Transcript
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The future is to expand upon our existing reach, provide more value for job, economic job creation within all the trades as well as public sector organizations, really create more of an educational platform to support and inspire others and really work within some of the organizations, like the school districts, to be able to inspire some of the children or next generation of tradespeople to these career paths and from friends in the Department of Education.
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It's really just aligning with the right people and putting us on that conveyor belt of like you should be talking here.
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Here are the connections that we have.
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This is how we can make a difference and if you just talk to this person here, he can tap you in and then feeding out that information in a much broader format and in today's world you could filter a lot of different things.
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It's just trying to filter it with inspirational stories, information and connections that could drive employment opportunities.
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What is going on.
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L&m family Welcome back.
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And if you're new here, please stay because I'm going to be speaking to two-time guest Mr Michael Fina from broogie down Brooklyn.
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Did I get it right this time?
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That's right, we are in Brooklyn From New York City.
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We got to have a conversation a little bit.
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It's been over a year.
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You were cooking up the ULA network and it continues to cook and grow and expand.
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He's doing amazing things, y'all, and you're going to get to learn more about it.
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But before you get to learn more about Mr Mike, I want to give a shout out to the L&M family member who left this review on the Amazon.
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They said story number four teared me up to continue moving forward, even with the negative self-perspective and embarrassment, the reality of remaining courageously vulnerable.
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With values of determination they get noticed and become infused as confidence in others, even if not realized immediately.
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This book is truly a gift to us all for a friend, loved ones and those you strive to support.
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I don't know who left that because they didn't leave their name, but whoever you are, thank you for leaving that.
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And, folks, if you don't know which book they're referring to, it is Becoming the Promise You're Intended to Be Check it out.
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And now let's hear how my buddy, mr Michael Fina, is doing.
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How are you doing, sir?
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I'm doing great, jesse, thanks for having me on again, and just great to stay connected with you and see your success as well.
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Thank you, man.
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So if I go back to when you and I first talked, obviously we have a connection in that we have a passion for the trades serving the industry, a focus on labor and the people out there that are building the things and maintaining the things that we often take for granted.
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You were working on ULA Network, you had a full-time job and now it sounds like you have three full-time jobs, but it's all ULA Network now.
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Can you catch us all up?
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Yes, yes.
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So the ULA Network's vision and mission is to support, educate and promote union labor in our communities, aggregate content across the world, across the country, really, for inspiring stories, opportunities within these construction trades, these skilled trades, and for 20 years my background has been in banking and finance, so I've moved a lot of employer contributions working with these organizations, had 65 different labor clients from building trades to public sector and it's really been my family.
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I really love working within these organizations and in today's world where these vocational jobs are really becoming in vogue and people are seeing what these careers can really look like, making really good money and it spans the gamut from the women in the trades or just all these different groups, veteran opportunities it just gets me so inspired because these are the next generation of career opportunities and I just want to share them with the world really and the platforms allowed me to do that Meet some really incredible people like yourself and other organizations across the country and, as we aggregate this, promote this and educate the market.
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This is what we've been able to accomplish.
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September, I left the bank.
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I've worked for almost 18 plus years to pursue this career, working with my wife and a production crew and a lot of associates and supporters, because without the supporters I would not even be financially able to do this, and it's been just so blessed and thankful to be able to do it as I do today and work with people like yourselves to really promote it and find ways to do things bigger, better and faster for our space.
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Yeah, so you mentioned your wife, ms Stephanie, who I got to meet, who is amazing, and I know she's there cheering you on always.
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But I just want to make sure people don't miss that that she has been a huge, huge supporter not just supporter, but huge contributor to keeping the things going, because I know out there you're moving and shaking and she's keeping things manageable and in line.
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Am I off target on that?
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Oh, you're 100%.
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You're like your pinpoint.
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You hit it right on the head right there.
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It's like without my wife, and I have her listed as the director of operations.
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She's helping to run and keep everything in line and as things grow, we're just looking to bring on some additional support to really again make sure that we're delivering the value.
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We try to produce that message and meet really great people like yourself to share those inspiring stories and educate the market on these career opportunities.
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Yeah, love it.
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Shout out to Stephanie.
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No-transcript.
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I would not be here today with you right now.
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There's no way, with the workload and support of my wife and helping to build out this platform, as well as so many other supporters labor directly, to be honest, because I am really just a distributor of labor-related content and the message of all of labor and these careers.
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Earlier this year I was very fortunate to be able to present at the New York City Building and Construction Trades Winter Conference in Florida and talked about this particular platform and how we're aggregating and working with a lot of different organizations to promote their agenda and these particular opportunities, because labor is in our communities.
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They're doing some phenomenal things and you want to make sure people have these fair wages and these opportunities.
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And I know I mentioned on previous calls and charitable organizations, every union organization set up as a nonprofit essentially my Rotary Club.
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Their mission and vision is service above self and I know we mentioned this before, but labor executives and these officials are working for the better benefit of these membership organizations and I've been very fortunate and blessed to see that over the past 20 years of my career and just understanding what these opportunities are.
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And I know we mentioned this before, jesse, and I'm flapping away because I get all excited.
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But this year as well, I had the great fortune of presenting some high school students with their certificate of achievements Great high school Shout out to Jim Foster for allowing me or asking me, and the whole school and faculty.
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But that was all connected through the New York City District Council of Carpenters.
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But that was all connected through the New York City District Council of Carpenters.
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You know these building trades and these open houses that are celebrating these careers through open houses within the high schools.
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To say this is what a job could look like if college is not for you.
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You just see people's eyes and just know the skill set of some of these high school students.
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They could build houses, they could do stuff that I could not even imagine and to see that it's just really awesome and refreshing for me and I just want to be able to promote that the best way I can.
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Yeah, and that's, I guess, the key, or maybe the root of which helps me stay connected to you and get excited, because you know, every time you and I talk it's like nuclear explosion energy and ideas.
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But you do 100% value and see inspiration.
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I'll say more than just see.
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You see it and spread the inspiration about the opportunities in the trade supporting your local labor force, the local labor enterprises and groups there.
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Now I want to make sure that the folks that are listening give them a little bit of reality, in that it's not like you just decided to do this and it just all happened.
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I mean, you've got a bunch of exciting things that are happening now, but can you give us a little dose of reality in terms of what you felt like and what y'all, you and Stephanie as a family unit, were going through when you decided to do it 100%, full time?
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What was that like?
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Was it easy?
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No, it's very scary, but you know, my labor family really surrounded me with so much support.
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This platform was built out during COVID.
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I mean, stuck at home not knowing what to do, You're watching labor work within the toughest of times your municipalities, school, all these organizations rethinking how things are done and I just wanted help.
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And how do you help?
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It's like either I couldn't go out, so when Hurricane, sandy and things like that, it lends you time, you roll up your sleeves, but in this particular case, I'm stuck at home and just saying, just want to celebrate everybody that's working and trying to get through the worst of times.
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During COVID and I started liking things online but then started to aggregate that message and then created a platform to be able to celebrate that message.
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And that's where we started to really organize my friends in labor to really create something that I believe is special, and it means the world to me to be able to celebrate these particular jobs, like I mentioned, and 20 years working with 65 different organizations in the public sector too, from transit workers to court officers and firemen, seeing these opportunities.
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It's really trying to connect the dots and share my experience as well as the connections that I have to try to create career opportunities for others within our community.
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Yeah, so you say aggregate, but what I get to see like on the ULA network, the Instagram page and so forth on the socials, is you're promoting the content of your clients and supporters and sponsors, etc.
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Did I get that right?
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Absolutely yeah.
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So I like to say I'm an aggregator and amplifier of labor related content, so we want to amplify that message out and just collaborate with like-minded individuals like yourself.
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There's so many different people that we're seeing on the socials that are doing such phenomenal work.
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I'm just trying to figure out how do you connect and then grow a business and doing that as well, because we got the vlogs, the podcast, all the different socials to really push out this particular message.
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So we just want to run along those particular lines and do it bigger, better, faster and connect that message with the world.
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So yeah, yeah, and so I'm assuming that reposting, maybe even producing content for labor, they're finding that to be extremely helpful?
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Yes, You're watching labor communicate in different ways, through applications, social media, different venues, as opposed to just print and events.
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Now we have these virtual events, educational seminars and webinars that are very informative to labor members Because, if you think about it, if you have an organization of 10,000 members, you're not going to meet everybody at a membership meeting on a monthly basis.
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So how do?
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you disseminate a lot of that information, the value and benefits that are out there as well, and I just see that there's ways to do things through our hybrid world of being connected face-to-face and that's I love being at events and meeting people, that's how work gets done but also being able to utilize social media to broaden that particular reach and serve the masses, really to educate them about what's going on and, if they want to be involved, how they could support and be connected.
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Yeah, so I've been able to see several different clips and interviews.
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The production value is high, high, high level.
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I'm way down bottom of the barrel.
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You're doing phenomenal work.
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We're learning as we go, yeah.
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So some of them, the ones that stand out to me, because they stand out from all the rest of the content that comes through the feed, right Is it looks like I guess this is kind of a question it looks like you're at an event or some venue because people are suited up, they got ties looking ultra dignified, the background's beautiful.
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So I guess part of my question is when you go to these events, are you going with the purpose and intent to sit down with people to record them and celebrate them, or is it something that they request and you make that happen?
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What does that look like If somebody were to want to say, hey, Mike, help me out?
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It's a little bit of both.
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My job is to be entrenched in what labor is all about and what their mission is, and a lot of the things that are happening within the North American building construction trades the Apprentice Readiness Collective, all these particular opportunities from women in the building trades to helmets to hard hats, these veteran career opportunities, the high school consultant for workers, education and pathways to apprenticeship these are all initiatives that I see create opportunities for me to help promote, get involved the best way I can and celebrate these careers and kind of work along lines of that message and mission, because that rising tide raises all ships and I feel like there's a lot of opportunity for all of us to celebrate these opportunities and promote them in the best possible way.
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Yeah, yeah, and you also in prep you were telling me y'all are.
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Now you officially have a nonprofit designation.
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Yeah, we work within the nonprofit space and last year we had our first event raising money for an organization Organization Helmets to Hard Hats and it was near and dear to me.
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My father was a veteran.
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He wanted a passing during COVID and the support I got from labor helping my mother get the DIC benefits for healthcare and just sitting at home just understanding who's taking care of me in my career and I just wanted to find a way to give back to labor that's always supported me and create a career and an opportunity for me to do that.
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So it just means the world for me to be able to be associated with some really incredible people and try to drive their mission and ride their coattails and work with them in the best possible way, because I find inspiration in a lot of these members union members through adversity and being homeless in some cases or just not finding the right career and finding a family and a home in some of these labor union organizations to really help them, educate them and give them all the tools that they need to be successful and grow within their career makes me really proud and that's where I want to be and these are the groups I'm trying to connect and some of the sponsors that play in this particular field and support these initiatives have been my backers and kind of helpers and sponsors to get these initiatives off the ground.
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So I'm very thankful to everybody that's in my corner and just giving me some words of wisdom and support to keep moving things forward.
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Yeah, I'm looking at the website right now.
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It looks like you got some big events coming up events and conferences so you started this during COVID.
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Then you took the leap, made it a full-time thing back in September.
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So here we are, nine months in.
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What are some of the big lessons you've learned that you didn't expect, like the unexpected lessons you learned from taking the leap?
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I knew it was a lot of work.
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I'm ready to do that, I'm all in for that, and friends and family and people that know me know that I have the FOMO.
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I want to be everywhere, I want to know what's going on and I want to be involved as best I can.
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But just talking too much, I guess, trying to lay out the future before the future actually happens, and creating a business plan, a model that I believe we can get off the ground.
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I'm open and honest as I can and now I just want to just make sure I'm working with the right people for the right cause, for the right reasons and then put everything out together to support the labor organizations that I work with and the communities that they support and serve.
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It's really cool to see some of the connections within labor and community and the economic job creations that are there.
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Me getting connected to some offshore wind economic developments and careers and how that's bringing in labor opportunities and being able to promote those initiatives.
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It's really cool.
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Yeah.
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So it sounds like the way you select people, it's not just anybody.
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You're looking for some specific ingredients with regard to the people that you want to work alongside or partner up and collaborate on stuff.
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And so if you had to say maybe the two most important ingredients that signal to you like, yeah, I want to work with that person, what would those be?
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Well, I think, jesse, we talk about serving others and finding the opportunity to be part of something bigger and supporting people that could use the help and advice and just give back to the organizations that have supported me and my career, my family, and what's beautiful is trying to build a career in doing that.
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That's the ultimate goal and I know it makes me feel inspired every day to be able to wake up and find ways to find career opportunities for people that need it.
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And to see, through social media posts and DMs, somebody saw something posted out and said how do I get part of this particular organization?
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And then, connecting the dots with an apprenticeship or a business manager and then actually getting the job, I see that they're often working and them actually getting the job, and see that they're off and working.
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And these are people that we may have never met physically, but just connecting them to other people and know that job they've received, they're making a living.
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You can't ask for anything better like that, and those are the things that mean the most to me.
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Yeah, I imagine it just gets you fired up to do more.
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And so you also mentioned well, before I go there, I just want to hammer home on that point of like first getting clear.
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Right, get clear about the type of people that you want to collaborate with, partner, with whatever words you want to use there, use there, because you've probably seen this, mike, but I know I have seen it a bunch where people reach out indicating that they want to do something together, but I don't always say yes because they seem to have a motive that I'm not okay with.
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And when they come at me with that kind of weird energy, I'm like I can introduce you to some people but I'm not going to work with you because they don't have that spirit of service Like.
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For me, just like you said, the ultimate thing is, if you're, when people are working in service to others, I am happy to contribute, I'm happy to support not just support, but like play a part time, resources, et cetera to helping them launch or take off.
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But if they're not, if it's clear to me that they're not focused on serving, they don't get on the list.
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And so for the family LNM family out there, I'm not saying that you have to be selecting based on whether they want to serve or not.
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What I'm saying is get ultra clear about what kind of characteristics you're looking for in the people that you're going to partner with, because when you start something, people get energized, it's almost magnetic.
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Do you find it, mike, that you've been out there for a little while now?
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You got some legs under you, but the more you go, the more visible you become, the more people you attract to contribute to your path.
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Do you see that at?
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all Absolutely.
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For me now, it's these associations that are serving these labor organizations that I work with today and just seeing it becomes even a tighter knit family or people that you want to support, it's like how do I get involved, how can I lend support?
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Because you're working together for a bigger cause and you're marketing yourself essentially because you're being part of this whole group and this initiative and collectively we're stronger together.
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I can't do this alone and the amount of support that I've gotten from labor directly and then the service providers that support labor as well, has been overwhelming.
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And it's really trying to create that structure, jesse, to say, all right, let's put this together the right way, be mindful, the people that you've made mention of as well.
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Are we working with the right people for the right cause to build that foundation?
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That's ironclad, and then you can start to integrate a lot of the other pieces to build it out bigger and better.
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It takes a village of people to be able to facilitate that.
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It can't be done with me.
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I don't have the knowledge power, but you got to outsource that.
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You got to find your team.
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You got to organize the right people.
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You got to get a little revenues first before you could actually start, what team you got to organize the right people.
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You got to get a little revenues first before you could actually start.
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What are you gonna, how you gonna pay for certain things, and then just understanding a pnl and how things are going to be built out from a business entity.
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So you're learning everything at the same time.
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It's like you're in, it's like a major five-year-old, but I love it, it's cool, I'm learning yeah, oh man, yeah, no doubt like going off on your own, doing your own thing.
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There's so much to learn that they don't even tell like half of the things that I don't even.
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I'm sure I still got piles and piles to learn, but that'll, I'll deal with that when it comes.
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Now.
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Obviously you're passionate about this, you like, you give a damn, you're helping people, you're making real impact out there on people's lives, on their careers and so forth.
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And so I know, for me, when I'm in those situations, I want more, I want to do more, like what else can I do?
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How else can I contribute?
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And there's times where I will forget that I'm human and I need to rest and I need to recover so that I can continue serving.
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How do you handle that, mr Michael Fina?
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That's a good question.
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I don't know the question.
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I have no idea.
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We've been running since September, but even before that and again, thank God to my wife, I told you once before.
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But we talk about trips.
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The trips that I go on are really conferences for laborers as a general.
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So like hey, we're going on vacation to Florida but there's a conference, or we're going to some other nice place in DC or Saratoga.
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It's generally a conference, but you're with the same people that you really want to support and work with.
00:22:56.548 --> 00:22:58.233
So for me it doesn't feel like it's a job.
00:22:58.233 --> 00:23:00.519
It's just trying to figure out ways to do more.
00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:07.381
But, like you said, you need to be able to just turn everything off, enjoy the people that you're with with and just, I guess, have some kind of personal life.
00:23:07.381 --> 00:23:08.563
I go to a lot of golf outings.
00:23:08.563 --> 00:23:13.220
Now it just seems like there's a scholarship golf outing every Monday or towards the end of the week.
00:23:13.881 --> 00:23:14.342
Right right.
00:23:14.470 --> 00:23:15.814
But I get it and I love golf.
00:23:15.814 --> 00:23:26.280
But you're going there to network, meet other people and then find opportunities to serve and support some of the initiatives that are going on as well.
00:23:26.280 --> 00:23:31.551
So it's business development, it's networking and just making sure that you're supporting the causes.
00:23:31.551 --> 00:23:38.021
That are all relative to labor as well, because every event that you go to is essentially a fundraiser.
00:23:38.021 --> 00:23:46.732
So you go into all these basically charity events that could be golf outings, dinner events, luncheons, and again, I just enjoy it.
00:23:46.732 --> 00:23:51.084
It's a blessing to get to meet all these different people and create commerce, and that could be golf outings, dinner events, luncheons, and again, I just enjoy it.
00:23:51.084 --> 00:23:53.509
It's a blessing to get to meet all these different people and create commerce and opportunities in doing that.
00:23:53.529 --> 00:23:58.951
Yeah, and it's hard when you're doing the things that you love, around the type of people that you love.
00:23:58.951 --> 00:24:08.576
The line between work and relaxation gets very blurred right, because you're living in fulfillment and contribution, and so it can get blurred.
00:24:08.576 --> 00:24:14.787
I'll say this taxation gets very blurred right Because you're living in fulfillment and contribution, and so it can get blurred.
00:24:14.787 --> 00:24:27.565
I'll say this I know when I went up to New York when was it December, maybe I don't even remember, but I got to meet you and Miss Stephanie in person and y'all, like the most amazing host, took me feels like all over New York, gave me the history on the different buildings where y'all got married.
00:24:27.565 --> 00:24:29.978
We had some delicious brunch.
00:24:29.978 --> 00:24:39.781
I felt like I had connected with a tour guide that specifically designed a little trip around the city just for me.
00:24:40.363 --> 00:24:42.385
You remember that we were walking and talking.
00:24:42.385 --> 00:24:43.955
It was a warm day.
00:24:43.955 --> 00:24:49.077
It couldn't have been in December, so it must have been, maybe September, october, sometime it was warm.
00:24:49.218 --> 00:24:52.633
It is right, the sun was out yo but we walked almost like 10 miles.
00:24:52.673 --> 00:24:57.531
We literally walked around the city, the high line, everything that we saw.
00:24:57.531 --> 00:25:05.496
And then I know you had a dinner event that night, so hopefully you were able to stay up for that but uh, yeah, yeah, I took a nap and then I went to the dinner thing.
00:25:05.556 --> 00:25:07.659
It was awesome, man, it was a good time.
00:25:07.659 --> 00:25:10.624
I appreciate you and stephanie for taking the time pleasure.
00:25:10.683 --> 00:25:12.011
It was great to meet you personally.
00:25:12.011 --> 00:25:15.842
Really, that was the first time I got a chance to meet yeah, it was super cool.
00:25:16.330 --> 00:25:23.118
So, with all the great things that you're doing out there, what is the like if in your craziest dreams?
00:25:23.118 --> 00:25:27.423
What does the future look like for you and ULA Network?
00:25:27.944 --> 00:25:45.433
The future is to expand upon our existing reach, provide more value for job, economic job creation within all the trades as well as public sector organizations, really create more of an educational platform to support and inspire others.
00:25:45.433 --> 00:25:59.826
And really work within some of the organizations, like the school districts, to be able to inspire some of the children or next generation of tradespeople to these career paths and from friends in the Department of Education.
00:25:59.826 --> 00:26:06.778
It's really just aligning with the right people and putting us on that conveyor belt of like you should be talking here.
00:26:06.778 --> 00:26:08.821
Here are the connections that we have.
00:26:08.821 --> 00:26:10.284
Belt of like you should be talking here.
00:26:10.284 --> 00:26:12.106
Here are the connections that we have.
00:26:12.126 --> 00:26:19.497
This is how we can make a difference and if you just talk to this person here, he can tap you in and then feeding out that information in a much broader format.
00:26:19.497 --> 00:26:21.923
And in today's world you could filter a lot of different things.
00:26:21.923 --> 00:26:26.095
It's just trying to filter it with inspirational stories, information.
00:26:26.095 --> 00:26:31.323
It's just trying to filter it with inspirational stories, information and connections that could drive employment opportunities.
00:26:31.323 --> 00:26:34.270
And that's my ultimate goal, create that pipeline.
00:26:34.290 --> 00:26:41.523
So you mentioned Department of Education and earlier in the conversation you mentioned you were able to hand out some awards to high school students.
00:26:41.523 --> 00:26:44.880
How much time or interest do you have on?
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:49.192
How much time or interest do you have on?
00:26:49.192 --> 00:26:56.916
I think you mentioned that there's conversations around these high schools adjusting their curriculum to better prepare the students to enter the workforce in the trades.
00:26:57.298 --> 00:26:57.740
Absolutely.
00:26:57.740 --> 00:27:00.940
You're seeing that now happening on much bigger, broader space.
00:27:00.940 --> 00:27:18.924
Even prior to me getting into this particular field, I never saw or realized how many trade fairs that have started to really populate and some of the school districts are looking for some of the training centers to host or come to the schools to talk about what these careers could really look like.
00:27:18.924 --> 00:27:21.699
And for me, I've been very fortunate.
00:27:21.699 --> 00:27:37.468
I know a lot of the different training centers within the New York market under the New York City Building Trades and really try to help be a connector where I can and really learn for myself about some of these careers in more detail, because each individual trade has multiple fields that you can go into.
00:27:37.950 --> 00:27:42.662
You talk about a carpenter, electrician, plumber, bricklayer, whatever the case may be.
00:27:42.662 --> 00:27:51.963
You could be a drafter, you could be an installer, you could do all these different things and what is your career set and goal and how do you get yourself involved?
00:27:51.963 --> 00:28:04.473
And these are the things that we're hoping to share, or have conversations with people that are already in these particular career paths and having them share their stories is really what helps inspire me and keep me going every day.
00:28:05.296 --> 00:28:16.500
Yeah, so if somebody wanted to get in touch with you for help with connecting, or to sponsor or for services that you provide, what's the best way for them to do that?
00:28:17.371 --> 00:28:20.400
DM me on Instagram, Union Labor Advisory Network.
00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:23.199
Email me at mfina at ULA Network.
00:28:23.199 --> 00:28:27.941
Call me on my cell at 631-624-1132.
00:28:27.941 --> 00:28:29.204
Any of those mediums can help.
00:28:29.204 --> 00:28:34.791
Actually, you can go to our website and leave a message, follow, like or subscribe to our sites and socials.
00:28:34.791 --> 00:28:42.815
We are on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, building out some TikTok stuff with some really cool stuff as well.
00:28:42.815 --> 00:28:58.432
So, again, we're trying to build out all the socials to be able to extend the reach that we have and work collectively with like-minded individuals like yourself and others that are out there to really just share and be that influencer and evangelist for these opportunities.
00:28:58.471 --> 00:29:01.359
really, yeah, man, so everywhere.
00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:06.374
There's no excuse not to connect with ULA Network, because there's everywhere.
00:29:06.374 --> 00:29:13.762
You even got Mike's phone number and I know that you're totally down to help and contribute in whichever way you possibly can.
00:29:13.762 --> 00:29:20.063
If you can't do it directly, you'll find somebody that can help whomever's looking for whatever.
00:29:20.063 --> 00:29:22.076
So what did I forget to ask?
