Transcript continued from the Episode 080 Show notes
I had these cousins, and if you go to the show notes you can see a picture of me at probably age eight with some of my cousins, it seems like it was a Friday night, and you can see my little brother as a baby there and my mom is holding him, he’s so small. In that picture you can see my cousin Donald.
Donald was an incredibly special young man. We didn’t really know that then. I don’t remember thinking Donald was anything other than a nice cool kid. He was kind of normal. He was just a kid we played with, his sister was cool, and we used to play and do stuff.
I kind of kept track of him, but these were distant second cousins once removed and we saw each other at holidays, but they lived on the other side of town. In Houston, which is like L.A. and other big cities, when you live on the other side of town from somebody you might as well live in a different city, they live far away. So I didn’t see him that much. I didn’t really know Donald that well growing up, but we’d see him at these family events and we’d play.
Eventually, Donald went to high school and just was always one of these fun loving guys. There was something special about Donald, besides the fact that everybody seemed to like him. He was one of those guys that when he walked in a room everybody wanted to talk to him. He was an incredibly talented artist.
Instead of going off to university on some preprogrammed plan, like a lot of us did, I went to engineering school and so did my brother, Donald went to art school. In art school he developed this talent, fundamentally for graphic design, but from what I understand Donald was one of these guys where if you described something to him he could sketch it out and make your idea come alive. That’s what they would say about Donald.
He met the love of his life in school and they started a graphics business. Fundamentally they focused on t-shirts. As time went by that business grew very big. It’s very interesting because there are a lot of interesting things about that business that I’ve learned in the last several weeks. Donald and his wife Jennifer built this business out in Fort Bend County, which is down the Southwest Freeway in Houston, and they grew it to a large size.
Donald involved some of his friends from high school in key roles in the business. Donald was one of these guys when he was starting this business, he’s a lot like a lot of us. I’ve heard these stories in the last couple of weeks, but he was kind of like us. He had this business in high school at a video store and he was incredibly loyal to the people who ran the video store, but he was doing this t-shirt thing at first on the side.
He had to make a decision at some point about quitting the video store where he was a sales clerk, and was apparently pretty famous in the community for his video recommendations and reviews, he would help parents find material that was appropriate for their kids. When it came time for him to decide if he should grow the t-shirt business, one of the things Donald was concerned about was leaving his employer in a lurch. That’s the kind of guy that he was, worried about leaving this job at the video store.
He took those principles of loyalty and customer satisfaction and he built up this t-shirt business in Fort Bend County, Leonetti Graphics. A pretty good sized business, served the community incredibly well and became successful in so many ways. Successful financially in the way that means he could provide for his family and provide jobs in the community to grow an incredibly successful business. Also successful in the way that his business provided a service to people.
He had this t-shirt business, but he was helping people in a way that was a lot larger than the t-shirt business. He was serving the community by bringing people’s ideas to life and making their events work and pushing their programs. Whatever it was that they were trying to accomplish with a t-shirt, Donald was helping them accomplish that through Leonetti Graphics. A really great legacy of community service.
In addition to that, Donald apparently was incredibly involved in church. Not just financially, because he was a successful businessman, but also with his time, particularly with the youth programs at the church. He donated his time. In addition to raising a family, in addition to building this successful business, Donald was helping build other people’s families and help to nurture other people’s children. It’s really a great story.
Now, Donald was a very successful guy and he had a lot of friends, and one of the things that he liked to do, I’m hearing he liked it more than almost anything from a recreational standpoint, is to play poker. He was a really good poker player.
For those of you that don’t live in Texas, I’ll tell you that it is legal to play poker for money in Texas, as long the house (the place where you’re playing) doesn’t take a cut. If the house takes a cut then it’s a casino, and that’s illegal. But you and your friends can sit down at the kitchen table and play poker all you want, you can play for money and that’s perfectly legal in the state of Texas. Donald did this with his friends all the time.
One night Donald was around one of these poker games. These are successful businessmen and these poker games were pretty high stakes poker games. One night Donald was around one of these poker games and the poker game was hit by a couple of guys who had found out about the poker game and had intentions of robbing the people there. They knew there would be a lot of money there, because it was cash poker.
Tragically, Donald was shot and killed.
Just like that. He left the house one day, “Honey, I’m going to be out late.” He was running some errands, he dropped by a poker game, and he never came home.
You can imagine in this tight knit Italian family, this was and continues to be an incredibly devastating event. This is really almost unthinkable. Here is this larger than life guy, Donald Leonetti, who build a hugely successful business where he provided for his family, the families of people that worked at his business, he served his community, he made people’s dreams come alive with his graphic designs. His business grew to extend way beyond t-shirts, he designed restaurants, he was working on a clothing line, this guy in combination with his wife Jennifer and his team that he built at Leonetti Graphics was amazing.
From my perspective, it’s just a shocking and tragic waste of life. I don’t know all of the details. This went down like the first five minutes of a bad episode of Law & Order, where the bad guys come in and do something really bad and the police spend the next 50 minutes trying to figure out what happened and bringing the bad guys to justice. That’s actually happening in Fort Bend County, in fact the Houston Police just arrested a suspect on the north side of town and it looks like there may be some justice served in this matter. Of course, that’s not going to bring Donald back.
Incredibly tragic event.
I attended the funeral a week and a half ago. If you are wondering on how to get calibrated on the impact of this man, Donald Leonetti, was on the Fort Bend County community in Houston; 2,000 people showed up at both the memorial service and the visitation the night before. 2,000 people. It was really cool because Donald as a graphic designer, you can imagine this happy go lucky guy who everybody was happy to see coming, Donald was the guy who didn’t wear a suit and tie, he really didn’t like that. The family, as cool as they are, they said, “As a tribute to Donald, wear a shirt that Leonetti Graphics made. If you have one, wear that and blue jeans.” This funeral service was full of a couple thousand people wearing t-shirts and blue jeans that were made by Donald.
Everywhere there were stories about Donald and how he had positively impacted someone’s life or organization. It was said that he was the kind of guy that would come and sit down with, whether you were the student body president at the high school or the leader at the cheerleading squad, or a big local businessman, he treated everybody the same.
He would listen to your ideas and just get out a pencil and sketch your idea and bring it to life. He had this magical talent and he built his business around it.
Since this is so tragic, I thought there is nothing that Donald would want more than to try to get something out of this. Unexpected really bad stuff happens. That’s part of the world that we live in. If you’re interested in a religious perspective on how God can let something like this happen, I invite you to go to the show notes and look at the sermon that was given at the memorial service. This was the best sermons I’ve ever heard on this topic of how in the world can God let a bad thing like this happen to a good guy like Donald.
I’m not going to cover that here, because this isn’t a religious show. You guys know I am a man of faith, but I want to spend my time on some more practical concrete things that I get out of this incredibly tragic event that I think will help you and your business and your family. I promised you I would bring this back around to internet marketing and your small business.
The first thing I want to tell you about Donald that I didn’t mention before is that Donald grew up mostly with his mother. His father figure as he was growing up, his mentor, was his Uncle Damon. Everybody in my family loves Uncle Damon. Uncle Damon is one of these incredibly good looking, tall, athletic, movie star kind of guys with a personality that everyone loves, and he’s an incredibly successful businessman. He was a mentor to Donald.
While I don’t know all the details of all the things that Uncle Damon did for Donald, I know that as far as advice, counseling, and stuff like that, I know that Uncle Damon was an inspiration to Donald because he said that. Everybody that mentions the two in the same sentence says that. I can tell you that Uncle Damon was a big part of my cousin Donald’s enormous success as a mentor and role model.
That’s my first takeaway from Donald’s life that I know Donald would agree with. You need a mentor in your business or in your life, or in your travels as you go through life. You need someone that you can look up to, rely on, and get advice from. If you’re trying to start an internet business, that means you need someone that you can follow and trust, know, and like. In your personal life it means that you need to study people that you aspire to become, you need to find people in your community that you can latch onto.
When you follow those examples of people that are where you want to be, have qualities that you want to have, or that have done things that you want to do, that gives you a really good roadmap on how to get there. As a bonus, if you do it right, you can build amazing relationships on the way. That’s thing one that we can learn out of Donald’s life. Build relationships with mentors and people that can help show you the way and speed you along your course.
As a person who has mentored a lot of people in my professional life, I can tell you that a lot of times the mentors themselves get even more out of that relationship than the mentees do, so don’t be shy about seeking those mentors and latching on.
The second thing that I thought about as a result of this incredible tragedy with Donald is that you need to set yourself up with a partner that you can trust and that will have your back when bad stuff goes down. I can tell you Donald’s wife Jenny is amazing. I was at their wedding 22 years ago and I remember thinking that she was amazing then. After seeing her through this tragedy, I think she’s even more amazing than anyone ever expected. This woman is a rock. You need to have the kind of people around you in your life that are going to have your back whenever something crazy happens. Jenny is certainly one of those people.
Donald was surrounded by those people. His business is built on friendships. He had best friend from high school, Paul, in the mix. Paul gave an amazing eulogy, which is also in the show notes. If you want to learn more about Donald, Paul’s eulogy at the memorial service is really amazing.
Surround yourself with people that will support you and have your back. Also, make sure that as you’re building this solo entrepreneur business that you have it structured in a way that when tragedy strikes you’re prepared, your family is prepared, everything is the way it needs to be. I don’t know much at all about Donald’s financial situation or the way he structured his business, but my understanding is the business was properly structured so that in the event something happened to Donald or Jenny that things kept going and everything was fine.
For you that means some practical things, like make sure that you’ve reviewed your insurance situation, that you understand what happens if you disappear. Some practical things like if you have this internet business that’s almost all online, how are the people that are coming behind you after you’re gone going to access those accounts, going to sell those websites, going to get money, who is going to help them, who is going to help them get the affiliate commissions that are due in the business, how is someone going to extract the value out of this business for your family.
Maybe that’s as simple as making a spreadsheet of all the information someone would need to know if you disappeared and giving that to your spouse. Somehow, the third item is that you need to make some preparations in case something weird happens, because we live in a world, as tragic as it is, where bad things happen to good people. You need to be prepared in case something like that happens in your life.
Here’s the fourth thing that I think you can take away from Donald’s amazing life that you can apply to your business. That is simply to be of service. A lot of times I talk about how the only you can build a real business is to actually add value. You can’t get something for nothing. If you business doesn’t add some sort of value, it’s not a real business and it won’t last.
In Donald’s case you might be saying, “All the guy did was make t-shirts.” I’ve told you the business was a lot bigger than that, but primarily at the start and first and foremost it is a t-shirt business. If you were a t-shirt guy, you might say, “What in the world can a t-shirt guy do to add value? I buy the t-shirts as a t-shirt guy, I print some silly stuff that doesn’t matter on the t-shirts, I add some profit margin on top of that, and sell the t-shirts.”
I’m telling you, if that’s the way you think about business, where the value exchange is limited to the product and the money, you’re really missing the point. Donald’s business involved t-shirts, but really what Donald was doing was enabling people to realize whatever goals they were seeking. If he was making a prom t-shirt, he was helping students build a memory that would last them a lifetime. If he was making t-shirts for the fire department, what he was really doing is building camaraderie among a bunch of guys who put their lives on the line every day for people in the community. According to all accounts, amazing numbers of accounts, he did that in a way that really demonstrated how much he cared about the people he was serving and about the mission that they were trying to accomplish. He enabled people’s dreams with these t-shirts.
The point of that is, as a t-shirt guy he was much more than a t-shirt guy. His team at Leonetti Graphics had an impact on the community that was much more than just making t-shirts. Apparently, that prosperity that he gained from making t-shirts and enabling those dreams, he also used that prosperity to help in the community as well. That’s the fifth thing. Once you’ve built this business and you’ve added value by serving people, making their dreams come true, and you become prosperous, do something good with that prosperity.
There are a lot of people out there that will criticize you for making money. People have all kinds of weird attitudes about money. People think that people who make money are bad. People think they don’t deserve to make money. There are all kinds of limiting beliefs around money. The truth of the matter is the more money you make, the more people you can help.
If you have confused ideas on this issue and you feel guilty about making money in your business, or you’re not sure if you have the right motivation in your business, you should go read a book by Rabi Lapin that I’ve read called Thou Shall Prosper. (linked in show notes) It’s sort of a semi-religious look at why it’s okay to be prosperous and what you can do if you are. I think being prosperous and paying back the community and helping is one of the highest things that you can do.
If you think back, great men, great philanthropists, their real legacy is not so much being captains of industry as it is the good that they do for people around them. That’s the fifth thing, pay back the community with your prosperity.
I’ll leave you with the sixth thing. If Donald can do amazing things, so can you. Donald had a talent – we all have some kind talent, and you may not even know what it is. Donald’s talent was he could draw. I want you to imagine what we’re talking about here. This is a kid who could draw, he knew that in high school, he was working at a video store and I imagine that he knew he was good with people as well.
When he wasn’t working at the video store he was pounding the pavement trying to get this graphics business going. He was doing freelance work for print shops and trying to make things happen. When he had so much freelance that he couldn’t afford to work at the video store anymore, he started the business.
He had a great mentor in Uncle Damon. He grew the business. He involved his family. He met his wife, she runs half the business. He involved his friends from high school. He built up this thing. He bought a fire station. I didn’t tell you guys that part; Leonetti Graphics is in the old Missouri City fire station, it’s a really cool looking building. He built up this business over 20 years into something really substantial that impacts people’s lives.
The only special thing about Donald, besides his God given talents of dealing with people and being a great artist, is he worked hard. He worked hard, he made things happen. You can do that, too. You can take your special talents, whatever they are, you can learn skills and add them to your talents, work hard, and make something really special that impacts people’s lives.
I challenge you to do that. Go figure out what you can do to take your business to the next level. Make it meaningful, do something special, be more like Donald Leonetti.
On a personal note, let me say that I am really proud of my extended family. Donald’s mom Roseanne and his sister Jo Ann, his wife Jennifer and their kids, Matthew and Lauren, Aunt Candy, Uncle Damon, and just the whole extended family. I’m just so sorry for you loss, but I am so pleased at the strength that you’ve shown, the faith that you’ve shown through this, and I know Donald is smiling. He’d probably rather still be here, but I know he’s smiling on you and the family and the way you have come together through this, that’s what family is all about. We love you.
