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And then at 10 o'clock when it ends and we'll have a couple of live auctions as well.
I actually have a autographed Taylor Swift guitar coming for a live auction with a letter of authenticity.
No way. Yeah. That's wild.
Yeah. I tried to get her to come present it, but I was told no.
Let's see if she just shows up.
Sometimes you got to take what you can get.
Yeah. We'll see if she shows up. Right. Maybe next year.
But super cool that I have that, you know, for people to bid on.
morning good evening good night good afternoon don't give me copyright flag though no no no you
can cut this out i sounded like a zombie just yeah in order to grow you gotta have like some
kind of goals good morning good evening good night good afternoon whatever time you're listening in
wherever you're listening from shout out to my spotify listenership apple and google podcasts
and youtube if you're watching in thanks for giving me a reason to get dressed you could
have been anywhere in the world, but you're here. Be present and recognize that it's now,
right now. Whether your right now is working, flying, running, driving, be thankful we're
alive, baby. Failure can be frightening. However, as Winston Churchill reminds us,
success is all about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
This is I Will Not Lose Podcast, where we set out to prove everything is learned from failure,
and we must persevere and recognize it as one step closer to success.
i'm your host tony ortiz let's jump right in okay that was so funny because i different you know
kate hughes yeah so she interviewed me on monday on her show and i've known her for probably 12 15
years and i guess leading up to my part of the show she kept talking about me she's called me
mesler so i got there and i told her and she's like all right so i've been saying her name wrong
all day i've only known her for 15 years yeah i was lying for the most of the time so it's the
way you read it but it's fine it happens people still ask me how to spell ortiz how to say ortiz
i'm like i think that's like smith i mean i don't know i run into a ton of people kate said the same
thing people don't know how to say her last name they call her like hugus and all different weird
names i'm like you should roll with that yeah for real just pronounce it or just say it's pronounced
like that, when somebody pronounces it Hughes, correct them just to break it up. But that's
awesome. We're going to get started here. Thank you for tuning in again to I Will Not Lose podcast.
I'm here with Lisa Miesler. We're going to be talking about just catching up. Don't Lisa,
for a long time, we've been on and off each other's radar and seeing you do big things grow.
The past couple of years have definitely been a ride. So we like to talk about success,
learned from failure and kind of what does success mean to you, where we're at, the journey
that brought us here, and then this big event that you have coming up, which I'd love to
get to.
We can dedicate quite some time to that.
Great.
So tell the people who you are.
I'm Lisa Meisler.
I'm a commercial real estate agent in the Lehigh Valley.
Moved here in 99, started working in real estate, I felt like, I'm going to say 12 years
ago, 14 years ago, somewhere around there.
um shortly after starting I went into the commercial sector and that's that's kind of
where I've sat with that while raising my kids I've raised my kids as a single mom since they're
five years old I have 20 year old twins boy girl oh wow what an age yeah it's interesting
it's like uh from 15 to 16 they're finding themselves and becoming their own person so
they're like not quite adults yet. Like, I mean, even if you think how, uh, I wasn't totally mature
at that age, you know, there was a lot of learning. I'm still not totally mature at this age,
you know, any of us, I hope not. Cause once you do it, what's, what's worth living, right?
Yeah. That's amazing. So you raised them as a single mom since they were five. Yes.
what sort of things are they into um so they took my music talent and ran with that so they're
they're both very talented in music they just got their associate's degrees at Northampton
Community College my son is moving on to either Drexel or Lehigh he hasn't made a decision yet
uh for his bachelor's oh wow yeah Layla's uh touring Temple right now she's doing a college
tour. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, they're on college tours. That's great. It goes so fast. These last
two years, I can't believe they got their associates already. It flew by. I can't imagine
more Southern high school. Oh yeah. Flew by and imagine when we get there. So how has the journey
been with commercial real estate? 14 years is a long run. That's about probably about when I met
you. I'm trying to put a finger on it, but it was probably around 12 to 14 years ago. What is it?
2014. So 11, 12, because I had just gotten started with design endeavors. Yeah, that's right. I'd
only been doing it a few years at the time. I started that around 2011, like doing it really
commercially. So probably shortly after that, but how has the, I mean, is it always just like
a 45 degree angle up? Do you just double every year or? No, it's kind of like this.
like last year i was like this and this year's like this yeah it it's
since covet it's been really wild ride 2020 was my best year this is going to be my second best
year possibly my best year um but then like right after that it got a little wonky it's just hard
it's hard really hard now you know your interest rates are up your prices are up it's the first
time in history that's ever happened usually your prices will come down as your interest rates go up
So it's, it's a very strange market and it makes it difficult.
People still are not really selling as much.
There's the market's been thin for years.
So I'm more of a buyer agent makes it complicated because there's not a lot out there for my
buyers and what is out there again, since there's not a lot of product, the prices are
so escalated, they just don't make sense.
So it's, it's really hard to get a deal done.
I kind of walked more into doing land deals, working with developers.
Do you have deals that were kind of on the back burner that you were working on for a while that
are slowing down because of the interest rates? Like, do you have old business that's kind of
slowing because of that? Like I always worked with investors. It's really hard to find a good
investment property. So every once in a blue moon, you find something, get it sold. But it's been,
it's been a while since I've been able to find something that really makes sense. My investors
are you know they're not new investors they're very established they know what they want they
know what they're doing they're not going to buy when it they'd rather hold their money like it
yeah they would rather put it somewhere else they're not gonna unless you're young like when
i have a couple new investors and they're younger so it kind of it'll it makes more sense for them
to pay a little bit more for a good property you know you look at something like i don't know say
it's like at the triangle in Emmaus or down on the square in Easton, you know, in a really good
location, the price is going to be much higher than you would like it to be. But if it's in a
really good location, you can, you can work with that because you're young and you're going to
hold it. You're going to hold it for 15, 20 years. It still makes sense. If you're my age or older,
it doesn't really make as much sense to buy something that you have to hold for 20 years,
you know, or 15 years, whatever that number looks like. Yeah. So you can be a little more
aggressive if you're younger and you're still going to make money, you can still build a
portfolio. So that's kind of how I counsel my clients. So my clients that I've had like the
past 10, 15 years, a lot of them are just holding still until some things change.
Yeah. Because you, I mean, there's things outside of your control, but you have to react to them.
that's interesting so i did have a question i saw something posted and i didn't fact check it or
anything but they were saying there was going to be four thousand dollar apartments at the
waterfront is that is that realistic i mean is that where things are going i don't know i don't
get it i mean you have the commodore down in easton uh i don't think they're fully leased
they're they're at i think they're around 3 000 i i'm not positive how much they are charging for
the void down there you can look at their website but i they're they're not cheap and they're they're
smaller apartments they're they're more like they're they're very small the floor plans are
small it feels more like city feel okay and i i sit with and i don't understand it because if i
had that kind of money as a kid, I would go buy a house. Right, right, right. That's why I'm trying
to understand the target. Cause from what I hear, they're going to be filled if they sell the
waterfront at that. But even like, uh, like Strata downtown, I mean, it's just the, the offering that
you get from the city versus living there. The only thing I could think is like, if it was a
second property that you didn't have, you know, if you traveled to Allentown a lot and you spent a
lot on hotel fees, I guess. I don't know. Uh, but I was just curious to know, like, what is it just
a supply and demand thing? If they're going to fill them, they'll keep jacking the price up or.
Probably. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's not a lack for people that want to be tenants,
which again, I don't understand. I I'm teaching my kids to stay at home for as long as they can
and save their money and go purchase something. Right. It makes no sense to go spend two, three,
$4,000 a month on a rental plus utilities. They'll never be able to save money. They'll
never purchase. They'll never own anything because you can't pay that kind of rent unless you're
making hundreds of thousands of dollars, which most people in the Valley are not doing, not
getting out of college. How are these kids ever going to afford to buy something? It doesn't make
sense to me. Right. I mean, it was even that way. I'm trying to think, cause I'm 37 now. Um,
but it didn't make sense. There was, I think it was around 2008. So maybe that was a great
buying opportunity. Maybe we missed that at that time, but it just didn't ever seem like there was
when you read back about, you know, the eighties, nineties, when, you know, you can get a five,
$600 mortgage or whatever it was to the cost of living. Now, everything just seems like
you can check your, it's easy to slowly inflate, but if you go and you can check your Amazon orders
or your grocery orders, if you were using Instacart and you can literally see what you
paid for stuff. And it's like, wow, you know, do I eat different? Do I change? You know?
Thank God I'm fortunate to the point where I don't have to really, you know, I can enjoy my coffee.
There's some people that would say, take the four or $5 that you would drink from the coffee
and invest it. And, you know, I can't argue you would have something more than, but at what point
do you cut away from life? You know, there's a lot of luxuries or things that I don't do in order to
be able to make everything keep moving and still invest in equipment and still have fun and still
put money away you know um what did you just cut everything out you just say i'm not you know i'm
gonna make my own coffee that's even expensive that's what makes it so hard to even purchase a
house right now you know you can make a hundred thousand dollars a year but you still can't afford
much because the taxes you have to take into account your property taxes and everything else
on top of that so you're still not able to afford like an average priced home which is probably at
this point four hundred fifty thousand dollars somewhere around there who can afford that if
they're just out of college and if they're a two household income and you're a young couple you're
going to want to have kids i would never advise my clients to put both of their incomes on there
you don't know what's going to happen when she gets pregnant what if she can't work what if the
baby's sick and you can't, and you have to be home. Like that's what happened. My babies came
prematurely. I was on bedrest my entire pregnancy. I couldn't work. I had to quit my job. I was on
bedrest my entire pregnancy. They were born 10 weeks early. So I had to be home with them for
the first few years because they were, they couldn't be out there. They would have gotten
sick. Um, you, you can't forecast that. So if you have a young couple and they're both putting
their incomes on that mortgage they're going to lose their house if something like that happens
you don't want to do that so to find a house that's under 300 000 it's like a flip property
these days no flips used to be like 50 60 80 right right now it's like 100 000 now it's like 350 and
you're walking oh this place needs help yeah and you're uh man at 350 couldn't imagine but um
it'll be, it'll be on the radar soon. So when you, what kind of, I'm curious about when you
have people looking to invest with you and they're looking for you to essentially make them a
decision that's going to affect their money. Like what kind of relationship do they get referred to
you? How do they find you? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people get referred to me. I do have, I'm at that
point where I'm getting a lot of referrals or like with the larger commercial properties,
uh my last two clients last two or three clients i asked who i had to thank for the referral because
i just got calls out of the blue they said no they just google search commercial agent and then
loop net comes up and when they go on to loop now i'm one of the top seven commercial agents that
they're seeing that's awesome they call and it's all about who calls back that's awesome
but you had to have it set up where you can get business through google it's like i never did
anything i don't know how to do anything i would love to have somebody do that for me i'm sure i'd
get more calls. I, I don't know if my name's just out there. I've been in the business a long time.
I've done a lot of deals. No, we can talk. And that part definitely helps. Um, but when people
put testimonials and they put them together, we'll talk off mic too, because that's something that I
do. Um, I have at least in the past year, year and a half, if you search graphic designer near me,
graphic design Allentown. I'm like a one or two or two or three. And I get a lot of, I wouldn't
say a lot. People think when you're the first on Google that it's just all raining referrals. Like
it's still people's intent. There's only so many people that have that intent. So there's people,
I'm sure that Googled and didn't click. You could see a lot of people that search it, but just to be
able to be there. Google's doing a better job of knowing who's who in the area. So I probably
couldn't have ranked the way I did had I not been in business so long. And there's so many times
where Tony Ortiz is tied with doing something with someone. So Google can see that. And the
name of my company is Tony Ortiz, the designer. So that was intentional to be able to rank there.
But it's insane. Anything you do nowadays, you need an entire team. You know, I sounds that way. I ran into you at Reggae Fest. That was a beautiful event. It was a great weekend. And running the live, there were so many things I didn't think of the way the sun was facing.
you know we set up and had everything in the shade and we're ready to go and it's like oh
that's right the sun moves so now you know I think by the time you had came we had had the
sheet up and we were just holding on for dear life uh so you you learn and it's like man you
know shout out to uh Johnny Melendez shout out to Eric Rodriguez that co-hosted with us for that
event uh everything went well they helped with setup and breakdown and stuff but as far as um
running everything three people's not enough that's that's one thing if I could take any
success learn from failure out of that it would be like okay we would definitely need help you
know I would need my son on deck um and that's one of the fun parts is did you meet my son was
he there when you think so no he was gone when you that's right because when all the ruckus
happened, I was thinking, where is he? And I was so glad he wasn't anywhere near that. But
I didn't even tell you. I got no footage. There was something really, I mean, think about it.
We're talking to a reverend about not spreading negative energy. We're talking about raising up
from animalistic vibrations. Everything breaks out. I have footage of her praying, but the
videos like scrambled the one camera died the live feed cut out you're kidding me no when we
were sitting here going through the footage i said oh the twitch stream was up for an hour let's check
that and if we lost that footage then something demonic was really at work because there was like
and i thought about it and everything else was so peaceful and calm that was their third reggae
Fest there. You know, that's the second largest free reggae festival in the nation. I didn't know
that. That's cool. We had one of the co-organizers, Michael Forsetto. Shout out to Mike Forsetto and
ArtsQuest. But we had him on the show and he was talking about how they're planning on. I think
there's one in Atlanta. I'm not sure. I'm not going to fact check it right now, but
you don't want that kind of publicity. That was my point. Long story short, if that would have
streamed live, you know, I intentionally didn't switch the camera to it. Just you have a split
second to think. And I'm just like, I'm so glad I didn't. Not that I would have put footage out.
It would have been interesting to see. But after I saw the Twitch stream fail, I said it just wasn't
meant like that energy wasn't meant to be shared. It's dead. That was it. And I just that moment,
though was crazy and the matter of who we were interviewing and i gotta be real with you that
was so cathartic to watch what happened i i went home and told my kids i said okay this is the
craziest thing and i know you're not going to believe me but this is how it went down
i struggle i struggle with religion i struggle with god i think a lot of people struggle with
all that stuff at some point in their life i've had a lot of difficult thing have difficult things
happen so i i've always struggled with it um i have i'm faithful i have my faith i don't do the
church thing god's everywhere i don't need to walk into a building right i don't need to talk to
another human about the bad things that i do you know like i don't believe in that stuff um when
that happened and she stood up and started praying on them and literally i mean it was so odd you and
i talked about it they kind of started moving away from us and then they dispersed they just
like a whole wave it just yeah and they walked away you know it was and thank god because you
know like the one guy i told you i i was watching it very closely and i saw his hand going into his
shorts and i was about ready to hit dirt i i thought he had a gun he brought it he pulled
out a blade i think it looked like a box cutter they the um what is going on here like that's
crazy blade i talked to it was a switchblade i talked to it wasn't involved with the um i found
out a little bit more about it we're not gonna talk too much about it because it was a peaceful
event but the thing is the point is it wasn't related with reggae fest it wasn't related with
the dominoes tournament they happened to be at it but it wasn't like the initial thought was
everybody was drinking too much and you know and i'm like no that's not what happened it was people
that had things going on outside of it and they ran into each other or whatever the case was
whatever i don't it wasn't a random act that's what i that's from what i understand and then i
just said okay well nobody was hurt thank god uh badly at least that bystanders and stuff you know
so it was just but yeah we talked about the prayer and the thing is i'll go i haven't gone through
all the footage but i will get you your part with um talking about the the uh fundraiser that we're
going to get into so that we can use that for promotion. But just from when I went looking for
at that exact moment, everything failed. And the one of them, you can hear her praying and you can
hear people yelling and the mics there. The only camera that didn't go was the one facing away that
was faced on us. So you can see our reaction. You can see Eric get up. You can see me get up
and console his daughter. It's all there, but you, all this stuff doesn't fail at once. Like
Like I could see if one thing, you know, I could see if one thing.
Yeah.
So that was a story.
We were just sitting in here, me and Eric, and we're talking about how surreal it was.
I'd shout out to Drew Breezy from, uh, you know, Drew from SoundOff Entertainment.
I could have sworn you guys, I'll have to introduce you right now.
He was on 69 News performing the song they were going to do for Reggae Fest in promotion
for Reggae Fest the Friday before it, but, um, he was going to come on the show.
They didn't get a chance.
He texts me.
they were, it was just a crazy day and we're following up afterwards. And he's like, I don't
remember it. I was there from 8 AM until 10 30, 11 PM in the sun, the whole day between breakup,
potting and break. Now we were talking for 10 plus hours. And I don't remember, like it was,
it was all a flash that it wasn't like I was sitting there like, Oh, what time is it? I don't,
I think I checked the time at all throughout the whole day. So it was just, um, it was a
experience. I met a bunch of people. I followed up with them as well, too. There was business
cards left at my mic. So even when I was walking away, I don't know if people were shy when we
were talking, but people were leaving. Uh, do you remember when I showed you that, uh, it said the
fear is real? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what is this? I Googled it and it was an artist's Instagram.
She's like a painter.
Oh, neat.
I would shout her out if I had the thing.
So I just, I DM'd her.
I said, hey, sorry, I didn't get a chance to meet you.
But, you know, the point of, at least for me, it was networking as well as promoting the piece, promoting the love.
And it wouldn't have been on brand to go viral for something so negative.
Yeah, I agree.
Especially when you don't know how it's going to go.
imagine let's just hypothetically say a gun did come out at an event and now you have a shooting
or essentially a mass shooting and that's streamed there's a reason why we don't see the footage come
out from we know what happens but nah man my like heart's beating i'm just so glad that it didn't go
that way but yeah i mean i was i was really concerned there for a minute when i was like
watching him and just keeping my eye on that hand to see what was going on yeah i missed that so
you were good there i kept uh i was focused on the kid uh for one part and where my son was
and just scanning the guys because i didn't know if that was my son or what but he uh back to
before we got sidetracked with that i was gonna ask if you met my son he was on the podcast he's
about 14 years old he sang in radio city music hall with the school choir he's uh opened up for
the Rockettes. So he's really into singing. He's going to be going to school for that over at
Charter Arts School in Bethlehem. And he was on the podcast singing and my co-host sings. So he
said, you got to be able to sing on the spot. So he sings, we had the speakers going, there's people
walking by and Jaden was like, okay, on the spot, he's going to go. And he sang. He was also with
me when shout out to rondo a gentleman came up and he's potting with us and when he found out
jayden was my son he said oh you're like bron and uh bronnie he said you're like lebron and bronnie
so my son's like you got to get that clip that was so cool dad like he's he hasn't um got into
really like he recorded his first song but he's been watching me do it for years in his whole
life and I'm like you know I can teach you this stuff like you can learn what these buttons do
he's like no no I know what they I know I know I see it on TikTok I'm like all right all right
that's funny I did meet him at the end when we were cleaning up before I
scooted out I do remember meeting him oh super cool so you have a lot going on it's a good year
you're on an up year you have a event that you've been planning let's go into what I'll let you talk
about the event but why are you doing this in addition to having all the commercial deals that
you have going on and as busy as that keeps you and all the networking that you have to do with
that why take on this endeavor so i'll go way back to when i was in college my brothers and
my best friend had a spinal stroke i became a quadriplegic he was 21 years old when it happened
i was 19 and we my mom just kind of ran with fundraising for him none of us have ever done
it before but we just picked up because we had to he needed you know they needed an addition on
their house they needed a special van they needed special wheelchair yeah insurance doesn't cover
all of it so we just started fundraising and um like literally hosted a concert at our high school
we brought some musicians up from Philadelphia. One of my friends, one of my best friends from
high school was, was part of that gang is a musician. And so he brought up some guys from
Philly and we had a big concert and we did a few other things. And so that was kind of like my
first taste of helping, volunteering, doing something good. Then, uh, gosh, my kids were
four i believe when their uncle had gotten sick with cancer and literally is like that he called
me and the very next day i opened up a non-profit and started fundraising because i didn't know what
to do with that like that's how i was dealing with it all you know it was terminal he was not
going to make it through and i i just i knew they were going to need help so i did a pancake
breakfast at applebee's and we raised like 2500 in two hours you know and all the kids the kids
were little so they were going around selling raffle tickets um you know with their sad little
eyes please help my uncle it was i mean they just it was to watch these kids there were probably
out of all of our kids there was like 10 of them or something like that like going around you know
getting people to pay them um we made decent money in that morning and then i i ran a large
event for him down at the america on wheels museum i brought in an executive chef uh i had
like i had weyerbacher and coca-cola donate drinks i had a huge i had like four tables of
southern auction items from anything from like famous artists to like i went to all the local
sports teams they sent me autographed stuff i don't remember what all i had there and i honestly
at that point in time i didn't know anybody in the valley i hardly knew anybody because i was
a stay-at-home mom i never i hadn't worked really done a lot of work here yet i did some work prior
to getting pregnant i worked for the hawk radio station um and i did some sales prior to that but
i wasn't who i am now i didn't really have the network i have now uh that was a pretty big event
i had a band come up from philly everything was donated i had zero overhead every penny that came
in that door, went straight to my friends. I forget, I think I made like $8,500 that night,
which this is back in, you know, gosh, we're talking 15 years ago. It helped a lot. You know,
it helped them with their mortgage. It helped with, um, there was these special supplements
that he was buying that was helping him through his chemo, keeping them healthy. And they were
very expensive. So it's just kind of how I started a role when something bad happened.
cause I didn't know what else to do. So that's a beautiful way to pour your energy into
creating something. Cause not only do you create the awareness, you know, you create,
um, you create awareness for the cause you create energy, like a lot of positivity,
even those kids seeing that, like, sure. They were putting on their sad face for their uncle,
you know, that's super cute, but they were also seeing like people really can come together.
if you if all you see is people fighting if all you see is negativity people screwing each other
over you think that that's the entire world you know it's great to be able to see the you know
that that's great well and something good came out of it he was well enough to attend it was hard for
him i don't think he was there the whole night but he was able to come with his family you know
they came in from New York and they were,
they were down from Stroudsburg and they came down and they were able to
enjoy it.
They were able to enjoy the band.
He got to thank everybody in person.
It,
it was just,
it was so important for him and it was such a wonderful thing for him.
And that over anything else was great.
We had a great night out.
It was a party.
We had a band.
It was great.
Um,
so outdoors.
No,
it was inside the museum that we had access to the whole museum.
Oh,
wow.
It was very cool.
That's very cool. So fast forward. I met Kate.
We were trying to think of this the other day when she interviewed me about 12, 15 years ago.
And she just started asking me questions. We're out drinking martinis at an event and she's asking me, do you sing? You look like you sing.
So I met her through her best friend. She was with her best friend and I know her best friend for a long, long time.
so i said i mean i do i used to sing with the baltimore symphony chorus back in the 90s when
i lived down there she's like cool i need you to sing i'm doing this production i really need some
music can you do that for me i said sure um she's like okay cool okay cool we'll talk about that
and then a few minutes later she goes do you act you look like you act you look like you act i'm
like i've been on stage i've been known to um not thinking like my form of acting was always in
school in musicals so i'm singing i'm comfortable singing theater yeah uh-huh so she said great
because i need somebody else to act so this production it's the vagina monologues i said
oh my god awesome that's one of my favorite plays i saw it on broadway would love to great it's in
two weeks i went okay so the next morning when i woke up and i was completely sober
what did I just say? I'm cool with the music. The monologue's not so much that is not in my
comfort zone whatsoever. Like so far outside my comfort zone. And I almost called her and said,
look, I'll do the music. I'm not doing a monologue, but my friends and my family were,
they were pushing me. They're like, just do it. This will be really good for you. Get out there,
have fun, push yourself. I begrudgingly did a monologue. I'm terrified, but I was terrified
and um i loved it the next year i think i did two monologues i opened it i closed it with music and
i did two monologues you told me about one of them i remember you promoting that you were going to do
it so that would have been 12 gosh time she's a long time ago is this is this what happens time
just crunches on top of itself yeah wow so she was doing those to raise money for turning point
oh okay i never heard of turning point i said what is this and she told me and i said wow i
this is great i didn't know this existed and my kids and i were going through a rough time at the
moment and um i'm like this is such a great thing so i was really i stuck with it you know i was
with her for a few years then uh my friend who was playing guitar for me during the shows said
to me one day he goes why don't we do our own event we can just have a happy hour i'll bring
the band in you can sing with the band and we'll just raise money that way so my best friend owned
a restaurant on the south side so called him i said i'm using your restaurant this is what i'm
going to do i'm doing a happy hour um we'll have we're going to have a small silent auction bringing
the band in i'll get 10 of everything you make and that's how i made my i don't we didn't charge
for people to come in i just took 10 of everything the restaurant made and then a very small silent
auction we didn't have many items at all and in two hours i raised over two thousand dollars
i had no clue what i was doing it just we had so many people there i don't even know people
could hear the music we were pushing people like people coming in the front door we're going okay
so there's a patio out back because we're way over a limit with people you know i think we
had 200 people come through it was only supposed to hold like 90 so we were literally they were
in one door and out the next because we couldn't fit everybody in the building and we just and at
this point i knew people so everybody was coming and then the word got out and i was
meeting people that I didn't know before. I had people reaching out to me, asking me about
turning point and, uh, you know, telling me about their relationships and things that have gone
wrong. And it was really eyeopening for me. So I had a ball with that and I was always constantly
thinking, what, what's the next thing? What can I do next? Right. And I always had a dream to do
a big event. So I had a dream to do a celebrity golf tournament. So I did that in August. Um,
I had some friends, you know, I had a friend come in and say that he would help me with that. I'm
like that's great and we had a really great event it was very successful and uh this year i just
decided i'm like you know it was a lot of work it's two days it's a two-day event it's a lot of
wow yeah there's the gala the first night with the auctions and everything and entertainment
and then the golf the next day and it's just it's exhausting and you know i've got a full-time job
too so thankfully things are usually slow in the summer so i had a friend sit with me we're just
talking about it at the bar one night and he said, um, I just don't know if I have the energy to do
that this year. He said, hear me out. What about a casino night? And I said, you know, I actually
attended one of those years ago. There's so much fun. So I said, tell me more. And they do them
for, uh, they used to do them years ago for, for their company. So I started doing some research
and shot the idea out to my team i said hey guys i think i want to do this one night there's very
little overhead the golf there's a lot of overhead you're bringing a lot of money you're donating
back about a third but this is going to like be opposite you know there's very little overhead and
the majority of the money that comes in is going straight to turning point which is really nice
and uh that's what we're running with the the company that i the very first company when i
just googled looking for one just to send it to my team go this is what i'm talking about i called
some other companies and then i circled back to that company and interestingly enough for people
that don't know turning point is our local center for domestic abuse um they provide a bunch of
services and we can get into that a little bit later so when i called this woman who manages
this company and started telling her what i do she got all excited she was in a car driving with
three of our girls going out to an event she said oh my god this is great i love this i'm a domestic
abuse survivor because as a matter of fact i think everybody my car is so all the ladies are
and i started she's like where'd you come up with the name strength and love i said well it's
tattooed on my arm i earned that and i said you know my friend bought me strength one year then
a year later he bought me love and it's you know attached so she goes wait did you just say you
have strength and love tattooed on your body i said yeah she said we all have strength and love
tattooed on our bodies like in their own depiction and so they're all we're all taking pictures and
we're texting each other now that mind you this is the first time on the phone with her just met
so we're like wow that's crazy and then as we were talking a little more she says hey you know
like we're in long island i have to i have to charge you a little bit more because of the travel
um you know we're gonna need a hotel room so i get if you find a company that's closer
and you and you use them but i still want to help you like call me i can still help you through
things we can talk and um she says one thing you want to keep in mind that if you have a specific
color scheme that you use for like whatever you do all these companies have their own color schemes
too and they probably won't change that some are blue some are green i said nope that's that's a
hard line in the sand for me i said mine's black and red and then like either silver white whatever
that derivative is and she says okay you gotta stop i said what she said well that's our colors
i'm like sold like how could i not like that was divine intervention yeah they had to be the people
that come out so pretty sure what we were kind of tossing around the idea and she's she's pretty
sold on the idea it was her idea to come up with she said i all eight people that are coming out
with her they're all domestic abuse survivors and she said her whole team just loves this whole
thing so much she said everybody wants to come and i cannot bring everybody there's like 20 people
she said i can really only bring eight i still bring them they can pay you know they can grab
a ticket they can come in and still enjoy the event so she actually asked if she could how
she could help more so she actually joined my team she's one of my volunteers she's bringing
prizes to the table she's bringing auction pieces to the tables you know there's a couple celebrities
she's trying to get to come she just jumped in completely and i think i haven't met her in
person yet but we're on the every time i call her on the phone for two hours you know so we're
definitely going to be good friends and it's going to be a long relationship we want to continue this
through and just create this team that we just make it bigger and it's very exciting i'm super
excited this year all my celebrities like every single last one of them is volunteering their time
um they're very excited uh i have an auction i have a guy coming in to do a silent auction
who will be bringing sports memorabilia and some movie memorabilia where i will go out to anybody
that's attending like say so you come i'll be like hey tony who's your who's your favorite
athlete you know do you have a team you have a movie that you just like watch 25 000 times
who are your favorite people and i will most likely be able to get something there at the
event that you can bid on. You don't necessarily have to buy it, but you can bid on it. It'll be
there. You know, you might have a friend or, you know, somebody might have a son or a daughter or
a husband that, you know, it's their favorite thing for Christmas. It's this event's the end
of September. So Christmas will be coming up. People could ask me to bring things that they
can bid on for Christmas. So that's, that's super cool. I'm really excited about that.
Is that, uh, is that what you're most excited about? I know there's levels to this.
We also have like, we have two musical groups coming in and I'm super excited about that.
Uh, I had gone to the Aardvark's reunion concert.
Okay.
When the heck was that?
Was that like October or something?
October?
Last year?
Yeah.
Okay.
So we had, wasn't it, maybe it was this year.
I don't know.
Time.
Whenever it was, it was over the winter sometime.
And when my friends and I first walked into Steel Stacks, you know, they have a music,
they usually have music playing down there with the bars and stuff.
so I heard this amazing voice it's around the people and my friends are trying to get drinks
and are trying to talk to me I'm like no no don't bother me I'm like I'm listening I need her she
has to be at my event that's exactly what I'm looking for went up grabbed a card emailed her
told her what I do immediately she was emailing back like a day or two later she said I'm in
she thought i'm i'm in so that was exciting very exciting for me and she helped me find uh the band
that will be coming in as well uh i actually almost had the philadelphia funk authority
unfortunately they had a gig that night but they wanted to come so i'll see what next year looks
like and the artworks wanted to play but one of their i think it was their drummer that wasn't
available on that date um so i have like people that are just jumping in and saying we really
want to be part of this it's such a great cause we're very excited and we really want to be there
for you so that part's exciting for me i don't have to go out and like beg people to come in
i don't have to pay people to come i don't touch any of the money i am not a foundation nor do i
want to be everything goes through turning point so you go to my web page and when you click on
contribute now it gets populated over to their website and they have a q give website up that
takes the money and everything goes through them i don't touch a penny never touches you i want
nothing to do with it that's always i think that's the way to go i mean it's it's not that
there are plenty of organizations that do well and they have their finances set up and that works
well for them with accounting and putting everything together but it's more like let's
just donate the money straight to them you know rather than build this whole thing and put it
together. Plus it helps with the, like, especially my listeners or people watching in, whether they're
local or not, they'll be able to go to the website and check it out. And if they go to the website
and they see, and it's just like, okay, enter your credit card information. It's like, wait,
well, I don't know where this is going. You know, it just dilutes the whole thing.
So I think that's, uh, that's definitely important. That's awesome that you're set up that way.
yeah i much prefer it yeah i'm with that so put together this event you have a history of
philanthropy fundraising and it just makes you you mentioned that's when you first got a taste of it
so go on that for a little bit like the feeling that you get is that part of what continues to
propel you to raise money to put all the effort into the events i mean you anybody listening is
going to see how well networked you are just by listening to how many times you fell back on your
network to get something done or move it forward and people definitely want to be a part of that
they're like you're going to put in the energy the strength to do it with or without them so
why wouldn't eight people help and why wouldn't 20 people over here come and put the put things
together on this. And then the more of that attraction you have, the easier it is to get the
higher level, higher level influencers involved on stuff like that, because now this thing is
just massive, you know? Well, that's what I'm hoping. Yeah. Um, of course there's a feel good
thing behind it for me. The money's great. And I just love, look, one of my events that I did,
the one that I did at my friend's restaurant, I didn't even tell turning point I was doing it.
I don't think, I don't remember. I just, it's nice to just go down and hand them a check.
Here's two grand. They're like, where'd that come from? Oh, I did a thing. The money's great. I
would love, I have visions of handing them like a 50, a $50,000 check or a hundred thousand dollar
check one day. Like that could do so many things for them. That'd be great. For me, the biggest
part of this is awareness no not for several things one a lot of people don't know turning
point exists a lot of people need them so you know people women men children this isn't just
about women and children it's about anybody that's in an abusive relationship or an abusive situation
you know they don't know how to get out they don't know what to do they don't have the monies to do
so they don't have the wherewithal they don't have the counseling whatever it is they need
shelter you know whatever it is that they need they need to know everybody needs to know this
organization exists it's very important so the awareness is huge i also with this event i wanted
to get more people involved this is the reasons i decided to do the casino night not just because
it's easier and it takes a lot off my back it's not as stressful so i will be able to enjoy it
more however i wanted to get more women involved golf is very male driven and this is a sensitive
subject and it's interesting because i actually had some comments about i was a man hater because
i'm raising funds for a turning point i'm like no i'm kind of an abuser hater um and i i have
friends and family male that have been abused i've never said it's only women and children ever
um so it's anybody it can happen to anybody i want to get more women and young adults involved
So I'm doing this 18 and older.
And that's my hope that I just get more people involved that will come and spread the word.
That's how it should be for this type of event.
You can't worry about the people that old.
And they say like, if you, especially when you put something out there, when it's out
to a bunch of eyes, you can only like, you're lucky if you get half, there's going to be
some people that just don't care at all, but there's going to be some people that it has
to irk them.
You know what I mean?
it's something bothers them about it they have to there's probably a reason they're saying that
right so you got to really take a look at who that person is and what they're doing with their
life you can't you got too much energy over here with the people that are like wow this is something
that i can listen to something that i can do when we had um heidi on the people reached out to me
and just said you know that was amazing that was something that we had no how can i connect with
this. That's what I love about doing the podcast. There's been multiple people. I get texts after
the fact, it may be a few weeks, it may be a month or two, but somebody will say, Hey, we're
working on putting together a curriculum for a school based on the connection, because I saw them
on your podcast. And I asked you to reach out to them once we were finally able to connect. Now
this is happening. And so it's like, uh, you just do, I mean, whether or not people are spiritual,
there's no doubt that putting good energy is contagious. You create a wave of creating
something positive and people want to attach onto that because there's just, it's way too easy to
get the negative stuff. It's so easy. In fact, if you want to go viral, you're better off being
negative than trying to do a podcast about success and, oh, it's, it's just the, the facts, you know,
but and you know i'm not we could post all kinds of weird things around the event about abuse
i don't do that i don't want to bring people down i don't want them to be standing around
crying reading things i'm celebrating you know beauty and strength and love i'm not i'm not
belittling anybody i just i it's a celebration of of getting people out of unhealthy relationships
and and getting them back out into society and in a healthy manner so they can like strive and do
what they're supposed to be doing with life and not be in that negative space so this isn't gonna
be a big party you know we're we're gonna have a lot of fun at this event great food woodstone's
amazing anybody that came last year all they were all they talked about was the food and their
service they're just wonderful to work with absolutely wonderful did you yeah beautiful
venue it did yep yep 2016 yep they are they are amazing that with the two event the two-day event
i was asking tony if they were all vampires because i every time look we are up until like
3 30 in the morning sunday night we're back up at eight o'clock in the morning dragging our feet
and i don't know when they sleep i'm sure they're taking shifts and they're sleeping
somewhere but everybody was on point all the time always there there's always somebody they
look all chipper and new and just fresh and just come out of the shower and i'm like what is going
on here it's crazy to me they're they're i don't think i would ever take it anywhere else they've
been wonderful to work with that's amazing to hear so tell tell us exactly about this event
it's happening at woodstone let's get some dates i'd love to hear about it it's at woodstone country
club which is in danielsville for those of you who don't know where that is it's beautiful beautiful
country club uh it's on september 26th it starts at five o'clock uh from five to six is our
registration our meet and greet with our celebrities we have music playing it's cocktail hour just time
to chill and network whatever it is that you want to do there uh then just prior to six o'clock we
will make some announcements then we'll sing the anthem and the games will start and then that's
when you go off to your tables and start gambling for prizes you don't gamble for money that would
be illegal you don't have a we don't have a license but there's great prizes coming in that
people will be gambling for and um so your admission ticket you get depending on how you
come there's different ways to get admission you'll get a certain amount of chips to start
with and then you can when you're on the floor you can buy more chips if you want to keep gambling
if you really want to have that 65 inch flat screen tv that i got yeah you might want to
gamble a little more see so you can win that so what you do is at the end of the time whenever
you're finished gambling you cash in your chips for tickets and there'll be a bag in front of
each prize so you drop however many tickets you want in the bag that you want to that you want to
win um that's super cool then there'll be the silent auctions there's always going to be
something to do the celebrities will be out on the floors playing with people taking selfies
doing autographs and we provide a booklet with all of our sponsors in it and all of the
celebrities headshots and bios which is where you can you know bring a sharpie with you because
you're going to want a Sharpie so that you can have your autographs in there. And then at 10
o'clock when it ends and we'll have a couple of live auctions as well. I actually have a autograph
Taylor Swift guitar coming for a live auction with a letter of authenticity. No way. Yeah.
That's wild. Yeah. I tried to get her to come present it, but I was told no.
Let's see if she just shows up. Sometimes you got to take what you can get.
yeah we'll see if she shows up right maybe next year um but super cool that i have that you know
for people to bid on um so near the end of the night probably i you know really no don't know
the exact timeline but like throughout the night i think i'm gonna have two or three live auctions
and then around like 9 9 30 we'll start slowing down have people cashing in their stuff to start
bidding on their prizes get the silent auction prizes out to everybody and then once everything's
done at 10 o'clock there's a celebrity hospitality suite which is you have to pay to get into that
so that's where all the celebrities go downstairs to the golf simulation room and we just chill with
complimentary drinks you can pay a hundred dollars to come hang out there last year like i said last
year it started around 10 10 30 we were there till 3 30 in the morning you know we can stay till 5 in
the morning if we want you know people you know don't want to sleep um but it's a lot of fun i'm
going to have famous cigars there too uh they're going to be selling cigars so if it's nice that
you know we have the the deck outside you can go outside and then a lot of them a lot of people
that are coming to the hospitality suite will want cigars to come down and chill yeah there's
a patio right outside there that we sit out on so yeah i mean it's just gonna be really it's
gonna be a really fun event i'm super excited my celebrities are excited there's a i have like
nine or ten right now then there's a few that we're waiting on because it's still
it's too far away right now right i have a couple actors that want to come they just have to make
sure they're not filming they don't know exactly where they'll be yeah obviously if they have
something going on they have to do it wouldn't that be wouldn't that be amazing though if somebody
turned down a check to come and be at your event we don't want a little knock on wood yeah i'm just
saying, um, that's understandable with anything, but nine celebrities confirmed that are coming
with a event that laid out. Well, I mean, at the time of recording, that's what, two months from
now. So it's not terrible, but I could just feel all your hard work. You know, I can't wait to see
the event and see how everything goes together because anybody wanting to be involved with it
just has to have a good heart you know what i mean like you know that's what i want yeah i don't want
anybody in there that doesn't it's got to be a feel-good thing everybody's got to be on board
you have to be there for the right reasons and then is anybody from turning point there or is
this another you just go down and hand them a check no they'll be there they they'll be present
when we that they'll make one of their announcements they'll you know give their
spiel who they are what they do how to contact them all that stuff um yeah i always ask for
them to come because i want somebody to speak and they should be present they're getting a check
you know they have to be there be present be on board um you know we're using their square to
take all the payments because again even there even that night i'm not taking i want nothing
to do with it okay i just i was asking because i wasn't sure if it was like hey you know i saw
this podcast out when i lose and we hear you're doing a charity event for us turning point
they're on board that's excellent well you can give their uh their website your website where
people can buy tickets you know um and then i'll probably plan on having this out in about a week
or two maybe less okay so where can people get tickets for the event yep so my website is
strengthandlove.org so it's strength the letter n the word love.org when you go there um click
on sponsorships there's a it's a big web page it has stuff from last year's event you can look
through the gallery and kind of see what we did last year and then there's some information on
this year's event as well and then you go to sponsorships it lists all the sponsorships i'm
still looking for sponsors so companies yeah if somebody wants to sponsor and they get their like
they get an ad in our booklet they get depending on the level of the sponsorships some of them
will be we're getting um ten thousand dollars worth of cumulus radio ads the month leading up
so if i have a specific sponsor come in before that they'll be mentioned on the radio excellent
yeah we have we already have our sponsor for billboard so we're going to have a billboard
billboards all over the valley leading up to the event we have a tv commercial we're at lehigh
valley international airport on their big screen uh at the luggage area there you go yeah i'm all
over the place um so when you can be a sponsor we're still we'll take sponsorships probably up
until about three or four months three or four weeks before the event we can probably take
sponsors we just have to make sure that we have enough time to get you in the booklet and then
um what about just dry like dry donations could they you can't it doesn't really make sense
point.com no no no everything goes through my site okay so if you don't want to sponsor you
just want to throw money at it on that same page when you click on the contribute now and you go
to their q give site and then it says buy tickets that's just how it's set up to click on buy
tickets you'll see all the sponsorships at the very bottom you can just add in a number if you
want to so i have had people do that because we had some different like for the tv commercial it
wasn't a sponsorship that i had out there we went to someone specifically and said do you want to do
this so that's where you that's where you give that money you can just put in whatever dollar
amount you want and at the bottom of the sponsorship page there's a block that shows the three different
ways you can come as an attendee so you can come for 150 300 or 500 you get different amounts
different amounts of chips and two of them come with vip entrance the vip is a section of the
room that will be roped off there'll be two tables in there where the bids will be higher
um it's just a different feel yeah yeah i'm at it that's beautiful i can't wait it's gonna be fun
you gotta come what is the date again september 26 september 26 then doors open at 5 p.m and
cocktails at six well no five to six is your cocktail hour got it there's cocktails all night
bro yeah but you'll you'll get a couple um you get some drink tickets that you can use like
whenever but that first hour is really just to get in there get registered get everything situated
start meeting you know we'll bring the celebrities in and for you to meet them and you can have
drinks with them this is going to be a wild night yeah excellent you want to take a look in your
notes see if there's anything you wanted to drop real quick and then we'll start to land the plane
we've been going about an hour yeah so i'll drop a few names if that's okay that i'm gonna have
there my top celebrity at this point in time is victor caliccio he's an actor uh best known for
his role on goodfellas he was also in the sopranos which is one of my favorite all-time shows uh he's
talking to a couple of his best friends who are also actors and we're hoping that they are not
filming and that they will be showing up yeah one of my best friends eric murdoch he's former nba
he'll be there andre williams he's became a good friend of mine he is also um he's former nfl
doug clemens he's former phillies al cole is a former heavyweight and uh cruiserweight boxing
champ ton of athletes wow yeah wayne johnson he's a movie producer tv and movie producer
chris fried is uh he's a local celebrity he's a comedian he's been seen on saturday night live
and conan o'brien along with a few other shows uh my first friend in the whole world my friend
brian balfazar he's a tv personality he's a host and executive producer when he's been in front of
the camera many times on uh different shows like he's been on the today show msnbc nbc um nbc daily
news uh he's been on the wendy williams show a million and a half times i i like would turn on
the tv randomly and i'm like that sounds like brian uh and then ian and i'm probably gonna say
his last name wrong i'd hate to even say it rickaboney it's r-i-c-c-a-b-o-n-i i feel bad
i don't know how to say his name he's a friend of um chris's and uh he's going to be coming he's a
long-standing host of ring of honor wrestling he appears for aew on tnt and tbs and he's an
english voice for new japan pro wrestling on axs tv so international those are my celebrities
at this moment in time and a few that i'm waiting on you know to see if i there's a few household
names that i'm hoping they'll be able to come in again if they're not filming they'll be there
that's excellent that's excellent wow crazy networking awesome gifts i autographed taylor
Swift guitar, a guitar autographed by Taylor Swift. So that's going to make someone extremely
happy. Yeah. Oh man, this is going to be good. Very cool. Anything else you want to say?
No, I think that's good. All right. Thanks for tuning into another episode of I Will Not Lose.
We had Lisa Miesler on, philanthropist and commercial realtor. Thanks, Tony.
You're welcome. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to another episode of I Will Not Lose
Podcast. To support the show, visit IWillNotLosePodcast.com. You can subscribe to your
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