Eric Mulvin: Welcome to the contact center cactus chat podcast. So I’m here with Darrell Stern. And I guess what we’re doing right now is driving around Phoenix. I’m I want to show Darrell some unique places that he might not have seen before being that he moved here during COVID. And I don’t know if anyone’s showing you around. So there you go. So, quick question before we drive off. How long ago did you move to Phoenix or Scottsdale?
Darrell Stern: Three years ago.
Eric Mulvin: Three years ago,
Darrell Stern: In October 15, three, three years, I moved in the height of COVID. October 2020.
Eric Mulvin: Have you explored much around Phoenix like outside of old town
Darrell Stern: I’ve been in Tallesman West? New I’ve been all the shopping malls because I’m a mall rat from New Jersey. Okay, right away. No, we’re all the malls are.
Eric Mulvin: Okay.
Darrell Stern: And then Sedona a lot
Eric Mulvin: Like around let’s say like downtown Tempe downtown Phoenix, have you been?
Darrell Stern: So I’ve been to the touristy parts, if that makes sense. Like, you know what I mean? Like, yes, the main street in Tempe, where all the 11 bars are and stuff. Yeah, they go to the main street, or the shopping mall area. You know what I mean? Yeah, but no, I don’t know the hidden anything of anything. This could be our YouTube channel, hidden treasures, of Arizona driving around?
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, I’ve always actually wanted to do a show where it would be in a vehicle at interview people and I have one of my clients VIP taxi. You know, they have videos playing in the back of all the cabs.
Darrell Stern: So you need to have cold drink and heat in a car or conversations. Yeah, the way there’s, there’s comedians and coffee, whatever it is, or cars and coffee, or whatever that is Kate Leno has a show. And then Seinfeld did it to comedians in a car for no reason. Whatever. That’s
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, no, I know.
Darrell Stern: think we’re like six cameras bound on the car. And it’s really professionally done. And the one he did was David Letterman was really funny. Just driving around. Yeah.
Eric Mulvin: So something like that, you know, my some of my ideas I have include, you know, going and checking out local businesses and restaurants and interviewing like, local shirt, you know, big people, but then also maybe we stopped by a dispensary. And you know, we get weed before during that not on this pod
Darrell Stern: You do the weed now and I’ll and I’ll give you like quizzes afterwards, we’ll do a quiz beforehand. I’m gonna take a quiz afterwards and see how good you do. And then we’ll prove that marijuana actually has effect on your ability to do math or something like that. So I picked to live right here in the giant Mall. You know, and I figured, well, you know, this is the ritzy Pittsburgh area or something where I really didn’t know but Fountain Hills is more and then I’m hearing Paradise Valley and all that kind of stuff. But first I was in industrious, which is in the mall. Yeah, they put you in a glass box, which is not good because I’m not the neatest person but you know, my desk and like they’re looking in there like why and I just moved in. So I just shoving like suitcases and whatever. And eventually, they’re like, whatever. Like, you know, that’s not good. But they had free snacks. So for the $700 a month, or whatever ridiculous amount it was, you could have all the cheese sticks you want while you were eating, which to me. I mean, that would I mean, that costs a lot. I’ve been all around here to all the restaurants here and there. Every corner that mall. I like the way it is one of the few malls that actually goes across the street and you don’t realize it when you’re in the mall. Like when you’re in there. You don’t realize you’re walking across the street. It’s somewhat enclosed, and there’s no windows out. It’s all stores. And so you don’t even realize it.
Eric Mulvin: I’ve gotten so lost in this mall. And I’ve you know, because you ended up playing a different part of the the city.
Darrell Stern: If you go up to Denver, the mall called the Cherry Creek mall that has branches in different the east, the west and north south parking lot. And as I was getting divorced and driving from Denver, well, from Vegas back to Kansas, I stopped at that mall in Denver and I got so lost and I was hysterical. I like it’s really funny. I couldn’t find my car.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, I couldn’t remember what parking garage it was in which and then I found I think I was in the right garage. But then I couldn’t remember if it was like what floor I was on So,
Darrell Stern: Okay, here’s my first question. First urban legend about Arizona. Okay, so I came here, I see a lot of palm trees. I said, Well, poetry is a tropical, they need a lot of water. They they’re in Florida. They’re not they’re not in the desert. That my friend says no, no, palm trees don’t need a lot of water. And my other friend says, Well, what they’re doing is they’re watering him in tubes underground. Any of this true or well, how the hell are there palm trees in the desert? I know that was really important.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, I mean, there could be yes. So all that above. There are native palm trees here in
Darrell Stern: Palm trees in the desert
Eric Mulvin: In Arizona. In fact, it was something I read about. There’s a part of Western Arizona near the California border.
Darrell Stern: Well, that’s California boundaries, then just like hop the border because the taxes were too.
Eric Mulvin: But they’ve been there for hundreds who knows how long but they’re there. They’ve been there for forever.
Darrell Stern: Alright, so in other words, you we don’t know the answer is we don’t know.
Eric Mulvin: I’m sure some of these varieties brought in outside of
Darrell Stern: WoW scouts. I mean, they’re planning their landscape. Yeah, I can tell that
Eric Mulvin: but and how they water I don’t like it’s just a method of watering the trees out here. You could put little tubes in the ground. And supposedly helps, you know get the deep deeper into the roots that yeah I do is a hydroponic I run the hose on low for a day. I’m watering my orange trees right now you know and it’s worked for the last 10 years,
Darrell Stern: Aren’t you? You’re in Florida too high. You have orange trees in the desert.
Eric Mulvin: They like places that are warm in the winter, or doesn’t freeze?
Darrell Stern: I guess so. Yeah.
Eric Mulvin: So places like California, Arizona and like Arizona used to have the five Cs. We used to be known for the five Cs for climate. Yeah, citrus, cotton, copper and cattle. But citrus was one of the five Cs
Darrell Stern: I had no idea. I knew copper, because I went to the Grand Canyon, and I heard the story about how they were mining it and they copper, they found 97% pure copper, but then they had it at the World’s Fair and then the price plummeted. But so that was the end of mining and the Grand Canyon. But then the guy made the first hotel he said, Well, let me just make a hotel here, call it tourism. And they would take the people from Flagstaff take them a week or whatever on horse and carriage you got all the way across the top of the state. And that’s how the Grand Canyon became, you know, National Park. And that actually became a national park the same year that the state was incorporated. So this I think, is the only 20th century state in the in the continental United were the last state were state 48
Eric Mulvin: Yes. 848.
Darrell Stern: Now they go, so there’s 15 states
Eric Mulvin: 1912 was when we were operated.
Darrell Stern: Yeah, exactly. So before that, for an entire century and a half. It was the Wild Wild Wild West.
Eric Mulvin: We’re driving up Camelback Mountain right now. One of the most popular tourist places, I guess there’s people that love to hike this thing and people that kill themselves every year trying to hike it because they tried to go when it’s 115 degrees. So now that’s silly.
Darrell Stern: That’s silly. You can start in the morning, you got up super early. But if you’re halfway up and it’s getting to be 10 – 11 o’clock in June, July, August, November, December you know not to November, December or whatever, then you’re screwed. So then we’re actually going up through them. So this would still be Scottsdale,
Eric Mulvin: This is actually Phoenix. So it’s Phoenix and the Arcadia neighborhood.
Darrell Stern: So this would be Arcadia. Yes, I’ve heard.
Eric Mulvin: But there’s beautiful, nice views of downtown Phoenix.
Darrell Stern: So you can’t see this though. Because the cameras only showing.
Eric Mulvin: Well, I have a camera up on the roof of the car. So
Darrell Stern: All right. So take a look around hear the music. Bam, bam. There you go. That is awesome. You can see all the way to downtown. I’ve never driven up a mountain like this.
Eric Mulvin: This is a fun spot to drive up. And it’s nice to look nice to see the homes around here which is super unique custom homes. Like super super
Darrell Stern: Yeah, it’s crazy. I’ve seen these from a distance but I haven’t driven up closer to them.
Eric Mulvin: And then I come up here to shoot like the dust storms coming in or like lightning, thunderstorms coming in and stuff so and all the other people out here trying to do the same thing. So I’ll end up chatting with other people that are here. Just to watch it rolling in
Darrell Stern: That is a cool house that houses on stilts and then it’s up on the grass. That is super cool. Let’s just pull in and like, Hey, we’re podcasters we want to interview you on your great house of that making money design like interior design extravaganza Express. I know that’s our new podcast so we can go in these people’s houses. See there’s construction.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, there’s a cut like I think in the 60s, people were kind of getting upset that there’s homes being built on the mountain so they ended up preserving the majority like people wanted to build all the way to the top so what you see here is a high castle that is a legit castle. Yeah.
Darrell Stern: Holy crap.
Eric Mulvin: And you can see these from down in the city. If you look up. You can see all the different houses like the castle one.
Darrell Stern: That’s cool. Now I know where to target with my direct mail campaign. Like every address going up this mountain Yeah, so that’s crazy.
Eric Mulvin: Camelback Mountain touches three cities, Phoenix Paradise Valley and Scott’s
Darrell Stern: Ah, so it’s like four corners you know?
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, the majority of the mountains in the borders of Phoenix and so the trails in the city park and everything it’s all city city run by city of Phoenix
Darrell Stern: So the borders of Phoenix are mount as I was saying
Eric Mulvin: for this part of the on this side yeah,
Darrell Stern: I didn’t know that’s really cool. I never been up there. That was super cool. So we coming up we’re not coming up the same way we came down to the same way we came up right
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, this is another part of ah, we’re, we’re coming out a different part of the city.
Darrell Stern: That’s it, so if you ever want to go up to the top of Camelback Mountain get on
Eric Mulvin: 56th Street and we’re driving back down to Arcadia and there’s all kinds of little streets you could explore around here
Darrell Stern: Right! and in Arcadia is where the video arcade was created in the first PacMan game winning right now.
Eric Mulvin: Oh really? Is that true?
Darrell Stern: I just made that up because Arcadia Why would you go with Arcadia?
Eric Mulvin: I don’t know why they call it Arcadia. But I can’t tell you that Steven Spielberg grew up down the street from here.
Darrell Stern: Really?
Eric Mulvin:
He did. He went to Arcadia high school
Darrell Stern: I did not know that.
Eric Mulvin: His first film premiere out in was called I think the Phoenix Theatre that doesn’t exist anymore.
Darrell Stern: Oh wow.
Eric Mulvin: But shortly after that first premiere, he moved to California and never looked back. But he grow up,
Darrell Stern: I did not, I did not know he was an Arizona native. I met him
Eric Mulvin: Yeah.
Darrell Stern: because I auditioned for the movie The Goonies,
Eric Mulvin: okay.
Darrell Stern: I met him in New York City on Park Avenue and Mike Fenton answered the door. He was the casting director for all the movies. If you look at Indiana Jones jersey, casting by Mike Fenton, though he did the casting, and he opened the door and he said, I now meet Steven Spielberg, they actually put on like a shell and he comes out with his dark sunglasses, his signature dark sunglasses, I’m petrified but I talked to him for a bit then I got a I got a call back should be the rule of chunk. You ever watched The Goonies, which is now a cult classic film. There’s a kid that’s very overweight. They’re just like stuffing his face in the whole movie.
Eric Mulvin: That would be you, wow!
Darrell Stern: That is cool. That mountainside is cool.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, there’s a road is called Camel head. And so you could drive up there and there’s more to explore. And I have more time. I’ll show you more around there. But otherwise, we’ll just it’ll be limited to just mountain
Darrell Stern: listen to episode one. You have to tune in to the other episodes of this podcast to get the rest of the other side of town. So this is just part one guy.
Eric Mulvin: All right. So we’re coming up to Camelback and 44th street this is one of the like just like where you’re at Camelback in Scottsdale Road. This is also one of those like high end
Darrell Stern: Yes,
Eric Mulvin: let’s see corners.
Darrell Stern: Even the banks here look like Desert Oasis is like
Eric Mulvin: This is like a really historic cool building that yeah, they better never tear down but so interesting thing about this intersection is go
Darrell Stern: We can go on a red light or maybe you can’t but
Eric Mulvin: after a stop
Darrell Stern: at California stop that’s a California.
Eric Mulvin:
Well, if you ever heard of these restaurants flower child
Darrell Stern: Flower child I went to you here first but there’s one in Denver but somebody here one of my clients here took me to this before I moved here. So yeah, flower child is a cool store.
Eric Mulvin: And then there’s a number of different restaurants. If
Darrell Stern: you want to really shoot videos and stream you guys stand right next to the 5g build. Fastest Of course your brain like have you ran a light turn into mush.
Eric Mulvin: So to your right is the Phoenix Suns practice facility. Oh, you’ll be able to catch DEVIN BOOKER and Kevin Durant and the rest of the team. See the Phoenix Suns personnel only so real
Darrell Stern: Oh, wow.
Eric Mulvin: I’ve got to turn around in here.
Darrell Stern: You’re taking us right to the place where we can’t go anywhere. This show literally people from the Phoenix Suns live in this live in this apartment. I
Eric Mulvin: Don’t know if they live there. They can live all over. But they wanted to put the practice facility close to where the players live around here. Alright. We didn’t talk much about your acting career. You’ve been doing acting your whole life. I mean, you mentioned some of the movies that you’ve been in. I know you so
Darrell Stern: I’m definitely want to hear i guess i the story. My parents knows, you know, whatever. The parents tell you the story. So supposedly I was kind of shy or it wasn’t developing talking right or something. Who knows? So they put me at the Vern Fowler School of Dance, which is still there in Colonia Islam or whatever, New Jersey, and it was run by Vernon Fowler, who was already in her 60s or 70s in the 70s. Right. So she goes back to vaudeville. And if you know Broadway in New York, like in the 30s 40s 50s You know, it was seek field follies get my regards to Broadway like that kind of stuff. You know, top pads dancing. So I started there. And then because we’re in central New Jersey, only 25 minutes out of New York City. Some of the kids their parents got them agents in New York City to start going in an audition. Okay, so I was a shy kid. They put me in the and musical theater class. That was kind of very vaudeville, greased lightning and come out. So we were all doing the Greased lightning John Travolta you know that was it, you know, in the 70s that was the key was the king of the dancing and all that Saturday Night Fever. Of course before that, there’s a little bit more don’t move me but still disco. Alright, so I got so my father was my first challenge agent. They were doing the play Pippin, which has a little boy role in it. So my dad was like, my son will be in the heart. You know, that was it told him what to do. So I was in the show. And I memorize the whole show. I was correcting them when they met love messed up their lines. I knew every stage direction. I knew everything. So I was in that show. And then my dad knew somebody at college that was doing the playbill, which is the artwork for a play in New York City. When auditioned to that did that that was called The Desperate Hours. It’s probably written in the 50s very strange about a family that gets held hostage right has to survive and not get killed. Very weird. And then I got an agent in New York City or a manager terrific talent, Maryanne Leone, right. And and then I started auditioning in New York City, so I was in I was an understudy at Joseph perhaps Public Theater and then play called Three domoic acid rent, three acts of recognition that wasn’t even fun. And in that play was the one armed man who was the EPA asshole and Ghostbusters. All later so you got to understand is 81 82 83 Just before 85, all the movies and so everybody all If you were working actors then I was in movie airs Don Juan at the Delacorte Theater in New York City, Roy Brooks Smith was in that he was in the first Total Recall movie. He was very redhead over. He was very heavy guy. And he talks to Schwarzenegger in Total Recall, and he started sweating. And that’s how total that’s how Schwarzenegger knows he’s done a dream because he shows why don’t the guy I know all the little thing. So then also Kelly McGillis it was in it. She eventually went on to be in top gun, first Top Gun movie. And this actor that was a one armed man in the fugitive movie, if you ever watch that he’s has one arm for some reason, the murderer or the guy, whatever really did it or something like that, that they’re think, you know, Harrison Ford did it. Okay.
Eric Mulvin: So yeah, you ended up being in a play that just had a lot of talent people went on to do
Darrell Stern: Well yeah, it’s kind of funny. Like, I mean, this is all I mean, they were all maybe in their 20s I’m in my teens, right? So they’re like 15 years or more old or 20 years older than me or more. Right and then they went on to do all this different all this different stuff. Now at the time I didn’t realize it I didn’t realize when Top Gun came out that the old Kelly me goes through the show I was in four years ago. I didn’t even know Yeah, you like meet everybody. Right? Everybody’s name down and I we didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t connect on Facebook, you know, whatever. So then I auditioned for a TV commercial for the Ms. PacMan, Atari cartridge. Atari had come on the same. Atari was the first multibillion dollar electronics company. It all started with video games, not you know, computers. Really? It was really? Yeah. So I was in the thing. All I did was do a deadpan look. So a deadpan look is like this.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, that was all you did?
Darrell Stern: Yes, I just demonstrating it. So. And the directors would all crack up laughing and I just dare and I had this way, I can just make my jaw feel heavier and heavier. And just like, like it’s pulling down, pulling down. So the commercial goes, she’s the most exciting woman I ever met. And I used to go, yeah, that’s it. So that was under in the Winter War. You get paid residuals every time it’s on the air, depending on how many big of a network it is. And so I go to the mailbox, I get a check. And I go to my parents, and it’s for $8,500. Right in 1982. So my parents are like, Well, yeah, the theater stuff is cool by commercial. Yeah.
Eric Mulvin: How old? Were you at this point?
Darrell Stern: Why? Well, I’m 71. So right now I’m 52. And it’s 2023. So you got to subtract. My age is one year, less than the decade. So this is age 10. To age 20. Right? That Bachelor’s in high school, half of 10th grade, I wasn’t in public school, I was in the workshop for a Broadway play called smile, a musical that was written by Marvin Hamlisch. He’s the guy that wrote A Chorus Line and only as one of the big Broadway musicals. And the direct the guy who wrote the lyrics for it was a good gentleman by the name of Howard Ashman Howard Ashman before that wrote Little Shop of Horrors. Sad in that you see more of that. And then, in that play, was the guy that ended up being the captain on SVU for the next 15 years. The bald guy that was a police captain, on SVU
Eric Mulvin: That’s my wife’s favorite shows too
Darrell Stern: I’ve been watching that since. I mean, it’s the longest running gun show ever and the formula of it, all those SVU shows are all those what does that call law and order? Yeah, like, everybody likes a good crime show. Good cop show, Sonia. So then I didn’t make it in the Broadway show again. The kid that replaced me was Andrew Sasse, who I’m still friends with. He was Wormser on in Revenge of the Nerds. Okay, which, who just told me this? Oh, my, my other new client told me that’s ASU. Now you gotta watch it back and watch it go to ASU that they’re at Oh, is Arizona. Yeah. And anyway, so because my mom was talking to his mom about it. And so I gotta go look at this up down and find the movie. Because the work that people do now is they’ll take the movie through a freeze frame, and then they’ll go take a picture of it, like where it is what it looks like, now, 20 years later, 30 years later, 30 years later, so Okay, so then that was kind of like the height of that. Then I did, of course, high school choir. I was a miss Hart in the musical Chicago in junior year one of my buddies from that John Roberts
Eric Mulvin: You did musicals then too
Darrell Stern: Yeah, I singing and all that. Yeah. So he was John Roberts is on. Burger man. Burger guy. What is it called? Burger? Does a cartoon. It’s like The Simpsons. It’s called burger or something.
Eric Mulvin: Bob’s Burgers?
Darrell Stern: Yeah, he’s one of the voices on there.
Darrell Stern: He graduated high school with me Um, bam ba dam ba dam ba dam and then I went to college at Drew University and all I was doing was playwriting. So the acting really is up. Oh wait, hold on you call it. But then the last TV thing that I did was 1996. I was in a TV commercial for Hardee’s, which out here is called. So the commercial, there’s a general in the army and he goes, who’s dumb enough to take this big bomb and carry it through this minefield? And we’re all being really dumb. So me. So that started to air but then in 1996 in Atlanta at the Olympics, it was a bomb scare. So all of a sudden, here comes the change. No, it was politically you know, here comes what’s gonna be 911 Five years later, like this politically correctness, and we’re not going to make you know, jokes about people blowing up anymore, I guess whatever. Darnit Can I do that? I’m Bugs Bunny. Now, I guess. Cut wily Coyote, you know. So can that was that and then from 95 to when? Well, I met my ex wife in 98. Yeah, so then I really didn’t do it anymore. But from like 94 to 95 against 96. I was doing stand up comedy. So I had a little slip of paper in my pocket from showbiz magazine, which is the New York City magazine where you look for all the parts and the audition. And it said to stand up comedy. So the teacher is Stephen Rosenfield, who writes for David Letterman, and he’s in a comedy ready for this and that, oh, I had an internship with Andy Bregman. Andy Bregman thought of this idea for an obsessive compulsive detective. What show was that? You know what it is? He’s an obsessive compulsive disorder detective. It’s called M O N K
Eric Mulvin: Okay.
Eric Mulvin: Oh, okay.
Darrell Stern: Monk, so he thought of the idea. He didn’t write the show. But since he thought of the idea, these other guys ran with it he has created so if you look at created by us, as Randy Brockman, there was a movie that came out called the rat race, which was like kind of like Cannonball Run, I’m dating myself back to the 70s 80s movies. So he wrote that, so I interned with him. And he told me this, he told me, there’s two ways you can do it life, right? You can be an artist and be poor. Or you can give your idea to someone else, they’ll completely ruin it. But they’ll pay a lot of money. Right? And that’s basically how Hollywood works. They’ll buy the idea from you. Right?
Eric Mulvin: Turn it upside down, they’ll try it.
Darrell Stern: And if you ever watched The Flintstones live action movie, there’s an example because it’s horrible. But when you watch it, you I always say look at all the writers they had. And if you see this whole list of writers, that’s why because one person didn’t follow it through and
Eric Mulvin: Too many too many, too many chefs in the soup.
Darrell Stern: Show business and then the hardest commercial that was less commercial than I did comedy, comedy comedy. Then 99, I decided to go do website design, and got my first job working for that real estate agent guy. And then the next year, I was working in corporate at a big international software firm. And that was it. Right? So it went all the way to age 29 29. So
Eric Mulvin: how when did you strike out on your own? And because you said you’re working for big corporate places? Yeah, at some point, now you’re you’re working for some big corporate
Darrell Stern: Got it the whole time that I was at Syncsort. That was the name of the company. They’re still there. I think they got bought up or something else. Syncsort is a software company that made it what does that call not an algorithm a mathematical formula that can sorting data faster? Okay, so back in the days of mainframes, when they’re the size of cabinets, the sales guy would go out and go, Okay, why run the IBM? IBM sorta Yeah, and run Syncsort and things are would finish faster? So if you can imagine, you’re searching in a database of Verizon for phone records, you know, realize how many phone or billions phones, whatever billions of calls, right? How are you going to sort that data out and get the information faster? You have to have a faster running algorithm sorted, if that makes any sense? Yeah. So
Eric Mulvin: It was like the early days of Yeah, trying to. Yeah, so to do more, get out of Excel. And
Darrell Stern: Yeah, so they were the first one to have a patent on computer software. Because they actually invented a different algorithm way. I don’t know what it was. Okay. So that was my first corporate job. My whole time. My mom had cancer went into remission, and we came back when the mission ended. And then by November, September, October was when she had the big operation where they really, you know, tore up and then by November, she passed away. And then I found out afterwards that I could have taken a non paid leave of absence So believe it or not, my mom died on a Thursday and he went back to work on Tuesday. You know what I mean. I mean, I just didn’t know what to do. I thought, Well, I gotta I gotta get back to work. My manager started doing this, oh, well, you’re late, you know, oh, you weren’t in the meeting. You know what I mean? I’m just messed up, right. And she starts all of a sudden, because her managers on her ass, you know, because normally,
Eric Mulvin: Can’t stand up for her point.
Darrell Stern: Nobody was really, very, you know, laissez faire or whatever. But I didn’t really get there. I was one of the only people that could explain the tech people. What we wanted to do in marketing is lean into the marketing people what the tech was all about. Yeah. And guy kind of communicate back and forth. And then when she passed away by January, I got married. And then I told them February 14, I think it was
Eric Mulvin: Valentine’s day
Darrell Stern: I said, you know, I’m quitting.
Eric Mulvin: This is on what year?
Darrell Stern: So January, tooth 2003. Exact were exactly 20 years and like me running my own business this year.
Eric Mulvin: Congratulations.
Darrell Stern: I made it. I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna make it. But I made it. You know, 20 jewel decades working for nobody but me. And somehow I’m still here. So yeah, just just keep meeting new people and all that
Eric Mulvin: You ripped yourself out of your network in the East Coast. And
Darrell Stern: Yeah, so again, I threw away the theater stuff, I threw away comedy, I threw it all away. For it wasn’t until 2016, then sort of add another almost 15 years. Then I started doing the videos, right? And getting back into the theater aspect of of this, which I and now that I get to sit in a director’s chair with you, which we’re going to do. I don’t want to go okay. Now the other side, and that’s well, this call this right, yeah, yeah. It just took me home, either. Oh, my gosh, I’m doing what I was doing when I was three. And that’s what really brought my life all together. So I always say, you know, that thing that you threw away, I don’t care if you used to make remote control cars or whatever, like you’re still tinkering with the electronics and it’s of your father. That’s good. Keep that. Yeah, you know, be the guy that that you can even take this and like, review the latest equipment. You know what I mean? Like, keep playing with the toys that you like to play with? Because when not all can continue on in your business. Much more fun than doing something that’s like, Oh, my God, I hate it. Yeah. So you can stop here, or I got a carbine. And we’ll be back for Episode Two. We’re just gonna drive around teacher about Arizona and interview someone at the same time.
Eric Mulvin: So we hope you
Darrell Stern: No, but this is a good idea for a podcast. This is very good. Like we got into the last video that I like it.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah, so we’ll see. You never know. I mean, like you said, the
Darrell Stern: Darrell Stern is on the premiere episode though. This was the best one. This was the one that launched his career. Remember that Darrell Stern?
Eric Mulvin: Well, I appreciate your time and driving around. Hope you enjoyed the milkshake. And
Darrell Stern: Oh my God.
Eric Mulvin: if people you know if they’re listening, and you’re like, Yeah, you know what, I’ve been doing video stuff. And, or I need to grow my business. What what you described as where I’m at right now? Yeah, you know, I’m not a startup, I need to get this thing going. How do they get in touch with you? How do they find out more? Sure.
Darrell Stern: So I’m D A R R E LL, which is the French spelling for some reason, Stern S T E R N, and then you can go on there and find me on LinkedIn. You can go to stern dot marketing, testimonials. And so I just put up, I just dug through all this old stuff. I got ones going back to 2013. Like all the way through, you’re not.
Eric Mulvin: I think every business owner is guilty of this. I mean, I got tested, you know what I mean? And
Darrell Stern: we don’t stop to rejoice and look at what we’ve accomplished. Because business goes up and down. It’s a roller coaster.
Eric Mulvin: So true.
Darrell Stern: That’s that. Let’s do another episode on that because I want to go over. But yeah, you go there you find me all over the interwebs I have some free classes and stuff at stern storming.com to you that you download and stuff. And yeah, I’d love to talk to you. If you really you are a gift to the world. There’s something inside of you and everything that you’ve done good and bad is like an amazing story. And if you stop this focusing on the business, I got to sell the business and believe it or not, and let go of that you’ll sell a whole lot more just by being yourself.
Eric Mulvin: Yeah. So and you’ll see some content will come out with working with material as well. So yeah, you’ll get to see some examples of that.