Jon Foster 19:45

think the the memory that I share with you know, I think in the in the days living in the fraternity, I was dating my now wife Heather. At the time we just started dating and my next door neighbor was this crazy guy. Carl Cox, Carl J. Cox. And there’ll be late night study sessions at 123 am and Carl would would it was it was a thriller? Would you throw him? You thought a little bit of Michael Jackson for us? Absolutely. No performance would would ensue. And I think it was. It was just you know, you’re setting for some crazy late night accounting test. And it was just, it was pure mayhem. And I think Heather and I reminisce about our fine times about our crazy next door neighbor Carl J. Cox in the in the Greek days, so man, I do miss those college days. You’re there a lot of fun. And that

Carl J. Cox 20:42

was an epic and and sober event, actually. Because it was like, again, and it was, yeah, that was quite a dance event. I will not read perform that just at a time and the whole thriller song because I think it was like the full version, you know, it was

Jon Foster 20:59

written down for sure. It was it was Yeah, you had to be quite a bit. And you’re

Carl J. Cox 21:06

when that’s when MTV actually had music videos, you know? Yeah. So not not what that would has today. So, so you’re like a, I think one of the things that I always find interesting with people who have been successful with their businesses, is finding ways to keep yourself personally going. And and I know you, you do some crazy stuff. And uncle You said you climbed Mount Rainier, which is a 14,000 foot mount. For those who aren’t familiar with Mount Rainier, which is a beautiful mountain view of Seattle. What What do you do on a regular basis to help keep your motivation and keep your drive? So you stay? You stay focused on a regular basis?

Jon Foster 21:52

Yeah, that’s good. I good question. I, you know, I think, especially during this coat, it’s interesting, right? During these COVID days, you know, we’re these activities that I love, you know, like the, I’ve been to France, four times now on bike bike rides. And I love that because it’s just a really good goal, right? Like, I need to train or it’s gonna be miserable. Six, seven days in the bike. So put a lot of time on the bike, right. And so I haven’t had that goal. But I think I’ve found motivation and just just put in my head, you know, with all the chaos that’s going on, and just really spend, you know, almost every day and doing some cardio right and just getting getting out. And I’ll tell you the stress relief of doing that, even if it’s just a 20 minute peloton is just fantastic, or four or five, six mile jog, just getting out and enjoying definitely an outdoor focus person, and love the outdoors. And we’re fortunate here in Pacific Northwest to have plenty to do. And so that’s kind of the focus is to make sure I’m active each each and every day.

Carl J. Cox 22:59

And I love that. So you try to make sure you’re getting at least 20 minutes, right of like energy out, you know, to kind of keep things Alright, so this is this is, but we didn’t talk about this beforehand. So I’m gonna be putting out the challenge that I mentioned. So what the audience doesn’t know is is my son has been running and he the other day, he ran 13 miles he’s applying until I go to military academies. And so he’s been trying to be fit and then I get this text message from Jon. He’s like, I just I just ran a half marathon and just, I just did it and I’m like, whatever, you know. And of course for myself, I’ve only like I think I’ve done nine miles I think it is eight or nine miles maximum I’ve done I don’t know if you know this. I have this few years and that big 5-0 mark, I want to run the Boston Marathon.

Jon Foster 23:51

Yes. No, I

Carl J. Cox 23:52

want to I want to that’s a huge personal future accomplishment of mine. You just ran a half marathon?

Jon Foster 23:59

No. No.

Carl J. Cox 24:02

Can we do it? Can we you and I this can we personally champs Can we try to this is on the air. You and I are doing a marathon end of year, somewhere where we can actually go and fly to and get it done.

Jon Foster 24:16

We’re talking this year 2021 2021.

Carl J. Cox 24:19

You and I are running a marathon.

Jon Foster 24:20

I you know I need you know this is true for the audience. This is the first time hearing of this. Not this is one of the first I’ve heard. And my my 13.1 mile course that I created it was the that my half marathon was quite the course. Um, wow. All right, I think I ended the year. end of

Carl J. Cox 24:42

the year, I think we’ll find somewhere where they’re gonna hope by summer will be open up some november december somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Jon Foster 24:52

That will of course be all downhill.

Carl J. Cox 24:54

Absolutely. We’re going to start at the top of Mount Rainier and just go down downhill to the

Jon Foster 24:59

side. Yes, I am in assay and I need that goal. Yes, I do need that. Apparently, I know what I’m doing this weekend.

Carl J. Cox 25:08

All right, we are committed. So you and I were going to do this together, you’re going away fast for me, by the way, Jon’s us athletes, and I am a sprinter. And I hate running long distance. So, but we’re gonna do this. Alright, so we’re now we’re now committed. And I’m super fired up about this. So that was my heat. You didn’t know. So are your

Jon Foster 25:29

other term ideas? But yes, this is crazy. pretty high.

Carl J. Cox 25:33

It’s absolutely crazy. All right. So Jon, tell me about how tight you were with cash and the problems you had. This is a pretty awesome story that you have about this.

Jon Foster 25:43

Yeah, no, it was a good story. kind of embarrassing, Carl. I had cash, obviously, gotta watch every penny, every dollar. And one of my biggest customers at the time was Northern Tool + Equipment And they have the annual supplier conference where you fly out and you show your wares. And you meet with people and you talk and they have a banquet. And there’s a box when I was filling out the application for the banquet dinner was $250 $250. I’m not going to I can’t 250 dollars, I eat my hotel room for $15. I’m not going to pay that. So I go back to the hotel room, getting my shorts and a T shirt and start working on the laptop and emailing and stuff. Like I get a call from my buyer for the tool. And I was like, where are you? in my hotel room? You’re not at the banquet? Like No, not the banquet. Because we just awarded you the vendor of the year and you’re not here to accept the award. I Dude, I can’t even tell you. I was so embarrassed. I ran out of I got dressed, ran out and made it to the very end when I got on stage with the owner of the company to get my picture taken. And it was by that time it desert was over coffee is being served. And here’s the dinner of the year showing up in a ragamuffin. Bash it was it was some Sunday remember? So yes, I did not spend the $250 that is classic job.

Carl J. Cox 27:04

So let’s finish up questions. Your favorite book one things I love to ask people his most impactful book or your favorite book or something you’re working on now what what do you want to share with her? Oh,

Jon Foster 27:14

yeah, no, that’s it’s a great. That’s a great question, Carl. I think I think about that I, I read this is like 910 years ago, I was on a drive and the audio book was that someone recommended was The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, which I don’t know if you don’t even see looks like you read it, maybe? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The premise of the book is basically you know, we all work hard and stuff and we don’t do the things that we should be doing, you know, enjoying life until we retire. Like No, we should enjoy those things now. Right and then not wait toward retiring. And so it kind of gives, you know, this is how you should look at things and for me it actually wasn’t about the retirement piece. It wasn’t about that. But when he said about how he changed his business really hit me hard actually, like I just felt like he just really spoke to me that like wait yeah, no, why am I spending my time but I equated to I was like the small shopkeeper you know, I own this little small shop and I knew everything I knew where everything was located. I knew every customer that walked in the door I knew everything you know, but the business was was had critical mass at that point. But I wanted to go further I wanted to exponential and so that this book kind of gave me the freedom if you will to like hey, you need to spend a half day at a coffee shop and thinking about the business you need to stop replying to the guy that buys $200 worth of product a year focus on the guys buying $5 million worth of product in here let’s let’s look at your business differently in that so yeah, that literally from that point forward reading that book or business has grown three times in my life I was like you the Harvard Business Review article that you commented on it was exactly you know we spent more time on strategic thinking on okay what products are going to sell how many grow this account you know that those things that actually really matter and drove the business it often the silly audio book right like I you know from a silly titles like man, it just is really plainly a chapter two that really hit me that way. But I was like, Oh, you did a good job, my business. So I anyway, that that book to this day, somebody asked Woody, that’s the book.

Carl J. Cox 29:34

I think you’re inside and that it’s I think a lot of people read this and and they they think I don’t have to work hard anymore. And and that’s that’s kind of you know, I mean, this is impression of like, oh, you’re going to escape and it’s like no, this is about this guy is anything but a slacker. I mean this guy is like bananas like you read the book and it’s like well, he didn’t relax he like he like you know Ellison gotten mixed martial arts and you know traveling around the world and Yeah, but but so his DNA was still the same but but he learned how to ultimately, he was it was being ridiculous just like you said, being so wrapped in the business, he wasn’t working on the business. And then from that it created freedom. And and that’s what you it’s really cool to hear that you were able to apply what I think is the real principles behind that is learning how to automate scale think about and create some freedom because I think one of the hardest thing is business owners is is we work so hard to make it all work and to have the cash flow to drive it. And we ended up not enjoying the journey. Right? You know, because because we’re so caught into it by we could find a way to, to trust the people in our organization to automate things to drive things we not only can give the people around us more joy. We’ll be more happy at home. Same time. Yeah. And then and then actually make even more profit, you know, and make a greater difference. So I think that’s a great example of sharing that book. Thank you. So working on is we were joking, we could probably go on forever and really bore people. But now we’re actually have better stories that we bring up about, like how you almost killed me when we’re camping in the back your truck, but we weren’t talking about that right now. But we’ve been talking with Jon Foster from Marastar. We’re Jon, where can people learn more about you?

Jon Foster 31:27

Yeah, obviously, our website marastar.com. As you can learn about the organization. The other original website is marathonind.com marathontires.com is the other website that I’ll link together. So that’s the background there. They certainly reach out to me at any time. via my phone numbers 425-974-4788. They want to chat about starting up a small business Again, that’s 425-974-4788 love to talk about shop and didn’t want to know anything about a specialty tire I’m the guy.

Carl J. Cox 32:01

Jon, that is awesome. Thank you so much sharing your personal information and when I get really excited for when people are getting the feedback. And to everyone else. Thank you for listening and wishing you the very best at measuring your success. Thanks, girl. Thank you.

Outro 32:24

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