What I Learned From Filming 100 Podcast Episodes | On The Homefront With Jeff Dudan #105

Hey, everyone. We have officially hit 100 episodes on the home front this year. I just want to take a moment to say a huge thank you to all of you, our loyal listeners, for being with us on this amazing ride. Whether you've been here from day one or just joined the journey, your support means everything to me and the team. So to celebrate, we've put together some of our best moments from the show, highlighting the unbelievably extraordinary guests, powerful stories, and, of course, the. All the laughs we've shared along the way. Let's keep it going. And here's to the next hundred.

Watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me Watch what I can do.

We live in for today like it's our last. You know, we. We've got this podcast. It's going really well. It's going better than we expected it to, obviously, because you're on. I mean, who would. Who would have ever thought we'd have John Davids on. On the home front? But, you know, sometimes dreams come true, John. You know, you just. If you just keep. If you live long enough.

Listen, man, I see you climbing the charts, and I have tuned in. I mean, this podcast is really good, and I'm actually surprised that you haven't been doing it for longer because you're really polished at it. It's climbing the charts fast. You look great on camera.

Ah, well, hey, I appreciate it. You can keep going. I sold a significant business in 2019 that I built over almost 25 years. And my wife's comment was, I'm looking forward to spending more time with you. I waited three days, and I've launched 31 businesses in five years. We can't help it. It's. It is. It's who we are.

And I guess loving what you do has its benefits and has its challenges.

Oh, and by the way, it's my birthday, so I. I think those.

Happy birthday, dude.

Serendipity56 today, closing on our sixth brand. And I.

You and I are the same age, man. We're one month apart.

Wow. Yeah.

Mine's May 22nd. We're two weeks apart.

Oh, happy birthday to you. I say, look, there's three little words that ultimately got my wife to marry me. The first, you know, and they're like, is it I love you? I said, no, it's. Lower your. Lower your standards. No. So. But no, it's. These three words are rushed to conflict. Some people get paid by the hour. Other people get paid commission or by the job, but true leaders get paid by the conversation. It's the engagements that we have, it's the words that we say, it's the clarity that we create, it's the inspiration that we give to people. And like that's, that's what, that's what people want to be a part of. And so, so, and if it's, it's anybody who's in a leadership position, you know, it's their responsibility to kind of further that agenda and then look, and then we all just get to work after it. No, it's not going to be perfect. You know, we don't, by the way, when we make a mistake, like it's not like when the angels make a mistake, like nobody dies generally, you know, here. So, you know, we have a greater margin of error than certainly you did.

Wow.

Love your answer. I can see why you're helping so.

Many companies and so many people.

We teach our children to speak up. We teach them to, you know, advocate for themselves. But you know, they need to do that respectfully and they need to earn it. I mean, you get people to come into a company and they've been there three, three months now and they're telling you how to run the business and that they need to be vice president. Where, you know, when we were growing up and I don't know what kind of jobs you had growing up, I assumed you played sports. I mean, I've seen Hercules. Right, so you actually, I got the.

Hercules sword here right behind me that was given to me the very last day of seven years on Hercules. It's got the dates 1993 through 2000 on there and says the journey may be over, but the legend lives on. So it's very nice of them to give me that as a gift as.

I left the series, you know, I like to ask like 14 questions and then give you a chance to respond. I noticed if you looked out, I had to write.

I know, right?

I was like, oh my God, he's right. By the way, I'll share with you. I shared with you. My daughter went to Clemson. She graduated there in accounting. She got a 4.0. She's in law school at NYU. She got accepted. So she's a first year law student at NYU and yet she applied for a job at your company and was turned down. So I'm not sure. Really. Yeah, man.

Yeah.

She had to go over to, she had to go over to F45.

So I just quickly looked up her profile. So one of the things that we, and I don't know any because I've never met with Your daughter. One of the things that we make applicants do throughout the onboarding process is do at least 10 classes before. Before they get to my interview. So I look on her profile. She's only done two classes, and she hadn't been in two and some auditions because I have a young. I have a younger look, so I would.

Not that there's anything wrong.

No, not at all. I'm embracing. I look at this thing, it's like a neck beard.

You really got to understand the business, assess it before you go and get into it. You know, I people all the time, oh, I make the best meatballs. I make the best this. I'm going to open a restaurant. And I'm like, I wouldn't do that. You know, because a $1.2 million restaurant is going to give you $90,000 at the end of it, and you're going to work 160 hours. Is it worth it? And by the way, you're going to be calling me at three point, you know, $350,000 in debt in six months.

I mean, we literally piecemealed our manufacturing together. We went from, you know, baking chips by hand and bagging them by hand and cutting them by hand. Mark's bicep was like, right? Bicep was massive. So, you know, it's stuff like that that tells you. Everybody's like, well, well, how'd you figure out how to manufacture and build this whole production line? Well, look, if you got a bicep that's 4 inches bigger on your right arm and then on your left, then you want. Then, you know, well, I need something to cut this, right? And you go out and you. You tore other chip plants, and you're like, oh, this is how they cut it. Oh, this is how they cut that. Oh, this is how they cut carrots for Campbell's soup. And, well, maybe we can cut our bread like that. And that's actually what we did, was we ended up with one of those cutters and we respaced the blades. So instead of cutting that tiny little carrot in the soup, it cut the bread.

I don't even want to say this mo. This guy would overinflate the football. So it was so hard, and it was one of those plastic ones. It was so slippery. And that's what we would kick off with. And sometimes they would fumble it. So, like, that's again, like, you're allowed to do it. But, like, that's bending the rules to an extreme. Shame on that man for, you know, doing that to 12 year old kids. But that being said, you know, that was the one how he decided he wanted to create a turnover.

I'm gonna come into the mic and.

I'm gonna look Jeff in his eyes.

We beat Coach K in his last game. To all my dookies out there. When I got there, man, I remember the first time we played the Kansas City Chiefs, I went out and got a big hit knocked out, Preece Holmes. And so I was playing hard like that because I was trying to earn that respect. Because a lot of guys, the older guys, especially Danny and Thompson, they didn't want to call me lights out. They called me rookie of 56.

Heard a story about a rookie dinner that you had to buy. If they didn't respect you and know who you were, then you wouldn't have been at the table. But yeah, that $32,000 bill, feeding those, feeding those boys.

Hey, look, I wish they did. I wish they didn't know me around, around that time.

No, just because my New Year's resolution was two cups of coffee a day. So that's one.

I only got up or down from where you were at.

I was like 20, dude. So now I get two 30 ounces.

You need to buy generous. You'd be our biggest purchaser.

Well, I'm going to. As soon as I get. Oh, geez. Yeah. And you asked me, said, well, what does the show do? I said, well, we educate, entertain and inspire. And you're like. And you pull it and you had it on your paper.

Yeah, yeah, that was so.

Yeah, that's right.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, I'd say a lot of our shows, we want to do all of that. Yeah. So it's in that order, though, for us. Inspire, educate and entertain. But a lot of the content we're like, just because it's executive, you know, executives being featured doesn't mean it has to be lame. It can still be fun and interesting and exciting and how you can cut these clips up can be fun. So I think you can do it with all kinds of content. Everything is just how you structure a story and how you can relate to that person.

I challenge you to speak positively to somebody you've never spoken to by giving them a compliment and to smile at people that you've never smiled at before. Because that little impact, that little contribution that you make, I mean, it could. You never know what that just little bit of effort is going to do for that person, how they're feeling that day, what connection you're going to have. And that's what you're saying is this. It's like a ripple on a pond. And our lives are just these things. And how big do you want the ripples to be? How big of an impact do you want to make?