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Most professionals spend 80% of their workday communicating — and almost none have a system for getting better at it. Conversations That Count changes that.
Hosted by David Shaft — President's Club Banker at Rocket Mortgage, Dale Carnegie graduate, and Detroit storyteller — CTC delivers real conversations with executives, industry leaders, and everyday professionals who break down the communication skills that actually move careers forward.
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• Workplace communication: better meetings, tougher feedback, and difficult conversations that don't blow up relationships
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Stories That Stick. Skills That Scale.
Elliot: It's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up And that's kind
Elliot: of been my mantra in life, is keep getting back up. It's okay. Your nose is bleeding, your eyes are puffy,
Elliot: you look like hell but you're still fighting, and it's okay. Keep swinging that bat. You're gonna
Elliot: get some hits and some home runs. Just don't stop swinging.
Elliot: And I think if you keep a strong vision going, that, that vision is
Elliot: gonna let you overpower a lot of your failures. Are you doing everything you can think of doing
Elliot: all the time? his brain was completely wrong on this.
Elliot: And his gut was probably more right the game is the fun part of it. The growing every day is the fun
Elliot: part about. Doing something you didn't do yesterday is the fun part of it.
David: Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast Conversations That Count. It is your host
David: once again, David Shaft. And today I have a very special guest,
David: Elliot Kallen, also author of the book Driven, number one
David: bestseller on Amazon. Check it out if you haven't already. Now, before I
David: talk too much about him, Elliot, would you be willing to introduce yourself?
Elliot: Great. Thanks for having me. I'm Elliot Kallen, and I've been an entrepreneur now my, basically
Elliot: my entire life. This is the third, fourth, and fifth entities that I've started from scratch.
Elliot: I like doing that. I'm not a serial entrepreneur. I'm just an entrepreneur who
Elliot: likes to start things and build them. so I know we're gonna be talking about that. I have gone
Elliot: through so many of the phases, the good, bad, and different. one of the things, David,
Elliot: when people think about entrepreneurship, unfortunately, too often they think about someone like Mark
Elliot: Zuckerberg, who started something in college which became Facebook or Meta, and they think, "Well, I'm just,
Elliot: wanna be like Mark. I'm just gonna have this straight line" "... to success and become a billionaire before I'm 40."
Elliot: And you know that's not real because there are backwards,
Elliot: forwards. Most people, 99.9% of people are back, forwards, up, down,
Elliot: inbound. you just, I'm one of those peoples whose... I'm amazed how crooked my own line is.
Elliot: And so I wrote that book called Driven, and thank you for plugging
Elliot: it on Amazon. I wrote that book because I wanted entrepreneurs and leaders to know that it's
Elliot: okay to get a bloody nose from time to time. It's okay not to be perfect. And it's kinda
Elliot: like the Rocky movie. There's a scene where Rocky's talking to his son, and he said, "It's not how many times
Elliot: you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up." And that's been my mantra in
Elliot: life, is keep getting back up. It's okay. Your nose is bleeding, your eyes are puffy, you look like
Elliot: hell ... but you're still fighting, and it's okay. Keep swinging that bat. You're gonna get some hits and some home
Elliot: runs. Just don't stop swinging.
David: I love that, and that actually leads me into my segue
David: to some of the things we are gonna cover today that I think, and I'm sure Elliot agrees,
David: isn't covered enough, is it's okay to fail. We're gonna talk about how to take on those failures, how to
David: accept them, and on top of that, how to follow your gut. The difference between
David: failing, maybe making a bad decision, or maybe just having bad luck. Not everything's
David: always just a bad decision. Sometimes things just don't always work out. That's life. But
David: before we dive in to some of these amazing topics, Elliot, I wanna ask
David: first and foremost, can you tell the group about a conversation you had that really counted, something that was
David: impactful? Maybe it's something you had with someone else. Maybe it's a mentor that spoke to you.
David: But a conversation that really impacted
Elliot: you. I've had so many of those. That's a great question, David. I laugh a little bit with two schizophrenic voices coming in, one in each ear.
Elliot: From my parents, who I have great respect for and are long gone. My dad's already gone 35
Elliot: years, my mother 25. Long died pretty young. my mother was an Auschwitz survivor from a
Elliot: concentration camp.
David: Wow.
Elliot: and my dad was just... and I'm first generation immigrant to
Elliot: the United States. My dad was, even though he was born in Newark, his family's from Eastern Europe, and my
Elliot: mother's from, Vienna. And my dad's thing was, all
Elliot: the time, that you, his phrase to me was, "You can never make up for hard work."
Elliot: You can't. And so I've got this stupid work ethic that,
Elliot: with that little voice, that, I call it schizophrenic 'cause the voices. and here I am. Like, "Who said
Elliot: that? Who said that?" But it's, you gotta go to work. And so I'm blessed, and my brother and I
Elliot: are blessed, and sister and I, blessed with great work ethics and cursed with work ethic, great work ethics at the
Elliot: same time. And then my mother thing was because she was such a
Elliot: driver academically and intellectually, and we actually buried her with her
Elliot: dictionary. Stop it ... 'cause English was her third language, and it was so important to her to know more
Elliot: words more of the historical things than her kids, and to teach them. and
Elliot: she had this thing of if I got a 90 on a test, she would ask if anybody got a 95, and she'd
Elliot: say, "You can do that." And if I got a 95, she'd ask if anybody got a 98. And if people got
Elliot: 100, she'd say, "You could do that, too." And so you could always do better.
Elliot: And so I come to work every day wanting to do better today than I did yesterday.
Elliot: And I ask that question that another mentor once said to me, who looked like Lyndon
Elliot: Johnson, 6'4", piercing blue eyes, and said, "Are you doing everything you can
Elliot: think of doing all the time?" And those, those messages, those
Elliot: three little lessons I just gave you, are my, are in my head every single day
Elliot: of the week.
David: Are you thinking about everything you could be doing all the time? Did I rephrase that
David: right?
Elliot: Yeah, and of course you can never be doing everything all the time. That's impossible. No. So and are
Elliot: you getting 100 on every test? That's impossible. You can only, all you can control is hard work, unless you wanna
Elliot: work eight days out of every seven. you have some control of that. But because
Elliot: two of those three things can never be satisfied, they become drivers,
Elliot: and they become unsatisfied drivers. Now I'm not saying that's a good thing either, 'cause maybe
Elliot: after 20 or 30 years of future counseling I'll get that out of my head. Who knows? But I
Elliot: do think that is, for me, one of the drivers.
David: I almost had, flashbacks
David: from what your dad said to you. So something my grandmother would do is if I
David: ever didn't wanna go to school, I would say I'd try to fake, being sick. Say, "I have a sore throat, Grandma, I can't
David: do it." That I still hear in my head one of my schizophrenic voices as well. she
David: would make me go to the doctor's to get it checked out every single time I would say I'm
David: sick, whether it was real, even if she knew I was faking. And we didn't have a car at the time, so our going to
David: the doctor's, we would have to call insurance, get a cab. That would take at least an hour
David: to get there. Then it's gonna take, I have to wait to see the doctor, 'cause it's last minute, so we're
David: waiting at the doctor's office at least two to three hours. Then it's another hour to get back home,
David: and by the time we've spent basically the entire day at the doctor's office, it
David: was so much more inconvenient to do that than go to school, because then I also can't go outside.
David: I can't play. So it just worked out more to just do the work. So I
David: always hear my grandma just telling me, "Hey, you can not do the work, but you'll end up working harder
David: getting out of it than you ever will doing it."
Elliot: that, that's a great lesson. I'll give you one quick funny story if that's okay.
David: Please.
Elliot: We were, we lived in Geneva for a while, and my mother was trying to trans
Elliot: well, she was trying to get her boys to become international attorneys. So we were in a French
Elliot: school. No English was a matter of fact, no English was allowed to be spoken when we were in Europe, period.
David: Oh, wow.
Elliot: you didn't speak the language either, I wanted to play, we wanted to play football. Yeah. And
Elliot: so I faked that I had a stomachache. So so one day went by with a stomachache and my mom said, "You
Elliot: can stay home." And then the next day then went up by with a, "Oh, it still hurts, Mom." and by the end of the second day she
Elliot: said, "I just want you to know that tomorrow if your stomach still hurts, I'm gonna,
Elliot: then we're gonna give you an enema."
David: Stop it. No, she didn't say that. No.
Elliot: tough love. And that was the last day that my stomach hurt at all when I was in
Elliot: Europe.
David: Your mother's a genius. Yeah, she was tough love. She scared the stomach ache right out of you. Little,
Elliot: little five foot tall tough lady. I
David: love that, and actually, speaking of stomach aches, so something I noticed that you do a lot is you
David: go for it, right? Something you even mention in this book is you're not afraid to try and fail.
David: So when you get that urge to try something new, build something new,
David: pursue a new sale, work with a new client, start a new organization,
David: how do you know when to listen to your gut? Do you always listen to it? Is there, It's very
David: hard, 'cause I know I have these feelings sometimes where I wanna follow through on something. My brain is like,
David: "David, there's all these reasons it's not gonna work." My gut's So how do you know when to listen?
Elliot: that's a really hard question. I don't know if I, I know the answer. I try to listen to both. Listen,
Elliot: my gut says that I could still become the New York Jets quarterback and that position's still available, and
Elliot: my brain has a little bit more common sense involved with that. there's a happy medium, and I think it's
Elliot: subject by subject and issue by issue, and sometimes your gut is right. my, my father got
Elliot: offered, the opportunity in the 1960s to become the, have an exclusive
Elliot: with spray paint in the state of New Jersey.
David: Wow.
Elliot: And he, and he was in the, he was in the ink and solvent business, and he listened to his brain and not his gut. His gut
Elliot: said, "Let's do this and create something magical here," but his brain
Elliot: said, "It's too much risk, and it's barely being used, and nobody's ever gonna
Elliot: give up a can of paint and a paintbrush." And so his brain was completely wrong on this.
Elliot: And his gut was probably more right, but he listened to his brain.
David: Wow That's, what
Elliot: are the chances So you gotta be there's a happy balance that you have to maintain.
David: Wow, so he could have owned spray paint for the entire state of New Jersey.
Elliot: Yep, I might you and I might not be having this conversation if he had done that. I might have been the spray paint. You might have been calling me the spray
Elliot: paint king, second generation. I,
David: I love it, on your private jet riding to your next,
David: next city.
Elliot: Next Home Depot.
David: I see. So it does kinda come from situation
David: to situation. And heck, if there's only risk, right? But sometimes there's
David: no chance, like you said, being the quarterback. I think you could do it. I'd bet on you, Elliot. Put money
Elliot: down. I have friends who've talked to me about it still, and said, "Listen, at least you could be a free safety. won't be a
Elliot: quarterback, even though you wanna be the quarterback." But, I don't think most of my body below my
Elliot: neck would agree with that.
David: I love that. Now, if I remember right, now this is small side
David: story, but you told me this story and I thought it was hilarious. You were, your team was called,
David: you were called The Untouchables or was it your defensive line? Or offensive line. I think it Sorry.
Elliot: So in 1970, 1960s, there was a television show called The Untouchables,
Elliot: which was the story of Eliot Ness and Al Capone in Chicago. Eliot Ness finally nabbed Al Capone for
Elliot: income tax evasion, and they were called The Untouchables. So when I was playing
Elliot: quarterback, I felt like I was running for my life, and I asked my best friend, still my best friend
Elliot: today ... to just stand, sit back, don't block, and tell me what's going on the front line
Elliot: 'cause I'm getting killed out here on every play. And he said, there's nobody
Elliot: touching anybody. Nobody's blocking." And so it became suddenly Elliot and The
Elliot: Untouchables, 'cause they didn't touch anyone. And it was a joke all through high school
Elliot: that, when Elliot's in a backfield, don't worry about it, he'll scramble and he'll run for his life. And they, they ended
Elliot: up with clean uniforms and I ended up with blood on most of it.
David: That had to be hard getting knocked down every single time, getting covered in blood, dirt. How
David: did you keep, going? Like, how did you keep up with the season? How'd you keep competing?
Elliot: I don't know. I was 16, 17, 18, 15, 16, 17. I just did. You just do. You don't
Elliot: think about it. You just get up the next play and say, "Okay, let's try this." But you do a lot of scrambling
Elliot: and run and gun, you don't really sit back in the pocket 'cause that pocket really doesn't
Elliot: exist. so you're running a lot. And I felt like I was Joe Namath there with
Elliot: knees, 'cause I could throw pretty well, but... And I wanted to be Joe Namath, and he was my
Elliot: idol, boyhood idol then. But it was, there, it wasn't meant to be. But I had fun doing it, and I wouldn't
Elliot: trade that at all even though my knees were shot. By the time I
Elliot: finished high school, I had knee braces already on both knees. Wow. I had broken my nose a number of
Elliot: times fingers. I've got so many surgeries it's ridiculous, but
Elliot: it was worth every minute of it
David: That's awesome. and it kinda takes me back to what you said earlier
David: about being an entrepreneur and business owner, is nothing it's a zigzag, right? It's
David: not all the Bill Gates of the world where you're just going straight up. That's
David: unrealistic. That's not real life. How did you cope, not only, with football. I know you said
David: you were 16, 17, 18. As far as I'm concerned, teenagers are made of different
David: materials than, than the rest of us, but Sure. But as you've started not one,
David: but two, and then your third business, right? There's no way you didn't go through a mountain of
David: failures. How do you keep getting... Like, how did you keep getting back up? How did you fight
David: through it? Is there, other than your mom and your dad in your ear, right? What else was it?
Elliot: the key, a good entrepreneur has a good vision. Yeah. And so I always recommend to people, the first
Elliot: phase of entrepreneurship, create a vision. Now, you don't have to know what it looks like in 20 years.
Elliot: I think that's totally unrealistic. And some there are people who say begin with the end in mind. that's a
Elliot: Stephen Covey phrase. But I don't think that's realistic. I think you're just trying to come up with an
Elliot: idea and build it. And I think if you keep a strong vision going, that, that
Elliot: vision is gonna let you overpower a lot of your failures. 'Cause you're gonna have a, you're gonna have a
Elliot: financing and cash flow problem some, or more than once, along the way. Yeah. You're gonna have a
Elliot: personnel problem and y HR problem along the way. You're gonna have a revenue and sales problem
Elliot: along the way. And of course, you're gonna have a profitability problem most probably along the way. And
Elliot: all these happen over and over in different phases, and sometimes they compound each other, all happening at the
Elliot: same time. And you've got lawyers and accountants that you're talking to about just trying to stay afloat and get a
Elliot: bank line of credit, and all that wonderful stuff that you need to do. But if you keep that vision
Elliot: and "I am so focused on building something great here, and I think I can do it," you,
Elliot: that alone could bring you through the precipice, beyond the
Elliot: precipice of failure because you're willing tomorrow to do it again.
David: So it really comes down to the vision you built and created.
Elliot: Yeah, which changes. Sure. I don't want you to have to keep the same vision. I could tell you, for sure, without interviewing Mark Zuckerberg, that I never have met him,
Elliot: is that the vision he had when he started Facebook and the vision he has today probably are
Elliot: worlds apart, 'cause he never envisioned this to Amazon or Meta to get the size that
Elliot: it is, and dominance, and keeping... Y all the things that you hate about him ... and all the things
Elliot: that you love about him, he never saw that coming in his 20s. He certainly sees that
Elliot: now with an army of lawyers and accountants. So it, it has to grow.
Elliot: But if you keep that vision going, it's gonna give you the intestinal fortitude to
Elliot: overcome some of those mistakes.
David: That's profound. Can I ask,
David: what was your first vision, right? When you started your first business, what was your first vision for the future? Was
David: it, did you have this five year vision? Did you have private jets and boats, right? What
David: was your, what was your Yeah ... early, early vision?
Elliot: I'm not an overly materialistic guy. I,
Elliot: look, I drive a beautiful car. My wife does too. I don't have a jet. I don't have a boat.
Elliot: I, we do a lot of traveling. That's what we do, a ton of traveling. some of the nicest places on earth.
Elliot: that's our race car, so to speak, on that. when I started my packaging business,
Elliot: my goal was to be a dominant player in packaging over the next five to 10 years on
Elliot: the East Coast, in the New York market. we built a nice business up. We built it from zero to $5 million in
Elliot: sales, 35 million, 35 employees. It was a nice little business going.
Elliot: It was sucking cash dry because we were growing faster than our cash flow was
Elliot: able to maintain. That's another thing entrepreneurs have to learn, is how could I be so
Elliot: profitable and so out of cash all at the same time? And that, but, and
Elliot: I went to a, my wife and I went to a New York Jets football game. We had season tickets forever, from the time I
Elliot: was a kid, and we found ourselves in the stands arguing about
Elliot: cash flow and the business the entire game. And I knew at that moment
Elliot: it was either I wasn't gonna be married, or I was gonna sell my company the next day, and I
Elliot: sold the company. I got divorced anyways. What a loyal husband. I ended up getting divorced anyway, so maybe I should've
Elliot: done, done ... but, no. But it's, you just, that vision of selling
Elliot: it at a certain point, I didn't have. I just thought I was gonna build it. Now, I had someone who approached me
Elliot: about taking it public at one point, and I think that would be really cool, but I was too young and
Elliot: naive to really understand how that could happen.
David: Wow. How old were
David: you when you started that business? In
Elliot: my 20s. 20s. 23.
David: I think something you said there that's pretty interesting too is you pointed out you're not super materialistic, which I
David: don't think, which I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with wanting nice things, but at the same time, if that's all you're
David: doing it for, you'll find that people who wanna start a business become an entrepreneur because they don't
David: wanna work for someone, and they wanna be able to buy what they want, live how they want, which is great.
David: I think that's cool. All power to them. But I notice the most successful ones are the ones who,
David: for lack of better words, fall in love with the game. I'd argue three businesses in,
David: it's no longer about, which you like to travel, I know, but it's not even about the traveling
David: or the nice car or money. At this point, it's just because you love
David: the game. You love competing. You like wor you enjoy work. So I
David: think that's something huge. I could be wrong, but I don't know if you'd agree with that.
Elliot: Oh, it's very true. the game is the fun part of it. The growing every day is the fun part about. Doing something you didn't do yesterday is the
Elliot: fun part of it. never being satisfied with what you're doing, that's the fun part of it too. All of it's
Elliot: really good on that. I'm already trying to leave a legacy. and the legacy's not gonna be my
Elliot: business. my legacy's my charity, and hopefully changing people's
Elliot: lives. so if at my funeral one day, 30 years, 40 years, whatever it is, that
Elliot: people say, he helped thousands and thousands of families with his
Elliot: charity, and saved countless number of lives and kids from committing suicide or taking
Elliot: their own lives," if that's what they talk about at my funeral, then everything I did was worth
Elliot: it.
David: That's awesome. That's a vision.
Elliot: Yeah, that's not based on he had nice cars and he got to drive in the best tracks and fly first class around the world
Elliot: had homes, three homes in Mexico wherever. I don't care about any of that stuff.
Elliot: That doesn't matter to me
David: And I'd say that's a good place to start if I were an entrepreneur, business
David: owner, listening to this. That sounds like a good place to start is not necessarily, hey, where could I be living
David: or what could I be driving in five years? It's what impact could I have on the world in five years?
David: What would I see myself doing and enjoying, right? What
David: game or competition can I fall in love with in five years? I feel like that would be a better
David: place to start.
Elliot: That's a great thing to do if you want that. Now, I can tell you that lots of people start
Elliot: businesses for very selfish reasons.
David: That's fair.
Elliot: And so not everybody's altruistic. We wanna make a lot of money. We wanna employ people. Sure. We
Elliot: wanna be in control of our lives. We don't want a boss. Lots of reasons to start a business. We're
Elliot: smarter. We have a better way to do that, and maybe we're just crappy at taking orders. I
Elliot: don't wanna buy a McDonald's franchise because I know I can make a better hamburger.
Elliot: And so
David: That's fair ...
Elliot: that makes me a crappy franchisee 'cause I can do it better. And so
Elliot: I'm not a good employee. so that's a motivator. I get that. I understand. In my 20s, I definitely didn't understand
Elliot: that, but now I do. And so what's gonna be the motivator? now I'm
Elliot: motivated by several things, but I still want something to be really worth it down the line, and then what
Elliot: would it be? How am I gonna touch the world and leave it different for my children and so forth?
Elliot: How much money my children get, that's a motivator for a lot of people about their financial legacy.
Elliot: That's less of a motivator for me. They're big people. They'll make money on their own. If they get some
Elliot: money from me, great. If they don't, great. Do it on your own. I didn't get anything. You can make the world a
Elliot: better place.
David: I like that. You crack me up, Elliot.
David: Now, I actually wanted to ask too, if you'd be willing to, can you plug in your charity?
David: What's the name of it? Yeah,
Elliot: let me tell you about A Brighter Day Charity.
David: Please.
Elliot: Um, we started that seven years
Elliot: ago following the suicide of my youngest son, Jake. Uh, Jake was at the University of
Elliot: Montana. He was a sophomore. He walked up to the highway with no drugs, no
Elliot: alcohol, and jumped in front of an oncoming truck and took his life. And we were
Elliot: frantically looking for him when a suicide note arrived Federal Express, and in it it said,
Elliot: "David, Mom, and Dad, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I never would've told you how I felt.
Elliot: I never would've asked for your help, and I never would've taken your help." And
Elliot: that was the motivation, that one paragraph, for the entire charity. Originally started with
Elliot: music. Now what we do today is we've got so many things to help teens and their families
Elliot: with resources on stress and depression from texting to
Elliot: Zoom counseling to live counseling to inpatient
Elliot: in counseling to resources on a fantastic website. Wow. We do all
Elliot: those things now at a brighter abrighterday.info. We c we're touching 5 to
Elliot: 10,000 families a month with the charity. That's amazing.
David: that's fantastic. I wanted to say amazing, but I didn't wanna copy you. It is amazing, though.
Elliot: Yeah, I have a great team of
David: people
Elliot: around
David: me. how could we support you?
Elliot: they can go and help us out at www.abrighterday.info.
Elliot: It's got a donation page, it's got all those resources, all those programs, a lot of great stuff on there.
Elliot: If we could change a life here or there, we're doing amazing things. Just that.
David: I love that. and that makes me ask too, going through something like that is the ultimate blow, right? there's no
David: amount of cash flow or financial issues a business could go through that will ever equate
David: to the loss you took. And I'm sorry again for your loss, Elliot. Um,
David: how, how did you manage, what's the right wording? How
David: did you manage to recover and then still continue going and still keep your vision
David: so clear, even after s something so traumatic?
Elliot: Oh, pretty difficult. Those were dark days. I mean, it is, uh... I, I think you have a
Elliot: hole in you that never really goes away as a parent. Um, you know, luckily I have
Elliot: other kids. I have two stepchildren, some grandchildren, and, and two children are twins that are 30
Elliot: now. Uh, you focus on, or at least for me, I made a decision to
Elliot: focus on the living. Um, and of course, I go, still go to the cemetery every few weeks
Elliot: to visit my son there. And you could argue that he's not there, he's in heaven or wherever he is. I don't know
Elliot: where he is. He's not here. That's the most important thing. Right. And, um,
Elliot: and, but the charity's based on that, so we're saving lives in memory of,
Elliot: of Jake. And he's my screensaver here in my office.
Elliot: His 8 by 10 picture's next to my television in my family room. I can't get away from it.
Elliot: Um, I, I don't get away from it. Um, most big decisions I
Elliot: make, I, in my head, I, I wonder if they would be good for him. Um,
Elliot: so you just gotta move forward, one foot in front of the other.
David: That's impressive how you turn something so painful into something so powerful, right? Oh. You
David: still get motivated by him every day. You still see him every day, and yet you said, "How can I
David: make his loss truly mean something?" And I'd say you have. A Brighter
David: Day is an amazing organization. Like you said, you're touching thousands of
David: people. that's a profound impact.
Elliot: Yeah. I can't have it be meaningless. I'll tell you what I don't accept there,
Elliot: David. Yeah. And that's people who've said, "Well, he's in a better place," 'cause people don't really know what to say
Elliot: or think. Yeah. And I said, "No, he's not in a better place." A better place would be right next to me. I wish I
Elliot: didn't have to start the charity. it's next to me. but in his honor,
Elliot: we've done some, or his memory, we've done some amazing things, and we'll continue to do amazing
Elliot: things with that to the point I'll walk away from it when I think it's
Elliot: naturally sustainable without me. And that's my goal for the charity is that the
Elliot: charity, I don't want to... I'm the president of the charity. I started it. I'll step aside. We'll have a new president. I'll
Elliot: be on a board, and then maybe not be on the board. I think it's a
Elliot: wonderful thing. I don't mind just writing checks to keep it going. but I think it it needs to
Elliot: be in every, all 50 states and just be touching in amazing ways.
David: I completely agree. It goes back to what you mentioned in a pre, in one of your
David: episodes, when you talk about transitioning as a business owner to selling your business, moving on. That's
David: where you'd like to see that business go. Sounds which I know it's a non profit, so it's not a business
David: per se. Yeah. But you'd still like to see it where it's completely functional,
David: whether you're running it or you're not, right? Whether you decide to fully step away,
David: you want to make sure it's fully functional. It keeps impacting those lives with or without you.
Elliot: I would hate to see it die if I died.
David: That's awesome. Not awesome,
David: obviously, that
Elliot: Yeah, I know. I get it. I get it.
David: Okay. I appreciate you,
David: Elliot. Now, with that being said too, would you be open to sharing what your
David: vision is? I know you shared the vision with your nonprofit. Do you have any other part of the vision
David: that you'd be willing to share, that motivates you? I know you have a A Brighter Day,
David: but out and traveling. Is there any other sort of vision, any other motivators you have
David: in your every day?
Elliot: So it's funny, David. one day my business will either get sold
Elliot: or passed down to the key people here. I sat down, because it's a
Elliot: financial advisory organization that I run. I sat down with my wife about a
Elliot: decade ago and I said, we, I give advice for a living of what people should do in
Elliot: retirement." And keep in mind that watching TV four hours a day is not a retirement plan, because that is what
Elliot: the average senior does. That's really sad.
David: That's not fun.
Elliot: No. I said, "What's really important to us?" we love we love travel, especially in Europe, because I lived there. We love to
Elliot: eat great food, and I love to make great food, I'm an amateur chef. And I'm not trying to get big.
David: Wow.
Elliot: I've got I've got a world class wine room at home with 1,000 bottles of fantastic red
Elliot: wine, mostly from Napa and Sonoma, but fantastic red wine, and we like to buy it and
Elliot: we like to drink it. I play golf, but I'm not a golfer. So we realized that, okay,
Elliot: what's important to us? And if we could just travel, eat great food, and drink great
Elliot: wine, and then buy them, and do things around those, we've got a pretty good lifestyle going if we could do
Elliot: that. I don't need to play golf four times a week. I couldn't if I wanted to anyway. My body could probably do
Elliot: it twice a week. So that's not gonna be. My tennis days are over. My racquetball days are
Elliot: over. I could I go to the gym four or five days a week. Don't let this this body fool you,
Elliot: but I actually do exercise. And so we do that, and I'll probably do that as long
Elliot: as I can. And even with golf, I'll be able to play that at some point, but I've got some pretty good arthritis on
Elliot: my right hand that at some point I won't be able to get my hand around a club. And and that's
Elliot: okay. We've, my wife and I accepted the fact that when that day happens, that's okay because we still have everything else going for
Elliot: us. And so be it. So I think every day I wake up and I think, "I
Elliot: wanna take my wife to a nicer place." She wants to go out for dinner to a nicer place. It
Elliot: doesn't have to be expensive. It can be casual food. It could be a great burger. If I were to open up
Elliot: my own restaurant tomorrow, it would probably be a a gourmet burger place
Elliot: or a New York deli, New York style deli. It would not be a white tablecloth,
Elliot: amazing ... three Michelin star restaurant. I don't have that in me. I'm not a
Elliot: trained chef. I could never do that. But I can make hamburgers and corned
Elliot: beef sandwiches that would blow your mind She's already said, "Don't even think Wow about it," 'cause I brought it up
Elliot: a few times and my wife's "You don't own a restaurant. It owns you, so don't do it."
David: she's a smart woman. Sounds like she, she's very wise. But funny enough, we were actually talking, a few of, me
David: and a few of my colleagues earlier today about what's the one food you could have
David: and just eat for the rest of your life and be okay with it. I picked burgers. So I
David: It would be ... I love where your head's at.
Elliot: It would be a burger. I could do a burger every day for lunch. there's a
Elliot: place in New Jersey not too far from where we used to work, in the north central part of Jersey,
Elliot: and it was one of those gourmet burger places. And you walk in, they have maybe 21 different burgers
Elliot: on the menu from different cheeses and mushrooms and onions, and today you
Elliot: have french fries. It's, the fast food restaurants have put french fries inside, and onion rings, inside of
Elliot: burgers.
David: Oh, yeah.
Elliot: They didn't do that. They were just different flavors and that would be my style. I could, I did
Elliot: mushroom, french mushroom Boursin cheese burgers for quite some time for lunch.
David: Wow. That sounds un that's an amazing lunch.
Elliot: Yeah, I've never seen it since then. I can't even remember the name of it. But boy, does that sound good.
David: Talk about eating like a king.
Elliot: Yeah, if you wanna finish that with a slice of New York cheesecake, I'd be okay with it
David: Cheesecake. Okay. Also,
David: Elliot, I'm almost uncomfortable with how much I have in common with you. My grandma would make me a
David: cheesecake every birthday from the time I was in, middle school till I graduated high school. So I'm
David: not big on cake, but I love cheesecake, if it's a high quality cheesecake, and she's a baker.
David: She used to be a chef. She retired, and then she said, "I hate cooking." She
David: still cooks. She actually enjoys it, but
Elliot: Good for her ...
David: she doesn't cook as much, but she loves baking,
David: so then she got super into baking. Make a cheesecake that'll blow your mind, I guarantee
David: it.
Elliot: I'll take it any time. I sent, I send to my staff every year for holidays, I send a
Elliot: cheesecake from the Carnegie Deli to everybody.
David: That's boss of the year. You have to have a cup somewhere that
David: says, "Boss of the year." Elliot, I appreciate you for this time. you're an amazing man with
David: amazing knowledge, right? and actually, I have to ask too, I know I
David: I've held you for a little longer than probably expected. Thank you for sticking around with me. But
David: speaking of leadership, and you've talked a lot about vision, something I don't think that's always talked
David: about as much is how do you keep your team aligned with your vision? Especially
David: for someone like yourself, who's considering either, A, you might have to sell it at some point in the
David: future, or you might pass it down. That'd be hard for, an employee or
David: someone that works for you to, to... That's a loss that they'll have to grieve, is not getting those cheesecakes
David: every year, right? So how do you keep your team aligned with your vision?
Elliot: That's a big challenge for every business owner. you wanna have, employees that buy into your
Elliot: vision, see it, feel good about it. it's really difficult if one of your employees has
Elliot: cancer, in your office because they really destroy it. Every organization has that, and even a good employee
Elliot: can become a sour employee at some point for lots of personal and business reasons.
Elliot: So it's very complicated. At this moment, I've got a great team around me,
Elliot: but I've not always had a great team around me, and some days are more challenging than others. and even this
Elliot: morning, I was talking to my marketing director, and he's saying, "Where are we going with this? What's my future? What's the
Elliot: outcome here?" he said, "I can't even afford to buy a house in northern California, and I make great money, and I don't get
Elliot: it." for him, if he could move to Nashville, Tennessee, he'd feel great, because he could afford
Elliot: everything there. But he couldn't do his job here. So it's a hard situation.
David: Especially in an economy like this, where housing prices are through the roof. California's
David: housing market is one of the wildest things I've ever seen, so that has to be tough.
Elliot: Yep. So that's a hard answer but it's you gotta just keep the horses going and horses
Elliot: lined up properly, knowing that they're wrong almost every day, and you keep fixing
Elliot: them. That's a good analogy. There's movie called Ben Hur. And Ben Hur, takes place in
Elliot: old Israel, Judah, Ben Hur of Judea. And he
Elliot: comes across this Arab who raises horses, all
Elliot: thoroughbreds at that time, and he wants to race those horses in Rome, in a
Elliot: great track in Rome. It's amazing what they have there because that's really where the money and the prestige
Elliot: comes from. And he can't get these people to do it. And Charlton Heston stumbles across
Elliot: this person and this thing and it's Charlton Heston that redoes where the horses go. Who's... It's four
Elliot: horses. Who's on the inside? Who's in the middle? Who's on the outside? And he experiments until he gets
Elliot: it right and creates it. And that's the winning combination. And your employees are
Elliot: like that, that individually they may do great, but collectively they may be in the wrong
Elliot: place. And every day you gotta adjust that place to make sure that they're pulling
Elliot: your chassis in the right direction
David: Wow. That was great how you tied that story to your point. So if I understand it
David: right, it's really about making sure that you understand your employees well enough to say, "Hey, you're
David: not doing the right task. Instead, here's what you should be working on. This is the right project
David: for you." Or even, "You might not be doing that project in the right way for you." So it's
David: really getting in depth into the work and understanding what they're doing without, doing it for them or
David: micromanaging them.
Elliot: And keep in mind, they're all human.
David: We all are. That's true. I appreciate that, Elliot. I won't keep you any longer. I want to, 'cause,
David: heck, how often do you get to speak to someone like yourself? But I won't do that to you. So as we
David: wrap up, I wanna recap a little bit of what we talked about. Stop me if I say it
David: wrong, or add in whatever you think I may have missed. But a lot of what we talked
David: about in this episode to really highlight it is first, every journey in business,
David: I'd argue in life as well, is a zigzag. You're gonna go up, you're gonna go down,
David: and sometimes you're gonna go down for longer than you're up, and sometimes you'll go up longer than you're down. But
David: you are gonna go on that roller coaster, and that's okay. The first place to start with is be
David: okay with sometimes not being okay. And the way to make it through those
David: hard times, to make it through the failures, to not forget the failures when everything's going amazing, is
David: make your vision clear. You don't have to know your vision for the next 20, 30, 40
David: years, because life changes too often. But you need to at least have an
David: idea of where you're going. You have to know what you're fighting for. You have to know what
David: motivates you. You have to know what picture you need to see on the computer screen to make it worth
David: logging in to keep work going. And I'd recommend, I know you said
David: everyone starts a business for different reasons. I'd recommend you love the game. I'd
David: recommend you get into a business or wanna do business for yourself not just because you wanna
David: work for yourself, but most importantly because you love the game. You love working, you love the
David: hustle, and you like really the drive of the
David: every day. Don't just do it for the nice car or the boat or the house, which that's great,
David: but do it for more than that. And something you did talk about
David: that we probably could have covered more is make sure you create great memories, right?
David: Something you do with your wife, like you're constantly traveling. I think that's
David: under discussed between business owners and entrepreneurs. Everyone wants to
David: work all the time. Everyone, to my earlier point, is in love with the game and wants to be in the hustle,
David: but we can't get back those memories and those times, like with your wife. There's no
David: amount of money you can make that'll replace traveling to Israel, right? Traveling to the
David: Caribbean, all these beautiful places you go. There's no amount of money that can replace
David: those memories that are s worth so much more. And on top of that, the best way to
David: keep the vision going is to share your vision with others. Make sure that your team is
David: just as aligned with your vision as you are, and be okay with realigning them
David: quite often. Sometimes it can be a daily process, sometimes a few times a week.
David: But keep it aligned, keep them on board, and be okay having those tough conversations.
David: And to your point, you have such a great relationship. Not many marketing directors
David: or anyone that work for you are gonna share, "Hey, I'm really going through this hard time.
David: I don't know what to do." It takes a good relationship with someone
David: that works for you to be able to do that. And last but not least,
David: make sure you look up A Brighter Day. Make sure you donate, make sure you get involved. Let's make that
David: thing nationwide, and let's save as many lives and family members as we can. Make
David: sure we work hard, everyone. And Elliot, is there anything you think I missed in that recap?
Elliot: No, that was pretty good.
David: I appreciate you. I like to think I pay attention. Your time is more than worth it.
David: I'd refuse to waste it. So everyone, I will also be leaving links for A Brighter
David: Day, contact to get in touch with Elliot and his associates. Amazing,
David: amazing wealth advisor. He will help you prepare for retirement. Keep this man in mind,
David: and it will all be in the description and the bio. With that being said,
David: everyone, let's win, let's have fun, keep your family, God first,
David: and make sure you do something worth your time. Thank you, all.