Superstar Guest Alex Zoltan Szinegh, REALTOR, Bestselling Author, speaker, https://alexszinegh.com/

Here we go. Hi everyone, happy January 11th! Holy moly. And I have— I'm very excited. So hi everyone, January 11th. I have From A to Z and Everywhere in Between, Alex Stolten, Zineg and Monkey, which I happen to have a banana.

Oh great, this big monkey here. I gave this to my wife years ago as a Valentine's present or something like that, and it's exciting. We've had— actually, monkeys are a big thing in our family. I got married for the first time in 1969, and I lived in a little apartment, and we hung a monkey on the chandelier. It was in 1969, and we've had a monkey in our house ever since. And in our travels, we had many different places. We had the monkey hanging on the chandelier, and then we lost one of the monkeys and we got a new monkey. And, and so we've had monkeys around. We have monkey lamps and we have a palm tree on the— in my wife's office, and there's a couple of monkeys hanging off of there. So I don't know where we got all that from, but I guess because of my nature, I just kind of monkey around, you know.

So I love it. So I got the opportunity to meet you maybe about a year ago, year or so ago, at SCORE and Cinematheater over for 1 Million Cups. And so from what I know about you, you're an awesome man, an awesome leader in the community, and I'm quite jealous because— your daughter too, by the way— but I, but I'm jealous because you moved to Latitudes. I hope that's okay to say. So you're not living the 55 older life. So I, I'm 58 with Alana, my 14-year-old, as you know, who's going to be 15 another month. But like, so Alan and I, we have like another, what, like 5 years in order to be safe and make sure that she's actually secure before we live in a community like that. So tell me what it's like. And you said this summer— okay, first tell us, tell us the decision, because you You sold a home, then you bought a home to build, and then you had a really amazing summer. So take it away. I want to hear this.

Yeah, well, it's kind of funny because we— my wife is a third-generation Floridian, and she was from— she lived in Tampa for about 35 years. So when I met her in Orlando, which is going to be 7 years this month on the 22nd, we met. So we've been together 7 years. And we've been married 5. So we got married on the 22nd also. We just want to keep the date straight so that we don't mess up. Anyways, so I lived in Tampa for 5 years, and then we had an opportunity to come here to Daytona to help somebody start a real estate company and all that. And we loved it. I'm a biker, you know, uh, and I love Daytona Beach. I used to say, hey, Daytona Beach, babes, beach, and bikinis, and bikes, and, you know, and all that. But that's not what really it is. There's a lot more to to Daytona Beach that meets the eye. Anyways, so we moved over here and we bought a condo on the water. And our daughter Chantel was at the time just getting, you know, she was in high school. Yeah, she is fantastic. You had her on the show. So she was going to high school. So we bought a place so it's close enough to the school, which she was going to Mainland High School. And she graduated. And of course, through the pandemic, you know, they, they had no prom and none of that stuff. So it was kind of hard for her. However, the good news is she stayed in Daytona, didn't go to Tampa to the college she got accepted to because she got accepted to Daytona State also. So decided to stay here. So she's 12 minutes from us and she has her own place. She moved out. We kicked the little bird out of the nest, which was important to get her out of the nest. Okay, it's, it's always important to get them and train them. I have 3 other kids grown, they all have their own business, and my attitude is I teach entrepreneurship. And so, Chantal gone out on her own. She's living on her own, going to college and everything else. And then, Kay and I said, "Let's downsize." I mean, we own property in Costa Rica, 2 houses, 4,500 square feet on the beach. Who needs 4,500 square feet? Even our condo, we downsized to the condo, 3-bedroom, you know, 2,200 square feet. It was still too big. So we built, we decided to come to Latitude Margaritaville. And what's interesting about that is she said, I don't want to go to where there's a bunch of old people. I'm like, honey, this is very different. So we came here and it's an active 55 community. Let me tell you something, these people play pickleball, they play tennis, they swim. There's a huge gym over here. We're building a beach club. They're riding around on their bicycles, they're running, they're They're fit, they drive around in golf carts, and we don't have a bunch of geriatric people with walkers walking around. That's not what this is. This is not a retirement home for people that gave up on life and waiting to die, you know, so anything like that. It's exciting to be here. It's a beautiful place. And you know, you're talking about being, what, you're 58, you said?

58 with a 15-year-old. I have 4 or 5 years 58.

We're going to be— how about this? I'm 71 with an 18-year-old. Okay, so you got to be kidding me. I was like my almost my 60s when I had Chantelle. I didn't have Chantelle. My wife had Chantelle. But, you know, I know what it's like. And we'd love to help you to come and move over here. You know, I'm in real estate for 37 years, so every opportunity I get to sell a house, you know, we're doing it, you know. As a matter of fact, Kay is right now videoing, doing a walkthrough video FaceTime with some clients from New York City to see the place they're looking to buy. So it's pretty exciting, but it's beautiful here. It's wonderful. We have a beautiful place. We downsized 1,800 square feet and it's still too big, you know, but it's okay. We're not moving because moving is a nightmare. We back onto the woods. We have nobody behind us. It's really, really nice. And It's peaceful, it's quiet. Our place is humongous. Uh, you know, it even— we brought the monkey because it, it has a room of its own, you know, it has a chair of its own. That monkey is sitting in a crocodile chair, okay? That chair, uh, those chairs I bought at a— at an— not an auction, but these rich people, you know, put their stuff on consignment. I got these chairs, got a heck of a deal on them, but they're real crocodile chairs. I mean, they're amazing. I got two of them. I got one in the other corner. So anyways, oh, I have to come over just to see the chairs.

So you spent the summer— so while they— I would love to. So while you were building your home, while they were building your home, you traveled?

Yeah. What's really cool is we, uh, we put our Costa Rica houses into a system 5, 6 years ago called Love Home Swap. Okay, you pay a yearly fee, I don't know, $300, $400, whatever it is. You put your house in there, picture and everything, and then you got to swap with people around the world. And so we've traveled in the last 5 years all across Europe. We stayed in castles, we stayed in England, we stayed at a vineyard, we were in California, we've been to Florida, the Key West. I mean, you name it, we can go anywhere in the world. It's a fantastic system. And you can do swap, like, you know, with each other at the same time. You can swap where I go to your house this week, but you don't come to my house till next Christmas. And they also give us points when we swap, so we get points and we can go to anybody's house with points. So we accumulated a ton of points over the last few years. And so we decided— we sold our house end of September And we said, where are we gonna live? And we said, let's be gypsies. So we packed a backpack, okay, and a small suitcase with a few things. We hopped in our car and we swapped for one month, all of October, to Sanibel Island on the beach. It was cool. And then all of November up until our closing date of November 27th here, we stayed in St. Augustine on a house that was built in the 1900s, like the early 1900s, like 1904 or something. And it was one of the original beach houses in St. Augustine. And we got up every morning and we walked out on this big walkway into the sand every single day in the morning for a walk. It was awesome.

I was hoping you were— so I remember the picture that you showed from the beach looking at the— like, I don't know if it was the back of the house or the front of the house, at the front of the house faced the beach. But I remember thinking to myself, Alex, go give me a tour. But then I thought maybe you're not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the house. I wasn't sure, but it looked awesome.

Well, it was a really, really old house, obviously, and it was original. I mean, inside was very dated, but it had this charm. It has this amazing charm and walls and rooms all over the place. And they had it fixed up in such a way because they also rented it out. It slept It was room for 11 people. It had 11 beds. Okay. Oh, and the house was massive. It was about 3,500 square feet. But what's really cool about it is people lived next door, the owners, and they lived in a much bigger house and they just lived on the beach forever. You know, it's, uh, it was really cool.

That sounds amazing. Okay. So then, and then, so you were still, you and Kay, where I will tell everyone the truth. Adrian has a girl crush on his wife. She is— your wife is so stunning. You know what? So I was thinking about it because I was at, um, Poke Stokie or Stoke Poke, the restaurant, and the, the, um, owner Eric, his girlfriend is— I love her face. And as I was talking, I go, I love your face. I realized, you know what it is? Faces are like art to me, right? So you have a canvas and then you have like the nose and the eyes. And so I see a face that I love, I can't help but say, oh my God, I love your face. Just like I would say, oh my God, this banana is beautiful, or I love a flower because I really do, right? When I first saw your wife, it's kind of like— or their hair— and she's got a beautiful— all of her features are absolutely stunning. Yes, she's got an amazing figure, but she really just— and yet when she talks, you know how beautiful she is inside. And so I just kind of like—

amazing, amazing. You know, you know what's really funny is, uh, you know, Chantal's mom passed away 12 years ago. From breast cancer. And I met Kay, and like I said, we've been together for 7 years. What was interesting is when I first met her, she's 6 foot tall, and when she wore heels, she's like 6'3", and she's this Amazon woman. And I'm this little shrimp of a guy, like 5'7" and all that. And I met her— the first time I met her at an event, and she was standing there big and tall and gorgeous and all that. I walked up to her and said hello and all that. And she kind of looked down at me and I could see it in her eyes. She was like, what do you want, little man? You know? And so she was not impressed with me because her husband before was 6'5". You know, she was into tall, hairy men. I'm bald. She didn't like guys with tattoos. I got a couple of tattoos. I got my tattoo, the favorite, the Taz. Okay. And I was nothing like she ever put in a book and said, this is the man I want for my rest of my life. I was like completely different. She was not the kind of woman that I was looking— I wasn't looking for a tall redhead, you know, and she got freckles. And, and, but you know what, I looked into her eyes and I met her later, a month later at another event. And at that day, we clicked. I got goosebumps thinking about it. I looked into her eyes and, you know, she's beautiful. I mean, she's, she's a gorgeous woman physically. But you know what it was? I looked into her eyes and And I saw her soul. I saw who she is. And she actually said that to me. She was like startled. And when she tells the story, get her to tell the story one day. Maybe you wanna have her on the show and tell the stories. And she said to me, you're the kind of guy that you, the first time in my life, and I'm not gonna say how old she is, but you know, we're all kind of moving up there. But she said, you actually saw me. Inside. And that's— that was amazing because I felt her and I knew— I kid you not, never believed that love at first sight, that's only in the movies, you know, that, that doesn't happen in real life. That day I knew I was going to marry this woman. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her. It was like amazing.

And she would be a good mother. She would be a good mom to, uh, Chantal too.

Oh, she's been like, I mean, we've been together 7 years. So Chantal was 11 when she met Kay. And the amazing part about it is that she really helped me raise Chantal, and she's been a fantastic mom. She just basically really adopted her completely like her own daughter. She has a daughter, 23. But I mean, Kay loves her. And after about a year, Kay said to me, can I call her mom? And she went to Kay and said, can I call you mom? And yeah. So now when she talks about her mom, And then she talks about her mother, which is her birth mother. Okay, so she distinguishes between the two. But look, 7 years, so almost half her life she's been with Kay. So Kay really raised her, becoming a young woman and, and all that. I mean, hey, I think I'm a pretty good dad. No, I'm not a great dad, but I'm a pretty good dad. But there's so many things that a girl needs that a guy just can't deal with, you know what I mean? You know, all the girly stuff and everything else. So Anyways, so we need a woman in, you know, and, and it was so amazing to find her. So I am super thrilled. We have a fantastic relationship. And when I do coaching, I talk about you need to take care of 4 parts of your life: physical, spiritual, relational, financial. We're doing pretty good, okay, financially, you know, we don't have any problems or anything, you know. Physically, I'm doing good. I You know, I keep my weight. I exercise every day. I play racquetball and all that kind of stuff. Spiritually, I have my own beliefs and systems. You know, I was born a Catholic, but I'm not a big formal religious guy and going to church and all that kind of stuff. I have my own belief system. But I'm telling you, the most amazing part of my life is my relationship. My relationship with my wife and my kids and all that. That's the amazing part to me because That's really what I even tell people. If your personal life works, if your relationship works, everything else works. If your relationship doesn't work, you're, you're done, okay? Because it affects everything. It affects your physicality. If your relationship— I remember my first marriage when my, my relationship was not as good, you know, I didn't want to work too hard, I didn't want to make a bunch of money, I didn't take care of my physically, I ate too much, I drank too much, I You know, because you don't care, you know. But when you are in love and you have a fantastic relationship, you take care of your body, you take care of your soul, you take care of your finances because you want to live and have fun and travel. And you do everything possible to make that a beautiful relationship. And so I think to me, everything rises and falls in your success in life and your relationship. That's why people that have tons of money, if they have lousy relationship, their life sucks anyways. Doesn't matter how many millions you got, you know, like, you know, you look at some of these famous people, I'm not going to name anybody, but you got a gorgeous wife, you got zillions of dollars and everything, and your life sucks. Why? Because miserable. Okay, anyway, that's just my, uh, No, I think it's great.

My husband and I were just talking the other day about how comfortable we feel, and that— but also age has to do a lot. So, you know, I'm— I have married before, and my first husband is lovely, and his wife is beautiful. We— Ivy and I, my first husband's wife, we made a commitment to be friends and get along for our children. We used to say we should go on Oprah because you can do it. You can, you just look at the best part of someone and enjoy that part of them. And so Ivy, it was really lovely. But my husband and I have been married for 25, 25 years, 26 maybe, and it's been, it's really been lovely. And we have, um, I have 2 boys from my first marriage, Alex and Sam, 37 and 32. And then Alan and I have a 25-year-old Rudy and my daughter Lana. But You are so right. Getting along and supporting trust is huge, right? Oh, big time. You can't even— big time. And just—

yeah, you know, and my first wife, my first wife, wonderful woman. Like, I don't know if you know, but you might have seen me, I teach the DISC, D-I-S-C. That's one of my specialties. I'm a certified DISC trainer. About personalities, how to get along with people. And, uh, you know, they say opposites attract, but opposites attack. I'm a D personality, she was an S. We're totally opposite. I, I got together with her because she was different than me, but then once we were living together, we realized our differences were really big, that, that we were going in completely different directions. Now, she's a wonderful woman, I love her. Now, people say, you love your your first wife, your ex-wife? Yeah, I love it. I'm not in love with her, but I love her. She raised my children. I have 3 kids, 51, 47, and 42. Okay, so I got girls and 6 grandchildren. And so my first wife, we are friends. Kay's friends with her. We go up there, she makes us dinner. We had her down at our condo in Florida and let her stay at our place. So we're friends. There's nothing— I, I hold nothing against her. She's a good woman. I was the bad one, okay? I was the crazy one, you know, not her. And, and so she's a very good woman, and I respect her. And every Mother's Day and Christmas and birthday, I'm always sending her flowers and, and doing that. You know, I look at some people, you know, even, even my wife Kay, her ex-husband— she's got a daughter, 23— he never sends her Mother's Day flowers or anything like that. I'm like, that's so disrespectful, because that person bore your child and gave life and gave you an incredible thing in your life, and you should be thankful. So that's just the way I am. But I guess the way I was raised, my father was a very, very— he was an amazing man. In 1956, the Hungarian Revolution uprising was in 1956. So he had to escape because he was involved in the revolution. So he went to Canada. And for 7 years, we couldn't get out. My mom was stuck with 3 little boys, okay, and trying to raise them. So it took us till 1963 to get out of the country. But my father sent us money. He tried to keep helping us to try to get out. He was committed to his wife and his children. And to me, that is the biggest thing. That's why even, you know, in my first marriage, I had problems, you know, because I wanted to do things like crazy and go, go, go. My wife didn't. But I stuck around because of the kids. So I stuck around for 17 years, you know. And then I met Chantal's mom, my second wife, and I was with her for 23 years. And, you know, so, you know, but she passed away from breast cancer and I would have stayed with her forever because she was great. And then, you know, what it was is like, I thought I'm never gonna find somebody as amazing as Cindy was. And I found Kay, who was more amazing. You know, it's like, it's absolutely incredible. So if I add up all my marriages, I'm married about 50 years, of course I got you beat.

I want to say this though. First of all, I want to say that thank you for being a real man wears pink, because that is really a beautiful thing. And you do have me beat, but your, your thing— but I want to talk about the DISC for a second because I don't know. So, okay, so my story, you know, growing up in a family business and how I was treated by my brothers. And yes, I wrote the book Head Down, Shut Up. And I did write it because I had to get them to stop telling me that nobody liked me and nobody respects me and nobody— blah, blah, blah. But I will tell you that I was able to take a StrengthsFinders and a DiSC. And Alex, like, I always tend to cry when I say this because it would have changed my life. You said opposites attack. If I— if my brother had understood— and now we're gonna talk about leadership and communication— he He's just not a good leader communicator. Okay. I don't know his leadership skills because I haven't seen him in 4 years, nor does he in 4 years. But I will tell you this, he never communicated very well. And this was at a time where we didn't have the internet. And I was always arguing with him and trying to tell him communication is the most important thing. And I think he thought I was just irritating and annoying. And the problem was, is that we were our value systems are so completely different. I mean, yeah, I, you know what, in all honesty, if I was in the White House area, I, I would, I would never be in a position where I would allow something around me to go wrong and not speak my mind. So yes, I was chair of a nonprofit in town, and I'm no longer chair. And if anyone asks me, it's truly because I stood up for, for— I— you cannot You can't do things wrong with me around. You just can't. I just— you know what? And it's my— you probably heard my Elevate speech.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what? I just can't be part of anything like that. But if we had a DISC program, if my brother saw me for who I was and my personality, and then I could see him, I probably would still be at the family business. I would probably be—

but that's what saved me in real estate. I got into real estate, I was struggling for 6 months, I met Robert Kiyosaki. He introduced me to the DISC. I took the DISC test and I realized that my personality is only 10% of the population. No wonder I was having a problem making sales. And I'll tell you this, within 9 days I did 13 sales. 6 months, no sales. 9 days, 13 transactions. And then I proceeded to make 100 sales in the next 6 months. And I proceeded over the last 37 years, I sold over 3,600 properties averaging 1 100 sales per year. And why? Because here's the— here's one of the things Robert Kiyosaki said to me. If there's anything anybody going to get out of our conversation is this: if you focus on the other person, you can never make a mistake. Because that's what he said to me. He says to me, remove yourself from the equation. If you focus— treat— what— here's what the DISC is about. Do on— like, you heard the expression, do unto others as you have them do unto you, right? You know, they talk about that even in the Bible. No, do unto others as they want it done. Because there was the golden rule, the platinum rule. I call it the platinum rule. Do unto others as they want it done. The reason I got a great relationship, because I pay attention and I focus on my wife, and she is my focal point, not me. And that's what you got to do. That's why I teach the DISC. And just something else I want to talk about, because you said about you wish you would have known it earlier. I spoke at Chantal's grade 2, grade 6, grade 8, grade 11. I spoke at USF, University of Tampa. I spoke at Bethune-Cookman. I spoke at a couple of other colleges, universities. I, I have an office at UCF and also have a partner, Baruch Agbaj. We own a company called Risepreneur, and part of Risepreneur, we focus on teenagers between the age of 13 and 19 to teach them entrepreneurship. And one of the programs we teach is DISC. I've been teaching DISC for SCORE. I taught DISC at SCORE for a whole bunch of people, for a bunch of executives. I taught it all over the country, Canada and the US, and even in Africa. Because here's the thing, the DISC, if you can teach these people early, if you can, if you can catch the kids early and they understand— I did a seminar, there was 500 kids in the room. I did it in auditorium in, in Tampa. And these kids were 500 kids. And I said, how many of you want to get along with everybody? And maybe 10 hands went up. I said, how many of you want to get everything in life you ever wanted? All the hands went up. I said, the way you do that is get along with everybody.

And that's interesting.

And so I've written a book on the DISC. Okay. Uh, you know, I, I've been certified by Dr. Robert Rohm. He certified me and he's got books for kids. I got all these books and everything. So if you want to pursue this a little bit further, I'm working with the Boys and Girls Club through Frank Stewart. And any, any, and by the way, we do all of our trainings for nonprofits for free. Okay. Right now we're working with AMI Kids. You know, these are really troubled kids. I work with an organization called No Longer Fatherless because I know what it feels like not to be, not to have a father. And I give back. I mentor a little boy right now. He's 11 years old. His mother is a drug addict and a hooker in jail. His father killed himself a couple of years ago. Grandma is raising him. So I mentor him, you know, I take him out, we go fishing, we do stuff. We work with the Institute for the Blind right here in Daytona. We do a lot of stuff for free. And the reason we do that is, number one, I'm not such a great guy. That's not the reason I do it, because I'm able to. You know, when I was broke and had no money, I couldn't give anything to anybody because I was trying to take care of myself. But as Robert Kiyosaki said, you focus on the other people if you know how to give back. That's why I work with the Cancer Society, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for them, okay? And so, you know, Chantal actually spoke at one of the events where we had the big walk. We are focused on— I am very fortunate to be done well financially and everything in the years that I'm able to give back my time, money, energy, and everything else. And so the DISC and Risepreneur, you know, you should check it out, risepreneur.com.

It's very fair. I did already. It's, it's $7.99. It's a very fair price.

Oh, we make it really, really inexpensive for the kids. Well, we're going to have an adult version. We just had a meeting, me and Baruch had a meeting yesterday, and we're going to have an adult version because we're getting a lot of calls from people saying, well, you're only going to do 13 to 19-year-old, what about older kids? What about adults? I know you guys are entrepreneurs, can help people. And so we want to build an entrepreneurship journey. I actually, just before you, I had a coaching call with people up in Canada. I do coaching in, in, uh, Vegas, California, all across the country. And I'm doing a Zoom and all that. And so, I mean, I love doing live events. That, um, I really shine. The most people I ever had in a seminar was 10,000 people at a, at a RE/MAX convention when I was at RE/MAX in Las Vegas, oh, about 20-plus years ago. So, but I love speaking to groups and, and teams. And so anybody out there, reach out to me. Go to my website, alexsinek.com. That's my training coaching website. I have a lot of online training and everything. So, you know, I'm easy guy to find, you know. I'm, you know, and of course I sell real estate, you know. I love selling real estate. I own property. I'm an investor as well as selling real estate. So I, you know, I'm just having fun, you know. People say, when are you gonna retire? You got money, you got some retirement homes and all that. I go, are you out of your mind? What am I gonna do when I retire, die? No, I'm excited. I am. I feel great, you know. And so anyways, that's just— that works.

So I love it, Alex. My dad worked till the day he went into the hospital. So he was 90, 90 years old, maybe 91. I got myself confused. I think 91. He worked till the day he was in the hospital. When he was in his 70s, he was busy building his 4th and 5th art galleries because he had to. He wasn't going to just walk into a place He redid the whole thing and the walls to the whole, you know, A to Z on my dad. So I grew up thinking there was never retirement. I don't— I want— I've been wanting to meet Baruch, and now that we are at the UCF incubator, I think with him, right, for SCORE, he's at the—

oh yeah, we have an office, we have an office there. You can let us know. I mean, obviously we're not there as much because of the COVID thing, but I met with him yesterday. We met at the Barnes Noble up here on LPGA. And we're talking about how do we expand the business? Can we include adults and everything? Because we're getting so many requests from people. We're getting requests from China and India and England. People are saying, hey, can you help us? Because here's the thing, there's two ways to learn: from your own mistakes or mistakes of others. I made a ton of mistakes. I had— I made millions, I lost millions. And that's through our experience, we're able to do things. And here's, here's the thing that I just want to point out. A lot of coaches are like travel agents. They will send you to places they've never been. Somebody said to me years ago, become a tour guide. I'm a tour guide. I can never— I will never tell you to do something I've never done myself or not able to do or not willing to do. So I'm a tour guide. So is Baruch. We live through it, the bankruptcy, the problems. He's a Russian immigrant. Okay. I'm a Hungarian immigrant. And so I lived through war. I live— I've seen people get killed on the street. You know, I'm not going to tell you a big sob story or anything like that, walking to school every day uphill in the snow, bare feet, you know, none of that. But so what I'm saying is I've got enough experience. That's why I co-authored 3 books. I'm passing on my message. You know, I've got some great stories and, and lessons we can teach people. And so That's why I'm involved in One Million Cups. I'm at SCORE, you know, Cancer Society. I'm in the part of the chamber like you are, you know, and I'm looking to see how do we make the life of others a little bit better than they have it right now, okay? And that's what I'm about. You know, I have a tagline called I'm committed to your growth 100%.

I love that. I love— you know, I have to tell you, I was the worst when it came with etiquette. I thought burping was funny. I've been to board meetings drunk and hungover, and, you know, and especially in my 30s, like, you know, I mean, I've gotten so drunk at an event that when my brother asked me if we won any awards, I very quickly said no until someone else sent me pictures of myself up there cheesing for the awards. But that is why I went to the Protocol School of Washington, because I realized I don't know how to sit there and eat. We'd have vendor dinners with 6 glasses of wine and all the silverware, and I'd be whispering, how do I do this? And I never was comfortable. And so my going to the Protocol School of Washington and the ability to teach corporate etiquette and now virtual etiquette And, you know, I don't get paid for— I like donating my time on that. That's how I could give back a lot. But, but to me, that's really important. So please use me because the kids need the information now and things have changed. So it's no longer handshakes. They get back to it. But still, other people, you know, we have to always think about other people. So I found though that I knew that I wanted to— instinctively, I knew I wasn't doing things correctly. I knew in my heart that I needed to learn how to do it correctly, and that would help me And whether you go to the Protocol School of Washington yourself or whether you learn from someone who's actually been there. But I love that you said, because I made all the mistakes and I'm very happy to teach the kids or the adults corporate etiquette. Please include me when you're looking for training.

We would love to get you into our curriculum. We have an online training and what we need to do is talk about how we can connect together and you could shoot some videos for us that we can put on our website. And on corporate etiquette, you could teach a course on it. It's like I'm on Teachable. I have a lot of my stuff on Teachable, and you can teach a course, maybe 4 or 5 modules or something, and then we can give that to people, nonprofits, for free. And then anybody that's subscribed to our system, then, you know, you get a little piece of that or whatever. But here's the thing, okay? It's, for me, it's all about how do we— and I read books, I go to seminars. I, I know now I do more audiobooks because as I travel around, I listen in the car, you know. And so it's, it's all about how do you elevate yourself constantly. And somebody said to me, as long as you're green, you're growing. As soon as you're ripe, you rot, you know. And I never want to be ripe. I'm always inquisitive, okay. I'm always, always trying to grow, always trying to get better at everything. And so You know, it's all about— and to me, the community is important. You know, when I lived in Tampa, I was involved in the community. We moved over here, we're involved in the community. We do everything that we can possibly do. So any way that we can collaborate and work together and do things together, because, you know, and I've got some great, great stories of experiences that people can really learn from, you know. I was doing a coaching call this morning and I explained to this person on how I lost my butt in, in business and I lost, you know, a million, couple of million dollars. And they were like, really? Oh, so you're not perfect? Oh, heck no. I made so many mistakes. I know how to get into trouble and how to get out of trouble. Okay, so that, that's the thing. But to me, it's also all about collaboration, connections, and dealing with people. And here's something that my good friend Greg S. Reid said. Him and I co-authored a book. He said, "Your lifestyle, your income, your attitude, everything about you is an average of the 5 people you hang around the most." So be careful who you choose to be in your huddle, in your group. And I'm very, very selective with people. You know, they got to be the same mindset. They have to be, you know, at my age, you know, I'm 71, I'm going to be 72 this year. I look at it this way: life is too short. I'm closer to the end than the beginning. I do plan to live to 120, but I'm still shorter distance to that 120. And what I want to do is eliminate the negativity from my life. If somebody is negative, somebody's a pain in the butt, You know what? See you later. Life's too short. Okay? If something is not working, dump it. Get rid of it. When we moved, we went through our closets and we went through everything and we said, we don't need all this stuff. We donated so much stuff already and we still have garage full of stuff. You know why? We traveled across Europe for 21 days in a backpack, went to 10 countries, and we swapped houses. We stayed in a castle that was built in the 1400s. And we realized that you don't need a lot. What you need is in here. It's not the stuff. I don't— I drive a 10-year-old car. Why? I could buy a brand new car. I actually ordered myself the brand new Corvette, and then I decided not to buy it because I thought it's going to bother me that that much money sitting in my garage, you know. You know, we simplified our life. We, you know, My wife's got a car that's 8 years old, you know. Why? Why? We spend so much time trying to keep up with the Joneses. We spend so much time, you know. My father died at age 63, okay? When he died, 63, okay? I only was with him for a short period of time because from 60— from 19— sorry, 1973. From '63 to '73, and then he died in '73. My mom died at 91. She partied, she drank, she smoked, she had fun and everything. She lived to 91. Okay, so here's my attitude. I'm gonna enjoy my life. I'm not gonna be too crazy about my diet and all that kind of stuff. I do exercise and all that, but here's the thing. Once you got that relationship— and when I talk about relationships, it's not just me and my wife, it's my relationship with you. My relationship with somebody like Frank Stewart, my relationship with Sean Donovan, my relationship with some of the people at the 1 Million Cups, you know, Cheryl at the Cancer Society, okay? Some of these people, and I'm just, you know, if I didn't mention your name, you're in my huddle. But here's the thing, these people I hang around with, I interact with and everything, and if things are clicking, great. And if they're not, move on and have fun and enjoy life. And that's, that's what we're about now, and that's why we moved here. And actually, we told Chantal that under the age of, you know, like anybody under age 55 can't live here. Well, the truth is anybody 19 can actually live here if there's 55-year-old living here. But we didn't tell her that because we didn't want to come back. We wanted to build her own life.

Okay, but I can tell— at least I know that for myself, 4 years. So when Alana turns 19, I won't get kicked out if we do move there and she comes back for a little—

okay, right. Yeah, because we did have an extra bedroom for Chantel. We had a bedroom for her, but we didn't want her to live with us, not because we didn't want her. She needed to build her own life.

And she's so lucky to be able to do that. I love that. You know, I don't know if you know this, but Alana and I— my husband wasn't able to come, so he moved to Massachusetts. But we went to China and we got rid of everything. And, you know, we had moved a few times in our life and my daughter got that lesson of honestly just that feeling of, you know, nothing really— there's nothing really important. I bought my first car myself because I've always been in the family business. I've always been given leased cars and all of that. And I bought myself a 2005 Honda Civic with 55,000 miles on it. It's amazing. It's got 60 7,000 miles a year later, looks like a brand new car even though it's already 15 years old. But I love that in life.

I don't—

I had a sister-in-law that would actually look at me and not understand why I wasn't wearing the, um, oh, the names. You know what, when I first went to Miami, I saw my first MK bag and I said out loud— I am at this like an Aventura Marketing Council, big event, 250 people there, and my buddy Oscar's behind me, and I see an MK bag and I go, oh my God, I didn't know Mary Kay made such beautiful bags. And he patted me on the head and he said, oh, we gotta teach Adrian. And I understand brands because I sell brands. So believe me, as promotional products, you know, career, I understand it. But I myself, I'm like you, I don't need to wear a brand. I don't need to wear the same clothes. And I— and my attractions, I love my mom's napkins. Nothing— this gives me— this makes me happy, a napkin. And things that are so much simpler in life. So I really appreciate you saying that because there's beauty in that.

It is, you know, and you don't need to— like, I have probably about $200,000 worth of jewelry in a safety deposit box that Chantal's mom loved jewelry. So we saved it for Chantal when she grows up, when she gets to be older, because we don't give it to her now. Like, some of these earrings are like $6,000 and all that. She loves jewelry. But you know what? The woman was making $400 grand a year. So we had a deal. You can spend half the money every year, give me the other half, and I'll invest it. So, you know, that's why we were able to buy real estate. And so we've got stuff, but, you know, I wear nothing. My wedding band, okay, it was $100. Okay, it's a steel thing with a black circle in it. You know, I bought Kay a really nice one. You know, I spent bucks on that one. But I'm not fancy. I, I had a Rolex. I wear a Fitbit because I want to measure what I do every day, you know. And so, you know, I've got, I've got watches in my, my cabinet here, you know, a couple of hundred dollars. I have one for $1,000. I don't wear it because it's not about being fancy. And the thing is, I have a, I have a thing on my wall here. I got to show this to you. Okay, can you, can you see it?

Oh, what is that? Is that David Bowie? Nicholson in the, um, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, correct?

And you know what it says? It says, no, your approval isn't needed.

Wait, I am who I am and you're what?

What is it? I am who I am and your approval isn't needed.

Your opinion? That's awesome.

Okay, so I love it.

That's awesome.

I dropped my microphone. And that's how I'm, I'm living now. That's how we live, me and Kay. You know what, we are who we are. And, and I, I meant to mention earlier, I think I was put on this earth to help people and push them out of the comfort zone. And that's how I coach. I say it like it is. I don't mince the words, you know. There is no fancy stuff. I I only have a grade 10 education, okay? I didn't go to college. Actually, I did go to college for 3 years because I owned the pizza place next door and used to deliver pizzas to the college, okay?

That's awesome. So am I seeing you on Friday?

Yes, I'm gonna be— there's the, uh, the Positive Thought Alliance call, okay? I have a little bit of a conflict of another event that I have to be at. So I'll probably be on about half of the stuff. I won't be able to make all of it because I have a very important thing that I have to do on Friday. But I'm trying to fit everything in, you know, because I love Frank and I really like what he's doing. And so anyways, uh, we, we have to work together, things happen together.

So I agree, I do too, I really do. So I'm happy that, um, I love this opportunity to talk to you. I've always liked you, but I, I've never— we— this is the first time we really had a communication together, and it's thrilling because I really love to see you. So I really, really appreciate it. It's been nice. Yeah.

Can I tell another story before we wrap?

Yeah, of course you can. Oh my gosh, I'm all ears.

Okay, so this story I, I've been telling obviously forever, uh, 1963, we left Hungary to come to, uh, to come to, uh, Canada. Okay, and in 1963, we arrived October 31st, and October 31st is what? Halloween. And there is no Halloween in Hungary. Okay, so what happened was, you know, we arrived in Canada, we didn't speak a word of English, and our Hungarian friends taught us some English, and the English they taught us was, "Trick or treat, give me something good to eat." That's what we learned. Okay, so we put on these masks and we got this big bag, we went out and we knocked on doors, we said, "Trick or treat, give me something good to eat." Oh wait, wait one second, somebody is here. Hold on one sec.

Oh, okay, that's okay. We're Candid, we're Candid Conversation. I can't wait to hear the finish of the story. Isn't Alex awesome? It's so nice. I really do love living here in Daytona Beach because I get the pleasure of meeting different people, and Candid Conversations has just been— well, I changed it, as you may know, to Adrienne Barker Speaks. Oh, who was it?

My wife left me all alone. It's a— it's— we have some little things that have to be fixed in the house, so the guy is here, so I told him to wait. Anyways, I gotta finish the story. So anyways, we go out, we're out till 11 o'clock at night, we got big bags of candy, go home, and it's fantastic. The next night, 5 o'clock, me and my brother put on our masks again, got our bags, and went out. Okay, we did not know.

The next night?

Yeah, we didn't know it was— We didn't know it was only one night. We didn't know it was only one night a year. So we went out and we went to the first door, knocked on the door. Lady come to the door and we, trick or treat, give us something good to eat. And she kept saying something in English. We didn't speak English, so we just kept saying that. And finally she gave up, went to the kitchen, got some candy, threw it in the bag. And then we went to the next door and knocked on door. There was a guy came to the door and he looked like really angry. And he was, you know, and so slammed the door in our face and we left. And I said to my brother, "Something wrong." I said, "You know, much nicer yesterday. I don't know what his problem is." But we didn't give up. We just kept going and we spent about an hour going around and some people gave us candy, some people didn't give us candy, some people slammed the door in our face, and some people were saying some words. I'm sure some four-letter words that we didn't understand, but we didn't speak English. So we got home and our friends told us, "Dumb immigrants, you know, what you're doing is—" is crazy because here's the thing, you know, I mean, it's once a year. I said, you never told us. But I'll tell you this, and this is the most important part of it. We learned 3 lessons that day. I learned 3 lessons that I've been using ever since in my business, in interacting with people. Number 1, if you persist, some people are going to respond positively. Number 2, if you don't listen to people's negativity, you can succeed. In our case, we couldn't listen to the negativity and discouragement because we didn't speak English. And number 3, I say it like this, the right script, in other words, if you say the right words, even on a wrong day, it's gonna work.

Wow. Wow. That is a great way to end this. And that is a great story. I love that story. I look forward to seeing you in real life, Alex. You're such a lovely man. I look forward to seeing your wife. I look forward to introducing you to my husband, Alan. And maybe the four of us can do something together after COVID. And thank you. Have a great rest of the day and week. Okay, bye. Thank you. That was great. Bye-bye. Oh my God.