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A New Perspective: Stories Take Flight
14 Plays1 month ago
Emmy-winning filmmaker Jim Stone left a lucrative aerospace career because the success felt empty—and the culture made him someone he didn’t want to be. In this Voice of Growth conversation, Manny and Jim dig into why story still moves markets, how You + AI (not either/or) is the modern creative edge, and why every company must act like a media company or get left behind. Jim shares the Bombardier delivery saga, the audience reactions that changed his life after Storm Soldiers, and the daily habits—grace, persistence, and surrounding yourself with winners—that keep him producing meaningful work. Plus: Curiosity Lab (Qualcomm/T-Mobile/Audi/Bosch), the comeback of prints, and what he’d tell his 18-year-old self. This one’s about character, craft, and compounding.
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Transcript
The Art of Storytelling
00:00:04
Speaker
The voice of growth, mastering the mind and market.
00:00:10
Speaker
That's how you keep an audience. That's how you keep it compelling is trying to tell a story. It's hard. Most people are not cut out for it.
Leaving the Aircraft Industry
00:00:18
Speaker
Manny, that's the reason I left the aircraft industry.
00:00:22
Speaker
It's soul crushing. And I hated the person that I'd become Manny.
00:00:29
Speaker
That still haunts me to this day. To have people just literally emotionally moved by something that you created by telling a story, you realize the power of filmmaking.
00:00:48
Speaker
Inspiring people to see the world from a different angle. That's what I try to do every day, Manny. I love that. I love that. And I love that, in fact, you have a background in in aerospace. So um there's a lot to talk about here.
Filmmaking and Innovation
00:01:03
Speaker
We're with ah Jim Stone, who is an Emmy award-winning everything. i mean, you've done so much in your career. And so tell us a little bit about what you should what you're doing now. Wow. um Doing a tech film right now. I mean,
00:01:18
Speaker
Uh, we dabble in feature films, but we do a lot of corporate work. Uh, just finished up a piece for Qualcomm working on a piece that involves T-Mobile and Audi and Bosch and a whole bunch of different, uh, groups that came together at a place called the Curiosity Lab in Atlanta.
00:01:34
Speaker
And, uh, it's this, lot of people would say an incubator, but it's more an ecosystem. Uh, the city of Peachtree Corners has created this incredible 1200 acre building.
00:01:48
Speaker
ecosystem where autonomous vehicles are tested, latest AI, UPS, T-Mobile, Bosch, Qualcomm, Consignia, all those guys have advanced teams there, testing all the future stuff that all of us will be using in the next months, years, and decades ahead.
00:02:06
Speaker
So it's pretty cool. We get to document that and that's, um it's really a lot of fun and gives us some fun insight into what's coming. So. That's fantastic. So i um you know, this podcast is all about, it's the voice of growth. So we talk about, you know, the the journey that took you from where you were to where you are.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yesterday, we released a podcast. We had the pleasure of interviewing a gentleman named Herb Stratford, who restores um old theaters to their their glory days. When you were in Tucson, did you ever go to the Fox Theater? I did.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that's his, he was but responsible for getting that back up. Amazing, and amazing. Yeah, we could need him here. We have the Pex Theater where the Color Purple premiered. really yeah it's in the we've raised some money locally here and it's going to be several million dollars to restore but it's an absolutely beautiful theater and i love what herb's doing i mean it's just so important to culture and and just you know really helping young people understand the true value of community and entertainment and sharing those things in a group setting is very different than just streaming it on your phone or your laptop at home so
00:03:21
Speaker
love Love that Herb's doing that. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. it's It's a great thing. And, you know, it kind of, it's interesting that that some of the work that you do in you're a storyteller and the fact that you tell the, I mean, I love your tagline, at least on LinkedIn here regarding, uh, perspective. I think that's so important.
00:03:41
Speaker
And a lot of, uh, people that listen to this podcast are maybe not in, in the business quote unquote, right. They're not in the movie or in the storytelling business. Right. No, it's,
The Power of Storytelling
00:03:53
Speaker
uh,
00:03:54
Speaker
Really, i mean, that's how people learn. I mean, yeah it goes back to ancient times. I mean, Jesus taught in parables, right? What are parables? They're stories, right? So, I mean, the greatest, whether it's religious doctrine, politics, everybody are storytellers. That's how you, that's how you keep an audience. That's how you keep it compelling is trying to tell a story. And, and I love to be a part of that, that side of the business and do that. And that's what I really enjoy about filmmaking. I make a lot less money than I did when I had my engineering aircraft concern, but, uh, I wake up ever in every morning excited and I have no plans to retire anytime soon. so
00:04:32
Speaker
it' so I think we're we're cut from the same cloth, Jim. i I don't have any plans to retire. I i have friends. i mean, i'm I'm at the age now where I'm having friends that are retiring a very young age. I mean, I'm 52, and I've got these guys that were in you know an industry, and and they're they're going to retire in at 55, and i just I can't imagine what I would do with myself.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, Manny, that's the reason I left the aircraft industry. You know, I left the aircraft industry making a pretty significant, you know, high six-figure salary um from my company.
00:05:09
Speaker
um We had a real nice run. You know, had a custom log home in Texas, a beach house in Georgia on Tybee Island. Bought a house for my mom and dad. Bought an office building. Did all of that. Was absolutely miserable.
00:05:22
Speaker
And I just... I just love being able to impact people's lives. And that's, that's what I was able to do with film. That's what really shocked me about this. I got into it doing kind of traditional advertising in 2006. My dad was in the sales and advertising world. When transitioned over, it was fairly natural because I grew up around it, but, you know, I'd use my design skills in a different setting as a program manager in the aircraft industry, as a consultant most of the time, first five years as a direct employee, and then for almost 20 more as a ah consultant.
00:06:00
Speaker
But
00:06:03
Speaker
when we did our first feature length film, storm soldiers in 2012, and I had wives and kids and grandmothers coming up to me, crying, thanking me for telling the story of their husband or their dad or their brother.
00:06:18
Speaker
I mean, it really affects you. You know, you're, you're at this, You know, we went to bunch of different film festivals and we're blessed to win a few of them. But to have people just literally emotionally moved, you know, by something that you created by telling a story, you realize the power of filmmaking.
00:06:36
Speaker
You know, you realize the power of photography. i mean, that's something my wife's a fabulous. for i'm I'm a pretty decent photographer. I do more of the fashion stuff with maybe your viewers can see behind me, but that's a lot of fun.
00:06:48
Speaker
But my wife, you know, it's amazing when people pass away, we're one of the first people they call because they want to get a print of Anne Edith or whoever, you know, oh my God, I love that picture you guys took 10 years ago. Do you still have that? yeah We tried to dig it up real quick and get it something printed for them.
00:07:06
Speaker
It's really, really important to people. And I learned that living at the coast, you know, when the hurricane, you got to evacuate. you know, what do you grab? You don't grab all your toys. You grab your photo albums and your hard drives with all your pictures on them and, um, and all your home movies.
00:07:21
Speaker
And, uh, of course now you can upload them. So everybody upload them, back them up, double back them up. Um, but there's a whole generation printing. Something matters still, Manny. Um, there's generations of images being lost right now.
00:07:36
Speaker
Billions of images, but all the time don't back them up, you know, and it's, uh, And I've been a victim of it myself. remember a kid, my mom had and still has, I want to say seven or eight photo albums.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, and and it kind of goes in in time, right? You have some very old ones. And then you have ones that have me in it and they have a few other past that. And I remember as a kid just flipping through them and and and asking my mom, who's this? Who's that?
00:08:07
Speaker
Right. And so we don't really have that same, same way. I mean, we have it different. Like I can share a picture with you and and we kind of have a little mini version of that, but it's kind of not the same as it was. No, there's something to that. And that's ah the few magazines that have survived just that whole tactile experience, you know, the coffee table magazines, the big 300 page magazines, they still seem to to do pretty well, but, um,
00:08:31
Speaker
It's something definitely we're missing. And ah both with newspapers and magazines and especially, you know, family photo albums, people really need to get kind of get back to that. And maybe in the age of AI, a little bit of the retro and the pushback might be getting back to some of those more classic ways to remember things.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, and actually that's a really good segue, Jim, because you know we talk a lot about trends here at Prefectory and at the Voice of Growth podcast. We talk about the the way things are changing.
00:09:01
Speaker
ah People fear change a lot, and you know what? It's going to happen. It's inevitable.
AI and Industry Transformation
00:09:07
Speaker
yeah How do you see a i changing your industry in particular?
00:09:14
Speaker
Big. Big changes already. It's pretty incredible. um
00:09:22
Speaker
We, we interviewed Jonathan Devados. I'll never forget. He's a former Microsoft guy early on, made a bunch of money. And we interviewed him at the world economic forum about, Oh, 20.
00:09:37
Speaker
It was right. When Chad GPT came out right after that was done yeah in January. Chad GPT come out in November. And we were talking to him early on about AI and.
00:09:51
Speaker
He asked us, where are on AI? And my director of photography, Brad Kramer, he'd gotten on it like the third day. I tried to get on it like the second week and they was already, you know, the bandwidth was way It took me two months before I could even get an account.
00:10:05
Speaker
And I said, what do you think is going to happen? He goes, well, here's what's going to happen. He goes, the people who just strictly rely on, rely on AI, they're not going to survive. The people that ignore ai are going to get beat by people like you who have all the skills you do plus use AI.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, so exactly. So you plus AI is the survival formula for everyone out there. I mean, there's no avoiding it. We can't take put the genie back in the bottle. You know, the good and the bad of it. We all, I mean, you can watch, see all the YouTube, um,
00:10:38
Speaker
thumbnails you know with all the gloom and doom coming you know it's the end of the world it's the apocalypse there's no jobs in 2030 all that um you know there was going to be no no still photography after higher hd video came out you know everybody grabbed clips off of video and obviously still photography iss still a big thing and um things just change things change now but there yeah they they change and and people need to adapt we've done a handful of interviews with with leaders in the space. I have a friend of mine that's one of the kind of an OG AI guy from about 15 years ago. He's been working on it for his whole career.
00:11:17
Speaker
yeah And we talked to other people, some that didn't want to be interviewed because of their they're doing some stuff with the government. right um Anyway, long story short is that And we also did a lot of research on some of the thought leaders in this space, yeah like Mo Gadot and a guy named Jeffrey Hinton, who's the the father of ai as as they call him. yeah And the this the short of it is you do have a lot of the doomsday folks saying that, yeah, we're going to have 90.
00:11:48
Speaker
One guy even said 99% unemployment of ridiculous. yeah that's kind of ridiculous I think it is going to hit. I think we're going to have, you know, maybe mid 30s percent.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah. But like you said, those that are able to adapt and are able to harness the power of AI with their existing foundation are just going to kick ass. I mean, they're going to take the world by storm.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, we're, we're already, I, we're really blessed. I have a guy, uh, Troy Alexiades, who's based in San Diego and he's a, uh, feature film guy, did 3d CG, all that stuff on Spider-Man, the Avengers and all that. And he got tired of just, you know, doing the left hand of Spider-Man for three months. You know, you get, they really segment you, you know, into teams of two and you see the credits at the end of those movies. It's insane.
00:12:36
Speaker
How many people he got, he got tired of just being, and you know, another, you know, cog in the wheel. Um, So he likes working with us because, you know, there might be six, seven people on a team and everybody has a vital role.
00:12:48
Speaker
But the stuff he can do is absolutely incredible. ah You know, and he's merging three, four, five different AI platforms, you know, to come up with quick renders for us. And I use it every day now.
00:13:01
Speaker
I mean, Adobe Creative Suite has done a great job of integrating AI into Photoshop and, and, camera raw even it's it's pretty incredible but there's another program out now and i'm i'm not sponsored by any these so i'm just telling you guys what i work with on a daily basis yeah There's a program called Evoto now, E-V-O-T-O. And I kind of felt guilty about it because as a pro photographer, you know, you want to get it right in camera and you don't want to think, you know, you're using AI in any way.
00:13:30
Speaker
And then there's a really famous fashion photographer in New York named Lindsay Adler. And I saw her talking about using Evoto. I said, well, damn, if Lindsay can use it, you know, I'm going to give this a try. And I just had a had a an editorial that had 71 images of this one gal.
00:13:46
Speaker
And she was younger. She's 18. She had a few, you know, heat bumps, not a great complexion, but you know, just normal stuff. You you try not to retouch people to where they eat look retouched. But this thing, you retouch one image and you just save that and it tracks her face and it retouches that blemish across every image.
00:14:09
Speaker
Oh, really? I mean, yeah, it's insane. I did 71 images. in literally 30 minutes, maybe. like retouched a magazine level.
00:14:21
Speaker
Like what would have taken me 10, 15 minutes an image? Like I just spent half a day or a day retouching those 70 images literally two years ago. And now it's,
00:14:33
Speaker
It's insane. It really is. So if you, if you don't embrace AI, you're going get left behind really, really fast and you have to continue to educate yourself. I mean, that's one of the things I try because I'm, I'm older than you, Manny. I just turned 66 and I tell people all the time, if you got a degree five years ago, it's pretty much obsolete.
00:14:55
Speaker
You know, if you don't, you have to continue to educate
Pursuing Passions Later in Life
00:14:59
Speaker
yourself. Things are changing so fast. I don't care if it's marketing. I don't care if it's engineering, coding, whatever it is, things are just moving really, really rapidly.
00:15:10
Speaker
And you can become obsolete really fast if you don't adapt. Continue to learn. It's a lifelong process. so Yeah, so i have i have two high I have a high school kid who graduates this year, and I have a ah um a sophomore in college, and the sophomore is studying optical engineering, and and I tell him, look,
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, you can get a foundational degree in something because you know how it is. When you go to school, you think that you're given a tool and that tool is going to be only used for one thing.
00:15:44
Speaker
and we all knew that those are extremely rare. You know, the the guys and gals that go into one thing and they do that their whole career is rare. And for him, i'm like, look, get a foundation. and He's studying optical engineering.
00:15:57
Speaker
And if you want to go in a different direction slightly, then you do that. and It's not a big deal. yeah And you continue to augment your learning with AI, with everything else, software, all that.
00:16:10
Speaker
Absolutely, Manny. I mean, and now's the time for him to fail. Go try something. Go have passion about something. Go do that field. You know, go swing for the fence. Now, you know, take your big guts, you know, when you're in your 20s and 30s.
00:16:21
Speaker
You know, you can afford, you have more time than you think. You really do. um yeah I tell people all the time, I teach workshops and most of my workshops are 40, 50, 60 something, guys primarily, probably 10 or 15% women, but a lot of men and and love photography later on life. I get a lot of doctors, lawyers, just looking you know looking for something, an artistic outlet.
00:16:44
Speaker
And I go, it's not too late to start. It's really not. If you have a passion for it, I mean, I've created i've created a career out of it. I mean, that I'm a full-time filmmaker and photographer, and I didn't start till I was 45 years old Really? So tell us, actually, that that's a really good good segue. You must be a storyteller because you're you're following right in line of of of the arc here. so wow give us a i'll go I'll go back because I'm looking at all my my dumb awards behind me. I apologize, everybody. But I thought, you you know you you you know, I have a few Emmys. We just won one. I'm really, what makes me most proud, Manny, on those awards back there, my name's on about nine of those 13 awards. You know, it those are all won by Titan Pictures, right?
00:17:26
Speaker
But there's so many different names on those awards with me, you know, from a 17 year old kid from Alabama who was homeschool and won an Emmy award at 17 years old, you know, to one of my, one of my best friends, Drew Waters, who's an amazing guy. He was coached Wade on Friday Night Lights. He's, he's, he was, you know, had all kinds of billboards in Times Square. He was Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana model. And he was like this amazing actor you see on HBO and different places.
00:17:52
Speaker
He'd never won a trophy ever in his life, you know? And he and I won that together. You know, we produced and directed a short film last year called Timeless. And, you know, we did it a community where it's David and Goliath because we're up against PBS and, you know, a whole bunch of other people in the category we won.
00:18:10
Speaker
And, you know, we did it on a shoestring budget with all the local community actors and it So it was a lot of fun, but I'm going to go back to the beginning about awards because it kind of, you're talking about kind the foundation of things.
00:18:24
Speaker
um Yeah. When I was a kid, my whole goal in my life and this, you're you're probably not even old enough to remember Bob Hope, Manny, but. I remember Bob Hope. Yeah, I do. So but Bob Hope was a, you know, famous comedian. He did his USO tour and he had the Bob Hope, you know, special, you know, at Christmas and New Year's, he'd have the Bob Hope show and he'd announced the Kodak All-Americans, right?
00:18:46
Speaker
And everybody get on there and you say, you know, hi, I'm Jim Stone, University of Kentucky, you know, hey, mom, good, you know, thanks for all the support, right? My whole goal from the time I was eight years old was to get in Bob Hope and give my mom a shout out, you know?
00:19:00
Speaker
It didn't quite work out. I had kind of a broken up college football career, you know, got injured and everything, but it taught me so much that journey. But here's the funny part. And this is, this will explain my upbringing and a real quick story.
00:19:13
Speaker
So I go off to college. I come back home at Thanksgiving, you know, my first year and I'm excited to be home, give mom a hug. I go run upstairs to put my suitcase upstairs in my room and I walk in my room And everything's changed right there. My room's not there anymore.
00:19:32
Speaker
I used to have a king bed. I had this sailboat. I used to race sailboats and sailboat stuff everywhere. had surfboard had, you know, my, I love me wall, you know, with all your trophies from the time you were yeah years old and you knew your high school awards and all that stuff.
00:19:46
Speaker
And all of it's gone. And it's like two twin beds with floral bedspreads and some duck prints on the wall. And I'm like, wow. That was fast. I come back downstairs, you know, I mean, yeah, this is literally three months and it's gone.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I come back downstairs. I said, mom, where's my room? She goes, well, right upstairs where it's always been. I said, mom, all my stuff's gone. She goes, well, that's a guest room now. I said, mom, but that was my room. She goes, well, you're a guest, you know? And I'm like,
00:20:19
Speaker
Okay. She goes, no, she goes, down you're always welcome to home, son. But, you know, you're on you know, you're out there now. You know, you're a you're a young man. And i said, okay, mom, once that's settled in, I said, where are all my trophies?
00:20:37
Speaker
And she goes, they're in a box up in the rafters in the garage. I said, ah box? She goes, yeah, they're in like a medium-sized box that says awards on it. I go, mom, how did you fit all my trophies in a box? She goes, well, there's this little nut on the bottom of them. And I just took a plot pair of pliers, took the nut off and they all come apart in pieces.
00:20:56
Speaker
And you can pack all those awards in one box. She took all my awards apart, put them in a box. That's crazy. we Wrapped them in newspaper and sealed it up.
00:21:07
Speaker
I said, mom, what am I gonna do? And she said, go win some more.
00:21:15
Speaker
That's nice. Go win some more. and it And you did. Yeah, I did. And it really, it helped me understand that, you know, awards are great for a few hours or a few days, and it's nice to reminisce when you get old, but It's really just one point in time and you just gotta keep moving forward.
00:21:37
Speaker
And that's- 100%. I never, I never, I think that's one of the biggest lessons my mom and dad ever taught me was, you know, don't, don't rest on your laurels, just keep moving forward.
00:21:50
Speaker
So anyways. Yeah. So, uh, on my LinkedIn, I have, you know, award-winning entrepreneur, buth blah, blah, blah. And it's similar way. To me, an award is really more ah almost like a balance sheet in time of yeah something that might have happened. And in the very same way, it's that my team that was behind me that we know we won the award together. There was a few personal ones in there, like 40 under 40 and all that. but And to me, it doesn't make that much difference.
00:22:21
Speaker
I mean, for me, it's just a way to showcase, hey, listen, I'm legit. But otherwise I'm out there winning more awards too. I'm out there swinging for the fences every day. Yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah. No, you got to, I mean, that, that's what I, would you know, I would tell all the kids out there. I mean, just keep, keep going, keep trying to do your best. I mean, I, I tell the start of every film we do, cause you know, I'm, I'm in a pretty interesting industry and I'm pretty moderate and I stay very apolitical.
00:22:51
Speaker
Um, So when I'm on set, I have friends that are super conservative. I have friends that are super liberal. I have some trans folks over here and lot of the LGBTQ plus community, you know, on set, all kinds of different folks.
00:23:04
Speaker
And I tell everybody, I go, look, We don't talk politics. We don't talk any of the controversial stuff. We all agree on about 85% of things. We're all um Americans here for the most part.
00:23:15
Speaker
Let's just love on each other. Let's have a good time. And let's try to do something great. Because if we try to do something great, then at least it's going to be good. You know, if we all strive to be the best we can today, we can all put the greatest effort we can in today, I guarantee you we're going to produce something that's good.
00:23:33
Speaker
And that's that's really come through for us as a team. so Yeah, we're definitely cut from the same cloth, Jim, because I have the same exact sentiment. If if ever everybody's focused on greatness, then you focus less on yourself and you focus less on your neighbor who might be different than yourself.
00:23:55
Speaker
You know what i mean? it We're all human beings and we all want basically the same thing. We want to be healthy, happy, fulfilled. We want to leave a legacy. How you do that, it's kind of ah up to you, but we all kind of want the same things.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah. I think it's really persistent, Manny, because like in whether was in my athletics or my business career, I wasn't the strongest or fastest. I was good. You know, I had good stats, but it was really just showing up every day, you know, and and taking your at bats, right? You know, going there, taking the hits, getting back up. And that that's what That's what sports taught me about business is like, you're going to have some good days and then someday somebody's just going to kick your ass. And there's always somebody.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I can, I don't know how far, I don't, I'm not going to use foul language, but my cousin who was an all American at Virginia Tech told me, he goes, Hey, don't be cocky. There's always somebody that's going to kick your ass. You know? Yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
And he was an all American. He said, just when you think you're riding high, somebody's going to take you out. whether it's on the football field or the business field or just life. And you you got to be ready for it. You just got to acknowledge that's going to happen sometimes.
00:25:04
Speaker
And you just can't quit. You just got to get up and keep going.
Integrity in the Workplace
00:25:07
Speaker
is there Is there a time that you can remember in your career, you know, whether it's in the aerospace side or the filmmaking storytelling side, that you were faced with a major challenge that maybe you wanted to pull out or quit that project or can you share something that is, that has some ah sort of a lesson of grit behind it?
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, in this relates since you you're, you're based there in Tucson. I was actually working as a consultant, ah For Bombardier and i was on the Global Express joint development team ah before the Global Express, you know, their flagship aircraft existed.
00:25:53
Speaker
They make the regional jets that so many of us fly on on Delta or American. Right. that It's either an RJS RJ, you know, regional jet by Bombardier or Embraer, typically regional jets.
00:26:05
Speaker
And so they wanted to use the RJ ah as a platform to develop the new interior, you know, the shell, the water system, everything. It was all from scratch. and um I was a young 33, 34 old program manager And I got tasked with developing the interior for this. And I brought on my mentor actually from the cycling days. I haven't really got into that, but, uh, I had an amazing mentor who didn't breathe oxygen. He was the California state math champion. He could do six decimal place math in his head.
00:26:45
Speaker
He was an absolute genius, like rain man, almost like literally. wow Um, but a little bit more social than that, but still pretty asocial. And, uh,
00:26:57
Speaker
but I brought rich and I brought all the best guys I had on board for this. And we had 14 months to deliver this and about six months to go. We'd been working six days a week already.
00:27:11
Speaker
And the director of engineering at the time, um brought me in and, um, he sat me down. He said, Hey,
00:27:26
Speaker
I want to let you know, I'm i'm moving to service department to over this center. This is a gentleman by the name of Michael Eddy, Mike Eddy, great guy, great friend. And he goes, Hey kid, I want to let you know something. He goes, if you manage to deliver this airplane, it'll take a bulldozer to get to the front of the line to get any credit for it.
00:27:47
Speaker
He goes, but if you don't, which is the most probable thing, and there's a lot of people betting that you won't. And some people that hope you don't.
00:27:57
Speaker
Already have a target painted on your back and they're going to push out on the tarmac with that target on your back. You're the designated fall guy. So if you want to continue Superman, knock yourself out.
00:28:09
Speaker
Wow. And um
00:28:14
Speaker
we the the company we were doing the airplane for was Technique d'Avant Garde, tag watches, tag URA. right? They have Tag Aviation at the time, and they were one of Bombardier's biggest customers.
00:28:26
Speaker
And I was friends with um the son, Eric Karuba. I was friends with Eric, who is based in Montreal. And his dad, Benoit, was the president of Tag Aviation.
00:28:39
Speaker
And they wanted won the aircraft. I know Tag wanted it. And what I was told was that if we delivered this you know, on time that myself and my four leads would all get tagged watches. that was like, not a big deal for all the hard work, but it was a nice memento.
00:28:56
Speaker
Well,
00:29:01
Speaker
six months later, working the last 58 days straight, 12, 14 hours a day, never a day off my hair down to my shoulders. Like literally, cause I don't think I'd cut my hair in nine or 10 months.
00:29:18
Speaker
We delivered that airplane and was lighter and quieter than anything that had ever flown for Bombardier. And as Mike Yeti predicted, we were told not to get on the airplane for the last three days after we finished it.
00:29:33
Speaker
Right? Like all of a sudden, you know, we could build a bus, but we weren't good enough to ride on it. Hmm. Okay. This was monumental in my career. And I'm thinking, you know, here I was flying back and forth to Montreal, you know, I'm doing...
00:29:48
Speaker
You know, i'm program manager, high visibility position on a very, very contentious project. And my team brought us through and it was a kick-ass airplane.
00:30:02
Speaker
And
00:30:06
Speaker
in flies to two Bombardier aircraft fly in. to the airport in Tucson and out get all the vice presidents that weren't involved with this thing, had nothing to do with it, just a bunch of bureaucrats from Montreal to get down there and just bask in the glory of delivering this airplane so it could make the Dubai air show.
00:30:29
Speaker
And all of us are sitting out here, you know, behind 500 people, just, so the next day me and all my key guys came in and tendered our resignation and said, hey, a fun run guys, bye.
00:30:43
Speaker
They were in shock. don't blame you. Yeah. Got called up to Montreal two weeks later. Um, I said, well, I'm really busy. And I, they said, well, we'll fly up here and take, said, well, only fly first class now that that's not a, but they flew me up first class. They flew rich Hannaway, my mentor up.
00:31:01
Speaker
They did all that. And we just told them there, I said, we're just not interested in working with you anymore. You know? And. Bombardier is a great company. Now they made some changes after that. I know after, after my meeting in Montreal, they flew down and walked the, uh, the head facility out the, off the plant.
00:31:18
Speaker
Wow. Um, there was some things going on that I won't go into, but there, there was a, there, there is a, the aircraft industry is a tough industry and I have a lot of respect for my friends that stayed in it, but it's a tough, it's, you're basically,
00:31:36
Speaker
Um, you're a high tech migrant worker. I mean, you follow the money around the country. You look at everybody's resume and they are two years here, three years here, one year, two years here, three years there.
00:31:47
Speaker
Right. And you're constantly, oh they'll pay me $5 more an hour. They'll do that. You know, and everybody's, there's no loyalty. There's no integrity from the company to people and from the people to the companies anymore.
00:32:00
Speaker
And that started back in my day. I mean, my dad, you know, they they go to work for a company and you retire 35 or 40 years later. And that just doesn't exist at scale now. But I mean, it no, it doesn't. Aircraft industry was one of the first ones to do it.
00:32:14
Speaker
And look, it was a fun industry. I mean, I really love making that airplane. I'm really proud of what we produced. You know, but I told my wife at that time, I said, look, and I just turned 35. I said, if I'm 45 and still doing this crap and I feel the same way I'm walking and on my 45th birthday, I did.
00:32:31
Speaker
I quit the aircraft industry. That's fantastic. Yeah, I have ah ah have a lot of respect for the aircraft industry, as well as the automotive industry. I spent some time in in automotive and the engineering required to make something like a car reliable yeah for what we pay for them. I mean, yeah, they're expensive as hell, but still what they are, it's it's remarkable.
00:32:56
Speaker
yep And, you know, yeah, so i I definitely, I feel you there. My first job as an engineer was at an aerospace company working on um bearings for the flaperons and ailerons. And so a lot of respect for that. So, yeah, I, uh, I had to, uh, when I took that job, I was a program manager at the time.
00:33:18
Speaker
And when I first went to, to, uh, out to Learjet facility, had to teach myself. I, my first drawing was due in two weeks and I'd never used AutoCAD before. So I had to teach myself AutoCAD and finish my first drawing in two weeks.
00:33:34
Speaker
So there were a lot of challenges back then, a lot of challenges to overcome for sure. But i I was, again, my my my cousin, Stevie Bacco from Virginia Tech, the second thing he said to me, goes, surround yourself with winners. You know, this was his advice as far as football, right? You know, surround yourself with people that are better than you.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I always took that into business. I mean, the people that are on my team now are, they're great at what they do. They're better at things than I am. And, you know, we get along. It works as a team, you know, so surround yourself with winners. That's how you get through the tough challenges in life.
00:34:13
Speaker
hundred percent 100%. So imagine, Jim, that I have a ah magic phone here. Okay. That I'm going to hand to you. And on the other end of that phone is 18 year old Jimmy Stone just got home from college, yeah you know, wondering where the hell his trophies are and and the phone rings and it's you right now.
00:34:39
Speaker
What would you tell Jim Stone at 18 years old? It's a really good question.
00:34:56
Speaker
Don't waste your time.
00:35:01
Speaker
hanging around with people who are not, don't have the same goals and aspirations that you do.
00:35:09
Speaker
Be very careful who you get serious with because the person you marry has a big impact on your life. You know, for sure. Be respectful of women. Don't, you know, don't,
00:35:28
Speaker
You know, make sure you care, you know, before you get serious, before you get romantic, even, you know, make sure it's a quality individual because that could lead to a long time relationship.
00:35:39
Speaker
You know, I slow up a little bit, you know, just don't be the party. And I wasn't a party boy. Brigham Young recruited me. They thought I was Mormon. I was so straight, you know, in high school. I go, I'm Presbyterian.
00:35:50
Speaker
They go, it's all right. Yeah. went to prom with a Mormon girl. They were sitting in the most beautiful Mormon girls in the world to come see me and go to prom. But, uh, but all that being said still, I mean, just, I think that's a big one. I mean, just be, be, be aware, you know, have fun, have fun in your twenties, but you know, don't, don't waste a bunch of time with, with friends that are just,
00:36:17
Speaker
I guess today it'd be if if I was 18 today, I see so many kids distracted with video games and social media and you know, those things are fun, you know, but regulate that spend an hour a day, max, you know, playing video games and social media, then get outside and have some fun and make some and build relationships. Cause relationships is what met what matter most in business. And I think in life, everything I've gotten, every deal I've done is because of the relationships that I've been able to build.
00:36:49
Speaker
People have been kind to me. People have been gracious, very gracious with me. I've been through some hard times. You know, I'm like that Jimmy Buffett song about making enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast.
00:37:00
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I've had my ups and I've made millions, lost millions, made millions, lost millions. And people have shown me grace. So when, when I'm up and somebody owes me some money or, or, you know, maybe owes me some favors.
00:37:15
Speaker
I don't, I look at the situation. I'm not like, you owe me that $200. You better damn well pay me. Yeah. You know, you got to show some grace because if you don't show, do if you don't show grace, then you, you don't deserve to be shown grace.
00:37:28
Speaker
There's people in my in my community that I would call more acquaintances and friends yeah that are straight up bullies. they They either come from money or they have money or they have a position of power and how they treat people when people aren't looking.
00:37:48
Speaker
is, is, uh, disgusting. And, um, I want no part of it. They're out there. They're going to be there, but at the end of the day, they're, they're unfulfilled. They're, uh, they're shallow and hollow one inside. Yeah.
A Pivotal Self-Reflection
00:38:02
Speaker
I don't want that. I live a very, I live a comfortable life. I have a great, uh, family, great partner, great, you know, my kids are great. Everybody's healthy. Yeah. I am rich and I'm wealthy beyond measure because of those things.
00:38:15
Speaker
That's awesome, Manny. All right. I have a different, I have a part B for this question. All right. Can I please you, uh, you reminded me of something and I need to maybe that they this will kind of put a period at the end of the aircraft sentence and why I left.
00:38:33
Speaker
Cause for the very same reason, the people that I were around um the language that I began to use, the way I was treating people to win. And i won there's Make no no mistake.
00:38:45
Speaker
You can be a bully. You can be an asshole. You can be those people. And you can make money. And you can deliver projects. And you can do those things. But that's short term.
00:38:55
Speaker
Because it's soul crushing. And there was a 72-year-old PhD engineer that drove from Texas to Tucson to work on our team. And we're going a hundred miles an hour on that project I was telling you about.
00:39:10
Speaker
And he was out there and he was moving and he was hand drawn. And then I had to give it to somebody to draft it up in AutoCAD. And I fired him after two weeks and I brought him in and I said, dude, you are just too slow for me.
00:39:29
Speaker
That guy had forgotten more than I knew. My arrogance at that time from being around those folks, that still haunts me to this day.
00:39:41
Speaker
When that man broke down in tears and was going to have to drive back to his wife, you know, at 72 years old, i still I still pray to God, please forgive me for that.
00:39:52
Speaker
That was so arrogant. It was so wrong. And I hated the person that I'd become Manny. I really hated the person I'd become And i told you about, i told my wife, I literally dropped to my knees and here I am making half a million dollars a year.
00:40:08
Speaker
Take home. Right. I mean, taxable income. And I hit my knees in the shower on a Sunday night, crying, hating my life because of the person I'd become.
00:40:20
Speaker
And just said, I i can't do this. Isn't me. This isn't Susan. I, this is not who I am. This is not how I was raised. And I have to do something meaningful with my life.
00:40:33
Speaker
And that was a change. and that's why I made my wife the promise that if I can't do this in a different way, if this is still the same, when I'm 45, I walked and I walked. So anyways, well, that's a very powerful story. Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. Very powerful story. Okay. I have that same phone. I'm going to dial a different number. And it's, it is ah Jim Stone at 86. 86. eighty six Okay.
00:40:59
Speaker
And you, you get to ask Jim and rather than, than give advice, you get to ask Jim something. What would you ask yourself at 86, 20 years from now? Why didn't you take better care of yourself?
00:41:15
Speaker
That's what I'd ask my silly self. Hopefully I did start taking care of myself. No, what would I ask?
00:41:26
Speaker
What's the most profound thing that you've, you've discovered through this journey?
00:41:36
Speaker
That's what I'd ask. That's great. What's the most profound fact that you can share with me that you've learned through this journey?
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a good one. You know, we have a, we search for meaning, we search for ah We want to leave a legacy and we we sometimes don't stop and ask those questions of ourselves at every touch point,
Entrepreneurial Challenges
00:42:03
Speaker
right? if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, we should ask ourselves, what are we doing that's profound? What are we doing that's making a mark?
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah. I have no, I don't judge people if they want to live a particular lifestyle that is just punching the clock, so to speak. That's for them. and lot of people are really happy with that, Manny. I think 95% of the people, that's what they prefer.
00:42:24
Speaker
i mean, living your life or my life is not for everybody. i mean, I know that I started companies and I thought, well, everybody's going to love to do what I do. You know, it's like, hey, you make $10,000 this month and nothing next month. You know, that drives people nuts.
00:42:37
Speaker
It does. You know, they'd rather make $3,000 a month or $5,000 a month, make $25,000 this month and nothing next month. It's scary. It's frightening to to live the way, you know, to start a company or to be an entrepreneur or to be a freelancer or consultant. it's It's frightening. And There's too many guys on the internet, you know, making promises about, oh, you need to do this and quit your nine to five and do, it's hard. Most people are not cut out for it.
00:43:03
Speaker
No. Yeah. All those, all those folks, they speak the truth, but just like, um, you know, the idea of you, yeah, you can win the lottery. Whether or not not you actually do is a different story, right? If you if you bust your butt, even that's not always enough.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I have friends that are that are always chasing the the next one of those things, right? These yeah courses or whatever. And they they ask me, what am I doing wrong? And I'm like, okay, well, you're spending this money on this course.
00:43:35
Speaker
You're giving it 80%. eighty percent And then you're, and what does it work out right away? You pull, you pull away. yeah You gotta, I mean, grit is something that needs to be woven into your, your soul.
00:43:49
Speaker
Cause if you fall down, you just gotta to keep on getting up and and keep on getting up and keep on getting up. Yep. You're absolutely right, Manny. You're absolutely right. You know, going back to your 86 year old question, it reminds me, i think it was two or three years ago.
00:44:05
Speaker
i heard, I probably heard it before. But Billy Graham was asked that question or so something similar to that when he was in his early nineties. And i expect it, you know, some theological God is good or Jesus is the answer, you know, whatever, what you would expect from a great religious leader like Billy Graham.
00:44:27
Speaker
You know what he said the most profound thing was to him? What's that? The brevity of life
00:44:37
Speaker
And I guess that's what I'd tell my young self too, is like, I remember just yesterday, the last time I took my helmet off at the University of Kentucky and handed that helmet in, you know?
00:44:48
Speaker
And that was a long time ago. You know, that was 45 plus years ago, you know? And it seems like yesterday. you know, it's seems I the pleasure of of meeting a um World War II vet.
00:45:03
Speaker
I was driving from Tucson to... San Diego with a, with a buddy of mine, a workmate and one of my guys, and we stopped at this, they had this sort of a, this deck road back in the, I i guess, thirties and forties. It was made out of, literally made out of wood and that's how they got across the sand dunes.
00:45:23
Speaker
And so they had a stretch of it that was sort of a historical marker thing. So we pulled aside and we were hanging out and there was this old guy with a cane and he might've even have ah a barrette or something, beret.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah. um And I just started talking with him and it turns out he was Canadian, fought in World War two Yeah. He was in his um mid nineties, I think he was 96. Yeah. And he said he'd come out to visit his, his daughter every year she lives in Yuma with his wife and his wife had passed away two years ago.
00:45:55
Speaker
And he was just standing there stoic and just, I was just like kind of touched. And um he was talking about his daughter and that he was visiting. And, you know, I have a tendency to kind of push the limit sometimes when I say things for better, for worse.
00:46:09
Speaker
Well, you're in the right business now, Manny. Yeah. And so i said to him, isn't it weird? And he looked at me and he says, what is that? That you have an old lady for a daughter.
00:46:22
Speaker
And he started cracking up, you know, his daughter was 77, right? and And he just started laughing about that. And and he he paused and he said, you know what? I remember the last time as I was walking her across the street when she was 10 years old.
00:46:37
Speaker
right And I reached out to grab her hand and and she looked up at me and she said, no, daddy, I can walk on by myself across the street. And he remembered that and he was 96 years old. And he remembered that from,
00:46:51
Speaker
you know, 50 or 60 years prior. It's just incredible what we retain. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're really, that's the other thing about
True Wealth and Relationships
00:47:03
Speaker
money. I really, I really had to reevaluate that all money really does it.
00:47:08
Speaker
You buy memories with it. you know if you just stock it away, um And I mean, I'm not, but I'm not one to get financial advice away. I'm really good at making money. I'm not so good at keeping it because I'm a serial entrepreneur, but I've had a lot of great memories. I mean, I've, you know, I've, I've, I won't hear name drop, but I've been with royalty and celebrities and all kinds of different folks, you know, on the different programs and projects and film projects that I've done.
00:47:38
Speaker
And, you know, I've had a charmed life that way, but it, it's been challenging, you know, it's really been challenging, you know, and in a lot of ways. And thank God I'm blessed. I've had a wife that stuck with me through thick and thin for 40 plus years now. And, uh, she's loved me fit, fat, broke, rich, you know, it's, uh, I just wish that for everybody that you find a partner like that eventually doesn't always happen the first time, but, you know, eventually hopefully you guys end up with somebody like my wife who, uh, who's there for you.
00:48:11
Speaker
And, uh, I never forget my mom telling me that marriage isn't a 50, 50 proposition. It never is. She goes, sometimes it's 90, 10 because, you know, somebody loses a job or somebody sick or, and you got to step up. Yeah.
00:48:26
Speaker
And that's, uh, boy, was mom right. You know, the, the, ah the older, mom is right. um You know, so that's, uh, mom was right.
00:48:38
Speaker
Well, Jim, this has been a ah fantastic time with you. It's incredible how fast 45 minutes flies by. And um definitely want i want to do this again. We should do this in person next time for sure.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love that. I love Tucson. I'd love to come out and see your setup there and visit some old friends. I love Mount Lemmon. I used to live up on Colb Road. Ventana Canyon Resort up there. I used to live right next to that in those town homes, those condos. ye That's where I lived when I worked for Bombardier.
00:49:10
Speaker
um Well, I'll tell you what, Tucson has changed a lot since you've been here. And I'd be happy to to show you around. That'd be great. That'd be great. We filmed there just real briefly a few years ago and it had changed quite a bit. But ah yeah, I'd love to see your see what you see there. It'd be be awesome to see through your eyes.
00:49:29
Speaker
So I hope we cover what you the but cover. i I, you know, there's a, didn't talk a whole lot of business, but hopefully we got some. No, this is all, these are all stories. I think that, you know, our audience is really looking for, um, authenticity yeah and, and, and they, you know, we learn as you know, it through stories, this is a a new kind of oral tradition, right? As we evolve into a different kind of space. And so our our listeners really appreciate the just the candidness of these things.
00:50:02
Speaker
I also um like to, like you, give different perspectives of life. you know Me not being in the, in the I was at, it was funny. Actually, this is a funny story. ah we we were at ah a Halloween party last night for a marketing company.
00:50:18
Speaker
And there was a guy there that was ah a radio ad salesman that I just had met. And he asked me, Hey, are you in media? And I said, no, not really. And then I paused and I'm like, yeah well, maybe I am. I've got a podcast.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah. And he's like, of course you are. And I'm like, and it kind of hit me that I'm okay. Now I'm venturing into the media world. It's kind of crazy. Every company is a media company now, Manny. I mean that you want to look at, here's some business advice. If you own a company, you are a media company.
00:50:50
Speaker
And.
00:50:53
Speaker
I'll leave you with this.
Businesses as Media Companies
00:50:54
Speaker
We did some work for Red Bull before Red Bull created the Red Bull media house in Los Angeles. They had the one in Austria, but they hadn't had l LA and New York. So we did a couple of films for Red Bull and um we're doing this big shoot up in the mountains in Southern California.
00:51:09
Speaker
And Ryan Runke was a team manager and I'm sitting there riding the ski lift with them. We're both, it was all about snowboarding. So we're both on snowboards. I'm not on film. I'm just the, I'm just the producer director riding to set on a snowboard, which was kind of cool.
00:51:23
Speaker
But it's kind of cool. I'm sitting there and it's 2012, right? And Red Bull was big, but you know, it wasn't the craze that, you know, where you have all these energy drinks now. And they were definitely the biggest and spending a ton of money on everything. And I, I sat there and I go, Ryan,
00:51:39
Speaker
I said, I cannot believe the amount of money Red Bull spends on marketing for a energy drink company. He goes, we're not an energy drink company. And I go, Red Bull's not an energy drink company. Now keep it, keep in mind, I'm in the marketing world, right? ah He goes, no, we're not a, we're not a energy drink company. I go with him. What is Red Bull? He goes, we're a marketing company that happens to sell a beverage.
00:52:07
Speaker
Now let that reset your brain. Now you'll hear guys like Gary Vaynerchuk and different people talk about the fact that all of us are media companies now. If you own a company, you are a media company.
00:52:18
Speaker
If not, you're going backwards. I couldn't agree more. ah couldn't agree more. a lot of the old school, we'll say later Gen Xers like myself, you know early boomers, they don't get it.
00:52:34
Speaker
They don't get it. the younger The younger folks do. They get it like this. yeah But especially that my boomer buddies, they're just like, no, I don't have to worry about it. i you Dude, you have a a restoration business that that does 10 million a year, and but you could be you could be making 100 million if you were right out there spreading the word.
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's really finding that that balance between kind of the old school boomer where it's all about relationships, right? Which I still think, like I said earlier, is super important.
00:53:05
Speaker
And, and the new school, which is you're a media company, right? You're, you got to build your personal brand. You got your company's got to have an online media presence, right? You have to bring both of those, just like we have to bring our skills plus ai If you don't use your skills plus AI, and if you don't have relationships plus a media company as a business, you're getting left behind.
00:53:27
Speaker
yeah You got to bring them both. Absolutely. no Thank you so much for your time and for sharing some stories with us. And I definitely look forward to having you out here in Tucson sometime soon.
00:53:38
Speaker
Great. Thank you, Manny. And thank you for what you're doing. I really, really respect what you're doing, getting this out there and starting this. so Thank you much. Appreciate it. Have a blessed day. Cheers. Cheers.