The Bossticks - #57: Gary Bosstick: Father and Entrepreneur, Never Quitting, Always Learning, and Execution Over Ideas

Episode Date: April 4, 2017

Real Estate Developer, Entrepreneur, President of JetBed, & Michael's Father Gary Bosstick, joins Lauryn & Michael to share his story of how he grew up in the small city of Marshall, Illinois, joined the Navy and wound up in Southern California. Gary highlights how he made the jump from a young man in the Navy to becoming a Real Estate Developer, how technology has changed & its effect on business, why you shouldn't put limitations on yourself, the importance of reputation & trust, how to bounce back from failure, and why ideas are valueless without execution. Gary also gives some background on Michael and how he raised him.  To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn's latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you'll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

Thanks for downloading this show from PC1. Before we get rolling, here's a word from one of the folks who helped bring you this podcast. Okay, you guys. So if you follow along on Snapchat, you know I have been sharing my new and improved meal plan, which I'm very excited about because it's all anti-inflammatory. I had major, major jaw surgery a year and a half to two years ago and I'm still kind of swollen. So I've basically put together all my recipes, tips and tricks. hacks a what the fuck to do if you love carbs guide together in one spot all you have to do is go to

members dot the skinny confidential dot com and we are giving all listeners 20% off just enter the checkout code him and her at checkout that's all caps him and her and you will love the meal plan all right let's get this show started the following program is a podcast 1.com presentation she's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cooking. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride.

Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Welcome back, guys, to the skinny confidential, him and her podcast. I am Lauren Everts, creator of the blog and brand The Skinny Confidential, and I have my lovely fiancé Michael Bostick here. Well, we spent a bunch of money. and went down to Mexico and had this huge wedding. So I think I'm your husband now.

Oh shit. I keep saying fiancee. That's okay. Whoa. I don't mind. But, you know, it is like an honest mistake too. No, it happens all the time. I know.

Why do I keep calling? I called you my boyfriend the other day and in my phone, you're under boyfriend. Well, I mean, shit, if we're just going to do that, I mean, it could have saved me a lot of time and money and not had to go down to Mexico and drag all of our loved ones down there and had a three-day ceremony. I needed my moment, though. the hell out of our livers. No, I needed my moment.

So we're back again. Here we are. Michael's had a black pepper in his tooth for a whole week. What are you calling me again? Like, Polly Pepper or something? I'm calling him Peter Pepper. Go on his Instagram and call him Peter Pepper. You literally still have the pepper in your tooth.

Like, it's wedged so far up, I don't know what to say. I've been trying to get it out. You should try a little harder. So what's been going on fiancé or wife? Last night, we had a going away party for Michael's cousin and my friend named Leah at Chapangos. and Michael had two sips of wine and that was enough for him and he was hung over today. Well, I'm just, I'm done. I've been on a health kick, so. Yeah, we're going on to hang anymore.

Ever since I turned 30, it's been downhill. Yep, we know. It's been three days and it's been downhill. Peter Pepper. So today we have a show that, we have a show. We have a show that I'm excited about, a little nervous, little excited. You're like a little sweaty today. Are you like nervous about it?

I'm excited. No, I'm excited. So we're having my dad on the show. He'll be on in just a moment. Wait, let me back up. We're introducing your dad. Yeah, he's never been on. He's never done any of our social media.

He's never been on the show. It's crazy because, you know, he does have a fake Snapchat account that he watches on. Sometimes I try to catch him. It's called Jetbed. I see it. So, yeah, we've never had him on the show. We haven't, a lot of you guys haven't been introduced to him yet, but it's a character.

It's time. He's a character. And the thing is, is like, we're going to introduce. them in the show and then he'll come back on. We're going to go to Europe this year with him. And so we'll have him on then and we'll have him on a couple other times. So you'll get to hear his whole personality because it's a personality. All right, guys, before we get into the interview with Michael's dad, I am going to talk to you about Kopari beauty again because their line of beauty products are amazing. Their body products are some of my faves because

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So definitely try that. If I have to pick one product though for you guys to try, I definitely would say it's Kopari's coconut body glow because you can put it on your chest bones and your chest and it gives you like this perfect dewy like glow. I was wearing it in one of my snap chats and you guys were like texting me over snap and asking you what it was and it just gives you it's like not too oily but it's like just kind of the perfect dewyness so definitely try that one if you're going to pick one it also makes you kind of shimmer so say hello to the best skin and hair of your life with copari go to copari beauty

dot com slash skinny to get 20% off your order that's copari k-op-a-r-r-i beauty dot com slash skinny for 20% off copari beauty dot com slash skinny so before we introduce him we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with my dad. Hey, everybody. I'm Heather Dubrow. And I'm Dr. Terry Debrough. Every Friday, check out my podcast, Heather Dubrow's World. We also have a brand new show, the Doctor and Mrs. Guinea Pig show every Tuesday. So don't forget, iTunes and Podcast One.

Tune in to Dr. and Mrs. Guinea Pig on Tuesdays and Heather DeBrow's World every Friday. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. All right, we're back from the break, geared up, ready to go. would like to introduce someone. I don't even know where do I start here. In a nutshell, my best friend, business partner, mentor, fountain of knowledge, and my father, Gary Bostick. Hello, and it's nice to be on the show.

Welcome to the show, big guy. Yeah, this is pretty interesting, never having done this sort of thing before. I understand why you guys would be nervous because for the first time I'm actually observing you and making sure that you're not doing anything that I wouldn't do. we probably are well anything you wouldn't do falls on a broad spectrums you do

a lot well I would I would say that's a very generous scale of conduct but you know I still look at you guys as as little little kids that are still under my wing even though you think you're not so Gary's known me since I was 12 years old

oh my God I saw the first time I saw her she was walking along by my son and he looked like a like a dwarf next door. She was the tallest girl in the class, and he was the shortest girl in the class. I mean, he referred to as a fiance and a girl. Okay. Well, I mean a guy in the class. And I had the biggest boobs. I don't remember noticing that. I think you were like 12 or maybe younger. I was 12, and I've known Michael's dad ever since then, and he's seen the ups and ins and ins and outs and curves of our

relationship. Yeah, I think when I saw it, when she was 12, I looked at it and I thought she looked like She was about six, too. But, of course, she wasn't. A five, seven. She was only six, but six feet. Yeah, I had puberty before everyone else did. So there's that. Okay, so Gary, introduce yourself, tell us about yourself, tell everyone who doesn't know you

all about the gear bear. Well, we haven't got, this is not going to be that long a program. Okay, give us a quick summary. We know we don't have that. Let's hear a little backstory. You're from a small town, Illinois. How did you end up living here in California? Well, it is a small town.

My sister was out to visit us the other day. I left there in 1965, and the population has been steadily growing ever since then. It's now up to 3,900 people. It's a gigantic metropolis. We flew over it once. I took my kids, and we flew over it, and I was trying to, in our airplane, and I was trying to point out Marshall as we flew over it, and they missed it. I had to fly back around and circle it.

I said, no, no, that's it right there. That's it. So Marshall, Illinois is the town, 3,900 people. How did you get, I know the story, but for those listening, how did you get here, how did you get to California, San Diego? I joined the Navy, see the world. I joined the Navy and went on a special program where we were supposed to go to boot camp and then go to college at the Navy's expense and then give the Navy a year of officer duty for every year of college. Unfortunately, even though I scored rather high on all the exams when I got to the boot camp, they discovered I was colorblind and not eligible to become an officer because you have to be able to see the red and green lights on ships.

So rather than I didn't know I could have at that time, say, wait a minute, the deal's off. I just went into the boot camp and I'll never forget that day as we walked through the gates of the boot camp. All the other guys in boot camp were sitting in the windows leaning out the window. windows yelling, you'll be sorry. I never forgot that day. It felt like, oh my God, what am I done? Well, life's thrown you a lot of curveballs, I'd say, and we're going to get into it in the show, because I want to hear your perspective on that when life does throw your curveballs. But so, okay, you're in the Navy. You thought you're going to be an officer. You're not. You're enlisted. How was that experience? Well, it's very interesting. You know, for an 18-year-old kid from a little

tiny town in Illinois. It's a way to get out of town if you can't afford college and you don't know what you want to do. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up and I'm 72. So I guess it's life is an experience, but you have to keep going forward. Just like I said, when I got out of at the boot camp, I just looked at it as there was no going back. I've always, if, if, if, if, if, I always advance and see what comes up next.

Well, you have made three amazing children, and now I'm your other child. You can talk about later how I'm your favorite. But tell us. You're the tallest. I'm the tallest. Not anymore. Not anymore, Michael Stoller. I got her by a few inches.

I don't know. Not by much, but I got it. You really have made three incredible kids. And I want to know some of the values and the tips that you would give parents out there to instill because I always look at you and Lisa's parenting. Lisa's his wife. And I'm envious. of how amazing you guys have been and how great your kids are.

That's interesting because basically about every friend we have told me I was doing it completely wrong because I always kind of taught my kids or treated my kids like little adults. I tried rather than to try to tell them what to do, I tried to give them ways to figure out what I wanted them to do by their own desires. So it worked pretty good. I talked to my kids. I think Michael would agree. Even from the time they were little kids,

I talked to them more like adults than like kids. Wouldn't you say, Michael? No, well, we've talked about this a little bit in the past. I said my parents never, you guys never babyed me, I don't think. Like you never treated me like, like you said, you never treated me like a kid. I always felt like we were having adult conversations. I always felt like they were being honest with me. I never felt, you know, it's funny.

We talked a few weeks back that I've never done any drugs. And it's not because I didn't ever have an urge. It's because I was never curious about them. Like I always had conversations about, that kind of stuff and drinking and partying and it's not that I'm a square but I just there were certain things in life that I never felt like I had to go and find out for myself because I was you would you always provided me examples like listen you can go do this this is what will happen these are my experiences and if you want to do it like good luck but this is probably what you're looking at and so I was

I never had that urge to go and discover things you know there's certain things I've done and there's certain things I look at and say hey that doesn't make a lot of sense because the consequences are dire. No, I think I taught you that I did a lot of drugs and, you know, that was the era in the 70s and the 80s. And I found that every time, every drug I ever did made me stupider. When I finally got as stupid as I thought I ought to be, I quit. No, and we're going to get into some of these crazy stories because I want to, I want to hear about them, and I think Lauren wants to hear about them, but I want to backtrack a little bit. So you're in the Navy, you get out, you're in, and you're land in Southern California from a small town. What was it like here back then? Because I know you've said

it's changed a lot. Oh, yeah, it was like it was small. What year is this, though? In 1965. Okay. Yeah, I actually got out of the Navy up in Bremerton, Washington. Our ship that I was on was up there for a yard repair. And I'd gotten married at that time. I got married a few months before I got out of the Navy. That was a very short, like a trial, like a temp marriage, I guess. I was married for a couple of years, no children, no dogs, no pets, no alimony, no harm, no foul. A starter way. Yeah, start, well, sort of kind of. Yeah, it was a, it was a teaser. For lack of anything else. A preview. And then I waited a long, long, long time till I was almost 40 to get married again to your mother. How did you know that his mother was the one?

Oh, she wouldn't have anything to do with me, and I chased her and chased her until she caught me. Like father like son. You guys have similarities there. It took me roses once or twice a week every week for months and months. I think almost six months to get her to go to lunch with me. I didn't get roses every week. You were a lot easier. Whoa.

No, I wasn't. That's true. She told me she had a boyfriend and she was pretty serious about it and he was going to get married and that was it. I said, nah, you're not. She said, why do you think that? I said, because he'll put your feet to sleep and I'm more fun. Want to go to Rio? So when she finally said yes, like how fast did it move from there to marriage?

Oh, fairly, fairly quickly. When she finally said, yeah, I think maybe six months or something like that. So you convinced her real quick. Quite charming. Once she decided, yes, it was quick. But it took a while. The convincing was not so quick. Okay.

All right. So you had to get uncomfortable to get comfortable. So you've done a lot of different things in your life. but primarily real estate. How do you make the jump from, how do you make the jump from young Navy guy, doesn't know shit, from a small town,

doesn't have any money to real estate developer? Well, I felt like you could get away with a lot more back then. Well, you could, but when you don't know shit, you don't know what, you don't see the problem. So I just dove in.

I said if I knew then, what I know now, I would have never tried it because I would have known it was impossible. I think we've said that about everything we've ever done. Yeah. Pretty much, I didn't know it was impossible.

I did it, and it worked out. A friend of mine that I was in the Navy with was in real estate, and he persuaded me that this was the thing to do. And so I did, and I started to make a little bit of money, and I kept putting deals together for other people, and one day I decided that since I was having to do all the brain work to figure out if a project was viable, find a project, find out if it's viable, figure out how much was going to cost, what the exit strategy is.

I had to take a blueprint for an entire business plan to somebody in order to get him to buy a piece of land. Maybe I should just figure out to buy the land and do it myself, and that's how we started. I had another partner that had a few bucks, and he was also a good businessman, and we put our heads together, and we started doing buildings. No, it's interesting. I mean, I think the theme of that is a lot of people don't make the correlation that, you know, you don't really need to have every single piece to start to start putting something together. You can start with a couple pieces and start kind of string them along as you go.

And before you know it, you have all the pieces. We didn't even know if there were pieces. We just started. Hey, here's a piece. We're sitting at a table with a jigsaw puzzle on it. And that's kind of like the way business is. You open a box of pieces up and you start trying. to find a corner and you just keep working from that point on and when you open the box you

don't know if all the pieces they're in there or not you hope they are and if they're not well tough shit by the way you guys gary's analogies are incredible so just like get out of pen and paper because his analogies are kind of my favorite thing ever I want him to write a book called garyism there's probably been on this show a lot of quotes that have been repurposed from things that I've learned from you over the years for sure there's been a significant amount of plagiarism Yeah. Well, I mean, shit, I grow up listening to all these weird analogies and quotes and things. Like, it's going to, you know, it's going to rub off eventually. How was Michael growing up?

Michael was pretty interesting. He was, he was, you never quite knew what to expect next. Like, give us, like, the full, like, rundown. There are so many things. I wouldn't even know where to start. Well, start when he was little. He was kind of a, kind of mischief, mischievous, always into mischief. there's a story I hesitate to even tell he was we were trying to teach him to be potty trained and we got him potty trained and then he decided

he didn't want to be potty trained oh my goodness he'd come and get a diaper and go over in the corner whoa between that story and the pepper and your tooth I feel like this is this is this is starting off on a great on a great tangent for me you can you can see now why I was a little nervous to bring you on to the show

nothing like starting out with that story So that's all I did. I mean, other than that, I was a perfect young man. He used to go up and down, we had this really cool condominium down at the beach, and it had a curved stairs. And he was just kind of learning to walk. And he learned how to go up and down the stairs, but not like most babies backing down slow.

He just turned and like going down a log slide. He just zoom. You couldn't catch him. If you chased him and he got to the curving stairs, you're not going to catch him. He's quick. He's very quick. Yeah, Michael's quick. He's quick.

He's quick in every sense. Yes. He's quick. In every sense. Yeah, in every sense. Oh. Oh, there. Here we go.

Here we go. So, okay. So when he was in like seventh, eighth, ninth high school, like what was his personality? Because you guys had a really close relationship. And I remember when you took him to Europe and he had this whole epiphany in Europe when he was in like eighth grade. Oh, God.

Here we go. Well, we could start that. But I was going to say before we, even before we did that, he had all. all these friends, Rocco and Dante, and I don't know, I can't even remember all their names. The only reason you remember Rocco and Dante is because they still work for us. They still work for us. Yeah. And what's the cook?

Stephen. Stevens. Even Sand of all. Oh, my God. And, and, uh, they're all, I don't get all the names. He's not the best of names, you guys. Remembering names for you guys in the audience doesn't mean a goddamn thing because you don't know who these people are either.

They might know some of them. But they make movies. And I'd go out and I'd look in the background. They come and get my video camera and these guys are out and, and they're out and the back room, backyard. We've got a big backyard and they're making movies, Batman movies and Star Wars movies. And I figured he was going to be a film producer. And now he's sort of, this isn't film, but he's into entertainment. Well, I've been slowly, you know, creeping into the spotlight. And I haven't told Lauren. I think we still have those tapes of

those. I know. Let's hope we don't. I know they're here somewhere. Let's let's let's not go. Let's not worry about those. So then you took him to Europe though. Remember when you had to go to year up honey? Yeah. Why? No, it was one of the best. Therapy. Yeah, therapy.

No, my dad did not like the way I was behaving at the time. And we took a boys trip together and it gave me some, a lot of perspective. Yeah, Michael was in junior high school and he had the pants hanging down to his ass. And his hat turned on backwards and a baggy t-shirt. And yeah, do. So I decided I had to do something because he was turning into an idiot. Oh, my God. So I took him.

I said, okay, we're going to go to Europe. And he says, oh, okay, why? We're going to be a lot of fun. He's kind of like cars. I said, I'm going to get you a tour of the Ferrari factory and the Porsche factory, Mercedes factory. We spent quite a lot. We went a lot of places.

I said, but if we're going to go, you've got to do a couple of things. What's that? Well, you've got to get some pants that fit, and you've got to get a blazer, and you've got to ditch the hat on the back of your head. At the time, a blazer was like a no-no for me. I was going through a phase. He says, why? I said, because I'm going to introduce you some really interesting people,

and I don't want him to think my son's a dipshit. So he did. He dressed normally, and we go to Europe, and we got to do a lot of things. But we were driving into Paris the first time we were in Paris on a bright, sunny day. And he says, Dad, I thought Europe was darker. I think he'd been watching all those Frankenstein. movies and things. Goosebumps.

But we did a lot of things. He met a bunch of different, personally met Formula One drivers. He met, we went to a Mercedes-Benz museum. Well, let's back up here. And the reason this is possible, I will. I'll tell you this, but the reason this is possible is because you used to go, used to travel over these places a lot. So you met a lot of really crazy, interesting people over there.

So a lot of these people we met were just guys you used to run around with, probably in that era when you were not behaving. We were involved with a famous racing team, Dick Barber Racing, in a limited financial way. Wait, what the hell does that mean? Limited financial way. Well, we put some money into the team. You know, all these guys, these racing teams, unless, you know, you're Donald Trump or somebody, they have sponsors. So we had some money in that.

So we went all over the world, and we were in Lamonts a couple of different years. This team was the world champion Porsche endurance racing team in 1978 and 79. So I got to know a lot of drivers, Nikki Lauda, guys like that. I don't think of a lot of Stallman and, oh God, Johnny Rutherford. I can't even think of all the names that drove for that team. So was this? So I knew a lot of people. Did this investment pan out or was it, how'd your racing team end up?

No, it wasn't a big investment. I mean, my business partner had the money in it. for the most part. And he got his, I'd say broke even, except for the expenses. We had expenses out, but we met,

yeah, I'm sure those expenses were right on the books. Yeah, well, we had a lot of fun. And so that's, you get over our breakup when you went to Europe? Because that's the first thing we broke up.

You know, that Europe trip was probably, I would say, one of the better things that have happened for me in my life, but not, not just because the time we got to spend together,

but because what the travel did to my field of vision and my perspective I had on the world. When I got back, my thought process was just completely changed. That's when I, that's around the time. I was always into reading,

but I got much more into reading. I got much more into history. I got much more into different cultures and languages and kind of figuring out. And you realize like, wow, the world is a lot bigger than you think it is. And so it just, it kind of,

it felt like somebody turned the lights on in my head. No, you came back from Europe. You were a totally different person. I mean, your personality changed completely. You're more, much more grown up,

much more, uh, focused. You were just a much, much, much improved person. It works so well. I took each of my children when they're about 14. I took them to Europe and we spent a month or so and went to a lot of different places and it's had a very positive effect on all the kids. You know, not everybody has the opportunity to do that, but for anybody that does, I suggest that my youngest daughter, Michael's sister Tara, actually when she was 15 in junior high school, came to us and said, I want to go to Europe for a year. Yeah, right, you're 15. No, she's, I want to go on this AFS foreign exchange student thing.

And his mother and I looked at each other and I said, ah, we'd already taken her to Europe. I mean, she'd been over there, but like for a trip with us. And I'm thinking she's 15 years old. She's going to go to Europe for a year. But she did and came back a completely changed person. She's, and then she went to, when she was a senior in high school, she spent six months just outside Paris in a little town called Chaville out by the Versailles, Palace of Versailles, and speaks fluent French. And now we're all learning French. Michael's learning French. He calls me up and he says, Dad, I got this website called Duolingo. It's an app, but.

It's an app. Oh, it's a website too, I guess you're right. So he says, yeah, I'm learning French. So I'm not going to let him do that if I don't get to do that. I've been in French school, though, too. I just had a class this morning. Well, good for you. I'm still working on my computer.

But I got a doctor now. I got a new doctor that speaks French. So I spoke French to him today. So la-di-da. Whoa. You also took me to Europe at 21. We did. We took you to Europe.

And how was my packing situation? Oh, God. We told Lord, we got to pack light, one bag. I've never been to Europe before. My wife and I now can travel, we can travel to Europe in one medium suitcase for the two of us or two carry-on bags and have more clothes than we need. The lighter you travel, the better you travel. That's just the bottom line.

Everybody takes too much stuff. But Lauren shows up, and sure enough, she's got one suitcase, but it looked like one of those Louis Vuitton trunks was soft-sighted, but it must have been, I don't know, three by four by three, and it needed a dolly to pick it up. We asked, what the hell is in there? She was just that, and we looked at it. I don't know how many pairs.

She must have had nine pairs of tennis shoes exactly alike, different colors. Nine pairs of tennis shoes, different colors. We took, the limo was waiting to take us to the airport, and Michael and Lauren and my wife were unpacking her bag as fast as they could. They probably took 100 pounds out of it, and still it was unmanageable. We were shipping stuff. When we got to, every place we went,

we would take another big, another amount, huge amount of cloth stuff out of launch, banks and send it somewhere, send it on to someplace else or back to the United States. If Snapchat would have existed then, everyone would see a much different picture because I was so pissed off carrying this thing around through airports.

It was bigger than Michael. We went to, we weren't with you guys at this part of the trip. Lauren and I were off on her own, but we went to Venice and I had to load this thing into the boat. Well, I think I think one of the drivers that I quit. No, it was just me loading this thing.

I almost just threw it in the canal. I'm a better packer now. No, we've figured it out now. We've figured it out. I'm more efficient. Only six pairs of shoes. Only. The same color.

No, here's what I do now. I'm actually really diabolical about it. I only bring two pairs and then I realize when I get there I need another pair. They sell them. Yeah. So Michael needs to go take me to get a pair. So I've gotten smarter. I read once or a guy said to me once,

the best way to travel is to take a small bag of clothes and a large bag of money. And you don't need, with credit cards, you don't need the large bag of money. So just take a small bag of clothes. Yeah, money, give me your credit card. So we're off this year to Europe with you. And are you excited for this trip? Oh, yeah. We're going to have fun.

I'm going to meet a friend of ours over there. They know with a friend. Moose knuckle. Who? Moose knuckle. Moose knuckle. That's his radio name. That's his radio name.

Moose Knuckle. Oh, Moose Knuckle. Moose Knuckle. Alex. Moose Knuckle is in the car business. And one of the companies they have is a Porsche dealership. So we're picking up two brand new Porsches, I believe, a turbo S and a GTS. Well, hold on.

Leipzig. So you guys are, this is where I worry because Alex, Moose Knuckle, is supposed to pick up these cars. And I hope that whoever. Wait, and Alex works at the Porsche dealership. You have to explain about it. He's the manager. He's the general manager.

Yeah. But so just to be clear, you guys are supposed to be. supposed to bring these cars back in one piece to be sold at that. I never promised that. Yes. I never made any representations of any type. I said I would come on the trip and drive one of the cars. I'm fully worried that these two cars are not going to come back in the condition that they're supposed to. That's why you have insurance. Speaking, you just have to be sure you can locate most of the big parts. Speaking of cars, there's a story and it's really maybe irrelevant to this conversation, but I just think it's also very relevant because you used to play a game and there's no,

there's just no way in hell you would ever get away with this anymore. And this, you know, sometimes I'm happy to be alive in 2017 because there's so many great things in technology and Uber and, you know, postmates and there's a lot of stuff that makes life easier. But I also sometimes think like, man, you can't get away with nearly half the stuff you guys got away with. Can you tell them the game you used to play in your car is called bump bump? It wasn't called bump, bump. It was called unsmobile. Unsmash. Unsmash. Okay. That's right. Well, you have to understand that in those days, cars had bumpers.

You know, big old chrome, huge rubber cushioned bumpers. So this friend of mine and I, we used to, we always drove fast and we like to play this game where you come up behind each other and just give them a little tap. You know, you'd be running along about 100 mile an hour and come up behind him and just give him a little, like a NASCAR bump. Is that a tap at 100 miles an hour? Yeah, well, you're not, that's the relative speed. He was maybe, he was going 100, and I come up behind him in about 101.

That sounds safe. Just enough to give him a little bump, a little bump. So we used to do that to each other all the time, and it was mostly fun when you could catch the other guy unsuspecting. You know, you're driving along. I'm driving along the freeway, and I see him in his car up ahead of me. He doesn't even know I'm on the road. I just run up behind him and give him a little bump.

We used to do that all the time. We thought it was funny as hell. So we're over in Europe, and that's how we got there and why is another long story. But to make a long story short in this segment, we're driving. through France, and we were in this big rented Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL, which is a big-ass car over there in those days, and we're going along in France. And for those of you don't know, there's a little car about the size of a Volkswagen bug called a duce.

A 2-C-V, it's a little Renault car that's maximum speeds, maybe 55, 60 miles an hour. We're coming along down the road running about 120. and there's some big trucks up ahead us, and this little car pulls out from in between them and gets in the fast lane. So in Europe, you kind of blink your lights and people pull out of your way, and if they don't, then you turn on your left blinker to say, hey, are you paying attention? And if that doesn't work, then you flash your lights and honk your horn. We're doing all that stuff, and these guys are looking out the back window and just laughing at us because they knew we were trying to go fast, and they're just puttering along about 50. So what they're not letting you go around them? No, they were just staying right beside the big semi-truck.

Intentionally? Yeah, intentionally. So we're getting frustrated. So my friend said, I'll just get up there and give him a little unsmash. He said, okay, we'll do that. So I just kind of creeped up on there. I couldn't hit him very hard. The bumper would fall off if you hit it with the badminton ballot.

But I just pulled up behind him. And once I got the bumper on him, I started pushing him. And I pushed him faster and fast. We got up well over 100 mile an hour on this car. This thing's looking at they're made that a corrugated metal, and the doors are flapping, and the windows don't roll down. They just kind of open out at the bottom. They swing out, and the windows are flopping like bird wings.

We're pushing them down the road about 100. And after, I don't know, a couple of miles, I slowed down and let them get off the front bumper, and they pulled off the side of the road. The way we went. See, if you did that, well, first of all, those people are lucky to be alive. No, no, we've, that was really, I know exactly what to do. Yeah, no problem pushing somebody down the road at 100 miles an hour. That doesn't want to be pushed down the road.

Well, it was fun. If you did that in 2017, you would be in jail faster than you can get off the freeway. Yeah, but it's no fun anymore. Yeah, you're right. It is no fun anymore. We have political correctness. That's true. We do.

I'm sure I would have been called all sorts of all those politically correct names. I'm sure you would have. And more. So speaking, you know, speaking of 2017. in technology. You know, we work together now. We work together at JetBet. I think we make a good team.

I think we've done a lot. How has technology changed and impacted business since you got started? Because I know when you got started, I remember growing up and looking at you work and you had all these yellow pads and all these notebooks. Wait, wait, wait.

Still does us have yellow pads, so. Yeah. Yeah, but I just use them for drawing sketches and stuff for the most part, making little notes. No, well, we had, when we first started, we had probably the first portable telephones, car phones, in San Diego. In those days, a car phone was the size of a medium-sized suitcase, and they bolted it into your bumper, and you had the handset wired into your car.

So do you have to talk into it into your trunk? No, you didn't have to talk to it in the trunk. You had a handset inside the car. It would be difficult to drive down the road and get in the trunk and get in the trunk and I understand that. I thought it was like you had to get out of the car and open the trunk tar. No, no, no. They had a handset, but to make a call, you didn't dial the number.

You just pushed a button, and it would blink. And it would blink until a central operator until a line would come open, and they would ask you who you wanted to talk to, or they'd connect you to wherever you're going. That was space age in those days. I mean, I think there were 25 or 30. At San Diego was, you know, a million people, maybe close. I don't think there were more than 25 or 30 people had those things at the time. That was space age.

So we ran our original development company out. We had boxes of bankers, boxes of papers and stuff, and we're building buildings and keeping all the records in the trunk of the car and our offices were wherever our cars were. It was pretty cool. We built millions of dollars worth of buildings before we ever had a secretary or an office. Those things were just overhead, and we didn't want any of that. The reason I wanted you to talk about this is because I think there's so many people now

that put so many limitations on themselves in terms of getting stuff done. and it was, I mean, while you guys had less, I would say less regulation, there was a lot more hurdles that you had to go through. I mean, now if you want to get in the real estate business, you pick up your phone or your computer, you Google a few things, you look at some properties, you pull up all the records and it's done in, you know, 10, 20 minutes. No, you all had to do it all with shoe leather and cars. And we used to, even in those days, we used to get helicopters about once or twice a year and just go fly around to see where development was going on. because flying around in a helicopter, you can see the, you can see in 20 or 30 minutes, what you couldn't see in two weeks or drive. You see now people just pull up Google Earth or Google Maps.

Yeah. Well, they didn't have that then. No, I know. But I guess my point is, you know, when you think about how technology has affected your current businesses and the industries that you've been in now, what do you think it's been a good thing? Do you think it's made it easier, made it harder? What do you think?

No, I think that the government has gradually destroying the opportunities for especially young people, just because of all the regulations and restrictions. You really couldn't do what we did in those days. I think I saw an interview with the founder of Home Depot. He said if he was starting out today, he couldn't have started Home Depot. It's a shame because what you need to, in order to be success, is to have an idea and figure out how to put it together. And if everything you're trying to do in order to make your dream come true

is prohibited and restricted by regulations or has hoops that you have to jump through that are almost impossible and that costs money to do, I mean, the first building that I built, we found a piece of property, we hired an architect, we drew some plans, we went down to the city and got a building permit, and in less than six months, I'd say four or five months, we were building. The last little building I built took four and a half years to go through the government process to get a permit. That's crazy.

But I would argue with you that I think that nowadays it forces you to get more creative to reach your full potential. And not only that, that the Internet has made it possible to not have to start maybe a Home Depot that's brick and mortar. Let's look at it. But go online. Let's look at it from this level. like, you know, 30 years ago to do what we're doing right now on this show, wouldn't it be possible? No, and I was referring to starting, I was qualifying my remarks, for example, specifically to becoming a real estate developer to building buildings. So let me rephrase my question.

What you have to understand is the hard part is to get from the beginning to profitability. at the beginning, most everything you start is, at least at the very beginning, is not profitable. So if you're sitting there where maybe you could start something, if the non-profitable period of time is four or six months, you can survive that. But if the non-profitability gets stretched out into years, almost no one who's starting can get through, can laugh. So you're specifically talking about real estate. estate. And I don't, even, even in all sorts of businesses. I want to talk more specifically, not about regulation, but technology and what it's, like,

for example, when we do Jetbed, there's, you wouldn't, we wouldn't be able to do this business without the internet. Absolutely true. So what I'm trying to point out is, while things were maybe less regulated back then, there's now some newer opportunities. So what I guess the point I'm trying to make is, there's a lot of people that complain because things aren't the way they used to be, things are now. And I think you're a perfect example of somebody.

who's evolved. You're an older person. You started in real estate. Now we have JEP and some other things. But the business that you started in this market wouldn't have been possible when you were starting a long time ago. No, that's true. There are more problems, but there are also different opportunities. And to get those different opportunities, you have to have a lot of knowledge. And you also have to have nerve. I tell people the world's greatest idea never made anybody a penny. I love that quote when you say that. It's true. Think about it.

They have the greatest idea in the history of man. Probably got it from you. And if you don't do anything with it, if you don't actually put it into effect, execution is where you make money. Ideas, valueless, completely valueless without execution. I think there's a lot of young people that are kind of getting a slap in the face with that because there's so many stories of, hey, this person raised this amount of money. an idea for an app or I have an idea for a website.

I also think it's funny because I remember when I had an idea for the skinny confidential, I never talked about it. I didn't talk around town. I didn't tell what I was going to do. I did it. And I think that I see nowadays a lot of people talking about their idea around town, but there's no execution in place. Yes.

Yeah, I watched you do this. You did it. You were all execution. You just started. doing it. Doing it, doing it, doing it. There's nothing that succeeds in life like perseverance and determination and no and and and and not quitting.

I'm keeping your blinders on. So you, you know, this kind of leads me into a question I was going to ask you later, but I think it's relevant now. You've been through a lot of ups and downs. Made money. Made money.

Made money. Loss money. Making money is more fun. Yeah. But you've also been through a lot of personal up and downs. What advice would you give to young people when things get tough? I think the advice I would give them is the advice that almost anybody that's lived very long would give the same advice, as the old saying, it's not how many times you're up to bat and strike out.

It's how many times you get back up. I guess it's better to say how many times you get knocked down. It's not important. It's how many times you get up. You can't quit. Determination is the key to anything and everything. Of course, it's also a good idea to figure out if what you're determined to do, it's going to work.

That's true. Otherwise, you can have a long and determined life and not do very well. That's true. But so, I mean, that's, like you said, that's some good blanket advice. But can you give, is there examples of times in your life when you felt like not getting up but did and now looking back on it? I would say everything I ever did, there were moments when I thought, what in the hell am I doing? I'm going to quit this, but I didn't. every single building, every single project.

Keep in mind that the deals that I did, for the most part, I have graded admiration for you guys that can figure out how to raise money publicly because I couldn't do that. I either had to get a single partner or I had to do it with my own money. I never figured, if I could have figured out how to raise capital, I think I would have done a lot more things. But when you're doing that, one of the ways you raise capital is to sign your name on loans and I can't tell you how many times

I put everything I owned and everything I could borrow on the line and had to live with the consequences and for the most part I won but there was at least one time in the late 80s when I put everything

on the line and lost everything and millions and millions besides and that was hard to come back from but... And you had kids then. So you're rock bottom at that time you have kids. I told my wife if I could win the $5 million publishers clearinghouse, I could be broke maybe. So let's dive into that a little because I want people to understand

when you're that down and you're that far under and you've got a young family and kids and there's all that pressure on you, how did you, like mentally how do you deal with that? Very hard. It's very hard. Very. But the secret, one of the secrets to that is whatever you do, do it honorably. Keep your word. don't weasel out and find ways to stiff your friends or stiff people you owe money to. I believe that the fact that everything I did was honorable and everybody got paid out and I ended up making a lot more money again

was because people trusted me. So if people trust you, they'll help you. But if they decide that you're not trustworthy, then you're really gone. That's your reputation. And you only get one of those. you've got to keep it no matter what. Speaking of trust and integrity, you and your wife's relationship, I think, is based on the

foundation of that. Yeah, I would say. What do you mean you would say? You know it is. And I think you've given that trait to your son, which is why I'm so in love with him. And it's charming personality. Well, if you're honorable and you don't do things that you don't want to speak out, have everybody know, then that's just the way it is.

I mean, I always treated people like I wanted to be treated. I wouldn't want my wife to cheat on me, so I don't cheat on her. Guys, take notes. If there's guys listening in the audience, pull out your composition. Oh, not just guys. Women, too. Girls, too. No, especially.

Girls are nasty. Really? So is there like an unspoken? Also, the most jealous people are the people who are planning to cheat themselves. True. So is there an unspoken thing that you and Lisa have done? that's really worked for you. Is there a relationship tip that you guys have been together for how long?

Well, in my case, she's a second-degree black belt and karate, and I would be terrified. Yeah, she'd kick your ass. Yeah, there'd be no coming back. And just so you guys know, his wife is hot. Lisa's hot. She is. She's very, very pretty. And mean.

She has her boundaries. So can you give us a relationship that's really worked for you and Lisa? that because you guys have been married for how long? We've been together since 1982. Okay. Married for since I think we got married in 84. 83 or 84. I can't remember now.

Okay. So long. All right. So what's the relationship tip? What's one of the secrets? Well, I always tell people it's because I'm hard of hearing. Say what you say. I don't.

I've told this, you told me a long time ago. I said, dad, you know, I've told this story all the time. I said, you know, I love mom, obviously, and you guys still together. And I don't want you to be with anybody else. And it's great. But, you know, women can be a pain in the ass sometimes. I asked my dad, I said, how the fuck you've been married so long? He said, son, I don't speak and I don't hear.

Actually, I think I, my daughter, Jordan, has engaged to a very, very nice guy. They're not engaged. Well, they might as well be. Nico, you just got called out, man. Whoa. The pressure is there. That's awesome. Sometimes they would get in some fighting.

And I told Nico, I said, Nico, I'm going to give you some really good advice. He says what's that? I said, when you absolutely positively have to say something, don't. Michael, are you writing that down? I've actually said that on this show. I told you. There's been a lot of this guy's advice. You shorten a lot of fights if one person just shuts up and just lets it go over your head.

Just shut up. There's also some other advice you give me. Just shut up, Michael. It says even if you win a fight with your wife, you lose. Oh, absolutely. Because you'll be paying slowly. You'll be paying for 20 years. Do you remember that fight back in?

back in 97. God damn. You do need to take a couple notes. You know. Yeah. Just don't fight. Just shut up. Yep. So what's cooking? Good looking. Me with my big box of blue apron. Whoa.

Michael made me the spinach and fresh mozzarella pizza with olives, bell peppers, and ricotta. And I threw a little chili flake on there to make it spicy. And it was insane. And don't forget about the sweet and sour salmon with the bok choy. carrot and ginger fried rice. Yeah, you guys, that's right. He thinks he's a chef. You can hear it in his tone. Ever since we've been getting blue apron, he just is in the kitchen. He puts his apron on. It's super creepy. I got my whole office on it, too. All these guys that didn't think they could do it. They're all, they're, you know, Dante was in the other day. He's killing it. Wesson was killing it. Taylor.

Everyone's cooking up a storm. I mean, it's just so efficient. Like, here's the deal. It's all, like, spaced out for you. You don't have to go to the storm by all these ingredients. It comes in a box. It's cold. It's ready to go. The beef. The cheese. The cheese. The chicken, the pork, comes from responsibly raised animals. And it's just, I just feel like cooking together is fun. Well, one of my buddies came and said, well, why can't I just go to the grocery store and buy all the ingredients myself? I said, you can, but it's really annoying to go and do that. You know, I don't have time to go to the grocery store. A lot of men don't have time. A lot of women don't have time. What's better than just having it show up at your door pre-portion so they don't have to

measure anything out, waste time. I just show up, throw on the apron, act like Mario Batelli. I'm ready to go. I'm cooking up a bok choy. Don't even know what that is. Yeah, you guys, he actually... And it was good. Wear an apron, though. It's really weird. Just because you know,

thinks he's a full chef. Anyways, it's affordable. There's lots of variety. It's flexible. It's easy. It's guaranteed. Check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free. That's insane with free shipping.

You gotta at least try it, you know? Yeah, you got to try it. Nothing to lose. By going to blue apron. com slash him and her. You will love how good it feels and taste to create incredible homecooked meals with a blue apron. So don't wait.

That's blue apron.com slash him and her blue apron, a better way to cook. So before we get going, I have a question. A big topic here on this show, or a lot of questions that I get is about reading because I read a lot. And I think you're one of the primary reasons that I read so much. I don't want to say you're the reason I read because I read multiple reasons, but I think you're the person who. No, I told you.

I was reading books to you when you're still, before you were born. So reading, you read, like, I mean, you're basically a book with legs. Why is it so important? And what advice you give to young people, like, why they should read? Because the more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the better vision you have for what's around you. I mean, honestly, there are people. I can't even begin to have a conversation with it because they don't know anything.

I mean, they don't even know what they don't. don't know. They have no clue about anything in the world. That's why those trips to Europe and stuff was so educational to the kids because they got to see that there were whole civilizations, whole ways of life, whole cultures, that they had

absolutely no idea even existed, let alone know anything about those things. How often do you read? Oh, every day. Every day. Every day. How many books a week if you had to average? Three. I always see you reading. Yeah. And you read on your Kindle preferably.

Well, now I read on my iPhone 6 plus because it's big enough to read, yeah. Or Nook. I might mainly read it on a Nook, not Kindle, but only because the Nook was connected with Barnes & Noble and they had a bigger variety of books. But I read everything. And if there's something that gets my interest, if you guys Google, I mean, you can Google a lot of stuff, But Googling a subject is not the same thing as reading a book about it. And it doesn't need to be the nonfiction. You'll find so many incredible facts just reading fiction.

Because the guy that wrote the book had to have some information in order to make the book interesting. You'll find out lots and lots of true things reading fiction. I want to also point, you're not college educated. No. And you come from a small town. But you've had, you know, you've founded a lot of successful projects and encompassing I know a lot about a lot of things. I think the one correlation that I would make and the one observation I would make about my dad throughout my life and this is where the point I was trying to make earlier, what's rubbed off on me is seeing somebody come from the place that you came from and having such a wealth of knowledge in so many subjects, I think that if you hadn't had read so much and handled things, I don't think you'd have nearly the success that you've had.

No, no, it's, you don't need to be a specialist. It's better to know a lot about little things than to be a specialist in something nobody gives a damn about. The point is, though, you can come from any beginnings, any humble beginnings, and if you pick up some books and gain some knowledge, there's a lot that can be possible now. And execute. Execute, yeah. So before we go, if we can leave the audience with one tip, like an overall tip,

one of your best garyisms, what would it be? Those things have to come spontaneously. I don't have one right to pick out right at the moment. You have so many of them. You have to leave them with one. It could be... Penny, what's your favorite one? It could be a life tip.

It could be a relationship tip. It could be... A life tip is read the Wall Street Journal every day. Great tip. Why? Seriously. I started making my kids read the Wall Street Journal. And just the front page.

Just glance at the front page. I'm not saying read stock charts and all that junk. You'll never people, unless you're doing that as a specialized business, it's, that's stupid information you'll never use for anything. But just read the front page. And then there's a column on the left hand side that has a bunch of different topics. Just glance through those. Some days you'll glance through them and there'll be nothing that really gets your interest.

And sometimes there'll be several things that you can't learn enough about. And then always read the editorial page. I think it's the only honest newspaper in the country anymore. But if you would read that, I remember, I think Michael, I think when he was reading it when he first started, and I think after about a month or so he came to me, he says, Dad, he says, well, none of my friends know anything. That's still, none of them know shit still. I think that's the exact word he used. I think he didn't say, they didn't know anything. I think he said they don't know shit.

All right. Well, Gary will be back on when we're in Europe. We're going to have them on again. And thanks for telling the story. of me shitting myself as a kid. That's wonderful. I thought it was important that your audience knows. You couldn't have come in and been like, you know, Michael was just a great guy, like super ambitious,

always smart. You had to come in with he shits himself. Yeah, I don't know how turned on I am between that pepper and your tooth and the shitting yourself story, but we'll have to talk about that later. You might not have gone after him. Probably not. True. All right, you guys, make sure you're subscribed to the skinny confidential him and her

podcast on iTunes. Follow us on Snapchat at Lauren Everett's and at Michael Bostick. you can't follow Gary because he has a secret pseudo-snapchat name. But he will definitely be back on and make sure you're rating, reviewing, and telling your friends. Thanks, guys. And thanks, Dad. See you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Skinny Confidential, Him and Her, with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic.

Download new episodes every Tuesday at podcast.1.com or subscribe now on the Podcast One app. Hey, this is Richard Marks, the host of Song Talks right here on Podcast One. right now to my interview with Jane Lynch. Acapella. In this most beautiful arrangement, it was just... By the way, thank you for saying Acapella, not Acapello. Or avocado. Somebody asked me once.

Can you do that avocado? Check out Song Talks every Wednesday at Podcast 1.com, the Podcast 1 app, or subscribe at iTunes.