Strategic Resilience Leads to Growth with John Durante - a Think Billions Experience Guest

 Hardest product I need to study now again.
 You're listening to the Radcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 Welcome to the least edition of the Radcast.
 We're still here at the Think Billions event.
 In beautiful Palm Desert.
 I'm here with my good friend John Durante.
 Durante equipment, CEO.
 What's up, brother?
 What's up, nothing happened to be out of here.
 Hey man.
 In his beautiful home with our beautiful host.
 I know.
 Beautiful day.
 It could be a lot worse, right?
 It could be a lot worse.
 For a blessed man, a lot of quality people, a lot of great spirit, a lot of great energy.
 I've been really impressed with just, I don't know.
 It's like, been waiting for that down moment.
 It has to come.
 It has not come.
 It has not come.
 It will come tonight when it ends.
 Yeah, I know.
 When I hit the bell, hit the pillow.
 It's been great getting to know you better.
 I'm excited to tell a little bit.
 It's been good with this Think Billions event.
 Having people on and talk about their entrepreneurial journey.
 The good, the bad, the indifferent, hey, it's the Radcast.
 We don't keep it all positive all the time.
 We want to give everybody the meat.
 I got it all.
 You got it all.
 Let's talk about it though, man.
 I know we can talk for an hour about your background.
 But let's at least give everybody a condensed version of kind of your business journey.
 Sure.
 My dad was an entrepreneur.
 I had his own equipment rental company growing up.
 And as a kid, all I ever wanted to be was him.
 I wanted to fill his shoes.
 I wanted to do exactly what he did.
 And that was my dream in life.
 And so in high school, there was a period when I was a senior.
 I actually got up at 4.30 in the morning every day.
 I went to work.
 And the school, I kind of went to them and said, guys, look, I'm not a student.
 I have no desire to be a student.
 I am a great businessman.
 I don't want to be here.
 What can we do about it?
 And they wrote a program that they basically made me take two classes a day, middle of the day.
 So I was able to work all morning, go to school, two classes, go back to work.
 And I got credit for it.
 Went to college, went to a school far enough away that I could move out of the house,
 close enough that I can go to work every day.
 Went to work every day for my dad, started at the bottom.
 I don't know if it was my choice, but it was definitely required by my dad.
 So it was something we did.
 I worked in every department, did every job.
 And by the time I was 20 years old, I took over my dad's business.
 And ran it for about six years.
 I'd say I've increased revenue about 40%, but I quadrupled profits.
 Well, the whole percent of it.
 That sounds good.
 It was a great thing.
 I'll sign me up for that.
 Right.
 Any day.
 So then, you know, a new company was forming about two years earlier
 that became the largest rental company in America.
 And they had offered to buy us out.
 And while we sold it, it was bad for me because the money I made from the deal,
 I would have made it within a few years.
 It was great for my mom and dad.
 So it really was for a family.
 It was a great opportunity for them to retire at 54 years old.
 But then it put me without my dream of fulfilling my dad's shoes.
 It could go along with that deal.
 It's like a sweet heart carrier.
 So I worked for them for about six months.
 It's very tough to work for somebody.
 When you're an entrepreneur and where you, you know,
 you're trying to do the right thing every day.
 And you're just fighting a corporate culture that doesn't allow it to happen.
 Literally, when I stopped working for them,
 the first week, I literally paced my apartment hours a day.
 I'd walked to the wall and back to the wall because I never knew not working.
 I worked seven days a week.
 My whole life.
 That's all I knew was out for 10 years of the industry.
 In that 10 years, I started buying property.
 I started with small condominium apartments and started getting some small apartment buildings.
 What area is this?
 This is all Westchester, New York.
 Okay.
 So why planes, y'all?
 Here is my Marinac, you know.
 Good place to be buying property.
 It was great.
 I was living in New Rochelle in a basement apartment with no kitchen for seven years.
 I was paying $300 a month in rent and I'm buying condos.
 I had pools and gyms and my tenants were paying me $2,500 a month.
 And I'm living for $300, you know.
 I did that for about five years before I finally started buying my own place and moving out and stuff.
 During that time, I also went to law school.
 I got a law degree.
 I got admitted in New York and Connecticut.
 I had a lawyer.
 Yes, my mother fucker, R.T.
 But the funny thing is Ryan, I was a bad student.
 I mean, we could spend an hour on my stories just from high school.
 I love this, man.
 I was in a good, I was the smartest kid in class.
 And I was a terrible A-B student.
 Same here.
 Yeah.
 I just never went to class.
 I went just to, like, I got 10 point stocked from the top because I, you, I'd miss as many days as you could to still go.
 You know, like, because I hated fucking sitting there.
 Well, I went to my, uh, my 30 year high school reunion a couple of weeks ago.
 And they had a few teachers there, which is cool to say.
 And one of them was my, uh, science teacher.
 And science was a double period class.
 You had lab, you had the science class, then the second period, you had the lab.
 And so he says, Johnny, because I still talk about you this day.
 I said, really?
 I go, why?
 Because you're the only kid I've ever had that would come to first period and cut the second period or cut the first period and come to the second period.
 I said, really?
 You've never had everything.
 He goes, no, he goes, who's stupid enough to come to one of them?
 Not the other.
 That's so funny.
 Oh, man.
 Thanks.
 So from that, uh, got the law degree, I had no intention of practicing.
 And the reason I went to law school, I had a bad attorney on a deal in my 20s.
 She missed something in a contract and I almost lost what I had made.
 And, um, it took me to a point that I said, you know what?
 Like, um, I'm at a point in my life now.
 My real estate is doing well.
 I make it some money on it.
 I'm gonna go to school and see what they know.
 Graduated with honors.
 So clearly, I could have been a student in my whole life just didn't care to be.
 Um, as I'm coming out of law school, I had no desire to practice.
 It was, oh, wait, and everything crashed.
 So my real estate, all my commercial stuff, I'm charging people half the ranch just to stay there.
 All of my residential stuff.
 I'm evicting people, you know, two, three, four people a month.
 We're usually one every two, three months.
 So I'm struggling to pay my bills, struggle to pay my mortgage.
 Um, and I realized I have this law degree.
 I might as well use it.
 So I opened up a firm, had it for two years.
 I did well with it.
 100 clients in the first year was profitable.
 But it wasn't enough money to make up for the losses on the real estate.
 So as a side hustle, I opened up the equipment rental business that I hadn't been in in ten years.
 Um, just to try to make some income.
 Took out a half a million dollar hard money loan based off on the real estate that I had owned.
 And, um, within, took on two partners.
 And within ten years grew it to ten stores and sold it to a private equity.
 And within a month of opening it, I shut down the firm because I realized this is where my future, this is where my future was.
 Wow.
 That's it.
 That's crazy, man.
 Nice.
 A lot of layers there.
 A lot of layers.
 A lot to unpack.
 Yep.
 I mean, Jesus.
 Like, give me the, give me a little bit of time frame there.
 Like, when did that, when did that sell take place?
 So the sale took place in 2019.
 Okay.
 A couple of years ago, and then I opened up again in 2020 down in Florida, doing the same thing.
 Same thing.
 Okay.
 Just moved.
 Just moved from New York to Florida.
 Yep.
 I was dragged there by my wife by the years, by the years I say.
 What is it with the Yorkers going to Florida?
 Is it just because it's warm and it's on the east coast?
 It's warm and it's on the east coast.
 It's a known thing that that's where you go.
 Like, if you're from, if you're from the area we are of New York, you go to the east coast of Florida.
 If you're from the west coast of New York, you go to the west coast of Florida.
 So it is a thing.
 I didn't go to Florida's a thing.
 I didn't know it was like that geographically driven.
 Yep.
 Oh, man, that's great.
 So what's, a lot of learning lessons there.
 Going through O8 was hard for everybody that was in business then.
 What did you learn about yourself?
 So the one thing I learned about myself was, well, tell you this, there was a great song
 called Duck and Run.
 I'm trying to remember who the heck it was.
 I'm going to look it up all we talk.
 Yeah.
 So Duck and Run and the lyrics really had a lot to me.
 And I don't know if you use music every now and then.
 Oh, yeah.
 I've used music several times to get through different points in my life.
 Oh, I'm a music junkie.
 I grew up.
 My dad to this day is still in a band.
 The offers are very musical.
 Oh, really?
 My dad plays like seven instruments.
 Every I could play piano guitar.
 Like, yeah, so music is in my soul.
 So how many, what do you play?
 I play guitar and took six years of piano.
 Nice.
 I'm six months in on piano lessons right now.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 How's it going?
 It's going great.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 It's going to be fun.
 I always, see, I'm better guitar now than I was piano.
 I've never really took guitar lessons, but my dad taught me.
 Sure.
 And piano, I wouldn't mind getting back into, like I can get on there and bang a little bit.
 But like, I need to, I would need to get lessons again to really get it back.
 I have a funny story about that, which goes to the business and the mindset of an entrepreneur.
 And we can also tell you, so an 080910.
 Yeah.
 This was a song that ducked in one by three doors down.
 Oh, I remember.
 I didn't know three doors down, of course.
 And you know, the part of it was, you say, you know, this world can't, this world can turn me down.
 But I won't turn away.
 Oh, no, I won't turn around.
 And then part of it says, it says, I won't duck in one because I'm not built that way.
 And I listen to that song over and over and over again because I'm not built that way.
 When everything is gone, there's nothing there to fear.
 This world cannot bring me down, no, because I'm already here.
 And I played the song and I just kept saying, I'm here.
 I'm at rock bottom.
 I mean, I was eating Oreo cookies for dinner.
 I lived in a penthouse of a penthouse Trump apartment.
 Couldn't afford to pay my mortgage anymore.
 And I'm eating Oreo cookies for dinner because I couldn't afford to, like, go to restaurants.
 I would, if I had a $70 din of the line, I was sick to my stomach.
 That I spent $70 out on dinner.
 That's how bad it got.
 And the funny thing is, you know, you look at so many entrepreneurs when we were younger.
 And even now, you look at entrepreneurs that on the verge of losing everything, everything.
 You watch their big business clubs, you watch it.
 And then 10 years later, they're bigger, better, stronger.
 And as a kid, I was always like, how is that possible?
 How that can't be?
 And I was brought there.
 Like, I was literally brought there.
 And it brings out the best in you.
 Like, it brings out the hustle and the fight and the...
 We're way more resilient than we give our credit for.
 And some of us embrace that.
 And some of us, it just, you know, I think the...
 I don't want to say the winners and the losers.
 I'm no judge of who that is.
 But I think, you know, like, the distinguished men of those that have the grit.
 Grits one of my favorite words.
 You know, it's like, I love grit and employees.
 And then people are like, you got to have a little bit of grit to kind of get over it.
 And if you do, there's usually a pot of gold on the side.
 You know, I mean, it's like, one way or another.
 We're a pot of gold of knowledge, pot of gold of physical money.
 Or, you know, everything.
 But just if you can get through it, you know.
 And in the moment, it feels so bad.
 You know, I've been there.
 It's like...
 And it sucks.
 It does.
 It sucks.
 I don't wish about anybody.
 But damn, it feels good when you go to the other side of it.
 Oh, yeah.
 And, you know, and I do feel that there is a lot of luck involved sometimes.
 You know, because I got lucky that there was a stranger in my building
 that I'd become friends with.
 That him and his wife loaned me half a million dollars on a signature.
 You know, it was hard money.
 It was a high interest, but it was there.
 And if I didn't have that, it wouldn't give me the money to start the rental business,
 which then grew to a bigger business.
 You know, my business in Florida, I opened January 14, 2020.
 So weeks before the pandemic, weeks before the shutdown.
 And, I mean, I got a year in, and I said to my wife,
 I said, I don't know how we're not going to lose everything.
 Like, you know, I had invested everything.
 I borrowed a lot of money.
 And it was a really hard time to open up a business.
 And a really hard time.
 It...
 My ups and downs for the last three years or more than I've ever had in my life.
 The, you know, the depression of what the hell am I doing trying to pull out of it?
 And then the highs when you get the wins.
 But there were three times now that I was at the brink of breaking.
 And something came through that got bought me another nine months.
 And I'm on the brink of breaking it.
 I'm running out of money.
 I'm running out of money to keep the business going and keep it afloat.
 And then something happened that was a holy crap.
 I've been trying for nine months to get this to happen.
 And at the last minute it happened three times.
 She sit there and say, who's looking out for you?
 You know, because it didn't happen the other nine months.
 It happened at that point when I really was desperate and I really needed it.
 So I do think luck plays part of it.
 You're putting yourself there.
 But, you know, if I didn't get that, if that didn't happen, three months later
 would have been a way different story.
 I'd be telling a way different podcast right now, you know?
 I have a saying, John, it's the harder you work, the lookier you get.
 True, true.
 Very true.
 Very true.
 You know, it finds you eventually, you know?
 Yeah, 100%.
 It's not, and I can tell, I get to know you.
 It's not accidental.
 It's, you know, the grit, the resolve and the smarts to kind of get on the other side of it.
 Needs of Damorios, you know?
 Sometimes we've got to eat Oreo.
 And you know, the most humbling thing was, and again, I had a beautiful apartment,
 even though it was deep into Westchester, New York, which is basically,
 it's on the mainland USA.
 You have the Bronx, which is part of New York City.
 Bronx is on the mainland.
 Everything else is on the islands.
 And then you have Westchester, which is right after the Bronx.
 So I had a beautiful view of Manhattan from my apartment.
 I had the bridges.
 I had this amazing apartment.
 Couldn't pay my mortgage.
 And it's good.
 I still have the apartment today.
 I was able to keep it.
 I got out of, you know?
 You just rented it?
 I got my credit score back up.
 But I had to rent my guest bedroom to a stranger.
 And in my 30s, in my mid-30s, having to rent my guest bedroom to a stranger on Craigslist,
 for two grand a month, just to pay my bills.
 And then that was probably the most humbling part of my life is coming home to my home that I don't want somebody in.
 And she was a pleasure.
 She was a professional.
 Did she work like IBM or something?
 You know, kept to herself as quiet.
 So it was a good experience.
 But it was just humbling to be forced to have that in your home and do it.
 You know?
 You know, having sometimes those experiences are what makes it.
 You know, like it's, it just teaches you to be that much more thankful.
 You know?
 We take a lot for granted.
 You know, we all do.
 But where you want to go with the business now?
 So this is now.
 The growth plan is I would love to do 10 stores is my first step of my game plan.
 You know?
 And I look at it and say, you know, I opened up a, we're doing great.
 We're doing, you know, just under 10 million in revenue in three years, which is amazing.
 During COVID.
 During COVID.
 Yeah.
 And it's profitable.
 It's, you know, it's, it's finally catch a little positive.
 That took three years.
 But I look at it and say if I could do the one during COVID, why can't I do nine more just like it?
 Put the systems in place, put the right people in place.
 Find them, find the money, which is what I'm hustling for right now.
 Yeah.
 That's my plan.
 It's really replicated.
 Then I have no plan past 10 as of today.
 Yeah.
 Because I don't want to say I'm going to have 100.
 I'm going to have 300.
 10 is a great goal for today.
 And then as I start to get five, six, hopefully, then I'm okay.
 10.
 Let's figure out the 20 plan.
 Let's figure out the 30 plan.
 I love it.
 Did you get any nuggets this weekend?
 I did.
 I got a lot of nuggets.
 You know, one of my biggest things was I've really been working on my culture.
 And it's getting hard because I've always been a really good boss and a really good leader.
 And I was generous with the employees with pay, with benefits, with time off.
 And that bought me loyalty.
 It earned me loyalty.
 My mistake bought me loyalty.
 It earned me loyalty.
 And loyalty has disappeared.
 So it's become now the goodness leads only to be taken advantage of.
 And I refuse to not be good.
 Like I refuse to not be a good leader and a good boss.
 So I either need to find the people that appreciate that and want that and want to be there.
 Or I got to.
 That's really the only option.
 We think the model.
 That's the only option.
 Yeah.
 I don't want to change myself because the world has changed.
 No, you don't want to do that.
 So my piano story, Ryan.
 Yes, I want to.
 So I'm six months into piano lessons and my teacher comes to me and she wants to have a recital at somebody's house.
 Like a nice older adult party cocktails and recital.
 She was, will you play?
 And I said, I will do this one time for you.
 And it happened to be this weekend.
 So I had to cancel because we decided to come here.
 And so I said, I will do this once for you.
 She was here.
 But why not?
 Because I'm not learning piano to play for other people.
 I said, she was what are you learning for?
 I said, I want to play for myself.
 So we're doing one of the people to hear you.
 I said, I could care less.
 You know, and she was, well, you're afraid.
 It's no.
 So down in front of anybody to play today.
 I'll play cross buns if I got it.
 You know, but I said, no, it's not why I'm doing it.
 So she was, okay, what song do you want to play?
 I said, I don't know.
 I said, maybe angry young man by Billy Joel.
 I don't know if you know angry young man.
 Yeah.
 Billy Joel is wailing on that piano in the beginning of the song.
 Yeah, bang him.
 And so she goes, I don't know if I know it.
 So I get on my phone.
 I play it for her.
 And she sits there and goes, John.
 She says, you're six months into piano.
 That's Billy Joel.
 You cannot play that song.
 I said, why not teach me?
 And she said, John, that's Billy Joel.
 Yeah.
 And so finally she convinced me that I can't play that song.
 Okay.
 And so this is a Friday afternoon.
 So she leaves Saturday morning.
 I get up early.
 I download the music.
 I download some videos.
 And it took me about a half an hour.
 But I got the notes not fast.
 But I was able to play the sequence of notes that I played it.
 Yeah.
 And I had my eight year old, Danielle.
 I had her recorded for me.
 And I sent it to the teacher.
 And she texted me back.
 She was, okay, maybe we'll try this.
 And I got it.
 I got it.
 I got it.
 Now, if he's, if he's hitting you watch him play.
 If he's at 100%, I'm at about 87%.
 Okay.
 I'm still pretty damn good, Ryan.
 Pretty damn good.
 You hear it?
 Yeah.
 And as fast as I think I get, I keep recording myself.
 And I play it.
 I'm like crap.
 Like I'm not there yet.
 Do you have rhythm?
 No.
 Do you hear?
 I don't.
 I don't know.
 To me, Ryan, it's funny.
 This drives her crazy too.
 I don't have musical talent.
 Yeah.
 To me, it's a video game.
 So I'm watching the notes as they come up as you would any other game.
 And I need to hit that key at the right moment.
 At the right hardness or the right speed.
 You know, make it to make it work.
 Hey, you know, but someone tells me you, you put your mind
 anything you'll get it done.
 Try to.
 Try to.
 John, working everybody, keep up with you, the business,
 the rante, all that stuff.
 So right now, the only place is really Facebook and LinkedIn.
 Okay.
 I don't have Instagram.
 I don't have Snapchat.
 I don't have TikTok.
 I'm learning from this weekend that I really should be looking at that stuff.
 I'm not a self promoter.
 I told you before we started.
 I'm very much an introvert.
 But you get on the mic, man.
 I think you need a podcast.
 Thank you.
 Yeah.
 But the problem is, like, it's just so not mic you.
 It's not me.
 And it's not even my comfort zone.
 It's just not something that I look to do.
 Yeah.
 I enjoy doing it.
 Like, I love the conversation we're having.
 It's great to be able to tell my story.
 It's nice.
 Like, it's an entrepreneur.
 Many of us, unless you are self promoting yourself,
 you don't get the chance to tell your story that often.
 Yeah.
 And you don't get to talk about it.
 And, you know, a lot of us don't celebrate our successes.
 That's the thing.
 Yeah.
 So you have to break down that wall to do it, you know.
 Yeah.
 John, it's been a pleasure, man.
 Same here, right?
 Thank you so much.
 Hey, guys.
 You need to find us to radcast.com.
 Look us up.
 You'll see today's episode and all the highlight clips.
 I'm at Ryan Offer and all the social media platforms.
 I'm blowing up on TikTok.
 We'll go following me over there.
 We'll see you next time with a radcast.