#227 - Paul Streitz

0:00 Hello and thanks for joining me again today for Geeses of Gear Episode #227. Today's podcast is brought to you by AVL Media Group, your premier North American distribution partner. As the exclusive US distributors for Midas Lab, Groupen Lake Tanoi, Clark Technique, Turbo Sound, Aston Spotlight, 0 Ohm and Wharfdale Pro. They are committed to developing long term business relationships with their partners at every level by providing outstanding pre and post sales, service and support.

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2:35 Hello, We Are back Episode #227 and I say we're back because although we had podcasts launch, or at least one launch, I think we only had one this past week. But I was actually gone for a few days and I didn't record for a week, and that's been a first in a while. Sarah's got me slaving pretty good. And I was actually in Los Angeles for the first time since before COVID. I realized as I was landing there, I was like wow, I haven't been here in a while. And you know, so of course, like everyone, I've heard all of the terrible stories about what LA is like right now, you know, people defecating on sidewalks and sleeping on sidewalks and everything else.

3:22 And while I believe that there is some of that going on, a lot of that going on, I wasn't downtown. Lai was actually in Northridge for meetings. And so, yeah, I was recently invited to become part of a board of directors for a company. It's actually a private equity group who are buying up some companies and this is the first one. And so the board meeting was last week, got to meet some incredible people and shared some knowledge both back and forth and really enjoyed the process. And if you are not on any boards, I recommend it. This isn't my first one, but it's actually I think the first one that I've been on outside of any of my companies.

4:07 So you know outside of a a board seat in a company that I owned a piece of at least a small piece if not all of. And so great experience. You know, it's it's a great way to share your knowledge and benefit others with it in sort of a consulting kind of way. But it's a very hands off or I should say arm's length type of relationship or approach something very different for me and very enjoyable experience. So I liked it. I actually enjoyed being back in LA other than a few things. I mean one, what the hell has happened to LAX? Like, I mean, that place is a disaster. And Uber.

4:50 Oh my God. You know what happened was I had a car rental reserved and then the flight was late and I felt like I was gonna actually be late cuz I was landing about two hours before the 1st board meeting and I was thinking, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be late for this thing. If I go for the car rental, I'm just gonna cancel the car rental and grab an Uber. That'll be much quicker. Well, why didn't somebody tell me I was wrong. You know, if you haven't been to LA recently, you don't just walk out the door of the airport and grab an Uber, you First of all, I'm trying to book it and I didn't know the process there, cuz again, I hadn't been there since, I don't know, 2018 or something. And so I'm trying to book it and it kept saying go to this, go outside and find a bus or something. And I'm like, what?

5:42 I don't want a bus. I want an Uber. And it was just really confusing. It wouldn't book. My Uber, basically is what it came down to. And so finally I I asked someone when I got outside and they said, yeah, you got to go over there and and get on that bus. And so I'm like, OK, what the hell is going on here? So it took like 10 minutes for the bus to come. So already I'm panicking, 'cause, you know, now I'm, I've got like maybe an hour and 15 minutes or something to get to this meeting on time. And so this bus takes you to a parking lot that's, I don't know, 10 minutes from the airport, let's say. And you go to this parking lot and then you order your Uber.

6:23 And so then it, it was raining, by the way. So I'm standing outside in this parking lot in the rain with my bag and so I finally get an Uber ordered and it takes them. It said 3 minutes and it took like probably 15 minutes. And Long story short, All in all, I ended up about 20 minutes late for the first board meeting. So I actually called in to zoom from the car. And yeah, I mean it. You can't necessarily blame politics or anything for that, but they gotta fix that situation. The whole Uber thing is so broken and the Uber driver was just complaining like crazy, not just because of this parking lot situation, but also because I didn't realize this, but I was. I I complained because here was another thing. Inside the airport it said that my Uber ride was going to be $80.00.

7:17 Then I kept trying to book it and it wouldn't book it. So I tried 5 minutes later and it was $82. I tried 5 minutes later it was $86. Well, by the time I got in the car it was $99.00 and so I said this to the driver. I'm like, I'm trying to book it and it was $80.00 and now it's 99. It's 20 bucks more. It's kind of a rip off. And he goes, yeah, the company is ripping off the customers and the drivers at this point. And I said really? And he said, yeah, he said do you know, out of that $99, guess what I get? And I said, I don't know, 80. Like I'm thinking Uber takes 20%, maybe 25% the pigs that they are. Uber takes 60% and the driver gets 40. I mean, can you even believe that that it to me like I own and operate a marketplace and we take 7% and here's Uber taking, you know 60% of the money from the driver for the fact that they run the platform.

8:14 To me that's just opening a a door to competitors to another system because there's no way that system is sustainable when when the company is taking 60% of the money from the driver that to me just isn't sustainable. So anyways, got to the meeting. Meetings were great. Got back. My flight was actually on time and it was an awesome flight back. The airport, I don't know. It's so big, so congested, so much traffic. You can't get an Uber like that to me is just broken. I I go to lots of other big cities, to New York and and Chicago and Atlanta, etcetera. I've never had this much trouble getting an Uber. It was crazy. So what else did I want to mention? Nothing really.

8:59 So today's guest is a gentleman named Paul Streitz. So many of you will know him. Hopefully most of you will know him. Paul's a great guy, been around for a long time and I'm gonna read you his bio here quickly. So Paul established himself as an industry visionary, one of the early leaders in fiber optic lighting solutions and a go to source for high tech high touch creative lighting solutions working with high profile jobs including the Grammy Awards, Broadway shows and major concert tours. After selling his first company in 2007, Paul reinvented himself as a consultant, author and motivational speaker.

9:41 He wrote a book called Blue Collar Buddha based on winning wisdom gained on a journey from flight attendant to cancer survivor and finally entrepreneurial millionaire. Very interesting dude and someone who I think you'll quite enjoy. So here you go Paul Streitz. How are you buddy? I'm good. How you doing, Marcel? I'm doing all right. I feel like we just had a whole conversation before the conversation. We did. We had the warm up. We did pregame. It was fun. We got into all the things that we're not allowed to talk about now that we're actually on air and recording so. So I gotta keep the edit button.

10:25 Good. OK, I'll behave. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's more me And sometimes Sarah, Sarah gets really upset when she hears us say bad things. So you know, she's got the edit button, she's got the beep button that. That the three second delay. Yeah, fortunately we don't deal with any of that shit, so. That's right. Yeah, the nice thing about podcasting is, you know, I leave it up to the guest, Whatever the guest is comfortable talking about or whatever language they want to use or whatever stories they want to tell. I typically take the approach of as long as nobody gets hurt outside of the two of us, you know this little group, you know everything's fair game and and you know I don't. I don't like when people talk shit about other people like will generally either avoid that or or edit it out later. Try not to get too political, you know. Make a note.

11:23 Do not make a note. Do not talk bad about Gordon, OK? No, Gordon is an exception. I was gonna read you the exceptions next. Gordon, or anyone I dislike, is fair game completely. So Ferrari bar is still OK? Yeah, there you go. Ferrari bar and the Elvis guard, yeah. Yes, OK, that'll work. You've met Elvis a few times at very late moments of the evening in very suspect places, I guess. I think so, yeah. It's always an adventure. Yeah, you know, Gord, Gord with that card was hilarious. I mean, it was just, you know, I don't even know where to start on that story because there's been so many epic adventures with with Gordon and Elvis. And yeah, I mean, what a fun dude. Always the life of the party.

12:16 Yeah. So, you know, first of all, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you coming. And I saw you last summer, which was fun. I hadn't seen you in years. And I just happened to be driving through Minnesota. And I'm like, who the hell do I know in Minnesota? And I knew two people, and I called one of them on the way to Canada and then called you on the way back. And so, yeah, that was fun. It's so weird that literally though you were driving under a matter of fact, you can see the road you're on from our office and our our warehouse. That's correct. I mean you were literally, I could, if I had a slingshot, I could have got your car. I mean it's. Well, I appreciate it if you didn't. I appreciate it if you didn't do that.

12:57 But it but it was kind of cool, you know? Yeah, no, it was nice to see you. I, you know, with Zoom and all of this stuff, this virtual stuff, you forget how long it's been. Like I was talking in the, the little intro here about I was in LA last week and I'm landing in LA and I'm thinking, I haven't been here in like 6 years, you know, like, really. And I used to go to LA almost weekly when I was with Martin. So, you know, it's it's just weird. Like, I mean, I've got really good friends that I'll be like, I haven't seen you in 10 years, you know, and and it's like Wiseman, I had dinner with John Wiseman a couple weeks ago and I was like, you know, I haven't seen you in person in probably five years. And we're really close friends, you know. So it's weird.

13:45 I think for sure I get carried away on this virtual thing. Yeah, I I need to do more of it and probably keep up with a lot of my old, let's say, entertainment industry friends. And I've been meaning to go to LDI and I just haven't done it. And you know, you get busy doing what you're doing now. Yeah. And you don't forget about what you used to do and you think about all those moments but you just get caught up in what you're currently doing and and unfortunately I think I've need to take some take some time go to LDI, you know next year and and and. Yeah, go. Say hi to everybody. Like me, you're a small business owner and at the end of the day you look at it and you go, it's 10 grand no matter how I slice it. And you know, do I really need to spend 10 grand to go to another trade show that I've been to 25 years in a row or whatever?

14:33 And so sometimes it's easy to brush it off. But I'll tell you what, this this past year, LDI, I didn't go and I was dying. Like during the show, I'm watching everybody's posts and stuff and I'm like, God damn it, I should have gone. That was so I know. And I see them, you know, I'm still friends with so many people and you see their posts. And I'm like, I need to go. And then I try to, I try to tell people that are around me what it's like. And it's, it's it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, crazy. It's a crazy industry we're getting. Let's both go there. We're not out. Let's both go. Yeah, we should. We really should. Because, you know, I remember back in the day, I mean, you know, literally I'd be rolling in from going out in Vegas and it's 6:00 AM and I'm just showering and and I going, OK, I hope that you know all the partying stink is off me and showing up in my booth going, I hope people show up and if they don't I'll go sleep. Well, I'll tell you.

15:29 So you were probably out with him actually, but going back to Gord one time in Orlando I which is weird because Vegas you'd understand, but Orlando not so much. But Orlando, I go down for breakfast because I've got a sales meeting at the booth that I'm doing. And so it's like probably 7:30 in the morning or something. Little early to be going to the LDI show, but I'm, I'm down in the hotel breakfast restaurant and I walk in to get breakfast with, I don't know, one of my employees or something. And Gord is sitting there eating steak and eggs and and I'm like, what the hell are you doing up already? And he's like. Oh, I'm just getting inmate.

16:10 You know, eating steak and eggs at like 7:30 in the morning. And what's even worse is his body time. He's had a really long day because his body time is like 6 hours ahead. So. It's like new for him, Knucklehead. Oh, he's a lot of fun. He's he's going to hear this and laugh. That's great. No, I love it. I I love the guy. I mean, he's he's such a a funny guy and a a wonderful guy and he hugs better. Like people who hug like that, you always know they're real genuine people. You know, people who hug and then kind of lean their face into yours, you know, it's like, OK, that guy's a lovely guy, right? And he's one of them. He's one of those guys. So, yeah, you know, But I I agree with you on the whole LDI thing.

16:55 I have to, I have to do the same thing and and just make sure, you know, at our age, like you said, like none of us is gonna live forever. And our friends, in my case, I know most, not most. I will say a lot of my friends in the industry probably haven't paid well enough attention to their health. And, you know, I keep seeing people on Facebook and stuff. Did you hear So and so is gone. And I'm like, no way. I know. No. Way not him. And so, yeah, you gotta, you gotta see those people that matter that you know, as often as possible. Yeah, yeah. You know on the other side of this too is one of the reasons why I don't think I go to LD is you know I think you could Take Me Out of the entertainment business but you you know you can't or what's the old adage you can't. I I'm still there and and I'm going to go there and get ideas for fixtures and you know me I'm a manufacturer at heart. I'm going to start, I I think I could do this and now I get way off track of what I'm doing now and it'll just, you know, but I'm going to go, we'll go, We're going to have to make it a an effort to go.

18:02 Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I look forward to it. And you know, I'm not driving up to Canada this year because I learned my lesson last year. But, you know, maybe, maybe we'll try and figure out how to get together over the summer because I'll be, I'll be at my house in Canada and you're not that far away. So, you know, maybe maybe we'll figure out a fishing trip or something. That would be awesome. It's really good fishing here by the ways. And yeah, well, I should. I shouldn't say that you're Canada. The fishing's great there, but we could fishing here as well. I'll still, you know, I know I I made it to Fort Myers for a little while, but it was a quick trip. Yeah. I'm I I'm gonna be there more often next year. Yeah.

18:43 Yeah. Cuz I'm looking for a winter place there. Yeah. You know, I can still run my business and be down there during the cold months, so. You gotta hurry up, we'll. Have plenty of time. Before the price is double again. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's. Crazy what these, you know, especially New Yorkers that are coming in with just pockets full of cash and buying everything up. It's it's wild what's happening to the pricing nuts. It's crazy. If you go to the small towns and stuff, though, generally you're OK. I don't know what Fort Myers is like, but certainly this goes like I'm in Palm Beach and the prices are, you know, more than double what they were just a couple of years ago. You know, it's it's crazy, crazy, crazy, so. Fort Myers still isn't too bad. Yeah.

19:24 You know I like to I like to jump into the Wayback machine and figure out how people got going. And and you know I I was thinking about it before getting on this podcast and you know from my viewpoint your life started probably about midway through advanced lighting. Like I met you, you were at Advanced and and I think you were just getting into the fiber optic thing, which is a whole story that I want to get into as well. But what led you? Usually it's something really bad happened in life or somebody was a musician and couldn't make it as a musician, or they were a DJ and couldn't make it as a DJ and they end up in the lighting business.

20:06 So how did that go for you? Well I actually was a flight attendant wanted to be an entrepreneur. But my my, you know, my background with my my father was a labor union organizer, auto mechanic at 1st and you know, it was like union this union that and I wanted to see the world and travel. I wasn't super academic so college wasn't my thing. I went into the military, got out, and I became, I thought, you know, what? Can I? Actually, I was selling cars for an uncle of mine. And this super hot chick walks in with her husband who didn't look like he could have that girl. And she goes to the bathroom.

20:47 I go, dude, how did you score this girl? And he says, oh, I work at. I'm the parking manager. I'm the parking manager at the airport at MSP, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. And she's a flight attendant. So I see her all the time. And I ask her out and I go, wow. And now you're married and everything. Yeah. So he tells her this when she comes back. And she says, well, what do you want to do? I said, I don't know. I want to be an entrepreneur, but I want to see the world. She goes and I want to meet good looking girls like you. And she goes, well, why don't you become a flight attendant? I said, well, I don't, I don't know. She goes to tell you what, I'm not going to buy the car unless you fill out this application when they come or you know, when they come back in. I won't close on it. She brought an application in. I filled it out and three weeks later I was in Dallas, TX training at American Airlines.

21:32 And yeah, it was crazy and I just totally knew that was the right move for me. I, you know, stepped out if you will, from home and warmer weather and all sorts of cool stuff. And you know, it's a big city and amongst a very large airline with a lot of flight attendants was good, probably a pretty. Good way to meet girls too, I'm guessing. Oh man, it was crazy. American Airlines has a a whole campus. It's massive swimming pool, nightclub and bar, game room, and they're all dorms and and that's where they train. So literally I could go to class, drink and go to the pool and like, no time. It was just you're staying in dorms right there in their campus.

22:20 We called it the charm farm and and it was great. I was like, wow, this is crazy. You know? Why aren't more guys doing this that are straight, you know? And and I got it and it was fine. So yeah, I went through that and was probably 6 months into my flying. I'm in Reno, NV and I'm on a layover and I'm at the, oh man, I think the El Dorado Hotel Casino and then look and they're doing this cool thing in like the ceiling in a restaurant that was closed down, like they were remodeling or something. And they were like doing shooting stars and all these little things.

23:00 So I went underneath the do not enter tape and tugged on the guy's shorts and go, hey man, what are you doing? He goes, oh, it's startled them. And he goes, this is my father's company and we're just a small little lighting company here in Reno. And we this is a side hustle. And he didn't use the word side hustle then. But, you know it's a side gig for us and we create these stars and we do these little things out of the fiber optics and go, well, hey, I'm a flight attendant. Can I have a job? I'll I could do this in Dallas or wherever I fly to and he says he's going to call my dad. So I did. I didn't. I ended up working for him for free for just a Commission. But I didn't know at all what I was doing.

23:42 I mean I was like so green. So I said I'm going to take a couple months off and fly and you can do that. And I went up in Reno stayed with them and I learned how they were doing what they were doing. And so then I took that back and I knocked on, you know, like the little open sciences, open and fiber optic who changes color and video stores. And you know, at any point and I had six months later, I got no sales. I was like, oh man, and maybe this isn't for me and maybe I'm not good at this and you know, I'm a failure. And then all of a sudden I had this flight and this guy was in first class. It was often for me when I met people in first class, I'd say stuff like why are you sitting here and not in coach?

24:26 And they look kind of weird at you. So well, 'cause I paid for it or I got upgraded and I go, no, no, no, why are you here instead of coach? Like, what did you do right in your life? What are you doing that puts you here? And everybody likes to tell their story and I get all these stories when I did that to one guy. I think his name was Farshid. Farshad is a cool guy engineer and he worked for Showbiz Chuck E Cheese Pizza and he says I'm the show engineer. If you show me this Chuck E Cheese pizza, I go what's that? You know? And he goes, well, all the animatronics and all that. I'm in charge of that. I design it. We engineer it. I said hey, what if I was to put and he showed me pictures. I said what if I was to put stars behind your characters? Well, that'd be really cool.

25:11 I said, well, I think I could do that. Well, what do you mean? You're a flight attendant? I told him that my side gig and how I I could not find any business. Like I knocked out everybody's door and he goes, well you're doing it wrong. He says they've already spent their money in the stores open. They need to make money now. You got to get people in the planning process when they have a budget to spend. I went, oh OK And he goes now us. We're always updating our stage and our effects so why don't you come by. So I came by and I even made I flew up to Reno. I made a little sample fiber optic curtain and I'll never forget this. I show up there and I have this little rinky, dinky light source with the wheel on it and hung it up in his office and he goes, this is great. He says we have 1100 stores and I can see this in every store. I said great and and and and he goes, but there's one thing, your light source looks a little rinky dinky and I and it's fine 'cause it's off stage and everything. But I need to know whether or not this thing will survive. If in six months it's still working, we'll do, we'll we'll do a roll out of like 200 stores at a time. And I went, OK, so that happens in about 3 months, maybe four months into me waiting and not having any success anywhere else except for being a flight attendant. I end up feeling a, a lump on my testicle. And I went, oh shit, this is something weird, you know? And and you know, I told my girlfriend, I said I'm going to go fly home and see my urologist

26:42 about this. I went and saw my urologist and he's like an old guy, old family, you know next to retirement you just got an infection, no big deal. OK, gave me antibiotics. OK, So then I flying again and about another month later I fly with this guy and I credited him in my book. I wrote a book later and and and his name was Joey English and he had testicular cancer. And I said how did you find out? And he said, well, I went in, they gave me an ultrasound and the results were there. I said, well, I'm going, Why did my doctor give me an ultrasound? You know, I'm thinking, so the lump was still there. So I called back and I go in and that doctor didn't retired.

27:25 I must have been his last patient. And so one of his associates took over. I his name was doctor Abraham Kern and super nice guy. And right away I didn't even see him. He says, I read your file. I'm going to have you go across the street to the hospital and have an ultrasound, which is Metropolitan Medical Center, big hospital downtown Minneapolis. And so I said, OK, so I go there and some young guy that's, you know, 21 years old, just out of ultrasound. School is like, OK And you know, I'm like, this is kind of awkward because he's ultrasounding, obviously that that area. And then I'll send some guy, maybe about 30, comes in with a few initials on his, you know, apron and it looks like it says empty.

28:11 And then after that an, a really older guy comes in with a lot of initials and and I'm like, this can't be good. And the guys, Oh no, it's all bad. You know, just we like to double check our work and you know, and I go, OK, great, well, I got to go. I got a flight to catch at like 2. And he goes, so this older guy says to me, you have a across the street is your doctor's office. You can go right under the tunnel of the road. I just bring them these, these, this film, and then you can be on your way. No big deal. It just makes it easier. When I have to have somebody run it over, I go, OK, so I go into the doctor's office and instead of I open a door and there's a waiting room.

28:51 And the nurse like, it's like they had cameras that saw me coming. She takes me, I'm opening the door. She's standing right there she goes. She puts me in some posh office with all the doctor's degrees and all that, I go, oh, this isn't good. The doctor comes back in and says your we got you scheduled for surgery at 7:00 AM in the morning. I says, what do you mean 7 AMI got a flight. I'm going on a trip. No, you got a tumor and it's you know, 90% or something like that is mostly likely cancer. And I'm now you know you don't think you think I'm really white now from the winter and I was really white and and he says, hey these are really curable and and let's not don't get excited. And I'm all by myself and I'm like, what the hell? So I'm like, OK I got to make calls. So I called my my girlfriend and said I'm not coming. Call the American Airlines.

29:43 Let him know what's going on. She books a flight to come up and then my call my dad. And my dad lived in Wisconsin on the lake at the time, but he worked in Minneapolis. It's right on the border and he happened to be really close. And so he he came and got me 'cause I was taking taxis. And it was actually one of the most beautiful moments I have ever had with my father. And get into that later. But so Long story short, I ended up having cancer going through treatment. And when I was done with my treatment, I got home and I couldn't fly quite yet, excuse me. And it it was my I had a fax machine because that's what we used back then.

30:28 And it went off and it never went off because I never got orders from, you know, my fiber optic thing. And here come like a $350,000 order And the end of it, it said it's been six months. What? So I'm like, wow, I just got done with cancer and it's been six months and I got the 1st 200 stores order or whatever. And what this is great because I made I cut a deal where I made a 15% Commission and I'm like I make wow this is great. So now I now how can I, you know not go back to work for a little while so I can enjoy this this and get things going. So I fly to Reno and I and I, you know we, I say we got to roll this out man. You know, and we did and we got really good at it and we started completing orders.

31:18 Hang on a second though. So going back to the cancer thing, so like, it was that easy to get it gone. No, I mean I had they they they what they call an orchiectomy and they removed to test. Yeah. Yeah it was they removed it and and then I had radiation treatment all throughout my body for 30 days and it was emotional. I mean it's it's nothing that especially as a young person, you know it's like this is crazy. You know, I'm 2027, I think at the time. And it was crazy. Yeah, I mean, there's a moment. Pause.

31:59 Or is it just you're you're on the dart board and it was your turn? There's some thoughts back in the I was born in 63, so back in those days there was I was my mother's third child is she had had and they had developed I think a drug that helped with morning sickness and they saying that could be the cause but also undescended testicles. So a lot of times when boys are born, their testicles are not descended, so they forced them down and they found that that can cause problems, but I don't think they really know. Yeah, like most things. I mean, it's it's it's crazy that it's 2024 and there's still so many of those mysteries, you know, medical mysteries, yeah. Yeah, it's incredible.

32:46 It was a life changing thing for me. No. Kidding. I I made a little bit of money with this Commission and I knew that, OK, I know my approach. I got to go to the, you know, planning stages and not something that's already done. I became more involved with the company I was working for and then Euro Disney started to happen and the owner of the company, super nice guy but and really had dreams and visions. But he didn't have solutions. And I guess I was so stupid. I didn't know that there wasn't a solution. I just you know ho hum and he said well the the way the French government said you can't work on Euro Disney unless you're a French company and I go well we had did some stuff with Disney USA in between all this I didn't mention but and I go they don't have all the technology yet. I mean what special effects or Disney is a big deal. I said that can't be true.

33:50 No it is. Read it here I said no. OK, it says in affiliation or partnership too. I said I'll fly out to France, I could fly for free. I'll fly out to France and I'll just go find a partner And he laughed. He says there's no way. So I went out there on my own dime and I found some fresh speaking flight attendant friend of mine that on that was over there. And so I I said find me lighting companies and we called a few and they were like whatever, screw off and found this one that was very old, been around for years, very posh. They were extremely rich. They had almost a whole block right off the chance Elysee with like a staff of 13 servants and somehow I got lucky.

34:35 We met the main guy, he had a kid that was a little bit younger than me but similar age and he wanted him to venture off into a little project and learn business. We signed a partnership and we did a shit load of work with your old Disney and it was great and I made a lot of money. And so then, finally, the people. Hang on a SEC. How, how did that partnership work? Was it just like some kind of a profit share or something? Like you guys do this part of the work we'll do this part of the work, we'll split it. Here we we brought in this. The guy that I tugged on the pants was the son of the owner of the company. So he lived in in they got an apartment, lived in La de Fonts which is a way a little ways away from Chantilly say if you keep going more financial district.

35:22 And so we had like a company apartment there and he moved there for like 6 months and he taught the French people how to do what we what we needed to do and we split the profit. Cool. It was great. It was great. It was about a year and a half long project and we made money and and. I love that entrepreneurial. I love the entrepreneurial approach though. Like keep telling me how I can't do it, you know, and and let me go find a simple way to get this done, you know? And The funny thing is, Marcel, I don't even think I thought that deep. I just didn't know that. Well, what do you mean? This is hard, you know? Now I look at something I want to do and I I think of every reason why I wouldn't work. And, you know, I have too much experience, good and bad.

36:04 Well, back then I was just like well what do you mean it? You can't do this, why can't you? And so I think that really helped me there. And you know, so we did that project and then I was working on AI think it was called Spectro Magic Parade for Disney in Orlando, which is a night time parade. And we're going to do a bunch of floats and and the owners of this company said, you know, you're, I mean they did like 100,110 thousand before they saw me. And after the six months of that I went through trying to figure out how I'm going to sell this stuff. Also we're doing you know, a million million for $2,000,000. So they said well you should be part owner of the company and I thought wow, this is great. I'm going to own a company that's doing something. And so they gave me a small percentage, I think it was like 15%.

36:54 And now we're starting to do trade shows and and try to get ourselves out there. I think we did the IPPA, which is the IPPA. IPPA, yeah, in Orlando and that's always around LDI, Never thought about LDI, but I'd see it going on because it was around the same time frame back then. And and So what happened was I did the show or excuse me, I did these shows and we were working on Disney and they gave me part ownership and I had probably $30,000 racked up on my credit card. Yeah, get they would always pay me. And then they, yeah, the owner started making money and bought themselves some nice shit and and actually, you know, they can't pay me. And next thing you know, he says, well, you're an owner now. That sometimes happens.

37:38 And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm not taking any money, only commissions. And you pay my expenses, not even my sales expenses. But trade show stuff like that, well, you know, it's just the way it works. He left behind dry and I ended up leaving that company. He got upset and I don't even know what I really owned here. I think it was just words that I owned the piece of it. Yeah. And I had to work my way to pay off that 30 grand debt, cause of course I was young and dumb and spent the money I made on commissions. So took that and basically started my own company in the living room of my townhouse. Yeah, and. And we. Were still in you were still in Dallas at this time or you were back in Minnesota?

38:23 Nope. Dallas. Yeah, this is still Dallas. And and I was still building some curtains. I got the business away from them to come to me for showbiz pizza and and so you know, building a few curtains here and there and and it, you know, I didn't have enough room and I really wasn't set up didn't have any labor except for myself and the girlfriend I was dating at the time. And you know, but we, you know, I took made some profit, bought more materials, made some profit, bought more materials. Next thing you know I went from having no inventory and I I had maybe $30,000 and then TPR Tom Fay called me and wanted a fiber optic curtain for I don't even know who Broadway show or something.

39:09 So I built that and made some money. And then my first taste of real entertainment was Miller Lite. This is going so far. Do you remember Andy Akers? No. In Nashville, TN. I believe that's what's coming up. I think he had a Miller Lite tour and he said that they want to make this curtain out of fiber optics and and I said well, I can't do it. It was a whole logo. I mean it was really detailed. I'd never done that, but I'm like wow, I can do it. And so there was a big job and and we did it and that was my first taste of live entertainment. And I said I gotta do more of this. Then we did Garth Brooks and then we did then it just, I mean it just grew from there.

39:53 But one of our problems was this light source, you know, people understand fiber optics, you're piping light and we didn't have anything intelligent. It was just either a a projection lamp or mercury vapor, and we'd light it up and put colored filters in front of it. But there was no intelligence to it when live entertainment needed intelligence. So then I think I saw the Martin people. I went to the I I I went to the LDI show or something and one in the Martin booth and I saw the Pro 400 and of course it wasn't set up for fiber optics and but I said well I can make that work.

40:36 So I grabbed one, made an adapter and that's when really the company started to take off it. We shit load of Pro 400 sales and then we ended it just it just exponentially grew. We started doing a lot of live entertainment, lot of restaurants and bars and. Yeah. So I I was with Martin of course at that time and I think you very quickly became the largest customer for Pro 4 hundreds in the world. Because you know, like somebody told me one time, anything with professional in the name usually isn't or any company with professional in the name usually isn't. The Pro 400 wasn't very pro, it was, it was kind of a hokey fixture. But at the time I mean there was nothing to really compare it to you know the the track spot came out as an illuminator, a fiber optic illuminator and was cool.

41:29 But still the Pro 400 had a lot longer lamp life. It had a 2000 hour lamp life where the the track spot had like a 20 hour lamp life so. It worked really, really well. And here's the interesting thing. We bought a certain amount of them, but we created an opportunity for. Martin in industry, yeah. And and and other people bought them that weren't even our customers and bought our adapters. We were making hundreds and hundreds of adapters for Pro 4. Hundreds and all over the world. They went to and they came out of us, which was cool that I mean Martin could have hammered that flat and and they didn't. They were very respectful.

42:10 And then we started to this is actually a funny story. I was at LDI show with my girlfriend. It might have been a different one than the one I talked to before but it happens. And we're checking into the Peabody Hotel and Christian Colt. What was his name? Christian. Yeah, him. He's checking in with his wife and I'm checking in with my girlfriend and he kind of knew who I was a little bit. I was already gone, by the way. Oh, you mean Christian the the American CEO guy? I left right when they put him in Christian. Left. Yeah, you left after Peter. What's it? Peter Johansson, right.

42:50 I left right before he was gone, so I left and then he got in some trouble and and and. They named the company Martin spelled backwards, which was funny. So anyways, what happened was I hear him them saying, oh, you're the only guest up at the top floor, which is like 2 suites or something like that. And I'm hearing this and I go, oh, well, I really want to get closer to this company because there's an opportunity because at that time there was an interest in maybe buying. We also made and jacketed fiber optic cable as well. So we weren't selling any of that to Martin or through Martin and Martin's worldwide.

43:31 So I leaned over. I said how much for an upgrade to the top floor? She told me. I said I'll take it. My girlfriend looks at me like, dude, you crazy like that's an extra 2 grand or whatever. And you know, I wasn't super rich. And I said just shut up, you know, And and every day, I swear at least twice a day we shared the elevator and I said she just started talking to his wife or whoever, and they became friends and I became friends with him. And he one day he's like tell me exactly what you do because I didn't tell him. I said I'm here for the show. You know, no big deal. I said, well we do fiber optics and we do oh, you're the ones that of the pro 4 hundreds. And I said, yeah, he goes, well, I want to talk to you. We we think that we should do something more with this. It's selling a lot of our lights. I said, OK, great.

44:17 So I sent them a proposal and they ordered a shit load of fiber optic cable without even asking me suggestions. You know what should I order and which I was OK, but I want wanted Martin to be successful and they weren't super successful in selling raw fiber optic cable and and that kind of stuff. But the relationship was good because then we ended up hiring Ricardo Paulson, who was one of their salesman for We had an office in Denmark then and Ricardo kind of sold advanced lighting systems in Europe. And it just made us grow, made us bigger in the industry than probably we really were. You know, it it got our name out there and it was really good. And, you know, I couldn't complain, but I knew I needed also during this time to diversify. Yeah, so LED.

45:04 I mean again I I love the approach like that whole, you know, I never realized back then certainly that you were this entrepreneurial like cuz I've always either like that by the way and not very many people in our industry do most people in our industry are are really more doers like they're very good lighting people or they're very good. I was never a lighting guy. I was just always, you know, a very entrepreneurial thinker who said there's got to be a better way to do this. You know, there's got to be a way to sell more of this or whatever it was, so. You know what? I think some of that Marcel for me came out of desperation. Me too, You know? I mean, and and also, I'm not a lighting guy. I mean, I really am not. I mean, I didn't go to school for lighting. I didn't barely graduated high school. Not because I was a bad kid.

45:51 I struggled academically. But what I learned, yeah, I hear you, man. I. And what I learned was that, how do I say this? A lot of times if you say an insecurity you have, you think you're the only one that has it. Yeah. But when you're open about it, and this is something I learned, we can maybe talk about when we get into the book. But I learned that when I start being open about how I really feel or what's really going on and there's shit loads of people like that me too. And then realize that we're not really that different and and so I started to come into myself and my talents as probably being more of a a relationship person than a than a salesman. I am never I I to this day, if I know my product isn't right or not perfect for the customer, I tell them I said this guy's got a better, better widget for you.

46:43 But Remember Me when you needed something else, because I'll give you the truth, I'll give you the real answer. And that's always. That's got me a lot further in life than trying to cram something down somebody's. Throat in some weird way, you and I have followed very similar paths, you know, both from the the lack of any lighting education whatsoever. I, you know, I never toured. I I know a lot of touring people, but I never toured. And you know, to this day I still barely know how to connect two lights together. Well, I will tell you I've become very almost every product we have now I'm at least 50 to 60% of the design. I've become that guy, 'cause we were a manufacturer, right? I mean, Advanced Lighting Systems was we made stuff, you know?

47:33 So we're now we're doing curtains and we're doing them in a big way. And I was like, we gotta grow, you know, something's gotta change. And so we started making fixtures back in the, you know, 9899, we made a fixture that, hell, you could buy them now for probably 50 bucks, but we were selling them for five to six grand for live entertainment and they worked really well. And that was what was cool about it. And it's just that the technology's come so far. It's a lot less expensive. But that was, you know, me saying listening to the customers and what they want. And then going with our engineer Bill Little and saying, hey, you know, how can we do this? And he'd come up with ideas, I'd come up with ideas. And in the end we had a pretty cool fixture. Yeah, yeah.

48:23 Now that's that's really cool. So you were gonna get into LED here, You were just talking about, you know, then LED came out, which obviously changed everything for for everyone in a sense. It did. I mean, we started, you know, before, you know, we went. We transitioned from doing pizza places to to some live entertainment and shows and and movies and anywhere they needed stars to. Now we started doing color washing and you know the word architect came out, you know I remember that and we were knee deep in it. I mean we we started before you know the color kinetics and all that but limited maybe by my education and and financial savviness to raise money and we just made product and sold it at a profit and you know grew it that way organically and but we we did some really cool stuff developed our own drivers.

49:14 Nobody was doing that back then. We all DMX and we did it all ourselves and in that process we were growing the company and selling to I mean eventually we sold a bunch of stuff to you know Cirque du Soleil and and the Letterman's show on Saturday Night Live and again all the live entertainment. But now you got hotels like the W Hotel you know they they got the real cool atmosphere and and now we started doing a lot of high end clubs and this is really cool. So we we we started breaking out into that and again now we had a Rep network as some of that gets sold through some reps and and we had the entertainment distributors and it kind of crossed over. It was really hard to manage, but you know, we started getting.

50:04 You know what's really funny is I don't remember exactly what year, but you know, I I was friends with Steve Watts at at AVR Abstract and he came out with that down light, that little MR16 down light with a color wheel in front of it. And I saw that thing and I was doing lots and lots of club stuff at the time, selling lots of club stuff. And I said hey you know let me import this thing into the United States and sell it in the US And he said yeah sure why not. And you know the problem was he he promised me that it was UL and it never was to the moment I stopped selling them but so that was that was like early 2000s I think and very quickly we went from an MR16 with a color wheel in front of it to a multi color color changing LED down light like instantly. And I sold thousands of those, the MR16 ones, and I was like, OK, this is the end of the earth. Like this is the cat's meow.

51:07 Everybody's gonna buy these. And then all of a sudden it happened so quickly that LEDs just completely took over. It's right around the time that you're talking about. Yeah. And as soon as the supply chain and the market grew, your cost just went, your cost went down like this and your and the supply went up like this. So we're able to start making these things at reasonable prices. But you know if you got a super expensive product that does something really cool, the best industry to put it in is either medical or entertainment because a lot of times in entertainment the budgets are we don't care, we want this effect. And so you're able to grow it that way and then go into more of a mass market where we are now you're buying lights for your house that could, you know, work with the Philips Hue, you know, so.

51:58 Well, plus that medical, medical and entertainment I think share this, this, you know, passion and optimism for new technology, you know and and curiosity for new technology where a lot of industries are like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Entertainment always wants the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And we're willing to pay for it, like you said. I mean you'll go back to you know I I'm we're I think we're similar age you go back and I remember in the 70s you know you imagine just going to a Pink Floyd concert with no lights. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean it's it's such an important part or if you ever turned the sound off and watching a movie you know something like Top Gun or you know something that's so action related you need to sound with it you know and it all is part of the experience and that's where entertainment is just so cool and I love it still.

52:51 But you know I, I, you know moving along we started doing a lot of fixtures and then I got in the way of one of my competitors in the fiber optic world that was also doing trying to get into Inarchitement and they made me offer I couldn't refuse to merge the company which they were a public Brett Kingston. Yeah. Yeah. Then so I'm we merged. We merged the company. What were they? Called originally super something. Supervision. Supervision. Supervision. Yeah, I remember they did something interesting because Color Kinetics was running around threatening everybody with lawyers and stuff, right? And I did something really interesting Tooting my own horn because I was bringing in AVR LED stuff now, right?

53:34 Cuz Steve Watts was really early on LED stuff too. And so I was bringing in some of his product and all of the European companies who were creating LED product wanted nothing to do with the US because oh, Color Kinetics is going to sue us because they they had lawyers walking around LDI and light fare and stuff. It was horrible. It was horrible. They just, they wanted to betamax the industry. Basically we are doing this by ourselves. Nobody else can touch it. And so initially they didn't even want a license and then they went, hey, we can make some money here. So they opened up very few licenses, but I don't know if you ever saw their early licensing agreements like you couldn't be in any of their competitive industries, you know, which was? Pretty.

54:16 Much everything, right? And so So what I did is I went to them and I said, look, I'm an importer, I want to be able to import European products and I believe it's good for you to have some competition. However, you should make some money. So I said instead of getting, you know, pieces of all of these different companies or blocking them and scaring the shit out of them from coming here, take a piece and let them come in. And they're all small companies. And so I negotiated a deal with them that was basically I would pay them and I can't remember the exact percentages otherwise I would actually share it. But it wasn't huge. It was maybe 6% or something of my revenue on these imported products. I'll just pay you a blanket fee on on all of the sales. And so regardless of where it comes from, who it comes from, whatever, you're going to get a fee from me and they love that idea.

55:12 And so then Brett came along and and Brett started challenging their patents and went around to any companies, Mine was one of them who were in the LED space and said hey give us X amount of dollars towards our legal fees because we're going to go fight the good fight. And I think I gave them a few grand or something initially, but then I I didn't really agree with his approach on everything, let's say. So I kind of backed away from that. And yeah, so anyway, sorry. From what I what what what I remember in that was actually color kinetics was pursuing supervision and supervision then was trying to line up a defense of we've been RGB lights since halogen bulbs and and to be honest with you when I knowing what I know and much deeper conversation I don't know how the hell they won that the way they want it but they did you know and and Brett tried to line up I mean people all over the world to help with this defense which if he had won would have been great for all of us guys that were trying to do RGB fixture but.

56:29 Color Kinetics had something, you know, they had somebody on the payroll or something. I don't know what they had going on, but they had something going on because like you know, do you know Fausto from Comar Fausto? 'S been a lighting. Engineer. He's been a lighting engineer since the 70s. Very, very smart guy. And he said, you know, they've got a patent on pulse width modulation to control the LEDs, he said. I studied that in textbooks in in the 60s and 70s, like that's been around a very, very long time. How did they get a patent on it, you know? So yeah, it was pretty incredible how the things they got away with early on there. That changed a lot.

57:15 We we never signed a license agreement, but we never got big enough to get in the way. Yeah. You know, we know that they dropped in our booth and they came and talked to us and we say ah we're just a fiber optic company and you know we do a little bit of this we dabble and and they just, you know we we were probably far enough down the list it didn't matter. And then what happened though ironically was as we were alluding to earlier is we started get in the way of supervision big time on mixing fiber optic and LED together. And so they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and merging the company into supervision. And then at that time they had a president of the company.

57:56 Brett was just on the board and I wasn't used to that kind of atmosphere. I'm again more entrepreneurial and the guy that was the president of the company was never, as far as I know it never owned a company. And so he ran it like, you know, Cooper Lighting. You know, I think he came from Cooper Lighting and that was just so weird for me, 'cause we were like, I mean, we used to get our employees together and go, let's invent something today, you know, give me your idea. I don't care what it is, you know? And and it wasn't that way it when I merged into the in that supervision, we then became, yes, yeah, we became, which was good for me, 'cause this is right before the crash.

58:38 I don't know whether or not Advanced Lighting would have survived the 2008 crash. This is 2006. And so we became Nexus Lighting. And in that time I knew that all they were was me, a little bit bigger and they didn't do everything. We I think we did things better than they did, and they may have a different opinion, but I think we did things. What we did, we did really well and they didn't do them as well in my opinion. So I'm like, where are we going? So I had a guy, a friend of mine that I've known since he came into this country and he's the lighting guy. But he came to the United States with $400.00 in his pocket and a room.

59:24 And he he patented a bunch of white light technology on driving the LED a certain way. And it's above my pay grade. But he did down lighting, but in a big way and pretty economical for those times. So I kept on saying to the president of Nexus, he'd come see us, hey, we got to go stop by, see my friend. I don't have time. I don't have time. So I kind of planned this. I said to my friend, you have everything ready. I'm just going to be dropping something off. But I'll invite my, my, the president of the company in and and put us in a conference room with these lights on on the table. Yeah.

1:00:07 And we went in there and I just said, oh, I'm just, you know, dropping out somebody, I'm going to say hi real quick. And he kept looking at these lights and goes, what's this? I said, Oh yeah, this is white light technology. You know, it's it's actually pretty cool, but you're not interested in it. You told me you weren't interested in it. He's like, what do you mean we're not interested in this? I said, well, that's kind of what I said to myself, but you know, I'm new to this and and you sis basically never had time. Well, what can we do? How can we? I said, well, he's coming in, in a minute. So we start talking. We ended up buying his company. He was a small company. We ended up buying his company. You know, it's public. I think, you know, maybe $6 million with some some royalties in the back end.

1:00:52 And I was quite proud of that because it's just a simple, no academic kid that now I'm you know, Disneyland and all these different places and now I'm acquiring a company and I didn't get anything for it, but I thought my stock would go up and and so we did do that and then 2008 happened and I mean it was crazy. I mean I was on a really high salary from what I understand. I was the highest salary, even higher than the president of the company. Yeah, I did really well. But they, you know, 2008 happened and everything had to shrink And so they they they basically gave up the lease on the building that they. I had a five year lease because I didn't want them to move and protect my employees. So I had a five year lease on the building that I owned in Sauk Center and a really good lease amount too, more like cities, not rural leases, right.

1:01:44 So I had a really it was big money and and you know this is like a year and a half into the merger. So I still had two or 3 1/2 years left. And I said, well, but you owe me lease. Well, you know, you know times are tough and you're a shareholder. You should care. I said I do care about it, but I'm also a big shareholder myself and and and I also you owe me, I don't know, five, $600,000. Well, we can't do that. I said well, OK, you're going to hear from my attorneys. And so I knew this was all gentlemanly. It wasn't like an evil thing. We're still friendly today. But and so I, we got on a conference call and their attorney said I don't know what we're doing here and and I go I don't know either. I mean I got a contract you owe me X rent and if you're moving that's not my problem.

1:02:37 And well you know this is the president said we need to figure out something to get make this go away. And their attorney says, remember we laughed that he was using Dorsey Whitney such a large firm on a small merger and Mike Power goes, yeah, well This is why. Because guess what this thing's so lock solid. We can't get out of this pay em. So. So I ended up taking it in stock because they didn't have the cash and I sold it as quick as I could. But you know, I I did all right. I mean I was super happy and and and everybody did laugh at me why I spent so much money in a league law firm instead of using you know somebody less expensive. But that paid off.

1:03:24 It worked out, yeah. The one time paying lots of legal fees made you happy, yeah? Oh yeah, yeah. I could tell you the flip side of that 10 times, unfortunately. I know, I remember we talked a little bit about some other situations when you were here and I had those happen to me too. And it's, you know what I think, like we talked about an entrepreneur. This is how we know we're entrepreneurs. We pick our your britches back up man, and we just get back out and get to work. It's, you know it's a weird life. I don't, I don't think it's for everybody, that's for sure. Like I know a lot of people who call themselves entrepreneurs and they're, they're really businessmen, like, or business women. They're not entrepreneurs like entrepreneurs.

1:04:05 It's it's a bit of a disease. Like we don't know when to stop. You know, we're we're we're too dumb to quit you. Know when I was, when I was at flight, Internet. Before any of this happened, I my mind would go at night. I'd hop in my car. I'm not kidding you. I'm in Dallas, TX. I drive around industrial parks and read every sign of the building and go wonder what they do. I wonder how they got here. I wonder, you know, how does this happen? I want to own one of these one day. Crazy. Curiosity I. Just think it was built into me somehow and I just still think that way. Yeah, no, it's, you know, it's it's some days it's an amazing thing. Some days you're just like, you know, like coming out of COVID, you know, I, I've had so many friends in the industry who work for large companies and we're collecting big fat paychecks all the way through COVID after COVID.

1:04:54 Since COVID and you know, I mean I have a small business for me, it's it's not been that easy. You know, it's been a real struggle at times and you put your house on the line, you put your own finances into it, like, you know, deplete the hell out of your bank account and hope it works and that kind of stuff. But when it works, it works great. When it doesn't work, it, it can pretty much gut you, you know? So. And the key thing for me is, is I have to remind myself that it worked great and it works great and sometimes doesn't. But remember that it's only temporary because this is what happened when we're talking about where I went. So I sold the company and I I remember I'm, you know, I've got well over 1,000,000 of dollars in my bank account at the time, and I owned millions of dollars of stock and I'm all alone at that point.

1:05:50 I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't even have a place to go to work anymore and I called my. Nice house on the lake, though. I did. Yeah, I did. And jet skis and boats. And I remember seeing your pictures all the time on Facebook and stuff and and I'm like, damn it, this guy has a life. Jesus. Oh yeah, Well, some. Great view pictures you know off. Your back Small town, though? Yeah. Small town with no food. Well, so I, I, I remember I had no place to go. And I called my mom up crying in downtown Minneapolis at the the basement of the OR the the ground floor of the big skyscraper where Dorsey Whitney was and just signed the paperwork and and I'm crying and my mom says, what's wrong, Paul? You just, you just had everything you dreamed of. And I said, well, mom, I said I don't have anywhere, anywhere to go, anybody to share it with.

1:06:43 And I said, I think I like the chase better and my. And that's right. Then when I realized it's not the destination, it's the journey. And so I tried to remember. I try to remember even when I'm going through a hard time in my current company. Listen, you had these even worse in advanced lighting. This is fun. Come on Paul, This is fun and it, you know, And he tried to pick herself up a little bit and that's what we do. We're problem solvers, you know, if you have no problems, you get bored and you go out and buy sports cars and houses on the water and stuff like I'm the same way. If I have nothing to do. I do bad stuff. I do very hurtful stuff to myself, you know. Oh God, I had the Bentleys of Porches, the the Vipers and the, you know, the house was actually I built that. I mean, I designed to build it, so I actually had a lot of shit load equity in that.

1:07:39 But yeah, so now I'm going, OK, well, I can take some time off. I did this for 17 years. Take some time and. And so this is what is this 2? 1006, well actually in 2006 I was still an employee of the company. So I actually had a place to go the in 2008 when I when they said we got to, you know, we got to eliminate some positions and I understood and you're one of the highest. So, you know, we're doing that and switching all the manufacturing to Florida, bringing it down, the supervision. And that's when the whole, you know, rental lease thing came up. That's when I really felt I had nowhere to go, 'cause I really just sat at home, drank beer and went out in the beautiful lake and did the nice stuff. But spent a lot of money and then I went to making nothing. Yeah, I mean.

1:08:28 Spending, I mean probably spending more too, because now you had time, I had no income before, you had income in no time and now you had done. Jazz. Income. Yeah, when jazz got married. You know jazz. Yeah and yeah. I flew out there with a girlfriend, man. I mean, I bet I blew 20 grand that that those three weeks. Yeah. And we had fun but you know I just yeah, I just pouring out money and then and then the market wasn't good because I was still a major shareholder and I couldn't sell shares but only at certain points because I'd be insider trader and I knew nothing about that. And so I lost. I lost 60% of my net worth in like 3 days because of the market and there's not much I could do. But so I took eight years off and I tried to focus on myself and and was was just pouring out money and ended up being to the point where I'm like I need a job like any job I'm broke and and and and I'd written the book and the book was doing really well but I didn't like the attention I. Well, tell me about that.

1:09:37 Tell me, tell me about the book. Tell me so, first of all, why? Because most people learn quickly that you don't get rich from writing a book or selling a book because most of them, I don't remember the stats, but the statistics are so bad. Like, you know, 90 something percent of books don't sell more than 500 copies or whatever it is. But, you know, you have an incredible story. I mean, not just the story of success, the story of, you know, starting with nothing and getting somewhere. Like these are all really great stories and you have them all built in, but then you also have the the survivor story, which you know is probably the biggest of them.

1:10:22 All, right. So. You know I think it's all blends into each other of just, you know, you can get knocked down but it's how you get back up. And I'll tell you again, you know this is so cool because you're making me realize something about myself that I did by you saying we just problem solve. We figured that out. You know I you're or you're reminded me at least. So I was dating the girl that I took to the Peabody Hotel where we met Christian, that same girl. I dated her for nine years and and I remember she was a server at Morton's, but she made like 100 grand a year. It was crazy money.

1:11:03 And she said that she gets these high up people. Carl Polad, who own He's dead now. But his family owns the twins and big banker owned a lot of stuff. And him and with his security guards, he had bodyguards, looked like CIA people. And she'd tell me these stories, you know, professional athletes. And there's one guy by the name of Tom Gigas. And. And I knew the guy's name because my cousin was kind of a political lawyer and he was a lawyer for Ted Kennedy. You know how they always have people draft their bills. He was one of those people. Then he moved back to Minnesota and he was like a nonprofit lawyer, You know, like, I don't know what, But he said he played tennis with this older guy that was incredible shape, like just ripped, named Tom Gigas. And he owned all the businesses called Tires Plus. I don't know if they have them down in Florida. Yeah, yeah.

1:11:59 But he's. So I I researched the guy and he was really kind of a guru, like like a Zen guy, like 6-6, but like so ripped and and like meditated. And he did all these cool things. And I'm like, I want to be like this guy. And so I read a book he wrote, and I can't remember the name of it, but he said that he at a point in his life, like his company, was doing a few $100 million a year, but he was barely making it, like no profit trouble making payrolls. He was going through a divorce and he ended up with cancer. And there's my hook, there's my link in because he said he sat down and called the president or the founder of Best Buy, Dick Schultz. He, I think his name was and another Minnesotan, right? So he said, hey, I need help.

1:12:50 I need, I need to you know, coached me here and what ended up happening was Dick said if I do this, you pay it forward. So I read the book Chrissy was telling me, my girlfriend, that he was coming in to Morton's or somewhere or whatever. I basically called him out and said, hey man, I'm your I'm your pay it forward. And my name is Paul Streitz. He goes, do you know Tommy Streitz? I said, yeah, it's my cousin. All right. What's your number? I'll have my assistant call you the next day. I get a call. I now got coaching from a guy that coached Al Gore, a guy that worked with Lee Iacocca. I mean, this is like, wow. And I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I So I went to his house in Minneapolis, You know, Fast forward to when we had a meeting and I sit there and this guy's ripped.

1:13:39 I mean, he's like 6-6 and ripped and 60 years old probably at the time. And I'm like, wow, man. And he he says, OK, here's what we're going to do. We're going to breathe. I said OK, I am breathing. You know, I totally didn't get it. I was like 40 and and and and he knows no, we're going to breathe. What I want you to do is sit with me and get your posture and we breathe for like 5 minutes and he says, how do you feel? I said I feel OK here's my financials and no, no, tell me about your life and I go, what do you want to know? He goes anything you want to tell me? I'd maybe I don't know what the hell I said. He says great, we're done for the day. It was like an hour. What? The heck? I go, but don't you want to look at my financials? He goes. Well, maybe next time.

1:14:20 See you next week. Everybody says I want you to do something. I want you to journal something about your life from the last, you know, whenever you can think of in your in your childhood anytime and again that now it's pressing on my academic. I'm not a writer. I'm not this, he says, I don't care. It's only between you and I. So I wrote a story down, Get there, show them the story. We talk a lot about it. And again, we had to breathe 1st and meditate and at the end of it goes great. OK, Next week, I want to see the next story. And I said what about the financials? And he's like, no, no, we'll get to it, don't worry about it. This happened like 6 times and they go, listen, Tom, I said I really need help in my business.

1:15:05 He says what you're not seeing is how much help you're helping yourself. I said, what are you talking about? Well, he said this story, this story, this story, this story. You see the pattern. You see what the universe is trying to tell you, and you're so worried about what's going on that you're not seeing the help the universe is giving you. And and it was true. And so I kept going. I end up writing, I think 29 stories. And we never did look at my financials. But he told me, he says you can't be a better boss unless you're a better you. And when you become better at being you, you'll be way better at all that other stuff. And he said, I said, is this what Richard Schultz did for you?

1:15:48 He says, yeah. He says he made me look really long and hearted myself and figured out that, you know, just because you have employee problems or this problem or financial problems, it's all about you. Yeah, you were the leader of your company. You have to be the best you can be. And that was a really good lesson. So bottom line is I end up having a book and I had to get it edited twice. Hang on a SEC though it wasn't a did he ever invest in you or or get become part of your business or I mean the advice was. I never, I never asked him to. I never asked him to invest. We never had investors. Oh, you were asking for advice? Yeah, it was just, it was just I needed to be a better. Well, at the end of the day, I needed to be a better me. But I just thought that you know, what can I do to make my company better?

1:16:32 But he gave me exactly what I needed. We ended up becoming partners in a business. We bought the rights. When I was a flight attendant I used to remember we were the airline for the Oprah Winfrey show and we carried her a lot and she was flying to Amarillo, TX during a big and in their mid 90s during a beef lawsuit. She had a guest she had on her show convinced her that beef was bad. This is mad cow disease and big cattle ranching and feed, feed lots and and she said I'll never eat a hamburger again on her show. And the Texas Cattlemen Association sued her for saying that and sued Howard Lyman and who's very famous for this, by the way, He's very famous. He's a third generation major cattle rancher, went vegan. And I remember having them on the airplane all the time. And so Tom told me he met Howard Lyman. That's, I met that guy.

1:17:32 I know what you're talking about. Well, he wrote a book. He goes, let's buy the right to make a movie. I said OK, so we partnered in something we call Mad Cowboy Productions, and I was in charge of trying to find agents and writers, and I found a writer that wrote a River Runs through It, I think, yeah, River runs through it. And I started dating on a girl in LA and and she got me hooked up with all these producers. I remember when you were doing all that, yeah. Yeah, and and we ended up, we had a great thing. But Howard had the writer of his book was a personal friend and 'cause there's a book called Mad Cowboy and he did not like the story. He didn't like the way we went with it, which his way would have been super boring and we had to do some, some things to make it.

1:18:26 I mean, it was cool in itself, but we just never got it funded. But we had huge actors side to it. It just never got funded. And yeah, but so Tom and I, we're in business together. We're still friends and in that process I became friends with Bobby Kennedy Junior. Used to go skiing with them all the time. And yeah, we went skiing like 5 different times. In Deer Valley, UT you had this thing called the Celebrity Ski Fest. He invited me out and he paid for everything. It was so gracious and it was fun and that was kind of like from O 9 to 13. Back to the book. So you know, through this this guy who you met, this big entrepreneur, you know, successful guy, he basically forced you to write a few chapters or some stories anyways.

1:19:13 And those stories I I'm guessing, LED into what became the book. Yeah, I guess what I left out was after the sixth time. I had six stories and I'm like, whatever. And he told me the whole universe. He says no, you have 6 chapters to your book. I said I'm not writing a book. What are you talking about? There you are, he says. I don't care if it ever gets published, but you're writing your book, you're writing your guide, and you're going to read through these stories when you're done, however many you do, and you're going to know exactly what you need to do in life. And he was so right. I'm not kidding you. There was so many instances from when I was a child to teenager, because to this day I'm super insecure. I The book started doing really well and I was invited on talk shows and TV shows and.

1:20:05 And I would feel like I was going to faint. And you know, people say it's stage fright. Well, I got to the point where I was fainting. I mean, it wasn't like, wow, you know, I don't see too many people faint on stage. I got up and started speaking for people and paid. And I I was so nervous and I figured it out that I I didn't feel like I I deserved it and I wanted to give it away. You know, and. Imposter syndrome. Yeah, I just like I can't do this. I have to give it away, but we so. Bouncer syndrome. It's a it's a pretty common thing, by the way, like people just feeling I'm not worthy, you know, Like, I I don't deserve this success I'm having or I'm not smart enough, I'm not tall enough, I'm not good enough, whatever it is.

1:20:46 But yeah, So what about the name Blue Collar Buddha? Where'd that come from? Well, it was funny. I was gonna call it the Naked CEO. There's a lot of cool chapters that are that anybody can relate to and but a lot of it's business and and I basically it's I've always imagined you peeling the onion back you know the onion and you're getting to the core of what we think about at night when we put our head on a pillow what worries us but right before that was a a book had been claimed called the Naked CEO So I'm like damn it you know I is that gonna work? So then my what, 'cause you kind of peel in the onion. You know, you're you're taking, you're taking everything you're looking under the hood kind of thing.

1:21:30 And I get it. And yeah, and it probably wasn't a great name and I don't let Blue Collar Buddha was a good name either. But it worked. I grew up Blue Collar and I'm giving life wisdoms, if you will, of, you know, trials or tribulations of my life. And so to me, Blue Collar is where I grew up in Buddha. It's not really a spiritual book. It can be a little bit universally, but it's just Buddha to me was always the wisdom wise and you know, and I don't even know if that was accurate, but I thought that works so I made a blue collar Buddha. Yeah, I mean, I guess Buddha to me said that there was some sort of a religious sort of tone to it or something. But is it? Is it available in audiobook too? I think so.

1:22:13 No, no, it's not Kindle and paperback. And. And it's they're short. Here's the thing, I've I've read maybe four books in my entire life, and none of them were in school. I cheated my way through that It. They're short chapters. Yeah, they're short chapters. And I did that on purpose. So there might be only two or three pages for a whole chapter. And they're engaging. I mean, I was in business with the cartel, didn't know it. I was in Russia and in a Russian hospital. I got military robbed in Brazil. That's all in there. I mean, it's some crazy shit in there, but they read really quick and then at the end of each chapter I asked very important questions about this is what I did.

1:22:57 What would you do? Would you handle this differently? So they're they're provoking yourself to think about your life and your trials or tribulations or fun things. Did you necessarily do it the way you would if looking back, would you have done something differently? So it's kind of fun. That's a good statement, 'cause I was actually gonna ask you, looking back at writing this book, are there any chapters you'd change? Is there? Are there lessons in there that you might change or tweak or edit a little bit? Or. There's a group of chapters or a section called Love and Money. And I definitely realized that I I struggled with identity a little bit when we talked about, you know, use cards, the money you have, the money you have this and that and misidentifying. Why is somebody with me?

1:23:47 And there's at least one relationship in there that was definitely more financial. Meaning, you know, I don't know whether she would date me the way I am today, but I don't think she would have dated me before I had money and and I don't have a lot of money now. But I'm saying the old Paul didn't know who he was. The new Paul knows who he is and he doesn't have a lot of money. He's doing OK Would she date that person? But I think, you know, the bottom line is I've learned some valuable lessons and relationships. I've learned some valuable lessons on partnerships and trust and and it's not that I'm less trusting, but I have so much more experience now and and going you can't just give a company, a part of a company to somebody they have to pay something for IT.

1:24:30 People you know like waste lot weight loss programs. If it's giving it to you for free, you don't even do it. But if you pay for it, you're probably going to go work out for a little bit anyway. Yeah, totally true. Staying in the game. So yeah, I just those are little lessons I've learned and to really not sweat, you know what is it? Don't sweat the small stuff. Just let it go. You know it's going to get better. You know it's it's you're having a hard time now, but have some faith. Work hard, believe in yourself, and it'll it just always be positive. Did did anything big come from the book? Like did did you get speaking engagements or like you said you got invited to be on television and to be interviewed and all that stuff.

1:25:13 But like did were there any business spin offs that came because of the book opportunities? Yeah, I, the speaking thing was becoming big and I really hated it. Really. Maybe state yeah, the I the stage fright. One of the things that I learned to overcome that a little bit, but the guests, the people that invited me thought I was nuts. I would go in before I was supposed to go on stage and speak and use it here like anywhere from 10 people to maybe 100 people. I would go and I would come in through the where everybody's seated and introduce myself to every single person and say thank you for coming.

1:25:53 They're. Not I can't wait anymore and that helped me, but I still felt really weird. I just felt like who? Who am I to like you? I you said it best, you know, not worthy kind of thing and impostor and and and I said I'd rather give it away. I didn't write this book to make money. I wrote this book to help people that were like me and and and and so I was invited on a Doctor Phil's show. If I had gotten that, that would have been about 100,000 books. But it was one of those where they have a segment that could go one way or the other. And so you're in the audience. I don't know if you ever watched Doctor Phil's show. No. So they're talking to somebody and maybe had some trials and relations in life or relationship issues. I mean I covered a few.

1:26:38 Or cancer. Well, we just happen to have an expert on cancer wrote a book called Blue Collar Buddha and they had panned to me and you know, maybe I have a three minute, you know, inter, you know, interaction, cool opportunity. It ended up getting cancelled. It didn't, it didn't ever go all the way. But everybody tells me in the author world, that's 100,000 books. And I negotiated to deal with the publisher because I said why would I have a publisher when they, I'm nobody famous. They're not going to be able to help me. So I started my own publishing company. And so I made all the profits. So, you know, like I did. Amazon was, you know, the biggest seller. So let's say the book was, I don't know, 20 bucks. Amazon only got like 5 of it.

1:27:20 I got 15 of it. So you can even imagine if I sold 100,000 bucks. Wow, That would have been something. But. But I did. It never happened. Yeah, real money. I never had. I never, I never went that far. But I sold thousands of books. I did pretty well, you know, and and I enjoyed it. I don't even think about it anymore. I don't even own a copy of it. But. Yeah, you know, I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna put it on my Kindle. I'm gonna, I'm gonna check it out, cuz I just think I relate to so many of your stories, you know? And I mean The funny thing is, like public speaking kills me. Like I am nervous for two days before it. I get a stomach ache. I'm sweating, shaking. And for the first, like, I just had to do it a few weeks ago. I there's a software company that I'm actually a customer of and I just love the product.

1:28:06 And so I've become sort of a, you know, just a power user of their product. And they asked me to come. They were doing their big launch. I was using their beta product. They invited me to their launch thing in Miami. And it was for like 300 people that were billionaires, tech entrepreneurs, you know, gazillionaires. Like the, the founder of Shutterstock was there. The, like a bunch of founders of these really big tech companies and stuff were there. And I had to speak. And, you know, so I was trying not to sell, psych myself up. I was like, ah, this is nothing. These people don't know me and all this stuff. But the first few words that came out were like, you know, like I didn't know what I was saying.

1:28:49 But after the first sentence or two, I just, I go with it at that point. And it's easy, you know, and then you can't shut me up. But but I always wanted to be a public speaker as part of my thing. So that means I always wanted to maybe write a book, not because I think I can make money selling it, but because it legitimizes you as a public speaker. Right. Like it. It's something that you kind of need to validate yourself, right? But here's the crazy thing. I grew up a singer in a rock band and would sing at the center of the front of the stage to 1000 people and I was never nervous. And yet, you know, have me go up there and talk about a subject that I know a lot about and all of a sudden I'm like, shit in.

1:29:36 My It's so true. I mean, you look at a lot of famous people. They have a really hard time doing talk shows, but they were great at acting and they can go accept an award and no problem. But I mean, it's getting personal like that. It's a little harder. Yeah. You know, and and and I'll tell you that we just had that moment when I said if you start talking about things you're a little nervous of, they'll say many people say me too. I mean yeah you know me you're you're basically saying and I remember you in the industry when I was trying to crack in the entertainment world. I mean you were you know Martin I mean huge. And I'm like that guy seems really cool. I I'd like to know him. I was. And it you were. I mean were is it? No. Yeah, yeah.

1:30:17 Exactly. But you know and but we don't always view ourselves the way other people view us. And and and that is another thing to. Well, usually the opposite way that most people think, like most people would think you're an arrogant prick and I'm an arrogant prick, but actually, we're both probably pretty insecure and we both think pretty poorly of ourselves. Like, we're we're our biggest critic, our biggest enemy. We're the people who beat ourselves up the most. When other people are praising us, we're going, no, I'm shit. I haven't accomplished anything, you know. So true. It's so true. But it's amazing, 'cause people probably think you're just an arrogant asshole. And me too. And I'm the opposite of that. I'm literally the opposite of that. And I'll tell you what what I've learned in my time with Tom and since Tom Gigaks and the book and just life in general. If I have an approach that I really truly just want to help a human being.

1:31:16 You know, we have customers that call us up because we haven't talked about what I do now, but customers that call us up and and I really can help them and like I really care and I really want to help them. Sometimes I have to tell them I I don't want your business. I'll help you with someone else so they can really believe me or go investigate others and come back to me if we're still worthy. And and and really the more I give the more I get back and and it never would have thought that ever, ever ever would have thought that. But it's true. The more I help out. Tomorrow I'm going to see a great customer of mine become great friends. I just gave him 13 lights for free but he also bought 6 of 1/6 of another light. That's like 10 times the cost.

1:32:02 I gave him some ones that we discontinued, but he still has them. And, you know, they've expired. They're like 8 years old. I said, well, I'll give you some, but we still have some on the shelves. They're brand new. We we took them out of, out of the rotation and oh, no, I'll buy them so you don't have to buy them. You know, you give me so much business. I'll just bring them up. It's those little things. I'm going out there tomorrow to take a lot of meter readings on on wavelength and you know all that and his barns and make sure we have the right recipe for the animals, which is kind of what I do now and we do that for free. I mean, we do that because we care. So yeah, I want to get into that, what you're doing now. So I mean, you're again, another neat thing about you is that you've had like 5 different careers or whatever, right?

1:32:46 So and I mean, there's a thread between a lot of the last ones, you know, lighting, LED, etcetera. But so, you know, tell tell us a little bit about, you know, A what you're doing, and B how the hell you came up with this this one. Well, what happened was, you know, as I mentioned, I was now trying to make a movie. Had a place in LA, had a place in Destin, FL, and of course Minnesota on the lake. And I'm burning cash like crazy. And the movie had it went through, I think I would have had a whole different path, 'cause I'm pretty, I figured out one thing. As a producer of a movie, you're like a general contractor of a house.

1:33:32 You're putting everything together and and I think that I was pretty good at that, but unfortunately it didn't happen. So I started running out of money. I said well what do I know? I know lighting, I'm going to start a lighting company and I thought I was going to do commercial lighting. I thought pretty easy segue to get into. Yes, it's really polluted with competition, but you know, I I'm, I know how to run things efficiently. I think I can make it work, but you know where I'm at because you were here literally within 10 miles, there's probably 300 agricultural farms of animal, either dairy, poultry or swine within 10 mile radius here.

1:34:12 And so all these all these electricians were saying, but can you light up this Turkey barn, can you light up this dairy barn, Can you light up this, this hog farm? I'm like, I don't know. So I started doing research on it and there is a science to the wavelength of light. We give certain types of production. There's research that supports long day lighting and dairy. You can gain 8% in in milk production which is huge in in in stimulating their hormonal of a of a chicken with red light for certain amount of time in a certain wavelength along with 2700 Kelvin. And the other time will stimulate the the egg quality and the and the they might lay one extra egg a month. When you have farms that are laying 20 million eggs a day. Yeah, you got this shit load of birds. It's real profit.

1:35:06 An egg or so. A month is huge. Yeah. So. So you basically saw, you saw an underserved market that the science was something that you understood quite well and you did a bit of research on it and went well. This is no brainer kind of stuff. You already probably knew where to get the stuff manufactured. Yeah, I didn't want to be a man. I wanted to be a manufacturer. But I mean, let's face it, I mean I'm 60 years old today so they're not, it's not my birthday today, but you know, I'm 60 years old and and then I lost in my, you know, mid 50s or whatever. And I'm like I don't want to do all that. Although ironically I'm looking at doing it right now. But because Made in USA thinks it's a big deal, we if we can and compete we will.

1:35:50 But yeah, I knew where to get stuff made, all that stuff I'd learned in prior life and and so yeah, it was easy. I I did call Bill who was our CTO all the way up to the merger of Nexus with Advanced Lighting. I said you want to do it again. He said heck yeah he just happened to be in between projects. So Bill is super like famous in the whole fixture design especially optics and efficiency and we have fixtures that are 190 lumens per Watt and our competition just takes LED fixture that's 100 lumens per Watt, sticks a frosted bulb on it and go here you go.

1:36:30 And flicker is extremely important. Birds see flicker above 120 Hertz and. God, I never would have known that. And I know a little bit about this stuff, yeah. And so bottom line is Bill, Bill hopped on board and we took some time, it took us some time to penetrate the market again. How do I get into the market? Well, I found one of the biggest players and found out where they hang out and you know where they drink and you know, it's the backdoor approach. But it worked and it's done really well. And now we're expanding and we got a few new products coming out and and you know, are we there yet? No. But you know, like I said and I remind myself during the days that are struggling, this is the journey, man. It's fun.

1:37:16 Challenges are fun. This is what make make me who I am. And yeah, and it keeps me going. Yeah, I mean that, but. Let's go, lumen hyphen pros. Lumen Hyphen Pros Yes. OK. So I know a little bit about that company and and have definitely watched what you're doing and stuff and and I commend you, you know, again, just reinventing yourself every time. Like, you know, you get kicked into the dirt and you just go, well, you know what, I'm gonna go find something else to do. And this stuff is pretty easy, You know, I I mean, it's funny because everyone thinks all these young kids now coming out with all this technology and stuff, and they're going to run circles around me because they're so much smarter. And they were born with iPhones and they were born with computers and all this stuff I didn't have. And there's so much further ahead. But you know what?

1:38:08 They don't have what we have. You know, people who were born in the 60s, we're a bunch of freaking stubborn old fucks, you know, and we you can't kick us and keep us down. You can't stop us from doing things. You can't outwork us. You know, we work harder than you know. People aren't willing to do the things that we've done to get where we've gotten. And you know, at the end of the day, that's that's just the reality. That's a generational thing. And I tell it to my son all the time, You know, I'm I'm like hey you know you gotta keep up with the old guys cuz you know we may seem slow but we're we're we're willing to do some stuff that you might surprise you. I think the hardest thing for us older people and that you know you're we're both entrepreneurs we figure it out but the difference is so we started lighting company and I need to get to my customer.

1:39:00 We're a 20 year old's gonna go, OK, no problem. I can do all that. He's gonna sit all day long and and tweet or or create tik toks and Instagrams of how great his company is and that's his marketing and it gets somehow gets to the customer. Well, we're still knocking on doors and taking them out to dinner, but yeah, but your. Customers. Your customers respond to the knock on the door and they're taking them to dinner. His customers might respond to the Tik toks and Instagram things and whatever. So different, different business and all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, you know, people say it all the time, you know, like I, I see guys like Gary Vee and and these guys say it all the time. You know, I'd love to be starting a business right now because you can run circles around a lot of these young people right now because, you know, they just, they have a different way of doing things and I'm not putting them down, you know? We raised these kids.

1:39:53 To be that way. You know we put them in bubbles and and you know we raised them to be a certain way and we've coddled them and maybe over coddled them and stuff and you know it's just a whole different thing. Like you and I had to hustle to get anywhere. Nowadays there's so much opportunity and and there's so many different things they can do. Everybody can be a a YouTube phenom and make millions of dollars making YouTube videos or whatever. So yeah, I mean, it's just a different world. But we're still having fun in it. I mean like, you know, we circle back to you know, I can't wait, I really can't wait to go to LDI and and you know, only difference is you know you still look the same. But I put on a few pounds, which I will do and say well, but my hair's gotten grayer and at least I still have some and and and and but you know what it I remember Louis Martin Lewis Long. We're at LDI and we're out to like four or five in the morning and you know, just eating breakfast, you know, at The MGM Diner and drunk as shit.

1:40:54 And you know, I can't wait to see those people again because there's so many memories. Most of them are still doing it. Most of them are still doing it. But The thing is like 11:00 at night usually. I'll be at the bar with some people and I'll be like, hey, I gotta go to the bathroom. I'll be right back. Boom. I'm in my room, sound asleep by 11:15. You know what I mean? Like. Yeah, no more I. Just don't do it anymore. No more expense account at the. It's not even. Across there, whatever those strip. No, those strip clubs. And Oh yeah, that's. It somebody, I remember had a really bad night at a strip club with like 5 grand on the card or something like that. Oh, it was more than five grand. Yeah, it was more than five grand. It was me and Eric Loder. Me and Eric Loder got to split the check at the end of the night, and neither one of us knew how much the check was until it came and we signed it. And I was like, what?

1:41:43 I mean it. I don't even want to mention the the amount. It's so sickening and and so I was my own company. Eric had to go and explain that to his boss, you know and it was it was not good. I mean, it was it was a tough one for him. But yeah, we've had a lot of fun, Marcel, man. Oh, hell yeah. And I'm still having fun. It's just different fun, you know? It's. Yeah, exactly. The things that used to be fun sitting like I can only do the bar at night at LDI to a certain point where it's the same stories with the same people drinking insane amounts of alcohol and I can't do it anymore. Like, you know, I hate to say it, but for me now a heavy night of drinking is like maybe 3 glasses of wine.

1:42:28 Usually I stop. Well, I know that, yeah. When you stop by, you're like, man, I, you know, I barely even have a drink nowadays and I'm like, yeah, that's OK And you still had the long ways to drive. I only had a few blocks but. Yeah, we went to. We had to get to a hotel. But yeah, no, it's it's cool. I mean, it's it's, you know, this is all just a stage of life, right? And I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Like, I I turned 60 this year and I'm not looking forward to that. But, you know, it's just another, it's just another thing, right? Like, I'd rather turn 60 than not turn 60. I know a lot of people who go turn 60, you know, So, you know, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's a thing. But so, I mean, that's amazing seeing you. Yeah, I'm gonna get down there.

1:43:18 I promise. Be most likely you're going. Are you spending the whole summer in Canada? Yeah, I'll be going early June. My birthday's June 8th, so I wanna get there before my birthday so that I can celebrate with my family. You're near Calgary, right? Yeah, just like an hour outside of Calgary in the mountains, so. We've we've got a potential new customer that is near Calgary as well and. It's probably between Calgary and me, you know, there's loads of farms around there. Yeah, And and you know, these things take time in my world, so it probably won't be the summer. Maybe I'll end up up there. That'd be amazing. Come out and spend a few days and and hang out and we'll do some fun stuff.

1:44:00 And yeah, go to sleep at 9:00 every night like old people do, but. Wake up at 6:00 AM for for breakfast. I wish I could sleep till six most days, you know? Some days it's four. I mean, I just get up so damn early and I like it. I actually enjoy the mornings. I get a lot done in the mornings. It's sort of me time, you know. That's my problem if the the few times I do stay up super late. Which small town you saw Whiskey Alley. I took you down that road with six. Bars. So you get caught up sometimes, even at my age, SO2. 30 in the morning. I still get up in there with you. I enjoyed five or six in the morning. I enjoyed being in that place with you. Everybody knew you. You knew everybody.

1:44:42 Like it was just like everybody was busting each other's balls and stuff. I mean, it was that made me miss being in a small town because like here, I could go to the same bar every night for the next two weeks and I'd meet all different people, you know, It's just not a small town thing here at all. I always tell the people that come see me because I do know everybody in this town. I'm the mayor after dark. That's funny, that's. Great. Yeah. Well, Paul, I have to move on to other things as you do, I'm sure. And but I really, really, really appreciate you doing this. I'm so happy we were able to pull it together. Yeah, we talked about it and I just, you know, I forgot about it.

1:45:24 And then I then then your producer Sarah Sarah messaged me, and I was in Fort Myers, ironically, and I forgot to book a time. And then she did. The little nudge went, yeah, OK, OK. And so, yeah, I'm glad that we made it happen. So to reach you lumen-pros.com, go to Amazon, buy the book Blue Collar Buddha. I'm gonna go put it on my. Let's make it a best seller again. I'm gonna put. It on it was a best seller, was it? I was #1 under the category cuz there's a lot of travel in it. Travel. Was it was the category lighting guys with one testicle a bit of a drinking problem and you know. Actually, all that would be correct except for, you know, we condensing a life in a couple hours. I end up having cancer again exactly a year after the first time I lost a second testicle.

1:46:20 I produced no testosterone. I have to inject it every day. I can't have kids. It's why I didn't get married. I couldn't have kids. But so maybe maybe another time we'll talk about that. But so yeah, your. Body doesn't produce any testosterone 00 My God, so you injected? Are you able to get up to a normal level by injecting? It, yeah. Oh yeah, I've got testosterone of an 18 year old. OK, cool. But, but I I've been doing that since 1990. Wow, I did not know that that is. Crazy. And before I knew you. Yeah. And I, you know and and nothing to hide. A matter of fact, if anybody out there knows anybody, has any friends, needs to talk to somebody, especially about testicular cancer, please reach out to me.

1:47:09 I do it for a lot of people all over the world. And it's way more common than people think, you know? I mean, it really is. You know what's funny though? And I hate to poke fun at anything, but I was talking to my girlfriend yesterday and she said who do you have on the podcast this week? And I said remember Paul from Minnesota And she goes, oh the guy with no balls. That was the first thing she remembered about you. And I was like, what? And she said, you don't remember that story, I said. You know what I didn't know? He doesn't have any balls. Like, I didn't remember, but you had told us the story at the bar there and and she's like, oh, the guy with no balls. And I was like, what? I. Really. I really really loved you 2 together.

1:47:52 Really great energy. Great. Like, you know, just the whole back and forth, you guys are great and I think you're, you're really found a good person there and I can't wait to see her again and and you guys and and let me just say something about the, yeah, I will. I'm going to something about the website. We're in the process that website's like 6 years old. There's a whole other products. And you know how this goes. You know, you keep forgetting to do your website. We're actually developing it now. There's somebody working on it. It'll be about four weeks. There will be a more in depth, better website. But you know, they're apologizing for my appearance again. But the the website doesn't look the greatest but. Please message how to It's how to get in touch with you, you know.

1:48:37 Yeah, info@lumenhyphenpros.com or P strikes at lumenhyphenpros.com. And again, I really mean that If you know anybody or anybody out there listening to this that's struggling with maybe testicular cancer, I've done a lot. I'm, I'm. But as far as I know and what I was told in 1987, I think 88, no, 89, I was the first person to have this twice in the way I had it. I literally had two primary cancers of testicular. It was no matassation, nothing. It didn't spread. It was as if I just drew that lottery ticket twice and it had never happened before and they had a lot of meetings with doctors all over the world. I'm very fortunate and lucky that I had it because it taught me a lot in life, but I'm here to help anybody I am. Please don't forget to call me.

1:49:27 So the second time, the second time, weren't you Just like, what the hell? Yeah, it is. Well, I told my girlfriend. We were in a a pilot used to rent this roller skating rink and had these parties called Dong and thong parties. The men were supposed to wear speedos, the women and thongs and I wasn't going to go there, but you know, I just wore regular shorts, BT kind of thing. And we roller skate. And that night I cancelled and my girlfriend went and I said why? She says why are you cancelling? She was also a flight attendant and I said because I'm sick again she goes, what do you mean she goes, I don't know, I'm just, I'm sick again. So the next day I flew up to Minnesota Ultrasound. Sure enough, next day, exactly a year later, I'm having the left one taken.

1:50:11 Out. Oh my God. Wow. So when people always say come on, grow a pair or you know. Yeah, I wish I could. I always say if I had the balls, I'd do. It Oh my God. And that's a perfect ending. Yeah, see, if I had the balls, I'd do it. All right, buddy. I'd look forward to seeing you soon. Right on, man. Bye. Yeah.