165: From Manila to Manhattan: How One Man Cracked Wall Street’s Inner Circle | Butch Meily

Intro to Butch Meily

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what if your greatest success came at the cost of your peaceyour marriage and nearly even your sense of self our guest

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today lived that story welcome to the Learn It All Podcastthe show for today's leaders who want to get ahead

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and stay ahead because we believe great leaders aren't bornor made they are always in the making i'm your host Damon

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Ley two-time bestselling author and CEO of Learn It a livelearning platform that has helped upskill over two million

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people over the past three decades in a moment I'll bejoined by Butch Miley a

The cost of attaching yourself to powerful people

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former PR strategist who helped shape the narrative behindone of the largest leverage buyouts in the history of the

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United States you've got to keep going no matter what andand that's got to sustain you someday we're each going to

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get a break and the idea is to be ready when that breakcomes to to take advantage of it i'm super excited to

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dive into Butch's book because I'm going to be asking him toshare why chasing someone else's version of success can

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quietly unravel your life what it really looks like to workwith powerful people and the emotional toll it can take the

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raw leadership lessons Butch learned from billionaireReginald Lewis about his identity pressure and ambition and

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how to recognize when your ambition is driving you towardsburnout butch in the prologue of your book you said you made

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a living attaching yourself to powerful people why did youopen with that line

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and what did uh attaching yourself to powerful people end upcosting you well I I open with that line because it was

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sort of a Gatsby type uh opening because I I was introducingmyself and the and

Why Butch finally wrote his memoir

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the Gatsby of my tale is is Reginald Lewis who's a largerthan life character but I in terms of uh what did it cost me

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i mean cost me uh in the end cost me my marriage uh becausethey the whole idea

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of uh working with powerful people I worked with a wholeseries of them is that they want very often most of them

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they they want all your time and there's there's a price tobe paid and uh in

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terms of my my personal life uh that price was was my uh myrelationship with

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my uh my ex-wife so you have a brand new book out that Iread that I thought I

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thought was great from Manila to Wall Street and it's kindof a it's a memoir

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about your life story and also like you you mentionedReginald Lewis why now why did you decide to write that book now

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you know my wife and I broke up a few years ago and it'salmost like God gave me a trade

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he said "You can finally write that book you've beenwanting to write but it's going to cost you something." And it

Who the book is for and how it's structured

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cost me uh the relationship because then I had the time ihad the motivation to write it i wrote it in one stretch in

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2019 took me all these years to get it out but uh I'm glad Idid it it's something I'd always wanted to do from

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many years ago about this unforgettable character well I wasgoing to do it

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fiction i decided to do it non-fiction but it was a trade isuddenly had the time to do it

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before I get into some of the wild stories which which Iwhich I really appreciate and love let's talk about for

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our audience give us a little background on the structure ofthe book how it's written and then also who really is this

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book for like what who should go out and buy this book andwhat will they learn from it well the structure of the book

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and it went through seven editors but the structure of thebook it it goes back and forth a little bit from

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the what was the present time the 80s and the 90s the go- goyears companies

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getting taken over overnight by by people you'd never heardof back to my life when I first came to

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the States and tracks me there it goes back and forth to theactual takeover

Butch’s first meeting with Reginald Lewis

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the billiond dollar bid for Beatatric International how thathappens then

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segways back again you know this is a popular thing I guesson Netflix Amazon and they go back and forth i It's not

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enough to stick with one story all through but you got tokeep them engaged so bounces back and forth and in between

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there's a there's a love story two love stories really it'sit's about four people in the 80s and 90s in New York

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City mostly and Paris all right so let's talk a little bitabout uh I believe

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it's the first story in the book Call Me Regge so the firsttime you got that

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phone call I believe from his wife yes i was sitting in theas I call it my

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windowless office on uh Park Avenue and 19th Street at BurenMarstellar i was uh

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pretending to work hard i got this phone call from a ladywho I'd uh I didn't

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know and she she had an accent and she told me she got myname from Wall Street

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Journal reporter and uh not to worry because her husband hada PR problem but

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someday he'd be a big client for us so I I agreed to meetwith him on the phone i

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had to go through several layers of executives to to talk tohim i finally did and turned out he had a PR problem i

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w up meeting in the him in the lobby of the New York Timesand that's the only time I realized he was

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African-American was just before I the interview I set upfor him with the New York Times reporter which at the time

Reg’s early PR battle and the New York Times story

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New York Times was like the one of the big opinion leadersif he could snare a story in in the business pages it kind

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of set the tone for everybody else and I was able to do itand his name was Reginald Lewis at the time he was on the

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brink of becoming one of the top players on on Wall Streetand I managed to catch

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him at just the right moment and he went on to do a billiondollar bid for Beatus

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International which had a lot of name brands TropicanaSamsonite Orville Red and Backer but that was the big break

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for me and his PR problem was the deal he did with Macau Ibelieve right and he

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was pissed because they didn't give him any credit for ityeah pattern company British British group bought it and uh

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they sort of kicked him under the rug and and so did themanagers who he he'd rewarded with multi-million dollar stock

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and uh he felt slighted so he he called the uh New YorkTimes reporter who wrote

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the story and in those days you could get everybody's nameout of the phone book no matter who you were and he woke

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him up at 6:00 in the morning to yell at him and so that wasa problem because I

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happened to know the guy he was a really nice guy the guynamed Dan Cuff and so I

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I I called him after I had my conversation with Rege Lewisand then told him you know would you meet with

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him and why why should I meet with this guy why is he callwhy is he calling me at 6:00 in the morning about a story I

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wrote but I managed to patch things up and and we we finallydid meet and I got

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a the big thing is I got a second story out of it with awith a photo which is very rare in the paper like the New York

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Times and that that really started uh the whole thing offwas raised me a whole different level in terms of my

Getting screamed at in a Bentley: Butch’s first ride withReg

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career and brought region that helped land him the the big

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deal helped bring him to the attention of a guy named MikeMilin who was the leading all these billion-dollar

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takeovers at the time one of the things I thought wasinteresting and fascinating in your book was that you

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leave you know you get you get that great story you get apicture of Reg in there and but then I I believe in the

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ride in the car didn't he didn't he just turn on you rightthere and to get all pissed yeah I was really uh you know I

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then I was I was on a high i thought I'd scored a home run iI I bagged the New

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York Times interview for him and uh we walked out of theTimes and I just met

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Bridge and he asked me to ride with him in the car and Iexpected to get congratulated or at least get a thank

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you from him and I got neither never heard one thank you andall through the

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car all through the car ride uh back it was in this uhchauffeur driven Bentley

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all he did was yell at me and you know I just met this guyhe had he was yelling at you you know so I

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said that I wanted to get out of the car which I w up doingeventually but I said

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I was just amazed at this individual i was looking at himand I know very few people in this world who you do them big

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favor you get them an interview in the New York Times andand and all they do is yell at you because it it wasn't good

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enough it was never good enough and that's what I gave himto learn uh about

The emotional toll of working under constant pressure

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Re Lewis was that nothing he was a very demanding guy and ifyou hit a single or double it wasn't enough you should have

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had a triple or a home run and no matter what yourprofession was whether you're in accounting finance PR he raised the

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level of your game which is important do you think that madeyou better do you think that uh that leadership style uh

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well worked maybe let's say in the 80s would work now aswell well it made me

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better in terms of my profession it made me different as aperson but it turned

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me into a nervous wreck and I'm I'm Damon i'm stillrecovering it uh from it

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30 40 years away cuz getting if you get yelled at every dayof your life and being told you're so so and so and what

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you know you get blamed for all kinds of things i know a lotof people who didn't make it and didn't quite recover why did

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you stay well the money money was big i mean I was I was Iwas jumped a whole

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different level financially you And I was getting WallStreet uh type salaries

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with uh you get bonuses you get shares and it's it's a greatlife uh except for

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the fact that when you come home at the end of the day it'sreal late at night and you don't feel like

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you like a very good person and uh you know Sunday nightsyou're

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you're sitting with a knot in your stomach wondering aboutuh Monday morning uh and going back to work and

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wondering what you're going to get yelled at and many of thepeople I worked with uh did not make it i mean

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our marriages broke up and the uh I I think their confidencetook a hit you

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know and so did mine and what you told me before we came onuh air was that one

Life regrets and the wisdom of Barbara Bush

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of the main reasons why you wrote this book is to learn fromyour life help others learn from some of your stories

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so is that one of them right there that you're hoping thatyour lead your readers will say "Hey look Butch took

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all this abuse he learned from it and if you had to do itall over again would

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you do it differently?" Yeah i keep going back to whatBarbara Bush said at at when she gave the commencement

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address at Welsley College one time that at the end of yourlife you're not going to think about boy I should have gone to

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the office more often or I I I should have done more dealswhat you are going to regret is is not spending more time

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with your family with your kids and and that's really trueand I uh I I I regret

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not starting having a family earlier in life because of thepressure of work i regret not spending more time with my uh

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wife and and my kid when we had them because of the pressureof work so I I I

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do regret those things and if I at the end of the book I sayyou know ordinary people living ordinary lives who get to

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go home at the end of the day kick back have a beer andwatch ball game are much

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happier than the big names and the VIPs that you hear abouton social media in

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the uh in the media here in the papers or the or on radio orin podcasts i mean they're they're they're happier in the

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end because they they get time to with their families theyget to go home at a certain time they don't get called in

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the middle of the night and yelled at or asked to come in onSaturday morning or meet on Sunday so uh that's that's what

Can you have both success and happiness?

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I realized after all that but do you think it's possible toto have both to have the success and the fame and also

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have the happiness or do you think that it's a devil's tradeyou got to either go for if you want to go that route you

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have to go all in and and and sacrifice to happiness well Ithink you you have it all about Damon right i mean yeah

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you're you're successful you look pretty happy to me but ISo I think I think it's possible to be successful and happy

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and the key is to have a loving uh spouse and uh and to tobe able to take

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the time to to to have a slot of time to to be with thefamily and to not be in a job where it

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takes your Saturdays and your Sundays cuz I I've worked withCEOs it wasn't just Reg i mean I'm I'm working with a a

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CEO now in Asia and in Asia they they they regard yourpersonal time very differently than over here and people

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get very surprised over there when they get called intomeetings on Sundays uh

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and it and or when they're asked to stay till 2:00 in themorning for uh meetings and it that that's not a happy

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life and some of the C CEOs I've worked with are not happypeople i think it's good advice i I think that um you got to

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learn to set boundaries if if possible um or it depends onthe the where you

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are in your life you know if you're young and you're notlooking at having a family go all in you know commit you

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know put the put the effort and time in i'm a big believerButch and I'm just like you in the sense is that there's no

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substitute for hard work now I'm not saying sacrifice yourfamily and for somebody who's got two young kids I I

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got to make sure I'm present for them i don't want to missthat but I I love working i don't love getting yelled at

Leveraged Buyouts 101 + the Beatrice takeover story

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you know um from bosses or baseball coaches back in the daybut I love learning from guys like you and and the

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stories that you have and and speaking of stories you'vementioned it twice the the big the LBO deal now for our uh

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listeners who aren't familiar with what a leverage buyout iscan you give a um

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just a 101 just a quick version of what that is and then goright into the story about Reg and um Beatress sure i mean

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leverage buyout is is a case where somebody goes out borrowsa lot of money

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and he takes that money he or she takes that money and tobuy an a a huge

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corporation because all you needed at the time was a letterfrom uh from Michael Milin saying they was highly

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confident he could get the deal done firm called DrexelBurnham Lambbear you show up with that letter and the uh some

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of the largest companies in the world got taken over rjrNabiscoco Beatress Beatress Foods TWWA

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you name it they all these were household names and that'swhy corporate executives at the time were were

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terrified i mean they were terrified of somebody coming inand and with a lot of

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uh borrowed money and just taking over buying up shares fromtheir shareholders

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offering them a higher price taking over the company andwhat typically happened

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after you took the company over was that you broke it up youtook the pieces sold

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it for higher prices and then you use that money to pay downthe money that

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you'd originally borrowed and you'd wind up with the coreoperations with virtually very little

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debt and it it was an amazing amazing thing and uh usingother people's money

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and there's a play about that once in a couple movies Ithink month after the

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call pattern story came out in New York Times Reg called meover one night to his apartment and said uh I've got

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another deal for you and I you know the the press is goingto be important And then he started to tell me this

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fantastic story about this company called BusousInternational that had 64 companies in 31 countries around the

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world and a company called KKR which is one of the big LBOfirms at the time and

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it's still around today they they were going to have anauction and it was a

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big international auction he was planning to bid for it andfirst I thought this guy's uh dreaming read one

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story in the New York Times or business section but it's notgoing to buy you a multi-billion dollar company but then he

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he went about and and uh said about uh going with that bidhe met with Michael Milin and Drexel he got their backing

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and the uh and I I talk about that a little bit in the storyand then it all boiled down to uh one eve evening and in

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which they were all huddled around a one of those old uhtelephone sets you know these black handphone sets and it was on

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speaker mode and it was an auction that was conducted uh onthe phone and it it

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was all comers city corp uh as it was known then it's nowcalled city bank bid

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for it big French company called Bonran which is amultinational back then food

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company they bid for it and then they had this one smallgroup uh that Reg

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Lewis controlled called the TLC group that nobody had everheard of and they they wound up putting in a

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the highest bid for $985 million and the investment bankersfrom Salman Brothers

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said "Uh there's a problem nobody knows who the hellyou are." And Holy we

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finally had to produce that letter from Milin and uh but itwas it was a almost a billion dollar bid it took a lot of

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guts by somebody because uh if you bid too high you're goingto go bankrupt if

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you bid too low you're going to lose the bid and you wind upwith all these expenses investment bankers and

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accountants and lawyers that you'd have to pay off sopeople's jobs were on the line when when Reg bid that but he made

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it happen and then he he had pre-sold a lot of the assets touh Spanish

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companies and Canadian companies and British companies andAsian companies so he wound up with a core of European

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assets so he wound up going spending a lot of time in Parisbecause of that which is u which is great despite the

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ailing and uh you know I I always regard Paris with a with agreat feelings to

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this day so where did the courage have to come in from is itfrom Milin's position backing a guy like Rege or was

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it really Reg having to go out on a limb limb and and gambleand find that sweet spot not too high and not too low well

Where Reg’s courage really came from

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the courage comes from within you i mean you know it's gotto come from there it

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it's not from uh somebody else and the the drive was insidethis man uh Reginald

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Lewis he had this enormous drive he came from nowhere hecame from a semi-tough

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neighborhood in Baltimore he kicked the door in and made itinto Harvard Law School on on a scholarship and he

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started the first uh all black law firm after he was told hewould never make partner at one of the Wall Street type

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firms called Paul Weiss and he he just kicked the door inseveral times and he

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he broke through and I think in the end he paid a price forit because there's

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enormous amount of stress and he wound up dying at the ageof 50 years old but

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he broke through a lot of barriers for our listeners outthere who are maybe starting their own thing or going

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through a career transition what could they learn from Regwhen it comes to not

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giving up you know I I know that I know he had a lot ofstress and maybe there was not some great things about him but

Reg’s mantra: Keep going no matter what

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what can they learn from that to help push their careerforward well one of

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the lessons that he kept pushing and talking aboutespecially towards the end was the idea keep going no matter what

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and he would uh keep repeating this in his speeches and itwas became his mantra in the end and I think that's

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important for people because we're all going to get knockeddown several times i mean we we talked about this a little

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bit before the podcast but everybody's going to get kickedaround and and and uh it's like Popeye i'm not sure how

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many people remember who Popey is but I mean you know youyou keep getting you have to keep getting back up and and

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going for it and I I tried to tell my son this that you youcan get fired from a job you can get turned down you can

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you may wind up with a without a date but you you've got tokeep going no matter what and and that's got to

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sustain you along with a certain faith you know faith inyourself faith in uh

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in somebody up there and and if if if you have that you'regoing to get a

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break someday we're each going to get a break and the ideais to be ready when

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that break comes to to take advantage of it absolutely andtiming too i I think

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um I'm not a believer in luck i think you are a believer inluck and what I mean by that is I think which butch me I

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feel like you create your own luck you you get knocked downyou get back up you try again it may not happen this time

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may not happen next time but eventually it will happen andlike you said when you get that opportunity you you grab a

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hold of it i I grew up with a guy Billy Mueller um played inthe big leagues for several years actually lived in my

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apartment building he was like a 32nd round draft choice forthe St louis Cardinals um so he wasn't a high draft

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choice and when he got called up to the big leagues at theGiants that was his opportunity and he took it he went with

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it uh never looked back won a batting title with the Red Soxand everything you know so but what's your take on that

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because I think in your book you talk about that luck has alot to do with things well Re Ridge Reg believed in

The role of luck and hard work

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luck i mean he believed in the he believed in the numbernine i mean all our offices had the number nine on it 99

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Wall Street 9 West 57th Street in New York 99 Ruda Lee inParis so he he

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believed in luck uh and I think at some point he felt luckdeserted him toward the end but the

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uh you know it's really hard work i mean you're you're rightabout that as Arnold

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Palmer I think said uh the harder I work the luckier I getso I I you know you

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you you do make your own luck and you and if you're you'renot prepared to

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work hard it's not going to happen for you i mean it's justnot if if you don't go to

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school if you don't uh study or you don't learn the tradeyou know but America is a a great

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country it's got the opportunities but you you've got towork for it yeah let's stay with that for a second so you came

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from the Philippines and you come to America and I I'veheard you talk about

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it like the the land of opportunity and and you stillbelieve that right oh I do i think America's the greatest country

Why America is still the land of opportunity

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in the world i still believe it i first come over in 1977and uh I talk about this in the

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book i it was like a breath of fresh air i mean you knowI've been raised in a strict uh Catholic background nothing

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wrong with that but uh you know it was like getting out of anot exactly prison

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but it was like getting out and and and and getting thisenormous freedom and u

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it was just terrific the people were terrific they still areand that there's no other country in the world I can tell

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you that that that can give you as much opportunity ifyou're if you're ready to work hard and and take it because I I

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think in other countries around the world there's there's acast system you know there's a class system and uh

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that's just not as true over here i mean if if you have thecredentials and you're prepared to work hard you're

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going to be able to make it and that goes for whether you'rein some small rural town starting a restaurant or

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whether you're in the big city but if if you're prepared toto put in the time and the work you're going to make it i'm

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with you and I appreciate you saying that because I feellike look we have our ups and downs here in America and

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we're not perfect and I it just frustrates me when I hearpeople here you know saying so many negative things

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because I think we're so grateful and we're so lucky to behere uh and I'm you

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know blessed u to have been born here but there is a storyin your book from Rej where he told you you know you got a

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candy cane vision of America people here don't have no ideahow lucky they are to to be an American but uh yeah I mean I

Butch’s “candy cane” vision of America vs. Reg’s experienceas a Black man

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I'd watched a lot of Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peek moviesand all kinds of movies and I I I loved the States from

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afar and I you read Lifetime uh Newsweek all that stuffReaders Digest and uh I

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believed in America uh and I and and and I fell in love withit when I came here

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but when I met Re he he said "Uh boy you've got thisvision here that's not

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the America that that that exists." And I guess he whathe taught me Damon is what it was like to be a little bit uh

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uh what it is to be an African-American in the United Statesand uh you know because I I I started working with him I

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I I got to experience that firsthand uh whether it wasgetting a cab on on

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Fifth Avenue or trying to get him an apartment on FifthAvenue uh I didn't

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realize at the time uh no blacks lived on on Fifth Avenuecuz the New York Cove

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boards they they turned you down they had only had a certainportion of apartments to for for Jews and if you're

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black you said forget it real estate agents were prettyclear about it but he wanted to be the first African-American

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to live on Fifth Avenue and uh we managed to to get himthere it was a great building too but he died a month

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after he moved in but the I mean just uh I I just didn'tunderstand a lot of this

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when I came over and uh I went to school at the Universityof Florida i saw some

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of that but I mean it was it was not a big deal for me but Iit it was for uh I

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guess uh being black it was it was different for for for forhim and for

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others and I would say that um from reading your book thatwas where some of his drive came from right um and he he

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wanted it to be especially the first story was this isn't ablack success

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this is an American success that was he driving that into meon that car ride from the times that's one of the things

The pressure of being “not a Black success—but an Americansuccess”

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he was yelling about was that he didn't want this to be ablack success story he

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didn't want to be pigeonholed he felt that this was anAmerican success story that they and

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that's the but he wanted to be judged on uh not some uhethnic thing but but he

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felt that his success was enough to be based on uh whateverybody else was uh

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was being based on so I that was important to him it wasimportant all

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the way through through the Beatric deal and so on but uh itput a lot of pressure on him to be honest i think he

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felt like every time and he he mentioned this to me everytime he went out it was like he was batting not just for himself

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but for the for all all black people i have no idea how hepassed away or

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anything but I think that that pressure probably caught upto him i saw it with my my own dad died of cancer um and I

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think a lot of it had uh esophagus cancer and I think a lotof it had to do with the stress and pressure which I

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think is another good thing for our listeners and I know Ilearned from that as successful as my dad was you know he

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passed away at 62 years old and there was a lot of stressand pressure around it so Reg and my dad we lose some great

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people that way look now uh but I don't want to give awayyour whole book do you have a great story from your book we

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haven't talked about yet that uh you want to share well I Imean there there's a bunch of stories in there which I think are are prettygood but I

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mean you can talk about Paris or I mean you

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can talk about the fact that Re had this huge mansion in thein the Hamptons which is the big social scene in in New

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York and uh it wound up burning down in the middle of theHey that's the story tell that one we were sitting in an

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office in Paris and he got a phone call in the middle of themorning over there and saying it was from his butler saying

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that uh the house had burned down in at night and he said uhhe started yelling

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at everybody he said uh let's get out of here let's get thecorporate jet uh uh

29:15

ready and then uh we're flying to New York to Long Island isaid you know Re uh yeah that's great uh let me get my

The Hamptons mansion fire: real-life suspense

29:22

clothes at the hotel and I'll meet you at the airport hesaid "Forget about it

29:27

we're leaving right now from this office leave everythingyou've got toothbrushes

29:33

toiletries clothes you'll buy whatever you need when we getto uh the Hamptons." I said "Really?" Okay and he

29:40

had the secretary uh call the hotels and we all wound up onthat flight and uh all through the flight though uh uh

29:47

Damon he he sat by himself in the front cabin and he wasmuttering to himself

29:52

and he was working on this long legal pad yellow legal padthat he always had and finally he called me up to the front

29:59

and he he gave me a look at the uh at the page that he'dbeen working on and

30:06

on it was a long list of of of names and then he told methat uh who do

30:12

you think did it i think it turned out to be a list ofsuspects and uh it

30:18

included everybody he'd ever met or been friends with orworked with and included

30:24

some of the guys on the back of the plane with on board withan arsonist

30:29

we're in trouble uh but uh the only name it didn't includewas mine and I was I was grateful for that i I was really

30:36

happy about it but uh you know it just didn't look like anyof these guys would be uh would have uh done it but uh he

30:44

was he was he'd been working on that list for hours and hekept asking me and

30:50

he started asking me specifically did so and so did it toyou think I mean and uh

30:55

and so that that was the atmosphere we were in and so welanded in the Hamptons and then this great big house which he

31:00

took a lot of pride in and uh relaxed in and Mayor Dinkenshad been there for New

31:06

York Arthur Ash the famous uh black tennis player had beenin and all kinds

31:12

of stars and um yeah I was gone and uh it really hit him butuh to there we got

31:20

in a lot of trouble because he called in uh some favor asNew York City police showed up and the like the police in

31:27

Long Island got upset and they leaked it to the New YorkPost and the New York Times and they it became a big headline

31:33

story about why what they were doing in in the Hamptons andso they all headed back and uh but I mean we got some help

31:40

uh President uh George HW Bush sent alcohol to black andfirearms to check cuz I mean it was a big a big deal in

31:47

the sense that he was the only uh black guy I think at thetime living in a town called Amiganset Long Island which is

31:54

one of the Tony places up there it was just a very differenttime and um he always suspected might be racially

32:00

motivated but we we never found anything to to to justifythat i mentioned before about my grandfather Frank Lembby who's

32:07

a character and my uh Frank Ley moment from reading thatstory was how you're

32:12

in Long Island and he wanted to call the New York mayor andyou're like

32:17

regurisdiction over there and he's like who cares just do itit was just a favor

32:23

and they they they came up there uh the New York Citydetectives but the Long Island guys I you just didn't realize

32:28

they they really hated it and uh they leaked it to the pressand it was a big

32:34

brewhaha and then the New York Post ran it and uh New YorkTimes had a big story

32:40

on it you can Google it and uh it became an issue i mean butyou know he was nice

32:46

enough he sent turkeys it was almost Thanksgiving to all thefiremen that had helped out uh with the fire but uh he to

32:54

the end of his life he always suspected uh what do you thinkdo you think it was arson or do you think that I digging on

33:00

my hands and knees through the ashes there Damon straightoff the plane from Paris and I wasn't sure what we were

33:06

going to find but um we never found anything it's probablyuh faulty wiring uh you know since then I've learned of a

33:13

lot of fires at that at these big homes and these all thesefancy places and it's it's inevitably a cause of uh

33:20

faulty wiring when you've got an old home reg passes awayand uh did you

33:26

think at that time that your your time working with thecompany was going to be done yeah I was concerned cuz I mean my

33:33

whole life was uh focused on him i was his guy but I didn'thave time because 4

33:39

days later Damon you know my own father passed away and I Ialways regretted not

33:46

I was supposed to call him from uh Baltimore where we thefirst funeral service is being held i wanted to chat

33:51

with him and talk to him he's big my my advisor and my myfriend really and

33:57

um yeah and he I was one of the polebears at Reg's funeralin Baltimore

34:04

then uh a motorcycle cop approached us and then he talked tosomebody and the head pilot of our jet came up to me and

34:10

said "You know I've got some bad news and your fatherjust died in uh Manila." And I I always regretted not making that

Reg passes away, then Butch’s father dies days later

34:17

last phone call to him i'm sorry yeah thank you but uh youknow I I figured

34:22

somebody up there was trying to tell me something becauseand to take my boss away my anchor at work and then to take my father away atthe same time

34:29

uh that was sort of a lot for me and I wound up flying homeand I I'd set up the wake there's a huge wake uh for him

34:36

in New York City with everybody there and uh people givingthese long speeches but I I missed all that i set it up for

34:43

them but I I I wound up I I I told Lloyd Lewis his widow I Iwas going to go home

34:49

i was going to finally going to go home and spend some timewith my uh my family back there and my mother to to help them

34:57

but you had a good relationship with your father right i Idid and and that's I think that has a lot to do with sort

35:03

of the person I am i I think I like to think I'm a goodfather because of that but he we listen to uh baseball uh uh in

35:11

the middle of the night World Series games on uh shortwaveradio from Manila and was a St louis Cardinals they won a

35:18

couple of uh uh World Series back then and uh even though mydad was a Yankees

35:23

fan but um it was fun and I I developed a love for the gamethat's never left me

35:29

and I I I took my son when he was 3 years old Yankees gameand one of the best points in my life was uh taking my

35:35

father to his first uh baseball game at Yankee Stadiumcourtesy of the Daily News yeah i I feel like you is that I

35:43

feel like I'm good father because my dad was a good fatheryou know and my mom was my mom is a wonderful mother and so

35:51

for whatever it's worth don't beat yourself up over thatcall you didn't make because your dad knows that he

35:56

loved you loved him and you know I mean of course you wantto do it differently but that's how life goes sometimes well

36:02

I learned later that he was he was he was proud of me i cameto me in the middle of the night one time that that

36:08

feeling of pride cuz I was regretting it and my wife latersaid that you know he

36:13

he adored me he always told me I was living the life hedreamed of uh in New

36:19

York doing public relations and all that and travelingeverywhere i was taking the conquered a lot i was taking private

36:26

jets just unimaginable for for a kid from Manila so you gotlet go right i

36:32

mean they called you in and said "Hey we're we'reconsolidating fired." Yeah uh about a year after uh the change in

36:40

CEOs i mean that's what happens uh I mean they happened tobest with uh when

36:46

I was working with the Jamaican prime minister earlier in mylife but the and he lost the election but this time I got

36:52

fired and uh but I had a wife to worry about and that madeit made a big

36:57

difference to me so I was concerned but a year after that Iuh to my huge surprise and the surprise

37:06

of the world somebody who we'd always thought was acorporate wife her name was Lloyd Lewis and she

37:13

she wound up coming back with a uh with a force and she shetook over as CEO

37:20

from Re's uh brother and she she brought me back and uh andand that was a big

37:28

change for me you know it was like good times were back butshe was also a very different type of leader from her

37:35

husband uh you know she really believed uh in in

Butch is fired—then brought back by an unexpected new CEO

37:42

deeply in her faith uh I think that made a big difference toher and she maybe it

37:47

was her being a woman maybe was the fact that she had gottenstepped on a lot uh when she was uh when Edge was around but

37:54

she was a more of a nurturer and I always left her officefeeling much

37:59

better about things and about life than when I went in andshe had that kind of

38:06

aura and she she really spread uh uh a lot of love and she'dstart her uh her

38:12

meetings with a prayer which the executives in uh in at TLCBeatus

38:17

International not used to they used to roll their eyes andsay oh boy but uh and then she would uh I'd

38:26

write down the speeches for for rich and her and she shealways wanted some quote from the uh from the Bible from Isaiah

38:33

or something and that was a big change for her husband so uhthey he was not

38:39

spreading love around the office but uh but she she was Imean he really felt a

38:45

certain aura from her to this day that uh you feel lighterin your heart and uh

38:53

which is great and I finally got to have a kid after shetook over i got to start

39:00

a family and spend spend more time with my with my wife butshe was still tough

39:05

as a as a leader i I mean I know you told a story about I Idon't remember exactly but Jean said "Can't we put this

39:11

warehouse under this business?" And she's like "Noit's going to stay here." Yeah she was tough i She was tough with theFrench because we had the uh all the

39:19

Europeans were sort of difficult to deal with well lot a lotof them and they're all our partners in different companies

39:26

there but there's a French family called the Bose and theyown these uh 7-Eleven

39:31

type stores they actually we owned them beaches BeachesInternational owned them but they they acted like they owned them

39:38

they'd started them and then Beaches bought them from themand they we were the majority

39:43

shareholders but they we built this warehouse and theythey're insisting that the warehouse should be theirs i

39:49

mean uh their their end of the business they they ran theseuh they call them frrix and leader price to this day you

39:54

can go to Paris and you'll see them on every corner but andand Lloyd said

39:59

"Forget it we we spent some money we built this."And uh you know let's move

40:05

on to the next subject but she she was tough i mean she sheshe let go of 50%

40:10

of the corporate staff in New York at the time of herhusband we had a corporate jet she sold that and then we

How Loyda Lewis led with grace, faith, and fierce businesssavvy

40:16

we also used to have these great palatial officesoverlooking Central Park uh in New York which I loved and uh

40:23

she wound up putting me in a cubicle would live down thestreet and

40:30

it was a big change in in my life that I I no longer had a abig office but uh

40:36

that came uh with the territory i mean she cut costs sheincreased uh revenues

40:42

and as my old uh my own former boss said she she brought theship home and she raised the value for shareholders and it

40:49

was totally unexpected because she was always a corporatewife to to the the executives we you hardly ever heard from

40:56

her except at the funeral she wanted to call the shots interms of the wake but

41:02

uh yeah she she really took over and she she led uh she ledus and steered the

41:09

ship home what would Reg if he was alive right now think ofyour book probably be

41:15

calling this podcast up playing you know

41:20

i get a call who the heck are you mean having that guy onbut uh no I he was

41:27

such a micromanager sometimes but uh yeah I like to thinkthat I whatever I

41:33

say in the book I'm helping keep revive his memory I'mhelping reintroduce him into the national conversation after 30

41:40

40 years it had I written this book as soon after he passedaway would have

41:46

been much easier you know i mean he was still bigname newsback then but I

41:51

waited all this time uh to learn all these lessons and lookback and uh I feel like I'm reintroducing him to a

41:58

whole new generation of people there's people around who areolder who remember the Beatress days and the takeover days

42:05

that they're they're fewer now but the the idea thatReginald Lewis stood for

42:12

the type of personality he was and the lessons uh that Ilearned from it and uh and what people did back then in the

42:19

1980s and 1990s in terms of big corporate takeovers and uhtaken

42:25

conquered back and forth from Paris that type of lifestyle Ithink has a a

42:30

resonance to to today to to younger people who have no ideawhat happened

Would Reg like the book? And why Butch wrote it now

42:36

before the 2020s or something you know and there were no uhno social media and

42:42

the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and theFinancial Times called the shots back then well as we wrap up

42:48

here and I've I've absolutely loved every moment of thislet's just talk for a minute about what you're doing now

42:53

well that's a big change Damon is that I I wound up uhmoving from leverage buyouts and corporate takeovers to

43:01

becoming a uh humanitarian in a sense uh do you know thesedays I I give a lot of

43:06

uh talks and I do a lot of work in terms of disasters uhwhether they're uh

43:12

natural hazards natural disasters or there's even someman-made uh disasters and conflict situations so I I I do

43:20

spend a lot of time on that i I just came back from Genevawhere I I spoke at the UN conference over there and I do

43:27

this all the time and and I I can talk to you for hours onend about different

43:33

uh typhoons or ISIS inspired conflicts

43:38

in southern Philippines which you're involved in and uh theother uh part of

43:43

my life I deal with startups i I help mentor them with ateam I have and uh we

43:50

invest in them and take equity in them so it's verydifferent but sometimes they wind up being this disasters too

43:56

but uh you know I mean uh so that's that's a big change forme because I it's very fulfilling and uh and it's a

44:05

whole different side of me that's gotten opened up and uhreally brought me closer to uh to what life's all about

44:13

what's one more thing you want to leave our audience withbefore we close out that idea that that if you read about

44:18

people and and see them on social media that don't believeit i mean you're you're much happier than many of these

44:26

these these people are and that you there's a lot of valuein being a

44:31

good father being a good husband being a good spouse and uhand you get a lot of

Butch’s new life: humanitarian work and startup mentorship

44:36

joy there more joy than uh than some of these these guys youread about in the uh in the press or in the watch on TV

44:45

and uh because I I found just mixing with with some of thesethese these people they're they're just not very

44:50

happy people and uh so I I just living an ordinary life and

44:56

watching the ball game is it's just a great life and I Ithink that people

45:01

should should be real happy about that at the end of yourlife I think you'll uh it's something that you'll realize

45:07

you know that your your happiness comes from from who you'rewith from your family not from uh making a lot of money

45:15

or having being famous butch this has been amazing your bookjust came out it

45:21

came out May 5th May 6th I believe so listeners go out andget it um it's a

45:29

great book from Manila to Wall Street butch where else canour listeners connect with you at well I've got my

45:35

website uh butchmmy.com and then there's uh the books onAmazon and Barnes & Noble and

45:42

their websites and uh yeah I mean you can just Google me andyou can Google me

45:47

at at the organizations I lead to get in touch with me thereand uh but my my email address is is on my website and

45:55

I'm therefore subject to a lot of weird emails but uh ohstrange people but uh

Final lesson: why “ordinary” is extraordinary

46:02

it's it's there and and so feel free to to email me and tellme what you really think about the book awesome well thank

46:09

you Butch this has been such a pleasure i'm glad I had theopportunity to read the book and so listeners until next

46:15

time stay curious keep learning and have a great dayeverybody we're hitting a

46:20

stage where we want to say okay all those boxes I checked dothey matter do

46:26

I have a footprint in the world do I matter and it's reallya point where

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