"Tony Marino's In Search Of Heroes Interview Was A Real Eye Opener" by Ralph Zuranski
Click Here to listen to Tony's awesome interview.
Ralph Zuranski: Hi. This is Ralph Zuranski and I’m on the phone with Dr. Tony Marino. He is not only the CEO of America Web Works; he is also the host of The Podcast Radio Show.
Tony Marino is the Founder of the www.AudioVideoStreams.com, the International ePublisher's Association, Christian Times eBusiness Newsletter and the author of the ePublishing Master's Course. Additionally, he holds Email Compliance Officer Status for many of today's leading Network Marketing companies.
Dr. Marino has also worked with legendary Direct Marketers such as Ted Nicholas and Gary Halbert, best-selling authors, Harvey McKay, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, ABC Television's Jimmie Kimmel and NBC's, Carson Daly, and online marketers Dale Calvert and Jay Abraham, just to name a few.
His offices are located in Portland and Los Angeles. He’s here with us today to answer some of the hero’s questions since he’s one of the heroes that I met going to the different Internet conferences.
How are you today Tony?
Tony Marino: I’m fine, Ralph.
Ralph Zuranski: I wanted to tell you that I was very amazed at your video taping and the product that you produced at Bob Silber’s seminar down at Hawk’s Cay a couple of years ago.
Your company is just really incredible and I really loved the attitude that you had. I wanted to ask you a few questions about heroism. What is your definition of heroism?
Tony Marino: Well, I think that’s a tough one because it’s almost embarrassing, you know. You appreciate when people see you in a very positive way. I think that the heroes range from, certainly those from The Twin Towers, The World Trade Center in 2001.
Many heroes saving lives, those that gave their lives for other people, I think in the business sense I would see a hero as somebody who really pays close attention to detail, to their client base, prospects, treating people with dignity, making themselves available, making their yes be yes, their no be no.
Not perfection but correcting issues when they arise. Again, paying very close attention to detail to the needs of others before self.
Ralph Zuranski: You know that’s a pretty good definition of what heroism is. I know that in my particular case I created a secret hero in my mind that helped me deal with a lot of the health and learning problems that I had as a kid.
Did you ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with the problems that you were going through when you were young?
Tony Marino: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think my Mom was responsible for the hero my mind. Of course, which was Batman.
Ralph Zuranski: Really?
Tony Marino: Yeah. My Mom was a seamstress. She did what was kind of a hobby. My Mother was actually an actress. But she was a seamstress also on the side. She made me a cape, a little black cape when I was a little boy.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow.
Tony Marino: I would run around in the back yard like a crazy person. I was a crime fighter. As a little kid, that was my thing, saving the damsel in distress if you will.
Ralph Zuranski: What were the qualities?
Tony Marino: Yeah. So I would probably have to say Batman and Superman. I was a kid that grew up in the 60s.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, every secret hero has certain qualities and attributes. What were your characters?
Tony Marino: I think they stood up for the little guy. When I was a little boy, I had grown fast. I was kind of like Tony Robbins. Tony had a very active pituitary gland. Actually, Tony lived one city over from where I grew up.
I was Covina, California. Tony grew up in Glendora, Azusa area. We both kind of had that pituitary thing where we grew real fast. So by the time I was 11 years old, I was nearly six feet tall clocking at about 180 pounds, fully shaving.
I was way beyond maturity level from a physical sense to those that were surrounding me, school mates, that type of thing. In sports it kind of gave me an added edge.
But the thing about my inner self is that I didn’t really, I hadn’t really grown or come of age emotionally. I was really more of the kid that would let himself get beat up or be teased when he was little. I really didn’t have the confidence to stand up for myself.
When I got older, I went from Anthony as a young little boy to Tony when I got to my seventh grade year, junior high in Los Angeles. I found out that my muscles worked. I found out that I could fight battles and I could stand up for myself.
Then, as I got a little older, I would look out for the little guy because I had been there at one point. I was fortunately back in the 60s and 70s. If you did the right thing, teachers almost kind of turned their back on you.
In other words, Principals and teachers wouldn’t really pay attention because they knew if you were doing something to protect another. In other words we had, because we were close, we had South Central Los Angeles and the gangs and the Crips and the gangs coming out of the barrio there.
Even though we were in a rather affluent area, they would still cross over. We would sometimes have gang trouble at our high school.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow.
Tony Marino: So when the gangs would come, I was either, I was probably more than anything else, I was too stupid to know that I was about to get myself killed. I took offense to the gangs that would come and start picking on the little guys at the school
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: So I and my buddies would pop tall and we’d go after them we would stand up in front of that school and say, “If you’re going for them, you’ve got to go through us first.”
There were a couple of situations where it got a little out of hand with fisticuffs. Of course they had weapons, we had our bare hands. We always beat the snot out of them because we were much bigger and had just bigger attitudes.
We also were coming from what we felt was a position of righteousness. Of course back then, law enforcement wasn’t what is today. It wasn’t such a litigious society where everybody was suing everybody back then. So a lot of things got swept under the rug.
We were very fortunate that growing up in that time where there was that kind of flexibility. I still to this day will stand up for the underdog.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That’s amazing. That really has a lot to do with your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior, standing up for the little guy.
Tony Marino: I just wanted to say one other thing too. It was a learned condition for me. Because when I was little, the thing that made me a little bit, if you’re going to put the title of special or anything like that, it’s just that it’s been a work in progress for me. It didn’t just happen over night. It was things that I had learned and things I didn’t like that helped mold me.
I made stupid mistakes. I probably made, as I try to explain to my wife on a frequent basis. She will say, “You’re always right about everything.”
I go, “No. Actually, I think I’m probably wrong on most stuff. I just guess a lot.” But a lot of times, you realize that the world is nothing but a big guessing game. You get to a point where you are just always growing and you stay humble in that.
There’s always somebody who’s going to be smarter or stronger. You can’t be too tough on yourself. Again, I just focus a lot on growth. I’m always trying to grow. I’m always trying to get better today than I was yesterday.
Ralph Zuranski: Back when you were growing up, you had a strong perspective on protecting the weak and the innocent. What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior now that you’ve grown up?
Tony Marino: It really hasn’t changed. I think it’s become more fortified especially as being a business person, both brick and mortar and on the Internet. For instance, I take offence, almost a personal offense, when I see individuals out there.
A lot of times you’ll see a lot of these so called online gurus that last week they were fixing cars and this week they call themselves multibillionaires, the most successful marketers in the world, telling you how you can make a million dollars by next Tuesday.
I take offense to that. In my opinion and the opinion of my colleagues, that’s a very unreal place to be. I take offense to it. I’m pretty vocal about it. If I think somebody is being a shyster, I’ll pick up the phone and I’ll call them.
I’ll say, “Hey, look. I saw this and I’m thinking you’re wrong. Unless you can explain to me otherwise, I think you should maybe reconsider your position especially with some of the hype that you’re involved with or maybe misleading.”
Again, I’m very proactive rather than just talking about somebody. I’d rather go directly to the horse and say, “Look. This is what I think you may be doing wrong. This is the way it makes me feel. Perhaps it’s making your market feel that way as well.”
Ralph Zuranski: So you’re just sort of proactive in looking out for the people, the newbie’s on the Internet that doesn’t know what’s going on?
Tony Marino: There needs to be accountability. Unfortunately, a lot of people on the Internet feel that they live inside their PC, they live in the box, a lot of these individuals that claim that you can do magical things in short order.
They don’t make themselves available. They don’t develop one to one personal relationships with the masses. They try to let the Internet do all of that. Well, I think in today’s world people need real people.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: When you call me, you get me. When you pick up the phone and call me, we’re doing in excess of about $4,000,000 a year as a company and growing and when you call, I’m the CEO or the managing member of our LLC and you talk to me.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That is an amazing thing.
Tony Marino: So, when you call the others, the question would be, “How many of them can you reach by picking up a telephone or calling them on their cell?”
I think that that kind of accessibility develops a tremendous amount of credibility and trust.
Ralph Zuranski: Yes it does.
Tony Marino: That goes back down to your yes is yes and your no is no. We have to set an example. If you’re going to be picking on others for doing things that you think are silly, you’ve got to make sure that you’re not doing that same silly stuff.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Boy, isn’t that the truth. When you were younger, fighting for the little guy, you guys were really putting your lives on the line in that situation. Are there any principles that you are willing to still sacrifice your life for today?
Tony Marino: Absolutely. Life is very precious. As much as I feel myself as being a precious life, there comes times where you need to make those decisions where you have to make snap judgments especially in real time.
My background also is an investigator. As a detective wielding a weapon, you’ve got to be on your toes for legal reasons but also for being able to make the right decisions moment by moment.
Even to this day, like I said. If somebody is bothering somebody, I’ll get out of a car. We had a couple of months ago I was driving through downtown Portland with my partner and there was a fellow running as fast as he could.
He was a young kid, probably 18 or 19 years old. A couple of guys in suits were chasing him. Of course the guys in suits were screaming, “Stop that man. Stop that man. He’s stolen from us.”
So I just kind of assessed it as I was driving slowly beyond this and I just stopped my vehicle. I just kind of pulled in front of the guy that was running and with the hood of my car blocked him, jumped out and basically tackled the guy.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow.
Tony Marino: I blame it all on my mother for making that cape when I was a little kid. I never got it out of my system I guess.
Ralph Zuranski: Once a hero, always a hero I think.
Tony Marino: Or, just absolutely stupid and out of my mind.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, you know that there’s another side of that questions as far as principles that people are willing to sacrifice their life for. It’s not so much that if you do this, you’re going to die. It’s always that dichotomy between the people that are paid to put their lives on the line like firefighters and police people and soldiers.
They’re actually getting paid to be in a situation where they have to potentially sacrifice their life. I’m thinking of more of an idea of people that do the right thing when people aren’t looking.
I think sometimes that it’s harder to do the right thing on a daily basis. Say that you’re taking care of your children or your wife and denying yourself. It’s sort of like sacrificing your pleasure and your desires in exchange for helping others.
What do you think about that?
Tony Marino: I think it should be family first, family and friends first. If you take care of your family, if you’re a good husband, a good wife, if you’re a good provider. If you treat people with respect and dignity in business, friends, you take care of friends. People will take note of that.
At the end of the day, you really don’t need to blow your own horn. You are going to be judged by your actions. Talk is cheap.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep. That’s so true.
Tony Marino: I can say anything that I want to but at the end of the day if you interviewed any of my friends, my closest friends, they would say that Marino is a giver. That he works 15 hours a day to support this family.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: He will go above and beyond. He’ll do tons of pro bono work for my company and has done so. He cut corners here so that we could keep my expenses down. We pride ourselves on that because it’s a matter of giving back.
We’ve been very blessed as a company. We’ve had a lot of doors open. I was born with a lot of wonderful talents. A baseball bat at eight years, every time that I got up to the plate, the ball went over the fence.
When I ran track, I went all state. I was involved in network television and radio. I’ve had many breaks and many opportunities that a lot of people had never had. I think that those were gifts.
So now I want to give back. It’s not just today. It’s been that I’ve kind of felt this way for the last decade that it’s time to give back to those that have done something nice or just for the part of my life that I was blessed on. I want to be able to give back where I can.
It’s the old ‘what goes around comes around.’ It’s the same thing with making money in business. I don’t think about making money. I think about taking care of people. If you do the right thing and you’re honest and ethical about it, then the money will come.
Ralph Zuranski: You know everybody goes through low points in their lives and high points. I think it’s just a part of the character struggle that we all go through. What was the lowest point in your life? And, how did you change your life path to win a victory over the obstacles that you were facing at that time?
Tony Marino: I would have to say that it was probably, death is always a bad thing. I lost a girlfriend many years ago that I loved dearly. I was young. It was young love. That was very tragic.
You know, losing grandparents. My grandpa was just very, very dear to me, losing him in the early eighties. My Godmother that was a tough one. In business, making wrong decisions, hooking up with the wrong people, being overly zealous.
I’ve gone through the ups and downs of business and I think business failures about 15 years ago with a bankruptcy. It was ugly. I didn’t mean to make it go there. It was probably just young, immature, stupid, didn’t manage things properly, didn’t see things that were on the horizon, didn’t react quickly enough when they exposed themselves.
But I take full accountability. I don’t blame my partners. We all took a hit and lost everything. You pull yourself up by your bootstraps. The old Horatio Alger story and you go forward or you just go dry up and go live in a corner somewhere and just keep your head down.
I could never do that. I just felt that there was that I had a mission and there was a plan. I have to fulfill that plan. So I feel that as long as I keep my body moving and my brain staying positive and just realizing that all the things that we go through in our lives are really there to help us learn and make us stronger.
It can really set your attitude in a whole new direction. I always try to look forward and upward. That’s where I try to focus my sites.
Ralph Zuranski: So you do have a dream or a vision that sets your course of your life?
Tony Marino: Absolutely. It’s amazing because every time I’ve, again, talking about the blessings of my life. I was telling my wife about this. It’s like, everything that I’ve always wanted to do I’ve done.
Every time I wanted even material things, if I wanted a BMW, I got the BMW. If I wanted the TOG watch, if I wanted the boat, if I wanted to learn how to fly an airplane, if I wanted to be on television, if I wanted to be on radio, if I wanted to have a successful online business, just all the things that are just like the dreams come true.
Again, I feel very blessed by that. I always have dreams. I’ve got dreams today.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how important is it to take a positive view of the setbacks and misfortunes and mistakes that you’ve gone through because everybody continues to have those? That’s just a fact of life. How important is it to have a positive view?
Tony Marino: You have a choice. You can either go to sleep or die or jump off the nearest bridge. Or, you can forge ahead. It’s a decision that we all have to make. I believe that most people are born equally for the most part.
I think we all have a position on the baseball field. One is a third base man, somebody else pitches, somebody catches, but we all have a position on the field. If we keep that into perspective, I think that if we play the position to the best of our abilities and we just try hard and realize that, “You know what? Not everybody.”
Let’s put it this way, you can’t win everybody over no matter what you do, no matter how good you are. Look of the life, going theological for a minute, look at Christ. When the guy died, what did he have? Twelve friends? Actually, eleven because the one betrayed him.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: The way I look at it is, when I kick the bucket, if I’ve got eleven friends that think I’m pretty cool, then I’ve equaled Christ. Don’t be too hard on yourself. People are just way too, you should be accountable and you should be correcting your course on a daily basis.
You need to be mindful of how others see you and how you treat others. But it’s okay to lose. If you’re not losing, then you’re not living.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. I believe that. You think that it’s important to be optimistic, to hope for the best or just believe in the best?
Tony Marino: I think that you should believe in the best and move towards the best. Believing is the start. You have to have faith that there’s a purpose for you. Our creator, again to go a little theological, whether it’s God or whoever it is, Buddha or whoever your creator is in your mind.
Whether you think the creator is a big tree somewhere in the forest, whatever. Your creator made you. He didn’t do it in vain as a practical joke. We were put here for a purpose.
Somebody thought it important enough for us to be here. I think it’s only right not to let that entity down.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well you know. It takes courage to pursue new ideas. Most people are just locked in their peer group and locked in the ideas of that group. When they change and pursue new ideas, they become alienated from that group.
I know that it’s very hard for anybody to do that. How did you have the courage to pursue new ideas?
Tony Marino: Well, first of all, I look at my surroundings. I try to hang around people that are far smarter than me. I’m looking at mentors. Like my hero is Bill Gates. My hero is Steve Jobs. Those are my real heroes.
I don’t just say that because they are probably the wealthiest men on the planet to date. But I see what they do from a philanthropic perspective. I see how they were able.
You don’t amass that kind of an income by being a knucklehead. You have to get enough people surrounding you that think you’re pretty cool that want to work with you and for you.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: Do you know what I’m saying?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I do.
Tony Marino: That takes tremendous talent. Do I ever want to be as big as Bill Gates? No. That’s not my goal. My biggest thing is and the way I teach others is do the best you can. Have your goals. Have your aspirations. Don’t worry about what the Jones’s are doing.
You can keep one eyeball maybe occasionally peeking and peering over the fence to see what the neighbors are doing. But at the end of the day, whether they’re happy or not are irrelevant because it depends on whether you’re happy.
If you’re not happy with what you’re doing and if you’re pleasing everybody else, then you feel empty. You can’t keep going on doing that. After time, it’s finally going to catch up to you.
For those that want to bring you down. If you’re in a group and you’re moving in one direction and the group is going in another, then that’s okay. Pick up your bags and move on. You need to be mobile. You need to be a forward thinker.
You need to be mindful. You don’t want to step on people to get to where you’re going. But it’s either move with me or get out of the way. I have a lot of great friends, but I’m not real big on lazy people.
I have very little respect for those that I think are lazy. But then again, I’ve had to learn that not everybody is going to work 17 hours a day. Not everybody is going to be like a crazy person like myself doing mach 1,000 with my hair on fire. Not everybody is going to have that passion that I do. I’m weird. I consider myself to be very weird when it comes to that because I love to work.
Work for me is play. I have to be a little bit flexible when managing others or when calling others my friend because they may not be able to just make the man because he’s a hard worker and wants to work so many hours.
But I would say that the people that surround you, if they’re not a positive influence and you can feel that. You can ask yourself. You can do a buddy check within yourself.
If you’re feeling kind of strange, you feel like you’re being held back or you feel like everything that you do is going to be graded or rated on what somebody else might think all the time, it’s probably a good time to start thinking about moving in another direction.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. You’re a hard worker and you’re doing what you love. I think that there’s a certain amount of spiritual warfare no matter what faith that you follow that impedes people’s progress in life daily with doubts and fears.
How are you able to overcome your doubts and fears? I know that everybody has them.
Tony Marino: I think that I work as hard as I do because of fear. Because of fear of running out of money, fear of not being able to get my kids through college, fear that I’m not going to live up to my wife’s expectations, fear that I’m going to let myself down, fear that I’m not going to be able to get that next consulting job done to perfection.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: Because of that fear, I work harder. I pull everything that I’ve got. I pull every arrow out of my quiver. I just give it all that I’ve got because I’m afraid of failure. So I don’t want to every fail.
I’ve been there before and it hurts. It smarts even when you’re 6’2”, 195 pounds and big mean Italian looking guy. I still battle with that.
Also faith, I get to the point where I’m overwhelmed. You can only do so much as a human being. Eventually I just turned it over. I just go to God and go, “You know what? I’ve done all that I can do. I believe. I believe that I’m ready for this challenge. If you think I’m ready, then show me where I need to go. Take me to the next level.”
You know what? I’ve never been failed. That’s never failed me yet.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. I know that God talks a lot in the Bible. Probably the most often spoken statement was “fear not.” I think that that’s one of the biggest things that we all have to deal with.
The things that we really don’t have any control over and just knowing what we do have the ability to change and the things that we have no ability to change, that’s the reason why we created this program. Conventional media is just focused on creating fear in people’s lives.
It’s almost become an addiction. The people need bigger and bigger fear just to be stimulated. I know that you spend a lot of time in the broadcasting industry. What do you think about that? Do you think that that’s the way it is? That good news is not something that people want?
Tony Marino: Well, I think they don’t know what to do with it. A lot of times we have such low self-esteem in my opinion. I think that we feel guilty whenever we’re achieving a certain level of success especially when success gets to a point.
I know that when the lid blew off over here where we are and went from a few hundred thousand dollars to getting into the millions that was hard for me to digest. That was very tough to get used to.
You’ve got a lot more responsibility. The biggest thing is asking yourself, “Am I worthy of this? Why am I so lucky to be able to?”
A lot of times I’ve gone to my wife with that. I feel too fortunate. I don’t feel like I deserve this. Why did I just close that massive deal with that fortune 500 company? Why did that happen? Why didn’t somebody else get it?
She would say, “Because you earned it. You wanted it and you earned it. And, you worked and you worked and you worked and you worked and you took care of the people. That earned you. Nobody gave you a gift. You earned it.”
It’s a trade off. They pay you for your talent. That helps. I think that in any type of show business industry or any industry where somebody is standing on a stage, most of the times I have found that those people have very, very low self-esteem deep down.
Ralph Zuranski: Really?
Tony Marino: They’re very insecure. They use that medium as their way. If you get a chance to ever stand up and speak to some of the biggest stars in the world, one on one, they’re very shy. That’s why a lot of times when they don’t want to talk to you while they’re eating.
You may approach their table or see them at a public place. It’s not a lot of times because they’re mean. It’s because they’re extremely uncomfortable. They don’t think that they can rise to the occasion of that big screen that you may have saw them in their last blockbuster motion picture.
They think that they have to be on all the time. A lot of times it’s easier for them to try to disappear or try to avoid you. Sometimes that comes across as being snobby.
I’ve had the luxury of working with some pretty big celebrities, both on radio and television and motion pictures. That’s what I’ve found in talking to my friends in that industry.
Ralph Zuranski: One of my friends, Steven Segal, I worked with him on his first web site and just worked with him in the outfield for a little while. That was one of the things. He just never could really go out in public because there was always somebody that was out there that thought that he was the person in the movie that wanted to challenge him and say, “Yeah, I beat that guy.”
It’s just sort of a horrifying situation when everybody thinks that you’re the person that they see in the movies or on television. You’re really not.
Tony Marino: Yeah. He had an interesting start too. You know Segal. He was driving a taxi over in I think it was Japan. Was it Japan?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: I think that it was Kelly, his wife, she’s been divorced now. At that time, she was an up and coming actress and I guess rode in his taxi. The next thing you know. He’s a tall guy.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. He’s 6’4”.
Tony Marino: Oh my gosh. He is one big guy, scary guy. I love his films. I just always remember that one thing he used to say. “Superior attitude, superior state of mind.”
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That’s one thing that I always loved about him is that all of his films had a specific good and evil message. There was no black and white. He was always fighting against some evil in society whether it was pollution or drugs or corrupt police.
He is one of the few that really set that tone in all of his movies.
Tony Marino: Yeah. I really enjoy watching Steven Segal.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, it’s interesting too is that just in the life of people. A lot of people offend you, oppose you, and get upset. How important is it to forgive others that do that to you?
Tony Marino: Forgive them right away, as fast as you can. Go through the pain. You can get a little cranky and a little angry. But don’t carry it with you. Just remember that you’ve been forgiven for things that you have done and will be forgiven for things that you do.
Certainly, when you do not forgive others, you basically carry around a ball and chain. It may not be something that’s at a conscience level. But subconsciously it’s like carrying dung on the bottom of your shoe. I think that Philippians chapter three where Paul, the Apostle Paul says “Get the dung off your shoe and go forward.”
I’m a work in progress and let’s go foreword. Let’s go toward the goodness. Let’s clean ourselves. Let’s rid ourselves of the muck and mire and all this gook. Of course, I’m embellishing on the scripture.
The take is free yourself of that. Don’t get yourself in bondage. None of us are perfect. We’re all brothers and sisters at the end of the day. Jealousy, forget about it. It’s not important. It shouldn’t be important to you.
You can get real side-tracked real fast if you’re jealous all the time and envious of what other people have. If you’re jealous all the time and envious of what other people have, it just, forgiveness, jealousy and envy, be glad for others.
At the end of the day, you’re going to really feel good about yourself.
Ralph Zuranski: You seem to be like that hero that you were as a kid in seeking to be of service to others as a source of joy. How important do you think serving others is just to make your life feel good?
Tony Marino: It’s interesting that you bring that up, Ralph. This morning one of my dear friends, one of our client’s husband passed this morning.
Ralph Zuranski: Oh no.
Tony Marino: He was a fire chief and in perfect shape. If you looked up Jack LaLanne and Jerry, they’d be next to each other in an encyclopedia or in a health magazine. He was just the picture of health. Three months ago pancreatic cancer and botta-bing, botta-boom, done today.
Ralph Zuranski: Wow.
Tony Marino: I don’t like to see people in pain. Even though it’s good for people to be in pain because it helps them grow and become stronger and better. I don’t like to see people hurting and injured.
I spent a year and a half, almost two years as a stand up comic. In radio you’re doing comedy in the morning shows. Obviously I’m not trying to be all that funny right now. I could be if you really want to.
Focusing more on making people laugh, making sure that you’re having fun, making sure that you’re feeling good. I like people to feel good, having a great time and enjoying pleasure and peace rather than distraught and loneliness and unloved.
That bothers me a lot. People that are homeless, whether they meant to be, whether they should be, whether children that are not being fed and nourished, the sexual predators, idiots that I would like to chicken choke here in the U.S. and abroad that are preying on our children.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: This is a heartbreaker. If I could underhandedly, one guy, make a stop to that I would do all that I could. That’s one of the biggest things that I focus on is trying to be more politically involved and it financially helps you to do that.
When you’re financially solvent and you have friends that are financially solvent, you can make far more of a difference on Capital Hill. So I like to set my sites there and try to add as much influence from a political or a civic position pertaining to that stuff.
I just don’t like to see people down. I don’t like to see people getting away with stuff that they shouldn’t be.
Ralph Zuranski: Don’t you think that laughter and crying are both sort of different sides of the same coin?
Tony Marino: They can be. Both of them are therapeutic in their own right. I don’t think you should walk around laughing all the time. People will lock you up in Bellevue with a straight jacket.
That being said, crying is good too. Just to let it go. I’m a big cry baby. I’ll watch Sleepless in Seattle, when they finally met each other up in the Empire State Building. They touched hands. Little touching moments like that.
Last night there was a crying moment in the movie “Meet Faulkers.”
Ralph Zuranski: I saw that.
Tony Marino: It was a great movie. I think you have to be sensitive. I think that if you really care about other people and you let yourself go. For so many years I kept little Tony hidden. The real guy was hiding in there because I was afraid to let him come out and play because I was afraid he’d get beat up again like he did when he was real little.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: About ten years ago and it’s a thing that made my marriage just incredible was when I let little Anthony out to play.
Ralph Zuranski: You know Ted Nicholas. He said that it takes a tremendous amount of courage and emotional strength to be able to cry as a man. Most men are just bottled up and they can’t express their emotions.
Do you think that’s true?
Tony Marino: Yeah. I do. The people that surround me, my closest friends and allies I think are very sensitive people. Although, I have a few that are like rocks. Yeah, I think that most people are, especially males, are less likely to let their emotions out because it shows a sign of weakness.
I don’t care. I’m going to cry. I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be feeling like I’m feeling at the time. I’m going to be real. I think that at the end of the day honesty really pays off.
Ralph Zuranski: Ted said that you can’t be a great copywriter unless you can cry. I believe that’s true. I started crying when my Dad had a stroke when I was at Ted’s seminar doing the photos back on May 23rd of last year.
I think that being able to cry and get into the shoes of the people that you’re trying to communicate with that it really makes a big difference on how powerful. What it is that you’re trying to say is accepted by the part of your audience?
I know that an important part of my life is the power of prayer. How important is prayer in your life?
Tony Marino: I would say almost minute by minute in my life. I don’t mean formally dropping down on my hands and knees or going flat on my face or doing the hallelujah hoot-n-nanny around the office.
But it certainly is. I’m always going, “Oops. Sorry about that.” Or, “How do I handle this?” Or, I may say something that is off color in my mind and I’m always going, “Well, I know that nobody heard that. But I know that I heard that and I know that you heard that. I shouldn’t be feeling that way about a person.”
Always. I think a person should always. Let’s put it this way. Again, from a theological position, if God is with you or if your creator is with you and your creator is as big as my creator is, whoever your creator might be, depending on who would be listening to this call.
My creator is. Let’s put it this way. A flake of sand would be like the globe in the palm of his hand. This is a huge, huge God, right.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: So if this person’s with you wherever you go, it’s going to come against you at the end of the day.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That’s true.
Tony Marino: Talk about super heroes. There you go. There you have it.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. That’s probably true. You faced a lot of difficult situations. How important was it to have a sense of humor when you’re dealing with those difficult situations?
Tony Marino: I think a sense of humor has gotten me out of a lot of things because I try to laugh. My dog probably thinks I’m an idiot. I get up in the morning, Crystal, who is a 120 pound German Sheppard, is up at a ritual at night. She’s the guard dog running the property out here.
We live in the hills, mountains thing. She does this little running thing. Then in the morning, she’s got to come in and jump on the bed. She’ll sit there and I get up.
The first thing I try to do is I smile. The first thing out of bed I have a big smile on my face and Crystal is looking at me going, “What are you smiling about, Dad?”
So I think that comedy is very important. I think that you have to make fun of yourself. I probably spend more time making fun of me and all the stupid things I do on a daily basis.
Okay. Second by second basis as my wife would probably argue. That’s therapeutic to me. I’ll just go, “You knucklehead.” Or, “What were you thinking Marino?” You know, talking in first or second or third person, depending on the mood.
Again, I think that you have to. Like a few minutes ago. You were talking about the crying thing. I was thinking, “Do you just want to do a little beak down right now? We’ll just cry right here together.”
So anyway, I think laughter. I think comedy is very, very good. I like to be very animated around here, around our office. And being from show business, I like to do my character voices and just be really silly.
I play Joey Griswold on Full House and do all of the silly stuff. There is a time and a place though. Although, I have been at City Counsel meetings and I have been at our state legislature on the floor of the Senate. I’ll get out of control. I’ll get funny down there because I like to make them laugh.
I like to do anything that they think is not politically correct. Shocking is fun, not to offend but to have fun down there. Most of the time you’ll find that if they’re not locking you up, they’re laughing.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well, who were the heroes in your life?
Tony Marino: My Mom and my Dad, my Uncle Mario. All of my Italian uncles were just absolutely incredible. They had great sense of humor and great work ethic and very well respected.
I think the heroes are just the people that have come into my life, even the people that have taken me down have been my heroes because they’ve made me better. Not to be so corny and not to just say blanket, “Well, everybody’s my hero.”
I would have to say that I look at the people right now, as I eluded to earlier, would be Bill Gates would probably be my number one hero. My biggest hero is Jesus but second to Jesus would probably be Bill Gates if I had to get pigeon-holed, from a business stand point. From a personal hero would be my wife.
Ralph Zuranski: How did they make a positive difference in your life holding them up as heroes?
Tony Marino: Because I admire them for the givers that they are. I admire them for their innovations. I admire them; for instance, my wife is my hero because she puts up with my crap on a minute by minute basis because I’m like a little kid at 44 going on three years old, which I think most men are.
So she’s like mommy occasionally. Bill Gates, I just look at his brilliance. I look at how he gets himself out of pickles with the antitrust thing that went on a little while ago. How they made their way out of that. How clever they are with the joint venture process, the type of leadership that they provide.
More importantly, the type of synergy that he’s amassed up north of us, up in the Seattle region where they’re located. He’s just been able to put together a team that is literally very cohesive. So I admire that a lot.
Ralph Zuranski: Who do you think are the heroes today that aren’t getting the recognition that they deserve?
Tony Marino: Oh, I think certain teachers that teach our children. I think certain passionate law enforcement officers, certainly the fire personnel. They’ve recently gotten accolades because of we finally got to see them on a national and international scale based on the search and rescue missions that we saw in 9/11.
I think single parents that have put themselves or found themselves, not put themselves but have found themselves in that position due to the death of a husband or the death of a wife. Those that have little that keep giving to others. They have nothing themselves but they do nothing but give to others.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, me too.
Tony Marino: They take out of their own mouth to feed another. The other person is cold. It’s freezing out. They’ve got one jacket. They hand it off.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are heroes so important in the lives of young people?
Tony Marino: Leadership. When I was a little kid, it was baseball players. I remember Jim Fregosi and guys like Bert Campaneras and Sal Bando from the Oakland A’s. I remember Roman Gabriel from the Los Angeles Rams as a little boy. Wilt Chamberlain, Happy Harriston from the L.A. Lakers. Gail Goodrich, Jerry West. I can’t remember that I remember their names.
They were my, Pistol Pete Maravich; all those people were larger than life. Of course, back then the media wasn’t what it is today. We saw mostly the goodness in our leaders. Guys like Babe Ruth and Joe Demasio and Mickey Mantel. They were my heroes.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez because they just seemed to be such, it seemed to be like a simpler time. In reality, they were probably going home and getting drunk, beating their spouses, but from what we could see at that time in our lives, they were our leaders.
So the young people need a solid leader. That’s why I get angry with some of these knuckleheads that are doing the drugs and beating their wives and basketball and doing the things that they shouldn’t.
At the end of the day, where are the heroes? You’ll notice when you asked me who my hero was, I believe my first hero was my Father. I think that a lot of times dad’s need to step up to the plate. I really think that it starts in the house.
I think that if the father in the home could be a great leader. I don’t know how many fathers we see that will see a bathing suit on television in front of their young son or young daughter start gooking and gawking at them. What kind of a message does that send to your children?
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: Walking around with a beer in your hand 24/7, not that everybody does that. But it’s the leadership of the father and the role of the mother. It really should start with the mentorship with the children as heroes.
Other heroes outside of the house and other leaders are truly important because it gives us kind of an idea of what we could be and what we could become. It gives us hope. But more importantly, I think it allows us to dream and to have something that seems bigger than life that we can follow.
Ralph Zuranski: Having been in the media back in the days when we were younger where they did focus on the good and the people that they lifted up as heroes, the sports stars, the movie stars, and the people that you acknowledge.
Why do you think that the media has changed so much? It seems that they just want to tear down the leaders and find the dirt on them and just rip them apart in the media. Why do you think that is?
Tony Marino: Because the world is full of gossips. Because people like you and me and other human beings, I think a part of the human makeup is that people love dirt. What are the neighbors doing? Is that a new car? Are they painting their house? Is that a new watch you’re wearing?
Suzy, is that a new hairstyle? Where did you go to get that? What did you pay for it? Hey, I like that fashion that you’re wearing. Where did you get those shoes?
We’re always concerned about what other people are doing because we use that as our barometer to give ourselves some sort of position, high or low. We use that as a gauge which I think is a fatal mistake.
But we do it. So when somebody, it’s like misery loves company. I don’t say always, but many times when somebody is hurting on television, it makes our lives seem maybe a little bit better.
When we watch Michael Jackson going through his trial in Santa Barbara, we look at that and we think, “Thank God I’m not in that guy's shoes.”
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: It makes our life; maybe it makes us feel a little bit better. But we’re nosy. Humans are just nosy people. The news knows that we like dirt. We like the inside scoop and the ugliness.
In the old days we had sensors. Everything that went through across the UHF and VHF frequencies before cable, everything was censored. Everything that was said, there were seven second delays. It was a different time.
If a woman got pregnant, pre-marriage, that was like, “Oh my goodness.” They had to hide the woman. It was totally taboo. We’ve become far more liberal. We’ve take God out of the equation. We’re taking God out of our schools. We’re taking God off the front of courthouses.
We’re now basically saying, “I don’t need you. No thanks. I know more than you do. And, you know that son of yours that you killed? That you let get murdered? You did that for nothing. That was a waste of time, bucko. I don’t need you. I’m Tony Marino and I know more than you, God.”
That’s where we’ve got at this point. Although, I don’t think we’ve gone that way as a majority. I think that what’s happened is the majority know all about the man upstairs, the person upstairs.
But I think that the minority has bigger mouths. Surveys show that. If you look at Fox, you look at CNN or CNBC and you look at the surveys and the polls that are being taken, it shows that 75% feel this way. But 25% feel this way. The 25%, even though they’re the minority, they’re usually the ones without jobs that have nothing but big mouths.
So it sounds like they’re louder than the 75% on the other end. So that’s what we get. But I think that’s what we’ve done. A lot of people feel that they know more than somebody else. Then you get the one upmanship. You get competition. Then you get people that are just miserable.
When people are miserable, anything can go wrong there. People are just not having a good day. They want to bring everybody down. It’s no fun having a pity party by yourself. But you do, when you have a pity party, usually nobody comes. Everybody wants to have these pity parties.
Feeling sorry for yourself and, “Oh me, oh my.” It’s like my daughter, with her dolls. She’s got every Barbie that’s ever been created. She’s spoiled rotten that way. But she’s also gets a ton of love. We try to keep it balanced.
But she’ll do, “I need another toy.”
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: So we’ll say, “Well, maybe it’s time for you to sit down and watch this television show for Feed the Children. Maybe you need to watch this half hour Feed the Children program and see the little girl in Africa without a dolly. She’s got a stick with a piece of cotton on its head and a leaves for arms and that’s it.”
If you think I’m kidding, Ralph, I literally. We’ve video taped that off the cable and I actually have it burned to a DVD. So when my six year old gets a little silly, it’s time for her to sit in front of the DVD and watch Feed the Children and to see what it’s like when you really have nothing.
Ralph Zuranski: So you feel that there’s a war between rules and no rules? That the predominant media wants no rules, wants everybody to do whatever they feel is the right thing but without anybody else judging them?
Tony Marino: I think the media is just thriving. They’re looking for those opportunities to scoop the other network. So they’re looking for whatever they think that we’re going to be most interested in. So that they can keep feeding it to us.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: I don’t know that they’re totally diabolical by design. I just think that because they’ve got the power of the airwaves and the cable that they can be in those places and they think they know what we want to see. So they go into the bowels of hell to bring it to you.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: I don’t know for certain, I don’t believe that’s the goal. I don’t think that they’d ever admit to that. But I think that they’ve become a lot more liberal, especially the networks.
We just got a new Pope here. Not to beat on that subject, but again, Pope Benedict the 16th, already he’s been, at the time of this recording today with you and I, Ralph. He’s been the Pope for one day and already here comes the shots.
Here comes the, “Well, this guy did that 25,000 years ago and he did this over here.” If we all took the time to pull the plank out of our own and get our own lives in order, like my Dad used to say when my brother and I would fight at the table.
“He’s not eating his peas. He’s not eating his carrots.” Dad would say, “You know what? If you pay attention to what’s on your own plate and you eat your food, each one of you, you’ll be nourished at the end of this meal.”
Ralph Zuranski: Well, you know I’ve been to a lot of the different Internet conferences. You’re definitely one of the people that were outstanding. How does it feel to be recognized as a hero?
Tony Marino: What made you think that I was outstanding? Can I ask you that? What made you feel that way? What did you see?
Ralph Zuranski: I saw how hard you worked. I saw how much you loved the people that you were talking to when you gave your presentation. Just your ability to insert humor in sometimes the right and the wrong places and when you did in the wrong places, you apologized.
That takes a big person to be able to do that. I know that you said something to me or I forget what it was but you came up and apologized for what you had said. I thought that that was pretty special.
It’s hard to admit that you’re wrong in certain situations and it takes even greater courage to just admit it and apologize to the people that you offend.
Tony Marino: Well, as a stand up comic you do. Sometimes you forget what room you’re playing and playing to. Yeah, that did get a little out of control. But you’re right, you have to.
If you goof, if you make a mistake, you’re human. Just tell people, “I didn’t mean to do that. That wasn’t what I was trying to do. I goofed and I messed up.”
It’s amazing how people are willing to forgive if you are just honest and give it up. It almost made cry there, Ralph, when you were explaining.
Ralph Zuranski: You know, it’s hard to find people that one, will admit when they’re wrong. And two, actually apologize to the people that they offended. And three, just have that true contrition for what they did or what they said that really is a sweetness that we look for in our children when they offend us or when they do the wrong thing.
We just wait until they realize that they really did do something wrong. They get to that point of true love where that loss of love and just knowing that they harmed somebody else. That’s just something incredibly special when you see that in an adult. It’s such a rare thing.
That’s what immediately made me just love you as a person.
Tony Marino: Well, you know what’s amazing too? From a business perspective, in going in there and admitting that I goofed and said something that I shouldn’t of or I went a little too far. At the end of the day, I sold more products than anybody in the room that whole week.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s true.
Tony Marino: It paid off. That wasn’t why I did it. I mean, you have no idea that that’s going to happen.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: That was just the right thing to do and everything got patched over. I’m just glad that it’s good to know that I did something to impact you. That’s the kind of stuff that, it’s not the money. It’s the fact that Ralph Zuranski thinks that Tony’s an okay guy, thinks he’s a cool dude. He’s just somebody good to pal around with, somebody that will give you a straight answer.
That to me is worth its weight in gold, Ralph. So thanks. I appreciate that.
Ralph Zuranski: You’re welcome. The other thing that helped me realized that is by taking photos of people. I think that they eyes are the windows to the soul. When you look at a photograph of people, since I’ve photographed a lot of people at the different conferences. You can really see a lot in their eyes and just see whether their smile looks fake or whether it looks like a real smile.
When they’re with other people, how those people smiles respond to the person that they’re with. I went back and looked at your photos and it’s always special to see a genuine smile on a person. It really is a true smile rather than just one of those phony ones that we see a lot with the people that we come in contact with.
Tony Marino: That’s that same smile my dog sees. That’s the same smile that Crystal sees every morning.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well, dogs are a good judge of character. That’s definitely the truth.
Well, how are you making the world a better place? Other than being involved in politics and helping people that need help, working with the poor, working in your community. Is there anything specific that you do that you can say that this is what Tony Marino is doing?
I focus on helping people in this specific way.
Tony Marino: Well, I think I’d have to say that the way I raise my children. Matthew and Isabella, I think that sending them off into the world. Matt is eleven, Isabella is six. I think it’s getting them set up to go out and represent this family and to carry on the legacy.
My Dad struggled. He was very successful in business. But family was first. I think that even though I’ve made a lot of goofs, my brother’s made a lot of goofs. We’ve never been arrested or anything likes that, not those kinds of goofs, but just stupid decisions in life.
Making wrong choices, we both came back to center position. I really think that it’s because Dad and my Mom. They both did a real good job. I just hope that if I could, it’s something that I’d like to give to the world. It would be two kids that are going to be trouble free, that are going to be strong advocates for what is right, for what is pure, for what is honest and equitable.
I think what is it, Proverbs 23? I can’t remember what passage it is. But it’s “raise your children as they shall go and they’ll never depart from it.”
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: So I think it starts with the kids. Think about it this way, Ralph. If us, as parents, all took care of our nest. I mean really pressed it and really gave of ourselves to our children and our families.
If every family did that globally, think of the way the world would really be.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. It would be incredible.
Tony Marino: So I think that would be the first step is sending out the children. The other is wherever I’m called. If the phone rings, when we get done with this, the phone could ring. It’ll be an opportunity maybe to help somebody.
I could be out on the street later on this afternoon. I could be at the store. I’m always looking for opportunities to try to make a difference. It’s like this passion of mine.
I would say probably I would have to start with doing my share to society and that is to do the best that I can with my children.
Ralph Zuranski: So you think that that’s probably the ultimate solution to racism, child and spousal abuse and the violence that we see among young people is parents just really getting involved in the lives of their kids?
Tony Marino: I think that people need to understand how lucky they are. I think that we lose site of it. We, every day, become so mundane sometimes and vanilla that we lose site of the fact of the blessings in our lives, we just lose touch of that.
We forget to appreciate even the littlest things that we have, even the fact that we can breathe, even the fact that we can sip a glass of water or go to the bathroom without it hurting or wake up without a back pain.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah.
Tony Marino: It’s just the simplest things. Listening to the birds, getting out there and rolling around with the cat or throwing a bone to the dog or a Frisbee, or going for little walk or just looking at each other. Just sitting around and putting a little movie in and maybe sitting around the tube together and just kind of eating some popcorn, just little simple things as a family instead of the grind.
The job’s always going to be there tomorrow. Life, the trouble’s going to come whether we want it to or not. So I think during those times of freedom, I think we should be grateful for what we have, no matter how little it is.
Even if you’re confined to a wheel chair, be grateful that you’re here because there’s a reason for you to be here.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep. I believe that’s true.
Tony Marino: That’s kind of my take.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, if you had three wishes for your life and the world that would instantly come true, what would they be?
Tony Marino: Everybody laughing and having a great time would be the first thing. So I would say probably peace. But I don’t just mean peace like flat line peace where everybody is sitting there in this state of hypnosis. I mean peace as in laughter, relaxation peace.
I would like to see love. I would like to see forgiveness. I think that if you had the love and forgiveness in place, the peace would come.
Ralph Zuranski: Yep.
Tony Marino: Everything else will come. Money will come. Jobs will come. But if the love and the forgiveness are in order, I think everything else will come. Love leads to honesty. Love leads to integrity. Forgiveness leads to peace. So those would really probably be the big three.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well, that’s really inspirational. Tony, I really appreciate you taking you time to go through the questions for this In Search of Heroes interview. You definitely are one of the most profound heroes that I’ve had the opportunity to interview.
You have had some wonderful solutions for the world. I just hope that I get to meet more people like you and the interviews go as good as this one did.
Tony Marino: Thanks Ralph. For the kids that are listening to this, I just might say that just have faith in yourself and look at what you really have. Look at what’s really around you. Look for those that are going to honestly be there to align with you. Just never give up. Don’t ever give up. Just keep trying and fall down and try and fall down and try and fall down.
It’s kind of fun falling down sometimes. Just fall down and get back up again and fall down. But always remember, whatever you do, make sure you’re having fun doing it.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah. Well, that’s great advice. Again, Tony, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time.
Tony Marino: You’re welcome Ralph. Thank you.