Tony Kula. Post-Exit Shift: From Workaholic to Ironman

Episode - 35

Tony Kula. Post-Exit Shift: From Workaholic to Ironman

 
 
 

Tony Kula. He has built three businesses, exiting his first in his mid 20-s and spending two decades turning the next into a video distribution powerhouse, which he sold six years ago.

His latest venture, MeetYoo, skyrocketed during the pandemic, but faced serious challenges afterward, prompting Tony to reassess his priorities.

Now he's an advocate for healthy living, an Ironman athlete and is finding his new purpose through angel investing and writing.

In this episode, we explore his three decades of post-exit lessons and his uniquely European take on work-life balance.

What We Discussed:

00:00:08: Guest introduction - Tony Kula

00:00:46: Tony's background and career overview

00:01:04: Exploration of post-exit lessons and work-life balance

00:01:10: Tony's business exits

00:03:36: Starting and building MeetYoo

00:08:18: Changes around age 50 and the impact of the pandemic

00:09:23: Transition to healthier living and becoming an Ironman athlete

00:10:42: Growth and challenges of MeToo during the pandemic

00:12:24: Post-exit reflections and current pursuits

00:12:52: Angel investing and new purposes

00:16:01: Continuation of athletic pursuits

00:18:01: Transition from running a business to angel investing

 

00:19:26: Learning and supporting young founders

00:20:30: Current routine and time management

00:21:37: Reflecting on daily routines and structure

00:22:31: Missing the team and social aspects of work

00:23:06: Balancing responsibilities and creativity

00:24:28: Observing personal growth and management evolution

00:25:55: Life after exiting the business

00:26:23: The role of writing and meditation in self-reflection

00:28:04: Exploring the concept of purpose

00:30:06: The financial and personal purposes of business

00:32:00: Philosophical reflections on personal purpose

00:32:52: Relationship with family and being a good human

00:34:18: Thoughts on legacy and being remembered


  • Tony Kula: [00:00:00 - 00:00:08]

    I had financial purpose. I wanted to be independent, and I think, no, I would not find it in being employed somewhere and working for someone else. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:08 - 00:00:41]

    Tony Kula. He has built three businesses, exiting his first in his mid twenties and spending two decades turning the next into a video distribution powerhouse, which he sold six years ago. His latest venture, MeetYoo, skyrocketed during the pandemic, but faced serious challenges afterward, prompting Tony to reassess his, his priorities. Now he is an advocate for healthy living, an Ironman athlete, and is finding his new purpose through angel investing and writing. 


    Tony Kula: [00:00:42 - 00:00:52]

    If I would not have my sports, I would just freak out. I would say, I have more routines now. I'm physically better than I was like ten years ago. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:52 - 00:01:05]

    In this episode, we explore his three decades of post exit lessons and his uniquely european take on work life balance. Hi, Tony. 


    Tony Kula: [00:01:05 - 00:01:06]

    Hi, Anastasia. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:07 - 00:01:24]

    Hi. Very happy to have you here. If you don't mind, I want to start with saying that it's quite incredible that you had three exits at very different stages in your life. And if you can briefly tell us also what each of the company did, that would be great in terms of. 


    Tony Kula: [00:01:24 - 00:05:11]

    Exits, it's like maybe two and a half exits, because the last one was not a financial exit. I just stopped working in my company. Yeah, let's start maybe with the first one. That was a very small software business that I was a spin off out of my other business. And we were building a software that was connecting video conferencing systems at that time in my early twenties. So this is now 25 years ago, the video conferencing systems, they were not talking like one to another. And, yeah, I had a bright guy, a CTO that we had at this time, and we were building that. And, like, more or less by accident in a us company, a listed company that was listed on Nasdaq. They exactly liked that software. We didn't have any customers by that time. We just could show, and it was like, really? We faked that a little bit. But, yeah, they liked it so much, they invited us to Texas and I sold the company. So they said, here's the offer. So I had no idea about M and a. I was not thinking too much. I was 25 or 26 years, and yeah, it was a lot of money for me and I could invest it in my business, but I was not, like, saying, okay, now let's stop working. I did some mistakes on the stock exchange because I thought, now I'm going to be super smart. But luckily, I also bought my first real estate at that time. And then I started to build what I, my, the next company, which is called MVC, that I had for many, many years, that was a large video distribution provider. So I was always, like, in communications and, yeah, and then out of that. Yeah, and I sold my shares in that in 2018, but in peril. I already started my other business because I didn't wanted to do hardware all my life, so I wanted to get back in software and services. So I started my current company, MeToo, and MeToo is a provider of web conferencing, video conferencing, teleconference. Again, we acquired a small company, like, was like a single digit transaction and integrated that. And they had, like, what I was fascinated about, digital events. And then the pandemic came that really went through the roof. It grew very fast, and that was like when I was, like, in my late forties and in 2021, yeah, I was 50, 51. I wanted to finish anyway somehow working. And then we had two crazy years where I, yeah, the company grew very fast and everything, and we had a good chance to sell it, but we had to maybe two aggressive M and a advisor, so it didn't happen. Momentum was gone and, yeah, we stayed with the company, and after that, a big rollercoaster started, had to lay off a lot of people. And I said, okay, I had a much younger team, like ten years younger, and they wanted to take care of that. And that was like my third exit, which was not a financial one, but I decided to step out or step down as a CEO and spend more time than here in France, where I live now, for ten years. And, yeah, so these are basically the three exit in three very different phases of my life. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:05:11 - 00:05:26]

    So you mentioned that the very first exit, when you were in your mid twenties, brought you enough financial resources and you even started investing in real estate. Why did you decide at that point to start a new company? 


    Tony Kula: [00:05:26 - 00:06:33]

    First of all, I had these other companies, so this was like, more. I always thought this was like a lucky punch that we could sell that in that manner. It was no process, it was no bidding. It was just someone. It was having the right thing at the right time, and I just took the opportunity. I was maybe smart enough not to sing so much like I did in my last one, otherwise I would have sold it. So I just did it. And I never had the idea to, to quit working or something. So I still had the other company I could invest into that business and in the MVC business and, yeah, and then I started to build MVC over many years. And for me, it always one thing came out of the other. I never really stopped something so hard. And then I did something else. I know the american way is like, I built that, I do that, I sell it, I do the next one. So for me, it was like things happening somehow also a little bit in parallel. And one thing came out of the other in a way. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:06:33 - 00:06:36]

    And we see it took you 20 years to build, didn't it? 


    Tony Kula: [00:06:36 - 00:06:36]

    Yeah. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:06:36 - 00:06:39]

    Before you sold it six years ago. 


    Tony Kula: [00:06:39 - 00:07:22]

    I sold it in. Yeah, but it was also not a very typical exit. So I sold it in different stages. So I sold different. I had different smaller exits. And then in 2018, I sold my last share. MVC is still around and is doing fine. So it's. Yeah, but out of MVC, I already in peril again. I started building MeToo because I wanted to do new things. I also moved away from where I lived at that time, in Frankfurt to Berlin. And, yeah, so I maybe I was always a little bit like multi entrepreneur, doing different things a bit. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:07:23 - 00:07:36]

    So what do you think drove you to keep doing it? Was it more a financial motivator or was it your creativity? What pushed you forward for so many years? 


    Tony Kula: [00:07:36 - 00:08:18]

    I think, like every entrepreneur, I love entrepreneurship. I love Mondays. I like to get up and do something. I love selling. I'm a salesperson, and it's also like an evolution. So I started with video conferencing, video conferencing software. I went into teleconferencing. I could do a large. I also did a large acquisition. I bought teamwork service center from Deutsche Telecom. I built a conference service provider. So I was always curious and doing new things. And along the way, I had the situations where I could exit in whole or parts of the business. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:08:18 - 00:08:20]

    Okay, so what happened at 50? 


    Tony Kula: [00:08:20 - 00:12:56]

    It was not the number. First I thought it's a number, but when I woke up the day I was 50, it was the same like the day before. But I think the pandemic changed much. And to be honest, we also realized that when I started so young, in my twenties, you know, I broke up. I didn't finish the university. I was always a sales guy selling flowers at the garden door of my parents. So I was always the youngest. But suddenly I was more or less the oldest and in my own company, and we hired these, and I said, okay, time is so important, and what can I do, and how can I spend my time better? So do I want to be in the office all the time? So before, it was like a little bit different, but with the pandemic we started, I was always a big fan of remote work and already starting with 40, where I really transformed myself, you have to imagine that I was 90 plus kilo in my forties. So between 30 and 40, I was really working and working and working and building MVC and starting with Metoo and doing all these things, but I was not living healthy, to be honest. I was a fat guy, and then I became an iron man. So I totally changed. My doctor said to me that you probably gaining half a kilo to one kilo per year, and if you want now it's still okay, but if you want to see your kids grow up and everything. So again, I had a radical mind shift. I was quite sporty before 30. I didn't do anything between 30 and 40. And then I could hardly run to the, like 500 meters or something. And then I started and, yeah, I did all these things and started running and started doing maritimes and martins were not enough. Started cycling and swimming and started triathlons and started with a small one and more and more and more. And I still love that. And so I really, that changed a lot for me to find this hobby for myself and, yeah, and together with the pandemic. And so the pandemic was very intense because we had a solution that people really wanted and needed. They couldn't do events. So we've been one of the companies that could deliver these digital events. And so that was a very, very intense. So the company grew from, like 50 people to 150 people, and in a very fast time. And, yeah, but. And then it went down because people wanted to go back to normal events. And I said, okay, I need to change something. And so while we're laying off people, I said, this is maybe a good sign also for me to step back and I do something else. And I was at that time, like, financially independent, more or less. So I did alongside my businesses, I was investing in real estate and did other things so I could say, okay, so I'm also affected by that. And that was a good decision because it gave me some space now from the actual business and everything. So I could digest that because it's hard if you're so successful and then you make the most, you say the most expensive. No, in your life. That was like almost, yeah, three digit millions amount. So a huge amount of money. I mean, that would be worse to be called an exit, but I declined it because, yeah, for whatever reason, it happened in the past, so I'm over it, and that's fine. And, yeah, so, and that was good for me to do other things and started angel investing, writing on LinkedIn, how we met and. Yeah, so probably not the very exit story that you have from others where they say, okay, I built for ten years, 15 years, and then I did a big exit, and now I don't know what to do with my time. I always knew what to do with my time. So I love reading. I do hundreds things. I always have to do something. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:12:56 - 00:13:03]

    Did you have all these hobbies your whole life or when did you discover them? Because you did work very hard. 


    Tony Kula: [00:13:03 - 00:15:09]

    I worked very hard, but it never felt like working. So I enjoyed it. It was like, for me it was. And if you're younger, you don't feel it so hard. So maybe today I would call it very hard because it's been many hours. I was, in a way, fearless. I was doing crazy things. I was doing marketing, sales, everything. So I like to pull off things from the ground and do new things. But during all that time, maybe not so much in the face, between 30 and 40, but my kids were born, like, in 98, so it was like. And I got divorced and sing. So I. It was not that I didn't have hobbies at that time, but I just simply had too many things at the same time and problems with my business partner, so I could not take care. But even in my twenties and not so much in my thirties, but then again, very much in my forties, I always was. I was like, in a way, like, selfish. I took time for me and I traveled and I did things. So it was never that I thought I, okay, let's achieve that, and then I will do this. So I had financial goals. I wanted to have a portion by 30, I had it. It's just once you have it, it's like the real thing to get it, it's, like, gone. So I still enjoyed it. But it's like, yeah, you're buying luxury sinks and I don't know, and watches and stuff like that. But you see, this is not so important. So I found having good time with friends and doing these sort of things gave me more satisfaction. And I did. But I did nice things throughout all my life. And I tried to, of course, now more than. Because when we're getting older, I think we understand that time is the most important thing that we have. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:15:09 - 00:15:16]

    So talking about time, how long did it take you to go from that fat workaholic to an iron man? 


    Tony Kula: [00:15:16 - 00:15:17]

    Five years. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:15:17 - 00:15:20]

    That's fast. How old were you when you started? 


    Tony Kula: [00:15:20 - 00:15:57]

    I started end of 30. I did my first competition, beginning of 40, and I did my first ironman, that was like in, I was 43. How many years that ago? Which year was that? Minus twelve years? Yeah, in 20, 12, 13, something like that. Running the New York marathon. I was running the Berlin marathon for seven times in a row. I was doing all these things. So I had between 40 and 50. I had a very intense sports career late, but I had it. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:15:58 - 00:16:00]

    Are you continuing now after 50? 


    Tony Kula: [00:16:01 - 00:16:54]

    Of course, of course. I just, I cycle almost every day. I cycle every morning, like two, 3 hours. I just did with my partners. We did just Mormon two in Provence, this famous cycling mountain. And she just started two years ago. She's absolutely excited. And I was writing about that on LinkedIn. So she's the real star because she's has not so much time to train. She's building her own business and I'm doing that. But unfortunately, that is also one thing. It's like the knees are getting so I can't run as I did. I didn't, I did run too much on concrete and so some knee problems and some other things, but I don't want to complain. Luckily I'm okay. And yes, if I would, say not have my sports, I would just freak out. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:16:54 - 00:17:03]

    So you have this big smile while you're talking about your training. So I assume you did it because you love doing it. You actually love the process. 


    Tony Kula: [00:17:03 - 00:17:30]

    I love it so much. For me, it's like I'm sitting on my bike with that big smile. So I see I'm not stressed to achieve something. I did some things and it just, I just, I'm in the moment, so I'm not with my phone. I enjoy the time and it's really nice and I like to swim in the sea. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:17:30 - 00:17:44]

    But you did enjoy building businesses quite as much when you did that. So again, what happened at 50 that made you decide I don't enjoy it quite as much anymore? 


    Tony Kula: [00:17:44 - 00:18:29]

    I think, first of all, I was maybe disappointed that I missed that chance. I don't know. And it was not like, and I thought, okay, now you're 50, it's like, what would change if I would do that instead of this younger guy? I'm not saying that I'm not going to build another business. Maybe when I'm 60. I still love talking to founders. I love to, I speak with founders every day, writing about it. I don't know, but I don't have all the stress of doing it. But it might come a time where I say, okay, the idea is good enough. I want to try it one more time. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:18:29 - 00:18:40]

    Maybe I don't know, so you stopped running your business. Me too. And switched to angel investing. Is it because it's less stressful? 


    Tony Kula: [00:18:40 - 00:20:55]

    It's totally different. It just gives me a little bit. So I did just around ten investments. So it's not, I'm not a big angel, so I'm looking at many things. So I want to build a portfolio. That is my plan. So if you want. I'm a long distance guy in life, in sports and business, and from smarter guys, I heard you need to have at least, so I allocated an amount of money that I want to deploy to. You need to have at least 25, 30 companies that you're investing in. So I was a bit too fast, like always in the beginning, because I wanted to have to say, okay, I did my first investment, so it was probably not a very good one. And so, yeah, but I'm learning. I try to learn. I try to connect to people that are doing that for a longer time and more experienced investors. And, yeah, it gives me, like the feeling that I see a lot of different things. It's like out of intellectual curiosity. I speak with young founders. I see their eyes when they're passionate. It reminds me how I was. And I sometimes think, oh, it's good that you don't know what is coming and you just do it. But I also need to learn that it's not my business, it's their business. I cannot tell them how. I tried in the beginning to help them a little bit. I think it was too much. And you learn, and when they need you, you speak with them. So it's like, I try to support and be active. So I'm always in this investor relations course. I take them serious and, yeah, and I have time. It's good to have, like, I think we been discussing that the last time. It's like I have my blogs in the calendar on three days where I take disappointments. So it gives me, because other people, they say, what are you doing all day? You can't be riding your bike all the time. And I said, yeah, but I also work, so, and this is when I have, like, sitting in my home office and doing discourse and speaking and looking. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:55 - 00:21:02]

    At deals and so how much time do you really spend on your investments. 


    Tony Kula: [00:21:02 - 00:21:09]

    Over the whole week? I would say maybe one working day, maybe eight to 10 hours, something like that. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:21:09 - 00:21:12]

    Do you miss the structure you had when you ran the business? 


    Tony Kula: [00:21:13 - 00:22:31]

    I would say I have more routines now. I can train much more structured. I'm physically better than I was like ten years ago, at least in cycling. I didn't have any routine. It just, I went like early in the morning into the business and I went home in the evening, so. And I was busy the whole day. And some days I did not even know in the evening. What did I had for lunch. I don't know, especially the last year. So, yeah, you fill your day with appointments and it depends what you. I mean, I look at people that are so much more successful and they have like very structured days. I don't know, I was just, I just tried to be there and speak with the people and speak with customers and, and that again was also very depending on the stage of the company. So when MVC was bigger and everything, so in the beginning I did everything and I did a lot of sales, and then in MVC, we got investors and we had to do reports and we had to, we had a board and all these things. So it became a bit different and we had assistance and. Yeah. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:31 - 00:22:32]

    Do you ever miss it? 


    Tony Kula: [00:22:32 - 00:23:39]

    Yes. Not the business. I miss to have a team. I miss people because I always love to be around people. I learn to be on my own. I write with others, I have family, I have kids, they have friends. So there's always something going on. But it was nice to. So I still speak 1 hour a week with the meet you guys, and they update me and we're discussing a bit about the progress, but it was different. So when you had a team, you had this responsibility, you were standing in front of the team. It was like, hey, let's, we have to do that and we can make it and everything. So it was like, in business, angel is a bit of you, like a bit of a lonely guy. It's not a VC company where you maybe have a partner or a little team. You're a bit disconnected, but I speak with people, so it's okay. But I miss it. Yes. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:23:39 - 00:23:41]

    So do you miss the creative side of it? 


    Tony Kula: [00:23:42 - 00:25:54]

    The creative side of it was. That was a very good question. I think this is what drives us most. And I mean creative in every way. Like, not creative because I was not creating art or something, but we were like creating solutions for problems all the time and fixing things. And you had to be creative. Either the money was not enough or problems with the customer. You always needed to be creative. And that was something that was. It kept your mind busy. That is. I missed that too. So. And also seeing what gave me a lot of now, in retro perspective, like a lot of pleasure was like seeing people that start to work for you and how they develop and how they start like, I don't know, in a very low position and or people that had no good cv's and they are getting better and better and seeing their loyalty and you see how they strive. So that was something also that they always really enjoyed. I think I was quite an asshole in the first years because I just had to, I am saying that to myself, maybe. No, probably I was, but it was like until we started doing feedback service and things and you always have like a different perception. I didn't reflect so much on what I was doing, I was just doing it and I wanted to be successful and so I had no time and no money to discuss everything in the big round and say, okay guys, let's do it like this. Every one of you have one voice, so you're like five guys, but I have five voices. So. Okay, so the vote is over and we're going to do it like this. But over time you become a better manager and. Yeah, so it's also an evolution as a person that is happening privately and also in business, I think. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:25:55 - 00:26:23]

    So now that you've stopped working two years ago, and I know you write beautifully on LinkedIn and I highly recommend anybody who is listening to us to follow you. I think your posts there are absolutely fascinating. So do you feel you had a chance to process your previous experience and you understand yourself better as a person and as an entrepreneur? 


    Tony Kula: [00:26:23 - 00:28:04]

    I think writing helps. So I had a time when I was doing some kind of journaling. I meditate for. I did some, I meditated for a long time. I do yoga and these things I think you need to get out of, of the actual business in order to properly reflect. I mean, I try to when there were problems and I was thinking about, did I, was I right? How did I treat this person? Was that okay? No, it was not. So I got better in that. But like more overall, how did I behave so. And it's interesting because I read stories from others and then I think, oh, I have a good idea what happened to me in that respect. And then I write it down and I share a story and it's always connected somehow to business, how we were winning large deals. And it's interesting. No, it's not so interesting, but I think it's quite normal. Also, so many things have changed, but still a lot of things are, are quite the same or the problems that I call them. These kids are seeing when they're starting a business the same like 30 years ago. So also they have more tools and other things they can, but they still ask me so this guy wants a company car, but the other hasn't, hasn't won. So can I do that? And so we're talking about things that we've been talking for all the time. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:28:04 - 00:28:07]

    Tony, do you have a sense of purpose? 


    Tony Kula: [00:28:08 - 00:32:00]

    I wanted to have my own money and move out from my parents house. And so I had financial purpose. I wanted, so I didn't have like the purpose, like, I don't know, changing the world for the better and these things. So I know that every accelerator program, everything. Yeah, but what is the purpose in your business and your why and everything? My why was simple. So I come from middle class family. We all had everything we wanted to have, but I wanted more at that stage. There were financial things. I wanted to be independent. And I think you can only achieve independence if you have some kind of financial independence. And I knew I would not find it in being employed somewhere and working for someone else. So the purpose was to have enough money that I, I really started small. So my first purpose was that I could afford to buy a pair of quality socks and not like the six pack that my parents bought us for my brother and myself. So it was like the purpose started small. And over time, I like also in meet you and when I got the kids and everything, so I understood. But I have to lie, or it would be a lie if I say I did it intentionally, but I use it very much then to say, okay, but meet you has a purpose because it avoids business, travel, everything and teleconferencing. So there is a purpose because we cannot pollute the world and everything. But saying that I was like the big green peace guy and that wants to save the world and everything, and that is why I did that business would be a total lie. So I was always in that conferencing and collaboration business. I added purpose, started with more the marketing side of purpose and then coming to my own purpose, I think that changed. And I was thinking a lot about what could be my purpose. And I think there is, there is some purpose in like being a good person. That sounds, I know that sounds very trivial, but you can be a good employer, you can have people that like to work in your place. And I think that most of the people that were working like the last 20 years for us would say that would still talk to me and would say that they had a good time. And I'm proud of that. So they are spending a lot of time in a company, in the company, in our company and, or wherever they work for. And I think this is that gave me purpose, to be a good employer, to be fair, to treat the people in the right way, and to give people a good job. And that became my sense of purpose, actually. Now, without having anything that I can, that I'm not an operator anymore at the moment, I do some type of donations. I give a lot of karma based advice if they want it or not, and so I don't get anything in return. Is that purpose? I don't know. I try to support my kids as good as I can and to live in a happy relationship. So it's like, I know so many definitions of purpose, I think. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:32:00 - 00:32:17]

    Yeah, but I'm just interested in your personal sense of purpose. So since you left the business, did you feel you lost that sense of purpose, or you are just in the process of building a different type of purpose? 


    Tony Kula: [00:32:17 - 00:33:52]

    Purpose of a business is making money, and so I'm a capitalist and giving people jobs and creating value. And since I'm not selling, okay, I would not sell porn stuff or weapons or something that I always said I would not do, something that I could not explain to my kids. So that is my purpose. I know people say a lot, but what is on a personal level, again, it's like, it's a process. I'm still trying to figure out that question, to be honest. I don't know. What is our purpose? What is your purpose? So it's a big word. Why are we here? So people ask you this also, I was. I think I'm a heavy reader, and I was reading from, like, russian literature, everything. So I try to look at so many things, and you can read ikigai, Buddhism, and I was, like, trying to. But what is purpose? I mean, in a world that is as crazy as it is at the moment when there is this war going on in Israel and in the Ukraine, and it's difficult. So I don't know. I try to be a good human. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:52 - 00:33:54]

    Brilliant. So how old are your kids now? 


    Tony Kula: [00:33:54 - 00:34:12]

    Really old, I would say so. That's because I'm old. So the twins are 25, and I have, like, a bonus kit, which came from my new wife, and she's 70, small. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:34:12 - 00:34:18]

    So my last question, Tony, is how do you want to be remembered? 


    Tony Kula: [00:34:18 - 00:34:39]

    First of all, I love life, and I want to. I don't know. So in my philosophy, it brings a bit of bad luck to speak about what will come after. Like, I don't know. I have this. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:34:39 - 00:34:40]

    You're superstitious. 


    Tony Kula: [00:34:41 - 00:36:13]

    Exactly. That was the word that was not coming to my mind. I'm superstitious. So this is why I don't, again, I want to be remembered as someone that was kind and that helped people, and that was a good person. Like my grandfather was that type of person. So this is how I remember him. So all the kids on the block, they loved him. And he was so, so he was kind and smiling in a very genuine way. So he was like. You felt it was authentic. It was not like playing a role. And so, because if you take off all your clothes and all the material things and everything, what remains? What is the real essence of yourself? And so if you really. If you make yourself naked, and I think it's like really trying to be yourself and an authentic person, a good person, someone that people will say he could freak out easily. And he had his things going on, and he was also a bit crazy, but he had a good heart. So he was like. He was a people person and he took care, and I wanted. 


    Anastasia Koroleva: [00:36:14 - 00:36:22]

    Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you, Tony. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. I enjoyed it. 


    Tony Kula: [00:36:22 - 00:36:23]

    You're welcome.


 
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