown away as to why my dad I made that decision. Alright, and now it's time for this week's sponsor I wish I had. And this week's sponsor is called Pink miracle quick wipes. And I am holding this for the video audience. These are little wipes that look like the wipes you get after you eat barbecue, and they are designed for your shoes, there are two sides. One side is kind of a smoother side, the other side is rougher, and it's designed to take and clean the around the outside of your shoes, even the soles of your shoes. And then you can kind of wipe them clean. So they are wipes that they're just one time use, you throw them away. But we have had these for probably six months now and use them on all of our shoes, and they work very, very well. So both my wife and I are big fans of shoes, and we have a whole bunch of casual and Nikes and Jordans and all that kind of stuff. Taking care of those keeping them clean, especially if they're white or anything like that. So that is a really fun product, I think you can buy them on Amazon, my wife got this bag. But if you are looking for a quick shoe cleaner, a quick way to keep your kicks clean and fresh, then that is what I would recommend. They are called the pink miracle quick wipes, I'll put the link in the audio and the video description, not an affiliate link, just a link to help you find where to get it. Okay, so the story which I told rather quickly of my dad purchasing a basketball company, they are a basketball flooring company called championship sports flooring. And they made basketball floors and hardwood floors, for professional college and high school basketball teams for professional dance studios for
halls that did weddings, and, and catering and those kinds of places. And they just sold all of that stuff commercially. And the company was based in Boston, and we lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which was closer to Green Bay than it is Detroit. And somehow someway, my dad got involved with this. And all of a sudden he was the owner of this company and didn't have any knowledge on how to run a business at that scale didn't have any knowledge of the flooring industry didn't have any knowledge of the types of wood or the types of other materials or lead time to build these things. Or the types of people that would be the decision makers had all these and all these customers like basketball teams and everything. But I traveled with him periodically, went to Georgetown in Washington, DC, and they ended up buying a whole bunch of floors from us, including the one that was on TV for the men's basketball team. So I got to be a part of that meeting, I got to be a part of a meeting with the Charlotte Hornets. I think I got to be a meeting, a part of a meeting with the Sacramento Kings, and then some other other companies as well. So that was really, really interesting to do that. But the the lesson that I took away from all this after watching my Dad, buy the business, owning the business, and then eventually it went bankrupt, or sold with basically no no profit or anything is to kind of understand I think the valuable lesson here is to understand the deep root of your why. And you hear people now talk about what your why all the time or whatever. And that makes sense. But to have an understanding of why are you doing this? And what is the full scope of your why. And for my dad, I don't know what that was, and he passed away, you know, roughly 10 years ago, so I don't have a chance to ask him anymore. I wish I would have. But what is the reason for that? What is the reason that you're buying something that's completely you know, kind of out of your scope already? Not something that you're affiliated with? I don't really have any working knowledge of that industry in particular. So why are you getting involved with them? And I think that's a good application for all of us to step back and think about in a variety of situations, and not just the surface level of why but really, truthfully, what is the reason why you're doing what you're doing, whether that is at work, or whether that is with the relationships that you're involved in, or the friendships that you're involved in, or the hobbies or lack thereof that you're involved in? Whatever that is, I think there's tremendous value in us, challenging ourselves to ask, what is the why what is the root cause? What is the real reason why you're doing something? And I think if I had to guess, and I'm saying this lovingly about my father not to talk about him poorly because he can't defend himself. But I think he probably romanticized kind of the the idea of the cool stuff of like owning a company and, you know, having meetings and going into these games and meeting these people and all of that kind of stuff. I think there was some romanticizing about what that was like and the way that I can kind of correlate That is when you're younger, and maybe you have a job with a company where you get to travel a little bit, that's really kind of appealing, and you kind of feel like, you know, you're somebody, you're going to the airport dressed up and you, you're going to meet customers and you're traveling a little bit, and then you're good about six months into it, and you're like, Jesus, I just want to be home. And I just want to eat home cooked food, and I want to pee in my sweatpants. And I want to sleep in my own bed. And you know, I don't want to sit next to some dude who's sneezing and coughing to me on the airplane. So I think you can get excited about those kinds of things for for some of the wrong reasons. And I've certainly done that a million times where I've been, I've talked about this on previous episodes, you know, interested in, in women, for the wrong reasons, are interested in the job for the wrong reasons, or a car for the wrong reasons, or whatever. And I think understanding the why, for my father in that situation, if he would have audited himself in that way, there probably would have been a different outcome of hey, this is cool, but probably not what I want to be involved in. And I don't believe that he was doing it to as a get rich quick, I do believe there was a component of hey, this could be this could catapult us financially. But buying a business that was on its way down, and then having the belief that you could turn it around without working knowledge, and then have enough money to catapult your financial freedom, I think was probably a little misguided. So for us in a more practical sense, anybody that's dealing with anything like that, I think it's important to audit ourselves, and to ask our reason why. So that we can really go through the paces of ourselves and really make sure that we have a complete understanding of the decision that we're making, why we're making the decision, possible ramifications and kind of weigh all of those out. And that can be done on a small scale. When you're thinking about where do I go for dinner. And it can be done on a big scale. If you're thinking about buying a company, which I say proceed with caution. To keep with the basketball theme, this week's just the tip segment is not a cooking tip. It is how to tell if your basketball at home or your kids basketball has enough air in it. This was a trick that I learned long ago when I was a kid and new staff to blow the basketball up with air all the time, because it was always cold where I lived. And we were always leaving the ball out overnight, which you shouldn't do. So the easiest way to do it is once you get it to an inflated level that you think is correct, you want to just stand regular standard normal, you want to gently toss the ball up, so the ball gets in the air about even with your head and then let it bounce and bounce back up. And if it has enough air, it should bounce back up to you above your waist and below your neck. So somewhere around upper stomach, lower nipple area, depending on how saggy your nipples are. That is where you want the ball to go. So do that a couple of times. Just gently toss it up. So it's about as high as your head, let it drop to the ground and bounced back up should be upper stomach, lower nipple area. And if you do that, then you are in business. If it's too springy, then you probably need to let some air out. If it's not springy enough, then you need to add some more air that works for indoor basketballs, outdoor basketballs, indoor outdoor, whatever. But that is a trick that I have done. Ever since I've been a kid and even now with our daughter's basketball that we have to blow up or reinflate every time before we go to basketball every week. And it works like a charm. So that is this week's just the tip. So we talked about the story of my dad purchasing a sports flooring company. And we talked about the lesson of probably understanding the full scope of your why how that is so critical. And if you do that, you probably will make better decisions. And the advice that I would give my dad if I could go back and have a cup of coffee with him.
Or that I would tell myself in previous situations, and hopefully I'll tell my daughter one day is to set yourself up for success. And I think one of the key factors in doing them is recognizing your limitations where you are. And oftentimes we want to rise up to where we think we should be, instead of rising up to where we actually are in the moment. If my father had probably audited himself and recognized where he needed support in running this company, and maybe been in a position to hire people, it could have been a much more effective company could have been much more financially viable and could have been much more sustainable for us as we go through our day to day lives. And talking about setting ourselves up to be successful and recognizing our limitations. An easy thing that is translated for me, I've talked about on previous episodes is, I've always struggled with my weight and eating healthy and working out consistently and all of that. And it's been an up and down struggle for my life. And oftentimes, the reason it's been an up and down struggle, is because I have pushed too hard. And I ended up hurting myself, nothing serious, but just sidelining me for a couple of weeks or a month. And then I would let myself devolve into negative talking self talk negative thinking, negative behaviors and habits, and then try to dig myself out of that. So just before I on the cusp of kind of making any progress, then I ended up hurting myself. And I blame external sources instead of looking at the fact that most of the time when that's happened, it's because I was not recognizing my own limitations, I was trying to reach up for something that I wasn't ready to handle, instead of just meeting myself where I was at the moment and considering doing what I can, when I can, with what I can, is success in and of itself for that day, and to measure success that way, and not buy what I think based off of the cover of Men's Health or whatever. And looking back at my dad's scenario, had he done the audit? And how do you recognize that, hey, I don't know anything about this industry. And I need people who are true professional salespeople who can go in and assess a customer, and provide options and overcome objections and do all of that thing. And hey, if there I need someone who is an accountant, or has a true financial mind, who can look at our books, and understand where money needs to go, I think the business would have been much better off. So for us, again, same thing talked about my example of working out, you could look at your example of of, you know, somewhere at work or somewhere with your family or somewhere personally, but oftentimes, we don't recognize our limitations. And we don't meet ourselves where we're at. And that is usually because we are embarrassed to admit our shortcomings to ourselves. Because we think the whole world is going to point and laugh at us. And no one cares. So meet yourself where you're at. Recognize your limitations. Be okay with your limitations, because that's an opportunity to improve. I know it might sound cliche, but you think about if you can recognize your limitations, and focus on one of them and then a couple of months, that's no longer a limitation. That's a huge success. So you need to take that as a W and move on. So that is the advice that I would give myself.
All right, for this week's whispering, it is an Instagram account by follow as we keep along with the basketball theme, that this account is an abbreviated handle, but it's called sneaker Tech Talk. And it's spelled s n. K, our tech talk. And the guy's name is Steve. And he talks and reviews of all bunch of different kinds of shows, all choose new shows. LeBron shoes, genre hats, Jordans, Kobes, all sorts of all sorts of shoes, gets really in depth shoes, reviews, shows playing, and then jumping in them. Talks about pros and cons, top 10 lists, all sorts of stuff. So if you like basketball shoes, or shoes in general, this is a really awesome account to follow. He also leans into the Michael Jordan stuff, which I like because I'm a huge MMA fan. I highly recommend check these guys. Check this guy out. His name is Steve. The Instagram account is sneaker Tech Talk. And it's all thing performed performance reviews of shoes, and as a self doubler showing those yest since 1997. So Steve offer at sneaker Tech Talk on Instagram. That is this week's whisperer.
Alright, so we talked about the story of my dad buying a championship sports flooring company. We talked about the lesson of not fully understanding the scope of your why. And we talked about the advice of auditing yourself and setting yourself up for you're setting yourself up for success by realizing your limitations and meeting yourself where you are instead of where you think you should be. That is a valuable piece of advice that can apply to so many different facets of all of our lives, whether it's at work, or working out, or family or relationships, and it really goes back to what I've talked about previously, which is expectations. Oftentimes we have unrealistic expectations or inappropriate expectations for our ourselves or for others, instead of just meeting ourselves and others where we are at in the moment. For the sponsor I wish I had this week it was the pink miracle quick wipes. These are one use wipes to clean up your sneakers or shoes. My wife and I have been using them for about six months. They are awesome. They do a really good job of cleaning your shoes and getting rid of a lot of dirt. They have one side that's smooth and one side that's rough to kind of scrub a little bit more so pink miracle quick wipes is this week's sponsor I wish I had for the just the tip segment. It's all about how to make sure your basketball has enough air and you can go back and listen to that but it involves throwing it up and sagging nipples. That's all I'll say. And for the whispering it is an Instagram account that I follow called sneaker Tech Talk. The guy's name is Steve. He does a lot of reviewing of past and current basketball shoes Jordans. Cobis LeBrons, John Moran's Kevin Durant all that stuff. If you like basketball, if you like shoes, it's a fun account to follow. I'm always blown away now at how much more vibrant and wild all the colors are. Feel like when I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Even though those colors were everywhere, they were not on basketball shoes, you had like just the standard, you know, six or eight colors that were in all of your basketball shoes. All the Jordans were red, black and white, some very variation. You know, Charles Barkley shoes were purple and black and white and Shaq shoes were black and white. And all of a sudden now you'd get get all these shoes that have just the whole color spectrum on them. So they're pretty neat. So I highly recommend checking him out. It's a fun account I check out every day. So thank you very much for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast part of Saturday is Saturday media.