Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Four Billionaires and A Parking Attendant with Chris Ullman

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

This week, Anthony talks with communications expert Chris Ullman, about his brand-new book, Four Billionaires and a Parking Attendant. Chris shares details from his decades of experience working alongside some of the world's most influential minds, sharing his "blueprint for building a career and a life." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better.

You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. My guest today, Christopher Olman, has spent his career working with some of the most interesting and successful people out there. His new book, Four Billionaires and a parking attendant is personal, funny, and ultimately a roadmap to becoming the best version of yourself. I have been privileged enough to know some of the people in this book, too, and I've learned a lot from them over the year, so it's great to see Chris has put all of these great

stories and wisdom on paper. So joining us now on Open Book is Christopher Olman. He's a communications expert, four-time whistling grand champion and author. I actually went online to check out some of that and finding your whistle, Chris. We'll talk a little bit about that. But he's the author of a soon-to-be best-selling book, Four billionaires and a parking attendant, which is a phenomenal title. I don't know how you came up with that. Maybe you're smoking pot at the time, something, but it's a phenomenal title. And it gravitated me to the book. And it's a great read. And it turns out we have a lot of friends in common. Let's start there. I have a friend that worked for the SEC for 20 plus years. He hates crypto. I love crypto, which is basically where we started in high school together. You talk about your dad and how he stopped once he felt he had achieved what he needed to, but he never encouraged you to do the same. So I want to go there. And we'll talk about John Stark in a second. But I thought what you said about your dad was fascinating. And we all have this relationship with our fathers, right? We want to impress our day.

I said I did. I wanted to make my dad proud. I'm sure you felt the same way. But tell me about that philosophy that your dad shared with you. Anthony, thank you so much for having me as a guest. I'm really honored and excited to chat with you and share some cool stories with your listeners. So I'm really, I'm humbled that you homed in on the part about my father. So I grew up on Long Island, Massapeco Park. Some of your listeners probably have heard of it. And so my father was a, you know, a depression era child. He passed away a couple of years ago at 86. And since he didn't have anything as a kid, by the time he got to his 40s or 50s and he was a kind of solid middle manager in corporate America, he worked at Grumman Corporation on Long Island, he just kind of stopped

trying. Not kind of. He actually stopped trying, like this notion of striving. He just stopped. And so it was this kind of juxtaposition because he had stopped striving. But then he always said to me, do your best, do your best, do your best. And part of the challenge was that I didn't really know what best meant. And that's kind of at the core of this book is that I went kind of from the minor leagues of Long Island where I didn't know presidents and chairman and billionaires and the like. And then I moved to Washington after college. and I literally start working for billionaires and the chairman of federal agencies and chairman of committees and on Capitol Hill and CEOs of major corporations. And I said, ah, that's what being your best is.

And so really it set up this kind of just interesting kind of challenge in my brain, you know, as a kid. Like, I'm like, how can my father just stop trying? Like, that's crazy. You know, so I kind of tried to do my best, but I didn't really know what my best was until I came here. It's interesting. I'm named after my uncle, Anthony. His last name is Defeo. They moved his class. He was supposed to graduate in June of 1943. They moved his class up to March of 1943 to get him over for the war. And so he got shipped out to the U.K. And he ended up on Normandy Beach. Survived the Normandy invasion, but was wounded fairly seriously on the way into France. maybe three weeks after the invasion. Apropos to his generation, he healed in a hospital and went back to war, fought in the battle of the bulge, ended up at the Potsdam conference after the war.

But he came back and, to use your word, stop trying. You know, I think the war flattened him and I think it traumatized him. And he was just happy to be alive. And I think he felt lots of guilt about living when some of his best friends for random reasons died. And he became the produce manager at the local A&P. hey, you know, and there you go. We're all driven by these different philosophies, you know. Listen, but he was a great man and a real American hero,

and I'm sure so was your dad. For my listeners that don't know what Massapequa Park is, a fellow Long Islander, the nickname for Massapequa Park in Massapica is matza pizza. Pizza. It's basically Jews and Italians, okay? I mean, that's basically it, right? You're surrounded by Jews and Italians.

Probably the best food on Long Island is in that area for that reason, Because let's just face, the Jews and Italians love food. Am I wrong, Chris? I mean, you just love the food. You are completely right. Best Jewish delis, the best Italian restaurants. No, no question. I love coming down to the South Shore.

I'm a North Shore baby. I grew up in Port Washington with your friend, John Stark. But you said something that rang a bell in me, so I want to go to it. It's billionaires, CEOs, chairman. I'm from a blue-collar family out here in Long Island. My dad was a crane operator. And so I had, I was quite impressionable. Obviously, when I met the first president of the United States,

the first president I met was probably Bill Clinton. I was in awe. I had the opportunity to be in the Oval Office as a young man at age 29. I was in awe. Of course, I got back to her to work for Trump. It didn't last very long. I got fired after 11 days. But then I was like, only shit, I'm actually working in the Oval Office

as opposed to just walking through it. And so it's an amazing place, America. But tell me about not knowing billionaire, and not knowing these high-profile people and then meeting them, what did you learn? What did you learn about them versus normally? Is F. Scott Fitzgerald Wright or the rich different from you and I? They, in the end, we're all God's children and equal in his eyes. But the billionaires, the chairman, the CEOs that I have been honored to work with.

And that's one of the cool things about this book is that this is not me just interviewing a bunch of random people. I actually worked hand and glove with all 15 people. in the book. So they are different and they have intense purpose. They know where they're going. They have this drive that just propels them through the tiredness and when they get sad or they feel like they're not getting there. They just drive. It's incredible. They're incredibly strategic, meaning they can map out a pathway and then they're tactically agile too. Like this capacity to figure out like what are the individual steps I need to get where I'm going. And they are a little crazy.

There's no doubt about that. And they are thick-skinned because people are going to tell them, no, no, no, you can't do it over and over and over again. This happened to David Rubinstein constantly. Oh, don't do that, David. No one's ever done that before. And David said, I'm going to do it and just watch me. So these types of people, if there is an obstacle, they go through it, around it, under it, over it. It's really amazing. Now, one of the cool things about the book is, yes, you have to be indefatigable and strategic and problem solving and all that. But they are also incredibly generous, really good at building bridges, which we're not seeing on Capitol Hill these days, unfortunately. And there are some great stories in the book about people building bridges with people who think differently from them. Because in the the end, successful people want to get crap done. They don't want to just have an issue or pat

themselves on the back. They actually want to accomplish. And so people said to me, while I was writing the book, do you want to be a billionaire? And I said, I don't want to be a billionaire. I said, I want to be me. I want to be the best me possible. And by like kind of plucking out this lesson, this lesson, this lesson, like just materially changed the way I think and behave and has helped me become the best version of me. Now, I just turned 60. Hopefully, I've got 25 more good years than me. So I'm going to keep growing and hopefully continuing to become the best me possible.

But these lessons have just really changed the way I think. And it's cool to see them firsthand and to learn from them. So it's been, they are different, but I think everyday people are capable of becoming their best as well by learning from these superlative people. Yeah, no, listen, and I feel you, but not only that, I enjoyed reading the book because there was things about some of these people who I know personally that I did not know, and some of the things related to their personal philosophy. So people who I have met not necessarily know well, right?

David Rubinstein, know very well, consider him a friend. Arthur Levin, I've met, don't really know. Orlando Bravo has been on my podcast, and we've had several conversations, including one about FTX, where Mr. Bravo, was taught by Sam Bankman-Feed's parents, or particularly Joe Bankman, at Stanford. And so we had that connection. Mr. Luke Gershner, a graduate of Shaughamount High School out here on Long Island, I know. John Kasich, I've met through politics.

And of course, then there's a legendary Bill Conway, another co-founder of Carlisle. You bring him up and you write about mentality and having the around-the-hoop mentality. You know, I love that because everybody loves a rebound, don't they, Chris? and I've had to rebound a few times in my career. But what is it about having an around the hoop or hang around the hoop mentality? Well, Bill is a good friend. He's one of the best investors in the world. And he's an incredibly generous man.

And he had this philosophy he called Hang Around the Hoop. And what it is is it's a state of mind of openness, readiness. And it's also kind of a physical stance. And that's why it's called Hang Around the Hoop. So if someone is waiting for a rebound, their knees are bent, their hands are out, their eyes are perky and twitchy, they are ready. They are ready for opportunity to come their way. But if you're kind of on the back foot, you're checking your phone, and then there goes the rebound right past you. And Bill said, if you want to be successful, you have to have this hang around

the hoop mentality. And this is a great anecdote in the book where Carlisle was bidding on a company against another big private equity firm, probably a multi-billion dollar deal, we lost out. And the team thought they were going to win and they were really disappointed. And they were kind of angry too. But Bill contacted the seller and said, we're disappointed. It was a tough process. We wish you well and we look forward to working with you sometime in the future. Total gentleman. They're really smart. Then the company that beat Carlisle, their financing fell through. So then the seller comes back to Carlisle and says, hey, are you interested in the company still? And Bill Conway says, yeah, I am. And guess what? We're going to have better terms now. But if Bill had been a total jerk about it and said, you know, you promised us that company, you know, we're friends. We earned it and was just a jerk about it. He would have burnt that bridge. And like I think your listeners might be saying, you know, super wealthy, successful people don't do stupid things like this. And they do all the time.

They really do. It's pretty shocking. I really love the story because it's about seeing through the immediate and taking a long-term approach. And so it doves tail off of another lesson in your book, Enemy Today, Friend Tomorrow. You talk about Arthur Levin in the book. He's lit up with this negative newspaper article in Businessweek or this negative article. And rather than putting the reporter in the doghouse, he lets him slide and they ultimately become friends. This, of course, happened with me and General Gell. Kelly, John Kelly, the four-star general, fires me in the White House. We were probably a little sore at each other at beginning, but we've become very close personal friends, and we do speaking engagements now around the world together. I had a world. Wow. Yeah, no, I've done seven speaking engagements with John, wife Karen and my wife, Deirdre, the four of us have had dinner together. We've actually become good friends. And of course, we have some more in common than what separates us. And I actually brought it to Mitt Romney's event last year, where we were. We're with Senator Mansion and Paul Ryan, et cetera. So that really resonated with me. It's hard for people to do, though, Chris. You know, someone lights you up on Twitter. He lights you up in the New York Post.

They write a nasty story about you. It's sometimes hard for people. They get grudgy, if you will. How do you prevent yourself, Chris, from getting grudgy? I love that word grudgy. I've never heard it, but I'm going to start using it if you don't mind. I'm like George W. Bush. I'm making it words.

You know what I mean? I'm going to attribute it to you because it's a great word. So if your listeners are paying close attention, the question you just asked is at the center, is at the core of whether or not these lessons are going to sink in or not. And it has to do with the ego. And it has to do with taking the ego down a few levels because you have an objective. And I don't want ego or stupid things to get in the way of my objective. But people do it all the time.

Now, I don't know if you saw William Cohen wrote in Puck. recently that David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, won't talk to reporters if they write bad stories about him. Now, I don't know if that's true, but if it's true, that's crazy because you're cutting off your nose despite your face. So in the book, as you know, so Business Week writes his real, real tough piece on Leavitt, accusing him of ethical impropriety, which is about as bad as you can get. And most people would have shut the reporter down, said, I don't talk to you anymore. My PR people won't even talk to you anymore. Instead, Arthur went on a charm offensive. He gave her scoops. He took her to breakfast. He took her to lunch. Four years later, when he retired

from the SEC, Business Week did a cover story on Arthur with this awesome Moses-like photo with his hair back and this great headline that said, The Investor's Advocate. And she co-wrote that article. And then two years after that, she co-wrote his memoir. And so rather than let the ego mess up his objectives, he stayed focused, totally focused. And it is hard. But people, and so much of managing your ego is about being present and saying to yourself, I'm getting angry. Okay, I understand that. But I have an objective, and I understand that. And you have to weigh the two against each other and try to push down the anger and then manage the ego so that you don't get off track. And in all my 37 years in politics and corporate America, I've seen people get

off track so many times because the ego rises up and they are not good at managing it. But if you can, you know, and it's not a binary thing either. It's not a binary thing. What you have to do is incrementally understand what riles you up and then be. be very aware of your objectives and then almost like play them off of each other. If I get riled up right now, it will deter me from my goals. Rubenstein is particularly good at staying on track. Leavitt, very good at staying on track. Like super impressed. It's had material impact on me. I used to get totally riled up. Now I am as chill as can be. And it's better for my blood pressure. I'm just a happier person. I'm just better at getting crap done.

I think it's such a valuable lesson. You know, I just had this really negative article written about me in Bloomberg. I mean, the woman just blasted me. I was like, my God, maybe I dated her in high school or something like that. I was like trying to figure out why. And then she wanted to come to my conference and my staff wanted to disinvite her. I said, that's absolutely ridiculous. Get over her a front row seat.

Now, I'm a big believer in the free press. I'm a public figure. Of course, she's allowed to write whatever the hell she wants to write. You know, let's leave it at that. But these are great, great lessons. Let's go to Sala. First of, who is Sala? And what are we learning from him about lessons of gratitude and happiness?

Sala is a friend. He is an Ethiopian immigrant. He became an American citizen. I went to his naturalization ceremony. And he's also the parking attendant in the title. Exactly. He's the parking attendant. You have four billionaires on a parking attendant.

So what are we learning from Sala that's so valuable? Choosing to be happy. and it is a choice. It's like love. True love is not a feeling. It is a choice. You have to choose to love someone, which means sacrifice and the ups and downs and all that.

Same thing with choosing to be happy is that to choose to be happy means that you're not letting the little things just drag you down and, again, distract you from your mission. So here I, so Salah is a parking attendant to Carl. I drive my car in there every day for four years. Sala parks my car for me. And Mr. Chris, how are you? How's your family?

How's your weekend? And as most people will know, in a parking garage, you know, under a building, it's either really cold in the winter or it's really hot in the summer. And it's always kind of dim or dark. And no matter what, Sala was always happy. And I'm just, I'm attracted to happy people because I believe life is short and you must maximize your gifts and appreciate them. And here's this guy.

If he was making $35,000 a year, that was. was a lot, and he was happy. And then there's this juxtaposition. There are a lot of juxtapositions in this book where I'm comparing this and that. So here is the happy guy in the dark, cold, dim basement, and you go up 40 feet in the elevator, and there is literally billionaire, billionaire, and all these centa-millionaires and all, like, just these Uber successful people in this beautiful climate-controlled office. And as Dave Rubinstein likes to say, he doesn't know many happy rich people. And many of them are tortured souls. And you don't know what kind of mood they're going to be, and despite the fact that they have private jets and everyone caters to their wishes.

And I'd say, how is that possible? How is that possible? And it's because Sala chose to be happy. And that really impacted me and because it is a choice. And that doesn't mean you're happy all the time. We all have ups and downs and different struggles in life. But if you are about to get in a climate-controlled office and it's really hot outside, like almost everyone will, the first thing they do when they get in the elevator is

complain to someone. Well, it's really hot out. Like, why don't you just shut up? Like, just focus on the fact that you're alive and how blessed you are and the opportunities you have and that you have health care. But I'm sure you've seen studies on this is that if you win the lottery or you get a raise or a promotion, people adjust to the new circumstance very quickly. And so it raises the baseline. And what I try to do, I actually have a happiness formula. It's called H equals A over E. Happiness equals actual over-expected. And if you can manage the E, the denominator, you'll almost always be happy. And that doesn't mean having low standards or expectations. It just means being reasonable. And that, you know, if you win the lottery, like, don't go berserk with spending. Just be modest.

And you're like always, you'll always be happy. It's pretty incredible. Well, listen, I grew up in a blue-collar neighbor. I think my dad's last pay was about $35,000 when he retired in the year 2000. And of course, you know, it took $25 or $30,000 at that time to get through a place like Tufts or Harvard Law School. So, you know, I was hustling to make that happen. He did give me a little bit of money. God bless him. But you learn from that. And you learn about managing your expectations.

My dad just has a great line. If you can't afford the price of the ticket, don't go to the movies. And he taught us how to live below our means, you know, and try to be watchful of our money. But also, like, that, you know, money certainly is important. I'm not saying it is. It's a great tool, particularly if you need to help. health care or access to things or some levels of freedom. But it's also a shackle if you start the comparison game. You start comparing yourselves to others. And this is a big mental health crisis

that's happening now for our younger people, older people too. But in social media, they're looking at people's filtered lives, Chris. And they don't know themselves. They're living an unfiltered life, but they see this person filtered up. And they're like, well, what am I missing? And they start to grow anxious and they get socially insecure. And it causes levels of depression. So the book is very meaningful to me. Also, my father-in-law, who is also now deceased, was a parking attendant. Didn't make much money. 40 years in the Kenny parking system. And I'm going to tell you right now, Christopher Olman, he was a role model for me. I always tell my wife that because he got it. He got the joke about life. He got the simplicity of it. He also got the temporary nature of it. So he wasn't going

to drive himself crazy in that comparative game. He was going to try to find some love and some happiness with his family and his children. And I think the lessons you are telling in this book are extraordinary. I want to go to one last thing before I get to the end of this podcast, but this was something that really struck me. Humility. Conway and Rubenstein in particular are incredibly successful. You mentioned in the book that there's only probably a thousand or so billionaires. These guys are self-made billionaires, but they're remarkably and incredibly humble. Tell me about that. And tell me how you think they got that way. And isn't that a superpower for them in many ways, Chris? I love the way you phrase that, Anthony, is that the superpower. Anyone who knows David and

Bill knows that they are warm, genuine, humble people. And they got that way, I believe, because they're self-made. David grew up very kind of blue-collarish. His father was a postman. His mother was a a homemaker and worked in a dress shop. And he had to earn his way. He had to earn his scholarships to Duke and to Chicago law. You know, Bill, Bill's family had a little more money, but not much more, but they earned it. So earned success helped them realize what's important. And nothing was handed to them. Now, interestingly, so Bill is a very serious Catholic. So his generosity is very derived from his faith. David is Jewish, but not particularly practicing. His generosity is really derives from his kind of belief in the role he plays in the community. And then it's not that

different from Bill, but it's slightly different motivations. So they are just remarkably generous. And I mean, I would not work for a boss who just had billions and bought fancy paintings and stuck him in his office. Bill would roam the holes of Carlisle giving out gift cards. Bill would roam the halls of Carlisle giving out $5 and $10 gift cards to Dunkin' Donuts to people and said, I will give you a stack of these if you give them to homeless people in the street. And I still carry them around with me. And it's been years since I worked there.

And so it's incredibly inspiring. And to be with people, like Bill did a deal, I don't know, around two years ago, probably made a couple hundred million. And net, that's net. after taxes. And I said, Bill, congratulations. And he said, thanks. Now I have to figure out how to give it away effectively. That's his response. It's not, can I buy a bigger yacht? It's how do I give it away? That's his gift. You know, and I share his faith. And Bill actually helped me, you know, he had gone through an early part of his life, a divorce. I know his second wife and him are very happily

married for many, you know, multiple decades. But I went through a divorce. I got married very young. The woman I married is a great mom. And there's no bad blood or anything like that. But it was a very stressful period of time in my life. And he was incredibly kind to me and gave me some really good advice. Now, you may or may not know this because you're the Mata side of Matapequa, and I would be the pizza side. But as a Catholic, if you're divorced, you can't accept communion. You're not allowed to technically.

Okay. And so it was really a conversation with Bill and I about how to keep. your Catholicism and keep your faith, even if some of the things that have happened in your life are not directly chide to the church's doctrine. And so I just have just this enormous amount of respect for him and David, but I thought that was something cool. There are my authors, I ask my authors at the end of each of my podcast, I bring up five words. I usually take them from the book, your book, Four Billionaires and a Parking Attendant. What a great title. And just a great inspirational read, by the way. So I'm going to read you these five words, Chris, and then you give me your

reaction. You give me a word, a sentence, a thought. Let's start with the word purpose. Make the most of every day because you don't know when the last day is going to be here. So it's an acceptance of the temporary nature of life, and so live your life with a lot of passion and purpose. Let's go to the word, enough. Try to do your best and be happy with that because comparing yourself to another person is not going to make you happy. Yeah. The comparison game leads to a path of envy and resentment and bitterness. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't recommend it for people. It's almost a test for all of us here on Earth to just focus on our virtue and our things that we should be grateful for, not looking over our shoulder or ahead of us or to the left or the right. So well said, lessons, lessons, lessons. Forever student, got to keep learning, learning, learning, open-mindedness, suppress the ego and absorb all the, the greatness around you. Okay. That's really good one. Very, very, very, very practical too, right? And I believe in that. You have to keep that fire of intellectual bureaucracy, always burning with you.

Two last ones. Let's go to Spirit. We see this in all people, but particularly Salah the parking attendant. What do you mean by Spirit? Spirit is about being grateful. Gratitude will redound to a joyous spirit, meaning how you present yourself to the people around you. Are you a dower person, or are you filled with gratitude and love of life? How great is that, right? And ultimately, it doesn't matter if you're making $35,000 a year, $35 million a year. You can have that, particularly in America, right? I mean, what the hell are you going to do with the money anyway? You're going to go to Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks. You're going to have a, what are you going to do with them. I mean, people go crazy over money. And nobody cares, by the way. If you're trying to

show off your money, nobody cares. It's just to play in your own brain, your own ego. You know what I mean? Nobody cares. They care about themselves, Chris. They don't give anything about you or me. Okay, last one. Okay, life. The greatest gift of all. Why? It comes from the creator. and when you have life, you have opportunity and you have obligation. You have gifts and if you waste them, then the creator is not happy. I tell my children all the time, God gave you gifts, you're duty bound to make the most of them and touch the people around you, which is actually what my, you mentioned the whistling, which is what my whistling book was about is that everyone has a simple gift in life.

Mine happens to be whistling, but you have gifts and you share them with people, around you. I'm not worried about changing the world. I'm worried about Anthony Scaramucci at this moment. That's all I'm caring about. And if you have that life and you have those gifts, you must develop them and share them. So it's really well said. Well, you know, I'm a little jealous of John Stark that he's spent more time with you, Chris Allman, than me. But this last several minutes has been very well spent by me. The title of the book is Four Billionaires on a parking attendant. It's by Christopher I recommend it to everybody. It's a quick read. I was all disappointed when I finished it, actually. I wanted more. I thought you did a great job of that too. The best books and the best

public speakers, they leave you with something. You want more coming out of that tank. And I think you did that here as well. So I wish you great success with the book. And I look forward to seeing you again soon, I hope. Thank you for joining us there, an open book. Thank you, Anthony. I'm really pleased and grateful for this opportunity. Well, there are so many great lessons in this short book four billionaires in a parking attendant. I encourage everybody to go out and buy the book. It's uproariously funny. We also learn a lot about Chris himself.

He's a humble man. He's anchored to certain truths about life. And what are some of those central truths for me? It's appreciation. A love for life, despite its vagaries and some of the uncertainty, the fact that we could be here today. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're lucky because you have access to the internet. You have access probably to a smartphone.

So that means that you probably have access. to some good food. Or if you're in America, you have access to some pretty crappy food, but it tastes great because it's so processed. So one or the other, you should be enjoying yourself today. And I think that's a big message of this book. I also want to give a big shout out to James Philip Ball, who is my father-in-law, Deirdre's dad. He died in 2014 right after my son Nick was born, and he was a parking attendant. He spent 40-plus years in the Kinney Parking System in Manhattan, and he was a wonderful man. He had such great perspective. And I can tell you for me, he was a role model because he understood what was important about life. And I think what you find in four billionaires

on a parking attendant is Chris has found an assortment of people rich and poor that get that life is to be enjoyed. But above all out, life is to be appreciated. And so that's the unstinting thought that I get from this book. And I encourage you to go out there and read it. And what a wonderful conversation it was today with Chris. Ma. Wow. You ready for the podcast or no? You ready?

Yeah, of course. Go ahead. All right. All right. So I had on, today I had on my show, a guy named Christopher Olman. He wrote a book called Four Billionaires and a parking attendant. You know, one of the things about the book, it made me think of Deirdre's dad, Jim, who was a parking attendant. You remember him, right?

Yeah, of course. Did you like him? Very nice man. Yeah. What did you like about him? He was easy, breezy. He reminded, I had a, I had two brothers. One was edgy.

I didn't take any ball. And the other one used to look at it like it wasn't, it was okay if people were a little wacky because he would just flow with it much easier. And I think Jim Ball reminded me of him. Yeah, so he was an easygoing guy, but he also had a, easy, breezy, but a nice disposition, right? Yeah. My, me of Uncle Tony, definitely. Okay.

But you could be rich and humble, right? Absolutely. Right, but you could also be rich and arrogant, right? I don't know. Some people are, my father had money, as you don't realize, when we were young, he bought every one a half of his family except for one sister. And he was very giving to his family. And then when he needed help, because he developed Parkinson's very badly,

they told me to put him in home and said, I took care of him. And I think that that was a mean thing to do. So that can happen rich a poor. I'd have to reciprocate when they're helped by someone very wealthy because they don't have to help them. And then, you know, they have to. But, Ma, that's human. Okay, but Ma, that's human nature, though. Isn't it, Ma?

You sometimes you go to help somebody and they're not really grateful for it? No? Well, you know, my mother's people are less selfish than my father's people. I had an uncle who was very, very giving. His name was savagored to feel. And he was very, very, very loving and very, very giving. And I had another uncle named Dominic, who was a real bitch. You wouldn't give you two cents.

And he was very, very wealthy. So, and my uncle Sal was not as wealthy as him, but he would give you his last dollar if he needed it. So there's a difference of the people's personality. And I think that you have a lot of my mother in you because you do try to help people. And you're very fair with the people that work for you. Well, what is the point, though, right? And I think this was the author today. The point was appreciate what you have and try to help the people around you.

Don't you think that those are the happiest people that are able to do that? Absolutely. Don't you think that Sal was more happy than Dominic? At the end of the day, you have to go to the Golden Gate. I'm a little bit religious. Mother who was an immigrant who was very with it, say to me, do good and forget it and do bid and remember it because someday the world will turn and then you have to pay. I really have that philosophy and I try not to hurt.

people. Yeah, no, I remember that. And that was a big issue in the book. You know, if there was one lesson from that book, it was to be grateful, but also act with great kindness. Do you think that that's important, ma? Absolutely. But I don't, I don't think that you should be too giving because I had a father who used to say that sometimes if you're too kind, it's a sign of weakness. They have to be in the middle of the road. You've got to know what you're doing. Too good is no good, right? That's what he used to say, right? He used to say that if you're too good, it's a sign of weakness because some people just don't get it. You know, some people get it and some people don't get it.

All right, Ma. What else, Ma? What else you want to say? You got anything else you want to say? No, I love you very much, Cucula. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.

you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. You can also text me at plus one 911, 909-29-996. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.