#413: How To Succession Plan The Succession Finale Wambsgans Triple Play w/ Power Business Attorney Steven Fantetti
Steve Fantetti is an entrepreneur, a power business attorney with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, Owner/Operator Fantetti Legal go to FantettiLegal.com to have your business refined, a former slot wide receiver at Michigan Tech, and his son has a gaming channel If you have a kid that loves watching other kids play video games on YouTube, check out Ev Games at EverettGames.com
Chapters/Timestamp Jumps by Otter.ai - Otter referral link https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
The importance of taking risks early in life. 5:41
Advice for College Athletes. 9:05
There’s value in throwing people into the deep end and seeing what happens. 19:18
The evolution of the board of directors. 24:42
Entrepreneurship = Sweat Equity. 30:22
How to set your kids up to succeed in business. 33:06
Executioner or Executioner. 35:56
Steve Fantetti's calls-to-action
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Transcription by Otter.ai - Otter referral link https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
Law Smith 0:00
sweat equity podcast and streaming show the number one comedy business podcast in the world what? We don't have our drops right now he would move you're just gonna have to you're gonna have to real raw dog talks. We're all about priming, pragmatic entrepreneurial advice money. No. was some real real dog talk would? Yeah, we have power business attorney to the stars Steve Van Teddy fantasty legal.com If you need some business, law services, you know, Mergers Acquisitions, boy loves contracts loves them. Yeah. Listen to us on longer the better iTunes Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcasts, Amazon music anywhere. Podcasts are delivered. We're there baby. Give us five star review. Share it with a friend a loved one if they need some business hustle advice. And then this episode sponsored by all the links to our sponsors will be in the description. Sponsored by Squarespace the all in one website creator no programming necessary drag and drop. All creative. You need to get your merch store gun. You want to sell tank tops like this. If you watch on video, we've got our merch store at sweat equity pod.com To get your Dilt tank, it's in Squarespace. All the tank tops that were in the show are on the armored store. If you want to make your own website, hit the link to Squarespace in our description, and our other our other sponsors, call rail track all the calls on your website. If you're a law firm. If you're a dental practice, you want all these call slop numbers so you can track every call, get that voice mail, get that data and see how your leads are coming in. Go with the call rail Thank you get a little hook up holler if you hear me with the link in this episode description. Also Zara talk. Okay, got anything cool. So was that Tuck School, your user of Zara talk? You've implemented it a couple times AI and learning live chat that they actually set it up for you. Yeah, that's so big in every little onboarding and another one another sponsor where we have actual humans that will set up your whole CRM and hooked up your marketing outreach is Bigley sales, and that referral code is in the episode description to get the hook let's get it going Hi.
Listening to the sweat equity podcast. All right. Let's get into it. I usually don't I read let the guests do their intros. But I know Steve so well. I wrote an intro for him. This should be good so you can do his plugs. Let's see if I butcher reading this out loud. Steve Teddy's a power business attorney with a focus on mergers and acquisitions owner operator fantasy legal go to fantasy legal.com To have your business refined work. The slogan in there nice. Is an entrepreneur partnering in a gaggle of different companies over various industries. Some of those will remain confidential.
Eric Readinger 3:36
He's higher end industries are confidential
Law Smith 3:39
various industries that the companies are in. That's confidential. The names of the companies Okay. Okay.
Eric Readinger 3:45
But the industry is crashing this intro also confidential?
Law Smith 3:49
Well, I don't know what I can talk about and can't so I just always shy oh, you should talk to your business attorney about that. Yeah, that's the one who advises me. If you have any kids that love watching video games, I'm partnered with Steve on F games. Go to Everett games.com. The link will be in the description. He's a former D two d three. Michigan Tech slot wide receiver is you frozen? We've got what's D two d three. You play
Eric Readinger 4:20
D it's a it's an audio podcast. I know it's your first time he's you don't like to talk and stuff you don't
Law Smith 4:26
want to break my stride. He's not he's not trying to hate like someone know he's a former D two slot wide receiver for Michigan Tech in the UP Upper Peninsula. One of the Friends of this program future governor of Florida Canadian born currently all about the stars and bars. proud American now. Steven fantastic. I was watching are you garbage and they give the best entrance like that.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 4:58
That's good as well. That tops it.
Law Smith 5:01
That's pretty girthy. Legend. I think you're impressed because I actually did some prep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was like, Oh, I can write the descriptions of our guests before the show. Yeah, that's
Eric Readinger 5:14
crazy.
Law Smith 5:15
Because right after the show, I start to go make five people try to laugh at some big Steve, I don't know if we ever asked you this coming on, you probably come on more than anybody on this show. But we started asking this question in new guests. Like kind of, I don't know, when you when you came aboard, oh, seven years ago, but what advice would you give your 13 year old self?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 5:41
Oh, man, that's a tough question. So
Law Smith 5:43
we didn't we never asked you this, huh?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 5:45
ever asked me this question. I've been on a lot. You're right. And I have not been asked that question by you. So what I would say is probably
Law Smith 5:54
I'll give you I can Vamp if you need a minute. You know, Steve was born, the nice Windsor enclave in Ontario. His dad's a constable anymore. He's retired is that there's a Mountie hat everywhere he goes, was deputy right to move. No, I know. I just I just like the cartoony picture of the Mounties. Oh, no, frozen is internet. Alright, you're back. Okay, we're gonna tell you.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 6:24
Okay, I'd probably say I'd like to learn more earlier about taking more risks.
Law Smith 6:28
You know, that that's a really That's a new one that's unique.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 6:33
I would say when we're younger, we're obviously always protected. Sometimes we get caught old. You know, you'll learn about business when you're younger, and obviously, rightfully so probably got enough to worry about as a child and try to learn about the world. But I think that can help you as you grow older to make decisions that will help you probably gain more strides early in your life than you would later in life. So I think that would be something among many other things, but top my head to answer while you did those Canadian jokes, I would probably say, to learn more about the importance of taking risks earlier.
Law Smith 7:09
You know, I think I've been thinking a lot about risk management and how bad just the general public is assessing risk. Yeah, could be could be like in a primal self, self preservation way. But it could also be in making decisions. And I feel like that is something we talked about, like they need to teach, like personal budgeting in schools, they need to teach, you know, some life stuff like that risk risk assessment is very interesting. And I was listening to Freakonomics podcast, and they're like, we're really bad at it. Basically, it was the, the gist. And I believe them because they pour through the data.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 7:49
But I would say though, my was more focused on taking chances. Well,
Law Smith 7:53
just so you were conservative, like you wouldn't take a risk. And you're talking business, mainly, I was trying to extrapolate it more everything.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 8:01
I mean, I met everything, like No, don't go detuned accept the offer too early, maybe wait a little bit and try and see if you do get the D one offer you want. But that was a safe play at the time. Do you take a risk wait or so that's what I'm saying. Like there's different things where your life could maybe happy the way my life turned out, don't get me wrong, I've got nothing to worry about. But what I'm saying is, I think learning that early and understanding a way to do a cost benefit analysis better, because at a younger age, when you when you're 1718 years old, coming in coming out of high school, I mean, your brain is technically still developing and you're still learning about the world, your analytical and critical thinking skills still aren't going to be at their prime yet, despite with the sap your AC T might try to tell you. So I think that that's kind of more what I what I geared it towards. I think a lot of the adult stuff when you're talking about with risks. You know, those can be learned a little bit later, but I think because you'll be better at that an early age those decisions later become easier, or better to be you can analyze them better.
Eric Readinger 8:56
Your intro could have been former practice squad NFL player Stephen fan. You know, like when you should have taken a risk we would have been way cooler for this interview.
Law Smith 9:05
I meant to add a bunch of white wide receivers that you love. Nike has a tattoo of Julian Edelman. But
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 9:13
one of my buddies in law school was calling me waiting for a bet and he'd seen me in the hallway.
Law Smith 9:17
Flashlight. Yeah.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 9:20
Legendary, he loves
Eric Readinger 9:22
that game. Keyshawn was talking shit and he had one catch for one yard. That's true. I was at that game. I was like, What the hell
Law Smith 9:30
when the Bucs used to do an eye formation, put key in motion and then pretty much run to whatever side he stopped on. And then they would they basically took five years off his career. Block move. Right, right. Yeah, shout out Keyshawn Johnson. We'll get him on the show. Next week. Yeah. Well, you advise a lot of college athletes. What's the kind of advice you're dispensing right now? Frozen or is thinking really hard.
Eric Readinger 10:00
really hard. Oh Vamp a little bit weird that it keeps freezing and then it comes back. You're back. Now he's frozen.
Law Smith 10:07
I think if we say, okay, is he there? Otherwise,
Eric Readinger 10:12
Disney people think we're copywriting the movie Frozen.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 10:16
What was it you were asking about
Law Smith 10:18
you advise college athletes? Kind of mentorship, right? Yeah. What kind of life advice are you giving them? I'm curious broad strokes, you don't have to get specific wait out for the D one offer?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 10:33
Yeah, I think I think a lot of it has to really just do with understanding that adversity is going to come, you may not see it yet, we might have had everything these guys can be four or five star players at high school that is going to come so be ready for it and can start preparing them for it understanding that when the adversity does come, that it's not something that's supposed to hold you back, it's actually supposed to help you learning from failure is actually the best education, I firmly believe that it's not learning about positivity or learning about just information in general, it's where people have failed or history where people have failed. And the comeback, I think is really one of the most important pieces of information someone can learn. And so that's one of them. The other one is definitely about financial literacy, understanding the importance of saving, how to maybe consider looking at investing what they have, they get a certain NFL deal, understanding taxes are going to come out of everything that you have. And if you spend every dollar you get, you're gonna have to make that up some other way. So, I mean, these these general things, which I mean, I think you or Eric alluded to it earlier, you know, that we should be learning in school. I mean, I think, you know, every state they should be doing that it's something I would want to see in the state that I live in is changing a lot of the educational programs to focus more on real life practical skills like that, that people are going to need it sooner than later. And so those are the things that I really tried to bring to them as I help athletes. I'm helping one right now from LSU actually
Law Smith 11:57
just taking throw that away, or that contract in the trash,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 12:02
and absolutely not looking forward to that all burn.
Law Smith 12:05
Yes. Okay. I hate I hate LSU more than Alabama. But anyway, they don't care about you at all. No, no, but keep the hatred alive like a ready oh, that's
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 12:17
what college is all about. Rivalries man. You gotta have inside juicy as it is.
Law Smith 12:21
Now. I will say everything was cool until the six o'clock game. Everything was cool till about 5pm on a Saturday so Friday, partying all the way tailgating and then getting jumped before the game. Get wrapped into a fucking pickup truck by someone. I wasn't even was looking down at my shoes. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, LSU fans, that dented it dented this side panel of the driver door of this car that he ran, jumped. Shoulder checked me into a truck. And it was just me and my friend. And then I saw mom sitting that saw everything Who's the one who told us all this afterward? And she's like, don't do anything. What? I think I got a concussion out of it, honestly. Because I got up my buddy Travis is yelling at six, six yelling at everybody and like fuck, and so I get up. And I'm like, we gotta go. We gotta go. And then like, vampire movie. All these yokels start coming in on us. Like what's going on here? These guys start in trouble. Oh fuck what vampire movie are you talking to me? Like a zombie? But like slowly like are these guys get in trouble? Like, you know,
Eric Readinger 13:32
I lay around here area.
Law Smith 13:34
They turn like Cajun in like five seconds like real scary flow. Even what you're seeing right now. For Koza True Detective scary. And the cab driver left me outside of the city.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 13:47
Oh, sounds like a like a Bert kreischer movie.
Law Smith 13:50
Which by the way I saw it was like really well shot like really well done. Very surprising. I thought it was going to be kind of your run of the mill. But no budget, Comedy Action like, like a poor man's rush hour ish kind of thing. But it's it was it was really well done. I can't get over that. It's more of an action movie with good jokes. And like transition subtitles. It's in theaters. Oh, yeah. And I forgot about those on your mom's house. They're calling it the fat machine. But he I mean, there's two scenes. I'm dead on the inside. There's two scenes that made me laugh like, hysterically like out loud. Just like I can't believe this is going on but
Eric Readinger 14:39
what do you mean you're dead on the inside?
Law Smith 14:42
Nothing really makes me laugh out loud. Especially like going in a movie.
Eric Readinger 14:46
You don't feel feelings anymore? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, just to clarify is this new this
Law Smith 14:51
new to you?
Eric Readinger 14:53
Kind of it'll seem dead on the ends. No, but
Speaker 1 14:55
like comedy wise, like it's tough. Oh, you're dead comedy wise on the inside? Yeah. But it's funnier just to leave it open ended. I thought they were gonna break it down like a contract knew I was gonna. I don't know you're you're, you're all African scientists do.
Law Smith 15:14
So, succession planning, we're talking about you and I, Steve, we're talking about this last night. Here's the deal. Eric hasn't seen the finale of succession so we can't grow it so we can't spoil
Eric Readinger 15:26
already spoiled it on LinkedIn. I did what do you
Law Smith 15:30
know it was a joke do cousin Craig doesn't take over as a CEO that never happened on succession, anything can happen to never that he has no,
Eric Readinger 15:38
there's no line. I bought it. I bought it. I hook line and sinker.
Law Smith 15:41
You knew I was fucking around. No. Good. I hope other. I thought other people. Other people thought that too. I thought that was so outrageous. Like, there's no way anybody believed it. I think you had to go breathe in,
Eric Readinger 15:55
you had to go outside the family, for one to really like, mess with it. But he's my he's, next time there's an epic show finale, I'll help you with your joke writing. Okay,
Law Smith 16:07
but I do need punch up. But it's, it's a great shot. Like, I don't want to brag my major in college entrepreneurship and family business management. They've truncated that to just entrepreneurship now as a major, but I liked the succession planning classes I had, because my teacher was a consultant, outside of being a professor, you just like being a professor, you didn't need to do it. We're just kind of the best guy to teach you all this stuff. And he would always talk about like, pretty much like third generation never works never succeeds. Basically, just like a lot of wealth. By the third generation, it gets kind of depleted. It's not like everybody saves or, or creates more money, they get in doubt a lot. And business in the same respect. It's really tough to transition down to the sons and daughters. And then, you know, grandkids eventually. Why do you think that is Steve? And he's thinking or frozen still thinking? I'll I'll vamp. You know, the thing gets because they're lazy. Well, that's part of it. The part of the show succession. That's interesting is these, the three out of the four kids are vying for something they never earn. They've never earned anything. Right? And we were talking about this last night, what's the value of FREE? Zero?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 17:41
So are you sure about that? You've given them given that to them too early? There's absolutely zero value?
Law Smith 17:47
No, if you give anything something from if you give someone something for free, the value of it is seen as zero. Right? And if you if you're talking about kids that have entitlement to positions they've never really earned in the real life like Kindle and Roman it presumably worked underneath the way Star Family of Brands.
Eric Readinger 18:14
Yeah, they never really talked about their education, do they shift
Law Smith 18:17
at least went outside and did something else PR wise, or politics, which is seen as the opposition for them? In a lot of ways because she was on the Democratic side. I guess. Connor wants to run for president. And he's like, right,
Eric Readinger 18:33
just because he has the money. Right? And which is pretty much all you need.
Law Smith 18:37
He's the best scene stealer in that show. Just just playing it straight up. Like doesn't the entitle I
Eric Readinger 18:43
think mom's games is the scene stealer? In my opinion. Tom's the
Law Smith 18:47
best because I love an effeminate, hard ass guy. And righteousness. They're so funny to me, because they can never yell at you. And it'd be effective if you played sports. Right? Right. Like, first off if you played team sports, and you played it with some hard ass coaches, like people yelling at you at work doesn't really faze you,
Eric Readinger 19:05
right. I remember my football coach, like yelling at us and stop complaining about getting bit by ants on the on the sand pit ball field that we practice on. Okay,
Law Smith 19:15
I see. My mother.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 19:18
I think there's value though, in throwing people into position sometimes and seeing if they'll sink or swim. Sometimes that experience can be the best experience. I'm not saying I'm taking a position on the other. I'm a firm believer, you have to earn your way there for sure. I definitely wouldn't hear anything, anybody. But sometimes there's situations where, you know, if they've been involved in the company long enough, and maybe that was the situation in succession, like candle or whatever it was that you think, you know, they have enough charisma, they have enough ability to figure things out that maybe, you know, it's time to throw them into the deep end of the pool and see what happens because I mean, you can always replace them. But sometimes that training can be the best experience and maybe that's the only way to do it. So that's I'm saying there's more than one school of thought on it versus just taking it kind of
Law Smith 19:59
Oh sure. I I'm talking about people without grit, people who haven't had any any hurdles to get over in their professional career,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 20:06
they never had adversity, or whatever it is,
Law Smith 20:09
they had a nurse professional track, you know, that they couldn't get fired, either that was out of the corner of it was, you know,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 20:19
but I don't think it's positions though I think in this show, it was strategically meant to put them on the board. given someone a board of directors seat means that you think your kids are going to vote with you. So you can move decisions, right, faster and easier for a big conglomerate, fortune 500 company, versus if you had a more diverse board with non family members, you got a very large chance of either losing your position, not not not being chairman, or potentially not having your views or positions for direction of the company you want to go from not happening because you're going to be voted by a very much more diverse board. So think strategically. That's why, you know, the dad really did that. I don't think he necessarily thought his kids were worth it. Really.
Law Smith 20:58
I thought he did it as a puppeteering. Right you know that might have been he knew how to manipulate all three of the Scott the main kids, but he you know what he all three kids had one, he Logan had three really bad aspects to them. And each of those three main characters had a piece of that. They all got in their own way with it, too. It became their downfall throughout the whole series. Roman being a perverted and help, which is maybe one of the funny scenes in any degree. That maybe not for sure. Because him just him looking at him in the meeting. Like
Eric Readinger 21:36
what scene are you talking about?
Law Smith 21:37
I was reading an article. Yeah, it was last season. Okay.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 21:41
There was there was four scenes that got cut that him and Jerry were supposed to have in the last episode.
Law Smith 21:46
So we were we were talking about that last night, right? Like, but I don't want to spoil any of it. But it's a scene that not happening that makes it interesting. There's a lot of that in these in this this last season of like, your you thought a scene might happen between two characters that didn't. And you're like, maybe that was on purpose. It it's a bit of a puzzle is show in a psych character kind of way. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, it's it. There's a lot of subtlety. You know, Kendall has a thing with kind of water as a visual and a lot of his scenes that when he's made really going up or down, he's looking at the water. But I mean, he's the best actor on the show. Maybe other than Tom, but he plays that guy. This is astounding last night. And this is another guy you see in the business world everywhere the guy that is like fake it till you make it but it has like zero self awareness in the small top kind of way. Yeah. PEPRA How about baseball? Like what? It was like? Yeah, but you fucking love them. Dude, you're like, alright,
Eric Readinger 22:57
I like how all three of the kids anytime they have helpers around, like you can fuck off now. That's really dismissive, right? You can fuck off. But that's
Law Smith 23:03
how they're taught. Right?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 23:05
metaphors and all that stuff. He always says those all the time to like, prove his point how people don't know what he's talking about when he's teaching about.
Law Smith 23:13
Yeah, he's using trending phrases that he probably heard somewhere else. It's this. It's Gucci meets meets Apple computers meets Tesla Motors meets the iPhone. interlocutor like that doesn't even make sense. You already said apple. And I love the subtle outfits he has that are like the Ed Hardy style right now.
Eric Readinger 23:38
He's trying a little too hard.
Law Smith 23:39
Oh my God, dude. I was in LA in the Ed Hardy era. It was a good dude is so many 50 year old deadbeat dads wearing been it spackled glittery jeans with like Florida lane on him.
Eric Readinger 23:55
I do like the show and the politics of the company that they bring in, like, you know, all that said, like having your kids take over. It's not just a matter of like, are they qualified? It's like, how are the optics are the comps?
Law Smith 24:08
Well, Oh, the other Yeah. Well, the other part, I was going to piggyback off what Steve was saying is I thought part of the reason in the show they're on the board is because usually, if a board if you become public in the founder, still involved, usually, he'll try to have everybody he knows on the board if he can, or, you know, like, if it's a young board, like if, let's say the IPO happened a couple years back, right? Yeah. Then he might have control to be able to get those got those people he wants on there. Is that it fair to say?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 24:42
Yeah, it's possible. It's hard to say this one way or another because it really depends on the dynamics, how the company was formed. I mean, a lot of times if you have investors that help grow your company to get it to where it's going, those investors are going to want board seats in return for them, giving you their capital because they're going to have a say in what happens to protect them. Money, right? So if there are those those, sometimes those generational seeds can carry forward. But sometimes, and I think what you're trying to get at is a lot of times, if that's the case, with companies growth and capital, when those individuals cash out, they're gone, they don't need to keep the board, so you don't have any investment to protect unless they want to keep them around. So that's when you fill the new seats. And it could be in situations like you're just talking. So it really depends on what phases the company are in as they grow and scale to know for sure.
Eric Readinger 25:31
Not he's not pausing dramatically, he's just frozen.
Law Smith 25:35
Jordan Peterson, you know, just take so long breaks. Everything I heard, we missed the last like 20 seconds,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 25:45
I was gonna say every, because I was like a company's go through those evolutions with the capital, whether or not those investors get to keep their seats, or if they cash out and they're gone, then those new board seats would open up. And that's kind of the evolution of companies in terms of whether those individuals stay on. Or if they're going to leave, and they cash out, they don't need those board seats anymore than you're gonna fill them with those new people. And that's what could happen here, where you now have room for your kids or new people or younger youth to come in and fill different seats on the board and you want to have a more diverse board as possible. That's one of the ways that it happens.
Law Smith 26:17
So if you're a small business owner, Let's talk outside of IPOs and big, scary board of directors. You know, I know a lot of people that are like, I want to hand my business over to my son, but He has zero interest in it can't get them into it. You've got a seven year old right you seven, seven year olds,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 26:39
my oldest one
Law Smith 26:41
is the two two year old and a two year old that looks like a little Mike all star is gonna be a fullback. It's gonna be like Lorenzo, deal. busted through maybe a three, three technique defensive tackle, who knows?
Eric Readinger 26:54
All right. But work it a little deep.
Law Smith 26:58
And I'm sure you've thought about this, like I have, I want I want my kids that have kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. But I know if I press it too hard, it's going to be tough. So they My daughter loves money, which is great. And kind of gross. She likes to tell me this all the time. He won't mind. Yeah, she's been since she was two. She's like, I want money. And I can see that as her being an adult being like, she is going to be like a CEO. Kind of like,
Eric Readinger 27:25
I'm kind of scared of her already did. The amount
Law Smith 27:29
of women have told me your daughter's my spirit animal before the age of five female friends of mine, and I'm like, you're supposed to be her spirit. You're supposed to be a human. No, she's like, she just tells it like it is. And I'm like, That's not always great, trust me. But like, I want I want to I'm trying to set up little things, you know, day to day to see if I can kind of incentive I think of incentives and punishments. Have you thought about this for your kids? Like, you don't necessarily have the family business to hand off? I mean, you could, technically but it's not like, it's not like a plumbing company is what I'm saying. Like, it's not like this is a family. You know, family owned local, which we don't even we hate the internet. But we don't like that kind of old school style. I'm just trying to think Have you thought about ways and I don't know, if you've got an either? No for your kids like, trying to not like you want your kids to play team sports because you want them to be just because they work in teams, right? I like to coach basketball. No, but I'm saying like, I see it like that. Like I wanted to play team sports because there's so many things you get out of that being selfless having to work together and having to work with people that suck but they're still on your team. Or you suck and you have to try to not be a nuisance. You know,
Eric Readinger 28:52
that was my win to take over when you know the right people thought you might have to carry the load. Who's the chief
Law Smith 28:57
who's the Indian that can switch play to play that's better for I can't use anymore.
Eric Readinger 29:01
Just getting yelled at by coaches. Yeah, be able to take that shadow get used to getting yelled at
Law Smith 29:08
getting the facemask pulled over, pulled in, which is like Dude, what if you just took me out because I just had my hands on my knees. Right? You think that's gonna help like it just together? I think about I want them to have an entrepreneurial spirit, even if they never own their own business because I I see entrepreneurship as also kind of a career mentality to you know, if you're, if you're a high end executive, you're you're essentially doing a lot of succession mind games, as well, to kind of get that corporate politics so I kind of see them very similar. I didn't know if you've been doing anything with your kids. lemonade stand. I mean, we're doing a brand I guess. I
Eric Readinger 29:50
kind of knew the answer did the intro Well, I
Law Smith 29:52
don't know if he I don't know if I don't know how much he realizes. It's about like how much work you've put into it. I think Ziff at the beginning is a lot of stuff. It's a lot of sweat equity, no pun intended.
Eric Readinger 30:04
That was definitely intended don't get me no pun intended, believe it. No, but I
Law Smith 30:09
see the forest for the trees, but I get it on an analytical level with a lot of experience of this stuff. Like, you know, I don't know what he knows. I know he gets most of it now, but I didn't know if like, that's something you're trying to push on your kids?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 30:22
Yeah, no, I mean, it is. But I mean, it's, it's the things like I told you about starting to learn to take risks. Sometimes things won't work out. Sometimes you're in a situation you may not like, but if you can find something that you're good at in that situation. Even if you're on a team, like Eric was saying, like, let's say, everybody else sucks, you got to take over, then this is when you do it, or you could be the worst guy on that team. But you know what, I'm good at this. I'm gonna make sure I do good at this because this makes a contribution to it.
Eric Readinger 30:49
Damn it frozen. Oh, yeah. On top, but like, the way he's talking. It's like, there's always like, the guy. And I just go with basketball. It's like, there's the guy who might not be the best player, but he does everything the coach tells him to do. He hustles anybody's good dB, you know? And it's just like, you're just like, why is this guy on the team? Like, oh, okay, the coach likes him for one.
Law Smith 31:09
I suck at basketball. But it's hustle champs,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 31:11
right? Like, well, but he can rebound. Right?
Law Smith 31:13
I believe on it. And I play defense.
Eric Readinger 31:16
Yeah, I could imagine it'd be a pain in the ass to play.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 31:19
Oh, indeed. And sometimes business report late with sports, like I always do. But sometimes that could be the catalyst that puts you over the top that one day, you know, we were playing a team that shot every time down the floor more than anybody else. And we needed rebounding that night, if we didn't have that person, you may not have won. So in business, it's the same thing you might need to get something done at the 11th hour and that person came through with their individual skill set, you know, they're not good at anything else. And it contributed to the cause in the company benefited because of it.
Law Smith 31:45
Yeah, I pull a lot from football in the professional world, when you're you're fucking gassed out your tires. Fuck, like, Bert, you and I, all three of us have dealt with burnout in different periods in our life. You know, it's one of those things. Plus, we're all dads it. You know, you have to manage that as well and try to be present around those things. It's definitely important
Eric Readinger 32:07
to teach a kid how to find that other gear. You know, that thing where it's like, you think you're done, you're not done. Your brain is telling you, you're done, but you're not. And I've had it happen to me so many, you know, where it's just like, oh, man, okay, I didn't do it. Like I was able to do it. Even though I convinced myself I wasn't, you know, and because you don't have another choice,
Law Smith 32:27
right? And pushing yourself a little bit further. Like, if you're weightlifting or something, right, add another five pounds that stretch it out when you think you can't do it do a little bit further. Those kinds of that kind of gumption, grit kind of thing. Yeah. They're not a dig deep. Anything else on your mind? Because we can't really it's really tough to talk about succession. Without, I don't want to mess it up. But the show, the show is so good. And I didn't think it was rewatchable. And I want rewatched most of season four over on
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 33:06
season one yesterday after you left, actually. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go over and I've already learned things I've missed that were shadowing the ending. It's crazy in the
Law Smith 33:15
My Tom's last name. Well, they already said they're late
Eric Readinger 33:20
to him. I didn't click it. I didn't like it.
Law Smith 33:23
Well, it could be a hint, like DaVinci Code to a lot of stuff that happens. But a very, very small hint, it'd be tough to really extrapolate that from the first episode when he says his last name.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 33:35
No, but I would say to wrap it all up. I mean, everything talked about here has value. And I think you connect things from the show and other things we talked about. Yeah, that, that it's important to note that if you're going to deal with just the business in general, I think it's better to scale it slowly and not just give up ownership or seeds to people. I mean, there's different ways you can set people up to be a part of your company, they aren't, you can give them profit sharing rights. And if they're helping, contributing, they're making profits than they are growing the company. And then they can earn a seat on a board or they can earn a position as an executive, I think you're not giving up too much too early. And I think eventually it's going to get there. If you can be creative enough, whether it's with your lawyers or your business personnel or consultants to help you scale and understand how to strategize to put your business in a position where you can get talent, make sure you have the right people test them out, and then you'll have them in the right places. So I think those are good things to look at doing to kind of summarize up if that makes sense.
Law Smith 34:28
Yeah, if you're trying to succeed your family business to your kids that work in the business currently, my professors always like you have to figure out objective benchmarks to put out there and get it confirmed by people outside of the family.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 34:42
If you want your kids to inherit things, I agree, like I have a trust for my kids. There's conditions they have to meet to get things at every age.
Eric Readinger 34:48
Really like what and what's the earliest age?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 34:51
What depends when I die, right? Me my wife,
Law Smith 34:56
robot, I mean you
Eric Readinger 34:58
when you run out of battery is
Law Smith 35:01
prolific workers I've ever met it's it's really interesting because I think your neural link your, your Tesla AI,
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 35:10
yeah, but I mean, like those are the things you can do, they can step in and they're gonna be able to get things if they've earned them and maybe like, if you have a certain GPA, then you can qualify to get a car in high school, the kind of car you can get can be a motorcycle or a convertible and you can keep it conservative and then if they want to start a business if they if they didn't go to college, you know, the trust can contribute 20% towards capital to start it then you have to present a business plan and do all these things. So you actually make them earn and do the things you should do to start a business versus getting things handed to him. So those are just certain things you can think about
Eric Readinger 35:46
are all those things real that you did with your kids dress.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 35:50
I drafted those things myself I've written so how long
Eric Readinger 35:52
is this agreement document
Law Smith 35:56
the pronouns contracts do
Eric Readinger 35:59
like fuck it I'll just do
Law Smith 36:02
the bro I mean they're two lawyers married by the way so they're like yeah, this is nothing for them
Eric Readinger 36:08
I'm sure finding a place to
Law Smith 36:10
probate probate to do it or have an execution or to avoid probate avoid probate but like you need the executioner or the entity that is your executioner to get that stuff done right so you know that's yeah that's I've written stuff out but it bullet points is
Eric Readinger 36:31
execution or the right word. No, thank you. What exactly an executor is that was
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 36:38
a trustee Exactly.
Law Smith 36:39
My bad I was thinking like people are gonna get killed here. Execution of whatever's laid out
Eric Readinger 36:48
you know, I just don't want the listeners repeating this the guy on this podcast so we need an education or I don't know we gotta go buy a hood. I don't think
Law Smith 36:55
anybody black hoods is a big sword. I don't think anybody takes us to verbatim I think if anything we give out that is something interesting they probably look it up from someone smarter. I sure hope so. Everybody go and chat GP tab. So
Eric Readinger 37:08
fact check these other pod
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 37:12
right there.
Law Smith 37:13
Well, yeah, yeah. Anything else when you run for politics? Not sure. People on video Fuck y'all. You better let me know. I get to at least at least put a proposal in to run the campaign digitally.
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 37:32
You're gonna be you're gonna be the guy.
Law Smith 37:34
I'm gonna be the guy sweating smoking cigarettes. Like looking like I'm like just live in the mailroom or something I'm gonna run. It's gonna be like a weird office retail office that as fantasti posters everywhere, right old
Eric Readinger 37:49
mannequins in the corner. Like what the hell are these gray
Law Smith 37:54
gray file cabinets that you know not labeled just a lot of crap everywhere. I'm gonna be like, I don't know. I don't know where the team is. Man is gonna walk in and got
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 38:03
that exact same tank top.
Law Smith 38:07
I'll get a professional tank top. I'll get a button down
Eric Readinger 38:11
campaign
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 38:12
campaign campaign.
Law Smith 38:15
I'll just I'll get one like Gordon Gekko and I'll just add sleeves like stripper.
Eric Readinger 38:22
Add sleeves.
Law Smith 38:24
Well, anything else you got before? We
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 38:27
think that was good. That's perfect. We're at time covered enough. We can do part two man after he watches succession.
Law Smith 38:32
It's like it goes by very quickly. Yeah, dirty. Everybody's a little under satisfied under underwhelmed. And then I go sorry. You're so hot. I can't help it. All right. Well, I'm gonna leave before I say something super embarrassing.
Eric Readinger 38:51
Ya know why? hour before I got over here, you made sure to tell me that.
Law Smith 38:59
Well, I thought that was polite and wanted to show you I care. Thank you. This we don't have to burn this seat after my actual stank so bad. How could
Eric Readinger 39:07
you even I mean, are you that flexible?
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 39:09
It was it was great talking to you. All right,
Eric Readinger 39:12
when are you ready for office again? Last thing Castle cut
Law Smith 39:16
that last part out or not? Either way, how clean my castle when I'm campaign manager. Alright, vintage. It was
Steve Fantetti, power business attorney 39:24
good talking to you again. Thank you later
