David Greenberg - Co-Founder of Greenberg Capital LLC | Growing the NYMEX from $800M to $12B

Today, my guest is David Douglas Greenberg. He's a crisis management and business continuity expert. He helps businesses, academic institutions, clients, non-profits, overcome the most unexpected challenges and helps them recover from difficult situations. He is over 30 years of experience in the financial industry. He served as an executive chair and board member on the New York Mercantile Exchange or NYMEX, the world's largest physical commodities exchange. He was also part of the team that led the exchange to be reopened after the 9-11 attacks. He played a key role in growing the New York Mercantile Exchange from an $800 million valuation to over a $12 billion valuation and he was instrumental in its merger with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2008. He is a frequent media commentator and contributor on Bloomberg, Fox Business, CNBC and other outlets. He is also involved in various philanthropic and educational initiatives. He's a board member of the Junior Achievement Organization of South Florida, the United Negro College Fund of South Florida Leadership Council, the 9-11 Tribute Center, and the Southfield Academy. He also advises and acts as an executive coach to the Florida Panthers. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. Quick shout out to HubSpot. Before we get started, HubSpot has an incredible tool called Sales Hub. If you haven't checked it out now, you got to why? Well, you know what time it is. It is sweater weather, football season, Q4. This is the home stretch for your business. It is time to close out another year of growth, another year of business building strong and to prep for the next year of more revenue, more customers, more deals. 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That got me hungry and that's what started my whole, you know, I mean before entrepreneurship is like what it is now. You know, I guess looking back between that, my business is I did in college and other things, it's like getting paid is really good. Getting paid is really good. I mean, there's nothing to be wrong with making money. I feel like people are scared of it sometimes to be quite honest, but they are, but you know, I do so much charity work on top of it. Yeah, with, you know, with which we can talk about with my junior achievements and my, you know, college funds and all this other stuff that I do, I believe that you have to even it out. It's important because, you know, not only for your mindset, but it's giving back is the most important thing. I teach in all my classes that one kid once said to me, he goes, how do you know you made it? You know, what's the number? I go one. What do you mean one? I go change one person's life, you know, and that to be honest with you, it was better than any dollar I've ever made, but to be able to make the money and change people's lives at the same time. You have that mindset, your whole life, like I did when you're hungry, like even when you're young in college, because some people get super selfish, they get greedy and they're like, oh, I'm working my ass off in college, I, or not, I'm building a business, whatever it is. And like the first version of life for a lot of people is make as much money as humanly possible and they forget the others. I was like that, especially in the trading days, because every day was a blank P&L and I had the trade of my own money. So when you only train your own money, because you're a much different view than someone that trades other people's money, but that's also why I was able to do some of the things that I did, like my network is so extensive, because when I went out with people, they knew there was never an ask, you know, that I could never ask. It wasn't like, you know, somebody's financial advisors are like, but the end of the night, oh, by the way, let me look at your portfolio. So I am, you know, I'm a constantly arisen through, you know, some very wealthy people, because they know that I don't ask anything. If I'm doing something that they're interested in it, that's great. But, you know, but early on, when I had that hunger, you know, for the month, for making money, I also always was very, very clear about the people around me, because, you know, I grew up in an average, long Island household. My father, who is a mathematical genius, and it skipped three grades, was when he found commodities, he was 38 and broke, you know, and, you know, and then he just happened to find the best business for his mathematical skills and became chairman of the exchange and one of the biggest silver chairs and all the other things like that. But so I grew up in a very, you know, normalized situation as opposed to a lot of the people these days. Yeah. So a lot of people's these days, they're in a situation where they're so affluent, you know, that they lose all respects for cash. You know, I think that people are affluent, but also there's, there's like a fake middle class, where you think you have a lot, but in all seriousness, a lot of the things that you're using every day are just, they're just cheaper and more accessible. And they're borrowed. And they're all borrowed and leased and rented. I once I did start doing well, I never had a mortgage, you know, because people like, well, you know, I remember one time when I did my first house, she's like, she's like, well, I said, well, I got six or seven, you know, I'm covered. So if something else, she goes, okay, you got six or seven months of no, I'm like, no, I could do this payment for six or seven years. And she's like, well, why do you buy a bigger house? I'm like, I don't need a bigger house. And that's the thing. I mean, what I found is that especially as a trader, that you wanted to always have what you could pay for because you didn't want to ever be in the position that in a bad year, bad month or bad, whatever that your family would have to suffer. That's so interesting. So I had a whole lecture on living below the radar because I know I saw a lot some of your stuff, and I want, I want to go into some of the lectures because it's a really good, it's really good point to bring out, but that's an interesting mindset to have because a lot of people that are in the finance space and traders are in finance. Sure. A lot of them live in debt. Massing out to debt, right? So you have like the between the the Robert Kiyosaki rich debt poor debt versus like the Dave Ramsey two polar opposites where a lot of people and you know, sir, I knew one trader that ever at the end of every quarter goes, oh, I have to have a good quarter. I'm like, why is this? Well, I have to make my money for my taxes. I'm like, what? He was like, spend everything I make the first three quarters. Yeah. I said, what happens if you have a losing quarter? He's like, well, then I'm screwed. You know, but what I always did was every 100,000 I took out of my account. I put 40 away for taxes. So I overpaid my tax account. I took 30 into savings that I wouldn't touch. And I live on that 30. I'd work on that 30. So, you know, I was always I was so conservative in what I spent. I mean, I'm not saying that I didn't. Super responsible. Yeah, I didn't, you know, it goes back to when, you know, first of all, my father taught me, you know, very early on to be that to respect money. No matter how much money you have, you gotta always respect it. And when I got that, you know, that cash from my grandfather, I put in my cigar box. Yeah. You know, and then the cash went out. It hurt at the same time. You know, it was felt good that you did it, but you saw that it went in and out. So I was always very conservative. I was a medium-sized trader. If I was less conservative, I might have made more trading because I would have been a bigger trader and more comfortable with the risk. However, at the same time, I might have blown it faster. Yeah. I mean, there's always both potential. I go traders that were so big and so wealthy and are so broke right now. You know, because it was the, you know, it was about the 10,000 square foot houses and that this thing. I mean, it's a great story that when we went public, and a guy came up to me and it was just, I hated, you know, when my daughter was with near me. And he goes, so are you going to buy a Ferrari? So I said, you know, you know, the best thing about being able to buy a Ferrari is he goes, what? I go, not buy one. So then years, so I ended up looking at it and asked the Martin. Yeah. And it was the DB9 convertible blue Bentley leather. It was gorgeous. I'm not paying that for a car. So about five years later, my friend calls me up. He goes, I found your car. Same car, you know, 100,000, you know, I'm like, I'm not paying 100,000 for a huge car. He goes, go to the guy's house. I go to the guy's house and it's this massive estate, you know, you know, equestrian everything. And I walk in, I go, what's the story? He goes, I just caught my wife screwing the equestrian teacher. He goes, you see that car out there? I'm like, yeah, he goes, it's hers, but it's in my name. I just looked at him and go, how much? So he goes 70,000. If you can get, why are it now? Get it off the property. So for that, I bought the car for 70,000. I drove for a year and a half. I drove for eight. I sold it for 85,000. It was, you know, that's not bad deal. To me, that was value. Yeah. Yeah. But I was always very, very conservative in my spending. So that you got this from your dad, your family, walk me through even your career journey a little bit. Just a teara for listening. I was sure. Like, how did you get in? I know it makes sense. You got in the trading now that I know the story of your dad, right? Not everybody does exactly what their parents do. No, but it was, you know, I clerked a few summers on the trading floor in Newark. And, you know, when you were on the trading floor, I don't know, some of your people are too young to know trading places or that one scene in Ferris Bueller when everything's going. But being on the trading floor, I mean, imagine this. I mean, if it was ever listening, just a close your eyes for a second and think about being in a room that's 25,000 square feet wide and big with no columns with 40 foot ceilings with these amazing electronic wall boards all over the place where people yell and scream in their brains out all day. And it was, it was the biggest rush. And when you walked into that, you know, how people talk about energy now? Yeah. I mean, I don't know from energy. When you walked on that trading floor, you know, and if you were in a bad mood, it was great. You'd go and pick a fight with somebody and rip each other apart. And, you know, it's just basically, you know, we had a thick is like therapy. No, it's not great. I mean, there were times I wasn't trading well, you know, my father'd say, go down, pick a fight with somebody. Then he's going to make sure you can win. Yeah. You know, but no, but it was the biggest rush. So once you saw that, you know, I was like, okay, I want to do this. But it was very important for me and my father to separate the two separated two, what's the family for us? Yeah. So, you know, and what was interesting is that so I started off in Chicago when he was in New York. So I started as a runner, as we were talking about making, you know, like three thousand seventy five cents an hour. And then I remember the day that the phone clerk got into a fight with the head guy, they fired the phone clerk. They looked at me and said, you're now the phone clerk. I went to the bathroom. I threw up because they didn't know what I was going to do. I screwed up every order. You know, I mean, I mean, it's just they probably close the company more than what my salary would have been. But, you know, it taught me on what it was like to deal with the pressure quickly. And we can talk about that, you know, you know, after this. But, you know, being seeing that environment and then you know that, you know, it's like when you have a chance to go to something that exciting, you know, it's either you do it or you don't. Yeah. Because some people didn't last a week and said, I don't, I don't like this. Is that, is that change at all? Like that whole environment? Oh, no, it's gone. It's completely gone. You were looking at the only board member in the world that voted against electronic trading, you know, and I voted against it because one, they, they lied to the trading floor saying that was going to help them. When I knew it was going to put them out of business, I didn't think that the compliance was ready for it. I was not lying to the guys in the trading floor because I was one of the floor guys. And I also was worried about what you see now. There's a clip from me from 2011 on CMBC talking about high frequency trading. And I remember what I said. I said, if you think of 400 point moves fast now, wait, you see it, you know, in a few years from now. So what happens now is with the trading, you get these tsunami of order flows coming in each direction. So it's made trading more of a gambling situation rather than a strategic, you know, situation. And people are just getting whipped back and forth, you know, in these markets. So, but now there's no trading floors left. It's all gone. Does it exist like other places in the world still or no? No, I mean, not really. Even the stock market, you know, they, you know, it's like I did an article after a super source, Sam, Sam, with, um, with, uh, Charles Gasparino with Fox, like they closed the stock market because they said people couldn't get there. You didn't need people to get those. Only 10 people there anyway. Yeah. You know, they have people come down when they're opening up a new product. So it looks like it's busy. But if you went to the stock market now, you have where I used to be on CMBC, you have that, you know, state, you know, that's yet right in the middle. You know, you couldn't have done that back in the day. So no, there's no trading and maybe one percent of trading is done, you know, on the trading floor. And I always said those are the guys that really didn't like their wives of their girlfriends. They just don't want to be home. Now, I saw some, I saw some clips and it's just while I saw you, like, right and shit down on cards. Oh, yeah, you're slow and getting spit on all day, getting smacked in the head. It was awesome. So this is, this is like, this is what, what age are you when you're doing this? So I came right out of college, I started in Chicago. Okay. Um, literally like two weeks out. So what was that? And maybe also explain the different types of exchanges because you were one, you were one type of exchange. Yeah, we were a physical commodity exchange. So the physical commodities change was the, you know, and that's because your dad knew that very well. And well, no, he was actually in the silver side. So there was four different exchanges. Explain this because I don't, I don't know this as well. So you had comics. Well, imagine this table being a four in the original trading floor. You had one corner with comets, which was gold, silver, copper. Okay. Another corner, which was the orange juice exchange, which was orange juice. And then you had the coffee sugar cocoa, which was coffee sugar cocoa. And then you had the New York mercantil exchange, which was, um, it ended up being gas, natural gas, um, under said, okay, and all those things. So we ended up buying comics years later and these two exchanges merged. So, you know, there's the stock market, which is for stocks and commodities, which is for an actual physical commodity. So with my exchange, we ended up after buying comics, um, we ended up being being the exchange that did, you know, physical commodities like literal crude oil, little heating oil. I mean, one day that I was in New York and like, he didn't know a broker came to my house to sell me heating oil. So he says, you know, not on the door and he says, listen, this is the price. I'm like, hang on for a second. And he goes, what? I call the trading floor. I go, no, this is the price. I go, you literally knocked on the wrong person's house. You're not even close, you know. So, um, so yeah, so that's how that was traded. Understood. Okay. So you do this right into college. So walk me through career as like, like, what's the progression of a trader? What's the career life of a trader? It depends on how you go in this different ways. Why also just another point you mentioned before, why only your own money? Um, well, you know, for one, you made more. Okay. So in the pit, there were, there were floor brokers, ups, you know, floor brokers on the top. Yeah. Think about a ring with, um, and they did, they traded some of their corporate money, their money, and they did customer orders. But, you know, when you were what we call it a local trader, you know, it was like literally, you want to talk about the batching of entrepreneurship. Yeah. Every day, you put your money on the line. It was yours and, you know, you made it and what you made, you made and what you, what you lost your loss. I mean, you know, these, you know, I've got no offense to some of my friends that are, you know, financial advisors, but walking goes down a thousand points, they have to call their people up. Well, you had a bad day, but, you know, they'll still get their commission. Yeah. When I had a bad day, it was my bad day. You know, you might go home, kick the dog and, you know, just put your head under the pillow, because, you know, that was the kids college or that was the kids, you know, you know, um, summer camp or whatever. But there was no greater rush. So that's why when I, when I talked to people, the first thing I said when they said they were a trader, I said, did you trade your own money? Because it gives you, I think a lot of the reasons why I have the perspectives and lives and life that I do, not only from some of the events that I went through that we'll talk about, was that you couldn't lie to yourself as a trader. Yeah. Okay. You know, the, the thing that really drives people nuts about me, especially when I coach them and some of my friends, I said, you know, it's friend of mine that, um, CEO of a billion dollar company and I walk into it as always goes, I love this guy. He goes, you always know where you stand. You know, because I don't allow people to live in their little fantasy because we couldn't. If you were long and the market was long means you want the market going up and the market's going down, you will lose the money. You can't lie to yourself. Yeah. Whereas like, you know, you're, you're dealing with other people's money. Well, then it's like, hold on. Yeah. I love this. You know, the markets lower by more. I'm like, that's adding to a bad position in my mind. Yeah. I mean, it's like, now what's happening and all these Reddit traders got destroyed. Well, that's what I'm so curious about. Because like now I see these people selling investment courses and day trading on YouTube. I'm sorry. I just, no, no, I know, but this is like, this is the shit that you're dealing with. Yeah. And none of them have the experience that I have and the people on the trading floor. Yeah. And you know, when they're like, well, you know, you have to remember, you had a 15 year period that every time the market came off, it bounced. Yeah. So everybody's like, and I would teach my class, guys, it doesn't have to bounce. So when they had the whole AMC thing and all the other things were like, oh, by the tip, by the tip, um, I had this one trade I call it my public's pharmacy trade. And I would walk in and my public's pharmacist would go, I got, I got diamond hands. You know, what does that mean? We're never letting go. We're never selling. I go, what do you never selling? He goes, AMC and, um, game stop. So I'm like, okay, good. I go to my e-trade account. I sell like 3000 game stop. You know, he's like, what are you doing? He goes, you can't go short. That's illegal. I go, no, it's not illegal. Number one, I go, one, I'm not going short to bury the company. I'm going short because you're telling me I should buy it. So I go short market comes off. Buy it back. You know, I was in the next day, you know, and bounced after I bought it back. So he goes, told you diamond hands, diamond hands, I'm sold again. You know, I mean, I made a lot of money off my pharmacist because I said, where are you getting this information? And he's like, oh, the guy in the produce, you know, he knows his stuff because he's following some guy and you too, he goes buy every dip. And let me tell you something, you buy every dip and it's a great way to blow yourself out. And so many people got hurt in the stock market sell off of the past two years because what happens is that nobody, I teach what, you know, in my trading classes and my investing classes that you always take some profit. I love when people say, I don't want to take profit. I want to pay the taxes. And they call them up and go, well, now you got less taxes. So, you know, nobody knows the art of, you know, managing your money within a position. So they buy, buy, buy in the way up and they buy, buy, buy in the way, buy, buy here and then try, hit the top of the trial and you're buy, buy, buy here. Now you're down on this and you're down on this. So when people said, you know, the stock market was down 20 percent, you know, the other year, people down 40 percent, you know, on some stuff because they, they dollar cost averaged and didn't work their way. And you know, we, as I said, there's a difference between adding to a position and adding to a bad position. And it's never taught the right way. And people go in and they just screw themselves over. So you got all these people online that no offense to them. I mean, I'll go against my trading and my, you know, statistics any day against some of these people. But I think it's also because you have these communities pop up from crypto trading. Oh, yeah. And then everyone's an expert overnight. Oh, everybody, I was on a clubhouse one night and it was 1200 people in the room. And this guy says, Bitcoin's going to 250,000. And I just went, why? And didn't say the new silence in the room. And he's like, what? I'm like, why? Well, there's only 23 more. That's not true anymore. You know, he's like, what do you mean that's not true? I said, well, derivatives and now they're trading on the CME and now they're trading against other currencies. As a trader, I know the way these things work. Now you have a natural push on the market. It's not just the one way market anymore. And the guy just like, but it's going to 250. I know it. And I'm like, OK, you know, that's what it went from 60 down to, you know, when people got pushed on that wherever it is now, 30 something, you know, but so you got, you know, the internet and Instagram and everything. Well, it can do a lot of good. Can do a lot of harm. Yeah. And you have some people out there that are telling some very young generation people some things that I think that are going to really hurt them as time goes on. And I've been deep programming some of my friends kids from this. I think you have to. I mean, so to give you an example of what I see now, I see people that have meme, meme coin telegram groups. Right. Whereas a group they buy together because they think that somebody's going to shill and pump. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Right. Well, yeah, it's a pump and dump. Yeah. But I mean, like, there's like group setup for this shit and they're advertising and come join my group. And guess what? And the guy that says come join my group is selling to everybody that's right. Yeah. So when that thing starts popping up, he has the original number. Yeah. Right. And but that's that's like malicious. There's a lot of like idiots that aren't malicious as well. Right. Yeah. No, no, there's just some idiots that are just trading stuff because they think it's going to work. But my question is, and this is something that the younger generation is just not getting. Listen to me carefully, just not getting. The question is it might work now, but what's going to work for the next 20 or 30 years? Okay, because everybody's earning potential and they're powerful earning years do not last as long as they think they do. I know, I know, I know, I know some really wealthy people. And at some given point, unless you happen to have the right product that, you know, is ongoing and, you know, you do it. But so many of these young, what they call these entrepreneurs are not really entrepreneurs. They're just getting lucky. And what happens in their 30s when they have a mortgage and a house and two kids and they need to go to college and they're unhierable. And that's what I think that's destructive in the concept of today, thinking that everybody should be an entrepreneur. I believe that you can be an entrepreneur and somebody else's business. And it's very something my son wants to open up a fund one day. So what does he do? He ends up going to college and made him go to that he didn't want to go to. It's another story in itself. He ends up getting a job for this guy, Howard Lutnik, who's a CEO of Kenneth Sherald, who works for him for three years. Then he goes, and he goes to NYU to get his masters. Then he picked, he got offered some five banks, credit swiss, not the right bank to pick, but it was a good, it's a better experience. But he's getting that experience. And I said to him, finally, he's 28 years old now. And I said, oh, so maybe when you're 35, you'll open up a fund. He goes, now I'll wait till I'm 40. I got a lot more to learn. Because what I teach these kids is build a, build a foundation that you can lean back on for the rest of your life. My daughter, she was a photographer, graduated a new house, you know, in Syracuse, great photographer, great editing. She's like, I'm never going to, this will not be sustainable for the rest of my life, because she's so very quickly that people could edit on their phones and this and whatever. So she ended up getting a law degree. So in the way that I kind of got her into the mindset of the law degree, because she's really an artist. I said, I'm part, there's a restaurant called Hutton Fish Club in New York City, a great restaurant. And the waiters there are waiters to, to, to pay for their acting career. So I said to my daughter, your, your photographer who happens to be a lawyer that's paying for your passion. So you have all these people like, you know, what's the big thing? Go for your passion. Yeah. Well, guess what? Your passion might not be able to make enough to sustain you for the rest of your life. So sometimes you actually have to get a job to cover your life and your passion. And that's something that I think a lot of people are mixing up. And the question is on this 20-year-old and 30-year-old generation, what's going to happen when they're 40 and 50? Because you know what? I just started 59. You got a little more tired. You know, you don't have the energy. You might have the wisdom, but you know, you don't have the energy. So the question that I put to some of these people that are doing this, okay, it's great. You're having a blast now. You're living your truth. You know, all those key words that are thrown all over the place. But what are you going to do when the real responsibility kicks in? You know, when it's not just you, you know, and I hope that, you know, people will have a good relationship and they'll have partners and they'll have wives or husbands or whatever works for them. And then they'll have families and they'll, you know, experience all the greatest things that I did with my kids growing up, which is really where the real rush comes in, right? But the question is, is that no one's thinking further in the future now. They're all thinking just immediate money and I'm happy today. You know what? I get the greatest thing that ever happened to you. Talk about my career. So two of the greatest things ever happens to me in my first two weeks of being on the trade and floors in Chicago. My first thing was I went to this guy who is, you know, the guy who's going to be working for it, trying to be a real mafia guy, you know, I went there the first day, they come back in two weeks, they found his friend in the ditch. I'm thinking, okay, like real, real mafia, like real mafia stuff. So, um, so I walk into his office and I say to him, you know what? I'm going to be the best broker you've ever seen. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this one, this one. He's like, David, just sit down and shut the fuck up. You could talk to people back then like that without them running out of the room being, you know, a little bit, he said, so he says, shut the fuck up. You know, and I'm like, he was, you see that trading floor out there? Like, yeah, he goes, you see how exciting it is? You see the rush that it is? Yeah, he goes, one day it's going to be a job. He goes, one day you're going to walk in and you're not going to want to get spit on and you're not going to want to get knocked on the head and you're not going to want to deal with the pressure and you're not going to be feeling well and you are not going to want to do this. He says, but it goes, this will afford you and your family a quite interesting lifestyle. And if you're good at it, you can do a lot of things with this. So if you'll look at the long term and realize that everything turns into a job, very few people skip their way to work every day. I am, I am envious of the people that do a lot of musicians do a lot of R so I love that, you know, if you could do it great. But the problem is that the majority of the people don't have that, you know, so he gave me that advice. The other piece of advice I got was it was a guy there. He would look like Rip Van Winkle, you know, I mean, you know, red, red, crazy hair. It looked like he'd been there forever, you know, and I was, you know, 20 something year old. Shit. So this guy might have been younger than me now, but who knows, right? So he looks at me and he goes, I know who you are because I went very quietly because my father was on the board of the other exchanges in New York. And so I went, you know, just do my own thing because I know who you were. He goes, listen to me. He goes, you're going to have the chance to get into the rain one day. He goes, and when you get into the rain, no one's going to care about who your father is. No one's going to care about where you went to school there. Just going to try to rip your throat out because that's what we do here. He goes, I will never have the chance to get into the rain. He goes, I've been working here for 30 years. I've been a clerk for 30 years. I'll always be a clerk for 30 years. He goes, so I'm going to give you some advice. He goes, watch everything. He goes, watch the people's faces, watch the people's how they breathe, watch how the runner runs from the desk to the pit. Is he running quickly? Is he running when the broker grabs a piece of paper? Look at his eyebrow. Look to see if that broker is looking at the girl. Did he sleep with her last night? What's going on? I mean, he goes, look at everything and take it in every day and you'll be a great trader which will learn how to process the information. And from that day on, all through life, I look at everything. That's why we can talk about it too when I'm blind to my right eye and have my world disappear. That really screwed me up. So what would happen is I would get, I would put in these interns in New York and I would put them in the middle of the train floor. For two weeks, I wouldn't talk. And I would get a call from either of them or their parents or my kids not learned in terms of really. And I would give this kid the same speech that this guy gave me and all of a sudden it opened up his eyes. Because if you start looking at life and you start looking at the world literally everything, every moving part and you take it all in, you're going to be quicker than everybody. You're going to understand where it's coming. You're going to be able to react faster. You know, I was one of 17 traders that was brought down to Quantico to get drilled by the generals. I wanted to know how he thought so quickly with our own money, with that kind of pressure and being able to screw up. I have a whole class on screwing up. You know, people don't realize there may be 60% of our trades 50 to 60 to 70 were losers every day. But if you're upset with your screw ups, you never can do anything. So, you know, I talk about that. But those were the two things, you know, that this guy says to me, get used to it. It's going to be a job. So, they were, and by the end of it, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore, you know, but you did it. And, you know, but I still, to this day, think about that. If I could find that guy with, you know, the ripaway on Winkle die and just thank him for that piece of advice, you know, and that was life changing. Do you feel that you feel that that attitude is lost? Yes. In a younger generation. Yeah. Well, the whole grit attitude is lost. You know, I mean, I remember, I mean, think about what would happen now? Think about the story. There. So when I got moved from being a runner to being a phone clerk, I was up in salary. And I hadn't been paid the difference in the salary in seven weeks. By the way, what is the salary of a phone clerk back then was 17,000, but it was big coming from where I was making 375. Right. But it was big, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I find out the head, the head office. And I call what I think is the secretary of the president of the company. And I call the office and this guy picks up and he was like, hello, and I'm like, hi, I'm just looking. I haven't been paid in seven weeks. I'd like to find out what's going on. He goes, meet me in the, meet me in the lobby of the board of trade at 9 a.m. tomorrow. So I'm like, okay, I'm going over to a little kid and I'm like, oh, excited. I'm going to get paid. This guy is a little bull guy. All right. David Powers. You're out there. I'm still looking for you. I spent nine years on the admissions committee in New York hoping he would show up one day after what he did. Okay. So he calls me and I'm in the lobby and he gets all these traders around me and he starts ripping me apart. Who the fuck are you to call me? I'm the general. You're just some peasant here. You don't call me. I mean, he basically set me up to rip me to shreds. Okay. Yeah. That's for the salary that I deserve. Yeah. Right. And I mean, he goes, you are nothing. He goes, always remember that you're just a freaking clerk. You don't talk to brokers that way. You don't ask them things. You just do what you do. Meanwhile, by the time I got back to the other exchange, my phone was ringing. It was my father saying, what the hell did you just do? I'm getting calls from three people in Chicago. You know, that you just pissed this guy off. I'm like, I just asked for what, but you know what I did? I didn't go to HR. I didn't cry. I was like, that sucked. How do I get this guy back in time? Yeah. And I never did. Okay. But I sat on the admissions committee for nine years hoping that this guy would come up and go, you remember that guy that you, you know, I go, he does sound like a fucking asshole. But you know what? But traders on the floor and the clerks, we'd rip each other apart at the time. But you know, the thing is what you're losing in this generation is grit. Yeah. You know, and it's not just the dealing with shit situations like that. Like even when you're talking about like the sit on the floor for two weeks and do nothing. Right. Everybody needs immediate. Right. Immediate. I need it now. I need, I need, you know, input now. I need teaching now. Whatever it is, I need my food now. I need my everything now. Right. It's like the now generation. Well, or the now door, what I like to say, the crystal generation. Yeah. Right. The crystal generation is simple. They look great, but they break easy. And you know what? I am there to help these kids. You know, I am on the grit and patience, grit and patience because you know, what happens is that anything that comes fast and easy is never lasting. It just in anything. And that's something is, you know, that I've realized when I was older. And you know, I have a picture that I use in my lectures of me on the first day of the trade floor. I'm in my yellow jacket, my clerk jacket. And then I'm in a suit on the right of my last day on the trade floor. It was a 30 year difference. And I said the kid on the left thought he knew everything. And the guy on the right realized he knows nothing. And the more that you understand that you know nothing and every day you're learning, rather than, you know, what everybody says, well, I know I know what I'm doing. Like nobody really knows what they're doing. The question is can they do it without killing themselves or without destroying what they're trying to do? You know, there's as again, there's a unique few, but Instagram and all these other, you know, social media platforms are blowing things up so unrealistically. Like, you know, I was on a friend of mine's boat. It was 120 foot boat. And then he's got his pergadi next to his boat. So I take pictures with it. And my hashtag was not my boat and not my pergadi. I'm like, how about we all have to post that it's not hours? Yeah. You know, so what's happening is that you're getting a whole generation that's thinking that, you know, there's always one person or two people that knock the cover off. Well, it happens. It happens all the time. But you don't hear about the thousands of other people that are living in their parents' basement because millions, millions. Yeah. Because they took the time that they had to do. Oh, I had to follow my passion. I had to follow this. I have listened, follow your passion, but give it time. You know, it takes time. It's very hard when you're younger. And this is not an older guy talking. I'm telling you, I screwed up more than anything. You know, I talk, I teach and I mentor off my scrupes, not my successes because everybody can talk about the successes. It's easy, but how did you get past the hard times? How did you get past when, you know, we'll talk about 9, 11 when literally like, you know, like we're working next door to, you know, the mortgage outside our building, you know, crazy stuff. And that's what creates success. You know, and what's happening now is that it's all being bastardized. It's all being, it's all being made into, if you're not X, then you're, then you're a failure. And the whole definition of success is wrong. It's not about, I know, the most, I always talk about success has nothing to do with the amount of money that you have, the car you drive, or the clothes you wear. You know, success is knowing that when this shit hits the fan, people will turn towards you. You know, that when, when times are tough, that, you know, you're the 3 AM phone call, when your kids or your friends have an issue, they can talk to you and know that they're talk is secure and that you're not going to be, you know, posting it or whatever. I've learned that when people lean on you, there is no better compliment. There is no better satisfaction. And that is success. Because I know some very well, I know some very wealthy wealthy people that are not successes. And I know some very people from people have no money that are most amazing successes in the world. And then, you know, I know some very wealthy people that have done very well, you know, a friend of mine that owns the Panthers, this guy Vincent Viola, who I, you know, represent on the Panthers, you know, worth a 3.4 billion. You would never know it. You would walk down the street. He'd be in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, you know, Teresa's wife, you know, no jewelry, no nothing, the kindest people that you've ever met. But there's people that are worth nothing that have the forarees and the whole thing, you know, the people are the kindest giving back people I've ever met. And you would never know it because he's a kid from Brooklyn that started off with nothing, you know, and did it all on his own. And we'll talk about the 9-11 experience that I had with him. But it shows that people like them show that it can be done with class. It shows that it can be done with, with statue and with compassion. Just going to take a quick break. Thank the longtime friend and sponsor of the show, the HubSpot Podcast Network. They have incredible podcasts. One of my favorites, one that you have to check out this month is Nudge hosted by Phil Agnew. Now, if you've ever noticed, the smallest changes always seem to have the biggest impact on Nudge. You learn simple evidence back tips to help you kick bad habits, get a raise, grow a business. The point is every bite size 20-minute show comes packed with practical advice from these incredible entrepreneurs, behavioral scientists, and everybody in between. Nudge is fast paced, but very insightful. And a must listen if you're a podcast fan. Make sure you listen to Nudge wherever you love to get your podcasts. Let's talk about, let's talk about some of those setbacks because like you said, failures, failures are what you learn from. You're dealing with lots of money in your career where you've had obviously personal setbacks and not setbacks like 9-11, but things that you've screwed up. Talk about some of those. Some of the biggest screw-ups and also how do you deal with that shit? Well, let's talk about some of those screw-ups. So we'll talk about my physical screw-ups. Those are outside of your control. I'll agree. I'm the one that pulled the hanger. Oh, God. Yeah, that's a whole story. So what happened was I wanted to become a board member of NIMEX. It was one of my goals. And I remember I was young. I spent a lot of time on all the crap committees when people don't realize that. They're all realized. My kids woke up. I said, there was 15 years or 12 to 15 years of stuff that you didn't know I was doing because you were too young. I think just wake up one day and be on the board. So I ran for the board for my first time and I remember I was running against this guy and he had a very powerful friend. And they come up to me in the cafeteria and they go, we want you to pull out. You could bully it a lot at work, don't you? I everybody did. It was awesome. That was awesome. And then you became the boy. Yeah, so that's why I don't care. Nobody can say anything to us that's traders on the floor that will ever insult us because we've called each other every name in the book and it just didn't matter. So they're like, you know, we got to remember. It was a very tough group down there. You know, it was Bronx Brooklyn, Staten Island, you know, no fuck around. No, you know, and I was a long Island. I was easy bait. So they said, we want you to pull out. I'm like, I'm not pulling out. I'm like, you want to hear my platform. I'm like, no, we don't care. They said, well, we want you to know that you are going to get beaten badly. This is, but if you take it like a man, there'll be a time you said they think we're just you're just too young. But if you get take like a man, and when we're ready, we'll support you. I get my ass kicked in that election. Like you would, I mean, it was a classic, classic weapon. But I still had to walk down to the trading fluid next day in front of a thousand people after losing that badly, you know, and you're sending letters out, you're making speeches, you're calling every member. So the next year I run and I lose again, you know, but by less. And then the next year I run and I lose by four votes, you know, and then next year I run and I end up winning and then I win four consecutive terms, you know, and end up being on the executive committee. So, you know, I could have taken those losses and been embarrassed by them. I could have taken those losses and said, I can't do this. I didn't take those losses. I'd take those losses as educational experiences. And if you can take a loss or a setback like that, and listen, you got to walk in and I got very good at saying hello to people the next day is to be able to read them to see if they really voted for me or not. And I could tell if they didn't, then I worked on them for the next year and I had worked on it for an entire year for that one election period. So what it really taught me was, you know, that when you get your ass kicked, you know, when I was a C student, you know, so I got my ass kicked a lot, you know, the joke is, you know, be nice to the C students because they'll be your boss one day. You know, because some of the A students, no offense to the A students out there, but it's just read, right, regurgitate. But when you have a B and C student that, you know, failed or this, that, or whatever, and then how to go and tell their parents and show them the report card, or if the progress report didn't get pulled out of the mailbox in time, you know, during those days. That, you know, we learned what it was like to learn how to fail and get back up and fail and, you know, have to show up. We're have to look at people in the face after that is the greatest gift that anybody can give you, you know, and, and that setback of running for the board and still coming down to the train floor and having to be there, I think was one of the best experiences of my life. What, what happened to you? You said, like, other things outside of, like, career, like, physical, well, you know, a lot of setbacks. Yeah, well, setbacks. So I always had auto munitions and then, you know, I'm a 9-11 survivor. We were there that day and we can go over that and do that after this. Yeah. But, um, so that got worse. So I have terrible body paint. So I'm in pain all the time. And what made it worse was then one day I'm out at a restaurant and I wore hard contacts since I always had a problem with my right eye. And, but at the same time, I was fully right. I dominant from an issue I had with a kid. So I'd always have some, I always had some eye issues. I put my finger in a glass of water. I put some water in my eye. Turns out there was bacteria in the water. I had a cut on the ulcer on my eye. I got a massive bacterial infection. I was in my basement for two months. I couldn't function because the pain was so bad from any kind of light. Then when that cleared up, I had to get a cornea transplant. So I get a cornea transplant and I take the shield off that morning and I can read a lube or dung bottle. I'm like, oh, this is freaking great. I'm so excited. I walk into my closet as a t-shirt that's hanging up. I pull the t-shirt off the hanger. The hanger spins around snaps. It's me right in the eye. Okay, I end up catching those things were coming out, you know, with my t-shirt, calling downstairs to my wife at the time. They couldn't hear me. My son was going out full of cross-game. I ended up throwing my body on the floor because I knew I realized that the garage was underneath my where my closet was. They heard the house shake. You know, they come running upstairs. They take me to the doctor. I end up having cornea. They found underneath the lid. My lens they found in the bathroom the next day. Then I had an eight or ten-year period, eight-year period where I had nine retinoteros and I slowly went blind painfully to the point where because they hit a couple nerves for about eight and a half years or nine years. That put me to my knees. I'm just recently in the last year or two. Thanks to some work that I did and some one of the eye doctors guy Dr. Dan from the Panthers that helped me start using my left eye and processing everything better. You get your ass kicked like that. Then I had my physical pain from 9-11. My eye pain I gained 70 pounds or 80 pounds. I just lost the 70 pounds this year, you know, in the past year and a half. But this is what I talk to when I lecture and when I coach that, you know, when you're brought down to your knees, you know, there's going to be a time where you're going to be down there. It was a bit about, oh, you got to get right up. Sometimes it takes a little part. Because you know what? Everybody who's everybody who you know teaches over entrepreneurial resistance, grit, perseverance, a lot of them have no physical issues. Right. They're fine, they're young, they're healthy. And it's already tough enough. It's already tough enough. If got forbid, you have eight years of debilitating eye pain. Right. You have chronic physical pain. Right. And you're going and you still have to show up and you still have to show up and you have to operate at an exceptionally high level. Right. Like when I would go on CNBC, especially after the eye issue and and Fox and the lights were there. I mean, it was literally almost bringing me down to my knees because before I went fully blind, my pupil was stuck open. So the light sensitivity was just and I'd be sitting there in those interviews. And you know, you sometimes just see my head tilt a little bit or whatever I would get off. And you know, I was, you know, I was on painkillers at the time, just to handle it and things like that. And even not getting addicted to the painkillers was a feat. You know, because you know, when you're in that kind of pain for that long, you know, you tend to, you know, people tend to have problems. And I remember when I was with my pain management doctor one day, he says, well, you got to go up or get off because it wasn't working. I said, I'll get off. He's like, what? Nobody gets off. You know, and I slowly got off and dealt with it. And you know, and then when I fully went blind about two years ago is when the headaches really started subsiding because the eyes stopped fighting each other all day. But when you have that kind of pain and still have to show up for speeches and still have to show up for lectures and yeah, and you know, make a look like nothing's bothering you. Yeah. It really shows you what real backbone and grit is. And that's why, you know, when I when I talk to the students or when I coach, you know, with my coaching clients, you know, I'm the guy that just tells it like it is. You know, if you want to coach that sits there and just massages you and tells you how freaking great you are all the time, I am not the guy. You know, you want to coach is going to say, okay, let's look at this for what it is. Let's look at reality and it might hurt, you know, and you might not like what you see and you might not like what you hear, but I will guarantee you once we work through this, you know, that you will not only be a better individual, you'll be a better human being, you'll work better, you'll be a better family person, you'll be a better, you know, thinker, because you're seeing the world for what it is. Of this, we all know, when you stop seeing the world for what it is, you end up getting beat all the time. Yeah. Well, I think I think that I'm curious with the people that you work with right now, how delusional they are about their career, about their business. Not so much delusional. Some of the parents, when they ask me to speak to their kids, you know, are they're pretty, they can be a little bit not looking at life the way it should be, but by the time I'm finished with them, they're like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. You know, when I talk to them about building that foundation to take your time and I explain to them, if you take your time and you build that foundation in 10, 15, 20 years from now, you're going to be just going to be rocking with all these other people. Yeah. Like now what? I'm a huge, I've said this before, I do believe that if you take 10 years to build anything and not just build it blindly and not iterate and not learn, but if you progressively learn, build feedback loops for 10 years in anything that you're doing, you're going to achieve some measure of success. Right. And if you don't achieve a measure of success of being your own boss or your own company, and every, you know, listen, there's something to be said about being your own boss or your own company. There's also something to be said about walking out and not having to worry about things also true. Yeah. And, you know, like somebody that I know that was boss of his own company, said, no one ever told me that I was going to have to worry about all this stuff. I'm like, yeah, I said, you know, it's more than just the ego of saying that you see, you know, but, you know, you, you, you build that foundation over 10, 15 years and people forget you're, if you're lucky, by the way, as I learned in life, you'll get older. Not everybody's guaranteed to get older. That's another thing people have to realize. So if you're lucky enough to age and to get older and you're going to be in your 50s and your 60s, which when I was in my 20s, ancient, right? But if you, if you realize that there's a long runway in front of you, you have to prepare for that long runway. If not, you're going to have this great little runway here for 20 years of your life. And then you could spend 50 years of your life saying, now what? You know, and, and I think that's where some of the younger generation is missing the point. You know, and I, it's like, somebody said, well, what are you doing to work out blah, blah, blah, and you should try this suit. You put it on for 20 minutes and you build it up in this that or whatever. And I go, no, well, you should try it. I'm like, no, they're like, why? I said, because I made a decision and they're like, what's the decision? I said, I will only do health wise, but I know I can do forever. I'm not going to do that suit forever. I'm not going to do XYZ. So why would it be different with your career, with your, with your personal relationships? Like that should be the goal going to everything, right? Right. What can you do for the long term? And the real question is, is that, and you know, I told you I sit on a lot of boards and I'm the guy that says, your baby's ugly, if you're, yeah, he's ugly. And, and the problem is, is that sometimes just because you have an idea, and it could be a great idea. It doesn't mean it's the right thing for you to do. It could be a side, you know, a side hustle. It could be something that you're doing. And if it then takes on, but, you know, people, this whole bit that people have right now, where they have to be CEO of their own company. And I love it when I meet someone. I'm CEO of my own company. Here's my car. I'm like, oh, yeah. What is it? I'm pre-revenue. Am I best friend? Am I best friends? The CIO and this, this. I'm like, what do you do? We go, as well, we're, we're, you know, figuring out, free blockchain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Machine learning. Yeah. And by the way, guess what? You are not going to compete with, you know, I was just in this conference in France, women in tech. And, you know, a friend of mine is a deputy director of innovation for, and investment for NASA. So I'm seeing some stuff that I'm telling you right now. Okay. That the companies out there are so far ahead of the game that, you know, go work for one of those companies, go work for one of those companies for 10 years, learn everything that they know. And then if you figure out a new spin off of that, good for you. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, which by the way is the highest rate of success for an entrepreneur. You work in an industry for 10 plus years now and solve a problem. Yeah. Right. You solve a problem. Then you go, wait a minute. Now I've got all this massive information. Yeah. Okay. And I can do X. And that's where this whole entrepreneurship journey has been flipped on its ass. Yeah. You know, everybody's like, you're 20. Do it now, because now's the time to do it. I'm like, bullshit. Now's the time for you to learn. And why not learn from people that have do that are doing it and can give you the best resources possible. Would you rather be in your basement, trying to learn something and do something where you rather work for one of these major, major companies. Okay. And a lot of people can be pushed back, you know, on this, but I'm sorry. Okay. I, you know, work for a major company, learn everything there is. I tell people that go in like you own the place. I go, not with the attitude that you own the place, but go in and say, okay, this just happened. If I owned it, how would I have handled this? If this top person walked out on me today, how am I going to replace that person? And by the way, what intellectual property did this guy just take with him? What am I going to, am I going to have to sue him? I have to do this. So I said, if you're a young kid and it's so funny, I talked to my son and some other people, like, well, what are, what's going to happen if I do this for 10 years? I go, you'll be 35. Young is that anyway? Right. I'm like, yeah, you'll be 35. If you do this from 25 to 35 for 10 years and a mass, all that knowledge, you know, I mean, by the time I was 40, I was on the executive community of the world's largest exchange, I had turned down the vice chairmanship of the exchange. I had learned everything about the business thanks to that one guy that told me to learn everything every day. And it put me in a position that, you know, there's so much that I could do with that. But if, you know, and then there were traders that just went to the training floor, they traded all day and they left on the belt. Well, there was nothing for them to do after that. You know, but I looked at the training floor and I learned that the board and all the committees as my school and it going back to what we said, work for somebody for 10 years. There's no, there's no shame in that. No. And not only that, what they're going to find, they're going to do a study in 20 or 30 years from now, they go, they're going to find. I think like what you said, that all the people that spent the time to build a foundation was patient, okay, ended up here. And all those entrepreneurs from Instagram are down here. And then, we have a whole new section of people like how are we going to take care of them? Yeah. Because it's just, it's just not sustainable. And people don't look at sustainability anymore. And what I've seen is that like, you know, when I was younger, there was a company called Woolworths and Gimbles. You know, one thing I noticed that every company that I thought that could never possibly go out of business, they went out of business. Apple could go out of business when they, there's, there's, there's a chance that, you know, slim, but it's possible. Some other new co comes out from China or whatever and does everything that Apple does at like one hundredth of the cost. Yeah. You know, and then all of a sudden people like, well, no, we're going to go there and kids growing up on products today that they know and love and that they think that are invincible. They're going to find out. It doesn't work that way. Tell me, tell me about 9-11, what happened, like how did this impact you? Because you were, he said you were down the street around the corner, a block over, what happened? Well, you know, everyone has their own 9-11 story. Yeah. And what I always talk about is that, you know, it's like if you, if you throw a stone into a calm pond and you see the ripples, imagine where the stone lands as the towers and the ripples are every street, every state, every country, you know, coming out. So my story is that I invented a trader's breakfast club. You know, you paid a certain fee, you got free breakfast every day at Windows of the World. And it was awesome. You would start off your day, you would be looking at the Brooklyn Bridge, having your bagels and locks or whatever you want, renewable street journal, which was very, very civilized knowing that you're going to go down and get screened that spit on in your head. It's mapped all day. So I was going up for breakfast and I parked in the South Tower. And there was an issue where there was something going on with the local, the express elevator. And they're like, you got to take the local. I'm like, I'm not taking local. He got to get off. I think it was 56 crossover. Then go up and like screw that. So I leave the building across the street. And the plane hits. So everybody was going to meet for breakfast, you know, died. Another six people that cleared through my clearing house were there for a meeting. They died. Most about, I think 27 people. So, so I'm in my office and the first plane hits and, you know, my father calls me. And he says they think of the assessment hit in the World Trade Center. So I don't hang on for a second. I go into the office next door to me. I come running back. Oh, if that's the assessment terrorism, there's like 10 floors missing, you know, or 12 floors missing. And then, you know, then the reports come and then he calls me back. And I've never, my father's never panicked the day in his life. And he starts screaming, get the locked out of the building. They show the other plane coming. Oh, yeah. And if you see it, it goes right over our building. It's yet our building, Merrill Lynch at Merrill Lynch Express World Trade Center. So then we started evacuating our building. And then we ended up closing the train of floor as the first building, you know, we realized we were not going to reopen. The first building falls. We're down there. We're like running in front of the smoke. The whole side highway. Luckily, I had the smoke didn't catch up to me because I was a little bit of a head start. And then this guy Vincent Viola, who was chairman of the exchange, he was 45 years old. I look at it now and imagine getting his phone call from the White House saying, world energy prices are going crazy. We need to figure out a way to reopen. So we didn't even know if the building was still standing. He got that phone call as the right after the first of that night. That night. Okay. Okay. So this so this is like peak 911. Oh, that no one's flying anywhere. No one's going on. Yeah, oil prices are going crazy. So you got to call that. Yeah, no, you got to call that night from the White House saying, listen, we have to stabilize world oil prices. And I was on the board at that time. So with this guy, Richie Schaefer and Stu Smith. And I always say their names because I give them a credit for doing this. We do a emergency board meeting. We were able to get phone lines, you know, attached. And we do a phone, you know, it's first off site meeting, you know, a computer with COVID is now and we didn't have zoom back then and all these other things. And they go down, they walk 65 blocks down to the World Trade Center to see if our building still standing. And it turns out our building was blocked from American Express and Merrill Lynch. And you know, it was a mess, but it was still standing. So Vinnie, we end up going to a palace hotel at the time. And we get all the board members there and Vinnie, who's a West Point graduate and an Army Ranger. He ends up running as like a military operation. He puts you know, that guy that they told me not to run against. Yeah. Okay. That beat me. Yeah. He put me with him. We hated each other. He says, you guys hate each other. I don't care. You guys are good at this one thing that I want you to do. Figure it out. Work it out. Do it, right? So he really taught me a lot about leadership under pressure and under stress and strategic leadership. And, you know, by his leadership and by the board doing what they did between laying lines, it, and he was up on the roof and there's, you know, five inches of heating oil by his ankles, because for the generators and all this other stuff and his all our telecommunications were in the world, right? So we had to redo everything. And we were the first exchange to reopen on that Tuesday. And we were secretly open in 9.11 for three months. So the building was burning outside. The smell was terrible. The morn was outside our building. And what I, what I arranged was with the ferry service was to pick up about a thousand people every day, firstly in the morning on 34th Street, bring them down the river up into the building. We had the building we had the building, you know, corded it, corded off, you know, people had to stay in the building for four hour trading. They got them out of the building and then went back up. And, you know, so, but we were the first exchange to reopen. And that was quite an experience, but it showed that even in the face, and that's somewhere some of my illness came from because they said the air quality, of course. Yeah. You know, you learn with the government. And I said this in the beginning of COVID, they do their best guess. And they're not really trying to be as nefarious as everybody thinks they are. But they, we had the things outside the building and the spinners. And I don't know, yeah, the EPA, we literally have the memos EPA comes out that the air quality is fine. Well, yeah, air quality is not fine. It's not fine. Which if you really had a brain, and we weren't so, and we weren't so in shock, by the smell alone, you would have known that, you know, and then walking out every day and it's dusting, it's white dusting on everything. So, yeah. So, you know, thanks to Vinnie and an amazing board that he had around, which I was just one of many, we got the exchange up and going and we brought all the traders and I give a lot of the credit to the traders and the staff and the support people of NIMEX because without the support people and the traders and the clerks and everything else who left their families, you know, a week later to come back down to ground zero, then the smoke was there and the fire was there for three months. So, we watched, we would watch these pieces that were being taken out that were just glowing, you know, because the heat, you know, was so strong. And I was one of five people that had a pass from the mayor to leave the vicinity and go right up to, you know, where the towers were. I kind of wish I didn't have that pass now. But the things that you saw, but what you realized is that you never looked up at the wreckage. It was flat because everything was just turned to dust. You know, one of the firemen said that he's never seen concrete turn back to its original form. You know, and then like about a year later, a friend of mine called me up. She was so excited. They found a bone frank of her father and they literally buried the bone fire. And I mean, we went, I went to 17 or 18 funerals and it was, but that was a huge definition of my life because first before what happened there is that my mother at 55 when I was in my 30s, now 59, she really was young. She came down with lung cancer as a non-smoker and she died just on her 56th birthday. So here it is that my mother passed away, you know, early, my friends died early. Then I have the eye issue. So, you know, I always say that I am looking at the world more clearly through one eye than I ever did with two. Yeah, you've gone through a lot. But there was two ways I could do it. I could eat the gone through a lot and I can just let it beat the shit I may become a victim, right? Or I could go through all this and say, how can I make a difference? How can I take all this that I've learned? Yeah. You know, and all this strength that I've gotten from this and make a difference in people's lives. And we do that by them on the board of junior achievements where we see 70,000 Broward County kids a year for workforce development and financial literacy. I said to a lot of charity work, I do, you know, the mentoring, a lot of young kids, I don't I don't charge it all for the mentoring. I mean, there's, you know, there's some kids that to me, how do we pay you? So when you're 75, tell your grandkids, you met some guy that made a difference. And don't even worry about remembering my name, you know, just that's not what I want. But what do you learn through those experiences? When you are in, say this to somebody the other day, when you walk in, when I walked in, I walked into my mother, she was still alive. I whispered into her ear. It was time to go. I walked back out, her husband at the time calls me back in a minute later. She was, she was gone. And when you feel the pain of death to that extreme where it is, brings you to your knees from someone that died in a timely death. And then when you watch those buildings go down and know at the time, I thought there were a lot more people in there, but whether it was one or, you know, 50,000, and you feel that kind of pain. And then the pain that I was in physically, emotionally and headache was, when you've dealt with the kind of pain levels I have, you realize how great not being in pain is, and you realize how you realize that life is fucking awesome. Okay. And then I've gone into some arguments with people at dinner that they'll go growing old sucks. I'm wrong person to say that in front of me. I'm like, no, I'll go growing old. It can be painful, it can be frustrating, it can be exhausting, it can be a whole lot of things. I said dying sucks. So once you realize that, and you've seen death the way that I have, it opens up a whole new vast way of looking at the world. You know, it looks at like I can find joy in almost anything. You know, I can go, you know, I tell people and someone is like, I want to go see this. I might not want to go see it, but I want to spend time with that person. I'll enjoy seeing that person being happy and I don't have to enjoy the event as much as that person that I'll enjoy the enjoyment of them. So those things have such defined me in such a unique way. And being in pain and then coming out of the eye pain, I call it being pulled out of the matrix. You know, I kind of see the world for what it is now, both good and bad. But that's what that's why, you know, in my coaching and in other areas, I just tell like it is. And people find that it's very refreshing. Might be a little painful at times. But it was like what I said, if you want somebody to really pull you through to the next level, well, I'm your guy. If you want somebody to pat you on the back and tell you how great you are, just for showing up. Wrong person. Is that is that has the life you lived impacted, how you look at work? Yes. But not in a way that a lot of people think that work less than enjoy life and work. I think that's a work life balance is an important. I was very lucky that and not that many people are the exchange closed pre 9 11 at basically 3 30. So even with the committee working everything else, I was at it a relatively early hour, except for the fact that the markets were open all night and you were kind of freaked out about that. But I tell this story. It's a funny story when I said to my son, you know, learn very few fathers have done for their kid what I've done for you. So what happened was is that and this is another thing people have to learn when you're working for a company, learn everything about the culture, learn how they work, how they do things, how they put things off, how they progress, learn everything. So we're in a board meeting because Goldman Sach stole our boats after a month of us using them 9 11. They offered them twice as much as what we were going to pay. So we had to have all everybody walk through ground zero every night to get to the closest subway. So we're at this meeting and the chairman and the vice chairman say, we're going to do a temporary close of 230. You know, this way nobody has to walk in the dark through 9 11. Now I sit there and I'm like, well, I just came back from London because I was the I did the international expansion. And I'm like, you know, the guy in London would really like to get home an hour earlier. And you know what, convincing the trading floor day would be good. And why don't we take out the word temporary? Because I knew they never revisited anything. Yeah, you know, so we take the word temporary out. And I said, this way, because I knew I wasn't worried about London or anything else. I just knew my son was a big lacrosse player. And if I got out of 230, I can make every one of his games. So, so I say, let's take the word temporary out. To this day, Crude Oil still closes at 230 in the afternoon. That's when the closing bell is so fucking funny, you know, but it goes back to what I talk about, like, you know, 9x politics was a contact sport. And if you could work your way through the 9x politics system, you really know how to work your way through a corporation. And people need to understand, like, I'm not this politics everywhere. And what I do with middle-level employees and even CEOs and things like that, I we work with how to deal with the politics. Now, politics, it's a line of mine now that's, it's never been this bad. You know, because God forbid you look at somebody the wrong way, you say something wrong. Yeah, I mean, it's like what I tell some of these younger people, I go, sometimes your boss is just having a bad day. You know, and, you know, I don't like the way you looked at me. I don't like this tone. I'm like, that's where the grit comes in. Yeah, you know, I mean, you can either go home and cry about it or say, okay, what did, and by the way, if you didn't hand the project in the first three times wrong, he might not have been or she might not have been mad at you. Yeah, you know, so it's a very hard navigation that a lot of these people are doing now. But, but 9.11 and my mom and the pain that I was in completely redefined how I look at life and work, like you have to enjoy life. I mean, don't work to the point where you're not enjoying your life, but also realize that if you're, if you're taking too much time off, that there's going to be people in the world that are going to be up your butt. A lot more motivated you, a lot more, you know, work at harder, and in European countries, and in China and everywhere else, they're not about play right now. Well, Europe is a later workload. Well, that's because they have their caesthas in us. Yeah, France God forbid you call somebody on the weekend or Friday, Friday at all, really. Yeah, that's true. But Europe that there are always people within whatever you're doing that will be hungerier than you. Yeah. And that's fine. As long as you don't say, why didn't I get this position or why didn't I do this? Well, maybe the person that says, listen, I'm not as, I'm not as worried about the work, you know, life balance. I want more X. You have to respect both sides. What about what about the flip side of that? What about somebody that is doing too much, too much is how do you define too much? But they're doing so much at a young age and they don't have any time for a relationship. They leave the girlfriend. I think they're missing out. The most important thing, the hustle culture. Yeah, the hustle culture, you know, listen, as I said, I've seen I've experienced a lot of death. Yeah. And I don't know, one of those people that was thinking just before they died, how much money they had. You know, I mean, I remember I said to somebody once, you know, I was going to take my friend's boat around Long Island. He was taking the boat out and he goes, but you're going to miss the day of trading. I said, well, I realized that after 9 11, if I get the chance to do something that I've never done, I'm going to do it. So I come in the next day and I'm like, how was it? I was amazing. I also learned something. If I get the chance to do something, I've already done, but I really want to do it. I'm going to do it. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know what, I have over time made a lot of money, I spent a lot of money, made a lot of money, but the key thing to me is the relationships that I have with people. And that is becoming a lost art, you know, to truly having intimate, and I don't mean on a sexual basis. I mean, business, friendship, peers, friendship, peerhood, but COVID screwed all that up. COVID killed it. But the question is, how do we get that back? You know, the problem that we have now is that when I closed the trading floor, I was, well, I made a speech the day we finally closed the trading floor for good. And I got up there and I said, remember, we were the ones that ripped each other apart face to face. You know, we had a policing committee called the floor, the floor committee. And it was a $5,000 fine and a two day suspension if you hit somebody. And some people, it's like hockey. You know, like some people did the math and they're like, hey, yeah, I need the time. Well, if I'm going to get this guy like there was one, there was one fight that I had that I just meet this guy for the board. And I, he was a, he was an excellent backer of Penn State. And I pushed him this way to get to a trailer and I looked down and he had fallen three steps and hit his head against the rail. And it's a big guy. He comes up and he is right red and he is ripping me a car. He's calling me every and they got two guys holding him back. I got two guys holding me back. And I'm ripping him apart. He's ripping me apart because I'm like, I say the guy next to me go, whatever you do, don't let me go. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, why is this because if I get close, he's kind of freaking killed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so we end up getting thrown off the trading floor. We got a $2,000 fine. Right. And but by the time we hit the doors of the trading floor, he looks at me, he goes, where do you want to go for lunch? I'm like, I don't know. And we just hung out all day because we could have these rip roaring fights down there and not take it personally. And when the fight was over, it was over. You know, and it was awesome. And that's what I taught in my classes, too. Like you can have difference in you don't have to be so polar opposite to hate each other. You can respect the fact that I don't agree with you on any level. But you're just actually a super healthy relationship. Which is a super healthy relationship. Just hold bit about one side or the other on any topic, whether it be religion or politics or, you know, the next first, the next, whatever. It's like, we've come down to a world now where people got mean during COVID. And they got behind the keyboards of social media. And everyone's a big shop behind the keyboard. And that's what I was saying about when we closed the trading floor. When I ripped somebody apart, somebody came at me. I don't think they were ever worried about me hitting them. But I was really worried about like this one guy that everybody was always getting he and I was a new trader on the ring. And he comes up and gets right in my face. He doesn't hold food man, true thing. Yeah. Again, yeah, I got beat up. So, you know, when he goes, and I'm like, you know what, Neil, you're going to hit me do it now. You know, and he looks at me, just looks at me goes, you know, he goes, you're okay. It just walks away. And nobody ever messed with me again after that, you know. So, you know, but that's, but that's important. I love that. If you were going to give some, some closing wisdom to, to the audience, I know you're given a lot, but what are some, what are some sort of takeaways are actually even outside of that, what are things that we didn't go into because we went to a lot. Yeah, but I think some of the things that we, the closing advice that I would give is that every day is a good day period. A bad day is when you don't come home or someone you loved didn't come home and didn't make it through the day. And if you can realize that every day is a good day, find something out of it. You know, I remember the best advice I got was a friend of mine who was going through the 12 steps. And I brought him in to share my office and we were sharing an office. And I remember at 10 o'clock in the morning, I go, this day sucks. And he ripped me apart. And he goes, what do you mean, this day sucks? It's 10 o'clock in the morning. You've written off the whole day. And I'm like, well, he goes, maybe 11 o'clock things are going to be better. Maybe one o'clock things will be better. He goes, David, I take life one day at a time right now. He goes, you can't take it one hour at a time. And you know what? There were two things of that. One, it was a great thing. But what we're happening now is that people are too afraid to tell friends the truth. You know, and that is a problem. If you really love somebody and you're really there for somebody and you really care, don't be too afraid to tell them the truth. Because that's what it's all about. And be there. And and the one takeaway that I've learned through all this business and the money that I've made and the relationships that I've made is that at the end of the day, a good relationship is better than a good dollar. Hey, man. Hey, man. Where should people go? Like, where do you want to send people social website? Yeah, social media on Instagram. I'm David Douglas Greenberg. Okay. Okay. The idea will Douglas and Greenberg. And then David Douglas Greenberg is the website. Okay. You know, that's my strategic advising website or Greenberg capital. And then so and let's see. And then Twitter, which I don't really use often as Greenberg, capture your, we're going to get your socials back up and go. So, yeah. So I have to do all that. But the key thing is is that, you know, if you're looking for someone to really sit down with you. Yeah, that's actually a good point. So like really highlighting. So if somebody wants to reach out to you, what should they be asking you to do for them? What do you do? You sit on boards? Yeah. Well, I sit on boards that I advise companies, but also on the coaching end. Yeah. You know, I coach some pretty powerful people that need somebody that's not just going to say yes all the time. Okay. You know, which is everyone by the way, but you know, I mean, if someone is looking, if someone's looking for someone who will say it like it is, you know, that I mean, listen, I can motivate anybody to get to the next level. But the key thing is you have to be honest with yourself. And it's not about the ra ra. It's about, okay, let's get this grit. Let's get it done. It's going to be tough. And when you get your teeth knocked out, I'm going to be there for you getting your backup. Yeah. And moving to the next level because those are the people that make it. You know, and I've seen so many coaches out there. And it's just about the ra ra. And then this and oh, we'll take this format and read my book. I don't have a book. I wrote a book. It sucked. I didn't I didn't put it out there. Okay. But I was honest enough to say this, this sucks. Yeah. Right. But you know, on the way that I coach is just it's grit. It's there. It's truth. And it's like, let's just let's just get this stuff done. Last question. I ask everyone. You've had multiple seasons to your life. A lot of success. At this point in your life, how do you define success? What does it mean to you? How do I define success at this time of my life? Success is making a difference in people's lives. You hear it? Whether it be my friends lives, my family's lives, the charity work I do. As I said, I sit on the, you know, as a strategic advisor for the Panthers, I sit on a lot of boards. So I sit on the junior achievement boards. I sit on the United Negro College leadership board. I sit on the Royal Del Film Festival board. I remember what all these things, but I'm doing it. Never about the ego. I could care about that, but how many people's lives can I change? And there's a great scene in one of the Batman movies where the Flash was with them. And they go, he goes, in the Flash, he goes, okay, Batman's like, I need your help. And Flash goes, no, no, I was just here to hang out with the guys. Yeah. And he goes, go over there and save one of them. And all of a sudden, Flash goes and saves one of them. And then he goes, oh, and then Batman goes, okay, go do another one. He goes back and goes back. And Flash goes, oh, and then he gets it. He gets how good it felt by being productive and to help somebody. And once you get that feeling under your belt and you realize what a rush it is to have some kid, you know, because everybody can mentor. You know, don't give me this crap. I haven't done enough, I haven't done this. Everybody, sorry, everybody, everybody can mentor somebody. And if people take the time out to get out of their own head once in a while and realize that they can mentor other people, not only will they feel good about it, but they're going to learn enough about themselves and they're going to be better at business by learning about what they are now telling the next generation. Because, you know, we have a next generation of future leaders that will lead this country. And it is our job to get the message across of how to succeed with grit being tough. Maybe being not so sensitive because the world doesn't care. The rest of the world's not going to care if your feelings are hurt and how to get slept on.