Julian Dorey Podcast - #61 - Mike Colleluori: THE STORY OF NICK COLLELUORI, HIS BATTLE WITH CANCER –– AND THE HEADSTRONG FOUNDATION LEGACY HE LEFT BEHIND

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Mike Colleluori is a Non-Profit Executive and Entrepreneur. In 2006, after the tragic passing of his brother, Nick, following a battle with Lymphoma––Mike and his family established the HEADStrong Foundation (which was a concept Nick had created shortly before his death). Over the past fifteen years, the Colleluoris have continued Nick’s legacy through HEADStrong’s mission to offer financial, residential, and emotional support to families affected by cancer. The Non-Profit raises millions of dollars annually and impacts the lives of so many brave individuals fighting back against the disease. In addition to his work with HEADStrong, Mike (along with former NFL All-Pro Defensive End, Trent Cole) is also the Co-Founder of ProVantage Solutions––a  marketing, sponsorship, and business management agency for brands and athletes. For more information about The HEADStrong Foundation & how you can help, visit their website: https://headstrong.org/ ***TIMESTAMPS*** 6:50 - Mike tells a story about his former flow; PLL NLL, and the pro lacrosse leagues; Kids picking a main sport too early; How Mike got into lacrosse and got a scholarship to Hofstra 25:41 - The story behind Mike’s brother Nick’s battle against and untimely death from cancer; The medical costs of fighting cancer; Why Mike wonders if they’re really trying to cure cancer; Chemo, Radiation, & CAR-T Therapy 44:24 - The HEADStrong Foundation and what they do for cancer patients; Mike talks about Nick’s dying wish that the Colleluoris start HEADStrong; The stories behind why HEADStrong put a major focus on residential housing for cancer patients and their families 58:02 - That time Lance Armstrong & Livestrong tried to sue HEADStrong (lol); Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace and why you have to use your platform for good; Mike tells the story of meeting the man who would later become the Chairman of The HEADStrong Board; The heartbreak of having to bury your child 1:12:39 - The struggle of working on behalf of the disease that killed someone you loved; Mike shares what Nick’s last words to him were; “There isn’t a manual that tells you how to deal with death”; Perspective & Why we need to “Be Nice!” 1:27:56 - The problems with many Non-Profits and misappropriated funds; Why Mike thinks “People should run a Non-Profit like a For-Profit and a For-Profit like a Non-Profit” 1:37:16 - Revisiting cancer research, whether or not the objective truly is “a cure,” and the capitalism incentives Big Pharma companies have to create to attract medical talent; Mike talks about how he tells the story of HEADStrong’s patients; The importance of giving back 1:48:22 - Being present; Mike & Julian talk about their respective approaches to cell phone use; Kids and iPhones 2:01:14 - Mike talks about balancing HEADStrong with his company, ProVantage Solutions; Mike tells the story of how he and former NFL All-Pro, Trent Cole, became business partners; The deep conversations Mike and Trent have 2:10:43 - How bad people often take advantage of Professional Athletes; Athletes finding purpose in their sec... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It won't take long to tell you Neutral's ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. And we got this knock on the door at our office. And this guy's there at the front door.

And he's in like a t-shirt, shorts, and like flip-flops. So I was like thinking like, is he somebody that lives on the street or something? Like knocking on to see what's up? Like what's going on here? And he's like, hi, my name's David, so-and-so. Can I come in? I was at your gala. So this guy sits down and he's just crying.

And I'm like, I'm looking at my mom. My mom starts crying. And he's like, I can't stop thinking of you guys. Like I can't stop crying. So he starts to tell us his story. What's cooking everybody? I am joined in the bunker today by Mr. Mike Kaliluori. Mike is the co-founder of the Headstrong

Foundation and ProVantage Solutions. In this conversation, we probably spent the first 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes talking a lot about lacrosse because that is a big part of Mike's story. He was a terrific player at Hofstra in college and then thought about going pro. But then we got to what was the bulk of the podcast, and that was discussing the Headstrong Foundation that Mike co-founded with his family, along with cancer and the battle against this horrible disease. So I'm not going to go through all the details right now, but the story behind Headstrong is sad at the beginning, but also pretty incredible what they've done and it does involve mike's

brother nick who tragically died of lymphoma back in in 2006 but in in nick's short life while he courageously battled the disease at the end he concepted a a non-profit that would directly impact the lives of cancer patients and their families while they're battling the disease to help give them a chance to fight. And so over the past 15 years, Headstrong, if you're not familiar with it, it is a huge charity. They have developed into this nonprofit that raises millions of dollars every year for very specific things that are far beyond just cancer research, not to take a shot at any charities that raise raise money specifically for research that's very important but headstrong does more than that they again they directly impact the lives of these patients and I'll let the conversation fill in the blanks there but things like

this help put a perspective on everything for all of us because first of all a lot of us unfortunately have known people sometimes many people and sometimes people very close to us like mike and his family with their brother and son nick you know we've known people who battle this disease and and sometimes die and and and it's it's a horrible thing and it's something that we want to develop a cure for but to see people dedicate their lives to helping find that cure and and and helping fight back against the disease is a pretty beautiful thing and so i i'm glad we got to give that a platform on this podcast we we did also talk about some athlete management and that whole industry which is something that mike and his

business partner former all pro defensive lineman t Trent Cole are involved in a pro bandage solutions. So I do enjoy that topic. But again, the, the, the main focus of this one is, is headstrong. And I really, really appreciate Mike coming on and sharing his story and, and the things that he and his family have done. It's, it's a beautiful thing. So I will put the info for Headstrong in the description of this episode. So I would encourage you guys to check it out. It's a pretty awesome charity. Thanks again to Mike for coming in. Now, if you haven't used the link in my description, along with the code Trendifier at checkout to get $100 off either the 8Sleep Pod Pro mattress or 8Sleep Pod Pro cover, check it out. As I say every week, 8sleep pod pro mattress or 8sleep pod pro cover check it out as i say every week 8sleep is the first legitimate tech company to try mattresses and by try i mean they got like a

b next to their valuation right now so i think they're doing pretty well but they're the first legitimate tech company to try it and in the past all we've seen is these mattress companies not tech companies try to put tech in their mattresses, and it just doesn't work. So what 8sleep does is they have a proprietary app that ties directly into the mattress or the cover, which do the same exact things. The difference is the cover is half the price. It comes in queen or king sizes. You put it right on top of your current mattress, and that's usually what I always talk about because a lot of people don't want to replace their whole mattress. So anyway, either way, you can get the mattress or the cover.

But the app ties into both of them and it measures your sleep stages throughout the night. So it measures things like your REM, your body temperature, and all the other things that I'm not qualified to talk about that allow you to continually adjust the mattress without doing anything yourself. It's automated throughout the night such that you get a deeper sleep and wake up in the morning with a ton of energy. So as I like to say, you'll sleep six hours and you'll feel like you slept eight. So use that link in my description, along with the code Trendifier, that's T-R-E-N-D-I-F-I-E-R at checkout, and you will get $100 off either of those products. And if for some reason, and I'm not familiar with people who've had this happen, but if for some reason you're disappointed with the product, 8Sleep's customer service team is phenomenal

and they have a full 30-day guaranteed return policy. So just keep that in mind and give it a try. Anyway, if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. And if you're on youtube right now hit that subscribe button hit that bell button and leave a like and comment on the video if you would please to everyone who has been sharing the podcast with a friend who listens to podcasts each week you guys are incredible the word of mouth is as i've said the past several weeks it is

the most important thing and you guys are doing an unbelievable job I would highly highly continue to encourage that it's it's a huge help so if you haven't done that yet and you have some friends who listen to podcasts and haven't listened to this one yet if you could send them your favorite episode or maybe the most recent one right here to let them give it a try and I think maybe they'll like it too. So let's keep that rolling and thank you to everyone who's done it so far and thank you to everyone who will do it. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory and this is Trendify. culture where's the news you're giving opinions and calling them facts everyone understands this but you seem to do it if you don't like the status quo

start asking questions i gotta tell you dude i was kind of expecting some flow. You're a lacrosse guy. Yeah, no, I used to... Actually, if you Googled my name, you would find that I had lots of hair in my... I started ninth grade of high school. Battled my pops a lot over the hair because he wasn't a fan. And funny story, we were out in Vegas. It was a family trip and family trip to me family trip to vegas that's a good start mandalay bay too which is very nice and my um

my dad's like you got to get that hair off it's all dead like my dad's old school italian you know what i mean all by like very strict household i was in ninth grade at the time and i was like i'll get it i'll get it cut here like if you wanted me to get it cut that bad i'll take some inches off here he's like go get the dead ends cut out of it whatever so i go into this casino go into a salon and the lady's like she's she was a beautiful girl and she's like i'm not cutting your hair i was like well my dad's like making me come he's like she's like I'm not cutting your hair. I was like, well, my dad's making me cut. She's like, I'm not touching your hair. She goes, I'll cut some of the dead out, but you need highlights.

I was like, here I am as a ninth grader. I was like, whatever. Wait, you were in ninth grade going to Vegas for a family vacation? Yeah. I like your family a lot already. Yeah, it's really cool. So next thing you know i i'm just going with the flow she's like go in this room take your clothes off get in this robe you're gonna

get the massage you're gonna get i'm just like going alone for the ride that's kind of like you know just who i am i'm an easygoing guy kind of roll with it and next you know like i'm i got my massage i'm in this chair they got this foil stuff in my hair. I have no clue what's going on, right? My parents actually came looking for me. They walked right by me. They didn't even know I was in the chair. And I was just like, eyes are closed. I got one of those things over my eyes, just relaxing.

Then my parents started panicking. They can't find me. I finally got a hold of them. I'm like, yo, listen, it's like 500 bucks. My dad, I thought it was going to murder me like it was oh wait so he said he was going to pay for it yeah yeah yeah yeah I missed that part yeah and he calls back he's like they didn't even cut your hair what do you mean I was like listen she said her name was like Rachel or something like that she's like I'm not

touching your hair I'm like I'm not cutting him like okay whatever like whatever it's all good but that was a interesting trip I mean I'm the baby of four boys so like all of us were out there and it was just and you came back very blonde very interesting yeah it came back and then i had long hair ever since and um all through college like bro bible all these groups were trying to like vote my hair as like best flow and division one lacrosse. It's a very Metallica look. All this kind of stuff. So girls digged it. You know what I mean? And I've always been the type of just being different.

You know what I mean? And when I graduated college, I opted out to do professional lacrosse. Really? And I just wanted to get right into my career. Now, real quick, what what league because now you have like the nll and the pl i've always been a little confused by because i don't totally follow it i know chas was invested in one of them but like at the time was there just one league or there were two then major league lacrosse okay funded by jim davis who uh owner of new balance okay and he also had um jake steinfeld, who started Body by Jake.

He was a big bodybuilder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then a guy, Dave Morrow, who founded Warrior Sports. I'm sure you've seen Warrior Hockey Sticks, lacrosse sticks. Oh, yes. Manufacturing. So those guys ran the league for a while. It got to a certain extent, but I think those guys had other initiatives.

One got involved with the marijuana business obviously one was heavily involved with sneakers and and also like charity work with obesity and things but um so i opted out to do both like because i got drafted to do both ml and and nll no which is that work so how can they both draft you? So MLL is outdoor and MLL is indoor, different times of year. But did you opt in to both? No, I just opted out. They were still trying to recruit me to play, but I was just like, listen, I played the best lacrosse. Division I lacrosse is the best that you can play from a team standpoint. I'm a big team guy.

I love being part of teams, even with work. Everything's team-oriented. I think you said this. You were at Hofstra, though. I was at Hofstra. I played Lex there. I felt like I was ready to move on. You know what I mean?

I've reached the highest that I can go, and I felt like from a fulfillment standpoint, I can go do this professional thing, but a lot of it is trying to travel, not a lot of pay. And also, it became like an individualized thing. And that just wasn't me, right? And I felt like I wouldn't be successful in that model. So, jumped right in. And the reason why I was telling this story was I jumped right into a job at Penn. And I was managing.

It's crazy. At a college, I was managing over like 300 clinical trials in the hematology oncology department at University of Penn-Abertson Cancer Center. How'd you get that? That's like a big job. My brother Nick's situation, right? And then the organization that I was volunteering that I now work full-time for, and then got very close to Nick's doctor, who's the director of lymphoma there,

started working for him and then I started, I took on more and started basically all the hematology oncology lead doctors there, I was managing their studies. And I'll never forget my first meeting on Tuesdays, I had to report all the data, organize the meetings. So I'm in like this long table of all these like major doctors at university of penn and i had like long hair like down to this and i never forget like some of them did have longer hair but like it was you know it was styled and cut they're like who the fuck is this guy they were like like you know

and i uh as soon as the meeting was over i called my mom up i'm like ma i think it's time to to cut cut my hair. You know what I mean? So I ended up cutting it and donating it to Locks for Love or one of those organizations because I'm big on charity and giving back. And so ever since then, I'm actually losing the hair now. You know what I mean? Well, that's what happens when you get older.

Got the kids and the wife and the hair's on the way out, but it's all good, man. Last year, I grew up for like 15 months after COVID hit because I was due for a cut for two or three weeks before the pandemic. And then, you know, just never did it. But it's always nice to see like the old days when you could just rock it in college. I saw the Metallica look on there. I was like, well, that's kind of what I was expecting when you walked in. Yeah, yeah. So that's a thing of the past but it's all good man but you didn't do any pro lacrosse you just totally i did there was another league that spun out that was a little

bit more like like the like the globe trotters where it was like tour based similar to like what the new so essentially like over the last two, three years, a new league has emerged with Paul Rabel and his brother Mike Rabel launched this PLL, which is Professional Lacrosse League. And they're doing a great job. They really have built an incredible platform that has a ton of opportunity ahead of it and really allows players in the near future like players professionally are going to be able to play full time and like make it a career. You know what I mean?

Not to the extent, I don't ever think it you know, who knows, but I don't ever think it would reach like the NFL level of like what salaries are but at the same time it could get somebody like $100,000 a year and more, you know what I mean, to play the sport full-time,

which I think is great. Paul's done a great job with it. They have incredible investors like Joe Tsai from Alibaba and Robert Kraft, and they have the media partner with NBC. So they've done, they've gone about this the right way. They've also have merged with the former league, the MLL, which was the Professional Outdoor League, and and they acquired some of those teams and players. So I think, so back to your question, there was a group called LXM, which was basically started out of California. Two East Coast boys, Max and Alexander Ritz, that went to Radnor and both played at Maryland. They were great lacrosse players. And Scott Hotsdead, who runs a company now called Legends,

you might see it all over the place. It's an apparel company. A lot of the NBA is involved with it. Kobe Bryant was an initial investor. They're crushing it. They had a company called Adrenaline. They had a thing called the West Coast Stars, which was like a lacrosse club out west in Cali. They got some guys that had some money that were looking to invest in an opportunity, and they launched a league. And I played in that a little bit. It was a tour-based model. They basically traveled to different cities

and put rosters together from guys from those cities to draw. It's crazy. I played at Radnor High School up here in PA. And Wale, before Wale took off, Wale actually performed a concert that's cool at the game and then next you know like I think a year later he got signed I think to like Maybach Music or whatever with Rick Ross and his whole his whole career has just changed overnight right so where's he been the last few years though I think he's in Cali he's just chilling is he there was a while

there right back in the mixtape era where he was just dropping a mixtape so he went through some what I read I think he ran into some issues with his label and he was just like taking a time out to try to maybe play the game or just trying to figure things out

now he is starting to come back with some songs he just released some new songs recently and they're doing well. Wait, I've got to check that out. I'm a Wale fan. I haven't seen that, though. I like Wale as well. That's cool.

Yeah, man. But you were saying that La Crosse signed a deal with NBC. Which league was that again? The new PLL. So they're streaming games out to all these kids. So I think that's huge because I don't think before they had the distribution channel to be able to reach folks that are lacrosse fans but couldn't necessarily go to a physical location.

So the fact that they can sell that subscription now through NBC Sports is definitely a huge plus. And they also have some invest— I think they have a couple of private equity firms behind them as well that have their hands in stuff. There's a lot of big things going into this because like just you think numbers in your head where you're talking about well you know maybe some of these guys can make a hundred thousand dollars or a couple hundred thousand dollars and get to that point and you know the cap of it's not going to grow to nfl size which i do agree with you but i've been always a little bit confused

by this because when i was growing up lacrosse started to explode you know and you were a part of it right so you were there and you saw what was going on like it went to a very mainstream sport for kids to play and yet from like a marketing perspective for some reason it's never gone to that next level where it's like oh we're gonna watch the games now like it never even felt like when ESPN would air division one games or something like that they'd always be at like 12 o'clock on like a Saturday in non-football season no one's watching and I was always confused like how's that not gonna break the barrier when it also seemed like more kids were

playing lacrosse than baseball yep absolutely, absolutely. I mean, especially at the amateur level, like the youth level, the sport just took off. I mean, there's a 70% crossover from a hockey player to a lacrosse player. It's that high? Yeah, and there was just a huge, and it's still growing. I think the club side of things has definitely taken off over the last six, seven years. Seems like it might be plateauing a little bit uh because folks were getting in it they didn't necessarily realize like how to actually operate um or their kid graduated and they just kind of moved on um but the sport definitely is sustaining in participation goes there's a lot of kids that still play and it's

a great sport because it's got the physical side. You know what I mean? It's got a little bit of everything in it where it's not like football where you're slamming every single play, but there is contact. You know what I mean? And then it's also a mix. To me, it's like a little bit of basketball, hockey, and football kind of combined, and even a little soccer. If you're an athlete, and that's why a lot of the great Division I lacrosse coaches and coaches in general preach to the youth players to be a multi-sport athlete

because the sport itself is such a crossover to so many other sports. And the reason why I loved it was because you didn't have to be in basketball if you want to be a center. You know what I mean? How tall do you have to be? If you want to be successful in football and I want to be in offensive linemen, I've got to be 300-something pounds. Lacrosse, Matt Rambo, who's the best player in the professionals right now,

offensively is my size, if not smaller. I think lacrosse and hockey, you can do that. Because in hockey, you can have the big defenseman, and you can have the quick left winger, something like that. And it's kind of the same in lacrosse yeah so and u.s lacrosse just announced a new president who actually went to hofstra which is cool uh this week new president there so they kind of regulate and govern the youth side of things and they try to help like the high school side as well and they have some they also do like the world teams and things like that that um so yeah there's definitely what's adoption like in other countries though it is it's growing i never asked about that growing growing like crazy yeah yeah and absolutely i

mean joe sai who's you know co-founder of alibaba he's doing a lot in hong kong there's a lot of stuff like there's the world games which is active and i'm like lacrosse it's like weird like i love teaching it i'm not like a huge like i gotta watch the game kind of a guy um i've kind of drifted on my interest um you know have gone in a different direction but like i love teaching the sport you know what i mean that's kind of like my way i don't play anymore so like my way to kind of stay connected is to grow the game and i think the best way for me to do that and to get fulfillment is to teach it because a lot of times like anything like in lacrosse the smallest little change of like where a kid puts their hand is like could be the difference in them catching and

throwing you know what I mean so I'm you know over in Jersey. I started the lacrosse club here. I also have a program that we launched called Head Start, which is for little kids, three to seven-year-olds. My daughters are in it and just having kids run around. But it's been cool because we have a group of kids that keep coming back, which is great. You know what I mean? There's a lot of soccer players over here trying to convert those soccer players into lacrosse players because they're great athletes you know are they playing lacrosse in the spring though out here right spring in like your recreational high school but clubs 365 now so wow yeah we have i operate with um with headstrong i think we have seven clubs now and operate in different states but yeah it's a it's a year

around thing do you think like the pressure on kids so young because of how competitive it is and i like competition so you know we don't i hate the participation trophy culture and all that so competition is good but do you think that they're making them pick a sport like a sport way too early i feel like i hear younger and younger kids like oh i do x year round i don't do anything else you know what i mean and then i feel like a lot of them burn out once once it gets to you know you're 15 16 maybe you didn't grow as much as another kid or you get a little less good you've been doing this forever and now it's like oh fuck i don't want to do this anymore yeah i think i think it depends on the parents you know what i mean a lot

of times um we typically see at the middle school years when a kid will actually make that transition they really want to commit to lacrosse or whatever their sport might be some sports it's earlier because you have to get in earlier just because the way the system works but um i mean we preach all the time you know that you should be a multi-sport athlete that you should play other sports we typically and we complement that by like in the fall we'll only run sessions on like sundays so that way they can do their fall sport um in during the weekend on saturdays a lot of times on sundays that's good they have church in the morning but outside of that they're pretty pretty much open besides Eagles games. So we typically try to – and we also have a lighter fall.

We have a lighter schedule in outer seasons. Our main season for club is in the summer, and that's where a lot of the tournaments are from a recruiting standpoint and just in general. So summer's heavy, but fall is a little light. We do some trainings throughout the year, but we try to complement other sports and not necessarily put people, parents in that predicament, that situation to say like, we're not that type. That's not who Headstrong is. Now,

I can't speak for other programs because they do this for a living. Like Headstrong is a nonprofit. These other groups are for profit, so it's their livelihood. So their strategy and the way they go about business is different. Yeah. I've actually never had to say this before, but you're talking like over the mic over here. So just keep that, yeah, like in front of you and keep it pointed towards you a little bit. That sounds good. Other than that, that's good.

But when you were growing up though, it sounds like your whole family was into lacrosse. So were you picking, were you one of the ones who picked it by middle school and you were just doing all lacrosse or were you still playing other sports too? So my brother nick and i were the first lacrosse players in the house my two older brothers were soccer swimming got it so you guys were different third grade got introduced to it from a neighbor uh michael hegan who's like a mentor of mine

and mike gave me a stick and was just like yo yo, try this out. When I was in third grade, I'll never forget that day. We lived across the street from a park in Delaware County. My brother Nick and I ran into my parents. We're like, we're going to play lacrosse. We're going to get full scholarships to play Division I lacrosse. My parents are looking at us like, what's lacrosse? What is lacrosse? My dad's like like just typical my dad

he's like you get a scholarship i'll buy you a car i was like shake on it and um so that actually happened you know i was able to fortunate enough to you know play for a great youth and high school at that time because club lacrosse really wasn't a thing there was only like two clubs three clubs in the area but um but yeah no i i was able to you know that was a dream of mine it came true and my dad actually did have to buy me a car what kind of car a lincoln ls all right yeah i was cruising you're riding in style right people think it's an it was an older car but i loved it nice leather seats nice system you know my grandpa actually bought a lincoln he never bought one before but he got one a few years ago and i'm not gonna lie it's a great car right right smooth v8 yeah underrated but your your brother nick and you were you

like the same age or was he a couple years older than you a year ahead of me got it and so did he get a scholarship for lacrosse too he did yeah not full scholarship but he did get a scholarship and he went to ho Hofstra with you? Yeah, went there together. And so that's the interesting part of your story though because you guys were tied by this sport and everything, and then I'd like you to tell, but your brother got lymphoma, I think, when you were what, like a freshman?

Yep, yep. So freshman year, second weekend, my coach john didn't ask you who's the coach at duke now um had like nick and i battling at every practice like he was a defender i was an offensive player so he was crushing my arms like every ground ball drill and just every drill we were one-on-ones and the kyle lorry brothers. So, you know, he was kicking my ass. But I'll tell you what, it was a great two weeks. September 21st, that was a Wednesday, 2005, my best friend from actually back here, Evan, had passed away from bone cancer. And we were kind of anticipating that.

So when I got the phone call, like if my parents were there i was like they're here to tell me about evan right come to find out uh that was the same day we were getting like outfitted from stx and i think it was brian lacrosse at the time uh they were they were out like we were selecting in the catalog what sticks we want what gloves we want helmets all that stuff which is really was really cool and uh we used to call it christmas because it was just like they used to dump equipment on us and stuff so my coach was like you know before you place your order can you come to my office so i was like yeah no problem and i was like thinking like okay they might need help with something carrying stuff down to the locker room and my parents were in the office

so i was like i immediately thought like shit they're gonna hear they're gonna tell me about evan passing away because he had a he had um a sarcoma like a bone cancer and he had a second he had a relapse basically had to get his leg amputated he was just like in a bad shape but me and him were really really close and got even closer when he got sick, but Next you know like my brother Nick was there and he looks at me and I could tell by his face like something's up and he's like I have cancer and I was like what and we were Like I know that I knew that like he was getting

Tests done for his adenoids because they thought that he had something wrong with like his allergies. It was more like, they were just trying, he was at an ear, nose, and throat specialist to get some further evaluation on his adenoids, which were like enlarged in the nose. What's an adenoid? It's tied into like the lymphatic system. And it's a part of, they thought it was like allergy related come to find out it's an aggressive he had an aggressive form of cancer given three months to live and he looked at me he was like i i have cancer i was like like i was just like what like no way like that's wasn't he wasn't he practicing with you like yeah before yeah so he was up there with me my parents came up and what's crazy is like when you're 18 years old the doctors have the right to just call you and tell you the news because you're an adult now you're not a minor

so my parents called the doctor and said can you give us until tomorrow to get up to new york to be there with nick so when and we want to tell him the news we don't want you to tell him over a phone so like my parents showed up they told nick and then i i walked in they told me that then literally like five minutes later i get told evan passed away it was just like though like my feet were just like ripped out from underneath of me i was like wow like just like ran into a wall you know what i mean um he he had stage four cancer my and right away three months to live three months to live they never seen a tumor like this before it was like a small tumor in his adenoid which is like right in your nose area so he came back here and got

evaluations from all these different hospitals chop pen hopkins md anderson sloan like all these places and everyone agreed with the same treatment so he ended up getting treated at pen and he let Hop, Penn, Hopkins, MD Anderson, Sloan, like all these places. And everyone agreed with the same treatment. So he ended up getting treated at Penn. He lasted 14 months. During that 14-month process, the dude was just like on another level mentally. Like his mental toughness was just insane. And like I only saw him cry like one time during the whole entire thing, 14 months.

But he was way beyond his years. And he saw a theme, like there was all these patients and families that were just going through all these different hardships. But he started to like have a lot of conversations with these folks. And Penn kind of used him as like a poster child to talk to patients that were like suicidal and families that just needed to like needed a lift for the day to like doctors were asking him to talk with other patients yeah so he would go around and meet with a bunch of different patients and share his story and just try to lift people up um sort of like train they thought he was like

gonna train for like a triathlon he's doing like with his chemo pole he's doing like laps around like the floor at Penn he was in for a transplant for like 34 days straight oh my god yeah and he actually almost died they they double dosed him on a drug and his whole body swallowed up like like a balloon it was insane um that's a whole another story but lasted 14 months but during during that 14-month journey, he started to, like, hear the same issues, the financial issues, the emotional toll it takes on you, the residential situations that people – people are living out their cars. Like, literally living out of their cars in order to come to Philly for treatment. Wait, wait. Cancer patients are living out of their cars? Yeah, and their families. Yeah. their families yeah insane dude it's insane like how does can i ask about

that like how that financing works and everything because i've seen some and i know it varies and it can get crazy but i've seen some of the numbers that people have to pay like if they go through 12 months of chemo like on and off something like that it'd be like 100 grand 200 grand whatever like is it like a like a house loan like like 100 grand 200 grand whatever like is it like a like a house loan like you have to pay a principal like how does that you have to pay a portion back i mean you have health insurance but i only go so far plus my brother next situation was um he was in limbo because he was transitioning to uh he was 19 diagnosed so technically like he wasn't under my parents policy anymore then my

parents couldn't get insurance for him it was insane i'll tell you this doesn't that last oh that was before then yep shit but just so the last month that he was alive october of 2006 his medical bills were 250 000 for the month for the month? For the month. Yeah. For what? I mean, this is the leading... Like, what kinds of things? For all the care, for all the medicine, the medicines he was on, the infusions, the blood transplants, the... So he was doing all that. Doing all that stuff.

I mean, this is, like, the leading cause of bankruptcy in our country right now. And cancer is projected to be the leading cause of death. It was actually by, I think, 2020 was going to surpass heart disease. And the government makes so much money. I mean, it's a trillion dollar industry, you know, and what I learned, what was interesting when I was at Penn, which is one of the reasons why I left, because I was like, collecting the data and seeing what was going on.

And even just having, I had a lot of conversations with a lot of pharmaceutical reps. Drugs were being engineered for like maintenance. They weren't being engineered to cure. Wait a second. You're saying that they were not actively trying to cure the disease? Yes. They were, they're creating drugs that would basically keep you alive longer. The whole pharma industry.

Correct. Has that changed today? I mean, there's a new movement of immunotherapy, which is like using your T-cells. Yeah, that's CAR T-therapy. CAR T-therapy. I was a part of that with Carl June and Dr. Porter when I worked there. And that's a new way of going about things.

But a lot of the drugs that were being implemented when I was there were more maintenance related. It was just like, okay, you get cancer. We're going to try like the traditional stuff with like chemos and transplants. If that doesn't work, like then it's the drugs that were being manufactured were more or less maintenance because that led to more side effects, more problems led to them creating more medicine, which makes more money. I mean, you look at it, like how quickly did they come up with a vaccine for COVID? You know, you're talking six months, maybe? It was like eight, yeah. I always think like if they really wanted to cure cancer or i'm not saying that they could cure every cancer but like if they really wanted

to tackle some of these things and not to say that there's doctors that aren't out there not to take away or discredit sure what doctors have done over their history and what they're doing now because like i did work with doctors that were like this they were like married to it they had no life beyond it you know but there's also limitations to what they can do and how they can operate uh which i think held them back but deep down inside i do think that if the government really wanted to to fix cancer they could i really do think that but if you look back there's always a disease that dominates the human race you know what i mean and cancer seems to be you know that that one that's leading the charge right now you know it's fucking crazy when

you think about the fact that chemo and i know they've they've adjusted it over time and things but that therapy yeah quote unquote say that with major air quotes it's been around forever now right we're still doing the same thing as the main course of treatment for someone who doesn't have a tumor that can be immediately removed yeah it's too big we're still doing the same thing that essentially i mean it kills your entire body yeah so people the respect i have for people that have found a way to survive the disease insane and then be able to have some normalcy, maybe like a decade later, like maybe they can work out like a horse again. It's insane to me

because essentially their whole body was killed off for whatever it was, a year of chemo, two years, whatever it was. And then they had to rebuild it. And it's like, you can't, you're never going to be whole again, you know know and then the chances of a secondary cancer like goes up significantly so some down some time down the line you're going to get something else most likely like that your chances like i think you go up to like i could be wrong but like i think you go up to like 70 of going of in your lifetime getting rediagnosed with a secondary cancer the other thing too is like, what you just said to add on to that, most people die from complications that the chemo and drug do to your body. Like my brother Nick died of kidney failure. His body just couldn't regulate the drug

out of his system anymore. You know, eventually your organs get tired, you know what I mean? They're in there, they're putting these drugs in your system that are depleting your entire immune system. And the effects, like, radiation alone never leaves your body. So, like, we work a lot of patients who literally, like, lose all their teeth, like, and have crazy problems with their mouth and jaws and nutrition and things like that because the radiation that they got you know 15 years ago because of the cancer that they had you know there's so many how do they make that decision by the way i should i should know that what's that you hear about people who do chemo or they'll do radiation what goes into the which one you're going to do there so like most cases it's like a hybrid model where they'd start out with chemo to try to get things under control. And then they mix in radiation. Now there are some

better options of radiation, like proton beam therapy and things like that. Problem with that is there's only like four or five institutes in the country that have it. Penn's one of them. So people travel, like when I worked at Penn, the founder of Adidas was one of my patients. I had the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays as my patient the guy who started Dollar Tree was one of my patients not his wife was my patient I can't speak to those names but like it's crazy people travel in especially at Penn from all over the world to come here what are the what are the big there's Penn there's MD Anderson there's Hopkins and then Sloan Kettering. Yeah, Sloan Kettering.

And then out in California, there's City of Hope, which is a big one. There's Cleveland Clinic, which is a good one. A lot of these larger groups, too, are starting affiliation programs with smaller networks, healthcare networks, things like that. I've been so removed that I haven't been there. May of 2011, I left Penn. I was actually, so my original path was this oh you were there a while though i was there for like what three three years i was in a i was working for dr schuster

i was um running the foundation headstrong foundation but i was also in a post-bac program getting eligible for medical school because i was originally out of college thinking of getting into medicine i wanted to become like a doctor. You're motivated by this experience. Experience. And that was like where my focus was. And I have my names on studies in the New England Journal of Medicine. I was collecting, looking at things under microscopes. I scrubbed into like so many different procedures, bone marrow aspirations, all different types of things. I would just scrub in at procedures at Penn. And a lot of them were obviously the patients that I was working with. Wait, quick question on that. When you say patients you were working with,

because that's like the third time you mentioned that. When you started this, you were saying that you were running the studies there. I think like over 300 clinical trials, you said something like that. So you're saying within the context of those studies, you were also boots on the ground with the individual patients. You weren't just managing what was happening as far as the data collection. Yeah, because I was responsible for the data. So I had to make sure that these patients were getting their labs, whether they were in the hospital or at home in their community. Also too, like I was the doctor's right-hand man. So a lot of times they would hit me up if they couldn't get a hold of him because his schedule he would see like 40 something patients a day we would be there

i would i would train in i'd be there like 8 a.m i would be there till 11 12 o'clock at night working with this guy and i felt like it was an honor because he was such he's i still he's a good mentor and friend of mine i can call him today if i have a problem with my kids myself he'll answer instantly dr schuster he's amazing he travels the world and and speaks on lymphomas but that a lot of times he was so he was he's very unorthodox in his approach as far as how he treats medicine he lets lets, he's the one doctor, and I'm kind of biased because I worked for him, but like, he was a doctor and still is. I think it's why he's been so successful in keeping people alive for long periods of time, is he lets the disease

tell him what to do. He doesn't necessarily give you extra treatment just because the book says to. You know what I mean? He goes about things in a way that, to me, logically makes sense. And he also has an incredible bedside manner. Well, he'll sit with you for two hours, if you want, and talk about your kids or whatever you want to talk about, everything besides cancer. And had such an incredible, I mean, you speak to his patients, they love him. love them and he would see 40 of them a day you know um it was just insane so a lot of times those patients would be emailing me or calling me to find out cancer patients a day a day yeah at penn yeah

yeah and uh like he was booked for probably like you couldn't come see him for like three to six months because his days were so one patient to the next to the next to the next. But, yeah, it's insane. Now they're starting to try to find better ways at allowing patients to receive care in their communities. You know what I mean? What do you mean by that? Like being treated, like getting your blood drawn or getting your blood or getting chemo at like your local hospital. So I can go to like Inspira, you know i mean or virtually here in in south jersey instead of training in

or driving traveling into philly uh makes it a little bit more convenient i guess because the actual treatment itself it's not it doesn't matter technically i shouldn't say that but it is when you're talking about like why people go to these places go to see the best doctor they're there to get the course of action but that doesn't mean the doctor needs to stand there while the course of action correct some of it yeah he basically builds or she builds the game plan but the drug can be administered anywhere you know one of the biggest things that i saw and i've been doing headstrong so i work directly with patients like all the time for the last 15 years we've i've we've assisted over like 20 000 but a lot of times folks especially like if they're not near like a philadelphia area that has a great hospital or hospitals chop's great

jeff's great temple's great yeah yeah penn. Like, folks that aren't near there, they'll literally go to, like, not to knock it, but, like, they'll go to, like, a Crozer hospital, right? And they'll get evaluated there. And when you first get diagnosed with cancer, like, that's your best chance of survival is your first. As soon as you put drug in your system, that's your first chance to get into a remission. I always say remission. Some people say cured. But what I always saw was we'd have patients that would come in that were misdiagnosed, mistreated, right? So, they were already, they already had drug in their system. And then next, you know, like we couldn't do anything for them for like three weeks or four weeks. And so, because we had to let that drug deplete out of their system.

Then they would come in and they would have to get all new imaging, all new scanning done. So I always advise people, and if anyone's listened to this, God forbid you have a health situation, cancer or not, try to find the best and just figure out a way to get there. Because that's your best chance. And you really got one shot at this thing because if not, you're waiting, especially on the cancer front, what I've seen, you're waiting two, three, four weeks to get an appointment and then you're waiting on top for the drug to get out of your system for them to then, you know what I mean? It totally derails the entire process. So that's kind of something that I've seen for so long. And some

folks just don't have the means. I mean, that's the other trap. The problem is, and that's why headstrong exists to try to help people get accessibility and afford it's basically addresses accessibility and affordability. So what kinds of things do you guys do? Because and if I understand this correctly, you guys have raised over $20 million? $20 million, yeah. Started from my brother Nick was getting a procedure done. He was getting his port put in and getting wheeled in a bed to the procedure and asked my mom for a pen and paper. He drew our first logo, came up with our mission, short-term, long-term goals.

So he's the one who came up with it? Headstrong, yeah. It's his nickname. His nickname was Head as a kid because he had a big head. And he was just, he had, at that time, he was pulling a lot of inspiration from Lance Armstrong, who had Livestrong at the time. And so he's like, Headstrong, I'm going to call it Headstrong.

I'm going to, I want to teach athletes about, you know, giving back. And I want to rally my lacrosse brothers and sisters to help me do this. And we're going to be a voice for the patients, and we're going to provide direct services to patients. So what the organization does is it improves lives affected by cancer, and we do that through financial, residential, and emotional services. That's kind of like how we operate, and those services are all different as far as the programming within those services. So financial, I assume that would mean basically giving people grants to pay for any cancer-related costs. Okay. Residential, what do you mean by that? Residential. So we have a facility in Delaware County right next to Swarthmore College. It's an 8,000 square foot

home. It's called Nick's House. And it is similar to the general public, you would think it's similar to like a Ronald McDonald house, right? But different. And how we're different is it's long-term stay. So the average person stays with us for six to eight weeks. There's no charge. It's free of charge. Has all the accommodations that a house has. How many people can stay at a time? Eight families. Wow.

Yep. So it's families defined by a caregiver and the patient. Okay. And we have laundry. We have Wi-Fi. We have television. We have services there for the patients as far as yoga goes and different therapies, art therapy. We have dogs come and visit.

That is all ages, all cancers. People come in from all over the world to stay there. How do you select people for this? The social workers submit applications, and then we have a process with background checks and all different types of things. But the house is a revolving door. We have to turn people away all the time because there's not enough space in the house. But the house is really cool. I mean, the Ronald McDonald House is different. It's like a three to four day stay. The patient can't stay there. There's a fee to stay there. And that's really just to kind of give people... Wait, the patient can't stay there? At Ronald McDonald House, the patients don't stay there. They're in the hospital being treated.

Oh, okay. Where ours is the... And that's the thing too with us, the caregivers can just be their house, but a lot of times the patients are staying with the caregiver at the house. So it's a really cool concept that we're going to be expanding to like New York, Boston, and Baltimore. It's kind of like the vision of our Knicks house project. And then we have a program. We focus a lot on mental health. So we do a lot of stuff. We do stuff virtually.

We do stuff in the hospitals. So at Penn and Chop, we'll go in. We have guest speakers. We sponsor motivational speakers that go in. Joe Conklin goes in and does a skit. Funniest, most underrated voice guy ever. Right? He's hilarious.

Vince Papali goes in and shares his story. Great guy. Great guy. So we have people like that. Some stuff is streamed through Zoom. Some stuff is in person. For the last, we also, within that category, we have a program called Head Table. Head Table offers food, basically.

It's a program that we have in partnership with Rustelli's. And we offer, on Thanksgiving, usually like December 15th, 16th, we feed basically the entire Rhodes Pavilion at Penn. Wow. So we feed about 500 people. Patients, families, all staff. You guys do a lot. It's insane. There's a lot of different things.

It's insane. Yeah. It's like you're constantly juggling a lot. And we do it on the backs of like 12 full-time employees. But at the same time, we have a lot of volunteers. We really count on... It takes a village to operate. Absolutely. And that's the cool thing that I love about Headstrong is the fulfillment that you get when you're able to help somebody. That's my whole thing is I'm a giver, not a receiver. And I just love helping people.

And, you know, being able to like, it's not about one person at Headstrong. It's not about someone's ego. It's not about the CEO of the company. It's like it's one big family and we all have and we all make an impact every day. So it's really cool. And we're very involved in sports. So we use sports as our vehicle to tell our story and to basically activate and empower people to share our story or get involved or fundraise. Then we channel the funds back to the mission.

But your brother started this, like just drawing the logo. That's a crazy story. It's beautiful. But he starts this while he's basically dying from cancer yeah and how long was that before he actually died like how many months it was 14. oh so right at the beginning so he started in may of 2005 he kind of conceptualized the idea right away like almost so he was diagnosed in sept of 05. In May of 06. Right. Okay. The following spring lacrosse season, he had the idea.

Then in October, he passed on November 28th. The last thing he said, he passed away in my arms at our house. My dad and I were holding him. One of the last things he asked us was like, guys, I want you to really do headstrong. So my family it was so weird like so it wasn't it was it was just a night it was still an idea then that he had but it hadn't like started yep yeah wow and then um the lacrosse club started first with a tryout and the two guys that were helping him out with that mike holloway and chris bryan

full court press made that happen. So the lacrosse club in Philly kicked off. Then a few months later, my mom and I incorporated Headstrong as a nonprofit and got our 501c3 about a year later because it takes a while. I was pushing t-shirts out of my college dorm, selling lime green t-shirts at 15 a pop. Then my coach was called, my mom and I one day, he was like like why don't we do a nick collory classic lacrosse tournament so we hosted four teams at our local high school in ridley that grew to 18 teams grow to a two-day tournament and then now those those those tournaments

operate on college campuses and the facilities operate them and all the teams involved still fundraise it's just insane i mean you're talking like hundreds of events a year major like big major online fundraising like crowdfunding goes on like we have a cool campaign coming up called lax dash madness like you're talking thousands of college lacrosse players grow their mustaches out and last year it's awesome in one month they raised 500 000 wow insane all all proceeds to the head strong yeah wow yeah my brother pat serves in a development capacity he's on our fundraiser he kind of spearheads our fundraising team with jeff baxter so it's a full family affair it sounds like so my mom and i are at the top.

We manage it. And then underneath of us, Pat's on our development side. He does a lot of the fundraising when we have a team of people with him. And then we have an administrative and operational team. So my mom kind of handles finance and donors, and I kind of juggle the rest. But it's a good partnership because my mom's very conservative and I'm of juggle the rest but it's a good partnership because my mom's very conservative and i'm very entrepreneurial

So it's like it's a good it's a good partnership that we have yin and yang Yeah, and about four years ago. We we had a really cool exercise that we did We kind of figured out what we do best and we all kind of got in our The right position and the right roles and so it's been it's been great and we've been growing every single year It's been insane. Well, so you've been growing every single year it's been insane well so you were starting with just t-shirts but did you not to say you concepted everything you have now i know that's not what it is but was there was there any thought early on like okay by if that's like 2006 or something 2007 okay by 2010 we're going to be doing these two things or

did it just kind of... It just kept growing. And about five years in, our board at that time, we were having board meetings at our local high school. Like, we didn't even have an office or anything. My mom and I turned a bedroom into an office, and we were working full-time jobs. And I was obviously working as a college student doing this. And about five years in, it was all volunteer up until about five years. I was their first full-time employee.

The board was like, I think we got something here. Like it was family and friends. Like this thing keeps growing. Like what's going on here? So we were just selling merch and had like one or two events. One was like beef and beer and one was a small lacrosse tournament. Our first year we did 67,000 um and and um then I joined full-time then my brother Pat joined full-time then my mom

joined full-time and then we've been slowly building from there but like up until about like maybe six years ago we didn't even have a business plan we were just rolling you just kept growing just growing like so many organization like groups and people wanted to get involved so like when did the house come in and nick's house and stuff so about 2000 and i think it was 11 or 12 my dad was like we were sitting around dinner and my dad was like remember that fat my dad basically was going to the park my dad's whole thing was my dad loves to cook and he's a great cook. Doesn't follow any recipes. But like the dude can go in your refrigerator right now, grab stuff, make something.

And you'd be like, wow, like how did you do that? You need people like that. You'd be like, how'd you do that? And he'd be like, I can't tell you. This is what he said. Right. But the old school Italian guy. My dad's whole thing was like, Nick, you're never going to eat hospital

food. I will go home from work every day. I will cook you a home cooked meal and you will eat my food. Like that was my dad's commitment to Nick to keep, that was like his way to just help Nick, right? And Nick loved his food and I do too. My wife and I were actually talking about this the other day, how he could just whip things up. And my dad's like the mayor. Everyone loves him, and he talks to anybody. He talks to complete strangers and loves people. So he got friendly with another dad whose kid was going through a situation of cancer at the hospital, and they were inpatient for a while.

My dad was going to the parking garage. Dude was like having a complete meltdown like crying hysterically my dad recognized him was just like oh what's going on guys like well he's like i don't have any money to pay for the parking we're living out of my car and he had kids with him living out of the car so my dad was like whoa time out what do you mean so these people came back to my house and stayed at my house. And my dad paid. This is while Nick's getting treatment.

Yeah, my dad paid for his parking bill. And so fast forward now to like 2011, I think. I think it's 2011. My dad was like, remember that guy that we met, that family we met, that we helped out? If we could just get like a one apartment in the city, like that would be so sick because we'd be able to help people and give them the ability to stay. So my mom and I went, just like the way we are, went around the whole city, couldn't

find any places. Everyone was like, oh, it's transient. We had a guy who was a supporter of ours, owned a lot of real estate in the city. He was willing to give us an entire floor of one of his places. It was like, I think, 20-something rooms. But the condo association turned it down. Oh, come on. He was going to rent it to us for $1 a year because he's a survivor of cancer.

Wow. And so we went through this whole process process and we ended up getting shot down from the condo association in philly so we just kept at it we kept at it so what was that like hold on let's sidebar that so you have a guy who's a cancer survivor and he's very very wealthy individual who wants to donate 20 rooms to people battling for their lives yes and a condo association turned that down it said it was transient and against their bylaws. Yep. Now, let me back up for one second here.

I'm going to put on my money hat for a second. And let's just say that hypothetically, if people were coming – and this is not how I would look at it. I'm just playing a hypothetical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If people were coming in to look to buy one of the condos or something, and they find out that like an entire floor, even though that's very nice, there's cancer patients, an entire floor is filled with people who are out late at night sometimes, you know, stuff going on all the time because they're fighting for their lives literally. And they're like, this is really nice, but we don't want to live here. Maybe the condo is doing that for people? I want to live here.

Yep. I know. That's fucked up, man. It's crazy. And I got some crazy stories for you, man. We were, Livestrong tried to shut us down. We had a lawsuit with Livestrong for a long time. Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about that. That was insane. And my mom and I were like, nope, they wanted us to change our name. They wanted us to take the word strong. So they had a legal group of like 9 million. They spent like 9 million a year on these lawyers. They would literally like govern the word strong. They thought that they owned the word strong. And other organizations actually changed their name. They took the word strong out of their name. And my mom and I were like, we're not changing the name. And they're still, by the way, they're still technically around. They are. But let me ask about that. Like how, do you know how much they've decreased? I don't really know much, you know, about, the organization has done great things. You know

what I mean? And take the, you know, the bad stuff out of what Lance did. I mean, he still has impacted and helped a lot of people, you know what I mean? So there is always, I always try to look at the good in situations. That's just who I am. Very positive person. So like, and also too, like, my brother Nick was one of those people, like that Nick wore the bracelet, you know, and so did I for the longest time. Did that, did, I just I just gotta ask about this though because you said that earlier and I didn't want to stop you because you were going into a few other things so I'm glad we came back to it but you know I guess the whole Lance thing happened like 2012 or 2013 where he admitted everything yeah you know your brother

was one of the many who took such inspiration from that and didn't make it. Or then people who took inspiration from it and made it. So you are directly a witness to that. And that obviously impacted you as well. So when you see something like that, because fair or unfair, he was the face of the organization. Lance Armstrong is Livestrong. I mean, does that just crush you? Because the guy was, let's call it what it was.

He was, even if they all were in cycling, I'll give him that. Still a fraud. Yeah. I mean, it still happens today, though, in pro sports all the time. And I think that I'm all about the right thing. Do I agree with everything that he's done? No. But I think that it's not easy in a philanthropic world, nonprofit, to start a nonprofit and to be successful is like you're fighting an uphill battle every single day, you know?

And I think if you can find success, there's something to be said about what he was able to do with the organization. He was able to use this, like, my brother Nick was all about, like, use your platform for good. And we preach this a lot at Headstrong. My employees talk about it a lot. Use your platform. If you're an athlete or whatever you're involved with and whatever, it doesn't necessarily have to be Headstrong, but use that as a voice. Be a voice. Use it as a platform for good. So I thought he was able, he was successful in using his platform in the position that he was in to be a voice for folks that were battling for their lives. And I think there's something to be said about that, you know, whereas the media always takes the negative side because they know that's what sells and you see it now with COVID. It's just insane. So like, you know,

to me, I don't necessarily agree with what he did, but that was his decisions. But I definitely think that he was able to positively impact a lot of people's lives. And that organization, believe it or not, even though he's been dismissed from it for a while, is still working to help people. Do they do? Do they raise a lot of money? I don't really know. I know they went through a change of different directors. The one director that, executive director I took over, left, who I thought was going to like, you know, take the ball by the court and take it to the next level. He left and went to another organization

that's involved with cycling. But I don't really know. For me, it's like, I'm very big on just kind of staying focused on kind of what I'm involved with, and I don't really get involved with the outside noise. So you also didn't take it too personally when they were suing you for years? Nah, nope, nope. I mean, and fortunately, I constantly preach to stay focused on what we're doing because I know what we're doing is right. And eventually, we were very fortunate enough to have great attorneys that supported us through the whole entire thing. And eventually, they went away. Believe it or not.

They pulled off the suit. Yep. I'm trying to pull up their financials behind you, by the way, while you're talking. But other organizations were calling us like saying, what are you guys doing? What are you guys doing? We are you guys doing? We're like, nothing. We're going to continue to operate the way that we are. There's not a conflict of interest.

They don't own the word strong. That's crazy. And we're going to continue to do what we're doing. We're fulfilling our promise to our founder, which is my mom would say her son. I would say my brother. And we're relentless in our efforts, and we're going to just stay focused there. But no, it's definitely been – there's been a lot over the last 15 years, there's been a lot of different interesting things that have come across my desk that would discourage people.

But when you do the right thing, you just keep pushing forward. Like what kind of things? Well, recently we had a situation with our Nick's House initiative, right? So going back to Nick's House, right? So this is something I wanted to tell you, which is insane. This is how much my parents believe in Headstrong. So we couldn't find a place that would let us do the Nick's House in the city, right? Because of the transient, right?

My mom and dad were dry. My parents had a very difficult time with my brother nick passing it took him like five six years to recover financially and it still weighs on him like you know with him it never goes away i don't think people like when when when i talk with people who buried a kid like i don't want to say the wrong word here but i feel completely unqualified to do it because a i've never been a dad so i can't want to say the wrong word here but i feel completely unqualified to do it because a i've never been a dad so i can't understand that and b like that's just something no one should ever have to do yeah and i think everyone has their own timeline and space to deal with it

and if i'm going to tell them how to do it because it's i don't even know how you go on yeah being a parent of young kids i could never my biggest fear i could never imagine being in my parent walking in my parents shoes every day and i give my my folks especially my mom like a lot of credit for the last 15 years of being involved with headstrong like sharing your son's story every day about him passing and like just facing that fear like walking into that every waking up and walking into that every day it speaks volumes to who she is as a person but so my parents were just like out on a drive like just facing that fear like walking into that every waking up and walking into that every day it speaks volumes to who she is as a person but so my parents were just like out on a drive like just

because they used to just like go on their motorcycle or just go out in a car just to get out of the house because my brother nick passed away in our house right so when we when my parents lived in pennsylvania so like every single day they would come home from work or they would leave and they were like they would look at that couch couch where he passed away in and just couldn't – I felt like they were drowning in the house. But on a positive side, they were driving around the area, like our community. And my mom was like, you know, I used to work in a building over here when I just got out of high school. And so they drove down the street and the property was like dilapidated but for sale right my mom and dad looked at each other like i wonder if we can do the nick's house there

and where is it it's in delco where so this is susquehanna college that was swathmore college that's the new one but i'm talking about the original one, which is my office now. So, my parents, without like, without like my brothers and I knowing, decide that they're going to refinance their home that they owned, right? They refinanced their house and they bought this place. Wow. Right? So, they call a meeting with my brothers and I over dinner at their house and they say, listen, we want to share with you what we're doing, whether you like it or not, kind of a thing. My one brother was like, you guys are crazy. What are you talking about? You guys are just coming out of a financial hardship and you're refinancing your house.

What if this doesn't work? They're like, it's going to work. My brother Pat left. He was like fuming, like couldn't believe that they did this. My brother Dan's like, whatever, like if that's what you want to do and that's going to make you happy, like do it. And I was like, let's go. So, they bought this building. The foundation slowly paid them back, you know what I mean, the loan that they took out. I hope so. And now that place actually operates as our office. But what we did was we operated the first level.

It was a commercial on the first level, residential on the second level. So what we did was – Wait, wait, what? So it was a two-level building. So one level was commercial, one level was residential. So one you kept as offices, level was residential. So one, you kept his offices, his offices.

Other one we did as a test pilot to Nick's house to see if it was really got it worth exploring. So we operated like just one family at a time. We had families come. Our first patient was from Boulder, Colorado. She had stage four ovarian cancer. She didn't make it, but they were just great people

and very thankful and appreciative of the opportunity. Because it's only like, it's a 10 minute train ride, 15 minute drive in to the hospital. So we kept for about like three or four years, we kept doing the Knicks house thing there. And then over that time, we started getting like incredible CEOs of companies on our board and the friends and family started cycling out and the board started to like to develop into like people that were movers and shakers and had capacity and it still is right so we had a strategic session at one of our board members meetings offices stream companies is the company it's a big major digital firm and we had this strategy session everyone's like the next house is like where you guys need

to go you need to expand on the next house like everybody just kept we had sticky this was crazy everybody got posted and we wrote down all the services that we do and like you had a like everyone had to go up and like put like prioritize what they thought was the most impactful where we could really what the vision of the organization was and everybody kept nick's house nick's house nick's house nix s so i um we had this we from the recap from that meeting was we're going to expand nick's house what did that look like we didn't know so we meet with our chair at that time he still is our chair now it's this guy who's owns a very uh a big comp like a major company that is involved with the pharmaceutical company so his what company it's called ValSource um so ValSource basically is a company that

kind of governs and uh from aiancy standpoint, pharmaceutical factories around the world. And David has just been an incredible mentor and advisor to my mom and I, and he's been very generous to the organization. His son is a survivor of brain cancer. And what's crazy is his son's name is Nick. His son's favorite number is 27, which was my brother Nick's number was, what's crazy is, son's name is Nick, his son's favorite number is 27, which was my brother Nick's number, and he's a survivor. And so- And did you know any of that before?

No. I didn't think so. So one of our employees' brother was like one of his main guys, like one of the presidents of his company, and brought him to our gala. And I'm kind of moving all over the place here, but- No, no, this is good. So what's interesting around this time, which is crazy, is we have our gala. And I'm kind of moving all over the place here, but... No, no, this is good. So it was interesting. But around this time, what's just crazy is we had this gala every year.

We actually have it coming up for the 11th year. But David, not knowing us, came to that event because of one of our employees' brother, worked for him. And he came. So next, I'll never forget it. It was my mom and I in the office. It was just the three of us at the time, me, Pat, and my mom. And we got this knock on the door at our office.

And this guy's there at the front door. And he's in like a t-shirt, shorts, and like flip-flops. So I was like thinking like, is he somebody that lives on the street or something? Like knocking on to see what's up? Like what's going on here? And he's like, hi, my name's David, so-and-so. Can I come in? I was at your gala.

So this guy sits down and he's just crying. And I'm like, I'm looking at my mom. My mom starts crying. And he's like, I can't stop thinking of you guys. Like, I can't stop crying. So he starts to tell us his story. He's like, I'm all in. I want to be your chair I want to fund you I want to take this thing to the next level so like around that time that we had that strip like literally weeks later we had the strategy

session to expand Nick's house and David's right there behind us pushing us right wow so this is what like 2011 2012 12 I think so me my mom and david are going around to all these buildings looking at places again and um can't really find anything i'm driving through swathmore because where we live there's not much over here and with my wife she was yeah she was my wife at the time we're taking back roads because the blue route was all backed up with traffic and we're driving through swathmore and my wife was, you ever see these places over here? They're like, they're monster homes. And she's like, people aren't really having families that big anymore because it's so expensive.

These homes are like seven bedrooms, six bedrooms. And they're like, there was a bunch of these places for sale. So I call my mom. My mom, we should call up our realtor and like maybe go visit some of these homes over in Swarthmore, it's like a really nice community based, you know town things like that So my mom and I went to like with Dave with David our chair went to like three of them And we walked into one and we looked at each other like this is it We're gonna we're gonna buy this place like we just immediately knew as soon as we walked in the kitchen

So we dropped out 11.5 million capital campaign, fully renovated. And we've been up and running for three years. And the house is just turnkey. I mean, it's just amazing to see families from all over, all demographics, all geographic territories. It's pretty cool. I mean, we save on average, like, easy a six-week stay. We save a family easily just with the stay, $10,000 out-of-pocket expenses that they would have at a hotel. So, we're giving people the chance to fight. We're giving them access to Penn, to CHOP, to the hospitals here. So, it's been a privilege and an honor it's been great you know and the house has been a blessing and we're going to replicate this in other like in other areas where there's major hospitals so which is cool i see stories all the time in different things

for different reasons could be a disease research could be you know raising money for something in someone's memory and things like that and i'll see you know the next of kin or the the parents or the brother or sister and they're running it and you'll see that they've been doing it for a decade or two decades in your case like 15 years yeah and it always strikes me that like number one obviously i can't imagine but you're you're also in this spot where and you kind of touched on it a minute ago, you're in this spot where that memory is constantly around you because you're raising money for the personal thing that directly affected you and someone you love can kind of happen there. And one of them probably is pointed out by the chairman of your board a little bit. It seems like even though his son survived, he relived a lot of that and relived the idea that like, oh, my God, it could have gone this way, too. I understand like how crazy and shattering that must be for them. But then you're also on the ground with these families.

They're living in a house that you're at all the time. They stay there for six, eight, ten weeks, whatever it is, during the most trying period of their lives. And I know that it's eight at a time and they're coming in and out. But the personal relationship, I would imagine, maybe not with all of them, but with many of them that you have over the years. People that end up surviving or people that end up dying it's almost like that is an extended family that comes out of the memory of your brother and the beautiful nature of that is incredible but i also can't help but think like you and your parents and everything you got to relive it a lot you know you're you're constantly i don't know if you just get a little bit used to it which i don't even think that's nice to say i don't think you get used to something but like it's on your

mind at all times you know it's there's no escaping it i mean for me when my i was so close to nick that when he passed i had to like i couldn't run from it right because if I did I probably wouldn't be here right so like for me I literally ran into it and and I'm not gonna say it was easy um thanks to like I got professional help and you know Hofstra my university was very supportive and family and friends and things like that. I definitely think the organization has helped me from a grading standpoint. For me, although Nick's always at the forefront of everything we do, I'm very business minded and oriented when it comes to Headstrong. So I run Headstrong like a for-profit and I run it like a business and I don't really let emotions in. Now, I can't speak for my brother and my mom because they literally, they live off of the emotion. So, how they navigate things is completely

different than how I navigate things. At Headstrong, I don't really talk about Nick a lot, you know what I mean? Because I'm there. I'm the behind-the-scenes guy, strategy, and I'm behind the scenes of everything. Cheryl and my brother Pat, they'll talk your ear off, and they're out in front. They're the voice. I've never been, believe it or not,

last thing my brother Nick said to me, because I used to be a super quiet kid, and he said, you've got to find your voice. You don't find your voice, you're not going to amount to anything. So I've been talking more. You know what I mean? Even doing this podcast was a big thing for me because I'm not really somebody. I got to talk my ear off about my kids and things like that, i don't usually talk about myself or like my personal stuff um but like if i were if i if i'm with a patient one-on-one i will but like to my team i don't really talk about nick and although he's a part of the discussion i think i do a very good job of balancing that clearly yeah i don't really have um and i think a lot of it has to do

with the testament of like how I was able to, and I can't speak for everybody, but like for me, like I said earlier, like when he passed, I ran into it. I didn't run from it. My one brother ran away from it, turned to alcohol, and had like a very interesting few years there where we weren't sure how that was going to go. Thankfully, he met an incredible woman who has changed his life and the trajectory of that. And he's got a solid career, and she's awesome. And they have beautiful children together. But my brother Dan was putting away a bottle of Jack Daniels a day,

driving, just living a lifestyle that was very dangerous uh but that was like unfortunately like that was just the way that he was able to cope because the thing is is like when someone like that my family's very was very close now it's it's a different dynamic now we're still like mutually connected but it's different but uh like we were very hands-on and very very tight before nick passed but like when someone passes that's so close to you it's not like they hand you it's like anything in life that you face it's hard it's like they hand you a book and they're like okay like today's monday this is what you do and today's wednesday and this is what you do it's like you have to figure it out you know um And I've been very fortunate in a sense where I've been able to stay composed and just think

through things and have the confidence in myself to like ask for help and get the help. I'm very like, very plan oriented. I always preach like, plan your work and work your plan. You know what I mean? And stick by that stuff and set your goals and things like that. And like I said, I definitely think the success of the organization has helped keep Nick's legacy alive. And when I go and meet with a patient, the feeling that I get, I can't really explain. When I go to Nick's house and I have patients just looking at me and talking to me about Nick, that's like, it's not a job. You know what I mean? This is just an incredible thing that we're able to do to impact lives, and Nick is always at the forefront of it.

You know what I mean? He's the reason why we're there. You know what I mean? He's the reason why we're there, you know what I mean? And people that are connected to it know, they do their research, they know. People come up to me and talk to me like my brother Nick's a god, you know? Just really, really cool, and it's just been a great way to kind of live. It's changed my thought process a lot. You know, I think I wish more kids and parents were actively working with their kids to understand what life's really about. You know what I mean? I feel like social media has damaged, I think, people's outlook and these younger generations

definitely interesting. But I mean, teaching your kids about giving back and about more there's more to life than money and and and materialistic things you know what i mean uh it's about helping others and that's my whole thing he's got to give to receive and um you know what i mean yeah and and i think a lot of people like i don't think you'd pull anyone off the street and say, do you agree we should give money to help out cancer patients? And you're going to get people to say no. Generally, even people who are kind of assholes, there's a common sense level with most things.

You know what I mean? But there's also a disconnect that happens. And it's not just with cancer. It's with a lot of different things that people go through where when it's not at your doorstep, you don't consider what it is. And one of the beauties of social media, and I agree with you, there are a lot of things that are unfortunate about what it does to us as a society. But one of the beauties of it is you do get a chance to see some of this stuff from other people. You get to see struggles, whether it be a cancer patient who's sharing their story or someone who is someone who's had a lifelong disease that's just debilitating or whatever. And I appreciate that stuff. it sometimes but i make myself because it is a good reminder that like when you are having issues

with things and everyone does and you should recognize that when it happens like you can't just constantly say like you you have no issues you have no reason you could sit back and say like all right i need to take a moment for myself but it's usually not the end of the world you know and you see what people are dealing with life and death or the prospect of being young and having to look down the barrel of you have X months to live or whatever. And then, you know, for me, it really resets things. And so you hitting on the give more, and I like that you put that on the cup as well. We got to get that in the shot. Probably can't read it.

Yeah, but you can barely read mine. But give more and then you'll receive more it's like a lot of people think that they're that they're giving oriented but in reality they're they're very passive about it you know and and like i i try to i do try to look at myself with that as well like i i'm one of those guys that like if if i haven't given to like this charity or whatever that i usually do i'll panic and write the check even if i don't think about it at the time and i should be putting in the time to think about what are they doing right now yeah there's like a part of me that's like no no like do it and i don't have much money at all but like in the future that's something that i'd want to be

passionate about and so i think for you like running it of course you're tied to it, but to your point, you're running it like a business too. And you're showing people like, hey, I'm making this my life as well. Like it's not just the emotional thing all the time. This is like, we can really make an impact here. So we're going to make it in a smart way. We're going to raise the most money and do the most help for the most people we can. Yeah.

I think too, people need to realize that you don't even have to contribute financially. You know what I mean? Like I constantly preach to my kids if they're young, but like just about like if you could have that as part of your daily routine or who you are as a person of just being nice, like we need more people just to be nice to each other. Just in general, like I always say, hi, everybody. I treat everyone the same exact way. I hold the door for people.

Just being, especially in the times that we live in right now, it's like my parents always say when they grew up, their front door was wide open. It was never locked. Now it's like everyone's closed doors are locked. It's insane. It's a different world, but volunteering your time, you know, when I first graduated college, I went and worked in an orphanage down in El Salvador and it was just, I thought what I had gone through with Nick's situation was like life-changing.

That was just insane. Like I had kids running up to me every day, poppy poppy, like thinking I was their father. And that was just, that was something that I will, that has changed my life forever is seeing. How did you get connected with that? One of my former teammates' mom was from there. And her, and actually his grandmom was one of the people that ran the orphanage. So we went down for two weeks and yeah, it was an incredible experience that I had. And I was able to impact these kids' lives of playing with them all day, ball, basketball, hopscotch. Like they don't have much, you know, I brought toys with me to give to them. And that was life-changing um so it's like

and those are things that like i feel like back to your point it's we you can go study all you want you know you you could be as smart as you want but in experiences are what i feel like mold us yes and my experience like i just happened to be 18 years old and lost my brother you know and that experience wasn't necessarily in the plan but it it happened and I've grown from it. You know what I mean? I look at everything from an educational, from a growth standpoint, you know what I mean? Everything that I do, I try to learn, I try to grow, like even doing this podcast, never done a podcast before, but I'll learn from this experience. I don't think this is going to be your life. I'm pretty good at this. But like, you know, what's interesting is interesting is I constantly try to preach to people.

The last 15 years, and we talked about this a little bit, it's like running a nonprofit from the ground up, starting a nonprofit from the ground up, and being successful and sustaining for as long as we've did. I've learned more than I will ever learn if I went to the Wharton School of Business. You know what I mean? Not to knock that, and I would love maybe one day to even go there for school if I could ever get in. Yeah, you can say both at the same time. You know what I mean? I know what you mean.

But you're forced to operate on a thin margin. You know what I mean? You're wearing multiple hats. I was the volunteer director, the graphic designer, the marketing director, the vice president. And I still am responsible. My life, my job has gotten easier in some ways where I've, we've sustained for so long and the work that we do, we make our staff and our volunteers a part of the services. So like, for example, two weeks ago, we have a mom and a

husband staying with us at Nick's house. They're from New York City and they've been there for, I would say, at least six months. And their treatment keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. Wait, they've been there for six months? Yeah. They stay. Nick's house is long-term lodging. I thought it was up to like 10 weeks.

Six to 10 weeks is like the minimum stay. But we have people stay for six months on end, right? So like like more things have gotten they have a one-year-old daughter right so and it's small things but like the mom i could never imagine being in the mom's shoes and so the other day like who has the cancer the daughter the daughter has the cancer yeah renal like in the kidney area. Dad is the man. But like the biggest thing that we try to do is we try to involve people in our work so that way they can see what we do. Because as soon as you see what we do, it's like I got to get involved. So like for a small little example, I bought like a $250 gift card to like a really nice salon for this mom to go get a massage. But I gave it to my

marketing director and I gave her a card. I said, fill this out, give this card. So I empower my teammate, which is my employee, to go facilitate the mission. When we host events, every event that we do, we started it like seven years ago. We give out financial assistance. We have a family come to the actual event, and we give a check presentation at the event. So everybody that's involved with that event sees exactly what the work that, okay, the last two months, I just did all this fundraising, or I just trained to run this marathon, and the money goes to that person. You know, connect the dots and it's inclusion. It's one of our corporate initiatives is like, the more people we include in the mission and

the work that we do, the more successful we'll be. Now, this is actually a really important point that I'm curious to know how much you know. I mean, I'm sure you do based on the homework you do, but like outside of your organization within nonprofits, because I don't think this gets talked about enough, even with some of the biggest ones, but then let's use smaller examples that are still sizable like personal foundations and stuff like that. One of the untalked about problems is that the money is not necessarily going to what you think it's going to. Yeah.

And by the way, it's not just always the people who run the foundation at fault though they should be overlooking it better but let's say like a really wealthy person is running a foundation for x cause that they're passionate about and then they still run a company themselves so they employ a team of people to do whatever and they don't always know exactly where the money's siphoned to but what we've seen is that a lot of times people will donate money and it doesn't fund shit. And you will have organizations that may raise a million, $5 million and claim to help X, Y, and Z, but really they paid for a golf outing once and that's it. So running your organization, I like that you brought up that you literally try to

bring in also the people who are being helped by it to become a part of it to see exactly where everything goes and how it funds yeah but like how many times have you run into non-profits even sizable ones that you want to partner with or you know talk with whatever it is where it's like wait a second i i don't they may be raising x amount of money but i don't know where this might not be going anywhere. So I used to like get so involved with that stuff, like going maybe like our first years, I was heavily involved with like researching other organizations and what they were doing and how much they were raising. And I even saw it when I worked at Penn,

like we would have major gifts come in even to the department that I was in. Like it takes people, you know what I mean? You have to have bodies in order to accomplish a mission, right? But there's also right and wrong ways of going about that. And definitely, like if you can even look it up, like I don't know recently, but I know that some of the worst nonprofit organizations were actually like two or three of the worst nonprofits in this category that you're talking about were based out of philadelphia i can't reflect uh remember exactly which ones they were but like literally the i think it was like the the first and the second or third worst nonprofits

in this topic were in the city of philadelphia yeah i got it pulled up right behind you there from from the inquire up on the screen five regional charities are finding themselves on the defensive after being named in a report as among the worst of the nation the report released last month by the center for investigative reporting the tampa bay times and cnn found that the charities spend most of their money on telemarketing and administrative costs instead of the children cancer survivors veterans and police they receive tax exempt status to help now yeah and this is i'm glad they have that detail right there because you even just said it yourself. Yeah, you have to pay to run the charity. You have to. And I think there's a misconception

out there that like, it depends on how the organization is set up and how it operates and its bylaws and how it's regulated, right? But, you know, you have to pay, you're only as strong as your team you know i think the one thing like there was a a while back like the wounded warrior organization had some trouble like you know i so their their ceo at the time was like very entrepreneurial and he would take the employees like on these trips like these retreats to try to like build team building and and it might have been a little too much of a stretch where and it actually cost him i think his job and board came in and restructured the whole executive team because people you have to do it

you have to be very clear with exactly what you're doing people's money and and for us it's like well come with us and we'll do it together. Like that's kind of how we. Transparency. Transparency out the gates. You know what I mean? Like whatever we're doing, like in the hospital, our volunteers, our board members, our donors go with us and serve the patients the meal. Like everything we do is direct service to the patient. You can't hide it.

And the more you could show it, the more support and supporters you're going to get just at large. So for our standpoint, like it's, and I think that's the, the unique thing is I, this sounds weird, but I think we have an incredible advantage that our founder, unfortunately is no with us. Because, and the reason why I say that in the way that I do, is because people buy into Nick and who he was as a person. So it's not about me. It's not about my mom. It's not about my brother. Whoever else.

It's not about them. It's all about Nick and what Nick stood for. He's always at the forefront of everything. So it's not like, for example, Lance was alive and made some very poor decisions, and that has negatively impacted that company significantly. Whereas we literally follow what Nick put out in front of us and how to execute. So it's very interesting in a lot of ways, but I think the more transparent you are in general with things and the more communication you have,

the more you could show your impact. Like Charity Wooder does an incredible job. I used to be so obsessed. Wait, what was that, Charity Wooder? Charity Wooder, they're based out of New York. They provide clean water to third world countries. They build wells, and their digital marketing is just off the charts. But like, you know, St. Jude's spends millions of dollars, I think, on advertising,

but they offer a free hospital. How do you evaluate that? You know what I mean? So you have to spend money to make money just in general. And the way it should be run, people that are in for-profit should operate as a non-profit and people that are in for-profit should operate as a non-profit and people that are in non-profit should operate as a for-profit but the thing is is like and i take that from nick bayer who's ceo of saxby's who just did a team building exercise with us and i've always taught preached that to people like i run headstrong like a for-profit company like yeah we have guidelines like and that's that's the thing too is like you as you sustain you start to build people's trust right and you know we're we have all these different

there's different organizations that audit that also give you silver approvals like guide star and all these different groups that give you these shields that you can put on your website that you can communicate to your donors to know that you're it's safe to donate to you uh like once we reach quick question shoot how and i'm not taking a shot at them whoever they are because i know it's difficult but how reliable is that and the only reason i asked that is because not necessarily in charities i can't think of any examples i personally know yeah but you look at other things like in nutrition and food and these companies that so-called put a label that say oh this means they did that. And it ends up that there's no way they could prove it.

So how reliable is that? It's very reliable. The nonprofit is governed very, very tight. I hope so. Especially when you reach the million-dollar mark in annual revenue, which has been, I would say, maybe over 10 years for us. But we're audited. You know what I mean? Every single penny is audited, and it's outsiders that come in to audit.

And there's financials that we have to report on. We have committees on our board that are responsible for it. And that's the one thing that's – as long as you have systems in place, like, for example, we have systems in place at Headstrong where a lot of decisions are made from the board members. Like, Cheryl and I, my mom, like, we have systems in place of X amount of dollars have to be approved that are spent, have to be approved by board. My salary is approved by the board. Her salary is approved. approved so that good that regulation and those systems in play allow for an even playing field where you can't have everyone and that's the thing about running a tight organization like ours you can't hide like you will be exposed even my employees that work for the organization i should

say our employees that work for the organizations you either sink or swim you know what i mean and you know that within the first month you know what i mean and you know that within the first month you know what i mean because there's you can't hide like it's it's we run a tight ship and um but at the same time we have incredible impact you know you have to that guy you mentioned though a few minutes ago like the example this just sticks out because you have to be smart about it yeah like the one who you were saying was paying for trips for team building exercises warrior project okay yeah like maybe he wasn't a bad guy maybe he is like a good guy and he had he had good intentions but like the common sense has to pop in your head going all right is this like a like a corporation building a you know a trying to reward employees

to go on vacation or is this a non-profit where in order to do that we have to use other people's money that they don't think is going towards you know a beach in fucking florida you know and and like i'm not saying like that makes them bad i'm saying like you have to have more common sense and if you really want to do that because it's important to you to build your team because they don't have enough motivation every day at the job for the fact that they're doing something really cool here then pay for it your goddamn self yeah you know what i mean yep you gotta be smart about that you're right absolutely and on the side of drugs though because that's the other thing because we started to touch this earlier and then didn't go to it

where you were talking about like the the lack of a cure for cancer and the fact that there's a lot of maintenance and things going on. Even a layer below that, because that's a wild concept to me. I've heard people say that kind of thing before and I don't know enough to be able to get there, but I do know, as I said, like we've been doing chemo forever

and like that doesn't change a hell of a lot. So that's certainly confusing. But when you're talking about innovation on anything, like whether it be like a nonprofit where you have to motivate, like you need talented people to work at a place, right? And yet you're probably not going to compete on crazy salaries with corporations and stuff because the fact of the matter is the priority is towards a nonprofit. Mission, yep. Mission focused. So that already makes it hard because it is a money world. But then look at like pharma companies and what they have to do.

Because, you know, we talk about how fucked up insurance is and all that. And that's certainly true. That's a whole different conversation. But with pharma companies, you'll see these stories about how much drugs cost and whatever. And it sucks and it's a problem. But a friend of mine was the head of global finance for oncology for one of the major drug companies and i remember talking to him a few years ago because he was spearheading the car t therapy research that they were doing and at the time i don't know if they still are

but at the time they were first in the world at it and i i said you know how wild is it that you're looking because he's explaining the whole thing to me i'm like how wild is it that you're looking at something that has had like it had like an 88 cure rate on people with i believe late stage three or like the earliest forms of stage four cancer i'm like how wild is it to like you have something that could be could be the beginnings of a cure here and he's like dude you have no idea like i go in every day and he's not the doctor he's the guy he's running the finance and running it but he's like the pressure on that is that we need to get this done and the issue is that i am constantly in a battle to find talent because through no fault of their own doctors he's like oncology doctors i mean you talked about your guy in Philly who was meeting with 40 patients a day. They give their lives to this

thing. Most of them are phenomenal doctors who live and die with their patients, not literally, but you know what I mean, right? And yet, you know, they're going to get paid for that, and they're going to get paid a lot of money, and that is the system. Like, you need doctors to have an incentive to become doctors and become that great of a doctor and he's like i'm constantly battling against keeping my balance sheet over here and also getting paying doctors enough the best to incentivize to pull them away from situations like that yeah like he's like you got everyone this is the point you got everyone coming in yelling about drug prices and all that and he's like i hear you i agree with you but he's like how the fuck are we supposed to build it without that

it's like you're stuck absolutely no i i agree i know the doc one of the doctors that i worked with at penn actually took a sabbatical for like i think a year or two and he was the one that basically launched t-cell at penn with carl june who was like the guy on the lab side. So, yeah, no, I get it, you know, and things do cost money. I think just the rate of it, it's astronomical, you know what I mean, to be able to expect, and also the regulation around it with insurance companies, with the government, things like that. It it's definitely uh definitely very interesting you know you want to continue to advance medicine and then that's the thing too like nick was always about we actually have a research portfolio at pen when we first started we we were dumping some money into research as an organization because we were still trying to

figure out our identity like where were we going to fit yeah came to the point where like we were grinding like non-stop and i i said to my mom like why are we funding all these other initiatives when we could be doing this ourselves and having even a greater impact in nick's legacy wait what do you mean you were funding studies like we were funding we had a research portfolio at penn which we still it's still there millions ofions of dollars are in it. And it just, it's used for studies. And we were also given like a lot of money to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and groups like that, that were already established and had programming. The, what did they say that broke the camel's back? What's the saying that- The straw that broke the camel's back.

The camel's back was every year we would do like the night delight walk and i'm not knocking leukemia from society because they do great things but they had a director that um we were contributing a significant amount of money each year and we would get like invited to like these award ceremonies but not even like be acknowledged and it not about that by any stretch of the imagination but like we were the leading contributor and i'll never forget um we had gone to this award ceremony and we weren't even acknowledged even though we gave the most amount of money following week we're back in the office and we get a phone call from the director

asking if we would give more than we already gave. And to me, that's like double dipping. That's like, come on. So that was like the camel that broke the, the straw that broke the camel's back was like, I literally had a board meeting and I got the board to vote in favor of not contributing to any other organizations and start investing in our own services. And at the same time, I put a presentation together because my mom,

I talked about her being conservative, was against changing our logo because it was Nick's original logo. But it had a lacrosse stick running through it. That's hard. But it had a lacrosse stick running through it. So I would go into corporate settings and I would present, share our story. Like oh yeah, you're a lacrosse club. I'm like, no, we're actually a foundation. So rebranded, I put together stuff, rebranded. I had to do a whole presentation. I did logos literally from McDonald's to see like the logos, Pepsi, Coke.

And I literally give a presentation presentation i had a board vote outruled my mom to change the logo to change our mission and also to start investing into our own services and set up because what happens is like lls looked great and here we are like grinding every single day to make like to raise money and then we're just giving it off to this group and then they're they're they're mission. It wasn't helping us. You don't know where it's technically going either. That was a huge change in Headstrong's trajectory. But no, it's been great, and we've been very blessed with a lot of supporters

and just being able to help people in their, you know, desperate stages. But you, I mean, it's pretty clear to me, like, just looking at the arc here, you found your expertise through this. Like, and that last story is a great example. Like, you, in building this organization, not, I don't want to say it wasn't by accident. I mean, you were working every day, but without, like, knowing what it was going to be day one, you're just selling t-shirts, as we said. You had to keep marketing it. You had to keep figuring out, like, okay, here's how we take the next step, whatever. And so then that really got you on the bug of, hey, I feel like I know how to message some things.

Yeah, and one of the biggest challenges that I fought for was my mom and brother were very protective over the folks we were working with. What do you mean? Right. So I kept drilling this conversation into them saying like, if we don't show people the patients we're working with, how do you expect them to support your mission? So this was like meeting, like taking pictures, pictures shooting videos telling these people's stories so i wasn't doing any of that no no we were just showing all the different events that we were doing like hey we have this 5k hey we have this lacrosse tournament hey we have this cool mustache

madness campaign that was all being so it was all fundraising but there was no mission no impact so i said i was telling them like our marketing is lopsided. We actually need the opposite. Calls needs to be like 70% of our marketing and 30% needs to show people how we do it and ask them to partake in that. So like for a while there, I started shooting videos of patients and telling their stories. And my concept was, we need to tell Nick's stories. Nick's story needs to be told through today's patients. Wow. And that was my vision, and we've been doing it ever since.

And the more that we tell these stories, the more people are going to connect to it, the more people are going to get involved. Now, when you say you just kind of film their stories, are you talking about like you made YouTube videos? Yeah, like we have a production group that we have several that we work with. One, I'll give them a plug, New Pace. They're phenomenal.

They do a great job. And we basically tell these people stories. And then we end it with Headstrong, how Headstrong intervened to help. Everyone's different. Is this like five-minute content, 30-minute content? Videos are typically two and a half minutes. Okay. So we shoot.

We actually had a shot. We had a shoot today over at Nick's house or yesterday we had a video shot but what's cool is I try to tell folks like your story can be can impact lives just like Nick's and if you're able to share and it's not easy and everyone's different but if you share your story the next person in line when they watch that that that could be the difference in getting them through the day yeah and you have the ability to be an inspiration to those that are following in your footsteps nick's whole thing was i want to help i want to help people that are following in my footsteps and i want to be a sort i want i want them to draw strength from me i want to be a source of strength and

hope for them. And they're going to do that through Headstrong, you know? So, it's definitely been a rollercoaster ride of a lot of different hurdles. But like I said, I mean, there's a quote that's like, that I live by and I'm trying to think of it. It was like you can't go a day without. It was almost like you can't. What's the coach? John Wood? Yeah, he has a quote. Look it up real quick.

It's awesome. I love it. It's like you've got to almost like doing something where they can never pay you back. Like you can never live a full day without. They'll probably pull it up. You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you yeah that's like my favorite quote let's repeat that you can't live a perfect day without doing something

for someone who will never be able to repay you that's like me in a nutshell i love that quote and i i love although i can't always recite it because my memory sucks because i got so many things going on i live by that concept of just constantly because i'm a big believer that like my from a professional standpoint my date my best days are ahead of me i mean it landed me my the opportunity i have now you know know, with ProVantage, like I was able to partner with, you know, such an established, you know, guy and, and it's leading to opportunities where I'm having calls and taking meetings with people that I never could imagine, like would take place. And I know there's a lot ahead of me, like my, from a professional standpoint, I have a ton of

growth and opportunity ahead of me. And I think it's a true testament to the last 15 years of me committing to this organization and the things that i've learned while operating that how do you how do you balance it though because like i mean this is obviously you seem like a machine yeah i mean i uh my wife will tell you so i'm actually reading a book right now from scott o'neill you have time to read books too good for you man yeah so i'm reading a book right now it Scott O'Neill. You have time to read books too. Good for you, man. Yeah. So I'm reading a book right now. It's basically like be present, be where your feet are.

Is that the former president of the Sixers? Yeah. And Devils? Yeah. And I've always, I try to draw inspiration from people like him because that's where I want to be one day. I want to have success like that. Different, a different success, but a success like that. A different success, but a success like that. And I think, so I'm trying to be, my goal from this book is just trying to be, he talks about like being where your feet are.

So if you're at work, you're all in at your work. If you're at the gym, you're all in at the gym. If you're at home with your family and wife and kids, put the phone down, put the computer down, like be there. And what was interesting was I picked this book up and I keep it in my bag and I literally squeeze in whatever I can find time to read throughout the day, whatever, if I'm waiting for a meeting or if I'm, you know, early mornings, I'll get up, grab a cup of coffee and I'll try to crush a chapter or even just like five, six pages, 10 pages, whatever. Just get it in. That's's right in the morning like that yeah so i actually messaged him the other day because i was like and he's like you should post that but i small stuff like we don't realize how much our cell phones get in the way

and distract us and especially this younger generation like it's part of their like i don't know if you've ever seen a younger like teenager if you take their phone from them they almost have like anxiety it's insane so it's a limb it's their fifth limb it's it's insane so my daughters are in dance up the street here and i left this is crazy but like it sounds crazy but it's really not so silly i literally left my phone in the truck walked in and just watched my kids and i was so engaged in watching them they're five and four and usually i'm there and i'm watching but then i'm answering emails i'm watching i'm answering the phone you know that clients call me i have things the responsibility you know work. Left the phone in the car. Afterwards, I looked at my wife. I said, like, that was the most I've, like, appreciated, like, just being present and watching my kids. Like, I was just, the fulfillment that I got,

just not having the distraction. But it's something simple and small that we, like, we're always on our phones dude it's insane how distracted we are on these devices whether it's a laptop ipad iphone i watch and i've been trying to do a better job and it's not easy by any stretch of imagination but just trying to be like even at the dinner table like phones over there going out to dinner leaving the phone in the car, just trying to get, you know, I don't watch the news, but I do read online about the current events and things like that. But also at the same time, just trying to do a better job at managing my time on my devices versus being present with, because my daughter's already five years old which

is like i can't believe you know they play with your phone time they time just move so my i have old iphones that i have an ipad for my daughter and for my younger daughter middle-aged daughter who's she's four she's in the middle of them and then my five-year-old has my old iphone so like we let them go on like the youtube kids and they have facetime to be able to facetime you know their cousins uh and and likemom, grandpa, things like that. But it's regulated and monitored. Sure. But at the same time, my wife and I have a conversation about this because she's an educator.

We don't want to neglect our kids from it either because it's part of – it's going to be – could you imagine my my kids like what they're gonna what's their you know what i mean by the time that they get to 18 years old and they're in college like we want to make sure that they're moving you know it's a part of it's a balance yeah it's a balance that's why i like that like you're regulating it and paying attention but also working it in because what i find is people go zero or a hundred here they're all in just letting their kids do whatever the hell they want and don't question anything. Or they try to be like the Amish people and tell them none of it. And then their kids fall behind with stuff. And my friends, Anthony Riley and Baker, who have all now been on this podcast, they run a – they have a software company that owns the fastest compression algorithm for within the realm of

holograms in the world so they are the only people that can produce live stream six degrees of freedom holograms it's gonna change the world here assuming they don't it up but anyway they riley is very very obsessed with the screen time thing which is interesting yeah because he's a tech they're all tech guys yeah but they have all three of them have such a good perspective this is just something that riley's really passionate about so i want to point him out with this like he's always asking he's like have people checked their screen time since the pandemic started like what were they doing yeah you know this is a guy that will be running a tech company during the day and then go fishing off you know six miles offshore overnight and not think about it. You know what I mean? So he has that balance, but in a way it's like that middle ground, like everything else in society,

it's very, very hard to find. So I don't want to be the guy that's like detested and pretends that tech isn't critical and something that's like, I mean, it's a huge part of my life, as you can tell. But I remember like, as a personal example, that's why I like hearing that you focus on this as well, your own way. But when I was as a personal example, that's why I like hearing that you focus on this as well your own way. But when I was building this podcast for six months, I had a drill and I could do this at the time. Like now I do need the phone there because obviously all my marketing runs through there. So it has to be accessible, but I'm pretty good at not touching it because in those six months leading up to starting the podcast, I would take the phone and put it back there in the corner off and leave it there for 10, 12 hours at a time.

And so I learned to just totally live without it. And then I started to realize, especially like in my career, which for five years, my biggest thing was I was out there with people, connecting with people. I was a big texter, but I was on the phone a lot, like actually talking on it. I'm like, God damn, it's weird not picking that up and making 50 calls a day to whoever the fuck to do something. And you don't realize that I was like, all right, I look at all these kids and they kind of have it as a fifth limb, but so do we. Yeah, you're right. And that's the interesting thing is like my kids see my wife and I on it. So it's like mommy and daddy are doing it.

You know what I mean? So I think in moderation is key. And it's interesting, like my life is very busy, right? With work and also at home. So trying to balance all that, making sure that I'm allocating time for my marriage, for my kids, you know what I mean? And also myself. I mean, that's been something that I've spent a lot of thought on. Like, I've gotten big into the outdoors with fishing, slowly creeping into hunting. Trying to have something to do with that.

Yeah. But actually fishing before I got, you know, my friendship has developed, you know, significantly with him. But, you know, like, friendship has developed you know significantly with him but um you know like i don't play sports anymore you know what i mean so i've done some fitness things some endurance challenges just to challenge myself um but like the outdoors thing has definitely been like my time to just escape and just you know headspace you know what i mean now when you when you go hunting and fishing yeah you have the phone with you, but do you turn it off, or what's the deal there? So I have the phone on me for emergency reasons,

but at the same time, like, I don't touch it. That's good. You know what I mean? And my fishing typically is early morning, so I leave the house at, like, 4.30 in the dark, and I'll fish until the wife calls me and says, yo, they're all up. Get home. But, you know, and that's just like something that I've picked up over like the last two years.

But no, it's been life. There's, but the book, going back to that book, it's just been the last few weeks I've felt, I felt like the most balanced I've been, you know what I mean? Because I feel like I'm engaging, you know, like, it goes back to like, okay, I take a meeting and I'm sitting here on my phone, what does that tell the other person? I'm not really interested, you know what I mean? So, being fully committed to where you are at that time, and then, you know, managing your schedule to the point where it's balanced, but at the same time, when you're in those individual things, make sure you're focused and you're present, you know? And that's been the theme of the book so far. I've really enjoyed it.

I noticed you said two things, though, in our first two conversations before we got in here, because we just got connected. But when I talked to you on the phone, and we were scheduling you coming in here, you're almost like, you were very planned about it too. We were going through which day you could come in and you were explaining how one of your kids was a little bit sick. I think she had a fever or something like that. And you're like, so I definitely don't want to do it tomorrow night because I can't be present for her.

I need to be present for that. And then when you came here today and you were talking about golf and getting your wife clubs and everything and you're like i'm looking forward to the fact that like if i have something i enjoy she can enjoy it with me too so we don't grow apart like you're very very conscious of not just like this moment right now but also like over time how do i allocate that time if i have obviously you have all these very important responsibilities and aspirations on top of that basically like running two companies here a non-profit and a for-profit yeah but like there's

also the most important balance of your personal life and the people you care about most and not feeling like to me the way it comes across is not feeling like you're allocating a time stamp for them but saying like how do I make sure that when I'm with them, I'm actually with them and I'm not dragging these other things into it and I'm not over deltaing the other things in my life to ignore them. And that's really cool. Yeah. I mean, and I think I am very big on being present with my, I am very active in my life with my kids and wife. Like that's priority one. Cause I feel like if that's not strong that will not allow me to achieve my ultimate success you know my wife is of she's very strong like just in general uh and i and that attracts the shit out of me because not only is she

beautiful but she's an incredibly strong woman she's the first girl that i met that like held me accountable you know what i mean and i was like i was telling her dad this over the like last weekend when i was down in the short house i said your wife like you've your your wife is just so incredible she's the first girl that like i didn't like walk on like she punched you right in the face and i was like i immediately knew like your daughter you mean her daughter her daughter yeah his daughter yeah i bought a ring within like two months of meeting my wife oh shit yep when did you meet her i started dating may to the may 29 2011 and you were engaged in two months i bought a ring but i wasn't engaged to the five like, we were probably engaged within one year. She was just graduating college. Wow. Yeah, so we got married young, had kids young,

we wanted to be young parents, but, but yeah, like, she's a real one. She's awesome, and, but, like, that's where my, my main priority, my main focus is her and my kids, and, like, I don't miss doctor's appointments, like don't miss anything my kids my wife are first and then i work around that you know so like from a from a management standpoint like i have my responsibility i don't stop it's like seven days a week for me when i get home i immediately get down on the floor i spend time with my kids i spend time with my wife i make dinner we we make dinner yeah come on i swear to god my wife my wife that's the one thing my wife can't do is cook. She's not the best of cook, but I'll make dinner. My wife takes the kids up, gets them ready for bed. I

clean up. I meet her up there. We put the kids down. I spend time with her. And then when she falls asleep, I go to work. And I literally open my laptop. I'll work from 10.30 till 1, 2 in the morning every night. And then I take it i'll go to sleep you know depending on when i get tired and i'll sleep for a few hours and wake up i'm up by 5 36 a.m the next day now i mean as the foundation was growing especially like 2012 2013 2014 2015 and really starting to explode and you're spending all your time there what like excuse me for being like a little bit shocked but where does it come from to be like you know what trent let's start a company on top of that like are you pulling away from time you i take it you were spending on headstrong as well because you have a full team now there too or

what's the like how does that so my i'm delighted my pro vantage is done after is basically after my app like this is the thing with Headstrong I don't necessarily look at Headstrong at like a nine to five sure right now I do have responsibilities to the organization throughout the day but um I basically usually like after four o'clock I'll start working on ProVantage stuff a lot of it is phone calls packaging deals for the athletes uh talking with with like you know companies that need help from a marketing standpoint. But the interesting thing is Headstrong is always a part of that conversation naturally where it actually yields more opportunity for the organization because they're like, what's this organization you're involved with? Or what's your story?

And I tell them about Nick. I tell them what I built here with my mom and brother and things like that. And they're so infatuated by it, but, like, they want to get involved in some way. They might make a donation. They might do something, support an event, things like that. So they complement one another. But, like, with Trent and your business partner, to be clear, is former Eagles great Trent Cole. Yes.

Three-time Pro Bowler. I'm a big believer. He is so grounded and so humble that it's very attractive. I couldn't, like when I first, I was consulting for a digital marketing agency and Brandon, who is the CEO of that company, is like a great mentor of mine. He's a great friend. And I was learning the digital marketing world with him and he was teaching me

and I was doing really well from a business development standpoint. When is this? This is 2009 and then kind of like halfway through 2020. And then I kind of said to myself, I'm just going to start doing this myself. You know what I mean? And it's an asset that I could build for that's going to benefit me and my family, you know, in the long run. And I'm more of the philosophy of the marathon. I'm more of like the marathon than the sprint. Everything I do is a marathon. And it's planned out strategically that way. So that way, I know it's got longevity, I know it's got sustainability, and it's scalable. And so what was interesting was I brought Trent on as a client when I was working with this organization, and I wasn't necessarily doing his marketing. I just brought him on as an account and kind of would move on to the next account.

How did you get connected with him? Cole called him. Oh, shit. Yeah. What I learned in nonprofit is you got to ask. I ask. I'm not shy to ask anything. I don't care who it is. I will ask you because you're already starting out with a no. So if you don't ask in nonprofit, you don't thrive. You don't survive. So you're constantly out hustling, asking for people for things, whether it's their time, money, expertise,

whatever the case may be, you got to find what the fit is. But with Trent was, I don't necessarily know what was going on with him and his account manager at the time, whatever. But he kept calling me like, Mike, this isn't getting done or can you just do it? So I'm like, listen, I can't do that because of my contract. And that's not my job here. So he kept calling me like, I just want you, Mike. I just want you to do this work for me.

So like eventually I had a discussion with the CEO of the company. I said, listen, you know, I'm going to kind of step away I still actually use this firm though to help run headstrong so they're a great organization got it and they do a great job that's nice it worked out that way yeah and and and mutually Brandon's like it's time for you to kind of take that next step so I was down the beach last summer around this time, like July-ish of last summer. And I was down there on vacation and I get a phone call from Trent. He's on his way to a fishing tournament. And he's like, I couldn't sleep last night. I was like, why? He's like, I just couldn't, I just kept imagining like going into business with you. I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, I want to do, I need to go into a business with you. I've never met somebody like you before. Your grind, your hustle, and your commitment, and I could trust you with anything. I could trust you with my kids. And I was like, he's like, we need to do something. So I was like, all right, let me think about it. I would love to go into business with you, you know, knowing just a short window that I knew him

and how well positioned he was and how grounded he was to the level of success that he received like it reminded me kind of like he's obviously achieved a lot more than i've achieved but like we share very similar like we live a very similar way you know what i mean how we go about our days you know obviously he's found incredible success has made a shit ton of money doing it but you would never even know that when if you met him guy would give you the shirt off his back he's awesome i was like i will i will say just to end up for one second it's very cool when i get to hear on the personal side that guys who appear this way publicly actually are yeah it's like i you know i'm a diehard eagles fan i love i love trent cole

yeah but you'd he you'd see you'd see him talk and you're like oh this guy's got a lot of respect in the locker room he's like a nice even keel guy and then nope that's what he's actually like in life but when he called me back like I literally emailed him and I left him a voicemail when I was first trying to get Blitz Outdoors as a client and when he called me back like two days later I was like what, what? Like, Trent Cole called? Like, he's one of my favorite. Him, Brian Westbrook, and Brian Dawkins are like, that's my age. Like, you know, like they're a little bit older than me, but like those were my guys. Like, I'm a huge Eagles fan.

And the fact that like one was calling me back and wants to, I was just blown away. I'm like, no way. And then we forged a great relationship beyond just like the business side. Like, you know, I talked to him, we talk about like all kinds of stuff, even just, we talk more outside of business than we do business. It's just like, you know, just where our relationship has grown. But, you know, I said to him we we have a lot of deep conversations and like my wife said yeah last night like you guys are like two little girls i was like no it's not like that but it's like we have like really strong kind of deep conversations about topics and about things and

um can you actually and if you don't want to do this no problem but can you give like an example like what do you mean when you say we have deep conversations i can kind of guess but yeah i mean a lot of it is like what's going around the world today you know racism i mean i'm a big believer in like education so if you're going to speak to something, at least take the time to educate yourself. Because I feel like so many people, because we're online so much, they get rolled into an agenda and a story that's already told without actually... For example, Fox News or CNN or even somebody's specific stance on something, which everyone's entitled to like their opinion, but take a time out and actually go do some research on whatever that topic may be. Whereas I feel like people don't understand, they don't take the time to learn and actually know factual information. So they just fall in line, right? And then all that does is that digs a bigger hole,

right? A bigger ditch. And also times makes them look like an ass. Whereas for us, we try to have deep conversations and talk about issues, talk about problems, like life in general and what's going on around the world and talk through it like logic. And it's also cool because his kids are similar ages as my kids. So, we're experiencing similar things. And, you know, when you become a parent, there's decisions you got to be made. There's, you know, there's things that you experience that, you know, you have to

figure out and figure out how you're going to teach it and how you're going to go about your life with your kids and how you're going to mentor them. And it's not always easy, you know. And there's just things that are hard. Like my life right now with little kids is very busy. It's very hard. There's a lot of lifting involved. So like, you know, and balancing all that can be a challenge at times too. So, you know, that's kind of it.

And also too, a lot of discussions we had were, you know, Trent's a former, you know former professional athlete for a while. And when you're in that position, there's people constantly looking at them as a price tag. There's constantly people trying to take advantage. And it happens more than we think it does, believe it or not. All the time man and and that's one of the reasons why like i felt so compelled to launch a company with him because i was like the idea was like i trent's very successful probably more successful off the field than

he was on the field right but he's quiet and he's humble about it so not a lot of people know and he likes it that way which is good but like i immediately jumped in and started helping him in multiple ways and he was like mike you know i can't tell you like how many guys need you and what you're doing for me there's guys out there that like are that that don't even know that they need you so i know what just refresh my memory i think you said this like 10 minutes ago, but specifically, what kind of things were you doing for him? This is before ProVantage and all that. Marketing, you know, like, so after I kind of disconnected from the firm that I was consulting with, I just came on and was just working with Trent on some of his business things, some business management services, some administrative,

you know, services, marketing, like managing different marketing and also sponsorship, selling sponsorship for him. And I've been really successful at it. And he kept saying, you don't realize how many guys need you and people like you. So in hearing that on a consistent level, I'm big on trying to find themes. So he kept talking and I listen. I listen to people all the time. I know I'm talking a lot on this podcast, but that's kind of unlike me. That's how I'm setting it up for you. You're doing a great job. That's really against who I am, but I know it's a podcast, so we're here to talk. And it's my first, so I'll learn from it. But I try to be more of the listener side.

Like when I join meetings with my team, I might kick off the meeting, but like, and then I shut up and I hand it off to people and I engage the group because everyone needs to be heard and needs to be involved. But from his standpoint, I kept hearing a theme in our conversations and I'm like, well, why don't we launch, why don't we launch a company, a marketing company, a firm, like doing what I do for you, but why don't we just launch it? And it could be twofold. We could do digital marketing and marketing for businesses, but then we could also represent athletes and we can help them build their brand while they're actively playing. Or if they're retired, working with them to try to see what can we monetize and also making sure how we can help them. We're in the business to help

both businesses. I'm in the business to help people. On the charity side, it's obviously mission focused. On this side, it's helping businesses build their brands and market to their consumers or whatever their target is, And also help these athletes out because these athletes need people like me to, in order to figure out what's next for them beyond playing their sport. Right. And that's, there's two really interesting things to unpack here. So let's start with the first one. As it seems, Trent pointed out to you, and I mean he could not be more correct about this, when you look at the athlete and entertainment business, like the business of the individuals, it is one of the scummiest things, one of the scummiest industries out there.

I mean I always put a probably way too high percentage on it, but maybe not. Like I say 99% of the people in that business are often scumbags just looking to take advantage of somebody. And, you know, the person we have in common, Chaz, who worked in that industry. He did, yeah. And works in it. I've witnessed it up close for a few years because he is so conscious of that that it has cost him business sometimes. And what ends up happening is guys end up coming back to him like, oh, I should have gone with you in the first place. Yep. and what ends up happening is guys end up coming back to him like oh i should have gone with you in the first place because he's not going to be like making promises that are ridiculous or coming

out and just looking for a handout on things because he understands and he was an athlete himself not a professional but in college at d1 like he understands what these guys deal with and you know to hear somebody recognize that and then want to then use their second career to be a part of being the solution there as somebody who literally is that guy it's pretty cool but then to bring in someone who's outside that world who he really felt checked every box of actually getting it it says a lot to you because those guys and i don't blame them they are naturally they don't trust a lot of them you know the younger ones do and they get in trouble sadly but like i don't have a problem with that i get it like and and that's why like when

you went in my career when you'd go to talk to these guys i never went there like i it just wasn't i remember we had one because i was a banker so we had one guy and it wasn't it was a guy my boss got the relationship with who was a pro athlete and he was really cool but it's almost like uncomfortable because you know all the horror stories these guys deal with and it's just this elephant in the room every time and and sadly you almost just don't want to touch it because you're like if i were in this guy's shoes fuck i would never trust somebody on this side of it you know absolutely i think too, it's like, especially guys that make it in professional sports where there's a lot of money involved, it's like their whole life changes overnight.

Family, how they're treated and looked at from a family standpoint, they have a lot of hard decisions and a lot of hard conversation that they have to have, even with their main foundation of family members that now think that they are entitled to something. And it's not that. And also, too, anything that they're involved with is under the microscope. And one of the conversations that I've had with a lot of these athletes is these agents are very transactional. They're very about the numbers. They're where the money's at, where the easy money's at, in the contract with the franchise, with the Philadelphia Eagles.

They're not going to be spending the bulk of their time hustling, grinding the phones, trying to find where those opportunities are for them to do things outside of the sport. And that's kind of like where we have carved out a niche. And it's all my whole thing. What I always was always on the forefront of me is the relationship. That's what's most important. So a lot of times, like we have a new client like uh vinnie carey

for example played for the eagles for a while neptune guy yeah yeah yeah and he's now with the jets i mean my first few weeks it was just researching as much information and getting to know him as much as i possibly could i literally like text and called the guy non-stop just developing a relationship and trying to absorb as much being a sponge trying to absorb as much as I possibly could. I literally like text and called the guy nonstop, just developing a relationship and trying to absorb as much, being a sponge, trying to absorb as much information so that way I could develop like a relationship. We didn't even talk business. It was just all relationship. And that's kind of how I've onboarded all of these clients and developed these relationships with people. It was like, I truly care about them and I want them to be successful. My, the way my, my mind thinks and the way that the last 15 years of my life have gone,

they ought to, I already have an advantage over the next guy because they know that I'm in it for the right reasons. And I've successfully built an organization, nonprofit organization. So the trust factor before I even had my first conversation with these guys, the fact that I have that and Trent. That's what I was going to say. The second part is that. Boom. And then it's just like,

now we're at the point now where like, we have guys reaching out to us, but we're trying to find the right athlete or the right influencer that is willing to buy in to us and and not and kind of leave the history that they've had behind them because some of these guys some of these guys do have their guards up they have had bad experiences or they want to have control and we want them to be a part of the process but we have a system in place that works and we want to make sure that we could have the freedom to do that because in the end and you're right because we've had this experience a little bit where some guys are like nah

now they're coming around saying okay you know i mean kind of like what you just said without chaz where some of these guys might decline us but and even with guys that we're working with initially we're like nah but now the things that we were requesting are now coming in and they're flowing in so it's a process and it's time it's huge when they see because obviously and this isn't one of those silent partnership things like trent's on the ground there with you and how you operate it's huge and this is no disrespect to you but yeah it's huge to have that in there as well because then they know they have one of their own kind in there somebody who's been there done that gets that he trusts you he works directly with you he's involved in everything too so there's there's a's been there done that gets that he trusts you he works directly with you he's

involved in everything too so there's there's a comfortability there that it's cool to see that as well because it's like the circle of life you see i'm almost surprised that you don't see as much of that like i appreciate when you hear about former players becoming agents and stuff which is a rare type of occurrence yeah they get it you know they were on the other side of that phone yeah the management business i'd like to see more of that too because they were on the other side of that phone yeah but the the second thing i wanted to raise a couple minutes ago that strikes me on this because you kind of insinuated it but maybe i heard it wrong is the whole like finding the purpose thing and i'd love to talk to trent about this himself as well but you know i'm always blown away by great athletes especially like ones who have a long

career but even the ones who have a shorter career they've been doing it their whole life it's like you get to the pinnacle of your profession and it's one of the rare things where when you're starting to maybe even enter your prime as like an adult, let alone like your career, technically this career is ending. You know, guys, they lose that step at 32, 33, and it starts to – then they got to retire by 35, a lot of them, if they last that long, right? And so then it stops, right? Like every single day, six, seven days a week for years. It's like – and everything's scheduled i have this workout i work with this guy we have every three minutes are controlled yes so now

suddenly you not only go away from the thing you love or came to love whatever it is yeah you you also now don't you know you're free with your day and everything and now you're like well i'm also young i'm vital i got a lot of shit going on i have a lot of great connections from what i did a lot of these guys are also very smart guys interested in other things but they're like what the fuck do i do with my life i also and and if they were smart with their money like trent they have a lot of money now too and they're like well what is there to it you know what mean? So most professional athletes are in financial hardships within three years of retirement.

And the average career of a professional athlete is like two to three years. What we're trying to do on the athlete side is, and we can't be everything to everyone, but I want to replicate what Trent did. Trent knew,rent's first and when he first got paid he bought a real estate property he didn't he didn't you know what i mean himself not for an investment investment property um brilliant he knew exactly he had his whole thing

planned out while he was active and what i see in these guys is they they might have the financial advisor and they might be invested but they don't necessarily have a plan for beyond football so what do they do or beyond football like what their sport is like they'll try to hold on to that sport for as long as they possibly physically can not obviously to make they already have the money but it's like they don't know what's next yeah and they're scared shitless so like trying to have strategic sessions and conversations and planning around that they'll say okay like you're playing career you're on the other side of this so what's next for you and and we want to help you figure that out and however we fit in that we fit but like we're in the business to help and that's

and it's about the relationship and and um it's been interesting because a lot of these conversations initially are hard there are hard conversations that you're having with people that have found like a lot of success and they're looking at you like who are you but at the same time it's like the guards up to the guards up But eventually, that conversation changes, and they start to realize that we have an invested interest in them, and we want what's in their best interest. And we want to help them figure out what's next. And also, Max, it's very, very important,

especially on the athlete side, these guys are active. They have the following online. They have the attention of... They have opportunities flowing in but they don't necessarily vet those opportunities out because they don't have the time or the bandwidth and and also too they have the attention of the fans so let's figure out what's next for you while you're actively playing and you're at the height of everything so that way in a few years from now

whatever it is whether it's a year or 10 years you have that next part of your life figured out if not it turns to drugs drinking gambling yeah financial you know they're done you got a back you got to replace that thing yep you know and it it's almost. Some of the last people you would have expected it from because they were so locked in. An example that comes to mind, obviously, had a sad ending, is like Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant was locked and loaded for 20 years, didn't do much else, but very quietly, especially in the last few years of his career in the off seasons, just began to pay attention to a few things was very interested in venture capital and said okay i'm gonna learn it all when i get out

let me get the early stuff and so when he left the league machine he he and you know obviously no one was behind closed doors with him i'm sure there were still times where it's like shit i don't do that anymore but like he was building a venture capital company yeah guy won an oscar did all like he filled that he he fulfilled a lot of that void and then was so active in his kids life and everything as well and it's like you see that and you're like oh that's great how many athletes do that and they don't have to be a legend like kobe bryant i'm saying like how many solid athletes come out and then they're like oh i got it figured out not many man not and and and i i get it i get it it's it's it's hard and when i say i get it i was never there but like from the outside you know that like

oh they're they're living for this and now it's like well that's gone you're right i mean it's if you look at alan iverson yeah i mean his one agent i think locked away his reba contract till he was like 55 give that guy a medal of honor but like that guy blew through i heard i mean i read up i'm very interested in i do a lot of research and reading on people and and and how they became successful whatever their success is and the journey along the way and how they got there and and the different things but like he used to apparently from what i read yeah say this he would never even like pack luggage to a trip he had an entourage of like 50 plus people that traveled he would literally buy himself and everyone's stuff every time they went to a new city and like the guy isn't they'd leave it in the hotel room

and just leave it yeah and like that's just mind-boggling uh to think about but in his but he had so much i mean look at some of the musicians like nelly and look at dmx when he passed away he's in michael jackson like it's crazy to think about how much you know money um and debt these people are in because of decisions they made and because they didn't have the right people behind them. And that's kind of like kind of the equation like I'm looking to try to – I know Trent and I and ProVantage can't serve everybody. these guys and whatever that is, whether it's within their nonprofit or whether it's in a new venture that they want to explore or whether it's helping them even with their current marketing to make sure that it's up to par. So that way they can monetize deals. A lot of the stuff that we're doing is brand ambassador stuff. So these guys have built credibility within their sport. They

have a platform they have following. They have a platform they have following. They could sell to that audience because there's people like them. Their fans worship them, especially Philadelphia sports fans. So where are their interests? Where are their passions? And we work with them to identify brands and we reach out to brands on their behalf to see if there's an invested interest or some type of marketing that we can align them with. And then we vet that opportunity for them and present it to them to see if that's something they want to move on or not. Well, the guys are getting during their career still though too. It's good that you do. You can get to them and have those conversations and push them because again, as I said a few minutes ago,

like they're so focused on that career while they're doing it. And yes, that needs to be their priority, just like Kobe had it. But I don't think when they're so locked into that, guys appreciate, I don't want to say appreciate, I don't think they realize how valuable it is that everywhere they go, just with their team yeah there is a camera on them now are people watching tv no but they are watching live sports but outside of that all those cameras and all those tv feeds go right on the social media so it's the same shit yeah and the second you retire you could be kobe you could be a solid starter yeah it's gone yeah there's no one following you around your kids at your house with your kids there's no one following you around to your office for your family office

downtown no one gives a fuck yeah so now that currency and like a legend can kind of get away with it obviously but like that currency of that attention for even like a great player yeah i know it's so true i mean and that's that's part of the the uphill battle that we're working with them on, you know, some naturally You know, we'll get into sports they'll become like an analyst or something like that, but a Lot of these guys they really don't know what's next for them and that's kind of scary You know what I mean to think about because they've achieved so much success in their sport and they're like they're hanging on That should they get injured and they're one injury away from like a career ending, you know, situation. And, and like I said, I mean, we're there to try to be a support system. You know what I mean? And we do that

through business management services, through marketing and through sponsorship, and basically trying to figure out like, literally having like vision conversations, which is actually, believe it or not, a huge, I'm very big in strategy. That's one of my strengths is vision strategy, things like that. I could see for some reason, I have the ability, I've done it with Headstrong. Like I have, that's one of my strengths. I've been analyzed through testing and things like that. And I have the ability to visualize things and vision is one of my key strengths. So trying to carry that over to them to let them see like, and the other thing too is like, they do have a lot of opportunities at their fingertips.

And it's a matter of trying to figure out, okay, which one do we activate on? Because, and does that align with what you really, truly want to be doing next? Or can we start that now? And then that transitions you to that next chapter. You know, these guys, they don't really get a lot of time off. And when they're off, they're with their family, you know what I mean? And they also need

to turn it off so that way they could actually be somewhat, you know, balanced from a mental health standpoint, you know? It is, you know what though i one thing i do want to push back on to have this conversation because it's interesting yes they do have a lot of things at their fingertips and that continues to happen you see the world is run on marketing on socials and these guys have attention on socials yeah agreed but the competition for attention not just with the rise of content and the number of places and quick attention people can give stuff on various platforms. The competition for the number of people in society who get attention is much, much more than it was 15 years ago. And I'll give you – I know you know that, but just to put it – for the listeners to put a visual on what I mean by that.

Let's take a guy who was like a really good Eagles player who was popular but maybe not like a superstar around the world brent selick all right that's a good one great no no actually it's not because brent was really involved in the community and he has a very good regional presence that way not that the guy i'm going to say doesn't but not to the level brent did with a bar and everything like all that yeah jeremiah trotter let's name him yeah so jeremiah trotter was a five-time pro bowler for the eagles phenomenal linebacker one of my favorite players great guy all the way around like if jeremiah trotter walked into a wawa 15 years ago people especially in the philly area people are gonna be like holy fuck that's jeremiah trotter yeah right yeah today that still might like let's say he was active today right and was at the height of his

game yeah that's still gonna happen a little bit some people get a video maybe some people take a selfie but it's more run run of the mill and the reason i say that is because 15 years ago an influencer who traveled around the world and took pictures of themselves did not have two million followers let alone a platform to even do anything and now they're fucking famous and they're all held like no matter what you do athlete influencer entertainer celebrity comedian whatever it's all a part of the same thing and that thing is the time out of 24 hours of a day 17 of which people are actually awake that people can allocate to you so even like bigger athletes i'm not talking to legends i'm talking like guys who are really solid names even on like

a regional basis like that there's going to be less of that star factor because by the way when you go to their instagram bio maybe they have 120 000 followers but this jerk off over here making videos down the street has 750 so who's more popular in the eyes of the 17, 16-year-old kid who's driving the market? You know what I mean? Absolutely. I think, too, it goes to the reason why I decided to move forward with ProVantage and focusing on the athlete side is

these guys have the opportunity to build their brands right by using platforms like podcasting, like social media platforms, like their website, like they need to be active online. You know, like there was some athletes, I was doing some like data research. I was looking at some athletes that are like stars on their team and like haven't posted to social media in like six months. And I was just like, it was eating me alive saying like, do you realize the opportunity that you have if you just post a picture or a video?

Like your fans go bullshit over it. Like, it's not like it's hard. Why are you not doing that? And can we help you do that? You know, because in exchange for that, like my whole thing is like what can we monetize so that way you're not touching your football money you're not touching your professional sport money that's in your investments that's that's saved like that's being invested let's

figure out what we could i mean gronkowski did that that um uh are they, that Chaz is involved with? The NFTs? Yeah, apparently. Yeah, but he, I think, I may have him backed up, one of them, either his salary or all of his endorsement money. You're right. He's never touched one of them. Touched, you're right. And now some other guys do that too, so I like that you brought that up. But like trying to, if you actually Google the endorsement money, a lot of these athletes,

especially the superstars, are making more off the endorsements than they are actually with their sport. Like LeBron James is a perfect example. Sure. Right? The other thing is, to give height and light to, micro-level influence actually have. So what we're seeing is a lot of brands, instead of, there's only so many Michael Jordans, LeBron James, Tom Brady's, not every brand can be Nike and fund that that big contract so what a lot of these other guys are doing is they're working with people like ProVantage and they're

spreading out their marketing budgets over 30 micro level influencers versus one big monster whale right so we're able to maximize that for our athletes to say okay we have this portfolio of athletes. They're all over the place. Some are incredible superstars and some are just micro-level guys. Who are some of the guys you work with, if you don't mind me asking? So Trent and I are kind of confidential about who we're working with and things like that just because um you know so for us us our standpoint it's it has to make sense it's got to be a good fit but those micro level influencers that have a hundred thousand followers on instagram

are actually just entitled to the guys that you know are the other uh the mega influencers because these brands are like we don't have that in the we can't pay leon james and we can never be nike but we have an incredible apparel line and we have marketing money we allocated five million towards marketing so let's take a million and spread it over 15 influencers so these these athletes have a platform that they need to be activating on to make money you know what i mean? Why not? But they also need support underneath them. They can't do it themselves. So that's kind of the niche.

A lot of stuff that we're doing is brand ambassador stuff, influencer marketing stuff within the athletes, getting them aligned with brands, and then moving them into their marketing. So if there's activation on events where they could be, like I'm working on an event right now where I have, I'm actually, I spent a lot of time working with guys that are retired, that are Philadelphia-based athletes, working with companies in the greater Philadelphia

area that are doing like private parties for their clients. You know, like I'm talking, I'm working with a group right now that's a big it's a global company and they've brought me on to basically get former professional athletes in Philadelphia area there for their they're bringing it they're having like a convention essentially for all of their clients

they're in the automotive industry and they want to have a private party at Xfinity Live so I'm working with them and I've already secured like all these professional former Philadelphia Eagles. It's an Eagles party. And I've secured four or five professional athletes that used to play for the Eagles that they asked me to get. So guys that are even retired, have been out 15, 20 years, still have opportunities sure to to to uh for him to make an appearance to sign autographs uh to to join like every day i manage trent stuff every day he's got like a dozen

podcasters he's asking him to come on and he's open to like he's the type of guy like i'll do it let's go like you know he's just that's just how he rolls um not everyone's like that but um so like there's always opportunities on the table for sure for these guys and the the biggest opportunities are is when they're active and that's when we need to be you know taking advantage they need to be taking advantage of those opportunities because that could land them into that next stage you know and that's that's kind of the thought process that i've been trying to preach to these guys. We got to think bigger. We got to take time out, remove yourself from the sport and let's put the thinking caps on from a business standpoint

and talk about where are you at in three, five, 10, you know, years, you know, we know where you're at family. We know where you're at right now, but what's next for you. And that's, they're not always easy conversations to have but at the same time like they're necessary um and on the other side is what's what would be what's awesome is when we're working with a brand or a company and we can align the influencer with the company oh yeah which is something that we're doing a lot recently there's like a there's a technology company that we're involved with. They also sponsor Trent, but we're now talking to them about filtering in some other athletes because they want to tap into

other sports. So we actually have a really unique proposal on the table right now that we're exploring with them. But if we could continue to build upon our relationships on the company and brand side and continue to build our roster and portfolio of athletes. And the more that they interchange, the more successful everyone's going to be. And it's a really unique concept that we're exploring there. Now, do you really, I don't know if push is the word, but obviously you have your heavy own experience with running your own nonprofit and everything but do you impress upon these guys to find causes that they're passionate about to work that into a big part of what they do or does that more need to really come from them and you know it's not for you to

say it's different across the board some guys already have foundations established some guys have funds that aren't necessarily nonprofits, but act as nonprofits. You'd be surprised. So we only know like what we experience or see or learn, right? A lot of these guys are actually very active in giving back, but they're quiet about it because, and that's something that I've learned over the last, since January, like really having a lot of conversations. Most of these guys do stuff, but they don't advertise it because they don't want to be everyone knocking on the door asking for, you know, Hey, can you help me here? Hey, can you help me there? Cause they're already getting that to begin with. So now they just kind of, it's out the back door there. There,

there, a lot of them are involved with the universities they went to or, or, or maybe a disease or some type of philanthropic effort that they were touched by. You know what I mean? And they're all different based on kind of how they are registered upstairs, you know, as far as how they want to go about and navigate things. But for the most part, everyone that I've been involved with, like I'll give you an example, like Corey Anderson is aator uh fighter that we represent and we work with and he's very big into the outdoors real big in the outdoors so he's buying a trends big into the outdoors come on so like cory's big on mentoring like the youth

to get active in the outdoors he's a big believer and that keeps kids out of trouble so like he'll take a kid he was just explaining on an interview the other day i was listening to like he takes kids to the hunting store and gets them outfitted in a bow and and like takes them out and shows them how to shoot it and takes them out and and shows them how to you know basically go about the outdoors so i've never heard that that's that's a new one yeah like that so like and everyone's different you know um some people it's around their family other people it's around helping others some it's around a disease that maybe they might be affected by you know things like that um some grew up with in and you know unfortunate circumstances and they want to help the youth you know like vinnie carey who's a client he's very active in giving back to like underprivileged kids.

He runs free football camps. He does stuff where he donates backpacks to kids going back to school. He does a lot like he did before COVID. He did a couple like really cool social like gala events where he but he did like a party for kids. And he limoed him in to the city and did this big thing. So like and he's always very active with getting back a lot of these guys they do that because it keeps them grounded and but also at the same time they don't like plaster it all over like hey look at me kind of a thing you know i mean they're quiet about it and that's something that i've learned not not to i don't want to rip

people who do announce all the things they do philanthropically because i appreciate that they do that but you know obviously some guys out of necessity don't want to publicize as you said some things because they don't want everyone calling them up because obviously there's still limited budgets with anyone regardless of how much money you make but yeah the the guys who are also doing it because they don't they don't need to draw attention to it it's something that that gives them a greater purpose to what they've been able to build and what they've been able to accomplish i i always love hearing that i've heard some stories behind the scenes and i don't want to defeat the purpose and say names but guy i don't know any of these guys but

i've heard some crazy stories that are first degree stories like someone who is directly involved with them from some of the biggest athletes in the world who do, who even sometimes like, you know, the media gets on them because they don't like a few of the things they do, like as a personality. And I just, like, sometimes I wish you could tell them because you hear these things they do and it's beautiful. It's, it's, it's amazing. And, you know, I, I just, I really, really appreciate that from these guys because a lot of them, they understand they're the one of the one of the one of the one of the 1% and their job that they got to do, even though all the things that come with it that are hard, they do get to do the thing that most kids at some point in their life growing up, even if just for a moment, dream about being in one of the four major sports leagues, right? And then they make it. And so when you see guys carry that responsibility back to the community, I mean, it's just awesome to me. So I like that you guys are impressed upon that as well. Absolutely. I mean, we always try to make

it a part. I look at it as a pizza. You got eight slices. I think some type of community initiative or charity should be a part of the slice of one of the slices for sure. Because I think, believe it or not, like I've talked to a couple of my buddies that are big into like the former world, like world that you were in. And there's actually like, there was a, there was a, I think it was a New York Giant. He was telling me about like my buddy who's a financial advisor. They had a guy come in who was with the Jets and signed a big deal. And he didn't really have a portfolio established yet, nor did he have a nonprofit or anything like that. So they got him set up in his portfolio.

They launched a nonprofit. Next thing you know, like one of the biggest healthcare networks in New York City signed him and also made significant contributions back to his charity as part of the contract. So there's gold right within these initiatives by just launching a nonprofit. So it's like, you just never know. And it's just a good thing to do because these folks, these guys, they have a platform. They have the attention of people and they have the capacity to change lives overnight. So it's definitely part of me and my history being in a nonprofit. I started from the ground up. You know what I mean?

These guys have the ability just to write the check if they really wanted to. And everyone, like I said, they're all different as far as how they want to go about, you know, announcing or promoting it. Some are loud and clear and some are kind of, you know, quiet behind closed doors. Well, the other thing that naturally comes to mind on, you know, figuring out the full portfolio of these guys is also, I guess I'll just use the word like activism on things because, you i feel like today they're first of all i think it's a great thing that athletes can use their platform for things they're passionate about and and even politically as long as like they're respectful of people who disagree and aren't evil for doing so i'm good with it and and i think i think we should encourage that in a lot of ways

that said like anything else there's negatives that come with it in a lot of ways. That said, like anything else, there's negatives that come with it. And a lot of guys behind the scenes feel pressured to feel certain types of ways about things. And then they don't want to talk about it, you know, if they feel differently. Which is sad to see because I feel like we're losing discussion in society. And there's, I mean, let's be honest. This is way outside the athlete world, too. I'm just curious for this directly but you know when you're talking with a lot of these guys are they is a part of the strategy really looking into like okay here's things we want to avoid i don't

ever want to touch that kind of issue right there i want to stay away from this kind of pr nightmare because you know even if i feel a certain way like i don't want to open that up to the public. I want to keep my personal life slash my professional life separate from opinions, that kind of thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, we – most of these guys – we look for a specific client, somebody that meets our core values and also the fact that it kind of get the fact that we have like Trent, a lot of times already has established relationships with the people that we're working with. So we already know who they are, how they like what their reputation is, and and kind of like what they represent at large. Before we start working with them them we do have discussions about you know with

them but at the same time like it's freedom of speech they technically i mean they could do whatever they want we do have discussions on it we do have a partner uh life brand which is a company it's a it's a software company that um and tj does a fabulous job in educating folks on when you're online you have to be responsible for what you're posting and what you're pushing out and things that maybe you post in the past come but could come back and haunt you whether it's getting a job whether it's getting it you know an opportunity I mean you see it now I mean people are stepping down from things that they did so it's some of that bullshit though. I'm so i'm sorry

I gotta I gotta say this because Not just like you're not just referring to things that are happening. Like I always said it two years ago While he's active we're talking about things kids say when they're 15 now that they dig up when they were like in 09 or 2010 That's bullshit. Yeah, it's it's definitely and and like people can change, right? And people can grow and get better and become more aware and educated on specific topics. And as long as they have a choice to change in that positive direction, then I agree with you. We're not all perfect. What's interesting about Lightbrand, and I'll give them a plug, TJ Software allows you to basically – it screens your social media. So within the click of a mouse, they basically basically you plug in your social media handles right they give you a report of everything

that you've posted online ever ever and it also tells you if it's profanity if it's racist and you have the within the click of a mouse it's like 14 bucks i think that it's racist, and you have within a click of a mouse, it's like $14, I think. It's very, very cost effective. You can delete everything instantly. $14. I swear to God, dude. It's crazy. So they're one of our – I want an affiliate link.

I'm going to start pushing that one big time. That's amazing. You should have TJ on because he's a great, great guy, and he's a great – That is cool. I like that. If you look at – he's advertising, and he's developed developed partnerships with the Sixers, the Phillies, the Eagles. He's all over the place right now in a good way from an advertising standpoint. He's doing great things.

But we're partnered with him, and he does a great job in educating us on the do's and the don'ts and things like that, representation online, essentially. But give Lifebrand a check and check them out they're really it's a really unique uh software company that could save a lot of people you should make that you should make that a requirement like for your guys coming on like 14 now please we do we do advise those folks to uh to look into that um and and the thing is is like we're more and that's in that realm like you know some of these guys are controlling over what they want. Some people hand it all off to us and say, run with it. Others are like, you push it to me, I'll post it on my social media kind of stuff.

So everything that we do at ProVantage, whether it's on the business front or the athlete front, is customized to the actual client, if that makes sense. And it all depends on the relationship and how they want to go about business is really how we customize it. We don't have like, hey, these are our rates, and this is what we do. It's like everything we do is tailored to the client and where we're going to be going. And to be honest with you, when we first start our conversations, we don't even talk money. We don't even talk what we're going to do for them. We just try to learn who they are and discover. It's a discovery session. We take weeks to discover them. We research them.

I even put a presentation together and I presented them. So it's much more about it's not looking at them as a price tag. It's trying to identify who they are and where they're going to be heading and trying to have them think that way. Because for so long, especially on the athlete side, and I talk a lot to that, but these guys, everything's been, like you said, every three minutes are controlled. This is where you need to be. This is when you need to be there.

This is the play you're running. This is the thing you're doing. So, like, we try to, like, advise them, but at the end of the day, it's their decision. It's their brand, if that makes sense. But we're there like advise them but at the end of the day it's their decision it's their brand if that makes sense but we're there to help them um so that's kind of where we're at with with that side um which is cool but this is the other interesting thing of this these guys they're all invested in other companies so naturally what does that do for – What do you mean? So, like, these guys, they have ownership in other companies. Like athletes in their own – So, like, athletes take their money that they earn from their career and they invest it not only into, like, their portfolio, but they'll buy.

They'll invest in the startups. They'll invest in the companies. So, what does that do for us? If we develop a good enough relationship with them, we then get in the door to market, to handle the marketing for their company. Or if there are specific projects, it trickles back down to us. If we do our job right and we execute things the right way,

the opportunities start to flow in. You know what I mean? Perfect example is like with my business owner. We're working with a bunch of different companies that he's involved with. He has his ownership stake in, you know what what i mean because he's invested into it so there's there's opportunities that are i call them skydivers are just flying through ceiling you know what i mean and then us us vetting it out to see where we fit there's like a new startup uh like it's a software company uh in the city of philadelphia that came through one of our clients

that i have a meeting with on Monday. So it's just really interesting to see how these two sectors are coming together and overlapping and they should support one another. You know what I mean? So that's kind of like the vision of ProVantage. It's like we have the athlete side and we have the company's brands that we work with, that we support. And together, those two verticals should grow. And also, there's going to be some overlapping in the middle too. So do you guys – this is how it seems to me, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Do you guys have the vision of you're going to build out – like let's focus on the athlete side real quick. You're going to build out a company that is a full-blown athlete management company so competing with the caas of the world and stuff like that like their management side we do not want to be a sport agent so we want not agency not management side yes so we want to we want to have a portfolio a balanced portfolio of different athletes of different genders of different agesenders, of different ages, of different demographics. So that way, and the whole thing, my long-term vision is to sell the whole roster. Because that's going to give us more leverage. We can go to a bigger brand and say, hey, listen, you work with us,

you get all this, top to bottom. Guys that are the pinnacle of their career and guys that are just starting out and and representing and connecting with different audiences and things like that different communities of people like the long-term vision is to take the roster and everybody eats the whole roster eats we all help each other you know what i mean that's my vision there but it takes time to vet out the right people yeah to get them on the team, to show them our value and how we're there to help them. And like I talked earlier in the podcast, this is a marathon on a sprint. In 15, 20 years from now, this company is going to be rocking.

And we should have. And eventually we'll get investment behind it and things like that. But right now it's just laying the groundwork. I always talk about wherever you go, drop a seed because you never know what's going to grow from it. You know what I mean? So always out there just talking to people, explaining to them what we're doing. That's why I like this podcast.

I just met you today for the first time, but it was an opportunity to come on here, share my story, tell people what we're doing on the foundation side, tell people what we're doing on the ProVantage side. And who knows? A listener might be listening to this and might have a product or a brand. They might be involved with something, and boom, it goes from there. And what's interesting is – Or they might want to donate. Or they might want to donate.

And that's the story before any of this before pro vantage and all that like that's that's the that's my favorite thing in doing this when i when i have people who it could be anything right it could be something like that or it could be just like something that happened to them recently when they come in here and share that because you don't know where it's going to go and you also you gain some kind of crazy new perspective and it's a very personal thing but you know when i bring guys in my goal the whole time is to just shoot the shit and talk about stuff going on right and we'll weave in society and then where things can genuinely come in or just naturally kind of come in with what they're doing to be able to speak about that

obviously like headstrong is an obvious one it's's a nonprofit. Everyone should hear about that. But, like, with their business and stuff. Yep. Great. I'll have a lot of podcasts, though, where we never even mention that, and then people are hitting me up like, Hey, that guy I see in his bio, he does this. Can I go work with him?

I love that. Yep. When it gets to the point, though, where it's, like, everything tied together as it did with you, I don't mind having a long time where it's almost like the last half hour has been like a reel for pro vantage but you guys are unique because of the setup you're unique as we said you're unique because trent's on the inside there and obviously like you have a clear you have a sustained example of when you say like yo it's a marathon

you can point to 15 years of going from t-shirts to 20 mil right and and doing it in a very hard and emotional space too so it's like people can get that credibility from that and i like i like giving that a platform a lot i mean it's it you know like i said i'm a sucker for the story and the story is pretty cool man thank you i appreciate it man it's been great so listen i do got to say this i never forget forget people who, anybody who helps me out. Like that's something I pride myself on. But, you know, behind the scenes, you did me a huge favor today because I got really, really fucked over the last week

by a couple people who I didn't know and lesson learned, whatever. But, you know, I appreciate you coming in to give me an episode this week. That was a lifesaver. And so whatever I can do to help 100% there, I would love to get involved with Headstrong. That's an amazing, amazing story. And I'm excited to see what you and Trent do here, because obviously it's still early on. But as I just said, it is a unique value proposition in that specific industry. Yep. Thank you, man. man i appreciate it and uh just goes along with who i am about helping people out so i'm glad i was able to come on i really appreciate

the uh the opportunity to come on and just share my story dude i'm glad i'm surprised it was your first podcast it's not you're good i was very surprised when you said i used to be an introvert and your brother said you got to find your voice because you'd never like you're a very like like energetic guy it's awesome yeah no and i'll just share one quick thing so after my brother passed i um a lot of media wanted to because we were both you know division ncaa athletes and things like that there was a lot of like press around nick's fight right and then then the foundation was born and and like there was i never forget like i neglected to do interviews with espn inside lacrosse like some big um trying to get the one the one group up in up in new york there was like a big media company that wanted Eventually I gave in, but for the longest time I was like, nah, that's not happening.

You know what I mean? But I'll never forget my first interview was in the locker room. From that day on, I started to believe in myself and what Nick told me about finding your voice. So if there's anybody out there listening, you don't need to be the center of attention but feel free to speak up for what you believe in you know what I mean and make sure when you speak it has value behind it just don't talk to talk you know what I mean

you do man 100% so listen thank you again it's been a pleasure and where can people follow you or get involved with the organization and I'll put any links obviously like in the description as well yeah i mean websites uh headstrong.org probanisolutions.com i'm on facebook instagram linkedin not really uh you know huge into tiktok but i just got like an account on there so i'm gonna start looking into that that's another vehicle i know you're big into

that stuff so you sparked my interest there for me it's like I can't be on every platform. You know what I mean? So I'm very visual. So Instagram is very appealing to me because of the photography and the videography, the quality of stuff on there. It just pleases my mind. But we'll give TikTok some love as well. All right. We'll work on it.

But thank you again, dude. Yeah, no problem. Really appreciate this. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.